Guitars and Life

I know I'm a bad blogger and not been on here for a while.  But I was annoyed to read today that with the demise of Google+ any Google+ comments have been lost of the blog. That's mostly mine then!  Since I moved to Google+ some time ago when Google pushed it as the way to get more traffic to your blog.... that never worked either. Oh well - so back to the blogger I remember of old then... without all my replies to people's comments!

Have you noticed the massive change to the blog? No?   Not surprised but I've linked it to Google+ - I doubt it'll increase interest or traffic much.  But I did pause just before clicking.  Since now if you do gaze to the bar on the right... notice the profile?  I'm no longer Furtheron I have to be Graham Hunt (who?).  Since I've been blogging about music, guitars, recording, playing, writing, listening, reading, family, life and recovery since 2006 I've been Furtheron which came from my first blog "Further on Up the Road".  Which I deleted some years back in a fit of some daftness or other. Now of course I'm also Furtheron in the Wordpress sphere and have a separate blog where I talk about life stuff.   I just thought it somehow fitted better having two blogs.  But on there I've mostly been outed to so people often comment back "so... Graham... "  etc. The only real concern is that I do hear ruffle against one of the guidin...

Right ... this blog here will become more mostly about guitars and music and all that. My other blog is going to focus more from here on about the life part of the title.  To that end there is a new post about my life over there... go read, follow etc. over there...  ta

I've met a few fellow bloggers over the years - but never one who's travelled thousands of miles for the meeting.  Well that isn't strictly the main reason for Pandora Viltis ' trip to the UK, her husband's stunning achievement of swimming the English Channel was probably higher on the trip itinerary I suspect. Anyway I had the chance to meet up with PV (nee Vicariousrising ) and her husband today.  It is so odd in some ways to meet someone who you already know so much about via their blog but who you've never met before but we sat in a lovely cliff top café's garden nattering away like old friends (which we are) over a cup of tea.

I created a Wordpress blog a while ago, more to grab http://guitarsandlife.wordpress.com before any bugger decided to impersonate me! Recently though I've seen most people are using Wordpress, I've also seen some very impressive sites with huge functionality developed in Wordpress and finally - it is the blogging tool of choice at my employer and we have a new web site launch in the offing with a desire for us to blog more about our work.  So I started to play around with it.  Then a friend asked whether I could help them set up a web-site.  After a chat I thought a blog was the best kind of site for them given the plan for their work.  So I agreed to show them what to do to set one up.  In the end I've learnt a ton of stuff being pushed by the person new to it, which has led to me improving my own Wordpress blog although it has still much room for more improvement. But now I'm stuck with a dilemma - continue here or move and direct everyone to there or jus...

Just like a cork shooting out of a champagne bottle my post the other day has released a lot of bottled up tension.  Firstly thank you to all who commented etc. your kind words meant a lot to me. Here is the thing - see I often get to the point of taking it all inward that it is only me who gets like this etc. etc.  I internalise, I don't see the wider picture, I get on a downward spiral of negativity and find it difficult to break out.  But I know the things like "first things first", "don't try to fix all your problems in one day", etc. etc.  I tell this stuff to others enough in the rooms of AA or on their blogs!  But can I easily do it myself - er... in a word NO!  But as I say the release of finally getting it out there has been a real help to me. So a new attitude etc.  Almost instantly there has been a meeting about funding and projects and at least one of the big ones has biten the dust.  On the other ongoing work I had two meetings th...

Seems to be a bit like that at the moment, not really sure what flipping day it is.  I'm definitely sleeping well at the moment for one thing - Mrs F was out on a works girlie night out at the cinema to see the Hotel one with Maggie Smith, Judi Dench et al in it.  I was in bed when she came home, I remember her talking to me, can't say I responded well, if at all, since I was already out for the count and then for the second day running the alarm really does wake me from my slumber, often I'm awake and dozing for the hour before it goes off.  Not recently. Usual routine of up, make pot of tea, eat corn flakes, have a wash, get dressed, walk to station.  Only once I'm on the station do I start to sort of wake up and I'm stood there today thinking "It is Thursday isn't it?" And it is!!  First off my good blogging friend of many years and maker of the greatest Christmas puds since my Mum passed away, Liz, is launching her book today.  I think it is like...

My "Things I am Grateful for Today" list thing on the right stopped working.  I couldn't add anything to it - I wonder if my list of gratitude got too big for Blogger to cope with?  Shame as you can't have too much gratitude surely?  Anyway after several attempts, browser swaps, deleting things out of it etc. I decided to take the technical blog crowbar to it and deleted and created a new one!  Solved! Okay the one thing any sharp eyed readers will notice is that after yesterdays procrastination update in which I had to admit that the book I'd bought (and by the way I deliberately bought the one that was the shortest pretty much of those recommended to me by various people on the basis that that would make me read it!) was still "sat on the shelf" (well the to be read list on my Kindle) - anyway I started it yesterday!  Hooray! Hmm just thought of something to update my gratitude list and that is that I'm still keeping up the swimming regime - I...

You may not have noticed but I've spruced the blog up a little... well on the right hand side where all the boxes and stuff is... Firstly given it is pretty much the anniversary of my winning the Rock-Til-You-Drop 2010 Outstanding Achievement award I thought I ought to take that off the site.  Also I'm liking SoundCloud a lot so have replaced the Reverbnation player box with a couple of SoundCloud - I might think about actually paying for the premium service as I can then have a larger amount of "sets" to put works in which might make sense to then do and vary from time to time what is on here.  Finally I've added a Facebook button to my Facebook music page if you like my music and are on Facebook please click that and then "like" me as a few followers of this blog already have.  I only use that page to put up music related stuff so you'll not get all the family drivel about how my daughter hates my leather jacket etc. That is about it for this...

I recently stuck one of those who-has-been-on-your-blog gadget things. Someone else have one on their blog and I just thought it interesting. More than I expected. I get many more "hits" than "comments" which is I believe the normal trend. However one of the interesting things is the kinds of things people search on that means they find this here little blog in the backwaters of cyberspace. Often it is people searching for book reviews or often about music artists I've featured in posts - notably recently the late great John Martyn and the recent Peter Green BBC documentary. The Beeb should pay me commission you know... :-) The book review thing is what took me by surprise. A while back blogger offered this now "monetise" your blog thing. I'll not change from my principle that I set out then, this blog mentions AA a lot and I'd hate for any association between AA and anything else be misconstrued. However made me think about book revie...

I’ve tarted up the blog a bit as you may notice. Along with the seductively reclining Les Paul on the header there are some lists as to music I’m listening to and books I’ve been reading on your right that I’ll endeavour to update regularly. Please feel free to comment on anything you notice in there… Mrs F got an early Christmas present last night as I took her to see Simply Red at The O2 on their Greatest Hits tour. Simply put Simply Red are Mrs F’s favourites above all others so she is sad that they are calling time on their career and that this is the final tour. This was the fifth time I think we’ve seen them, once about second album time at the Docklands Arena (does that still exist?) and I remember them having loads of technical issues that night. At Wembley Arena I think on the Stars tour. Brighton some time later on the Home tour and a couple of years back at an open air gig at Leeds Castle in Kent just after Blue came out. So anyhow – very very good gig. We were up in the god...

So I'm back in the world of blogging after a while away. I'm going to try to get back to original spirit I had in my old blog before I seemed to lose the point. So the name says it all really - this'll be about guitars, music, life (mine and others), the funny things I see in the world, the things I don't understand in the world (well some of them maybe - if I go for everything in that category we'll never get finished), and things I learn in the world... Welcome to anyone who comes here to read and comment. However I will moderate comments and reserve the right to not publish comments I don't like or don't want published. Simply put this is my blog and my life and that's my choice I simply ask you all to respect it. Bienvenue, Welcome, Wilkommen...