Guitars and Life

In the past years I've done reviews of the year so here to keep with tradition in 2011 Furtheron's reflections. Jan - I got interviewed for a job having spent 7 months in the back end of 2010 out of work.  I was listening to Heaven & Hell a lot, recording rockier stuff and putting up pictures of guitars... Feb - Started my new job, where I used to work it was announced that a full UK pull out of R&D was happening and all my old colleagues were losing their jobs.  Gary Moore sadly passed away. I played a gig at the Lamb and Flag in London. Mar - I was working away from home and my post count dramatically dropped off.  I was really struggling with the job - not the work (although it was a stupendously big workload) but more the living away from home all week or a really bonkers commute - up at 5am back at about 8pm. Apr - One lousy post!  I was really lost in the madness at that time.  I ended up leaving the assignment away from home, the company l...

I got three new CDs :-) Peter Gabriel - Shaking the Tree.  Well not strictly new, I used to have this on cassette (any one under 20 now will need to go to wiki to look them up!) which bit the dust as cassette players reduced towards zero in the house.  It is a collection of his hits up to about 2000 ish - great stuff, Red Rain, Sledgehammer, Solsbury Hill, Don't Give Up etc.  Steve Earl - I Won't Get Out of This World Alive.  Just under 38 mins - just like an old vinyl record!  12 tracks of utter brilliance frankly... super lyrics (e.g. Melancholy Malady) super playing throughout and Steve's voice just gets better with age.  Written in the time after his fathers death a very poigniant tribute.  Super duper! The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow.  Fantastic debut from this Nashville duet.  They have voices that angels would have and together are just devine.  This is probably the debut CD of the year for me without a doubt.  If you'v...

... to you all.   Given I'm not a Christian it is a bit odd that I find myself repeatedly wishing people a Happy Christmas... my son heard the Yuletide thing and said about it... I'll try to adopt it from now on. Our Yuletide is underway, the turkey is roasting, the veg is for the large part prepared and ready for cooking, all the presents are wrapped and cluttering up my music room before Mrs F and I play Santa and his little helper later tonight and put them under the tree.  My daughter has been baking mince pies, we've watched Muppet Christmas Carol and have Carol's from King's on as I type this. I'm lucky I have my family around me, warmth, more than enough food etc.  Others will spend this Christmas on the street, cold and alone.  I should be forever grateful of what I have not what I have not. I hope all you have a great holiday and celebrate whatever you want in the manner you wish to.  May the blessings of Yuletide from any deity that you may,...

Just about to start typing and thought "Shit last time I did a review the flipping author popped up and made a comment. Therefore conscious of the litigious world we live in I ought to mind my p's and q's!" I bought this book on a bit of a whim.  Piley and Mondo have a Tuesday night radio show these days (they no longer comment on here or talk to me now they are famous you know :-() and Syd was a guest on there a few episodes back.  Anyway due to that I looked out this book, which I believe is her first novel.  It was only 99p for the Kindle edition so given that was a third of what I pay for The Big Issue now and half the price of a skinny latte in Pret a Manger I thought what have you got to lose and in seconds it was on my kindle in my Tor Be Read collection. The Drowning Pool is a modern ghost story set in the Essex seaside town of Leigh-on-Sea.  Sorry did I just say a ghost story in Leigh?  Yep that is what I thought too, surely ghost stories need to be...

I got an lovely email from some lady called Liz who works for some website somewhere... apparantly they have a fantastic new product, I wouldn't know it is something that has absolutely no interest for me and not an area I can recall ever having blogged about at all on here.  Anyway she "ran into my blog" (sic) ran ? into it... what it was on the screen and you headbutted your laptop from a 10 yard run up?  She says she "absolultely love(s) it"... really?   So given your product has nothing to do with guitars, sobriety, recovery, or pretty much any other subject ever referred to on here I get the feeling that isn't quiet the truth...  Now for anyone else - here is something I've stated on here before - or on the blog that went before this that I stupidly deleted once in a fit of some weirdness - I don't do endorsements, not for money or anything.  I don't review stuff sent to me, my reviews are of stuff that I've actually bought myself.  I ...

We continue with the latest enstallment in Mr Donald's retelling of the Robin Hood saga... through the eyes of Alan o'Dale or Alan of Westbury as he is known in this fictional setting. The book is written as a memoire of Alan's written in his old age, this is like the others in the series, so the one thing you know whatever scrape Alan may be in he has to survive it or there is a major continuity blunder in store ;-) Anyway these are good rattling, knightly rampaging romps.  Robin and Alan are now back in England following their travels on the crusade with Richard the Lionheart of the previous book.  However Prince John covetously is eyeing the throne of England and Richard is captured by some enemies he made on the crusade on his way back to good old Blighty.  This is all historic fact but within the factual parts Angus weaves in the acts of Robin Odo, Lord of Locksley, the Robin Hood of the legends to come.  He turns Alan into Blondel who is a legendary troubad...

It is feeling more like Christmas - Son-of-Furtheron is home for the festivites, I picked him up over the weekend.  Compared to some Christmas time drives to deepest, darkest Wales this one wasn't too bad, a bit of slushy snow on the road above 900ft over the mountains but not too bad.  I took today off just in case we had issues getting back but in the end I went out with S-o-F and his mate to the cathedral of consumerism that is Bluewater.   Too many people but he got the books he wanted and we then went to see the new Sherlock Holmes film which was good entertainment.  The cinema there has the new digital 4K projectors - impressive frankly. So four days at work left, although a lot of folks are on leave and the campus will be very quiet now all the students will be gone.  So hoping it is reasonably quiet few days. That's it really... not much going on in the Furtheron household just awaiting the day...