Northern Sky

You know this new iRiver thing is derailing my "weblog" titling (someone has to pretentiously give the full name and it might as well be me, I still put an apostrophe at the front of 'phone). Everything's a song title these days.

Anyhow, it is now officially Summertime, the height of the cotton and jumpiness of the fish 'round here confirms it, the evenings are lighter, and 'oop' here in 'the Northcountry' as them 'doon' there in 'the Smoke' like to say, this has translated into beautiful skies, (the most beautiful skies, as a matter of fact, they go on forever...) that you can get for free and are better than most of the current telly.

Now, I'll wager there's a million and one weblogs about this in the UK at the mo, but I don't care because it's marvellous, and it'll be even better when I've worked out exactly when I should be sleeping (does this get fiddlier with age?) and yesterday I had my first run since a rather embarrassing fall on the stairs a couple of weeks back that meant I hurt my ribs too much to even think about deep breathing without the aid of paracetemol.

Don't run in-doors in socks. It bears repeating. The rule is barefoot or shoes- the "oh, just a nice wool-nylon mix foot covering for warmth" compromise can be deadly if you decide to just nip up to the study for something without sufficient thought.

Anyhow, the run was fabulous, really cleared what we'll euphemistically call the 'cobwebs', because you don't want to visualise what I really coughed up from my lungs after a fortnight without a jog. Quite why you're trying to picture it in all its sticky, sickly-coloured, globular horror now is beyond me.

You're a bit contrary, aren't you?

Thanks for reading.

Ooh, while I'm here... I went to the most amazing discount place in the West Midlands at the weekend, new wool cashmere coat, casual jacket, shirt, Max Bygraves biography (just because, alright), Arnold Brown (genius!) single cassette in double cassette packing (good old Laughing Stock, they used to love doing that), and the following DVDs- the complete Robin of Sherwood series 3 (2 volumes), The Singing Ringing Tree, The Goodies... At Last, Press Gang (series 1), A Very Peculiar Practice (series 1), and The Complete Ripping Yarns. The DVDs were all between £1.99 and £7.99, and there were a fair number of other Network archive TV DVDs there too. I wonder if that means they're making next to no money at all and can't shift most of these splendid things anywhere else? I hope not.

If you're nearish-by, I'll sort you out the name and location of the place, because it was top, and should still be so even after my raiding party, particularly if you never quite got around to buying the Sykes, Star Cops, Hazell, Public Eye and Special Branch DVDs a while back and think you might want to.

I know the sadness of my audience. I think I may be responsible for some of it.

In sketch show news, I'm just completing my demo of episode 3 which (for my particularly sad audience members) includes a mention of Gabrielle Drake in lycra in one sketch that still makes me hoot aloud even though I wrote it- a rare thing, that.
Her brother wrote the lovely title song for this post that I suspect will be today's soundtrack now.