Reasons To Be Cheerful (iii): Golfer's Elbow

Haven't done one of these for a while, but now seems an appropriate time...

1. Colder nights

After the unseasonably warm weather of the past week, during which I've been sleeping with just a sheet (and a fan in the bedroom!), it was good to feel the need to pull the duvet over me on Wednesday night. Autumn is my second favourite season (after Spring) and I'm looking forward to the nights drawing in, the leaves on the path, even the misty mornings. 

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

(John Keats - Ode To Autumn)

The Smiths - Cemetry Gates

Justin Hayward - Forever Autumn

2. Golfer's Elbow

The good news is, I don't have Tennis Elbow. The slightly less good news is that I have "Golfer's Elbow". Like I have the time (or inclination) to play golf! Still, I'm taking my recent visit to the doctors as a win, and here's why... she couldn't find anything seriously wrong with me. I've had various health concerns over the summer besides the elbow (cramp in my jaw, a weird taste in my saliva, that thing on my back), but none of them appear to be of major concern. 

They hate me when I turn up at the local GP. I don't go very often, but when I do, I bring a list...

Elbow - Lucky With Disease

Elbow - The Bones Of You

3. Micky Does Michael

This really shouldn't work. The last remaining Monkee is releasing an album of REM covers. Apparently he's a big fan, and REM were quite fond of his band too. But it really shouldn't work. 

However... if the first taste is anything to go by, this could be amazing. Dolenz has re-imagined REM's poppiest moment as though it were an out-take from Head. Now I love REM, and I don't feel the muso-snobbery towards Shiny Happy People that some fans do, but there's an argument to be made that Micky's version actually improves upon the original. I don't agree, but I'd readily listen to anyone who thought that way. Lovely stuff... 

Reasons To Be Cheerful (ii): Good Vibrations

The world is what it is at the moment, and I'm not going to try to persuade you otherwise. We have to take our moments of joy where we can... even if they involve a little schadenfreude. Here then, are three more things that have made me cheerful this week...

1. A heated wheat bag for my stiff neck

As I write this, I have a stiff shoulder/back/neck combo going on. It's more annoying than painful, but it's a blessing having a nice warm heat pillow on it... and I relish the smell of slightly burned wheat when I microwave it for slightly longer than it says on the packet.

2. The Bad Place gets its comeuppance?

Remember how I told you we had a brief visit by the Ofsted folk last week at the new job? Well, guess where they've gone this week? In full force. 

Look up schadenfreude in the dictionary and you will see a picture of me, along with a number of my former colleagues (Ben included), warming our hands around a fire.

3. Good Vibrations

Here are The Vibrations, from 1972 (that's 50 years ago, for those of you who are counting... under two weeks to my birthday now), with one of my favourite tunes of the moment. It's like Let's Clean Up The Ghetto, only even more amazing. If so such a thing were possible. Which it probably isn't, but it's close. Very close.

This is what happens when the Vegetable Man goes on strike. God help us if the Chicken Man follows suit... he don't want no butter beans, that's for sure.

Reasons To Be Cheerful (i)

There's been plenty of moaning and misery on this blog over the last few years. In an effort to turn that around, here's a new occasional feature wherein I post three things that cheer me up, along with related tunes. If this blog were a radio show, I'd introduce this feature with a short burst of Ian Dury.

Might be extremely occasional, depending on how things go...

1. That first sip of coffee in a morning

I make myself a coffee before I leave the house and take it in the car with me in a travel mug. It takes it a while to cool to a temperature that's drinkable (bearing in mind that good coffee should always be on the verge of burning your mouth), and I usually take my first sip just as I hit the traffic jams on the outskirts of Leeds. That first sip is always amazing.

Here's someone else who likes his coffee hot. Useful when you're driving through the snow to the Overlook Hotel...

2. Sunrise 

My commute is an hour on a good day. Half an hour to the motorway, half an hour on the motorway and into the city centre. After driving most of that in the darkness for the past few weeks, I'm starting to see daybreak along the way. Last week, the sun was fully out by the time I hit the motorway. Even before I took that first sip of coffee, I was feeling good.

No question which song I was going to choose here...

3. The new job.

'Nuff said, really. Everything I hear from The Bad Place confirm that things have got even worse since I left. (My replacement went off on long term sick after a few months. Two other English teachers left, and they can't replace them because nobody is applying for the money they're offering. Etc. Etc. Etc.)

It still feels weird to not spend most of my weekend dreading Monday morning, to actually look forward to going back into work...

The late Mark Sandman (that appears to be his real name, which is amazing) was the lead singer of Morphine. Treat Her Right was another band he played in. Their rule was: "Keep it simple at all costs. Resist the temptation to add. If you're going to do something to a song, subtract."