Month: October 2017

My Desert Isle Tracks as requested by Coast and County Radio

On By adrianspendlowblog.comIn adrian spendlow, chat show, radio, top ten tracks, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Desert Isle Tracks

It is a hard job picking ten top tracks, but that os what Coast and Country Radio have asked me to do.

Here is a preview link to the final fifty or so faves on Spotify.

This is where it will be broadcast.

I am recording a week on Thursday (the 9th) for the Paul Spencer show which goes out on Mondays 6 till 8 pm, so we will be on the Monday after which is the 13th November.

Here is the list in order below:

My desert isle list

Fave artists at the top and first song on each list is my preference.

Dan Webster – Fishing –

Alda – Real Good time – pre-release scoop of the remake of the top ten hit – www.alda.london

Paul McCartney – Early Days – Queenie Eye –

Buffalo Springfield – Expecting To Fly –

Cyndi Lauper – Funnel of Love – Who Let In The Rain – I Drove All Night –

Robbie Williams – I Love My Life – Go Gentle Through Your Life – You Know Me – She’s the one – Party Like a Russian – Get a Little High – Advertising Space – No Regrets –

Leonard Cohen – Nightingale – Undertow – To a Teacher –

Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy – Johnny Come Home – Suspicious Minds –

John Prine – If You Don’t Want My Love – Morning Train –

Johnny Cash – Hurt – The Man – Personal Jesus –

Rickie Lee Jones – Ghost Train – Sympathy with the Devil – Weight – Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying –

The Rolling Stones – Waiting on a Friend – (Edward’s Thrump Up; background while we talk?)

Bonnie Raitt and Rickie Lee Jones – Angel from Montgomery –

Kirsty McColl – Autumn Girl Soup – Mamba de la Luna –

Hasy Fantazee – John Wayne is Big Leggi – Shiny Shiny –

Donovan – There is a Mountain – I Love My Shirt – Jersey Thursday

Fun Boy Three – Aint What You Do –

Tom Waites – Downtown Train

George Harrison – When We Was Fab – What is Life

John Mellencamp – Cherry bomb (or if not Jack and Diane)

Adele – Chasing Pavements –

They Might Be Giants – Particle Man – Hey Now Everybody 6 seconds long! – Aren’t You the Guy 7 seconds long! –

Harry Nilsson – Lime in the Coconut

Lou Reed – Walk on the Wild Side

Kid Creole and the Coconuts – Annie I’m Not Your Daddy

Jim Stafford – Spiders and Snakes

Nancy Griffith – Paradise (or by John Prine)

T Rex – Mustang Ford

Take That – The Flood – Shame –

What Yer Gonna Feel Like With a Chimney On Yer?

Disturbed – Sound Of Silencecoast_and_county_radio_web_logo

 

 

 

 

 

Guy Fawkes – A History

On By adrianspendlowblog.comIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

please buy, its only cheap

Adrian Spendlow The Blog

Gosh! Gramey of GSmithMedia has just told me that it has cost £200 to set up the site that supplies this download for us. I better get on with promoting it!

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Seeing Seahouses – A Holiday Album in Watercolours

On By adrianspendlowblog.comIn adrian spendlow, art, art classes diary, arts novice, farne islands, sea, Seahouses, Uncategorized, water colour, watercolor2 Comments

Seeing Seahouses – A Holiday Album in Watercolours

I was inspired to experiment with watercolour landcapes

Seahouses Sea Stream

Seahouses Sea StreamSeahouses Cliff Walk

Seahouses Cliff WalkSeahouses SeaweedSeahouses SeaweedFarne Island CloudsFarne Island CloudsA North Bay ImaginedA North Bay

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I saw a Spectre, it will see me later

On By adrianspendlowblog.comIn adrian spendlow, charles fort, fortean, fortean times, ghost story, ghosts, living history, local history scarborough, storytelling, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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I saw a spectre, no a person, not a ghost, it was a man in a hat. None of that covers it. Something was wrong. I sought advice.

I nipped across the road to my pals Julie and Arthur (those of Carowagon fame).carowaggon

“I think I may have seen your ghost,” I said.

Julie had earlier sent me some footage which was inexplicable. A view from the skylight shows the tall Dog and Duck steps next to our house. There are two mysterious figures on the steps; the lower figure looks like some sort of priest and the one higher up and above our house appears to be a boy. Both are in black and white and seem quite old fashioned. They look real enough but why on earth are they dressed like a century or so ago, especially so early on a morning.

My sighting had come a few weeks after seeing the footage. I had awoken very early and been unable to settle so eventually had decided to get up and take a walk.

I had turned right on Quay Street which is parallel to the seafront and passed Arthur’s and then left through a cobbled lane towards North Wharfe.sandside map

I stood looking at the lights of the boats for a while and then wandered to opposite the way through towards the end of Quay Street, (yes this was a short walk, as I was getting hungry), my plan being to turn right and head home. Before I could turn I noticed a figure passing me heading towards the seafront. I would have noticed him anyway as there was no one else about but he seemed to be suddenly there.

I was halfway up the short street and there he was to my left, I hadn’t noticed him coming out of the carpark or down Long Greece Steps to the side of the car park. So I looked at him in surprise. He looked back in the same way. I looked away and looked back, he did so a couple of times. It was as if we were both thinking, ‘where did you come from and don’t you look strange.’

Later that day I went into more detail during my visit to Julie and Arthur. Why I had said I thought I had seen ‘Julie’s’ ghost was that he was dressed very similar to the boy in the footage. That was why I had looked at him, he was out of place. I hadn’t felt like I was seeing a ghost, it seemed like a man, yet I felt that something was wrong.

Partly that was the way he was dressed; tight black trousers, (although, unlike the boy figure, his were full length), boots, a long jacket with many buttons up to the neck, a white ruff or frilled shirt and to top it all off I could just say a black flat cap but it was very large; too large.

Now he could have been in a period drama – but at half past six in the morning.

It was at this point that Julie pointed out that the footage of the other out of place figures was filmed at around the same time of a morning.

Arthur asked me how old I thought he was and I said about fifty or perhaps a little less and that he had large round glasses and a moustache but that his face and all these features were quite grey.

I realised that seemed strange as he seemed like a real man. Arthur looked up at this and said perhaps it was a timeslip. It would make perfect sense that this was so, as if 2017 and (let us say) 1917 had interlinked for a while. This would certainly make sense of the mutual surprise and confusion.

It was a couple of days later that I awoke early again; this time with a start, a sudden thought: it was a timeslip but not to the past.

I leapt out of the bed, dressed, and hurried out the door – yes, at that point I was hunting my portal to the future. I was looking for a visitor from the future; one who thought he blended in.

There was something I hadn’t told Julie and Arthur the earlier evening; I had doubled back. On that first morning after the guy had passed I had rushed down Quay Street and taken a right up one of the cobbled alleys, back to the seafront. There he was.

He rushed up to the edge of the wharfe, held up a device, and moved on.

It looked like a phone, but didn’t have a screen and he didn’t seem to need to look through it. He moved a little way along and took a picture of Vincent Pier and its lighthouse, turned snapped the novelty shop and headed to East Pier and the Toll Gate, snapping systematically as he went. I left.

On that second early morning expedition I was intending to catch a record keeper from the future who was dressed inappropriately.

For this was my thinking now, our visitor had dressed in such a way as to blend in but had got it wrong by about 80 to a 100 years.

So it was that I dashed out of the house, but I bumped into another neighbour who was out walking her dogs. We chatted for a while, about my blog, and then I headed off up Quay Street. I got a glimpse of a group of people crossing the end from near the car park and they all seemed to be wearing something red.

They have adapted, they have seen a man from this time period and have emulated his look to blend in.

It is my intention to get up early tomorrow and head to the end of Quay Street and the access road from the car park. I fully expect to see several adults and teenagers wearing blue and white Converse, black jeans, a red and white shirt, a blue jerkin and a flat cap.

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You will also like…

Click here for – Folk History of Quay Street, Scarborough

Click here for – The Mutiny

And buy….

(it is not a lot to spend and it and keeps me going)

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Poetry Collection by Adrian Spendlow 10 2017

On By adrianspendlowblog.comIn adrian spendlow, poetry, Skald, survivor poetry, turning points, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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The shirt was white-flowered blue with paler cuffs and collar

Crispy salad and crunchy cheese

Cold boiled new pots. and huge old ham

Making sure the home-made lemonade is keeping cool

With regular bathroom calls for personal appearance checks

When at the door to admit her, a blob is spotted

A breakfast blob below the collar

 

Turned out she was into S & M

 

                                           Adrian Spendlow

 

 

Aloud and Wild

 

I cry

 

I cry who I am

 

I cry

 

 

                       Adrian Spendlow

 

 

Nothing More

 

A friend who loves

 

I know

 

And am understood

 

There is

 

Nothing more

 

Adrian Spendlow

 

 

 

Galvanised Experience

 

We weave back into the past of reality

For this is more set in stone than actuality

The happenings of the happened must have their glory

Nothing of the now is as real as the story

Blind to the flowerings of the rockery

Present view point forever slippery

 

                                                Adrian Spendlow

 

 

Upon a time…

There once were children

Until imagination

Took them to an island

Where inner callings

Turned them into tribes

Happy they were in pretence

Except that –

Something happened inside

A darkness overcame them

They writhed

Hearts heaved

Other ancient aspects of them

Steadily started to rise

Something monstrous

Arisen

As one, they wizened

Scaled and fearsome

Winding wildly

Onward

Moving gruesomely on

They have become

A…

Dragon!

 

                        Adrian Spendlow

 

 

 

I Was That Janitor

I was abducted by aliens

Abducted

Examined

Stimulated

Tickled

They took me in their

Metal ship

They stripped me with their

Metal probes

They fed me with their

Metal chips

They thrilled me with their

Metal nodes

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

 

Abducted

It was smashing

And they had

three of everything

They took me

OOOOOOOOH

They took me

from this place

This paltry earth

Did what they did

Then

They

Brought me back again

It’s true

I know

It happened to me

 

They brought me back

To the exact same place

At the exact same time

But they wiped the memory

From my mind

But I had had a

premonition

That I was going

I know

The question on your lips is

When……

It happened in the middle

Of this poem

 

                                     Adrian Spendlow

 

 

Kick

The myth of magic speaks in this

The embodiment of solid stillness

I have walked in fungi forest

In it’s secret oozing silence

All around the lake

 

Everywhere a brooding, living beauty

And it spoke

The runes ran thick

Quick the age old message

From root to stick

 

Oh the air

It was in the very air

A sporeform finger

Investigating

“Get out”

“Go away”

“Your not a growing thing”

 

I felt the sickly sing-song sting

It’s clamping, poly-primal cling

It threatened me with everything

And so I ran

 

Pale blues – Limes –

The palest shade of pink –

Spotted scarlet sporting spots –

Balls of pustule puffing putrid stink –

I ran past parasols that turn to ink –

Penny Bun Balletes –

A tree, – no longer visible

 

I hear the age old message

Air so liquid thick

They tell me

Just what I should think

I understand

And so I ran

As planned

 

            Adrian Spendlow

 

 

The Strength of Strangers

 

A witch may wish

Or visit here

Bringing upon us

News of her wisdoms

 

Ravens may fly here

Foretelling of arrivals

Ships can be seen afar

 

Fires will burn

Hot and sudden: red

All will ready

 

Arming themselves

Forging an iron resolve

Death or glory

 

Farm safety

Depends, it seems,

On bloodied victory

 

Our history however

Echoes a message,

 

Sometimes

Those apposed to us

Can be traded with

 

 

Adrian Spendlow

                          as Skald

 

 

Times

I rise above

I lift

I like to be

 

I roll without knowing

I should know

I should

 

I am the news

 

The disaster

The fascinating

The moment

 

And the fall

 

I rise above

 

 

             Adrian Spendlow

 

 

 

haiku

The long dusk; the low sun

Before Autumn twilight

All golden now

 

                    Adrian Spendlow

As there is this Me Too thing going on at the moment i thought I would reblog a couple  of my survivor poems (from a forthcoming book)…

Soul Property

These little subtle things of hate

Somewhat less often of late

The trick is in anticipation

Playing upon preoccupation

 

Returning to times in memory

(Unaware of victor’s glory)

Which hurt beneath the levels of aware

To always inside still be there

 

Recollection ever present

Something of self is rent

Quietly said, privately spoken

Hit and hit again upon the broken

 

Words quietly said, privately spoken

Hit and hit again upon the broken

 

All time lost to anticipation

 

Adrian Spendlow

 

I used to perform this one with a blues band…

 

DEEP IN THE NIGHT

 

Deep in the night I just want to cry

The rest of the time

There are things I am after

Reaching

To be – What I’m driven to be

But just not being up to it

Leaves you inadequate

Deep in the night,

When I touch the unreachable,

That’s when the heart is,

Wanting to cry

 

Then a mask falls

I’m living – and fooled into being –

Happy – Go lucky – Hardworking – and me.

Believe it.,

“There’s nothing to stop you”

“You are who you are”

 

Deep in the night I just want to cry

Passion and pleasure

Fulfilment, procurement

I can do it. I can make it. – Keep my wolf away.

Sensuality saves you – you forget you have feelings

Even inner peace, on the odd time I achieve it,

Rankles, on my heart, as merely a sham

 

Deep in the night,

I hear,

Deep in the night,

So clear,

Deep in the night,

Comes the echo,

“Just what is you justification for being on this planet”

Damn! It’s a voice! I can hear it.

And sometimes I buckle

 

Tortured for the moment and blind to the dawn

Deep in the night sometimes

Deep in the night I just,

Deep in the night when I falter

Deep in the night I just want to cry

 

                          Adrian Spendlow

 

And an old fun one from back when I smoked…

                Jelly Baby Continuum

 

OH OH   Out of Rizlas   Out the house   Corner shop

Oooooooo   Jelly Babies   Mmmmm   Scoff

All the way back   Home   Empty pack

Time   For a fag   Out with the baccy   Rizlas

Reach in pocket   OH OH   Empty pack    What!

Er   Jelly Babies   Scoffed   Packet in pocket

Cig papers….   In bin   Damn   Back to shop

Ooooooo   Jelly Babies

 

 

                               Adrian Spendlow

 

 

Here is the previous collection

 

Discworld blog

And here is the last magazine type blog I did…

Do buy the guy

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Click ‘Poetics’ in the footer bar below to go to the first poetry blog and then keep clicking ‘Next in Current Series’ to work through them all…

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Ade’s Scarborough Business Review 01 – Mutiny on the Lancaster – It’s a Bounty

On By adrianspendlowblog.comIn adrian spendlow, dining review, restaurant review, review, Scarborough, Uncategorized1 Comment

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Ade’s Scarborough Business Review 01 – Mutiny on the Lancaster – It’s a Bounty

Rebel is the message; go rebel. No longer follow a captain be as the crew be – So how did the long lost Lancaster show up in its new form?carry boats 01

Mutiny from the usual on Scarborough seafront? No, even further than that, this is a leader – sailing us into a new Sandside. This is not a seaside amusements place.

We come here for (reasonably) sophisticated dining. We already have Golden Grid (Second best chowder to the Blue Crush, North Bay), Anton’s (Best use of a defunct chapel), Pizza-something and Ask any pizza to go (Don’t plug international chains or you are a sell-out not a respected reviewer).

This is the end.

The ‘in’ end. Well it is since this Bar and Kitchen came here. By you have read this review; a dozen other ‘Kitchens’ will have opened, Ivy House will be renamed as one, West Pier, North Wharfe and every available lobster pot clockwise will be setting out tables in the sun.coble cropped

Remember: all cos of Mutiny.

Because of their still sticky varnish.

So, what do I think of the place?cobbles.jpg

It hangs out; it is OK (despite my horror at no hanged captain anywhere).hung It is basic, it is spacious, there could be a bar sign image in the space provided above the door in the original architecture, there could be a little more finish to the hand-crafted surfaces, the only place they could possibly learn from is ‘Eat Me’ (that’s a compliment!), but the space works.

It is wide open and varnished, no sorry woody. Atmosphere is everywhere and I am working my way through the food flip chart. Not enough ‘by the sea’, not enough ‘mutiny’ on the menu – but from breakies to big party buffets it is quality – quality.

I will not rebel.

 

 

You will also like…

Click here for – Folk History of Quay Street, Scarborough

Click here for – Pied Piper of Scarborough as performed as Rollercoastival

Click here for – Hobb the Ploughboy as performed at Scarborough Fossil Festival