mintybloggydiarythingy 2.0

Week from Monday 6th April 2026 - I don't think I fell for too many APRIL FOOLS' DAY hoaxes, although one of my daily GEOGRAPHY QUIZZES had all the answers refer to non-existent fictional places from books and movies, thus impossible to find in yer regular atlas! They also tricked me into thinking that I'd forfeited my twenty-something days' WINNING STREAK and had to start from scratch! Yes, OF COURSE I have been following the ARTEMIS II space mission in all its geeky detail, staying up late into the night so that I can catch everything LIVE, tuned into Mission Control and the voice of CAPCOM, and taking naps with my headphones on! I feel like I'm that nerdy eleven year-old kid all over again! Besides, it's all a lot more compelling (and comprehensible) than anything that's happening on THIS planet currently! On Tuesday morning I did my 'accounts' for the beginning of a new FINANCIAL YEAR. It didn't take very long! I don't have to file a S...

Week from Monday 16th March 2026 - I thought it might be nice to have a "TWIN PEAKS"-a-thon, so my Sunday evening was spent watching the "FIRE WALK WITH ME" movie, followed by the 'international' version of the PILOT EPISODE (the one with the alternative ending). I think this may well become my new SUNDAY THING, so I'll continue with the first actual TV episodes next weekend... This week's YOUTUBE-ing project... I revived the recording of the occasion when I, posing as "Eamonn Fitzquackahoot", performed the "EUROVISION SONG" in public, accompanied by The Artists Formerly Known As JUMP, Formerly Known As LOUD FARMER, Eventually Known As TV BY TEARS. I isolated the vocals for better clarity (paying special attention to RABBITHOLE's MC-ing). I also pasted in some bits of my original 'primitive' demo tape... It's a 'LIVE COMEDIC EVENT', the sort "YOU [DEFINITELY] CAN'T DO THAT ON STAGE ANYMORE"!...

Week from Monday 9th March 2026 - It's been a curious season for the LiDL-TREK lads. MADS PEDERSEN hasn't even started his, having sustained several broken bones on the very first day. SKJELLY didn't start the PARIS-NICE due to wrist trouble ("TENOSYNOVITIS" - I had to look THAT up!). THIBAU NYS has also been hospitalised ("Prepatellar Friction Syndrome"). JUAN AYUSO managed to get a yellow jersey (and the white) in the PARIS-NICE, but then crashed out the next day (Nothing broken, but he's retired bruised and battered). JONNY MILAN hoovered up all the points jerseys in Saudi Arabia and the UAE earlier, but then he's entered in the TIRRENO-ADRIATICO ("The Race Of The Two Seas"), a mostly hilly stage that generally doesn't favour a sprinter AT ALL... with the exception of the final SAN BENEDETTO DE TRONTO stage. Which he DID win. Because he could. For the third year running! So THAT's why he was there...? It's been an i...

Week from Monday 2nd March 2026 - The start to ANOTHER NEW MONTH... Already? why! that's three in as many... It's also another one of those 'IN-BETWEEN WEEKS' when I ALMOST forgot to post anything to this bloggydiarywotsit AT ALL! (It's just past dawn on THURSDAY when I'm writing this little segment.) I had my monthly armful up at the horsepickle last weekend, and I've done the required paperwork and phone calls in preparation for my NEXT appointments. I popped to the shops for such essentials as cereals and a TV GUIDE. I get up, take my meds, do some puzzles, make coffee and watch some cartoons. After that, who knows? All part of life's rich tapwasher... As I've suddenly regained an enthusiasm for STEVEN WILSON's music, I paid a visit to the Bandcamp of INSIDE-OUT MUSIC, the leading vendors of yer so-called "PROG ROCK", to stream a few more items of that ilk. With yet another BANDCAMP FRIDAY imminent, I ask myself the question ...

Week from Monday 23rd February 2026 - I'm putting the finishing touches to another "HOT TICKLES" sampler. These are compilation discs of whatever 'proggy-but-mostly-King-Crimson-related' odds and sods I might have sitting around on the hard-drives. They don't come quite as frequently as they once did, but I've now reached VOLUME 169! It includes the last three or four "STORMY'S MONDAY SELECTIONS", some leftover 21st CENTURY SCHIZOID live tracks, the Bandcamp-only bonus tracks from the last SOFT MACHINE album, a couple of ambient soundscapey things and a PETER GABRIEL live track from WOMAD 1982, concatenated in a tastefully flowing manner... T-SHIRT WEATHER IN FEBRUARY...? brr! wot a scorcher! I ventured out on Wednesday, orf up the horsepickle to get yet another BLOOD TEST. There was a lot of folks in the 'queue' ahead of me, and they eventually split us up and dragged some of us upstairs for a leeching on LEVEL C... By the time I e...

Week from Monday 2nd February 2026 - I've been exploring some of the lesser known backwaters of BRAND X history, especially around the time of the lost album "MANIFEST DESTINY" (1997) and when Gong drum-meister PIERRE MOERLEN joined them for a tour at very short notice. Needless to say, I've been doing this through the medium of some pretty dodgy b***legs, but the music shines through ne'ertheless. On the last show of the European tour they even played cracking versions of a couple of MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA toons! I've also been digging (into) some of PERCY JONES's solo material from the nineties. I liked what I heard, but it's very much 'OF ITS TIME' (quite a lot of electric drums - there was one bit that even reminded me of SQUAREPUSHER!). There's also a few weedy vocal tracks that are best left on the shelf! I've dug out my quarter-of-a-century-old copy of COREL-DRAW to see if will run on m'LINUX lappy, via the magic of W.I.N.E...