Grace Under Pressure 2

Lying in bed at 11pm listening to the rain lash against my bedroom  window and the howlign wing upturn three of my bins, sending than carrearing down my drive and into the garabe door with an almight bang did not bode well for the 6am sunrise service today. And I couldn't help but wonder how many people in a similar situation would simply forget to set their alarms for an early start. Unfortunatly as I was leading the service I didn't have that luxury. Thankfully we were greeted by a calm almost cloudless day with a fantastic picture of the moon hung in the pre dawn sky and thoughts of the 4 astronaots on board the Artemis rocket curren;t about to disappear behind its far side. The assembled masses although a litel slow to arrive did swell so that by the 6am start there was a good nemuber present from across the various denominatins of Hucknall, Linby and Papplewick. As for the service itself, which I thought was a really good start to the day,  well we reclaimed the Easter eg...

Working my way down another rabbit hole the other day I came across this; a gorgeous tune by someone I had never heard of before, a singer called Eddie Dalton. It features a fabulous groove, wonderful guitar work and a voice to die for.  I quickly searched to see if I could discover more of the mans music. amd what a discovery I made. I discovered that the mysterious blues singer, Eddie Dalton had taken the iTunes charts by storm with a string of viral hits. In fact 'he' had three songs in the iTunes top 10 in the UK, Australia, Germany, Canada and the Netherlansd, incluiding this one, 'Running to You' But that was not 'the discovery' The discovery was that Eddie Dalton is in fact AI generated and the man behind the music, including this one is entirely artificial. Eddie Dalton  is believed to be the work of Dallas Little, a content creator based in Greenville, South Carolina, who has been producing AI music and videos under a roster of fictional artist names....

    Versatile actor Martin Clunes has already signed himself up for a quick 6 week course as a radio presenter all ready for the phone call that must surely come his way to play a recently sacked Radio 2 DJ in the soon to be produced, top of the chart, no 1 smash hit called 'Rumour Mills'. Often referred to as this years Micheal Sheen for the chameleon like way he is able to slip into other people, Clunes has already mastered playing a man behaving badly, being a GP and more recently another  man who behaved badly  reading the news from an autocue, so how difficult can it be to play a few tunes and witter on and on with Rylan about Eurovision once a year.  But the question on everyone's lips is did Carol Kirkwood just leap before she was pushed? Did she fear a warm front was coming her way? Were her tighly packed isobars about to be looked at more closely?  Weather we will ever find out out is pure guess work, a bit like her forecasts have tended to be for ...

I am, I have to admit, not the biggest Beatles fan despite their influence on pop music. And yet I have to confess this particular dittie from Paul McCartney has found a soft spot. It reminds me very much of the latter recordings of Johnny Cash, recoded when his health was failing and his voice, perhaps past its best, was world weary and revealed all the hidden pain of his life.  Now at 78 perhaps 'Macca' realising that his time on this mortal coil is limited has taken a little trip back down memory lane as he looks forward to the future. Written, recorded and produced all by himself this is Paul McCartney and 'The days we left behind' Lovely.      

Remember the good old days when you flicked through your newspaper of choice to try and identify which of the articles contained within its hallowed covers was actually an April Fool's day spoof. Well today its just not so easy to spot the factual from the fictional, the real from the 'really!' In the past it just used to be one day a year, and then only until midday that attempts could be made to pull the wool over peoples eyes   as befuddled readers scoured unsourced and unverified articles in red tops and even the occasional broadsheet with a careful eye, keen not to look utter mugwump by being taken in by some made-up bollocks. Now with everyone seeming to be a part time content creator, blogger or even worse Vlogger, workign out the answer to 'would I lie to you' is no longer as easy.  Especially when articles in many main stream newspapers often leaving me shakign my head in bemusement or hitting the keyboard my self to forward this virtually true, fact free s...

  John Stainer's The Crucifixion: A Meditation on the Sacred Passion of the Holy Redeemer was composed in 1887 . It is a 20-movement Passiontide cantata for SATB choir, tenor and baritone soloists, and organ, designed for parish church choirs, which premiered on February 24th 1887 at Marylebone Parish Church.  And these dates are important because it helps to remind us that Stainer's Crucifixion was written before melody, tune and enjoyment were ever discovered in music. I kid you not. After the longest 80 minutes of my life I felt I knew what Jesus had been through on that cross or at least the aural equivalent. I would rather have listened to three and a half hours of the Scott Mills breakfast show, now only available on catch up. I had thought lets try something new, something different, something out of my comfort zone. The next time I had that idea dear readers, can someone please shake me vigerously and then restrain me until the thought goes away. What made it ...