work¹⁰⁰ + kids² = blog – posts this week

Download: So Little Time – Diana Dors (mp3)

Too busy at work to do anything here at the moment, talk amongst yourselves for while.

And enjoy this fine tune of course.

Download: Wat About Di Workin’ Claas – Linton Kwesi Johnson (mp3)

Remember when machines were going to free us all from the drudgery of work and lead us into a utopian life of leisure, novel-writing and blogging? As recently as the 1980s people were predicting that computers would make us so efficient our main problem would be finding ways to fill up all the free time we’d have.

So why is it I don’t even have time to draw breath this week, let alone write a blog post (well, apart from this one of course)? In my business there was a time when you could tell the boss/client he couldn’t make that last minute change because there wasn’t time to get the typesetting back or have the artwork redone or find a different photo — now no one ever says “no” because the deadline extends almost to the minute before the job gets printed. Those old limitations were physical, human limitations, but now it’s all possible with a few keystrokes our poor human selves are working longer and longer hours in an effort to keep up with the 24/7 flow of work that computers and the internet have made possible. All that computer-enabled “free” time has just been filled up with more work, I’m super efficient these days but I’m also completely knackered most of the time.

All of which is my way of saying I’m having a really bad week.

Download: Crushed By The Wheels of Industry (12″ version) – Heaven 17 (mp3)

…makes this a dull blog.

It’s that time of the month again (no, not that time), I’m up to my tits in work. Though if I spent less time online reading other people’s blogs I might get more done. Which makes me wonder how much work I used to get done before the internet was invented, of course everything took a lot longer to do in those days (you had to actually talk to people on the phone and sometimes even go and see them in person) so it probably all comes out the same in the wash.

Download: You Got To Have A Job (If You Don’t Work, You Don’t Eat) – Marva Whitney (mp3)

I can’t write my way out of a paper bag at the moment. I must have half a dozen new posts on the go but I’m incapable of finishing any of them off. Either it’s because:

1) I’m too busy
2) I’m too lazy
3) What I’m writing is a load of bollocks anyway
4) I’m having an existential blogging crisis and can’t see the point
5) I’ve lost my mojo

What do you think, Graham?

Download: Don’t Ask Me Questions – Graham Parker & The Rumour (mp3)

You don’t hear this track much these days, do you? Not that I listen to the radio anymore, just a feeling I have that it’s sort of slipped off the radar. Whatever, a really great single from 1978.

In the meantime I’ve done some blog housekeeping and added a whole bunch of new links at the right. I especially like Another Nickel In The Machine which is the sort of blog I’d give my left nut to be able to write if I only could find the time, wasn’t so lazy etc. etc.

I’m feeling the deadline pressure at work again so no time to finish that long post on the life and work of Gilbert O’ Sullivan and how his single “Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day” reminds me of the grief I felt the day my hamster died*

So things are going to be a bit random here for a few days, dipping into my iTunes playlists for songs I like and have meant to post for a while but don’t have anything interesting to say about, with pretty pictures that may or may not have something to do with the record.

Download: I Start Counting – Basil Kirchin (mp3)
Buy: “Fuzzy Felt Folk” (album)

*Yes, I’m making that up. But for all you know everything I’ve ever written here about my past could be a lie too.