CULICIDAE

What's annoying, makes a continuing droning noise and after contact with it leaves you feeling irritated and itchy?




No, not Richard (of RBB) .......


 it's a ......

MOSQUITO.

NOT THIS

BUT THIS

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So, why are we talking about mosquitos?

It's because tomorrow is the 20th of August and it's:

WORLD MOSQUITO DAY

.

MAYBE I REALLY AM GOING CRAZY ..........

..... because in my previous posts I forgot to mention one of my most favourite songs of all time.

This song is definitely one of my 'funeral songs' - you know, one of the pieces of music that you'd select before you die to be played at your funeral.

And the song?

Van Morrison's 'Cyprus Avenue' from the Astral Weeks album (1968).

CYPRUS AVENUE

For me, this is a perfect song that's been part of my life experience for now 50 years.

To my regret, old Van didn't sing this at the Dublin concert we saw a couple of years ago.

Well, I'm caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
Caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I'm conquered in a car seat
Not a thing that I can do
I may go crazy
Before that mansion on the hill
I may go crazy
Before that mansion on the hill
But my heart keeps beating faster
And my feet can't keep still
And all the little girls rhyme something
On the way back home from school
And all the little girls rhyme something
On the way back home from school
And the leaves fall one by one
And call the autumn time a fool
Yeah, my t-tongue gets tied
Every, every, every time I try to speak
My tongue gets tied
Every time I try to speak
And my inside shakes just like a leaf on a tree
I think I'll go on by the river with my cherry, cherry wine
I believe…

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This post has been brought to you with the assistance of Noval 20 y.o. port
(not cherry wine -sorry)

NEW POST - THE WINE GUY

THE WINE GUY wrote a new post:

AGEING GRACEFULLY

MY CAT

I was reminiscing with my cat yesterday about the houses we've lived in.
She's eighteen going on nineteen and we've lived in a few places

She first lived in number 4 Harbour View Road Point Chevalier until she adopted us living at number 2 Harbour View Road.

We then moved briefly to number 5 Harbour View Road  before buying a house in St Michaels Avenue Point Chevalier.

While renovating this house we bought another in Wainui Avenue Point Chevalier before returning to St Michaels Avenue.

We then moved from there to our present McLeod Bay residence.

Willow tells me then that she's lived in six different houses.

I'm not really convinced that she does remember but won't be able to put it to the test. When she moved from number 4 Harbour view Drive to number 2, as there were no boundary fences I guess she just assumed that all of the garden and lawn areas and access to the beach was all her domain.



When we moved to number 5 which was across the road and down about 50 metres she used to trot back down to numbers 2 and 4 during the day for a couple of hours before returning. She never stayed away long.

"I told you that I'd be back"

Rosie the dog used to alert me to the fact that Willow was trotting down the road. She would anxiously keep an eye on her travel from the end of the driveway and bark to me.

"That damned cat's gone again"

When we had the holiday house in McLeod Bay we brought Willow up for weekends and holiday periods and she happily settled down for the stay without fretting.

Willow on holiday

This made it easier when we finally relocated to McLeod Bay (different house) and we had no concerns about Willow trying to head off back to Auckland.

She settled in well and it's been her home for nine years now.

SO IT'S NOT JUST ME THEN?

In the previous post I put two versions of Gnarls Barkley's song 'Crazy' which make for great listening.

I promised to do a quick search of other 'Crazy' songs and here are a few from a pretty big pool.

NIGHTMARE

FIRE

REST CURE


Yes, old Arthur Brown had lots of 'Crazy' songs. I was looking for his excellent 'Crazy (For My Baby) which is on his DANCE album but couldn't find it.



Here's a selection of 'Crazy' songs some superb and some diabolical rubbish.

Enjoy?


CRAZY SHE CALLS ME

STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE

CRAZY 'BOUT MY BABY

UNWELL

SHE DRIVES ME CRAZY

PSYCHO KILLER

AEOROSMITH - CRAZY

CRAZY TRAIN

CRAZY IN LOVE

LUST FOR KICKS

CRAZY GIRL

FIRE AND RAIN

PEOPLE ARE CRAZY

I WANNA BE SEDATED

CRAZY BITCH

LET'S GO CRAZY

NE-YO - CRAZY

KAT DAHLIA - CRAZY

SEAL - CRAZY

JEEZY - RAZY WORLD



And of course the great Patsy Cline

CRAZY - PATSY CLINE

CRAZY

Am I going crazy?

I don't really know the answer to that. It's one of those things I guess only other people can speculate on. You don't really know it yourself as you are 'too close to it".

I rattle about this place on my own most of the time with the unusual circumstance of The Old Girl living and working in Auckland during the week and spending weekends up here. She's in Canada at the moment and was supposed to return this weekend but the project she's involved with needs her for another week so will be returning next weekend.

She's flying in late on Saturday - I hope, as we have tickets to the Bob Dylan concert on Sunday night. Meanwhile .....

I'M GOING CRAZY!

Here's  GNARLS BARKLEY'S song 'Crazy'

CRAZY

Although I think I prefer this version that really shows CeeLo Green's voice:

CRAZY

This is sublime. What a performance - one that sends shivers up your spine and making you wish you'd been there. I don't know what speed setting is normal or not - whether this version is slowed down or the album version is speeded up . Both are great but I prefer the 'live' version.

**********************

So, what led me to the song 'Crazy' today other than the fact that I'm probably losing my marbles?

Well, I was listening to National Radio this afternoon and heard WHITE CHAPEL JAK doing a live version of Crazy. It was a pretty good version.

The interview and performance can be heard:  HERE

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

Richard's latest post spurred the Religious Curmudgeon into writing a new post of his own using The Bible as his theme:

THE BIBLE

NEW POST - THE CURMUDGEON'S AGONY AUNT

The Curmudgeon's Agony Aunt has been  absent for a while and of course the agony letters have been piling up (good for lighting the fire though).

I gave TCAA a rev up and she selected a letter to reply to:

IMPATIENT

RECYCLING

I've been recycling my posts recently.

I do this by creating links to previous posts to underscore a point that I wish to make.

Unfair people* might suggest that this is puffery to pad out posts but I just ignore them.

******************

I'm fortunate - and of course my readers are fortunate in that I haven't deleted my entire blog and a decade of post history like Richard (of RBB) did last year. Remarkably, old Richard had written some pretty smart stuff over the years - kind of like finding gold in a slag heap but now it's all floating about in 'the ether' somewhere.

Readers in the blog community, in another way are also fortunate that Robert frequently deletes his posts and sometimes his entire blogs. Who knows where these go to - maybe there's an 'ether' version of the toilet somewhere.

In addition to this blog, readers are fortunate that THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ has several other connected Curmudgeon blogs including some Wine Guy blogs and a couple of others. This creates endless possibilities of linking back and forth not unlike that M.C. Escher image at the top.

Happy reading!

















* Unfair people:

GENETIC MEMORY 2

This evening I listened to Brian Crump interviewing Morna Young.

Morna Young is a playwright, actress and musician from a wee fishing village in the North East of Scotland. She's currently in New Zealand being hosted by BATS Theatre and Toi Poneke as part of the Playwright International Exchange which is a joint venture by Creative Scotland and Creative New Zealand.

Morna hails from the North-East of Scotland near Aberdeen (where The Old Girl was born). She talked of the area and its similarities to New Zealand and how she has an affinity to here.

Crump (born in New Zealand) recounted how years ago when he lived for a few years in England there was a particular place (Morecombe I think he said) where he really felt most at home. He later discovered that the Crump family originated from there may years ago before emigrating to New Zealand.

Genetic memory?

Yes, I believe in that and wrote a post on it a few years back.

See:  GENETIC MEMORY

BRAIN EXPLOSION

Exploding head syndrome (EHS), alternately termed episodic cranial sensory shock, is a benign condition in which a person experiences unreal noises that are loud and short, like a bomb exploding or a gunshot, when falling asleep or waking up. These noises are often jarring and frightening for the person. Neither the cause nor the mechanism is known. Though harmless in and of themselves, episodes have been known to create distress or impairment in the lives of individuals.

                                - Wikipedia

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I live in a big old house. Old wooden houses make lots of noises - creaks, cracks, groans and sighs*.
Sometimes at night when I'm in bed I hear a noise that seems a bit louder than usual and outside of the expected creaks and cracks. This can wake me up so that I have to get up and investigate.

We live in a safe area but it is a bit countrified and relatively isolated. There have been burglaries reported in other areas nearby so I am a bit security conscious.

A couple of nights ago, just as I was nodding off at about 1AM I heard a loud bang. Having read an article about Exploding Head Syndrome recently I felt my head to check for damage but it all seemed OK. In the dark I listened for a few moments but there were no more noises. I got up and, in the dark, checked all rooms in the house and outside before turning on lights and checking again. Nothing.
I went back to bed and eventually drifted off the sleep.

********************

Yesterday, while picking up some wind-blown garden debris and putting in the trailer I found, at the far side of the house a large Nikau palm frond that had fallen from the palm growing beside the house.

These fronds are huge and the husk like a pod at the end is solid and heavy.

The frond when falling, landed on the roof first which was the 'bang' I had heard the night before.

Mystery solved but I still don't know if I have Exploding Head Syndrome or not.

* I just made that up about sighs.

THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND - TWO

A while ago I wrote a post:


THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND


The list wasn't exhaustive so while I'm waiting around this morning for The Old Girl to FaceTime call from Canada before I go to the gym I thought that I'd wrack my brains to find some more.



1. RELIGION

Well this is really a given and the odd (really odd) posts from Robert in themselves prove the incomprehensibility of this subject so I'll leave that there.

2. SLEEPLESSNESS

We all need sleep so why can't some of us sleep properly at night?
Some nights I wake at about 1.30 and have to read for a couple of hours before being able to go to sleep again. when I wake, or the alarm or cat wakes me at about 7 I feel sleepy again and could easily sleep for another couple of hours. What's that about?

3. CAT'S EATING HABITS

My cat is admittedly old and getting cranky and fussy but it bewilders me why she will eat some foods and not others. It's not as if I'm giving her non-cat food that she hasn't had before but sometimes she just turns her nose up. I will buy some yummy looking treat - the sloppier the better and she will wolf it down so I buy more of this when I next go shopping. When I give it to her, after I've invested in about a dozen packets or cans of the stuff she'll no longer eat it. I then have to go through the whole routine again with several different variants.

4. THE PRIVACY SETTINGS FOR FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, TWITTER ... IN FACT ANY INTERNET SOCIAL PLATFORMS

Every time I set some kind of security on the Apps or platforms I use, somehow they seem to forget the settings and have to be done again. On Facebook no matter what kind of restrictions you set there is always a queue of idiotic strangers wanting to befriend you. On Youtube a whole lot of new and unwanted recommendations are waiting for you. On Google some nutter is posting about The Holy Ghost or guitar practice practise practice (bugger it).
Netflix, Lightbox and similar film viewing websites offer  a month or so free viewing but somehow haven't remembered to have a reminder set in to the 'subscription' when the free month is up and will immediately start charging for the service.

5. SHRINKAGE

In this case the shrinkage of consumer items available in supermarkets.
I bought some Quality Bakers English muffins the other day. I swear that they are way smaller than the ones I bought last time (a couple of years ago). I asked, on their website why this was so and haven't yet had an answer. It t seems that consumable items from Muesli bars to bars of soap are getting progressively smaller, what will be the final outcome? Food tablets like we've seen in Sci Fi movies?

6. HOUSE NOISES

Last night again I had to get up to check a noise ..... actually this is a big topic so I might dedicate a post to this later.

 FaceTime is calling - I've got to go.