Barack Obama

Just had to get back for the inaugeration of that nice mr Obama. I read the book what he wrote,Dreams of my father and was very impressed with the prose and the story. This guy is so far removed from G.W. that no wonder we are all euphoric at the prospect of someone of intelligence and compassion in the whitehouse. I can't begin to imagine how you make a speech to that many people. And all those people with tears in their eyes, It must have been something else to have been there, but for me just being there in front of my tv was enough. I don't care about all the big expectations that he won't be able to deliver, what he delivered was to bring a collective joy to the planet, which makes us feel good, and makes us have hope and confidence that even if we don't fix it all, we can at least revel in the fact that come rain or shine the world has more good people than bad, and that can't be bad. So thanks Barack, the speech was bang on the button, we need to know that we can over come, we just got to believe in yes we can. It worked for Bob the builder.

Spruce up the town

Some times being on the town council you feel it's all pointless waffle  and that we never achieve any thing. Nobody is ever listening, or there's no money to make things happen. So it comes as some surprise when you highlight something and somebody says they can do something about it.

Some months ago I brought some photos to the council meeting which I had taken of lamposts and other street furniture. I don't know if you've noticed but lots of them are in dire need of a lick of paint. Some are so rusty they're about to fall over, and others have plates missing exposing elecrical wiring. You would have thought that getting somebody out with a pot of paint and some new covers would be the sort of thing that your council tax would be paying for as a matter of course. Not so.  

But thats where super col strikes. I met some guy from Cumbria county council, well actually he was from Capita, because The Council don't do stuff any more, it's all outside agencies, or companies as we used to call them. He came , he looked and he agreed that our street furniture was in a bad state. He even said he might be able to find some funds from his budget to fix stuff. Of course I was scepticle, but today I had an email from David our town clerk to say that he had had a telephone call to say that Owen was going to send someone to paint our posts. But only the posts that they are responsible for. I will have to chase up Amey Machel who are in charge of main highway signs, and SLDC for other stuff like CC tv masts and Glaxo for seats and on it goes. We do seem to have a very complicated way of running our little town, but for now I can savour a tiny victory. Although I won't believe it till I see that man with a pot of paint.

Got quite excited

I've been trying to figure out how to get my bands new album, Que Calor into some of these new fangled internet music stores. The Band  is snappily called The Beat Combo, and  last night I did a search and found us on about half a dozen sites. 

The way I'ld managed to do this, get our songs uploaded  for sale, was through a site called Tunecore. I'm still very wary of the net and spoof sites but this one seems to do what it says on the can. 

Way back in 1998 I built, well, with a little help from my friends, lakesounds.co.uk. Back then we were sure that the future of fans buying music was to be over the internet.and now the futures here. Time moves on, and here we are 10 years on and it's happening, downloads now feature in the national charts. So it was time to get The Beat Combo out there, and so after paying the fee of about £25, I waited to see if it worked. I'ld keep checking to see if we were on itunes, but although I had managed to get one tune onto itunes the album refused to appear. But last night I thought I'ld check other sites I had picked. The first one I tried was amazon, and lo and behold there it is, for sale as a download for 6.99.

I know that it's all about viral marketing, so I'm off to start spreading the word. 
If you love reggae, salsa, ska, with a bit of country, played by three of Cumbrias' finest musicians, singers and songwriters, then discover Que Calor, by the Beat Combo today, it's special.