Je M'Ennuie

Introduction

This is just a Seven Days In excavation from when COVID hit in 2020 and I effectively became a permanent home worker. Just some observations from two consecutive posts about how things changed for me and some music that I discovered and have now rediscovered.

Good

The weather is nice and I think things are improving with the lack of vehicles and planes travelling. Wildlife is more prevalent and things look good. I would like a lot of things to stay like this.

I don't particularly like working from home as the days are much longer and I end up eating while working, something I generally don't do in the office, but I listen to a lot more music and that is another good thing.

There are some people who are only happy when they are miserable and have something to complain about, but you can always find something wrong, look for the things that are right. I was tempted to use the Smiths "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" which I once had as my ringtone for a good friend Lee when I was at EE, a great character and great at pretending he was grumpy. He definitely wasn't.

I haven't ridden a bus for two weeks although surprisingly I have kept almost on target with my step count. With this weather that is very easy to do while working my way through "Monkey Island" by the J Geils Band, which is a very listenable album.

One song that has caught my ear on 6Music is "Crocodile" by Melt Yourself Down with its insistent driving saxophone motif, and I kept hearing and didn't even know who the band were, well now I do, and so do you.

As I post this I noticed my boxed set "The Smith Complete" is priced at £1200 on Amazon, who the hell would pay that much for a CD box?

Je M'Ennuie

No, I'm not bored ( je m'ennuie is French for I'm Bored in case you were wondering what I am on about) but I think others might be in this COVID-19 Lockdown.

On my Discogs store I sell a CD maybe once every two weeks but this week it's more than one a day. I think people are getting bored and browsing Discogs and buying CDs, a sort of online retail therapy. It's good that people actually buy music as opposed to getting a Spotify subscription, although I suppose buying from me doesn't really benefit the artist, but it is helping people get through the Lockdown.

In my last post I said how good "Crocodiles" by Melt Yourself Down was, and they had a great conversation with me on Twitter although Melt Yourself Down is a great name for a song and reminds me of "Melt The Guns" by XTC, but Crocodiles is a great name for a band. Anyway, I am gonna be pursuing their music much wither but the sax riff on "Crocodiles" is something else, it could almost be classic Van Der Graaf Generator (unusually for a rock band they had no bass and no guitar in their early incarnations but still managed some of the most impressive music you will hear).

So I'm going to share "I'm Bored" by The Bonzo Dog Band , because I am sure that is hitting a lot of people at the moment, but a litle good music can definitely dispel the ennui and we drift into lockdown Easter, and on Amazon, I've just seen a Cheese Easter Egg!!

Conclusion

Thank you for indulging me with your time, and now you know a bit more about me.