It's my Birthday . Part Two

Well .... that's over for another year ... why do we celebrate getting older ? Though I guess it's more of an excuse to drink .. and who needs excuses eh !!

Pretty much took the day off really apart from essential work and just pottered around really most of the day. I had promised myself to chant for at least 2 hours but in the end, just fell short of one hour !! Need to really start catching up. Think from November I'm going to aim for a min of 2 hours a day until the end of the year !!

Anyway .. back to the birthday .. well it was the classic 'Mayfair' and what a veritable feast it was ... have to say that I thought the food was really excellent and I managed to take a bottle of wine that was excellent .. a Reisling that had that wonderful 'petrol' kind of taste that I love ... sounds bizarre but really works. Anyway .. a really enjoyable night though I did fall asleep on the sofa until 3am then went to bed and couldn't sleep for ages so ended up being a bit of a late start this morning so probably not going to be my most creative day ever !! But I am going to do a couple of hours of chanting today .... honest !!!!!

It's my Birthday . Part One

Well it's not really .. it's Tuesday but I went out with Emily, Laura, Patrick and Charmain last night as we've already got a biggish crowd at the Mayfair and it's easier to chat in small groups .. So .. off we headed to Yo Sushi ... Was a good night though I did think Yo Sushi wasn't as good as last time with less things on the belt .. I ordered a sampel sashimi with 3 different types of fish and they didn't have one of those .. OR the Eel Nigiri that I ordered .. so it didn't get off to a great start. Other than that though it was ok and the blackened miso cod was very nice .. easy to spend loads there if you're not careful though .. have to keep an eye on it .. anyway .. all in all a good night and I think the warm Sake helped :-) ... Charmain took some pretty hilarious pics so I'll post some of those here when I get them.

Part two tonight :-)

Oh we're still the ..........

MIDGET SUBMARINES !!!!

After an abscence of 16 years, the legendary Midgets .. well 3 of them, got back together for a rehearshal as we're doing a one off gig in November .. don't worry, we won't be reforming !!! I must confess I was reluctant to do it .. partly as I don't like nostalgia but it was good to meet up with Paul again .. especially as he's a LOT balder than me :-) ... and it was surprising how the old songs came back .. all sounds promising and we have two more rehearsals before we play which probably doubles the number of rehearsals that we ever did in our whole existence ... Age seems to have caught up a bit though as we did drop a couple of the faster numbers as we can't keep up any more ! I'm sure it will decend into the usual chaos though ... and I'm sure that some of that will surface here !!!

Keep an eye on us at http://www.myspace.com/midgetsubs

Anyway .. a couple of sneakily taken pics from the rehearsals ... especially like the 'fat Ken' one :)

Oh .. and I couldn't resist taking this one .. County fans .. get on your knees :-)

OH .. and if you're wondering what the Midgets sound like .. here's three songs that others have covered that we wrote (yeah right )

Shine a Lightsey !!

Well .. that was an interesting Jazz Gig last night. It was the Kirk Lightsey Trio ... Now I've seen Kirk before and it's always a great gig but this one proved interesting as it should have been Piano, Bass and Drums .. a fairly standard Jazz trio line up. However, the bass player was unable to play as his wife was ill, so rather than get a replacement session type muso, they got in a friend of theirs who plays sax .. so it was now Piano, sax and Drums .. which is a pretty unusual line up. Didn't help with the Sax player turning up late and in all truth the first set was patchy with the sax player a little unconfident in his playing except for on a Wayne Shorter number .. in fact Kirk thanked the audience for watching a live rehearshal which is did seem like at times.

Anyway after the break and obviously they'd chatted, the second set was a lot better and at times really excellent .. unfortunately as they'd started late, we had to leave before the end to catch the bus back .. though I'd had quite a bit of Whisky then so probably no bad thing :-)

Anyway .. here's a pic and I've just found a quote that applies to me:

"We must overcome our own inner weakness. This is what our Buddhist Practise is all about"

and my inner weakness is laziness so I'd better get on :)

Trip number 2

Well .. as I promised myself, I ventured to Leicester again to take one last look at the Picasso Ceramics exhibition before it finishes on the 28th October. I nearly didn't bother as I wondered if I would find it less interesting but it was quite the opposite and I also spent more time in their regular gallerys which has some really interesting stuff ranging from some 15th century woodcuts to more modern contemporary stuff from people such as Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and a really nice simple, almost calligraphic (is that a word !) painting by someone whose name I can't remember. Apparently they have an ancient Greek exhibition coming soon so that might be interesting.

I'm planning to visit the gallery at Nottingham Castle soon though from memory, it's not a patch on theis place which is actually a disgrace for a major city .. still .. all seems to be about shopping these days here !!

Had a wander round Leicester again as last time it was raining really heavily .. got to say that I really like the place .. less pretentious than Nottingham .. but there again I still like Nottingham so I'm not about to move !

Anyway ... a few pics below .. couldn't really take any in the exhibition but it's a taster:

Leaving Hicksville and Herbie says Chant !!

I've just returned from a couple of days in Yokelsville ie Lincolnshire .. had the misfortune to spend an hour in Boston .. does me good though as it reminds me why I left !! It's also easy to see why it won the 'fattest town' award last year though and you can smell the lard at the local chippies .. honest !!!

Good to see my mum again though .. she's 78 on Sunday and is generally in good health so that's all good. Picture of the best bit of Boston at the end of the post.

Just found these audio links of Herbie Hancock talking about Buddhism which I thought I'd share too:

On Practicing Buddhism

Why Jazz Is Like Buddhism

Chanting a Buddhist Meditation

Buddhism Is Inclusive

Also .. had a good Buddhist meeting last night ... my last one with the Seven Hills district though I'm sure I'll pop back for a few of them in the future. There were a number of good experiences and one of the key things that came up was the question of what is Faith. The main thing that came from that is that Faith isn't blind faith as we often believe in our Christioan society but is the strong belief in our own potential and the perseverance to manifest it.

Oh .. and here's the best bit of Boston .. I think I'll just call this photo "Leaving" :-)

Definitely a One Off !!!

Bit of a Rock night last night .. went to the Maze to see a few bands .. unfortunately they decided to stick an extra singer/keyboardists at the start who was something of a cross between keyboard psychedelia and Richard Stilgo !! Could have done without him as it meant we had to leave before the headline band though after Scott Biram (more later) doubt they could have topped that !!!


Next up were Old Basford a local band .... pretty good and professional .. Basically had two R&B styles .. one similar to Queens of the Stone Age and one more like Free .. a 70s rock band ... Found the Free numbers a bit lacking but the Queens of Stone Age style ones were excellent .. would have liked more of those .


Then came Scott Biram .. well .. what can I say .. this guy looked like he's just been changing the oil on an old pick up .. not sure if it was an act or not but he certainly pulled it off if it was. Using a 1950s Gibson and a radio mike and sometimes a Police loudspeaker !! He certainly could not be accused of being unoriginal .. and funny .. best line was "someone get me a whisky and don't ya'all spit in it or dip yer pecker in it"

Anyway .. crap pic below and a couple of youtube vids .. worth a listen.

Quick Quote

Just read the guidance for today .. I like, therefore I quote :-)

It doesn't matter in what area, just keep working on your personal revolution to transform and improve yourself in the way most natural for you. The important thing is that you change in some positive way. There is surely no more exhilarating a life than one in which we write our own unique history of human revolution each day. And the growth and transformation we achieve in this way can convince people of the greatness of the Daishonin's Buddhism more eloquently than anything else.

The Purpose of Faith and Raw Fish !

Raw fish ? Ok .. well just an excuse to post about Yo Sushi really. I went there on Friday and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food. Definitely not as good as the Higoi in Lenton which is excellent, but there again, Yo Sushi is basically a fast food place, though that would be my main quibble. You can take the plates of the conveyor belt but we decided that as we wanted a few hot ones we would order them and get them fresh. Have to say that the service was a bit on the slow side and it wasn't that busy !!

Funnily enough, the one thing we didn't have was sushi !!! We had the Miso soup which was excellent then a couple of hot dishes which were pretty good. I also tried the sea bass sashimi which was ok but I think sashimi should be finer and REALLY fresh. Don't get me wrong, it was reasonably fresh but was a bit chunky for me .. ok though. We them had some seafood and some tofu tempura ... cost just over a tenner each which wasn't bad, but you'd have to watch the cost oif you just grab the plates off the belt .. could soon add up !! All in all though, pretty good and will go again soon.

And the faith bit ? ... Well, we had Study on Friday which was pretty good, though the pints I had afterwards seemed to wipe my memory banks a bit so hoping to listen to a recording of it at some point, but I did read the hand out and was particularly struck by the last bit of it which I've copied below:

The purpose of faith is to freely realise our full potential and shine in our own unique way. That's why it's important to keep advancing and challenging ourselves, to have the spirit: "I will exert myself in my practise!" "I will deepen my faith!" "I will do my best as a member of the Soka Gakkai!" This is the certain path to attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime.

That's a big one !!!!

I received my letter yesterday from Taplow saying that they would like to offer me the opportunity to receive Okatagi Tokubetso Gohonzon .. that's the bigger one.

On one level, I'm happy to get that as they definitely look nicer (though some of that is probably the light in the bigger butsudans), but there's a little bit of me that's concerned that others might see it as an 'elitist' thing .. which I know it isn't .. but I guess that's something I need to chant about.

It also means spending a couple of hundred quid on a new butsudan as it won't fit my current one .. could do without the expense .. especially as it's one of my determinations this year to be more secure financially !! Still .. on the other hand it's a contribution to Kosen Rufu I guess ...

dilemma dilemma lol .. but I'm sure I'll go for it.