Show 299 – The Year of Missing Out

Three from Leith, number 299.

If you're all sitting comfortably, then I'll begin.

Thank you for watching.

What's the matter?

I don't know.

I think it's strange.

Afraid.

Thank you.

What are you going to do about breakfast?

I'm going to eat it.

Hello, welcome to Three from Leith, number 299.

The second in an occasional series of two podcasts recorded for 2020.

A fantastic year, which just keeps on giving.

Now, this is the third attempt to record this,

so fingers crossed it's going to work.

Because I don't know if I can face doing it again for the fourth time.

I don't know what's gone wrong, but it's just not been my night.

Anyway, back to the music.

Who did you hear kicking off this week's podcast?

You heard Primes on a track called Moment,

followed by an old friend of Three from Leith,

all on their radio, a track called Movie Star.

And I chose the Primes track Moment because I thought,

yeah, this is a moment, the second show of 2020.

That really is a moment to savour.

Just for a brief second.

Before it all goes horribly wrong again.

No, no, this is going to work, I'm convinced.

So, yeah, Moment by Primes.

Primes are from Falkirk in Scotland,

which is about 25 miles from here in Edinburgh and 25 miles from Glasgow.

So about equidistant from both places.

The band was born at the end of 2017.

And since then, Olly,

who is the vocalist and bassist,

Sarah on the guitar and Rhys on drums,

have already forged a budding reputation

to the Scottish music scene

for delivering potent live performances.

Live performances.

Who can remember the last time

they saw a live performance

in this fantastic lockdown year?

It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Now, well, I tell a lie,

I've seen some live stream performances

on the web by bands,

that I like and enjoy.

Some really fantastic streaming performances.

So I suppose there is that.

Primes may have managed to do that.

But who knows?

Maybe they didn't.

All I know is that Primes, if you go to their website,

that's primesband.co.uk,

they have since recorded or put out another single after Moment.

Probably because Moment was a song that I got sent way back in May.

So it just missed the cut off.

For the podcast that was recorded back then.

That seems so long ago now, doesn't it, May?

And after that, as I said,

All India Radio, whole friend of the podcast.

I was going to say the band and they,

when in actual fact, it's one man.

It's Martin Kennedy from Hobart in Australia,

who does all this fantastic music.

You can find it all at allindiaradioband.com.

That track was taken from,

I was going to say 2020 album, Eternal, but it's not, it's 2019.

Now, for some reason, I must have missed that when it came out.

And I thought it came out this year,

probably because I first heard it and bought it this year.

So that may be why I'm confused.

He's also on Bandcamp.

Just look for All India Radio on Bandcamp.

And you will find all his albums to buy.

There are many of them.

I've got quite a few of them already.

If you are feeling,

very wealthy and very flush this Christmas and you enjoy his music,

then you can buy his complete digital discography for

291 Australian dollars and 80 cents.

Or you can just buy a choice, albums of your choice.

You know, artists are struggling this year.

So it'd be good if you've enjoyed anything on the podcast,

just to go and dip them some money in their little virtual hat and buy something.

So, as I say,

third time lucky.

I don't know what happened.

I had just finished the previous attempt to record this.

The first one was a disaster.

The second one went really well.

I was really pleased with it.

And I just went to sit down and transfer it off the device I'm recording it on.

I was going to put it onto my network drive,

and then I was going to get a copy into the iPad to start working on turning it into a podcast.

Because basically the rest of the podcast is assembled.

This is the last part I'm doing.

And something went wrong and it basically wiped every single file on the card in the device.

And I thought, that can't be.

I have just spent, best part, 45 minutes recording for the second time and it's gone.

And I thought, maybe I can repair the card and it will come back.

No, it said the card was fine.

There were no previous versions of the file.

And I had listened to the very start of the file.

After I had finished, I'd just gone back,

listened to a couple of seconds just to make sure the levels were okay.

And it was all there and I lost it.

I nearly put my foot through the door.

I thought, this is just my year and my day-to-day is just a perfect ending.

It's not been a good year, has it?

How has your lockdown been?

What have you been doing?

What have I been doing?

Well, I bought this Tascam portable HD recorder

as a means of encouraging me to do more podcasting this year

because there's not been an awful lot else to do during lockdown,

apart from work from home, finish, have your dinner, watch some telly, go to bed.

And I thought, I'll buy this and it'll encourage me

because I'll be able to record from everywhere, anywhere in the flat.

I don't need to be tied to the recording setup through in the corner of the bedroom.

This will allow me just to record and I can bring it into the iPad and work from there.

I'm not recording directly into any computer software or iPad software.

I'm recording onto the device.

So I bought it.

And I haven't managed to record.

Because basically, lockdown, I don't know how you felt,

but I lost all enthusiasm and all enjoyment of anything I actually enjoyed doing before lockdown.

I couldn't play any board games.

I've got masses of board games, great board games.

And I was looking forward to sitting down.

They've all got solo automas and things, solo versions.

I'm really looking forward to sitting down and playing through some of these games.

I just could not muster up any enthusiasm or the will to even set them up and play them.

Could not.

It's like a mental block.

Same with doing podcasting.

Same with reading.

I've got so many books, I'm looking forward to sitting down and doing some reading.

And I could not make myself read.

It's just been really weird, really strange.

Some kind of block, I'm sure it's probably some kind of mental effect or some depression.

Caused by the lockdown.

Because every day is the same, isn't it?

You work from home or you get up, you spend the day working from home.

You finish, you're still at home, you just feel like you've never left.

There's no separation between work and home.

So the other thing that happened, of course, this year was I was going to go on holiday with Jasna.

All booked for July, first time she was going to come with me since she was one.

We were both going to Slovenia, I was going to take her to the place in Shure,

the lake she was named after, it was all going to be great.

All my friends over there were looking forward to seeing her.

And of course, with COVID, it was cancelled at the last minute.

And I still had two weeks to take off work, so I took two weeks off.

But of course, it's lockdown, so you couldn't really go out and do anything.

So being at home didn't feel any different from being at home and working.

It didn't feel like a holiday, which just felt really strange.

And I didn't unwind.

Normally, I go on holiday abroad and I immediately, my brain switches off.

It completely empties, I unwind, I've got time to myself.

I'm out walking, it's me time.

And I can just clear my head, and that sets me up for the rest of the year

until I go on holiday again the following year.

And I didn't have that, and it's just had some kind of impact.

But it's been very, very strange.

So that was the first part of the year.

That was up to the summer.

And then, of course, today, the thing that set everything off today

was the announcement that the five-day easing of lockdown and restrictions

that we were going to have across the UK for Christmas,

we were going to get five days with slightly relaxed restrictions

so you could spend a day with your family at Christmas.

And then, of course, tonight they've announced scrapping that

because there's this new variant of COVID-19,

which is far faster spreading than other ones.

I think it's more virulent, maybe.

And cases are starting to rocket, and it's winter.

And they're worried about the effect after Christmas if they let people meet.

So first of all, Boris and the UK government announced that from tomorrow,

the whole of London and south of England is going into a higher tier

that they didn't have already, Tier 4, which is a complete lockdown,

as in all non-essential shops shut, you can't leave the house,

you don't meet anybody else.

And basically, I think they've got one day, they've got Christmas,

where they can't even meet anymore unless they're in one of the lower tiers.

If they're not in Tier 3 or 4 in England, I think they can still meet for one day.

But everybody else, Tiers 3 and 4, no meeting, so Christmas,

all the Christmas get-togethers that people have planned, cancelled.

And then, of course, Scotland announced the same thing.

The whole of mainland Scotland is going into Tier 4 from Boxing Day.

We have one day where we can all still meet for Christmas if we really have to.

They're stressing that if you don't have to,

don't go and meet your family for Christmas.

Of course, I'm going out to mum and dad's for Christmas

because dad can't get out, he's on his own looking after mum.

His Alzheimer's has now got to the point where she's just zombie-like,

if I can describe it like that.

She just sits, stares into space,

doesn't really let on when you speak to her at all,

just isn't there, and she can't walk, so they can't get outside.

He's stuck in the house.

So I go out and see them once a week, take stuff out for dad,

sit with him and talk with him, give him something to talk to,

bring his banking back to do here during the week for him,

any postage, buy him things he needs to get bought.

So I was going to go out on Christmas Day with them,

which I still will, but the next day I was going to have Boxing Day with Jasna.

Jasna was going to come round and have Boxing Day with me,

but that is now looking like it's out the door.

So that kind of ruined the day for me today.

And between that and the podcasting recording,

first two attempts, first being a disaster because I sounded so downbeat,

it was just terrible, and the second one was perfect,

and then I somehow managed to completely wipe the recording.

With all the recordings off the SD card and this device.

I'm not sure what happened.

So yeah, it's been one of these days and years,

and that announcement finished me off.

I'm sure you're all feeling the same,

because you're probably all in the same situation right now.

Apart from in the US, where they seem to be kind of blasé about the whole thing.

They're still having a big Christmas, big get-togethers,

even though their numbers are horrendous.

But they're still there.

They're still allowed to go ahead and do things.

So my sister's having a nice sort of family Christmas get-together,

and now she's feeling sorry for all of us over here

who were playing and doing things, and we're not going to be able to do it.

So I can hear my voice starting to go.

I'm getting a rough throat already,

probably because this is the third time I've gone through this,

and I've been talking so much.

I did see Jasnah today, which was nice.

We were out for an ice cream.

We can still meet in cafes up here in Scotland.

We're in tier three in Edinburgh.

So we can still meet outside and in a cafe or somewhere.

We can meet as long as it's just one other household.

So I've been meeting with her every Saturday since that was allowed.

And we go out for ice cream and a chat, but she can't come around here.

So we just haven't had our usual Saturday and playing games and things.

And I think she's feeling it as well.

So anyway, I've been talking for a bit and my voice is going,

I need to go and have a drink of tea or something.

So let's move on with another track.

This is a track.

This is a track from Johnny Polonsky and it's called Sign in the Window.

.

And I don't know if I want to be free from this prison of daylight

And the sign in the window says hello

In a language that nobody's ever known

And let me know if I'm the one you want to see

Tonight, tonight

Lie beside me, rest your head

Make me feel the words you said

And all I want is for you to be real

And let me heal inside your light

And the sign in the window says hello

In a language that nobody's ever known

And let me know if I'm the one you want to see

Tonight, tonight

And the sign in the window says hello

In a language that nobody's ever known

And let me know if I'm the one you want to see

Tonight, tonight

AL alguns가락wan

Yep, that was Sign In The Window by Jonny Polonsky,

jonnypolonsky.com

j-o-n-n-y p-o-l-o-n-s-k-y

and that is a

That is a

track from his

sixth studio album

which was released in March this year

that's called Kingdom of Sleep, I do believe

he's recorded another album during the

pandemic lockdown

which is now out, so he's

released two albums

in 2020, I've not heard anything

from the second album but

I do like that track, it was

nice and gentle

it kind of relaxed me a bit there

there will be another one from Johnny, a track called

In Her Own, I think

it's In Her Own

A-E-N-E-R-O-N-E

which will be

coming up to close the podcast

and I should also mention that the

track you're hearing underneath the sound bed

underneath these vocals is another track from

All India Radio

it's a track called The Shining Cosmos

which is a long

remix which Martin did

and it's in the style of

Edgar Froese from

Tangerine Dream

if you're a fan of electronica

from the 70s and 80s

you might well recognise the style

of that remix

it is very Tangerine Dream-ish

I do own quite a few

Tangerine Dream LPs

so

I do like that one a lot

anyway, sorry, I digress from Johnny

Johnny

is a New York City based singer

songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

and producer

and he has worked with some big

names

he's got a rich history of

collaborations with the likes of

Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond,

Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine

and Donovan, would you believe?

he is a very experienced

multi-instrumentalist and musician

and I do like these tracks

I do like the whole album actually

er, I did download all these things

over the summer

I used to finish work

and it was so hot in here over the summer

I used to go and sit out on my

balcony to try and cool down

and I would take the iPad out

and I would go through all the music that had been in the album

and I would take the iPad out and I would go through all the music that had been in it

receiving in the three from the inbox go through it all and i would catalog it all and i would

download all the tracks that i liked and i would write notes and i would write almost outlines for

shows get tracks together and i would write down notes against each of these tracks see which one

goes best with which other track and which was probably the right order so i had all this ready

for recording podcasts throughout the year and just never did it as i say so all this stuff's

already the ipad was loaded with notes and uh my uh my nas driver completely filled up my free

dropbox and had to take out uh i think i opened up a box account as well separate sort of cloud

storage to put files on there and then was downloading the files onto my nas drive once i got

the shows together a month's worth of music together just to try and hold it all

so it's all there i just need to put it together maybe i'll get another podcast recorded before

the end of 2020. we've only got what two weeks left if that of this fantastic year fingers crossed

that next year is going to be a lot better i know that we've got the the covid vaccines coming out

now let's hope this new strain doesn't invalidate the the current coronavirus vaccines that we've

got and let's hope we can all get it soon and there are no problems with the horrendous upcoming

national catastrophe that brexit is going to be that we

didn't want in scotland but we're somehow getting a hammer wasn't dragged out of europe against our

will by a government in in britain who just government in england should i say not the

scottish government they they are very pro-europe and would like to remain

but the english government dragging us out and it's all gone horribly wrong

and of course i know blaming the people who wanted to remain rather than the people who

were the ones who insisted we could leave and we held all the cards and the day after we left last

just

of January last year we held all the cards and Europe needed us more than we needed them.

Easiest negotiations in history, oven ready deal, it was all signed, sealed and delivered.

It was all broad sun that uplands for the UK and it's just a disaster.

So here's hoping that that doesn't put paid to any of the vaccination programs

or even need to put paid to my holiday next year. Better, blooming well not, I can tell you.

So we'll see how that goes but hopefully we'll all get vaccinated. I know hopefully it will,

keep saying hopefully, by the end of the year, by the end of 2021 things will be a lot better.

I know it's probably going to take most of next year before we have enough people

vaccinated for it to start making a difference. We're still going to have to stick by various

rules and wear masks and social distance until things are are much clearer. But here's hoping

although I normally get a flu vaccination every year and I have not managed to get a

flu vaccination this year. Everybody wanted one and everybody got them and they were starting

to give them to certain age groups first instead and I still have my every time I go to try and get

one they basically have gone all the vaccinations that chemists have got have all gone.

I'm thinking if this is the flu vaccine and I cannot get one how are we going to organise

getting Covid vaccines next year? Especially when you've got to have

doses so many weeks apart how are they going to get enough how are they going to get it organized

what happens if foreign travel and foreign holidays they insist that you are vaccinated

before you are allowed to travel and everybody has to get vaccinated at the same time how is

that going to work i don't know but anyway fingers crossed things for 2021 will be better than 2020

excluding the brexit disaster and the the supposed food shortages and awful things that are going to

happen here in the uk where the shots won't be able to get food and we're all going to starve

and there'll be food riots a country self-destructing for a couple of bigoted anti-european

tory party members i don't know anyway this wasn't the first or first or second recording of the

podcast this is just coming out now i don't know where it came from but uh it's been that kind of

year i've had enough of it now i'm sure you have as well i don't want to go through any more of it

it's been a tough year with mom and dad and mum it's been a tough year for me just mentally with

the lockdown and not seeing people and not doing things it's been a really tough year for yass

and her third year university with all the sort of distance learning i think she she's

a mixed mood she's been able to go in and have some lectures because some of the the

subjects she does have lecture rooms that are so big that they can distance and spread out

amongst the room and not come near each other so she's been doing that but uh she also away had the

and I'm privately diagnosed with ADHD.

I didn't do a diagnosis of ADHD type C this year,

which was a bit of a shock.

Did I mention this? I'm getting confused now.

I don't even know if I mentioned this already.

See, with having gone through this, this is now the third time,

it's difficult to remember whether I said this now or before.

But yeah, we had to pay to get her privately diagnosed,

and she was diagnosed, so she's now getting help.

She's been given disability allowances for it,

to try and help with software that will help her for university

because she's not been able to focus on things.

She's having real trouble focusing and getting work done,

meeting any kind of deadlines, processing auditory information.

She can listen to things in lectures,

and it kind of goes in and then disappears.

She cannot retain or understand information.

So she's been coping with that.

It was very expensive,

and the follow-up sessions to get the medication,

just right on the balance of the medication and dosage,

which is still ongoing because they haven't quite found something that works.

Each one of these sessions is very expensive.

It's been an expensive year all round

because I set up a WhatsApp group for the stair here

for any emergencies or any help anybody needed during the initial lockdown.

I set one up for that as an emergency thing,

and it's kind of morphed into a way of getting communal repairs done in the stair

that have been put off and put off for probably over 20 years.

We've had the roof done.

I organised getting a whole lot of roof repairs done,

leaks that have been going on for 20 years.

They've been fixed.

We had the skylight was leaking as well.

That's been fixed.

The roof hatch was leaking,

and the hatch lid was distorted and wouldn't stay on.

So that's all been fixed and done.

We've had the stair lighting completely replaced

with new LED motion-sensitive lighting

with emergency lights there as well.

And amongst them all,

we've had the back emergency stairwell cleared of rubbish.

It was dumped.

It was dumped in it over the last 40 years by previous tenants.

We have a problem with rising damp coming up through one of the walls

at the bottom of the stair by the main door out into the street.

We're looking at getting that fixed.

We've had somebody in to...

They were the ones that basically told us it was rising damp.

We thought it was damp coming through from the flat on the other side of the wall.

That's got to get done.

We're looking at getting the main door done.

We'll have to get the walls painted by the front door on the stair once the damp course is in.

And the membrane's been put in.

So that's been a lot of things to organise.

Some of us have been organising and pay for.

So it's been really expensive.

Apologies for my phone seems to be going off in the background here.

As I say, I'm recording somewhere where I kind of forgot to turn things off.

I'm not in the quiet of a room away from all my devices.

That's been about it, I think, for the year.

I don't think anything else has happened.

I've not been out on the bike.

I've not really been out running much.

I started doing a lot of running again once I was able to,

once the broken collarbone had healed and I was allowed to go back out towards the end of May.

And then I had attacks of sciatica, which kind of stopped the running for a while.

And then I was doing it again and then ended up with some nasty boils in my inner thigh.

Which stopped me running.

I could barely even walk with these.

I don't know if I'd sciatica again a couple of times.

Things have just stopped me.

And then I started again a couple of weeks ago.

I've done a few weeks now.

In a row.

And then I just got so tired in the mornings of working and getting up.

I could not force myself to get up early to go out running before work.

That kind of put paid to that.

So I'm hoping to do it again soon.

Thinking about maybe tomorrow.

I was going to do it this coming week, but the temperatures are plummeting again this week.

And I thought, ice risk, risk of falling over.

Maybe I should do it before it gets too cold and I don't want to slip and break anything before Christmas.

I've had enough of that.

And I had the fun, actually I just remembered I had the fun of going for a full

body bone density scan back in November, which was related to the fracture of my collarbone.

Apparently it's now the standard in Scotland.

If you're once you reach about 50, if you have any fractures, you have to go for a

bone density scan to make sure it's not the start of osteoporosis and you're not

breaking things too easily. So I had to go for one of them just to make me feel old.

Old person special treatment at the hospital.

Yeah, that was a fun afternoon off work to go and do that.

It was very, very pleasant.

Actually, because I got to lie down in a little

on a little bed and have a scanner run over the top of me for a while and chat

to the guy who was doing it, it was quite relaxing.

It was more relaxing than sitting here, actually.

So anyway, I think I should stop talking now.

I think I've covered everything again for the third time.

Third time lucky, he says.

I was going to say touching wood, but this is a plastic table.

Let's have a little drink of beer to clear my throat.

I'm having a peanut butter imperial stout.

A peanut butter and chocolate street to see imperial stout.

It's quite a strong, it's quick to quite high alcohol by volume that one.

So consider this is the third run through.

I've only drunk about half the pint, so it's not too bad.

Anyway, waffling, it is time for me to wrap this up and hopefully not delete this one

and lose this one or else it will not be a podcast before the end of 2020 because I

am not doing this for a full time. So.

Anyway, I hope I maybe do another one before the end of 21.

If not, have a very Merry Christmas if you can.

I know it's locked down and we're not going to be having much for Christmas,

but see what we can all manage.

Sure, we can manage a bit of jollity to laugh at the end of the year.

Have a good, I was going to say Halloween.

It's not Halloween. Have a happy new year.

See, I'm going mad now.

Have a happy new year and I will speak to you all again, if not before the end of 2020.

Certainly.

At some point and hopefully early in 2021.

Thanks for listening. Thank you for staying subscribed.

Please visit the show notes at 3fromleith.com

www.3fromleith.com

Leave any comments on the show notes there if you like.

And if you liked any of the music,

click through the links to the artists and why not buy them something?

As I say, it's been a hard year for artists.

They have not been able to go out.

They've not been able to make money touring.

So anything that you can throw their way would be appreciated.

So.

Until then, cheerio.

See you next time.

Bye bye.

Thank you.