Now Hear This 12.

1.      Where do Your Blogs go: I think this question is down to the language barrier of the written word, either that or people are using Google translate badly, I post them online, advertise them on social media and then they get filled under DONE!

2.      Will I release anymore books: I would if I had the skill set, the holiday blogs suit the book treatment more than the web, but I think life’s too short to worry about it, if I can I will, if I can’t then be like me and don’t lose any sleep over it!

3.      Are you a nerd: erm probably, who knows we are all nerds in our own little ways, I’m not a nerd in a technology way, I don’t have a special skill set, I just blunder on in life, so I suppose I’m a nerd regarding life.

4.      What inspires you: Life the universe and everything, a spark can pop into my head at any time, if I don’t record it here and then it’s gone forever , I probably lose around 95% of my ideas as they happen when I can’t even make a note of the idea, but in reality its nearly always life and just occasionally a song will trigger a memory and away I go.

5.      What helps you choose: again its more to do with how I feel, today this is my third blog of the day sometimes I am very good at getting ideas formed and then down onto paper, but sometimes I don’t write for a couple of days, they usually choose themselves, you kind of get a feeling for them, they stand out, you know if it’s got legs, I rarely write a fully prepared blog and dispose of it these days, purely and simply there’s stuff that I have gotten rid of, and I regret it as I know I simply should have let the idea breath.

6.      Have you changed your perspective: I suppose I have, I could say I’m older and wiser, but I’m probably not lol, I’m much calmer these days, don’t get me wrong I can still howl at the moon, but I simply tend to go with the flow, being angry very rarely gets you anywhere in life and it’s the same in a writing sense, from time to time I have written angry and to be honest when I look back I tend to dislike what I have written.

7.      What blogs are popular: I know this question is one of the most popular, of late everything is, as the blog has been hitting high triple figures every day, some more than others, the first year I rarely hit triple figures for all of them and then suddenly it changed, I have no idea why but these days you might get a couple that only do low triple figures, but the bulk of them creep over the four figure mark, the best read one is still Girls which has had nearly 4000 hits since it was published.

8.      Does your family read them: the wife used to, but I don’t think she does now, when it was based on our social life, yes just to make sure that I hadn’t burnt any bridges, but as for the rest of the family, nope I don’t think they do, they have their own lives to get on with.

9.      Why the long gaps between blogs: it all depends on my mental health at the time, I might simply have writers block, it might simply be I have a life to live and its getting in the way, read the blogs and decide where I am at on the day, I wish I could post something substantial every day I simply can’t, sometimes the previous blog is still trending and I know if I post something it stops the previous blog dead in its tracks, I am simply trying to be the best version of me on any given day.

10. How is your health: to be honest its pretty shit but hopefully on an upward trajectory, I have been told I can have a new knee but no date as of yet, my diabetes is doing really well, and my mental health is doing ok, it’s pretty even at the moment a few minor blips along the way but nothing to be worried about.

11. Have you any unfinished blogs that you intend to publish: I recently started the holiday blog and ran into technology issues, this caused the numbers to splutter as I couldn’t publish the chapters in a timely manner, the world lost interest (the numbers died very quickly, mind you it might just have been a shit blog) so I lost interest, the last part is written with no intentions of posting it, it seems very joyless so nope that’s one not going to be finished, by and large it’s a rare thing for me for not to finish a blog I think this is only the third one where I felt disinclined to continue.

12. Would I write a novel: I have tried a number of times and I do have a number of ideas fleshed out however I don’t like any of the work I put into them, so at the moment I have four good (well I think they are) ideas, one has the potential to be a serial, however unless I could devote some serious and I mean serious amount of time I doubt that they will get completed. I have the outlines, I have the story, what I don’t have and it’s the hardest part is the voice for the characters!

13. Favourite blog to write: no idea, I like them all when I write them and then hate them all once they are posted, I have a soft spot for a couple but only because I have gone back to read after somebody has asked me a question regarding them, and I think, actually that’s not bad!

14. Have you written any and not released/published them: at the last count its standing at around 350, not all are completed, some might simply be a line as a start but gone no further, every now and again I flick through my notes and if something was to take my fancy I might do something with it, I started one called Fools Gold its only two paragraphs but I think I have an idea on how to finish it, watch this space.

15. Which blog has had the most comments: the blog “Girls” hands down as everybody wants to know more about “the girl who stole my heart and buried it out on the moors” and I’m still not going to say!

16. You don’t seem to mention anything political: Opinions are like arseholes everybody has one, and my opinions are exactly that mine, I used to be very political but my faith in all parties has been shattered, good luck to you and all who sail with you, for me I’ll keep my powder dry for when I want to really have someone come after me…..oops!

17. Who do you not like: Liars, first and foremost, fake people and we all know that there are a lot of them about, and bullies, especially bullies who hid in plain sight and are everybody’s bestest buddies but in reality they are horrible shitty people who talks shit about everybody behind their backs, there is one person at the top of my list I could name names but I would lose 95% of my friends enough said!

18. Where does the Walks With Broken Hoop name come from: a medical condition, I was taking a medication for an ailment that gave off gas more noxious than anything released in the great war, it was my native American name given to me by a well-known welder.

19. What is the biggest issue for the blog: a one-word answer is time, if I had more time, I might be slightly more consistent, but I don’t at the moment so everybody will have to grin and bear it.

20. What does the future hold: well more blogs coming your way, the numbers have been incredible of late and I know they cant last, well they could but I doubt that they will as I alluded to earlier in this blog, there are a small number already written, I have a number of ideas that  I wish to work on and you never know when a spark might pop up, I would love to do more historical social life ones, but I honestly, I don’t want to just spew some crap out, the historical ones are the hardest to do, yes I have some fabulous memories of me and my friends from my past that I would want to spend the time and do the memories justice, if you want to know what I mean go find the blog “The Dawn Patrol” that took over nine days to write and polish to a standard I was happy with, it had to be the truth and not some wispy parcel of bullshit.

So there you  go another “Now Hear This” blog, truth be told I could do another 80 questions, as I have so many queries regarding the blogs, I do get a lot of questions, I might answer something if I think it deserves a personal answer but usually I save them for these blogs, as a lot of the questions are very similar, if I haven’t responded and its not amongst this set go back through the previous eleven blogs chances are they are amongst the previous sets.

So that’s it for now watch the skies for incoming I have been writing up a storm, and these blogs will be published, stay safe and stay alive, until the next time I publish some woeful crap/masterpiece, you decide……..Toodles!

Prosopagnosia

 

No the title does not refer to an unreleased Def Leppard album, I have had a number of queries from people regarding some of my identified health issues I suffer from, at one point I thought I was suffering from early onset dementia, I even joked about it while I was teaching, which I got reported to HR for, thankfully somebody else on the course (the beauty of working in a teaching establishment) thought I had another condition which they did some tests on me (during work time) and they were very happy when the diagnosis came back as they had never come across a case personally, here comes the technical bit, and no I didn’t write it, it comes directly from a medical site!

Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, is a cognitive disorder of face perception in which the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and intellectual functioning (e.g., decision-making) remain intact. The term originally referred to a condition following acute brain damage (acquired prosopagnosia), but a congenital or developmental form of the disorder also exists, with a prevalence of 2–2.5%.

A common misconception is that prosopagnosics see faces' contours and details as blurry or distorted. The condition is not characterized by warped visuals. Seeing distorted faces is a common symptom of prosopometamorphopsia, not prosopagnosia.

Acquired prosopagnosia results from occipital-temporal lobe damage and is most often found in adults. It is subdivided into apperceptive and associative prosopagnosia.

There are no widely accepted treatments. Though there have been several attempts at remediation, no therapies have demonstrated lasting improvements across a group of prosopagnosics. Prosopagnosics often learn to use "piecemeal" or "feature-by-feature" recognition strategies. This may involve secondary clues such as clothing, gait, hair colour, skin colour, body shape, and voice.

Because the face seems to function as an important identifying feature in memory, it can be difficult for prosopagnosics to keep track of information about people and socialize normally.

Prosopagnosia leads to social challenges, as inability to recognize faces can be misinterpreted as lack of interest in others. Using visual or auditory cues in place of facial recognition is unreliable and tiring. The condition can also be emotionally strenuous to mask, increasing the likelihood of social anxiety and depression.

I was flabbergasted, as I have been having issues for a number of years and had reduced my ability to reply to people, on hair styles their gait and even voices, I even overheard some people say I was “difficult” I’m really not but I do struggle in “social” situations, I moved back to my hometown over 23 years ago and I said to my brother that I hadn’t seen any of my old friends in that time, this explains a lot, I’m not being stand offish I am literally face blind, I’m not as some people think difficult, I do recognise myself (I’m sorry to say) .

My issue was probably caused by several hits to the head (no jokes please) I fell down some stone stairs at school (at age 11) in which I lost my sense of smell, it does come back periodically really intensely but only lasts about ten minutes at a time, it was because of this injury that I was prone to fits of rage especially if I was slapped across the head, I fractured my skull and it took nearly three years to heal, it came in handy after a couple of incidents with a couple of bullies and I kind of went bat shot crazy on them, people tended to leave me alone after that, an incident in the army involving falling from a helicopter (only a short distance) and my NCO dropping my rifle down to me (oops) and my helmet had come off, again I was dazed and confused for a couple of days(wasn’t I always) and the last one was at my last place of work doing a job on the back of a pick-up instead of setting up a mobile scaffold, we decided to work off the back of a pick-up truck as it was quicker (and it was job and knock quite litrally) and I had an argument with a steel girder in a multi-story car park, I lost! I then spent three days in hospital recovering, but that seems to be the root cause of my issue.

It’s not going to get any worse and it’s certainly not going to kill me, however there isn’t any cure either at least nothing definitive, so no not being difficult or awkward or even ignorant if you know me and you see me say hello, honestly you will make me the happiest person around and hopefully I can stop thinking that the world hates me!

Thankfully after the slight detour the blog is getting itself back on track as I have a number already written and hot to trot, sorry the condition doesn’t stop me from typing up this drivel, I thought I better say it before anybody else di, stay safe, stay alive and I will see you around next time but until then…..Toodles!

Four on the Floor - 1979.

 

1979 was the year my interest in music went into overdrive I did lots of part time jobs so I went from buying the odd single every now and again to buying an album a week, on these “Four on the Floor” blogs I simply pick four random albums and give an honest opinion of them, some I might like, some I might not, even if it’s a band I like you will always get an honest review!

Motorhead – Overkill     1979. 8/10.

I will be honest and admit to not being a huge of the band at the time, this album appealed to me as I was a huge fan of the Dickies at the time, I like it loud and fast was my motto for music back in the day. And this fitted the bill perfectly, I loved the album cover, I love the title track, and it does exactly what it says on the tin it rocks big style, it gets in, slaps you around the face and then gallops off into the distance, with tracks like Capricorn and Metropolis and Stay Clean, I still don’t how they didn’t get sued for the riff to No Class, but it does the job that its designed to do, I love Lemmy’s Lyrics and while I do have a couple of albums in my collection, I wouldn’t say that I’m their biggest fan, when they rock they do it better than most!

Bad Company -  Desolation Angels     1979. 9/10.

The first album that I bought on the day of release by the band and I was praying that it wasn’t as crap as the previous one Burning Sky, which I hated, I loved the first three albums, Running with the pack is still my number one go to album by them but this is a close second, believe it or not it loses a bit because of the very polished production, there’s not a bad performance or a bad song on the album , pure class every single step of the way, it was a shame that they tried to recreate the magic with the same formula with the next album Rough Diamonds and got it so wrong, good old fashioned Rock N Roll best played loud.

ACDC – Highway to Hell     1979. 9.5/10.

Again I had albums by the band but I was sat in my local record shop to buy this on the day of release, and I loved it straight away, its hard to guess which one I prefer to this and the Back In Black both albums firing on all six cylinders and the production on both albums were polished beyond belief (hence the slight markdown on the rating) I will be honest as good as the title song is I don’t think it’s the best song on the album, and if I never heard it again I wouldn’t miss it, its great I’m just sick of hearing it, lots of people will say I’m a godless heathen, hey its just my opinion, you can have yours I’ll have mine!

For the record Beating around the bush is my favourite, although I rarely flick through the album, I always play it from the start right through the end (nano nano – shazbat).

Led Zeppelin – In through the Outdoor     1979 8/10.

Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a fan of the band, I get why people like them (although it took until Coda for me to get it) I had no interest in them at all, didn’t like them, I didn’t care for Jimmy Page (still don’t) but this was left at my house by a friend of my brothers and I wanted to see what the fuss was all about, it took a couple of listens before I kind of got it, I even covered (only in band rehearsals ) Hot Dog (we called it “I’m Pissed Again” I won’t take the credit for the lyric rewrite) it was a laugh, but by the time I had finished playing the album a couple of times I have to admit to having enjoyed it, probably because there’s not a lot of Jimmy Page influence in the song writing, I’m still not a fan of the band, I can take them or leave them, I still don’t care for Mr Page his guitar playing, his production methods or his plagiaristic attitudes to old blues players, but hey ho he’s still rich and I’m not, I became a fan of Robert Plant and his solo stuff because he doesn’t try and copy this formula, at least he tries different things, this is still the only album by the band that I can listen to all the way through in one sitting!