If only you had did what he wanted…chase, kill & hump.
Edit: Let HIM do what he wanted.
Shouldn’t have been on your phone filming for the AA.
Serves you right you brute
…remembering that 40 Years ( 
) ago today Joy Division walked off the stage for the last time as a live band. I shall play sides three and four of Still tonight.
May 2nd 1980 Birmingham University: High Hall
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Did they headline themselves much in the brief career they had?
Pretty much always after the tour with the Buzzcocks as they mostly played with The Distractions and ACR. There were some co-headlined shows with Killing Joke in early 1980 and the show at the Rainbow for Hugh Cornwall, but by late 1979 they were big enough to draw a crowd of 300+ to most venues and much larger in London (they sold out the Electric Ballroom which must be 750 capacity and ULU which is1200 IIRC). The strange thing is that they almost always played small clubs in MCR even though they could have sold out much larger venues.
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I saw them as a support act in 78 where no one had really heard of them, just after they were first on telly with Tony wilson
Think it’s easy to forget there career was only 18 months or so as jd
All the best things in life are brief, and unsatisfying.
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First gig as Joy Division was 25th January 1978, last gig was 2nd May 1980. In that time they produced two LPs, two singles and a flexi on Factory, a single on Sordide Sentimental, one on Enigma and a bunch of sundry tracks on various artists things including the Factory sampler and played about 120 gigs. Everything else was after the fact. A bunch of the tracks on sides 1 and 2 of Still were overdubbed during the Movement sessions.
Fucking phenomenal rate of progress if you compare the ‘Digital’ the first Factory track to something like ‘Decades’ or ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.
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A darker walk this week. It rained on-and-off Mon to Thurs so I left it until yesterday. It rained on-and-off then too. Rain (put the wateproof on), sun (take it off), rain (back on), sun (off again), hail (fuck this !) repeat every mile or so (sometimes more often) through the first 15 miles 
.
The exit from Didcot, along the old Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway track, wasn’t as busy as I have seen it. Still busy enough though
Then the first shower, after which this snap looking east from the embankment
The scene is much grimmer even than the clouds and the kites make it look. Between the light and dark green crops runs a footpath. At the left hand end, in the trees, is a footbridge over a ditch, which is where Jayden Parkinson was strangled by her bastard ex-boyfriend a few years ago. She was 17 and, of course, carrying his child. He called his brother out and the two of them dug a shallow grave in the little copse on the extreme right. The brother was sent home and Jayden was retrieved from the undergrowth and buried. A few days later, worried that dog-walkers might find her, he came back, again in the middle of the night, dug her up, put her into a large suitcase, dragged her to the nearby village and called a cab. In Didcot he set his brother to watch at the churchyard gate while he opened his uncle’s recent grave and put Jayden in on top of the coffin before piling the earth back. In the next few days I think the brother put two and two together and went to the police. I used to walk that way quite often. But I don’t any more.
South to the Ridgeway. On the way I come across a group of people
Three cars (maybe a fourth out of shot on the left), five adults chatting and perhaps others in the cars, six or seven small children - primary age - zipping along the track and up and down the hill on a selection of mini-motos and quads. I walked past (they didn’t seem very pleased to see me) and up the hill then turned to take this pic at the last possible moment. I really didn’t want to get into a discussion with the parents about whether this was in the spirit of the lockdown. I guess the kids would have been “doin’ my 'ead in”.
Across the Ridgeway and south to the road between the Ilsleys. Councils have closed the waste tips (brilliant 
!). Or, at least, the ones where you can dispose of stuff safely and responsibly. So this sort of thing has become more common (to be fair, council tips don’t take tyres)
After that things, apart from the weather, cheered up. There wasn’t much wildlife on view, but the Ilsleys are horse country - Mick Channon’s stables are at West Ilsley
Further on the hail became so fierce I had to leave the path and take shelter. The woods are of the ‘untidy’ sort, so when stuff falls over it’s left. Despite the sunshine it was actually hailing at this point
There’s a pheasant shoot just east of Old Street (an Iron Age track from roughly where Newbury now is, north to the Ridgeway) above Catmore. This pic really doesn’t do the bluebells there justice
Into Catmore itself - the least populous parish in Berkshire. St Margaret’s church has been in continuous use for the best part of 900 years, once under the control of the Knights Hospitaller. But it’s now redundant. The trust which is responsible for it leaves it open the whole time
There’s something pleasing about the various lines in the crop to the north-west of the village
Looking the other way the locals have built some kind of structure on the ridge, just left of the small group of trees. It’s not a gibbet, I think, but still if you zoom in the detail wouldn’t look out of place in The Seventh Seal
Beyond that the weather brightened up. Back on Old St here’s the view east
In the low-res image you can’t see it, but in a crop from the high-res original the 100m Stokenchurch tower is just visible left of centre on the horizon. It was clear by eye
North, down to the Ilsley road, up to the Ridgeway and down again to Ginge. Here’s the (only) road there
They don’t get many visitors in Ginge. They do, unsurprisingly, have the source of Ginge Brook though
The pic is a bit unclear. The brook bubbles out of various springs in the bank opposite, on the top of which is the road. The biggest outflow is from the dark square-ish shape left of centre and the flow is then away to the right. The water is perhaps 40ft below the top of the steep slippery slope I’m standing on.
Another hailstorm drives me into the woods south of E Hendred. When I come out the brilliant sunshine has made this
Sunlight backscattered from the departing hail has swamped the rainbow a bit on the left hand side. But you can see on the right that there’s enough water in the air to make it double. The water was pouring down the road as I entered Hendred
Here’s the latest in the series of ‘great wisterias of South Oxon’, this one pouring like a waterfall off the post office
VB
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Out for a good 6 mile walk through the countryside then converting this…
To this…
Plus 2lb mince and bits for the dogs. Took me about 3 hours - I’d never make a living as a butcher.
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You need a circular saw
Tidily done mind 
Finger-count gone OK? If, like me, you get a bit lost after 3, ask a groan-up to help 
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Thanks. Never done one before but googling helped and when I got going it became clear.
Having the knife as sharp as a sharp thing was the secret, thanks to the new whet stones recommended.
And I kept the digits well clear.
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Lovely there - I used to rent a place in the village when I was working in WGC. The pub was nice and local walks also - The new church is very unusual.
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Yeah, the church is quite interesting and unusual and there’s also George Bernard Shaw’s house there. Some amazing mansions round there.
Looks very nice, good to have somewhere like that within walking distance.
