Here's a wierdness...

I'm currently running a hotbox.

I'm channeling the heat from one of my desktop computer fans into a survival foil lined blanket box underneath my desk in which is contained 2x40L batches of homebrewed beer!!!

Yes boss, when doing the first fermentation on a homebrew you need to maintain a temperature of 18-24 degrees to allow the yeast to

DO THEIR FUCKING WORK!!!

Thing is, I live in a warehouse with a plastic roof and bad draughtproofing, and at this time of year keeping the ambient temperature above freezing is generally hard and expensive work, nevermind keeping a consistent temperature of between 18-24 degrees. But one lowly computer fan making energy for 100101010101010010101 and this hotbox maintains temperatures of between 24 and 30 degrees and so brews the beer nicely and seems to UP the ABV is anyone who's tasted the marginal quality beers will vouch for..!)

Anyway...

To keep my computer pumping out enough heat to warm the hotbox 24/7 for 4-7 days I leave music running on it 24/7. I don't always have the amp turned on so I can hear it, but I put on a whacking great playlist to ensure the computer doesn't go to sleep and so keeps doing enough work to create the heat to make the beer work.

Well...

Last night on the playlist was a whole bunch of FULL LPs of music. I call that folder DJSETS, but it's not all Sander Kleinberg & Pete Tong, it's a mixture of that and full LPs without track breaks some of which I copied to MP3 form cassettes before disposing of them 15 or more years ago.

So...

Last night, the volume right down, I was drifting off and I could hear some UNGODLY FUCKING NOISE!!!

very quietly

that was all distorted and wierd sounding...!??!

Feeling curious as to what and who it was I listened hard, head up form the pillow, and eventually made out it was an mp3 of Motorheads Overkill LP. 

This sent me on a trip down memory lane.

I originally bought that badly distorted cassette on which the MP3 is made, when I was a teenager. I bought it from a clearance 'Our Price' sale shop in Southampton. I'd cycle the 5 miles to Our Price when I should'a been at some dull fucking lesson at 6th form college on a Friday afternoon. It was one of my regular bunks. I'd go there and buy a bunch of returned LPs and cassette tapes that were damaged or unsellable or sleeveless

REJECTS

and therein lay the foundations of my record collection.

Anyway...

Once I'd worked out, the noise I was hearing was Overkill by Motorhead, I found myself lying there wondering about whatever happened to Phil 'Philthy Animal' Taylor. Phil is the only drummer - for that matter the only member of Motorhead of however many there's been, (excepting the ubiquitous Lemmy) I can put a face on. I remember him leering into a camera on some documentary or on a Motorhead video. His tongue out LEERING CRAZY FACE has always stuck with me.

Well, I remember driffffffffffiting off to sleep last night thinking...

'Whatever happened to Philthy Animal Phil? Yeah, i think he's dead, he died a while ago. Yeah, I remember hearing about it. Cancer it was. Poor old Phil, I wonder how old he was? Zzzzzzzzzzzzz'

Well, I was just reading the British State Broadcaster website and it turns out he didn't die of cancer years ago, he died last night

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34803204

R.I.P MR PHILTHY!!!

Now, this is all a bit odd and somewhat esoteric for me, and in any other situation I'd like to claim GREAT POWERS of premonition and GENIUS some kind of vague divination. You know like everyone does when they have a slip of serendipity

But I'm not gonna.

No boss...

The night before last, I had a VERY STRONG dream in which I became CERTAIN my dad was dead. It was the kind of dream that marks you so HARD you spend most of the morning waiting for the confirmation phone call to confirm the events that seem CERTAIN to have happened.

'YES PAUL. ABSOLUTELY! HE'S DEAD RIGHT NOW! NO DOUBTING THAT!!!' 

There was a horrible finality to it

Before falling asleep to Motorhead last night, I called my Dad to see how he was. He sounded VERY confused. He's 86 years old and last week my mum called the Doctor out in the morning because he woke up and he didn't know who he was or what was going on!??!!?

My dad is the POLAR OPPOSITE of the Motorhead CRAZED DRUNK DRUGGED LOON image of Phil 'Philthy Animal' Taylor in my head and he's not dead, but he didn't sound so hsarp and well on the phone yesterday. My mum thinks he's not been taking his drugs in the right order and that's why he's not quite right.

I hope that's so.