In the presence of genius

Last Monday I went to see Neil Young at the Metro radio arena.

Now I hate that venue and all Arena venues but I put that to one side paid £53 to go and see Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

Sometimes, occasionally, rarely you are lucky enough to get to see and hear genius. This gig was one of those times.

During the wall of feedback that lasted  at least 15 minutes at the end of Walk Like a Giant I started to grin.It lasted until the end of the gig. If you were there and saw a middle aged man grinning from ear to ear as he left the venue well that was me. 

No he didn't play Like A Hurricane  which would have made the night perfect but he's got almost 50 years of songs to play and you can't play them all.

I saw him with Crazy Horse 12 years ago in Sheffield (when they did play Like a Hurricane) and I thought that was a one off. My wife who was with me that time said it was almost like I was having a religious experience. If anything last Monday was better, much better.

I will probably never see Neil Young live again, he's 67 now. If he comes near you this year go and see him.

On and On

Been busy at work this last few days. Not bedroom tax issues, simply lots of work, recruiting and feeding backto unsuccessful candidates and paperwork etc. The joys of recruitment and selection in the public sector.

My organisation is about to turn itself upside down in a bid to deal with the challenges posed by the bedroom tax and Universal credit to our income stream. It won’t be long before I’m being interviewed for a job and not the other way round.

At the moment 65% of our income is paid direct to us by the government in the form of Housing Benefit. Universal Credit will roll the clock back to the early 80’s ( sound familiar) and this benefit designed to help the unemployed and low waged pay their rent will get paid direct to the recipient.

 

Public Sector landlords wil then have to collect the rent from their tenants. You may ask what is wrong with that. In principle absolutely nothing, after all my mortgage lender doesn’t know whether I’m going to pay my mortgage or not each month. They don’t get a guaranteed income from the state.

I was claiming benefit, as it happens in 1983, when Housing Benefit was rolled out. So I went from one fortnight getting my benefit plus rent in my Giro ( no mandatory bank accounts then) to the next fortnight just getting my benefit not the rent money. I was miffed as it meant my plan to “borrow” some of that rent money to buy a “treat” couldn’t happen. And this is what is bothering a lot of social housing professionals. Some people won’t pay their rent. Some like me will pay when it suits , some will pay sometimes, some will pay it all. Me? Well professionally I don’t like the idea , personally I think why not.

 

Landlords will just have to try harder to make the case about rent and services and you can't have something for nothing.

It's Summer

Here we are in June and it looks like Summer might finally be here. Things are growing-my potatoes and tomatoes are going well- and I've cut the grass twice.

Yes the heating is still coming on (only for an hour in the morning and at night) but we have had two really sunny days. And I m out on my long Sunday morning runs( 10 miles today) as part of my training for the Great North Run and the Berlin marathon.

These runs are helped by listening to 6Music on DAB, especially as Mary Anne Hobbs is now the weekend breakfast DJ. I like her choice of music. She also has a very sexy voice. Hey these things matter when you are running distances!!!

Seriously though she  plays some good stuff. Listen to her next weekend (7am-10am) or online on BBC iPlayer  if you don't believe me.