All posts by diana Stone

About diana Stone

Diana is a performing composer and muscian playing Piano Violin & Guitar. She currently plays with the Rock/Roots band Elephant Shelf and also the Delta Ladies who mix roots acoustic music and electronica. She composes in a variety of styles from pop to rock to Jazz and and classical music.Diana is also expert in multi-media recording and music production.

Its A Moist July So Far

Diana Stones Songs, glass cage, music, Musings, other, whatever

Its soggy out so far and that’s a fact. But staying in the dry is a bit of a bore. I went out for a brief stroll and maybe I will take another later on. I got annoyed having a very silly discussion with a very ill informed xenophobe on a forum yesterday , but I got a song out of it so that’s cool.
maybe I will start recording it this week? France seems to have had a lucky escape at the recent election….

Meanwhile I am working on other things at the moment as per usual. A bit more sunshine would help I think though.

A new scam call today and a disturbing one if say you were an overseas student or taken up uk residence. An AI woman’s voice telling me there is a problem with my British Residents Permit. There would be as I don’t have one nor would I ever need one .Apparently it’s a sort of visa fraud where you are told its expired and you have been fined. I hope people are not going to fall for it. Students are being targeted. Well as somebody born in London a very long time ago that’s held UK passports since the age of 20 that’s obviously a bit silly. I did try ringing the number but it was not recognised and it does not seem to be a Home Office one. I suspect that my phone number has been scraped from a hack on an Ecommerce site or similar though it could be a random dialler. It was certainly not from a gov.uk number.

Do we judge ourselves and set our own punishments? I think some of us do. We beat ourselves up over the world in our heads and and our inner desires and needs. Or is that just me perchance.

I was listening to an R4 prog on BBC sounds: “With the help of Rai, who has a schizophrenia diagnosis, we look at the way the Hearing Voices Network is changing the view psychiatry has of auditory hallucinations. And we explore how new talking therapies could help people deal with sinister voices and paranoia. ” Interesting as they discussed the crossover with psychosis in Depression and Bipolar trigger by trauma and for example childhood bullying.

Find it here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0020xrm

Thinking about childhood and bullying, most of mine are I suspect doing quite well and blissfully unaware of the mayhem and destruction that they have caused.

Currently there are very high pollen levels which are affecting me a bit too. You can’t win really.









Independence Day or Silly Walks Day?

Delta Ladies, glass cage, music, Musings, other

A little bit of both I guess so far. I am stil struggling a bit mental health wise again. I get stuck as something triggers me then I get obsessed with it. Some things are hard to ignore. Its polling day here in the U of K July the 4th. I voted by post 3 weeks ago but that vote is unlikely to affect the outcome as its a conservative safe seat where I live.

I have got out and played live a couple of times and its cheered me up a bit, at least temporarily. But today’s a very rainy day so I am going nowhere. Just watching the rain.

With Orchard at The Red Lion Stevenage playing some Saw Doctors Songs

Well we now have a new government. It’s better than what we had but over the longer term who knows what it will actually be able or will to do? Sadly much of what I would wish for will not be coming to pass. Also there is an enemy within. There are now elected far right neo fascists as elected Mps. So there is a seed of real evil. The fertile ground for it was laid and nourished by the last government with its pandering to racist and nationalist views to gain votes. Once something like this has taken route there is no easy way to stop it spreading.
Britain has always had a proportion of isolationist and often xenophobic people and one only has to look back to very recent history to see that. The only way to help stop this is to speak out against it. I am not confident that will happen.

In other news I stagger on with my musical machinations. “Its music Jim but not as we know it” some might say…



Offensive Flowers and Plants Police

Diana Stones Songs, glass cage, history, Musings, other

Well now. A tale of woe.

Bad neighbours. We had grown from seed and allowed some wild flowers on the small space next to the entrance to our flat. It’s the first time anything has managed to grow there in the 6 years due to the hardness/dryness of the ground. A small miracle almost. the new neighbours who moved in a few months ago and who have not even said a word to us in that time, waited until we were out and then cut everything that was growing down. The land is not theirs. Some of the seeds were ones that my sister whos partner died had sent us from her old garden.

When confronted the “person” next door said he had cut them down because he did not like them though he no right to do so anyway. Some would actually have been protected species. They were their to encourage insects and to help allow the soil to build up on the patch of ground so that it could look more attractive. He has covered his back garden in astroturf so its totally dead. Ironically he will now likely have caused the plants to regrow and spread further. What stuns me though is it obvious that the land is not in anyway part of their property and they did not approach us to discuss what might potentially might be done, even though it has nothing to do with them. We encouraged taller plants to stop people coming there to pee as has been the case.

A quick drink before the performance of Jon Bickley’s Robin Hood recently.

I am seriously think of selling up and moving elsewhere. We moved from central London after retiring and never had anything like this happen before. I am both angry and sad. I felt physical sick after seeing what this person had done. I used to work for the prison service/Home Office and have had bad stuff happen so I am not naive, (knife held to my throat by a drug addict on my way to work because he thought I had caused his temporary release licence to be revoked and a few other things over the years).This has just really upset me a lot.

Anyway here is some music…