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Thursday, 28 February 2013

It's Not The End Of The World


I haven't had the 'muse' again recently and even though different ideas where floating around my head I couldn't bring myself to have a good old moan and rant about existing in the modern world again !
So I thought once again I would just lay some music on 'ya.
I have chosen four immense but sadly deceased great 'British' musicians who all ploughed their own musical furrows with various degrees of success and fame but they have the common factor of leaving behind them a treasure trove of great songs and wonderful albums.
Also I thought I would then dedicate the four tracks to three of my favourite 'British' photographers two of whom are represented on this page...thank you Tom Wood, John Bulmer and Don McCullin.








Saturday, 2 February 2013

Hail King Car


The car rules OK !
Please believe me it really does rule us , we are now a subservient race all in thrall to the combustion engine that takes us from A to B then from B to C etc etc…
I actually came to this conclusion the other week when it snowed for a couple of days dropping more than six inches of the white stuff all over the country and basically the only thing that seemed to bother, annoy and stress people out was the fact that it was too dangerous to drive, the gritting situation on the roads and whether god forbid they might have to leave their precious car in their drive or parked outside their home. When it snows I get a train to work, I walk to the shops, I realise that some inconveniences will happen and when the ice and snow disappears I can use the car again. I have never moved to a  remote area because you are likely to be stranded in bad weather or have to purchase one of those monstrous 4x4’s that dominate the town & countryside therefore when it snows you should have take this into consideration when you decided to move there.
Now I wanted to clear my front path and the pavement both for my house and our neighbours after the snow had fallen. I had my snow shovel and the bag of grit I had previously bought in case the snow came so out I went and started to shovel the snow but I couldn’t really move it anywhere else because everywhere I looked there was a car parked taking up all the road space and some of the pavement areas too. The local council had gritted the main roads but no minor roads like ours so I put my grit down for the car drivers and moved the snow as much as I could. I then thought I would walk down into the town centre for some food, of course the council weren’t interested in gritting any pavements so it was treacherous to the extreme and if you were elderly you would not have been able to leave your house BUT for the car owner everything was fine, no ice, no snow, their little piece of the world was gritted because the car rules in this country and pedestrians obviously don’t, we just fall over, break bones and suffer………………………… 

Enjoy





Friday, 25 January 2013

Pointless


Celebrity, let’s repeat the word again…Celebrity, don’t you just hate that word. Personally I despise the word, the meaning behind it and often the people who create it, those that celebrate it and most of all the individuals that are supposed to be one. The cult of Celebrity has to be one of the most pointless, vacuous, inane creations every laid upon modern mankind.
They are meaningless, a pile of shit on the sole of modern culture.
 I have thought about this and what it might really mean to be a Celebrity and I think I know the answer. .
You have had to appear on TV for a maximum of about two minutes this includes any television show or channel from all over the world, maybe even some kind of viral YouTube video. Maybe you are a large breasted model or a shamed politician, perhaps a sportsperson or someone with a talking dog (who cares !).
You must be prepared to look at complete prat (most of the time), you must speak in words and sentences that only refer to the show or shows you may have appeared in (or acted in…acting that’s a moot point).
You must have around three brains cells and think that everybody really thinks that what you do really, really matters all the time. You must, I repeat must be on Twitter (why wasn’t it named Twatter) and finally for money you will prostitute yourself and perform anything that is required of you by the lords of the great unseen. The Unseen are the people who actually watch, dress, read and care about what celebrities do every day of their pointless, uncreative lives. Oh how the Unseen  love the X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing, that Jungle shite where they eat grubs and piss in the woods, Big Brother, Dancing on Ice, Splash.. the list is endless although I think it may have reached it’s nadir when I saw Celebrity Bake Off advertised in the schedules recently (yes a programme now where celebrities can bake on TV rather than actual people who may be rather good at it and want to possibly have a career in the industry)  but that’s OK because it’s for ‘Comic Relief’ (not OK for me it isn’t, plus I’m so bored with Comic Relief and Children In Need , what about real charities that are suffering in these depressed economic times).
So please  STOP IT NOW- RIGHT NOW before I put my foot through my flat screen and forever save my soul from these parasites that make me squirm and shout out loud with all the frustration I can feel inside, please go and leave me to my TV watching and newspaper reading  in peace. 

Enjoy Brothers & Sisters.






Monday, 14 January 2013

Winter Is Coming


Winter has arrived, it’s snowing today and austerity is still upon us. The current government wants to cap benefits, cap pensions, cap pay increases and then try and build thousands of homes on our green and pleasant land.
I turned 52 today and supposedly I will live forever according to my government again , well a lot longer apparently than if I was born a hundred years earlier rather than the at the beginning of the swinging sixties. Therefore they say I can work longer, save more and receive 144 pounds a week when I finally retire but at a much later date than I had assumed when I was thirty.
So even though it’s my birthday today, I shall lock the front door, pull the curtains, have a steaming cup of tea and listen to the late Vic Chesnutt. 

Enjoy
 




Wednesday, 26 December 2012

The Wrong Thing To Do


Due to my recent absence from work I had kind of lost the muse lately and couldn’t really think of a subject that appealed to me and I had nothing I felt that I really needed to get out of my system. Therefore I had no rants about Christmas commerciality to publish or the new religion of shopping to appease the gods of retail, no observations on the state of politics today or maybe even an odd moan about the parking issues outside my home, nothing, I had absolutely nothing to say.
So instead I thought keep it to music, it’s always all about the music, now this can be difficult for me choosing a subject on music that might interest others, something that might amuse or confuse anyone who is actually looking at this blog. Therefore I started looking into my music collection and thought about the sometimes ridiculous names groups and artists often decide to call themselves whether they might make a one-off recording and are therefore never heard of again or some that might have stuck around and actually made career whilst keeping the original name they had decided upon.
Pancho Villa
 
Below is a relatively small list of artists I found scattered across my music folders. What a music chart they would create and I’m sure you would agree that these would beat any current  itunes download chart or any top twenty chart rundown on a popular digital radio station (though you probaby wouldn't !).
The Dinks
 
There are four songs below but if you want to hear anymore from these wonderful names then leave me a comment….
Enjoy

The Bambi Molesters
The Dead Milkmen
Pancho Villa & The Bandits
S.C.U.M
Sir Rich & The Spanking Club
The Real Nasty
Pepper Rabbit
The Murderer’s Accordian
Lion & The Leprechauns
Howard Ice Berg & The Titanics
Dennis The Fox
The Ape Quartet
The Dinks
Gutterball
The Magic Christian
Untouchable Machine Shop
Matthew And The Atlas
Drunk On Crutches
Wee Willie & Winks
Ras Michael And The Sons Of Negus
The Brothers Comatose
Lafayette Yarborough
Brylan ‘Legs’ Walker with his Walkin’ Talkin’ Sax
The Gongettes
Frank Chickens
Diane Cluck
The Moongooners
Sir Bald Diddley & His Right Honourable Big Wigs
Mud, Blood And Beer
Henry’s Funeral Shoe
Jack Ruby & The Black Disciples
Peanut Faircloth with The Log Cabin Boys
Crippled Black Phoenix
The Mustard Men
 





Thursday, 29 November 2012

Soldiers Get Strange


I am not working at the moment so I have had the chance to spend a little extra time in bed. Now even though I’m off I still wake up at virtually the same time every day, the only difference being I don’t have to go to work. This has led me to lie there some mornings recently allowing random thoughts and feelings to enter my head and today was no exception and I started thinking how as child I was fascinated by war and fighting. I expect this is a period every young boy might go through and I was certainly no exception. I remember reading Sad Sack comics and going into the local paper shop to buy war comics such as Commando for a couple of pence or maybe a shilling I can’t remember the price.


Commando magazine was still being published even as late as 2007 when it reached the milestone of 4000 editions and it’s hard to imagine how they can keep filling page after page of brave English ‘Tommies’ fighting the evil Nazi empire after all these years. I avidly read books on great military battles and military uniforms but my absolute favourite playthings were Airfix toy soldiers and miniatures. Now somewhere up in my loft I still have a large plastic bag full of Airfix soldiers and these are one relic from my childhood that I could not be parted from. They remain there gathering dust but when I was young I played battle games with them nearly every day. My Grandad used to paint them and when I saw the film ‘Waterloo’ which Christopher Plummer as Wellington and Rod Steiger as Napolean I was hooked again on the Napoleanic and Spanish Peninsular wars and I would often spend hours recreating the defence of the Hougoumont Chateau at Waterloo with figures all painted by my Grandad including the kilts on the Scottish Regiments.
 
Happy days



Enjoy  




Friday, 9 November 2012

Death By Unga Bunga


I can’t confess that I am an expert on Politics and I never went to University as a young man but as I have moved through the decades of my life I have built up certain opinions and beliefs. One of these beliefs is that I am happy to be proud of many things (obviously not everything!) regarding the country where I live without being overtly nationalistic or where I get to the point that I distrust every newcomer to my country as a corrosive influence from outside or someone who will be detrimental to the lifestyle that I have accustomed myself too and the same lifestyle that I am sure many people enjoy, of course I do not.
 
Now what really annoys me is the way we (e.g. the government, our society ??) let’s everything be sold off for a king’s shilling to the highest bidder and offers no protectionist policies whatsoever. Lately Penguin (yes Penquin Books !! the unique and treasured Penquin Books) have been sold/merged with Random House Publishing a German company and also my beloved Branston Pickle is now owned by a Japanese conglomerate. I’ve seen HP Sauce sold abroad and Cadbury’s taken over by Nestle (they will always be Nestles to me). I have nothing against either Germany or Japan or any of its citizens I just feel passionately that these brands remain British owned and British made and then they should be sold everywhere as a purely British product. The trouble is the whole world is now seen as a global village with no borders  and apparently these outdated opinions don’t matter anymore but to me they do matter and they should matter more too others as well. I love Marmite,  Branston Pickle, Cheddar Cheese, HP Sauce, Sarsons Vinegar, choclate etc  but as a country we do not value these products and we seem quite happy to see factories and jobs move abroad  to produce these products, make huge profits and sell it back to us without a whimper of protest.
Well shame on us all I say.
Let's enjoy some music...