the dj's friend ...

Can you keep a secret? We are gigging again with gigs coming up in September and October. I hate requests, but the irregular disco-goer who last shagged in 1983 always appears and asks for some idiot tune that reminds her/him of his/her youth. One of the DJs in the Vag had the right idea - he insisted that requests were written on paper, and as soon as they were handed in he'd set fire to them. This was before Health and Safety and in Switzerland of course.

Now no bugger can have everything in his/her box/iPod, but the above are the next best thing. I pick 'em up at charity shops for a few quid, so I've always got some old tosh on hand for the occasional nostalgist. These five aren't too hot, but there are a few good tracks within, including Cameo's Word Up and Colonel Abrams Trapped, both of which I have in 12" but not, till today, on CD.

showaddywaddywaddywaddywaddy

The Wads on stage, limping and knicker-dodging ...



A final glimpse through the smoke as we walk away in silence ...

It’s a Friday night on the scary Somerset coastline and two international Djs are looking for action. The bingo’s closed, shutters rattling in the wind, the restaurants have ‘No Irish, Gipsy's [sic] or Vegetarian's’ signs up and the sand is rattling off the dunes and turning our faces into 1:1000 representations of meerkats’ colonies.

Then the magic lights of Pontins beckon, offering warmth, cheap beer and chavs! Who could resist. By some strange psychic power we are drawn to the murky depths of the camp cabaret arena, three acres of pulsating 70s lights, Brummie accents and acrid stale cigarette smoke, mingling with microwave hot dogs and clothes you last saw on the cover of Jackie, circa 1974.

The house lights sparkle and onto the stage come ... Showaddywaddy! It’s pants down time as the ladies whip themselves up into a rock ‘n’ roll frenzy as five be-draped apparent stepdads arthritically stagger around the stage carrying outsize musical instruments. ‘That’s not Showaddywaddy’ complains the lady next to me, ‘where’s Les??’ And indeed I couldn’t spot Les either, the one member of the ‘Wads’ as we call ‘em that even Terry Waite would recognise.
A murmur goes around the arena as fags are stubbed out in anger on those with received pronounciation. ‘We want Les, we want Les’ shout the crowd in one huge Brummie voice.
Suddenly the spotlight hits stage right and he’s there!! Les! Les, of the curved lip and waggly hips, and he starts singing, the crowd (including to her eternal shame, DJ Trin) join in!

It is awful!!!

I’m spiralling back to the 70s, tank top heaven, as the familiar chords of ‘Angel Eyes’ cut through the smoke to reach my complaining ears. ‘We thought this era was forgotten’. ‘Arrgghhh - I feel violated’ and ‘I’m shagging that tonight’ battle for supremacy amongst us, the forgotten Chav-Gestalt of the Council Estates of England. DJ Trin is staring into space, on another plane.

Awful it is!!

And, when I recover later in the street, I try to work out why. You see the Wads were never cool, even in the 70s when tank tops and Susan Stranks and the Tomorrow People were. Yet here they were, in the 21st centuy, in the same suits and playing the same songs, entertaining the chavs at Pontins. Had I entered a parallel reality, or had I imbibed an off Grolsch? Why?

Why? My Nan’s boyfriend took her to see them in Portsmouth in the 80s and I’d wet myself with mirth then! And here they were, two decades on, still doing it. Why?

Rock ‘n’ Roll was always crap - except in the raw and exciting early months when it was almost revolutionary. It was an evil visited on us, it led to nightmares like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits and Tom Robinson. Yes, the Wads latest album includes a cover of 2-4-6-8 Motorway, lovely Tom’s seminal 80s anthem to ... roadbuilding. It’s getting worse, uncool piled on uncool, and the oversize knickers are still flying over our heads to land on Les. Does uncoolness guarantee immortality? Perhaps. Perhaps it fills a need for the uncool majority that will vanish from the earth with nary a trace. Perhaps the Chavs are right all along, not troubling their empty heads with thoughts but with pure experience - wake up, fag, change nappy, eat grease, argue, watch telly, hit kid, fag, yorkshire pud, pub. John Smiths’, raid leccy, fag, punch mum, fall asleep on sofa ... and put on the Wads for entertainment. Perhaps it’s me who’s wrong ...

I’ll sleep on it.

wicked wicker

We wangled four free tickets for The Wicker Man so wandered along to the Multiplex for an evening's entertainment.

Nicholas Lyndhurst takes the role made famous by Edward Woodward in the classic 1972 version. He plays a shy virginal vicar/policeman who can fly a seaplane, juggle bibles and talk in tongues, whilst secretly fiddling with his privates in an almost perverse manner.

He flies to Summerisle. The locals all say 'ooo ahhh' in Wurzel accents, whilst displaying their naked bottoms to ward him off.

'Aim looking for a wee lassie called Rowan, do any of you ne'er-do-wells know her?'

'Oo arr, nae we dinnae ken wee missy.'

'Ye cannae land here wi'oot the laird's permission.'

'So fuck off sassenach.'

Nicholas sets his jaw firmly and goes onto the island anyway, despite the locals flashing their genitalia at every opportunity.

'You see we're all Pagans here. We don't like yon christian and we're likely to do something barely legal if you interfere with us.'

'I'll interfere with whom I wish,' he laughs.



Later he spots a number of naked teenagers dancing by Stonehenge (the Scottish one) and after watching closely for eight hours says 'Disgusting!' and tells the Laird, played by chubby barrel of lard David Hasselhoff, off.

'I'll have you know I'm Lord Summerisle and I'll fain dae whatever I want on my own island you christian fuck!' is his riposte.



Lord Summerisle - calls christian a 'fuck'.

Nicholas sulkily goes into town where he is (unsuccessfully) seduced by Britt Eckland (played by Stephen Fry), and hides under the covers with a bible and a couple of fish.

He still can't find Rowan. He goes to the school where all the girls have beetles on leads but nobody has heard of her.

'Ai've hud of Rowan Atkinson,' volunteers one of the kids, who receives a hearty kick up the arse for her troubles from the burly ex-Fools and Horses star.

Later he sees naked ladies in baths and teenagers humping in a graveyard, but still no clues except for a hare in Rowan's grave.

He's getting cross. 'Ai'm getting cross,' he groans.

It's carnival day. All the islanders are dressed in masks and stuff, the Laird is wearing a wig and dress, but Nicholas is still cross and not really getting into the whole thing.

He's still looking for Rowan when he sees a big Wicker Man on a hill. He climbs up into it and locks the door behind him. 'Lovely view,' he mutters, 'shame aboot the fog.'

Suddenly he notices that the Wicker Man contains hundreds and hundreds of frightened animals. 'I'll wager yon critters are sacrifices by these heathen pagan terrorist fucks. Why these unbelievers are bad enough to burn a christian ... gulp ...'

The flames continue to rise and he breaks into a sweat. I won't ruin the ending but it involves a fleet of US helicopters, Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

uncool teenagers, the letter from the government and why they ain't ever going to get it

Picture the scene - a party full of teenagers gently sipping alcopops and chatting about their courses and future careers. They huddle together whilst their parents sprawl around unselfconciously.

Who gets to do the music? Well the kiddies try, but their taste is so appalling you are keen to phone ‘Rent-a-Serial-Killer’ to put them out of their misery. A procession of pop pap, chart drivel and manufactured middle-class bands, none of which have a clue.

So the grown-ups surreptitiously stage a coup-d’etat of the CD player and put some good music on. How do the kids react? ‘Wow, what’s this?’ ‘You know this stuff?’ or even ‘Turn it up!’?? No, it’s hands over the ears time and little calls of ‘turn it down’. And they’re not being ironic - these buggers mean it!

I really feel sorry for this batch. I’d hate to be seventeen today. Music is either chart rubbish - Sandy Thom, James Blunt or similar cloned vomit-inducing half-bred lunatics or identikit ‘indie’ cloned sleep-inducing half-bred lunatics playing guitars, posing and - LOL - smoking!.Watching kids today is like looking at photos of Wigan, 1931, hangdog featureless squibs puffing away on feeble roll-ups, coughing up phlegm and mumbling ‘no future - whatever’.

So the poor sods not only are so charisma-free that they like stuff like Green Day but they really don’t have a future, because nobody’s preparing them for the scenario that’s now unfolding at breakneck speed - Climate Change grappling with Peak Oil. These buggers will never drive, own property, live beyond thirty, earn more than a pittance or ski. And they’ll never know what music can do, because they’re so dead from the neck up and waist down that they’ll like anything they’re told to by the morons, lemmings and half-bred lunatics that have decided they’re running the country now ... and just happen to own the music industry. 

Mum Tia's out of her cage!

You ever thought that kids might be ruining music? The kind of teeny pocket money wielding nutter that votes for Fanatical Christian Pete to win Big Brother?
We seem to have got past the boy band obsession, there's a few still hanging on to their Busted tee-shirts. Somehow it's worse when the boyband's dam bursts and we get little random tumours growing in the corner of the charts. Matt Willis, now he's a prime example. Cheeky chappy from Busted. He's the one who wore the wedding dress in that crashing wedding jolly video. Remember him? Now he's back with his brand of 'no longer teen but still young and so handsome and hey see I can Rawk' persona.
He seems to have enough street cred to get past the Festival organisers schedule.
He had this big time slot at V. Luckily we couldn't hear him due to man on mobile phone arranging to meet his mate down the pub.
Suddenly there isn't one boy band but Hundreds of little ex members of running around. Some of them just will not go away.
Ronan Keating is really the worse thing to have been exported from Ireland (since Daniel O'Donnell). Boyzone ended but Ronan seems to go on and on. This week sees him at number 15 in the chart with 'Iris' Iris is quite obviously a song about his crush on his grannies best mate. How he likes to bring her tea in bed and sniff her bunion pads.
The charts really are quite disturbing. I always check them then feel like slitting my rock chick wrists. If only I wasn't frightened of pain.
With the demise of boybands comes the rise of the reality TV star.
Shayne Ward that vomitous lump of Manchester Chav who won X factor last year seems to be waning... ie; no-one wants to buy the fuckers music anymore. Never was his music anyways. Covers r us.
This week has Maria Lawson in at number 20 with 'Sleepwalking' and that chirpy monkey Chico with battery operated symbols in at 24 with 'Disco'
I am unable to give you any idea about either of these songs as to listen to either is illegal, as you all well know.
X factor is back on our TV's. I beg you not to be drawn into this charabang of talentless freaks. And take those teeny texting terrors cell phones away.
No more credit for you little Miss Chardonnay-Varicella. 'Off to bed with a copy of The Famous Five'. Worked for Brassey anyways.

V is for Crap

V festival 2006. Thousands couldn't get tickets. But panic not guys. E4 was showing it LIVE all weekend.
Live the atmosphere with E4. Right.
Dave Berry (who?) presented, probably to his best ability, but for me he was as interesting as a cardboard box. No charisma and no evident musical knowledge.
E4's coverage was hampered by their keenness to cram in as many advert breaks as possible. Last night between 'Girls Aloud' and 'Beck'
(did you see the camera shots of Cheryl Tweedys crutch?)
We had an advert for Canesten Cream (vaginal thrush) ... "Be healthy inside and out" and Senna for constipation 'Natural and gentle' way to shit
We wondered what they thought their target audience was exactly? Do E4 even know what festivals are all about?
The main coverage sadly lacked any atmosphere. Where were the sweeping shots of the crowd singing back to the bands? The little shots of the drummers and bass players talking to each other? We had mostly the lead singer shots and nothing else. Then there was the cock up with the sound. Saturday had a guy talking on his mobile phone over a lot of the bands. It was fecking crap and I almost switched off as it was so irritating. Sunday had a football match commentary over the bands. Resignedly I tried to ignore it until they scored a fecking goal.
The Bands were cut mid song to pan over to another stage constantly. Then we were told we were seeing one band and another appeared. Dave Berry (who who?) ran around like a total wanker needing a piss.
I know live festivals are fraught but have they never watched the BBC do a Glastonbury coverage? Class and quality and even if something does go wrong it's handled with humour and professionalism.
E4? Stick them in the festival Loo's.

festival of wick.... nah V

Me and Brassey love each other. Well whatever feeling that word evokes anyways. We have an understanding. We like each others company. We respect each other.
But when we first met, and the first time he met my iPod, he had words to say about the music on it. My ipod tends to be full of stuff that makes me feel good at this particular moment.
Some of it is pretty dire... Come on I have the soundtrack to 'A Star is Born on it'. But it means something to me. It evokes a strong response, either makes me emotional or happy or angry even. When I need to revisit these emotions I play the tracks.
I was a bit put out by his comments. He laughed that I lived in the past. Nowadays I'd never take offence at him. I'd debate and it would be fun. It's important to have music from the past but it's even more important to move forward and listen to what's being said today. Because some of this stuff is fucking good.
V festival is on TV. It's my attempt to hide the shame I'm not actually there. I went to Reading four years ago and it was worth the hour it took to walk there from the car park, worth the hideous toilets and worth the soaking I got from the English bloody weather.
It has given me more to remember, talk about and think about than any gig. If you get a chance for one of these festivals bloody get and go. Do it.
I saw the White Stripes before they hit it big, Weezer, Janes addiction, The Strokes, Feeder and so much more. I bought a German army jacket from the surplus store and wore it with pride. I sat in a huge field at night with hundreds of small bonfires to keep us warm.
Maybe it wasn't as good as I remember, maybe at the time it was cold and miserable.... But I just remember the atmosphere and the crowd and the music. Yes, the music.
Pulsating across the fields, permeating every single ear. The crowd at fever pitch. All moving in one huge bounce and all in slow motion.
Hmmm maybe I was on something?
V is on E4. Bloc Party are on. I remember the NME front page proclaiming them the saviours of Indie Rock. I turned to the guy next to me reading some fishing magazine and said "saviour's of Indie? I think not" he moved away pretty quickly.
Bloc Party do nothing for me. Never have done. They are tight and edgy and professional but dull.
I watched Xavier Rudd earlier. They showed him doing three tracks. He's little known but has a huge underground following and comes from Canada / Australia... Which figures seeing they are so close together.
I didn't expect to like him at all. One man band with diggery-doo's and harmonica and chimes. But I really liked him. I liked him enough to want to hear more.
Hey, isn't that what music festivals are all about? You hear something new and different and check it out after?
Then you get the band on last. The one you worship and will stand in a field without peeing for 12 hours to watch. Make me 18 again. But 18 and a head for wanting to listen to new stuff, and not just bloody Spandau Ballet.
Shit Girls Aloud are on now. Time to feed the cats.

My favourite lyric today

"Tearin' off tights with my teeth
But there's no relief, I'm wide awake"

Faithless Insomnia (1997)

Snakes on a Plane? Snakes on a Plane! Snakes on a Plane!! Snakes on a Plane!!!

We took the whole family to this great film, Snakes on a Plane, tonight. We were a bit disappointed to find that it was 'X' rated, so we had to smuggle in the girls in a large holdall we keep for these occasions. We bought a large box of popcorn, rebranded as 'Snake Pellets' for the opening night, a huge bottle of 7-Up renamed 'Cobra Wee' and a box of six hot dogs relabelled 'Bits of Snakes in a Bun'.

The film was GREAT. Morgan Freeman reprises his role in 'In the Heat of the Night' as a cool black British copper hellbent on creating havoc wherever he goes just for the sheer hell of it, smuggling his huge collection of pet snakes onto Concorde, mainly down his trousers. Then as mums have to express milk in full view of aghast moslems, and little old ladies are grappled to the ground by lecherous and nervous security guards mistaking their zimmer frames for heat-seeking ground to air missiles, a chuckling Leonardo de Caprio, as Captain Ahab, trips over as he gets on the plane dropping three bottles of vodka. The scene is set.

As soon as Morgan gets on the plane, caressing his snakes and egging them on to sting people, the Fat Larry Band's theme song, 'Zoom', echoes around the plane. We just know there's trouble ahead!! The laughs come thick and fast as huge numbers of stereotyped passengers - two nuns and a priest, a pair of Siamese twins on a life support machine, Pete Townshend from The Who, a cheeky little chimp called Simon and a honeymoon couple (both men!) - jump out of the windows to escape the slithering serpents. Food gets spilled on the floor, sick bags are used as parachutes and the stewardesses perform a song-and-dance routine to a rather echoey version of Gary Glitter's 'D'you Wanna Be In My Gang?'

The crew get wind of trouble and fly really fast, avoiding mountains and skyscrapers as they try to land at an abandoned airfield in the Deep South, which is inhabited by zombies! As the passengers fall from the plane onto the grass airfield, a huge earthquake and tornado rip through the area, giving the special effects team a real showcase as snakes fly through the air and passengers seek cover under old pieces of farm machinery, with the Georgio Moroder soundtrack notching up the tension second by second. Some of the women scream and run their fingers through their hair, the men stand square-jawed into the wind challenging Mother Nature to do her best as they quote from the Bible.

A super film with a lethal mix of planes, snakes and disposable Americans, and a wonderfully twisted ending (it was all a dream!) which I won't spoil by revealing here.

Snakes on a Plane - snaketastic!

it comes from out of the blue and kills you stone dead

Smell is the sense most connected to memory, but running it a close second has to be music. The music that settles on a time and place and evermore when heard triggers a vivid uncontrollable memory like aural lavender.

And all too often it's embarrassing with the passage of time. Tonight in Tong Chef a programme I haven't seen or heard in years was on, Emmerdale. The theme music immediately transported me back to 70s Sussex, when in a whole different life I did some labouring but the place I worked at was close enough to home to allow me to go back for lunch (or dinner as we call it in working-class Sussex still) And guess what used to be on as I munched some sandwich in the lounge? That's right, Emmerdale, or Emmerdale Farm as it was then. So I went back thirty years from Tong Chef to Whitelea Road - Doctor Who eat your hearts out!

A few others that do the same thing - Talk Talk Happiness is easy >>> Leysin, 1988 with the first big snow of the winter falling outside; Echo Beach Martha and the Muffins >>> a grotty field in Teignmouth in about 1979; The Passage Fear >>> Flintstone Club, Littlehampton, 1981; Stone Roses, I Wanna Be Adored >>> Worthing 1990, Gilbert O'Sullivan Nothing Rhymed >>> the level crossing at Betchworth, Surrey in the early 70s. I could go on, but I expect you've already lost the will to live. 

bristol's finest

In Bristol today I managed to slip into Fopp, the best record and book shop in the multiverse. Picked up The Stone Roses CD and book, also Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk and the Trojan Dancehall Roots triple box set. Expect reviews soon! Also grabbed the Taschen book on Swiss architecture.

Bristol’s a strange place for a country boy, with huge skyscrapers (some still in their wrapping), adverts for American versions of classic British films (bet their one has the christian beating the Pagans!) And no badgers.




To complete an odd day we caught Abby WASHING UP when we got home!

doorstep delight

Just a mile away from where I live there’s a narrow gauge steam railway! This is the Longleat Railway, a 15" line that runs for about a mile in a balloon loop. The attention to detail is superb, with a well designed station, engine shed and signalbox. The line itself includes a lakeside run, tunnel, bridges and embankments. It’s one of the few lines in the UK where you can see pelicans, gorillas, hippos and sealions.


Until very recently most trains were hauled by Ceawlin, a steam-outline diesel loco, but the line has just taken delivery of a new real steam engine, named John Hayton, the man responsible for most of the work of creating and running the line.


The working signalbox is a notable feature at Longleat station.


An outward-bound train skirts the dragonfly pond. 

automatically good

I stayed up far beyond my bedtime last night to watch the Automatic on Friday Night Live show. Typically they weren't on till right at the end. I wanted to hear Monster. I love Monster. The radios were playing it far before it hit the charts and the simple child like chorus caught my sense of humour. I wanted Brassey to play it as Lord Bath opened the Annual Fete on his estate. I thought the image of the flowing Lord of the manor striding across the field with
"What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster?"
Screaming across the land, would make a fitting and memorable image. Unfortunately it wasn't to be.
The Automatic are a good looking set of 4 welsh lads. Pennie, Rob, Frost and Iwan look like a rock group. They got the looks, the sound and the attitude. Monster was a success. Now what about the future?
The new track is "Recover" On the website lead singer Rob says;

"The song's about being a waster and trying to motivate yourself into doing something better than sit in front of the television"

I'd better rush out and buy a copy for my teenager pronto.....This metioned teen, who was watching it with me, reckoned the overall sound of the track was very much like 'Monster'.
I tried to explain that a band needs to get it's own sound.
I can tell a new track is by a certain band within the first few beats. Hard-Fi have that distinctive sound that makes it exclusively theirs. Even their last single with a slight reggae beat was still very obviously Hard-Fi.
"Recover" is good. Loads of energy, mix and vibrant. The backing vocals to all of their tracks are most definitely different. The harsh shouty excitement in comparison to Robs smooth sound make for a vocal collage of suede and corrugated iron.
Recommended and tagged as worthy with more to come.

why all the cool middle class musicians of the world should beat a hasty path to beautiful symes avenue, hartcliffe, south bristol

Come rain or shine, Hartcliffe's fine!


Why is it that all the best music has been inspired by the urban 'degradation' of places like symes avenue, in beautiful Hartcliffe, south Bristol? And why is it that most of the members of the bands that made the music have always originated in the much posher suburbs of the very same cities? What is it about upper-middle-class boys and lower-working-class joys?

From the 80s industrial visions of Joy Division, Clock DVA, Einsturzende Neubauten and the Comsat Angels, through 90s Pulp to current faves the Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs, all these good middle-class (and often catholic) boys used the run-down bits of their respective cities to inform and inspire their music.

Hell we even did it in Littlehampton, early 80s, in Fossil Monkeys.

I suppose the really rough kids who actually grew up in these places were too busy fighting rickets, tapeworms and each other to sit down and write about the beauty of their surroundings? Or did they spend all their hard-mugged cash on crack cocaine and Dr Pepper?

you ain't no queen

"London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair Lady".

Now why would a semi famous ex Black Eyed Pea's member want to sing a song about 'London Bridge'
I sat aghast as the Red Setter dog lookalike rubbed herself over one of those Guards outside Buckingham Palace and painfully shouted out her lyrical grimeness about.... a bridge?

"How come every time you come around
My London London Bridge want to go down
Like London London want you to go down
Like London London be going down like "

Somehow I simply cannot feel sexually aroused by a grubby bridge. Crikey all that traffic going over it every day? All that pigeon shit... but wait. It seems she has addressed that.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit
When I come to the clubs, step aside...
Pop the seeds, don't be hating me in the line
V.I.P because you know I gotta shine
I'm Fergie Ferg
Give me love you long time"

Guess what Fergie? We don't love you long time lovey. You really haven't got it. You needed to be hid between those BEP men with the marginal talent.... at least in producing tracks.
I was never convinced by her vocal talents anyways, but this stuff is dire. A Gwen Stefani, Pink attempt.
'Look at me... I'm Sandra Dee. Except I'm untalented and rather ugleee'.
See! I can write songs too.
London Bridge? She's better off singing about the original Severn Crossing.

leighton buzzard narrow gauge railway

This is the very Colonel Stephens like building in classic corrugated iron that serves as the station building at Pages Park on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway.


This is the neat steam engine, Doll, which hauled our four coach train.


The route runs very closely to houses along the first part of the route, many of which have been built in the last thirty years changing the nature of the line. The line is very friendly and seems to be very popular with the locals throughout. The last mile or so is almost roadside, separated by a neat low hedge. The route through Leighton Buzzard includes several ungated level crossings, which require two flagmen.


Back at Pages Park it's clear to see that the train was very well patronised with almost all seats taken. 

ghost town the specials

It's not often that a song imposes itself on your conciousness before you've heard it. We'd been hearing murmurings of 'manifestations' for days in Switzerland. We'd been away from the UK for seven weeks so were a little out of touch. One flick through a Swiss-English phrase book enlightened us to the English transaltion of 'manifestation'. No, not ghost. Riot! That delicious word. We were up for it, ready like all true British patriots to give Thatcher a bloody nose! Unfortunately we had to go to Austria first to meet up with the family. It was there we got the full story, that riots had erupted all over the country. Sister Alison said the best thing was that the Specials had a record at number one that was brilliant and matched the mood of the country. So our first listen of 'Ghost Town' (or Ville des Manifestations in Swiss) was in prose format. It made us homesick, so we couldn't wait to get back, doing the trip back in one go, via Leysin as Jeff had met Chantal and wanted one quick last trans-Europe shag.

As we approached the white cliffs of Newhaven we expected to see buildings in flames and coppers with bloody noses, but sadly we'd missed the riots by a couple of days.

But we did at last get to hear 'Ghost Town' and it was every bit as good as Alison had tried to explain back in Mayrhofen a week earlier.

guilty as charged?

Why should we feel guilty about liking a certain music? Maybe a hefty dose of cheesy pop might ruin our street cred. Maybe some people might dismiss our musical taste as crap? Laugh at us? Horror.
There is a current culture of selling compilation CD's like "Naughty But Nice" or "Guilty Pleasures". Stuff that is assumed we'd be embarrassed to say we liked. Music we wouldn't proudly display on the CD rack but in the guise of a compilation CD is acceptable.
So exactly what is deemed bad enough to be placed in the ranks of Vintage Cheese.
How about Andrew Gold... Lonely Boy? Now this particular track takes me back to being young (hmm younger) , Top of the Pops at his best and the hilarious 'Pans People' doing that ridiculous dance to it... "Oh what a Lonely Boy" Lyrically it explores sibling riviary with the Lonely Boy's mother daring to bugger off and have yet another kid. He wanted to be the only one. Didn't we all?
How about David Soul "Silver Lady" How much did I just love Starsky and Hutch? David Soul was about as cheesy as it gets but when he sang
"I'm lost and alone Chilled to the bone" I just wanted to donate him my lovely lemon 4 ply cardigan my Nan knitted me.
I think Barry Blue "Dancing on a Saturday Night " was my first brought vinyl record. We had a woolworths in the local shopping area. I must have got records there.... I didn't go far really.
I loved that Barry Blue beat. I'd sit in the tiny bedroom I shared with my two sisters... One of them being a dreadfully annoying toddler.
I wish I had a 'Gold Satin Jacket and some silvery blues'.... Whatever they were?
Now I'm just grateful I didn't have one to add to the many embarrassing pictures of me as a frankly nerdy teenager.
My mother took me to a wedding once with a yellow polyester dress, long sleeves and high neck. I have the pictures to prove it.
Why? Why pop out these old tracks and force them on us again? Put them in some awful compilation CD with the likes of Rubettes 'Sugar Baby Love' and hope we'll buy them for some unsuspecting relative who we were sure had the most dreadful music taste in the 70's?
I happen to know a certain man who had a 'Dad Rocks' CD for fathers day.... eeek!
The thing is we don't NEED these CD's. We don't need our memories tweaked in such a lucrative way.
My iPod is full of tracks that I would probably not play for you. Because they are personal to me. They evoke memories of my past. They remind me of certain times, whether happy sad or fucking crazy.
I don't feel GUILTY about them. If you laugh at them I'd tell you to bugger off. I might even kick you (if I was so inclined that day)
Beware. Someday someone just might find that New Seekers - I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing on your mp3............
Didn't you just fancy the knickers off of that Lynn Paul.... Admit it.

ps Feeling dirty now. Off to play some Arctic Monkeys REALLY LOUD.........

devon railway centre (bickleigh)

A little-known gem in Devon is the Devon Railway Centre at Bickleigh. Based at the old Bickleigh station on the Exe Valley line, it includes several model railway layouts, a miniature line and a wonderfully convoluted 2 foot gauge line that twists and turns in a very small space with remarkably tight curves! There is also a coin-in-the-slot 7 1/4" gauge line which the kids love. There's also a small narrow-gauge museum.

These views were taken last year. 

that's the mentality of kids today

They come downstairs and tell you to turn your music down, moan ‘cos you don’t wear clothes when it’s 90+ outside and have CD collections that would shame your grandparents. They ignore the environmental crisis, smoke like 30s northerners and want to be entrepreneurs. Who are they? Teenagers!

When did it all turn round? How did Jennifer Saunders get it so right when she depicted Saffy as being twenty times as square as her mum in Ab Fab?

Can we blame Thatcher? Probably ... but more likely it’s Blair and his middle class prefect fascists trying to get everyone into work.

Now, when I was a kid we knew how to live and we knew about music. That it should be raw and powerful and actually say something about the real world. The early 80s really caught the zeitgeist after Thatcher told us all to ‘stop working and go home - the state will provide’. The dole was great, they’d give you hundreds of quid NOT to work, and it was all spent on champagne and four month holidays abroad. And visits to bands of course - sometimes three or four times a week. My car was constantly packed to the roof with people I hardly knew driving over to Brighton with the stereo blasting, hanging out of the window yelling abuse at everyone and drinking huge amounts of cheap beer and expensive champagne. Summers were spent lolling on the beaches of Rousillon drinking cheap French wine and champagne, winters in the Swiss Alps drinking cheap beer and Swiss wine and champagne.

What do kids do now under the head prefect? Study for BTECs, listen to manufactured pop and ‘indie’ rubbish and moan at their parents and grandparents having a good time. They have one half pint of cider, think they’re drunk and shout about their careers to each other whilst giggling.
Poor sods. Perhaps we need a new Conservative government that will give us all the freedom to not work again, so we can start living instead. And perhaps, just perhaps, music will respond again as it has in the past. Stranger things have happened. 

life lyrics

There's nothing I like more than discussing music. I'm never happier than thrashing out the merits of some old track in comparison to some classic old music that has resonated through my life.
Maybe I'll try to work out the soundtrack to my life one of these days. But you might be a little shocked to some of the cheesy tracks... Maybe everyone likes some cheesy music?
Even Brassey? Hmmm.
Last night laid in bed we were discussing lyrics. In particular the lyrical brilliance of The Manic Street Preachers and Oasis. The Manics are uncompromisingly left wing. But I respect them for sticking to their principles and saying it as it is.
We both agreed 'Design For Life' was their best track. "We don't talk about love. We only want to get drunk" well fuck me if that's not the line of the century with all this lovey mushy crap we have to contend with these days. Crikey even our cinema visit to 'Superman Returns' had us having to put up with a ragingly hormonal Superman. He's meant to have screwed Lois but in reality wouldn't that little act of love have really 'blown her mind?'
"Wonderwall" was the most played track in funerals in the 90's. Least it wasn't fucking "The lord's my shepherd" joke. Have you ever been in a field with a pack of man eating sheep? I have and it wasn't pretty.
So bang up to date with the contemporary Keane. No guitars, Keane. Keyboards and Toms Chaplin's distinctive voice. I liked their first album but soon tired of the sameness of it. Though Bedshaped was a beautiful track I could listen to anytime. But this new stuff? The only thing I liked about their last track "Is it any wonder" was the piano intro. It all went downhill after that. But their NEW tracks is out now. On the official playlist of Radio one. You can hear it every 20 minutes or so if you so desire.
And the lyrics?

Oh, crystal ball, crystal ball,
Save us all, tell me life is beautiful,
Mirror, mirror on the wall.
Oh, crystal ball, hear my song,
I'm fading out, everything I know is wrong,
So put me where I belong.

Crystal Ball.... Mirror Mirror on the wall. Now where have I heard that one before?
What a bunch of old balony.
Recommended, as highly as being savaged by sheep.
One for the sea Brassey.