Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Walk the Walk

Callum confirmed his one season loan from Chelsea to  Bayer Leverkusen yesterday afternoon. In the early evening Chelsea lost 2-1 to Southampton. QED? Co-owner Todd Boehly is Chelsea's "interim" sporting director. The job should have gone to Joe Reilly.

Let's do the walk of fame (passim) again. Callum's family home is just around the corner from me. Come out of their front door, turn right then left and you will walk past Ego Ella May's. 

Her re-imagining of visionary drummer Chico Hamilton’s “The Morning Side Of Love”, which first appeared on Hamilton’s 1975 Blue Note album Peregrinations is the lead track on "Blue Note Re:imagined II"  which is due out on September 30th. 

“For more than eight decades the artists of Blue Note Records have continually pushed the envelope of contemporary music,” said Blue Note President Don Was. “Blue Note Re:imagined II once again honors that legacy by letting the UK’s most creative young artists reinvent the treasures of the Blue Note catalogue through their own lens.” Quite so.

Past hers, into Park Road,  and you will arrive at Paapa's old flat. He's starring in the BBC's The Capture season 2 at the moment; weekly at 9pm on Sunday and Monday nights.

The 'Wood done good.

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

tossed off

Myself (knocking): I've got the list for you.
Prodnose: I'm not decent, can you just slide it under the door?
MyselfAhh! O.. Oh!... Aghh! AAAH! Can't do it sorry.
Prodnose: Why?
Myself: It's in my head.
Ollie H, reminded me in the Standard on Sunday that a bunch of us are going to the Richmond Theatre in November; news to me, it had completely slipped my mind. I had vaguely been planning to get out at see Bart in Les Mis in November and - for all that I like to see the boards being trod - once a month is generally sufficient to my needs. Pulling all the bookings out of my diary I see that, apart from December and January I am committed monthly until next March. The list follows as an aide-mĂ©moire. December and January are probably blank because we are planning to got and see the new Streetcar at the Almeida, but we are waiting on a date from John as he will have to come up from Wales for it. I will probably book Les MisĂ©rables for the end of this year or the beginning of next depending on JC's Tennessee Williams constraints.

  • September 9: Love All - Jermyn Street Theatre
  • September 14: An Inspector Calls  - New Wimbledon Theatre
  • October 13: Something in the Air: Jermyn Street Theatre
  • November 19: Lavender Hill Mob: Richmond Theatre
  • December: Streetcar or Les Mis
  • January: Streetcar or Les Mis
  • February 14: The King and I: New Wimbledon Theatre
  • March: Girl from the North Country: New Wimbledon Theatre (Tue 14 Mar - Sat 18 Mar - not booked yet)

Monday, August 29, 2022

Elders and Betters

I stopped off in Hammersmith on the way back from Cardiff yesterday, for my regular appointment taking PG on his weekly grocery shop, then gossiping over a coffee in the Plum Cafe, COFX or Truth. He owns his flat (ground floor with a garden) and lives independently for all that it is retirement housing.

There was a woman in front of me on the path as I was strolling towards his door. This sort of situation always makes me uncomfortable, because I don't know if I might spook someone by seeming to be following her, or spook her even more by accelerating and overtaking. No need to worry on this occasion. She turned around, flashed me a smile and said hello. "Hello," I replied. "I'm Nick. I've come to visit Peter in number fifty seven." We strolled along talking about the weather until I had to turn left up the path and ring his bell.

We bumped into her again an hour or so later on the way back from coffee after Waitrose. She was putting some stuff into the recycling bin and PG introduced her to me more formally as a fellow resident.

I dunno. Wouldn't life be better if people were just nicer, friendlier and more polite on the street? That said I have zero experience of walking around as a single female. Possibly, on hearing grunting while taking a shortcut through the park, it might not be prudent to introduce yourself with a megawatt grin to whoever is hiding in the foliage.

Well that's me failing to solve the world's problems for another day. Same time tomorrow?

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Flanders and Swann: Song Of Patriotic Prejudice

 The English, the English, the English are best

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest!

The rottenest bits of these islands of ours

We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers

Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot

You'll find he's a stinker, as likely as not

Och aye, awa' wi' yon Edinburgh Festival!

The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware

And bony and blotchy and covered with hair

He eats salted porridge, he works all the day

And he hasn't got bishops to show him the way!

The English, the English, the English are best

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest!

Ah hit me old mother over the head with a shillelagh

The Irishman now our contempt is beneath

He sleeps in his boots and he lies in his teeth

He blows up policemen, or so I have heard

And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third!

The English are noble, the English are nice

And worth any other at double the price!

Ah, iechyd da!

The Welshman's dishonest, he cheats when he can

And little and dark, more like monkey than man

He works underground with a lamp in his hat

And he sings far too loud, far too often, and flat!

And crossing the Channel, one cannot say much

For the French or the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch

The Germans are German, the Russians are red

And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!

The English are moral, the English are good

And clever and modest and misunderstood!

And all the world over, each nation's the same

They've simply no notion of playing the game

They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won

And they practise beforehand, which ruins the fun!

The English, the English, the English are best

So up with the English and down with the rest!

It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad

It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!

For the English are all that a nation should be,

And the flower of the English are Donald, Michael,

Donald, Michael,

And Me!

Back from Cardiff to London this morning. 

Saturday, August 27, 2022

The old hometown looks the same....

My brother John stayed at Bronwydd last night, so that we could go and visit mum together this morning. He found a "Golden Wedding" photograph album in the loft  room. A beautiful, pristine thing wrapped in gauze and housed in its own presentation box. Why not take it along to show to the lady the 50th anniversary of whose nuptials it celebrated? John and I both remembered the day itself, and the party, well. (On reflection maybe the party and aftermath not so much.)

Giving the notion no time to lose the name of action, we duly presented it to Her Majesty, who giddily cracked the spine in anticipation ......

Every single page was blank. Mum or Dad must have bought it intending to curate mementos before being overtaken by events. Either that or it was an avant-garde art statement. Very prone to them the old man was as I recall. "Épater Le Bourgeois," the superannuated provocateur was always saying, and he's still doing it from beyond the grave.

Friday, August 26, 2022

Vanished Wales

 I am driving down to Wales this afternoon, I'll meet my brother John this evening and we will visit mum tomorrow morning.

Perhaps this made me pay a little more attention than I usually would to a Facebook post from Newtown and the Irish in Cardiff as I had my daily browse. It said:

ITV : Vanishing Wales Series 2 Newtown

Unlike the series 'Dock of the Bay' which aired only a few weeks after filming, the producers tell us that the new series will not go to air until the new year, alas.

A little research suggests that the series is actually called Vanished Wales. Episode 3 of series 1 (here) "reveals the lost community in the Brecon Beacons, the Cardiff factory that had a future superstar on its payroll, and the much missed stadium where sporting history was made."

Getting even researchier (WalesOnline here and worth a read) I have established that the Cardiff factory was Currans and the superstar was Shirley Bassey. 

Currans, of course is where Dad first worked. So he really would have known a young Dame Shirley. I thought it was a load of old flannel. Speaking of flannel, as I remember he used to play cricket for Currans. "The teeth I knocked out with bouncers," he would recall; sentimental old fool. John and I should catch a basinful of the documentary this evening.

Load of old flannel? Basinful? I start writing in the old man's vocabulary whenever I think of him.

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Management by wandering around

 Andy M sent me a link on Monday; Good interview with well known music Journo qhp has a new book out! (Very pleased with qhp in the place of who. It turns out I am not the only person who types one key to the left on occasion.) When I clicked the link to the podcast it turned out to be on Spotify so I let the phone install the app; it is already on my PC.

As a rule I listen to podcasts on Amazon Alexa devices; there's one in each room in the house (including the bathroom) except for the spare bedroom so I can play them on the everywhere group as I am wandering about between chores and bone idle noodling.

I've got a Spotify Free account and I was under the impression that Alexa Spotify skill only worked with Premium. Not so apparently:

Update June 23, 2020: Starting today, Spotify Free users in the U.K., Ireland, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Mexico, will begin to be able to stream Spotify through Amazon Alexa.

That is now done and dusted on my set up. Voice control is up and running but there are two unexpected bonuses. The first is that I can use Spotify on the PC or phone as a remote control to stream whatever I want to hear to whatever speaker or group I choose; very handy as voice control can be a bit hit and miss if you are after a specific version of a song for example.

The second might be a bug, but I have noticed that I don't get any adverts when Spotify music is coming through Echo speakers; switch back to the PC and they come up every few tracks.

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Everyone needs a side hustle

Coyote Ugly Camden is open

  1. Eerie Spice
  2. Weary Spice
  3. Beery Spice
  4. Kashmiri Spice
  5. Bleary Spice
Prodnose: I have literally no idea what this is supposed to mean.
Myself: “When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
Prodnose: I am still none the wiser.
Myself: I agree but at least you are a little better informed. Here's a clue - Taylor Swift Wembley Stadium 2018
Prodnose: I give up.
Myself: Taylor Lautner’s fiancĂ©e, Taylor Dome, will change her name to Taylor Lautner after marrying the actor.

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

An unforeseen side-effect of writing one thing a day down on these spindrift pages, is that - as a rule - I can find a glancing reference to anything approaching significance in my life and locate it in the space-time continuum. 

Thus, when the Burglar told me that his colostomy reversal is scheduled for the thirty first of the month, Icons passim told me that the original operation was on September 13th last year so he will have been living with the stoma for all but a fortnight shy of twelve months.

To put it in context, the NHS Guidance says "a colostomy reversal will only be carried out when you're in good health and have fully recovered. This will usually be at least 3 months after the initial colostomy surgery." A year as opposed to a quarter thereof is, I suppose, another indication of the Health Service's struggles. I'm not blaming anyone, I am just pointing it out. (Actually I am blaming people, that was just a prudent blanket disclaimer.)

More breathless front page news; as I link my posts to the same day last year I can see that it was (Icons passim) exactly five years ago that Rod, John and I reconvened in the Half Moon more than thirty years after we shared a flat opposite. Fingers crossed (both of them being continent-hopping International Men of Mystery) we are due to do it again towards the end of next month.

Monday, August 22, 2022

The path of the righteous man

 I have used this month's Audible credit to pre-order Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self by Andrea Wulf which will be released on September the first.

Prodnose: Tagged a couple of cops. You kill anybody?

Myself: A few cops.

Prodnose: No real people?

Myself : Just cops.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

In which I address my critics

 Why don't you take a flying f*ck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying f*ck at the mooooooooooooon?

Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

Saturday, August 20, 2022

#TheatreDynasty


Now (Icons passim) it can be told. My cousin's boy is in the new Les Mis cast at the Sondheim in Shaftesbury Avenue (first performance 27/9).

Got an actress niece in Central and another in Guildhall.

Oh, and (first cousin once removed) Peter's new play opens in the Jermyn Street Theatre in October.

#TheatreDynasty doesn't begin to cover it. Redgrave Schmedgrave as I used to say before Ancestry DNA cruelly ripped my 2% Jewishness from me.

Friday, August 19, 2022

Scot-free no more

 AncestryDNA have done another of their regular revisions of my sample. I am now 98% Irish, 2% Scottish, and <1% Sardinian. I have been 2% Scottish before as I remember.

Here's the link - https://www.ancestry.co.uk/dna/origins/share/2291dec9-b75e-427d-bf76-0da2e1479c99.

I will put a label DNA on this post, then gradually retrospectively apply it to earlier ones to help me get a better handle on the trends and changes. I seem to remember that initially I was only 79% Irish for example.

Thursday, August 18, 2022

Daryl Dimple

Before today I have made 21 references to William Dalrymple on the blog. I've even had a brief correspondence with him about Kerala as well as going to see him live, so you can say I am something of a fan. I was pleased to discover then that he is on a new podcast called Empire (Apple), (Spotify):

How do empires rise? Why do they fall? And how have they shaped the world around us today?

William Dalrymple and Anita Anand explore the stories, personalities and events of empire over the course of history.

The first series looks at the British in India, covering the East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, Independence and Partition.

It is from Goalhanger, the same company that brings us The Rest is Politics etc.

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Poker face

Andy H didn't manage to solve Wordle on Monday for the first time since I started doing it and we have been comparing results after pasting our "grids" into WhatsApp. Here's my "grid" for today.

Wordle 424 4/6

⬜⬜⬜🟹⬜

⬜🟹🟹🟹⬜

🟹⬜đŸŸ©đŸŸšđŸŸ©

đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©đŸŸ©

I've still got a 100% record. The stats are at the top of this post, but I have no idea how good, bad or indifferent they are compared to the average.

https://mashable.com/article/best-wordle-starting-word

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

A change is as good as a wrist

Facebook showed me the photograph above yesterday. A muay Thai class exactly fifteen years ago; Kru Johnny Boon presiding. I used to take my Ben (second row right), Callum (front row left), and Jonnie (peeping over Callum's head). Take a look at the the cast on Callum's arm. Now he has grown up to play football for Chelsea and England he still wears an elasticated strap around the wrist. I never notice it without guiltily remembering it was me to took him along to the session at which he broke it

Monday, August 15, 2022

Just because I hate everyone doesn't mean they have to hate me too

L'affaire Sadowitz continues to rumble on. Here are his tour dates. I can't see anything in London, but I could be tempted by Sunday October 30th at the Glee Club in Cardiff; a venue new to me.

'Please note that I might just do card tricks and say NOTHING for a whole hour or I might just do the usual 'screaming fascist' schtick. Or both. Patrons may wish to drink alcohol pre-show to avoid boredom, embarrassment and guilt.'

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Iconoclasts

 I came late to Salman Rushdie, probably because of what I perceived as the malign influence of the Amis-Barnes-McEwan-Rushdie boys' club back in the day, so when I finally did get round to Midnight's Children it was with low expectations, and driven by a self-abnegating sense of duty after it won the "Booker of Bookers" anniversary prize. More fool me. It is an absolutely marvelous book. An all time favourite of mine whose lustre is probably burnished in my eyes by the reluctance with which I first cracked its spine. Very happy to hear that Sir Salman is off the ventilator this morning, after the despicable attack on him.

In other developments, the Pleasance theatre has cancelled Jerry Sadowitz's Edinburgh fringe standup show  saying his material ‘does not align with our values.’ Have you ever heard of anything so pompous? We live in an age of banal, asphyxiating, crushing orthodoxy. Sadowitz and John Lydon remember were the only two public figures with the chutzpah to break the establishment's omertĂ  on Jimmy Savile's crimes.

As for my good self, I rarely look down, but when I did yesterday I noticed that I had put my polo shirt on inside out. Then, this morning, I realised I had left the front door unlocked overnight.

Prodnose“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

Myself: I know! I know! T-shirt the wrong way round. Door unlocked. Crazeee!!

Saturday, August 13, 2022

Careering

Leaving the office on Thursday I saw a note tucked under the windscreen wiper. A van driver had scratched my car door (and also I noticed my wing mirror) and left me details of her vehicle and contact details for the company. The company was EnhanceAble; perhaps more accurately a charity providing social care for disabled people. I felt a bit guilty about putting the bite on them for my repairs after that especially after speaking to them on the phone but I console myself that the matter will be handled by our insurance companies as opposed to our own bank accounts.

Anyway it has put me in mind of a story; maybe one we can share with mum over Skype at half past ten. Long enough ago for my youngest brother to be driving but still living at home, he had a minor knock of a morning, exchanged details with the driver of the other car and thought no more about it until got home and met my mother that is. (I like to think of her with her arms folded across her chest, her right foot tapping, and the dreaded Death-Star death-stare laser-beaming from her eyes.)

Apparently she had answered the door in the afternoon to find a tearful pregnant woman with a further child in a push chair on her doorstep. This was the wife of the tradesman whose van had bumped John's car. After a few hard years it seems, they were just getting back on the straight and narrow and the repercussions of this incident were likely to plunge them back into penury and despair.

You might as well have told mum that John had stuck up a post office wielding a chewed off shotgun with once of her old stockings pulled over his head as a mask.

I think it reflects well on her now I come to think of it all these years later. But then again it wasn't me who had to put my hand in my pocket.

Friday, August 12, 2022

Getting ready for the weekend.

Thursday, August 11, 2022

Shock Jock

Back early in June I wrote:

More and more, I am starting to suspect that I personally know someone who is better informed on any specific hot button issue than any member of the dreary commentariat.

I will start gathering these exemplars together over the months and years into my own new Kitchen Cabinet.

Old school friend, Kevin T is now added as the third member (after Rod and Emma) of the roster. We were out on one of our occasional catch ups on Tuesday evening. After a long and distinguished career, very much of which was spent in telecoms in Asia, he was able gently to correct me and steer me in a more wholesome direction whenever I started ranting, about the OneWeb satellite system or the PRC/Taiwan stand off, by the deceptively simple expedient of knowing far more about, and having spent more time thinking about, the issues than me.

I may have to confront the possibility that I am gradually morphing into Alex Jones, the  swivel-eyed,  alt-right conspiracy theorist. I need my consigliere's, my viziers', and my grey eminences' hand holding. That's Rod, Emma and Kevin so far. God help them. God help me. God help us all.

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Oblivion Neutron Bomb


I was saddened to hear that Olivia Newton-John had died. Unlike almost everyone else in the world though I flashed back - not to Grease but to "Coming Home" a documentary exploring  the story of her Welsh ancestry, that begins in her father’s home town of Cardiff. 

It wasn't on the iPlayer yesterday but it is this morning. Available for 29 days at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001bdkz/coming-home-olivia-newton-john. Well worth look.

Facts at random; her maternal grandfather was Max Born, the physics Nobel prize laureate and her father - Brinley Newton-John - was the man who took Rudolf Hess into custody.

Tuesday, August 09, 2022

Nephews and Nieces


My two youngest nephews were on our birthday Skype chat with mum last week and demanded that I produce my nunchuks. I was rather flattered to be honest as I can only remember demonstrating them once before (again over Skype during the coronavirus lockdown) so I sourced a couple fro Amazon - one red, one black - and had them delivered in Cardiff. Seb, Caroline says, "got all his karate /fighting stuff out and put it on display for bedtime." You can see it, including shuriken and daggers etc. above. Also she heard him get up and go to the bathroom in the night, popped her head in just to to double check he was alright. He had taken his nunchaku with him, in case he was attacked by ninja while he was sitting on the loo I imagine.

Also, I finally got to see the Seagull at the Harold Pinter on Saturday; a rearranged booking after the July performance we had originally lined up was "covid in the cast" cancelled. More style than substance in the direction if you want my opinion, but Indira Varma was excellent as Irina Arkadina which made it interesting to see it sitting next to Mia as that was her role when they did it at Central not so long ago.

Monday, August 08, 2022

Les Mis

Grantaire

Grantaire is a member of Les Amis de l'ABC. He is best known for being the skeptic of Les Amis who believes in nothing, except Enjolras, who is his only reason for joining the society. An art student and skeptic with no interest in revolution. Grantaire is involved with the Friends of the ABC due to his friendship with its members and his admiration, veneration and love for Enjolras, who disdains him for his skepticism and drunkenness. He is noted to be extraordinarily ugly and a heavy drinker, and he sleeps through most of the fighting in the June Rebellion. Despite this, he eventually declares himself to be one of the insurgents and dies alongside Enjolras, hand in hand.

Songs

Monsieur Thénardier

Sacha Baron Cohen in the film.

Songs.

Prodnose: This is one of these secret message things I suppose, intelligible to a select coterie, possibly resonant for you when revisited in some tranquil future, yet opaque to the great unwashed, and breaching no confidentiality agreements?

Myself:  When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. The purpose of the rule is to encourage open discussion since anything said is "off the record".

Sunday, August 07, 2022

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

 

Regular readers will remember that I wrote about Hughesovka in 2007 (passim). Hughesovska became Stalino in 1924.  It took on its modern title, Donetsk, in 1961.

The city of Donetsk was founded in 1869 by Welsh businessman John Hughes, a Merthyr Tydfil boy.

The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR or DNR; Russian: Đ”ĐŸĐœĐ”Ń†Đșая ĐĐ°Ń€ĐŸĐŽĐœĐ°Ń РДспублОĐșĐ°, tr. Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublika, IPA: [dɐˈnÊČetskəjə nɐˈrodnəjə rÊČÉȘˈspublÊČÉȘkə]) is a breakaway puppet quasi-state proclaimed within the territory of Ukraine, which is militarily occupied by Russia and Russian-backed separatists. The DPR claims the entirety of Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast within the Donbas region as its territory. The capital city of the DPR is Donetsk, which is also the de jure capital of the oblast.
The world is a very strange place.

Saturday, August 06, 2022

Shavings from the bench of the master


I wanted to preserve this video so I thought I would see what I could do with achieving a sort of  TikTok vertical look and feel. Project working name: DikTuk

Now I'm here, I may as well have a go of uploading it to your actual TikTok.
@nickjbrowne

Balloon

♬ original sound Nick Browne597

Friday, August 05, 2022

Radar Love

About Flightradar24
Flightradar24 (https://www.flightradar24.com/53.1,-2.54/6) is a global flight tracking service that provides you with real-time information about thousands of aircraft around the world.
So far, so plane-spottery (shome mishtake shurely? aerovidology Sub-Ed). Anyway, according to the Grauniard, viewers set new records on it earlier this week, as they watched the seven-hour flight of Nancy Pelosi from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei.
Ian Petchenik, the head of communications for Flightradar24, said the site had seen “unprecedented sustained interest” over Pelosi’s flight, and at its peak, a record 708,000 people were simultaneously watching the little red icon representing the House speaker’s Boeing C-40C – callsign SPAR19 – as it looped around the Philippines to bypass Chinese bases in the South China Sea, then soared across the Luzon Strait, reportedly under the watchful cover of a trio of US aircraft carriers, and arced across Taiwan’s mountain ranges before touching down in Taipei.
708,000 people! I like the odd geek out as much as the next man, but I guess I just wasn't made for these times. If anyone launches www.nuclearmissile24.com, please don't tell me.

Myself: See how I did that "launches"? You can launch a website isn't it, but you could also launch a missile! Edgy, alternative, sticking it to the man ......
Prodnose (underwhelmed): You truly are the second coming of Lenny Bruce.

Thursday, August 04, 2022

Octogenarians

Mum is 85 today. I won't be able to get to Cardiff for the event, but most of the rest of the family will and have said they will include me over Skype if possible. It was September 6th, 2018 that she fell and fractured her hip (passim). Just a month shy of four years. Nothing has been the same since.

Might as well work out PG's age now I am on this page. Born 1939, he will be 83 on September 7th. Working on his upcoming play is doing him the power of good in my opinion. There is a lesson there about staying stimulated as you get on.

A lesson, the 80 year old John Cale (born 9 March 1942 Garnant, Carmarthenshire, Wales) doesn't need to be taught. Early this week he released the new track 'Night Crawling', accompanied by an official video. The song reminiscence about his friendship with David Bowie. “It’s been a helluva past two years and I’m glad to finally share a glimpse of what’s coming ahead,” Cale said in a statement. “There was this period around mid-late Seventies when David and I would run into each other in New York. There was plenty of talk about getting some work done but of course we’d end up running the streets, sometimes until we couldn’t keep a thought in our heads, let alone actually get a song together!" Cale plays synths, bass, piano and drums on the track assisted by Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks and vocalist Dustin Boyer.


Sparky enough that generation of South Walians now in their ninth decade eh? I suppose Mum's accident on September 6th and Peter's birthday on the 7th will be forever linked by my magpie brain now. Probably means I won't forget either date moving forward though.

Wednesday, August 03, 2022

Old Ruts Kenya

A quick pint in the Standard straight after work yesterday with the son and heir, followed by a pizza in Corleone. (No booze for Ben who was off to the gym eightish.)

I forgot to tell him that Maro Itoje had been out to visit Old Ruts Kenya. The jerseys are unmistakable; what a wonderful club the Ruts are. I was never happier than when I was watching him playing for them as a boy on Sunday mornings.

Tuesday, August 02, 2022

Four degrees of vindaloo

 

I am a day late to celebrating the Lionesses' triumph in the Euro 2022 final, but here is the winning goal scoring Chloe Kelly giving us her version of Vindaloo.
"Vindaloo" is a song by British band Fat Les. The music was co-written by Blur bassist Alex James and bassist Guy Pratt. The lyrics were written by comedian Keith Allen. It was released as a single in 1998 and recorded for the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The song was originally written as a parody of football chants, but was adopted as one in its own right and became a classic.
I have met Guy Pratt. He is Ollie's cousin. Mia, my niece, met Keith Allen when he was filming The Pembrokeshire Murders. Keith wrote Vindaloo with Guy. I love it when a plan comes together.

Monday, August 01, 2022

The Rise and Rise of Ella Paramor


We've missed the auditions over the weekend, but the saloon is opening on August 18th. Thirty three minutes on the tube to Camden Town from the 'Wood then a five minute walk to Coyote Ugly, The Stables Market, Chalk Farm Rd, London NW1 8AH. The Night Tube started up again on the Northern Line in July and I have a 60+ Oyster card. What could possibly go wrong? See Icons passim.

Prodnose: This is one of these secret message things I suppose, intelligible to a select coterie, possibly resonant for you when revisited in some tranquil future, yet opaque to the great unwashed, and breaching no confidentiality agreements?

Myself (settling into armchair and lighting pipe): Correct! You know my methods Watson, apply them.

P.S. I wonder how the Moscow and St Petersburg branches are getting on?