The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Racism and rugby – the Paul Irons story

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In this world of unmitigated crap at the moment, it’s important, I think, to be reminded that some “normal” people have a story that is worth telling, and, dare I say it, a little inspiring. It’s not music related at all, but hey… I present this Sky Sports feature, telling the story, in his own words of Paul Irons, who was the games teacher at my school, as featured in the video, while I attended from 1979 to 1984. During that time, whilst his reputation was fierce, he proved himself to be everything that a teacher should be, helping countless children to make the most of what they have, to look for the positives in all they see and above all, be good people. His father was a West Indian immigrant, who overcame his own problems to become the first black magistrate/JP in the UK, and be an amazing man in his own right, being awarded an OBE. Paul received an MBE in December 2018, for services to education (he is now Chair of Governors at Fernwood, having taught there from the early 70s, I think) and the reaction to the announcement on social media from literally dozens if not » Continue Reading.

ATM # a lot. How do I make my Zeppelin wireless compatible?

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Help a poor near technophobe out, folks?

I have a B&W Zeppelin speaker, lovely looking and sounding thing it is, but it’s fairly old, and the main dock is an old style 30 pin Apple thing, the kind that fits an ipod Classic. I’ve managed to get an attachment that means I can connect my iphone 11 to it physically, and I know I can also play things through it via an Aux cable, but is there a way I can make this speaker wireless/bluetooth compatible? Has anyone done the same thing and can thus recommend a gizmo?

I did have a brief look at this a while back and it seems that B&W speakers aren’t as universally converted as most others. So I ran away. But now I’m enthused again.

All help very gratefully accepted.

ATM about Apple products and their weird ways #whatever.

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Oh Massive, I know this is a trivial and very definitely first world problem, but it’s driving me nuts. I have an iphone for work, on which I keep some music, via itunes, and the iphone and PC it runs off are synced most days. With, to be fair, very little in the way of problems up to now. I have recently got a new iphone 11 (upgrade from an 8) and what’s happened to my music library on the phone is somewhat perplexing. The album covers for my various albums seem to have been randomly allocated , mostly to the wrong albums, but with some kind of pattern occasionally, and some are still correct. For example, Office Politics by the Divine Comedy shows the Foreverland cover. I Need a New War by Craig Finn, and We All Want the Same Things for that matter, show the Clear Heart Full Eyes cover. Clear Heart Full Eyes itself has the cover of Underwater Sunshine by the Counting Crows. Commontime by Field Music still has the right cover on the phone, but Open Here shows the Eliza Carthy Big Machine artwork. The Big Machine album shows the correct artwork. All the artwork » Continue Reading.

Top of the Pops re-runs lately…

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The saga continues on BBC4, we’re now in mid-1988, where following a run of shows in which T’Pau performed the singles you never knew that they had, the very un ToTP Magnum appeared (Start Talking Love, to be exact, or Sweet Talking Love, as it was introduced as) live, Hazell Dean made her comeback with Who’s Leaving Who?, and Danny Wilson and Fairground Attraction gave us 2 nailed on 80s classics, the latest episode surely had the greatest disparity between sheer brilliance and total dross that there has ever been in ToTP history. It was the (mercifully brief) era of the “parody song”, so while on the one hand, the Adventures made their ToTP debut live in the studio performing the utterly magnificent Broken Land (oft quoted as the most played song on Radio 1 in 1988), they were sandwiched in between Harry Enfield’s “Loadsamoney” (which was bad enough) and the truly awful Start Turn on 45 (Pints)’ “Pump up the Bitter” (“Howay, turn, give us some of your housey housey music, bonny lad…”).

How did this happen? Does anyone on here actually own that Pump up the Bitter single? I hope not…

C L A S S I C

B L U E C O L L L A R J A N E

Songs that mention cetaceans…

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I’ve just returned from Baja California, Mexico, on what I would probably say is the world’s best whale watching trip, all 12 days of it. We were taking on the boat one night, and music came up… So, oh Massive, what songs do we know that mention our whale and dolphin friends (specific species or just generally) in the lyrics and/or title? If I may start with Yorkshire scamps Terrorvision, and one of their finest. https://youtu.be/An59zXVEFFE

ATM # lost count – Oslo, New Year break

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Ladies and gents I’ll be in central Oslo over New Year for 3 days, with the FPO and our (female) mate. Any things I/we should definitely see or do? Are there any public NY celebrations in squares or parks? Is alcohol as ruinously expensive as I’m led to believe? Do I need cash or are Norwegians as card mad as Swedes? Any other general tips? (Apart from “Wrap up warm/Get your vest on” etc…) Can you get Jools’ Hootenanny on TV? (OK, don’t worry about that one…)

Any thoughts gratefully accepted.

The Hooters, Hamburg, 5 July 2017

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Venue:

Markthalle, Hamburg

Date: 05/07/2017

OK Afterworders, we all know that the first band on at Live Aid was ‘ver Quo, yes? Bonus points if anyone knows who was first on at Philadelphia? Yes, it was the Hooters, a band so ignored in the UK and long forgotten that they’re a bit like Iceland. 99% of people have never been, and 99% of the people who have, have only been to Reykjavik. As a test, see if you can name any other City in Iceland? As a further test, even if you’ve heard of them, how many of you own a Hooters album? The defence rests, your Honour. Philadelphia’s finest, The Hooters are in fact, still going, especially popular in Germany, and, here’s the thing, I utterly absolutely and fantastically love them. Ostensibly, they’re the band who harbour the uber hit song writers Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman (One of US, Time after Time, Private Emotion, Old Before I Die, Gimme a Stone and a fair few others) and they play a kind of music that is somewhere between roots, rock, folk, reggae and ska, with mighty tunes, the kind of choruses you can’t stop humming and a joy » Continue Reading.

Hi-fi house clearance

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A friend of mine’s brother has just died in sad circumstances. On looking at his house, it appears that is is, to quote my mate (who isn’t overly technically musical) “Full of old hi-fi type things. And I mean, full. There’s dozens of things in there, I don’t even know what some of them do.” From the brief description I have, it looks like there are a fair few fairly serious hi-fi separates. Clearly, this is a house clearance job for a specialist, to ensure that my mate gets fair value for the said bits of kit, but neither he nor I know where to start, who to trust etc.

Do any of you splendid chaps and chap-esses know of such a reputable person or firm that we could have a word with regarding all this?

(Location is Notts, BTW)

Craig Finn – live in a suburban Nottingham living room

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Venue:

Graham’s living room

Date: 20/04/2017

My first experience of a “living room” gig, fortunately one of my favourite front men, on his own, with a great new album to plug, only about ¾ of a mile down the road, near where we used to live. Enough to call a halt this week on my usual Thursday evening “world to rights” session with Smudger of this parish. Craig was tuning up when I arrived, but the natives appeared friendly so I repaired onto the back yard/lawn, where a succession of very friendly, interesting and likeable people (from reasonably far and wide (and West Bridgford)) came, mingled and went. Showtime, and everyone siphoned in through the French doors, to exhortations to “come closer”, so, cushion in hand, I did. Immediate stage left, leaning on (while sat down) some kind of flight case, a sofa and a CD rack. I got comfy about 3 songs in… Craig called us to order and began a guitar only (as he was all night) “God In Chicago”, during which you could’ve heard mice farting next door. Wonderful in all respects. Preludes, Jester and June, Tangletown and Be Honest followed from the new album, with » Continue Reading.

Ooops. Any worse examples than this?

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At work today, one of my early emails was from our esteemed national trade association, who send a daily email which is basically a digest of the day’s mainstream news stories covering our industry.

There’s a bit of a preamble every day, which among other things normally covers celebrity birthdays.

I quote from today’s email…

“Finally, happy birthday to Tippi Hedren, Dolly Parton, Michael Crawford CBE, Janis Joplin, Richard Lester, and Katey Sagal. “

I wonder if the author even knew who Janis Joplin was, or if he did, wondered why she’d been a bit quiet lately…

I’m sure the Massive will have other stories to tell.

Today’s the 4th of July….

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A few years back, I went to see Aimee on the 4th July, at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Fabulously, she opened with this, a beautiful ballad featuring some excellent grammar in the chorus, and the lyric “and when they light up our town I just think what a waste of gunpowder and sky”.

Any other date specific songs/lyrics?