So, it looks as if maybe, possibly, we might just have found signs of life on another planet, and it’s not even April 1st. If so, it’s trillions of miles away and any life is probably swimming around in a huge ocean. What message should we send them in greeting? What song or musical act best describes how we would want them to think of us?

Apparently Putin is already making plans to invade.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39jj9vkr34o

Has anyone noticed the similarity between Queen of Nashville Emmylou Harris and mistress of leather The Repair Shop’s Suzie Fletcher?

Time to share your unexpected pop star looky-likeys, the more bizarre and off the wall the better.

Never heard of Peter Bruntnell? For shame! Well, he has a new album out on 4th October called Houdini and the Sucker Punch, which is his 15th. He’s Britain’s most unsung, underrated, under the radar potential superstar who specialises in sensitive singer-songwriter fare of the highest calibre. Houdini is chock full of Beatlesque, Byrdsy ringing guitars in mostly upbeat songs with a strong element of minor key melancholy. Unlike many who’ve been around for a while, Peter Bruntnell’s albums just get better and better, and this one is a real cracker. It’s available on pre-order from his website or from Bandcamp. Treat yourself.

Okay, so this isn’t cutting edge popular culture, but bear with.

Badgers, protected species, deceptively cuddly but vicious and massively destructive black and white bastards. Anyone out there plagued with the feckers? And if so, have you had any luck getting rid of them from your garden, humanely and legally of course? They must have a sett nearby, but their visits to trash my garden occur almost every night. I’ve tried the recommended steps – citronella oil, bright lights, urine (don’t ask), but the buggers are just laughing at me and even smile for the security camera. I’ve even thought of playing Nickelback at them, but that may veer into inhumane territory. Any ideas?

Another list thread? Well yes, as it happens. As we approach the summer solstice and the warm and balmy mid point of the year you are invited to share your top 5 albums of the twelvemonth so far. I’ll start by proposing the following in an order that experts are calling alphabetical.

Avett Brothers – Avett Brothers T Bone Burnett – The Other Side The Decemberists – As it Ever Was, So it Will Be Again Mark Knopfler – One Deep River Phosphorescent – Revelator

Do you have a D-Day story to tell? Were any of your close relatives involved in the preparation for D-Day or in the landings themselves?

By chance, Mrs B and I were in Cornwall today visiting Trebah gardens. Men from the 29th US Infantry Division had camped in their thousands close to Trebah in 1944. Concrete jetties were built from the gardens across the beach in order to load tanks and men onto amphibious craft for the assault on Omaha beach. The place is beautiful and peaceful today, and a simple stone memorial has been placed close to the beach which was today covered in poppy wreaths. It’s a simple gesture but one which never fails to move. Many people were standing there today in silent contemplation, no doubt in gratitude for the sacrifice that others made for the liberation of Europe.

My Mum and Dad both served during the war (army and RAF), but fortunately did not see any action. Many of you will have had relatives who were not so lucky. Hats off to all of them.

Here’s the thing. I like coffee; I mean I really like coffee, but after drinking it for half a lifetime the perfect cup of home brewed coffee still eludes me. I have a basic DeLonghi espresso machine which does pretty much what it says on the tin, although it extends to making cappuccino. I prefer a shot of espresso, but despite trying many different beans and ground coffees over the years never seem to achieve that rich, smooth intense coffee flavour I’m looking for.

So what does the expert mind of the Afterword think? I know we’ve dabbled in the coffee debate before, but I’m just after your thoughts on achieving the perfect cup – achieved either through the best beans or a really decent bit of coffee making kit.

Many years ago when I was considering a career as a professional photographer I spent many happy hours taking pictures in an area of woodland a few miles from where I was living at the time. Good pictures they were too, even if I do say so myself. The woods, fields and farmland were part of a large medieval estate, significant areas of which appeared to have been left undisturbed for decades. Remote and hidden, the woodland was last used to conceal troops prior to the D-Day embarkations. It was a magical peaceful place, full of birdsong, wildlife and leafy dappled sunlight. Then in the 1980s the farmland fell into disuse and the whole area became part of a plan to build a new town. A public enquiry took place but despite massive objection the outcome was a foregone conclusion and in 1986 work began on building a shopping centre and business park. Woodland tracks that had once been silent in the middle of nowhere were suddenly fringed by a major road and a huge car park, but the northern part of the area remained largely intact. Wild daffodils, bluebells and wild garlic carpeted part of the woods in a » Continue Reading.

Joe Ely’s is not a name that gets a lot of Afterword coverage. He’s been around since the 1970s, shifting between a solo career and working with Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore in The Flatlanders, as well as touring with The Clash and singing on ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’. Received wisdom has it that his finest albums are the early ones – Honky Tonk Masquerade and Musta Notta Gotta Lotta among them. For my money he’s at his best on the trilogy of 90s albums, the Tex-Mex flavoured Letter to Laredo, Twistin’ in the Wind which blends Tex-Mex with rock’n’roll, and best of the lot the blistering Love and Danger, first of the three from 1992. It was released around the same time as Lucinda Williams’ Sweet Old World, and both CDs dropped on the mat on the same September day, courtesy of mail order from CDX (anyone remember them?) it’s one of those albums I have played regularly ever since, and I never grow tired of it. It’s ‘bursting with a crazed and dangerous sexual energy’ according to the Chicago Tribune, and who can argue with an accolade that inviting? It certainly rocks, with track » Continue Reading.

So come on, be honest, when was the last time you played air guitar to one of your favourite songs? In the privacy of your own home, with or without the benefit of a mirror? Well, I’m 62 soon, but after a particularly trying phone conversation I thought to myself sod the neighbours, cranked the volume up and played my imaginary Fender to this fabulously groovesome and sleazy slice of southern rock. Okay, so I felt a bit light-headed half way through, needed to sit down at the end and ended up with indigestion, but hey – I was doing it for the art, and it felt really good.

Own up – you’re amongst friends – when was your last time, and what was your song of choice?

Well, no one else has raised this so I’m going to, as it seems as much a part of popular culture as anything else we blather about on here. I’m not particularly a fan of Phillip Schofield or the kind of television he fronted, but I feel quite strongly that there are important issues here about where we are as a society in the third decade of the 21st century that shouldn’t be ignored.

At worst Schofield is guilty of grooming a young man for sexual purposes and participating in a cover-up about his actions; at best he has committed a series of grave errors of judgment that have ultimately cost him his career. Either way, those actions have impacted on many other people, not least the young man at the centre of the storm of publicity and moral outrage in the press and online. I make no judgment as I don’t know the facts. The truth may lie somewhere in between, or Schofield may be telling the truth. In the fullness of time no doubt we shall know, but as things stand he has committed no crime.

What has been particularly shocking in all of this however is the » Continue Reading.

43 years ago my friend Steve went on a cycling tour of Normandy. He left home shortly afterwards to read English at university, but newly armed with a sensibility for all things French he wrote to me to say that since arriving he had met lots of girls and had started reading Marcel Proust’s mammoth novel A la recherche du temps perdu. Whether the two things were connected he didn’t say, but though Steve and I lost touch half a lifetime ago, I always promised myself that one day I would follow in his footsteps. Having acquired a pristine secondhand 3-volume Penguin edition of the great work translated as Remembrance of Things Past, last week I finally took the plunge without any real expectation of making an impression on its 3000+ pages. 150 pages in and I am surprised at how much I am enjoying it. Yes, there’s no traditional plot or narrative to speak of, but as a reflection on the nature of memory and (so far) on childhood, there is something mesmeric and addictive in Proust’s magnificent prose that is compelling me to continue. It is, to state the bleedin’ obvious, exceptionally French.

So what cultural behemoths have » Continue Reading.

Not that long ago Uncut magazine’s obituaries column, Not Fade Away, was tucked away at the back of the magazine and had maybe half a dozen entries each month. Now it’s generally a double-page spread, and even The Afterword has its own obituaries section. It’s a sad fact that our heroes who once seemed destined to live forever are now falling victim to mortality in ever increasing numbers. All of which maudlin thoughts had me musing over which popster’s passing has affected me the most.

The one that was the most shocking was, perhaps predictably, the shooting of John Lennon. I can recall exactly where I was when I heard the news – on a train to Exeter University for an admission interview, since you asked, and Lennon’s death was on the front page of the Daily Mail. It seemed unthinkable that such a thing could have happened, and is still sometimes hard to comprehend 42 years later, even though our senses have been dulled to such outrages by their greater frequency.

But the death that affected me most in recent years was Tom Petty’s. I’ve loved his music pretty much since the start; it’s been the soundtrack to » Continue Reading.

Mick Fleetwood apparently takes his coffee just as seriously as he does his music. Quite an assertion from a man whose band haven’t brewed anything fresh (SWIDT) for the best part of 20 years. Nevertheless, Sir Mick of Fleetwood now has a coffee company, self-effacingly titled the Mick Fleetwood Coffee Company (or MFCC for short). It’s not the most obvious merchandise to move into – unlike, say, Madonna’s Truth or Dare perfume, or Neil Young’s ill-fated Pono music service, but it’s part of a long history of musicians branching out into creating and selling things other than music. So do share with us your stories of old rockers branching out into business ventures, whether they be successful, disastrous or simply best forgotten. The more amusing the better.

I’m off to nibble on Alex James’s cheese*

*Leave it, Moose.

https://mickfleetwoodcoffee.com/

Today I listened to Brothers in Arms. There, I’ve said it. I had to program out tracks 2 and 3* but otherwise I listened to the whole thing. And you know what? It was much better than I remembered it. Shorn of the gloss of contemporaneity (was it ever contemporary?) and with fading memories of Mark Knopfler’s headband, my truncated version of this 80s behemoth was quite an enjoyable listen. I’ve always liked Knopfler’s more low key solo albums but BIA fits into that transition quite well if you listen without prejudice.

I know we’ve trodden similar paths before, but what have you listened to recently expecting aural embarrassment only to be pleasanty surprised?

*The execrable Money for Nothing with its appalling vocal intro by Sting should have been enough to have him banned from making further records by Amnesty International. Walk of Life remains, as ever, completely unlistenable.

A niche question, granted, but I am tearing my hair out here…. I need a builder to advise me / carry out maintenance work on my house brickwork, which is in the process of crumbling quite badly. I’ve used Checkatrade to identify local trades and have contacted around a dozen builders. Of those, 5 have never got back to me after promising to do so, 3 just never answer the phone, 1 made an arrangement to look at my property and never turned up, 1 has asked me for photos so he can quote remotely (dodgy?) 1 promised me quotes for weeks on end but had an excuse every time I chased him, and 1 wasn’t interested as he had too much work on……

Does the hive mind of the AW have any suggestions? I know it’s a busy time of year in the building industry and the Covid backlog is still being felt, but what is the best way to find a reliable, honest and impartial builder?

Twangsome Canadian band The Sadies have a new album out in July from which this is the opening track. It’s five years since their last offering, but while the new album is most welcome, it’s also tinged with sadness as lead singer / guitarist Dallas Good passed away from heart failure in February at the ridiculously young age of 48. If you are a fan of the band you will know what to expect. Spooky and lonesome, like a punked up version of Lord Huron.