The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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A surprising thing I learnt this weekend

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I visited my son this weekend and due to age and stupidity I couldn’t remember if I’d locked the car.The mirrors looked as if they folded in but I wanted to check. I pressed the key fob to no avail as I was too far away. My son said to put the key fob to my head and press the button. As we enjoy trying to make each other look stupid I decided I’d not fall for it. “No it’s genuine and it works” said son.

I tried it and lo and behold it worked. I checked it out later and there is some scientific reason it works, something to do with salts and electricity in the brain.

I just wanted to share this with you all.

Any other things you thought was total rowlocks and turned out to be true?

Sarah McQuaid

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Venue:

Arts Centre, Helmsley

Date: 01/05/2026

Having seen Sarah was playing nearby I drove up Sutton Bank to Helmsley on Friday night. A steep climb brings you to the North Yorkshire moors and the view on the drive up gives you a panoramic view of the Vale of York. Alas as I was driving I had to concentrate on the very steep drive up. I’d visited the Arts Centre before some twenty(ish) years previously so I’d a rough idea where it was which was more than the people I asked who didn’t have a clue. Luckily I found it more by chance and the small sign I spotted on a ginnel wall.

Although Sarah had played there three times before the venue had moved the concert from the auditorium to the bar to accommodate the small but perfectly formed audience. Very civilised with tables to put one’s drinks on. Tea for me as tackling Sutton Bank on the way down needs a clear head. A perfect spot right at the front about two metres away from the ‘stage’ *floor.

Bang on 7:30 introduced by her sound man as “The kaleidoscopic Sarah McQuaid ” he’s been working through the alphabet » Continue Reading.

School reunions?

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It is 60 years ago this year that I started secondary school due to the ability of social media it’s much easier to be found.

I’ve been invited to a school reunion at the end of next month so it’ll be people I’ve not seen for 50 years, one who will be there I’ve met a few times in the last few years. I’m very easy going but tbh I found him a PITA. I’d told another friend from then that I see quite often sometime back when this reunion was first mooted that I wouldn’t be going (he is away when it is on now so won’t be there).

I’m still in two minds to go or not to go. I’ve bought a train ticket and if I don’t go to the reunion I can always visit a friend’s record shop and go for a meal.

Have any of you gone to a reunion? Was it great or excruciating? (my wife went to one where there was a mass attempt to sing the school song) any recommendations on how to make an excuse to leave?

These should be of interest to some

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Thousands of rare American recordings — some 100 years old — go online for all to enjoy

Just had this recommended, I’ve not been able to have a proper listen as I don’t have access to be able to listen properly as the house is still in somewhat of a state. But it looks fascinating who wouldn’t want to have access to this trove.

https://laist.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/thousands-of-rare-american-recordings-go-online-for-all-to-enjoy

How do you know when you’re getting old?

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Quite a lot of us here have aches and twinges. I’ve had people offer to tie my shoelaces so I didn’t have to bend.

The clincher though came this week I received an invitation to a 60th birthday party lovely I hear you say (I’ve put my hearing aids in) what’s wrong with that? It’s from someone I used to babysit (childsit properly).

Is there something that tells you times wingéd chariot is on its way?

Finding someone you know staring back at you unexpectedly through the Internet

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A strange thing happened this week I logged on to book swimming at my local pool and staring out at me on the page was a photograph of an ex girlfriend holding a yoga mat. I messaged her to say it was an unexpected surprise, we’re still on good terms it was some 40 years ago. Then I remembered in 2018 at Heathrow Airport there was a large poster for Portrait of Britain and who should be on it but her. She’s since put both photos up on her Facebook page.

In 2021 on the Leonard Cohen Facebook page there was a link to an article on thebritishacademy.ac. uk website from 2016 following the death of LC. The photograph accompanying the article was the opening of LC’s artwork in Manchester and to my surprise there I am. See photo. I know I’ve put a photo from the 1974 Windsor Free Festival which I came across while browsing on the Internet looking for information about it, and finding myself on it.

One year after the death of Jo Cox the Great Get Together was started on the Green in Heckmondwike I seem to recall a photograph appeared on the Afterword » Continue Reading.

Keeping fit and active in the twilight of our Autumn.

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I think a lot of us on here are no longer in the first flush of youth and certainly a few of us have medical conditions that hamper the ability to keep fit and active.

I joined a gym twenty years ago and kept myself active (the younger me would have been very surprised at me doing this) but old age and medical condition has slowed down my take up. I stopped using the gym about a year ago as I felt I was putting too much strain on myself. I can’t do as much as I used to do but I continued to swim and exercise in the pool and recently I’ve started to use the gym in a limited way (one of the trainers I know said that at least I’m doing something. I ‘cycled’ four kilometres today, ‘walked’ a kilometre and a half and did some weights, then swam ten lengths and some pool exercises.

Is there anything you do or recommend to keep active.

Here’s a song that came up on shuffle just before I went in the pool.

Keith Cross

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Obituary

A friend has let me know via a roundabout route that Keith Cross who recorded this album with Peter Ross has died. There were stories that he’d moved to the USA to compose and teach music. He was said to have developed MS but very little is known about him. I’ve tried to search for any information but to no avail.

My BIL is Peter Ross and after the recording of this album they both went their separate ways and he knows nothing of Keith’s life afterwards. Does anyone here have any information?

I know some of our number rate this record highly.

Something that came up and surprised and amused me today

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Searching on the tube of you for a piece of polyglot performance. This was one of the videos below. Intriguing I thought, watched and listened. How and why did they think of this? What kind of mind thinks up these things? To be honest I don’t care but I’m glad someone is doing such things.

So as not to break The Afterword I’ll put the video in the comments below.

Titfers

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There is mention on the changing a vintage coat hook post references to hats. As some of you are aware I have a liking for the fez/ tarboush but to be honest I don’t often wear it. I do have my travel fez which is foldable and ideal for packing. However last year I was gifted a rather nice regency top hat but again feel it must only be worn on special occasions it’s certainly not everyday wear.

But are hats everyday wear now? Last year I saw someone wearing a bowler hat which was most unusual unlike back in the sixties when working in ‘the city’ necessitated wearing a bowler with an accessory of a furled umbrella..

Do you wear a hat ,a cap or even a head scarf? Does it hide that incipient hair loss or just to keep the pate warm?

Here’s my good self atop the HoP wearing my travel fez, possibly a first.

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Places I remember.

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I’m not sure how much traction this has but I’ve been reading the Dave Davies biography. As some of you know I have a link to Muswell Hill and when he mentions places there I can picture them. The John Baird pub (now called the Village Green ,wonder where they got the idea for the name from) The Clissold Arms, Les Aldrich music shop (don’t look for it, it closed after 78 years) and others. The girlfriend he got pregnant went to Henrietta Barnet school for girls, one of my first girlfriends went there despite me living in Yorkshire. His girlfriend lived on Dukes Avenue which is where my wife lived.

What I’m wondering is when reading a book if you don’t know a place do you picture a place you know? When you imagine say the Les Aldrich shop could be it be in your mind the guitar shop you bought your first guitar or albums from?

Reading the Norfolk thread I don’t know a lot of the places but I know what a pier looks like it may not be the correct pier for Cromer but I can make a guess as to what it looks like. I » Continue Reading.

Richard Thompson has had a fall.

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I’ve just read that Richard Thompson has had a ‘fall’ and broken three ribs. I was due to see him early next month so that’s not going to happen. Hoping for a speedy recovery.

But my post isn’t just about that as I was thinking only the other day at what age do you sustain a ‘fall’ instead of falling over? As a child you fall over, now we elderly have a fall.

I’ve had a few recently as my foot decides it doesn’t want to lift fully and down I go, luckily no harm done. I had to have a wristband with ‘Falls Risk’ on it when I was x-rayed.

Just a smidge in my fridge

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I was intrigued by @fentonsteve and his fridge fotografy so I thought I’d take one of ours. I intend to do some shopping today; will this aide memoire help?

We shall see.

There are theories that certain items chocolate etc shouldn’t be kept in the fridge, but rules are made to be broken.

Are there things lurking at the back of the fridge that have been there months? I once found a tub of beetroots lurking with so much mould on them they looked like alien planets from an early episode of Doctor Who.

I just thought I’d share this today before heading out.

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Help I’ve been mistaken today for Rod Stewart.

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Today while swimming in the local pool I was told by one of the regular ladies that swim there that “I looked more like Rod Stewart every day”.

I took this slight in good humour only shaking my fist at her and by doing so nearly sinking in the water. Two of the Afterworders have seen me recently and I’m sure they can vouch for my non rodstewartalikey looks. It appears my hair had been raised when I entered the pool as as it got damper it flattened, and I was then accused that I was trying my best to not look like Rod.

I’ve been mistaken for a few people in my time but I never expected being compared to Rod, though we did have someone years ago in the local Town who sported a Rod haircut years ago.

Is there a witty rejoinder I can offer the next time I see her, and not the most obvious Rod based answer.

Have you ever done something else to get out of something else?

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In a couple of weeks I’m heading up to Newcastle, I don’t really need to go but I was invited to an old primary/ junior school chums meet up and rather than say I didn’t want to go I said I had to go to Newcastle that day.

I bought myself a train ticket to Newcastle so that I wouldn’t be telling an untruth that I couldn’t make it.

I’m not a one for sitting in pubs at the best of times and I don’t want to reminisce about the ‘good old days’. We met up earlier this year and I don’t feel I need to do it again.

I know I could have just said I couldn’t go but it’s a day out and I do get to see Fenwick’s Christmas window which I’ve been told is excellent this year.

Is there a better way to get out of things you don’t want to do?

Another 25er list. Television programmes

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This took quite a while, certainly not as easy to make as records or films ones. Television seemed more ephemeral, watched one you’d never see it again. Now of course it’s ready available to rewatch even some of those programmes you’d missed years ago and thought you’d never see.

Honourable mention to Hiram Holliday the first programme I recall seeing, Hiram fighting a suit of armour with an umbrella.

Have I stirred any recollections?

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Another post about AI

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We’ve had lots of discussions recently about AI and what it means for the future.

Last night in Manchester I saw Laurie Anderson’s ARK, this isn’t a review as it was the first night tryout and some things went wrong, and it would take an age to explain it all.

During part of the show she contacted a professor at the University of Toronto and was able to speak directly into his supercomputer. The words spoken appeared as a surtitle and her words were directly interpreted as images. Faces on people didn’t quite work but it is early days. However referencing trump’s words particularly people massing on borders and eating and cooking pets the images shown reinforced the words, still needed some work on the images, but as I recall the still images at the start of AI images were quite shoddy but have advanced somewhat now. She showed an image of her ‘grandfather’ with his donkeycart which combined a cart and donkey.

I just thought the above system used by a ‘politician’ could reinforce his message in front of his adoring crowd, (a picture paints a thousand words) who may not be able to separate the images » Continue Reading.

Eno

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Venue:

Picture house Crouch End

Date: 15/07/2024

I thought about reviewing this film before I went as the film is different every time, in fact there are 52 quintillion variations of the film. So how do you review a film that no one else will see? You get what the program Brain One* decides there and then.

There were plenty of laughs on the screen (and from the audience) from a ‘serious’ person who doesn’t take himself.seriously. He spoke of the email for the commissioning of the Windows ident and how this long paragraph was full of adjectives for how it should sound,, and to finish it said it needed to be three and a half seconds long. I think to read the paragraph took .longer than that. Because the word ‘Enoesque’ was taken to be a dirty word for ambient music he turned down the opportunity to work with Joni Mitchell who had phoned Eno up requesting they made an ambient album together something he regrets. Lots of thoughts on the producing/creative process, oblique strategies, nature and a glimpse of our own Mark Ellen.

* Anag.

The audience:

A varied age group minus the two women who » Continue Reading.

Wilf Lunn

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Obituary

I have just found out that Wilf Lunn died last year in December. Inventor artist on BBC’s Vision On. I’ve checked on the BBC’s page and obituary is there none, well I can’t find one. I was lucky enough to meet him a few years ago when he had an exhibition and talk at a local print workshop. I bought one of his prints and his autobiography My Best Cellar.