Amongst all the doom and gloom, what little things have perked up your day of late?
Mine came in threes yesterday:
1. After mentioning my new chazza holy grail item, i.e. the Geoff Love-arranged Mandingo LP, a Twitter chum sorting out his shed found he had two copies, and sent me his spare.
2. I bought an interesting looking German record in a charity shop for £2, and it turns out to be quite sought after. https://www.discogs.com/Siegfried-Matthus-Bernd-Wefelmeyer-Paul-Heinz-Dittrich-Galilei-Protest-Kammermusik-2/release/3634066
3. I got an email from WhoSampled.com informing me that I’ve won a copy of this new double LP, which from the clips sounds rather groovy indeed. https://www.mrbongo.com/products/mr-bongo-record-club-volume-two-vinyl-2-lp-cd-1
What about you?
Those links again:
2. https://www.discogs.com/Siegfried-Matthus-Bernd-Wefelmeyer-Paul-Heinz-Dittrich-Galilei-Protest-Kammermusik-2/release/3634066
3. https://www.mrbongo.com/products/mr-bongo-record-club-volume-two-vinyl-2-lp-cd-1
Alas, mini, doom and gloom is not so much in abundance here. Most Thais subscribe to the Spinal Tap ethos of having a good time, all the time. But I’m enjoying discovering ambient/electronica. Perhaps even more than other genres, it all tends to sound the same when you’re not familiar with it, so learning and appreciating individual voices is an ear-opening pleasure. All on headphones/earbuds, of course.
Happy to hear all of this. Will you be doing any reviews for us? And thanks for reminding me that one of my earbuds broke last night.
I don’t think an individual review would be quite enough – maybe a timely and provocative think-piece.
Goody!
Maybe not so little, but these have all been weights off our minds recently.
My other half’s father is not in good health, but she has finally managed to get him to agree to meet a lawyer so that his expressed wishes for what happens to his property when he finally passes on are formally recorded in a will. This has taken some time and his appointment, under a charitable pay-what-you-can-afford-to-a-charity scheme, is today.
Having booked the week off for my next birthday I can start looking forward to planning where to go. It’s not until March, but will give me something to look forward to in the cold dark days of winter. Mind you, I’m considering Prague because the Light has never been and that can be quite cold and dark itself in March.
I am eagerly awaiting the delivery of a painting by @pencilsqueezer – currently with his framer. It’s the last image on this page, Round and Round the Garden https://pencilsqueezerartwork.weebly.com/the-images-05.html
On a practical note, your father in law should consider granting his daughter power of attorney. It’s made dealing with mother in law’s affairs much easier since dementia took hold.
You’re right of course. I made sure that power of attorney was sorted out after the last time he was in hospital. My other half is taking on a lot of the day-to-day stuff, my contribution is to arrange the bigger practical things – power of attorney, lawyer’s appointments and so on – so that she doesn’t have the additional worry of researching those.
It would be so easy to not get around to these arrangements until it was too late because you’re so busy looking after the smaller practical things. Anyone with an elderly parent or partner heading into the years when they need extra care should look into them.
What a beautiful painting!
Isn’t it just? I generally admire Peter’s work, but when I saw this on his Facebook page it felt like a punch in the chest. I was thrilled when I found out it was for sale.
You are in for a treat. Every Pencilsqueezer is sooooo much better in the flesh.
Autumn. I love this time of year. Conkers, Fieldfare, Lapwing.
Starlings. For most of the year, there are a few pairs round here – Somerset, between Bridgwater and Glastonbury. A month ago, there were twenty-one on our neighbour’s roof. Four adults and seventeen rather brown youngsters.
Since then, the numbers have increased massively. Yesterday, in the field opposite, and on the power lines that bisect it, were probably 2000 – 3000 birds, feeding on the ground, swirling around, in a mini-murmuration. The majority of these seem to roost in the cow sheds and orchards in the village’s dairy farm, although groups fly in and out of the area, many no doubt heading for and joining the massive flocks out on the moors, between the Poldens and Mendips.
Yes, autumn, definitely.
Heavy coats, wool scarves, cosy jumpers, thick tights, boots. The smell of autumn evenings, and streetlights going on early; wet leaves. Heavier duvet.
It’s a comfy and snuggly season and I love it.
Count me in for the Autumn love. There are also certain records which sound brilliant at this time of year – on the way home with blurry streetlights and Xmas having into view. I’m thinking Automatic For The People, Boxer, Blonde…
Yeah, Automatic sounds great right now.
Gary’s vid reminds me that my favourite colours are dominant now. Orange, red, sludgy greens, browns. Lovely and they make me very happy indeed.
I’m sat in Central Park, watching the family on the ice skating rink. There’s no better time to be in Central Park than the Autumn.
We were around half a mile from the incident the other day, but the first we heard about it was when people from home started texting us. We then went to the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, which truly has to be seen to be believed, and everybody just got on with it, which is the best response. There was a big police presence and they blocked off all the roads leading to the parade, but they would probably have done that anyway. The kids had a whale of a time, trick or treating in all the shops, restaurants and bars of Greenwich Village, as every place was well into it.
But Autumn in New York City – fab! My only disappointment is the lack of record shops selling underground hip hop CDs. I was hoping to find one or two, but vinyl seems to be the thing and having got rid of my 2-3,000 vinyl records 20-25 years ago I’m not starting that up again.
Scarves, coats, boots, layers. Oh, yes.
Stews, casseroles, crumpets.
Isn’t it?
Crumpets for goalposts. Mmm.
We get lots of Starlings around here. Strange to think they are in trouble as a species. They gather on the roofs and take turns to feed on whatever it is the palm trees produce plus, if you’re ever in Brighton at dusk, there are impressive murmurations on and around the burnt out West Pier.
I don’t see any starlings in the garden these days, funnily enough ever since the fields behind us were turned from farmland into a nature reserve.
There are far fewer round our way than there were twenty years ago, outside of the murmuration-months. They nested by us, and it was common to have twenty-thirty in the garden at times. Now, they are a rare visitor. As are Greenfinches. The last Turtle Doves visited our garden in 1998. We seem to be bucking the trend for House Sparrows, though.
A great big male blackbird collided with our patio window the other day, at great speed. I watched him gasp his last then fall still.
More from #Gardenwatch as it happens.
Cheap CDs always cheer me up – and now the owner of an extensive collection of lesser known British classical composers thanks to some house clearance chap at the local car boot. It’s a beautiful collection – 200 albums in a box for 20 quid…so bought two – and in amongst the Benjamin Brittens and Vaughan Williams there was a slack handful of albums by Gerald Finzi – new name for me but wondrously expressive and pastoral stuff.
Next stop Herbert Howells.
And talking of starlings – bird feeder in the garden all spruced up and full of the best Home Bargains can offer – now full of the sleek beauties bullying each other and any other bird that dares to eat.
Gerald Finzi? The Dies Natalis is pretty cool…
Thanks @duco01 – excellent tip and in the crates as well – beautiful. Yesterday it was Herbert Howells ‘Hymnus Paradisi’ – another choral stunner and going to give Morten Lauridsen’s ‘Lux Aeterna’ and ‘Nocturnes’ a spin later.
And bulk buying you say – my name is Morrison and I am a hoarder – but this is the golden age of CD buying…hoping for a cassette-style renaissance and they become valuable again.
I like a chap who buys his music in bulk.
I’s a beautiful day where I am. I can hear about a dozen kinds of birdsong and the grass is green after the rains.
Walking Tilly always makes me happy.
We’ll be tramping around the woods this afternoon.
Her tongue needs a scrape, it’s gone green.
😀
No – she’s just been getting her five (tennis balls) a day.
Actually her current tennis ball is – appropriately enough – bald, which means it doesn’t get soggy from the damp grass/canine drool.
Smart.
As I’m currently (ahem) resting between engagements, I’ve been spending a lot more time with Lord Barchester (7). This morning I moved his chair in front of the TV (Winnie the Pooh – Cleese-voiced version, since you ask), poured some Rice Crispies and had made myself a cup of tea by the time he emerged, linking, into the sunlight. He surveyed the cosy scene of domesticity before him. “Oh Daddy” he grinned, ruefully “You know me so well…”
The spare hours afforded have also allowed me to spend no little time in our friendly local second hand shop, finally getting round to (re) buying some things, and investigating those others that I never got round to. This week, Maria Muldaur’s eponymous, Steve Young’s Seven Bridges Road, 24 Carat Purple ( the right and only compilation you need) and Wishbone Ash’s Just Testing. Nothing makes the ironing go with a flourish than good-nick vinly.
I was on Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker’s guest list for their support spot with Thompy in Norwich last week (what a divine sound they make) and also got a copy of their LP thrown in, which was nice. I’d also spent most of Saturday recording with some of my closest friends so, and have just put in my Les Paul for a bit of pre-gigging TLC, so all in all, I’m facing the oncoming collapse of global politics, climate and civilisation in a fairly phlegmatic fashion.
Is the shop Out Of Time (Ipswich not Norridge)?
Ipswich.
Also ’emerged blinking‘
Also known as “Out Of Town”.
Also known as “Naaaaaarch” 😉
Oddly enough, I also spent Saturday recording with some of my closest friends.
And two weeks before that, and in the same venue, I engineered a gig by a friend I consider to be a living genius.
And… pumpkin soup.
On Tuesday I went to see Jason Isbell – I eagerly anticipated and got Elephant which he hadn’t played too frequently on this tour however the encore We were Vampires genuinely bought a tear to my eye. What a beautiful song.
Oh and my son’s wonderful Austrian girlfriend has just got a job in the UK so looks like they will be living together. After a couple of failed relationships I am happy for him as he is a decent human being apart from being my son.
Mrbongo.com…. sorry but that address promises something that the site doesn’t deliver.
Mbongo
They drink it in the Congo
Mmbop
Record made by freakish long-haired children
I got 28 comments (all pretty positive) on my Nights In review.
My head is too big for the doorways, and I now think of myself a a writer of some renown
Quite right too.
On Tuesday morning, I hit a deer, traveling at 75mph. (I’m OK, both the car and the deer are now ex-).
Everyone involved was just great: the State Trooper, the Highway Safety Patrol guy, the two trucker (with whom I spent 90 miles) and everyone at the insurance company.
Super nice, super helpful. Made a potentially bad day so much better, and I am grateful for that.
Phew. Glad you’re alright.
Yes – glad you’re OK.
But, jeez 75mph. I never knew they could run at that speed.
Arf, arf.
(OK, I’ll fuck off now).
I had hoped to book the week beginning 20 November as leave, but several people are on courses then so I will have to move it to the week beginning 27 November instead. Not a big deal as I have nothing in particular planned, but the team Christmas meal has just been confirmed for 30 November, and now I won’t have to go. Result!
Why, instead of having Christmas lunch on November 30, do teams not just say, ‘You know what? Shall we just not bother?’
Bah, and indeed humbug.
I love Christmas. I just don’t particularly want to pretend to celebrate it with the people I happen to work with. They’re nice and everything but they’re not *friends*.
Which is why my answer whenever I get pestered about “have you paid for the Christmas party yet” is a cheery “nope!”
It’s the head of the team. Her husband is police, so her leave is dictated by what he can get as well as business needs. For the last couple of years this has meant extended breaks in December. I happen to like the large majority of my colleagues but I spend up to 40 hours a week with them already. I’m glad to have a good reason not to go as without being passive aggressive.
Sir! Gatz has called Bob passive aggressive!
Of course we don’t know what his colleagues-not-friends say and do on receipt of his cheery nope though………
Not my intention and well you know it, snitch. My reply is clearly nested under mikethep’s response, not D-Bob’s. And it sounds very much like Bob, like me, is assertive enough not to go along with non-compulsory work stuff that he just prefers not to do.
Well yeah. I’ll be going out for a few reasonably low-key drinks with my department cos I like them. The whole Well Messy Party shebang isn’t my scene so I don’t go. We’re all too big and ugly to be peer pressured into social events we don’t fancy, aren’t we?
Plus, Tigger’s mischief-making aside, the last thing I am is *passive* aggressive. 😉
Sorry, chaps. I was, of course, joshing.
I am slowly trawling my way through the ‘1001 Albums You Must Listen To..’ book and have found a few diamonds along the way. I have spent five years doing this – on and off – and I’m only in the late 60s, so I have no plans on dying soon.
Lately, the biggest find has been Laura Nyro.
Nice prize! Anyone who thought the bloke from the Word invented the 50 quid man never shopped at the original Mr Bongo in the basement underneath the reggae specialists Daddy Kool. on Berwick St in Soho. You took an LP sleeve up to the counter and the guy behind the counter fetched the record and inner sleeve, and instead of bagging it and taking your money, he would put it on! Then while you were listening he would be asking “what sort of stuff are you into?”, “have you heard this?” or saying “you have got to hear this”. It was really difficult to leave without parting with loads of money.
I took to going down there on Saturday afternoons when there were always loads of DJs who wanted to hear lots of new records so it was easier to get away with just buying the one you came in for.
And yesterday I got a copy of The Sannic Sound Of Tommy McCook in the Rough Trade sale for £6.50. I was well pleased with that.
My son told me a story tonight. It was about how his little sister was kidnapped by a bear but saved by an octopus limbed ghost. It was a good story.
I have just watched a Nile Rogers gig on the iPlayer. The link is here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09ckn1w/radio-2-in-concert-chic-featuring-nile-rodgers
Donald Trump is in trouble thanks to Robert Mueller
Milo Yannopolis has been dropped by his sponsor
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/bob-mercer-defunds-milo-yiannopoulos-sells-stake-in-breitbart?mbid=social_twitter
I’m going to be a grandad again and it terrifies me.
I seem to spend more time going to funerals of dear friends than beer festivals.
I have just bought a new car after 13 years with the last one. I feel like the pilot of the Starship Enterprise. No idea what most of the buttons are for but I can listen to Planet Rock on the radio.
Great to see you, Beany, old bean.
What car have you got? Plenty of boot space for your chazza hauls? How many grand children now?
Ford Focus estate to replace my Ford Mondeo estate. The 3 dogs go in the back now and not on the back seat. Will always find the room for charity shop stuff and auction fodder.
My grandson will be 3 in April and is a star. He is a miracle baby (long story of medical negligence) hence feeling of terror.
I miss the mingles of yore.
Great stuff. I have two grandchildren now, both boys, the eldest two in a couple of weeks.
I ordered a Ford Fiesta months ago. Still not built yet & I’m fuming.
I’m more worried about your floorboards straining under the weight of all that vinyl.
Hope the birth goes well. Fingers crossed.
I am piling up boxes downstairs. Worry not. I shall start to sell them soon. I was saving them for the nation but the nation said “nah”.
Hearty congrats, Beany!
My daughter said yesterday I could now reveal she is pregnant, as long as I don’t put it on social media. (I asked about antisocial media hence…..)
‘Antisocial media’! Love it.
And congrats.
Oh fab. There is new emoji for that.
🤮
👍🏻
Congratulations – that’s lovely news.
Happy impending grandadhood, Doc!
Congratulations, Retro and Beany 🙂
Seconded! Warmest congratulations to you both.
Warm glow thanks.
Cheers. I’m hibernating in a box under the stairs until May. Wake me up after the birth.
Apparently, people are looking at my LinkedIn profile!
*orders Porsche*
I haven’t read the whole thread, but my Little Thing today was going up to the shops to try and find something for dinner (I am not a cook/chef/any of those things) and finding a “hot smoked salmon” at a bargain price ($5).
A light went off.
We had potatoes, and lettuce from the garden. I could make a kind of smoked salmon/capers/lemon juice salad, and a potato salad with spring onions/parsley/mint, and a lettuce/tomato/cucumber salad with stuff in the fridge.
(It’s springtime here in Australia)
It was wonderful. My wife was happy.
We watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm – the latest series.
Loved it.
Little Thing, but Great Night
Yesterday I got home early and spent a decent amount of the late afternoon rolling around on the floor with my daughters, literally weak with laughing. This time a year ago, I would’ve been at work for at least another 3 or 4 hours rather than doing that.
Then I dropped the little one off at Brownies, went to pick Katy up, drove to Reading and played a gig in a very gemütlich little venue to a lovely supportive crowd. It was so fun. Even my couple of mistakes were fun (if nothing else, as I observed at the time, they at least prove that all these bloody machines aren’t playing themselves).
I’ve got the weekend to myself.
Life is good.
Yesterday I introduced a 21-year-old truck driver from Aberdeen to the Minister of State for Skills And Apprenticeships. You’d think they’d have absolutely nothing in common. But they did – they were both eating tuna sandwiches the time. It’s the little things…
Yesterday I saw this link on the BBC website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/41848100
Its a rare interview with Philippa York, who in a previous life was Robert Millar, the brilliant Scottish Tour de France rider. I know I am not alone in his being one of my first cycling heroes – when I first started watching the Tour when Channel 4 started broadcasting it, his gutsy riding in the mountain stages was thrilling viewing. After he retired he disappeared from view, and then rumours started to emerge about his having transitioned into a woman. Philippa finally went public this year. The second video in this article (someway down) shows Philippa meeting Chris Hoy, and also Millar’s childhood mentor, coach and father figure Billy Bisland who he had never previously met as Philippa. His warmth, affection and acceptance of her brought a tear to Philippa’s eye, and indeed to mine, and is a lovely counterpoint to the grotesque scumbaggery we are seeing so much of at the moment.
Thanks for the link, @Blue-Boy – Millar was my first cycling hero from the Channel 4 coverage as well.
The video was indeed heartwarming, as was the respect and affection with which Pippa was greeted when she appeared as a guest pundit for ITV 4 on a couple of stages of this year’s Vuelta A España. Particularly so since one of my oldest friends -we met as teenagers in Jan ’76 – is trans, and I have some idea of the anguish caused by lack of acceptance, and even hostility and bullying, she’s received from some quarters.
That was indeed lovely to watch.
Cambridge’s first trans mayor’s trans partner (are you still following?) was a big fan of one of the bands I did the sound for. The drummer and bassist were both gay men, too. There would often be a large contingent of LGBT in the audience and they’d often get grief, given some of the horrid places we’d play gigs. And this was back in the… oh, hang on… the early 21st century. In Cambridge, one of the most liberal-minded places in the country. More than once I had to say to bothersome drunks “you haven’t paid to come in, so if you don’t like it then eff off”.
The OP brings up an interesting point. Why does someone keep their records in the shed? Apart from the obvious risk of damage from various horticultural tools, there’s the general dust and dirt, not to mention changes in temperature and humidity.
I didn’t ask, but assumed it was some sort of overspill for stuff they hadn’t listened to in years, or perhaps a collection inherited from parents or summink. Maybe it’s a posh shed, like the one Dylan recorded Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong in. But anyway, they unearthed Mandingo – yowza!
In the last two days I have found out I definitively don’t have skin cancer, which is more than a little weight off my mind.
This morning I bought a perfect nick second-hand ridiculous designer table on eBay for £50.99 – a new one costs around £1,500. Mrs P the architect is so pleased there may be hand-holding in the near future.
I’ve got my eye on a bargain Robin Day sofa which may get me to Michael Fallon hands-on-knees levels of intimacy.
Talking of which, the Glaswegian evil sister-in-law is in London this weekend, but happily she’s been at the Royal Academy with Mrs P and they’ve gone for dinner in town. Which means means me, the dog, and the cat are listening to a live acoustic Lloyd Cole album in front of a roaring fire. And I’ve Korean spicy chicken wings for dinner when the lager runs out.
And you birders should head to Stoke Newington, we’ve got dozens of starlings in the garden every day noisily fighting over food.
On the downside, in less than two months our 18-year-old daughter heads off to Australia for seven months. It’s a safe bet we’ll be getting another dog.
Good news re your (lack of) skin cancer. My best man used to live in Finsbury Park and we would walk to Stoke Newington for a couple of beers in the Magpie and Stump, then on to the nearest curry house. This was in the mid 90s, before it got trendy. Happy days!
When we arrived in N16 in about 1996 it was still the Magpie and Stump, it’s had a few wildlife-related renaming a since and is currently The Red Lion. They do a decent pizza for a boozer.
Hurrah for all of that, especially the first sentence. Oh, and not so much for the last bit, although I’m sure she’ll have an amazing time.
The kids have a much bigger sense of the world than I ever had growing up in Southend.
The boy spent the third year of his degree in the Arctic Circle and the girl is working her way around Oz and SE Asia before going to university.
All of which is what I hoped for them, but it’s still bloody terrifying. I signed her up for a self-defence class today – she rolled her eyes, gave me a kiss and said “whatever helps you sleep at night old man”.
Oh yes, and she and her brother call the Afterword ‘OFFB’ – Old Fuckers Facebook.
“Musings on the byways of popular culture” vs. “Old Fuckers Facebook”.
The youth of today…
You grew up in Southend? So did I, though if you’ve got an 18-year-old rather earlier than you I should think.
Your daughter won’t want to associate with OFs, but if she fetches up in Brisvegas and needs a hand with anything happy to help if I can.
Such a kind offer and I’ll let her know.
Born in 1965, and hated it all the years I can remember. I’m half Indian and half German – if you can think of a mix more designed to rile the locals you can have the pick of my record collection.
My unbeatable story is that when a woman looked in my pram expecting to coo over my mother’s two-month-old baby, the horror of being confronted with a mixed-race baby caused her to spit in my incredibly cherubic face.
Lots of good music memories of course – all the local punk bands at Focus; Siouxsie, SLF, Echo and the Funny Men, The Jam, Big Country, and Ronnie Scott at the very beautiful Cliffs Pavilion; Wilko Johnson at loads of venues; same with Billy Bragg; my first Smiths gig at Essex University; Psychic TV and Erasure’s first gig at Basildon Peace Festival; a cup tea with James in their camper van at next year’s rained off peace festival; and some great shows at Crocs/Pink Toothbrush – still a fuck-me-did-that-really-happen moment of Bo bloody Diddley in Rayleigh, Depeche Mode, The Dammed twice I think, and A Certain Ratio.
Apart from that, Southend can go fuck itself.
Yikes, what a charmer that woman must have been…but as a bog-standard Anglo, growing up in Sarfend in the 50s and 60s was pretty good. Lots going on, and always the seedy allure of the Golden Mile if you could keep out of the way of the Teds. And loads of music of course.
Bo Diddley certainly got about. I was bragging to Mrs thep about seeing him with the Everly Brothers, assuming that as so often she wouldn’t have heard of him, and she said, ‘Oh yes, I saw him at my teacher training college dance in Armadale,’ – which is a smallish town in rural NSW.
The All Clear and the prospect of future Hand on Knee action! All in all a pretty good day.