The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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How many people do you think there are…

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..in this country, who are STUPID enough to vote for Farrago?

Have you seen the treacherous swine today, waving his little “contract” and spouting nonsense while the telly feed him the oxygen of publicity in tankfulls? Why aren’t we seeing the election addresses of the various Monster Raving Loony candidates around the country as well; they make a lot more sense than he does.

Shall we run a book on this? What do you reckon? A million? More? Less? There surely cannot be enough people dim enough to believe a word he says?

Perhaps we could pursuade the Chinese to find room for them in one of their “re-education” facilities? Perhaps we should open our own such facilities? Maybe we just need to explain gently to them that they are, sadly, being royally shafted by Mr. Frog-Face? Or maybe just cut the crap and inform them that they are witless sheep?

Of course, we could try to change their minds in more subtle and enlightened ways with patient logic, informed reasoning and the promise of new net curtains.

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes – available on BBC iplayer at the moment

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If you have a single jazz gene in your DNA, grab this now while you can. I don’t recall seeing this programme mentioned here before – so this is a heads-up to anyone who’s gleefully picked up Rudy Van Gelder remasters at a fiver a pop in Fopp over the years, or who has a few old Blue Note originals on their shelves. Or both, for that matter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b8pd

The KINKs – another brief mention of Arthur

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Not sure if anyone else has pointed this out, but the radio play of Arthur was broadcast yesterday afternoon on Radio 4 and is now avialable to stream via the “sounds” pages on the beeb website, for about another month at the time of writing. Which means you can also grab it and keep it longer for consumption at your leisure using certain software options, should you be of a dodgy nature, which no-one here is, obviously, m’lud.

I thought it was a cracking production, and I’d recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in the Kinks, just as a rather fabulous piece of radio storytelling if nothing else. The musical accompaniment is of course absolutely top hole, and a Kinks fan will greatly enjoy the show.

Hopefully the link will appear somewhere here – I’ve cut’n’pasted it into that snazzy little “Add a link” box.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009z2w

Justifiable homicide? Diminished responsibility? Halloween can GO TO HELL

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I swear, if another poorly supervised artificial-colouring and chemical-additive enhanced little horror in day-glo face paint rings our door-bell this evening, sending my poor dogs into a frothing frenzy of fear, offering me a choice between a trick or a treat in the name of some crass American commercialisation of All Hallow’s Eve, I’ll garrote the little fucker and swing for it.

Am I alone in HATING this fucking nonsense?

Generation Zero?

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No, that’s not a tangential insult aimed at the bearded brigade or the rucksack-toting tattooed wonder children, but a computer game.

It’s set in Sweden in the 1980s, and has you trying to unravel the mystery of why the country’s huge arsenal of autonomous defence robots has gone postal. Me neither, I had no idea that Sweden was a) riddled with huge underground defence bunkers – probably true in hindsight, what with the history with the pesky neighbours and all – and b) awash with massive autonomous killer robots almost 40 years ago. But there you go.

So the premise is simple; when you get back from your hols on a remote island, everyone has either buggered off or been slaughtered by the civil defence ironwork, which is now roaming the (vast) countryside shooting at things that breathe and move. You can play solo, as I have been for a few weeks now, or in co-op with others, which is likely where the biggest fun is to be had.

So my question is this – do any other Massivistas indulge in this hoot of a game on their PC?

Here’s something for you all to hear and enjoy

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There’s an album out there I’d like to tell you of, one of those that’s slipped under the radar – well at least under my radar – which has a very special magic all of it’s own and a bright charm that won’t fail to delight anyone with ears to hear great things.

I came across it as a result or having gone to see June Tabor sing last week in her guise as the voice of Quercus. I wondered about other collaborations she’d done, and found this album: Singing The Storm by Tabor/Thompson/Stevenson.

While listening to my newly received copy this evening, I note with surprise its general unavailability, yet astonished that there are currently other copies available from the dodgers at fairly silly prices – and I don’t mean silly high prices, I mean for a modest amount of quids.

This album is a glorious delight and richly repays close listening – the playing is phenomenal. My advice is to grab a copy while there are some to be had – I’m bewitched by it.

View post on imgur.com

Investment opportunity

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I’m repurposing my potting shed. It’s going to be a Customs post for the border with Ireland. The great thing is it’s a couple of hundred miles from both the Republic and Norn, so it won’t affect the Good Friday agreement. Trouble is I’ll need to make a substantial infrastructure investment to install the weighbridge where the veg plot currently sits.

Anyone fancy coming in on the investment?

Oh, and we’ll need some stables for the Unicorns.

“Why should I?” The clarion call of the snowflake parent.

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It’s 3 o’clock on a Friday afternoon. I’ve just finished a particularly gnarly piece of work and I’m looking to call it a week and lay back into some music and beer. The primary school opposite Foxy Towers is kicking out in a few minutes and the yummy’s have started to appear in their oversized SUVs, parking badly in the narrow lane outside, just up from the school entrance, so that Jasmine and Teejay don’t have more than 30 metres to walk.

The one parked right outside my office window has a truck the size of Wiltshire, still has the engine running, and is concentrating hard on her mobile, probably trying to find TOWIE on Neflux or something equally engrossing. She’s breaking two traffic laws simultaneously, and pissing me off into the bargain. I go downstairs and put the kettle on for a wind-down cuppa, look out the the back and yes, she’s still there pumping fumes and tapping away. So I stroll out and walk around to the driver’s window. “Hello, would you mind turning your engine off while you wait, please?” I ask, polite and everything.

The response, with a snarl: “Why?”.

She’s straight in » Continue Reading.

Salute to Freddie Jones, who has passed away. Trooper par excellence. RIP

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Another one bites the dust – Freddie Jones, who absolutely EVERYBODY must recognise as one of the greatest character actors of our time, has slipped away. I can’t begin to count the number of times his amiable fizzog has brightened up my entertainment. Post your own tribute below.

Here’s my fave, where he’s bloody creepy:

https://youtu.be/KO2itnKNd5k

Condolences to Toby and the family. Your dad was a top fellow.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48940202

Pattern recognition – we humans are good at it. Have a go yourself!

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Hello fellow human, can you spot the pattern in the list below?

David Amess (Conservative – Southend West) Steve Baker (Conservative – Wycombe) Henry Bellingham (Conservative – North West Norfolk) Paul Beresford (Conservative – Mole Valley) Bob Blackman (Conservative – Harrow East) Peter Bone (Conservative – Wellingborough) Suella Braverman (Conservative – Fareham) (Proxy vote cast by Steve Baker) Andrew Bridgen (Conservative – North West Leicestershire) James Brokenshire (Conservative – Old Bexley and Sidcup) Fiona Bruce (Conservative – Congleton) Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party – East Londonderry) James Cartlidge (Conservative – South Suffolk) William Cash (Conservative – Stone) Rehman Chishti (Conservative – Gillingham and Rainham) Christopher Chope (Conservative – Christchurch) Simon Clarke (Conservative – Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) Therese Coffey (Conservative – Suffolk Coastal) Philip Davies (Conservative – Shipley) David Davis (Conservative – Haltemprice and Howden) Nigel Dodds (Democratic Unionist Party – Belfast North) Steve Double (Conservative – St Austell and Newquay) Richard Drax (Conservative – South Dorset) David Duguid (Conservative – Banff and Buchan) George Eustice (Conservative – Camborne and Redruth) Kevin Foster (Conservative – Torbay) Roger Gale (Conservative – North Thanet) Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party – South Antrim) Robert Goodwill (Conservative – Scarborough and Whitby) James Gray » Continue Reading.

Be proud of your political representatives, they deserve your respect.

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Hysterical (I use the word advisedly), gesticular and on the verge of insanity, Auntie Tom Cobley works herself into a stroketastic frenzy addressing the assembled unfortunates of the EU earlier today. What a laughing stock we now are amongst the grown-ups.

Meanwhile toad-faced Farrago grins inanely in the next seat while mentally calculating what he’ll spunk the £30k a month on that he trousers – on top of his MEP salary – just from being someone who appeals to wankers, because there are so many of them.

Who’ll give me decent odds she blows a big one before too long, rolls over boggle-eyed and foaming, pops them and croaks, and then we get the BBC tribute, the hilarious Strictly moments and all the rest of the nauseous amelioratingly apologetic treatments we’ve come to expect from the media when someone downright bonkers and dangerous does the decent thing and shuffles off?

The world has gone mad when these people are PAID – BY US! – to behave as they do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48869520

Bu99er the Tories, I’m watching Top Gear on iPlayer tonight instead

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F*ck ’em. They can debate all they like; they’re all pissing into the wind – their party has done the damage and now I want to see it go down in flames forever.

Rory needs to jump ship, sharpish, unless he wants to go down in the same sucking vortex of lethal mediocrity; I wish all of the rest of them the worst years of their lives in the coming debacle, but I’ll cut him a little more slack if his voting record improves on other issues.

I’m having another beer and watching the recent Top Gear episode on catch up instead. Is anyone else here as heartily fed up with this entitled bunch of smug tossers as I am? What do you suggest watching instead? Even paint drying would probably be more educational.

See you next Tuesday, Boris Johnson, for the next vote.

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So the tory party are playing to form, voting as expected and hardening their arteries and attitudes as we gambol gaily towards a catastrophic exit.

With 85% of them in the ABC1 group, and two-thirds at or close to retirement age, 120-odd thousand I’m-allright-Jacks at the tail-end of having-a-clue-about-anything-at-all are wagging the rest of us, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Democracy, innit?

ABC WTF Oz?

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Can we have some unbiased local angles on whatever the heck is going on in Oz as regards the state versus public service broadcasting?

From the coverage I’ve seen thus far, I can’t say I can easily reconcile recent police activities with the laid back ocker attitude to life I’ve come to associate with my antipodean chums.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-48522729

Tickets for Bath Festival Finale – Sunday all afternoon and evening – Van the Man headlining

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Simple question: anyone here want two tickets to the above? It’s this Sunday, June 2nd, and the gates open at 1:00 pm, with the event ending around 11:30 pm. Weather forecast is looking good.

I bought two adult tickets aaaaages back, but due to circumstances etc. we can’t go.

Tickets cost me £50 a pop; if you can use them, PM me and just make an offer; I can hand ’em over anytime until Sunday lunchtime, or courier them to you if that’s easier.

Gretchen has a string quartet…

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..and they make a wonderful sound. By the time you read this, Gretchen and her performers have played their Bristol and London gigs for the current tour, which is advertised as having “strings attached”.

We were there on Friday night, at a hushed St. Georges – obviously rammed with long term fans – where we heard a blinding set of songs; it was yet another treat of an evening.

Her band played a blinder, not swamping the songs but supporting them, and the strings really worked their extra magic. Gretchen announced early on that they were recording the show, so I can only hope that we will be treated with another live album as a result of the ‘strings attached’ experiment, and that one or two of the tracks will have come from Friday’s performance. Certainly, when she started ‘On a Bus to St. Cloud’ the place went silent and you could have heard a very small pin drop for the duration of the song, such was the calm of the moment, as 500 plus people allowed themselves to just go with the flow and the feeling of a very special and human piece of observational songwriting. Earlier on » Continue Reading.