Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 29 Comments
My whole family went to “Help” at the cinema in Wellington New Zealand in 1965.
11 year old me, sitting there next to my Dad, and here’s Macca pretending to play guitar but it’s actually a girl in a white bikini.
Oh dear. SOOO embarrassed. So aroused. “Lucky Paul McCartney” I can remember thinking.
There were other moments of course, mainly in James Bond films, but this was the first.
Of course I can’t link to the actual clip from the film but this link (with no audio) has a few glimpses.
Mrs H is keen to buy one of the above for long walks (music / podcasts). Online reviews are head-scrambling -hundreds of 5-star reviews plus hundreds of 1-stars for the same items. Anyone got any recommendations?
by 46 Comments
Reading an article on the ABC news site I came across the following sentence: “They came out as non-binary in 2019 and has spoken publicly about their experiences to help improve public awareness of what it means to be genderqueer.”
I am fully supportive of people who identify as non-binary and I’m proud of the wave of gender acceptance that has swept through most Western countries, but the use of ‘they’ as a personal pronoun in these circumstances is doing my head in. It clangs dissonantly in my head like the sax solo in My Lovely Horse.
I also listen to a podcast where the host has a non-binary child, and again every mention of ‘they’ causes a stutter in my psyche as I have to mentally backtrack and deconstruct what has just been said.
What was the justification and history for using this? The problem is that ‘they’ is already an awkward word in English, carrying both singular and plural meanings; it already has grammatical baggage. Shoehorning another usage in is too much. Also, when used in the genderqueer context I find that ‘they’ carries the slight whiff of pretention, sort of like the royal ‘we’.
by 19 Comments
Please, Sir. I don’t like to snitch, but Twang’s made us go all italic, Sir.
by 32 Comments
I’ve booked for Richard Thompson on the 8th of August. Thought the date rang a bell, its my wedding anniversary. Days been bad enough but this just adds? What to do?
by 3 Comments
I will get around to new music eventually. I’m making a list of music I have not listened to. Some I already own, loads more are available on my Amazon Prime music account. Blackstar and the Beano Album are on the list. Just be patent with me, it’s a very long list. I’ve discovered 2 new songs (to me) already this morning when looking for something else to post. I have tried to listen to as much of what clips have been posted on here without skipping past. There is just too much for me to keep up.
The title to this post is inspired by this newly discovered remix of the classic Orville song. 2016 could be an interesting year. Come along for the ride.
by 30 Comments
I’ll try make that a bit clearer. I bought the DVD of Help! in a charity shop yesterday and watched it that afternoon with The Light. She was astonished. She had no idea that there was such a thing as a 60s caper movie featuring The Beatles. She’s not a huge pop fan, but fully aware of the Fabs and their place in pop history but had honestly never heard of the film.
Have you ever been amazed to discover some piece of music history which everyone else thought was common knowledge, or enlightened someone else? Perhaps youve only just found out that there was a music festival in 1969 which was known as Woodstock, or had to explain to a mate that Morrissey and the singer of The Smiths are the same person?
http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/rr107/Gatz_photos/image_5.jpeg
by 27 Comments
I’m enjoying the FFS album far more than I ever expected, which has forced me to look at Sparks. Notwithstanding a couple of well played 70’s singles there are twenty odd albums to plough through! Where do I start, are there two or three ‘must haves’ or am I better off getting one of the compilations? Advice please good people.
