This thought process started with the kind of observation that could easily sustain a whole column in a Sunday supplement (Lifestyle section) by a humourist, sharing with us their sideways look at life. To help with this, their picture has them in profile but eyes towards us, a knowing smirk playing on the lips.

Mrs BC said to me yesterday that when I talk about teenage high jinks/escapades I still, mostly, find them funny. She told me about how, as a high schooler, she had a careers session with a train driver and how her and a friend decided to fully engage in the exercise, really ratcheting up enthusiasm and asking him dozens of excited questions about trains as if he was a pop star. She cringes with embarrassment at this, whereas I find it hilarious. I wondered if this is a gender difference? That is to say, men find this stuff funny forever and women grow up and regret their actions – but I’m sure that’s not true. This is bad news for the content-hungry, sideways-looking columnist I referred to some moments ago.

In the days of jumpers for goalposts and Spangles ferrus tea, there was at least » Continue Reading.

Depending on the timing I may contribute a live commentary as we work through the songs. I have seen a brief run through and Iceland have the best song I think. It was brought to our attention by our own KFD about a year ago.

However – they won’t actually perform because one of them is covered in covids and the band won’t appear unless it’s all of them. This may count against them on the night.

Look out for entertaining stuff from Germany, Norway and Lithuania. UK’s entry will be a low scorer again. Brexit Britain won’t deliver us another Scooch anytime soon, I’m afraid.

But my pick is Ukraine’s SHUM with a right toe-tapper called GO-A. It won’t win but I like it.

I haven’t heard these before.

I thought this might interest some people here.

This is a chat between a Gary Numan fan, Steve Roper, and the OMD warbler-in-chief.

He always comes across as a relentlessly cheerful man, happy with his lot and very much addicted to the live music scene. They had socially-distant largely online live shows planned a few months ago expressly organised to raise money for the crew – what put the kibosh on it was Andy himself coming down with COVID 19.

From my point of view it was nice to hear his warmth towards Gary Numan, who was responsible for getting OMD out there on 1979 when he got them to support him on a massive tour, when Numan was a very big name

Like Numan, recent OMD albums have been very satisfying. Risks are taken, new sounds emerge and a genuine feeling that they are not here to be an 80s revival band. At the same time, his talk of an Architecture and Morality show to mark the 40th anniversary is hopefully a forthcoming treat. I saw Numan do that with Pleasure Principle and the show was one of the very best I have seen. The first half being » Continue Reading.

My children have had more online stuff than ever to learn thanks to all those COVIDs running around all over the place. This means a lot of audible books, a lot of educational things on YouTube they have to watch.

Do you know what they do? They play them at 1.5 x or 2 x normal speed. Gets it over with.

If you watch this clip of Richard Hammond introducing Pinky & Perky…you can hear all the words to the Beatles song “All My Loving” but it’s not as good, obviously. BUT! …if you didn’t care…and you had to listen to the song for homework you could rattle through it in this way if you have to.

It might be a way of listening to a recommended LP that you know you’re going to hate but you are being pressurised. Change the setting to 2 x on YouTube and let it flash past and then you can truthfully say you listened to it.

Listen to this song from 1996. It’s by Fool’s Garden – a german pop act.

It starts off like Wrapped Around Your Finger by The Police but then it goes into a plinky plunky earworm of a tune.

Why do I mention it? It was played at the weekend when we were out and my 12 year old daughter’s face lit up and she sang along joyfully. Why so? Turns out that it is used in the game Among Us.

So I am hoping the band gets some unexpected windfall from this. It is a nice song.

I will start by saying I don’t understand most of the following (or the link) but it feels important.

Basically it seems like a highly mobilised Reddit group has invested heavily in a distressed company (Gane Stop) and by doing this has somehow made hundreds of millions at the expense of professional hedge fund managers by playing their cynical game against them. Hooray!

I think this might be a bubble-pricking moment for Wall Street because it seems madder than mad that stocks have been so buoyant and healthy while every other aspect of life is so shite at the moment. Is this unproductive capitalism eating itself; hoist by its own petard? I do hope so.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/01/26/gamestops-massive-surge-creates-a-new-billionaire-as-wall-street-bets-against-reddit-traders/?sh=386260f35ae2

The deflated space hopper is apparently going to pardon a long list of ratbags and wastrels on his last day. Top of the list – himself!

Now let’s imagine everything going wavy and a glissando harp noise going on. Who would you be pardoning, if it was you? It can be for actual crimes or for more light-hearted ones, like *chuckle* Chesney Hawkes for “I am the One and Only!” (no, throw away the key). Should Captain Sensible be Damned forever for “Happy Talk!” ? (I think he’s suffered enough)

Personally, I’d like to pardon the boy band, Bros. Even though I steered well clear of their records and don’t really want to listen to any of their music, like, ever – I have seen the documentary twice now and I think I could easily watch it again and again. I almost think they were in on it, but I think this is actually them in real life. Nevertheless, I now like them as people and feel bad for openly disliking them when they, when they were famous.

» Continue Reading.

The deflated space hopper is apparently going to pardon a long list of ratbags and » Continue Reading.

I used to quite enjoy this TV programme because it sometimes exposed perceptions of we British that aren’t always obvious to us.

In my experience, a consistent observation from continental Europeans is that we have difficulty in acknowledging the loss of Empire and politically at least still behave like we still rule half the world. It’s a fair comment. No matter what the stats reveal over our relative tininess, I do consider the UK as a heavy-hitting major global player and I’m not sure if I can ever change that.

This perception is amplified by living in NZ, where British culture is still dominant, even though the actual direct influence has long gone. It’s a sobering thought to consider that less than 200 years ago, this small group of islands in the Pacific had absolutely no exposure to our northern hemisphere ways. And now we have all this – because we cane along and took it over by force.

In day to day life, Maori and Pacific Islanders as a rule tend to be respectful and courteous about the British but it’s fair to say that it does stop short of actual affection. The longer I stay in » Continue Reading.

Oh dear. Some whiny American dunderheads have taken a Depeche Mode song and used it to produce a video that really is…something.

“Mask People are Sheeple” is the non-scanning, bewildering title of this steaming pile of turd.

The makers are definitely fans of the band – scenes in the video reference other Depeche songs. But why? It’s as puzzling as Jeremy Corbyn appearing on stage with Jim Davidson, singing “we’re a couple of swells”. Leave Depeche Mode out of this, you arseholes!

https://youtu.be/vNg-Opf0_UE

Hello there. As I sit in my shed, reflecting on a long and happy pop life, I remember with some fondness the songs of the past. I’m talking thirty or forty year ago now.

The youngsters of today are awash with pop music of course and some songs I hear while sharpening my adze here in the shed are very good. Up there with the best of the acts that we used to go and see at the Hammersmith Odeon or the Guildford Civic on a wet Tuesday night for a fiver – with enough left over a snakebite and black and 10 B&H or JPS. Great times.

All proper songs with verses, a middle eight and a chorus.

What I think these pop kids of 2020 need are more of the songs that appear from nowhere and make you think “what the jiggins was that?”. The kind of song that would make Bruno Brookes say “it’s barmy…but it’s in at number 4!”.

Old Pete from the allotments was reminiscing about Beat Dis and French Kiss. I of course countered with In Yer Face and Pump up the Volume. Before long we were taking about all kinds » Continue Reading.

The thread about 7” singles made me think about the occasional delight of securing an EP or a 7” single track that runs at 33.

This is one. There Goes Concorde Again by And the Native Hipsters, of course. It is very long for a single and sounds better at 45rpm. To this day I still think it’s at the wrong speed.

O Superman might have been a similar deal. Also, the superb VFM from Toyah who released a couple of 4 track EPs.

The accepted wisdom was that the songs had to spin at 45 for jukeboxes and also Radio 1 DJs couldn’t risk being confused by different speeds. They used to actually physically play the records – imagine!

I know there’s a bit of a stink going on about A Level results. They used an algorithm to allocate likely grades rather than those actually achieved.

Someone who generally strikes me as a calm and measured person is apoplectic over a facet of this algorithm that seemingly bumps up the results from “public” schools (e.g. private schools like Eton or Harrow) and downgrades results from State Schools ( e.g. Grange Hill and Fenn Street).

Is this true?

I know you’re thinking – obviously J R Hartley – but I’m here to tell you the man was not all that he seemed. He had already bought all available copies of the book from local shops and this daily ritual was a tiresome display of sad narcissism. His devoted daughter, Myrtle, was condemned (by him) to life as a Spinster following the sudden death her mother (Mrs Hartley) back in the 1950s.

She was woken up by noises in her parents” bedroom and when she went to investigate, her father stood at the door, blocking her view. His ashen, bloodstained face contorted into a diabolical gargoyle-like smile. “What have you done, Myrtle? What have you DONE!?”.

She ran back to her room and hid under the blankets. Sheer terror released endorphins that had the effect of a general anaesthetic. When she came to, her father was downstairs having cheerfully prepared breakfast. Her mother was nowhere to be seen and she was never mentioned again.

So basically, we can cross JR Hartley off the list.

My nominations would be :

Sir Michael Palin Whispering “Bob!” Harris Jeff Stelling Juergen Klopp Dwayne “the rock!” Johnson

Let’s hear it for » Continue Reading.

Mine is David Baddiel. Ready? :

“What, Daavid Baddiel?”

More? OK. Hold on to your hats:

“Yes hello I’m David Mitchell”.

Not sure how well this works in print but believe me they are very good and my family gazes at me with affectionate wonder every single time I do them. One trick is to say the name of the person you are mimicking. This leaves the audience in no doubt over who it is and allows them to relax into laughter.

A posit about Eddie Izzard’s Wunderbar show made me repeat in my mind “tnere’s a word in German that I think says it all” – which is of course (?) from Tenpole Tudor’s song Wunderbar. If you’re not familiar with it, don’t worry, I’ve posted it here. Just get to the chorus and you get the idea.

The story behind this? The ‘tudes had a medieval shtick going on and enjoyed a hit single with Swords of a Thousand Men. Follow that! said the record company – “…and we want it to be really similar to the other one! That way, we’ll make lots more money!”

I will think of more runts from the same litter as time goes by – but you are of course welcome to dive in.

I have always imagined the word to be “round” . But what does that mean?