If you’ve recently bought an internet, you may have noticed the youngsters having “memes”, which is their idea of fun! So I thought, why can’t Us Olds (as the scamps affectionately call us!) join in the fun with our own “memes” LOL?!

Why not indeed! Except that first you have to have an idea, which seems to rule it out, but the idea doesn’t have to be yours! You can copy somebody else’s idea and just change it slightly or not at all! So don’t be put off if you’ve never had an idea in your life! And except that second, most “memes” seem to have a picture in them, and for those of us (and this is probably you) without any pictures this seems to be a fun-making deal breaker! BUT! Some memes don’t have pictures at all, or use somebody else’s picture!

I hope the attachment to this email will “inspire” you to show the youngsters we’re hip as a hip replacement!

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Any new release featuring harmonies and guitars going for the jangular is inevitably going to get reviewers namechecking sixties acts, the most obvious first, chased by whatever other groups the reviewer has heard of. But harmony is timeless, the craft of pop songwriting as wide open as it ever was, and to pigeonhole this fine album is in some ways to diminish its considerable achievements. It has melodies like an orange has juice, more variety than a Kelloggs six pack, and arrangements that delight and surprise – there’s no opportunity for improvement they’ve missed. Nothing here that hasn’t been done before – but that’s not the brief they were working to. Make pop music superb, make it fun, make it just as clever and sophisticated as it needs be without getting pretentious, in twelve songs.

I’ve followed the Twigs from the start of their career (the brothers in their teens), but this is the first time they’ve delivered the total goods on their promise. Their last, much lauded critically, was too mired in downbeat misery, and thankfully they’ve left that right behind them. A bunch of timeless pop songs to make you feel good.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/may/02/lemon-twigs-michael-brian-daddario-interview

I’ve been out on the deck, trying not to die of heatstroke, and this wonderful record has looped out of the house on repeat and made everything copacetic. It’s A Period Of Transition, an album that constantly gets relegated to the “meh” stack but hit the mood perfectly. Its easy, loping funk grooves, “in the pocket” ensemble playing, and a gorgeous Norlins production from Dr. John (also ivories), makes for the perfect lazy afternoon shade listen. And there’s a small handful of top tier tuneage: Flamingos Fly, Cold Wind In August, and [YOUR CHOICE HERE].

Not helped by dismal “this will have to do” cover art and title, and coming three years after the masterpiece Veedon Fleece, it was something of a disappointment, although it sold respectably. Listened to today, it sounds just perfect, and I love it.

You will not have my attention. I will be strutting my stuff, or what’s left of it, to this perfect song. Yes, the video shows a couple of herberts, one toothy with a mum hairdo, the other bald, strangely distracted, acting as props to a man of the type they don’t make any more, in a pair of alarming trousers, as they wander around a Barratt starter home estate. Nobody knows why.

The Brothers Gibb wrote this monster song, and sang it in one take around one mic. A copy of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack should be in every home. We will not hear its like again.

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-bee-gees-stayin-alive

My first Swiss Army knife was made entirely of low grade plastic – the blades were dull grey and bendy. but the red handle looked nifty. I was about nine, in the paper shop, staring into a glass-fronted cabinet of pocket money toys, and it was a few years before I could afford the real thing. A Victorinox – most peoples’ gateway drug to the Swiss Amy knife. A fantastic piece of kit. As with many bloke things, the bigger, the better, so I upgraded whenever I could. Then I discovered Wenger, the “other” Swiss Army knife, and I was a convert. Here’s a nice picture of the one I have, except that mine also features a magnifying glass and a Mysterious Hook, and a very clever spanner device, so this isn’t mine at all, but gives you a fair idea of its majesty:

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Do you have a pocket knife? Is it as good as mine?

According to Zoom Earth (an internet), I live in the hottest country on earth at 1p.m. today. The “feels like” temperature – the one that matters – hit 46c. It’s even hotter in Bangkok, which must, coupled with the shitty air quality, be near intolerable.

Can’t afford to frost the house with A.C. all day, so we’re sitting in front of an air cooler – a big fan in a box that sucks air in through water-soaked baffles (a pump keeps them wet) and blows coolth out. Also – I put my swim shorts in the freezer, but that’s pretty short-term relief (though strangely invigorating). And I’m reading Alastair MacLean’s Ice Station Zebra and drinking lots of iced water.

It’s too damn hot – but I love it. I love the can’t do a damn thing thing. That’s my thing, and to have it confirmed by the weather is pretty damn wonderful.

I have to run so far to find a clear spot in the hot! Sun’s all hottin’ and a rotten’ hot Swamp’s all rotten ‘n stinkin’ uhh Vegetation’s » Continue Reading.

With due deference to fitterstoke, whose idea this is – what’s the magazine, the band, and the album?

“ … an amazing group. Each of them highly competent and talented musicians, yet music is only secondary to what they are doing. They are violently anti-commercial in their stance and approach, and yet the finished product is highly commercial … they have not attempted to make any big changes in direction but have refined and enriched their previous efforts …”

I don’t see youse bums getting far with this, so clues, in the form of further extracts from the review, will be forthcoming. Or not.

Your keynote policy – the platform on which your campaign is to be built. What is it, then?

Here’s mine – a surefire vote-getter:

A vote for Saucecraft means a return to between-the-wars seasonal weather standards. A crisp, frosty winter with deep, clean snow at Christmas. A soft, delicate spring refreshed by sparkling rainfall, and an endless summer with clouds of butterflies, lapsing into a golden autumn scented by bonfires.

OJ “Juice” Simpson Famous for that Live police chase And The Naked Gun We have forgot The bloodstained glove

The well-known English character actor Derren Nesbitt was found still living at his Sonning home yesterday. “I’m Not Dead Yet!” quipped Derren, famous for his roles as wet-lipped, creepy, peroxide pretty-boy villains. Born in 1935, the actor described at IMDb as “rather intriguing” stepped out of character for the self-written, self-directed comedy “The Amorous Milkman”, where he played a wet-lipped, creepy, peroxide pretty-boy milkman. Considered by some as the British Rutger Hauer (another actor as pleasant off-screen as on), Derren, declared a National Treasure in 2002, today enjoys pottering in his greenhouse and curating his extensive collection of Nazi memorabilia.

Anybody else Not Dead Yet?

The Boss takes a cameo in the latest-ish episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. He has maybe five minutes screen time, a couple of scenes, and he’s perfectly okay. Relaxed, natural, and likeably likeable, in a likeable way. The critics raved. It seems like a natural move for him, and in retrospect it’s strange how he hasn’t starred in a Scorsese movie instead of singing Born In The USA sixteen-hundred times*.

He’s not exactly stretched, though – the role calls upon him to play Bruce Springsteen; which, to his credit, he does with likeable conviction. I’d like to see him cast in a tent-pole role which would really propel him into the Oscars. Something challenging. Maybe Helen Keller in a bio-pic remake, or a slave on an antebellum plantation in a Ron Howard musical.

Perhaps you have other casting ideas to pitch?

[*Dai – pse check this on spreadsheet]

Change one letter in a movie, TV, or book title for snigger value. Yes, we’ve done this before and now it’s time to do it again. Stop whining.

Movies: Come Alone Gonk With The Wind

Book: (can’t think of any)

North Korea’s state television channel has censored a BBC gardening programme – by blurring out presenter Alan Titchmarsh’s trousers.

“It’s taken me to reach the age of 74 to be regarded in the same sort of breath as Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart. You know wearing trousers that are generally considered by those of us of a sensitive disposition to be rather too tight … I’ve never seen myself as a dangerous subversive imperialist I’m generally regarded as rather cosy and pretty harmless so actually it’s given me a bit of street cred really hasn’t it.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68664644