No, not your fatal youth misunderstandings.
I just found out that Chrissie Hynde was at Kent State, as was Gerald Casale from Devo. What did you learn recently that made you go “hmmmm?”
https://vimeo.com/242120629
Things I just learned
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…. as did Chris Butler who lead the Waitresses and wrote all those brilliant songs.
Paul Shaffer, “Artie Fufkin Polymer Records” (and David Letterman’s sidekick) co-wrote ‘It’s Raining Men’ by The Weather Girls. You probably all knew that already…
and he was also the original keybord-ist for The Blues Brothers
@railroad-bill
I did not know that. But I do now and it’s my new favourite fact. Thank you.
My pleasure!
I hadn’t realised that cult classic The Wicker Man from 1973 was written by Sleuth Hitmaker Anthony Schaffer.
And that he was the identical twin of Amadeus and Equus Hitmaker Peter Schaffer. “In London,” Shaffer recalled, “Equus caused a sensation because it displayed cruelty to horses; in New York, because it allegedly displayed cruelty to psychiatrists.”
Herbie “Walk on the Wild Side” Flowers wrote “Grandad” for Clive Dunn…
Clive Dunn had a promising career as a trombonist in Bernie Bishop’s Altar Boys before he bruised his embouchure on an Eccles cake. (In a fight, apparently, not at tea time)
Herbie Flowers is directly related to Mike Flowers, the none-more-90s Wonderwall other-hitmaker.
Clive Dunn is distantly related to John Donne, the No Man Is An Island hitmaker.
Lou Reed is related to Beryl Reid, the stories-about-cats-in-a-Brummie-accent hitmaker.
Bernie Bishop is related to Madge Bishop, the dying-tragically-on-Ramsey-Street hitmaker.
In short, we’re all family here. Slice of cake anyone?
Moosey himself is descended from Elk Kabong, The mysterious guitar-wielding cartoon superhero. Who wasn’t really a flying horse at all.
Is Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue anything to do with the wing-ed horse Pegasus?
This simply must be read in an Alan Bennett voice.
Despite looking and acting like the oldest member of the Home Guard (apart from Private Godfrey who was about 119?), Clive Dunn was the third youngest of the Dads Army cast (after James Beck and Ian Lavender)
Equally, Brian Murphy was still in short trousers when he auditioned for the part of George Roper in Man About The House. Between scenes he used to hang around with his much older co-star Yootha Joyce’s son (and future Smiths drummer) Mike, when they would each lie to the other about having seen Paula Wilcox or Sally Thomsett’s bra strap..
Following the last series of George and Mildred, he was a founder member of The Dropkick Murphys, so called because of Brian’s side gig as a professional wrestler. Yootha Joyce was his occasional tag team partner and later, guitar roadie.
My gag above was based on the “bloke down the pub” did you know? tidbit that prematurely bald Murphy was much younger than you thought.
But a swift Google reveals that he was 40 when MATH started and only five years younger than super Yootha at the time.
Hardly worth mentioning.
In contrast, from around the same time, Robert Wagner was twelve years older than his Hart To Hart co-star Stefanie Powers and him down the pub never mentions that..
But in 1972 to be 40 was to be a veritable Methuselah.
Now it’s “someone in the Afterword crèche”
No baldies here, though (*runs fingers through lustrous barnet*)
Oooh, I know, isn’t it a trial…. *tosses sun-burnished locks with the carefree and magisterial grace of a Barbary lion*
Feels like only yesterday I learned that “Young at Heart” is a Bananarama song, mostly written by Siobhan Fahey and is a filler track on their first album “Deep Sea Skiving”.
The Japanese have a word (‘tsundoku’) for buying books and never getting round to reading them.
(h/t the excellent Weird History on Twitter)
Fuckin’ hell, that is soooo cool. It’s normally the Germans who are good at these…I have maybe 150 books that I’ve owned for upwards of 20 years without cracking.
Still, having them all together on the shelf makes people think that I’m not the thick cunt I clearly am, so it’s money well spent. Do books have any other purpose?
Useful as a backstop when drilling wood on your new granite kitchen tops.
I realised this afterwards…..the neighbours wondered what Mrs Fish was swearing about.
The Bee Gees were born on the Isle of Man.
Here they are paying their dues with the unofficial Manx national anthem: Saturday Night Fever indeed!
I’ve just learned that David Fincher, the director of great films like Se7en, Zodiac, Fight Club and the more than decent remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, also directed the video for Shattered Dreams by Johnny Hates Jazz.
The word “Blighty”, as a depiction of Britain and home, comes originally from the Hindi word “bilãyati”, related to the Arabic word “wilãyatĩ”, both of which mean “foreign”, especially European.
Really fascinating Mike. Thanks.
It seems to have first become widely used during WW1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blighty
Nonsense. It means “prone to blights”.
..and full of blighters like us.
Fish fingers originated in Japan, after a short sighted fishmonger slipped with his filleter. Panko is the japanese for paxo.
The upper and lower decks of London buses are still called saloons. Definite Edwardian ring about that.
Five of my work shirts are non-iron, meaning I just need to hang them when the washer/dryer finishes. I have learned this after several years of ironing them.
Don’t worry. Non-iron actually means “these shirts will still need ironing or you will look like a lazy scruff bag.”
But what if you actually are a lazy scruffbag?
…asking for a friend..
Don’t iron them.
Nope, they are crease free, hence my face-palming. You have to be quick after the wash though.
We were discussing this at the pub last night (we know how to party on a bank holiday Saturday). When the young son of a couple I know said that ironing was ‘woman’s work’ because he had never seen his dad do it she decided she could either get him to do some conspicuous ironing, or give up herself. She choose the latter. They claim that non-iron shirts are fine, and any minor creases will fall out with body heat. I maintain that they still need to ironed.
They do need ironing. All my three sons know how to iron a shirt (I once saw a vid of the Queen’s butler demonstrating how. I’ve no idea why the Queen wanted to wear a plain white shirt, the kind her butler wore). My daughter doesn’t.
Nope. They are crease free.
Your go 😉
The collar and sleeves need a sharp crease. Ironing can put creases in as much as it takes them out.
The collars are fine (I use collar stiffeners anyway) and there are no creases anywhere. Sleeves with a crease? Madness. It just looks like lazy ironing.
Life is too long, apparently.
If I find myself away from home with an unexpectedly creased shirt I hang it it the hotel bathroom, turn the shower on as hot as possible for ten minutes then turn it off and go to the bar, making sure the bathroom door stays closed. The steam makes nearly all of the creases disappear.
I once tried that and it did NOT work!
Worse, your neighbours called the police because they thought you had fog in your house.
This is the point in the thread where I add, smugly, that none of my clothes has seen an iron in over thirty years.
Fellers, fellers…you’re both right!
Here’s Pam Ayres:
Oh.
I do ‘ave trouble with me non-iron shirts
They always seem to crumple
They should be as smooth as instant whip
But they look like apple crumble
I looked at the lights on the washing machine
I listened to the noise it makes
And then all of a sudden I saw a FLASH
And a heavenly voice unto me spake:
“Hang ’em high! In the sky!
Let ’em dry in peace
If you leave ’em in the pile
Then they’re going to crease!’
My Ironing board is gathering dust
My Kenwood iron is beginning to rust
I fucking ‘ate ironing
So this is good news (will this do…?)
That late-night version of New Faces was a terrible mistake.
The pub name Bull and Butcher has got nothing to do with bull’s or butcher’s. It refers to the nickname given to Henry VIII after he had Ann Boleyn executed. There was many different spellings of Boleyn and one of them was Bullen, hence Bullen Butcher.
Very interesting.
*writes notes*
In the course of an interminable Bank Holiday train journey I have learned that Flitwick is pronounced Flittick.
The current leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Marshall Allen, is going to be 94 years old on May 25th. He still plays alto sax, flute, oboe, piccolo and EWI (electronic wind instrument) with the band.
Electronic wind instrument? I think you”ll find that’s a breathalyser.
Don’t think they have breathalysers on Saturn. Yet.
In other, non-shirt-related, news, I have just this week found out that Billy Bragg
stole… er, homaged the opening lines from ‘A New England’:I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song
I’m twenty-two now but I won’t be for long
from Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Leaves That Are Green’, from the 1966 folkie record ‘Sounds of Silence.’
I realise that I may be the last person over fifty who did not know this.
The Setswana people of Botswana believe it is a bad omen if an Aardvark looks you in the eye.
“Hey Jingo” is a magician’s call for something to appear. The opposite of “Hey Presto”, which is the call for something to be gone.
But aardvarks never hurt anybody!
“See that aardvark over there? He’s well ‘aard!”
Not true. In my opinion.
Armadillos ain’t so brave without their armour.
Top tip: surprise them in the shower while they’re just an “illo”..
I’m a Glaswegian! etc
You want the new material, you gottsta come to my show!
The Bible says on page 34 : “for ’tis easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven”.
It turns out that there is an Aramaic word meaning “thick rope” which when translated to Hebrew delivers a word very similar to the Hebrew word for camel.
That makes sense – always thought the camel line was a bit Eddie Izzard.
“Er…blessed are the peacemakers, for they will give you jam sandwiches…yes…”
I always assumed it was a reference to cigarettes.
Still more likely than the chances of 70s proggers Camel passing through the needle on my stereo and oot me speakers
#Hawaywithyurprog
There’s another theory that the Eye of the Needle was a particularly narrow passageway leading into Jerusalem.
Glossy magazines are radioactive.
https://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/consumer%20products/magazines.htm
I can think of a few magazines that have given me a glow.
So are bananas. Eat 1000 bananas a day and die of radiation poisoning, if the chronic constipation doesn’t get you first.
Now there’s my ‘you learn something new every day’ moment. It had never occurred to me that bananas would cause constipation. In so far as I had given the matter any thought at all, I always assumed the reverse would be true.
Googling reveals that this a matter of hot debate with advocates for both points of view, and others who claim it is all to do with the ripeness of the banana.
Bananas and other fibrous foods are useful for treating both constipation and the opposite problem. I gather it’s all a matter of er… ability to… grip the sides. Ahem.
“Grip the sides”..,? Do you mean when sitting on the pot? I’ve had my moments but so far I’ve never had to do that as yet.
Yes: eat with green skins to relieve constipation and ripe (ideally with brown skins) to get it. Or that’s what a hospital dietician told me, anyhow.
That wasn’t Nurse Quatro, was it?
No, nurse Quatro did my dexa (bone density x-ray thingy) scan. By the time I need another one, my local hospital will no longer be there.
*clears throat*
She didn’t, then, Scan the Can?
*modestly acknowledges thunderous applause*
Well, I thought it was funny.
Whereas the first link I found on Google says just the opposite.
https://www.medicinenet.com/top_foods_that_cause_constipation/article.htm#bananas
It’s a minefield for the digestively unstable.
You have to grip the sides when you go? I never realised you were communicating from the International Space Station and all this talk of “chazzas” and “car boots” was just late stage Major Tom syndrome
(*slaps forehead*) Of course! “mini” breakfast is space food!
They have chazzas in space?
Who’s donating the stock??
Well, I have Crohns and one of the symptoms is what is technically termed “decreased transit time”. Constipation is rarely an issue.
If your intestines don’t absorb nutrients and vitamins and so on very well, slowing everything down helps give them a fighting chance. I’m on prescribed brown bananas (not to be confused with brown bananas on prescription).
75% of The Pretenders were from the rock & roll hotbed of Hereford
Semi-ubiquitous grand wizard of the double bass Danny Thompson converted to Islam in 1990.
Ziggy Greaves (token Scouser in TV’s Grange Hill, mid-late 80’s) came by his monickered nickname via his older brothers due to his love of playing with Spiders.
Completely flew over my head at the time. Cracking!
So I’m listening to Rick Wakeman’s ‘Six Wives of Henry VIII’ on Qobuz, because I’ve never heard it before, and, thinking it sounds a bit “Yes-ish” I decide to look it up on Wikipedia to see who played on it. I’ve seen the name “Barry St. John” on many, many credits before, but didn’t know anything by him. Except it isn’t a him. It’s a her. Eliza Thompson is her real name. So not only did I just learn that, but I also learned that Liz (to her friends) sang in my uncle Bobby’s band – The Bobby Patrick Big Six – in Glasgow in the early 60s.
Unfortunately, Eliza/Barry died last month.