Last month I wrote two pieces about the Elephant Parade, an event that took place 10 years ago here in London. As I wrote in the second of those pieces: “Streets, parks, squares and indoor spaces were populated by life-size models of baby elephants, painted by a variety of artists. It captured our imagination, and… Continue reading A few more words about the Elephant Parade, and some more recent pictures
July 1972 was a good time to walk into a record shop and buy your first 7” single. (12” singles did not exist yet.) You might have asked for one of the releases that had been #1 in May or June and was now making its way down the charts, “Vincent” by Don McLean perhaps,… Continue reading The first record I ever bought
If you watch TV regularly, you are probably familiar with “Gogglebox”, a show that was first broadcast here in the UK in 2013. It has become a recent addition to our family viewing thanks to a series of celebrity editions that have just finished airing on Channel 4 on Friday nights. The original version of… Continue reading Word of the week: “Gogglebox”
Here, for the final time this season, and the last time for at least another year on this Blog, is a screenshot taken from the BBC website showing Leeds United top of the Championship, the second tier of English football. The regular season is over. Leeds, the team that I have followed since childhood, have… Continue reading The Promised Land
ITV are currently screening repeats of Series 2 of quiz show “Tenable” on weekday afternoons. This piece from July 2019 lists the questions and answers from the first 11 episodes of that series. I described it as “Raw ‘Tenable’ data” because it was not edited and tidied up in the same way as most of… Continue reading “Tenable” Series 2, repeated July 2020, episode 12 onwards
Leeds United and Republic of Ireland football legend Jack Charlton died last week, aged 85. May he rest in peace. He was a legend as a player for Leeds (773 appearances, a club record) and for England (a World Cup winner in 1966) and was by some distance the most succesful manager in the history… Continue reading Jack Charlton RIP, and the England World Cup winning team: more dead than alive
Back in 2018 I wrote this piece (“An 80-year-old punk”) about Jet Black, drummer in punk-era band The Stranglers. He had just celebrated his 80th birthday. I mentioned that he was older than Neil Sedaka, Judy Collins and Ringo Starr. Ringo, drummer in The Beatles (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that) has… Continue reading An 80-year-old Beatle
You might remember a story about the devil going down to Georgia, looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bind, he was way behind, and he was looking to make a deal. He came across a young boy (name of Johnny) playing the violin (“sawing on a fiddle and playing it hot”).… Continue reading Charlie Daniels RIP
Arugula is the Italian word for the salad leaf known here in the UK as rocket. Arugula, rather than rocket, is also used in the USA to describe this “cruciferous annual plant”. I thought that this was standard general knowledge but maybe it’s not. A few weeks ago, some friends of the family arranged an… Continue reading Word of the week: arugula
Here, for the 12th successive month on this Blog, is a screenshot taken from the BBC website that shows Leeds United, the team that I have supported since childhood, top of the Championship, the second tier of English football. When I posted the most recent of these pieces (here, last Saturday) I wrote, “If Leeds… Continue reading Top of the table for a 12th successive month
The Compartments 