Rest in peace Tom Petty, another singer and songwriter taken from us too soon. His first UK hit “Anything that’s rock ’n roll” in 1977 was the first 12” single that I ever bought and I was privileged to see him at the Marquee Club in London a year later, a semi-secret gig for which… Continue reading Tom Petty RIP
Today would have been Marc Bolan’s 70th birthday. As you probably know, he died 40 years ago this month, in the early hours of 16 September 1977. His girlfriend Gloria Jones was driving them back to East Sheen from central London, lost control of the car near Barnes Common and the subsequent crash killed him… Continue reading Marc Bolan, 40 years on
Last weekend I wrote about browsing through my old pocket diaries and mentioned a TV commercial (for Bird’s Eye Supermousse) that my brother and I appeared in back in the 1970s. Over the years I have attempted to find the commercial online, without success. We only saw it a handful of times when it was… Continue reading A 1970s TV commercial featuring me and my brother
Here are the questions set as a challenge in this earlier post. The answers appear at the end of this page. Name the last 10 different teams to win the English FA Cup. Name the last 10 different teams to win the English League Cup. Name the last 10 cities to host the Summer Olympics.… Continue reading “Tenable” and a challenge: lists containing 10 items (the answers)
[October 2018 update: the following piece, recording my first impressions of ITV quiz show “Tenable”, was published over a year ago. The show has had plenty of mentions on this Blog since then. You can find links to other posts, including summaries of episodes from the latest series (September/October 2018), at the end of this… Continue reading “Tenable” and a challenge: lists containing 10 items
Two days ago, in my Birthday Musings, I mentioned digging out my 1991 pocket diary. As I wrote in this piece last year I have an unbroken run of diaries from 1979 to 2001, “available any time if I want to check the dates of holidays, meetings, gigs, exams, Film Festivals, and very occasionally how… Continue reading More about diaries
Happy birthday to me, and also to singers Liam Gallagher, Faith Hill, Jason DeRulo and Corinne Drewery, West Indies cricket legends Curtly Ambrose and Chris Gayle, authors Stephen King and Shirley Conran, actor Bill Murray and BBC Radio 2 DJ Simon Mayo. I caught the start of Simon Mayo’s show just after 5pm this afternoon… Continue reading Birthday Musings 2017
Fatberg is rather like chairdrobe, self-explanatory when you break it down. A chairdrobe is a chair that acts like a wardrobe, and a fatberg is like an iceberg, but made of fat. In fact, as we have learnt through various recent news stories it’s more than that; it’s a mass of fat combined with wet… Continue reading Word of the week: fatberg
Here are the answers to this earlier challenge, #1 song titles that run into each other. 1 You to me are (Everything I do) I do it for you [or, You to me are (Everything I do) I do it for You to me are Everything] 2 All around the World in Motion 3 Everlasting… Continue reading More #1 Trivia: the titles run on (and on), the answers
Pop music trivia is never far from my mind, especially when it deals with artists and songs that reached #1 in the UK. Here’s a bit of fun regarding chart-topping song titles that run on into other chart-topping song titles. The clues take the form of at least two artists and the years that the… Continue reading More #1 Trivia: the titles run on (and on)
The Compartments 