Is Eurovision Promoting National Stereotypes?
I don’t usually watch Eurovision, but hey, what else is there to do tonight, after the awful Mancunian double?
But are countries promoting their own sterotypes?
After all the Irish entry was about humour! The Greek one had no chance of making any worthwhile sales! The Russian one was all about male machismo and was probably written by someone with lots of talent like Vladimir Putin. I did like the singers for Hungary and Estonia and if they played their cards right ….
The French entry was calling out for someone in the orchestra to open a bottle of brown ale at the right moment, to enliven the proceedings. You may laugh about that, but a friend once played in the 1960s in the backing orchestra for such high-brow touring productions as The Desert Song. You quickly learned what was the best time to get a drink.
But quite frankly Eurovision isn’t the same without Terry Wogan.
Limp Handshakes, Sincerity and Hank Wangford
They are talking about handshakes on BBC Breakfast this morning, after it had been reported that Ed Milliband has rather a weak one.
C and I always used to describe the United States as the Land of the Limp Handshake, as most of the people we seemed to meet on our travels there, performed it that way and also seemed to be quite insincere.
Sincerity brings me to possibly the funniest moment on BBC Breakfast. Some years ago, the incomparable Hank Wangford spoke about a product called Sincerity. There was also an American on the program, who happened to be selling something that most notably wasn’t. C didn’t watch breakfast television after that episode, as she laughed so much, she nearly did herself some serious damage.
I’d thought that Hank had retired but apparently he’s still singing and practicing his own unique brand of medicine according to his web site.
A Bad Idea
What idiot thought it would be a good idea to have a pop festival on Blackheath?
I’m not against the idea of the festival, but surely the event was going to raise the ire of the residents, who would use every trick, legal or otherwise, in the book to stop it. So the venture will probably run out of money well before it is due to go ahead!
Perhaps the person who thought of the idea has more money than sense!
But I do like the name of the company behind the festival. They are called Nimby Events. So perhaps it’s just a publicity stunt!
Jazz At the New Merlin’s Cave
I took a 38 bus this lunchtime to go and have lunch with a friend and passed along Rosebery Avenue from Saddlers Wells Theatre to the main sorting Office at Mount Pleasant.
When we lived in the Barbican in the 1970s, sometimes C and I would go for a drink with the children at a jazz pub called New Merlin’s Cave to see John Chilton’s Feetwarmers and sometimes George Melly at Sunday lunchtimes. The pub was to the north side of the bus route.
I looked up the pub on the Internet and found this history.
Did those who were children in the 1970s suffer from being in a jazz club with all that booze and cigarette smoke?
Sadly the New Merlin’s Cave is no more!
Manor House
The Manor House used to be an enormous pub in the 1960s, famed as a music venue.
The Manor House
I went a couple of times and can’t remember who I saw. But I did hear of a tale, where John Mayall was playing, with the legendary Eric Clapton as one of his band. Eric got rather drunk and couldn’t continue. But a previous member of the band, Jeff Grimmett (?), was there and although being in a worse state that Eric took over. Apparently, it was a performance to rank with the greatest.
I and Bridie
I and Bridie were one of the stalwarts of the Liverpool folk scene in the 1960s along with The Spinners and perhaps later on, The Scaffold.
I saw this poster outside the Philharmonic Hall and took a picture.
Jacqui and Bridie's Folk Club
Solving the Problem of Watching Sky or ITV Pictures and Getting Radio 5 Sound
As you may know from this blog, I’m allergic to two things; gluten and adverts. I don’t like having to continually switch whilst watching sport on Sky or ITV to BBC Radio 5, to avoid the annoying adverts and get a continuous commentary. In many cases too, the ITV coverage is not up to scratch and vital parts like goals are missed. To be fair to Sky, there’s nothing wrong with their coverage in general, it’s just the adverts, often for products that contain gluten. So they are a double irritant.
Virgin cable gets around this problem in some ways, because it has a Back button, so you can constantly use it to flip between, your preferred video and audio channels.
For Christmas I was given a pair of wireless headphones by Sennheiser, that plug into the headphone socket of a television or radio and give a good sound quality within range.
So I have plugged them into my Roberts DAB radio for good Radio 5 sound and just put the television on the corresponding video channel.
There are some other advantages.
- I can get good commentary all over my house and even in the road outside.
- The range also solves the tea and toilet break problems, as never do I have to miss any of the action. This works well with sport, but you’d probably need to pause the television for a break, whilst watching a serious drama.
- I’d also be interested to know to, how serious music lovers would find the quality of the sound through the headphones.
- I now adjust the volume on the headphones, so that if say I was watching something very loud, then I’m the only one gets the loud noise.
- Obviously, if you are watching with someone else, you just unplug the headphones and watch normally.
It strikes me that various families would find different ways to use one or more of these devices to avoid problems amongst themselves or with the neighbours.
To be fair, I know that the headphones are a good deal cheaper, than the cost of using a solicitor to fight an ASBO caused by a loud television. And not everybody likes Abba!
But whatever, they made a very good Christmas present for me!
It is Really Thirty Years?
When anybody writes the history of the twentieth century in the future, one of the most significant days will be December 8th 1980. It was on this day that John Lennon was murdered in New York.
Lennon was a bit hero of mine and probably still is, as in the 1960s, his attititude was an inspiration to me, as the Beatles showed what could be achieved if you just believed in yourself. I would not have succeeded like I possibly have, without the four musicians from Liverpool.
I was also lucky enough to see them live at the Hammersmith Odeon around Christmas 1964, when several of us from school climbed into my battered Austin 8, for the trip across London. One image of that concert is Lesley Clarke, who was at school with me and in the party, trying to get the girl in front to cut the screaming, as she couldn’t hear anything.
Without the Beatles, I might never have gone to Liverpool, as who would have chosen to go to University in that grim port city in the north?
Liverpoool made me, as I found C there and our first child was conceived in the city.
We both shared a taste for his music, as does or did our sons.
When C died, it was the raw tracks of Lennon’s songs coupled with the haunting ones that Dory Previn created that brought me through.
Now is the day to move completely on. I owe it to C and my son. And to John!
The world must move on too! I would love to see two things die before I do; the death penalty and war.
John and C would have agreed.
Just Another Boy Band!
A texter has just described the Beatles thus on Radio 5.
They obviously never saw them live as I did, or watched as they saved a city from self-destructing, as Liverpool most likely would have done, if they had never come along!
They also inspired me, as in my years at Liverpool University, enough of what they created rubbed off on me, so that I became a modest success. Would I have become the same man without Liverpool and the Beatles? I doubt it!
Lucky Gordon
Lucky Gordon is mentioned in the Sunday Times magazine today, as there is an article about a new exhibition concerning Christine Keeler.
I never met either, but years ago I used to drink with the musician, Danny Thompson, in the Clopton Crown. He related how on some of his recording session, Lucky was the chef. Danny did make a comment about how Lucky served too much rice and peas.
At the time, I seem to remember he was working on the music for a documentary, where a film-maker was taking some elephants over the Alps in a reenactment of Hannibal’s famous expedition.
The Anonymous Widower 