A wet Bank Holiday Monday - what's to do? Curl up in front of the TV sounds a good option, particularly as a session in the gym is behind me from this morning.
How fast the long weekend goes - seems only three days ago that it was Friday !!!
Did hear a piece of absolute nonsense on a local radio programme. Won't mention the station but it's a BBC local radio offering. DJs/presenters on these stations seem to try and outdo themselves in the banality stakes. Today's comments surrounded how good it is to have a four day working week (i.e the fifth day being a Bank Holiday). The presenter then went on to say how good it must have been in the 1970s when there was a three day working week "This is the kind of thing I could really enjoy," he said (or at least something like that). Obviously he had no concept of what the three day working week was about. It wasn't about enjoying life, chilling out (not a seventies phrase that) and working less hours for more money. It was about misery, strikes, industrial action, shortages, energy cuts, political turmoil and general unrest. The presenter was just looking at things through rose tinted spectacles and I bet he was born in the 1980s. Sometimes this kind of naivety makes you want to scream.
I do remember Bank Holidays from the early 1960s though. We seemed to go through the same ritual virtually every Bank Holiday Monday which consisted of visiting my grandmother in Rupert Street, Norwich, and going for a drink to the Garden House just off Unthank Road. There we would sit and watch the bowls from a shed like open outdoor area. I always drank Vimto - an evil dark purple liquid beloved of kids in those days.
Apparently Vimto goes back to 1908 and is a mixture of fruits and spices. Sitting here and writing about it I can almost smell and taste it and apparently it's still available. After the drink we would walk back to my grandmother's and have lunch. How is it that everyone's Yorkshire puddings taste different? My mother's mothers tasted different to my father's mothers and they were different to my mothers. Given a blindfold test I would easily be able to determine whose belonged to who. After the pub there was a tendency to just spend the afternoon staring at sport on TV. It almost always seemed to be motorbike racing!
Mentioned yesterday that I would reveal my top 10 albums and top 10 singles of all time today. These are all taken from my web site showing just what an anorak I am:
Top 10 albums
1 Once Again - Barclay James Harvest
2 Hunky Dory - David Bowie
3 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie
4 Tubular Bells - Mike Oldfield
5 Aladdin Sane - David Bowie
6 Every Picture Tells a Story - Rod Stewart
7 The Innocent Age - Dan Fogelberg
8 After the Goldrush - Neil Young
9 Just an Old Fashioned Love Song - Paul Willaims
10 Matthews Southern Comfort - Matthews Southern Comfort
Top 10 Tracks
1 Mockingbird - Barclay James Harvest
2 MacArthur Park - Richard Harris
3 Without You - Nillson
4 Woodstock - Matthews Southern Comfort
5 Summer the First Time - Bobby Goldsboro
6 There Only Was One Choice - Harry Chapin
7 Meet Me on the Corner - LIndisfarne
8 American Pie - Don McLean
9 There But for Fortune - Phil Ochs
10 Leader of the Band - Dan Fogelberg
Stayed up late last night, or rather early this morning, watching the end of the US Masters Golf which went to a playoff before being won by Bubba Watson with his magic pink driver, which is now likely to take on almost mythical proportions. Not sure where the name Bubba comes from. Will try to find out and let you know tomorrow.
Watched the end of an horrendous TV programme last night which should be banned on the grounds of bad taste (or should that be good taste). Anyway it was called Man v Food and basically consisted of the presenter going in search of the most amazing food in the United States. It wasn't amazing because of its nutritional value. No this was ultimate American food i.e burgers, dogs etc etc. The guy went in search of the biggest and they were so big that it made them look absolutely gross - oozing grease and stuffed full of just about every heart attack inducing ingredient you can think of. The low point (or high point for him) came when they dunked one obscene creation in fried pork gravy and the bun came out dripping in grease. Makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.
See that one of the Sky movie channels has The Sound of Music on today. One of my great boasts in life is having avoided viewing this film. I do feel that my denial may soon be coming to an end and I will have to watch it. I remember going to Salzburg many years ago and being told by a tour guide that the real Von Trapp family escaped on a train and not across the mountains (as in The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music). Had they made it running and gambolling across the fields they would have gone straight into Nazi occupied territory. Might have made for an edgier film though.
How fast the long weekend goes - seems only three days ago that it was Friday !!!
Did hear a piece of absolute nonsense on a local radio programme. Won't mention the station but it's a BBC local radio offering. DJs/presenters on these stations seem to try and outdo themselves in the banality stakes. Today's comments surrounded how good it is to have a four day working week (i.e the fifth day being a Bank Holiday). The presenter then went on to say how good it must have been in the 1970s when there was a three day working week "This is the kind of thing I could really enjoy," he said (or at least something like that). Obviously he had no concept of what the three day working week was about. It wasn't about enjoying life, chilling out (not a seventies phrase that) and working less hours for more money. It was about misery, strikes, industrial action, shortages, energy cuts, political turmoil and general unrest. The presenter was just looking at things through rose tinted spectacles and I bet he was born in the 1980s. Sometimes this kind of naivety makes you want to scream.
I do remember Bank Holidays from the early 1960s though. We seemed to go through the same ritual virtually every Bank Holiday Monday which consisted of visiting my grandmother in Rupert Street, Norwich, and going for a drink to the Garden House just off Unthank Road. There we would sit and watch the bowls from a shed like open outdoor area. I always drank Vimto - an evil dark purple liquid beloved of kids in those days.
Apparently Vimto goes back to 1908 and is a mixture of fruits and spices. Sitting here and writing about it I can almost smell and taste it and apparently it's still available. After the drink we would walk back to my grandmother's and have lunch. How is it that everyone's Yorkshire puddings taste different? My mother's mothers tasted different to my father's mothers and they were different to my mothers. Given a blindfold test I would easily be able to determine whose belonged to who. After the pub there was a tendency to just spend the afternoon staring at sport on TV. It almost always seemed to be motorbike racing!
Mentioned yesterday that I would reveal my top 10 albums and top 10 singles of all time today. These are all taken from my web site showing just what an anorak I am:
Top 10 albums
1 Once Again - Barclay James Harvest
2 Hunky Dory - David Bowie
3 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie
4 Tubular Bells - Mike Oldfield
5 Aladdin Sane - David Bowie
6 Every Picture Tells a Story - Rod Stewart
7 The Innocent Age - Dan Fogelberg
8 After the Goldrush - Neil Young
9 Just an Old Fashioned Love Song - Paul Willaims
10 Matthews Southern Comfort - Matthews Southern Comfort
Top 10 Tracks
1 Mockingbird - Barclay James Harvest
2 MacArthur Park - Richard Harris
3 Without You - Nillson
4 Woodstock - Matthews Southern Comfort
5 Summer the First Time - Bobby Goldsboro
6 There Only Was One Choice - Harry Chapin
7 Meet Me on the Corner - LIndisfarne
8 American Pie - Don McLean
9 There But for Fortune - Phil Ochs
10 Leader of the Band - Dan Fogelberg
Stayed up late last night, or rather early this morning, watching the end of the US Masters Golf which went to a playoff before being won by Bubba Watson with his magic pink driver, which is now likely to take on almost mythical proportions. Not sure where the name Bubba comes from. Will try to find out and let you know tomorrow.
Watched the end of an horrendous TV programme last night which should be banned on the grounds of bad taste (or should that be good taste). Anyway it was called Man v Food and basically consisted of the presenter going in search of the most amazing food in the United States. It wasn't amazing because of its nutritional value. No this was ultimate American food i.e burgers, dogs etc etc. The guy went in search of the biggest and they were so big that it made them look absolutely gross - oozing grease and stuffed full of just about every heart attack inducing ingredient you can think of. The low point (or high point for him) came when they dunked one obscene creation in fried pork gravy and the bun came out dripping in grease. Makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.
See that one of the Sky movie channels has The Sound of Music on today. One of my great boasts in life is having avoided viewing this film. I do feel that my denial may soon be coming to an end and I will have to watch it. I remember going to Salzburg many years ago and being told by a tour guide that the real Von Trapp family escaped on a train and not across the mountains (as in The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music). Had they made it running and gambolling across the fields they would have gone straight into Nazi occupied territory. Might have made for an edgier film though.
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