I can promise you that Summer will arrive on the 20th of July at approximately midday when we fly out from Heathrow!
Boadicea – Summer was on a Tuesday in the UK last year, Thursday the year before.
OZ
I missed it, I was having a cup of tea at the time.
Ah, Gershwin, nice one Zen. Here’s one back atcha – I was looking for the Paul Whiteman version, but I couldn’t find a decent track – but, hey, no-one can complain about Bernstein, can they?
Bravo, do you remember the Sikh Union sports ground in Nairobi? There was a tarmac hockey pitch, and one year an American touring company set up an ice rink on the pitch and performed a show called ‘ Holiday on Ice.’ The finale of the show was a performance of Rhapsody in Blue on ice. I fell in love with the work, and it has always been near me. Eventually I bought a copy with Andre Previn playing. Years later I was watching Morecambe and Wise one evening and Andre Previn was their hapless guest. This performance is one of the funniest you could ever wish to see.
I missed this this morning, not paying attention again. Summertime Zen, lovely, the music that is, the sun is hiding again today.
That Morecambe and Wise clip is fantastic, brilliantly done, how Andre Previn kept a straight face I’ll never know.
Gad, Zen, you do take me back – I played in a schools tournamment there once 🙂 We must have overlapped, we left Nairobi back end of ’62 – remember that winter? I was at my Grandparents’ house in Deal and the sea froze!
You two make me want to visit these places you speak of, you speak with genuine passion too. Toc does the same to me too. I’ll have to set up a club for you guys, we’ll then arrange a club meeting with the blonde here serving you Pimms and things. I can sit cross legged and just listen to you.
PS. AS you say, Previn was brilliant. Loved that show. 😀
I finally left early Jan 63, and a week later was ko’d playing silly buggers on a very frozen River Towy!
Val, set it up 🙂
I just googled that winter to see if it really was as bad as I remembered – and it was:
The winter of 1962/63 was tobogganing heaven for the nation’s children but the cold and snow would offer a challenge of a different kind for just about everyone else. Glasgow had its first white Christmas since 1938 when rain turned to snow as it moved south, and a belt of snow became almost stationary over southern England on Boxing Day. The following day five centimetres of snow lay in the Channel Islands, with 30 cm covering much of southern England. The initial effect of this snowfall was to bring transport to a standstill, delay schools opening and force the cancellation of sporting events – but more snow was on the way.
On 29 and 30 December a blizzard across south-west England and Wales left drifts six metres deep which blocked roads and rail routes, left villages cut off and brought down power lines.Thanks to further falls and almost continual near-freezing temperatures, snow was still deep on the ground across much of the country three months later.
In the intervals when snow was not falling, the country simply appeared to freeze solid – January daytime temperatures barely crept above freezing, and night frosts produced a temperature of -16 °C in places as far apart as Gatwick and Eskdalemuir. Freezing fog was a frequent hazard – but the spectacular rime deposits that built up over successive days were a photographer’s dream.
January was the month when even the sea froze (out to half a mile from the shore at Herne Bay), the Thames froze right across in places, and ice floes appeared on the river at Tower Bridge. Everywhere birds literally dropped off their perches – killed by the cold and lack of natural food.
February was marked by more snow arriving on south-easterly winds during the first week, with a 36-hour blizzard hitting western parts of the country. Drifts 20 feet deep formed in gale-force winds (gusts in excess of 70 knots were common, and a gust of 103 knots was recorded on the Isle of Man). Many rural communities found themselves cut off for the tenth time since Christmas. Throughout the winter thousands of sheep, cattle and ponies starved because it was impossible to get enough fodder to them.
A slight lull in the wintry proceedings happened around mid-month, but in the third week of February it was the turn of the north-west UK to suffer – in Cumberland the snowfall was reckoned to be the worst in living memory. By the end of the month the weather over the country had reverted to ‘normal’ – cold but clear and sunny days with severe night frosts and freezing fog.
A gradual thaw then set in – the morning of 6 March 1963 was the first day in the year that the entire country was frost free, and the temperature soared to 17 °C in London. Temperatures recovered, and long icicles playfully speared into snowdrifts by children in January, finally started to shrink. Monster snowmen and snowballs – now adrift and melting in the green ‘seas’ of gardens and playing fields – were soon all that was left of the winter that was probably the coldest since 1795. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/anniversary/winter1962-63.html
“Of course I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”
Genius!
OZ
Flying in from the tropics – some shock to the system.
Indeed it was – I didn’t have a ;apir of long trousers to my name when we arrived. Mind, we did arrive before the worst of the weather set in. I remember the shock of stepping out of the Brittania into a sunny November afternoon – sunny but bitter cold with an icy wind howling across Eastliegh airfield.
Hmm, Morecambe and Wise. I could never understand why anybody ever thought them remotely amusing. I know they were the favourites of millions of British viewers, especially their Christmas Special, but they always left me cold.
bugrit! pair
Sipu – bad luck, you missed a lot.
Zen, indeed 🙂
Oh I love Gershwin, especially the Rhapsody in Blue.
And that Morecambe and Wise clip; absolute class. Reminds me of my A level music teacher – can’t think why!
Boadicea's Chariot 
I can promise you that Summer will arrive on the 20th of July at approximately midday when we fly out from Heathrow!
Boadicea – Summer was on a Tuesday in the UK last year, Thursday the year before.
OZ
I missed it, I was having a cup of tea at the time.
Ah, Gershwin, nice one Zen. Here’s one back atcha – I was looking for the Paul Whiteman version, but I couldn’t find a decent track – but, hey, no-one can complain about Bernstein, can they?
Bravo, do you remember the Sikh Union sports ground in Nairobi? There was a tarmac hockey pitch, and one year an American touring company set up an ice rink on the pitch and performed a show called ‘ Holiday on Ice.’ The finale of the show was a performance of Rhapsody in Blue on ice. I fell in love with the work, and it has always been near me. Eventually I bought a copy with Andre Previn playing. Years later I was watching Morecambe and Wise one evening and Andre Previn was their hapless guest. This performance is one of the funniest you could ever wish to see.
I missed this this morning, not paying attention again. Summertime Zen, lovely, the music that is, the sun is hiding again today.
That Morecambe and Wise clip is fantastic, brilliantly done, how Andre Previn kept a straight face I’ll never know.
Gad, Zen, you do take me back – I played in a schools tournamment there once 🙂 We must have overlapped, we left Nairobi back end of ’62 – remember that winter? I was at my Grandparents’ house in Deal and the sea froze!
You two make me want to visit these places you speak of, you speak with genuine passion too. Toc does the same to me too. I’ll have to set up a club for you guys, we’ll then arrange a club meeting with the blonde here serving you Pimms and things. I can sit cross legged and just listen to you.
PS. AS you say, Previn was brilliant. Loved that show. 😀
I finally left early Jan 63, and a week later was ko’d playing silly buggers on a very frozen River Towy!
Val, set it up 🙂
I just googled that winter to see if it really was as bad as I remembered – and it was:
“Of course I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”
Genius!
OZ
Flying in from the tropics – some shock to the system.
Indeed it was – I didn’t have a ;apir of long trousers to my name when we arrived. Mind, we did arrive before the worst of the weather set in. I remember the shock of stepping out of the Brittania into a sunny November afternoon – sunny but bitter cold with an icy wind howling across Eastliegh airfield.
Hmm, Morecambe and Wise. I could never understand why anybody ever thought them remotely amusing. I know they were the favourites of millions of British viewers, especially their Christmas Special, but they always left me cold.
bugrit! pair
Sipu – bad luck, you missed a lot.
Zen, indeed 🙂
Oh I love Gershwin, especially the Rhapsody in Blue.
And that Morecambe and Wise clip; absolute class. Reminds me of my A level music teacher – can’t think why!