Those of you not fortunate enough to endure existence in Caledonia (stern and wild) under the benevolent and all-intruding rule of Wee Nippy (aka Mother Nicola) probably don’t care very much about the football-related tribal strife which has, on occasion, stained our national name.
Wow. Just wow! That’s a whole paragraph with one sentence. Mind, I’m swithering a wee bit about whether it needs a comma after ‘wild)’ and ‘Nicola)’.
Whatever! Continue reading “Welcome Back – Hands Across the M8”
Politics has always been a mean and dirty business. It’s what makes historical tales of power and passion so fascinating. Think Caesar, the Plantagenets, the Tudors, the Kennedies….pick your favourites.
So of course the Brexit issue is a messy, manic business – even dirtier than the US primaries will become. So many individual reputations are at stake – but truth be told, little else. Yes, I mean it.
‘Markets’ will wobble, governments will fall and rise again, but otherwise Brexit will be less risky than Remain. Why? Because unelected oligarchies mean trouble, controlling economies without popular choice. Because for every Remain argument there is a balancing reply in the real, non-political world.
So there.
In my teens, I was average height – 5 feet 2 inches. Unfortunately the world has grown around me, and I am told that I am short and the average height for a woman is now around 5 feet 5 inches. Continue reading “Just the Right Size or Moan of the Week”
Please don’t wake my newest granddaughter who arrived on 11th April. She takes the count to double figures!
The building designers of the future have their work cut out if things carry on as they’re going. It’s all The Boss’ fault. Bruce Springsteen cancelled a concert in North Carolina over its “anti-gay” law. The state law requires people to use public toilets that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificates. Apple, PayPal and the Bank of America are amongst others criticising the law.
Supporters of the law said allowing transgender people to choose their restroom could lead to women and children being attacked. My proposal is that the only way to please everyone is by building more toilets. The current three outlets- men, women and disabled- are clearly not enough to cater for the modern world in all its legalised eccentricities. A separate toilet for the LGBT community should be introduced. Architects will be up all night figuring out the design for that one.
Twice this weekend Backside has laughed out loud. And I’d like to share – as they say in LA.
Wayne Rooney was thinking of naming his race horse Norfolk Enchants.
A cheese review was entitled Grate Expectations.
Even a Primate can’t choose his family, it seems.
It turns out that that there was quite a lot of monkey business in Churchill’s corridors of power – and an ocean of alchol (hic) to wash away the detritus. So Justin’s mother, Mary, managed to conceive only days before her marriage but it has taken her 60 years (allegedly) to find out that Justin’s father wasn’t the man she wed. Despite the clear facial resemblance between her paramour and her son. She blames the booze.
I suppose if Justin had stayed in the oil biz nobody would have taken much notice, but you’d think the Lord would have arranged things a bit more decorously, wouldn’t you? Or perhaps it’s another of his little jokes.
Just another Canterbury Tale really.
This post is to placate Janus.
I’ve been in Spain for over a month now. I haven’t entirely been sure what to say about it because it has made so little impression on me – and that I haven’t seen that much of it. For the first month I lived with a Spanish family in el Barrio de Salamanca, one of Madrid’s ritzier neighbourhoods. This month I am living in Usera, one of Madrid’s poorest and roughest neighbourhoods. Continue reading “It’s just not Portugal…”
As our music editor has opined, the world has changed since the digital revolution.
Remember Kim Philby, who spied for the USSR? Fiendishly clever? Ahead of the technological game? A modern spook whose expertise led his British masters up the garden path?
Well – no. A filmed master class he conducted in the DDR in ’81 shows what an amateur affair it was. He ‘borrowed’ paper files every day, took them home to be copied and returned them the next day! No fancy equipment, no 007 tricks, no subtlety at all.
The Beeb has the story. Fascinating.
A slogan posted on the wall of HMV stores proclaims, in a hubristic paraphrase of the famous Buggles song “Vinyl is killing mp3s”.
Vinyl might be a murderer but it has definitely revived the fortunes of the ailing music industry. Every man, woman and his dog is flocking to HMV to buy vinyl. It’s back in Vogue and Fashion and Stylistics. The shelves are cluttered with black plastic again. A recycled Sevenfold Nightmare. I don’t understand this nostalgia trip. While disagreeing with FEEG over the hi-definition rip-off I have to admit that the CD format is superior to vinyl.
The re-emergence of vinyl is a record industry attempt to stop the file-sharing pirates that download music for free. Seeing those record covers again and reliving Glory Days is Nirvana to a lot of soul sisters and brothers, so it’s a Gimme, Gimme ,Gimme Rush for the needle players. Me, I gave most of my LPs away while retaining the coloured vinyls, bootleg albums and rare promotional issues as family heirlooms. It pays to have a Record Collector guide book handy. Like Yazz, the only way is up for these beanstalks.
While old-timers are taking longer to Knock on Heaven’s Door maybe other brands will seek to fleece the Old Sheps from their Money and Time. Betamax could tape us to the future. Sodastream might teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Another big lift-off and we will be Fooled Again by Ground Control putting another Man on The Moon.
The vinyl revolution won’t last but it has brought a memory revival of all things past; Melting tar on the road, running through clothes lines, eating blackjacks then sticking out your tongue, footie in the street, chapping doors and running away, climbing trees and falling out of trees…
Boadicea's Chariot 
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