The saga of Brexit.

Well, I hope Parliament sorts itself out very soon.  

Otherwise...., it's going to be fish, carrots, potatoes and broccoli for dinner every night.
Mutton, turnips and kale also likely to feature heavily. We're going to be the slimmest, fittest and most miserable nation in the Western hemisphere. 

The Life of Your Lonely Heart

Latter Day English Folk Song.....

Unusual to hear a folk song in the form of a waltz. About and for England. But with everyone else dragged in to England's mess. I voted to Remain, and I shall again.  However, many of those people who voted Remain just think in terms of their easy access to Europe, holidays, etc.., work.., which has become almost casual.   

They're not interested in, for example, the jobs-decimated fishing communities in Scotland, or the strawberry fields of Hampshire that disappeared when industrial strawberries flooded in from Europe. And the fields then built over by property developers.

Where I live, in Somerset, some strawberries are still grown locally. I can barely afford to buy them. They're for well heeled locals, and tourists on their way past the roadside fruit stalls.

Of the farmers' market in the local square of Axbridge, I once asked a neighbour..... 

"Do you buy anything there ?"..

He replied... " What, you mean the farmers market for rich people ?". 

Something gone wrong when local people cannot participate in the local economy.

And something gone wrong when food banks are the norm. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

If you're leaving please still say goodbye

And if you are leaving can you leave me

My silver jubilee mug

My old flag

My dark woods

My sunrise

If you’re leaving can you please say goodbye
And if you are leaving can you leave your number
I’ll pack my case
And get in a cab
And wave you goodbye

I drive in the early hours down to the sea
I stand on the beach where the storms amplify
All the voices that I care for
And the ghosts I hold sacred

Walking On Thin Ice

Yoko Ono wrote Walking on Thin Ice". She and John Lennon finished the recording of the song on December 8, 1980. Lennon played lead guitar. On their return from the recording studio to their home, Lennon was murdered. He was clutching a tape of a final mix when he was shot.

The song was released in 1981. 

Here at the Meltdown Festival at the South Bank in 2013.  With Siouxsie Sioux . And with Sean Lennon, in white suit, on bass guitar. Earl Slick played rhythm guitar on the original recording. Here he is on lead guitar.

Walking on thin ice
I'm paying the price
For throwing the dice in the air
Why must we learn it the hard way
And play the game of life with your heart ?

SS Great Britain

Almost 50 years ago my family lived in Watchet, on the coast of West Somerset. I remember watching on TV as a tug towed this up the Bristol Channel on a huge pontoon. 8000 miles from the Falklands, where it had lain since it's last voyage in 1886.


Anyway, to Bristol last Sunday. Big surprise was the entrance fee. 1 Adult £16.50. I coughed up after making known my opinion of the cost.

As I wandered round, peeking into the various cabins, and compartments, a thought occurred, about current politics...,

Is the...

about to go down the..........

?

I also noticed that that the number of cabins, and bunks didn't seem to add up to the ship's official capacity of 360 passengers. There just didn't seem to be enough accommodation. However, soon I came across this scene near the front ( the bow ), and perhaps this hints at how the steerage passengers were accommodated. They tied them down ?

Afterwards, on my way out, I spoke with the person to whom I'd complained about the cost.
I retracted some of what I'd said, as overall I'd enjoyed the visit.
About £12 would have been more acceptable to me.

[ Besides, I didn't want to sound like I was turning into Victor Meldrew. ]

Football

Croatia 2 - 1 England

I'm Scottish, and tend not to bother much with football south of the border. So, about every 20 minutes, I'd switch on the TV to check the scoreline.

Photo, and accompanying comment, from Pie and Bovril, the Scottish Football discussion forum.

" As if things couldn't get any worse, Bono has arrived."

The Cure ...

LOVESONG

Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am home again
Whenever I'm alone with you
 You make me feel like I am whole again

Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am young again
Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am fun again



And, inspired by the film.. 'Aristocats'....

Martha and The Muffins - Echo Beach ..., 1980 becomes 2010

Always loved this song. Memories of wandering along a beach with a girlfriend, near Portmarnock, Ireland.

... On a silent summer evening
The sky's alive with light
Building in the distance
Surrealistic sight.....

Django Django - Surface To Air ..... featuring Rebecca Taylor

We move surface to air
Will you follow me anywhere?
Try to rise up, you lied up
Into the silence
If you know what I know
Maybe then someday you will go
Seize the night far below

Take my hand, shift in sand
While the other on solid ground
Side by side, rising tides
Stay up together
Hit the ground, feel revived
Nowhere I'd rather be right now
Just in surface to air

Once Upon A Thyme....

Once upon a thyme, Kind told Keen that she must tell a gory, every naught, to ease his heavy blind. Her head would troll if she hadn't. Instead, Keen gave Kind sheep of paper with some destructions. After 365 hits of this, Kind was a happy mane and Keen was a proud womb. Together, they roved and laughed forever after. Who could frame them.

Y. O.

'Grapefruit'

Viv Albertine

I've now read the Viv Albertine book that I mentioned in the last post.

Haven't quite assimilated it all yet. But can only say that it's an engrossing, and raw
read.

Neighbour's cat in relaxed stretch. As I read, the recent snow was about to arrive. With the temperature well below zero, and the East wind funnelling down the driveway, ... when I opened the main door to go outside for a few moments, there was a blur of black and white, headed in the opposite direction.

Viv Albertine - Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys

A couple of years ago, Viv Albertine wrote her book..., 'Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys'.

I haven't read it yet, it's one for the list.

I did though, have a wander through some of her previous work. She was with 'The Slits'. Back then, I was completely into Madness, The Specials, The Selecter... The Slits never really crossed my radar. Later, the only recording of theirs that I became aware of was  'Heard It Through The Grapevine'. I'd never liked the original by Gladys Knight and The Pips. Nor what is generally considered to be the classic version, by Marvin Gaye. And I didn't like the Slits cover either. I just disliked the song.

I love this , though.  'The Man Next Door'.
Viv Albertine on guitar. Ari Up lead vocals. Tessa Pollit bass. Neneh Cherry vocals.
Bruce Smith on drums. Steve Beresford on keyboard.

There is a man that lives next door
In my neighborhood
In my neighborhood
And he gets me down...

I play music late at night
Always a fuss an' fight
Always a fuss and fight
All thru' the night

I've got to get away from here
This is not a place for me to stay
I've got to take my ...
Find a noisier place to be ........






Here she is from much more recently....

Viv Albertine - If Love


And in Bristol ....

A Change From My Usual Fare

I'm not very classically minded, though I do often listen to BBC R3 when I'm in the car. Also Classic FM. That has a major aura of staleness about it, so it's definitely a second choice.

Anyway, a couple of winters ago, on a grey, wet, winter day, I went for a drive in the Mendip Hills of Somerset. Really, to get out of my flat on a Sunday afternoon. After a while, I'd decided that flooded roads, and murk, were hardly preferable to being at home. Till this came on....

Cheered me right up.





Couldn't leave today without  mention of the recently deceased Mark E Smith, and his band, The Fall. I wasn't very interested in the music, till I heard this recording, from 1983. The Fall was basically Mark, plus whichever musicians he hadn't yet fallen out with. He took quite a while to fall out with Brix Smith, his wife. She wrote much of this song, and is the vocalist.





35 years down the way, this is Brix Smith with her version of the same song, recorded last September. More mainstream, tribal drumbeat replaced by drum rolls, as English drummers like to do. Mark E Smith might have rolled his eyes at that. I do like it though.

And it's painless, sitting in subterranea
Ancient reference to Mesopotamia
And it's quiet again
Hidden fragments, surface now
Repetitious history
One more time for the record
....