Greetings from the fringes of the Sahara. Life here has turned a little dusty and blowy in recent days. I fear the long endless summer may be over and a north African winter is upon us. Dust devils play in the streets that were, only a few weeks ago, alive with the sound of squealing motor bikes and throaty automobiles of young Tripolitans.

October is quite a splendid month here on reflection. The debilitating humidity lifts and a warm air blows across the city whilst a beautiful clear light in the mornings and evenings bathes the numerous mosques, building sites and cranes.

Driving

The past month found Mrs L and the small L’s descending on my orderly and quiet existence, an existence that was further disrupted when I was required to tackle the mean roads of Tripoli under the expert tuition of Don, an ex-body guard from Wales, on my defensive driving course. The course involved me having to drive, at high speed, towards orange cones in an empty car park before slamming the brakes on and swerving to miss the obstacle in my path. Don then took me onto the streets and proceeded to tutor me in the finer details of the minds of the good, the bad and the ugly behind the wheels of Tripoli’s V8 engines. Libya is statistically the third most dangerous place in the world in which to drive, Don told me as I gingerly made my way along the dual-carriage way that is the main shopping street in rush-hour traffic. While I was digesting this rather alarming piece of information and attempting to avoid the uncovered manholes in the road, I was forced to take evasive action in order not to hit a fellow road user who decided that he was indeed traveling in the wrong direction and should in fact be on my side of the road. A swift handbrake turn found him slotting into the spot between me and the car in front. As I recovered my fragile composure I was met by a second car heading straight towards me on the wrong side of the road. “Expect the unexpected,” sage Don murmured as the driver mounted the pavement, got out and hurried into the shop he had wanted to visit.

The Captain

Shortly before the arrival of Mrs L, I bumped into Tawfiq (a hunter friend – who I met when I was having coffee with Awar, a retired police helicopter pilot), in the supermarket near our apartment. I have yet to work out how, but Tawfiq is constantly spitting out small pieces of pistachio nut shell, although I never see him actually putting anything into his mouth. I asked him if he knew where I could find a sprung mattress for N’s cot. His English is not terrific so in order to understand precisely what I was asking he phoned his brother, Dr Ali, in Britain. I relayed to Dr Ali what I was after (to my relief he confirmed that I was right not to be purchasing a foam mattress) and instructed me to hand the phone back to Tawfiq. I finished paying for my groceries and apologised profusely to the large queue behind me as Tawfiq gathered my shopping up and strode out to a car where he introduced me to Captain Osama. The Captain is a MIG fighter pilot in the Libyan Air Force. Captain Osama, Tawfiq and I then spent the next hour driving around Tripoli searching for my sprung cot mattress. I apologised for my sweaty demeanor as I had just finished playing football (and I was slightly nervous in such esteemed company), but Captain Osama told me not to be so British and to stop apologising and squirted me with some Tunisian Jasmine perfume and said it would no longer be a problem. Whilst we drove Captain Osama showed me a video clip on his mobile phone of a Libyan MIG crashing (which apparently took place a couple of weeks previously). He knew both pilots who died in the spiralling jet. “The Russians turned this generation of their MIG’s into scrap metal ten years ago,” he informed me as he put his phone away. He then rummaged in his glove compartment and handed me Nelly Furtado’s latest album which he said I could have as he had two copies. We finally found a mattress shop that could provide me with what I was after and Captain Osama and Tawfiq took me home. Before they headed off for something to eat (this is where they were going before the mattress saga began) Tawfiq got out of the car to say goodbye and ruffled my hair like one would do to a small boy: “If you need anything, phone me.”

Sink

Towards the end of the month I came across a horse festival that was being held on a strip of land between the sea and a large cemetery. It transpired that the festival was a pre-wedding gathering attended entirely by men and children. The participants had travelled from far and wide, many not even knowing the groom or his family. It was the the riding that they had come for. Teams of riders, wrapped in white cloth, astride Arab horses champing and frothing at their decorative bits would attempt to gallop the length of the ‘beach’ in a straight line without any member breaking rank. The winning team was the one that maintained this discipline as best as possible. Many of these high speed charges were made by the teams along the dusty beach. It was here that I fell into conversation with Khaled, a lecturer in electronic engineering at the university in Tripoli, whose son was riding one of the family horses. Khaled, a bulky man, was hobbling around with a flimsy looking walking stick and one leg heavily bandaged as, he told me, he had cut the tendons in his ankle when the sink he was washing his foot in had come away from the wall and shattered on the floor. Another rider who introduced himself from upon high was the ex-Libyan ambassador to Spain and Venezuela (“Hugo is a very good friend of mine” he told me when I mentioned President Chavez’s name – as if I knew him.). He spoke beautiful English and introduced me to his over-weight and sweaty son, another rider, who looked slightly uncomfortable on his large horse.

Cliff Richard

Abdul the dry cleaner, who talks in a very sing-song voice (a voice which always leaves me feeling slightly ridiculed for some reason), sang Cliff Richard’s We Don’t Talk Anymore, followed by Wired for Sound, and Rod Stewart’s Baby Jane. I’d only gone in to have a sheet repaired and told him my name, for what I assumed was purely for invoicing purposes. I can only guess as to why he branched out into Mr Stewart’s back catalogue. He now greets me as Mr. Robert every time I walk past his shop. All very confusing. Perhaps it is the strong cleaning fluids they seem to use here. No concern for the environment is obvious, but then again there is no Waitrose either.

Absolute Radio is of course brill. Another excellent thing that Absolute do is that their website contains a marvellous community full of music fans.

Also gets a mention of Cliffmas! Of course

http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/music/artists/cliff_richard/news/

Just saw Coca Cola advert on television, so therefore it is now Christmas. May only be November 22 but its 5 weeks till Christmas! Preparations have to be done now! I’ve drawn up my Christmas list for who I’m getting prezzies for and I’ve got a grand total of 2 presents so far for 2 friends. And thats not their full present.

I’m waiting until November payday (December 1st) to commence the present-getting, and I am planning most of the things I’m gonna get for people, but for my mum, I’m gonna do the whole “spur-of-the-moment” thing and go round Bluewater, and just get stuff that I know she would like. Ahh Christmas is so much fun. And, I know its not all about presents. I just love it so much. Its the best time of year, everyone’s all happy. Its a time “for all hating and fighting to cease” as good ol’ Cliff once sang quite merrily.

As we speak, I am downloading the best songs in the universe onto my iPod. What are these awesome songs I hear you say? Well, here it is folks, the 20 Most Awesome Christmas songs playlist (for me anyway, I wont include the full thing coz you’ll all get bored but meh!):

1. Kristy McColl and the Pogues – Fairytale of New York
2. Wizzard – I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday
3. Mariah Carey – All I Want For Christmas Is You
4. Slade – Merry Christmas Everybody
5. Wham – Last Christmas
6. Mel & Kim/Brenda Lee – Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree
7. Nat King Cole  – The Christmas Song
8. Bobby Helms – Jingle Bell Rock (LOL mean girls )
9. Jona Lewie – Stop the Cavalry
10. Cliff Richard – Mistletoe And Wine
11. Mud – Lonely This Christmas
12. Jackson 5 – Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
13. Boney M – Mary’s Boy Child
14. Darkness – Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)
15. Band Aid 1 – Do They Know its Christmas?
16. Paul McCartney – Wonderful Christmastime
17. David Bowie and Bing Crosby – Little Drummer Boy
18. Bing Crosby – White Christmas
19. Bon Jovi – Please Come Home for Christmas
20. Chris Rea – Driving Home for Christmas

Bet that blew your minds. Go download them now, get in the festive mood and be happy That is all for now.

I kväll var det fest på Globen. Cliff Richard och The Shadows höll konsert, det sägs vara deras sista gemensamma spelning. Säkert en riktig högtidsstund. Cliff Richard började sin karriär för över 50 år sen och fick sitt första skivkontrakt 1958. Och rösten håller än, evigt ung verkar han vara också. Vem sjutton kan tro att killen är nyss fyllda 69.

Men det är klart, jämför man med gamla kort, så visst ser man att tiden haft sin gång även här. På YouTube finns förstås en hel massa klipp att välja ibland och först hade jag svårt att välja. Men sen blev det plötsligt enkelt. När jag hittade en ängel även här så blev det ju självklart.

Här kommer alltså Cliff Richard med låten Angel.

I am going to my first Cliff Richard concert in ages and should I let that event slip between my Blogging fingers and not comment at all?

Nah. I am a fan, after all, and this is – you might say – the end of an era. Cliff Richard and The Shadows are an institution in the music industry. Cliff Richard himself brought rock‘n’roll to Britain. The Shadows have thrilled fans worldwide for eons.

Now they’re on their 50th anniversary tour, an accomplishment that very few musicians out there can brag about. I can’t believe I am so lucky that I’ll be sitting right there – now and then standing and wiggling around – and watching this event take place IRL. It’s such an honor. I am sure I will walk away with the feeling of having witnessed a WONDER. Kinda like the folks who were priviledged enough to watch Elvis on stage. It’s just something you never forget.

I will bring a camera along – not the video camera, though  because I borrowed it off my brother and I am so afraid to lose it somewhere. I will bring a borrowed digital camera and take lots of photos along the way.

The concert is on the 25th. The last time I was at a Cliff concert, I was 4 months pregnant and my son is now a full grown young man aged 10 – and he vows to never ever go to another Cliff concert ever again. Young people these days..they have no class

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Meadows and his Free Photographic Omnibus

An interview with photographer

Daniel Meadows…

Ask Daniel Meadows where he is from and he will reply, “I really don’t know. Except that I am English.” His work as a photographer over the years has documented England at its most real, whether it was touring the country on a Double Decker bus in the 70s and taking portraits of the people he saw, or photographing Ian Curtis and Joy Division in 80s Manchester during their rise to fame…

Meadows was born in Gloucestershire in 1952. He studied at photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970-73. Interesting projects from that time include The Shop On Greame Street in 1972  as well as collaborations with renowned observational photographer Martin Parr with Butlin’s By The Sea in Yorkshire in 1972 and June Street in Salford in 1973.

In 1973 and ‘74 Meadows, a self-confessed hippy, started his Free Photographic Omnibus. As Meadows puts it himself, “Once upon a time I lived in a double-decker bus, reg. JRR 404, better known as the Free Photographic Omnibus. She was my home, my travelling darkroom and gallery. We were an unlikely couple; she with her crash gear box and temperamental ways, me with my bushy hair and homemade flares. But we got along okay and, during 1973 and ‘74, we travelled about making a national portrait of the English. We covered 10,000 miles shooting pictures and giving them away.”

Some of Meadows' Photobus portraits in 1973 & '74

The free spirit of the 1970s meant that Meadows didn’t take a record of who he was photographing; no name, no age, no location. Just a photograph for them, and a photograph for his own archive. Which was unproblematic until 25 years later when Meadows decided he wanted to find his previous subjects and re-photograph them for his book The Bus.

Famous for not only taking photographs for Joy Division’s album artwork, Meadows has also been celebrated for taking a rare, albeit accidental, shot of Margaret Thatcher’s handbag and untidy office at No. 10 in the 80s. Yet these days, Meadows says that he no longer takes any photographs. His work now lies in the world of research, with particular focus on the ways of exploring the depth and range of his photography archive through storytelling using multimedia. He was awarded his PhD in 2005 for his innovative work with photography and participatory media.

Meadows was the creative director of the BBC’s Capture Wales Digital Storytelling project from 2001 until 2006, a project which has been described as “the most ambitious of all the BBC’s user generated content offerings”. Not only is the method of Digital Storytelling a brilliant way for Meadows to showcase his archive of photographs, it also allows access to a more personal world where photographs can take on a new life and meaning.

A photograph that was used Meadow's exhibition There's No Such Thing As Society...

When Meadows gave his lecture on Digital Storytelling last week, I knew I wanted to interview him within the first 5 minutes when he showed a video featuring a beautiful Rolleiflex camera. Considering that Meadows is an award-winning documentarist and photographer, and has hung out with some of England’s finest musical talent, he seemed completely humble and, well normal. He says that he enjoys looking at other peoples’ photographs more than his own, quotes Bob Dylan in an American drawl, and was not at all patronizing when I had to take a photograph of him, with my far inferior camera skills. In fact he seemed genuinely interested in my Polaroid camera, and wanted to watch the photograph spring to life. As you’d expect, his office is wall-to-wall with photographs (some his own, some not) and photography books, and during the interview he was constantly moving from shelf to shelf to illustrate his answers with photographic evidence. He even has the souvenir books that he bought at a Bill Brandt exhibition in 1970 when he was just 18 and beginning his interest in photography…

10am Wednesday 11, 2009.

H: I’ll start at the beginning. What attracted you to photography in the first place, and was it something that you always wanted to do?

Daniel Meadows today...

D: “It wasn’t something I always wanted to do. There were two really big events I think.  Well there were three actually. One was that I was crap at everything at school. And if you were crap you were allowed to do art. You know, our education system is so bad that instead of encouraging you to be creative from the moment you enter school, they discourage it. So creativity was the idiots’ class. So when I failed exams they ended up putting me in the art class. Then they discovered I couldn’t paint, so they said why don’t you try photography, cos it’s kind of easy. The second thing was I saw a wonderful little film, a BBC Omnibus in 1968 called Beautiful Beautiful and there was a New York photographer called Bruce Davidson, he’s on Magnum photography, and he did a project called East 100 Street which is in Harlem. And we’d all been led to believe that Harlem was big, bad and dangerous, and, you know, full of black people. And here was this white middle-class Jewish man, with a huge view camera, play camera, photographing people in their homes. And he made beautiful pictures, and he said something that stuck in my head, which is, ‘I poise, not pose, people… People have an innate dignity and they will set themselves before the camera in a dignified way. And they will choose what they will give.’ I remember thinking, ‘Ah this is a different way of working. I like this.’  And the third thing, there was a very famous British photographer called Bill Brandt, who’s dead now, who’d been brought up in Germany but lived in England. He is one of the greats. And there was a big retrospective exhibition of his work in 1970 at the Haywood gallery, and I went there on a school outing when I was 18. And I remember thinking ‘Wow photography’s wonderful.’ He made these wonderful documentary pictures around Great Britain from the 30s onwards. What was lovely about Brandt was that he did documentary pictures which I loved very much, but he also did portraits. He did nudes; I thought that was pretty exciting. If you take photographs you get a passport to do all sorts of things, you meet famous people, women take their clothes off for you, and you get to study the world we live in and for me at 18 that seemed pretty exciting.”

H: Was it Bill Brandt then who inspired you to do the Photobus project then? The fact that he’d gone around documenting Great Britain?

D: “Well the inspiration for the Photobus was more Cliff Richard, I hate to say. How tacky is that? There was a film, probably the first film I ever saw, Cliff Richard, 1960 Actually it wasn’t the first film I saw, the first film was Snow White. But one of the first films I saw was Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday. It was 1961 and I was nine. Or it could have been 63 when I was 11. And he lived on a Double Decker bus. So I guess it was a mixture of that, of Cliff and Brandt and Bruce Davidson. But also the other missing connection there is this guy called Sir John Benjamin Stone who was a Tory MP in the Edwardian era who travelled England and tried to make a record of the English. He travelled about and he did lots of portraits, cos he was an MP he had an ‘in’ to photographing famous people. He was photographing major events. But his real enthusiasm was for dying, fading, disappearing, rustic festivals and so on, and there’s this picture Harvest Home Kern Baby of 1901. You could look at this picture for a million years and you’d never fathom what it is about. One of the things I really, really love about photography is that it describes things perfectly and it explains nothing. And that’s what I love about photography. There’s always some mystery. And so for me those two things are the things I learnt from Stone.”

Then and Now... Meadows re-photographed his Photobus subjects once he found them 25 years later...

H: Do you think you’d still be able to do something like the Photobus today?

D: “No. The Criminal Justice Act in, was it 1980? The one that the Tories brought in to beat the Crusties, makes it almost impossible. I mean the gypsies and travelers are given a very hard time. I mean it was hard enough living in a bus, parking up and so on in 1973 and 74. You wouldn’t be able to do that now.  It’s not possible in the modern world.”

H: Did it take you a long time to embrace digital photography?

D: “I was a very early adopter of digital storytelling. I ran a digital storytelling class here for undergraduates in the mid to late 90s and people thought it was pretty wacky. And when I first started teaching you lot, you know, mainstream journalists, about the coming of the digital age, we were very unpopular. I mean you were all very welcoming last week, but 10 years ago I used to get, you know, people used to complain, ‘Why are we having to learn all this rubbish?’ I was a very early adopter of all of that stuff. But, for me, the digital age is ultimately not about technology. Photography has always changed; every five minutes there are new innovations and there have been throughout the history of photography. So photographers are used to embracing innovation, which I guess it why I was kind of into it a bit early. But it actually wasn’t the photographic side of things that excited me, so much as the fact that we had some new tools that looked like opening out media to become a much more democratic activity. So that was, for me, the thing that I really liked about it, that you could tell your own stories and publish them and didn’t have to go through the filter of patronizing big media professionals who basically were setting themselves up as gatekeepers. And I would still argue that that is the case. We have too many commissioning editors and people in the way between good ideas and good television.”

Ian Cutis photographed by Meadows in Manchester, January 1980.

H: What’s been your favourite photography project of your own over the years?

D: “I did love doing digital storytelling at the BBC. Every time you ran a workshop, people would bring their photographs in, you had such a window onto other peoples lives, and for me that was kind of humbling, but also very exciting and intriguing. And I began to enjoy looking at other peoples’ pictures more than I enjoyed making new pictures myself. There are pictures that are a fantastic trigger to memory; you can learn to listen to people. A photograph is a great place to begin listening to people. If that doesn’t sound bizarre!

H: Has there been anyone in particular who has been your favourite to photograph?

D: “No, but I can think of some people I really hated photographing!  The problem with doing anything out on a limb is that you have to finance it. And whilst in the early days I did manage to get a bit of funding from the Arts Council when I did my bus project, most the projects I’ve done, I’ve just gone and done them, and then tried to sell them to get some money.  Throughout the 70s I was thinking up stories like the mental hospital story, and going and doing them and then selling them to magazines. But when I started having children and I needed more stable income I had a long period working in the film industry as a stills man, taking pictures in the film industry. And there were some actors who were just bizarre. They’d stand and pose in front of the video cameras all day, then when I’d come on, I’d be sent off the set. They’d do silly things, like when they were rehearsing, which is when you could get your pictures if you were intelligent and you’d work with the actor rather than against them. You could say to them, ‘Well I think we could probably get the stills during the rehearsal, but make certain you’re wearing the right costumes.’ And then John Thaw- Inspector Morse- I did some stills for him, he would come out carrying a newspaper and rehearse with a newspaper in his pocket, or he’d put a hat on that wasn’t in character, just because he couldn’t stand the stills man. And Alec Guinness always had me sent off the set when I worked on the film of Little Dorrit in the 80s. I’d always rather liked Alec Guinness’ acting but I have to say he was a very difficult person to work with.”

Joy Division photographed by Meadows in Manchester, January 1980.

H: Would you mind telling me about your experiences in the Factory Records days?

D: “Factory Records! Well, for a period in the 70s I worked as a researcher in television and even then, it’s quite interesting now when I look back at the experiments with photographs. There’s a little film I made where I work as a kind of TV reporter reporting on my own photographs as events, which is very like a digital story. Anyway, so I went to work as a researcher at Grenada TV and, you know, I learned a lot about how television was made, which was later extremely useful when I came to doing digital storytelling. Grenada had big open plan offices and for a whole, well one long summer I shared a desk with Tony Wilson. Well I mean the desk had about 13 or 15 people all around it and Tony Wilson was one of the people around that desk. He was then a presenter on Granada Reports, and I was working on an arts program called Celebration. And it’s difficult for you lot to imagine it, but television was just as difficult to get into in those days, but it was incredibly over-manned. You could sit around all week doing very little, then suddenly the bit you had to do you’d have to do it very well. There were far too many people, and the unions were very, very strong, and as we well know there’s a whole trade union history of what happened with that. And so there were times when Wilson and I were sitting around twiddling our thumbs and he knew about my ventures on the bus and stuff and knew I was a photographer. In fact I carried a camera around with me all the time, or camera bag all the time with several cameras in it. And he just used to say ‘Come on Daniel, I’ve got a new band or a new act’ or this or that, you know, and the arts program I was working on made a little film about the Factory shortly after it opened, Factory Nights Down In Hulme. So I went and photographed and made a documentary about John Cooper Clarke. I loved John Cooper Clarke. I still love him. And then Joy Division were getting going and he needed some pictures for Joy Division and stuff… “

H: You did some of their album artwork as well didn’t you?

D: “It’s difficult for your generation to imagine how kind of crap it all was. You know, you live in an age of digital artwork and stuff, with things produced to a very high standard, but at that time Wilson had really good ambitions for the style of Factory Records, that they should be well designed. And he used this young guy called Peter Saville to do all the design. But Wilson was also hugely informed by the Situationists, the French avant-garde movement. And one of his bands was called Durutti Column, whose name came from a Situationist group. The original Situationists, they were kind of radical freedom fighters in the Spanish civil war who basically went around killing the bourgeoisie. I mean they weren’t very pleasant! Anyway, there was a sweet little guitar player called Vini Reilly who was in Durutti Column, and he wasn’t very well, he had some depressive illness and he was physically very unwell. But he played this sweet, kind of angelic guitar, and Wilson thought it would be amusing to have a sandpaper record sleeve.  I went down to Wilbraham Road, Wilson’s partner in Factory had a flat down there, and I went to photograph Vini Reilly, for I think it was Sounds magazine, when the return of the Durutti Column album came out. I photographed him mainly downstairs, in the garden and in the porch by the house, and then upstairs were several of the members of Joy Division sitting around gluing together these sandpaper albums.  The Situationists produced not only a book but also a magazine that had sandpaper covers. And the idea was that it would destroy everything around it, so they made an album with sandpaper covers. I still have mine somewhere. But I actually glued one or two together that afternoon. But you know we were just young people sitting around, making things. And it became quite a legendary album, a) because it was a good album, and b) it talked about what Wilson was trying to do with Factory. I photographed Joy Division in the studio, and photographed them at a gig in Oldham, so yeah it was an interesting time.”

Joy Division producer Martin Hannett, photographed by Meadows in Manchester, January 1980.

H: Have you found that observing people and places through photography has taught you anything about people and places that ordinary people wouldn’t necessarily see?

D: “Well, as Dylan used to say ‘It depends what you mean by all those terms, man.’  Ordinary!” (Laughs a lot)

H: Ha, Sorry I know ordinary is a bad choice of word…

D: (More laughter) “No it’s not a bad choice of word. It’s a very good choice of word, I’ve been guilty myself of using the word ‘ordinary’. So it depends what you mean by all those terms, man. But obviously I’ve learnt a lot. I think the thing I’ve learnt most is how bad we are at listening to people. Journalists from big media tend to make their mind up what the story’s about before they go and shoot it and that’s a sadness to me because what it doesn’t allow for is serendipity, and surprise and wonder. The more I spend time with ordinary people, man, the more I realise how wonderful we are, and watching television today makes me think how crap we are. And in that gap is the place where I do my work. You know, I have such an intolerance for reality-based television, I mean it’s shite with a capital S. And it’s as though we can’t do anything now on TV without it having a reality element. And it’s shite cos it’s cruel, its fundamentally based on a cruelty that people are set against each other. It’s like the entertainment of the playground, we’re all gathering around to watch an execution that can be picked over by a media that’s gradually losing credibility. You know fewer people are watching television programmes. Like if a television programme gets five million viewers, the makers go ‘Hey we had five million viewers’. But I say wait a minute, we live in a country of 60 million people, that means 55 million people had the intelligence not to watch your crap programme… “

To find out more about Daniel Meadows, have a look at his website www.photobus.co.uk or his Cardiff University profile…

All photographs have been used courtesy of Daniel Meadows…

This evening, whilst merrily (ish) doing some marking and listening to a playlist that included Cliff Richard, The Chiffons, and Simon and Garfunkel, I had an epiphany: I am not cool.

To be fair, this realisation was, perhaps, not as sudden as it may sound.

For instance, this morning, my tutor group were devising questions for the weekly year group quiz, and I criticised one team for the  heavy bias in Call of Duty related questions.

‘Alright Miss, you’ll get this one,’ They said, and proceeded to asked me the name of Tinchy Strider’s new single.

I only know who Tinchy Strider is because, a) he’s got a stupid name, and b) a few weeks ago Spotify kept advertising his latest album, and I kept sitting there muttering things like ‘load of rubbish’ and ‘it’s just noise’ under my breath.

It’s not that I’m suggesting that a bunch of fifteen year olds who listen to drivel, use phrases like ‘badman’ (I’m not sure if that’s one word or two…), and persuade their parents to take them to Tesco’s in the middle of the night to buy an X Box game are cool. It’s just that they are interested in things that are young, fresh, and popular. Not exactly adjectives you could use to describe Cliff Richard.

One could argue that they are the sad ones, jumping on the latest bandwagon, and only watching/listening to things that have been approved by T4 or Radio 1. One could also argue that someone who is nearly 25 should not be interested in the same things as a teenager anyway - and I would wholeheartedly agree with this. What self-respecting adult wants to sit around pretending to be soldier at war, when we only need to watch the news to get an idea of what that must be like?

I think part of what bothers me, is that I still think of myself as a young person - and according to National Rail, that is what I am for another year, thank you very much. Yet every day at work, I’m reminded that I’m not.

 Aside from not giving a stuff about COD, N-Dubz, Flo Rida, or Tap Tap, I frequently say things like ‘who is this Chris Brown, then?’ or ‘there aren’t many things I care less about in this world than Jedward’. I even used the word ‘hip’ the other day. Such comments get predictable reactions from the pupils; ranging from blank stares, to looks that say ‘Fucking hell! Miss has just sprouted an alien’s head and tentacles where her arms should be!’.

Again, people might argue that not knowing who Chris Brown is, or finding the whole Jedward debate banal, scores me extra cool points.

 But then, if these people are singing along to The Young Ones instead, then they’re probably not qualified to judge.

I Love The Music

OK I will write this blog, was not going to attempt it tonight as I rather feel my brain is taken apart, I’m coming off Tamazepam again, and large great chunks of flying faeces are hitting the fan with horrible regularity in my life, and especially in the lives of those close. (PS Which impacts on me. What touches those close to us seems to touch us very much). I came to the conclusion recently that life, is about making hay while the dark clouds amass above us. Because, they never stop for long. Or to put it Lou Reed’s way, ‘make a point of having some fun’. Things can go along quite well for a good while, but I think life’s ever shifting kaleidoscope regularly turns to monochrome and this is why my new philosophy, is to take this into account and put some splashes of colour into life’s mix from now on. I mean, all sorts of shit is going to happen. I used to be the sort of person who thought my life a horrid mess because the sky was never free from clouds, whereas everyone else’s life seemed relatively sunny. Sorry for obvious metaphors. Whereas now, I have no reason to assume my life is particularly bleak. I now think most people’s lives are, frankly rather bleak, and that therefore lets all make hay, and sun, as a deliberate policy amidst the grey skies.

Thank you Marcus Rossi, an extremely clever, good looking, intelligent man who writes for Shindig! Magazine, for the following review of England’s Dreaming Spires, my LP available now from villagegreenmachine.com:

VILLAGE GREEN MACHINE
England’s Dreaming Spires
Paisley Arcade CD
www.paisleyarcade.com

Village Green Machine is to all intents and purposes a one-man operation, the man in question being the estimable Mark Lemon: and a man of considerable taste and refinement he is.
England’s Dreaming Spires, as its title readily suggests, taps into a very specific and cherishable vein of UK popsike. However, while Marks unadorned English singing voice betrays a loving debt to Syd Barrett and often calls to mind David Gedge of The Wedding Present, oddly the finished product utilises a considerably broader palette than one might expect. The super-clean guitars and splashy drums, deliriously awash in a bath of reverb, are closer in essence to Joe Meek than George Martin, while Marks lyrics throughout are sharply observant, wholly contemporary, insightful and witty.
You Make Me Feel That Way, Rollercoaster and The Whole Of My Heart, all effortlessly immediate, would be hit records in any truly civilised society, while My Eccentric Cousin is what 65-era Dylan would have sounded like sharing a travelling rug with Phil Spector in a rainy Birmingham bus shelter.
Marco Rossi

Thanks Marco.
One thing is for sure, I always use 60s sounds. Usually I experiment as well. The truth is beyond this what I do is difficult to pin down, as I never stay still for long. So England’s Dreaming Spires echoes Cliff Richard one minute, The Ramones the next, while being made to sound like early Beach Boys. And I mean, I sing in a British accent. I utilise whatever influences come to mind, I mix everything up but ofcourse one has to be able to write a good song. A certain plugger recently accused me of being reliant on other people’s material as the basis of my work, this is complete arse. I celebrate my influences but, if he had bothered to listen to the substance which is mine alone, I think he would have found some worthy original substance. Great that Psychodrama has been played on Radio 6. Wiithout the assistance of a plugger.

This week, we got in despite some heavy personal issues and got recording, I did a song called I Love The Music, kind of Beatles folky/sea shanty style. But I let go of this blueprint and experimented with the types of overdubs, and just generally experimental….the muse flew in the window when I was producing and its a happening track, its got this very distorted fuzztone guitar- the one given to me by a close personal friend from a very cool famous group from the 1960s lol- . Describing music is plainly like trying to describe a colour, … but I am glad because I am never secure, in as much as I can never sit back and think, the next recording will be really good. That would just be a dangerous conceit, and not everything I do turns out. I am still not happy with English Cafe, and I’ve recorded that maybe 6 times or even more. If you like Village Green Machine I will tell you though, I am really thrilled by the way the second album is shaping up. Doing this thing is my life, any money I’ve earnt before VGM has been snorted up someone else’s nose, or worse, and music, is all. I think album 2 will be on its way in spring next year. File sharing, I can’t condemn that since I expanded my own musical landscape a lot by copying albums onto tape when I was a kid, but, supporting us with an album purchase will help keep this thing going.

Did anyone see that interview with Cliff Richard recently by Piers Morgan? Why ever doesn’t that bloke come out of the closet- and Cliff Richard as well.
I have criticised Cliff in the past, for having made a lot of bad records, but now with my blog apparently being read by several hundred people a week, (look I’m not Rupert Murdoch) I think I had better be careful incase I offend the over 70s, Cliff fan club. There is a Monty Python sketch where the Conservative women’s institute or some such decide to sort out lazy working class men, and people interested in sex, and go on the attack with their handbags- (ps pre Margaret Thatcher) I am shaking in my shoes at the thought of the very real possibility of offending at least one Cliff fan I know – but anyway I’m sorry but I am going to speak my mind. I think, he was, and is, a great bloke. No, hold on hipsters, don’t go yet. I was in a band with a drummer who was also a security guard at a major UK venue, and apparently when CR played there, he gave them all T Shirts (which they wore of course) and was really nice and allright. Well, it does count for a lot and I’m not being ironic. Whereas when Barry Manilow played, allegedly, he made all the security guards turn their backs when he mounted the stage. The thought of being mounted by Barry is enough to make me thrash around in search of something, anything, less horrific to distract and console- where was I, yes, Cliff Richard’s good records. Now I defy anyone- to you know, tell me I’m talking crap on this. I think, Move It, In The Country, When Blue Turns To Grey, Miss You Nights, We Don’t Talk Anymore, Carrie, Wired For Sound, and especially Devil Woman are great records.WBTTG and ITC, I take that sound as a role model, among a thousand others in the Village Green Machine mix. Its no good being snobbish, if a record is good its good, however dodgy the image, dance routines etc. And with Cliff, I suspect a choreographer was to blame for some cringeworthy performances. Also I have to say, I was disappointed by that clip of the latest Shadows reunion. They’re 70 and looking amazing, but they had these girls doing the hand jive for a song called guess what Willie and the Hand Jive, and it was kitsch nostalgia taken a step too far. I mean, theres no need for that. Because, among musicians, guitarists at least, who are into old pop, The Shadows are, I don’t think I am exaggerating to say, iconic. Hank leading all those hits with great melodies, on guitar? And Brian Bennett, a very class act on drums with a great sound. I happen to know the tickets for these shows were £60 a head- (I didn’t go) but I have 2 original copies of greatest hits on original vinyl, looking cool sounding even better, and anyone who knows Village Green Machine stuff will surely recognise the influence of The Shadows ”The Rise And Fall Of Flingel Bunt” on my guitar playing. (Cliff and the Shadows on tour)

Thanks for enquiries about Jacobites and related, it was great, we had a lot of fun. All go and listen to It’ll All End Up In Tears on youtube, that’s incredible.

Three times a week is a lot for anything (l o ******* l) no thats nasty but it is – and I’ve watched The Anniversary starring Bette Davis and Sheila Hancock three times, not in a week but in as many days. I got a DVD of it on ebay. Made in Britain in 1968, Bette Davis plays the tyrannical matriarch a few of us may recognise in our own experience. With a patch over one eye, she waltzes down her staircase dressed in an orange Crimpelene mini dress to greet her 3 family business sons for an anniversary gathering. One son is a ‘knicker snatcher’ ooh er, another a regular workman with his own children and wife sheila Hancock, the third a dapper young mod with a beautiful fiance to introduce to mother. It is a black comedy period piece without conceit, every aspect exuding conservative sixties style aesthetically.The knicker snatcher speeds away in a Vauxhall Victor FC estate with chrome bumpers, ofcourse. The mod son wears a double breasted jacket with small high lapels, a ‘pea coat’, and has a good haircut unlike myself (bad hair day thanks to Christos) The film looks old, in an indescernable way which I, we?, like. Basically, Bette Davis plays this dragon who runs the family building firm, the entire plot being a study, an hilarious disturbing observation of family politics, when a tyrannical nasty woman is in charge. High entertainment. I won’t disclose the plot further, but I highly recommend this film as a suitable companion to Entertaining Mr Sloan. It is pithy, direct, unpredictable, outrageous and funny. I found it on UK ebay.

For more reviews and the usual news, come back soon ie next week

Cheers

Mark Lemon

Village Green Machine

CLIFF FANS, SHADOWS FANS, CLIFF IMPERSONATORS, PLEASE JOIN THIS BRAND NEW CLIFF RICHARD FAN GROUP ON YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/group/cliffrichardiscool !

I CREATED IT, I HOPE WE CAN MAKE IT HUGE!

Cliff Richard

Cliff Richard zal op 11 november een speciaal concert verzorgen in Ahoy. Het betreft een eenmalig optreden waarbij hij ook zijn begeleidingsband The Shaddows zal meenemen.

Bestel hier je tickets voor dit speciale concert van Cliff Richard!

Anda circulando durante las últimas semanas por la gofiosfera –en forma de entrada de blog, nota en los muros de Facebook o cadena de correo– un curioso vídeo musical de Cliff Richard y The Shadows, grabado en distintas localizaciones de la Las Palmas de Gran Canaria de la década de los sesenta.

Cliff Richard with The Shadows, There’s a Girl in Every Port, 1964.

La pieza en cuestión pertenece a Wonderful Life (Días maravillosos, en castellano), una película protagonizada por el cantante británico en 1964, cuatro años antes de alcanzase uno de sus mayores éxitos al quedar segundo en el Festival de Eurovisión, tras la española Massiel.

En la película, que, como se aprecia en el vídeo, fue rodada en Gran Canaria, pueden reconocerse parajes como el Puerto de La luz, el Parque de Santa Catalina, la Ciudad Alta, la playa de Las Canteras o las dunas de Maspalomas.

Si les apetece ver la Isla convertida en un plató de cine musical a mitad de los años sesenta, a falta de la cinta completa, no tienen más que pulsar sobre alguno de estos enlaces. Y, si después de verlos se quedan con ganas de saber cómo acaba la aventura de estos chicos, tienen a su disposición un resumen de la historia en algo menos de diez minutos.

Por cierto, que otro día les hablaré del vídeo canario de Rick Astley.

Another Cliff Richard song, a 1999 performance with Hank Marvin of the 1959 hit Living Doll

Great song and Marvin is superb on guitar

From the distant past, 1958, Cliff Richard backed by The Shadows performing Move It

Reminds one that Cliff and The Shadows did some good stuff.

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In 1973 I had my first proper party to celebrate my seventh birthday; after the summer I had a new teacher (for reasons explained in the 1972 review); and the German version of Sesame Street was flighted in most of West Germany as of January 1973.

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Theme – Sesamstrasse.mp3
Theme – Sesame Street.mp3
Sesame Street – Rubber Ducky.mp3
Sesamstrasse – Quitsche-entchen.mp3
I cannot overstate the importance of Sesamstrasse, as it was known in Germany, in my development. For the first few years, German TV did no more than to synchronise the US original, with Gordon, Susan and Bob speaking German. Mr Hooper was renamed (with phonetically sensitivity) Herr Huber. Big Bird became Bibo, Grover became Grobi, Cookie Monster (apart from Ernie and Oscar the Grouch, my favourite) Krümelmonster.

Not being a pre-schooler, I had no need for the lessons in numeracy or the alphabet, fun as they often were. The entertainment value of most skits was great, of course, and I can still delight in watching clips like the original Manah Manah (redone to diminished effect on The Muppet Show) or Bob’s Fairy Tales, which clearly were written with a nod and a wink at the watching Moms. But the great impression Sesame Street made on me was the presentation of the inner city, idealised to communicate the possibility of harmony and equality between races, ethnicities and classes. Just the reasons why the right-wing Bavarian government under the thoroughly ghastly Fanz-Josef Strauss considered Sesame Street undesirable (or, as they euphemistically put, as not appropriately reflecting social realities) and banned it from their aiwaves. Susan, Gordon, Bob and Oscar the Grouch — whom I dressed up as for a costume party in early ’73 — shaped my outlook just as surely as did later Günter Wallraff’s undercover exposé of the Bild newspaper or Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Apart from the US and German themes of the show, I’m posting the US and German versions of Ernie’s classic Rubber Ducky.

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Bay City Rollers – Mañana.mp3
There were two versions of the Bay City Rollers: the incarnation on millions of barely pubescent girl’s bedroom walls, and a rather more ripened version without future frontman Leslie McKeown and hard-living axeman Stuart “Woody” Wood. I’m not inclined to argue forcefully that BCR v1.0 was musically superior to BCR v2.0 (though much more so than v.2.3), but I still enjoy Mañana a lot, with its tribal drums and catchy singalong chorus. Or perhaps I like it because I had been looking for the song, released in 1972, for absolute ages, and can’t commit myself to disappointment. I remember making up football-related lyrics on our schoolground in 1974, with the chant relating to a Hannover 96 player called Damjanoff. I might have had a career as terrace chant lyricist…

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The Les Humphries Singers – Mama Loo.mp3
I have no idea what a Mama Loo is, and I am much less disposed to engage in speculation. I do know that Mama Loo gets Les and his multi-national and multi-ethnic singers rockin’ and rollin’and rockin’ and reelin’ in a most joyful manner, borrowing more than a little from the Beach Boys’ hit Barbara-Ann (the original of which is HERE). English-born Humphries’ outfit seems to have been inspired by the Edwin Hawkins Singers (of Oh Happy Day fame) with a reference to the free-love hippiedom of Hair. Add to the recipe a set of catchy songs that fused the sound (and sometimes lyrics) of gospel with pop, and you get the Les Humphries Singers. Whatever a Mama Loo is, I rather like the energy of this song. Impressive lead vocals too by, I think, John Lawton. See the video, in which the cameraman unsubtly goes for a close-up of Liz Mitchell’s breasts.

Some of Les’ singers went on to greater things. Liz Mitchell became one of two Boney M members to actually sing on their records; English-born John Lawton (a founder member of German prog-rockers Lucifer’s Friends) became lead singer of Uriah Heep; and Jürgen Drews became a successful Schlager singer. My grandmother, who financed my earlier record-collecting endeavours and lived her pop fandom through me, did not like these hippies. The Les Humphries Singers with their long hair, racial integration (to her all black people were Afghanis, it seems) and likely sexual promiscuity failed to embody her old-fashioned German values. But that was not even the worst of problem she had with them. She forcefully objected to their dancing, calling them Hopskrähen (jumping crows; hmmm, sounds like the basis for a name a 1990s rock band might adopt).

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Cindy & Bert – Immer wieder Sonntags.mp3
Jürgen Marcus – Ein Festival der Liebe.mp3
I remember seeing both of these Schlager horrors (oh, but the first one is a horror which even nostalgia cannot mitigate; the second at least has an interesting interlude) on the ZDF Hitparade, the hugely popular monthly show that featured only German Schlager acts (look at Cindy & Bert on the Hitparade; Bert doesn’t look like he wants to be there). Cindy & Bert were a husband-and-wife duo of whom my dear grandmother was very fond, perhaps because they looked a lot like the very nice couple that rented the top floor flat of her beautiful house (her affection for the couple ceased when they moved out, having left the place in a bit of a mess. We later learnt that the husband had cheated on his lovely wife, behaviour of which Oma did not approve, obviously). What my grandmother had missed about Cindy & Bert was that the apparently very square couple had just a couple of years earlier recorded a rather incongruously heavy cover of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. It’s fair to say that my granny was not a great Sabbath fan. The Paranoid cover will feature in the next installment of German curiosities.

I should imagine that my grandmother was also slightly troubled by the length of Jürgen Marcus’ hair. But otherwise he was a “very nice boy”. We can safely say that Jürgen’s big bowtie did not come from the wardrobe of Ozzie Osbourne. But Oma clearly forgave the singer his luxurious mane, because he was an amiable young man performing nice songs, flashing luxuriant smiles and mugging genially, even if he looks rather glum on the cover of the single which proclaims a festival of love (but how much of a grin would you muster while wearing Bozo the Clown’s oversized comedy bowtie). For a generation of mothers, he was a perfect, albeit hirsute, prospective son-in-law. What that generation of mothers didn’t know was that Jürgen wouldn’t be interested in their daughters. A few years ago, the singer revealed that he is gay. This video clip from the Disco ’73 show must be seen just for the lack of rhythmic coordination among the audience in the backrow.

Marcus was produced by Jack White, who as Horst Nußbaum had been a professional football player, at one time plying his trade with Dutch giants PSV Eindhoven. He retired from professional football in 1966, but continued to play for the amateur team of Berlin club Tennis-Borussia. In December 1976, by now a famous record producer, he turned out for the club’s first team in a German cup game against 1.FC Köln. His side lost 1-5 to the eventual cup winner. In the interim, he had produced a string of big German hits, including the German football team’s 1974 World Cup song (which I intend to inflict upon the reader in the next installment). Later he also produced Paul Anka, Engelbert Humperdinck, Laura Branagan (including her US top 10 hits Self Control and Gloria) and — of course — David Hasselhoff.

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Albert Hammond – It Never Rains In Southern California.mp3
I once noted that in nostalgia, the sun always shines, except when bad weather is an essential constituent in happy memories. Albert Hammond Sr’s hit sums up my memories of a sunny 1973, whose run of good weather was disrupted only by cold winter mornings when I walked to school in the dark and snow, which I found terribly exciting, by playing in central heated indoor coziness while outside it rained, a dark and cold Christmas and zooming down a hill in the park on my sled. But for the most part, the sun put in overtime in 1973, or so my memory tells me. My friends, brother and I played a lot outdoors. Our suburban block was our kingdom. But we were warned of hazards such as traffic and bad men who might want to abduct us, the latter known in the local patois as Mitschnacker. We were on alert.

A Mitschnacker yesterday (actually, it's Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard)

One day, a dude dressed in black with a funky hat and a drooping moustache — an exotic look in our kingdom — came walking down our street. One of us (it might have been me) approached him and asked: “Excuse me, are you a Mitschnacker?” As he suppressed a laugh, he answered affirmatively and made a grabbing motion at us. We scrammed, but on reflection decided that he probably wasn’t a Mitschnacker. A couple of years later, a man exposed himself to us as we were walking to school. Rather than being alert to the dangers of a sex offender, we laughed at the strange man who took out his willy, because willies were very funny to us. We didn’t even conceive of the idea that the joker could be a Mitschnacker.

Traffic was very light in our area, so we paid little attention to it. That’s how my little brother got hit by a car and broke his thigh, just a few days before his fifth birthday in early summer. His present had already been bought: a slide, to go with the set of swings and sandbox we already had in our garden. With his whole leg in plaster, he obviously couldn’t make good use of his present for a while. The rest of us, however, had excellent fun with it.

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Gilbert O’Sullivan – Get Down.mp3
Officially, the song is supposed to be about Gilbert’s dog which required reprimanding for jumping on his furniture. It’s clear that the song is not about a disobedient dog, but about a woman who bothers him for amorous attention, presumably after a drunken one-night stand (would you sing to a dog a verse like this: “Once upon a time I drank a little wine/Was as happy as could be, happy as could be/Now I’m just like a cat on a hot tin roof/Baby what do you think you’re doin’ to me”?). And then Gilbert feigns surprise when he is alone again, naturally. Ah, the days when a singer could enjoy hits with songs that demeaned women… Using dogs as metaphors for women couldn’t happen today, of course, at an age when pop music invariably treats women with highest respect.

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Ireen Sheer – Goodbye Mama.mp3
Like Get Down and the next song, Goodbye Mama was one of the big German hits of the summer of 1973, during which my family went on holiday to Denmark (during which it rained a lot, though I have fond memories of not being bored indoors. Though I most probably was).

Ireen Sheer was born in England, growing up in Romford. She struggled to get her career going, until her record company came up with the bright idea that Ireen could record in German, since her mother was from Düsseldorf and Ireen had some knowledge of the language. The plan worked: in 1973 Sheer enjoyed her first German hit with a typically sentimental Schlager that in its title identified the singer as English and in sound evokes Greece, like so many songs of the time (including Cindy & Bert’s hit above). I don’t remember any other songs by Sheer, but apparently she has maintained a fairly successful career to this day.

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Cliff Richard – Power To All Our Friends.mp3
I never really liked Cliff Richard. Even as I liked this song at the time, I didn’t realise that it was sung by Cliff. Obviously I hadn’t watched that year’s Eurovision Song Contest, at which this was Britain’s offering. To me, it was just one of those tunes that always cropped up on the radio. I think I might have been doing Cliff a decades-long injustice. Sure, he is hyper-square, has an annoying grin, issues trite Christmas songs and has that Peter Pan of Pop shit going on. Sure, his music is not of consistently quite-good standard (the born-again Christian singer has disowned his best song, Devil Woman). But he seems to be a very nice man who, I’ve read, does a lot of fine charitable work. I’d love to read a full, candid biography of the man. In the meantime, I think this apologia for Cliff will do.

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Reinhard Mey – Gute Nacht, Freunde.mp3
I really enjoyed Sky Nonhoff’s musical memoir Kleine Philosphie der Passionen: Schallplatten (dtv, 2000), but then, in an aside, he viciously attacked Gute Nacht, Freunde. Eventually I could forgive Nonhoff for his unkindness towards one of my mother’s singles. Mey is one of Germany’s veteran Liedermacher, singer-songwriters whose worthy lyrics and music repudiate the banality of the pop industry, much like their chanson counterparts in France. I think the melody is quite lovely. The lyrics are very adult. A guest is thanking his hosts for their hospitality and unconditional friendship. There aren’t many good songs about friendship; this one probably helped many people articulate their gratitude to good friends, like an eloquent Hallmark card.

It being 1973, the protagonist is having a smoke while he is formulating his appreciative farewell speech. The third verse is particularly nice as Mey gives thanks for “the freedom that is your eternal guest, and that you never question what’s in it for you. Perhaps it’s because from outside the light in your windows seems to glows more warmly”. Yeah, Schatzi, we’ll definitely invite him again.

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The Sweet – Ballroom Blitz.mp3
As noted in 1972, I had no idea that the guys doing this song were the same group that sang Poppa Joe, the single I loved so much. And that even though Ballroom Blitz, like Blockbuster before that, was ubiquitous. Only a few months later, when Teenage Rampage became a hit, did I make the association. The Sweet were massive in West-Germany, more so than in Britain; only one Sweet single did better in the UK than it did in West Germany, and that was Love Is Like Oxygen, released in 1978 at the end of the group’s run in the charts (it reached #9 in the UK, and #10 in Germany). Ballroom Blitz was the fifth in The Sweet’s run of six consecutive German #1s, which started in 1972 with Little Willy (the follow-up to #3 hit Poppa Joe) and ended with Teenage Rampage in 1974. The run was broken by the song that is perhaps  the group’s best, The Six Teens.

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More Stepping Back

Instead of spending another post ruminating about October songs, I think I’ll just be a DJ and play five of ‘em, on the radio this week in 1976, of course. This one was recorded live at a show on December 31, 1976:

(Check out a version of “Lido Shuffle” from the same show here.)

Someday I’m going to write a whole post about the Bay City Rollers, who scored four straight hit singles in 1976—”Saturday Night,” “Money Honey,” “Rock and Roll Love Letter,” and “I Only Want to Be With You”—all of which are pretty good as long as you remember who we’re talking about. “I Only Want to Be With You” is a particular favorite of mine, because it features an instrumental break in the middle that sounds like the 101 Strings on a caffeine high.

Recently somewhere—I thought it was in the comments here, but maybe it was on Facebook, or maybe I’ve hallucinated the whole thing—we were discussing little moments in songs that we particularly love. A moment that makes what’s left of my hair stand on end starts at the 2:33 mark of this video, where the medley of mid-70s disco hits ends and the record returns to the main theme.

And then there’s this, which is all kinds of awesome, although I can’t explain why. Is it Cliff’s shag, his medals, the long johns he appears to be wearing, the same damn video effect repeated for 3 1/2 minutes . . . or what?

Programming note on the following: The awesomeness does not truly begin until they bust out the rubber bands.

I think five’s enough for today . . . but tomorrow’s another day.

Recently I responded to a video on youtube in which Professor Richard Dawkins was interviewing Professor Steven Weinberg.

I began getting some negative reactions, but eventually it became clear to me that there is a huge misconception or expectation on the part of people who assume that because Christianity, or rather the religious forms of Christianity, of what is based crudely upon the teachings of Jesus is all bad.

The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7)

This type of thinking is a common error, in this common era, and to think like that is to allow onself to be brainwashed by the negative and hateful statements of men like these two professors, who are painting all religious people as uncarring and unmoved and UNmotivated to act and lean in against the wall of oppression, injustice, suffering, pain that is in our world.

this is just one of hundreds of religious organisations...which represent Christ's hands and care in our world..open your eyes people...

To think like this is to ignore the massive role that Christians (disciples of Jesus) have done, and allow the actions of the many who Jesus said would not walk the way he did in this world. Many who identify themselves with religion do the opposite to what their religions primary focus is, and if one were to make the effort one would find that many of these religions primary goal was peace, healing, and the overcoming evil in all of its forms, with love.

Mother Theresa, is on of the larger than life people who sought to make the Jesus difference, and continue to do so...

It is true that there are bad and good people in every religious form, who do not live out of the goodness of their hearts, but who are hateful, racist and prejudiced; but to colour all religous people as some how cruel, unconcerned and hypocritical is a grave error, in this common era.

Here is a transcript of my discussion with a member of the YOUTUBE COMMUNITY:

My first comment…

So according to Professor Dawkins and Weinberg, Judaism is a cool religion. ‘If you don’t? have any specific understanding of what you mean by GOD, why do you talk about it.’ said Weinberg. ( Did Dawkins listen ? ) Better watch out for those bolts of lightening

First reply

bullshit,? you should watch / read more Weinberg

My second comment…

Christianity and Islam have both been misrepresented by Professor Dawkins, who is only interested? in targeting fanatics. I speak on behalf of Christian who do not believe in murder, and especially murdering the unborn.

The reply…

Biologists have it harder be religion because biology? is way more attacked by religious nutcakes. Physics is too hard for understand most, so they do not attack it. Christianity is not exactly innocent, most treat gay ppl like shit. 85% of USA christians voted for proposition 8, also did loads of evil in the past, what is not fundamental also majority is obnoxious and annoying people who better get cured of their insanity.

My final comment…

There are good people and there are bad people, but to attack Christianity and Islam without including every world view, is to ignore the truth that not everyone is a Christian or a? Moslem, and not every Christian and Moslem is a fanatic. There are bad Physicts and Biologists as there are bad Jews and bad Pagans etc. It is time that people stopped pionting fingers and playing the ancient blame game. We are all to blame.

A new reply…

Christianity and islam are common. Not every christian or islam is is a bad person but as seen in the USA, 85% of christians are no tolerant people either. They are no better? than racists and the majority is that way thanks to their religion.

My last reply…

Now you are beginning to think like a person who understands, for even Christ about which men and women have built their religious form “Christianity” and those early pioneers of Islam have built “Islam” failed to understand the words of Jesus when he said, that only a few would walk the way he walked, for many walk in this world as you say intolerant, racist and hateful. To walk as Jesus walked is often to walk? in opposition to the status quo. Sincerely, Eric J. Sawyer. (a disciple of Jesus)

My final appeal to logic

Think about it, how many Christians do you know personally, who are engaged into doing good. How many do you know impersonally who are working in orphanages, and hospitals, and aid to suffering people in the thid world. How many do you know either personally or not, who sit at home and watch television shows like this and get brainwashed by this type of thinking, which is hateful towards those within groups like Islam, Buddhism, Krishna Consciousness, Christianity, Islam, Atheism who do good ?

If you don't know much about Jesus, then why not start now by asking him to forgive your sins, and come into your darkness and bring His light, and love and healing… The Gospel according to John

People Never Change ! read a discussion of believers and unbelievers about this change that God can bring our lives, if only we let Jesus in.

Lord Jesus have mercy on me and forgive me my sins, for they are many

We are connected by God’s Amazing Grace…

Cliff Richard and the Shadows Newcastle Arena October 12th 2009
Watching Cliff’s TV show every week. Going to see Summer Holiday at the pictures. Wanting a strat like Hank’s. Spending hours learning how to play “Apache” and “Wonderful Land” and still never being able to play them properly. Buying an old 78 of “Travelling Light” and playing it again and again. Watching Cliff on Eurovision and willing “Congratulations” to win (it didn’t ; of course). Cliff and the Shadows bring back lots of memories for me. They may not exactly be cool these days, but back in their day they meant something to lots of us.
So I collected all those memories together in my head and went along to Newcastle Arena to see Cliff and the Shads for one more (and probably the last) time.
And there they were; just three rows away form me ; on the stage playing all my favourites: In the Country; Apache; FBI; Summer Holiday; Don’t Talk to Him; On the Beach; Bachelor Boy, Atlantis, Travelling Light, Time drags by. Finished with the Young Ones. Lots of references to “The Toon”;a great homecoming for Hank and Bruce.
Great show; great memories; Cliff and Hank look great; Cliff’s voice is great (and its his 69th birthday the next day!); Hank plays great! 

SETLIST
Fist half:
WE SAY YEAH
IN THE COUNTRY
GEE WHIZ IT’S YOU
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
LIVING DOLL
DANCING SHOES
I’M THE LONELY ONE
A GIRL LIKE YOU
DO YOU WANNA DANCE
SHADOWS – SHADOOGIE / WONDERFUL LAND / THE SAVAGE /SLEEPWALK
HIGH CLASS BABY
I COULD EASILY FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU
WILLIE AND THE HAND JIVE
SEA CRUISE

Second half
C’MON EVERYBODY
DYNAMITE
LUCKY LIPS
TRAVELLING LIGHT
TIME DRAGS BY
ALL SHOOK UP
PLEASE DON’T TEASE
SHADOWS – APACHE / FOOT TAPPER / ATLANTIS / FBI
I LOVE YOU
THE NEXT TIME
DON’T TALK TO HIM
ON THE BEACH
SUMMER HOLIDAY
BACHELOR BOY
NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN
IT’LL BE ME
VISIONS
Encores:
MOVE IT
SINGING THE BLUES
THE YOUNG ONES

i hate ticketfast printed tickets

programme

Celebrating Cliff Richard’s birthday with Congratulations .

It was the Spanish canción del verano (summer song) in 1968. I’d have been at Intermediate school at the time.

On October 14:

1066 the forces of William the Conqueror defeated the English army and killed King Harold II of Englandin the Battle of Hastings.

King of England and Duke of Normandy (more…)

The Duke of Normandy in the Bayeux Tapestry

1322  Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeated King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence.

1644 William Penn, English founder of Pennsylvania, was born.

1789 George Washington proclaimsedthe first Thanksgiving Day.

1882 Irish politician Eamon de Valera was born.

1882 the University of the Punjab was founded in present day Pakistan.

1884 George Eastman patented paper-strip photographic film.

1888 NZ writer – Katherine Mansfield was born.

1890  Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th President of the United States was born.

1894 – E. E. Cummings, American poet was born.

1926 Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne, was first published.

1927 English actor R

Winnie-the-Pooh (original version from 1926)

1927 –English actor Roger Moore was born.

1939 – Ralph Lauren, American fashion designer was born.

1940 English singer  Cliff Richard was born.

1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis began when a U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.

1968 Jim Hines of the USA became the first man to break the ten second barrier in the 100 metres Olympic final at Mexico City with a time of 9.95 sec.

 1979 The body of Marty Johnstone, leader of the Mr Asia drug syndicate was found in Lancashire.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Sir Cliff Richard with his backing group The Shadows conquered the British trendy music scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s, before and during The Beatles’ first year in the charts. A change to Christianity and following softening of his music led to his having more of a pop than rock image. Cliff Richard never attained the similar impact in the US in spite of numerous chart singles there, but he has remained a popular music, film, and television
character in the UK and he saves a following in other countries.
During 60 years, he has charted several singles, and retains the record (with Elvis Presley) as the only perform to make the UK singles charts in all of its decades (1950s–2000s). He is the only singer to have had a number one single in the UK in five consecutive decades, doing so from the 1950s throughout to the 1990s. On the British charts, he has had additional 130 [single], albums and EPs make the top 20, more than any other artist. He has sold more than 250 million records.
On 11 December 2008, Cliff Richard and the Shadows performed at the Royal Variety Performance. In 2009 Cliff & The Shadows will bring their partnership to an end with the “Golden Anniversary concert tour of the UK“. A new album by Cliff Richard and the Shadows was recorded in September, titled ‘Reunited’ it was their first studio project in forty years. The 28 tracks recorded included 25 re-recordings of their previous classics, with three ‘new’ tracks, formerly from that era (and earlier), the single Singing the Blues, with Eddie Cochran’s C’mon Everybody and the Frankie Ford hit Sea Cruise. The tracks are to be increased across the single and its bonus tracks, a limited edition version of the album, and a standard CD release. The album charted at number six in the UK charts in its opening week. The reunion tour is to continue into Europe in 2010.

Tickets Information:

Super Ticket Shop has very simple way to buy Cliff Richard tickets and sell Cliff Richard Concert tickets online through its ticket shop’s encrypted safe and secure system. You can also order Cliff Richard tickets by phone and as well as sell Cliff Richard UK tour tickets on phone as per your convenience. Music ticket shop is ready to fulfill your Cliff Richard tickets order within 6 to 24 hours and Cliff Richard Concert tickets will be sent you via federal express.

Twenty years since their last performance together, Cliff and The Shadows reunite to celebrate their 50th anniversary in the music industry! In the late ’50s and early ’60s, Cliff and The Shads dominated the British popular music scene, enjoying record-breaking solo and joint careers, and establishing their undisputed place in pop history. Between them they notched up no less than 19 No 1 hits, including Living Doll, Travellin’ Light, Please Don’t Tease, Bachelor Boy, Wonderful Land and Apache, and starred together in the ever-popular films Summer Holiday and The Young Ones. In 2009 Cliff and The Shadows bring their extraordinary partnership to an end with a Golden Anniversary concert tour.

Super Ticket Shop has very simple way to buy Cliff Richard tickets and sell Cliff Richard Concert tickets online through its ticket shop’s encrypted safe and secure system. You can also order Cliff Richard tickets by phone and as well as sell Cliff Richard UK tour tickets on phone as per your convenience. Music ticket shop is ready to fulfill your Cliff Richard tickets order within 6 to 24 hours and Cliff Richard Concert tickets will be sent you via federal express.

More nostalgia from Down the Hall On Saturday Night this week. We commence with a Cliff Richard hit from the late 1950s when he still played good songs.