Motorway Special (10 pics from '25)

I had a lovely birthday, thank you for asking. I spent it over at the Number One Son's new gaff in Stockport. He and Natalie were the perfect hosts and ensured that Medd Snr. didn't have to lift a finger all day. (Though I was in charge of the decks while James was cooking up a storm in the galley, so dropping the needle onto the grooves was as strenuous as it got.)

I opened a few prezzies in the afternoon and amongst all the shiny new things I unwrapped I was delighted to find a both a tee shirt and mug paying homage to one of my favourite buildings: Forton Services on the M6 is legendary - I would love to have seen it in its heyday but alas my Time Machine is still in dock. The photograph above, my tenth to mark 2025, is one I took earlier this year at the aforementioned motorway services on our way to Scotland. And the photos of my gifts are below.

★ 

Rewind to the early 60s and The Ted Heath Big Band were welcoming in the dawn of the UK's emerging motorway network; much of KPM's library music was scored specifically to showcase and highlight the new, the fast, the modern. Raph Dollimore wrote this with all of the above in mind. 

 Ralph Dollimore - Motorway Special (1960)

 

Send in the clowns

As Boxing Day draws to a close and the eve of my birthday beckons I have nothing major to report: a quiet Christmas spent, for the most part, at Medd Towers - nipping out for lunch at The Balti House - and then back home to see off the remaining episodes of Broadchurch with David Tennant and Olivia Coleman.

Followed by a new book (there's still no feeling quite like starting a new novel). You can keep yer reindeer and yer wee donkey and all and sundry oxen, cattle and other Xmas related beasts. The only animals I'm interested in this Christmas are slow horses. Mick Herron's latest Slough House offering - Clown Town - was lurking in my stocking (and a signed copy too) so that's the next few days sorted. I truly hope your Christmas was as chilled as mine.

Ho Ho Ho

Nicholas Was... 

...older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die. 

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time. 

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher. 

Ho. 

Ho.

Ho.

(by Neil Gaiman, 1989)

Before Summer Ends (10 pics from '25)

Here's my ninth photograph to mark 2025. Summers are all too brief in this country at the best of times, but after the year I've had I really could've done with a bit more of it; of all the summers I wanted to go on longer, 2025 was definitely the one. But it wasn't to be. I can't complain though. My friend J is really struggling at the moment. In fact she may not have many summers left, bless her. These are the trees just up the road from where she lives. I photographed them just before the end of summer. They were around long before we were and they'll still be around long after we're gone. I'm no philosopher (except maybe when I've got a pint in my hand), but I do find myself ruminating more than is probably good for me. I read a quote the other day and it's found its way into my psyche: 'A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.' I've never planted a tree before. I think I may have just found my New Year's resolution.

★

 Keith Mansfield - Before Summer Ends (1976)

 

 

Beach boys

Squeeze c.1975

One of the most enjoyable - and brutally honest - biographies I've read was Chris Difford's 'Some Fantastic Place - My Life in and out of Squeeze'. His relationship with Glenn Tilbrook, alcohol and drugs is laid bare for all to see. And as an insight into what it's like being one half of a mega successful songwriting partnership that's often been compared to Lennon & McCartney, look no further; it's all contained within its 317 pages. I've been meaning to reread it for ages but since moving house back in 2017 I've not been able to find it. It's here somewhere, it's gotta be. But I'm buggered if I know where.

So it was a serendipitous charity shop find earlier today when browsing the bookshelves in Oxfam and I stumbled upon a signed copy! "Hi Brian", it says followed by Chris' trademark scrawled moniker. And this copy includes a new final chapter. So, thanks, Brian. And Chris, obviously. I'll get stuck into it next week over a glass of eggnog and a tin of Quality Street.