Just one more thing...

Another blog post and another ridiculously hot sticky night. Despite my office being probably the coolest room in the house, as I'm typing this it feels like a nursing home where the thermostat is permanently cranked up to 11. Joy. Talk of a drought, hosepipe bans and the proliferation of wildfires means we are probably only days away from calling a national emergency; as if we haven't got enough on out plates already this year, ffs.  

Anyway, enough of my whinging (sorry, I do have a tendency to whinge when Im hot and bothered). I discovered this beautiful piece of music the other day. It's called Evening Time and I think I want it to be played at my funeral. Which hopefully won't be for a little while yet, unless I melt to death over the next few days...

Kolumbo - Evening Time (2022)  

Kolumbo · 08 Evening Time

If not for you

Another day another rock and roll casualty. Olivia Newton John may have been too saccharine for some but, to boys of a certain age growing up in the early 70s, Neutron Bomb was as much a pinup as say Suzi Quatro, Susan Dey or even that model in the Flake commercial; poster girls all. And the fact that she scored her first hit with a George Harrison arrangement of a Bob Dylan tune meant that she could no wrong. I love this song. And you can tell from this clip* she loved singing it. Rest easy, Olivia. 

* P.S. 11.8.22 - Apologies, since posting this, Youtube have taken down all the 1971 live footage of ONJ (incl. the one I originally put up) and the audio only versions. Bastards. So I've swapped it for a later versh. Soz.

Olivia Newton John - If Not For You

Olivia Newton John (1948-2022)

Bakerman

We're spoiled for good pubs here in Nottingham; despite the rate at which hostelries are shutting up shop, those that remain (together with a plethora of new watering holes), for the most part, are well worth a visit. And often a detour. In particular I can't recommend the Bath Inn highly enough: situated but a stone's throw from the city, in Sneinton, which, if you listen to the new owner*, is on the verge of becoming our very own Covent Garden. We'll see. All I know is they sell some great beers, the surroundings are immaculate and the craic at the bar is fierce.

* When I first met Piers Baker, the new owner (pictured above, behind the bar), I thought he looked (and sounded) very familiar; turns out he's also the only known stockist of sonic screwdrivers this side of Gallifrey.

Laid Back - Bakerman (1989)

Don't forget your toothbrush

We have a new arrival; I say new; young Georgie has been calling in at Medd Towers for most of his meals from around Spring of this year. But it's only now that he's taken to coming in the house, fussing for attention and sleeping upstairs in the guest bedroom. We think he's about four - certainly no older than five - and is a lovely natured cat. He was sat on my knee the other day while I was reading and went to sleep in seconds flat. A sign that he trusts us and knows nothing bad will happen to him while he's under our roof. That's not to say he won't still wander off from time to time and go off parading - after all, once a Six Dinner Sid, always a Six Dinner Sid - but at least now he's got family he can fall back on. 

...

Postscript 4.8.22

Just a quick update: Georgie is out for the count on the spare bed as I write this, a little before midnight. Earlier this evening after his supper he was playing on the landing...

Tuesday Long Song

Swedish house DJ and producer Axel Boman may well have dedicated today's non-Monday Long Song* to German footballer Jürgen Klinsmann a.k.a. The Dive Bomber; or he may not; it really doesn't matter. What does matter, however, is that there are very few pieces of music that, from the moment the needle catches the first groove, cause as many simultaneous muscle spasms in my right leg as this. Dance music, huh?  

Axel Boman - Klinsmann (2013)

* Where does it say Monday Long Song has to be on a Monday?