Forget me not

If you never received a Christmas card from us this year, please don't get bent out of shape. We've only just got straight after moving house and writing cards wasn't exactly our number one priority.

But if you did, I'd like to think that we would have at least put your name(s) in the card and, maybe, even a little note personal to you.

Anyway, normal service will, I hope (if the fates allow) be resumed come Christmas 2013. And, anyway, I might surprise you by sending you a postcard before then. I may even ring you.

Happy holidays.

A *Likely* story

Terry Collier John Medd and Bob Ferris

For one very brief moment, in the absence of James Bolam, I was a Likely Lad. Rodney Bewes was Bob and I was Terry; a surrogate Terry, anyway.

We had no script, so I improvised:

Terry: So, Bob, these rumours about you and Deidre Birchwood.

Bob: I couldn’t possibly comment.

Terry: Relax man. Thelma’s not here.

Bob: Do I know you?

The End  

'It felt like 2005 again'

The delightful Holly Taymar headlined the main stage at Pickering Acoustic Music on Wednesday night; those who stuck two fingers up to the freezing temperatures outside were rewarded with one of the finest singers ever to appear at North Yorkshire's most revered music venue.

Joined by the obscenely talented Christopher Bilton she played some tasty covers, not least a stripped down version of Sheffield anthem Common People, as well as some of her own sensuous tunes - many from the new CD Never Winter Mind (Part Two). From which she sang the best song I've heard all year. And I've heard a few. It's called The French One; Holly says it's because it sounds French. (Naming songs may not be her forte: the first song on the album is titled Song One).

Holly Taymar - The French One (2012)

Telling tales

One of these men is innocent

A couple of weeks back, on a social networking site no less, I all but accused one of the people in the above photograph of stealing a guitar. A very expensive guitar at that. And, I thought, he'd done it in a very Robin Hood sort of way. Some thirty years later he now informs me that he'd got an alibi for the night in question.*

This non-story together with, I hope, some real stories may well. one day, form the backbone of the tale of a very loud band who resided in a very quiet town. This is a story that will, If I can get my facts straight, chart the rise and fall (and rise again) of three likely lads who, back in the day, from the moment they turned on their Orange amps, made this young man's pulse positively race.

My research will be meticulous and my questions will be probing. I will leave no stone unturned. I may even have to buy two of the protagonists strong liquor to loosen their tongues. I say two, as nobody knows where the third one lives.

It's a tale that's been left untold for too long.

* Sorry Rocky!

Bloody Terrible

They say that getting a BT engineer appointment is like pushing a wet mattress up a spiral staircase. And they're not wrong: we moved house last Friday and still we have no phone or internet. Broken promises and faceless voices on the sub continent mean that we'll soon be entering week two without a service we were assured would be in place last week. Anyone who reads the Twitter feed on the sidebar to the left of this blog can get a flavour of how BT are handling this.