I know how she feels

It's not going so great, is it? Johnson's only been in charge five minutes and already the Irish (both lots), the Scots and the Welsh are threatening to dissolve the Union. So much for those promised sunlit uplands. Stop the world I want to get off.

It will only be when the country is brought to its very knees and begs to come back into the EU fold that the leavers will finally wake up to the fact that, actually, what we have now is not so bad. It's workable. We trade with Europe; we trade with the rest of the world. And they trade with us. Frictionlessly. Everybody wins.



But come October 31st it's gonna be a cold wind that blows across the Channel and into the dystopian badlands of a once great Britain. Our just in time procurement chain will last seven days before essential supplies run out. Queues at the forecourt and fighting on the streets. And that's just for starters. It'll be like an episode of Survivors - that post apocalyptic drama from the 70s, only for real.

Or will it? All I know is, I've got a bad feeling about this. And it's not going away.

Dodgy - U.K.R.I.P. (1996)

Rumours

They're toilet chains, since you ask

We're only a fortnight away from our next Sunday Vinyl Session - our fifth, can you believe? And it's a yacht rock classic - Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.

When the Mac were writing and recording it their personal relationships were all over the place (everyone in the band, seemingly, was sleeping with each other), their level of drug taking was off the scale (cocaine really became 'a thing' in California in 1976) and emotions were close to breaking point. A perfect storm. Yet out of this hedonism - released in in February 1977 - came 11 perfectly formed songs which have formed the backbone of every Fleetwood Mac gig in the last 40 odd years. It cemented their career and meant that Stevie Nicks never had to wait on tables again.

Our friend Pippa Ward is presenting the afternoon - she'll tell the back story behind the album before playing it in full. And in the interval (twixt Side 1 & 2) Pippa will be singing some acoustic Mac songs live. I've got a couple lined up too. So, if you find yourself in Nottingham on Sunday 11th August, we'd love to see you.

Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way (1977)

And the Sun was a demon

I think it's safe to say that yesterday was a little on the warm side. James came up with Janneke to see his poorly mother; convalescing in temperatures akin to Hades is no fun, but seeing the Number One Son and his bride was a tonic far surpassing that of any of the morphine based knockout drugs Jenny was prescribed when she left the hospital last Saturday.

I took this photo in my car yesterday afternoon just after 4.30pm. 40 degrees. I tell you what, the Sun didn't feel like it was 93 million miles away. I'm sure it slipped anchor at lunchtime while nobody was looking.

Below is my favourite Sun TV/film clip, bar none. It's from Thunderbirds and is the one where Alan Tracy is stuck on the bridge with his grandma in temperatures similar to those we were experiencing in the East Midlands.

If you fast forward to 2:17 you'll see real beads of perspiration running down Alan's wooden puppet head. That was me yesterday.

After the Savoy Truffle

It's common knowledge that George Harrison cribbed the lyrics from a Good News chocolate box he saw round at Eric Clapton's gaff one day. Clapton was still doing a lot of heroin at the time and, coming down, allegedly, he'd regularly eat an entire box of chocolates in one sitting. Even the Savoy Truffle.

Probably less well documented is how much of an influence on Harrison an EP put out by Lulu two years before the White Album was. The title track, Chocolate Ice (written by Mike Leander - Gary Glitter's scribe), bears more than a passing resemblance to Harrison's effort. Judge for yourself.

Lulu - Chocolate Ice (1966)

Instead of going with the Fabs, I've decided to play you the Analogues' version. The Analogues play Beatles tunes live. Nothing new there, I hear you say. True, but this bunch of Dutch musicians have taken the reproduction of Beatles music to a whole new level. Recreating every note of an alabum - in sequence - with period instruments (often with strings and horns) and with fastidious attention to detail, they really are the business. When they play Maxwell's Silver Hammer, for instance, they even bring an anvil up on stage. I particularly like the songs that not only the Beatles didn't play live (i.e. everything after '66), but also the ones Macca can't be arsed with when he tours; check out Your Mother Should Know from the Magical Mystery Tour EP. You'll be amazed. Truly amazed.

The Analogues - Savoy Truffle 

For further listening, hear what David Hepworth and Mark Ellen think about them.

The Sea of Tranquility

Oh I do like to be beside the Sea

of Tranquility

Where Neil and Buzz in ’69

took a giant leap for mankind

and found craters and rocks beneath their feet

Not cheese. Or aliens to greet.

So they planted a flag and left behind

a planet so utterly amazing, beautiful, desolate, barren and beguiling that after fifty years we're desperate to revisit, and find…

The Sea of Tranquility.