Bank Holiday Monday Long Songs

I'd shortlisted a couple of selections for today's BHMLS™ but couldn't decide which one to go with; so I've opted to run with both. Neither of which, I can guarantee, will attract any new subscribers to this blog; in fact it'll probably send my regular readership (with maybe the exception of The Swede) running to the hills. But, hey, my bat, my ball, my wicket.

Hatfield and the North & National Health were flag bearers for what we now call prog. And way back when - in the 70s - progressive music was very much an underground scene. TV appearances by its protagonists were few and far between, which is why I've gone for National Health's OGWT set from 1979. Dave Stewart's keyboard set up is reminiscent of an eastern Europe telephone exchange and, no, please don't approach the man writhing on the floor ranting into the microphone; it's for your own safety.

National Health - The Collapso (1979)

Hatfield and the North - the band that spawned National Health - were equally eclectic. With one foot in jazz, one foot in rock and a third (imagine Jake the Peg) planted firmly in the Canterbury scene, this next selection is, I think you'll agree, totally deserving of the BHMLS™ tag, weighing in, as it does, at an eye watering 20 minutes.

Hatfield and the North - Mumps (1975)

Back End

After one of the hottest summers most of us can remember in a long time, we’re now entering the time of year my dad has always called ‘back end’. As with many of Gordon Medd’s weather related catchphrases, another being ‘it’s warm behind glass,’ although I may not fully understand them, I totally get them.

October really is the marker post that heralds autumn and beyond (pretty much like the Hatfield and The North sign that sits at the bottom of the A1). And for me it also flicks a switch in my head lighting up a little circuit board full of things like soup, jumpers, de-icer, dark mornings, central heating, mulled wine, floodlights at half-time and tea pot & telly nights. It will also soon be time to reconvene the Whisky Focus Group: our small ad hoc collective comprising single malt devotees who, on a Sunday afternoon as the light is fading, love nothing better than to taste and try whiskies from as many Scottish distilleries as they can get their hands on. Sampling anything from the peaty reek of a 10 year old Laphroaig to a hospital corridor smelling Talisker our informal group is now entering its third year. And, if the long range weather forecast is anything to go by, it will be distractions like the WFG that could well be my guiding light through the back end and the inevitable cold winter that follows.

Car coats and driving gloves

 

Cybermen not pictured

The Great North Road; just the mere mention of its name is enough to make the screen in my head go all wavy. Time was (when glove compartments were actually used to keep your gloves in), if you were travelling from London to Edinburgh, calling at all staging posts inbetween, the A1, as it later became known, was the only viable artery running through the country. If you don't count chuffers.

Long before all the roundabouts were ironed out and it became just another eight-lane stretch of blacktop, The Great North Road was one of the reasons driving used to be enjoyable. The joy of motoring was not just some mythological time dreamed up by the History Channel: getting in the car and hitting the open road really was something to be savoured. Ten mile tail backs on the M25 was a nightmare that wouldn't be unleashed on the unsuspecting British motorist for at least another 30 years. From the top of the North Circular, where signs to Hatfield and the north promised so much more than a Galleria housing a second division shopping mall built over a tunnel, to Scotch Corner and beyond - The Great North Road allowed your right foot to be just that little bit heavier than normal; except when slowing down for the traffic lights at Sandy, that is. And winding your way through market towns like Grantham and Newark.

Speaking of Newark, it was announced earlier this week that the iconic service station at Markham Moor has been granted Grade 2 Listed status. This concrete structure built in 1961 with its hyperbolic paraboloid shell roof (not unlike a smaller version of Sydney Opera House) was a gas station you didn't mind pulling in at. Any Doctor Whoevians will know it was once used as a backdrop for a John Pertwee episode. Or was it Tom Baker? Anyway, it's now a Little Chef. It could be worse, it could be a Subway.