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OK, so I was disappointed to hear that Joan Armatrading and Valerie Singleton were never an item after all (see below), but, under the heading of “People I Admire Who I Would Like To Be In A Relationship Together”, I was delighted to learn today that Tom Waits used to be the boyfriend of Rickie Lee Jones, whose music I also love. And as if this wasn’t good enough news in its own right, it further transpires that Rickie herself features on the cover of “Blue Valentines”, Tom’s 1978 masterpiece. This is the album that contains “Kentucky Avenue”, one of my favourite Waits songs, and one the most moving pieces of music I know.
Thanks to BigRab for this information, which has made my day – his blog’s a very good read. All I need to be told now is that David Bowie is the lovechild of Frank Sinatra and Cilla Black, and I’ll die a happy man.
And talking of Valerie Singleton and good reads, I found a very entertaining piece on the Telegraph site, of all places, about Val, and her non-relationship with Joan. It’s an affectionate piece, and reckons that “Valerie’s star quality flowed from the mesmerising blend of foxiness and severity that continues, decades after her last Blue Peter appearance, to send baby-boomers into nostalgic rhapsodies of psycho-sexual longing.” Hmm, a bit strong, but, in a slightly uneasy way, I know what he means.
Is La Winehouse a genius? Or is she, perhaps, the most overrated, self-important self-publicist the music world has ever seen? The crowd at Glastonbury last night seemed happy enough, worshipping her every fragile warble, despite her telling them off for not being appreciative enough of her decidely mediocre covers of old Specials songs – not really cutting edge stuff, is it? Without the phenomenal band, backing singers, and the odd roadie to prop her up (literally, in the case of the roadie), she would have been in serious trouble.
Joan Armatrading – now there is a talent, and a very nice person too, by all accounts. I saw her perform several times in her hayday, and loved every understated moment. For a long time, I understood that she was the unlikely partner of Valerie Singleton, another very important figure in my younger days. I liked the idea of two people whom I admired looking after each other as they got old in their Putney love nest, making desk tidies out of jam jars covered with Fablon with Joan’s old hits playing in the background. But now I read that Valerie is not gay at all, and was shagging Peter Purves on the set of Blue Peter almost before the credits had finished rolling – so it seems that it was just another one of those urban myths. They’ll be telling us next that Bob Holness didn’t really play saxophone on “Baker Street”.
Tom Waits – there’s another one. Put him in front of a Glastonbury crowd and, whilst half would probably leave straight away, the rest would really see what talent looks like. His tour is now well under way in America, and is getting consistently rave reviews, both from the media and the punters. The set lists are surprisingly varied from one night to the next, and extremely diverse. People seem agreed that the best bits are when the band toddle off for some refreshment, leaving old Tom on his own at the piano to do some ballads, and I imagine that’ll be my favourite bit as well. Only four weeks to go till we see him in Edinburgh, and the excitement is really building – I just hope he manages to keep his ageing, over-indulged self going that long!
Due to my bike getting locked in at work (while I was at Bath Races, frittering away the kids’ inheritance, but that’s another story), I had to resort to other means of getting to work this morning. My options were:
a) walk (journey time 42 minutes, cost £0, nausea factor 0),
b) get the bus (journey time 14 hours, cost £290, nausea factor 6 squillion),
c) accept my beloved’s offer of a lift most of the way, and walk the rest.
Option c) seemed the obvious choice, until we got to the centre. The traffic ground to a halt, and we sat in the motionless Mondeo for a happy 10 minutes, at which point I decided to cut my losses and resort to option a. Total journey time 43 minutes. (The cause of the delay turned out to be a cheerful group of firefighters washing the road, presumably after an accident.)
Now I shouldn’t go on, but the bike is such a good way to get around Bristol. Journey time 13 minutes every day, both directions (give or take, depending on the wind – with a serious tail wind, I can hoist the mainsail and do it in 10.)
Some good news for Bristol’s cyclists – the City has been chosen as Britain’s first “Cycling City”, a distinction which brings with it about £23 million for various measures to promote cycling. Although it sounds like a lot of money, it’s not a magic bullet and can’t possibly achieve everything, but it’s a great start. Read more about it here.
Predictably, the Evil Post has declared itself critical of the initiative, running various negative and anti-cycling features, which is really such a shame. I feel very lucky to live in Bristol, and often feel very proud of the city, and something like this really needs to be celebrated, rather than derided. But, given the readership of this rag, I suppose it’s hardly surprising – some of the Post’s readers make Daily Mail readers look liberal. Here’s a selection of comments from its on-line forum:
- “Stop whinging, get off your bikes and get a Range Rover like mine. Far safer and MUCH more comfortable.”
- “With all Bristol’s problems what do we get? A shed load of money to spend on those underachievers who choose to use bikes.”
- “Roads plus cyclists don’t work; Bus lanes plus cyclists don’t work. Solution? Get rid of bikes don’t give them more money. It’s a recipe for further strangling this city. Have you noticed what a pitifully small minority the cycle lobby is?”
- “If a prospective employee came to me and asked what provision I have for cyclists their application would be torn up in front of them: I want – and Bristol needs – people unencumbered by this narrow minded eco driven approach to life.”
Let’s hope that some of the money is spent on initiatives to promote understanding and tolerance between cyclists and car drivers – after all, in most cases, people are both,and the car drivers who also cycle make the best drivers, and vice versa.
on a wet ride home
a rainbow in a truck’s spray
can make things better
Woman goes into a bar. Asks the barman for an innuendo. So he gives her one.
(From The Guardian, Letters)
City’s fixture list for next season was announced today. We start with a trip to Blackpool on August 9th, so it’ll soon be time to dust off the charabanc and get ready for another rollercoaster ride. Actually, there’s so much sport around at the moment that we’ve hardly had time to miss the football at Ashton Gate, but already I feel excited at the prospect of another Championship season. Our final game of next season, in May, will be away to Burnley, and it’s fascinating to wonder how much, or how little, it will matter – of course we trust that it will determine only the size of our winning margin at the top of the league, but there are so many other possibilities, some of which don’t bear thinking about. I was chatting to a Southampton fan the other day, who came so close to relegation last season, and it gave me a reminder of how painful life can be at the other end of the scale. But that needn’t concern us, need it? Just look at all of our new signings…. well, I’m sure there are one or two in the pipeline…
Talking of other sport, we sampled a sporting first at the weekend, with a visit to the Gloucestershire cricket ground to see a professional match. “The Shire”, as I’m told we have to call them, were playing Northants in a 20-20 game, which was not as close or exciting as these games can be. “We” were beaten, fairly soundly, but it was all good fun. I was a tad disappointed that the players wore a team strip of dark tracksuits, rather than traditional whites (not really necessary, given that even a newcomer to the game would realise that the ones with bats were on one team, and that everyone else was on the other), and even more tetchy about the horrible snippets of music that accompanied every boundary or wicket, all part of a drive to get more young people into cricket – which, judging by the few hundred who had turned up to watch, seems not to be working. What was really nice was the relaxing, wholesome atmosphere, a nice pint of cider in the afternoon sun, and a 99 from the ice cream van. As far as the cricket was concerned, the ball was moving around so quickly that I could rarely see it, but all in all it was a very enjoyable experience which I would gladly repeat.
The weekend’s other sporting highlight was a cracking game of footie on the telly, in which Turkey scored 3 goals in the last 15 minutes to beat the Czech Republic 3-2. The game finally brought the European championships alive for me, and I’m now looking forward to seeing Austria beat Germany to put them out of the competition.
What a lovely weekend. Really gorgeous weather, almost too hot for golf (but not quite…), rather too much pollen (but at least I didn’t mistake the Superglue for my eyedrops), and everybody strolling around feeling that summer has finally arrived.
There’s a football tournament going on as well, but I really can’t muster much enthusiasm for that, partly because England aren’t in it, of course, but also because I’m still recovering from the thrills (and spills) of City’s season. I did catch a bit of Germany’s win over Poland yesterday, though. Poor old Poland. As if being beaten by Germany wasn’t bad enough (we should know), the guy who scored both of Germany’s goals was born in Poland, to Polish parents, and is called Podolski. It would be like England losing to Germany by goals scored by a Londoner called Engerlish…
One thing I inherited from my Dad was his love of the correct use of language, and his rather pedantic intolerance of its abuse. And I feel especially protective of the apostrophe, which seems to be increasingly in peril these days.
“Ah but it makes no difference“, say some. And I have to agree that, often, they are right – the absence of an apostrophe or, worse, its unmerited presence, does not significantly impair or change meaning. But it can! What about the sign that says “Residents refuse to be left in the bin“? Well of course they do! Who wouldn’t refuse to be left in a bin? But wait! What the sign actually says is “Residents’ refuse to be left in the bin“. Now tell me that it makes no difference! All hail the Mighty Apostrophe, for it can make such a difference!! Use it, today!!!
Penguin walks into a bar. Says to the barman, “Have you seen my dad in here tonight?“. Barman says, “Not sure. What’s he look like?“.
