The mighty arms of Atlas

It was an early departure from Agra for Khajuraho.  Dad and I were both still ill with stomach upsets.

The train journey lasted three hours and it was pretty cramped.  We disembarked onto a small coach with little overhead storage – there were only five spare seats and some members of our group needed two seats.  It was crammed as our cases had been taken to the station the night before, so we had a lot of hand luggage.  Once we were moving Lianne (our guide) confessed that despite our cases being taken to the station the night before only four had been on the train as it was so busy (it was Diwali).  She would not say whose they were and could not guarantee that the rest would actually arrive until the next day (and given that in 24 hours we were playing to Varanasi there were visions of luggage constantly chasing us).

It was a horrible journey as I was weak and tired.   At the lunch stop I ate two dry biscuits, Dad ate nothing (and there were still others in the same position).

We got to the hotel with only 15 minutes before we were going out for the sound and light show at the temples.  Luckily I had long trousers and a rugby shirt.  I also had mosquito repellent in my hand luggage which I shared around as the venue was teeming.  I tucked my trousers in my socks, pulled my hands inside the rugby top and did the neck buttons up.

The lightshow was pretty not what we expected (we were expecting the Cairo show from The Spy Who Loved Me – it was more like some torches being pointed at statues.  The hotel was dark and some of rooms were having plumbing issues – mine wasn’t having issues and after finally managing some food I had a rather pleasant evening.  It was even better when our luggage turned up – the Indian railway system is amazing and the British should take a long look at how it works so well.

(View from my hotel window)

It was a civilised start time as we did not leave the hotel until 8am and it was not far to the temples that we were going to see, but it took ages as one tour party member wanted to find a cash point.  Tour companies often say cash points (ATMs to most countries) are available but it can be tricky dealing with which overseas banks deal with your local bank and the sophisticated fraud systems that banks have that may stop your card being used abroad if you have not told them in advance.

The temples had been lost in the jungle for centuries and when they were found they were quite shocking.  They were like the Karma Sutra writ large (and there were plenty of copies of that at the gift shop).

Despite the early hour it was incredibly hot – this was the farthest south we got in India.

We were meant to go to a Jain temple, but it was mysteriously cancelled for yet another shopping trip.

Despite only being in Khudjaraho for 18 hours that was it and we were off to Varanasi (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1765 ).

Led Zeppelin were yet another of the groups Clive Hook introduced me to and another band that were at the birth of heavy metal – though by no means all their output is in the genre.

Most famous for Stairway To Heaven and, latterly, Immigrant Song my favourite is from Presence.  Another epically long track.

Achilles’ Last Stand

Playlist:

  1. Good Times, Bad Times
  2. Communication Breakdown
  3. Whole Lotta Love
  4. Ramble On
  5. Immigrant Song
  6. Stairway To Heaven
  7. The Battle of Evermore
  8. The Song Remains the Same
  9. The Rain Song
  10. Kashmir
  11. Achilles’ Last Stand

This world is only going to break your heart

I think that this is the sexiest song ever and I thought that before the scene in Friends.  Ross had been obsessed with Rachel in High School and after she arrived in New York he had wanted to ask her out, but circumstances always conspired against him.  By the time Rachel finds out he loves her Ross is with someone else.  Finally they kiss, but their date is messed up by Rachel’s nerves and then Ross has to go into work in the evening.  They end up making love in the planetarium, after the first premature ejaculation joke on primetime American TV.

(Ross and Rachel’s first time together)

Chris Isaak had actually been in Friends as a guest star just a couple of episodes earlier – one of many superstar guest on the show had (Brad Pitt, Billy Crystal, Brook Shields, Robin Williams, Susan Sarandon, Christina Applegate, Denise Richards, Sean Penn, and Julia Roberts just off the top of my head).

I actually found Chris Isaak through Twin Peaks.  Twin Peaks was another cultural phenomenon, so much so that the BBC actually showed it reasonably soon after the US transmission.  “She’s Dead, wrapped in plastic.” Became a line known to people outside cult TV enthusiasts.  Speculation on who had murdered Laura Palmer was rampant and even the lyrics to theme tune were analysed for clues.

A few days ago I wrote about Lost (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1850 ) and how its genre busting conclusion disappointed viewers.  Twin Peaks seemingly started as a detective series, albeit a weird one populated with strange characters like the Log Lady.  Its resolution included far more supernatural elements than viewers would have expected at the start.

(Laura Palmer, Agent Dale Cooper and Audrey Horne)

David Lynch regrets resolving Palmer’s murder so early in season two and partly blames that for the catastrophic ratings decline that saw it cancelled after two years, despite it being huge just a year earlier.  It ends with Agent Cooper (played by a young Kyle McLachlan) possessed by Bob, the demon murderer of Laura Palmer. Bob scared the heck of my sister Frances.

(Demon Bob).

A film, Fire Walk With Me, was a prequel to the events of the TV show and left the resolution unresolved (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/08/29/like-the-deserts-miss-the-rain/ ).  Until 2017 when David Lynch made a third season.  I get that Lynch is an auteur, but I have found that his work has got weirder and weirder.  Not only that, in common with many successful creators, no one will tell them that they need to edit their work down and make it crisper and tighter.  It took 18 episodes to get to the end of season 3 and it felt like longer; not only that the resolution was as unsatisfying at the previous seasons.

Everyone should watch the first season, it was years ahead of its time.

Play the song late at night with the person you love.

Wicked Game

No need to fight

2011 and Dad and I went to Egypt in the Autumn.  We had been due to go in February, but the Arab Spring happened and at the last-minute insurance cover was withdrawn.  Tourism was still a fraction of the normal level with the usual crowds missing.  We had to have an army guard with us everywhere we went on a coach.

Cairo airport was an exercise in job creation – one person took your passport, one stamped it and one gave it back.  The roads were still jammed solid at 11pm – one lane appeared to be reserved for herds of goats and sheep being brought into the city for Eid.  Our coach driver for Cairo was amazing – traffic was jammed five abreast into three lanes yet he never touched anything.

My door swipe did not work in the hotel.  I have constant problems with this when travelling.  I keep the swipe away from other cards, mobiles, etc., yet they work less than a third of the time.

It was a holiday of early starts – a 6am alarm call for the day in Cairo.  We took a coach to Giza at 8am, already hot despite it being November.  We had a local guide called Randa with us for the whole trip.  All the accredited guides have degrees in Egyptology.  All the guides carried signs so that their tour groups could see them at a distance – Randa had a giant sunflower instead.

It was relatively quiet at the Great Pyramid of Khufu.  Photos are taken very carefully to make them look isolated in the desert as Cairo has extended right up to the pyramids now.

The place was full of hawkers and it was hard to get use to them – you could not talk to them or look at products without being totally harassed.  Even the Police were charging for taking pictures (all armed).

We had a group photo taken on the plateau.

(Randa and dad on the left at the back, I’m at the left at the front)

Some of the others had a camel ride down but the rest of us drove to pyramid 3.  Dad went in but I had done that in 1996.  There is nothing inside anymore, it has all been relocated to the Museum of Antiquities.  It is just hot and claustrophobic.

(Dad by the Sphinx)

Some time there then back to Central Cairo for lunch.  We were meant to have a buffet on a boat but the place was so quiet there was no buffet, so we all had beef falafel. 

(Dad exiting the lunch boat with others)

(The Nile in Central Cairo)

After the lunch we went to the Museum of Antiquities via Tahrir Square.  It was much hotter in Central Cairo.  The museum was almost deserted and allows no photos.  It has finally been relocated to the Giza Plateau so more can be exhibited.

In the evening we went to the Sight and Sound Show at the pyramids (as seen in The Spy Who Loved Me https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/12/12/arm-yourself-because-no-one-here-will-save-you/ )

It was actually cold on the plateau at night, only nine degrees centigrade.  The show was not as spectacular as it had looked in the film.  Something to do for the experience – but once is enough.

The Stranglers shot the video for this song at Giza, mimicking a faded British colonialism.  The song is actually about heroin.

Golden Brown

Playlist:

  1. No More Heroes
  2. Hanging Around
  3. Peaches
  4. Dagenham Dave
  5. Nice ‘n’ Sleazy
  6. Duchess
  7. Golden Brown
  8. European Female
  9. Skin Deep
  10. No Mercy
  11. Always the Sun

Walking to the sound of my favourite tune

Watching the England international team is an exercise in hope over experience.  After 1970 England failed to qualify for a World Cup until 1982 so my in my formative years failure was the norm (in their defence only 16 teams qualified for the finals up until 1982). 

That meant that at the 1982 finals there were several senior players who went to their first World Cup finals who were past their best (Keegan, Brooking amongst others).  England were knocked out without losing a game in a tournament with two group structure phases.

Bobby Robson took over as manager and the team did not make the finals of the European Championship in 1984 (only 8 teams in those days).  Bobby Robson’s chosen set up was 4-3-3 – he really wanted to play 4-2-4 with two wingers but compromised by having a wide right midfielder and a left winger.  Mark Hateley played up front as a big centre forward with Trevor Francis or Tony Woodcock playing beside him.  It was the performances of skipper Bryan Robson and Hateley that got them to the finals, though Gary Lineker got a hat trick late on in a 5-0 victory over Northern Ireland.

Off to Mexico where England were in a group with Portugal, Poland and Morocco.  The heat in the middle of the day was tremendous and England looked to be heading for a nil nil draw with Portugal before leaking a late goal.  England’s midfield looked terribly imbalanced – Glenn Hoddle stuck out on the right;  Ray Wilkins playing just in front of the defence but rarely playing a pass forward (hard to believe how commanding he had been before going to play domestically in Italy).  In the second game with Morocco things went from bad to worse.  Bryan Robson’s shoulder went again; Ray Wilkins threw the ball over his shoulder and it hit the referee to get a red card.  England had to play for the draw to give themselves a chance of qualifying for the second phase.

Robson retooled the team.  Hoddle moved into the centre with Peter Reid.  There was no left sided midfielder in the squad, so Steve Hodge was drafted in with Trevor Steven on the right.  Most strikingly Hateley was out and Peter Beardsley drafted in to partner Lineker.  Inside 35 minutes Lineker had a hat-trick and England were through.  In the next round a team with just one change (due to a suspension) beat Belgium 3-0, Lineker scoring twice.

The quarterfinal was against Argentina – Diego Maradona and ten others.  This was the infamous handball goal – as you can see from the picture Shilton is not even off the ground.  It was Maradona’s lack of honesty by calling it the hand of God that got the goat of so many English fans.  Not as good as Pele, Messi, Ronaldo or even Johann Cruyff – he was not a good person.  He scored again and Lineker got one back but that was it.

The 1988 European Championships were three defeats for England.  Gary Lineker was suffering from hepatitis (not diagnosed until later).  Deservedly the Netherlands won the tournament, with Gullit and Van Basten outstanding.

Italia 90 could have been the one.  Paul Gascoigne had burst through in the months before the tournament to give England a creative midfield force as Bobby Robson would not trust Glenn Hoddle after Euro ’88.  Again England remodelled tactically on the hoof.  They went from a standard 4-4-2 model to a 5-3-2, with either Mark Wright or Terry Butcher sweeping.

The group was tight and England only got two goals, one in the draw with the Republic of Ireland and one in the last game from defender Mark Wright – it was the only game not a draw in the group and it meant that England went on to play Belgium.  Palpably second best for the whole game, including extra time, Jan Ceulemans hitting the woodwork with Shilton totally beaten. It looked like it was going to penalties until a 119th minute free kick was volleyed in by David Platt.

England beat Cameroon in the quarter finals, 3-2 after extra time with two Lineker penalties (England’s first penalties for years).  A semi-final against West Germany and it looked like a place in the final was there for the taking.  West Germany scored with a deflected free kick that Peter Shilton in his prime would have saved.  Lineker saved England again with a wonderful goal.

It went to penalties and England’s terrible record in shoot outs started with Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle missing.

Four years of Graham Taylor’s management saw England plumb the depths as he reverted to a clunky old-fashioned style, typified by selecting Carlton Palmer as the central midfield lynch pin.

England hosted the European Championship in 1996, so did not need to qualify.  Terry Venables built a modern, stylish team around the talents of Gascoigne, Shearer, Ince and Sheringham.  After a fairly dull start against Switzerland Gascogne got a wonder goal against Scotland and then the Netherlands were torn apart 4-1 in one of the best England performances that I have ever seen.

England had the worst of a nil-nil draw against Spain in the quarter finals, but Stuart Pearce gained redemption for his missed penalty in the 1990 shootout.  Graham Le Saux had been preferred at left back and Venables had asked Pearce if he wanted to retire from international football.  Pearce had stuck it out on the bench for two years and got his reward when Le Saux was injured prior to the tournament.  He scored his penalty and England went through.

To face Germany.  Shearer scored after 3 minutes and it could have been over, but Germany equalised and it was still one all at full time.  Gascoigne just missed scoring in extra time (that would have finished the game under golden goal rules).  It was penalty heartache again – five-all, it went to sudden death and Gareth Southgate missed.

It was going to be a long time before England looked like they had a chance again.

Euro 96 was part of that Britpop era of optimism.  Like the Blair government it did not quite do the job.

Morning Glory

Playlist:

  1. Rock ‘n’ Roll Star
  2. Shakermaker
  3. Live Forever
  4. Supersonic
  5. Cigarettes and Alcohol
  6. Slide Away
  7. Hello
  8. Roll With It
  9. Wonderwall
  10. Don’t Look Back in Anger
  11. Some Might Say
  12. Cast No Shadow
  13. Morning Glory
  14. Champagne Supernova

Before I finally go insane

Italy in July is too hot.  The Italians all go to the coast laughing at the foreign tourists who think that is the best time of year to explore the country.

Pompeii is near the sea, but it is incredibly hot because of the wide-open space and the lack of shade.  Our Tour Guide had taken us to a restaurant where the food was awful (but I assume that his kickback from the owners was good).

Pompeii appeared to be full of brothels – there were penis signs on buildings where they had worked and on the streets pointing the way to the brothels.  Apparently, it was normal to have a business downstairs, say a bakery, and a slave prostitute upstairs.

Pompeii is not the place to go in the middle of the day – like the Valley of the Kings it is best done in the early morning.

We stayed right in the middle of the Sorrento, which was good in one way, being close to the shops.  The flip side was the noise and bustle.  On the first night our guide took us to the Foreigner’s Club with great views over the Gulf of Naples and we had prosecco and cocktails.  Not a good idea after a boiling hot day.

The next day we took the jetfoil to Capri.  There was fairly hair-raising trip to the top on minibuses to Anacapri; after a brief tour Dad and I took the chairlift to the top of the island which was spectacular.

Not to be caught out again by the guide’s poor restaurant choice we ate at a lovely little restaurant that he had not recommended (and it was a good decision from what the others said later).  Afterwards we all went to see Augustus’s gardens, as this was where the Emperor spent the later years of his reign, indulging in a vast array of bizarre, debauched sexual practices.

Capri is really beautiful but there is not a great deal to do there.  It is a playground of the rich with a lot of expensive hotels and designer shops, lovely for a relaxing few days but that is it.

Our final day in Sorrento was a tour of the Amalfi Coast.  I was feeling unwell but hoped that I would improve – Dad suggested I did not go, but when you are on a trip you do not want to miss out.  As we drove around the narrow roads to Amalfi that did not happen.  I ended up slumped in a café as the rest of the party went on a boat trip up the coast.

(Amalfi)

When the party returned from the boat ride we explored the church where some of St Andrew’s bones are interred.  The church is beautiful and definitely a standout, even in a country of spectacular churches.  A rather nice pizza lunch in one of the many family restaurants in the town.

(St Andrews)

We went onto Ravello, home of a famous music festival.  Like the rest of the Amalfi Coast it is pretty but not exciting

Eric Clapton is a legend. This is his most famous track, released as Derek and the Dominoes.  The most well-known version cuts off without the piano section at the end to keep the length down to around 4 minutes and make it radio friendly.  When Dave Carter taped it for me at university, he did not even recognise this as part of the song and cut the tape off.  This is the full-length version.  It is about Pattie Boyd, married to George Harrison when he met her, who Clapton was madly in love with.  Eventually he married her (staying friends with Harrison).  They separated 10 years after that due to his affairs and alcoholism.

Layla

Just what the truth is, I can’t say anymore

I like time travel as a concept.  Two of my favourite books as a young teenage were The End of Eternity (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/08/30/life-has-begun/ ) and Up The Line.  Doctor Who includes time travel, but almost always as a device to move the story to a location rather than something to be examined or used.  The reason why Time Lords meet in chronological order or why you cannot change Earth History from the point of view of the current day but can do anything you like in the future is never examined.

The UNIT dating conundrum (when the UNIT stories of the third Doctor were set) has been a subject of debate for over 40 years, time travel could have been used to explain it, but nothing was ever done.  In the seventh Doctor stories his future selves leave him clues and hints, creating mini loops in time.

When the Eight Doctor novels (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/11/27/war-in-heaven/ ) abruptly ended the War in Heaven with as much drama as a damp firework it looked like that would be it.  Lawrence Miles was not finished though and like Virgin with Benny Summerfield (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1803 ) a range of novellas and audio stories were launched.

The first six audios came from BBV and followed Cousin Justine (seen in Alien Bodies) and Cousin Eliza (from Dead Romance).  The first two were set in the Eleven Day Empire – the Faction’s home time, the eleven days lost when switching from the Julian to the Gregorian calendars.

The audios switched to Magic Bullet Productions and there were six more (though Eliza and Justine were recast) ending with The Judgement of Sutekh.

The book series was published by Mad Norwegian Press and started with The Book of the War.  An Encyclopaedia covering the first 50 years of the War in Heaven.  It was written by many incredibly talented authors like Jon Dennis, Simon Bucher-Jones, Philip Purser-Hallard, Mark Clapham, Mags Halliday and Ian McIntire.  The entries referenced other entries and I would follow the threads until I had exhausted them and then pick another.  I am still not sure I got all of them, but it is a book bubbling with original concepts.

It was followed by a series of more conventional novels (if anything about the Faction could ever be said to be conventional).  The first was by Lawrence Miles but it was the next four that mark the range out as my favourite.  Lance Parkin’s Warlords of Utopia has all the parallel histories where Rome never fell fighting all the parallel histories where the Nazis won.  Mags Halliday’s Warring States was set in the Boxer rebellion (and I note my bias as I was a beta reader for Mags).  The final book from Mad Norwegian Press was Kelly Hale’s Erasing Sherlock – adapted from her standalone novel, it does not need any prior knowledge of the Faction Paradox universe.  These are all brilliant but my favourite of them is Of The City of the Saved by Philip Purser-Hallard.  The City is a galaxy sized city where every human or post human ever lives, it also includes all the fictional characters.  A mind-blowing concept, but that is just the start, it also has an enthralling story and wonderful prose.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.

After Mad Norwegian stopped publishing them there was one book from Random Static Press by Daniel O’Mahony, before the Faction found its home at Obverse books.  There have been many novels and short story collections – I particularly recommend The Brakespeare Voyage by Simon Bucher-jones and Jon Dennis.   Obverse was set up by top guy Stuart Douglas and has published Faction novels and short story collections.  It also publishes the excellent Black Archive range, which is a range examining televised Doctor Who stories in depth, from different academic perspectives.  The editorship of Philip Purser-Hallard (a man whose talents I cannot laud too much) have made it indispensable to fans.

Products – Obverse Books

Obverse is the prime example of how the years Doctor Who spent off television has produced a wealth of great creative fiction and given a voice to a host of talented writers.

I had heard this track on the radio – it is very distinctive.  At university I heard a Best of The Moody Blues album and was completely hooked.  It is distinctly softer edged rock and most of it sound like it was written on some wild drugs, but so what.

Nights in White Satin

Playlist

  1. Go Now
  2. Nights In White Satin
  3. Dawn is a Feeling
  4. Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)
  5. Ride My See-Saw
  6. Dr Livingstone I Presume
  7. House of Four Doors
  8. Legend of a Mind
  9. The Actor
  10. Lovely To See You
  11. Have You Heard
  12. Dear Diary
  13. Never Comes the Day
  14. Send Me No Wine
  15. Eyes of a Child
  16. Eternity Road
  17. Watching and Waiting
  18. Question
  19. And the Tide Rushes In
  20. Dawning is the Day
  21. The Story in Your Eyes
  22. Lost in a Lost World
  23. I’m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)

My one dream

Over the stretch of the last 40 or so years Madonna has been the most commercially successful female artist, but I think the most successful artistically is Kate Bush. 

Kate was a prodigiously gifted youngster, The Man With The Child In His Eyes was written when she was 16, and exploded into national consciousness with Wuthering Heights.  Much mocked for its unusual style and Kate’s dancing it has endured as a classic based on the Emily Bronte novel of the same name.

I really tried with nineteenth century literature.  I have read the Brontes (I studied Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for A level – I mean if you are going to study a Bronte novel surely not this one) and tried Austen, Shelley, Wells and Dickens.  I really do not like them.  I appreciate that it is my loss and they are good stories.  I love watching a TV adaption of a Dickens novel (though anymore of A Christmas Carol would be at least five too many) or an Austen but the language of the novels is so stultifyingly dull.  I make an exception for the Sherlock Holmes stories – though that is getting towards the twentieth century and Wilkie Collins (even then the TV versions are better of Collins).

Kate’s first album has a strong female theme – it is called The Kick Inside and also includes a track called Room For Life.  Themes she would return to with This Woman’s Work.  I love her second album, Lionheart, which is not as famous as others – it is an album about a happy, fantastical England.

(The Bronte sisters – literary giants)

Never Forever includes famous tracks like Babooshka (a shot from the video below shows why Kate was a fantasy figure for a generation of men who liked intellectual pop stars) and Breathing about the dangers of plutonium escaping.

There was the difficult fourth album called The Dreaming – the mystical world of the Native Australians (Rolf Harris played digeridoo), it was not an easy album and commercially unsuccessful.  Several years later Kate released The Hounds of Love, famous for Running Up That Hill, The Big Sky and Cloudbusting.  One side of the vinyl album was a track of a dying person looking back on their own life – a bit prog rock, but not in Kate’s hands.  For the Bush novice this is the album to listen to.

Two more albums followed, and I would really like to recommend Moments of Pleasure (if Wuthering Heights wasn’t so good this would be the track I have on the list).  The words and the emotion are truly affecting.

Kate took a long period off to raise her son, a human thing to do, but depriving the world of many potential spellbinding pieces of music.  Luckily she has returned and is making music again.

Kate Bush does not get the credit that she deserves, she is a titan of British music.  Totally love her – great musician and a wonderful human being.

Wuthering Heights

Playlist:

  1. Wuthering Heights
  2. Kite
  3. The Man With the Child in His Eyes
  4. Symphony In Blue
  5. Wow
  6. Oh England, My Lionheart
  7. In Search of Peter Pan
  8. Hammer Horror
  9. Babooshka
  10. Army Dreamers
  11. Breathing
  12. Sat In Your Lap
  13. The Dreaming
  14. Running Up that Hill (A Deal With God)
  15. Hounds of Love
  16. The Big Sky
  17. The Ninth Wave
  18. The Sensual World
  19. This Woman’s Work
  20. Candle in the Wind
  21. Moments of Pleasure
  22. The Song of Solomon
  23. The Red Shoes
  24. Constellation of the Heart
  25. King of the Mountain

I feel stupid and contagious

You shouldn’t go back -especially with holidays.  Not that you can’t revisit places – I have been to Venice and Florence but would like longer in both places.  I mean that you cannot recreate a special holiday – something that is so brilliant and amazing.  Going back is always going to be anti-climactic.

Everything was slightly worse.  We had to get the really early flight which meant leaving Brightlingsea at 2am.  Andy had been out celebrating his birthday and it was a nightmare waking him up.  We were thinking that we would have to leave without him as we banged on his door.  As it was we had to give him a lot of coffee and a fry up at the airport.  Fair play to him that he managed to make the journey, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have.

There were only four of us this time as Dave had settled down with Rose and his holidays would be with her from then on.  This meant that we were in one apartment and did not have the luxury of space (or two bathrooms).  The maids did not come round on Sundays and on the second Monday we were too hungover to let her in.  Three days-worth of toilet roll from four men is not fun.

The first night we ate and eagerly headed for Club 69 – our favourite bar from the previous year.  It was dead and the two waitresses (Mandy and Miriam) who we had wanted to catch up with were gone (one pregnant and one getting married).  Their replacements were not as good.

We got the party rocking there by dancing on the tables and getting people in.  The tables were about four feet high and I fell off.  A lot.

The trouble was that we knew everywhere.  Kos is small enough to cover in one holiday and there was nothing left to look at.  We spent our time in pretty much the same places drinking and partying.  We even went to The Ghetto Bar that we had studiously avoided the year before, where Andy guested on drums.

(Andy drums)

We went back to Heaven and Kalua.

(Neil and John)

We met plenty of people – Alison and Lyn from Scotland; Carol and Justine, and Kato.  Stavros challenged some semi-pro arm wrestlers to a competition and failed.  We played football for the Club 69 team and beat a Dutch team.

We watched the end of the European football championship (it was hard to find a bar showing it as basketball was more popular in Greece).  This was the year Graham Taylor decided that Gary Lineker (48 goals for England was less likely to score than Alan Smith, 2 goals for England) with England failing to progress (Taylor would go one better and fail to get England to the 1994 World Cup Finals).  Denmark beat Germany in the final and they were only there as Yugoslavia were removed from the finals due to the civil war that had broken out.

I am not saying that it was not fun, but it was not as good as it had been the first time.

(Neil, Alison & Lynn)

The biggest song that year was by Nirvana.  Grunge had arrived and replaced hair metal.  Nirvana’s career was short as only a couple of years later Kurt Cobain blew his own brains out in his Seattle home.  What a waste.  This song remains not only highly influential, but an absolute stormer that still speaks to young people nearly 30 years later.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Playlist:

  1. Smells Like Teen Spirit
  2. In Bloom
  3. Come As You Are
  4. Lithium
  5. Polly
  6. On A Plain
  7. Heart Shaped Box
  8. Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle
  9. Pennyroyal Tea
  10. Rape Me

The loneliest kind of lonely

It should have been on a premium cable or a streaming channel.  Lost was just a bit too early to find the home that it needed to tell the kind of story that it had.  Successful network shows rain for at least 22 episodes a year and 9 years.  Lost was a story that needed a beginning, a middle and an end.  It did not really work with stand-alone episodes either, so that was always going to be a problem.

For those who have forgotten, or never knew, Lost was a phenomenon.  A plane crashes on a mysterious island and the first season is about how they survive, waiting for rescue, how the survivors interact with each other and their escape attempts.  There are plenty of odd artifacts and weird occurrences that meant viewers could speculate on the fact that it was more than it looked like.  There were also the flashbacks in each episode showing h,ow the cast had got on the Oceanic flight and how they had unknowingly interacted before reaching the island.  Season 1 ended with opening of The Hatch (capitals deliberate) leaving us all in suspense.

The trouble was that people expect fiction to work with rules.  A resolution that is acceptable in a science fiction story would leave the consumer unsatisfied if the set up was a hard-bitten cop show.  All fiction has rules – musicals, Bollywood and so on.  We accept those conventions.  Lost looked like a survival show but it turned out it was not playing by those rules.  That subversion made any ending unsatisfying in some ways for most people.

Season 2 and the early part of season 3 had some revelations and developments but there was criticism for the slow pace (and the prospect of hundreds more episodes to get to the end).

Season 3 ended with a flash forward to a point after they escaped, the twist being that they had to go back to the island.  The number of episodes each year was reduced and it was decided it would end after 6 seasons.  The pace definitely picked up.

The problem was that the resolution included time travel, fantasy elements, secret societies and seemingly immortal beings.  Plus, it did not spell everything out.  Some plot points were resolved but shown rather than the characters spelling it all out.

Ultimately most people did not like it and its ending is a shorthand for people being short changed (along with the original ending of Twin Peaks).  It is far better watched in one go – binged as quickly as possible.  Preferably with friends so that you can help each other catch all the plot points.   Its reputation is far worse than it should be.

(Desmond, Hurley and Kate)

When the hatch is opened at the start of season 2 we are shown a man living inside putting this track onto play.  I had heard of The Mamas and the Papas, but never knew that Mama “Cass” Elliot had a solo career.  What a bloody awesome track and the everyone should listen to the words.

Make Your Own Kind of Music

Now the years are rolling by me

The premise of the blog was to do entries related to a particular piece of music (and some are pretty tenuous or obscure links).  Some people are linked very strongly to particular songs and they were easy to choose but there have been very important people in my life who either have not had a musical influence or linked to a piece of music.

One of those is my Mum whose taste in popular music was never going to be a huge influence.  I do appreciate that she likes The Shadows and classical music like Faure (she loves Ferry Cross the Mersey too, sadly Gerry Marsden just passed away).

Most people love their Mum, though I am aware there are people in the world who either have awful mothers or no mothers.

(Mum feeding Mike 1968)

My very earliest memories are with Mum in Luton and as we moved from there not long after I was four, therefore I know that all of those memories are earlier than that).  I remember going to the shops with Michael in a pram and I remember my maternal grandmother coming over once a week.  This was a godsend to my mother because I was a nightmare baby.  I needed constant amusement – nowadays there are rockers and sensory gyms for children.  I had to be held and amused.

(Me, Mum and Michael in Luton in the 1960s)

Not only that, there were no disposable nappies in those days.  Nappies had to be washed (no washing machine) and dried outside – whatever the weather.  No wonder Mum got us out of nappies as soon as she could. 

I was difficult and fussy (some people would say that has not changed).  I hated the feel of sand on my feet, though by the time we went camping in Wales in 1971 I had got over that and loved playing in the rockpools.  I was spooked by the live mackerel in a bucket that my parents and grandparents bought.  My pathological fear of fish from the events with a psychedelic cough mixture had already kicked in.

This holiday was just after decimalisation and I vividly remember the events in Pwlleli. We had stopped to use the toilets and Nanna had returned but Mum had not.  She was trapped inside and could not get out.  She managed to call to someone to look for the car with boys with the arran sweaters (Nanna made a lot of these).  Either Dad or Grandad went and found someone council workers who said that it was happening constantly with the coin slots for the new money. 

(I loved decimalisation – it was fun converting old to new and back again).

Mum and me at Herstmonceux Castle 1973)

I love my Mum.  All my friends’ Mums have been great too.  Mrs Bonney, Mrs Wright, Mrs Francis, Mrs Wigley (sadly gone so long and far too soon, one of the kindest people that I have ever met) and Mrs Hawkins. 

You cannot overstate the importance of mothers.

(2018 and Mike’s 50th; back: Mum, Richard, Sophie, Dad and me, front: Karen, Saxon, Harriet and Cerys)

Simon and Garfunkel were really Richard’s group and of course in the late 70s I thought that they were wimps.  The album that I remember playing on Sunday lunchtimes at Stanley Road was Bridge Over Troubled Water, this is my favourite though (close with The Sound of Silence though).

The Boxer

Playlist:

  1. The Sound of Silence
  2. Wednesday Morning 3am
  3. Kathy’s Song
  4. I Am a Rock
  5. Scarborough Fair/ Canticle
  6. Homeward Bound
  7. The 59th Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
  8. For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her
  9. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
  10. Mrs Robinson
  11. America
  12. A Hazy Shade of Winter
  13. At the Zoo
  14. Bridge Over Troubled Water
  15. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
  16. The Boxer
  17. The Only Living Boy In New York
  18. Cecilia
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