I have never been to Ireland, so my perspective is that of an outsider, but it appears to have come a long way since the 1990s. By all accounts at the start of the decade it was still stuck in the 1950s and was a quasi-theocracy. Since then it has accelerated through the twentieth centuryContinue reading “They say she did it with grace”
Tag Archives: 70s
Good times never seemed so good
Neil Diamond was another of my guilty secrets. A proper teenage New Romantic/ Heavy Metal fan (and that was a pretty big dichotomy when it was all about tribes) did not like Neil Diamond. I did from when I first heard Love On the Rocks. Really there is only one form of cricket worth consideringContinue reading “Good times never seemed so good”
Television man is crazy saying we’re juvenile delinquent wrecks
In the 1970s children’s TV was cheap and that is before inflation kicked in during the second half of the decade and reduced budgets to pittances. Those retrospective programs on TV shows (so popular on Saturday nights) use clips from things like Animal Magic, where Johnny Morris did fake voices over animals doing ordinary activities. Continue reading “Television man is crazy saying we’re juvenile delinquent wrecks”
There’s a hidden door she leads you to
I have struggled with weight all my life. Both of my parents have trouble losing weight, even if they do exercise. Mike seems to have inherited John Wood’s frame – but he does do a lot of exercise. In 1989 I started playing Neil at tennis. Tennis was great even though Neil was a lotContinue reading “There’s a hidden door she leads you to”
Smouldering and smouldering, with ignorance and hate
2000AD is the longest running, biggest force in British comics. My opinion of 2000AD is a story for another day. In the late 80s the team behind 2000AD decided to start a new bi-weekly comic for an older audience. Crisis. To start with it had just two strips. New Statesman, a superhero strip to appealContinue reading “Smouldering and smouldering, with ignorance and hate”
Computer Love
Graham was the first person I knew who had a computer – a ZX Spectrum (I think it was that rather the ZX81). We played a game called Time Gate on it and it seemed amazing. The games were loaded from audio cassette. Our family’s first computer was a VIC 20. Neil had one andContinue reading “Computer Love”
The spirit dance was unfolding
Who was the most talented Beatle? Received wisdom says that it was John Lennon, but Jim Smith (a very smart man I know from online fora) made an impassioned case for Paul McCartney in an internet group that I was part of. The easy answer is not Ringo. Famously when asked if Ringo was theContinue reading “The spirit dance was unfolding”
Blackness, blackness draggin’ me down
There was one other source of borrowing music at university besides the town library and the College record library. The Union Society record library. It was in a pretty sorry state, obviously money was not being spent on it and most of the stock was some fairly poor-quality cassettes. Still, Dave Carter and I foundContinue reading “Blackness, blackness draggin’ me down”
It is no lie I see deeply into the future
Time travel into the past is impossible, at least under Einsteinian physics. It is strange that it is the only dimension where movement is only possible in one direction, though a Grand Unified Theory may explain it – it may be related to why there was a fraction more matter than anti-matter after the BigContinue reading “It is no lie I see deeply into the future”
Well, Another Crazy Day
When I left Icknield Walk I moved onto Greneway Middle School. There were many primary schools in Royston but only two middle schools. I was lucky it was only about seven minutes from our house – until we moved after my first year. Our first year we had Miss Sage as a teacher, though sheContinue reading “Well, Another Crazy Day”
Five Miles Out 