Every year Grant Thornton recruited a group of trainees. You not only had to be good at the job but you also had to pass the tough exams each year – failure more than once would mean you were definitely gone. The trick was to recruit the right number of graduates to balance the lossesContinue reading “The world turns around”
Tag Archives: Music
I’m Hearing Only Bad News
What does Africa mean to you? What do you think when you hear Africa? Famine? Dictatorships? Poverty? Corruption? Perceptions count for a lot and particularly those that are embedded in someone’s mind at a young age. For my parents’ generation it is was the end of Empire and the emergence of a wave of dictatorsContinue reading “I’m Hearing Only Bad News”
Can’t you see me here on overload?
I was told that I would like this song. I ignored that, some DJ I had never heard of and one of the women in Destiny’s Child who was not Beyoncé? Of course I was wrong and it is a beautiful track. It is a pattern for me to push back against recommendations just becauseContinue reading “Can’t you see me here on overload?”
Take me if you please
We had a head boy (plus a deputy) and a head girl (plus a deputy) in our sixth form. These were chosen by staff, and as there were only 31 of us it was not a big pool. I was not chosen, which was fine by me – it seemed like a problem with noContinue reading “Take me if you please”
I Don’t Want to Break These Chains
In 1993 John and Dave did not go on holiday. Neil and I booked to go to Malia – even then a lively party town in Crete. Not long before we left for the holiday Ken Berry asked if we minded him coming out. I knew him a bit as he was part of extendedContinue reading “I Don’t Want to Break These Chains”
Compelled, but not defeated
Compelled, but not defeated Do you know when it became illegal for the British Police to behave in a racist fashion? Answer below. This is the second track by a group recommended by my current boss (there was an earlier entry on The War on Drugs). They are the best group you have probably notContinue reading “Compelled, but not defeated”
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”
In a hanging garden, change the past
What is the most destabilising force in the Middle East? Until the last few years it would be the behaviour of Israel towards the Palestinians. Now I’m not so sure. Islam has two major branches – Sunni and Shia (the split originates in a dispute over who should lead the religion after the death ofContinue reading “In a hanging garden, change the past”
Miss me madly and I’ll be yours
John Hawkins loves Altered Images. Michael Ball loves Altered Images. John Peel loved Altered Images. He was on Top of the Pops saying that they would be the band of the 80s. Well they weren’t. I’m not even sure that there was a band of the eighties. The Jam had a sequence of Top 5Continue reading “Miss me madly and I’ll be yours”
With summer at our ears
Once upon a time (and maybe again in the future now the pandemic is in effect) foreign locations were exotic. In the 1970s and into the 1980s James Bond films were built around filming in foreign locations and beautiful women. Filming series in the Greek islands in the 1970s and 80s was the BBC’s ideaContinue reading “With summer at our ears”
Five Miles Out 