“WHEN THIS OLD WORLD STARTS GETTING ME DOWN” How strange, or perhaps not, that in recent weeks it is this 1962 lyric from the Drifter’s rendition of a Goffin and King song that has been filling my head. Of course back then at the tender age of twelve, thankfully, it was the tune rather than […]
TIME “Time is flowing like a river, on and on to the sea”. This was the haunting lyric in a song from 1980 by the ‘prog rock’ band, The Alan Parson’s Project. It came into my head for lots of reasons over the past few weeks, not least of all because for me as A. […]
“SO, GOING FORWARD!” “SO, GOING FORWARD, LET US BE CLEAR”, (such is the parlance of the day) just because I am seventy one years old, white and have a pension it does not automatically follow that I am an inveterate supporter of the current U.K government. Perish the thought. In fact my longevity allows me […]
ANYWAY, ANYHOW, ANYWHERE. (A song from 1965 and probably the best single ever. More of which later.) In these febrile times of pandemics and irrationality one needs to get out. I did and it was this song with its optimistic lyric, pounding drum beat and slashing guitar which came into my head to sustain me. […] Continue reading → 
“LOOSE CANNON, LOOSE ENDS, STRANGE DAYS” “The world is too much with us late and soon”. Back in April I drew on these words by Wordsworth to encapsulate the feeling of being overwhelmed by our contemporary malaise. Now in October I draw on them again as his words carry even greater foreboding. All the evidence […] Continue reading → 
WILD THING ‘Wild Thing’ was a top ten hit in 1965 for a west country ‘group’ called The Troggs. Not many people, even those of us of a certain age, realise that The Troggs achieved more top ten hits than other luminary outfits such as the Who and Bruce Springsteen. It must have sunk into […] Continue reading → 
“THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US” Nothing could be more true on this day, April 28th 2020. More people have died from the coronovirus pandemic in the UK than did so in the wartime blitz of London and more in the USA than perished in the Vietnam war. These are just two brute facts […] Continue reading → 
BIRDWATCHING DAYS The pall of a global pandemic hangs over us. Should humankind emerge from it the message is clear; things must change. Some might say that we shouldn’t have needed such a traumatic wake up call but it is imperative that a new global connectiveness must now come into being, one which values all […] Continue reading → 
January 16th, 2020: 70th birthday. A fine day of celebration marked by our walk on Bamburgh beach all the way round to Kiln Point on Budle bay. In biblical terms such a birthday is a significant milestone, alluded to in Houseman’s memorable lines (1) “Now of my threescore years and ten Twenty will not come […] Continue reading → 
It is often said that certain moments in ones life are recalled by way of the music that was current at that particular time. For me schooldays chat was about Beatles singles then the 1970’s followed and albums took centre stage. And what albums they were with their arty sleeves and more significantly their resonating […] Continue reading → 
My cycle ride to the Thomson monument, recorded in my previous post, wasn’t the only excursion of recent weeks which triggered a journey into the past. Beth was home and keen to visit her friends from University days, one of whom was living in Lanark. When Lanark was mentioned I suggested that I come along […] Continue reading → 
Way back in time we swam in the Evenlode river beneath Gritney Hill. Today it was the Shereburgh and Staerough hills which overlooked our late summer bathe in the Bowmont river. Towards Clifton it had cut into its bank and scooped out a twenty yard deep stretch of the river bed. For this fast flowing […] Continue reading → 
William Blake, painter, poet, craftsman and engraver, was a Londoner.; the “supreme poet of his native city.” (1) How fitting then that a massive mural incorporating one of his poems adorns the end of a building in Peckham. The words ring out: “The sun does arise, And make happy the skies; The merry bells ring […] Continue reading →