Con artistry….(includes bonus Question 11: one for the francophones). Conservative Used to describe a person who wishes to retain their existing possessions and, wherever possible, add to them by taking more from those with less. Conspire Pointed tower forming part of a building literally designed by the above in order to strike the fear of…
This particular oeuvre was originally offered up to my eager mass audience on the 19th of May 2014 and has subsequently garnered no fewer than two views – the first of which was eight years later. So don’t try and tell me that you’ve already seen it. It was written in response to one of…
Courtesy of the estimable Jim Adams, this week we have to tell porkies about ancient Egypt. Who was buried in King Tut’s tomb? Shergar Why did the Sphinx have a lion’s body and a human head? Because it was easier to do it like that rather than the other way round. What month of the…
Well now, today’s prompt for Song Lyric Sunday presents an interesting epistemological conundrum. Jim wants a song from ‘a forgotten band’. Hang on though: if we can write about it, they can’t be forgotten, can they? But enough of this chop logic – on with the back story. It’s early October 1970 and my first…
Our challenge for Song Lyric Sunday this week is to post something from a band that you wish were still together. I know what you’re thinking – the good old Grateful Dead, right? Wrong. Some might argue that the GD legacy lives on through ‘Dead and Company’ (and some earlier, similar iterations) but for me…
This week, Jim’s looking for a childhood memory for Song Lyric Sunday. Firstly, define childhood: I think pre-teen is reasonable for this stage of development. That takes me to mid-1965, strictly speaking, but I’ve gone a bit earlier, because the Fab Four changed everything in 1963. Way back then, our radio options were very limited.…
In all honesty, there aren’t that many songs I can think of where I could be absolutely sure that I had the lyrics off pat, but that’s what Jim’s after for Song Lyric Sunday this week. Like many crusties, I probably have clearer recall of things from half a century ago than of what I…
The Song Lyric Sunday tour of musical instruments reaches the drums this week. This wasn’t too difficult for me to decide on, although it certainly can’t have been easy providing the backing for the mercurial genius of Jimi Hendrix. By and large, though, Noel Redding (bass) and Mitch Mitchell (drums) did a pretty good job.…
This week we’re looking for a song that featured on the long-running BBC TV programme Top Of The Pops (or on Ready, Steady Go, which was even cooler – and if the scope had been extended to the unmissable Old Grey Whistle Test, well, the sky would have been the limit). Anyway, there was never…
For Song Lyric Sunday this week we’re looking for something eerie. A couple of things came to mind almost immediately – ‘There’s A Ghost In My House’ and, harking back even further – to the Saturday morning children’s request show on BBC radio – ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’. Hmm. As the French say: “Oui,…
