Song Lyric Sunday throws up an interesting challenge this week: feature a song that references a nursery rhyme or a fairy tale. My initial response to this was ‘Eh?’. Nothing at all came to mind. So, in time-honoured fashion, I eschewed the sheer effort of having to think for myself and instead put the question…
From this week in 2013, a piece about the gift of giving – or, more accurately, the giving of gifts. As time goes by We were mulling over recently what present to buy for our daughter’s eighth wedding anniversary. Seeking inspiration, not to mention enlightenment and authoritative knowledge, naturally we looked online. At anniversariesbyyear.com (yes…
I don’t believe a word of it….and nor should you. What is a saga? Too long: bored now. What is a synopsis? Too short: already bored… What is a dialect Yew wha? What is a goblin? I thought this was a family show. What is a pinstripe? Outdated uniform of 80s investment bankers (guilty as…
This week, Jim is asking us to feature a song with an arresting opening line: one so familiar that you can ‘name that tune’ immediately. Perhaps it’s just my age, but most of the possibilities that sprang most immediately to mind were rock and roll classics. I see that Jim himself has chosen ‘Tutti-frutti’, but…
Say what now? What is an ingot? Bed, board and stabling for up to ten horses. What is a pekinese? A quadripedal spoilt brat. Probably. What is gumbo? Hmmmm. Afraid I’m stuck on this one. What is crème fraiche? Sounds like some of that foreign muck. What is a patisserie? An Irish daytime TV soap…
From August 2014, on the art of masterly inactivity. I can’t help it, I’m an analyst “Procrastination. What have you been putting off doing? Why?” We’ve talked about this before on this blog, albeit from a different perspective. So you could consider this as an update. A belated one, obviously. If – no, let’s be fair, when – I’m…
After last week’s challenge of choosing the closing track of an album it is of course entirely logical that this time Jim is looking for an opening track. Not too long ago, I featured Roxy Music’s ‘Remake/Remodel’, the opening track of their debut album. However,this was by no means Bob Dylan’s first LP (as we…
From this day in 2014, a meditation on boredom… Shoot Me Now This one’s just too good to miss…(cracks knuckles; hunches over keyboard; ticks tags for ‘rants’ and ‘grumpy old man’). “(YAWN): What bores you?” Firstly, let’s be clear about what we actually mean by ‘boredom’. My first stab at finding a dictionary definition came…
General knowledge ignorance….. Which monarch famously said: “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king” Queen Anne – the one who had to be buried in a square coffin. What is the rarest blood type in humans? Vampire – because there’s…
When I saw that Jim’s prompt for Song Lyric Sunday this week was the closing track of an album, as if by magic four possibilities just jumped into my head. But hang on: haven’t I already used these? ‘Brain Damage/Eclipse’ from ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ – check; ‘See Me Feel Me’ from ‘Tommy’ –…
the only deadhead in the hameau 