Bella

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not attacking him. I think it’s great that he doesn’t measure his success the way that some singer/songwriters do. And I do like his songs. He’s also a pretty accomplished guitarist. He seems to have been very successful indeed in other areas he’s chosen to work, pursuing a big career in Radio as a senior producer…[Read more]

I have had a good listen. I have a feeling he’s somebody to hear live. Perhaps we’ll meet up at his next gig – if he has one.

Oh yes, Alan Bennett’s diaries are amazing!

Thank you for this treat of a blog, Richard, which addressed my total ignorance of chanson. I’ve long preferred lyrics which say something (hence my liking for Arab Strap and The Floating Men, discovered via my youngest son.) I’m thinking I can repay him with Pete Atkin.

She seems pretty English to me – although her mother is French and her father’s Maltese. But yes, it’s the French connection that hooked me on Renaud.

I don’t know, but put the speculation aside. Pete Atkin has a smooth confident voice and he holds a note very well. And that’s true right from the first album to the last. The songs hold your…[Read more]

Yes, Kurt Vonnegut never hid behind ‘fancy’ writing. He’s a fabulous role model. Amongst contemporary writers, I would love Ali Smith’s way with words, and maybe Philip Pullman’s scope (mine is more like a microscope by comparison). I love the lightness and silly references in Philip Reeve’s children’s books. A lot of my favourite authors write…[Read more]

The only writer who I enjoy and where I can see similarities in style with my own, is Kurt Vonnegut. That’s not to say we write in similar ways. Vonnegut was a master of prose and I’m not drawing a comparison. However, he made an effort to keep his writing plain and clear and advised others to do the same. Certainly there are subtleties in…[Read more]

Oh wow! That brings back memories. I heard Pete Atkin (without Clive James) at a soaking wet Bristol Folk Festival sometime in the early 70s, and again in Cardiff Student Union. And I loved his music. I had a Clive James/Pete Atkin LP from that time, but it is one of the many that I sold when I moved to a single room in Scotland in 1980.

As for…[Read more]

Fabulous blog, Richard. Chanson is so little known outside of France. People think they know it because they’ve heard a recording of Non, je ne regrette rien or maybe they know that Seasons in the Sun is a translation (sort of) of a Jacques Brel number. It’s hugely popular in France. Travel to any town and go out and about on market-day. Every…[Read more]

Perhaps I should make it clear this is just one line intended as a prompt to build a story on, from a collection of poetical, random lines, in a pocketbook entitled ‘Distance and Proximity’.

Wow, Libby, and thank you, a big surprise, especially as I’d already identified winners 1,2 and 3 and, my laptop having died and been taken away, and only having my ancient, over-full and steaming one, I wasn’t checking as often as I have been. I’ll try and come up with something as interestingly challenging as the last few have been.

Brutal

Graham was beside himself. Furious, speechless, incandescent with rage. They had demolished the ancient well in his garden, thrown the centuries old stonework down inside, and constructed a former which showed their intention to pour footings a full twenty metres from where the summerhouse should be. He leaned forward and peered down. All…[Read more]