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RichardB

  • Burkhardt’s first reaction to the disaster was to lay the blame on Harding (now there’s a surprise…). This, after Harding had expressed concerns about the locomotive, which were dismissed, and made his offer to go and check on the train, which was also dismissed. The transcript of the phone call makes his anxiety plain. After he’s told he’s not…[Read more]

  • All my previous railway accident stories have concerned British trains in the steam age, since that is my area of interest and expertise, but the Lac Mégantic disaster, which happened in Canada as recently as 2013, is interesting partly because of the contrast in railway practices between here and North America, but mostly because the usual…[Read more]

  • RichardB posted an update 3 months, 2 weeks ago

    Seen by MrsB today somewhere, I believe, on Facebook:
    ‘We used to have empires, ruled by emperors. We used to have kingdoms, ruled by kings. Now we have a country…’

  • RichardB posted a new activity comment 4 months ago

    Speaking of the nuclear threat, I’m reminded that Aldermaston, where the Canpaign for Nuclear (never new=queue-lar) Disarmament used to march to when Ah were a lad, is in Berkshire. Now I wonder when we started pronouncing that Barkshire, because a certain piece of rhyming slang suggests that Cockneys, at least, used to say it the way Americans still do.

  • RichardB posted a new activity comment 4 months ago

    I’d not heard of that one. Do people really say that? Yuck…
    I’m always fascinated by the way words change pronunciation and meaning, for example Beaulieu becomes Byoolee but Beauchamp becomes Beecham.
    And, speaking of lieutenant, I can see how a word that must have originally meant ‘place holder’ became used like ‘Lord Lieutentant of Wherever,’…[Read more]

    • Pronunciation is a curious thing. I expect the list is very long and finds a home amongst both the well-heeled and the down-at-heel. So we have Magdalen College Oxford which we are admonished to pronounce in the medieval way “Maudlin”. This pronunciation evolved over time, but at least the middle-English speakers had the sense to spell it…[Read more]

      • I’ve heard the new-queue-lar version. It does sound odd but I’ve wondered if, unlike me, the speaker isn’t old enough to have grown up with nuclear as a familiar word and a consistent threat.

        • Hah, that did occur to me. Hardly a day went by from the late 50s to the 80s when somewhere on television, radio, or simply in conversation, the word nuclear didn’t crop up.

    • Perhaps it’s the same. Place holder for the captain under whose command the lieutenant is acting. Does that make sense?
      Re pronunciation, here’s the OED:

      The origin of the βtype of forms (which survives in the usual British pronunciation, though the spelling represents the αtype) is difficult to explain. The hypothesis of a mere m…[Read more]

      • Speaking of the nuclear threat, I’m reminded that Aldermaston, where the Canpaign for Nuclear (never new=queue-lar) Disarmament used to march to when Ah were a lad, is in Berkshire. Now I wonder when we started pronouncing that Barkshire, because a certain piece of rhyming slang suggests that Cockneys, at least, used to say it the way Americans still do.

  • RichardB replied to the topic Choices in the forum Group logo of Whodunnit?Whodunnit? 7 months ago

    Reading

    Knife

    Serious

  • My, you have been doing your research, haven’t you?

    I never for one moment thought you were attacking him.  I assumed that you were thinking what I think, that he’s an admirably level-headed bloke with both feet firmly on the ground. No regrets, move on, ‘that was then and this is now,’ to quote one of the songs. I would have said that he comes…[Read more]

  • RichardB posted a new activity comment 7 months, 2 weeks ago

    Good!

  • I wouldn’t describe it as tiny, but neither is it very huge, and you do have to scroll down a way before you see it. So yes, not exactly a blaze of publicity.

    To augment that line in Wikipedia, here are Pete Atkin’s own words on the subject: ‘I’ve never ever spent much time trying to figure out why the songs Clive and I wrote in the seventies –…[Read more]

  • Some afterthoughts.

    After getting negative reactions to Atkin’s music in the past, up to and including on one occasion ‘Rubbish!’, I was a little hesitant posting this blog at all, so it’s particularly pleasing that it seems to have made at least two converts.

    And now, the plug. If anyone wishes to put their hard-earned money where their…[Read more]

  • A lot of people seem to have missed out on Pete Atkin, Janette…

    Details and links for the gigs can be found on the Smash Flops website. Just scroll down a bit.

  • Wow, you mean I’ve turned somebody on to Pete Atkin? Result!

    Yes, he is good live, preferably in an intimate setting. There are actually three gigs in very unusually quick succession lined up for next month – in the King’s Road, Ambleside and Middlesborough – plus one in October in Whitby. One 200 miles from me (and I’m reluctant to go back to…[Read more]

  • RichardB posted a new activity comment 7 months, 3 weeks ago

    I’m in the Western Valleys, about halfway between Glynneath and Seven Sisters.

    • About 50 minutes from here, depending on the state of the roadworks around Merthyr. I’m in Gilwern, between Brynmawr and Abergavenny.

  • I see you’ve been having a good listen…

    Interestingly (or not) Messrs Atkin and James have each blamed themselves and excused the other for the lack of sales. After Clive James wrote in the fourth volume of his memoirs that the problem was that his lyrics were too cerebral, Pete Atkin wrote a long and thoughtful refutation (it’s here on the…[Read more]

  • Ah, Ath, your wife is French, n’est-ce-pas?

    I don’t find it particularly surprising that a folk music lover should like Pete Atkin. Folk audiences, right from the start of the revival sixty and more years ago, have always been receptive to more serious subject matter in what used to be called ‘contemporary folk’ – though it’s often been with a l…[Read more]

  • There is a genre of French music known in English as chanson – ironically, since in French chanson simply means song, any kind of song. You might call it popular music with brains, for its distinguishing characteristic is articulate lyrics that set out to say something actually worth saying. In France it has a long and noble tradition, its best k…[Read more]

  • RichardB posted a new activity comment 8 months ago

    Phew! And thank you too, Ath, without whom, etc.

  • RichardB posted a new activity comment 9 months ago

    Yes, when i stumbled across the place two or three years ago, though the memorial garden was well maintained the actual building did look just a little sorry for itself.

  • RichardB replied to the topic For Those in Peril… in the forum Blogs 9 months ago

    Since writing this blog I have put my money where my mouth is and become a paid-up RNLI supporter, paying a direct debit every month. One of the consequences of this is that I receive a quarterly magazine. In the latest edition, which came a few days ago, I read that the old Penlee lifeboat station has now been granted Grade II listed building status.

    • Thanks, Richard. I hadn’t realised how small the station is. It’s good it’s now listed. I imagine it would be vulnerable to being left to fall apart without a team of dedicated voluteers.

      • Yes, when i stumbled across the place two or three years ago, though the memorial garden was well maintained the actual building did look just a little sorry for itself.

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