-
-
Squidge started the topic Monthly competition – September 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 3 years ago
Your prompt this month consists of three words:
wheelbarrow, street lamp, and a pipe (smoking)
Use them however you would like, in no more than 300 words. Have fun 😉
-
Squidge replied to the topic Monthly competition – August 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 3 years ago
Oh blimey! Did not expect that at all… Wow, thanks, Sandra.
Everyone else’s was fab. Feel a bit of a fraud having popped in here for the first time in ages and getting to set this month’s challenge, but I’ll do my best x
-
Squidge replied to the topic Chit Chat in the forum
Whodunnit? 3 years agoI’m like John…I always join in the hope I’ll be able to write something. This year’s been a shocker for the novel, so a change of content would be most welcome!
-
-
-
-
-
Squidge replied to the topic Monthly competition – August 2023 in the forum Monthly Competition 3 years ago
Not quite sure where this was going, but it felt good to respond to a prompt for the first time in ages… Also not sure why only a bit of the text unbolded when I was aiming for the lot! Ah well…
“In a yellow rectangle, in the black facade of a house, a woman is laying a table.”
He could have picked any window, of any house, in any str…[Read more]
-
RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Musical Byways: Pete Who? (No 2) in the forum Blogs 3 years ago
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 replied to the topic Richard's Musical Byways: Pete Who? (No 2) in the forum Blogs 3 years ago
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]
-
RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Musical Byways: Pete Who? (No 2) in the forum Blogs 3 years ago
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]
-
RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Musical Byways: Pete Who? (No 2) in the forum Blogs 3 years, 1 month ago
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.
-
RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Musical Byways: Pete Who? (No 2) in the forum Blogs 3 years, 1 month ago
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 replied to the topic Richard's Musical Byways: Pete Who? (No 2) in the forum Blogs 3 years, 1 month ago
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]
-
RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Musical Byways: Pete Who? (No 2) in the forum Blogs 3 years, 1 month ago
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]
-
RichardB started the topic Richard's Musical Byways: Pete Who? (No 2) in the forum Blogs 3 years, 1 month ago
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 replied to the topic For Those in Peril… in the forum Blogs 3 years, 2 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.
-
-
-
RichardB replied to the topic Motor Racing's Blackest Day: Le Mans, 1955 in the forum Blogs 3 years, 3 months ago
Thanks for that interesting link, Libby. One thing it doesn’t mention about Hawthorn is how fond he was of his beer – yes, despite the kidney problems – and of horseplay under its influence. I suspect the fate of the autograph hunter was his idea of a joke rather than any act of aggression. Hawthorn’s sense of humour was not subtle. Once Sti…[Read more]
-
RichardB started the topic Motor Racing's Blackest Day: Le Mans, 1955 in the forum Blogs 3 years, 3 months ago
First run in 1923, The 24 Hours of Le Mans was conceived as a trial of endurance and reliability for road-going production cars, at a time when breakdowns and malfunctions were still a common occurrence. Its rules tried to duplicate the challenges of everyday motoring of the time, decreeing that weights had to be carried to the equivalent of three…[Read more]
- Load More
