Jen and I are looking after Stense's dog, Millie, for a couple of months. She's been with us for a week so far, and I've been sending Stense daily photos of her pooch to reassure her that I haven't been doing anything characteristically irresponsible, such as feeding Millie the rest of Daisy-May.
Anyway, yesterday I decided to send Stense a video update, to show her how Millie's getting on. And as a new video constitutes new content, I thought maybe I should post it here too:
For many years, the late tosser Fitz and I would retire to his house after our weekly Tuesday-night pub session to drink loads of coffee and listen to music. Fitz was a big folk music fan, so he would invariably end up playing some Blowzabella. Blowzabella was a British folk band that specialised in playing droney instruments: violins, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdies, that sort of thing. They were pretty magnificent.
I write in the past tense, because I always assumed Blowzabella stopped making music years ago. Imagine my surprise and delight earlier this week, therefore, when I learnt they're still going strong, and churning out magnificent rackets like this:
You can thank me later.
…two words that should never appear in the same sentence.
As usual, the Fall say all that needs to be said:
So that was 2016. The year we lost Bowie, Prince, and Laughing Len. The year Phil Collins came out of retirement. The year the British public set itself a simple intelligence test and only managed to score 48%. The year a dedicated, hard-working MP was murdered by a xenophobic wanker. The year Farage and Trump laughed in our faces from a fake gold-plated elevator. The year the word ‘expert’ became a term of abuse. The year truth became an outdated concept.
On the plus side, I took some more photos. So here’s my sixth annual video slideshow review of the year:
(Click the arrows bottom-right next to the word Vimeo to view the slideshow in full-screen mode.)
Consistent as ever, as in the previous five years, this year’s slideshow contains 97 photos.
Once again, I composed the ambient pap backing track. It is called Techno Prisoners:
See also:
Some progress at last! We'll need to flesh out one or two details later, obviously, but the good news is our Prime Minister has a firm handle on precisely what colour Brexit needs to be. And it's not just one colour, it's three: red, white and blue!
That certainly seems to clarify matters.
They've been putting an awful lot of thought into this, you can tell. I feel almost stupid for voting for the other side.
A short video starring my nemeses of the week. (Seriously, don't ask.)
Cheryl Ladd in 1978 recently.
Fifteen years ago today, I noted in utter astonishment that Cheryl Ladd had just turned 50.
I'm no mathematician, but I reckon that makes Cheryl Ladd 65 years young today.
And I'm now 51, which makes me older than Cheryl Ladd was when I was astonished at her being 50 just a few short years ago.
None of this makes any sense.
Anyway, in celebration of this remarkable event, here is what was always my favourite track from Cheryl's eponymous first album.
The track is called Skinnydippin'.
To be honest, that is almost certainly why it was my favourite.
Many happy returns, Cheryl.