BillF

Bob Stewart

Grant Stewart Boris Johnson Tory Boy

I've only heard it used up til now as "pettifogging details"---it is a cool word, has a Dickensian ring to my ear. Yes, I'm sure it's Dickensian - IIRC original meaning was raising trivial objections so as to slow down opponent's case in court and, judging by Bleak House where a law case lasts over 20 years, those lawyers must have been pretty good at it! Again IIRC, a similar word is chicanery. Chicanes are used in motor racing and on urban streets to slow the pace of traffic. Said they were going to build some in the next street, but no chance of that now in the face of massive public spending cuts.

Nice! Not one I've come across before. Bill Holman charts, I believe.

Larkin and Amis (père) were fascinating characters. As you say, they did become highly conservative, but I find myself making excuses for them. Born 1922, they're from a long way back. (I predate Bev and Sidewinder by a couple of decades, but L and A predate me by a couple more - that's a long time ago!) Just think what the establishment attitudes were then that they were rebelling against! Their championing of the then unaccepted forms of science fiction (Amis) and jazz (both) was really something at the time. Their achievement in novel and poetry also makes them highly defensible - who is markedly more significant than them in these fields in mid-20th century England? Admittedly their line doesn't accord with present-day cultural sensitivity/political correctness, which is a lot to do with their fall from grace.

Yes, Lyttelton's always great. His humour gets me thinking of this, a winner on the British jazz life:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/21/jazz-philip-larkin-john-harris?INTCMP=SRCH

More Blues

Blue Haze

Only the Blues Only the Blues (RVG edition)

Should set you up nicely for Parsifal!

Hampton Hawes' Raise Up Off Me is a close second to Art Pepper's Straight Life in my list of favourite jazz autobiographies. Bill Crow's Jazz Anecdotes is a winner! Like you, read Spellman when it came out and again recently, and it's good!

Finkelstein helped get me into jazz when I read it in 1957 at the age of 17. Marxist interpretation of African American history, as far as I recall. Gioia's book sits alonside Robert Gordon's West Coast Jazz on my shelf and both get frequently consulted.

Looking forward to this later this afternoon: Jazz Library from BBC Radio 3 In an archive interview with Alyn Shipton, the late Johnny Griffin selects his favourite records

Hop o' My Thumb Edward Hopper Barry Hopper (aka Harry the Bopper)

Chu Berry Chewy Munchkins

Professor Sir David Nutt Tommy Nutter Count Andrea Dotti

This thread has been quite a revelation to me. I never realised how extensive the Monk industry had become. (I bought most of my Monk albums during his lifetime)

Ray Charles Jim Beam Shady Lady

Sylvester McCoy Elvin

Wilfred Wooller Bud Shank Hank Cinq

H P Lovecraft Ann Summers Sir Paul Condom