Royal Oak

Bill - you're obviously a big fan. I am currently reading "Tinker Tailor" on the recommendation of my wife. I am bored with it - none of it makes sense to me. What am I doing wrong?

I saw the episode of Sherlock, and I agree. Why must they make everything too smartarsed, too sci-fi and unbelieveable?

Nothing on TV, so I checked out the "On Demand" selection, and found the entire series of "Boys From The Blackstuff". Watched this as a teenager, and found it stood up well 30 years later. The Yosser Hughes episode was particularly good. I did read somewhere that Bernard Hill was profoundly affected by playing Yosser.

Finally finished (after about a year) "Sophie's Choice". The film was on TV a couple of nights ago - try as I may, I could never see Meryl Streep playing the role.

Just finished "Trick Baby" by Iceberg Slim, a 25p find in a charity shop.

Me too - one of my two patio roses is still in bloom. A mild Winter here in the NW so far too.

There are a couple of videos on Youtube which I find mesmerising and so watch fairly often. One is Jimmy Smith doing "Walk On The Wild Side" from a jazz TV show, the other is a Horace Silver quintet playing "Senor Blues". I've heard these tunes dozens of times, obviously, but SEEING them definitely added something.

Watched a documentary called "The Fight Of Their Lives" last night, about the Nigel Benn / Gerald McLellan fight of 1995 which left McLellan disabled. McLellan's plight was grim to watch. Benn came across a troubled man too.

Dobie Gray was played regularly in my house when I was growing up, dad was a big fan. Shame.

Charity shops and car boot sales!

"I'll tell you what Sonny, Wynton swings like a mother on 'Newk's Time'"

Wot, no Lady Gaga?

More classical / jazz comparisons. I've just listened to Mikhail Pletneyev playing a piano transcription of the the prologue and fugue from Shchedrin's "Anna Karenina". I swear I hear the first phrase of "I'm A Fool To Want You" a couple of times. If so, it would be interesting because the song predates "Anna Karenina", so it could follow that either composer or pianist put it in on purpose.

Thanks everyone - my suspicions of Lebrecht are duly confirmed. Thanks to Moms for all the recommendations for further reading - I'll check some of those out.

I just finished reading this book (subtitled "The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry"). I am a neophyte in these matters, so wanted to know if anyone has read this and has any opinion. From reading the Amazon reviews, and a bit on these boards, I see that Lebrecht isn't everyone's cup of tea. For what it's worth, I found the book very interesting. I imagine (because I have no point of reference) that it's rather sensationalist; some of the stories seem a little too good to be true, and Lebrecht's opinions are certainly strongly-held. If nothing else, it's explained why the Grieg and Schumann piano concertos are always together on record (similar length, same key, and each wrote only one.) Anyway, any opinions welcome, as are any recommendations for further reading.

You got to get paid...

I've seen this list before, much like Harry Pearson's "The Absolute Sound" List. Who knows how they come up with these lists, much less why.

:g :g I'm telling you - a squirrel here and there is cute. But you get too many of them together, and they start thinking that everything is theirs. They'll gnaw their way into your attic, chew you wires, clim up in your trees and stare you down when you com out your door, they're just EVIL little fuckers. No me gusto las ardillas!!!!! They DO stare you down! My wife and children are suckers for them when they see one skipping across the top of our fence, a sprig of holly in it's jaws.

You got what it takes? Well do ya, punk? My old man hated squirrels, as they ate his prize bulbs. He had a squirrel trap - a wire mesh cage, placed on a shelf round the back of the shed. One afternoon I came home from college and was mooching in the garden when I heard a scrabbling noise from behind the shed. There was a squirrel in the trap, and believe me, close up, that thing was seriously wild. It had managed to bite off one of the bars of the trap and was going mental, running around in circles in this cage, hissing and foaming at the mouth. I did the decent thing and let it out, not before donning a pair of thick leather gauntlets in case it went for me. The old man wasn't pleased at my mercy mission - called me "St Francis of Afuckinssisi" for a day or two....

I had an alto saxophone twice in my life - at school and then again in my early twenties. Packed it in at school because I didn't really want to play it in the first place. Took it up again years later - taught myself up to grade 5 (theory and practice). I think I finally got to know what "the changes" were, could even hear them, but could not play them. In 1995 I sat behind the saxophones section of a local big band at one of their rehearsals ("Shades of Kenton" I think the band was called - BillF - do you know of them?). Realised I couldn't read for toffee and packed it in on the spot. I haven't regretted it for a second - there are enough things in life I'm no good at - why pick another?

All my gear is 20+ years old and sounds pretty nice to me.

I'd have bought it at that price. It looks SOLID.

It seems that the booze was de rigeur among musicians in that era. My old man had many a tale. I bumped into one of his old musician friends recently - he said of Bredbury Hall (a nightclub where they played together in the 60s) "It was the breathalyser that killed live music there".

I wonder where Tubby's records have been all these years? I remember spying a bunch of Zappa recs in a second hand shop in your area (1981?) and was pleasantly surprised to find 'em all in NM condition. Definitely had expected those ones to have been used & abused by someone who'd been hammered like a mackerel. The records I mentioned in the post above contained a LOT of Zappa LPs. Dad was no stoner though, and if he ever went to parties I doubt they played Zappa! Ah memories of "Hot Rats" and "The Grand Wazoo" while stoned.....

Obligatory . Even that battered old deck upstairs at Mole had one of them. When I had a dig through my late dad's record collection the other day (sister inherited it) I was pleasantly surprised at how well it looked. I guess the Telefunken system he bought in the early 70s must have been okay. The one exception was "Go Go Gouraguer" (I believe it's quite a collector's item) - it was in a fairly bad way, but it had obviously been bought second hand - had a price sticker to the front (£3.50)