Royal Oak

Brought back painful memories of lugging my alto on the bus to school 30 years ago. In fact, it brings back a few painful memories of playing the thing - school concerts where you had to wait around backstage for hours while the cool kids played Bowie's "Let's Dance" on repeat, wearing a dicky bow, playing hokey shit in the concert band with 70 bar rests aplenty, compulsory membership of the school choir with 2 months of rehearsals for a Carol concert, being forced to join a marching band and go to all-day brass band competitions etc etc Seems they may be doing the boy a favour!

Wow, a preface, a forward, AND an introduction. What, no prologue? Do you think Clem's poem will be in there?

Aren't those all from different labels too? I have most of them, so won't be buying. It's awfully cheap for a lot of nice Gryce.

Alan Bennett - Untold Stories. The passages about his mother's mental health problems are superb - his observation of mental illness and all that goes with it is incredibly perceptive and very unsentimental. It should be required reading for mental health professionals, in the UK at least. IMO of course

I'm looking at a pile of unopened OJCs from the Oldies sale.

Still unseasonably warm today. Can't complain, doing an outdoor job.

We are now confirming the stereotype that English people love to talk about the weather..... Tune into tonight's JRR on the BBC replayer and another great British topic lies in one track. Django Bates' 'The Importance of Boiling Water' with instructions how to make a proper cup of tea. My wife bought one of those "one-cup" kettles; it doesn't boil the water.

We are now confirming the stereotype that English people love to talk about the weather.....

I loved REM in when I was in my late teens. A chance hearing of "Rockville" turned me onto them. I saw them a couple of times on the "Green" tour, but never bought another record after "Out Of Time"

Driving on the motorway the other night, I listened to Baby Face Willette's "Face To Face". "Something Strange" had me in some kind of other-worldly state, especially in Ben Dixon's cymbal crashes at the start of the soloists' choruses. Strange how a simple blues that you've heard many times can do this. I tried it again a few days later, but it wasn't the same.

An Idiot Abroad - Karl Pilkington The book of the Ricky Gervais TV series. I literally cannot stand to look at/listen to Ricky Gervais, so I refused to watch the show for a long time. Pilkington is hilarious, but what is worrying is that I find myself agreeing with almost all of what he says.

I wasn't thinking of the intro, but the first few notes of the tune proper.

Didn't Gil Evans arrange that bit? - not inconceivable that Gil would have drawn upon this bit of Debussy. I don't know. I'd never heard the Debussy until a few months ago (obviously known Round Midnight for donkey's years). When I heard it my ears pricked up - I love stuff like that.

Aaaaay!

If I had Bitches Brew I'd try it out. FWIW, I think part of the opening riff in Debussy's "Prelude de l'Apres midi d'une Faune" (spelling?) sounds like the opening riff of "Round Midnight".

I agree wholeheartedly.

Many years ago, when I was a student, I had to conduct a literature search on psychoanalytical psychotherapy. At the time, I was often shocked by the remarkable leaps the proponents made in explaining "stuff". I read Jeffrey Masson's books as part of the study - he was quite the chosen one in psychoanalysis in his early days, but fell foul of the inner circle (don't remember how, offhand) and that was pretty much it for him afterwards.

"Jazz-bo" - I love it! Can you hear him from your house Bill?

Looks nice - what manufacturer?

I had one for a while. It did the job ie played records, but after reading the various horror stories about them on audio forums, I felt like I'd comitted a crime by using one. I sold it after I bought a used Dual, which sounds much better.

Well done

George Shearing Trio and Stephane Grappelli - "The Reunion" Really nice reading of "The Folks Who Live On The Hill"

Same from me.

This thread is the funniest thing I've read in ages - thanks all!