Royal Oak

Buster Gonad Biffa Bacon Student Grant for UK members only!

Siegfried Sassoon's War Poems

Just finished Martin Amis's "Einstein's Monsters". A collection of 5 short stories written in the mid-1980s, reflecting Amis's paranoia about nuclear war. My favourite of the bunch was "The Time Disease" which I thought distinctly Anthony Burgess-like. On reading Amis's introduction afterwards, he states it was inspired by J.G.Ballard - shows what I know!

Vanished overnight! Just a few, forlorn dollops of snowmen left. Horrible wet rain now! Still cold. Of course, if you see a field full of carrots its really just a snowman's graveyard. There will be a few mangy scarves too. Yes - found my son's old woolly hat on the lawn this morning. It was the December snowman's hat which was left on the ground when that lot melted, then covered up by January's deluge.

And just like that, the snow is gone, replaced by rain. I can see the garden again, in all it's brown, wet, sloppy mid-Winter glory.

You jammy get, as we say in England....

Yes, just checked BBC weather forecast - 6 degrees on Sunday. I might even forego my vest that day. I hear what you're saying about that ice Bev - I took the kids to school today and used the pushchair for the youngest, which was very hard work. Finding a stretch of de-iced pavement was a real relief, rather than something you wouldn't even think about in normal circumstances.

We'll be able to bask in that, Richard! Just been clearing the ice off the drive and it didn't feel that cold. I never thought 1 degree C would ever seem "not that cold"!

3 degrees C predicted for Manchester this week - hurray!

John Steinbeck - Tortilla Flat

The car thermometer read -11 all the way to work this morning.

It's snowed like I haven't seen in many years. We've had 6 inches in a couple of hours. We're all at home today - schools are shut and I couldn't get to work, the roads were that bad.

I just finished Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" - I only picked this up because my local charity shop sells 3 books for £1 and I needed a third to make up the numbers. I am the world's biggest philistine when it comes to fine dining, but I found the book interesting, if only to confirm my suspicion that most chefs are megalomaniacs. Bourdain says much the same, claiming that kitchens attract people from the fringes of society, who don't really fit in elsewhere.

I played that album to death in 1991! I don't know if you ever heard of The Coral - another Liverpudlian group (they seem to have disappeared after about 2004). I always felt they were cut from the same cloth, right down to their singer being a dead ringer for Lee Mavers.

Got the sack for the first time in my adult life, got married, had 2 children. Went grey and developed a careworn appearance, hit 40, discovered gardening and post-1964 jazz.

Not for many years, but those early records hold up. Nice tunes, no falsetto/giant hair/drugs/booze.

Sounds a bit like Boney M. They had a Christmas hit called "Mary's Boy Child" who was indeed "born on Christmas Day".

FWIW, I like the early Bee Gees records, especially the Mining disaster tune. They are, of course, a parody nowadays IMO.

I've just finished Steinbeck's "East Of Eden". I'm at a loss to describe how much I enjoyed it.

Another recommendation for "Portrait Of Sonny Criss" here. I agree with MG that it's easy to get addicted to Criss - I got hooked very quickly once I first heard him. I really despise the over-use of the word/concept "passion" (you hear it everywhere, usually as a substitute for talent/competence or just for the lack of anything else to say), but Sonny Criss always sounds SERIOUSLY impassioned to me.

I immediately thought of Wynton Kelly when I saw this thread. I'm not very technically apt so I can't post any images, but a quick look at Amazon shows there aren't many Wynton Kelly albums where he doesn't wear one! "Kelly Blue" is one without hat.

'Wing Nut' Rooney 'Bend It Like' Beckham 'Cry Baby' Gazza Willie the Weeper Blubber Miley Tom Whaley Free Willy Dick Whittington Nobby Stiles

I just picked up his "How Proust Can Change Your Life" in a charity shop yesterday. Here's hoping...

I don't think I've danced since the year 2000. Come to think of it, I am feeling highly strung.