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There was a short series on BBC3 or 4 end of last year - "Old Jews Telling Jokes" - which was a part of a celebration of American culture (below) - it's rare to get actual jokes on tv. The thing is, to me at least the idea of 'Jewish' humour has a New York accent (no doubt due to the high profile imports like Woody Allen, Joan Rivers and that other fellow who's name has escaped me - the deadpan guy...*) however the list of British comics who are Jewish is pretty extensive and varied - Stephen Fry, Ben Elton, Freddie Starr, Paul Kaye, Peter Sellers, Matt Lucas, the Winters brothers - which kind of begs the question not of a Jewish style but just how it is that so many become comedians, or maybe this is an illusion. *Jackie Mason - when I was small I used to think that all Jewish comedians spoke like him, until I went to NY and realised that lots of people there speak like it - I remember a man on the subway saying to me "your glove fell" when I dropped my glove. Sounds insignificant, but to me this was very noteworthy. In the UK it would be "'scuse me, I think you've dropped your glove" - less direct but more accusatory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP2cxIkPT1s

steamy!

Now where in the name of Hell did you get that from in the UK? MG Went to Whitby for a day with the family and on the way up to the Abbey poppd in a little record shop called 'Folk Devils' - which had quite a nice selection of records but this one stood out. I think the man at the counter was as surprised as me when I bought it!

D M Boot Hush Puppy Flat Foot Floogie with a Floy Floy

"Once you're through your kick on Classical, I might start with music from the 50's and progress through each decade. You can really see the growth of modern music like that." the 1850s that is (joke)

I think there are certainly styles in which the ethnic content fits the delivery - the ultimate in my mind being Groucho I guess (didn't George Kaufman write 'Jewish' lines for Groucho in response to watching his act?) - quickfire unpredictable delivery which is ironic and subtly aggressive, and takes the upper hand in any exchange - it's hard to read Groucho's dialogue without hearing his voice Unlike the kind of double consciousness that you can associate with African Americans, the Jewish joke seems to be about being unconscious of their 'difference' from the upper echelons, as in Groucho's story about Otto Kahn walking down fifth Avenue with a deformed friend. Kahn says: "You know, I used to be a Jew." His friend replies: "Really? I used to be a hunchback." When his daughter was barred from an anti-semitic swimming club: "She's only half Jewish. How about if she only goes in up to her waist?" all this is very Jewish material wedded to a particular delivery but it's just one style of many I think, I find it hard to think of Marty Feldman's humour as being anything other than British. This is a funny (and probably irrelevant) clip of him arguing with Johnny Speight on TV which reminded me of some conversations on forums like this one:

re. the Big Joe Williams video posted by MomsMobley - fantastic stuff (don't think I ever heard him sound so rock n roll - almost like Arthur Crudup with the drum & bass). The hard to find book on him by Mike Bloomfield was recently made available on the net as a pdf here though I must admit it made me feel a big queasy.. talking of Jelly Roll Morton, Jim Crow Variations made me think a little of Charles Mingus' Jelly Roll things.. What an amazing session that was with Morton & Lomax, 'My Gal Sal' is my favourite transformation that he does 'live'. I'm reading the John Szwed book on Lomax at the mo (which i know you've all read..) & it's very interesting on that session.

wow! - I actually have had a bad experience with WD40 and dog's mess - at my first day of work at a new job (I don't know why I'm telling this story) I noticed in the car on my way there that I had stepped in something, and it was all over the pedals & mat.. I had no time (can't be late on a first day at work) so in haste I sprayed the whole lot with WD40 to disguise the stench. To my horror this did not help matters and seemed merely to act as an accelorator for the aroma to reach and penetrate my nostrils in acrid vapours. Had to leave the car in that state all day in the sun (I had time to clean my shoe on the grass). I hope this is of some help to someone.

Sounds great, kind of outwardly bright but with a dark underbelly. is the opening actually the tune of Jump Jim Crow? (can't remember if I've ever heard the music)

i live there too

they've been showing that Buckley/Vidal clip on the news over here (plus a memorable one of him being rude to an amused David Dimbleby on UK election night TV).. to be fair though, most people lose their cool when compared to the Nazis (regardless of the wit of the comparer) - if it happens on an internet forum the outcome is always the same

I'm guessing that garters is right - I would do a picture search to check but my colleagues here will point and shout

From my young adolescent years a scene of a milk bottle melting on a doorstep in the nuclear holocaust drama 'Threads' Around the same time the sitcom 'Allo Allo' provided me with precious glimpses of stockings and suspenders that had a powerful physical effect on me

my writing is appalling and best suited to a crayon - the neatest, smallest and most startlingly regular writing I remember seeing was André Breton's - a manuscript at a Surrealist exhibition at the Tate, it was the thing that struck me most in the whole show!

Puff the Magic Dragon Puff Daddy The Honey Monster

Baby Face Finlayson James Finlayson Hal Roach

**For the contents of Dixon/Godrich/Rye there is Document Records - despite what people say about them - nobody aside from Johnny Parth was going to put out the complete 8 volumes-worth of Rev Gates sermons. He said himself this was not for the purposes of 'entertainment'. Other labels covered a broad selection with higher quality sound. For me this used to be enough - outside Dixon/Godrich/Rye I guess is another matter (Allen extended my own horizons beyond the standard discographies with his sets..) Probably a Jackson Pollock painting was already in another, preserved, area of culture before he laid the paint down. On a somewhat related note I read a review the other day about John Fahey & Revenant Records, there was a funny bit in it about how he and other "blues wonks" have a dual vision of the status of the music and can 'flick into dismissive mode' over the stuff they love, that is - though he clearly reveres the old records he says things like "don't take any notice of the words, they just said any old shit" etc. The piece suggests that despite the loving care taken over luxury reissues, books etc - if the music is hailed as 'great American Art' by outsiders, afficionados are ready to remind people that this was 'just entertainment'. Fahey can adopt the two positions simultaneously in the same sentence - reverence and dismissal - in order, the article claims, to preserve an expert status. But I think it's more subtle than that and it's partly an instinctive sleight of hand that comes from not wanting people to do damage to it, or focus too long on one spot - 'there's nothing to see here' kind of thing. Though there are some odd-bods out there in the collector world. didn't the entire Alan Lomax archive go public recently? **edit - I realise the original post was about preserving masters and tapes - not just making digital copies... I preserve my status as confused fan

I love that version of Caravan (though I played it too many times and never want to hear it again)

Alexander The Great Ivan The Terrible Minnie The Moocher

The striking thing about those juvenile mugshots is the way they use the classic Victorian-era poses, despite them being taken for the purposes of criminal records - there's sometimes a striking contrast between the squalor of the kids' appearance and the posture - so that some end up looking very Dickensian. "Margaret Cosh was convicted of stealing a coat, she had no previous convictions and served two months with hard labor. Age (on discharge): 15." holy shit. 7 days hard labour for stealing iron - aged 11:

pardon? i went to the docs a while back and he told me that if I can't hear people's conversations it was their problem and they should speak up! I was urged to go by my wife (who mumbles)

It seems very inconsiderate and misleading to change your ratings. Concerning the actual marks though, there might be a valid argument - given that you only review things of a certain quality in the first place - that a '3' is higher within that range of quality than a more general '3'... So if all the reviews are 3.5 - 4.5, it might suggest they are all very close together in an already higher, narrower band, rather than a '2' which ordinarily indicates ordinariness, but in a higher range might reflect a lower level of very good. Although on reflection I think that would be confusing As though listening (or playing) was the opposite of thinking

The A320 in Woking (Victoria Way) Victoria Spivey

Teddy Bunn Teddy Bear Jack the Bear