The Magnificent Goldberg

I couldn't get the list. But I'm never sure what smartness and dumbness mean in relation to dogs. We had a Pug who was as thick as two short planks. Completely unteachable. He'd go into our daughter's bedroom, again and again, and find one of her soft toys, then come out with it, roughing it up and wagging his tale at us like, "look at me! I'm being naughty again!" So he'd get smacked. And he'd like that. And he'd apologise. Then go and do it again. And again. And again. He'd also go into the kitchen every day, as the afternoon wore on, and sit there barking for the street light to come on. When it did, he barked like crazy for half a minute, then put himself to bed. We formed the view that this was all extremely intelligent behaviour, from his point of view. MG

Another that doesn't look like it would travel well is "Gavin and Stacey". My wife and I think it's hilarious, but because we know so many people here in South Wales who are just like that. I see NBC are going to do an American version. I can't believe Americans would find humour in a series which isn't about the central characters (who are named after famous murderers); it seems a bit too off the wall for Americans to me. And the humour - at least the South Wales part of it - is very, very localised. I'm far from certain that that humour even travels as far as England. (The Essex element of the humour is more international.) Would it be possible to put on US TV the episode in which Gavin & Stacey get married, which doesn't show any of the wedding? MG

I'm slightly tempted, but this looks more like nostalgia for me than something really interesting... MG

Frank Sinatra sings the hell out of "Like Someone In Love" on "Songs for Young Lovers/Swing Easy." These were the first two Capitol sides from 1953/54 originally released on 10-inch LPs, then combined on a 12-inch LP (I think) and now on CD. Essentially stuff. Great version of "Violets for Your Furs," his first crack at "I Get a Kick Out of You" and lots more. I agree - my landlady's daughter had the 10" of "Songs for young lovers" in the early sixties and I've never heard another version of the song to beat Frank's. And the whole LP was great. Actually, I should buy it, shouldn't I? MG

Me too, please Steven. MG

The Turrentine is the companion issue to "A bluish bag". The two CDs contain all of the tracks issued on the LPs "New time shuffle" and sides 1 & 2 of "Stanley Turrentine" (the black twofer), plus (on "Bluish") the non-rejected cuts from an unissued session of 9 June '67 and (on "Prodigal") four (inc 1 alt take) of the seven cuts from an unissued session of 28 July 1967 - the last session Alfred Lion supervised. MG

Here's one for TTK Don Randi Walter Wanderley Winston Wright

Yeah - there's never been a Bobby Bland complete Duke recordings box, has there? Jimmy Reed Vee-Jays? I should think a damn good box of Champion Jack Dupree could be put together, from various labels. MG

This is very good news. I've had this since it came out and it's fabulous. But owning the LP won't stop me getting it on CD! Regret that I'm no more help with the name on the sleeve. But, can't Alvin remember the guy's name? MG

We used to have a neighbour who, when it was hot, used to say she was "perspirating in her cleaverage". She was from Caerphilly. MG

Jacques Tati Kourou Koro Tati Tata Bambo Kouyate

Thinking about this issue of Mosaic and Modern Jazz in general, my feeling is that Mosaic has to be interested in consistency. The firm can't go around issuing huge boxes in which a large proportion of the material isn't up to scratch - though a few duff tracks are probably OK. That seems to impose a natural limitation on Modern Jazz boxes. There were several labels that aimed for, and achieved, great consistency in their different kinds of Modern Jazz output: Blue Note; Prestige; Contemporary; Riverside/Jazzland; Atlantic; Impulse; Argo/Cadet (to an extent); Pacific Jazz; Roost; Verve (pre Creed Taylor). NOT the majors, in my view (though there are exceptions such as Miles Davis). Riverside, Prestige and Contemporary are simply not available to Mosaic. Nor is a lot of Atlantic, it seems. Blue Note has pretty well been mined for Mosaic boxes. PJ and Roost were both fairly small - though there seem to be one or two possibilities, such as Les McCann and ?Stan Getz. A lot of the best Verve material has already been put into boxes by Verve - though Jacquet and Webster Verve Mosaics would be welcome (but Modern Jazz?). But really, you can count the musicians who might be candidates for big boxes from those labels without resorting to toes. Otherwise, you have to look at the later small jazz-oriented indies like Freedom, Inner City, Palo Alto etc. And can you build many big boxes from those? I rather doubt it. Certainly Selects could come from such sources, but not big boxes. MG

You know, I always thought Italy WAS one of the highly industrialised countries That is very interesting. MG

The one on the bottom has a cross on bling. Was Stanley a Catholic? MG

Well, it was an urban legend that someone filmed and was put on British TV - decades ago. Not saying it wasn't fiction, deliberately created for the cameras, but seems a lot of trouble to go to for a few seconds of film... MG

The Barretts of Wimpole Street Rumpole of the Bailey Dave Bailey

I had a friend, now regrettably deceased, who on the Monty Hall show would have asked to switch to the door Monty opened. Would this have been allowed? Did it ever happen? He kept goats. Sold the meat in the office. Delicious and useful when entertaining our Kenyan friends. MG

Amen to that. Nobody's ever going to change anything, unless they feel it in the pocketbook. Agreed... up to a point higher energy prices are actually a good thing since they wipe out some of the externalities from energy use (environmental***, geopolitical). Given a hypothetical choice between appropriate taxes and higher energy prices the latter is inferior - but that is not on the table. ***Assuming that higher energy prices don't cause people to switch excessively to environmentally inferior forms of energy (eg coal). In Britain, petrol prices are something like $7-8-9 a gallon (can't be asked to convert pounds to dollars and litres to American gallons at the moment) and they do not affect people's use as far as anyone can tell. In a sense, petrol is something like bread or some other essential food. The price can probably increase by several orders of magnitude without affecting consumption - our society is such that hundreds, thousands, of other items can, and would, be sacrificed first. So the effect of increasing prices would simply be to reduce sales of other goods (though which would depend on how prices would be raised - tax or profit). MG

Not wholly true. You also trade other people's health, in either case, if you do those things in places where they could affect others (and inevitably on your bike). You may not have run anyone over, yet, but you're still trading their health. Society happens, at present, to regard one as more acceptable than the other, which doesn't make either right, from a public policy point of view. MG

Last couple of Ozzie Cadena productions on LP Charles Earland - Smokin' - Choice (Muse) Charles Earland - Mama roots - Choice (Muse) MG

Apparently it's not Lennie. That pianist remains unidentified (unless it's Dodo ) MG

None - but if it's decided by pulling a number off a random number generator or table, then it's random (or as near as those tables can get to it). MG

I was thinking something similar to what John wrote last night. This game, as played on a computer, is properly random. As played live on TV, there are two (at least) embuggerance factors. One, which John mentioned, is that Monty may be deciding, so the choice of which door conceals the car is not totally random, and can therefore be analysed. The other is that, in any event, Monty knows which is the correct door. Someone who really pays attention to body language and voice tones may find clues there to change those odds; that's what professional poker players do, I understand, because there's really no such thing as a (perfect) poker face. So, as with the monkeys and the M&Ms, it is not true that, in the real world, everything about this issue is perfectly known and above-board. Of course, I've never seen the show. It may be that it's set up in such a way that Monty only APPEARS to know which door conceals the car. So, perhaps he says something like, "and we'll see what's behind THIS door", presses the button - the only button he has - and the correct door opens because it's actually controlled by some other person. If it's set up that way, then there seems to return the notion to pure randomness. MG

Well, car's pollution is more then an "annoying behavior", it's a health risk and I don't think that pollution taxes are enough. I mean that I don't think that you have any right to pose my health at risk because you can afford it. Let's say that I can pay 2000 $ of taxes per years for smoking my damn fags in public places, would it be OK for you? Same for industrial plants, let's say that they will cover your health insurance when you or your children got cancers because of them, is it a free society? Welcome to the free world. Yes... if smokers all paid sufficiently high fees for the privilege of smoking in public to cover the health damage they cause to those around them when smoking in public, then I think that would be a reasonable compromise. The same with pollution taxes etc etc. Guy Actually smokers do it, if you consider the government's high taxes on tobacco, at least over here. BTW we pay a lot of taxes on gasoline too. The point is that it's not enough for public health and enviroment. It might be questionable if one agree to trade his health with money. Personally I don't. I had a big argument with a doctor a few years ago about whether health was a tradable commodity - of course, he thought that the mere idea was a burnable heresy. People do trade their health for other benefits, and smoking is one example of this; driving is another; riding a motor bike is an even more poignant example. But the real point for society is whether other people's health is a tradable commodity. And it must be clear that I cannot trade in your health, any more than I can in your big stock of Mosaics that you don't know what to do with. So there's clearly a sound argument for banning smoking in public places. But, as the main article makes clear, such things have unintended and worse consequences - or may have, since there's no conclusive proof, but let's say that the case is proved, since it's not in any way counter-intuitive. In such cases the correct strategy is to allow choice, but heavily weighted in favour of a ban. So perhaps, just as a business that is selling alcoholic drinks has to apply for a license to do so, so should a place in which it is intended that smoking should be permitted. Allowing sufficient loopholes in a ban to satisfy what really is a genuine market demand should obviate some of the worst of the unintended consequences of the ban. And leaves smokers and non-smokers alike with a viable choice of whether to risk their own health or not. MG

Thanks Guv. MG