The Magnificent Goldberg

Yes, Windows Update finished updating me a couple of days ago, so I've assumed I was OK. Downloaded iTunes 12. Dislike it somewhat more than 11 but not disablingly so. I don't think it likes me storing my music on an external hard drive rather than on the C: drive. I moved it all after the crash. I suspect each time I connect to iTunes and plug in the external I'll have to delete everything in iTunes and introduce it all to the programme again, if I want to sync more stuff to the iPod. Oh well; I'll try it once and give up if it's a total pain. Yes, those days are still with us in this old mining village. I imagine it's still like that in similar ex-mining areas in the Appalachians. MG

The Mad Hatter Henk Madrotter Johnny Rotten

Heat is the thing that's worrying. The computers' transformers are on the carpet and pretty warm at the end of the day. The router gets hot, too. My Missus, in particular, but I too, don't like stuff on at night. Fridge/freezers are standing on stone or concrete floors, so they're not much of a worry. What I worried about was that extensive updates wouldn't work properly because they NEEDED web access while they were doing. That doesn't seem to be the case. I realise our computer security is just as open daytime as night time, but a geezer sitting outside in a van is gonna be noticed during the day. MG

Goodness, you're right. Never thought of it before. Hope someone can elucidate. But will the video be in the correct order? Why would it be different to the issued album? I assume the original masters are among those lots in Atlantic's fire. MG

Damn, I was just going to post Randy Marsh!!! BTTDB MG Hard Hearted Hannah Savannah Churchill Winston Churchill

Yeah, but my wife said her computer, including internet link, had been working better than ever before while I was out - well, for a day and a half. She said she hoped I didn't EVER get back online Anyway, the problem seems to have sorted itself out, in the way you said it would. I got more updates and it did them OK, now I'm not getting any more, so I'm assuming the thing's OK. Meanwhile, my wife's has gone cranky again. I guess there's insufficient bandwidth to handle two computers simultaneously up here on the top of the valley. In any case her laptop's about eight years old and deserves a boot into the bin. She's going to get a tablet at Christmas, same as our daughter, and get daughter to teach her how to use it. But why the router should give preference to my computer, which is upstairs of the router, rather than hers, which is right beside it, is a mystery to me. Perhaps it doesn't like her e-mails MG Lord, luvaduck! I expect MS will MAKE everyone go to W10 eventually, but I'll definitely try to postpone THAT now I've read your post. Thanks You and everyone are assuming I do this stuff with the internet on, but I NEVER leave the router switched on after about 9.00PM. It makes me think that I OUGHT to leave it on, but I really don't want to. My wife would be dead worried, trying to go to sleep with anything other than the fridges & freezers, boiler and a clock switched on. No one's ever said I should leave the router on at night. I know lots of people do and you hear stories of geezers driving up in radio vans at night and riffling through the house owners' PC data on the QT. MG

John Faire (50s guitarist and King session man) Digby Fairweather The Weather Girls

Captain Kirk Captain Marvel The Marvelettes

No, that can't be right, because I invariably turn the router off well before I close down in the evening. And didn't turn it on this morning until after breakfast, by which time the updates were done. So it's still a mystery. But anyway, in the morning, I'm less in a hurry to get some shuteye, so I could let it run. Oh well... M

Thanks Jim - that's very helpful to know. And I can well imagine that up here in the Valleys, I'm going to get limits. No one admits to anything, however. I got another 72 updates thrust at me last night and, after just over an hour, it was stuck, so I turned it off. I turned it on at 6 AM today and it did all 72 in 75 minutes! I think I won't let the machine shut down normally in the evenings, which seems to be a peak usage time (10.00 PM), but do the proper shutdowns at 6.00 AM, as today, when no other bugger in the world is up and about :G BTW, it's not the router's fault; all this happened AFTER we got the new one, which works fine. Well, seems to, anyway. Thanks once again. MG

Well, I guess I should have got the Cotton Pickers. That's one I have. (Also used to have the Gene Krupa on a 78.) MG

Mr Bass Man Mickey Bass III Alec Guinness

Well, I’m back and seeking advice about my recent crash, which seemed VERY eccentric to me. On Sat 21 Nov, I foolishly pressed 'yes' on a Microsoft ad to upgrade my system to Windows 10 free. Started the upgrade at 10.00 PM and it went on, and on and on. After a bit it seemed to stop, but didn’t close down, and I went to bed. Got up at 2.00 AM for a piddle and had a look to see how it was doing and there was a message saying words to the effect of upgrade failed, repairing hard drive and reinstalling Windows 7. In the morning, however, there was another message; this from Explorer.exe 'The application failed to start correctly: press OK to terminate the application.' I did and got a blank screen. After much messing around, I worked out that Explorer had got buggered somehow and I didn't have a working operating system. Of course, this was Sunday...Phoned our local computer repair shop Monday morning and left a message to call me back. Still no call Monday afternoon, my wife reported she couldn't get the internet, which had been working fine all day Sunday and Mon morning. Worked out that the router had gone west. Phoned our phone company and, after much discussion and arguing, persuaded them on Wed eve to send us a new router. So we missed our Christmas delivery slot from EVERY online grocer! Router arrived Friday. I decided to restore my system from the reference discs I got when I bought it in 2011. Did that and found a way of doing it that meant I didn't lose much data and all except iTunes was fine. Very happy. By Saturday morning, I'd got everything, including the new router, working fine, and spent the day shuffling stuff around to get things the way I like them. Shut down at 10.00 PM Saturday night and found that Microsoft had sent me 246 updates!!!! Well, the system I was running was four or five years old. So I watched it for half an hour and it seemed to be doing OK. When it got to number 70, it got stuck. Didn't move. Went to bed midnight and it was still installing #70. And still on Sunday morning. So I turned the bugger off, then turned it back on. Still worked... BUT - I'd got an outdated Windows 7. I was getting a message from Yahoo to say that I was using an unsupported browser and I'd better upgrade it so I could get all the full wonders of Yahoo. And on Organissimo, I could neither post nor send messages, no doubt for the same reason. Closed down on Sunday night and found that the system wanted to continue shoving updates at me. Never knew you COULD stop an update and it would restart on the next shut down. Anyway, it started off doing update 153 of 246! So what happened to #71 to #152? I assume that, while it continued to SAY it was doing #70, it was doing all those others. But it CAN’T have taken ten hours to get to #152… or can it? Anyway, I gave it 45 minutes and it continued to SAY it was doing #153, so I turned it off again, thinking it might have done a few more secretly. Turned it off at lunchtime today and it said it was doing update #1 of 83. But, miraculously, it finished that lot and closed down in good shape. And I found I could post onto Organissimo and Yahoo wasn’t complaining about my old operating system. However, I just had a look at the Windows start screen and it’s showing me I’ve got another bunch of updates queued up for the next time I shut down. So, what’s going on? Well, I can quite understand that, with all the messing around I’ve done, there’s gonna be some stuff missing and that would probably lead to inconsistencies. I’m surprised that it did what it did, but I’ve gotta say, it was pretty all right altogether. But are there any computer experts out there who can tell me what WAS going on? Like… Why might the upgrade to Windows 10 have failed? I had plenty of spare space on my hard drive - about 120 gb. Why, when it said it was reinstalling Windows 7, didn’t it do that properly? What happens with these big updates? Is it possible that a big wodge of updates might be EXPECTED to take twenty-four hours or so? This seems kind of unreasonable to me, especially with no warning. Any advice or info would be welcome. I also need to get iTunes because it keeps saying it doesn't work without Apple Application Support and I should uninstall it then reinstall. But I don't know how to uninstall a non-working programme that isn't installed and included in the control panel list. I've heard bad things here about v12, which is what they're doing now, so I always refuse to upgrade to it. But I don't suppose I've no alternative now. More advice on this would be helpful, folks. MG

Looks blooming fantastic! All the very best Dan. MG

Rev David Shepherd Flock of Seagulls Brighton & Hove Albion

Download for me pliz, Guv. MG

I thought Mosaic had a page where you could download their discographies of boxes past and present. Never seen it, though. MG

Is that the track that was on the VJ LP 'The blues'? I seem to remember it was called 'Kansas City' on that LP. MG

Arnold Raymond Cream (better known as Jersey Joe Walcott) The Milky Bar Kid The Big Cheese

Now that's just mind-blowing! What, I have to ask myself, does he think he'll feel like if he dies halfway through chapter six? MG

Two Ton Tessie Ray Pounds Gram Parsons

Going back to the question of whether poets can/do write good songs, over breakfast I was listening to an instrumental version of ‘Speak low’ and, perusing the sleeve notes, was surprised to find that my all time favourite poet – albeit an extremely peculiar one, Ogden Nash – wrote the words. So I looked him up in Wiki and found that he wrote the words to two Broadway musicals: One touch of Venus, with Kurt Weill, in 1943 – the show from which ‘Speak Low’ comes; and Two’s company, with Vernon Duke (some of the songs written by Duke & Sammy Cahn), in 1952. Apart from ‘Speak Low’, I’ve never heard of any of the other songs from those shows. I wouldn’t have thought that Nash’s general technique, which exhibits a very odd sense of rhythm, though it’s not a-rhythmic, was at all suitable for writing songs, but ‘Speak low’ has terrific words, which work as well as a song as they do as an Ogden Nash poem. Just don’t look for hilarity. Speak low when you speak, love Our summer day withers away too soon, too soon Speak low when you speak, love Our moment is swift, like ships adrift, we're swept apart, too soon Speak low, darling, speak low Love is a spark, lost in the dark too soon, too soon I feel wherever I go That tomorrow is near, tomorrow is here and always too soon Time is so old and love so brief Love is pure gold and time a thief We're late, darling, we're late The curtain descends, everything ends too soon, too soon I wait, darling, I wait Will you speak low to me, speak love to me and soon Time is so old and love so brief Love is pure gold and time a thief We're late, darling, we're late The curtain descends, everything ends too soon, too soon I wait, darling, I wait Will you speak low to me, speak love to me and soon Speak low That’s somewhat typical Ogden Nash versifying; those uneven lines of his have a different time from other poets’. Consider: When called by a panther Don’t anther. Or: Parsley Is ghastly. Ogden Nash is mainly known for his humorous poetry, but that song ain’t humorous by ANY measure; it’s downright miserable. But not all of his poems were funny, or intended to be: Why did the Lord give us agility If not to evade responsibility? Well, if you were ambushed in the night by Tom Lehrer’s songs as a youth, in particular ‘When you are old and grey’, you might well at first blush think those two Nash lines were meant to be funny but failed. An awful debility, A lessened utility, A loss of mobility Is a strong possibility. In all probability I'll lose my virility And you your fertility And desirability, And this liability Of total sterility Will lead to hostility And a sense of futility, So let's act with agility While we still have facility, For we'll soon reach senility And lose the ability. With those 16 lines always in the back of one’s mind, misinterpretation of Nash is not hard. But Nash was making an untypically serious point (while Lehrer was making a serious attack on conventional songs, through humour). As I was thinking about these two songwriters, it occurred to me to wonder why jazz vocalese words didn’t use Nash’s rhythmic techniques, and in particular, why they aren’t, at least sometimes, hilarious. I can’t think of any funny jazz vocalese I’ve heard. Is there such a thing? Some Fats Waller records are hilarious so it’s not forbidden for jazz to make one laugh, but why is it done so seldom? Vocalese SHOULD provide a heaven-sent opportunity for humour. Well, I think it actually does, but jazz singers don’t take advantage of it. Are they all miserable sods? I can't believe that. MG

Late 1969, Bill. MG

Oh yeah, we have crockery we don't use. It's not the best, though, because I insist on using the best until we reach the not best (then work down the pile until the dishwasher's full - we haven't got a lot of best ). But the stuff at the bottom of the not best tends not to get used ever nowadays. MG

Never saw that one before, but the Muse reissue - the one I've got - is as bad - and partly accounts for the lack of appearances on my player MG