Wet Winter Sundays

Anyone remember the famous Hancock sketch about Sundays and how boring they are? If you think back 30+ years they were pretty dull, nothing open, everyone having roast dinner 'because we always have done and that's the way it's going to be'. It's so much better now - shops are open if that's your thing, pubs, bars and restaurants are open much longer instead of the archaic licensing laws that held sway in this country for 90 odd years, live football on the tv if you want it. So if they are that much better I hear you say then why are you in writing your blog? Well, the truth is that when it's wet, windy and raining out then indoors is the best place to be anyway. Maybe that's why the typical British Sunday was always dull, because apart from about 5 times a year the weather is so crap there is nothing better to do than sit around indoors! So there, I'm off to drink a few glasses of wine and watch some tv in front of a blazing fire, pipe and slippers on etc etc. Yes, sometimes being 50 does have a lot going for it....

Do you like good music? (yeah, yeah)

Apologies to my faithful readers out there, been away for a weeks break so haven't got around to blogging. Just been reminded that a group of us are going to a soul night next week, should be good fun. This made me think that looking through my cd collection I have a vast number of soul cds, mostly compilations, but stuff that I wouldn't have dreamt of buying when it was out first time around. I was very happy to go clubs and listen to the music, but I would never dream of buying it and listening to it at home, I was strictly a guitar band man. I think the only soul music I bought was Stevie Wonder who was hip enough then for me to get away with. Now I can sit and listen to it for hours, maybe it's just a nostalgia thing and it brings back memories of some great times, or maybe it was great to begin with but I just didn't appreciate that it was good music to listen to as well as dance with.
RIP then, Ronnie Hazlehurst. He was a bandleader who wrote many tv series theme tunes e.g. the Two Ronnies. However, the most interesting fact that has come out after his death is that he wrote the theme to Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, and the main melody (sounds like it's played on a recorder) is actually morse code for Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em! Honestly, it's true! How clever is that?
I've had a very good suggestion to do a list of the best music-related films. This can cover a wide spectrum, so let's leave musicals out, shall we?

1) This is Spinal Tap
2) Hard Day's Night
3) That'll Be The Day
4) Flame
5) Quadrophenia
6) High Fidelity
7) Moulin Rouge
8) The Blues Brothers
9) Gimme Shelter
10) Standing In The Shadows Of Motown

There. That should provoke some discussion.

Lee

Happy Birthday Radio One!

Radio One was born when I was 10 years old so it kind of grew up with me. It's hard to believe now that it was really the only radio station that you could listen to that played pop music, excepting Radio Luxemburg (Fab 208!) which was good but it really use to piss me off they way it used to fade in and out. It was like being a French Resistance fighter trying to pick up the BBC during the war!
My best memories of Radio One were the roadshows; I managed to get to two. The first one was in Great Yarmouth on the famous Norfolk Broads holiday of 1974, the second was in Cornwall (my memory fails me for once - was it Newquay or Falmouth?) in the long hot summer of 1976. By this time Noel Edmonds held no fascination for me as I had been working in the same building as him for a year so saw him quite regularly. Anyway, the only real reason for going to the roadshows was to pick up girls, which myself and my holiday chums failed spectacularly at both times! I'm sure those holidays will come up again in the future so watch this space.
My other great memory of Radio One was listening to it on the way up to Sheffield for a weekend of heavy drinking and more attempts to snare the opposite sex in April 1980. Two songs released that week that got heavy airplay that day were 'Rough Boys' by Pete Townshend and 'Turn It On Again' by Genesis, and still every time I hear one of these songs it takes me back to that time when my hair was longer, I could run upstairs without getting out of breath and my liver was (almost) intact. Happy days!

Hughesy