DB's blog

My Rock Years: 1966 "Mistakes of an ultra-left Nature"

Makes an excellent cd, but I could easily have chosen a different 4 Beatles tracks & it would have been just as good.

Wild Thing - Troggs

Pretty Flamingo - Manfred Mann

I feel free - Cream

Got to get you into my Life - Beatles

Sunny Afternoon - Kinks

Sloop John B - Beach Boys

Scarborough Fair - Simon & Garfunkel

Barbara Ann - Beach Boys

Theme from The Monkees - Monkees

19th Nervous Breakdown - Rolling Stones

She said, she said - Beatles

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly - Ennio Morricone

God only knows - Beach Boys

Homeward bound - Simon & Garfunkel

Here, there & everywhere - Beatles

Spoonful - Cream

Dedicated Follower of Fashion - Kinks

Semi-detached, suburban Mr James - Manfred Mann

Eleanor Rigby - Beatles

I am a Rock - Simon & Garfunkel

Substitute - Who

Tomorrow never knows - Beatles

Paint it black - Rolling Stones

Good Vibrations - Beach Boys

A saved wretch

William Wilberforce

Stephen Tomkins

I wanted to read up on Wilberforce after watching (and enjoying, in spite of a few doubts) the rather hagiographic 2007 film "Amazing Grace" and this excellent little book provides just the antithesis that I was looking for. As Tomkins makes clear, Wilberforce was a very complex character. Always generous, jovial and honest he was also before "seeing the light" reform-minded and tolerant. But after being "born again" he became bigoted in religious matters and socially and economically reactionary. Yet without his conversion he would never have achieved his great mission, for he then acquired the utter dedication to doing what he believed to be right that kept him perservering for decades in spite of the lukewarm support from Pitt and the downright opposition of the House of Lords.

Ireland v Australia, Yesterday, Clontarf

Excellent day out. Ireland gave Ponting & his guys a good game & even looked like winning a couple of times. Great atmosphere, particularly when Ireland's batsmen were going well. Weather: sunny intervals so I got a mildly burnt face, and I don't burn easily, so heaven knows how the freckly ginges ended up.

My Rock Years: 1985

I didn't think I would be able to put together a whole cd for 1985, without having to fill it up with tracks from "Brothers in Arms", but it turned out that the lengths of many of the tracks saved the year - I could only fit 14 tracks on the disc, compared with 29 for 1964 (& only 3 from the Dire Straits album). However it genuinely was the last year for which I could put together a cd. 1986-8 only manage one disc between them.

Dancing in the Street - David Bowie & Mick Jagger

And she was - Talking Heads

Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits

Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen

Everybody wants to rule...Tears for Fears

Cloudbusting - Kate Bush

Sisters are doing it..Aretha Franklin & Annie Lennox

Nikita - Elton John

There must be an Angel - Eurythmics

Why worry - Dire Straits

Road to Nowhere - Talking Heads

Holding out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler

My Hometown - Bruce Sprinsteen

Money for Nothing - Dire Straits

I called the album "Sink, you green bastards!" with a picture of the "Rainbow Warrior" at the bottom of the sea on the cover, but I didn't think it would put it in the banner for this posting - might attract the wrong sort of attention.

The Jilly Cooper of Epistemology

In Wahrheit wird viel mehr gelogen

Kerstin Gier

"A Taste of Dublin" Thursday evening

Went for the second time - had previously been two years ago - just before the crash! Interesting the difference - lots more freebies, but most the tasters that you needed to pay for with your vouchers were even more expensive for the tiny portions you got. The oysters were delicious though. Anyway, an excellent evening out again - the weather even brightened up just as we got there.

My Rock Years: 1980 ("PacRock")

I always thought it was a shame that Spandau Ballet didn't break up immediately after  "To cut..." so that they would have been remembered as a brilliant one-hit wonder, and not for the dross they came out with later. I suppose much the same could be said about Adam Ant, but at least his later stuff was vaguely amusing. Still and all a pretty good year musically (but a pretty tough year for me). I saw a Joan Armatrading gig recently! Except for Oxygen festivals I had only been to one other gig since seeing Motorhead in the 80's!

Enola Gay - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Someone's looking at you - Boomtown Rats

Geno - Dexy's Midnight Runners

To cut a long Story short - Spandau Ballet

Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie

Space Invaders - Pretenders

All the Way from America - Joan Armatrading

Call me - Blondie

Woman - John Lennon

The Ace of Spades - Motorhead

Oh Yeah - Bryan Ferry

I hear you now - Jon & Vangelis

3 little Birds - Bob Marley

Talk of the Town - Pretenders

Fashion - David Bowie

Don't stand so close to me - Police

Too nice to talk to - Beat

Turning Japanese - Vapors

Going underground - Jam

Antmusic - Adam & the Ants

One of the better Booker Prize winners

The White Tiger

Aravind Adiga

I actually had this on my wishlist, until one of my daughters picked it up cheap at a second hand book stall. A good read.

Should be compulsory reading for Scousers

Liverpool: A People's History

Peter Aughton

I grew up in what would now be called the inner-city and yet it was quite a walk in to Low Hill, which as kids we regarded as the beginning of “town”. The image, therefore, of Prince Rupert during the Civil War, with his camp in the “pretty little village of Everton”, gazing down from Low Hill at the town in the distance is a powerful reminder of the huge growth of the city from the 18^th century onwards. I was also amused to read of the “fashionable suburb” of Toxteth in the 19^th century and how the Pier Head was a bathing resort for a while.

 

The more shameful periods in the history of the city up to the 1960’s – the Slave Trade, the preying on the “huddled masses” from Eastern Europe trying to make a new life in America – are dealt with honestly. But for a “people’s history” it is strangely reticent about how scousers themselves contributed to the city’s problems in the 70’s and 80’s. It is insufficient to lay all the blame on “the planners” and the rapid rise of container shipping and it is delusional to claim that “real” Liverpool supporters couldn’t have been responsible for the Heysel tragedy. Nobody who has lived in the inner city would deny that there was a strong undercurrent of violence and lawlessness, even before the slum clearances. Even if we’re not all whingeing, work-shy, thieving school dropouts who could start a fight in a empty room, we all know examples of the typical scouse caricature.

 

Anyway – a great book. Every literate scouser should acquire a copy.

My Rock Years: 1975 - Fractal Rock

Not a great year musically, but with eight or so classics it was still possible to burn a pretty good cd.

Make me smile - Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

Imagine - John Lennon

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Sailing - Rod Stewart

Knockin' on Heaven's Door - Eric Clapton

Both Ends burning - Roxy Music

Funky Gibbon - Goodies

Dreamer - Supertramp

Blue Guitar - Justin Hayward

Oh Boy - Mud

Mamma mia - ABBA

Pandora's Box - Procul Harum

How does it feel? - Slade

Flight of the Snow Goose - Camel

All around my Hat - Steeleye Span

No Woman no cry - Bob Marley

Born to run - Bruce Springsteen

I'm not in Love - 10CC