Get yer Cuban 'eels 'ere...

 

Just the other day, the wireless in the car sounded out some spectacular drumming by Bill Bruford, who is one of the best drummers, even the best, I've ever heard! His drums with the main band members of Yes is just fabulous, and I could listen to his playing all day!

Looking at the clip above, one wonders what some of the kids actually thought drumming was way back then, it was a bit 'thick'!

Sandy Nelson's 'Let there be drums' started it all off for Scrobs...

But Tony Meehan's 'See you in my drums' was a classic which I still love...

I won a radio prize for 'knowing ' that solo once, mainly because I spent most nights in 1962 hearing it from the record player downstairs at school...

And I never had a pair of Cuban heels!

Potter of the Rings...

So one of the most successful authors of my generation, J.K.Rowling, is left off the BBC's list of influential books to mark our Queen's seventy years on the throne.

"Suzy Klein, Head of Arts and Classical Music TV at the BBC said: 'Nineteen years on from the Big Read, the Queen's Platinum Jubilee feels like the perfect opportunity to foreground some of the greatest writing from across the Commonwealth in our Big Jubilee Read. 

The list of 70 books - one for each year of Elizabeth II's reign - is a real opportunity to discover stories from across continents and taking us through the decades, books that we might never have otherwise read, and reading authors whose work deserves a spotlight to be shone on it. 

'It's a really exciting way to share the love of books with readers of all ages, and to give book groups and book borrowers a plethora of great titles to try, borrow, share and discuss.' "

J.K.Rowling has done more to get children and the rest to start reading good stories, and her Harry Potter series - although I don't read that 'sort' of book, took the world by storm! I do devour her Robert Galbraith novels as they are a fabulous read, so like a lot of 'adults', I'm attracted to her style of writing, but to apply a typical BBC dictum (retranswokery), is a disgraceful insult.

She's made many film-makers, publishers, actresses and actors incredibly rich from her novels, but, like a lot of one-hit wonders, the bit parts she gave their first jobs to, just go with the flow, and I'm glad I can't be arsed even to look up their names and what they've 'done' next!

J.R. Tolkien has been treated the same way, and I well remember my dad reading all his stories!

This discrimination is all to be expected from a bloated tax-payer-funded 'broadcaster'!

Salva me...

 

The series 'Shadow of the noose', was a TV series about a barrister, Sir Edward Marshall Hall, and was broadcast in the late nineteen-eighties!

The series was pretty good and dealt with some incredible cases, but the highlight of it all was the theme song, composed by Duncan Browne and sung by Isobel Buchanan. I just love this piece, which is full of the solemn grandeur of the courtroom, and contains so many musical nuances, which some musician might understand - I'm not qualified to, but it is one of my favourite pieces of all time and I adore it!

The Tosscars...

 

There was uproar at the Sodden Prickney Village Hall last Thursday, when the awards for the most uninteresting citizens of the village were announced.

The prize for Bicyclist of the Decade went, of course, to Ms Edwina Baggage, who has been a keen Bicyclist for some years now. It was always assumed that the school bike sheds were her starting point, and occasionally her finishing point a few minutes later, but local worthies know better than that and point with quivering fingers at the various scratches on the bac...(that's enough - Ed)!

However, when the actual ceremony began, with a trumpet voluntary played by Master Tarquin McBarquin-Madde accompanied by his music teacher, Miss Whelk, Cllr Basil Kalashnikov, the compere of the event, took a sprightly trip up to the stage, and immediately started to tell Essex girl 'jokes', and other unfunny comments about various members of the Committee. Ms Cynthia Molestrangler took exception to the story about her and Mr Norman Wibble at her home the other day as she had just finished the ironing when he had arrived, more than somewhat breathless, and stood staring at the pile of - er - Janet Regers, whereupon Ms Molestrangler aimed a punch at the unfortunate Mr Wibble for even telling everyone what he'd seen, let alone informing The Bugle, and other scurrilous rags!

Mr Wibble then took exception to everyone staring at his bruised face, so he went up to the podium and immediately landed a haymaker on Cllr Basil Kalashnikov, who had hardly started to shriek, 'Sod Everybody', which is his normal opening statement at events such as this!

Pc Lumbersnatch was busily taking notes of the commotion so he could tell the others down the station later, and was unavailable to help Cllr Kalashnikov to his feet, so Miss Amelia Newt and her very special friend and conjugal advisor, Ron Groat, started to administer first aid, with the help of Dr Norbert Iodine and Mrs Trumpet, (Sid's fourth wife this year), and while they applied a small sirloin steak to the injured eye, Ms Baggage rushed on to the stage, grabbed the prize, waved it at everyone, and said in a shrill voice, "Stuff you lot, this is my deserved prize, and I don't give a **** if anyone tries to ****ing take it away from me"!

At this outburst, the organiser of the show, Major Bumme-Whole, decided that enough was enough, and pulled the plug on the stage lighting, thereby plunging the whole area into darkness. The only sounds that could be heard above the shrieks of indignation were the grunts and moans somewhere near where Ms Molestrangler and Master Tarquin McBarquin-Madde were apparently sitting in an unusual stridal pose...