Alan Coren's legacy...

Here come the bubbling scum,
Out from Foskett's Alloys,
There goes a dollop of something brown,
Down from Gribling's Mills.

My little boy's got covered in boils,
My little dog's gone bald,
Ho hum, humpidy hum,
All the ducks is dead.

This was published in 'Punch' back in the nineteen sixties, and was written about the time that everyone was getting a bit fed up with pollution, and sterile rivers etc.

Alan Coren called it something like 'Contamination Lament', and, after several pints, (quite a few actually), my chums and I used to sing it to a hastily made-up tune, which still lingers today...

If anyone has a copy of 'Punch' from back then, I'd love to see how the words have stuck!

The good life continues...

The new allotment tends to take up quite a lot of spare time these days, so Sagtrouser and Bucket's Plant Hire section, is getting some well deserved business.

Some implements are easier to use than others...

The importance of getting older...

Air guitar...Carpenters...

An astonishingly memorable riff from a superb guitarist, who must have recognised the charm and beauty of one of the loveliest voices in my lifetime, and just made this track an epic.

Hear the lovely lady here and wonder what happened to such beautiful singers...

I miss this sort of fabulous singing, she was such a gorgeous girl.

This is dedicated to my Mum, who would have been 97 today. Bless.

Australia story...

As some friends have noticed, I have a healthy respect - even fondness - for Australians everywhere. This is mainly a result of my friendship with many Aussie countrymen and girls over the years, which started in our London flat in Ifield Road, and was eventually taken over by chaps regularly arriving at Heathrow from Sydney in the late 1960s.

Scrobs Inc was characteristically penniless back then, and not up to big spending (other than Thursdays at 'The Ifield Tavern', or the 'Scarsdale Tavern', where we could buy six pints for less than a pound), but it was the Aussie generosity of spirit, as well as beer that captured my way of life, and it is so easy to recall the good times, we always seemed to be laughing at something...

I can easily remember having hysterics all the way to a Finborough Arms after the first ever showing of 'Monty Python', with the awful 'Dinsdale Piranha' ringing in our ears. My friend on that day now heads up a huge Australian food company. Another man (Sod) from the same era, went back home and ran one of the biggest advertising companies with household names as clients, and all this news came from a simple need by Scrobs, to find out where everyone finished up, and poking around on the net!

It's not fair to mention names, but it didn't take long to get to a name via '123 People', and chuck in a few pointers as well. A single surname cropped up, and it was indeed the cousin (another Ifield Rd stayee) of very chap! He forwarded it to the others, and within a few days, the whole gang had reassembled! We also reached across to South Africa for the last member of the crew, and the circle was just about complete!

I couldn't have wished for a better result, but there are just a few other chaps to seek out before we have the whole class of 1971...

Come on Geoff, Warren, and Baby Bear, where are you...?

Amy and Karen RIP...

I'm a bit perturbed to learn that Amy Winehouse is dead.

Throughout today, for several periods of time, I've had this fabulous song going through my ol' grey head - like whistling and humming and the rest, including the drum bit before the choir gets going...

The guitar solo is probably the best ever recorded - without exception, and I play that regularly in the shed with a pair of shears, or a trowel or something. I was intending to post this tomorrow.

Sad all this; two hugely talented girls, lost in some awful entertainment fuelled morass.

A Rugby League Life...

Until now, I've never heard of the man. Rugby League was never my game, it was never even referred to round here, other than having a sneaking admiration for the likeable Eddie Waring, and we all chuckled at his manner of speech, as well as laughing at the 'I'm sorry, I haven't a clue' crowd, when they mimicked him...

If you have a few moments, just read this obit on Cec Thompson, and when you've finished, I hope you'll feel as enlightened and encouraged for the future of UK inc., as I have just been.

As long as there are people like Cec Thompson around, we can forget the miserable failures of the publicly-pursed self-servers which infest Britain; just for a few minutes.