Excellent Advice in Case of Emergency

The Gentle Sex?

This video deals with a subject that has often occupied my thoughts over many years:



It is a subject I will come back to, again and again.

LMFAO

Here's a 'graphic' demonstration of what separates an organ grinder from his monkey:

Gene Vincent and His Bluecaps

Most poignant and, I think, my most liked:



Eugene Vincent Craddock.

Mr Craddock was travelling in the car in which Mr Cochran was killed, on the A4, somewhere east of Bath, in 1960, and died in England, in 1970, of a perforated ulcer, if memory serves me aright. I have never liked the songs produced by Mr Cochran.

Jack Scott: Leroy

The bike's a period piece and ought to qualify as vintage.

Hank Burnette: Boppin' The Blues

The sound quality of the video is poor, however everything that is absolutely essential, as in a sine qua non, is presented with considerable gusto:



This is more commercial. That notwithstanding it is worth posting here (My apologies for the appalling accompanying photographs):



Back on form, and with Betty Boop too:











Another blogger once replied to a comment of mine, at his blog, with a dismissive 'early rockabilly' as a description of tunes such as those. There is no such thing as 'early rockabilly'. Rockabilly was popular in the USA between 1955 and 1957 and was dead before 1960. I came upon it about fifteen years or so later and have enjoyed it since then.

Buddy Holly

Buddy Holly was not a 'rock 'n' roll'* singer; he and his band were country musicians who played some 'hauntingly evocative' (to use a stomach churning and toe curlingly hackneyed phrase that is none the less appropriate) songs:





This is a little too fast but still sounds just right:







And finally, what is probably my most liked 'rock 'n' roll' song and one of the few that I feel was actually a rock 'n' roll song:



I lent my Buddy Holly albums to a slim hipped girl in very tight jeans, at art college, about thirty five years ago. I've no idea what she did with them.


* A meaningless term used in the nineteen fifties as a catch all for various disparate forms of lively music that were not obviously jazz.

Les Bubb Again

Here's a variation on the same theme:



Brilliant.

Some Observations on The Benefits of Work

I've taken the following from Musty Moments, an unassuming blog that radiates light from under its bushel:

I hold firm to a belief that the benefits and pensions bill can be cut substantially.


Gruff thanks to Musty Moments for the item.

The Barrett Steam Car

Success:

What Every Boy Wants for Christmas

Nice Tune

Shame about the video.

Volare II

Here's a Scotch joke:

Q: What's the difference between Dean Martin and Walt Disney?

A: Dean Martin sengs but Walt disnae.

Dean Martin: The drinking man's crooner of choice. Here's to your memory Mr Martin.

Volare I

It fits my mood perfectly.

Penso che un sogno così non ritorni mai più:

mi dipingevo le mani e la faccia di blu,

poi d’improvviso venivo dal vento rapito

e incominciavo a volare nel cielo infinito…

Volare… oh, oh!…

cantare… oh, oh, oh, oh!

nel blu, dipinto di blu,

felice di stare lassù.

E volavo volavo felice più in alto del sole ed ancora più su,

mentre il mondo pian piano spariva lontano laggiù,

una musica dolce suonava soltanto per me…

Volare… oh, oh!…

cantare… oh, oh, oh, oh!

nel blu, dipinto di blu,

felice di stare lassù.

Ma tutti sogni nell’alba svaniscon perché,

quando tramonta, la luna li porta con sé,

Ma io continuo a sognare negli occhi tuoi belli,

che sono blu come un cielo trapunto di stelle.

Volare… oh, oh!…

cantare… oh, oh, oh, oh!

nel blu degli occhi tuoi blu,

felice di stare quaggiù.

E continuo a volare felice più in alto del sole ed ancora più su,

mentre il mondo pian piano scompare negli occhi tuoi blu,

la tua voce è una musica dolce che suona per me…

Volare… oh, oh!…

cantare… oh, oh, oh, oh!

nel blu degli occhi tuoi blu,

felice di stare quaggiù.

Nel blu degli occhi tuoi blu,

felice di stare quaggiù,

con te!

All which means, in English, apparently:

I think that a dream like that won’t ever return
I painted my hands and my face with blue
Then suddenly, I was taken by the wind
And I began to fly in the endless sky…
Flying….oh oh…
singing…oh oh oh oh!
In the blue sky, painted in blue,
so glad to be there
And I was flying and flying, happily higher than the sun and more
While the world was slowly disappearing so far away
A sweet music was singing only for me
Flying….oh oh…
singing…oh oh oh oh!
In the blue sky, painted in blue,
so glad to be there
But all the dreams fall away in the rise because
The moon brings them away when it falls
But I’m still dreaming in your beautiful eyes
That are blue like the sky painted with stars
Flying….oh oh…
singing…oh oh oh oh!
In the blue sky of your blue eyes,
so glad to be there
And I don’t stop flying happily higher than the sun and more
While the world is slowly disappearing in your blue eyes
Your voice is a sweet music that sings for me
Flying….oh oh…
singing…oh oh oh oh!
In the blue sky of your blue eyes,
so glad to be there
In the blue sky of your blue eyes,
so glad to be there with you

Which does not sound quite as good.


Gruff thanks to a simple mind for the link to the video.

How To Spout Drivel Like A Feminist

How To Lie Like A Feminist

Why Women Aren't Taken Seriously

What Women Are Really Saying

Cooking With Dog: Octopus Dumplings

All Cultures Are Equally Valid, Of Course, But ...

I like Ska but this is hilarious:



Cast yourself back five or six hundred years and put yourself in the mind of a European sailor of the time. What might you think, do you think, were you confronted by people such as those? What tales might you retail upon your return?

Germany Calling

I've just started watching, at BBC iPlayer, a 'documentary' about the mind and 'scientific' attempts to control it, or so the blurb goes. I have a very deeply rooted distrust of science that took deep root long before I observed the 'scientific' cruelty of a fellow pupil who went on to become a scientist in an esteemed but no less frightening field, and was old enough to confront an aunt involved, at the sharp end, literally, with psychiatric medicine about the inhumanity of it, so I expect that the film, its opening sequence having already pressed numerous triggers and thrown open all manner of synapses, will arouse all manner of reactions. I don't want to watch the programme but I know that I must.

To paraphrase a notorious war criminal: When I hear the word scientist I release the safety catch on my revolver.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with something distasteful.

Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw.

Post script: Watch this

Read this.

It may not be as easy as you think to think for yourself, especially if you are a committed professional committed to a predetermined outcome.

Watch the programme and ask yourself why the BBC presented it.

Post post script: Did you notice that when his subject pronounced liquorice as likkeriss the presenter said likkeriss and when the presenter was addressing the viewer he said likkerrish? Is it just me or was that ironic?

Oriental Cooking

These videos may not be suitable for animal rights activists, vegetarians or those of a sensitive disposition:

This Evening's Chortle

A Portent?

Spike, the hamster bought at the end of September to replace Prudence, has died unexpectedly. He was about four months old and apparently in good health. He seems simply to have curled up in his little hidey hole and gone to sleep, never again to wake. It's been a bad year for deaths: five fish, two hamsters, Old Mother Gruff, two cars, three jobs, more money and very nearly the will to live.

Never mind.