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If it's not too far from your plan, I can highly recommend Iona. It's a stunning little island, steeped in history, surrounded by white sand beaches, and the journey to get there, on the ferry from Oban, and then across the Isle Of Mull, is fabulous.
If Colback went to play in the Russian Premier League, and we then somehow earned a place in a European competition, and drew Spartak Moscow, we could sing Colback in the USSR.
Loving this thread Glenn. In 1978 down the Orange Tree in Richmond, the scariest person I knew was 'Greshi', a Glaswegian punk who had Whip in My Valise scrawled across the back of his leather jacket. He was so terrifying that I always associated Adam with that fear, right up until the moment he switched into the camp dandy highwayman and my girlfriend at the time appeared in the video. It was a deeply schizophrenic moment for me: do I remain an angry scowling punk, or do I leap wholeheartedly into the New Romantic? I'm not ashamed to admit, the eye liner and lipstick won*. What a time to be alive.
Thanks for posting this, what an incredible record of the west London my brother and I grew up in, I kept thinking I'd see us at some point, playing under the Westway or running down Portobello Road.
Concur with all of you who also grew up there - it had its rough sides, but it was a fantastic place and time to grow up in. And as Queensparker says, amazing to see a young Danny John-Jules in it too.
Sorry to hear about Gregor. I hope he pulls through.
Coffee kind of saved my life... I was struggling with 'long covid' AKA post-viral syndrome, to the point that at its worst stages, I could barely summon the energy to walk to the corner shop. I think part of my recovery was down to coffee. I had given up drinking it (along with pretty much everything else that could be considered bad for you, booze, sugar, wheat... you name it) as part of my attempt to recover, but in the end I thought I could really do with something to kickstart my day..... And it worked. I think it actually reset my sense of physical and mental well-being, reminding my body what it felt like not to be wiped put all the time....
And I love coffee with a passion, that combination of great taste and life-affirming high is hard to beat. However, over many years of drinking coffee, I can attest to the fact that it really does depend on the type of coffee you drink. Some of it is too strong and I hate that sharp adrenaline boost like being fired out of a rocket... I prefer my high to be smooth and more sustained. For me, I haven't found a better combination of delicious taste and smooth high than Waitrose Columbian. And I've tried a lot of coffee, from Sumatran to Ghanaian and all points between.... Its strength rating is a relatively modest 3, but it's easily enough to give me the mental clarity I crave!
I'm rewatching The Last Post. Set in the early 1960s, for me it's a pitch-perfect drama series: only 6 episodes long, brilliantly scripted and acted, with beautifully shot, stunning landscapes (Cape Town standing in for Aden) - in the last violent death throes of the British Empire. It has so many resonances with what's happening in the world right now, particularly the Middle East.
Jessica Raine (in particular) and Jessie Buckley are mesmerising as the wives of the officers in the Military police. But every single actor in this cast is spot on. This is tense, sexy, evocative and moving drama of the highest order.
Where does the idea of the natural home of 16th come from? As far as I can see, we've only ever finished 16th once in the second tier and once in the first, going as far back as 1968/9.
I've really appreciated everyone's contribution to this thread (well, nearly everyone's), because I think poetry is essential, and it used to be so highly valued, but now it has become almost a niche literary form....
And of course we could carry on posting favourite poems, like Frankie Friday, and maybe those of you who love poetry would keep on adding more... So in that spirit, here's one many of you will recognise, with its lovely Irish lilt...
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
By William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade..
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings..
I will arise and go now, for always, night and day, I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
I just saw this previously unpublished Laurie Lee poem in an email from Penguin books, thought I'd share it, because I think it's beautiful:
Ah Well
Ah well, I think, even the chestnuts are breaking, there is a soft down upon the cry of birds, and they slip covertly, with intent gentleness, among the bushes; life is full in the green ear and brilliant with chance, what of the mere grain blown out and forgotten, rotting or ripening in a shroud of grass?
The trouble is, Juzzie, the entire establishment is riddled with this kind of abuse. I met the twin brothers behind the book and documentary 'Tell Me Who I am' - an extraordinary, horrifying story of the abuse they suffered at the hands of their extremely well-connected aristocratic parents and their circle, and it became clear that this went to the heart of the establishment, on every level.
But you're right, there needs to be a way of breaking this pattern of supression and bringing justice to those countless people who have suffered from it.
Watching two utterly different series at the moment, both are absolutely fantastic - with some reservations:
Firstly: Ludwig on BBC iplayer. This really tickles my particular funny bone; it's about an autistic problem solver, played by David Mitchell, who has to impersonate his twin brother - a DCI in the Cambridgeshire police force - in order to find out why he's disappeared. First episode had me in stitches, as well as intriguing and delighting my puzzle-solving geeky mind.
Secondly: The Rings of Power - season 2: I have very mixed feelings about this; as an unashamed Tolkien fan, the series tramples roughshod over so much of his incredible legacy. The opening of The Silmarillion includes a letter from Tolkien to his publisher, where he explains the part-supernatural origins of his cosmology, in that he 'channeled' the story. But its amazing detail - the background and history of Middle Earth preceding the Lord of the Rings - comes from his long scholarly research into ancient European history and languages. As a result, Tolkien created something that feels as real as any other history, something that has a deeply spiritual dimension. And for those of you who don't know about it, Tolkien imagined an entire creation myth from the very beginning, with existence starting with the godlike music of the spheres, bringing into being an amazing cast of characters, such as the immortal Elves, and the Istari (a race of wizards who reincarnate, including Gandalf), as well as a whole host of languages from Elvish to Numenorean, and an entire and detailed history spanning hundreds of thousands of years, with a whole slew of different races, including various human tribes, as well as Orcs, Goblins, Dwarves, Halflings (Hobbits etc.), Ents and many more.
So..... this series might best be described as a reimagining of Tolkien's Middle Earth pre-History (as opposed to the 'based on' it uses in the opening titles). But if I get past me wincing at some of the liberties the writers have taken with Tolkien's legacy - including lifting, verbatim, lines of dialogue and action sequences from Lord of The Rings - then I have to concede: it's utterly brilliant. An incredible, sweeping spectacle that takes you to dizzying heights of imagination and story-telling. Without Tolkien, this wouldn't exist, and he's probably turning in his grave, but the writers and director/s have created something amazing here, with extremely clever (sometimes subtle, sometimes irritating) references to our modern world-view, yet framing them in a mythical context. If you're into fantasy epics, this is extraordinary.
They're not working well. Not only were the music and announcements too loud (for my sensitive ears) in Ellerslie last week, the sound was horribly distorted as well, as if the speakers were blown and the volume was turned to max.
I like the fact that Durham has chosen his top ten grounds purely from a football fan's personal perspective, but even so, The Valley at no.8?? I hate that ground. Nice for us to be his no. 1 though. Away fans tend to romanticise our place, as do we, once we've forgotten the pillar blocking our view, the lack of leg room, the queue for something to eat and the Ellerslie bogs.
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