the kindness of strangers...

...well alright the kindness of fine folk who you've been in some strange through the ether conversation with for oooooh blimey nearly three years or so (don't it just fly)

so (as you have hopefully already glommed over at living for pleasure alone and cocktails and records) sunday night thanks to the big hearted thoughtfulness of spareticketed ol' bltp we got a whole heap of high class storytelling out of the very mouth of the horrifically attired ( think woody as style icon only in america he called it a vest shirt and tie and jumbo cords do they not have mirrors gawd help us terrible ) but desperately loveable david sedaris. his books i always find desperately sad but somehow when he reads them they get all funny. it's the way he tells 'em.

david sedaris - a million bubbles

a whole bunch of david sedaris on national public radio for your listening pleasure

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no how no way

that nice young man over at pretending life is like a song has been most kind and passed on some meme thing but i'm afraid i haven't the faintest idea what one is or what you might do with one apart from that there seems to be some sort of tagging involved which certainly sounds like just the sort of thing i'd disapprove of awfully. it really is lovely to be thought of and all but i'm afraid i've always been a terrible joiner inner so i think i'll be staying in and washing my hair instead.

the peddlers - say no more

i think dusty's with me...



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double decker

'and as he sang he created the loneliest early-morning mood in the world'

frank sinatra - i'll be around

the spinners - i'll be around

and one for the broken hearts turned mean

tony bennett - i wanna be around

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i'm going to say it now

too many too many lost last year it's staggering alton and isaac and norman and levi and bo and eartha and freddie and all so this year we're celebrating the greats still with us shouting it loud and cheering them on whenever we can and being desperately desperately grateful for all the joy they've brung to our hungry souls before it's too late.

ah hell that was january that got wrote and gee but the years flown hasn't it just zoomed with the precious treasure of little anthony and the imperials still all unsung unshouted unroared right here right here where we adore them where we can't quite believe the goddamn rocknroll hall of fame managed to induct the blighters and we never even managed to cobble together some tatty twadle. i'm a disgrace.

so finally... little anthony and the imperials we salute you



all you need to know is in the hall of fame performance this year. majestic.




i desperately want to be playing you i'm on the outside looking in or the definitive goin' out of my head or northern showstopper better use your head but i don't want to spoil the thrill for you and damn these two'll just rip you up mighty fine

little anthony and the imperials - it's not the same

little anthony and the imperials - world of darkness



now get a greatest hits if nothing else

mods mayday

how does this sound ?

'award winning Carnaby Christmas decorations take on a psychedelic theme'

'filled with fifteen, six metre high inflatable decorations declaring 60’s festive messages of Love, Joy, Hope and Peace, along with four, six metre high inflatable hot pink reindeers, and surrounded by brightly coloured suspended Christmas trees and sparkling lights'

'a psychedelic Christmas is a fond homage to the 50th birthday of Carnaby as it was the birthplace of the explosion of British fashion design and its vitality still invigorates the design world today'

'colours are reminiscent of the 60’s including pillar box red, bright yellow, orange, acid green, purple and candy pink'

'a FREE open air swinging 60’s disco will take place in Carnaby Street on Tuesday 10 November 6pm - 7pm with a live DJ set from Eddie Piller, founder of Acid Jazz Records'

i know. it's like christmas on acid. for gawd's sake. still at least old piller's playing records so that'll be nice. there's go go girls on podiums too apparently. well there were last week when it was all supposed to be on till nine. we'll be wandering about the place tutting and being despicable elitist snobs then retiring for something warming down the red lion if anyone fancies it.

i don't really do psychedelic as a rule and turn into a strident swinging sixties denier after a a gin or two (even without a gin or two as it goes) but i do do charles stepney bananasness which i'm sure has a kaftan in there somewhere so this'll have to do (man)

rotary connection- i took a ride (caravan)

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warm up

a quick bit of blog tennis with the mighty mondo. i think i've got more versions of light my fire than any other tune and this is a bit of a favourite starting off loungey ending up all jazz massive . and the doors do it rubbishest obviously.

the gerald wilson orchestra - light my fire

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you'll put someone's eye out with that

you be good now people




anthony newley - i don't want to set the world on fire

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what am i supposed to do

well it's looking like a do in a park for us then back for sparklers and a rocket or two off the fire escape so where do we go to my lovelies ? your top tips would be tip top




now if i could just lay my greedy paws on some of those moves on ground emits sparks and reports ones




and till i can track down a bit of waste ground for a bonfire to call my very own i guess there's only one song to play...

jocelyn brown - somebody else's guy

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when what where how

so when did it start to happen huh ? when did the spotty little herberts parked outside the off licence with a parka and their dad's best pants stuffed shoddily with heaven knows what and a wonky face drawn on a football shoved under the hood sulkily mumbling penny for the guy mister metamophosise into the darling little cherubs in dinosaur rompers being herded round by the guardian reading classes without the slightest hint of tricks but demanding treats all the same? and when did it all come to get so godddamn close together? and where can you get sparklers in the west end? and how the hell am i going to get thirty feet away from anything on our fire escape?



the pop group - thief of fire (live)

the recalls - nobody's guy



the pop group from we are time which you'll have to find down your local second hand store but you can get y and assorted other things from universal sound

the recalls from lost and found rockabilly and jump blues compiled by keb darge and cut chemist from the fine folk at barely breaking even

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burning love

right then. now we've got all that flipping haloween palaver done with ( which in my day was just mischief night - knock a door run filling your physics teacher's drive with milk bottles going and getting chips ) can we get on to the stupendously more thrilling fireworks. you know the one. bonfire night. fireworks night. guy fawkes night. treacle toffee. parkin (see our pal bltp's handy recipe). being quite insanely thrilled by a sparkler. that one yes. well it's this week and we're going penny for the guy guvnor barmy so stand well back... oh alright we'll be quietly over enthusiastic and fidget a lot but you get the idea

our lives are shaped by what we love seems appropriate somehow sung by a different hairier odyssey and off of the wobbliest record in my pile swapped for a couple of t shirts at a jon lucien show in brighton long ago. and a bonus other fabulous song off it cos it's too lovely to miss out

odyssey - our lives are shaped by what we love

odyssey - battened ships



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keep the home fires burning

as our davy's off having a nice little rest i thought it might be nice to keep his friday thing going in case any of you lovely lot were having pangs and he fancied a little dance when he got home. so with an ever so slight deviation here's...

unextended disco classics to cut out and keep; our occasional series builds into a magnificent collection your whole family will enjoy.

odyssey - inside out
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for futher information on odyssey please
send a stampted addressed envelope to -
odyssey fan club, p.o.box 5, washington,
tyne & wear, ne38 7rp.

(well you could in 1982. and yes that's washington tyne and wear.)

squaresville

for all us poor schmoes whose hard earned was dragged kicking and screaming down the stinking sodding saturday high street (duvet cover division) when it longed to be running into the loving arms of pharoah sanders at ronnie's and swooning to the music of small films at the union chapel. it's a bloomin' outrage. hopefully a hardcore quater of an hour of beardy jazz yodelling and a glimpse of postgate/elliot gorgeousness will set us back on the path of righteousness

pharoah sanders - hum-allah hum-allah hum-allah



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ps

the clangers on trunk here
pharoah at sounds of the universe here

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the same old song

sweet dears my sweet sweet dears i really am most awfully sorry really really i am i simply don't know what i was thinking giving you just one smile again just a year (almost to the day) since you had it last especially since i'm more than sure that if you weren't already you'd've been hugging gene's big sixteen ever so tight ever since (don't you dare you.. don't you dare...)
i do so hope a bit of sunny afternoon rocksteady will put me back in your good books

the tennors - smile (my baby)

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titter ye not

a little behind and up above the rock and not a titter not a one I'm wasted wasted i tell you. let's see how it should be done....



gene pitney - just one smile

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i saw the lights

for all the poor unfortunates that couldn't get to glorious blackpool for illumination night. it's all a bit shoddy these days if i'm really honest but it was a birthday treat for years and years and there's still the fisherman's friend shiptram that always astounds and just enough magic to turn me titchy again








ray bryant - up above the rock

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october 'onourables

i know i know please forgive me i've got a little behind....

the snatched last of the summer sunshine streetside half (with honourable mention to the dog and duck - a very fine corner)

the taking of pelham 123 matthau masterpiece nu yoiking about all over the place



the algerian coffee house's beautifully brown paper packaged oolong

tamiflu

david goodis - dark passage like the film only way darker and sadder and darker and a bit less lauen bacall and boy is goodis grand

the oooooooohhhh of the thames festival fireworks

gerard donovan - julius winsome tears before during and after bedtime

the endless tiny little fishes under the bridge in st james's park

purfleet to grays thames path expedition (see here)

meadesshrine



heard in a shop and the song of the month by a huuuuuuuuge stretch why didn't i know till now huh? he used to come down to portobello back in my market trader days ('ardest job in the world that)and buy racks of bootleg tapes off of my pal fred and look miserable as sin but was very nice and always had a good hat which we all know says a lot about a chap

david soul - silver lady

and to get you flying to the video shop

david shire - the taking of pelham 123 main theme



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what's happening

oh yes yes yes finally just a gone in a flash thirty years after the officially unbeatable " you're not going out looking like that " we have.... wait for it wait for it.... the you thought it'd never happen genius that is that really honest really is " you're not in london now ". that's right dearies " you're not in london now ". twice. by two different people. i know. now i can just pray for " you, with your suede shoes " and i shall've truly lived a life worth living


natural four - what's happening here

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north

greetings compadres from a dim and grim gloomy and doomy north still here another week so it seems the perfect time to inflict the really quite hilarious campathon that was the still slender steve's go on my top ten that's been cluttering up the place for an age. being the disgracefully fickle shallow horror that I am the smiths were yet another of the pop acts i discarded as soon as more than ten or so other people liked them and they'd been presumptuous enough to produce an lp. it didn't help that the lp was dire and dishwater dull obviously. it just goes to show you can never trust no one who don't do disco. his my top ten picks are a mighty fine thing mind so sit back and thrill to billy fury and the marvelettes and rita pavone and john leyton and the tams and timi yuro and try to keep the giggling down as our butch bona omi palone tries ever so hard not to be 'intimidated by her huge legend' is thrilled by 'her prima moment' and enjoys 'a tender few minutes'. amongst other things.


my top ten - morrissey


my flipping zippers broken so I'm afraid you'll have to have this in lots of bits. sorry dearies

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proud mary

a quick postcard from a north full of tweety birds and big glorious sunsets and illuminations to come and and an owl oh yes children there's owl poo and owl hooting so there's a flipping owl but sadly there's no peter paul and mary mary who was a big voice in the living room of my childhood and one i still love despite the diabolical efforts of a billion buskers and assembly geography teachers and all the stupid heartless bastards that tried to tell us that puff the magic dragon was some pitiful dope dream and not the most heartbreaking tale of a little dragon losing his best pal. damn you jackie paper you you you.....(fade to floods of tears)

ahem... so just dig those beards kids and mary's right now do and don't let no one tell you they weren't doing from the soul



peter paul and mary - if i had a hammer



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don't stop

really honest really the last lump of our genre dash this time hitting the blighty/brasillia connection loving each other just like edison & bobby but with shirts on and trying to bring a last bit of sunshine to our autumn rushing days. go grab your cuicas children and cuic along cuic along

batu - seasons of my mind

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hop

and one more and one more

how does brit hop sound. well alright jazz hop. manc jazz hop at that. hot on the heels of your heart out and the shout out from dear spud way back around ben sidran come on bust a move


chapter and the verse - the black whip

pop

just a quickie... after the fun we've had (well at least the fun i've had) with the brit funk of linx at their slappiest and the brit dub of aswad in their pomp i thought we should have a bit more so how's about a big hand for the darling's of wapping wharf launderette the very the small faces and their darling brit pop

small faces - eddie's dreaming

and an especially big big big hand for mr ronald leafy lane...



ps

is that the record shop of heaven up there above ???

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the last ones to be loved

lost lonely neglected - the forgotten records of the dustysevens archives. i've found out only recently that i can see how many of you fine folks download the tunes that we adore and waffle on about endlessly round here and was shocked into shame to discover a couple of lovely little numbers crumpled and creased and weeping quietly into the dregs of a brown paper bagged bottle of something awful down the dark end of the street. little numbers whose hearts should be bursting with pride as the youth (ahem...) of the nations shake their heads rock their bodylines shake them shoulders everything in time along to them while muffled shouts of turn that bloody row down are met with a sneer and an oh sorry about that (because we know you're a polite and considerate lot really too). so lovely that they're having another go zhooshed up and debonair and desperate to be loved the gaylads rocksteadying their little hips off and tenorio bossaing those ivories like well like anything.
baby they need your loving




the gaylads - it's all in the game



tenorio jnr - consolacao

and for all you treasures who've already given tenorio and his chums a big hunk of good good lovin' here's a torment tuesday gem of overwroughtness thankyou

billie davis - the last one to be loved


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unclean unclean

busy brow mopping hair holding and poor dearing now the mrs has got my germs. i blame the disturbing of the plague pit under marshall street baths. or me. i'd stay away if i were you.

julie london - you'd be so nice to come home to


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august 'appiness

balmy tissues

nurofen

duvets and dressing gowns and slippers and tea

life stories with david attenborough - poorly listening perfection

blossom dearie for soothing loveliness and 'sometimes the things i do astound me 'specially whenever you're around me'

'tis autumn : the search for jackie paris - for all the lost voices we love all the coulda been a contenders all the also rans all our heroes

dusk in st james's park bats zooming out of the palace and not tangling in our hair cos we know they're way too super sonary for such catastrophes the little flappy devils

germ free adolesence

blossom dearie - like someone in love

david attenborough - life stories - the bower bird

a jackie paris sampler courtesy of your heart out

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get down

in case your carnival weekend needs a little encouragement.

me i haven't ventured west of an august bank holiday since the troll from a few beers round gaz's rockin' blues over to good times's blow up turned into the all too plausible plot for mission impossible 4 and a new chapter in dub still rattled windows all over the city.

play nice now children

aswad - ghetto in the sky



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get up

in case your weekend needed a little encouragement

linx - rise and shine

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