Chanson

Georges Brassens (1921-1981)

My French isn't what it should be. Like a lot of fellow Brits, I get by. But it would have been nice to have mastered at least one foreign language; maybe this is what my dotage is really for. I guess if I hadn't been daydreaming through double French on Thursday mornings I'd be parlaising just like Monseuer et Madame Bertillon (if you know you know).

That said, my lack of conversational French has never stood in the way of me enjoying the songs of Georges Brassens who took Chanson to another level. And It's not hard to see the lineage between Brassens and our very own Jake Thackray. That they were friends and admirers of each others' work even less so. Their poetry, musical chops and acerbic wit complete with wry social observation join the dots between both language and culture perfectly. And any rudimentary translating I make in my head as I listen may or may not reflect what's actually going on in the lyric, but for me that only adds to the charm.

Georges Brassens - La non demande en mariage 

 

Céad Míle Fáilte

Gig of the year. I'm calling it. Being half Irish myself I felt very at home in Hammersmith's Irish Centre last Friday night. There was a session in full swing in the front bar when we walked in and Dublin chanteuse Eleanor McEvoy was getting ready to play the second of her two night residency in the little theatre at the back. And none of that QR code nonsense on the door - they just wanted my name; I really should have used my mother's maiden name to buy the tickets - McNamara would have been much more fitting as I mingled with my fellow Plastic Paddies in north London's most welcoming cultural centre; where a thousand* welcomes really do await you; céad míle fáilte indeed. And what a performance. Try and catch her if she plays anywhere near you**. You'll be enchanted. Love, death, and getting wasted with your ex in a pub on the corner of South Anne and Grafton Street on a Tuesday afternoon. It's all there. 

Eleanor McEvoy - South Anne Street (2022)

* Er, give or take...

** Or even if she's playing nowhere near you; Eleanor carried out a straw poll and quickly established that nobody in the room lived in Hammersmith.

Parakeets as Beatles

I'm glad Steve and I found time in our busy schedule last weekend* to take a wander up to (and indeed up) Primrose Hill, NW1. As Loudon Wainwright once wistfully observed:

''From the top of the hill

There's a hell of a view

Houses of Parliament and London Zoo...''

And that's not all you see. A pair of Parakeets** dominated the skyline. I could've watched them fly all day***. And tell me that the red one isn't John and the blue one George (cover of the Help! album).

* Eleanor McEvoy in Hammersmith and RFTC in Camden.

** Beautiful plumage.

** A late breakfast was calling round the corner in Belsize Park.

Up the junction (box) #4

Hello and welcome to the 4th thrilling installment of our little photographic sidebar we call Up the junction (box). Since those heady days of UTJB3 I've been sent further examples of this oft overlooked corner of street art from London, Tanjung Pinang and Vancouver. (Whereas me and Adam have been keeping it real in Nottingham and Manchester respectively.)

I'll kick things off and, to be honest, I was expecting to see a few painted JBs in France but was sadly disappointed. I think my friend Mimi is missing a trick; in the same way I think Kid30 is missing a trick over here. It's been proven that when they paint street furniture the taggers and bill stickers of this world, by and large, leave 'em alone. The one or two unadorned ones I've gone with today are ones where either something on the box, or just in the shot generally, piqued my interest.

Lille

Nottingham city centre.

Hyson Green, Nottingham.

On the way to Liquid Light, Nottingham.

A decorative substation near Woodthorpe Park, Nottingham.

Nottingham city centre.

Another decorative substation, this time in Woodthorpe Park.

Perry Road, Nottingham.

Adam said: ''Not a junction box but felt it fits the brief - Soap Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter.''

East End Ernie has expended some serious shoe leather in capturing these fine specimens in Leytonstone, Borough and Bethnal Green.

And then he must have found himself in Heathrow cos the next one I got was taken in Malaysia.

The final selection comes from Faye in Canada. Her dad, Steve, paid a visit last month to her adopted city of Vancouver and between them they found these beauties. 

Thank you both! And thanks too to Ernie & Adam. Keep them coming! (Tim W's in Japan at the moment so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.) Until next time...

***

Postscript 10.11.26

Martin got in touch earlier this morning with this example (front & back) from Tokyo. Cheers, Martin. Much appreciated.

Reality Check

In the formative years of DAB (I'm talking early naughties) I had, as part of my then Hi-Fi set up, a rather snazzy Cambridge Audio digital tuner; I won't lie to you, I thought it was the cat's pyjamas. In all its brushed chrome finery it looked great and sounded, to these ears*, even better. And at a time when there were precious few DAB stations around - FM still ruled the (air)waves - being able to listen to fledgling DAB broadcasting was very much seen as a novelty (car radios were still FM/AM only). You felt you were a member of a very exclusive club. So when the BBC launched 6 Music in 2002 I was hooked. In the early evening slot all round good egg, Tom Robinson, had a two hour show where he would, every night, introduce me to bands and artists I was hitherto blissfully unaware of (the Medds would often be dining at this time with TR acting as our soundtrack). Anyway, one such act was Schneider TM - the handle for a Berlin cove by the name of Dirk Dresselhaus. For a whole week solid Robinson played the single Reality Check. I loved it (still do). When I eventually got a hold of the album it came from (Zoomer) a couple of weeks later (in the equally early days of buying stuff online) I remember the German seller enclosed a lovely handwritten note explaining in his best English that he'd thrown in a copy of the single gratis. I was made up.  

    

-gaga · Schneider TM: Reality Check

As a footnote to this little Anglo-Deutsch yarn, James told Claus-Peter, a German friend of his, that his old man was getting off on Schneider TM; you will not believe the kudos I (& James) got from this: ''Your dad is listening to Schneider TM?!'' Seems there was a time when I really was ahead of the curve. (Thank you, Mr. Robinson.)

* That said, 'these ears' I mentioned aren't, unfortunately, the same ears I possess now. I'm sure many of you can relate to that.