Nice surprise

Bloody hell, we beat Bournemouth. Up to 18th.

This also made me smile.

Not much else to laugh about. Anyone wanna swap lives?

More nostalgia (sorry Mike)

Big thanks to Al and And for organising the reunion. What a night.

Our one remaining teacher was on great form. No wonder we liked him so much. He’s still got a lively, acerbic wit, and talking to him again I was reminded of the amazing range of voices he employed in his story-telling. He also came up with some incredible revelations – for example, our old headmaster had been an MI5 officer in WWII. Wow.

But the thing that really blew me away was the picture Andy produced. I was joking in an earlier post that 1970s Hereford was stuck in a time warp, and that snap perfectly illustrates it. Our first class was in a shack with a wood-burning stove in the middle of the room – guess it wouldn’t be allowed now. All of us kids look like we are trapped in 1944.

…so who wants to see that?

Those were the days

Anyone else remember singing Puff the magic dragon in the back of a beaten-up 1960s family saloon on the way to a week by the sea in Wales?

Call me naive but I was astonished that Renault thought deliberately crashing a Formula One car was a good way to win a race.

Take me back to the 20th Century, I much preferred it.

All the fun of the folk

Really enjoyed this year’s excursion and all the old favourites were in attendance, though you may be intrigued to learn that there are now two Gods. The new God was particularly blotto and the old God fell asleep – perhaps because he ended up in an unfamiliar pub. (For those outside the loop, the chap we affectionately know as the Almighty is a folkie who looks like a character from the Sistine Chapel).

Met a great banjo player. I learned more in three minutes of chatting to him than I have in three years of trying to play the wretched thing.

Looking forward to next weekend’s primary school reunion. Again, for those of you who don’t know Hereford, early 1970s schools were still coming to terms with the outbreak of the Second World War. The only things missing were air raid sirens and rationing. We played cricket on the green and read books that said: “God save the KING” on the flyleaf. At least he’s stayed local.

Stupid bloody Tuesday

John Lennon does a superb job of summing it up.

See any of the Beatles stuff? Every time I hear them I discover something anew. I was scrutinising George Harrison’s guitar playing on those ancient clips of the Ed Sullivan show. Blimey, he was good. Having worked with Sir Beatle, Matt has often sung the praises of McCartney’s bass playing (Listen to Rain and hear for yourself). Then not so long ago one of Matt’s musician friends reminded me how revolutionary even the early mania songs could be. Listen again to the start of She loves you (yeah, yeah, yeah), he said. He’s right, it opens with a thunderous mad drumming. Who had ever done that before?

…Michelle ma belle. These are words that go together well. Indeed they do. Genius.

I’ll wrap up and let the music do the talking.

Bromyard folkie this weekend. See y’all there.