Off Topic The Review Thread

On the train to Inverness and just checked how far we'd got after 1 and a half hours - Doncaster!

That's fast.

 

Enjoy - did you sneak a tipple on with you?

 

Yeah, scotch and coke

 

Sacrilage - you mix your scotch? I hope it's not a decent malt. You should be ashamed

 

Needs must. It's just a a **** blend.

 

I've just crossed the border on my way home, weather doesn't look too bad. Hopefully stay that way over the weekend

 

You are now entering COVID country. Do not inhale for the next 150 miles.

 

How very dare you!

 

I was thinking Donny to the Scottish border was about 150 miles, via Newcastle and Berwick........I regard Scotland as a beacon of sanity. Albeit a rather arid one.

 

Sanity? You've obviously never met me then!

 

Watched the last episode of Season 2 of The Boys on Amazon last night. I've really enjoyed this series, and how the anti-heroes are coping with their battle against the corporate superheroes and their sponsors. Karl Urban is great as an ex- SAS vigilante who has been wronged by the leader of the Supes - he's a cartoon character in flesh, and if you don't like the word **** then you'll hate him!

If you're a fan of Marvel, X-men etc, then this is a dark spin on the superhero universe - greed, corruption, murder and other crimes are a regular part of the superheroes day, whilst the vigilantes with the help of some inside the CIA and Congress try to bring them down.

 

Anyone seen the new version of Spitting Image? Watched two episodes last night to save you all the bother - it's ****. The writers have totally bottled it considering the plethora of political material out there. Sketches about Trump, Covid, Harry and Meghan, Boris and Cummings are poor considering how savage they could have been. Was expecting so much more.

 

Still have 4 episodes to watch, easily my favourite show of the moment.

 

I’ve seen clips and that has been enough for me not to bother with the full version. Liked the puppet of Klopp though, with glow in the dark teeth.

 

Excellent Glen Campbell documentary on BBC4 right now. A great singer and guitarist with some beautiful songs by Jimmy Webb. Wichita Lineman remains one of my favourite all-time songs.

 

There was a lot in this that I didn't know about Campbell before.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pwxs8/glen-campbell-the-rhinestone-cowboy

 

I had always assumed that Campbell was just the bland commercial side of sixties and seventies country music. About 8 years ago I got to see him play, very briefly. He had Alzheimer’s by then and, with his family, was doing stuff with various charities supported by my company, which continues to invest a lot in research in the area. He came to our HQs for some sort of presentation (when I was in town), looking pretty frail and not speaking. Then he was given a guitar and it was if a new person had stepped into his skin. Only played, didn’t sing, but was quite obviously a master.

Wichita Lineman is one of the most evocative songs I have ever heard, and one of the few pop songs where it’s worth understanding what inspired it.

So I checked out his stuff and was very impressed. Not all to my taste but the musicianship is superb. His version (well there are multiple versions) of Classical Gas (actually a piece of music I dislike intensely, but seemingly a standard for decent guitarists) is up there with the best of them. It’s a good search on YouTube, I found guitarists like Tommy Emmanuel, Jim Stafford (also a fine comedian) and Roy Clark through this route and Malagueña. All are brilliant players and none take themselves too seriously.

 

As I learnt from the documentary, Campbell was primarily a guitarist in his early days (a child prodigy) and was part of a revered group of 60s session musicians in LA nicknamed The Wrecking Crew, which featured on literally hundreds of hits. He was also a Beach Boy for a year! I think his collaboration with writer Jimmy Webb, who features prominently in the documentary, produced his best material. Campbell was a staunch Republican and a bible-basher, but I can forgive him all that for his performance of Webb's Wichita Lineman and By the Time I Get to Phoenix.

 

There is a very good documentary in a series which I am sure was on BBC4 about the making of various great albums, the exact title of which escapes me, but one was about Pet Sounds, including interviews with Brian Wilson, and featuring the Wrecking Crew extensively. Not sure if Campbell was in the line up for that. Stunningly good musicians, many from a jazz background who realised they could earn a lot more cash doing sessions. Wilson would give them seemingly vague direction, and they got it immediately.

I just read about the recording of Wichita Lineman. Webb sent them a very incomplete song, a verse short and no ‘middle eight’ (I’m no musician, not sure what that means), expecting them either to reject it or ask him to finish it. Instead Campbell put a guitar solo in, his producer orchestrated it and it was done in a day. The song actually makes me want to drive across some of the great empty spaces of the mid west, counting telephone poles, trying to spot a lineman.

Should be Steel’s song really of course.