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Thursday 17 February 2011

Music: Howard Jones

My parents are from a Classical music background and "Top of The Pops" wasn't their thing. As a consequence I didn't really discover pop music until the early 1980's. It was of course an era of electronic music and I was hooked to the great sound of synthesizers.


Howard Jones was (and still is) one of the great keyboard wizards. I have followed his career ever since. Unfortunately, he no longer gets radio airplay.


Here is his first hit release on 17th September 1983 - "New Song"



I enjoyed that so much that I thought I'd post another of my favourites from 1984 - "Pearl in Shell"


And to end this blog I just had to add this master piece. It was released in March 1986 and reached No.16 in the UK charts, but I understand it made No.1 in the USA. It remains today one of my favourite songs. 
"No One Is To Blame". Enjoy.





Regards



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Music: A Passion of Mine

I come from a musical family and you could say it's in my DNA. My tastes are many and varied, but there are some genres I just can't stand.  I'm not a big Opera fan, despite my heritage. I just don't get all that warbling in Italian or German. Having said that I did take my Mum to the Royal Opera house to see Rigoletto for her 70 Birthday. Don't tell anyone, but it was rather good.

Other styles I dislike include Country & Western, Boy Bands (sic) and (C)Rap. In my youth I used to listen to BBC Radio 1 most of the day, but I became increasing bored with it's constant round of nonsensical chart music. I realised that I was listening to BBC Radio 2 and enjoying. That must mean I'm getting old I suppose.


For some time I've been thinking about writing a series of blogs about the music I love, complete with links to videos. I thought about calling it "100 Favourite Songs" or "100 Favourite Artists", but that would just limit my options. Therefore I shall just call the series just simply "Music:". The only problem is knowing where to start!


While I'm writing this in the corner of my dining room, I'm listening to "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin and I'm sure it will be revisited again soon 8-)

Regards



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Wednesday 16 February 2011

David vs Goliath

As I think I mentioned in an earlier blog, I've never really been a big football fan. This was mainly due to me not being very sporty in my youth and all the thuggery at football matches. The final straw for me was the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985, after which I became a Rugby fan and technology geek.


Many years later my Brother-in-Law Chunky moved in with us and being a football fan himself, got me interested again. I started watching Match of the Day with him and my Son, and eventually I started joining them at Crawley Town FC's home games.

After a few turbulent seasons, Crawley started to do quite well in the Blue Square Premiership, which is one level below Football League Two. Last year the club managed to pay off it's crippling debt and this season a new sponsor has enabled the team to buy some top players. At present it looks likely that we my win the league this year and gain promotion to League Two, where we can play with the big boys.


On top of this we have done surprisingly well in the FA, beating Swindon Town (League One), Derby County (Championship) and finally Torquay United (League Two). This meant that we were the first non-league team for years to get through to the 5th round. On Sunday 30th January this year we were drawn against one of the biggest clubs in the world. The Mighty Manchester United in an away fixture at Old Trafford.






Since then it seems that the whole Town has gone completely football mad. Our little town seems to be constantly in the local and national news. The Sun newspaper (sic) is a sudden sponsor. Even the Steve Boyce Band have written a tune to celebrate.



So this coming Saturday about 9,000 of us, myself, Junior and Chunky included, are travelling to Manchester to watch to game and you never now. We might even win! Wish us luck 8-)

COME ON YOU REDS!!!!


Regards



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