from the World Economic Forum in Davros. I will be reporting from inside the leader of the Daleks, firing rasping questions at Gordon Brown about poverty, while waving my withered hand at him. He will smile, winningly.
In the meantime, if you have a photograph of the weather near you, please send it to someone who cares.
I'd like a photo, please, of your treasured memories of Switzerland.
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Dear Eddie,
Did you read my mind? I'm sending a photo today to someone who cares - Eddie Mair, Broadcasting with Care.
I'm sending you a lovely one from my last visit to Switzerland about 35 years ago, when between jobs with a week to waste I joined a long-distance lorry driver friend who had a delivery there. The picture format is mental, but I'm sure you'll pick it up through the Daleks' superior brain cells. It was a lovely view from that motorway, wasn't it?
Anyway, I think the song for the beach today should be the theme tune from Red Dwarf. Altogether now:
"It's cold outside, no kind of atmosphere ...." I've left the rest of the words on the bar along with the mango juice. I'm off for a paddle to find the goldfish.
Am I the only person in the world who has never been to Switzerland and who doesn't find the idea of going there particularly appealing?
On a quite different tack, does no one else think that the problem with RC adoption agencies is caused by the nonsense of allowing homosexual couples to adopt children?
tomi
Ah, Switzerland.
...where I caught 24 hour flu during a spectacular alpine thunderstorm and thought I was hallucinating
...where I first encountered Fondue and 30 years later have just acquired my first Fondue set (won in a raffle)
...where our tour bus got stuck on the other side of the St Bernard Pass, the hinge of the emergency door having caught on the chicken wire holding the mountainside up. A geography teacher had to climb out of the sun roof and work it free with his toe.
...where there were no St Bernard puppies at St Bernard's Monastery
...where my beautiful pal Heather got unromantically chatted up by a Romansch-speaking floppy-haired youth in Interlaken and for once I wasn't jealous
...where I reckon you can have the cheapest holiday in the world, just staring at the scenery
I quite liked Switzerland.
Can you tell?
Fifi
The Americans have not been wholly rejected by the South Koreans. They might have expected friendship with the North Koreans. That has not worked out so I say "start again somewhere else". Fair play - you cannot give up at the first sign of resistence.
I don't have a photograph but it was going to a night club and finding a lot of well dressed young people behaving in a very restrained manner. I think we got thrown out. I don't have a photograph of that either.
It was some years ago.
You might enjoy it.
Treasured memories of Switzerland?
Sorry, no packets of Maggi Soup available. I do have a cuckoo clock, though. Would a photo of that do?
Hi Eddie,
Twenty reasons why you should watch Remembrance of the Daleks Part Three:
1) The Daleks are disarmed by the Doctor waving a portable disco at them. Fancy.
2) Then they explode! Even fancier.
3) And then they throttle the Doctor! Er...
4) The Dalek mothership set looks like it escaped from a motion picture soundstage.
5) Pamela Salem. Purrrrrrrrr. Oh yes!
6) "Only the Doctor knows what is going on"
7) The Emperor Dalek!
8) Quatermass gags!
9) Stuff about Gallifrey and the like.
10) There is no number 10.
11) People hanging out together in sheds.
12) It isn't Davros! Thank the Lord!
13) A whatsit from the Gadget Shop!
14) Dalek Hunting.
15) The Roni Size soundtrack! Or are the Street fans back with their slow hand-clapping?
16) Low angle Daleks! On tracks!
17) The green tent from Spearhead in Space! So we do remember them after all!
18) The lighting!
19) We've got a springboard and we're gonna use it!
20) The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Well, a playground, but you've got to start somewhere.
Enjoy.
Inside the leader of the Daleks? Ming Campbell?
Firing rasping questions at GB? Ming Campbell?
Poverty? Surely GB has eliminated it by now?
Withered hand? Kaiser Bill?
Brown smile winningly? Only if he thinks there's a vote in it.
Eddie, do us all a favour when you meet Brown.
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
And yes I know that, sadly, it was a gag.
Treasured memories of Switzerland? Hmm. O.K. No photo though. It involved my 19th birthday. On a long mountaineering holiday around Mont Blanc. Being treated by good friends to a pasta meal which was not only the largest but also the tastiest such meal I've ever enjoyed, washed down with copious quantities of ale and capped with the most fantastical dessert creation yet seen by mankind. This wasn't an ice-cream, it went orders of magnitude beyond that.
And this wasn't in some fancy hotel or restaurant, but a mountain refuge where the road ends in the Swiss Val Ferret, near a village called La Fouly. (Is that a relative of Val P. I wonder?). No responsibilities, no worries, indestructible. Fit-ish, and healthy. I enjoyed life back then....
Si.
There's a nice padded cell on Day Two.....
In Heaven:
The cooks are French,
The policemen are English,
The mechanics are German,
The lovers are Italian,
The bankers are Swiss.
In Hell:
The cooks are English,
The policemen are German,
The mechanics are French,
The lovers are Swiss,
The bankers are Italian.
Toblerone.
That is all.
Why not ask Gordon who is to blame for Britain's declining public finances compared to other European nations?
Now LOOK. Big Sis has emailed the show with snow pictures. WHAT did I say???!!
Big Sister - I hope you're going to submit 'Eddie Mair - broadcasting with care' to the Straplines Department!
And Ian - great strapline today!
We have a light dustring of snow today, which despite the glorious suncshine is not melting. I guess it's cold out there.
Brrrrr! Time for a nice warm wander along the Beach in bare feet, methinks....
Fifi
Why not ask Gordon for a photo of Davros? I'm sure he'd do it for us (well, for Eddie, anyway).
Alternatively, why not ask your very very very good friend Nelson for a picture of some sunshine?
Eddie, I hope that you are off-setting your carbon footprint induced by your flight across the Alps. Or, at least, buying lots of cheap alcohol in duty-free.
Memories of Switzerland: I once saw the most amazing thunder and lightening storm in Interlaken. Lauterbrunnen also has a spectacular waterfall. However my favourite place was Saas Fee, mostly because their local GP was called "Dr Plink".
Eddie,
Why not ask GB how he can justify keeping the costs of all the PFI projects off the nations' books?
Eddie: I knew you cared!
I just received the following announcement from GWB regarding .
I hope y'all will find it illuminating.
xx
ed
Eddie:
I have officially not sent my WoyW photo in time - it still lurks somewhere within an SLR camera. With best regards,
Doctor H (not the nemesis of Dav or Ross).
Eddie.
Can you do an article on how to start a religion. I wish to be exempt from certain laws and this seems to be the way to do it. Are there forms that need to be filled in?
Amongst my religious tenets are
* It is wrong to pay any taxes to a government that is using some or all of them to fund a war
* Catholics to be crucified on special feast days
* Fridays are a holy day and working on them is forbidden.
So. Where do I start?
And can I just say
WOOOHOOO, strapline for me! I am truly appreciated now! This is just the vindication my new religion needs.
*does a little dance*
Oh dear, the weather has now clogged up the Blog, unless Eddie is trying to freeze us out?
It is really cold today, isn't it?
Eddie
Last Thursday you broadcast an archive recording from "Singing Together" which brought back a whole flood of happy sad memories from school the 1960s. At the end of the piece you said "that song is going to go round in my head all weekend" Did it? Well its still going round in my head today but I cannot remember the song, only the refrain "Buchan on the Moor" ? or something like that? Please tell me what the song title was so I can look up the words and finally expunge them from my subconcious using aversion therapy, which will involve a photograph of Jade Goody. Many thanks
Treasured memory of Switzerland (but no photos):
On my first trip with parents, a young waiter took a fancy to me and, in spite of language barriers, persisted in trying me to get a date with me. My parents were not keen, and I duly relayed a negative response via an English speaking waiter. Later that day (early evening, in fact) I answered a knock at my door to find said 'suitor' there, clearly hoping to persuade me to change my mind. Being unable to communicate with him verbally, I was struggling with sign language, in an awkward, teenage, way, to let him know that I couldnt' see him, when, to my horror, I saw the hem of my mother's skirt starting to appear down the stairs which were opposite my door. In a moment of panic, I pulled the young waiter into my room and hid him in my wardrobe. Mother knocked on door, I answered. She came in, with some spurious excuse around needing something which she thought I had. She began a 'search', I was (as you can imagine) completely phased. Needless to say, her search took her to the wardrobe. With a "I thought as much!" the waiter was discovered, and frogmarched out by my mother.
To this day, my mother has never believed my account of the events which led up to this Bertie Wooster moment and I've never been sure what was worse - the events which led up to this misunderstanding, or the fact that my mother doubted me in the first place.
I can see the funny side now, but I don't think my mother would.
Last time I was in Switzerland I was 11. I'm not saying I'm old, but I had this stupid apple on my head. I liked the scenery though! And real hot chocolate. And clean streets. And cute Veronica who could speak 4 languages fluently. Happy memories.
Ian (22): You absolutely must get a Hollywood celebrity involved. Once you have that accomplished, then the tabloids will pick it up and it magically becomes a religion.
DeepJohn (18);
You already know the answer! This is ENRON accounting as practised by our Government.
The cash is spent by the private sector partner, who naturally therefore assumes the 'risk' inherent in the project that they may make a loss on their investment.
Since the Government is not providing capital it doesn't put the risk and the full costs on the balance sheet. Nor the asset, which belongs to the building partner, until fully paid for by the Government.
Only it doesn't. Because the Government decided to turn a blind eye to the partner indulging in some creative accounting. They don't include it on their books as an asset and the Government 'overlooks' this.
Since they have spent money but don't have a balancing asset they have made a loss on their ledger, which means reduced Corporation Tax to the Exchequer.
GB also overlooks that, because if he didn't indulge the partner then there would be no PFI sector at all and the hospitals/prisons/schools would have to be funded as central Government capital spend. Which would snap his Golden Rule into pieces and destroy his spending plans.
So in theory no-one owns the new asset at all!
I mentioned funding didn't I? Who can borrow money cheapest? Governments can, by issuing gilt-edged bonds from the central bank. But if the current Government did this then the Golden Rule would break. Because building hospitals is not 'Borrowing only to invest in growth'. So they won't do it.
So the partner approaches their bankers and borrows the money to finance the project at a genuine commercial rate. With no bricks and mortar to put down they are obliged to borrow at a high rate of interest, to reflect the 'risk' that the lender is taking.
This interest-risk is reflected in the rate charged by the partner to Government, which therefore has to pay more than if they had issued Gilts to raise the money themselves.
Once the build phase of the project is complete the risk is eliminated. The builder returns to their banking partner and renegotiates their borrowing to a far lower rate of interest, reflecting the elimination of risk on the project. The cost paid by Government is not, however, reduced in line with this reduced risk. They continue to pay the rate first stipulated at the time of greatest risk.
So the builder reduces its outgoings, but not its incomings. Result: massive profits, guaranteed income, no risks at all. A license to hose their corporate bank accounts with taxpayers money.
Government won't intervene to demand a slice of it's money back, because the PFI sector would fold if there were no excess profits to be made. And GB would have to break his own self-imposed rule to give us our hospitals.
We don't complain about the sheer wastage of our taxes, because we all want our new hospital/school/prison and we are willing to overlook the downside to the transaction.
The real joke, of course, is the idea of 'risk'. There is none at all, but everybody behaves as if there is. This justifies extravagant rates of interest, big markups on the annual fees charged to Government, massive profits after loan renegotiation. But there is no chance that the Government will renege on the deal. They want that new 'thing' built, because they promised it to us. If the 'costs' rise, even substantially, they will agree the new hyper-inflated fees, because the alternative is to admit that the whole thing was just a ruse to help GB out of a hole.
Read Private Eye regularly if you want a regular dose of PFI insanity.
This kind of off-balance-sheet accounting is what brought ENRON down in weeks. And yet it is tolerated in the heart of Government.
Si.
Eddie:
[SSC puts on his Beard Of Evil (TM) ]
I am The Master and you will obey *me*...
When interviewing Gordon Brown you *will* ask him if Tony Blair is in fact a shapeshifting Zygon with plans to take over the entire world by the use of a robotic Loch Ness Monster...
...or possibly something about interest rates...
If you offset your footprint do you not trip over?
And if you soften your blow on the planet, do you wear carbon slippers
tomi (3)
It doesn't have to be sensible - just equal.
What is laughable is that the National Secular Society has accused the RCs of trying to blackmail the Government.
I guess they would be unaware that many Church organisations have been threatened with withdrawal of [Government] funds beacuse they wouldn't tow the PC line. That has to be blackmail. Indeed, the threat of fines over this issue in the future might be construed as blackmail also.
Eddie,
Never mind the World Economic Frog. The real action is .
The WEF is just a sideshow for the benefit of the media. They aren't invited to the Bilderberg confabs.
Yours Aye, (in conspiratorial terms)
ed
Belinda (28). Do you think Eddie would give me Stephen Frears number? He seemed like a nice chap. I'm prepared to offer him a sainthood, even if that might start a canonisations for conversions scandal.
Si,
Thanks for that brilliant exposition of yet another ripoff.
Salaam, etc.
ed
World Economic Forum? Just had this in:-
SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbour.
COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.
FASCISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.
NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.
BUREAUCRACY: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the
other, then throws the milk away.
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your
herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica
lessons.
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other
to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse
why the cow has dropped dead.
ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your
publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law
at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer
so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The
milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman
Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights
to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the
company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy
a new President of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance
sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.
THE ANDERSEN MODEL: You have two cows. You shred them.
A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot,
and block the roads, because you want three cows.
A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are
one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'cowkimon' and market it
worldwide.
A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live
for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they
are. You decide to have lunch.
A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have
five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them
again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another
bottle of vodka.
A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You
charge the owners for storing them.
A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity, and
arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.
A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.
AN IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them
that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you
and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are
part of a Democracy....
A WELSH CORPORATION: You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive.
AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Business seems pretty good.
You name them both Sheila, then close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.
Simon (29),
I know, I agree. I just want Eddie to ask GB the question. In my opinion, the fact that they have first call on any future tax revenues (before anything that may be wanted, like pensions, nurses to go in the PFI hospitals etc...) that's surely loaning to the state.
Of course, if daleks were vain, they would all be shouting:
"EXFOLIATE! EXFOLIATE!"
Si & any interested in alternatives to PFI,
With regard to the financing of public amenities, in the USA it is often done by a local authority by the issuance of bonds whose interest rate is usually below even usual government borrowing rates because the interest is deemed free of income tax liability.
This enables widows and orphans to put cash to work providing public benefit and simplifying their tax affairs at the same time. Just for information.
Of course, almost everywhere else, local authorities are more independent and less the subservient creation of central government than in the UK, and most have considerable revenue-raising powers, including the taxation of land. Most 'Local' authorities are far more 'local' than .
Salaam, etc.
ed
So, Eddie, does that mean you don't want the picture I just took of the snowman & snowcat in our garden? All right. Be like that then. Your loss. (The snowcat was spectacularly good, but don't feel bad you'll never see it)
Switzerland. I think it's at Zurich Airport, you have to transfer between terminals using an underground train. As you whizz through the tunnel, there are pictures of snowy mountains on the walls, then a tape plays of alpine sounds - jingling cowbells, mooing cows etc. Who says the Swiss have no sense of humour?
On the "gay adoption row"...
Was I the only person surprised to learn that the Catholic Church runs an adoption agency? Are all religions allowed to do this? Presbyterians? Muslims? Scientologists? That weird thing that David Icke started? Jedis?
Where does it end? Who regulates these things?
(Thinks: Scene at the David Icke Church Adoption Agency:
"So you wish to adopt this child?"
"Yes."
"Are you six-foot lizard aliens in diguise?"
"No."
"That's fine then, sign here...")
Ed & DeepJohn;
I may be a self-confessed Tory and a fairly enthusiatic capitalist to boot. But PFI is too far, even for me...
Si.
Ian (34): Offer him the popedom of your religion. Then he'll be protected from the law, particularly if he doesn't want people to adopt.
Vyle (36): That gave me a good laugh thank you.
I will add two more though, close to my heart:
A SWEDISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have to pay 50% tax on them, so sell them for some skiis. They are turned into meatballs at Ikea and shipped to the UK at a vastly inflated price.
A CANADIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are quietly annoyed that no-one can tell that they are not American, eh?
SSC: Adoption agencies are regulated by OffSpring
Vyle (32),
Not that I condone blackmail by anyone, but one might ask why any religious group should receive government funding.
If it is for charitable activities, and I'd be happy for them to be treated as charities like any other, then like any other they should be prepared to offer their charitable efforts to everyone regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, hair colour etc etc.
And if their activities are solely for the benefit of their own members they should be entirely self-funding.
John Scott(25)
Brennan on the moor,
Brennan on the moor,
Gay, proud and dauntless was young
Brennan on the moor
I didn't know it til last Friday, and I still can't get rid of it. It was even on the telly either last Friday or Sayurday evening, on a Folk music programme. It's a conspiracy.
Hey Folks! I've just had my first Comment Submission Error! Does that make me a bone fide frogger now?
I think it was typing 'Saturday' wrong that did it. The Spelling Police are on the prowl! (They're the ones that got sent to patrol the beach before they discovered there was nothing left to protect.)
My only memory of Switzerland is being picked up at Geneva airport and driven to France. This, however, is good, because I have an unnatural fondness for airports (sorry, Ed -- doesn't mean I actually approve of them, or of my feelings for them... I must go punish myself...)
Fred (38) haha!
Hmm, gay couple or Catholic couple -- which would I rather be adopted by??? Well I try not to judge a whole group by the few members with whom I am acquianted. Still, if I'd no other criteria to go on -- anyone with strong religious commitments would be pretty low on my list.
Two points today concerning prisons and churches
Gay Adoptees!
If church run adoption agencies are going to institutionally discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation as a matter of policy then the heads of those organisations should be prosecuted, and if found guilty sent to prison.
Oh dear, the prisons are full, what are we going to do now...?
Prisons Full!
The UK has more people in prison per head of population than most [if not all] in Europe. Does that mean we are a far more criminally inclined nation than other European societies, or does it mean that we just have more laws, and therefore more possibilities to transgress those laws and go to prison?
If we have more laws than others then why don't we de-criminalise the offenses our European neighbors can do without and start reduce the prison population today?
If we are a more criminally inclined nation then the fact that prisons are chokka suggests the government has been tough on crime while seriously ignoring the causes of crime.
What did Mr Blair say were the causes of crime again? I'm sure someone can remember...
The Solution!
Send discriminating catholic's and Anglican's to prison, were they can act as missionaries to the prison population, converting offenders to Christianity and returning the recidivist wrong-doers to the straight and narrow.
µþ¬¶Ù
memories of Switzerland....well I thught I had never been, and as it happens it was Geneva which possibly doesn't count.
Bad memory of Geneva...going into a cake shop and buying two cakes and having the gender of one of them corrected by teh sales assistmant before she would get it out for me - well it is the french speaking part...
Good memory of Geneva...we had gone for a recital by Hakan Hagegard (a swedish baritone and our all time favourite singer ). Having trooped round to the stage door to be geeky and get our programs signed by him and Barbara Bonney who had been singing as well, we were pleased and astonished to be swept through it, up the stairs and into the green room where HH and BB signed anything put in front of them, chatted and mingled with about two dozen fans.
We heard later that they had just got married about a week before and they were so happy; a while later when I heard they were divorcing I was really sad remembering how they had positively glowed with happiness that evening in Geneva.
I was three. In Switzerland. My Switzerland memories are: very good tomato soup and finding a flower which I think was an eidelweiss up in the Alps. On a meadow, I should add.
Oh dear Simon -- that is the worst kind of Tory -- one who isn't ashamed of it... ;-)
btw Eric, was he really the Reverend Colin Coward? Some people truly live up to their name. Why fear difference? (There's an essay I don't have time to write).
Re Gay Adoption, the Rev Colin Coward's only piece of evidence to suggest that the adoption of children by gay couples is deleterious to the children, seems to be that it might increase the likelihood that these children will form gay relationships themselves.
He admitted that even this was only anecdotal.
So, the real reason for their objection is not the welfare of the children but the church's public rejection of homosexuality. And yet there are so many gay clergy!
Cat: I too was a bit shocked that we let religious groups place vulnerable children for adoption. My reaction to dear Cormac's blackmail about having to shut if they were forced to comply with the law was a loud cheer. It really is time we properly separated church and state. Get the god-squad out of schools, the House of Lords, adoption agencies and wherever else they have managed to get special privileges. My secularism is every bit as passionately felt as my mother's catholicism, but no-one seems to feel it is entitled to any consideration at all.
whoops......I might have quoted the wrong interviewee in my last comment...you can see how carefully I listen!
Ian (44) Hahahaha!
Ian: (44)
*grin*
I offer to the frog this website that someone alerted me to. It lists bands that we should avoid listening to in case we turn gay:
Personally, I intend to seek out those listed bands that I don't already listen to and make sure I have them on my iPod at all times...
as regards churches and adoption agencies, they were there first, back in the 19th century, as they were with so many things like education, relief of poverty, child welfare... the government is a late comer to these things and so tended to give money to charitable institutions who were already active in the field rather than re-inventing the wheel.
While not necessarily agreeing with the Cardinal's stance on homosexuality, I do think that if the government wants to oblige a religious body to do something which goes totally against the ethics of the body concerned, then they have a perfect right to say that they would rather shut up shop than do something which they believe to be wrong. Which comment as I say is not to be taken as agreement that it is wrong. However I would have thought that in many places, although not admittedly all, a child would have a miserable time in the playground if he was known to have same gender parents.
As regards no-one being allowed to say who or who should not adopt I seem to remember social workers refusing to allow white couples to adopt black or mixed race children not all that long ago, not to mention a famous case where would be adopters were turned down on the grounds of being overweight.
Gossipmistress (55): I just ranted about this on the worst sound thread, without realising that you had beaten me to it! I was sitting there with my mouth wide open in utter disbelief that someone could go onto a national radio system and just be so...wrong.
Information please.....is it possible for a non-Christian to adopt a child from a Christian adoption agency?
SSCat (58) hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa!
And to think that the Village people might be gay? Surely not! And Elton John gets two mentions, the second time he is really gay!!!!
Stainless (58) I'm gobsmacked - who is there left to listen to?
It would be laughable if it were not that I'm sure such people are deadly serious and are inculcating fear and hatred in their own children and anyone else prepared to listen to them.
Clearly the devil does have all the best tunes. I shall have to get him to write some hymns for my new religion
SSCat (58) How did you happen upon that?!
Call me doubly sad, but I looked at the "safe bands" too. Cyndi Lauper was the only name I recognised. It seems songs about sh*gging are OK so long as it's heterosexual sh*gging then? Or hadn't they realised?...
Aperitif:
I found out about it from my best pal. How she found it I haven't asked yet, I've been too busy being dumbfounded by it.
I was a bit surprised that the "safe bands" didn't include any gospel-inspired soul singers or even The Osmonds. Surely if even Donny & Marie aren't safe then we're all doomed!?!
SSC - I loved that web site. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. It's definitely one to treasure. I only wish Jonnie were here to enjoy it with us. Maybe when he gets back...
ian - my daughter (9) spent a day some months ago devising her own religion. Including a shrine. This after we had given her an (admittedly rather atheist- slanted) run-down of the world's religions. The most annoying thing is that she can still remember the names of all the gods she invented, & what for, but can she remember the 7 times table with anything like as much accuracy? I wish.
SSCat, we are doomed indeed. But rather that than subject to religious rock music -- is it "Stryker" I'm thinking of???
Annasee, I can still remember many details of the census I carried out on the fairies who lived in my house and garden when I was about that age. Books and books of it: their jobs, dates of birth, who was related to whom... I think learning about the census came at a pivotal moment for me. She may still recall those gods 20-plus years from now...
SSC (59);
I'm dumbfounded!.
Now I can understand seeing Queen on there, and Judas Priest too, since Rob Halford 'outed' himself a while back. Both of which bands feature strongly in my own collection, as a former metalhead.
But Nirvana, Metallica, Motorhead, SINATRA? Oh come on, I can't see Lemmy or any of the others living or promoting a gay lifestyle. The people who composed that website are idiots.
Must be a sign that I'm aging fast, but three-quarters of the band names meant nothing to me at all....
Time to draw me pension, methinks. Pass the Mantovani, along with me pipe and slippers dear. Cup of Horlicks please. (And no, that's not a social commentary!).
Si.
Aperitif (69):
You had fairies in your garden and house? Did you check whether they had listened to Elton John* before becoming fairies?
*Who is on the radio as I type this...
[Checks]
Nope, I still fancy women...
SSC (71);
I have to concur. Listening to 'Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy' or 'Rock of the Westies' more times than I care to remember never put me in touch with my feminine side or stopped my testosterone flowing!
Clapton did a rather splendid duet with Elton a few years ago, didn't he? (Runaway Train on 'The One' album) Doesn't seem to have stopped him liking ladies. Lots of ladies.
Elton is a star. O.K. a lot of his recent stuff can't hold a candle to his first ten-ish years. But those years were simply magnificent. And I fail to see what his 'orientation' has to do with anything.
We had fairies in our garden too. I was told by my parents, as a kid, that when the yellow petals on the dandelions disappeared they turned into fairies, which wafted away on the breeze. As a four-year-old I swallowed that hook, line & sinker. I was enchanted by that time of summer when all the dandelion seeds took to the air en-masse, thinking it was fairies in the air.
Si.
Gosh Si, your fairies were small! Round mine way thet were all about the size of a Sindy Doll (eleven inches, for the uninitiated). They were of course, invisible to the human eye...
SScat, despite all of the fairies around, my Sindies never wanted to get off with each other -- always only my cousin's Action Man. That guy thought he was such a stud -- five girls just adoring him. Of course, it ws really because he was the only boy around. I believe the music of choice at the time was Duran Duran. Which list do they belong to, do you think?
Appy (73) I had a fairy, too, who lived in a shoebox. But she was from a smaller race than yours and only measure about 4 inches. I remember her well.
Just had a thought: Do you think my fairy would have been barred from adoption on account of her reduced height? I suppose one of your Sindy dolls would have been in with a chance, Appy, just as long as she had a stable relationship with Action Man. But, I guess, with four other single Sindies around, the chances of AM being able to settle down with one were pretty slim. And then again, if two of the Sindies were attracted to each other, they'd have been debarred, too.
Life is unfair, even for Sindies.
Big Sis, I think you're ight -- heightism may well have had an impact; although the fact that she appears to have been single may have been a largre problem.
My two Sindies (one of whom was called Sandy) were 16, lived with their little sisters Susie and Diana (who were 8 and 4), and next to their cousins (my other cousins' three Sindies and their siblings) and they had voracious sexual appetites. I don't think they were ready to settle down and adopt. And as for "Brian Action" (I know), looking back, I can't see the attraction -- he had a funny look about him (or was that his 'eagle eye'?...)
Appy: Have you looked at Eddie's huggis for you? I told you he cares ...
Oh dearie dearie me, I feel I must avoid this thread, now that it's been overrun with the ladies of the frog talking about fairies, sindy dolls, etc. Not a topic I can make any meaningful (or even silly) comment about!
You mean you never had an Action Man that dallied with a Sindy Fearless? Don't tell me yours was into that American sl*pper, Barbie...
If you think Sindy-doll talk is bad you should see my post about the usefulness of the tune "Chitty Bang Bang" from yesterday.
FF: Of course you can join in! And I think we've finished with the fairies now.
I see you as more of an Action Man type myself ....
C'mon now Fred, you should be swotting it all up (the fairies, Sindy dolls etc) to use during your dates. They should be impressed that you've even heard of Sindy dolls! They'll think you're a real new age man!
I had Action Men (even a proper GI Jope from the US curtesy of an Uncle who travelled). It's just that my AMs never had anything to do with my sisters Sindys (yes I do remember them...) They were too busy doing the things action men of that era did, like re-enacting the war films that were shown on a sunday afternoon, or surviving (just!) parachuting out of a second floor window into the garden. Ah, those were the days!
Mm, FFred, just the kind of action a Sindy loves!
Ah, boys. To be honest, my cousin's Action Man only played with my Sindies when my cousin wasn't looking.