The Sound of Summer

-



    We've missed out on an awful lot of stuff in the last three months or so, most poignantly the freedom to see friends and family at will; to host dinner parties, barbecues or simply go down to the pub for a pint and a jangle.
    On the other hand, we've also potentially gained the opportunity to reset the way the world works to everone's advantage and stop the rot that's killing the planet at the same time: but as I've said before, the idiots in charge will soon have us running around like headless chickens in pursuit of goals we didn't know we had in the service of filling the offshore bank accounts of the already-too-bloody-rich. C'est la vie.
    One crucial thing missing from the world at the moment - at least for those adherents, like myself, of the glory that is Cricket, is Test Match Special. As much national institution as radio programme, it has brought both ball-by-ball-commentary of some of the very finest moments of sporting endeavour to life over many decades, but at the same time offered up to the listening public nuggets of pure, surreal humour of the kind only to be found on Radio Four and it's predecessor, The Home Service.
    For those of us who grew up through the 1960's, listening to the likes of The Goons, Hancock's Half Hour, Round The Horne and The Navy Lark, you know what I mean.
    Of the many incidents that cropped up on TMS - the one that never fails to crack me up is the infamous Johnners/Aggers meltdown - the 'Leg-over' corpsing by Brian Johnston and Jonathan Agnew - Google it or search on YouTube if you've not heard it. Even if you know it well, listen again - it's the best lockdown therapy available. I still remember being in tucks of laughter with my Dad over it at either end of a phone call, playing the audio file back to each other. Priceless. TMS - we miss you.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more