Last week’s gig at the Oval took an age to get to and an age to get from, but was enjoyable nonetheless.  There were visitors from Germany and Lithuania as well as locals. Chris Youlden was soon busy signing Savoy Brown records, showing the interest is still there. The gig was well received once again so thanks again to Graeme the manager. An added thanks too for the gift of a takeaway bottle of wine. If only all gigs were as friendly. Read more »

It seems a long time since I wrote anything here, but the reality is that I wrote a long diary entry a week or so ago and promptly deleted it. I must have pressed something I shouldn’t have. As I’m often pressing people’s buttons and winding them up, this was obviously some kind of just retribution. Ah well. Of course by the time I’d finished writing the lengthy tome, it was almost closing time in the pub, which seemed justification for not rewriting the thing. Read more »

Christmas is fast approaching , but life goes on anyway. More importantly, the shortest day has passed and we can pretend that the days will get noticeably longer and even kid ourselves that Spring is around the corner. Of course it’ll be a Spring full of Doom and Gloom, but as it’s a way off at present let’s not go there. Anyway, why go there when it’s already here – the doom and gloom, I mean. I’m already fed up with the media’s continuous spewing out of the most miserable predictions. Get a life. Read more »

After watching the England/Germany football match last Wednesday, which included a couple of typical blunders although it resulted in an England win, I wandered into the blues Jam at the Inn in time to hear the house band augmented by Sax and Trumpet, which made for a change. Later I sat in myself, accompanied by piano man Ritchie with Brian on bass. We played three or four numbers to close the jam and finished in time to enjoy last orders which our friend Soul man Abe had obligingly ordered. If only life was always that easy. Read more »

After staying up to watch the results of the American presidential election I managed to sleep late on Wednesday morning. I got up in time to watch the Daily Politics on the BBC, which included various opinions on the task ahead for Obama. It seems to me that people are already expecting miracles from the man, but as there is such a long transition time between the handover from one president to the next, perhaps reality will have time to mute the euphoria. His success certainly has changed history and there was a feeling that people were suddenly aware that they were part of that history making. Usually history passes without me personally being awake to the fact, so I suppose I must be getting wiser in my old age. (I still can’t remember what I was doing when John Kennedy was shot, but I‘m sure that it wasn‘t me). Read more »

Somehow I found myself in the Portobello Gold a couple of Sundays ago. I think the plan had been to start there, then go for a quick one in Finch’s and end up at the Inn On The Green. Like all the best laid plans it never quite worked out like that. There was solo guitarist/singer performing at the Gold and someone suggested we should request he played a blues. I didn’t think that was necessarily a good idea, so the request was never made. Someone also suggested another request, that he take a break, but I dissuaded them from making that request also. Performing solo is hard enough without comedians in the audience adding to the work load. Read more »