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Tuesday 20 September 2022

63 YEARS OLD - GUNFIGHTER BALLADS AND TRAIL SONGS

 










Recorded April 1959.

Released September 1959 - 63 years ago.

Hands down, one of my favourite albums ever and, quite possibly, one of the greatest country albums of all-time. As a westerns nut, what do you expect, Pilgrim?

SIDE 1

Big Iron

Cool water

Billy the Kid

A Hundred and Sixty Acres

They're Hanging Me Tonight

The Strawberry Roan


SIDE 2

El Paso

In The Valley

The Master's Call

Running Gun

The Little Green Valley

Utah Carol


Big salute to Marty Robbins. 




Monday 19 September 2022

KNOWS WHAT SHE LIKES

 















She was not keen,
Hated it in fact,
Lemon pips in her gin glass.
How hard is it?
I mean how hard is it
To flick the pips out
At the slicing stage?

She earned the right to be fussy,
Was the right age not to give a shit
About insult and offence.
A gin and tonic without debris.
How hard is it?
Resolved by the second rant 
And the third glass.

Sunday 18 September 2022

ME AND A FEW FAMOUS PEOPLE












Once,

I saw Michael Longley at Belfast City Airport,
by the taxis where Tayto advertises;
Seamus Heaney in Kings Cross Station,
studying the big timetable board;
Frank Ormsby in Waterstones, Belfast,
wandering around, browsing away;
Clive James in Selfridges, Oxford Street,
signing copies of Unreliable Memoirs;
Terence Stamp in Hatchards, Piccadilly,
carrying a wicker basket full of books;
Adam Ant in a wine bar, Jermyn Street,
on his way out, flanked by two big guys;
Michael Caine outside Fortnum and Mason,
crossing the road towards the Dunhill shop;
Ralph McTell in the Regal Centre, Worksop,
signing cds, photographs and ticket stubs;
and more and more and many, many more.

And some of them may have seen me.

 

Saturday 17 September 2022

MODERN WORLD SONNET











Written in 2014. Most of it stands up, I think. 

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The gall of our leaders to change their minds,
Once elected to their power posts,
From their shredded manifestos, nothing binds,
Promises and pledges thin as ghosts;
We live in times of turmoil, times austere,
Of gung-ho wars and fat-cat bankers greed,
We tough it out and look for things to cheer,
Considering desire or want or need;
One by one dictators fall from grace,
Some by bloody means, by sword and fire,
Not certain that the ones that take their place,
Have the talents to encourage and inspire.
          But in this world of more bad news than good,
          We have love and must use it as we should.


Friday 16 September 2022

THE AVOCADO BRAVADO DESPERADO AFFAIR

 








A TRUE STORY FROM MY RETAIL MANAGEMENT DAYS 

THE AVOCADO BRAVADO DESPERADO AFFAIR 
There is a lot of mundane, dull work to be done in shops.  It has to be tackled but it is hardly challenging to the brain cells a lot of the time.  You know the kind of boring stuff – walking round being Mr Happy, smiling at people you do not like, checking the cleaning, picking up litter and squashed grapes, filling shelves, telling people off, listening to customers complaining about the price of fish or a wonky trolley.  Sometimes, a new experience makes the day more exciting.  The lady with the two avocado pears is a hard case to beat.  She asked to see me in private, as she was prone to burst into tears at any moment because of the trauma I had caused her.  She catered at home for her husband’s business clients and, the previous weekend, had settled on an avocado and prawn starter.  She bought the pears from my shop.  But when she peeled them, both were mottled brown inside.  She explained emotionally that these two small, crinkly items had destroyed her confidence in the kitchen.  In short, she panicked at the dinner party and opened a tin of soup – the indignity of serving cock-a-leekie as her husband was about to clinch a deal had left her scarred, embarrassed and inadequate.  Her ego had been casseroled by this appalling incident.  Our discussion was like a therapy session and when I asked how best to resolve it for her, quick as a flash she perked up and said: “Each dinner party costs me £75, so if you pay me £75, that will do.”  My excuse is that I was too taken aback to disagree.  I still wince when I think of the two most expensive avocado pears in history but The Avocado Bravado Desperado Affair is a lesson for all shop managers to reassess the fruits of their labours, to tolerate crab-apple customers, to avoid sour grapes and to admit defeat when you know you’ve been mangoed.

Thursday 15 September 2022

WE GO TOGETHER......... (A FUN POEM ABOUT COUPLES)

 










We go together
Like crackers and cheese,
Like thank you and please,
Like skip and rope,
Like water and soap,
Like moon and stars,
Like jams and jars,
Like Morecambe and Wise,
Like pork and pies
Like seek and hide,
Like Bonnie and Clyde,
Like comb and hair,
Like table and chair,
Like Ant and Dec,
Like Fiona and Shrek,
Like peas and pod,
Like hook and rod,

Like bread and butter.
Like mumble and mutter,
Like Minnie and Mickey,
Like glue and sticky,
Like Adam and Eve,
Like ho and heave,
Like Batman and Robin,
Like thread and bobbin,
Like Homer and Marge,
Like canal and barge,
Like Barbie and Ken,
Like cluck and hen,
Like Jack and Jill,
Like Ben and Bill,
Like Hansel and Gretel,
Like flower and petal,
Like Tom and Jerry,
Like Christmas and merry,

Like bacon and eggs,
Like stockings and legs,
Like Black and Decker,
Like wood and pecker,
Like bow and arrow,
Like wheel and barrow,
Like click and clack,
Like train and track,
Like fish and chips,
Like walnuts and whips,
Like Watson and Holmes,
Like barbers and combs,
Like Wooster and Jeeves,
Like autumn and leaves,
Like finish and start
(And, I do apologise),
Like beans and fart.

Wednesday 14 September 2022

IDIOT-PROOF SUPERMARKETS

I wrote this about six years ago.  With new supermarket food display laws coming in October, I think I was ahead of the game! 

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Food, diet, health all have their actual or well-spun controversies, crises, epidemics, etc.  The obsession with reducing plastic bags (don't get me started on that one) seems to be much more important than actually changing behaviour on what we put into our cakeholes.

Supermarkets need a bloody good overhaul to make things clear to the dumb, dense, witless public (for that is what we are folks in the minds of the behavioural nudgers in politics and business).  So, here it is again.  My revolutionary supermarket layout to satisfy nanny and matron, and to guide us to the promised land of long life and happiness..

All the talk about retail regeneration, clarity for customers and healthy living, got me thinking that all food stores, large, medium and small, should adopt the simplest form of layout.  

Asking customers to read product labels is a non-starter. Too much information. Too much blah. Too much CYA verbiage.  Here's the solution:

4 sections all painted - floors, walls, ceiling to avoid any confusion:












Green zone: Contains all food and drink that Matron says is very, very good for us.

Amber zone: Contains all food and drink that Matron says is not too risky

Red Zone: Contains all food and drink that Matron says is bad for us - but it's our choice to enter this zone

Black zone: For all food and drink that Matron considers extremely bad for us even though it might be the tastiest selection - enter if you dare!

There you go.

It's worth a pilot, surely.

Food and drink retailing is saved.

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Friday 2 September 2022

BOOK REVIEW - FIELDS OF WONDER BY EVAN MARSHALL

 
















Fields of Wonder

The Incredible Story of Northern Ireland’s Journey to the 1982 World Cup.

 

Evan Marshall

With a foreword by Martin O’Neill


Blackstaff Press


https://blackstaffpress.com/fields-of-wonder-9781780732404

 

By the end of the 1970s, the Northern Ireland football team was in the doldrums. Against a background of civil unrest, the team had endured long periods of playing all their matches away from home and had just finished bottom of the British Championship for the fourth successive year.  Two years later they walked onto the pitch against France to play for a place in the 1982 World Cup semi-finals.

 

In Fields of Wonder, Evan Marshall charts Northern Ireland’s incredible World Cup journey in thrilling detail, from the appointment of Billy Bingham as manager and the winning of the British Home Championship in 1980 through the ups and downs of the qualifying stages, and that night of pulsating drama against Spain in Valencia


* 

 

A book about football.  Here’s a declaration.  I am not a football fan.  I rarely watch any football on television.  I have been to two matches in my life.  But this book isn’t aimed solely at football fans.  It has universal appeal.  I might not be a fan of football but I am a fan of true stories told by passionate writers and this book is firmly in that category.

 

It informs, entertains and thrills.  Researched thoroughly, it informs via the tremendous amount of detail therein; it entertains via a series of anecdotes and typical Northern Irish wry humour; it thrills in the descriptions of the games, especially the nasty game against Spain in June 1982.  More of the latter later.

 

Manager Billy Bingham was an inspirational leader who placed a lot of store in team spirit.  He could read individuals, their intelligence and skills, and he was not afraid to make decisions.  He did a remarkable job with very talented players.  The team was often plagued with injuries, setbacks, an often hostile local press and, as far as I can assess it, a sometimes dithering, indecisive Irish Football Association.

 

The team’s rocky road can be summed up thus.  From March 1980 to July 1982, Northern Ireland played 25 internationals under Bingham in the campaign to qualify for the 1982 World Cup, won 9, drew 9 and lost 7.

 

One of the wins, and surely the most important, was against Spain in Valencia in June 1982.  The Spanish considered Northern Ireland to be way beneath them and they banked on, amongst other things, their home supporters to push them on to victory.  Spanish press laid on thick that these Irish boys were just a bunch of lazy boozers.  But just in case, Spain also adopted brutal playing tactics and helped by a referee who had clearly missed a number of visits to Specsavers, very few of the Spanish players were booked. On the other hand, the biased ref punished Northern Ireland for some very minor offences.

 

But, despite Spain’s dirty tactics and a Mister Magoo referee, Gerry Armstrong with support from his teammates scored a goal that literally silenced the crowd.  One nil was all it took, and for Billy Bingham and the team he chose, nurtured and encouraged, Northern Ireland’s football achievements reached a new level.  Their next game against Austria was a draw but the final game against France ended in a four one defeat

 

But, history was made.

 

The chapter – The Night in Valencia – is a cracking piece of writing in an overall cracker of a book.

 

Fields of Wonder is a book that football fans, sports history buffs and, yes, lay people can enjoy because it is well-researched and wonderfully written by Evan Marshall.

 

Highly recommended to all human beings.