Latest Posts

NEW OLD STUFF!

Entertainment

In an earlier post on music, I griped:

 I’ve become sick of all the old music, “old” being defined as 60s-70s music of my rock star (uh huh) youth. I mean, if I hear “Sweet Home Alabama” and anything by Led Zeppelin one more time, I’m going to slip the safety off the 1911.
…
So maybe that’s what Classic Rock needs: for new guys to reinterpret their music (as opposed to just reproducing it), much as Dred Zeppelin did to Led Zeppelin (I love the Dred, by the way).

And it’s happened, in (of all places) Finland (!). Have a listen to the Leningrad Cowboys (!!) performing the aforementioned Sweet Home Alabama live with the Red Army Choir (!!!) and be entertained by all the rest of the Cowboys’ interpretations of the old hits as they appear on the page (e.g. the turgid Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door and even the syrupy Those Were The Days).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am a happy man today, and I have The Englishman to thank for bringing these guys to my attention. (I know they came on the scene in the 1990s, but somehow I missed them. More fool me.)

And now, if you’ll excuse me… I’m going to buy the album.

Not Here

Travels

Apparently, much of Britishland was smacked by rain storms and snow, with concomitant flooding etc. right before Thanksgiving*:

However, lest anyone be afraid that Yer Humble Narrator was thus afflicted, allow me to show the local conditions yesterday:

…and the view down my “street” yesterday morning at 8am:

Yes, that is blue sky up above the hill on the left. I had to explain the phenomenon to some of the locals, who’d never seen it before and were frightened.

Lest anyone think that the weather in Brigadoon-On-Sea is lovely, however, I should point out that the wind coming in from the sea was so strong (straight into my face, in this pic), I actually staggered a bit while walking back down to the cottage.

I love it here.

*I know they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving Over Here. I was just putting a date on the thing.

Convenience

Food & Drink, Travels

File this under “Stuff you can do in Britishland that you can’t do in Murka”:

Back when I lived in Chicago, I used to joke that as you traveled south from there, the gun laws became easier and the liquor laws more stupid. (We could buy Scotch at the Treasure Island supermarket 24/7 except for midnight-midday on Sundays. But a gun? Fergeddabahtit. In Texas, you can buy a gun at a gun show without any hassle, but gawd help you if you try to order a whisky in a dry-county restaurant.)

It looks as though the same parallel works in an east-west direction vis-à-vis the UK and the US.

Of course, I think that Amazon Over Here offers liquor over the Internet simply because of the strange and unpredictable hours of business that UK retailers inflict on their customers.

 

5 Worst Ways To Begin A Speech

Friday Feature, The Worst

Ranked in ascending order of dreadfulness:

  • “Heil Hitler!”
  • “As the best man, let me start by apologizing to everyone that the groom didn’t show up for the ceremony today…”
  • “Ladies and gentlemen, and those who’ve had the operation…”
  • “Before I start my speech, let me first tell you the joke about the nigger, the Jewboy and the faggot…”
  • “Tonight I want to explain how I lost the election to Donald Trump…”

Your own suggestions in Comments, as always.