Sunday 29 November 2009

Miscellaneous Peregrinations

I was tempted to do a slightly different rambling post this time. Instead of telling folk what I had been doing I thought I’d list the things I ought to have done. My ‘To do’ list. One advantage of that would be that it might spur me on to get some of the things achieved. Then I looked at the list. I looked at the weather and I looked at my cup of coffee and I thought “no chance”. So it’s my usual peregrinations about odds and ends...



It’s the 212th Merseyside derby match, and Liverpool travel across Stanley Park to Goodison to take on cross-city rivals Everton at a time when both clubs are struggling mightily. In the Blue corner, hosts Everton are just hovering over the drop zone in 16th place on the Premier League table. Meanwhile, the Reds, normally a perennial title-contender, are seventh in the table so far.



On Strictly Come Dancing one of the dances this week was the Charleston. My dancing has never been any good and it’s not something I ever really enjoyed doing – with two exceptions: the Charleston and the Twist. Whilst the celebrities who did the Charleston did it quite well (especially Chris and Ola) I was disappointed that there was hardly any of the crossing over of the hands on the knees which I think of as the epitome of Charleston moves.


"The Charleston Dance was the most popular terpsichorean craze of the Roaring Twenties. The dance originated as early as 1903 in the African American community of a small island off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. Enthusiastically taken up by blacks in Charleston, the dance was named after the city. By 1913, the Charleston Dance was being staged in Harlem, New York nightclub shows. A 1923 hit Broadway musical called Runnin’ Wild featured the song "Charleston." The song was written by composer James P. Johnson, Fats Waller’s jazz piano teacher and idol. The black revue featured the male chorus line singing and stepping the Charleston Dance. The 1920s' Jazz song became one of the biggest hits of the period. Evoking the high-spirited abandon of the times, the Charleston Dance was considered the cat’s pajamas." Paula Henderson



I’ve been compiling a playlist of my favourite pop songs on my computer. It’s great fun and I like the fact that when I’ve done it I’ll be able to play a whole host of songs without having to skip tracks or put up with tunes on which I am less keen. It will be interesting to see how many songs I end up with – so far there are about 600, mostly from the 1960s. One of the CD’s I’ve put on the computer is the soundtrack of ‘Good Morning Vietnam’. What a great film that was.

I mentioned comments the other day. I woke up this morning to a total of fifteen comments on three different blogs of mine. Of those six were either obscene or advertising. This is getting silly. I may have to start restricting comments to Google account holders then I can complain. The problem is that would impact upon some who leave genuine comments. It’s a difficult decision.

Hope you all have a good day...
(or if you are in New Zealand / Australia I hope you’ve had a good day!)

9 comments:

  1. John, a dangerous game putting music on the computer. You'll end up with new speakers or worse an MP3 player, they are lethal at our age, involve walking and listening at the same time.
    Can I have some of your obscene comments please? Feel left out. Have a good day.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You could always go into your list of followers and block those you don't want? Or conversely, just delete the spurious comments...
    The advertising fraternity are a pain, I agree - can't comment on the obscene!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi John, as you know going private was something I considered. It's awful when we're pushed into doing something we don't really want. I'm told that in order to keep followers it's necessary to email everyone before taking action, once private a blog is no longer listed on Reader. But enough of that.
    I wish I'd seen the Charleston - I used to love doing it but never managed to cross hands on knees. The twist was a great favourite too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wonder if listing what you ought to have done would be depressing or inspirational.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm pleased to say that I got new speakers for next to nothing in the Spring and GB has given Jo some as well so we did rather well. Decent speakers make a world of difference.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Music is the spice of life -- how many times have I folded a load of laundry or done other boring chores while dancing along to some jazzy tunes!

    As to the undesired comments... Wait a little while, poke fun at them, delete them, hope they go away... And if all else fails, well, then you may have to resort to more drastic measures!

    I hope your day was/will be pleasant too!

    ReplyDelete
  7. A few nights ago I had a dream, or maybe it was a nightmare, that over night I received 162 comments on my blog. When I looked at them they were in a foreign language. Then I woke up and was pleased to find that it had all been a dream, or a nightmare!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm with you...it's hardly the Charleston at all without the hands crossing over the knees....

    ReplyDelete

Hello - thanks for dropping by to leave a comment. Your comments are much appreciated even if I don't always reply. They will appear as soon as they have been moderated.

Blog Archive