The Night Mail

[DenysW]

26 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Clun Castle from Clun in Shropshire which is always CLUN.

The Castle is still there (bl$ddy draughty place, free entry), as is the river of the same name. For the sturdier adventurer, there is no trace of a new castle at Newcastle-on-Clun, but the village is very pretty.

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

I just feel lucky to gave lived through that era.  Even my daughter consults me about music on occasions, usually when some classic  track has been cpvered by some talentless young person.  Of course the Floyd's  hit see Emily Play will always be a favourite for a doting grandad.

 

Jamie

Having been Shaken All Night Long, I am now well along the Highway to Hell

[Northmoor]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Somehow, I don’t think that the “works” (for want of a better term) by Justin Bieber, Harry Styles and so on will sound as fresh, exciting, intriguing and relevant after 50 years - unlike Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (not to mention other artistes/albums from that “Golden Era”)

 

I'm no great judge of music but it's very easy to be nostalgic about music and assume there is nowhere near as much talent on view now compared to when we were young.  My wife has just had MTV on in the background, playing the Top 50 UK singles of the 2010s.  There is some tremendous talent on show, both in singing, playing instruments, composition while some videos are very clever.  There will be some songs amongst them that children will be singing in school in 30 years time, just like we sang "Yellow Submarine" as children despite having no idea what it was really about!

 

We also watch the repeats of TotP on Fridays which are currently up to 1994, so for both of us that is our Polytechnic and early work years.  We record them and are typically fast-forwarding through half the performances.  While this was the the prime years of Britpop and the era of Nirvana - who suddenly woke everyone up - it was also the dance/techno/rave era and it is amazing how much I have forgotten, probably because so much of it was absolutely terrible music.  But I guarantee that if you went back and played the whole Top 40 in any week of the 1960s, you would listen to about half of the tracks and ask yourself why anyone bought them at all.

 

Oh and on Welsh pronunciation, I went to school (in Wales) with a lad called Rhun.  I once heard one teacher say it right, the rest were stumped; the correct way is HREAN.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Northmoor
typos

[woodenhead]

The thing with popular music is that a lot of it is manufactured, and that even goes back to the 1960s - people would write songs for others to sing and for some people even today it is very good career choice for some talented people, especially if they are uncomfortable from the lack of privacy that comes with being a pop sensation.

 

But despite all the manufactured pop and weird musical crazes there will alway be people/groups who transcend the others and remain popular way beyond their performing period because their music was so original

[jamie92208]

17 hours ago, br2975 said:

Such is the current level of embarrassment induced by any link to Cardiff City FC, all six of us season ticket holders found "something else to do" in order to avoid another diet of 'football gruel' yesterday afternoon.

.

I could have stayed at home, and built the lift-out section for the 'Efflew Valley Branch' but instead, I chose a different dose of football, and wandered along to watch my second team, in the lower reaches of Welsh League football................. namely Pontyclun v Llwydcoed.

.

Pontyclun rolled out winners 2-0 to cement their position at the top of the table, whilst Cardiff City collapsed (again) to a 3-1 drubbing by 'boro..

.

This was the view from my "executive hospitality box" at Ifor Park, Pontyclun- OK, it's the clubhouse bar !

.

For those remotely interested, Pontyclun are the team in the 'Boca Juniors' (An Argentinian team) strip............. that is where any similarity ends.

.

At full time, a trek was made to the other end of the village and 'The Windsor' (alongside the SWML) to suffer the Welsh  'Destruction in Dublin'.

.

By the way, for those still awake - whilst the Swindon product, 7029,  is pronounced "CLUNN" Castle, this place is pronounced PontyCLEAN not PontyCLUNN

.

Suitbaly recovered of any disappointment, this afternoon will see me in the man cave, tidying up the 'Efflew Valley Branch'

And there was little old me thinking it was PontyCLOON.

 

Jamie.

Edited February 13, 2023 by jamie92208

[Tony_S]

3 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Clun Castle from Clun in Shropshire which is always CLUN.

We had some Shropshire Blue cheese recently. We thought it was odd that the village it was named after didn’t seem to be in Shropshire and in fact was in Leicestershire. So a little research revealed that Shropshire had been chosen purely as a marketing name. Probably to give  a hint of the mysterious west or something. 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Tony_S

[TheQ]

18 hours ago, BoD said:

 

When we were driving up in Scotland shortly after covid restrictions relaxed  it seemed that every little village, small settlement or even individual roadside houses had a new 20 mph limit applied.

The current government up there is lowering speed limits everywhere,. They are trying to push everyone on to non existent public transport. I use the cross country routes from central Scotland to England,  if like me you  have to use a car driving south, they are pushing you onto the A1 and M74.

Edited February 12, 2023 by TheQ

[AndyID]

4 hours ago, pH said:

Corkerhill sheds for the first time. 

 

I cycled there a few times. Not sure of the dates. I didn't keep good notes!

[ian@stenochs]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

The current government up there is lowering speed limits everywhere,. They are trying to push everyone on to non existent public transport. I use the cross country routes from central Scotland to England,  if like me you  have to use a car driving south, they are pushing you onto the A1 and M74.

They are not funding road repairs adequately either which means potholes are becoming reverse sleeping policemen.  Drive fast at your peril and risk damaged tyres and suspension or worse!

 

Ian.

Edited February 12, 2023 by ian@stenochs
Spelling!

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

We had some Shropshire Blue cheese recently. We thought it was odd that the village it was named after didn’t seem to be in Shropshire and in fact was in Leicestershire. So a little research revealed that Shropshire had been chosen purely as a marketing name. Probably to give  a hint of the mysterious west or something. 

 

No, it's actually part of a defence mechanism designed to protect the Leicestershire cake industry from predation by marauding pachyderms and ursine species. The trucks transporting large cake loads are falsely labelled Shropshire Blue cheese and are then unmolested. In order to keep the pretence alive there is, in fact, a small amount of cheese packed near the back doors of the lorries and it is that which you bought.

 

Dave

[Winslow Boy]

1 minute ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

No, it's actually part of a defence mechanism designed to protect the Leicestershire cake industry from predation by marauding pachyderms and ursine species. The trucks transporting large cake loads are falsely labelled Shropshire Blue cheese and are then unmolested. In order to keep the pretence alive there is, in fact, a small amount of cheese packed near the back doors of the lorries and it is that which you bought.

 

Dave

 

You forgot to mention the fan that sucks out the cheesy whiff and blows it out the back thereby confusing any passing pachyderms or ursines.

[Dave Hunt]

6 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

.....I reckon that 1955 - 1975 was the most productive and diverse period of musical innovation, diversity and excitement in history (not that other eras didn’t have amazing musicians and composers - but nothing that 20 year explosion of musical, artistic, literary and cinematographic talent).

 

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

I cannot fault that assertion in any way.  It covers the majority of the great rock 'n' roll era, it incorporates the development of the electric guitar which fundamentally changed popular music, it leads through the "swinging sixties" when it seemed that any bunch of lads in Merseyside, and a few elsewhere, could form a group and have a hit..... 

 

6 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I just feel lucky to gave lived through that era.  Even my daughter consults me about music on occasions, usually when some classic  track has been cpvered by some talentless young person.  Of course the Floyd's  hit see Emily Play will always be a favourite for a doting grandad.

 

Having been a teenager in the mid 60s in Liverpool I was lucky enough to experience the 'Merseybeat' and 'swinging sixties' era at first hand. Even better, as I've mentioned before, I was three years behind George Harrison and Paul McCartney at the same school and witnessed George practising guitar as well as going to The Cavern sometimes several times a week. Incidentally, the cloakroom girl at The Cavern was named Priscilla White - better known nowadays as Cilla Black. Happy days.

 

Dave 

[BoD]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

I use the cross country routes from central Scotland to England,

I prefer to avoid ‘the main’ roads as much as I can.  Otterburn and Carter Bar instead of the A1.  Then if I’m going up the middle Glen Eagles (the Glen as well as the town). Crieff and the Sma’ Glen rather than the A9.  There’s less of a choice if you are heading up the west side.  
 

It is much more relaxing and enjoyable doing it this way.  Until all those 20 signs appeared that is.  I think I still prefer it though,  in the same way I go out of my way to avoid motorways and trunk roads here unless needs must.

[zarniwhoop]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I reckon that 1955 - 1975 was the most productive and diverse period of musical innovation, diversity and excitement in history (not that other eras didn’t have amazing musicians and composers - but nothing that 20 year explosion of musical, artistic, literary and cinematographic talent).

I would put the musical period a bit longer, from 1951 (Rocket 88) to the end of the 70s (Skynyrd, Man, Rory Gallagher) or even 1980 (Mötorhead, the Ace of Spades). But in each year during that period there was an awful lot of dross.

[The Johnster]

9 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

"Polar bears do it sideways!"

 

Bipolar bears do it in different moods...

[The Johnster]

12 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

I would put the musical period a bit longer, from 1951 (Rocket 88) to the end of the 70s (Skynyrd, Man, Rory Gallagher) or even 1980 (Mötorhead, the Ace of Spades). But in each year during that period there was an awful lot of dross.

 

I suspect that, for most periods, most of the music produced was dross, and has vanished from our collective conciousness.  How many classical symphonies produced by lesser composers at the same time as Beethoven was actively composing are performed nowadays?  Not many, because most of them were rubbish, and having dropped out of the canon for this reason, many are (happily) lost. 

 

The 20th century enabled music to be recorded in forms other than manuscripts for home performance, so things are a little different now, and the 21st century allows online access to nearly all of that recorded canon, but the pieces that are played with any regularity and are more than, say, a decade old tend to be the better quality ones.  The situation isn't quite that simple, as us older punters all have our favourites (IMHO, Floyd's Wish You Were Here album, all of it, every last second, is perfection and I doubt will be bettered in my lifetime, but this is only MHO) and their popularity may die with our generation, soon. 

 

But quality counts, and the good stuff lasts, for centuries and possibly longer.  Good writing, good arranging, good performing, good sound engineering from about the latter half of the 20th century, and good production, but mostly good writing and performing, will ensure popularity into a long future.  Floyd, Zeppelin, Purple, my era, were good, and will make the cut over time.  Val Doonican, Max Bygraves, Justin Bieber; perhaps not...

[Happy Hippo]

I happen to be a great fan of Shropshire Blue cheese, so any lorry is completely ransacked.

 

 I merely thought the cheese company were being polite in sending me dessert at the same time.

[BoD]

1 hour ago, ian@stenochs said:

They are not funding road repairs adequately either which means potholes are becoming reverse sleeping policemen.  Drive fast at your peril and risk damaged tyres and suspension or worse!

 

Ian.

 

The road from Glenshee down to Breamar and other roads in the Balmoral area were always a pleasure to drive.

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

 

 

Having been a teenager in the mid 60s in Liverpool I was lucky enough to experience the 'Merseybeat' and 'swinging sixties' era at first hand. Even better, as I've mentioned before, I was three years behind George Harrison and Paul McCartney at the same school and witnessed George practising guitar as well as going to The Cavern sometimes several times a week. Incidentally, the cloakroom girl at The Cavern was named Priscilla White - better known nowadays as Cilla Black. Happy days.

 

Dave 

 

That would be the 'real' Cavern though, not the one I frequented in the mid to late 70's?  Is the current one the same or has it moved again?

[The Johnster]

Clun is a Welsh word meaning narrow valley or gorge, as is Clydach though Clydach usually denotes something more cliff-sided.  The River Clun that gives it's name to Clunton, Clungunford, Clunbury and Clun, the quietest places under the sun (or however the rhyme goes), derives from it, but the pronounciation has been anglicised from the Welsh 'cleen' (u is an ee sound in Welsh, e is an 'air' without the r, Nantlle pronounced nantllair without the r, 'stream place'.  'Meh' is close to the sound, and even sheeps can say that) to 'clun', uh without the h sound, hardly suprisingly since we lost that part of the world to the diawl saes about 1,500 years ago, though it took us until about 600 years ago to accept that, and some of us are still burning cottages and wanting to drive the Saxon hordes back into the North Sea; wake up and smell the coffee, guys, we lost!

 

It is also anglicised as the Clyne Valley, the route by which the LNWR escaped Swansea Bay and the geographical eastern boundary of Gower, which itself results from credible and noble English attempts to say 'Gwyr'.  'Goo', goo as in shoe, not gow as in cow.

 

Gower/Gwyr, by the way, never the Gower/y Gwyr.  The Gower Peninsula/Penrhyn Gwyr is fine. 

 

I like words (sure use a lot of 'em, Johnster...) and their sometimes tortuous and convoluted origins.  I am blown away by the coincidences; for example, there is a range of mountains on Skye called the Cuillin Hills, the dogtooth hills, cu (kee) is dog in Gaelic and Brythonic Celtic languages.  The Irish legendary hero Cuchullan took this name as 'hound of Chullan' as a child, originally named Smetanta, after killing the original Irish wolfhound with his bare hands and teeth, considering himself honour-bound to serve as Chullan's replacement guard dog.

 

 

In Southern Canton province in China, half a world away and with no possible connection to early Celtic usage no matter how ancient, there are Guilin Mountains, famous for the fishermen who work the surrounding lakes with trained cormorants which understand that one of every five fish they catch is theirs, wage slaves food ...  The mountains are sheer sided volcanic basalt plugs, and the scenery is quite distinctive.

 

Guilin means dog tooth in Cantonese. 

 

Perhaps I should get a life...

[Dave Hunt]

21 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

That would be the 'real' Cavern though, not the one I frequented in the mid to late 70's?  Is the current one the same or has it moved again?

 

I don't know where the Cavern was in the 70s as I joined the RAF in 66 and didn't see it again until the 90s, by which time it was further along Matthew Street from the original location. 

 

Dave 

[figworthy]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Perhaps I should get a life...

 

I shouldn't bother.

 

I know a few people that have lives.  They seem very time consuming, complicated and expensive (lifestyles even more so).  Personally I'd stick with having an existence.

 

Adrian

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, BoD said:

 

The road from Glenshee down to Breamar and other roads in the Balmoral area were always a pleasure to drive.

 

And you really have to ask who 'holidays' in that neck of the woods.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Winslow Boy
It's spelt with an i not an o doh.

[J. S. Bach]

To me, good music died with the Big Bands!

[Gwiwer]

10 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Of course the Floyd's  hit see Emily Play will always be a favourite for a doting grandad.

Definitely special, that.  

 

Arnold Layne also, for entirely different reasons, addressing issues which were largely swept discreetly aside from the public domain at the time.  

 

Of the vast Floyd repertoire I find it hard to pick one stand-out favourite but one moment in life will always remain with me.  I was staying overnight in a rural youth hostel (Litton Cheney in deepest Dorset for those playing at home) where the only sound in the dorm after "lights-out" was that of the occasional turning-over in another bed or snuffle of breath.  And the next thing I knew there was music ..... 

 

..... drifting in from some ethereal place so quietly at first that I thought I was imagining it.  It grew slowly louder yet remained in the background of what had become a new morning.  First rays of sunlight streamed through the thin, cheap curtains. Birds sang outside beyond the windows and beyond sight.  The aroma of countryside drifted across the room.  A cow mooed.  And slowly, gently, the contents of this former milking barn woke and stretched as the music played on.  

 

The smell of freshly-brewed coffee mingled with that of the countryside.  Half a dozen chaps stirred around the dorm.  The music grew slightly louder and more intense as the piece developed.  And we rose, got about our days, prepared to go our separate ways and remember or totally forget the most gentle and most superb wake-up call I have ever known.  It drifted across the common room and it summed up how I felt about that moment ....... 

 

......... Wish You Were Here.  

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Gwiwer