Back to it

 Well its been five months since I've blogged anything. I rather went off the boil to be honest, and a lot has happened in those five months. A significate birthday for me, lockdown restrictions easing, a proper xmas  and more besides, so I'll now do a bit of a blog in no particular order.

Lockdown gets easier, most people have had two jabs and a booster and with that more freedom. We've even been to a gig, the first in two and a half years! We should have gone to see Saxon in 2019 but their singer Biff Byford had heart surgery, then covid hit and the date was bounced twice more but on 29th Feb 2022 we saw them!

A fractious journey though! We drove from home to South Harrow station as its on the Piccadilly tube line that went straight to Hammersmith, simples! However on arriving at South Harrow we found not only was the station closed but the entire Piccadilly line closed for engineering works! Bugger!

Drove back to Harrow on the Hill station to find the car park has been built on so eventually found street parking. Once on the tube we eventually got to Hammersmith, then google maps seemed to take us the pretty route to walk to the pub where we'd arranged to have dinner. Luckily I was able to phone ahead as we were an hour late however it was all good. Got to the pub, and relax! The Dove is a brilliant pub on the Thames. It overlooks the river and also has the smallest bar in the world. We looked in it and two people and a dog filled it! Luckily there's more to the place than the one bar! Its an old pub being the meeting place of Charles II and Nell Gwyn so dates back to at least mid 17th century. 

Good dinner, couple of beers and time to go to what I've always known as the Hammersmith Odeon but is now the Hammersmith Apollo. The first support, Diamond Head had just started as we arrived. They we're bad to be fair, only a short set ending with 'Am I evil?'  

Next up were Girlschool, old troupers and a bloody good band. Stablemates of Motorhead, they know their stuff. A great set, though another one not very long. That's the only trouble having three support acts for the main event, inevitably the sets are shorter.     

Then came Uriah Heep. They were very good and played a number of songs that I didn't know were Uriah Heep!  The founder member Mick Box still giving it some welly!

Then the main event. Saxon! A good solid Heavy Metal band that won't let you down. You just know you're in safe hands for a great gig. A two hour set at that! A number of times Biff thanked everyone for holding on to their tickets, I got the impression he was genuinely touched and thankful. A grand stage set  featured a huge sliver eagle , don't think my photos do it justice really. Though we had a great seat we think we might have been in an area for seating for friends of the bands or something as there was a constant coming and going of different people which was bit of a pain but nonetheless  a brilliant gig!

Saxon have just brought out a new album ( Carpe Diem) and although Biff talked about they didn't play even one song from it! I think this is much better than bands that play lots of new stuff you don't know  but I thought maybe they'd sing one new song. Not that I'm  complaining.  

   

 

Post gig Tara suggested looking at an Uber cost as the tube trains still had a line out, which we did! Cost abit but we got back to the car much much quicker!

Anyway, it had been a great night! 

Want the set lists as well?

1. Diamond Head.
2. Bones
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3. The Messenger
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4. Lightning to the Nations
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5. Sweet and Innocent
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6. Helpless
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7. Am I Evil

1. Girlschool   
2. Demolition Boys
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3. C'mon Let's Go
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4. Guilty as Sin
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5. Future Flash
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6. Nothing to Lose
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7. Race With the Devil
   (The Gun cover)
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8. Bomber
   (Motörhead cover)
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9. Emergency

1. Uriah Heep
2. Grazed by Heaven
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3. Too Scared to Run
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4. Gypsy
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5. Look at Yourself
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6. July Morning
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7. Sunrise
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8. Easy Livin'
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9. Song played from tape
   Outro
   (Elgar: Land Of Hope And Glory)

1. Saxon
2. Motorcycle Man
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3. Battering Ram
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4. Wheels of Steel
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5. They Played Rock and Roll
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6. Strong Arm of the Law
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7. Denim and Leather
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8. Thunderbolt
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9. Backs to the Wall
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10. The Eagle Has Landed
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11. Never Surrender
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12. Dogs of War / Solid Ball of Rock
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13. Dallas 1 PM
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14. And the Bands Played On
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15. To Hell and Back Again
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16. Power and the Glory
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17. Heavy Metal Thunder
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19. Encore:
20. Crusader
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21. 747 (Strangers in the Night)
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22. Princess of the Night

An idiots guide to an idiot: My favourite castle.

An idiots guide to an idiot: My favourite castle.: Do you have a favourite castle?  I do. It's Old Wardour Castle in Wiltshire. It's not the grandest or biggest or best preserved but ...

My favourite castle.

Do you have a favourite castle?  I do. It's Old Wardour Castle in Wiltshire.

It's not the grandest or biggest or best preserved but I like it. I think it was my Mum & Dad who told us about it, they'd found it on  a trip to nearby Shaftesbury. It's been used in films, probably the most famous one being Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner in 1991. For ages they had the sword that Costner had used, I've got photos of the boys holding it. I understand this sword was given to curator when he retired so although they still have a sword that  they say is Robin Hoods, its not! It's a castle that's been knocked about abit. It was laid siege to twice during the English Civil War and that rather sealed it's fate as a castle to live in as it took alot of damage. Later New Wardour Castle was built, though not a castle but a house ( now a school) with the old castle as more or less a folly in the grounds. It's now owned by English Heritage. As I said my Mum & Dad introduced us to the castle and there's a confession I have to make. My Dad carved his name on the wall  of the tower! Strangely enough a while later a sheet of perspex was put over some  old graffiti near his name and it covered his graffiti too!

Some claim to fame, you won't tell anyone will you!  The land around the castle is really nice too. There's a walk encircling it that the nobs from the house would have  ridden their carriages around and also a walk down to the villages of Donhead St Andrew & Donhead St Mary. The latter has links to my family history as my Great Grandfather, George Morgan was born there in 1859 along with most of his five brothers and sisters, and also his Mum Emily (nee Fanner) in 1829.She married my Great Great Grandfather James  Morgan at the church of St Mary's on 23rd October  1858. They must have known the castle and its more than likely they walked the same paths as we have.

So there you have it, my favourite castle. What's yours?

I have lots of photos of us at the castle but can't find one at the moment!

An idiots guide to an idiot: Musical dearth

An idiots guide to an idiot: Musical dearth:  We had, like everyone else, gigs bounced from last year to this because of Covid  so this year we were expecting most to go ahead. Sadly no...

Musical dearth

 We had, like everyone else, gigs bounced from last year to this because of Covid  so this year we were expecting most to go ahead. Sadly not. Six gigs and a  festival we were set to go to all got bounced to next year with one being cancelled. Actually the festive did go ahead but we couldn't go due to the crap firm I worked for at the time. 

Our last hope for a gig this year was Snake Oil & Harmony ( with Danny Vaughn) in November but that's been cancelled altogether. There are music  events going ahead this year of course  and we'd have gone if the ones we'd booked went ahead ,though  not entirely sold on the idea of going to venues yet to be fair  but never thought I'd get two year of no live music!

Roll on 2022! 

An idiots guide to an idiot: Walking the ground.

An idiots guide to an idiot: Walking the ground.: I drove past road signs to Naseby the other day and it got me thinking about battlefields I've walked round.  Not very many to be honest...

Walking the ground.

I drove past road signs to Naseby the other day and it got me thinking about battlefields I've walked round.  Not very many to be honest and all in England at that! 

So what is it about walking the ground? I'd say I'm quite unimaginative generally but give me a battlefield and it comes to life!  You can read book after book  but to stand at the hedge where Okey's Dragoons  fired  into the Royalist cavalry flanks at Naseby and understand the terrain is something else.  The very streets of St Albans were the battlefield at the First Battle of St Albans during the Wars of the Roses in 1455 and  the road  layout and  alot of the buildings  still exist! 

You can still find your way round the Battle of Barnet (1471) and understand why certain things happened the way they happened. It's my ambition to walk more battlefields in the UK & in Europe. With such a wealth of records available now I could find  where my Grandad was on the first day of the Somme in 1916, I could walk the ground at Bullecourt where Tara's Grt Uncle disappeared on 3rd May 1917 and of course I'd love to see and explore the D-Day beaches plus the earlier battles like Waterloo, Agincourt, Crecy et al.

Walking the ground is vitally important to grasp and understand what happened, not to mention the fact that in no small measure you are walking the path of heroes. There's really nothing like it!

   

The perils of a pub dinner.

 There was two pubs in the village of Saltfleet, both walkable from the cottage we were staying in. Happy days!

The New Inn backed onto a caravan/mobile home/holiday park site so they've pretty well got a  captured market. It was OK. We were amused to be asked  to sit in a different bar as we had Ida with us. The bar we could sit in was just as tatty & underwhelming as the non dog bar! Anyway, bit of a wait on food  but we were told this from the off so no problem there. Tara had her  two choices off the menu, even though I'd contacted them prior to see whether they did  gluten free and veggie. Two choices isn't exactly much of a choice! Tara had mushroom stroganoff  which was  fine and I steak & stilton pie......there're still looking for the stilton, there certainly wasn't any in my pie!  Choice of beer wasn't great either. A thoroughly underwhelming experience but worse was to come. 

As I said there was another pub in the village so all was not lost, or so we thought. On going up to the bar in The Crown  first of all the handpump beers were off, not a very inspiring start that just got worse. Pretty basic menu, only item flagged as gluten free & veggie was a pizza. Fine! pizza it is......'Sorry! Not doing pizzas tonight.' Anything else gluten free & veggie? 'Well there's chicken salad' said  our waitress who looked like she had Groucho Marx moustache as an eyebrow. I kid you not. What a dismal experience. Mission  abandoned  we went back to the cottage and rustled up  some grub that was both gluten free & veggie, with a very acceptable red wine.  

We'd just about given up on eating out but found a pub in nearby North Somercotes called the Axe & Cleaver.  I'd   phoned to book, went through our usual rigmarole of asking about their food and making sure we could take Ida. All good, we booked for  that evening. Though bizarrely when we got there, we were told someone had phoned an hour before and cancelled the booking! Even quoting the gluten free needs  etc, well it wasn't us!    However the staff couldn't have been more helpful and friendly and we were quickly found a table. Great food, a  good selection for Tara to choose from, all the staff just a delight. Had we been staying longer we'd have gone there  again, a sumptuous three sausage  ( Lincolnshire sausages of course!) mash and onion gravy for me and quorn shepherds pie for Tara  followed by sticky toffee pud and custard for me and Tara had probably the biggest Pavlova I've ever seen!  Here's the link to their website if you are ever in that area.https://www.axeandcleaver.com/ Well worth it! 

Ida and I had a pleasant walk along the sand dunes just before the weather broke on the last full day of our stay. We walked inland to a place called Hardy's Pullover, walking from the beach towards a red flag  in the car park. Next to the red flag was a sign  that stated not to go past this point if the red flag is flying it's an RAF gunnery range..... the direction from which we had just come! 

 We'd had a pleasant time in Lincolnshire though the roads even by Bedfordshire's low standards were pretty potholed and uneven  all adding greatly to T's discomfort. There's not a great amount to see or do on the Lincolnshire coast, we made the mistake of driving through Mablethorpe that seemed to be full of obese families  eating fish n chips, drinking Watney's Red Barrel & wearing Kiss me quick hats.   Absolutely great if you like that kind of thing. Saltfleet was a pleasant little place  but had a main road running through it which was a shame.

 

An idiots guide to an idiot: The perils of a pub dinner.

An idiots guide to an idiot: The perils of a pub dinner.:  There was two pubs in the village of Saltfleet, both walkable from the cottage we were staying in. Happy days! The New Inn backed onto a ca...

An idiots guide to an idiot: Church

An idiots guide to an idiot: Church:  Walked to a disused church today. Very pleasant walk to it over fields and along what they call drains but are streams of varying size. The...

Church

 Walked to a disused church today. Very pleasant walk to it over fields and along what they call drains but are streams of varying size. The church of St Botolph's was closed n the 1970's though it appears burials still take place here, strangely the building has been completely gutted. I thought maybe the altar and font may be in situ but they've gone as well. As have the windows, this could be to deter vandals though there's some graffiti on the inner walls.

There's six graves of Merchant Seaman washed up during World War Two, only one of them has been named. This is to Ordinary Seaman Roderick John McPhee McDonald an 18 year old Glaswegian killed on 21st Oct 1939 when his ship the SS Orsa hit a mine off Flamborough Head. She was taking coal from from the Tyne to Bordeaux. 16 sailors perished.

Continued our walk, only about 3 miles but it was nice and peaceful.

     

Took another walk later in the date over toward the sea. Its too far out to walk to so we just walked the edge by the dunes. Very pleasant.

An idiots guide to an idiot: Lincolnshire

An idiots guide to an idiot: Lincolnshire:  A few days away in a coastguards cottage in Saltfleet on the Lincolnshire coast. We can enjoy it properly this time too as there's no p...

Lincolnshire

 A few days away in a coastguards cottage in Saltfleet on the Lincolnshire coast. We can enjoy it properly this time too as there's no pressure of being out of a job, its also far nicer than the place we had in the Peaks a month or so ago, in fact things are looking up. It was a long drive and there's no doubt more people are holidaying in the UK  as there was queues to get into both service areas we tried to stop at!

Had a nice walk from the cottage yesterday that took us over countryside and coastline and much to my pleasure we happened upon a World War Two pillbox. A Lincolnshire 3 chamber pillbox to be exact. Containing a central open area for a light anti aircraft gun and two chambers either side for Bren guns. There is loopholes facing the sea and facing inland. Never used in anger of course but these things do fascinate me. 

An idiots guide to an idiot: Another old gig

An idiots guide to an idiot: Another old gig:  Another extract from The Morgan  Good Gig Guide this time from 1980.Rainbow was the first rock gig I'd gone to so here's what my id...

Another old gig

 Another extract from The Morgan  Good Gig Guide this time from 1980.Rainbow was the first rock gig I'd gone to so here's what my idiot 18 year old self thought:

Friday 29th Feb 1980. Wembley Arena. Price £4.00.

Rainbow supported  by Samson.

So begins the Heavy Metal saga. Went with Mark and Alan (known as The Priest &  Axeman)Samson were bril, they knew their stuff,  even to their  own 'Roadhouse Blues' number, there's was  'Inside Out." A grand support. Even the records played during the interval were good. 'I'm part of the union'(Strawbs)& 'All you need is love' (Beatles) got everyone singing. Then on stormed  a magnificent Rainbow, really spot on, especially Don Airey's (keyboards) & Cozy Powell's (drums ) solos. But they went off after only 90 minutes-no encore. That left some bad feeling , but it really was a magical gig. The best ever!!

Another review that won't be winning the Pulitzer Prize for literature! I also seem to have left alot out as far as  can remember. At one point I remember 'Land of Hope & Glory' pumping out of the PA system & everyone was singing! More like last night of the Proms that a rock gig! 

Samson then had an unknown vocalist  called Bruce Dickinson, though in Samson he was called Bruce Bruce. Even he doesn't seem to know why ( from his later bio  'What does this button do?') .Within a year he would be singing with Iron Maiden.  

Rainbow's line up was their very best as far as I'm concerned. Ritchie Blackmore is a great guitarist,  Graham Bonnet had such a powerful voice though not originally from a rock background, Roger Glovers bass line just kept the whole thing rocking, Don Airey's keyboards was sublime. His solo included classic, pop, old songs all sorts of stuff & of course the legend that was Cozy Powell on drums just blew us away.

The evening was cut short , I believe Blackmore threw a moody  & wouldn't come back on. Not on really, we were the mugs who paid to see him!  There was newspaper reports of a riot after because of this, well it's another time  the press  just  seemed to make things up, as we saw no such thing and we didn't rush out either. Have you seen the ticket price? £4.00!!   Wow!

I also bought an album there (vinyl that is, its all we had then!) 'Long Live Rock n Roll' their third album. I wrote a longer slightly more in depth review that is complete cobblers, I tried to wax lyrical & failed dismally. One day I'll transcribe the whole thing. Just be gentle with me !   

Shortened though it was  this gig lives in my memory as one of the greatest. There's more to come! 

An idiots guide to an idiot: War films

An idiots guide to an idiot: War films: A good friend of mine awhile back went through his favourite films & put his thoughts on Instagram & FaceBook, so cribbing his idea ...