We had a request from a friend for a PA system for Friday night. I said that we should do it, because the person had helped Chris on the video shoot earlier this year. Chris plays drums in an Iggy Pop tribute band and they needed to shoot a showreel for the promoters, and Millsy works as lighting technician at the venue they used. Anyway, Chris drove overnight to his pickup point (he had to take a load from Runcorn in Cheshire down to near London Airport and then on to Bristol).
I kept in contact with him during the morning and then decided to draw up a list of all the components that he'd need. This was almost the first work I'd done in weeks. later, when he came home we used my list to select all the leads and cables that were needed. No, I didn't load the van.
After that it was Strictly followed by Children in Need, slouched in front of the TV.
Sue came in early from work and we had a cuppa while the TV played in the corner. There's a show on ITV called Golden Balls. I seldom watch it but I know that its host is onetime folk singer turned observational comedian called Jasper Carrott.
Back in the early 1970s I joined a traditional folk group, playing guitar, learning mandolin, and enjoying the craic. When we ventured outside of London to a Festival, we'd invariably set up a session in the beer tent, and I recall seeing Jasper sing his version of "12 days of Christmas" and "bastity chelt" at the Cambridge Folk festival of 1972. A few months later our band, now named "Captain Swing" played support to Jasper somewhere in deepest Enfield. I like Jasper. Like Billy Connolly, he started as a singer/musician, and like the Big Yin, he found that the audiences preferred the introductions to his songs, so that the songs grew fewer, and the comedy took over.
Anyway, back to Golden Balls. It's tosh, and, like Deal or No Deal, the contestants don't have to answer any questions in order to win. All they have to do is bluff to the other players about the values of the balls they hold. No problems so far, except when the contest is whittled down to the final two, they each try to convince the other of their honesty, and that they should share the prize pot. They then reveal their hands, either "share" or "steal". If they've both chosen to share, they share the prize. If they both choose to steal, they get nothing. If one says he is willing to share but reveals the "steal" ball. He wins the lot, and the honest one get nothing.
Call me old-fashioned, but I couldn't live with myself if I "won" a fortune by lying. I like quiz shows where the contestants have to display knowledge of some sort.
From politicians who milk the system to their advantage to pop stars who don't sing on their own records to tea time quiz shows that reward dishonesty, we live in strange times.
OK rant over. It's time for breakfast. Today I will be mostly watching TV.
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Dave Clemo's account of living with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Don't forget to add your comments when you drop in.
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My recommended reading
- "The Stars my Destination" by Alfred Bester was published in 1956, so it stands as the last of the pre space-age sci-fi novels. The hero is Gully Foyle and he is a man on a mission. He is out to exact retribution to the occupants of a space liner who ignored his distress signals and left him to die in deep space. It's a brilliant epic story, and is Bester's best novel by far. Neil Gaiman writes in the forward that it stakes a claim to be the first cyberpunk novel, albeit thirty years before the genre was established. I've read it at least four times in the last forty years, and I can highly recommend it. 10/10.
- "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner. First published in 1968. This is a stunning book, written in the 1960s but set at the turn of the 21st century. The title refers to the fact that if every person alive was given a space 2ft by 1ft, they would all fit on the island of Zanzibar. By the time the novel ends, they have overflowed the island and are standing in the water. It deals with the pressures of conflicting world ideologies, overpopulation, how advertising and propaganda can shape our worldview, and features a character called Chad C Mulligan, a socioligist who was so appalled at mankind that he just dropped out. But not before publishing a book called "The Hipcrime Vocab" which was duly banned by the authorities. Brunner predicts legalised recreational drug use, intelligent computers, politics by assassination, and a state of war between conflicting ideologies. And spontaneous riotings and "muckers"- people who just go beserk and run amuck, killing as many people as possible. Spooky. 10/10
- "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. First published 1957. Over 10 years in writing, this is a stunning read. Set in the near future (from a 50s viewpoint), it sets out what inevitably happens when socialism is allowed full rein. Eerily prescient. 10/10.
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