Thursday, September 18, 2014

we followed Rosencrantz to the chippy on Exchange Street.

See all my photos today [here] .
By the way Capo Martin,we went to The Scuttlers Bar off Shude Hill ....../opposite the station & tram stop.Worth a visit sometime?
a fine photo Cath took of the gentle author in The Scuttlers Bar.


  Me and Cathy went to see Maxine Peake's new production of Hamlet at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre.
It opened late last week.
We went to today's matinee performance[.3 hefty bum-numbing hours.]
Straight after the performance ,as we left the theatre, Rosencrantz (a chick) still dressed in her stage costume of punk leathers,short skirt & tattoos, ran passed us along Exchange Street to the nearby chippy
.The cast would only have a couple of hours before the evening show would start.
Her hunger & urgency was fair enough.
 So far ,the play has only had moderate reviews (3 out of 5 in both The Telegraph & The Guardian although a 5/5 from The Times)
I found it fine myself .
Maybe its the gender thing they had difficulty with?Not only are Hamlet & Rosencrantz chicks..but Polonius and the gravediggers too! I loved those fucking gravedigging babes! Broad Scouse accents & (at the end of the play) one of them breaks into Frank Sinatra's MY WAY!
Generally,to be fair, Maxine is pretty loyal to the story + the Set Design was pretty groovy ! Dr Who sprang to mind!
All in all , a great bouncy play.
 A young lad in the audience sported a Bob Dylan teeshirt..& i must admit ,His Bobness does have something of The Prince of Denmark about him.
 Have I ever told you, in 1972 i went on a Youth Hostel holiday to Denmark & visited Helsinor Castle! Which is more than Shakespeare ever did.........


Saturday, September 13, 2014

he's the hairy handed gent who ran amuck in Kent

It was Ken Kersley's 62 birthday today.We went into Halifax tonight for a few drinks  to examine the Olden Days.......
Here are some pictures of that.......
Happy Birthday Comrade Ken!

 By the way.... Jack The Ripper was NOT Polish !The media,she tells lies..... (read the truth  here)

Friday, September 05, 2014

An Architect's Dream.



The audio is of Kate Bush in London on August 26, 2014.
She is singing
"An Architect’s Dream".

The image is a still from a video I took today on my Hebden Bridge Patio. (for some reason I cant upload it here.You will have to be my friend on facebook to see it,I'm afraid)  The video is of an Ice-Bucket Challenge i did.The money is for Cancer Care.
Phil the x-Fireman's daughter Rowena asked me to do it.
Phil himself has cancer.He started a 5-week radiotherapy & chemotherapy course of treatment this week at NHS Cookridge:Leeds .
Please pray for him.
[ps Thanks Clive :the Polish CD arrived today,Much Thanks Sir.] 
If anybody wants the entire 3cd set of Kate Bush's opening night,just let me know & i will run you off copies.(This includes 2 video clips!)
.Never Forget ,All Property is Theft!
 I was a bit bemused by all the media hype about her  last week.
You would have thought that Nick Drake or Jeff Buckley had been brought back to life! 
I like the lass well enough.(but  ,why no Northern Dates?)
To me,she is Peter Gabriel in Frock  (this is not a bad thing........)
+I suspect she is one of Cameron's Babe's .Non? 
Saying That,if someone had have given me a free ticket,I would have gone see her! In any event...here she is Climbing That Hill

Friday, August 29, 2014

now all the bonny birds have wheeled away


Danko, Fjeld & Andersen: Live at Skitz & Roll, Bagno di Gavorrano, Italy, December 4, 1994. {source:}

Saturday, August 23, 2014

our feet get bigger as we get older(who knew?)


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A photo of Len presenting me with one of his old string vests.It was to be part of my 'costume' as The Polish Builder in The Village People on a Stag Do in Benidorm

A personal best today!
 I swam two miles in Sowerby Bridge Pool before 930am!
The reason for my being there was that ,next door to the pool, was my NHS Podiatry.I was later visiting for an ingrowing toe nail.
My Foot Nurse  told me that ,as you get older,your feet tend to get bigger.Imagine!
 I told her that it was nice to know that something got bigger when you got older (she looked at me as if I was a bit  soft.......)

These photos I took in Rochdale tonight.Some of the lads from The Rochdale Hamam met for a drink
.A nice night.Thanks for the organisation,Martin (& your photos of Carter Lane Youth Hostel ( where I lost my virginity)
I was sorry to hear about the death of Len from Marsden.
Len fought the 2nd World War in North Africa ,The Middle East  then up the spine of Italy. I knew him in his later years  at The Rochdale Hamam. Rest  Yourself Now, In Peace , Len X



Saturday, August 16, 2014

behind garden walls

Evinize gelen yeni bireyden ötürü sizi kutlarız!
I hear from Ayse that she gave birth in Montreal this week! Welcome Baby Zehra ! Much Love From Tony   X

A wee timeline to inform this post:
*February 16th 1968 saw The Beatles,Mike Love,Mia Farrow,Donovan travel to India to visit Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at Rishikesh.

*July 12th 1968 saw The Belfast Orange March .(which was to be the last trouble-free  march for 30 years)

*5th 1968  saw the start of Northern Ireland's "Troubles": {"The Troubles:1968-1998"}

My brother Ziggy gave me & Phil (the X-Fireman) a lift in his car to catch the Heysham -Belfast ferry. It was 1968.
This was my second holiday without my Mam & Dad.The previous year, 5 of us from School had hired a caravan in Great Yarmouth.
This time only me & Phil.  As i write this I realize that , for the first time , Belfast was the  only occasion we have ever been abroad together.He nearly came to my house in Italy a couple of years ago..but because of his mother's illhealth ,had to cry off at the very last minute .)
Anyway......I knew nothing about Northern Ireland politics..I didn't know it was going to blow up only months after we had been there.
In fact Belfast harbor itself 'blew my mind'.A big beefy Policeman glared at us as well walked off the ferry.A big fat gun on his hip....It looked more like a Chicago mobster movie to me...I felt like Elliot Ness on a Mission....
Phil's dad Bob was a Protestant Ulsterman.  His family lived on the Shankhill Road. Phil had never been before,so we had to walk with our rucksacks through the terraced streets .They all still had the archways & bunting & dates& King Billy scrawled on walls from the previous month's Orange March......Seriously fucking weird.
Phil had primed me beforehand."Dont talk about religion" "tell 'em your CofE";We were hitching from Belfast to Dublin afterwards.The agreement was we swapped religion at the border.
(Strangely.Phil would join The British Army a couple of years later & patrol those same borders again.)
His family made me very welcome .Being both Cof E & an English accent gave me browny -points i guess..........
After as couple of days we set of out of Belfast.Camping &hitching our way to The Free State.
Eventually we got to Dublin.Staying in a Youth Hostel opposite Mountjoy Prison
After that we walked inland........eventually  staying  in a pretty rural Youth Hostel on the other side on Bray.It  had a   Graveyard  with  bodies of Germany Navy sailors from World War 2.
we stayed for several  days R&R....& meeting new arrivals.  It was like a scene from Easy Rider! This American dude & beard rode his motorbike into town with a very young girlfriend in tow (she must have been 10 years his minor).
The Irish wife of the hostel warden was scandalized ( she looked like the housekeeper from Father Ted).But she let them stay a night (saying something to the effect of 'Good Riddance' as they rode off into the horizon the following morning)
He was a really friendly bloke.Said they were from California .They were just touring Europe for a few weeks on their own.
Thing was.He looked like Mike Love from The Beach Boys.We were too shy to ask him more......Now this may have been an opportunity missed?But ,on the other hand, our silence then allowed us to dine out on the possibility ever since!
A few weeks after returning to England, i happened to be reading in the NME that Mike Love had spent August 'holidaying in Europe'.......who knows? Perhaps....? From this distance , its nice to imagine that Me & Phil might have had a couple of walk-on parts in the The Californian  Dream.
Phil The Pre-Fireman  in 1966

Say a prayer to any gods you know.My best friend Phil is going through hard times at the moment.I have known him since we went to school together in 1963. He is like a second brother to me.I have many tales to tell.Watch this space! The Summer of 65 ,on hearing I was going with my family to relatives in Poland,he asked me to "Bring Back A Piece Of The Iron Curtain".I have been trying to do that for him ever since.......we shall call it unfinished business..
{. Sandy Denny & Fairport Convention: Like An Old Fashioned Waltz :Live at Clark University, Worcester, MA; April 27, 1974. }

Ken,Tony ,Phil & Iris: This Afternoon in Halifax.
Some photos [here] from this special meeting today in Halifax.Much Love is Here. No doubt,I will talk later about this all .....

Saturday, July 26, 2014

retail therapy [shop till you drop]

Visit www.bdsmovement.net to get more info on how you can to support Palestinian commercial rights.

I attended this day of action in Manchester today  to protest about the murder of ,now, 1000 Palestinians by Israel.
Last week had seen an even  larger march in Manchester.
today's march was smaller ,maybe because of the "Direct Action" element?
Today was a walk  through the city centre.Stopping off at Banks & businesses that support Israel.
It ended at the Kedem shop on King Street.
Kedem has now been targetted for 7  days.Today we were met by a couple of hundred people who supported the shop.They waved Israel flags & union jacks and were not happy (they lost another whole day's trade today..Ironically their 'friends' helped to prevent any shoppers going  anywhere near the place)
Kedem is an upmarket beauty product shop that sells stuff made in Israel & sourced from the Dead Sea.
One of the Kedemians  was rather rude to a young Muslim woman who had brought her young children on the protest.
"You should be ashamed of yourself bring children to such a dangerous place" she spat in the Muslims face.Which is rather ironic.Non?

Thursday, July 24, 2014

So mournful that the dove just laughs the steadfast gasps


Oh, to be not anyone
Gone this maze of being skin
Oh, to cry not any cry
So mournful that the dove just laughs the steadfast gasps

Oh, to owe not anyone
Nothing to be
Not here but here
Forsaking equatorial bliss

Who walked through the callow mist
Dressed in scraps
Who walked the curve of the world
Whose bone scraped, whose flesh unfurled

Who grieves not, anyone gone to greet lame
The inspired sky amazed to stumble
Where God's get lost
Beneath the southern cross

Friday, July 18, 2014

rocking in the free world


Photo taken in Burnley by Michael H Gregg In the meantime please consider this......
.Neil Young's Israel Concert Cancelled To Not 'Put People In Gaza Rocket Range At Unnecessary Risk'
.Indeed .Poor Zion..
I took these photos in Burnley Municipal Cemetery this morning.
I had given Chris a lift for an Interview he was having with Burnley Council's  Parks & Garden Dept.(he finds the result of this within the next couple of weeks)
Quite a surreal place to have a job interview ! But a pleasant wait for me.

































Burnley has it's own muslim area of burial.
This morning I  said  prayers for the murdered innocent men,women & children of  the current  Gaza Ghetto Uprising
 May they rest in peace
 & may their Israeli murders find some apropriate  punishment. somewhere down the line.....
Plus,Burnley has  a fine War Memorial for the British dead in two World Wars
.Also,a surprise, a memorial for The Hapton Valley Colliery Disaster 1962
To my shame,I had never known about.......
The new Hapton Valley Colliery soon acquired the name Spa Pit on account of the discovery of a mineral spring around 1818 by Ambrose Eastwood a local farmer. The spring was close by the new pit, and the name adopted. The method of coal extraction at this time at Hapton Valley would have been by pick and shovel working the pillar and stall method of extraction........
....The most fateful day in the collieries history of course was the disaster of March 22 nd. 1962, when a total of nineteen men perished...........
"The Ship Song" Nick Cave: Live at the Admiralspalast, Berlin, Germany; February 13, 2013.

Phil's Birthday

  My friend of 60 years Phil got married just a week ago to Iris . (He died last Sunday ) .  Today was Phil's Birthday . We went o...