Pressed Rat and Warthog

A sly fox of a song, one that slipped onto Cream's 1968 album 'Wheels of Fire' in between some incredible songs by Jack Bruce and Pete Brown plus some of Clapton's finest guitar playing. This song was by Ginger Baker and Mike Taylor and somehow fitted in neatly with this more experimental album.

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didn’t want to; ’twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat’s collection of dog legs and feet.

Sadly they left, telling no one goodbye.
Pressed rat wore red jodhpurs, warthog a striped tie.
Between them, they carried a three-legged sack,
Went straight round the corner and never came back.

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
The bad captain madman had told them to stop
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat’s collection of dog legs and feet.

The bad captain madman had ordered their fate.
He laughed and stomped off with a nautical gate.
The gate turned into a deroga tree
And his pegleg got woodworm and broke into three.

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didn’t want to; ’twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat’s collection of dog legs and feet.

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Ruffage

fiber /fi·ber/ (fi´ber)
1. an elongated, threadlike structure.
2. nerve f.
3. dietary f.

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A fibers myelinated afferent or efferent fibers of the somatic nervous system having a diameter of 1 to 22 μm and a conduction velocity of 5 to 120 meters per second; they include the alpha, beta, delta, and gamma fibers.
accelerating fibers , accelerator fibers adrenergic fibers that transmit the impulses which accelerate the heart beat.
adrenergic fibers nerve fibers, usually sympathetic, that liberate epinephrine or related substances as neurotransmitters.
afferent fibers , afferent nerve fibers nerve fibers that convey sensory impulses from the periphery to the central nervous system.
alpha fibers motor and proprioceptive fibers of the A type, having conduction velocities of 70 to 120 meters per second and ranging from 13 to 22 μm in diameter.
alveolar fibers fibers of the periodontal ligament extending from the cementum of the tooth root to the walls of the alveolus.
arcuate fibers the bow-shaped fibers in the brain, such as those connecting adjacent gyri in the cerebral cortex, or the external or internal arcuate fibers of the medulla oblongata.

And there you have it...RUFFAGE...Nuff said?

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aNOtHEr trIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mUdDY miRE.

The Wildfowl Reels or Folk Songs by any other name - A Fairy's Tale

words and music by Shay Healy, Oisin Music Ltd, Ireland

In days of old in a kingdom bold, there lived a fearsome dragon.
And the King he was in great distress and the countries spirits flagoned.
Until one day there came a knight, he was handsome, bold, and charming.
And he slew the dragon with his sword with a smile that was so disarming.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nany no, a smile that was so disarming.

Said the King I wish to know your name, but the knight said do not bother.
For the name of a knight of the realm says he, is the same as any other.
Said the King tonight in my daughter's bed you shall take your leisure.
And she'll reward you for your deed, with a night of exhausting pleasure.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nany no, anight of exhausting pleasure.

One daughter she had raven hair, a maiden young and chaste.
And she slept all night in the pale moonlight, naked to the waist.
The other daughter she was fair, the fairest in the town.
And she slept all night in the pale moonlight naked from her small waist down.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nany no, naked from her small waist down.

Well the knight he spends many hour behind the castle wall.
But the ending to my story dear, isn't what it seems at all.
For in neither bed of neither maid was he repaid for his glory.
But he slept all night with the King instead for this is a fairy story.
With a hey and a ho and a hey nany no, for this is a Fairy story.


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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Something for a musical weekend QUOTE

"Today's white hope is tomorrow's black sheep...I seriously advise all sensitive composers to die at the age of 37."

William Walton

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

A Feast of Posters

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Tommy Cooper

Another comedy genius who sadly is no longer with us. He didnt have to say anything to make us laugh - just that face and body language was enough to make you titter.
His infectious laugh and pathetic magic tricks made his act look rather amateurish and feeble but here is a master of comic timing at work.
I found this CD today in a charity shop and happy uplaod most of it here. You have to see him to appreciate the full Tommy Cooper magic.

"Tommy Cooper was born in Caerphilly, South Wales on 9th March 1922. He was two months premature, possibly the last time in his life that he was early. Being a premature baby in 1922 was not the best start in life and the doctor who delivered Tommy didn't hold out much hope for his survival. However, his grandmother kept him alive on drops of brandy and condensed milk and little Tom got stronger as each day passed. Within a few weeks he was well enough for the family to move to Exeter in Devon.

When he was eight years old his aunt Lucy bought him a magic set and Tommy spent hours playing with it and perfecting the tricks. At the age of sixteen he got a job on board a boat as an apprentice shipwright and it was here that he gave his first public performance. In typical Cooper style each trick he performed went disastrously wrong. He was supposed to pull a series of coloured handkerchiefs from a cylinder, but they got stuck, a card fell out of his sleeve, Tommy ran out of the room, tears running down his face. When he finally managed to calm down he began to analyse just why he'd messed it up. "I got stage fright." He would recall years later. "That's why it all went wrong. But then I thought to myself, well, it might have all gone wrong but I got a laugh. Perhaps I should concentrate on that."

In 1940 Tommy got his call-up papers and went into the Horse Guards. Six foot four with size thirteen boots Tommy must have looked an impressive sight. "On the first day there I put my foot in the stirrup but the saddle slipped and I ended up underneath the horses belly. Everyone was sitting on their horse except me." His unit were eventually dispatched to the Middle East where Tom was wounded in the right arm. Following this he joined the concert party entertaining the troops. It was here that he began perfecting his act of the magician whose tricks go wrong. "


Tommy Cooper - The Very Best Of...

Under Milk Wood

I know little of poets apart from this man and even then, to my shame still not enough. I recall it being said by one of my English lit masters that Dylan Thomas was often thought of as being too fond of wordplay. As ever in my school career, I was at odds with this point of view as I was with much of what I was taught, or rather what I wasn't taught. Dylan Thomas was everything that I would want a poet to be: passionate and wordy. Oh, for sure I love the works of Basho and also of Haiku but I have always found far too much math is employed in the construction of poetry and at times that can blind you to the real joy and beauty of the piece. Of course, that is just my jaundiced opinion.

This incredible radio play, as it was originally, is, as far as I am concerned, poetry. Richard Burton's warm tones add a depth and richness to the tale that in itself weaves its wordy way through the dreams and day to day doings of this fictional Welsh town. The characters are as real and surreal as you could ask for; their lives resonate with a truth. It was and still is a fabulously imaginative play.
I often place the cassette ( a thing of the past those) into the slot and have a quiet hour or so's listen.
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aNOtHEr dIp Into ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Frankie Howerd

Another wonderful eccentric comedian whose act mainly consisted of "Ooohs!" "AaaahS" "O no missus!" and camp innuendo. Apparently the script writers had to include all the asides- the oohs, the aahs etc. in the actual script!

Wikipedia says-

"Howerd was born the son of a soldier, Francis A. W. Howard in York, North Yorkshire, England, in 1917 (not 1922 as he later claimed). He was educated at Shooters Hill Grammar School in Woolwich, London.[1] His first appearance on stage was at age 13 but his early hopes of becoming a serious actor were dashed when he failed an audition for RADA. He got into entertaining during World War II service in the army. Despite suffering from stage fright he continued to work after the war, beginning his professional career in the summer of 1946 in a touring show called For the Fun of It.

He soon started working in radio, making his debut at the start of December 1946 on the BBC Variety Bandbox programme with a number of other ex-servicemen. His fame built steadily throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s (aided by material written by Eric Sykes, Galton and Simpson and Johnny Speight). In 1954, he made his screen début opposite Petula Clark in The Runaway Bus, which had been written for his specific comic talents, but he never became a major film presence. The film was so low budget that because they could not afford scenery, background and such, they used a fog generator so that little was visible other than what was being filmed. The film was an immediate hit.

When he began experimenting with different formats and contexts, including stage farces, Shakespearean comedy roles, and television sitcoms, he began to fall out of fashion. After suffering a nervous breakdown at the start of the 1960s, he began to recover his old popularity, initially with a season at Peter Cook's satirical Establishment Club in Soho in London. He was boosted further by success on That Was The Week That Was (TW3) in 1963 and on stage with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1963–1965), which led into regular television work. In 1966 and 1967, he did a 90 minute Christmas show called The Frankie and Bruce Christmas Show with Bruce Forsyth, featuring many top acts of the day. He was awarded an OBE in 1977.


With Petula Clark in The Runaway BusThrough the 60's and 70's, Howerd did a number of shows for BBC and Thames (as well as Frankie Howerd Reveals All for YTV in 1980). Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote for him from 1964-1966 when he worked for the BBC and also for a one-off show for Thames: Frankie Howerd meets The Bee Gees (shown 20th Aug 1968). He was famous for his seemingly off-the-cuff remarks to the audience, especially in the show Up Pompeii!, which was a direct follow-up from Forum. His television work was characterised by addressing himself directly to the camera and littering his monologues with verbal tics: "Oooh, no missus", "Titter ye not", and so on but a later sale of his scripts showed that the seemingly off-the-cuff remarks were all planned. Another feature of his humour was to feign innocence about his obvious and risqué double entendres while mockingly censuring the audience for finding them funny.

Howerd's face was a gift to comedy but a testament to tragedy. When a reporter wrote that he had a face like "a landslide of sadness", Howerd got in touch with him to say how right that was."

Three tracks from the CD "The Best of British Comedy" on the Disky label.

Frankie Howerd - Song And Dance Man

Frankie Howerd - I'm Nobody's Baby

Frankie Howerd - It's Alright With Me

A Feast of Posters

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

A Feast of Posters

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.