“Well, the girls can’t stand her
‘Cause she walks, looks, and drives like an ace, now

And she’ll have fun, fun, fun
‘Til her daddy takes the T-bird away”

- The Beach Boys, “Fun, Fun, Fun”

One of these days I’ll get behind the wheel of my newly restored Ford Thunderbird and drive along with the hood down listening to the Beach Boys singing Fun Fun Fun. I’ve got the record- all I need to do is get the T-Bird restored. Vickram Seth chose Fun, Fun, Fun, as his first record on Desert Island Discs, when he related how his friend (or was it himself?) couldn’t understand why Daddy would take their Teapot away.

This surreal image reminded me of Bertrand Russell’s wonderful story of the Teapot in the Sky, which I’ve found to be quite useful as a diversionary tactic if any of my children ask an awkward question about religion. This is how Bertrand Russell put it, but he could just as well have been talking about a T-Bird in the sky:

“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”

To show that truth is stranger than fiction, the picture is of a teapot worshipped by a Malaysian cult. Unfortunately it has been demolished at the behest of the Islamic ruling party. The spoilsports. Where’s their sense of Fun, Fun, Fun?

This video is of Sodade… meaning, appropriately, longing.

My teenage instinct turned out to be spot on. Bert Jansch’s first album was one of the best folk/blues records made. I became such as fan that I even persuaded my school to invite him to play at a concert. Heavens knows what the dour Glaswegian made of the posh public school, or of the boy who followed him into the gents and got him to sign his album.

Bert Jansch went on to found Pentangle, a folk band who were too girlie for me. But not long ago he recorded a new solo album, Black Swan, which recalled his glory days. Over the years his looks had changed to the extent that he had become painfully fat and his record company made a sensible move in putting a picture of a black swan on the album cover.

These reflections have been prompted by the news of his death (news which reached me late, as I was abroad when he died in October). I’m dismayed that none of his early recordings are on Youtube, but the video below contains ‘Needle of Death’, from his eponymous album.

Wayne is loving it. Although this is his first time in a recording studio he’s completely relaxed. I popped in to say hello and wish him good luck and found him recording an original track written by Tim Riley, producer, song writer and music guru. The studio is at The Allen, in Kendal and Wayne is there to record his first album. He arrived with a clutch of his favourite songs, prepared to record an album of covers, but he’s enjoyed singing Tim’s composition so much that he’s asked for more of where that came from.

This video features Wayne singing Breaking Down These Walls, a song written and produced by Tim Riley.

In a week when the EU (the idiots) are proposing that companies should by law have a minimum quota of women on their boards, its good to see a place where women are utterly dominant on their own merits – the record charts. This week, for the first time, female solo artists have taken the top 7 places in the album charts and 10 out of the top 12. They have also topped the album chart for 25 out of the first 29 weeks of this year. And to show just how much they are punching above their weight, of the 5,000 albums released this year, only 11% have been by female artists.

Female artists also do well in the best selling albums of this century, but the most remarkable feature is that the first ten are all British. The list is:
1. Back to Bedlam- James Blunt 3,239,713
2. Back to Black- Amy Winehouse 3,092,198
3. No Angel- Dido 3,062,777
4. Spirit- Leona Lewis 3,034,653
5. White Ladder- David Gray 2,940,575
6. 1- The Beatles 2,898,235
7. Life For Rent- Dido 2,866,350
8. Beautiful World- Take That 2,820,079
9. A Rush of Blood to the Head- Coldplay 2,768,947
10. Hopes and Fears- Keane 2,761,649.

Deservedly, Amy Winehouse is set to take over the top spot very soon, although it’s my bet that Adele, who is at No 12 with 21 will have overtaken her by the end of the year.

Tucked away behind the Damson Dene Hotel, underneath the Leisure Club is an old decrepit store room which nobody visits. Walking past earlier today, I was surprised to hear what appeared to be a party going on. I popped my head in and there amongst the old abandoned sofas and mattresses, was the astonishing sight of Wayne sounding very much like Elvis! In fact so much like Elvis, that I wondered for a moment whether he was miming into the microphone. Could this be the same person, who, only a fortnight ago was seen shirtless in his caravan singing an off-key Band of Gold to his faithful dog Fly? This, it turns out, was the key to his clandestine crooning. Wayne had been so shocked to hear his singing voice on TV, that he was determined to get it back into shape. This video shows what a brilliant job he’s done and I think the time is right for him to bring his singing out of the shadows.

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, not mine”

Is Gloria the best rock song of all time? The original Gloria was written and recorded by Van Morrison in 1964 when he was the lead singer with Them. There is a famous and very dirty cover by The Doors. But Patti Smith’s version, with the opening line, added by herself, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine” has to be the best. This video shows her singing Gloria on the Jools Holland show in 2007, when she was 61. I can’t find a video of her singing the song when she was in her prime, 30 years before, but if the Jools Holland version is anything to go by it must have been amazing.
This song is crying out for a revival. It needs the power of a Hammond organ backing and two dynamic female lead singers- in other words The Heroes of She.

How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?
How many plugs can one programme receive before things are getting out of hand?
Yes, and how many trails can the listener endure before they want to change the wave band?
The answer my friends is not very many and the question is when is it going to end?

How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many times must the radio announce that an old rocker’s birthday is nigh?
Bob Dylan’s 70 and 70 is the number of times we’ve been told that but why?
The answer my friend is that Radio 4 trails tend to drive the listener round the bend.

This adaptation of Blowing in the Wind was sung by Graham Fellowes (aka John Shuttleworth) on Radio 4 in response to the dozens of complaints about the never-ending trailers for programmes celebrating Bob Dylan’s birthday. Not everyone complained- roll on his 75th! It was a little surprising, knowing how Dylan and his label like to soak every money-making opportunity, that there wasn’t a record release from the great man to go with the wall to wall publicity. But canny Lancashire lass Barb Jungr hasn’t let the opportunity slip by, with the release today of her second album of Dylan covers, The Man in the Long Black Coat. We’ve had to wait since 2002 for the follow up to A Single Grain of Sand but this is, if anything, better. The title track made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck; but for my money the best track is her version of Sara. The original, from ‘Desire’ has always been one of my favourite tracks (a clue can be found in the name of my youngest daughter) but Barb Jungr has improved on the original. Thank you Barb.

“For me Mackies is a Lovemark”
Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide, Saatchi and Saatchi

James Mackie leads a double life. The keyboard player (I should say Hammond player) with the Heroes of She made his name with Madness and The Selector. But when he’s not writing songs or playing at the O2 he runs the best interior design business in north Lancashire. He’s not just one of those designers who points to the “in” colour in the Farrow and Ball chart, he gets down and dirty doing the work himself, with a particular talent for trompe l’oeil. He’s done some brilliant work for me, the latest of which is the interior of the Rotunda at Newby Bridge- about which more in a day or so.

Today is the tenth anniversary of James’ firm, Mackies of Lancaster. James is hosting a bash at his elegant Georgian premises in Dalton Square, Lancaster. It’s a testament to how James is regarded by his clients that the boss of Saatchi and Saatchi, Kevin Roberts, has flown in from New Zealand to say a few words on James’ behalf. James is loved by us all, and I was particularly touched by Kevin’s paean of praise, which I rather wonkily captured on my iPhone.

Everyone in my generation remembers where they were when they heard the news of JFK’s assassination. I was at school with friends listening to ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’. It was Dylan’s second album but the first we had heard and it meant more to us then, and now, than the killing of the President. A lot of people in those days revered Dylan as a man with a message, a protest singer, but he’s said all along that he’s only there to entertain and this is what he’s done throughout the subsequent decades. I’m one of those who has gone on to buy everything he has released and if the truth be told some of it has been dire, but this hasn’t mattered in the least because we knew another gem would be just around the corner, and so it has proved, right up to the present day. Strangely, out of the hundreds of tracks he has recorded some of the best are out-takes or unpublished material which was later released on “official bootleg” or Biograph albums. If I was to choose his three best records I would plump for Angelina, Abandoned Love and the acoustic version of Idiot Wind, none of which were released until many years after they were recorded.

It seems a little weird to think that the music we were listening to in 1963 resonates as strongly now as it did then. We are all growing old together, and that feels good.