Yet another atrocity in a school in the USA and many more children who have had their lives taken away so very early. What will it take before the gun law changes or will that never happen? As a part of the so-called ‘civilised’ western world I feel so angry and upset about mass murder. I suspect it won’t be long before the press and politicians blame the films the murderer watched or the books he read or the games he played or the music he listened to? What about asking how he got the damned guns?
I have nothing else to add other than the numbness I feel so here is the song that is going through my head right now. I know it may not be lyrically appropriate but the chorus hook line are what are getting me through. My thoughts go out to all the family and friends of all those adults and children so cruelly cut down in their prime.
Based upon information released recently it is alleged that the US Government had planned to blow up the moon in the late 50s as a means of intimidating their nemesis in the Cold War, the Soviet Union. After the Russians effectively took the lead in the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik in 1957 it was apparently believed that a show of strength like blowing up the moon would really scare the Russians. Apparently it was called ‘A Study of Lunar Research Flights’ or ‘Project A119‘. Even that sounds a little James Bond like doesn’t it?
It really does seem like a crackpot scheme and it is unlikely at the time that anyone possessed enough in their nuclear arsenal to actually complete the task. At best it might have left the man in the moon looking more like the elephant Man and the satellite’s surface covered in high levels of radiation. In addition any debris that fell to earth would almost certainly have been radioactive as well.
I wonder if this idea came from the same think tank that thought of the idea of using an explosive cigar to blow up Fidel Castro or to rig the voting in Florida in 2000 in favour of Dubya. Ooops wait a minute that second one was true wasn’t it? had it happened then Neil Armstrong probably wouldn’t have been there to utter his famous ‘one step for man’ line. But then again maybe it did happen and didn’t work very well other than to make the moon radioactive. That would certainly give more credence to those people who believe the moon landings were faked and took place in a film studio directed by Stanley Kubrick.
I’d love to know what you think of this incredibly stupid, yet potentially real plan of Eisenhower’s government. Bearing in mind that his Vice President was Tricky Dicky Nixon, maybe it isn’t surprising! Anyway as I have said many times before so here are a few songs that may not have happened or certainly wouldn’t have been the same had the moon been blown to smithereens, feel free to add your own moon related songs.
Apologies but there are two kiddie fiddlers for the price of one on this next one!
And finally a special Billy Bonus, my favourite track from Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark side Of The Moon’; “Brain Damage”
The chart topping double was always seen as a great achievement when I was a teenager. I seem to recall Rod Stewart taking it a step further by having the number one single and album in both the UK and the USA at one point. Has that ever been done since? I’m not sure. Anyway the singles and album chart double is back with a bang in the UK. Last week Robbie Williams hit the top of the singles chart with a song that reluctantly I have to admit to liking; “Candy”. He then doubled up by sitting on the album chart peak with his new album ‘Take The Crown‘.
Robbie when he was still on the throne
He may have taken the crown but his time on the throne was short-lived, the single is down to number six and the album to number five. But a new pretender has taken the throne, sadly it’s One Direction or Wand erection as an acquaintance of mine called them. Are the charts as important now after 60 years of existence. I think they are and I am bloody disappointed that this band of five pop muppets has achieved this feat. Particularly as it seems to me that only one of them has a halfway decent voice. That’ll be you Harry Styles.
Their album is called ‘Take Me Home’ and I do wish that someone would. The single is called “Little Things” and on another sad note it’s an insipid cover of an Ed Sheeran song. But I guess Ed has to pay the bills. A previous One Direction single “Live While We’re Young” is still in the top 30 at number 26. While their first album ‘Up All Night’ continues to hang around the album chart at number 25. The pensioners are still hanging in there in the album charts though. Rod Stewart is at number two and the Rolling Stones are at number three, albeit with a Christmas album and yet another hits compilation respectively.
According to the Mail OnLine (so let’s treat the information cautiously) dogs prefer classical music to heavy metal and they don’t seem to like those cheap relaxing music for your canine friend CDs either. I wonder if that has anything to do with the location of their sub woofer? Click here to read the full article.
Anyway I thought that I’d like to try a little experiment about how true this is. So here are a few dog related songs that I would like you to play to your mutt and tell me what reaction you get. Unfortunately I can’t do that as I only have cats.
Much has been said today of the courage and sacrifices of generations of men and women who lost their lives or their way of life by serving their country and rightly so. I, as I hope all of you, could never express enough thanks for what these people have done and continue to do. So I make this post in memory of all those who have been lost or injured in conflicts across the globe.
This will be one of my shortest posts ever, I promise. I would like to say a big well done and sincere thanks to the American people for seeing sense and re-electing Barack Obama and not sliding to disaster with Romney. I’m sure that much of the world feels the same.
I nailed my colours to the wall the on this election quite clearly on an earlier post (click here to see that post) and I am so pleased America delivered. Enjoy Obama’s victory speech below and the song that was played as he took to the stage.
This is a special message to all my American readers. On November 6th you will have the chance to vote once again in a Presidential election. I would like to offer some advice and some opinions. I recognise that some of you may not agree with me, but I can live with that!
Firstly whatever happens please use your vote. Do not assume that your guy will win whether you vote for them or not. This election could be as close to call as the Dubya versus Gore election in 2000. Secondly and here is where I’m sure I’ll lose some of you. Vote Obama! He has been a great president in some very hard times trying to manage an economy which was almost dead and buried when he inherited it. All of this in the midst of a global recession. He has also introduced an incredibly forward thinking health care plan.
He may not have achieved everything he set out to do, but then look back at the record of any previous US President or indeed British Prime Minister and see what their delivery to promise ratio was. I suspect most of them would have been low. As a Brit I believe Obama has done a great job but even I am disappointed with some aspects of his first term, notably a failure to close down th prison facility at Guantanamo Bay. But compared to his opponent Mitt Romney he is by far the better candidate. OK so let’s consider the crazies for a moment; Donald Trump and the so-called ‘birthers’ who think Barack doesn’t have the right to be President. Well he has made his birth certificate available to you and you still don’t believe him. You were never going to were you? In the same vein why is no one making a big fuss about a lack of tax records from Romney, especially as he had promised to publish them?
I am not religious in the slightest and I believe that it is wrong for a political leader to be overtly religious. Mitt is a Mormon a faith that is based on, let’s face it some rather strange concepts based on the visions of Joseph Smith in the 1800s. It wasn’t so long ago that the Mormon faith allowed and promoted polygamy. In addition to that some would say that it is at its roots a very sexist and racist religion. Although to be fair, Mitt’s father took a stand against some of those principles when he supported the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.
Mitt is definitely what some US hacks call a ‘flip flopper’. His views on abortion and gay marriage seem to have moved like a yoyo to suit his mood and his position. He said himself in an unguarded moment that he really doesn’t care about 47% of the population. So finally I believe that you should vote for Obama, I think you need to give him another four years. If you vote for Romney the only ones who will benefit in the long-term will be the rich. But like I said at the start, whatever you do use your vote!
Incidentally these are my opinions and I have and will offer advice to UK voters when the time arises. I believe that we voted the wrong way last time and now we’re stuck with a pathetic, corrupt and inept coalition government for the next couple of years at least. So let me step off my soapbox and give you some music. This is a music blog after all.
Does anyone fancy some stuffed Anaconda? Really? Well it’s quite mature, maybe 120 years and will only set you back £10,000. That’s a bargain if I ever saw one. Anyway I’m not talking about some strange delicacy to be eaten, I’m referring to Albert the stuffed Anaconda who lives in the Ansel Library at the Foreign Office in London. Well, when I say lives I really mean that he is hung from the wall. He has been dead for some time. He’s not just resting, he is indeed and ex Anaconda.
Albert was a gift to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office some time in the late 1800s after he had received the full services of a taxidermist. Albert was allegedly presented by a bishop, in what is now Guyana, to the Colonial Secretary sometime in the 19th Century. As such he is in fact a Foreign Office asset and therefore need to be maintained. This news came to light following a request by the Guido Fawkes website via the Freedom of Information Act.
In my opinion this money could easily have been spent somewhere else and Albert could have been scrapped, buried or given a seat in parliament. I find it incredible that in these times of austerity so much money could have been spent on a dead snake! We are living in a time where budgets are constricted with venom and politicians are rattled! Did the cabinet hold a COBRA meeting? What do you think of stuffed Albert? Could we not have made a few pairs of shoes for the homeless from Albert’s skin or bailed out our local Greek kebab shop?
Click here to read the story of Albert on the BBC. Of course this is a music blog so please enjoy a few snake related songs;
Last year I posted about the death of Jimmy Saville as did many people. At the time I felt that he had been a bit of an eccentric but now it is clear that he was a cowardly paedophile scumbag. In the last few weeks I have had thousands of people searching for Saville arriving at my blog. I just want to make it clear that I have no respect for him and the only feelings I have for him are that he died before he could be tried. If there is such a place I hope he rots in hell.
As usual the downfall of a celebrity brings about a whole range of jokes about that person, usually derivatives of those that have been used for others. One of the many that I have seen was “The Vatican has revealed that Jimmy Saville was only two sexual assaults from getting his own parish!” Now that one did appeal to my sick sense of humour. However what I read earlier on a BBC profile of Scumbag Saville, who was a lifelong Roman Catholic, was that 22 years ago “Pope John Paul II made Saville a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great . This particular honour is also called a papal knighthood“. So maybe that joke wasn’t too far from the truth after all. What do you think of what appears to be the real Jimmy Saville?
Clearly paedos hunt in packs! I hope Glitter is shitting himself now!
Today, September 19th, would have been my Dad’s 81st birthday. But sadly he died in 2001 shortly after his 70th birthday just 5 days out of his 60s. I still miss him a lot and I often wonder what he would think about where my life has gone since he died. For my whole life there were always two Bill Adamsons in my family; me and my Dad, yes we shared exactly the same name. But since 24th September 2001 I have been the only one. But then I do see my Dad every morning when I shave and I hear him in the way I laugh. I sometimes wonder if I am in fact turning into him and frankly that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I was and always will be proud of my dad as both a father and a man. Time may heal, but that gap in your life after you lose a parent always remains. I’m sure that many of you who have lost a parent will have similar memories too and if it would help you to share them feel free to add a comment with your own feelings about sadly departed parents.
Obviously I have to include some music in this post, this is a music blog after all. So I have chosen four songs; Rod Stewart‘s version of “Sailing” as that was his favourite song ever. “The Living Years” from Mike and the Mechanics as that song made me reflect a lot after dad died and yes I cried a few times at that one. Next is the song that my Mum chose to have played at his funeral, “I Can’t Stop Loving You” by Ray Charles. Finally I felt that I had to include Mike Skinner‘s fabulous Streets track “Never Went To Church” as that is all about coming to terms with the loss of his own father and provides the title for this post. In the words of Roland in Stephen King’sDark Tower series ‘do you remember the face of your father?’ Well i do and I always will. Enjoy the music Dad, these are for you.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 