An everlasting piece of art, a beating love within my heart

In years gone by when my sons were still at home Eurovision night used to be a lot of fun in our house and by lot of fun I mean drunken chaos

We had our own drinking game and my mate would produce laminated cards for all the countries (he has way too much spare time on his hands). You picked your country for each round and drinks were awarded dependant on how many points they scored

The advent of Sky+ made this much easier as you could pause while the drinks were being sorted out.

 With 42 countries voting it also meant that we were still going long after the programme was finished on TV.

For the last couple of years my mate and I have done a much lower key version but this year he was away on holiday and I decided to watch it sober. Bad decision!

Here is my analytical report on the participants and their songs in the order they appeared

1. UK.....Engelbert....sad, dated song from a sad, dated singer
2. Hungary...a group called Compact Disco showed that 80s music has reached Hungary
3. Albania....my Albanian is not great but this did not seem like a cheery song and the singer had                  what appeared to be a large dead rat on her head
4. Lithuania...nice young chap called Donny sang 'Love is Blind' and wore a blindfold whilst doing so. Clever stuff, Donny
5. Bosnia and Herzegovina...it's always good when you have a country named after a bra model. A pleasant lady sang 'Barry Manilow' style at a piano
6. Russia....Really? From the country that gave us Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn came the geriatric cheeky girls. Bring back the Revolution!
7. Iceland...nondescript song but an attractive blond playing the violin
8. Cyprus...Liv Tyler look alike dancing on a table of bricks. Jennifer Lopez called and asked for her song back
9. France....Mon Dieu! At least the male gymnasts made Graham Norton's night
10. Italy......I quite liked this one, very much in the Amy Winehouse mould
11. Estonia...Ronan Keating double sings 'Without You' double
12. Norway..strange mixture of east/west music and choreography
13. Azerbaijan..the song was called 'When The Music Dies'. No further comment required
14. Romania ...girl in a short dress with 'wacky' backing group. Awful song!
15. Denmark...a song entitled 'Should Have Known Better'. By this spot in the evening I was in total agreement
16. Greece...."You make me dance like a maniac, you make me want your aphrodisiac" No wonder the Greeks are in trouble
17. Sweden...Well produced dance tune. Easy to see why it was strong favourite
18. Turkey.....Time to make a cup of tea to avoid making any stereotypical, sexist comments
19. Spain......Proper singer singing a proper song. What was she doing here?
20. Germany...Justin Timberlake 'look' reaches Germany
21. Malta.......Ah those crazy Maltesers! This song would make the Maltese cross
22. FYR Macedonia...FYI Dreadful
23. Ireland...Jedward...I always try not to use offensive language in my blog so I think I will just take the Fifth here
24. Serbia..the song was called 'Love is Not a Thing'...it's always good to know that a lot of time and effort has gone into the lyrics of a song. Perhaps there are a shortage of thesauri in Serbia
25. Ukraine..I had a tip from the chap who gave me the winner last year and I had to wait until the 25th song to see where my £10 had gone. I was not feeling confident after hearing it
26. Moldova...singer dressed like a camp Indiana Jones with a Saturdays styled backing group. Not Good!

In the end Sweden won by a gazillion points and I promised myself that I would never again watch this programme without a drink in my hand

Never mind the Euros start soon. It's days since I watched a game of football

after all the loves of my life, I'll be thinking of you and wondering why

I was saddened to hear of the death last week of Donna Summer 'The Queen of Disco' at the age of only 63

I have never been a huge fan of Disco music and the  somewhat risque songs 'Love to Love You Baby' and 'I Feel Love' which provided her big breakthrough are not among my favourite Donna Summer songs but she did have several others of which I am very fond

It is not often that I like a cover version of a song special to me but her version of the wonderful Macarthur Park was up there alongside Richard Harris and indeed brought the song to a much wider audience

I recall buying her albums 'I Remember Yesterday', 'Once Upon A Time' and 'Bad Girls' in the late 70s. These albums contained hits like 'Love's Unkind', 'Rumour Has It', 'Bad Girls' and 'Hot Stuff' which was so famously used in the movie 'The Full Monty'

Around that time she also produced 'Last Dance' which was about the only redeeming feature of the truly awful movie 'Thank God It's Friday'

In 1979 she dueted with Barbara Streisand for a UK Number 1 with 'No More Tears (Enough is Enough) and in 1980 she released my favourite Donna Summer song 'On The Radio' which even today usually finds it's way onto any Playlists I am compiling

"Someone found a letter you wrote me, on the radio

And they told the world just how you felt
It must have fallen out of a hole in your old brown overcoat
They never said your name
                 But I knew just who they meant"

 

Great song!

Given my years in retailing her song 'State of Independence' also holds a special place in my heart. I think we may even have pinched the name from the song. Again this was an excellent cover of an already standout song by Jon and Vangelis

Her song 'She Works Hard For The Money' became an anthem for working women all across The United States

In 2009 she sang at The Nobel Peace Prize concert in Norway in honour of Nobel laureate U.S. President Barack Obama which seems to me like a fitting climax to a glittering career

As a tribute to Ms Summer and in the hope of some better weather to come, I leave you this week with my Top 10 Summer related songs


1. Boys of Summer.............Don Henley
2. Summer In The City........Lovin' Spoonful
3. Summer Breeze..............Isley Brothers
4. All Summer Long............The Beach Boys
5. Summer of 69................Bryan Adams
6. Summer Holiday............Cliff Richard
7. Here Comes The Summer...Undertones
8. Farewell My Summer Love...Michael Jackson
9. Summer (The First Time)......Bobby Goldsboro
10. Summer of 42....................Biddu Orchestra

Right, I am off to practice my 'Hot Stuff' routine before my visit to the Job Centre tomorrow

and when I looked the moon had turned to gold

Congratulations to Manchester City.

In one of the most incredible and exciting finishes to a Premier League season two injury time goals saw them snatch glory from the jaws of despair to win the title for the first time since 1968

I am not a huge fan of clubs whose mega rich owners 'buy' them success but I have to say that over the piece I think City deserved to win the title and showed a resolve that earned them their success.

Earlier on this season they scored two very late goals to earn a 3-3 draw with Sunderland. They also came from 2-0 down to beat Sporting Lisbon 3-2 so it is obviously a self belief they have 'in their locker' to use a very bad Sky Sports expression

I also recall the 1999 Second Division Play-off Final when City came from 2-0 down to Gillingham to score two injury time goals and force the game into extra time. They eventually won that game on penalties to earn promotion back to what is now known as The Championship. They have come a long way since then.

The last time City won the top league was 44 years ago in 1968. That team included the likes of Corrigan, Book, Doyle, Summerbee, Neil Young (before he went off to join Crosby, Stills and that guy from the Hollies) and their two main shining lights Colin Bell and Francis Lee. I remember seeing Bell play in the 70s and he is one of the finest English players I have ever seen. Franny had a reputation for falling over in the box and could certainly have taught Ashley Young or Ronaldo a thing or two about winning penalties.

My favourite memory of Lee however was from 1975 when he was playing for Derby against Leeds and won a dubious penalty. Norman 'bites your legs' Hunter, who had a name for being a hard man, took exception to this and what followed was a full scale brawl between the two. Despite Hunter's reputation Franny was well up for it and certainly did more than just hold his own

I believe Franny went up in a lot of people's estimations after that incident

When City won the league in 68 I was 14 and spending my Saturdays listening to Gary Puckett and The Union Gap singing 'Young Girl' in a record booth in John Menzies in Ayr High Street, or going to see Planet Of The Apes at The Odeon, or asking Susan Waddell out on a date. Now that it's all come good for City again maybe it's time I gave her another call

Also in 1968 I was watching Ayr United playing glamour games against teams like East Fife, Arbroath, Forfar, Alloa and Stenhousemuir. My weekend was not as joyous as that of the City fans. I watched Ayr lose 3-1 at home to Airdrie and suffer relegation back to Division 2 where next year they will be playing teams like East Fife, Arbroath, Forfar, Alloa and Stenhousemuir

In the words of Mr David Byrne...'same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was'

If I only had wings of a little angel, don't you know I'd fly to the top of a mountain

Young Ben and I went to the park on Saturday. He has reached an age where he likes to walk everywhere so I made a fatal error in judgement and left his buggy at home. I was already carrying the new football I had purchased in the morning and I knew my attention span and physical dexterity would not cope with a walking toddler, a football and a passenger less buggy.

I tried to explain to Ben that I would carry the ball until we reached the park as I was not prepared to abandon him to chase after said ball once he had launched it in any given random direction just for the fun of it. This meant that any garden we passed along the way was taken by Ben as being a park and he would wander in and wait for the ball to be thrown to him. Fortunately we were not in a hurry.

He also decided that any form of plant life from flowers to weeds to whatever was growing out of the pavement should be picked, sniffed and kept to take back to his mum. He is a thoughtful child that way.

We eventually reached the park and the ball was finally given it's freedom. Being of a certain age now the game consisted of me booting the ball up a slope and Ben chasing after it and kicking it back vaguely in my direction. This was frequently interrupted every time a dog came anywhere near our vicinity as Ben would then amble off to have a chat with his canine friends. He has an affinity to dogs which leads me to believe he must be distantly related to Mrs Woodhouse somehow

He latched on to one particular poor dog which was minding it's own business basking in the sun. Young Ben was not happy with this lack of activity and found a stick which as we all know dogs are obliged to fetch once thrown. The strangely unobliging mutt tried to find refuge under a picnic table but that did not deter the intrepid youngster who soon flushed him out of there. Only after the dog had gone off and hidden in the trees did Ben finally abandon his pursuit and we adjourned to the play park

It was in here that we experienced a national incident. Young Ben was on the swings so I placed his ball next to the railings. Another young visitor to the play park, whose name I discovered was Lucas, took quite a shine to Ben's ball even though he had one of his own under his buggy (his mum was, not surprisingly, a lot smarter than me and had brought return transport to the park).

This was not causing any problems until an older girl (there's always an older girl, isn't there?) decided she would return the ball to Ben. She was obviously on a day off from her job at the U.N. Diplomatic Corps and informed Lucas that he could not steal other people's balls. This did not go down too well with Young Lucas. I offered to swap balls with him but his mum said he had to learn that he can't get everything he wants. Young Ben has not quite grasped that concept yet, nor have his mum and dad, or his grandparents for that matter, but I digress.

It all ended in tears. Lucas was upset. Ben was upset because Lucas was upset. I was upset because I realised the Cup Final had kicked off and we still had to walk home. The older girl was not upset and wandered off to help resolve some other major conflict in the play park

So, offering Ben a bribe of stopping at the shop for 'goodies' we eventually set off for home. This was when my earlier misjudgement came back to haunt me. Ben decided he was now bored with walking and stood with his hands raised and a pleading look on his face. I managed to carry him as far as the shop and then put Plan B into operation. After we had bought a bottle of water and a packet of Wotsits and Ben had left the shop looking like Rome after a visit from the Vandals, Operation Hansel and Gretel was put into action. After giving him a Wotsit I walked a few paces ahead and offered him another which he toddled along to collect. This worked for a little while until he realised what his devious old Grandpa was up to and that it was more comfortable to be carried and munch Wotsits at the same time

By this time we were almost home anyway and I was optimistic of catching the second half of the Cup Final. Unfortunately Curious George was on a different channel and this battle for supremacy was only going to have one winner. That inquisitive monkey does get into some strange situations

Worn out from his exertions of the day Young Ben was asleep long before his mum and dad came home and when I finally returned home to my own house and switched on the highlights of the Cup Final I found myself asleep almost as quickly as the Liverpool defence

All in all I had a much better day than Mr Dalglish.

Slow down, you move too fast, you got to make the morning last, just kicking down the cobble stones

I was watching the latest Scandinavian crime drama to hit our screens last week. It is called 'The Bridge' and starts when a dead body is found on the Oresund Bridge which links Sweden and Denmark. The programme itself is fairly watchable but the bridge is undoubtedly the star of the show. This spectacular piece of engineering combines  a bridge and a tunnel to allow road and rail transport between Malmo and Copenhagen and still leave a clear channel for ships. I have somewhat of a penchant for bridges and I have now made it one of my top priorities to see this bridge before I die.

This week I give you my favourite 10 Bridges that I actually have seen

1. Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

Walking across the bridge and looking back across the bay  towards the city with Alcatraz off to the left is probably my favourite view in the world

 2. Forth Rail Bridge

     I did not have to travel half way round the world to see this one. 40 miles to the east is this iconic bridge

3. Brooklyn Bridge, New York

   On my sojourn across from Manhattan to Brooklyn I was fortunate not to endure the problems suffered by Godzilla on this bridge

4. Brig O'Doon, Alloway, Ayrshire

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin'!
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy commin'!
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane o' the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle -
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain gray tail;
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

5. Tees Transporter Bridge, Middlesbrough

    Like a giant Meccano set this bridge carries up to 9 cars across the river on a 'gondola' suspended from the bridge. Simply wonderful

6. Pont Neuf, Paris


    A beautiful bridge which lets you cross from the rive gauche to the rive droite in style

7. Bridge across the M62 in Yorkshire (Scammonden Bridge, I think)

   I used to spend a lot of my working life travelling back and forth across the godforsaken M62 and this elaborate bridge connecting two places I had never heard of and would never visit used to be one of the few bright spots in my day along with the farmhouse situated between the two carriageways. I always imagined the farmer telling the planners, "No you cannot have my farm. You will just have to go round me", and so they did on both sides. In the hundreds (possibly thousands) of times I drove past that farm I never once saw a human being in or around it. You would not want to break down there at night

8. Adolphe Bridge, Luxembourg

  I went to Europe with my mum and dad on a driving holiday in the late 60s in my dad's Mini and I remember this bridge making an impression on me even back then

9. Newton Cap Viaduct, Bishop Auckland

   Ask any of my sons and they will tell you, I do love a good viaduct and this one holds a special place in my heart. When I first moved to County Durham with my mum and dad we rented part of a farm house which lay underneath the Newton Cap Viaduct.
It was originally built in 1857 to carry the Bishop Auckland to Durham City railway line across the River Wear and the Newton Cap Bank that leads down to the river. The railway closed in 1968 and the viaduct fell into a period of disuse and was at one point threatened with demolition. However in 1995, the viaduct was converted for vehicle use to take traffic on the A689 between Bishop Auckland and Crook

10. Kingston Bridge, Glasgow

      I could not have a list of bridges without including my old friend the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow. As someone who has lived on the South side of Glasgow for over 30 years and worked across the river it seems like I have spent a lifetime on that bridge. At peak hours, a bridge to be avoided at all costs but I guess a small price to pay for living in such a wonderful city as Glasgow



Given that you can never get too much of a good thing, I leave you this week with my Top 10 Bridge related songs

1. Bridge Over Troubled Waters.........Simon and Garfunkel
2. Brothers Under The Bridge.............Bruce Springsteen
3. View From A Bridge......................Kim Wilde
4. Building A Bridge To Your Heart....Wax
5. London Bridge................................Fergie
6. I'm The Man That Built The Bridges..Tom Paxton
7. The Bridge.......................................Elton John
8. Don't Burn The Bridge.....................Don McLean
9. Under The Bridge...........................Red Hot Chili Peppers
10. Bridge Of Sighs............................Robin Trower

OK I am done! Off for a game of bridge now.
I bid Three Hearts. (I hope that's right, I have never played bridge in my life. My mum only taught me Knockout Whist)