Sun, Sea and Sax

What we learnt from last night's telly

Rough guide…. To beaches.
Channel 5 :revived Holiday 83 (or whatever) sadly without Keith Mitchelmore or Anne Grieg. It’s based on the colour supplement mantra of:

I’m independent traveller
You’re a tourist
They are holiday makers.


Starring Julia Bradbury and Toby Amies, they wandered off to various long haul destinations; if you want to go to a nice beach in Thailand you need to spend an extra £500 on a speed boat and find some “out of the way” “unspoilt” village, so you can pester the “real” local fisherman.

If that doesn’t appeal you can go bloody surf cocking kiting or drive a quad bike over some quiet bit of Moroccan sand. Obviously events over took the show as their jolly sketch about deep sea fishing in Kenya was spoilt a little by the outbreak of ethnic cleansing*! (They did issue a warning over the credits).

On the whole it was ok, it's a shame that with 1000's of miles of coast in the UK there wasn’t a single beach worth mentioning, not even the one on Bute where the water was so still it was like ice and the seals came out and stared at us for what seemed like hours and as the tide ebbed the lug worms squirted water out of their tubes at us and we walked back to the car for some chips and pint of Deuchars Pale ale.

One good outcome is that this should slow the hairy palmed traffic to my blog from whomever regularly types in “Julia Bradbury in stockings” into Google and ends up here. Sadly for Mr Onan of Guildford she didn’t go snorkelling in pair of sheer hold ups!

* That’s the problem with developing countries basing their economies on a fashion based obsession like travel, you are only a dodgy election away from going broke.

Sax and drums and Rock and Roll..

I was watching Pop Britannia on BBC4 over the weekend. It’s a return to form after the bobbins Rock Britannia (sorry Seven Ages of Rock) in fact it almost looks like they decided 7 ages was so rubbish they would have another go, this time with the Beatles and V’Who (oh and another go at Roxy Music).

One suspects that Van Morrison will get ignored again (see Jazz, soul Britannia and Folk Hibernia for nary a mention of sullen Morro) it’s probably why he’s so grumpy!

One thing they reminded me of was that there was a time before the Fender Stratocaster when Hot Sax ruled the world (for good or ill).

Seeing as it's bleak skint January and nothing cheers you up like a big dumb dollop of sax heavy Rythmn and Blues/ Rock n Roll , here’s two super duper stupid servings of it for you to enjoy.

The first should be familiar Red River Rocks by Johnny & the Hurricanes** , one of my recent vinyl finds.

The other is from that short lived and ill fated sub-genre “Neolithic rock music” Brontosaurus stomp by the Piltdown Men (do you see what they’ve done). Sadly mines got a plain cover! I not sure how you dance to it but one suspects Fred and Wilma would know how!

** it's like taking off tight shoes :I've just been reminded it was covered for the soundtrack of the excellent Planes, trains and Automobiles.

Brontosaurus Stomp


Red Rivers Rocks