Will the real Faron Young.....

After all this time:

It’s pleasingly circular that a band whose name came from a misunderstanding while listening to song should do the same for one of their fans namely me.

Like all sensible people I loved Prefab Sprout when they first appeared and their 1st lp with the mysterious line “you give Faron Young ....four in the morning”. I’m not sure I knew who or what Faron Young was (and this was before there were more than 10 computers in Yorkshire let alone the interweb) I think in my mind I thought that FY was a she someone like Farrah Fawcett i.e. some kind of impossible unattainable sultry Californian goddess (as in this old national geographic shot I found ).

This seductive idea had persisted for a long while, in fact up to just last night when I got round to playing a recent batch of “rescued” singles. I’d been flicking through the mouldy Cilla 7 inches and had seen Faron Young’s “4 in the morning” and bought it purely to see what Paddy McAloon had been singing about all those years ago.


Now I’m not sure about the song yet but I’m slightly disappointed that Faron is a bloke and seemingly a purveyor of standard (for 1972) country and western songs. Now I know Paddy McAloon is more sensible in these matters than I but I was little let down, you’ll be telling me next that “Lola” by the Kinks wasn’t about a woman!

Hello Mrs Erskine is your Gizzi in....

Marvelous name of the day: Gizzi Erskine

Who apparently is a foodwriter & tv presenter (author of “eat y’self fittahhh! sorry that should be thin) who clearly didn’t go to a northern comprehensive in the 1980’s with name like that (she clearly can’t have done because according to her website she’s 29, longest 10 years of your life that 29th show biz year......).

Here favourite meal apparently is a sausage sandwich, nurse the screens!




This must the best Fall song ever, well today anyway and a ludicrously literal video as well hurrah !

Paging Picasso Opel kadett paging Picasso

The Name Game.
In a fit of madness the rail company gave me a seat this morning and on it was a free sheet which unusually I started reading and read a story about Kylie having a new bloke (good for her) and sharing a dog called Sheba with her ex.

The best bit however was that her Ex is now dating a Spanish actress (as you do, the same thing happen to me just as Raquel Cassidy trips out the door (we promised to stay friends) who should I meet down the market but Penelope Cruz and one thing leads to another and soon we are sharing morning espressos and next month we are going to adopt a pair Peruvian of twins) .....

Sorry where was I, oh yes Kylie ex’s new paramour is called “Goya Toledo” hurrah!
What a simply excellent name!

Let’s see if it passes the Mark Radcliffe playing out test.
(Scene: a small back to back terraced house in Malaga)

Knock, Knock.
"Hello, Tracey love ."
"Hello Mrs Toledo is your Goya playing out?"
Hmmmmm I’m not sure.

Top Goya Toledo fact:

She was in 5 epsisodes of a comedy called “Hermanos de Leche” which translates (roughly) as The Milk Brothers!

Post 600 :Trivia (no change there then ed.)

365 - 238 - in the movies, originally uploaded by the brownhorse.

Small things that annoy me more than they should
London cinema times:

Monopoly free market capitalism (how's it going guys oh that bad shame) has done some terrible things namely Simon Cowell, the Bho Pal disaster, the film titanic and renaming chocolate bars randomly one of the most trivial but telling is that in London it tries to cram two showings of films into one evening .

The upshot being that the first sitting is too early 5.50pm and the later one that bit too late 8.50 sometimes. On an evening you want to go to the flicks at 7 ish or perhaps half past so you can have a spot of tea or a pint and then catch the film not rush to the cinema straight from work or for the later showing hang around in town drinking too much waiting for the film to start and them getting home late on a school night.

But no the xfactorsrunningsnickernamingpopcornpeddlers do their best to ruin your evening.

Like I say a minor thing but annoying.

Small things that please me in order to balance irrational annoyances above.

I found a fiver in the ticket pocket of Jeans; I decided to call it lunch.

The Met office has a spokesman called Barry Gromett, it’s not his fault but if you are deliberately putting yourself in the public eye don’t have a hilarious tip top name like Barry Gromett. Is Barry a name that’s died out? I think I like it almost as much as the woman on the radio who seems to be called Fenella Fudge or even the reporter Julia Caesar.

Notes on my 600th post:

People often wax lyrical at such "landmark" points in time and tell you what they've learnt etc, all I know as off today is that:

Mono is spanish for Monkey,

that the yellow snow is never someone's spilt limeade

that you should never play cards with Sicilians

that you shouldn't fight a land war in Europe on 2 fronts

Oh and that you should never miss the opportunity to wish your friends, family and types you bump into on the net the best of health and happiness. Keep yourselves warm and safe and if your going to that London put some money in your sock.

yours as ever C... oh sorry BLTP

Now over to kirsty for the cake cutting...

God loves us all?, originally uploaded by bltphoto.

I was at a wedding at the weekend so congrats to the lovely couple W & T , good luck on your adventure together.

It was an excellent affair. One notable thing for a wider audience was that the priest went under the excellent title of Father Tony Parsons.

Which is an excellent name on a number of counts firstly as it reminds me that a friend had clerical acquaintance called the Rev Ivor Parish , we love nominative determinism we do.

The other surprising thing was that the celebrant Tony Parson was much less preachy and sanctimonious than the more famous writerly one, who as is the way popped up on "Newsnight review " the evening before. "TP off the telly" seemed to be wearing a fetish top similar to Daffd the only gay in the village.

Quite how Tony P still gets away with the salt earth champion of the working man schtick after 30 years is a mystery. May be Father TP could ask the man up stairs to shed some light?

That's not My Name

Names Games:
There’s a story about Kiwi girl getting the court to officially change her name from
“Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii” to something less extreme. I can see why it just rotten I mean rhyming “Talula” with “Hula” is good but “Hawaii” stinks the place out
“Talula Does The Hula with a ruler” is good
Or
“Talula Does The Hula From mawoolah! Is topper.

No the problem with this name is it’s willful, you just know her parents are public nuisances. The great names I go on about round here clearly happen by chance normally because of a mixed background or a portmanteau christening collisions. We had a girl at school called Anastasia Micklethwaite (she played the Cor Anglais) which although a tad pretentious at least had some rhythmic tension.

Sadly my names a bit ordinary, I don’t have middle name, this use to bother me a bit , so much that I tried Nigel for size for a bit (yeah I know me neither it was around the time I read ladybird book on Custom officers and decided I wanted to be one of those too ! I didn’t realize it didn’t involve riding about at night on a horse firing muskets, thankfully my next read was Warwick the Kingmaker and so began my lifelong mission to get my hands on the levers of power)

Anyway where was I , oh yes, names the best I come across lately is someone called “Dimples” and someone else called “Sunshine” so let's see ruler , nuala, hoopla, school ya, I'll work on it.

Cyd & Ivy

Cyd Charisse 1921-2008

I do like an obit strange I know but when someone lives to be 87 like Cyd Charisse I don’t think it’s too ghoulish.

The clip of Cyd dancing in “Central Park” with Fred Astaire they showed at the end of BBC4 news last night was wonderful the grace and timing of the two of them together was truly a wonder.

Anyway the Guardian Obit throws up some gems, firstly a personal fave great names.
Cyd’s real name was Tula Ellice Finklea, top stuff! When she became a dancer, she joined Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russes de Monet Carlo, double hurrah! Her Balerina names were Felia Sidorova and Maria Istomina, nice!

There’s a great quote from Fred Astaire (from a film)

“she came to me in sections. She had more curves than scenic railway”

Lastly in the piece she’s described as transforming her costume in a scene from workers clothes to evening dress topped with “Frivolous Paris hat" which may not be as good as Grace Kelly’s "decadent turban phase" but is almost there.
Anyway peace be with Cyd and her family and friends.

On the same page is an obit for an Ivy Butler whose life may have involved less glamour but seems to have lived a good life, worthy of wider remembrance.

listomania

Dishes of the day

headline of the day:
"Rain fails to dampen cheese rolling "

Album title of the week
“I’m going to let my new Swiss army knife answer to that” By speed market avenue

International peace keeper with the toppermost name of the decade (1960’s)
General Odd Bull

Frankly a strange set of word that make no sense at all come again, hot ticket of the fortnight possibly (does it come with chips and a panda pop)

Sons and Daughters

What's in a name?









I was checking my mail when I saw a list on the yahoo home page of.
“Hot young actors Yahoo is into”
1. Jamie Lynn Spears
2. Chace Crawford
3. Miley Cyrus
4. Blake Lively
5. America Ferrera
6. Zac Efron

Now the trivial way corporate websites like MSN and Yahoo pad out their content is a given but firstly isn’t it strange that a big corporation like Yahoo are “in to young actors”, do you think they have joined the fan club and that?

The main reason it caught my eye is the usual weird and wonderful list of American actor’s names; Jaime is I think a scion of the Spears family. Some of the others are just asexual, Chace, Miley are they girls or boys? Also is Chace is pronounced “chase” not “Kaycee” or even “Chay sea”; she must be girl as it has it has a hint of stripper about it. Blake Livley is just a comic book private eye.

Also is America the only country name that can be used as a first name, Belgium Hodgkins doesn’t work nor does Ghana Wilkinson! The only name that seems normal is the whole cocking list is the one starting with a zed. I’m fairly sure Zachary Efron is from a Jewish background and so Zach is a usual as John Smith or similar. The other thing about these youngsters without doing any research is that I can bet all but Blake are from show biz family. Chace Crawford is probably Cindy Crawford’s daughter or sister, Miley Cyrus is no doubt Billy Ray Cyrus’s son/daughter, I think, America Ferrera must the granddaughter of Able and Zac the son of Director of “Big” Nora.

So a large media company are championing a group of young talents already blessed with large Gucci loafer in the door of success, no change there then, oh and Miley is just a silly name.

And Tigger on Drums.....

Recent news:
Catching up with the papers here’s some things I liked.

Fat a manger:
Shock horror ready made sandwiches contain fat. Apparently customers at Prêt and Greggs etc should have nutritional labels on their sarnies. Which is fine but surely the fact that you can’t see the contents of most shop bought sarnies because the window is smeared with excess mayo may be a good hint and as for Greggs, the bags for their steak bakes already have their own special nutritional labelling, the fact that the bag has been turned transparent by the grease may just tell you what lies in store inside.

Those Crazy Italians!

The "toing and froing "of the fashion industry doesn’t detain me much but I did read about Alessandra Facchinetti, (top name by the way) this week as it is interesting to see a women doing well in the boys club of high fashion.
Being a child however the most interesting thing about her for me was her family. Her brother with some inevitability is DJ. DJ Francesco to be precise, this being Italy sadly he’s not some Westwood copyist but a sort of X factor solo boy band singer of the sort Italy seems to have lot of.

Even better than that is Alessandra’s DAD, Roby who is in Italy’s biggest band who are called for a reason I’ve yet to find POOH! Hurrah! One of their albums seems to be called “I Pooh” double hurrah! Their website has a “pooh store” I’ll stop now. Check out this weird 60’s footage where the crowd have all turned their backs on the band.

Does anyone else know of bands that are huge abroad that we know nothing about and better still are any good?

Lastly Money
Like me you probably haven’t a clue how Northern rock got in the stuck or this French trader business. Well this article enlightened me a great deal it’s worth having a look after all our mortgages (or landlords mortgages) pensions, local councils money etc is tied to this system whether we like it or not, so having some idea how it works is worth having. One trick where John Lancaster says "option" I found it help to swap fir "putting down a deposit".

Anyway back to mad European pop, which is best this version or this?

Last of the Mock him I ams....

Childish behaviour

Nice piece asking if we are all up Daniel Day–Lewis a bit too much, in the paper.

I’m afraid even though I quite like him in most of his films at Chez BLTP he’s always referred to as "Daniel Day Dickhead Lewis."

The source of which was back in the days of only 4 TV channels. ITV use to on Friday and Saturday nights have late TV (can you believe it such riches!) that was called “up all night” or something. To fill the time they would have record reviews etc. One night on the film show, the actor Vas Blackwood was on helping review films and much like us watching was either pissed or at least pissed off and every time DDL's name was mentioned would chant “Daniel Day Dickhead Lewis” repeatedly, and sadly I’m afraid me being a tad childish myself it stuck.

Today's news

French Fancy:
The press seems to be obsessed with the whole Sarkozy/Bruni affair. Reading the long piece in the paper today a few things occurred:

Firstly its nice Carla's now a”former super” model now she’s tupping the prez not just a plain old ”former model”.

Also the whole thing seems to be a load of posh/rich slappers (male & female) sleeping with each other. It’s interesting that being rich and posh and sleeping with lots of rich/posh blokes makes you a “libertine”, I think changing you political allegiances depending on who you fancy is part of it too.

This being France it involves Bruni knocking off father and son philosophers!

“Son one day this whole dialectic will be yours and you’ll be able to pass all these paradigms on to your kids like my Dad before me and his Dad before him…..”

The whole thing sounds like the plot to a bad Eric Rohmer film.

Comedy Celeb Names:

One nice spot from the piece is my fave a notable name a certain Colombe Pringle, who writes for French Vogue, the English translation of her name would be Pigeon Pringle tee hee.

I’ve heard Ms Bruni’s songs and there not bad in that breathy French female singer way, that does reduce the critical faculties of most male English rock fans see also Françoise Hardy,Jean Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, etc.

PS.the fact that google image search produces lot's of pictures of Carla arse is probably the main reason the story rolls on.

Google Cheats:

Story to day about what the press still call sixth formers* are “cutting ‘n’ pasting” lots of their project work, some of it still with the ads and web formatting attached.

Anyone who works with students will tell you that when challenged on this the cheeky beggars come back at you with “don’t you mean COPY ‘n’ paste sir”!

Is this all any worse than the kids at school who use get their dads to do their art homework (god I hated them or the girls who use to copy soppy cartoon birthday card dogs and get good marks, I use to spend hours on my stuff … and relax I think that’s a good place to stop today’s session….)

*Here’s a copy ’n’ and paste guide to the school year group for older readers.

Turn,turn,turn:

there are subtle ways that show the change of season, snow drops bursting from the frozen ground, the odd flake of snow and the guy emptying the snack machine swapping “Mistletoe Kisses” with “Cadbury’s mini eggs”. Soon the pubs will be dusting off their cucumbers to sell us overpriced jugs of weak Pimm’s and before you know it’ll be pumpkins at dawn and then Chr…...

Unlikely but delightful names

Whats' in a name?
The world's a better place for the following names:
On the Sopranos credits the other day the wonderfully cross culturally name Omar Sharif Scroggins scrolled past

The morning after the Today programme talked to the Israeli Ambassador who appeared to be called Ron Prosser (less an international diplomat more Arkwright's arch-enemy in "Open all Hours"). He's really called Ron Prosor but you know I was hoping for some Northern bluntness/common sense in the peace process ....

Crazy show biz names

Saw a poster for the new French version of lady chatterly , 2 marvelous names caught my eye:
Ladies and gents may I present Hippolyte Giradot and Jean-louis Coulloc'h. Excellent exotic names chaps, but come on Hippolyte do they not have bullying in french schools? We had a lad at our school called Jarrod and he had a bad time, I think t'old Hippo would not have lasted 5 mins. At our school I think even the teachers would've have taken the mick.
As for Jean-Louis it's " ' " that's mysterious I fear it's a French sound we anglos have difficulty making like the rolled R in regla (ruler). Anyway just thought you'd like them .

Posts have been tricky lately as my lap top died so doing them on the hop watch out for an avalanche of vinyl I bought the other day, anytime soon. * crosses fingers*

Notable show biz names of the day

From today's G2:
Ladies and Gentlemen may I introduce the rising actress Mme Eglantine Rembauville (she's in the Bill!) and the up and coming Film director China Moo- Young.

Q: Do these names pass the Mark Radcliffe test? As in "hello Mrs Rembauville is your Eglantine playing out?"
A: Probably not, god love 'em.