Why did British popular music rule the world in the 1960s? I can't answer that - leave a comment if you can - but I have found that some of the brightest stars of that generation had two things in common. They sang in church choirs as boys, which meant they received a good musical education, and they had fathers who played in jazz bands, which meant they grew up familiar with black American music. It was, after all, Rhythm and Blues that inspired the British groups of that era. Let's give some examples, sticking to Wikipedia entries... Paul McCartneyMcCartney's ...
The photo of Market Harborough locomotive depot was tweeted today by Adrian Pullen and forwarded to me by a reader. I don't know enough about steam locomotive to date it, but the depot closed on 4 October 1965. It was sited just to the north of the station and to the west of the Midland main line. The overbridge has long gone, though you could see its eastern abutments until recently. Adrian doesn't know who took this picture. If you do, please let me know.
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: Welcome to the 92nd edition of The Week in Polls, which sees a return to my self-defeating editorial proclivity of writing a newsletter about polling which tells readers to ignore some polling. Find out more by reading this edition of The Week in Polls here, and you can sign up below to receive future editions direct to your email inbox:
I was thinking the other day of First Impressions, a song made the charts in the UK in 1975. It's a song about the importance of those first impressions ("First impressions are lasting impressions..."), and sounds like the sort of thing your Mum and Jordan Peterson would have come up with if they sat down to write a hit together. It turned out to be by the Chicago vocal group The Impressions, who used to have a more radical take on things. Because they were the group that Curtis Mayfield started out with and who recorded his famous song People ...
India Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kicked off his election campaign with a prayer. And it was a prayer in the most controversial ethno-religious setting that he could find, thus further strengthening his ethno-religious claim to be the standard bearer of Hindu Nationalism. The setting was the consecration of a partially-constructed Hindu temple in the town of Ayodha. It was controversial because the temple is being built on the site of a 16th century Muslim mosque which was torn down by Hindu nationalist rioters in 1992. The destruction of the mosque led to nationwide religious riots which left 2,000 ...
As residents will recall, we have long campaigned for resurfacing of the really poor conditioned roadway in Forest Park Place (between Forest Park Road and Edward Street/Larch Street) and are delighted to report that the resurfacing work has now commenced. Work has also commenced on improving the worst-conditioned part of Ryehill Lane (nearest St Peter Street) - see photos below. These are welcome but there's many more roads across the West End that we have raised requesting resurfacing. The resurfacing programme for the new 2024/25 financial year will be published in the coming weeks and we will update residents further ...
