Buffy (not the Vampire Slayer)

Who should turn up being interviewed on the BBC World Service the other night but Buffy Ste Marie.

It seems she's still recording and touring.

Of course, the youngsters at work had never heard of her...

Fools (including me) on Facebook

As I've mentioned before, I'm keen on studying family history and, to this end, I've made a point of contacting as many people as I can who have the same surname as me (Sheraton, if you remember) and asking them to be my Facebook friend. The idea is that they may be able to give me useful information, and vice versa, and this has happened with quite a few of the Sheraton clan.

Anyway, responses fall into two main groups. Most (I'd say) just accept the request. A smaller number just ignore it.

But there's just one or two who take exception to my request.

"Who are you? I don't know you! Leave me alone!"-that sort of thing.

So for them I've created a Facebook group "I wouldn't be David Sheraton's Facebook friend if you paid me money".

Silly I know, but it amused me when I set it up (not under my own name, obviously).

The funny thing about it is that quite a few people have joined-most of whom I've never had any contact with (attempted or not) whatsoever.

Just goes to show there's quite a few people just as stupid as me out there.

D T Rave to be robbed of booze

So, we now have (at least from next Monday) a Designated Public Places Order for my village (Four Marks in Hamphsire).

This means that if a policeman has reason to believe that I have been drinking, am drinking, or am about to drink, he can accost me and confiscate any booze I'm carrying-on pain of arrest.

An obvious tactic will be to wait outside the off-licence; reasonable cause to belive that DTR emerging from there is about to drink.

Of course, this is all meant to be part of the fight against anti-social behaviour, and I'm not in favour of gangs of youths drinking and behaving badly in public.

But we do have established laws against under-age drinking, and also against disorderly behaviour. Why can't we just enforce those laws, rather than dreaming up a host of new ones (with enhanced police powers over all and sundry).

Here endeth today's rant.

Bloggers revealed

So, it's now likely that the 'real' identity of bloggers will be revealed in the public interest (story in yesterday's Times).

I can't wait to find out who Mrs Pouncer is (unless that's your real name, Mrs P).

I shan't reveal my real identity, because it's even less interesting than my blogging identity.

Anyway, Shakespeare's plays weren't written by him, but by somebody else with the same name.

Byee

DTR

And then the heavens opened

Bit of a disaster on Thursday.

I was just getting dressed (trousers not yet on) when I heard a great rush of water coming from the general direction of the bathroom.

On checking, enormous quantities of water were pouring in through the ceiling!

I was fairly quick thinking, and turned off all the stopcocks and similar I could think of before alerting la Duchesa.

Then it was a matter of trying to collect the water that was cascading into the bathroom and other places: most notably the bedroom, and in particular the big bed, which ended up flooded and pretty much ruined.

I must praise British Gas, who sent out a plumber within about an hour of my distress call (they must have caught the note of panic in my voice); he quickly sorted out the pipe problem in the roof, but of course the bulk of the damage was done by the water that had already flowed.

Anyway, we've now got a load of dehumidifiers in the house, a new bed on order, and just waiting to get everything dried out and cleaned up.

Another thank you to Legal & General from whom we already have a cheque for the new bed (la D must have been especially convincing on the phone to them).

The worry is that if it had happened when we were both out, the house would have been absolutely ruined.

Still, panic over, and we live to fight another day...

My funny Valentine (the song)

I recently became interested in the song 'My funny Valentine', partly because Matt Giraud sang it on American Idol (unfairly, I thought, he got knocked out that week) and also because there was a film on TV about Chet Baker, the jazz musician who was one of the leading performers of the song.

Baker was known, I suppose, for three things: his music (trumpet and singing), the fact that he was fabulously good looking in his younger days, and his dissolute lifestyle (he took enormous quantities of drugs, mainly heroin). The film, 'Let's get lost', portrayed him at the age of about 58 (shortly before he died, falling out of a hotel window). He was very lined after all the years of hard living, but still good looking in a wasted sort of way. His musicianship, amazingly, was still strong.

Anyway, this led me to listen to his recording of MFV: singing it, although he also played it on the trumpet many times. It's a haunting performance. He has an incredibly gentle voice. It's like a woman's voice, not because it's high in pitch, but because of the softness, the caressing quality he has. That seems right for the song, which was originally meant to be sung by a woman.

Strangely enough, the next version of the song up on Youtube was the one by Nico, which is weird in the opposite direction, Nico was a very beautiful woman, but her voice was very deep, easily mistakable for a man's. She also had a troubled life, although I don't think she took the amount of drugs that Chet did.

Here are the three versions:

Matt Giraud

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaUQ6i4kO6w

Chet Baker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvXywhJpOKs

Nico

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1xplddbEnY

Our day out

Out for the BH with la Duchesa and the Dowager.

We were heading for a National Trust property called Clandon Park, in Surrey.

My method of getting there was to use my SatNav and enter the postcode of the house.

SN ordered me to turn right, but it didn't look like a proper turning, just someone's driveway.

We go past, turn back, go past it again, turn back again.

This time I think I'll give it a go.

We go under an arch and out onto a tiny little country road: really just a dirt track.

Anyway, it did lead us to the house in the end.

Quite an enjoyable visit.

The restauarant ignored the NT's Golden Rule (Thou shalt provide quiche salad) but we had the steak and ale pie, which was pretty good.

Overall, a nice day out.