They said
"We're staying,
There's fresh water here and our beach is clean"
But is it clean of the blood
and have the tears merged with the salt of the sea?
and others drink
water polluted with your waste
They said
"We're going to a dance later"
Yes, dance and laugh with the demons and the devils
who are rejoicing over the deaths of the 100,000
and they rejoice still more
as the figure increases by the hour
They said
"Staying will only help the economy"
Your all-in package holiday,
The money that will only help the rich
the fat cats
not the orphans, the widows
who are taken into homes
where they sit and contemplate walking out to sea
to join those whom they have lost
They said
"We have pledged our next holiday money to the fund"
And I have given money too
£5 will pay a child's food for a week
£20 will build a new home for the bewildered
But £5 can't stop a child from
beating his head against a rock because
the pain of death is preferable to the pain inside
and £20
can't revive the dead spouse
can't erase the memory
and can't heal the scars
as easily as the remains are bulldozed away from your eyes and mind
The above was inspired by a radio interview with a man still out on his holiday in the disaster area. He maybe has a point but I am struck by the reserve of it all. He was British too, sometimes our stiff upper lip can seem somewhat cold.
Have a peaceful New Year, all who read this and be thankful that if you spend it with a loved one, that they are still at your side. And please, give all you can to any of the many charities that are raising money to help those in distress after this terrible disaster
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Monday, December 06, 2004
Duran Duran so good they named them twice
OK, so why start a blog with a has-been pop group?
Cos its my blog and I'll do what I want with it OK??
Sometime back in the late seventies, probably before most of you were born and I was about to contemplate the 11+, a few blokes (three of them named Taylor and unrelated) started a pop group. They'd had a few bevvies and had just seen the film Barbarella and thought that the name of the bad guy was a good name for a group. They were also moderately good looking then, which helped.
Actually, I didn't fancy any of them, though a mate of mine did hold a tealight for Nick Rhodes, though some people were laying bets as to what the next hair colour would be. But I do admit to having, on my bedroom wall, a natty Simon Le Bon pic in baseball gear. Unfortunately for Simon (or should that be fortunately) he was vying for attention with Messrs. Tennant and Lowe (aka Pet Shop Boys) and Nik Kershaw.
They had a rather uncanny knack of writing a tune that not only got teenagers dancing, but their mothers as well. These tunes were catchy, but most fascinating of all were their lyrics. Totally incomprehensible but would imprint on your brain like no Bible verse ever could. Even though I haven't heard a DD LP in years, I will still be able to sing along and remember ALL the lyrics. That is just too too scary. Now, if our mothers really knew what they were singing about, would they have bought us a virginial Seven and the Ragged Tiger LP for our birthday?? Cos, lets face it, what Duran Duran were singing about was SEX (well most of the time anyway) and although our mums had grown up with knowledge of the pill and free love, us little darlings still had to be protected from all that jazz cos they'd realised after marrying too young and having 4 kids and a mortgage that their parents were right - love is the worst thing that can happen to you. Also they had a terrible bad boy image on the quiet. Well it wasn't quiet for most the public, but as I read Smash Hits and not The Sun I was kept blissfully unaware of the all night drinking sessions, the trashing of hotel rooms and the string of broken hearts.
I was in to Duran Duran right at the time it was dangerously untrendy to like them. They hadn't really released a decent record since "View To A Kill" and two of the Taylors were getting itchy feet; Roger wanted to settle down and bring up some kiddies (bless) and Andy had delusions of being a great rock guitarist in the US of A. (Although, from time to time, I heard of him being a guitarist on the 'odd' record, he didn't so much set the world on fire as waft his Malboro smoke about a bit). So that left Le Bon, Rhodes and..the other Taylor. Needless to say, being designed on a 'proper' pop group (i.e. one that at least pretends to play their own instruments) they were short a drummer and guitarist. So they bring in a couple of blokes who, even though we may have been told their names, were never part of Duran Duran proper so were smartly assigned to the back row of the stage.
Actually, there were some decent records during those wilderness years, one of which was covered only a few years later - Ordinary World. Know of very few people who dislike that one.
So now they reformed and no Botox in sight. Andy looks unrecognisible. Nick still looks spooky. Simon's got fat. Roger...sorry is that really fresh faced Roger??...only John Taylor appears to have got himself through the late nineties and early naughties looking pretty much like he did in the early eighties. They even released a very eighties sounding pop record, even the title with its brackets harks back to the days when we used to answer those silly quizzes about records with brackets in. Most all of them were eighties....e.g... (??) Forget About Me, (??) Live and Die...you know the stuff I mean - we now have a new one - Reach Out (??) or should that be (??) For the Sunrise, I can never remember which.
Longevity. Are Busted gonna survive 25 years? They think they're gonna survive a millenia. I think not. Duran Duran before you busters...and I bet John still looks the same in the year three-thousand...
Cos its my blog and I'll do what I want with it OK??
Sometime back in the late seventies, probably before most of you were born and I was about to contemplate the 11+, a few blokes (three of them named Taylor and unrelated) started a pop group. They'd had a few bevvies and had just seen the film Barbarella and thought that the name of the bad guy was a good name for a group. They were also moderately good looking then, which helped.
Actually, I didn't fancy any of them, though a mate of mine did hold a tealight for Nick Rhodes, though some people were laying bets as to what the next hair colour would be. But I do admit to having, on my bedroom wall, a natty Simon Le Bon pic in baseball gear. Unfortunately for Simon (or should that be fortunately) he was vying for attention with Messrs. Tennant and Lowe (aka Pet Shop Boys) and Nik Kershaw.
They had a rather uncanny knack of writing a tune that not only got teenagers dancing, but their mothers as well. These tunes were catchy, but most fascinating of all were their lyrics. Totally incomprehensible but would imprint on your brain like no Bible verse ever could. Even though I haven't heard a DD LP in years, I will still be able to sing along and remember ALL the lyrics. That is just too too scary. Now, if our mothers really knew what they were singing about, would they have bought us a virginial Seven and the Ragged Tiger LP for our birthday?? Cos, lets face it, what Duran Duran were singing about was SEX (well most of the time anyway) and although our mums had grown up with knowledge of the pill and free love, us little darlings still had to be protected from all that jazz cos they'd realised after marrying too young and having 4 kids and a mortgage that their parents were right - love is the worst thing that can happen to you. Also they had a terrible bad boy image on the quiet. Well it wasn't quiet for most the public, but as I read Smash Hits and not The Sun I was kept blissfully unaware of the all night drinking sessions, the trashing of hotel rooms and the string of broken hearts.
I was in to Duran Duran right at the time it was dangerously untrendy to like them. They hadn't really released a decent record since "View To A Kill" and two of the Taylors were getting itchy feet; Roger wanted to settle down and bring up some kiddies (bless) and Andy had delusions of being a great rock guitarist in the US of A. (Although, from time to time, I heard of him being a guitarist on the 'odd' record, he didn't so much set the world on fire as waft his Malboro smoke about a bit). So that left Le Bon, Rhodes and..the other Taylor. Needless to say, being designed on a 'proper' pop group (i.e. one that at least pretends to play their own instruments) they were short a drummer and guitarist. So they bring in a couple of blokes who, even though we may have been told their names, were never part of Duran Duran proper so were smartly assigned to the back row of the stage.
Actually, there were some decent records during those wilderness years, one of which was covered only a few years later - Ordinary World. Know of very few people who dislike that one.
So now they reformed and no Botox in sight. Andy looks unrecognisible. Nick still looks spooky. Simon's got fat. Roger...sorry is that really fresh faced Roger??...only John Taylor appears to have got himself through the late nineties and early naughties looking pretty much like he did in the early eighties. They even released a very eighties sounding pop record, even the title with its brackets harks back to the days when we used to answer those silly quizzes about records with brackets in. Most all of them were eighties....e.g... (??) Forget About Me, (??) Live and Die...you know the stuff I mean - we now have a new one - Reach Out (??) or should that be (??) For the Sunrise, I can never remember which.
Longevity. Are Busted gonna survive 25 years? They think they're gonna survive a millenia. I think not. Duran Duran before you busters...and I bet John still looks the same in the year three-thousand...
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