Choice!!! ?
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills / Cheshire / Potomac / Jersey / Orange County……,
Then we have all the other shows like Big Brother / Cabins and the deep look spin offs like Big Brother’s Little Brother.
As if this smorgasbord wasn’t enough we also have shows showing us what it’s like to watch these shows - Gogglebox.
I think Democracy is going the same way 
long live CHOICE (and the off button) 
1 Like
I see your AM and trump it with my SSB 
!
Racal days in the design lab listening to the Brandenburg Concerto through an SSB filter - about equivalent to my current hearing ability 
4 Likes
Strangely enough, the same arguments apply to music as apply to speech. All that is lost in the music from an SSB filter is some of the timbre, the melody and the harmonies are unaltered. Timbre is important for separating the voices of the various instruments, but it could be argued that with Bach’s counterpoint the continuity of the voices makes that less important, so the music remains enjoyable.
1 Like
Don Wilson, co-founder and rhythm guitarist for the Ventures, died on January 22. The Ventures were one of the bands that introduced me to surf rock, which I enjoy despite having never lived in California nor been a surfer (aside from a single lesson, best forgotten, while on a tropical holiday). Their first big hit was “Walk – Don’t Run” (and see John Fogarty of Creedence Clearwater Revival play it in memory of Don).
“Walk – Don’t Run” came out a little before I was paying much attention to music, but by the time the Ventures covered Telstar I was listening to rock. At that tender age my parents sent me off to bed at 7:30 PM. Fortunately I had a lo-fi transistor radio that let me listen to music for hours. 
I remember hearing Telstar and, being fascinated by anything related to space, thought it was the coolest song.
Later I discovered Dick Dale, but that’s for another day.
Scott WB8ICQ
5 Likes
Hi Scott, loved the Ventures. Thanks for the information.
Cheers Geoff vk3sq
There’s some fine Surf Rock out there. I think that means all of the original members are now dead. I was never really aware of them when I was a child or teenager. They were massively successful as being instrumental only, their music appealed to people who didn’t speak English. Lovely clean guitar sounds, no overdrive or feedback. And of course Mosrite guitars
I’ve watched plenty of their performances on Youtube including Walk - Don’t Run, Wipeout, Diamondhead etc.
Some of us old folk even have black plastic discs with a label on saying The Ventures. 
2 Likes
Youtube allows time travel for us kiddies Gerald. The August 1960 version of Walk - Don’t Run on there is cool but there’s a modern colour version maybe late 80s, early 90s where the bass line is awesome.
3 Likes
I remember listening to them on a one valve regen that I built from a kit. There was a lot of instrumentals from that time and by various bands that were popular, tracks that have remained with me (I always preferred instrumentals!) Things like Topsy part 2, Green Onions, and the immortal Lord Rockingham! 
Later, instrumentals in the hit parade were somewhere between very rare and non-existant.
2 Likes
Barry Cryer 1935-2022
A simply brilliant funny man who has made me laugh since I was about 10 and a fellow ex-Leeds Uni graduate.
RIP Barry.
5 Likes
He was still sharp as a tack the last time I heard him on some random quiz programme on BBC Radio 4.
5 Likes
Two things I’ve heard before, but appeared in his BBC Obit again today.
“I met my wife and Ronnie Corbett on the same day,” he once quipped. “I tossed a coin and married her.”
He was once asked by the Yorkshire Post for his favourite joke. He recalled one he had told in a student revue in 1955.
"A man drives down a country lane and runs over a cockerel. He knocks at a nearby farmhouse door and a woman answers.
“‘I appear to have killed your cockerel,’ he says. ‘I’d like to replace it.’ The woman replies: ‘Please yourself - the hens are round the back.’”
I could go on for another 10 pages… but I think I’ll just listen to a vintage “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue” and toast him with a wee dram later. Genius.
6 Likes
One of my favourtite quips, when he was talking about his age and his life expectancy was “I don’t buy green bananas”
5 Likes
His name was mentioned recently at panto. Adam who does theatre lighting and sound recalled having a brief encounter ‘way back when’ whilst he was in Panto in Hackney somewhere. Adam had to retrieve an amplifier from backstage. Barry quipped ‘the repo man is here’. Whilst in the wings for a 10:30am start with lots of kids in the audience he didn’t realise his mic was on as he proclaimed ‘f*cking kids’ - it echoed around the theatre before 5 seconds later he launched himself onto stage with a ‘hello boys and girls’ (which apparently you’re not allowed to say anymore).
We had one of his jokes in this years panto:
‘I’ve bought a new stick deodorant that I’m dead excited to use’.
'I read the instructions, it said remove wrapper, so I removed the wrapper.
Then is said twist off cap, so I twisted off the cap.
Then it said push up bottom, well, I can’t afford to be doing that every day.
RIP.
2 Likes
His parrot jokes were famous.
A woman wanted a parrot and a pet shop had one being sold very cheaply for only £5.
“Well, I must confess, it was brought up in a brothel,” says the shopkeeper. “And, to put it politely, it has quite an extensive vocabulary.”
“Never mind,” says the woman. “At that price, I’ll take it.”
So she takes the parrot home, puts its cage in the living room and takes the cover off.
“New place - very nice,” says the parrot.
Then the woman’s two daughters walk in.
“New place, new girls - very nice,” says the parrot.
Then the woman’s husband walks in, and the parrot says, “Oh hello, Keith!”
5 Likes
Many thanks to everyone for the excursion into English humor! It really helped lift my spirits in the morning. The joke about the cock was understood immediately! And thanks to Google Translate for the tip. 
Where knowledge was not enough for me…
The study continues!
73
Vlad
6 Likes
I laughed. This is the best memorial.
RIP Barry
1 Like
RIP Ian McDonald, co-founder of, and both muscian and writer for, first King Crimson and then Foreigner. I never cared much for Foreigner (the charts suggest this is a minority opinion) but In the Court of the Crimson King has migrated with me over the years, from listening to a friend’s album (the original gatefold version) to owning a CD copy, then ripping to the iPod, and finally on all the successive smartphones including the current one. When I read of Ian’s death I honored him by – of course – playing “Epitaph” from that album.
In 1976, while a summer employee of our local parks and recreation department in Akron, Ohio, I was pressed into service to help organize the city’s July 4 parade. My job was in the staging area of the parade, where I was to ensure that as various floats, marching units, military tanks and other participants arrived, they fell into their proper places in the pre-ordained order of appearance. Once everyone was in place my duties were finished, so I gravitated to the float containing an old-fashioned calliope. When I was invited to “give it a try,” I fulfilled a years-long aspiration by playing the calliope riff from “The Court of the Crimson King.” Life felt complete that day.
4 Likes
I like the odd King Crimson track. And the odd Foreigner track. Amongst that there’s a lot I don’t like.
This is, I think, their best track. Nice sax work but not Ian 
Gosh 41 years old. I remember this from University days. There was so little rock music on UK radio/TV that Foreigner was about as good as you got.
2 Likes
I liked the way the sax thickens the texture, its almost a lost art now. The guy knew his way around the horn, soloing with fluttertongue and excursions into the third register. For the rest, pretty humdrum.
1 Like