My Strictly Fantasy, AKA holy crap it's a blog post!

OK so I haven't written for a long time. My health has gotten in the way. I'm still ill, but occasionally I have an idea. Today is one of those days. HURRAH! 

Where to start. Firstly, Radiohead brought out A Moon Shaped Pool this May. I love it and it's up there with OK Computer and In Rainbows as one of my favourite of their albums.

Secondly, I enjoy watching Strictly Come Dancing. I took ballet and tap classes between the ages of three and 14 and I still love dancing. It's a bit tricky with chronic fatigue and a tibia fracture that's only 75% healed, but I do try. Endorphins and all that.

Some time last year I decided to make a list of tracks that I would dance to if I ever made it onto SCD. Today I was sitting in my yarden in the sunshine, thinking about the series of SCD that starts this week. I was listening to A Moon Shaped Pool and thinking how Burn The Witch would make a great ballroom tango song.

I take the fantasy further and it's Halloween week; in homage to the video I come up with the story for the dance. Tangos usually feature "a couple having some sort of argument" plot. So in this dance my partner would be a Witch Finder, possibly wearing a creepy plague mask. I'd be the witch he'd fallen in love with and he was torn about burning me at the stake. Pretty good argument fodder if ever there was any.

If you haven't heard the song or seen the video, here it is. Think The Wicker Man animated Trumpton -style.

As it's my SCD fantasy I'm dancing with Pasha Kovalev (pictured above). I like his choreography, OK?

Not every couple gets to do each type of dance, depending on which week they're eliminated. But it's my fantasy so Pasha and I at least get to the final so we can do all the styles. There are 14 dances, split between the disciplines of ballroom and Latin. To generalise, ballroom = man in a suit, lady in a ballgown, traditional hold; Latin = man in tight pants with his chest out, lady wearing not very much, and a lot of hip movement!

I've decided to add the rest of my list here (with accompanying videos) for your pleasure. Enjoy!

Waltz: Elbow - The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver

Viennese waltz: Air - Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping

Cha-cha-cha: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero

Quickstep: The Doors - LA Woman. If you don't know The Doors Alive, you need to check them out. They're as close as you're gonna get to hearing The Doors live without access to a TARDIS. The singer and drummer have changed from the lineup seen here, but I'm sure they're still great. This was filmed at a gig I was at and you can actually see the back of my head dancing!

Tango: Radiohead - Burn The Witch. As above. If you really want to know, my tango dance on the original list was Band of Skulls - Himalayan. Oh go on then...

Rumba: Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine. I thought this would tie in well with movie week, as it was featured in The Talented Mr Ripley.

Jive: Imelda May - Johnny Got A Boom Boom

Foxtrot: Everything But The Girl or Ella Fitzgerald  - Night And Day. It's a hard choice between the versions! Everything But The Girl would be less likely to make me cry, as the Ella version was my grandparents' song. Sadly both of them have died, and they played it at my grandad's funeral.

Paso doble: Rammstein - Mein Teil. This was going to be my Halloween week before Burn The Witch came along.

Sadly the Blogspot video widget doesn't like Rammstein. Find it here.

Samba: The Commodores - Brick House

Salsa: Paul Simon - Late Evening

American Smooth: Madeleine Peyroux - Dance Me to the End of Love

Argentine tango: Gotan Project - Una Musica Brutal

Charleston: tUnE-yArDs - Water Fountain

Where I reminisce, talk a lot and name drop a celebrity

I came across The Charles Hazlewood Show on Radio 2 by accident. Somehow I found out about it and it sounded exactly up my street: popular songs being pulled apart to work out why they’re so good with other music being played as examples. The first show was going to put Elbow’s Lippy Kids under the microscope. After loving them for about 10 years I finally decided this year that Elbow are my favourite band (but shh don’t tell Radiohead).

Charles Hazlewood’s passion for music really comes across in each programme, though of course he can’t get too bogged down in musical theory as not all the listeners will have that sort of background. He therefore he comes up with some interesting turns of phrase such as “baked bean trombones”! Listening takes me back to sitting in my GCSE and A Level Music classes. Far from being dry, a lot of my classes were fun thanks to the teachers that I had. Jack Davies must’ve been around 10 years older than the GCSE class, which sometimes helped and sometimes hindered. He had quite a task ahead of him – a few of the pupils were really interested in the subject and some had simply taken it because they thought it would be a doss. He managed to keep the whole class’ attention mostly through the use of humour. He nurtured my passion for composition and introduced me to minimalist music; in fact it was through him that I first heard Electric Counterpoint without Ricky Lee Jones talking about what the skies were like when she was young.

Martin Ullyatt was a more experienced teacher, and whilst his lessons were dryer (I think the A Level syllabus has a lot to blame for this) he still had a great sense of humour. This was probably essential as there were only four of us in the class and had very different personalities. He mentioned Vaughn Williams a lot so we used to tease him that he had an “I ♥ Vaughan Williams” tattoo and even made him a 40^th birthday card to that effect. I’m not sure we thought he was up to knowing what our nickname for Dido & Aeneas was though.

I knew I was going to enjoy Charles Hazlewood’s show but something I wasn’t expecting happened. My brain woke up. It has atrophied a bit due to not being used plus it’s suffering from the unfortunate effects of depression. Most of the time I find following a train of thought as difficult as navigating through Marmite. Which is also why I don’t blog very much anymore – it can take me days to produce the one post. Twitter is perfect because you can put ideas out there quickly and succinctly without having to worry too much about the way it’s written apart from fitting it into 140 characters. For instance it has taken me about two weeks to write this post in little dribs and drabs.

My brain is like a faulty switch – it will be off and you can jiggle it and poke it and it might come on. Or it’ll be on and as hard as you try you can’t get it to switch off. I once made the mistake of listening to the radio show before bed and I was awake for hours pondering what songs I would have played as examples and wanting to reply to comments Charles had made during the show. When I’d listened to the first episode I was super excited; it was like discovering a new band or great album, or getting to the end of a really good book. So I tweeted about it a lot, and lo and behold I get a notification that I am now being followed by none other than Charles Hazlewood. At first I was a bit dubious as to whether it was actually him, I have been followed by someone claiming to be Simon Pegg in the past. We have a little chat every now and again and he seems as lovely as he comes across on the radio and TV.

So imagine my excitement when I find out that one of his bands, The Charles Hazlewood All Stars, are performing Tubular Bells live. It has only ever been played live in its entirety in the 1970s. This band also includes Adrian Utley from Portishead and Will Gregory from Goldfrapp, two bands which I am very fond of indeed. For a lot of people hearing the opening of Tubular Bells gives them the shivers as it reminds them of The Exorcist. The first time I heard it was sitting in the back of the car doing a treasure hunt quiz as part of a fete at my primary school. My mum had just bought the cassette for my dad on a bric-a-brac stall. Now when I sit in the back of my dad’s car it is entirely possible that he will be playing a Goldfrapp or Portishead CD (if it's not wall-to-wall Rammstein). The concert is like he had been cosmic ordering!

The concert is in London, but my mum and I had been talking about going down there for a bit of shopping, going round some museums and galleries and perhaps catching up with some family that live in that area. “What more perfect excuse is there to go?” I think. I go to the venue’s website to see if there are any tickets left and I see my dad’s been “at work” again! Not only are they performing Tubular Bells but also A Rainbow In Curved Air by Terry Riley. My dad grew up when the first synthesisers were emerging so he has a few LPs of what I consider to be fairly obscure stuff. My mum and I tease him for liking that album because it sounds like lots of mobile phones going off at once (listen for at least 1min to get the full effect). But the genius is that it was composed in the 1960s, long before mobiles were invented.

I quickly sent my mum the email equivalent of holding her at gunpoint telling her that we HAVE to go to this concert. Mum passed the news on to dad and she told me that he actually looked quite excited for him! Hotels can be expensive in London, but I found that there are two Travelodges nearby, they have room and are affordable. We decided it would be easier to get the train so we don’t have the problem of where to put the car once we get to London. I thought about seven weeks was booking quite a bit in advance, but it was still going to cost us £300 return. Altogether a one night stay, the concert and the train was going to cost nearly £500 for the three of us! Mum told me the terrible news that we can’t afford it. Of course I knew this as soon as I saw how much the train cost, but the fact that the concert programme even exists is like some sort of miracle and I am absolutely desperate to go. The thought of going had really improved my mood. I haven’t been to London for about 10 years and I do love going out to cultural stuff such as concerts or the theatre, and living in Cumbria there isn’t the greatest opportunity to do that. My hopes were dashed and I was plunged into the depths of despair.

I sent a tweet to Charles begging that the band came up to the Sage Gateshead and did the same concert. About 10 minutes later I got a reply saying “well... actually we are doing it there the following night”. Elation and joy! I ran around, jumped for joy and made high pitched squeals, so enthusiastic was my happiness. It's probably a good thing he wasn't in the same room as I probably would've embarrassed myself further by hugging him! I was annoyed that I couldn’t tell my mum the good news straight away because she is only about half way home from my house. Trying to sit on that news was like trying to sit on top of a geyser.

My only regret is that the effect of being "woken up" doesn't last longer than a few hours. To end this long and rambling post I want to say thank you to my two music teachers Jack Davies and Martin Ullyatt. I also want to say thank you to Charles Hazlewood for helping to reignite that spark of passion that I feel about music (also apologies that it’s made me go on a bit). So cheers Charlie, the song above is for you. See you in December.

Bagpuss Obsession

As a child I loved Bagpuss. I had only very vague memories of the programme but I remembered that I loved it!


I was reintroduced to Bagpuss a few years ago by Ruth of Journal of a Wise Woman as she too loved him. She had the DVD of all the episodes and one evening we had gone round for a meal and watched the episode about the small soft Hamish.


I have been collecting Bagpuss memorabilia for a number of years now - a furry pencil case, a ring binder, three pairs of socks, a hot water bottle cover/pyjama case with attached Charlie Mouse which sings the fix-it song, a cuddly Bagpuss sitting on a cushion which says "YAWN! I'm really quite a friendly old cat", a singing Charlie Mouse and some stickers which were the contents of Bagpuss crackers. Of course I have the DVD too.


Also some unnecessary Bagpuss/Radiohead anal knowledge for you: Thom Yorke (lead singer of Radiohead) is also into Bagpuss. He wanted Oliver Postgate (co-creator of Bagpuss) to direct the video of their single 'There There'. As Oliver is in his 80s and retired, he declined. Thom has tried to get his son Noah into Bagpuss with no luck. Maybe he'll have more luck with his daughter Agnes Mair.


I have even created the term "Bagposian" which means of or relating to Bagpuss, in the style of the programme Bagpuss!


Last week I saw a flyer for the Brampton Live festival that is happening locally. I saw on the front the word "Bagpuss" and wondered what it was all about. Was it a band that had called themselves after the saggy old cloth cat or was it actually something to do with the programme.


It turns out that it is the singers Sandra "Madeleine the Rag Doll" Kerr and John "Gabriel the Toad" Faulkener who will be performing songs from the show! I leapt up to tell Vince of my discovery and he said "You weren't supposed to see that it was going to be a surprise!" I told him he shouldn't have left the flyer on the coffee table in blatant view.

We're still hoping to go, I hope there are still tickets. Also how we'll get to Brampton on a Sunday I'm not sure... I don't know how good the bus timetable is. But here's hoping I'll get a slice of the music from Bagpuss.

We'll probably be the oldest people there unaccompanied by a child but I don't care!