Lenny Henry...

Lenny Henry has a book out: Who am I Again? It’s not a book I’m likely to read, but I like a joke he quotes, from one of his early routines, which neatly skewers the racist attitudes that were prevalent in the 1970s. “Enoch Powell says he wants to give me £1,000 to go back to where I came from. Which is great, because it’s only 20 pence on the bus from here to Dudley.”

Amazon Prime delivery, Pontefract, yesterday...

Mood Swings...

Can't wait for Xmas (though 'Mood Swings' sounds menopausal rather than musical). According to the poster, you have to bring your own "cold snacks", and the event will last for "decades"...

Ginger Baker...

Ginger Baker, drummer with Cream and many other bands, has died. Despite being voted “the man least likely to survive the Sixties”, and having taken heroic amounts of class-A drugs throughout his chaotic life, he survived to the age of 80.

Disraeli Gears, featuring songs such as ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’ and ‘Sunshine of Your Love’, came out in 1967. I didn’t need to buy the LP because a boy at school played it continuously from his study across the corridor… only stopping to turn the record over. It sounded like the future.

Cream split, acrimoniously, after Baker pulled a knife on bassist Jack Bruce, thereby creating a self-destructive template for every other band he subsequently joined or started. While touring, his demands were specific: two black prostitutes and a limousine to be provided at every venue. He wasn’t a good man to work with… or to marry. I’m at a loss to know why four women decided to walk up the aisle, and say “I do” to this monster of a man.

Baker never mellowed into a comfortable old age, being lionised by fans, but just become ever more embittered. A documentary film, Beware of Mr Baker, made in 2012, reveals a man who had run out of money and friends, and could not hide the contempt he felt for every musician he had ever played with.

Licensed today: the original Co-Operative shop on Toad Lane in Rochdale...

In the polls...

In the midst of political and governmental chaos, the Tories still have a comfortable 15-point lead over Labour. How incompetent, exactly, would the Tories have to be, for Labour to take advantage and win the next general election?

Licensed last week: a new housing development near Telford...

Something completely different...

It’s fifty years since Monty Python was first aired on TV. I was living in Leeds at the time, and a group of friends would convene in the same bed-sit at 8pm every Thursday evening to watch half an hour of anarchic humour. It was only after the first series had finished that one of the group asked “Who’s the guy who sits on the end?” We looked at each other. “I thought he was a friend of yours”. “And I thought he was a friend of yours!” Nobody knew who he was… only that he enjoyed silly walks and spam as much as the rest of us (and presumably didn't own a TV set).

Licensed last week: a few nondescript exhibits from the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Ulverston (the birthplace of Stan Laurel). The 'boys' were, incidentally, a big influence on John Cleese and the rest of the Pythons...

Gainsborough...

Another pub bites the dust...

Rutter Force...

Licensed today: one of the first pix I uploaded to Alamy: the old watermill, and Rutter Force, near Appleby...