Beaver Fun Day

Last Saturday I accompanied Samwise on his first Beaver Scouts adventure activity day. It was held at the Merseyside Scouts District camp site - in the woods at Lathom, near Ormskirk. We had a great day out. Go Karts, Donkey Rides, Craft Work, Bouncy Castle, Planetarium, Birds of Prey, Rock Climbing Wall and best of all - cooking sausages and marshmallows on a stick in an open fire.

Groovy! - The Organist Entertains

Busy week last week doing the 2pm-10pm late shift at work.

Driving home on Thursday night I rediscovered this little gem when I tuned "the wireless" to Radio 2. The Organist Entertains

The last time I listened to this broadcast they were playing recordings of large cinema/theatre organs - mighty Wurlitzer's and the like rising from the orchestra pit to do impressions of marching bands and steam trains. Different, but not really my scene.

This time Nigel Ogden was covering Hammond Organ recordings from the 50's and 60's.
I soon found myself grooving along to the mellow tones of the Hammond C3, H100, X77, A100, M100 etc, some sounds being channelled through rotating Lesley speakers.

Jerry Allen's version of "A Hard Days Night", with saxophone and guitar carrying the melody is a great piece of easy listening. Googling his name, I find that his vocalists were called "The Allentones" - was this the inspiration for "Murph and the Mellotones" in the Blues Brothers?

I noticed that Klaus Wunderlich's "Scarborough Fair/Spinning" wheel has the same tones as Jon Lord playing on Deep Purples "Child in Time" on the Scarborough Fair section.

Perhaps I'm getting older, or maybe it's just the right sort of thing for the late hours after a stressful evening's work, but I did enjoy the show.
Hit that Hammond - Groovy Baby!

Dr Who / Van Gogh

Last night's Dr Who episode featuring a time travelling visit to meet Vincent Van Gogh was a good one (see Impworks review of the episode). The best thing about it for us was that Samwise had just been learning about the "Starry Night" paintings at school, so we'd bought him a book on Van Gogh. Also in the book is the "Church at Auvers". When you look closely you can see a dark smudgy mark in the bottom right corner of one of the windows - as if something has been painted out...?