November 7th:
Dear all, it may be a co-incidence but our website seems to be enjoying its greatest hour just as the Coalition endures one of their worst. Our site has rattled past 30,000 and between our two sites featured a (for us) record average of 110 hits a day last week. More of you are leaving feedback on our site than ever before (along with one or two spammers) and I’m definitely noticing a large jump in the number of hits we get after posting our newsletters ever Monday – so thank you all of you for reading and passing word about our site on to others. 2012 really has been our ‘annilus mirabilus’, or something else equally pretentious in Latin.
As for Cameron, his party has rebelled over his infantile demands not to cut the EU budget (even though that’s what every other European country except Germany have done in these troubled times), he’s been attacked by his own MPs for the lack of women given cabinet posts in the re-shuffle (now down to four, the lowest since the 1970s) and his handling of Andrew Mitchell and ‘plebgate’ has been seen as naive by even his usually supportive media. Better yet, incompetent money maker lawyers posing as doctors ATOS are being investigated after wrongly claiming they had the backing of certain disability organisations (who, in fact, look on ATOS’ tick-box approach with horror, like any sensible humane people). Cameron’s also had to give up some very embarrassing text messages from Rebbekah Brooks to the Leveson Inquiry. Apparently she cried twice during a speech he made in 2009 out of happiness (yuk!) – so did I but for entirely different reasons! Of course I’d rather everyone be mad at Cameron for the real problems he’s caused (the NHS scandal, giving Government contracts to failing incompetent bodies like A4E and G4S and the work(un)fare programme that actually prevents people getting jobs in favour of free slave labour). But it’s still something and the tide is shifting in our favour – the latest opinion polls have the Conservatives sliding ever further downwards and had the coalition not scrapped the law that dictates that if an electorate is undecided who to vote in we have a new vote every year, they’d have been out on their ear by now, which is at least a crumb of comfort. The war has been long, my friends, with many battles still to come, but the tide really is turning. STOP PRESS: Cameron announced this morning that he’s holding talks with leaders from Eastern Europe over their ‘Human Rights Records’. Which of them is going to be the first to bring up ATOS do you think?!
What we really need of course is another Guy Fawkes. Well, another Robert Catesby anyway (Fawkes was the working class fall guy for the parliament plot, a useful smokescreen for rebel politicians – funny how that keeps happening...) Not that I mean we should blow people sky high or anything, but a revolution wouldn’t come amiss before we’ve nothing left to fight back with. Not that you’d know it by the money I’ve seen spent this week on Halloween and Bonfire night this week. As for the former, why the heck are we celebrating what was actually only the second most important day on the calendars of witches and wizards in pagan times? (‘Walpurgis Night’, on April 30th, is the big night – and featured on Hollie Allan Clarke’s first solo album; Halloween is celebrated purely for being six months afterwards). As for the latter, why are we celebrating the fact that a plot to boot out a cruel and evil tyrant in the Housde of Commons actually failed? (Not to mention the fact that fireworks are literally one way of seeing your money go up in smoke!) Anyway I appeal to you all to light your bonfires metaphorically under 10 downing street and get the evil witches and ghouls in the coalition out. That way the tide really would turn for good.
One way you can help that tide keep turning is buy the new ‘Best Of’ CD by singer-songwriter Martin Kitcher, available via Amazon from the 15th November this year (although you can pre-order it now). Regular readers may remember that we reviewed Martin’s Coalition-baiting ‘ATOS Song’ on these pages a few issues back, so will know already that we rate this singer very highly. The CD costs £5 or so, features 18 songs from Martin’s back catalogue and can be bought here –
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZTGA88/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
I’ve heard many of these songs already on Martin’s Soundcloud page (http://soundcloud.com/martinkitcher if you want to hear before you buy) and heartily recommend his cover version of ‘The Beast In Me’ (second only to Johnny Cash in the many cover versions of the song around – see next week’s feature on the man in black to know what a compliment that is) as well as the originals ‘The Pokemon Song’ and ‘Somebody Better Buy Me A Rope’. The others are pretty good too! So if you have a spare bit of money (lucky you) you know what to do with it! If you do decide to buy then can we be cheeky and ask you to buy it via one of the Amazon adverts on our page so we can get a couple of pennies too? (you can find them on the homepage of our www.alansalbumarchives.moonfruit.com site)
Meanwhile our handful of AAA news stories are available by clicking the link here, which will display them in a handy newspaper-style format for you: http://paper.li/f-1347835090
♫ The Who News: The only other thing to mention is that the four part half hour 1990s radio documentary on The Who ‘Our Generation’ (the Paolo Hewitt one) is being repeated on BBC6 in their 12am documentary slot next week between Wednesday, November 14th and Saturday, November 17th.
ANNIVERSARIES: AAA Birthday boys and gals this week (November 7th to 13th) include: Ian Craig Marsh (synthesiser with the Human League 1979-81) who turns 56 on November 11th and Neil Young who turns 67 on November 12th. Anniversaries of events include: The Rolling Stones break the record for the most money earned for a single concert (£108,000) after a gig in Los Angeles, beating the previous record: The Beatles at Shea Stadium (November 8th 1969); The Human League officially split into two – Phil Oakey keeps the band name and gains two cocktail waitress singers whilst synthesiser experts Ian Craig Marsh and Martin Ware form Heaven 17 (November 8th 1980); David Crosby officially leaves The Byrds, to be replaced for a matter of weeks by his old colleague Gene Clark and leaving Crosby free to form CSN (November 9th 1967); The Moody Blues release their seminal single ‘Nights In White Satin’ (November 10th 1967); The Human League make their live debut in their hometown of Sheffield (November 12th 1980); The Moody Blues release their ‘other’ big seller ‘Go Now’ (November 13th 1964); Brian Jones buys the House at Pooh Corners, aka AA Milne’s house Catchford Farm in Sussex where the guitarist will later drown (November 13th 1967); The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine film premieres in America (November 13th 1968) and finally, Cat Stevens releases his landmark album ‘Teaser and the Firecat’ and Pink Floyd release their landmark album ‘Meddle’ on the same day (November 13th 1971).
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