In the days when hifi stereo long playing vinyl records were the ultimate when matched with a good cartridge, tone arm, turntable, amplifier and speakers, and parallel tone arms were arguably better, the Bette Midler album simply titled Bette Midler came out in 1973 and I bought a copy from John Stagg at the Regent … Read more
I had not intended to make a post about the Trooping this year, but on Saturday, 9 June, I looked at the time and noted that the Trooping the Colour event might still be taking place in London. When I checked The Telegraph (UK) online, there was an item to see the event live, so … Read more
I first heard of and listened to Grande Symphonie Funebre et Triumphale by Hector Berlioz when the LP shown below was sent to me in 1969 as a member of the World Record Club. I was enthralled by the work on my first hearing, and nearly 50 years later it still excites and moves me when I … Read more
A year has gone past since my last post, and because of that I was going to skip posting a video of Trooping the Colour this year. But this afternoon, just out of interest I had a look at the video this year, and I was so impressed that I decided to post it. The … Read more
With Trooping the Colour being last Saturday, in the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, I could hardly fail to include a video of it in the year of the Queen’s 90th birthday. I’ve always enjoyed watching it over the years. In the early years of her reign the Queen rode in uniform, sidesaddle, in the parade. In … Read more
This is my second post about Florence Foster Jenkins. The first can be found here. In it I wrote that there were plans to make a movie about her life in 2015 staring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. As it turned out, two movies inspired by her life were released in 2016. The first was a … Read more