BROADCASTS.com

The song I have sent you this week is called The Story of Skiffle and is a song I wrote \nfor,and as a tribute to, John Lomax who was a dear friend of mine....I first saw his skiffle group called The Atlantics in 1958 and it was the first time I heard an electric guitar played live...40 years later I met him and we became good friends....this song got us a gig (via Chas McDevitt) at the Finland skiffle convention in 2001 and I put a group together (including John) and off we went....skiffle was the basis of rock and roll...sadly John is no longer with us and I miss him.\n\n.The Christmas countdown has begun....all the prices have 99 pence at the end \n\xa3149.99.....\xa399.99.....purely to make the price sound cheaper...which people seem to \nfall for....YOU'RE GETTING A PENNY CHANGE for goodness sake....it's like the old 99 guineas...which was effectively \xa3105........and we are bombarded again with all the old played out Xmas songs in shops and on the radio...A Child is Born...All I want For \nChristmas is You....and the dreadful Simply having a wonderful Christmas time...and \nthe even worse Frog Chorus...if we must be subjected to Christmas songs PLEASE \ngive us some new ones....yours sincerely Mr.Grumpy.\n\nCliff has got a new single out called "Better To Dream" and it is really good....record of the week on BBC Radio 2 who are keeping in with him...I wonder why?...I'm not \nparticularly a Cliff fan but he's done a good job on his latest album......and I became a \nfan of Andre Rieu after seeing him interviewed....what a great bloke and what a \ntalent....I've always admired people who arrange parts for orchestras...to hear all the \ninstruments in their head and to get it down on paper is a special gift...I think most \npeople think they just stand in front of the orchestra waving a stick around.\n\n...Football has been featured heavily on the news sadly for the wrong reasons...namely the sexual assaults by coaches on young hopefuls...it makes very uncomfortable watching...most of it seems to have been 30 years ago and has left some of the lads traumatised...what is surprising is none of them seemed to go back for revenge...but unless you have been in that situation you'll never understand...I think this is just the tip of the iceberg................also on the sporting front we have The Sports Personality of the Year coming up.... Andy Murray...despite having NO personality....tennis is possibly the most demanding sport and to achieve what he has this year sets him apart from the rest.\n\n.. finally....there has been a bit of an uproar about payouts to top executives....they get \nthe lions share of the profits and the workers get nowt....they can complain and rise up \nas often as they like and it wont make a blind bit of difference....it's always been \nnoblemen and serfs and it always will be....the bankers and the legal profession etc \ndon't give us lot a second thought...and I doubt whether they even HEAR the \nmoans.....locally we have to endure council cuts yet there is money available for a \nluxury golf course next to The Royal Liverpool which will "bring money into the area"....I \nwonder how much of that I'll see....I'll give you ONE guess..