I start with some joyful news. Mafeking has been relieved! Our endless financial fast is over: no more making do and mending; no more repetitive checking of my precarious bank balance: the Tax Credits sont arrives! The sense of relief is palpable; for we have now been upgraded from ‘desperate’ to ‘hard-up.’
Phew!
To continue: Charlotte Church this morning was heard to berate the ageing sexists in the music industry: it is time these exploitative dinosaurs were taken to task and I’m pleased to hear her do it. She was giving the John Peel memorial lecture:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/music/charlotte-church-hits-out-over-6185440
and she argued intelligently and cogently. The fact that this was something of a surprise would seem to prove the very point she is making about her dumbed-down and sexualised image.
The very sound of John Peel’s name causes me to feel a mixture of affection and sadness. He was truly ‘one of us’ – in a universal, not a narrow social-class, sort of way: I caught a glimpse of him the other night as I was watching the BBC retrospective about Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells (see my review of this coming on Thurs) – there he was on the Old Grey String Vest or one of those programmes, sitting in that characteristic hunched-over pose, long hair falling over his face and scalp already balding, completely unaware of the cameras and softly strumming a guitar.
I miss the man.
And what a contrast with his fellow-DJ whose name has become a byword for infamy and disgust! Savile was on the news once again as yet more victims seem to have come to light: the very sound of his name makes me shudder.
Two very different legacies…
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 