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Be Careful Who You Upset

  For my midweek post this week I thought I’d have another go at one of the prompts in the Writer’s Workshop, which is managed by John Holton. He sets out the choices for us here, and I’ve decided to go with #5 – to write about my first experience of speaking in public. Strictly to tell, this wasn’t my first such experience, but I’m discounting the ones from school and uni sessions, which to my…

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#Prompts #Public Speaking #Writer&039;s Workshop

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Tuesday Tunes 196: Intros 5x5

Last October I ran a series of three posts of tunes with recognisable intros, and returned at the end of November for another set. As I continue on my trawl back through previous themes that deserve another look, I think this is one such: I had so many on my list! So today I’m playing my fifth set of intros – with absolutely no loss in quality from the previous four, though a couple of them might…

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#music #intros #Little Feat #Procol Harum #Sniff &039;n&039; The Tears #The Moody Blues #The Rolling Stones #Tuesday Tunes

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Song Lyric Sunday: When The Shadows Lengthen

As Jim tells us in his post – Two Are Better Than One – today’s topic for Song Lyric Sunday is to play duets with two prominent performers, as suggested by Nancy aka The Sicilian Storyteller. This is week eight of ten suggestions by Nancy, and they have all been great, so do take some time to look at her blog – you won’t regret it. I’ve chosen two beautiful songs to play for this, both of which…

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#music #duets #Joe Diffie #Johnny Cash #Mary Chapin Carpenter #Roseanne Cash #SLS #Song Lyric Sunday

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Earth Day 2024

I have written about this for the past couple of years, and am largely relying on last year’s post as the basis for this one. No apologies for that: the message is still just as necessary and vital. Next Monday, 22 April, is Earth Day. First held in the US on April 22, 1970, it was opened up to the rest of the world in 1990 and now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by…

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#Cat Stevens #Jackson Browne #music #Queen #Yusuf Islam #David Lindley #Eagles #Earth Day #NASA #Planet Vs. Plastics

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Tuesday Tunes 195: Celebrity Revisited

Continuing my run through further selections of songs for previous themes, today it is the turn of Celebrity, for which I first played a set last September in #166 of this series. Looking back at it, that was a pretty good set, but as the desire for celebrity, and the disillusionment it can sometimes bring, are common themes in music I’m sharing a second set today. And they’re another good…

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#music #celebrity #Dire Straits #Dr Hook and the Medicine Show #Joe Walsh #Nickelback #Taylor Swift #Tuesday Tunes

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Song Lyric Sunday: Fire, Fire, Burning Higher

In the seventh part of her ten week residency, songs with the lyrics “hot, burning, fire or blazing” has been suggested by Nancy aka The Sicilian Storyteller. Read all about it in Jim’s post – Inferno. The field for this was very wide: I thought of Johnny Cash and Eric Burton doing two very different versions of the same song, The Move and their bonkers Fire Brigade, and several others, but…

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#music #Dolly Parton #SLS #Song Lyric Sunday #World On Fire

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Friday Funnies 6

It’s been a couple of months since my last post in my occasional Friday Funnies series, so it feels about time for a few more clips to amuse you ahead of the weekend. There is no particular theme to these: they are just a random selection of things which I’ve seen on YouTube and which have made me laugh. Let’s face it, we all need something to laugh about these days, don’t we! This might look a…

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#comedy #Monty Python #Barry Humphries #Chris Pratt #Friday Funnies #Matthew Weathers #Pointless #Sir Les Patterson #Stephen Colbert

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Tuesday Tunes 194: Birds The Third

Wondering what to choose for this week’s theme I was trawling through my notes on previous posts in this series, and realised that there were many for which I had created lists but only played a few. A lot of these were themes I enjoyed doing, and the ‘leftovers’ were all pretty good, so I thought I’d revisit some of those themes for another go round. I played two weeks of bird songs last…

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#ABBA #music #Bad Company #birds #Derek and the Dominos #Elton John #Steve Miller Band #Tuesday Tunes

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Tuesday Tunes 194: Birds The Third

Wondering what to choose for this week’s theme I was trawling through my notes on previous posts in this series, and realised that there were many for which I had created lists but only played a few. A lot of these were themes I enjoyed doing, and the ‘leftovers’ were all pretty good, so I thought I’d revisit some of those themes for another go round. I played two weeks of bird songs last…

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#music #birds #Steve Miller Band #Tuesday Tunes

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Song Lyric Sunday: Cold Day And Night

For this week, Jim’s post Without Warmth tells us that the challenge for Song Lyric Sunday is to play songs that include the lyrics “cold, frozen, frigid or icy”, suggested by Nancy aka The Sicilian Storyteller, in her ongoing run of great ideas. For once, I didn’t have to look too far for this, as I had used this as a theme for one of my Tuesday Tunes posts just over three years ago. Rest…

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#music #Cold #Faun #SLS #Song Lyric Sunday #The Chicks

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That Was March

It seems hard to believe but we are already in April, which means it is about time for my monthly recap of what I did on the blog. The overall picture was amazing: in terms of page views, it was the biggest score for well over a year, two of the posts are now in my all time top ten for likes, and four others passed fifty. I’ve had worse times here! There were fourteen posts in total, the first of…

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#blogging #blogs #Song Lyric Sunday #Tuesday Tunes #Writer&039;s Workshop

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Tuesday Tunes 193: Lightning

  If you recall, last week’s tunes were themed around thunder, following a suggestion from Carolyn, aka joyroses. The second part of that was to play some lightning songs: I admitted that I had only recalled five at that point, and sought your help. A number of you came up with some ideas, and two of your suggestions have made it into this week’s set at the expense of two that I had thought of:…

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#music #Aerosmith #Grease #Jake Bugg #John Travolta #lightning #Richard Thompson #The Afters #Tuesday Tunes

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Song Lyric Sunday: Pick Up Your Crazy Heart

Today’s Song Lyric Sunday theme, as set out by Jim in his post Movies Need Music, is to play a song which was written for a movie, another great suggestion from Nancy. I’m playing you two from a movie I bought on DVD when it came out, and loved it. The movie is Crazy Heart, which starred Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, and Robert Duvall, among others. It won an Oscar for Jeff as…

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#music #Colin Farrell #Crazy Heart #Jeff Bridges #movies #Ryan Bingham #SLS #Song Lyric Sunday #T Bone Burnett

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🐇🐣Easter-ish Songs🐰🌷

For the past couple of years I have played some songs for Easter. I am not particularly religious but that doesn’t stop me recognising its significance: we were all brought up here learning the story of the crucifixion of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection. My stepmother is an ordained (now retired) priest in the Church of England, so I’m always reminded of what this weekend means, and I hope…

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#music #America #Depeche Mode #Easter #Jesus Christ Superstar #Joan Osborne #Lady Gaga #Murray Head #Norman Greenbaum #The Byrds #Yvonne Elliman

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Tuesday Tunes 192: Thunder

I haven’t had many suggestions for themes for this series but today’s is one such. A couple of weeks ago in a comments chat Carolyn, who blogs under the name joyroses (don’t ask me, I’ve no idea either), said that her husband Brad had suggested that I do one of these on thunder and lightning, as it would give me an excuse to play an AC/DC track. Carolyn hates AC/DC, so of course I immediately…

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#Jackson Browne #music #AC/DC #Bob Dylan #Bruce Springsteen #Marc Cohn #Tuesday Tunes #Wanda Jackson

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Song Lyric Sunday: Princesses And Pirate Ships

It’s Sunday, so that must mean that it’s time for some SLS. This week, in his post Perks of Having Kids, Jim outlines the theme of playing songs about children and families. Much to my great surprise this theme was suggested by Nancy, the Sicilian Storyteller – who knew? There is a rumour that Nancy’s suggestions will be keeping this going until Christmas – or maybe not. In any event Nancy’s…

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#children #family #music #Lee Ann Womack #SLS #Song Lyric Sunday #Taylor Swift

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Leaving On A Jet Plane

I’ve had a couple of attempts in recent weeks at contributing to the Writer’s Workshop, run by John Holton. These have been tolerably successful so I thought I’d give it another go. John’s post outlining this week’s prompts can be found here, and I’m going with #6 – my first airplane trip – with a little side order of #3 – foods I would gorge on if the calories didn’t count. This wasn’t my first…

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#airplane #Campari #Lorraine Chase #Peter Paul And Mary #pizza #Prompts #Sorrento #travel #Writer&039;s Workshop