I was reading the extended pieces about Joe Frazier's life and death in The Guardian yesterday. My generation grew up with him and Ali and Joe Bugner, whose losing fight to Frazier on points in 1973 I remember listening to on the radio; I remember that better than the Ali trilogy that ended in Manilla. I suppose we will have our own memories of Smokin' Joe but one thing I never knew was that he was the son of a one-armed watermelon - according to the paper. The Guardian led me to understand at first that "(he was) born to Rubin - a one-armed watermelon and cotton farmer..." I never got to the other side of the hyphen. Not sure Joe's boxing career would have been so illustrious with watermelon as a key part of his DNA.
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Thursday, November 10, 2011
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Literature for you
I came across this site today: Litfy.
Its a site primarily for those studying literature and enables both reading online - on any or all devices - note-taking, page-marking and sharing with others on their forum. Discussions and questions and answers can be easily handled online and the site uses available technology sensibly. The interface is bright and enticing and just very easy to use.
A lot of the free books on the site are similar to the kinds of texts you can download for free on e.g. your amazon Kindle but this is truly about reading and sharing rather than just reading and so the 'online book' is truly a great fusion here I think.
Its a site primarily for those studying literature and enables both reading online - on any or all devices - note-taking, page-marking and sharing with others on their forum. Discussions and questions and answers can be easily handled online and the site uses available technology sensibly. The interface is bright and enticing and just very easy to use.
A lot of the free books on the site are similar to the kinds of texts you can download for free on e.g. your amazon Kindle but this is truly about reading and sharing rather than just reading and so the 'online book' is truly a great fusion here I think.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Downton Abbey ads benefit
Interesting comment in the Mail on Sunday today by Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey. He reminds those critics of ad breaks during the current series that, without advertising money, ITV would not have been able to commission a second series - let alone a third next year. If the BBC had made this costume drama in the current economic climate it would invariably have had to be cut back and probably set in Salford!
Sent via BlackBerry® from BT
Sent via BlackBerry® from BT
Saturday, November 05, 2011
Guy
When we were young children, as Bonfire Night came round once more, my sister and I would fill Dad's old shirts and trousers with leaves and fill an old bag with a covering mask, join them all together with string and top our creation with one of his old Postman's hats.
Dad would have saved all the rubbish from the house and built an enormous heap at the bottom of the garden. We'd sit 'Guy' on the top in the late afternoon as the light was fading and then return to murder him under the cover of darkness.
The light in Dad's eyes has faded now and his thin body would not fill out those shirts or trousers as it once used to. If he did receive any mail, he wouldn't be able to read it. Dad will die soon and only his ashes will remind us of the father who joined in all of our games and worked so hard to ensure that memories don't just arrive on postcards.
Dad would have saved all the rubbish from the house and built an enormous heap at the bottom of the garden. We'd sit 'Guy' on the top in the late afternoon as the light was fading and then return to murder him under the cover of darkness.
The light in Dad's eyes has faded now and his thin body would not fill out those shirts or trousers as it once used to. If he did receive any mail, he wouldn't be able to read it. Dad will die soon and only his ashes will remind us of the father who joined in all of our games and worked so hard to ensure that memories don't just arrive on postcards.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Jimmy Jimmy
Jimmy Saville, who died aged eighty four last weekend, was, quite simply part of my life for as long as I can remember anything. Almost since a meaningful 'zero hour' he was there: on the radio or on the television. But there was nowt zero about Jimmy.
I remember first seeing him on Top of the Tops, with that anarchic grin beneath shocking blonde hair (though his smile would always reassure) on through the treasured Saturday teatimes (depending on how the football results had gone) of Jim'll Fix It and to a hill between Leeds and Otley where I saw him training for yet another marathon. 'Hurry up, Jimmy' yelled my father cheerfully from the window of the car; 'which is the quickest way home?' was his exhausted response. I urged him to join us but that was the closest I or most people got to him.
It was on the radio where, ironically, he became alive to me in a way neither television nor, strangely, reality could achieve. His Sunday lunchtime programme, centred around a fictitious working men's club, where he would play hit records and 'score points' off you if you didn't get the names of artists and tracks absolutely correct were the best two hours of every week. The songs took you - and him - back to people and places that made you laugh and cry in equal measure as the memories came flooding back.
He once said that there was no such thing as important people, or famous people: they were all just people. Jimmy was never just that; not for me and many other ordinary folk who will miss him.
I remember first seeing him on Top of the Tops, with that anarchic grin beneath shocking blonde hair (though his smile would always reassure) on through the treasured Saturday teatimes (depending on how the football results had gone) of Jim'll Fix It and to a hill between Leeds and Otley where I saw him training for yet another marathon. 'Hurry up, Jimmy' yelled my father cheerfully from the window of the car; 'which is the quickest way home?' was his exhausted response. I urged him to join us but that was the closest I or most people got to him.
It was on the radio where, ironically, he became alive to me in a way neither television nor, strangely, reality could achieve. His Sunday lunchtime programme, centred around a fictitious working men's club, where he would play hit records and 'score points' off you if you didn't get the names of artists and tracks absolutely correct were the best two hours of every week. The songs took you - and him - back to people and places that made you laugh and cry in equal measure as the memories came flooding back.
He once said that there was no such thing as important people, or famous people: they were all just people. Jimmy was never just that; not for me and many other ordinary folk who will miss him.
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