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Could the Tory Jim Crow laws hand the election to Susan Hall? – politicalbetting.com

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  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    Wales? I think you’re forgetting this deathless tune:

    https://youtu.be/Eijc2tGe-zM
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,197
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    I didn't see that one but my initial thought is he or she could have just got the train. However if you were stony broke, had no vehicle of your own, and still had to do it ... ok now you might have a story.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    As it was put to me, Americans think nothing of driving five hours to pick up a taco.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,197
    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    The song doesn't say she's attractive. It just says "such a fine sight to see" in relation to a girl of unspecified age or appearance driving a Ford motor vehicle.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,792
    edited May 2
    I used my bus pass as id. The amount of interest they took in it, it could have been anyone's bus pass. Although we did have a chat about bus passes and how old you had to be to get a free one (so I had to be old to get away with someone else's card, but other than that it could have had my dogs picture on it) and we chatted about my dog voting and the alarm that needed the battery changing. I was thanked for reminding them that it was an annoying beep every couple of minutes. I think that was sarcasm.

    You can guess that out of the 4 of us I was the only voter for sometime*

    * Just the pointless vote for a police commissioner
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    That's made me wonder, what is a mortal song - one sung by William Shatner, maybe? But surely no song can survive that.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co2ZVdVM26E

  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,805

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    Otoh there's the peril of London to Norwich in a day in Clockwise, perhaps the shittest movie ever made
    Indeed - there was no drama, just mundane irritation. In fact the archetypal British road experience.

    (Actually, there is plenty of joy in British roads. But draw a box which goes roughly Doncaster-Bedford-Colchester-Margate-Portsmouth-Crewe-Doncaster - where the majority of British road journeys take place: almost all joy and drama is outside of this box.)
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    kjh said:

    I used my bus pass as id. The amount of interest they took in it, it could have been anyone's bus pass. Although we did have a chat about bus passes and how old you had to be to get a free one (so I had to be old to get away with someone else's card, but other than that it could have had my dogs picture on it) and we chatted about my dog voting and the alarm that needed the battery changing. I was thanked for reminding them that it was an annoying beep every couple of minutes. I think that was sarcasm.

    You can guess that out of the 4 of us I was the only voter for sometime.

    Our polling station took a good long look at my driving licence - I was beginning to think they were going to refuse me. The licence is only a year old too but I think I may have been lazy and used an older photo I had when renewing it last year.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,369
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    I didn't see that one but my initial thought is he or she could have just got the train. However if you were stony broke, had no vehicle of your own, and still had to do it ... ok now you might have a story.
    There's a vaguely amusing Netflix film about a Dad undertaking a cross-Britain road trip to click-and-collect the last must-have Christmas gift in the country.

    The constrained size of the country does force a certain degree of slapstick misfortune to lengthen the duration of the journey.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    edited May 2
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    The song doesn't say she's attractive. It just says "such a fine sight to see" in relation to a girl of unspecified age or appearance driving a Ford motor vehicle.
    The use of the word “girl” suggests, at least, that he wasn’t ogled by an old woman in a motabilty scooter, as the female in question has to “slow down” to look at him

    If it was a quasi disabled woman of pensionable age the song would surely have gone

    “There’s a crone, my Lord, in a motability scooter
    Slowing down EVEN MORE to take a look at me, perhaps she’s noticed my outsize hooter”

    And that wouldn’t be anywhere near as good; indeed I suspect the writer wouid have struck those lines from his lyrics and then abandoned writing the whole song and probably gone into insurance as a career
  • northern_monkeynorthern_monkey Posts: 1,639
    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    Here's one for the PB brains trust. When did they start saying 'route' to rhyme with 'pout' in the States? It rhymes it with ''root' in the Chuck Berry song. I find it really jarring when I hear it pronounced the 'pout' way. Is it a fairly recent variation or is it one of those things that's actually proper Old English, or something?

    And vee-hicle.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    There’s *one* British road movie: Radio On, which I think I’ve posted about before.

    A youthful Sting has a cameo.

    I really enjoy the great open road and the sense of frontier in the US. In the UK, it’s only the Scottish Highlands that give a sense of that.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,369

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    Here's one for the PB brains trust. When did they start saying 'route' to rhyme with 'pout' in the States? It rhymes it with ''root' in the Chuck Berry song. I find it really jarring when I hear it pronounced the 'pout' way. Is it a fairly recent variation or is it one of those things that's actually proper Old English, or something?

    And vee-hicle.
    I made a start yesterday evening on teaching my three year old Irish niece to pronounce "butter" in the correct South London accent with silent "t"s.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,458

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    Here's one for the PB brains trust. When did they start saying 'route' to rhyme with 'pout' in the States? It rhymes it with ''root' in the Chuck Berry song. I find it really jarring when I hear it pronounced the 'pout' way. Is it a fairly recent variation or is it one of those things that's actually proper Old English, or something?

    And vee-hicle.
    It's not old english, as the word comes from French, which shares our ponunciation of the word.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,852

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    Here's one for the PB brains trust. When did they start saying 'route' to rhyme with 'pout' in the States? It rhymes it with ''root' in the Chuck Berry song. I find it really jarring when I hear it pronounced the 'pout' way. Is it a fairly recent variation or is it one of those things that's actually proper Old English, or something?

    And vee-hicle.
    Very quick look at Google Advanced Book Search gets the latter back to 1912 at least ...
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    edited May 2
    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    I went to a talk on Noel Coward this morning - came across a song of his that has to be contender for the new national anthem of England, particularly among desperate Tories: There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner.

    ...There are bad times just around the corner,
    We can all look forward to despair,
    It's as clear as crystal
    From Bridlington to Bristol
    That we can't save democracy and we don't much care
    If the Reds and the Pinks
    Believe that England stinks
    And that world revolution is bound to spread,
    We'd better all learn the lyrics of the old 'Red Flag'
    And wait until we drop down dead.


    As ever with Coward the full lyrics are very witty and the song is rather jaunty.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,852
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    The song doesn't say she's attractive. It just says "such a fine sight to see" in relation to a girl of unspecified age or appearance driving a Ford motor vehicle.
    The use of the word “girl” suggests, at least, that he wasn’t ogled by an old woman in a motabilty scooter, as the female in question has to “slow down” to look at him

    If it was a quasi disabled woman of pensionable age the song would surely have gone

    “There’s a crone, my Lord, in a motability scooter
    Slowing down EVEN MORE to take a look at me, perhaps she’s noticed my outsize hooter”

    And that wouldn’t be anywhere near as good; indeed I suspect the writer wouid have struck those lines from his lyrics and then abandoned writing the whole song and probably gone into insurance as a career
    Depends how old the *songwriter* is, though. If he's 75, the conclusion is totally different.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,197
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    The song doesn't say she's attractive. It just says "such a fine sight to see" in relation to a girl of unspecified age or appearance driving a Ford motor vehicle.
    The use of the word “girl” suggests, at least, that he wasn’t ogled by an old woman in a motabilty scooter, as the female in question has to “slow down” to look at him

    If it was a quasi disabled woman of pensionable age the song would surely have gone

    “There’s a crone, my Lord, in a motability scooter
    Slowing down EVEN MORE to take a look at me, perhaps she’s noticed my outsize hooter”

    And that wouldn’t be anywhere near as good; indeed I suspect the writer wouid have struck those lines from his lyrics and then abandoned writing the whole song and probably gone into insurance as a career
    Possibly right. Although the problem with those alternative words is more that they no longer fit the tune.

    My serious point? The risks of projecting. Of seeing only what you want to see. Of assuming the obvious interpretation of a song's lyrics is the right one.

    Eg Stay Another Day by East17. It's clearly about a guy pleading with a romantic partner not to dump him, right? NO. It's about somebody dying of a terminal disease.

    Or Clair by Gilbert O'Sullivan. That's about infatuation with a girl, yes, but not in the usual hackneyed sense. He's talking about a toddler.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    I didn't see that one but my initial thought is he or she could have just got the train. However if you were stony broke, had no vehicle of your own, and still had to do it ... ok now you might have a story.
    There's a vaguely amusing Netflix film about a Dad undertaking a cross-Britain road trip to click-and-collect the last must-have Christmas gift in the country.

    The constrained size of the country does force a certain degree of slapstick misfortune to lengthen the duration of the journey.
    Not Netflix but on the much-maligned BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bwq0gc

    Very funny it was too.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited May 2

    There’s *one* British road movie: Radio On, which I think I’ve posted about before.

    A youthful Sting has a cameo.

    I really enjoy the great open road and the sense of frontier in the US. In the UK, it’s only the Scottish Highlands that give a sense of that.

    Isn't The Office follow on/spin off film a road movie IIRC, which I'm not sure I do.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 5,006
    edited May 2
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and perhaps it would be fairer if you made it very clear when you have a financial interest in promoting a travel destination.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,913
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    The song doesn't say she's attractive. It just says "such a fine sight to see" in relation to a girl of unspecified age or appearance driving a Ford motor vehicle.
    The use of the word “girl” suggests, at least, that he wasn’t ogled by an old woman in a motabilty scooter, as the female in question has to “slow down” to look at him

    If it was a quasi disabled woman of pensionable age the song would surely have gone

    “There’s a crone, my Lord, in a motability scooter
    Slowing down EVEN MORE to take a look at me, perhaps she’s noticed my outsize hooter”

    And that wouldn’t be anywhere near as good; indeed I suspect the writer wouid have struck those lines from his lyrics and then abandoned writing the whole song and probably gone into insurance as a career
    Is that why it's called 'Hooters'?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,197

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    I didn't see that one but my initial thought is he or she could have just got the train. However if you were stony broke, had no vehicle of your own, and still had to do it ... ok now you might have a story.
    There's a vaguely amusing Netflix film about a Dad undertaking a cross-Britain road trip to click-and-collect the last must-have Christmas gift in the country.

    The constrained size of the country does force a certain degree of slapstick misfortune to lengthen the duration of the journey.
    That sounds like the sort of film where "vaguely amusing" means they've pretty much pulled it off.
  • AlsoLeiAlsoLei Posts: 1,457

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    Here's one for the PB brains trust. When did they start saying 'route' to rhyme with 'pout' in the States? It rhymes it with ''root' in the Chuck Berry song. I find it really jarring when I hear it pronounced the 'pout' way. Is it a fairly recent variation or is it one of those things that's actually proper Old English, or something?

    And vee-hicle.
    Some Americans do pronounce it as "root" even today, but they still rhyme router with pouter.

    In the UK, of course, a router is "rooter" if you're talking about computer networks, but rhymes with pouter if you're talking about woodworking.

    (The woodworking aspect makes me suspect that it's the 'pout' pronunciation that is the more traditional...)
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,559
    eristdoof said:

    Andy_JS said:

    It's a bit disappointing that we have to wait so long for the London results. Saturday morning someone said?

    Outlying ballot boxes issues, the ones from Harold Wood take many hours to arrive for example
    Do it the German way. The polling station shuts, and the last shift of the polling station does the counting on site. Usually done and dusted between 30 and 60 minutes and the results are sent in electronically (previously by phone). Only then are the ballot papers are sent to a local electoral centre, where some random checking and checking of surprising results or very close results over the next few days.

    It means that there are good reliable results available very quickly even if some of the fine tuning takes a couple of days.
    Pretty much every country in the world counts like this apart from the UK and Ireland AFAIK. But you don't get the drama of constituency declarations.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,805
    TOPPING said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    As it was put to me, Americans think nothing of driving five hours to pick up a taco.
    I think that was originally Bill Bryson? Who by comparison said that Londoners will barely deign to cross the river.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    edited May 2
    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    1. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about

    And

    2. Go jump in a lake. The only moderators on here are @TSE and @rcs1000. I will take instructions from them, it’s their site. But not from you
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,369
    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    He's mentioned several times that he's on a jolly paid for by French taxpayers, in an attempt to provoke envy, and part of the reason a lot of us use pseudonyms is not so much to hide our identities from each other - there have been lots of PB get togethers - but to avoid our contributions to PB being tied to our identities with a simple Google search.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,577
    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,805
    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,197

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    I believe someone asked Don Henley and he told them exactly what corner it was. And now it is all commercialised. Tsk
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,369
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    I didn't see that one but my initial thought is he or she could have just got the train. However if you were stony broke, had no vehicle of your own, and still had to do it ... ok now you might have a story.
    There's a vaguely amusing Netflix film about a Dad undertaking a cross-Britain road trip to click-and-collect the last must-have Christmas gift in the country.

    The constrained size of the country does force a certain degree of slapstick misfortune to lengthen the duration of the journey.
    That sounds like the sort of film where "vaguely amusing" means they've pretty much pulled it off.
    I'm trying to avoid hyperbole. "Vaguely amusing" is a passing grade.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,805
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    I didn't see that one but my initial thought is he or she could have just got the train. However if you were stony broke, had no vehicle of your own, and still had to do it ... ok now you might have a story.
    The scriptwriter had to jump through quite a few hoops, as far as I remember. He didn't have enough money for a train ticket, nor any means to borrow money against this inheritance he was about to come into, but he had access to an unreliable car with some petrol in it. It did make sense, but it had a feeling of being highly contrived.
    I think he made it, but in the end the amount of money he made from it being really quite modest for some reason, but actually what he got out of it was being reunited with his family, or something. I have a feeling the ending was actually quite well done. It had a feeling of something starring John Gordon Sinclair, even if it wasn't. There was a scene where he hitchhiked a hilariously short distance and another one involving hoovering the moors.
    That's all I can recall.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    edited May 2
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,197
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    I believe someone asked Don Henley and he told them exactly what corner it was. And now it is all commercialised. Tsk
    Ok - but he wasn't there. The song was written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,190

    There’s *one* British road movie: Radio On, which I think I’ve posted about before.

    A youthful Sting has a cameo.

    I really enjoy the great open road and the sense of frontier in the US. In the UK, it’s only the Scottish Highlands that give a sense of that.

    I have a soft spot for Kings of the Road, which shows you can have a great road movie without traversing entire continents.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,369
    Cookie said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    As it was put to me, Americans think nothing of driving five hours to pick up a taco.
    I think that was originally Bill Bryson? Who by comparison said that Londoners will barely deign to cross the river.
    I grew up in South London. We only ever crossed the river:
    1. For Kings Cross to visit Granny in Peterborough.
    2. For Oxford Street (but no more than a couple of times a year).
    3. On an organised school trip to the museums in South Kensington.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    1. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about

    And

    2. Go jump in a lake. The only moderators on here are @TSE and @rcs1000. I will take instructions from them, it’s their site. But not from you
    And

    3. Your post hasn't wound me up at all. No not one little bit. I'm completely ignoring it. Totally.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,087
    edited May 2

    There’s *one* British road movie: Radio On, which I think I’ve posted about before.

    A youthful Sting has a cameo.

    I really enjoy the great open road and the sense of frontier in the US. In the UK, it’s only the Scottish Highlands that give a sense of that.

    Genevieve.
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045808/

    (edit)
    Also a young Peter Capaldi in Soft Top Hard Shoulder.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    edited May 2

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    One of the most poetic things that has ever happened to me in london is this: about ten years ago I was with my then 8 year old daughter, the eldest - she was still at the age when she could see wondrous things eveywhere

    Anyway we were on the edge of Hampstead Heath on one soft summer dusk and I looked up and saw Mars and Venus (or two planets anyway) shining so brightly - like a miraculous UFO - and I pointed it out and we both gazed up through the trees and at that moment a nightingale burst into song. True story. So they do occasionally appear in bosky corners of london. And of course Hampstead Heath - Keats grove - is where John Keats heard his nightingale - inspiring this poem

    My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
    Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
    One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
    'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
    But being too happy in thine happiness,—
    That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
    In some melodious plot
    Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
    Singest of summer in full-throated ease.…
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,197
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    I didn't see that one but my initial thought is he or she could have just got the train. However if you were stony broke, had no vehicle of your own, and still had to do it ... ok now you might have a story.
    The scriptwriter had to jump through quite a few hoops, as far as I remember. He didn't have enough money for a train ticket, nor any means to borrow money against this inheritance he was about to come into, but he had access to an unreliable car with some petrol in it. It did make sense, but it had a feeling of being highly contrived.
    I think he made it, but in the end the amount of money he made from it being really quite modest for some reason, but actually what he got out of it was being reunited with his family, or something. I have a feeling the ending was actually quite well done. It had a feeling of something starring John Gordon Sinclair, even if it wasn't. There was a scene where he hitchhiked a hilariously short distance and another one involving hoovering the moors.
    That's all I can recall.
    Sounds a good watch. I'll keep an eye out.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 5,006
    edited May 2
    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    1. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about

    And

    2. Go jump in a lake. The only moderators on here are @TSE and @rcs1000. I will take instructions from them, it’s their site. But not from you
    Likewise I can comment as I see fit. I believe you abuse their hospitality but, I agree, that is up to them not me.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    I didn't see that one but my initial thought is he or she could have just got the train. However if you were stony broke, had no vehicle of your own, and still had to do it ... ok now you might have a story.
    The scriptwriter had to jump through quite a few hoops, as far as I remember. He didn't have enough money for a train ticket, nor any means to borrow money against this inheritance he was about to come into, but he had access to an unreliable car with some petrol in it. It did make sense, but it had a feeling of being highly contrived.
    I think he made it, but in the end the amount of money he made from it being really quite modest for some reason, but actually what he got out of it was being reunited with his family, or something. I have a feeling the ending was actually quite well done. It had a feeling of something starring John Gordon Sinclair, even if it wasn't. There was a scene where he hitchhiked a hilariously short distance and another one involving hoovering the moors.
    That's all I can recall.
    Rain Man is a great road movie imo.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,577
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    When I went late 80's, it wasn't much more than a one-horse town.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,669
    edited May 2
    Well, I have voted.

    There was nobody to be seen on the premises except for the polling station staff, so one could not describe it as 'brisk'.


    I was asked to follow the Covid procedures and directed to leave by a different door. It seems not everyone is over that yet. Or perhaps they'd had nothing to do for the past half hour.

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,867

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    1. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about

    And

    2. Go jump in a lake. The only moderators on here are @TSE and @rcs1000. I will take instructions from them, it’s their site. But not from you
    And

    3. Your post hasn't wound me up at all. No not one little bit. I'm completely ignoring it. Totally.
    Olly has a point. Anonymity and self-promotion; you can reasonably have one or the other. Trying to have both is having a laugh.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    But the song doesn't say what corner it is. Is there only one corner in Winslow?
    I believe someone asked Don Henley and he told them exactly what corner it was. And now it is all commercialised. Tsk
    Ok - but he wasn't there. The song was written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey.
    Fair enough. I simply mean the songwriter. Someone asked them
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    1. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about

    And

    2. Go jump in a lake. The only moderators on here are @TSE and @rcs1000. I will take instructions from them, it’s their site. But not from you
    And

    3. Your post hasn't wound me up at all. No not one little bit. I'm completely ignoring it. Totally.
    Olly has a point. Anonymity and self-promotion; you can reasonably have one or the other. Trying to have both is having a laugh.
    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    1. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about

    And

    2. Go jump in a lake. The only moderators on here are @TSE and @rcs1000. I will take instructions from them, it’s their site. But not from you
    Likewise I can comment as I see fit. I believe you abuse their hospitality but, I agree, that is up to them not me.
    Then we are of one mind, and there is no need for foul discord
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,416

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    Nothing by Johnny Cash ?
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,416

    Well, I have voted.

    There was nobody to be seen on the premises except for the polling station staff, so one could not describe it as 'brisk'.


    I was asked to follow the Covid procedures and directed to leave by a different door. It seems not everyone is over that yet. Or perhaps they'd had nothing to do for the past half hour.

    I was going to vote for Kim McGuinness but her twitter feed was full of her arse licking Jamie Oliver for likes and retweets over his demands for so called junk food advertising bans, while ignoring voters questions.

    She will probably win anyway. But if she cannot be bothered with electors while she is running for office what will she be like in office. Screw her.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,373
    edited May 2

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    Jackson Browne is a genius.

    Apparently "it's a girl my Lord in a" Datsun pickup didn't scan as well as " it's a girl my Lord in a flatbed Ford".
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Taz said:

    Well, I have voted.

    There was nobody to be seen on the premises except for the polling station staff, so one could not describe it as 'brisk'.


    I was asked to follow the Covid procedures and directed to leave by a different door. It seems not everyone is over that yet. Or perhaps they'd had nothing to do for the past half hour.

    I was going to vote for Kim McGuinness but her twitter feed was full of her arse licking Jamie Oliver for likes and retweets over his demands for so called junk food advertising bans, while ignoring voters questions.

    She will probably win anyway. But if she cannot be bothered with electors while she is running for office what will she be like in office. Screw her.
    This is the latest PPB from a "lifelong Labour voter" telling us yet again why he won't be voting Labour.

    Funny old world.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Taz said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    Nothing by Johnny Cash ?
    Don't give up the day job.

    Weirdly obsessed.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,087
    edited May 2
    And how long do they think Republicans will "leave it to the states" to decide on the question ?

    Visual on public attitudes about abortion across all 50 states.
    @PRRIpoll : "nearly two-thirds (64%) of residents in battleground states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases."

    https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1786033705477341641

    63% in Florida.

    Full details here:
    https://www.prri.org/research/abortion-views-in-all-50-states-findings-from-prris-2023-american-values-atlas/
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    The one advantage to Paris being a windswept, violent grey toilet - as described in that exceptional spectator article - is that returning to london via Eurostar now feels like a relief rather than a potential disappointment
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,195
    Leon said:

    The one advantage to Paris being a windswept, violent grey toilet - as described in that exceptional spectator article - is that returning to london via Eurostar now feels like a relief rather than a potential disappointment

    Did you head to Versailles ?

    Should provide a magnificent backdrop to the dancing horses in the Olympics.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Nigelb said:

    There’s *one* British road movie: Radio On, which I think I’ve posted about before.

    A youthful Sting has a cameo.

    I really enjoy the great open road and the sense of frontier in the US. In the UK, it’s only the Scottish Highlands that give a sense of that.

    Genevieve.
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045808/

    (edit)
    Also a young Peter Capaldi in Soft Top Hard Shoulder.
    Genevieve appears to be about a London to Brighton race. I think a road movie ought to seem more liberating or menacing than that suggests.

    I forgot “Locke”. Excellent film.
  • sarissasarissa Posts: 1,993
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Sunshine on Leith vs Tinseltown in the Rain for the quintessential Scottish experience!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,087
    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and perhaps it would be fairer if you made it very clear when you have a financial interest in promoting a travel destination.
    I don't know the traffic on here, but I can't help feeling that there are more cost-effective ways of promoting your trade than making numerous below-the-line comments on a politics blog.
    i.e. it doesn't really feel like marketing.
    Actually he very generously provides something of a service, for the majority of us who have no interest in subscribing to the publication, but have an occasional fleeting interest in what it's currently obsessing over.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,669
    edited May 2
    Taz said:

    Well, I have voted.

    There was nobody to be seen on the premises except for the polling station staff, so one could not describe it as 'brisk'.


    I was asked to follow the Covid procedures and directed to leave by a different door. It seems not everyone is over that yet. Or perhaps they'd had nothing to do for the past half hour.

    I was going to vote for Kim McGuinness but her twitter feed was full of her arse licking Jamie Oliver for likes and retweets over his demands for so called junk food advertising bans, while ignoring voters questions.

    She will probably win anyway. But if she cannot be bothered with electors while she is running for office what will she be like in office. Screw her.
    As Andy Burnham somehow seems to have worked out, regional mayoral jobs are not terribly party political and are mostly about cheerleading rather than virtue signalling.

    More H'Angus the Monkeys required I think.

    Turnout hovering around 20% here is my guess. It was 26% in 2022.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,904
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    I have actually been to that corner in “Winslow Arizona”. It’s on the historic Route 66

    Quite nondescript in reality but that’s the point of the song. Something epiphanic happening in an anonymous place

    He is desired by an attractive young woman who actually slows down to take a look at him. He gets a surge of self esteem and testosterone. He goes home and writes an immortal song

    The song doesn't say she's attractive. It just says "such a fine sight to see" in relation to a girl of unspecified age or appearance driving a Ford motor vehicle.
    The use of the word “girl” suggests, at least, that he wasn’t ogled by an old woman in a motabilty scooter, as the female in question has to “slow down” to look at him

    If it was a quasi disabled woman of pensionable age the song would surely have gone

    “There’s a crone, my Lord, in a motability scooter
    Slowing down EVEN MORE to take a look at me, perhaps she’s noticed my outsize hooter”

    And that wouldn’t be anywhere near as good; indeed I suspect the writer wouid have struck those lines from his lyrics and then abandoned writing the whole song and probably gone into insurance as a career
    Possibly right. Although the problem with those alternative words is more that they no longer fit the tune.

    My serious point? The risks of projecting. Of seeing only what you want to see. Of assuming the obvious interpretation of a song's lyrics is the right one.

    Eg Stay Another Day by East17. It's clearly about a guy pleading with a romantic partner not to dump him, right? NO. It's about somebody dying of a terminal disease.

    Or Clair by Gilbert O'Sullivan. That's about infatuation with a girl, yes, but not in the usual hackneyed sense. He's talking about a toddler.
    100 years ago, Abide With Me was adopted as the FA Cup Final hymn but rather than football, it is about dying from TB.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,099
    There are the Press Association estimates of when results will be announced.

  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,662
    https://x.com/bopanc/status/1785953281107259455

    New German migration poll:

    52% don't want refugees from Islamic countries;
    54% fear Germans becoming a minority;
    57% say certain homeland areas no longer feel like Germany;
    58% say migrants not integrated;
    75% say migration overwhelms schools.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,096

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    Newport State of Mind (Newport Ymerodraeth state of mind) by various. (Newport)

  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the magnetic zeros.

    https://youtu.be/DHEOF_rcND8?si=ByQURN_JXpk1vRns

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited May 2
    I mean The Clash have about a million songs about London including, er, London Calling and also Guns of Brixton, London's Burning, White Man in Hammersmith Palais, etc.

    Virtually their entire oeuvre is an homage to London.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,625

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    He's mentioned several times that he's on a jolly paid for by French taxpayers, in an attempt to provoke envy, and part of the reason a lot of us use pseudonyms is not so much to hide our identities from each other - there have been lots of PB get togethers - but to avoid our contributions to PB being tied to our identities with a simple Google search.
    If he wants 'envy', then frankly he's failing. A healthy amount of LOLing and boredom, yes. But envy? No; at least from this direction.

    I wouldn't swap my lifestyle for Leon's for a million pounds. If he's happy doing what he's doing; cool. But his constant LOOK AT MEEEEEE!!!! posting on here sorta indicates he's not that happy.

    What Leon is good at doing is sparking debate, for good or ill. Except when it's the same boring topics that he obsesses on, despite having zero knowledge about them... :)
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 5,006
    Cookie said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and perhaps it would be fairer if you made it very clear when you have a financial interest in promoting a travel destination.
    I don't know the traffic on here, but I can't help feeling that there are more cost-effective ways of promoting your trade than making numerous below-the-line comments on a politics blog.
    i.e. it doesn't really feel like marketing.
    I didn't suggest that it was effective, I was merely criticising what I believe he uses the site for.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    sarissa said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Sunshine on Leith vs Tinseltown in the Rain for the quintessential Scottish experience!
    Can't believe I missed Sunshine on Leith – a love letter to Edinburgh!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    The one advantage to Paris being a windswept, violent grey toilet - as described in that exceptional spectator article - is that returning to london via Eurostar now feels like a relief rather than a potential disappointment

    Did you head to Versailles ?

    Should provide a magnificent backdrop to the dancing horses in the Olympics.
    I never want to go back to Versailles because i don’t want to taint a memory because the last and only time I was there as an adult was in the early 1990s and it was a cold rainy winter afternoon and I took Ecstasy with a friend and wowwwwww I remember thinking Even the Sun King didn’t experience this and it was amazing amazing all the lights and the rain and the car lights and the rain and the endless beautiful palace and the light and the rain and the lights and the rain and the lights reflected in the rain and the cars the cars all their yellow lights all reflected in the rain the rain and the cold dark rains of beautiful Versailles and I was young and the rain
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,904
    edited May 2

    Taz said:

    Well, I have voted.

    There was nobody to be seen on the premises except for the polling station staff, so one could not describe it as 'brisk'.


    I was asked to follow the Covid procedures and directed to leave by a different door. It seems not everyone is over that yet. Or perhaps they'd had nothing to do for the past half hour.

    I was going to vote for Kim McGuinness but her twitter feed was full of her arse licking Jamie Oliver for likes and retweets over his demands for so called junk food advertising bans, while ignoring voters questions.

    She will probably win anyway. But if she cannot be bothered with electors while she is running for office what will she be like in office. Screw her.
    As Andy Burnham somehow seems to have worked out, regional mayoral jobs are not terribly party political and are mostly about cheerleading rather than virtue signalling.

    More H'Angus the Monkeys required I think.

    Turnout hovering around 20% here is my guess. It was 26% in 2022.
    Ken Livingstone beat him to it. So-called Red Ken made London safe for property developers to forever change the skyline.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,373
    edited May 2
    viewcode said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    Newport State of Mind (Newport Ymerodraeth state of mind) by various. (Newport)

    Another Welsh entry. Abergavenny by Marty Wilde (Kim's dad).

    Is this what election purdah looks like on PB?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,992
    sarissa said:

    Sunshine on Leith vs Tinseltown in the Rain for the quintessential Scottish experience!

    Scottish and Rain is a whole oeuvre in itself

    Meanwhile, Goodwill City celebrates Edinburgh as the Aids capital of the World...
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    You are misremembering.

    GdN has been a shithole for as long as I've been going there although now in fact the brasseries opposite the station look rather attractive. Elsewhere people face down on the "bare sidewalk" (as opposed to...)? So what - happens all the time everywhere. One guy blotto for whatever reason and the city is falling apart is the thesis? Not 100% sure about that.
    I was prepared to admit I’d got it wrong - or at least exaggerated - when I disembarked at Gare du Montparnasse

    Soon as we crossed the Seine, nope, I was right. Besides the spectator agrees with me and that magazine is famously correct about everything

    And I speak as the reincarnation of Napoleon and as the Jay Rayner of Place

    In fact Napoleon was more a prior incarnation of me, really
    Impressive the way you get away with using PB to promote yourself, your employer and the people who pay for your travel. If you want to do this you need to stop thinly-veiling your identity (which fools nobody) and declare your financial interest when you are doing PR for Brittany for example.
    1. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about

    And

    2. Go jump in a lake. The only moderators on here are @TSE and @rcs1000. I will take instructions from them, it’s their site. But not from you
    And

    3. Your post hasn't wound me up at all. No not one little bit. I'm completely ignoring it. Totally.
    Olly has a point. Anonymity and self-promotion; you can reasonably have one or the other. Trying to have both is having a laugh.
    Completely agree. Sean wants to have his cake and eat it. Anonymity is fine, alternatively so is promoting his articles. Do both and you have to expect to be doxxed.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Sadiq now 1.01 on BX.

  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,020
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Driving Home for Christmas.

    Made all the more sorrowful as you know he is actually heading up to Teesside.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,190

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    California by Joni Mitchell (California)

    Or if you want to broaden your horizons
    Et jitt kei Wood by Cat Ballou (Cologne)

    Locals say that Cologne is the city that has the most songs about it in the world. No idea if it's true, but I don't know anywhere else where even immigrants who don't speak the dialect know at least the choruses of dozens of songs about the place.

    Grown men cry every time they sing along to:

    "Su simmer all he hinjekumme,
    mir sprechen hück all dieselve Sproch.
    Mir han dodurch su vill jewonne.
    Mir sin wie mer sin, mir Jecke am Rhing.
    Dat es jet ,wo mer stolz drop sin" by Bläck Fööss
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,867

    There are the Press Association estimates of when results will be announced.

    Basically, it’s mostly tomorrow afternoon then
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Driving Home for Christmas.

    Made all the more sorrowful as you know he is actually heading up to Teesside.
    Lol
  • megasaurmegasaur Posts: 586

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    Unless Berkely Square was covered in thick scrub at the time, it was unlikely to be a nightingale. Probably a robin, if at night.

    I have also been to Wilmslow, Arizona. Seen the aforementioned corner.

    Also got to see the song sung live, in Hyde Park. Quite joyous. (Also Life's Been Good performed by Joe Walsh. Another of the Holy Songs...)
    That certain night
    The night we met
    There was magic abroad in the air
    There were angels dining at the Ritz
    And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

    Etc etc. it's a trope, a flight of fancy, a counterfactual.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,020
    Leon said:

    The one advantage to Paris being a windswept, violent grey toilet - as described in that exceptional spectator article - is that returning to london via Eurostar now feels like a relief rather than a potential disappointment

    The fact that you disembark on the correct side of London to catch a train to the north must come as a reassurance.

    Gone are the days of being dumped unceremoniously amongst the evils and depravations of Waterloo.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    We voted at our village primary school. A couple in front of us an another couple came in behind so voting was steady, I guess.

    The school is not closed this time though and one class of 8 year olds was being shown democracy in action - watching respectfully from the side while we voted, the teachers explaining what was happening.

    Quite uplifting actually and hopefully will cause a few of them to engage as they grow up.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    edited May 2
    Mist Rolling In From The Trent (Mull of Kintyre) – Nottingham Forest FC

    Sunshine on Leith – Hibernian FC

    Banks of the Royal Blue Mersey – Everton FC

    Blaydon Races – Newcastle United FC

    The Angel (North London Forever) – Arsenal FC
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,369

    Sadiq now 1.01 on BX.

    In 2016 Khan received 44.2% of the vote and Labour received 40.3% in the London Assembly list. So Khan was +3.9 on his party.

    In 2021 Khan received 40.0% of the vote and Labour received 38.1% in the London Assembly list. So Khan was +1.9 on his party.

    Wonder what that will look like this time?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited May 2
    Interesting….BBC reporting this, though notably their Social Affairs editor and not the LGBT+ Identity editor they had cover Cass:

    A 15-year-old child was prescribed dangerous levels of hormones by an unregulated online clinic without speaking to a doctor, a court ruling has revealed.

    Now 16, the teenager, known as J, was born female but identifies as a boy and has an autism diagnosis.

    J got a prescription for testosterone and puberty blockers from Singapore-registered GenderGP in late 2022.



    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68944273
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,662
    kamski said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    California by Joni Mitchell (California)

    Or if you want to broaden your horizons
    Et jitt kei Wood by Cat Ballou (Cologne)

    Locals say that Cologne is the city that has the most songs about it in the world. No idea if it's true, but I don't know anywhere else where even immigrants who don't speak the dialect know at least the choruses of dozens of songs about the place.

    Grown men cry every time they sing along to:

    "Su simmer all he hinjekumme,
    mir sprechen hück all dieselve Sproch.
    Mir han dodurch su vill jewonne.
    Mir sin wie mer sin, mir Jecke am Rhing.
    Dat es jet ,wo mer stolz drop sin" by Bläck Fööss
    The best German pop song about a place is Bochum by Herbert Grönemeyer
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,020

    sarissa said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Sunshine on Leith vs Tinseltown in the Rain for the quintessential Scottish experience!
    Can't believe I missed Sunshine on Leith – a love letter to Edinburgh!
    Some Shite from Leith, as the maroon side of Edinburgh would say.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    Sadiq now 1.01 on BX.

    In 2016 Khan received 44.2% of the vote and Labour received 40.3% in the London Assembly list. So Khan was +3.9 on his party.

    In 2021 Khan received 40.0% of the vote and Labour received 38.1% in the London Assembly list. So Khan was +1.9 on his party.

    Wonder what that will look like this time?
    Be interesting to see if there is more tactical voting with the introduction of FPP.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,342
    kamski said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    California by Joni Mitchell (California)

    Or if you want to broaden your horizons
    Et jitt kei Wood by Cat Ballou (Cologne)

    Locals say that Cologne is the city that has the most songs about it in the world. No idea if it's true, but I don't know anywhere else where even immigrants who don't speak the dialect know at least the choruses of dozens of songs about the place.

    Grown men cry every time they sing along to:

    "Su simmer all he hinjekumme,
    mir sprechen hück all dieselve Sproch.
    Mir han dodurch su vill jewonne.
    Mir sin wie mer sin, mir Jecke am Rhing.
    Dat es jet ,wo mer stolz drop sin" by Bläck Fööss
    kamski said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    California by Joni Mitchell (California)

    Or if you want to broaden your horizons
    Et jitt kei Wood by Cat Ballou (Cologne)

    Locals say that Cologne is the city that has the most songs about it in the world. No idea if it's true, but I don't know anywhere else where even immigrants who don't speak the dialect know at least the choruses of dozens of songs about the place.

    Grown men cry every time they sing along to:

    "Su simmer all he hinjekumme,
    mir sprechen hück all dieselve Sproch.
    Mir han dodurch su vill jewonne.
    Mir sin wie mer sin, mir Jecke am Rhing.
    Dat es jet ,wo mer stolz drop sin" by Bläck Fööss
    Cologne is quite an ugly town (“sorry about that” - the RAF) with a noble cathedral

    I’m finding it hard to believe it has the “most songs written about it” of any city in the world

    I would guess at New York, with london and Paris not far behind

  • TazTaz Posts: 14,416
    edited May 2

    Taz said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    "I never thought it would happen with me & the girl from Clapham..."
    I think the UK has decent songwriting scope. You have the Scottish Highlands, London, (think Baker Street, Waterloo Sunset). Sadly Wales and Cornwall haven't been successfully mined for pop songs.
    London has a lot of songs. Including one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

    A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square

    I reckon the Tori Amos version from Good Omens is particularly fine

    https://youtu.be/Q3VchDN_vN8?si=9ej6H9-I65-CQNIZ
    London also has Waterloo Sunset, which I would contend is also one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

    I have a thing about songs written on the vague theme of 'home', even if it's not my own home. See also:

    Local Hero
    Country Road
    Oblong of Dreams
    Wichita Lineman

    Any others?
    Big River by Jimmy Nail (Newcastle)

    Two Fingers by Jake Bugg (Nottingham)

    Sheffield Sex City by Pulp (er, Sheffield).
    Nothing by Johnny Cash ?
    Don't give up the day job.

    Weirdly obsessed.
    Ironic given I am going to retire this year.

    Just a question about a singer, who was a great guest star in Columbo too.

    TRUSS
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,440
    Cookie said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    megasaur said:

    Leon said:

    Further thoughts on Paris. It really depends where you go. The left bank is generally much better. The 6th and 7th look fine. Even around Gare Montparnasse it looks civilised

    It’s as soon as you cross the Seine and it’s anywhere in and around the 1st and 2nd, and of course, the Gare du Nord

    I’m about 300m from the Opera and I just saw a guy lying flat out on the bare sidewalk, face down, apparently comatose. Fentanyl or Tranq I presume

    You just didn’t see shit like that 20 years ago. Maybe even 5 years ago

    It’s particularly noticeable in Paris BECAUSE it was once so pristine - and always beautiful. Now she’s like a model that got beaten up and lost three teeth and potentially an eye

    I don't think it would be fent. Even our govt has the good sense to be monitoring the sewage for it and I am sure if the french found it the press would be full of omg le fent en Europe stories

    Excellent piece on what the us drug problem looks like in phoenix Arizona (doubly sad because phoenix Arizona features in the most feel good song ever written)

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-phoenix
    By The Time I Get To Phoenix?

    That's more of a feel-melancholy song imo. Also a good example of how the vastness and diversity of America gives them such a songwriting advantage.

    By the time I get to Crawley she'll be ... well whatever she'll be doing it doesn't work at all, does it.
    America also has a big advantage for the road movie genre. You rarely see road movies set in the UK. You can get to the other end of the country quite easily. There's no real jeopardy about it. I remember one in which someone needed to get from London to Glasgow in 48 hours to claim an inheritance. It was very hard at any point to envisage him not doing so.
    As it was put to me, Americans think nothing of driving five hours to pick up a taco.
    I think that was originally Bill Bryson? Who by comparison said that Londoners will barely deign to cross the river.
    Well, you wouldn’t go South of the river after dark, would you!
    Essex and proud!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,195

    Sadiq now 1.01 on BX.

    £70 rolling in from Skybet if he wins.

    I'm admittedly nervous.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Pulpstar said:

    Sadiq now 1.01 on BX.

    £70 rolling in from Skybet if he wins.

    I'm admittedly nervous.
    You must have put a shitload on...
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    Don't think Horsham is voting. If they were would the Lib Dems be ousted....
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,458

    Nigelb said:

    There’s *one* British road movie: Radio On, which I think I’ve posted about before.

    A youthful Sting has a cameo.

    I really enjoy the great open road and the sense of frontier in the US. In the UK, it’s only the Scottish Highlands that give a sense of that.

    Genevieve.
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045808/

    (edit)
    Also a young Peter Capaldi in Soft Top Hard Shoulder.
    Genevieve appears to be about a London to Brighton race. I think a road movie ought to seem more liberating or menacing than that suggests.

    I forgot “Locke”. Excellent film.
    Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
This discussion has been closed.