Thursday update

Here's an archive photo from 2001 - both Cade and Braeden will know where this is - I can still hear the screams in my dreams - "Momma - get them to stop it!" - and no, that wasn't Kelly and Ross who said that:

Jo and I did the first of our pub surveys on Tuesday night - Ballater, Tarland and finishing up at the Boat Inn, Aboyne where we had our supper. We had originally planned to do Feughside and Potarch tonight (and eat out again) but, last night, Jo was later home than Ross and I and we couldn't find anything to eat. Ross was starving so he went out for fish suppers. When Jo did arrive home she told us it was spag bog for tea and it was out on the balcony - no wonder we couldn't find it! So that's what we're having tonight.

Last night I nipped out to the golf club's AGM - thankfully brief, so I got to bed at a decent hour. I was up and gone before 6:30 this morning and virtually first in to our office in Fraserburgh. The tedium of the long drive was lifted by Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour - this week it was the number one - Elvis' One Night was played and Bob, in his own imitable style, prefaced it with an explanation of the term Bowdlerisation - basically sanitizing art, including old blues songs and replacing them with lyrics more acceptable to the record buying public - especially in USA in the 50's - check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowdlerisation

That's your lesson for today.

Gary had to pull out of the Manchester trip and Carole (and her father) couldn't make it either, but Ross has stepped in to the breach and is taking 3 of his pals to Old Trafford on Saturday to see the Everton match. He's taking my car - oh my God, what have I done?

Holidays

A piece of advice - it won't be stinking hot in Tenerife in March - especially not at the top of Mount Tiede where Kelly plans to start the cycling expedition. Take some wet weather gear with you - a top at least - plus something a bit warmer than a t-shirt.

I've finally booked our flights to USA this summer. We're going with KLM for the first time for a few years - partly because they now have a direct flight to Portland and we're going to arrive there on the final day of Scott and Cade's football summer camp. Lucy and Braeden were going to drive up there to meet them anyway so we can spend a couple of days up there and travel back with them, as they'll have 2 cars there anyway.

We're going to Salt Lake City for the last week of our stay in USA - Lucy and the boys might join us, but it may depend on the availability of air miles for them. We're flying that leg with Delta - it's a direct flight from Medford so it's fairly easy. We fly back in to Medford a week later and the following day have to travel back to Amsterdam from Portland - we haven't quite figured how best to get to Portland yet.

The downside is that we are back to flying cattle class - the last couple of years we have upgraded to either BA's or Virgin's middle class of cabin - between economy and business class, but KLM's next level up on these flights was three and a half times more expensive than their economy cabin - I couldn't justify this, but Jo's obviously not too happy about it.

Played squash last night and had a lovely roast for tea afterwards. Jo and I watched 2 episodes of Corrie and one of My Name is Earl - does anyone else watch this? The characters are interesting, to say the least.

Tonight, Jo is going to join me on a trip up Deeside to complete some of CAMRA's annual pub surveys for entries in next year's Good Beer Guide. I'm afraid I've left it until the last minute again and it's going to be a rush to get everything completed in time. We might even have tea out at one of the establishments - perhaps the Boat Inn, Aboyne?

Today's photo is from 2001 - Cade should recognise this well known landmark near Crescent City - slightly surreal or what?:

Tamla Motown

I've spent so much time updating my football blog with all the photos and videos of our wonderful trip to Lancashire that I haven't had time to update my own blog - until now. I've got the time now because I awoke this morning and looked out to see that the weather forecasters had got it right - it was wet and foul - a huge contrast to yesterday's glorious sunshine and clear skies.



Jo and I had taken the short stroll back from Anne and Leslie's about 1 am this morning and the stars were twinkling beautifully so I thought there was a good chance I would get some golf today - but it wasn't to be. Maybe just as well - we had a lovely meal last night but it's getting harder to fully appreciate the food when eating late at night - we always feel stuffed. It's an age thing I guess, but we enjoy the company and we'll carry on doing it - after all, it's not that often!



So when we got up today we both felt a little tired - and, frankly, I was quite happy to have a day at home and miss golf. I'd even decided that I wasn't going to get dressed, but just slob around today - until I found out we had no milk, so I had to get dressed to go out for that and the Sunday Times.



Anyway, I've been catching up with paperwork this morning - not work - just bills etc - whilst watching the golf from Qatar - it's just finished, so now it's FA Cup football - there's Cardiff - Arsenal now, then Liverpool - Everton later - Colin might come round to watch that one - particularly as our wives are going out for a church supper talk early this evening.



The door bell just rang - it was John from number one offering to take our Christmas tree to the tip - he'd asked me a week ago and I'd told Jo about it when I was away, but when Ross and I went to look for the tree, it was gone. Jo's just returned from church and I asked her about it and she said she gave it to John a few days ago. Strange - and then a penny dropped - she thinks she actually gave it to Andy at number 6!



The latest edition of Mojo arrived yesterday - they call it the March edition - in January! I'm just finishing off the February one which heavily featured the 50th anniversary of Tamla Motown - no doubt everyone's seen and heard about all the radio and TV shows to celebrate the occasion. Tamla was so strong in the 60's, but less so after that. It was the sound of young, mostly black, Detroit and went on to influence music all around the world.



Mojo's main feature was Tamla's top 100 records and I really enjoyed reading all the stories. I'm sure there are some of my favourites that didn't feature in the their top 100, but there were so many records, it's hard to remember them all. The most regularly featured artistes in Mojo were:

Marvin Gaye (13 nominations)

Stevie Wonder (11)

Temptations (9)

Miracles (8)

Four Tops (5)

Supremes (5)

Martha & the Vandellas' Dancing in the Street was voted number one in Mojo, but it's never been a favourite of mine - perhaps I'm still cringing at Mick Jagger and David Bowie's duet for Live Aid back in 1985? The Supremes were OK, but they, too, never quite hit the right nerve centres with me - although Where Did Our Love Go? was pretty decent.



There were lots of others who only featured once or twice but made classic records - even the Jackson 5 started here - remember I Want You Back and ABC? Tamla was a huge influence on the British groups who eventually dominated the world's pop music. The Beatles early albums featured several Tamla tracks and for this reason alone, I would include some of these tracks in my personal top 10, which, if I also had to pick one each from Mojo's most popular artistes above would make my top 12 look like (in no particular order):

Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman

Contours - Do You Love Me?

Mary Wells - My Guy

Isley Brothers - This Old Heart of Mine (weeps for you)

Barrett Strong - Money

Edwin Starr - War

Jr Walker & the All-stars - Roadrunner

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles - Tracks of My Tears

Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through the Grapevine

Stevie Wonder - Living for the City

Temptations - My Girl

Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself

Strangely, other than the time Kelly, Jo and I went to see Gladys Knight in Las Vegas, I've never seen a Motown star live. On that same trip in 2000, we enjoyed a couple of evenings in the Paris hotel, listening to the house band, who were excellent and featured a guy who used to play with the Temptations. One of his former band members was in the audience and he was eventually encouraged on to the stage and they performed a wonderful version of My Girl, complete with the all the dance actions.

This also brought to mind another evening when we popped in to the Barbary Coast hotel and listened to the house band (Backstreet) there. The lead singer was called Storm and he serenaded Jo and eventually persuaded her to be his back-up vocalist on Marvin Gaye's What's Goin' On?: