I mow a lot of grass, o Lord, I pop a lot of pills (Lem-Sip mainly)

We've all been feeling under the weather recently, in various states of 'flu, colds, and winter run-down-ness, so felt that a bit of medical gubbins was called for.

Here is my prescription for feeling slightly better if you're tucked up with something unpleasant, and hopefully not as unpleasant as the half-eaten bananas our smallest has taken to leaving in our bed when we're not looking.

I think I've mentioned before that while becoming increasingly grumpy heading towards the prime of life, I find myself thinking of records I would sooner have scraped out my eardrums with knitting needles than heard just one more time in my youth, and find that they seem to have not only lost their emotional charge, but are actually quite hummable and some actually bear re-acquaintance.

Hence the inclusion of a rather clunky disco number, and another by the Jackson Five - which I remember mainly because I had it on one of those 'Top of the Pops' compilations covered by sounding-slightly-alikes in the early seventies, back in the days when I couldn't afford real records.

When I was about twelve, the boys from our street all gathered around one of our houses to listen to records on his big sister's record player, and I recall being subjected to a Queen album and 'Argus' by Wishbone Ash.

I commented at the time that I'd sooner be listening to T Rex or Slade, and was slapped down fairly harshly by the older boys, who told me in no uncertain terms that I'd soon grow out that kids' stuff and listen to proper grown-up music. I remember thinking at the time that this was highly unlikely to happen, and now I'm old enough almost to be a grandfather to any of those boys I would still rather listen to T Rex or Slade than Wishbone Ash or Queen. 'Seven Seas of Rye' was a pretty ace single, but even after Live Aid I remained steadfastly allergic to Fred and the gang. I downloaded 'Argus' again recently just to see if it had improved with age. To anyone considering doing the same, I would strongly recommend thinking long and hard before doing so.

While on the subject of records not being entirely accessible to all tastes, the last track on here is a gem I first heard on the late John Walters' show about twenty years ago, 'Tableau of a Lithotomy', and now - thanks to the wonderful wobbly winterweb - it's possible to enjoy it all over again.

Very few people I played a tape of it to at the time shared my enthusiasm for it, but it's worth listening to once just to see - or even imagine seeing - the expression on the face of anyone in the room with you while it's playing.

A lithotomy, by the way, is a bladder operation.

Have a happy new year, see you in 2009.

Get well soon!

1 Julie Andrews - A Spoonful of Sugar
2 Dr Feelgood - Down at the Doctor's
3 Miami Sound Machine - Doctor Beat
4 Jackson 5 - Doctor My Eyes
5 Beatles - Dr Robert
6 Electric Prunes - Doctor Do-Good
7 BBC Radiophonic Workshop - Dr Who
8 5000 Volts - Doctor Kiss Kiss
9 The Adverts - Gary Gilmore's Eyes
10 The Other Half - Mr Pharmacist
11 Modern Lovers - Hospital
12 Johnny Rivers - Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu
13 Eddie Cochran - Nervous Breakdown
14 Anthony Newley - If I Could Talk To The Animals
15 Bachman Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
16 Lovin' Spoonful - Jugband Music
17 Medicine Head - Rising Sun
18 Carter Family - Keep on the Sunny Side
19 Marin Marais - Tableau of a Lithotomy

It's on Mediafire here.

But Emily (and everybody else) loved him

One of my most treasured possessions comes from my time working in a now-closed bookshop. I asked if I could take it home and no-one else wanted it so I did just that.

It is a self-published pamphlet, containing an A4 piece of paper from the company Teleordering, who deal - or dealt, it was a long time ago and things may have changed since then - with individual book orders to publishers from bookshops.

When a lady came in and asked to order a copy of a pamphlet from Pogle Press we were not hopeful that we would ever see it, but it arrived quickly - indeed, the publisher, in this case also the author, had written a little note on the form.

In green ink, a jaunty exclamation mark was placed by the printed 'Order Processing Department', and in the space below was written, in the same green ink:

'ere y'are then.
2 copies, one a present for (the name of our customer), the other for yourselves.
No charge.
O.P.

The title of the pamphlet is "The Emperor's New Clothes: hopes for a future for the world", and the author, Oliver Postgate.

One of the very first programmes I remember watching as a small child was The Pogles, and having recently seen it again on video it is just as good as I remembered it being. It was made by Smallfilms - Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin - and chronologically fell, as far as I can remember, between Noggin the Nog and The Clangers.

Our little girl still won't watch it, as the witch in it gave her nightmares as a small child, which may have something to do with why the BBC never saw fit to revive it in the way that they regularly do with the Clangers and Bagpuss.

All through my childhood - and had the films not stopped being made it would have been through adulthood as well - I can remember the excitement of hearing Oliver Postgate's wonderful voice coming out of the telly while all sorts of strange things were happening visually. Just three weeks ago I showed our smallest a video of The Clangers, and it is the first time I have seen him fully engrossed in any programme, although I've been told that In The Night Garden works also, sitting quietly in front of it mostly, occasionally acting little bits out in the way which only two-year-olds can.

For many years he seemed to disappear completely, and then a few years ago published his wonderful autobiography, "Seeing Things".

When he died a couple of weeks ago I felt extremely sad, and when I mentioned him in the office everyone else admitted to the same emotion.

I found a very poor recording which I had made a couple of years back when he appeared on Desert Island Discs on Radio 4. The sound is not good, to the point of being pretty terrible. It overloaded a lot, and is distorted, but I thought I would share it should anyone else have missed it and would like to hear it.

Hopefully Radio 4 will repeat it, but since the BBC now appear to consider notable deaths something almost entirely lacking in newsworthiness it doesn't seem very likely.

There is a lovely article about him on the BBC website, written by Peter Firmin's daughter Emily - here.

Oliver Postgate on Desert Island Discs

As I've already said, the sound quality is not good, but just about listenable.

It's on Mediafire, here.

Eeeee-Emmmmmmm-Iyyyyyyy!

Have been trying to get into the spirit of Christmas by listening to a lot of seasonal music, most of which I haven't heard before - and having listened it's quite clear why most of it is not on a loop in supermarkets. I've been impressed this year by just how jolly the staff are managing to appear - I worked in shops for years, and at this time of year it isn't easy to keep a smile on your face for very long days, often seven days a week.

I can't help thinking, though, that the smiles might be thinner if they were made to listen to some of the ones which got away. Of the hours of cheery novelty songs I've listened to, only "Christmas Time With The Three Stooges" - and even as a Three Stooges fan I approached that with some trepidation - really merits being brought to wider attention, in my opinion, and has passed the 'keeping kids quiet in cars' test not once but twice already.

Inevitably, it's over at Dr Forrest's Cheeze Factory, here, along with all sorts of other artefacts crawling out from under the decorations.

I'm hoping to get time to do a 'Best of weird Christmas records I've listened to so that you don't have to plough through them all yourself compilation' in time for Christmas, but it depends on how many Dad's Taxi runs are required between now and then as to whether or not that will happen.

At the risk of returning to one of my favourite soap-box subjects, I can't help thinking how tricky the compilation form is.

It is so rare, for instance, to find a cover-mounted CD with anything that hasn't got enough thumping great clunkers on to detract from the rest of the golden grooves therein.

It was hearing a documentary on the tribulations of EMI on Radio Four yesterday morning which reminded me of this particular compilation, from the November 1997 issue of Vox magazine, celebrating 100 years of EMI. It was on heavy rotation in my shop-keeping days, as there is enough variety to keep everybody happy, and there's not a duff track on it. Even bands I can't usually stand (Dexy's, Deep Purple) are represented by good, solid tracks.

Hope you enjoy it, thanks for stopping by!

chEMIstry: A Hundred Years of EMI

Tracks are:

Gene Vincent - Bluejean Bop
Fats Domino - I'm Walkin'
Cliff Richard - Dynamite
Billy May - Mission Impossible
The Beach Boys - Dance Dance Dance
The Ventures - Hawaii Five-O
The Trashmen - Surfin' Bird
The Animals - We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place
Manfred Mann - Tired of Trying, Bored With Lying
Inez & Charlie Foxx - Mockingbird
Syd Barrett - Octopus
The Band - King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
Canned Heat - Let's Work Together
Deep Purple - Hush
Dr Feelgood - Down At The Doctors
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have)
Dexy's Midnight Runners - Plan B
Blondie - Union City Blue
Morrissey - Suedehead
Blur (featuring Francoise Hardy) - To The End
Supergrass - Nothing More's Gonna Get In My Way
Sparklehorse with Thom Yorke - Wish You Were Here
Meredith Brooks - Somedays
Murray Lachlan Young - I'm Being Followed By The Rolling Stones

In response to comments last week, (for which thanks!) I'm reluctant to use Megaupload because (a) I can do without all that Flash rubbish slowing down my PC, (b) I get really annoyed by the pop-ups it throws up left, right and centre, and (c) as this is a sunday teatime family show, some of their advertising is a bit past the watershed for my taste.

This week I'm trying Mediafire. It's also on Rapidshare, but I wish they would make their minds up how they want the thing to work...

Original Modern Lovers posted here!

The Modern Lovers original early 1970s demos have just been posted here.

It's worth checking out for the original of 'Don't Let Our Love Go To Waste', which was later covered by Galaxie 500.

Great blog, too!