Low Spark Of The High-Heeled Boys


Thank you, Radio Paradise, for just playing this. Stopped me in my tracks and I just had to turn up the volume.

Such a great band, this has to be one of the best songs of the 70’s

A Call To Action – Radio Paradise


Almost every day I tune in to Radio Paradise and stream their music feed continuously for up to 8 hours. They are, in my opinion, by far the best station out there on the interweb. Occasionally, I will stray from the path, search out alternatives. But, I always find myself returning to RP.

Radio Paradise is a listener supported station. That is, they don’t charge a regular subscription fee. Rather they rely on donations from their listeners. Many, like me, probably make sporadic donations. A few pounds here, a few there. I haven’t felt the call to make a regular payment to RP, even though I do subscribe to the likes of Tidal and Spotify.

So what’s the difference ? I guess the primary difference is that RP provides me with a random eclectic selection of music, no adverts and no inane DJ chatter. There are tracks on rotation, but not as regular as the stuff you hear on commercial radio or even the BBC.

Spotify and Tidal are rather like an enormous record collection through which I have to sift and make choices. There are customised/personalised playlists too. But you have to choose and I find I spend as much time sifting as I do actually listening.

There is room in my world for both types of music stream. However, the point of this post is

For 22 years, RP has been a 100% word-of-mouth venture. We believe the funds raised by the station should only go toward the smooth running, improvement, and general operation of the station. It’s a moral obligation to take the generous support you all give each year into making RP the best we can make it. Putting your hard-earned dollars into the hands of ad companies or other various traditional marketing channels is simply not something we’re interested in or willing to do. 

Lucky for us, you do an amazing job helping us share the music far and wide. In essence, you are our marketing team. And what a team it is! We receive countless emails and comments about how you already do this on a regular basis. It shows and we are incredibly grateful for this fact. With that said, we want to enlist those who are so inspired to make one large concerted effort to spread the music this new year. 

If RP is a part of your daily life, please consider the following…..

First, send an email and/or post on social media encouraging people to tune in. Make it five of your closest friends and family…or 10…or send it out in your company newsletter or with an organization you volunteer for, whatever inspires you. (We’d love to hear about it in our comment section!)

Secondly, if you use our app, go in and rate the app. As much as we don’t care about such things, the powers that be at Google and Apple put a lot of weight on such things. The more ratings and the higher they are the more likely someone is to find RP in the app stores. 

RP’s goal for 2023 is to go from 3.3 million unique site visitors to 6.6 million. It’s a big goal but we’re up for the task. We love what we do and want to share it with many more people around the world come 2023. 

Alanna at radioparadise.com

If you like music uninterrupted by inane chatter from DJs and their gangs/posses/teams or whatever the term is for a collection of white noise drones. If you like music uninterrupted by advertisements for breakfast cereal, instant coffee and the latest supermarket bargains. If you like music that isn’t tied to music industry or radio station charts.

Since I started typing this blog post, RP has played the following …

  • Coming Home – k.d. lang
  • Can’t Get It Out Of My Head – ELO
  • Rocky World – Daniel Lanois
  • Wild Eagle – Andrew White
  • Sing, Theresa Says – Greg Laswell
  • Satisfaction – Cat Power
  • Held – Spoon
  • Robbin’ My Honeycomb – Tony Joe White
  • Lullaby – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
  • Stones – Sonic Youth
  • Huron Beltane Fire Dance – Loreen McKennitt
  • My Love – Florence + the Machine

Go on, give Radio Paradise a try. Your ears, heart and mind will thank you for it.

English As She Is Spoke !!!


Imagine if ‘Charivarius’, the author of this piece, had to get down with the kids and rewrite this and acknowledge that bad means good, that sick means good and so on and so forth.

Read on, I dare you ….

Paraprosdokians !


Didn’t know the word until recently but, apparently, Winston Churchill loved paraprosdokians, figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected.

So, try these on for size …

  1. Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.
  2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on my list.
  3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
  4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
  5. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
  6. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  7. They begin the evening news with ‘Good Evening,’ then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
  8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
  9. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out, I just wanted pay checks.
  10. In filling out an application, where it says, ‘In case of emergency, notify:’ I put “DOCTOR.”
  11. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
  12. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street…with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
  13. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
  14. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
  15. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
  16. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
  17. There’s a fine line between cuddling and…holding someone down so they can’t get away.
  18. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.
  19. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
  20. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
  21. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
  22. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
  23. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
  24. I’m supposed to respect my elders, but now it’s getting harder and harder for me to find one.

RIP Charlie Watts


BBC News – Charlie Watts: Jazz man who became rock superstar https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22200496

Charlie will definitely be missed, a true legend.

Condolences to his family and friends.

Oval Room – Blaze Foley


I was just listening to a Tidal playlist, and heard the song Oval Room, being performed by John Craigie. My immediate thought was that this was aimed a Donald Trump.

After a little research I discovered that the song was written over 30 years ago and released as the B-side of a single in 1984. The original inspiration for the song was Ronald Reagan.

The lyrics of this song can be applied, in some ways, to almost any of the US presidents who have been in office since that time.

However, I believe this song resonates most closely with recently departed Donald Trump.

I tried to find this song on YouTube. However, the examples that I found, featuring Blaze Foley are pretty poor sound quality.

word play


Love this sort of thing …….

•   Venison for dinner again?   Oh deer! •    How does Moses make tea?   Hebrews it. •    England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool . •    I tried to catch some fog, but I mist •    They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Typo. •     I changed my […]

word play

Repossessing the U.S.A. – According to John Cleese (Monty Python)


A little something to make my American friends smile and perhaps take a little stress out of the upcoming election process.

Great Britain (GB) or England as we English refer to it, is Repossessing the U.S.A. (US)

A Message from John Cleese (Monty Python)
To The citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Arkansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Boris Johnson, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.

  1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
  2. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise.
    Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).
  3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
    There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell- checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.
  4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
  5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent.
    Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.
  6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
  7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
  8. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.
    Both roundabouts and metrification will help you understand the British sense of humour.
  9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.
  10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
  11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager.
    South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth – see what it did for them.
  12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters.
    Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.
  13. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don’t try Rugby – the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us. No more Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Cereal Bowl or Super Bowl. From now on….. get used to the World Cup.
  14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
  15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
  16. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
  17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.
    God save the Queen.
    John Cleese