Ebay Killed The Rummage Sale

I may have mentioned in previous posts (I don't really remember) that I have always been a bit of a bargain hunter. This, I think, has a lot to do with my upbringing... we didn't have a lot, and I did have some hand-me-downs from people like my uncle and some from other people's kids, my Nan was always finding stuff in jumble sales for me and my sis and so that ethos became ingrained in my very nature. When I started to earn money I would hit jumble sales and Oxfam and get some bargains. These places were good for feeding my record-buying habit and also picking up some nifty threads. I once found a Harris Tweed jacket with rips in the lining for a pound, took it to the local cleaners who also did alterations, and got the lining replaced for about ten pounds, I think it was. I was given a green tweed suit where the trousers were too big so they went for alteration, too. Here I am wearing it.

Stylin' & profilin'

Oh, and the shoes? Bright red suede AirWair soles from Robot in Carnaby St. However, they were one of my Grandad's jumble sale or boot fair finds, and they happened to be in my size.

As time progressed I moved to the USA and was shown the delights of Goodwill, St Vincent De Paul and other thrift stores, and made many purchases from them - furniture, a scanner/printer, records, books, clothes, shoes... they are quite my favourite places to shop - you never know what you will find and that, to me, is part of the fun.

Now I'm back in Blighty and there are far fewer jumble sales and boot fairs, because Ebay seems to have killed them off... but Ebay, it must be said, is still the same sort of deal, but without the smell of mothballs or the taste of cheap coffee and Rich Tea biscuits. However, there are now a profusion of charity shops on the High Street, and they are similar to thrift stores, except that thrift stores are less choosy about what they sell.

Anyway, I heard a tune the other day that made me all misty for Value Village and the VoA Thrift. Here we go (careful though, some of the fruitier expressions of everyday life are uttered in this video. If you feel outraged by this, write a letter to the editor of the Radio Times. It won't do any good, but you'll feel better for having set your thoughts down on paper.):

100 Records That Shook The World, #25

Saturday Night Fever (Original Soundtrack LP)

Various Artists

Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track is the soundtrack album from the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta. In the United States, the album was certified 15x Platinum for shipments of over 15 million copies. The album stayed atop the album charts for 24 straight weeks from January to July 1978 and stayed on Billboard's album charts for 120 weeks until March 1980. In the UK, the album spent 18 consecutive weeks at No. 1. The album epitomized the disco phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic and was an international sensation.

Whether you love or hate disco, this album cannot have escaped your notice. Even I wasn't too fond of disco at the time, but my mother bought it and I grew to love some of the tracks on the LP, particularly Trammps "Disco Inferno", Walter Murphy's "A Fifth Of Beethoven" and "Night On Disco Mountain" by David Shire. The Bee Gees had originally written and recorded the five of the songs used in the film, "Stayin' Alive", "Night Fever", "How Deep Is Your Love", "More Than a Woman" (performed in the film in two different versions - one version by Tavares, and another by the Bee Gees) and "If I Can't Have You" (performed in the movie by Yvonne Elliman) as part of a regular album. They had no idea at the time they would be making a soundtrack and said that they basically lost an album in the process. Two previously-released Bee Gees songs,"Jive Talkin'" and "You Should Be Dancing", are also included on the soundtrack. 

The soundtrack also won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the only disco album to do so.
In 2003, the album was ranked No. 131 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
The soundtrack hit the No. 1 spot on Billboard Music Chart's Pop Album and Soul Album charts. In 2003 the TV network VH1 named it the 57th greatest album of all time.
Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Soundtrack was ranked 80th in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time.
Pitchfork Media listed Saturday Night Fever as the 34th best album of the 1970s.

Here's one of my faves.

Puzzler: Mick!

So I asked you last time (which was waaay back before Christmas), who duetted with Peter Tosh (below) on the latter's third LP?

The quite surprising answer is lead singer for The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger.




While not a classic, it's not bad, is it?

Next question!  Mick Jagger has had a somewhat checkered and sporadic acting career in addition to his musical career. For which movie, released in 1975, did he audition unsuccessfully, and for which role?

Stuff And Nonsensicals

So, first of all, what exactly are they trying to teach children these days? This came home as homework the other day. 

Not only that but I am faintly disturbed by the two characters on the right , "The Jones Brothers"... I mean WTF??

Secondly, here is something else that ha been bothering me since we had Coors Light installed in our bar the other week (yeah, like totally, I know, fer shurr, rilly we are like, SO American - NOT!!). Good ol' Jean Claude Van Damme drinking his (apparently) favourite beverage, fine, mountains, icy, cold, we get it. But let's analyse the punctuation and see what we are talking about.

I think what they meant to say was "Ice cold refreshment is close, friend. Real close."

Instead what we have is "Ice cold refreshment is close friend, real close."

It sounds like Van Damme is telling you in his sexy broken English that Ice Cold Refreshment is a close friend of his. Read it in his voice and you'll see. 

Either way, it's a really poxy slogan. Whatever happened to "It's The Right Beer Now?" or even, "The Silver Bullet"?


I give up. I'm going to get a pot plant, call it Dave and paint it blue.

Slapsies

I defy you not to laugh.

Alex Jones Vs Piers Morgan On Gun Control : 50 Shades O' Crazy

Y'know, I don't even have to make jokes about this. They kinda write themselves. Oh, and Alex Jones - two words for you, matey... Anger. Management. Look into it.

More Facebook Nonsense

If you are even a casual user of The Book Of Face, you will know that occasionally (read: all the piggin' time) Ye Olde Face Booke will change ever so slightly slightly. Every now and again (read: every day) M. Zuckerberg Esq. will hand down a dictum to one of his many minions... "Change Timeline in an annoying and douchebaggy kinda way! My will be done, serf!" and other such commands.

Now if you are a follower of my activities sur le web - and let's face it, why wouldn't you be? - you will know that I am a contributor to a flippin' fan-dabi-dozi blog called The Unbelievables! which has a 'fanpage' at https://www.facebook.com/TheUnbelievables . If you were unaware of these facts, please, do yourself and your funny bone a favour and click those links.

Now, when one is administrator of a fanpage (or any other kind of  'page' at Facebook), you can go to your Admin controls and choose to either be yourself on the rest of Facebook or your page's identity on the rest of Facebook. Confused? you will be.

Any road up, Facebook, as I say, have decided in their infinite wisdom in the last day or two to add another small change to the Homepage and Profile page. At the top of each there is a small box in which to insert text, write your status, whatever. But now they have taken to adding a little prompt in the text entry box such as "How's it going, Jeff?" or "How are you feeling, Jeff?" or even "What are you doing, Jeff?". In short, they're like an annoying  needy co-worker.

This is bad enough by itself. but when, as I mentioned, you can switch profiles to your fanpage's identity, such as I did today, it will then have the same annoying prompts in the text entry box,  which then sound utterly ridiculous. "How are you, The Unbelievables?" "How's it going, The Unbelievables?" "What are you doing, the Unbelievables?"

Why??