I said very similar things in a blog post here way back in 2014...
...but here we are, a decade on, in 2024 - and I must admit I whooped when I read this piece by Simon Reynolds in The Guardian!
I’d do this even if no one read it. Blogging, for me, is the perfect format. No restrictions when it comes to length or brevity: a post can be a considered and meticulously composed 3,000-word essay, or a spurted splat of speculation or whimsy. No rules about structure or consistency of tone......one of the great things about blogging, for a professional journalist, is that you can write about topics that aren’t topical. You are unshackled from schedules. An old record or TV programme you’ve stumbled on, or simply remembered, is fair game...
My brain thinks blog-like: the digressive rhythms, the lurching between tones, it’s how my mind moves when it’s not behaving itself in print... blogging should be the opposite of work. But (even) if it’s not compelled, blogging is compulsive: an itch I have to scratch.
Amen, sister!
So, in the true spirit of blogging, here an esoteric selection of bits and pieces I read about recently...
Sad news - the young woman who (with her then-boyfriend) was the subject of one of the world's most famously-photographed snogs Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Town Hall) [taken by French photographer Robert Doisneau] has died at the ripe old age of 93.
Good news - Slag Lane is to keep its name, after a ten-year battle when a "local resident" lodged a complaint that it was "rude".
Scary news - the roof hatch on one of the pods on the London Eye was blown open during Storm Henk, with people in it!
And finally, some cosy news - the Shipping Forecast is one hundred years old!
One of the most comforting sounds for land-lubbers to listen to as they settle down to sleep, nevertheless its importance to shipping remains of paramount importance. Perhaps not quite so serious, this version still makes me snigger:
Of course, some people reading this [notably the denizens of our former colonies and dominions] will have no idea what on earth that was all about, so instead, here's the programme's soothing theme tune:
Lovely.
How lovely to be remembered for a kiss. I don't know what the shipping forecast was about but I loved the sound of the words slipping by.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Even though it turns out that photo was "staged", it became one of the "images of the century" when Athena made it into a poster in the 1980s. I imagine Mlle Bornet received no royalties, however... Jx
DeleteThe shipping forecast turns 100? I'm sure somewhere Mrs. Bale is celebrating this with a libation...at precisely 6:08pm.
ReplyDeleteI had to look her up - you really are an avid consumer of old BBC series, aren't you? I had quite forgotten As Time Goes By, having not watched it in three decades! [Incidentally, Janet Henfrey, who played "Mrs Bale", is still with us, aged 88.] Jx
DeleteIn hotel lobby so will listen to audios later. But this is a great collection. Cheers to Slag Lane! Imagine being internationally remembered for a kiss.
ReplyDeleteCheers to all the slags who live down the lane! Jx
DeleteI'd bet there are few "Snog Place" bus shelters dotted around the country!
ReplyDeleteNowadays I imagine more goes on in those shelters than mere snogging. Jx
Delete"My brain thinks blog-like" gets an 'Amen, sister' from me too!
ReplyDelete(I've just checked my Sideboard, and this year I'll have been at it for 19 years!!! Where has the time gone?)
Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville had passed me by, but what a dramatic and rather thrilling photograph. No wonder it's so famous (in circles other than the ones I've travelled in up until now, of course).
Something that didn't pass me by was the Shipping Forecast. My first proper job was in the Cliff Cafe which was the unofficial base for the crab fishermen around here, and the proprietor would always have it on the radio for them.
My own blog celebrates its 17th anniversary in 2024! What remarkable levels of stamina we have...
DeleteRegarding "That Kiss" - you probably missed the heyday of the Athena poster ("tennis woman scratching bum", "lurid-coloured Syd Brak graphic art", "hunky man cradling baby", "black'n'white Paris street scenes" and all), the mainstay of homes up and down the country in the late 70s and 1980s.
The Shipping Forecast, however, is an indelible part of "being British", in my opinion. When one lives on an island, the weather is everything. Jx
regular outbreaks of wind ! Norway nil point,
ReplyDeletethis still cracks me up every time I hear it
Me too. Jx
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