Showing posts with label VE Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VE Day. Show all posts

Friday, 8 May 2020

There’ll be socially-distanced bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover



Socially-distanced wreath-laying, a two-minute silence, a re-broadcast of Winston Churchill's speech and an address from the Queen are among the national events taking place on this, the 75th anniversary of VE Day [the British Empire's victory over the beastly Hun]. We might well dress up as Anne Shelton.



Anniversaries - a forte of this here blog, as any fule kno - are remarkable things. Whoever would have dreamed that there might have been a possibility that centenarian Tom of Finland could blow out birthday candles on the same day as Sir David Attenborough [they were only born six years apart on this date, after all]? Or that these two maestros of such very different - ahem - specialisms might also share their big moment with the likes of Sid James, President Harry S. Truman, Enrique Iglesias, Melissa Gilbert, Marcus Brigstocke, Lex Barker, Darren Hayes of Savage Garden, Toni Tennille, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, Roberto Rossellini, Gary Glitter, eminent historian Edward Gibbon, Dame Felicity Lott, Philip Bailey of Earth Wind & Fire, Roddy Doyle, Ricky Nelson, Phyllida Law, and - erm - Dave Rowntree, drummer with Blur...



...so why not, on this most British of celebrations, have a little number from that most British of bands?


Hold on! I'm not finished yet...

Girls & Boys is indeed a bit of a party choon. Heaven forfend, however, that we should forget that some traditions are always adhered to at the close of any week here at Dolores Delargo Towers.

So, to complete the circle of "Britishness", let's let the "UK's answer to Donna Summer" Miss Tina Charles lead the way to our own socially-distanced virtual street Zoom party this evening - and Thank Disco It's VE Day Friday!


Have a good weekend, dear reader - and don't let your "Victory Rolls" get too messed up!

Sunday, 10 May 2015

A word from our sponsor...



...and an appropriate one, methinks, given the massive remembrance events that have been going on all this weekend to mark VE Day.

Seventy years ago, Britain and its allies were celebrating the defeat of Hitler and a long-awaited return to peace in Europe.



Unfortunately the lovely Al Bowlly - one of the great voices of the pre-war and wartime era, arguably Britain's first "pop star" in that "Big Band crooner" style - was yet another of the casualties of the great conflict. He was killed in an air raid on London in April 1941.

Mr Bowlly leaves a lasting legacy of beautifully-crafted and orchestrated songs - including this one from 1934, a song that very much suits the mood this sunny Sunday:


The very thought of you
And I forget to do
Those little ordinary things
That everyone ought to do

I'm living in a kind of a daydream
I'm happy as a king
And foolish though it may seem
To me, that's everything

The mere idea of you
The longing here for you
You'll never know
How slow the moments go
Till I'm near to you

I see your face in every flower
Your eyes in stars above
It's just the thought of you
The very thought of you, my love

I see your face in every flower
Your eyes in stars above
It's just the thought of you
The very thought of you, my love


Al Bowlly on Wikipedia.