Van Morrison - Cyprus Avenue - 9/23/1970 - Fillmore East, New York, NY (...

Jackson C. Frank- Blues Run the Game (1965)

Me On The Telly.

My TV Career.

It all began in the early 90's when pubs began introducing quiz machines where you could win money by answering general knowledge questions. I was soon completely addicted to them because I found I could answer the questions quite easily and could have a free night down the pub whenever I liked. The local pub landlords grew to hate me as I went further and further afield in search of quiz machines. One night I started in the Phipps Arms at Westbury Leigh and went on to The Hollies,The Royal Oak, The Castle, The Angel, The Horse And Groom,The White Lion, The Ludlow and The Crown. When I emptied my pockets that night I found I had £78 in £ coins. It weighed a ton.
The Landlord of The Horse And Groom was Rod who decided to use my talent to his advantage and asked me to be captain of the pub quiz team. In our first season we won the Trowbridge and District League and my fame grew in leaps and bounds. I felt really brainy. Then one night in the pub my mate Dave said I should go on Fifteen To One. This was a popular afternoon TV show which was a forerunner of The Weakest Link and at its peak had an audience of 4,000,000. It was very popular with pensioners, students and the unemployed. In a burst of egotism I sent off an application form and was invited to an audition in Bristol. Two weeks later I received a letter inviting me onto the show. This was going to make me famous. Everybody I met I told that I was going to be on the telly and to make sure they watched.

The big day arrived and I set off for London and my date with destiny. The studios were in Wandsworth and myself and the other contestants were put up in a nearby hotel as the show was to be recorded the following morning at 10.00. I began to have my first niggling doubts because the others looked really well educated and posh, and I found out that several of them almost made a career out of TV shows and had been on several other shows. I calmed my nerves by staying in the hotel bar till 1.00 in the morning. The others went to bed.
Next morning I was suffering with a really bad reality attack and all my bravado had gone out the window.  At the studio we drew lots and I was to be number 8. Then we were led into the place with the cameras and the genial host William G Stewart. I felt like I was about to be executed. The floor manager said, "One minute to recording" and I seemed to lose all control over my body, my right leg suddenly started shaking uncontrollably. William started asking the questions and everybody was coming up with the right answer.

Finally he got to me and he might as well have been talking Chinese. I was so nervous it sounded like this,
"Whatisthemathematicaltermforlinespointsorcurveswhichareequidistantapart?"
I stood there just looking at him. Then  realised what he was asking and I thought, "That's parallel,surely he wouldn't ask a question that easy". The buzzer went before I could blurt it out and William said,"The answer is parallel".
A couple of minutes later William returned and asked me who wrote the music for the film Brigadoon. I didn't know, but I was in such a state I didn't care who wrote the music for fecking Brigadoon. I answered "Rogers and Hammerstein", in a sort of high pitched squeak, just to say something."The answer is Lerner and Loewe",said William, and I was out. My entire TV appearance was about 14 seconds. I hoped against hope that nobody I knew would watch the show but of course they all did. For about a year afterwards I was known around town as Parallel Pat. People came up to me in the pub and said things like, "Sorry I didn't see you on the telly, I  blinked and missed, it", that sort of thing. Just when people were beginning to forget about it, the TV company went and repeated it the following summer and the jokes started all over again. I lost all interest in quizzes and licked my wounds for five long years. As they say though, revenge is a meal best eaten cold and I was to get my revenge in the sweetest possible way.

Five Years Later........

Five long years had past since my disastrous TV appearance.Then in 1999 they announced that if you hadn't appeared on the show for 5 years you could apply again.
"I've gotta go back",I announced to Kim.
"Where?"
"London,I've got some unfinished business with William"
Once more I set off for London,
"Go get 'em Floyd", Said Kim,"Go kick some ass"
The stakes had never been higher, if I messed up this time I faced total humiliation but as they say, 'Who Dares Wins'
This time I was number 5. As William came along the line asking the questions my leg started its familiar jig, but this time I was grimly determined. Finally William got to me,
"When Britain joined the EU in 1974 which two other countries joined at the same time?"
"Ireland and er um Denmark"
"Correct"
"Thank you god", I breathed a sigh of relief. Two minutes later William was back with my second question.
"Dancer Michael Flatley became famous in which musical show?"

 "Riverdance".
"Correct"
Brilliant! I was into round 2 and had all my lives intact. In round 2 if you got your answer right you could nominate one of your opponents to answer the next question. This is where it got dirty. I soon got nominated.
"Such is life" is reputed to be the last words of which Australian outlaw?"
"Ned Kelly"
Then I went on a killing spree, one by one my opponents were going down like skittles. I was enjoying this. After a few minutes there were 12 down 3 to go and I suddenly found myself in the final. My two rivals in the final were a lady who worked at Tesco's and a lad from Galway called Brendan who had only entered so he could visit his brother in London for free. At the beginning of Part 2 you had to smile at the camera while they told the viewers all about you. 'Pat lives in Westbury, Wiltshire, he enjoys reading and music particularly Van Morrison and he supports Peterborough United football club'. Then it was into battle. I got my first 2 questions wrong and only had one life left, so the other two kept nominating me to try and kill me off. I held my nerve though and answered 13 questions in a row correctly. The others started to get their answers wrong and I was fighting back. The Tesco lady was the first to crack and she was out. Then finally Brendan lost his last life and I had won. I scored 113 points and the 13th highest score in the series so far.

 I kept my composure until I left the studio.I was back on the street again, back on top again. I jumped up and punched the air YES! Then  floated on a cloud all the way back to Waterloo Station. I couldn't wait to get home and see those bastards up at the pub."I'll give them parallel Pat", I thought. I had to wait an hour for my train so walked over Westminster bridge and went in a pub near the houses of parliament. It was frequented by politicians, all knocking back the G & Ts. Look at them I thought, they think they are so  important, don't they realise that I'm the 13th most brainy person in Britain".
We had a big party in the pub to watch my glorious win and  had a cake with 15 candles and I blew out 14 of them.

A lady came from the local paper and wrote a story with the headline,'Getting The Answers Off Pat'. I was invited back on the show twice more as a previous winner. It wasn't as exciting though.I didn't get the same buzz off it. When you get to the top there's no where else to go and that was the end of my TV career. You can see my appearance in the video below.

                                                                           THE END.

Way To Blue. Nick Drake & Van Morrison.

I finished reading the excellent Pink Moon by Gorm Henrik Rasmusson this afternoon. A great read and written in a very poetic style which you would expect as the author is a poet. Well done as well to the translator Bent Sorenson for translating it in to English so sympathetically. As a huge Van Morrison fan one thing that struck me is the similarities between Van and Nick especially as regards such early Van albums as Astral Weeks and Veedon Fleece. It is apparent that Nick was a fan of Astral Weeks. It is well documented that he gave it a lot of plays. When Nick was at Marlborough College he formed a band called The Perfumed Garden and part of their repertoire was St James Infirmary and Parchman Farm. As any Van fan will tell you, those songs have both been recorded by Van and often figure in his live act. The book tells us that Nick was a big fan of Mose Allison, as is Van to this very day. Georgie Fame was somebody else who Nick admired who went on to become a band member and close friend of Van’s. Also, Nick & Van do not appear to have any interest in explaining the songs. It is left to the listener to find meaning in the songs for themselves.

Another thing I noticed was they both were great admirers of William Blake. Nick & Van obviously recognised a kindred spirit there. Finally, I couldn’t help noticing how much rain is mentioned in the lyrics of both singers. They both seem to see rain & water as cathartic experiences.

I wonder if Nick hadn’t died so tragically young if Nick & Van’s paths might have crossed. I think they would have understood each other. Both seemed to have an underlying melancholy, and ambivalence about performing live. My own guess about the source of Nick’s unhappiness is that he inherited his mother’s sadness. After buying the Songs Of Molly Drake album last year I can see the same underlying depression that Nick suffered from in the words of Molly’s songs. I think it was her husband Rodney who gave Molly the stability she needed. Nick wasn't so lucky. Anyway, I’m now playing my Way To Blue album by the great Nick Drake. 

Nick Drake - Way To Blue

Long Gone Lonesome Blues By Thomas Fraser.

It’s another dark and gloomy day. I’m listening to an album called Long Gone Lonesome Blues, Selections from the Thomas Fraser recordings. I first heard of him when listening to the Mike Harding Folk show on the BBC. I thought I would tell you about Thomas Fraser because his story is one of the most extraordinary in the history of music. I gleaned the following information from the very informative booklet that accompanies the CD. It was his grandson Karl Simpson that provided the notes and compiled the CD

Thomas Fraser was born on the isle of Burra in the Shetland Islands in 1927. His first instrument was the fiddle. Later, he was given a guitar from which he became inseparable and would cycle all over the island with it strapped across his back. He also learned to play the banjo, mandolin & piano and taught himself to yodel which was to prove very useful. He also played records non-stop on the family gramophone. His favourite singer was Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman. Thomas would imitate Jimmie’s style until the resemblance became uncanny. After leaving school he became a fisherman and when ashore he would play at local weddings & concerts although he was very shy about singing in public. He got married in 1955 and bought his own lobster boat The Lark. From our point of view the most exciting thing is that in 1953 he bought the first reel to reel tape recorder that the island had ever seen. Soon he was making his own recordings of music by such people as Stephane Grappelli, Django Reinhardt, Hank Williams, The Inkspots & Big Bill Broonzy. These recordings were made for his own pleasure. He had no intention that they would have a wider audience.

Fate dealt him some bad luck in the 1970’s. Firstly his uninsured boat sank after running onto rocks and Thomas was fortunate not to have drowned. Then in 1977 another accident at sea left him with serious head injuries. His recordings ceased, and he died in 1978 at the young age of 50.

Word began to spread about his home recordings and his nephew Bobby released some home-made cassettes, but this didn’t satisfy the demand. People began to realise that Thomas Fraser represented the authentic sound of country blues. The pure music that wasn’t commercialised by Nashville. Finally, his grandson compiled the CD of 25 songs from more than 500 that Thomas had recorded. I only have one Thomas Fraser CD but since it was released in 2002 I believe there has been several more. He now has fans all over the world and there is even an annual Thomas Fraser festival in the Shetland Islands. I highly recommend this album.

Thomas Fraser Stormin' on the Deep Blue Sea