Hamilton Saint

I watched this at the cinema last night. It has been retitled Pirate Radio for the North American market. It's a lot of fun, but it plays seriously fast-and-loose with the facts. Kenneth Branagh gives a marvellously OTT performance as Sir Alastair Dormandy, the evil villain of a minister who is responsible for dealing with the pirate radio file. In reality, it was none other than Tony Benn who was in charge of that issue - and he was one of the more progressive members of that government. There are a lot of anachronisms in the film - especially in the slang used and the music played. The bulk of the film is set in 1966, but there is a lot of music on the soundtrack that actually came after that. The ending is really melodramatic - with its allusions to the Titanic disaster and the Dunkirk rescue - and it really goes overboard (excuse the pun) in trying to pull at the heart strings. Anyway, it's worth seeing. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is great as an Emperor Roscoe styled DJ ("the Count"), Bill Nighy (as always) is good - as the station manager, and Rhys Ifans is wonderful as the sleazy DJ Gavin. I hear the film didn't do very well in the UK, though. I suppose if you didn't lived through that period, it might not be of immediate interest, and if you did, you might take exception with the liberties it takes with the facts.

Have you listened to the remastered CD? It includes a long interview with Ian Anderson where he describes the circumstances of how that LP was recorded - a new studio that he was not happy with. An interesting listen.

I just listened via BBC i-player to a Radio 2 programme by Bob Harris called The Songs The Beatles Gave Away. It's about songs written by John, Paul and George which were were recorded by other artists. Some of the songs were leftovers; some were written to order. I was familiar with most of the songs, but there are few rarities featured on there, and several demo recordings featuring Paul and George. The interviews heard feature Paul, George, George Martin, Johnny Gentle, Cilla Black, Mary Hopkin and Jackie Lomax. The music features Johnny Gentle, Billy J. Kramer, The Fourmost, Cilla Black, Peter & Gordon, The Applejacks, The Strangers, P.J. Proby, Chris Barber, the Black Dyke Mills Band, Mary Hopkin, Jackie Lomax, Carlos Mendes and Doris Troy. This programme is available on BBC i-player until Saturday, Dec. 5th. It's an hour long. Worth a listen, if you're a Beatles fan. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p1mv7/The_Songs_The_Beatles_Gave_Away/

An away game played at home. How does that work? :confused:

Yes, indeed - it's a good feeling, eh?!

It's there - choose the tab "team lineups".

Yellow and navy.

Northampton hit the post. Defence under pressure.

Finally on - 13 minutes before kick-off.

15 minutes to kick-off and still no Saints Player commentary. Anyone else connected to their live commentary yet?

After they've fixed the fire hydrant, you mean?

When I listen to music, it's always complete albums ("LPs"); I stopped listening to just individual songs ("singles", or "45s") in 1969! Bach's Brandenburg Concertos conducted by Christopher Hogwood Surf's Up by the Beach Boys Smiling Phases - a 'best of' compilation by Traffic

Time to do another roll-call of Saints in Canada, eh? I'm located in Hamilton, Ontario.

I have a double LP by Idle Race (on vinyl) called Impostors of Life's Magazine. It's on Daffodil records, and was released only in Canada (1973).

Yes, it is. UFO is an abbreviation for unidentified flying object. An acronym is a pronouncable word formed from the initial letters of a phrase - e.g., laser, which is formed from the abbreviation for 'light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation'.

I listen regularly to Coast and Country (BTW, the Nov 14 edition is set in the New Forest), The Film Programme, Front Row Highlights, In Our Time, Thinking Allowed and World Book Club.

In the past week I've watched two very similar films: 1) Grizzly Man - an excellent documentary directed by Werner Herzog. It tells the story of Timothy Treadwell, a young Californian who spent 13 summers in the wilds of Alaska hanging out with grizzly bears. For the final five summers he videotaped many of his encounters with grizzlies and other animals. Herzog got access to Treadwell's tapes (over 100 hours of footage) and filmed interviews with some of the people who knew him. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of an obsessed, very troubled, naive guy. The soundtrack music was written by Richard Thompson (with the support of a small ensemble) and produced by Henry Kaiser. Highly recommended. 2) Into the Wild - a feature film, based on the book by John Krakauer, written and directed by Sean Penn. It's also set in Alaska ans tells the story of another self-absorbed, obsessed loner (Chris McCandless, who adopts the alias Alexander Supertramp) who wants to get away entirely from civilisation (even avoiding all communication with his family) and live by his own wits in the pristine Alaskan wilderness. This film also provides a lot of "back-story", and we meet some interesting characters that "Alex" hooks up with on his long journey from home to Alaska.

The Best of the Move - The Move (featuring Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan). Stuff from 1966 to 1972. Often strange hybrid of heavy rock and dainty, psychedelic pop. Smiling Phases - Traffic (featuring Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Dave Mason and Chris Wood). A double CD compilation of some of their best from1968 to 1974. Interesting melange of psychedelic pop, folk, blues and jazz.

Or Tibetan buddhists?

Either we respond to adversity positively, or we respond negatively. Either we hope for the best, or we hope for the worst. Either we support the manager, and trust that he knows what he's doing, or we look for the first opportunity to insult his motives and his intelligence. Your choice.

But you didn't notice that hierarchy wasn't spelt correctly?!

Typical - the station kicked in just 10 seconds after I posted the previous message!

Has anyone managed to get the Saints commentators yet via Saints Player? No luck for me since the top of the hour. I can connect to the Orient commentary but not the Saints commentary.

Same for me. Very irritating.