minnellium

Lovely Christmas Day at Sally and Simon’s house in Chorlton.
Photos Here, including a bit of bike ride action with Olly and Lily, and some pics of Boxing Day here

Oscar Peterson died on Christmas eve. What a man.

You still look good to me….

I was just listening to the radio, humming away to myself for a few minutes whilst the phone stopped ringing for the first time today (!) and this tune came on… which reminded me to look at what I feel is the finest pop video in many, many years.

Lily and I do things a bit differently every Friday… we have a break from ’story’ before bedtime, and it quite often involves surfing things on Youtube. To have all those amazing things from my childhood (and since) at my fingertips never ceases to amaze me; it won’t amaze Lily and her generation. For that, she’ll never be grateful - she never should be - this is what so much of the media should be - on demand entertainment, not pipe-fed scheduled programming, but a parent-supervised themed trip round amazing things.

We searched for a “drummer” - Lily’s quite set on getting some drums for Christmas …

First, we watched Igor, a four year old from Poland

… and from him, I was prompted to search for Buddy Rich’s epic battle with Animal fromt he Muppets

A natural progression, was to seek out another televised Buddy Rich drum battle, one that I’d heard talked about, but never seen (until Youtube!) - he and Gene Krupa going at it together on the Sammy Davis Jr show.

To calm down from the drums a bit, we finished off with a bit of Sammy Davis Jr himself, this time tap dancing to Singin in the Rain with some remarkable collars….

Friday night… a good night in.

This reminds us all why fox hunting was abolished for its barbarism.