March on...

Well Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus, everyone. Yes, it’s 1 March and that makes it Taffy Day¹. I noticed this morning that a couple of Daffodils are flowering in the garden – most of them are just green shoots right now, but four or five have managed to flower on the day itself. I understand that we have some pink daffodils hidden away in the beds, too, but so far none have these have shown themselves – and neither have the tulips we planted at the same time. Still, what with the crocuses and Easter Roses, we have a few things poking out and there are buds everywhere.

It won’t be long before my nemesis, the cherry tree wakes up properly and I am forced to chobble antihistamines like they are going out of fashion.

So, yesterday was 29th February – Leap Day as it were. Well that was a bust, I managed to get absolutely no leaping done, though in fairness, my knees, which are rather sore, will thank me for that omission. Maybe in 2016 they will hurt less and I shall be able to indulge myself a little. Or not, more like.

¹I can say this because I am one-third² Welsh. You can'r because you're not.

²It's a Welsh thing. Don't ask.

Davy Jones: 30 December 1945 - 29 February 2012

Of course now, as I get round to blogging it, the death of Davy Jones is old news, but I felt the need to flag it up.

The Monkees were, and are, the only manufactured band that I have ever had a positive opinion of. There’s a number of reasons for this:

Firstly, when they were launched, I was far too young to know any better and by the time I did, they were securely fixed into my nostalgia circuits.

Beyond that, however, is the fact that though they started out as actors playing pop stars, whose music was performed by session artists, they improved, became musicians in their own right and, before the band (or group as they would have been in those days)finally split, they had managed to assert a certain level of creative control over their own output, rather than simply regurgitating what the TV studios wanted.



They managed to put out a number of albums that were critically well-received, but which didn’t sell in the huge numbers their earlier work did, though a lot of the material is still available on various ‘best of’ compilations, which are very much worth a listen.

In particular, I’d love to see their film, Head , which deals with the nature of free-will and is, in some ways, a deconstruction of their TV image.