Observations and oddments

[snorkackcatcher]

Advertising sign seen outside a health club sort of place on Vauxhall Bridge Road:
"If nudists took over the world, would you be ready?"
That ought to get some sort of award for surrealism in advertising ...

On the typed list of songs in the book used for karaoke nights at my local pub in Devon: "Bobbie Gentry, Ode to Billy Joel." Nice idea, not quite the right title unfortunately.

In the wake of the recent kerfuffle over fandom outing (just look at metafandom for far more than you probably want to know on the subject), I decided to Google my RL name. Happily, despite the fact that it's not a particularly common one, the first reference to me (as opposed to e.g some bloke who wrote about Keats) is at #65. Although it is an email to the Paradigm of Uncertainty list, which is mildly embarrassing.

After standing in line at Sainsbury's (London) and listening to the automated checkouts repeat the same phrases over and over in the irritatingly perky voice that recordings on such things usually have, I feel a great urge to reprogram them. With a sledgehammer.

Also at Sainsbury's (Devon): Carla Bruni must be more A-list here than I thought -- they're selling her CD there in what is obviously a mass market outlet. Wow. That is, I believe, the one that caused controversy in France with lines that translate as something like "I give you my body, my soul, and my chrysanthemum" (ahem) in a love song to Sarko. Clearly, having a glamorous younger wife is a boost to his public popularity, just as with Prince Charles. Oh wait ...

Lyrics: And that makes a nice segue to the last one I posted -- which no-one knew -- Kiki Dee's Amoureuse from 1973, based on a song of the previous year by French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson (not that I knew this before looking it up, admittedly).

Here's another tricky one. I nearly included it in my "10 fine but obscure songs" list, except that when I looked it up I discovered that while it wasn't a UK single, it did make top 20 (just) in the US. Early hit for an immensely famous band:

There've been so many girls that I've known
I've made so many cry, and still I wonder why
Here comes the little girl
I see her walking down the street
She's all by herself
I try and knock her off her feet
But, she'll never break, never break, never break, never break
This ... (1960s)

Comments

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

"Heart of Stone," by the Rolling Stones. (Huh, I'm actually first for once.)

[snorkackcatcher]

Yep. Glad to see people knew it, actually.

[muggle-prof.livejournal.com]

Ode to Billy Joel -- that's one for the ages... as is the thought of the great nudist takeover, and the rest of us so out of shape.

(And I knew the Stones' song.)

[snorkackcatcher]

You can see what they were thinking -- or maybe it's just that their typing fingers got ahead of their brain. :)