Starspot #549

20/5/14

Paul O'Grady (TRSE)
Barbara Windsor
Gary Kemp

Yesterday's HEE

Watching a dog catch a frisbee on our evening walk around Kenwood en famille

Writing up Power to the People in conjunction with Mark Stevenson

A solid day's writing and reading work at home

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas & John Newman - Proud Camden

Proud Camden

1 heatwave **
2 many rivers to cross
3 jimmy b * come back jimmy b
4 something
5 dancing in the street

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

D dancing with Michael Franti

Talk about/in front of Seurat's Baigneurs a Asnieres

Reading while listening to LSO rehearsal in Trafalgar Square

Michael Franti & Spearhead - Islington Assembly Hall - with Dylan

1 11:59 and 59 seconds**
2 Closer to You
3 Never Let You Go
4 Forever there for you * (new song - about 15 year old son)
5 All the Freaky People
6 I Love You
7 first song from new album (out in June)
Hey World
bits of It's A Family Affair, Bomb the World

I'm Alive
Life is Better with You
On and on?
Say goodbye?

Starspot #387

Antony Worrall Thompson (Gatwick 28.4.14)

Nick Lowe at Union Chapel, Islington

1 Cruel to Be Kind
2 House for Sale
3 Without Love
Check Out Time
4 I Knew The Bride when she used to rock'n'roll
Encore:
5 Only a Rose * - with Geraint Watkins (vocals & keyboards)
6 What's so funny about peace love and understanding

Previous: Once or twice at BBC Songwriters' Circle

Quotation: The Simple Pleasure of Food

I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.

Dodie Smith (born May 3, 1896) best known for I Capture the Castle and The Hundred and One Dalmations

Quotation: fighting a hard battle

Article dated January 1898 in a Boston, Massachusetts periodical, Zion’s Herald (though probably published in England before December 25, 1897):

“IAN MACLAREN,” along with other celebrities, was asked to send a Christmas message to an influential religious weekly in England. He responded by sending the short but striking sentence: “Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.” No message is more needed in our days of stress and storm, of selfish striving and merciless competition.

See Quote Investigator

Today read an article in The Guardian about a new hit economics book, Capital in the 21st century - it's thrust is:

 * Returns to capital are rising faster than economies are growing. The wealthy are getting wealthier while everybody else is struggling. Inequality will widen to the point where it becomes unsustainable – both politically and economically – unless action is taken to redistribute income and wealth.
* rising inequality is killing capitalism
* there are limits to what markets can do

 which gives the 1898 phrase "our days of stress and storm, of selfish striving and merciless competition" particular resonance

YHEE

A hard day's work on SFV

A good night's sleep

Giving the Enfants Terribles their Tshirts from Toronto