The other month we got this great multi-coloured Bolivian Rainbow Chilli Pepper plant from Herne Hill Market that is now housed in the polytunnel and seems to love it in there so much as we are now getting more great purple flowers. Great stuff!
Thanks to Kit G5KIT in Bristol who sent us these great pictures of his chilli plant and he wrote: “Remember those little chilli seedlings from earlier in the year? We’ve given most of them away, but kept the biggest one – and we took our first crop yesterday. The chillies aren’t very big, maybe 20mm long for the largest ones, but boy do they pack a punch. They’re not called ‘Demon Reds’ for nothing; they’re about 194,000 on the scoville scale of heat!” Wow that is crazy Kit!
A big thanks to Steve Barker, Fenny and Jim from the excellent On The Wire for playing Morschen43’s Dark Dread / Toi … , L’Homme … at 1 hour in on the show earlier this morning. Cheers Steve for mentioning Weeds up to me knees also!
The track is off Spike’s new album available on Bandcamp here.
The track above was the tune played before it which is of the crazy dubby trumpet variety. Cheers again Steve!
To listen to the wonderful eclectic programme that is On The Wire check the blogspot here.
It’s also on Totally Radio on Sundays at 6pm here. It’s well worth a listen to say the least.
Another big shout out to our good friends across the pond Dr Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss of the excellent radio show The Echo Chamber on KFAI. We’ve said this countless times, but if you want to hear reggae, dub, downbeat and beyond, tune in from 8 – 12 UK time on a Wednesday morning here.
This Wednesday just gone was the annual Echo Chamber/Echo Beach Dub Club Tiki Bar Special (not unlike the The Skybird Lounge series of shows) with all sorts of beach bar and holiday beach destination classics including One Deck Pete presents a mix for WAVE at 80 mins in.
Tracklistings:
The Grizzly Folk – Broomway
High Skies – The shipping Forecast
Michael Rose – Surfing in the dub (Intro)
Quiet Village – Keep on Rolling
Pull up the deck chair or get the 1970’s sun lounger out and tune in here for a far out holiday sunny vibes show as there’s some wonderful stuff on the show.
Here’s news about the new album from our gardening mate Spike Morschen43 from Le Puy-en-Velay, France called Retour En Force!!!
The set released a few days again on Bandcamp features 12 tracks featuring some heavy guitars, some whistling on Noir Y Voir (which would fit in on the Imaginary Stations WSTL show), a version of MV Ross Revenge For Ever (UK), which initially made us to get in touch with Spike through the pirate radio connection, and a great version of Madtone’s Dark Dread called Dark Dread / Toi … , L’Homme…
Give it a listen and name your price. Cheers Spike!
Strange lighting was the order of the day when we witnessed the partial eclipse of the sun in SE23 around 7.16 pm this evening. The colander was out and reflected said phenomenon onto the fence. Crazy stuff!
The earth didn’t stand still and the birds didn’t stop singing but it was an interesting evening all the same and it was nice when the light went back to normal again.
Here’s an eclipse-related (originally for shortwave) mix from a few years ago called “Can you see Baily’s beads?”
Tracklistings:
A Man called Adam – Moon
Cosmos – Summer in space (Mark’s Harmonic 33 mix)
Cedric Im Brooks – Blackness of Darkness
Cornell Campbell – Stars
The colander is now back in the cupboard until the next eclipse in 2056 or whenever it is, the birds have gone to sleep for the evening and the world continues turning…
We have a bit of a minor leg injury due to carrying heavy stuff about a week Sunday, so we took it very easy in the garden yesterday. After a very light “tip around with a pair of secateurs” we tuned into WAVE from Imaginary Stations on the ATS – 20+ shortwave radio we bought earlier this year. It’s a cheap and cheerful radio and it has some faults but overall, it isn’t bad for the cheap price.
We heard the great mix from our mate Kit G5KIT in Bristol live on air and quoting him a few days ago “I don’t know what it is, but both Dub and Eastern European music both seem to really suit short wave propagation, they just sound …right.” He’s so correct there! Tune in to the studio recording below and Kit’s mix is at 30 minutes in.
Here’s the track listings:
Deep Reggae Sound System – Midnight Dub Waves
Pat Flashman – Summer Dub
The Heptones – Sea of Dub
Groovy Waters – Rock the Casbah
And here’s a few from the Weeds garden including a very small baby sun rose we were given by a friend from work on Friday which was feeling sorry for itself when we put it in the Belfast sink later that evening but on Sunday we even had a flower!
The teasel is attracting all sorts of bugs and pollinators (above) and the cardoon (below) which we bought many years ago at Shannon’s (RIP) survived a blackfly attack after we sprayed some very diluted washing liquid water on it.
And the Globe Thistle is doing well too! Happy gardening everyone.
Here’s an excellent film from many years ago well worth watching. It features some historical stuff, Noel Dyer who hitch hiked from Peckham to Ethiopia, The Reverend Hillman, a chap with some great headwear at 39.30 in and some excellent tunes.
The first is one from the great Wilmoth Houdini (one of his well known tunes “Black but Sweet” here as sampled by the Sabres of Paradise) called Ethiopian War Drums.
Then the great Mighty Terror with Emperor of Africa.
And a cracking Prince Buster tune called The Prince of Peace only ever heard played out once upstairs at The Betsey Trotwood at an On-U sound related event on a Friday night many moons ago featuring Pete Holdsworth who told us he obtained said record from a charity shop for a sum of less than a quid, years previously.
And finally the Ethopian reggae sound of Tilahun Gessesse. All great stuff off a great film!
It’s going to be silly hot today (around 32 degrees C), so we did a bit of watering this morning before it goes too mad. The first (above) is from our Marvel of Peru (AKA Four o’clock plant) that we grew from seed and the first flowers are just forming. It’s a bit of a different kind of plant as in the flowers usually open from 4pm attracting all sorts of moths and pollinators. Supposedly the flowers have a great smell too! More on that here.
A new arrival to the Weeds garden (above) that we saw when we went to the Chelsea flower show. It’s a Lychnis flos-cuculi “Petit Henri” and giving us some clusters of great small white flowers and it’s a perennial too! More here.
We’re even getting some progress on the tomatoes (above) at the moment. Nothing ripening yet and still small, but there is fruit!
And meanwhile down the pond our Echeveria is kicking out some great plastic looking flowers! We do love this gardening lark!
We’ve also been checking out an interesting Jamaican gardening blog called Hopey’s Garden. It’s an interesting read if you want to try different type of vegetables and stuff. The article above is very interesting and has some nice tips contained on there so do give it a look over.
Cheers to Maz and Marc from sending us some great pictures from their recent holiday in France. These photos are from in and about Saint-Aubin-de-Cadelech, south of Bergerac.
Just like when you receive postcards a few days after people come back off their holidays, we are following the tradition here. It was very hot over there and one day reached to 43 degrees C in the shade, wow!
Some Mirabelle de Nancy plums that taste very very sweet (above) and some sumac (below).
And a smoketree (below) that we have just read, that is related to sumac.
Here’s a wonderful willow shelter and below is the shady view from inside (looking down to the treeline by the River Dropt), what a great idea!
Big thanks to Maz and Marc for these great pictures! Hope you both had a great holiday.
