Listen to the podcast of this week’s episode of The Dirt on Fab Radio International here.
There’s some great things on the show this week including lots of talk of about Beetroot, the first of a brand new feature “blog of the week” with Agents of Field, Sounds From The South (at 26.02 mins in) is about why Beetroot is my favourite vegetable (tune of the week is Big Youth – Some like it Dread) and Amie Sagar interviews the person on the street about the shocking pictures of the new killer Robin that has now settled in the UK ready to cause aggravation! Get orf me bird bath! Ta to The Dirt for letting us reproduce the shocking photo’s they obtained here!
I popped into Shannon’s yesterday and treated myself to some onion sets and garlic to overwinter in the garden and I bought one of these bulbs. I can’t remember what the flower actually is but I know it will grow into a 6 foot monster. Not bad for £7 odd. I will update you when it sprouts! Mad is not the word and very halloween.
A big thanks to Fliss who produced the great Gardeners Delight fanzine for sending us some pics of her new allotment in deepest South London.
I asked her for some before and after shots but as she says “as it’s such a huge plot it is hard to capture in a definitive before and after way! It was literally covered in hip-high weeds at the start, in early May (above). I must admit some of them got up to neck height before I could tackle them, too!” I understand 100% and looking at the pics here, you’ve done loads of work on the plot and it shows!
And below are the results of her hard work plus some grapes and tomatoes which she received as gifts from other plot holders. Great stuff!Fliss picked two corkers of tunes to accompany her pics. The first being Desmond Dekker with “Beautiful and Dangerous” as an ode to the many and interesting bites, stings, scratches and scrapes she got into along the way.
And the very excellent “Young wings can fly” from Johnny and the Attractions which she dedicates to “the mighty rose chafer beetle that alarmed me when it flew so noisily above me when gardening. A new discovery on me, those things, they’re very weird!”
By the way Gardeners Delight Issue 1 is still available and well worth buying (it would suit beginners and anyone interested in growing veg and fruit) and Fliss is still producing more fanzines which is admirable in this day and age what with online blogs etc.
There’s a recipe fanzine called “Eat Y’self Fitter” inspired by songs from The Fall, Tambourine Dream (great name!) all about Brian Jonestown Massacre and The All Thrills, No Frills Music Bill which has features on record shops, strange vinyl and an interview with Robyn Hitchcock, which sounds well up my street! All these are available on her Etsy page here.
Thanks again to Fliss for the great pics of her allotment and If you want find out more about her plot and how it’s progressing alongside other interesting stuff have a look at her great blog here.
Tune in tonight from 6pm to 8pm for The Dirt’s Halloween special on Fab Radio International here. At around 6.15 our weekly spot Sounds From The South will feature a story about a scary Halloween party in a South London pub’s beer garden! Thanks to Maz and Marc B for getting us that invite for a night I’ll never forget!
Three corkers this week, one from the back garden and two from Ross Allen and Andrew Hale’s brilliant show on Misoul available here.
The above is the squash/blue pumpkin harvested this evening. This is the first time I’ve ever had success with squashes, I got this specimen (which was the only one) from a plant that I constantly watered and fed weekly during the summer. It went all sprawling over the shop, but it was worth it for this mad looking thing with weird eyelashes! Big up the squash!
Johnny Clarke – Babylon – Cha Cha And here’s two corkers from Ross and Andrew’s excellent show on Misoul, it’s been a while since listening to it and the first time back I wasn’t disappointed. The first is the excellent Johnny Clarke with Babylon, a Jah Shaka favourite which has a great dub too.
Gloria Ann Taylor – Love is a hurting thing Next is a tune I’ve never heard before and one that puts me in mind of Siouxsie and the Banshees “Happy House” and Eddie Kendricks’ “Girl you need a change of Mind” with Liberace at the controls! Don’t listen too hard to the mix as the kick drum is well up front. Two tunes to take your mind of the bad weather of late!
Sounds from The South 11 – Hey Joe Our contribution to The Dirt this week is about meeting a imposter pretending to the legendary Joe Hayes from Manchester City (1953-65) on the way to the garden centre a few years ago. Tune of the week is from the great Dennis Brown called Money In My Pocket.
Have a listen on play again here (Sounds from The South is 14 minutes in) for the show that features “gleaning,” The Idiot Gardener and loads more stuff for have-a-go gardeners and outdoor idlers. Thanks to Si, Ricky and Paul!
Sounds from The South10 – Never mind the Council Our contribution to The Dirt this week is about meeting a couple of those Sex Pistols fellows while working as a council gardener in West London in the 1980’s. Tune of the week is from the great U-Roy&The Gladiators called Natty Rebel.
Have a listen on play again when it’s up later this week (5th October show) here (Sounds from The South is usually around 10 minutes in), alongside more gardening related stuff including funerals, morrisons, squashes and a tale about one of The Smiths. Cheers again to Si, Ricky and Paul!
That’s just reminded me, years ago I was told by a bloke who I doing an apprenticeship with (who wasn’t the full shilling on thinking back) that his brother was a mechanic who got a call one day in December 1977 to a coach that was carrying a famous rock band that had broken down on the motorway just outside Coventry.
He told me that when his brother went to fix the coach on the hard shoulder, it was the Sex Pistols and that all the band and their entourage were all dressed in “normal” clothes (flares, star jumpers and hair like Noel Edmonds etc) and all the punk stuff was “just an act.” Briliant, this rates as one of the best stories I’ve ever been told! But please don’t tell that to the dog-collared fashionista I seen at London Bridge station the other morning.
And if you want to vote The Dirt for your favourite show on Fab Radio International please cast your vote here!
An excellent tune as played by David Rodigan from the steel city geezer Toddla T on the mix with the excellent Suns of dub featuring Addis Pablo son of the late great Augustus. Heavyweight sunday night dub business, and a night that feels like summer outside.
Talking of Addis, here he is onstage with The Roots with their rendition of his father’s classic “King Tubby meets the rockers uptown” with added sousaphone. Love the on-stage madness!
Romain Virgo & Exco Levi – Education (Get it in your head) – Penthouse Records
Konshens – Don Dadda (Supercat Style) – Greatest Creation Riddim
Two great tunes for this intermittently sunshine-filled Sunday afternoon as played by The Rt Hon Rodigan of late. Lovely!
Love the “The i-phone, the i-pod, the Blackberry sims, without education they don’t mean a thing” lyric in the Romain Virgo/Exco Levi tune.
Talking of i-phones, I had to laugh at the people camping out outside the Apple Store in Covent Garden from Thursday afternoon, waiting to buy the new i-phone the next day at 9am. It was freezing Thursday night and there was even a storm in the early hours of Friday too. Was it worth it I ask?
I do hope there were campfires with mass sing-a-longs outside the shop that night and sausages and eggs being fried up on calor gas camping stoves in Covent Garden piazza at 7am. But somehow I doubt it.
Anyway, haven’t they got better things to do like sitting in the back garden in the late afternoon sunshine with a glass of Vino or do a bit of strimming perhaps?
A big thanks to our good friend Nic GThe Fellow Traveller who’s now relocated to Glendale in California and sent us these pics of his landlord, Mr Gonzales’ garden. We love those Cacti by the way, if only we could grow them over here!
As Nic told us in his email, the garden is a chaotic collection of buckets, pots and wheelbarrows, well up our street and all of the stuff in pots (but not the lovely Fig tree) have been started from seed. Those chilli’s are looking great! I reckon Mr Gonzales would love the Vertical Veg website. Cheers for these Nic, and do keep us updated!
Listen to the podcast of this week’s episode of The Dirt on Fab Radio International here.
A big thanks to Fliss who produced the great 
Weeds up to me knees 