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.
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Found a couple of links to Kingston’s great Dub Club. Firstly a great 3hr youtube live mix including Addis Pablo and the suns of dub at the controls from last year. Brilliant is not the word. Tune after tune!
Also a great soundcloud page full of dub club mixes and related roots recordings.
Don’t call this a “roots revival” as it’s never been away!
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!
It hasn’t been the best of weeks when it comes to squirrels around these parts, as I’ve had to dispose of a couple of dead ones this week (not good when you’ve just come in from work.) I buried both of them in deep holes in the garden, then on top of the refilled soil, put a garnish of black pepper and some minced garlic (out of a pepper mill and a garlic crusher, of course!) to keep those damn cats away who we summise were the killers.
South London squirrels are usually the kings of the garden here, dodging and weaving away from cats and foxes, knackering them out into the process but it’s not so at the present moment.
This week I got in touch with the website www.squirrels.info who told me this time of year is when the mother kicks her young out to fend for themselves hence the amount of confused or sadly, dead ones around autumn time.
The website provides very good info on what to do if you find an orphan squirrel here. I could have done with that link last Sunday as I witnessed a cat versus squirrel stand off here after a nice afternoon in the pub.
More details of what happened is on Sounds From The South 9– Too Much Too Young from The Dirt last night. Tune of the week is Dr Alimantado with Still Alive and the podcast is now up online here. It’s on after the animal sounds quiz at 5 minutes in.
There’s lots of great stuff on the show including Amie Sagar interviewing Squirrels about the situation at the moment, The Idiot Gardener on Sainsbury’s Bank’s “Crafty Gardening Ideas” tome (here) and The Gentleman Gardener talking topical among lots of other madness.
This week’s Sounds from the South on The Dirt is about a bloke I worked with on the council called Big Dennis and his way of cleaning leaves out of a park. Tune of the week is from Dennis Brown called How could I leave from 1978 on Joe Gibbs.
Have a listen on play again here for all sorts of gardening related malarkey including Andy McIndoe on leaf composting, Angela De Fouw’s olive oil and The Idiot Gardener on The Soil Association (and 10 minutes in for Sounds from the South). Cheers again to Si, Ricky and Paul!
I was hoping to listen to the show live this week but something bonkers happened that stopped me from doing so! You’ll have to wait until Episode 9 for that, so tune in to The Dirt on Fab Radio International next Sunday from 6-8pm live.
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!
A big shout to Mike P, one of the owners of the great Ffynnonofi Farm near Fishguard, Pembrokeshire where we stayed last month. Mike’s a massive reggae fan and he’s very kindly sent us an ace photo of his.It’s a picture from the late 1980’s of Bob Marley‘s secret hideaway in Littlebay, Jamaica. Bob wrote a good few songs there and the house even had a lovely garden created by the great man himself so Mike tells us.
Considering that the house is nearly no more (no) thanks to time and those Hurricanes, Gilbert and Ivan, this is a great piece of history documented. Thanks Mike!
Back to Wales, one of the caretakers of Ffynnonofi Farm is only the son of the author of the fantastic book we reviewed over a couple of years ago here called “The new complete book of self-sufficiency” by John Seymour. I got the book for the bargain price of a pound in a used book sale at Holborn Library and one well worth getting.
I was feeling well fed up towards the end of last week then I twigged, I hadn’t done anything in the garden for a couple of weeks.
So as soon as I got in from work Friday night I got the old flymo out, tidied up the lawn, picked some tomatoes, green beans and the few parsnips (in a That’s Life stylee) I sowed way back in February. Now all I need to do is make a start on the weeding…
And here’s how the sweet corn is getting on, not brilliant but better than the time I tried a few years ago. Only small cobs at the moment.When that old gardening lark goes well, it’s a grand old life!
Stephen Marley feat. Sizzla & Capleton – Rock Stone (Revelation Part II: The Fruit of Life)
I was feeling well fed up towards the end of last week then I twigged, I hadn’t done anything in the garden for a couple of weeks.
Weeds up to me knees 