A couple of events to stick in the old diary. The first is a Seed Swap in the Corbett Community Library, Torridon Road, Catford, London SE6 1RQ on Saturday 25th March 2023 from 10am to 3pm. More on the event here. Thanks to @LewishamGardens for alerting us to this!
And on WRMI this Sunday 5th March 2023 Imaginary Stations presents a KBIN mix up special with WSTL versus WELK. Expect some whistling, yodelling and squeezebox classics at 2300 UTC on 9395 kHz. Get that accordion at the ready!
This Sunday coming 13th February (also the launch day of Cities and Memory’s Shortwave Project here) sees WSTL on the shortwaves via WRMI at 2300 UTC on 9395 kHz. The transmission features a whistling themed mix from One Deck Pete called “Give a little whistle” featuring tracks by Joakim, Marcel, Roscoe Wethers and Felix Laband.
Put the kettle on and tune into some clear, high-pitched sounds by forcing breath through a small hole between one’s lips or teeth (or from a kettle, a bird or a train etc etc). Have a listen via an SDR online here, one of those shortwave radios or after transmission here. #shortwavesnotdead #whistlingsnotdead
Socialism Train – 19 in a socialist reggae style
Big thanks to Steve Barker from the excellent On The Wire on BBC Radio Lancashire for supplying this ace reggae chart for us. On The Wire has been playing the best in reggae, dub, electronica, ambient and all sorts of eclectic business weekly for over 30 years and is available Saturday midnight here and available on listen again here.
So here’s the tunes and there’s some crackers on here. If the tune is not featured, click on the links to view on youtube.
Cheers again to Steve for the chart, shouts to Fenny and Jim at On The Wire too. Keep up the good work!
1. Ethiopians – Socialism Train
2. The Mighty Diamonds – I need a roof
3. The Heptones – Equal rights
4. Peter Tosh – Get up, stand up
5. Burning Spear – Social living
6. Abyssinians – This Land is for everyone
7. Derrick Morgan – People’s decision
8. Max Romeo – Socialism is love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maYExnnp7AI
9. Dillinger – Crashie First Socialist
10. King Tubby – Big Youth King Tubby fights against capitalism
11. Freddie McGregor – I’m a revolutionist
12. The Youths – We a socialist (version)
13. Prince Jazzbo – Step forward youth
14. Jeb Loy Nicholls – To be rich (Should be a crime)
15. Still Cool – To be poor is a crime
16. Johnny Clarke – Declaration of rights
17. I Roy – Every mouth must be fed
18. Gregory Isaacs – Working class
19. Screechy Dan – Raise Your Glass Fi Di Working Class
A big shout to Mike and Aradhana of the great Ffynnonofi Farm near Fishguard, Pembrokeshire where we’ve stayed a couple of times in the past. It’s a top place, the sea’s on your doorstep and there’s plenty of countryside to take in as well as some great fruit and veg growing on the farm!
Mike’s sent us some snaps of his garden at the present moment and the plants are looking good! The sweet cherries (above) look brilliant and the plums (below) look like they’re coming on fine too.
The morello cherries (below) are starting to turn red.
And look at the overwintered garlic below, they went in around november last year and are now well on their way!
One of the caretakers of Ffynnonofi Farm is Dai, (the son of the late John Seymour, author of “The new complete book of self-sufficiency” we reviewed on the blog here). His tip is that garlic should ideally go in on the shortest day (usually around the 21st December), and picked on the longest day (around the 21st June). Great advice!
Cheers to Mike for sending in the pics and also thanks for passing on this fine classic from Peter Tosh.
I’ve just spent an hour between showers weeding the veg bed at the end of the garden, it’s ideal for lettuces, spinach etc as it doesn’t get full sun all day so they tend not to “bolt” (go to seed quickly). Apart from the lettuce and spinach, there’s a couple of cabbages, climbing french beans, one purple sprouting broccoli, early spuds (that are nearly ready to dig up) beetroot and a pink tree stump (don’t ask!) Also in shot, a couple of dalek compost bins procured off the council, a wheelbarrow which was left out on a local street with a note saying “take me” on it, the wormery (the white bucket) and the comfrey liquid fermenting in a bucket with a council garden waste bag on top filtering out the toxic gasses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8WRzdN43BI
At the same time down the road the local church fete was in progress. I knew it was on because earlier I popped to the shops and saw local firefighters decked out in face paint (imagine them turning out like that to a shout!) showing kids around their appliance and a bouncy castle was in full swing. While I was tending to the veg patch a RnB band started up with the amps cranked up really high (much to the disgust of the neighbours). They banged out “Route 66,” “Johnny B Goode” and a cover of The Subways “Be my Rock n Roll Queen” with lots of added shouts, iggy pop-isms and yelps which made me laugh while I pulled out weeds and filled in the gaps with more sowings. Mid-set the lead singer read out the results to the Tombola (“The star prize of £200 goes to…”) and then into a another rocking version of “Johnny B Goode”. Brilliant! What do you reckon the vicar thinks to all this rock n roll behaviour? “Jolly good” I hope is her reply.
Weeds up to me knees 