Owner: Not What it Used to Be URL:http://notwhatitused2be.com Join Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:32:26 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: We're headed to hell in a clapped-out handcart. Musings on the crapness of modern life, from a self-confessed miserable old bark Site statistics:Click here
No. 6 Ladies and Gentlemen… The Rolling Stones 2008-07-02 17:16:27 Ye Gads. What on Earth are they thinking?
Firstly, don’t get me wrong. I love the RollingStones
. In fact I’m a huge fan, and by that I’m not just referring to my expanding waistline. I have all 12 studio albums from1966’s Aftermath to 1978’s Some Girls, and it’s with the latter where the problem lies.
If [...]
Musical Interlude - Jethro Tull 2008-06-29 12:49:24 Do we need anymore proof that all modern music is rubbish? I mean, what have you got today? Coldplay? Public schoolboys playing penniless students, for Christ’s sake.
Here we have another gem from the past. The mighty Jethro
Tull from 1968.
This is ‘A Song for Jeffrey’ off the This Was album. The footage is from the [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
, Jethro Tull
Musical Interlude - The Beatles 2008-06-28 12:53:13 I knew there was more to Youtube than happy-slapping vids and throwing cats off tower blocks. It’s a place where you can find gems such as this, our latest musical interlude for the weekend.
And it’s a treat and a half. The Beatles
and Billy Preston on a roof somewhere in London, 39 years ago.
‘Don’t Let [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
Musical Interlude - The Kinks 2008-06-27 16:27:56 This weekend we have a triple treat at Not What it Used to Be. The musical interlude will be running Friday, Saturday, and indeed, Sunday. You lucky people.
First up we have the The Kinks
, and ‘Village Green’. From the album The Village Green Preservation Society this is an absolute gem. Unfortunately, there’s no [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
No. 5 Whatever Happened to Ambition? 2008-06-26 16:24:53 What the hell ever happened to ambition?
That’s a question that always fails to keep me awake at night.
I’ll tell you where ambitions gone. It’s gone south, along with every other hope and dream we might once have nurtured. Just look at today’s young. There’s little ambition there, and why would there be?
Notice how [...] Read more:Ambition
No. 4 The Youth of Today Pt. 2 - The Kids Aren’t Alright 2008-06-23 14:39:02 In 1965 the Who sang the ‘The Kids are Alright
’. 43 years down the line and I beg to differ with Mr. Townshend. The kids aren’t alright. They seem very wrong indeed.
After berating the youth of today (or ‘yoots’, as I believe the collective term now to be) last week, it would seem that fair [...] Read more:Today
Musical Interlude - The Rolling Stones 2008-06-22 15:58:02 Just to prove that things are not what they used to be, I shall be posting videos at the weekend of proper music. Not the shite that clogs up the arteries of the music business nowadays. The sort that is vomited daily on an unending loop into the public concsciousness via the evil that [...] Read more:Rolling
, Stones
, Musical
, Interlude
No. 3 Royal Ascot 2008-06-16 16:44:10 Yes, RoyalAscot
, the dowager of the flat racing calendar kicks off tomorrow, and one has to ask the question, why?
Why does this joke of a five day event command so much airtime on a publicly owned television channel?
I say joke, because that’s all it is to me or any outsider to the obscenely wealthy [...]
No. 2 The Youth of Today 2008-06-11 16:44:46 By design, the youth of today have always been a feckless bunch. A clamour of ill-garbed, sweaty ne’er-do-wells, who seem unable to communicate in anything approaching a semblance of the Queen’s English. That’s to be expected; it’s their job. A job funded by dads across the land and rewarded with a modest stipend referred to [...] Read more:Today
No. 1 Shopping Bags 2008-06-08 17:34:43 Yesterday I had the pleasure of searching through the spare cupboard, amongst the toolboxes and assorted knick-knacks that see fit to gather there as though awaiting the second coming of the toolshed messiah; looking for a Phillips screwdriver with which to perform one of the mundane tasks that crop up every so often and make [...] Read more:Shopping
No. 10 Gordon Brown - U-Turns and Lies 2008-07-17 17:35:45 And so this prolonged car crash that is GordonBrown
and his treacherous band of thieves ploughs relentlessly onward as he makes not just one, but two policy U-turns in the space of a few days.
First off - in what’s up there with the quickest of embarrassing public U-turns to have been perpetuated by useless [...] Read more:Gordon Brown
No. 9 Time is Not on My Side 2008-07-16 17:24:11 Time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me.
- The Rolling Stones, ‘Time Waits For No One’
Indeed. Apparently we don’t buy Oranges anymore. Well not big ones, anyway. You know the ones the size of a small beach ball that you need an ice-pick or similarly fashioned tool to remove the rhinoceros-like [...]
Musical Interlude - The Rolling Stones 2008-07-12 13:25:21 Once again it falls upon the RollingStones
to provide us with a spot of music this Saturday evening. Just to prove I was right in my previous post Ladies and Gentlemen… The Rolling Stones; when I said that the Stones should’ve called it a day in ‘78, here they are in 1975, live at [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
Musical Interlude - Gil Scott-Heron 2008-07-11 17:57:00 Friday comes around again - actually it’s coming to an end, but I’m a busy man, you know - and so does another musical interlude. Oh yes. Even amongst all the cynicism and nonsense, we always make time for a spot of music. A classic turn that enforces the fact that music, musicians, bands, etc. [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
, Scott
, Heron
No. 8 Gordon Brown - Our Unelectable Leader (Pt. 1) 2008-07-10 15:38:26 I may have promised mobile phones and hi-technology for the next post, but that’s been postponed for another time to make way for something considerably lower in tech. What will be the start of an ongoing profile of one James GordonBrown
, elected leader of the Labour Party and unelected leader of the United Kingdom.
Now [...] Read more:Gordon Brown
, Leader
No 7. The Art of Conversation 2008-07-08 16:15:31 …
Nothing to say?
…
Hmmm. The art of conversation is not what it used to be.
…
But let’s just hold up one second there, Pardner. Since when was conversation an art anyway? It’s simply a case of two or more people in the same place at the same time waiting for their turn to speak. Nothing really artistic [...] Read more:Conversation
Musical Interlude - Country Joe McDonald 2008-07-06 14:25:24 Sunday brings the prospect of another dull week at work, so to liven up your evening we have some Country
Joe and the Fish.
Well actually, it’s just Country Joe McDonald
with a guitar, on stage at the original Woodstock festival; and a song as apt today, in a time of senseless war, as it was [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
Musical Interlude - Pink Floyd 2008-07-05 11:57:03 Saturday is here and with it comes another musical interlude to accompany me on my journey through the world of Not What it Used to Be. A spot more psychedelia is just what the doctor ordered, but on a far more mellow note than yesterday’s ‘White Rabbit’.
Today it’s the turn of the mighty Pink Floyd
, [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
, Pink Floyd
Musical Interlude - Jefferson Airplane 2008-07-04 15:59:47 Now here’s a rare old treat, my friend. Just for the weekend. One of Hunter S. Thompson’s favourite songs, and it’s not hard to see why.
He says in his article Freak Power In The Rockies, and I quote: “I like to load up on mescaline and turn my amplifier up to 110 decibels for [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
, Jefferson
, Airplane
No. 13 Thatcher, Churchill, and the State Funeral 2008-08-02 17:15:52 I think Jeffman lied when he said he’d be back on Monday, but then Jeffman, like a politician, has a long history of – how shall we say? – frugality with the truth. Just ask his good mother!
So what has spurred Jeffman into this unscheduled appearance?
Nothing really. Just a desire to get some random idiocy [...] Read more:Thatcher
, Churchill
, State
, Funeral
The Faces - Stay With Me (Musical Interlude) 2008-08-01 18:55:16 Jeffman must apologise for the laxness in the land of not what it used to be this week. We will be back on Monday with Public Transport.
In the mean time take a gander at the Faces. A Nod Is As Good As A Wink…
Jeffman’s too pissed to write anymore. So I leave you with the [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
No. 12 The Village Idiot and Talent-Free TV 2008-07-26 08:05:10 There was a time when you knew where you stood with the common or garden village idiot. He (for they were invariably always male) would sit on his wall at the edge of the village watching the world go by in blissful ignorance, only stopping every once in a while to fall off.
But nowadays, it [...] Read more:Village
, Talent
The Rolling Stones - Child of the Moon (Musical Interlude) 2008-07-25 20:04:22 Once again the musical interlude is brought to you by those doyens of decadence, the RollingStones
.
Jeffman apologises for the quality of the video but it’s a rare treat and needs to be seen by as many people as possible, if only for the fact that you may never see a more stoned bunch of [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
No. 11 The Art of Conversation Pt. 2 - Death by Internet 2008-07-24 16:45:55 In what seems like a lifetime ago I promised mobile phones and technology for the second part of this article on how the art of conversation is not what it used to be… So, with no further ado it’s mobile phones and technology I deliver.
Once again fear stalks these halls; what seems sadly endemic in [...] Read more:Conversation
, Internet
Musical Interlude - The Move 2008-07-19 10:46:36 The Move, indeed. Those psychedelic mods from Jeffman’s hometown of Birmingham. One of the most popular bands of the 60s not to find success in America.
Indeed, it was said of The Move, and I quote: “Without doubt, it was The Beatles, the Stones and The Move in that order in England.”, all-be-it by their own [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
Musical Interlude - Jefferson Airplane 2008-07-18 17:40:00 Jefferson Airplane
make a welcome return to these shores this weekend with the first track off their 1968 Crown Of Creation album.
Although written as a sly poke at drummer, Spencer Dryden, being the first of the group to turn 30; ‘Lather’ can also be read as an ode to remaining young and free whatever your [...] Read more:Musical
, Interlude
, Jefferson
The Move - Words of Aaron (Musical Interlude) 2008-08-16 06:03:00 This weekend’s MusicalInterlude
is once again from the mighty Move. It would seem they’re taking up residency as the Not What it Used to Be house band.
Which can’t be a bad thing. They’re brummies - one of your own - and without them we wouldn’t have the joy of Roy Wood and Wizzard’s ‘I [...] Read more:Words
, Aaron
No. 18 Jeffman’s Archives 2008-08-15 20:42:56 You can’t even rely on bleeding technology.
Jeffman has just noticed that the bloody archives aren’t working.
The monthly links redirect back to the homepage! He will engage his trustiest of spanners and cheekiest of socket sets, in a bid to remedy this faux pas.
For a committed Luddite such as his good self, this may take a [...] Read more:Archives
No. 17 Drunken Recovery Times 2008-08-14 16:44:36 Hot dingle. Jeffman fears he might be getting old. The pieces are slowly but surely slotting into place. Pull out the scorecard and tick the appropriate boxes.
Greying hair. Check. Expanding waistline. Check. Aching joints. Check. They’re all there. But there’s one thing Jeffman never expected. The thing that creeps up on you like the ex-scoutmaster [...] Read more:Recovery
, Times
No. 16 The Working Classes and their Like 2008-08-10 09:56:16 We here at Not What it Used to Be are fortunate enough to be graced by the presence of the incorrigible Lord Thackery Fotheringay-Fanshawe, who has so generously agreed to give up a portion of his valuable time to speak at us all on a subject he nurtures close to his own good heart.
By Jove! [...] Read more:Classes
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