After the event where 2-300 people were killed in the latest suicide bombings in Iraq I've come to the conclusion that the following must be what the words really stand for.

Any
Life

Quickly,
And
Evilly
Destroyed for
Allah

I love piano blues and have become involved with a blues society not far from where I live. But why is it that guitar blues appears to be the preferred genre? And why do the guitar players have to play so damned loud and in the keys of A or E major. I've heard that many blues clubs have closed and I'm sure that this is because people are bored with only guitar blues being offered. Lets hear it for the Pinetop Perkins, Otis Spaans and Roosevelt Sykes soundalikes and keep the blues alive.

The media over the past week or so has been full of stories of murder on the streets of Britain. Among the events reported have been:

The murder of at least two infants/toddlers by their parents or their parent's boyfriends
The shooting/stabbing of teenagers by other peer groups
The assaults and consequence of murder on socially spirited members of the public by unsocial adolescents who seek to destroy the way of life of others.

The social downfall of Britain is on the horizon and if the police are reluctant to uphold the law in this country then it's time
the people did. How many times have I heard that crimes, when reported to the police, have been either ignored or the complainant been warned off by the police. Only today did I hear one telephone caller report that he told a load of teenagers to stop vandalising a community centre only to be sworn at by the miscreants involved in the crime. When he reported the event to the police he was told to go home and avoid being prosecuted for making offensive remarks to the teenagers.

It appears that the police, law and politicians in this country are either too weak or have no interest in protecting the law abiding, ordinary citizens of this country. If they don't start acting soon then I can see that the citizens will rise up and take the law into their own hands. Who else is prepared to protect us? The police don't appear to want to and the politicians are made up of do-gooders who want to drawn their massive paycheques but not attack the issues that are of great cconcern of the voters that got them in.

The saddest photo of the day must be the one of the murdered gorillas in Africa. Three of them were females with either young or was pregnant and one was a male.

When I see sights like this I can only think that the sooner mankind is wiped out the better it will be for the rest of the animal and plant kingdom as well as for planet earth.

For all you religious types out there:

God ( Allah, whatever). What have you created!

For the past twenty years or so I believe that popular music has become predictable and boring and more reliant on gimmicks than talent. This has led to me looking elsewhere for more exciting sound and rhythms than the dirges and songs with simpering lyrics (with very few exceptions) that is the offering today. Todays popular musical motto seems to be if it's crap then play it loud, and let's face it where music is played it is done so at full volume.

Consequently I have been going further and further back to find music that suits my needs and performed by talented musicians. I now find myself engrossed in the blues, boogie woogie and stride styles of the twenties, thirties, forties and fifties as well as quite a bit of jazz.
As a Times reviewer of the latest Best of British Jazz CD stated it's good to hear different tempos after being saturated with the four beats to the bar offerings of Glastonbury.

The decades I mentioned above have an incredible number of talented musicians playing the kind of music that leaves me in awe of their brilliance and gets my feet tapping like I'm Fred Astaire. No-one I know around today offers the same foot-tappability as the musicians then. In fact I know of one band who promotes their style as foot tapping melodies-yeah as long as you've got a lead boot on. So what's happened to modern popular music? Where are the lyrical talents of Gershwin, Kahn, Hammerstein and Porter? The performers like Fats Waller, Muddy Waters, Art Tatum, Dick Wellstood, Otis Spann even Jerry Lee Lewis. No-one today seems to offer the performance/musicianship etc that was available over 20 years ago.

Talking about performers two of the greatest British ones over the past 40 years have been Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones but these are now coming to the end of their careers and is there anyone around that come anywhere near to taking their place? I think not.

Since Gordon Brown became prime minister (just over a month) we've had:

Attempted bomb attack in London which failed due to the incompetance of the terrorists;
Attempted bomb attack in Glasgow again incompetence saved the day.
The worst flooding in decades;
An outbreak of foot and mouth;
A half dozen or so soldiers killed in Iraq/ Afghanistan.

What next?

This guy's a Jonah. The sooner he goes the better for all of us or at least the safer I'll feel.