Neil Sedaka dead at 86 - another past shining beacon gone.

 

Composer and performer, his talent loomed large in my life during the 1960s and (slightly) beyond - especially when I myself was aiming at becoming a songwriter, even though I never managed to get any of my own admittedly feeble attempts published.

Above - his appearance 20 years ago at London's Royal Albert Hall.

But I held his creative ability in awe around that time - his hit songs like 'Oh Carol', 'Breaking Up Is Hard To Do' 'Calendar Girl' 'Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen' and so many more. (I only found out this morning that he'd penned the Connie Francis hit 'Stupid Cupid' when  he was still in his teens!)

Then in following decades my respect for him dwindled, starting with his seemingly vehement (to me at that time) denial at rumours that he was gay, as though being so was 'shameful'. He had in fact been married to the same woman all his life since 1962, having with her a son and a daughter - and, though the rumours persisted there's been no significant evidence that he actually is/was gay, those stories perhaps fuelled that he at an early time composed collaborations with an 'out' gay young man, though nothing of substance other than that. So I now accept that he highly likely was hetero after all, despite my then annoyance at his apparent over-reaction to the possibility of his being 'other'.

(Now to follow, a bit of a diversion to a pet peeve of mine which, oddly, I have never heard discussed - on radio, TV or anywhere else at all, though it's bugged me for many decades........)

Perhaps more importantly to me personally than the above, in his composing work later in life Neil Sedaka became an enthusiastic advocate for something which I just CANNOT abide - specifically, putting words to themes written by great classical composers - a practice being utterly devoid of any respect for the intentions of the composer. Foremost is the perpetrators' all-consuming desire to earn money by riding on the backs of the deceased, using the latters' creations to get it, despite the severe mental 'disturbance' to admirers like me of the original, wordless work that its creator had intended. Surely a form of mental 'abuse' for we listeners! Luckily, as far as I know, none of Sedaka's products of this type became well-known, and it's maybe just as well that I cannot name any songs of such - though I most definitely could point to a myriad of songs from other songwriters that do do just that, some of which became popular, both down the last half-century or more as well as even quite recent 'hits'. I suppose one of the most prominent examples of these travesties is the filmed musical (and occasionally still staged) 'Kismet, using the music of Borodin, some of which is so sublime, yet now with added words totally at odds with the (pre-word) music's emotions that poor Alexander B. must yet be turning in his grave!  (They've also done the same thing with Grieg's music in at least two films). And one further illustration - probably the best known of all, the film and stage musical of 'Carmen Jones' where Oscar Hammerstein took Bizet's music (whose 'Carmen' has been one of my own favourite of all operas my entire life) and replaced the original French words by his own (English, of course) so as now to involve the 'sport' of boxing - though admittedly the original opera's bull-fighting is hardly anything 'better'.

In all such cases, once one hears what may formerly have been incredibly inspiring music, after words have been added all its original beauty has been utterly lost! And what's even worse - if such a thing is possible! - it often becomes an earworm! - impossible to listen to the original composition without the words coming back to haunt you. The supernal music of Chopin has been another victim of this practice, as has Rachmaninov's.

I shan't offer further examples because it might well make others unfamiliar with them curious enough to investigate and so to risk having a like experience of what for me, as an avid classical music lover, a bane imposed over a most valuable part of my life.

Anyway, I've gone to town on this subject when I hadn't intended to, but it really is a reflection of the degree of hostility on the subject I've always felt ever since I first became a convert towards classical music way back in my mid-teens. 

So, as a final word, getting back to the late Neil Sedaka - a fond(ish) farewell to someone who absolutely was a giant of talent in my pre-20s years and onwards - and who, in spite of what I've written, I do still look up to. Thank you indeed, Sir!

Did you know of - or do you, like me, suffer from - THIS?

 

I can not abide being in close proximity to someone eating who doesn't have the slightest awareness or care of the sounds emanating from that act. There! I've said it - something I've never in my life put in words to anybody else! Yet it's been an unspoken blight I've carried around ever since I became aware of it around 12-13 years old (possibly something linked to puberty?).

It's not just noisy eating - I think most people find that unpleasant - but making a needless aural assault on other people's sense for what is basically an admittedly natural, though to me, a private/personal activity.

I don't recall having encountered the word 'misophonia' until I read it a few days ago, Xmas Eve, on the BBC News site about a woman who has suffered from this 'disorder' (as it's medically described) for a lifetime, and I thought "That's ME!" And looking it up, although the word covers negative reaction to a wide range of sounds, foremost among them is other people's eating. And all these decades I'd thought that I was if not unique (which would have been silly) but certainly quite rare. Now I find that it's rather more common than I'd assumed to be the case.

My own aversion depends not only on the particular sound being produced but whether or not I know that person, that combination setting up a particular reaction in myself which I find severely hard to tolerate, and I just have to move away outside earshot or I feel I'll go mad!

My most extreme reaction all my life has been to one of my brothers' eating, one who is 18 months younger than me, so he's now 78. We were very close as boys then suddenly, as though overnight, I couldn't help but hear that when he ate anything at all, he thudded his teeth together, top against bottom, whether he had something in his mouth or even after he'd swallowed it - and that sound in particular, that thud-thud-thud, just drove me crackers!. And now he still does it - at least he did when I last saw him 18 years ago at the funeral wake of another of my brothers. But that same in that direction irritation soon extended to every other member of my family, even though they made different sounds, it still sent shivers through me even if nothing like as deeply felt as that of my younger sibling. I've only ever met one other person who eats in that same way, someone I used to see quite regularly, being the boyfriend of one of my own best friends - the latter not seemingly troubled by sharing my difficulty. I could never myself have had a close friend who ate that way, let alone live with one - but, then, I've never been asked! 

Apparently there is (as yet?) no known cure for this malady, though there is what's known as 'cognitive behavioural therapy' to deal with it by reducing the level of negative reaction to this particular stimulus. At my age it's a bit late in the day for me to explore whether something on those lines could make it for me easier to live with, though I don't rule it out entirely.  

Generally, the noisiest of common foods must be apples and crisps ('chips' in U.S.A.) and should the occasion arise, or I was offered such, I would never eat them in company, being ultra-aware of the sounds I myself was making. I'm even still conscious of it having lived alone for 55 years. I do still consume a (small) packet of crisps daily, but I do try to keep the volume down - after all, my pussy-cats may not like it. Don't want them to be giving me disapproving looks! 😊 

I'll end by relating a dreadful experience I had some years back, my coming closer to being an actual murderer than I've ever been before or since......

It was in the 90s, a couple of years after the Channel Tunnel had opened, affording a rail link between London and Paris. I was returning to London - a packed train but I'd got a reserved (window) seat, so no problem there. I'd noticed that the adjacent aisle seat had also been reserved, but settling down with a paperback I didn't give it any more thought. Then she arrived. A what-you-might-call, a 'portly' youngish female, perhaps around 20, carrying a supermarket-type plasic bag full of....well, what I was about to find out. She plonked herself down, spreading herself over both armrests (but she was 'large'!) and straight away reached down and took out a large bag of crisps - the bag being about the same size of those which contain half-a-dozen small individual bags. The train had not started yet so there were no sounds other than people talking, and no buzz or hum from the train's movement itself. I made an inner 'groan' as she began chomping away - crunch, crunch, crunch - completely distracting me from my reading. I was reluctant to escape to somewhere else even if only temporarily, as she being on the 'large' side it would have meant a major upheaval only to be repeated on my return - no other visibly vacant seats to be seen which might be unaccounted for after late-comers had arrived. So anyway, I grinned (though not really) and bore it! By the time she'd finished the train was on the move. She then reached into her bag again and brought out one those giant plastic bottles of Pepsi. "Glug, glug, glug" she went - well, she did have an awful lot to wash down into her gullet.  When that episode I thought must have been over, resuming my reading she was fumbling in her bag again and brought out - (don't laugh) - another giant bag of crisps! OMG! Clearly this creature was one of those who just could not keep still - she simply had to be doing something, and just my luck that her 'thing' happened to be to eat, eat, eat! My indignation was becoming harder and harder to contain, but I couldn't do anything other than continue to suffer in silence, albeit near to bursting. Chomp, crackle, chomp, crackle......it went on and on. I tried to console myself by thinking "Well, at least she's not speaking into a phone!" Coming out of the tunnel, entering England, she'd now finished her second (giant) packet - and what do you think she did? Yes, you guessed right. She got out her PHONE! - and for the next 30 mins at the very least, non-stop jabber, jabber, jabber, yak, yak, yak - making it impossible for me to read. You can't not listen when there's someone a few inches away from your left lug-hole talking as if the whole coach needed to hear - and what's worse, everything she said was so non-urgent - inconsequential - nothing that couldn't have waited. As it so often is on these chats you can't help but over-hearing it when on public transport. By now I was seething, blood pressure doubtlessly stratospheric, feeling like boiling inside I could have exploded out through my ears. As we pulled in to Waterloo station (as was then London's final terminal point - now it's St Pancras station) I was trying to admire myself for restraining from committing a proper murder - a deserved killing by any means possible, only by the most convenient and quickest way possible, anything to bring an end to that prolonged verbal assault on my ears. One thing I do have to be grateful for, though - is that she didn't have an apple! That would really have sent me over the cliff edge, to face a prison life sentence - but it would have been well worth it!

 

And lastly for now - wishing all the very best for 2026 to all you lovely people!

 

Engrossed by 'Celebrity Traitors UK' as is half the country - or more.

Don't often enthuse about TV programmes but have to admit I'm finding our current 'Celebrity Traitors' totally rivetting - this one coming to its doubtlessly gripping finale next Thursday - and, very laudibly, nothing has been leaked though it was filmed months ago.

Before now we've had three U.K. series, but all only with 'unknowns'  as partipants competing for cash to win for themselves. I watched each of them - as well as three American series (using as location the same Scottish castle as our British ones have, though with Alan Cumming as an impeccable 'host'), as well as two Australian and one New Zealand series  - and found them all fiendishly watchable.   

This current B.B.C. one is presided over by the wonderful, and severely-serious Claudia Winkleman - except for when she loses it by getting excitedly involved in the challenges she sets, which I love to see. 

For the first time here, the game features only celebrity participants, several of whom are household names, and playing to win money for their individually favoured charities, the latter bodies being organisations whose names we as yet don't know. Right now we're down to the last five surviving players, among whom (most of) the remaining faithfuls do not know that there are also two uncloaked traitors in there with them -  though ex-rugby-player Joe Marley has, very shrewdly and correctly sussed out the identities of who the traitors are. I do hope he wins. 

  

This series began with eighteen well-knowns - or most of them being so, I familiar with just eight of the nine older ones, but none of the under-30s, not even any of their names ringing any bells. Some of those older ones whom I did know, include:-

Sir Stephen Fry........

........inevitably decribed as (over-used term) a 'national treasure', which indeed he is.

'Veteran' Actor Celia Imrie.......

....films include 'Mamma Mia', 'Bridget Jones' films, 'Calendar Girls' and too many others to mention. Her clearly audible though non-intentional fart in an early episode was considered as the moment in, probably, this entire series.

Btw: why is the word 'actress' not used now? Is it considered as demeaning? - or is it my age showing once more?

Olympic (bronze, silver and GOLD!) Diver - and now renowned knitter'! - Tom Daley......

.........who got 'murdered' way too early, he having quickly raised to others his deep suspicion of the following player as being a traitor..... 

Sports broadcaster (as well as dog-enthusiast) Clare Balding......

..........another earlier-than-deserved banishment.

Hottie, mainly TV daddy-actor (whom I didn't know) Mark Bonner:-

.... and whom I couldn't keep my eyes off. Severally frowned on for what was seen as his histrionic reactions and interventions, though they didn't bother me. Lasted longer than most before being banished.

Then, probably the two most widely recognisable (at least to British audiences) talk-show host and much more, Jonathan Ross......

....... who commands attention like no other just by being there.

.....and, of course, that giggly, camp, very popular comedian Alan Carr......

.......another who only had to be himself to get the attention focussed on himself - though frequently discomited by it, only adding to his being targetted, more often than not, in non-hostile ways.  

An interesting feature of this series is the high incidence of 'out'-LGBTQ participants (of both sexes), whom I shan't list as it really has nothing to do with the programme and I think has hardly even been mentioned - if at all. So I'll say no more.

I'm looking forward enormously to the grand final next Thursday together with millions of others. What a great idea this was - originally thought up by a Dutch guy, I believe. I don't think I've seen one single negative criticism of it. I shall of course be watching all future British series, be it either with more celebrities or equally with unknowns, as well as some from other countries too. Marvellous, compelling stuff!

Btw: In my last posting I wrote about the uncertain future of my blog as I'm unable to access Windows 11 on this ancient laptop of mine  - and this remains the case. However, I do have good (quite expensive)  security which has never let me down so far - and I shall continue to keep an eagle-eye out for anything untoward happening, anything which might endanger my own future use and (most importantly) that of others who read my blog. Should such a situation arise I most certainly promise to let it be known here. Thanks to those of you bearing with me. 

 

And so commences my final year as septuagenarian.

 Wed. 15th Oct.

This photo was taken two weeks ago on the first anniversary of that devastating tripping accident - resulting in broken arm, fractured jaw (though not seriously) and two most prominent upper front central teeth knocked out, the latter explaining the closed-lips smile which would otherwise have revealed an ugly gap. All except the teeth situation reasonably resolved now. I still await appointment with professional dentist who'll tell me whether my request for a pair of falsies to be inserted at front upper is viable, rather than the original dentist's opinion saying "They'll all have to come out!" - whether he meant both upper and lower sets or just the upper, I was too startled for it to register.

Other than that, things are okay, though I'm afraid there'll be a rather large 'downer' at the end of this post - so if you had thoughts of sending me your wishes, though I do know they'd be well-meant, you might prefer to go easy on the 'happy' bit when you read it. 

Both pussies, Bobby and Sloopy, now in late middle-age, are in good health though still as hostile to each other as they ever were. Despite the cooler weather every night they both sleep with me, one on each side (Sloopy nestling in the warmth of an arm-pit) making my turning over quite a business, with an occasional soft warning growl of disapproval. But I'd be truly friendless without them.  

Now for the 'bad' news. 

It's becoming increasingly likely that I'm probably going to have to discontinue this blog, whether just for a time or permanently I can't say. If that time does come I'll do a short post announcing such. 

The reason - finance. Yes, it really has become rather grim. With Windows now having withdrawn support for Windows10, and now Microsoft as well, it's becoming riskier, my primitive laptop becoming more vulnerable to hackers. I do have reliable security in Avast, who have never yet let me down though it would be better to have back-up just in case, all of which is disappearing. I wouldn't like others to be put at risk to hackers through me, let alone anyone finding out my bank details, so I think it would be better all round if I at the very least, go into 'suspense'. Frankly, I do badly need a new laptop (this present one is second-hand, won't take Windows11, and has its other very apparent limits). A much-needed new one is, at the moment, way beyond my means. No point in going to such expense for a 'luxury' when I already can barely find enough to buy food and to pay the heating (and other necessary) bills to keep me going through the Winter. So despite my near-smile in the photo above - taken, as I say a fortnight ago - things are not going so well and could yet turn even grimmer. 

Wish I didn't have to say it, but there it is.

I'll let you know if things turn up....or go further down.
Thanks for any concern you may have.

    

       

Today's annual 'Great North Run'. What fun for them!

 

Playing on TV right now is my annual, occasionally tearful, feast of nostalgia, the annual Great North Run (a half-marathon race, this year being the 44th, with participants now numbering 50,000) starting in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with the course then running south over the river via the iconic Tyne bridge, then eastwards, terminating on the North Sea coast in South Shields. 

I ran it three times in the 1990s - and it's well-known, at least in this country, as the 'friendliest' mass sporting event, a title with which I'd concur. It attracts world-class runners every year, nearly always including Olympic medal winners. It's terrific fun - with a feeling of 'oneness' and camaraderie which I certainly haven't experienced in any of the other running events I've participated in, including (just the once) the London (full) Marathon of 1997, a few years after which I started getting trouble with my feet which necessarily ended my regular morning runs. 

The most famous name, probably, was (now SIR) Mo Farah, winning in 2015, and bowing out year before last with a very creditable finish of fourth place.

The race is located not that far from the part of north-east England I come from, some 50 miles south-east of Newcastle (300 miles from where I now live)  - so when I took part my mum was still around and I could stay with her. 

There was one time about 30 years ago I was attending some counselling training group and I happened to mention that I was travelling up to take part in the Run. One of the young ladies in the group who clearly had no notion of what the event was, at the end of our session said to me "Good luck, Ray. I hope you win!" My rather startled response to her friendly wish being "Win? I'll be lucky to finish in the first 15,000!" (I can't remember if I managed it, the number of participants then being something like 35,000, though most likely not - even then I'd probably have been over 50!).

So, as runners in today's event are now reaching the finishing line I'll return to bathing in nostalgic feelings and watch the closing stages with a wish of 'If only....' going round and round in my head. But I really am so happy for them all!😸

Phantom cat or is it just my mattress settling?

 

I've been experiencing this for about 10 years, I think. Not really scary (at least to me), but definitely an oddity. I wonder if anyone else has known or even heard of this kind of thing - or something similar? 

Nearly every night soon after I get into bed and put my head on the pillow, I feel the clear sensation that a cat has jumped onto the bed to join me - thinking that one of my, at present, two pussies has done their usual habit of coming to me to sleep with, which they'll both always do off and on during the course of the night, punctuated by their slinking off to go outside for their nocturnal prowls. But when I feel this 'phenomenon', I sometimes used to switch on a bed-side light, look aound the room, and there they both are, sleeping soundly in their respective favourite well-separated locations in the bedroom, either on the carpet in a corner or on a pile of discarded clothes awaiting washing. I don't even bother to look nowadays as I know what to expect. This feeling of one of them having leapt up to join me (it's always near the foot of the bed or behind my back when I'm lying on my side) is so similar to them actually having done so it's quite uncanny.

Now I ought to say that my present mattress is old, by some 30+ years, my having acquired it from a former address when I was in 'digs'. How long even before that my then landlord had it, I don't know.

So, the much more likely cause of this interesting, frequent, though minor 'disturbance' is that it's something to do with the bed rather than being paranormal (it hardly need saying!) - but the regularity of it, and its uncanny resemblance to the antics of a cat is remarkable. It's always around the same time - when I'm still awake, not yet nodding off and, oddly only at night, never during my daily afternoon snooze sleeping on the very same bed - a 'cat-nap' if you will. It's not in any way unnerving, in fact it's oddly reassuring.

Maybe I should say in passing that since I moved to the current address I must have had around 10 different cats as co-residents at one time or another, mostly in singles but occasionally a two-some like now. A few of them have actually died here, but none of them (yet?) in the bedroom, the last one happening in the bathroom, before that in the kitchen, then a couple being put to sleep at the vets (in my arms with my copious tears flowing as they were given their final jab). So a 'phantom' cat, highly questionable as it is, is never far from my mind. Maybe it lingers there because I like to think of it as such. All the cats I've had here have, every one of them, been very affectionate towards me - that's why they've stayed - so it makes me wonder, could it be?.......

P.S. Couple of hours after reading Mitch's response below regarding his own late cat, Tuxedo - Don't know why I didn't do it before, but having written in my opening sentence above that all this business started with me "about 10 years" ago, I've just looked at my notes of significant dates in my life, and the cat I owned who had the greatest effect on me, and who loved me to an extent no other cat since has done, was my dear beloved Blackso, who died in July 2017 and whose passing devastated me like no other - although of course I've also loved every other one of them too, even if Blackso was the most special one of them all. Tonight, when I feel him(?) jumping onto the bed I'm going to whisper his name. And why not?

Yet ANOTHER horrific episode uncovered in Catholic Church's appalling history.

 And in the not-very-distant past too. 

Warning: This is utterly heartbreaking. It's angered me and affected me profoundly. If you wish to read on, please prepare yourself to be distressed.

Scene: Tuam in County Galway, on the west coast of Ireland. 

From 1925 to 1961, St Mary's Home was a 'hostel' administered by the Church - the 'Bon Secours Sisters' (translation: Good Help) - for mothers, some of them mere teenage girls, who had given birth out of wedlock - together with their babies. This was, as many will know, an extremely dark time when 'society' considered unmarried mothers and their illegitimate offspring to be the result of the ultimate depravity - the work of Satan himself! (No accusation of guilt directed towards the male 'culprits', of course. They had nothing to do with it!), Perhaps one or more of the girls were raped by a perpetrator who was related to them, maybe even their own father. That doesn't matter. For a girl to 'allow' herself to be raped was still a most grievous mortal sin, any child resulting from such a physical union necessarily having to share that 'guilt'. 

The mothers themselves at this home were constantly treated like dirt by both nuns and staff - and their babies, usually separated from their mothers, some girls never being given the chance of even having seen their offspring, were treated hardly any better. But yet worse was to come. If their health was in trouble, that was too bad. They were the Devil's children! Many, many babies died, some maybe just a few months old - but some lasted long enough to become young girls! But it wasn't the Church's problem. And where were bodies of the little ones 'buried'? In the establishment's back garden - thrown into a sewage tank!!!! Oh my GOD! Pointless to wonder if any departing prayers were said for their innocent souls. The act says it all.

Here is a 'shrine' for them created later - yes, 796 of them, all their little bodies disposed of (i.e. hidden) under the grass. It's absolutely beyond words and imagination!

While it was operating, a total of 3,349 children lived at this 'home'. Some of them are still alive and able to recount their experience, how their stigma was carried into every area of their lives, including of course and prominently, schooling, where they were shunned by other pupils - on their teachers' instructions, naturally.

The old home has itself been long demolished, but work is now proceeding to identify bones now being extracted. Whether this will go far in identifying any of these young victims it's hard to ascertain.

And how did the present Church react? Well nothing too surprising. I suppose we can over time expect the episode to being forgotten, never to be mentioned, certainly not by the Church itself. Only the usual, almost reluctant, mealy-mouthed 'apology' of sorts - together with the inevitable "This can never happen again!" kind of reassurance. Big deal! We all look forward to something to show how much anyone in the Church who knew about this home, most especially those in senior positions (bishops, even maybe cardinals?) were aware of what went on. The present Archbishop of Tuam described the revelations as he being "horrified", "shocked" and a "body-blow". Well, don't that make you feel a lot better?

Meantime, is there any non-religious institution anywhere which, if it had allowed such an establishment as this to run and thrive for decades, to not be closed down forever. I doubt it. But for the Catholic Church - and 'Christianity' in particular - as well as religion in general - just claim that you are pro-'God', and you'll get off practically scot-free - and your 'business' certainly will not be shut down. 

Now 'scuse me while I just go away and vomit!