The post freezes

Post early for Christmas, the Royal Mail used to say.

Perhaps they also should have said: If you leave it a bit late, don’t expect any help from us.

This was the main post box by the post office in Dorchester (there is no longer one actually at the post office) at 3pm on the last Saturday before Christmas.

I wasn't trying to post any mail myself, but I think I would have been a little irritated if I had. At the busiest time of the year for post, can Royal Mail really not be bothered to keep the main box in the county town open?

Yes, there was lots of snow on Sat. But it hadn't closed the road between the post box and the sorting office (around quarter of a mile away).

So this is Christmas.. what HAVE you done?

Invaluable advice from Debretts has reached one today via Twitter, just in time to save one from making some unfortunate Christmas faux pas.

It can be found here: http://bit.ly/e3wQoK

I wonder what Debretts would make of this item I have just received:
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=2532346738879&source=jl999

Cecil Sharp: start revolving

Musing about musical genres, the thought occurs that while evolution in the last few decades has produced folk rock, country rock, jazz rock, jazz funk etc, there hasn’t been jazz folk.

At first sight, not a very promising concept, some would say. At first listen they would probably say much the same thing. Or worse.

But it’s got novelty. And it fills a gap. If you were a hammer dulcimer player with a penchant for extended improvisation, what outlet would exist for you at present?

Other sub-genres would be likely to evolve. Folk-funk, for instance. Imagine a grooving 45-minute interpretation of The Barnyards of Delgaty.

An enticing prospect.

Trucking on (with ten forward gears and a Georgia overdrive)

Making some progress with the UK firms who sound like country stars. Among the contributions on Facebook are Eddie Stobart (thanks Marco Rossi), Clancy Docwra (Anna Jenkins) plus Edwin Shirley and Eldridge Pope (Will Birch).

A few more and I’ll be able to allocate them the right tunes and start grouping them by sub-genre, viz (as they used to say): ‘White line fever’, Eddie Stobart; ‘Six days on the road’, Edwin Shirley.

Pulling over from the highway to whatever might be Dorset’s equivalent of the honky tonk (it would be in Weymouth, obviously), it’s Eldridge Pope with ‘Tonight the bottle let me down’.

Having a railroad background, Clancy Docwra would be well placed to deliver, say, ‘The wreck of the old 97’ or ‘Green light on the southern’.

Lowering the tone a bit, Will has suggested that Travis Perkins (something related to the building game is needed for him) might render 'Can I go down to the basement (if I fix your leaky roof)’.

I think we need to keep it country, not music hall. And getting no Google result whatsoever for ‘Basement’, I have to query whether it has any history at all. Surely Will wouldn’t have sullied his legacy to popular music by perpetrating this one himself? It would be nearly as bad as writing a song about a laughing gnome or something.

In terms of names, Travis Perkins is still just about top of my chart, but finding material for him isn't easy. Anyone got any country tunes which would fit with the supply of building materials?

Slim pickings

Passing Travis Perkins (builders' merchants) the other day, the thought occurred: I wonder how many other UK companies have names that sound as if they belong to country and western singers?

Probably loads, I thought, but so far I have only come up with Ward Goodman (a Dorset firm of accountants). Curtis Brown (a literary agency) initially appealed, but really he sounds more in the Chicago blues sort of line.

Anyone else got any contributions?

The day before tomorrow

Snow in November. In this part of the world we rarely get snow even in January and February, so the scenes we have been looking at lately are a bit of a novelty. The strangest thing, though, is autumn leaves scattered on fresh snow. Never seen that before.

A world of their own

Not knowing much about business, one had always assumed that a large part of commercial success derived from looking at what went on in the world and adapting the principles to your advantage.

The ‘business’ people on The Apprentice, though, seem to steer well clear of this sort of approach.

In last night’s show their assignment was to package and promote a cleaning product.

When it comes to packaging and marketing, a few minutes’ observation in a store will confirm that the right psychology for presenting cleaning products involves a large amount of white with some bright blue and green thrown in. A black package with a red label, on the other hand, conveys to the average human being that the contents are likely to be rat poison or cheap motor oil.

It seems safe to assume that the sort of people selected as candidates for The Apprentice will have been avid watchers of it in the past, so it was surprising that none of those involved this time seemed to have learned anything from the previous series in which a bunch of goons packaged a breakfast cereal in a green box apparently designed to make it look like weedkiller.

The show seems to be peopled by characters who are so convinced that the right answer will always come straight off the top of their head that they don’t see any need to observe what happens in the real world. This leads them into one folly after another, until they get their come-uppance.

Pure panto, in other words. It ought to be on just after Christmas.