I’ve been to see Jude Rogers talk about music, and both memory and memories at Salisbury Cathedral. Really interesting….will read the book

The Big Church always looks particularly good when it’s slightly damp

My Crucial Track for 14 May 2026 - “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles

Share a song you call something other than its official title. What do you call it?

For a long time I called this song ‘Eleanor Rigsby’….I did think that was what it was actually called.

I did most of my growing up in the 1970s, and their was a sitcom called Rising Damp which featured a character called ‘Rigsby’, He could have been Eleanor Rigby’s comical, but malevolent cousin. He was the landlord of a shabby house and the only people he ever interacted with his equally lonely tenants.

I had a nose around the internet and I can’t see that Rigsby was named in reference to the Beatles song, but it does resonate.

“Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

My Crucial Track for 13 May 2026 - “Cumann na Mná” by Christy Moore

Share a song you discovered via another artist’s song (cover, sample, featured artist, etc)

Going slightly off-prompt - this is a song that made me re-evaluate another song.

The song I listened to again is Celtic Symphony by the Wolfe Tones. Celtic Symphony has a chorus / chant of ‘Ooh, aah, up the RA’. RA is ‘Republican Army’.

I’ve got a complicated, or probably more accurately, confused view of ‘the struggle’. There are lots of reasons for that which I won’t go into here,

Anyway, this is Christy Moore singing Mick Blake’s song about Celtic Symphony. It’s a great song in its own right, I think

“Cumann na Mná” by Christy Moore on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

Louisa May Alcott, after seeing Dickens

“Youth and comeliness were gone, but the foppishness remained, and the red-faced man, with false teeth and the voice of a worn-out actor had his scanty grey hair curled.”

I think she was implying that he was ‘mutton dressed as lamb’

I got this originally from Lee Jackson on Dickensland - The lost world of Dickens London - History Extra podcast

The Guardian Long Read - Pretty birds and silly moos’: the women behind the Sex Discrimination Act

An interesting read. It’s jarring how recent much of this is. I very briefly met one of the women mentioned and it’s weird to think she was involved in this stuff that feels like it should be way in the past

There was a bloke on the radio yesterday morning who’d been David Attenborough’s sound guy at the North Pole.

The crew had left them on their own there, and they chatted about what time it was, saying that there was no time of day, as all the time zones converge there.

This hasn’t occurred to me before.

Perhaps when it’s nine o’clock in the evening for your face, it’s nine o’clock in the morning for your backside?

Pic: Johan Isaaksz Pontanus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My Crucial Track for 10 May 2026 - “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina (Miami Mix Edit)” by Madonna

Post one of your favorite Broadway songs.

“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina (Miami Mix Edit)” by Madonna

I saw two champion level ballroom dancers dance to this, very close up, at the wonderful Rivoli Ballroom in South east London.

It was athletic and spectacular and cool, all at the same time. It would have been a couple of years before Strictly Come Dancing, and then Dancing with the Stars started.

I’ve often wondered whether there was someone there from the BBC who thought something like ‘this should be on the TV’.

“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina (Miami Mix Edit)” by Madonna on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

There’s a nice tribute to the just-retired Irish president Michael D Higgins, on the extended version of Christy Moore’s last LP

Not many politicians get such warm words

You are a voice for the voiceless Like thunder in the plain An empathetic ear for the afflicted Selfless, humble, never vain

youtu.be/bGIlXDFV6…

I came quite late to the Beatles, and I don’t really listen to LP’s all the way through.

However I feel that it’s one of these things you ought to have an opinion on. Like proportional representation, or dogs vs cats, or marmite

I’m not sure whether tracklistings and spreadsheets would be involved.

Perhaps the Sage of North Norfolk has the right answer - the best album by the Beatles, and by every other band, is their Greatest Hits

Of course I disapprove….but I can’t help finding this funny

Some kids are bypassing age-verification checks with a fake mustache | TechCrunch

I played football for the first time in a few weeks last night, and today I am feeling my age

Pic by Francisco Goya, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My Crucial Track for 01 May 2026 - “Listen to the Radio” by Nanci Griffith

Post one of your favorite country songs.

“Listen to the Radio” by Nanci Griffith

There are a bunch of things that I really like about this song. I like songs which mention other singers, and I think this is a great line:

“where would we be at times like these without the songs Loretta wrote”

I also like the tempo, and the piano bit, and the way Nanci sings “I am” as “I-yam”. I like the mention of places like Tennessee, and Louisiana and the Pontchatrain - it’s all very exciting and kind of glamorous to an English bloke who has barely ever left Wiltshire.

“Listen to the Radio” by Nanci Griffith on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

I did a manual import of my twitter archive into matt penny tweets archive on micro.blog, and a bit of editing. It took a while…but having done all of that now I think I want to merge it in with my main micro.blog.

I’m an idiot.

I took this last night. It doesn’t really work as a photo, but it’s one of my favourite views of Salisbury Cathedral. It’s across two lots of water meadows - so it’s as far again away as Constables painting

It’s from close to this bit on Google Maps. Be careful of the tree roots.

May those who love us love us. And those that don’t love us, May God turn their hearts. And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, May he turn their ankles, So we’ll know them by their limping.

An Irish blessing, from iausa - Irish Sayings, Proverbs, and Prayers for St. Patrick’s Day

I also went to see my old pals Christopher the Giant and Hobnob in Salisbury Museum

The Salisbury Museum is outstanding and I urge you to go there at once’. Bill Bryson, in ‘Notes from a Small Island'

This is Barbara Hepworth’s ‘Crucifixion’ in the cloisters of Salisbury Cathedral

My dad was a welder. He did a bit of a fix-up on it. Bless him.

Very much enjoyed What the Night Brings.

Spotted a minor muck-up. Michael Healey’s name changed to Martin Healey at one point. I’m 99.9% sure I only noticed because my much-missed father-in-law was Michael Healy.

Editing is hard.

Finished reading: What the Night Brings by Mark Billingham 📚

The 53 best series on BBC iPlayer to stream right now

A good list of stuff to watch on the Iplayer

My Crucial Track for 27 April 2026 - “The Broad Majestic Shannon” by Liam Clancy

Post a song written or co-written by one of your favorite songwriters.

Shane MacGowan, sung by Liam Clancy

It’s the sort of song people criticise as being nostalgic and sentimental, but I think ‘nostalgic and sentimental ' is a big part of being human.

“The Broad Majestic Shannon” by Liam Clancy on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

Thoughts on yesterday’s game

⚽ #ChelseaFC #cfc

• we were great for 20 minutes, then it felt like we were grinding it out a bit

• it was the best I’ve seen Fernandez play

• the ‘new’ Wembley stadium is growing on me, even though it’s still horrible to get to and from

• a young friend of mine says his South American girlfriend would have definitely heard of the famous Wembley Stadium….but only as a music venue

• Leeds vs Chelsea at Wembley. For an old git like me, it’s a great fixture

• both sets of fans were obnoxious to each other. Who knew so many Leeds fans' fathers had their own guns?

• according to a chum of mine, they sung that song even when we’d been in different divisions for years

• Sanchez was brilliant

• Palmer doesn’t look fit. I thought to start with he was defensively rubbish, but then he did a couple of great tackles and interceptions, so I take that back

• I’m sure he’ll be pleased

• it was quite fun having the Semi Final on the same day as the London Marathon, but it made public transport a bit busy

• I now have distance envy

• ‘When the Blues go steaming in’ was a bit odd when the Blues were standing on the Wembley escalators, holding the handrails

• we were standing from Wembley to Bond Street, and then from Waterloo to Fareham. I think that puts all those marathon runners in the shade, tbh

I saw Andy Hamilton at Salisbury Playhouse last night. Very good.

To my knowledge he’s the only person to pick Blue is the Colour on Desert Island Discs

⚽ #ChelseaFC #cfc

He made a joke about it not being worth remembering the name of Spurs managers, as they don’t last very long.

I wondered why he didn’t change that to Chelsea managers, in the light of this week’s news. He’s famous for particularly topical, news-y comedy.

Would it be too painful? He’s ‘proper Chels’.

Or would it disrupt the flow of a memorized two-hour-plus routine? Too much psychological baggage.

Or would it be a case of ‘too much things to say’? Would it have derailed the show into being all about the Blues. I’d have been interested, but I’m guessing the rest of the audience wouldn’t be.

It was an odd moment. It was for me anyway.

Andy Hamilton at Penguin Books

I was sat on the Tube the other day opposite a bloke in shorts who had ‘Mum’ tattooed on one knee, and ‘Dad’ tattooed on the other.

I don’t have any tattoos but I’m often curious about other people’s. Why did he have those on his kneecaps specifically? How did he he decide who got the right knee and who got the left?

If I wasn’t quite so English I might have asked

Delighted that PSReadLine seems to be installed and on by default on Windows servers. The POC server I was mucking about on went down last night, and I thought I’d lost all the command history, which I was kind of depending on

$(Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath

…shows where the ‘treasure’ lies