3 Voices I Can’t Stand

…and I’m talking about singing voices, not (say) political screeching like that of Hillary Clinton.

When these guys start singing, I hit the Mute or Skip buttons:

  • Bob Dylan (any song except Lay Lady Lay, which I can get at least halfway through before hitting click)
  • Steve Tyler (Aerosmith; Dream On is the most egregious offender)
  • Van Morrison (Brown-Eyed Girl… OMFG kill me now, but everything he sings is horrible)

And let’s not forget the chicks:

  • Joni Mitchell (I’d rather listen to blackboard fingernails ad infinitum  than any one of her songs)
  • Joan Baez (preachy bullshit, and that vibratissimo… ugh)
  • early Dolly Parton (until she stopped warbling and started singing)

Don’t get me started on the modern chick singers;  you all know about them.

Git ‘Er Done

Looks as though Britishland has just become closer to Texas.

UK Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch welcomed Texas ­Governor Greg Abbott in Westminster to sign the Statement of Mutual Cooperation, hailing it a “landmark.”

The pact will address regulatory barriers to trade between Britain and Texas, helping to boost investment and commerce between the two ­economies and making it easier for companies to do business.

I’ll believe it when I can get Wadworth 6X from my local booze store, there’s a Greggs in the mall up the road, and a chippie in Plano West’s Legacy Hall.

And when I’m Over There visiting the usual crowd of maniacs and drunkards (a.k.a. my dear Brit friends), I expect to find decent salsa and Tex-Mex.  (Okay, I won’t actually eat the stuff, I just want to see it there.  In the battle for my belly between chimichangas and sausage rolls, there can only be one outcome.)

Go to it, Britishlanders.  I will accept no excuses.

Another Time, Another Place

…I see that old familiar face:

Not that I give a rat’s ass about Madonna — her music, her multicolored family or her Play-Doh face — but sheesh….

And I apologize for the above.  Let’s try to mindscrape that foulness with something a lot less frightening:

Cold & Wet

Woke up yesterday to grey and gloomy skies, with occasional drizzle and a chilly breeze.  More like Britishland than like Texas this spring, so far.

I love it.  The Texas spring, that is, because the longer it stays like this (it won’t, according to the forecast) the longer that the temperatures of Texas Broil a.k.a. summer are kept at bay.

Britishland spring, on the other hand, is nothing like this — more like Texas winter, in fact — as witnessed by yesterday’s start of the racing season at Cheltenham, where the ladies’ clothing was more shall we say sensible:


(note to my Murkin Readers:  scarlet trousers for men are generally an infallible sign of the upper classes Over There)

What’s definitely not a mark of the upper classes would be outfits such as these:

Ugh… quick, back to the totties:

 

Quite disappointing, really;  but Cheltenham usually is, being more of a classy event than the others.

Never mind… soon it will be the turn of the Grand National at Aintree.  Can’t wait.