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Here is an anniversary which makes some of us feel old. It is 30 years - yes 30 years! - since the appearance of the first Sony Walkman. It is 30 years since we first got on a bus or a train and heard that infuriating tsst, tsst, tsst, tsst noise emanating from a wired-up earhole just behind us, 30 years since one section of the population became literally deaf to the existence of the other half.
For those of us who liked getting on a bus or a train and overhearing, or even taking part in, conversations, there is something a bit bleak about the dozens of private solitudes which nowadays clamber aboard.
Is it possible that by inventing what seemed like a marvellous new gadget which would enhance all our lives, Sony actually created one of the biggest blights of urban life?…
Fathers Eugene (aged 48) and Martin O’Hagan (aged 45), who are brothers, and David Delargy (aged 44) has each achieved the ambitions nurtured when they were at school together of having their own parishes in the Northern Ireland diocese of Down and Connor where they tend to the spiritual needs of thousands of devout parishioners. Today they formally begin their work as The Priests, their music will be religious and spiritually inspired classics including Ave Maria and Panis Angelicus. The Priests have recorded all the tracks from the album with the Philharmonic Academy of Rome Choir from St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. The album will be stickered to higlight the Philharmonic Academy of Rome’s involvement as well.
72 Grammy nominations, 20 wins, nominated for 18 Academy Awards, winning 4, throw in a Golden Globe and two Emmy nominations just to round things off. Plus he gets special points for Mission Impossible…
Note: I noticed that some attribute the James Bond Theme to Mancini. This is incorrect as it was written by Monty Norman.
Was Gershwin the best American composer evah? Yes.
That’s George on the piano…
“Astaire—something in the name suggests brilliance, dazzle. Astaire implies “a star;” so, too, a stairway, (“with a new step every day”); Astarte is also, the mythologies report, the name of a minor goddess, one of high and productive energy. The name Astaire enlivens even the otherwise somewhat stodgy name of Fred. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Academy is proud to honor that greatest of all dancers, male or female, classical or modern, ballet or ballroom, rap or tap, break or flake, highbrow or low, Mr. Fred Astaire.” Thunderous, nearly unrelenting applause follows…”
