Liberal Burblings

Series 1 Episode 1 of “All New Blockbusters” on Challenge.

One thing: They’re not kids!

Donna Summer RIP. A legend passes.

Pourquoi such praise? – someone might ask, if they were reading this.

Well, my mind goes back to the summer of 1977. A long time ago. To give you an idea of how long ago it was, I actually had hair in those days. Yes. Actual hair – lots of it.

I spent the summer at Butlin’s Minehead. I could tell quite a few stories from that time. I was 18 years old. My fellow room mate was a 30 year-old Scouse taxi driver. I was in the lower bunk. He was in the upper bunk. One night he brought his girlfriend back. After reassuring her with “Of course he’s asleep”, they then proceeded to make mad passionate love in a variety of positions which I could only speculate about from the lower bunk. This was punctuated by said Scouse taxi driver getting down at half time to pee in the hand basin before resuming operations.

I digress.

Every night after a hard day staffing the massive washing-up machines for the huge aircraft-hangar-life canteen, I would head to the disco where we danced to the latest tunes, occasionally disturbed by the music cutting to:

BING BONG – THERE’S A BABY CRYING IN CHALET A67 – THERE’S A BABY CRYING IN CHALET A67

Anyway, the song which got us all really going was Donna Summer’s “I feel love” – the hit of that summer. Indeed, I remember Tony Blackburn (pass the spittoon) playing it at the Minehead Radio One Roadshow.

I met a very nice blonde girl from Coventry at the disco. I remember a very prolonged, gorgeous snog with her just outside her chalet. Happy days!

Which all goes to demonstrate that “I feel love” is part of me, and a little part of me expired today with Donna Summer.

When Simon Mayo played “I feel love” on Radio 2 this evening, I put it up at full volume and the goose pimples still burst out 35 years after it first got us all dancing in Butlin’s Minehead.

On his excellent blog, Gareth Epps has written a thought-provoking post about the moderation on Liberal Democrat Voice.

I have posted this reply as a comment for the post:

Gareth

As a long time, and continuing, admirer of yours, it is very disappointing for me to read this as it is a sign of a personal failure by me, as part of Lib Dem Voice team, to sufficiently communicate with you to iron this all out.

All I can say is that we are doing our level best to try to have a consistent comments policy, as developed over the last year with the readers’ input.

If we have failed to keep yourself on board during this process, then that is a failure of ours.

Ok, I am a member of a clique. I volunteer to help edit the site for no reward. I suppose you could say I get a power buzz from modating comments. It doesn’t feel like it. I would compare our policy to the BBC who have a similar strong moderation policy.

All I can say is that there are about 20 coments a week rejected and the people who have comments rejected cover a wide spectrum of parties, no party and roles within the Lib Dems. We don’t single people out and we agonise and consult on comments queries.

We should do better because we need to keep yourself and others on board.

Having said that, I have seen the comments rejected from some party luminaries and they seem absolutely justified from my reading of the policy. If someone writes “I wish David Laws would go and jump in a lake” it gets moderated – a milder example. Some party luminaries think that abusing people is a sign of vigorous debate. I am proud that our policy is trying for a more civilised atmosphere on the web. We don’t always get it right but we are trying.

When I reject comments I almost always consult the policy to find the specific relevant words.

And we often email those whose comments we’ve rejected.

Having said all that, LDV is just a site run by volunteers. We do not claim any monopoly. If Lib Dems want to set up other sites, then they should go for it.

Disgraceful.

I have finally got round to seriously studying parts of Andrew Hickey’s The Beatles in Mono, which I was given for Christmas.

I’ve been wanting to compare some of the different versions of songs, recorded by the great men, which Andrew comments on.

“Love me do” had three different versions recorded in the studio by the group (plus the eight versions recorded at the BBC, including the one on Live at the BBC). Each version had a different drummer, which provides an interesting contrast in styles.

The first version was recorded on 6th June 1962 at Abbey Road with Pete Best on drums. Here it is on YouTube from Anthology 1. It is quite different from the single version. The drums are particularly….well……I don’t want to be uncharitable but I find them rather plodding. The drums remind me of an old cart horse clopping along. They turn the whole song into a bit of a dirge but admittedly that’s because I am used, like most people, to the single version.

The next version was recorded, again at Abbey Road, on 4th September 1962 with Ringo Starr on drums. This became the single version. Here it is on YouTube. It’s a distinctly different kettle of fish from the first version.

And finally, on 11th September 1962 an album version was recorded with session drummer Andy White at Abbey Road. The main distinguishing feature of this recording is the ever-so slightly less relaxed drums and the sound of a tambourine played by none other than Ringo Starr, who had been relegated due to George Martin’s disapproval of him. Here is that version:

And as a bonus, here is the version from Live at the BBC, recorded at the Aeolian Hall in New Bond Street, London:

There is a great deal of minutiae about this song on Wikipedia. Their article includes this gem from Ringo Starr as he later recalled being demoted to tambourine shaker by George Martin:

He has apologised several times since, has old George, but it was devastating – I hated the bugger for years; I still don’t let him off the hook!

From “Five-a-side” by Ace – from the John Peel archive.