Lucy Museum of Musicians - Green Day

Qualification to The Lucy Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians is they must have a minimum of three songs which would make me turn up the radio if they came on.


Green Day 
Qualifying Songs: Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life), Misery, Basket Case

Tough just picking three songs because pretty much any Green Day song gets me leaping for the volume button.
Green Day came along in the dog years of the grunge movement and from 'Basketcase' onwards i was a big fan although the UK wasn't very quick to take to their brand of pop-punk until the politically charged American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown Albums and then everyone seemed to be a fan.
Famously 'borrowing' tunes from other bands, they don't diverge much from their sound with lot's of fast paced three minute pop-punk songs but when they slow it down as in 21 Guns, Good Riddance, When September Ends and Boulevard of Broken Dreams, they produce some belters.
One of my favourite tunes is 'Misery' which is a very unGreen Day type song with accordion and spanish guitar which seems to tell the story of a series of characters meeting a grisly end.
The lyrics for the excellent 'Basket Case' were written when the lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, thought he was going mad after a bout of anxiety and the video is a homage to One Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest.
'Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)' features more mellow, contemplative lyrics with acoustic music and is many peoples favourite Green Day song but as i said previously, any Green Day song (nod towards American Idiot, Peacemaker, King For A Day, When September Ends, Restless Heart Syndrome) will get the volume up treatment.
They seemed to have reached their high-tide mark and have happily shifted into the background again but those 15 or so Green Day Albums in my CD holder will always get a regular playing as long as my hearing holds out.  

Comey Hits Trump Where It Hurts

As Donald Trump is a narcissist of the highest order, James Comey knows exactly where to hit him for maximum effect, right in his teeny, tiny penis hands.
'Look at those hands, are they small hands?' Trump once asked onstage: 'If they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem' as we know from the various porn stars and other women who were not his wife that he desperately tried to stick it into.
In a magnificent piece of one-upmanship, Comey wrote that when Trump reached out for a handshake he couldn’t help but notice that the president’s hand 'was smaller than mine', ouch.
Comey also said that Trump was obsessed with his wife finding out about 'the Golden Shower thing' which took place in a Russian hotel room when prostitutes were filmed turning the room a delightful shade of urine yellow. I would say if Putin is holding the tape over Trumps head as blackmail he had better release it soon as the tape is rapidly depreciating in value as other embarrassing stuff about Trump comes out.
To go with peeing prostitutes and the micro-penis, Comey also mocks his orange skin colour, bright white half-moons under his eyes from his spray tans and despite being the 3rd fattest President ever, 'not being a whole lot stronger than he looked'.
Throw in that Trump is a world beating liar, or as he put it 'untethered to the truth', it may all be things we knew about the tax dodging sex pest anyway but is guaranteed to get those tiny fat fingers typing out yet another childish 'slimeball' Tweet meltdown which is always fun as it proves that you can say what you like about his policies, but mentioning his smaller than average hands which are definitely smaller than Comey's, then that is going too far for the man who returned from Russia complaining that nothing shifts the smell of urine from suit fabric.

Lucy Museum of Musicians - The Fratellis

Qualification to The Lucy Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians is they must have a minimum of three songs which would make me turn up the radio if they came on.
  

The Fratellis
Qualifying Songs: Chelsea Dagger, Imposters (Little by Little), Whistle For The Choir,

I always felt The Fratellis were a lot better than their limited chart success showed, 'Whistle for the Choir' and 'Chelsea Dagger' where everywhere at the time in 2006 but for some reason their star stalled and they eventually took a five year break but they had some very clever songs tucked away on those early albums and although they have recently got back together, you do feel that their time has come and gone.    
'Imposters (Little by Little)' is a very catchy tune like most of The Fratellis songs and the expected great guitar riff is present although 'Chelsea Dagger' is one big dirty guitar riff and a chorus that will get stuck in your head for a week.
'Whistle For The Choir' is a nice, floaty pop song which starts with an acoustic guitar and builds to a multi-instrument finish although what the song is about is anybodies guess.

Idiot Humans

The Gulf Stream is the global conveyor belt for cold water and warm water and is part of the large-scale ocean circulation that plays a key role in keeping the climate at balance and Europe warm. Global warming may change it forever with unforeseeable consequences but if it changes, we are in for a heap of trouble so it is worrying that scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany are warning that it is doing exactly that.
Prof Stefan Rahmstorf explains that the currents that bring warm Atlantic water northwards towards the pole, where they cool, sink and return southwards, is the most significant control on northern hemisphere climate outside the atmosphere but the system has weakened by 15% since 1950, thanks to melting Greenland ice and ocean warming making sea water less dense and more buoyant.
'From the study of past climate, we know changes have been some of the most abrupt and impactful events in the history of climate' said the Professor explaining that a collapse in the Gulf Stream would mean severe winters and increase summer heatwaves.
Gulf Stream current at its weakest in 1,600 years, studies show which is as far back as they can go and Greenland’s massive ice cap is melting at the fastest rate for at least 450 years which will continue to further weaken the Gulf Stream.
Well done humans, you idiots.

Remembering The Last Cold War

The UN's Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has said the Cold War is back and if we put aside the threat to all life on the planet, the last Cold War heralded some important inventions so put on some leg warmers and shoulder pads and let's see what the last Cold War gave us.
We can thank the Cold War for the Internet which came around as a way to keep communications open during a nuclear attack and satellites which beam our TV signals around the World.
The Sat Nav in our cars was another Cold War Inventions as was Microwave ovens and the Space Race which ended with a human on the Moon was due to the competition between the USA and USSR.
Apart from the inventions and some fantastic Soviet propaganda posters, there were a few great songs like Two Tribes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, 2 minutes to Midnight by Iron Maiden and London Calling by The Clash although they were far outweighed by the stinkers like Nena's 99 Red Balloons, Final Countdown by Europe and Land of Confusion by Phil Collins so as we are entering another Cold War, then the quality of songs will need to improve.
Then there was the Cold War films and the Soviet 'bad guys' in characters like Ivan Drago in Rocky and the mumbling John Rambo fighting alongside Al Queada version 1 against the Soviets in Rambo and Red Dawn where the Soviet paratroopers are defeated by a bunch of American teenagers led by Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen in his pre-drug addled days.
With the man-child Donald Trump in Washington and the macho idiot Vladimir Putin in Moscow we could be seeing pretty mushroom clouds before we get anything decent out of this one but at least we may get to hear 'Two Tribes' again.

Lucy Museum of Musicians - Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Qualification to The Lucy Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians is they must have a minimum of three songs which would make me turn up the radio if they came on.
  

Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Qualifying Songs: Power of Love, Two Tribes, Relax

The motto behind FGTH seemed to be get all the best songs out in the first three records then sit back with their place in history safely secure and then just fade back out again.
The group became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles, Relax selling over 2 million copies in the UK alone, making it the seventh best-selling single in UK chart history, helped by being banned by the BBC who objected to the controversial lyrics and a video which showed Holly Johnson in a thong with one red butt cheek and one blue one.
Two Tribes is a phenomenal Cold-War era record with one of the most recognisable driving basslines in music and a cracking video with Ronald Reagan and then Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko wrestling although sadly with no thongs or coloured butt cheeks in sight. The song also included Chris Barrie, Rimmer from Red Dwarf, impersonating Ronald Reagan.
Then came Power Of Love to bring up the trio of consecutive 1984 number 1 hits for the band, a ballad that has somehow got into regular rotation as a Christmas record and which couldn't be much more different to the first two. 
That they famously annoyed the Thompson Twins by constantly changing their name on changing room doors to Thompson Twats also helped make them probably one of the best UK bands of the 80s, definitely the best band of 1984.

Why Are Only Chemcial Weapons A Red Line?

Given the choice, how would you prefer to be killed? Whether you are blown to bits by a shell or choked to death by a chemical weapon, the end result is the same so why is the use of chemical weapons a red line but murder by bombs and bullets not?
The death toll in Syria is approximately 500,000 and the overwhelming majority of them have been caused by conventional weapons, a fraction killed by chemical weapons but why are our leaders only now concerned because 50 have been killed by a chemical bomb when we seemingly seemed okay with the other 499,950 who were torn apart by powerful explosives.
To make killing civilians with chemicals a 'red line' and the thing that triggers intervention implies that murdering innocents with chemicals is somehow worse than using bombs and bullets but the consequence of both remains the same, death or serious injury.
Some people may point to the suffering involved in death by chemical weapons but do you suffer any less if parts of your body are ripped away by a shell or missile?
The truth is that the fa miles of those killed don't care how their relatives died, they just know that they died and they won't feel any better about it knowing that if they had died by a bomb filled with chlorine the West will jump up and down and call it a red line crossed but if they had died by a bomb filled with explosives the West will consider it admissible and on the right side of their red line.

Lucy Museum of Musicians - Elvis Costello

Qualification to The Lucy Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians is they must have a minimum of three songs which would make me turn up the radio if they came on. 


Elvis Costello -
Qualifying Songs: I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea, Oliver's Army, Pump it Up

I always assumed that Oliver's Army was about Oliver Cromwell but Costello himself explained it was an anti-occupation song about the troubles in Ireland and other military occupations around the globe. This song was never banned, or, as the BBC like to put it, 'restricted' since its release in 1979 despite the blatant use of the N-word although they decided to just blank that word out instead.
Never really fitting into the punk or new wave scene, Costello was always a bit of an outsider and his 3 top 10 hits in a 30 year career shows he never really built on his great start and has just been background noise ever since 1981 when he last troubled the business end of the charts.
Costello is still releasing songs today but all the big hits came in the late 70s and 'Pump It Up' has a great rock riff and he has admitted to lifting the tune from Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'.
'I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea' has a great bassline running through it and Costello's three big hits are enough to get him a place in my Museum although why he never wanted to go to Chelsea was never suitably settled but as anyone who has been to Stamford Bridge will agree, nobody can blame him. 

Lucy Museum of Musicians - ELO

Qualification to The Lucy Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians is they must have a minimum of three songs which would make me turn up the radio if they came on.


ELO 
Qualifying Songs: Mr Blue Sky, Don't Bring Me Down, Roll Over Beethoven

Not many songs have a fire extinguisher played on them but Mr Blue Sky does which fits in well with the rather eccentric image of ELO.
Jeff Lynne was always the dominant creative force and an exceptional guitar player, 'Roll Over Beethoven' is an amazing example of a blazing guitar solo, and after ELO finished Lynn co-wrote many of Tom Petty's biggest hits.
It's almost impossible to not sing along to 'Mr Blue Sky', one of the great feel-good summer song to great sunburned and stung to.
'Roll Over Beethoven' is one of those rare occasions where the cover is better than the original which shows how impressive the ELO version is because the original was outstanding, if your foot isn't tapping along to it when you hear it then your deaf. 
'Don't Bring Me Down' doesn't have the ELO 'weird' bits and according to Lynn was written after he read about the NASA Skylab space station, which re-entered the Earth's atmosphere in 1979 when he was writing songs for their 'Discovery' album.
That Lynn was later part of the Traveling Wilbury's alongside some of the greats proves just what an amazing talent he is.

What's On The Table For Syria

Not ones to learn from recent history, the same old faces are readying their arsenals for a bit more war in the Middle East.
The decisions soon to be made in the comfort of the residences by Donald Trump 6,600 miles away from Syria, Theresa May 3,149 miles away, Emmanuel Macron 2,570 miles away and Vladimir Putin 3,368 miles away will directly impact the Syrians currently living in fear in bombed out houses.
Donald Trump has said that 'nothing's off the table' when it comes to a US response to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria - so what is on the table?
The Diplomatic Route could include sanctions on Syria and it's allies but UN is a busted flush all the time some countries hold a veto and use it to block any action against their 'friends'.
There could be a limited strike like last time when US cruise missiles hit the airport where the Syrian planes launched the last chemical attack but that was pointless as the airport was quickly repaired and back in use within weeks.
A wider strike to target the Syrian Air Force seems the likely option but the Russian military is embedded with Syria's and several senior Russian figures have warned of a Russian response to a US attack, repeating a warning by the head of the military that missiles would be shot down and their launch sites targeted if they threatened the lives of Russians in Syria.
The coalition only seems to include the USA, France and the UK and the UK is hesitating in launching air strikes against Syrian targets as Theresa May is worried by the possible political fallout of taking military action without parliamentary approval especially in her already precarious position and MPs are not due to return from their Easter break until next Monday.
Apart from the complication of how Russia or Iran might respond if their own forces were hit by any allied strikes, the International chemical weapons watchdog, the OPCW, has announced that it is shortly to deploy a 'fact finding team' to Douma and an allied air strike taking place while UN inspectors are on the ground trying to establish the facts is not good with echoes of the Iraq Weapons inspectors being ignored while the military plans were firmed up.
Syria is already a basketcase filled with other nations military and terrorists fighting each other and any military action by the USA, France and UK is only going to heap even more death and destruction onto an already blood soaked nation from their tables safely thousands of miles away.