Music for me can be just about anything and everything. It can be emotional, it can be informative and occasionally it can even make you laugh.
That's certainly the case with The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is really a vehicle for Irish songwriter Neil Hannon who is one of the most literate and funny lyricists going. He's also capable of great melodies but it is his words that captivate me.
On the latest album there's a song entitled Te Amo Espana and the first verse is:
Despacito
Oye Cómo Va
Vino tinto
Huevos tortilla, yeah
Arantxa Sánchez Vicario
Grab your flamenco guitar-o
The rest of it follows in the same way. I just find it amusing (not quite sure why). The literal translation of this is:
Slowly
Hear How It's Going
Red wine
Eggs omelette, yeah
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario
Grab your flamenco guitar-o
For non sports fans Arantxa Sanchez Vicario is a female Spanish tennis player.
It is of course a complete heap of nonsense but maybe that's what I like. Hannon is a song caricaturist. He has even written a song referencing Cromer which takes some doing. It's called Norman and Norma and is another ridiculous story. It's about a couple whose marriage has become dull until they find a military re-enactment society.
Norman and Norma
Got married in Cromer
April 1983
It could've been warmer
But Norman and Norma
Were happy as they'd ever been
and
They dreamt of Mallorca
But couldn't afford to go
On Norman's salary
So they went to Cromer
Got double pneumonia
It's one of those songs that gets into your head and I find myself mentally singing it all day long.
* * *
When is the best time to visit somewhere? Is it in the summer when there's hoards of people, in the Spring when there are a few people or in the winter when there are virtually no people.
I think it's a bit of each. Go in the school holidays and places can be unbearable busy, but go in the winter and they can almost be ghost towns or, even worse, shut.
Our latest break has taken us back to the Cotswolds - one of our favourite places in England. We set off to go via Roundabout Town (sorry Milton Keynes) and onto Stowe which is so close to the town of Buckingham that you really can almost throw a stone into the town centre.
We had Radio Two on as we drove along the A14 and heard that the A421 was shut in both directions around St Neots due to a chemical spillage. So we worked our way onto the A1 from a different direction and came across Grafham Water which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere but close to Huntingdon.
It is England's third largest reservoir and is also a country park set in 1500 acres. It currently has an invasive shrimp problem (and no I'm not talking about myself here). This encroacher from abroad eats anything it comes across and is known as the killer shrimp. It's full name is Dikerogammarus Villosus. Grafham is fighting hard to rid its waters of this serial killer which is no danger to people but it's the first time it has been found in England. It's an ugly little blighter.
Grafham was a good place for a coffee and a walk and the car park was virtually empty. From there we went on a Folly Mission. People who read my blog regularly will know I'm always on the look out for unusual places - often called Follies. Baconsthorpe Castle in North Norfolk recently fitted the bill. Portmeirion in Wales a couple of years ago definitely fitted the bill. Stowe in Buckinghamshire is just as mad. I enclose a few photographs with this blog of Grafham Water and Stowe and will write more about the latter tomorrow.
There was plenty of parking spaces in Stowe which is a definite plus. I should imagine in the height of summer in school holidays that both Grafham and Stowe would be heaving with visitors.