Sweet Pea

Day one back at work passed without incident, although still have a cold and feel weak but that's it. I had intended to finish at four but due to our new rubbish IT set up and a sheet to check 250 statements took twenty minutes to open, pre upgrade it was instant.

Anyway the reason I wanted to post this is to share the song "Sweet Pea" by Tommy Roe , which I discovered as the "B" side of "Sheila". "Sweet Pea" was also the name of Olive Oyl and Popeye's baby (also known as Sweepie) which then made we think were Popeye and Olive Oyl married? But that's a complete aside.

I think "Sweet Pea" was also covered by Manfred Mann , but also got me thinking how the vinyl single used to be the main selling item, the thing to have, and you you at least got a "B" side and sometimes two or three songs on the "B" side. However lots of people bought singles and never listened to the "B side. I remember my mum bought "Brown Girl In The Ring" by Boney M which when it started dropping down the charts the record company flipped (the "B" side was "Rivers of Babylon") and my mum bought another copy because she seldom listened to "B" sides .... she wasn't the only one.

It seems now we've gone through albums and the youth of today are now just streaming single songs and sometimes not even whole songs, their impatience makes them skip to the next one after twenty seconds of whatever they are hearing. Digital music makes things instantly available but also instantly disposable as it's always available 24/7 .

Anyway I finished "Special Deluxe" by Neil Young in less than a week, and it is very readable although finishes with a final forty page chapter full of hope and despair , hope that we can save the world by using renewables , but governments are in the pockets of corporations who see fossil fuels as a quick buck and electorates believe the lies rather than look for facts. This book is well worth reading.

So another day starts........