Strictly Not Strictly

I do find Strictly Come Dancing as tedious as Come Dancing was, but that is life, we like different things and why I am not watching the big telly at the moment and writing this post. I would rather do anything (within reason) than watch a Dancing program.

The contestants all work hard and I appreciate this but they really don't catch my attention so I would rather write , listen to music , watch other TV and TED Talks  on my computer or portable device. I loved Groucho Marx' quote about TV:

"I find television very educational , every time it's switched on I go into another room and read a book"

That's roughly what he said and is both funny and educational in itself. It's great when things cause you to do something that results in the creation of something. So Strictly caused me to think about things and write this and watch an educational TED talk about satire today which is both informative and funny and educates you with some great ideas by Patrick Chappatte , so I've included it below. It includes some excellent cartoons taking on Trump, Brexit and more.

The song I was going to include is obviously "Come Dancing" by The Kinks, so I hope you are having a great Saturday night whatever you are watching.

Drinking Cherry Cola in Unmarked Cars

I don't know what put this into my head , possibly the fact that the BBC (and virtually all the media, see here) had reported that the outcome of the meeting between Angela Merkel and that dangerous clown Boris Johnson was that the UK had thirty days to sort out the brexit backstop when what she had said was a sarcastic comment that it might be thirty days or two years to sort out the backstop, but I cannot find any trace of that , all the media just mentions the thirty days, but really these days , generally we can't trust what's being said.

This made me think of when the BBC were so anti product placement that songs had their lyrics changed to ensure they weren't banned from the radio. One example was the Kinks "Lola" which was fine addressing gender fluidity in majorly homophobic times but Coca Cola was an absolute no no and had to be changed to Cherry Cola, the irony being that there is now Cherry flavoured Coca Cola (and lots of other atrocious flavours) , I wonder if "Lola" gave them the idea?

The when Mott The Hoople were going to call it a day David Bowie gave them "All The Young Dudes" which kicked off their singles sales bt was only approved when the line "And Wendy's stealing clothes from Marks & Sparks" became And Wendy's stealing clothes from unmarked cars"  although eventually the original words were restored.

Again the censors didn't like that but let though:

"But she never lost her head 

Even when she was giving head"

again addressing trans and sexuality in Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side"  a hit single from the Bowie produced album "Transformer".

So I'll leave you to savour "All The Young Dudes" but seriously check out the rest of the songs.