(Last) Christmas and this one

Well got some jolly presents and (like many others) had too much to eat yesterday - really looking forward to reading Marina Abramovic's Walk through Walls and The School of Life's Small Pleasures (which are/can be big).

Just some of the goodies

As usual I've got a CD and it'll be slightly  bitter-sweet listening to the departed Leonard Cohen - as many people have mentioned we've lost a lot of big hitters in 2016 - many are people I rated and or saw like Prince and David Bowie - well the last week has marked the departure too of Veteran Rocker (as he was known in life) Rick Parfitt  and George Michael (yesterday).

Like watching Bowie on Top of The Pops on TV in the 70's seeing Wham! (with like Lichtenstein's famous painting there was an exclamation but here only one A)  was a revelation as they were (it seemed) about Fun.

Michael proved himself quite a songwriter over the years and a generous benefactor too - oddly I saw the group walking around in WH Smith at Heathrow in their early years, prior to Superstardom  - so that's my Wham! story (I had Fantastic too which has the great Wham Rap and Young Guns.

[George's visit to Desert Island Discs is worth listening to too]

Well very good anyway 

Hey... That's No Way To Say Goodbye

A recording artist for 40+ years

Back in the  1960's and 1970s there used to be some great 'Sampler' albums one I found amazing was  called Rock Machine I love You -  (1968!) one of the (many) stands out tracks was by Leonard and I'm not sure if it was via this and Tom Fawcett or listening to a  (45) Single played at school (by the free spirited John Holles - son of writer Robert)  that I was introduced to the delights of the bed sit troubadour.


Fast forward to the early 80's and my pleasure at listening to this singer-songwriter was reawakened in the company of future environmentalist Mike Coe  and we saw the man live - he was not it seemed  in a good place (Play Lady Midnight yelled out one audience member several times).

And he did novels too 

Life continued for Len he did a spot of Zen got engaged to the beautiful Rebecca de Mornay and was diddled out of several million dollars by his (unsurprisingly female)  manager - back on the road in his 70s the Mojo was rediscovered and luckily Debbie and I saw this at a couple of absolutely brilliant concerts ( London's O2 and Wembley gigs).


Last month another album but he's now taken his final encore - we've still got his wit and lyrical precision to reflect on - so a loss but a great body of work for us all to enjoy.