I met a traveller from a distant land...

[akicif]

...Well, the Afghan mini-cab driver alluded to below. It had been one of those days. Quick post-work pint and then off to join David at the George IV by Holborn for a while before going for a pizza and a brief trip to the Troy Club (as I'd screwed up the chance of a last tube, anyway).

So, when I headed down Charing Cross Road, I sort of vaguely recognised the guy and said hello... On the way back to Feltham (via Staines), we'd quite a long chat covering music (he'd deliberately immersed himself in Western Music by getting about 200 CDs covering popular music from about 1900 on - he already knew the classical stuff) and literature (he'd taken a similar course with a collection of Penguin/Wordsworth-type classics and was currently racing through Robert Louis Stephenson). Apparently his current evening entertainment is to sit by the fire with a good beer, some 1930's french music on the CD, and "The Master of Ballintrae".

I've no idea what it was he used to do in Afghanistan, but I rather suspect that it wasn't mini-cab driving.

Oh, and the CD he played as we headed west had some wonderful stuff on it -- really old Bing Crosby (which surprised me by how much fun it was, Charles Trenet (whose "La Mer" is my current earworm -- I'm sure I remember a pretty good vaguely-recent film used it as mood music), some other Usual Suspects of the French persuasion, and an American woman whose name I've currently lost, but had a magnificent voice...

Comments

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

The film was "French Kiss". Robbie Williams just covered the song.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

It had been suggested that the film was "LA Story", which has "La Mer" during the opening credits (and isn't exactly recent), but now I come to think of it, I may have seen a clip of "French Kiss" on one of the review programmes.

(Oh, and if you were wondering, the Afghan cabdriver makes his other appearance on my deadjournal - although I was sure I'd written more about him).

Not very "live" livejournal

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Steve, your livejournal is becoming roadkill on the information superhighway ... lots of things are happening in your life, some of which are actually suitable for public dissemination! :-) Write more! (and the same applies to me of course....)

Re: Not very "live" livejournal

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I've been doing the "bisy baxson" thing for too long. However, as a method of cat-hoovering while redrafting (more redesigning) the CV, I've started implementing tyhe new stylee thing.