At home he feels like a tourist...

Who said that ? Tourists come to mind but that's just damn stupid. Was it Magazine ? Oh who the hell cares ?! I felt like one this afternoon as I snapped away once more in happy delerium as I stumbled blindly as I made my way across the great pages of the Beatles London book.

It seems to me that everyone has a Beatles story 'cept me.. since sharing my obsession with trusted work colleagues a few weeks back, I have been regaled with many very interesting (gotta calibrate that one) stories including one of a neighbour who worked as a Nanny at Kenwood, one who worked as a young engineer in the sixties at Abbey Road (blimey !) and another who knows someone who was in the Swinging Blue Jeans and there was a Beatle connection but...I ...can't ...remember quite what that one was. And then today I spent a very pleasent afternoon with my oldest mate (longest serving might be a better description) who was too polite to remind me that back in the land of 1978, he once spent some time with Macca at his Sussex Farm. I recall being jealous beyond green when I saw the photos and wondered briefly whether I would have to end the frienship - Bloody Hell stop thinking about that....and then, just 4 hours ago in the Devonshire Arms Public House just off Manchester Square, the barmaid, asked me what I was reading and, when I showed her the Beatles London Book and the entry therin of the very establishment in which we stood, she casually remrked that she has another job in a nearby hair salon where she frequently 'does the hair' of the niece of Brian Epstein. Well how-do-you-do !

Hold on, where the bloody hell is this blog entry going ?

And so, Dear Reader (I would not be so presumptious as to assume the plural), can you identify the relevance of the folloing pics. A point for each correct comment... and what do points make ? A sure sign that you spend far too much time thinking about events 40 years old ! Why is that ? No, I mean it ! If you can explain that one then there really is a prize.






He fills his mind with culture.
He gives himself an ulcer.

(Gang of Four - so you don't have to)

Nothing is Real

This Saturday, the early morning joggers of the great Knole Park were once again exposed to the unseemly sight of an obsessive-with-camera hopelessly snapping away like a mad'un in an increasingly frustrated manner around the aforementioned stumps known, inventively, as One and Two. Which one was it ? One or Two ? I canna take it captain ! I gotta know ! On the way back down Sevenoaks high street, a few more snaps of the probable Beatles restaurant and the probably Mr. Kite Antique Shop and the possible Beatles hotel (did not mention that before but maybe true) but its the tree we need to know ! We need to know ! We just HAVE to know !!!

Haha.. a quaint Musical Instrument shop nestled between these imagined places and a Hard Day's Night poster in the window. Maybe the owner just might....I started gentle, did not want him to think he had a freak in his shop. Lovely morning - agreed. Browsed the harmonicas and banjos...Like the poster, love the Beatles I do... Did you know they visited this area back in the day, yep - he did. They filmed in the park..he knew that. Yes, SFF and Penny Lane filmed around the tree....(here it comes, here it comes)..Which tree was it ? He's looking surprised and the friendly smile is slipping away..What-da-yer-mean, which tree ? The trees in the park ! Bit strained suddenly. No - I mean do you know which tree, err exactly...he seemed to be backing away from me and answered his phone which I did not hear ring.

So, yet more time on the information super-highway last night and more hours wasted in trying to unearth the killer archive photo proving once and for all, the Number of the Stump. Nothing, zilch, bit-fat-zero...hold on ! Sweet Nelly Futardo ! What in the name of all things Pepperland is this ! A renunion back in 2008 of West Malling residents to reminise on The Day the Beatles came to West Malling ?! A bit of a do at the Holiday Inn not a stone's throw from Cassa Brilig ? What ? I said, What ? How can this be ? Why wasn't I told...it just ain't fair. The truth is out there and know to some old codgers who will not let me into their club and the twits are bound to forget.

Do I care about all this..the fact I cannot seem to get to the truth about the tree or, indeed, the Walrus scene in MMT at West Malling ? I re-assure myself that I exist and all that is not-I is mere phenomenon dissolving into phenomenal connections. JL put it better

http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/news/Undefined-Headline/article-289462-detail/article.html

Those were the days..

Yesterday is another country - or is that tomorrow. Never sure about that. Anywho, it was not so long ago that the rest of the Brilig clan were willing participants in my ridiculous obsession - interpretations of the Fab classics. Then we went into a phase of bribery involving ever increasing amounts of sugared confectionary then it rapidly descended into copious amounts of cash, cash, cash. Those days are gone and any suggestion of video fun is met with stoney, verging on aggressive, resistance.

Long, long ago back in my sleepy hollow home town, a small, smokey bar in the basement of of a decrepid Victorian hotel and within a stone's throw of the beach, was, briefly for one summer only, the place to be. It may have had similiar moments of fame with the the 'youff' of the sixties, fifities forties etc but who knows ? It was here that the seventeen year olds of that summer gathered each Friday night to drink and get drunk with the sparse notes of the Pete Stacey Jazz band whafting through the cellar. Now the average age of this trio must have been 90 but we did not care. It was music and there wasn't much of it about. Rumour had it that one of the three had been involved in a Beatles recording - I can't recall if it was A Day in The Life or Penny Lane. In hindsight, I suspect the latter as I think the guy was the trombonist ? Why did we not just ask him ? Now I have to add this to the list of things to sort out - I've gotta know !! Oh damm it. Sleep now.