Week 45 - The Grambler wants stereo

Stewart was an amazing person -  A wonderful husband, a fantastic brother, a loving son and an adored uncle.  He was also a brilliant friend and colleague and will be missed by so many people. His family are determined that his death will never be in vain and are doing their part to beat bowel cancer for good.  We are fundraising for the Bobby Moore Fund which is part of Cancer Research UK and specialises in research into bowel cancer.  If you wish to donate to the fund, you can via https://www.justgiving.com/Geraldine-Smith3 .

 

If you haven’t already done so, please read the article which recently appeared in the Daily Record and learn from Stewart’s story that you must never be complacent.  It makes grim reading for us, his family, even though we were beside him throughout his ordeal, or battle; call it what you will. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/heartbroken-widow-geraldine-smith-raises-3452997

 

His wish was that The Grambler should continue after his death and I have been happy to oblige.  Welcome to The Grambler, the most ill-informed blog you are ever likely to see. Read on and enjoy…

 

The closer you get the better you look baby
The better you look the more I want you
When you turn on your smile
I feel my heart go wild
I'm like a child with a brand new toy
And I get the....
Sweetest feeling
Honey the sweetest

Sweetest feeling
Baby the sweetest

Sweetest feeling
Loving you

The warmer your kiss
The deeper you touch me baby
The deeper your touch
The more you thrill me
Its more than I can stand
Girl when you hold my hand
I feel so grand that i could cry
And i get the....
Sweetest feeling
Mumma the sweetest

Sweetest feeling
Baby the sweetest

Sweetest feeling
Loving you

The greater your love
The stronger you hold me baby
The stronger you hold
The more I need you
With every passing day
I love you more in every way
Im in love to stay
And I wanna say....
I get the....
Sweetest feeling
Baby the sweetest

Sweetest feeling
Honey the sweetest

Sweetest feeling
Loving you
Huh
Baby the sweetest....
Sweetest feeling…..(fade)

What the…?  Why did that appear?  Yes this week I begin with the lyrics to Jackie Wilson’s Sweetest Feeling.  Not gramblerised.  In fact, not adulterated in any way.  Just the lyrics as Jackie and backing singers performed them.  Unusual start, I think you will agree.  All will be explained my little gramblerados.  Read on…

This week’s Grambler grumble concerns none other than our old friends Googlie.  What could the great Googlie have done to cause any possible annoyance to anyone?  I mean, they are a largish company with an unusual way of dealing with tax.  Is this what causes me concern?  As if.  Hey, they are no different to any other huge companies for whom tax evasion is a way of life, such as Barstucks, Fodavone or Anamoz.  Is it anything to do with snooping on emails and then tailoring advertising to suit?  I should coco.  No.  It is something far more important.  Well, to me anyway.

I own a Nuxes tablet [Whoop de doo! –Ed.].  Who markets this tablet, or as we technophiles like to call it, gadgety thing?  Googlie, that’s who.  What’s the problem, I hear you ask.  Well, it’s a great little gadget, it really is.  I can go on line, I can play games on it; I can watch telly on it; I even write this drivel on it.  And I like to listen to music on it.  So far, so great.  Where is the difficulty, then?  It’s to do with the music listening, bit.  Listen on headphones; no problem.  Listen using built-in speaker; problem.  There is one speaker.  One speaker.  Using headphones, everything plays in perfect stereo.  Listen through speaker… not even decent mono.  Well, I am doing it an injustice; some toons play without any problem.  Some toons however…. Useless.

Now, I am of an age when a lot of the music I listen to is, like me, a little bit old.  I am talking 60s and 70s stuff.  Stereophonic sound, or high fidelity sound as the beardies liked to call it, was in its infancy and record makers enjoyed the opportunity to mess about with the ‘aural experience’.  So although stereo meant that you could produce sound to give the impression that you were getting slightly different sound in the left lughole and the right, some of the more ‘experimental types’ would produce stuff that had, say, vocals in the left speaker and instrumentation in the right.  Some really off the wall types had sounds swirling from left to right and back again.  If you listened to this kind of thing on headphones while drunk or stoned you were liable to end up with your brain seriously frazzled, or at the very least you would feel just like really weird, man.

So where am I leading with these hippy ramblings?  Imagine listening to some of these odd productions with one of the channels missing and you will understand my grievance with Googlie’s tablet; it is a seriously clever piece of kit, so why spoil it by putting only one speaker (and only one channel) on it?  As I said, through headphones the sound is great, so it obviously has the capability for good sound quality.

Any road up, I listened to some of my 60s/70s toons and was a little disappointed.  Have you heard the Jethro Tull track Aqualung?  Well, halfway through there is a slower section, the vocal of  which Ian Anderson thought should only be listened to with one ear.  However, on my Nuxes gadgety thing, the speaker for that ear is missing, thus I have a minute long section of just gentle strumming on an acoustic geetar.  Definitely spoils the listening experience.

Another toon which sounds odd is Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks (my musical tastes are pretty varied, I think you will agree).  Now I may well have a rare version of this.  The rare version where Ray Davies did his vocals from inside a cupboard!  The intro starts up, loud as you like and then you can just about make out the vocals from Ray either in a cupboard or in another room.  Maybe Ray and brother Dave had had one of their famous fallouts and Ray wouldn’t perform in the same room as Dave.  Who knows?  Listening experience?  Rubbish.

Another track is Welcome by the Oo (from the album Tommy).  There is a section where the line ‘Excuse me sir, there’s more at the door’ is spoken, followed by ‘There’s more at the door’ sung several times.  It is there to emphasise the vast numbers of people arriving to see Tommy, the new messiah.  It makes sense of the track.  Unless you listen on a Nuxes, where it is missing completely.  Listening experience fn rubbish!

Oh and there is another song that sounds completely wrong.  I am sure you have guessed it.  Yep, Sweetest Feeling by Jackie Wilson.  You have seen the lyrics.  Jackie never sings the two words ‘sweetest feeling’; it is the backing singers who do that bit.  It’s not unlike the Aretha Franklin song I Say a Little Prayer for You, where Aretha only sings ‘I say a little…’ and the backing singers finish the line with ‘prayer for you’ [How interesting.  Yawn. – Ed.].  Any road up, on Sweetest Feeling played on a Nuxes gadgety thing, it goes…

I get the....

Silence

Baby the sweetest

 

Silence

Honey the sweetest

 

Silence

Loving you

Listening experience totally fu… messed up, yet again.

There is a solution of course.  Simply hook the compact gadgety thing up to a pair of speakers.  But why should I have to?  Surely Googlie could have put two fn speakers into it in the first place!  Is the cost of doing it so prohibitive that it’s not financially viable?  I don’t think so.  To spoil such an otherwise brilliant gadget by omitting a necessary component is ludicrous.  Are other tablet manufacturers as mean?  I’d be interested to hear from you out there in Gramblerland.

Any birthdays this week?  Yes indeed.  None other than Liz Mitchell who celebrates her 62^nd birthday today (12^th of July).  Wow.  No kidding.  Liz Mitchell?  The Liz Mitchell?  Who’d have thought it, Eh?  62?  Liz Mitchell?  Who the f… Who is Liz Mitchell?  She only sang with one of the late 70s most successful chart acts.  Still, none the wiser?  Boney M.  Remember them?  Yeah, wish I didn’t have to.  They weren’t great were they.  I mean, Ra ra Rasputin.  Lover of the Russian queen…dearie me.  Or there is this classic suitably gramblerised…

Grambler in the ring
Tra la la la la
There's a grambler in the ring
Tra la la la la la
Grambler in the ring
Tra la la la la
She looks like a sugar in a plum
Plum plum

What?  She looks like a sugar in a plum?  Sorry?  What the f… What is that supposed to mean?  It gets worse.  The next line goes ‘Show me your motion.’  I suppose that is quite apt considering this is a blog aimed at raising awareness about bowel cancer.  What is the first thing to check?  Exactly.  Your stool or motion.  Thank you Liz for bringing that to our attention.

And now a first for the wunnerful blog that is thegrambler.com – a section entitled ‘I never knew that’.  It is totally unrelated to football, but aims to answer those everyday questions like ‘How did the (insert unusual name here) get its name?’  Well, wonder no more.  With these little nuggets of information, you will be the envy of all the other pub quiz teams.

This week – How did the flamingo gets its name?

Well, it all goes back to the rather barbaric practice of setting fire to these noble creatures.  Apparently, once alight the birds used to scream ‘OH!’

Another one – What are the closest relatives of the hippopotamus?

The hippopotamus is closely related to other similar looking beasts, the coolpopotamus, the groovypopotamus and the quitetrendypopotamus.

Just use those snippets of wisdom when you are next with your mates down the pub and watch their jaws drop in admiration [Disbelief, surely. – Ed.]

Have you been watching the World Cup?  Apart from the occasional goalfest – eg. Germany vs Brazil – it has been so damned cagey.  How many nil nil draws, followed by goalless extra time and then penalties can one person take?  As I write this, I know that Germany will play Argentina in the final.  Now you know how brilliant my predictions are – remember the Spain to retain the World Cup prediction?  Anyway, I don’t think many would disagree with me when I stick my neck out [Is that your tortoise impression? – Ed.] and say Germany will walk it.  That should be enough to send you all to your nearest bookie to put some dosh on Argentina.

How did last week’s predictions from The Grambler fare?  Not too well, I’m afraid [Don’t be afraid. – Ed.].  Oh yes, we won some money.  Yay!  It just wasn’t enough to cover the stake money.  Boo!  One pound 82 pees we won; which meant we actually lost 38 pees on our £2.20 bet.  One thing to note with the gee gee bet is that we have yet to have a barren week.  We always have had some kind of return and, although only two of the bets have given us a resounding profit, we are still in just that – profit.  Unlike the footy bet which rarely made us anything.  You know what?  That is me just put the kiss of death on this week’s bet, whatever it is.  That statement ‘always had some sort of return’ guarantees that this week’s bet will buck that trend and win nought.

Any road up, this week’s bet is another gee gees only.  Okay with that?  No?  Tough.  It’s my blog.

What has The Grambler randomly selected for us this week?

Meeting – Time – Horse – Odds

 

Chester               14.15         Midlander                    11/10

Newmarket        16.05         Flaming Spear                      11/10

Tipperary           16.45         Simenon                                 4/5

Dundalk              17.40         Leliani                                    8/13

Salisbury             18.55         Misterioso                              1/2

 

So the bet is on – 10 x 20 doubles and a single 20 pee accumulator.  How much does the Bobby Moore Fund stand to gain if these five horses run faster than the others in the various races?

£10.45

Not exactly whopping, but not bad.  So go to it my little gramblerinis; head for your nearest crook bookie and have a little flutter.  They can’t touch you for it.

And finally, Cyril?  And finally Esther one of Stewart’s gags from tgjnt.tumblr.com which as all you regular readers know, stood for The Greatest Jokes Never Told.  Think you’ll like this one…

Happy grambling.

P.S. 

Remember I had a right old moan about social media a couple of weeks ago?  Somebody just posted an item on Bacefook which just makes my point perfectly.

 

 

Why?  Why does anybody feel the need to post such an item on Bacefook?  Nobody, but nobody is going to disagree.  We would all love to see cancer banished forever, but posting and sharing this makes no difference to anyone or anything.  It isn’t going to make scientists find a cure any quicker.

‘Hey Professor, there’s a post on Bacefook saying we should cure all cancers.’

‘Hmm, and we’ve been spending all these years analysing whether all dogs bark in the same key; maybe we should spend a bit of time finding a cure for cancer.’

‘What a brilliant idea, Professor.  With a bit of thought we should have it sorted by the end of the week.’

‘Not so fast, young fellow me lad, I think it will take a good bit longer than that.  I reckon it will take at least a fortnight.’

Sadly, that’s not how it works.  Come on you people in social media land, does a crappy piece of artwork shared around the world make a blind bit of difference?  Of course not.