It’s Gone

I know I’ve mentioned the weather more than once recently, but this evening, with another cold front approaching, we finally surrendered and acknowledged that Summer Moved On:

 

Alex and I switched the pool heating off and cut down the pump hours as the realisation that we weren’t going to be needing it any more hit home. It’s always a sad day – the equivalent of turning your central heating on in October (or earlier) in the UK.

But this time summer really has moved on.

At least until the weekend anyway.

HMV

And lo, as had been widely predicted, HMV was placed into administration yesterday. I spent many a happy afternoon (and many a hard earned pound) in HMV stores, most especially Pinstone Street in Sheffield, Northumberland Street Newcastle, Cornmarket Street in Oxford (who could forget their midnight release of Radiohead’s OK Computer in 1997?) and, of course, Oxford Street in London.

That’s where this photo came from – a-ha doing a signing for their first album, Hunting High and Low, back in January 1986:

hmv

Those clothes? That hair? Look, it was acceptable in the 80s.

As of course, was paying High Street prices for music and the like, because we never had the luxury of the internet. Thankfully, those dark days of bad clothes and worse hair are now in the past.
Sadly, after 91 years, so is HMV.

a-ha receive Cross of St. Olav

And, as many of you who have tried and failed to get your own Cross of St. Olav, that’s a pretty big deal in Norway.

Morten Harket, Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy will be awarded the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, during a special ceremony in Oslo on Tuesday, November 6. The Order of St. Olav is awarded for distinguished services for Norway and mankind. The members of a-ha are receiving this Royal Order for their outstanding musical contribution.

And local newspaper Aftenposten pulled no punches in their adulations at the band’s achievements.

Du kan gå hvor som helst på kloden og plutselig høre en a-ha-låt fra en kafé, en bil, et hus. Du sier navnet Magne Furuholmen, og du blir bedt med inn på te i Bangkok, du nevner i forbifarten Morten Harket og drosjesjåføren i Buenos Aires slår av taksameteret. På en parkbenk i New York kommer du i snakk med en person om Waaktaar-Savoys «Velvet», og du har en venn for livet.

Or:

You can go anywhere on this planet and suddenly hear an a-ha song at a cafe, in a car, a house. You say the name Magne Furuholmen and suddenly, you are invited for tea in Bangkok; you mention Morten Harket in passing and the Buenos Aires cab driver stops the meter, you discuss Waaktaar-Savoy’s song ‘Velvet’ on a bench in New York and you find yourself a friend for life.

I have to admit that even as a big fan, none of these things have ever happened to me. Maybe I’ve been listening to classic 80’s synthpop in all the wrong cities. I’d love to be invited for tea in Thailand or get a cheap ride in Argentina. To be fair, I’m less interested in a friend for life in America, but that’s just a personal thing. Anyway, I don’t generally discuss specific pieces of music with benches or any other form of street furniture.

After that incident while chatting about Bohemian Rhapsody with the cycle rack it’s safety first for me.

Analogue

The Southern Cape (and I’m talking specifically of the Overberg, Theewaterskloof and Cape Agulhas municipalities here) is so beautiful right now. Lush, green farmland full of blue cranes, fields of bright yellow canola flowers, rolling hills and the all the fun of the fair with the R316 dipping and curving through the landscape.

There are other great driving songs out there, of course. But a-ha’s Analogue was playing as we headed past the infamous Houtkloof turn just north of Napier, and it needs sharing.

For the UK viewers out there (presumably in… the UK), I think the video should come with some sort of warning about setting off fireworks in an oil refinery; namely – don’t.