Happy Betwixtmas!
Well, this the last post of another year (sound that bugle private and salute it in!). It has been another year of ups and downs but, we made it this far to see another oncoming one (which is a blessing in itself!). I guess for this post I thought I’d share a round up of some of the things I enjoyed doing, places I went and sounds I listened to, starting with several different things Mrs Akin & I did that were fun during this year and in no particular order below are the featured posts:
My Faves
1. Eel Pie Island R&B & Jazz - Just a great vibe, a lovely little museum chock full of 1950's and 60's memorabilia as well as some lovely staff to help guide you through the museum and Eel Pie Island and it's past.
2. Passionate Friend and Bleak Expectations - London's Theatreland never seems to disappoint me, especially The Criterion Theatre with its wonderful comedies, both 'The Unfriend' and 'Bleak Expectations' were great fun!
3. To Love Somebody - A great day out and my very first 'Pride' visit, it was worth it just to see the volume of people parading throughout London's streets in such a peaceful, musically brilliant and colourful way.
4. And one that should possibly be top of the pile, at least in terms of total out and out strangeness in the post Quirky London (The Viktor Wynd Museum Of Curiosities) possibly one of the strangest collections of artefacts all put together in a wacky theatre of diseased imaginings, but equally brilliant, a place I have recommended to friends and all have been and said how much they laughed enjoyed!
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Betwixt & Between
So, usually between Christmas and New Year, (a.k.a. Betwixtmas) there is a lull and if like me you'd booked some time off work, not a lot really seems to happen, many things are closed, television is usually quite dull, some people are just happy to do nothing, maybe an opportunity to read some good books, curl under a duvet, write down some goals for the New Year others prefer to get out and about and see if there is anything left from jumble sale that is the Boxing Day Sales, others just mentally take a deep breath before the onslaught of another year.
Your Faves
For a change this year I thought I would assess the most 'popular' posts on this site with the help of Messrs Google and Cloudflare and see which things seemed to resonate with you guys on this website over 2023. The top three posts appear to have been...
3. Harlem Spirit, Reggae Moss Side Style
To be honest it's lovely to see such a cross section of genres chosen, from electronic, reggae to goth. I am glad I opted to attempt to make this blog cover a variety of genres and music styles rather than 'paint myself into a music corner' by just focussing on one. You can catch the sounds at the links above.
Losses, Diddling & Technical Thanks
As well as the visits to this site there have been some sad events this year in the loss of two great musicians that have been featured on this site during the past few years, namely Geordie Walker from Killing Joke Killing Joke With Malicious Damage and of course the legendary front man of The Pogues Shane McGowan Streams Of Whiskey , their excellence can be viewed on the post links.
So, I decided to try and make a few 'tweaks' to this blog using a bit of html and learning and thought maybe it might help people navigate round it by adding in a new Year/Month Archive page with links to the relevant posts from when I moved to Publii in 2021 so you can find older posts quicker, I also tinkered about with a new 'Hero' image and Homepage Icon again another learning curve in responsive images etc. Fortunately the Publii guys have made the editor so good that a even an old git like me can manage to cobble something reasonable together. At the end of the year I would like to thank the Publii team for making a great website builder, GitHub for being so good in storing all my files and Cloudflare for being so awesome in managing the Domain and Deployment and making a joy for me to publish posts, so much more so than being on Blogger.
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Finally, Thanks To You!
Thank you all for reading, visiting this website during this year, I hope it has evoked some memories and music for you too and please keep reading some more of the posts and journeys I hope to embark upon in the coming year. The final 'shout out' goes to the wonderful Mrs Akin, my best travelling companion, and may we have many, many more journeys together❤️.
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