Category Archives: Music

A personal valediction

Posted on 05/05/2023 by Jon Garvey

I’m of that age when my friends and heroes alike begin to be seriously thinned out by death. The most recent hero was Ray Shulman, writer and multi-instrumentalist in the band Gentle Giant, once described as “the greatest bass player you’ve never heard of.” He died a week or two ago. Then last month I came across an obituary about my closest childhood friend, who started school the same day as me, then followed me in a move to another school, as well as being in the same Wolf Cub pack. Eventually we were only separated by the eleven-plus exam, and he went on to become a sub-editor on a … Continue reading →

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Gobbledegook from hobbledehoys

Posted on 01/02/2023 by Jon Garvey

I found this article at the Daily Sceptic intriguing. The author, unimpressed with a university (UCL) “vision statement” that looked as if it had been cobbled together from buzzwords by AI, decided to use a commercially available AI program to construct his own.

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Art for rats’ sake

Posted on 20/05/2022 by Jon Garvey

Well, we’re back in Blighty after an unaccustomed week away in the glorious Isles of Scilly. I won’t give a travelogue on that. But being over our baggage weight even without a computer, world news was limited to overhearing the BBC bulletins on the house radio as my wife tuned in for the weather forecast.

Posted in Music, Politics and sociology | 1 Comment

Joe Rogan and Woodstock

Posted on 08/02/2022 by Jon Garvey

An interesting discussion between atheist/agnostic James Lindsay, who has become an expert critic of all things woke, and Beth Stuckey, a Christian Calvinist YouTuber, is here.

Posted in Music, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Theology | 2 Comments

Gags, jabs and rags

Posted on 05/05/2021 by Jon Garvey

This is just another miscellany of current COVID madness, with some explanation of why it is planned to continue indefinitely.

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Destructive societal superstitions

Posted on 28/03/2021 by Jon Garvey

There is still a prevalent idea that witchcraft was predominantly a mediaeval thing, representing the remnants of pagan religion amongst the peasantry. In fact, the wave of superstitious belief in witches, pacts with the devil and so on was an early modern phenomenon beginning in the sixteenth century, and was at its height of “witchfinders general,” show trials and so on in the following century. Witchcraft was actually very rare in mediaeval times.

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Music in Babel

Posted on 23/12/2020 by Jon Garvey

It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth, To touch their harps of gold: “Peace on the earth, goodwill to men, From heaven’s all-gracious King.” The world in solemn stillness lay, To hear the angels sing.

Posted in History, Music, Theology | 2 Comments

A personal obituary

Posted on 16/11/2020 by Jon Garvey

Having gone through “the once in a century pandemic” without even knowing anyone personally with definite COVID, on receiving my college gazette this week I got to hear of the death of a friend from it, over in Canada.

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Van Morrison tells it like it is

Posted on 26/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

Preach it, Van…

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#WhyAreTheyDoingThis

Posted on 06/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

Here’s a new song/video I’ve done on YouTube, being a reworking of one I wrote a long time ago. With very minor updating it expresses what, and how, I feel about the crime against humanity that is the international handling of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Posted in Medicine, Music, Politics and sociology, Science | Leave a comment