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The whirring mind: songs featuring humming

August 22, 2024 Peter Kimpton

An Anna’s hummingbird at work

A hum-dinger, or at least a hum-singer of a topic, one in which we're seeking songs that feature that sound, perhaps mostly by the vocalist when not singing lyrics, but perhaps other effect and forms of vibrating hum, from rock and pop, famous classical operatic passages, jazz, R&B, reggae and much more

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In African, avant-garde, blues, calypso, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, drone, dub, easy listening, electronica, exotica, experimental, folk, funk, gospel, hip hop, indie, instrumentals, jazz, krautrock, lounge, metal, music, musical hall, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, psychedelia, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul, soundtracks, traditional, trip hop Tags songs, playlists, DH Lawrence, Laurence Sterne, Pythagoras, Kurt Vonnegut, James Oppenheim, Jean-Paul Sartre, Douglas Adams, Neil Diamond, Albert Ayler, Virginia Woolf, Elvis Costello, Vladimir Mayakovsky, animals, birds, machines, computers, aircraft, Charles Darwin, Joseph Jordania, languages, evolution, Jeffrey Eugenides, Herman Melville, Alfred Lord Tennyson, HG Wells, Billy Collins, Barbara Kingsolver, William Burroughs, Englebert Humperdinck, Nikki Sixx, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Kina Grannis, Nadia Ali, Jack Johnson, Kiesza, Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler
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What goes around: share your 2022 reflections and musical discoveries

December 22, 2022 Peter Kimpton

Water year it’s been …

It’s time to reflect on an extraordinary year, about events public or personal, to celebrate those artists who have sadly left us, and also include in particular your discoveries in music old or new, here at the Bar or elsewhere

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In African, avant-garde, blues, calypso, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, drone, dub, electronica, experimental, folk, funk, gospel, hip hop, indie, instrumentals, jazz, metal, music, musical hall, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, psychedelia, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul, soundtracks, traditional Tags songs, playlists, music, 2022, history, Karl Marx, Hegel, George Santayana, HG Wells, Norman Cousins, Elvis Costello, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, UK politics, Queen Elizabeth II, royalty, royal family, Ukraine, Russia, Vladimir Putin, King Charles III, Paddington Bear, environment, climate change, Ronnie Spektor, Ronnie Spector, Jerry Lee Lewis, Mark Lanegan, Nicky Tesco, Taylor Hawkins, Vangelis, Paul Ryder, The Happy Mondays, Cathal Coughlan, Meat Loaf, Ricky Gardiner, Keith Levene, Wilko Johnson, Christine McVie, Jet Black, Martin Duffy, Mimi Parker, Low, Terry Hall
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Lost or found? Songs about paradise

July 7, 2022 Peter Kimpton

One man’s personal paradise … what is yours?

What is yours? From Arcadia to Utopia, how can we create or find it? Where is it, and what does it look like? This week, after previously doing the impossible, we find the unfindable in the form of song, inspired my many books, art and films …

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In African, avant-garde, blues, calypso, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, drone, dub, electronica, experimental, folk, funk, gospel, hip hop, indie, instrumentals, jazz, metal, music, musical hall, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, psychedelia, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul, soundtracks, traditional Tags songs, playlists, paradise, Utopia, Arcadia, John Milton, Marcel Proust, Samuel Johnson, Thomas More, Kurt Vonnegut, Jorge Luis Borges, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Laurie Anderson, Thomas Fuller, Plato, Christopher Columbus, America, Hieronymous Bosch, Thomas Cole, Thomas Eakins, Philip Sidney, poetry, Tao Yuanming, James Hilton, Film, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou, Ivan Efremov, HG Wells, George Ellis, Aldous Huxley, Second Great Awakening, Shakers, Ephrata Cloister, John Humphrey Noyes, Blaise Pascal, Marty Rubin, Karl Popper, Montesquieu, Arthur Miller, Penn Jillette, Holly Hunter, Randy Newman, Bruno Mars, Bob Marley, The Simpsons
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I'll do it my way: songs about being stubborn and ignoring advice

January 30, 2020 Peter Kimpton
Captain Beefheart. Not exactly a shrinking wallflower in the obstinacy stakes

Captain Beefheart. Not exactly a shrinking wallflower in the obstinacy stakes

Stupid or inspired? Annoying obstinacy, obduracy, inflexibility and bullheadedness, or admirable persistence, pertinacity, tenacity and indomitability? It can go both ways, but how might it shape up in song lyrics?

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In African, avant-garde, blues, calypso, classical, country, dance, disco, dub, electronica, experimental, folk, funk, gospel, hip hop, indie, instrumentals, jazz, metal, music, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, songs, ska, showtime, soul, soundtracks, traditional Tags songs, playlists, stubbornness, obstinacy, advice, Captain Beefheart, William Shakespeare, Neil Gaiman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Agatha Christie, Cervantes, relationships, politics, Abraham Lincoln, William Cobbett, Charles Colchester, HMS Titanic disaster, CIA, 9/11, George W Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Ronald Reagan, Republican Party, Thomas Paine, second world war, Japan, Hiroo Onoda, Alexander Fleming, medicine, health, George Washington, economics, Alan Greenspan, Brian Clough, Geoffrey Boycott, David Beckham, Steve Jobs, Apple, Jeff Bezos, Amazon, Marlon Brando, Franz Oz, Apocalypse Now, Paul Newman, Cool Hand Luke, Film, Beethoven, Britney Spears, Kate Bush, Patti Smith, Todd Rundgren, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, HG Wells, John Dryden, RP Falconer, Jason Versey, Peter F Hamilton, Amit Kalantri, Lionel Shriver, Marvin Gaye
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Merry? Divided? Dreaming? It's songs about England

September 27, 2018 Peter Kimpton
England is dreaming? … Who? Keith, Roger, Pete and John

England is dreaming? … Who? Keith, Roger, Pete and John

Let’s take a musical trip around this strange, sceptr’d isle, this land of eccentric frontmen, this place of punk and flourishing fashion, to pick up lots of place names and perhaps also define the nature of being English

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In blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, dub, electronica, folk, gospel, hip hop, indie, jazz, metal, music, musical hall, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul Tags Songs, playlists, England, The Who, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Lydon, Beyonce, William Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Brexit, social class, sport, cricket, football, Bill Bryson, David Crystal, Pennine Way, Sex Pistols, Ian Brown, The Stone Roses, Naomi Campbell, fashion, Malcolm Gladwell, Pete Townshend, JK Rowling, Brian Eno, HG Wells, Otis Redding, H.P. Lovecraft, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Merchant-Ivory, film, television, Brideshead Revisited, Ken Loach, Monty Python, Eric Idle, WH Auden, Noam Chomsky, monarchy, royalty, revolution, English Civil War
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Let them all in: songs about oddballs, outcasts and outsiders

August 23, 2018 Peter Kimpton
Heading your way .. Julian Cope as Mr Squbbsy in London, 1990.

Heading your way .. Julian Cope as Mr Squbbsy in London, 1990.

Eccentric historical figures to those who are currently out there, black sheep to persons offbeat, songs that express the outsider/insider paradox, this week let’s open our doors to songs about difference

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In blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, dub, electronica, folk, gospel, hip hop, indie, instrumentals, jazz, metal, music, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul Tags songs, playlists, oddballs, eccentricity, outsiders, outcasts, Julian Cope, Captain Beefheart, Vivian Stanshall, Colin Wilson, Quentin Crisp, William Blake, Lady Gaga, Dame Edith Sitwell, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys, Lee Scratch Perry, Frank Zappa, Aphex Twin, David Lynch, books, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, HG Wells, TS Eliot, Vincent Van Gogh, George Bernard Shaw, Vaslav Nijinsky, TE Lawrence, Michael Jackson, Kevin Rowland, Tiny Tim, Gerald Tyrwhitt / Baron Berners, Francis Henry Egerton, William Buckland, Howard Hughes, Keith Moon, Oliver Reed, John Waters, Grace Jones, Meat Loaf, Janet Fitch, Joseph Conrad
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Second nature: songs about travelling in time

March 1, 2018 Peter Kimpton
Who, what, where shall we go this week?

Who, what, where shall we go this week?

This week it's time to set the musical controls - to suggest songs that about time travel in the sci-fi sense, but also those that might move to another period in past or future in metaphor, memory and the imagination

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In blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, electronica, folk, hip hop, indie, metal, music, playlists, pop, postpunk, punk, reggae, rock, songs, soul, soundtracks Tags Songs, playlists, time, time travel, Douglas Adams, HG Wells, Stephen King, Film, Back to the Future, The Smiths, books, science, science fiction, The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku, Salman Rushdie, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, Dan Simmons, Alexandra Adornetto, Hakan Nesser, Tom Waits, Jools Holland, Hannah Simone, Wu-Tang Clan, Bill Nye, Hawkwind, Monty Python, Time Bandits, Doctor Who, Terry Gilliam
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Sing out, act on CLIMATE CHANGE

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CONDEMN RACISM, EMBRACE EQUALITY


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DRINK OF THE WEEK

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SNACK OF THE WEEK

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New Albums …

Featured
Melody's Echo Chamber - Unclouded.jpeg
Dec 5, 2025
Melody's Echo Chamber: Unclouded
Dec 5, 2025

New album: A fourth album, here full of delicious uplifting, dreamily chic, psychedelic soul pop by the French musician Melody Prochet, with bright, upbeat, optimistic numbers and a title lifted from a quote by the acclaimed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, about achieving equilibrium

Dec 5, 2025
Devotion & The Black Divine by anaiis.jpeg
Dec 2, 2025
anaiis: Devotion & The Black Divine
Dec 2, 2025

New album: Following a summer Song of the Day - Deus Deus, a review of the autumn release and third LP by the London-based French-Senegalese singer-songwriter of resonantly beautiful, dynamic, sensual soul, gospel, R&B and experimental and chamber pop, with themes of new motherhood, uncertainty, religion, self-love and acceptance

Dec 2, 2025
De La Soul - Cabin In The Sky.jpeg
Nov 26, 2025
De La Soul: Cabin In The Sky
Nov 26, 2025

New album: The hip-hop veterans return with their first without, yet including the voice of, and a tribute to, founding member Trugoy the Dove, AKA Dave Jolicoeur who passed away in 2023, alongside many hip-hop luminary guests, with trademark playful skits, and all themed around the afterlife

Nov 26, 2025
The Mountain Goats- Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan.jpeg
Nov 26, 2025
The Mountain Goats: Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan
Nov 26, 2025

New album: An evocative musical journey of a concept album by the indie-folk band from Claremont, California, fronted by singer-songwriter John Darnielle, based on a dream of his in 2023 about a voyage to a fictional island by the titular captain, charting adventure, wonder and tragedy

Nov 26, 2025
Allie X - Happiness Is Going To Get You.jpeg
Nov 26, 2025
Allie X: Happiness Is Going To Get You
Nov 26, 2025

New album: A hugely entertaining, witty, droll, inventive, chamber and synth-pop fourth LP with a goth twist by the charismatic and theatrical Canadian artist Alexandra Hughes, who brings paradox and dark themes through sounds that include string quartet, harpsichord, classical and pure pop piano with killer lyrics

Nov 26, 2025
Tortoise - Touch.jpeg
Nov 25, 2025
Tortoise: Touch
Nov 25, 2025

New album: A welcome return with a cinematic and mesmeric groove-filled first studio LP in nine years, and the eighth over all by the eclectic Chicago post-rock/jazz/krautrock multi-instrumentalists Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire and Jeff Parker

Nov 25, 2025
What of Our Nature by Haley Heynderickx, Max García Conover.jpeg
Nov 24, 2025
Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover: What of Our Nature
Nov 24, 2025

New album: Beautiful, precise, poignant and poetic new folk numbers inspired by the life and music style of Woody Guthrie as the Portland, Oregon and New Yorker, now Portland, Maine-based singer-songwriters bring a delicious duet album, alternating and sharing songs covering a variety of forever topical social issues

Nov 24, 2025
Tranquilizer by Oneohtrix Point Never.jpeg
Nov 24, 2025
Oneohtrix Point Never: Tranquilizer
Nov 24, 2025

New album: Ambient, otherworldly, cinematic, mesmeric, and at times very odd, the Brooklyn-based electronic artist and producer Daniel Lopatin returns with a new nostalgia-based concept – constructing tracks from lost-then-refound Y2K CDs of 1990s and early 2000s royalty-free sample electronic sounds

Nov 24, 2025
Iona Zajac - Bang.jpeg
Nov 24, 2025
Iona Zajac: Bang
Nov 24, 2025

New album: A powerful, stirring, passionate and mature debut LP by the 29-year-old Glasgow-based Scottish singer with Polish and Ukrainian heritage who has toured as the new Pogues singer, and whose alternative folk songs capture raw emotions and the experience of modern womanhood, with echoes of PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Aldous Harding and Lankum

Nov 24, 2025
Austra - Chin Up Buttercup.jpeg
Nov 19, 2025
Austra: Chin Up Buttercup
Nov 19, 2025

New album: This fifth studio LP as Austra by the Canadian classically trained vocalist and composer Katie Stelmanis brings beautiful electronica-pop and dance music, and has a bittersweet ironic title – a caustically witty reference to societal pressure to keep smiling despite a devastating breakup

Nov 19, 2025
Mavis Staples - Sad and Beautiful World.jpeg
Nov 18, 2025
Mavis Staples: Sad and Beautiful World
Nov 18, 2025

New album: A timelessly classy release by the veteran soul, blues and gospel singer and social activist from the Staples Singers, in a release of wonderfully moving and poignant cover versions, beautifully interpreting works by artists including Tom Waits, Curtis Mayfield, Leonard Cohen, and Gillian Welch

Nov 18, 2025
Stella Donnelly - Love and Fortune 2.jpeg
Nov 18, 2025
Stella Donnelly: Love and Fortune
Nov 18, 2025

New album: Finely crafted, stripped back musical simplicity combined with complex melancholic emotions mark out this beautiful, poetic, and deeply personal third folk-pop LP by the Australian singer-songwriter reflecting on the past and present

Nov 18, 2025
picture-parlour-the-parlour-album.jpeg
Nov 17, 2025
Picture Parlour: The Parlour
Nov 17, 2025

New album: Following last year’s EP Face in the Picture, a fabulously stylish, smart, swaggering glam-rock-pop debut LP by the Manchester-formed, London-based band fronted by the impressively raspy, gritty, vibratro delivery of Liverpudlian vocalist and guitarist Katherine Parlour and distinctive riffs from North Yorkshire-born guitar Ella Risi

Nov 17, 2025
FKA twigs - Eusexua Afterglow.jpeg
Nov 16, 2025
FKA twigs: EUSEXUA Afterglow
Nov 16, 2025

New album: Springing from her much lauded third LP Eusexua, out in January this year, and following a hugely successful and spectacular tour, the innovative British experimental pop artist, dancer and producer extends her palette of ethereal, otherworldly and sensual creations in this new, more carnal, harder, beat-filled parallel release

Nov 16, 2025

new songs …

Featured
The Lemon Twigs - I've Got A Broken Heart.jpeg
Dec 4, 2025
Song of the Day: The Lemon Twigs - I've Got A Broken Heart
Dec 4, 2025

Song of the Day: Despite the title, this new double-A single (with Friday I’m Gonna Love You) has a wonderfully uplifting guitar-jangling beauty, with echoes of The Byrds and Stone Roses, but is of course the brilliant 60s and 70s retro sound of the Long Island brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario, out on Captured Tracks

Dec 4, 2025
Alewya - Night Drive.jpeg
Dec 3, 2025
Song of the Day: Alewya - Night Drive (featuring Dagmawit Ameha)
Dec 3, 2025

Song of the Day: A sensual, stylish, dreamy electro-pop single by the striking British singer-songwriter, producer, multidisciplinary artist and model Alewya Demmisse, musically influenced by her rich Ethiopian-Egyptian heritage and early childhood upbringings in Saudi Arabia and Sudan

Dec 3, 2025
Rule 31 Single Artwork.jpg
Dec 2, 2025
Song of the Day: Radio Free Alice - Rule 31
Dec 2, 2025

Song of the Day: Stirring, passionate indie postpunk by the band based in Melbourne, Australia, with echoes of The Cure’s core sound, new wave, and 90s indie-rock influences, and out on Double Drummer

Dec 2, 2025
Sailor Honeymoon - Armchair.jpeg
Dec 1, 2025
Song of the Day: Sailor Honeymoon - Armchair
Dec 1, 2025

Song of the Day: Catchy, punchy, fuzz-guitar indie rock with a droll lyrical delivery and some echoes of Wet Leg come in this new single by the trio from Seoul, South Korea, out on Good Good Records

Dec 1, 2025
Ellie O'Neill.jpeg
Nov 30, 2025
Song of the Day: Ellie O'Neill - Bohemia
Nov 30, 2025

Song of the Day: A beautiful, poetic finger-picking debut folk single with a mystical, distantly stormy twist by the Dublin-based Irish singer-songwriter from County Meath, out now on St Itch Records

Nov 30, 2025
Danalogue.jpeg
Nov 29, 2025
Song of the Day: Danalogue - Sonic Hypnosis
Nov 29, 2025

Song of the Day: A full flavour of future-past with mesmeric, euphoric retro acid house and electronica in this new single by Daniel Leavers, producer and the founding member of The Comet Is Coming and Soccer96, out now on Castles In Space

Nov 29, 2025
Cardinals band.jpeg
Nov 28, 2025
Song of the Day: Cardinals - Barbed Wire
Nov 28, 2025

Song of the Day: Another striking, passionate, punchy, catchy single by the Irish postpunk/indie-folk-rock band from Cork, heralding their upcoming debut album, Masquerade, out on 13 February via So Young Records

Nov 28, 2025
Frank-Popp-Ensemble and Paul Weller.jpeg
Nov 27, 2025
Song of the Day: Frank Popp Ensemble (with Paul Weller) - Right Before My Eyes
Nov 27, 2025

Song of the Day: A strong, soaring, emotive, soulful release by the German artist co-written by British singer and former Jam frontman who here sings and plays guitar, the lyrics about witnessing the increasing injustices and demise of the world, out on Unique Records / Schubert Music Europe

Nov 27, 2025
Tessa Rose Jackson - Fear Bangs The Drum 2.jpeg
Nov 26, 2025
Song of the Day: Tessa Rose Jackson - Fear Bangs The Drum
Nov 26, 2025

Song of the Day: Using a musical metaphor, beautiful, crisply rhythmical, soaring piano and atmospheric indie-pop-folk about facing your fears by the Dutch/British singer-songwriter, heralding her forthcoming new album The Lighthouse, out on 23 January 2026 on Tiny Tiger Records

Nov 26, 2025
Melanie Baker - Sad Clown.jpeg
Nov 25, 2025
Song of the Day: Melanie Baker - Sad Clown
Nov 25, 2025

Song of the Day: Catchy, candid, cathartic indie-grunge-pop by the British singer-songwriter from Cumbria in a melancholy but oddly uplifting emotional work-through of depression, love and exhaustion, out now on TAMBOURHINOCEROS

Nov 25, 2025
Holly Humberstone - Die Happy.jpeg
Nov 24, 2025
Song of the Day: Holly Humberstone - Die Happy
Nov 24, 2025

Song of the Day: Luxuriant, breathy, femme-fatale dream pop with a dark, southern gothic, Lana del Rey-inspired, live-fast-die-young theme, and stylish video by the 25-year-old British singer-songwriter from Grantham, out on Polydor/Universal

Nov 24, 2025
These New Puritans brothers.jpg
Nov 23, 2025
Song of the Day: These New Puritans - The Other Side
Nov 23, 2025

Song of the Day: A delicate, tender, and unusually minimalist single, their first since this year’s acclaimed album Crooked Wing, by the Southend-on-Sea-born Barnett twins, here with Jack on improvised piano and George on drums and a soprano register wordless vocal, out on Domino Records

Nov 23, 2025

Word of the week

Featured
Hangover.jpeg
Dec 4, 2025
Word of the week: crapulence
Dec 4, 2025

Word of the week: A term that may apply regularly during Xmas party season, from the from the Latin crapula, in turn from the Greek kraipálē meaning "drunkenness" or "headache" pertains to sickness symptoms caused by excess in eating or drinking, or general intemperance and overindulgence

Dec 4, 2025
Running shoes and barefoot.jpeg
Nov 20, 2025
Word of the week: discalceate
Nov 20, 2025

Word of the week: A rarely used, but often practised verb, especially when arriving home, it means to take off your shoes, but is also a slightly more common adjective meaning barefoot or unshod, particularly for certain religious orders that wear sandals instead of shoes. But in what context does this come up in song?

Nov 20, 2025
autumn-red-leaves.jpeg
Nov 6, 2025
Word of the week: erythrophyll
Nov 6, 2025

Word of the week: A seasonally topical word relating to the the red pigment of tree leaves, fruits and flowers, that appears particularly when changing in autumn, as opposed to the green effect of chlorophyll, from the Greek erythros for red, and phyll for leaves. But what of songs about this?

Nov 6, 2025
Fennec fox 2.jpeg
Oct 22, 2025
Word of the week: fennec
Oct 22, 2025

Word of the week: It’s a small pale-fawn nocturnal fox with unusually large, highly sensitive ears, that inhabits from African and Arab deserts areas from Western Sahara and Mauritania to the Sinai Peninsula. But has it ever been seen in a song?

Oct 22, 2025
Narrowboat.jpeg
Oct 9, 2025
Word of the week: gongoozler
Oct 9, 2025

Word of the week: A fabulous old English slang term for someone who tends to stand or sit for long periods staring at the passing of boats on canals, sometimes with a derogatory or at least ironic use for someone who is useless or lazy. But what of songs about this activity and culture?

Oct 9, 2025

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