Oh Cancer, Up Yours!

This morning i heard the very sad news of the death, from cancer, of Marian Joan Elliott-Said aka Poly Styrene.

As is so often the case these days, i heard the news via Twitter.

Poly Styrene was the lead singer in the influential Punk band X-Ray Spex. Their first single "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" created quite a stir when it came out back in 1977, as i well remember.
The sight of a young girl, with braces on her teeth, singing those words with such feeling, both upset and inspired people in equal numbers.

Poly Styrene subsequently became a role model for many young women throughout the years, even up to the present day. But especially back in those heady days of the late 1970's.

I still have my copy of their big hit single "The Day The World Turned Dayglo' by the way. In orange vinyl no less. It sits in it's rightful place amongst all the classic Punk 45's from that time and it still packs a punch now.



Unfortunately, i never got to see X-Ray Spex live. I did get close though. I went to see them in Liverpool, at the famous 'Erics' club in Matthew St. But, the gig was cancelled for some long forgotten reason.

Poly Styrene had only recently released a brand new album 'Generation Indigo'. It's a good album and one i can thoroughly recommend. She had even been promoting the album as much as her illness permitted. Even to the extent of giving interviews from her local Hospice.
Through Tweets, Facebook updates and interviews, she said she had been looking forward to getting out there to promote the album even more and to get back singing again.
Sadly, that will no longer happen.

But, what makes Poly Styrene's death all the more poignant for me, is the local aspect.

As has often been reported. Marian got into Punk music & effectively became Poly Styrene, after seeing the Sex Pistols play on Hastings Pier, way back in 1976. Supporting Budgie would you believe?

In recent years she made had her home in St Leonards On Sea, my own home town.
I pass her house most days and used to see her about on the street quite often. Although i never actually plucked up the courage to speak to her. Weird isn't it?

Because of my involvement with Hastings Rock radio station, i have been listening to Poly Styrene's new 'Generation Indigo' album quite a lot recently and picking out tracks to play on my Local Music Show, on the station.
Only the other day, i sent off the track "Thrash City" to be placed onto the stations 'A' List, for when Hastings Rock comes back on the air this Saturday.
Now, unfortunately, those songs will be played as a tribute.

As i mentioned earlier. Poly Styrene had been in St Michael's Hospice, not far from her home.

It is no co-incidence that the charity Hastings Rock radio station now supports during it's broadcasts is, St Michael's Hospice.
We support St Michael's Hospice because of the wonderful work that they do, because they are local and also because we all know somebody who has been affected by cancer.

Unfortunately, that has been brought home to all of us in the Hastings musical community, with the sad passing of Poly Styrene.

At least we will always have her music to remember her by.

R.I.P Marian Joan Elliott-Said (Poly Styrene) 1957-2011.

Oh Cancer, Up Yours!

Ignorance Is Bliss?

Yesterday i attended a quiz afternoon, organised by some good friends of mine & my wifes. It was all in aid of charity & indeed a favourite local charity of mine, St Michael's Hospice.
I've mentioned St Michael's Hospice before & have attended a fund raising quiz in aid of them before. I even wrote a blog post about that occasion. Thankfully, this quiz was nowhere near as dramatic as that night was!

Having said that, my team won & quite convincingly too. Which brings me to the point of this blog.
Without wishing to "big" myself up, i am usually thought of as being pretty good at quizzes. So much so that when my wife & i sat down at our table, our fellow team mates said "Oh, we'll be sure to win now that Andy is on our team" Thankfully, this proved to be the case & i did, indeed, get a lot of the answers correct.
But, why me & why didn't the other team members feel confident in their own general knowledge? And why didn't they know as many answers as myself?

As far as i'm concerned & feel free to correct me if you think i'm wrong, this has nothing to do with intelligence. Believe me, i know plenty of pretty intelligent people who have no real general knowledge at all & not a lot of common sense either, for that matter!
For me, it seems to come down to my general inquisitive nature & my wide range of interests.

But, i can't say that i've always been that way. I certainly don't recall having those interests whilst i was at school. Apart from music that is. In fact, i couldn't wait to get out of school to start work & earning money.
The vast majority of my "education" has come since then & in what i call, the University Of Life. I seemed to suddenly find this wide range of interests after starting work. Maybe it was a case of suddenly having the freedom to learn about & explore the subjects that interested me, rather than those topics which had to be taught before?
It's also possible that i just wasn't interested in learning whilst at school & i'm sure that's the case with many people at that age. And of course, if you leave school with few qualifications, the chance of any further education, especially in those days, was limited. I probably wouldn't have been interested in further education anyway. I never found school particularly inspiring, except for a very few exceptions.

Thankfully, after leaving school i started to read a lot of books, magazines, newspapers etc, especially about those subjects that did interest me & i started to absorb all of that knowledge.
I'm also lucky in that i tend to soak up that information like a sponge. But, i'm convinced that that only happens because i want to digest that information in the first place.
I've also never ever been much of a big watcher of TV. Sure, i watch TV, as most people do. But, i only ever turn the TV on when i want to watch something in particular.. Otherwise, i'd rather the TV was turned off.

So, if i'm inquistive, interested & want to learn & digest all of that knowledge. Why don't other people? Some people even seem to be proud of the fact that they don't know anything. For them, ignorance is bliss. They seem to have no real interest in the world around them. That's a situation that i find very hard to understand.
But, maybe that's just me?

What i do know is that, as part of the winning team, my wife & i came home with a bottle of wine & a box of chocolates. The "losers" went home with nothing.
Who says that knowledge has no benefits?

Once More Into the Breach.

Some evenings just don't go quite as you expect them to, do they?
Yesterday evening, was one such evening.

Together with my wife & some friends, i went to a quiz night. This was organised by & took place at, St Michael's Hospice, very close to my home.
I have quite possibly mentioned St Michael's Hospice before, either in blogs, or vlogs. As with any Hospice, or charity, they are always in need of more money. So, i am only too happy to try & help them out when i can. Last night was a great opportunity to do just that.

The evening started off fairly normally. Although the person leading the quiz was having some difficulty being heard & asking the questions. It then became apparent as to why this was.
Unknown to the vast majority of the people present, the poor man was in the process of suffering a mild stroke! Thankfully, his wife & daughter were there with him & started to realise what was happening.
An ambulance was called & he was treated by the paramedics, before being taken off to hospital.

Thankfully, it appears that he was not to badly affected by this stroke & was even able to apologise on his way out (Why do people always feel the need to apologise, even when they have no need to do so?)

In the UK in recent months, we have had a Government tv & poster campaign showing people how to recognise the early warning signs that somebody is suffering a stroke. Even if that person is yourself.
After all, as the campaign states, every second can count in a situation like this. The quicker that the stroke symptoms are recognised, the quicker that that person can be treated & possibly saved.

The campaign uses the acronym F.A.S.T. Which means:
F - Face
A - Arms
S - Speech
T - Time

One of the things that struck me about this whole episode, was that as soon as the people on our table were aware of what had actually happened, we all started talking about the F.A.S.T campaign.
So, regardless of what some people might think about these Goverment campaigns. They do work.
People become aware & digest the campaign messages without really realising it.
That might sound a little scary & i can see why. But, in this instance, i'm willing to go along with it.
If a Government campaign helps to save just one life. It's been well worth it, in my opinion.

Anyway, to get back to the reason for the title of this blog......

As you can imagine, this incident left us all in a bit of a quandary. We were now left with no quizmaster & also without most of the people who were running the quiz. Which also involved the provision of a mid quiz meal.

Thankfully, the quizmaster had left all of his questions & answers behind.
At first, the one remaining lady tried to run the quiz herself. But, it was soon obvious to us all, that she couldn't be expected to do everything herself.
So, i volunteered my services & ended up being the quizmaster for the rest of the evening. Something that i've never done before. And to be quite honest, i thoroughly enjoyed myself.

The rest of the evening went very well, even though i say so myself. The lady was then able to arrange the food & the raffle, whilst i went into "arranging" mode & ran the rest of the quiz.
Although, i have no problem with doing this sort of thing, the hardest part for me was trying to get my head around the questions. Some of which were a little obscure & also trying to put my own personality into the way i asked the questions themselves.
I always find it easier to say things my way & never find it that easy to read out others words. That is especially true when it comes to questions. We all tend to ask questions in our own style. Whether we realise that, or not.

For me, this is yet another example of my experience with vlogging helping me in new situations & giving me the confidence to take on those new situations. Something i may well not have done, in my pre-vlogging days.

So, how did my team do in the quiz? Well, they came last!
I like to think that this is because i wasn't there to help them. But, who knows?
All i know is that i had a good evening. Even though it wasn't quite the evening that i'd anticipated.
We all helped raise some much needed money for a very worthy local charity & i've now added the skill of quizmaster to my ever growing CV (Or, resume, for all you Americans out there)

I just hope that the next quiz night i attend, isn't quite so eventful.