An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Payback at the Acropolis

 

And so to Athens... which I have visited many times over the past 40 years... but not since the awful mistake known as Brexit.

A small reminder of what the British have done – and of course they don't enjoy a good reputation here in relation to the Parthenon and the cultural treasure purloined by Elgin – was provided by staff at the Acropolis Museum.

People as old as me get half-price entry there: €5 instead of €10. To get my discount I was asked to provide ID. I handed over my passport and was about to get my reduction when a supervisor appeared and intervened.

She told the ticket seller – and the ticket seller told me – that there was now no discount for the British since they were no longer in the EU. I asked futilely whether it made any difference that I hadn't voted for Brexit...

It didn't of course. And I paid my €10. I fear the cost of Brexit will go on increasing – on so many levels.

Down, Down...

Just when you thought 2016 couldn't take away another rock star... Rick Parfitt of Status Quo is gone.

The Quo were formidably good at what they did... but it wasn't really for me, and I never saw them live.

But many musicians rated and respected them – including, maybe surprisingly, John Lydon, who perhaps saw something punkish in the Quo's refusal to ever do anything but stick to basics and go for the lowest common denominator.

This year of the wins of Brexit and Trump and the losses of Bowie, Cohen and Prince (and many more) has been bloody awful. I dare to think that 2017 has to be better – rather than a case of down, down deeper and down.

Porn Again

We've all done it. Drummers, that is. All looked longingly at those beautiful kits – often the ones that we can't quite afford and that we wouldn't have room to store anyway.

I already have the perfect kit for me: a DW Collector's Series in pure white (well, almost, give or take a few scrapes and scratches from gigging).

So why – when Wembley Music Centre emails me with pictures of all the latest DW kits to arrive at its London store – do I sit and start salivating over them? This is drum pornography, of course. We just like looking at pictures of these wonderful objects, even though we can't have them, and, in truth, we don't need them.

But if you're interested in percussion pornography, check out DW drum kits at the Wembley Music Centre. And if you actually want to own one of these great kits, hand-made in California, you'd better get on it. Prices for British buyers can only go up, thanks to all those good folk who voted for Brexit.