Pun Fun 2: The Theme

We are back with a second edition of Pun Fun, the exciting new feature where I give you a theme and you adapt the title of a well-known song to reflect that theme. Anyone who missed the first edition can find the results here.

But before we reveal the new theme a sharp-eyed reader has spotted a possible elephant in the room. They asked whether your fine efforts can technically be described as puns. The possibility that they can't worried me because, frankly, "Adapting the Title of a Well-Known Song to Reflect a Theme Fun" is a much less catchy title.

So I dug out the Oxford English Dictionary, which knows a thing or two about this sort of stuff. It defines a pun as "the use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect".

It may be stretching it a bit, particularly for some entries, but I reckon the underlined words mean we just sneak in. Any English teachers out there are welcome to comment, but only if they agree with me.

With that out of the way, welcome to Fun Pun 2! After doing sports and sporting equipment last month we are keeping things healthy. Inspired by a visit to the London Fruit Exchange - I went in with an orange and came out with a banana - the new theme is:

FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

The rules are the same as last time. You each have one entry only (not five a day please). Entries should be sent to leggies27@hotmail.co.uk by Saturday 6 December. Voting will start next Monday.

I look forward to hearing from all the founder members and hopefully some new faces as well - such as The Swede, who would seem to have an inbuilt advantage on this particular theme.

To warm you up here are three songs that are definitely about fruit and vegetables and could not in any way be deemed examples of "prurient puns" (Tobias Smollett, 1746, cited in the OED).

Happy punning!

"The Green Pumpkin" - S.E. Rogie

"The Plum" - Lord Melody

"Don't Touch Me Tomato" - Josephine Baker

Free Ride with Green and Robyn

I hadn't planned on posting anything today but Khayem's post earlier this morning and Adam's recent one on Nick Drake reminded me of when I went to see Scritti Politti, Robyn Hitchcock and Alexis Taylor in the back room of a local pub and Green and Robyn duetted on a cover of Nick's "Free Ride". 

Home-made video below, proper review of the gig here. Back with the theme for Pun Fun 2 tomorrow.

Wide Eyed And Wreckless

Last Friday night found me at London's lively Lexington public house and music venue for a gig by Wreckless Eric that was timed to coincide with the release of his brand new album "England Screaming".

While the album may be brand new the songs on it are not. All of them originally appeared on an album called "A Roomful Of Monkeys" that he put out 40 years ago under the name Captains of Industry and on which he was backed by assorted Blockheads. It sunk without a trace and the few that heard it didn't much care for it. Eric has decided the time has come to give the songs another go.

I have never heard "A Roomful of Monkeys" so can't compare the two albums, but if it was half as good as the new album the record-buying public of 1985 were fools to themselves. "England Screaming" is top notch and a worthy successor to "Leisureland" and "Transcience", Eric's previous two albums both of which rank among the high points of his long and illustrious career.

Eric and the band treated us to a few tracks from each of those two albums on Friday as well as running through "England Screaming" in its entirely. It was a great set and I particularly enjoyed the extended freakout version of "Fish Factory" from the new record on which they seemed to be channelling Crazy Horse.

As an extra treat Eric teamed up with his better half, the marvellous Amy Rigby, to open the evening with a selection of songs from the three albums they made together between 2008 and 2012 (all of which can be found on Bandcamp). As always the two of them were utterly charming.

We are spoiling you with a track from each of Eric's albums mentioned above and one from Eric & Amy's eponymous 2008 album which Amy told us when they played it was written for their respective daughters.

"Lifeline" - Wreckless Eric

"Standing Water" - Wreckless Eric

"California/ Handyman" - Wreckless Eric

"Please Be Nice To Her" - Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby

Of course, they finished the night with THE HIT.

 

Wild Nights In Willemstad

The tiny island nation of Curaçao hit the headlines on the sports pages last week when it became smallest country by population ever to qualify for the football World Cup finals.

I thought this was the ideal opportunity to share some of the highlights of my extensive collection of Curaçaoan music, and perhaps entice one of the country's roughly 158,000 residents to visit the blog so my flag counter can add Curaçao to the list of countries from which we've had a visitor.

First up is the great Rignald Recordino, better known as Doble R who with his Super Special Stars bestrode the Curaçaoan music scene like a colossus for many years. This particular track is from their 1978 album "Di Paranda!?".

We are then joined by Anselmus 'Boy' Dap, multiple winner of the 'Rei di Tumba' title at the annual carnival (tumba is a local musical style that is loosely based on merengue). His album "Mi T'ei" originally came out in 1989 to the best of my knowledge and was reissued last year. 

You can find both albums along with many other delights at the Groove Fusion Records Bandcamp page.

"Paranda Awe!" - "Doble R" Super Special Stars

"Chaparia" - Boy Dap

Of course the Curaçao team were not the only plucky underdogs that qualified for the finals with a famous victory last week. Congratulations to them both. All together now: "Ring a ding a ding there goes Willie on the wing".

Pun Fun 1: The Results

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Topping the inaugural Pun Fun chart is...

KHAYEM with 'The Boy With Willie Thorne In His Side'.

Khayem professed to be over the moon when informed of the result. Asked to describe the secret of his success, he said: "I just closed my eyes, hit send, and the next thing I knew it was in the back of the net".

Khayem is being too modest. By choosing a pun about a 1980s snooker player he cleverly targeted a key demographic here at 27 Leggies, as is shown in this detailed breakdown of where his votes came from:

• British men old enough to remember the 1980s - 88%
• Absolutely everybody else in the whole world - 12%

Here is the top five. I'm not sharing the full results as we're not here to name and shame, but I can reveal that everyone avoided the dreaded 'nul points'.

1. 'The Boy With Willie Thorne In His Side' - The Smiths (Khayem)
2. 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Darts Club Band' - The Beatles (Alyson)
3. 'Can't Stand Luge-ing You' - The Police (John M)
4. 'Satan Rejected My Goal' - Morrissey (Rol)
5. 'Croquet Fred' - Errol Dunkley (Ernie)

We have had a request from one competitor to be given the opportunity to share some of the other puns they thought of but did not submit due to being limited to one entry. If it spares long-suffering loved ones from having to smile politely while listening to them all that is fine by me, so feel free to fill up the comments section with as many as you want. I'll get the ball rolling: 'Karate Fears Two' by The Associates.

Many thanks to everyone who sent in an entry, and thanks also to those of you who did not but found time to vote. Hopefully some of the latter group will be sufficiently enthused to enter in future. 

There will be another opportunity soon. We'll be back with a new theme this time next week so we can get one in before we are hit by the full force of the festive season. If that goes well we will resume in January.

Until then, we'll hand over to Khayem and the rest of LT United for their victory celebrations. He's the one second from right. And let's also hear it for the song and sportsman that combined to deliver him his victory. For those of you not familiar with him, Willie is the bald one.

At The Edge

Public Service Announcement: If you wish to vote on the best sporting pun in a song title but have not yet done so, the deadline is tomorrow (Saturday November 22). Details of who you can vote for and how to do it can be found here.

We now return to our scheduled broadcast. 

Earlier in the week I went to an exhibition called 'Children Of Albion' by Ben Edge at the Fitzrovia Chapel, which as the name suggests is located in London's fashionable Fitzrovia. It runs until 26 November and if you get a chance to visit I would heartily recommend doing so. I have loads more photos on Flickr which I hope might tempt you to go.

Actually it is worth popping in to the chapel if you are in the area even when there aren't any exhibitions on. Apparently inspired by Byzantine architecture its charms could not be described as understated. Here's a bit of the ceiling:

The exhibition itself draws on the traditional stories and rituals of the British Isles and William Blake's vision of Albion, the ancient spirit of Britain that is currently asleep but can be reawakened through AI the power of art and imagination.

The centrepiece is the painting that gives the exhibition its name which brilliantly weaves together all sorts of references ancient, modern and in between, but I enjoyed all the paintings. A particular favourite was 'The Dorset Ooser' which features artefacts and activities from the part of Dorset in which I used to live - the eponymous mask from Melbury Osmond, the Cerne Abbas Giant and the now banned tradition of Teddy Rowe's Band from Sherborne. 

The painting in the final photo is called 'John Barleycorn Must Die', which prompted me to dig out Traffic's excellent album of the same name when I got home. Here's a couple of tracks from that and two other decent versions of the song.

"John Barleycorn" - Traffic

"Every Mother's Son" - Traffic

Old Penny, New Penny

Some of you may occasionally have wondered about the identity the handsome gentleman at the top right of the page. Some of you may have not. I'm going to tell you anyway. Its Penny Penny.

When I started this blog way back in 2009 I had a mission to bring Tsonga Disco music to the masses. Tsonga Disco was a contemporary take on the traditional music of the Tsonga or Shangaan people who can be found mostly in the Limpopo Province in the north east of South Africa and in southern Mozambique.

Between the mid 1990s and mid 2000s Penny Penny (Papa Penny to his many fans) was the undisputed king of Tsonga Disco but by the time I started featuring his music here he had largely given up on recording and was spending most of his time in local politics, helping to improve living conditions and infrastructure in his home town of Giyani.

In the mid 2010s my old pal Mr. Awesome Tapes From Africa reissued a couple of his albums from the 1990s to moderate acclaim. This seemed to prompt Papa Penny to revive his showbiz career. He turned up as a celebrity judge on a TV talent show, launched his own reality series and in 2019 started releasing new albums after a gap of ten years. His most recent album is "Sesi Va Rosie" which came out in 2023 and we have a couple of selections for you.

He hasn't given up the politics though. Quite the opposite. Last year he became an MP representing the main opposition party in the national parliament. His performance as a politician has not received the same universal praise given to his musical performances. But I say no to the naysayers and all power to Papa Polymath!

"Sesi Va Rosie" - Penny Penny

"Xirilo" - Penny Penny

We finish off with a couple of videos featuring Papa Penny's hit "Milandu Bhe" - first the original from 1994 and then a remake from a couple of years ago with current pop sensation and follow Tsonga star Makhadzi. Her brand new album is the similarly titled "Sesi Ka Rose". Coincidence?  I think not.