The bathroom in the Crotchety house is being upgraded. Among other things the pedestal washbasin is being replaced with a basin set into a vanity unit. Initially we thought the new vanity cabinet would completely cover the footprint of the old pedestal, hiding any ugliness on the floor. As it turns out, though, the new units are not…Read more Tyler
A Whiter Shade …
Southend-on-Sea lies on the north side of the Thames estuary to the east of London. It's a seaside resort with all the usual tourist trappings: a beach, gift shops, an amusement park, a few hotels and lots of guest houses. But Southend is most famous for its pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world at a…Read more A Whiter Shade …
The Seldom Seen Kid
The five members of Elbow played their first gig together in 1990 at the Corner Pin pub in Ramsbottom, a market town on the northern edge of Greater Manchester. At the time they were called Mr Soft (or just Soft); it wasn't until 1997 that they changed the name of the band to Elbow ("the loveliest word in the English language"). That year they signed to…Read more The Seldom Seen Kid
Believe
Cher was 70 on Friday and in recognition of her achievements as a singer I've chosen Believe as my Track of the Week. Cher, of course, is not just a singer. Among her many occupations Wikipedia lists actress, author, dancer, songwriter and record producer. She has won an Academy Award, a Grammy, an Emmy, three Golden Globes, and a Cannes Film Festival Award. She…Read more Believe
The Sound of Silence
The Sound of Silence is Paul Simon's vision of a nightmare. It describes a horror that goes far beyond that of a musician who can no longer hear. After all, Beethoven and Evelyn Glennie both overcame profound deafness to reach the pinnacle of musical achievement. No, this is a fate worse than deafness. It is a world of complete…Read more The Sound of Silence
Burn the Witch
There's a lot wrong with the world, I'm sure you agree. And it's always other people's fault, isn't it? Those nasty foreigners take our jobs. Terrorists come to our country, bomb our streets and shoot our innocent citizens. Immigrants sponge off the state and we, the tax payers, see our hard-earned beer money wasted on those…Read more Burn the Witch
I’d Rather Go Blind
Sometimes there's a moment when everything falls into place. You've been searching high and low for the beautiful lady you danced with yesterday. Hundreds of women have tried on the glass slipper but it fits none of them. Then, just when you think you will never find her, a grubby servant girl in ragged clothes slips her foot into the…Read more I’d Rather Go Blind
Take Five
Never was a track less likely to trouble the pop charts. Take Five is a jazz piece; it's an instrumental; it's in 5/4 time; and it was supposed to be a drum solo. In spite of all that Take Five reached number 25 on the US Billboard charts and did even better in the UK, spending 14…Read more Take Five
From the Underworld
It had been miserable weather for several days when, on Wednesday, the skies cleared, the sun came out and the first warm day of Spring beckoned to us. Mrs Crotchety and I had a free afternoon so we drove the few miles from our house to Bradgate Park for a bit of fresh air. Bradgate is an old…Read more From the Underworld
An Awesome Wave
An Awesome Wave was the debut album by Alt-J (Crotchety Man's band of the year 2014). It's an astonishingly mature release for a first album but perhaps that shouldn't be so surprising given that the band was formed nearly five years before the album hit the shops in 2012. The title is a quote from the film American Psycho, which hints at an…Read more An Awesome Wave
Crotchety Man 