Yesterday’s Music Today
A phrase is a part of a sentence, that does not contain a verb.
Many phrases begin with a preposition.
…across the field
…under the table
…above the clouds
…like a tiger
…beneath the sea
…from a window
…in the basket
…on one leg
…before six o’clock
…with a broad smile
The word ‘got’ is used to excess and children should be encouraged to avoid it wherever possible.
Its repetitive usage stunts their ability to find a more descriptive word.
It can be replaced in sentences by such words as: arrived, reached, bought, purchased, commenced, possessed, received…
Of course, they will have to learn to spell words of more than three letters! Yet, we used to manage it.
As one of our comedians quipped the other day, “The only place you’ll find a brain soon will be in a jar!”
In many instances the presence of ‘got” in a sentence is needless, like our own appendix, it serves no purpose!
The sentence: ‘Barbara has got a new car.’ can be rewritten with the omission of ‘got’, without making any change to the sentence’s meaning.
Barbara has a new car.
‘I’ve got five friends.’
becomes: I’ve five friends. OR I have five friends.
1. Albatross (1968) Fleetwood Mac
2. Beat Me, Daddy, Eight To The Bar (1940) Will Bradley and his Orchestra; vocalist: Ray McKinley
3. See My Baby Jive (1973) Wizzard
4. Then He Kissed Me (1963) The Crystals
5. Something In The Air (1969) Thunderclap Newman
6. The Children Of The Revolution (1972) T. Rex
7. Smoky Mountain Rain (1980) Ronnie Milsap
8. King Size Papa (1948) Julia Lee and her Boyfriends
9. Kung Fu Fighting (1974) Carl Douglas
10. Big Man (1958) The Four Preps
11. Still The One (1976) Orleans
12. The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise (1951) Les Paul and Mary Ford
13. Won’t Get Fooled Again (1971) The Who
14. Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa (1963) Gene Pitney
15. Ramblin Man (1973) The Allman Brothers Band
16. Every Beat Of My Heart (1961) The Pips
17. You Got What It Takes (1959) Marv Johnson
18. We Will Make Love (1957) Russ Hamilton
19. Brush Those Tears From Your Eyes (1948) Evelyn Knight
20. Once A Day (1964) Connie Smith
21. Don’t You Know I Love You (1951) The Clovers
22. Black And White (1972) Three Dog Night
23. Bop Girl (1983) Pat Wilson
24. Glass Of Champagne (1975) Sailor
25. Stranded In The Jungle (1956) The Cadets
26. Since I Fell For You (1963) Lenny Welch
27. That’s The Way God Planned It (1969) Billy Preston
28. I’m Walking The Dog (1953) Webb Pierce
29. I Got You (1980) Split Enz
30. The Cisco Kid (1973) War
31. It Was A Tear (1957) The Drifters
32. Super Kind Of Woman (1973) Freddie Hart
33. Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1967) Traffic
34. Tennessee Wig Walk (1953) Bonnie Lou
35. Ram-Bunk-Shush (1961) The Ventures
36. Dancing Chandelier (1957) Sylvia Syms
37. Pretty Little Angel Eyes (1961) Curtis Lee
38. You Just As Well Let Her Go (1936) Casey Bill Weldon
39. 66-5-4-3-2-1 (1966) The Troggs
40. Skin Deep (1984) The Stranglers
Answers to ‘How Dinky-di Are You?
1. Torch
2. Thongs
3. Holiday
4. Prawns
5. Fairy Floss
6. Home Unit (Unit), Flat
7. Petrol
8. Spanner
9. Lift
10. (Tomato) Sauce
11.Windscreen
12. Footpath
Ratings:
12 correct answers means that you are ‘Ridgy Didge Dinky-di’
10 or 11: almost ‘Ridgy Didge’
6-9: a ‘Ridgy Didge’ impersonator
Five or less: Censored (Sit for the test, again, next week)
N.B. No correspondence shall be entered into.
Warning: The following test should not be attempted by non-Australians.
Can you provide the ‘dinky-di’ equivalents to the following?
1. Flashlight
2. Flip-flops
3. Vacation
4. Shrimps
5. Candy Floss, Cotton Candy
6. Condominium (Condo), Apartment
7. Gasoline
8. Wrench
9. Elevator
10. Ketchup
11. Windshield
12. Pavement, Sidewalk
Answers, together with your rating, are displayed beneath ‘The Top 40 Fantasies No. 3’.
Adjectives (also, informally, known as “describing” words) are linked to nouns in sentences.
They can serve to tell us ‘how many’ e.g., Ten soldiers stood on the ridge.
In this sentence ‘Ten’ is the adjective, as it informs us as to how many ‘soldiers’ were present.
Adjectives can also inform us as to ‘what kind’ the noun is.
The colourful parrot flew over the house.
In the above sentence the adjective, ‘colourful’, describes the parrot’s appearance.
Occasionally, more than one adjective might be used to describe a noun.
For example, in the sentence:
The sleek, grey car belongs to Tommy’s father.
Both ‘sleek’ and ‘grey’ describe the noun, ‘car’.
Sometimes, when more than one adjective is used to describe a noun, a comma is placed between the adjectives.
I heard it claimed the other day that the world is experiencing less wars than at any time in its history. Whilst this might or might not be the case, it does not mean that losses and gains in the global environment aren’t afoot.
Not all of these are in Europe and the Middle East. It is well documented that China has effectively assumed control of the South China Sea although shipping, in general, has not been hindered to any marked degree.
While the administration of President Trump works on ‘putting America first’ and adopting a policy of isolationism, China has been steadily spreading its influence in Australia and the South Pacific.
A couple of years ago, our Liberal/National Party conservative government, in its wisdom, allowed China to lease Darwin’s harbour for a term of ninety-nine years. Not even the then President Obama was made aware until after the fact, when he expressed his obvious surprise — and perhaps privately, his dismay.
Just last year the independent Tasmanian M.P., Andrew Wilkie, stated that the Labor Party of New South Wales — currently in opposition — had been ‘bought’ by the Chinese government. A claim to which the party did not publicly respond.
This claim could have current relevance as the federal Labor Party has chosen not to give its support to the government of P.M. Turnbull and its desire to sign a revised Trans-Pacific Partnership — brokered since America’s much-heralded withdrawal from the original pact — with ten other countries; none of which is China.
More recently it has become evident that China has reportedly invested some three-quarters of a billion dollars in our closest neighbour, Papua-New Guinea, and perhaps half that in Samoa and, from memory, the Solomon Islands.
Australian authorities have voiced their concern that should these loans be ‘called in’ the countries’ economies would be found to be wanting and, therefore, each nation could be asked to provide a ‘favour’.
By the way, Samoa is about half an hour’s flight from American Samoa, which possesses arguably the finest deep-water harbour in the South Pacific.
In January of 2018 the United Kingdom’s leading military advisor asked the government of P.M. May to provide for a meaningful increase in its spending on defence, as he was of the opinion that the country would not be capable of repelling an attack from Russia.
Some three years ago, I expressed my belief to an American that the Western World could not afford to continue its usage of the internet. After he had looked at me as though I had suddenly sprouted a second head, all I could offer him in support of my statement was the fact that so many Australians were — and still are — being duped of their savings. In addition to me recounting of how I had witnessed footage on one of our local news bulletins that purported to show large rooms filled with Russian women busily typing…on typewriters.
Just last month I observed an alleged expert state that crime via the cyber universe is predicted to increase threefold in the next decade.
As if this isn’t disturbing enough, last year, a medical report claimed that due to the excessive and obsessive usage of modern technology, newborns could expect to be declared legally blind by the time they turned fifty years of age.
Here we go again! Commentators of the sport comparing another batsman, in the same breath, to the feats of the legendary Donald Bradman. Currently it is the Australian captain, Steve Smith.
In the early 2000s it was Matthew Hayden who was the ‘new’ Bradman and, somewhat later, Michael ‘Mr Cricket’ Hussey when his average in Tests had risen to a lofty eighty-seven, yet still short of Bradman’s 99.94.
Hayden’s average upon his retirement was approximately fifty-four and Hussey’s fifty-three. I can’t be anymore precise than that because, in the last two decades, I have virtually lost nearly all of my interest in the game that has changed so much within the last twenty years. When I do watch it, it is because Tiki has a genuine interest in it.
Changed sufficiently, to mean that batsmen’s statistics that have been accumulated in this century should never be compared to those of Bradman’s era or even the 1980s and 1990s. Nor should the centuries scored because of the official changes that have been inflicted upon the game. A century scored today doesn’t even equate to one scored twenty or thirty years ago, never mind in Bradman’s time as a player. The commentators and statisticians would believe such centuries do, however, purists of the game know otherwise.
The reasons for me stating this are varied. Some that readily come to mind, but not in any order of particular significance, are:
1. The fact that in the early decades of Tests, the matches were of a timeless duration. Teams would play until a result was achieved.
2. There are now three forms of the game: five-day Tests, one-day (50-overs per side) matches and the considerably more frenzied T20 (20-over) matches. Whilst I recognise that ‘one-dayers’ have existed since the early 1970s, they weren’t played in such profusion. It is my belief that today’s batsmen who play regularly in one or both non-traditional shortened versions of the sport become ‘schooled’ in the handling of the different situations that arise during Test matches.
3. Bradman played thirty-seven of his fifty-two Tests against the paramount opposition of the time, namely England. He did not get to play on the postage-stamp grounds of the West Indies nor was he afforded the opportunity to play against what have been referred to in some quarters as ‘minnows’. At the close of 2017, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa defeated one such ‘minnow’, Zimbabwe, in less than two days.
4. Prior to the relatively recent advent of professionalism, players, such as Bradman, had to work at jobs to support themselves and any members of their respective families. When the Australians would tour England to contest the Ashes, teams would have to spend six weeks aboard a ship in order to reach that destination.
5. Not only was Bradman a part-time cricketer he had to forgo playing the sport at an international level from 1939-’45, due to the outbreak and continuance of war.
6. While I stated that my grievances against cricket as it is today are not in order of their significance, should I be doing thus the introduction of the usage of ropes as boundaries would definitely be at the top of this list.
What a ridiculous and needless adjunct to the game this has proven to be!
I particularly recall tests held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground when the boundary rope was perhaps thirty to forty metres in from the actual fence. From memory, Matthew Hayden was very much the beneficiary of this when he amassed what became a record score on Australian soil. As if such a boundary didn’t distort his score sufficiently, his record innings was made against none other country than Zimbabwe, a nation whose sides would struggle to defeat a grade side in Sydney.
When ropes were introduced to international cricket in Australia, I remember it was stated to be deemed necessary because a few players had slid into the fence feet-first and injured themselves. However, since the introduction of the rope it appears to me that the number of injuries has increased quite noticeably. I attribute this to the fact that a fieldsman has less time in which to stop the ball, therefore, more often than not this results in him diving headlong at the rope, whilst he is still moving at at full speed.
I remain unconvinced that injuries brought about the drastic change to boundaries. Instead, it is my belief that the real reasons were twofold. Firstly, Bradman’s average for batsmen who have played a minimum of fifty Tests had stood, and still does, head and shoulders above the others and after more than half a century plans were afoot to hopefully make this to be no longer the case. After all, the mantra in sport is that records are made to be broken! Secondly, once rope boundaries were just that, ropes, now they are a means of advertising sponsors’ products. There are even hoardings erected which display advertisements between the actual former boundary — the fence — and the ‘rope’. This not only benefits the advertisers, it gives the illusion that the ‘rope’ is closer to the actual “real” boundary, i.e. the fence, than it is.
Previously, to score a six the ball had to clear the fence which was a metre or more in height. Now the ball only has to clear the ‘rope’ that is placed on the ground, as previously stated, usually at a distance that ranges from between five and twelve metres inside the field’s actual perimeter. The difference between the scoring of a “real” six and the modern variety could require a differentiation in the actual distance required of up to fifteen to twenty metres, dependent upon a ball’s trajectory.
7. Nowadays, the meticulously mowed fields are more akin to a green on which to play bowls than cricket. Balls move across their surface as if it were glass.
8. Pitches weren’t always covered as they are now. Who can remember that last day at Perth’s W.A.C.A. in December, 2017 when the result of the Test hung in the balance and several men with blower-vac’s were attempting to dry it to England’s satisfaction, as time ebbed away and Australia was the only team with a hope of victory.
9. Don’t get me started on the difference in bats, to those used in the time of Bradman. They are as thick, as half of the width of the one’s that were at his disposal!
The situation became so farcical that even some former players of quality called for a reversion to make them appear more like the bats of even twenty years ago.
Added to this, of course, there were no such things as computers to assist in determining the ultimate so-called ‘sweet-spot’ in the construction of a bat.
In summary, there may never be a true equivalent to Bradman, that masterly batsman who once scored more than three hundred runs in a day’s play against England, in England, in the early 1930s. The man who still managed to score a century in the infamous series of ‘Bodyline’, when the bowlers in the English side deliberately aimed at the bodies of the Australians, while their captain, Douglas Jardine, employed a packed on-side field. Interestingly, they possessed none of the armoury that batsmen are equipped with today.
Is it any wonder that past outstanding performers of the game, such as Sachin Tendulkar, and those aspiring to be champions of the game, come to pay homage to the great man at the museum established in his honour in Bowral, New South Wales?
Thank you to all of you who have found my publishings to have been of interest. Even to the gentleman who took the time to give them a rating of “B+”.
I attempt to read each and every one and I don’t mind admitting that one comment was so glowing and so heartfelt that I choked up half of the way through when I chose to read it aloud to Tiki.
Thank you to the gentleman who expressed the view that I “ROCK” and to another for stating so unreservedly that I am an “intelligent man!”.
At a time when people are being trolled to the point of committing suicide, I’m sure you can appreciate just how much I appreciate such comments.
Thank you to the gentleman who informed me recently that he found that my posts were becoming “stale”. Since then I’ve attempted to vary them.
No thanks to the person who told me that he/she lamented the fact that I didn’t have a ‘donate button’ and since its installation, at my expense, still regrets that I don’t have one.
Presently, entertaining and attempting to inform you is my top priority and whilst glowing comments inspire me, it does deflate me, somewhat, that besides the gentleman who installed the ‘button’, and a friend who donated to ensure that it was still operational, not one other have I received.
I would consider no such donation to be too small. If you wish my contributions to continue as they are, it is up to those of you who can afford to contribute a little to make the effort.
Adverbs, as the name would suggest, add to the verb in a sentence.
Many people incorrectly use the adjective ‘real’ — which can mean genuine — when they should use the adverb ‘really’.
The sentence ‘I feel real good.’ should read ‘I feel really well.’ The adverb, ‘really’, adds emphasis to the verb, ‘feel’.
‘He is a real good player.’ becomes ‘He is a really good player.’
In this instance the adverb, ‘really’, adds to the verb, ‘is’.
Many adverbs end in ‘-ly’ e.g., The bird flew swiftly. She ran quickly (not ‘quick’). He boxed cleverly (not ‘clever’). The runner finished the race strongly (not ‘strong’). The aeroplane landed safely (not ‘safe’).
1. It’s A Heartache (1977) Bonnie Tyler 2. Marie (1937) Tommy Dorsey; vocalist: Jack Leonard
3. Mozart : 1st Movement From Symphony No.40 (1971) Waldo De Los Rios
4. Little Bitty Pretty One (1957) Thurston Harris
5. When You Walk In The Room (1964) The Searchers
6. That’s All Right Mama (1946) Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup
7. Whatever Happened To Old Fashioned Love (1983) B.J. Thomas
8. Let The Good Times Roll (1956) Shirley and Lee
9. I’ll Make You Happy (Just Like Your Mama Wants) (1966) The Easybeats
10. My Hang-Up Is You (1972) Freddie Hart
11. Jingle, Jangle, Jingle (1942) Kay Kyser; vocalists: Julie Conway and Harry Babbitt
12. Funkytown (1980) Lipps Inc.
13. My Sweet Lord (1970) George Harrison
14. At Last (1961) Etta James
15. Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car (1988) Billy Ocean
16. Five O’Clock World (1965) The Vogues
17. The Ballad Of Lover’s Hill (1963) Teresa Brewer
18. Pictures Of Matchstick Men (1968) Status Quo
19. It’s The Little Things (1967) Sonny James
20. I Found A Love (1962) The Falcons
21. Axel F. (1985) Harold Faltermeyer
22. At Last (1942) Glenn Miller; vocalist: Ray Eberle
23. Living Next Door To Alice (1972) The New World
24. I’d Rather Be Sorry (1971) Ray Price
25. Language Of Love (1961) John D. Laudermilk
26. Dear Hearts And Gentle People (1949) Bing Crosby
27. Rock ‘N’ Roll Ruby (1956) Warren Smith
28. Be Bop Boogie (1950) Mustard and Gravy
29. I Ain’t Living Long Like This (1980) Waylon Jennings
30. Marilyn (1952) Ray Anthony; vocals: Tommy Mercer and The Skyliners
31. Numbers Boogie (1949) Sugar Chile Robinson
32. Summer (1976) War
33. In The Middle Of A Heartache (1961) Wanda Jackson
34. When You Walk In The Room (1987) Paul Carrack
35. Parade Of Broken Hearts (1957) Ned Miller
36. Living Next Door To Alice (1976) Smokie
37. Universal Soldier (1965) Donovan
38. Sugar On Sunday (1969) Tommy James and The Shondells
39. Better (1991) The Screaming Jets
40. Ma Belle Marguerite (1947) Georges Guetary