Tag: Don Spencer

My Life in Albums: The Early Years

I was born BCB. That is Before Colin Buchanan. So I was raised on a diet of ABC for kids music. This meant Don Spencer, Peter Combe, and those CDs that came out numbered. They had the timetables songs and stuff like the song about the boys who put the powder on the noses of the ladies of the harem of the court of King Caractacus.

Here are some YouTube trips down memory lane…

Apparently Peter Combe now plays pub gigs for people who grew up listening to his music.

Then there was Don Spencer, now Russell Crowe’s father-in-law.

Oh, and who could forget Joe Dolce’s On Top of Spaghetti

And Ross Higgin’s Monster Mash.

I did eventually grow up. And, perhaps more important were my trips to mum and dad’s CD shelf. I grew up with Paul Simon. I’d play Graceland whenever I could, and I have pretty early memories of the lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer running around in my head. And Dire Straits Brothers in Arms album was another favourite.

But, perhaps the longest lasting musical memory, is the Motorcycle Song, by Arlo Guthrie (from his Best Of).

March 6, 2011

Open the bloodgates

Mosquitoes are nasty little bloodsuckers. Not to mention carriers of dangerous disease. So how should we educate the public on the danger? Cartoon infomercials? How bout unleashing a swarm on unsuspecting conference delegates?

The Queensland Government is spending a bit of money educating the general public on the perils of Dengue fever. The longer TV ads feature warnings not to wear dark clothes. Apparently dark clothes attrack the little Aussie mozzie. Who’d have thought. Perhaps a resurrection of Don Spencer’s “Little Aussie Mozzie” song would have been an appropriate piece of educational propaganda:

What may not be the most politically correct piece of anti-mozzie propaganda – but was no doubt more effective – was a decision by Bill Gates to release a swarm of mosquitoes on an unsuspecting audience at a Technology and Design conference in California.

February 5, 2009