Off-topic Sunday with US correspondent, Serge Fabergé. One has found much spare time now that cafe society has been restricted - even with the yoga, the sales of the special sourdough, binge-watching and building a motorcycle in the salle (Guided by this excellent 'How To Build A Motorcycle' book available on this very site no less) there has been time for cultural pursuits. Binge-watching Midsomer Murders has been pushed aside for revisiting and re-evaluating Bo Diddley, and

I struggle to work in my office without music in the background, but I can't have the radio, the DJ chatter is too distracting, and I'm still a CD or vinyl person, not jumped on the Spotify revolution yet. Being a dimwit I can't speak any other languages except English, so if I'm concentrating on writing, I like to have foreign voices singing, so I'm not distracted by lyrics. I have a few favourites from 1960s France, especially from the Yeh-Yeh category of French female pop

Off-topic Sunday This is the Welsh Elvis living the maxim, Dance like no one's watching,.. The syndicated TV show, This is Tom Jones, ran from 1969 to '71. The caption on this performance says 1969, and the 99% female crowd's hairdos point to that, though the dancefloor and Tom's clothing dated it a bit later for me, but I wasn't around, and 1969 is a few years after the peak of my 60s cultural touchstones, so I can't argue. I'm posting this because A, Tom's dancing is someth

It's seems quite a while since we had an off-topic Sunday, but this one is back with a bang. This is the Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness, Mr Dynamite, Soul Brother Number One, Mr James Brown, live on stage, doing a 180mph version of Night Train, at a pace so foot to the floor it's barely recognisable. I've posted a video of the original song below to illustrate the difference, between this orgasmic blast of showmanship and the pleasant lolloping, mi