Songs from "Call the Midwife" - The Christmas Special 2019

I struggled right from the start (I couldn't write get go) to identify the song that was playing when the nurses were packing for their trip to Scotland. Any advice would be welcome. Tunefind ignore the Christmas Specials and the list on the BBC website is incomplete.

Thanks to Vicki Williams, the Music Supervisor for Call the Midwife, I can now confirm that this song is Till The End Of The Day by The Kinks. Vicki also corrected the two last singers below.

These are the other songs from this episode.:

Sleigh Ride by The Ronettes

Hippy Hippy Shake by The Swinging Blue Jeans

Jingle Bell Rock by Brenda Lee

Merry Little Christmas by Doris Day

There are other tracks listed on the BBC website for Call the Midwife, but I must have missed them or they were not there.

Gavin and Stacey - The Christmas Special - The Songs (Most of Them)

Unfortunately, there is no mention of the music supervisor in the end credits of this year's Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special so I have had to do my best with recognising the songs by ear. There may be things wrong with the following list, so any corrections would be welcome:

Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin' Stevens

Lonely this Christmas by Mud

Step into Christmas by Elton John

Jingle Bell Rock. My favourite Christmas song is by Brenda Lee

Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt

Dreadlock Holiday by Bony M

Christmas Isn't Christmas Till You Get Here by Kylie Minogue

Christmas by Michael Buble

Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney

The last two songs are repeated in the pub where the following song is played:

Christmas Lights by Coldplay

Last Request by Paolo Nutini

Fairy Tale of New York by The Pogues

Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade

There is a very short burst from possibly a Spanish song?

The Christmas Song. The famous duet is by Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, but not this time.

Tell Me Tomorrow I'll Wait By The Window by Stephen Fretwell

Tring Book Club - Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

Just read "Mothering Sunday" for a second time as it was a choice for my book club. It was even better this time around and as a result I have upped my rating from four stars to five. I was so impressed that although it is written in the third person, it really seems like the twenty two year old narrator Jane is telling the story. Although it all takes place on that day in March 1924, we hear about her early life and what happens to her in the future. But more than anything, we hear her thoughts and imaginings of what else is happening on that day. This is quite exceptional.

Previous review:
For such a short book (actually a novella) it packs plenty of punch. In 1924, Jane Fairchild is a maid who spends the day from which the book has it's title, with the son of friends of her employer. Or should I say morning, as Paul has to meet his bride to be for lunch. So Jane has plenty of time to explore the empty mansion and contemplate her young life. Then halfway through, just a few words changes everything.

Then in an intricate construction the author turns everything on it's head until regaining forward momentum towards the end. How Swift is able to delve so deep into the characters and say so much about the human condition in such a short book is amazing. I was sorry that it only lasted a couple of days. 

Paris Echo, Abide With Me and Paradise Lodge

I was looking forward to the new novel from Sebastian Faulks, but ultimately Paris Echo was a big disappointment. In some ways it just seemed to be a tourist's journey around the places, streets and metro of Paris. Even the penultimate paragraph name checks eight of these. Just as if the author was showing off his new found knowledge of the city. And then the story was just a backdrop to the geography.

Still. the writing was as good as ever, and I liked the alternating chapters of Hannah and Tariq, both written in the first person. Hannah researching the stories of French women during the Nazi occupation, and young Tariq finding our what Paris might have meant to his dead mother. But the writer's research overpowers the their story. 

I thought that this was the weakest of all Elizabeth Strout's novels. I never looked forward to returning to, what on the face of it is, a pretty boring story. But her writing just kept me interested to the end. The book is full of gossip, back biting, snarling and downright anger. Tyler Caskey, the minister of West Annett, tries to stay calm, but even he is beginning to wilt.

I enjoyed the time change in the middle, but the tone never lets up. Was this the writer railing against small town attitudes? I could have done with more of the clashes of big city wealth and the town's small minded citizens. But in the hands of our accomplished author, it is never dull. 

After reading Nina Stibbe's first novel "Man at the Helm", I found "Paradise Lodge to be much better. We do seem to be following the author's early life, what with the former's narrator Lizzie Vogel being nine years old, and here she is now fifteen. There are no literary gimmicks as a linear story follows Lizzie working in an old folks home in Leicestershire, of all places. At fifteen?

School does seem to take a very back seat as her mother is more interested in a new relationship and her own problems. But there are some great characters at Paradise Lodge and lots of humour in the events that follow. A light, warm and clever story that has some very funny highlights. 

Le Mans '66, Knives Out and Ordinary Love

A highly entertaining film with Christian Bale as Ken Miles in his best ever role. The scenes of cars racing around a track are pretty boring, but that maybe just me. Matt Damon was fine, but it was Caitriona Balfe in the small role of Ken's wife that was hugely impressive. The screenplay from  from Jez Butterworth and two others veers between ordinary and brilliant. It is when it's good that makes this movie well worth seeing. James Mangold directs with style.

Knives Out is another entertaining movie. An American cinematic whodunit with an Agatha Christie type cast brought together following the death of patriarch Christopher Plummer. Much more of a whodunit  than a howdunit. I guessed that early on and I'm notorious for never doing that. Daniel Craig is the private investigator whose southern accent lapses more than once. Rian Johnson deserves great credit for both writing and directing.

Despite the excellent reviews for Ordinary Love, I found it hard going. Yes, the acting from Lesley Manville in particular was superb, but the story was unremittingly bleak. OK, it was all about cancer treatment, and there were some lighter moments, but it's not surprising it gained only a small audience. Owen McCafferty has written an intelligent screenplay but it is the NHS that is the star of the show.

An Alternative to Running - The Indoor Exercise Bike

Whilst my plantar fasciitis stops me from running, I am in the garage on the exercise bike. To stop me from getting bored, I have the laptop on the shelf above the fridge and watch those programmes that are of no interest to Alison. They are: