And Off to Beautiful Canterbury

On Wednesday I finally made my little trip out to Canterbury in the County of Kent

in Southern England. In fact it was a relief to get out of hot and sticky London for a cooler

climate. And my main port of call was to visit the beautiful Westgate Gardens where the

Stour River runs with tourists taking guided punt boat trips up and down while day trippers

look on.

But did I perhaps plan my trip there too early into the Summer as there was no riverside

Summer bedding plants on the river banks. Perhaps the Parks department are running a

bit behind. It was after all an online image of the flowers by the river bank that sold

me the whole idea of visiting Westgate Gardens.

Online image inserted below. The rest of the images are ones I took.

And very visible along the River Stour is the historic Westgate Towers, built in 1308 and is

one of England's longest surviving Medieval Gateways.

I did later venture into the more crowded old town and had a brief look around the front of

the historical Canterbury Cathedral.

And so with much of the Summer ahead it will be tempting to make another visit.

WESTGATE TOWERS

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL

WESTGATE GARDENS

 

Walter Matthau Tells a Funny Joke on The Tonight Show

British fans of the long running U.S chat show The Tonight Show with King of the

chat shows Johnny Carson, were treated to the tail end of this American institution

when ITV showed some of the final shows on late night tv back in the early 1990's.

The long running show aired from 1962 right up to May 1992.

And what attracted tv viewers to this show was that you knew you were going to see the

cream of the crop, the top people in Hollywood as well as up and coming new comedians.

In this funny video above, Walter Matthau is joined by his acting partner Jack Lemmon

and tells a joke about men's problems in their advancing years. And it's the punchline that

fills the imagination with a horrible vision.

Some of my favourite Walter Matthau films would surely be...

The Fortune Cookie (1966)  The Front Page (1974) The Sunshine Boys (1975) 

with George Burns and of course Grumpy Old Men (1993), again with Jack Lemmon.

And the famous film director behind much of Matthau's career success was Billy Wilder.

More youtube videos from the Tonight Show HERE

Japanese Pop Is Getting Really Wild!

For some time now J-Pop (Japanese Pop) has lived in the shadows of the global phenomenon

we know as K-Pop.

But one J-Pop group that's gaining attention is White Jam, lead by it's charismatic front man

Shirose Takahito, who amazingly turned 40 this month.

He's often described as being provocative as well as being somewhat ambiguous on stage.

And being half Japanese and half Korean it has allowed him to collaborate and create songs

for various other K-Pop groups like SHINee, TVXQ, Da Ice and Deep.

Some links below for White Jam and Shirose.

SHIROSE FACEBOOK - INSTAGRAM - YOUTUBE - WHITE JAM PAGE

WHITE JAM K-POP PROFILE