Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do! - Music - Let's Talk About... - The Kinks.

Hi!!!

I'm so glad that I'm back in the blogging seat, and I'm going to take advantage of the Bank Holiday weekend and try to write lots. Today, I wanted to do a bit of a spotlight post about The Kinks, because they are great and they have cropped up in my mind a lot lately. So, lets tear and share some thoughts, some favourites and some articles.
This is a whole new kind of post over here, so maybe this can become a series... Let me know what you think!

Let's Talk About The Kinks.

The Kinks hit the big time back in the 60s (an era which we love, don't we?).

The Kinks were comprised of the Davies brothers, Ray and Dave, as well as Mick Avory and Pete Quaife, a bunch of "misfit" boys from Muswell Hill with a whole load of talent.

The Kinks are one of the most important and influential bands and some of the best musicians ever and I love them.

Four of my favourite songs by The Kinks:

• This Time Tomorrow (LISTEN HERE).
• All Day and All of the Night (LISTEN HERE).
• Waterloo Sunset (LISTEN HERE).
• You Really Got Me (LISTEN HERE).

Three reasons to love The Kinks:

• Their music is iconic, amazing, very influential and will make your ears happy.
• The personalities of their band members. 
• Their effortless cool.

 Two of things I would like:

• Tickets to go see Sunny Afternoon (FIND IT HERE)
• A copy of Ray Davies : A Complicated Life, a biography by Johnny Rogan (FIND IT HERE)

One of my favourite interviews related to The Kinks:

• Johnny Rogan's interview with Ray Davies (READ IT OVER HERE)

That's a wrap! I truly hope that you have enjoyed this post today and found it interesting.

Do you like The Kinks? Have you discovered anything new in this post? Let me know in the comments below?

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Have a completely and totally wonderful day!

GingerSnaps xxx

Oh My Life! - Tales Of My Life and Times - Road Trip!, Disney Sing-a-Longs, Air Guitars, THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR, Gavin and Stacey Times and Mr Blue Sky!

Hi!!!

Today's post is a good'un! (I know, I'm so modest...) Alllll the way back in April, I went to the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff with one of my favourites ever - of course, my ever fabulous best friend Elf Girl (find her tiny elf-self HERE) - and it was, as you can imagine, a pretty epic day.

From where we live, it takes about two and a half hours to get to Cardiff, but we know how to handle such road trips - with air guitars and rock songs and Disney soundtracks and selfies in traffic, which is just the best. Like, seriously, I had such a great time spending two and a half hours sat in a car!

When we got to Cardiff, we had something to eat before heading over to the giant blue thing that is the Doctor Who Experience.
We bought our tickets and then had a bit of a walk round, taking photos of the bits and bobs that are sat lining the queue.

Once you get inside, there's the Interactive Experience that gets you much more involved in it all. I don't want to spoil it for any of you Whovians out there, but it is awesome!
Do it the GingerSnaps and Elf Girl way and make sassy comments the whole way around, feel confused about why random people keep talking to you and always elbow your way to the front.

Upon leaving the interactive bit, we entered the Exhibition Hall which is where all of the sets and artefacts are.
We ran around like crazy people trying to see everything and take photos with everything and we did pretty bloomin well. We also had our photo taken in the TARDIS - twice - and saw lots of really interesting things. There is more up the stairs from here, from lots of more recent episodes, which is cool, and we had loads of fun being silly and trying to pose like we were "running away from the bad guys" which inevitably involved falling over! Ooops! 

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Mermaid Quay, which is right by the experience, entering the children's colouring competition at Starbucks - including a FRIENDS reference - and making it to the wall (!!!), and heading out to Barry to fangirl over Gavin & Stacey and to get ourselves on every kids arcade ride possible (including a rollercoaster simulator on which we nearly lost a purse!)

The way home included singing ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) and Queen at the very tip top of our lungs and lots of laughing.

So, thanks to Elf Girl for asking me to join her, I had such an absolutely brilliant time. Go and check out her excellent blog (HERE), and the posts she has done about our day (HERE) and (HERE), the latter includes captions of epic proportions for some of the photos seen here, and some of her own - should make you chuckle.

To find out more about the Doctor Who Experience, click (ME).

Thank you for reading, I hope that you have enjoyed this post, and that this was interesting - especially for the Whovians amongst you.

Have you been to the Doctor Who Experience? What did you think? Would you like to go? Do you have any comments or suggestions for future posts that you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments below.

See you all soon,

 

Have an superb day!

 

GingerSnaps xxx

 

"Let The Memory Live On" - The 70th Anniversary of VE Day

Hi!!!

So, normally, my first post of the month is my Summary of the previous month, but I haven't quite finished that yet and I really wanted to write this post. I will address my serious lack of posts in the Summary, but for now, lets talk VE Day.

Disclaimer - As with all posts concerning these sensitive issues, I am not here to blame etc. - I am here to remember and I think we can all agree that this is very important. xxx

On the 8th of May 1945, 70 years ago, the news that everyone had been waiting for finally came - the war in Europe was over.

VE stands for Victory in Europe and crowds and crowds of people celebrated this news.

Everyone and their dogs were celebrating - often literally, with some dogs sporting colourful bows! People wore the colours of the Union Jack - red, white and blue - as the sounds of celebratory bells ringing drifted across the UK, boats on the Thames sounded their horns, some airplanes even performed victory rolls across the sky.

People decorated their homes and their streets and celebrations, big and small, took place which reflect the joy that was felt by those in the UK.

VE Day is a day that we should celebrate still, and commemorate.

 I truly believe that the way the world changed at the end of the war should be remembered, and the joy that people felt should always be cherished.

VE Day was a joyful day, but also bittersweet for many and throughout the commemorative celebrations taking place for the anniversary, I feel that a part of us all should remember that.

 We should remember the terrible losses people experienced, as well as all of the joy and celebration - the Royal British Legion state that 382,700 members of the British Armed Forces and 67,100 civilians were killed during the war, and of course other countries experienced awful losses too.

There are loads of things going on over this weekend in London (as well as up and down the UK) to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of VE Day - some of which have already happened, like the service at the Cenotaph and the lighting of the beacons - and some are still yet to come, like the "A Party To Remember" concert (which will be broadcast on BBC One tomorrow if you can't be there in person, like me) and the ringing of church bells as well as the Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster on Sunday.

Even if you won't be going to any of these events, or won't be watching on telly, I do hope you spend time remembering the importance of this celebration in your own little way.

You could even have a little mini at home celebration if you wanted to.

I think I'll sport victory rolls in my hair and red, white and blue this weekend.

And there is of course the "Kiss for VE Day" hashtag to get involved with too.

Whatever you do, give it some thought over the next few days and reflect.

So, let's never forget the people that lost their lives during the Second World War, civilian or service personnel, no matter where they were from. Let's respect them all.

And let's also never forget the joy that was felt in the hearts of the people when the war finally ended. Let's always aim for peace.

And remember, we must never forget.

xxx

For more information about everything discussed, from VE Day itself, to info on the events taking place, to viewing stories and photographs from people who were there, head on over the ever wonderful Royal British Legion's VE Day 70 website, linked (HERE). You can also find a link to a donation page, should you wish to give the Royal British Legion a donation, at the bottom of the website linked.

Also, I would highly recommend checking out (THIS) whimsical and informative video from the Royal British Legion about VE Day, its well worth a watch - and while you're there, give it a big thumbs up ("like it"), because its very deserving of it.

That will be all for today then, guys. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and that I will see you back here soon to read up on what I got up to in April - it was pretty cool!

Will you be going to any VE Day celebrations? Or watching them on telly? Do you have any comments or suggestions for future posts? Let me know in the comments.

See you lovely people soon!

Have a splendid day!

GingerSnaps xxx