It was only a few years ago that I first heard of Jacques Brel. He was a Belgian singer-songwriter, famed in France for his complex, poetic songs and energetic performances. Although his songs were nearly all in French, they have been widely translated into English – the best known are Scott Walker’s Jackie (Spotify link), an accurate reflection of Brel’s original, and Terry Jacks’s Seasons in the Sun, which is, erm, less so – the original, Le Moribond, has a markedly darker emphasis.

Scott Walker recorded English versions of a number of Brel’s songs, as did David Bowie. Compare versions of Amsterdam by Walker, Brel and Bowie

Anyhoo, the reason I’m writing about Brel now is to plug Radio 2’s three-part documentary about his life and music, Behind the Brel. You’ve missed episode 1, I’m afraid, but episode 2 is on the iPlayer and episode 3 will be on Radio 2 on Tuesday night at 11.30pm. At the time of writing, obviously. If you’re in the far distant future, you may need to hunt the space internet for a copy of visit your local space library.

You can of course read more about Jacques Brel on teh Wikipedia.

Well, as a way of making sure I post at least once a week, this series is doing its job so far – even if I haven’t had time to post in between lists.

This week’s list of celebrities and other persons of note who have cropped up in my family history research. Some of them are distant relatives by marriages (and have been mentioned on this blog before); the others are direct relations.

• Tony Benn – Not news to long time readers of this blog as it’s been mentioned before but the Howellses and the Benns are joined by marriage, as recorded on thepeerage.com. By virtue of this marriage, I can also include
• Hilary Benn, and
• Margaret Rutherford – her father having changed their name from Benn after murdering his father…
• John Edward Emile (Von) Holtorp – Another relative by marriage I’ve mentioned before (his son married my great-great-aunt), Holtorp was a member of the General Council of the International, alongside Karl Marx.
• Frank Bough – yes, that Frank Bough. His wife Nesta (née Howells) is my third cousin once removed.
• Rees Howells – Nesta’s great-uncle and the founder of the Bible College of Wales. I talked a bit about him in this podcast, and he’s on Wikipedia too.
• Richard John Blackler – My great-great-uncle and the founder of Blacker’s, a large department store that operated for about 80 years in the centre of Liverpool. George Harrison briefly trained as an electrician there in the 1960s. The old store building is now host to a number of smaller outlets including a Wetherspoons pub called The Richard John Blackler.

Got any interesting/notorious/celebrity relatives? Do share in the comments 🙂

In honour of my writing this from Lib Dem spring conference in Birmingham, today’s (short) list is Pop Songs That Name Constituencies With Liberal Democrat MPs. It’s also inspired by the first entry on the list, which – bizarrely – was being sung outside the conference hotel in the early hours last night.

Despite our 63 MPs, few constituencies are likely to appear in song lyrics because they contain qualifiers (mainly compass points). So Brent East, Leeds North West, Bristol West, Cardiff Central and Oxford West and Abingdon are unlikely to feature.

I’ve managed to come up with six. Any additions in the comments please.

• Jackie by Scott Walker – Twickenham
• From Rochdale to Ocho Rios by 10cc – Rochdale
• Boston (Ladies of Cambridge) by Vampire Weekend – Cambridge (there must be more that mention Cambridge)
• Winchester by Emmy the Great – Winchester
• Chesterfield King by Jawbreaker – Chesterfield
• Taunton Exhibition by The Bus Station Loonies – Taunton

All right, I got the last couple from Google.

I’ve spent much of the day at my computer without writing anything other than emails, so I thought I’d write a blog post.

I’m currently eating some cheese. I don’t eat cheese. When I tell people this, they’re often stunned, as if I’ve just announced that I have a third nipple or have joined the Tories or have found a good Michael Bay film.

“How can you not eat cheese?”
“Well, I don’t put it in my mouth.”
“But cheese is lovely. I love cheese.”
“I don’t.”

I do, in fact, eat cheese, but only under certain conditions. If it’s melted – so pizza and lasagne are allowed. Or if it’s got fruit in. The cheese I’m eating at the moment is Wensleydale with Cranberry. This is still the first time I’ve eaten an unmelted cheese in about 10 years. And I’m not enjoying it that much.

But I’m a fussy eater anyway. So to launch this occasional series designed to give me something easy to blog about, here’s a non-exhaustive list of Food I Don ‘t Eat.

• Cheese (mostly)
• Ham
• Gammon
• Prawns
• Sweetcorn
• Anchovies
• Any form of bacon that isn’t a basic unsmoked bacon rasher
• Dark chocolate (usually)
• Salt
• Anything labelled “Organic”

If you happen to be passing this blog post, do share the food you don’t eat in the comments.