Sociability. Plus a musical quiz

You might think that a couple of people taking their boat up the canal for days on end would lack for company. Far from it. I should think that hardly an hour has gone by without us striking up a conversation with somebody or other. Gongoozlers at locks, excited kids wanting to help with pushing the lock gates, dog walkers who stop for a chat when we're moored up, and other boaters sharing locks with us. And all so friendly. It's lovely. Add to that, the old friends we meet on the way, Mr & Mrs Rainman who come for a ride, Leon on The Old Bovine who came out to great us when we stopped for lunch at Apsley, Carol and George for whom we paused for several minutes mid canal as we passed Still Rockin', then this morning, volunteer friend Richard on his way back south after boating from London to Milton Keynes. It's almost like we're never on our own.

Of course we've had the evenings to ourselves.

Last night we sat by the fire and enjoyed listening to a play list I hastily knocked together on the iPad (we play it back through the boat radio). A lot of our musical favourites are I suppose pretty obscure, and I was wondering how many of these songs anyone would know. Have a go at this list below, which I've split into two parts. The first half dozen are pretty well known. How many of them can you guess from the initial letters of the song titles? One point for each.

 

Simon and Garfunkel - OF

Dire Straits. -RAJ

Elbow - ODLT

Tom Paxton - TLTOMM

Joni Mitchell - C (not Carey)

Nanci Griffith - FAD

 

Then we get on to the lesser known ones. I reckon most people would be doing well to be aware of the existence of most of these, so I'll give you the artist and the title and all you have to do is to name one other song recorded by the artist to show that you know about them. Points for each as indicated depending my guess at their level of obscurity

Alison Krauss - Away down the river - 2 points

Mary Black - Farewell farewell - 2 points

Mississippi John Hurt - Louis Collins - 3 points

Anna Ryder - Gone - 5 points

Iris Dement - Our Town - 3 points

Barry Dransfield - Wings of the Sphynx - 4 points

Chris Wood and Andy Cutting - When first I came to Caledonia - 4 points

Rita Connolly -Venezuela - 5 points

Martin and Jessica Simpson - We were all heroes - 6 points (or 3 points for one of Martin on his own)

These are all brilliant tracks and amongst our old favourites, well we think they are. If I had to pick one and say go download that and listen, it might be Rita Connolly.

Anybody scoring ten points or more would surprise me. Anyone scoring 20 would astonish me. Well I suppose Simon might if he reads this.

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