Office Tennis: Game Set and Swat! Sometimes you have to act dirty
Some games are hard to win. Take Office Tennis for Instance. Game I got to work one morning Around a quarter to ten. I sipped my coffee, read my Inbox, And it was that then I could feel a funny itching From beneath my clothes. Then I realized a fly had squatted On my nose. I tried to swat it with my backhand, Blot it with my forehand Chase it to the door and Make my name. But i...
The Taite Guide to Gift Shops
Museums were first invented in Paris, France by Jean Paul Yurr Hedoff in 1789. Jean was employed by Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin as a cleaner upper or as they called it in those days a nettoyeur de têtes. It was Jean's job to clean up the mess after a Guillotine. The poor man found that after a few weeks he had quite a collection of disembodied heads and blood stained clothing and a growing crowd of visitors who wa...
The History of Dating
The Caveman Era - the first date He: Uggh She: Uggh yourself He bangs her over head and drags her into the cave. Date over! ================== Romeo and Juliet Romeo [To Juliet] If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. JULIET [to her nurse] I swear, I don't...
Avatar II Auditions: The Revenge of the Canines
It was inevitable. After the success of the first movie the web was full of rumors and speculations regarding the sequel (obviously the first of many). Mini (my wonderdog) had already got a head start on me. It's easy for her, she doesn't have to hold down a day job and commute every morning and evening. She is entitled to free bed and board and can sleep all day if she choses, which she does after she has c...
confessions in a bottle
1:The Beginning I was sitting innocently on the beach, minding my own business when a huge wave slung this bottle at me. Luckily it was a plastic coke bottle and not a discarded wine bottle, which could easily have broken my nose. From inside I extracted the following message. My name is unimportant, you can call me Marion, no wait make that Rhiannon. If I get my choice it may as well be something sexy. I li...
The Taite Guide to Gift Shops
Museums were first invented in Paris, France by Jean Paul Yurr Hedoff in 1789. Jean was employed by Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin as a cleaner upper or as they called it in those days a nettoyeur de têtes. It was Jean's job to clean up the mess after a Guillotine. The poor man found that after a few weeks he had quite a collection of disembodied heads and blood stained clothing and a growing crowd of visitors who wa...
What the Queen said, and what she really meant
"Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements." English interpretation: "My sister's a lush, my daughter in law bollimic, my son insists on making it out with a cow, my husband's so senile that he tries to put it in the vacuum cleaner and my favorite Corgi has eloped to America." --- "It's all to do with the training: you c...
The lighter side of death
Visiting Rites Susan Jane McCoy was a righteous and graceful eighty five year old lady who was spending the last of her days at the St Mary Retirement home in southern New Jersey. One fine morning she requested to speak to the local priest. "Father", she said in a broken, worn out voice "I feel that my time is drawing near and I have two requests." "Mrs. McCoy, you have been a faithful member of our c...
The herd mentality or how I gave up counting Margaritas
I'm standing on the curb waiting for the walk sign. About twenty other pedestrians of varied sizes and pigmentation are patiently waiting beside me. Now there are no cars in sight and I know that if I cross now at least half of these law abiding citizens next to me will cheerfully follow suit. A few years back I spent a few months running a tourist restaurant. A tourist restaurant is a place where buses of...
10 Ways to get rid of an Annoying Co-Worker
Has the person sitting next to you at work yet to discover the word deodorant? Does your co-worker sing Abba songs aloud eight hours a day? Does your co-worker pick his nose, thinking no one is watching, our excavate his ears? Does your co-worker were micro mini-skirts even though she weighs over 90 kg and is almost 62? Does the guy sitting opposite you tap on his desk with an HB pencil, mistaking...
Adventures in a Japanese Loo
A foreigner's first experience with a Japanese toilet could easily be compared with a teenagers first experience with love. You meet this gorgeous girl during the school recess but you have no idea what to do about it. No-one has given you an instructions manual. The same can be said about Japanese washlets - right you really don't want to call it a toilet any more than you'd call a Jaguar E-Type Roaster a car - t...
10 possible replacements for Simon Cowell due to fight it out in...
The prize is a priceless contract to lead the panel of judges on the most popular TV show in America. The winner gets Unlimited amounts of Coca Cola A chance to verbally abuse every would be, could be, should be and God help me who thinks they can sing. A free two week course in the use of eyebrow expressions A great wardrobe consisting of cheap jeans and plain T-shirts. Ladies and...
11 Things you shouldn't do at a wedding
1. Get blind drunk and hang your panties on the chandelier while performing your version of "Yes I Cancan" 2. Have sex with the best man in the bathroom during the wedding ceremony. 3. Though you are the best man, have sex n the bathroom with the maid of honour and lose the wediing ring down the toilet in a moment of unexplained animal passion. 4. Have sex with the best man and the maid of honour in the ...
Unknown Group rewrites Sgt Pepper and Conquers British Charts:...
The first single released from upcoming album Android Pfeffer's Boneless Hearts Club Band, entitled Lucy Sold Her Sky for Diamonds, has been topping the British charts for over six weeks now and is keeping Simon Cowell up late at night in an attempt to find a way to launch a counter attack and protect his interests. Taite Gallery reporters have managed to cut through the media fog surrounding the new group a...
11 Things you shouldn't do at a wedding
1. Get blind drunk and hang your panties on the chandelier while performing your version of "Yes I Cancan" 2. Have sex with the best man in the bathroom during the wedding ceremony. 3. Though you are the best man, have sex n the bathroom with the maid of honour and lose the wediing ring down the toilet in a moment of unexplained animal passion. 4. Have sex with the best man and the maid of honour in the ...

Chimes of Freedom – the great Dylan cover album?

Early in his career Bob Dylan adapted words from the Bible and wrote:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

Most people will remember this as more of a Byrds’ song, a group who immortalized the hit song, than one by Dylan.

Over the years many of Dylan’s songs have earned cover versions, notably the trillion versions of Knocking on Heaven’s Door, George Harrison’s If Not For You, The Rolling Stones’ inevitable live cover of Like a Rolling Stone (no there is no connection between the song and the group’s name), Fairport Convention’s I’ll Keep it with Mine, the recent Adele’s rendition of Make You Feel My Love and of course the tremendous Hendrix All Along the Watchtower. Basically if you’re not covered then you haven’t made it.

Charity albums and performances have become similarly popular over the last few decades. They are basically a Win WIn project, some African country or children’s fund gets the money, a lot of celebrities get great hype and publicity and we get a multi disc package for a special price. When these are good they are very very good (as in The Concert for Bangla Desh) and when they are bad – well how bad can they be with all the artists involved there must be a few really good tracks right?

Which brings me to the four disc, 76 track 80 artist extravaganza celebrating Bob Dylan’s work and 50 years of Amnesty International. Everyone who is anybody, was somebody or is on talking terms with the producer seems to have got into the act. The result, as you might expect is mixed. It’s like going to a fusion restaurant that serves a set dinner comprising of Sushi, baked beans on toast, hummus, Aljotta soup, Hungarian goulash, Shepherd’s Pie, black bean ice-cream, Brie and Italian espresso. Yes you are liable to get indigestion!

As Pavarotti has passed on it was left to the producers Jeff Ayeroff and Julie Yannatta, who previously gave us the Darfur John Lennon tribute, to be more creative. And creative they were. First they dug up Joan Baez, Marianne Faithfull, Kris Kristofferson, Pete Seeger and Carley Simon, then they added classic rock idols Pete Townsend and Mark Knopfler, plus representatives from every music category around and made sure not to forget the GREAT Miley Cyrus!!. Luckily we now live in a digital world where you can filter out the bad stuff ( Please don’t ask me about Ke$ha’s murder of Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright, my words could never do it proper injustice) and listen to some of the better moments – and because of the size of the project there are quite a few. I particularly liked Angelique Kidjo’s beautiful Lay Lady Lay, Brett Dennen’s uplifting You Ain’t Going Nowhere and Raphael Saadiq’s interesting Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat. For the rest of the bunch I’ll let you make your own choices. I couldn’t digest Pete Seeger’s Forever Young or Carley’s Just Like a Woman and was truly disappointed with (Marianne Faithful’s live rendition of Baby Let Me Follow You Down.

Not my favorite album by far but it has it’s moments. Judge for yourself.