Mister Duffy Changes Trains

  Where Did All the Money Go? A couple of weeks ago, we saw the comedian Bridget Christie at the Junction in Cambridge. It was a bit of fun, and lovely to have a pint with our pals the Pointons afterwards. It prompted me to think of some acts we have seen at the Junction in the past. Musically, the most fun performers were Moishe’s Bagel, The Yiddish Twist Orchestra, The Men They Couldn’t Hang and the side-splitting Half Man Half Biscuit. There was also one very interesting act we saw in the pre-children days, in the early 1990’s, Alias Ron Kavana. Ron Kavana is a wee fat Irish guitar hero who has worked with some very big names, including Dr John, Doug Sahm the Cosmic Cowboy, Champion Jack Dupree, The Pogues, and many others. He and his band had a very eclectic set in terms of musical styles. In addition to straight rock, they performed some Irish punk-folk in Pogues style, and some very well-crafted roots/world music. This included a song about Irish volunteers in the Spanish...

                                                                                 Street in Falun   Travellers’ Tales 4- Sweden Again As I am sure I have mentioned before, from 1986 onwards, I went to Sweden for work two or three times a year, with a very charismatic Hungarian breast radiologist called Laszlo. My specific destination was usually Falun, capital of what was called Kopparberg (copper mountain) county when I first went there, but the county has since reverted to its ancient name of Dalarna (the valleys). I and colleagues from Sweden, Finland, the USA and Taiwan would beaver away for a few days, away from the distractions of our own departments, and produce a considerable amount of research output in a short time. The town its...