All For Charity?

One thing that has recently started to get my goat is the number of plastic collection bags that are pushed through the letterbox that claim to be collecting old clothes for charity. Now it might make me seem like a miserable old sod, complaining about raising money for good causes, but I am beginning to doubt whether any of this is actually doing any good at all – other than for the bank balances of those operating the schemes.

It’s actually quite hard to trace what happens to old clothes once donated but, as the old saying goes: “Where there’s muck, there’s brass”; and it’s not just the occasional designer jacket that is worth something. Worn to death old rags have value and there is even a shop which has opened in Falkirk which will offer 50p per Kilo for old clothes. This is a legitimate business and nothing to do with charity but that figure is worth remembering.

There seem to be a few categories of door-to-door “charity” collections. Some of them look perfectly legitimate and are well known charity organisations that run their own shops and do good work within the community. Then there are others that appear to be a legitimate charity but which I have never heard of. They seem to be made up of titles that use a worthy cause word (“children”, “aged”, “animals” etc) combined with a qualifier (“in the community”, “National”, “Scottish”) and often including some sort of disease (“heart”, “kidney”, “cancer” and so on). It is always possible that these are new charities that someone has set up, “Scottish Kids with Cancer” or similar, but I doubt it.

There is also another type that I noticed on a plastic bag left at my mother-in-law's house. This bag had the names and logos of several well known charities printed in large letters on the front. On closer inspection it is revealed (in tiny print) that this is actually a private limited company that collects old clothes and makes a donation to the named charities. I can’t see that they are doing anything illegal with this but the amount that they would donate was £85 per tonne of clothes collected. That works out at 8.5p per Kilo: now remember that figure from the shop in Falkirk that was buying used clothes as a commercial venture at 50p per Kilo and it makes it clear that the amount of money going to the charity is pretty minimal. Whilst what they are doing is not exactly illegal, I do think that it is immoral: using the good names of charities to line their own pockets.

I think there is a place for charity collection of old clothes and I am quite happy for established local charities to do this (provided they actually benefit from the scheme) and I will go on donating items to the likes of the local hospice or Red Cross and, in particular, the Salvation Army clothes collections; but I think it is about time that anyone presenting themselves as a charity collection should have to state what percentage of a donation actually does any good.

Wikifacts

I have to admit that one of my great pleasures is idly browsing through the pages of Wikipedia. However, on occasion I find “facts” listed on the encyclopaedia’s pages  which I have to take with a pinch of salt. I came across one of them when I was looking up pages for my Without The Beatles blog entry and it relates to John Lennon’s song, My Mummy's Dead.

The fact in question stated that the song was based upon the tune of Three Blind Mice. Maybe it was but it really doesn’t sound like it to me. I always assumed that it was based on the old German lullaby, Schlaf Kindlein Schlaf. However, I can’t see any definitive reference to Lennon using either tune as the basis. I suppose it would make sense for a British musician to use Three Blind Mice but it is entirely possible that he was familiar with the German tune either from living in Hamburg in the early 60s or via his bass-player in the Plastic Ono Band, Klaus Voormann. Lennon’s tune doesn’t exactly match either so I suspect he simply jammed over some suitably soothing notes but judge for yourself:

Without The Beatles

The Beatles broke up at the end of 1970 after releasing their final album, the somewhat patchy but still occasionally brilliant Let It Be. It wasn’t actually the last album they recorded – the Get Back tapes were abandoned in 1969 and Abbey Road recorded in its place with the tapes being resurrected and completed as Let It Be for release in 1970. However,  I have often wondered what a new Beatles album would have sounded like if they had remained together. All four members wrote and recorded solo material on the group’s breakup. This varied between the highly personal to the very commercial. The quality also varied as well but when they were good they were very, very good. As a thought experiment, I’ve tried to piece together what I imagine a 1971 Beatles album would have looked like based on songs that the Fab Four released as solo recordings in 1970 and 71. I’ve used the Revolver album as a basis for the format: 14 songs with no two consecutive tracks having the same singer and everyone gets a go on lead vocals (even Ringo!)

Of the post Beatles solo albums George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass could easily have filled an entire Beatles album on it’s own. In fact their last recording, Abbey Road, would not have been anything like as fondly remembered without George’s input: he wrote the two best songs and his contribution both on guitar and Moog synthesiser were standout moments. For this reason I think George’s songs are the easiest to pick out: What Is Life is a great rocker which is the classic way of opening a Beatles Album (think Drive My Car, Taxman, Sgt Peppers, Back in the USSR); Isn’t It a Pity and My Sweet Lord are both wonderful pop songs and The Ballard of Frankie Crisp and All Things Must Pass would also be candidates for singles. I could have gone on but All Things Must Pass is such a good album that the hardest thing is knowing what to leave off.

At first sight it would seem that John Lennon’s early solo projects provide a wonderful selection of songs. Indeed they do, with both the excellent but highly personal Plastic Ono Band alongside the more commercially orientated and highly successful Imagine. However, I suddenly found myself crossing tunes off. Mainly, this is because they have a strong anti-Beatles and particularly anti-McCartney sentiment. It’s a pity as some of them are great tunes but I couldn’t see God getting on to a joint project with lines like “I don’t believe in Beatles”. Still, Imagine and Jealous Guy are both top class tunes and Love (from the Plastic Ono Band) is wonderfully anti-commercial yet compelling in the way that Eleanor Rigby or Julia were. I’ve also included Mother and Working Class Hero from Plastic Ono as they were both brilliant songs in their own right but I suspect that the latter would have to be edited for swearing on a Beatles release.

Paul McCartney is the one I find problems with: the album “McCartney” sounds like little more than a demo tape (aside from the excellent Maybe I’m Amazed) although songs like Junk could rate for inclusion but were turned down when recorded in Beatles’ sessions. Ram is also at odds with the Beatles ethos but his singles at this time were well produced and still musically intriguing. It seems odd that the most commercially minded of the four should produce the least commercial material although this was the ethos he was aiming at with the Get Back/Let It Be sessions. Another Day and Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey were both deserved hits and would easily have made it on to a Beatles album (although, possibly not the singles they were).

Of course there is also Ringo and, even though his writing credits for the Beatles were few and far between, he could knock out a decent tune once in a while. It Don't Come Easy is probably one of his best and deserves to get a look in. Overall, I’ve ended up with rather a Lennon-Harrison bias: there are many other great songs from this time that I’ve left out but I wanted to image what they would have done as a working quartet. So here is what I think 1971’s “Without The Beatles” may have looked like:

1. What Is Life – Harrison

2. Love – Lennon

3. Maybe I’m Amazed – McCartney

4. Ballard of Frankie Crisp (Let it roll) - Harrison

5. Jealous Guy – Lennon

6. It Don't Come Easy – Starr

7. Mother – Lennon

8. Another Day – McCartney

9.My Sweet Lord – Harrison

10.Working Class Hero – Lennon

11. All Things Must Pass - Harrison

12. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey –McCartney

13. Isn’t it a Pity (version 1) – Harrison

14. Imagine – Lennon

It’s often said that the Beatles were never the same on their own and, of course, this is true as the dynamic of working as a solo performer is completely different to working as a group but they did produce some great material when they went their separate ways. If the album above had been released in 1971 it is quite possible that it would be hailed as their greatest achievement. Of course it wasn’t and we will never know quite what a new Beatles album would have sounded like. In truth, they probably split at the right time rather than the slow decline into mediocrity endured by many of their contemporaries who stayed together too long. At least technology has now caught up with us as I can programme my MP3 player to play Without The Beatles.

White Out

A few years ago it seemed to be that practically every new car was silver. I was a big fan of silver and I had a silver car myself - the somewhat ill-fated Honda Civic. I liked the look of the car in silver and it also had the advantage of not showing up the dirt as badly as other colours. However, silver just seemed to become ubiquitous; even boring. I've had a few car colours over the years. I currently have a dark blue car which looks fantastic when it is clean and shiny and pretty awful when it isn't (rather like black in that respect) and have also had dark green with similar advantages and problems. I've had a couple of red cars which tend to fade after a few year's worth of sunshine and our current family car is a sort of blue-ish silver colour (well, it looks silver to me but I'm told it is blue). The one colour of car I have never had is white. I always associate white with commercial vehicles, police cars and rusty old bangers. I can see certain advantages with white: it is the easiest to repair and tends not to show up minor chips. They are also less prone to heating up I the sun (which my dark blue Yaris tends to do). However, I always associate them with bottom of the range, slightly rusty, old Ford Cortinas. However, I may be changing my mind.

White seemed to reach rock bottom a few years ago with even the police abandoning the colour in favour of silver. For a while the only new white vehicles seen would be vans or van based variants of popular cars. However, over the last few years I've noticed more and more top end cars,  particularly Audi sports cars and BMW Coupes, which have been turned out in stunning all white trim. Now, more and more cars seem to be available in a smart looking white finish. The odd-thing is I actually seem to like the look of them. A case in point is the VW Up! which one of my colleagues bought recently. The Up! seems to be smashing little car. Essentially it is very similar in size, cost, design and economy to the Toyota Aygo but it doesn't have the Aygo's disadvantages such as the lack of a proper boot space. My colleagues version is the "Up! White" which is meant to be a top of the range model but the paint finish looks quite brilliant. Maybe the reason that white cars now look so appealing is that they tend to be the shiny new models that have been bought recently and lovingly washed whereas the silver ones are now entering unloved banger status?

As an aside, when I was looking for the photo of the Up! I discovered that the "Up! White" is known as the "White Up!" in Germany. They also do a sister model which is all in black - I won't tell you what they called it but I was more reminded of this chap:

Anyway, as I usually swap cars when the wheels fall, I hope I won't be looking for a new one soon (although the Yaris is starting to develop expensive habits) but I think I may be sold on the whole white thing. It looks like white is going to be the new silver.