More M50 and more Martin World News excerpts

Before we get to today's chunk of the Martin 50, here are some reminders to all of you dreaming of getting away that you may well be better off in the US of A...

ITEM:  The Indian Science Conference is just ended, and here are a few of the things that our respected Indian scientists talked about:

First, we had the miraculous power of... blowing a conch shell?

Rajeev Sharma, a civil servant with a master’s degree in botany, delivered a deafening 2-minute conch blast to kick off his talk for a session on indigenous approaches to psychology. Sharma claimed that the conch—an article of religious and ritual importance in Hinduism—could cure psychosomatic ills. Blowing a conch daily, he elaborated, provides “excellent exercise” for the rectum, prostate, and diaphragm. The audience gasped when he claimed that the consequent surge in blood flow would turn “white hair to black.”


Which is exactly how Just For Men and Lady Clairol do it.  I wonder if my Doc will let me out of the fickle finger of fate Tuesday if I tell him I've been tooting my shell?

Next up- you thought the god of environmentalism was Al Gore...

The next day, a paper was due to be presented on how the Hindu god Shiva was the “greatest environmentalist in the world.” The supposed evidence for such eco-friendly attributes were riding a rat, a peacock, and a mythic bull, and providing purified water of the Ganges River from his topknot.


Note that the story says, "was due to..."  Why wasn't it?  Because the eminent botanist due to present it tripped and fell down a stairwell.  Should have taken that peacock down...

And does the Indian government step in to stop such shenanigans?  Not quite...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who inaugurated this year’s conclave, sparked a controversy in 2014 after claiming that the god Ganesh’s elephant head was proof that cosmetic surgery existed in ancient times and was founded in India. 

Just so you don't think that this is the sum total of Subcontinental learning...

Such presentations have caused senior Indian researchers to throw up their hands. Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a biologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, told The Times of India that an earlier congress was “a circus,” after which he vowed to “never attend a science congress again in my life.” Biologist P. M. Bhargava, founder of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, told the paper that the event had deteriorated over the years and was now “an absolute waste of money.”

And how much money are we wasting?  According to the registry site, $600 a head- unless it's an elephant's head.  I assume deities get a break.

ITEM:  Before you whine about those lines at the ER to fix your broken butt after a slip on the ice...

(BBC) A hospital in China has been bulldozed while still in use, reportedly causing doctors inside to flee and burying six bodies from its morgue under rubble, state media say.
The Number Four Hospital of Zhengzhou University in Henan province was partially demolished on Thursday amid a land dispute, Xinhua news agency said.
Hospital staff told reporters equipment worth over $600,000 was damaged.
The case has sparked outrage in China, where forced demolitions are common.

The local Huiji district government said in a statement that the hospital's CT room and morgue were on land designated for a road expansion project, and that it had asked the hospital to dismantle the rooms themselves several times.
The hospital was evacuated prior to demolition, and there were no casualties, the statement added.
However, hospital officials said three doctors and a patient were in the building at the time of demolition, and that some hospital workers were injured when they tried to stop the demolition, Jinghua news reported.


Eminent domain, Chinese style.  Ouch.

ITEM:  Might wanna keep yer opinions to yourself, McBuddy...

Scotsman Michael McFeat was arrested at his job.  That job was in Kyrgyzstan working for a Canadian company operating an open pit mine.  What was his crime?  Environmental sabotage? Union organizing? No... he called his hosts' national dish, "chuchuk" horsemeat sausage, reminiscent of a horse's... err... weiner.

That's the sausage.  you decide.

ITEM:  Finally, you should be glad we don't have roadside condom machines here like they do in Germany.  Why?

(BBC) A German man died on Christmas Day after blowing up a condom dispenser with a homemade bomb in a botched robbery, police say.
The 29-year-old and two accomplices attached the bomb to the vending machine in a quiet street before taking cover in their vehicle.
But the victim did not close the door in time and was struck in the head by a steel shard from the explosion.
His accomplices took him to hospital but he later died of his wounds.
The men told staff at the hospital in the western town of Schoppingen that their unconscious friend had fallen down the stairs.


Okay, so why DO they have condom machines by the side of the road in Germany? In case they're hungry for chuchuk?



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Today, we're going to touch upon the "oldies" among the M50.  The rules to the M10 are simple- "I never heard the song before." Which means time is not a factor to a swingin' musical Time Lord like myself.  Thus, a lot of pre-2015 tunes make the list- and indeed, many of them have been posted earlier.  But this ten will feature all oldies- with one unavoidable exception, but I have a good "stretch" to get it in!

Our first contestant was a member of the original ten- and as I said then, this one was the b-side of a low-charting single back in 1967.  The band was the Cyrkle, known for Red Rubber Ball and Turn Down Day.  The song was called The Visit (She Was There), and it pulls in at #49. (M10 peak #8)

This week we have two songs that didn't chart on the M10.  It did, however, make unknown song back in September, and hammered at the back door of the M10 through September and October.  You can read its story here, and it was by a Texas band called the Clique.  The song is Sugar On Sunday, and it was on the charts back in 1969- but charts here at 47. (NC)

Alliota Haynes Jeremiah easily wins the "act that I can never remember their name" category award.  I always wanna stick a James in there somewhere.  But their song is a Chicago classic (the city, that is) from 1971, the much more memorable Lake Shore Drive.  Cruisin' on by on LSD, Friday night trouble bound... (#9)

Right next to it at #36 is our other non-charting tune of the day.  I introed them also as an unknown song back in February, the act called 8th Day.  But we've done two Eighth Days on TM, and this is the more obscure one- one that first came out called the Sons Of Liberty.  You can read the whole convoluted story here, as well as hear the beautiful song Brandy (Doesn't Live In This Town Anymore).  They charted- or not- in 1968. (NC)

And at #35, we have a song from the Spotify "selected for you file".  The band is Racey, the song is Some Girls (No relation to the Stones' lp), and it came out as a hit in the UK back in 1979, reaching #2. (#7)

Another English band that the Big Spot thought I would like, correctly so, was the Housemartins.  Their 1986 song, Happy Hour, bounced it's way up to the #30 spot on the M50, reaching #3 across the pond. (#5)

You have Shady to blame for the next one, as it was on his post here that I first heard the uncharted 1964 song The Boy Next Door by the Spandells.  You can here it there, too, and it hung in the M10 long enough to get the M50's #26 spot.  (#6)

Another original M10er was the powerful song by a powerful man, Elvis Presley.  His tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr, If I Can Dream, may have only had the one week on the chart, but it holds a spot as one of my all time King faves, and comes in at #23 here with the 1969 hit. (#5)


The one song that's not technically an oldie is by a veteran band.  Years ago, King Harvest had us all Dancing In The Moonlight.  In 2015, they got back together- sans lead singer Doc Robinson, who sadly passed in 2012- to do a tasty lp called, appropriately enough, Old Friends.  Their tune that got me, which I haven't been able to share before due to copyright issues, is this one:









Vaea was #2 on the first M10 back in late August. It shows up here at #13. (#2)


And finally today, the only #1 M10 tune you get before the big extravaganza Friday.  It was the top dog on that first M10, I found researching another big UK band, Status Quo.  Primarily known for the sixties classic Pictures Of Matchstick Men, they had a big hit in 1986- and again here in 2015- with the very first #1 on the M10, In The Army Now.

Tomorrow- the Ambient Bunch...