Sounds from beyond the Shed – Week 104

Last week arrives or is it the first week next week?

The final twist of the school story has been a school trip to Paris. How lovely I hear you cry to be in close proximity to 72 over-sugared, over tired students for four days in temperatures of 30 degrees following an itinerary put together by an incompetent travel company that has no grip on the reality of herding 12-18 yr olds through a city. Day one had us leaving school at midnight thirty and finishing at 11pm local time. Enough said really. However, sights were seen and on day three the itinerary went out the window and the kids spent the entire day at a funfair of which an hour was on the excellent dodgems as teachers versus students turned into a whiplash lawyer’s wet dream. French dodgems are far more powerful and unregulated than UK ones, the trip risk assessment a curled-up piece of paper in a wasp-covered bin!

The return journey is always the best part of these things as students and staff have reached a rapprochement close to mutual respect and everybody’s knackered. Of course, the shambles at the ferry terminal post-Brexit (4 hrs this time) is a horror that Farage, Cameron and Johnson et al should relieve on repeat for the rest of their tawdry lives but now is not the time.  Just the last official day to do tomorrow. I will report next week. I suspect there will be tears.

This week’s Sounds from beyond the Shed is a pre-record as I was enduring the above but don’t let that put you off as it is a part exploration of some of the artists that have graced the Loose Music label over the last 20 years or so featuring as it does The Arlenes, Isreal Nash, Pete Bruntnell, Joanna Serrat and Dawes amongst others Track listing will be in the comments once this goes live.

As ever…