Harlow Shuffle

Farewell then Peter Falk. A Peter who isn't from Essex. My wife thought you were terrific. Oh, and just one more thing....
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I don't get those really tall flags at Glasto. Unless they are having a go at U2 avoiding tax or something, then what's the point?
I first saw U2 around 1982 at a CND gig which included Elvis Costello, Paul Weller and Emma Thompson when she was a stand up. Then we went to the bar and they were all there so we just joined them and had a drink and a chat.
BB King played Glasto today as well and I remember seeing him around 30 years ago, with The Crusaders (that's one for the youngsters) and I thought he was old then but apparently he's 85. Blimey. And well done you.
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Essex is not just famous for orange celebrities and lonely hackers trying to bring down the common enemies of Sony and the CIA from a bedroom lined with silver foil. Oh no. Tonight I went back to the Harlow Playhouse, where I used to go for lunch every day when I was trying to pass some journalism qualification.
I went to see my daughter - all three of my kids were born in Harlow - in a jazz concert for Essex Youth Jazz or Jazz Youth of Essex or The People's Front of Judea. Their bandleader is a man called Martin who has hair far too long for a man his age and a jacket far too big for a man of his age.
He made this collection of young, white, musicians play a number of his own compositions from The Essex Suite, which he is writing in dedication to the county where he has spent all his life (and I have spent most of mine).
One of the songs was Drop Me Off In Harlow, a take on Duke Ellington's Drop Me Off In Harlem - geddit? He's also written Billericay Boys. And Chelmsford Prance.
Personally I think he's Barking.
But he's not the first of course. Billy Bragg wrote a song devoted to the A13 from Shoeburyness to the heart of East London and Ian Dury wrote Billericay Dickie.
And let's not stop there. The Beatles wrote Harlow Goodbye, The Monkees did Another Roding Valley Sunday, Squeeze did Upney Junction, Bruce Springsteen did Thundersley Road and, of course, Visage did Fade to Grays.
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I suppose my generation and my class should feel sad at the loss of Habitat as there was a time in the early 80s when pretty much everyone I knew who had got their first place of their own had one of those round, paper lantern-style lightshades. We bemoaned the fact that because of Habitat, we all ended up with the same furnishings as everyone else. It's been forced out of business by Ikea and now everyone we know has the same Ikea furniture. Including us.
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Levi Bellfield would never had been done for her murder and Mr and Mrs Dowler may never have known who killed their daughter if it wasn't for tabloid newspapers and, in this case, the Daily Mirror. When the police had all but given up and wanted everyone to think that Millie Dowler's dad did it, the Mirror linked the red car in the CCTV footage to Bellfield who was inside for another murder. A reporter built up the trust of Bellfield's family until he finally got Bellfield to admit, on tape, that it was him in the CCTV footage. The prosecution used the tape in the court case - they didn't even need the reporter there because it was so damning. And we know the rest. He may already have been doing life but the Dowler family now know, for sure, who did it. And in their circumstances, no one should begrudge them any shred of comfort. I know I'm biased but I think the tabloids do things every day that make a difference to vast sections of this country - even if it is offering £9 holidays to the sort of working class, council house, non-university educated proles that broadsheet columnists sneer at. But now and again they make a difference to one family but in a way that can be seen far and wide. For those of us in the game, as the old saying goes, cable all victories. Well done The Mirror.
I could go on but it's late and I've been to Harlow.
Goodbye..Solly