A is for Omega.
The other day when digging back into my Car collection I stumbled or fell or happened across an article by LJK Setright dealing with the Opel Omega B. In that article he chanted the praises of its predecessor, the Omega A. And this is the car we have for you today, photographed in Hamburg in July, as the thermometer managed to Continue reading “I’ll Give Anything to See a Berger’s Clouded Yellow…!”
Driven to Write loses an uneven struggle to frame a rather unremarkable automotive year.
Be it economically, politically, or indeed the arts, 1988 proved to be a year of transition. And while the UK music charts were increasingly dominated by the burgeoning counter-culture of dance music, some older orders remained stubbornly implacable.
Following his first solo album release in 1981, actor and former Genesis percussionist and lead singer, Phil Collins had become one of the World’s biggest grossing recording artists, amassing in the region of 150 million album sales. A large proportion of these came on the back of tracks like his chart-topping (across six countries) 1988 release – a cover of the 1965 Mindbenders’ single, Groovy Kind of Love, taken from the soundtrack of Buster, a sepia-toned UK made biopic of ‘Great Train Robber’, Buster Edwards, in which he also starred. Continue reading “Anniversary Waltz 1988 – A Groovy Kind of Love”
Recent correspondence has hinted at the genre of car analogous to a band’s difficult second album.
Every one knows Kula Shaker’s second album was going to be a disappointment. It happens to a lot of bands. The musicians have a lifetime (say, 23 years) to work on the first album. Then they have about eight months to work on the second album, once the tour is done and the alcohol has been washed out of the system and the papers are signed on the Chiswick house they will have to sell a year or two later.
For some cars something similar applies. For various reasons, the manufacturer chances upon a hot new niche or just strikes it lucky with a particular formula of the same old thing. Then, with just six years to think it over, they launch a revised version that fails to Continue reading “Theme: Disappointment – Well, What Did You Expect?”
Driven To Write 