Amsterdam Russ

Cheers, Bud, but it was a joke! Some people have no sense of humour whatsoever. If you can't laugh at your collective self, ie, the scene as a comic whole, then there's little hope. Good luck to Dave and family. They made the choice to be on telly, in an advert that uses Northern Soul to promote a high-fibre cereal. I'm sure it's been a very exciting ride for them, and I'll bet they're chuffed to bits with the outcome. I probably would be too if it were me. At the same time, I reckon Dave & Co can also see a humorous side to the whole thing. For sure they'll have mates who are giving them a right good ribbing. There are far more important things in the world than shredded wheat, and in a week or so when the campaign's run its course we'll all move onto something else. That's life. Let's not be too serious about it.

Wonder if it'll be jumping on the Northern Soul cereal bandwagon. If it does, it might be wise to change its name to shredded credibility.

The only connection that I can make is courtesy of a book called Rock and Roll: Gold Rush (Maury Dean). On page 252 it states: "Buddy left-handedly created the Motown Soul Empire for Berry Gordy, via Robert Gordy's "Everyone was there"." That's it. Robert Gordy released the song on the Carlton kabel in 1958 under the name of Bob Kayli and it was bit of a hit. The label credits songwriters as Kayli-Gordy Jr. It also states that it's Bob Kayli with the Barry Gordy Orchestra! The allusion is that the song is in the Buddy Holly style and that its small success encouraged Berry Gordy move on to greater things musically. Possibly - through bad editing - Betts' encyclopedia accidentally left out the specific reason for Holly's inclusion. Stranger things have been known in publishing. Here's the song...

I'm sure it must have been a really amazing experience, especially in those conditions.

Excellent light - everything's just starting to turn golden.

And a worthy winner, without a doubt. I noticed that he likes to be "on high" when taking photos - and with stunners like this one, you can immediately see why. Really fantastic work!

Great photos - really impressive. Your son has buckets of talent!

A friend's band - Working Voodoo Club - in action at Amsterdam's North Sea Jazz Club.

Yes, you can see it's like… Whoa! Where's that big chunk of wood going???

Taken at a jousting tournament in Amsterdam. I took quite a few shots looking to get the moment a lance broke after impact and the effort, I'm pleased to say, eventually paid off.

At the same time, people are still reliving the days of the Wigan Casino (etc). You just have to look at the volume of threads and posts on Soul Source to see that's true. If even the more progressive die-hard keep on about "the old days" what are people outside of the scene supposed to think?

When it comes to Nostalgia cults, most participants want to wear what their mums and their dads wore when they were 15! And, whether people on here or elsewhere like it or not, the reality is the Northern Soul scene is also partly a Nostalgia cult.

With deals that include shipping at $20, $40 per item, I'm not surprised US sellers are becoming "reluctant" to sell to the UK and Europe. The negative feedback on shipping is too damaging. I just paid nigh on $20 to have a very slim newspaper shipped to me in the Netherlands. I queried the seller and they said it'd be sent in LP packaging so that it was extra secure. All I got for that 20 bucks was literally that - an LP carton and a newspaper. There was no actual protection whatsoever. Increasingly sellers are ripping buyers off through extortionate p&p. Craig Moerer and plenty of others can still ship 45s to Europe at under 10 bucks. Why then do others have to charge double, triple that? Enough is enough - and I think rip-off US sellers are getting the message. Sadly though it's ultimately to our own detriment!

You got it. Technology mastered.

If it's possible, can people try and resize their photos and make them smaller? Some of them posted are absolutely huge and are way too big to be seen properly on screen. It's just a suggestion, but if you can reduce the width of images to somewhere between 700 pixels and 1200 pixels then I reckon most people should be able to see them ok.

Had a good look at your blog yesterday…

Nice - I do like these mountain landscapes. My older brother's close to completing the Munros and he regularly sends spectacular shots from his excursions.

Priceless!

Another jetty and another church. Both pics taken early the same morning in the woods of Amsterdam.

He hasn't got one - he just picked it up, looked at it and put it back down again! (Only joking)

Must have been amazingly exciting being around all those splendid aircraft back then!

That's cool - can't quite make out where the pier touches the water and the reflection begins.

What age were you - 30s-40s, something like that?

You're right, Steve. Really great to see so many contributions already - and lots of terrific photos. Looking forward to seeing how it develops (pun intended)!

Very nice parish church all round. It dates back to the 16th century, apparently, and was built at a time when there were only something like 90 houses in the village. Of course, much of it has been rebuilt over the centuries and it had to be expanded as the local population grew.