Mike Pinder, keyboard player and founder of The Moody Blues, has died. He was 82.
Mike was well known for playing the Mellotron, but he played all keyboards and guitar and was a main singer and songwriter for the band.
Mike claimed to have introduced The Beatles to the Mellotron, and they used it extensively. He had worked for a period at the factory that made the keyboard and understood more than most what it could be made to do. Their album Days Of Future Passed did use orchestra, but on most of the songs Pinder’s Mellotron was front and centre. It must have been the first rock album to feature the instrument so prominently.
There are many clips of Mike singing and playing, like this:
There’s no intention here to criticise anyone, anything that happened or the consequences. It’s just a record of what happened and how it still affects London today.
The virus hit most of the world. London, being a large city with mass commuting every day and a high population density, was badly affected. It spread quickly.
We had, of course, many periods of lockdown, just as other places did. Not a few days here or there, but months. People were encouraged to work from home (and some still do). Flights were cancelled. Tourism stopped.
Commuting was essential only. Some buses ran at various times, but the driver was blocked off from the passengers and entry was in the middle of the bus only. Some seats were blocked off too.
Going out for essentials (eg food) was acceptable, but there were long queues and regulated entry. And shortages. Limited exercise was encouraged.
Everyone had to wear masks. Use of hand sanitizer was encouraged. Shops saw an opportunity and were charging £50 for a small bottle of sanitizer.
Large stores were closed, or empty. No customers and no workers. Delivery companies thrived, but restaurants did not. No-one could go out for a pint or a curry. Something over 300,000 people in London lost their jobs.
There are very many people who do anti-UK/London blogs and videos and who constantly complain that Londoners keep to themselves and will not engage in random conversations with random strangers. The implication being, of course, that in other places in the world they do.
So, first of all, let’s be clear. If you need help eg directions to “Lie sess sess ter Square” and you ask someone, you will probably get directions. If you are sitting next to someone in (eg) a theatre watching a play and the interval comes, it’s definitely possible, though unlikely, you will be engaged in a conversation about how good or otherwise the performance is. These things can happen regardless of whether you are a holidaymaker or not.
What the moaners mostly seem concerned about is talk on public transport, tubes etc. In general, travellers have a book or music or e-mails to look at, probably on the way to work, so they get their heads down and hope for a quiet time. This is their routine, a daily routine. It’s not fun.
Honestly, if you’re on a twenty minute tube journey and can’t keep your mouth shut for that time, you have problems. Others don’t appreciate the noise, the intrusive, loud voices that disturb their routine. They have had a long day, so why do we now have to have you?
But we have travelled to many places in the world, and really it’s the same. People generally don’t chat. Visitors do, but locals don’t. And if you’re on a train in New York, or London, or Paris or whatever, and someone engages you in conversation then you either assume they are vagrants or beggars or drunks or thieves or people with other problems, and you would be cautious, no matter what they looked like.
