For years I blogged on my site I’d named “Dipdoomagazoo” after a line from a childhood game I used to play with friends in my street and in the schoolyard. You can read all the old Dipdoo blogs on my website but I thought I’d republish one I wrote back in May 2020 entitled Flaming Woodpigeons. At the time I thought Covid lockdown hadn’t got to me. Reading this blog it shows to anyone that yes it had…
What came first, Planet Earth by Duran Duran or Japan’s Quiet Life? And why are the woodpigeons on my roof singing It Overtakes Me by The Flaming Lips? These are questions I’m grappling with after two months in lockdown.
Okay I appreciate these questions aren’t as important as what is happening around the world right now but at least I stand a chance of answering the music-related questions I choose to set for myself. I feel brighter after composing obscure quizzes with questions on my favourite topics of music, literature and art plus history, geography and world religions. No science or maths questions. I’m the Quiz Mistress and I make the rules.
I wish that scoring full marks in my solo pub quizzes and doing well in Pop Master, Pointless, Mastermind, Tipping Point and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire would count for something right now. Imagine if my weekly score for all these quizzes could be translated into scientific knowledge to help us through COVID-19.
It would be fabulous if my knowledge of 1980s pop music terminated Dominic Cummings’ role as Special Advisor to Boris Johnson or forced Trump out of office. I wish that my middle-aged brain filled with useless facts about 20th century British poets could solve the problems of the world and cool the anger so many of us feel right now.
Anyway. Would you like to know the answers to the questions I posed at the start of this blog?
Japan first released Quiet Life as a single in Japan (the country) back in 1979 and the following year in Germany and the Netherlands. It was finally released in the UK in 1981 and became a top 20 hit in October of that year. The Durans made number 12 in the UK charts in February 1981 with Planet Earth. I think the Durans must have heard Quiet Life before writing Planet Earth. What do you think? Answers on a postcard…
And what about woodpigeons covering the catchy It Overtakes Me? Trust me on this. Listen out for the distinctive cooing from your roof and sing along “It overtakes me, it overtakes me, it overtakes me…”