prolific.org

Last year my uncle featured in a TV show about ‘miracles’. He told the story of how he found a photograph of himself in a book he picked up from an antique shop, while on holiday in England. It’s a true story. This month the show is letting viewers decide which stories should be repeated in a clip show to introduce the new series.

Do me and my kin a favour and vote for ‘De foto’ on the ‘Wonderen bestaan’ website. You’ll find the poll on the right hand side and ‘De foto’ is the last option in the poll (which doesn’t give it much of a chance of winning!).

It’s a great story and my uncle, who is an author and lyricist, does a great job of telling it (well, duh, he does readings and theater shows for a living). In short: About 20 years ago he was on holiday with his girlfriend L. and another couple. It was a miserable day and he hadn’t even wanted to go to England anyway. When they stopped for lunch, they came across an antique shop.

My uncle had a thing about ‘a book without a title’. He had been talking about this obsession during the trip, of wanting to find this ‘book without a title’. His friends had said books without titles didn’t exist.

Looking through the books on the shelves in the antique shop, he didn’t find anything he wanted. But there was one more book, sitting on a table. Picking it up he saw the book’s cover didn’t have any marking or lettering. It was a book without a title! And when he opened it, he found a picture of himself taken when he was a young man.

Cue theme of the Twilight Zone. Vote now. Vote often.

Irish music magazine Hot Press are doing the Top 100 Greatest Irish albums poll and have shortlisted a number of albums. The list includes the Virgin Prunes’ … If I Die, I Die, but criminally ignores Gavin Friday’s beguiling solo works: ‘Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves’ (Island Records, 1989), ‘Adam ‘n’ Eve’ (Island Records, 1992) and ‘Shag Tobacco’ (Island Records, 1995).

I am mobilising all GF fans to add Shag Tobacco as their personal choice in the poll. And now I’m asking you, faithful readers of prolific.org, to do the same. You can pick 4 other albums from the list, or add them too. It would be lovely if you could throw a vote towards ‘…If I Die, I Die’.

Voting requires membership to the site, but you can get a special day pass just to vote.

Thank you, it means a lot to me. Drop a note in the comment box when you’ve voted and I’ll raffle a Gavin Friday album among you.