I recently took a fortnight’s holiday in Dublin and took the opportunity to visit Titanic Belfast. After that I couldn’t resist visiting Van Morrison’s birthplace in East Belfast. I’ve never seen so many Union Jack flags in my life. A small brass plaque by the door of the terraced house where he was born in 1945 is almost the only public evidence of his Belfast roots (he left in 1966, after the breakup of the band Them, best known for their 1964 song Gloria). It was only through reading his Wikipedia entry today that I learned he was knighted in 2016 for services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland. He’ll be 80 in 25 days’ time.

In the possibly unlikely event that the BBC pleads with me to appear on Desert Island Discs (the first hosts of which were Roy Plomley and Michael Parkinson, later ones Sue Lawley, Kirsty Young and Lauren Laverne) I’d probably choose a couple of Van the Man’s songs including Streets of Arklow from Veedon Fleece (1974), his eighth studio album. From the Wiki entry on the album:

“Morrison recorded the album shortly after his divorce from wife Janet (Planet) Rigsbee. With his broken marriage in the past, Morrison visited Ireland on holiday for new inspiration, arriving on 20 October 1973 (with his fiancée at the time, Carol Guida). While there he wrote, in less than three weeks, the songs included on the album (except “Bulbs“, “Country Fair” and “Come Here My Love”).^[2]

It has been compared to Astral Weeks (1968) with the same “stream of consciousness” lyrics but musically it is more Celtic, acoustic and heavily influenced by Morrison’s Irish trip. It has been called a genuinely underground album that he seemed to disown quickly after recording and has been referred to as Morrison’s “forgotten masterpiece”.

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Our thanks to Tom for this (short video).

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Today’s video is here (16:07).

Over a period of more than two years we’ll be posting links to one video daily from the J4MB YouTube channel. The channel includes our media appearances since 2012, 300+ videos of talks and other materials from the International Conferences on Men’s Issues (2014 – ) and other men’s issues conferences we’ve been involved with, and so much more. The individual conference playlists are here.

Our website Campaign for Merit in Business was created in the light of the considerable evidence of a causal link between increasing gender diversity on boards and corporate financial decline. Mike Buchanan, Steve Moxon and Dr Catherine Hakim presented evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries in 2012, the House of Commons evidence session is here (56:50 ).

Finally, we run the award-winning website Laughing at Feminists. The comedy channel (170+ videos) is here. Remember, it’s more than important to laugh at feminists, it’s a civic duty.  

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Interesting.

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Interesting. Many years after International Men’s Day was inaugurated, the United Nations declared 19 November to be World Toilet Day.

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Today’s file is here (8:46).

Over a period of more than two years we’ll be posting links to one video daily from the J4MB YouTube channel. The channel includes our media appearances since 2012, 300+ videos of talks and other materials from the International Conferences on Men’s Issues (2014 – ) and other men’s issues conferences we’ve been involved with, and so much more. The individual conference playlists are here.

Our website Campaign for Merit in Business was created in the light of the considerable evidence of a causal link between increasing gender diversity on boards and corporate financial decline. Mike Buchanan, Steve Moxon and Dr Catherine Hakim presented evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries in 2012, the House of Commons evidence session is here (56:50 ).

Finally, we run the award-winning website Laughing at Feminists. The comedy channel (170+ videos) is here. Remember, it’s more than important to laugh at feminists, it’s a civic duty.  

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Our thanks to Paolo for this.

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Enjoy.

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Today’s file is here (9:53).

Over a period of more than two years we’ll be posting links to one video daily from the J4MB YouTube channel. The channel includes our media appearances since 2012, 300+ videos of talks and other materials from the International Conferences on Men’s Issues (2014 – ) and other men’s issues conferences we’ve been involved with, and so much more. The individual conference playlists are here.

Our website Campaign for Merit in Business was created in the light of the considerable evidence of a causal link between increasing gender diversity on boards and corporate financial decline. Mike Buchanan, Steve Moxon and Dr Catherine Hakim presented evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries in 2012, the House of Commons evidence session is here (56:50 ).

Finally, we run the award-winning website Laughing at Feminists. The comedy channel (170+ videos) is here. Remember, it’s more than important to laugh at feminists, it’s a civic duty.  

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Excellent.

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