This is getting to be like 2016 all over again.

I’ve already noted the recent deaths of Mac Davis and Helen Reddy. I hadn’t mentioned Toots Hibbert, who reportedly invented reggae, as I’ve never been much taken with that genre of music but I knew Toots and the Maytals were influential. Nor did I note earlier the passing of Tommy DeVito of the Four Seasons. (Their work wasn’t particularly outstanding to me.)

But now there have been two losses in 24 hours. I saw last night that Eddie Van Halen had died and I woke this morning to the news of the death of Johnny Nash.

What with the wider world in a state of confusion it feels like we’re still in that annus horribilis 2016.

(I’ve been away over the weekend and so missed posting about Mac Davis and Helen Reddy. More anon.)

Anyway, here are some more photos from our trip to North Wales last September.

Prestatyn stands below a steep hill at the top of which there is a great view over the North Wales coast, looking over to Rhyl on the left with Prestatyn to the right:-

Halfway up the hill there is a house with a balcony containing statues of two lookouts commemorating an RAF observation post there during the Second World War.

Lookout 1:-

Lookout 2:-

Both lookouts:-

Near the top of the hill is the Eagle & Child Inn (also known as the Bird and Bastard):-

The above is not a badly parked car. It’s half a car:-

This was the song I considered a bit inappropriate for my post on the death of Kenny Rogers but I’d always had it in mind for posting.

I think it’s beautifully constructed.

I see from the Wiki page for the Album for which this was the title track that it was written by Mac Davis which explains that.

Kenny Rogers and the First Edition: Something’s Burning

Mac Davis is perhaps best known for writing In The Ghetto which Elvis made into a big hit.

Beginning To Feel The Pain was a song that I remembered fondly from the 70s though I never heard it for years afterwards. The opening lines and the refrain were what particularly stuck with me.

I couldn’t find the song on You Tube when I first delved into that Pandora’s Box. Someone’s put it up there now though.

In hindsight it tips over a bit into schmaltz with the strings towards the end.

Mac Davis: Beginning To Feel The Pain