1966-69 as the age of 'Anglo-Whimsy' in music

My attention was drawn today to an article in The New European newspaper, October 31-November 6, 2019, that does not seem to have made its way to The New European newspaper's website yet but has flagged up several articles by author SOPHIA DEBOICK
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/home/search?submitted=true&searchSlot=true&q=deboick&submit=true

Anyhow, for now I shall transcribe the print article's intro blurb and opening paragraphs:

EUROFILE: THE AGE OF ANGLO-WHIMSY

SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back at a brief period in musical history when English eccentricity and experimentalism combined to spectacular effect

Between 1966 and 1969, English pop was populated by some peculiar figures: gnomes, spacement, Edwardian bandleaders and washing line thieves among them. The British invasion had shifted the centre of gravity and by 1966 London was the place to be and Englishness became both a theme and a fashion.

English singers suddenly sounded like where they came from and facets of the British life appeared in their lyrics. But in these years, there was a run of records by the most important acts of the era -- from the Beatles to the Kings -- that displayed a very specific set of characteristics: English-accented, strongly narrative pop songs, featuring music hall-style character sketches, quirky vignettes, nursery rhyme atmospheres, idiosyncratic instrumentation, Edwardiana, quotidian detail, suburbia, the surreal, the sinister, and a definite feyness.

This was a cultural moment that might by called 'Anglo-whimsy' (rock historian Clinton Heylin applied the term to Pink Floyd's seminal Arnold Layne single in particular). Occurring as the Beat breakthrough and Mod aesthetic segued into the era of acid, psychedelia and Eastern religion, this was a fleeting moment, but it produced some of the most experimental records of the modern pop era.

More of this in The New European, October 31-November 6, 2019 print edition, pp 31-34.

Thoughts stemming from an article on the smearing of Jeremy Corbyn's reputation

A family member has sent me this link that I believe worth 'flagging up' here: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/think-corbyn-is-a-danger-to-britain-heres-how-youve-been-brainwashed/12/12/


My choice of 'pull quote' from that article can be applied not just to a The London Economic blog post that related and cited posting that "around £2 million public money was funnelled to a charity in Scotland which posted disparaging stories against Jeremy Corbyn and other Labour figures."

"It should be extremely disturbing to everyone that a ruling Government is using Public funds and official resources for party political purposes. This is the sort of thing we’re told happens in rogue states and banana republics, not here in Great Blighty."

For Private Eye magazine 20 September-3 October issue reported that the Government was spending £20,000 on 'Get Ready for Brexit' Facebook adverts, and I pointed out that the televised adverts with Government insignia must surely be more costly.
https://newsforwardsfromalanwheatley.blogspot.com/2019/09/uk-government-getting-public-ready-for-brexit-and-more.html

And what about the wasted money on a Brexit coin that was minted only to be melted down
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/29/brexit-meltdown-50p-coins-with-31-october-date-to-be-recycled

See also https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/government-adverts-on-facebook-1-6354789

Yes, I do think that Jeremy Corbyn's reputation has been severely smeared through the unfair dominance of government advertising budgets and -- as the
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/think-corbyn-is-a-danger-to-britain-heres-how-youve-been-brainwashed/12/12/
posting points out -- foreign billionaire ownership of dominant UK news media outlets. I believe that should be 'flagged up' and also point out that such foreign ownership of UK news media is a prime example of 'the plunder of the commons' that Prof. Guy Standing draws attention to.
http://camdennewjournal.com/article/attacks-on-jeremy-corbyn-from-his-fellow-party-members-amaze-me?sp=1&sq=bruce%2520kent%2520jeremy%2520corbyn

As a retired disabled jobseeker, I know what it's like to have one's reputation smeared by those with privatisation agendas, and that has led me into blogging and my previous co-authorship of the Green Party of England & Wales response to Labour's 2008 'welfare reform' Green Paper [consultation document] 'No-one written off'. That Green Party of England & Wales document was sat upon by major UK news outlets to which it was sent, but can still be found online via

D – The Green Party is opposed to the use of private for-profit ...

https://www.greenparty.org.uk › reports › GPEW_writing_off_workfare_final

19 Oct 2008 - Writing off workfare: ... Green Party of England and Wales[1] ..... (see Jonathan Rutherford, http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/ ..... [4] The online title of the same article on the Community Care magazine website is ...

 
I also take this opportunity to flag up an article from the pro-Remain news source The New European that focuses on Dominic Cummings as 'adviser' to Prime Minister Boris Johnson:
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/brexit-strategy-dominic-cummings-ooda-loop-1-6339099

That The New European publication is generally negative about Jeremy Corbyn, as might be expected by the intertwining of the right wing of the Labour Party with pro-EU issues.
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/home/search?q=%22jeremy+corbyn%22+%22alastair+campbell%22&submitted=true&searchSlot=true&submit=true&resultsSearch=&fromDate=&toDate=&resultsSearch=&sort=relevance&fromDate=&filterFromDate=&toDate=&filterToDate=

Bruce Kent has written against the smearing of Jeremy Corbyn at
http://camdennewjournal.com/article/attacks-on-jeremy-corbyn-from-his-fellow-party-members-amaze-me

But I would add that while I do believe that Jeremy Corbyn is a very decent and much-maligned person, his apparent subservience to a witch hunt of anti-Zionists in the Labour Party is worth examining, as Tony Greenstein points out
https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2019/11/corbyn-can-win-but-it-is-unlikely.html
I would, however, distance myself from Tony Greenstein's own way of applying derogatory labelling of people.