Thanks to Dave for his contributions.
Thanks to Dave for his contributions.
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MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
Pic2 – A coalman, I remember them well. 1 cwt. bags of coal carried up 3 or 4 storeys. Faces black as soot. Pic3 – Glasgow 1980 by the great Magnum photographer, Raymond Depardon. Pic5 – Las Vegas, 1950s? Pic6 – Cleo Laine, doubtless singing to the backing of Johnnie Dankworth. Pic7 – Morris Minor. Pic9 – Austin7 – “needs some restoration – good runner” 🙂 Pic10 – Enbra somewhere? Pic11 – Harold Wilson, erstwhile British Labour P.M. Pic12 – Terry Thomas. Pic14 – Agatha Christie. Pic15 – From “Porridge”: – L to R – Mr. McKay (Fulton McKay), Fletcher (Ronnie Barker), Godber (Richard Beckinsale).
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“Embra somewhere” is indeed correct. Craigmillar Park in Newington.
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Wow! 🙂
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My Saturday “Job” was delivering Briquettes sold individually, and “Eggs or Nuts” by the bag.
Loading the lorry was hard, the briquettes stacked in such a way as they lent inward. It was always a relief when Nutty said “That’ll do us”.
I don’t know how he did it, but there was only ever 2 or 3 bags and about a dozen or so briquettes left at the end of the run.
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Heavy work for a young un, Aucheorn!!!
But it must have put muscles on your muscles!
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When delivering the briquettes to the tenement flats, we stacked them on a wooden board which held a dozen balanced on their edges. It was much harder than humphing a cwt of coal on your back. Often, they were still quite hot from the baking process and the ones at the ends could burn the forearms.
My mother liked briquettes because they lasted longer than coal.
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Were they like compressed coal dust?
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Basically Coal dust mixed with something then stuck in moulds. Nutty would get awfa irate if he got broken ones delivered, but if we broke them they went in a box for the hoose.
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They were mixed with cement. There must have been some heating, too, because when the cart arrived to sell them, there would be steam rising from them.
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Tram passing station in Newington ?
Do I recall correctly that TT had his gap insured ?
As weans, the first dirty joke we kent wis Jock the coalman. It’s the way I tell them, as Mike Yarwood would say in his impressions of Harold Wilson.
With the wraparound rear window, that surely can’t be a split windscreen on the Morris Minor ( or as it was sometimes known, the working man’s Rolls Royce.)?
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Yep, I think you’re right about TT.
It looks like a split screen… on the British version of the Wolkswagon!
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Re Coal, it was cheaper to buy it in the summer. During the winter months we had 2 bags each week.
I stumbled across this send up of a commercial for a toy that was a craze in the late 50’s or early 60’s. The things that were a craze!
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Ha ha ha… Need to get one for Munguin!!!
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Is that a Gordon England 7 in the first pic? The showroom car’s a Cadillac, I think.
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And people got so dressed up to go buy a car… LOL…
Dave? Can you reply to question?
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Aye Tris
First picture is a Gordon England Cup model on an Austin Seven Chassis. Only 2 seats.
Busy day today
Dave
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Fun to date Las Vegas pictures from the buildings and signs that change over the years.
In this old picture, the Las Vegas Strip actually looks something like the desert highway south of town that it once was. This is looking north down The Strip at its east-west intersection with Flamingo Road. In the middle distance, the Strip makes a curve to the northeast at the Sands. The Flamingo is the jumble of low rise buildings seen just above the “Bonanza” sign. No Flamingo signage is visible.
The Dunes sign was built in 1964, and Caesar’s Palace (across Flamingo Road) opened about 1966. Caesar’s original building cannot be seen on the left, but it’s barely possible to see its sign at its entrance off the Strip. The Bonanza Hotel and Casino across the Strip from the Dunes was open from 1967 to 1973. The circular tower in the far distance at the upper right of the picture is The Landmark. It opened as a Howard Hughes property in 1969, but the structure was probably complete by the mid 60’s. There is as yet no indication of big construction around The Bonanza, where the original MGM Grand Hotel (the biggest in the world at the time) opened in 1973…..the year the Bonanza closed and was demolished. So from all the clues, the picture was made after 1966 (from Caesar’s sign, and consistent with the Dunes sign) and before construction of the MGM Grand Hotel had begun across the street in the early 1970’s. (“Diamonds Are Forever” was filmed in Vegas in 1971, and this intersection is seen in the movie.)
Today, the intersection is barely visible here among the buildings and the lights. The Bellagio now occupies the southwest corner where the Dunes was, and these fountains are about where the Dunes sign was. Across the street, Paris Las Vegas and Bally’s (formerly the MGM Grand Hotel) occupy the southeast corner where the Bonanza was. Near the very center of the picture a bight white rectangle is seen on the Bally’s sign, about where the Bonanza sign was.
On the northeast corner is the large brightly lit Flamingo, and to its north, merging with the mountains is the huge Venetian Las Vegas Resort, built on the site of the old Sands. Just entering the frame at the left is one of Caesar’s buildings.
You have to turn around to see the Bellagio (with the rest of its fountains) on the southwest corner. Built on 80+ acres where the Dunes was.
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LOL… It’s changed a bit, hasn’t it?
I’ve never been and I somehow think I wouldn’t much care for it.
🙂
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Tris……I had family who went there in the old days. I’ve seen lots of old pictures. I think the saloon singers like Sinatra and Sammy Davis in the old rooms at the Sands and the Desert Inn must have been great. Now it’s mostly house entertainment, and I can play blackjack and slots in Kansas City casinos. But when Nevada was the only place in the country you could legally gamble in a casino, it was awesome. The lights are still awesome, and seeing where the old places were. As is the relative over-the-top opulence of some of the new places. I’ve driven from L.A. in an afternoon. Also flown in. The prettier scenery is up at the places on Lake Tahoe of course.
Caesar’s opened in 1966. Petula and Andy Williams opened the Caesar showrooms. Petula sang the first cabaret show, and Andy Williams did a staged musical. I read a history of the old Bonanza, across the street from the Dunes. There was a news story about Petula in the early 70’s seen shooting dice there. Casino celebrity sightings always got attention.
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LOL. I didn’t know she gambled, Danny. Still they seem to have made it a publicity thing…
http://www.lvstriphistory.com/ie/3coins.htm
All the big stars used to work there and the money was incredible.
So they don;t have big names there any more? I can imagine people paying good money to see some of the big starts… Sinatra, Martin, Sammy Davis, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald… but in-house entertainment? Probably not.
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Tris…..I think the problem is that the big stars are now the rock stars and they don’t work cabaret. All the old time saloon singers are gone. 😉
A sighting of a celebrity like Petula in a casino would have been good for a headline that apparently brought in the gamblers.
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Yes, you’re probably right.
I think Celine Dion did an extended stay in Vegas, but even she appears to have deserted.
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Tris……I see that Caesars closed their old 900+ seat Circus Maximus showroom where Petula played and Sinatra played…….with booth and table seating for the old cabaret dinner show arrangement. They then built the “Colosseum”, a 4,000+ seat theater specifically for Celine Dion’s residency which has gone on for years and been extended. Other big name performers regularly play engagements there.
I know that Barry Manilow for many years has played the Westgate……formerly the International then the Las Vegas Hilton, which Elvis opened and often played. Big names at the MGM Grand too I’m sure. Streisand opened the place. I imagine that the top places still book name acts. It’s just not like the Rat Pack in the Copa Room of the Sands anymore…..LOL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colosseum_at_Caesars_Palace
https://www.thecolosseum.com/home
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I can see from these articles that they still have very big names, Danny, playing, some of them, for YEARS.
Smart in a way, of course, because they get their fans to come to them, rather than touring shows to the fans.
Great if your fans are rich, I guess and can afford to go to Vegas.
I suppose it would be good to go one day. Loads of friends have been. and they say it’s an experience. LOL
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Tris……Definitely an experience. As long as you’re not much into minimalism and understatement. 😉
This article describes Celine’s residency at Caesars in 2011 as consisting of 70 performances per year at half a million dollars per show. WOW!
Looks like she is ending it on June 8.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine_(concert_residency)
https://www.caesars.com/caesars-palace/shows/celine-dion?ds_rl=1249719&ds_rl=1249722&ds_rl=1248599&utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_term=celine+vegas&utm_content=Las+Vegas&utm_campaign=LAV_CLVVis.Celine_Exact&gclid=CjwKCAjw4LfkBRBDEiwAc2DSlH_1iGJtNselaZLo9i_tcIT4_toytsEHo3jnJz9_ytgH-CAfGPheFRoCOWkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds#.XI6AECJKjX4
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LOL… I think Munguin might enjoy that then… Me, I’m a bit minimalist.
Half a million dollars per show… wow!
She’s really good… but that really is a LOT of money.
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Nothing minimalist about her fee!…..LOL.
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Well, no. Maximist, if you ask me… although Munguin says it’s peanuts.
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As a child my sister in law dreamed of visiting Las Vegas.
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It must seem a really exciting place to a kid, Helen.
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I have some family who regularly visited Las Vegas at a time when the only casino gambling in the United States was in the state of Nevada. They said it seemed so exciting to hear the sound of the slot machines in the airport gate area as soon as they stepped off the plane. 🙂
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