Musical Education - Seriously, you should know this by now

As Jeff Lynne has two new albums coming out later this year, I have been pondering the awesome world of music. And by music I mean proper music, not that rubbish that passes for music nowadays (golly, I sound at least sixty)...

OK, so, a brief lesson on Rock Family Trees:

• So, Jeff Lynne was in a band called "The Idle Race", who were alright.
• Then he got bored of them and moved to a band called "The Move" (so called, because all their members moved about a lot).
• Also in "The Move" at that time were Roy Wood, Bev Bevan and Rick Price (previous members include Ace Kefford, Carl Wayne, Trevor Burton and Richard Tandy).
• Roy Wood had moved to "The Move" from "Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders", where he was constantly fighting for supremacy with (surprise surprise) Mike Sheridan.
• After "The Move" Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood and Bev Bevan rejoined forces with Richard Tandy to form "The Electric Light Orchestra" ("ELO"), who are one of the best bands ever to have existed. "ELO" also included about six or seven other members, most of whom played strings (and Bill Hunt, who played keyboard and french horn).
• The incredibly talented Roy eventually left "ELO" to pursue a more lucrative career where he wasn't fighting for supremacy against other incredibly talented musicians (Lynne). Roy then went on to become the lead singer of "Wizzard", one of the other best bands of all time, along with Charlie Grimma, Nick Pentalow, Mike Burney and Rick Price (from "The Move"), amongst others.
• "ELO", in Roy's absence, picked up several new members, including Kelly Groucutt and Mik Kaminski, and became extremely successful. Eventually, somewhere in the midst of the eighties, Jeff Lynne got bored and left, after writing a song about it (as you do). 
• After this, "ELO" picked up an excellent new singer called Eric Troyer and formed "ELO Part II", "Orkestra" and "The Orchestra" in quick succession (Jeff Lynne had the rights to the "ELO" name).
• Both Kelly Groucutt and Jeff Lynne took up solo careers at various points during the nineties and two thousands. Jeff Lynne also "reformed" the "ELO", still having the name rights, but with girls, and very few of the actual original members. They did a tour called "Zoom" in 2001, but everyone seems to agree that the less said about that, the better.
• Jeff Lynne was also in the supergroup with the best lineup ever (Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, George Harrison and Bob Dylan - I know, right?!?!) - The Traveling Wilburys.
• Roy Wood, in the meantime, has been in several bands since Wizzard; firstly there was "The Wizzo Band", which was weird and experimental, "Roy Wood's Helicopter", "Roy Wood's Army", "The Roy Wood Big Band" and, now, "The Roy Wood Rock and Roll Band". ("Roy Wood's Army" and "The Roy Wood Big Band" were both mostly, if not all, female apart from Roy. This makes them doubly awesome. "The Roy Wood Rock And Roll Band" is not all female, as the majority of the musicians from "The Roy Wood Rock And Roll Band" all went off to have families and babies.)
• Roy was also part of a supergroup called "The Rockers", who were the House Band on the TV show "OTT" (which Roy wrote the theme tune for). This band comprised of Phil Lynot, Chas Hodges and John Coghlan.

OK, that's a family tree which is practically horizontal. But awesome. For more information, check out this video, which is the best thing on the web:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRDqpaDEG3k <-- Watch it, or be forever shunned...

Cub Camp

So, as many of you may know, I have been helping at the District Cub Camp this weekend with a fantastic group of people. Therefore I have been pondering the joys of Cubs, camping and the general topic of Scoutists. So basically, I have decided that I really don't want to be a Cub Leader! I don't know how they do it! The first night, the majority of them were awake until two am chatting and generally being awesome, yet several of them were awake again at four thirty, yelling at the Cubs to shut up and go back to sleep (but more politely, obviously). How do they do it?!?!?! It's amazing. The second night was almost the same, we were up until at least quarter to two, and yet everyone was awake and functioning properly fairly early the next morning. I swear, Cub Leaders have super-human powers.

At this point it may be useful to introduce the leaders, although we didn't actually learn their real names until the last night, as the Cubs tended to call them all by names such as "Akela". We invented our own nicknames, some of which I shall explain. Firstly, there was (of course) Jean (the Cuffley Akela) and Maureen (Hathi). Then there was Rolf Harris, who I think was really called Dave, who appeared to be the Akela-In-Charge, and his sons Beer Guy (Baloo - also Grant) and Steve-the-Two (not sure of his Cub name, but he was really Ian). Finally there was BeardyWeirdy (Miles, we also heard him called "Teenage Mutant Ginger Turtle") and Pencil Guy (Rikki Tikki Tavi - definitely pronounced Tar-vi, not Tay-vi - who was also known as Paul). I shan't go into the whole double-alias thing as it begins to get confusing.

There was also Other Ian, Bagheera (whose real name we don't know), Juan, Julio, GuythatlookslikePip and various people who didn't get nicknames as they didn't do anything awesome enough to warrant one. Or spend enough time with us for us to get to know them.

Anyway, these guys were cool.

Finally, this weekend, I have decided that, in the highly unlikely case that I actually become a Cub Leader, I would like to be Baloo, as he is awesome. Also, I think I would suit Baloo more than, for example, Bagheera or Kaa, and Rikki Tikki Tavi is just really really long...