Jeff Stein

If you are interested in the music side of that year, David Hepworth's "1971" is well worth a read

The bloke is a complete boof head. Never understood why they signed him. He has produced nothing on the pitch to make the aggravation off it tolerable.

Had no idea he was still alive. Doesn't seem that long since Pops died but must have been if Pervis was 85. His nightclub had a very unfortunate name

I mentioned him in the people who are alive but you thought was dead thread. He would be great just for "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", but he lived an extraordinary life

Longtime Lakeside Hammers and Eastbourne Eagles Manager and Promoter Jon Cook

There is an excellent version by Ella Fitzgerald as well

Another gobiron supremo gone: ex-Muddy Waters sideman Paul Oscher

Southend harmonica maestro Lew Lewis

I really enjoyed the performances by Eddie Izzard and Celyn Jones and could see those characters in a TV series. However, it did not really hang together and I wonder if it was over-edited as it was not as suspenseful as it could have been

Watched the first episode and I guess it was pretty good but when it came to the second episode my wife and I decided we didn't wish to watch something so apparently cheerless for the next nine weeks

I would imagine she is doing everything desperately to avoid what is coming (hopefully)

Running the World by Nick Butter. I saw this chap being interviewed on TV. He seemed an amiable cove and I like travel books so I got this. It is a diary of his successful attempt to run a marathon in each of the world's countries totalling 196. It certainly isn't great literature but does bounce along. It doesn't change my mind that running is intrinsically dull and it certainly didn't make me want to visit anywhere in Africa.

My wife and I find him unintentionally funny as he has only one pitch, which is total excitement. he hasn't run out of superlatives yet.

Lloyd Price

Why the Germans do it Better: Notes from a Grown Up Country by John Kampfner. The title is a little misleading in that it is not really a comparison with anywhere, although Johnson's UK does get mentioned on occasion, more in sadness than anything. Instead the book covers the political development of Germany from the second war world to the present liberal democracy. It is safe to say that the author is a fan of Angela Merkel, but it is remarkable how there has not really been a poor post-war chancellor. Only Gerhard Schroder gets a bit of a kicking and that is because of his post-chancellorship crawling to Putin. The book reads like a long form magazine article, but it is none the worse for that as it provides real clarity to issues such as the economic miracle, grundgesetz, reunification, foreign policy and the 2015 opening of borders rather than being of a more academic bent. Although I last lived in Germany over 27 years ago, it chimed with my impressions from that time.

John Waters

Mongkut Station by Jake Needham. I am a big fan of this thriller writer and have read all of his books, this being the latest. All of his books are set in south east Asia, this one being in Hong Kong and featuring his two main characters Inspector Samuel Tay of Singapore CID and Jack Shepherd, an American lawyer. There are the usual hallmarks of his books: snappy dialogue, real life settings (in this case the pro-democracy demonstrations) and atmospheric and accurate locations. You feel like you are in Hong Kong. The one failing I have found in some of his previous books has been a rushed ending, but this one was satisfying and felt right.