SteynOnline

For disc-jockeys of my vintage, Tal Bachman is the son of Randy Bachman of the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, but he's also a popster in his own right, and in this post he reflects on a fun night at Conrad Black's pad in Toronto put together by our mutual friend Ezra Levant. Tal found himself called on to play a short set of songs as a kind of warm-up act to a few words by me re America Alone, and, although he says he didn't think he did particularly well, most folks who were there disagreed. He did a very pertinent Ray Davies elegy for poor lost England, a fine song of his own in pop-standard style called "Ain't It Grand", and rounded things out with his big hit "She's So High". I then took to the floor so distracted by Tal's set that I told a Ray Davies anecdote, said how much I liked the word "grand", offered a few rock'n'roll jests, and I don't think I ever got round to the global jihad or whatever it was I was meant to be talking about. "Could have done with a bit more on the clash of civilizations, old boy," John O'Sullivan said to me afterwards. If these litigious types at the Canadian Islamic Congress had any sense, they'd challenge me to a debate and throw me off with an opening Rodgers & Hart medley.