Just In Case, here is John Hurd's 3SongsBonn interview with Simon Kempston

 https://3songsbonn.com/2020/12/20/simon-kempston-interview/

Simon Kempston, ist trotzt Coronavirus COVID-19 von Folk Club Bonn in Dezemeber nicht weg zu denken! 

Your latest album "Hand On My Heart" is one of your very best and a true window into a man's soul. 

Thank you, dear Simon, for your inimitable courage, dedication, and tenacity, in the face of adversity in 2020.

If one looks on the brighter side of life, things can only ever get better from hence forwards.

A special thanks to John Hurd for interviewing Folk Club Bonn's most very special, "Special Guest".

Enjoy !

3SongsBonn boosts Simon Kempston live on air in Bonn, in a home near you, on Sunday Evening 13.12.20 at 20:00 hrs

It would appear that Simon Kempston has another fan from a John in Bonn from John Hurd's 3 SongsBonn website, just across town in Bonn!

2020 has been a very bad year in so many ways, but as I never tire of saying, apart from the Doonald, no one can now reasonably and honestly suggest that Coronavirus COVID-19 is NOT now contagious.

There are currently a few conspiracy theorists waiting in the corridor outside the headmaster's study for lessons in reality, with deaths in the USA recently reaching a 3,000 daily high. Maybe some current US lawyers may have their licences to practise law rescinded in the new year, for telling fibs in court?

There is now neither no longer any question that despite a "popular vote" majority of 6 million votes and a majority in the US Electoral College exactly the same as Donald Trump declared a "landslide" in 2016. The new President-Elect of the USA is, without the shadow of a doubt "sleepy" Joe Biden!

Sorry, I forgot, we do not do "Politics" at Folk Club Bonn. However, we do DO history, and in quite a big way. I can now happily confide, that the apparition that was Presidency of  Donald J. Trump belongs now firmly to the latter, and no longer to the former category.  

I am happy to say that not only is Coronavirus-COVID-19 dangerously contagious but also one of the most basic human traits is also not only equally contagious but hopefully even more so. 

"HOPE" is an integral human facet which has followed mankind on all of its many journeys, from the early forests down to the steppes, on its long walk out of Africa to the Middle East and throughout the rest of the world.

We stand now at the end of a bad year but on the cusp of a very hopeful new year, with no more Trump and not one, but at least three, very hopeful vaccines on the immediate horizon. 

The world's scientists have all pulled on the same spirited rope of human hope, and if not in all of 2021, we can at least hope that 2022 will return us all to a semblance of "normality" albeit having learnt a little more from the past.

The carriers of such messages of hope have always been, from human time immemorial, travelling troubadours, support a modern Scottish one, and already a Bonn legend, on this Sunday evening,

https://3songsbonn.com/2020/12/11/simon-kempston-launches-new-cd-with-a-full-length-virtual-concert/

Thanks John Hurd!

Simon Kempston Virtual Concert on Sunday Evening 13.12.20 at 20:00 hrs local German Time Here

https://www.facebook.com/events/1037750093364755

SONNTAG, 13. DEZEMBER 2020 VON 20:00 UTC+01 BIS 21:30 UTC+01

Dear Folk Club Bonn regulars,
greetings to you all and hoping you are all in good health and full of good cheer!?!!
The true regulars amongst you will be acutely aware that following keenly on the heels of FCB's inception in 2010 in Graurheindorf a Scottish troubadour by the name of Simon Kempston played one December in the folk club on his inaugural European tour. So from them on our futures have been somehow inextricably interlinked. There followed an after-show party at Detlef's and then roundabout midnight at the crossroads there, an, at the time, almost throwaway, pact was made. Simon had performed such a good concert that it was decided that he should become our most special of "special guests" and have a regular early December slot at Folk Club Bonn into eternity with the proviso that he produced a new CD each year, so that he could present it each year at the folk club, in order that the committee and other folk clubbers had at least one or two Christmas presents for family and friends already in the bag or bottom drawer by early December, thus ensuring a less stressful pre-Christmas period. 
It was quite a tall order for Simon because in addition to performing 150-200 live gigs a year, initially in the UK and western Europe, and more recently worldwide, he had to write new material each year and find the time to record it. Ironically earlier in this year, Simon hinted that he might have trouble managing it this year, after almost a decade of compliance, but he did not reckon with COVID-19 putting more free time into his hands this year that even a man on death row could imagine. The Coronavirus put an end to so many happy pursuits in 2020 that in the end, it was us, at the folk club that could not finally keep our part of the bargain and provide Simon with a public stage on the first Friday in December. Simon's CD for this year is ready and is entitled "Hand On My Heart" As one says in German "Aufgeschoben ist nicht aufgehoben!" ("Postponed is not cancelled!")
Thanks to modern technology you can actually hear a Simon Kempston concert live this Sunday 13.12.20 at 20:00 - 21:30 hrs local time, by simply following the link above. If you are sufficiently tight-fisted you could click on the link and watch the concert for free, just like you do at the folk club. However, any of you with a modicum of imagination, and most of you I know have "Vorstellungsvermögen" in abundance, could well imagine what kind of an annus horribilis Simon has had both financially and psychologically, as a performing artist in 2020. So I am sure that even the most Scrooge-like amongst you will be glad to send a few Shekels Simon's way. For those of you counting on acquiring Simon's new CD for the festive season, "the same procedure as every year", they are available at €15 each or two for €25 and Simon has done a backdoor deal with Santa's helpers for them to reach you all in a timely fashion prior to Yuletide"
For fear of not having been persuasive enough, here is a wee message from Simon himself,

"Sadly, my usual December performance at the Folk Club Bonn won't be happening this year - I very much hope you can join me on Sunday instead - please add yourself here to the event to set a reminder.

Hope to see you all then!

SK x "

PS

Simon Kempston

John Harrison

 thank you very much, although it actually starts at 2000 your time - . Many thanks, SK x

mea culpa Simon, I must admit I was slightly thrown at your lucidity with your ever- increasing international audience and your extensive global reach. 

UTC stands for Coordinated Universal Time and is to all intents and purposes a successor to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).

The etymology for the compromise of the term UTC is not uninteresting:

QUOTE

The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC. This abbreviation arose from a desire by the International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union to use the same abbreviation in all languages. English speakers originally proposed CUT (for "coordinated universal time"), while French speakers proposed TUC (for "temps universel coordonné"). The compromise that emerged was UTC,^[which conforms to the pattern for the abbreviations of the variants of Universal Time (UT0, UT1, UT2, UT1R, etc)

UNQUOTE

 The UK is currently on UTC which is always the same as GMT, rather than BTS (British Summertime) which is an hour in advance of UTC/GMT during the summer months, to make use of daylight saving hours. Germany is currently only one hour ahead of UTC or GMT as it is winter. In the summer months, however, Germany is two hours ahead of UTC or GMT.

So, to cut to the chase, Simon's concert can be viewed at 20:00 hrs on Sunday evening the 13.12.20 if you are listening in Berlin or Bonn, or indeed anywhere else in western Europe outside of the British Isles, or alternatively, it can be viewed and heard at 19:00 hrs if you are listening and viewing in either London or Dundee for example.

Quite simple, isn't it?

Q.E.D.

Folk Club Bonn stopped dead in its tracks again!

"Dear Folk-Friends,
We must inform you that the Folk Club will, unfortunately, be closed in November due to the current Coronavirus regulations of the government which prohibit all music evenings like ours. Hopefully, Corona will soon let us out of its clutches again. We will keep you informed about further developments with information on the blog. Alternatively, If you want to be informed about upcoming meetings by Email with our (under normal circumstances) regular Folk Club information, please contact us (see our Email addresses under "Contact")"

Folk Club wieder gestoppt

Liebe Folk-Freunde,

eigentlich ist diese Nachricht für alle, die die Nachrichten verfolgen, überflüssig. Aber der guten Ordnung halber teilen wir euch mit, dass der Folk Club im November aufgrund der aktuellen Beschlüsse der Regierung ausfällt. Wir hatten im September und Oktober trotz Corona mehrere Veranstaltungen mit erheblichen Vorsichtsvorkehrungen und Einschränkungen organisieren können. Aktuell sind aber Musikabende wie die des Folk Clubs generell untersagt.

Wir hoffen, dass uns Corona bald wieder aus ihren Klauen lässt. Über die weitere Entwicklung halten wir euch mit Informationen auf dem Blog bzw. mit direkten Mails an alle, die uns ihre Adressen gegeben haben, auf dem Laufenden.

Wer mit unseren (unter normalen Umständen) regelmäßigen Folk-Club-Informationen über anstehende Treffen per Mail informiert werden möchte, der nehme mit uns per Mail Kontakt auf (siehe unsere Adressen unter „Contact“)

GO!

 Bonn Folk Club in 2020 has been quite a roller coaster ride. From a stunning 10 Year Anniversary Edition in March, celebrated by having 10 different fiddles, quickly followed by our last indoor edition in April a month later with "Stables" which was then followed by a six-month hiatus, partially self-imposed, with eventually two FCB Lite editions outdoors on the hockey pitch at Dotty's, each only 90 minutes in duration and with no break, to avoid mingling. Then finally, what John Hurd would probably call "the icing on the cake" a Folk Club Bonn On Tour in the Harmonie in Bonn.

(Photo courtesy of Sabine Büttner)

Read the report and see the unusual photos in the following link, which John Hurd, who as a journalist, ever aware of the danger of yesterday's news being stale, actually wrote on his own birthday! Bless him!

Just click on the two links below to read and see:

3 Songs Bonn

MORE PHOTOS HERE

Enjoy!

STEADY