Blind Dog returns to St Dunstans

[lethargic_man]

Last summer, I was thinking about where we could go as a day trip from London whilst we were visiting the UK, and hit upon the idea of Canterbury, as a city I'd not yet visited. Of course, Canterbury is steeped in history, with the cathedral, and its associations with the murder of Thomas à Becket, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and so forth, but for me a good half the reason to go was the desire to recreate the cover of one of my favourite albums, Blind Dog at St Dunstans by Caravan:

This is one of the cases where reduction in album cover sizes, from 12" LPs to 12cm CDs to tiny thumbnails for MP3s is a real loss; the cover is packed with dog-related jokes most of which you can't see except on a high resolution image. Have a zoom in and see how many you can make out.

Caravan, in case you've never heard of them, were a prog-rock band, part of the so-called Canterbury scene, in the 1970s. (The liner notes on a best of Caravan album describes them as "a break-up product of the Wilde Flowers, one of the most influential bands never to sign a record contract", which phraseology I like.) This album was where they abandoned their prog-rock roots and went poppier, which didn't go down well with fans at the time, but if, like me, you discovered this album (over thirty years ago, good grief!) before their earlier prog-rock material, then you can appreciate the album on its own merits, free from any prior expectations. A few readers might even have heard it without realising: The entire album was part of my playlist at my fortieth birthday party. Here's a playlist for the entire album on YouTube, if you'd like to listen.

Anyhow, I achieved my ambition when I went to Canterbury:

(The camera angle is slightly different because (a) I couldn't stand in the middle of the road, and (b) I was covering up some unsightly roadworks with the position of my body.)