Musical greetings for Armitage Day

Although this blog's main preoccupation is my favourite actor, Richard Armitage, the second most interest (if you go by the tag cloud on the right sidebar) is music.  So I thought it would make sense to have a musical birthday celebration of his favourite bands.

Awhile ago I was reading a post over at Ancient Armitage (one of the newer blogs I've discovered thanks to Servetus @ Me + Richard Armitage) where Obscura (the blogger) discusses an interview where Richard names a few bands he likes.
The interview is by Aubry D'Arminio from 2008, so his musical tastes have undoubtedly changed since then.

What’s your favorite music group? At the moment I’m really into Coldplay just because that last album was so good. But I’m really into Keane and Radiohead. The Feeling are great at the moment, I really like that band.

I have previously posted quite a large collection of RA fanvids done to Coldplay songs.  I was thrilled to find them, as I really love that band's sound.  But I was not as familiar with the other two groups mentioned.  So, of course I needed to see if there were any fanvids set to those band's tunes!

Bingo! Lovely fanvidders never disappoint me. I especially love the lyric to the following song "You Don't See Me" which seems appropriate to this fandom:

Oh, truly we are a fortunate few, who turn on your axis, revolve around you

Read more: Keane - You Don't See Me Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

Richard Armitage Fan Video / by Luigina Ongarato

music by Keane: "You Don't See Me"

The lyrics to this next Keane song are so heartfelt and seem somehow very appropriate for RA.

Hamburg Song /by Luigina Ongarato



And here is the only fanvid I could find with a song by Radiohead.


Guy/Marian Exit Music Robin Hood fan video / by tsora17
Radiohead : Exit Music (For a Film)


Also I am glad he mentioned the name of the band The Feeling because (I'd never heard of them and) they were responsible for the song, Fill My Little World, which was the song they played right after Harry Kennedy and Geraldine Granger said their vows at the end of The Vicar of Dibley!

Here is a link to a clip, (I believe it will start at the beginning of the song).
The Feeling, Fill My Little World (The Vicar of Dibley)
If you wish to watch more of that clip just start it back at the beginning.

In one of his many interviews after the success of The Hobbit movie, Richard Armitage happened to mention that he enjoyed the music of Goyte.  How excited he must have been to be one of the presenters at Australia's Aria Awards where he was able to hand over the Best Pop Release to none other than Goyte!

ARIA Awards 2012 - Best Pop Release - Gotye / video by Bccmee

Last month fanvidder candy varty put Goyte's big hit together with some clips of RA's interviews and here is what she came up with!

Richard Armitage Fanvid ~Somebody That I Used To Know / by candy varty

I really appreciate all the fanvidders out there.  I hope everyone enjoyed Armitage Day.  I have only watched 2 new birthday videos so far and they are both excellent!  In case you missed it - this was a fabulous birthday surprise.... Bccmee is back!!  Check out her fabulous video here!

You can Bank on it!

The idea of Banking has certainly changed over the years.  The Banks used to be regarded as a venerable institution.  But now, Banks and bankers are seen as a greedy, gouging scourge on society.  It's not like they don't deserve that reputation either!

From the recent world-wide financial crisis, precipitated by deregulation and the institutions' own inability to police itself, to here in Canada where our Banking system remained relatively intact -- we have recently been disgusted with the Royal Banks' treatment of their employees who were expected to train their own replacements before being let go.
http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/04/08/hamilton-rbc-facebook.html

Back when I was little, banks seemed like very respectable places. When I was in Grade One, our teacher sent a letter home to our parents stating that each child would need one dollar to open a savings account at our local bank.  When the day came and we all had our dollar bills, we marched en masse from our school down the street to the Bank of Nova Scotia.  Each one of us opened our first savings account.  What a perfect first lesson in civics and early economics.  I had the joy of watching my small deposits accumulate interest at quite a significant rate.

I used that account to save for buying Christmas presents for my family, and later to deposit my revenues from babysitting and other jobs.  My favourite teller had a head for numbers and knew my account number better than I did. She still remembered it, after I moved away and only came back for summer holidays! That branch (now known as Scotiabank) is closed now "in order to serve us better" so they said. (?)

This was all I knew about banking as a child.  You put money in the bank and as it acquired interest, the amount kept growing. If only it were still that simple!  That was also in the days before bank fees gobbled up more than the pittance of interest they are giving for savings accounts nowadays.

Ahhh!  If only things were like the good old days! 

British Bank Singalong from Disney's Mary Poppins

Two Scenes from Mary Poppins

Fidelity Fiduciary Bank Song

I guess some bankers were greedy back then too!


This commercial is a great portrayal of how the banking community is viewed today.

Capital One commercial "You've Got Bankers!"

And I can't resist sharing Rick Mercer's take on Canada's Banks. 
Of course it's a few years old now, but still good for a laugh!

 Rick Mercer (2009)



 Here's an Australian spoof which attempts to explain 
The Reserve Bank:

Newstopia Explains the Reserve Bank (2008)



  Is it any wonder that with what has been going on in the world that someone would want to murder a banker? 
Here is an episode from the first season of the BBC's Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch which is about the murder of a banker.  But there is another reason I am showing you this clip. (Hint: it is in the last few seconds of the video)

Sherlock BBC: The Blind Banker / by GriddlePop


If you were watching closely, you would see a character in this episode is the same actress who starred with Richard Armitage in The Golden Hour.  In this program Zoe Telford plays Watson's girlfriend.

 Zoe Telford in The Golden Hour (top) and Sherlock (bottom)

In Spooks (MI-5) series 7 episode 5, Richard Armitage plays the role of a banker while the Grid is spying on a millionaire high roller who is toying with Britain's banking system so he can make more millions on the resulting mayhem.  RichardArmitageOnline.com has a great pictorial summary of this episode here.  Also on this website is a video clip of one of my favourite scenes. Ros and Lucas are posing as an engaged couple.  They certainly look lovely together!

The following is a fan made video of the same episode meant to be a spoof of an actual bank's commercial.  Their real life motto is "which bank?"

Which Bank [spooks] style / by DeltaTango45



Fans of Richard Armitage are familiar with his voice overs for Santander.  But this vidder has gone one further and turned another Spooks episode into a Santander commercial.
(Thanks to NotEvenanOuch for reuploading this video just the other day!)

Richard Armitage reads ''Santander" advert / by NotEvenAnOuch



And that's not all!
Fellow blogger CDoart wrote a fan fic about RA 
which begins in a bank.

My money is on Richard Armitage.  
I have certainly invested a lot of time admiring him! ;)

I'm still here....

Sorry, I've been neglecting my blog for so long.  I know there's no shortage of blog reading in the Armitage World as I've been trying to keep up with some of them all summer.  If I haven't left many comments it's because I am usually reading on my iPhone, and it is not fun for me to type very much on it.

My summer holidays are officially over today, so I should be trying to get some shut eye so I can get up bright and early this morning... but here I am back to my old habits!

It is the week of Richard Armitage's birthday, (as we rabid fans know it is) on August 22nd.  So I will be actually finishing off a few of my partially written posts and finally pressing the "publish" button at long last!  I may have a new post up my sleeve too, we shall see how my first week back at work goes.

In the meantime, here is a certain smiling face to enjoy.