Free Republic

VIDEO AT LINK. In some ways, it's better than the original, although some will disagree because it doesn't matches Gerry Rafferty's soaring voice.

The Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty, who has died aged 63 after a long illness, wrote the multimillion-selling hit Baker Street, which more than 30 years after its 1978 release still netted him an annual £80,000. At the end of the 1970s he did his best work, a series of richly resonant albums that gave no hint of their creator's inner troubles. Rafferty was born in Paisley, near Glasgow, an unwanted third son. His father, Joseph, was an Irish-born miner. His mother, Mary Skeffington, whose name would provide a Rafferty song title, dragged young Gerry round the streets on Saturday nights...

LONDON - The humble prune is set to be recognized as one of the secret weapons of World War II. A London auction house, Spink, is selling two grizzled prunes that it says were destined to be stuffed with maps or other documents and smuggled to prisoners of war. The prunes were part of the memorabilia collection of a British spy. "They are very dry and hard and it's amazing that they have survived," Spink spokeswoman Emily Johnston said Tuesday. The prunes are part of a collection of World War II memorabilia collected by a British woman, the late Doreen...