Shitty memory

Just remembered the time when my mate Steve skidded over on some slippery dogshit, just as a car had pulled up to ask for directions. In terms of his dignity, this was just about as calamitous as can be! However, he impressed me with the way he calmly issued instructions from a lying-down position - a posture he maintained as the car disappeared into the distance.

Wot I Have Learnt

I have one piece of hard-wrought advice for my daughters: close your mouth when cleaning a toilet. There is a rather revolting story behind that particular piece of wisdom. Ain't life just so sweet folks...

Time Warped

I love music. I come from a noticeably unmusical family, but have always hungered for music. Recently, I have acquired a number of 1950's and '60's box record players, and have re-discovered the joys of vinyl - you know, them round record things. In a fit of madness, I also purchased a 1956 Westminster Radiogram which has been renovated and adapted to play MP3/CD's, as well as vinyl. It is a grand looking piece of kit; has a soul, and sounds fantastic.

Oh yeh, in this fit of Retro, I have also acquired a 1958 TV, adapted to receive digital, etc. Together with our old books and vintage pottery, we are surrounded with old stuff.

Among the good old stuff I surround myself with, is the voice of the 1960's British blues legend, Long John Baldry. Oh man, what a fuck-off voice that cat had! (he died a couple of years ago, in his early sixties). I am also collecting 78's, which sound particularly fine on good valve record players. Bought one such by Jussi Bjorling, the great Swedish tenor, singing 'Nessum Dorma'. It caught my eye because - I am told - my long dead dad used to love his voice (so there was some musical enthusiasm early in my life). Upon closer examination I found that there was an advert on the sleeve for a cycle shop in Hornsey, the area of North London where my step-dad hails from. I phoned him up, and told him the geezer's name on the sleeve, and he remembered him from his own childhood. That pleased us both, and I feel the resonance of two of my dad's in this one object. And then there is the work of 'Whispering Jack Smith', the breathy proto-crooner of the 1920's, whose distinctive low decibel barritone was necessitated by the damage wrought upon his lungs from a gas attack in the First World War. In a funny kind of way, I am reminded of Bryan Ferry's vocal style as I listen to old whispering. Oh, my gravy runs over the edges of my blog plate. Must stop for now.

I'm off to listen to some more snap, crackle and popping vinyle... before the 1960's sofa and arm chairs I bought yesterday arrives, that is. What a goonatic!

No Sense

So there I was, watering my garden with my recently acquired bath water ciphon-pump, casually contemplating ideal suicide methods, when BANG!... nothing much happened. Today's word is 'squander'.

Saw a drunk woman stagger in front of the motor, nearly getting knocked down. She seemed quite relaxed really. I thought of my friend Sylvie; the woman who once bought a leaking vase - only to realise (belatedly!!!) that she had actually acquired a glass lampshade. How is it that we make it to our dotage. Fucked if I know. But that's alright. I'm not one to worry about the spinach in my teeth anyway.
Squander...