So VE day came and went. Like most days actually. We had our street party and that was rather funny. Lovely people in our road. There was Dinesh whose house faces ours. His grandchildren come over every day and cycle around his large drive. There was Paul and Sarah who came to our rescue when the front door got broken down in the middle of night by thieves looking for my car keys ( I told my wife to call the police whilst I, with my under-developed sense of fear, went down the stairs shouting that they should eff off. Which, they did as they couldn’t see that the threat was coming from this small, Jewish guy who also has an under-developed set of muscles ) There was Derek who invites my wife to go bird-watching with him. A pursuit I encourage because It’s usually on a Sunday and I get to watch 10 guilt-free hours of non-stop sport. I say guilt free but I also have an under-developed sense of guilt. Bit like my social conscience. I always think every family should have one, but as my wife and younger son both possess it ( the social conscience that is ) I always feel I don’t need to bother.
Back to our street party though. There was Susie and her husband whose name I don’t know, there were nearly all the Iliffes ( regular readers of mine ) Steve, Emma, Sophie ( one of my shopping elves… I was nearly at her birth as you may recall ) and Sophie’s German boy-friend Philip ( very sporting of him to attend… I did ask him if he minded a mention and he gave me the nod… I wanted to develop that theme but my wife wouldn’t let me…. told you she is the nice one in the family ) and of course, there was 94 -year-old Isabella . She, in fact, was joined by her son-in-law’s mother, Lucia also in her 90’s who’d strolled over from up the road. She’s Portugese and I can’t remember which side Portugal was on. I took my pics on my camera including one of my wife waving the Union Jack and sent it to my son, saying we had won the war. He pointed that that we hadn’t. We’d just been on the winning side and pre-Trump America actually won it. Surprised Donald hasn’t claimed he was involved in that triumph in some way, although I can’t recall him at Baby-Spy Training Camp alongside me.
But, there was an aftermath. Not of the war ( that was Hiroshima ) but our street party and this aftermath was even more seismic. We all took out our cups of tea or coffee, I even took out a couple of chairs and a little table and a plate with half a jam donut ( American spelling cos that’s what my Mac does ) and Sophie had a tin of cookies and I gave Isabella and Lucia two little muffins ( I only had half a donut by the way as it was very big, very fresh and had just been bought for me that morning from a kosher bakery in Temple Fortune and I wanted to save the other half for tea the next day ( our friend Ann organizes a local delivery of challahs ( we can’t all make them like Rabbi Daniel’s wife Ilana ( more about Rabbi Daniel in a minute as I promised him a mention….. who don’t you mention my friend Naomi asked on Friday, you’ve mentioned everybody in the world… you too Naomi and thanks for the regular trips to Marksies for me ) but, I meander away from the Aftermath.
Isabella took out her little wicker stool and placed her tray upon it. Seems she and her husband had bought it for a fiver in the 1940’s at Heal’s the prestigious furniture store that still exists in Tottenham Court Road today ( or at least it existed in February when I last saw it when I went for a second time ( with Jonny, Naomi’s husband , to see “ Come From Away“) but I can’t say with any certainty if it still exists today, of course. The party split up, we didn’t get around to any singing of the old faithfulls or the National Anthem for that matter ( or the Indian, the Portugese or the German National Anthems…. It was a multi-national gathering ) and we all went home. I took in my chairs and folding table, Sophie took in her tin of goodies, her parents and her boyfriend, Isabella took in her tray….. But she forgot her 1940’s vintage stool.
Now, if somebody leaves furniture outside a house it can only mean one thing. It’s an invitation to any passer-by to take it ( I suppose it can mean that a wife has thrown her unfaithful husband’s favourite chair away with him in it, but nobody is likely to take the pair of them away ) but somebody did accept the “ invitation “ to take Isabella’s stool. She was distraught. She tried to comfort herself by saying it was only a “ thing “ ( well so is an adulterous husband in a beat-up armchair ) but it wasn’t. So she made up some big hand-written signs, plastered them over the front of her house etc .
I have little faith in human nature although on one occasion I left a lovely cashmere, Jaeger scarf in a taxi from Tel Aviv airport to a hotel and the driver did find it and return it (amazingly without making a charge, as most Tel Aviv taxi-drivers don’t even turn on their meters and then think of a figure and double it at the end of the ride ) and a cabbie in Ireland also brought back a phone I had left in my cab to a hotel outside Dublin ( mind you, he charged me ) but they are isolated incidents of human kindness and honesty. However, and it’s taken me an awful long time to get there, this was another example, because by early evening yesterday Isabella and her stool were re-united. It was returned, albeit, without a note. I wonder if it’s return arose from a tip-off by a “ stool-pigeon “
Been dying to get that one in.
On subject of dying Little Richard did ( or has ) . Without wishing to belittle him ( thought would underline and put in bold in case you missed that one ) I was never a great fan of his. Nor Chuck Berry, nor Bill Hailey, Nor even Elvis. Not an old rock n’ roller at all although did like Eddie Cochrane. In the fifties I was more into Frankie Laine ( loved High Noon , my fav film and theme music ) and Johnnie Ray . Made my parents take me to see him at the London Palladium and my mother sat through the performance with her hands over her ears. Mind you, she did that a lot when she was in the same room as my sons when they were small. It was lucky for her that my Dad was a very quiet man.
Themes to movies cropped up in the Friday night service at my synagogue. You can’t use your computer or I-pad or phone on the Sabbath so the United Synagogue has taken to broadcasting on-line a pre-Sabbath service from various communities and this week it was our turn. Enter Rabbi Daniel ( who has a very nice singing voice…. flattery will get me everywhere as he posted my parcel back to Amazon ) and he performed the service before an audience that rose to 262 families ( so probably about 400-500 people ) Pretty impressive given the average attendance at our synagogue for a regular Friday night service is about fifteen ! He had a great play-list for the gig. He sang one of the Hebrew hymns/psalms to the tune of “ White Cliffs of Dover “ another to “ We’ll Meet Again “ and his coup de grace ( or whatever the German equivalent is… will ask Philip later ) was the theme from “ The Dambusters “ Sheer genius. When this is all over maybe he can record Queen’s “ I’m Gonna Break Free “ in Hebrew
Speaking of Queen ( disliked them as much as I disliked the Beatles, the one pretentious the other bubble-gum) am doing a birthday quiz on Tuesday for my friend Mel Hacker and I see there is a round on the Beatles . Gonna be tough… we have to set the round on Politics. Even tougher. Only one question I could ask would be to name the Prime Minister or maybe to give his nick-name . Fortunately our news groupie friends, Colin and Angela are on our team so problem solved.
Run out of time and space again and the opportunities for mentions or “ shout-outs “ as Sam calls them and have to mow the lawn. My admission of my house-cleaning on Friday drew the biggest response to any blog yet. Lots of astonished readers. Just wait till I turn my virtual soup into reality.
Anyway, enough already. Lots of material left for tomorrow, Bats and the like, to give you a taster… better not… that’s how this all started. Stay safe and see you in the morning if we are spared.