I got a great reaction to my musings about my school days yesterday and I guess when it’s not great dwelling in the present we look to the past. My friends Colin and Angela (who are making so many guest appearances that I may have to start giving them a co-production credit) told me they’d been watching “The Lady Vanishes”. That actually dates back to 1938 so it’s not so much nostalgia as historical, but it seems that there has been a real demand for those channels showing classic films. Which made me think of “Donnie Darko” (not 1930’s but 2001) and its brilliant theme song “Mad World“, because it really is. Donnie has an imaginary friend, a giant rabbit. So, maybe we should all have imaginary friends.
I’ve got a whole family of them. The Worm Family Robinson, who for many years were my fingers and kept my grandson amused for hours. Until one day he told me not to be so silly, that they were just fingers and couldn’t live independently of me and my hands. So, it was goodbye to Willie and Wally, Wendy and Anthony (ran out of names beginning with W, but he was the naughty one who kept stealing cars and planes and crashing them), Arthur (the baby of the family who did wees and poos anywhere that was convenient ) and one whose name I can’t remember (help me on that Sam) who blew everything up that stood in his way including the prison walls where Anthony was incarcerated. He did tell me that I could resurrect them for his baby sister, but at the moment I’ve been deprived of that pleasure and so has she.
Now you may think that I’ve totally lost the plot, gone stir crazy or rock crazy or shut-in crazy, but with every story I relate there is a point. And the point here is that Sam, having killed off WFR (which is what we called them and he killed them by repeatedly saying “I don’t believe in worms that can talk”. He even told me one died every time he said it… he can be quite brutal for an 11 year old) …. has gone into competition with me. Yes, he’s taken me on head to head and written his first blog. Having read it, I can honestly say there can be only one winner in this contest. The kid shows real literary potential. He said (and he was obviously copying my day count down (or count up actually) he’d lost count, but get this for a literary gem, “I’m a bit bored but this is a 1000 times better than school …” He’s doing school work but reckons that 14 hours of that a week at home is worth more than 35 hours at school (so there is nothing wrong with the kid’s arithmetical skills although his spelling does need a bit of work). I’m encouraging my daughter-in law to post his alongside mine, as he’s threatening to do more. Who knows? He could be the third generation of writers in the family. I’ve written 20 odd books, my son (his daddy co-wrote the definitive book on charitable fund raising “Donors for Life” and now Sam. Excellent. By the way some of my old books have recently been re-published on Kindle and if any fancies a read let me recommend “Rags to Riches” and “The White Corridors”. If I don’t self-publicise nobody else will do it for me.
I had a conversation with my brother-in-law yesterday when he questioned how I could be writing about current events when, apart from the virus, there weren’t any. He made me think of yet another pop song reference, Del Amiti’s “Nothing Ever Happens”. I’m guessing that 75% of my readership haven’t a clue as to what I am talking about so just as a teaser the opening verse is
“Post office clerks put up signs saying position closed,
And secretaries turn off typewriters and put on their coats
And janitors padlock the gates for security guards to patrol
And bachelors phone up their friends for a drink
While the married ones turn on a chat show
And they’ll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow. “
I won’t type out the whole of the song (give it a play on your phone) but the really relevant lines (not that those above aren’t relevant) are:
“And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
The needle returns to the start of the song
And we all sing along like before
And we’ll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow “
So, Howard, (that’s my bros-in law) if they can write a song about nothing happening then I can make a blog out of it. I might well return to that lyric tomorrow as there’s lots more of topical relevance in it.
Speaking of topical relevance (still doing these seamless links) it’s no secret that I avoid the news at all costs, which is getting harder and harder. I am inundated with emails and texts telling me that if I so much as set one toe outside my door then the sky will fall in on me. However, in avoiding the boring repetition of news about the virus (how people can sit in front of the tv watching rolling news at the best of times is something I’ve never been able to understand and this certainly isn’t the best of times) I’ve discovered that as light relief the papers do actually report on other things. So as I have my breakfast (down to last two boxes of Fruit n Fibre by the way if Kellogs want to sponsor me), I’ve flipped past all the pages that contain any reference whatsoever to Corona and got into a few long running news items. Who knew that Alex Salmond had been standing trial (bit of a spoiler for me cos the front page headline said he’d been found innocent) and who knew that Woody Allen had a tell-all autobiography being published or that we had a new Chancellor of the Exchequer (I’m going to pause and pop downstairs to check out his name).
Now, getting into any of those long running stories is a bit like somebody starting to watch ‘Homeland’ in its 8th series (it’s very good by the way so if you’ve nothing to do and, who hasn’t, then try to catch up with the first seven ) or listen to The Archers for the first time after seventy years of broadcasting. Spoiler alert by the way. There’s still no virus in Ambridge and if you want to go out for a drink at ‘ The Bull ‘ … yes they’ve abandoned calling it The ‘B ‘ at Ambridge after Linda Snell got hurt in the fire at Grey Gables where the spa and gym have re-opened, if anybody is interested, and Philip Moss, the builder, whose employee was working in the kitchen at Grey Gable, was to blame and who isn’t the nice guy we all thought he was, and Kirsty, his caring fiancée, is heading for another romantic disaster after being stood up at the altar by Tom Archer…. There, I’ve even got you hooked or got you screaming towards Sam’s blog, haven’t I?
So, the absence of any sickness in Ambridge is a positive but the negative I have to share with you… and it’s a really big negative, is that although my son Nicky landed safely from LA yesterday his dog, Wanda (and I have to admit that despite my aversion to canines she is the exception and I would have welcomed her on to English soil) didn’t. It’s not going to happen for a while as on the day she was due to fly bloody BA reversed their policy of flying animals and she was left stranded in San Francisco. Although I know Nicky is moving heaven and earth to get her back to LA and to his friends, who have a dog that she likes and a lovely big garden they can romp around in. And BA is looking for a Government bail-out. No way. The Chancellor bloke (and I’ve still not been down to check out his name as it’s a bit tricky to stop writing these things when you are in full flow) had better not give them a penny after that. BA are behaving very badly in more ways than one, as are Sainsburys and Marriott hotels, but I’ll leave the evidence for those accusations till tomorrow as I think I’ve done my quota for today.
So, I’ve given you ‘Homeland’ and ‘Donnie Darko’ to watch (and Col and Angela recommended ‘The Lady Vanishes’), and Mad World and Nothing Ever Happens to listen to and you’re good to go for the foreseeable future, By the way, my wife pointed out that she wouldn’t be going to the opticians as she had planned (she’s never really needed glasses in her life) and I replied by saying that she wouldn’t be going in the foreseeable future, which I thought was quite funny, but which she marked as minus a billion again.
So, I’m off to make my coffee and eat a banana (trying to eke out my Walkers biscuits. Thanks Sainsbury’s, again). I was going to do that at 9.30 am and my wife opined that my morning coffee break was getting earlier and earlier, but now it’s not. Oh and I am going to check out the name of that Chancellor bloke
Stay well, stay safe and stay in and see you all tomorrow, G-d willing.