It’s the end of an era: our whole family has used this hairdryer for literally decades. I bought it back in the 80s while still a confirmed a batchelor. It’s faithfully blown out hot air ever since – first for me, then for Wife, and finally in due course for both our children.
Until today… when Wife tried to turn it off and the handle briefly – but spectacularly – burst into flames. She dropped it with a yell and survived unscathed, but the dryer is dead forever.
Child K has insisted on choosing a replacement better suited to her own teenage grooming requirements.
The near-perfect cappuccino: 1 of 3. Pic taken with Instagram Pump the black stuff into your cup…
The near-perfect cappuccino: 2 of 3. Pic taken with Instagram Top it off with inexpertly frothed milk
The near-perfect cappuccino: 3 of 3. Pic taken with Instagram Half an hour later take huge swig of Gaviscon to relieve crippling heartburn from raw caffeine overdose on a ravaged stomach lining.
Last November we lashed out £90 on a proper De’Longhi coffee machine which has rapidly taken centre stage in our kitchen – getting way more use than the blender (right) or even the toaster (left).
Once you get used to the caffeine jolt of real rocketfuel espresso in the comfort of your own home, it turns 95% of the coffee served anywhere else into a #disappointingingespressoexperience
Collecting our four pints from the doorstep the other morning brought to mind a scratchy 1930s recording called Milkman Blues which I haven’t heard for well over 40 years. According to the All Music Guide it seems to have been written by one Cow Cow Davenport.
I ain’t no iceman, I ain’t no iceman’s son But I can keep you cool baby until that iceman comes
I ain’t no woodchopper, I ain’t not woodchopper’s son, But I can chop your kindlin baby until that woodchopper comes
Baby, I ain’t no stoveman, I ain’ no stoveman’s son, But I can keep you heated up, baby util that stoveman comes
Baby, I ain’t no butcher, and I ain’t no butcher’s son, But I can give you plenty-a meat, baby until that butcher comes
I ain’t no milkman, I ain’t no milkman’s son, But I can bring you plenty-a cream, baby until that milkman comes
Delicious. Couldn’t resist reblogging this tweet from @AlexisPetridis:
“Well, the page where Brian May explains how to use his website certainly makes things a lot clearer”
Dino Ferrari‘s – home to another #disappointingingespressoexperience in Glasgow – not because you can’t get decent espresso in that fine city, but through a lack of time to do the neccessary research.
You might have imagined that a long established and successful Italian restaurant right next to the Royal Concert Hall would be a good bet for properly made coffee. But the bucket of milky slop they served at the takeaway counter was undrinkable.
With hindsight perhaps you might in fact have anticipated a certain inattentiveness on the part of management from a glance at the spelling on their neon sign.
Z Cars was so modern and cutting edge when it started in 1963 – a stark contrast to the cosy old London bobbies in Dixon Of Dock Green. Policemen who were less than saints, had Northern accents and drove around in modern Ford Zodiacs. In many ways it was the start of TV police dramas in the UK as we know them today.
The theme music was arranged (according to Wikipedia) by Fritz Spiegl as a military march, from the traditional Liverpool folk song “Johnny Todd”. It spread across the nation like a cultural virus. Everyone could whistle it – we even sang our own stupid songs to the tune with cod-Scouse lyrics.
The names of the key actors became almost as well-known as those of their characters: Stratford Johns (Inspector Barlow), Frank Windsor (Det.Sgt Watt) plus James Ellis as Bert Lynch and Jeremy Kemp as his hatchet-faced partner in crime car Z Victor 2. What’s I’d completely fogotten though was that Fancy Smith in Z Victor 1 was played by a youthful Brian Blessed.
Pop songs from the 60s can still stir powerful nostalgia, but with most hits of the day the effect has been diluted by their long afterlife on stations like Capital Gold and Radio 2. But old TV themes have the power to take those of us who lived through the era back there in a heartbeat.
Got out at the wrong train station a few weeks ago quite my chance and found myself in West Hampstead instead of at Hampstead Heath. On a wall opposite the station exit was a huge mural of the singer Billy Fury – so I snapped a quick Instagram and dashed off a few random lines on this blog.
The post has since attracted comments from Billy Fury fans whose reponses ranged from puzzled and hurt to hilariously abusive. So it seems right to post a YouTube clip of Billy so other readers can make their minds up about a performer who, we can safely say, occupies a unique place in the affections of the British record-buying public.
Nobody could suggest a definitive performance showing Fury at his best, but this is the most-viewed clip of him on YouTube. Dick Glasser’s song “I Will” had been a minor US hit for Vic Dana in 1962 but Billy’s version made No.14 in the UK charts in April 1964 – the same month as “Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles. This performance might possibly be from Ready Steady Go – I’ve tarted the audio quality up a bit in any case.
A postcard of London wildlife shot at various points around the city – cut together in iMovie to a soundtrack by the wonderfully splenetic band Kick Up The Fire.
At age 14 the sheerest chance led me to spend a term at an elite single-sex boarding school in Normandy called École Des Roches. Three years of learning the language back in England hadn’t prepared me for this sudden immersion in French As She Is Spoke. Or rather was spoke by sons of the privileged classes back in early 1965. The argot I acquired is probably as out of date now as the public school slang (“Yaroo you blighters!”) of Billy Bunter comics, but the memory of it is vivid as ever.
The universal catch-all swear word “merde” was somehow more colourful and flexible than the anglo-saxon “shit”. As when Frank Wayolle got expelled for smoking and shouted from the window of his departing taxi “Je vous enmerde tous!!”. Somehow the nearest English equivalent (I shit on you all) is nothing like as eloquent.
Especially beloved of seniors supervising other boys was foutre le camp – ie “fuck off” but in usage and impact closer to “bugger off”. The prefect supervising prep might routinely shout “fous le camp, Cabrol” or “foutez-moi le camp dehors” when sending one or more fellow pupils out of the room. Whereas in English “fuck off, Cabrol” or “get the fuck out of here” would be a lot more severe. “Get off my case” or “leave me alone, all of you” would be rendered as “foutez-moi la paix”
Other favourites: “ta gueule” (shut it) “tu me fais chier” (you’re pissing me off) “j’en ai marre” (I’ve had enough) “dégueulasse” (disgusting) “cassepied” or “ça me casse les pieds” (boring or annoying) “putain!” (literally “whore”, but used as an exclaimation – like a low-level version of the way we might say Christ! or Fuck!) and “se faire engeuler” (to get into trouble with, or shouted at by someone – usually a teacher or parent).
“Con” was literally “cunt”, but in usage much milder – denoting someone dumb or stupid, hence “conard” (a fuckwit) – interchangeable with “couillon” (dickhead). And, though not actually swearing, “Ça suffit déjà!” (enough already!) and “Ça va pas, non?” (do you bloody mind?) were brilliantly colloquial. Alas, 47 years later whatever accent and vocabulary I acquired back then are mostly gone.
But – if required – I can still tell an unruly french schoolboy to fuck off.
Glasgow’s beautifully renovated Central station features uniform frontages in this gorgeous muted Dune-The-Movie imperial style. Having failed to satisfy a craving for decent espresso during my two brief days in the city, my eye was caught by this small but perfectly formed Italian café on the concourse on the way home.
Unfortunately their notion of a cappuccino was large and imperfectly formed – basically standard scalding white coffee with a froth and choc scum floating on top. However the tasteful patriotic decor inside Franco’s did a lot to make up for the #disappointingingespressoexperience: the grubby nylon flag appears to be fastened to the cheek of this cracked plaster cherub with chewing gum.
The Royal Glasgow Concert Hall sits at the eastern end of Sauchiehall Street at its junction with Buchanan Street. Snapped this inspiring view from its front steps as dusk was falling over the city yesterday evening…
Stayed a couple of days in Glasgow Theatreland’s Holiday Inn, or “Holiday Grim” as one fellow resident called it when we shared a lift together. The rooms and corridors have that slightly musty feel of elderly hotels after one too many repaint jobs and the breakfast staff were fussy and officious. Oh and the glacial wifi costs six quid a day.
Moaning aside, actually the only real drawback of staying there was that access to all rooms is via two decrepit and eccentric elevators. It’s not the first time anyone’s made this observation – in fact at least two European short films have been made with the title, but for what it’s worth…
While waiting for the door to open I noticed we were in Schindler’s Lift.
Child K left for school early one morning last week while I was still asleep. Woke a couple of hours later to find these post-it notes strategically positioned around the bedroom.
Call me an old sentimentalist, but leaving for 3 days away in Glasgow this mornings, I took a snap of them to have with me on the phone.
I used to have the van version of this in 1975 and it was already obsolete then. Eventually had to get rid of it as I was in a struggling band and none of the others had car – so it was always me that got lumbered with taking the equipment back after every gig, while the others headed home by tube.
Instead I bought a Honda XL125 trail bike instead with money lent by my dad. After that, getting the gear to and from the lockup became a shared problem for the whole group once again instead of just mine.
In that early spring dawn, with its dense dew, sketched upon the silence which engulfs a whole city before the birds awaken it, I caught the sweet voice of the blind muezzin from the mosque reciting the Ebed – a voice hanging like a hair in the palm-cooled upper airs of Alexandria. ‘I praise the perfection of God, the Forever existing’ (this repeated thrice, ever more slowly, in a high sweet register).
‘The perfection of God, the Desired, the Existing, the Single, the Supreme: the perfection of God, the One, the Sole: the perfection of Him who taketh untohimself no male or female partner, nor any like Him, nor any that is disobedient, nor any deputy, equal or offspring. His perfection be extolled.’
The great prayer wound its way into my sleepy consciousness like a serpent, coil after shining coil of words – the voice of the muezzin sinking from register to register of gravity – until the whole morning seemed dense with its marvellous healing powers, the intimations of a grace undeserved and unexpected, impregnating that shabby room where Melissa lay, breathing as lightly asa gull, rocked upon the oceanic splendours of a language she would never know.
Calling your clothing shop IFUKU – on the basis that it means something innocuous in Japanese – is even cheesier than French Connection rebranding themselves as FCUK. 10 years too late & without even the mitigating plea of daring originality. Mind you, it still got my attention…
Prudence the cat watched an entire episode of BBC TV’s Earthflight, rivetted by the cheeping and twittering & flapping wings. The lack of smell doesn’t seem to faze her – it must be just like sitting at a particularly interesting window watching a massive bird feeder. #petsofinstagram
One more tiny example of the internet’s capacity for awesomeness. Every graphic designer – whether for print or web – occasionally needs dummy text to demonstrate a new layout. The above lorem ipsum paragraph has been the (ahem) de facto standard text used by the printing and typesetting industries for the past five centuries. However for the last 15 of those 500 years, Antti Suikkari has provided it at no cost to fellow designers on its own mini-website at loremipsum.net – funded by just one discreet ad link.
Having mentioned Egypt and cigarette health warnings in the last two posts, here’s a discarded German Camel packet that caught my eye at Wandsworth Common station recently. The slogan looks even more terrifying in German. As with “Achtung Minen!” in the war comics we used to devour back in the 1960s, you don’t need to know the language to understand the message.
