Posts filed under 'Family'
It’s good to know that, while some of us missed Beatlemania the first time round, there’s still opportunities to catch up - or get caught up - one way or another. Read my way through a fairly useful guide to all the albums and singles included in the weekend paper - I now have more of an understanding of the order of album production, which is sure to come in very handy at some point (Beatles pub quiz, anyone?).
What stood out for me more was a Storyville documentary on the impact of the Beatles on the young people of the Soviet Union in the early 60s, and beyond. An example of good journalism, I would say: the starting premise - that the Beatles’ influence helped the fall of Communism even more than perestroika etc - was actually confirmed, again and again, through the film. The maker of the film indicated his initial uncertainty at this claim, but there were so many people interviewed who iterated the claim that you got to feel by the end that it must be true.
The bit we laughed at was hearing how someone worked out how to make a guitar pickup out of telephone components - result: sudden rash of vandalism of call boxes the next day as lots of people rushed out to try it for themselves. (Not commending vandalism, but in terms of an example of effectively railing against the system, it did have a certain kudos.)
By the end of the programme, seeing footage of Paul McCartney playing a concert in Kiev - to a crowd standing there throughout pouring rain, hearing one of their heroes playing “Back in the USSR” to them - it was hard not to wipe away a tear.
For some of the interviewees, it also brought home to me the impact of banning religion under Communism, and the desire of people to find something to believe in. Lennon may have quipped about being bigger than Jesus, but if Jesus is banned, then it’s not entirely surprising if people choose to find something or someone else to believe in, and some people really did see the Beatles in a more religious light, even before their visits to India.
It also reminded me of the impact of what people pass on to you. Both Dan and I grew up with hearing the Beatles - my parents had the records, Dan’s mum even got to go to a concert or two and scream with everyone else. Reading this little booklet from the newspaper, with current and contemporary assessment of the albums and individual songs, it was interesting to compare their comments with my own take on some of the songs.
Sergeant Pepper is the album everyone know - or feels they do. As an adult, the trippy references become clearer - as a child, it just sounds like something akin to Alice in Wonderland “where looking glass people eat marshmallow pies”, part of that same happy environment of nonsense that is hardwired into children’s literature in the UK.
It was quite fun reading others’ comments in the booklet about their own take on certain songs, if hearing about the Beatles as a child. My brother thought that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was about our dog Lucy (there’s not a lot of dog references in the song, I’ll give you), for example. “Yellow Submarine” may annoy adults, but works perfectly well as a kids singalong - not every pop band can achieve that, as well as astounding the adults with their latest innovations in sound.
It wasn’t just that the songs were part of my childhood. References to the songs were also part of my childhood: Peter Sellers’ take off of “A Hard Day’s Night”, in the style of Richard III; “Here Comes the Sun” being used for the theme tune to the Holiday programme on TV.
They formed the backdrop to key activities such as holiday car journeys - the album Hard Day’s Night was a crucial part of the car tape repertoire, which in turn meant that we all sang along. Long car journeys from various parts of England, up to the west coast of Scotland, give you a long time to tune your ear into their harmonies, and to experience that thing so satisfying as a child, your parents enjoying something for themselves and including you in it.
So it seems that wherever we are on the long and winding road since Beatlemania, we still need them. We still enjoy them. Through new computer games, we can even learn to play and sing like them (finances and equipment permitting). And we still find new uses for their songs.
Reading this little booklet, there are several references to Paul McCartney adding in the song “Her Majesty” at the end of one album, and various people (Lennon and critics alike) disliking the song. Cut to a few decades later, and a certain concert for the Golden Jubilee - and suddenly we realise that there’s even a song there, ready made, when a certain songwriter is important enough, and long lived enough, to sing that song to the lady herself.
September 13th, 2009
I know I’ve said before that this blogging lark is more for me than it is for you (though I hope that’s not a selfish statement). Having come home stroppy two nights in a row, part of what made the difference yesterday was sitting and writing, and having a chance to calm down.
But then, when people do comment, it makes it all the more worthwhile - particularly where I learn more about them, or their thoughts on life as a result. Last time I restarted the blog, I had comments from male friends - maybe not so surprising given that it’s still more the men than the women who blog.
This time, great to hear from female friends straight off - so perhaps I can encourage some of them towards their own blog writing? Many have really interesting thoughts to share.
One of the other things I’ve enjoyed for myself, and am now trying to spread a little further, is the art of sending parcels. When I lived in Poland the first time, I was working in a school for the blind, and my mum learned that you could send up to a kilo of parcel for free (in most post offices) if it was marked ‘for the services of the blind’. She must have kept the local post office very busy, anyway, because I got some great parcels! And the kids I worked with got benefits too from sheet music and other things she sent over which I could use in teaching.
I’ve been reminded of it when sending parcels to friends in Italy. Being both frugal and enjoying a spot of tesselation (that’s cramming multiple items into boxes to you), I’m having fun seeing how much can be fitted into the standard boxes you can buy from the post office.
Book reviews torn out of the weekend newspapers make great padding for smaller items, I’ve discovered, and I have a suspicion that squashy bags of ground coffee might work well too. (Coals to Newcastle, I’m sure, sending coffee to Italy, but it’s part of a particular theme for that parcel.)
The memorable parcels were ones we used to get on holiday on the Isle of Jura. It tending to be somewhat wet in the west, shall we say, relatives who knew we were going on holiday would put together parcels, knowing that there would be a wet day (or more) AND that the books we had taken with us would run out at some point. Getting a parcel part way through, with new books, but perhaps also sweeties or a game…great excitement.
The ultimate parcel? A sofa bed, which was in the cottage on Jura for many years. One time, those staying in the cottage were told by the postmaster that there was a ‘parcel’ for them at the pier…the sofa bed had been delivered and was waiting to be collected. It was known forever more as ‘the parcel’, which allowed you to have somewhat opaque conversations with nearest and dearest about the relative merits of ’sleeping on the parcel’.
September 9th, 2009
I thought I’d write a food related post, just to flex the blogging muscles a little further. What I really meant to write about was starting making things again: jam, pickles, that sort of stuff. But that title just slipped in there…so I’d better try to incorporate it.
Seeing some friends recently, one spoke of the Economy Gastronomy series and book: encouraging us to get more meals out of our ingredients, as it were. Others have written on this before, under ‘100 ways with mince’ and other such inspiring terms (see, I knew I could make the connection sooner or later). But it’s quite fun not just to use free ingredients for cooking (last year’s stock of brambles in the freezer, for example), but to look at how to use what I’ve got in already, in different ways.
I don’t really want extra uses for mince, I suppose. But turning a rice and veg set of leftovers into little savoury burgers - that might be different. Or making things that I might otherwise have bought, such as flavoured oils. (I’d better not mention too many, or there will be no surprises left for my family at Christmas.)
I know it probably sounds too ‘knit your own yoghurt’ for some, but I have decided to make food related presents for family this year. Partly I think I’ve used up most of my good present ideas for them already; for some, they are not really looking for Things at this point, but Useful Presents of a food nature might just slip in under the wire.
What’s more, it’s been fun. Making maybe one thing a weekend, I’m trying some new things, or making extra of others that I already like, and know others like too. I’m not yet doing the bumper batch of Lebkuchen - I’ll wait until nearer Christmas for that - but this way, if something doesn’t work out, I’ve got time in hand to try something else.
So, hopefully if the rain lets up a bit, might be a chance to try picking this year’s crop of brambles, and putting them to work…
September 8th, 2009
So, who got the latest Guiness Book of Records? More to the point, who’s prepared to own up to it? For years, it seemed to be standard issue that someone, somewhere, would be understanding of small boys’ needs for Facts, and make sure that the latest collection of Useful Information was dispatched. Henceforth, and, indeed, forthwith.
We happened to see a current Guiness Book of Records earlier in the year. Dan quickly checked key info - world’s oldest man, world’s tallest man etc. It’s rather more glossy now, and probably all highly weblinked, which partly defeats the point, in a way. In pre-internet times, that was why you needed the book, with all key info in one place, to be able to ensure that the world was still spinning as before, with the correct number of baked beans in a bathtub, and so on.
So, I didn’t receive the book, though my brother did, and I peeked over at it from time to time. I did however gain a love of facts, particularly offbeat ones which can be brought out as conversational morsels when the need arises. Which is more often than you think - particularly if you are in the company of others who also like facts.
Imagine therefore my happiness in discovering a new fact, courtesy of the Economist, in a book review. The book was all about hedgehogs, and I discovered that not only does North America not have any native hedgehogs (ie all imports), but also that hedgehogs have species-specific fleas. How mindboggling is that?
Sadly, I don’t think these elements are incorporated into Trivial Pursuits (favoured category brown (literature), general preference to avoid all questions on sport), but the flea one should definitely be incorporated into a family version. Small boys everywhere will be in agreement on the importance of knowing about fleas (if not, hopefully, being too closely acquainted with them).
This just leaves me time to pass on my favourite piece of information of this kind: that Sweden imports dust for use in scientific experiments. (I think it has something to do with not weighing things in a vacuum, so you add dust to an experiment so that it simulates normal conditions, or something like that.) Yes, I knew you’d thank me for that one.
I leave it to Robert Louis Stevenson to add his stamp of approval to the value of facts:
“The world is so full of a number of things// I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
January 1st, 2009
It’s a children’s classic in the making, I just have to work out how to write it. Socks are making a reappearance as a welcome Christmas gift, if only on for fuel economy reasons. (Or maybe early onset circulation options. Take your pick.)
It’s interesting seeing the Saturday supplements reinventing present giving for tough times. Evidently you can give cheap gifts if you buy them in multiples. So buying lots of groovy socks for someone is acceptable, particularly because they are Useful. (Unlike many of the options available in Saturday supplements.)
I had thought it one of the unwritten rules of life that not only do the meek inherit the earth, a wife can inherit her husband’s socks. Oddly, this seems to work even if the husband’s feet are quite a lot larger than the wife’s. At any rate, it’s got me through several years of marriage and much foot pounding up and down the Royal Mile to work and back.
So it was a nice surprise for Dan to come home from the sales with socks for him and for her. After years of black socks that eventually turn grey, I have some jazzy ones with stripes. Dan has ones with matching heels and toes, in a range of colours, so you can do the conformist turn while shoes are on, while secretly aware that your socks are much more fun than anyone might suspect.
Sadly, there’s not a lot more I can write about socks without jokes about smelly feet. That didn’t stop Spike Milligan coming up with an idea for a sound effect of hitting the wall with a sock full of custard. He actually went to the BBC canteen to get custard to try it out, but evidently it didn’t sound as good in real life.
Shame. But maybe if you are still looking for a use for leftover stuffing, this could be just the thing…
December 29th, 2008
Christmas tree a go go. After a few years of being in London at Christmas time, the fixture is back to Scotland, and we’ve got ourselves a tree again. I can peer at it happily over my laptop as I type.
The nice ‘green’ feature writer in the Times made me very happy recently when she confirmed that it’s better to get a real tree than an artificial one - real trees put oxygen into the atmosphere while growing, can be pulped down afterwards (should your council be so obliging) and can of course be replanted if you buy one with a root one. My family tried this one year, but the tree lasted until November, and then went yellow, which was particularly sad with only a month to go.
The whole point of real trees, it seems to me, is the smell. For others, scent of pine is reduced to male bath products (or possibly loo cleaners), unless you’re out walking in the woods on a regular basis. But if you are prepared to sit under the tree for a while, preferably when it’s already dark and the only light in the room comes from the tree, then it’s nigh on perfect. (The second scent of Christmas, incidentally, is the citrus of satsuma. You can sit under the tree to consume your satsuma - and if it’s come from your Christmas stocking, so much the better.)
I’ve written before on knowing I can’t go back to earlier experiences. But somehow, scent always gives you that hope that, in fact, you have, even if the rest of you is saying something different. Yesterday, Dan only had to bring the tree into the house, and I knew, before I had even seen it, because of the scent of it, stealing ahead into the sitting room, working out where it was going to be placed.
It’s in our study, in fact, and because there’s no door between that and the sitting room, you can sit on the sofa and see the tree. I’m quite pleased with that, as the thing of being by the tree seems to be one of being quiet, even on your own, and putting the tree into the study seems to allow for that. We went and sat under it last night, just for a while.
So is it real? It’s a ‘real’ tree. It’s a real memory. And it’s a real tree in the here and now, evoking this set of responses right now, as well as triggering memories. Some may be unhappy at the symbolism of the Christmas tree, but I think we are all hoping for a little mystery at this time of year, something that pulls us beyond our surroundings, and our immediate thoughts, into other notions of how to view this strange and wonderful time of year.
Merry Christmas.
December 24th, 2008
You know it’s Christmas when the fridge is full of cheese (a slight exaggeration, but happily, only slightly) and Aardman has decided to issue a new Wallace and Gromit. My cup, mulled or otherwise, runneth over.
We’ve got rather used to Wallace and Gromit now, but what the animators achieve, painstakingly, lovingly, is indeed a present of great proportions. Yes, they’ve done a film, but really, it’s in the half-hour special that they truly come into their own.
Flicking through the TV section in the bumper two-week listing (more on that later), I discovered that I had shared a ‘Wal and Grom’ moment with Russell T. Davies, no less (a chap also somewhat linked to Christmas, what with Dr Who specials).
It’s the moment in the second animation - the one with the dastardly penguin - when Gromit is chasing the penguin on a model railway, runs out of track, grabs the box and starts to lay new track. I too remember that delighted ‘no!’ moment, when you don’t know what is coming next but you know that it is going to be amazing…
Part of the enjoyment is an opportunity to rediscover my inner Yorkshirewoman, and soak up all the deadpan jokes. Wallace allows us to remember how British the slightly potty inventor is - British too the elevation of pets to equal, if not greater, characters.
We’ve become used to televisual sweetmeats, TV treats at Christmas time. But amid all the reruns - and reissues of previous comedy programmes - Wallace and Gromit are, like cheeses at Christmastime, something you can always take a little more of.
December 21st, 2008
When it’s a Friday night, when you want some uncomplicated entertainment, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! Dan discovered that three out of four of them at work were very keen on the film, and suggested watching it again last night. Feeble protest from me. More, “I’ll get the film ready, then.”
Ghostbusters was probably my first real recollection of a film phenomenon. Now, with monthly passes for cinemas, or renting recent releases through the telly, it’s harder to get a sense of a big film even, for all of the efforts of bus advertising to make you think so. My upbringing was one of cinema being a treat, so when you went, you wanted it to be GOOD.
So, what of Ghostbusters? The first time we tried to see it, we queued round three sides of the block to get in to the cinema - and were turned away, with only 10 people in front of us, because the cinema was full. That makes it an Event. Thankfully we persevered and came back another time, without quite such a queue, and were able to get in. And yes, it was well worth it.
It’s also an early awareness of a film soundtrack being significant. Part of the continuing to enjoy the film, for me, was listening to the soundtrack again…and again…I even bought it on record, which shows that life and technology has moved on just a tad. But there’s so much humour and enjoyment in the soundtrack, as well as atmosphere - it does what you want it to, in underpinning and enhancing the story.
Despite 80s fashion reappearing (neon socks anyone? Seemingly very fashionable again), and 80s music being played in shops, watching an 80s film does show you that time does move on. The amount of casual smoking is a bit of a surprise. The haircuts are always good for a giggle. And in a film like Ghostbusters, where a certain amount of ‘kit’ is required for the story, carrying a tape recorder on a strap doesn’t really look like big science any more.
So why watch it? Because the humour is still good. It’s fun to be reminded of just how sharp the timing between Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd is. The effects are there to make you laugh, the slapstick is there too, but the verbal humour still sings, and not many films even bother with that now.
I rest my case. And my photon accelerator.
November 29th, 2008
We don’t go passing round the wafers, if that’s what you are thinking. But in terms of a Sabbath, as a day of rest, our main shot at resting does seem to coincide with Saturday mornings. Time to sit with Dan and chat, drink a coffee, unpack the week, hold out a little longer, drink another coffee…
For those with kids, where days of the week start at pretty much the same time every day, I don’t mind if you feel you need to turn away. It is a bit indulgent still to have this space. And it’s not so much about not doing as the chance to talk, and say where our thoughts and feelings have been going over the previous few days.
Resting is all about recharging, if you get a shot at it. Similar to a post about learning to relax, that I wrote a month or two back, it’s about things that are consistently good in enabling you to unwind, and feel better afterwards. Or be ready to tackle a bit of life again.
Part of the treat, for me at least, is also having some time where there’s nothing written against it, in a real or mental diary. I need some headspace to explore, to pick things up and put them down again. These things may not form part of a ‘to do’ list, but that’s their very appeal.
Was remembering about The Idler - can’t quite tell whether it’s now a book, or a blog, or multiples of all of that. http://idler.co.uk/ - see what you make of it. But part of what they are talking about is giving yourself time to think, rather than just doing.
For someone like me, who can be fairly said to be a Protestant with a work ethic, it’s invaluable to be reminded to find this space. I enjoy doing, of various kinds, and I’d never claim we can get through life without doing, but I am certainly thinking more and more that just being is a pretty good pursuit.
When we think back to treasured memories, holidays, that kind of thing, often what we’re remembering is the space to be; to idle; not just to let our mind work out what is really going on, but to allow our heart to be part of that too.
Too much gobbledy-gook? Well, I’m good at that too. But along that path, sooner or later, some wisdom comes out, something to help me be happy in my own skin and at peace with God. I’ll raise a mug of coffee to that.
November 29th, 2008
Sometimes, a title comes to me, and I know I have to use it. I’ll bung it down in the notebook, waiting for a point at which I can write about it. And following a holiday to a house whose inhabitants love books just as much as Dan and I, it seems a suitable time.
A reading rat - Leseratte - is the German equivalent to a bookworm. It was featured on a set of postcards from the Goethe Institut - they know how to do their advertising, I have to say. I sent it over to David, who is interested in German at the moment, and rediscovered it in a book, while we were over.
Shame in a way to choose rats and worms for such things - here are these wonderful things, books, and our way to talk about people who like them is to relate them to animals which are often the source of fear or disgust. My guess is that there’s probably some implied reference to devouring anything, which probably is true of serious book dependency after a while.
An alternative might be to talk about book fever - the illness that besets one when discovering just how addictive books are. I’m not just talking ‘can’t put them down’ thrillers. Even Enid Blyton can hit that craving button, when you are six or seven, and there just aren’t enough hours in the night to read. Talk about reading yourself into an early pair of glasses, as I did.
They warn you about sweet shops, and fast food stores, but libraries are pushers too. Want one? Why not take six? In fact, read three in the first day, take them back, and take out another six in addition to the ones you’ve not started yet.
This visit to Italy, both the older girls were getting stuck into books. The younger of the two is into Geronimo Stilton, mouse detective, whom I can only hope will get translated into English at some point. The cartoons that go with it are certainly fun. And I remember my discovery of Asterix at a previous age. The one thing better than a really good read is the discovery that you’ve only just started the series, and that they are still writing more…
These days, it’s getting harder to let animal instinct take over when it comes to reading. Time is shorter, and I find that I read several shorter things, rather than start a longer one and have to stop.
I quite fancy the idea of being some kind of reading polar bear - take on enough books to see you through the winter, in the way that they take on enough food supplies to keep going, and then dig yourself into a nice snowdrift (or equivalent) for a few months. If only they’d let you stay in bed to read during the winter, rather than going to work, I’m sure we could all achieve fuel efficiency too, because we’d still be warm enough.
If there’s any readers who can comment on what imagery is used for voracious book reading in other languages, would be interested to know. Next week, magazine locusts…
November 24th, 2008
Previous Posts