If you’re happy and you know it…

…sing along!  This post is dedicated to Oscar, who came all the way from Germany to see us in February.  (His mum Grit, a former flat mate of mine, tagged along too.)

Oscar has been learning some songs in English, and their visit was punctuated by spontaneous “If you’re happy and you know it” singing sessions.  Two on the Royal Mile, on separate days, one on the way up Arthur’s Seat (if I remember rightly for the last day).

What was nice was a) getting a sense of when Oscar was enjoying himself, by his choice of song and b) seeing the reactions from passersby.  One couple clearly thought this was a good idea and joined in one occasion. But for me, the fun was also seeing Edinburgh from the perspective of a 5 year old boy, and enjoying all the spontaneity, singing included, that that allowed for.

Oscar was occasionally unsure of what he was actually singing…”Slap you sigh…” turned out to be [if you’re happy and you know it] slap your thigh! But his number skills in English were well developed, allowing for some good bus number spotting when heading into town, and we all got by in a mixture of English and German (a bit of a treat for me too, that way).

We took in tourist attractions, to be sure, but also identified car types on the road, collected shells from the beach and strung them together, discovered a sea slug which was iridescent, played some card games, posed for LOTS of photos, tried bilingual bedtime stories (having the same book in two languages), and engaged in significant role play while climbing Arthur’s Seat, following orders from General Oscar.  I was certainly happy…and thankfully, I think our visitors were too.

Scenes from a bus – the sequel

None too good at lucid thought in the mornings on the way to work.  There’s a reason why they put free papers on the buses in the mornings.  It gives us something to hide behind.

I’m usually not even awake enough for that, more about staring out the window and hoping to wake up after the mid morning coffee, at least.  But every now and then, I see a few sights from the bus that wake me up a little: if only to try to work out what I saw.

Large man approaches a local nursery.  He is carrying a small girl on his shoulder, and her rather pink rucksack in one hand.  As the bus pulls past, I realise that he has a tabard on the back which says “Security”.  Is this a metaphor for our society’s fear of harm to children, or just a man dropping off his daughter at nursery before going to work?

Passing a group of commuters, one reading a paper while standing at the bus stop, I realise that he appears not just to be reading it but sniffing it…Is he hoping to impart the information more quickly? Are there any lingering solvents he’s trying to take in?

Another man stands at a bus stop, with a small child in a sling on his front.  The child gets gradually larger as the weeks go by.  I never see him interact with the child.  The child never looks up at him either.  But the child does seem peaceful.  Perhaps they are just allowed to be as vacant as I am in the mornings.

Another lady boards the bus in a smart outfit, all vintage dress and flowing shawl.  She carries what seems to be a wheeled suitcase, and at first I think she is a tourist.  Then she keeps turning up with the same suitcase, but different outfits each day.

She still wears the shawl on a day which is tipping it down.  I still wonder if she is in fact a tourist, as opposed to a resident, who will either wear a wind and rainproof jacket all year round (like me) or a T shirt all year round (like some of the people who wait at my morning bus stop).

When I was a waitress full time, for part of my gap year before university, I worked in a cafe which had a lot of regulars.  As members of staff, we knew to expect them. Some of them even gained nicknames in time (whether they knew them was another matter).

As a usually daily commuter, at times I feel similar to this, spotting the regulars as well as the ‘irregulars’, in terms of the unusual.  Certainly I don’t think I dress in an exciting enough way to stand out to other people watchers. But maybe I’m a regular to someone else, caught in their own dream of morning on the move.

Here, there and everywhere

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.

Stew vs. mash

The nights are drawing in, and so on.  Myself, I think the days are drawing in, and the nights are sneaking up behind and getting in on the act.  However you view it, I thought it was starting to get sufficiently seasonal to write this post.

Stew vs. mash is not my evening meal quandry (particularly as Dan is kindly off cooking something completely different), but more of a musing on terms used to indicate when a cup or pot of tea is ready.  Brew, draw, etc, all fine – but how likely is it linguistically to get two terms that get used for other food activities AND actually fit with each other, in terms of their other meaning?

Purists will tell me that stew is the point when the tea has gone beyond ready, but it just interested me to see this little pattern arising, in relation to that beloved drink of the UK.  I was going to write national drink, but a) coffee may have overtaken it and b) the news is now in the papers that Diageo will not keep jobs in Kilmarnock (for Johnny Walker whisky), so those viewing whisky as the national drink have enough to worry about without a rival claim from tea today.

Meanwhile, the Scotsman did one of its longer pieces on a forthcoming book about an enterprising Scot who did lots of exploring (and/or smuggling, according to your viewpoint) of plants in China, ultimately leading to the identification of a wide range of tea plants.  The article tried to hang it on the idea of the man being responsible for tea coming to the UK – perhaps not, but another of those popular science stories that turn out to be fairly amazing.

Dan is reading “Connections” – not an English text book (ah, all those travel-related titles beloved of ELT editors) but the book accompanying the James Burke TV series of many moons ago.  The gist of it is that one invention or discovery, big or small, may lead on to many others, and the cumulative effect may be far more than anyone would have thought at the time of the original discovery.

I don’t know quite what you would trace as a line of inventions coming from tea, but I do know that I would ‘invent’ far fewer documents or other items of hopefully (useful) purpose without a certain reliance on tea in the afternoons.  Maybe that’s enough connection.  From stew to mash, and hence to gravy (train)?

Take care on the stairs

Through to Glasgow – and beyond! The bright lights of Glasgow Queen Street Lower Level – and the even brighter yellow plastic seating – are good for keeping you awake when heading from A to B.

But what I’d noticed last time I used this station, and was reminded of today, was the almost constant injunction over the tannoy: “Always hold the handrail – and take care on the stairs.”

Now this is all well and good, all risks assessed and dealt with.  What interests me is the little light attempts at poetry that public announcements offer. It could be a missing verse from Paul Simon’s “50 ways to leave your lover”.  If only he’d taken care on the stairs, he might not have needed to slip out the back, Jack…

Some of these announcements are so ingrained, you almost feel you could slip them into conversation to change the tone, if you weren’t sure what to say next.  The melody of them, familiar as verse because we hear them so much, is comforting – as well as becoming fairly devoid of meaning, after a while.

Some of them even slip into everyday use, usually to parody ourselves: “exits are here, here and here…”

You can probably add your own, but here’s my selection of ‘public poetry’ options for your next cocktail party:

– “the person you are calling knows you are waiting”

– “a trolley service…of drinks and light refreshments…is available on the train”

– “or why not send a text?”

– “…and…Glenrothes with Thorntons.”

They don’t really say Thorntons.  But I live in hope that the trolley service might hand them out some time, as we prepare to uplift all our personal belongings.