Shadows at midnight

Merry New Year to all!!!!

And now, a fillum...

I don't know why Morrissey didn't do more Rudolf Friml covers

A Chrimbo singalong...

Rather despite myself I like this. Partly because the tempo's fast enough for Maria Carey to sing properly and not do those ridiculous arpeggios. But mostly because it feels like a Phil Spector Wall Of Sound number.

And to keep up the tempo...

Many a slip

As sure as eggs…

The onset of the first serious frost and light smattering of snow is guaranteed to be the signal for half the drivers down our way to park their cars on the pavement to give them their Sunday afternoon jet wash, ready for the Christmas hostilities.

The spirit of thingy

We got worrying about what Morrisey does for Christmas.

We'd come to an inconclusive point in the debate about the gender of the Roadrunner (my argument that Wile E. Coyote was a metaphor for an America struggling to come to terms with it's sexuality depended on the Roadrunner's being a ladyboy). And The Small Object of Desire was determined that not only was Aled Jones not Pinocchio ("he's made out of wood: that's why he's got varnished rosy cheeks that don't move when he talks." "No. He's just Welsh.") but his name was on the list for the firing squad come the revolution.

That's when she started worrying about what Morrisey does for Christmas.

I tried to reassure her that it would be business as usual and he'd have tea with the chimps in the monkey house at Bristol Zoo, giving passers-by a running commentary with a selection of the unconvincing voices out of the corner of his mouth that used to delight us when he was on "Animal Magic."

"I expect he just goes round his mam's for a nut cutlet," she muttered.

Give us a blob

The acting profession is a hard one. Spare a kind thought for Fireman Blob, one of British animation's fallen by the wayside.

You see, originally, it was Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Blob.

There they were, all kitted out and helmets freshly-polished when the nice men from Camberwick Green took themselves off to BBC Television Centre to sell the idea to children's telly. And all went well until... Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Blob.

"What the hell is that?" asked the Commissioning Editor.

"Fireman Blob," replied the animators.

"Get rid of that. It looks like you got that far and couldn't be arsed."

And so it came to pass: after a heated, but ultimately futile, discussion poor old Fireman Blob got his marching orders and was replaced by the felicitously-named Grub.

The rest is history. Embittered, Blob turned his back on the industry and went back to provincial repertory theatre, touring the West Country with Joan Littlewood's production of "No Sex, Please, We're British." When last seen, he was playing "unpleasant thing on the bathroom floor" in Robin Asquith's seminal "Confessions of a Sagger Maker's Bottom Knocker," a pale reflection of glories that might have been.

Such is the hardship behind the glamour of showbiz.

The delights of the hedgerow

One of the treats of these late Autumn mornings is the sight of people out and about taking Rover and Fido, or Fang and Tyson, out for a constitutional. The doggies frolic hither and thither, all agog with the smells of the day while their owners follow behind collecting little lumps of dog shit in their little carrier bags. I'm told it makes for a cheeky little country wine.

Unoccupied

Oh, it's all very well for Ed Millipede to decide to jump onto the Occupy Bits of Pavement to Piss Off the Daily Mail but I'd be more amenable to this attempt to co-opt the protests for political advantage had we heard or seen much of the outrage at the Labour party conference.

The speech I would have wanted to hear would have included something like this:

"There are those in the financial sector who say that the time for atonement is over. These are the people who said that the good times shall roll forever and whose mistakes are hurting ordinary people every day. Vulnerable people who find their care needs being ignored because of cuts. Children and families who find that their playgrounds and libraries are no more. Companies that can't find investment capital when they need it. Small businessmen who find their markets have vanished because their customers have shut up shop. These are the people who are being hurt and for them there is no easy taxpayer-funded return to Business As Usual.

"There are those in the financial sector who say that the time for atonement is over. I think of the bank clerks and the teachers, the nurses and the builders, the overworked and the unemployed and I say to those in the financial sector: no. I say to them: boys and girls, some humility is called for.

"You fucked the economy.

"You don't get to say when the time for atonement is over. Ask the people of Britain when they've stopped being hurt by your actions."

The intellectual rigour of the English sabbath

The quiet English Sunday is an opportunity for sober reflection of the big issues of life and the prolonged digestion of the issues and outcomes of our current affairs media.

Today we have mulled over:

• The merits — or not — of the lamb chop, roast potato and minty peas smoothie;


• Queen Victoria's moustache cup; and


• Cats' bottoms.

Birthday honours

We are slightly out of sorts, we are, by the concept of Sir Bruce Forsyth. Nothing against the man, please understand me, but not an easy one for my household to get its head round. We are actively outraged by the idea of Sir Tom Jones and the cold grim reality that in five or six years' time it'll be Dame Lulu.

I've long argued that it's more than time that Nicholas Parsons got a knighthood. The Small Object of Desire objected on the grounds that Peter Shilton hadn't got one for "being lovely." Even she had to admit that he couldn't have one before Gordon Banks. We agreed to disagree, eventually, over the merits or not of Sir Nobby Stiles.

John Inman and Roy Barraclough should both be made Dames of the British Empire for their services to pantomime.

As should Jeremy Paxman.

Tramlines of the mind

My dad used to work in Norbury's Printers in Old Trafford and although that, and all the other small factories that lined Elsinore Road, have been gone this past twenty years it still seems strange to see the place converted into a tram depot.

It's a changing world and I'm conscious that I'm slowing down. The first signs that the world was getting a bit fast for me came in the aftermath of the bomb in Manchester. All of a sudden, my lovely old city with the Lino a bit tatty round the edges was having facelifts and makeovers and whatnot. These days you can't move for designer doodads and footballers' danglies. 

Then they decided to turn the Pomona Docks into a small Manhatten skyline of empty offices and renamed part of Salford MediaCityUK. Where once was the U.C.P. tripeworks now there are sharp young men tweeting in CamelCase.

It wasn't all better in Th'owd days, no of course it wasn't. But I could keep up with it all.

On hearing the first fieldfares of Autumn

It's been a long week and I found myself waking up at twenty to ten. The Small Object of Desire was already awake, which was even more unusual.

"Hello you. Do you want me to make you a nice cup of tea?"

She said, snuggling up to me.

"Yes please," I replied.

"This is the bit where I usually go back to sleep, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes."

"It's good to be predictable."

An hour later, I'm fighting the urge to put the kettle on.

Stuff

Apologies for going quiet again. Some time this weekend I'll get back to that post I'd half written before my mum took bad (she's fine, thanks, but still in hospital eating grapes). Between that, work and my natural capacity for insomnia The Small Ibject Of Desire had started enquiries with her veternary friends as to the appropriate dosage of horse tranquiliser.

Always some Helm there to remind me...

A few people have been kind enough to ask about the folk left unchronicled in The Other Place. The good news is that there have been, as yet, no fatalities. Some people have, sadly, lost their jobs. Others have jumped before they are pushed. The story is dispiritingly common. The good news is that no libraries are to close in the old town, which begs more questions than is sensible or safe for me to ask here.

But for those of you who wanted, nay needed, to know, the people are much the same. God help them. Frog has his collection of disturbing children's pop-up books and there are stories that T.Aldous may have finished clearing out his garage. The Monkey's Arms is still Mecca on Friday afternoons. As is the rollmop herring counter in the horse meat shop.

And that old lady on the Milkbeck bus still drinks Old Spice.

A lapse

The Small Object of Desire has a question.

"Did I really just hear you tell that cat that he'd like sardines because they taste like pilchards by sing better?"

Might have done.

Damson days

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness came along early this year. Near all that is palatable has been picked, the rest for the wasps and last-lingering butterflies.

The swifts left a couple of weeks ago. Unlike the swallows and martins, which make a performance of gathering together on the telegraph wires shouting: "we're off now, see you next year!" the swifts disappear like the dew in the morning. One day you realise you haven't seen them for a while and the wind's a little colder than it has been. It's all a little furtive and sad.

The onset of Autumn means that playtime is over and we get back to the illusion of everyday reality. Some of the early consequences of parts of that illusion have been keeping me away from the blogosphere this past few weeks. Apologies for neglecting you all yet again. Luckily, all the awful stuff is at work. Unluckily, it has a knack of following us home.

Ah well…