pop

Makes sense . . . and a bit of nostalgia

/ Tony / 3 Comments

I did something unusual this week. Well, unique for me at least. I signed an ‘online’ petition. It’s not a thing I would typically do, in fact, I can’t recall ever signing one before. This particular petition is to have a complete ban on disposable barbecues. It’s been seen over the past weeks that these items can have devastating consequences when the land is as dry as it is currently. So it did make some sense. Also, I’m not a particular fan of the “Bar-B-Que”. I just don’t like the smell of burnt food mixed with charcoal and that hint of lighter fuel, and I often think we are just trying to keep up with our Antipodean friends.

I remember, back in the day when I was young (humming the music from the old Hovis advert) we never had a barbecue when we went to the country. No, we had a “picnic”! It’s funny, I remember stuff like this so well. Picnics were always the same. We kids had either meat paste or polony sandwiches. Always white bread and always cut into quarters. There were crisps, with the little blue bag of salt, ready salted crisps came later. And bottles (glass of course) of dandelion and burdock pop! Parents would have egg sandwiches. Sliced boiled egg, none of this fancy ‘egg mayonnaise stuff, with maybe a smear of salad cream. Or there would be tomato sandwiches, with sliced tomatoes and again a smear of salad cream. The adults drink would be tea! Poured from a vacuum flask (never heard it called a Thermos flask) into the cup that doubled as the lid. The tea would already have both milk and sugar, so it was too bad if you didn’t have a sweet tooth.

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One of our favourite places to visit was the small market town of Otley. With Dad working on the buses, a trip to Otley was a reasonably priced day out. The day out was always the same. We would go into Leeds on the bus and then wait for the Otley bus to arrive. This was at the “Red Bus” station, where buses that were going out of Leeds would depart from. We would all have to visit the toilet (mandatory before any bus journey) whilst waiting to board the bus. Usually, it was a ‘double decker’ but quite often when the day wasn’t a busy one, we have a ‘single decker’. These were not as much fun.

Once we arrived at Otley, we would make our way to the local riverside park. There was a paddling pool here with some sheltered seats. This was the picnic area. We kids would spend a long time playing in the pool whatever the weather. That’s what kids did back in the early 1960s. After the picnic, we would have a walk along the riverside path for what seemed to us, miles, but was actually only about half a mile. We used to stop by the tennis courts to watch whoever was playing, but that was never very interesting.

Then it was back to the bus to get home just in time to watch Coronation Street on the telly.

Start with someone else’s words…

/ Tony / 1 Comment

“True friends stab you in the front”

I’ve been reading up on various websites about the “art of blogging”. There are so many ‘helpful’ people trying their best to help you/me become a better blogger. Most of them seem to want me to follow their blog and maybe contribute financially to their blog. I tend to pass these by once I see the ‘Donate’ button. Occasionally, one site/post will catch my eye. A particular blog suggested that it is often a good idea to start your blog with someone else’s words, as a hook to get potential readers interested. So this is the point of this post.

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I’m going back to 2011. My eldest son, S**** and I are at the Leeds Festival (or Leeds Fest as it it known colloquially). We have just watched the band Madness and he is going off with Leeds Festhis friends to do what young people do at festivals. I’m trying to be the ‘trendy oldie’ and I’m thinking I’m going to see the next band … whoever they are. Turned out they were a Sheffield band called “Bring Me The Horizon”, who’s music at the time was defined as “metalcore” which was something I had no idea about. So there I was, at the grand old age of 56, wearing a skull bandana, wishing I still smoked waiting for this band to appear.

It was loud … very, very loud. The singers voice just seemed to screech all the time, but the music was very addictive. I stayed for the whole set … including  a particular song that was apparently BMTH 2011called “Wall of Death”. This involved the singer telling the audience to form a large circle. By this time, I was towards the centre of the audience and people were beginning to move backwards. the circle was getting bigger and bigger. There seemed nowhere for me to go. I asked a young man who was near to me, what I should do. His words were “Just run and don’t stop!” Which is exactly what I did. There is a YouTube video that shows the event, but the photo here shows the scale. I was never more scared and excited in my life. Although you will ne be able to make me out, I was somewhere near the bottom righthand corner.

Ever since that day, I have enjoyed listening to BMTH who’s music which has turned somewhat into what some call “pop metal”.

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Now to the point. The quote is from a song by BMTH called True Friends. The quote is based on a quote by Oscar Wilde, and it is claimed that it is not about anything/anyone in particular.

So that is my attempt at “Start with someone else’s words” Lets see how this one goes.

It is the only way to go back in time …….

/ Tony / Leave a comment

I bought a cracking CD set today. 100 Pop hits of the 70’s. five CDs for only £5.00. It was very good value for money. There are all the songs that I remember, and some that I had purposely tried to forget. I have listened to the first 10 tracks on CD1, sitting here, at my PC, doing what we used to call (I think) ‘grooving’. I know sad old fool. Out of all the 100 tracks, the only one that I may not listen to …… “Welcome Home” by Peters and Lee. I think it must have been finding Rose Royce on YouTube that set me off.

It’s been a reasonably quiet day today, but windy. I had not realised how windy it was until I hit the motorway. It knocked me about a bit. It was cold too. I was not expecting it to be cold. Thankfully, no frost though. Good to tell Mick is not at work this week. Heating was off, toilets flooded and the outside door not working. He would have had them all sorted before most people came in.

Good about the frost holding off. My first seeds are starting to poke their way through. The Salad Leaves were showing when I got home tonight. They have taken just less than a week. I’m now expecting the Leaf Beet to show in the next couple of days. No luck with any of the older seeds though, but there is still time I suppose.

Eldest is away tonight. His girlfriend was upset about her course, and he rode to her rescue. He has no money or cards with him!!! It must be the real thing !!