The Photo Book

(from 2014)

Earlier this year, Mrs O and I had a 40^th wedding anniversary celebration. The family came up and we all had prezzies.

My daughter did a photo book for the two of us, and then the extras were a necklace for Mrs O, and for me some sheet music autographed by the late John Stewart. If you have read some of my older posts you will know why the latter is special, but if not, then no matter.

But the photo book contained numerous surprises. Earlier this year she and her husband stayed at our home to look after her grandmother, while I went to America to be ill. And, with a photo book in mind, she raided our photos, stuffed in boxes and all sorts of places; then she raided photos at my elderly mother’s, and then she raided photos from a friend who sometimes does anonymous battle/banter with me on this blog. She dug out so much stuff that I just didn’t remember – being somewhat elderly and forgetful now.

There is stuff in the photo book that I have not seen for a million years.

There is me walking on my hands with a 5 year old chortling in the background. At school I could cover the length of the school gym on my hands – reminding me of Boswell’s politically incorrect dog quote in Life of Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.” I had put such youthful achievements completely out of mind.

There were photos from the two ends of the British Isles, John O’Groats and Lands End. One vacation I cycled from one to the other, camping on the side of the road in a kiddie’s play tent. I had tried to waterproof it but the aerosol can ran out, so I took a chance that it wouldn’t rain. I lost. At the very end was a postcard I sent to my mother from Lands End after eight days and 930 miles (the route was slightly off course so I could freeload on friends at various stations on occasion when I didn’t feel like wet camping.)

The postcard contained eight lines of verse (or worse):

The Land’s End folk were roused from sleep

By one loud crash, then groans,

And rose to find a crumpled heap

Of mainly skin and bones!

Which exclaimed: “eight days it took

- I’ve done it – though I’ve roughed it!”

Then with a contented look

- The apparition snuffed it!

I have no recollection of writing that at all. It is probably just as well.

That trip was my only experience of Glasgow, cycling home at the time they threw people out the bars. I have never seen so many people fighting in the streets, and being bundled into the back of Black Marias. I put my head down and pedalled like crazy to Hamilton Race Track for another wet night. I have not been back.

I remember I had made a list of things to do before reaching a certain age. This was one of them. The next was to canoe up the Grand Union Canal from London to Birmingham – but I pedalled back from Lands End in time to film a wedding where I met the future Mrs O and priorities sort of changed.

There were pictures of me and the future Mrs O in Spain, where she was working. The hairstyles were interesting. There were meetings in the woods under the guise of picnics, because the group she worked for was still banned in the last days of Franco. And then all the rest, our first home, birth of child, pictures of child biting father’s feet, father putting on a horrified look while holding a book entitled Baby Taming, and fancy dress. Oh yes, fancy dress. Mrs O used to make costumes and in the regular parties the congregation we attended held for the kids, there was always someone who would write a song and get the kids to mime – generally with loads of wild enthusiasm but a certain lack of attention to detail. On one occasion our daughter played a little piggy who in the middle of the song, decided she’d had enough and escaped from Noah’s Ark, and resisted all attempted to put her back, while the singers flailed away as if nothing had happened.

Then there was the time we made the front page of Welsh newspapers when our tandem bicycle was stolen. The reporter came and clucked sympathetically and took pictures of us looking glum. Then – just to show in the office, nothing more – could we pose as if riding an invisible tandem? Of course we could and we did, and of course that was the picture they used. Still, it ultimately got the machine back and we lived to pedal another day. In due course a kiddie seat was fixed on the back and we had some tiring holidays trying to pedal up and down mountains.

There were photographs taken on long distance solo cycle rides (250 miles variety) where a certain correspondent insists I ate something off at a midnight cafe in Pembrokeshire and was ill in a ditch. I really don’t remember that. I am sure he imagined it.

There were vacations here and there, and pets – including a dog that grew and grew. Our daughter wanted a dog, and her best friend had picked up a stray on the side of the road, taken it home, to be presented with numerous puppies of indeterminate breed. We had one of them. The first time the dog visited my mother, it enthusiastically leapt onto her lap. My mother’s cup of tea in hand shot up like a Fascist salute and we had the tea stains all over the curtains for years. Of course, as soon as our daughter got the dog she met her future husband, and we were left with the animal. Sadly our lifestyle precluded the kind of care Mutley needed, but we re-homed him in an untidy house full of children, and hopefully he lived out his life in doggy-heaven.

Celebrations – so many years of this, so many years of that – yes, it’s a picture of a life.

But it was a bit disconcerting to think that my daughter rummaged through all that stuff. I mean, ALL that stuff - bottom drawer, bottom cupboard, attic, and all the rest. What actually is there? We haven’t looked ourselves for years. I just hope she didn’t come across my diaries...

Wimoweh

(from 2013)

It all started in South Africa with Solomon Linda and his Evening Birds.

Linda was a part-time singer from the townships, who worked as a cleaner and record packer at a local record company office.

He called his song Mbube (the Zulu for “lion”) and had his group repeat the base line Uyimbube (“I am a lion”) over and over, while his falsetto soared above it.

It would have stayed unknown in the townships of South Africa had folk singer Pete Seeger not been looking for new material for his group The Weavers in the late 1940s. He heard Solomon’s song and since his Zulu wasn’t too good, misheard it as Wimoweh. The latter title has stuck.

The Weavers did their version in due course, totally ruined by the commercial sound of the Gordon Jenkins Orchestra and Chorus behind them. It was soon everywhere. There was Yma Sumac, who claimed to be a descendant of an Incan princess and also claimed a singing range of more than four octaves. She did an execrable version (truth be told, rumors abounded that she was a Brooklyn housewife whose name was Amy Camus, now spelled backwards). When Seeger split from the Weavers (objecting to their endorsing a cigarette commercial) he took the song to his solo concerts and got his audiences to fill in the gaps.

Later the pop group the Tokens picked it up, threw in some English words and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” became a standard. They were a one hit wonder – I mean how do you follow THAT? The ultimate accolade was when the song featured in the Disney film “The Lion King.”

None of this was much good for poor old Solomon Linda. He died penniless in 1962.  His family couldn’t even afford a headstone for him. Seeger had heard of their plight and sent them money but it took a lawsuit for associates of the Disney Corporation to finally cough up something decent for his descendants.

So where does Occasional come into all this?

I first heard Seeger and the Weavers perform the song on a long forgotten radio show on Radio Luxembourg – the commercial station for a United Kingdom then denied commercial radio, which beamed its wares from the little European Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Lying in bed with a valve portable radio the size of a large brick clamped to my head, this was a revelation.

The very first folk record I ever bought was to obtain Seeger and audience doing Wimoweh. It was an early vinyl EP (that’s ‘extended play’ to you) and introduced me to folk protest as well – the song Talking Atom Blues – with the parody line “all men shall be cre-mated equal”) This was before the Greenwich Village folk boom led by the likes of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

I always wanted to sing it – and in the bathroom sometimes did – to the horror of family who would thump on the door and ask me not to frighten the neighbors.

But then in recent years my daughter embraced all things folk and inveigled us into joining her at folk clubs from time to time.

So on a recent vacation – suitable over-wined and over-dined and secure in the knowledge that if it all went pear shaped I would never have to see these people again – I had a go.

Son in law, daughter and Mrs O started the base line – and the audience joined in! Daughter had helped me get the pitch right (there can be nothing worse than starting Wimo-screech with the horror for singer and audience of a further two minutes to come) and away we went.

I was pleased. Daughter has threatened to put it on YouTube as the Yodelling Pensioner Strikes Again...

Strikes Again? Don’t Ask.

But I did it. I am content, glad, actually delighted.

Yes – I can now die happy.

But hopefully not just yet.

Addenda from later this same year

Well, I sang it again. And it didn’t go TOO badly. What probably helped was being at a Folk and Ale Festival. There’s a well known equation for folk festivals – the more the audience drinks the better the singers sound...

There were many familiar faces, but slightly older, portlier, balder, and more hirsute in the facial hair department. The last time we camped we were woken at the crack of dawn by little Megan trilling her way through the entire score of Oliver. Megan has grown up a bit – she is now belting out Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. This time we were woken up at the crack of dawn by a cockerel we could have willingly strangled! A bad case of Cock-a-Doodle-DON’T!

But this isn’t supposed to be a post, just a brief comment before getting back to reality and respectability.

It’s just that I don’t often do brief.

Addenda to the addenda

OK - so I go on a bit about singing in folk clubs, and this particular post has now disappeared off the radar, but I still want to sound forth. Music can have a very healing effect on people.

What has this to do with Wimoweh? Well, daughter and son in law are visiting for the week – painting our house actually (they can come again!) – so yesterday we went to the little folk club we visit monthly. And I yodelled forth... Now located in a new venue, the club attracted some new people, who – gluttons for punishment – just wanted to listen.

But it also attracted the widower of a famous Welsh folk singer! I won’t give his late wife’s name, but she was well known for traditional songs – making a very good living in America and the continent – anywhere other than Wales really - but died tragically young from cancer. He produced her main album – which we regularly play as Mrs O sings Welsh at times – and played assorted unusual instruments on it. This was his first time in a folk club for nearly a decade. He drank rather a lot, and kept having to leave with two companions – who we assume were vaguely family – for yet another cigarette, but he played flute and recorder as I have rarely heard such instruments played. It was very emotional, but hopefully cathartic for him. He really enjoyed himself. He even joined in the chorus of Wimoweh. I hope, for everyone’s sake, that he comes again.

But I doubt I will be singing Wimoweh again without family support.

Welsh

(from 2013)

I was never much good at learning languages. I spent five years at school learning how to successfully fail all my French exams. An over-enthusiastic parent paid for me to have extra tuition from a retired French teacher. I still failed. I came out of the system being able to recite a few irregular French verbs, only to discover that few French nationals are keen to hear their irregular verbs recited by young Englishmen.

But later in life, when there was an actual reason to learn a bit, I did better. I was able to get by in Spanish, and for a marked contrast, in Urdu. And last year I joined Mrs Occasional on a course to learn simple Welsh.

The reason for trying Welsh conversation was linked to one of my “hats” – striving to bring a message to people living in Wales who do not necessarily want to hear it. I understand where they are coming from. When people call on me with something I don’t understand or consider I need, then an automatic response is negative. But in this part of the world, a bit of Welsh breaks the ice. People listen, people talk. That’s what I want.

The Welsh language has made a real comeback during the time I have lived in Wales. For many years the language was virtually suppressed. Children were not allowed to speak it in school, and the idea was fostered that educated people who wanted to get on, had to speak English. But now the latest census figures for the quite small area where I live show five thousand who declared they can both read, write, and speak Welsh fluently. If you were to go back just a couple of decades it would have been a different story. And yes – I go back a couple of decades – I can remember.

Actually, as far as languages go, it is a real stinker to learn as an adult. Mrs Occasional has gone on to a local college on the intermediate course, but language is her interest – she used to teach Spanish, French and Portuguese. She once said that she spent five years of her life in Spain and is fluent – and the rest of her life in Wales and is not.

Welsh nationalism has a big part to play in the resurgence of the language. Now I have no problem with people being proud of their family roots and their culture. It is when it causes dislike and division that I worry. I remember in North Wales calling on someone to share the message I believed important. But he sort of jumped up and down and went red in the face and called me all the English he knew – if I couldn’t speak the language of heaven (i.e. Welsh) then I had no business calling on him. I offered to speak to him in Urdu (the language that for reasons I won’t go into here I was conversant with at the time) but it was really the wrong thing to say and annoyed him even more. So I passed the address onto someone who ran Welsh language courses, so they could call and, as the saying goes, “call my bluff”.

There is of course a division between North Wales Welsh and South Wales Welsh. And there are variations in Pembrokeshire Welsh (an Irish influence) and no doubt Patagonian Welsh has evolved as well. Each side insists that their version is the pure language, and that others are the bastardized versions. For an English outsider it can be quite entertaining, but as I learned with my Urdu comment above, you have to be a bit careful what you say. Realistically, it is a bit like the differences between American English and British English. I have had misunderstandings with American correspondents in the past simply because we come from two nations divided by a single language. You end up trying to know both, and pitching your communication accordingly to the circumstances.

After the Welsh nationalists had a spate of burning holiday homes and daubing slogans and getting a Plaid Cwmru candidate elected to parliament, there was a concerted effort to demand more Welsh. From English being promoted as the language of the “educated” – now to get many decent jobs in the capital you have to speak some Welsh! And now all road signs in Wales are bi-lingual. We always know when we are “home” coming across one of the Severn Bridges to be greeted by bi-lingual signs. (For someone born and bred in England, I actually miss them when venturing out of Wales). But sometimes there are comic results – although how much you laugh may depend on where you are, who you are with at the time, and which side of the Severn Bridge you come from.

One famous mishap occurred in the Swansea area. The sign in English read “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.” All well and good. Officials emailed the appropriate office in Swansea for a translation, which was received by return and the sign painters copied it faithfully: “Nid wyf yn swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwych unrhyw waith l’w gyfieihu.” The bi-lingual notice was duly erected. The event made the national news. It was pointed out by a genuine native speaker that the Welsh actually read: “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

Another one that made the news was an intended bi-lingual warning sign for pedal cyclists to dismount at a road junction in Cardiff. The Welsh version gave a directive about bladder difficulties. The best guess was that someone had misread cystitis for cyclist in their dictionary.

Sign painters of course do not have to be linguists. Actually they do not even have to be literate. Which reminds me of another gaff when I once engaged someone to paint a sign for a religious building. They left the apostrophe out of the title. When told there was an apostrophe before the S they obligingly put it in before another unrelated S, making it even more illiterate. We eventually gave up and got a pot of paint and carefully made the adjustment ourselves.

Which brings me finally to the music album in Welsh called TIR. It came out a couple of years ago, but we only recently obtained a copy. It is a folk CD of traditional songs but done in a modern style by Cerys Matthews, who used to sing with the Welsh band, Catatonia. It is an eclectic mixture, which avoids the usual problem with modern folk of being over-produced.

There are a couple with tunes I love, but which I skip over. Cwm Rhondda is actually in English and is always sung by the crowds at Welsh Rugby games. Rugby is now of course the main religion of Wales – people go on pilgrimage to great outdoor cathedrals and sing songs of praise. Cwm Rhondda contains the name of the Deity, and is actually a good talking point when meeting genuine Welsh speakers. The English version of the hymn pointedly changes the words to omit the name. But I have my own theological difficulties with it, so I miss that one. And the other one is the Welsh National Anthem. It is a beautiful tune, but with my personal issues over nationalism it again doesn’t sit too well with me. And it brings back all sorts of memories for Mrs Occasional and makes her cry – so she has an added reason not to listen to it either.

But the rest of the songs are currently getting played to death. Perhaps my favourite is the old Welsh folk song Ar Lan Y Môr, now done in a Bob Dylan style, complete with asthmatic harmonica. (I have even been “inspired” to write my own English words for it and inflict them on others at folk clubs).

Mrs Occasional is well pleased with the CD, because singing in Welsh in local folk clubs requires decent material, and the accompanying booklet gives all the Welsh lyrics. For me, it sounds lovely, although I can’t really understand much. Still, I can bellow phonetically at key points in the harmony, which, even if I say so myself, sounds good to those listening – just as long as they can’t speak Welsh either.

So in the words of the poet - nid aur yw popeth melyn!

Or words to that effect...

Addenda anecdote from later

On the premise that if you can’t beat them you might as well join them, I have been joining Mrs Occasional in “spare” moments at college to learn one of the three current versions of Welsh. (And that’s just in Wales!)

They gave us all a shiny badge to wear reading “Shwmae!” The aim was to attract Welsh speakers. This is the local dialect for “Hi there!”

Armed with said badge I have spent the afternoon treating elderly patients’ feet in their homes. One lady had the TV on full blast, showing a program in Welsh.

“So you speak Welsh then?” I ventured cheerily.

She looked at me blankly. “No” she said.

“But you’ve got the Welsh language channel on TV – S4C - Sianel Pedwar Cymru....?”

“Oh that’s not for me, it’s for the budgerigar – he understands it!”

Wedding reception anecdotes

(from 2013)

Reading posts about others people’s weddings obviously brings back memories of one’s own family events. And father (or father in law) behaviour.

The future Mrs O’s father had done a runner from her mother many years before we got married, and was currently with partner number two. But she wanted to renew contact, so he was prevailed upon to attend the wedding. I remember that he had fortified himself in the usual way and insisted on standing on a chair to give a speech – the only thing I can remember is the old, old joke – “I got a bottle of wine for my wife...(pause)...it was the best deal I had all day...” – and then my best man caught him as he almost did a header onto the table.

Over thirty years later (this time with partner number three out of the eventual four trying to keep him in order) he attended our daughter’s wedding. I remember in the “church” how he snorted loudly at certain aspects of the wedding service that didn’t quite fit his mindset. I also remember how we dispensed with the “pay bar” at the reception, choosing to provide all the alcohol ourselves – mainly so that we could “control” it. But he still found a way around that somehow. Still, we organised a veritable phalanx of cousins and friends to box him in, and the day passed without serious incident.

I gave a speech I am told, but I cannot for the life of me remember a word of it...

The Times they are a'changing...

(from 2013)

For many years The Times newspaper in Britain was the erudite voice of “the establishment”. Po-faced, serious, and ever so ever so boring. But they had a special offer a million years ago where you could take out a subscription for pennies. I wavered. I gave in. I have been reading it ever since.

If ever a paper has changed its style and reputation, The Times has. Excellent film reviews, comprehensive obituaries (they even gave my John Stewart half a page) and a reasonable sense of fair play. If there is a controversy, be it political or otherwise, they usually give both sides a column each to slug it out. But what I really enjoy is the mass of humor hidden away. British humor is often based on understatement. It is probably why Americans reading my posts have occasional difficulty. I mean, I have occasional difficulty myself.

And I do like the cartoons. This may not translate too well, but recently in Britain there was a headline-screaming scandal over horse meat. Now they eat horse meat on the continent, but to Brits this is generally anathema - especially when their microwaveable beef lasagne turns out to be more equine than bovine. Arrests have being made, heads are rolling – mainly because the fraud as with most frauds is all about money.

But there was lovely Times cartoon. It was a typical traditional children’s picture of Noah’s ark. On the top was a bearded Noah with a spatula in his hand. The sign above his head read “Noah and Sons – 100% Pure Beef Hamburgers”. Walking into the ark looking extremely apprehensive were two giraffes, two elephants, two lions...

Well – I THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY. I showed Mrs Occasional, but she used to ride horses and didn’t find it funny at all.

The bit of the paper she likes is the puzzle section. Years ago they separated the puzzles into a section of their own. Mrs O grabs that first and does the crosswords. I occasionally lean across and supply an answer – usually when she doesn’t want it and make myself most unpopular – but there is a clear demarcation – Mrs O, the crosswords, me, the Sudoku.

Sudoku is based on an old number puzzle on a nine squared grid that was revived in Japan, and then introduced into Britain by The Times, when it really took off.

And here is a funny thing. It is all down to the effects of alcohol.

Now I am unsure how clued up on British programs and books the Americans are – but a big favorite over here with several current spin-offs was Inspector Morse. Morse is always drinking (and rarely paying his way) but the lubrication gets results. And I have read the entire collection of Simon Brett’s Charles Paris novels – he is a failed actor and amateur detective, perpetually on the verge of inebriation. I find the books very funny and they wickedly parody all aspects of the entertainment business.

But you know what? – it almost seems to work.

Take last evening. Sudoku puzzles are offered on a number of levels, building up during the week from easiest to hardest. Starting with “Mild” they end up as “Super Fiendish” - real stinkers. Well, we were celebrating something or other (I think it was the anniversary of the invention of the spinning wheel) and had bought a large bottle of Cava – the el cheapo Spanish alternative to champagne. It tastes far better than the real thing as far as I am concerned, which puts me down as no connoisseur I admit, but who cares – very few here know who I really am anyway.

Anyhow, once you open the bottle, you have to finish it, don’t you – otherwise, I mean, the bubbles will all go off...

So the bottle was downed (and I generously allowed Mrs Occasional a taste) and then in a foolhardy moment I attacked the Fiendish Sudoku.

But do you know what! – I finished it.

I COMPLETED THE SUPER FIENDISH SUDOKO!!!

Quickly – easily – yes, there is still life in the old brain cells yet, but apparently assisted by the bubbles.

I am not sure what lesson I can take from that.

If I want to do something erudite, or complicated, the obvious answer is a trip to the English equivalent of the liquor store, and in true Inspector Morse and Charles Paris style – indulge a bit.

Hmmmm.

I’m not under the alfluence of incohol as you theaple pink I am, but the drunker I stand here the longer I get...

Parody

(from 2013)

Someone (but not me) should write a parody of the song Ghost Riders in the Sky. Spike Jones and His City Slickers sent up the original Vaughan Williams version not longer after the song became popular. Everybody seemed to do it, Burl Ives, Bing Crosby – and of course in the early 1960s, the good ol’ Ramrods.

My favourite “animal parody” of all the time was the Australian/British “artiste” Rolf Harris (before his spectacular fall from grace) who got hold of Mark Dinning’s death-ballad “Teen Angel” and turned it into “Tame Eagle.”

For those who cannot remember the dire original (which reached number one in the American Billboard charts in 1960, but which was refused airplay in Britain as the government controlled radio stations thought it too morbid), Dinning warbles in the verse:

Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again

(momentary pause – and it’s the pause that makes it)
- They buried you today

(all together now)

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me, etc. etc.

Harris’s song uses the same wobbly Dinning-type voice and has this “tame eagle” that escapes... The song ends with a worried voice – “Here – I thought you said it was tame...?” Then pandemonium as the creature attacks the singer....

Well, I thought it was funny a million years ago.

Growing old is obligatory, growing up is optional.

Our Vacation

(from 2013)

There used to be a family near us, Mr and Mrs P, who made home movies. Those were the days of 8mm film, which you stuck together with sticky tape and put through a machine that whirred away to cast a flickering light on a sheet pinned to the wall. They once invited us around and out of the blue announced they were going to give us a REAL TREAT – a film of their most recent vacation.

From the equipment and impedimenta, it appeared to be about twenty reels long, and judging from the first one we saw was likely to feature Mrs P cavorting about in a less than flattering swimsuit, displacing vast quantities of ocean as she repeatedly plunged in for the benefit of Mr P’s camera. After about five minutes the bulb blew. Mr. P did not have a spare. It was the answer to a silent prayer.

I am mindful of that when I consider writing about our vacation. Who on earth wants to know about someone else’s vacation? The scenery was nice, the weather was so-so, the food and drink put us in a contented frame of mind – and after seven days no doubt we will go home to reality a lot poorer financially than when we went away. End of story.

Actually, now I’ve started, I could do a little promotional for the area. We are near Tintagel in North Cornwall. It is all very dog friendly. All the pubs have bowls of water and dog treats on the counter. Nearly all the shops are similar. It is canine heaven. Of course, if you don’t like dogs, and don’t want to be tripped up by assorted dog leads with mutts on the end of them every time you venture out of doors, it may not be the place for you. But daughter and son in law have Muttley (not its real name) and this is their fourth excursion into this area. They were really keen to show us the sights, so we came along.

This vacation has been really necessary. My elderly mother needs constant care, which we have provided with carers and sitters and all sorts of support services. But we made a fatal mistake – several months ago we made a small request: could the carers be granted another fifteen minutes to help with proper feeding? It was as if World War Three had broken out – a three ring circus promptly ensured, involving nurses and social workers and interminable meetings and interminable “action plans” spread over two months. Social workers seem to work on the basis that everyone is a villain, that family and friends are the worst, and everyone is guilty of the most heinous intentions, until proven innocent – and even then... It seems to go with the territory, but there have been some dreadful scandals in the UK causing professional heads to roll, so one can understand. Except when it’s your life turned upside down just trying to get the best care for an elderly parent. Only on the day before our vacation started was it finally sorted out. We’ve paid for someone to sleep at my mother’s home while we are away, so with that and the four calls per day we have been able to go away, and for the first time in several years not worry overmuch.

So we walked, we talked, and we slept. Then we sang, played Trivial Pursuit and yes – slept again. We visited the fishing village of Port Isaac and watched them filming an episode of a British series called Doc Martin. At odd moments I wrote several pieces for different things, and finally sorted out my laptop desktop. Mrs O says that my computer desktop is even worse than my office. My office is the room where we have to keep the door shut whenever we have visitors. Only once have I been caught out when someone Skyped me, and unthinkingly I answered to find myself looking at my unshaven self in the corner of the screen with a visual illustration of “chaos theory” behind me. But you can actually see a bit of a pattern behind the rows of icons on the computer desktop, and my key files are safely backed up in case the laptop goes to that great scrapheap in the sky.

So – highlights? One was the reminder that it is a small world sometimes, even amongst a religious fellowship of 140,000 and an island like the British Isles. We attended a meeting at a place we’d never been anywhere near before. This particular event encourages audience participation – but when I waved my hand, I was called upon by name. Uh? How on earth did the guy know who I was? When Mrs O had the same experience, the penny dropped – we might be in Cornwall now, but we’d been with this person at a disastrous wedding in Liverpool of all places a couple of decades before. (That’s another story). And then I turned around and – well, love me tender and call me Elvis – there was a relative I hadn’t spoken to for decades!! Well, not exactly a relative, but this man’s brother is married to the sister of the man who was my mother’s second husband... I reminded him of this and he looked puzzled...

Another highlight has been earlier this evening visiting a folk club at a place called Boscastle. Now I like going to folk clubs on holidays. It means I can sing from my limited repertoire, content that the crowd have not heard it all before. I can also try out things I wouldn’t dare try out at home. If they are a disaster – a not infrequent happening – then I never have to see those people again. And anyway, unlike the religious connections, these people won’t ever remember me from Adam, so who cares.

I could tell you what I sang. Hmmm. I could... But... now with a glass of Blossom Hill red at my elbow and just one more day to go before returning home to reality, recollections are turning sort of vague. Hence – at this point I guess I can go full circle on this post, and state metaphorically that the bulb has broken.

And I don’t have a spare.

Aren’t you glad!

Occasional shows his softer side

(from 2013)

I pride myself on having a nice, cynical, protective shell against the vicissitudes of life.

But the older I get, the more emotional certain things make me. The family laugh at me – with kindness I trust – but they would, wouldn’t they? But there are certain snippets of film and certain pieces of music that cause me to sniff, which of course I immediately have to put down to the apparent onset of a cold.

Motion pictures first.

One of the first ever posts I did on this blog was about the original version of The Miracle Worker, the story of Helen Keller, blind, deaf and dumb and how she was reached by teacher Annie Sullivan. I first saw the film with a bunch of macho lads, and wham – we were not prepared for the impact of the final moments. Gulp! It was really most embarrassing...

Then there was the old film The Snake Pit about Olivia de Haviland being incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. There is a scene there of a large room filled with people, faces filled with both hope and hopelessness and an indefinable longing, as the camera travelled over their heads while a resident sang Going Home. It’s an old spiritual, known to many as the slow movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. I was probably a little fragile at the time I first saw the film on TV – in fact, I know I was for reasons I will not disclose here, but I disgraced myself good and proper in company when I first saw that. My self-image of the day suffered drastically. I was actually human.

It is strange things that can set me off with at least a mild lump in the throat. The building a barn sequence in Witness. Goodness knows why – it is a happy scene, illustrating the seemingly idyllic existence of the Amish in contrast with the harsh realities outside from whence the fugitive has come – but when you know the film, there is a sting in the tail. Eden don’t actually exist in this world.

And any film that has a death of a sympathetic character...  I only have to see Robert Donat as old Mr Chips telling those at his bedside that he’d had lots of children and they were all boys... and I’m away. Even the British TV series Inspector Morse (or as we tend to call him here, Inspector Grumpy) has an effect when Morse’s unhealthy lifestyle eventually finishes him off.

That’s films – but – aaagh - when you get to music...

When my daughter first got into music, it was folk music – traditional from me and more modern folk-oriented material from her favorite teachers in school. We used to play the Waterboys’ Stolen Child again and again in the car taking her to school. It’s from a poem by W.B. Yeats. Several people have put it to music, but this was our version. Mike Scott sings the chorus and an Irish actor recites the poem. Again, like the barn sequence in Witness, it is not directly sad. The poem talks of the child being caught away by the faeries – but it’s the line “For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand” that gets me. Is it escaping misery? Is it embracing folly? Is it loss of innocence? Is it holding onto innocence? Is it just an oblique way of talking about growing up, or not growing up – a case of lost boys Peter Pan syndrome? Whatever, it made me buy a slim volume of Yeats poems. (Strangely, Mrs O who knows far more about real poetry than I do, dislikes the “song” and finds it boring.)

Then there is Eric Bogle. Bogle is a great writer of humorous songs. I really like humorous songs. You can perform humorous songs and get away with it even with a rubbish voice. But Bogle’s songs have a bit of an edge to them, and some are really quite cruel. But it is his anti-war songs based on the First World War that are something else. My favourite is Gallipoli (also known as: The Band Played Waltzing Matilda).

There’s a verse in the middle:

But the band played Waltzing Matilda,

when we stopped to bury our slain.

We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,

(pause)

then we started all over again.

It is the pause – just slight, almost imperceptible, that makes it. That’s the killer. I learned the song and was all set to do it at the local folk club – because the chords are dead easy. But I got to that bit and could never complete it in practice, and then Mrs O sternly forbade me to try.

And my final choice for now – the Miner’s Lullaby by American Bruce “Utah” Phillips.

My favourite version of this was actually sung by my daughter at the Shrewsbury folk festival a couple of years ago. I know, I know – proud father syndrome – but you could hear a pin drop when she did it.

It’s all about miners, mainly European immigrants from a Catholic background, who worked in terrible conditions underground. If there was an accident and the miners were trapped, there was rarely hope of rescue. Although the singer (wife of a miner) is Roman by faith – so for a Catholic, suicide is a mortal sin – her man still always goes down the shaft with a tin of morphine. In the event of being trapped by a roof fall, the men can ease their passing.

The chorus goes:

Husband, sleep, lay your head back and dream.
A slow fallen leaf borne down to the stream.
Then carried away on the wings of morphine,
Homeward far over the sea.

Every time she has sung that – and I always nag her to do so whenever we visit somewhere new – it has the same effect – grizzled old folkies wiping their faces over their beer, and pretending they’ve just got something in their eye.

Well, writing all this has cheered me up no end.

Pass the Kleenex will you.

Night of the Eagle

(from 2013)

Oh the joys of audience participation in the cinema.

My favourite example was a British horror pic called Night of the Eagle. Peter Wyngarde (later to play overly hirsute Jason King in a dire TV series) has to save his wife from some spell or other...  She’s been practicing witchcraft and it’s gonna end in tears. Forgive me if I’m a little forgetful – it wasn’t the sort of the film that my contemporaries would have approved of, and I can’t remember much of it. Anyhow, he batters down this crypt door, goes down dusty steps into the actual crypt, in which assorted sarcophagi are in layers. He pulls out one coffin, and for whatever plot reasons, has to perform some incantation. As the audience held their collective breath, he stucks his wife photo on the coffin, placed two candles in front of it, and with trembling hand lighted the candles...

At that point the silence was broken as a teenage voice sang out from the cheap seats: “...Happy birthday to you....”

The audience erupted. There is no other word for it.

Yup - a real moment of pleasure.

I was obviously very easy to please in those days.

Music for Girls

(from 2013)

In 1967 the late Andy Williams had a mega-hit with the song “Music to Watch the Girls Go By.”

Having always been into music with extremely eclectic tastes, I have an iPod bulging at the seams. But there are certain songs that bring back memories of yesteryear, and - harrumph - particularly certain young ladies of yesteryear who I – er – watched go by, and on occasion attempted to detain. I kept a diary for many years, and to help a friend with a writing project recently checked out some dates for him. It was over forty years since my thoughts had been put to paper, and boy - was some of it embarrassing. But it reminded me of some of the very nice young ladies I had taken out in what was an innocent but fun-time youth. And all that music, which can still trigger memories today.

Perhaps the first was Buddy Holly singing “Learning the Game.” Found on his tape-recorder in his New York apartment after his untimely demise in a plane crash, the studios dubbed in a backing and it became a minor hit in Britain. I remember sitting in a coffee bar in Hythe, gazing into the calf-eyes of G, putting coins in the juke box to play it again and again. Aaaah. It is amazing what counts for folk music nowadays – probably any music sung by folk! I have been known to do an acoustic “Learning the Game” on singers’ night in folk clubs. Lovely little song – so simple – within Occasional’s limited range - and only three chords as well.

Then there was P. My memory of her comes from Gene Vincent trying to copy Buddy Holly hiccupping his way through the song “My Heart” (written by Johnny Burnette). I will draw a veil over why that song is a reminder, but I did take P to see Gene Vincent once. As noted in an earlier post, and to quote from a Vincent recording from the 1960s this was “The Beginning of the End.”

Then there was S. A really good friend – far more like a sister, which is why I happily attended her wedding to someone else. But the song that always brings back memories of S is Holly again – “Umm Oh Yeah.” It came from the same acoustic recordings on Holly’s tape recorder that included “Learning the Game.” It came out as the flip side of a Holly single in the UK in the mid-60s, credited to Holly. The title came from Holly’s slurred Tex-Mex enunciation mid-verse. I thought it was great, and S bought it for me.

Then someone noticed that Holly’s home tapes included a version of “Love is Strange” – written and recorded by Mickey and Sylvia. On checking their recording output, “Umm Oh Yeah” turned up – but under its correct title, “Dearest.” It actually had three writers credited – including Ellas McDaniel (alias Bob Diddley) and Mickey Baker, one half of Mickey and Sylvia. Ooops.

I was at a folk club last year, and believe it or not, this song also turned up again presented as a folk song. It is probably the three chord aspect, and again Holly’s limited range that make most of his songs such a joy for amateurs to sing. Yes – memories of S again.

Then of course there was L. Now this could have been serious. She really liked the Herb Alpert version of “This Guy’s in Love with You”. So I bought her the single. It seemed really appropriate. She thanked me profusely. Then she dumped me. So I wrote a comedy rock’n’roll song about the experience. As you do. And sang it at parties. It used to go down a storm. For some reason she was not amused.

The strange thing of course is that when I grew up I eventually married Mrs Occasional – a very good choice, looking back on over 38 years of marriage. And I’m not just writing that because she may read this – unlike my daughter she rarely reads my posts. Did we have a special song? Well, I do remember sending her John Stewart’s “Mother Country” on tape when she was working abroad. I mean, a nostalgic hymn to Americana is just the thing to woo a Welsh girl by an English guy isn’t it..? In spite of that we have lived happily ever after.

Perhaps the song that most joins us now is one we sing together. We have practiced, practiced, practiced. We pinched the arrangement from the original recording, helped by our daughter who teaches music. “No Telling (What a Love Song Will Do).” There are times, when tired and well watered, that it can still bring a tear to these rheumy eyes. It was written and first recorded by husband and wife, Richard and Linda Thompson. It didn’t keep them together – but that’s another story. It is our party piece. If we go to a new folk club on holiday – where the audience is not already sick to death of our repertoire – then “No Telling” it has to be.

And no – before you look – you will not find our version on YouTube!

Let the Force be With You

(from 2013)

Now this is a post designed to make you concentrate.

Or to skip it.

It is all about “magic.”

I recently picked up a book by Theo Annemann. He was my mentor as a teenager – when I was into all things magic. My very first paying job (part-time) including demonstrating conjuring tricks to shoppers in a London department store in the weeks leading up to Christmas. There was a British TV magician named David Nixon, who was bald and unflappable and did amazing things for the era, and the store was marketing his box of tricks. They were all designed to work themselves – no actual conjuring skills required, which fitted my lack of talent perfectly. We sold a lot of them. However, in reality, I was more into what was then called “mind magic” and that is where Annemann was King.  I obtained nearly all his magazine The Jinx, from a specialist shop near the British Museum, and in later life, sold them for an amazing sum when needs must. Annemann perfected the “catching a bullet in the teeth” routine, but within the profession was best known for his “mentalist” skills. He committed suicide at the age of 34 in 1942. I don’t know why. As a teenager his magazine always seemed very cheerful to me.

Anyhow - the standard trick was to get an audience to choose all sorts of things, a color, a card, a word, a number – perhaps a whole collection of things – and then to produce from a sealed envelope (from a suitably guarded location) the results ALREADY WRITTEN DOWN. The sealed envelope was usually stored in a bank vault guarded by the UK equivalent of the National Guard, or was suspended in full view throughout the trick. The message was that the performer had no way of getting at the contents. So the performer had either known what you would choose, “READING YOUR MIND” (shock, gasp, horror) or had somehow made the magic words appear on the piece of paper in the sealed envelope.

It was all the rage in the 1930s. And NO – don’t be rude - I don’t actually go back to the 1930s. Not quite...

There were two basic ways you could perform the stunt.

One was to get the result into the envelope AFTER the event – devices like thumb tips enabled messages to penetrate envelopes while the performer held them up, waffling on about how impenetrable the contents were, while a female assistant cavorted about in a skimpy bathing suit, for the express purpose of taking the audience’s eye off the ball.

But the other way – MY WAY – was to FORCE the choice you already had written down. I went for this choice because it required less skill. In many cases, it required no skill at all. That suited my level of ineptitude...  I also had difficulty finding any willing female assistant at that stage of my life to dress up (or dress down) for the purpose of misdirecting the audience.

So – concentrate now – I am going to force on you a word. And it starts with forcing a book on you.

One of the simplest ‘forces’ involves three books – let’s call them Blue, Yellow, and Green. (Only they must not be as obvious as that for the actual trick.)

I want to “force” you to choose the Green.

So I say to you, spreading the books out very casually (and that’s the key, to be very “casual”) “take away two...”

You take away the Blue and the Yellow, and I proceed as if nothing has happened by holding up the remaining one (the Green) – and getting on with the act.

Ah, but what if you take away the Yellow and Green or the Blue and the Green? I say you – equally nonchalantly – “and give me one...”

If you give me the Green, I proceed as if nothing has happened by holding it up and getting on with the act...

If you give me the Yellow or the Blue, I take it away, and leave you with the Green – so this is what you have “chosen”.

As long as you are sufficiently nonchalant, you will get away with it every time. People’s minds won’t query, here – why didn’t this idiot just ask me to choose a book like any normal person? They will honestly accept what you have done. But of course you can only ever do it once!

So we have “forced” the Green.

Now to “force” a word in the book.

If you had a large audience, you could get different people to do part of the calculation to “prove” there was no collusion – as one person could be a plant.

Get an audience member to write down a three figure number. ANY three figure number (although you could suggest they choose their age or house number plus something else if you wanted to make it seem even more “amazing”).

Get them to reverse the number and take the smaller number away from the larger.

Now with the total, reverse it and add the total and the reversed number together.

This is just window dressing...

However you work out this sum the answer will always be 1089.                                

There are numerous mathematical variations on that theme. Although today of course, since we all now use calculators and are numerically illiterate, it would fail completely because no-one would do the math correctly.

With your number 1089, break it up so that you go to page 10, line 8, word 9 on the line and so – big flourish - YOU HAVE CHOSEN THE WORD (insert as appropriate).

So here in this sealed envelope – in a sealed box – guarded by whatever was the maximum window dressing you could afford to give the trick – is the number I have written down earlier – KNOWING THROUGH MY SUPERIOR POWERS WHAT YOU WOULD CHOOSE.

And of course – big finish and the equivalent of a drum roll - you get it right. Every time. Amazing! Well, for a modern audience, obviously not. But in those unsophisticated times...

Modern “magic” has evolved far greater ways of performing basically the same act – but the principles are just the same.

So there you have it.

The trouble was – mind-reading and “magic” were not the most approved of hobbies in my circle and background. Then gradually as I grew older other pursuits took over. You know, girls, young ladies, that sort of thing...

And “pick a card” turned out to be one of the worst chat-up lines you could ever find!