:: The Wendy House ::

2008 was a story of arrivals at the Wendy House:

• myself, promptly followed by a small vibration of power tools.
• a new kitchen roof of old Welsh slate accompanied by a small butt-cheek of builders.
• pre-quarrantined fluffballs fly-in from the NW US.
• crowds of family,  friends,  neighbours, builders, roofers, the odd plumber and a garden hare.
• Neverland,  pretty Sony Vaio TT gold laptop.

and some departures:

• books, crockery, shelves, clothes, bedding, hair, leaky pipes, candescent bulbs, patio, mulled wine and an old kitchen roof…
• Darling,  minus her hard drive destined for rebirth in a network drive.

No pumping allowed without a bit of cctv thrown in for authorisation on this petrol station forecourt.  Due to my rash and wreckless lifestyle the same rule does not apply within the Wendy House where you can pump to your little hearts content without having security equipment check your credentials.

In 1979 I was about to take my first set of exams,  Oxford University ‘O’ levels.  Family and the School’s career officer were encouraging me to think about my career.  Should I be a

• a police person?  Not allowed,  too short. 
• a jet fighter pilot?  Not allowed, too girl.  
• a nurse?  No,  too much cleaning icky messes and being nice to sick people. 
• a train driver?  No,  I’d have to follow-tracks and I like making my own way.
• an Engineer?  It’s what dad wants me to be,  but it seemed just a bit practical and dull to a 15 year old me.
• an architect?  Hmmmm… …possibilities….   how long to get qualified…  7yrs?!  I arranged some work experience for myself in an Architects office to get an idea of what 7 years would lead to…

Meanwhile, XTC were Making plans for Nigel who apparantly had a future in, a national industry, British Steel

Darling took a dive yesterday,   there was a snowstorm on her screen that completely obsfucated her mouse and other useful bits.  No twisting, coaching, or boinking could lure her into the zone of usefulness. 

Darling is officially deceased

Darling’s replacement arrived on Boxing day.   I had an  ‘Out Of the Box Experience’ (OOBE) with a Sony Viao TT model laptop, named Neverland.  I wish I could say that the expereience was exquisit.  Darlings OOBE was fast.  By contrast Neverland is conscientious. Neverland is small at about half Darling’s size and wieght, pretty in gold, extremely polite and  keen to get set-up on my behalf.   

She kept politely asking me to wait while while she was:

• configuring my computer, luckily just the once.
• downloading updates, lots, new computers need lots of updates
• installing updates, because downloading and installing are completely different things and both seem to require a reboot
• rebooting,  I stopped counting on the 6th reboot.

After nearly 3 years of loyal pink service Darling is about to be retired because:

Reasons to retire Darling,  part 5

1. Increasing requirements to contact computer support services

2. I am developing obstreperous-w intolerance.

3. 8loody hail, breeding task manager

4. I WANT Vista

5. The screen occassionally goes unlegibly ’smokey’ and spotty.

The smokey screen can be temporarily fixed by a quick squeeze of the top-left-hand side.  Today I backed everything-up and started searching for bargain sleak stylish replacements.

why I love England #6: Boxing day

St. Stephens day, the day after christmas, Boxing day is a day when those people in the lower classes,  servants, shopkeepers, workers and poor would open a box of tips, or gifts from their customers, employers, or local gentry.  Often the gentry would ’serve’ their servants on this day.  Wikipedia includes this observation:

Boxing Day is also likely related to, and ultimately derived from, the ancient Roman Saturnalia, which also had elements of social role reversal.

Happy holidays from

• mumzie’s solstice tree. 
• Kings College’s Choir inside red dresses, white aprons and Dad’s TV.
• me. 

Thank you for all the encouragement and cunningly surrupticious witticisms throughout the year.

How is your French?       …..expert?

No, Pigeon.

Wikipedia  describes ‘Pidgin’ as:

a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common.

According to spiritus temporis the word Pidgin:

is said to be derived from the Chinese pronunciation of the English word business. The pronunciation for business in Cantonese, the dialect of Chinese used in Pidgin, is  saang1 yi3 or  soeng1 jip6 (Mandarin Chinese: sheng1 yi4 and shang4 ye4 respectively). Likely the origins lie in the exclusively-Cantonese term  bong1 can3 which means establishing a good business relationship. A universal Chinese term baan6 gung1 (ban4 gong1) which means to handle official business would also be a likely candidate. Scholars though dispute this derivation of the word “pidgin”, and suggest alternative etymologies since it was known also as “Pigeon English” in reference to imagery of the passenger pigeon. Unfortunately there exists no historical evidence for the term’s origins to prove any suggestion.

This website introduces an alternative possible source of the word:

Kleinecke claimed that ‘pidgin’ may derive from a Yayo (South American) form ‘-pidian’, meaning ‘people’ and occurring in such tribal names as ‘Mapidian’, ‘Tarapidian’. His claim is plausible on phonological, semantic and historical grounds. If ‘pidgin’ < ‘pidian’ can be traced back to the 1605-6 Oyapock settlement, its widespread use throughout the world might well be explained. Unfortunately, Kleinecke’s theory rests on one solitary occurrence of ‘Pidians’. Wilson wrote that when, in 1606, he joined Leigh, the commander of the expedition to South America, he found that the colonists were exhausted and even ‘the Generall himselfe was very weak and much changed, which partly proceeded by reason of their great want of victuals, for that the Pidians could not at all times provide them that they wanted’ (1625, p. 1260). A close examination of the 1625 text in which it occurs suggests that ‘Pidians’ might well be a misprint for ‘Indians’, a reference it clearly has in the context. In his account of the settlement Wilson uses ‘Indian(s)’ thirty-nine times, ‘Pidians’ once. The fact that other orthographic discrepancies appear, ‘Arwakes’, ‘Arwalkes’, ‘Arwackes’, lends weight to the suggestion that ‘Indians’ rather than ‘Pidians’ was intended. But, even allowing that the Oyapock colonists did refer to the variety of English used in dealing with the local people as ‘pidian English’, it is hard to explain why its usage then remains unrecorded for two hundred and twenty-five years until, in 1850, Berncastle uses ‘pigeon’ to designate the China coast variety of English.

No strong proof of the pigeon or alternative bird brand being the original source of the term..

After button-driving the Honda Civic rental across the county, 

today       I     arr       mostly     bee-in’      in       Cornwall, 

doing Cornwarllish type things,

without internets

with Cornwall locals

who’s larder looked marmite-tastically like this last time I visited. 

Hoorah!

My14th birthday present (1977) from my brother was a studded dog-collar and a ticket to see The Stranglers play on their ‘No More Heros’ tour at the now defunct warehouse called the Bristol Exhibition Centre.  2000 tickets were sold for the concert.  The warehouse was licensed to hold 1000 people.  There was a bit of a squish as people rushed to be in the 1000 that got in and police tried to manage the chaos.  We squished ourselves to about 3 foot from the stage  where we became soaked in sweat, beer and de rigeur spital.  It was wonderful.  Brothers are fabulous,  I can whole-heatedly recommend them.  

The Stranglers played ‘Peaches’

This brother also gave me the NME christmas centrefold spread of the Strangles bass player, Jean Jacques Burnel, tastefully  nude.  I hung the centrefold on my bedroom wall.  My brother gasped, then told mum.  Mum summoned her wisdom with the phrase ‘Gwendolyn can put whatever rubbish she wants to put on her bedroom wall’  Mothers are fabulous,  I can whole-heatedly recommend them.

On this Honda Civic there is

• No need to turn the car-key to the third position to start the car.
• No 3rd turn position for the car key.
• A big red start button to turn the engine.

My holiday started with a big red button!

The very nice chap at the car rental place spent several minutes explaining the controls to me.  Many controls are consistent with those on other cars.  Some are not.

OooooOOOOOoOOoOH (signifiying that finding and applying unusual controls can make driving difficult or impossible).  

I like the silver go-faster button on the steering wheel.  If only I could remember what to press to make the go faster button work.   The chap at the car rental place showed me how to phone him incase I had any trouble at all.  Given the non-standard controls, and the nice chap, I suspect they get quite a few phone-calls from baffled renters and girls like me who fancy talking to the nice chap again…  ….where is that number….

I’ve been indulging myself with a seasonal dosage of aching muscles, sweaty body, hot baths and liberal dozes of sneezing.

Recently, this happened in the UK, a State registrar refused to conduct a marriage registration between two people legally allowed to marry.  The registrar was sacked for refusing to complete the duties associated with their job.  Subsequent legal actions have variously determined that the registrar:

• had the right to selectively opt-out of job responsibilities based on personal religious beliefs inconsistent with State law. 
• did not have the right to demonstrate sexual-orientation prejudices while representing the State as a registrar.

I’m left a bit confused

A black, a blue, and a red umbrella. Aligned.

Old man in the drizzle, draws on his crumpled cigarette.

Boy absent in his headphones, hunched over his backpack.

Father tying his young son’s shoelaces, speaking in a church hushed voice.

Lady in a hat and full length cashmere coat at the edge of the shelter watching the road.

We elegantly reorder ourselves into a boarding line as the 545 Express pulls into bay 1

Not a European clothes size to denote adulthood or large children.  An exam used in the English school system that was taken by 11 year old students between 1944 and 1974.  It was used as a filter for to divide students stream students into entry to Grammar schools or State schools.  If you failed you went into an ordinary State school rather than a Grammar school.

This BBC article provides example of questions in a self-test format:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7773974.stm

I passed an 11+ exam in 1974 at the tail-end of the tripartite school system.

I went to a Comprehensive State School, formerly a Grammar school with teachers that missed the good old grammar school days.  It wasn’t an ex-Secondary Modern’ state school that had traditionally educated the children that failed the 11+

Take a deep breath.. and… go:

Braving sparks from the candle flames of impending Christmas and risking poisoning from multiple chalices of wine mulled with spices in the Wendy House kitchen under spanking-new-roof,  people came to play the cunningly constructed charades produced by a creative Reading fringe couple.  

Breath normally again.

The charades were so fresh off-the-plate they were being written, cut, folded and placed in my favourite hat as the guests arrived. 

Guests were displaying psychic tendancies, sometimes identifying as many as one charade per minute.

In 1973 my pre-teens were spent enjoying and observing the evidence of early outbreaks of total clothes rights that came with the flamboyancy of Glam Rock as people on the street took their lead from popsters like The Slade, Marc Bolan, David Bowie, Gary Glitter, Roxy Music, Wizzard, and around this time I belatedly discovered The Bonzo Dog Doo-dah band and of course…. 

The Sweet sang Ballroom Blitz.

I credit them as inspiration for a pair of tight red trousers in my wardrobe that make appearances most winters like Sweet songs in the UK.

The following song’s lyrics were common playground chant’s that probably significantly influenced the formative years of anyone from my generation named William…

The Sweet sang little willie

Sign on the door of an office in the Reading Cattle Market.

* please see entry on 06-Jan-2008 for more details.

Since repatriating to the UK I have not been the lucky recipient of any spontaneous exclamations of ‘cute accent’.  It has been pointed out that I sound foriegn.  I attribute this ‘foriegn accent’ accusation to remnants of my regional, Bristol, burr.   It is possible that the following comment counts as an English equivalent of saying ‘cute accent’,  it is also possibly something different:

English person in open-plan office (EPIOO):  I heard your dulcet tones nearby and thought I’d take the opportunity to talk to you

Wendy:  Oh (signifying a double message of I wonder if that means cute accent? and what does the EPIOO want?)

Apparantly the new version of Windows Vista is not for me,  its for some other user…

This quaint, effective system, for announcing your presence is in use in my local GP surgery (family heath centre UK style, not a ‘polyclinic’).  The receptionist is off doing useful things away from the reception desk and arrives very promptly when the bell sounds.

Ding Ding! 

its a pleasant sound and an easy system to understand…

Before I had any influence over the parental record collection, and I’m not sure that I do now, mumzie would play music by artistes that included at least one keyboard.  Mumzie has an impressive vinyl collection covering Rachmaninoff  through early Niel Sedaka to Barbara Dickson.  Her collection judiciously excludes Barry Manilow and the flamboyant charms of Liberace. 

In 1975 Mumsie was thrilled by a Niel Sedaka cover featuring multiple keyboards,  and a man called ‘captain’ wearing a hat.   Though still pre-teen, I was beginning to develop serious scepticism about my parent’s music tastes…

The Captain and Tenille sang ‘love will keep us together’ in 1975. 

The Hexagon Theatre in Reading is running its annual pantomime, Dick Wittington. 

Interactive theatre where the audience, predominatly under 4ft tall, get to shout out ‘He’s behind you’, and “BOO!” and hisssssszzzzzz as loud as they want when the clearly marked baddie comes on the stage.  The baddie in this case was dressed in black leather with a huge fake furry chest,  long tail,  and the name ‘King Rat’. 

The pantomime hero, the principle boy,  is played by a girl wearing tights, no trousers, and thigh length leather boots who enjoys repeatedly slapping her outer-thigh with her hand and falling in love with the leading lady who is a lady.  A man in outrageous, colourful costumes plays an unmarried woman,  the ‘Dame’.  A young chap coordinates audience participation, facilitates the storyline and everyone’s happiness.  I’d quite like one of those.

In Dick Wittington there were doses of singing competitions, where volume supercedes musicality, between the two halves of the auditorium.  Some songs required rather tricky accompanying hand-actions, during which I accidently whacked the lady sitting next to me and generally got everything all topsy turvy.  There are also some slow,  soppy,  songs in a pantomime.  Luckily, watching the shorter contingent of the audience wave brightly coloured lit-wands around made the soppy songs entertaining.

For those who enjoy a heated debate, like myself, there were many opportunities to argue with the cast ‘Oh no he isn’t'….’oh yes he is’….   The occassional slap stick humour, outstandingly bad jokes and the Dames costumes that beggar belief ensured the tone of the event stayed firmly in the realm of the fantastically ridiculous.  At one point the Dame wore a dress in the form of what looked like the Tower of London.   

Audience birthdays on the performance day were announced in the penulitmate scene. I’m thinking of relocating my Brithday to mid December. 

Plot spoiler (look below the next paragraph)

The plot invariably ends with the leading man (woman) and lady (woman) getting together,  the baddy being converted (normally by magic), and the dame continuing to be a dame.

Plot spoiler over (start reading here)

It was all jolly good fun.  Happy holiday season.

Hoorah!

This weekend Kevin popped around with his supped-up white van and extensive De-Walt toolkit.  Kevin replaced the stop cock under the kitchen sink,  replaced a couple of washers,  showed me his toolkit and van customisations, offered me a half-price radiator, discussed replacing my kitchen, explained about the Canadian plummer training system,  and told me about his courtcase against a tap manufacturer because their tap design is just so silly it breaks within 6 months and he’d installed 26 of them in a rich client’s house. 

Kevins weekly visits are definitely one of life’s luxuries.

sat at the back of a bus heading to bus full,  approaching the Wendy House.  A man in front (MIF) rises, stands looking at the packed standing passengers in the isle.

Wendy: are you getting off at the next stop?

MIF: I don’t think we’ll make it (looks at crowded passengers in the Isle)

Wendy:  If we start now we could get half way to the door,  I’ll follow you

MIF: (steps into crowded Isle and stands still)

Wendy: (offers my seat to a person standing and asks to swap places with a person ahead in the isle)

We start to make our way down the bus,  politely asking each individual to swap places with us… …slowly we make progress.  We manage to get off near the Wendy House. 

Once again,  bus full is a destination that has evaded discovery.

was I going to tell you something?

can you remind me what it was?

Jackson’s is the sort of store that sells stylish and practical items of a classic and often exclusive nature.  I cannot sing Jackson’s praises enough.  With winter settling in,  cold nights in the Wendy House,  this little bargain in the Jacksons christmas special decorated window calls out to me each time I pass by.  A Candlewick bedjacket.  How have the fluffballs and I managed without one to date?  Jacksons also have some mens paisely print brushed cotton pyjamas… 

…I really am at risk of shopping and bouncing and getting all over excited within a fun-packed 5 minute period…

The combination boiler rattles in the kitchen,  warming water and pumping it around the Wendy House 5 radiators. 

Outside,  water on the patio has already frozen.  Temperatures of minus 3 centigrade are predicted tonight.

Inside, the radiator-free kitchen releases a trickle of water from beneath the kitchen units.  A leaking pipe?  A phone call to Kevin. 

I discover that the mobile phone service doesn’t work when my head and mobile phone are both in the cupboard under the chilly kitchen sink while I try to answer Kevin’s questions,  to determine how many millimetres thick are the pipes that lead to and from my suspiciously rusty stop-tap.  

Will the pipes survive the predicted below freezing temperatures of the night?  Stay tuned for the leaky-pipe fly-on-the-wall,  phone-under-the-sink, real life potential plumbing drama.

I do love the sound of a banjo before bedtime.  This lullaby is the first song that I remember singing.  During those good old days, sing-along-a-mumzie was a regular and highly valued feature of my daily life (1966).  The lullaby musical genre appears slightly under-exploited by current popsters.

The Seekers sang Morningtown ride

Thanks to Scarlet for introducing ‘jukebox monday’ on her blog, an idea I am shamelessly apeing here in The Wendy House.