wendy house

 OMD sang Electricity

OMD quickly earned a favoured position in my teenage heart when I first heard Electricity. This song reminds me of home, of warmth and comfort. Most of all reminds me of Dad getting excited about Pylons, happily ethusing.  His excitement is contagious.

Dad started work for an electricity supply company in the early 1950′s.  Exciting times for an Engineer specialising in supplying electricity to the UK.  Building infrastructure, planning routes to lay cables and overhead lines. Dad is still passionate about the details of the tools of his trade.  He has photograph albums dedicated to Pylons.

He’s recently returned from a trip to China. He treated us to the holiday photo’s on the family TV. Amongst the photographs of temples, rivers, mountains, village streets were numerous photographs of pylons. 

Whenever I see a Pylon, transformer, dam, or insulator I think fondly of Dad.  How his face lights up and he starts talking about what’s interesting about this particular thing, its age, its construction process, its location or ability to withstand high winds.

Not only is his excitment contagious,

I now find myself taking photographs of Pylons whenever I go on holiday.

 As a 14 year old I found this song really cheerful and bouncy.  I still find it engagingly bouncy and will occassionally pogo around my front room and garden singing the chorus.  The ability to sing repetitive lines, badly while bouncing in the privacy of my own home has always been important to me.  It’s a fettish that my parents gladly indulged. They sniggered.  Now the song features in a traditional ‘bread’ advertisement, prompting bouncing-breaks during advertsing breaks, unexpected bouncing is fabulous.

Plastic Bertrand sang ca plan pour moi

Insanity even. Lots of strangeness going on in and around the Wendy House this week, last week and next week.  Like the volcanic ash it sweeps in and out with the prevailing winds.

Based on today’s experience I suspect I’ll be unable to refrain from blogging until June.  Though I can’t quite find the words to describe the prevailing winds on planet wendy.  So I find myself thinking of escaping into a new hat, of the native American Iroquai, of moving furniture

Jamiroquai singing Virtual Insanity

crouching in the back of a black cab,  I’d volunteered to hide from the cab dirver  so that all  6 of us could  travel together and share the cost.  

Kaff:   I don’t like wendy’s hair, its thick with hairspray, stiff and sticky

Kaff leant forward and grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking my head toward her sharp knees and pushing tears from my eyes.   I watched my tears splash on her expensive Italian buckskin suede shoes then  silently added a good dose of flemmy gob to the mix.

Glen: wendy’s hair is  soft and fluffy, nice to touch, I like it

Glen leant forward and stroked my hair,   pulling my head away from kaff’s threatening knees to rest on his tear-drying warm thigh.

The men they couldn’t hand sang rain, steam, speed

 There are times when wandering out to the Wendy House woodshed for an evening’s supply of  logs causes me to pause,  even hesitate

The Divine Comedy sang ‘something for the weekend’

After the party, lights turned off,  John played a favourite Moody Blues album, closed his eyes and audibly sank into the large armchair.   On the floor, resting my head on the seat of his chair, I  listened to the lyrics as the spinning in my head gently wound down.    

I  never understood you and the prop, he didnt seem like your sort of guy

 I didn’t like him

I wondered whether this loud understatement would silence John’s curiosity.

The Moody Blues sang nights in white satin

As his confidence grew he followed me into my favourite local pubs.   I first noticed him when I left the ladies room.   He was leaning against the wall.   As I walked passed I heard him quietly sing.   Like you hear leaves rustling, just there and natural.   I thought he was a gentle natured  giant singing a sweet song. Nothing ominous,  as our eyes met, smiled,  he stopped singing as I blushed.  

Soon after I started noticing him everywhere I went.    I’d catch his eye across a crowed room,  hear him singing as I left the ladies room, bump into him at the bar ordering drinks.  We barely spoke. My friends told me he was a prop on the high-school first rugby team, not a man of many words.    He used a few of those words to  prop-position me,  a few more to  tell my friends and the  rugby team,  we were dating.  

As if saying it would make it so

I politely turned down his prop-positions, told my friends that I had not dated him,  had no intenion of dating him. I didn’t think that neanderthal was your type… …normally it’s the hookers you have to look out for,   you can see the props coming…     close friends didn’t buy his story.  Persisiting,  he started turning up at my home, writing letters,  song lyrics transcribed followed by some of his own  mechanistically pornographic explanations of why I should  date him.  

He didn’t understand a polite assertive no, I’m not interested

He didn’t understand a screaming, swearing, spitting  version of **** off and leave me alone    

I moved home, moved cities,, moved home several more times  before I  finally got away from him. ‘Where do you go to my lovely is probably a beautiful song,    unfortunately I’ll never really be able to hear it as beautiful.  

Peter Sarstedt sang Where Do You Go To My Lovely

What better place to plan a summer holiday than in a sunny Southsea Diner where the rockabillies are literally bouncing?  

After two cups of coffee I was also bouncing of the red plastic benches while spottydog calmly booked a hotel in downtown Turin.

 a very busy hotline,   very personal service, hot and personal

Jonny Cash sang  personal jesus

Since the arrival of a woodburner in the wendy house,  things have started to get

• high temperature,
• high tempo,
• hi disco.  

Disco inferno is the current tune of choice

The Trammps sang Disco Inferno

Home can be anywhere, anytime,
It can be in more than one place and time.  
Home is always there and never there.  
Unlike Rome my home doesnt need time to be built.
Like a shadow it follows me around.
Always welcoming,  its presence  waxes and wanes through my days.

Morcheeba sang rome wasn’t built in a day

During the recent snow, cars moved very, very slowly and often moved into unintended places with slow, steady momentum.

It’s difficult to forget the world while shivering.  Its worth a try.  Getting a good wood burning stove is also worth a try

snow patrol sang chasing cars

the sound of the subway phone

John Foxx sang underpass

Recovering from an intensive weekend de-savaging  the wendy house garden:  

• woodshed shopping
• leaf brushing
• weed plucking
• bush pruning
• snowdrop shoot admiring

Savage garden sang I want you

Today we listen to internationally* celebrated behaviour therapist Dr. Amelia Prank-Hirst present the key canons of her best selling clinical text book on effective  handling techniques for your pet human male – ‘he’s just a man’  

This lecture was performed for a small group of international psychiatrists and legal  specialists in the back garden of Doctor Prank-hirst’s  modest wooden wendy house  on the outskirts of  downtown Stockholm.   The meeting is more commonly known as the ‘Stockholm stand summit’ (SSS).

From this lecture we learn that men

• are irrational (hard to understand).   We are advised not to waste time trying to make sense of the complete gobbledegook that pet males are  prone to spew.
• have trouble standing up and require physical props.    Pet owners have tried many kinds of physical props but the most effective prop is the pet owner themselves.   I was particularly impressed by Dr. Prank-Hirst’s commitment to re-inforcing her hairstyle to add the versatility of extra height to her male-support function.
• should not be aquired  for christmas or any other gift-giving ceremony unless you are confident that the recipient has sufficiently strong back-bone and arm-muscles  to deal with the male’s unability to stand alone.   Several nations at the SSS are considering introducing a pet-ownership licence schemes to ensure owners  have  the strength to manage a pet  man.  
• need a nocturnal external heating system.   Several heating systems have been proposed.   Currently the wood-burning stove is recommended as an excellent souce of renewarble energy.   Possession of a heating system is likely to be a requirement for people taking-on pet males in the legislation being developed at the Stockholm summit.
• require love.   There has been some debate around the nature of love that is required by male pets,   with specialists proposing that food, alcohol, TV remote control constitues the necessary basics and the provision there-of could be described as ‘love’.

I’m sure we’ve all seen the results of these simple behavioural support guidelines not being followed by owners of males – gangs of men wandering the streets at night,   shivering,   falling over, hanging around in fast-food  joints and pubs.    

Tammy Wynette sang stand by your man

* In the style of Scarlet’s advertisement reviews.   Scarlet has  not condoned any of the views expressed in this post

The snow is disappearing to the sound of modern English’s optimistic little ditty.   This  song came to my attention on a compilation  audio tape cassette that Bambi used as part of his courting ritual.  

Modern English sang I melt with you

At 12 yrs I  considered having a crush on Greg  Lake because of his voice, song writing skills  and  wonderfully smooth unblemished skin.    Sometimes he even looked 12 years old….    

Greg Lake sang I believe in father christmas
(I suspect he didn’t actually believe)

Poets for Oxfam

John Hegley  delivering St. Georges day

In my dream I was  still living with the *anker  that I actually  left in 2000 after years of building up the pluck to walk out.   Tight black leather jeans, tears bullying,   and that was just his his contribution to the dream, mine was even more icky.   I fell over several times at a cricket match during the game.   Most embaressing.  

Godley and Creme sang Under your thumb

The supermarkets are stocking up with spirits for the drinking-even-more-than-normal usual season.   Buy one get one free.   When-ever I see a whiskey bottle I think of Phil Lynott,   his long legs and unfeasably tight jeans (before the invention of Lycra or Spandex).   Phil’s alcohol and drug problems have somehow become aligned in my consciousness with the local seasonal overdrinking.

Thin Lizzy sang Whiskey in the jar

Vegetarian ex-psychiatric nurse John Darnielle’s talent and presence  was one of the exquisite highlights of living in the USA.  

The mountain goats sang This year

 I’ve been lured away to stay with a friend’s family  in Cairo.  How lucky is that?

There will be sunshine on  sand, pyramids, sweat, bizarreness in bazaars,   bobbing on boats, the grandest of floppy hats and the lovely Egyptian people.

Sand maybe getting into crevices, interferring with normal blog posting services, friction and chaffing.   Please be patient, we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause

(Sax warning)

Madness sang night boat to Cairo

Prefab Sprout put their finger on a fundamental truth when they pointed out that some things hurt much more than cars and girls. Cars and girls have been kind to me so far, some things have been less forgiving, for example Dentists, Ski Lifts and Curb Stones

Prefab Sprout sang Cars and Girls

and it tells my time

In 1984   I rented the ‘Tea Warehouse’ for the night.   For my time.    I found some friendly DJ’s with large and obliging record (Vinyl albums) collections.   They were prepared to indulge my taste and keen to get better aquainted with some of my gorgeous girl friends, as indeed they did.

I have memories of dancing along the street to the Warehouse at midnight for the start of the party. Dancing between the traffic. I remember kissing the policeman who lured me back to the pavement with the promise of a chance to  wear his helmet.      

The Psychedelic furs sang ‘Heaven’

In my day,   before personal cell phones,   there would be one phone in any household, if you were Lucky.   All incoming calls came through this one, shared, phone.    In our house the parents answered the phone until, as teenagers, our friends  started to call us (rather than their parents calling our parents).  

Shared phone

Skillfullly avoiding parental or sibling interview of people calling-in  was tricky.   It is a skill today’s youngsters have not had to learn.       The role of  phone sanitizers has also been reduced by the relative lack of phone sharing.   I can’t remember the last time I called a number then asked ‘Is [name] there?‘

Department S sang Is Vic there?

John Peel once described ‘another girl, another planet’ as an artful little caprice.

I’ve always rather fancied that the other planet is planet Wendy

Planet Wendy is definitely a good place to be another girl

the only ones sang another girl, another planet

In 1979 I realised the full implications of an electric friend.   Charged with excitement and a six pack of batteries  I wasn’t too sure where I could get my hands on an electric friend.   I  settled for some curling tongs instead.   This probably explains much of my subsequent love life.

Tubeway army sang ‘Are friends electric‘

An outstanding little bouncy song with an optimisitc message for people who are near the bottom.

Yazz sang The only way is up

My nieces look like they’ve escaped from Bananarama.   Having mislaid their dictionary during the breakout they are now tackling the ravages of teenage boredum.   Dedum.  

Grunting and liberal misuse of the original anglo-saxonisms helps alieviate the condition.   I’m thinking of trying it,   small doses.   But, as yet, I can’t bring myself to part with my 1982 Collins concise.

Banarama sang ‘Robert DeNiro’s waiting’

The Wendy House has a novel coil-spring doorbell circa 1960′s. For some reason  it isn’t working.   WD-40 and a bit of fiddling hasn’t yet fixed it.  I do enjoy a personally relevant, memorable, chorus delivered with passion.   Ring my bell!

White Stripes sang Doorbell