Can't see the wood for the trees?

Okay – work is still driving me insane! I don’t know where they got the idea I was supposed to work for a living. But I’d rather be busy in this job that I do enjoy with people I enjoy working with.

Anyway, less of that and more of the music. I’ve picked something a little different this week (plus with the pressing time I’m going to have to keep it short). During the week I found a little spare time when there was just myself and the eldest in front of the television. So, I decided to expose her to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Recently we found that she had become a bit of a fan of Fawlty Towers. Not bad for a twelve year old, but I’m never sure if that’s a sign of a good sense of humour or plain insanity. We watched it laughing all the way through and needless to say those catchphrases that I remember from my teen years are once again echoing around the house. Yes we ask for a shrubbery and exclaim “Ni!” if we need to make a threat. Also “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries” is heard to echo around the house in a silly French accent. Fortunately we’ve managed to avoid “Then after the spanking, the oral sex!” I mean kids seem to know stuff that we never knew about at their age – but this I thing is a good thing and would no doubt form the basis for an entire post.

So back to the song before I totally lose the plot. Whilst this isn’t one of the great songs from the Holy Grail it has to be one of the most well known and loved Python song. Yes, it’s THE LUMBERJACK SONG. This originally appeared in December 1969 (at which point I was 6 months old!). Originally it was performed by Michael Palin who was dressed as a barber. The barber was supposed to be cutting Graham Chapmen’s hair however he had rather homicidal tendencies. The end of the sketch involves Palin announcing that he didn’t want to be a lumberjack and then tears off his white coat to reveal his checked shirt. It never, ever fails to make me smile and since I’ve shown it to the kids they have both expressed how daft and funny it is. Any, without any further ado I give....the Lumberjack Song!



BARBER:
I wanted to be... a lumberjack!

Leaping from tree to tree, as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia. The Giant Redwood. The Larch. The Fir! The mighty Scots Pine! The lofty flowering Cherry! The plucky little Apsen! The limping Roo tree of Nigeria. The towering Wattle of Aldershot! The Maidenhead Weeping Water Plant! The naughty Leicestershire Flashing Oak! The flatulent Elm of West Ruislip! The Quercus Maximus Bamber Gascoigni! The Epigillus! The Barter Hughius Greenus!


With my best buddy by my side, we'd sing! Sing! Sing!
[singing]


I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay.
I sleep all night and I work all day.


MOUNTIES:
He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.

BARBER:
I cut down trees. I eat my lunch.
I go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays I go shoppin'
And have buttered scones for tea.

MOUNTIES:
He cuts down trees. He eats his lunch.
He goes to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays he goes shopping
And has buttered scones for tea.


He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.


BARBER:
I cut down trees. I skip and jump.
I like to press wild flowers.
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars.


MOUNTIES:
He cuts down trees. He skips and jumps.
He likes to press wild flowers.
He puts on women's clothing
And hangs around in bars?!

He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.


BARBER:
I cut down trees. I wear high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra.
I wish I'd been a girlie,
Just like my dear Mama.


MOUNTIES:
He cuts down trees. He wears high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra?!
[talking]
What's this? Wants to be a girlie?! Oh, My!


And I thought you were so rugged!

[singing]


He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.
He's a lumberjack, and he's okaaaaay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.

The Wednesday Book

Okay, so I’ve been really, really busy at work so I’ve not had much of a chance to write anything. But I’m going to try and get something out for you now.

One book that I’ve come back to time and time again the first instalment in Raymond E Feist’s Riftwar Saga, Magician. To me it is one of the finest fantasy books ever written. I loved the richness of the book, the array of characters and locations and the interwoven storylines coming together to a climatic finish.

The story is based in a land called Midkemia, a realm that is quite swords and sorcery. The land is shared by the human, dwarves and elves amongst others and they live in a time of peace and harmony. The two main protagonists are two boys, childhood friends, who have just reached the age of maturity ready to be selected for their apprenticeships in the small castle of Crydee.  They are as different as chalk and cheese. Thomas is an physical young man, popular with the girls and quick with wit and humour. Pug is the small kid, an orphan who has been cared for in the castle by Thomas’ parent. Not particularly gifted in anything. When the time of the choosing comes Thomas is taken to join the castle guard, however nobody chooses Pug. At this point the castle magician picks, Kulgan, him and agrees to train him.

The tale takes off when a mysterious ship crashes on the shore near the castle. The ship is of curious design and there is only one survivor. A man of a race they don’t recognise. He is taken back to the castle where they discover the origins of him. He is from a place across space called the Empire of Tsuranuanni. It is a place of many magicians who have found how to create rifts between lands and of feudal tribes. Feist crafted this place very much like the east, a place where everyone has a station in life and transgressions are severely punished.

I won’t spoil the book for those of you that haven’t read it but the story takes off with many twists and turns of fate. Both lands suffering the repercussions of war and politics (with a good dose of egotism thrown in). Pug and Thomas find that their lives take them in different directions, splitting them up for many years, forming their futures before they come back together in that climatic ending I mentioned.

I certainly haven’t done any justice to this fine book but I hope that maybe one of you out there reads this and decides to give it a go.

Friday Is Music Day!

In my very dim and distant past, and living on the coast a bit of a way from any major concert venues it was a while before I saw my first big gig. And I think I picked an excellent first one to see. Def Leppard on the Hysteria tour in their home town of Sheffield. The band at the time was Joe Elliott, Rick Allen, Rick Savage, Phil Collen and the late Steve Clark.

I went along with a friend of mine that I worked with on a holiday camp. We both worked in a bar, we were both pretty geeky with daft senses of humour and got a long like a house on fire. The gig was in Sheffield City Hall and we were right in the middle at the back in the stalls (not that anywhere in there is too far from the stage). Tesla opened up for them and I remember thinking just how damn loud they were (in fact I saw Tesla again years later and they were the only band I’ve seen that I can honestly say played too loud!) I remember being pretty awestruck by Def Leppard at the time. They played a blinding set and it really had me hooked on trying to see more live shows.

Anyway – back to the music. The Hysteria album was a long, long time in coming out due to one thing and another. The major ‘thing’ being Rick Allen being involved in a car crash and losing an arm where the seat belt tore it off. But the album didn’t disappoint. Over the summer I think the music was on heavy rotation on the walkman or my friend’s tape player in his little hut from which he worked hiring out deckchairs for the beach. There was also some wooing of a pretty young thing how worked in the shop opposite (you know who you are!).

Whilst they are many good tracks on the album I wanted to pick Love Bites to share. I like the heartfelt pleas in it and, being a teenager with a good few typical unrequited feelings, this track always takes me back and makes me feel 17 again.

Remember people...Love Bites





If you've got love in your sights
Watch out, love bites

When you make love, do you look in the mirror?
Who do you think of?
Does he look like me?
Do you tell lies?
And say that it's forever?
Do you think twice, or just touch and see?

Oh yeah
When you're alone, do you let go?
Are you wild and willin', or is it just for show?
Ooh C'mon
I don't wanna touch you too much baby
'Cos making love to you might drive me crazy
I know you think that love is the way you make it
So I don't wanna be there when you decide to break it

(Love bites, love bleeds)
It's bringin' me to my knees
(Love lives, love dies)
It's no surprise
(Love begs, love pleads)
It's what I need

When I'm with you, are you somewhere else?
Am I gettin' thru or do you please yourself?
When you wake up, will you walk out?
It can't be love if you throw it about
Ooh babe
I don't wanna touch you too much baby
'Cos making love to you might drive me crazy

Chorus

(Love bites, love bleeds)
It's bringin' me to my knees
(Love lives, love dies)
It's no surprise
(Love begs, love pleads)
It's what I need

I don't wanna touch you too much baby
'Cos making love to you might drive me crazy
I know you think that love is the way you make it
So I don't wanna be there when you decide to break it

No!

(Love bites, love bleeds)
It's bringin' me to my knees
(Love lives, love dies)
(Love bites, love bleeds)
It's bringin' me to my knees
(Love lives, love dies)
It's no surprise
(Love begs, love pleads)
It's what I need
If you've got love in your sights
Watch out, love bites

© BLUDGEON RIFFOLA LTD;SONY/ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING UK LTD;OUT OF POCKET PRODUCTIONS

The Book Spot

For as long as I can remember I’ve been an avid reader. I’d hate to take a guess at just how many I have read. The attic has boxes and boxes of books, I have frequent trips to the library to pick up books, the kids have piles of books even the boy, the less book interested, does still read for pleasure on occasion. So I guess it must be in the genes somewhere.

I think in this spot on the blog I’m going to pick a book and try to say something about it. Not a review as such but rather something more personal. As a teenager I remember being a big fan of Stephen King. I’d read some of the older books first, Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining but one that sticks out with me is Christine. I think that it struck a chord with me through main characters, all teenagers, the loner Arnie, his friend the popular Dennis and the Leigh as the love interest, combined with King’s use of music lyrics at the start of every chapter. The theme that sticks with me is the loyalty among friends. Being there until the bitter end, staying faithful and true. Something that I’ve always tried to with my own friendships.

The story itself was a great demonstration of horror writing. Using the car as the focus of evil with that ability to take a person, twist them to suit its own purpose and destroy lives served to ensure that you were being properly scared. I know King has used the inanimate both before and after (Tales From A Buick 8 being another car related tale) but Christine always stuck with me. I also liked (if like is the right word to use for a horror tale) the ambiguous ending. Not being sure if the car had truly been vanquished, leaving that lingering doubt that it was still out there waiting.

As I said I read this book at a teenager. I was in secondary school at the time and was doing my “work” experience. I was interested in being a librarian (the book thing again) and was working with our school librarian for two weeks. I recall that the first job we had during that week was collecting money that had been raised in a sponsored walk. I was stood outside our first computer room (there were about three computers in there!) resting on a display case. Between collecting money and checking forms I read the book, digesting a few pages now and then.

The other aspect of the book aside from the friendship, as I mentioned, was the lyrics. I didn’t have much in the way of musical influences from home. There were a few records, but nothing that was regularly played or particularly of interest to a teenage boy. So I struck out in my own direction (with some influence from school friends) . Rock and metal took my interest so many of the lyrics that King quoted were right up my alley. But there were many lyrics that I didn’t recognise and this made me go and explore some older stuff (Creedence Clearwater Revival springs instantly to mind). So as well as scaring me he managed to expand my musical horizons.

As I said – the memories for me that, even now when I reread that book, are of that period of time in school. Standing in the hallway, reading, collecting money and chatting (and of course that taking in that smell that only a school corridor could have). It was a pretty good time in hindsight, just a shame that hindsight goes back a long way!

Kids

A slightly rambling post – for that I apologise before you start.


I have decided recently that you don’t realise the aggravation that you caused your parents until you have your own kids. Yes, I know it’s taken a while to sink in. I can see a lot of my own behaviour in both of the older two and find myself delivering the same admonishments that I’d heard many, many times myself. I’m really starting to learn that discipline is a very two edged sword. I want the kids to have fun but then also have to lay down the law – so at times it not only makes them upset but it makes me feel bad.

The one thing I remember from being a kid is that parental catch-all phrase “because I said so!” It used to drive me mad as a kid so I did promise myself that I wouldn’t do the same to them. Well, that didn’t work did it! But I do hope that after I’ve said it (and calmed down) I’ve made the effort to explain to them a little more why I don’t want them to do something. Once I have I do hope that they have a little more understanding of why they should stop doing something.

Of course one thing that they all do is fight! They would argue black is white and up is down just to get a rise out of each other. And as non-verbal as Captain Chaos is she’s more than capable of joining in. The fights and shouting can last for quite a long time but, at the end of it all, they are the best of friends. It makes me feel proud that they have such strong links with each other. I know that they would all stand together in the face of adversity. I’ve seen them support and defend each other before. I know I feel the same with my brother and sister (and miss them terribly as they live a distance away). So I hope that in the long term my three will remain close to each other and that the feeling of closeness remains.

Music Friday

One of the major loves in my life is music. I have a pretty eclectic taste and my only criteria for is that it’s not from one of these manufactured bands. Yes, I know it’s not a new phenomenon it just that in recent years it detracts new listeners from actually listening to those that really work hard at what they do. Anyway, this is sort of wandering from the point. Certain songs and pieces mean a lot to me. They invoke a reaction, stir a memory, take you right back to a time and a place.


For a long time I’ve been a fan of Bruce Springsteen. I love his sound, his subject matter, the way he sets the scene and tells the story. Like, I suspect, many people Born To Run is my favourite Springsteen song. I’d go as far as to say that it is, without doubt, one of my favourite songs full stop.

In 2006 Captain Chaos required some major open heart surgery. Her second heart surgery before the age of two. This time it was to repair or replace her mitral value and resection her aorta. So pretty major stuff and more grey hairs for Mum and Dad! We were sat in her hospital room, the anaesthetist and the surgeon had both been in and discussed the plan for the day and her pre-med administered. As we sat there, awaiting the nurse to take us to theatre, it came to the last song on the radio breakfast show. With Captain Chaos cuddled down in my arms and all dozy from the pre-med Born To Run came on the radio. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. As the song drew to a close the nurse came to take us down.

Since then Born To Run has held an even more special place in my heart. It takes me right back to that room, to that day. It reminds me of the amazing jobs that the medical staff do, of how lucky we are to have Captain Chaos in our lives.

Unfortunately YouTube doesn't want me to embed the video but here is the link to it: Born To Run

In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream

At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected
and steppin' out over the line
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
'Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims
and strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire
'Cause baby I'm just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
girl I want to know if love is real

Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss


The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody's out on the run tonight
but there's no place left to hide
Together Wendy we'll live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I don't know when
we're gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go
and we'll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
baby we were born to run

I guess this is my first post and I need to tell you who I am and what I think I’m doing! I’m very happily married to someone that is blessed with great patience and understanding. We tied the knot over 16 years ago. I’m also a Dad of 3. A nearly teenage female mouth on legs (you’ve got to love those hormones), ‘the boy’, and Captain Chaos – but more about her in a minute.
I’m a born and bred Yorkshireman and live on the coast. After ten years of the big city the beauty of being back between sea and moor is fantastic. My route to work always includes heading around the seafront and checking out that changeable element that goes from that mill pond stillness and shining azure blue to a thunderous rage, angry grey and white
When I get to that work I sit and count potatoes. Well that’s what I tell folk and I’m not sure if the truth is more or less interesting. But we work to live, not live to work. So less of that and more of the living.
Captain Chaos. The existence of the foetal Captain Chaos came to us as a surprise, and before she made her world premiere 6 odd years ago supplied a couple of extra surprises. The first was a congenital heart defect that would require repair. The second was an extra chromosome. Trisomy-21 – better known as Down’s Syndrome. Since that fateful day of her premiere she taught us much about ourselves, about the strength of family, about resistance of expectations, about intolerance and fear and about love. She is likely to provide me with much material here – but not everything is going to be about her.
So what else do I have to say? I like to hear my own voice and opinions. I enjoy providing a good bit of critical comment as much as the next man (or woman). Sometimes I just have something that I want to get off my chest and would probably like some other, more rational, views on.
I’m going to try to post frequently – but if I don’t, don’t shoot me.
And I’ll update the other stuff as I go along…honestly!