Philatelia

I snaffled the above advert out of the 1950s (replica) Eagle Annual that I insisted my eldest daughter bought for me last christmas, “What do you want for christmas ?” she asked, expecting me to ask for aftershave or similar, “An Eagle Annual from the 1950s” I replied, “It’ll be ace”

I can’t pretend that I was ever an Eagle reader, I wasn’t, but the comics I read had the same cheap adverts in them and I actually replied to the one above, it didn’t change right through the 50s and 60s, you could still buy a big envelope full of stamps and an album for one shilling – so I did.

My Famous Cousin

Regular readers will recall that from time to time I may have mentioned my anonymous famous cousin who has found fame and glory in the world of showbusiness and Loose Women.

Some of you may also have worked out that his older brother, also my cousin, sometimes places comments of his own on this blog, neither of us are bitter at all about our more famous relation, no not at all, he worked hard for his fame and fortune, no really he did, we all recall those days of early morning alarm calls, those dark winter mornings when its lashing it down outside and you have to get out of your nice warm bed, wash in cold water and set off for the bus stop with the cold rain trickling down the back of your neck – we all remember those days because thats about the time that Ray would be coming home in a taxi after spending the night in another night club somewhere spending Als money on expensive booze and cheap women.

I am often asked about my more famous cousin, who is he, why is he more famous than I, would we know him in the street, have we ever heard anything that he’s written, has he ever had a chart hit, did he ever tour in Japan with Frank Sinatra, that sort of thing – and so I thought, its about time we heard something of my more famous cousin, its about time that you sampled some of the things that we. his family, have had to put up with these past 50 years…

And so Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you (above) a mere sample of the sort of production values that my more famous cousin has brought to the world of entertainment in the Leeds United Wembley Mix 96, that renowned chart hit of the same year, listen to the musical score, marvel at the backbeat and wonder how the Bontempi manages to keep the rhythm so consistent, see how seamlessly the well-crafted tunes drift from one to the other, ’tis indeed a master of his craft at work – we had to buy this sort of stuff off him in those days because he could only shift them onto his family, I still have a garage full, we’ll never run out of drinks coasters in this house while I still have his boxed set of CD’s.

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PS – Its just a shame that I couldn’t find the Rugby League anthem that he recorded for Bramley RLFC, the one that consisted of a Phil Spector wall of noise and the lyric “We love rugby league” repeated for four minutes, t’was a classic and I don’t understand why it was only me that bought a copy.

Video Saturday – Springsteen

It wasn’t going to be Bruce Springsteen at all, it was going to be Aretha Franklin singing “Angel”, perhaps the best soul song in the whole universe, ever, but the copies on YouTube are rubbish.

So instead we fall back on a stalwart and we find a little video shot by a person who was trying out their new Sony HD Videocam from the second row at a Springsteen gig in St Pauls Minnesota, which makes a change from the usual fare of 30 seconds, out-of-focus, shaky mobile phone coverage that are the usual result of filming from the second row at gigs.

Me, I’ve never seen Springsteen live, I once sat on the floor in the second row at a Kiki Dee gig, that should tell you every thing you need to know about a Kiki Dee gig, you sit on the floor for the whole thing, waving cigarette lighters in the air – its not the same.

Poetry

As promised, and in honour of Ian McMillan Yorkshire Poet Laureate, a small sample of my poetry the subject matter being Dave Green, a club singer of my fathers aquaintence and promotion…

Its not easy being green
Sang little Dave Green
His hand all withered and bent
I sing my song
To them all night long
Until homeward once more I am sent

I’m a singer by trade
And a living I’ve made
In these working mens clubs in the north
And good friends I have found
If I buy them a round
Otherwise I’m told to “go forth” (and multiply)

But a true friend is rare
A man who won’t stare
At my perished hand and short stature
Who harkens my song
For hours a-long
And acts as my official flak-catcher

Frank is his name
He promotes my fame
In his job as club sec-re-tary
He tells them to clap
Even when I am crap
As they dance in his club and make merry

They leap and they dance
And jig, jump and prance
And they cheer me to the echo
Tell me I’m the new Dean Martin
To which I am heartened
Even though he looks like a gecko

Frank tells them I’m good
And they believe him, they should
They know he wouldn’t tell lies
He’s their club boss you see
And for a modest fee
He’ll book turns all night long, “sighs” (hero)

But I like my drink
Like a fish I can sink
A-many a bottle of rum
It makes me go drunk
Makes my singing a-junk
Make better noise out of my bum

They’ll boo and they’ll hiss
Shout out I am pissed
And I can’t deny, it is true
Captain Morgan has won
So I sing from my bum
And my farts win them back through and through

The farting Dave Green
On my posters is seen
My arse is more famous than me
“Rotherhams Le Petomane“
Is my new claim to fame
It breaks my heart, you can see

From Dean Martin to poop
In one huge fell swoop
I have fallen from grace like a clown
As I stand on this stage
Silently seething with rage
Face the crowds with pants pulled right down

For this is my fate
But at least my pay rate
Has gone up by a huge measure
For they prefer a good poo
To Dean Martin, its true
Its my arse thats a national treasure

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Dave Green was a short man and indeed he had a withered hand which the gods had fortuitously withered into exactly the correct shape to insert a microphone, thus was born Dave Greens career from a very early age. I can just see the scene in the Green household when the new baby was brought home from the hospital, its parents disappointed by the revelation that their new kinder had a hand of severely withered appearance until the grandfather had a long think and then disappeared upstairs to return with a hairbrush to declare, “Wait, all is not lost, see how the hairbrush fits perfectly in his crippled hand, this boy will become a great singer, you mark my words…”

My father adopted Dave Green after he booked him one night at his club, from that night on he would spread the word of this remarkable dwarf-man of Rotherham who could woo audiences simply by  crooning  and the small man’s diary was soon filled from one year to the next.

He did like a drink though but here is where my poem and the truth part company for Dave Green unfortunately did not make a living on the clubs as The English Le Petomane, rather that when performing in Leeds he would often come back to our house to sleep off the booze before driving home, sleep in one of our armchairs whilst his bottom sang on in our house to the ever-lasting amusement of Ned and myself, indeed, we still speak and write poems of it…

Ian McMillan

Time to recommend another really good blog

Its this one, Ian McMillans blog in The Yorkshire Post

Ian McMillan, Poet Laureate of Yorkshire, talks like a proper Yorkshireman should and makes poetry acceptable to blokes in pubs who would normally regard anyone who quoted, say, Wordsworth with suspicious eyes before duffing them up in the pub car park at closing time.

Seaton Sluice

You see, I like this one.

Found it when I was clearing out the cupboard of useless paintings, those ones that get chucked in a corner after ten days work because they’re not going where I want them to, had a huge clearout of useless paintings yesterday, our paper recycling bin is full to the brim.

This is Seaton Sluice, a small harbour on the north east coast half a mile from where we used to live. It bears only a passing resemblence to Seaton Sluice actually because of course its not those colours and the scale has been exagerated by a factor of many – lets call it artistic licence but I like it because it looks like it could be the start of a Roald Dahl book – “Charlie and his father lived at The Kings Arms, Charlie could only play with his friends when the wind stopped blowing for his friends were scared of crossing the footbridge to Charlie’s house…”

How Pants were Lada’s ?

Many years ago we moved back to Leeds from a forced exile in the North East, the forced exile being mine, for my wife the North East was her homeland, I dragged her down to Yorkshires green and verdant lands a-kicking and a-screaming (literally) and we settled into a very nice little two bedroom house on a brand new housing estate.

I loved that house, it was built by a company called Broseley Homes which may mean nothing to anyone, but if I mention the word “Brookside” then ears should prick up amongst the British readership – yes, Broseley Homes built the cul-de-sac that was purchased en-bloc by the TV Production company that made Brookside in the 1980s, in fact our cul-de-sac was an almost exact replica of that very same Brookside set.

How to Piss Off an Australian

Almost exactly to the day, one year ago I wrote a post extolling the virtues of annoying an Australian – the occasion then being the fact that we had royally pulled their pants down around their ankles in the Bejing Olympics medal tables.

Nothing pisses off an Australian more than being bettered in the sporting arena by a British team.

Nothing pisses off an Australian more than the realisation that actually, we don’t even care – to the English sport is just a past-time, a game, something to do in your spare time, bottom line – its not important.

On Being Judgemental

There is something vaguely satisfying and completely un-PC about being judgemental when you e-spy a chavvy wedding about to take place.

(For those of colonial extraction think “redneck” for “chav”)

I regarded a chavvy wedding in the centre of Leeds yesterday, my attention being drawn to four of the guests as they walked across the road in front of my car while I waited at the traffic lights outside Leeds’ magnificent Victorian edifice that is our Cuthbert Broderick designed Town Hall.

Video Saturday – The Kinks

There are songs hidden in the museum of recollections, well hidden behind much bigger memories, but hidden there never the less, that when played leap from the filing cabinet of musical references and drag with it a whole load of other snippets of memory like individual cells from a very old celluloid movie.

Sometimes the cells are contiguous, sometimes not, resulting in a very shaky and very short movie memory of a particular minute in your life – this is what old songs can do, they are inextricably linked to molecules of memory that will only see the light of day when that tune is heard fleetingly on a passing radio.

Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks was released in June 1966 (despite the winter video), reached number one in the UK charts in July 1966 inspired by a monetary “squeeze” on prices and wages imposed by the Wilson Government of that year, the line “save me from this squeeze” referencing this while  “the taxman’s taken all my dough” complains of the 95% tax band for high earners that affected bands like The Kinks in the 1960s who suddenly found themselves earning royalties beyond their wildest dreams – and then losing them just as fast to the tax office – The Beatles wrote a whole song about it in “The Taxman”.

None of which mattered to the ten year old JerryChicken sitting on the beach at Cayton Bay that summer whilst every transistor radio within earshot was tuned to a pirate radio station (which memory states was Caroline but in reality could not have been surely) and every dad who was desperately trying to be trendy would be whistling along to The Kinks or The Beatles but never The Stones.

Thats the shaky movie show in my head when this tune plays, a ten second snap on a hot summers day at Cayton Bay, deckchairs, windbreak, knitted trunks, cricket on the beach, the dad’s liking pop music (“Who’s this again our Gary ?”), and then the picture goes all fuzzy and we lose the signal…