Hey Good Lookin'

Have you ever had a brief musical obsession that you wouldn't admit to anyone? I do occasionally - I get a particular song or artist, not my usual taste, normally charty pop (Uncle Kracker was one, and Angel by Shaggy another) constantly in my head and I don't always manage to stop myself before squealing 'my soo-oongg!!' and pogo-ing up and down a bit when it comes on the radio. I have that at the moment with Sandi Thom - not the Punk Rocker one, although I admit that I did bop along to it on the radio from time to time, but her new one - the one about the bloke making all the promises to be a perfect bloke and she doesn't quite believe him? I am sorry but I just love it. Specifically, I have one line from it incessantly in my head "you'll be my supersonic lover and you won't steal the covers" - but hold on a second… supersonic? Faster than the speed of sound? Is that a good thing? Sounds a bit, umm… rattling to me. Or would it be too quick to even notice? I don't know if I fancy that. Unless, as I am wont to do, I have misheard the lyric a bit. I do that all the time. I used to cheerfully sing along to the old Take That song "wash your back, wash your back, wash your back for gooood" and Macy Gray "I wear goggles when you're not there" (which, for Macy Gray might not be all that beyond the realms of possibility.) When I was in sixth form, the sixth formers used to take it in turns to pick the tape - yes tape - to play on the bus on the way home from school. When it was my turn, I - hold on to your hats, this might shock you - would pick Elegantly Wasted. Until one day, a stroppy little runt of a first year objected. The bus fell silent. I stared down at her in the manner of the blokey handing out gruel when Oliver Twist asked for some more and tightly requested more information to support her rejection.
"It's got rude words in in" she squeaked. "I don't want to hear them."
"What rude words?" I demanded, to the sound of the bus holding its breath in terror.
"I don't want to say" bravely she replied, although I was satisfied to note a tremor of fear in her voice, and she was speaking from under a seat at this point.
Eventually, I beat, err, got it out of her, that the song she objected to was I'm Just a Man. She thought that the line was "my willy's strong."

Anyway, this is just random musings and absolutely nothing to do with what I want to say today.

It was fairly late at night, after another feast had been consumed, all thirty of us sitting by the light of candles jammed into just-finished wine bottles in the gardens of our castle in Tuscany, that the talk turned to storytelling. I don't know whether it is evidence of ancient Celtic heritage, or simply the result of old friends consuming vast quantities of alcohol, but story telling is a hallmark of any event with the Glasgow crowd, and the Tuscany holiday was no exception. We heard about the time Uncle J (names censored to protect the innocent) was convinced that he could sleep standing up, like a horse, if only he was well supported enough. D duly stuffed him into a wardrobe packed in snugly with blankets and pillows, and he lasted around 10 minutes before begging to be let out. Then another 10 minutes while D stood outside the wardrobe killing himself laughing. We heard about the time they went camping in the pouring rain - the kind of rain that appears as though someone has just tipped a bucket over the world and soaks you right through to your bones. This being the days long before anyone thought of attaching tents to the ground sheets, when they pitched their tent (admittedly in the dark) it was on such bumpy ground that the ground sheet dipped in the middle causing a torrent of muddy slush to shoot through the centre of the tent. They had to stick their sleeping bags on either bank of their self made river and wave forlornly at one another. So cold were they that one of them (neither would admit to it) came up with the idea of heating their cans of beer on the gas stove - just to have some warmth. The stove promptly ran out of gas before they could heat their baked beans - so they ate cold beans and drank warm beer. While sitting on the sopping banks of their self made river.

However. None of the stories caused quite so much hilarity as the one about the time when Uncle J was fired for not being attired in a fit state for the Glasgow public to be faced with. He wore a tie decorated with parachutes. He wore dark blue velvet trousers, so flared as to appear as though he wore two small skirts around his knees. A purple shirt - edged with cream, and a beige cord jacket. And naturally, this was topped off with a pale Scottish person's attempt at an afro (I actually have one of those every morning before wrangling my locks with copious amounts of smoothing serum.) The job was to involve turning up at people's doorsteps to read their gas meters, and Uncle J's boss thought that he would frighten the housewives of Glasgow so he was sent home. Over 30 years later, he is still indignant.
"See, the thing about the seventies" he explained to us rapt history students. "Is that it wasn't about whether you were good looking or not, or skinny or not, it was whether or not you had the gear."

Interesting thought. On one hand, it is probably a good thing that these days it is rare to think that wearing a tie dotted with parachutes is a good idea, but on the other, it seems as though the 'look' of the naughties is less about your gear - with there being so many varied looks out there to chose from - but about your looks. The worrying amounts of people - men and women - undertaking plastic surgery or drastic diets to conform to the 'look' of the naughties might not find it so easy to fall about laughing over their physical fashion faux pas in 30 years. Decades of Botox might well mean that they might be laughing, but no one would know; and decades of near anorexia will likely mean that they won't be here in 30 years to laugh at anything. Suddenly wearing a parachute tie doesn't seem so bad.