LOVING YOU HAS MADE ME BANANAS

For any remaining stragglers, just a quick post to inform you that I’m going to be concentrating on my usual blog – Betty’s Utility Room.

Look, I find it easier to deal with posting on Blogger, and it’s where most of the readers expect me to reside. Well, I say “most of the readers”, although they seem to have dwindled down to single figures, what with my messing them about and flip flopping from one blog to another.

Still, hopefully things are sorted out *until the next time* and I’ll just use this blog as an occasional bolthole … or if things go wrong again. These days, I don’t take things for granted (she says, with the usual melodrama).

I’M FREE

Thanks for all your comments on the previous post.

We finally seem to be back online at home, against all the odds (Phil Collins). Using the Mac is going to take a bit of getting used to, so bear with me.

In the meantime, I’d like to send a big shout out to The Man Like Ronnie Hazlehurst, who died earlier this week.

Ron was responsible for all those instrumental TV themes where you were able to sing the programme titles along to the music:

The-Fall-And-Rise-Of-Reg-in-ald-Per-rin,
Blank-et-y-Blank, Blank-ety-Blank, Blank-ety-Blank (and cetera),
The-Last-Of-The-Sum-mer-Wine/Is-Ver-y-Nice/And-Ver-y-Fine (and cetera).

He was also responsible for the theme music from Are You Being Served? Pink Floyd nicked the idea of using cash till registers on Money from that track, the thieving bastards (possibly).

I’d never seen a picture of Ronnie before, but I always assumed he’d be a rather florid man with a jovial look about him. This seems to have been the case.

Rest in peace, Ron.

I’ll be attempting to navigate back to my *real* blog soon. Thanking you in anticipation of your co-operation …

NEW DAWN FADES

Last night, we had the go-ahead to move over to BT and start using the internet on the new Mac.

 The future was bright! A brave new dawn! I could barely contain my excitement!

Geoff phoned BT because the installation CD wasn’t working…

On doing so, he was informed that there was a problem.

Some “galloping knobrash” (as Spinsterella would have it) at BT had made a mistake when writing down the migration authorisation code. A phone call or letter telling us what had gone wrong would have at least put us in the picture before we went ahead and pulled the plugs on our old computer.

Still, a big organisation like BT doesn’t have to give a fuck about customer care, does it?

We now don’t have internet access for another week.

At least I could post on WordPress. Now even that’s impossible, and this is being published by Geoff at work once more…you know the pack drill by now.

There seems to be a dreary inevitablity to all this.

I may see you on The Other Side, if there is an Other Side.

Even though I’m in a very TETCHY mood, I’m going to wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy 2008.

…or 2009…or 2010… 

THE BIG APPLE

We now own an Apple Mac, but can’t access the internet yet.

Geoff seems very enthusiastic, as he hopes to use the Garageband facility to make *new music* and, in his own words “to become the next Nathan Barley”.

The thought of being married to a forty six year old man who wears red denim skinny jeans and a swirly patterned “nu rave” hoodie doesn’t fill me with enthusiasm, I must say.

Still, that’s all in the future.  As of tomorrow, we’ll be on holiday for a fortnight.

When we get back … well, who knows what the future holds as far as this blog is concerned?  I really would like to get back to my **real** blog.  It all depends on whether or not Blogger LET ME BACK INTO MY HOME (sob). 

I don’t want to continue being left out of commenting on other people’s blogs but assuming that an ever-dwindling audience will come over here to carry on supporting me, as if I’m some dilettante former A-list twat.  Well, a cursory glance at my stats will reassure me that I’m still very much a dilettante Z-list twat, which at least stops me getting too big for my boots.  The way things are going, with readers being lost by the hour, I’ll end up being a minus Z-list twat, too.

What a to do.

Anyway, see you around (if you’re still around), with any luck.  Take care of yerselves. 

VULCANICITY

First Nations has *dared* me to post a video here.

On my other blog, she ordered me to amend a post in which I had implied that Buddy Holly was Rodney Bickerstaffe.

She claimed that the picture of Buddy Holly/Rodney Bickerstaffe was in fact a young, freshfaced Tim Footman (author of the popular non-fiction book The “Rock And Roll” Jukebox And Why It Is Killing Off The Big Band And The Crooner).

She issued me with a “cease and desist” order.

I ignored her.

Within a few days, I was denied access to that blog.

I am still denied access to that blog.

So, without further ado, let me introduce … Leonard Nimoy.

*starts crying*

WHY CAN’T I PAINT YOU?

As I mentioned in the numerous comments on the previous post, I once owned a copy of a *novelty* single by Yin And Yan, a spoof version of Telly Savalas’ version of David Gates’ song If.

Yes, I DID try to make that sentence sound as ponderous and clunky as possible.

The premise of Yin And Yan’s song was that Telly Savalas was attempting to record the song in the studio, under strict instructions to talk rather than sing. When he started crooning the producer shouted out “Don’t SING, lollipop!”

Well, I found it funny. I still do.

Those of you who like Green Wing know that I can’t understand the appeal of Green Wing. Perhaps that explains why.

I’m not a sophisticate.

Anyway, as the few remaining readers seem cruelly indifferent to the charms of the enormously talented Guy Marks, I thought I may as well carry on in the same vein.

So here is Telly singing If.

My mother, all her sisters, and, apparently, Geoff’s mother and sisters, all found Mr Savalas “strangely attractive”.

Did every housewife in 1975 think he was irresistible?

Hmm, he looks like the sort of bloke who would spend fifteen minutes stroking a woman’s hair as a seduction technique … not my sort of thing, really.

The black velvet jacket is well foxeh though.

Anyway, having seen the video, I must say I like the sound of Soft Hits, Disco 75, and can’t wait to check out the ouevre of Howard Carpendale.

LOVING YOU HAS MADE ME BANANAS

We are not worthy and should bow down before the greatness of Guy Marks.

… with embellishment from the Johnny Pearson Orchestra and the ladies on backing vocals, who appear to have been knocking back the port and lemon.

“… oh, your red scarf matches your eyes …”

DR FEELGOOD

I’m last to the party on the subject of the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.  Still, as I’m out here in exile I suppose I can be forgiven for being behind the times.

Other bloggers have given us their take on the subject here, here and here .  Really, you are a bunch of mad Stalinists  who don’t seem to appreciate that Diana’s death was a tragedy that changed us all FOREVER.  Tut tut.

Anyway, this is what I remember of finding out about her death.  I have the feeling that I’ve already recounted this in a few places, but it’s never stopped me before … 

I found out after a night of drinking while we were staying with friends in Cambridgeshire.  We got up late, hungover, and found one of our hosts on the phone  in the living room while the television was on.  The volume was turned low, but I managed to make out that the slimey and villainous Jeffrey Archer was saying “certainly, as a figure on the world stage, she is irreplaceable”.

“Fuck me!”  I thought.  ”THATCHER IS DEAD!”

I was already making plans about how I was going to obtain enough booze to celebrate this joyous news.

When our friend got off the phone some time later, he said “you won’t believe what Princess Diana’s done now.  She’s only gone and died.” 

An anticlimax to say the least.

The journey back to London was odd.  In those days, we didn’t have a CD player in the car and were subjected to listening to the radio.  Every station across the board was playing *Solemn Music* to mark this *Tragic Occasion*.  Even bloody Radio One was playing the theme music to Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. 

Only one spot on the dial broke ranks – a pirate radio station was playing speed garage with some MC bawling over the top, oblivious to the fact that the nation was *united in grief*.

Looking back to that day, I realise that I had changed forever.  I’ve become more touchy feely, confronted my fears, cried a lot, realised that all my problems are the result of my parents not buying me enough presents on my sixth birthday, cried some more, attended cognitive therapy sessions for eight years, cried some more and – finally – I reached closure a couple of weeks ago.

Now I can walk out into the big wide world and don’t have to hide behind my phoney British reserve anymore.  I’m in touch with my feelings, I’m all *Continental* and it’s all thanks to Princess Diana.

May she remain Princess Of Hearts, in our hearts, forever.

CINDY TELLS ME

I’m back, I’ve moved.

I’ve left my Hotpoint to rust in the kitchenette.

To put you in the picture: at the moment I can’t access Blogger on my PC. 

Basically, I’ve been exiled from logging into my own blog or leaving comments on other blogs with Blogger comments.

Neither Blogger or Orange say that it’s anything to do with them, so I’m not sure if this situation is permanent or not.

In the meantime, I’m over here.  Not sure about the template and haven’t mastered how to do things exactly, but it’ll have to do in the circumstances.

I’ll be over here for at least six weeks, because that’s the amount of, er, *notice* Orange expect you to serve before you can move over to another server. 

I’ve missed the “communication” side of blogging, because there are very few other blogs where I can leave comments.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s only a minor problem, but it’s been a bit of a pain in the arse over the past week.

… so I’ve got all the self-pitying stuff out of the way.  Back to business as (nearly) normal.