I sit and wait
Does an angel contemplate my fate?
And do they know the places where we go
When we're grey and old?
'Cause I have been told
That salvation lets their wings unfold
the scenario: you are with a collection of friends and you are singing the song that has been stuck in your head. it’s a very well-known song, a Big Hit. all your friends are astonished, blown away by this performance. this is confusing because you’re not even really going for it, you’re just kind of heart-heartedly singing. your friends say things like: wow and that’s so good and did you just make that up on the spot? and you think they’re taking the piss because you were singing a very well-known song. it’s soon revealed that they’re being completely serious; they exist in a world without this Big Hit.
no, this is not a description of the film Yesterday (2019).1 this is in fact how I discovered that Americans (not all Americans!) literally do not know who Robbie Williams is. I was singing Angels. and, yes, it is a good song. but never in my life have I known it to provoke such a reaction. why didn’t he make it over the pond? same with Girls Aloud while we’re at it. also, as a nation, they are labouring under the misconception that the Jonas Brothers were the first to travel to the Year 3000. they have no idea what pioneers Busted were.
someone I know was turning fifty halfway through the month and my friend (and previous co-conspirator in disinformation) and I were thinking of ways in which we could fuck with her on the morning of her big birthday. we arrived at some mild quasi-vandalism. we ordered a fuckload of sidewalk chalk and gathered a couple of accomplices and headed to her very quiet, family-dominated street at half past midnight.
we wrote a little birthday message on her front step, another on the pavement at the end of her driveway, then drew hundreds of white arrows on the ground leading all the way to this piece of art. (it says ‘happy 50th Claire’ btw).
we considered drawing on the ground along the route she would drive to work in the morning, but decided against that in the end because 1. we weren’t sure of her exact route to work (even after asking her children); 2. I was worried that writing ‘50’ on the road in a non-50mph zone might cause an accident (you never know! and I don’t want that on my conscience); 3. our chalk could barely withstand our initial creation, even a fuckload of sidewalk chalk wouldn’t be enough to act as main road chalk.
the comedian Kevin Bridges had a routine years ago about the difference between Scottish and American house parties (linked). he talks about how there’s always one guy in the corner trying on everyone’s jackets, ‘not even asking does it fit me; does it suit me?’
I was at a house party, towards the end of which a couple of us were in the ‘cloak room’ (one girl’s bedroom) trying to return jackets to their respective owners. for which task we invented an ingenious system. an ingenious system, but also arguably a really fucking creepy system. instead of trying on other people’s jackets, we were holding them up, examining the style, the size and the label to guess who might buy a jacket like that. then, for further information gathering, we sniffed the jackets to try to match the person to their smell. and I don’t mean a cursory sniff, I mean several deep inhales. high success rate; high shame level the next morning thinking why the fuck did we spend 45 minutes in Robyn’s bedroom sniffing jackets??
I spent a night at someone else’s house. in this house lives a family of five: mother, father, three adult children. during this stay, I discovered that, in the morning, they will each get ready in their respective bedrooms, then, once they’re ready, they will go to the kitchen, where they apply their communal aerosol deodorant. and not one of them understands why I think this is an abnormal way of going about things. (they don’t go to the kitchen as a family, they just each go to the kitchen to put on deodorant. which is better than the alternative. but still an odd choice.)
my parents’ garden is the land where things go to die. we don’t know why. but nothing can be sustained there. in soil or in plant pots. Over The Back has a beautiful garden full of flowers. Next Door grows actual vegetables. it’s not exactly a flourishing vegetable garden (at one point during the pandemic, Mrs Next Door dropped round ‘some vegetables from her garden.’ it was a sandwich bag containing a couple of limp lettuce leaves.) but still! better than my family’s.
I was looking out the kitchen window when I saw that one of Over The Back’s beautiful flowers started growing through the fence. I think it looks a bit like some convoluted metaphor for hope, or something that someone might include in an illustrated fairytale. the princess’s flower started to grow in the evil witch’s garden or something like that.
we’re keeping a close eye to see if the inhospitable garden kills it by sheer power of vibes alone.
not pictured: 12 conifers, 5 of which are fully dead, a further 3 half-brown, and the remaining 4… maybe not exactly thriving, but at least actually surviving.
I went to see the UK tour of the musical Come From Away. I didn’t know anything about it before I went. but I loved it so much that, when I got home from the theatre, I immediately watched the recorded Disney+ version. the next day, I watched it twice. I watched Come From Away four times in a 24 hour period. absolute belter, tbf.
the only reason I didn’t continue my absurd Come From Away streak the following day was that I was going away for the weekend. I travelled down to the north of England, five of us (plus luggage) crammed into a car, not a Spanish lesson between us, listening to El Hombre del Piano (Spanish Piano Man) on repeat, including two hours sitting in traffic. we are now word-perfect, although couldn’t tell you what any of them mean.
I am typing this from this house!!! would you believe. (there are more than the five of us here.)
I made a couple of bold moves irl. honestly, as yet not paid off, but 1. things take time, sometimes; 2. sometimes it’s just a bit exhilarating to do something crazy (or, like, four or five crazy things over the course of one month).
AND THROUGH IT AAAAAAALLLL, SHE OFFERS ME PROTECTION
A LOT OF LOVE AND AFFECTION, WHETHER I’M RIGHT OR WRONG
AND DOWN THE WATERFAAAAALL, WHEREVER IT MAY TAKE ME
I KNOW THAT LIFE WON’T BREAK ME
WHEN I COME TO CALL, SHE WON’T FORSAKE ME
I'M LOVING ANGELS INSTEAD
I think this is the plot of Yesterday, I haven’t seen it. apologies if I got that reference way wrong.
Had the Beatles not come to America I believe the music scene here would be very different and also lacking for it.
I will never understand why Girls Aloud never made it in the States - Call The Shots and Biology like pop isn’t like this anymore. Xenomania (production) are geniuses