The Great Waltz

Well, discerning and flamboyant reader, you are no doubt agog to get to the substance of this week’s offering and so I will not delay.

I decided that it was about time that I again turned my critical eye to an iconic anti war song written by someone who lives in South Australia. You might recall the analysis of John Schumann’s work “I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk in the Light Green)” that appeared in these electro pages some time ago.

It was the one about how Frankie can only just have started his tour when he kicked the mine, which doesn’t seem to have been the point of the story and that therefore the sense of the thing was twisted in order to rhyme “moon” with “June”.

The salons of Croydon and Hahndorf are still buzzing with the controversy.

Although it was searing I don’t shrink from it. In fact it turns out it didn’t go far enough – apparently Australia didn’t send anyone younger than 20 to Viet Nam – but perhaps I should move on.

This time I decided to give some attention to “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” by Eric Bogle, currently living in Seaton or perhaps Semaphore. Somewhere near the beach and starts with an “S” I think. Possibly near Alby Mangels, but I digress.

The song is undoubtedly iconic. It has been performed by many people including the Pogues and I mean the real ones before Shane MacGowan got his teeth done.

But no one who listens to “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” can help but be struck by some difficulties with the lyric, even as they are wiping a not unmanly tear from their eye or eyes.

I will set them out but not dwell on them. One problem is that our protagonist cannot have joined the AIF in 1915 and still been present at the landing as he says. There wouldn’t have been enough time to get there.

The next is that the Australians didn’t land at Suvla Bay as he claims to have done.

Further, when he suggests that in 1915 his country “Gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun and they marched me away to the war” he further exposes himself. The Australians didn’t get tin hats until 1916. I think that before then they preferred a nice slouch hat with cockade (which turns out not to be a drink as I had assumed).

So there.

Now all of this is of course deeply satisfying but I find that Bogle himself has beaten me to the punch. This paragon, possibly Peebles’ proudest product, has admitted all. I assume that he broke down and came clean after the stress of years of harbouring his guilty secrets took its toll.

He says he didn’t realise how long it took the troops to make it to Gallipoli. This seems to be right. He could have made it “In 1914 my country said “Son”” without it making any difference.

Similarly he didn’t realise about the tin hats. Again, he could change the lyric from “tin hat” to “slouch hat” and no harm done.

He has been quoted as saying that he would correct these inaccuracies if the song were not already entrenched.

Further and perhaps providing the best contrast with “I Was Only Nineteen ( A Walk in the Light Green)”, he concedes that he used “Suvla Bay” in part because it was easier to rhyme. He is on strong ground here because it turns out that ANZAC Cove didn’t have a name before that. It was just a small unnamed cove which would make both rhyme and scansion almost impossible so I think we should allow him some poetic licence.

So I draw the attention of the readerhulkthecityofadelaide to this more as a pleasant contrast than the main meat of this offering.

For that I will turn to popular songs of days gone by. Those of you who have had the pleasure of listening to any of my selections of music will know that once I start spinning those wax cylinders and placing the bamboo needle on the appropriate place, “Ti Amo” cannot be far behind.

“Well, nor should!” it I hear you exclaim.

My fondness for the work is so well known that a misguided young friend of mine went to some effort to source it for me during a recent period of ill health.

It would, she reasoned, smooth the wrinkled brow and bring a light smile to play about my rubbery but serviceable lips. And so it might have.

The problem, as you have no doubt anticipated, is that she had secured the Laura Branigan version instead of the original by Umberto Tozzi. The Laura Branigan version lacks the hard edge and intricate bass work of the original and it set my recovery back significantly.

I did, however, take the opportunity to think over the odd association between Branigan and Tozzi.

It seems that the Branigan version of Ti Amo wasn’t a hit in her native America. In fact it wasn’t much popular much outside Australia.

On the other hand, her big hit “Gloria”, was – and gird your loins for this – another Umberto Tozzi song!

I have been holding this notion up to the light and letting it, like a dome of many coloured glass stain the white radiance of eternity.

So long have I been contemplating it that I now have a headache and rather than risk Ms Branigan’s untimely demise in the same circumstances, am off to bathe my burning temples in eau-de-cologne.

The other problem is that now that I have thought of the song Gloria, I can’t get the ad for the Mitsubishi Cordia out of my mind. “Don’t you think it’s kind of sportia (sportia) don’t you think it’s kind of roomia (roomia) don’t you think it’s kind of handsome, I’m talking Cordia.”

They were turbocharged and that, too.

Thick Fast Pants

Well, it has been a while but here I am.  I must say, I had slipped into a reverie in which a flaxen haired Norse maiden was luring me into the underworld. 

My nephew advises that I was locked into some sort of virtual prison, helplessly spinning across cyberspace like them villains in Superman 2- presumably he is referring to one of the lesser known works of George Bernard Shaw.  Anyway, the worthy youth was able to extricate me and in gratitude I have presented him with a magnifying glass and a compendium of 54 games.  He told me the other day how much he spends on games so I am confident that will keep him busy for some time.

So you will be agog to know, steadfast and patient reader, what was the big issue that has been exercising me in my absence? 

Well, I hesitate with such risqué subject matter, but ladies’ undergarments have been greatly occupying my thoughts. 

You see, I recently heard someone refer to “a pair of bras”.  I had long believed the correct term to be “a bra”, but it seems that there is a significant minority who see the contraption as “a pair”.  This is quite understandable to anyone who has seen one or understands its function.

I mean to say, no one baulks at “a pair of trousers” for example.  Again, fair enough.  A pair of trousers performs the function of trousering a pair of legs.  On that basis one wouldn’t call the garment “a trouser”, except perhaps in the case of this forum’s beloved Alby Mangels – but he only ever wore stubbies anyway. 

Take “spectacles”.  As far as I can tell, they have always been referred to in the plural although the singular would probably work as well. The only time I have ever heard a pair of spectacles referred to as “a spectacle” was by my uncle Cuthbert at the family Christmas lunch.

As I remember he would be slumped in his bath chair, apparently rendered unconscious by a surfeit of cheap champagne and Christmas pudding.  We children would gather around wondering if he was still alive and trying to detect a pulse in the veins on his nose.  Invariably one of us would get a little too close and brush against him.  His ropy old arm would shoot from beneath his Onkaparinga like a liver spotted taipan and scoop up the unfortunate infant.

He would press the child to him in a way that could not have been hygienic and, with a twinkle in his eye, say “Did you hear about the two monocles that got together and made a spectacle of themselves?”

He did seem fond of that one although I now realise that it doesn’t withstand any great degree of analysis. 

Surely if two monocles got together they couldn’t make a pair of spectacles.  They would have to be a pair of monocles.  Unless there was something about getting together that changed each monocle into a spectacle. 

But even that doesn’t solve the problem.  As I say, the invariable usage to describe what our American cousins would call “eyeglasses” is in the plural, “spectacles” or “a pair of spectacles”. 

What exactly was it that the two monocles made when they got together?  Uncle Cuthbert would have you believe that it was a spectacle.  Surely that must be half of a pair of spectacles?

Isn’t that effectively what a monocle is?

As children our confusion was all the greater because we had no idea what a monocle was in the first place.   I thought it must have been something to do with “mon oncle” but that only made things worse.

In any event, the gin soaked old fossil clearly hadn’t put much effort into that one and I’m glad that he was carried off by some spoiled beef tea before he could confuse us further.

There are other examples.  Take bellows as one.  I appreciate that what with calculators and other modern things people of today don’t spend as much time hanging ‘round the smithy as I did as a youth.  I was as impressed by the smith’s bellows as I was by his ability to sweat and swear and raise angry welts on his person with hot iron bars.

But at the same time, inside the house by the fireplace was what was called a “pair of bellows”.  These were altogether smaller and daintier than the bellows in the forge, but for some reason one was a pair and the other was not.  I am beggared if I can see why.

So that, you may imagine, is the burning issue which has been perplexing me.  I’m afraid to say that you are wrong.  Instead of trying to contribute to the happiness of mankind by solving this riddle I have been mulling over an issue which is unrelated but which has caused a far greater degree of consternation amongst thinking people worldwide.

The question is this;  Which was the better cover of “Muskrat Love”?  The 1973 version by America, or the 1976 version by The Captain and Tenille?

Generally I would go with America in a contest of this kind but not this time.  The Captain and Tenille version is much better and has all sort of squeaking in it too.

Love

Bigolly

Singin’ hey lolly, lolly

Ah – ring tones. Love ’em or hate ’em, fact is – they’re here to stay.

Question is – is it better just to go with the standard ring tones that come with the phone, or should one go to the trouble of downloading a polyphonic that wittily expresses one’s personality?

I must say, back in the day when hardly anyone had a mobile I thought it rather clever that Bobby Helpmann had programmed his to play “Country Garden”, but the other day when Nic Roeg’s iPhone burst to life in the middle of a script meeting with the theme from Dr Zhivago people shook their heads sadly and the meeting finished rather early.

So, dear readers; what are your thoughts? Heard a good one lately that particularly suited its owner? Have one on your own phone of which you are justifyably proud?

Oh – and there’s a special prize for guessing what mine is…

Through a (stout) glass, darkly.

Jenny again I’m afraid.

Perhaps the only benefit, ceruminiferous and arachibutyrophobic reader, of holding the keys to Olly’s blog is that one can bag him out in public to the few sad souls who might consider themselves his friends.

Not that there is anything particularly satisfying about bagging him – finding fault with Olly is just about as challenging as the point blank harpooning of a beached whale. And a fair bit has been done already by the readerdinghy (Ah– do you remember when dear Olly started that one going?). Yes, much has been proposed by the reader Poohstick (Oh, it still makes me laugh): Some say that Olly has deserted us to wander the streets of Stirling looking in craft shops, that Olly is making warm soup and sitting by the fire holding hands with his lady friend, that Olly is planting beans against the coming season and weaving dream catchers to hang in the window of his love nest, or even that Olly has been busy removing the nutrients from the lunches of his friends. All of these are true, and sadly these activities leave Olly no time to post.

But what are we to do? Olly will not declare himself dead. From time to time his ghostly presence is felt in the form of a comment by Bobby H, or Olly will take an occasional break from his thriving legal practice to put about rumours that he is working on another post; a post mind, that he has been shaping lovingly for seven months – SEVEN MONTHS.

And so we go on; returning to the blog as to an old vice, greedy for any fleeting pleasure we might find there, but too aware that we will leave soon enough, disappointed again that we have not seen the hand of Olly.

Well, the violinists played on as the bogey sank:

Q: After “My Mother the Car” which are the next best TV theme song lyrics?

Looking at the Stars

Jenny Agutter here, and about bloody time I hear you say.

Well, the Norsca bimbo has shot back into space, and I for one am not sorry to see her go.

I don’t know what was worse; her faux poor English (you knew she moved to the States at age three, right?) or her pseudo gender-confused soft porn romps in the shower with Angela Cartwright. Give me strength!

I mean, my early work in Railway Children had enough trains rushing through tunnels and young girls out of breath for anyone. And if not, well I totally buffed up for Walkabout (see above). Peeling off the school uniform (yes, school uniform for Christ’s sake), my bush in the bush, the waterhole scene; what more could anyone want? (YouTube it boys, and take a hanky) But Hey – that was ART, right Mr Roeg?

Then Logan’s Run – need I say more?

OK so, Olly’s gone and does not like coming back any time soon. Last posted five months ago. Get over it.

My topic for the readership? Simple:-

Best boobs on telly. Whose, and when?

Shaken not Stirred

Hello Hello it is Marta again!

I am one eye smiling and one eye crying because Olly is gone, and here on the veranda it is getting cold for my bikini that I have been wearing since Christmas. Soon the men are coming to drink stout and still he does not come back.

Where is he? Did he get trapped in the glacier again?

So it is colder and poor Marta left here to smuggle tic tacs while the ghost of Olly is warm by fire watching Foxtel with his love, and they are holding hands and make warm soup and Olly is digging in his garden and soon the plants of next year will blossom and die and still he has left me here.

I wish I had my silver space suit for keeping warm, or the parka with lovely fur on the collar, but no it is the sliver bikini instead and this bikini makes me think of the James Bond films.

I am remember Mr Broccoli says to me “Marta – you are the next Bond Girl” but I am busy with L.I.S. and cannot break my contract. But so also I am the good friend of Ursula Andress and Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg and they all tell me I should do it.

So I have the meeting with Mr Brocoli and he tells me no problem – he can have me out of my contract and into the arms of Mr Connery faster than the Jupiter II goes through a meteor shower.

The problem for me is the song.

I am saying I will not do the Bond Film unless there is the good song. Which is best? The Bond Theme (Dr No)? From Russia with Love? Goldfinger? Thunderball?

Waiting, waiting – when is the good song? Each time Mr Broccoli calls me “Marta – are you ready?” and I am say “Play me the song Cubby”

So it goes… On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever…

Waiting, waiting… You see my problem? Which is the best theme and the good one for Marta? I am hope the readerspeedboat is helping here.

Takk! Marta

Ashes to Ashes

Hi Hi Hi! Yes, I am Marta and I am from Norway.

No calling me the Judy please – that was an actor and a long time ago. As you can see my English is sometimes causing me trouble. On the L.I.S. we had a speaking coach and my English is very good, but now I am happy that I am just Marta so no questions please. And no questions like “How big was Major Don West’s johnson?” because I will not answer. (Q: How big? A: very small.)

So sitting on Olly Santa’s knee for a long time he is always, “Hey Marta – can you feel that? I’ve got a dick like a baby’s forearm.” And I say, “Yes Olly – just like the baby’s forearm; it is perfectly formed and it is tiny.” And he says “fuck off.” And then I say, “Oh yes, now I feel it. I am the princess with the pea, no?” And he says “fuck off.” and we laugh ha ha. He is a funny man. But really I am very happy that he has gone – to where? Well, I don’t know. On L.I.S. we used to say he’s frotting the Gloop when sometimes Mark and Billy would have a funny look and go to the trailer together. Maybe Olly is doing the same? But they were the happy times. Many times in the shower I would touch Angela but that was just because she missed her family a long way away.

So – to make the post for Olly I need the funny word. Here is the word. I am thinking of this verb that you use the verb – to dust? What does it mean? You dust your houses, but you also have the crop dusters for your fields. So this is very difficult for me. Does it mean putting the dust off or taking the dust on?

1: You dust the cake with icing sugar (put dust on).
2: You dust the furniture (put dust off)

You see this? Perhaps some times in English the word has two meanings, but these are the opposite! So what is it? I hope you will help me please.

Takk!

A Miss Mayella Ewelltide

I have always viewed Christmas, decorative and wholesome reader, as a time of cheer tempered by appropriate reflection on one’s good fortune and the possibility that there are others who are not as resilient to the blows of fate as one may be oneself.  I think it is important to leave a little something for the (oh so discreetly named) dustman and to ensure that the Christmas tree at the supermarket has a tin of Big Sister plum pudding or similar under it to be distributed to the grateful poor.   

I don’t seek any thanks for these small sacrifices nor do I imagine that I am alone in seeking to share my good fortune around.  Indeed it is clear that I am not.  A quick look under the tree at my local Central Provision Store shows that there is a lovely plastic cricket set and a delightful Barbina ™ dolly that some little girl will surely cherish until her brother twists its arm off and the hollow body doesn’t provide enough resistance for her father to push it back on again.  Or its hair peels off.  Or the dog gets it.

 Indeed the mental picture of the pleasure that the local poor child will get when she is able to console herself with a mouthful of processed flour and Turkish raisins is such that I am tempted to wait until Christmas Eve, pop ‘round to the little mite’s hovel and lovingly place the canned pud straight onto her (no doubt urine soaked) mattress myself.  Dressed as Father Christmas, or not, subject to costume availability. 

Such is the depth of my feeling for my fellow man at Christmastide.

Anyway, it was in this spirit that I tuned into “Christmas Favourites” on the wireless the other night and settled back with a tepid eggnog to enjoy the revels.

I cannot claim that it was all I had hoped it would be.  Rather than a selection of Carols, I was greeted by commercialism at its worst.  The program consisted mainly of dreadful pop style songs which had been created with the all too obvious aim of cashing in on the universal feelings of warmth toward humanity which we all enjoy at this time of year.

You may tolerate the cynical grab for cash that is “White Christmas” by Bingo Crosby but I remain unmoved.  My nerveless fingers groped for the bakelite knob. Unfortunately I was unable to shut the accursed din off before I heard the nauseating opening bars of “The Little Drummer Boy”. 

How vile. Honest emotion made me drop the eggnog on the Berber and don’t know if it will ever be the same.  The egg really makes a nasty cleaning problem.

What ever happened to the old songs, I wonder?  How can we have moved so far from the spirit and intention of the celebration of Christmas?  Why have we sacrificed so many of the proud traditions of this humble religious feast in the interests of an annual grab for money?

I am not one to sit back and watch our proud traditions be eroded in this way.  It is time that the public, no doubt thirsty for a return to the values of another time are given an unapologetic dose of proper traditional Christmas music.  How better to do so than with a close examination of the lyrics of such a song?

On that basis, I am proud to provide you with my seasonal offering, my own “take” as my nephew would have it, on that perennial favourite “Last Christmas” by Mr. George Michael, known to and loved by us all.  I think he done it when he was in Wham (or perhaps Wham!) with that other bloke who no-one remembers but who seems to have been rather better than George at keeping his nose etc clean.

 But I digress.  To the lyric!

“Last Christmas, intones the lugubrious Mr. Michael, “I gave you my heart”. 

I do not for one minute imagine that he is referring to his physical heart.  He means that he gave his affections.  Not his affectations, that would have been too much to fit under the tree.  I don’t think this line gives great cause for pause and consideration.  It is reasonably straightforward. 

He continues:

 “The very next day you gave it away”.

How extraordinary.  Consider this.

The day after Christmas day is, of course, Boxing Day.  Boxing Day is so called because it is traditionally the day on which one presents the staff with a token of one’s appreciation for the year of backbreaking toil they have put in for you.  I assume that the gift is given on the day after Christmas in the hope that the butler will be less tempted to despoil the goose if he thinks it will put his small flask of Cypress sherry at risk.

So the ungrateful recipient of Mr. Michael’s heart (whatever that means) appears to have given it to the servants. 

How extraordinary.  What on earth is the chambermaid, the chauffeur or the boy who cleans the boots and knives going to do with such a thing?  I mean to say one would like to think that someone who is sufficiently high on the social scale to still have a staff in this day and age would also have sufficient courtesy to pen a simple note of thanks and put the unwanted gift away for a decent time.  Then perhaps give it to the Vicar for the Jumble Sale.

Anyway, Mr. Michael does not seem too disturbed by this.  He mournfully insists;

“This year, to save me from tears I’ll give it to someone special.”

I mean to say, what on earth was he doing giving it away in the first place if the recipient was not “someone special”.  And if it was given away a year ago, how did Mr. Michael get it back? 

This is all enough to make one swoon.  The numbers just don’t add up.  Indeed, the song concludes thus:

“A face on a lover with a fire in his heart

A man under cover but you tore him apart

Maybe next year I’ll give it to someone

I’ll give it to someone special.”

I don’t pretend to understand the first bit, but the second bit causes even more concern.  Having earlier in the song claimed that this year he is going to give his heart to someone special, he is now saying that perhaps next year he will again give it to someone special. 

If he is going to do that, he is going to have to get it back again from whoever is the recipient this year.  In the same way that he has already done.  But that was the upset that caused him to go public with this musical complaint about the person he gave it to last Christmas.

I don’t follow the song at all.   But it is a damn sight finer than “White Christmas”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Just a very short one thoughtful and enthusiastic reader, to advise that on Sunday 16 November Albertus Zwier Mangels, beloved of all of us, celebrates his 60^th birthday.

 

What a pity if such an occasion were to go unmarked in these shadowy cyber pages.

 

I have made some researches into the proper rendering of his name, as there are those who suggest that it should be Zwier Albertus Mangles rather than the other way ‘round if you take my meaning.

 

Leading the way in their traditional, odious fashion are the nauseating desk jockeys of the Civil Aviation Authority, a curse on their houses.

 

It seems that our smug friends at the CAA foolishly sought to impose on our favourite iron thewed titan the fatuous restrictions of sub regulation 202.225 (5) of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998.

 

How he must have laughed. 

 

How I wish I had been there.

 

Anyway, the upshot seems to be that they deregistered his little home made helicopter in about July of 2006.  Why there was not a howl of protest from the Civil Libertarians about this I don’t know.  Surely there are many among us who felt just a little safer to know that in our hour of need this super man might appear from the sky in his kit copter and dispense justice on all sides.

 

Dare I say Deus Ex Machina?

 

Yes, I dare say.

 

Of course his dog may have been happy, if he did get another one. 

 

Still, the happy occasion of his birthday this Sunday should not be sullied by our petty ruminations.  We wish him well and hope he has many more.

 

 

Another Fine Mess

I am often surprised, bewitching and voluminous reader, at the way complete strangers approach me in public to ask me the secret of my grasp of the French language.

 

At other times, similarly complete strangers (possibly even the same ones, I don’t know, you see these are persons not known to me) are agog to know how I became such a competent swimmer.  “How is it, Bigolly, that you are able to carve through the water with such ease and not be all puffed out or red in the face or anything?” they might ask.  “Are you related to Des Renford or someone?” 

 

Well, the polish with which I order a croissant or churn out a quick 110 yards of elementary backstroke is, I suppose, due to hours spent memorising irregular verbs and trawling up and down the big pool at the Geo Bolton Memorial Swimming Centre- often both at the same time. 

 

But that isn’t the whole answer.  Anyone can memorise conjugations or apply him or her self to the soul destroying hours of training it takes to make the under 14 boys’ relay team in the Burnside Southside Swimming Club.

 

The question is not so much how did I it but why?  Was there an influence in my past that guided me in these rather disparate endeavours?

 

Naturally I like to think that it was my own aptitude and dedication to hard work that brought about this slightly unusual “skillset” as the young people would call it.  But if it were a matter of hard work and talent, why was I unable to master other things that I tried, like hammer throwing or the Rubik’s cube? Why did I never perfect the torpedo punt and why, despite Gary Case’s best endeavours, did the progressive jive so wholly elude me?

 

In fact, if I turn my mind back to the early days of my schooling, there stands across my consciousness a colossus of both French and swimming whose influence remains with me to this day.

 

No, it is not as you may imagine, the Geo. Bolton who was associated with the local municipal swimming centre (comprising the big pool, the middle pool – with the viewing windows and the paddling pool).  I assume he was interested in swimming but am not aware of any association with French.  As far as I can remember he sold motorbikes.  At Kawasaki Corner.

 

Of course, motorbikes did become an interest of mine but I would not claim any great expertise.  I went in one race in my early teens at the Burnside Mini Bike Trials Club and came in a distant last.  I should add that the competition was not strong.

 

So no, Geo. Bolton though probably an admirable fellow was not a moulding influence on the young Bigolly.

 

No, the guiding hand and mysterious benefactor was a woman whose name will strike a chord with anyone who encountered her.

 

I speak of Madame Stanley, the swimming/French teacher at my primary school.  A legend.

 

The combination of swimming and French is not an obvious one but there are complementary aspects.

 

The development of the lungs as a result of swimming lent enormous force to Madame’s diction.  When she bellowed “Cold in the nose” at you to correct your pronunciation, you stayed bellowed at.  And all bits of plaster fell down from the ceiling.  I never quite understood whether I was supposed to emulate the cold in the nose sound or avoid it but often due to swimming in inclement weather, the choice was taken out of my hands.

 

I must say, I can’t really remember that French much influenced the swimming lessons, although there was an undeniable continental style in Madame’s presentation.  She usually sported a brightly coloured maillot with lots of bracing around the frontal area resulting in that very pointy look that women so seemed to admire in those days.  She also had very curly hair which may have been natural but might have been a European fashion statement.

 

The hair colour, as I recall, was fair to blond, but that could well have been due to the chlorine in the water as much as to the coiffeur’s art.

 

How fondly I remember being trooped across the road to the school’s small pool in the enclosure next to the cricket nets.  We would be taught mushroom float then the ominous sounding “drownproofing” before moving onto the Australian Crawl and other useful skills like retrieving coloured objects from the bottom of the deep end.  It was only about five feet deep (that’s 1674 nanometres for you metric types) but I do recall once that I had to feel around for the key or whatever it was.  I eventually found it and on resurfacing was met with the delighted shriek “You’ll never drown!” delivered right into my face.

 

It was so loud it made my cheeks puff out like that pilot or parachutist bloke in the series of pictures where the wind is blowing more and more strongly on his face until you can see all his teeth, even the back ones.  You know the one.

 

French was also a bit eccentric.  I may have mentioned this before but Madame Stanley used to go from classroom to classroom with a little red portable record player and a small suitcase with some lessons on vinyl disks.

 

There were pamphlets to go with the records, “Bon Voyage” they were called, and we could follow the writing while listening to the disk.  Plus Madame would help out with “cold in the nose” suggestions from time to time. 

 

I’m not sure from where she got her skills in the French language but I think she lived there for a while.  Quite possibly she called snails across the Loire Valley or something.

 

Anyway, the little record player was not too robust and eventually the belt that made the turntable go ‘round broke.  Madame was canny enough to realise that everything else worked and so the best behaved child was chosen to put his or her index finger on the cardboard label in the middle of the record and turn it by hand, doing their best to maintain 33 1/3 RPM.

 

As I say, I think I have mentioned this before but the memory is a fond one.

 

Of course, I was not the only student of Madame’s.  Pretty much the whole school had lessons in both French and swimming from Madame and I am not aware that many of them went on to great heights in both.  Obviously I was a  sensitive child and absorbed the influences more thoroughly.  The sensitive child was the father of the sensitive man that I have become. 

 

So, lady and gentlemen I beg you charge your glasses and join me in a toast, from Big Olly to Stanley.

 

Though I must say, now that I think of it, I should check up on Geo Bolton.  I might be selling him a bit short. 

 

Of course, it might have been those viewing windows in the middle pool that put me off him a bit.  They don’t seem quite right in this modern day and age, do they?