Yet another disjointed post

[venta]

What's in your journal today, Elizabeth?

Well, there's some

On Saturday night I was at a ceilidh to celebrate a friend's 50th birthday. Mid-evening, everyone knocked off for a rest, and a guy called Graham Pirt, who's a fantastic singer with a light voice and a Tyneside accent, ambled up to the mic and started up...

"Fresh I've come from Sandgate Street..."

And suddenly, I'm smiling and half my mind's slid away with the music.

Is it a magical song? No, I don't think so. If I heard the song (it's called Do-Li-A) for the first time today, I'd probably notice that it's got a pleasant tune, a chorus of nonsense words, and a beat which sounds like it should be stamped out by workboots. I'm not sure I'd notice it as all that special.

But I'm not hearing it for the first time. It's one of the songs from my childhood, when my parents discovered that their objectionable, crying baby was only really happy if there was music playing. And somehow the folksongs and local ballads they had on LP, and played to me, have stuck low down in my brain. I don't think they'll ever shift.

A couple of songs down the line, Graham sang The Celebrated Working Man. If you'd asked me on Friday if I knew the song, I'd have said no. I probably wouldn't have recognised it if you'd shown me the words. I didn't recognise the intro, or the verse when he sang it. As people joined in with the chorus, I was surprised to find I did, too. My subconscious, which has been in and out of folk song clubs for nearly 27 years, pays attention when people sing, and it knew the words for me.

I wonder just how much of my mind's storage capacity is filled up with songs.



And then, there's me getting angry.

Imagine, if you will, that your dance team requires some articles of costume. Your exisiting tops were custom made, by a supplier in Newcastle who was sufficiently incompetent that you have vowed not to use them again. Your task is to get new tops for your dance team.

Step 1 - Locate supplier in London. Visit them, leave them an existing garment to copy.
Step 2 - Post them all the relevant measurements, a cheque, and the address to send them to. The address is not yours, because you are about to leave the country for a month. You pay by cheque for the same reason.
Step 3 - Arrive at your team's booking in New York. Be rather surprised that said tops have not been brought by the person to whom they were posted. Be even more surprised to discover they have not arrived.
Step 4 - Return to country, wait for the postee to double check that they have not arrived, been left with a neighbour, shoved in the garage etc.
Step 5 - Check, and confirm, that the cheque has been cashed.
Step 6 - Ring suppliers, accept his profuse apologies as he believes that they were posted by this making-things-person. Be pacified when he promises to call you back later in the day.
Step 7 - Ring him a week later and leave a shirty message on his answerphone.

I think Step 9 is probably a visit to Trading Standards, and Step 10 may behurling a brick through is window. Any suggestions for Step 8?

(By the way: anyone who points out that it'd be much better if I'd paid by credit card will be ruptured.)

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Step 8 should be go round there and refuse to leave until they tell you what's going on, whether they're done or not, and where they are. Arrive with a sleeping bag for effect.

Step 8

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

Is a complaint in writing possibly copied to Trading Standards. You can call trading standards in advance, explain that you are having problems and do they mind if you copy them on the letter.
Has magical properties that copy line apparently ;-)

Thurs still on?

[kauket.livejournal.com]

Step 8 is surely declare war because they have your oil/weapons of mass distraction (thank you Michael Moore)/are committing huge humanitarian abuses/have a dodgy tache.

Oh, sorry that's step 1 isn't it

;p