Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Blancmange, Cross Country and Silver Studs

Teenagers of the Eighties, seriously, what were you all thinking?  Today, I drove home from work, having finished early afternoon, the Top 20 Retro Countdown decided to focus on the year 1983.  I really must have a word with the programmers at my local station, because I cannot really jump into a Delorean a la Marty McFly and travel back to this era to ask everyone to stop and think.  But honestly, I was subjected to some tripe today.  The worst of it was 'Living on the Ceiling' by Blancmange.  And like said dessert, this song is bland and milky, and leaves a dull taste in the mouth.  It's just pointless shit set to a synthesiser.  The guy delivering it says he's 'up the bloody tree.'  I was tempted to deliberately drive into a tree to get away from this torpid, turgid tune.


I'm sick of hearing kids today whinge about how hard they have it.  Yesterday, my 12yo had his school cross-country event.  They ran (and he walked, anyway - just like his mother would have!) along mainly flat terrain from a sports field, along flat grass and smooth footpaths.  When I was his age, our cross-country was held on a property outside town.  This property was hilly and rocky, and beset with obstacles such as gnarled tree roots and wombat holes.  There were also booby traps formed by the hooves of the livestock, ie, furrows and footprints just ripe for spraining an ankle in.  Even worse, the course was littered with cowpats, like an Angolian minefield.   There is nothing so dispiriting as hearing the splat and feeling warm flecks of cow shit spraying over  your calf muscle and shin, like the bloody spray from a bullet wound.  Everywhere, kids would groan and wail as they found themselves ankle-deep in a freshly laid cowpat.  And along with the fresh cow flop, there would be the flop bleached and dried in the sun.  I'm not sure of the aerodynamics of a thrown dried cowpat, especially with the rippled surface, but I can tell you this: when one of those things hits you, it backs quite the sting.  And kids would be picking them up and throwing them like Frisbees at their fellow students.  So kids, don't gripe at me about your hard lives.  We didn't have Google, we had to contend with Blancmange songs, and thrown cowpats.


On a brighter note, I have received from the publishers my complimentary copies of  'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth'.  I am now in the process of organising a book launch.  The library has to close no later than 8.00pm (although I can book a seminar room and lock the library myself).  I'm also considering approaching the art gallery.  Decisions, decisions.  When the publisher's IT whiz has done the URL, I will attach the link to the blog.  Yesterday, one of the aged people I care for asked how much the book cost.  I replied, 'The publishers have set the RRP at $31.95'.  She asked how much I would sell it to her for.  I replied, '$31.95.'

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