Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

2008 certainly was the year for dredging-up old franchises and creating sequels. Stallone got out the body oil for another, if less mobile, outing for Rambo. Indiana Jones proved that archeologists approaching retirement can still run around if they have to. Mulder and Scully were presumably allowed a secondment from all the Terror-watching the FBI does to go and look for some aliens, whilst Batman did a little bit of running around.

Now 2009 looks to be going the same way with the announcement that Winnie the Pooh is making a comeback after 80 years.

Titled ‘Return to the Hundred Acre Wood’ I assume it will be in tune with the latest thinking on childrens’ books. Only this week OfSted argued that everything needs to be kept interesting and relevant to capture the imagination of young people. Shortly before Christmas I remember John Humphries on the Today programme grilling authors on the latest idea to make books a little more gritty to get boys away from their 24/7 diet of football and computerised football and into a good book.

With that in mind, I suspect the return to Hundred Acre Wood will be just that. I would imagine by now the wood has had it’s green belt status downgraded and a commuter village built on top of it. Piglet will be dodging the cars on the new Hundred Acre Wood Bypass to visit his good friend Pooh, trying desperately hard, being prone to accidents, not to get squashed. Wol will be confined to his tree. This will be partly because his is the only tree left, and partly because being of some considerable age he’ll want to stay out the way of the anti-social youths that hang around at the bottom of his tree.

Talking of anti-social youths, Tigger will have donned a hoody. Obviously his bouncing has had to be cut down, due the new dangers of hyperdermic needles scattered across the park mixed in with discarding peppermint blobs of gum. Nevertheless, he remains enthusiastic and bounces around with an Ipod blasting out the latest hip-hop beats. Roo and Kanga will have long gone, of course, after the Home Office found irregularities in their paperwork, and they were unable to pass the new Citizenship course on account of them being kangaroos.

Time may not have necessarily been kind to everyone’s favourite characters Pooh and Eeyore. Eeyore will have taken to standing on street corners and muttering to himself, having been cleaned out completely having put all of his money on the stock market. Pooh on the other hand will still be leading the simple life in his little tree house. His honey will now be organic from the latest supermarket, what with the British bee suffering this year at the hands of its European cousins and almost being wiped-out completely. Whilst the families of 2.4 children and people carrier-driving new-build-liking IT consultants move about their everyday lives, Pooh bear now sits on his Ikea sofa watching Jeremy Kyle with the same gaze of befuddlement that we all do.

I look forward to the new book. I think if it’s anything like my prediction, it’ll have enough hard-hitting grittiness to keep the young people happy, with just enough of a smattering of heffalumps to keep us older fans happy.

The Goldilocks Tree

What happened in my life to lead to this; a hole in the mud in the far corner of my garden on a Monday afternoon? In the rain. With a trowel.

Last year we made the mistake of buying a Christmas tree on route from an airport, where altitude seemed to have warped our sense of reality, particularly in relation to our grasping of physics, and in particular spacial awareness.

This year we did everything right. We measure the space. Twice. We set ourselves a top budget and maximum width, and even decided on a non-drop-but-you-know-it-will-so-hope-it-doesn’t-so-much variety. We avoided the forestry shop where we’d be taken over with sentimentality and pick the one tree that was 12 feet tall and almost completely void of branches on one side because we didn’t want it to feel unloved.

Instead we went to the local florists. They had just the perfect tree, and we thought we could save the environment by buying local. ‘It’s okay, we don’t need the pot’ I said to the florist, who was clearly dwarfed by all the trees, being only 5 feet tall, and more used to her shop being full of daffodils and carnations and less prickly things. In turn, she assured me it was just a simple base they put on all the trees, and that I could just throw it away when I got home.

Please note at this point, she mentioned nothing about the roots!

Having done everything to avoid last years farce, I was surprised to find myself at 9:30pm outside the front door sizing up a tree with admirable root-growth against all of the plant pots we own. With all of the weeds evicted from the pots, they were paraded through the house from back to front and tried against the goldilocks tree. Trying to hide from the neighbours, fearing they would call the nearest asylum, I quickly questioned the logic that doing this at the front of the house would save needles in the carpet as I saw the muddy drips from the pots creating a pretty pattern across the full length of the house.

Still, with Christmas over, the tree had kept up its side of the bargain and not dropped too many feet-trapping needles, and we felt sorry for it. We’re not vegetarians, but we will put spiders outside rather than killing them, and neither of us wanted to cut-up a living tree. And so, on the twelfth afternoon of Christmas I found myself digging a hole in the mud with a trowel as the blackbird and robin mocked me from the fence. As I dug deeper, my traitorous feathered friends were calling all of their friends over to see the strange spectacle of the human who, having kept an outside tree next to his tv for the last two weeks set about returning it to it’s natural habitat.

And it’s still there, a week on, in the garden. It’s still green, and slightly scrawny (we still picked the runt of the tree litter), and the birds hve stopped mocking me. That said, I’m not convinced, given the scrathes I had all down my arm, that it’s more unlucky to have your tree up passed the twelfth night compared to having hurredly planted it in the garden in the rain…

Superior State

Lake Superior State University in Michigan, who I assume are taking a week off from curing Cancer, global warming and developing a way for Barratt homes to build us emergency homes on the moon for when the dolphins finally take over (and trust me, it will happen soon), has published its 34th list of words that should be banished from our vocabularies. I’m not sure what is more shocking, that somehow the previous 33 lists have slipped under my radar or that a university, whose 1st year incomers generally use the word ‘dude’ in place of commars and phrase every sentence as a question, wants to lessen the words at everyones disposal.

I was reading the highlights over at The Guardian and a few surprises popped up.

Green. I really hope they spent some time explaining this one over at LSSU. We’re all annoyed at the overuse of ‘green’ as a badge of good intentions. That somehow Tory chief Gordon (is the) Camera-on can use an innocent five letter word with a Scrabble score of 6 to somehow suggest cycling along with a car driving at 4mph behind you is saving the planet. That said, I’d still like to be able to describe the colour of grass and have a euphemmism for describing someone who is seasick or a lizard.

First Dude. Sorry Superior State boffins, but I’m going to disappoint you here. I’ve never heard this term. Not once. Not in print. Not on television. Not on the radio. That said, I’m intending to use it from the moment Barrack eners teh White (I assume that word isn’t going the way of ‘green’) House. Probably simultaneously with a thumbs-up gesture. I’m going to use it at least once a day, until I get a really big bruise on my arm from Sarah hitting me every time.

Finally, there’s the use of Icon/Iconic. Now this is a tricky one. For a start there’ll be no need to worry about global warming and sea rising sea levels as every city across the globe will be hit wive a tidal wave formed from the tears of music critics and rock writers for whom no article is complete without at least seventy-six appearances of this word. Personally, I like the word. Not for it’s meaning, but because every time I see some twenty-something post-pubescent mess whose 15 minutes of fame are referred to as ground-breaking I find myself comparing them to either Audrey Hepburn or Steve McQueen. If they wouldn’t look cool motorycling across some German farmland in jeans and a t-shirt (and that’s just Audrey’s starring moment), then I find myself day-dreaming about the pre-has-been justifying their fame to Jim Morrisson and Buddy Holly. True, banning the word will cause the writing staff of Rolling Stone to become more creative, but the resulting tears will just generate a salty carpet for the dolphins to surf in on and take over the world, and trust me, we don’t want that.

What words would I ban? ‘Downturn’ for one – when, with the possible exception of Jacque Cousteau, has anyone in the history of the human race every changed direction downwards? There are dolphins down there you know. Furthermore, I’d like the word ‘unique’ stricken from the records. We live in a world of technology, interwebs and digital toothbrushes. Everything is copied, improved and handed in as a first year essay within seconds of its springing into the world so the chances of anything ever truly being unique are doubtful. You wait til the dolphins take charge – then you’ll see ‘unique’.

Being Thirty – Radio 4, 5-string guitars and a cups of tea

As has been customary for a long time – since even before the internet was invented – the first few days of an emerging new year must be accompanied by predictions. I wanted to be different, so I thought I’d post a single prediction that I absolutely, positively, God’s-honest-truth, bet-my-left-index-finger-on-it, promise will come true.

In 2009 I will turn thirty.

Unless someone has invented time travel in the time between me writing this and you reading it (in which case how stupid do I look?), a birthday generally mean you are getting older. I remember 20 not being all that much of a landmark – it was difficult to imagine oneself being ‘older and wiser’ whilst I was still wearing tartan trousers, juggling, carrying a yoyo everywhere and shared life-size cutouts of Scarey and Sporty Spices with my flatmate. Thirty, on the other hand always seemed to carry certain duties.

At thirty, I was always led to believe your body starts playing up. If you had a car or a computer for 30 years you’d expect it to be a little temperamental, so why expect your body to be any different? The thing is, I’m not 30 yet, and already I’m finding myself standing up from chairs with a soundtrack of ‘urrrmph’. It’s quiet, but it’s there. If I drop something on the floor, by back bends and I can’t stop a groan of ‘oorrgh’ accompanying it. If I’m honest, I’m typing this on the sofa and my floor is covered in discarded magazines, books and keys that I will not pick up off the floor until I’ve exhausted every other avenue of alternatives. It’s not that I’m Michael Winner you understand. I still cycle and walk a lot. It’s just that my back and legs have developed squeaks and creaks.

But that’s not all:

* I’ve noticed I’m hearing ‘the shipping forecast’ a lot. I had hoped this would make me feel young by being awake into the small hours but, I am told by Sarah, the listening to of Radio 4 is the preserve of the ‘lost cases’. I would argue against this, but I find myself nodding in agreement to John Humphry’s reasoning and find Sarah Montague’s voice ‘comforting’.
*I’ve started drinking tea. I understand that for many people this is not a sign of the impending ‘old’, but tea is a beverage almost exclusively missing from my since I was 19 and in my first year of university, and now I find it creeping back in shortly after my 29th birthday. Lost forever are my tealess twenties.

*I don’t mind missing episodes of my favourite programmes. I’d like to say this is because all modern television is rubbish, but then that too would be a sign of ‘the old’. I can quite happily watch the first 5 episodes of a series, and then watch episodes 8, 10 and 11 and hardly notice. Where once I’d have set the video (they still make those, right?) I know find I don’t mind.

*I find myself occasionally scouring the internet in search of a more comfortable sofa. When you’re young you want functionality – something your friends can quickly turn into a bed at a moments notice. When you’re young you want economy – I think I must have been 27 before I thought any item of furniture costing over £150 was ‘reasonable’. I think it’s a sign of ageing that you judge a sofa on it’s number of cushions, and a colour that won’t stain easily.

*The guitar – symbol of rebellion for the latest 3 generations of the human race. I have 3. I have shelves of cd’s by live-fast die-young rockstars and anti-establishment punksters and folkies alike. I enjoy playing them, but my telecaster has been missing it’s top E-string for about 6 months now despite the spare strings on the shelf. This is worrying – am I losing my rock-angst?

*I’ve started wanting ‘interesting holidays’. Not that I’ve been going to Ibiza or Malaga on a regular basis – that’s a sign of something completely different. It’s just that in your twenties I think you’re generally happy just to be going somewhere at all. No I want to see glaciers, retrace  the steps of Burroughs or Hemingway, or stay in some eco-lodge where all human waste is reused. Obviously I just put that last one in to see if you were still paying attention, I wouldn’t really go there for fear of recieving third degree burns from lentil soup or drowning in a chemical toilet.

*My musical taste is going in chronological reverse. In the last 12 months I started with Pearl Jam and Radiohead, and have moved back through The Cure and Morrissey towards Mott the Hoople and The Rolling Stones. This is not only a sign of being infected with ‘the old’, but is worrying – my thirtieth birthday party could well end up with a dj mixing the greatest hits of the Renaissance followed by a live performance from a recorder consort.

Maybe the great philosopher Cobain had it right when he wrote ‘teenage angst has paid-off well, now I’m bored and old’. Maybe I shouldn’t be worried that my thirtieth birthday marks my ‘being old’ because, from the evidence above, I’m already there.

Statistical Review of the Year 2008

As in previous years (2006 here, 2007 there) I present a statistical review of the year 2008.

Number of women who have proposed marriage: 1

Number of wedding proposals accepted: 1

Number of quartet gigs: 66

Number hire cars driven: 3

Number of times lost driving around Paris: 0

Websites designed: 5

Number of Matchbox Twenty gigs: 2

Number of Counting Crows gigs: 1

Plane trips: 4

Ferry trips: 2

Number of vineyard trips in a language I don’t understand: 1

Limbs broken: 0 (Hurrah!)

Seasons of House watched: 3

Seasons of Teachers watched: 3

So, there you have it. 2008 – a good year for gigs, both seen and played. Good for limbs, dvd watching and driving around Paris and the Loire.

Obviously, there were a few down points along the way for Merchant Bankers, those whose branch of topiary extends to hedge-fund managing and people in the Brown family from Scotland called ‘Gordon’.

Still, we’re gonna party like it’s 2009!

PostSecret

I had a great post to put up here today, but was side-tracked reading everything posted on PostSecret.

Anyway, as a result I thought I’d point a link in that direction instead.

PostSecret

I particularly like the story around Amber – the readers there donated enough money for her kids to have a fantastic Christmas.

We have partied like it’s 1988

So, 2008 – good for you?

Based on the big events in Music this year, if you have a mullet, have a favourite ‘axe’ player, drive a pick-up truck, or like a good mosh, then I’d guess it probably was.

You see, last year everybody was watching Sam Tyler go back to the 1970’s in BBC One’s smash hit ‘Life on Mars’. Then, all of a sudden, music was taken back to 1988.

Britney Spears? Britney Who more like. Yes, entered the year exposed lady-parts first with a hairdo modelled on swimmer Duncan Goodhew, but after being removed from the paparazzi’s gaze on a stretcher she disappeared off the radar.

I’m sure there were plenty of reality show wannabes littering the year like chip wrappers at a truck-stop cafe, but can you name any of them? Even the last dying gasp of the Cowell-machine in 2008 relied on Cohen’s own strain of rejoicing, inadvertently startling every music aficionado on the planet that it’s already been 14 years since Jeff Buckley made it his own when that cover reached number 2.

What’s been big on the gangster scene? Well, Jay Z looked as likely a booking at Glastonbury as Cliff Richard being booked for Hugh Heffner’s birthday bash, and the audience mutiny was nothing compared to the wrath of Gallagher brothers. Once the bad boys of ’90s rock, they looked less like ‘our kid’ and more like ‘our nan’ as they quietly muttered their outrage without even a victory solute to the camera.

In pop music Pete Waterman disappeared from reality shows and Steve Lamacq saw his target audience age overnight as he crossed the street with his mother’s permission from Radio 1 (does anyone still listen to that?) to Radio 2.

With so little going on you’d think 2008 had been a complete washout, with the exception of a 50 year-old man in a schoolboy outfit. Yes, the big album of 2008? ACDC with their first offering in 8 years. Okay, so Duffy outsold them in the end, but given that the average ACDC fan grew up in an age where you needed a small van to make your music portable, they were unlikely to be able to compete with downloads.

On the subject of downloads, Metallica sold 500k in the US alone of Death Magnetic, and found themselves headlining the Download Festival alongside an unlikely candidate. Surely needing less makeup and more polyfilla, Gene Simmons and Kiss successfully moved from the thing of the past to the thing of the moment. Oasis somehow managed to sneak a new album out without anyone taking a blind bit of notice, and Def Leapard made a successful escape from old age to do a quick stadium tour.

Just as you thought 2008 had finished with its faded leather jacket, cowboy boots, clack-dyed hair and eye-liner, the mullett came back as Axl Rose decided to stick two-fingers up at Dr Pepper and release a new Guns and Roses offering. Obviously we were supposed to believe Axl was the true depiction of Wagnerian artistry, a struggling sole working tirelessly for 15 years to release a musical offering worthy of Homer’s Odyssey. In any other year it would have been momentous, but surrounded by the other stadium zimmer-users it slightly paled in comparison. Still, the album’s title ensured at least 13billion Chinese residents stood up, took notice, and then sat back down again in case it was somehow seen as them making some kind of democratic Mexican wave.

So there you have it. Those boys from the mid-eighties Midlands were right, Pop Will Eat itself. Like a caterpillar who suddenly takes a fancy to eating his rear end, music is officially going backwards. Based on this, I predict 2009 will see Bananarama, Belinda Carlisle, Gloria Estefan and Cher making it big with stadium tours and keep fit dvds. Pop socks and leg warmers will be filling the racks of Marks and Spencers, and everyone will be taking dancing lessons from their Mum.

That said, today’s news was full of John Lennon being used to advertise laptops, so I can’t wait until 2010 when the Beatles will reform, and Buddy Holly and Glen Miller will find themselves stepping from the airport arrivals lounge and into the back of a waiting limo.

The mug that’s smug

Stuck for a last-minute gift for someone special?

Try this ‘topical mug‘.

Hard day at work? Early morning brew to kick-start your daily grind? Why not stir in a spoonful of sugar and a small lump of pessimism and doom in the form of the mug that, and at this point I quote the makers, ‘really stirs up the debate on global warming’.

Yes, as you kill the planet by switching on the kitchen light, opening the fridge door, and boiling the kettle in a huge drain on the world’s dwindling resources, you can be reminded instantly by your mug of how millions if not billions of the world’s inhabitants are going to drown as the sea rises.

PS For those of you taking part in the cookalong, now is the time to start the pudding boiling if you want it to be just the right consistency on Dec 25th. Re-baste the turkey at this point, and top-up the water in the ham pan.

Also, start the cheese sauce for the cauliflower, and start the congealing process for the gravy.

Brilliant.

The one with Mary travelling to Bethlehem on a Reindeer

Farewell Woolworths. It was good whilst it lasted. There was once a time when you could walk in and come out with some flying saucers, some non-drip white gloss, a new sailor outfit for your 6 month old niece, a toy car, de-icer for your real car, a Roy Chubby Brown dvd and a frying pan. Pretty much everything anyone would need in the average week. So where did it all go wrong? With everyone scared to walk past a discarded rucksack, there are few people who want to chance pick n mix with the sneezes of 24 passers-by on them. We don’t fry anymore, we grill for fear of a visit from the grim-reaper. Sailor boy outfits are gone in favour of Gap and DKNY Kids. Mr Chubby Brown is socially unacceptable. We all have uPvc windows and enough half-finished tins of paint to give the Severn bridge the once-over. Toy cars are a choking hazard and your local butchers is likely to sell the de-icer.

I can foresee one problem though – houses across the land will be ringing to the sound of four-letter expletives as everyone unpacks their Christmas tree lights to find one bulb has blown. Without Woolworths will Christmas become free of tack?

Every year we hear people complain that Christmas has lost its Biblical message. We hear it’s less about Mary and Joseph and more about Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh.

The thing is, Christmas is all about togetherness and Christmas tack is the glue that holds it all together. Middle-class Arga-users coast quietly around suburbs they’ve tried to avoid for the last 11 months as the children in the back of the BMW X3 stare out in jaw-dropping bewilderment at the 3-bed semi’s strewn from top to bottom with lights, inflatable santas and singing reindeer. People on a working lunch will sneer at the 12 inch high dancing Santa as it belts out a Bob Marley version of Jingle Bells in a nausiating loop, but they share a joke, crack a smile and the cogs of the working world will run a little easier. Travellers who would normally shout abuse at airline staff who have to inform them of fog, ice and delays will be softened by the fact the check-in staff have been forced to wear santa hats or plactic reindeer antlers that look like they’d be a bit too cheap to make it into the local Poundland.

So I have one Christmas Wish. I want to see more of this Christmas cross-pollenation. I want children struggling onstage with 6 fake legs on their lobster costume  in the school nativity. I want scenes of Mary travelling to Bethlehem on red-nosed reindeer. I want inflatable santas appearing from inflatable chimneys handing gifts to the three wise men. I want pictures of mangers in stables with a sleigh screaming across the sky above it.

With Woolworths disappearing in the new year we need to make an extra effort over the next few weeks. Lets keep the secular and sacred intertwined in a tacky composition of neon and warm electronics – it’s the only way to bring about the peace and harmony that lie at the heart of Christmas.

PS If you’re taking part in the Christmas cookalong, the turkey and sprouts should be doing nicely, but don’t forget to start boiling the ham ready for Boxing day now, and put a pan on ready for the Christmas pudding.

The Post of Christmas Present: Part 2

We’re not big on ecumenical conversations in our house, if I’m honest. As a child I liked ringing the bells of my grandparents church, but that was because I could work out how to play ‘Colours of Day’ using the 8 paddles that worked the bells. At school I can remember OfSted coming and commenting on the lack of any religious content in assemblies, and the following inspection a head of year was nervously sent up in front of us and the inspectors in an assembly to lecture us on the ‘good Samaritan’ and ‘oranges’. It also didn’t help being taught RE by a semi-retired woodwork teacher who, on broaching Judaism remarked that he thought one child in the class was Jewish because of his nose.

Like everyone, however, all ecumenical matters are addressed in late-night conversations:

[11:30pm, getting ready for bed]

Me: You know Paul?
Sarah: Which Paul?
Me: The one who wrote to the Corinthians.
Sarah: Um [clearly intrigued]… y-es…
Me: Did he know the Corinthians, or did he just write to them those few times unannounced?
Sarah: Well, he was originally called Saul…
Me: So, do you think he actually started his letter with, ‘Hi, it’s Paul. I’ve recently changed my name and thought you should update your address book’?
Sarah: Um… [looking disapprovingly] No.
Me: Oh, okay. But who did he address the letter to? You can’t just send a letter to a whole town. Not unless you photocopy it, but then you’d need loads of stamps…
Sarah: They didn’t have stamps in those days.
Me: No. But you know what I mean. I mean, he was writing to them generally, so do you think they just read his letter out loud in the middle on Corinth or something?
Sarah: [Clearly trying to steer the conversation away from this subject] Maybe?
Me: So, he wrote to them a bit like the Readers Digest, all out of the blue, and they read it aloud to everybody?
Sarah: Well, no. He was on a long journey of missionary work and was writing home…
Me: What? Like a postcard?
Sarah: Sort of.
Me: Oh… Okay.

[short pause of hopeful silence from Sarah]

Me: And another thing.
Sarah: Yes [sighing]
Me: If Mary and Joseph had a donkey and Joseph was a carpenter…
Sarah: Yes [at this point, I’m sure she rolled her eyes]
Me: Why didn’t he knock-them-up a cart of something to make the journey easier. Then they could have taken sleeping bags or something.
Sarah: Well, they were poor and…
Me: Okay. But he could have offered to do odd jobs at the hotel if they could have found him a room. Some floor boards or fencing or something like that…

The angry_cellist blog: The home of fine, in-depth discussion of the true story of Christmas.

PS If you’re taking part in my Christmas cookalong, you need to top up the water in the sprouts, and take the turkey out of the freezer to give it a few days to defrost.