What's the best way to deal with the youth of Britain? Hanging has a certain old-school appeal-- more humane than drawing and quartering but, when properly, um, executed, just as fatal. A firing squad, on the other hand is more festive. It involves more people, more pomp, more circumstance. And it has that son et lumiere thing going for it.
Oh no, I hear you saying, why must the youth of Britain be killed at all? Surely we can just flog them. To which I reply: Flogging is cruel, you heartless bastards. I won't have it.
What has brought on this burst of law and order in this liberal's suddenly-stony heart? Only having My Lovely Wife being told to "fuck off" yet again by yet another youth of Britain.
Now there are times when "fuck off" is the exact, appropriate response to a situation. If, for example, My Lovely Wife had pinned a British youth to the pavement and was slowly decanting a beaker of fire ants into his eyeballs. Or, less extremely, if she and the British youth were friends and joshed in that profane manner that friends sometimes do: "Give me a french fry, you twat." "Fuck off!"
But it was not the appropriate response when My Lovely Wife was riding her bicycle past a nearby car park a few months ago and saw a group of British youth attempting to destroy the wrought iron fence that was surrounding a tree, rocking it back and forth, trying to pull it from the ground. In a jocular manner she said, "C'mon, what's that tree ever done to you?" To which the British youth replied: "Fuck off!" They were 8 and 9 years old.
Nor was it the appropriate response last night when two British youth laughed after their unleashed dog ran into the street, almost toppling My Lovely Wife from her bicycle. She pointed out that the dog should be on a leash, lest both it and she be injured. They responded, with an originality and wit that Shakespeare and Shaw would have appreciated, "Fuck off!"
I am embarrassed to report--though I understand the impulse completely--that Ruth's response utilized one of their two words, and that word wasn't "off."
Such is the affect that British youth can have on you. Not all British youth, of course, but enough that walking down the street can convince you--what with the swearing and the aggression and the limpid pools of binge-drinking-induced vomit--that "Clockwork Orange" was a documentary.
The boys are marginally worse than the girls, but what the girls lack in foul-mouthed incipient ultra-violence they make up in hooker-shaming fashion. The Oxford Skankocracy, I call it: teased hair, kohl-rimmed eyes, trashy blouse, and either capillary-constricting jeans or a mini skirt so microscopic that it seems to have been designed to allow gynecological access. I count it a good day if I can make it to the High Street and back without seeing a stranger's genitals.
God I sound old, don't I?
"Thatcher's children" is how one English acquaintance described the youth of Britain. I couldn't quite follow his argument, but it involved how the go-go '80s infected their parents, whose quest for filthy lucre then caused them to ignore the basic tenets of parenting, which evidently includes teaching your children not to tell adults to fuck off.
Maybe that's true. All I know is that if one more spotty British youth in trainers and a hoodie tells my wife to ...well, you know, I shall be in the market for a rope.
Showing posts with label My Lovely Wife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Lovely Wife. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
Monday, 19 November 2007
I Reject You First: Fame, Fame, Fame...
Who's the most famous person you've ever met? I was having this conversation the other day with some of the other Reuters Fellows. It quickly became apparent--as they reeled off the names of movie stars, professional athletes and respected statesmen they had dined and vacationed with--that I don't get out enough.
Of course, it doesn't help that I live in Washington. "Hollywood for ugly people" is only one of the nicer epithets attached to the U.S. capital. Seeing Newt Gingrich at a Redskins game or watching Robert Reich cross the street just isn't the same as snorting cocaine off the back of a dolphin with Bono and the Dalai Lama at an Oscars after-party.
But who cares about famous people, besides, I mean, everybody? I'm more interested in people before they become famous. You know, stories that go: "And that ugly girl with braces who helped light my Bunsen burner in 10th grade chemistry? That's right, she became Scarlett Johansson."
Sadly, I don't have any of those stories, either. But I do have a story about how I know the editor of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson, who, I guess, passes for famous in the world of geek-publishing.
When I was in college my room mate, Pat, and I wanted to form a new wave band. He played guitar; I played the drums. All that was standing between us and musical world domination was the lack of a bass player. Anyone who's ever been in a rock band knows how hard it is to find a bass player. No one in his right mind starts out wanting to play bass and thus they are as rare as jockstraps at a nudist colony. We tried all the usual methods: ads in the paper, flyers up in music stores, word of mouth. Nothing seemed to work. (I remember carrying all my drums up to a loft in some group house to audition a midget hippie bass player. Seriously, he was like a perfectly-scaled down human, all beard and bellbottoms and flannel shirt. Needless to say, it didn't work out. [That man? That's right, he became Scarlett Johansson.])
Our leads exhausted, Pat and I thought it might be easier to grow a grow a bass player ourselves in a hydroponic garden. Then, a lead: Pat and I had started going to a new nightclub downtown, an atmospheric dump on F Street NW called the 930 club. We'd primp in front of the mirror in our Langley Park apartment, making sure our skinny ties were on right, our Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello buttons arranged just so on our lapels. We'd drive downtown in his Plymouth Duster or my Mercury Comet, then smoke Camels, drink beer or gin ad tonics, and dance, occasionally with girls.
One night Pat went by himself and when he returned early in the morning he announced that he'd found a bass player. It was like hearing Arthur describe how he'd pulled Excalibur from out of a rock. There'd been a skinny guy leaning against one of the pillars at the 930 club. For some reason, he caught Pat's eye. He had the right look. Pat struck up a conversation, eventually asking if he'd like to play bass in a new wave band called the Item. Yes, he said. He didn't actually play the bass, but he had one and sort of wanted to learn. He even had a place to practice. He lived at home in Glen Echo, a funky but affluent Maryland suburb of Washington, and he was sure his parents wouldn't mind us playing there. His name was Greg Anderson. (Why does the world know him as "Chris"? I'll get to that.)
The Beatles created the rock and roll band myth and they also destroyed it. Every band wants their life to be "A Hard Day's Night" and it is impossible to achieve. There's a sadness when you realize that. Still, we persevered, after a fashion, carting our instruments to Greg's living room. Greg wasn't what you'd call a natural musician but Pat taught him where to put his fingers to pluck out what was needed for our somewhat uncomplicated songs. We'd go see bands together. Greg spent a night on the floor of our apartment.
We played a ramshackle gig in the basement of a dorm at the University of Maryland (where an attractive, if shrill, co-ed complained that we were too loud [that woman? That's right; she became My Lovely Wife {really!}]). Our proper debut was in December 1980, at a tiny downtown club called d.c. space. It was part of something called the Unheard Music Festival.
One of the great rock divides separates bands into those who like to wear matching outfits and those who don't. Pat and I were in the former (see "Hard Day's Night, above). I'm not saying Greg was adamantly on the other side of the schism, but I think he grumbled a bit when we asked if he would wear a striped shirt. None of us had the exact same striped shirt--Pat's was orange and white and collared; mine was an old soccer shirt, green and white; Greg's was blue and white and striped horizontally--but we were going for a look and I think that smacked of artifice, offending Greg's sensibilities.
You see, the outfit thing is just an indicator of where you fall on the pop-punk continuum. I like the Clash. I like the Sex Pistols. But I make no apologies for wanting to be the Beatles or, in a pinch, the Partridge Family. Greg showed up at the gig with his hair newly-bleached and spiked and an "X" emblazoned across the front of his Rickenbacker 4003 bass in white athletic tape. Greg didn't want to be in the Beatles.
There exists a black and white videotape of the Item's performance at the Unheard Music Festival. I have a copy back home, in Washington. We aren't bad, actually. We were certainly the only mildly poppy band on the bill, one of only a few not to do a 1-minute, 15-second version of the Monkees' "Stepping Stone." (One of the bands that did, a little combo called Minor Threat, wouldn't be unheard for much longer.)
But the night belonged to punk. Greg broke a string on the last song (a bass string; that doesn't happen often). A few days later he told us he didn't think he was a good fit for the Item.
Bands are funny things, roiling balls of ego and creativity, madness and humor. Good ones are more than just units that can play notes or keep beats. They're organisms that open up to one another and live and breathe as one. When one person wants to leave, it hurts. Because music is so elemental, rejecting it is like saying you don't like someone's soul. That's why band splits are so fractious, like the bitterest divorce. Civilians might be amazed by the rancor and vitriol that attends something like the Eddie Van Halen/David Lee Roth battles. Anyone who's spent any time in a band just gives a sad and knowing nod.
Pat and I cursed Greg to each other, but he'd been right. We weren't a good fit. Greg want on to join a band called Egoslavia that was kind of Talking Heads lite. They released an album locally and even opened for the Psychedelic Furs at the University of Maryland's student union. There must not have been any hard feelings, since Greg put Pat and me on the guest list. Or, rather, Chris did. He'd had to change his name because the leader of Egoslavia was named Greg.
The Item found a replacement bass player, a 15-year-old wunderkind named Eric who was sensational, much better than we deserved. Then we played a lot of Thursday-night gigs not opening for the Psychedelic Furs.
I touched base with Chris Anderson when he was working for the Economist and was back in town to visit his family. Next I heard he'd become editor of Wired (a magazine so cool that in its early days it had a design that rendered it practically unreadable, as if to actually read the articles would in some way sully them).
Not that Item veterans are slackers. Eric had to leave the band when he graduated from high school. He want on to earn his PhD from MIT in the history of science and works in academia in Cambridge, Mass. His replacement, Tim, teaches economics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Pat does something I don't quite understand for Freddie Mac, the home loan outfit. After 10 years he picked up his guitar again and now plays all around Washington with an acclaimed rockabilly band he put together called Western Bop. I'm a journalist, though not as famous a one as Chris Anderson. And I still play the drums.
If you poke around online you will find Chris Anderson talking about his musical experience. He focuses on the art-punk of Egoslavia, not the power pop of the Item. But trust me: I once made him wear a matching outfit.
Of course, it doesn't help that I live in Washington. "Hollywood for ugly people" is only one of the nicer epithets attached to the U.S. capital. Seeing Newt Gingrich at a Redskins game or watching Robert Reich cross the street just isn't the same as snorting cocaine off the back of a dolphin with Bono and the Dalai Lama at an Oscars after-party.
But who cares about famous people, besides, I mean, everybody? I'm more interested in people before they become famous. You know, stories that go: "And that ugly girl with braces who helped light my Bunsen burner in 10th grade chemistry? That's right, she became Scarlett Johansson."
Sadly, I don't have any of those stories, either. But I do have a story about how I know the editor of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson, who, I guess, passes for famous in the world of geek-publishing.
When I was in college my room mate, Pat, and I wanted to form a new wave band. He played guitar; I played the drums. All that was standing between us and musical world domination was the lack of a bass player. Anyone who's ever been in a rock band knows how hard it is to find a bass player. No one in his right mind starts out wanting to play bass and thus they are as rare as jockstraps at a nudist colony. We tried all the usual methods: ads in the paper, flyers up in music stores, word of mouth. Nothing seemed to work. (I remember carrying all my drums up to a loft in some group house to audition a midget hippie bass player. Seriously, he was like a perfectly-scaled down human, all beard and bellbottoms and flannel shirt. Needless to say, it didn't work out. [That man? That's right, he became Scarlett Johansson.])
Our leads exhausted, Pat and I thought it might be easier to grow a grow a bass player ourselves in a hydroponic garden. Then, a lead: Pat and I had started going to a new nightclub downtown, an atmospheric dump on F Street NW called the 930 club. We'd primp in front of the mirror in our Langley Park apartment, making sure our skinny ties were on right, our Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello buttons arranged just so on our lapels. We'd drive downtown in his Plymouth Duster or my Mercury Comet, then smoke Camels, drink beer or gin ad tonics, and dance, occasionally with girls.
One night Pat went by himself and when he returned early in the morning he announced that he'd found a bass player. It was like hearing Arthur describe how he'd pulled Excalibur from out of a rock. There'd been a skinny guy leaning against one of the pillars at the 930 club. For some reason, he caught Pat's eye. He had the right look. Pat struck up a conversation, eventually asking if he'd like to play bass in a new wave band called the Item. Yes, he said. He didn't actually play the bass, but he had one and sort of wanted to learn. He even had a place to practice. He lived at home in Glen Echo, a funky but affluent Maryland suburb of Washington, and he was sure his parents wouldn't mind us playing there. His name was Greg Anderson. (Why does the world know him as "Chris"? I'll get to that.)
The Beatles created the rock and roll band myth and they also destroyed it. Every band wants their life to be "A Hard Day's Night" and it is impossible to achieve. There's a sadness when you realize that. Still, we persevered, after a fashion, carting our instruments to Greg's living room. Greg wasn't what you'd call a natural musician but Pat taught him where to put his fingers to pluck out what was needed for our somewhat uncomplicated songs. We'd go see bands together. Greg spent a night on the floor of our apartment.
We played a ramshackle gig in the basement of a dorm at the University of Maryland (where an attractive, if shrill, co-ed complained that we were too loud [that woman? That's right; she became My Lovely Wife {really!}]). Our proper debut was in December 1980, at a tiny downtown club called d.c. space. It was part of something called the Unheard Music Festival.
One of the great rock divides separates bands into those who like to wear matching outfits and those who don't. Pat and I were in the former (see "Hard Day's Night, above). I'm not saying Greg was adamantly on the other side of the schism, but I think he grumbled a bit when we asked if he would wear a striped shirt. None of us had the exact same striped shirt--Pat's was orange and white and collared; mine was an old soccer shirt, green and white; Greg's was blue and white and striped horizontally--but we were going for a look and I think that smacked of artifice, offending Greg's sensibilities.
You see, the outfit thing is just an indicator of where you fall on the pop-punk continuum. I like the Clash. I like the Sex Pistols. But I make no apologies for wanting to be the Beatles or, in a pinch, the Partridge Family. Greg showed up at the gig with his hair newly-bleached and spiked and an "X" emblazoned across the front of his Rickenbacker 4003 bass in white athletic tape. Greg didn't want to be in the Beatles.
There exists a black and white videotape of the Item's performance at the Unheard Music Festival. I have a copy back home, in Washington. We aren't bad, actually. We were certainly the only mildly poppy band on the bill, one of only a few not to do a 1-minute, 15-second version of the Monkees' "Stepping Stone." (One of the bands that did, a little combo called Minor Threat, wouldn't be unheard for much longer.)
But the night belonged to punk. Greg broke a string on the last song (a bass string; that doesn't happen often). A few days later he told us he didn't think he was a good fit for the Item.
Bands are funny things, roiling balls of ego and creativity, madness and humor. Good ones are more than just units that can play notes or keep beats. They're organisms that open up to one another and live and breathe as one. When one person wants to leave, it hurts. Because music is so elemental, rejecting it is like saying you don't like someone's soul. That's why band splits are so fractious, like the bitterest divorce. Civilians might be amazed by the rancor and vitriol that attends something like the Eddie Van Halen/David Lee Roth battles. Anyone who's spent any time in a band just gives a sad and knowing nod.
Pat and I cursed Greg to each other, but he'd been right. We weren't a good fit. Greg want on to join a band called Egoslavia that was kind of Talking Heads lite. They released an album locally and even opened for the Psychedelic Furs at the University of Maryland's student union. There must not have been any hard feelings, since Greg put Pat and me on the guest list. Or, rather, Chris did. He'd had to change his name because the leader of Egoslavia was named Greg.
The Item found a replacement bass player, a 15-year-old wunderkind named Eric who was sensational, much better than we deserved. Then we played a lot of Thursday-night gigs not opening for the Psychedelic Furs.
I touched base with Chris Anderson when he was working for the Economist and was back in town to visit his family. Next I heard he'd become editor of Wired (a magazine so cool that in its early days it had a design that rendered it practically unreadable, as if to actually read the articles would in some way sully them).
Not that Item veterans are slackers. Eric had to leave the band when he graduated from high school. He want on to earn his PhD from MIT in the history of science and works in academia in Cambridge, Mass. His replacement, Tim, teaches economics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Pat does something I don't quite understand for Freddie Mac, the home loan outfit. After 10 years he picked up his guitar again and now plays all around Washington with an acclaimed rockabilly band he put together called Western Bop. I'm a journalist, though not as famous a one as Chris Anderson. And I still play the drums.
If you poke around online you will find Chris Anderson talking about his musical experience. He focuses on the art-punk of Egoslavia, not the power pop of the Item. But trust me: I once made him wear a matching outfit.
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Dirty Laundry
Someday I'll have more to say about the Daily Mail, Britain's most popular newspaper. Today, though, I want to concentrate on a story it's following about an inquest into the demise of one Andrew Chubb, a judge who in 2001 burned to death inside a shed behind his country house in Chard, Somerset.
This story has so much going for it: The name "Chubb." The name "Chard." The country house. The mistress. The laundry. It positively reeks of Englishness, crying out for a Miss Marple to start poking around in the ashes.
Wait a minute, I hear you asking, the mistress? The laundry? What's up with that?
In a nutshell, shortly after Judge Chubb told his wife of 34 years, Jenny, that he'd been having an affair and wanted a divorce, 20-foot, gas-fueled flames were engulfing their garden shed. Judge Chubb had the misfortune to be inside. As he was being transformed into a human bratwurst, it was reported, his wife calmly took the washing in off the line. "If her husband was in the shed, why was she bothered about the washing?" said neighbor Peter Evans, who testified at the inquest.
Why indeed, Mr. Evans (as Miss Marple might say).
Jenny Chubb received an insurance payout and moved to Australia, where she now is dating Michael Palin, or a man that looks incredibly like him.
But let us pause for a moment. I will not condemn Jenny Chubb merely for taking the washing in off the line while her husband was roasted to death. Since we've moved to England we have become obsessed with laundry and making sure it gets dry. When I say "we" I mean My Lovely Wife, for I have studiously avoided learning how to operate the incredibly complicated washing machine nestled in the kitchen. All I know is, Ruth does the laundry every single day. And since she dries it on the line, she is incredibly attuned to the vagaries of the weather, ready to whip the clothes down at a moment's notice.
A laundry-related compulsion is not a capital offense in this country. It is a smart bet.
What I found oddly touching about Andrew Chubb's final hours on this Earth was this line from the Mail story: "The 58-year-old father of three died in a fireball less than 90 minutes after telling his wife he wanted a divorce and walking out to mow the lawn."
Emphasis added. What a sad domestic tableau. The bad news delivered--and surely Mrs. Chubb must have suspected: the long hours at work, the weekend travel to "conferences," the hushed mobile phone conversations, the stray hair picked from his coat jacket--Mr. Chubb set about tidying his garden. Why, if the tables had been turned--if it had been Mrs. Chubb inside a burning shed--I'm sure he would have done the same, calmly cutting the grass in the summer sunshine.
This story has so much going for it: The name "Chubb." The name "Chard." The country house. The mistress. The laundry. It positively reeks of Englishness, crying out for a Miss Marple to start poking around in the ashes.
Wait a minute, I hear you asking, the mistress? The laundry? What's up with that?
In a nutshell, shortly after Judge Chubb told his wife of 34 years, Jenny, that he'd been having an affair and wanted a divorce, 20-foot, gas-fueled flames were engulfing their garden shed. Judge Chubb had the misfortune to be inside. As he was being transformed into a human bratwurst, it was reported, his wife calmly took the washing in off the line. "If her husband was in the shed, why was she bothered about the washing?" said neighbor Peter Evans, who testified at the inquest.
Why indeed, Mr. Evans (as Miss Marple might say).
Jenny Chubb received an insurance payout and moved to Australia, where she now is dating Michael Palin, or a man that looks incredibly like him.
But let us pause for a moment. I will not condemn Jenny Chubb merely for taking the washing in off the line while her husband was roasted to death. Since we've moved to England we have become obsessed with laundry and making sure it gets dry. When I say "we" I mean My Lovely Wife, for I have studiously avoided learning how to operate the incredibly complicated washing machine nestled in the kitchen. All I know is, Ruth does the laundry every single day. And since she dries it on the line, she is incredibly attuned to the vagaries of the weather, ready to whip the clothes down at a moment's notice.
A laundry-related compulsion is not a capital offense in this country. It is a smart bet.
What I found oddly touching about Andrew Chubb's final hours on this Earth was this line from the Mail story: "The 58-year-old father of three died in a fireball less than 90 minutes after telling his wife he wanted a divorce and walking out to mow the lawn."
Emphasis added. What a sad domestic tableau. The bad news delivered--and surely Mrs. Chubb must have suspected: the long hours at work, the weekend travel to "conferences," the hushed mobile phone conversations, the stray hair picked from his coat jacket--Mr. Chubb set about tidying his garden. Why, if the tables had been turned--if it had been Mrs. Chubb inside a burning shed--I'm sure he would have done the same, calmly cutting the grass in the summer sunshine.
Monday, 1 October 2007
Blessed Are the Cheesemakers
"I have a feeling I'm going to eat my weight in cheese today."
That's a comment I overheard Saturday at the Great British Cheese Festival. It about sums up the day: cheese, cheese and more cheese. We're talking cow milk cheese, goat milk cheese and sheep's milk cheese; cheddar, Wensleydale, Stilton, Caerphilly.... Specially-trained cheese experts were judging cheeses in all sorts of categories, from "Semi-Soft" to something called "Modern British: Hard."
The names of the individual cheeses show what poets the British are: Norfolk Dapple, Dorset Blue Vinny, Extra Mature Smoked Gubbeen, St. Tola Fresh Crottin, Celtic Promise (a bronze winner in the semi-soft rind-washed category), Cornish Yarg, Old Sarum, Stinking Bishop.....
How'd you like a nice slice of Stinking Bishop?
I could tell you about the festival, and some of the cheesephiles I met there, but I've decided to show you. Here's my first Voxford Video:
I've also put the video on YouTube (if it isn't up yet, it should be soon, once it's done processing; I'm new to this Web video stuff):
I hope this doesn't make you too hungry. What was my favorite cheese? Smoked Lincolnshire Poacher. It's a cheddar-style cheese, lightly smoked. It was fabulous.
That's a comment I overheard Saturday at the Great British Cheese Festival. It about sums up the day: cheese, cheese and more cheese. We're talking cow milk cheese, goat milk cheese and sheep's milk cheese; cheddar, Wensleydale, Stilton, Caerphilly.... Specially-trained cheese experts were judging cheeses in all sorts of categories, from "Semi-Soft" to something called "Modern British: Hard."
The names of the individual cheeses show what poets the British are: Norfolk Dapple, Dorset Blue Vinny, Extra Mature Smoked Gubbeen, St. Tola Fresh Crottin, Celtic Promise (a bronze winner in the semi-soft rind-washed category), Cornish Yarg, Old Sarum, Stinking Bishop.....
How'd you like a nice slice of Stinking Bishop?
I could tell you about the festival, and some of the cheesephiles I met there, but I've decided to show you. Here's my first Voxford Video:
I've also put the video on YouTube (if it isn't up yet, it should be soon, once it's done processing; I'm new to this Web video stuff):
I hope this doesn't make you too hungry. What was my favorite cheese? Smoked Lincolnshire Poacher. It's a cheddar-style cheese, lightly smoked. It was fabulous.
Friday, 28 September 2007
Friday Grab Bag
Just a few short bits and bobs today, as we slide into the weekend. First up:
Meet Rechie, the King of Kustomer Service
My Lovely Wife has been trying to extract some information from the online payment site PayPal--namely, whether we can set up an account in two different currencies, dollars and pounds. Here is the entire text of the e-mail she got back from PayPal in response to her question:
>Dear Ruth,
>
>Hello my name is Rechie, I am sorry to hear about the situation
>regarding (Briefly repeat the members situation), and understand your
>frustration and concern over this issue. I am happy to assist you with
>your questions.
>
>If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.
>
>Sincerely,
>Rechie
>PayPal Consumer Support
>PayPal, an eBay Company
I think I'm going to use that when dealing with any problem I may encounter. Rather than articulate the dilemma, I'll just say "Briefly repeat the members situation."
Not Their Piano Forte
A story in yesterday's Guardian caught my eye. The Bosendorfer piano factory in Austria has donated a $170,000 concert grand to a classical music festival taking place in the wilds of Exmoor and Dartmoor. This piano replaces a Bosendorfer that festival organizers had spent years raising funds for. What happened to that one? This is what happened.
I think this quote says it all: "Mr Adie, 61, said that the piano's workings would be examined but it was impossible to believe that the 10,000 working parts would have survived the impact."
My Lucky Number
I got my first Oxford hair cut this week. Because everything is so expensive around here, I'm determined to save money wherever possible. I pay $35 for a haircut in Washington. But that's because I go to a hairdresser, not a barber. Prices at hairdressers near my house in Oxford are comparable to that--18 pounds for a man's cut--but I can't bring myself to shell out that much. I hear there's a barber college somewhere--that's what I really want; maybe they'll pay me--but I haven't found it yet. So instead I went to Cowley Road.
Cowley Road is a diverse, if somewhat shabby, street in East Oxford. It's where we bought our bikes and where I bought some drumsticks. It's where the biggest music club in Oxford is. And supposedly where the junkies and prostitutes hang out. In other words, perfect for an economical haircut.
I found a place, Youssef's, that charges only 9 pounds. Youssef asked what I wanted. I described the haircut: short, but not too short; a little longer at the front; keep the pathetic, vestigial sideburns. "You want a Number 4," said Youssef.
"I guess," I said. I looked around to see if there was a chart on the wall showing various styles, each one carefully numbered. There was none. Youssef fired up his electric clippers.
It turns out British barbers use a uniform system to describe the setting on their clippers. Number 1 is basically bald. Number 2 is a teensy bit longer. And Number 4? Let's just say I have the shortest hair I've had since I was born. It should definitely save me money, though. I won't need to spend another 9 pounds for about six months.
Have a great weekend and good luck surviving any impacts you may encounter.
Meet Rechie, the King of Kustomer Service
My Lovely Wife has been trying to extract some information from the online payment site PayPal--namely, whether we can set up an account in two different currencies, dollars and pounds. Here is the entire text of the e-mail she got back from PayPal in response to her question:
>Dear Ruth,
>
>Hello my name is Rechie, I am sorry to hear about the situation
>regarding (Briefly repeat the members situation), and understand your
>frustration and concern over this issue. I am happy to assist you with
>your questions.
>
>If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.
>
>Sincerely,
>Rechie
>PayPal Consumer Support
>PayPal, an eBay Company
I think I'm going to use that when dealing with any problem I may encounter. Rather than articulate the dilemma, I'll just say "Briefly repeat the members situation."
Not Their Piano Forte
A story in yesterday's Guardian caught my eye. The Bosendorfer piano factory in Austria has donated a $170,000 concert grand to a classical music festival taking place in the wilds of Exmoor and Dartmoor. This piano replaces a Bosendorfer that festival organizers had spent years raising funds for. What happened to that one? This is what happened.
I think this quote says it all: "Mr Adie, 61, said that the piano's workings would be examined but it was impossible to believe that the 10,000 working parts would have survived the impact."
My Lucky Number
I got my first Oxford hair cut this week. Because everything is so expensive around here, I'm determined to save money wherever possible. I pay $35 for a haircut in Washington. But that's because I go to a hairdresser, not a barber. Prices at hairdressers near my house in Oxford are comparable to that--18 pounds for a man's cut--but I can't bring myself to shell out that much. I hear there's a barber college somewhere--that's what I really want; maybe they'll pay me--but I haven't found it yet. So instead I went to Cowley Road.
Cowley Road is a diverse, if somewhat shabby, street in East Oxford. It's where we bought our bikes and where I bought some drumsticks. It's where the biggest music club in Oxford is. And supposedly where the junkies and prostitutes hang out. In other words, perfect for an economical haircut.
I found a place, Youssef's, that charges only 9 pounds. Youssef asked what I wanted. I described the haircut: short, but not too short; a little longer at the front; keep the pathetic, vestigial sideburns. "You want a Number 4," said Youssef.
"I guess," I said. I looked around to see if there was a chart on the wall showing various styles, each one carefully numbered. There was none. Youssef fired up his electric clippers.
It turns out British barbers use a uniform system to describe the setting on their clippers. Number 1 is basically bald. Number 2 is a teensy bit longer. And Number 4? Let's just say I have the shortest hair I've had since I was born. It should definitely save me money, though. I won't need to spend another 9 pounds for about six months.
Have a great weekend and good luck surviving any impacts you may encounter.
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Sew What?
Should I be concerned that My Lovely Wife has lugged home a 1928 hand-operated Singer sewing machine that weighs as much as a boat anchor and is probably just as useful? And a scratchy wool horse blanket, despite the fact that, as far as I can tell, we do not own a horse? And that yesterday she made me lash a cork bulletin board to my bicycle and carry it through the streets of Oxford to our home?
Should this bizarrely acquisitive behavior worry me? Maybe, but I think I understand it. See, three weeks ago we moved to Oxford from our comfortable suburban Washington home, a home filled with a surplus of stuff, anything we could possibly ever want or need. And though our house here in Oxford is furnished, it isn't what you'd call overfurnished. While I am content to muddle through ("There's only four of us; do we really need more than four plates?"), she is determined to assemble a full complement of staples.
Then, too, there is the fact that My Lovely Wife has too much time on her hands, time that she must fill somehow. She's decided to fill some of it by grazing through the Oxford Freecycle listings, the Web site for second-hand items that people would rather give to a good home than throw away.
The cork board? Our daughters aren't allowed to put up posters, but they may hang one picture. A bulletin board should allow them to decorate a bit and still get us our security deposit back. The horse blanket? Ruth is convinced a hard winter is on the way and that our linen closet is lacking. Then there's the sewing machine....
First of all, Ruth is a wonderful seamstress. She can sew anything. I used to daydream about owning a polka-dot shirt like one I saw Ringo Starr wearing in a photo. Ruth made me one for Father's Day. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a shirt? It almost broke her--Ruth's eye still twitches every time I say the word "placket"--but she did it.
Our 14-year-old daughter's school is having something called "Book Character Day," where students dress up as characters from books. When confronted with an assignment like this, Beatrice doesn't think in terms of "What's my favorite fictional character?" She thinks, "What would be the coolest outfit to wear?" A simple Nancy Drew twin-set would not do. She decided on Scarlett O'Hara's dress from "Gone With the Wind."
Oxford is the thrift shop (or "charity shop") capital of England so Ruth was able to pick up a few patterned bedsheets for a couple of quid. An ancient, hand-cranked sewing machine showed up on Freecycle and she snapped it up. She will need to take it apart, clean it, oil it, and put it back together again.
Ruth is slowly filling our house with objects she has salvaged. I wouldn't be surprised if I came home one day to find a crockpot, a snooker table and a stuffed crocodile in our living room. It should bother me, but frankly my dear....well, you know.
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