Preparing for my singing lesson tomorrow, I was struck by this lovely song, Waterloo Sunset. The meaning of the lyrics can seem very different from its original meaning in this strange time of lockdown.
They are evocative lyrics at any time. I have loved this song since I first came across it as a teenager.
It also occurred to me that this song mentions two of my ThreadMash friends, Terry and Julie.
Last week at ThreadMash, in addition to some business with satsumas, Rohan encouraged us all to sing Geraldine by Ian Dury and the Blockheads to one of our number, Geraldine, with predictably hilarious results given the latency on Zoom and Rohan’s technical “mastery”, or lack thereof, viz sound engineering.
Anyway, I’ve found a song that mentions two Theadmash people. That has to be a good thing. Waterloo Sunset. I hope I do it justice. Here it is again:
…whose real first and second names are lost to posterity. I believe it was on that fateful day with Fuzz that I bought the sampler album, Fill Your Head With Rock, which included my first Moondog track, Stamping Ground.
In truth I paid Moondog’s music only occasional heed until 10-12 years ago, when Janie and I began exploring Jazz. But Moondog’s story has long fascinated me and I have always associated him and his music with New York.
To my mind, Moondog’s music is the second most quintessential New York music.
So I was surprised, when I started researching this piece, to learn that Moondog was not a native New Yorker. Louis Thomas Hardin, known as Moondog, haled from Kansas. He moved to New York City at the age of 27 and lived there for only 30 of his 83 years. Moondog moved to Germany in the early 1970s, where he lived out his remaining decades.
Of course this doesn’t take away from the fact that Moondog was known as The Viking Of 6th Avenue. Nor from the fact that Moondog’s music is unquestionably inspired by a glorious mixture of New York City’s ethnic sounds. But authentic New Yorker, he wasn’t.
So, if Moondog is merely the second most quintessential New York sound ever, what, to my mind, is THE most quintessential? Ah, well, that comes down to my own New York experience.
My first ever visit to New York was in November 1989 at the age of 27, the same age as Moondog when he moved to New York. Coincidence strongly links my New York timeline with Moondog’s; he made a rare visit to New York, for his last major gig there. that very month.
It seemed to be played everywhere, all the time, while I was in New York. It is said to be the first hip-house hit and has been described as a dance masterpiece. Just listen to those amazing accents; New York, African-American Vernacular. That’s authentic, no?
No. When I returned to the UK with my copy of Pump Up The Jam proudly in hand and played it to my half-Belgian friend, Daniel Scordel, suggesting that it was THE New York sound, Daniel told me that his kid sister reliably informed him that Technotronic was a Belgian act.
Googling now informs me that Felly, the “featured artiste” was in fact a Congolese model who lip-synced on the video and posed for the cover of the Belgian record as a marketing ploy. The actual singer with the “authentic” New York accent was Ya Kid K, an androgynous-looking Congolese-Belgian woman, who was also a co-author of the song. Worse yet, the hip-house genre is said to cross-fertilise Chicago & London styles. Not New York.
In truth, the late 1980’s was not exactly a golden age for authentic popular music. Consider the Eurodance chart topper just before I set off for New York, Ride On Time, Italian in this case; an even messier mix of lip-synching models in the vid…
I did have a holiday romance on that trip, but not with Moose – you need to read between the lines of that write up to find it. Instead, Moose was a superb guide; a charming & fun companion in New York. We became firm friends. I resolved to return the guiding favour when Moose was due to come to London the following year.
But that favour was not to be returned. In June 1990, I was felled by a serious back injury; multiple prolapses in my lower back. Don’t talk to me about lockdown. This was a solo lockdown; my world got smaller for many months. Everyone else was out there having a good time while I was in excruciating pain, alone in my flat, rehabilitating.
It’s at times like those when you find out who your friends are. Many of my long-standing friends turned out to be true friends. So did Moose. Moose still wanted to see me. Moose would bring in shopping for me. Moose spent happy times with me in my confined world. Moose turned out to be an authentic friend.
Now I know what some of you are thinking. You recall the story of Fuzz, whose real first and second names remain a mystery. Is Moose similarly obscure? Is this Harris bloke a specialist in befriending young women with monosyllabic nicknames, enabling them conveniently to vanish without trace?
In Moose’s case, we did lose touch with each other after she returned to the States, but I did know her real names and I knew where she lived.
So in late 2019, while writing up my New York adventures, Mr Google helped me find her. It took me about three minutes. Not bad, considering she now goes by her married name and has moved to California.
She has 24 children…Meet:
Felly Kilingi, former Congolese model…no no no…Meet:…Loleatta Holloway, the late great unsung samples singer…no, no, no… Meet:
Mara has 24 different children every year. Mara is a primary school teacher.
The next few lines are dialogue.
MARA: “I am so glad that you contacted me. I’ve thought about you over the years and wondered how you were doing…I’m amazed that you found me…It’s so nice to hear from you.”
ME: “I’m so pleased that you are glad to hear from me…Are you still known as Moose?
MOOSE: “…very few friends still call me Moose. However…I seemed to have accidentally developed a Moose themed classroom, so I usually end up with students calling me Professor Moose.”
Linda Massey pulled out all the stops to get us back on court day one of the Covid-19 partial unlocking . Thanks Linda.
I was the second person to log on and book, but while Alfred went for a leisurely 11:00 booking, the only slot we could do on a busy day of work, FoodCycle charity round and Virtual Glad performance (all to come) was 10:00.
So we were the first people back on court. Yah boo.
As you can see from the headline photo, I couldn’t even remember what to do with the tennis bag – I look utterly bewildered as indeed I was.
Court Two has not been vandalised – it has been decommissioned while social distancing remains in full force.
You can even tell from the pictures that Janie was up for it to a greater extent than me. She took the first set 6-2. I started to come back second set, leading 5-3 when it was time for us to leave.
Normally, of course, the next pair on need to drag us off the court kicking and screaming because we still want to play.
But on this occasion, due to social distancing, we politely yielded the court, donning gloves and wipes to ensure that the gate handle is kept as germ free as possible.
We saw several of the regular dog walkers who waved at us and we waved back. We even exchanged a few words at extreme distance which I’m sure is not a breach of the spirit or even the letter of the social distancing rules.
It really is great to be back on court at Boston Manor. Thanks again to Linda Massey for organising it so quickly.
This is an exciting moment in our tennis lives, as the Boston Manor courts are set to reopen after lockdown. Daisy and I are allowed to play again.
Have we merely been sitting on our bottoms biding our time? Have we heck.
When it seemed inevitable that lockdown was about to happen, I got ordering on-line, so a variety of tennis-oriented gizmos have been trickling through the system to us over the last couple of months.
The first manifestation of the “tennis ball on an elastic string” training device was not a great success. The base was fine, but the “string” was an elastic band and the ball seemed to be made of cardboard rather than vulcanised rubber.
It lasted about five minutes.
Fortunately I had already ordered some more robust-looking varieties which trickled through in early April. The depicted version is one of two we now have, using a proper elasticated string and balls that have some durability.
If you look carefully in the background of the above picture you can also see the other device I bought, which is far less fun but it helps you to work on technique. The ball is static but it won’t move the way you want it to move unless you apply, for example, top spin or cut properly.
Actually it is especially good for practicing cut. I’ll probably persevere with this device with my real tennis racket once we are back on the modern courts with the modern rackets. So my real tennis friends should watch out when (if) we get back onto the real tennis court.
As usual Daisy looks more elegant, stylish and (let’s be honest) balanced, even when playing with this elasticated string thing and its erratic bounce.
But it’s not all been about modern tennis in the back yard – dear me no.
We’ve played table tennis pretty much every day of lockdown and my game has improved quite a bit. Before lockdown, Janie was, for sure, better than me at table tennis and always had been.
By the end of lockdown, I think it is fair to say that we are playing level.
I filmed just over 11 minutes of our last match before the end of lockdown:
Unfortunately the camera runs out of film as the scores are about to draw level at 3-3 in the decider, so this film is only for aficionados of the game…well, not even for them, frankly.
Daisy and Ged might want to see it again in their dotage.
Some people might want to watch some of it for a laugh.
If by any chance there are Ogblog readers desperate to know how this match ended, we have a team of operatives standing by (Daisy and Ged) to provide personalised responses to e-mail requests, e.g. for the final score or even for a blow-by-blow account of the closing salvos.
Wendy, Mark & David saying, “hello in there”,Nightingale, 1979
Youth Club & Director’s Cut, 3 May 2020
These last few weeks we have had regular youth club Zoom gatherings on a Sunday, which have surprising amounts in common with the gatherings more than 40 years ago.
Sunday 3rd May was another such gathering. The soap opera that is the “social distancing rabbits” story (click link here or above if you are interested) took on yet another twist, as the buck appears to have broken the social distancing rules for a few moments; all that is required, apparently, potentially to initiate another brood.
Coincidentally, much of the discussion prior to the rabbit saga had focussed on offspring, be it children or grand-children, the latter being very recent or imminent in several cases.
Even more coincidentally, I was distracted for some of the Zoom on this occasion by virtue of having been invited to a Zoom Bris in Texas by another old BBYO friend, who became a doting grandfather a few days earlier. Having not experienced a bris since my own, I was intrigued and wanted to join the ceremony, which was timed to start at the same time as youth club. I followed the former surreptitiously on my mobile phone. It’s the sort of thing young folk do in face-to-face meetings, after all.
After the ceremony, I confessed to the specifics of my two-timing activity. One of our number, from the education sector, fretted about safeguarding issues arising from a Zoom bris. I felt bound to assure him and the others that all I could really see was doting parents, a blissfully unaware baby and a few other attendees. In short, I think the director/camera-dude said “cut!” at the vital moment.
I’ll give youth club my undivided next time. “Undivided what?”, I hear you cry.
Hitting The High Notes With Lydia White, 5 May 2020
Today was my second lesson with Lydia and I must say that I feel that I am making progress very rapidly. Not that I’ll ever be a great singer, but there are some basics of technique that are enabling me to get a lot more out of my voice for less effort. Most importantly, I am really enjoying the process of learning and practicing. Janie says she can hear a great deal of improvement, which is remarkable in such a short period of time…and given that Janie wears anti-noise earmuffs whenever I sing. OK I made up the bit about earmuffs.
Rohan, having funded season one himself, is trying to crowdfund season two. A link to the Kickstarter thingie can be found by clicking here or below:
You can help the project just by watching, enjoying and sharing the output with others who might appreciate it. But if, like me, you are also able to put your hand in your pocket a bit towards series two, that would be great for Rohan and the struggling artistes he is helping through this initiative.
Is It Lourdes Or Lord’s?, A FoodCycle Gig In Marylebone, 6 May 2020
Ged: You want us to deliver ALL these? Ali: (from a suitably social distance) Yup!
Daisy and I were asked to do another FoodCycle gig this week; in Marylebone this time. The church hall in which tireless volunteers such as Ali and Jenny assemble the food parcels is the Roman Catholic Church Of Our Lady, just around the corner from my own temple – Lord’s Cricket Ground – currently closed due to covid.
We met another volunteer, Connagh, who was taking the other batch of parcels that day. He was also a first-timer at this venue so we all three wandered around together (at a suitably social distance of course) until we found Ali & Jenny.
Ali & Connagh demonstrate the socially distant high five, aka the “high five meters apart”Ali, Jenny, Janie (Daisy) & Connagh. This could be a press picture or album cover for an early music a cappella quartet. I have named them “Pro Canteen Antiqua”
…decided that Lodge Road and then back past Lord’s was the best route. It wasn’t the best route for the food deliveries but it did give us all a glimpse of what we are missing.
There it is, up ahead…So near and yet so far; the gates are closed, even to us!Lord’s denied; Ged cannot contain his emotions
Actually the whole experience of delivering for FoodCycle is quite an emotional experience at times. One elderly guest on the Lisson Green Estate, I believe one of the regulars when the arrangement is for the guests and volunteers to gather for a weekly meal, was waiting by the entrance to her block and started to cry when we announced ourselves. She thought we were late (we weren’t) and that she had been forgotten (she hadn’t).
The reality of our food deliveries during the pandemic is that the food parcels can only help to meet part of the FoodCycle mission, which is to alleviate both food poverty and social isolation. Of course we understand why we can only deliver a tiny part of the social agenda, by engaging as best we can within the constraints of social distancing. But it is chastening to see how isolated some of the guests must feel at the moment. Still, the food poverty agenda is also extremely important and we encountered some other guests who have clearly fallen on hard times of late and just desperately need the food.
We’re doing another gig on Sunday, around White City/East Acton. I’ll add photos from there if I get a chance to take some.
Hello In There by John Prine, 9 May 2020
I thought I’d sum up this strange week with this beautiful John Prine song, Hello In There, which I have been unable to get out of my head since I learnt that Prine was ill, about a week before he died of Covid-19 in early April.
This charming, beautiful song is so much for our times. I can only try to do it justice.
Postscript: FoodCycle Around White City, Old Oak & Wormholt & Acton, 10 May 2020
Collecting the parcels: Janie (Daisy) with Fr Richard Nesbitt, Alannah & Francesco
Janie’s first gig for Foodcycle had been the project known as East Acton, which is initiated at the Our Lady Of Fatima Church in White City.
As we are now billed as a double act, seasoned operators at that, we get to drop 20 parcels at 10 addresses on our run.
Actually, this proved the least onerous run so far, partly because Janie had been to three of the locations before but also because the several drops to houses on the Old Oak and Wormholt were easier to navigate than some of the more modern estates.
Again, lovely, attentive people producing the parcels and helping us to load up the car. Fr Richard even wandered around to make sure the first drop, which was a new guest very near the church, went according to plan. Again extremely grateful and friendly guests who seemed so pleased to see us when we turned up.
This really is necessary and worthwhile voluntary work at the moment.
Today was my second lesson with Lydia and I must say that I feel that I am making progress very rapidly. Not that I’ll ever be a great singer, but there are some basics of technique that are enabling me to get a lot more out of my voice for less effort. Most importantly, I am really enjoying the process of learning and practicing.
Janie says she can hear a great deal of improvement, which is remarkable in such a short period of time…and given that Janie wears anti-noise earmuffs whenever I sing. OK I made up the bit about earmuffs.
At the end of the week, I thought I’d try out my new-found range & sum up the strange life we are currently leading with this beautiful John Prine song, Hello In There, which I have been unable to get out of my head since I learnt that Prine was ill, about a week before he died of Covid-19 in early April.
This charming, beautiful song is so much for our times. I can only try to do it justice. With some more lessons with Lydia, I’m sure I can only get better at it.
Keen to help at a time of national crisis, but frustrated at having received no calls for help yet through the NHS Responder scheme – although we both had our applications accepted several weeks ago, Daisy (Janie) took matters into her own hands. A friend recommended that she speak with FoodCycle.
Under normal circumstances, FoodCycle’s thing is to use surplus food to reduce waste and to bring people together around healthy meals. It is a superb, award-winning charitable idea.
But the current circumstances are not normal; the social gathering element of the idea has needed to be parked at this stage of the Covid pandemic.
Thus the charity has had to re-orient itself towards distributing food to the vulnerable and needy, which profoundly changes the supply, production and distribution aspects of the initiative.
In this maelstrom, volunteers like me and Daisy become surprisingly useful. We possess cars, smart phones and a willingness to be guinea pigs as delivery folk for new/temporary food distribution projects.
Daisy signed up and did a delivery round for our most local, East Acton, project last weekend. I then signed up this last week.
FoodCycle were clearly keen to use us. Could we help out this weekend with a new project in Clapham/Battersea to distribute frozen meals generously donated by COOK Clapham? 10 deliveries for this one rather than last week’s five. Of course we could, but we all agreed that this larger job would be better done as a Ged & Daisy two-hander.
Three hander if we count Dumbo, the Suzuki Jimny.
Armed with a very smart Circuit for Teams app for routing, delivery instructions and confirming “jobs done”, plus a letter from FoodCycle confirming that we were doing essential work and not out for a drive on a sunny day, off we set.
Anyway, Dumbo needn’t have worried; we saw quite a few cop cars out and about but didn’t get stopped.
We certainly knew where we were going in the matter of getting to COOK Clapham, as it is just across the road from 33 Abbeville Road, formerly Newton’s, where Ged & Daisy had previous:
The COOK Clapham team were lovely and handed us bag upon bag upon bag of food:
After we had loaded all eight bags into the back of Dumbo (but mercifully before we set off), my lightening computational mind worked out that we must have the food for the other pair who were doing the distribution as well as the supplies for our own round.
The others turned up at more or less the same moment as we were getting out of the car to check the details with the COOK team, so that matter was easily put right.
Ged helps Dumbo to shed his load
Doing this type of delivery round is a strange mixture of easy and difficult. Easy to get to the place where the sat. nav. tells you to stop (especially for me around Clapham/Battersea where I know the area well), but sometimes difficult to get the meals to the actual door for the actual person/people who need them.
The most comedic example of the difficulties was on one Battersea estate, where the recipient had asked us to phone on arrival, which I did, to which she said she’d be down in a minute or two. Janie took the goods to the front door of the large block of flats where she waited and waited. Meanwhile, I started to feel a little bit nervous of a man with a van, who had turned up next to me, who was rummaging in his van and talking on his mobile phone, but I sensed was also eying me up.
Eventually I phoned the woman again, who seemed aghast that her husband hadn’t yet found us; he’d gone down to get something from his van and collect the food.
So I asked the gentleman with the phone if he was collecting food for the guest in question, to which he answered “yes”. It hadn’t occurred to him that we might be the people delivering the food. The sharpest knives in the draw must have all been used to produce those yummy-looking COOK meals.
Daisy and I resisted the temptation to try one of the meals ourselves, even though COOK had generously provided more than the required number of orders. We felt honour bound to distribute the additional dishes to those who said “yes please” when we told them that we had a few extras. Ged and Daisy’s halos will remain available for all to see for quite some time.
Driving around that area was a bit of a memory lane trip for me of course, especially when our route took us past dad’s shop on St John’s Hill:
Janie wondered whether I wanted to stop and take a picture of the location as it now looks, a rock bar named Project Orange, but I assured her there would be no need to try stopping on such a busy road just for a picture:
Borrowed from and linked to Zomato’s listing
On one occasion we did need to try and stop on a busy road, as we had one delivery to do on the Queenstown Road itself. As I indicated and slowed down to try and find a suitable & safe place to stop, a group of young cyclists took a dislike to what we were doing, to such an extent that the young woman of the pack shouted at me…
…what the hell are you doing?…
…I wanted to shout back…
…I’m delivering lunches to the needy for charity, while you lot are out having a fun bike ride on a sunny day. What the hell are YOU doing to help?…
…but I didn’t do that, I kept my wise words to myself, or rather I chose to share them solely with Daisy…and now with you, dear reader.
Returning the empties to COOK for next time
There’s nothing glamorous about this type of volunteering gig; it is pretty hard work. While repetition and experience might reduce the time and effort factors a little, it will remain time consuming hard work. But we both got a buzz from the gratitude we heard and saw from most of the recipients.
And we felt an enormous sense of satisfaction when we completed our round of deliveries and headed home.
I woke up this morning to find two video links in my e-mail inbox, which conjured up very different emotions.
Ian Pittaway, my early music teacher, having seen so many examples of video-conference-based music making in the past few weeks, was amused to find a seeming spoof of the genre…except that the following video was made years before Zoom and lockdown:
I laughed a lot.
In truth, some of the examples I have seen of lockdown music making have been very good indeed, while others have been unintentionally laughable.
Actually the best example of multi-part lockdown music-making I have seen so far came out quite early in the lockdown. Especially impressive because the supremely talented Peter Whelan, whom Janie and I saw at The Wig at the end of last year, really can play several instruments and sing in more than one register…
…so he performs this beautiful Bach Cantata all by himself, with his tongue only slightly in his cheek:
But the really thought-provoking video this morning came from Rohan Candappa. Rohan has now decided to vent his spleen at the UK Government’s mendacious attempt to claim success so far in the coronavirus pandemic, where all the evidence suggests that we have a great deal to learn in the UK if we are to emerge eventually from this crisis without additional self-inflicted damage. It includes a touching tribute to transport workers, who are among the forgotten heroes of the crisis.
Rohan’s short, beautifully-crafted monologue is entitled “Bus”:
This last piece won’t cheer you up, so you might want to go back to The Muppets and/or Peter Whelan after watching Rohan’s piece, to make yourself feel a bit better again.
Kay Scorah (top left in the above picture) was “head girl” for this evening’s Virtual ThreadMash. She chose the topic of soft furnishings, perhaps thinking that such a topic might lighten the mood in these unprecedented, lockdown times. If you were to judge by my Tale Of Beany & Baggy piece and Kay’s Big Dog’s Big Question (below), you might conclude that Kay’s choice had succeeded in generating lighthearted pieces…
Big Dog was trying to sleep. It had been a rough night, with a great deal of tossing and turning and intermittent hugging. At one point he thought he was going to fall out of bed, but Seán, himself only half awake, had grabbed him just in time and held on to him tightly. Now, just before dawn, things had quietened down and the boy had released his grip as sleep took over. Lucky Seán.
Big Dog had a busy day ahead, and knew he needed the shuteye, but his mind was too active. That same old question spinning around and around in his head.
He felt the softness of the pillow under his cheek, and, opening his eyes in the brightening pre-dawn light began to count the stars in the pattern on the pillowcase. He’d heard of counting sheep – perhaps counting decorative fabric stars would have the same effect. But of course, thinking about the pillow only made things worse. Made That Question even louder.
Giving up, he opened his eyes wide and looked across the room to where Rabbidog and Blumberg seemed to be sound asleep on the chair. Rabbidog propped up on a cushion, Blumberg with his head on Rabbidog’s knee.
Rabbidog is called Rabbidog because no-one has ever worked out if he’s a dog or a rabbit. And Blumberg is called Blumberg because he was a gift from Jane Blumberg.
Not for the first time, Big Dog wished that he could move like the real dogs he had seen through the bedroom window. Or even like the small child now sound asleep next to him his head on the same pillow. He longed to jump down from the bed, run across the room to the others, jump up on the chair and ask them the Big Question. What are we, the fluffy toys? Are we toys, like the Playmobil and the Brio Train set? Or are we soft furnishings like the cushions and the blankets?
How could they sleep with this existential question unanswered?
The very next day, Big Dog was invited to dinner, and, at Seán’s insistence, given his own seat at the table. A couple of spare grownups were there, along with the mum and the dad. Their conversation turned to the question of gender and sexuality, to something called LGBTQ and the slow but welcome demise of the binary. And suddenly, although he didn’t quite understand everything that was being said, Big Dog realised that he was free! He need lose no more sleep over what he had thought was the Big Question. He could be soft furnishing AND toy. A place for Seán to rest his head, and a friend for him to play with and talk to.
Big Dog went to bed that night and fell sound asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. “Good night, big dog”, said the boy, resting his head on his friend’s furry back, “Sleep well.”
The picture above shows Kay, who hosted the evening, top left, reading her piece at the Virtual Threadmash. In normal times Threadmash is held at The Glad, but these are unprecedented times. Chris wrote a poem about the evening during the evening and Rohan presented a short, stray piece about nicknames. Eight of us prepared and presented pieces for the evening, either on the theme Charlotte Thomas (I didn’t present my text piece on that topic) or on the theme of soft furnishings. Below is the text of my soft furnishings piece.
Before Beany and Baggy…
…what a strange sense that phase has to me; “before Beany and Baggy”…
…I can barely envisage Janie’s place without Beany and Baggy.
But of course there was a before.
There is photographic evidence from before. I even took a photograph myself of “before”:
There’s Janie. The year is 1994. And look; there is an array of floor cushions; quite nice ones. But not Beany and Baggy.
That picture was taken before.
Here’s how it was. Before Beany and Baggy, there were floor cushions. Several floor cushions. For a great many years, Janie had been content, nay, even happy, with that array of floor cushions. Here is a picture from the mid 1980s. Same Sandall Close living room, same floor cushions.
But, early in 1996, something must have changed in Janie’s brain. Those floor cushions were lacking something; they were no longer sufficient to satisfy Janie’s need for large scale soft furnishings suitable for sitting, reclining or lying around upon.
There are rough scribblings as early as January in Janie’s 1996 diary that indicate, to my razor-sharp, investigative writer’s brain, that soft furnishing schemes were on the march in Janie’s mind. Ikea. World of Leather. Just the odd name and/or telephone number. Then the diary paper trail runs cold.
But Janie remembers clearly where and roughly when she acquired Beany & Baggy.
“I saw an advert in a magazine for gigantic, armchair-like beanbags. I really liked the look of them, size and shape-wise, but the advertised ones were all garish colours. I phoned the vendor, who turned out to be a Greek-Cypriot gentleman named Costas, to ask him if he had any of those armchair-like beanbags in black.
Costas said that he didn’t have any black ones in stock, but he was expecting a new consignment any day which would include black ones. He said he’d call me when they arrived and he did call me back quite soon. Costas’s shop was in Richmond, near a shop I wanted to visit anyway to get a garment to wear at Michael and Elisabeth’s wedding…”
That’s how we know that Beany and Baggy entered our lives in the spring of 1996. Back to Janie…
“I had intended to buy just one giant bean bag, but Costas was a persuasive salesman and offered me a very good price for taking two. When you came over on the Friday, you said I’d made a mistake buying two, because the pair of them seemed to dominate the living room. I was already thinking along those lines. But you named them Beany and Baggy and we both soon got used to the idea of them”.
Beany and Baggy don’t actually speak, but they do make sneery noises, usually when Janie and I address either of them by name, implying that we have got the two characters mixed up. Our hit rate for guessing the right name is so bad, precisely 0% over 24 years at the time of writing, Janie and I are starting to think that these rebukes might just be a little game that Beany and Baggy play with us.
Anyway, after their arrival in 1996, the next 15 years were Beany and Baggy’s glory years. They had pride of place in the living room, where they were the first port of call for us to flop into and relax after a hard day or week’s work.
And it wasn’t just Janie’s and my rump that graced Beany and Baggy back then. Janie’s living room was also the waiting room for her surgery and there were high-falutin’ folk who could not resist the charms of Beany and Baggy.
Perhaps the most high profile rump that regularly graced the cool black leather of Beany and Baggy was the late, great actress Anna Massey.
Coincidentally, Janie and I saw Anna Massey play Queen Elisabeth I in Mary Stuart at the National Theatre in the spring of 1996, around the time that Janie first took custody of Beany and Baggy.
According to Janie, it was Anna Massey’s habit to arrive early for her appointment and she was keen to sit in Beany or Baggy, even towards the end of her life, by which time she needed Janie to help her out of the squashy armchair, be it Beany or Baggy, once Janie was ready for her.
It wasn’t all the celebrity lifestyle and relaxation with me and Janie though, even in the glory years. Both Beany and Baggy had their struggles with anorexia. Frankly, both of them got quite saggy after a few years.
Mercifully, Janie’s best friend Kim is a highly-regarded surgeon in the soft furnishings world (and indeed in the world of cuddly toys), so a quick visit to Kim’s Hospital; then Beany and Baggy were no longer saggy, indeed they were both really quite portly again.
Here’s the only picture I could find of me and Janie with Beany and Baggy in their pride of place position in that Sandall Close living room.
Really perceptive readers will spot three pairs of hands in that picture – Kim is hiding behind us holding up the embarrassing pom-pom things. Even more perceptive readers will notice the well-hung painting, top left. Rumours that I was my father’s model for that picture are, I regret to say, fake news.
Of course, all wonderful things come to an end. Janie moved from Sandall Close to Noddyland in the summer of 2011. Anna Massey never saw Noddyland; she died just a couple of weeks after we moved there.
Beany and Baggy nearly missed out on Noddyland too. At first there was still work going on in the house and very little room for soft furnishings – they sat stacked on top of each other in whichever room wasn’t being worked upon.
Janie even suggested that Kim might like them for her workplace, Theme Traders once the new furniture arrived. Kim demurred, Beanie and Baggy were too special; she suggested that we should find room upstairs for them both.
Kim was right.
Now one of them lives in the bedroom, under the telly…the other one lives in the spare room.
Beany…or is it Baggy…in the bedroom
It’s a sort of semi-retirement for them both. Janie occasionally sits on Beany…or is it Baggy?…in the bedroom.
In truth no-one these days tends to sit on Baggy…or is it Beany?…in the spare room.
They are sort of living back-to-back now, in closer proximity than they were before. Less than two meters. Not sure if it counts as social distancing what with the wall‘n’all. So they live separately yet together, very close and unquestionably a couple. Janie and I can relate to that.
If only we could work out which one is Beany and which one is Baggy.
