Valley of the Trolley Dollies

Sometimes, in the middle of the city, at the end of a long day, having abandoned the tube to London bridge in favour of the Thames Clipper, magic can be seen.

Today, I’m at work feeling really really tired. Haven’t been burning the candle at both ends, really; just working very hard. Last few weeks, it’s been an awful lot of concentration all day every day. And I guess I have been heading off to bed at 11pm each night, which is probably about an hour too late for a 5:15 alarm call, but what can you do?

Today, whilst I’m at work struggling to keep my eyes open, D is at home awaiting the arrival of the man who’s going to put a new garden fence up for us - solid and secure and six feet high, so I can dance nude on my lawn if I want to. And you know I sooooo want to.

Also due to arrive is the man to rip out the fireplace in the living room and install a new one. The old gas fire went on the fritz, so we went out some months ago, to buy a new gas fire (about 200 quid). And, typically us, we ended up with the surround, the mantle, the hearth (about ten times more than the fire), which will be installed today. The fire (the whole point of the exercise) is out of stock, and will be installed later. So let’s hope we don’t have a sudden cold snap.

Also due today: The man to test the boiler, and various other household tasks, and a meetign with the man who may be puring drinks and dispensing nibbles at my 40th birthday, if any of my invitees ever respond. Right now, it looks like it’s me and D and the cater waiter.

And tonight, we’re going out to see Grace Jones in concert. Or in person, since one suspects that the legend that is Grace will simply be, rather than perform. But we’ll see.

So tired, but so much getting done, so happy. Soooo nice pic, no?

Me, in the late seventies. Re-enacting a scene from “Whatever happened to Baby Jane?” with my father.

It would be twenty years before I’d drive again.

Noticeable is the open doors of some of the houses; nobody locked their doors then. Also the almost total absence of cars. I count three, and the sort of red van that was almost invariably used for bank job getaways in The Sweeney. My parents still live in the same house, in Dublin, a city that has redefined the phrase upwardly mobile, and when I return nowadays, the entire street seems to be double parked luxury drives.

I loved that go-kart, and would give the other kids rides - them standing on the rear axle and hanging off the back of the seat. Until the seat snapped off, and the axle started buckling, at which point I was heartbroken.

I guess I should have learned that sometimes, even if it runs the risk of losing you friends, you need to learn to say “No.” It would be twenty plus years before I started to get that lesson.

But my dad fixed the axle. I think a mallet may have been involved, but since perfectly precise three point turns weren’t the most common manoeuvre in it, the fact that the kart steered “A bit bockety” was never an issue; the lack of a seat, however, was potentially huge, until my dad made a four-sided box from chipboard, lined it with red shag pile carpet, and screwed it to the frame, and I had an instant couture kart.

And the fact that I just used the phrase couture kart probably explains why I never had many friends as a kid growing up on the not-so mean (but car-less) streets of south Dublin in the 1970’s.

ABC are back with the album “Traffic.” A package filled with layered strings and their trademark rich arrangements. This is an album that sounds like it cost money to make. A lot. It feels like glass-walled studios overlooking bays in the Cap or the Cape were used, as though the team retired to glittering shimmering dancefloors in exclusive Ibiza clubs post recording, as though, in fact, nothing has changed.

Oh yes, ABC are back; they sound like they’ve never been away; and, once more, that puts them so far ahead of the herd that only their dust can be seen.

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