Friday Five: Things to Buy This Weekend

 

1. Couple of large-ish Long Toms for my olive trees, currently wintering out in the glasshouse;

 

2.  Half a dozen large-ish terracotta pots for my tree saplings, currently wintering out on the terrace steps;

 

3.  Bags of charcoal and plenty of firelighters; if we're to have a warm weekend with Cs into the mid-teens, let's get cooking;

 

4.  Even more packets of seeds, specifically mini cucumbers so I can recreate my Jerusalem breakfasts...

 

5.  Another box of purple latex gloves; one must at least attempt to be stylish when sowing one's seeds.

 

Friday Five: Rod Stewart

What can I say? Rod is back BIGGER and BETTER than he's ever been.  I missed the Maggie May generation (thank goodness) and really came to know Rod via Atlantic Crossing and those big big romantic ballads.

1. Beautiful Morning
"Beautiful morning, on this beautiful morning, on this beautiful, beautiful morning here with you..."

2. She Makes Me Happy
"...She showed me loving is a wonderful thing; She makes me happy; want to sing, sing, sing!"  His joy in his relationship with Penny Lancaster just shines right through this song.  Just wonderful...

3. Its Over 
Beautiful arrangement. Lyrics choke you up. Gifted songwriter. Rod at his best. This whole album is his most autobiographical.

4. Forever Young
Perfect.

5. And pretty much everything else he's done, but at a push probably this, not least for the way his voice breaks as he sings, "I can tell by your eyes that you've probably been crying forever..."

6. And Some Guys Have All The Luck, because I just love the way one song segues into another and his blond saxophonist... classic.

Friday Five: Ireland

"I was raised in an Irish-American home in Detroit where assimilation was the uppermost priority. The price of assimilation and respectability was amnesia. Although my great-grandparents were victims of the Great Hunger of the 1840's, even though I was named Thomas Emmet Hayden IV after the radical Irish nationalist exile Thomas Emmet, my inheritance was to be disinherited. My parents knew nothing of this past, or nothing worth passing on."
Tom Hayden

Moone Cross Co Kildare, picture credits unknown

"Could he not find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but that each time on returning [to] consciousness took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul?”

De Valera, on VE Day May 8, 1945, responding in a radio speech to criticism by Churchill of Ireland’s neutrality in WWII

"I tell you this - early this morning I signed my death warrant."
Michael Collins, after signing the treaty on December 6, 1921 with England creating the Irish Free State as a dominion within the British Commonwealth

"No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation’s heart and leaves to Ireland not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream."

Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847), in an 1831 letter to Bishop Doyle

"Ireland, thou friend of my country in my country's most friendless days, much injured, much enduring land, accept this poor tribute from one who esteems thy worth, and mourns thy desolation."

George Washington, speaking of Ireland's support for America during the revolution

Sean O'Casey says it best: "Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity."

Friday Five: Sound Track To Our Friday Night Barbe

One of the greatest joys of a life full with young grads and undergrads, together with a house in France and a car big enough to cart shed loads of guitars, amps and drums backwards and forwards across the English Channel via blessed saint Brittany Ferries, is this -->

Said grads/undergrads idling about all week, sleeping late and only rising to stagger into the garden via the fridge (thank you, Cora) to collapse into deck chairs and onto rugs with barely sufficient energy to spray on the factor 50 before mum carries out a loaded tray. Jugs, glasses, ice cubes and Vico chips. Happy, happy days. Happy, happy Amalee.

But Friday night is barbe night. "Now darlings, I know you're all exhausted, but I'd really like to hear you play." This is mum's speak for, "I'd like to see some evidence of the offensive amounts of cash that over the years I've poured into the pockets of your music teachers. And your sweethearts had better rosen up the bow too..." They didn't disappoint.

Guns N' Roses Sweet Child of Mine with mercy boo wearing her trademark top hat in adulation of Slash. Well that certainly woke up the neighbours...

AC/DC Whole Lotta Rosie

Eric. Layla. The long version. Only ever heard on Planet Rock.

Mock Turtles Can You Dig It

Top Gun anthem Steve Stevens (played for Billy Idol - need I say any more?)

Greenday Holiday. Ok that's six, so stop counting, Rain Man.

Friday Five: Do I Lead The Life Of Riley, Or What?

1. Yes April, syphilitic bits will drop off now that you are resuming Facebooking. You have no-one to blame but yourself. And Facebook.

2. PatioPatch? Thank you for adding me as a Blotanical fav, but as I freely admit to being a bit web-challenged, will you ever drop me a link to your website so I can read up on your gardening jaunts? Exo!

3. My auntie is coming to visit next weekend. I am making new curtains even as we speak. (I'm not really; all evening I've been measuring and re-measuring, then measuring again just in case; cutting and ironing seams flat and pinning together and threading up my Toyota sewing machine and then decided I'd had enough so switched on Gardeners World Chelsea Special and indulged in an hour's horti-porn with a glass of chardy, then surfed on in to chat to you.)

4. My farming neighbours are having a party tomorrow night. We'll sit on straw bales and drink strange wine from Tesco's. So I've got my Bombay Sapphire in the freezer ready for what mercy boo and her Irish cousins call "pre-drinks." It's all over by 10pm. Farmers get up early, you know.

5. I spent this afternoon allegedly in a meeting with Public Health chums, but actually we lounged around the table talking talking talking, planning planning planning, then ordered chicken Caesar sarnies and a side order of chips (sent to the table in cappuccino cups?) and ended the Friday-afternoon-before-a-Bank-Holiday completely focused and ready to implement. Michael Bywater was right when he wrote in the Independent on Sunday 28 March 1999;

"At the college we were met by a wall of academic women: young ones and old ones and in-between ones, all gowned, some in their scarlet, and the gossip and chatter and disputation and anecdotes, and the smell and sight and sound of clever, focused, happy women which is the nearest we'll get to heaven on earth."

Friday Five: Announcements For The Public Good

Finish early and belt up the M1 and arrive home in time for a late lunch. Then straight over to sunny Nottinghamshire to make some primary care appointments, then some secondary care appointments, then home. And three lines of washing dried including all merci beaucoup's drawers, jeans and Keds. Today feels like the first day of summer. And it's still only April! I've a full day of heavy action gardening tomorrow. Well, not really gardening, hard landscaping really. I'm planning to shift 7 cubic tonnes of the most revolting plum slate chippings - but the client loves it and I love my client, what can I do? Strangle her? No! Dance about to these groovy toons hairbrush mic in hand;

Everytime I think I've had enough and start heading for the door, there's a very strange vibration piercing me right to the core, it says turn around you fool, you know you love him more and more...

I had to escape the city was sticky and cruel; maybe I should have called you first but I was dying to get to you. I was dreaming a-while I drove the long straight road ahead, aha, yeah...

I loved the words you wrote to me but that was bloody yesterday. I can't survive on what you send, every time you need a friend...

Cos we belong together now, yeah, forever united here somehow, yeah. You got a piece of me, and honestly, my life (my life) would suck (would suck) without you...

Pay my respects to Grace and Virtue, send my condolences to Good, give my regards to Soul and Romance, they always did the best they could. And so long to Devotion, he taught me everything I know...

Christmas Day 2009

Pope Bendict XVI

Tommie Smith

Peter Norman

John Carlos

You

Friday Five: Living Things That Could Be Culled On A Global Scale

It's Saturday night, and I've just thought of this Friday Five. I remain unapologetic to all my witty, charming and urbane readers, even those that own cats, (the maniacs).

1. Cats

2. Rats

3. Wasps

4. Fleas

5. Mosquitos

Friday Five: Why I love The World Wide Web

If I hadn't surfed on into April's blog a million years ago, I'd never have found her brilliant "Friday Five" slot. I need to holiday less and blog more. Here is my entry to an April classic call for blog comments...

I have lived:
1. The life of Riley
2. On three continents
3. By the skin of my teeth
4. In exile
5. Beside the sea
6. A life that’s full, and travelled each and every highway
7. In Belfast during the shoot to kill policy
8. In a house full with sunshine
9. Endless hours stuck in motorway traffic jams
10. To tell the tale


I have witnessed:
11. A car on fire on the hard shoulder
12. Persian Muslim women speaking sign language
13. Birth certificates
14. A NYC police woman control 8 lanes of traffic

15. A woman leap off a plane on the apron in a panic in high summer after 9.11. The aircon was broken, so we couldn’t take off and they opened up the doors. This was the cause of the delay, not the effect of her leap

16. Documents
17. A dead teenager at the side of the road, his motorbike beside him
18. Dawn in the Middle East
19. The closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics
20. A perfect martini made for me in the Oak Room Bar at the Plaza Hotel


I have heard:
21. New York taxi horns at 3am… why?
22. The voices of firemen cutting me from a car
23. The bubbling of a cake as it comes out of the oven
24. Planet Rock at full volume
25. I do
26. The dawn chorus
27. The call to prayer
28. The Angelus in Rome
29. That your eyeballs pop out if you don’t close your eyes when you sneeze
30. If you unscrew your belly button your bum drops off


I have lost:
31. Faith
32. Hope
33. One new earring
34. My temper
35. My university 4x100m relay record to faster women
36. The ability to stay up all night
37. Patience with hypocrites
38. All sense of proportion when buying underwear
39. My taste for chardonnay
40. 41.


I have found:
41. French aluminium coins circa WW2 on a beach near St Malo
42. Lasting friendships online
43. That Nigella’s recipes don’t always work
44. That Delia’s always do
45. Lack of sleep makes me murderous
46. An entire though hollow lobster carcass on a beach
47. That Veronica Wallis’ (RUA) nudes make me cry
48. My best friend at our first meeting, which lasted five hours
49. There’s no such thing as a free lunch
50. The love of my life


I love:
51. Kevin Costner
52. Wearing heels
53. Coco Mademoiselle
54. Lots of detail
55. Certainty
56. Pablo Neruda’s love sonnets
57. Going to the cinema in the afternoon
58. A well-stocked pantry
59. Opening presents on Christmas morning
60. Sainsbury’s tea


I can:
61. Propagate by grafting
62. Follow intricate cross stitch patterns
63. Shuck oysters
64. Do handstands on the beach
65. Stamp about in work boots all day and still look sexy and professional
66. Laugh like a drain
67. Nurture teenagers brilliantly
68. Avoid urgent matters
69. Choose great wine and books by the label / cover alone
70. Discuss Derby County’s premiership campaign


I loathe:
71. Jellied eels
72. Washing poo from baby’s backs when they went up a size in nappies
73. The N word
74. James Woods. Sorry James
75. Missing Gardener’s World
76. People who eat with their mouths open
77. People spitting
78. Being nice to drunks
79. Cleaning the oven
80. Poorly drafted documents


I hope:
81. My gravestone says, “… here lies the beloved wife of Kevin Costner”
82. My passport arrives in time for my holiday
83. To see shooting stars this year
84. I don’t get caught speeding on the M1
85. To awake in Isla Negra, Chile
86. I don’t get my fingers burnt a second time
87. To be as knowledgeable as my head gardener
88. To have an outrageously sparkly ring from Tiffany’s
89. To become Miss Marple (Joan Hickson) on my 70th birthday
90. Therefore I am


I am trying:
91. To find time to get back on a horse
92. To eat more fruit
93. To eat less Marmite on toast
94. To believe, in the chasm of silence
95. To worry less
96. The patience of a saint
97. To read Dante’s Inferno
98. To be good enough to enter paradise
99. To be
100. To stop writing lists

Friday Five: Remember These Cheesey Poptastic Rock Toons?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jexNsBjz1r8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtuvXrTz8DY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUHecG5wAFk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2IkLGFiKx0

But it was this one, that came on the radio as we flew down the motorway and provoked a laughing fit from the rear seat. When the tears and snot subsided and the laughing stopped long enough for the words to become audible, out came the story behind this song;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW1LkJNmWzg

"Oh s***, we were drinking in the Honk bar at the back end of the airport and Gerard Rikkard put this on the juke box, and we all joined in until it got to the chorus, when he just took off in this falsetto he could only do when he was plastered. He must have sung it three or four times before they threw us out. Said we were upsetting the farmers at the other end of the bar."

Friday Five: What Are You Eating This Week?

I have been following Fiona and Danny's experiment with "buying less," for a while now. Actually, I didn't really understand it; both working, she shops at Waitrose, gorgeous garden, how difficult can life be? Then I open an email at work this morning that made everything she and Danny are attempting to do, perfect sense. So here are the pictures, a Friday Five of sorts (I know there are 9 pictures, but whose counting?), and a perfect preparation for Lent, which begins next week.

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide. Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07United States: The Revis family of North Carolina. Food expenditure for one week $341.98

Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11

Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca. Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 MPesos or $189.09 . Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna. Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27

Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo. Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 EPounds or $68.53

Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo. Food expenditure for one week: $31.55

Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village. Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp. Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFAFrancs or $1.23

What am I eating this week?

Friday Five: How I Know I Lead The Life Of Riley

1. Beloved Firstborn was robbed in the street this morning - nasty level of violence included being stamped on the head and removed to hospital via ambulance, where the consultant (thank God it occurred during office hours, when consultants actually bother to turn out to work...) confirmed no fractured skull, no perforated eardrum, no dental damage, no broken nose, and no blood clots just waiting to kill 12 hours later.

2. Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux dropped the house phone down the lavatory this afternoon. That this happened exactly one week after she dropped her mobile down the lavatory whilst out with the girls, is slightly remarkable. What is utterly remarkable, is hearing her clattering about in the bathroom this evening and asking her if she had a phone in there with her... and she had the audacity to laugh and reply, "Is that an offer, mum?"

3. That I have WD40 in the garage, although it won't revive the house phone any more than it revived a mobile last week. What is she doing with phones in the bathroom?

4. I'm sitting at my pc with a glass of French bubbly (is there really any other sort?) and a slice of Christmas cake made for me by my dearest client.

5. NCIS is about to start on Channel 5. Sigh....

Friday Five: Seamus Heaney

1. Requiem for the Croppies

...And in August the barley grew up out of the grave.

2. Mid-Term Break

...Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,

Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.

3. Death of a Naturalist

...There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,

But best of all was the warm thick slobber

Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water

in the shade of the banks.

4. Mother of the Groom

...What she remembers

Is his glistening back

In the bath, his small boots

In the ring of boots at her feet.

5. An Ulster Twilight

...Eric, tonight I saw it all

Like shadows on your workshop wall,

Smelled wood shavings under the bench,

Weighed the cold steel monkey-wrench

In my soft hand, then stood at the road

To watch your wavering tail-light fade

And knew that if we met again

In an Ulster twilight we would begin

And end whatever we might say

In a speech all toys and carpentry,

A doorstep courtesy to shun

Your father's uniform and gun.

http://www.poemhunter.com/seamus-heaney/poems/page-1/

Friday Five: Budweiser Ads

Inspired by Mr Anthrope's latest blog entry, I've been cruising YouTube for visual highlights of my formative years; that is, TV adverts. The UK is acknowledged by the marketing gurus to be the most sophisticated marketing audience on the planet. And if you've had the misfortune to watch telly anywhere else in the world, and caught their commercial breaks, you'll have watched some of the most banal drivel ever created. Except of course, the rash of Budweiser ads that came out of America in the nineties, and just one, I think, from the noughties. Oh man, these were brilliantly observed. Whoever came up with the "Real Men Of Genius" campaign, is a genius themselves. Here are my top five Budweiser adverts of all time.

1. Mr Really Bad Toupee Wearer makes me scream with laughter. "You think it looks natural, but it couldn't look phonier if it had a chin strap. Made from space-age fibre, it can repel anything; rain, wind, snow and especially young women."

2. Mr Pro-Wrestling Wardrobe Designer is outrageous. "While lesser designers would shy away from putting three hundred pound men in spandex, you embrace it."

3. Wassup. "Nothing. Watching the game, having a bud." This is how men communicate; they're not from Mars, but planet Budweiser.

4. The Budweiser Frogs Outwit The Lizards. "Frogs sell beer. Number one rule of advertising."

5. And finally.

Friday Five: Chuck Norris

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Chuck Norris (But You Were Too Afraid of Roundhouse Kicks To Ask)

1. Chuck Norris can divide by zero.

2. Hannibal didn't sack Rome; Chuck Norris did.

3. Chuck Norris can believe it's not butter.

4. When an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger was shown in Iraq, Saddam surrendered to Chuck Norris just in case.

5. Chuck Norris has the greatest Poker-Face of all time. He won the 1983 World Series of Poker, despite holding only a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoly card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a Blockbuster Video card.

Friday Five: Sound Track To My Day

1. Brian Eno: An Ending (Ascent)

I woke before six this morning, padded downstairs to make tea, and while the kettle was boiling put this on the speakers. It's from "28 Days Later." Both Beloved Firstborn and Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux saw the sequel last week. My nerves are still in tatters from the 2002 version, so I didn't go. This track eased me into my morning beautifully. Find it at radioblogclub.com. Like the very best of (chilled) Euphoria, sound track for my nineties/noughties.

2. Sugarbabes: Push The Button

School run with Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux, then back to drop Beloved Firstborn to work, then back home to my deliciously empty and very tidy house; early rising always feels so good. I love to listen to music whilst driving, my shoulders keeping pace with the racket threatening to blow up the speakers. Sometimes we do the actions to YMCA when it's on, especially if we're on the long, empty stretches over the mountains. If we have Motown on, Merci Beacoup Enfant Deux and I mimic holding mics as we sing along. Find it here.

3. Paul Potts, Britain's Got Talent winner: Nessun Dorma

Mid-morning and ploughing through emails and finalising commissions, and listening to my favs on YouTube.com. I like this one, especially for the reaction of Simon Cowell when the guy begins to sing; derision then amazement then kerching-kerching, right there moving across his face. His eyes tell you he's hooked. Brilliant. And Paul Potts went on to win, of course!

4. Ronan Keating: When You Say Nothing At All

Mid-afternoon and the rain has settled in for the duration. I'm on the pc and sifting through CDs and DVDs. Whilst Kevin Costner will always be number 1, I'd still like to have Gibbs on the side. There's something about a military man...

5. Bruce Springsteen: Born In The USA

The Boss needs no introduction, except to say this was playing on Planet Rock as the parental taxi service delivered Beloved Firstborn into ChesVegas for an evening out with the lads and collected Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux and best friend Jodie the Waif from the cinema for an evening in with the girls. As it should be.

The sound track to my day. Shared with you.

Friday Five: Freedoms

The freedom to see and hear what is here, instead of what should be, or was, or will be.

The freedom to say what I feel and think, instead of what I should.

The freedom to feel what I feel, instead of what I ought.

The freedom to ask for what I want, instead of always waiting for permission.

The freedom to take risks on my own behalf, instead of choosing to be only 'secure' and not rocking the boat.

Virginia Satir

http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/hours.php

Lea Gardens, Derbyshire, 1 June 2007

Friday Five: In These Arms Tonight

Friday Five: Horticultural Terms

1. Canker
2. Necrotic spot virus
3. Interveinal chlorosis
4. Molybdenum
5. Thrips

I love the sound of these words, especially "canker." Here is something else to enjoy on the first day of summer.

Friday Five: Great TV Moments

1. Parkinson interviewing Don McCullin, photographer and war photographer extraordinaire. I was very young, and allowed by rather farsighted parents to stay up late to watch this. I also remember Parkinson being interviewed years later and identifying his interview with McCullin as one of the most significant of his career.

2. Olga Korbut's floor routine at the 1972 Munich Olympics. She started an overnight craze for red woollen hair ties, and gymnastics of course.

3. The 1980 Iranian embassy seige, when the British public first heard of Kate Adie. And the SAS too.

4. The unknown man who brought a column of tanks to a standstill in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

5. The closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets stuffy Olympic traditions, and triumphs. And Kylie was never better.

Other great TV moments are listed here.