Showing posts with label Looking Glass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Looking Glass. Show all posts

Tuesday, 16 March 2021

Conversations With Ben #8: Pink Custard

Ben sends me this link.

Rol: Why?

I remember being round at my next door neighbours, taping this song off one cassette onto another.

Thanks. I've got you sharing The Smurfs and Sam making me listen to Baby Shark. As if life wasn't bad enough.

Show him the Smurfs Go Pop album.

I think I'll stick with making him listen to the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack again.

I would have thought you were post cassette.

No way, one of my favourite toys as a kid was the Talkboy (TM). It's the thing Kevin has on Home Alone 2 where you can speed up or slow down the playback.

From Tiger Electronics. 

I just used to put a penny on the LP.

I also have a lot of cassettes now.

Of course. Because pointless tat comes with Hipsterdom.

Is that slang for going to the toilet?

What, pointless tat? I'll have you know I have very good direction.

You can get plenty of tapes on eBay for dirt cheap.

I got the Mark and Lard one.

Shirehorses?

Yep.

Their Stan pissstake is hilarious. Tony.

People do big clear outs. There's never any bidding wars or anything.

I've just started buying up cheap CDs I used to own, then sold when I was skint (and CDs still had value). Now I can get them for a couple of quid each.

My tape player is French as well.

Of course it is.

I donated all my CDs about 5 years ago. 

I know. But I'm never going to be able to afford a vinyl collection and I even sold my turntable. CDs are now the cheapest option... except for anything released in the last 2-3 years which is extortionate and never drops in price.

Whereas I don't have anything to play CDs on. Even the laptops in our house don't have CD compartments.

I did buy one of those things that lets you convert old cassettes into mp3s. I've just never had time to use it. I also have lots of old mini-discs that I have a similar intention for.

Mini discs skipped my generation. They were too expensive and by the time we were old enough to buy them, the MP3 players were out. 

[They were only a thing for about 3 and a half minutes. But it was when I worked in radio, and we were convinced they were the future after they replaced reel to reel.

I bought a Zune with my first pay cheque.

WTF...?

What? The Zune rocked. It was indestructible.

What did it do?

Played mp3s. With the most unintuitive user interface ever.

I bought a CD player with my first pay packet. Then spent ages taping CDs so listen to in my dad's car. I taped Diamonds & Pearls, the album, when I got it. Put it on repeat to fill the C90. Only I'd pressed repeat one track only. So driving to work that night, I listened to 40 minutes of Thunder. It took me ages to realise what I'd done. I just thought Prince had recorded a reeeeeeally long song.

I bought a CD player by skipping eating lunch at school for three weeks so I could use the lunch money to buy it. £20 Alba CD player.

That sounds like a plot from Grange Hill. They'd call in a social worker if you did that nowadays.

Most kids at my school didn't eat at lunch. There was a McDonald's at the end of the road and we were near the city centre so most kids saved it as we couldn't leave during lunch.

So you just sat in the playground and watched the drive-by shootings...

It was a Catholic school so it was a few stabbings. And a lot of teenage sex.

But you all felt very guilty afterwards.

The guilt was ever present. You knew you'd fucked up when you got sent to see Fr Adrian over the assistant principals.

To be fair, he was a nice guy.

Just made you do a lot of prayers.

Perfect song for you...

Settle a debate.

Pink custard at school.

It was just pink, not strawberry flavoured, yeah?

I don't think it was strawberry flavoured but it didn't taste like normal custard. I love normal custard but I hated red custard and green custard. Chocolate custard was ok.

Green custard and red custard. Did you go to private school!?!

Grotbags was the head teacher. I thought you didn't eat school dinners anyway...

What did green custard taste like? Apple?

Horrible. There is only one true custard.

Birds or Ambrosia?

Yellow.

All you other custards are just imitating.

Cold or warm?

And I mean refrigerated, not room temp.

Hot. Like coffee.

Red hot dessert, cold custard.

Freak.

How is custard even allowed for you? It's not vegan.

Alpro. Or Birds packet mix.

Sigh. Custard must be hot. End of.

My other half has it hot. Have to keep half in fridge, half in cupboard for her to heat up.

At least there's one sane person in your household.

Me.

There are two exceptions... Crumble... and Christmas pud.

At least you're not part of the Brandy Sauce Brigade.

Brandy has a place in lemonade. Not a cool drink. But a tasty drink. Like dirt cheap lemonade.

Even when I drank anything, I drew the line at brandy.

It was excellent as a 14 year old in car parks.

What would Fr Abraham say?

Adrian? He's still a good friend so he'd probably just tut and shake his head at me...

Sunday, 19 May 2019

Saturday Snapshots #84 - The Answers


It's Sunday morning, and though you may all be wishing to Enter Sandman for another couple of hours' kip, it's important you get up and check your answers to Saturday Snapshots. Nothing Else Matters!

Another close-fought battle yesterday morning with Lynchie & Ramone tying on two and a half points each, but Charity Chic pipping them both to the post with an impressive three - largely down to his expert knowledge of women with balls. Congratulations and thanks to all for playing.


10. Discrimination is beneath the construction crew.



(Beneath = down under.)

Men At Work - Down Under

9. Queen of chefs grows a pair.


Elizabeth Cook - Sometimes it Takes Balls to be a Woman

8. Abnormal abilities are impossible.


Freak Power - No Way

(Yes, that is Norman Cook. That's why this is so damned catchy.)

7. Captain Kirk meets a Doctor Who for S&M.


Captain James T. Kirk was Jim to his friends.

The Doctor Who before the current one was Peter Capaldi.

Jim Capaldi - Love Hurts

6. Ridiculous me tells unbelievable stories.


I, Ludicrous - Preposterous Tales

(Lynchie missed the I comma, but I'll let him have it.)

5. In the afternoon, rappers and angels love a rut.


Afternoon delight.

Angel Delight.

Rapper's Delight.

A rut is a groove. What were you thinking of?

Dee-Lite - Groove Is In The Heart 

A photo finish between George and Ramone for that one.

4. Mirror. Cognac. Snap!


A mirror is a looking class.

Cognac is a brandy.

Brandy snap.

Looking Glass - Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)

Well done to Mr. C - I expected Alyson to get that one.

3. Kennel Club holds a hot lead... which would be my preference.


KC has a sunshine band. Sometimes these clues are pretty straight foreward. That's the way I like it.

Always reminds me of this amusing 80s comedy routine, from Rondell Sheridan.

KC & The Sunshine Band - That's The Way (I Like It)

2. A racist nanny prepares for a hike.


"A racist nanny" was an unfortunate (if irresistible) anagram.

Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made For Walking

1. Shoeless dating incredulity.


Shoeless Joe Jackson was an American baseball player, as immortalised in the movie Field of Dreams. Makes me blub every time.

Still one of the greatest opening lines of any song ever...




Obey your master! Master of Snapshots, I'm pulling your strings!

(This One is dedicated to all the Metallica fans out there.)

Saturday Snapshots returns next week. You'll be Unforgiven for missing it.

Sunday, 7 May 2017

May #8: I Laughed, I Cried, I Felt My Opinions Vindicated*


(*Of course, the very notion of having one's opinions vindicated is a spurious one, since opinions are subjective anyway and you can't ever prove a subjective point of view empirically true. Still.)

I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 yesterday. For anyone who's seen the first film (and quite a few of you have, given recent posts about its soundtrack), I would recommend it. It's as funny as Volume 1, but proved a surprisingly emotional experience for me too. I hadn't expected that. Since I became a father, films that focus on father / son relationships often make me cry, but this one caught me out. I was sobbing at the end. (God help me if I ever try to watch Field Of Dreams again: that film used to destroy me BEFORE I became a dad. There's no telling what it'd do to me now.)

This is a music blog though, so let's get to the tune. I've discussed more than once here how movie soundtracks can make even the cheesiest old songs cool. I've also shared with you my idea that if an alien came down to earth tomorrow, it would be unable to tell the (subjective) difference between Radiohead and The Village People, The Clash and Rick Astley, Pink Floyd and Ed Sheeran. It'd all just be notes and words to the alien, and shorn of any cultural context, the little green man or woman would be just as likely to dig Billy Joel as Rag 'n' Bone Man.

The writers of GOTG V2 understand this very well; they even turn it into a plot element which the film hinges on. No real spoilers here, but when an alien god arrives on Earth, he reaches the conclusion that the song below is “possibly Earth’s finest composition”. And who am I to argue with that?

8. Looking Glass - Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)



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