Where The Action Is: Playlist 27 June 2010

It’s our fourth and final look at the small but perfectly formed Ember record label as we celebrate its 50th anniversary with the help of the recent releases by the Fantastic Voyage label.

We’ll also have our usual features, with a bias towards Ember artistes. We’ll have two more games of Connect 3, where you can guess the link between three records, a birthday track for songwriter Jerome Pomus and a Foreign Language track from Jacqueline Taieb. There’s also the Half-Time Instrumental, the Trojan Mod Reggae track, Two of a Kind from Irish band The People, as well as The Dukes of Stratosphear in this week’s Under the Influence feature.

Miss X - S-E-X/Christine (Ember EMBS 175, 1963)

Jimmy Dean – Big Bad John (Philips 1961) RIP Jimmy Dean
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)
The Boston Dexters – I’ve Got Something To Tell You (Columbia 1965) RIP Tam White
Paul’s Troubles – You’ll Find Out (Ember 1966)
Lita Roza – Mama (He Treats Your Daughter Mean) (Ember 1962)
Ray Singer – Won’t It Be Fine (Ember 1966)
The Midnights – Since I Lost You (Ember 1965)
The Washington DCs – Where Did You Go? (Ember 1964)
The Fadin’ Colours – (Just Like) Romeo and Juliet (Ember 1966) (Connect 3)
David MacBeth – Mr Blues (Pye 1959) (Connect 3)
Tracey Day – Teenage Cleopatra (Liberty 1963) (Connect 3)
Joy Marshall – Till The End of Time (Ember 1962)
Blue Beard – Baby I Need You (Unreleased/Ember 1971)
Jean Martin – Save the Last Dance for Me (Decca 1964) (Birthday: 27/6/25 Jerome Pomus)
Grant Tracy – Never Let It Be Said (Ember 1965)
The Alleycatz – Chicago Calling (Ember 1966)
Jacqueline Taieb – La Premiere a Gauche (Impact 1967) (Foreign Language)
Rusty Harness – Come Into My Heart (Ember 1971)
The Couriers – Take Away (Ember 1965) (Half-Time Instrumental)
A Band of Angels – She’ll Never Be You (United Artists 1964)
Black Swan – Echoes and Rainbows (Ember 1971)
The Zodiacs – Renegade (Trojan 1965) (Trojan Mod Reggae)
Miss X – S-E-X (Ember 1963)
The Clockwork Oranges – After Tonight (Ember 1966)
Mandy Rice-Davies – You Got What I Takes (Ember 1964)
The Dukes of Stratosphear – Vanishing Girl (Virgin 1987) (Under the Influence)
Chad and Jeremy – What Do You Want With Me? (Ember 1965)
Linda Thorson – You Will Want Me (Ember 1968)
Bobby Johnson and The Atoms – Do It Again A Little Bit Slower (Ember 1967)
Herman’s Hermits – No Milk Today (Columbia 1966) (Connect 3)
The Kinks – Milk Cow Blues (Pye 1965) (Connect 3) RIP Pete Quaife
Polly Niles – The Milk of the Tree (Unreleased/Ember 1971)) (Connect 3)
The Luvin’ Kind – Answers Please (Ember 1966)
The Cookies – Don’t Say Nothing Bad (About My Baby) (Dimension 1963)
The People – Well…All Right (Ember 1966) (Two of a Kind)
The People – I’m With You (Ember 1966) (Two of a Kind)
Julie Rogers – Once More With Feeling (Ember 1970)
The Brothers Grimm – A Man Needs Love (Ember 1965)
The Buzz – I Gotta Buzz (Decca 1969) RIP Tam White
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)

That’s the end of our homage to the great Ember record label – I hope you enjoyed it.

If any of the Ember CDs interest you, you can get them direct from Fantastic Voyage, part of the Future Noise Music group. They’re only £4.99, which is a lot cheaper than Amazon! I’m not being paid to say this – I bought the CDs myself – I just think they’re great value and contain some crackin’ and rare tracks from the 60s and early 70s. They come in great little slip case covers, with informative booklets on the acts featured.

If you’re in the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy you can hear Where The Action Is on Channel 3 on your bedside headphones or on 1287AM on the Medium Wave.

That’s it for this week. Until next time, it’s good day and good health.

Read Full Post »

Where The Action Is: Playlist Sunday 20 June 2010

Welcome to week three of my celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Ember record label and the fabulous Ember releases by the Fantastic Voyage label.

We’ll have the usual features, albeit with an Ember theme. We’ll have two more games of Connect 3, where you can guess the link between three records, a birthday track for Beach Boy Brian Wilson and an appropriate Father’s Day Foreign Language track from Liz Brady. There’s also the Half-Time Instrumental, the Trojan Mod Reggae track, Two of a Kind from The Bats, as well as The Wondermints in this week’s Under the Influence feature.

Rainy Day Mind: Ember Pop 1969-1974 (Fantastic Voyage)

We begin the show with two more musical marvels who sadly passed away recently…

Crispian St. Peters – The Pied Piper (Decca 1966) RIP
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)
Anita Humes and The Essex – Girl You Better Go For Yourself (Demo 1963) RIP
The Sweethearts – Sorry, Daddy (Ray Starr 1961)
Chad and Jeremy – No Other Baby (Ember 1965)
Twiggy – Over and Over (Ember 1966)
Bobby Johnson and The Atoms – Tramp (Ember 1967)
Mandy Rice-Davies – Close Your Eyes (Ember 1964)
Gene Vincent – Born To Be A Rolling Stone (Challenge 1967) (Connect 3)
Earl Preston’s Realms – Daddy Rolling Stone (Ember 1965) (Connect 3)
The Creation – Like a Rolling Stone (Hit-ton 1967) (Connect 3)
The Dale Sisters – Secrets (Ember 1962)
Marcus Tro – Tell Me (Ember 1964)
Brian Wilson – Dream Angel (Giant 1998) (Birthday: 20/6/42)
The Clockwork Orange – Ready Steady (Ember 1966)
Mother Trucker – Propeller Love (Ember 1974)
Liz Brady – Hey O Daddy O (Pathé 1965) (Foreign Language)
Ray Singer – What’s Done Has Been Done (Ember 1966)
The Checkmates – Night Train (Pye 1961) (Half-Time Instrumental)
A Band of Angels – Not True As Yet (United Artists 1964)
Paul’s Troubles – You’ve Got Something (Ember 1966)
The Enforcers – Musical Fever (Trojan 1968) (Trojan Mod Reggae)
The Shondells – Don’t Cry My Soldier Boy (Ember 1964)
The Fadin’ Colours – Billy Christian (Ember 1966)
The Midnights – Show Me Around (Ember 1965)
The Wondermints – Proto-Pretty (Pop Psyche 1993) (Under the Influence)
Linda Thorson – Wishful Thinking (Ember 1968)
The Washington DCs – Little One (Ember 1965)
Lynn Holland – And The Angels Sing (Ember 1964)
The Good Vibrations – Call Me Lightning (Ember 1969) (Connect 3)
John Leyton – Thunder and Lightning (HMV 1961) (Connect 3)
Little Johnny Taylor – Zig Zag Lightning (Galaxy 1966) (Connect 3)
Jan and Dean – Drag City (Liberty 1963)
Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman (Capitol/Ember 1968)
The Bats – On The Waterfront (Ember 1966) (Two of a Kind)
The Bats – People Like You (Ember 1966) (Two of a Kind)
Carol Woods – Why You Wanna (Ember 1971)
PJ Proby – Sunday Goodbye (Ember 1973)
The Birds – Daddy Daddy (Reaction 1966)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)

Jimmy Dean, famous for Big Bad John, also passed away recently and I shall open next week’s show with his big hit. It’ll also be the  fourth and final part of our look at the eclectic Ember record label.

If any of the Ember CDs interest you, you can get them direct from Fantastic Voyage, part of the Future Noise Music group. They’re only £4.99, which is a lot cheaper than Amazon! I’m not being paid to say this – I bought the CDs myself – I just think they’re great value and contain some crackin’ and rare tracks from the 60s and early 70s. They come in great little slip case covers, with informative booklets on the acts featured.

If you’re in the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy you can hear Where The Action Is on Channel 3 on your bedside headphones or on 1287AM on the Medium Wave.

That’s it for this week. Until next time, it’s good day and good health.

Read Full Post »

If I Had a Photograph…

Edwyn Collins/Teenage Fanclub, Trongate 103

On Thursday 10 September 2009 I witnessed two gigs on the same day by a legendary Scottish collaboration; one which will live long in the memory. Edwyn Collins, backed by Teenage Fanclub, in not one, but two venues on the same day. Heaven.

Naturally, as is my wont, I blogged about it and added a couple of snaps of the event. I didn’t think much more about it. The blog that is; the gig will never leave me.

In April this year, out of the blue, I received an e-mail from Phil King, a freelance picture researcher for Uncut magazine. He’d seen the blog and wondered if he might have my permission to use the picture (above) in a Teenage Fanclub photo retrospective for a forthcoming edition of Uncut. His name was familiar but I thought nothing more about it.

Now, I’m not a photographer by any manner of means and I only took the snaps for my own amusement and as a momento of the day, proof that I was there. I did assume that there might be a going rate for such usage but I was happy to accept a free credit and a copy of the magazine. Yeah, sure you can use it.

After giving permission I did enquire around about what the going rate for such a photo might be and a couple of people suggested I should charge for it. However, because photography isn’t my livelihood and nobody could give me evena  rough figure and having already given my permission – my word is my bond – I let it go.

The promised copy of the magazine (July 2010 issue) turned up a few days ago and there’s my picture on page 15, with my small but perfectly formed credit reading up the side. I was, quite frankly, dead chuffed.

Uncut - July 2010

A writer friend, who happens to know Phil, said that I’d done the right thing because I would’ve spent months chasing up payment for something like £20 from the company. Take in the cost of phone calls etc and it wouldn’t have been worth it. (It turns out Phil was bass player in Lush, The Servants and Jesus and Mary Chain amongst many indie luminaries).

Now the reason I mention this is not out of some sort of ego trip but by way of introducing another issuing surrounding the use of photographs, this time unauthorised. I’m not going to repeat the story as you can read it HERE but I think if photography was my living I might have approached IPC differently regarding my photo. After all, it is MY photo.

Readers of the wonderful Tabloidwatch blog will know that you can’t trust a lot of the “news” in the Daily Mail and the overpaid columnists talk shite at the best of times but now it seems you can’t even trust the photo credits. Okay, they may only matter to those who have taken the pictures – who else would read them – but it seems that nothing it what it seems in the Mail. How can you trust The Daily Mail? Quite simply, you can’t.

Read Full Post »

Where The Action Is: Playlist Sunday 13 June 2010

While the world is settling down to the start of the umpteenth football World Cup, I continue my celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Ember record label and some fabulous releases by the Fantastic Voyage label.

There’s all the usual features too. We’ll have two more games of Connect 3,  a birthday track for Bobby Freeman and a Foreign Language track from Liliane Saint-Pierre. There’s also the Half-Time Instrumental, the Trojan Mod Reggae track, Two of a Kind from Ray Singer, as well as XTC in this week’s Under the Influence feature.

Hermans Hermits - Searching For The Southern Sun

To commemorate the passing of Marvin Isley last week we begin with…

The Isley Brothers – Behind The Painted Smile (Motown 1968)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)
P J Proby – Momma Married a Preacher (Ember 1973)
The Supremes – The Happening (Motown 1967)
Chad and Jeremy – The Truth Often Hurts The Heart (Ember 1965)
Fadin’ Colours – Be With Me (Unreleased/Ember 1966)
The Applejacks – As A Matter of Fact (Decca 1964)
Just Five – Well Don’t That Beat All (Emerald/Ember 1966)
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Bad Girl (Chess/Motown 1959) (Connect 3)
Davey Payne – Bad Girls (Ember 1969) (Connect 3)
The Marauders – Bad Girl (J-Beck/Mercury 1966) (Connect 3)
Count Downe and the Zeros – Don’t Shed A Tear (Ember 1964)
The Midnights – Only Two Can Play (Ember 1965)
Benny Freeman – Lies (Loma 1967) (Birthday: 13/6/40)
Lee Lynch – They’ve Taken Our Childhood Away (Ember 1969)
Paul’s Troubles – The Devil Jumps Up (Unreleased/Ember 1966)
Liliane – Vivre Comme Dans Les Livres (Unknown 1966) (Foreign Language)
Twiggy – I Need Your Hand In Mine (Ember 1967)
Les Fleur de Lys – Wait For Me (Immediate 1965) (Half-Time Instrumental)
The Washington DCs – Return To Me (Unreleased/Ember 1965)
Mandy Rice-Davies – All I Dream of You (Ember 1964)
The Gladiators – Sweet Soul Music (Trojan 1968) (Trojan Mod Reggae)
A Band of Angels – Gonna Make A Woman (United Artists/Ember 1964)
Bobby Johnson & The Atoms – Another Man (Ember 1967)
Lynne Adams – They Really Don’t Know About You (Ember 1962)
XTC – Senses Working Overtime (Virgin 1982) (Under the Influence)
Polly Niles – Sunshine In My Rainy Day Mind (Ember 1970)
Linda Thorson – Better Than Losing You (Ember 1968)
The Luvin’ Kind – It’s a Cruel World (Ember 1966)
Carter-Lewis & The Southerners – My Broken Heart (Ember 1962) (Connect 3)
Hermans Hermits – Searching for the Southern Sun (RAK 1970) (Connect 3)
Denny Doherty – Southern Comfort (Ember 1974) (Connect 3)
Bobby Fuller Four – Love Made a Fool of You (Mustang 1966)
Black Swan – Belong Belong (Ember 1971)
Ray Singer – Look In Your Eyes (Ember 1966) (Two of a Kind)
Ray Singer – It’s Gotta Be (Ember 1964) (Two of a Kind)
The Flower Pot Men – Let’s Go To San Francisco (Parts 1 and 2) (Deram 1967)
John Carter – Knock Knock Who’s There (Demo 1969)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)

Crispian St. Peters also passed away recently and I shall feature him next week, when we’ll move on to Part 3 of our Ember Records celebration.

If you’re in the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy you can hear Where The Action Is on Channel 3 on your bedside headphones or on the 1287AM on the Medium Wave.

That’s it for this week. Until next time, it’s good day and good health.

Read Full Post »

Where The Action Is: Playlist Sunday 6 June 2010

In 1960 jazz impresario Jeffrey Kruger started a record label to challenge the dominance of big names like Decca, EMI, Philips and Pye. He challenged them by releasing all the stuff the big labels wouldn’t touch. This label was called Ember Records. The Fantastic Voyage label has begun issuing a series of CDs celebrating the labels 50th anniversary. Throughout June I shall be joining the party by dedicating all four shows to the label’s output.

We’ll still have all the usual features too: two rounds of the Connect 3 game, a celebration of the legendary Four Top Levi Stubbs and a Foreign Language track from Stella. There’s also the Half-Time Instrumental, the Trojan Mod Reggae track, Two of a Kind from The Washington DCs, as well as Secret Affair in this week’s Under the Influence feature. Here are today’s musical delights…

Davey Payne and the Medium Wave

The Fire – Father’s Name is Dad (Decca 1967)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)
Little Anne – Lean Lanky Daddy (Unreleased until 1998)
Fontella Bass – Sweet Lovin’ Daddy (Checker 1967)
Bobby Johnson & The Atoms – A Whiter Shade of Pale (Ember 1967)
Davey Payne & The Medium Wave – A Walk in the Sunshine (Ember 1969)
Twiggy – Beautiful Dreams (Ember 1967)
Jan and Dean – Surf City (Liberty 1963)
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Mickey’s Monkey (Tamla 1963) (Connect 3)
The Peenuts – The Theme from “The Monkees” (Ember 1967) (Connect 3)
Annette Funicello (w/The Beach Boys) – Monkey’s Uncle (Vista 1965) (Connect 3)
Lee Lynch – A Bad Time To Stop Loving Me (Ember 1969)
Mandy Rice-Davies – A Good Man Is Hard To Find (Ember 1964)
The Four Tops – I’m In A Different World (Motown 1968) (Birthday: 6/6/36 Levi Stubbs)
Sheila and Jenny – Please Don’t Break Her Heart (Ember 1964)
Fadin’ Colours – You’re No Use (Unreleased/Ember 1966)
Stella – L’idole des Jeunes (RCA Victor 1968) (Foreign Language)
Denny Doherty – Together (Ember 1974)
The Couriers – Done Me Wrong (Ember 1966) (Half-Time Instrumental)
Paul’s Troubles – That’s My Kind of Love (French EP/Ember 1966)
Grant Tracy – Tell Her I Lied (Ember 1965)
The Skatalites – Lucky Seven (Trojan 1965) (Trojan Mod Reggae)
Carter-Lewis & The Southerners – Tell Me (Ember 1962)
Ray Singer – Ah Oop (Ember 1966)
Linda Thorson – Here I Am (Ember 1968)
Secret Affair – My World (US Remix) (I-Spy 1980) (Under the Influence)
Rusty Harness – Ain’t Gonna Get Married (Ember 1970)
Just Five – I Will Have You (Ember 1966)
A Band of Angels – Me (United Artist 1964)
The Good Ship Lollipop – Maxwell Silver Hammer (Ember 1969) (Connect 3)
Chad and Jeremy – From A Window (Ember 1965) (Connect 3)
Milt Matthews Inc – A Hard Day’s Night (Ember 1971) (Connect 3)
Diana Dors – Come By Sunday (Columbia/Pye 1960)
Alan Lake – Good Times (Ember 1970)
The Washington DCs – Have You Seen My Baby (Unreleased/Ember 1965) (Two of a Kind)
The Washington DCs – Kisses Sweeter Than Wine (Ember 1964) (Two of a Kind)
The Shondells – My Love (Ember 1964)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)

Please note the above show was recorded in advance (yesterday) as I have a family engagement to attend.

Next week we continue our rummage through the Ember Records archives with Part 2.

If you’re in the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy you can hear Where The Action Is on Channel 3 on your bedside headphones or on the 1287AM on the Medium Wave.

That’s it for this week. Until next time, it’s good day and good health.

Read Full Post »

Mundane Tales of the Unexpected – Communication Let Me Down

D-Fens

After three or four weeks of very little work to do I decided to take a day’s leave and do something constructive with my time. It was all planned and the day would end with a fully-ticked To Do List.

There was no lie-in as I volunteered to take the girls to the childminder’s and the train station respectively, which are within 50 yards of each other. By 7.45 am it was straight off to the radio station to record Sunday night’s radio show. Due to a ‘birthday tea’ in honour of my wife’s birthday being organised without any consultation – “you can just record your show” – I was forced into using some precious me-time to record it. I don’t like recording my show in advance. I prefer the buzz and the adrenaline of the live performance, warts and all.

Now I had already booked some studio time on Saturday morning  to record the show but when I took the last-minute decision to have a day off I thought of recording my normal show on Friday and using the Saturday slot for a generic, in-case-of-emergency show, which all the presenters have been asked to put together.

I got to the radio station at 8.15am and opened it up. I figured that no-one else would be daft enough to be up at this time on a working day to use the facilities. I figured wrong. Having checked the studio booking log I saw that someone, who shall remain nameless, had booked the spare studio between 9 and 11. Bugger! There are two studios and one is always live, therefore the other is available for recording.

I had two choices. I could stay and see if the person turned up or book myself in for 11-1 and come back. The latter option was dismissed. A half hour trip each way to and from Dunfermline would be a waste of petrol and the hospital car park, even though an overspill from the main hospital, is always busy and it would difficult to get parked in again at lunchtime. I stayed and waited. And waited. And waited.

At 9am I started texting, emailing and tweeting for contact details. By 9.20 the studio manager had been in touch and told me to just to go ahead and start my show. By this time I was well pissed off. I could’ve recorded half of my two-hour show in the time I had been waiting. The miscreant never turned up. They had booked out precious studio time and didn’t have the common courtesy to tell someone at the station that they no longer needed it.

I began my show in a foul mood; all that time wasted. The beginning of the show was so bad I aborted it and started again. With some strong coffee and great music for company I began to calm down. That is, until the end.

I was supposed to record a 1 hour 58 minute show (to take into account a 2-minute Sky news bulletin) and, still being a bit on edge, I overran by over a minute. I had had enough and resolved to fix it at home. I then had a 12-minute wait while my show was copied to my dongle. For some reason when it’s finished the screen hangs and I have to close down the PC forcibly. It used to take 3 minutes with no technical difficulties. These problems only started after we upgraded Myriad.

I closed all the windows, shut the doors and signed out. I hit the alarm code and went to leave. Normally the alarm starts beeping and you have a short time to get out the building and lock up. Nothing. Silence. Fuck! I tried it again and gave up. I locked up, emailed the text station manager from my phone, took a deep breath and drove off. I figured the rest of the day couldn’t get any worse. Again, I was wrong.

Next on my list was a haircut, some birthday/anniversary present shopping and a wash for the car. My day picked up. I walked straight into the barber’s and was only sat down for a minute or so before I was beckoned into the seat. “A three on top and two everywhere else”. I’d never met this woman before but I liked her. Why? Because she didn’t say a word. She just got on with it. No inane chit-chat about holidays or the weather or her daughter’s latest dancing trophy. Maybe she like to wait for the customer to make the opening gambit. I wasn’t in the mood for it and I let her get on with her job.

Maybe she could tell by looking at my follicly-challenged bonce that she wouldn’t be long and it was pointless striking up a conversation. She had a point. It’s not that I’m going bald, it just takes me longer to wash my face. The sun peeked through the black cloud of my day as she charged me £3, my cheapest cut yet. I gave my usual £1 tip, which on this occasion was a remarkably generous 33%. Just call me Rothschild.

I got the presents (no spoiler alert necessary) and a couple of steak bridies and a snowball for lunch. The girl in the shop couldn’t find any snowballs. I pointed out there were some in the window but she didn’t know if she could sell them! What were they, display models? Maybe I should have asked for a discount.

I trudged back to the car – my £1-a-minute haircut sapping my strength – and headed off to the car wash. I’d been to this car wash before and I knew the drill. At least I thought I did but after the day I was having I was becoming decidedly unfocused. Window down, “£5 please”, window up. He sprayed some stuff on the windows and wheels and then ushered me forward. But I forgot what I was supposed to do. I didn’t put the car in neutral and I didn’t switch the engine off and it all went pear-shaped. the car stalled a couple of times, jumped forward and out of the metal railings that bring the car forward. After not hearing an alarm I wanted to I now heard one I didn’t.

With the grace of a drunken elephant I managed to reverse the car, get it back in the tracks and was able to start again. I offered the meekest, most pathetic apology. I got the impression that he’d seen it all before and I probably wouldn’t be the last one to make an arse of such a simple procedure. That consolation didn’t make me feel any better. I just wanted to get home.

My spirit was almost broken and the heat inside and outside the car didn’t help. Murphy’s Law wasn’t wrong.

Lunch was devoured. I dismissed cutting the grass front and back as too much like hard work for a hot day and stayed inside for some sedate present wrapping and card writing. Again, I was calming down.

I then headed to my second home and the safety of my study. I’m never happier than when I’m sat in front of the computer, surrounded by books, CDs and “stuff”. It’s a man thing.

I uploaded the morning’s work to the PC and opened it up in Audition. As I prepared to do some editing I spotted that there were some blank spaces at regular intervals in the show. Oh no! I don’t believe it. My links hadn’t recorded. Now I know I’d been using the fader but… this is too much. The only conclusion I could come to was that the microphone hadn’t been switched on. As usual someone had been fucking about with the buttons on the desk. I could’ve cried. I really could’ve cried my eyes out. The morning’s work and all the ensuing stress had been for nothing. I’d was numb. I’d had enough of today. I had joked with the station manager that the day was so bad I’d go back to my bed and I would’ve but I had to go and pick the girls up.

I found picking Felicity up at 4 o’clock so stressful due to the number of stupid schoolchildren playing ‘chicken’ with the traffic that I changed it to 4.30. This is one of many things I’ve done in the last 18 months to improve my mental health. I’ve stopped taking antidepressants after 13 years, I’ve taken up regular exercise and I’m eating and sleeping better. However, today, threatened to undo all my good work.

Just when I think the day can’t get any worse I come up against a regular problem. There’s a small car park, housing about 20 cars, next to my daughter’s Kids’ Club and generally I can get in there. Unfortunately across the road is a bookies and a Chinese takeaway, the one whose King Prawn Curry caused me to lose two days of my holiday last year. Now there are three spaces in front of the bookies and the car park I use is only across the road. Despite the relatively short walk that the visitors to these premises might have to endure, I encounter on an almost daily basis double-parking and downright stupidity behind the wheel. Today was the worst.

I turned into the road leading to the car park. The spaces in front of the bookies were all taken and someone had double-parked. However, I couldn’t get past them because someone – let’s call him Dickhead – had parked half on the pavement and half across the entrance of the mini car park. This guy must get up extra early to practice being stupid. That was it. That was the last straw. If it wasn’t for the fact I was collecting my daughter I’d have broken down there and then. I was spent. This was too much.

I’ve found it difficult enough keeping me head together in recent weeks. Work has dried up and my employer is looking to save £20m a year from £170m over the next three, four or five years. Voluntary redundancies are a distinct possibility. I can’t work off the stress because I’ve sprained my lateral collateral ligament (LCL) and hard as I try I can’t stop myself drifting back into depression. The mental energy it takes to resist this spiral is tiring and I go home exhausted, having done and achieved nothing.

On days like today I know how Michael Douglas’ D-Fens character in Falling Down feels. I couldn’t do what he did – I haven’t got a gun licence for a start – but I can appreciate how a series of insignificant traumas or annoyances can build up to a full-scale breakdown. To quote Janice Galloway’s debut novel, the trick is to keep breathing.

And that’s what I did. I put the cricket on, watched my daughter playing with her Playmobil and tried to find my happy place. The problem is, I don’t think I know where that is anymore. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Read Full Post »

Mundane Tales of the Unexpected – Step Back in Time

On Friday 27th May, which was last week,  I received a letter postmarked the 24th of May.

Upon opening the envelope I found the letter was dated 20th May.

It was a reminder that I had an appointment on Wednesday 19th May at 3.30pm.

Receiving a reminder letter eight days after the event and dated the day after the event and posted five days after the event is funny enough if it wasn’t for the fact that I’d never had an appointment booked for Wednesday 19th May in the first place!

It had been booked for the 26th, I confirmed it by phone on the 24th and I attended at the appointed time on the appointed date.

Tune in next week for more mundane tales of the unexpected.

Read Full Post »