So, yesterday, I get a phone call at work from Jr Emu #1.*

“Dad, You’ll never guess what’s just happened”, he said.

A short worried pause while I considered my options. If you’ve got teenage kids in your house, perhaps ones who’ve just learnt to drive, got a charming and attractive new girlfriend and just discovered  how much fun beer can be, then you’ll know that the number of things that might have ‘just happened’ is quite long and potentially of concern. I played it safe and asked if he’d crashed the car. Thankfully he hadn’t. I was very relieved, as I really like the car.

This is what happened.

#1 was revising upstairs in the house when he heard a knock on the door. He went downstairs to answer, and opened the door to a middle aged bloke in glasses, who he’d never seen before.

MABIG: “Hello, is Kevin there?”

#1: “No, he’s at work”

MABIG: “Err, ok, will he be back later?”

#1: “Well, probably about 7”

MABIG “Ok…by the way, are those your drums in the front room”

#1 “Err…yes”

MABIG “So you’re a drummer then”

#1 “Err…yes”

MABIG “I’m a drummer too. I’m the drummer in Blur”

To which #1 said what any self-respecting 18 year old would say in those circs:

#1: “Yeah, right”

There followed a period of some scrutiny, where #1 established the credentials of his mystery guest and, through a series of well placed and detailed questions, established  that it was in fact Dave Rowntree at the door, and that, yes, he was calling to speak to #1’s Dad.

Probably the best exchange was:

#1: “I’ve just finished reading ‘A Bit Of A Blur’

MABIG: “Oh, well that’s Alex’s book. I’m not in that very much”

I think the best bands are always the ones where the bass player ignores the drummer, don’t you ?

Anyway, it transpires that Dave Rowntree is aiming to be the Labour candidate for Norwich South, and was canvassing a few party votes, which is a bit less exciting that my hope that he was trying to muscle in on the recent 4D Jones revival.

The mood in the house became slightly more tense after Mr R’s departure, having wished #1 good luck for that night’s gig and no doubt having enjoyed a hearty exchange on how best to configure your floor tom for a knock dead paradiddle**. For at that point, #1 went upstairs, and was met by #2, a boy who has never voluntarily answered phone, door or any of the first two questions put to him, but who is an absolute obsessive on all things musical, with particular interest in the indie and Brit-Pop scene of the early 90’s.

#2: “Who was that at the door?”

#1: “Oh, that was the drummer from Blur, wanting to speak to Dad”

It’s only so often that #1 is going to score such an emphatic goal, and I like to think he celebrated accordingly, possibly by running around the house with his shirt over his head.

So***, I mentioned #1’s gig, and at 1030pm that night I was despatched to the venue to pick up not him, or any member of the band, but his cymbals and snare drum, so that he could go off clubbing. Can’t really see my own Dad ever having gone for that as a worthwhile task, but I guess me and the Missus just want to curry favour with the future Dave Rowntrees of this world. Anyway, I picked up the gear, and drove home. Worth mentioning at this point that it was very dark, and very wet, so it was with some surprise that, after parking the car in the drive, I heard a knock on the passenger door window. I’d taken off my glasses at this point, thereby rendering myself almost blind, but I could just about make out the face of a woman in her twenties, staring at me through the window.

And so**** I had the second worried pause of the day. I’m really not a very good driver, so for all I know, I might have run over her foot as I was parking. Or, given that these days, with my advancing years, I can actually forget a face as soon as I’m introduced to it, it may well have been someone I knew.

Got out of the car, and as I walked round, noticed a large bloke sheltering under the tree outside our house. Walked round to the passenger door.

Mystery Woman: “Hello, could you possibly help me?”

To be fair, what she actually said was “Helloo, codd yoo poshhibly help moie”. She was, as the vernacular has it, completely off her tits.

Me: “Err, yes, what’s the problem?”

MW: “I wash wundering if yoo woold be sho kindharharharted to shpare shome change”

Me “I’m really sorry, I don’t have a penny on me.” Which was true.

As often is the case, the dialogue went back to and fro, as I justified to her and myself that I couldn’t/wouldn’t help, and she made absolutely no attempt to justify what she was doing in my front garden trying to tap me up for loose change. We eventually both concluded that no loose change was available.

At which point she smiled at me, quite sweetly, and said:

“Do you want anything elsh then?”

Time for the day’s third worried pause.

There is, let’s face it, only one service that’s offered late at night in this way while a large minder (who I noticed was now taking a keen interest in the discussion) looks on benevolently. I’d not heard of a door to door service before, but maybe I need to get with the times.

Anyway, as the NotW might have said a few years back, I made my excuses and left. Well, actually, asked her to leave, given that it was that way about. And went into the house to Mrs E, to explain that we appear to have become the target of a travelling red light service.

Still, when I next hook up with Mr Rowntree it should give us some subject matter for election pledges. “No mobile hookers in NR2!”. The T-shirts are already at the printers.

 

 

*Have you noticed the habit of people starting sentences with the word “So”? Do you find it annoying? I know I do…

** Drummer talk, I should think

*** See above

****Almost as bad

Few people ‘in the know’ can have missed the recent return to the public eye of the massive punk/blues/off key karaoke phenomenon that is 4D Jones. If you did, then more fool you, because last Friday’s barnstormer of a gig will be spoken of in future years in hushed and revered tones by those that were there, in the same manner as those that claim to have seen the Beatles at the Star Club, 1961, the Pistols at the 100 club in 1976, or Roger de Courcey in West Runton Pavilion in 1983. Probably. And we raised a bit of cash for the wonderful institution that is Future Radio, so everybody was happy, unless you had particularly sensitive senses of smell. Very hot and sweaty those basement clubs, you know, and since those health Nazis banned smoking in our pubs and clubs, they do rather tend to smell of people, which is Not Always A Good Thing.

Anyhow, having been away from the singing in front of people game for a few years, I thought it might be an idea to share some thoughts with our adoring* fans between numbers**. So, I did a bit of digging around to find some appalling lyrics that have been foisted on the general public over the last few years. This is my resulting top ten:

Lucky that my breasts
Are small and humble
So you don’t confuse
Them with mountains
Shakira – Whenever, Wherever
 
I’m as serious as cancer, 
When I say Rhythm is a Dancer.
Snap – Rhythm Is A Dancer
 
Before he leaves the camp he stops,
He scans the world outside,
And where there used to be some shops,
Is where the snipers sometimes hide.
Human League – The Lebanon

I don’t want to see a ghost
It’s the sight that I fear most
I’d rather have a piece of toast
Watch the evening news
Des’ree – Life
 
And when their eloquence escapes me
Their logic ties me up and rapes me
De do do do, de da da da
The Police – De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
 
“I am,” I said
To no one there,
And no one heard at all,
Not even the chair.
Neil Diamond – I am I said.
 
More sacrifices than an Aztec priest
Standing here straining at that leash
All fall down
Can’t complain, mustn’t grumble
Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble
ABC – That Was Then
 
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
You’re So Vain – Carly Simon

I drive my Mini Cooper,
And I’m feeling super-dooper.
American Life – Madonna
 
You’re the crop to my rotation,
You’re the sum of my equation.
Brand New Day, Sting

Note that Sting gets two mentions here. No less than he deserves.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really get to use the list at the gig, as my advancing years, a stage being lit by three 60 watt red bulbs and my decision to use a 10 point font to save paper, rather worked against me being able to read what I’d printed. Anyway, I reflected afterwards, that these were really obvious choices. In fact, if you google ‘crap lyrics’, chances are that these’ll be amongst the ones that everyone else has targetted. The real hidden gems are in the heart of some otherwise fabulous songs, where the writer has quite obviously, erm, dropped the ball in the third verse. Here are a few examples where I can’t help feeling that the song really needed to be finished before last orders in the nearby pub:

1. Speaking of which…
“I wish you’d listen to me
No I don’t want a cup of tea”
Jimmy Pursey wasn’t probably the most eloquent of lyricists, but he did rather plumb the depths with this one – other than trite lines like this, ‘Hurry Up Harry’ is just the best bit of energetic post punk nonsense you can imagine, before it all went Oi-wrong…

2. Mike Scott loses the plot
“Laura was my girl, when I first was in a group
I can still see her to this day, stirring chicken soup”
‘Bang on the Ear’ is one of the most infectious and all round fun songs you can imagine, putting the Waterboys into a whole new category of bands, years ahead of young folk wannabes like Mumford & Sons. And it’s all about neat couplets, so he was bound to make a few short cuts…but ‘stirring chicken soup’? Gawd help us.

3. Whisper who dares…our heroes are villains…
Since 1970, the Beatles have established a kind of gentle deity, whereby all that they’ve ever produced is considered masterful. There are exceptions to this way of thinking, for example, my friend N, who still considers them to be something of an average pub-rock group. But he’d probably admit to being in the minority. Anyway, they did write some astonishingly lousy words…
“I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
While my guitar gently weeps”
The thing that intrigues me about this is that George Harrison wrote it in 1968, when the Fab Four were at their absolute peak, so he must have known that every phrase would be picked over for inner meaning…and, umm, this one really, really doesn’t.

It’s a shame, because now I can’t really hear songs like these without thinking of the little flaws. I go from enthusiastic nod to sad and doleful shake of the head in one line. As lots of musos like to say – “third verse, same as the first”. Sounds like a good idea sometimes…

*ahem
**ahem, again

Firstly, many apologies for the long gap since the last episode of The Emu. Did you notice? Well, it’s all been a tad busy round these parts, what with families to worry over, careers to mis-manage, and, most importantly, the plotting of the return to form of the blues tampering monsters of pub rock that are 4D Jones. It’s all been a bit ch-ch-ch-changing, as the less than thin white Duke probably says to himself on a regular basis these days.

I do like a bit of change in life, as it tends to keep you on your toes, and this parenting lark, which in the last few weeks has been like viewing the whole world through parted fingers, is a fine example. Just ask me about #1’s 18th birthday party next time we bump into one another and I’ll tell you tale that would curdle the freshest milk. Still, probably not best to dwell on this too much. It’s not really what you might call broadcastable material.

Anyway, the other reason I’ve not been filling up my bit of the internet with the usual drivel is that, for the last few weeks, I’ve had very little to get cross about. As regular readers* will know, this blog is largely the charting of my steep decline into being a grumpy old man, except without the payment. And, rather delightfully, I’ve found myself in a rather splendid place. I realise this is all a bit insular, what with the global financial crisis, continuing genocide and starvation across the world, and the ecology of the planet being irreversibly damaged by some sensationally stupid actions, but sadly, those things don’t occupy my thoughts as much as they should, and the prospect of a late train, a bad pint or some twit in a nylon shirt trying to provide his own special ‘retail experience’ have far too high a profile. And, by and large, those little irritations have been, well, just that in the last couple of weeks. So much so, in fact, that I decided to not get teed off with the world about the little things and to have a little bet with myself around little ripple effects of positivity.

This all started with the saga around a car that I really shouldn’t have bought, which was desperately unreliable, and which caused something of a rift in the homestead, what with our son and his chums being left stranded at odd hours of the day and night on the hard shoulder of the A11. Anyway, after quite a lot of faffing around, a certain amount of subterfuge, and, frankly, lying through my teeth to my wife, someone I didn’t know did me a massive favour, fixed the car, and wouldn’t accept any payment. I’ve kind of scampered through that bit of the story, but let’s just say for now that, should you ever need an MOT and you happen to be in Norwich, go to DR Laws on Bessemer Road. There you will meet the sort of person who won’t rip you off, have a firm understanding of what customer service is about, and, for all I know, be a potential godfather to your offspring.

Anyway, after this experience I started to think about random acts of kindness, and how seldom seemed to happen these days. Needing to code my life, as we all seem to need to these days, I decided to actively search out the opportunity to perform these acts, and set myself the target of one a day. And, you’ll be unsurprised to hear, spectacularly failed. For the first four weeks I looked for old ladies to help across the road, people with heavy bags of shopping, and children looking lost or frightened. Be warned, gentle reader, because if you start looking too hard for those sort of people, you do get a few odd looks. And comments. There is such a thing as trying too hard, after all. And, other than a chance meeting with a cat and a car on a run home last week, where I managed to diffuse a potentially ugly standoff between the two parties, I’d managed a null score across a whole month.

Last Thursday, however, my luck seemed to turn. I jumped into a cab in London, to find that the cab was turning away a couple of other punters. “Sorry” I said. “But I can give you a lift if you want to go to Liverpool Street.” Which, funnily enough, they did, and after a bit of looking at each other in a sort of ‘should we trust this person who may well be some sort of sociopath’ style, in they jumped.

On the train, my lucky roll continued – the screaming schoolgirls sat next to me were smiled upon gently despite the fact I could barely hear myself think. Off they hopped at Colchester, and all was quiet, until, with the train doors locked, their little heads bobbed up and down at the window, and the slightly muted screaming was heard again. I looked down and noticed that they’d left a set of headphones on the floor. With what I like to think was a cat-like grace, I grabbed the headphones, legged it to the end of the carriage, opened the window, and handed them their headphones. “Thank you soooooo much”, they shrieked. Returning to the carriage, an elderly woman looked up at me. “That was a very nice thing to do” she said, and I reflected that, despite this being the sixth 2-hour train trip I’d taken in four days, it was the first time that anyone had spoken to me.

Cycling home later that evening, I saw a bike locked up with a front light switched on. So I stopped, and switched it off.

So there we are. Three in one Thursday. Which means, with my one a day target, I have to start again tomorrow. So, if you’re reading this, are an elderly lady standing by the road in the NR2 area, then watch out! You’ll be across that road before you know it…

* Hello to both of you