When I was cute

With the family reunion looming, I've been busy uploading pictures to email to the keeper of the family archive. The top picture is of me aged about 6 or 7, in the bottom one I'm a mere little baby of just a few months. Even I, who dislike babies, think this one is pretty cute. The eyes didn't stay blue, and the hair spent most of its life mouse brown till it went grey, but at this moment (peaches and cream complexion in part at least thanks to touching up from photographer) I think I looked pretty near perfect. No, I am not biased!

Yippee!

Hooray, the shed's up!

Sadly the house practically had to be demolished to get it through to the garden (no side access in the terrce/row houses, and they have cute little chicanes and some low and narrow doorways.)

In the end I only dislocated a few vertebrae clearing a path through my cluttered study. I'm sure it will all feel worth it when I've cleared away the detritus from the old shed, loaded up the new one, and sorted out the stuff I had to move in 2 minutes flat without any reference to contents.

But it is cooler.

These Lips Were Made For Kissing

And don't we all wish!

The Beatles

Indisputably the greatest pop/rock group of all time, the more I listen to their music, the more amazed I am at its richness and diversity, and the huge leaps they made from their early songs to the albums they progressed to. My ipod is full only of Beatles songs - I'm playing them now A-Z. The oldies radio station Capital Gold did a Beatles 24-hours last December. I challenge anyone to name another group or artiste whose work could sustain such a marathon. (I'm not prejudiced, you understand!)

I once attended a recording session at Abbey Road studios (for an opera, not rock music) and crossed the road on the famous zebra crossing almost without thinking about it. In 1963, when I was a mere 10 years old, I went to see the Fab Four at the local cinema, the Lewisham Odeon. They were a great live act (even in spite of the noise of the screams!) Their song-writing talents were vast. The White Album contains Vaudeville, calypso, blues, you name it.

These days, my favourite numbers change according to what I'm listening to at any given time, but Revolution (the fast and the slow versions) and my lovely George's Here Comes The Sun are way up there. Their two feature films were way ahead of their time - A Hard Day's Night (the title apparently a Ringoism) is really quite surreal.

The tragedy of the loss, first of the group, then of two of its members at such early ages, is almost as terrible as the early death of Mozart (and I love my Mozart).

Anyone for more legs?

Legs, etc.

There were going to be more pictures, but blogger stopped loading them. Maybe later. Especially for the "etc".

Reunion

Had a great meal at the brasserie at the Oxo tower, not actually in the tower restaurant itself, which is apparently the same food at twice the price. There was a verandah overlooking the Thames, but we sat just inside - a beautiful cool breeze from the open door next to the table, but no soakings from the rain that was falling at one point.

My old friends are certainly well-travelled, but one of them still has a lot of her old prejudices. Still, it was refreshing to have a good argument with someone over sensitive issues. Most people these days are too PC to express some of the things you know they are feeling, and a lot of folks are too bland to even have opinions they haven't culled from someone or somewhere else.

JoJo, Oxo is a brand of stock cube. I don't know if anyone was named after that, but the tower is named after it. Don't know what the connexion is, but the windows look like the logo of the foodstuff. I've never been on the London Eye (scared of heights - how am I going to fly?)

Sparrow fart means very early in the morning. Isn't it great? Start spreading it in the US, please!

Phallic Symbols

When Vincent has something in his hands, I know what I wish it was - and I wish it was in my hands.

Number One Squeeze (I wish)

I just randomly dragged the arrow down and saw where it took me. It doesn't matter where you stop, you're bound to find a gorgeous picture when the selection is all Vincent.

Before I found Vincent...

I used to have lots of happy thoughts about various male celebrities in the years BB and BV

(Before Bobby and Before Vincent).

Ah, how I loved George Harrison. I wept when he married. I sobbed when he died.

James Garner was a favourite right from his Maverick days.

Not many muscle-men are to my taste, but I make an exception for Kevin Sorbo.

There was George Clooney, of course.

I wonder who other people's favourite hunks were?

Happy Thursday!

Up at sparrow-fart to let in the men who demolished my old shed and laid a new concrete base for the new one. It's going to look like this, and it's coming on Monday (also at sparrow-fart).

Then this afternoon the dishwasher engineer should be arriving to repair my useless machine for the umpteenth time. Luckily it's insured.










Happier pastimes this evening. I'm meeting up with a couple of old school friends to have dinner in the Oxo tower. For my US friends, that's a restaurant in a tower overlooking the River Thames. The tower has Oxo written vertically on each side - I think it's done with windows, but I've never been there before. In the picture you can see The London Eye, but I don't think you can really see them both in the same shot at quite this angle.