Friday 17 July 2009

A list










It's the time of year when everybody is having or has had holidays. I'm pretty rubbish at holidays, as I can't really sit still. I've no interest in lying in the sun, with a great book trying to catch the skin cancer. I can't abide resorts, with people in Union Flag swimming trunks swaying between the acres of plastic sunbeds and the bars and then back again. Not for me.

I'm also not a huge fan of flying, so getting to the Costa Bollocks can be something of a trauma. I'm well informed by a respected member of the mental health profession, and occasional heckler about the lack of updates on this blog, that the best way to beat such a phobia is to avoid it. "Hide under the bed if necessary", were her exact words.

I usually take three seperate single weeks. The first is to Scotland in May or June where I can faff about on my inflatable banana boat in the lake near the idyllic cottage I've bored about so many times before in these moronic pages.

The second is normally to Cornwall. We tend to favour the ruggedness of the north side of the Lizard Peninsula, where, if the sun does shine, and Mme Suicide wishes to sun herself, I can at least throw myself around on my bodyboard in the sea in Poldhu, Church or the stunning Kynance Cove(s)












The third week we will camp somewhere in September if the weather forecast looks reasonable, when the sites have emptied of kids.

Last year we paid a quick visit back to the preferred childhood destination of Newquay. I'm not sure what to make of it anymore. The whole upsurge in UK surfing, and it's place as 'the capital' seems to have turned it into something else. There seem to luxury apartments going up all over the place, for young single professional males who want to spend their weekends being Patrick Swayze in 'Point Break' instead of freelance IT consultants.

When we were between the ages of nine and fourteen, the sands at Watergate Bay and Fistral Bay were the ultimate playground for two weeks in August. My last memories are of staying at small hotel, aged fourteen, just outside Newquay centre. Days were spent running around with new best friends, who you forgot about, just after promising to write to to them forever. Nights were spent in the hotel bar, drinking soft 'Blood Transfusions' and mooning over the the unreachable eighteen year old barmaid who was so nice to me. Listening to the entertainment, a singing guitar player named Ian St Something or Other, wade through 'Streets of London', and wondering whether he'd be brave enough to sing the one about "Daniel Morgan, who had a tiny sexual organ..."

My sister had a couple of cassettes which she's taped much of the top twenty. This (and Daniel Morgan) formed the soundtrack to the holiday. I'm off now to try and download all the tracks below, so I can stick them on my iPod, and bridge a thirty year gap.

YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I WANT -John Travolta And Olivia Newton-John

SUBSTITUTE - Clout

BOOGIE OOGIE OOGIE - A Taste Of Honey

THE SMURF SONG - Father Abraham And The Smurfs

THREE TIMES A LADY - Commodores

BROWN GIRL IN THE RING / RIVERS OF BABYLON - Boney M

FOREVER AUTUMN - Justin Hayward

DANCING IN THE CITY - Marshall Hain

IF THE KIDS ARE UNITED - Sham 69

WILD WEST HERO - Electric Light Orchestra

NORTHERN LIGHTS - Renaissance

5-7-0-5 - City Boy

STAY - Jackson Browne

A LITTLE BIT OF SOAP - Showaddywaddy

LIKE CLOCKWORK - Boomtown Rats

RUN FOR HOME - Lindisfarne

IT'S RAINING - Darts

COME BACK & FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED - Gladys Knight And The Pips

LIFE'S BEEN GOOD - Joe Walsh

9 comments:

Bright Ambassador said...

It won't surprise you to learn that Substitute, Forever Autumn and Northern Lights are already on my iPod.

I gave up on Cornwall in 2002. After many happy childhood holidays there I now find it incredibly overcrowded.

Kolley Kibber said...

My, that's an evocative list. It would have been the summer I left school to go and start my A Levels at college. The summer I finally managed to always get served in pubs, and learned to smoke Camels. I was very sophisticated, see.

'Life's Been Good' was an odd little song, wasn't it? I find it hard to remember why it was so popular, but it was everywhere...

And what on earth is a 'Blood Transfusion'??

Cocktails said...

None of those songs are remotely evocative of my life at the time except for The Smurf Song. I must have been around 4 or 5, my older cousin had WAY more smurfs than poor old me and she insisted on arranging them artfully on a shelf rather than let me play with them. And she had the space smurf! Cow.

Yes, thanks for the memories VS.

Jon Peake said...

Isn't that funny, I've not been to Cornwall since 1977, though by the look of your list it's clearly 1978.

Mondo said...

That's exactly 78 as I remember just pre-back to school days too..

I've started collecting missing pop nuggets on vinyl recently , and bought Clout for 50p along with Sherbat - Howzat, The Fortunes - Storm In A Teacup and Jigsaw - Sky High...

Procul Harum - Pandora's Box is next on the list.

Kolley Kibber said...

Ooh I'm a year out - I thought it was 1979. I lose a cred point.

It was in fact the last year my entire family went on holiday together,To Scotland, and boy was I hard work.

Valentine Suicide said...

BA- I'd have thought you'd got some ELO in there as well?

It was 1978. I spent some time on Saturday night drunkenly buying tracks from here and there, which resulted in my bank account being suspended for 'suspicious activity'. I found this out in Sainsbury's trying to pay, and having my card refused. I shouted at the man from the bank when returned home. It pays to steal music?

Other tracks were:-

What a Waste- Ian Dury
Love is Like Oxygen- Sweet
Macarthur Park- Donna Summer
I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass-Nick Lowe
Rat Trap- Boomtown Rats

ISBW- a 'Blood Transfusion' was some kind of blackcurrant based soft drink, which was very much flavour of the holiday. And you're still hard work.

Mr H said...

I like the seaside. I went there last weekend and paddled in the sea and had a Calippo and a pie (well, two) and then got the bus home. It was GR8.

Bright Ambassador said...

ELO? Are you having a laugh? I realise it's trendy to like ELO these days, but no, I find them a truly abysmal Beatles tribute act. Sorry.
Having said that though, Jeff Lynne did come up with something that always makes me laugh: in Pete Frame's indispensable Rock Gazzeteer of Great Britain, Lynne writes the introduction, which includes this line "I can see from reading this book that I come from Birmingham, which would explain my accent."

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