Giving Up, Giving In

Friday night, eight oclock and another interminable trip around the Oberwald is driving me insane. Someone famous whose name I forget once wrote:

“Time flies by when you’re the driver of a train and I ride on the footpath there and back again”

I am not sure who it was, but a few weeks riding the rails that I have had to endure these past few Fridays would see a version by Leonard Cohen, the introduction of a few minor chords to infer melancholy and emphasise a desire to get off the F*****g footplate and get on with life!


Fortunately I have an escape, and with the dance deservedly won by Abbey, despite a concerted media campaign by Susanna I currently have the music in me. The soothing tones of Sheena Easton singing “Giving up Giving in” currently feeds through my headphones and helps counter the Friday night riot of life on the Swiss rails as I ponder tomorrows night’s singing competition. Sitting over there with his bottle of Theakston’s Unpredictable and a bowl of pickled onions to hand taking in the fine detail of another jaunt up the Jungfrau he occasionally glances my way and If my lip reading serves me correctly mutters “living the dream” My occasional hand claps to Sheena’s bass baritone probably convey the message that I too am living the Friday night dream.

I am not.

Tonight should have been the final night of “Hair..........in all the wrong places” a musical by our local Saga amateur dramatic society. Rehearsals had gone well. The nudity had been cut from the original script much to the consternation of an easy living group with ideas beyond their station, who regularly gathered in the local drinking emporia to take in England football matches. Emboldened by England’s recent qualification for next year’s world cup in Rio Di Janeiro, they hatched a plan over a succession of Dubonnet and lemonades to include a tribute to the team somewhere during the production.

This turned out to be the removal of skirts Bucks Fizz style during the show stopping “Let the Sunshine in” to reveal no knickers but a quartet of Brazilian waxes dyed blue, green, yellow and white. Unlicensed for full frontal nudity the local council closed us down, narrowly avoiding a court case and three months of hard rehearsal came to nothing.

And now I am alone, the train did not make its destination climbing high on its rack and pinions (good grief how much of this programme have I absorbed) power was lost mid Alp.

Our power, not the Swiss power,

Holey cheese munchers far too efficient for that.

Well not the power as such, but the signal from the sky dish. High wind blows the branches in our hedge across the line of our dish and the signal is sometimes lost. This instigated a five minute rant from himself on how can it be that we can fire a signal thousands of miles out into space bounce it off a satellite before returning it to earth only for it to struggle to get past the hedge at the bottom of our garden. A ten minute phone call to a Sky man with a Scottish accent has further darkened his mood,which was not helped by the Sky man's parting reposte:

“You should cut yon bloody hidge then ya southern bampot”

Husband’s apoplexy was sent soaring and he snatched up the Legolas costume the kids bought him for Christmas to depart for Gondor (his shed) to engage the forces of Sky digital in battle via the medium of Warhammer, pausing only to fire three rubber arrows at the sky dish.

So I am left here to recap some of the singers from the first two episodes of The Voice. I don’t understand how the old guy from the North West was not picked as he out Bubled the Buble and Kylie seems a little over eager with the buzzer. I like William’s singers and his selections always seem a little more considered, although Tom Jones seems to have been at the Testosterone pills again, with his first five singers all young and female. I am sure I heard him say sotto voce to Kylie:

“I don’t know what’s going on so I don’t, All I got’s tail,.....Huuh!

Did I tell you I met Elvis”

It’s not the same as the dancing but it gets me through the week.

I have been busting a few moves recently while out walking the dog first thing in the morning. I have taken to listening to my ipod while walking and am unable to let the rhythm and beat affect the way I walk, occasionally chucking in a full three sixty degree spin or a high hand clap or circular motion with my hips which normally results in the dog walking ten yards behind me. Earlier in the week I had been surprised when a man around my age walking a spooky looking Weimaraner halted my progress, I took my headphones off thinking he required directions or change, but was put firmly on the back foot when he said:

“ I’ll name that tune in one............ Marvin Gaye, got to give it up”

Flustered I told him to not be so stupid, how could he possibly know what I was listening to. To which he replied,

“Ok, I may be wrong but I don’t think I am, you look like a trained dancer (ok he didn’t say that) and nobody walks like that to S Club 7”


As I stalked off, dragging the dog away from what turned out to be a sexy lady Weimaraner I clicked my ipod on from Marvin Gaye to something a little less bouncy.

Our game of "name that tune" has continued throughout the week, he didn’t guess “Candle in the Wind” opting instead for some dirge by the oily Deburgh which I found a little insulting, but he had Rockin Robin by the Jacksons when I was ten yards into the park. It may not be full on dancing but it is still the interpretation of music through body movement and I like to think of it as a middle aged version of street dance.


Oh great, Sky’s back on. Now do I send message to Gondor to let my Legolas know that the battle is won, or do I turn over and take in a bit of Phil and Kirsty,

Now where are they this week.................