Love thy Neighbour.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to choose your neighbours?

These are my problems:

The dog next door that barks non-stop. It only barks when she’s out (i.e. most of the time) - so she doesn’t know it barks and she’s so nice I’m not going to tell her.

Then there’s the Sean Paul fan with the subwoofers turned up to max. One day it got so bad my clock fell off the wall. I was shaking and incomprehensible when I knocked on her door. Later, she came round looking sheepish ‘er…Kaaaz …could you - like- tell me when you go out and then I can turn the music up.’
So now I put a card through her door saying 'Kaz has left the building'. It’s nice to know your absence is appreciated.

Then there’s the cook who makes curry at breakfast time - the extractor fan points directly to my kitchen. I won’t mention the drunken Irish folk singer, the deaf movie fan or the DIY driller.

But - two recent articles made me think again:

In Mumbai (India’s most expensive city) there are housing estates where only vegetarians are allowed to buy a house. I don’t eat meat, but I love a prawn biryani.

Then there’s the town of ‘Black Jack’ in Missouri where unmarried couples with more than one child are banned. Couples who don’t comply are faced with fines of up to £270 per day.

So, I’ll take my chances. Anyway, if we all could choose our neighbours I don’t think anyone would pick me.
KAZ

BANK HOLIDAY RULES

1 It will rain
2 The couple next door will have a flaming row, which will be the best entertainment of the day
3 You will also have a flaming row to keep up with the neighbours
4 There will be nowt on’t telly
5 There will be ‘The Sound of Music’ on’t telly (3.20 BBC1). I still haven’t seen it.
6 You will wish you had invited some friends round
7 You will remember you have no friends since they came round last bank holiday
8 You will believe that your friends are all at home having rampant sex
9 You will decide to go shopping
10 The rest of the world and her husband and all their kids will also decide to go shopping
11 You will come home and get very drunk.
KAZ

PASSPORT PANIC

Yesterday, I sent off the form to renew my passport.... but before this...

Panic 1 - Status
I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Occupation? I haven’t got one. It’s always said ‘teacher’. Surely not ‘pensioner’. Would ‘blogger’ or ‘idler’ be accepted. I leapt out of bed and found my old passport.
End of panic 1 - occupation isn’t there any more. It used to be at the top of the page above your height (another source of anxiety) and eye colour.
When did it disappear? Perhaps it was in the days when you got lots of purple stamps in the back from Greece, Bulgaria and even Malaga.

Panic 2 - Photograph
My current passport photo is a unique phenomenon. It is lovely - a big improvement on the real thing - even of 10 years ago. I have glossy dark hair and some lovely silver earrings (long departed). Recent photos of moi taken with Kev’s new high-resolution camera have been a bit scary.
So, I dyed my hair to a tasteful compromise. By looking in the magnifying mirror to apply mascara I got it in the top half of my face for once. The result was not unpleasing.

And the photo - awful. Serves me right for being such a prat.

More trauma to come - I struggled through the wind and rain to be told by the post office person that the photo wouldn’t do because I was smiling. I loudly contested this. ‘You can see your teeth’ she replied. So??? I have big teeth. Couldn’t we measure the upward angle of the mouth or something scientific? Back to the booth. Next photo pronounced too big! Back to the booth at £3.50 per go. Resulting drunken, drowned rat accepted. Passport sent off.

Kaz to Primark for cheap and cheerful retail therapy.
KAZ

COVER VERSIONS

When it’s Heartbeat on one side and Strictly Dance Fever on the other - you can do worse than tune in to ‘The Hits’. On Sunday it was ‘The top 20 Amazingly Bad Cover Versions’. This turned out to be a delight for the discerning TV viewer.

As I hit the remote I was instantly treated to ‘The Cheeky Girls’ singing ‘Hooray, Hooray, it’s a Cheeky holiday’. Have you ever noticed that they look suspiciously like two skinny Carol Vordemans? Next, Billie Piper with thunder thighs sang ‘Thank Abba for the music’ with Steps and B*witched.

There were two Madonna covers. Kelly Osbourne (at no 3) did ‘Papa don’t Preach’ - not too awful - but she’ll be laughing all the way to the bank with her ‘Accessorise’ handbag contract. The other was an execrable version of ‘Like a little Prayer’ by Mad’house (don’t forget the apostrophe) This was more like it - a girl with bad hair sitting on a black PVC chair from the local tip plus a male torso with a piece of purple silk. Something for everyone there.

But then we got Lady Madonna her worshipful self singing ‘American Pie’ She didn’t move about much on that video did she? Have you noticed she always wears long sleeves these days?

After an excruciatingly embarrassing duet (Long & Winding Road) from Gareth and Will who were obviously in pain, we got a the no1 from Rick Waller. No comment necessary.

Cilla’s no 1 hit version of ‘Anyone who had a heart’ was an opportunist cover of Dionne Warwick’s USA hit. Brits would do this to beat the Americans as it took some time to get their versions across the Atlantic.

Woolworths used to sell Embassy records which were all covers. Your Auntie Maude would buy them for Christmas presents. It turns out that they featured many stars of the future (e.g. Elton John) and are quite collectable nowadays.

Must go now - I’m off to watch ’50 Amazingly Bad Love Songs’
KAZ

The NEW 40

George W Bush will be 60 on July 6th. I am sure you will put that in your diary and celebrate in a suitable way

I started this blog when I turned 60. It was a traumatic birthday as I always think of myself as a … well … a young(ish) person.

Here is a list of others who share my age and are probably feeling as I did.


Much admired and enjoyed: - Maureen Lipman - here

People I have wanted to be … or look like:
Debbie Harry, Bianca Jagger, Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon, Charlotte Rampling, Diane Keaton

Heroes of Rock:
Eric Clapton, Richie Blackmore (saw him at the Manchester Apollo when I was old enough to know better), John McVie, Peter Green, Robin Trower, John Paul Jones (LED Zep), Van Morrison, Pete Townsend,

Should be 60, but didn’t make it (sob):
George Best, Bob Marley, Robin Cook, Farrokh Bulsara (Hg).

Should be 60, but didn’t make it (cheers):
Harold Shipman

Won’t be sending a birthday card:
Peter Sutcliffe

Nearly my twin:
Brian Ferry - would have been pleased - until I discovered he was a fox hunting class traitor.

Politician who won’t be celebrating his 60th birthday in August as Home Secretary:
Jack Straw

3 Stewarts:
Rod (having a ‘late surge’), Al (Year of the Cat) and Eric (He’s Not in Love)

Odds and sods:
Henry Winkler (Fonz),
Sue Lyon (Peter Sellers’s Lolita),
Victoria Principal (Bobby’s Pammy from Dallas)
Davy Jones (Monkees & early Corrie)
Justin Hayward (Betty’s friend)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (just in case you think I’m not an intellectual.)
Jane Asher (got there before Linda and Heather M)

Plus: Cher, Alan Rickman, Donovan, Danny Glover, Sylvester Stallone, Dolly Parton, Joanna Lumley, Goldie Hawn.

Oh and I also discovered an actress who is just 60 with the interesting name of ‘Blair Brown’.
KAZ

Oh No - not Heather Mills McCartney again!

Heather Mills McCartney and my dad had a total of two legs between them.

Heather lost a leg and gained Paul McCartney - 26 years her senior. My dad (Bert) lost a leg and gained my mum - 21 years his junior. She kept him exhausted and entertained for the rest of his life.

People liked Bert. We can’t say the same for Heather.

However, we should not let our misgivings about the (soon to be) ex Mrs McCartney, lead us to forget that she could have been right about a few things .

I was walking down Market St. yesterday and this rather tired looking lad thrust a leaflet into my hand. ‘Don’t buy this love’ he said. It was a picture of packet of Ariel and I’d just bought one that morning. It seems that Procter and Gamble are involved in massive animal testing programmes.

They are using animals to test cosmetics, washing powder and pet food. The list of their products is daunting - Fairy, Ariel, Lenor, Olay, Febreeze, Crest, Tampax, Duracell - even Pringles. I sent a miserly donation to ‘uncaged’ and will receive their bag which I will carry around. They also have a T shirt. I’ll try to avoid buying the products too but it won’t be easy.

The P&G website seems to suggest that they are using alternatives to animal testing - but suggest is the word - it doesn’t really commit to anything.

The best bit is that my very, very favourite model - Twiggy - is supporting this campaign. I used to long to look like her when I was short, fat and brunette. Now I’m short, thin and blonde - but 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
KAZ

Update plus

Barcelona won! It was a good evening’s entertainment - even if only for Gaby’s eyeshadow.

In Monday’s Corrie we were invited into David Platt’s boudoir. It turns out that (like the Gallagher brothers of Burnage) he’s a City fan. I knew he couldn’t be all bad.

Most cities have a rich, glamorous team and another one. The fans of the other one are always nice, sensible people who actually live in the city. Supporters of Man city (with a silent ‘t’) have perfected a stoic attitude to the global worship of the red team. Evertonians hate ‘Liverpool’, even though they live there.

Espanyol is the other team in Barcelona. You may think they are sad losers lurking at the bottom of the fourth division. Not so – they finished15th in the Spanish Primera Division. Barca came top - just ahead of Real Madrid. Does that remind you of anything?

Line of Beauty: It clashed with the big match, but I watched it later on the video - an ancient device for recording moving pictures. Nick was boring and Leo wasn’t sexy. I won’t be bothering with the next episode.

‘See no evil’ on Monday night was chilling for any viewer, but especially for those round here. At the end of Monday’s episode, I felt tense and gripped by the dark, compelling production. And then … for some inexplicable reason… the copper from ‘Early Doors’ walked in.
I expected him to say ‘Crime can’t crack itself’.
What were they thinking?
KAZ

Cuckoo in the Nest

Don’t be deceived by the romantic call of the cuckoo. He is the most evil, pitiless, malevolent bird you could ever imagine. As well as being a bully and a thug, the cuckoo is bone-idle.

Cuckoos can’t be arsed to build their own nests or feed their own offspring. They simply lay their eggs in a nest made by a smaller bird e.g. meadow pipit. The meadow pipit looks after the eggs whilst the cuckoo goes off to enjoy life. The young cuckoos hatch and chuck out the meadow pipit chicks. Mum and Dad meadow pipit feed the ‘cuckoos in the nest’.

I’ve heard that the cuckoo is the only bird to have eyelashes. My mate Dave googled ‘cuckoos and eyelashes’ and all he got was the lyrics to the ‘Sound of Music’.

We saw lots of meadow pipits on the moors today. They were indulging in noisy foreplay and seemed carefree and flirtatious. They didn’t really look stupid. I thought of telling them about Jodie Marsh’s anti - bully campaign.

Unfortunately, you have missed this year’s Marsden festival, which welcomes the return of the cuckoo and spring. It boasts ‘artistic workshops, coffee morning, banner making, quiz, Morris dancing, maypole dancing, craft fair, cream teas and evening ceilidh. Superb family day out. NO DOGS’.

I don’t suppose they’ll get many meadow pipits either.
KAZ

The DARK STUFF

This is one of my favourite things.
It has always been the ‘Dark Stuff’ for me.

And now we find that it’s good for you. Cocoa contains flavonols. These are antioxidants that trap free radicals, reduce blood pressure and lower cholesterol. Weight for weight dark choc is about 15 times better at trapping free radicals than broccoli.

Trust me, I’m a scientist. I want to believe this. I may never eat broccoli again.

The more cocoa the better - I eat the 85% stuff. In a French supermarket I found some 99% - unfortunately, it tasted like anthracite.

But, I don’t buy it because it’s delicious or good for me. No - I buy it for the bit of cardboard in the packet, which is absolutely perfect for writing lists. I’m addicted to lists.

Here is my latest IKEA list:

Find IKEA Catalogue
List items I want
List measurements needed
Take and record measurements
Find Gunntorp basket and Magiker bookcase light to take back
Find receipt for Gunntorp basket and Magiker bookcase light
E mail Lesley to see if she wants me to get anything for her
Check IKEA website for availability in Warrington
Fill up with petrol

Go to IKEA

Now there’s a blog devoted to lists. I love it.

KAZ

THE LINE OF BEAUTY

I read avidly (whatever that means). I usually read novels from the library or charity shops so I can send them back if I can’t face the second chapter.

However, you can’t resist a 3 for 2 in Borders can you? A few months ago, I chose ‘The Line of Beauty’ by Alan Hollinghurst. Don’t really know why. It’s a long book - 500 pages. I usually avoid these because I think they must be filled up with word padding to last through an Atlantic crossing.

It won the Man Booker prize (who was Man?). I now find it’s soon to be a play on BBC2, you’ve probably seen the trailer.

The novel was absolutely marvellous. From the notes on the sleeve I was looking forward to a biting satire on the 80s - full of Thatcher hatred and larger than life Tory MPs who gave the word sleaze a new meaning.

It wasn’t that…. and yet it was. . . it just didn’t lay it on with a trowel and was therefore more compelling.

Oh dear I’ve never reviewed a book before and I’m struggling - HELP!

I just want to tell you it’s very very good and I was hoping it would never end.

The central character is Nick a young, innocent gay man staying with the family of a Tory MP in the Thatcher years. I liked him a lot. I shouldn’t have because he was apolitical and I could never forgive that in real life. I didn’t like any of the other characters. They were too rich or too right wing or too aristocratic. However, I felt I knew them and was interested in their lives, probably because they were so well written. The author was bold enough to include Thatcher herself as a Silver Wedding guest who danced with Nick.

The description of Nick’s initiation into gay sex was very appealing. Well I suppose any heterosexual red-blooded female could empathise with the physical attraction he felt for Leo, his first love. I usually find descriptions of male/female sex in novels laughable or embarrassing, but this was sensuous and engaging.

Let’s hope Andrew Davies does it justice.

KAZ

MANCHESTER ENGLAND ENGLAND

So, I collapsed in front of the box last night to see ‘New Street Law’, a new series about impoverished barristers. It’s set in Manchester. After this ‘The Street’ came on, I noticed the name Jimmy Mc Govern so I stuck with it. And guess what - it was set in Manchester too.

TV companies seem to love us. The list is too long …Shameless, Clocking Off, Cracker,Cold feet, Queer as Folk, Cutting it and everyone’s favourite soap - Corrie. ‘Bob and Rose’ had several scenes in my street - after I’d moved.

There are lots more reasons to be proud of Manchester.

Look at these results from yesterday:

LABOUR* 61
Lib Dem 34
Green 1
Tories O (ZERO)

* Not very new Labour

The title of this post is a line from ‘HAIR’ the hippy musical. I went to see it in Nottingham in 1970. We arrived back happy and relaxed in the early hours of the morning and switched on the telly. There was Ted Heath with a grin from ear to ear.

I just can’t tell you how unexpected that was. We hadn’t even troubled to watch the results - it was supposed to be a comfortable victory for Harold.

The message: Lots of idiots will vote TORY. But not here in Manchester.

KAZ

Joanna Lumley & Anna Ford

Hope you enjoyed your damp Mayday holiday.

I have since found out that it was a double celebration. Yes - it was Joanna Lumley’s 60th birthday. By the way, in spite of suggestions in this blog, it turns out she is neither married to Gary Barlow nor Ken Barlow. She had to settle for Stephen Barlow - a musician - not of calibre of Gary Barlow of course, he just conducts orchestras and stuff.

So, Joanna is about my age and will soon be enjoying free travel on the buses. There the resemblance ends - I’m not posh and I don’t get paid huge amounts to do adverts on TV.
I haven’t got long legs and Joanna hasn’t got wrinkles.

I read about Joanna in a magazine recently. She declared her dislike for ‘fancy products’ and claimed she just smears on a bit of Vaseline as lip gloss and uses plain Astral to keep wrinkles at bay. Oh yes, and she cuts her own hair too. She obviously doesn’t want to discuss the botox and the face-lift?

Remove the ‘Jo’ and you get Anna (good link eh?). Anna Ford is one of my role models. In the late 70s Anna was the first female newsreader on ITV. BBC already had Angela Ripon, but that was it. When she started her TV career she wasn’t taken seriously because she was good looking and female. Now they don’t want her because she has a few wrinkles and won’t have a facelift or be made up to look glamorous. I think she is dignified, principled and gorgeous too.

Actually, Joanna’s OK as well - I loved her in the Avengers and Abfab - but ‘Vaseline’…. Do I look like I was born yesterday? Erm - NO!
KAZ

FLOWER POWER

We go looking for birds in Spain. Trouble is they tend to get up a lot earlier than we do. But the flowers were stunning (see above). Flora doesn’t move about as much as Fauna. This means you can take nice photos.

I’ve always loved wild flowers. Even as a kid I knew all the names. I found them in my British Observers’ book of British flowers of the British Isles.

Nature can mix all the colours red, blue, yellow, purple, orange and it looks perfect. Unlike some of those municipal displays in town squares and on roundabouts where someone tries to force shocking pink, orange, bright red and purple to look good. Does Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen design them?
I once signed up for an evening course on ‘flower identification’. He made us bring in flowers and then slice them up with a scalpel. I decided I’d stick to the old romantic names like celandine, bird’s - foot trefoil, germander speedwell, forget - me - not.
Anyway, I was enjoying the wild flowers so much I started thinking I’d do a blog about them.

Did that enhance or detract from the experience?
I can’t decide.
KAZ