Tretchikoff

So Tretchikoff died yesterday.


Everyone can spot a Tretchikoff. Green ladies were ubiquitous in the 50’s. Persons of taste (like moi) used to scoff at them. I don’t know when they turned into Kitsch. Apparently Tretchy didn’t approve - he wanted to be taken seriously like Leonardo.

Wayne Hemingway (a big Tretchikoff fan) said: "He achieved everything that Andy Warhol stated he wanted to do but could never achieve because of his coolness." Interesting idea Wayne.

My mum’s favourite sayings were ‘Ornaments just gather dust’ and ‘If in doubt chuck it out’. I discussed her views in my Mothers’ day post.

So, I hold my minimalist mum totally responsible for my passion for green ladies, plastic tomatoes and Mickey mice/mouses, which developed in the eighties.

I struggled out of bed on Sunday mornings to raid car boot sales where the traders (who didn’t do irony) couldn’t believe that I would give them money for this stuff. My favourite book was ‘Kitsch in Sync’ - A consumer’s guide to bad taste.

Polychromatic plaster ladies decorated my kitchen along with plastic pineapples and rotating mirror balls. Twenty ducks flew up my staircase to meet pink flamingos on the way down. Worst of all, I had a tin tray decorated with a picture of Her Majesty.

However, the ‘piece de resistance’ was in the smallest room - a veritable throne room. The walls were vivid turquoise and proudly displayed my entire Tretchikoff collection - printed on the original hardboard with the traditional scratched white frame. Mum would cross her legs and wait until she went home.


In the nineties, it all went mainstream and loads of catalogues appeared selling lava lamps and Carmen Miranda tin trays. I got bored, sold up and moved to my white cube.

But my green ladies are still lurking in the bottom of my cupboard waiting to return.
KAZ

Antidote

I have 3 addictions:

1: Toast with marmalade,
2: Coffee
3: White wine

The first one hasn’t worried me too much except when I was eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner in 2003. However, I did feel some concern about the other two.

But now - I think I’ve died and gone to heaven. It seems that regular coffee drinkers avoid liver damage caused by alcohol. Coffee is the antidote to alcohol. You probably read that in the news recently.

OK you say - but coffee sends up the blood pressure. Well no … It’s been proved that this is a myth.

But surely ‘drink’ is bad for you in lots of other ways?

This may be true, unless you are a) female and b) middle aged in which case it does you good. It makes you brainy. It’s true!

All this comes from serious scientific research. It may be sponsored by Kenco and carried out at the Laboratoire Sauvignon, but I believe it.

As an old Indian saying goes ‘Pick the truth of your choice’
This will do me!
KAZ

ONE WORD

I took this from sl. Just right for a Bank holiday weekend post.
After chickening out of Pete’s list because it was too revealing, I quite fancied the minimalist look of this one.

I can recommend it - quite illuminating.

Yourself: Petite
Your partner: Drunk
Your hair: Spikey
Your Mother: Unique
Your Father: Quiet
Your Favourite Item: Laptop
Your dream last night: !!Work!!
Your Favourite Drink: Sauvignon
Your Dream Home: Isolated
The Room You Are In: Room
Your fear: Cancer
Where you Want to be in Ten Years: Healthy
Who you hung out with last night: Mates
What You're Not: Bullshitter
Your Best Friends: Talkative
One of Your Wish List Items: Cat
Your Gender: Female
The Last Thing You Did: Drive
What You Are Wearing: Jeans
Your favourite weather: Bright
Your Favourite Book: Wuthering
Last thing you ate: PIZZA
Your Life: Free
Your mood: Sleepy
The last person you talked to on the phone: Kev
Who are you thinking about right now: Eileen

I wrote it last night. I don’t eat Pizza for breakfast….yet!

This list (sticking to ONE word) was actually quite hard to do. I had to cheat on the book because I haven’t read Middlemarch.

KAZ

CHORES

Yesterday evening I did one of my favourite jobs. It’s not like a proper job at all because you get to sit down at the table, kick off your Docs and pour a glass of wine. Then you attack the pile of PAPERS. I had to do it or I’d be starring in one of those television programmes about anal retentives. These papers have become a fire hazard and a health risk. They are probably home to a family of furry things with long tails.

I can’t chuck them out without checking every page - here are some interesting bits.

Guess which member of the 1966 world cup squad has not written an autobiography? It’s Bobby Charlton. The rest of the squad and young Wayne beat him to it. Apart from ‘played football, had mi tea, went home to Mrs Charlton’ perhaps he’ll tell us what we want to hear - why did Suzanne stop doing the weather forecasts?

John Steinbeck (yes the one who got the Nobel prize for literature) was a DIY enthusiast. He said ‘A curious penuriousness comes out in me about paying a man 25dollars for doing badly what I do just as badly in less time’. He goes on in some detail. I’m with John on this one - but I’m also strangely disappointed in him.

Here’s the best news. To burn off a glass of wine you have to walk for 24 minutes or sit quietly for 2hrs 16 mins. So in exchange for half a bottle of Sauvignon I could pop round to see the ducks in the park and come back to watch double Corrie followed by ‘Wayne’s World’ … Not a bad deal eh?

Don’t go near the chocolate digestives unless you want to watch ‘Gone with the Wind’ three times.

Oh and ‘Source of HIV traced back to Cameron’ - WHAT? Oops! SORRY it said ‘Cameroon’ - some African chimps. That was a genuine mistake I didn’t make it up.

Must buy some new specs - these from the paper shop just aren’t good enough any more.

I’ll just pour another glass and start on the magazines.
KAZ

ROWS and RELATIONSHIPS

There’s always bad news when you return from a long holiday.

I can hear you muttering ‘How would I know?’

After I’d sorted out the road tax emergency and the home insurance bill crisis, I rang Eileen to see if she’d missed me. It turns out that Mike had left.

You remember Mike, the genuine toy boy. He’s 42 which is18 years younger that Eileen. They had been together for 19 years with hardly a cross word.

She just didn’t see it coming and he didn’t give a reason.

I have a cutting pinned above my desk, which says ‘Research shows that women who yell during an argument are less likely to suffer from heart disease than those who hold their tongue.’

Excellent news for me - I’m a bit of a drama queen.

Kev and I have rows. When we lived together - the students next door knocked on the wall for a bit of peace.

But Eileen is so laid back that she fell over years ago. Whatever happens, she never gets mad. However, she has had a few bouts of depression and she seldom seems really exhilarated or animated.

She and Mike have lived happily together for nearly 20 years. Mike said there was no one else.

I wonder if the relationship was doomed from the start because of the age difference or was it the lack of arguments that lead to a build up of resentment?

We’ll probably never know.

Eileen seems OK at the moment, we’re going out for the day tomorrow.
KAZ

Ashton under lyne

So here’s a quiz. Which person (female) was born in Ashton under Lyne, is older than me and is famous in UK?

Yes - it’s ‘Amanda Barrie’ - my lovely Alma. Turns out she is 70(!) and a lesbian as well. What a surprise, I really must keep up.

However, suppose I had added that the female person from Ashton under Lyne (soon to be home to the latest IKEA) has a Metallurgy degree and enjoys Caravanning.

That’s a tough one. Well done if you guessed ‘Margaret Beckett’ our rather retiring, stay at home (except for the caravanning) Foreign Secretary.

Told by the Prime Minister of her elevation to one of the four great offices of state, the then Environment Secretary replied with one word: 'F*CK'. Yes - well that’s what I thought as well.

I heard Margaret speak a few years ago at Granada studios. I just managed to stay awake but couldn’t wait to escape and walk down Coronation street to have a pint in the Rovers.

I think her talk was about ‘Girls and Engineering’. For me it was a morning off work plus a free lunch.

So at an age when she could be having fun like me she is doing Tony’s dirty work, losing her (until now) safe reputation, losing her leftish credibility and defending hubby Leo (age 79) who hangs around the Foreign office all day getting under everyone’s feet.

She earns £135000 per year - but how many caravans does she need? Oh and as she was followed by a posse of Special branch security chaps wherever she went, she could hardly be ‘getting away from it all’. Perhaps they all played strip poker round the camp fire.

Geoff Hurst is from Ashton as well.

KAZ

What's in a NAME?

I really regret calling my blog ‘Youngest Pensioner’.

When it was my sixtieth birthday last year it was a bit of a joke. Now, it doesn’t seem so funny. Searching for ‘Pensioner’ in Google was just too depressing.

I tried searching again today and things are looking up. There’s the 79 year old new star of You Tube. A pensioner in Cricklewood has been given an ‘asbo’ and a Nanjing pensioner was arrested for running through the street naked carrying a ‘Brazil must win!’ banner during the world cup.

Google also finds me …but .. .I’m the only person who ever searches for ‘pensioner’ so this doesn’t cheer me up.

Secondly, my blog name begins with ‘Y’. Zebidee and Xerxes don’t blog - so I’m bottom of every list. You have to wade through several pages to find me in Britblogs.

My blogroll is organised according to latest post - so even Wyndham used to get to the top sometimes.

Aardvark would be good. But not Aardvark Pensioner.

According to statcounter, many people visit my blog when they search for youngest (first word) then something else, followed by sex (last word). The something in the middle has been ‘gay’ ‘ever’ ‘Chinese’ ‘kinky’… you get the picture.

It’s sex they want. Not pensioners. Who can blame them?

So there’s the new name ‘Aardvark Sex’

KAZ

P.S. Well maybe not, but that disgusting pink freaky picture has got to go. Give me a couple of days.

UPDATE: Hey - I've managed to do it already - so now I'm really the Joanna, Joanne, Johanna blog! She's 60 too.

Ja-a-a-mes

Mum, do you know what this picture is advertising …?

Could it be ‘Shower gel’ or ‘B& Q bathroom fittings’? Perhaps it’s ‘United Utilities’, ‘Thames Water’ or ‘door locks’.

Could it be ‘contraception’?

Wrong - it’s an advert for toothpaste. Strange really, as there’s not a single tooth in sight. But - we can see every other bit of her body.
The words gratuitous* and nudity spring to mind!

Mum - Can you see the scary info (death, disease) about what will happen you don’t use this product?

Ja-a-ames don’t worry, I’ll die of cold standing in the shower with the door wide open long before the Alzheimers gets me..


I scanned this from ‘Real’ magazine a few months ago. Today another one turned up on the back page of the Guardian WEEKEND magazine. Mum’s had a bath installed but - still no teeth in sight just shoulders and James (the pervert son)

Do I sound like a schoolteacher?

*gratūitous adj without reason, ground or proof; uncalled-for; unnecessary or unjustified; done or given for nothing; voluntary; benefiting one party only (law).

KAZ

stats

‘Twas Betty who took me by the hand and led me into the utility room where she sat me on her knee and initiated me into the secrets of the statcounter. Health and Safety warnings were issued. I was told it would lead to obsession, addiction and galloping paranoia. And it did. This month I appear on the cover of statcounters anonymous monthly.

As my therapy group doesn’t meet until Monday I shall ask you to ‘share’ with me………..excuse me for a moment.

Sorry about that - I just checked the stats and my latest enquiry is ‘Football teams without mackerel in there name’. I feel that the spelling of ‘there’ must hold the key to what this dear person was seeking.

Back to the problems. In July I recorded that my blog was swamped with Joanne Lumley seekers. The bad spelling was attributed to Wyndham (who is leaving us sob sob) in a comment from early May. When he heard of this, he suggested Johanna Lumley might boost my stats.

But this had no effect. The Joanne seekers continued unabated and Google still sent them to May not July. That is, until a fortnight ago when multitudes worldwide started looking for Johanna Lumley.

So - How can these people be brave enough to ignore Google when he says ‘Did you really mean Joanna Lumley you stupid illiterate searcher?’ Why are so many folk interested in Ms Lumley of any spelling? Where were the Johanna fans going between July and now?

And … does Wayne Rooney eat red meat?
KAZ

Baby Boomers

I am not a Baby boomer.
There are 2 reasons:

1: Baby boomers are American - Bush and Clinton are both boomers.
The Brits used the term ‘The Bulge’ to describe the vast increase in the birth rate after the men came home from the war in 1945

2: I’m a bit too old. To qualify as one of the bulge you had to be born between 1946 and 1964. I was conceived during the war and born in 1945 just in time for all the victory celebrations. I thought they were all for me. Yes I am post war - but only just.

So the first bulging baby boomers are 60 this year. No wonder we have a pensions crisis.

Medical equipment maker ‘Smith and Nephew’ has been doing badly recently. But the chief exec is very upbeat about it. He rubbed his hands in glee as he recalled that ‘older people’s wounds heal very slowly’ so his company would make a fortune in sorting out our pain. So glad to be of assistance.

You can’t open a paper without reading about this generation who refuse to grow old. Their habits and preferences are the subject of much research. Recently it has been discovered that they often lie about their past to impress their children, or in my case my students.

Of course, being a chemistry student in the sixties, we could make as much LSD as we needed in the labs…….. I passed some on to Jimi at the Isle of White and later helped Janis out before she hit the stage at Woodstock.


Another recent survey has reported that this generation who ‘took the first contraceptive pill, challenged the institution of marriage and campaigned for women’s rights’ are most likely to be satisfied with their sex lives.

Well you wouldn’t expect me to comment on that would you … after all we tell lies.
KAZ
Footnote:
In this sex survey Austrians (?) are most satisfied and Canadians come a close second!

Aliza Olmert

When Ehud Olmert was elected as prime minister of Israel in April this year, it was the first time that Aliza, his wife of 35 years had voted for him. At the time I was delighted and amused to read that Aliza - a celebrated artist and authour - was an active member of the left leaning peace movement.

As the atrocities in the Lebanon continue unabated and even Tony Blair can’t force his toady cabinet to agree with him I wonder what Aliza is doing.

Perhaps she is using Cherie as a role model and assuming an inane smile that says ‘ What me? A barrister? Don’t be daft - I’m just a cardboard cut out who doesn’t think and anyway it makes excellent financial sense to be Mrs Blair and not Ms Booth’.

Wives have a problem - they can do a Tammy Wynette or work hard to preserve their own identity. They can benefit from their marriage vows - Sharon Osbourne is now more famous than Ozzy without biting the head off a single hamster.

On the other hand, if things go badly wrong, they suffer - like Sonia Sutcliffe wife of the Yorkshire ripper, who at one time was more demonised than her husband. During her libel case against the News of the World, George Carman the famous solicitor accused her of ‘Dancing on the graves of her husband’s victims’.

I can’t say I’m a Tessa Jowell fan, but in her busy life as a government minister could she really have had time to check her husband’s bank statements? Would we have expected her to know if he had been having an affair or doing a Mark Oaten? Her marriage had to be jettisoned in favour of her career.

At least Posh used to be a Spice Girl in her own right, so we can blame her for that as well.
KAZ