The January greys

I’m not a fan of January; it doesn’t have a lot going for it, does it?   It’s no May.   May is a favourite; a month full of promise and the knowledge that weeks and weeks of longer, warmer days stretch out way ahead.  May reassures me with its carefree message of, “Don’t worry, we’ll do it in the Summer, there’s loads of time yet! Relax!” and its multiple sneak previews of what’s to come – new leaves on trees, new leaves to be turned over.  Yes, loooaaaaads of time yet. 

Nor does January have the sweetness of wistful goodbye kisses like my other favourite month, October. October paints over the faded greens with juicy reds and lurid yellows and delivers surprise presents every now and then: those mild, sunny days when you exclaim, “I can’t believe it’s October!”  I think of it like a lover reluctant to end our Summer fling.  Oh, October, you tease!

January is none of those things, it’s just shades of grey interspersed with, well, other shades of grey.  This year I’m finding it harder than ever too.  To be honest, I'm feeling a wee bit down.  It's impossible to disassociate some things: January is the month in which two of my good friends had their birthdays, and last year it was also the month in which one of them died, the week after Bowie.  The other friend’s unexpected death followed just a few months later (I may write about him again soon too).  They were both only 57.  I miss them hugely and there’s a big part of me which still can’t quite believe they’ve both left - and of course all of me that wishes they hadn’t.

Anyway, in Januarys (Januaries?) past  I would have sent A a customary email on his celebratory date, saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY (nothing if not original), each character in a different colour and font, kind of like rainbow-coloured Never Mind The Bollocks lettering, which he would have completely got.  And he would have replied with a little note of thanks and surprise that I’d remembered.   “Must pop over for a cup of tea soon,” one of us would have said (it was always me going over to his house, he had the bigger kitchen), and in the meantime more messages would bounce across the ether, exchanging snippets and opinions, video clips, what was in the news, our latest wildlife updates, random notes on art, music and books, little bits of gossip about what was going on in the village, sometimes a bit of rockbiz goss too from his own/sibling connections.

In January three years ago the closest we got to rockbiz goss was that someone new was due to be moving into the big (and very expensive) historic house just down the street from us both.  “I’ve been told he’s a ‘punk rock musician’”, A told me.

Well, of course, we went through the list of possibilities.  Who would we like it to be?

“I wish it could be Mark E Smith but I think he’s too attached to the North”, A emailed.

"It has to be someone with some wonga, doesn't it, so that rules out a few I'm sure... but not someone with enough that they'd move to California, so that rules out a few too.  (I've been thinking... maybe Captain Sensible?  He's already fairly local I believe???)  Haha, I can't wait to find out!" I replied. 

 (Yes, I still have the emails...these are verbatim.)

News soon followed that our new 'punk rock musician' neighbour was called Jimmy.

Jimmy Pursey?  we both mused, somewhat incredulously.

Then an update arrived from A that it wasn't a Jimmy after all, but a Tommy.

Tommy...  Tommy....nope, drawing a blank here.

Then another update, "No, scrub that, it's not Tommy, it's Terry!"

Cue further email exchanges about Terry Chimes, who is apparently now a Chiropractor.

But by the time I popped over for a cuppa tea and a real-life chat, it transpired that the new resident was neither Chiropractor nor punk rock musician, instead someone neither of us had heard of and whose connection to the music biz was not to either of our tastes at all…  a session keyboard musician who composes music for TV....  A long way from Mark E Smith, that's for sure.

Life is full of disappointments!

Not my new neighbour

And well, like disappointment, you just have to accept death, don't you?  There's nothing we can do to change things and we're only going to experience more of them because, if it's not our own trip into oblivion, it will be that of others we know and love (sorry).  So I hold onto the memories and the fondness, the hopeful Mays and the sunny Octobers, and the little snatches of chat about non-punk rock musicians, amongst other things.

If A had lived to see this birthday I’m sure we’d have been sharing more similar conversations, both in email and real life, and this January would not be quite so grey.

The Fall:  It's A Curse

For A

Abstract moment of the week #4

All credit to the writers of Coronation Street for their brilliantly random and unlikely reference to Mark E Smith in one of tonight's episodes.  It was so casually delivered by shopkeeper Dev with regard to an event at the Town Hall for local business people "...with pre-dinner drinks in the Mark E Smith Suite"... that it could easily have been missed.  But if,  like me,  you were still laughing through the next few lines of dialogue on noticing it (in spite of another harrowing storyline going on!), you might have a sudden hankering to hear some Fall.

The rise and fall of Spangles

1974 Spangles wrapper

I realised after writing my last post that if you didn’t grow up in 1970s Britain the mention of ‘Spangles’ may have been a bit obtuse.

So many things are well-known for being synonymous with a 1970s UK childhood, like Klackers, Funny Face ice creams and spacehoppers… I don’t want to bore with any more but Spangles were at the height of their popularity in the seventies and are definitely high up in the list of my personal and most immediate nostalgia-fest references.  They were great little square boiled sweets that came in a vast variety of irresistible flavours, many of which were sharp and fruity. Much as I adored them I can probably lay the blame almost entirely on Spangles for having a mouth full of amalgam dental fillings now.  Let alone all those afternoons after school suffering a sore, raw tongue from sucking one after the other after the other until they turned into sharp splinters that basically had a similar effect on the soft parts of your mouth as sandblasting a piece of raw steak.

Spangles, which were first manufactured in 1950, were eventually discontinued in the 1980s.  Sometimes, when I pass one of those ‘Ye Olde Fashioned Sweete Shoppe’ type establishments which seem to keep cropping up in small town England high streets (complete with staff in jolly hats and stripey aprons), I think excitedly: “Ooh, I wonder if they have any Spangles?!”   But the truth is that if I were to eat one now I would probably never need/want another again.  Sometimes sweet memories are best left just as that.

They even get a brief mention in this Fall song 'It's A Curse' (I really like this track which has that insistent Sonic Youth kinda feel to it, although I’d be happier if it were half as long!) Here Mark E Smith is rather more disparaging: “… Balti and Vimto and Spangles were always crap, regardless of the look back bores…”