It was my birthday the other day and Mrs Pajp asked me what I wanted as a present.
Having heard Ezra Furman’s “Love You So Bad” on 6Music over the last few weeks and having subsequently spent far too much time watching him on YouTube, I told Mrs P that I would like an Ezra Furman CD (I had to spell the name out E-z-r-a-F- and so on) and I mentioned Perpetual Motion People, partly because of Body Was Made and Lousy Connection and partly because Transangelic Exodus was not then out.
Anyway, Mrs P bought me Day Of The Dog because – she said – she didn’t like the look of the others.
Now, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but despite my reasonably explicit request, I am getting a CD (it is on its way from Amazon) on the basis of what Mrs P (not ever likely to be, or want to be, an Afterworder) liked the look of.
Have I been hard done by?
Still, it doesn’t stop me buying the others for myself, does it?
This is one of the things that I have spent too much time watching.
An angelic road movie in a song.
I have been enjoying this track a lot recently too, however it does remind me of Bob Dylan’s Hurricane. I keep expecting Ezra to sing “just like the time before and the time before that” in one of those verses.
Did he really just rhyme “Pasadena” with “deux ex machina” ? And the fat guy playing sax didn’t walk over and hit him on the head?
@DrJ Maybe it’s the sax throughout or the subject matter, but I keep thinking of Bruce S and expecting Mr Furman to sing “… tramps like us, baby, we were born to run”.
if it’s any consolation, Day Of The Dog is good. PMP is better though!
Not quite getting in to the new one yet.
Thanks. I was hoping that was the case.
Ah, the perils of present receiving. “Mum, there’s a very nice dark green sweater in M&S, here’s a photograph, size large please”.
“That’s a very nice sweater, Mum. Yellow is my favourite colour and , yes, small is perfect”.
If we are being very honest here, aren’t most presents (even from your loved ones) usually just the wrong side of right? When they get it right it’s fantastic but more often or not it’s ever-so-slightly gritted teeth time?
Of course this doesn’t work the other way. The smiles of the people I gift to are real….
Of course what we really want is something so personal that we never even know that we wanted it, something which shows our loved ones see deep inside us and can intuit what would make us happy. Failing that, something we know that we want and are thrilled to discover they knew we wanted too. What we often end up with is something which makes us think, ‘Have you ever even met me? Why on earth would you think I wanted this?’
Oh good, it’s not just me.
A few years ago my wife bought me Tour de France soundtracks on vinyl. It was so unexpectedly spot-on, I still can’t quite get my head around it.
Must have caught sight of your peloton.
I think is the clacking of the cleats that gave it away.*
*I’m struggling with cycling innuendoes
….something about a pump? Problems with your saddle?
One of the lines in “TDF” itself translates as “The bicycle is repaired quickly”. They missed a trick with the video, not getting Michael Palin to reprise his career-defining role as Bicycle Repair Man.
I would like to take the bicycle innuendos further or even up a gear, but alas I’m too tyred. Shame as I used to be a real dynamo in my youth.
Sorry spoke too soon.
Where’s Forks when you need him?
Oh well done. It’s like Bob Monkhouse has arrived.
This is why wish lists are so great. Never go off-list, people. Even if you think you’ve had a wonderful idea.
Can you ring up Comtesse Wrongness and have a word with her about lists. “Lists are just not right, I want you to get me something I didn’t know I wanted but is perfect.” No pressure then…
Christmas morning and yet another disappointed look of “How long have we been together?”
Lies women tell us.
“I don’t mind what you get me”
“I don’t ask for much”
“I’m just going to say ONE thing…”
“Size isn’t important”
Lies.
LIES!!
*twitches, polishes shotgun*
I’ve had way too many horrible jumpers etc. over the years to rely on some sort of knowledge or intuition on Mr B’s part, although he did come home with a Shaky LP for me recently after popping into a charity shop, so he’s not all bad.
Was it the one with “Oh Julie” on it?
That’s all of them, isn’t it?
Anyway, he just came home with a box of Ferrero Rocher for me. One with a yellow sticker and the word DISCOUNT in big letters. Ambassador, you are really spoiling us!
Discount choccies are a brilliant present. Why?
“Look at the date on them. I’m afraid I’ll have to eat the whole lot immediately”
‘Horrible’ jumpers? But jumpers are smashing.
Mine especially so.
My greatest worry about the impending global thermonuclear war that malevolent dolt in the White House will trigger is that the Jumper Convoys won’t make it through.
#NotAllJumpers
I’ve got stuff on my wish list I’ve forgotten about, so it’s *almost* like getting something perfect I didn’t know I wanted. Also avoids the situation of me and my sisters just passing round (the same?) amazon vouchers for birthdays.
I can still recall the Xmas day many years ago when my sister (an English teacher) arrived with her husband and presents were distributed.
One of my brothers had asked for whatever the latest Stephen King book was, that had been published. Instead he was given a Dickens novel (I think it was Hard Times, but can’t be sure after all these years) and as he looked at the cover of this book that was not Mr King, trying to conceal his dismay, my sister uttered the immortal words “We got you that because we thought it would be more cultural”.
In my bookselling days I was often asked by customers what I would recommend for a teenage boy. They almost invariably wanted to be steered towards something ‘improving’ and were appalled when I said honestly that in my early teens my favourite authors were Desmond Bagley and James Herbert.
If it had existed at the time I would have directed them to this wise essay by Neil Gaiman which explains why there are no ‘wrong’ books for kids, and how the important thing is to cultivate a habit of reading for pleasure, after which what is being read can take care of itself – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming
“Just buy a second-hand copy of Lady Chatterley and see what happens when you let the book fall open”
Any chance you could contact my wife and kids and point this out? Increasingly Christmas seems to consist of buying each other gifts we’d like the other person to like.
At least the charity shops do well out of this, I suppose.
I wish that were true, but a sense of obligation seems to prevent anything from being donated or just dumped. I include myself – guilty of hanging on to stuff I don’t want or like for fear of causing offense. Made worse by the fact that much of what has been given has been done so with great generosity.
The pleasure of getting something you really want isn’t diminished just because I put it on a list, but it seems to reduce the pleasure some people get from giving gifts that way. Funny old world eh?
Vouchers – my significant other tells me “It’s the thought that counts” and insists that no matter what one receives as a present one should always be grateful. She has a point, but really, if someone buys you something that bears no relationship to what you would want for yourself, how much ‘thought’ actually went into the gift at all? And who ends up satisfied – the giver – who has to negotiate my facial ticks as I try, try and try again not to let my disappointment show?
Me? Definitely not.
So I request vouchers every time.
Yes, vouchers, absolutely. Please. Or trawl my Amazon wishlist (please).
I find that present – buying is just so tricky, especially as, let’s face it, all of us on here all have what we need or want. So you end up receiving/buying something that is nice, well-meant but just not quite right.
Books are especially tricky as I tend to buy things I think someone *might* or *should* like but invariably they never do. (I have received plenty of books in this category.)
I kind-of wish adult present-giving would just go away really. Having said that the best present I ever got was a packet of my favourite biscuits in a pink box filled with tissue paper.
So vouchers and biscuits it is.
Well if you want it to go away, just tell everybody that normally participates in the farce that you’re not doing it anymore. I neither expect or give presents at birthdays or Christmas – these days it just takes a single email sent to all concerned. You may find (as I did), that many – possibly all – of the recipients of the email feel the same. If I want something from my wishlist in the month leading to either event, I can now buy it myself. It’s not you being selfish, it’s the people that want to continue the persist with the annoying and stressful (even if well meant) ritual that are being selfish in emotionally blackmailing you into doing something and behaving in a way you’re unhappy or uncomfortable with.
Yeah it’s interesting- I did this with my close family but they were mortally offended so I now still get a token gift of a tenner, which means I still ‘have’ to reciprocate.
Same with the extended members- two of them give extremely generous gifts which is a bit uncomfortable. And frankly if I wanted a spotty M and S dressing gown I would buy one for myself. (Newsflash- I probably won’t.)
Arrgh, why does no-one listen to me , part 102 of a continuing series….
My sisters and I decided on no Christmas presents for the adults once we all had kids. But then my older sister always gives us some homemade biscuits, and her husband works in a distillery so there’s always a bottle and I have neither the time nor skills to reciprocate without just buying something.
Could have been worse. She might have got the wrong Ezra and bought you Mr. Pound’s Fascist Cantos
… or George Ezra’s latest platter, @ahh_bisto
Or Essra Mohawk’s “Primordial Lovers” (1970) – an album that I once read was the greatest piece of buried treasure in the history of popular music. I bought it unheard.
I was disappoint.
Do any other Afterworders have Essra Mohawk’s “Primordial Lovers”?
A long time ago an ex of mine, knowing my liking for P.J. Harvey, came home with a cassette for me.
Apparently Polly and PJ Proby are one and the same.
Polly’s rather less likely to split her trousers.
I’ve just read a book about the recording of New Order’s Blue Monday. PJ Proby went on to record a version himself, in the mid-80s, in Manchester. He demanded cash upfront, carried a concealed weapon and was accompanied by an underaged teenage runaway. Allegedly. Drugs may have also been involved.
PJ Proby with a concealed weapon? I don’t believe it.
He’d found a decent tailor after all those years!
I once made the mistake of buying my wife a handbag on a business trip. I wont make the same mistake again. The look on her face suggested she may have stepped in dog shit.
You bought her a… what?
A … Haaahhnndbaaahhg?!?
Have to say, Gatz – the hat suits you.
It’s 1970 and I’m five years old. Talk in the playground is of a new chocolate bar, an ungodly, twisted thing that’s about a foot long, but beneath its chokky coat is a freakish toffee/elastic hybrid you can stretch out longer than your arm, like an edible Stretch Armstrong. There’s awed whispers of how its caramelised tentacles have wound around inside kids’ stomachs and solidified in their intestines. Obviously I want one more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
So I run home and tell my mum I need a Curly-Wurly. Half and hour later I’m bouncing off the walls in the hall when she comes back from the shops with a Triffic Bar, as advertised by Mike Reid. (The dodgy geezer one out of Runaround, not the dodgy DJ one off of Junior Choice). She’s forgotten what I’d asked for. It doesn’t even sound like ‘curly-wurly,’ let alone taste like it. It’s got nougat in, which I think is ‘nuggit’ but my mum insists is ‘noo-gah’. Doesn’t matter either way because it’s manifestly not a Curly-Wurly. Also it tastes of reinforced cardboard dipped in cat shit. I can’t be seen at school with this.
So yeah I’m over it now, but I still hold a grudge against Mike Reid (both of them, for good measure), and if someone even mentions ‘noo-gah’ I do tend to vomit copiously over their shoes.
Mr Dennis says “I don’t stock Curly-Wurlies. I find them far too elaborate”
Could be worse – you could have been on the Space Shuttle:
I once stopped overnight at a campsite in Montelimar, the home of nougat.
What I found mot impressive about the place wasn’t the preponderance of nougat shops, but the place we went for a morning coffee was a bar that doubled as a bookies.
I know people who must dream that such a place exists.
Every village here has its PMU. A bar that is apparently open 24 hours a day, a bar with a large screen TV showing non-stop “sport” (if sport means something you can bet on), a bar staffed by dodgy bad-tempered characters whose equally dodgy relatives sit in the corner drinking pastis and occasionally stagger up to place a wager on whether or not a greyhound can outrun a hare, a bar so smoky that one might wonder if the French law banning smoking in bars was ever actually passed, a bar where every person inside speaks impenetrable patois and every person inside has a red nose. At 830 a.m. you can order a coffee, a croissant and a litre of gut-rot before deciding whether or not the favourite in the 230 at Chantilly is worth a 5 euro punt.
I am quite partial to noo-gah especially those long pink and white blocks that I thought were obsolete but which I have found out you can now get in those Retro sweet shops.
Where are we on raspberry truffles? Can get them again now and they are right nice.
Raspberry Truffles. Yes. Very much so.
They put me in mind of my favourite sweetie, Cadbury’s Cherry Ripes. Available over the counter approx 11000 miles away from me at the moment only in the blessed Australia.
I discovered them on holiday in Melbourne years ago. Very happily paid over the odds for them from The Australia Shop in Covent Garden until that went the way of all things a while ago.
Am reduced to ordering them from Amazon when the urge becomes overpowering.
Brilliant story – but that must have been later than 1970. Runaround was mid-70s and this is when Reid was delighting the nation with his pre-Del Boy loveable cockney catchphrases. “You muppet!” “Cushty!” and of course ” terr-iffic” with both thumbs up.
(At this point, please imagine me as Rumpole of the Bailey, gripping my own lapels)
I put it to you Sir, that the halcyon days of childhood were but a distant memory at the time of the Curiy Wurly incident! Jumpers had reverted to their proper use as a torso-warming garment, rather than utilised as a goalpost.
Horse Chestnut trees no longer produced autumnal bounty that delighted the competitive young boy that you once were.
Oh yes – at the time of the Curiy Wurly incident, (low voice, grave tone) I put it to you that you were at a stage of maturity that calls in into question the appropriateness of your actions!
(Now smiling and relaxed) Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is it not ironic – don’t you think (wink to the judge) – that Curly Wurlies were advertised by a fully grown man passing himself off as a schoolboy? (Mirthless chuckle)
(Face falls to deadly serious expression, long, silent, disgusted stare)
No further questions.
My learned friend may chuckle to himself but his case, like a cheap pine garden shed, is badly flawed. Members of the jury do not need me to point out that Mr Chiz makes no mention of Mr Reid’s sterling tenure of the Runaround franchise being contiguous with his – by which I mean Mr Chiz’s, not the child-agitating Mr Reid’s – discovery of the Curly-Wurly, or indeed its release, the latter which it would be a matter of simple expedition using some Internetular apparatus to place with absolute certaintude in 1970, the year in which my client so rightly asserts the incident occurred. Neither does he suggest that the homoepinonymous Mr Michael Read presented Junior Choice in the alleged era; again the jury will need no help from me to ascertain that the infant entertainment chores in the period which concerns us were handled by one Mr Edward Stewpot-Stewart, and Mr Read’s promotion to the role stood many years distant. Therefore my learned friend must surely appreciate the grave mistake he has made in his assuming a false temporal association, and apologise to my entirely blameless and, may I say, really rather ravishing client.
Pshaw and a pox upon you both! Why as any fule or learned friend well kno’ the aforementioned Mike Reid was naught but a disc spinner on the wireless and verily did not enter the national consciousness until his arrival at The Radio Number One in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Seventy Eight!
I put it to you gentlemen that your parley is but an abhorrent sham and affectation to elicit merriment and favour rather than guide the court to truth and justice! I demand that you cease forthwith and make suitable reparation for your misdemeanours by sharing out a bag of Revels with the members of the jury.
@chiz – Are you suggesting that the “Triffic!” bar pre-dated the fame of Mr Mike Reid?
Were they not mutually contemporararaneous?
@ahh-bisto – I suspect you know full well that the matter in hand does not concern the career of one Mike Read. This is a totally different gentleman to my long-deceased client, linked only by accidental homonymic nomenclature.
Once again m’learned friend reveals his poor research. Perhaps he should sack his article clerk? Mr Reid’s notoriety as a charming cock-er-knee bruiser predates the roto-ambulatory children’s show he mentions by some years. Indeed he was the sole representative of this nation’s fair Capital to grace the cast of the otherwise northocentric show The Comedians, which aired – if one may use such a vulgar verbisation – on a little known channel for poor people called ITV, in the very year in which our story unfolds, namely 1970. Which also allows for the appearance of the Triffic bar in said annullar unit. Ipso facto, quad erat demonstrandum, na nee nah nah.
Well. On this technical legal point, which is well argued, I may have to respectfully give way to m’learned friend. After all, I was a child at the time, rather than a fully grown man.
Speaking of Reid, yesterday, in a revenge attack for sending a friend the Nick Knowles CD for Christmas, I received a package containing several monstrosities including a cassette called Mike Reid Sings.
‘Unfortunately’ I’m currently without a working cassette player, although the LP of steam engine recordings also enclosed will achieve an appropriate level of revenge I suppose.
Relax – don’t do it.
Whatever Mike Reid did or didn’t do, he will never surpass the greatness of this
(caveat: I was 4 – anything is brilliant at that age)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gphMgG3v3Y8
If anybody wants a rip, I have Mike Reid Sings on CD, bought* as a joke present for Mrs F. The whole thing is “sung” in character as Frank Butcher. I waited in vain for him to shout “Paahtt!” at the end of each song.
I had an uncle who worked at Southern TV studios in Southampton in a technical capacity. He worked on Runaround on Saturday mornings (the show went out live) and got me VIP pass (this would have been 1978/9). I was struck by how the place fell silent during the ad breaks, as Reid buggered off to this dressing room in a “I am an ACTOR” strop.
(*) I didn’t pay for it, but offered to remove it from the shop. The shopkeeper agreed.
I do hope you’re ripping that in FLAC.
We wouldn’t want anything that was poor quality.
I know this sounds ungrateful, but…
And who could forget Mike Reid’s “Under Par” – a TV show where Mike plays some of the best courses in the UK with some cheerful banter.
https://youtu.be/Bb4eaj_brwE
I’ll just place this here:
No Sir, you are not hard done by. Day of the Dog is loaded with great tunes. I Wanna Destroy Myself… Tell ’em All to Go to Hell… My Zero… and that’s just the first 3 tracks.
Touring in 2018 and I recommend seeing him live.
Thanks @biasbinding Amazon sent me an email saying that my delivery has been delayed, so I am (figuratively) waiting by the letterbox and (actually) manfully resisting the lure of YouTube.
At birthdays and Christmas my wife makes me take her into a relevant shop, makes me buy precisely what I’ve been telling her what I want and then hand it over to her.
It’s then taken home, gift wrapped by her and then handed back to me on the day in question. To open. I do so and exclaim, ‘Oh! Thank you! It’s perfect!’
The paper may not have been on it for more than a few hours on some occasions
It works the other way round in the Pajp household. Mrs Pajp takes me to the relevant shop, makes a very heavy hint that a particular item would be appreciated for the upcoming birthday/Christmas and relies on me to do the right thing.
It doesn’t always work. She led me through steps 1 and 2 just before last Christmas and I (not so cunningly, it turns out) made a mental note. The only trouble was that my mental note soon faded and by the time I got round to buying the present, I could not remember which one of several choices (they were bracelets) was the right one. I had to subtly (yeah, right!) raise the topic of presents the next time we were in the shop, at once (a) letting her know that I’d forgotten and (b) spoiling “the surprise”.
I should take a leaf out of Mrs @beezer ‘s book and buy immediately (or as soon as Mrs P’s back is turned)!
At this time of year there’s a tsunami of birthdays in our family, and the difficulty in trying come up with so many acceptable presents in a short space of time got me thinking about my own birthday later in the year, and the fact that my wishlist is just full of cheap CDs that I can buy for myself if I feel like it.
So I’m considering asking everyone to give me some cash, which can then be donated to a good cause; something close to all our hearts like a neonatal and stillbirth charity, perhaps.
This way everybody wins; I don’t have to find space for a sudden influx of CDs (*hollow laugh*), or make polite faces for those optimistic fools who dared to go off-list, the charity benefits from a few quid, and everyone gets to feel good from giving a bit.
There must be flaw to this plan, but I haven’t spotted it yet.
We were discussing the grouping of birthdays at this time of year among our friends in the office the other day. All we could come up by way of reason for the number of conceptions 9 months before was with was a) springtime, sap rising and all of that, or b) parents who had given up sex for Lent.
About half of the people I know seem to have birthdays in mid-February. It’s bizarre.
(Bustin’) nuts in May.
Why not adopt a chimp? You could train it to clean your records.
Yes, but then I’d have to hire a capuchin to clear up after the chimp, then a gorilla to clear up after the capuchin….. it would never end, and think of the greengrocery bill!
No… think of the tourist trade! Come Brexit we’re all going to have to get creative. I’ve already started selling my gas to the Russians.
This. I have a credit card and access to the internet, so I don’t need presents.
For last birthday, we went for a family bike ride and picnic. With two teens in the house, I barely see them the rest of the year, except when they are in Dad’s taxi (and usually refusing to listen to my choice of music).
For years (decades) I have sent an Christmas email with “P.S. the money I’d have wasted on cheap cards and expensive stamps I have donated to charity”.
Yes, I am a grumpy bastard.
The way it works in my family is that, on birthdays, adults just get phone calls/texts/a nice dinner from the others. Kids/teens get money/vouchers/toys.
At Xmas there’s an annual Secret Santa scheme where each adult gets nominated another adult to buy presents for, maximum spend £30.
Kids/teens get presents from each adult, again maximum spend £30.
Adults also buy additionally for partners/offspring as they see fit/as instructed.
The presents I got given last Xmas were a bit shite, but heigh-ho.
A comedian’s DVD that has remained in it’s cellophane, unwatched.
A Bluetooth shower speaker that has not yet been used and another present (so underwhelming I can’t remember what it is) that I forgot to take home with me and will be reunited with on Sunday when I go to my sister’s for a family dinner (eldest nephew’s birthday with mine approaching fast).
The last couple of occasions I have bought my own Christmas /birthday presents from Amazon and handed them over to my wife for her to wrap up and she has done similar – it is pointless wasting money on unwanted gifts. Rather takes the magic out of things I suppose but it’s practical. I often get tickets for the theatre for my wife because then we both get to see something we want to see.
The family members and friends are different – my parents in law buy “stuff” which I don’t need or want. Books I’ve already read or wouldn’t want to read, clothes which are, in the main, completely unsuitable or which don’t fit. I’ve often said to my wife that instead of all the tat and unsuitable (and crap) eau de colognes etc I’d rather everyone clubbed together and bought me one thing which I REALLY wanted/needed.
Yes I suppose I am a miserable old bastard but . . .
Why is it miserable? Is that what perpetuates the farce? I’m really happy, perhaps that’s why I don’t feel the need for celebrating birthdays and present giving.
A tad strong methinks, @johnw. I think most of us, including me, love it when family and friends remember it’s our birthday: a note from an old workmate, a handmade card from the grandson (which may or may or may not have involved just a spot of help from his Mum), an Amazon token from my brother (which I will exactly reciprocate 5 days later) – at least 11 people are thinking of me today and that’s rather warm and rather fuzzy.
The often obscene amount of stuff showered on kids at Christmas these days is, however, another matter entirely. I watched in horror last year as an 11 year-old tore through an mountain of presents as he disappeared under an avalanche of wrapping paper. Twenty minutes later he emerged clutching a copy of Death Race Killing Zombie 7 before going upstairs to his own personal pleasure arcade (aka bedroom). I believe he resurfaced on the 7th of January.
I don’t really understand why it’s too strong. If you’re happy to carry on like that, that’s absolutely fine. I was commenting on those who don’t seem to like the practice and attempting to identify why those who are fed up with participating are seen to be grumpy. I have ‘bah humbug’ comments thrown at me at christmas and it couldn’t be farther from the truth. I have no interest in christmas but I have no problem with others having a party.
I’m just grateful that there are people who care enough about me to make some effort, however misguided, to please me.
As usual , spot on