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Seen on the back of an ice-cream van today…

by 144 Comments

‘DON’T SKID ON A KID!!’

True.

Stay classy, Reading.

4

Comments

        • Well, that’s not really the response I was looking for, tbh. I was hoping for more of an apology and the offer of a sympathy fu…[That’s enough. New Mod]

              • To be fair, she did have a gratuitous swipe the other day at those who’ve ‘moaned about mods’ in the past. Ungrateful wretches. They should know their place.

            • Is that right? I did not know that.

              Hmm, well having successfully elicited a rare response with my OP, I fear my own unnecessarily crass reply may have caused DG to immediately withdraw and re-establish the status quo. Apologies, DG.

              FACT: Francis Rossi’s dad was an ice-cream man.

              • Oh yes. Getting a Drakeygirl comment is the blog equivalent of the “By Royal Appointment To Her Madge” crest on a tin of peas. She bestows her favours very sparingly, and her comments are hotly competed for. By all means apologise, Jeff, but I think it may be too late.

                  • It is true that I haven’t posted much lately, Jeff, due to, y’know, life and stuff. Your threadkill remark did make me giggle, so no apology needed.

                    And anyway, you think you’re ahead? All you got a tin of peas. I got a triple tag team Scornball Slamdown from HP, Johnny, and Ianess. Now I feel honoured.

                    RESPONSE FACT: When I was a student, my landlady was Rick Parfitt’s cousin. Who kept a barn owl in her garden shed.

                    • *preens, flicks vees at HP, JC and imamess. *

                      Thanks for your reply, DG.

                      Yeah, shame about the triple tag-team Scornball Slamdown – puzzling, that.

                      A tin of peas is still a tin of peas, though, so I’m happy. [Note to self: offer this one to Alain de Botton later]

                      RESPONSE TO RESPONSE FACT: your’s is very very good on its own terms, though I’m struggling to see an ice cream connection.

                      Good luck with life and stuff, DG, keep on keepin’ on.

                      Ps I’m just wondering, as you didn’t actually say no to my suggestion of a sympathy fu-[STOP!! For God’s sake man, just stop. Second warning, arright? New Mod.]

                    • My gentle remarks are “scornball slamdown”? Puzzling, that. You apologising to Drakeygirl for a threadkill comment? Puzzling, that, too. You asking her for a sympathy “fu -” and preening when you get a response? Hmm.

                      You giving me a snarky comment for an on-topic, nicely-considered comment further down the thread?

                      Puzzling, Jeff.

                    • Is this one of those Ice Cream Wars? *looks round, checking for Glaswegians*

                      HP – I thought my phrase ‘triple tag team scornball slamdown’ was a bit of gentle ribbing to the three of you in return – this is allowed, isn’t it?

                      My unintentional threadkiller was a link to tongue-in-cheek bit of ranting I did recently about ice cream vans, the subject of the OP. It was, obviously very dull, and even duller now I’ve had to explain it.

                      Quite how and why anyone wants to pick a row over this inconsequential ephemera is beyond me. It’s bloody ice cream, for Magnum’s sake.

                      But, boy, am I glad I thought to myself today, ‘Do you know what, I should make an effort to contribute more and not become a lurker or drift off from the blog!’.

                      It’s gone so well.

                    • “A bit of gentle ribbing” was all this was ever about. I don’t know why Jeff decided to give it a bit of a spin by grouping three commenters together. I’ve had huge hissy fits with both Johnny and Ian over any amount of inconsequential ephemera. I rarely agree with either of the bastards, and our comments here weren’t linked. I did find Jeff’s response to my own comment petty and baffling, but it’s all internet steam, isn’t it? Open the window and let it out.

  2. I fucking hate them, too – particularly the one which comes up my road with depressing regularity, blaring out the Popeye theme at a volume Motorhead would have considered a trifle excessive, making several local dogs howl in dismay.

    And then it parks right outside.

    It’s there now 🙁

  6. Whenever we heard an ice cream van approaching I always told my kids it was the sound of the Child Catcher. Still do, for that matter – but I think they stopped believing it a long time ago, if they ever did.

  8. Well there’s another small flickering flame of innocent joy snuffed out by the Massive!

    To me they represent hope. The music may be off key, the product expensive and not always of good quality – but they provide moments of happiness. Hey – even though you may be depressed and lonely and it’s a miserable grey afternoon, there’s always an ice cream van somewhere, making a child smile. I guess we should always be on the look out for our own inner ice cream van at least once every day. This could be as simple as saying “I love you” to your mom. Yep, there’s your ice cream van right there – and it’s a double 99 with a swirl of sauce!

    I admit it – this is a shameless plug for my new motivational book “How to find your own Ice Cream Van” . That’s me on the cover in a baseball cap, jeans and an Armani suit jacket…over a T-shirt!

    http://www.freddiedavies.com/Book.htm

    • This is too spooky, BC – it was only about 2 days ago that Freddie ‘Parrot Face’ Davies popped into my mind, unbidden. I found myself shaking my head in wonder and bemusement at the fact that this man actually made a living from pulling a bowler hat over his ears and saying unfunny stuff in a ridiculous voice.

      Sorry, where were we going with this?

  9. Loved the ice cream van. Ran out to the green where it would park. . Mr Lolly we called the man. Looked like Captain Mainwaring. Sometimes, we’d get a free flake. Usually, when mum came to pay for me and the other kids. “Thank you Mr Lolly!” we would chirrup. She would say “Thanks Ken”. Give her Mivvi a lick and him a wink. Mr Lolly would be quite beside himself.

  10. Here’s another thread killer for you. When I was a kid my sisters and I were never allowed anywhere near an ice cream van. My dad had served on an inquest jury into the death of a child who had run into traffic from behind one, and he decided that they were all a dangerous nuisance we should be protected from. Different when we were paying and he wasn’t around, obviously.

    • Woolworths own-brand cola lolly for your dad. Bit harsh, perhaps, given that he was clearly traumatised, but still…

      Waffle cone, two scoops, flake, for you. And your sisters.

  12. Couple of years ago my daughter was in the garden. We don’t live that far from a church, and the bell ringers have their practice on a Thursday evening. She heard this and piped up,

    “Daddy, is that the ice cream van coming?”

  15. I love the way that van slogan makes it sound like their concern is for the driver’s safety, no the kid’s, like a variation on ‘look out for black ice’.

    • Van Halen….love Eddie’s solos – the first one features his mad bastard modern lead stuff which sounded incomprehensible when that first album came, and the second reflects his love of the Beano album, straighter (well, ish….) blues playing. Note also they recorded live in the studio as a band, so in the first solo there’s no rhythm guitar…the second is obviously an overdub. What a ground breaking album that was.

  22. Every afternoon when I’m ‘working from home’ I hear the local ice cream van playing its slightly manic version of the Match of the Day theme. It’s always joined by a chorus of wood pigeons who sound like the witchy choir on Sympathy for the Devil.

    So it goes:
    Da da da da woo woo
    Da da da da da woo woo
    Da da da da woo woo
    Da da da da da woo woo

  25. Tonibell is the name I seem to remember from those days. Ice cream came in a little plastic football shaped thing. Slightly bizarrely, I seem to recall the ball was sort of blue in colour. Probably have that wrong though as my memory isn’t what it was and it wasn’t very good in the first place 🙂

  26. Ey-oop. Back when I were a lad, we had two ice cream van companies – the local, owner-run D. DiMascio vans in dark red and cream, and the alarming Mr. Whippy, which may have been a franchise. Dee-Die (as he was known) made his own ice cream from his imported Italian machine, and it remains a gustatory benchmark. Rich, creamy, and only improved by a Cadbury’s Flake (everything’s improved by a Cadbury’s Flake). I can’t imagine a happier sound than his bell. The whole experience was total pleasure. But Mr Whippy was something else. The ice cream was too white, a little watery, and the cones thin and cardboardy. The van livery of blue and white wasn’t as classy, either. If Dee-Die hadn’t been a round for a few days, you went Whippy, but never without a lingering aftertaste of feeling cheated.

    • Here’s a link which goes into the D.DiMascio/Mr Whippy ice cream feud:

      http://wyrefarmed.blogspot.com/2012/01/d-di-mascio-coventry-ice-cream-vendor.html

      Where you’ll find this lovely picture:

      http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/DDi_zpswtvq6udy.jpg

      And this extraordinary quote, explaining why Mr Whippy’s ice cream was, well, shit. All down to Margaret Thatcher!

      “A chemical research team in Britain (of which a young Margaret Thatcher was a member) discovered a method of doubling the amount of air in ice cream, which allowed manufacturers to use less of the actual ingredients, thereby reducing costs.”

      • Morris J-type van.

        Mr Whippy. Hur-hurrr.

        Our ice cream van was a Mr. Softee. ‘Dur, dur-dur, dur dur-dur, dur dur-dur-dur-dur, dur dur-duh, dur-duh, duhh-durr’. That was his tune. Parked outside our house regularly, hoping that the kids next door would bring their mum out. Nuts and sauce? Possibly, don’t quote me on that. ‘Oyster’ shell, the two halves held together at the bottom with coconut glue? Vile.

      • I was waiting to see how long it would take for Thatch to be mentioned, and am surprised it took as long as it did. Nevertheless, here’s a Zoom.

        Also (and I think I speak on behalf of the Massive here), how are you pronouncing “Dee-Die”? I think we all want D. DiMascio to have been colloquialised to “Dee-Dee”, but your spelling suggests “Dee-Dye”. Which would be all wrong, shurely?

        Though we are talking about Coventry and environs, I suppose.

        So there is that.

        • It was colloquialised to Dee-Die (or dye) as my spelling “suggests”. If it had been “Dee-Dee” I think I could have managed to tap that out. I hope that you (and the Massive on whose behalf you speak) are clear on this now.

          Your remark about Coventry is noted, too. Very smart little put-down there, Jeff. Thanks for responding to my comment in a way that does you credit.

  28. Have you ever found yourself alone in a crowd, desperately trying to network, but your small talk is clumsy and redundant? Here’s what to do:

    1. Join a semi circle of chatting people – by standing centrally and in front of them.
    2. Say loudly “here’s one for ya! – How does Mr Whippy have a shit?”
    3. Go down on haunches, grimace as if having a shit…then gyrate hips.
    4. Enjoy the laughter and accept the applause.

  29. For a treat, mother used to send me out with a dish or bowl and 20p, and Mr Whippy (or whoever he was) would proceed to fill said dish or bowl with copious amounts of ice cream which would be taken home to be enjoyed by all the family with some tinned peaches.

    Lovely.

  37. Ah Drakeygirl, I’ve had to come all the way down here to reply to your superb Fu…nnyfeet Lolly post, ‘cos I ran out of indents upthread.

    Got to say that was a perfectly conceived and executed reply from you – made me LOL.

    By way of thanks, please accept this very large Rum n Raisin (if you’ll pardon my French).

  38. I was about to post that Mark King out of Level 42 used to sell ice cream from a van – but I misremembered, he was actually a milkman.

    Where are you going? I’ll walk with you then…

    When I did this little bit of research I also discovered that he was in the band Re-Flex who had the groovy smash hit pop single “The Politics of Dancing”, in which he played the drums.

    This song had one of the best lines in all pop music:

    “It’s the politics of dancing
    It’s the politics of – ooh! – feeling good.”

    And then he … oh OK see you then…cheers!

  39. The ice cream van doesn’t come round our way any more. Probably because the kids are more likely to nick its wheels and set light to it than be interested in a Zoom or a Mivvi.

  41. A while ago someone posted a fantastic youtube clip by a 70’s American (Canadian?) artist. He sang in a stagey talky style over a heavily orchestrated production. The song involved ( I believe) an ice cream man who was injured in Vietnam and was secretly filled with bitterness. I think the song may have insinuated he was violent towards children. Who was this singer? I jotted it down on my old computer which I now can’t access.
    The song was breathtakingly depressing in the way that only “Vietnam” era music could be.
    Who’s the artist? What’s the song?

  42. Canadian semi spoken and vietnam sounds like Colins old chum, Bruce Cockburn. (Just googled Cockburn ice-cream vietnam and got some interesting references, bt not the one sought…….)

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