Mof's holiday slides (including the one where something 'hilarious' happened with an animal)

Oh I see. You go on holiday, thinking about all the wonderful things you'll be coming back to read and, bonk, there it is... the review you did before you disappeared off into the French countryside. When I got snapped in a 'hilarious' photo of offering a statue of John Lennon a fag, I didn't imagine that the rest of the Roulette staff would throw a small party and put their feet up for a week.

Ah well. As punishment, I'm gonna talk about my holiday. Of course, the headline is a bit of a red herring. Course I ain't gonna do a slide show... for a start, I don't have you all trapped in a room and an adenoidal voice, ready to bore you all dim with some Madeira Cake and some foul tasting  locally made liquor. However, whilst people make the mistake of thinking that certain things taste nice by virtue of the fact that they're on jollies, the same can happen with music (how many people bring back CDs of crap singers doing covers in a bar from their hollies?). So with that, here's the soundtrack to my days in the sun...

1. A Homemade Jacques Dutronc compilation

Listen, I've already given you a clue that I'm completely uncool by showing you a snap of me offering a statue a cigarette. Well, I'll go further by telling you that, in my attempts to have the French think of me differently, in short, not your average English tourist who yells slowly at locals when trying to order stuff, I spent my time loudly whistling Dutronc tracks. It didn't work. For all I know, Jacques could be seen as a Status Quo in France... however, listening to 'Les Cactus', I did get one French guy singing along and looking rather chuffed that Monsieur Dutronc was being blasted out of a van door.

2. The Junipers 'Cut Your Key' LP.

THE soundtrack to summer. Eating fine cheese... and oysters... in the sun, accompanied by hazy, woozy and joyous psychedelic pop... it can't be beaten. At one point, during a listening of 'Callooh Callay', a song I fear I'll never quite spell right without checking the tracklisting, a child bounced a small ball along in time with the track. What does that mean? I've got no idea, but it seemed quite apt.

3. Various Blues LPs that I've never heard

Everyone likes to take a book on holiday with them. People read about the war, mafia, the plight of poor foreign people from picturesque places in the Middle East or summat... not me... I'm crap. I only read about music. So, I got stuck into 'Bringing It All Back Home' by Ian Clayton. He's a bloke who has found escape routes out of his hometown in his head through music. Not that he wanted to flee his hometown. He talks of ancient blues LPs (and 78s and cylinders) as well as bonkers African music and jazz. I've heard none of these tracks... but reading the book, I made up what they sounded like... and as a result, now have a huge shopping list of bazz 'n' jues that I need. Oh, and the book itself is the best music related book I've ever read.

4. Putumayo presents... Swing Around The World

I don't like swing. I don't like swing at all. Sinatra? Never did it for me. For my money, his voice is as flat as a pancake. However, walking into a weird hippie shop, and buying a Kurta (because I've always wanted to dress like The Beatles in Rishikesh) I heard this killer jazz swinger... and it was Oscar Peterson and Clark Terry and their 'Mumbles'. It's a bonkers rattler where all the vocals are nonsense, mumbled. 'Fotoromanza', by Italian jazzer, Alfredo Rey e la sua Orchestra, is a gonkoid Gypsy swing thing that made me grin like a village idiot. This LP ain't all good... but some of it is blindin'.

5. 'Jet' by Wings, Wakka Do, Wakka Do, Wakka Day by Gilbert O'Sullivan and anything else that we could play on acoustic guitars

Of course, the kinda people I go on holiday with can play guitar. This usually means crap renditions of 'Wonderwall'. However, the kinda people I go on holiday only know daft songs. So drunken renditions of 'Psychotic Reaction', the songs mentioned in the header, The Flintstones theme, 'Jolene' (even though the lyrics alluded all) and the like, provided a special moment... but only to us. Everyone else was invariably irritated (apart from those who slow danced to 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love').

6. A wood pigeon who chirruped 'The Clapping Song'

"My mommy told me, if I was goody, that she would buy me, a rubber dolly, my auntie told her, I kissed a-" It never did get 'round to finishing it.

Comments

[wood pigeon enemy number 1]

sounds like you had a good holiday good sir.
by any chance was there a lot of whistling to bobby ferrin as well as other ear worming??
i've been practicing my intros! look forward to another bout soon (as well as another hug a la Challans station!)
xx