The last post

Remember these?

I was clearing out a drawer at the weekend and found a sheet of unused stamps from the Christmas before last. My first thought was to wonder whether they can still be used since they were bought at one price and second class postage has since increased in price. It seems that they are, and an inflation busting investment at that. Second class remains second class no matter what you originally paid for it.
My next consideration is more problematic. When am I going to use them?
Stamps used to be an essential component of a well run household. You needed them on hand for birthday cards, thank you notes, letters and for paying bills.
You could even, as David Brent pointed out, use them as legal tender. I did this a few times myself in my teens before I had a bank account, sending off for badges of bands I liked through dodgy small ads in the back of Sounds magazine. You could get a postal order, but they seemed a bit more faffy, and I didn't want to ask my mum to write me a cheque as she'd inevitably want to know why I wanted a large embroidered patch with 'Black Sabbath: Heaven and Hell' on it anyway.
I had money, thanks to my paper round, but no means to spending it beyond face to face transactions in my immediate vicinity. Stamps did the trick. They were almost like a precursor to Paypal, enabling micropayments for the financially disenfranchised.
When I went to university, stamps became an even more important currency, enabling communication with my mates who had been scattered to the four corners of the UK.
I don't think I've ever written as much as I did in my first year at college. Despite making new friendships, I missed my old buddies and longed to stay in contact with them, and to share some of my crazy and delinquent goings on with them.
Looking back, I think I was quite lonely, even as I seemed to have an active social life. But the initial friendships I made were fairly shallow and it's telling that only a few college friendships have really stood the test of time (hello Andrew, hello Mark).
So I reached out towards the people I'd known from my teens. I think a lot of them felt the same given the tone and the frequency of the correspondence from them.
Letter writing became quite addictive once you realised that when you shared your feelings with someone you would get a response in kind, a few days later, or maybe after a few weeks depending on the diligence of your correspondent.
Like so much of the near past, it almost seems like another age now. Nobody I knew had a phone in their student digs, let alone a mobile. There were about 20 computers in the whole of my department and none of them were hooked up to any sort of information superhighway that we could access - this was 1985. Crikey, it seems so near, yet so far away in many ways.
Communication came in three modes:
* a personal visit. (Either back home to your parents for a feed, a delousing and a machine wash of your humming clothes pile. Or a visit to another student friend which would inevitably be a massive piss up that would carry through into a several days to shift hangover.)
* a reverse the charges phone call. (These could be sporadic. I remember one time my mum had to send a letter to find out if I was still alive, it was so long since she had heard from me. Another time I stood in a phone box for about five minutes failing to remember my own home phone number, which is still one of only a handful I can remember.)
* a letter.
The latter was the most popular because it was the cheapest. Especially if you put sellotape over the stamp making it impossible to frank properly. The resulting stamp could then ping pong back and forwards between correspondents until such time as it became indistinguishable.
I well remember the thrill of finding a letter, or even two or three in my postbox at halls of residence. You could never expect the immediate response of today's email, text or instant messaging conversations, and it was all the sweeter for it.
Waiting was part of the thrill.
It wasn't just the fact of receiving a letter. The content was often pages and pages of funny, heart rending, satirical, annoying and surreal stuff. The kind that you can only really write when you are in your late teens.
I still have a bag full of letters from friends, and one in particular (hello Trevor, wherever you are) who was as verbose and as prolific as I was. They read like strange, one-sided conversations where the points in your previous letter are replied to sandwiched between flights of fantasy, and the latest tales and triumphs, real or imagined, .
It's such powerful stuff that I don't look at them very often. It's probably mainly rubbish and I don't especially want to tarnish the memory of what it was like by reading between the lines.
Letter writing continued for a good few years after university. Friends were still fairly dispersed. None of us were that well off, so often didn't have phones, or didn't want to run up big bills. People went travelling and writing remained an important connection to friends and family.
Do young people still write?
I'm sure they must, although they don't need to in the way we did.
My son, who is five, is starting to become quite the scribe. As his language improves he is discovering the joy of putting his thoughts down on a piece of paper. He can make people laugh, puzzle them, and make them like him. Powerful stuff.
Will he be doing it in his teens and twenties? I doubt it actually. And even if he is, I don't think it will have quite the same effect on him as it did on my generation because there probably won't 't be many elements of the message that haven't already been leaked to him across the other media platforms that he will undoubtedly use.
But times change and I don't doubt that his generation's form of communication will be every bit as compelling to him as mine was to me.
They'll probably write about many of the same things: loves and hates; friends and foes, hopes and dreams.
Some things don't change.
Now, who wants a handwritten letter?

Thank you for the music

I'd forgotten that hi-fi smells.
My mum had wanted to throw out my dad's old separates system when she moved house about three years' ago. I can't blame her. It was a tower system encased in a smoked glass cabinet which would have completely taken over her new living room.
At any rate it had sat unused and unloved in the corner of the room since I'd moved out of the house. She'd traded down to a small integrated unit that my sister had no more use for (and which is now in our front room - I'm the electronics hoarder in our family).
I couldn't bear to see it thrown out though. I remember my dad buying it from John Lewis in Milton Keynes about a year after we'd moved down from Scotland. I guess he must have had a bit more disposable income and fancied splashing out on something nice. It was certainly a pretty big investment, but I reckon he was given the old soft soak treatment by the hi-fi sales guys. He was taken into one of those glass-fronted rooms where they sit you down and play different combinations of units to you.
"Sir will notice the subtle difference when the Speculum A430 amp is teamed up with the Bumf turntable."
*Dad nods vigorously*
Like many working class guys, he aspired to be a man of wealth and taste. He just needed the wealth bit.
At any rate he must have been feeling a bit flush that day as he bought a turntable, amp, tuner, cassette player - all Sansui make - as well as the aforementioned smoked glass tower and a pair of B&W DM10 speakers.
I can remember listening to our not very big music collection on it: The Drifters Greatest Hits, War of the Worlds (taped by somebody from his work), The Corries, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Elton John Greatest Hits (the first one), Billy Connolly Live ... it was an eclectic mix.
The system really did sound great. I was amazed that you could pick out individual instruments so clearly, something that was hard to do on the rudimentary integrated system we had before - Elizabethan if anybody remembers that brand.
The hi-fi was another symbol of the way things were getting better for us. We'd made the traumatic - for me initially - move to England the year before and it really was like another world in some ways. We'd come from a one shop village of council houses, a real monoculture where I was happy but which in retrospect seems like the most boring place in the world. Vandalism was about the only outlet by the time you were a teenager. You had to get out.
We moved to a small market town called Leighton Buzzard, but it might as well have been Manhattan compared to what we were used to. Life was richer. The food was different. People did different things. Pubs had garden areas so families could go to them together. There were more opportunities for all of us.
And dad was on more money, hence the swanky hifi and his first ever new car (although the latter was purchased from the money he was putting aside for a deposit on a house, something that eluded him as prices were starting to outpace his earnings in the Eighties housing boom).
He probably only enjoyed the system for around a year, maybe two before he died. After that, it was always dad's hi-fi. He liked having nice things and he liked them to be looked after. They had to be for people like us.
It's more than 30 years since he died and since he bought his musical pride and joy. Last weekend I dug it out my mum's garage and brought it home. This evening I opened the box and was hit by that smell... the circuits? Whatever it is, it took me right back to the time when he'd be cueing up a record and sitting back to enjoy it.
It still sounds great dad!

Dads in the kitchen (what am I gonna do)

Happy New Year and all. I've been too busy denying myself alcohol this month to write anything meaningful or otherwise. Normal service will be resumed etc.

So apologies dear reader for yet another cut and paste from my Colchester NCT magazine column - available in no good newsagents. This issue we're pondering the politics of food preparation a.k.a. who's making the flipping tea tonight.

Fruity platter: digital media, £45,000

When I was a child I reckon that about 90 per cent of my meals were provided by women: my mum; my gran; aunties; friends’ mums, and school dinner ladies. My dad could cook, but he kept his powder dry for special occasions, such as the Sunday roast, Christmas dinner and barbecues. He also had a penchant for exotic new dishes, such as spaghetti bolognaise, which was about as far out as things got in the area of rural Scotland where I grew up. Maybe it still is.

The everyday grind of turning out breakfast, lunch and dinner was given over to my mum, despite the fact that she also worked. It was just the way things were in those days.

As a consequence I was largely brought up on convenience food. My mum was one of the first generations of women to benefit from the widespread availability and relative cheapness of processed food. She was also a sucker for TV advertising. My sister and I used to joke that whenever there was a new product advertised on TV, we would be seeing it on our plates next week. We were brought up on fish fingers, potato waffles, crispy pancakes and frozen pizzas. Whatever veg we shuffled to the side of our plates inevitably came from a tin.

Well, it never did me no harm!

Fast forward 30 years or so, and haven’t things changed! Thanks to Jamie, Gordon and a host of other TV chefs, cooking has been reinvented as a suitably male friendly activity – it’s competitive, has lots of gadgets and even more swearing - and the kitchen is no longer a place where we dads fear to tread. Dads are as likely to be hustling everybody out of the kitchen to make room for their cheffy touches as they are to be banging cutlery on the table and demanding to be fed.

But it’s no longer enough to shuttle a frozen offering from freezer to microwave, et voila, dinner is served! Nowadays, parents can spend as long fretting about the provenance of the food they serve their children as they do cooking it. Is it local enough; is it GM free; is it Fairtrade? And that’s before it has even felt the hot side of a frying pan.

I’m as guilty of this as the next new man. I’ve certainly gone down a different route to that taken by my parents. By and large we cook meals from scratch, try and use fresh vegetables as much as possible, and try to all eat together. And I do a lot of the cooking. It’s something I love to do.

One of the reasons, besides innate greed, is that it’s a great way of bonding with our kids. Like many NCT parented children, both of our boys were breast fed, for the first year, which seems to have given them a great start.

It does however limit a dad’s involvement in the early stages of childhood. Unless your wife or partner is expressing milk, or you are mixing feeding, there isn’t a lot dad can do to interject into this cosy little relationship.

So the introduction of solids is a happy time for dads, as they can start to become more involved with feeding. This is probably of great relief to partners as well, as they can share a bit more of the burden. It’s a time for dads to step up to the hot plate and start showing off their finely honed chef skills.

Or maybe not. In as much as cooking for children can be fun and fulfilling, it can also be a soul destroying affair. There is little appreciation of your efforts and little discernment. A carefully crafted, nutritious, homemade meal will inevitably be trumped by a turkey twizzler and chips. Kids don't really care about provenance or how long it took to make. They care about having something that they recognise and having it now, or five minutes ago.

Food in the early stages of weaning also bears little resemblance to anything you might want to eat yourself. I couldn’t believe it when our eldest actually liked Annabel Karmel’s misleadingly named ‘lovely lentils’. There was little to love as far as I could see, but as he seemed to appreciate them, I cooked up a vat and froze huge quantities for future meals. Job done!

Except that as quickly as he’d taken to them, he went off them. I still recall the look on Jamie’s face as he decided to eject them from his mouth – never again. I can’t remember what we did with the rest of the batch.

Tastes change though and soon enough children start to eat similar foods to us. It’s not just food as fuel though. Food is also part of bonding. I used to take Jamie to a singing class when he was a toddler. Afterwards we would head to the local playground and then to a lakeside café where we’d always eat the same thing – a shared plate of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast. I was inordinately pleased at his sophisticated tastes. I had no idea that salmon came in any other form than canned until I was a lot older. Each time we went to the café he’d eat a bit more and I’d have less.

As the children get older, cooking becomes another of the activities that we enjoy together. Just occasionally mind you. I’m too much of a prissy chef to let them run riot too often. Cakes are a favourite, unsurprisingly, particularly licking the spoon and bowl clean. What child hasn’t enjoyed that?

For dads who work unsociable hours, cooking is a great way to show that you know that family meals are important. Doing a bit of cooking can give your partner a break and brings you closer to your children. Even if you’re not much of a cook you can rustle up a signature dish or two that only you can do just how the children like it. As much as the temptation may be to sit back and wait for somebody else to cook the bacon you have brought home, it can be much more fulfilling to prepare the food that your children are going to eat.

And if the resulting mealtime is loud, chaotic and messy, who’d have it any other way?

Dads, don’t miss out

My latest column for Colchester NCT magazine, for anybody who missed the print edition.

This autumn my eldest son started school and like many parents I’m catching my breath thinking, “Wow. How did that happen?”

It really doesn’t seem that long since we were looking at the Clearblue stick trying to work out whether it really was a positive. Can it really be almost five years since he first came into our lives?

From the moment of his birth, the milestones have fairly whizzed past. First smile, first word, walking, talking, solids, teeth, nursery, terrible twos, potty training… it never ends. And then the next one came along. Whenever I find myself wishing a certain phase was over and that we could move on to the next ‘easier’ bit, I try to remind myself that I wanted children – warts and all. Not that they have warts yet.

Children are a work in progress, which for uptight perfectionists like me, can be torture. It’s very difficult to sit back and have a moment of self-congratulation at a job well done as there’s another calling on your time. But of course, that’s the joy of parenthood. The important thing is to enjoy the journey rather than to fixate on some end point when everything will be ‘just right’.

It’s being around for these little accomplishments that makes all the hard bits of parenting worthwhile, but it’s where a lot of dads miss out due to their jobs.

Work-life balance is a naff phrase, but it’s an important concept, especially for parents. However, for many dads it is something to aspire to rather than actually achieve. Whatever the steps taken to try and create a more Scandinavian model of shared parenting in this country, the reality is that the majority of dads maintain a fairly traditional work life.

They work during the week, seeing less of their children than their partners who are closer to home, either looking after the children full-time, or combining work with childcare.

In a commuter town like Colchester it’s even tougher for many dads. Travel takes a big chunk out of the day. You might make it home in time for bedtime and stories, but given the vagaries of the railways, you may not.

I’m not saying that working dads are bad dads – far from it. Being a breadwinner is a vitally important role. But I sometimes wonder if we should periodically take stock of what’s most important.

When I was a child, my dad worked shifts in a factory. That meant that often I would hardly see him during the week as he’d either be at work or asleep during the day after working nights. Even at quite a young age I knew that he was doing something important and that although he didn’t like working such unsocial hours, he was doing it for us.

It didn’t really make it much easier though. I just wanted him to spend more time with us.

But the time that he did spend with us was all the more precious because of it, and he really went out of his way to make sure that he used it in the most fun way. I have great memories of holidays, day trips and times with family and friends. Now that he is no longer here, those memories are all the more important to me.

I work from home, something that I feel very fortunate to do. Because of this I have been able to see up close the development of both of my sons. I won’t deny that there have been times when I would rather have been at the other end of a railway line, but generally it has been a rather wonderful thing.

When J was just over a year old, my wife went back to work. We put him in nursery three days a week and I was to look after him for the other two.

In the lead up to this handover I was remarkably relaxed about what was imminent, probably because I didn’t really know how hard it was going to be. Of course I had changed nappies, I had fed J as he moved on to solid food, I played with him, but all of these activities took part with the support blanket of my wife nearby. It really was a bit of a steep learning curve when it was just him and me.

Every little task seemed to take twice or three times as long as it should have. Simply leaving the house was a logistical challenge as there was so much stuff you needed to have with you. I’d leave, get fifty yards down the road and have to go back for the nappies. Then for the spare clothes, then for something else.

I was stunned by how tough everything was – I was shattered at the end of the day with this one year old. All the time I’d been watching from the sidelines, my wife seemed to manage it effortlessly. When it came to my turn, I sort of managed to do everything that has to be done, but in the manner of the 20-stone guy who finishes a marathon in eight hours, sweating profusely and with bleeding nipples. Mission accomplished, but he’s hardly going to worry Paula Radcliffe.

What this taught me was a respect for the partner who does stay at home with the kids. Anybody who doesn’t count this as real work had obviously not spent a full day with a demanding toddler.

But it’s great too, and something more dads should try out. It’s not possible for everyone, but parents do have the option of asking their employers for more family friendly working terms. It can be easy to kid yourself that you won’t get them, or that you need the money more than time with your child. But at the end of the day, you only get to be a dad once. What do you value most?

US elections - some observations

So it's four more years for Obama.

Viewed from this side of the pond, it's been a funny old election. For one thing it all seems to have happened a lot quicker than usual. maybe that's just a function of me getting older, and time whizzing by. Or it may be that for so long it seemed a bit of a non-contest.

Even with the economy in the karzee (American reader - 'the john'), Obama seemed a shoe in for a second term. The Republicans were in such a mess for the majority of the past couple of years - the Tea Party contingent has thrown a hand grenade into the party machine. The Democrats must have been rubbing their hands at the prospect of Sarah Palin fronting up for the GOP.

As it was, when it got down to the serious candidates, they did a great job of pulling themselves apart before they even started to challenge the president. Then Romney, once chosen, kept stuffing his size 10s (American reader - size 10.5s) in his mouth with his '47%' and 'binders full of women' blunders.

In the end, the race only came to life after Romney took Obama to the cleaners in the first debate.

Now that Obama has won, it's interesting to see how the conventions of US elections play out. For a nation so divided, it's notable the way there are certain touchstones that remain immutable, namely god and the American Dream.

Over here, overt religious devotion is something that is viewed with suspicion. Has there ever been a presidential candidate who was agnostic? It would probably be electorally unpalatable, although we would once have thought that of a black candidate. [Note to self: actually, the US is probably ahead of the UK in the status of its black leaders. It has Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Jesse Jackson, as well as BO himself. We've got Diane Abbott, Keith Vaz and Baroness Warsi].

Americans are always calling on the benign deity to bless their country, but not all Americans are religious. What is the etiquette for atheist patriots? "Nice one America", "Well done America", "Wassup America", seriously, what do you say?

The whole American Dream thing is a bit weird to me too. I get the aspirational message and the whole tired, huddled masses thing, but this is the 21st Century. I know that Obama has to give the country a bit of boost now that he's back in, but for me, the "you can make it in America" shtick is a bit disingenuous.

I'm Scottish, so genetically designed to piss on your chips and behead tall poppies on sight, but as I see it, the American Dream is a myth. It's not really for everyone. In a capitalist society not everybody can be a winner. There need to be enough losers to fuel the winners - that's how it is. Yet in the US, there seems to be a massive buy in to this belief, not least from those who probably have the most to gain from 'big government'.

Based on the anecdotal evidence from newscasts (hey, my on the ground resources were scare) opposition to 'socialistic' initiatives such as healthcare and higher taxes for the wealthy are as high among the less well off as other groups. Because, hey man, they're gonna make it one day too. Just a matter of time! Getting rich a dollar at a time!

How refreshing it would have been for Obama to come out and say that the next four years will be tough, so it's probably best that you put your Donald Trump ambitions on hold for a while, buckle in for a rocky ride, and if you are well off, prepare to dig deeper. Manage expectations.

Or you can just keep on with that old time religion. Work hard and you can make it here? Well, plenty of people work hard and are still picking up rations at food banks.

We have a name for people who believe all this guff over here - Del Boys.

Incidentally, my tip for the Republican candidate for 2016 is Jeb Bush. Based on nothing more than a Newsnight interview, he came across remarkably well - slightly humble, non-partisan, and no obvious Bushisms.

But what do I know?

Hello old friend

Yesterday we were in East London for a birthday party, so decided to do that rather embarrassing thing where you revisit your old house and street.

I'm glad we did actually. It was really interesting to see how Wilton Way has changed -  the trendification continues. Our old flat was on the little row of shops that is now lauded in Time Out and the New York Times as the Williamsburg of East London. Since I was last there, a new wine shop has opened in the old post office, a hip hairdresser in the old hairdresser's, and an art book shop in a store that was closed for as long as I lived there.

It really is very impressive and a model for reinvigorating retail space that owes everything to people following their dreams and being mutually supportive, and nothing to Mary Portas. It's the sort of approach that could work in  Colchester, and I know that there are enough imaginative and creative people to make it happen. Maybe they just need to focus their efforts on a particular street to create a little hip quarter with its own vigour.

Anyway, back in East London, the thing that really made my day was bumping into my old neighbour Mr Abdul. He is an elderly Pakistani gentleman who used to run a small grocer's next door in the decidedly pre-hip days. The only thing vintage about his shop was him.

He is a delightful old gentleman and it was hard to pass him in the street without stopping to chat and then wondering where the time had gone. His younger son and I used to get completely lost in dissecting the weekend's football results.

It was a lovely surprise to spot him walking down the street, looking slightly out of place among all the fashionistas and yummy mummies that now make up the local scene. I extended  my hand to shake his, only to be embraced in a big bear hug. It was most unexpected and not a little humbling - it's nice to be missed. We had the two boys with us as well, who he always showed an interest in, and was probably surprised to see how big they have become in the past two years. We spoke about how he was (health not so good), his wife (ditto), his son and his family (still living with them, and looking after his parents - good boy! Got a good job with Deloitte, although his first love was football and he had trials with Ipswich).

And then we went our way. It's possible I'll never see him again, which is a very sad thought.

Elsewhere in my old manor there were lots of other changes, not least the arrival of Boris Bikes. In the past I've called for them to be in East London and now you can hardly move for them, certainly in the strip from the West End to the Olympic Stadium.

We also lunched at Hackney City Farm, still a haven for young families and still a big it with the kids. Nice to be back, if only for a day.

The screaming begins when the bell rings*

Last week we had J's first assessment from his school. It was all very heartening: he's settled in well; he's making friends; his literacy and numeracy are both good (they probably wanted to say he was top of the class but couldn't because of some PC 'all will have prizes' rule. Tsk!)

Which was great. But what I really wanted to know about was his temperament in class. Because out of it, it's atrocious.

It's almost as if he holds it all together so much when he's in school that there needs to be a small nuclear explosion by the time he gets home. This makes for a very long day, as school kicks out at just after 3pm. The journey home is usually benign enough: we discuss today's school dinner; what he's done in class; who he played with, and so on.

But as soon as he gets in the house it's as if he undergoes a personality change, and not a nice one. Requests to change out of his school uniform are answered as if we'd asked him to commit some appalling act. Declining requests for sweets can also be met with him going ape.

Goodness knows what the neighbours make of his stomping and shouting. I'd like to say that I'm a model of calm when confronted by tantrum boy, but this would be misleading. If truth be told, I'm often driven to screaming back, which rapidly turns into a vocal arms race. I know it's wrong and there's nothing to be gained from trying to shout down a five year old, but sometimes it's all I've got left in my armoury - I don't feel good about it.

From speaking to other parents, I'm slightly relieved to hear that it is not just us that has a demon child. Other mums tell a similar tale. As long as we're within the bell curve I can live with it.

Luckily (I think) it's half term next week. Maybe there will be a week of sweet natured fun and games all round. Or maybe the bad behaviour will simply fill the whole day.

* Actually they don't have a school bell at J's school. I guess they've gone the way of free milk and rickets.

On our bikes

With number one son getting ready to start school, I decided that I didn't want to drive him there every day. His school is around 1.5 miles away, which is a little too far for his little legs, even with his Micro scooter, on which he is a whizz.

Having researched a few options, I decide that the best was a bike trailer. His younger brother will start nursery soon, so we bought one that can accommodate them both. We actually bought this before we had bought the bikes needed to tow it. These eventually came from a great little charity in Colchester called Re-Cycle.

It collects old bikes and does them up before sending them off to Third World counties. They also recondition bikes that you can buy here, to cover their costs. Not only is it a great charity, but you can also pick up some fantastic bargains. The bikes go through a 20-30 point check and can be practically like new.

We picked up two bikes - a Raleigh mountain bike/hybrid type for me, and a sit up and beg style ladies bike for my wife. Together they cost less than the trailer itself. Both seem to have new or almost new tyres, came with a three month guarantee, and that all important accessory, a bell.

Although I have cycled off and on since I was a kid, this is actually the first bike I have owned since I was about 17.`1

The school run has turned out to be a great little trip to kick start the day. The school road gets fairly congested with traffic and you often have to park a few streets away, but with my vehicle I can navigate right to the school gates, or even inside.

I was a bit nervous about towing the trailer in traffic. A friend told me that they knew somebody who had given it up after having an unspecified accident. The roads to school are fairly major town roads with a few slightly hairy junctions and other obstacles to negotiate - narrowing of the road, traffic lights, crossings and so on. I took the bike out a few times before term started to get used to it, but there was no way to really prepare for the big day and rush hour traffic.

As it happens, I've been pleasantly surprised by the respect I'm given by drivers. I thought that my contraption would be viewed as a huge annoyance by psycho drivers, anxious to get by me. It's early days yet, but I haven't had any of that, and no road rage of any sort yet - thank you patient drivers of Colchester.

It's not stopping with me though. It was J's fifth birthday yesterday and his main gift from us was a bike. I can still remember the first bike I received, and it's heartening to report that he was as excited about his bicycle as I was with mine. Now we just need to get those stabilisers off and we can let the good times roll.

My muso days are over

Like many music obsessed parents, I always thought I’d pass on my ‘good taste’ in music to my children. I’ve always envisaged them sitting rapt at my feet as I tutored them in the subtleties of classic seventies progressive rock, the energy of punk and the earnest commentary of singer songwriters that adorn my record collection.

Of course the kids had other ideas. “Boring!” they’d shout as soon as one of my CDs was inserted into the stereo or car entertainment system. They much preferred a host of children’s favourites by the likes of Danny Kaye and others which have been slowly but surely driving me round the twist.

Recently we came upon a happy middle ground in the shape of Eighties zany pop duo They Might Be Giant. They’re best remembered for the annoying Birdhouse in Your Soul song, a tune that has always grated on me. However my wife loves them and chanced upon a video of the band’s song E Eats Everything on YouTube. This is a sort of Sesame Street animated ode to the letter E and other letters in the form of a description of their favourite foods.

Our two boys found it absolutely hilarious and insisted that it went on repeat. Its funky guitar riff was so naggingly insistent that even musically pretentious dad could appreciate it.

I then discovered that the band have actually recorded two albums worth of child friendly songs devoted to the alphabet and numbers (Here Come the ABCs and Here Come the 123s). As well as being sneakily educational, they are funny and enjoyable to both adults and children with some corking tunes spanning a gamut of styles including country, pop, Eighties electro and prog rock.

Car journeys are now a delight as we can sing along en famille to ditties such as Who Put the Alphabet in Alphabetical Order, I Can’t Remember What D is For, and the ever hilarious 7 song.

For now it’s a great half way house between my musical preciousness and their desire to belt out nonsense lyrics. And at four and two, there’s still plenty of time to introduce them to the delights of Yes, the Ramones and Nick Drake. I haven’t given up.