The Proposal

I was baby-sitting my grand-daughter last night. She's 8 and is very bright. She's looking forward to going to Electric Picnic in September and, as soon as I arrived, quizzed me on which singers I knew/had met. The fact that Lisa Hannigan was in there impressed her no end. She's very clued in and a very busy little lady too.

The picture on the right caught my eye - one of her recent works and painted with oils, she told me. I immediately saw a guy who looked like he was proposing to a girl and asked her what was happening in the picture.

It's a man proposing to a strange girl, I was told. (I think she has a future as a great artist - she's caught it beautifully) but...

I commented that the girl didn't look 'strange' and she patiently explained that she wasn't, that she was beautiful but the man didn't know her so she was a stranger. Obvious!

I asked her why the man was taking such a big step when he didn't even know the girl.

Because she's so beautiful, I was scornfully informed.

Now I'm wondering about her values.

I love my work...

I bought a newspaper yesterday. Not that that’s earth shattering news but I usually only buy a Sunday paper – lots of supplements – just bring the wheelbarrow down to the shop and wheel it home and I’ve enough doom and gloom to do me for the rest of the week plus the latest in films, what’s on and what kind of handbag will go with my shoes.

Times are hard. The country’s a bit more bollixed than most of the rest of the world. Pay cuts, job losses ‘an bord snip’ (Monty Python wouldn’t have come up with a better ministry), offering ‘haircuts’ and hair shirts to all but those who got us here in the first place.

I’ve bitched with the guys I work with about how we have to work harder for less and then the taxman takes more etc., etc.

My job is OK. I probably work less than 30 hours a week. I have time to walk my dog, write the occasional song and even knock off early sometimes to go and play a gig. I get a bit less than I used to and – sometimes have to talk more rubbish to close sales but hey, everything depends on how you look at it.

I’ve been passing through the same set of traffic lights, close to where I live, 3-5 days a week for about 4 months now. I’ve been vaguely aware of a guy walking from the stop light down past the waiting cars and selling the Evening Herald. More recently I’ve taken a bit more notice. This guy has a quiet dignity about him, is not at all pushy and just walks up and down as the lights change and will approach a car only if the driver beckons.

A couple of days ago, I paid a bit more attention. There was a bit more traffic than usual and I only moved a little at every light change. I didn’t see anybody buy a paper and when the guy was passing my car, I asked him if he actually sold many. I then realized he was eastern European – probably Polish and he had a bit of difficultly understanding me. When he realized what I was asking, he told me maybe 60, maybe 70 some days. He told me that he got 30c out of every sale.

That’s not a lot and it’s quite a lot of work I said. ‘Yes.’, he said, ‘but – is work’

I like my job.

sudoku solutions...

I was on a train last week and the guy beside me opened up a newspaper, went straight to the puzzles page and began to do the Sudoku. I don’t know about you but if nothing much is making sense in a day, solving a couple of sudoku squares, for me at least, seems to restore an equilibrium. I didn’t have a paper. I watched.

Interestingly he quickly filled in the numbers across the top line of the ‘easy’, then moved to the top line of the ‘medium’ and then straight to the top line of the ‘difficult’. He filled them in from left to right and then moved down to the second line, filled in every number in turn and so on to the third, until he’d finished the three puzzles and then he began the crossword.

I could see that all the lines and small squares on the grid contained the numbers 1-9 and everything looked correct to me. It took him less than five minutes. It took him less than that to do the crossword and that was a cryptic one.

Do you talk to strangers on the train? I did. I told him that I’d never seen anyone that fast at sudoku before and that I rarely ever finish a cryptic crossword. He said it was easy and then, sheepishly told me that he cheated. How? He made me promise not to tell anyone – he didn’t make me promise not to blog it though – and I agreed.

Everyday, he told me, he’d buy a paper at the station and while waiting for the train, pretend to be reading it. As the train arrived he’d put it in his bag and when he was sitting down take it out to do the puzzles. I still didn’t get it and must have looked confused because he then tapped his pen on the top margin of the paper and I saw that it was in fact, the previous day’s.

So you buy the paper and memorize the solutions while you’re waiting for the train? He nodded. ‘You’re Bonkers!’ I said.

He nodded and sang, ‘If I could be anyone I wanted…..’

It would have been churlish not to join in.

first ever cover version...

I have been told that children in Bahrain and Canada are leaning and singing this song. Here's a video I was given this weekend. I love it.

.

curiouser and curiouser....

... I saw James Taylor last night at the new Dublin O2 arena. He was superb but some of the audience left a lot to be desired. Buying a ticket does not entitle you to demand your favourite song - while the artist is introducing the one he's about to play. Buy a jukebox.

When James introduced Carol King's 'You've Got a Friend', It got me wondering about their days of hanging out. How old is James Taylor? How old is Carol King? I wasn't very old when 'It might as well rain until September' was being played on the radio, and that seemed like a lot of years before - a fairly young James emerged.

Not that any of this really matters. I remember Carol King re-emerging in about '71 with her wonderful 'Tapestry' album.

How old is Neil Sedaka? His 'Oh Carol' was reportedly about his Highschool sweetheart, Carol King. Does this then mean that he and James Taylor are about the same age? They seem a generation or two apart.

I had to google it.

It's hard to believe there's only about nine years between them.