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17 October 2011
Bald men, techno-pop & soliciting...

Thank you so much to everyone who read last week’s blog - hits to this site showed a massive increase over the weekend.  Special thanks to those of you who emailed comments, along with some funny suggestions about things I should mention – mainly from the past. I’ll tackle some, others are probably best forgotten…   So, something old and something new.

The main story I’ve been asked to retell this week is the Carnaby Street arrest – most of my friends know this well and it’s maybe too soon to unleash it on those that don’t, but possibly best to get it out the way while I’ve only got a small following.  So this is it. The year of our O levels I got a job walking up and down Carnaby Street selling silk ties and Kamikaze bandanas.  It was such a cool job, I thought, mixing with the oddities who wandered along the orange pavement in 1981.  I was based next to an ice cream cart run by two young Turkish guys who taught me some Turkish words and gave me Turkish food and let Gill keep her sandwich in their fridge.  (…and no, that’s not a metaphor!) You’re probably thinking that the tale doesn’t seem quite so interesting 30 years later, but the important part is that the job ended when police came by and arrested me for soliciting!  At this point I predict Bro-Lo is smirking “knew it,” Ben is slamming his laptop shut in horror and, I may only be a witch at the weekend, but I can sense Steven getting more annoyed by the minute…  Anyway, of course I wasn’t doing that!!!  My dad went to the police station and spoke to the man and it was all sorted out, but I was banned from working the streets after that.  Still, it was something to add to my CV.  Anyway, enough about what happened in the 80s. 

WoW!! Heaven 17 at the Camden Roundhouse on Friday were simply fab!  (Haha, Sue thought she’d got caught in an 80s timewarp when she saw that on Facebook.) Actually they didn’t perform live until ’97 and I think I wrote the sleeve notes for a live album they released about that time.  But Glenn Gregory’s rich, sexy voice has absolutely stood the test of time and he looked pretty amazing too.  Blond men were never my thing – as my long standing friends can testify – but I switched my allegiance to bald heads some time ago and now he fits the bill quite nicely.  (Steven getting even more annoyed…)

Hoping we’d bump into them in the car park afterwards, by our coveted parking spot right outside the stage door, I had quickly concocted plans to fob Gill off with the less attractive Martyn Ware.  But as it turned out we had to rush home, and even if we had seen them, it’s not really 1982 and we are both married… (Steven’s cheering up again.) It was such a great day all round, we didn’t stop eating or laughing!!  But naturally I was knackered on Saturday!  Fell asleep in the oxygen chamber – and again during my massage, very annoying as that’s a good 45 minutes of daydreaming time and I missed the lot.  Dreaming about new-wave baldies with synthesisers?  Maybe… who knows? The moment’s passed.

Endnote:  Glenn Gregory’s favourite Heaven 17 song (and Gill’s) is Come live with me.  Quite inappropriate to quote now: ‘The choice we made we can’t evade, don’t try to follow me.’ Well, this is 2011 and Twitter time – so DO follow me!  Please.  @WeekendWitch

Email me with your comments, suggestions for conversations, memories or rants: Ren@imaginativetraining.com