Hullo youse See Aitch Eschers!!,
Anyone these days ever hear from the likes of Tadger, Jinx, Irvie, Steed, Tam Davidson, Manus, Plum, Farquhar ‘n Gracie, Pansy, Lesley Shields, Wee Psycho Craig, Donnie MacDonald , Edgar and his big pal Broughton?
Me neither!
Shortly after leaving school (and The Blues Club), I set up a nearby gay love nest with the Jannie, This was quite the ‘talk of the steamie’ at the time, yet strangely only got a quarter column in the Clydebank Press and even then it was tucked pages away between a transcript of Scotland’s First Minister T.H.Lawson’s Inaugural speech and a bemusing account of some of The Cleddans Young Team’s botched ‘suicide bombing’ of both The Atlantis and Singers Café.
Considered, at the time, to be an early Seventies version of Ginsburg and Burroughs, the Jannie ‘Dee’ ‘n’ me ingested vast quantities of industrial strength narcotics, Fowlers Wee Heavies and grooved along to the then biggest band in the world (a fourteen piece Dutch brass band called Van der Graaf and his Generators) All this before tattooing each other’s bodies with henna CHS logos and sending out to the Parkhall shops for French loaves, Fry’s Creams and a Pink Times.
Changed days, huh?
These days, such Gary Glitter-like teenage poofery would be frowned upon by the PC polis, but back then it was just looked upon as one of the Jannie’s perks, a bit like free coal and those strange wee bottles of milk that made all the little consumers look somewhat like giants.
I’m sincerely sorry to everyone who ever thought I might cut it as an Air Traffic Controller!!!!!
Since then I have never worked for anyone but myself, apart from a fortnight during the Ice Cream Wars when I rode shotgun for Jimmy The Wallsie Man.
Mid seventies, I painted my nails black, joined a local proto punk band “Kenny and his X-Legs” and recorded the now notorious Tex-Mex album ‘ Tijuana, si ma Dad’s Shirts?’
I’m currently working on a Beta release of the software for my infamous Time Machine. Remember the one that you all sniggered at while I shepherded the herd of radioactive mice into the school basement?
Powered entirely from entry level Meccano, a second hand Mamod , a Sinclair C5 and a skip full of off-cuts from foil tops gathered from the gutters surrounding the majestic brick façade of the Coop Creamery. It’s a rather curious side effect that the ‘red tops’ seem to enhance the space/time infindibulum corruption factor a tad more!.
In short, it’s a wee belter and certainly leaves the Tardis on the starting blocks.
I’ve had a few exploratory trial runs and without wanting to tempt fate must say that it seems to perform rather well.
Tonight I’m going out on a limb and, don’t laugh, but for a side bet, I’m going to go back again and see if I can actually persuade Graeme Souness into signing Terry Butcher.
Giving Jesus that Tam Shepherds’ “Water-to-Wine” kit, last week, seems to have had no impact upon us here in the present at all and the ‘Surprise Your Chums With Stigmata’ brochure certainly brought a lovely wee smile to his face.
Who knows? I’ll just have to tread carefully.
The good people of Planet Zam-Zam last night,indeed for the umpteenth time now, have once again elected me as Best Pope they’ve ever had.
Next time out, I want to go back and see if there’s any way I can possibly circumvent Churchill’s assassination in 1942 (just think, if the Nazi’s hadn’t won that Second War, who knows what might have happened, we could probably have had a man on the moon by now, perhaps even a woman in Number 10 and Lee Harvey Oswald wouldn’t have so easily broken Eric Caldow’s leg).
Back soon ,
Peace, Love and Underachievement
Rupert
On a COMPLETELY different note, due to a visiting mother-in law, I was exposed to half an episode of Coronation Street last night. The reason I mention it was the shock at how dire this peak hour programme actually is. This is quite honestly the first time I’ve seen this since the very early seventies when I lived in Parkhall. It may well have still been monochrome with Ena holding court in the snug, persecuting Minnie at very opportunity.
Lighthouse Beacon Straight Ahead 