If that title doesn’t stop you in your tracks, convince you to go do something else, I don’t know what will. For this week, let’s share a meandering post full of short stories, with a title partly stolen from an ageing pop duo way past their dizzy peak (they’re still very good though!) An admission: I have no photographs to support much of what follows, so I found a few random archive items that may or may not work. Being boring? Yeah, probably.
It has not been that interesting this week in terms of the great outdoors. This is due to some heavy rain ruining what had been a rather wonderful and steady build up of December snow. First XC ski tracks here we come? Nope, not yet for that, so we wait another day, or week, or month, for if and when the snow returns. Sigh.
As it turns out, I wouldn’t have been able to ski anyway, but I wanted to moan about the weather first before admitting to that. Why wouldn’t you have been out there, OPC? I’m glad you asked. What I’d thought were the lingering after effects of the ‘flu/COVID shots, proved to be an actual bout of somewhat flu-ey stuff. (I believe that’s the correct medical term, but as Mrs. PC is only just recovered herself from something similar, I won’t bother her just now to confirm. She’s more than busy admiring my stoic and heroic battle with this new, unusual, and never seen before contagion. I believe I’m making medical history, but modesty prevents me from saying. I’ll write it instead…)
Mrs. PC here. Don’t listen to him. He has a slight cough, mild cold, and a sore throat. If he claims to be suffering in silence, I know you won’t believe that! Heroic and stoic? Give me a break. In addition to feeling unnecessarily sorry for himself, he’s been trying to shop online for a new denim jacket. Why? Who knows? Tragic? Maybe. Really, somebody, please give me a break!
Slight? Mild?! Oh, ok, ok, I don’t think readers are too interested in the exact details of what it is that has me in a cruel, cruel grip, so shall we move on?
And, bravely, he does. Sniff. Where were we? Oh yes. Stricken as I am – I’ll mention that, but quietly – and with uncooperative weather, what’s a young man to do? Shop online?
I don’t really know, but an early middle aged man resorted to Netflix and “Black Doves”, a London located spy adventure. Featuring a host of great actors (particularly Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw) and a script with tongue set firmly in cheek, it is well made, amusing from time to time – variations on the dullness of Tory housewives are easy but not unfair gags – and absolutely not to be taken too seriously. It’s mostly beautiful people behaving badly at night in London during the festive season. Why, other than it has been almost four decades since, it bears more than a passing resemblance to how I spent the late 1980s and early 1990s in the big city.
Oh, ok, so maybe not exactly like those early years. I do enjoy a show where the absolute most is made of London after dark – sometimes scary, often exhilarating and always full of possibilities. Keira or Ben never crossed my path, much to their disappointment, but if they had, the stories they could have told. Although, if I think about our respective ages, I’m not sure either Keira or Ben had even been born. Oh the stories they won’t ever tell. They’ll learn to manage the disappointment.
You’d never know, but being London born, I can get a little misty eyed when I see the place romanticized up on the big screen (or on a small iPad) and then off I go, tripping happily down Memory Lane. I definitely tripped once or twice stumbling happily out of clubs in and around Greek Street. That would have been the dancing, not the alcohol. Oh, ok, it would have been the dancing and the alcohol.
And the mention of dancing gets us to an explanation of the post title this week. Being boring! The Pet Shop Boys are a most welcome part of my musical life. Back when I was in London, they were often on the radio and always in the clubs. I love them for their dry, witty and observant lyrics. Being Boring is a favourite of mine because I can understand and yet disagree with those who say it is boring. And that’s ok – we don’t all have the same tastes, and we don’t need to get into a fight about it. Or, these days, manufacture a culture war over it.
On those culture wars, how about the PSB song The End of the World? It isn’t too hard to listen and find, if you want to, many interpretations that are oh so relevant today. Sad to think that, all these years later, there are folks out there confecting concern (a “culture” war even?) over whether a person is a boy or a girl, like it’s the end of the world. I mean, really?! That’s actually a problem for you? C’mon, wouldn’t you rather sympathize at the very least…
Poignant and almost orchestral songs of yearning, danceable pop songs, or sometimes, both at the same time, those Pet Shop Boys can really entertain! Try Jealousy for a song full of drama – it sounds simultaneously repressed and over the top. The theatrics – do you laugh or cry?! You’d have to have a heart of stone/be a Tory housewife not to feel something…
Music and London, London and music! More? You’d like to hear a couple of true life London stories? It’s still raining outside, so if you’ve the time, why not? Remember though, this post is Being boring.
When I moved into a shared flat in Putney, I called my mother to let her know the change in address. In passing, it came up that my flatmate, T, was gay. This wouldn’t faze mother – she’s human, not a Tory housewife – though at the time she couldn’t help asking “are you trying to tell me something?” Well, yes, yes I was – I’ve moved and here is my new address. I won’t say she sounded almost disappointed that was all, but she sounded almost disappointed.
Perhaps it was my childhood curiosity with early Bowie androgyny, and/or the way I’d danced, entranced, watching The Sweet’s “Blockbuster” appearance on Top of the Pops? I didn’t have the vocabulary and I was very young, but I knew transgressive when I saw it. Oh goodness, life can be this colourful, this ridiculous and entertaining? Marvellous! Yup, little London me, 1973, realizing early in life things needn’t be boring!
How about a London fashion story? It might explain some of the above. I swear (unless my memory is going and this is just wishful thinking) my mother really did make or definitely bought dusky soft pink denim jackets and matching jeans for her three oldest sons. We must have looked awesome strutting through Greenwich Park aged seven, six, and five. Just six, and I’m certain I was wearing that denim outfit, on the street, moving, and looking so fine, singing “buster, buster, blockbuster!” Oh you pretty things, you should have seen me in ‘73. If you’re wondering, and even if you’re not, I can still walk that pink denim suit walk, and dance like that young OPC whenever I hear “Blockbuster” – also, although it hasn’t happened yet, Mrs. PC knows I will possess another dusky soft pink denim jacket again, when it finds me. “You better beware…”
It’s still raining and you’re still here – you’ve time for more London? Ok. For a little while, T and I worked for the same merchant bank and sometimes traveled to work together. Starting at Putney, we’d change trains at Waterloo, switching from the overground to “the drain”, an underground tube train designed to shuttle dreary finance drones – oops, I meant mighty masters of the universe – swiftly into Bank station, close to the throbbing and virile beating heart of the City. Yes, behold us, macho-marching with economic purpose into the mighty temples of high finance, the new London gods, currency our only currency! Making money to make even more money, and then some more? Yeah, to be honest, it’s hard to dress that up and make it seem exciting when it’s all quite dreary, not much more than legalized criminal accountancy. I wonder if the PSB had a song for that? Money?
On the drain, those boring bankers were jammed in, a humour free zone of crowded self importance, all avoiding eye contact and hiding behind the salmon pink pages of the Financial Times. Very British and very proper and quite understandable at that time of day, what with the serious business of serious business ahead of them. So hard, the mental limbering up and psychological preparation would be titans have to go through. Do not show any emotion. Stay in control. The most grown up of the grown ups. T and I were very good at our jobs, not that it was particularly difficult – T was far more senior than I was, a dealer making very large trades, able to assume the appearance of a proper titan when required. I settled the trades and moved money about, searching for the highest interest rates over a given period of time, comparing and converting currencies, and ensuring the right funds were in the right place at the right time. Honestly, not at all difficult once you knew the moving parts and could hold a few schedules in your head. I was less a proper titan and more of a proper tit. (A proper tit was a very London expression way back when – not sure it is acceptable or common parlance these days?) As someone we know likes to say, “that’s offending!” Erm, ok…
And on offending, let’s get on with the story, the one with T and a young OPC. That lovable pair, serious at work, and far less so outside work. Or on the way to work. On the drain, we’d pretend not to know one another and start an argument, with T feigning outrage and spluttering angrily, but keeping it down because we didn’t want to make a scene, not in the serious and hallowed silence of the train car, oh no, certainly not:
“Excuse me? You! Yes, you! Do you mind? Please desist and get your own newspaper instead of reading mine. Thank you!”
“I beg your pardon? What do you mean, do I mind? How can I mind? There is nothing to mind, and I cannot desist – I was not reading your newspaper. Please calm down. Thank you!”
“I am calm and yes you were! Right over my shoulder – look, you’re doing it again. Stop it! Really!”
“How can I stop something I am not doing? Absurd! I am not reading your newspaper! If I wanted to read a newspaper, I would read my own newspaper. See? Now, would you please stop being a bother? Thank you!”
“Stop being a bother? Me, a bother? Me?! What is wrong with you? Why I have a good mind to— ouch! What on earth? Goodness gracious! Did you really just do that? Did you, did you, you did, didn’t you? You just trod on my shoe – oh no no no, young man, don’t you deny it!”
Fortunately for our painfully reserved fellow passengers – who were pretending they couldn’t quite hear our almost muted exchanges – the hop from Waterloo to Bank is less than five minutes, so by the time we disembarked we were only throwing ferocious looks and everyone was relieved to be spared actual fisticuffs. Yes, we were actual grownups, or dressed like them, anyway.
I think the rain is easing off, so no more London stories today. Enough being boring. Thank goodness, you cry! If we’re at all lucky it’ll start to snow again and we’ll be spared further London tales. There are so many, and many even less interesting than those shared today – pray for snow.
Goodness, where has the time gone?! I hope there was something in here you enjoyed? It was the glam outfits on The Sweet video, wasn’t it? Go on, admit it…
The weekend is approaching! Maybe we’ll finish watching “Black Doves” or listen to some 70s glam rock or 80s pop, or make plans to visit that there London again? All recommended. Oh, the possibilities – not so boring!
Pop culture, some personal history, a few seemingly unrelated photos and one of the longest blog posts I’ve ever written. Is it time to stop now? Yes. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Whispers: Mrs. PC has just stepped out. Do you know where to source a trucker jacket, dusky pink denim, in a large?
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