EDitorial ± 30-Sep-2003

Capital Radio Fun

Dateline: Friday 26th September, 2003, around 4.30pm. There I am in the family motor, tootling home from work with an actual smile on my face and a metaphorical spring in my step, for tonight the children, all 17 of 'em, are elsewhere!

Wireless is on Radio Five Live, and the venerable Peter Allen is talking Dr Who – big news on Friday when the Beeb announced the surprise return of the Timelord, albeit not until 2005.

Bookies' favourite to be the Gallifrey guy, says Peter, is Alan "Jonathan Creek" Davies, with Sean "voiceover son of Worzel Gummidge" Pertwee and Richard E "Argos ads" Grant close behind. Last man on the list, at odds of 100-1, is one Don Cheadle. Don who, says everyone?

My Nokia, occasional source of disinformation

Inviting listeners to fill them in on this mystery man, I quickly type and send the following SMS:

Don Cheadle
used to play
drums for The
Clash.
Ed, Ipswich

Now, this information isn't strictly true. In fact it's a total fabrication. But I remembered an old Danny Baker line, that if you know nothing about a certain individual, it's always a good conversational gambit to speculate that they once drummed for the rather late Joe Strummer's outfit.

Five minutes later, after others have (correctly) informed the station that Don was in Ocean's Eleven, Swordfish and ER, Mr Allen comes back on, saying "and Ed from Ipswich adds that Mr Cheadle was also The Clash's drummer".

Cue much confusion and indignation among fans of the band that once rocked the Casbah, who email and text in numbers, quite rightly, to correct this misapprehension. Sorry 'bout that. Made me laugh.

Be seeing you!

Ed

EDitorial ± 22-Sep-2003

Get On The Bus

Ken Kesey, him what wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (now a Penguin Classic, kids), would have been proud of me & the boy on Saturday, for we were very much on the bus. Not any old bus, mind you, but ADX1, "the first motorbus purchased by Ipswich Corporation in 1950". I can tell you're impressed out there in web-land.

ADX1 from 1950, an AEC Regent III model, bus-fans: sponsored by local hardware merchants Martin and Newby

There should have been two dads and six kids on the top deck; shame that a coincidental party at Kidz Kingdom had taken out 75% of our own party. We'd somehow contrived to arrive two minutes late at the Suffolk Record Office the previous week, only to watch our intended means of transport rattle past, leaving us high & dry. This time we made sure we were on time.

How do I get off the bus?!
— Stump, Buffalo (on C86 and A Fierce Pancake)

Our marvellous freebie trip was courtesy of Archive Awareness Month, or so our equally free balloons said. On board, up top, at the front, we were issued with original 3d tickets from the friendly and talkative conductor as we sallied through the town, eventually ending up where the bus lives: the Ipswich Transport Museum.

For your own safety and security, of course

Hadn't made it to the ITM previously, but will most certainly be going back. It's crammed with bikes, cars and trams, all with some connection to the town. Highlights for me during our short visit were:

  • reading about Cocksedge, the engineering firm where my dad used to work
  • learning about the dock railway, of which very little is left
  • chatting to the guy in charge about the Freston Brothers; he was then able, at a moment's notice, to dig out a handful of photos of my distant relatives

Nerd-ish? Perhaps. But, as they say, if this is the sort of thing you like, then you'll like this sort of thing. And you can't fault the enthusiasm or knowledge of the people – volunteers! – who run the place. Coming up on Sunday 5th October 2003 is "Come And Ride On Our Buses" Day, so get yourself down there and get on the bus!

Be seeing you!

Ed

EDitorial ± 15-Sep-2003

Stated Dose

Like most weeks, I really should be catching up on my zees instead of bashing away on the keys. But heck, it's Monday, and that's the day, darn your eyes, when these indefinite articles get thrown together. Mostly. Unless it's a Bank Holiday. Or I'm on holiday. Letra cetera.

What were you up to at 4.30am on Monday? Dreamin', like Sir Cliff (1980), The Quo (1986), Blondie (1979) and M People (1999)? Some of us, squire, were to be found in the bathroom, trying to persuade an 8 year old daughter (8YOD) that she should give up trying to be sick and return to bed, taking the handy washing-up bowl (doubles up as projectile receptacle) for company.

Gonna take that medicine
A cold, cold medicine
— Gomez, Rie's Wagon

8YOD relented at 4.45am and went back to her room ... only to be up again at 5am when we spent another ten fruitless & carrotless minutes in the smallest room. Thankfully her mother took over for the third attempt, and 8YOD finally got things out of her system downstairs in said bowl around 6am while yours truly was inert in bed.

Calpol is a registered trade mark of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare, in which all parents should have shares

Last Tuesday 3YOS (work it out) was the first to go down with the bug. After much wriggling and wimpering that evening, I was upstairs, holding him prior to going to bed. He then mouthed the single word - bowl - which was my cue to rush him to the bathroom. Unfortunately he left behind him a noxious trail.

One final memory: when I was no more than ten years old, I came across Roget's Thesaurus in the library at my junior school. Flicking through the pages, I found the entry for vomit (verb):

be sick, be sick to one's stomach, bring up, throw up, regurgitate, disgorge, retch, gag, spew, puke, cat, honk, poop, chunder, be seasick, feel nausea, heave, have a bilious attack
As 3YOS says, gross!

Be seeing you!

Ed

EDitorial ± 8-Sep-2003

Five Hire A Cottage In Dorset

We've been to Wessex! Admittedly, didn't actually see any such bumper stickers, not even in the Seaton Gift Emporium. Though technically that's over the county border in deepest Devon, I do believe. Did you miss me (yeah!), while I was away? Oh.

Rainbow garden at Pecorama, Beer   Ammonite pavement outside the Philpot museum at Lyme Regis

Jolly memories of seven days and nights in Dorset (1984 est. pop. 617,800) from R to V:

Can't find me at West Bay   I'm sure it's this way: follow me!   Taking off at Seaton

Honourable not-to-be-forgotten-in-a-hurries concerning the boy:

  • searching for a dummy shop after banging his head on the cafe table
  • soaking his pushchair at Seaton
  • watching his expression change on the ride at Weymouth

At the third stroke   That big bloke on the hill has got his out!

And each of us is now pretty familiar with the words to such classics as Court Of King Caractacus, Michael Row The Boat Ashore, and Goodness Gracious Me. Boom biddy boom biddy boom biddy boom!

Be seeing you!

Ed