...as far as I'm concerned.

This week in 1977, we were on a family holiday, staying in one of the fixed caravans in this picture. (They may well be the very same ones. I don't know how old the photo is.) It's Treyarnon Bay Camping & Caravan Park, near Padstow in Cornwall. Long before anyone had heard of Rick Stein, I think we had two family holidays there in the '70s.

On Wednesday 17th August 1977, I was up early as it was gloriously sunny, and it was my turn to toddle off to the campsite shop, probably for milk and a newspaper. (I can't bring myself to tell you what 'news'paper my parents bought in the seventies, but I feel I should point out that they are not fascists, despite this.)

At the campsite shop, I somehow found out that Elvis Presley had died the day before. (I think the news only reached the UK in the early hours of the 17th. I've heard the 7am BBC Radio announcement from that day replayed on BBC Radio 2 today.) I think it was too late to be in the paper that I must have bought, but I must have heard people talking about it. I then had to go back and tell my parents, who were still in bed in the caravan. This was BIG news. I think the fact that, thirty years later, I still remember some details from that morning, tells you what a big story it was. We then put on the radio and had the news confirmed. I'm not saying it ruined the holiday - I was only eleven after all - but that's all I really remember of that 1977 trip.

The thing that strikes me now about Presley's death is that, to me as an eleven year-old (looking like that, in this photo), Presley already seemed old hat and...well, just old. Obviously he had piled on the pounds and he was a figure of yesteryear, in my eyes. I had mainly seen him in his films, which I seem to remember were on TV in the mornings in the Summer holidays. (That's the only time I have ever seen any of them.) I was far too young to have realised that Presley's 'Jailhouse Rock' includes one of the most blatantly gay lyrics to ever hit the music charts. But it really hit home this week that Elvis died at the grand old age of 42, and here am I at 41. That's really scary.

Where were you when you heard that Elvis had died?
(One my colleagues said, "In my Dad's ball bag" when I asked him this today, which was a blatant lie, as he is 31 next month.)

Labels: Cornwall, elvis presley, Treyarnon Bay

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As we have one person of Pakistani descent in our office and one of Indian descent, with the two countries' big anniversaries coming up today and tomorrow, Chig playfully suggested last week that it might be a good idea if said colleagues each brought in some food as a celebration. This was a blatant attempt to have some good, authentically ethnic nosh for free in the office, but it was hailed as a good idea all round.

A shame then that my colleague of Pakistani descent forgot all about it and only realised this morning that it was Pakistan's 60th birthday. Also a shame that my colleague of Indian descent has taken tomorrow (the official 60th anniversary of India's independence and partition) as holiday.

Still, I did have a curry tonight. Does that count as marking the occasion? It was in the unlikely location of a corporate box at the ground of our third best local football team, shortly before watching them (West Bromwich Albion) beat Bournemouth AFC 1-0 in the third round of the Carling Cup. It was a dull game, in which neither team really seemed to be trying until the last ten minutes, but the goal was one of the best placed, nearly-impossible efforts I've ever seen.

So, why was I in a corporate box for free, being fed, watching two teams I care little about, on a Tuesday evening? All will be revealed at the weekend, when I'll be back there...

In the meantime, we'll be back with something irrelevant to India's big day tomorrow, and on Thursday we'll be asking where you were exactly 30 years ago, when Elvis Presley died. Like it or not, Chig will reveal where he was. It's not that interesting and won't take very long, but these morbid anniversaries are there to be 'celebrated' and Elvis does have two singles out this week. And a lovely box.

Pakistan photo from BBC News website.

Labels: elvis presley, football, India, Pakistan, WBA

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...and Happy 60th Birthday to David Bowie.

It's a big day for musical birthdays; Shirley Bassey is 70 today and Elvis Presley would have been 72. (Sean Paul and R. Kelly also celebrate theirs.)

To commemorate Bowie's big day, here are my ten favourite Bowie songs (off the top of my head today, at least). What are yours?

01 Ashes To Ashes - The sequel to number 2.
Because it's brilliant and nonsense and brilliant nonsense, with a wonderfully pretentious video and an association for me that I can't go into here(!)



02 Space Oddity - The prequel to the sequel.
The re-release of this 1969 hit in 1975 coincided with me getting my first cassette recorder. (Kasuga, wherever they came from.) I used to play this a lot and drift away during that bit where it all goes weird, imagining I was in space. The storyline also used to scare me a bit.

Interesting homemade(?) video:



03 Starman - Why do I like all the space-themed ones best? Boy George's favourite Bowie song, as covered by him when he won Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes.



04 Absolute Beginners
I’m possibly the only person in the world who loved the film, which was savaged by the critics AND this, Bowie’s theme tune, but I do, so there. I even have Absolute Beginners on video, partly because I attended the swanky Birmingham premiere. Oh yes. (I've never attended any film premiere since.)



05 Boys Keep Swinging
Because when you're a 13-year old closeted gay boy, hearing a song on the radio that says 'when you're a boy, other boys check you out' is very, very exciting indeed. The best (and yet the most ludicrous) song ever written about being a boy.

06 China Girl
Brilliant song, brilliant video.

07 Let's Dance
As above.

08 Under Pressure (with Queen)
Because you can't beat a bit of overblown pop with an 'um ba ba beh, um ba ba beh, do dey da, do dey da'.

09 Hallo Spaceboy! (with Pet Shop Boys)
Another spacey one! Perhaps I should have been an astronaut. Given the combined stock of these two acts in 1996, I've never understood why this only made number 12.

10 Dancing In The Street (with Mick Jagger)
Because the drummer on this track (and behind Bowie at Live Aid) once stayed in our student house. It was Prefab Sprout's Neil Conti. More than that, I cannot say. Happy memories of that student house (even though it should have been condemned).

(I tried to squeeze eleven songs into my top ten, so Fashion has just missed out.)

Labels: 60, birthday, david bowie, elvis presley, shirley bassey, top ten

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