Euphrosene Labon

Friday 26: Little red light, shake `em on down, little green light… must I holler, must I shake `em down. If Irene ever heard me play Harlem/Cold Baloney over and over, dancing away in the bedsit above her, she never said anything. In fact, she would let me use her place as well when I gave parties. What a star, even more so when her taste in music ran to Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis.

She was a kind person who even let my father stay over with her as I had no room. And when my brother died, Dad rang her to tell me; and she took a drugged up me to the station (I had just come out of hospital having had four impacted wisdom teeth removed).

Over the years, we lost contact although I have tried to find her a few times, but cannot remember her last known address in London, although she did once own property in Woking. Her mother lived there, but she had a different surname and she may well have passed on by now.

Despite the bedsit having chronic damp - lean too hard on the wall and you´d find yourself out on East Finchley High Road - I only left when I got job with Siemens in Sunbury. Another bedsit followed, this time near the office but much cleaner… and a short residence as all the newbies were made redundant three months later! My very first redundancy.

We were such a close bunch that I could have gone back to Rank Xerox, but I am not one for backward moves. I did, however, go to stay with Irene somewhere else in North London, as she too had moved from 36a High Road, East Finchley - that centre of salubriousness.

btw, google on `East Finchley´ and you´ll find the Phoenix cinema where I had one of my three jobs. Margaret Thatcher was my MP - and her signed letter to me re council housing disappeared in the endless moves. Something about giving priority to mothers…

This little memory jog came from listening to a truly antique cassette I had compiled aeons ago, while blocking colour on the full body version of Argentinian Tango painting in the early hours `last night´. Although I automatically remembered each follow on track, each piece had a separate recollection so it was well into `today´ before I went to sleep!

For music lovers, the tracks are: Dusty Springfield (Little by Little/I´ll Try Anything), Santa Esmeralda (You´re My Everything), Beatles (Money/I´m Only Sleeping), Neil Diamond (Red Rubber Ball/Oh No No/Do It), John Denver (Yellow Cat/ Darcy Farrow/Goodbye Again), Supremes (You Can´t Hurry Love), Joni Mitchell (Big Yellow Taxi), Steely Dan (Show Biz Kids), Phil Oakey (Electric Dreams), Mason Williams (Classical Gas), Young Rascals (Heaven), Nino Ferrer (La Maison Pres de la Fontaine/flip side), Fifth Dimension (Save the Country), Stevie Wonder (Love’s in Need/Pastime Paradise), Elton John (Texan Love Song), Bob Dylan (New Morning/Father of DayTimes They A´Changin) …. and Bill Withers!

I am not normally a fan of live music, but Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall is highly recommended, if you can still get it. Another great live album is Neil Diamond Hot August Night. Fabulous stuff. And yes, I used to play that regularly and loudly.

Went to pick up some frames and then popped in to see Ma. Her stomach is still causing her pain but she was otherwise fine and never mentioned home at all. In fact we chatted about genealogy… with me struggling to understand the Tamil family names. I promised to type them up and take them to her to fill in the missing bits - so that´s my weekend gone.

Moral dilemma: I bought some items which the assistant carefully ran through the scanner. When she said the fee, I thought it would be more expensive and said so. She didn´t respond so I paid and left, thinking I had added up incorrectly. In the car, I looked at the receipt and saw that I had not actually been charged for one item, even though it had been scanned in. But I did not go back - partly because I was late and partly because I had mentioned it so she could have checked but chose not to. Was that wrong of me? Probably.

Harlem/Cold Baloney, redundant, redundancy, Rank Xerox, Irene, 36a High Road, East Finchley, Phoenix cinema, Margaret Thatcher, Argentinian Tango, music lovers, Bill Withers, genealogy, Tamil

Friday 5: Successful self-help gurus tend to sit on the fence where non-spiritual matters are concerned. It is obviously a bad marketing move to alienate a percentage of your target market - those who think differently. So well done Deepak Chopra for speaking out.

As I bang on here and in the forum, it is the message not the messenger that is important. And the message can be interpreted subjectively. Maybe it should be interpreted subjectively?

Communication is also something I bang on about from time to time. The need to express is one form of communication. How we answer emails is another. Responding to a direct question is another. And so forth.

How mystical teachings are communicated and how we interpret them is a subset. So I am latterly rather taken with `hermeneutics´ - not a word that crops up in everyday life. Even its definition is headache-inducing ( a method or principle of interpretation; theory of understanding and interpretation of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions). But I suppose it is relevant to any form of mysticism, like my art or even one as opaque as this blog. More anon.

Later: The sun came out when I went to visit Ma. Although she still wanted to go home "to be with Daddy", it was half-hearted as she was tired. She couldn´t even sit up while the chiropodist was undertaking toenail surgery. Actually, I think she fell asleep. When I made her sit up to have her tea, she managed to gulp it down and half a scone and then it was back to lying down again.

Yesterday, she complained of feeling sick and wanting to vomit. Today she was feeling `giddy´. Of course I couldn´t resist pointing out that neither condition was going to get her living alone again. But she was much calmer. Thank God.

Tech News: I managed to find a reasonably-spec´d, low-cost laptop with XP from PCWB. It´s the business arm of PC World and recommended for some good deals. Plus the service is better too. I am not looking forward to loading gazillions of software packages, but I have added it to the network and got connected. Eventually.

Other People: Africa seems such a beautiful country. The people have an exuberance and sunniness in virtually all the countries that make up the African continent. Yet there is also a terrible darkness about them, whether it comes from the incessant fighting, female circumcision or this dreadful treatment by mothers of their own daughters.

My heart goes out to all those who are in flood areas. It must be soul-damaging to put everything right only for it to flood again within months. Have Osibisa on me.

Also in other people: she does have some truly awful opinions, but I have a curious admiration for Ann Coulter. Her self-confidence is mindboggling as is her thick skin. Perhaps that comes from being brainy as well as beautiful.

Oddly though, I think I agree with her about liberalism. It does seem to be anti-God, yet, like matters ecological, it has religious overtones.

PS I can´t believe I am actually having `lunch´ at 19:00hrs. No wonder I can barely focus.

PPS Have another tune on me - Life is not tried it is merely survived if you´re standing outside the fire.

self-help gurus, message, communication, hermeneutics, mysticism, Ma, chiropodist, PC World, female circumcision, other people, liberalism

Friday 29: In military parlance, what do you call someone who draws fire in order to distract? It seems to be something I do frequently and most usually for someone with whom I have absolutely nothing in common. Still, if it serves a higher purpose, I can handle a little ridicule.

Went to see Ma who seems to enjoy having food and drink on demand and very nice Asian nurses and care assistants. Yet, on the other hand, she still wants to go home. It is her home she says and we are keeping it from her. Home is where the heart is, I replied. Home for her, I added has changed so many times over her lifetime that one more should not make much of a difference.

However, to reinforce that we were not doing it for our benefit (although in truthfulness I expect there is an element of that), I printed off some data from cancerbackup and read it to her - at her request.

Over the last two years, she has been in and out of hospital and this year has seen her health really deteriorate. What awful daughters we would be if we left her to fend for herself, which is what she says she wants.

The nurses say it will take a couple of months before she settles, which seems a long time for her to find peace of mind, which is why I focused on her health needs. Then, when that did not work, on our health needs - how anxiety is depleting our spiritual resources. `God bless you´, she answered… and was peaceful for a while. Then `you´re not my creator, you can´t make me stay here..´ Anyone would think it is a dump, but it is a really lovely place and the bods seem very caring.

Rather than upset her further, I headed off to Arundel for the Arundel Gallery Trail. As I reached the end, I bumped into S, who was with friends, going the other way.

Although it was overcast, it actually felt like summer, so walking up and down all those hilly streets really worked up a light glow so, for the first time in over ten days, I had a glass of wine (Pinot Noir) as I sat by the river, listening to a small orchestra playing English country music on the other bank. Wonderful.

PS Support your local businesses and Keep Trade Local.

PPS Penance time again, but I have to agree with majority of comments re this* departure from GMTV. (Check out Amy from Leamington Spa!)

I have never understood how so many newsreaders and TV presenters seem to keep the same jobs endlessly, however bad they are. OneBBC newsreader even went to the Olympics. Why?

From someone* rather reviled, to someone still much loved: Happy Birthday Michael Jackson. Hope your spirit finds peace. Had MJ danceathon. This is one of my fave tracks… Years ago, I did jazz dancing classes and we did a routine to it.

His favourite is probably this one.

Ma, health, Keep Trade Local, Penance, Michael Jackson, jazz dancing