Because I’m not having to commute to work, I’ve replaced the time I would normally be on a train playing i-Spy with unsuspecting passengers, by walking.
Aside from taking photos of various flora and fauna and keeping them in a folder ready to show anyone out dogging (regardless of whether it’s a Doberman, Chihuahua or Ford Cortina), I’m listening to documentaries on my radio.
These past few weeks I’ve been listening to the BBC’s 25-years of rock. This week, I listened to 1973. It is, as the show title suggests, mainly songs, but interspersed with clips of news items. Really good if you were a fan of Ted Heath or Richard Nixon!
One of the songs, ‘You’re so vain’, I thought particularly apt, as I like to keep my hair in place in my local park, even when going through particularly dense undergrowth – David Bellamy I’m not.
1973 saw us enter Europe, work three-day weeks, wish we’d bought shares in Wandsworth’s Price’s Candles and sit in cars for hours, queuing for petrol, when the question: ‘are we nearly there yet?’ had the consequence of having your Green Shield Stamp allocation being taken away by an equally-bored parent.
It was also the year of the release of ‘Tubular Bells’ – bought mainly for the B-side, which, played backwards, got you a small part in ‘The Exorcist’.
For me it was the year I managed to obtain one-seventh of the O-levels I took; my excuse being I was trying to learn the words to ‘Tubular Bells’; sadly, I only got as far as ‘two slightly distorted guitars’.
Although, I did learn that a mandolin wasn’t a small French cake.