lockdown – Micky's Up blog

Clocking in

Published on June 25, 2023June 25, 2023 by mickyrichards1957Leave a comment

Growing up, I would listen to aged relatives (it was that, or have your pocket money come to an abrupt halt) and wonder if any of them were related to Stanley Unwin?

I had a paternal grandfather who, if you asked him a question, would always answer with: “I’ll tell you for why”. He was from north London, so perhaps, having been brought up south of the River, having far too many prepositions in a sentence was considered the norm? Or perhaps he was a precursor to Google Translate? To paraphrase the Catchphrase catchline – “it’s good, but it’s not right”.

Where cab drivers dare not go after 8.00, my maternal grandmother, when asked the time, would answer: “five and twenty past” or “five and twenty to”. Is this a generational thing and people in SW17 were taught to speak as if they were still living in Georgian London?

I bet, these days, no one is told “wait ‘til your father gets home”; as, with the advent of working from home, most fathers are already home, albeit working in a room which originally housed coal.

With raging inflation, I wonder much people should be paid for their thoughts? Certainly not a penny.

And you didn’t have to do seven-years at medical school to give someone a taste of their own medicine.

Curiosity has been reported to the RSPCA.

Trollied

Published on July 21, 2022July 24, 2022 by mickyrichards1957Leave a comment

The one thing about working from home is that the trolley doesn’t come round. If I want a bun, cup of tea or a Wagon Wheel I’m going to have to get up and get it myself.

I worked in an office once where the keeper of the trolley would announce, around 11.00 each morning, ‘Trolley!’ in a voice like someone demanding a light be put out during the Blitz.

In the days before the confusion of which type of continental coffee you wanted and the shops supplying them not existing, trolleys would be rolled round offices. They were like the school tuck shop, only on wheels and pushed by woman seemingly over 100 with a fag hanging out of her mouth, adding an unnecessary layer to her doughnuts.

It was also a welcome break in the day; fag breaks were a thing of the future working in ‘60s and ‘70s. Plus, if I’d got on the smoking carriage of the Tube from Balham Station, I really didn’t need a fag break.

The tea-lady was scary and/or predatory. Did I want to sample her iced buns when I finished work? Probably not, and always had a note from my mum excusing me of such liaisons dangereuses.

So, work for me, around 11.00 in the morning became like school PE lessons: full of dread and the fear my pants would fall down while doing a handstand, thus risking getting third-degree burns off a giant tea urn.

Seven deadly syns

Published on October 29, 2020November 1, 2020 by mickyrichards1957Leave a comment

Whenever I go on holiday I like to read about the place I’m visiting: Jamaica Inn in Cornwall; Mayor of Casterbridge in Dorset; the Clangers annual if ever I make it to the Moon.

As a teenager I’d spend many summer holidays on the Kent coast; my reading there was the Dr Syn novels. Dr Syn was a clergyman by day and head of a Romney Marsh smuggling gang at night.

The 7 novels were written between 1915-1944 and two films came out of the writing. I only saw part of the 1963 adaption. I was so traumatised by Dr Syn, terrifyingly dressed as a scarecrow, my mum had to take me out of the Balham Odeon, probably before the usherette called the local health visitor or hit me with a Kia Ora to shut me up.

Dr Syn was ultimately hanged in the final book, but in the current times he’d have escaped that fate as he’d not been able to carry anything out if he was working from home. You cannot offload stolen barrels of French rum from a boat via a Zoom call.

I’d have made a dreadful smuggler: fear of water (worse than that of hanging); don’t like rum (even in a bar of Old Jamaica) and don’t look good in a scarecrow outfit.

Also, at my age, I’m quite susceptible to marsh ague. Rum Baba anyone?

Mrs Mills solves a problem like Maria

Published on June 7, 2020June 1, 2020 by mickyrichards1957Leave a comment

mrs mills

Not that I went to the theatre before the lockdown, but now, thespians around the world are bringing their offerings, using live streaming, into your front room.
To make this experience even more intimate I believe you should take part in the actual screening: if it’s Les Misérables then sling all your cushions onto the carpet and build a barricade; if it’s Lloyd-Webber’s Joseph and his technicolour dream coat, get that crochet kit down from the loft and help the Family Jacob out – it doesn’t have to be any special material – any wool will do (see what I did there?) and, if you’re watching Macbeth, and you have lodgers, try not to murder them in their sleep and watch what’s being put into that evening’s stew.
It’s also your chance to be the next Vanessa Redgrave or Neil Pearson (good Tooting boy) and say the lines as your favourite character. Take the TV remote, hover your finger over the “mute” button and when it’s your turn say: “To be or not to be”; sing: “I dreamed a dream” or re-enact the fight scene from Women in Love – although mind that fire.
Give it everything – no one will see you (if you’ve got nets); no one will hear you (unless you’ve not got double-glazing) and no one will say anything unless the nets are in the wash, the windows are wide open and you’ve left the living room light on.
And if all that fails, get that nun’s costume out and pretend to be Julie Andrews singing about a goatherd with no mates and potential altitude sickness.
Plus, who needs an excuse to put on an excessive amount of make-up? Oh dear, time for the lockdown to end.
Ready for you now, Mrs Mills.

SOS

Published on May 31, 2020May 31, 2020 by mickyrichards1957Leave a comment

Given the current lockdown, 1967 was a very important year for me.
As a ten-year-old living in south London, this was the year I attained my Cub’s Signallers’ Badge.
As I still work, my communications these days involve Zoom (not the lolly, nor the 1982 Fat Larry’s Band hit); Webex (like Zoom, only with more spiders) or Teams (not ideal if you’re an only child). House Party isn’t perceived as professional, plus I’m at an age when most things are too loud anyway, so this method won’t ever feature with my client calls.
The novelty of video calls has worn off; so I’ve ordered a set of giant semaphore signalling flags, as my future communication will be waving these frantically from the roof of my house.
My training, back in 1967, involved several wintry weeknights going to a house in Tooting to be taught semaphore by a man so old he could have been Samuel Morse. There was no bell on the front door, just a selection of tom-tom drums in the porch with which to send messages saying you were outside the house (oh, and please either open the door or pop an umbrella through the letterbox).
With my work cap on, as opposed to my Cub cap (and matching woggle), I will be starting business meetings with no introductory pleasantries, but with messages I learned during my 1967 communications course: “My boat is sinking”; “Can anyone erect a tent?” and “I think I’ve burned my sausages”.
In case the latter is construed as a euphemism, I’ve also ordered a set of Aldis lamps.

Speaking Mandarin segments

Published on April 7, 2020April 7, 2020 by mickyrichards1957Leave a comment

cherry

With panic buying now a way of life, like watching Corrie or turning the gas off before you leave the house. And, as it becomes so, will our diets change or perhaps we might revert to things you’d forgotten about since childhood, but now remains the only things left on the shelves?
Over the decades, with the introduction of increasingly exotic foods, there must have been a point when you told yourself: these are the last tinned peaches I’m eating.
I think many of us of a certain age can remember refusing to eat corned beef because of its connotations with typhoid – not a good marketing gimmick. (This was before the Falklands War and blaming the Argentinians came naturally even in the early ‘60s).
It used to be perceived as a treat – opening up a tin of fruit in syrup – especially if it involved a glacé cherry – although an inevitable family fight would ensue over whose cherry this was as there was usually only one half in each tin. The scuffling being good practice for shopping these days?
There does, though, seem to be a surfeit of hundreds & thousands – always a treat to top off a tinned pear, less so corned beef.
Along from the pear halves, mandarin segments and peach slices are tins of prunes; given the paucity of toilet roll, this is far too much of a risk. And, as such, my collection, in the loft, of Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly magazines, are now beginning to look highly endangered. Spam’s off, love

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Rapunzel

Published on April 3, 2020April 3, 2020 by mickyrichards19572 Comments

pinocchio

What bloody day is it?
I’ve not felt this day confusion since my last six-week school holiday and given my last playtime was forty-seven years ago, I’ve lost count which day it is.
Given the lockdown could last for months, I’ve decided I might get a set of seven underpants and, together with my name tag, sew in a label stating which day of the week it is.
The only problem, given the current shortages and delays in deliveries of certain items, you can’t guarantee what you want and end up with a substitution like when the Ocado delivery person gives you spam when you’d ordered sun-dried tomatoes.
Having ordered my daily pants, I notice from the confirmation, that they will all be Disney-themed. Therefore, no need for any sewing-in of any day tags, I shall simply create a mnemonic to remember which day it is: Mickey; Tigger; Woody (insert your own gag here); Tinkerbell; Anyone from Frozen; Simba and Snow White.
The inherent danger here is if it’s Thursday and I have an accident with Tinkerbell pants on.
My favourite Disney character is Pinocchio – sadly there in no day of the week beginning with P, so I won’t be wearing those; no bad thing if I ever started to lie wearing them. Mind you, in this cold weather, that’s largely academic.
Do you want to build a snowman?