reminds me of the Spandau Ballet song 'To Cut a Long Story Short'.
(Things I like about the internet: 1. Google. verb. as in: 'I google, you google, he googles, she googles, we google, you google, they google....' I digress. I googled the Spandau Ballet song title, and found the lyrics... how good is that?!!! :)
To Cut a Long Story Short (by Spandau Ballet, 1980)
Soldier is turning
See him through white light
Running from strangers
See you in the valley
War upon war
Heat upon heat
To cut a long story short
I lost my mind
Sitting on a park bench
Years away from fighting
To cut a long story short
I lost my mind
Standing in the dark
Oh I was waiting for man to come
I am beautiful and clean
And so very very young
To be standing in the street
To be taken by someone
Questions questions
Give me no answers
That's all they ever give me
Questions questions
Oh look at the strange boy
He finds it hard existing
To cut a long story short
I lost my mind
Now that song takes me back, but that's another story. The reason this post is titled 'Questions questions' is because of the questions my children have asked me recently.
Tom (age 6, nearly 7) asked me, whilst I was driving him home from school the other day, 'Why do cars get petrol?' So, to answer his question, on a level he can understand, I used a food analogy, to explain that while he gets energy from food, so he can run, and play and grow, and do all the things his body needs to do, and the things that he wants to do, a car needs petrol to give it energy. 'So it can grow?' he asked me. 'No, cars don't grow. They need energy to drive.' I replied. His silence meant either he was thinking about it, or my answer wasn't good enough. So I tried to explain where the petrol went in the engine, that there was a spark and an explosion and a piston, and then I got a bit out of my depth... So all Tom said was 'so that's why I'm hot then'.
The pleasure of driving my son to and from school is the opportunity to foist my musical tastes on him, especially the joy of mis-heard lyrics. Current favourite is the Beyonce song 'Crazy in Love'. We wack the volume up loud and join in the 'uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, banana'. Try it!
Tonight, Phoebe, now 12, asked why the cover of 'The Week' magazine featured David Cameron standing on the white cliffs of Dover looking out towards Europe. So. Well. It's complicated. I could have said 'ask your Father', but I didn't. I had a go.
..'so although we're an island, we're part of Europe. We're also part of the political part of Europe, the European Union, which used to be called the EEC (European Economic Community) and which we joined in 1973. But, we don't have the same money, the same coin as Europe, we've kept our money, the Pound, and they've got the Euro. David Cameron has stated that if his party win the next election they will hold a referendum (what's a referendum? it's like another vote, but on a specific question, a single item, not for who's going to be in government/power) to ask whether we should stay 'in' Europe (politically) or get out. Phew.
And then I thought, how do I know all this? All this to Phoebe is history. And the EEC has ceded / merged / obliviated(?) from the European Community and then into the European Union of today. But all this (recent!) history I've lived through. In 1973 I was 7, turning 8 in the summer. I vaguely remember a jolly faced man, Edward Heath, the then Conservative Prime Minister, and his rival, Harold Wilson, the pipe-smoker. And it's been going on since then. You just sort of know. To a greater or lesser extent. You take an interest.
In 1973 the oil crisis meant that at home the electricity went off, and we had to use candles. I was 7. It was fun. I'm almost sure that one night there was a thunder storm which so frightened my mother we ended up sitting under the table in the living room. My father was a police man and worked shifts, so he wasn't there for that. In 1973 we had dreadful haircuts, the school photos attest to that. And we wore floral polyester blouses with round peter pan collars or roll-necked tops, and jeans with butterflies on them.
We were luckier then. Children had much more freedom to roam. In fact we were more often shoo-ed away, told to go and play with your friends after school, and not come back until tea (supper) time. We ran everywhere, or cycled. We played hunting games, war games, hide and seek spy games, copied the Scooby Doo story line, or Hong Kong Phoeey, or whichever cartoon was popular that week. We climbed trees, played by and in the stream, roamed the farmers' fields, and were chased away with him waving his stick at us. We made dens, read comics, fell over, bumped our heads, cut our knees, had playfights, real fights, tears and dirt. We had grubby fingers, grubbed in the mud with sticks, dammed the stream, ate apples from the trees, ate blackberries, spat out elderberries (too sour) and didn't want to go in when called.
This is my (not so recent) history. Histoire. Story. This is my story. And now, as always, it's bedtime. So there's my bedtime story for you. I hope you enjoyed it.
ttfn. keep it sweet. Kat.
(Things I like about the internet: 1. Google. verb. as in: 'I google, you google, he googles, she googles, we google, you google, they google....' I digress. I googled the Spandau Ballet song title, and found the lyrics... how good is that?!!! :)
To Cut a Long Story Short (by Spandau Ballet, 1980)
Soldier is turning
Running from strangers
See you in the valley
War upon war
Heat upon heat
To cut a long story short
I lost my mind
Sitting on a park bench
Years away from fighting
To cut a long story short
I lost my mind
Standing in the dark
Oh I was waiting for man to come
I am beautiful and clean
And so very very young
To be standing in the street
To be taken by someone
Questions questions
Give me no answers
That's all they ever give me
Questions questions
Oh look at the strange boy
He finds it hard existing
To cut a long story short
I lost my mind
Now that song takes me back, but that's another story. The reason this post is titled 'Questions questions' is because of the questions my children have asked me recently.
Tom (age 6, nearly 7) asked me, whilst I was driving him home from school the other day, 'Why do cars get petrol?' So, to answer his question, on a level he can understand, I used a food analogy, to explain that while he gets energy from food, so he can run, and play and grow, and do all the things his body needs to do, and the things that he wants to do, a car needs petrol to give it energy. 'So it can grow?' he asked me. 'No, cars don't grow. They need energy to drive.' I replied. His silence meant either he was thinking about it, or my answer wasn't good enough. So I tried to explain where the petrol went in the engine, that there was a spark and an explosion and a piston, and then I got a bit out of my depth... So all Tom said was 'so that's why I'm hot then'.
The pleasure of driving my son to and from school is the opportunity to foist my musical tastes on him, especially the joy of mis-heard lyrics. Current favourite is the Beyonce song 'Crazy in Love'. We wack the volume up loud and join in the 'uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, banana'. Try it!
Tonight, Phoebe, now 12, asked why the cover of 'The Week' magazine featured David Cameron standing on the white cliffs of Dover looking out towards Europe. So. Well. It's complicated. I could have said 'ask your Father', but I didn't. I had a go.
..'so although we're an island, we're part of Europe. We're also part of the political part of Europe, the European Union, which used to be called the EEC (European Economic Community) and which we joined in 1973. But, we don't have the same money, the same coin as Europe, we've kept our money, the Pound, and they've got the Euro. David Cameron has stated that if his party win the next election they will hold a referendum (what's a referendum? it's like another vote, but on a specific question, a single item, not for who's going to be in government/power) to ask whether we should stay 'in' Europe (politically) or get out. Phew.
And then I thought, how do I know all this? All this to Phoebe is history. And the EEC has ceded / merged / obliviated(?) from the European Community and then into the European Union of today. But all this (recent!) history I've lived through. In 1973 I was 7, turning 8 in the summer. I vaguely remember a jolly faced man, Edward Heath, the then Conservative Prime Minister, and his rival, Harold Wilson, the pipe-smoker. And it's been going on since then. You just sort of know. To a greater or lesser extent. You take an interest.
In 1973 the oil crisis meant that at home the electricity went off, and we had to use candles. I was 7. It was fun. I'm almost sure that one night there was a thunder storm which so frightened my mother we ended up sitting under the table in the living room. My father was a police man and worked shifts, so he wasn't there for that. In 1973 we had dreadful haircuts, the school photos attest to that. And we wore floral polyester blouses with round peter pan collars or roll-necked tops, and jeans with butterflies on them.
We were luckier then. Children had much more freedom to roam. In fact we were more often shoo-ed away, told to go and play with your friends after school, and not come back until tea (supper) time. We ran everywhere, or cycled. We played hunting games, war games, hide and seek spy games, copied the Scooby Doo story line, or Hong Kong Phoeey, or whichever cartoon was popular that week. We climbed trees, played by and in the stream, roamed the farmers' fields, and were chased away with him waving his stick at us. We made dens, read comics, fell over, bumped our heads, cut our knees, had playfights, real fights, tears and dirt. We had grubby fingers, grubbed in the mud with sticks, dammed the stream, ate apples from the trees, ate blackberries, spat out elderberries (too sour) and didn't want to go in when called.
This is my (not so recent) history. Histoire. Story. This is my story. And now, as always, it's bedtime. So there's my bedtime story for you. I hope you enjoyed it.
ttfn. keep it sweet. Kat.
