Little Boxes

Dear James,

Have you seen the Showtime drama Weeds? One of the perks of working in TV is that I get to watch lots of TV programs and call it work. Weeds tells the old traditional story of a sexy widow trying to provide for her family by selling marijuana to her friends and neighbours. That old chestnut. The theme tune is an old Pete Seeger song recorded by Malvina Reynolds, who is interesting for two reasons: 1) I never knew there were people outside Argentina who called their daughters Malvina; and 2) she was quite an old lady by the time she started recording in the 1960s.



From the second season of Weeds the song was performed by a different artiste every week, presumably because people like Josephine Funseeker found Malvina's voice started to grate if you watched all ten episoded back-toback. As a result, it's probably one of the most covered songs in the world ever. Probably. Here's Elvis Costello doing his version for episode one of season two.

Oliver´s Army - Accidents Will Happen

Dear James,

Dear oh dear, four posts in a day. Though strictly thinking it´s now Sunday where you are.

So, the story of this post. I found this article about Thatcher in The Guardian. We marked 27 years since the start of the Falklands War here last Thursday, today in England they celebrate (?) 30 years since Thatcher came to power. It was also the week that Raul Alfonsin died, Alfonsin having come to power after Argentina´s defeat in the conflict and the gradual return to democracy. Funny how these three things come at the same time. I enjoyed the article, particularly the last lines:

The Grantham Journal recently polled its readers about what to do with a vacant site near the Asda roundabout. Should there be a bronze statue of Lady Thatcher, the readers of the paper were asked, or would they prefer "the return of the Wyndham Park steamroller"?

Eighty-five per cent of respondents opted for the steamroller.

I used to play on that steamroller in Wyndham Park, it was one of my favourite parts of visiting my Nanna in Grantham, along with playing bagotel, sampling her baking from her larder, playing subbuteo on her deep-shag carpet (you could lob the keeper if you stuck your thumb under the player correctly) and combining the viewing of Sons and Daughters, Countdown and a quick game of Scrabble before Uncle Michael came home for his beans on toast.

Before I go to Funseeker´s sister´s ¨flat-warming as a single girl¨party, I´ll leave you with the knowledge that if you do a search for äccidents will happen¨, you get a Thomas the Tank Engine rip-off, and that Elvis Costello once said this about Grantham´second-favourite daughter:

Pump It Up

Dear Daniel,

After the bass-talk I touched on earlier, I spent the whole day singing the bassline to this track. One of my favourite basslines ever - it transforms the whole song without you ever noticing it, until that moment when you do and it's with you for good.

It's hard to imagine the squat, beardy Costello of today ever really thinking the cripple-walk was a good idea. Indie bands for thirty years hence have taken note, though. This video reminds me, the new Woody Allen film is out this month and it's being hailed as a "return to form".

I know - again!

This time, though, they mean it.

Dear James,

Good to see you celebrating your own good news with a bit of Elvis Costello. This video isn't available in my domain, you know. To think, I have a domain. Now that I know, I can feel it all around me. Like that bassline (Argentinian viewers can hear it here).

Which Woody Allen film is out? Which form is it a return to? If it's Everything Else form, I'm not going.