My Journey to Work

Sock Monkey has a morning routine. This is because That's What Sock Monkey is Like.

Sock Monkey gets the same train (almost) every morning and has to sit in the same seat. If Sock Monkey doesn't get the same seat an International Incident could occur.

Sock Monkey then reads The Guardian, drinks tea (I take a flask of tea with me for the 23 minute journey to London Bridge. I can't function in the morning until I have drank 2 pints of tea.) and says good morning to the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.

One morning, whilst I was reading the paper, drinking my tea and had said hello to the dinosaurs I sat and listened to the theme music to "Murder She Said" (the classic film starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple) on my iPod whilst gazing gormelessly out of the window. I can gaze into the middle distance, thinking my 'Special Thoughts' for hours on end.

We were just approaching the recycling dump outside London Bridge when I spotted 3 workmen. They were in their hardhats, high risibility vests and steel toe-capped boots. And they were running towards the train waving in a highly exaggerated way. I burst out laughing and waved back.

Figured they were so bored they thought they would wave at all the passing commuter trains. It was like the Railway Children and I was quite relieved that they weren't also waving a great big pair of red underpants on a stick.

I looked out for them since then but have only seen them do it one more time. Its probably against Health & Safety or something.

What made the whole thing even more surreal is that I had the theme music to Miss Marple playing in my ears.

Did you know that Margaret Rutherford is the ONLY Miss Marple?

This is Sock Money on the way to work.

Stanna Stairlifts

Sock Monkey has a theory.

One day Sock Monkey was discussing Stanna Stairlifts with a colleague and this is when Sock Monkey realised that as well as the stairlifts obviously having to be quality controlled, they must be 'authenticated'.


The Authentication Process involves Dame Thora Hird sitting her bare bottom on each and every chair chair before it leaves the factory.

This is the final stage in the manufacturing process and prior to this the chairs are not stairworthy. Dame Thora's bare bottom is the final Seal of Approval.

Sadly Dame Thora passed away in March 2003 at the age of 91. Since then no stairlift carries her Authentification. Only about 3 people in the whole world know about this.

Peas

Sock Monkey has Food Rules.

Like green beans don't go with steak & chips. Or sandwiches should under no circumstances contain vegetables. Or that olives are the food of the Devil. Or that pizzas originate from Italy and as such should absolutely NEVER have food of any other nationality used as a topping (eg Chinese Chicken). Lasagne should NOT come with chips unless you are on a carb-a-thon.


And Sock Monkey has a rule specifically about peas.

Peas are perfectly permissible but only when served with certain foods. Peas are allowed with the following:

• Shepherd's Pie/Cottage Pie
• Risotto
• Fish Fingers
• Pea Soup
• Fish & Chips but they should be the mushy variety only
• You can have them with a Sunday Roast but only in an emergency

Peas are not allowed with:

• Pork Chops
• Pasta
• Chicken
• Anything cooked on a griddle
• A fry up
  

That's the rules. I didn't make them up. Actually I did.

The Old Lady Caff

Sock Monkey had to go to Hatton Garden recently to have a ring repaired. Between 1995 and 1999 I used to work on Saffron Hill which is just around the corner and so I used to know the area really well.

It was strange going back there one lunchtime last week as it brought back loads of good memories. And there was one in particular...

Not long after I started working there I discovered a caff (note not a cafe, this was a proper old London caff) which was run by two old ladies and an old bloke. I christened it "The Old Lady Caff". The old dears, who reminded me of Mortimer Brewster's maiden aunts (but not as jolly) from Arsenic & Old Lace worked on the sandwich counter and he was the cook. You could see him in the kitchen through the serving hatch.

There were also two extremely downtrodden looking waitresses who I can only assume were their granddaughters. Although one day there was only one waitress and we assumed that the other one had tunneled her way out to a better life in Venezuela or somewhere.

I used to go there on Fridays as I had to take my lunch break at 2pm. I liked their roast chicken and chips and would have that every week. My conversation with the waitress was always the same:

Waitress (robotically and a bit dead behind the eyes): "What can I get yew madamm?"

Sock Monkey: "I'd like the chicken and chips please"

Waitress: "Would you like grwayvee wivf that madamm?"

Sock Monkey: "Yes please"

Waitress: "Any brwedd and butter madamm"

Sock Monkey: "No thank you"

She would toddle off and shout my order to the 'chef' through the serving hatch. Soon

afterwards my lunch would arrive and I was always amused that my 'grwayvee" came in a little jug on the side.

Best fun though was when the waitress was away. The old ladies would get in another of their old lady friends to cover for her

and I swear to God that she wore an outfit just like this points right. Bear in mind that this old lady looked about 80 years old and

was about 4 foot 10 so it looked somewhat...odd.

In fact, this advert reminds me of them.

I started taking my friends there and they thought it was as weirdly entertaining as I did. Except Shelly. She came once and wailed, "Its not funny! Its just dirty in here!"

They had a bar upstairs. Not an actual bar but one of these:

I remember it being pink though and I'm sure it had a plastic ice bucket in the shape of a pineapple on top of it.

One Christmas they invited me to have a free glass of wine with my lunch because they were "offering it to all our customers today." I decided against it in case it disintegrated my teeth. I just enjoyed the tatty and sad Christmas decorations instead.

The very last time I ever went there I just went in for a takeaway sandwich. One of the old ladies made it for me. She was halfway through when she sneezed into her hands than continued making me my sandwich without washing her hands!! It was then that I decided that this place was possibly as unhygienic as it looked and there were only so many germs I could safely digest.

I looked for the caff last week but couldn't find it. It was 15 years ago so the owners are possibly dead now. They were certainly ancient when I was a regular customer. And I wonder what happened to the downtrodden waitress.

The chicken & chips (wivf grwayvee) were good though.

Don't get out much then love?

Sock Monkey has been nagged by so, so, so many people about the utter lack of updates but I never have the time to write anything! So quickly then before I get spotted...

Last Saturday afternoon Sock Monkey was on the tube. Two women were sitting across from me: one was about 60 years old, the other was about 50. They were discussing in extremely broad Glaswegian accents how to get the Leicester Square. Bear in mind that at this point we were on the northbound Northern Line from Balham (non-London people: its a straight line from Balham to Leicester square on the Northbound Northern Line...)

Eventually the older lady asked the guy beside her, "Excuse me does this train go to Leicester Square?" He looked at her as if she was speaking in Martian so I can only assume that:

a) he didn't speak English
b) he couldn't understand a word she was saying
c) he didn't have a clue where he was going either

Anyway he grunted at her then got off at the next stop. Being extremely helpful I leaned over and said, "You need to change at Kennington and get the other branch of the Northern Line. I'm going there so I'll show you."

See - how helpful am I?

We all got off the train at the correct station, changed trains and continued to Leicester Square. I had noticed that they had theatre tickets for a matinee showing of Jersey Boys. So I asked them, "Do you know where you are going when you get there?"

Of course they didn't so I said that I'd show them where the theatre was. The older lady chuckled to her friend, "All these years I've lived in London and I've never been to Leicester Square."

I beg your pardon?? I looked at her sideways and asked,"How long have you lived in London?"
She laughed and said, "Ages. Since 1968."

Nineteen-sixty-bloomin'-eight????

She has lived in London almost the same amount of time that Sock Monkey has been alive and has never been to somewhere so utterly slap-bang in the middle of the West End that I can't bear to set foot in it!!

Managing not to gasp I asked, "How can you have lived here for over 40 years and have not been to Leicester Square? Where do you live in London?" I was assuming that she would say somewhere so back of beyond that the postcodes are all funny. "Battersea", came her reply.

For those of you who don't know London you could walk from Battersea to Leicester square (if you really wanted to). Its about 3 or 4 miles.

On our short walk from the tube station to the theatre she said, "Oh look there's China Town" and her friend asked her if she had ever seen Buckingham Palace. "Only on the telly," came the reply. Really most taken aback I mentioned that I had thought that they were visiting London for the weekend. Note the following clues:

a) Bloody strong Glaswegian accents (and I can tell one when I hear one)
b) Not having a bleeding clue how the tube works. It's not exactly difficult. They made all the lines different colours on the map so that people who can't read could find their way around
c) They had matinee tickets for a musical

They just laughed and told me that their sons had bought them the tickets for Mother's Day.

When Sock Monkey was in Australia I met of number of quite charming people (is the sarcasm dripping off the page at this point?) who kindly said, "Why would I want a passport? I've never been out of Queensland. Wouldn't want to." But honestly, never going further than about a 3 mile radius from your house in 43 years is a bit much. Unless you are under house arrest.

Fish Pie

Sock Monkey fully intends to make fish pie tonight. In addition to the million other things I have to do tonight. I have salmon but I don't have any cod. Or prawns.

I mentioned to P that I''m sure I can just scrape the breadcrumbs off a couple of fish fingers and stick them in but she considers this a not-very-nice solution.

However I just checked Fish Pie Etiquette with my colleague and she recons she wouldn't even scrape the breadcrumbs off. She'd just shove them in unpeeled for extra crunch.

I could go and buy some cod but I haven't even got round to buying my Christmas presents yet. And have you seen the price of fish these days??

Well. Alison Moyet playing the mouth organ is something I hadn't imagined I'd ever see

Sock Monkey wasn't dragged to the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday but Sock Monkey was fairly ambivalent about the whole thing.

P had booked tickets to see Alison Moyet performing the London leg of her 25 Years Tour. I'd seen Yazoo in 1983, seen her at the Glasgow Apollo in about 1989 and saw her playing Mama Morton in 'Chicago' years ago, I think she was in the play 'Smaller' when I saw that too so I wasn't really that bothered about seeing her again.

I'm glad I did because my God she was bloody amazing! She appeared on stage literally half the size she used to be (and looking very slinky in a long black dress) but with all of the voice remaining. Her voice hasn't changed a bit, its still wonderfully deep and husky and bluesy.

Chatting in between songs she was also a very funny lady, preceeding every anecdote with 'Thankyouverymuch' and sounding a bit like a cross between Tommy Cooper and a Fish Wife then laughing at her own speaking voice.

She sang a huge selection of her back catalogue, including all of Yazoo's best-known material, her biggest solo hits and 'Windmills of Your Mind' which is one of her favourite songs. Some of the older songs were rearranged to accommodate the difference between synthesizer accompaniment and the more traditional guitar/bass guitar/drums/piano/backing singer band and they worked really well. And she wasn't afraid to highlight parts of her performance which she felt weren't up to scratch:

• "Stop. Hold it. I lost it there. Start again"
• "I was singing in a different key to the music there"
• "I can never remember the lyrics to the second verse and Annie has to mouth them to me."
• "I missed a verse out there. You paid your money, you need to get your money's worth" - then she sang the missing verse acapella.

A particular favourite moment for the audience was when Alison performed 'Weak in the Presence of Beauty'. She introduced this song with the following comments:

"I'm not going to sing 'Invisible'. I'm not being coy then say, oh ok I will sing it. It ain't gonna happen. And if I don't sing that one I can't not sing this one. I can't not sing both of them."

It was interesting to hear her basically say that she does not like two of her most successful numbers.

She then went on to tell us that the original recording featured a trumpet solo but the performer on the record wasn't here (the way she said this was if to say 'yeah, as if he would be here') and that they improvise. Either Annie (her wonderful backing singer) or her pianist play the part of the trumpet. Alison said she had been told not to do it but being told not to made her want to do it more. So in the middle of her performance of 'Weak in the Presence of Beauty' Alison Moyet, very well respected, hugely successful singer stood in the middle of the stage and made trumpet sounds in time to the music. It was a highly entertaining moment which the audience really enjoyed rewarding her with huge applause.

She interacted with the audience in a really nice way too. To the comment of "Very well done Alison" she laughed and said, "Wait till next time".
When someone asked her how she was feeling she said "I'm really enjoying myself." And she looked like she was enjoying herself too.

And the following conversation:
Person in audience: "Mwaf woof bloop"
Alison Moyet: "Pardon?"
Person in audience: "Mwaf woof bloop"
Alison Moyet: "Pardon??"
Person in audience: "Mwaf woof bloop"
Alison Moyet: "Oh I can't understand what you're saying....But I'm assuming its positive so thank you very much!"

During one of her anecdotes she told us about how her father used to come home with lots of mouth organs and that this is the only instrument she can play. She then went on to play the harmonica accompaniment to the next song. And yes she actually can play.

At the start of her encore she said, "So you can plan your getaway: you are getting two songs. So don't waste the skin on your palms. The first one is a bit Boo Hoo then a happier one." She introduced 'Je ne quitte pas' by telling us that her mother phoned her after a previous date on this tour to inform her that she had mispronounced two words in the song. This, Alison said, had made her feel so nervous for the next gig that she mispronounced another seven words trying to concentrate too hard. And that anyway, 'How many people speak French in Grimsby?"

Two hours after she walked on stage, she left to a well deserved standing ovation from some very, very happy punters.

One of the best performances I have seen this year.