My cousin reminded me of a haircut I had in Utah in the USA many years ago when she accompanied me and my hair was cut by Meryl Streep (ok it wasn't actually Meryl Streep but somebody who looked like her). "I get that quite a bit" she said when we told her she looked like the famous actress.
I have many memories of travelling in the USA and I will share some of them in coming blogs.
Memories like the day we went to a seniors tennis tournament in Colorado and had a chat with Jimmy Connors who told us how difficult it was playing at altitude due to the ball travelling further and the need to not hit it so hard.
Our sons were quite young at the time and we spotted Connors who had been playing to the crowd anyway. I told my youngest son to go and stand with him so we could take a picture. This he duly did not having any idea who he was standing next to. We got a signed tennis ball. He must have carried these around in his bag to give to kids.
Many many years later when Matt had grown up we showed him the photo which we came across in a heap of holiday snaps.
"Blimey that's Jimmy Connors," he said, showing that he was at that point very aware of just who Connors was. I think we saw Connors play the Frenchman Yannick Noah. John McEnroe was in the same tournament and we saw him walking along and narrowly missing walking into a car when a lady opened a door in front of him. She seemed to have no idea that she had narrowly avoided injuring one of the greatest tennis players the world has ever seen.
By this time they had all retired from competitive tennis and were playing exhibition tournaments that just rolled back the years to the great days of Borg, McEnroe, Connors etc. There have been other great periods like the great Australian days of Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall and of course the present years of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.
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As you know I often muse on music and particularly on lyrics and I was thinking about the most incomprehensible or just plain silly lyrics. And I came up with a few but would love to hear of more that you remember.
Many lyrics are deep and incomprehensible but I wanted to hone in on those that were just nonsense.
Suzi Quatro seems to have fashioned a few of these. Take 48 Crash for example which has the line: "And it's a silk sash bash, a silk sash bash, that's the 48 Crash." What on earth is a silk sash bash? Quatro also told us to can the can whatever that means.
Then there's the Crash Test Dummies song which has the lyrics "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" which is also the title of the song. Actually it's a very good song but the chorus feels like something of a cop out.
The Police had "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" - a song in which they describe those words as "meaningless" - how right they were.
Des O'Connor came up with "Dick a Dum Dum" and there have been Eurovision winners by the name of "Ding A Dong" and "la La La". And of course there are many many more like:
Tutti Frutti on rooty by Little Richard
Do Wah Diddy Diddy by Manfred Man
Da Doo Ron Ron by The Crystals
Ooh Wakka Doo Wakka Day by Gilbert O'Sullivan
and a couple by two of the greatest rock/pop bands in the history of music
Ob La Di Ob La Da by the Beatles and
Dum Dum Diddle by Abba.
Many songs have incomprehensible lyrics without resorting to the la la la idea. Three of the best and songs I absolutely adore are:
Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum
Surfs Up by The Beach Boys and
McArthur Park by Richard Harris and hundreds of others.
I feel a playlist coming on.
And of course I have written an entire blog without mentioning the Euro Football Final. That will be part of tomorrow's blog.