Departing

More than Just a Game

Dear Chroniclers,

I have little doubt 27th August 1994 is not an auspicious date that features prominently in your personal calendars. However, in the annals of the electrofried family it is a day of some momentous import.

Picture, if you will, a shabby but laden motor of uncertain Italian vintage, its driver a freckled and bespectacled youth adorned with the insignia of a certain Midlands football team. Up front in the passenger seat is yours truly, and behind us an excited eight year old who can but manage a few faltering words and some equally faltering steps - the young reallyfried. We're on a mission, reallyfried's introduction to the magical world of football.

It took my friend Neil and I some little time to get reallyfried safely into the ground, but once ensconced, he was a young man enraptured, his beaming face and a torrent of incoherent but excited sounds telling us all we needed to know.

The arcane recesses of the offside rule lay far beyond his limited comprehension, but even then reallyfried knew a goal when he saw one. Bang on the stroke of halftime, Steve Staunton rose majestically above a crowd of Crystal Palace defenders to head home his first of the season. My son rose falteringly to his feet, yelled in excitement and promptly toppled over the seat. And so a Villa fan was born!

Of Mascots and Men

The first few seasons we followed the great game, young reallyfried paid almost as much attention to the two Club Mascots, the lion-costumed and improbably padded "Bella" and "Hercules, than to the team itself. But as time went on his understanding of the great game grew - as did his ability to shout loudly in support of his beloved Villa.

We used to park about half a mile away from the ground and walk down together, reallyfried with his still shambling gait and myself gently easing him past sundry obstructions of varying danger en route, but we always made it safely in time. Reallyfried made sure of it, for his favourite ritual was to queue up on arrival to visit the Villa Shop, and then onward to the nearest Burger Bar for some greasy comestibles and a bottle of luke-warm Coca-Cola.

And so the boy became the man. We celebrated reallyfried's twenty first birthday last year in the Corner Restaurant overlooking the hallowed turf of Villa Park and never have I seen him so pleased. His god-parents, Doctor Phlegm and Debs the Artiste, accompanied us and we all raised a glass to toast our son. Greasy burgers were most decidedly not on the menu.

More than a Game

Right from the start it's been so much more than just a game of football for the two of us. The regular walks up and down to the ground helped strengthen reallyfried's legs and straighten his gait. So much so, I now struggle to keep up with him once the final whistle blows and we join the throng streaming out from the gates.

Reallyfried's learned an appreciation of money too, much of which has been spent over the years in the Villa Shop. He's developed so much confidence he can find his own way back to his seat through a milling crowd of supporters once the half-time pie has been despatched with customary gusto. And he's made real friends too in the fellow season-ticket holders who sit next to him - accepted for who he is, a fellow fan in search of victory come kick-off time.

I've learned something so precious too. Each walk down to the ground, each goal we celebrate, each loss we mourn on the way home brings us closer together. How far we've travelled since that sad Saturday evening Dr Phlegm broke the news to us of our son's handicap. This is indeed the great game.

Oh, and for the record, Villa drew one all with Crystal Palace that very first match. Reallyfried could tell you that for himself - he may not be able to count to a hundred, but who needs to when you can remember the score in every game you've attended!

best regards,

electrofried (mr)

Slinger

A Forest

Ten Easy Pieces

Dear Chroniclers,

so who knows where time goes ... ?

It seems like just a few moments ago I was celebrating the arrival of my half-century, but so much has happened since then. Not for the electrofried's the slowing waters of middle-age - everything in our lives right now appears to have been turned upside down, and you find us spinning like some Pooh-sticked flotsam and jetsam well out from the left bank of humanity's torrid and ever-hurrying stream.

Downwardly Mobile

If it had been just one thing it would be taken in its stride, but no, change assaults us on all sides as loudly as the competing banshee wails of shop-soiled muzak that assailed our ears this very morn as we made our way though the market-stalls of Little Wittering in search of some new mobile-phonery for my dear mrs. electrofried.

Regrettably, the half-brick that occupied much of her hand-tooled marmoset embroidery bag these years past, had all but given up the ghost. We took teenygoth with us for protection. At least she was sufficiently proficient in the language of the street to interpret the strange guttural grunts and techno-speak that passes loosely for speech these days. Just what is a "mega-pixel" and why does every telephone appear to come ready-equipped with blue dental-wear? Life is just too darned confusing!

A Puzzling Affair

Much to teenygoth's mortification, mrs electrofried seized upon the spottiest of the spotty work-experience shop-assistants who staffed the cacophonous shop we ended up in. Meanwhile, I took up position on the side-lines, pointedly ignoring the entreaties of the strangely pneumatic lady manager who spotted me dawdling in the aisles.

"Can I help you, darling?",

is perhaps not the best of opening lines in life's endlessly amusing catalogue of sales-pitches. I turned the other way, and set to with my Sudoko whilst mrs electrofried and teenygoth merrily pressed buttons and compared memory capacities. Frankly, the whole thing was a complete mystery to me and I contented myself by pencilling in a few random jottings to the squared puzzle before me.

At length, the transaction was completed. Money exchanged hands and mrs electrofried emerged blinking into the daylight from the blackened abyss of "Phones'R'Us" clutching a carrier bag containing the spoils of her foraging.

The swirl of time

I mentioned life has become a spinnying eddy of late.

Family issues spring up like the gaily-coloured daffodils and tulips that currently adorn the grounds of the House. We've moved churches too, and become Methodists, though I've yet to summon up the courage to announce this to the Vintners of Little Wittering who depend so much upon us for their livelihood. The credit-crunch will appear little more than a minor book-keeping blot in the annals of their balance-sheets once the endless stream of alcohol-related orders from the House dries to no more than a trickle. And time in the horology factory is ticking slightly faster than the norm.

But even amongst all this chaos, there is hope. Teenygoth has taken to purchasing the NME at regular intervals and in a recent, unguarded moment confessed a passing interest in the contents of the electrofried music-library. At last, a scion of electrofried who may be fit to inherit her father's burgeoning collection! So tonight, as I sit in my bath-chair sipping a restorative glass of the finest triple-strength Chimay (yet another sin to be confessed come the morn) I've set my mind to ""Ten Easy Pieces", a short catalogue of electrofried's life to date, as set to music.

This posting is accordingly dedicated to my youngest ... and I shall await, with no little trepidation, to see if she deigns post a comment in response. Welcome then, darling teenygoth, to the music of your father - the rhythm that has restored, enthused and enthralled me through a half-century and more.

And so here it is "Pop-pickers"!

10. Fresh in at no. 10, the sound of Siouxsie and the Banshees live at the Tynemouth Plaza, on their very first UK tour. I won two tickets on a (non-mobile) phone-in by spelling, "Siouxsie" correctly - not a particularly difficult task given my infatuation with her kohl-stained cheek-bones. Your mother, no more than a teenager herself, was embraced tenderly to the cascading feedback of "Mittageisen"!

9. The theme to "Midnight Cowboy", a sound tracked memory of a film that even now reduces me to tears just thinking about it. Is the reverberating harmonica of life just a last post to a sad existence, or the turning point to a bright new future in the sun? Discuss. Alternatively, you could watch the DVD once you're old enough to satisfy the British Board of Film Censors.

8. "I'm only sleeping". There has to be a Beatles song in there, somewhere. And what could be more apposite for a somnambulant father whose cat-napped existence is punctuated by the most piercing of snores?!

7. A non-mover at no. 7, the chiming guitars of "The Byrds" with, "Chestnut Mare", a particular favourite of your mother.

6. When I was but a teenager myself, I stole on occasion into my elder brother's bedroom in search of a particular album that still thrills me to this day. As you practice guitar up in the East Wing of the House, dear teenygoth, reflect on the genius that is Jimi Hendrix, and his stunning debut, "Are You Experienced".

5. "T Rex", is, I'm afraid, yet another sound of my youth. My very first foray into the purchase of music involved an off-line transaction behind the school bicycle-sheds, in which money changed hands and your father acquired a second-hand copy of the inaugural album of the freshly abbreviated, "Tyrannosaurus Rex". I sense an imminent negotiation with Master Amazon to acquire this afresh once I've finished with my tawdry list of musicology.

4. Over the last few months you have borne stoically the depletion of an ever-dwindling inheritance as yet more Miles Davis box-sets have made their way to the tradesman's entrance of the House. When you are much older yourself, spin "Kind of Blue" in memory of your father, for he found much peace amongst the space of these crystalline modal forms.

3. David Bowie, much like Miles Davis, mastered many a transformation in his time. "Heroes" is, forever, a favourite of your mother and I.

2. Sometimes life has shades of darkness, and in "Joy Division's", "Love will tear us apart", there is no finer.

1. But, as always, there is hope too! I think it unlikely you will ever chance upon the full King Tubby extended mix of this glittering jewel, but you will find the original version of "Love is a Treasure" on a Pressure Sounds' Carlton Patterson compilation called, "Psalms of Drums". It's secreted deep within the electrofried music library - enjoy, for love is indeed a treasure ...

... and much love to you, darly teenygoth!


as ever,

electrofried (mr)

p.s. mrs electrofried has passed by briefly to view my random jottings en route to the bed chamber and a relaxing infusion of Horlicks. Ears have been soundly boxed concerning the omission of anything by the Doors, the Clash and many others besides. Anyone for an extended electrofried Top Twenty?