Entertainment For Lively Minds
Whole Wide World
Posted by Mensi on 8 May 2011 - 9:14pm.
Whilst travelling from the north to Brighton today with my 9 year old daughter, the discussion turned to living in the capital. 'What's it like, being in London?' she asked. And quick as a flash, I replied 'London's brilliant when it's raining, everyone moaning and complaining' - this being a lift from the never-lamented solo album by Wendy James, lyrics (in an afternoon) by Elvis Costello. Earlier, during a clip about an upcoming prison documentary series on C4, I blurted out 'You're like Manchester, with your strange ways', this time pinching from John Shuttleworth's ouevre.
Does anyone else have places that trigger such responses? Or is this an idea that's going nowhere fast (Girls At Our Best, 1980)?
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Manchester
also has 'so much to answer for'. According to Steven Patrick. And he's not wrong.
Hah!
I do the "London's brilliant when it's raining" thing too, oddly enough.
Also if anyone mentions Primrose Hill, I chip in "It's windy there and the view's so nice", courtesy of Blur's For Tomorrow.
I cannot say the word 'Leicester'
Without thinking (and if at home/in good company saying out loud) Mark and Lard's perennial 'Lei-ces-ces-ces-cestershire'.
This means
nothing to me...aaaawwww Veee-enna
And any mention of Glyndebourne immediately sets me off with the wondeful Kit and the Widow;s version of the overture from Barber of Seville (oops, - Il Barbiere di Siviglia )
'We're orf to Glyndebourne to see a frightfully boring opera by Rossini,
We both like Glyndebourne; it gives us scope to be particularly queeny'
Yes London's Brilliant is one of mine too
alongside Istanbul which fires off the They Might be Giants popular cover version.
But that's nobody's business but the Turks
Sort of
Whenever I see figure skating on TV ( not that often, but it happens ), sooner rather than later the sports commentator will say that one of the skaters lives in Odessa ( most of them do, apparently ).
Cue me loudly reciting the opening line of a ( beautiful )poem by Vladimir Majakovsky, hamming it up properly with added dramatic hand gestures.
"Det var i Odessa det hände!" ( Well, that's the Swedish translation of course... Meaning "It happened in Odessa". )
I have to say this every time that city is mentioned, and as I said - they all bloody live there! If I turned it into a drinking game I would get well hammered...
Harrow...
Is it me you're looking for?
Acton
Baby
The Who's single Let's See Acton
was, course, written when the band lived in and around Shepherd's Bush and fancied a day out in the eponymous suburb.
...or something.
Charlie's Aunt
I can't hear Brazil mentioned without thinking "…where the nuts come from".
And, I am reliably informed,
they've got an awful lot of coffee there.