Dictionary of an East Dulwich Dad - Part 6

ROTHERHITHE (n)
A journey between two tube stations exactly long enough for a busker to play "Hey Mr. Tambourine Man" at you.

Dawn Chorus 4 - Life, The Universe and Everything

Act One
Scene 4

A pale and watery Autumn sun begins its daily flight across the cold silvery rooftops of Lordship Lane. It’s 6.57am, and the recently adjusted central heating system of an exceptionally well presented Victorian semi, situated conveniently close to local amenities, begins gently to warm the four sleepy occupants therein – two of which lay extremely inactive underneath a large and extremely inviting continental duvet.

An unwelcome and yet not entirely unexpected interruption to the morning solitude begins to emerge from a room at the back of the house occupied by a member of the household yet to surpass the 4 foot marker on his bedroom wall. The young man, clearly wrestling with the meaning of life once again, appears to gather his thoughts, sidle into the master bedroom and follow the familiar path round to the side of the bed occupied by his industrious and adoring father.

Harry: Daddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy........?
Daddy: (from underneath the continental duvet) mmmmmm...wwwwhhhhh . . ..... .........zzzzzzzzzz
Harry: Daddy!
Daddy: Whhhh........What.....Harry? What time is it......?
Harry: (sighs) Daddy, I know what happened to the spider when I killed it.
Daddy: (emerging from under the duvet) Harry, this is not the time....please..?
Harry: But DADDY!
Daddy: OK...what?
Harry: I know what happened to the spider when I killed it.
Daddy: After you tell me you’ll go back to bed, right?
Harry: Yes.
Daddy: What happened?
Harry: It went to heaven.
Daddy: Fine...
Harry: So, do you know where heaven is then?

Daddy, groggy with sleep yet clearly becoming a little intrigued, opens a single bleary eye to examine his short male offspring.

Daddy: No.....tell me where it is.
Harry: It’s up in the sky.
Daddy: OK...... and what happens when you go there?
Harry: There’s a big green sea monster made of clouds. But he’s a nice sea monster not a nasty one.
Daddy: Really, and what does he do?
Harry: He looks after you and cleans all the blood off you until you are all better. And then you come back down from the clouds and you’re not dead anymore and all the blood’s come off.
Daddy: And how long does this take?
Harry: (pauses).....About six weeks.

Daddy: ...
Harry: So the spider’s all better now, with no more blood on him.

Daddy, who is clearly and completely lost for words, simply stares through one eye at the boy.

Harry: OK Daddy?
Daddy: er...OK.
Harry: Good.
Daddy: Harry?
Harry: Yes?
Daddy: Back to bed.
Harry: OK Daddy.

Harry turns and leaves the room, with one of the universe’s greatest mysteries firmly solved at the age of 4 and three quarters.

Fade to black.

Dictionary Of An East Dulwich Dad - Part 5

ST JOHN'S WOOD (v)
Unexpectedly aroused en route to work, a possible cause of which is the continuous and vibrating movement of the Northern Line. On a particularly packed train The St John's Wood usually preceeds a Woodside Park.

WOODSIDE PARK (v)
A gentlemen's adjustment, usually following a St Johns Wood.

Dictionary Of An East Dulwich Dad - Part 4

UPMINSTER (v)
Parental one-up-man-ship. The Upminster can be regularly be witnessed in Dulwich Park, between two fathers discussing the latest"optional extras" that came with their buggies. Typically one father will highlight that his pram came with Blue-Tooth and iPod connection. However he should always be cautious, as his colleague is highly like to counter with a return Upminster, informing him that his buggie has Twitter.

Dawn Chorus 3 - The Highly Improbable, Probably

Act One
Scene 3

Darkness has long since settled outside a delightfully well proportioned suburban semi on one of the quieter streets of SE22. It's 3.47am on Thursday. From underneath the continental duvet two totally knackered parents lay blissfully unconscious, completely unaware of the brewing disturbance in the next room.

The sound of a small human male padding about can gradually be heard, clearly in some distress.

Harrry: Daddy?...............Daddy?.................Daddy?
Daddy: (groans from underneath the continental duvet) Love, do you want me to go?
Mummy: mmmmmm.....?
Daddy: Shall I go?
Mummy: mmmmmm.....
Daddy: I'll go.
Mummy: zzzzzzzzzzz.....

Daddy heaves himself out of the kingsize and pulling on the M&S luxury towelling dressing gown, meets Harry in the hallway. Harry, bleary eyed, is holding doggy.

Daddy: What's up dude?
Harry: Daddy, Megatron is on my bed.
Daddy: What?
Harry: Megatron is on my bed, can you make Optimus Prime go on my bed?
Daddy: What on earth are you talking about?
Harry: Can you make Optimus Prime go on my bed, I don't like Megatron.
Daddy: (Finally waking up enough to know what's going on) Ahh, I see.
Harry: Can you do it Daddy, please.
Daddy: No problem.

Daddy picks up the double sided Transformers duvet and flips it over from the Megatron side to the Optimus Prime side. Harry hops into bed.

Harry: Thank you Daddy
Daddy: Everything OK now?
Harry: Yes Daddy.

Daddy stumbles back to bed, slipping straight back into his dream about turning up late and completely unprepared for his Chemistry O' level, wearing nothing but his underpants.

He wakes up 4 hours later still wearing the M&S luxury towelling dressing gown.

The sound of an Airbus 330 can be heard rumbling overhead, clearly on it's way to somewhere less complicated.

Fade to black.

Dictionary of an East Dulwich Dad - Part 3

ARCHWAY (n)
A portal leading into a dark and lifeless dimension, where time and space have an entirely different meaning. Indeed, the very nature of existence and the laws of the universe therein bear little or no relation to life as we know it.

The Northern Line passes through an Archway shortly before arriving at Borough station.

Dictionary of an East Dulwich Dad - Part 2

TOTTERDIGE (v)
The sideways shuffle towards the door of a tube train as it arrives at the platform, blocking off the person behind you, thus ensuring a greater chance of boarding the already full train. Not to be confused with the edgware (v)

EDGWARE (v)
A last minute gambit. An attempt to leap into onto a packed tube train just as the doors are closing, forcing your way in and usually causing a hampstead (n)

HAMPSTEAD (n)
A virtually inaudible grunt of disapproval, which serves as a completely useless protest with little or no effect. A ripple of hampsteads will typically spread through a line of people waiting to top up their Oyster cards when a bunch of German tourists push in.

SHADWELL (n)
The split second “shall I, shan’t I” decision, which precedes the edgware (v)

Dictionary of an East Dulwich Dad - Part 1

(With respect to The Meaning Of Liff, the late great Douglas Adams, and the slightly less late but equally superb John Lloyd)

WANSTEAD (n)
The utterly incessant and completely unexplainable attack of yawning experienced by a parent as soon as you begin reading a bedtime story to the kids .

TOOTING (participial vb.)
Change given back to a customer in the form of coins balanced precariously on top of notes, in turn balanced on top of the receipt, forcing you to stuff the whole bloody lot into your pocket with your only free hand.

Never Mind The Smokey Bacon Crisps.

There have only been two cultural revolutions in music in my lifetime – Punk Rock and Acid House. This is not open for debate.

I was too young for punk. It was 1977, I was 6 years old and the world was all about Dr Who, smokey bacon crisps and falling in love with my 16 year old babysitter. As far as I remember Punk Rock was something to do with the queen, a lot of swearing and my Grandfather complaining about safety pins.

I do however remember the fashion of punk exploding into my universe, which was Melrose Avenue in Darlington. I remember having to wear ridiculous bell bottom jeans and tight t-shirts whilst the “older boys” were beginning to step out in the boots, the braces and the huge amounts of tartan, and I remember thinking it was pretty cool.

I have no regrets about being too young for Punk because I was exactly the right age for Acid House. I won’t discuss the fashions of Acid House, because it involved a lot of silly hats. Needless to say each generation, even in the midst of their cultural revolution, has a heavy fashion cross to bear.

Whilst there have only been two major explosions into the collective youth consciousness, they are both intrinsically linked. At a time when major record labels controlled the world and the charts were full of super rich, long haired prog rockers, spawning uncontrollable amounts of masturbatory guitar solo’s and freeform jazz exploration - Punk Rock came along and tore down the barriers of the music industry. It said “fuck off” very loudly to everything and everyone, and placed music making back into the hands of the snotty nosed youth. Quite simply, nothing was ever quite the same again.

10 years later, in the midst of Stock, Aiken and Waterman hell, a club in the North West and a DJ called Mike Pickering began to play mind blowing records that nobody had heard before. Records played to a generation of music lovers who were desperately crying out for their own new musical epiphany. Acid House was born.

I was definitely not at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1976, when the Sex Pistols played their first gig in Manchester. But that one gig linked Punk to Acid House in one fell swoop. Present at that gig were a band called Warsaw, who would go on to become Joy Division and finally New Order, Tony Wilson who would create The Durutti Column, discover A Certain Ratio, introduce the world to the Happy Mondays and build the Hacienda nightclub which would give birth to the Acid House scene itself.

Fast forward to November 2007, over 30 years since that eponymous gig, and I complete the cycle. Leaping around the mosh pit in front of the Sex Pistols at the Brixton Academy, alongside middle aged and middle heavy postmen, bankers, city boys and builders alike, smiling and scrapping in joyous oblivion as the boys hammered it out to the end.

I left the gig sweaty, smiling and satisfied at having finally completed a cultural round trip which was more than overdue.

Bollocks.