Toasted

Up betimes and cranky with it, having fallen among thieves the night before and gazed on the Chivas when it was red.

Egg takes ridiculous time to boil, kettle ditto over the water, and our ancient Hong Kong toaster tries to burn the toast, except that alert Maman ejects it and starts to scrape the burnt bits out the kitchen window.

I tell her, "OKay , Mum, fer heaven's sake, it's just a bit of carbon" and she glides off to worthier causes.

I immediately feel terrible for snapping.

What she did had nothing to do with smokin' dough and everything to do with what every parent's wants with every gesture and "sacrifice":

Bread always on their babies' table.

That pointy-capped Toaster in the Sky to deliver even brown slices (with the crusts just right).

And when in the hurly-burly of Life, the timer gets nudged up past the #4 mark, to be there to scrape the burnt bits away, if even just so the marmalade doesn't taste iffy.

Soppy songs: Has anyone ever run a Top 20 cringe-making sappy parental songs? All I can think of is CS&N's triumphant "Teach YOur Children Well" which certainly doesn't apply.

I'm thinking along the lines of that early 1960s hit where a son drools, "He may not be much in the eyes of the world, but he means the world to me-e."

Something to stand alongside those death ditties about Laura and Leader of the Pack and those Jan 'n' Dean goodies.

C'mon, chaps - there's got to be a treasure store out there and if there ain't, I'm sitting right down with the Martin and knocking them out in time for my own beauties to cringe and writhe when they get out here late July.

Better still, I'll write them in Greek ....

One summer I was pursuing a vision of beauty from somewhere like Burton-on-Trent, who of course only had eyes for the local buffery. Drawing from phrase books, I hacked out a convincing sounding ditty along the lines of:

"Listen up, guys, hear my plea
This vision of loveliness next to me
With the eyes and thighs and unbelievable balcony,
Got a crush on her ....

She's here til a week Wednesday and I'm like
Making NO headway.
Any chance you local toughs can go easy on the burning gazes and body buff,
Give me a chance to get some act together?" Etc.

It had everyone falling about laughing and applauding, the bar owner sending over free drinks and the lads coming over and tousling my hair and shaking my hand and (chastely) hers and proclaiming me "Very good man" Thumbs up. "Christos the best."

Trouble was, they'd spend enough time praising me to her that she had time to scope them out at close quarters. As they'd saunter away, she'd whisper "Wow - who was *that*?" which wasn't actually the point of the exercise.

It was later adapted with dazzling success by gay Keith from Ruislip, but I digress.

Soppy  parental songs is what I'm currently after.

A week into August I'll be back calling for Top 20 songs by ferocious Dads warning blokes from sniffing round their retiring violet beloveds.

A parent's life: toast.

Post-script: Great comment from RW, repeated here so you can speed  to Dylan's Mother's Day set list and cop an earful of "everyone's favorite, Mama Get the Hammer, There's a Fly on Baby's Head."

Absolutely first rate.