At times like these when the temperature outside is minus Jesus Mary and Joseph, it’s good to remember some of those halcyon days spent in the sun. Nice in the 1990’s, for example. A private section of the beach only a few steps from the hotel across the Promenade des Anglais. A covered bar where you’ll eat a light lunch later on. Rows of sun loungers, but only a few of them ever occupied. Lazily raising your arm from your lounger for the promptest of waiter service. Having a bottle of Blanc de Blancs, complete with ice-bucket, delivered to you within five minutes of requesting it. Watching the sun glint and sparkle on the deep blue Mediterranean sea. And marvelling at the rich, wrinkled nonagenarian women as they parade, tanned and topless, along the water’s edge and show off their exquisitely manufactured breasts. Aye, days like that. ☀️
0 Comments
The news this morning that Michel Legrand had died had me remembering an incident when I was a young buck of about 20. My mate Laurie and I were walking through Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh on a beautiful sunny morning. Not long before, Laurie had collected me from the Infirmary up the road, where they had kept me in overnight in case I had concussion. That was after they stitched the big gash above my right eye. Which was after I had been attacked from behind by a jealous boyfriend, catapulted down a set of steps outside the Grosvenor Hotel and knocked out into the bargain. Which, of course, was after I had danced with a chatted up said boyfriend’s girl – a gorgeous wee blonde in hotpants – at a disco in the hotel.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Laurie as we strolled through the sunshine. “Do you know what year it is? Can you remember who the Prime Minister is? That kind of thing?” “I can dae better than that,” I replied and proceeded to recite the lyrics of Michel Legrand’s Windmills of Your Mind. Every word. Word fucking perfect. Aye, wee blondes in hotpants – my femmes fatales. Anyway, RIP Michel. Hearing some George Gershwin music on the radio earlier on brought back a beautiful memory. It’s the Autumn of 1968. I’m in the refectory of the newly-built Mountbatten Building in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. The building is a hotel nowadays, but back then it was the latest addition to Heriot-Watt University’s campus. The refectory is practically empty, that quiet time before the loudmouth Hooray Henrys with their three O-levels turn up in Daddy’s Lotus Elan. All I can see through the ceiling-high windows is early morning mist and the silhouette of the janitor sweeping up leaves in the courtyard below. It’s not cold outside, though, and one of the windows is open. The janitor is a tall, thin man with a large hooked nose and a permanent scowl. Naturally, everyone calls him Lurch. Suddenly, I can hear Lurch whistle as he sweeps. He’s whistling the tune to It Ain’t Necessarily So from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. His notes rise up slowly through the mist, clear and perfect. So clear and perfect and ethereally plaintive that I don’t want the whistling to end; I want to stay in that moment for ever.
|
Archives
January 2022
|