Dear Mr Kershaw, page 15
4) Would it be fair to state that there was a notable increment in police officers in the immediate vicinity of the apartment at around the time that your debatable inamorata had to go away?
5) Do you recall any of the vehicles in the surrounding locale travelling at a velocity far below the National Speed Limit and was any said transportation helmed by shifty and uncomfortable-looking personages?
6) Without prying too deeply into your intimate affairs, would you be able to confide if a telephone box had any role to play in your ‘first date’?
7) Discounting any tokens or chattels which could be construed as standard fare within a burgeoning wooing, was there at any time an exchange of legal tender between yourself and your putative ‘other half’ and/or a guarded third party?
Upon collation of your feedback I will formulate my findings, but feel it only fair at this stage to warn you that they may not only be unpalatable but self-incriminatory.
On an unrelated note pertaining to your monicker, Sad Café, although it is perfectly understandable (although unacceptable) for the employees of a casual eatery to be sullen, perhaps owing to being forced to hand over all personal tips to the proprietor, disputes over shifts and/or overtime payments, rude customers or a combination thereof, said despondency cannot be extended to the bricks and mortar itself. That said, my wife Jean and I agree this trading name to be pleasingly euphonic and, during an idle hour this evening whilst waiting for ’Allo, ’Allo to start on UK Gold, elected, with the help of our many ‘Facebook friends’, to compile a list of possible aliases evocative of it, which we understand to be customary in the event that you ever feel inclined to perform a ‘secret gig’:
Unhappy Restaurant
Upset Coffee Bar
Distressed Greasy Spoon
Lacrimose Deli
Melancholy Bistro
Morose Carvery
Pee’d Off Pizzeria
Downhearted Buttery
Dejected Snack Bar
Teary Tea Shop
Woebegone Grill
Whingy Wine Bar
Despondent Diner
Mournful Luncheonette
Disconsolate Truckstop
Inconsolable Brasserie
Regretful Refectory
None Too Chuffed Chiringuito
Heartbroken Hot Dog Stand
We look forward to hearing from you shortly, Sad Café, and hope that our light-hearted segue is of some comfort during this stressful time.
Yours,
Derek Philpott
Yo Wilf and Derek,
Thanks for the tome-like enquiry on our illustrious sojourn into ‘ShowBIZz luvvy’ via the wonderful classic Everyday Hurts (which, may I add, was originally designed as an ad for the car rental company Hertz).
I read with awe the quizzical first paragraph, and thought to myself: ‘I hope he had a lot of gravy with that dictionary he’s just swallowed!’
Whilst my reply might not be as lengthy as yours I will endeavour to answer all your probing questions and theories.
Let’s get on then with
Point 1: The fenestral luminescence (oh gawd) was indeed red and there was a lit pumpkin carved with the legend ‘No dwarfs’ there too.
Point 2: Carrying on the link from Point 1, I can tell you that entry was made from the rear (careful now) which would explain the following lyric always being mistaken for ‘Why did you have to go away’ when in actual fact it’s ‘Why did you have to go OOH A’. Also ‘more than I’ve been hurt before’ would point to the room next door being reserved for clients with more of a dominatrix penchant.
Point 3: Not too difficult this one, as the street guy was actually her pimp touting for business, and keeping his head down for obvious reasons.
I think the above answer points would also emphasize the lilt in your remaining queries as to the nature of the establishment, and hope that it doesn’t shock our loyal clientele after all these years. After all it was the biggest selling single of 1979 and was only pipped from the No 1 spot by that arse’ole Lena Martell’s One Day At A Time (Sweet Jesus) which is to this day still our ultimate shame. This would explain the esoteric nature of the cogs and wheels (and backhanders) involved in the chart mechanisms of the day.
I cannot compete with your erudite and extremely comprehensive Egon Ronay list of your favourite cafés, so I won’t!
But here’s one for ya – Sad Café: where the tables are in tiers! (ARFF!)
One piece of research missing from your diatribe (kidding) is the origin of the band name.
It’s from a well known US author called Carson McCuller’s book The Ballad of Sad Café which apparently revolves around characters of blind men, circus dwarves, and prostitutes which leads us nicely back to Point 1 innit!
This has been a most enjoyable exercise, and may I suggest you carry it further if you wish by studying another of the band’s greatest hits called ‘MY OH MY’ which contains lyrics right up your street.
Here’s to our next meeting.
Fanx Tara
Sad Café
Dear Thompson Twins,
Re: Doctor Doctor
In response to your plea for assistance, may I point out that the fire services would be better equipped to deal with your predicament than your GP. I urge you to dial the emergency services on 999 immediately and ask to report a fire; I am sure, if your GP is as busy as Dr Greenwald at Southbourne Surgery, you will be pleasantly surprised at the firefighters’ prompt attention.
Yours,
Wilf Turnbull
Dear Thompson Twins,
My apologies for my former correspondence, which I wrote in haste before listening to your statement in full. It is now my understanding that you attribute your dangerously high temperature to a deeply romantic emotion. From this information I now assume that you use the context as a metaphor to describe how you are feeling, and that you are not physically on fire. I wonder, however, if it is love you are feeling and not a touch of heart ‘burn’. If this is the case a visit to your doctor may be appropriate, although I feel a pharmacist would be adequately equipped to advise you on the problem.
I thank you for your invitation to dance across the sea towards a destination you call ‘Eternity’. As I’m sure we are all aware, to dance on water would be an impossibility. Therefore, I assume this dancing would take place on a secure vessel, an experience which would be most enjoyable. I gratefully accept. May I recommend Brittany Ferries’ ‘Barflueur’ which sails from Poole, Dorset. If we were to take advantage of their midweek offer, the four of us could travel with a car for £29. This price includes the onboard entertainment which features a cinema, a bar area, and a disco, with live music provided by the popular duo ‘Savoir Faire’. Unfortunately there is no discount available for family groups; in any case, the unusual numerical nature of your siblinghood (plus my own presence of course) may render our application for such a discount unsuccessful.
Please contact me again advising when you would like me to make our booking. The ‘Barfleur’ departs at 8am every weekday, and the crossing takes approximately 4 hours 15 minutes. The destination is Cherbourg in France, which is not ‘Eternity’ (I hope this doesn’t disappoint) but a very nice town all the same.
Your friend,
Wilf Turnbull
Dear Wilf,
Thanks for your serial missives. Please forgive my lack of promptness in replying but I was unaware of your having made contact until very recently.
Firstly, to be absolutely clear: you have written to the Thompson Twins but it is I, Tom Bailey, who replies. I’m sure you understand that, for legal reasons, I cannot represent the views of all the group members.
Secondly, although I wrote the music and sang the song in question, I did not write the lyric. This was the work of Alannah Currie, to whom due credit must be given. Therefore, in your efforts to get to the bottom of this, my explanation must only be given the weight of a subjective interpretation, not a definitive author’s opinion. But whilst I may lack the authority of the horse’s mouth, I was at least in the same stable for a while – so here goes:
Yes, the song was about the fevers of wounded passion, but only on one level. I’m particularly fond of the triple-layered metaphor and, in this case, I decided one of its strata referred more generally to medical practice but also specifically to the NHS. You may be forgiven for thinking that was just my private way of getting through a tricky gig, but I can’t miss the opportunity of drawing your attention to the way in which the once-noble organization has sadly floundered in the deep and murky waters of privatization since the piece was written. I remain hopeful that it will survive. So it’s a sad song, but with a glimmer of optimism.
Which brings me to your generous offer of a group ticket on the ferry from Poole to Cherbourg. You certainly impress me with the thoroughness of some aspects of your research but, unfortunately, because I live in France, I would be travelling in the other direction. This rather puts us at cross-purposes so, regretfully, I must decline. However, now that we graze together on the lower slopes of Parnassus, I feel that I can get in touch if my schedule takes me within shouting distance of Poole.
Many thanks again for your message. I must confess, finally, that I was in two minds about my ability to reply. I think it was the picture of Bassett’s Murray Mints on your website which pushed me over the edge: it should have been a Nuttall’s Mintoe.
Warmest regards,
Tom Bailey
Dear Mental As Anything
Re: Live It Up
I thank you for concern, Mental As Anything, but I can assure you, my all-encompassing unsoundness or cerebrality homaging friends, that you have mistaken my expressionless semi-concentration usually adopted whilst watching Top of the Pops 2 for ''the sad face''.
Whilst writing, I must express some concern pertaining to the isolated adolescent to whom you allude in your Scottish amphibious animal film-featured 'feel good classic'. It would seem that said ''lonely girl'' is capable of wreaking havoc upon structural matter ranging from a room barrier to an entire municipality, simply through the magnitude of her displayed contentment. Personally speaking, if such a forsaken female were to come up to my place, I would be intent on not allowing her to ''live it up'' but instead instilling within her, perhaps via the recital of ''Sad Poetry'', as melancholic a disposition as possible. I fear that unrepressed joviality on the part of the companionless juvenile could prove potentially disastrous. if, as you state, she smiled the walls would fall down, to say nothing of her levelling the town if she laughed, and I do not wish to be held accountable to either the whole Borough, or, more dauntingly my wife Jean, especially as we have not long decorated.
There may, however, exist an opportunity for the solitary young lady’s expressed conviviality destruction to be employed within the commercial arena, thus mixing ''Business And Pleasure'' and confirming your assertion that she is ''worth her weight in gold''. The placement of the unchaperoned youth, perhaps deployed with a portable computer showing her various ''Epic Fail Compilations'' on the youtube channel, within an area intended for redevelopment, would likely be a far more economical alternative to the costly explosives, wrecking balls, JCBs, heavy plant machinery and what have you of most demolition companies and, if he was still alive, Fred Dibnah.
As an aside, if indeed you do have the capacity to inspire gaiety in the maudlin. you may wish to get in touch with a Mr. Harley, whom I understand to be in need of cheering up at the moment.
I sincerely hope, my wacky as whatever correspondees, that you will ''Come Around'' to the sensibilities contained in this missive in the near future and not cause me to remind you "Too Many Times" for a response.
Yours Rationally,
Derek Philpott
P.S. I could not agree more that I am ’beside the dance floor’; our sofa adjoins the unfettered part of our parquet flooring that Jean often utilises in an impromptu waltz whenever 'Home and Away' comes on.
Dear Derek
When you started putting the sensible blowtorch on Live It Up I should've realized that large holes would start to appear in the inner logic of our song.
I didn't take your parquetry floor or the delicious Jean into my considerations writing this dance number. I'm sure that you writing this critique in the style of a neighbour's particularly strident objection to a routine owner builder development application before the local council has put me off writing pop tunes with any self revelatory content in future.
I was referring to personal experience of courtship rituals that were common in earbleeedingly loud pubs and clubs in 1980s Australia. The ethnographic study I undertook while constantly touring with Mental As Anything drew me to the conclusion that there were many unhappy girls/women cowering in the dark corners of these meat markets who were just waiting for one of the hopelessly shy boys/men to approach them and sing a melodic tune inviting them home for a ........ Drink/ game of twister/ cheese on toast Etc.
While I think your habit of personalising song lyrics can be most amusing I would ask you to think of us writers who find ourselves quaking in fear of what you and the delicious Jean will make of our next efforts.
Mentally Yours
Shaken and slightly Stirred
Greedy Smith
Mental As Anything
Dear Mr. Parker Jr, if there is 'something strange in my neighbourhood' I am likely to call the police. Please refrain from contacting me in the future with ridiculous alternatives
Dear Republica,
Re: Ready To Go
As you may be aware, the house opposite has just had a loft conversion done, which was sadly undertaken by a disreputable contractor, resulting in a profoundly fissured chimney breast, haphazard joists and a shoddily grouted dormer susceptible to complete de-glazing in the face of nothing more potent than an errant shuttlecock.
Once alerted, Bournemouth Borough Council inspectors conducted a thorough inspection of the discreditable garret and, horrified by their findings, insisted upon the ignominious sky parlour being fully ameliorated prior to building approval being granted. Unfortunately, rather than addressing the defects properly, the owners opted for a much more economical ‘botch-job’, which incorporated half a tub of Polyfilla and an unmatching Dulux Tester Pot in an attempted concealment of the aforementioned flue crevice.
It was with some dismay, but no little surprise therefore, that my wife Jean and I were awakened this morning by both her PC tablet alarm clock (tuned, obviously, to Bournemouth’s peerless Wave 105.2 FM) and an almighty ruckus coming from across the road. Further investigation from a discreet gap in the curtains revealed that the officials had returned to the slapdash attic and, thoroughly unimpressed by the frugal and deceptive improvements undertaken, were now teetering precariously astride the tiles and pointing at the stack, angrily and loudly protesting at its deceptive restoration.
It was at this very juncture in the confrontational governing body/extra storey owner proceedings that your ‘techno-pop-punk classic’ came on just after the travel; ‘It’s a crack, I’m back, yeah, standing on the rooftops shouting out’, uncannily acting as an eerie narrative to the scene that we were witnessing at that very instant. There, however, any similarity ended; far from being ‘ready to go’, the furious officials seemed intent on maintaining their ‘lofty’ position until the matter could be resolved.
Notwithstanding this last incongruity, Jean and I remain extremely impressed by your local authority versus resident soundscaping abilities, although must take issue with your assertion that one week is another world; it is, in actuality, not a different planet but a seven day unit of time.
Finally, Jean has just suggested from the kitchen, where she is toasting a muffin, that in the current climate of so many establishments closing, you may be well advised to consider renaming your indie combo ‘ReWineBarLica’ or ‘ReBeersAtHomeLica’, in order to reflect current trends.
Yours,
Derek Philpott
Dear Derek,
I’m very sorry to hear that you and Jean have had to go through this harrowing situation which sounds at the very least drop dead dangerous! I know what it is like to have noisy neighbours as I am currently being woken up every morning by Bertie the mini Schnauzer from next door who seems to like barking at 5.30am. It is at this time every day I feel like ‘I’m in another world’, I can tell you!
I do hope the chim chim-in-ey people across the road have finally completed the fissure on said breast and that there will be no more interruptions to Jean’s muffin making.
Thank you so much for your tip regarding the ‘Pub’ in our name. From now on we will be billed as ‘The Pubs’ to reflect current trends as it is in fact our natural habitat. When we next do a show in Bournemouth it would be wonderful to meet you. I will bring cake.
Love and kindest regards,
Saffron The Pubs Poppins
xxx
Dear Elvis Costello and ‘The Attractions’,
In your eponymous ‘new wave anthem’, you state that ‘Oliver’s Army’ are both on their way and here to stay.
As much as my wife Jean and I enjoy your innovative ‘post-punk’ sound, we must, however, admit to being confused as to the actual whereabouts of the informal battalion referred to therein. Given that they are ‘on their way’ – that is to say, yet to arrive, or were until recently present at your unknown destination and have just left – please advise as to precisely how said marauding troops could possibly be ‘here to stay’ at a point which has been specifically referred to as unsettled within during the time of writing.
Furthermore, as regards your claim that you ‘would rather be anywhere else’, an amendment in the ‘lyric’ to ‘rather be in most other places’ is required, given your mooted aversion, as alluded to elsewhere in your ‘back catalogue’, to The Borough Of Kensington and Chelsea.
