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It was my birthday yesterday (51? Shome mishtake, surely?!), and for my treat we went to the zoo. I’ve always loved Bristol Zoo, one of the oldest and best in the UK – there’s something so reassuringly old-fashioned and well-mannered about it. When our boys were little, we had a season ticket, and we would often pop in for an hour or so, to see the new arrivals, catch up with old friends, or just play on the grass (which, ironically, was one of the few green spaces in Bristol guaranteed to be free of animal shit).
There’s inevitably a tension in zoos between the thrill of seeing beautiful, sometimes scary beasts in the flesh, and worrying about their imprisonment, but Bristol has always had a very progressive approach to the welfare of its animals, and they certainly seem well cared for and healthy. I especially enjoyed the seals yesterday, in their new enclosure complete with wave machine and underwater viewing area (I never realised before that seals seem to swim mainly on their back), and the Butterfly Forest, where they hatch all kinds of beautiful butterflies and release them into a big humid polytunnel which visitors stroll through, resisting the temptation to swat the butterflies when they get too close. I was glad to learn that it’s an urban myth that butterflies live only for a day – their life expectancy actually ranges from 2 to 12 weeks.
All of which reminded me of my birthdays when I was a boy, which also often featured a family trip to the zoo. In those days it was Chessington Zoo, only a couple of miles from where I grew up, which was part-zoo, part-funfair. Once we had seen the animals, the favourite ride for my sister and me was the “Boomps-a-Daisy”, which consisted basically of a tractor pulling a garishly painted open trailer. For a small fee, one could sit in the trailer and be towed along a track around the zoo. The fun part was that the cart had no suspension, and the track was very uneven, so the kids in the back would be thrown all over the place, squealing with delight as we incurred all kinds of bruises, gashes and fractures. The place is still there, but it’s now called “Chessington World of Adventures”. It’s become a theme park, complete with rollercoasters and people dressed up in cartoon character costumes, and although I quite like theme parks, I have such happy memories of the old zoo that I don’t really want to go back to see what it’s become. One thing’s for certain – health and safety rules will have ensured that the Boomps-A-Daisy is no longer there, long since replaced by something much more “scary”, but infinitely safer and much less fun.
I bought some light bulbs today, in Sainsbury’s, and one of them doesn’t work. Worse things happen at sea, of course, but it was annoying nevertheless. And it made me think of buying lightbulbs in the olden days, from the small electrical shop in the village where I grew up. The shop was gloriously named Venus and Spong, and was run by a rather stern, but friendly middle-aged couple. The woman (could she have been Venus?) had a facial disfigurement, caused, according to my older sister, by her “pulling a face when the wind changed”, which seemed entirely plausible at the time, but may not have been true. Whenever Venus or her husband (surely not Spong?) sold a lightbulb, they would test the bulb in a light fitting on the counter before any money changed hands, as if the magic of electric light had to be seen by the customer to be believed.
And thinking of that bit of old-fashioned customer service reminded me of the smell of Venus and Spong (the shop, not the people). It smelt like, well, like an electrical shop, and was so distinctive in a way that shops these days just aren’t. Similarly, the grocer’s shop, Gadsby’s, with a row of tins of loose biscuits in front of the counter and dried peas by the ounce (which were perfect for my Sekedin gun), smelt like no other shop. Every now and then, while wandering around a big supermarket, I get whiffs of the small shops that it has replaced, as if the ghosts of Venus, Spong and Gadsby are haunting the aisles to remind me of how things used to be, and to make me feel guilty for not hunting down the last small electrical shop in Bristol for my lightbulbs.
There was an interview with some bloke in the paper the other day, in which he said, rather teasingly, that his most treasured posession is a “Chris Craft Runabout”. The name led me to believe that it was some form of transport, but beyond that I had no idea. A few google-seconds later, I knew that it was a beautiful vintage speedboat, and had a picture to prove it. In fact, I found so much information about the Chris Craft Runabout that I was left feeling somewhat ignorant and unworldly, and with the distinct impression that I was part of a very small band of dullards who didn’t know about this legendary style icon, the only other members being a few isolated tribes in Papua New Guinea. It also made me wonder how long it would have taken me to uncover this piece of trivia in the “olden days”, and realised that in that other reality that was life before Google, I wouldn’t have even bothered to try. So let’s hear it for the Internet, making us more knowledgeable by the day, albeit in often useless ways. (I did enjoy the picture of the boat, and it brought back fond memories of thrilling speedboat rides at Bognor Regis with my Dad and my sister, on our annual summer holiday. Happy days indeed, in Jolly Bognor.)
I can say with some certainty that the first time I saw a moving naked woman was when I was 11, in 1969. It was at the Odeon in Epsom, and the film was “Carry On Camping”. I had heard on the grapevine that the film included scenes in a naturist camp, and, for once, the grapevine had got it right. Of course I had seen a fair amount of printed nakedness (mostly in the school library, where the traffic in girlie mags was always liveliest), but the moving female form was still a rarity in any media other than strictly adult entertainment. So in the smoky darkness of the Odeon, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
And on Saturday night, after Match of the Day, there it was again, in all its glory. I couldn’t help wondering whose idea it was to schedule “Carry On Camping” for 11:30 on a Saturday night, but it really did make fascinating viewing. To set the tone for the film, the continuity announcer introduced it by warning in a very somber tone, “and if any viewers have issues with innuendo, I have a big one”, which made my day. The film itself is classic Carry On, with some extraordinary parts (ooh err, missus!), not least the craggy Sid James, who must have been already in his late 50s at least, playing the role of a young buck trying to chat up the voluptuous Barbara Windsor, who must herself have been in her 30s, playing the part of a schoolgirl. I watched only until the famous scene in which Barbara Windsor’s top bursts open under the strain of her stretching exercises. It really was appallingly bad, but everybody loved it at the time, for all sorts of reasons…
I just read an Amnesty International report about China. It seems that, despite the promises of improvements in human rights made during the bid for the 2008 Olympics, there are still persistent and serious abuses of human rights. Amongst the many shocking statistics, one struck me in particular – that about 8,000 people are thought to be executed in China each year. That’s 22 EVERY DAY. And that there are 68 crimes punishable by death in China, two thirds of them non-violent crimes.
It made me think back to 1986, when I was on holiday in China. At the time, there were 2 currencies in circulation, one used by ordinary people, known as “renmimbi”, and the other, reserved for foreign tourists, known as FECs (Foregn Exchange Certificates). As a foreigner, one could often only use FECs (in hotels, buying railway tickets, etc.), whereas in other, less touristy situations, we could spend “renmimbi”, which made things (even) cheaper for us. Because FECs were highly sought after by the Chinese (who could use them in posh shops, exchange them for US dollars, etc.), there was a lucrative and highly illegal market in changing FECs for renmimbi on the streets. Everywhere you went, young Chinese men would approach tourists, muttering “FECs”, “Change money”, etc. After the obligatory and furtive haggling over rates, a mutually beneficial deal would be struck. Everyone ended up happy, as the tourists got more than one renmimbi yuan for each FEC yuan, and the money changer got FECs that he could pass on at a profit.
On one occasion, though, when changing money on a street corner in this way, I was ripped off. The young man with whom I’d agreed the deal used a well-practised sleight of hand to shortchange me. As soon as I realised what had happened, the guy ran off, and I chased him. The chase went on for quite a while, past crowds of bystanders, astonished at the sight of a 6′ 6″ foreigner hurtling through crowded streets, shouting unintelligibly in hot pursuit of the terrified youngster. I suppose I thought I was standing up for some principle or other, whereas I now blush at the memory of bounding after this guy for the sake of what probably equated to about a fiver. Had I caught him, as I very nearly did, what then? The ridiculous mismatch of our sizes meant that I probably would have been able to get the better of him, and, as is always the way in China, a huge crowd would have gathered in seconds to find out what was going on. The police would undoubtedly have arrived on the scene, and the hapless youth would probably have been carted off to some cell, where summary justice would almost certainly have been dealt out, probably in the form of a bullet to the back of the head, theft from foreigners being (certainly then, if not still) a capital crime.
Needless to say, I’m glad that he gave me the slip, and I wonder where he is today. Maybe he’s still prowling around, ripping off tourists, or maybe he’s one of China’s new billionaires, his glittering career in international finance kick-started by a small con in a Beijing backstreet 21 years ago. Or maybe the next foreigner was a faster runner.
It just wouldn’t have happened in the old days.
I hadn’t noticed until a friend pointed it out, but Marmite has definitely got runnier over the years. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fantastic product, unbeatable on toast after a City win with a nice cup of tea, and opening a new jar is still a delight, seeing that wonderful dark smoothness that nobody ever saw before, like breaking open a conker shell in the autumn. But in the days of yore, the knife blade could have rested on the surface, where now it sinks without trace. And a nearly empty jar used to be really difficult to deal with, the remnants being impossible to get at on the underside of the bulge – but now it all glides to the bottom, presenting much less of a challenge. These days, a jar can be emptied, but when I were a lad, there was always a bit left, somewhere in the jar.
So what’s it all about? Less concentrated? More water, at the expense of essence of Marmite? Some dubious additive to make it more user-friendly? I think we should be told. I bet it’s something to do with Richard Branson.
