Have a banana...

I think people have this idea that all cockneys sing songs together whist standing around a piano.  This also involves a certain kind of jig that we all do, but I alas cannot.  You know the one.  Where you jump in the air and click your heels together.  Yeah, that’s it.  Well we all do that apparently.  Someone tried to do it once in my office whilst trying to mock me.  He ended up hurting his back which made me laugh quite a bit.  Serves you right….

Anyway, so we all like Chas and Dave and we all sing ‘Knees up Mother Brown’ round the old Joanna.  It couldn’t be more from the truth in my case.  Now I’m not saying that we don’t like these songs.  I sing them to wind other people up, but I can honestly say, hand on heart, I do not know all the lyrics to Snooker Loopy.  Pot the reds and screw back, for the yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black…. Cough, cough, ahem….

I guess there are a lot of old music hall songs which are associated with being a cockney.  Here are a few, see if you recognise them:

Roll out the Barrel / Doing the Lambeth Walk / My Old Man’s a Dustman / Any Old Iron

I’m sure you know the words and would agree that these songs actually start a good old sing song when you hear them.  I think they get labelled as ‘having a good old knees up’ which I guess basically means a big party with singing and dancing.  It adds to the sense of having fun.

The nearest I have been to a knees up is running for the bus, so it’s not something I can say a lot about.  Growing up in the 80s and 90s this wasn’t exactly the kind of music I listened to.  In fact, I have no idea why I know the words to some of these songs, perhaps there is a ‘cockney microchip’ in my tiny brain somewhere which contains this must know information…

It does get quite tiresome having someone sing ‘have a banana’ at you cos they think it’s funny, but I do try to smile through gritted teeth at them.  It’s a novelty and they think they are being amusing so I don’t want to rain on their parade.

Bill Bailey did a wonderful sketch about how cockney music is contained in some classical pieces.  It’s very funny and it’s below for you to watch.  Do it right now!

I’m not going to write about the music that I like here as I do that on my other blog and it would be very tedious to regurgitate the same old stuff here aswell.  So if you want to know what I think about music, you need to visit my Call Me Cynical blog.

Going out in the East End I would assume is pretty similar to anywhere else in the world.  We have pubs and clubs and we get drunk and have fights.  There was an ever changing selection of clubs that I used to go to each with its own unique history.  Such as ‘Fifth Avenue’ in Ilford which we used to call ‘Filth’ due to what went on in there.  Sticking to the floor or having the guys buy you an over-priced dead rose was all part of the fun.

My local pubs were all pretty dire to be honest.  At the time I was growing up we didn’t have this late licensing business and chucking out time was 11pm.  It was then you went on a long wander to try and find somewhere that was still open.  We had one such place which was called Champers and was classed as a wine bar so it could stay open until around 2am.  It was a tiny place and you were best to try and get in there early enough as they could only fit about 25 people on the dance floor!  I do remember that they sold slush puppy style alcoholic drinks (please bear in mind this was a long time ago!) which you could basically drink in one go, get an ice-cream style headache from the coldness of it while you got pissed at the same time.  I got asked to look after someone’s drink once while they went to the loo.  Let’s just say it wasn’t available for them when they got back….   

Alcoholic slushie - yum!

There was also lovely O’Neill’s in Leytonstone which was a pub and a music bar in the evenings.  I spent much of my youth hanging out in there looking for trouble.  Spit and sawdust is a turn that comes to mind, and you could quite easily be sitting on the floor doing the ‘Oops Upside Your Head’ dance whilst getting an arse full of glass!  Memories.

Then there were the so called clubs.  Nothing special really, just a place that happened to be in the middle of nowhere and open till the early hours.  The one I guess I spent the most amount of time in was called Eros.  It was on an industrial estate so you had to get a taxi there and back and to be honest, it was awful.  You can be a ‘member’ if you wanted.  Wooh!  How exciting.  And what does that mean?  Basically you get a cheap and tacky card which you will no doubt lose before the end of the night and have to get replaced the next time you went there.  When I was about 25ish I remember going to Eros on a week night and being allowed in for over 40s night!  Before you ask, I do not look that old (in fact I look remarkably well preserved for my age), but they must have been very desperate as my accomplice was about 19!!  Anyway, it was carnage.  Who knew that the over 40s crowd were so down and dirty?? Man, I saw some things that I would rather forget…

After our exciting night of drinking, we would make the stop at the local chicken shop.  Why oh why does everyone crave fried chicken when they are drunk?  My best mate got me a chicken burger once without me even asking for it.  It was like tradition or something.  Next to the chicken shop was an alleyway which I can somewhat ashamedly say I went for a piss down once.  I’m not proud of myself, but needs must.  Good job there was no CCTV.  Well, I don’t think there was…

  

Office Overheard

Today’s office comment came after witnessing someone eat 2 yoghurts while the pots were still attached to each other. To set the scene, the pots are attached and he balanced them one over each side of his index finger. 

“Why do you leave the pots attached to each other?” I foolishly asked.  The response was “I eat them like this so I can do other things with my hand at the same time”.  He wiggled his fingers under the pots at me as if to prove it.  “Like what?” I asked to which he replied “I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet”….Hmmm.