recently on the turntable

patti smith
gone again

martin stephenson & the daintees
gladsome, humour and blue

friday night television
on channel 3

Friday nights are good.  The promise of the weekend, the end of the week. The bus ride home a transition from one world to another.

Friday nights are often fish and chip nights. They were tonight. Two fish and chips, washed down with a can of coke. And an after-dinner cognac. Which, in the context of the fish and chips, was kinda post-modern. Unsettled the narrative of take-aways and soft drinks on a Friday night. Twas nice though.

Early memories of Friday nights. Living in an old brick house in Johnsonville. The fire would be going. Dad would go down to the pub for a quick beer and bring back fish and chips. All three kids would sit at the window, watching cars come up the road, guessing which one was him. Then we'd sit watching Dr Who on tv. In the John Pertwee days, when he fighting the daleks. Scary stuff for a young boy.

Cut to the next house. Still in Johnsonville. We had an old 3 in 1 record player, cassette player, radio. Very tinny. On some records I had to bluetack a small coin to the head of the stylus to stop it jumping on my records. I got to know my records by whether they were 5c or 10c ones. I had to pack the record player up, and cart it downstairs to my bedroom.

Friday nights. Always alone. Listening in the dark, lying on my bed, music as loud as I dared. This was when, and how, I fell in love with music.

The 1860 pub. Always four of us. Me, John, Lep and Cheeks. My first years at university. Learning how to drink. We'd go down on a Friday afternoon, around 5.30pm, find a table, order some beers, play drinking games.

Famous names was one. You had to say, in a Scottish accent,

the name of the game is, famous names, and the name of this particular game iiiisssss, famous (movies directors, soccer players at the world cup, all black loose forwards ........)

If you repeated a name, or hesitated, or got one wrong, you sculled the glass of beer. And started the next game. We had other games too. Drinking games can get very inventive, with lots of arcane rules to follow. Sometimes the night ended throwing up in the pub toilet before catching the train home. Sometimes we got a chinese takeaway, or hamburger and chips before catching the train, me trying not to piss myself or throw up before the train got to Johnsonville.

I actually enjoyed those nights. Just grew out of them. Oh, and take people's drinking stories from their youthful days with a grain of salt.

Cut again. Deb's studying for her Librarian diploma. We're flatting in Kelburn. Friday nights are declared sacred. No work, no study, no cleaning. A bottle of red wine. A good meal. Then listening to music in the living room, nice and mellow.

Sometimes we'd pick every fifth album from the collection and listen to it. More often we'd embark on a musical journey. Someone would start with a song. While it was playing, the other would think of one to follow it. A song that somehow flowed on from it. And they would play that. And so on. Evenings flowed seamlessly like this.

Hope your Friday night is going well.