I spotted this meme over at Ed’s place and started to do it but then had to stop as it was too boring. It's just that there haven't been any dramatic changes in my life in the past ten years. For that I'd have to go further back. So with Live8 on yesterday, and I did see a bit of it as I was squinting out for our Katy and Mark, I got to remembering what I was doing the day Live Aid was on.
For a start I didn't see it as the telly wasn't on. There was a crazy rumour going round in the sink estate I was living in, and later put out of for hippiness and faint traces of Catholicism, that the TV licence detection vans would be out in force and I believed this rumour.
Then I didn't care for any of the acts that were appearing. OK I might have been mildly interested in some of them but not enough to sit through the dross anxiously awaiting the knock on the door and the dreaded words, "Hello miss, do you have a television licence?"
And anyway I spent most of the day in bed with the duvet pulled over my head as I was terribly depressed. And it was a lovely day too!
My little ones? They were having a happy day at their Dad's house and, no doubt, Live Aid was on.
To follow - Princess Diana, the Moon landings, Elvis Presley, JFK, the Coronation, the Ascent of Everest, D Day etc, etc.
8 comments:
Easy enough. Where was I when ...
Live Aid was on? I was only four, so I was probably torturing small animals somewhere.
Princess Diana died? Portstewart. I'd heard something had happened to her but it was only when the priest prayed for her that I realised she'd died.
All the rest: born too late. No really, born too late. I should really be a grumpy old bastard by this time, nobody takes grumpy young bastards seriously enough.
Ed
This is how I heard Diana had died. Daughter Katy came in after an all night clubbing session in Belfast and said, "Hey Ma! Did ya hear Di and Dodi were dead?" At first I thought she had been taking hallucinogenic drugs but she referred me to the telly. And there it was. Sad music. Pictures of the Princess. Etc. Etc.
PS I don't really remember the conquest of Everest or the Coronation but they happened the year I was born. D Day was before my time but there was still some rationing in 1953 and Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister. So I'm pretty old. Well maybe not that pretty. But old anyway.
That was lies about torturing small animals. Wasn't it?
Maybe. Do siblings count as small animals?
Oh siblings. No. Not small animals. But it's OK to lightly torture them - I know I did.
Lightly? Err, yes, lightly.
/puts down blowtorch
I'm still young enough to be quite ignorant to most significant events. i remember waking one morning to a televised photo of Di with her birthday, followed by thAt days date. All i remember thinking was that it was very bad taste, as it suggested that Di had, well, died. As i said, quite ignorant. Haven't really lost it with age either. Now i just think that a huge fuss was made over some women becoming a road accident stat.
mikeyboy x x x
Hah! Trust you Mikey to think that.
Point about Diana was - she was a media star. Who drummed up the whole thing? The media. Twenty years before that a member of the royal family dying would have been reported, seen as very sad, end of story.
Now to Elvis. It was the long hot summer of 1977 and I was ensconced in London town hanging out with a bunch of Ballymena ex-pat hippies & druggies. I returned to hippy headquarters one evening to be told in hushed tones that Elvis was dead. Wow! Like non-event of the summer. It took years for that one to sink in.
So endeth the historical remembrances of Nelly - for now.
We Brits have to pay a TV licence to fund the BBC which is a public broadcasting service and doesn't run ads, except for itself and its own products. If we possess a TV set without a licence we can be fined around £1000. And it costs about £120 per year. I'm not sure of the exact figure as I seem to have mislaid mine. Ahem!
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