Mona Aboud - I should Have Left The Light On For Santa Claus

The 'B' side of this 1980 release, this record was issued on 2 different labels.

 I Should Have Left the Light On for Santa

Meeting Rooms & St. Giles

 For my sins I once worked in Building Facilities, it was not a job I enjoyed, meeting rooms were a particular bain, one woman called us and said I have booked Meeting Room 7 (it was a small meeting room for 6 people) I need 40 exrea chairs, I told her that we did not have any extra chairs and that you could not fit them in the room, I was told I was being very unhelpful according to her, another time someone stormed into the office and shouted at us you should have better signage on your meeting room doors I can not find room X, without looking up I said thats in such and such building about a mile down the road.

One day we got an 'A' job it had a four hour deadline, the job was there are naked  vagarants dancing in the car park, so we went to the building, there was no sign of the vagarants, the Building St Giles House shared certain parts with the Hotel next door, when cleating bottles of wine the bottles were just dumped in the recycling bim, they were not emptied some bottles still had some of the contents in them, the vagarants had diccoverd this, and had forced the bin open and had been drinking the dregs in the bottles, by the time we got there the offenders had dispersed, there was little we could have done if they were still there. The ironic thing St Giles is the patron saint of homeless people.

Mona Aboud - The Pretty Little Dolly

 

Released 1980. This is another record I first came across on a compilation CD of forgotten Christmas songs, I was looking at the new listings on a site I brought quite a few records from, this was listed so I brought it as one of the 50-100 christmas records I was buying each year back then, I no longer buy large numbers of Christmas records from America as the postage deals changed and it became unviable to buy records, the postage went fron1st record full postage then $1 for each subsiquent record, the revised was $17.50 for each record, the Customs declaration form only has 5 lines and I discoverd by accident thet if you brought 5 cheap records ($4-$6) as the first 5, the records were listed in the order you brought them on the Customs form, the avarage for the first 5 records was about $25, Customs duty started at $30, from memory the Custins duty worked out at about £30 of which £24 was the collection fee.

The Pretty Little Dolly - The Tonight Show - Mona Abboud Auer & Jim Rusk [1966] - YouTube

More Fun On The Trains

 I was almost always the last person the leave the office in the evening, I would walk from Blackfriars to Waterloo and catch the train at about 17.25, all the incoming passengers had left the train, there was one person left he was asleep the way he was dressed spoke vagarant, we had from one of the beggers that worked the commuter services from Waterloo, the scnario was "I have been on the phone for most of the day and I have found a place at a hostel from Thursday (always in three days time) until then I will still need to eat, I only want a small meal" but I digress, with the usual British reserve nobody woke him up, one of the station staff at Vauxhall woke him up, and he started, he was on his way to work, he had a job unlike you lot who don't have jobs, he did not stop shouting, at Clapham Junction when the doors opend their were two British Transport Police waiting for him, he was escorted from the train still shouting, maybe he was already known to the staff and police, most of the people on the train were returning home from work.

Anothger time a couple of vagrants got on the train, as the train left Waterloo they produced a bottle of wine I think they had stolen from the Off Licence on Waterloo Station, they excitedly peeled of the foil cap then their faced dropped the bottle had a cork and they did not have a bottle opener, that made me think they had stolen the bottle if they had brought it they could have got a bottle with a screw top.

Granny - Granny's Holiday Fruitcake

 

Released 1963, Granny is Jerry Thomas, in  Stan Freberg's record  'The Old Payola Roll Blues' the record label mentiond is the Obscurity label, this ia another record I first came across on a CD of forgotten Christmas records.

Granny - Granny's Holiday Fruitcake - 1963

Lenny The Lion With Terry Hall - I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas

 

                                            Released November 1959, the first of 2 records by Lenny The Lion With Terry Hall, the second an EP on the Decca label issued in 1963, I can remember Lenny The Lion on TV when I was young.

The 'B' side I Wish That I Could Be Father Christmas is not avalable for download

I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas - Lenny the Lion with Terry Hall - YouTube

Working in London.

Muffin after a visit to the Vets, while brushing Muffin one morning I noticed a large hole underneath in the back leg, as if a branch or large twig had goen in, on her walks I never saw any indication of bleeding, it was straight round the vets, an operation to clean out the wound and stitch it up, she also had a number of skin tags around the eyes, I asked for them to be removed while she was under anesthetic, when she came back she had what looked like 2 black eyes, the vet told me that the wound she had on her leg the object had gone between two muscles and would have not bled very much if at all.

 Some time back when I was working in the Holborn/Hatton Garden area, on a Saturday morning, I was changing trains at Holborn Station, the only interchange between the Piccadilly and Cental Lines though the lines cross each other at Hanger Lane there is no interchange there, I had clocked this thing in black and ignored them, he? followed me onto the Piccadilly Line Platform. I always walked to the end of the station so I would be in the right place for the last coach, I was tho only person on the platform and was standing behind the safety line, he walked behind me and the passed in front of me walking in the safety area (about 2ft), it (a better discription) was wearing a female punk outfit made from black bin bags with fishnet tights, I was suposed to be shocked, but I ignored it as it went past it let out big sigh, working in that area it felt like you were walking into a freak show everyday, what really wound them up was ignoring them, at other times I worked in Shaftesbury Avenue and Angel areas with similar experiences.