I've just done my own personal Shawshank Redemption. It's holiday time. You lot are clearly praparing to bugger off to warmer, sandier climes and we shall be also. It's a beautiful summer's day here and I just couldn't bear the thought of shutting myself away in a musical prison. So here's a post I've been keeping warm in the oven for a while. I've broken out of prison and am strolling along the beach. And to accompany the music is a work by one of my favourite artists: Emma Holliday. Emma is based in the North East of England and does works of such vibrancy, boldness and vigour that they have great resonance for me. Her subject matter is very often places which have a special significance or memory for me, so I've chosen the Rendezvous cafe - which I believe some of you know. This is a classic 1950s Italian ice cream parlour at Whitley Bay which is still standing and, I think, still run by the daughters of the original owner. I used to go round the side window as a kid for a "99" (old fashioned sugar cornet, soft Italian ice cream with...a cadbury's flake in). They still serve teas, great sandwiches and old-fashioned cakes (peach melbas anyone?). The long windows look directly on to the beach and offer a great view of the coastline. Emma kindly gave me her permission to post this photo so do have a spin on her website and look at her paintings. I'll be sending this post to her so I think she'd be chuffed to get any feedback. Oh and here are ten truly great songs about...beaches. Right, so that's how many cornets? One, two, three, four, five.. Someone help me carry them?
Découvrez Martha and the Muffins!
34 comments:
Broadband-enabled home PC has decided to stop making sounds - I'm largely relying on work computer to listen to stuff from the Spill these days - so I'm just having to sing 'Dover Beach' to myself. Can't actually stand beaches, but anything by The Bangles... Have a good summer.
Schönen Urlaub. Viel Spass!
Beachtastic. Thanks for reminding me that we've postponed our summer holidays this year until December. Which means I'll be sticking up sad, unanswered posts throughout August, I guess...
C'marn. I'll be a'bloggin' through the summer. We're only away for 2 weeks and I bet I can find an internet cafe. God knows - I managed in Rhodes!! Lovely weather over our way, eh? Might be a storm tonight though...I love the Cliff Richard song in this list with the Shads quoting 'Twist and Shout'!
Great list fp. Hadn't heard Echo Beach for a while - how good does that want to be? Sorry, my teenage daughter and her friends have been round and I keep thinking in their lingo.
"fp? .. FP? .. EXTRA RASPERRY SAUCE ON MINE, OK?!!"
How about favourite beaches? I'll start ...
10. Center Parcs, Sherwood Forest. Just because it means I'm on holiday!
9. Dunmore East, Co. Waterford. Because you can see the pub (The Ship?) from it, which serves - to date - the best pint of the black stuff I've ever had.
8. Jandia, on Fuerteventura. Endless immaculate sand. Shame I can't go back but there's an outstanding warrant with my name on it.
7.Petit Plage, Cap D'Antibes. DarceysSis in particular loved this.
6. Llanbedrog, 'twixt Pwllheli & Abersoch, for the Tin Man up on the cliff head.
5. Bottom Bay, Barbados. Natural cove makes surf to play in, there's palms to chill under, no complaints if you want to BBQ, and the car park is near enough to keep chilled beers in.
4. Mwnt, near Cardigan. New entry with a bullet after last month; the first time I've felt able to let my girls run completely free without being literally within grabbing distance.
3. Jumeirah Beach, Dubai. Sun, sand, cocktails within the click of a finger, and (vitally important for DarceysMam) IMMACULATELY clean, so much you never even see a fly!! True dat.
2. Carbis Bay, next one round from St.Ives in Cornwall. When the sun is out, there is nowhere in this country I'd rather be.
1. St.James', Barbados. Because I got married on it!!
Ooohwheee, LOVED this selection, apart from pervy old Serge, but I've never understood the appeal,filthy old sod...Echo Beach still sounds wonderful and I'd forgotten all about that B52s track. Gorgoues for a warm summer's night, thanks FP!
Ooh, I've never spelled 'gorgeous' like that before, boo for me! And my favourite beach is Waimanalo, where we'll be getting wed and I just LOVE the endless windswept beach at Ynyslas, just up the coast from Aberystwyth, I think that's the beach on that Manics lp I can't remember the name of (but it's bound to be pretentious...)
Can I have some honey ice-cream from Aberaeron?
Tracy, can I borrow one of the bees that make your honey ice cream? My raspBerry's missing one!!
Really liked West Palm Beach. New to me so thanks for that. Have a happy holiday.
Yeyy! The RR Massive were out in force last night. Booyakasha!! @ Toffee: Don't talk to me about 'Yoofspeak'. I was rummaging through our local record store's sale bin yesterday. One pert young teenager picked up a CD and tossed it back in saying 'Oh they've just got old junk'. I looked at the CD in question - Chopin's Nocturnes... The youth of today.. Sigh. But Echo Beach is still a favourite.
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@ Darce: Raspberry sauce? That's MONKEY'S BLOOD to you, chuck. No seriously - that's what we call it in the North East. We Geordies are a strange, heathen folk. And put monkey's blood on our ice cream. Oooooh favourite beaches! Good idea. OK then...
- With you on Carbis Bay. Cornwall is drop dead gorgeous. You could have St. Agnes as well. In Devon there's Blackpool sands
- Moving to Frogland - so many. This country has such a masive coastline it's not surprising that something like 60% of French or even higher holiday here - well wouldn't you? Les Landes just south of Bordeaux has spectacular long beaches. Mimizan is brilliant. I have a soft spot for Biarritz also. But being of Viking stock, I love the North - Deauville, La Baule and the Breton coast - Perros Guirec, Dinard, St. Malo etc are beautiful.
- The most spectacular I've seen is a sand bar at the southern tip of Rhodes called Prassonissi. It's a haven for kite surfers and I actually have a nice wee film of that beach I'll post later on. The sandbar joins the isthmus to the island and the place separates two seas - so on one side you have waves and on the other, you don't! Cool, eh?
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@ TracyK: Very chuffed that you liked the songs. And when's the wedding? Hope the preparations are all going smoothly. I propose we celebrate it in true RR style and make you lots of playlists! And please can we have a nice photo on the 'Spill? Wales also has a beautiful costline. We had great holidays in Llandudno as kids. Our first real hotel with soup for starters every night! Fancy that! And yes you can have some honey ice cream. Can we do favourite ice creams now? My office is just round the corner from an ice cream stand and we often nip round at 4 in the afternoon to pick up some when the heat becomes unbearable. I love toffee ice cream and also white yogurt ice cream.
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Cheers Shoegazer - hope you have great hols too.
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BTW do have a click on Emma Holliday's website - if you click on the link I've posted you land on her homepage and then click on the big picture to enter her site. She has done some brilliant paintings of North Eastern beaches - we have fabulous beaches in Geordieland. Which my ancestors the vikings probably appreciated when they popped over for a spot of rape and pillage, er shopping. Tynemouth long sands is also a favourite.
Donds for Mwnt, even from this beach-hater...
We'll be kicking sand into smaller kid's faces this summer along a stretch of the Neckar river which has been turned Seine-style into a "city beach".. better than nothing I suppose.
As compensation though we'll be watching perfect surf breaking along vast stretches of pristine coastline down under around christmas.
Yeah - we have a city beach here too. It's a nice idea provided you have a bar with cool drinks to hand. BTW way I really was drinking a Pina Colada yesterday evening and shall no doubt drink a Mai Tai this evening. No, I have not gone back to being a cocktail waitress. It's the latest thing from Lidl. Wee plastic bottle shots of the alcohol mix you need to make a classic cocktail - for the pina colada I think that makes it white rum and malibu. All you do is stick the wee bottles (2cl) in your fridge then add the fruit juice. How good it that?? You buy them in a 6 pack. So I have a choice between Tequila sunrises, Mai Tais, Swimming Pools or Pina Coladas. I would not take the time to mix the real thing and don't have most of the ingredients at home - so I thought that was really a good idea. Think I'll try a Swimming pool tonight. Mind you I draw the line at the ready made Pimms you can now buy. Shocking.
(revealing hitherto well hidden fusty, old fashioned side)
I never really took to cocktails- I think it's my Scottish heritage- "If there's more than one ingredient it cannae be a real drink tae me."
It also pains me to see the various beer-mix concoctions on offer here- cola, cranberry, pineapple. Mixing beer with fruit syrup is even lower than currywurst on the Nilpferd taste scale.
Off to the pool, the hippos have a date with some mineral baths...
"En it's go' a fekkin parasol n' a plastic monkey in i'. Giz a wee dram any time". Enjoy the spa. Don't let them take the skin off your back if you go for the Seifenbürstenmassage. It's useful to have one layer of the epidermis when you come out.
I had a look at Emma's website, FP, there's a very strong Van Gogh influence, though I can also see Pissaro and a hint of the Bloomsburys. I like how splashy and strong they are, so much lanscape is chocolate-box-y and hers is vigorous and impressionistic. Great colours too, they look easy to live with: thanks for the link.
The wedding is three weeks next Thursday, and as there's nothing left to plan, we are very excited and not stressy, which is lovely. We're off to see Ballboy the week before we go, then we are having a day in London, featuring the science museum for him and more karaoke at Lucky Voice for us both, followed by an early dinner and an early night! We fly out on the Sunday morning and thanks to the time difference will arrive at 6ish the same day. A few days to adjust and then comes the wedding, followed by a luau (lots of free Mai Tais included!), island-hopping to see the active volcano on the Big Island and some snorkelling. There's some great great ice-cream places in Waikiki, we'll be trying the cake batter flavour again! Just two weeks of school left to survive, hurrah!
Favourite beaches:
1. Weymouth - all time family favourite. Pedalos, paddling and Punch and Judy. The Miss-Toffees' first taste of the English seaside and still the best for me. Sandsculptures, donkey rides, a real helter skelter and the home of English beach volley ball!
2. Marloes Sands, Pembrokeshire - stunning views from the cliff-top path down on to the beach and memories of walking there on an early morning hand-in-hand with Toffee Girl many, many years ago in what seems like a different lifetime (pauses to wipe girly tear from his eye).
3. Durdle Door - another Dorset holiday favourite.
4. Lady's Mile, Akrotiri, Cyprus - just one visit on holiday with ToffeeGirl's family. It's part of her youth really.
5. Aberdour, Fife - my mum's favourite with lots of her childhood memories there.
6. Galé, Portugal - amazing Atlantic waves and memories of the littlest miss Toffee disappearing under one of them for a few dreadful seconds!
And since we're into combining unrelated themes this weekend, does anyone else remember those ice cream wafer things you used to get that you called a 'black man'?
I'm not going anywhere this summer, I don't think Americans take holidays the way everyone else does. Especially not self-employed Americans who don't get paid vacations.
I'm actually going to the Jersey shore for a few days next week. Not the one Bruce sings about, though. This is the very bottom tip of the state, and it's a nice little town with not only no boardwalk, but not a single business. Well, there's a post office. It's covered in wild roses and wild clematis, Scores of dolphins play just off the beach, and it's famous for the number of migratory birds it attracts in fall and spring.
I've been to other beaches, though. Hmmm. I've been to Hawaii, and Cornwall--there's a beach there, right? And lime Regis? My memory is so foggy.
And as far as ice cream goes, I think vanilla is very underrated as a flavor. People think of it as a non-flavor, but it ain't. At the risk of revealing my craziness, I have to admit, I have this recurring dream about this amazingly special vanilla essence from somewhere exotic and the ice cream that is made with it is just, well, dreamy. Oh, and I love flake 99s. My brother and I were fienders for them when we lived in England. And yorkie bars. Mmmmm.
fp - 'Monkey blood': is that a Hartlepool reference? Can't say I remember it being called that when I was an Ice Cream Man . . .
. . . OH YES, for two full student summers in the early 80s, I was Mr.Whippee in the cream-coloured polyester coat and the Morrison van conversion.
Best-paid unskilled job I've ever known; there were frequently weeks I couldn't fold my wallet shut for three days after payday. I got taxis everywhere, cleared four-figure student overdrafts both summers, and as for the "offers" from bored housewives, the less said the better !!!
Trouble was I'd look around the yard in a morning, and see colleagues still with exactly the same daily routine after 10, 20, even 30 years plus in the trade. I didn't fancy that, so I refused a third summer and got a 'proper' job.
Oh, and completely off-topic, the answer to our earlier exchange is that I nominated The Zombies only 13 mins into this RR weekend, but it kind of got overlooked in the insomniacs rush!
Now, d'you wanna Flake in that?
Nice stuff FP, and a pleasant relief from all the penury... Donds from me, too, to Echo Beach.
As for beaches, well you all need to get to Soth West Kerry, dontcha? I am lucky to live withing 20 mins drive of such doozies as Ballinskelligs (decent pub), Kells (no pub), Rossbeigh (crap pub), O'Carroll's Cove (where the beer garden IS the beach), White Strand (no pub or anything within miles) and - my personal favourite - St Finian's Bay (no pub but a damn damn fine chocolate factory right next door...). Seriously, if you like skimming stones, drinking pints and eating chocolate, we have a spare room and a crappy microphone for recording away-day podcasts...
DsD: if its Guinnes you're after, may I respectfully point you in the direction of Tom Collins' in Limerick. In fact I point you all there, cos it rules. They play no music in there, hence it is always FULL of musicians. The (very very rare) sessions in there are legion.
Oh and huge sandydonds to Aberystwyth. Windy, stony, Welsh heaven.
@DSD - there's a great fillum of you on the job with the ice cream van on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCgG14g1vT0
;-)
Ah, Aberystwyth beach, the texture of kitty litter, the sea the grey of dust bunnies and the seagulls hacked up and put into the chicken special at the Chinese opposite the pier. I may have got a 2nd rate degree, but I was bloody happy watching that sunset from my hall windows and singing with my best mates after the pub, with our feet dangling over the jetty. Wouldn't trade that for anything!
@ TK: glad you liked the pics. Ma n' pa have a few of her beach pictures and I love looking at them when I'm at their place. That sounds like and astonishing programme for your nuptials. Enjoy and we want to see the photos! Hurrah for free Mai Tais. I tried a quickie swimming pool last night and it was great. Anyone know what's in a swimming pool? And no smart alec 'chlorine' comments please.
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@ Toffee: sadly no memory of those ice cream wafers... They didn't make their way of as far North perhaps. Stellar beach list...
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@ Steenbeck. That trip to the Jersey shore sounds lovely. If you remember Lyme Regis then it's not your memory that was foggy but the coastline.. Have you seen 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'? That story took place in and around Lyme Regis. And yes real vanilla is seriously underrated. Posh ice cream makers here do real vanilla ice - the best comes from Madagascar I'm told.
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@ Darce: No reference to Hartlepool, I'm afraid. I'll leave it up to you to explain that shameful story!! How cool that you were an ice cream man! THat's a GREAT studenjt job and I've have loved to have done it. I'd have eaten more than I sold...
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Have to go so shall catch up with the later posts this evening.
Sorry, I should have pointed out that my ice cream memories were from further north than that yours - Edinburgh to be precise. Perhaps it's a Scottish thing?
GHE - will catch up on that fillum (do you say that too?) as soon as I've finished the Nerdcast.
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Tracy - I don't give a damn where you got that degree. Just re-read these lines, will you?
"Ah, Aberystwyth beach, the texture of kitty litter, the sea the grey of dust bunnies and the seagulls hacked up and put into the chicken special at the Chinese opposite the pier". YOU. CAN. WRITE. And I know you teach English but you know as well as I do that the one doesn't lead to the other. Do you write at all? My God you should. You REALLY should...
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Toffee you can help me. I know Edinburgh well - studied there. What was the name of the ice cream parlour just opposite the Kings Theatre in the side street? Used to go there all the time. Any help?
Thanks for the kind words, my dear, but I'm bloody lazy: great at detail but no good at plotting! I'll stick with prodding unwilling kids with big sticks, much as I'd love the cash. If Lucy Mangan ever decides to quit the Guardian, I'd quite like her job though!
Right. Your application is duly noted. I'll pop on over to your poetry post when I'm feeling intelligent. I got the Juliet quote right away. Slappa. She really wants to snog his face off...
... and Oh God how good does Snadfrod's place sound? All those great beaches close to hand PLUS a chocolate factory too? How good can it get? Snadfrod, please do a podcast with the sound of waves and skimming stones. And the smell of chocolate of course....
Smellocasting? I love it. I'll set to working on it right away. I may be a while...
And as for the sounds of skimming stones, I'm afraid that won't be possible - when I skim a stone, it stays skum. Skummed? Skum. I'll go for skum.
Tee Hee. I never mastered it either. My skimmed stones go "plunk".
Sorry fp - my Edinburgh ice cream memories are restricted to Mrs DiRollo's round the corner from my Grandma's in Corstorphine which I visited once a year every year throughout my childhood. I certainly knew a trick or two - going up to Mrs DiRollo and saying "Tome and tiss and tuddle" almost guaranteed me a free ice cream!
Well I'll certainly try that next time I'm at the rendezvous café!!
I should warn you that I was about three at the time and unbelievably adorable. Well, my mum thought I was and who am I to question her?
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