After a discussion last week with Aba, Maki and leaveitallbehind about ways of welcoming new members to the RR community, I put together this EOTWQ as an icebreaker, so to speak. So everyone, from the most regular of regulars to the newest of newcomers, please join in and take the quiz! Usual rules apply, 6 questions, my answers are at the bottom of this post and feel free not to answer one if you don’t want to!

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Here’s a little something to wile away a snowy January night, if you’re not already tucked up under the duvet.

My mum died about 14 years ago and I “inherited” her Singer sewing machine. When it was purchased in the 1930s it was powered by hand / treadle, but at some point she had it converted to electricity and incorporated into a wooden cabinet with drawers for all the sewing equipment, and a cunningly designed top which slides off when you want to use the machine. Since 1998 it has been moved around my house and gradually crammed full of my sewing stuff; young Munday’s toys and all sorts. Today I decided to tidy it up, and found mum’s paraphernalia still under the rubble; bits of lace and elastic from her old petticoats; hooks and eyes; wool for darning socks; old Yardley’s Lavender soap boxes full of ribbons and bows; name tags; needle cases; a complimentary sewing kit from the hotel we stayed in for my brother’s wedding in 1968 and Easter chicks I made as a child. It was a strange feeling, like finding a time capsule. So my questions are:

1. Do you have a similar experience to share?
2. Do you keep things in case they come in handy, or
3. Do you chuck things out rather than have a load of clutter?
4. What can I do with my chocolate box full of buttons?

Links to any relevant music are welcome, as always. Have fun!

It probably isn’t so bad where you may be in the world, but the new heating system at the collective where I have my workspace isn’t functioning yet, and I’m an ice block. This has led me to think up an EOTWQ with a couple of wintery questions in. Here goes…

1. Which film scared you as a child? Why? And does it still?
2. A colleague of my wife asked another colleague on a date recently….via a note in her bag…!!! Tell us about your worst romantic disaster?
3. Off the back of all the literary questions, here’s another. Which literary character would you swap lives with?
4. Winter’s coming, is there anything in particular that marks the start of winter in your eyes?
5. What’s your favourite winter food?

I’m off to the Aberfeldy Festival to see some bands, I look forward to reading your answers on my return!

At about 1 o clock this afternoon, I pondered on how I could get another cup of tea without getting out of the bath I was enjoying. I didn’t manage to solve this problem, but decided to be thankful that I had one nice cup of tea in the bath, and went back to reading my book. The dog came in and licked my knees; it was at this point I decided to set the End Of The Week Quintet of lazy, idling questions for the lovely inhabitants of The ‘Spilliverse.

1. What’s your favourite idle moment, and do you have to be clever to achieve it? Of late I make sure I have a decent book to hand in all rooms in the house, so if the children deem to leave me alone for a minute, I can pick up the book

2. I have been reading a lot of Tom Hodgkinson lately, and his theories on being free from the Puritanical notions of hard work, which leads me to ask – what’s the most awful, soul-crushing job you’ve ever had? I once worked for one of those companies who may phone you up and ask you questions about current events, or other banalities. Every second lasted a minute, every minute lasted an hour, the clock was watched and watched again.

3. Technology is meant to help us, make our lives easier, but anyone who’s wrestled with a spreadsheet on one of those awful windows microsoft computers, will know that it’s quite often not the case. But have you come up with any clever use of technology that actually helps you ease through life? A good number of months back I created the Peppa Pig randomizer, which played endless random episodes of the show to save me from having to put a new one on the telly every five minutes for the demanding toddler.

4. When I cook, I really hate following recipes and having to endlessly measure out stuff, drives me round the bend. So I have invented my own style of cooking, where i vaguely remember a dish I like, and try and cook it – no measuring, no complicated stuff, lots of shortcuts. The end result is always different, never the same dinner twice, and the kids usually like it. One of my fave shortcuts is garlic puree in a tube, when I discovered that this existed I was exceptionally happy as it meant no more fiddling around, or cleaning, the bloody garlic press ever again. What’s your best kitchen shortcut or secret? 

5. Due to this being the lazy EOTQW, I  can’t really be bothered thinking of a last question, so please think of your own question and write the answer only as your answer to number 5.

Time for a cup of tea now I think and maybe a wee nap…

As per request. For the uninitiated – I believe EOTWQ’s stands for either “End of the Week Questions” or “Questionnaire” or “Quintet” (5 questions) depending on who you ask and how faulty their memory is.

1) Where ya from? originally?

2) Where ya live now?

3) Where would you want to live if you could?

4) What’s your status? (A question my dad used to periodically ask the cat.)

5) Top 5 Desert Island Discs? (Yeah, i think the rules are that there aren’t supposed to be any music questions. Tough noogies, this is a music blog, it’s important. Innit. Besides, you might end up on one. With someone else, even.)

Anyone want to fill some time before the new topic goes up?

It’s a long time since we’ve had an End of the Week Quintet/Quiz, isn’t it? So long in fact that some of our newer members may not be familiar with the concept. You’ll probably pick it up quickly enough though. Basically, there are some questions, and you can answer them, if you want. One rule: on no account should questions or answers be about music. Unless you really want them to be.

1. Whatever happened to…? Well, who or what’s current whereabouts would you like to discover? (but not quite enough to look it up on Wikipedia)

2. What thing or idea would you like to bring back? (e.g. Top of the Pops, artificial colouring in Smarties, socialism…)

3. You can bring a historical figure back from the dead to help sort out the problems of the world: who and why?

4. Using your powers of resurrection once again, you can give a famous person who died young a full lifetime: who?

5. This time, you can restore an extinct species, lost natural wonder, ancient civilisation… whatever takes your fancy: what?

Here are a bunch of randomly chosen questions that you may or may not feel like answering:

1. What’s the most annoying catchphrase or cliche you can think of?
2. What was your worst punishment as a child?
3. Have you ever re-gifted something?
4. When was the last time you were really surprised by something?
5. If you were a flavour of ice cream, which one would you be and why?

I am so happy to see so many posts on the ‘Spill. Recently it seems you log off for half an hour, log back on and there’s a couple more up. Are we finally settling into WP? I really hope so. Anyway, loads of great new stuff; the 30 day challenge and the weekly posts it’s inspired, earworms going strong under new, improved and totally inspired tutelage, Ubu’s weirdness for the world, that fellah wittering on about flamenco and lots of other stuff. Mrs Maki logs on to the ‘Spill first thing every day and she’s not even an official ‘Spiller! But I’m missing the EoTWQ. Maybe they’ve run their course. Maybe with all the questions we ask each other almost incessantly they’ve become obsolete. But, anyway, here’s a set. Let’s see how it goes and if anyone wants to offer to do some next week, or whenever, that’d be cool.
1. When did you realise that music was going to be important in your life? Was it when listening to something? Or when playing something? ‘Cause music is important to all of us, right?
2. Take a song, any song. Use it as the soundtrack to an existing movie scene or tell us about the scene you’ve always imagined for it.
3. As the days get longer (Northern hemisphere bias, I know), do you slow down and enjoy them more? Do the longer evenings really make a difference?
4. Are you a good luck charm or a jinx? I think I must be a jinx – recent examples would include my finally getting back to the UK to have dinner in a favourite pub only to find out that weeks after my visiting they lost their Michelin star! Plus none of my favourite groups have had a number one single – but maybe that’s not such a bad thing!
5. You’ve got a hundred quid to spare. What are you going to spend it on?

1. The Royal Wedding: do you care?
2. Can you think of any monarch, past or present, who really earned / earns their keep?
3. If you live in a country with a royal family, are you happy with the set up? Or would you prefer something different?
4. If we could vote for a monarch (honorary title) who should we have in the UK? Or the country you live in?
5. You’re the d.j.: the speeches are over the guests are ready to hit the dance floor. Which song are you going to play to start the dancing (or keep the guests seated in quivering horror) at Friday night’s bash?

1. “Football isn’t a matter of life and death – it’s much more important than that” quoth Mr. Shankley much to the bewilderment of a large proportion of the population. But he had a point. What sport/hobby/pastime or other seemingly trivial (to many) activity do you take so seriously as to produce bewilderment in those that surround you?
2. “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member” was one of Groucho’s more famous lines. Have you ever hankered after being part of a scene (any scene) only to finally make it and find out it really wasn’t worth it?
3. “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes” or so said Mr Warhol. Have you ever been famous or infamous (no matter how small the circle) and what was it for?
4. “My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require.” This is Edward Elgar’s view. Do you agree?
5. What’s your favourite quotation? Why?

(bluepeter asked me to post this because the techie side of things is daunting- he’s promised to do the next one himself. Meanwhile here’s another addition to the flow of posts requested by Shoegazer).

1. “How many ‘timepieces’ do you have ?”
Some while ago after a ‘heated discussion’ with Mrs bluepeter about time keeping, I decided to count the number of ways and places where a timepiece was available to us both. We both had cars with clocks on the dashboard. Each car had a stereo that showed the time. I had two watches, Mrs blue had 3. The time was available in the lounge via the TV, VCR and the music center as well as a nice clock on the mantlepiece. In the kitchen time was shown on the oven, microwave and the central heating timer. Alarm clocks either side of the bed ensured we never slept in. And the time is always shown on the computer. I make that 19. So, go on, have a count. You may be surprised.

2.”Does time go fast or slow for you ?”
The last 10 second countdown for the launch of a rocket always seems longer to me than the just under 10 seconds it takes for Usain Bolt to run the 100 meters. Sometimes it appears that I have all the time in the World and at others I wonder where the time has gone. At the end of March this year it will be 4 years since I decided to retire early. So where does the time go ?
Or are you aware of time management ?

3.”Time travel – Backwards or to the future ?”
I’m not a great one for history ( I know that some of you are ), but I would love to go forward in time – 2525 ?- to see if mankind did make it through
or if we eventually screw things up. So do you have a particular time that you would like to go back or forward to ?

4.”What is the latest or earliest you have been ?”
I once drove from Wallington,Surrey to Milton Keynes, Bucks ( about 90 miles) for a training course due to begin at 9:00am. I should have checked the details on the e-mail. I arrived nice and early on the Tuesday morning. The course was for 3 days ………….beginning on the Wednesday.

5.”What’s your favorite piece of music about time ?”
I remember the first time I heard Pink Floyd’s “Time” (from Dark Side of the Moon). I was in a shop and had headphones on.
I think I jumped when the alarm clocks went off.

1. What’s the best thing you can put on toast?

2. If I say “childhood” – what’s the first thing that springs to your mind?

3. Coming over all Prince Charles, if you could destroy one building (without hurting anyone in the process) – which would it be?

4. Tell us your favourite anecdote about one of your pets, past or present. If you’ve never had any pets…why’s that?

5. When was the last time you got high, by what means, and what music did you reach for? If you’ve never got high…why’s that?

Seems that recently all I’ve been doing is Earworms and techie show off posts! I thought it was about time I actually did one of my own and seeing as no-one else has bagsied EOTWQ, I thought I’d start there. I’ve got a couple of Spanish music ones in the pipeline (a demo put together by a few lads Mrs Maki works with and a more heartfelt Flamenco one but I’m finding it hard to get them just right).

So anyway, here we go:

When I was a nipper my parents had a jack russel. I got into the habit of sitting down on the floor and tugging its ears. My mum was forever telling me not to do it. “He’ll bite you, you know” She would warn me. Did I take any notice? ‘Course not. Anyway one day he retaliated and I lost a very small part of the end of my nose!

1. Have you ever willfully ignored a warning only to find out the hard way that you should have paid heed?

My parents spent a fortune on French classes for me. I wasn’t very good at it and wasn’t very interested either. When I was ten we went on holiday to Brittany and I remember being sent (against my will) to buy the bread one morning. I somehow managed to make the lady in the shop understand me and returned triumphant to the campsite with a couple of baguettes. That episode is no doubt the catalyst that led to my interest in languages and very indirectly, to my living outside the UK.

2. When was the first time you said something in a foreign language and were understood by the person you were speaking to?

I had a teddy bear when I was a baby. I’m now 48 and I still have it.

3. What treasured possession, if any, do you still have from your early childhood?

In my early twenties I lived in Tarragona on the Mediterranean coast. These were wild times. On the way home one night and severely under the influence, I might add, I managed to fall 40 feet off a railway bridge! I escaped with a broken wrist and a few (deep) grazes.

4. What has been your closest shave and / or luckiest escape?

Straight in with this one.

5. What musical event are you most looking forward to or hoping for this year?

1. I should go to bed right now, but there’s something stopping me, maybe I don’t want the day to end without doing a bit more living. Sometimes I can’t get to sleep ’til I’ve spent equal time lying on all the sides of my body – but what keeps you up at night?

2. Being of an English persuasion I’m awful at complaining, and wouldn’t return a dish in a restaurant even if it walked off the plate flicking the vs at me. My Scots other half on the other hand will happily complain if anything’s amiss. This evening I caught a bit of a show on BBC3 that was so awful I had to voice my concerns to the Beeb about wasting my money. What was the last thing you complained about, or what has been your most memorable complaint? And what was the outcome?

3. Reading about Glasshalfempty’s pilgrimage to New Orleans, I thought about places I’d like to go that are to do with music. I remember paying homage to Blur’s “For Tomorrow” video by rolling down Primrose Hill once (I met Graham Coxon that day too, but that’s another story). I also thought about one of my beloved previous pet cats, who I named Mogwai after one of my favourite bands back in ’99. So, tell us about a musical or film tribute/homage/whatever you have paid, no matter how small.

4. It’s taken me nearly a month to return the one Lovefilm DVD rental we have out just now, and nearly 24 hours to clear up the half eaten mouse that was under the kitchen table. Out of sight, out of mind it seems. My side gate also needs to be repaired but I keep forgetting about it until I notice on my way out somewhere, but at that point I can’t do anything cos I’m off out, and then it slips my mind again…what’s the one thing you need to get done but keep overlooking again and again?

5. Before I went to university my Mum showed me a couple of frugal recipes that I learnt. “Packet Of Ham Risotto” is very popular even now in my grown up-with kids-household. What recipe did you inherit and still use today?

A few months before I had my Tom Petty epiphany, I chanced upon this album of surf music. The notes with it implied, rather intriguingly, that the Blue Stingrays weren’t a real band, but a nom-de-disque of a very well-known band who happened to be into surf music. Well, I like surf music so I downloaded it, and I liked it very much, and eventually I found out that the Blue Stingrays are – yes, you’ve guessed it – the Heartbreakers.

So, I know we’ve had a coincidence question before in EOTWQ (which this is), but maybe now you’ve had more time to remember them:

1 Have you encountered a coincidence as good as my one? If yes, what?

2 Are you ready for Christmas?*

3 What was your best Christmas?

4 What was your worst Christmas?

5 What are you hoping for THIS Christmas?

*People who don’t celebrate Christmas may substitute another festival of their choice. Or, you know, just ignore the whole thing.

1. I never even tried to learn to ride a motorbike. Most of the time I feel OK about having missed out on this but there are times that I see people on bikes having a lot of fun and wish that I had. Is there any essential or peripheral life skill that you didn’t bother to acquire when you could have and that now, at times, you wish you had?
2. Moving on from number one. I have tried, god knows how many times, to learn to water ski. And it is beyond me. I have been dragged along behind countless motor boats and have probably swallowed more sea water than can possibly be good for anyone. All my family can do it but I can’t. Is there anything that you have really tried and wanted to learn to do that you just couldn’t master?
3. I am, on the other hand, good at languages. Many people here in Madrid don’t realise I’m English until I tell them. I don’t feel proud about this, just lucky. Is there anything that you are effortlessly good at?
4. I’m a teacher and I love my job. What would you enjoy teaching the rest of us ‘Spillers to do? (Looking for a skill you’d like to share with us not a list of reproaches, please. Although I suppose answers directed at me would be fair, given that I asked the question!)
5. And what would you like to learn from a fellow ‘Spiller?