Spring cleaning

Listening to Where does the love go by Roger Moore and Mission Impossible with Norwegian Wood by Alan Copeland

Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to cleaning! I am not sure that it is actually spring yet, but clearing the junk out is at home. I blame it on that Kondo woman who it appears, through Gris Gris or dark art, has wife of Willox Dixon under her malign influence. To be fair, de-cluttering is probably a good thing, except for some reason it is my records and books that seem to be classified as junk.

That is not exactly what I was going to write about. Rather, the day’s scribbles are about the fact that wife of Willox Dixon is incredibly clumsy. If there is a step to trip over or a birthday cake to stand in, she will (and has) manage it. During the clear out wife of WD managed to hoover the head off a clown. I probably should clarify that the clown is in fact a a colourful crystal sculpture … actually it’s the ugliest bastard of a clown in brightly coloured glass. This thing looks a bit like Ronald MacDonald gone bad and hit by a truck. It was though, I am told, by a famous artist, but clearly this must have been one of his more troubled periods. This thing really is ugly.

Before you question me on my credentials as an art collector, I will share the story of how it arrived chez Newborn.

I and a number of family members all played in a pipe band. In fact everyone in the band is a relative. This is not necessarily a good thing, especially if you have seen some of my family. When the band is out, it is possible to see children screaming in fear when they see my cousin Lilly armed with her pipes. If I tell you that one of the cousins is named after a Chilean battleship, I can probably leave the descriptions out.

We had been asked to play at a Royal Charity Gala in Monaco. Clearly this was not based on ability, and may have in fact been akin to coming out to see the freaks, but we duly flew out to Monaco to perform.

After our performance, we took our seats at our table, sponsored by a well known whisky company, amidst the the glitz, glamour and diamonds of rich, royals and film stars. On each seat was an envelope with a number on it. To our horror, we discovered the idea was to put money in the envelope and then it acted as a raffle ticket. The afternoon had been spent in the bar in the casino, so the horror was really the fact that we were flat broke. So all we could do was hope the envelopes were not opened publicly.

Miss France and Ewan McGregor were showing the prizes and drawing the envelopes. A painting by an Italian artist was the first prize up, and then, to gasps from the crowd, and looking like melted opal fruits, a crystal sculpture of a clown by the famous artist. I turned to father of Willox Dixon, and told him, this was my prize. No sooner had we laughed at that, than the number was announced and sure enough, it was mine. I slowly headed for the stage. “What in the name of God am I going to do with that?” to which the Young McGregor replied “Just take the damn thing!”, and so I became the proud owner of a molten glass monstrosity. Suddenly I longed to go back to my normal state of winning nothing in raffles.

I headed back to my seat depressed in spirit and and by the weight of the scariest clown since Pennywise. The clown immediately got a band tie and a cigarette put in its mouth, and sat on the table, a terrifying pagan idol, when a sophisticated figure in black tie appeared behind my father, and announced “You can’t do that, it’s by a famous artist”. I immediately removed the tie as soon as I realised who it was. My father, oblivious, started chatting to Roger Moore.

“Are you local yourself?”

“Yes, I have had a house here for a number of years”

“And what is it you do yourself?”

“I’m an actor.”

“Would I have seen you in anything?”

By this time Roger Moore is unclear if he should shout “Security, this man is intoxicated!” or if he really didn’t know who he was, which in reality was the truth. “Would I have seen you in anything?”

“James Bond?”

“Is that not Sean Connery?”

Sadly I never was able to find out if, as in The Persuaders, Mr Moore’s suit was designed by Mr Moore. Still, he isn’t a real spy, and I did actually meet one, I think.

A chilly Moscow morning and the Highlanders are wandering round thinking we should not have left the croft, and desperately trying to find a coffee. We couldn’t read the signs, and there were no obvious shop windows. Beer or vodka was not a problem as we were surrounded by little booths selling beer, and babushkas selling vodka in the entrances to buildings and the underground. An old man heard us moaning, and in a broad north of England accent told us he was heading to a bar and would order coffee for us.

As we were getting ready to leave we went to thank the old man. He was sitting at the bar, chatting in what sounded like really good Russian. After thanking him we commented on how good his Russian sounded and asked if he was on holiday. He told us that in fact lived in Moscow. We obviously asked how long he had lived there and he replied “Since 1965”.

Our faces must have been a picture as we all thought “SPY!” Somehow though, it seemed really rude to ask him after he got us coffee.