Fifteen

There are two significant events today, June 14th 2018, one personal and one international. The first one, close to home, is the 15th birthday of number two child/number one daughter Eliza. Once, as the picture shows, she was young and cute and happily wore a Clash t-shirt. Now she is 15, growing up into a young woman and probably wouldn't wear a Clash t-shirt.

Every summer in recent years we've driven to France with a stack of music. I get accused of hogging the car stereo. Not true obviously. Finding songs we can all agree on is a bit of an artform. Last summer we got there on this one- I've got to say, I think this is a tune. So you can have this one as your birthday song Eliza. Happy birthday.



One of Eliza's presents is Dolly Parton's 9 To 5 on 7" (which she should have opened by the time this is posted). So here's your birthday bonus song...



We survived our first 'proper' teenage house party at the weekend, a mixed group of 15 of them in our garden, with music, dancing, shrieking and  'controlled' drinking (you can control what they drink in your house- more difficult to control what some of them have drunk before they arrive). Apart from some minor damage to our already patchy lawn there was no harm done and much fun had. The party playlist was dominated by 80s pop, some disgraceful 80s soft-rock and some more contemporary stuff. Back in 1985, when I turned 15 this was the UK's number one single...



19 is groundbreaking in its own way and genuinely memorable, and kept at the number one slot by regular releases of remixed versions. Vietnam was big in the mid-80s. A decade on from the end of the war people were getting to grips with it, what had happened and what it meant. I read somewhere recently that the average age of the combat soldier in Vietnam wasn't actually 19 but 22. But that doesn't really change the message of the song or the fact that if you were poor, uneducated or black you were far more likely to end up in Vietnam than if you were wealthier, educated and white. Does it Mr. Trump? Coincidentally I played it to my Year 11 class recently as part of their depth study on The Vietnam War. They weren't very impressed if truth be told, the sounds were too dated and quaint, the stuttering vocal too cliched and the female backing vox too cheesy. But they took the message and the visuals in.

The other event today is the start of the World Cup, Russia 2018. This is my 11th World Cup. I have some vague memories of Argentina '78 aged 8, memories of the final at least, which I was allowed to stay up and watch some of. Spain '82 is the first one I really  remember- in the picture above Bryan Robson celebrates after scoring against France in England's opening game. Mexico '86 was a blast, taking place during my O Levels, the magnificence of Diego Maradona in his prime, England out in controversial manner and an epic France v Brazil game. Italia 90 was ace, mixed up as it was with New Order's World In Motion, No Alla Violenza, Toto Schillaci, Roger Milla and an England run to the semi-finals.

Twenty-eight years on, this is still the only world cup record that really matters.

'Love's got the world in motion and we can't believe it's true'.

World In Motion (No Alla Violenza Mix)