That’s Entertainment.
Hello darlings,
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Did you read about the City of London Festival Street Pianos ?
What an excellent idea. It seems that for about three weeks there will be 30 pianos placed in different locations around London and they will hopefully stimulate passing pedestrians to have a tinkle on the ivories.
What an amazing idea.
I remember, when I was a child after the war, that there was not a lot of entertainment to be had and people had to amuse themselves. They would gather in each others houses and different people would do their special party trick .
My father would sit at the piano and play Boogie Woogie and my mother would play the hits of the day such as ‘These Foolish Things Remind Me Of You’ and ‘Aint Misbehaving.’
There was one friend of my mother’s who had an aged father living with her and her family and he would perform his party piece no matter how many times they asked him not to.
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One New Year’s Eve he suddenly disappeared from the party and everyone groaned and kept rolling their eyes at each other.
Till, suddenly, the living room door opened and there he stood.
He was dressed in a long nightshirt, wearing his old unfastened army boots and sporting a bright red fez upon his baldy head. He was carrying a length of rolled up carpet under his arm and carrying a bucket of sand.
I was fascinated to watch him solemnly unfolding the long carpet runner and pouring the sand upon it. He was totally ignoring everybody else in the room all during these arcane preparations.
He then went to one end of the carpet and got into position.
One arm was down by his side, the forearm pointing straight out in front with the hand bent straight upwards, palm out, while the other arm was pointing out to the back with the back of the hand facing down. towards the floor. He then began to shuffle along the carpet, each leg movement opening the side splits in his nightshirt and exposing his long, skinny, bony, hairy legs with their big, knobbly knees
He kept this up for about four or five minutes , then stopped, glared at everyone, and left the room.
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The conversation began again and nobody said a word about it.
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The bastards. I was only about six but I loved it.
Sweet dreams,
J
P.S I learned later that it was called a Sand Dance.
