Ankles away

I am so looking forward to the four day Easter Break. Big thanks to J.C. for smiling down on me, oh and the rest of yas. Smiling back up at you and missing you already, J.C.

It’s going to be very nice and quiet. I am not socialising at all and will just seclude myself in the flat, begin the viewing of the British Film Institute top 100 project, and finish three books each of which I’m half way through, why, at that rate, I might even manage to start a new one.

None of the books are about rock n roll, they’re proper and fictitional like. As much as I enjoy the rock book, I generally don’t retain as much of the information as I once did.

These days the majority of rocknroll books that I read I access via David. The last rnr book I read was when I stayed Monte Woolley style at David and Mia’s in January. The room where I stayed is lined with bookcases and has a great selection of books with very interesting and titillating titles and subjects, I generally focus on the rock n roll bios though.

What I love about the rock book genre, apart from the generally, non challenging and entertaining read, is the index, particularly the indexes for 60’s/70’s rock n roll popular culture books. You know the type, you look up delusional, and you get several page numbers for tales about Marianne Faithfull, look up sex dwarf god you get Dudley Moore, and refer to smack, television defenestration, blood, and mounties and you get all the entries you could possibly want on K. Richards. a google prototype perhaps?

I read the Ian McLagan autobio during the January 2006 siege of david n mia's digs.

Generally the book was magnificently light and a fairly amusing read, usual topics covered: mickey j money grubbing and doing people out of song writing credits; rod stewart birdin’ and boozin’ it up; M.Faithfull being called classy and cultured, reading poetry to the small faces in her nightie, out of which her breasts kept tumbling; freebasing crap while spending days on end mixing in the stude; living your life through the bottom of a booze bottle; and making moolah and buying houses for your olds then losing all the moolah and having to live with your olds, etc. Good times, bad times, and not dissimilar to any of our lives, of course.

I can’t remember the title of “mac’s” memoirs, off our faces?, and my main memory about the book involves an anecdote about ankles and Orstralia.

David alerted me to this story, which I hadn’t yet reached for I was still savouring tales about Rod birdin’ and boozin’ it up and treating the other Faces like a backing band. So the beauty and potential of the rock book index was fully realised and “ankles” was duly looked up.

During “Macs” 2nd visit to Australia, some time in the early 80’s perhaps, long time after the “scandalous” who and small faces tour of the 60’s, apart from catching up with Renee Geyer in Sydney, he spent time in Perth, where he had a top time and all and did a lot of ankle spotting. While “mac” thought Orstralian birds were luvverly and utter ravers and that, he and his band mate, can’t remember who, or which band, sorry, i guess you can always google it if you need to know, couldn’t help but notice how the majority of Australian women had thick ankles. Anyway it went on like that for a bit and their road manager concurred with the geezers’ observation and told them how he’d been reading some memoir by Percy Grainger who’d also come to a similar conclusion about Orstralian sheilas’ ankles and couldn’t wait to return to Blighty where the ladies ankles were so fine and puhtty.

What a pack of ankle biters.

I do think a lot about ankles but it's more worrying about sprains, twists and breaks, future arthritic problems, and inevitable ankle replacement operations. Consequently, I have never thought of ankles as giving you an erotic charge.

Since January most evenings waiting for the bus at the stop outside David Jones have been spent furtively checking out ankles, on the ladies and the fellas, and even my own in the reflection of the dj’s vitrine, what a smashing, er smashed, set i've got.

The ankle fetish, I don’t understand at all really, some do seem bonier, couldn't say if that makes 'em bonnier, ask Percy and Mac, than others but I just find it a rather curious and quaint, almost strangely innocent?, thing to check out. I guess these days you’re more struck by an over exposed set of titty boom booms, a saucy tatt on the arse or midriff, or just some random codpiece floating down the street.

Rest assured I’m just a bit perplexed and am not being a prude, after all my memoir musical features a segment on the thrill gained on the sight of a male in a semi untucked shirt, tucked in at the front, left out over trou from behind, be it Midford school, Woah Maggie, or civilian shirt, thus making me of course a shirt lifter.