Young, free and single... part 1?

I've written fairly frequently on here about my childhood and schooldays, but haven't really tended to mention anything about what I did by way of leisure activity.  Maybe it wasn't that interesting or I just don't remember it that clearly - either of which is a bit sad in a way, I suppose.  The other day, though, a random chance question suddenly reminded me of a key element of my transition to adulthood, which went by the name of the Dungeon Disco!  It was held on Saturday nights in the cellars of the Eathorpe Park Hotel, a Victorian-built establishment out in the countryside some seven miles or so from Leamington.  You needed a car to get there, and it was couples-only admission, which together effectively kept at bay the riff-raff and the weenyboppers: it was a smashing venue.

I first went one night in late 1970 or early 1971: my best mate at the time thoughtfully(?) fixed me up with an ex-girlfriend of his, and we all went as a foursome.  In fact his motive wasn't entirely altruistic, as I was providing the transport! You went in the hotel front door, and to the right I think was a little door which led down some stone steps into the "dungeon" - two parallel cellars, one of which accommodated the dancefloor with the DJ in the far corner, the other being the seating area.  A small bar ran across the end.  Not that it matters now, but I don't recollect where the loos were (maybe back upstairs?).  The dungeon theme was reinforced by white grilles and things painted on the ceiling, with bones and skeletons which glowed periodically under the UV lighting: I can't really do it justice with just a brief description.  The music was a mix of chart releases, disco classics and some oldies, with several "smooch-times" interspersed at intervals throughout the evening.  The DJ would do the occasional request dedication, and the whole thing went on till 1am, which was late by rural Warwickshire standards - at least in those days.

Needless to say the foursome wasn't a resounding success, but as luck would have it I soon acquired a partner of my own, and we went a number of times, singing along to such hits as Middle of the Road's "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" - dead corny now, but great fun doing the chorus as the DJ 'blanked' it out.  At Christmas 1972 it was an established favourite place of ours, and the one we chose for our wedding night - to the amazement of the DJ, as we asked for a special dedication to us newlyweds!  I'm sure he thought we were pulling his leg, but he duly obliged, and I shall treasure forever the happy memory of smooching to the Everly Brothers "Devoted to you", oblivious to everything except singing the words to each other.

We went again a couple of times the first year or so after we were married, but then I heard the Dungeon had shut, and sure enough, the next time we went, the little door to the steps was locked and it was all closed off.  We settled instead for a meal in the hotel restaurant, but although very nice, it couldn't re-create the special ambiance of the Dungeon, and we didn't go again.  This would've been around 1973 or possibly early 1974.  I lost track of what happened to the hotel after that, but I saw from a recent photo that although still standing, at some point it evidently closed altogether and was converted into private apartments.

I don't think I ever did discover what had led to the Dungeon's demise - or at least, if I did at the time, I've long since forgotten it now.  Maybe the hotel changed hands and the new owners didn't want to continue running it?  I suppose, looking back on it from the modern era of clubs and raves, discos in that format were possibly by then reaching the end of their 'shelf life'.  Who knows?  It was a great place while it lasted, though!   

Eathorpe Park
  © Copyright Andy F and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Save water... bath with a friend?

The recent spell of uncharacteristically warm Spring weather came to an abrupt end yesterday, with a chilly night giving way to stormy conditions: rain, sleet... and snow!  The snow admittedly hasn't amounted to much here, but it's the first wet day we've seen for about a fortnight I think - prompting slightly panicky pronouncements of drought conditions and imminent hosepipe bans, reminiscent of the famous drought of 1976.  Looking out now at the rain lashing against the window-pane and the phone wires bouncing in the wind, unending sunshine with temperatures in the 90s for days on end seems an attractive proposition.  It's tempting to conclude that we've learnt nothing about conserving water in the last 35 years, but then again there's arguably been no desparate need to.

I remember the house we lived in when I was a teenager: a pre-war detached house in Kenilworth which boasted an iron rainwater tank just above the kitchen, into which all the downpipes from the roof guttering emptied.  I'm not sure which of the previous owners had the idea to build it: it always struck me as being a bit bizarre, and none of the neighbours had one as far as I know.  It had a tap just by the back door, and during the summer we used it to water the garden, which was a large one and took an hour or two even using a hosepipe.  I don't think I ever found out how much it held, but in the ten years or so I lived there, I only recollect it actually running dry once.  When my parents later on had an extension built on the back of the house, they had the tank removed - which with the benefit of hindsight might perhaps have turned out to have been a mistake.

Oddly enough, the little pond in the local woods, which last year dried up to caked mud for most of the summer, this year seems to be starting to fill with water again - presumably from the rain, as there isn't a stream or anything there as far as I know.  Evidently there is water around, just not where it's needed most.  Which shouldn't really be that much of a problem: after all, the Romans were building aqueducts two thousand years ago! 

D for dunce?

My Italian course finished for the Easter holidays the Friday before last.  It's an odd facet of the way the course is structured that you "pass" (and thereby qualify for progression to the next level up) at the end of this second term - with the third term consisting mainly of extra practice, consolidation and revision: you don't actually learn anything "new" as such.  Although you do have to attend all three terms to get the official course certificate.  Anyway, with that in view, I get an email yesterday from the tutor telling me I'd passed - the sting in the tail was that it was with a grade D!

I'm not exaggerating when I say I was gutted.  I'd got an 'A' last year and was naturally hoping for another this year, although I think I've mentioned at some point in my periodic ramblings on here that I've been finding the aural comprehension exercises very difficult.  So I wouldn't have been surprised at a 'B' on the basis of that.  That said, I may be, and probably am, attaching a negative significance to the grade which it doesn't actually have - it's not shown on the certificate or anywhere other than the email.  In fact none of our work is marked, so I don't even know how it's been arrived at or indeed what the possible grades are (A to E, like A levels perhaps?).  I'll have to try and find out from the tutor by next term: the email did say the extra third term would give me the opportunity to improve it.

The last time I got a D for anything was for mental arithmetic at Junior School, aged eight: coincidentally that was the Easter term, too.  I did also subsequently fail three O levels!  So there are precedents, and I guess it's just wounded pride I'm suffering from more than anything else.  Still, I daresay that's as good a motive as any to try and improve my performance?

Just don't do it in the street and frighten the horses

I had my attention drawn earlier today to this report of an acquittal under the Obscene Publications Act relating to the distribution of an allegedly obscene DVD.  The DVD in question portrays "hardcore" gay sex acts - apparently including "fisting between men, urination, and incidents of sado-masochism". 

The acts themselves are of course not (or perhaps more accurately, no longer)  illegal between consenting adults.  It's the portrayal of them which constituted the alleged offence.  I haven't seen the DVD, so I'm not in a position to comment on whether the material in it is any more likely to "deprave" or "corrupt" than the multitude of clips on X-Tube and elswhere which I have seen catering for the same sort of tastes.  But for me one of the most telling things to emerge from the trial is the revelation that the jury "Although they were quite shocked initially, ... started to look quite bored very quickly"

That certainly echoes my experience of watching a supposedly hardcore German sex video loaned to me some years ago by a colleague at work.  The performances were all very laboured in the extreme: none of the participants seemed to be enjoying any of it and it was totally devoid of any sort of artistry.  Maybe I just wasn't in a receptive mood when I was watching it? 

The article to which I've linked reports that discussions will be taking place with the CPS and the BBFC.  Good.  Crown Court trials don't come cheap, and I feel bound to make the comment that it was a waste of public money: what useful purpose would a conviction would have served?  There's no suggestion that the DVD was being sold to minors, nor that the prospective purchasers weren't fully aware of what they were getting.  The BBFC's role of cinema censorship has, thankfully, dwindled over the years and is now more or less confined to 'grading' films according to their content and suitability for a potentially underage audience.  Leaving aside the obvious exception of childporn, it really shouldn't in the 21st century be necessary to worry about whether R18 material is going to deprave or corrupt the viewers it's aimed at and sold to.     

Pause for reflection

Time to make New Years' Resolutions?  Probably so.  I haven't done any as such, because like most people I don't end up keeping them, but as I think one should at least make some sort of effort, I have made some tentative plans.  How they match up to the reality I'll maybe record on here as we go along.  I've got off to a good start with an entry for the first day of the year, at any rate. 

And so how was 2011?  It's going to stick in my mind forever of course as the year my sister died, but then I didn't have any control over that.  Of the things I did have a measure of control over, they went OK: not spectacularly well, but I avoided any major disasters.  I learned a bit more Italian, reminisced a little bit, and wrote a little bit.  I can't in all honesty say I achieved all that much, but then who can?  I can't pinpoint anything I did in 2011 that I've really since regretted, so I guess that's something of an achievement in itself.

As for 2012, I vouch for one thing only.  That this blog will be an Olympics-free zone!!

Are you experienced?

Quite a few times recently, when searching online for various things, I've come across articles posted on a site known as the Experience Project: basically it's a compendium of personal stories written about this-that-or-the-other, and submitted apparently 'by real people'.  Therein lies both its charm and its downside: some of the stuff seems mildly implausible to say the least.

Nevertheless, having become more than just a little irritated at getting messages requiring me rto register before being able to read something on the grounds that it was restricted to a 'mature audience' (although I suppose I can see why they need to do it), I duly registered - after all, it's free to join.

The organization is a little bit chaotic, but I found some groups to join fairly easily and thought I might as well throw in my two-cents' worth, so I wrote and posted a few brief "experiences" myself.  The one I really enjoyed writing was the story of my three years spent out in Hong Kong.  Some people can write very detailed and vivid accounts of what happened to them when they were eight or nine, but I'm afraid I'm not one of them, and all I was able to do was paint a bit of a kaleidoscope of impressions by piecing together the few definite facts which have stuck in my mind over the years.

I'll always remember it as a happy time, though I do, having by then attended six schools in as many years, distinctly recall experiencing at the age of eleven a definite sense of wanting to settle down somewhere permantly after we'd returned.

"Everyone's a winner, baby, that's the truth"

As at about roughly the same time last year, my Italian class this week took the form of a forty-five minute test.  When one of my classmates asked what the allocation of marks was, the tutor stunned us somewhat by claiming there wasn't one!  Apparently the purpose of the test is to show her how we're doing and how much of what she's taught us we've absorbed, but how she's going to be able to tell that apart from by actually "marking" the answers as right or wrong and/or "counting" the number of mistakes is something of a mystery.  It is of course increasingly unfashionable in educational circles to actually "fail" a pupil or student but even a simple grade serves the purpose of indicating whether you've done really well, or scraping through by the skin of your teeth.  But in a system which seems increasingly focussed on mediocrity, perhaps even that doesn't really matter much anymore.

There were four parts of the test.  The first was listening to a recorded passage of dialogue and picking out multiple choice answers for what the people were talking about.  That I really struggled with: the diction wasn't terribly clear, and they spoke fairly fast, so I was reduced to picking out recognizable words and hoping I'd guessed the context correctly.  So my answers were not much more than blind guesswork.

The second was an email from someone writing about their holiday, with some multiple-choice questions asking what they'd done and whether they'd enjoyed it or not.  Fairly straightforward with the odd unfamiliar word easy enough to guess from the context.

Number three was a grammar exercise filling in blanks by conjugating verbs correctly in the future tense.  We'd done that fairly recently, so I remembered how to do it - and not that many Italian verbs are irregular in the future tense anyway.

Finally a piece of composition based on a short scenario of having encountered a bag-snatcher in the park, and reporting said event to the police!   We had to use the passato prossimo (aka perfect tense) of at least ten out of a list of fifteen verbs, and having - I feel - rather done the perfect tense to death over the course of the last year, I managed to use all 15, although I "cheated" slightly by using a couple of imperfects, an infinitive and even a pluperfect or two!

We get the results on Friday!  Somehow or other, though, I think I've really got to get to grips with how to understand spoken dialogue better.