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the olive press 27
www.theolivepress.es
January 22nd - February 4th 2015
27
the olive press - January 22nd - February 4th
Singin’ the Blues
I
F you’re feeling down in the dumps after the holidays, then this week you’ll be feeling suicidal. January 19 is Blue Monday, officially the gloomiest day of the year, and scientists have a neat mathematical equation for why:
For those challenged by algebra, that’s gloomy Weather, plus bad Debt, minus the number of days since Christmas, squared by the number of New Year resolutions you Quit, divided by low Motivation and a long list of Need-to-dos... in other words, the perfect time to compose a blues song. It’s a well-known fact that singing has health benefits. Adding lyrics about the bad things going down in your life is doubly cathartic. Here’s something I prepared earlier: Woke up this mornin’, feelin’ down with the blues Last night I done had me one skinful o’ booze It’s a wet Blue Monday ‘n’ that ain’t all the bad news ‘Cus my credit card’s maxed out man An’ I got holes in both soles of
Belinda Beckett, aka Mistress of Sizzle, has the antidote for the most depressing day of the year
GLOOMY: Did you survive Monday January 19? my Jimmy Choos. It’s almost there, except for the ending. You’d never catch Big Mama Thornton or Blind Willie Johnson crooning about going broke buying fashion shoes with plastic money. Blues has a language of its own that doesn’t always translate to the modern age. It’s fine if you shot a man in Memphis while wasted on whisky. Getting thumped by a nightclub bouncer while off your head on Bacardi Breezers
doesn’t have quite the same ring to it... In the same way, you can be taking the southbound train to Tennessee after wrecking your Chevy at the levy; it doesn’t work so well if you’re catching the bus to Marbella because your Mondeo’s been ‘grua-ed’ by the Guardia. Wakin’ up is a good way to start a blues number – in the jailhouse, the alehouse or the gutter but never in the honeymoon suite of a five-star hotel.
You can legitimately be woken up by a little red rooster or a howlin’ alley cat but not by the beeping of your Sony Teasmade. ‘I got me a good man’ is a bad way to begin the blues. If you got a good man, why the hell you singin’ the blues anyway (unless he’s gone to the bad or fixin’ to die)? In blues, good stuff never happens. Betrayal, jealousy, revenge and death are all good topics – unless you got electrocuted by the Dyson or were stood up on a blind date. That’s not blues, it’s just bad luck. Mention of the Internet is not acceptable either, even if you ‘done found yourself a hot woman’ in a chat room. Finally, the more ludicrous the situation the better. There’s nothing like a spot of black blues humour to put a spring in your step! You can lose your leg to a mean ol’ alligator in a Louisiana swamp; you can be bent and paralysed with no legs at all and still be able to rise up from your wheelchair to shoot your woman because she’s taken her love to town. It never has to make sense. So long as it’s really depressing and it rhymes, you’ve got yourself the perfect blues number to brighten your day!
Run baby, run
S
O 2015 started with the familiar promise to look after myself, eat healthier food, improve my fitness and either read – or get rid of – the ever-growing pile of unread self-help books in the corner of the living room. (I’m not saying that it’s getting out of control but at a certain time of the day they block out the sun’s rays. I need to feel the fear and bin them anyway). With this ‘New Year, New You’ attitude, I signed up for a five-kilometre fun run in aid of the Positively Pink Breast Cancer Charity. Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of jogging, mainly due to all the miserable cross-country runs over soggy Staffordshire fields I was forced to endure at prep school. However, I did once famously complete the 100m in under ten seconds... by falling down two flights of stairs from an upstairs bar when England won the Rugby World Cup. Nevertheless, I duly rocked up on the designated Saturday morning, went through my stretching routine, made sure I had plenty of water, selected the appropriate app on the smartphone, turned on the aggressive hip hop playlist to get me going and then I set off running. It was a beautiful, crisp Marbella morning as I ran along the paseo, the Mediterranean shimmering on my left hand side, nodding
HOT STUFF: Giles Brown in the gym
Ibex driving down the cost of car insurance to my fellow runners, infused with a feeling of good health and well being. (These moments are rare so I have to make the most of them, trust me). The app told me that I was into the last kilometre, so I decided on a grandstand finish, cranked up the volume, selected the Beastie Boys track Sabotage and picked up the pace. I sailed past a couple of other runners when suddenly ‘BANG!’. My right calf muscle seized up and I hobbled over to the nearest railing. Being something of a comedian, the other runners thought that this was merely a zany prank on my part and sailed past me. It wasn’t until most were on their second postrun protein shakes that they realised that I had done my leg in and came to collect me.
Needless to say, the rest of the first weekend of 2015 was spent with my leg up on the sofa, catching up on the DVDs that I haven’t had time to watch. My already foul mood wasn’t helped by the yummy mummy either (who, by the way, reneged on her part of the deal to turn up in the elf costume after my appearances as Santa over the festive season). In a vain attempt for some, ahem, ‘hands on physio’ I called from the sickbed and explained my predicament. “It’s your age, you muppet,” she retorted to my plaintive pleas for her to don a nurse outfit and come over. “And I think that these are the first signs of a mid-life crisis.” Something tells me 2015 is going to be a long, long year...
• • • • •
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