Your feel-good story for the day

Evidently that’s not what’s known to have happened, at least so far.

I do like a blue plaque, and here’s one we found today. Google photos, being google photos, will now crop the plaque completely out of the shot, so click through to see it.

Google Photos

The plaque celebrates the (fairly brief - 1976 to 1983) establishment of Strawberry Studios South in the quiet market town of Dorking, by the band 10CC.

Interesting. “Who knew?”, I mused to the wife.

“Me, actually”, said a voice behind me, “I used to work there.”

It transpired that, back in his teens, the man who had just answered my rhetorical question was assistant recording engineer (ie, gopher), working “Twenty hour days” for 18 months, until he just couldn’t take it any more. (But having the time of his life.) The plaque has been in place for about a year; the guy was there when the plaque was unveiled, and was back for the first time since the unveiling, this time with his wife, who was seeing the plaque for the first time. He told us some stories, notably one about the studio’s most famous recording, Ebony And Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder (they recorded in two separate sessions, never actually meeting during the process).

It’s the sort of thing you look up when you get home, of course. The following pictures are in the public domain, so I guess it’s OK to post them.

Here’s a photo of 10CC in front of the plaque, and a youtube video of the unveiling. On the still from the video, directly underneath the letter Y, is the guy we met.

j

ETA - side note for those who remember the band. The album title Deceptive Bends was taken from a road sign on the A24 just north of Dorking. The sign is long gone, but I’ve lived around the area for forty-odd years, and remember it well.

Very cool!

I stepped outside to BBQ some sausages, and saw a sky full of bats.

Now, normally I’ll see one or two at a time, but tonight, there were 10 in view at the same time. Most I’ve ever seen here in the 25 years.

To have 10cc associated with Dorking is just too much. :laughing:

Who doesn’t like a little music while driving?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T51CAl6mkZI

That’s kind of neat. But is it only me who thinks it’s off tune?

A great McGuyver :+1:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/missing-hiker-della-falls-dallin-beaumier-1.7583066

And an example of staying alive by doing (nearly) everything right in preparation.

(The thing he got wrong was in not having the right vehicle for the driving portion. But something or other is quite possibly going to go wrong – so you need the preparation.)

Boy I had to dig through piles of angry threads to get to this one.

Here’s your story.

I settled down tonight with my five-year-old son to read him a bedtime story. It was about monsters A-Z. He was very interested in mummies and I was challenged to explain to him that mummies are a real thing but that they don’t actually come alive and chase you.

Then I couldn’t help but note that J is for Jabberwocky.

I pointed out that the Jabberwocky is a creature from Mama’s favorite ever story, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, which he then asked me to produce. I had no choice but to oblige with The Annotated Alice, and I read him the poem. He was interested in the living chess pieces (Through the Looking Glass,) and I realized, oh my gosh, he might actually enjoy this! I proceeded to tell him all about the white rabbit and falling down the rabbit hole. He was delighted by the mouse’s tail (a poem shaped like a tail.) He wasn’t interested in me reading the narrative so much as just telling the story through pictures.

Oh, but it was lovely sharing this book with him. He wanted to take it into his bedroom for bedtime but that’s not happening. I told him I’d get him his own version and he asked me yes, please.

So if you happen to know a good version for young kids, let me know. Ideally I’d like a colorized version of the original Tenniel illustrations.

Tangentially related: my next cross stitch project is a colorized version of the Tenniel illustration of Alice and the Red Queen and I cannot wait.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1218406869/digital-download-alice-and-the-red-queen

May I put in a word here for original versions (at least as far as the words go, colorized illustrations seem fine to me) even for very young children? Yes, they won’t follow all of it; but they’ll pick up on the rhythm of the language, and often understand more than you think – and stretching the mind is good for you and interests a lot of kids more than simplified language does.

I agree. When I was a (precocious) child, I always wanted the grown -up version. I grew out of kids’ versions pretty fast. Sounds like yours is on that track, too.

Okay, that makes sense. Also he’s a pretty good reader. If he takes it to bed with him he’ll probably pick up quite a lot. He just didn’t have a lot of tolerance for the meandering narrative (Alice thinks to herself a lot.)

He was also deeply interested in the concept of footnotes (numbers!) but he’s not yoinking my Annotated Alice. If he turns out to like it as much as I do, maybe I’ll get him his own copy someday.

This is kinda another of my random meeting stories. I was cycling thru town with my brother today, at the start of a long, rural ride.I just happen to live is a much more culturally diverse town than he does, and for some reason he knew that we were passing close to our Gurdwara. So I said, Wanna take a look? and he said, Why not?

We rolled into the car park - two white men in our sixties - just as an elderly Sikh couple were going in the front door. They stopped to look at us - I guess there was no obvious reason why we would be there. Just showing my brother the Gurdwara, I said. Oh, the husband (I presume) said, Want to take a look around?

And so it was that we dutifully removed our helmets and shoes, were dressed by the guy in orange bandanas (don’t know the correct name) to cover our hair, washed our hands and were shown around a Sikh temple, the adjacent kitchen and the dining areas. We were offered food (which we politely declined, as we had cycling to do) - I think hospitality is a pretty big Sikh thing. We were told that they will always feed someone who asks, and if someone is in real need, they can stay the night in the Gurdwara. After the brief tour, we thanked our host and took our leave.

An unexpected and delightful way to start a bike ride.

j

Random meetings like that are excellent, and that’s a really good one. Nice experience for all :+1:

What a lovely experience. Gave me some nice goosebumps. :goose: :goose:

Glad you had such a good experience, Trepp. I’ve long been interested in Sikhism.

I was reading an American Girl book to my preschool daughter before she could read. One night, I opened the book and wait, did the bookmark move? “This isn’t where we stopped,” mused I.

“Oh, right. Well. I woke up early this morning and I tried to go back to sleep and I couldn’t, so… I read the next chapter.”

“…Umm. Okay… so, what happened?”

“Dad, it was really exciting! Kirsten took Peter to the Bee Tree to get honey and there were SO many bees!
But then the dog barked and barked and ran into the bushes and chased out… a bear cub!
So Kirsten tried to get the dog away, and Peter threw a stone at the cub. But THEN… a deep growl came from the forest, and it was the mama bear coming out to protect her cub!
She slapped the dog away and so it ran back home.
But then the bear was distracted, so Kirsten and Peter climbed up a tree and the mama bear looked up at them but then finally! After TEN minutes! Walked away! It was really exciting!”

“So… you can read

[shrug] “Yeah, I guess so.”

That’s sweet. :heart_eyes:

I’m picturing a cartoon. Two toddlers are sitting on the playground discussing themes and characterization in War and Peace. One of them says to the other, “I let my dad read picture books to me at night, because it makes him happy.”

Seriously, I think reading to your kids is one of the very best things you can do. My mother read me bedtime stories most nights. To this day I love to be read to. In fact when I give somebody a card–for example a birthday card in person-- I always ask them to read it out loud to me.

Reminds me of this scene from an early Sixties political-comedy album.