31 Days of Blogging - Day 29

Day 29 – Goldfrapp – Strict Machine



As I’ve already told you, Mrs PM and I do not share the same taste in music at all. The good news is, however, that we do have the odd song in common that we both like.

Strict Machine is another one of them.

For me the song has a style takes me back to the early 1980’s and a time I have already described that I am fiercely nostalgic for.

For Mrs PM, it is just another pop song she likes.

We needed some music that we had in common; particularly when we were working on our new house.

As I said in the previous post, we bought our house in 2002 and it needed some work. It needed more than just “some” work – it needed LOADS.

It is an old three bedroomed Edwardian terrace built in 1906 and is a bit like Dr Who’s TARDIS. From the front it looks small but when you open the door it just goes back and back.

The previous occupants were an old couple who didn’t have much money to spend on the house. They sold up because the area where I live is a fairly popular area and the housing boom meant that the house was worth a lot more than they had paid for it originally. The moved to a smaller, cheaper house on the outskirts of Stockport and made a fair amount of profit I believe.

Sadly, the house was not decorated to our taste. Every room was covered in woodchip.

The main bedroom was like a cave. The walls were painted a dark avocado green and the old couple, when they moved out, took all of the bulbs with them and replaced them with useless low wattage excuses for bulbs.

“What have we done?” asked Mrs PM as we struggled to see each other that first night.

“We’ll sort it out,” I said.

And we have – well sort of.

The main bedroom was first. We stripped all of the wallpaper, replaced the horrific carpet, plastered the room and bought loads of new furniture.

The main living room was next. Originally it had an awful fake brick façade straight out of the 1970’s. We smashed it all down, bought a new mantelpiece and fire, new carpet, new furniture, new wallpaper etc..

And so it went on. Every year since then we have had some major work done to the house including a new bathroom, new kitchen and lots of plastering.

Finally – FINALLY – it is in a state that Mrs PM is happy with.

I have been throwing cash at builders, decorators, furniture stores, carpet stores, DIY stores and all manner of other people to get the house in good state.

Of course, we have contributed hard work ourselves. And this is where the tiny overlap in our musical tastes has helped.

When I am painting or doing anything like that I NEED music to keep me sane. Sadly, playing heavy metal and rock music has a negative effect on Mrs PM.

“If you play ONE MORE SONG from Dream Theater I will pour that pot of paint over your head.”

My reaction was similar except the main artist to drive me nuts was Lady Gaga – or J Lo – or the Black Eyed Peas – you get the drift.

In the end we just played stuff that we both liked. The problem is that Mrs PM gets fed up of old music really quickly so now we have another approach to our problem.

When we are in the car driving somewhere that involves a journey of say an hour or two, we take it in turns playing three songs each. That way we endure around fifteen minutes of Hell followed by fifteen minutes of Heaven.

Sadly this has had a bad effect on me – like walking down the street and suddenly, out of the blue singing Lady Gaga songs:

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

before realising what I am doing and then screaming “SHIT!!! WHAT AM I DOING????” to alarmed passers-by.

I just hope that Mrs PM suffers from the same embarrassing affliction.