Wednesday, March 03, 2004 SAVE IT FOR LATER Damn. Damn. Damn. Finally bought a stupid English Beat best of collection (along with a copy of their beautiful second album, Wh’appen) in order to have a nice clear copy of Save It For Later. But the version on here is the shorter single version without the lovely, lengthy string quartet and piano coda. I am fuming mad for two reasons: 1) The English Beat appears to be disappearing. As with my previous search for the now-completely-gone gem “Which Side of the Bed”, I am frustrated to find a startling absence of gloriously repackaged remastered original albums with extra tracks, copiously annotated box sets or even charming little b-side collections. Nothing. Some guy in the record store even told me that Special Beat Service has been discontinued in Canada. 2) I have now bought all of the domestic English Beat on cassette when I was what, 18? And then re-bought it all on L.P. And then bought expensive import LPs of the same records to get those long-gone extended versions and b-sides. And I even had a downloaded MP3 of the long version of Save It For Later. And where are all these things? Gone! They floated away down the river of music. And so do any of you have an MP3 of the long version that you can post somewhere for me to download? Pretty please? * * * Tuesday, March 02, 2004 MY FATHER IN PARIS DURING THE OCCUPATION Did I ever tell you about my father? Oh, the stories! Well, later, dears. But I was talking to him on the phone the other day about my upcoming trip to Paris to celebrate my fifth anniversary with Killer. My father dotes on Killer. And he dotes on Paris, having spent some time there as a young German soldier during the occupation. Pop had an awful time of the Second World War, but for the time he spent in Paris. “And the girls at the Moulin Rouge!” he said. Heavy German accent. “And the food! I ate so much of, uh, of...” He’s 83 now, and forgetting spots of English here and there. “What’s that animal that lives in the vineyard with his house on his back?” It took me a moment. “Snails? Oh, escargot.” “Ya! Escargot! I ate buckets of escargot.” And this; “I suppose you are flying over there.” “Uh, yeah. Of course.” “Completely wrong. Incorrect. You should of course take a ship.” * * *