Why we’ve taken a leaf out of Bernie and Elton’s songbook for World Cup
REMEMBER the 1991 Elton John/Bernie Taupin tribute album called ‘Two Rooms’? The title was a reference to the way Elton and Bernie wrote their hits together when they were actually geographically thousands of miles apart.
Bernie wrote the lyrics, then posted them off to Elton, who was sat waiting at his piano on the other side of the world.
Anyway, I’ve come to think of the ‘Two Rooms’ set-up as being the perfect description of married life Chez Kearney during major sporting tournaments.
Husband has taken up a residence on the couch in the front room where he can watch the World Cup to his heart’s content, while I’ve relocated to the back of the house where, safe in the sports-free environs of the kitchen, I can recline on my favourite sofa and channel-hop between ‘Love
Island’ and Netflix.
Between us – and our two TVs – is a thick dividing wall of which even Donald Trump would approve.
I’m not complaining.
Catching up on shows I actually want to watch makes a welcome break from the usual no man’s land of our TV viewing habits. Left to his own devices, Husband would watch sports 24 hours a day, while I’d rather stick needles in my eyes, so we usually just end up watching the news. But now I can even turn the box off altogether, and actually read a book, which seems like a throwback to some late-Victorian parlour scene.
Post-match, we reunite harmoniously in the hallway to compare notes. Good game? I’ll ask. He knows I’m only being polite, so his replies don’t stray much beyond the scoreline. I respond with a short rant about the parlous state of modern family life in affluent tech-fuelled societies, inspired by bingewatching ‘Big Little Lies’ on Sky Atlantic.
And with that, domestic harmony is restored, much like the closing bars of an Elton and Bernie melody. At least until Argentina and Croatia kick off at 7pm.
Sounds to me like mid-life
SPEAKING of Elton John, I’ve been dealing with my own looming mid-life crisis by learning to play ‘Rocket Man’ on the piano, complete with caterwauling attempts to hit the (very) high notes. As far as mid-life crises go, embracing your inner Elton is obviously fairly mild – it’s not exactly up there with buying a Porsche and running off with the poolboy.
But it does make me feel really old. I used to think Elton John symbolised everything that was wrong with the world. As a teenager, I thought he was insufferably bland (think ‘Sacrifice’), irritatingly upbeat (‘I’m Still Standing’) and lazily repetitive (‘Candle in the Wind Mark 2’, anyone?). But now I’m pushing 40, I finally realise what everyone else has always known: he’s a complete genius. Those chords! That voice! That high B flat! As for the ‘Rocket Man’ lyrics, my teenage self just heard a kind of weird song about the loneliness of space travel.
Indeed Taupin is insistent that’s all the song is about, inspired by a Ray Bradbury short story.
But come on, Bernie, really? Are you sure you weren’t thinking about Elton’s serious cocaine habit when you wrote: “I’m going to be high as a kite by then”?
And are you sure that the song isn’t actually about the strange, lunar territory of mid-life, when you wake up one morning and find yourself enjoying Elton John, and realise that you’re definitely not the (wo)man that they think you are at home? That’s what it sounds like to me these days.
And come to think of it, it is a good thing we do have those two rooms, only one of which contains the piano. I’ve noticed my husband browsing soundproofing brochures of late. Can’t imagine why.
Two rooms won’t solve inequality
THE organisers of the annual MacGill Summer School are in hot water for stuffing the festival’s programme to the gills (sorry) with men.
Festival founder Joe Mulholland dug himself further into a hole by explaining that it was difficult to find women with the “right aptitude” to participate in the debates. Groan.
Anyway, once Joe had put his shovel down, there were calls from a number of women to set up an all-female summer school in response.
To my mind, this is a bad idea. The answer to the lack of women in public leadership roles isn’t to set up your own parallel universe. It’s to insist on your place at the table that we all share.
Two rooms might be the answer to football-widow woes, but it isn’t the route to equality.