On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love said to me: HOOVER!

21 songs and an essay about leftovers

You can listen to this lightweight essay on Mixcloud, read by me, complete with interludes of actual music as specified below, by clicking on this link:

https://www.mixcloud.com/tom-morton2/and-on-the-12th-day-of-christmas-my-true-love-said-to-me-hoover/

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my true love said to me: “Hoover!”

Or in my case, “Henry!” The generic term ‘Hoover’ for ‘vacuum cleaner’ having long fallen out of use except at northern Shetland’s glorious repository of hardware, the BBC (Brae Building Centre), which stocks bags for not just Henry Hoover, but Electrolux Hoover, that French pretender Miéle Hoover, Vax Hoover and Hoover Hoover, among others.

Not Dyson Hoover, which doesn’t have bags (and as a result is, I believe, ineligible for use in medical settings) and despite being a favourite of Susan is hated by me as a triumph of lovely form over ever-breaking content. So it’s (rechargable) Henry on the bottom floor, Evil Dyson on the second, the Wool Republic, full of textile fibres and really not my responsiblility at all.

Yvonne Lyon — We Were Not Made For the Shadows

John Douglas — I Just Want to Go Home

No point in hoovering, of course, until the cards are filed (fewer and fewer every year, thanks to Facebook and death) decorations boxed and the pagan vegetation removed from immediate indoor sight. The 30-year-old artificial tree, bought for £5 in the Ollaberry Shop as an emergency snowbound measure, goes in the under-stair cupboard, along with the school-project decorations, some of them edible (now only by mice) we cannot bear to throw away. The downstairs potted spruce, still flourishing after a mere decade, goes outside to take its chances with the wind, seaspray and the urination of Bad Brad the Roving Sheepdog. Maybe that’s what’s preserved it all this time. Who knows?

Findlay Napier — Wire Burners

Siobhan Miller — Pound a Week Rise

Leftovers are nearly gone, now, apart from the second Christmas cake, which remains pristine and uncut in a tin. At the moment, we’re pondering the removal of all the icing and freezing it for next year. Or eating it. But as both Susan and I are now dieting, or at least not eating so much chocolate, that seems unwise. Speaking of chocolate, the open dishes of Roses and Quality Street (infuriatingly repackaged so you can’t easily identify what you’re unwrapping) have been ransacked for soft centres, so what I assume are the filling-extracting toffees, bad nougat (pronounced nugget in this house) and caramels have gone on the fire. Burn, sugar, burn.

Karine Polwart — I’m Gonna Do It All

Pearlfishers — My Dad the Weatherfan

That unwrapped Christmas pudding will last until next year. The never-ending- panettone (Dolce y Gabbana, no less) is being served for lunch as French toast today. There are four bottles of Yu-lade ginger cordial left over from New Year and I have no idea what to do with them. It’s both illegal and possibly fatal to consume this substance except over Hogmanay. Susan drank almost an entire bottle at the bells and had the world’s worst sugar hangover as a result (Recipé: Dissolve 1.6kg of sugar in four litres of water, boil, add mysterious black bottle); it’s the temperance Buckfast). Good with cheap whisky on a cold day, maybe. We shall see.

Kevin McDermott — Tell Me

Vivien Scotson — Broken Love

Owen McAulay — Evening

Crisps have had to be removed for the safety of my arteries, though the big discovery of this year, thanks to daughter Martha, has been the wondrous taste and texture of Co-op own-brand crisps. Seasalt and Chardonnay, anyone? Take that, Walkers Roast Chicken! And by the way, Co-op wines are, in the plus-£10 range, terrific. Best buyers in the business, so I’m told.

James Edwyn and the Borrowed Band — Gasoline

Lizzie Reid — Bible

But wine or any alcohol at the moment: ugh. This has been a moderate festives, actually, with gifted bottles of rare whisky mounting like stern spiritous sentinels on the sideboard. Can’t believe a 12-year old Macallan is now £80, but there you go. Two 14-year-old Lagavulins await attention. It’s not whisky, it’s medicine, as American customs officials were told (and on sniffing, believed it) during Prohibition.

Lucia and the Best Boys — Let Go

King Creosote — Walter De La Nightmare

For me, it’s a particularly intense celebratory season, as my birthday lurks on Hogmanay, meaning that I have suffered six decades plus of “This present is for Christmas AND your birthday”. So a period of quiet reflection and low consumpotion seems called for. But next week I’m heading south to see the friends and family unable to come to Shetland in these darkest days, so that may not happen. I may partake of a small libation or two. Doing Damp January.

Martha Ffion — The Wringer

Dave Arcari — Whisky in my Blood

Roddy Frame — Surf

Meanwhile, the selection of music that accompanies this brief musing is, as you will have gathered , rather specific in geographic origin, and biased somewhat towards the young. With a scattering of the middle aged and the very old, obviously. Enjoy, and keep eating the panettone. Needs plenty of salt if you do that French Toast thing.

Alex Cornish — Never Before

Alasdair Roberts — The Whole House was Singing

Here’s the complete playlist: