Some verse and links to the four-wheeled Beatcroft Social radio show

First, apologies to all those who couldn’t play last week’s Beatcroft Social Beatles show on Mixcloud. I miscalculated the licence parameters for playing the same artist multiple times – three tracks is the maximum permitted by Mixclooud and I thought it was four. I think the show is available on the 60 North ‘listen again’ podcast, but it may not be. Och weel.

This week’s radio show is available as usual on Mixcloud and 60 North to stream forever from 9.00pm, and makes its debut on the 60 North and Shetland Webcams sites 7-9pm, Friday 26 July. It’s a car special – no shortage of four-wheeled songs, even those born on British roads. I wasn’t prepared for the many songs about Ford Cortinas, though. Only a small selection this time around. Oh, for a 1600E…

Playlist and links at the end of the text, which this week includes two poems. Well, I say poems, I mean pieces of rhyming nonsense. The first is an only marginally exaggerated memoir of my own Vauxhall Viva HB. It wasn’t dumped in the Clyde, at least not by me, but it was bought for £75 and sold for £25. I was stopped just before the Kingston Bridge by two policemen who examined it and collapsed in hysterical laughter when they saw the lack of windscreen wipers, the tyres showing white through the rubber, the smoke belching from the exhaust, the paint peeping in patches through the rust. It still had three months MOT (in 1985, when such things were less rigid).

“Get this thing off the road and rid of it,” one said, sending me on my lurching way. And I did.

Viva Vivas (Jeannie, Quentin and Me – a Tragedy)

I had a girlfriend named Jean

I had to leave her

She wouldn’t ride

In my Vauxhall Viva

She said that she

Couldn’t take any more 

It was something to do

With an absence of floor

She said that she

Could see down to the street

I said it’s safer

To lift up your feet

But she didn’t agree

It was still MOT’d

So she took up with Quentin

And seemed somewhat keener

On his heavily customised 

Lotus Cortina

While I trundled along

On my remoulded tyres 

Until finally my

Vauxhall Viva expired

By the Finnieston ferry

In a puddle of oil

With the radiator 

Beginning to boil

Until that poor vehicle

Finally died

And a cop helped me push it

Down into the Clyde

I found a replacement 

A nice Morris Minor

And drove in search of Jeannie

But I couldn’t find her

For tragically Quentin and she 

were deceased

As that Lotus Cortina 

Had been hit by some geese

And blinded by feathers 

And goose fat and livers

They’d plunged from the Kingston Bridge

Into the river

A tragedy Jeannie

Did not have to choose

If she’d been less concerned 

With the state of her shoes 

The Scottish social cuddle has become ubiquitous, much to my consternation. I mean, I’m quite happy to embrace, in a friendly and platonic manner, people I know well and like, but the casual exchange of hugs or that continental, theatrical (the MacLuvvie manoeuvre) air kissing business is alien to my cold fundamentalist non-conformist soul. The poem’s an exaggeration. But not much. I mean, I gave my wife Susan a peck on the cheek the other week. And we shook hands companionably just yesterday.

The Scottish Social Cuddle (Embracing Caledonia)

Don’t cuddle me

I’m not tactile

I’m as empathetic 

As a pterodactyl 

Air kisses make

My buttocks clench

Social kissing is best

Left just for the French

I barely know you

Please understand 

I’m quite content

To shake your hand

Firmly and briefly

No unexpected

Gropings, and please

Get disinfected

A distant wave 

Or a text is better 

An email, WhatsApp 

Or even  a letter

Though frankly

I would be content 

If messages 

Were never sent

I’m not religious 

But I like schism

Though I prefer

Pure solipsism 

Happy to think

I’m on my own

As Greta said, please

Leave me alone

And if this is hard

To understand 

All I can say is

Welcome to Scotland…

You can listen to the new Beatcroft Social as every Friday, between 7.00pm and 9.00pm on 60 North Radio and the Shetland Webcams website, and stream it after 9.00pm on the 60 North Listen again page or via my Mixcloud site.

Prince — Little Red Corvette

The Clash — Brand New Cadillac

Bruce Springsteen — Pink Cadillac

Kings of Leon — Camaro

Commander cody and His Lost Planet Airmen — Hot Rod Lincoln

Tracey Chapman — Fast Car

Jackson Browne — Running on Empty

Tom Robinson Band — 2-4-6-8 Motorway

Luke Maddison — Ford Cortina

Jean — Blue Ford Cortina

Tom Robinson Band — Grey Cortina

Billy Bragg — From a Vauxhall Velox

The First Class — Vauxhall Chevette

Richard Thompson — MGB-GT

The Who — Jaguar

Woody Guthrie — Car song

Jackie Brenston — Rocket 88

David Lindley — Mercury Blues

Gilllian Welch — Pass You By

Kathy Mattea — 455 Rocket

Elizabeth Cook — El Camino

Grandaddy — El Caminos in the West

Ry Cooder — Ridin’ with the Blues

Ry Cooder — Drive Like I Never Been Hurt

Bruce Springsteen — Racing in the Street

Canned Heat — On the Road again

Arcade Fire — Keep the Car Running

Prefab Sprout — Cars and Girls

Melissa Etheridge — You Can Sleep While I Drive

Mary Gauthier — Drag Queens and Limousines

Fatima Mansions — Only Losers Take the Bus

Queen — I’m in Love with my Car