Telephone Man - Meri Wilson

Lyric:- 'I got it in the bedroom, and I got it in the hall'...

Song Choice:- Well it's a long forgotten hit of 1977 and how times have changed...I don't think the lyrics would pass today and they are very tongue in cheek of course. Back then, as a lad of 15, I'm sure I didn't really get them but I chose this song as it references the Telephone and a great link into today's blog.

Now earlier on, as the new telephone directory was coming through our letterbox, I was just there at the right time to stop it from hitting the doormat and catching it I managed to glide it very neatly down the hall and straight into the kitchen recycling bin, all in one easy motion.

It's amazing isn't it that we just don't (well I don't) use the Telephone Directory or Yellow Pages at all nowadays. In fact, I can't remember the last time I used it. It's a shame as my first job was drawing Yellow Pages adverts for £1.75 an hour back in 1983. The Guy who owned the Studio I worked for became a millionaire from having a team of us knocking out 20+ of them a day for A1-Dial-A-Skip and A1 Taxis etc. for Yellow Pages in Birmingham. Happy and Hard Days for me...A heady atmosphere of Typesetting chemicals, Cow Gum and B&H. We listened to the Beatles Revolver Album and Fleetwood Mac's Tusk Album EVERY day too as those my bosses his favourite albums, and even though played to death back then they are still on my all time list and give me a warm glow of times past.

Anyway, I digress...

You see the thing is we all develop and we all move on. Things that are SO important to us just get left behind. How many JVC VHS recorders, ITT Cassette Players or Nokia 3310's have you used today? We have a drawer of Garmins and old tech that still works yet is old hat. It's kinda sad...yet if you'd said to me in 1983 that my boss would later die at my age of 53 from stress and heart failure and that I would have run 926 marathons by his age of 53. Well I would have said you were dreaming and yet that's exactly what's happened.

Working so hard to be a Millionaire finished him off and who's richer now? What happened to all those adverts?

Well they are ALL in a Landfill and long forgotten...

My message is, don't be a busy fool, don't put all your effort into a Landfill and don't end up six feet under trying, it's just not worth it. Seeing the Yellow Pages today brought all those thoughts back to me.

So please, make sure your legs and not your fingers do the walking, and then you'll still be able to get it in the bedroom and in the hall too :-)

More tomorrow...