Could you help me to destroy my school, please?

John
Becky is an eight-year-old from Dublin who wants to destroy her school.

The accents are a little tricky for foreigners like me, so here’s a transcript of Becky’s call to the demolition company:

– Hello, who do you call?
– Hi! Is that the demolition place?
– It is, yes.
– Could you help me to destroy my school, please?
– Just bear with me a second.
– Hello?
– Hi.
– Where- What school do you go to?
– I go to a school in Dublin.
– And you want it demolished?
– Yeah
– Ha ha ha
– Do you use a big wrecking ball or how do you knock it down?
– A big wreck- a big ball.
– Right.
– Hold on one wee second, please.
– Hello
– How are you? My name is Becky.
– Yes?
– I have a proposal for you.
– Go ahead
– Are you the demolition man?
– Yes.
– You’re the top boss, yeah?
– Go ahead, what’s the fact? … hello?
– I want you to help me destroy my school
– You wanna blow it up?
– Could you blow it up or knock it down?
– Whatever. Whatever. Whatever you want done.
– I’ll blow it up! That would be better. Could you make sure that all my teachers are in there when you knock it down?
– I don’t know if I’d get away with that, I don’t know.
– Ah, you will! Nobody likes ’em.
– Ha!
– They give me extra homework on a Friday and everything.
– Where are you calling from?
– From Dublin.
– What- Where- What school in Dublin?
– The one that’s about to fall down.
– There’s a lot of schools in Dublin about to fall down.
– And how much would it cost to knock it to the ground?
– It depends on how big it is.
– Give me a ball park finger… figure
– … ha ha ha… “give me a ball park finger!”… ha ha ha… oh geez!
– Is this a demolition company or a joke factory?
– It’s a joke factory at the moment. It’s a joke factory…
– Listen, are you gonna come and knock my school down or what?
– Actually can you fax me through a photograph or a site plan or something?
– Right. I’ll fax it through. A plan of the school and my teachers’ names.
– Yeah. No problem. Yeah.
– And you just make sure that they’re all in the building when you knock it down!
– You put all of the names on it, I’ll give you a page for each individual teacher.
– Yeah. Brilliant!
– Yeah!
– When the school falls down? Will it make a crash or a wallop?
– Will start fire on both sides or make a big bang!
– Sounds good. Oh listen, I’ll talk to you later, top man.
– Same. Good luck, page. You look after yourself.
– Fill your boots, man!
– Eh? Good luck. He he!
– See you after!

Those were the days…

John

Looking for something to post, I came across a series of pages I saved many years ago from a now-defunct website. They listed the Number 1 songs in Australia from 1949 to 1972. Some of them also included the Number 1’s in the USA and the UK.

I’ve chosen 1960. I turned ten that year, and I actually remember (and love) a lot of the songs that we used to hear on the radio. It’s interesting to see that Australia often seemed to trail behind the other two countries.

Click to see the full-sized image.

“Cleveland”, 200 Barkers Road, Hawthorn

John

This house was built for my great-great-grandfather in 1888. The name came from Cleveland Terrace – a row of shops with residences above – in Bath, England, where he lived as a child.

“Cleveland” is now on the market for around nine million dollars. In 1980 I was privileged to have a personal tour of the house just before it was auctioned for $202,000 - which seemed a huge amount in those days, but pales into insignificance compared to its present value.

Judging from the video, there have been major additions and much refurbishment since 1980, and I wonder how much of the house my grandfather, who was ten years old when the family moved there, would remember.

I have a photo of my grandfather and his twin brother standing next to the corner veranda post.