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I lived in Aix-en-Provence for a year in 1997-98, and on the radio constantly was a version of Chumbawamba's Tubthumping which they had sung in French. Once I left France I told people all about this, but could never find any recording of it anywhere. I have spent 12 years trying to prove that this existed, and this morning I have made the momentous discovery.
It's Father's Day, the day every year I try not to get too bitter at having lost him.
When I was a kid, sometimes during half-term holidays I used to go to his work with him, when he was a German lecturer.
One day I sat in his class when they were doing an aural comprehension exercise, which in this case involved listening to a song and answering questions about it.
To keep me from too much boredom, I joined in with the class and listened to the song on headphones, and for some reason it totally captivated me. I made him put it on a tape for me and I listened to it again and again through my early childhood. My obsession with listening endlessly to quirky and odd pieces of music still hasn't waned to this day.
Then I remember coming home from University once and asking Dad if he still had the song on tape anywhere. He hunted round, found it and played it, and we listened to it again. This time, I asked what it was about, and it was totally disillusioning to find out that it's pretty reprehensible. The gist of it is a man telling his children not to play with the gypsy children in the woods, because they were naughty and dirty, but to play with their brothers instead. I was gutted, that this song I had so adored, was so offensive.
But, for the sake of nostalgia, here it is. My genius brother found this and we're pretty sure it's the very version we used to listen to.
'Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern' sung by Franz-Josef Degenhardt.
If you're running short of toilet paper, why not try the 100% recycled Shit Be Gone! That is seriously its name. I do like it when you know where you are with a product, and exactly what it will do!
I'm sure I'm not the only one whose teenage years were characterised by Judy Blume and all her books and characters. Interesting to see, then, that two of her books have been updated to reflect more recent practise in sexual health. And one of them's Forever, which was the one we all thought was exceedingly rude. Ah, the innocence!