Post-woodenists throne away

For ten years we've been woodenists, generally choosing real wooden items to use or furnish our home, in preference to MDF or plastic. Butt we've had enough with real wood (and useless) toilet seats. So yesterday we went to Next home furnishings and chose the first bog seat that we liked, following our purchasing policy of kitsch and random, combined with "it's only a toilet seat so we should select one within five minutes". The new seat is now installed, and Frank can practice his newly acquired skill of weeing into a toilet bowl, without the danger of a heavy wooden seat falling down on his ... It's just too awful to even think about. And the old seat? It's throne on the fire, and we're warming out tootsies. Now that's something you can't do with a plastic toilet seat.

And talking about Frank, today we invited him to choose the music, and he randomly picked out some vinyl from my collection. It makes a change from my usual selection of a familiar favourite, and gives an opportunity to re-discover a forgotten treasure. And by chance Frank chose Saint Saens' "Carnival of the Animals", one of only two or three records of music written for children, out of a four feet wide shelf of 12" vinyl. Many familiar tunes, first heard by me as a schoolboy, yet not known at all by our cultured French lodger.

It was enjoyed by all, which is more than can be said for the second random selection, where I pulled out "Grateful Dead" (the skull and roses album for any Deadheads reading this) and randomly played side two, with its single eighteen minute track "The Other One". The opening drum solo was tolerated for about five minutes, before it was turned down as it was curdling the wine and causing the peas to roll across the table. If we lived in a democratic household, the Grateful Dead would have joined the toilet seat on the fire, but I'm a benign dictator and I discretely slipped it back on the shelf. If they had listened to the "Wharf Rat/ Not Fade Away/ Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad" medley on side four they would have shown it more mercy. Given the five-year slumber of my vinyl records, I can hardly wait to discover what Frank plucks out of obscurity tomorrow.