Washing Up (From Western Telegraph)

Washing Up

1:24pm Friday 24th July 2009

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I have moved out of the family home/shop and into a flat with my boyfriend and one of our friends. Unfortunately, neither The Boy nor The Roomie (as our new flatmate will be referred to on the blog) are those mythical creatures who enjoy cleaning, and more specifically, washing up. Although, to be fair, they're good at doing it despite not wanting to. We don't live in filth or anything. I'm definitely not one of those people either, and, while we're on the subject, I've never met one and remain unconvinced that these people exist. If anyone knows one, though, please invite them to come and sleep on our futon and do our washing up in return for lots of pasta. The Roomie is an excellent cook.

Anyway, back on the subject, one of the things that is not so good about the new flat compared to the family home is the absence of a dishwasher. So I have to wash up, which I'm not thrilled about. I'm lazy, I know; I do actually do it, though (albeit unenthusiastically) so it could be worse. I have however, discovered while using my fancy new iPod dock (thanks Mum!) with my iPod on shuffle that there are some encouraging songs to listen to while washing up, which makes the experience slightly more enjoyable.

The first song to come on while I was washing up the other day was Primal Scream's Moving On Up, which is highly recommended as a menial jobs soundtrack. I was infused with some enthusiasm for the task at hand (not a lot of enthusiasm, but any is a good sign for this situation). This was followed by Doesn't Make It Alright by The Specials, an excellent band to listen to for injection of perkiness, and then Jamming by Bob Marley.

A few slower things came on after those three, but I couldn't really fiddle with the iPod while wearing rubber gloves covered in bubbles. I did notice a slight slow-down in my productivity though; although Tender by Blur is a very lovely song, it doesn't inspire speedy movement.

So I've decided to make a washing up playlist for myself. Following my, ahem, extensive research, I've decided that this playlist should be primarily comprised of ska and reggae, because both of these genres are home to a lot of perky songs. I may enlist my sister to help me with this, she's much cooler than me. This will be complemented by a bit of hip hop, possibly Roots Manuva, simply because I'm in love with him and put his music on all of my playlists, and definitely some Primal Scream.

For some inexplicable reason I love making playlists, it's an amazing activity for procrastinating, because it can take ages. I often do it while I should be doing more productive things, like, for example, blogging. I have to listen to bits of all the songs that I'm considering putting on the playlist so it can take shocking amounts of time. Aside from being a useful method of procrastination, it's interesting to listen back to playlists that I've made a while ago to see what frame of mind I was in at the time. Anything from Amy Winehouse's Back to Black album is generally indicative of having argued with The Boy. I'm far too predictable.