Broken Records

The whinging had reached a peak. 
“Oh you sound like a broken record!” I heard myself mutter and then pondered its meaning through the childrens’ eyes. 
Indeed as a child I imagine I considered it meant breaking a Guinness Book of Records record and that was in the day when John Lennon vinyls religiously rotated the turntable as part of mum’s Monday morning housework ritual. 
Today’s kids, no doubt, have zero idea what a record is, nor the subsequent tape for that matter. Perhaps someone should’ve coined the phrase “You sound like a skipped disc” for the generation that followed. But that would still be no good for today’s kids who’ve grown up with the ipod as the norm. 
Speaking of “old-fashioned” entertainment devices, I stumbled upon a stack of my old favourite childhood videos the other day. Keen to show the kids the movie Labyrinth, I popped it in the machine, only to be met with the startling sight of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch belting out their rendition of Good Vibrations. This was followed by the brightly-hued Salt and Pepper girl band raunching around the stage to Push it. An ad break revealed a very young Jason Gunn, Simon Barnett and Robbie Rakete which I found strangely disconcerting, before switching it off. 
Clearly, in my following teenage years, I had decided recording RTR Countdown rated over Labyrinth. 
I popped in Annie. 

“The Sun’ll come out, tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun,” belted out the little carrot top. 
Hurray! Miss Four’s face lit up as her Annie book came to life and she was particularly delighted the main character had orange hair like her. The boys, despite themselves, sat transfixed throughout the movie until Daddy Warbucks and Miss Farell had a pash at the end, at which time, they both took leave in feigned disgust. 
“Mum, are they having a marry party (wedding)?” Miss Four asked, still enthralled by the movie and clapping her hands with glee. 
“No, they’re just celebrating because they got to keep Annie,” I explained. “They get married after.” 
“But when do they get married? How do you know they get married?” 
“They get married later. It just doesn’t show it in the movie.” 
“But how do you know?” 

“I just know ok?” 
“But how do you know?” 
Oh, you sound like a broken record …