Dang Magic

My parents have a great photo of my great uncle looking in disbelief as a polaroid photo that my father had just taken of him developed right before his very eyes.

Now, it has to be said that Great Uncle Jeffery liked to march to the beat of his own drum. He was never one to embrace technology and generally preferred his own company to that of others.

Unless of course he was to call you.

The length of his phone calls were legendary. I remember my father being able to get through an entire lunch whilst Jeff was on the end of the phone, making the odd acknowledging 'I'm-sounding-like-I'm-listening-even-though-I'm-not-listening-very-carefully' noises in between bites. And then he'd happily  pass the phone to my mother who would manage to get through what seemed like afternoons of ironing with the phone crooked into her neck.

Another one of Great Uncle Jeffery's interesting foibles was that he was incredibly tight. Spanx had nothing on this guy. The story goes that he cancelled The Listener when it went up to 52 cents (UPDATE: my sister tells me it was actually 25 cents!). Kind of ironic since he could have probably bought the magazine if he'd so desired.

I believe he left most of his money to one of the local hospitals when he died. There is now a wing bearing his name - and one day I shall go and steal a kidney dish and feel totally guilt free about it.

I have to point out that today's blog wasn't meant to be a wander down memory lane with Great Uncle Jeffery, it was going to be all about the new Shazam app I have on my phone. I'll save it for next time. Needless to say it brought that look of disbelief to my face that Great Uncle Jeffery was wearing when he saw himself develop in that photograph all those years ago.

I  wonder what his reaction to this app would have been, had he been around?

Possibly, 'You have telephones that don't have cords?'