weebles wobble but they don't fall down

[freckles_and_doubt]

Memory is a weird thing. Why should it be, as I inexorably age, that I should nonetheless retain a vivid, almost tactile memory of sitting on the steps by the lower hockey field when I was 10 years old, watching a circle of my contemporaries play a clapping game? It wasn't a significant moment, and I have no memory of any of the contemporaries. And when I think of my grandparents' house in Harare, why is it always the bookcase by the door between the dining room and sitting room that I remember first? I mean, yes, it was full of science fiction, but so were at least two other bookshelves in the same area.

This waywardness is clearly behind the sudden desperate need, a few weeks back, to find a picture of a toy I randomly remember owning when I was 6 or 7 - a little plastic egg-shaped man with a weight in his curved bottom so he wobbled from side to side, but never quite fell over. I remember this distinctly - the plastic was flesh-coloured and slightly moulded, except for the base, which was a clear, bright primary colour. I think we had two, one with a blue base and one with a red. I spent an unfruitful few hours on Google, combining all the search terms I could think of except, for some reason, for "wobble", and coming up with nothing. Then I randomly saw a reference to them on someone's blog today. Of course they were called weebles. Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. 1970s weebles were clearly superior to the glossier, unmoulded later ones, which also came out in Disney characters and gods know what else. Judging from the photos, either my memory is defective or my weebles were some sort of southern African knock-off, I'm sure their heads were more pointy.

It seems a little disproportionate that I can clearly remember my weeble but am completely unable to recollect the name or business of the student I saw yesterday. Memo to self: do not allow the dean to guess that my subconscious clearly finds students less interesting than weebles.

Comments

[scroobious (from livejournal.com)]

And suddenly I understand where Weebl & Bob come from. Hurrah!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Bollocks. Now I want to watch Weebl & Bob, and can't because of our pitiful excuse for bandwidth. Phooey.

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

My guess is that the dean, or at least a majority of your colleagues, would secretly agree with you. Better not let on, just in case, though. The previous sentences, have too many commas.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Commas are people too, and should be patted on the head occasionally. I invariably write using too many of them, and then have to go through and weed them out. Gently and lovingly.

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

It's a long established trend that people have very clear memories of things which happened many years ago, but what happened yesterday . . . ?

& it's hitting the Dean & your other colleagues at least as much as you. More if they're older.

Think a guy called Satre famously wrote about it after tea & cakes.

Besides which, Weebles may well be more interesting than some of the students. But I should let him tell you that!

[schedule5.livejournal.com]

I just called them wobbly men. I had a playground with a slide and roundabout that they fitted into.

Mine were definitely moulded, but they were painted too.