Black Rod

"We're off on the Road To Sheffield... " I'm sure there was a Bob Hope film called that, but I can't place it right now. The best part of 5 hours on the train with nothing to do except look at the cows in the fields and ponder the mysteries of life. Here's a curious thing.
We've just passed Kettering. Just as I was pondering the death of ambition, we've just passed Kettering.... What the fuck use is Kettering? Where's Kettering on the Monopoly board? It's the sort of thing to turn a man religious. You know, that old gag where you ask God for proof of his existence and say 'Just give me a sign' and it starts to thunder and there's lightening and you stand there saying 'Just give me a sign' . Exactly. As I type the words 'the death of ambition we go through Kettering. No disrespect, like.
Anyway. So I was thinking. (Yeah, I know. It was a Christmas present). The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. Is it true? OK. Not 'Is it true?' but more 'It's true for me'. When I was younger, so much younger than today, I was full of inquisitive concern. I'd be aware. On top of things. Full of resource. Now? Now, no. I think it was the Black Rod story that did it for me. Not that I know anything about it. Not that I read about it or talked to anyone about it. And maybe that's the point. Once upon a time, I'd have read and talked. Made funny comments and witty gags. Feigned world-weary cynicism while buying in to the whole thing. Now it's gone. I don't want anything to do with it. I don't care who Black Rod is. I don't want to know who Black Rod is. I don't want anything to do with Black Rod. I know, instinctively, that Black Rod and all who sail in him is a lot of old bollocks. That it means nothing. I know that there are pages and pages of newspaper written about him/it, that there are yards of column inches about him/it - maybe indeed by him, that there have been God knows how many minutes of radio chat where some John Humphrys character does that public school bully routine that passes for a political interview thing with him. The Today programme. More boorish bollocks where adult conversation is reduced to three minute segments of shouty macho rabbit. (Maybe it's all a gag. i don't know). I'm not entirely sure whether it gave up on me or I gave up on it. Whether I lost interest in the world or the world lost interest in me, I don’t know. There are questions, but you know, I just don’t care. And, it's a curious thing, but it’s all quite liberating. Here I am, aged 22, and I find myself uninterested - genuinely - in the outside. (This is difficult, not least because I've chosen to make the diminishing return that I still laughingly call my living in newspapers). I can't look at a newspaper without thinking it bollocks. I can't listen to the news without knowing that it's just lies - and lies that are irrelevant to my life. I can't read a columnist without... No, forget it. I just can't read a columnist. Is it age? Is it middle class complacency? The thoughts of an inwardly-obsessed parent? Which kind of brings us back to Kettering – except that Kettering is back there and we’re coming up to Derby.
So what do we do? What do we do in the space where Real People have their Black Rod? Escape into a fantasy world maybe. Live a life that's got one foot in the real - the school run and all who sail in her - and an Alice In Wonderland life in the head. A secret life. Actually, that's not so strange. I had a curious story recently where I... No, maybe we'll save that for another trip. But the point is that if l'il ole me can have one of those, well, anything is possible.

Rod schmod. So now I'm of to Sheffield to see a Rod of a different hue. Rod Stewart. A hotel for £34 and in. No cinema. I fell for Rod back in 197whatever it was - 2? I'd just bought Maggie May from Rhythm and Blues on Stamford Hill, a strange little shop that had been placed - dropped - in this predominantly middle-class Jewish ghetto. Sitting in between Losner's dress hire shop and the E&A salt beef bar, it was a record shop unlike any record shop I knew. It sold soul, Stax, R&B and ska but mainly anything with a rock steady beat and you'd walk in there off the street, opening the door trepidaciously and there'd be smoke (nothing dodgy I think, just smoke) and this incessant "boom tchig-a, boom tchig-a" of the beat and these black geezers in trilbys hanging around. I was used to Hassids in Homburgs, the streets were full of them, but this was new. It's funny the things that stay with you, but I remember sneaking into this strange place, standing around uncomfortably before scuttling off. Anyway, I bought Maggie May there and got home and played it - was it still the red Dansette or the white Fidelity Unit 4? - and that was OK. I knew it obviously. But played the flipside and that was me. I was hooked. "If I waited long enough for you. I'd find a way to believe that it's true. Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried. But I've got to find a reason to believe."Sheffield. Odds on, there's someone on this address list who was born in Sheffield, who fell in love in Sheffield, who had their first snog in Sheffield but blimey. With respect. Sheffield? Still. It could have been worse. Ronan Keating was also playing in Sheffield.