I was exactly the kind of guy who’d be seen at a place like this. It's 4.15pm and it's Sunday. Outside the rain is drizzling like it wants to rain but can't be bothered. Limbs ache, wishing they were 22 and not 32 and I feel like whatever it is I've been doing, well maybe it's about time I stopped doing it. The grief is that I know that if I feel like this next week, it will be a bonus. A right result, as we might have once said. The coffee I've been waiting for still feels like the first of the day, even though it's the third (or maybe fourth) cup of the day. Or maybe not even the first. Next comes the toast. It was only an idea to eat. Sustenance. As far as ideas go, it wasn't a bad one. Ideas.
“Did you order me a coffee?”
Alison. She looked how I felt. Actually if I looked how I felt I’d be happy.
I stopped writing and looked up. Good. She looked how I felt and though I probably also looked how I felt, it made things seem so much better. Loneliness is a terrible thing.
“This bread… it’s something else” I said to her. “It’s your worst white slice nightmare. It looks like a real loaf of bread but there’s nothing there. It’s air and water. Where’s the flour? Where’s the yeast? Where’s the…”
“The soul. Go on, say it. Where’s the soul. Then, when you say that, you can have a bit of a rabbit about how it’s a reflection of Japanese society. Looks good, contains nothing.”
“And bread is the food of life and… “
“Yeah yeah. Bollocks bollocks bollocks. Did you order me a coffee?”
“Of course I ordered you a coffee. You asked me to order coffee, so I ordered coffee.”
“Good. I guess it’s that empty cup there.”
I smiled and she smiled. A familiar scene.
“If I order myself another one then you can have it. We’ll be quits then.”
“OK. So if you do that, I’ll order you another one and you’ll still owe me. You know I like it that way.” We’d talked ourselves into a corner neither of us knew much about and neither of us cared about and there wasn’t anything to do but drink the coffees. Somehow on a day like this, writing gibberish letters to people who’d know nothing of their contents seemed a suitable task.
Our coffees came and the relief that they brought dried up the conversation. Part of the relief. So we drank our coffee and looked at the toast which seemed no more appealing now than it had done when it was first brought over. Big thick lumps of bread. Sometimes the idea of food is better than the food. Maybe one day I’ll find a restaurant where you can order food and you don’t eat it and you don’t pay for it. You could order wild vegetable dishes or exotic and body distressing local specialities without having to endure the eating or the next day grief. A few coffees later and we’d got no further.
So now the rain was coming down. The rain in Tokyo is different to the rain anywhere else. It creates a mirror everywhere. The cars, all clean and shiny reflect against the shop windows which are all clean and bright and they both throw back the reflection of the garish neon which exists in even the sidest of side streets so that everything reflects on everything else and into everything else. Vetrification they call it in the floor cleaning game. You know those floors made of marble slab tiles that are impossibly shiny and sparkly? That’s vetrification. They lay ordinary marble and take the top layer off it with a major wire wool rotating brush so that it all clean. Like a reptile constantly shedding its skin. Like Tokyo.
I’d probably go through the old Apocalypse Now thing if Alison hadn’t beaten me to it.
“Tokyo. Shit” she said.
I was just thinking that. Martin Sheen and helicopter fans. Tokyo. Shit.
“When I was there I couldn’t wait to get out. When I was out, all I could think about was how to get back there,” I said in my best Martin Sheen voice. His own mother wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if she’d had been sitting in her own bedroom. My mazel, it would probably turn out that she lived somewhere closer than Japan.
“What?”
“Apocal ... nah, doesn’t matter. You just got up?” I said.
“If I’d had got as far down so I needed to get up I wouldn’t have been able to get up at all.”
I only knew what that meant because I felt the same way myself. That old ACE feeling.
“So what’s the story then. Letters day?” she said. “Yeah, it’s important to keep in touch with the old life.”
--------------
One slice, maybe two inches thick and cut into three pieces, like cubes of hot bread or angular doorsteps. I tear into it lethargically - biting is impossible. My mouth is the wrong shape.
Around me in the cafe, people are sitting reading the papers. And the scene is the same as everywhere else in the world. They are turned to the sports pages, checking to see how their boys have done.
Everyone has their tales of glory, their tales of woe. “He’s an ordinary geezer, doesn’t seem to have any grief”. But it’s not true. Everyone has their grief. Well, everyone here does anyway. Everybody everywhere does. Family grief. Parental grief. Boy grief. Girl grief. Body grief. Mind grief. Grief grief.
Another cigarette. Having another cigarette wasn’t so much a decision as a move designed to put off having to make a decision because you know any other decision will probably be wrong and definitely not really worth the effort.
Last night. About last night. There was an acronym - A.C.E. – we used which made us laugh anyway. We’re going to have an ace night. A night out in the company of acid, cocaine and ecstasy. A.C.E. Last night was supposed to be ace. But then every night is supposed to be ace. It got blown out of the water when Mark came in with some smack. That added an ‘H’ - and all we were left with was an ache. But, it’s getting better.
--------------------------------------------
More coffee arrives. People carrying umbrellas walk past. I’m wearing a pink sweatshirt cut off just above the elbow. It is emblazoned with the legend “Chanel - Paris” but no one can see it because it’s inside out. On my legs are a pair of Thai fisherman’s trousers held up by a brown leather belt. My shoes are local specialities called Jika Tabi - black canvas boots which fasten at the back with maybe 15 hook and eye things and which the big toe separated like a foot mitten. They are very comfortable and to your eyes, a little eccentric. The whole ensemble is what you might call ‘witty’. Last night was still here...
..." "Don't let me stop you." So I wrote "... waiting for another coffee" and put my pen down again. You know where you stand with creativity.
------------------
About last night. I remember the way I used to go out. Say, for example, I was supposed to go out at 10. I’d have a bath at 6, a long bath, wash my hair and spend the next two hours poodling around doing my hair and sorting out which clothes to wear. Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night? A job? A serious friend? A serious job? I had a suit for each and knew exactly which one would do for each need. The fact that they were all black and baggy and double breasted and made by the same geezer mattered not a jot to anyone but me. I knew and I felt right in each one in a different way. That took me up to about 8ish. Then I’d spend some time on the phone, checking out what the score really was and then I’d spend the next 30 or 40 minutes changing the suit to meet the new requirement. Five minutes before leaving the house, I’d change back to the suit that I always wore. The black baggy one. Dependable and comfortable. Sometimes I’d lay three or four out on my bed, each with a tie and compare and go through different combinations.
Here, things are a bit different. No, maybe that’s misleading. They’re not really different. There isn’t the clothing dilemma, largely because there are no clothes to speak of. How can you deliberate about which suit to wear when you’ve only got one suit? So what do you do? You end up trying to change your inside because you can’t change your outside. Drugs is the new deal. The questions are the old questions. Where were we going? What type of people were going to be there? What impression did I want to create? Did I want a friend for a night, a job, a serious friend? A tab of acid? Maybe a speed cap and half a tab? And a line of coke. A little bit of ketamine. Take half a tab now and half when you get there. And more speed. What the point? The result was always the same - to fuck up your mind. What do you want to do? Become someone else? Altered states. Jump around like a monkey. More or less the same as altered suits. More or less.
CHAPTER THREE
“How long have you been here?” I said to Tonya. I’d been there about six months and he’d been there longer than me. It’s funny. It sounded like I was asking about a prison sentence or something.
“Nah, I only came about a month or so before you. Sometimes it feels like forever but it feels like home, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean. You think you’ll know when enough is enough? When it’s time to stop the madness?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think,” said James, “he means ‘What the fuck are we doing dressed up like this?’”
James had a point. Coming out of your room at The Palace was always a treat. You never quite knew what was going to happen. Tonya and James were sweet lads, an Aussie and a Brit. Both up for it, both nice boys on holiday. But James had a point.
They were trussed up in leather, in I don’t know, the sort of lederhosen you’d get in a sex shop if sex shops sold lederhosen. Maybe a Bavarian sex shop that catered for the S&M crowd. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only kind of sex shop you got in Bavaria.
Sometimes I didn’t know whether we were on Candid Camera or whether it was for real. Maybe it was one of those Japanese game shows where you had to undergo strange acts of sadism. There was that Clive James used to present called Endurance, I think. I used to write about them, thought they were rubbish, laughing at the funny foreigners. Curiously, I went from writing about them to appearing on one of them once. No, but really.
Poppy
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
A brief interlude
And talking of Bauhaus, any of yous guys heard of The Horrors? They used to be photos waiting to happen, skinny boys who’d once seen a picture of The Cramps and figured (not unreasonably) that that was the way to go. Bryan Gregory. What was that about? And the idea that Mark E Smith and Kid Congo Powers were best mates still makes me smile. Anyway, The Horrors looked like kids let loose in their mum’s dressing up box and made music to suit. Silly music. Music that they thought they should be making. All noise, no soul. Anyway, they disappeared. No one knew, they just did. But they’ve just made a new album and there’s a single free to download and it’s mighty fine. Like they’ve stopped listening to US garage punk and started listening to Neu. A lot of Neu. I used to love Neu. They were part of that Seventies Krautrock thing, but they always seemed to be a really low rent version. None of your Stockhausen influences, none of that let’s all live in a commune and have a spiritual awakening or, at least, some muesli and a shag. No, it was all ‘hit a groove and kick in’. And this Horrors song has clearly borrowed that. There’s the chugga chugga motorik thing going on and it goes on and on and... You know what? Why don’t I just listen to Neu?
Chapter 2
We’re going to Tokyo and we’re going to stay in The Maharajah Palace. You’ve gotta laugh. There’s a kind of inconsistency there that appealed. If I’d have thought of Tokyo and play some sort of word association game, I’d have come up with words like hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again. I’m not sure the words maharajah and palace would have come up in the top 100.
OK. Let’s turn it round the other way. If the words Maharajah Palace don’t make you think of hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again Tokyo, what did they make you think of? Opulence. Grandeur. Exotic baubles, rubies and emeralds and gold, great swathes of elaborately embroidered cloth, shimmering with their gaudiness. Probably not rusty corrugated metal and ramshackle wood. Probably not some pre-fab held up by its own indecision as to which bit should collapse first. If I’d have seen the place – regardless of where it was – I don’t think I’d have been helped. If I’d have seen the place I might have come up with Large Garden Shed. Or Decrepit Old Shack. Or Complete Fucking Dump. Maharajah Palace. It was probably funny once.
The Palace was a zoo. Well, not even a zoo. In a zoo, the animals have some kind of morality. In the Palace… that very concept was kinda dubious.
If you were the romantic type, you might say it was a rogue’s gallery. If you were a realist, you might want to move to somewhere a bit more hi-tech and shiny. Me, I thought it was charming.
It had the air of a hideaway, a place where people were… well, not exactly on the run. That’s a bit too pulp fiction, a bit too romantic, but it was definitely somewhere that felt outside the boundaries, somewhere the normal rules didn’t apply. There were probably other rules that applied.
A few years later, I was hanging out with a Norwegian girl there. I remember talking to her and a bloke called Mark, who the house doctor at the time. Elke was a sweetie, a poppet, but she was very clean living and fresh. It wasn’t so much that she was naïve, it was just that she hadn’t really considered the options before.
“How many people here don’t take drugs?” she said to Mark.
Mark thought a bit. “You must have had something… sometime… haven’t you?”
Like I say, she hadn’t really considered her options. It didn’t take her long to re-adjust, but that’s another story.
----------------------------
It was clear from the off that they knew Graham. Whoever these people were, and there were a lot of people in this place, whoever they were they knew Graham. And they were steering clear.
I could see them looking. I could hear them talking. Some just turned away. Others pretended not to have seen anything. Others were more upfront.
“You’re fuckin’ back, are you? Didn’t think we’d see you again.”
There were a few like that. A couple of faces said “What you got? I’m in Room 24.”
Mostly though, people said stuff like “Hi” or “Good to see you” or “You stayin’ long?” and all the time they all meant “Just leave me alone, please. Just leave me alone.”
I didn’t get it really. OK, he was a bit mad, a loose canon, but people reacted to Graham like he was a paid-up psychopath, a serious bad man. Dunno. He was OK with us. He sorted out a room for me and Ben “Listen, I’ll get you a room, be OK if I just leave my bags there for a bit, yeah?”
“Yeah, OK. Sure.”
Looking back, we were so stupid it was almost funny. We knew he was a drug dealer yet “Sure we’ll look after your bags and if the place gets busted, course we’ll take the rap. No problem. Fancy a tea?” It was like we’d turned from hip, smart, media players into Forrest Gump. Or Chancey Gardener.
I went for a walk. There were two floors. A big kitchen and a lounge area with a few beat up chairs and a telly. The Kirk Douglas film Spartacus was on and maybe there were six people hanging around.
I’d love to say that was the last time I saw Graham. But it wasn’t. He came back a few times – different stories – but it’s all changed. What’s he doing now? No idea. Really, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. Odds on he’s dead now. I heard some story from Pauly about Manilla and you don’t fuck about in Manilla. Still, bless him. He brought me here.
Anyway that was all a long time ago. Now it’s today and today’s a grey miserable day. One of those days when even the rain can’t be bothered…
“Aren’t we supposed to be falling today?”
“Nah, stuff it. I’m going to stay in the cloud today. Watch a bit of telly.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. No one ever thanks us for falling anyway. Fancy a beer?”
OK. Let’s turn it round the other way. If the words Maharajah Palace don’t make you think of hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again Tokyo, what did they make you think of? Opulence. Grandeur. Exotic baubles, rubies and emeralds and gold, great swathes of elaborately embroidered cloth, shimmering with their gaudiness. Probably not rusty corrugated metal and ramshackle wood. Probably not some pre-fab held up by its own indecision as to which bit should collapse first. If I’d have seen the place – regardless of where it was – I don’t think I’d have been helped. If I’d have seen the place I might have come up with Large Garden Shed. Or Decrepit Old Shack. Or Complete Fucking Dump. Maharajah Palace. It was probably funny once.
The Palace was a zoo. Well, not even a zoo. In a zoo, the animals have some kind of morality. In the Palace… that very concept was kinda dubious.
If you were the romantic type, you might say it was a rogue’s gallery. If you were a realist, you might want to move to somewhere a bit more hi-tech and shiny. Me, I thought it was charming.
It had the air of a hideaway, a place where people were… well, not exactly on the run. That’s a bit too pulp fiction, a bit too romantic, but it was definitely somewhere that felt outside the boundaries, somewhere the normal rules didn’t apply. There were probably other rules that applied.
A few years later, I was hanging out with a Norwegian girl there. I remember talking to her and a bloke called Mark, who the house doctor at the time. Elke was a sweetie, a poppet, but she was very clean living and fresh. It wasn’t so much that she was naïve, it was just that she hadn’t really considered the options before.
“How many people here don’t take drugs?” she said to Mark.
Mark thought a bit. “You must have had something… sometime… haven’t you?”
Like I say, she hadn’t really considered her options. It didn’t take her long to re-adjust, but that’s another story.
----------------------------
It was clear from the off that they knew Graham. Whoever these people were, and there were a lot of people in this place, whoever they were they knew Graham. And they were steering clear.
I could see them looking. I could hear them talking. Some just turned away. Others pretended not to have seen anything. Others were more upfront.
“You’re fuckin’ back, are you? Didn’t think we’d see you again.”
There were a few like that. A couple of faces said “What you got? I’m in Room 24.”
Mostly though, people said stuff like “Hi” or “Good to see you” or “You stayin’ long?” and all the time they all meant “Just leave me alone, please. Just leave me alone.”
I didn’t get it really. OK, he was a bit mad, a loose canon, but people reacted to Graham like he was a paid-up psychopath, a serious bad man. Dunno. He was OK with us. He sorted out a room for me and Ben “Listen, I’ll get you a room, be OK if I just leave my bags there for a bit, yeah?”
“Yeah, OK. Sure.”
Looking back, we were so stupid it was almost funny. We knew he was a drug dealer yet “Sure we’ll look after your bags and if the place gets busted, course we’ll take the rap. No problem. Fancy a tea?” It was like we’d turned from hip, smart, media players into Forrest Gump. Or Chancey Gardener.
I went for a walk. There were two floors. A big kitchen and a lounge area with a few beat up chairs and a telly. The Kirk Douglas film Spartacus was on and maybe there were six people hanging around.
I’d love to say that was the last time I saw Graham. But it wasn’t. He came back a few times – different stories – but it’s all changed. What’s he doing now? No idea. Really, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. Odds on he’s dead now. I heard some story from Pauly about Manilla and you don’t fuck about in Manilla. Still, bless him. He brought me here.
Anyway that was all a long time ago. Now it’s today and today’s a grey miserable day. One of those days when even the rain can’t be bothered…
“Aren’t we supposed to be falling today?”
“Nah, stuff it. I’m going to stay in the cloud today. Watch a bit of telly.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. No one ever thanks us for falling anyway. Fancy a beer?”
GAIJIN STRATEGIES - Chapter One
“Fuck it. We’ll go to Yokohama”.
What could we do? We were in Shanghai and had to get out. It was nice enough, fascinating in a cultural exchange kind of way, but I’d exchanged all the culture I wanted to. Time was running out, money was getting tight and we had to get out.
“I thought you said there was a boat going to Hong Kong?” said Ben.
“I thought there was a boat going to Hong Kong”, I said.
“You checked?”
“No, I didn’t check, but I thought there was a boat. I was told there was a boat. What do you want? I was wrong. I thought there was a boat and there isn’t.”
“You thought there was a boat? How did you think there was a boat?”
“Someone told me. They must have cancelled it.”
“According to that bloke in the office there, they cancelled it three years ago.”
“They didn’t cancel it. They just moved it.”
“To Yokohama.”
“Yeah, to Yokohama. It used to go to Hong Kong. Now it goes to Yokohama. That’s where the boat goes now.”
“Oh well. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
“Yeah. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
And that was that. That’s how I ended up in Tokyo. I was going to go to Hong Kong, but the boat changed its mind. One thing I’ve learnt in this game is to keep an open mind. Go with the flow, you know what I mean? When I was younger I used to say that life was like an apple. You’ve got to eat it now. If you keep it, save it, it goes mouldy. And then it’s gone. I said that to someone once. Thought I was being, you know, philosophical. He said “I think life is more like an orange. You've got to peel it before you get to the good bit.” Twat.
------------------
That boat trip was the start of it all. Me and Ben – drifting on the sea heading off to something or other. Me, I’ve gone off travelling because I’m writing a book. Well, starting to write a book. I’ve got a great idea and I just wanted to get away from it all because life was getting too organised and formulaic, but we can get on to all that later.
Anyway, I’ve got an idea for a story. Listen, I thought it was a great idea for a story. Still do. It’s based on a true story, but then again, aren’t they all? It doesn’t matter. It’s a great story. A man, a student, decides to pay his way through college by being a sperm donor. So he gives his sperm and gives his sperm. It’s all good. This bloke – we’ll call him Will – is studying to be a doctor. He’s tall and blond, strong and athletic. The sort of bloke who your mother would want you to marry. This guy offers his sperm and it goes to the top of the sperm charts. He’s the perfect physical speciment.
But he’s got a secret, a secret even he doesn’t know. He (and here we’ve got to work on this a bit) has got a madness, a psychopathic madness – a congenital psychopathic madness.
Anyway, many years – well, maybe 10 years – down the line, Susan is having trouble with her daughter Molly. Molly is very bright, but she’s got an evil streak, a mean side to her that’s a little bit disturbed. And Susan doesn’t know what to do. She can’t ask her partner because she doesn’t have a partner. She never has had. A few lost loves, the usual catalogue of losers and chancers, nearlys and almosts. When Susan was 31, she met the man of her life, the Big Love. But – and we don’t need to go into the detail here – he was a twat, a lying, cheating, no-good dirty low-down hound dog. He wrecked her life and she swore – she absolutely swore – never to fall for a man again. She’d have a baby.
Anyway, back to the main story. Susan tries all sorts of things and, in the end, she goes to a parent-child therapy class because – obviously, she thinks that it’s all her fault. While she’s there, she meets another woman, like her the mother of a 10 year old girl. They start talking.
Can you guess where this one’s going? OK, let’s spell it out a bit more.
This other woman, her story is remarkably similar to Susan. She’s a lesbian but, that apart, it’s the same. Lost love, disappointment, betrayal. Refuge sought in a baby. Her baby is basically a good kid, but has got the same evil streak as Molly.
Now you know what’s going to happen. They start talking, they realise they both got pregnant after going to sperm donor centre in Eastbourne. Now then – this is the next question: how many other babies were born between 1980 and 1985?
So OK. That’s the pitch. It’s like a cross between The Boys From Brazil and maybe The Midwitch Cuckoos.
How many are there? Does something happen to them to ‘kick-start’ the inner madness that propels them? Shall we turn them into an army?
So anyway, I was sitting on the deck of this boat, it’s the middle of the night, dark and empty, just me and the night and the sea, and I’m thinking about the story – when the calm is disturbed by this couple. A big English bloke and his Israeli girlfriend. They were going at it big time, tearing into each other.
But then they saw us and found what they were looking for: an audience. We started talking, just passing the time. When I say, we started talking what I mean is he started talking. I started listening. Most of the time I didn’t know whether to interrupt or applaud, like I was at a show or something.
Always, there are two ways of looking at things. I could say that we met this bloke from south London on the boat who was off his tits and he read us this poem he’d written as a response to Paradise Lost. I can’t remember exactly now. He was the Devil or he was Milton and… Or I can tell you the more interesting version.
I didn’t know it at the time, but he was The One. I only met him for a brief time and I doubt that he even knew my name, but Graham was that person, and who changed my life. Graham Gaskin – and you can look his name up because this is all true – was there just at the right time and the right place to completely throw my life off course.
We’ve all got one, the person who changes everything. I’m writing this book about all that at the moment called The Nazi & The Jew about a young middle class Jewish man who, through a series of strange, some might say unfortunate, circumstances, finds himself in jail. At first he’s told that it’s all going to be OK, that it’s a single cell and he’ll be out soon enough. He’s scared by at least he’s by himself and then…. Late at night the door opens and in walks in a prisoner officer. The screw explains that the prison’s over-crowded and that Aaron, the Jewish bloke, is going to have to share. In walks in Razor, all shaved head and tattoos, a Nazi who’s one of the top figures in Combat 18, the psycho military wing of the British fascists, gangland figure and general Nazi nutter and Aaron’s worst nightmare. The cell door bangs shut and there they are, alone together.
What happens to them, how they get on, that’s the story. It’s part Kiss Of The Spiderwoman, part humanist tale, but – like I say – it’s about that person that changes your life.
Anyway, we’re standing on the deck of this boat going to Yokohama and it’s the middle of the night. A beautiful night. And there’s this bloke giving us this rant about Milton and Paradise Lost. He could have been 25 or 35. Big build, longish hair, nondescript clothes. Jeans, t-shirt, that kind of thing. He was good-looking, but rough. Like he’d been away too long. And God knows where he’d been away to. I’d gone away looking for something different and this, this was something different.
“Tokyo, huh. Fuckin place Tokyo. A zoo. Full of hooligans and fuckin Japs. You got a story going on there or what?”
Meeting this bloke, I was part thrilled, part terrified. Part of me was thinking “How cool. I go away, looking for an adventure and in the first half hour I meet my very own Dean Moriarty, some wild spirited free thing with energy to burn and a soul on fire”. The other part of me – the middle class, middle aged bloke who drives a Volvo and knows his National Insurance number off by heart – is frankly terrified and wants this bloody idiot to just go away. He was at best boorish and at worst dangerous. No, he was definitely dangerous.
“No, no story. No story and no idea” I said. And explained. “I was supposed to be going to Hong Kong. I had a job on a newspaper there, the South Morning Post, I think it’s called, but then the boat to Hong Kong stopped two years ago and the only boat now went to Yokohama and…” Even as I said it, it sounded rubbish. God knows what it sounded like to him, but it was the story.
“And you?” said Graham to Ben.
“And me” said Ben. “I’m just along for the ride.” You don’t trust this, do you, I thought to myself. Probably not a bad judgement.
“Sounds to me” said Graham “you’re gonna some dosh. Tokyo’s no place to be skint”. Then came the good bit.
“You wanna make a bit of cash? Easy money.”
Me, I was already suspicious. Ben was more interested. “Go on” he said.
Graham smiled at Ronit and then at us. He made a big dramatic looking around gesture – like he needed to. It was the middle of the night and we were on the deck of a boat. It wasn’t Piccadilly Circus.
He opened his bag and pulled out a pair of shoes which were about three sizes too big – and smiled. The significance was lost on me. I just thought it was odd.
“You’re a shoe salesman?”
“Something like that” said Graham and reached down into his bag again. After doing the dramatic looking around bit again – there’s nothing like milking the moment and Graham, a performer at heart, knew how to do that – he produced an inner sole which was about an inch thick and covered in thick cling film. Me and Ben might have been at the start of the story and about as worldly as a new born seal cub, but I knew what Graham was holding. Dope. Compressed dope. Moroccan.
He put the inner sole inside the shoe. “All you’ve got to do is walk. You ain’t got a problem walking, have you?”
No one said anything. I didn’t say anything. Ben didn’t say anything. The Israeli girl – Ronit – she didn’t say anything either.
“Look” said Graham, “I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve got three shoes and” – and he pointed down at his feet – “only two feet”.
No one said anything.
“I mean I’ve got three fucking soles. I can put two in my shoes, but I need someone else to go through with the other one. Just wear the shoes, walk through and I’ll give you a grand. Easy. Listen” he looked directly at me. “It’ll sort you out on Tokyo, get you started. Otherwise you’re gonna be in right shit, believe me”.
I remember looking at Graham and seeing all these Japanese war films in my head, sadistic guards beating people up – “Ve hav vays of making you tok!” OK, that’s a German war film, but you know what I mean. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. Melly Chlistmas Mr Rawrence.
He’s going to walk through customs at Yokohama with these clowns shoes that are way too big and sell this lot in Tokyo. A lunatic.
I declined. Polite, of course, but firm. “Sorry, mate. I just haven’t got the nerve for that sort of thing”. Ben was tempted, I could see Ben was tempted. I could see all sorts of things. Like… Ben fancied Ronit and was showing off and I was thinking that on the list of bad ideas, flirting with Graham’s woman was off the scale.
Ben declined. Thank fuck for that.
“Look. OK, you ain’t done anything like this before but it’s OK. The Japs don’t do anything. All you’ve gotta be is polite and smile, that’s all. It’s what they do and it’s what they want us to do. You can call them anything, do anything but as long as you’re polite, it’s OK. You’ve got to remember, they think we’re some kind of dirty sub species anyway. They don’t expect anything proper.”
Nothing.
“Nah, no sweat” said Graham, maybe a bit too readily. “I’ll sort it”.
I didn’t think any more of it at the time, though later on someone – Brad the Canadian, I think – told me that Graham’s usual trick was to hide the dope in some poor unsuspecting bastard’s back pack, let them take it through customs – and then steal the bag from them on the other side when they’d got through. Didn’t do anything like that with us. Don’t know why. Maybe he liked us. God knows.
We sat up the rest of the night, the four of us, smoking a bit while Graham told us stories about how he’d paid for the trip by blackmailing an MP he’d had a fling with. “I’m gonna write it all down and make it into a TV film. Those bastards won’t forget about me”. All I remember thinking was “Why are you telling us this?” Whatever. Back then I was so naïve about this lark I’d have believed anything. The last thing I suspected was that it was all true – but sometimes the last place you suspect is the first place you should look.
Customs was a joy. Graham insisted on walking through with us, talking to us and laughing all the way. The Japanese were pretty much like he said – they looked at us like we were slightly dirty, like we they just hoped we’d got away. But they humoured us and let us in. Curiously, it was kinda how I felt about Graham.
We got through. I was terrified. He didn’t seem to give a toss. But we got through. Looking back, I don’t know why I was terrified – that business of dropping the dope in someone else’s backpack hadn’t occurred to me at all – that kind of thinking was completely off my radar. Maybe it was some kinda instinct thing. We got through.
Tokyo. We were in Tokyo. I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting that was. Tokyo. That was amazing. A month ago I was in London and now I was in Tokyo. Well, I was on a train going to Tokyo. Just me. And Ben. And Graham. And Ronit.
It was a strange journey, didn’t take long and to be honest I can’t remember much about it. I remember Graham rolling one his trouser legs up and revealing an inner sole gaffer taped to his leg. I remember that. I also remember him asking us where we were going to stay.
“I dunno” said Ben. “Some hotel in town. We’ll ask around, maybe tourist info or something, and find something for a few days and…”
“Like fuck you will. You’re coming with us. You ever heard of the Palace?”
“The palace?”
“The Maharajah Palace. That’s where we’re going.”
What could we do? We were in Shanghai and had to get out. It was nice enough, fascinating in a cultural exchange kind of way, but I’d exchanged all the culture I wanted to. Time was running out, money was getting tight and we had to get out.
“I thought you said there was a boat going to Hong Kong?” said Ben.
“I thought there was a boat going to Hong Kong”, I said.
“You checked?”
“No, I didn’t check, but I thought there was a boat. I was told there was a boat. What do you want? I was wrong. I thought there was a boat and there isn’t.”
“You thought there was a boat? How did you think there was a boat?”
“Someone told me. They must have cancelled it.”
“According to that bloke in the office there, they cancelled it three years ago.”
“They didn’t cancel it. They just moved it.”
“To Yokohama.”
“Yeah, to Yokohama. It used to go to Hong Kong. Now it goes to Yokohama. That’s where the boat goes now.”
“Oh well. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
“Yeah. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
And that was that. That’s how I ended up in Tokyo. I was going to go to Hong Kong, but the boat changed its mind. One thing I’ve learnt in this game is to keep an open mind. Go with the flow, you know what I mean? When I was younger I used to say that life was like an apple. You’ve got to eat it now. If you keep it, save it, it goes mouldy. And then it’s gone. I said that to someone once. Thought I was being, you know, philosophical. He said “I think life is more like an orange. You've got to peel it before you get to the good bit.” Twat.
------------------
That boat trip was the start of it all. Me and Ben – drifting on the sea heading off to something or other. Me, I’ve gone off travelling because I’m writing a book. Well, starting to write a book. I’ve got a great idea and I just wanted to get away from it all because life was getting too organised and formulaic, but we can get on to all that later.
Anyway, I’ve got an idea for a story. Listen, I thought it was a great idea for a story. Still do. It’s based on a true story, but then again, aren’t they all? It doesn’t matter. It’s a great story. A man, a student, decides to pay his way through college by being a sperm donor. So he gives his sperm and gives his sperm. It’s all good. This bloke – we’ll call him Will – is studying to be a doctor. He’s tall and blond, strong and athletic. The sort of bloke who your mother would want you to marry. This guy offers his sperm and it goes to the top of the sperm charts. He’s the perfect physical speciment.
But he’s got a secret, a secret even he doesn’t know. He (and here we’ve got to work on this a bit) has got a madness, a psychopathic madness – a congenital psychopathic madness.
Anyway, many years – well, maybe 10 years – down the line, Susan is having trouble with her daughter Molly. Molly is very bright, but she’s got an evil streak, a mean side to her that’s a little bit disturbed. And Susan doesn’t know what to do. She can’t ask her partner because she doesn’t have a partner. She never has had. A few lost loves, the usual catalogue of losers and chancers, nearlys and almosts. When Susan was 31, she met the man of her life, the Big Love. But – and we don’t need to go into the detail here – he was a twat, a lying, cheating, no-good dirty low-down hound dog. He wrecked her life and she swore – she absolutely swore – never to fall for a man again. She’d have a baby.
Anyway, back to the main story. Susan tries all sorts of things and, in the end, she goes to a parent-child therapy class because – obviously, she thinks that it’s all her fault. While she’s there, she meets another woman, like her the mother of a 10 year old girl. They start talking.
Can you guess where this one’s going? OK, let’s spell it out a bit more.
This other woman, her story is remarkably similar to Susan. She’s a lesbian but, that apart, it’s the same. Lost love, disappointment, betrayal. Refuge sought in a baby. Her baby is basically a good kid, but has got the same evil streak as Molly.
Now you know what’s going to happen. They start talking, they realise they both got pregnant after going to sperm donor centre in Eastbourne. Now then – this is the next question: how many other babies were born between 1980 and 1985?
So OK. That’s the pitch. It’s like a cross between The Boys From Brazil and maybe The Midwitch Cuckoos.
How many are there? Does something happen to them to ‘kick-start’ the inner madness that propels them? Shall we turn them into an army?
So anyway, I was sitting on the deck of this boat, it’s the middle of the night, dark and empty, just me and the night and the sea, and I’m thinking about the story – when the calm is disturbed by this couple. A big English bloke and his Israeli girlfriend. They were going at it big time, tearing into each other.
But then they saw us and found what they were looking for: an audience. We started talking, just passing the time. When I say, we started talking what I mean is he started talking. I started listening. Most of the time I didn’t know whether to interrupt or applaud, like I was at a show or something.
Always, there are two ways of looking at things. I could say that we met this bloke from south London on the boat who was off his tits and he read us this poem he’d written as a response to Paradise Lost. I can’t remember exactly now. He was the Devil or he was Milton and… Or I can tell you the more interesting version.
I didn’t know it at the time, but he was The One. I only met him for a brief time and I doubt that he even knew my name, but Graham was that person, and who changed my life. Graham Gaskin – and you can look his name up because this is all true – was there just at the right time and the right place to completely throw my life off course.
We’ve all got one, the person who changes everything. I’m writing this book about all that at the moment called The Nazi & The Jew about a young middle class Jewish man who, through a series of strange, some might say unfortunate, circumstances, finds himself in jail. At first he’s told that it’s all going to be OK, that it’s a single cell and he’ll be out soon enough. He’s scared by at least he’s by himself and then…. Late at night the door opens and in walks in a prisoner officer. The screw explains that the prison’s over-crowded and that Aaron, the Jewish bloke, is going to have to share. In walks in Razor, all shaved head and tattoos, a Nazi who’s one of the top figures in Combat 18, the psycho military wing of the British fascists, gangland figure and general Nazi nutter and Aaron’s worst nightmare. The cell door bangs shut and there they are, alone together.
What happens to them, how they get on, that’s the story. It’s part Kiss Of The Spiderwoman, part humanist tale, but – like I say – it’s about that person that changes your life.
Anyway, we’re standing on the deck of this boat going to Yokohama and it’s the middle of the night. A beautiful night. And there’s this bloke giving us this rant about Milton and Paradise Lost. He could have been 25 or 35. Big build, longish hair, nondescript clothes. Jeans, t-shirt, that kind of thing. He was good-looking, but rough. Like he’d been away too long. And God knows where he’d been away to. I’d gone away looking for something different and this, this was something different.
“Tokyo, huh. Fuckin place Tokyo. A zoo. Full of hooligans and fuckin Japs. You got a story going on there or what?”
Meeting this bloke, I was part thrilled, part terrified. Part of me was thinking “How cool. I go away, looking for an adventure and in the first half hour I meet my very own Dean Moriarty, some wild spirited free thing with energy to burn and a soul on fire”. The other part of me – the middle class, middle aged bloke who drives a Volvo and knows his National Insurance number off by heart – is frankly terrified and wants this bloody idiot to just go away. He was at best boorish and at worst dangerous. No, he was definitely dangerous.
“No, no story. No story and no idea” I said. And explained. “I was supposed to be going to Hong Kong. I had a job on a newspaper there, the South Morning Post, I think it’s called, but then the boat to Hong Kong stopped two years ago and the only boat now went to Yokohama and…” Even as I said it, it sounded rubbish. God knows what it sounded like to him, but it was the story.
“And you?” said Graham to Ben.
“And me” said Ben. “I’m just along for the ride.” You don’t trust this, do you, I thought to myself. Probably not a bad judgement.
“Sounds to me” said Graham “you’re gonna some dosh. Tokyo’s no place to be skint”. Then came the good bit.
“You wanna make a bit of cash? Easy money.”
Me, I was already suspicious. Ben was more interested. “Go on” he said.
Graham smiled at Ronit and then at us. He made a big dramatic looking around gesture – like he needed to. It was the middle of the night and we were on the deck of a boat. It wasn’t Piccadilly Circus.
He opened his bag and pulled out a pair of shoes which were about three sizes too big – and smiled. The significance was lost on me. I just thought it was odd.
“You’re a shoe salesman?”
“Something like that” said Graham and reached down into his bag again. After doing the dramatic looking around bit again – there’s nothing like milking the moment and Graham, a performer at heart, knew how to do that – he produced an inner sole which was about an inch thick and covered in thick cling film. Me and Ben might have been at the start of the story and about as worldly as a new born seal cub, but I knew what Graham was holding. Dope. Compressed dope. Moroccan.
He put the inner sole inside the shoe. “All you’ve got to do is walk. You ain’t got a problem walking, have you?”
No one said anything. I didn’t say anything. Ben didn’t say anything. The Israeli girl – Ronit – she didn’t say anything either.
“Look” said Graham, “I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve got three shoes and” – and he pointed down at his feet – “only two feet”.
No one said anything.
“I mean I’ve got three fucking soles. I can put two in my shoes, but I need someone else to go through with the other one. Just wear the shoes, walk through and I’ll give you a grand. Easy. Listen” he looked directly at me. “It’ll sort you out on Tokyo, get you started. Otherwise you’re gonna be in right shit, believe me”.
I remember looking at Graham and seeing all these Japanese war films in my head, sadistic guards beating people up – “Ve hav vays of making you tok!” OK, that’s a German war film, but you know what I mean. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. Melly Chlistmas Mr Rawrence.
He’s going to walk through customs at Yokohama with these clowns shoes that are way too big and sell this lot in Tokyo. A lunatic.
I declined. Polite, of course, but firm. “Sorry, mate. I just haven’t got the nerve for that sort of thing”. Ben was tempted, I could see Ben was tempted. I could see all sorts of things. Like… Ben fancied Ronit and was showing off and I was thinking that on the list of bad ideas, flirting with Graham’s woman was off the scale.
Ben declined. Thank fuck for that.
“Look. OK, you ain’t done anything like this before but it’s OK. The Japs don’t do anything. All you’ve gotta be is polite and smile, that’s all. It’s what they do and it’s what they want us to do. You can call them anything, do anything but as long as you’re polite, it’s OK. You’ve got to remember, they think we’re some kind of dirty sub species anyway. They don’t expect anything proper.”
Nothing.
“Nah, no sweat” said Graham, maybe a bit too readily. “I’ll sort it”.
I didn’t think any more of it at the time, though later on someone – Brad the Canadian, I think – told me that Graham’s usual trick was to hide the dope in some poor unsuspecting bastard’s back pack, let them take it through customs – and then steal the bag from them on the other side when they’d got through. Didn’t do anything like that with us. Don’t know why. Maybe he liked us. God knows.
We sat up the rest of the night, the four of us, smoking a bit while Graham told us stories about how he’d paid for the trip by blackmailing an MP he’d had a fling with. “I’m gonna write it all down and make it into a TV film. Those bastards won’t forget about me”. All I remember thinking was “Why are you telling us this?” Whatever. Back then I was so naïve about this lark I’d have believed anything. The last thing I suspected was that it was all true – but sometimes the last place you suspect is the first place you should look.
Customs was a joy. Graham insisted on walking through with us, talking to us and laughing all the way. The Japanese were pretty much like he said – they looked at us like we were slightly dirty, like we they just hoped we’d got away. But they humoured us and let us in. Curiously, it was kinda how I felt about Graham.
We got through. I was terrified. He didn’t seem to give a toss. But we got through. Looking back, I don’t know why I was terrified – that business of dropping the dope in someone else’s backpack hadn’t occurred to me at all – that kind of thinking was completely off my radar. Maybe it was some kinda instinct thing. We got through.
Tokyo. We were in Tokyo. I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting that was. Tokyo. That was amazing. A month ago I was in London and now I was in Tokyo. Well, I was on a train going to Tokyo. Just me. And Ben. And Graham. And Ronit.
It was a strange journey, didn’t take long and to be honest I can’t remember much about it. I remember Graham rolling one his trouser legs up and revealing an inner sole gaffer taped to his leg. I remember that. I also remember him asking us where we were going to stay.
“I dunno” said Ben. “Some hotel in town. We’ll ask around, maybe tourist info or something, and find something for a few days and…”
“Like fuck you will. You’re coming with us. You ever heard of the Palace?”
“The palace?”
“The Maharajah Palace. That’s where we’re going.”
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
The First Law Of Averages
CHAPTER ONE
So... This morning I got up – it’s traditional – went to the park to take Maxwell Wolf out for a walk. Another beautiful day in paradise. What to do? My brain’s a turmoil. I’ve finished the decking so that’s that. I’ve finished the garden lighting so that’s that too. I’ve tidied up and taken all the rubbish to the dump. Done. Re-turfed the lawn. Done. Built a rockery. Done. Solved the problem of where to store the bikes. Done. (Large hooks drilled reasonably high into the wall – off the ground, protected from the weather). I’ve done more to the garden, played with more power tools than any middle-aged, middle-class Jewish father of two has any right to do. But now? What to do? (I’ve just heard that Barclays bank is cutting 800 jobs. Another potential avenue of pleasure slams in my face).
I wandered around, making lists in my head (1: Phone the mortgage advisor, 2: Go through the mail, 3: Check out the pond, 4: Phone up the accountant, 5: Press ‘Send/Receive’ on my e-mail - harder to do than you might think. It’s become an increasing confrontational action. There’s either rubbish virus crap “Here’s that document you requested” type stuff has replaced all the “Enlarge your penis/consolidate your debts” stuff or things from either of the two round robin group lists I’m on. Take all that away and it’s down to the odd mail from Gill Wife and she’s downstairs and only writes cos she can’t be bothered to shout. Hardly the stuff this super-highway technology was built for. Kinda like in the old days when the squliions spent on the space programme was justified by the fact that without it we wouldn’t have had the non-stick pan.
So anyway. I was thinking. (Yeah, I know. It was a Christmas present last year. What can you do?) The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. Is it true? I don’t know. I think so. OK. Not 'Is it true?' but more 'It's true for me'. The rare luxury of going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You know, you start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen, knocking out the back wall and sorting out a conservatory, the "what are we going to do about the school?" question - The Baggage - in that same 24 hours. And it's worse, because when you were younger you had more energy (or at least more drugs that gave you more energy) so your youthful 24 hours lasted longer than your grown up 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
I bought myself a bass guitar. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see how much dust can build up on an inanimate object if it’s never moved.
That was a week ago. A week ago and a different lifetime. A week ago I decided to stop all that. I decided to get a life. I got my bicycle down (from the large hooks drilled reasonably high into the wall. Come on, keep up) and after dousing it in extra virgin olive oil – Jane Wife caught me in mid-douse and… what can I tell you? She’s a very understanding woman – I signed up.
On Monday I do T’ai Chi at Planet Janet. On Tuesday I do a creative writing workshop at Evolution. On Wednesday I go to a life drawing class in Bond Street. On Thursday I do my Landmark session in London. On Friday I go to yoga at Jo’s.
I’m getting my body into shape, I’m sorting out my creativity, and I get to doing something I’ve never done before while looking at naked women. No, no. It’s OK. Thanks to my Landmark I can say things like that with integrity and authenticity. My chakras are balanced. I can feel it. Talk about inside smile. I’m so happy, so calm, so… so full of centred creativity I’ve barely got time to swallow the St John’s Wort.
Maxwell Wolf has gone round the family taking odds on how long I’ll stick with each one.
“Hmm, Pilates?” he said with that ‘I found out where you hide the pig’s ears’ smile.
“Ashtanga yoga?”
This is Maxwell my faithful puppy, my support structure, Maxwell Wolf who I rescued from the gutter of life when he still had some discarded Christmas paper stuck to him.
So then this happened. I got an e-mail from an agent. Now I’ve had e-mails from agents before but they’ve all been “House prices in Kemp Town are going up…” which is nice but unless they’re going down everywhere else, what difference? Anyway, this was different. This was from a literary agent. I’ll say that again. Literary agent. Sounds good, no?
Really. It’s a long story but this agent – this literary agent - asked to see some words...
“Have you got any fiction?” he said. “I’m looking for new writers”.
“Course” I said, but really it was like Alex Ferguson asking me if I’ve ever played up front cos Rooney’s injured. “Course”. Fiction? Fiction’s my middle name.
So today I’ve been sitting here trying to make sense of piles of notes, all called things like “Chapter One”.
Yesterday I took Maxwell to the vet to have his anal glands done. That’ll teach him.
So... This morning I got up – it’s traditional – went to the park to take Maxwell Wolf out for a walk. Another beautiful day in paradise. What to do? My brain’s a turmoil. I’ve finished the decking so that’s that. I’ve finished the garden lighting so that’s that too. I’ve tidied up and taken all the rubbish to the dump. Done. Re-turfed the lawn. Done. Built a rockery. Done. Solved the problem of where to store the bikes. Done. (Large hooks drilled reasonably high into the wall – off the ground, protected from the weather). I’ve done more to the garden, played with more power tools than any middle-aged, middle-class Jewish father of two has any right to do. But now? What to do? (I’ve just heard that Barclays bank is cutting 800 jobs. Another potential avenue of pleasure slams in my face).
I wandered around, making lists in my head (1: Phone the mortgage advisor, 2: Go through the mail, 3: Check out the pond, 4: Phone up the accountant, 5: Press ‘Send/Receive’ on my e-mail - harder to do than you might think. It’s become an increasing confrontational action. There’s either rubbish virus crap “Here’s that document you requested” type stuff has replaced all the “Enlarge your penis/consolidate your debts” stuff or things from either of the two round robin group lists I’m on. Take all that away and it’s down to the odd mail from Gill Wife and she’s downstairs and only writes cos she can’t be bothered to shout. Hardly the stuff this super-highway technology was built for. Kinda like in the old days when the squliions spent on the space programme was justified by the fact that without it we wouldn’t have had the non-stick pan.
So anyway. I was thinking. (Yeah, I know. It was a Christmas present last year. What can you do?) The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. Is it true? I don’t know. I think so. OK. Not 'Is it true?' but more 'It's true for me'. The rare luxury of going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You know, you start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen, knocking out the back wall and sorting out a conservatory, the "what are we going to do about the school?" question - The Baggage - in that same 24 hours. And it's worse, because when you were younger you had more energy (or at least more drugs that gave you more energy) so your youthful 24 hours lasted longer than your grown up 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
I bought myself a bass guitar. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see how much dust can build up on an inanimate object if it’s never moved.
That was a week ago. A week ago and a different lifetime. A week ago I decided to stop all that. I decided to get a life. I got my bicycle down (from the large hooks drilled reasonably high into the wall. Come on, keep up) and after dousing it in extra virgin olive oil – Jane Wife caught me in mid-douse and… what can I tell you? She’s a very understanding woman – I signed up.
On Monday I do T’ai Chi at Planet Janet. On Tuesday I do a creative writing workshop at Evolution. On Wednesday I go to a life drawing class in Bond Street. On Thursday I do my Landmark session in London. On Friday I go to yoga at Jo’s.
I’m getting my body into shape, I’m sorting out my creativity, and I get to doing something I’ve never done before while looking at naked women. No, no. It’s OK. Thanks to my Landmark I can say things like that with integrity and authenticity. My chakras are balanced. I can feel it. Talk about inside smile. I’m so happy, so calm, so… so full of centred creativity I’ve barely got time to swallow the St John’s Wort.
Maxwell Wolf has gone round the family taking odds on how long I’ll stick with each one.
“Hmm, Pilates?” he said with that ‘I found out where you hide the pig’s ears’ smile.
“Ashtanga yoga?”
This is Maxwell my faithful puppy, my support structure, Maxwell Wolf who I rescued from the gutter of life when he still had some discarded Christmas paper stuck to him.
So then this happened. I got an e-mail from an agent. Now I’ve had e-mails from agents before but they’ve all been “House prices in Kemp Town are going up…” which is nice but unless they’re going down everywhere else, what difference? Anyway, this was different. This was from a literary agent. I’ll say that again. Literary agent. Sounds good, no?
Really. It’s a long story but this agent – this literary agent - asked to see some words...
“Have you got any fiction?” he said. “I’m looking for new writers”.
“Course” I said, but really it was like Alex Ferguson asking me if I’ve ever played up front cos Rooney’s injured. “Course”. Fiction? Fiction’s my middle name.
So today I’ve been sitting here trying to make sense of piles of notes, all called things like “Chapter One”.
Yesterday I took Maxwell to the vet to have his anal glands done. That’ll teach him.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Jewgolos
So anyway. I was talking to Jane the other day and she came up with this idea. (I’d love to take credit for this cos it’s genius, but not even I’d do that. And besides, she might read this nonsense). She said “John, what are you doing with this banging your head against a wall? Why not do something you’re good at?” Well, to cut a long story short she came up with this new concept: Jewgolos. A Jewgolo is a bit like a gigolo, but essentially Jewish in nature. Listen.
Basically, where your regular gigolo maybe takes you for a drink and then upstairs for the jiggy stuff, your Jewgolo will take you out to eat and moan. Like I say, it’s genius. Everyone thinks they like the jiggy thing but you do it once, it’s enough. What people really like doing is eating and moaning. You never get bored with that.
This is the thing. The older you get, your ideas change. When you’re younger and your head’s full of unrealistic ideas you think the moaning that comes when you’re doing all that jiggy stuff is the good moaning. OK if you’re 18 or something but be honest. If you’re a grown-up by the time you get into bed all you want to do is have a sleep. “You carry on with all that. No, no, it’s fine. I’m just going to close my eyes.” No. The good moaning is actually just moaning. Sitting down, having something to eat and moaning.
Once you start eating and moaning you can keep going for hours. You can eat as much as you want and you don’t feel bad about yourself because your body’s started migrating. And you can get home in time for EastEnders on BBC3. You know I’m right. Trust me. Jewgolos.
I’d been thinking about doing something new anyway. Things haven’t been… I don’t know. I won’t bore you with it– you don’t want to know – but I’d erased everything on my computer and life was, as my Landmark chums might say, full of possibilities. E-mails, address book, files… gone. My calendar had been wiped which meant that now I had a load of spare time, but it’s a question of perspective. Jane said that at my age I can do with all the spare time I can get. That’s the sort of thinking that made me want to marry her. The literary agent, the one who was going to whisk me off into a bright new future, hasn’t replied to any of my e-mails and now I’ve lost his address anyway. His loss. What’s an agent anyway? Write your own book if you’re so clever.
A new career. It’s easy. I’ll put up ads in all the usual places – Evolution, Janet, the back pages of this mag. I’ll tell them it’s an ancient Native American tradition, that always works. The alfalfa sprouts believe anything if you say it’s Native American.
“You’ve got a back ache? OK. I’ll put a candle in your ear and then set light to it”.
“What?”
“No, no. It’s an ancient Native American tradition.”
“Oh, OK then”.
Maybe we could maybe do a deluxe service where we complain about the size of the portions.
Basically, where your regular gigolo maybe takes you for a drink and then upstairs for the jiggy stuff, your Jewgolo will take you out to eat and moan. Like I say, it’s genius. Everyone thinks they like the jiggy thing but you do it once, it’s enough. What people really like doing is eating and moaning. You never get bored with that.
This is the thing. The older you get, your ideas change. When you’re younger and your head’s full of unrealistic ideas you think the moaning that comes when you’re doing all that jiggy stuff is the good moaning. OK if you’re 18 or something but be honest. If you’re a grown-up by the time you get into bed all you want to do is have a sleep. “You carry on with all that. No, no, it’s fine. I’m just going to close my eyes.” No. The good moaning is actually just moaning. Sitting down, having something to eat and moaning.
Once you start eating and moaning you can keep going for hours. You can eat as much as you want and you don’t feel bad about yourself because your body’s started migrating. And you can get home in time for EastEnders on BBC3. You know I’m right. Trust me. Jewgolos.
I’d been thinking about doing something new anyway. Things haven’t been… I don’t know. I won’t bore you with it– you don’t want to know – but I’d erased everything on my computer and life was, as my Landmark chums might say, full of possibilities. E-mails, address book, files… gone. My calendar had been wiped which meant that now I had a load of spare time, but it’s a question of perspective. Jane said that at my age I can do with all the spare time I can get. That’s the sort of thinking that made me want to marry her. The literary agent, the one who was going to whisk me off into a bright new future, hasn’t replied to any of my e-mails and now I’ve lost his address anyway. His loss. What’s an agent anyway? Write your own book if you’re so clever.
A new career. It’s easy. I’ll put up ads in all the usual places – Evolution, Janet, the back pages of this mag. I’ll tell them it’s an ancient Native American tradition, that always works. The alfalfa sprouts believe anything if you say it’s Native American.
“You’ve got a back ache? OK. I’ll put a candle in your ear and then set light to it”.
“What?”
“No, no. It’s an ancient Native American tradition.”
“Oh, OK then”.
Maybe we could maybe do a deluxe service where we complain about the size of the portions.
CHAPTER 9 - Charity Begins At Home
CHAPTER 9 - Charity Begins At Home
9.30 and I’m upstairs, in the attic. Feeling sweaty, but smug and self-righteous. I’ve done 50 sit ups on one of those “abs buster” machines, I’ve lifted up those weights I bought in 1987 and I’ve had a wheat-free breakfast and a tablespoon of psyillican husks. I must be at least half a stone lighter already. Minimum.
You know what it’s like. It’s the summer. You get out your favourite summer suit, put it on and… So you say to yourself “I’m going to get fit. I’m going to take this in hand and do something about it.” Then you go to a lovely, shiny health club, hand over roughly the same amount of money that would otherwise buy you a small chateau and make the small but familiar joke: “Hah. I’ve only just joined and I’ve already lost a hundred pounds”. As gags, it’s up there with the vasectomy nurse who told me “You’ll just feel a small prick”, but hey.
Anyway. So I’m in the squash league. I used to play squash but that was back in the days when racquets were made of wood, not the titanium or schmitanium or whatever it is these things are made of now. Missed out graphite entirely. Now these things are so powerful they’ve had to introduce a new ball, also made of schmitanium to withstand the battering.
My first game, I bounded on to the court, head to toe in my virgin kit, which comes courtesy of my favourite designer, Primark. Total cost: £3.50.
The bloke I was playing looked OK. My kind of age, my kind of follicle count. We started hitting.
“I haven’t played for ages,” I said to him.
“Neither have I,” he said. “I haven’t stepped on this court since I broke my leg”.
“Blimey. Was that long ago? Are you OK?”
“Fine now. Amazing how these things heal”.
So we’re hitting and I’m thinking. (and cue the sound of a penny slowly dropping).
“You broke your leg on this court?”
“Yeah, I just twisted round and, for some reason my leg got stuck”.
“It’s just there. You can still see it”.
And he pointed to a faded blotch on the floor. And it was just there. And you could still see it.
“There was blood everywhere. The bone snapped and went up through…”
“Blimey” I said, secretly thinking: Fantastic. He’s a raspberry. I’ll be home in time for EastEnders. “Are you OK?”
“Yes, I’m fine now, but it forced me to give up competitive squash”.
Forced me to give up competitive squash. As a psych-out, it was high art. One minute I was playing a hobbling cripple with a broken leg, the next I was up against the Roy Keane of squash. A competition standard player who’d risk life and limb for the glory of getting the ball back. Whose blood still marked the court. I looked at him. He looked kinda muscular. And his hair wasn’t thin, it was cropped. Curious how these things look different in a different light.
“Do you want to start?” he said.
“Might as well” I said. “EastEnders starts soon”.
9.30 and I’m upstairs, in the attic. Feeling sweaty, but smug and self-righteous. I’ve done 50 sit ups on one of those “abs buster” machines, I’ve lifted up those weights I bought in 1987 and I’ve had a wheat-free breakfast and a tablespoon of psyillican husks. I must be at least half a stone lighter already. Minimum.
You know what it’s like. It’s the summer. You get out your favourite summer suit, put it on and… So you say to yourself “I’m going to get fit. I’m going to take this in hand and do something about it.” Then you go to a lovely, shiny health club, hand over roughly the same amount of money that would otherwise buy you a small chateau and make the small but familiar joke: “Hah. I’ve only just joined and I’ve already lost a hundred pounds”. As gags, it’s up there with the vasectomy nurse who told me “You’ll just feel a small prick”, but hey.
Anyway. So I’m in the squash league. I used to play squash but that was back in the days when racquets were made of wood, not the titanium or schmitanium or whatever it is these things are made of now. Missed out graphite entirely. Now these things are so powerful they’ve had to introduce a new ball, also made of schmitanium to withstand the battering.
My first game, I bounded on to the court, head to toe in my virgin kit, which comes courtesy of my favourite designer, Primark. Total cost: £3.50.
The bloke I was playing looked OK. My kind of age, my kind of follicle count. We started hitting.
“I haven’t played for ages,” I said to him.
“Neither have I,” he said. “I haven’t stepped on this court since I broke my leg”.
“Blimey. Was that long ago? Are you OK?”
“Fine now. Amazing how these things heal”.
So we’re hitting and I’m thinking. (and cue the sound of a penny slowly dropping).
“You broke your leg on this court?”
“Yeah, I just twisted round and, for some reason my leg got stuck”.
“It’s just there. You can still see it”.
And he pointed to a faded blotch on the floor. And it was just there. And you could still see it.
“There was blood everywhere. The bone snapped and went up through…”
“Blimey” I said, secretly thinking: Fantastic. He’s a raspberry. I’ll be home in time for EastEnders. “Are you OK?”
“Yes, I’m fine now, but it forced me to give up competitive squash”.
Forced me to give up competitive squash. As a psych-out, it was high art. One minute I was playing a hobbling cripple with a broken leg, the next I was up against the Roy Keane of squash. A competition standard player who’d risk life and limb for the glory of getting the ball back. Whose blood still marked the court. I looked at him. He looked kinda muscular. And his hair wasn’t thin, it was cropped. Curious how these things look different in a different light.
“Do you want to start?” he said.
“Might as well” I said. “EastEnders starts soon”.
Friday, 17 October 2008
Other Room Services
CHAPTER 9: Other Room Services
Things had got off to a bad start. I'd asked the cabbie, some bloke I met at the train station, where a man would go to find some hookers. He said I should go and have a look at MFI. Momentarily, this bothered me. If he'd said that I should go to B&Q I could have rationalised it. Said that maybe he thought I'd said wanted some 'hooks'. But he'd said MFI. What did he think I want? How could he have mistaken 'hookers' for 'kitchen worktops? But... he didn't say I should go in MFI. He said I should go and have a look at MFI. Was it some kind of Midlands patois? Like in London people say that you should go and have 'a butcher's hook' when they mean a look, so maybe in Nottingham to 'go and have a look at MFI' meant something else. Then again, maybe it was just that our sexual tastes were very different. Whatever, it was clear that it wasn't going to be easy to throw myself into issues pertaining to the modern man.
Tomorrow I'm going to sit in a 'sweat lodge' (no I don't know what a sweat lodge is) with a group of men and discuss issues pertaining to the modern man. So I just figured that tonight I should swig Jack Daniels from the bottle in the company of a couple of local hookers while watching the hotel porn. Maybe I'll put a £20 note up my nose. That sounds like issues pertaining to the modern man covered. (I read the papers: I know what's going on). We're off to see The Vines and The Libertines in the appropriately named Rock City, two bands renowned for their interest in issues pertaining to the modern man.
The journey was a treat. One of those times in life when you wonder just how life could get any better. You know, you find yourself in situations which are just so perfect you wish there really was such a thing as a time machine and you could zap back in time to that school careers advisor and show him. "There! Told you I'd be OK" and he would shake his head in wonder and put his hands up in defeat. Mr Goldberg, I think that's what his name was, he was the careers advisor. He used to sit in his office and told us as we filed in, one by one like the passengers on some Noah's Ark that was en route for a dating party, "Ah yes. I've been looking at you and I think law would suit you. There's a course at Middlesex Polytechnic that's particularly good..." It didn't matter. Boy, girl. Blonde hair, dark hair. Thin, fat. Bright, stupid. It didn't matter. The law course at Middlesex Poly was perfect for us. Looking back, I can't remember whether I was secretly impressed by his candour or depressed by the dull predictability of it all when I found out that the admissions officer of The Law Faculty at Middlesex Poly was his best mate and that they'd done some sort of deal. Mr Goldberg. I wonder whatever happened to him. Died, I guess. Well, it was a while ago and he was about 70-odd. So maybe I don't even need a time machine. Maybe he's been reincarnated as that woman who's sitting opposite. She's about 20. Could be. Could be but I don't think I'm going to risk it. You and I might recognise that life really doesn't get any better than sitting at Bedford station on the delayed 14.55 to Nottingham listening to Phil Collins's new album (Testify on EastWest records for those currently compiling their Christmas present lists) but there's every chance that the 20-year-old female reincarnation of Mr Goldberg might be hoping for something more from life. Bloody lawyers.
I like these trips. They give me a chance to read newspapers, somerthing I've studiously avoided doing since I became a journalist. I've read red-tops, middle market papers and broadsheets. I bought Heat, The New Statesman and The Wire. We just passed Kettering and I've had to take off Phil Collins and put on Johnny Cash's new album (The Man Who Comes Around on Lost Highway records.) I've always thought of Kettering as a real Johnny Cash kinda place. All fire and brimstone and men in black hats. Anyway, The Wire was the only one which wasn't full of Angus and Mr X (who, for legal reasons, we shall call 'John Leslie'). The Statesman piece was by John Gray and frankly inelligible. It was three pages long but only had about five words. Five very long words. The sort of words you could take a break from reading, go off and cook a meal and come back and finish reading. Words that take longer to read than it takes to watch an episode of EastEnders (which I might stop watching if they get rid of Trevor). Lynda Lee Potter in The Mail was the best. I can't remember exactly what she said, but the gist of it was that 'John Leslie' should be made to sit at Bedford station on the delayed 14.55 to Nottingham and listen to Phil Collins's new album (Testify on EastWest records).
It never happened. I tried but it never happened. Forget the CitiLodge Hotel. OK, so it's central but listen. No mini bar. No Corby trouser press. And don't even think about your 10 minute freeview periods. There wasn't even a pay-for-view telly. Issues pertaining to the modern man? Issues schmissues.
Things had got off to a bad start. I'd asked the cabbie, some bloke I met at the train station, where a man would go to find some hookers. He said I should go and have a look at MFI. Momentarily, this bothered me. If he'd said that I should go to B&Q I could have rationalised it. Said that maybe he thought I'd said wanted some 'hooks'. But he'd said MFI. What did he think I want? How could he have mistaken 'hookers' for 'kitchen worktops? But... he didn't say I should go in MFI. He said I should go and have a look at MFI. Was it some kind of Midlands patois? Like in London people say that you should go and have 'a butcher's hook' when they mean a look, so maybe in Nottingham to 'go and have a look at MFI' meant something else. Then again, maybe it was just that our sexual tastes were very different. Whatever, it was clear that it wasn't going to be easy to throw myself into issues pertaining to the modern man.
Tomorrow I'm going to sit in a 'sweat lodge' (no I don't know what a sweat lodge is) with a group of men and discuss issues pertaining to the modern man. So I just figured that tonight I should swig Jack Daniels from the bottle in the company of a couple of local hookers while watching the hotel porn. Maybe I'll put a £20 note up my nose. That sounds like issues pertaining to the modern man covered. (I read the papers: I know what's going on). We're off to see The Vines and The Libertines in the appropriately named Rock City, two bands renowned for their interest in issues pertaining to the modern man.
The journey was a treat. One of those times in life when you wonder just how life could get any better. You know, you find yourself in situations which are just so perfect you wish there really was such a thing as a time machine and you could zap back in time to that school careers advisor and show him. "There! Told you I'd be OK" and he would shake his head in wonder and put his hands up in defeat. Mr Goldberg, I think that's what his name was, he was the careers advisor. He used to sit in his office and told us as we filed in, one by one like the passengers on some Noah's Ark that was en route for a dating party, "Ah yes. I've been looking at you and I think law would suit you. There's a course at Middlesex Polytechnic that's particularly good..." It didn't matter. Boy, girl. Blonde hair, dark hair. Thin, fat. Bright, stupid. It didn't matter. The law course at Middlesex Poly was perfect for us. Looking back, I can't remember whether I was secretly impressed by his candour or depressed by the dull predictability of it all when I found out that the admissions officer of The Law Faculty at Middlesex Poly was his best mate and that they'd done some sort of deal. Mr Goldberg. I wonder whatever happened to him. Died, I guess. Well, it was a while ago and he was about 70-odd. So maybe I don't even need a time machine. Maybe he's been reincarnated as that woman who's sitting opposite. She's about 20. Could be. Could be but I don't think I'm going to risk it. You and I might recognise that life really doesn't get any better than sitting at Bedford station on the delayed 14.55 to Nottingham listening to Phil Collins's new album (Testify on EastWest records for those currently compiling their Christmas present lists) but there's every chance that the 20-year-old female reincarnation of Mr Goldberg might be hoping for something more from life. Bloody lawyers.
I like these trips. They give me a chance to read newspapers, somerthing I've studiously avoided doing since I became a journalist. I've read red-tops, middle market papers and broadsheets. I bought Heat, The New Statesman and The Wire. We just passed Kettering and I've had to take off Phil Collins and put on Johnny Cash's new album (The Man Who Comes Around on Lost Highway records.) I've always thought of Kettering as a real Johnny Cash kinda place. All fire and brimstone and men in black hats. Anyway, The Wire was the only one which wasn't full of Angus and Mr X (who, for legal reasons, we shall call 'John Leslie'). The Statesman piece was by John Gray and frankly inelligible. It was three pages long but only had about five words. Five very long words. The sort of words you could take a break from reading, go off and cook a meal and come back and finish reading. Words that take longer to read than it takes to watch an episode of EastEnders (which I might stop watching if they get rid of Trevor). Lynda Lee Potter in The Mail was the best. I can't remember exactly what she said, but the gist of it was that 'John Leslie' should be made to sit at Bedford station on the delayed 14.55 to Nottingham and listen to Phil Collins's new album (Testify on EastWest records).
It never happened. I tried but it never happened. Forget the CitiLodge Hotel. OK, so it's central but listen. No mini bar. No Corby trouser press. And don't even think about your 10 minute freeview periods. There wasn't even a pay-for-view telly. Issues pertaining to the modern man? Issues schmissues.
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
September iPack
THE BLACK ALBUM
It was always going to be Paint It Black. There was never really a question, though there was a strange collision – collusion? – of the elements.
There was my mood.
There was my colour of choice.
There was the colour of the sky.
There was the summer.
There was my favourite music.
There was my mood.
There was a colour my bank manager had never seen.
Then there was the name of the first CD I’d bought for a good while – Black Sheep. I’ve always been a fan of Cope, from his early gorgeous pop to latterly his mad infatuations with stone circles – I went to Callanish last year, one of the maddest weekends – to his love of Krautrock – which ever since I heard Tago Mago in maybe 74 I’ve always loved – to his determination to do things his own way – which I’ve always aspired to though mostly lacked the balls to follow through with. He’s become interested in William Blake recently and the new CD is enriched by a Blake-ism: “Create your own system of become enslaved by another Man’s”.
Seems reasonable to me. (That’s actually also a Fall lyric, from Before The Moon Falls, Dragnet, 1979).
I always keep an eye on his Head Heritage website and when I read that he had a new album…
So I bought it. Of course, it’s largely bollocks – a double CD, natch - but that’s what happens when you release stuff yourself on your own label and there’s no one around, except maybe your kids, who’s gonna say “Actually, that’s bollocks”. But there are a few good things, especially the title All the blowing-themselves-up motherfuckers (will realise the minute they die that they were suckers)
So…
The Black Sheep's Song - Julian Cope
The Black Sheep’s Song is a lovely idea. “To rally every black sheep is my goal” it says on the album sleeve – and there are a fair few black sheep on this CD.
Am I Black Enough for You - Schoolly D
A proper bad man. Top tune though. I remember the NME tried to champion him in the early days – till they realised he was proper bad. Play this loud and it resonates big time.
Reverend Black Grape - Black Grape
Black Grape always get lost in the pipe smoke of the Mondays, but they made some great tunes. Back in the day I tried to commission Sean Ryder to write a piece called It’s Great When You’re Straight for The Observer. Don’t bother trying to find it on the web.
Black Heart - Keith Hudson
There’s a story about Keith Hudson. When Richard Branson was launching his Front Line series – what was that? 1976? – he went over to Jamaica to hang out with all these dudes that he’d signed up from the comfort of those Tubular Bells royalties. So Branson was playing the black man, giving it a load of I’n’I nonsense and they all played along with him cos he was paying them. Then he met Keith Hudson who’d had a huge success with a tune called Civilisation. Except Hudson was a proper job gangster who took one look at Branson, pulled a gun and gave him a count to get out.
These days Branson sponsors Andy Murray and Hudson is dead.
Good tune though, from a top album called Pick A Dub.
Black Erotica - Ursula Rucker
Mmmm. This one’s interesting. She’s an odd one, is our Ursula. Obsessed you might say. The only recording artist who washes their hands before and after.
Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
What else could follow that?
Black Monk Theme - The Fall
You probably haven’t heard of The Fall, but you’re gonna have to trust me on this one. This is a cover of a song called “I Hate You” by The Monks, a Nuggets-era bunch of tripped out psycho hippies. But it’s got the best lyrics ever and is the perfect riposte to Ursula Rucker.
You can look them up, but it’s funner (an old Ellie word) to listen and smile as you catch Smith bark
“Seep seep seep to sleep,
The drill scaffold starts
Power drill dog bark renovate stone blast
I'm coming
Because you make me hate you baby”
Black Coffee In Bed - Squeeze
Possibly the finest pop song ever written called Black Coffee In Bed. Actually you might argue those last five words are superfluous. Impossibly well crafted, it’s the form at it’s finest.
Black Tie White Noise (3rd Floor US Radio Mix) - David Bowie
Bowie’s most under-rated album. Every Bowie album past Scary Monsters has been
A) hailed as a return to form by pop hacks who know that if they don’t write that they won’t have an earthly of an interview and they’re all desperate for an interview because they, like the rest of the world, are huge Bowie fans and would sell their granny for a chance to break bread with the man.
B) Utter bollocks.
There have been the odd single and the odd flourish, but mainly it’s been a disappointment. I think it’s cos he started eating, but that’s another story.
Black Tie White Noise is the nearest he’s come.
Black Crow - Joni Mitchell
Something for Chris. A lovely tune from Hejira, Joni’s Golden Period.
Black Corridor – Hawkwind
More words of wisdom from Robert Calvert. It’s odd that the longer he goes on, the more he sounds like a Dalek.
Black Snake Moan - Blind Lemon Jefferson
Seemed reasonable to have some blues on a Stones-inspired CD.
Blacks/Radio - The Psychedelic Furs
Something for Tim. Actually I probably scagged this from one of Tim’s CD. Back in the pre first album time, they were actually quite good. When they were happy to be primitive. The voice is still grief.
Blacka Shade Of Dub - Scientist
Black Man Time - I Roy
Black Harmony Killer - Jah Stitch
Black Diamonds - Roland Kirk
A while back Johnski and I had a bit of an e-flurry about Rip, Rig & Panic, a bunch of honking, squonking post Pop Group ne’er do wells. They took their name from a Roland Kirk album and – guess what – this track comes from that album.
All the blowing-themselves-up motherfuckers (will realise the minute they die that they were suckers) - Julian Cope
He’s probably got a point, you gotta admit.
Paint it Black - Metallica
I found a few mad versions of the tune – Rammstein were good, as was an unnamed German techno version, U2 was straight bollocks – but this I liked. Cos it’s so horrible.
It was always going to be Paint It Black. There was never really a question, though there was a strange collision – collusion? – of the elements.
There was my mood.
There was my colour of choice.
There was the colour of the sky.
There was the summer.
There was my favourite music.
There was my mood.
There was a colour my bank manager had never seen.
Then there was the name of the first CD I’d bought for a good while – Black Sheep. I’ve always been a fan of Cope, from his early gorgeous pop to latterly his mad infatuations with stone circles – I went to Callanish last year, one of the maddest weekends – to his love of Krautrock – which ever since I heard Tago Mago in maybe 74 I’ve always loved – to his determination to do things his own way – which I’ve always aspired to though mostly lacked the balls to follow through with. He’s become interested in William Blake recently and the new CD is enriched by a Blake-ism: “Create your own system of become enslaved by another Man’s”.
Seems reasonable to me. (That’s actually also a Fall lyric, from Before The Moon Falls, Dragnet, 1979).
I always keep an eye on his Head Heritage website and when I read that he had a new album…
So I bought it. Of course, it’s largely bollocks – a double CD, natch - but that’s what happens when you release stuff yourself on your own label and there’s no one around, except maybe your kids, who’s gonna say “Actually, that’s bollocks”. But there are a few good things, especially the title All the blowing-themselves-up motherfuckers (will realise the minute they die that they were suckers)
So…
The Black Sheep's Song - Julian Cope
The Black Sheep’s Song is a lovely idea. “To rally every black sheep is my goal” it says on the album sleeve – and there are a fair few black sheep on this CD.
Am I Black Enough for You - Schoolly D
A proper bad man. Top tune though. I remember the NME tried to champion him in the early days – till they realised he was proper bad. Play this loud and it resonates big time.
Reverend Black Grape - Black Grape
Black Grape always get lost in the pipe smoke of the Mondays, but they made some great tunes. Back in the day I tried to commission Sean Ryder to write a piece called It’s Great When You’re Straight for The Observer. Don’t bother trying to find it on the web.
Black Heart - Keith Hudson
There’s a story about Keith Hudson. When Richard Branson was launching his Front Line series – what was that? 1976? – he went over to Jamaica to hang out with all these dudes that he’d signed up from the comfort of those Tubular Bells royalties. So Branson was playing the black man, giving it a load of I’n’I nonsense and they all played along with him cos he was paying them. Then he met Keith Hudson who’d had a huge success with a tune called Civilisation. Except Hudson was a proper job gangster who took one look at Branson, pulled a gun and gave him a count to get out.
These days Branson sponsors Andy Murray and Hudson is dead.
Good tune though, from a top album called Pick A Dub.
Black Erotica - Ursula Rucker
Mmmm. This one’s interesting. She’s an odd one, is our Ursula. Obsessed you might say. The only recording artist who washes their hands before and after.
Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
What else could follow that?
Black Monk Theme - The Fall
You probably haven’t heard of The Fall, but you’re gonna have to trust me on this one. This is a cover of a song called “I Hate You” by The Monks, a Nuggets-era bunch of tripped out psycho hippies. But it’s got the best lyrics ever and is the perfect riposte to Ursula Rucker.
You can look them up, but it’s funner (an old Ellie word) to listen and smile as you catch Smith bark
“Seep seep seep to sleep,
The drill scaffold starts
Power drill dog bark renovate stone blast
I'm coming
Because you make me hate you baby”
Black Coffee In Bed - Squeeze
Possibly the finest pop song ever written called Black Coffee In Bed. Actually you might argue those last five words are superfluous. Impossibly well crafted, it’s the form at it’s finest.
Black Tie White Noise (3rd Floor US Radio Mix) - David Bowie
Bowie’s most under-rated album. Every Bowie album past Scary Monsters has been
A) hailed as a return to form by pop hacks who know that if they don’t write that they won’t have an earthly of an interview and they’re all desperate for an interview because they, like the rest of the world, are huge Bowie fans and would sell their granny for a chance to break bread with the man.
B) Utter bollocks.
There have been the odd single and the odd flourish, but mainly it’s been a disappointment. I think it’s cos he started eating, but that’s another story.
Black Tie White Noise is the nearest he’s come.
Black Crow - Joni Mitchell
Something for Chris. A lovely tune from Hejira, Joni’s Golden Period.
Black Corridor – Hawkwind
More words of wisdom from Robert Calvert. It’s odd that the longer he goes on, the more he sounds like a Dalek.
Black Snake Moan - Blind Lemon Jefferson
Seemed reasonable to have some blues on a Stones-inspired CD.
Blacks/Radio - The Psychedelic Furs
Something for Tim. Actually I probably scagged this from one of Tim’s CD. Back in the pre first album time, they were actually quite good. When they were happy to be primitive. The voice is still grief.
Blacka Shade Of Dub - Scientist
Black Man Time - I Roy
Black Harmony Killer - Jah Stitch
Black Diamonds - Roland Kirk
A while back Johnski and I had a bit of an e-flurry about Rip, Rig & Panic, a bunch of honking, squonking post Pop Group ne’er do wells. They took their name from a Roland Kirk album and – guess what – this track comes from that album.
All the blowing-themselves-up motherfuckers (will realise the minute they die that they were suckers) - Julian Cope
He’s probably got a point, you gotta admit.
Paint it Black - Metallica
I found a few mad versions of the tune – Rammstein were good, as was an unnamed German techno version, U2 was straight bollocks – but this I liked. Cos it’s so horrible.
Sunday, 7 September 2008
My summer
This is how my summer has been
A few weeks ago, I decided to sell my car. I liked the car, I liked enough that – and I only thought about this later – when Ellie once idly asked me what was the best car I ever had, I thought a bit and said “This one”. Still, a few weeks ago I decided to sell the car. It was a big 2.6 litre beast, lovely to drive but very expensive to run. In the time I had it, just over a year, the cost of filling it up had gone up over £25. The eco jihad? No, it just cost a lot.
I bought the car for £2,200 so I decided to sell it for the same. If it didn’t go… well, at least I tried.
On August 20 – an auspicious date as you’ll find out – I received an e-mail from Ebay saying that the car had sold. For £2,200. I sent the buyer a mail. A nice bloke called Chris who, curiously, worked for an internet TV station for chartered accountants. He was from New Zealand. That was a Wednesday. We arranged for him to come to Lewes station on Friday – they were doing a special on tax evasion on Thursday – and all was good.
On Thursday I got in the car, pressed the button that operated the driver’s window. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. It was broke. I took the car to the garage.
“Ah yes, you see it’s the motor. The whole thing will have to be replaced.”
“Blimey. Are you sure?”
“And of course the exhaust system.”
“Of course.”
£300. Plus VAT. It couldn’t have broken down a day later? It had worked perfectly all the time I had the car and that Thursday it broke.
That was how my summer has been.
This is how my summer has been
College finished. I got it done. Out of the way. I talked with Gill about the work I had to do over the summer. The projects. The ideas. The summer was full of potential, full of possibilities.
We had some friends round for Sunday lunch. It was, strangely for this summer, a lovely day. We were sitting on our deck with Fred and Sue – I’ll tell you about them later – and, as usual they were having a conversation at us when, kinda innocently, a wasp started bussing around my head.
Not even thinking about it, I waved it away, just like I’ve done a thousand times before. This time though was different. This time, as I waved, the wasp waved. We waved at each other. With each other. And, like old school rappers, we gave each other a high five. Well, I gave the wasp a high five. The wasp gave me a sting. On my hand. My right hand. The right hand which is the only hand I type with.
That wasn’t the bad thing. The bad thing was this. I had an allergic reaction to the sting. My hand blew up in an almost Elephant Man style. People looked at my hand like it was some Victorian curio. My rings got stuck. Not only did it hurt – and it did - I couldn’t move my hand or my fingers. For two weeks.
I’d never been stung before.
This is how my summer has been
Gill and I have been married, give or take, 13 years and five months. To someone who’s been married, say, 20 years that might not be much, but to someone who’s been married maybe just two years, it’s a lifetime.
People say to us “How do you keep yoiur marriage alive?” and we tell them of our devices. We even appeared in The Very Fine Daily Mail – a double page feature complete with photo shoot – talking about how we keep our marriage alive, how we keep the romance in our world.
Not long after we first got together, before we were married and before we even spoke of children, I packed a couple of bags, put Gill and Maxwell in the car, blindfolded the two of them – he was a terrible sneak – and took them off for a mystery weekend in The Isle Of Wight.
Since then, we’ve taken each other all over the world on mystery trips, the game being to see how far you can get the other person before they find out where they’re going. (Headphones and blindfolds are useful but you can’t stop idiot passengers reading The Time Out Guide Book To Rome or some idiot hostess declaring “Welcome to Nice”.)
Anyway, it’s been a bit of a summer and that’s brought on its own stresses so it was only a question of time before one of us declared “We’re going away next weekend, I’m not telling you where”. Gill arranged it. I was probably talking to mortgage advisors or legal solicitors or banks or bail bond bounty hunters.
We packed up the car – two adults, three children, three dogs, all our clothes and dog baskets, tenths, sleeping bags, duvets, pillows… With Gill you never know. I guessed we weren’t going to Prague but all the baggage really might have been a distraction.
Now then. My sister moved to Bournemouth in 1979, my mother moved in 1984 and I’ve been going down there every few weeks/ months since then. I’ve always been intrigued by a sign just by the New Forest which says “No Right Turn Till Rufus Stone”. What or who is Rufus Stone? What happens there? What might happen if you turned right before Rufus Stone? There are more questions than answers.
Anyway, so we’re driving along on the way to our mystery location, heading towards Bournemouth. Through the New Forest. Towards the sign. I’m driving. Gill’s saying “Left” or “Right”.
Gill says “Turn right at Rufus Stone”.
The weekend could only be fantastic. It could only be a treat. What happened was t his.
We pitched up at a camp site. Great. I’ve never been camping in a camp site.
Thye camp site is called Sandy Balls. Great. How many cheap gags to make the kids laugh can you get out of Sandy Balls?
It’s full of kids and dogs. Perfect.
What happened was this.
We made camp at around 5pm. We had a walk. I got hit by my mystery stomach condition. I was taken to Salisbury Hospital. I stayed there until Sunday afternoon when, car packed, Gill, the kids and the dogs came to pick me up and take me home.
On the way home, the girls said to me “Mummy was drinking wine outside the tent by herself”.
I’ve got to go to hospital on Sept 19th to have a cameradownthethroatoscopy.
“Is it going to hurt?” I said, like a true 50-year-old man.
“No, we’ll give you something that’ll send you away with the fairies.”
Grab that silver lining, I thought. Normally it costs me about £50 to go play with those guys.
This is how my summer has been
The mortgage went up £500 a month.
We decided we couldn't stay in the house.
We swung a deal.
We stayed in the house.
The deal went flat.
We couldn’t stay in the house.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about that.
But this is the thing. Then I sorted us out a deal to stay in the house. It’s not cheap, but we can manage it.
We’re staying in the house.
There have been a lot of ups and downs. Conversations around the table. Trips to London. E-mails with people who were probably wearing suits, the type you wear with your shirt tucked in and your stomach hanging out.
It's been difficult but we're staying in the house.
This is how my summer has been
My mother died.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about that one.
She’d been ill for a long time and many times I wished – for all our sakes – that she slip away.
She used to say to me “I wish I was on the top of a big slide and I could just slide…”
She’d started to call me Liam. Quite why this woman – born in Whitechapel of Polish immigrant stock and Jewish through and through should conjure up the name Liam… Who can say. I asked her once. She looked at me like I was an idiot. That’s when I thought she was going to live forever.
But she died. And you know what? It hurts more than the wasp sting and is more disorientating than the house business.
My mother died. On August 18.
On August 20 - Ellie's birthday, a day she'd been looking for f'ages - my mother had her funeral.
August 20. Ellie's birthday. Gill's parents' wedding anniversary. My mother's funeral. All of life.
This is how my summer has been
As I was driving from Laughton to Bournemouth after being told about my mother, I realised the curious ramification of her passing.
We wouldn’t be able to stay in the house. The detail is too sordid to go into here, but that’s the story.
We’re not staying in the house.
This is how my summer has been
I was going to turn 50 this summer. I knew it was coming – it’s not like you don’t get notification – so I decided to embrace it. I’d do what I do. I’d have a party. I was going to have a big party. I was going to be 50 – it wasn’t going to be me, you know what I mean?
We were going to have a theme party – 1973. It was my 50th, Ellie’s 13th and LouLou’s 10th. 73. (Quite how LouLou has got to 10… that’s another story).
People were coming from far and wide. They were going to camp. It would be a mini festival – just like our wedding renewal party – minus the guitar stomping.
We weren’t going to have a summer holiday – our money was going on the house, remember – and the weather had been appalling and our attempts at mystery romantic weekends had ended up in hospital, but we were going to have a big party.
The week before The Big Party… my mother died. I cancelled the party. It’s not that it didn’t seem right, it’s just that I couldn’t do it. I’d bought a massive version of the game Twister but I couldn’t do it.
Maybe we’ll do it later.
A few weeks ago, I decided to sell my car. I liked the car, I liked enough that – and I only thought about this later – when Ellie once idly asked me what was the best car I ever had, I thought a bit and said “This one”. Still, a few weeks ago I decided to sell the car. It was a big 2.6 litre beast, lovely to drive but very expensive to run. In the time I had it, just over a year, the cost of filling it up had gone up over £25. The eco jihad? No, it just cost a lot.
I bought the car for £2,200 so I decided to sell it for the same. If it didn’t go… well, at least I tried.
On August 20 – an auspicious date as you’ll find out – I received an e-mail from Ebay saying that the car had sold. For £2,200. I sent the buyer a mail. A nice bloke called Chris who, curiously, worked for an internet TV station for chartered accountants. He was from New Zealand. That was a Wednesday. We arranged for him to come to Lewes station on Friday – they were doing a special on tax evasion on Thursday – and all was good.
On Thursday I got in the car, pressed the button that operated the driver’s window. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. It was broke. I took the car to the garage.
“Ah yes, you see it’s the motor. The whole thing will have to be replaced.”
“Blimey. Are you sure?”
“And of course the exhaust system.”
“Of course.”
£300. Plus VAT. It couldn’t have broken down a day later? It had worked perfectly all the time I had the car and that Thursday it broke.
That was how my summer has been.
This is how my summer has been
College finished. I got it done. Out of the way. I talked with Gill about the work I had to do over the summer. The projects. The ideas. The summer was full of potential, full of possibilities.
We had some friends round for Sunday lunch. It was, strangely for this summer, a lovely day. We were sitting on our deck with Fred and Sue – I’ll tell you about them later – and, as usual they were having a conversation at us when, kinda innocently, a wasp started bussing around my head.
Not even thinking about it, I waved it away, just like I’ve done a thousand times before. This time though was different. This time, as I waved, the wasp waved. We waved at each other. With each other. And, like old school rappers, we gave each other a high five. Well, I gave the wasp a high five. The wasp gave me a sting. On my hand. My right hand. The right hand which is the only hand I type with.
That wasn’t the bad thing. The bad thing was this. I had an allergic reaction to the sting. My hand blew up in an almost Elephant Man style. People looked at my hand like it was some Victorian curio. My rings got stuck. Not only did it hurt – and it did - I couldn’t move my hand or my fingers. For two weeks.
I’d never been stung before.
This is how my summer has been
Gill and I have been married, give or take, 13 years and five months. To someone who’s been married, say, 20 years that might not be much, but to someone who’s been married maybe just two years, it’s a lifetime.
People say to us “How do you keep yoiur marriage alive?” and we tell them of our devices. We even appeared in The Very Fine Daily Mail – a double page feature complete with photo shoot – talking about how we keep our marriage alive, how we keep the romance in our world.
Not long after we first got together, before we were married and before we even spoke of children, I packed a couple of bags, put Gill and Maxwell in the car, blindfolded the two of them – he was a terrible sneak – and took them off for a mystery weekend in The Isle Of Wight.
Since then, we’ve taken each other all over the world on mystery trips, the game being to see how far you can get the other person before they find out where they’re going. (Headphones and blindfolds are useful but you can’t stop idiot passengers reading The Time Out Guide Book To Rome or some idiot hostess declaring “Welcome to Nice”.)
Anyway, it’s been a bit of a summer and that’s brought on its own stresses so it was only a question of time before one of us declared “We’re going away next weekend, I’m not telling you where”. Gill arranged it. I was probably talking to mortgage advisors or legal solicitors or banks or bail bond bounty hunters.
We packed up the car – two adults, three children, three dogs, all our clothes and dog baskets, tenths, sleeping bags, duvets, pillows… With Gill you never know. I guessed we weren’t going to Prague but all the baggage really might have been a distraction.
Now then. My sister moved to Bournemouth in 1979, my mother moved in 1984 and I’ve been going down there every few weeks/ months since then. I’ve always been intrigued by a sign just by the New Forest which says “No Right Turn Till Rufus Stone”. What or who is Rufus Stone? What happens there? What might happen if you turned right before Rufus Stone? There are more questions than answers.
Anyway, so we’re driving along on the way to our mystery location, heading towards Bournemouth. Through the New Forest. Towards the sign. I’m driving. Gill’s saying “Left” or “Right”.
Gill says “Turn right at Rufus Stone”.
The weekend could only be fantastic. It could only be a treat. What happened was t his.
We pitched up at a camp site. Great. I’ve never been camping in a camp site.
Thye camp site is called Sandy Balls. Great. How many cheap gags to make the kids laugh can you get out of Sandy Balls?
It’s full of kids and dogs. Perfect.
What happened was this.
We made camp at around 5pm. We had a walk. I got hit by my mystery stomach condition. I was taken to Salisbury Hospital. I stayed there until Sunday afternoon when, car packed, Gill, the kids and the dogs came to pick me up and take me home.
On the way home, the girls said to me “Mummy was drinking wine outside the tent by herself”.
I’ve got to go to hospital on Sept 19th to have a cameradownthethroatoscopy.
“Is it going to hurt?” I said, like a true 50-year-old man.
“No, we’ll give you something that’ll send you away with the fairies.”
Grab that silver lining, I thought. Normally it costs me about £50 to go play with those guys.
This is how my summer has been
The mortgage went up £500 a month.
We decided we couldn't stay in the house.
We swung a deal.
We stayed in the house.
The deal went flat.
We couldn’t stay in the house.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about that.
But this is the thing. Then I sorted us out a deal to stay in the house. It’s not cheap, but we can manage it.
We’re staying in the house.
There have been a lot of ups and downs. Conversations around the table. Trips to London. E-mails with people who were probably wearing suits, the type you wear with your shirt tucked in and your stomach hanging out.
It's been difficult but we're staying in the house.
This is how my summer has been
My mother died.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about that one.
She’d been ill for a long time and many times I wished – for all our sakes – that she slip away.
She used to say to me “I wish I was on the top of a big slide and I could just slide…”
She’d started to call me Liam. Quite why this woman – born in Whitechapel of Polish immigrant stock and Jewish through and through should conjure up the name Liam… Who can say. I asked her once. She looked at me like I was an idiot. That’s when I thought she was going to live forever.
But she died. And you know what? It hurts more than the wasp sting and is more disorientating than the house business.
My mother died. On August 18.
On August 20 - Ellie's birthday, a day she'd been looking for f'ages - my mother had her funeral.
August 20. Ellie's birthday. Gill's parents' wedding anniversary. My mother's funeral. All of life.
This is how my summer has been
As I was driving from Laughton to Bournemouth after being told about my mother, I realised the curious ramification of her passing.
We wouldn’t be able to stay in the house. The detail is too sordid to go into here, but that’s the story.
We’re not staying in the house.
This is how my summer has been
I was going to turn 50 this summer. I knew it was coming – it’s not like you don’t get notification – so I decided to embrace it. I’d do what I do. I’d have a party. I was going to have a big party. I was going to be 50 – it wasn’t going to be me, you know what I mean?
We were going to have a theme party – 1973. It was my 50th, Ellie’s 13th and LouLou’s 10th. 73. (Quite how LouLou has got to 10… that’s another story).
People were coming from far and wide. They were going to camp. It would be a mini festival – just like our wedding renewal party – minus the guitar stomping.
We weren’t going to have a summer holiday – our money was going on the house, remember – and the weather had been appalling and our attempts at mystery romantic weekends had ended up in hospital, but we were going to have a big party.
The week before The Big Party… my mother died. I cancelled the party. It’s not that it didn’t seem right, it’s just that I couldn’t do it. I’d bought a massive version of the game Twister but I couldn’t do it.
Maybe we’ll do it later.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Cars and Pars
In some cultures, the kids go off into the forest with their elders, maybe kill a deer and come back a man. Me and my old man went to Truppy’s garage round the back of Stamford Hill and came back with a dark green Morris 1100. In terms of blood sweat and tears, it’s a toss up between the two.
As a car, the Morris made a shopping trolley look like a sophisticated piece of machinery. But it doesn’t matter. My mate Pomeranc got a car at the same time, a Ford Anglia that went round corners by itself. Going straight down the road was trickier, but it doesn’t matter.
We bought that together, me and my old man. It was dark green, the three door – well, two doors and a boot – and, how shall we say? I wasn’t going to get caught speeding in this thing. (Later, I sorted that out. I had a mate who knew a bit about cars and he got hold of a pair of Weber carbs. “No, it’ll be alright”. I was working at Mister Byrite, sorted him out. Fitted with its new go-faster carbs, RoboMorris went from nought to 30 like the wind. From 30 to 31 you could wait all week. Still.)
It was somewhere west of knackered. I didn’t care. You don’t, do you? Going to get my first car with my old man, it was like my proper barmitzvah. Becoming a man? This is what I’m talking about.
Anyway, we got this thing home and I parked outside the house. We got out of the car, closed the doors and – and this is where the film goes into show-motion – slowly but ever so surely the car started sliding backwards down the hill. Me and my old man made to try and stop it but couldn’t catch it. We needed something solid, something like… that lamp post. The next day we went to a breakers yard and got a new boot. OK, so it was white, but actually I kinda liked it. It was a story, our story.
OK, it was a short story. Two cars later and I got what I wanted. I’d gone through the Morris 1100 and the Triumph Herald and hadn’t quite got to the glory that was the inherited Triumph 2000 and had somehow managed to get hold of a red Mini 1275GT with a big fat sports exhaust. Proper.
Thanks to a job at the bookies – well, you can always go back and re-take your exams can’t you, but if you want a few bob RIGHT NOW you’ve got to do it RIGHT NOW, right? – I’d just had a Stage 3 cylinder head fitted to my Mini 1275. I remember… I came racing down the hill to our house and revved the car up outside the front door like, well, like a boy with a new toy. My old man laughed, which was cheap cos he laughed at everything.
Remember the time back when I was maybe 12 or 13 and I’d bought these fantastic platform boots, all metallic blue and silver stripes from Shelleys and matched them with a pair of high-waisted five-button Oxfords that covered the boots perfectly. I came downstairs and tried to sneak out of the house but, listen, it’s difficult to move like James Coburn when you’re wearing four inch metallic platform boots and trousers that do up around your tits. He looked at me and asked what must now sound a perfectly reasonable question: “What’s the point of wearing boots like that if you’re not going to let people see them?”
It’s like last year – and last year I’m over 40, right – and me and my wife are off to see Fatboy Slim play on Brighton Beach. Gill’s dad’s babysitting. He asks us where we’re going.
“Where are you going?”
So we tell him and, just like a proper dad, all he did was ask what must now sound a perfectly reasonable question: “So you’re going to watch him play other people’s records?”
My eldest is nine now. If I even open my mouth, it’s “Whatever…” and a quick Naomi Campbell out of the room.
I learned everything from that laugh. It was the same laugh I heard whenever the relatives came round in their shiny new Mercedes. There was something undeniably funny about these post-war Jewish immigrants swanning around in shiny new Mercedes – Yiddles claiming it back – but my old man just laughed.
“What do I need a new car for?” he’d say, pointing out at the E-reg Triumph 2000 and I was with him on that one. The Triumph was a dream of a car. Built like a tank, leather everywhere and walnut where there wasn’t leather.
It was solid, that car. The sort of car that, you knew if you had a crash the other car would look like a concertina and this? Barely a scratch on the bumper. Solid and honest. Could have been custom built for the old man.
It’s a curious thing. When I think back to my old man and the time we spent together, almost inevitably wheels play a part. They had to really: I was a boy and he was a driver. That’s what he did for a living, drove. Actually he was a cooper, a barrel-maker, but by the time I was there the bottom had fallen out of the wooden barrel market.
During the holidays I’d go down to the yard – Novick’s Cooperage in Rhodeswell Road, Bow, and smell the air, rich with damp sawdust. There’s still nothing quite like the smell of damp sawdust. The big lorry would be in the yard, ready to load with barrels, ready to take somewhere. There were stories, really good stories, but I never really got to grips with it all. I knew a bit of post-War stuff with gangsters went on – there were shortages, things need to get moved around and who knew what was inside a barrel?
But now it was all kosher. Mostly kosher. I remember one evening going off with him – and going off in the evening was an odd one in itself – down to the yard. The lorry was full, loaded to the gills, and we drove it down through the night, down to the car park opposite Twickenham rugby ground. This was off-the-scale odd. There was another lorry in the car park and we took the barrels off our lorry and loaded them on this other lorry. Tied it all up, did the tarpaulin thing, got back in our lorry and drove home.
I’m sure it was a cracking story and maybe if I was a different bloke I’d add some colour involving shadowy blokes and brown paper bags, but the truth is I was just a young kid, thrilled to be out with my old man, and excited because somewhere inside I knew this was bad stuff. And thrilled that he’d taken me with him to do this bad thing.
Mostly though I’d go off with him and it would be routine delivery stuff. We’d load the lorry up and take some barrels to another yard, or maybe go to another yard, pick some barrels up and bring them home. Routine. Routines and small memories that bring a smile to the heart. Breaking down in the McVitie’s factory off the Hendon Way and spending the night smelling this biscuit smell…
The car and the lorry seemed to be the place where me and my old man met. The house was my mother’s territory, the car his. I can feel it the same now with my kids. I have my best chats with them when we’re alone in the car. And you’d have to be very unkind to point out that they’re captive, belted in and door locks controlled by me.
The warm memories are all tied up in that lorry, like the barrels in the tarpaulin. Warm memories and one really crap memory. It’s funny how crap things stick in your head, things that make you cringe. We were driving down to Bournemouth to visit my sister’s prospective in-laws. It was late, Friday night after work, and my old man was, I thought, driving too slowly. So, like a stupid young know-the-price of-everything-but-the-value-of-nothing twat, I started taking the piss. Telling him that he was too old, that I could do better. What a twat. He didn’t say anything, let alone laugh the laugh. He just pulled over, got out and let me drive the rest of the way. I got us there, and yes faster than him, but still. What a twat.
The last thing he did involved a car. I’ve never thought about this before and maybe there’s a connection. The old Triumph 2000 finally bit the dust. After all the years of laughing at the aspirational relatives with their Mercs and their Saabs he finally decided to replace the old girl.
I’d smashed it up going down Camden Road too fast. It had a kickdown like a mule and I had some mates in the car and… you know. I slammed the brakes on and just about stopped her but she slid into the car in front. Killed it I think. The old Triumph had barely a scratch on the bumper. I was terrified of going home. It wasn’t that I thought he’d kill me, it was worse than that. It was… the disappointment. Sorry dad. I will sort it out one day. I don’t know why but he decided to give the Triumph to me. Maybe he thought it would make a man of me.
I’ve no idea why, it’s not a question I ever had time to ask, but he bought a shit-for-brains Fiat. Idiot tin bullshit car. Idiot tin light blue bastard bullshit car. He died before it ever arrived. It sat in the garage, unused and unloved. Every so often my mother would look at it and cry. One day when she was out I sold it. No one ever asked.
As a car, the Morris made a shopping trolley look like a sophisticated piece of machinery. But it doesn’t matter. My mate Pomeranc got a car at the same time, a Ford Anglia that went round corners by itself. Going straight down the road was trickier, but it doesn’t matter.
We bought that together, me and my old man. It was dark green, the three door – well, two doors and a boot – and, how shall we say? I wasn’t going to get caught speeding in this thing. (Later, I sorted that out. I had a mate who knew a bit about cars and he got hold of a pair of Weber carbs. “No, it’ll be alright”. I was working at Mister Byrite, sorted him out. Fitted with its new go-faster carbs, RoboMorris went from nought to 30 like the wind. From 30 to 31 you could wait all week. Still.)
It was somewhere west of knackered. I didn’t care. You don’t, do you? Going to get my first car with my old man, it was like my proper barmitzvah. Becoming a man? This is what I’m talking about.
Anyway, we got this thing home and I parked outside the house. We got out of the car, closed the doors and – and this is where the film goes into show-motion – slowly but ever so surely the car started sliding backwards down the hill. Me and my old man made to try and stop it but couldn’t catch it. We needed something solid, something like… that lamp post. The next day we went to a breakers yard and got a new boot. OK, so it was white, but actually I kinda liked it. It was a story, our story.
OK, it was a short story. Two cars later and I got what I wanted. I’d gone through the Morris 1100 and the Triumph Herald and hadn’t quite got to the glory that was the inherited Triumph 2000 and had somehow managed to get hold of a red Mini 1275GT with a big fat sports exhaust. Proper.
Thanks to a job at the bookies – well, you can always go back and re-take your exams can’t you, but if you want a few bob RIGHT NOW you’ve got to do it RIGHT NOW, right? – I’d just had a Stage 3 cylinder head fitted to my Mini 1275. I remember… I came racing down the hill to our house and revved the car up outside the front door like, well, like a boy with a new toy. My old man laughed, which was cheap cos he laughed at everything.
Remember the time back when I was maybe 12 or 13 and I’d bought these fantastic platform boots, all metallic blue and silver stripes from Shelleys and matched them with a pair of high-waisted five-button Oxfords that covered the boots perfectly. I came downstairs and tried to sneak out of the house but, listen, it’s difficult to move like James Coburn when you’re wearing four inch metallic platform boots and trousers that do up around your tits. He looked at me and asked what must now sound a perfectly reasonable question: “What’s the point of wearing boots like that if you’re not going to let people see them?”
It’s like last year – and last year I’m over 40, right – and me and my wife are off to see Fatboy Slim play on Brighton Beach. Gill’s dad’s babysitting. He asks us where we’re going.
“Where are you going?”
So we tell him and, just like a proper dad, all he did was ask what must now sound a perfectly reasonable question: “So you’re going to watch him play other people’s records?”
My eldest is nine now. If I even open my mouth, it’s “Whatever…” and a quick Naomi Campbell out of the room.
I learned everything from that laugh. It was the same laugh I heard whenever the relatives came round in their shiny new Mercedes. There was something undeniably funny about these post-war Jewish immigrants swanning around in shiny new Mercedes – Yiddles claiming it back – but my old man just laughed.
“What do I need a new car for?” he’d say, pointing out at the E-reg Triumph 2000 and I was with him on that one. The Triumph was a dream of a car. Built like a tank, leather everywhere and walnut where there wasn’t leather.
It was solid, that car. The sort of car that, you knew if you had a crash the other car would look like a concertina and this? Barely a scratch on the bumper. Solid and honest. Could have been custom built for the old man.
It’s a curious thing. When I think back to my old man and the time we spent together, almost inevitably wheels play a part. They had to really: I was a boy and he was a driver. That’s what he did for a living, drove. Actually he was a cooper, a barrel-maker, but by the time I was there the bottom had fallen out of the wooden barrel market.
During the holidays I’d go down to the yard – Novick’s Cooperage in Rhodeswell Road, Bow, and smell the air, rich with damp sawdust. There’s still nothing quite like the smell of damp sawdust. The big lorry would be in the yard, ready to load with barrels, ready to take somewhere. There were stories, really good stories, but I never really got to grips with it all. I knew a bit of post-War stuff with gangsters went on – there were shortages, things need to get moved around and who knew what was inside a barrel?
But now it was all kosher. Mostly kosher. I remember one evening going off with him – and going off in the evening was an odd one in itself – down to the yard. The lorry was full, loaded to the gills, and we drove it down through the night, down to the car park opposite Twickenham rugby ground. This was off-the-scale odd. There was another lorry in the car park and we took the barrels off our lorry and loaded them on this other lorry. Tied it all up, did the tarpaulin thing, got back in our lorry and drove home.
I’m sure it was a cracking story and maybe if I was a different bloke I’d add some colour involving shadowy blokes and brown paper bags, but the truth is I was just a young kid, thrilled to be out with my old man, and excited because somewhere inside I knew this was bad stuff. And thrilled that he’d taken me with him to do this bad thing.
Mostly though I’d go off with him and it would be routine delivery stuff. We’d load the lorry up and take some barrels to another yard, or maybe go to another yard, pick some barrels up and bring them home. Routine. Routines and small memories that bring a smile to the heart. Breaking down in the McVitie’s factory off the Hendon Way and spending the night smelling this biscuit smell…
The car and the lorry seemed to be the place where me and my old man met. The house was my mother’s territory, the car his. I can feel it the same now with my kids. I have my best chats with them when we’re alone in the car. And you’d have to be very unkind to point out that they’re captive, belted in and door locks controlled by me.
The warm memories are all tied up in that lorry, like the barrels in the tarpaulin. Warm memories and one really crap memory. It’s funny how crap things stick in your head, things that make you cringe. We were driving down to Bournemouth to visit my sister’s prospective in-laws. It was late, Friday night after work, and my old man was, I thought, driving too slowly. So, like a stupid young know-the-price of-everything-but-the-value-of-nothing twat, I started taking the piss. Telling him that he was too old, that I could do better. What a twat. He didn’t say anything, let alone laugh the laugh. He just pulled over, got out and let me drive the rest of the way. I got us there, and yes faster than him, but still. What a twat.
The last thing he did involved a car. I’ve never thought about this before and maybe there’s a connection. The old Triumph 2000 finally bit the dust. After all the years of laughing at the aspirational relatives with their Mercs and their Saabs he finally decided to replace the old girl.
I’d smashed it up going down Camden Road too fast. It had a kickdown like a mule and I had some mates in the car and… you know. I slammed the brakes on and just about stopped her but she slid into the car in front. Killed it I think. The old Triumph had barely a scratch on the bumper. I was terrified of going home. It wasn’t that I thought he’d kill me, it was worse than that. It was… the disappointment. Sorry dad. I will sort it out one day. I don’t know why but he decided to give the Triumph to me. Maybe he thought it would make a man of me.
I’ve no idea why, it’s not a question I ever had time to ask, but he bought a shit-for-brains Fiat. Idiot tin bullshit car. Idiot tin light blue bastard bullshit car. He died before it ever arrived. It sat in the garage, unused and unloved. Every so often my mother would look at it and cry. One day when she was out I sold it. No one ever asked.
In the name of the child
I'm writing the introduction to a new book, and looked back at the last one I wrote - and got kinda nostalgic. It was done pre-Blog so there's no record of it here. Or at least there wasn't...
Before you start reading this book or this introduction or anything, do this for a minute. Close your eyes. Imagine your children. Imagine them growing up. Imagine them getting a star at school for tidying their desk and them being thrilled about it. Imagine their friend having a birthday party and them coming home with a party bag. Imagine them losing a tooth, the bright red gappy smile and their excitement because they know that this means that the tooth fairy will come. Imagine them growing up. Now imagine all that happening somewhere else. And you’re not there. You know it’s all happening but you’re not there. You can’t see them and they can’t see you. They’ve just fallen over and banged their head. You’re not there. They’re crying. You’re not there. They’ve just come home from school and they’re really upset because they’ve just had an argument with their best friend. You’re not there. It’s bath-time. You’re not there. Story-time. You’re not there. Bedtime. You’re not there. You know it’s all happening but you’re not there. It’s not nice, is it?
When I agreed to help Dave with this book I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t know Dave, I didn’t know his situation. I’d heard about Fathers4Justice in the way that you hear about things on the news that have got nothing to do with you: it was interesting, but didn’t make much of an impact on me because, well, because it wasn’t happening to me. I thought these blokes who dressed up as superheroes were quite funny and quite smart and thought that, as a peaceful protest it was just about perfect: it made people notice, it made people smile and no one got hurt. I also wondered what on earth it must feel like to be deprived of your kids. As the father of two young girls, I tried to think what on earth it must be like but I couldn’t really get near it. Then something else would come on the news and I’d think about that.
When I was approached to help Dave with this book there might have been a small part of me that thought “Hmmm, no smoke without fire”. I can’t deny that. I’ve got friends who’ve split up and none of them have ended up hanging off a crane in fancy dress. They argue, they bitch, they get angry, they cry. What they don’t do is dress up like Spiderman or Batman.
You can’t help but think something like “that’s not what happens to normal people. Life doesn’t work like that.” And so I agreed to take on the book. If I’m completely truthful, I thought, in a detached kind of way, it would be interesting. After all, what Dave had gone through and what he was still going through was completely alien to me. Our situations couldn’t be more different. I’ve been happily married for over 10 years. My wife and I both work from home and we share the household and parental stuff down the middle. I’ve got two lovely girls who I take to school every other day and who I pick up from school every other day. I take them to their friends’ houses, pick them up, moan about being nothing but a taxi driver… the whole parent thing. The very idea that I couldn’t see them whenever I wanted was so alien that I couldn’t even conceive of what it must be like. Every time I tried to imagine, I’d hear the kids screaming or fighting or wanting something.
So we started working on the book together, getting to know each other, checking each other out. Apart from growing to like him as a person, my respect for him has grown immeasurably. The pressures that Dave found himself under would have crushed most people. The emotional trauma, the drain would have made most people either behave irrationally or, more probably, badly. Dave has done neither. (Some people might think that dressing up as Spiderman and risking his life off a crane is irrational: I don’t. I think it’s desperate and sad and shocking, but it’s not irrational. It’s what someone does when they’ve run out of choices, when there’s nowhere else to go.
This is Dave’s story. Every story in life has more than one side and, no doubt, you could tell this story more than one way. But this is Dave’s story. It’s his story told in his words and maybe it’s true that my sympathies are with Dave. We’re both men and both know what that feels like. We’re both fathers and both know what that feels like. But it was more than that. It’s more than Dave’s story. It’s Lauren’s story because whenever adults argue, it’s the kids who pick up the tab. The parents hammer away at each other, but it’s the kid who gets the bruise. And that – to use one of my kid’s favourite phrases – is just so badly unfair. Lauren gets the bruise because she’s not allowed to see her dad. Her dad gets the bruise because he’s not allowed to see his daughter. Dave’s story is also the story of a personal journey. I know from personal experience that having a child is like turbo-charging the journey from youth to adulthood, from kid to grown-up. When you have a child, everything changes. It’s a new life – for them and for you. You become a different person. The things that used to be important aren’t so important anymore. The things you used to be concerned about… None of it means anything anymore. What’s important is this baby you’ve created. New parents – all new parents - go from being selfish to being selfless, from irresponsible to responsible. We all go through this. To have the catalyst for this change – your child – taken away so quickly… I can’t even think how horrible that must be. When I agreed to help Dave with this book I didn’t really know what to expect. What I know now is this – and it’s quite simple: He’s a decent, human being who just wants to be with his child. Just like me. And very probably just like you.
Before you start reading this book or this introduction or anything, do this for a minute. Close your eyes. Imagine your children. Imagine them growing up. Imagine them getting a star at school for tidying their desk and them being thrilled about it. Imagine their friend having a birthday party and them coming home with a party bag. Imagine them losing a tooth, the bright red gappy smile and their excitement because they know that this means that the tooth fairy will come. Imagine them growing up. Now imagine all that happening somewhere else. And you’re not there. You know it’s all happening but you’re not there. You can’t see them and they can’t see you. They’ve just fallen over and banged their head. You’re not there. They’re crying. You’re not there. They’ve just come home from school and they’re really upset because they’ve just had an argument with their best friend. You’re not there. It’s bath-time. You’re not there. Story-time. You’re not there. Bedtime. You’re not there. You know it’s all happening but you’re not there. It’s not nice, is it?
When I agreed to help Dave with this book I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t know Dave, I didn’t know his situation. I’d heard about Fathers4Justice in the way that you hear about things on the news that have got nothing to do with you: it was interesting, but didn’t make much of an impact on me because, well, because it wasn’t happening to me. I thought these blokes who dressed up as superheroes were quite funny and quite smart and thought that, as a peaceful protest it was just about perfect: it made people notice, it made people smile and no one got hurt. I also wondered what on earth it must feel like to be deprived of your kids. As the father of two young girls, I tried to think what on earth it must be like but I couldn’t really get near it. Then something else would come on the news and I’d think about that.
When I was approached to help Dave with this book there might have been a small part of me that thought “Hmmm, no smoke without fire”. I can’t deny that. I’ve got friends who’ve split up and none of them have ended up hanging off a crane in fancy dress. They argue, they bitch, they get angry, they cry. What they don’t do is dress up like Spiderman or Batman.
You can’t help but think something like “that’s not what happens to normal people. Life doesn’t work like that.” And so I agreed to take on the book. If I’m completely truthful, I thought, in a detached kind of way, it would be interesting. After all, what Dave had gone through and what he was still going through was completely alien to me. Our situations couldn’t be more different. I’ve been happily married for over 10 years. My wife and I both work from home and we share the household and parental stuff down the middle. I’ve got two lovely girls who I take to school every other day and who I pick up from school every other day. I take them to their friends’ houses, pick them up, moan about being nothing but a taxi driver… the whole parent thing. The very idea that I couldn’t see them whenever I wanted was so alien that I couldn’t even conceive of what it must be like. Every time I tried to imagine, I’d hear the kids screaming or fighting or wanting something.
So we started working on the book together, getting to know each other, checking each other out. Apart from growing to like him as a person, my respect for him has grown immeasurably. The pressures that Dave found himself under would have crushed most people. The emotional trauma, the drain would have made most people either behave irrationally or, more probably, badly. Dave has done neither. (Some people might think that dressing up as Spiderman and risking his life off a crane is irrational: I don’t. I think it’s desperate and sad and shocking, but it’s not irrational. It’s what someone does when they’ve run out of choices, when there’s nowhere else to go.
This is Dave’s story. Every story in life has more than one side and, no doubt, you could tell this story more than one way. But this is Dave’s story. It’s his story told in his words and maybe it’s true that my sympathies are with Dave. We’re both men and both know what that feels like. We’re both fathers and both know what that feels like. But it was more than that. It’s more than Dave’s story. It’s Lauren’s story because whenever adults argue, it’s the kids who pick up the tab. The parents hammer away at each other, but it’s the kid who gets the bruise. And that – to use one of my kid’s favourite phrases – is just so badly unfair. Lauren gets the bruise because she’s not allowed to see her dad. Her dad gets the bruise because he’s not allowed to see his daughter. Dave’s story is also the story of a personal journey. I know from personal experience that having a child is like turbo-charging the journey from youth to adulthood, from kid to grown-up. When you have a child, everything changes. It’s a new life – for them and for you. You become a different person. The things that used to be important aren’t so important anymore. The things you used to be concerned about… None of it means anything anymore. What’s important is this baby you’ve created. New parents – all new parents - go from being selfish to being selfless, from irresponsible to responsible. We all go through this. To have the catalyst for this change – your child – taken away so quickly… I can’t even think how horrible that must be. When I agreed to help Dave with this book I didn’t really know what to expect. What I know now is this – and it’s quite simple: He’s a decent, human being who just wants to be with his child. Just like me. And very probably just like you.
Sunday, 6 July 2008
Maxwell would be so proud
Are the funniest little things. Molly and Moby - it's a curious thing but they warm my soul like little else. And Poppy has come good in the best, most heart warming way. (And while we're on Poppy. Apologies to Ireland. Young DJP has put me right - there is a RSPCA network in Ireland. So there).
Waking up in the morning (it's an old habit) and coming downstairs. Open the back and Poppy goes out onto the back deck and just waits. Then I go to the office and let the pups out. A quick kiss and bit of my toes and they fly out through the kitchen and out the back door to where Poppy is waiting. They attack. She smiles and sits there, letting them crawl all over her before... she rolls over and start suckling. It's the most lovely way to start the day.
What a whirl
Blimey. That’s been a few weeks, months even. All the college stuff – the assessments, the marking, the exam boards. Then there’s been the house stuff – a stress that’s somewhere west of stress, something that’s still going on. Every day, another thought, another idea. Then there’s been curveballs like crashing the car – that was a real joy. I kinda figure that one session with Dr Janni and her rubber tube was a small price to pay. (Don’t know if I should write about Dr Janni here. Do people really want to know the truth about an ayervedic enema? I don’t know. It’s not like I’m going to post a picture…)
The college stuff, it’s all an emotional curve to love and learn from. It’s such a strange feeling. These people. What are they? Friends? Students in a long line of more students? Or (as my friend is so fond of saying) merely food? For me I’ve got to say that it’s largely the former – friends. I can’t really look at it any other way and I hope that if I ever stop seeing them as friends, that’ll be the day I find a new job.
It’s interesting how some of the students give you a real thrill, a warm glow. Some you just want to kick in the nose but we’ll let that go. Let’s stay with the family motto and look at the good. The gang that I saw last night are, generally, the reason for doing the job. Good people, bright and optimistc. The spirit of positivism. I like talking to Greg, he reminds me of the good bits of me (albeit the me of a few years older than him). Chancing the chance, smiling through it in the knowledge that a smile and a positive outlook is enough to get through. Genuinely it warms the soul when he tells of blagging an interview with Alex Turner. I used to do that. It’s funny.
I’m kinda through that whole “they’re going to find me out” business and happy in my role. Listen, if Lee can write to me and thank me for all I taught him, life is good.
Now it’s the summer and time to crack on. What to do first? This play I’m supposed to write? Or plough on with the book? I do know that Gaigin Strategies is going to be the one, but when shall I do it?
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Back to School
So now we’re just coming up to the end of the Easter break and, it’s a curious thing, but I’m kinda looking forward to going back. College ended in an odd way. I’m not going to go into in here because, well this is because. Sometime when writing this Blog thing it’s easy to forget that it’s out there in the stratosphere and really it’s sometimes it’s probably best not to put out there because – and here’s the odd thing – people might read it. Yesterday I was speaking to My Mate Steve (OK - we were e-mailing each other: no one actually speaks anymore) and he said “Loving your blog” and it caught me cold. He read it? Why?? And when? I don’t know. When do people get time to do things like read Blogs? It’s not like there’s not enough in life to be getting on with.
Anyway, I was thinking. The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. It’s like going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, the friends’ kids, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen – all in that same 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, so there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
Anyway, it made me think again about what I write here - the consequence of which is that I’m not going to write anything about college because it might assume a level of over-familiarity that is inappropriate.
But it was a funny old last week. I put on a “disco” – a funny old word, but tell me a better one – for the students. Took in the Laughton Lodge PA, did as much as I could do. Organised a kind of Stick It On evening. Was the impetus for the whole thing. And for what? Frankly by the time it came to it, I’d rather have stayed at home and watched paint dry, but a commitment is a commitment. Hey, they’re only kids.
So anyway. I’ve got this idea. I’m going to create a journalist character called Frank Lee and Frank’s going to be an argumentative, polemic kind of guy. I’ll do a column and I’m going to call it Frank Lee Speaking. You can go mad sitting in a room all day by yourself.
Anyway, I was thinking. The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. It’s like going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, the friends’ kids, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen – all in that same 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, so there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
Anyway, it made me think again about what I write here - the consequence of which is that I’m not going to write anything about college because it might assume a level of over-familiarity that is inappropriate.
But it was a funny old last week. I put on a “disco” – a funny old word, but tell me a better one – for the students. Took in the Laughton Lodge PA, did as much as I could do. Organised a kind of Stick It On evening. Was the impetus for the whole thing. And for what? Frankly by the time it came to it, I’d rather have stayed at home and watched paint dry, but a commitment is a commitment. Hey, they’re only kids.
So anyway. I’ve got this idea. I’m going to create a journalist character called Frank Lee and Frank’s going to be an argumentative, polemic kind of guy. I’ll do a column and I’m going to call it Frank Lee Speaking. You can go mad sitting in a room all day by yourself.
Friday, 28 March 2008
Poppy's Story
Maybe this is her story. She lived in a happy family somewhere in Ireland, a happy family dog who lived with a mummy, a daddy and maybe a couple of kids. She’d sit by the fire as the kids played and watched Tracey Beaker and she was happy. Then, one day, she went out for a run and got distracted by something. What? I don’t know. But something caught her eye and she was off. She ran and ran and somehow – why? I don’t know – she got lost. She panicked and started running but the more she ran, the more she got lost and then she just ran. Blindly, she just ran. The kids at home were crying. Their parents were out looking. It got dark. No one knew where any of the others were but they were all running, all looking, all losing their way. Then… she ran across a road. It was a quiet country road, no lights, just dark. As she ran across the road, a car came round the corner. Bang! It hit her, caught the back of her and hit her back leg. It flipped her round and she fell on the side of the road, felt dizzy and… passed out.
The next day she was found, battered, beaten and bruised – and very nearly finished – by a local dog walker. She was miles from where she’d started and the walker didn’t recognise her. But he was a kindly soul and took her in. He picked her up gently and put her in his Land Rover. And took her to the police station.
The police didn’t know what to do with her. This being Ireland there was no RSPCA, no animal rescue organisation – they don’t go for that sort of thing there. There’s only local people who do nice things. So the police got in touch with this local person who did nice things and, to cut a long story short, he came to the police station, collected her and took her to a contact he had at the RSPCA in Brighton – a long way from home.
So that’s where she ended up – the RSPCA in Brighton. She came round and found she couldn’t move her back leg. She looked around, hoping to see her kids, her mummy and daddy and instead saw only a cage. And she was in it. What had happened?
“Her operation is tomorrow” she heard a woman called Jenny say.
What was that all about?
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
The iPack - Desert Island Discs
DESERT ISLAND DISCS
I always wanted to do Desert Island Discs. Don't know if they often ask slack bastard lecturers on it though - and I dare say there'd be a queue if they did.
This is the strict 'ten songs in the key of life' format. There are a few crossovers with the "Wake" selection, but so what>
XJ
Nathan Jones - The Supremes
The first record I ever bought. Immigration – West Indian immigration unlike immigrants like us who weren’t immigrants at all what are you suggesting? – was still something that had yet to hit. Sure, there were black people around but black popular culture was still relatively underground. Now, it is the universal language of pop, has been for years, but back then, it was still small scale.
There was a shop on Stamford Hill Broadway, a record shop called Rhythm and Blues, it was like something out of Absolute Beginners. In between the local Woolworths and (naturally) the salt beef bar, Rhythm and Blues was really from somewhere else. I can’t remember what made me first go in there but I remember what it was like: full of smoke, full of black geezers in hats – pork pie hats. God knows where they came from. Never saw them outside the shop. Anyway, you opened the door and, really, it was like walking into another world and the music, the music was intoxicating. It was probably ska – no idea back then - but it sounded fantastic. I started going in there Saturday mornings, never talking to anyone, just lurking around.
Eventually I bought a record – this one. It’s a great tune, still thrills and I kinda like the fact that this is the first record I bought.
The first record I bought for someone else was “The Pushbike Song” by The Mixtures. It was for Jane Fisher. I gave her the record and then asked her out.
Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.
It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo
Perfect. (see "Wake" write up for the words)
Fools Gold - The Stone Roses
The record that made me realise I’d lost touch with something. I was standing in the kitchen with Oaksie in the flat we’d bought in Harlesden, just chatting. He’d probably just come back from the bookies or something. We were just hanging out and this came on the telly and, again, it was like out of nowhere. I knew nothing of Madchester, Spike Island or anything. Knew nothing (outside of what the newspapers had told me) about acid house or rave culture. And suddenly I felt very, very old. I had a good job at The Independent, a good stereo, car, a self-cleaning oven, the whole deal. I could have stayed. If I’d have stayed I’d probably be quite successful in newspaperland. Jim, Tris, Giles did… why not? But I don’t know. I heard this song and somehow just knew that there were still adventures to be had. And so I gave my notice in and turned upside down. That it sounds so modern and exactly the same as Can (Soon Over Babaluma era) just makes me smile in that “I knew I was right” way.
Adagio - Samuel Barber
We got married to this. Anything else you need to know?
Into My Arms - Nick Cave
I think if I wrote this… I’d have to kill myself. How could I ever do anything better? Everything would be an anticlimax. It is completely lovely, completely meltingly beautiful.
“I don't believe in an interventionist God,
But I know, darling, that you do,
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him,
Not to intervene when it came to you,
Not to touch a hair on your head,
To leave you as you are,
And if He felt He had to direct you,
Then direct you into my arms”
Dry The Rain - The Beta Band
Again, a lovely perfect song. It’s not a surprise that the bloke who wrote this went mad afterwards. It’s got that air of fragility, of fractured, shuffling almost-ness. And it reminds me of course of Gill and the early days.
Lost In Music - Sister Sledge
The Laughton era. I’d always fancied doing a bit of the DJ thing and Laughton Lodge gave me the opportunity to do that. For some strange reason when I appeared here the word got around that I was a wires and sound man. I mean, sounds I like but having a few CDs is a long way from being a sound engineer. But that’s what I became. I bought the equipment, controlled the sound desk at shows, kinda owned that area. One of the happy by-products was that I also became the DJ. They’d never really had anyone here before willing to take on this role and I didn’t have to be asked twice. Of course, it was more Michael Jackson than John Digweed but what do you expect from a bunch of large-lobed middle class middle aged types?
The music that did prove irresistible for everyone was Chic (in all its forms). Whatever Rodgers and Edwards did, it was curiously magical and just has that knack of making people happy. And it’s lovely to see.
Shhh/Peaceful - Miles Davis
If there was a fire and I had just enough time to grab one record, it would be In A Silent Way (the six CD Complete Sessions, of course, because why not?) My favourite Miles group doing what they do in the most sublime way. No one dominates, no one bullies anyone else. It’s not ground breaking in that “Blimey, that’s fantastic. Is it finished yet?” way. McLaughlin’s playing is sublime.
6 – Labradford
A song about love and intimacy, something to drift off to that’s warm and soulful and full of heart. Lie in the dark and listen to this: it could go on forever and it still wouldn’t seem too long. I know nothing of Labradford except that they're Canadian and they curate something called The Festival Of Drifting - which seems about right.
A book? I don’t know. There are so many books I haven’t read that I want to read… it seems churlish to choose.
Maybe The Complete Works of Philip Roth (and if such a thing doesn’t exist… well, it should).
I always wanted to do Desert Island Discs. Don't know if they often ask slack bastard lecturers on it though - and I dare say there'd be a queue if they did.
This is the strict 'ten songs in the key of life' format. There are a few crossovers with the "Wake" selection, but so what>
XJ
Nathan Jones - The Supremes
The first record I ever bought. Immigration – West Indian immigration unlike immigrants like us who weren’t immigrants at all what are you suggesting? – was still something that had yet to hit. Sure, there were black people around but black popular culture was still relatively underground. Now, it is the universal language of pop, has been for years, but back then, it was still small scale.
There was a shop on Stamford Hill Broadway, a record shop called Rhythm and Blues, it was like something out of Absolute Beginners. In between the local Woolworths and (naturally) the salt beef bar, Rhythm and Blues was really from somewhere else. I can’t remember what made me first go in there but I remember what it was like: full of smoke, full of black geezers in hats – pork pie hats. God knows where they came from. Never saw them outside the shop. Anyway, you opened the door and, really, it was like walking into another world and the music, the music was intoxicating. It was probably ska – no idea back then - but it sounded fantastic. I started going in there Saturday mornings, never talking to anyone, just lurking around.
Eventually I bought a record – this one. It’s a great tune, still thrills and I kinda like the fact that this is the first record I bought.
The first record I bought for someone else was “The Pushbike Song” by The Mixtures. It was for Jane Fisher. I gave her the record and then asked her out.
Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.
It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo
Perfect. (see "Wake" write up for the words)
Fools Gold - The Stone Roses
The record that made me realise I’d lost touch with something. I was standing in the kitchen with Oaksie in the flat we’d bought in Harlesden, just chatting. He’d probably just come back from the bookies or something. We were just hanging out and this came on the telly and, again, it was like out of nowhere. I knew nothing of Madchester, Spike Island or anything. Knew nothing (outside of what the newspapers had told me) about acid house or rave culture. And suddenly I felt very, very old. I had a good job at The Independent, a good stereo, car, a self-cleaning oven, the whole deal. I could have stayed. If I’d have stayed I’d probably be quite successful in newspaperland. Jim, Tris, Giles did… why not? But I don’t know. I heard this song and somehow just knew that there were still adventures to be had. And so I gave my notice in and turned upside down. That it sounds so modern and exactly the same as Can (Soon Over Babaluma era) just makes me smile in that “I knew I was right” way.
Adagio - Samuel Barber
We got married to this. Anything else you need to know?
Into My Arms - Nick Cave
I think if I wrote this… I’d have to kill myself. How could I ever do anything better? Everything would be an anticlimax. It is completely lovely, completely meltingly beautiful.
“I don't believe in an interventionist God,
But I know, darling, that you do,
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him,
Not to intervene when it came to you,
Not to touch a hair on your head,
To leave you as you are,
And if He felt He had to direct you,
Then direct you into my arms”
Dry The Rain - The Beta Band
Again, a lovely perfect song. It’s not a surprise that the bloke who wrote this went mad afterwards. It’s got that air of fragility, of fractured, shuffling almost-ness. And it reminds me of course of Gill and the early days.
Lost In Music - Sister Sledge
The Laughton era. I’d always fancied doing a bit of the DJ thing and Laughton Lodge gave me the opportunity to do that. For some strange reason when I appeared here the word got around that I was a wires and sound man. I mean, sounds I like but having a few CDs is a long way from being a sound engineer. But that’s what I became. I bought the equipment, controlled the sound desk at shows, kinda owned that area. One of the happy by-products was that I also became the DJ. They’d never really had anyone here before willing to take on this role and I didn’t have to be asked twice. Of course, it was more Michael Jackson than John Digweed but what do you expect from a bunch of large-lobed middle class middle aged types?
The music that did prove irresistible for everyone was Chic (in all its forms). Whatever Rodgers and Edwards did, it was curiously magical and just has that knack of making people happy. And it’s lovely to see.
Shhh/Peaceful - Miles Davis
If there was a fire and I had just enough time to grab one record, it would be In A Silent Way (the six CD Complete Sessions, of course, because why not?) My favourite Miles group doing what they do in the most sublime way. No one dominates, no one bullies anyone else. It’s not ground breaking in that “Blimey, that’s fantastic. Is it finished yet?” way. McLaughlin’s playing is sublime.
6 – Labradford
A song about love and intimacy, something to drift off to that’s warm and soulful and full of heart. Lie in the dark and listen to this: it could go on forever and it still wouldn’t seem too long. I know nothing of Labradford except that they're Canadian and they curate something called The Festival Of Drifting - which seems about right.
A book? I don’t know. There are so many books I haven’t read that I want to read… it seems churlish to choose.
Maybe The Complete Works of Philip Roth (and if such a thing doesn’t exist… well, it should).
Saturday, 1 March 2008
The iPack - Songs For My Wake
The iPack is, as you know, a Boy's Own Thing. A group of us - there were six but now there are four - and each month one of us bequeaths a title. We all go then go off a interpret a CD that, to us, reflects that title. And, if we like, we write a little explanation. And then maybe post them on our Blogs. So...
SONGS FOR MY WAKE – SAPPHIRE BULLETS OF PURE LOVE
Songs For My Wake – a trip through a life tragically cut short by that freak accident involving a cheese grater, a Roman Candle and a small black and white cat called Bonnie.
VIRGINIA PLAIN - ROXY MUSIC
I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.
It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”
KING TUBBY MEETS ROCKERS UPTOWN - AUGUSTUS PABLO
So there was a bloke at school called something like Anthony Skolopozinsky. Something like that. Everyone called him Scollop. He was OK, a bit of an oddball, but OK. I can’t remember how or why, but I went to his flat. A dull council block in Hackney. His room though… boxes and boxes of reggae 12”s. I wish I could remember the story of how this 13-year-old Jewish boy from a dull council block in Hackney turned from a bit of an oddball to Jah Scollop but… I spent the day there being educated. And went back. I think that was the first time I heard this tune. Immediately I recognised it for what it was: the finest tune ever recorded. Don’t ask why or nothing. It just is.
FREEDOM IS FRIGHTENING – STOMU YAMASH’TA -
This boy called Geoffrey Myers joined school. He was a bit different. I can’t remember exactly why, but he was odd. Got thrown out of school not long after he arrived. I can’t remember exactly why. He was blonde – and there weren’t many blonde kids at school (it’s not a popular Jew thing) so… maybe that was it. Anyway. I hooked up with Geoffrey Myers and he took me to the Roundhouse. I’d never been before. I remember walking in and it was like a wonderland. There was this long-haired bloke who’d proclaimed himself Jesus and put on sandwich boards telling us all that we were saved. Strange characters. Weird scenes inside the goldmine as someone else once said. We went upstairs and sat down with the hard core hippies, smoked their dope, felt sick. I remember seeing all sort of bands during this period – Curved Air, Alex Harvey, the mind-blowing Hawkwind, but the thing that stands out was Stomu Yamash’ta’s Red Buddha Theatre. A theatrical troupe prancing around in a traditional manner and behind them this mad percussion-based band. It’s art, innit.
SAPPHIRE BULLETS OF PURE LOVE - MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA
There was a period in the early to mid Seventies where it all went a bit prog. Look, I’m a middle class white boy: it happens. I saw Yes doing Topographic Oceans, Genesis doing Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and all manner of nonsense. The straw snapped when I was taken to see ELP at Wembley and saw nothing except one of the drummer’s arms. Enough. So I holed up and took refuge in what was called jazz fusion. Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Miles. I had a particular soft spot for John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnus. Live, it was head-spinning. Mad and very funny. A famous music writer once wrote “Why judge a guitar solo by the speed with which it is played? You wouldn’t judge a novel by the speed with which it is written”. I couldn’t disagree more. The Mahavishnus. Practically perfect in every way.
MOONSHAKE - CAN
So the mid-Seventies. There was the art pop stuff, but that had gone off when Eno left Roxy (Sorry Martino – but it’s true). There was the Roundhouse hippie thing and the Scollop inspired reggae. And there was what was called KrautRock. Can were mesmeric (see A Song For Europe compilation) throwing rhythmic shapes around like aural graffiti, hitting a groove and rocking it, trance-style. One of these compilations I’ll sneak on something from Soon Over Babaluma. Can even had a hit single.
MASCULINE GENDER - RANKING TREVOR
Much of the Seventies was characterised by sitting in my room and listening to John Peel. As Tom Jones once said, it’s not unusual. You heard all manner of strange stuff there – Ivor Cutler, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and bags of reggae. Ranking Trevor was mid to late Seventies and has always stuck in my head. Maybe the name stood out – Trevor never seemed much of a name for a Rasta dude, but it’s a fantastic tune.
WHAT IN THEWORLD – DAVID BOWIE
Listening to John Peel and getting stoned. “Jeremy. You look dopey” as my mother once said.
ONE CHORD WONDERS - THE ADVERTS
Punk was very funny, and after all that really quite serious mid-Seventies stuff (both musical and life) an astonishing breath of fresh air. I kinda knew it was going to come – I’d seen Patti Smith and The Stranglers at The Roundhouse, but not sadly The Ramones – but still. The thing with punk is that I was close, but not that close. The same time Johnny was doing his audition at Sex… There was a second hand clothes shop on The Kings Road called Eat Your Heart Out which sold very fine old zoot suits a few doors away from Sex, just round the bend. I used to hang out in this shop, happily ignored by everyone in there – they were far cooler than a boy like me – blissfully unaware that about 10 yards away there was a social revolution being hatched. Frankly, I was more interested in whether the jacket had six buttons or four. Similarly the punk band I latched onto was The Adverts - I went to see them Saturday nights at The Nashville – possibly the least cool of all the early punk bands. One question: did the Clash have Gaye Advert?
REPITITION - THE FALL
Was there ever a band like The Fall? No. Never was, never will be. This was the song that convinced me of their greatness. The B-side of their first single. Frankly startling. The Fall were the reason (along with Joy Division and the side-fact that it was the only college in the western hemisphere to offer me a place) that I went to Manchester Poly. How many Fall gigs did I see there? What can I tell you? I got a third. I once dragged Sarah and Catherine to a Fall gig at Manchester University. I don’t think either spoke to me for weeks. Obviously they were so grateful they didn’t know quite what to say. It reminds me of the time I finally got to take out Perry Burns. I was maybe 15. I’d been dancing round her maypole for ages and she finally relented. In time honoured teen boy fashion, I decided to take her to the cinema. (Listen, we’ve all seen the popcorn scene in Diner). Anyway I thought I’d show her how sophisticated I was and took her to see Last Tango In Paris… That went down well. (Which is more than you can say for her…)
DO THE DU - A CERTAIN RATIO
Manchester was supposed to be all about Joy Division and in a way it was. I saw them there more than a few times and, seeing Ian Curtis on stage, it wasn’t a total surprise that he topped himself. But really our band was ACR. They were locals and we got to know them a fair bit. Mick better than me. He played football in the same team as them. They had this club, The Beach Club, which was a house in a street. The lounge was the stage, a bedroom upstairs the bar. We saw U2 at the Beach on their first UK tour, helped them load their gear at the end of the night. ACR were properly one of us. Never did understand why they didn’t hit big.
NEVER UNDERSTAND - THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
This kinda summed up my feelings about Eighties music. It largely passed me by. It looked good and everything was seemingly in the right place, but there was no… middle. No soul. All that faux jazz, it left me cold. JAMC were the perfect antidote to all that perfect smooth-edged pop where production values were more important than heart. They had better tunes too, though nobody ever cared about that.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - JOHN COLTRANE
All through this journey, rhythm took precedent over melody. The grooves of Can. The heartbeat of dub. Looking back, I wish I had been more of a disco head – it sounds more fun than anything else. But I wasn’t. I can’t remember a single Eighties band I cared about. The Smiths I only ever cared for after the event. There was the odd rap tune I locked into, but I didn’t dig the posturing. Reggae moved into syrupy lovers and shouty dancehall. So I took refuge in jazz. Jazz had all the ingredients that the Eighties lacked. I was going to pick Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, undeniably the last great acoustic jazz album, but in the end plumped for this. You can’t argue with it. And at a wake… it’d be perfect.
PURE (ENERGY) – GTO
Then I found myself in Tokyo. That’s a story for another CD but consider this. We walked into the Maharajah Palace, and were immediately dubbed ‘The Two Fat Yuppies’. That went down well. I walked into the lounge, a louche parlour where bodies were sprawled all over the place. I asked a young hunk, a Canadian called Bradley, what the story that night was. “We’ll go to Gold and take some acid”. I’d never had any acid. Then again, I’d never been to Gold before. Or Tokyo come to that. So I went. I walked in, and took some acid that Bradley gave me. The whole place was full of dry ice and this was playing. Hearing it now, it sounds kinda mild, but at the time… it took my heart. And the next three years.
MOVIN ON UP - PRIMAL SCREAM
Now Kevin was a boy. He lived at one end of the corridor upstairs, I lived at the other end. You walked down the hallways and heard endless variations of the same techno tune and you bounced along till you got in your room and put on your own variation of that same tune. Kevin had a knack of getting hold of CDs as opposed to DJ mix tapes. He had his own method of shopping. And one day came back with this. The whole house listened.
TAIYO – PRANA
Return to the Source. It was the soundtrack to the early-mid Nineties. Side one was up, side two was drifty. Side two was Elly’s sleeptime music. Like Pavlov’s Dog, it sent her where she needed to go. My mate Tsyoshi was Prana and the mover behind Return. Years lost. Happily.
ADAGIO FOR STRINGS - SAMUEL BARBER
We got married to this.
DEAD MELODIES – BECK
Six years as a music critic. How lovely. Every day Postman Pat would appear with a bang of jiffys, and every day my throbbing pile of CDs to sell grew and grew. We got a good few family holidays every year out of those CDs. The curious thing was just how many CDs were released, seeing the way it all worked. How long a new band got, how they were marketed, the numbers that made it viable. Every so often there was someone who did it their way – that made it worthwhile. A letter was published in the Express saying how this person had never heard of Jah Wobble and thanks to the music page, they now had. Maybe that would have been more pleasing had I not been Letters page editor as well as Music critic.
GOOD SONG – BLUR
The best band of the Nineties, the band that defined an era, Blur were as sharp as a tack and slippery as a slick. Beck, Blur and the Scream made that music critic job worthwhile.
DOOM'S NIGHT - AZZIDO DA BASS
So then it was Sorted – the mudma years. It was kinda invigorating working for a youth title with a load of up for it Twentysomethings. Tiring but invigorating.
SONGS FOR MY WAKE – SAPPHIRE BULLETS OF PURE LOVE
Songs For My Wake – a trip through a life tragically cut short by that freak accident involving a cheese grater, a Roman Candle and a small black and white cat called Bonnie.
VIRGINIA PLAIN - ROXY MUSIC
I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.
It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”
KING TUBBY MEETS ROCKERS UPTOWN - AUGUSTUS PABLO
So there was a bloke at school called something like Anthony Skolopozinsky. Something like that. Everyone called him Scollop. He was OK, a bit of an oddball, but OK. I can’t remember how or why, but I went to his flat. A dull council block in Hackney. His room though… boxes and boxes of reggae 12”s. I wish I could remember the story of how this 13-year-old Jewish boy from a dull council block in Hackney turned from a bit of an oddball to Jah Scollop but… I spent the day there being educated. And went back. I think that was the first time I heard this tune. Immediately I recognised it for what it was: the finest tune ever recorded. Don’t ask why or nothing. It just is.
FREEDOM IS FRIGHTENING – STOMU YAMASH’TA -
This boy called Geoffrey Myers joined school. He was a bit different. I can’t remember exactly why, but he was odd. Got thrown out of school not long after he arrived. I can’t remember exactly why. He was blonde – and there weren’t many blonde kids at school (it’s not a popular Jew thing) so… maybe that was it. Anyway. I hooked up with Geoffrey Myers and he took me to the Roundhouse. I’d never been before. I remember walking in and it was like a wonderland. There was this long-haired bloke who’d proclaimed himself Jesus and put on sandwich boards telling us all that we were saved. Strange characters. Weird scenes inside the goldmine as someone else once said. We went upstairs and sat down with the hard core hippies, smoked their dope, felt sick. I remember seeing all sort of bands during this period – Curved Air, Alex Harvey, the mind-blowing Hawkwind, but the thing that stands out was Stomu Yamash’ta’s Red Buddha Theatre. A theatrical troupe prancing around in a traditional manner and behind them this mad percussion-based band. It’s art, innit.
SAPPHIRE BULLETS OF PURE LOVE - MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA
There was a period in the early to mid Seventies where it all went a bit prog. Look, I’m a middle class white boy: it happens. I saw Yes doing Topographic Oceans, Genesis doing Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and all manner of nonsense. The straw snapped when I was taken to see ELP at Wembley and saw nothing except one of the drummer’s arms. Enough. So I holed up and took refuge in what was called jazz fusion. Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Miles. I had a particular soft spot for John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnus. Live, it was head-spinning. Mad and very funny. A famous music writer once wrote “Why judge a guitar solo by the speed with which it is played? You wouldn’t judge a novel by the speed with which it is written”. I couldn’t disagree more. The Mahavishnus. Practically perfect in every way.
MOONSHAKE - CAN
So the mid-Seventies. There was the art pop stuff, but that had gone off when Eno left Roxy (Sorry Martino – but it’s true). There was the Roundhouse hippie thing and the Scollop inspired reggae. And there was what was called KrautRock. Can were mesmeric (see A Song For Europe compilation) throwing rhythmic shapes around like aural graffiti, hitting a groove and rocking it, trance-style. One of these compilations I’ll sneak on something from Soon Over Babaluma. Can even had a hit single.
MASCULINE GENDER - RANKING TREVOR
Much of the Seventies was characterised by sitting in my room and listening to John Peel. As Tom Jones once said, it’s not unusual. You heard all manner of strange stuff there – Ivor Cutler, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and bags of reggae. Ranking Trevor was mid to late Seventies and has always stuck in my head. Maybe the name stood out – Trevor never seemed much of a name for a Rasta dude, but it’s a fantastic tune.
WHAT IN THEWORLD – DAVID BOWIE
Listening to John Peel and getting stoned. “Jeremy. You look dopey” as my mother once said.
ONE CHORD WONDERS - THE ADVERTS
Punk was very funny, and after all that really quite serious mid-Seventies stuff (both musical and life) an astonishing breath of fresh air. I kinda knew it was going to come – I’d seen Patti Smith and The Stranglers at The Roundhouse, but not sadly The Ramones – but still. The thing with punk is that I was close, but not that close. The same time Johnny was doing his audition at Sex… There was a second hand clothes shop on The Kings Road called Eat Your Heart Out which sold very fine old zoot suits a few doors away from Sex, just round the bend. I used to hang out in this shop, happily ignored by everyone in there – they were far cooler than a boy like me – blissfully unaware that about 10 yards away there was a social revolution being hatched. Frankly, I was more interested in whether the jacket had six buttons or four. Similarly the punk band I latched onto was The Adverts - I went to see them Saturday nights at The Nashville – possibly the least cool of all the early punk bands. One question: did the Clash have Gaye Advert?
REPITITION - THE FALL
Was there ever a band like The Fall? No. Never was, never will be. This was the song that convinced me of their greatness. The B-side of their first single. Frankly startling. The Fall were the reason (along with Joy Division and the side-fact that it was the only college in the western hemisphere to offer me a place) that I went to Manchester Poly. How many Fall gigs did I see there? What can I tell you? I got a third. I once dragged Sarah and Catherine to a Fall gig at Manchester University. I don’t think either spoke to me for weeks. Obviously they were so grateful they didn’t know quite what to say. It reminds me of the time I finally got to take out Perry Burns. I was maybe 15. I’d been dancing round her maypole for ages and she finally relented. In time honoured teen boy fashion, I decided to take her to the cinema. (Listen, we’ve all seen the popcorn scene in Diner). Anyway I thought I’d show her how sophisticated I was and took her to see Last Tango In Paris… That went down well. (Which is more than you can say for her…)
DO THE DU - A CERTAIN RATIO
Manchester was supposed to be all about Joy Division and in a way it was. I saw them there more than a few times and, seeing Ian Curtis on stage, it wasn’t a total surprise that he topped himself. But really our band was ACR. They were locals and we got to know them a fair bit. Mick better than me. He played football in the same team as them. They had this club, The Beach Club, which was a house in a street. The lounge was the stage, a bedroom upstairs the bar. We saw U2 at the Beach on their first UK tour, helped them load their gear at the end of the night. ACR were properly one of us. Never did understand why they didn’t hit big.
NEVER UNDERSTAND - THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
This kinda summed up my feelings about Eighties music. It largely passed me by. It looked good and everything was seemingly in the right place, but there was no… middle. No soul. All that faux jazz, it left me cold. JAMC were the perfect antidote to all that perfect smooth-edged pop where production values were more important than heart. They had better tunes too, though nobody ever cared about that.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - JOHN COLTRANE
All through this journey, rhythm took precedent over melody. The grooves of Can. The heartbeat of dub. Looking back, I wish I had been more of a disco head – it sounds more fun than anything else. But I wasn’t. I can’t remember a single Eighties band I cared about. The Smiths I only ever cared for after the event. There was the odd rap tune I locked into, but I didn’t dig the posturing. Reggae moved into syrupy lovers and shouty dancehall. So I took refuge in jazz. Jazz had all the ingredients that the Eighties lacked. I was going to pick Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, undeniably the last great acoustic jazz album, but in the end plumped for this. You can’t argue with it. And at a wake… it’d be perfect.
PURE (ENERGY) – GTO
Then I found myself in Tokyo. That’s a story for another CD but consider this. We walked into the Maharajah Palace, and were immediately dubbed ‘The Two Fat Yuppies’. That went down well. I walked into the lounge, a louche parlour where bodies were sprawled all over the place. I asked a young hunk, a Canadian called Bradley, what the story that night was. “We’ll go to Gold and take some acid”. I’d never had any acid. Then again, I’d never been to Gold before. Or Tokyo come to that. So I went. I walked in, and took some acid that Bradley gave me. The whole place was full of dry ice and this was playing. Hearing it now, it sounds kinda mild, but at the time… it took my heart. And the next three years.
MOVIN ON UP - PRIMAL SCREAM
Now Kevin was a boy. He lived at one end of the corridor upstairs, I lived at the other end. You walked down the hallways and heard endless variations of the same techno tune and you bounced along till you got in your room and put on your own variation of that same tune. Kevin had a knack of getting hold of CDs as opposed to DJ mix tapes. He had his own method of shopping. And one day came back with this. The whole house listened.
TAIYO – PRANA
Return to the Source. It was the soundtrack to the early-mid Nineties. Side one was up, side two was drifty. Side two was Elly’s sleeptime music. Like Pavlov’s Dog, it sent her where she needed to go. My mate Tsyoshi was Prana and the mover behind Return. Years lost. Happily.
ADAGIO FOR STRINGS - SAMUEL BARBER
We got married to this.
DEAD MELODIES – BECK
Six years as a music critic. How lovely. Every day Postman Pat would appear with a bang of jiffys, and every day my throbbing pile of CDs to sell grew and grew. We got a good few family holidays every year out of those CDs. The curious thing was just how many CDs were released, seeing the way it all worked. How long a new band got, how they were marketed, the numbers that made it viable. Every so often there was someone who did it their way – that made it worthwhile. A letter was published in the Express saying how this person had never heard of Jah Wobble and thanks to the music page, they now had. Maybe that would have been more pleasing had I not been Letters page editor as well as Music critic.
GOOD SONG – BLUR
The best band of the Nineties, the band that defined an era, Blur were as sharp as a tack and slippery as a slick. Beck, Blur and the Scream made that music critic job worthwhile.
DOOM'S NIGHT - AZZIDO DA BASS
So then it was Sorted – the mudma years. It was kinda invigorating working for a youth title with a load of up for it Twentysomethings. Tiring but invigorating.
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