Saturday Quiz

I'm here for a short while before I resume my responsibilities. And here's a little weekend quiz for you.

The following are twelve people or peoples. You've got to tell me who they are. They've all done the same job at some time in their lives. And most of them are bloody good at this job.

Good luck. There will be no prize for the most correct answers.

Thanks to Betty for her help and the London Lite for its inspiration.

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The Long Game

Ingmar Bergman, the world's greatest living filmmaker, is dead.

Director of such classics as Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and Fanny By Gaslight, Bergman took films about the human condition to unsurpassed levels. The BBC News have just shown those twats French & Saunders taking the piss out of him. Bergman had a sense of humour and would not have been amused.

Thank you for my DVD collection, Ingmar.

Skol, mate!



p.s. I won't be around much for the next couple of weeks but I'll be here in spirit.

Smithers-Jones

Here we go again, its Monday at last,
He's heading for the Waterloo line,
To catch the 8 a.m. fast, its usually dead on time,
Hope it isn't late, got to be there by nine.

Well why don't you get an earlier train if you're worried about being late, you twat?

Pin stripe suit, clean shirt and tie,

I should fucking well hope your shirt's clean! We don't want no dirty smelly cunts in our office.


Stops off at the corner shop, to buy the Times
"Good morning Smithers-Jones
How's the wife and home?
Did you get the car you've been looking for?"

You seem to have a lot of time in the mornings to chat to your newsagent about your marriage, your home and your car. Christ, I wish I had all the time in the world in the mornings. Maybe if you were to cut the chat you'd get an earlier train and not have to worry about being late.

Let me get inside you, let me take control of you,
We could have some good times,
All this worry will get you down,
I'll give you a new meaning to life - I don't think so.

I don't think so, either. You're a sad, lost cause, aren't you Smithers-Jones? Part of the life-sapping system.

Sitting on the train, you're nearly there
You're part of the production line,
You're the same as him, you're like tin-sardines,
Get out of the pack, before they peel you back.

Yes, go on! Jump! Jump off the train while it's still moving! Come on, there's still time!

Arrive at the office, spot on time,
The clock on the wall hasn't yet struck nine,
"Good morning Smithers-Jones
The boss wants to see you alone
I hope it's the promotion you've been looking for."

I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you. I think I can guess where this story's heading.

Let me get inside you, let me take control of you,
We could have some good times,
All this worry will get you down,
I'll give you a new meaning to life - I don't think so.

All this worry. Promotions. Getting to work on time. It ain't worth it, mate.

"Come in Smithers old boy
Take a seat, take the weight off your feet
I've some news to tell you
There's no longer a position for you -
Sorry Smithers-Jones."

Christ, that was blunt and to the point. How could the bastard do this to you? "Old boy"? You're not that fucking old, are you?

Put on the kettle and make some tea
Its all a part of feeling groovy
Put on your slippers turn on the tv
Its all a part of feeling groovy

Yeah. You feeling groovy now, Smithers-Jones? A nice cup of tea and The Generation Game?

It's time to relax, now you've worked your arse off
But the only one smilin' is the suntanned boss

Capitalist pig!

Work and work and work and work till you die
There's plenty more fish in the sea to fry

Now you're stuck behind the chip-shop counter, Smithers-Jones. Wrapping the fish 'n' chips in yesterday's Times. Maybe you should drop the "Smithers". It's only an affectation, anyway. Now you've swapped your pinstripe suit for an apron. You should never have let the bastards drag you down. But you couldn't help yourself, could you? You're part of the grinding machine. What a sad little man you are.

Surely He Must Have Something Better To Do With His Time

First of all, apologies to Kaz for persuading her that it might be worth buying a Scott Walker album. He is not to many people's taste - he's a bit of a cult, and a moody cult at that. The amount of money I've wasted on cults in the past!

I'm most of the way through Scott 2 on my chronological Scott journey. And pretty early on in this album is a song called The Amorous Humphrey Plugg. "Aha!" I said, "yet another song with a fictional man's name in the title. There must be hundreds of those."

Then I started to list them...

Pink Floyd's (Syd's) Arnold Layne
Blur's Ernold Same (narrated by Ken Livingstone to demonstrate how boring Ernold's life was)
David Watts by The Kinks or The Jam (both bands definitely with definite articles)
ELO's The Diary of Horace Wimp
Toilet Duck Walking Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode

Er, that's it. "Can you think of any more?" I ask Betty.

She got all Jonesy.

"The Supremes' Nathan Jones."
"Smithers-Jones" by The Jam.

And...that's it.

There must be more! Feel free to let me know who we're missing. It's driving me mad! (Mr Kite and other names with titles do not count, yes I'm making up the rules as I go along).

I've set myself the task to go through the lyrics of these songs and write a few lines about each of the individual characters. Unless, of course, you tell me I'm wasting my time as nobody gives a bollock about them.

D.I.S.C.O.

So Saturday night, we're watching our recording of that night's Top Of The Pops 2 Disco Special, and I'm about to fall asleep for the third time. So I turn off the tv.

Betty is disappointed as she's more awake than me and Steve Wright's just started showing the video to ABBA's Summer Night City.

But not even the beautiful Benny & Bjorn can keep me awake and we go to bed.

So Sunday night, we watch the video. B&B's stunningness doesn't diminish over the years and this is one of the highlights of the show, yes even better than Disco Duck. Betty says to me "I bet you were one of those people who did everything the NME told you to do and bought the Junior Giscombe and Linx 12 inchers. Adrian Thrills was your God."

Yes, of course, I was young and easily influenced, after all it was only a matter of a few years before that I'd seen Genesis live! Besides, those Junior and Linx songs hold up pretty well.

Sunday night is a night of fitful sleep. One dream is memorable.

I am watching the video to Summer Night City. As the band sing the following...

When the night comes with the action
I just know it's time to go
Can't resist the strange attraction
From that giant dynamo

...I see Agnetha cycling onstage for all she's worth. She's sweating like Olivia Newton John in the Physical video. Yes, she wears a headband. She's cycling because she's powering the band's instruments by means of a giant dynamo.

Go, Agnetha! Go, girl!

Mathilde

Once upon a time, when we used to have train strikes that really affected our journeys into work, I drove my workmates all the way to London. It was a hellish four hours, alleviated only by my choice of in-car listening.

"This is the Walker Brothers," I announced to my non-plussed captive audience. You see we didn't have Heart 104.2 then so the majority did not rule and I got to hear what I wanted to hear.

I never really got into Scott's solo stuff. But Betty likes him and last year she bought most of his back catalogue.

A few weeks ago we saw Alan Yentob's ("Yentob Yentob Yentob Yentob Yentob Iddle I Po" as he's known in this house) Imagine programme on Scott. Marc Almond was pontificating.

Marc Almond is the main reason I never really got into Scott Walker. Too overdramatic, I thought. Cut from the same cloth.

Then Marc said how much he hated Tilt, Scott's 1995 comeback album. So I immediately played it and loved it. And now I'm going through the solo albums from the beginning, starting with 1967's Scott.

So I'm sitting on the toilet, headphones on, at 7.15 in the morning. The first track, Mathilde is playing. I stand up, it reaches its crescendo and I flush the toilet. The flush sounds like an enthusiastic round of applause. Well deserved in my opinion.

So here's the song, introduced by a beautifully ghostly Dusty Springfield. Look at how skinny Scott's legs are! And imagine a flushing lav instead of that studio applause.






And here, to compare and contrast, is the song as performed by the song's creator, sweaty horse faced Belgian chain smoker, Jacques Brel. My best friend at the age of 8 was a handsome child. He grew up to be the spit of Jacques, though a much healthier marathon running version. This, of course, is much more authentic and rootsy. I like it but I prefer Scott's galloping take on the song. What do you think?

It's Broadstairs!

Isn't it quaint?
Oh no, it ain't,
It's Broadstairs.

A nice stick of rock?
Suck on yer cock,
It's Broadstairs.

Lovely ice cream!
A middle class dream,
It's Broadstairs.

Charles Dickens was here!
There's no fuckin' pier,
It's Broadstairs.

A return to the past!
It's gone overcast,
It's Broadstairs.

St Ives Revisited

Subsequent to my slagging the other week, St Ives in Cornwall has now been named Britain's best seaside town by a Guardian panel of experts. Broadstairs, a depressing town of which I have many unhappy memories from childhood visits, came second.

The panel of experts included Bill Bryson, Rick Stein, Esther Freud, Blake Morrison and Alan Carr. Andrew Martin, Alastair Sawday, Martin Parr, Kathryn Ferry, Candida Lycett Green, Kate Ashbrook, Paul Gogarty, Kevin Gould, Ian Jack, Andrew Kotting, Adam Nicolson, Phyllis Starkey, Jonathan Glancey and Jonathan Jones also lent their expertise to the project.

Say Cheese!

One of Gordon Brown's first tasks as Prime Minister is to cheer up a depressed nation. What with the state of education, health, housing, and the awful summer weather, Gordon is looking for something to elevate our spirits. And he thinks he's found the ideal pick-me-up.

"There was a golden age of comedy," says Gordon. "And that was the silent era, the era when two of Great Britain's greatest ever comedians, Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin, were making the world laugh until it cried."

Gordon's brainwave is to make the first ever national silent movie.

"We are the leaders in CCTV technology," says the PM. "We are a mere 1% of the world's population, yet we have in operation 25% of the world's surveillance cameras. On 23rd October 2007, I propose that we as a nation dress as our favourite silent screen star and walk in a funny manner in our streets. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has kindly agreed to dress his men and women in the uniform of the Keystone Cops for the day. He has further promised me that any arrests made on that day will be made in an amusing and slapstick way."

There is a warning, however, for any would-be Harold Lloyds.

"I am afraid that all action must be confined to ground level. Anybody found scaling a building or hanging off a large clock 300 feet in the air will be most severely dealt with by the police, after they have followed the perpetrators on a rickety old ladder."

Footage of the day's events will be available on the Government's website. Participants will be able to search for film of themselves by entering a postcode and time of day.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH

I have one of those dreams which are so real you keep waking up thinking it's really happening then go back to sleep and continue where you left off.

I am on holiday with several schoolfriends: a not uncommon occurrence in my dreams. One of the friends, a boy who was in the same class as me between the ages of 5 and 18, who I've not seen since, and who, according to his Friends Reunited profile, is now a GP as he always wanted to be, commits a murder. This is unusual in my dreams as I am the only murderer I know and I committed that murder years ago. Although I can't remember doing it, I do know there's a body beneath my patio, which is basically why we can never move house.

So the GP is a murderer, there's blood on his hands and our holiday dormitory is awaken at 6 a.m. by the FBI who have all the evidence. I can tell by my schoolfriend's eyes he wants to be caught as his life has taken a turn he never expected or wanted, he feels trapped and this is his way out.

So we look at each other, two murderers, one wanting to be convicted, the other hiding his 20 year old crime deep within his memory. I know what he did. He doesn't know what I did.

It serves him right for persuading me to see Rick Wakeman with him in 1977.

My Name Is...

You know you're getting on a bit when nobody knows how to spell your name. Nobody knows how to spell your name because your name hasn't been popular as a baby's name for 40 odd years. There just aren't any young Geoffs coming through.

So when someone asks my name, I say either...

1. "Geoffrey with a 'G'." In which case I get correspondence addressed to "Geoffery".

or...

2. "Geoffrey." In which case I receive correspondence addressed to "Jefferey".

They don't realise my name has two syllables. They think it has three. They don't listen to how I pronounce my name.

I don't mind, but if somebody at school had called me Geoffery or Jefferey I would have thought they were taking the piss. No, no two ways about it, they would have been taking the piss, maybe addressing me as if I was "little baby Geoffery." They would have been a bully so I wouldn't have said anything back, just taken it on the chin.

But that never happened as all the kids at school called me "Geoff" or "Geoffrey Bubbles Bom Bom". Which is about as affectionate as I could have hoped for.

But now I'm old and Geoffery is my official name. I am of three syllables. So you can call me Geoffery Three Syllables.

Just don't stress the middle one.

Concert For Diana

Much misunderstood, Diana. Growing up, her world was not one of Elton John, Rod Stewart, Duran Duran et al. Her musical scene was the grimier, sticky-floored world of pub rock. Doctor Feelgood were her pre-Charles favourites.

Fag in one hand, pint of snakebite in the other, the smell of sweat, beer and piss, Wilko Johnson coming at her like a 4 year old on amphetamines, his wild movement constrained by a six foot length of elastic.

The Half Moon, Putney would have been a fitting venue for a fitting pub rock tribute to the young life-loving Spencer girl.

It was corporate, soulless Wembley Stadium and James Morrison for the anaethetised wife and mother, the blandly compassionate regal superwoman.

If only they'd gone with her heart. Her heart was in dirty, sweaty rock and roll played by hard working, hard drinking Essex bits of rough.

Where were the Kursaal Flyers yesterday?

Where, indeed.

The Art Of Cornwall

Every time I've been to Cornwall I've spent some time in St Ives. Each time I go back thinking, "I'm going to like it this time." And each time I come away depressed.

Our travel bible, the Reader's Digest Touring Guide To Britain, says about St Ives, "Stone cottages tumble over each other in a maze of narrow streets. Old-world charm lured artists to the town and famous names include painter Ben Nicholson, sculptress Dame Barbara Hepworth, and potter Bernard Leach."

Famous? Not really. Van Gogh is famous.

It's the maze of narrow streets that probably get me. I like space, I hate walking in a procession of people. I don't like Brighton's lanes for the same reason.

The beaches at St Ives are pretty and the setting is lovely, but the people are on top of you.

This time we went to St Ives because it was raining on The Lizard and the Tate St Ives seemed a good place to get out of the rain. Of course it was warm and sunny in St Ives, but I'd driven there to experience the Tate for the very first time.

It was filled with several Brian Wilson themed exhibits. Excerpts from his songs were written on the walls by the paintings. There were a couple of reasonable Bridget Rileys and an ordinary Peter Blake. Nothing to write home about, just a down feeling. They weren't even playing any Beach Boys songs. Nothing for the ears, little for the eyes.

So that was my final visit to St Ives. Topped off nicely by a vicious seagull taking a chunk out of Betty's panini and an ageing hippy artist wearing a t-shirt with the words, "If it's the tourist season, why can't we shoot them?" So you were born and bred in St Ives were you, you twat?

I brought my mum home some clotted cream. The only place we could find it was Tesco's. She reminisced about her youth in Cornwall. Did I go to her old home village? No, we drove through it as we did last time as there's nothing there but a pub and some houses on a main road.

Apparently my grandparents left Cornwall for the kids' sake. Post-WW2, there just weren't the opportunities there. My mum's future would have been marrying a farmer. And she wouldn't have coped with all that farm muck.

As we left Cornwall, we drove over two chalked words on the road.

"GO HOME."

We went home.

The Last Straw

Rushing around like a blue-arsed fly all week, failing to catch up on two weeks' worth of work that piled up during my holiday, phone call after phone call, hanging on and hanging on, I have one final call to make this morning.

The phone's not answered straight away, they'll be with me as soon as possible. As is the modern way, they put some music on while I wait. It's Louis Armstrong...



WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

Staying Out For The Summer

Betty said wait, you'll look like a sad middle-aged man.

But I wanted a bit of a break from the mundanity so I've just been to HMV to buy the new Editors album and the debut by the Klaxons. I waited three days after Glastonbury - I'm not one of those sad middle-aged men who are totally influenced by what the youngsters are listening to. Oh no, not me. We were into the Editors at the beginning, don't you know? And the Klaxons - well, actually they were pretty good at Glasto, weren't they? "Hello, we're the Klaxons and we're from London." About time someone decent came from the capital. Not since the Kinks...

"What about the photos?" I hear you cry. Well, here's a small selection. Starting with a view of the beautiful Kynance Cove, as recommended by Murph. Dogs aren't allowed on the beach here, so I hope Murph didn't go all the way down (unlike several naughty canines we saw on our second visit here).



This is our second visit to the cove, on the last dry day of the holiday. That's lonely old me in the surf, contemplating doing a Reggie Perrin. Wouldn't it be wonderful to invent a new life for myself? Trouble is, I don't think I could convincingly wear those teeth.



This is a picture postcard view of Coverack. Aren't the flowers pretty? Coverack is a pretty good starting place for a lovely coastal walk, though not with the dramatic views of Lizard Point itself.



Finally, so you won't get too bored, here's a little barber shop in Penzance in which I didn't fancy getting a close shave. I didn't want to end up in a Geoff Pasty.

Turning Japanese In Cornwall

We come back a day early and find out that very few of you have been blog-idle for the past two weeks. In fact you've probably written more than you usually would in 14 days. How could you do this to me?

Today is day-zero in my blogging world. So here we go starting again from scratch.

The holiday was very relaxing, thank you very much. We only left The Lizard on rainy Tuesday to visit a very busy Eden Project which is like a cross between Kew Gardens, Bluewater Shopping Centre, Watford Gap Services and the WOMAD Festival. Guess who was playing there the day after we visited? Peter chuffing Gabriel!

I will show you our holiday snaps in due course - so that gives me time to get the drinks and snacks in. Is anybody averse to taramasalata? I know I am.

Intellectually, it has been a very intellectual fortnight. We watched the whole first series of The Wire. Although we didn't understand about a third of it, even with subtitles, it is seriously addictive stuff. We also watched the whole of the Bilko box set for light relief. We now refer to our holiday as an "extended furlough" which is a phrase so good it should not be exclusive to the American armed services.

I actually had the opportunity to read, too. I read the following:-

1. We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. I read the first 63 pages before I gave it up as a lost cause.

2. Timbuktu by Paul Auster. 23 pages. I'm a lightweight, aren't I?

3. Collected Ghost Stories by MR James. 20 pages: lightweight!

4. The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster. 22 pages: lightweight!

5. ALL 187 pages of South Of The Border, West Of The Sun by Haruki Murakami. I'm an immediate fan.

6. ALL 180 pages of In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami. This was an entertaining serial killer story which I only read because I picked up two Murakamis from the library, not noticing they were by two separate authors.

7. 306 pages and counting of Writing Home by Alan Bennett. This is brilliant, of course, and a perfect accompaniment to Untold Stories which I read last year. I don't always read things in the wrong order, honest.

So intellectually I was stimulated. But was I at one with nature?

You'll just have to wait for the holiday snaps.

Eva Braun

On our last holiday, in Ghent, I had problems shaving. For some reason my travel adapter didn't fit the strange Belgian socket. I was powerless.

I bought some cheap disposable razors in a kind of department store (you won't find them in Belgian chemists). The shave I got from these was piss poor.

I've just bought a new electric shaver. The shave I get from it is passable. But I envy those men who get a really close shave. And using proper razors just seems to me so much more manly.

I like the idea of filling the bathroom sink with water, giving my cheek a good scrape, shaking the razor in the water, pulling my face into all sorts of contortions, repeating on the other cheek, and so on until I'd rinse my face with clean water, dab with a towel and splash on some Brut, or whatever the ladies go for nowadays.

The idea's nice, but whenever I try it I end up with several patches of bristle and blood. Sore and unsightly.

Is there a special technique? If so, are there courses on how to shave? A night class in, say, "Manly Shaving"? There's got to be a demand for it. I'm surely not the only one who feels less of a man for going electric.

We'll Meet Again

It's only 1.35 p.m. and I've read all my recently updated blogroll. Where are you all? I can't be bothered to read my book so I'll bore you instead.

We're off on holiday this coming Saturday. To Cornwall for two whole weeks. I have never in my life had two consecutive weeks away from home. We are taking some DVDs, several books and my MP3 player to keep us entertained. I think they have Corrie in Cornwall, too. So we won't do our usual trick of recording a week's worth then catching up when we get home.

There is no internet access where we're going. Well, there are probably loads of internet cafes serving cream teas, but we're not going to any of those. It will be good to get a break from blogging. I don't know whether we'll feel refreshed when we get back but I think it'll do us the world of good to get away from it for a while.

Just so we don't miss anything, can I ask you all not to post anything on your blogs from this Friday to, say, Sunday 24th June. There's nothing worse than a massive backlog. I don't think my nerves could take it.

I'm letting you know in advance so you can plan those two weeks. Why not take those two weeks off yourselves? Don't turn on your computers! You don't have to go away. You don't have to stare into space. Read a book, watch the television, like you did in the old days. That's what we'll be doing. Let's make these two weeks an international bloggers' holiday.

If you're stuck at work and your meany boss won't let you have the time off, dedicate those hours you normally spend blogging to interacting with your workmates. Chat about that book you're reading, what you watched on television last night. You'll be surprised just how much in common you'll have with them.

Dear Jools,

Oh, Jools. I actually felt sorry for you when I saw this.

You suddenly looked old and frail, unable to hold your own. A tinkle here, a tinkle there. Those incontinence pants can't be far away, can they?

I suppose you were asking for it, asking to join in with a band who have a bit of life in them. You're ok though, Jack's a bit of a nutter and I think he enjoyed the opportunity to mess around with a bass guitar for a change. I don't think he was overly worried about how it sounded or looked. I don't think he was trying to humiliate you, Jools.

Earlier in the show Jack said that Tom Jones could make a good fist of this song. You agreed. Jack's a nutter, Jools, he doesn't really mean it. Remember that album you made with Tom? Tom doesn't. He's in a home now, sweating and shaking like an old man, just like his stage show. Still, I'm sure Tom will be back out for your Hootenanny and you two can find your own level, find something more suitable for your age.



Love Geoff

A History Of Modern Britain

Andrew Marr. Andrew Marr. Andrew Marr and his black and white car.
Early in the morning, just as day is dawning, he picks up all his papers from the store.

Andrew Marr. Andrew Marr. Andrew Marr and his black and white car.
All the birds are singing, and the day is just beginning. Andrew knows he is no tv bore.

Everybody knows his balding pate, all his viewers smile as he smirks to greet them,
With Marr, you can always be sure, there'll be news (knock knock)
News (ring ring). He ain't no tv bore. (Hee Hee).

Andrew Marr. Andrew Marr. Andrew Marr and his black and white car.
All the birds are singing, and the day is just beginning. Andrew knows he is no tv bore.

Andrew knows he is no tv bore.

Andrew knows he is no tv...

bore.

Time For Bed, Children

I knew Children's tv was all too nice and middle class before I started to watch this week's BBC4 series. Even the bullies of Grange Hill weren't convincingly menacing.

But as with that Seven Ages of Rock shite, they're messing with my head.

Growing up, at bedtime us kids were told by our dad it was time to "go up the wooden 'ill."

Going "up the wooden 'ill" linked us to a proud history of working class people, generation after generation coaxed by fathers to get up those bleedin' stairs. Maybe not as working class as those kids who went "up the old apples and pears" but proudly working class all the same.

But what do we get from the BBC?

Apparently in the early days of children's tv, the BBC didn't broadcast for an hour after the kids had stopped watching their programmes so that these kids could be taken...

up the wooden hill..

to Bedfordshire!

Bedfordshire is pronounced "Bedfordshur", as the Queen would say. Not "Bedfordsheer" as you or I would say or "Bedfordshyre" as in the venacular of the common country person.

Going up the wooden hill is my heritage. We knew we were going to bed, we didn't need to be told we were going to an unremarkable county in the heartland of England.

"Bedfordshur" would be a place where the child would be read Beatrix Potter or Rupert the Bear before going sleepy byes.

Or maybe middle class kids didn't go sleepy byes, maybe they went to the land of nod on a cushion of clouds, dreaming of being Peter Pan or Wendy.

I have cause to visit the real Bedfordshire now and then. And do you know what?

I never get a good night's sleep.

Seven Ages Of Rock: Art Rock

Art Rock apparently started in the 60s with Pink Floyd in England and The Velvet Underground in the States.

Who took the baton in the 70s and ran with it? Bowie, Roxy and Genesis!!! That's who!

(Nobody else).

This selective categorising shit is doing my head in.

Still, we did get to hear Roger Waters' logic behind The Wall stage show where the Floyd were bricked up. It was because the lads' audience were beginning to FREAK him out by behaving like this...





Yes, like this...



Pretty damned scary, eh?

Sheer Heart Attack

Yesterday was UK Day on Heart 106.2. They restricted their playlist to songs by UK artists. Of course this meant a hell of a lot of George Michael and Elton John and Shine by Take That getting at least double its usual 54 plays in the day.

The morning's Guess the Year spot featured the year pop music got really shit. Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Kajagoogoo, Karma Fucking Chameleon by Culture Club, the beginning of the slide towards shitness for David Bowie (Let's Dance) and the Human League (Keep Feeling Fascination).

Yes, it was 1983.

Sometime during the morning they announced that sometime during the day there would be four songs in a row by artists hailing from England, Nothern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, respectively. The first person to ring in with the correct identities of the artists would win £1,000!

This was really going to brighten up my day.

I made a game plan. The English singer or group was going to be the most difficult one. England has produced so much crap pop music over the years, the list would be longer than my arm.

Northern Ireland is a different matter. Not a lot of rubbish coming out of Northern Ireland that gets in the charts. What about songs that I'm really sick to the back teeth of? Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison and Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. Yeah, it had to be one of those two. I'd go for the Morrison even though I hear the Patrol's song at least ten times a day.

What about Scotland? There was only one contender, only one Scottish band who were shit enough for this competition. No, not the Proclaimers or Texas, shit as they are. No, it had to be the Wets. Fucking Wet Wet Wet, bane of my fucking life. They take a great song like Love Is All Around and make me hate it. Scum.

Wales? Tom Jones? Sex Bomb? No, I hadn't heard that for a few years. Charlotte Church? Nah, haven't hear her much either. It had to be old croaky voice herself, Bonnie Pissing Tyler.

Cut to the chase.

It's 3 p.m. and no sign yet of anything from Northern Ireland. Take That are all over the radio like a rash. Here come the Pet Shop Boys.

Snow Patrol! This could be it! Pet Shop Boys, Snow Patrol...Come on, come on!

Simply Fucking Red!

Lemar, English. Sybil, English. Queen, mostly English. Singer with the eye patch, Gabrielle, that's her name, English. Paul Young, Jesus save me, Paul Young, English...

Van the fucking Man! Brown Eyed fucking Girl! Van, You The Man! Game on!

Come on the Wets. Come on you wank stains! Paul Young, Van The Man, The Wets! It's...

The Wets! Game fucking on! That £1,000 (well, £500 as I'm sharing this with my work colleague who's going to make the phone call) is going to sit very nicely in my pocket.

Shut up Wets. Get it over so we can make the phone call. It's going to be gruff-voiced Tyler. It's going to be Tyler it's going to be Tyler it's going to be Tyler. It's...

Tyler!

Quick, phone! Dial that number dial that number dial that number!

Engaged? What do you mean engaged?



After all that it turned out there was something wrong with the phone lines and nobody got to win the £1,000. It's being saved for another day, another competition.

For Weddings And Blue

Heart are playing my daily dose of Build Me Up Buttercup by The Foundations.

I can't stand this song. It makes me think of a wedding reception with some wanker of a pissed up uncle embarrassing himself on the dancefloor. Just horrific.

On further investigation I discover the song was a highlight in the film There's Something About Mary. You know, the one in which Cameron Diaz uses semen as a hair gel. Hilarious!

It's a shame this fashion didn't catch on: rampant, unemployed teenage boys could have been utilised by barbers to shoot the contents of their loins into freshly cut boyband hair.

Just think of the benefits to the environment!

Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner

When I was a nipper,
We went to see the clipper.
Now I've burnt her bits off,
Cos she bored me fuckin' tits off.

The Seven Ages of Rock - Part One: The Birth of Rock

Rock began with The Who. There'd never been that kind of showmanship before, such wanton onstage destruction. Hendrix took Townshend's guitar bashing and made it his own. Ooh look, there's Jimi setting light to his guitar at Monterey!

Back in the USA, Hendrix loved those white guitar players from across the Atlantic. Beck and Clapton were taking the blues and making them accessible to a British audience. Their guitar heroics were wowing the kids.

Big Chas Chandler brought Hendrix to England. Hendrix blew away those white kids. He got up on stage with Cream and played so brilliantly, Clapton was left speechless and shaking in the dressing room.

Let's hear what Jeff Beck said about him in one of the programmes old pieces of footage:-

"The fact that he was doing things so upfront and so wild and unchained and sort of...that's what I wanted to do, but I'd been British and a victim of the class system and whatever, you know, the poxy old schools we used to go to. I couldn't do what he did. And I just went away from there thinking I'd better think of something else to do."

Sorry, Jeff. You can't blame your lack of genius on your upbringing. Maybe if you'd joined the Air Force like Jimi you would have turned out wild and untamed? No, I didn't think so! You're a decent guitarist. Let's leave it at that, shall we?

Hendrix was so enamoured by Dylan, he took Blowin' in the Wind to a Harlem discotheque. The dj put the record on and Jimi was chased out of the place.

He didn't really belong in discos. He belonged with the white kids who couldn't dance to save their lives. Actually, is there any evidence that Hendrix himself could dance? Although in his early career he played backing guitar for various blues, soul and R&B bands, there's no evidence that he knew how to strut his stuff. Maybe his two left feet led him to play with the English boys.

This programme, the first in a series of seven, is a pretty earnest opener. No wonder when it is overseen by and features many earnest quotes by Charles Shaar Murray. A very serious rock journalist, Mr Murray. No room for fripperies here.

Tragically, when the drugs and the darkness took over, Jimi couldn't hack it and choked on his own vomit.

I suppose they had to bring that up!

Has Anybody Seen Jose's Dog?

Confessions Of An Armchair Football Fan - Part Two

Before I start boring you to death, just a word to say that Search Me is back. I will try to update it regularly from now on whilst trying to coax Betty back to do a few posts. She's got so much into the Atwood that her hair's turned all long and grey this week and she's started knitting me an itchy jumper which I don't want. This reading isn't good for us. We need to be at the coalface of blogging, continually failing to get shortlisted for Post Of The Week.

Ah, the football...

In the olden days there was Match of the Day on BBC and The Big Match on ITV. I'd avidly watch both these highlights of Saturday's matches. I knew every player in every team. I even quite liked some teams other than West Ham. I liked Burnley as they played in claret and blue. I liked Stoke City because we had a classic League Cup Final against them when Bobby had to go in goal. I liked Tottenham Hotspur because Martin went there and they played entertaining football. I remember one match with Spurs I saw on The Big Match which was full of mud and rain and great football. I had two posters on my bedroom wall, one of West Ham, one of Spurs. We both played the game it was meant to be played. We were the entertainers.

I suppose I stopped watching the football highlights of matches not involving West Ham in 1982 when my dad had a phone call in the middle of Match of the Day from his secret fancy piece. All hell was let loose and I missed the rest of the football. Other teams didn't seem to matter anymore. I have only ever watched matches involving the Irons from then on.

Rupert Murdoch's Sky has, of course, revolutionised the way we watch football. There are highlights of all Premiership matches and several live ones. Yes, live ones! There is even a new viewer called the "neutral". You will often hear a Sky commentator say, "that was a great game for the neutral."

The neutral will watch any old shit, all two and a half hours of action and analysis of a match he is not emotionally involved in. Highlights I can understand, if you've got the time. But a neutral can watch and enjoy a whole game of football, dispassionately.

I've nothing against neutrals. They're decent men in the main. It's just not for me. I need the sweating, the shouting and the heart rumbles. I need to roar like a lion when my team scores. I need to shout obscenities at the referee and opposition players, manager and especially chairmen. Especially chairmen like Dave Whelan of Wigan.**

If I did all this at a live match I'd be banned. I wouldn't do it. In company, I'm a civilised member of society. At home, though, I am a beastial real man, an Iron John.

And it's all thanks to Rupert Murdoch.


** Admittedly I'm the same when I watch Later With Jools.

Confessions Of An Armchair Football Fan - Part One

I inhabit a strange world.

What did you do on Sunday afternoon? I bet you didn't spend what should have been a relaxing afternoon with sweaty armpits, a shaky leg and a loud, foul mouth in front of an unsuspecting television set.

Such is the life of an armchair football fan.

I say "fan" rather than "supporter". A supporter spends big money going to the matches and cheers on his or her team in the flesh. I've probably been a supporter less than 30 times in my life and then I've always been too self-conscious to swear or sing. If every supporter was like me, players would turning to their managers and, like actors, asking "what's my motivation?"

I may not be a proper supporter but I am a "fan", as in "fanatic". My waking hours are always being invaded by thoughts and worries about my team. The worry seems to have got worse as I've got older. And watching my team in important matches, like on Sunday, I am a nervous wreck.

Yesterday I was asked why I support who I do. I don't really know. It started so long ago and I was so young.

As a teenager, my dad used to go and see Charlton play, but he never really had any strong feelings about any team. He was not a fanatic. So it wasn't as if when I announced to him I was a West Ham fan he disowned me or anything. Besides, I was only 4 at the time.

It was the World Cup in '66. Bobby was the captain. Geoff and Martin scored the goals. Geoff was a "Geoff" and so was I. There was really only one team to follow.

The above is not what I remember. It may not have happened that way. But this is the only logical conclusion my grown up mind can come to. This is what I assume happened to my vulnerable infant mind.



To be continued (if you're unlucky)...

Rock Gods Go Shopping

Rob Tyner and Fred "Sonic" Smith are in Asda, Heaven branch.

SMITH: I quite fancy getting some strawberry and some raspberry.

TYNER: Fine, Fred. I like both those.

SMITH: Then again. I do like blackcurrant. Maybe one strawberry one and a blackcurrant one.

TYNER: Whatever, Fred. I ain't that much of a raspberry lover, anyway.

SMITH: Or apricot. What about an apricot one and a blackcurrant one?

TYNER: I thought you wanted strawberry!

SMITH: Can we have three, Rob?

TYNER: Fuck man! Do what you fuckin' like! Just do what you fuckin' like, man! Just pick out the jams, motherfucker!

Excuse me, second homers. I'm trying to sleep on this train

We're off to the South of France next week. Just 5 days away. Easyjet flight down to Nice airport. We've got our own place there. It's beautiful. So peaceful. We were there at Easter.

Lovely part of the world.

We're just 25 minutes from Nice airport.

That's good, isn't it?

Never any trouble with Easyjet. Straight through. Couldn't say the same about British Airways, though. Wrong terminal with BA. Easyjet, just straight through, 25 minute drive from Nice airport to our place.

My parents are at the foot of the Pyrenees. Lovely situation, overlooked by the mountains. They're country people. They like the country. More so than the beach.

Never any trouble with Easyjet. Straight through. Just a 25 minute drive from Nice airport and we're in a different world completely. We're renting it out this year. Not strictly renting. More lending it to friends and family. We're not looking for an income from it, just enough to keep it ticking over.

We've got a little place down on the coast - Broadstairs. We had a lovely week at Easter. The kids loved it. Superb weather. It was a real English seaside break.

I like Broadstairs.

Broadstairs is nice.

Oh, here we are. Waterloo East.

This is me. Great to see you again.

Yes, you too. Take care now.

And you, old man.

Bend Over And Kiss Your Balls

Last night we watched a documentary on Saki. I haven't read any Saki for 25 years and the Complete Saki is waiting for me in the bedroom as soon as I've finished the Complete Sherlock Holmes and the Complete MR James Short Stories - bloody hell so that means I'll be reading it in 2012 then.

After Saki, we watched Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul which forces the odd laugh from our miserable mouths.

After Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul, we watched the majority of Greg Rusedski's interview on Jonathan Ross. Wossy likes to think he's a tennis player as do a lot of these rich celebrities with nothing but time on their hands and money in every orifice. Well let me tell you, if I had as much time and money I would thrash Wossy and his mate Cliff Richard with one hand tied behind my back. You can't buy talent, matey.

After Greg Rusedski, we watched a bit of Later With Jools. We were beginning to fall asleep as Tinariwen strutted their stuff and Betty continued to sleep for the next hour.

I woke up in the middle of a fascinating Snooker World Championship Semi Final between John Higgins and Stephen Maguire. These guys nowadays certainly know how to sink their balls. As with the tennis, however, the personality seems to have gone out of the sport. Higgins and Maguire are efficient machines. Yes, the nerves are there but none of the excitement.

I once saw Graham Miles play an exhibition frame at a Warners holiday camp. The sexual tension was there for us all to see as he almost humped the baize in his tight trousers, the light from above glinting on his balding pate. It was a religious experience for me and for the next week I wanted to be a snooker player when I grew up with all the glamour that entailed.


Graham Miles (left) - for MJ

Blue Is The Colour (Stick Your Blue Flag Up Your Arse)

I hope you'll all be voting tomorrow. We Londoners will be going up the old apples and pears without having put our crosses on any bits of paper as we're not included this time round.

On their route to winning the next General Election, the Tories need a good showing tomorrow. According to today's Today show on Radio 4, 40% of the vote isn't enough. No, they need to be aiming for 42, 43, 44, 45% of the vote. To achieve this, David Cameron "has to break out of the wine bars of Southern England."

Silly me. I was under the impression that wine bars died out at about the same time that Sade's pop career took a nose dive. I didn't realise there was a thriving wine bar scene and that these establishments were hotbeds of political discourse, where discussions about that bloody socialist Gordon Brown's "stealth taxes" raged into the night. Where battle plans were drawn up to fight New Labour and the Lib Dems on the Green issue, aided by the pamphlet "How to save the planet by making the rich richer and the poor poorer."

I must get out more.

From The Heart

Toby Anstis, my old friend at Heart 106.2, has just found out that "LOL" doesn't mean "Lots of Love". It means "Laugh out loud".

Actually, although I'm LOLing at his naivety, I also originally interpreted it in the very same way the first few times I saw it on my computer screen. It took me some time to work it out, I just thought people were being extra friendly due to an excess of Ecstasy tablets or something.

It disappointed me that crude, cynical humour rather than beautiful, spiritual love was being spread over our brave new technological world.

Surely there should be a "lots of love" type sign-off for non-misanthropes like me and Toby?