Angry Of Bexley

The Tory leader of our council is going all green. He's pictured in the latest council magazine wearing a green tie. There's another picture of him further into the magazine wearing a suit and open-necked shirt, just like Davey Cameron. But the green tie made the biggest impression on me.

The Tories have kept our increase in Council Tax below the rate of inflation for the second year running. They've been able to do this thanks to the following...

1. They're axing meals on wheels for the 420 people who use the service. Hot meals delivered to those in need are being replaced by a choice of frozen meals (presumably to be stored in those large chest freezers that the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society have in their spacious kitchens or utility rooms). Not only will the recipients have a "bigger menu choice and better value for money", they will have "added freedom when it comes to deciding what time to eat." Those who need help cooking their meals will, of course, be able to read detailed cooking instructions on the packaging. And if they can't open a bag of frozen peas and boil some water to go some way to their five fruit and veg a day, well, isn't that what families and neighbours are for?

2. "Our improved recycling service means that residents in most houses and maisonettes in the Borough will have their recycling collected every week. As there will be less waste (what's left) this will be collected fortnightly."
We're being given new bins to store our reduced amount of waste. The trouble is, I don't really understand the logic. Why, because they will be collecting paper and glass and plastic bottles more regularly, should our unrecyclable waste be reduced? Unless we're not currently being good recyclers. But even a cursory glance at other people's bins on collection day will indicate that most of us are already doing what we can. And a collection once every other week of stinking rotting rubbish sticking out of the tops of bins is not going to be doing too much for our environment. It might please the local rats, though.

The Battle For Haditha

The UK's greatest film director of recent years is Nick Broomfield.

Nick's been making outstanding documentaries for years. But his last two films have been docu-dramas. And if you've been annoyed in the past by Nick's less than sexy voice or his less than sexy demeanour, please watch Ghosts and The Battle For Haditha because he is not seen or heard in these films.

Nick tells it like it is. There is no poncing about, no actors trying to find their characters by over-the-top acting in a Mike Leigh way. This is real.

The reality of the war against terrorism is clear in The Battle For Haditha. When your enemy is among the civilian population how do you react when one of your colleagues is blown up? A group of young men, ready and pumped up for revenge in a battle situation, hit out indiscriminately at the locals, killing innocent men, women and children, the only "enemy" they can see. The killing of innocents, of course, makes excellent propaganda for the insurgent recruiters, making sure the war on terror will never go away.

Corporal Ramirez is a young man, fucked up by all the death he's seen. He leads his men into battle. (He leads the mass murder).

The officers are pleased with the Marines' response. They'd acted as a finely honed fighting machine should.

"Royal Marines, outstanding job. Corporal Ramirez, you handled yourself like a true professional out there. I'm gonna promote you to Sergeant and I'm gonna recommend you for the Bronze Star. You kept your head in the Game and you kept your Marines alive."

There was a cover up. The official line was that it was a real battle, that the Marines fought back bravely and took the lives of many insurgents. Until the cover up was exposed and Ramirez and his colleagues were accused of murder.

Just to fuck them up a little more.

I've Got To Admit It's Getting Smoother, A Little Smoother All The Time

Yesterday on Smooth Radio they played Love's magnificent Alone Again Or. Sandwiched in between WHAM! and Luther Vandross.

Today they've played Don't Stand So Close To Me, a song based on Sting's experiences as a teacher when he was often the "subject of schoolgirl fantasy."

What the song doesn't say is that the fantasies usually involved the heroic girls ripping the fucker's tongue out so that he couldn't sing.

Hold Steady Now - A Change Is Gonna Come

It's the end of a very long era. Since the 70s, between the two of us we've bought Record Mirror, Melody Maker, Sounds, NME, New Music News, Smash Hits, The Face, Blitz, i-D, Flexipop, ZigZag, MixMag, Muzik(??), Select, Vox, Q, Mojo...

But for the past ten years it's been a strict diet of Uncut.

And recently it's become a chore, one in which, as a lazy person, I've not really participated. While Betty bites the bullet and reads all the chaff about the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and various other rock pensioners, I just skim through the new CD reviews and have a laugh at the letters written by extremely serious middle aged men who think The Hold Steady, for Christ's sake, are the future of music.



The Hold Steady - The Future Of Music


I saw she was struggling with the latest issue this week. Those golf and slippers dullards REM have apparently produced their "most straightforwardly enjoyable album since 1906's New Adventures In Hi-Fi."

"Just think of how much real reading you'll get done without all this shit," I said to her.

And I cancelled our subscription, just like that, two days before the next direct debit was due.

There is the worry that maybe we'll miss the odd gem like the re-issue of the brilliant White Noise album, An Electric Storm. But look, here it is on Uncut's website anyway.

So it's a final goodbye to the printed word. And a big hello to the 21st century.

Welcome To The Working Week

It's always interesting to have an insight into other people's work lives. A fly on the wall kind of thing. Because none of us can really guess what actually happens.

I work in a large office and me and my boss are the only men in the whole building. The following is highlights of our working day. You only see a glimpse of me at the end.

I go back to work on Monday. I enjoy my time off but I enjoy my work too. I get job satisfaction.

Racists and New Romantics

On my last week off we went into London a couple of times. Saw a couple of Oscar-nominated films and bought lots of CDs and books in Fopp.

The initial plan for this week was to go into London a couple of times, too. Go to a couple of galleries, go to see a critically acclaimed German film.

But with so much to catch up on at home, what's the point?

We've seen the pictures before, we've seen critically acclaimed German films before (it'll be on the telly in a couple of years anyway).

So we're catching up on our reading, our blogging and our Sky+ backlog.

The Bloggies and The Observer List of 50 Most Powerful Blogs are just there really, of no relevance. They just confirm the very opposite way I see blogging - as a social meeting place for people with similar interests. Let them get on with their silly awards and rankings. When they've all given up I'll still be around doing it as long as my cyber friends are.

This week's telly viewing has been a mixed bag. BBC2's White documentary on a Bradford Working Men's Club which started out well but without any real historical context of working class culture ended up with a lot of miserable faces moaning about lack of community and feeling like a foreigner in your own country. The Enoch Powell documentary just added to the impression that this country is overpopulated and the ones that need to leave are the ones without white faces. It was all the more depressing because you just know that this is how a hell of a lot of people think.

Mad Men started slowly but picked up quickly as soon as characters from outside the workplace were introduced. Purely workplace-based comedies can work but dramas need outsiders to make more rounded characters.

The 1986 version of Northanger Abbey confirmed my theory that villains in Austen dress to the left. Peter Firth may have ended up the hero (ooh, missus!) but he was a villain all the way through it. Katherine Schlesinger dreamt her way through her part like a doped up Sarah Brightman - a fantastic performance. It was all very 1980s New Romantic with the look of a music video, gothic dream sequences and all.

And so to today. Betty said we've got a busy day. We've got to buy a couple of sandwiches and some bedding plants. And we've got to visit my old mum before falling asleep later this afternoon.

Ah, the good life.

The Swimmer

Congratulations are due to tv funnyman David Walliams on the completion of his swim from Bognor Regis (UK) to Bondi Beach (Australia).

The swim, which took 60 weeks non-stop, is the greatest feat of human endurance in history.

Walliams set off from Butlins Holiday Park, Bognor Regis, in January 2007. He was accompanied on his journey by Round-The-World Yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur who sailed alongside the courageous comedian, occasionally throwing bottles of water and healthy freshly caught sild into his path.

Walliams, who has now raised £30 billion for Sport Relief, was in good spirits as he crawled onto Bondi's famous golden sands.

When asked what he missed most during his time in the ocean, he winked and said "a nice cup of tea".

He was immediately mobbed by several be-thonged young ladies.

Sweet Like Chocolate

What a beautiful rendition. And Joss Stone gives it her all. She adds a touch of soul to proceedings. And the way she lightly brushes the fallen chocolate off her heaving cleavage is a joy to behold.

But don't you think one of us guys could become the face and voice of Flake? Munching on a chocolate phallus, after all, should not be the sole preserve of young, breathy women.

I'd like to see either Stuart Staples, lead singer of Tindersticks singing in a field of daisies, or Antony of Antony and the Johnsons on a wobbly water bed.

Or maybe even one of our very own. Robert Swipe in the bath, anyone?

Old Crap

A letter in today's Guardian...

How can Goldfrapp get five stars when, to quote the reviewer, the lyrics were "only occasionally decipherable". Combining words and music is clearly a problem, in the opera house and musical theatre as well as at pop concerts, but to suggest that a song cycle was as good as it could be when you could hardly hear any of the words seems, well, odd.

We bought the new Goldfrapp album last week and it's the first of theirs that I've really liked (I need to reassess the others). It is excellent and if you want the lyrics, they're printed inside the CD booklet. Personally, I don't want the lyrics. I'm quite happy with the voice and the emotion.

To say understanding lyrics is all important is to declare war on pop music. This sentiment comes from the intellect which is an unwelcome intruder in the world of pop. It is not cool or clever. It is showing yourself up as a reactionary philistine.

Banksy Exposed

Here.

The Rough With The Smooth

I've had a bit of a result. My radio-listening work colleague has discovered Smooth Radio. Shit name, but the music's a damn sight better than Heart. A reasonable variety of pop from the past 50 years. Quite a bit of rubbish, agreed, but quite a bit that's good too. You just watch Heart's ratings plummet! The day it's buried I'll tramp the dirt down.

The problem is, Smooth's FM version gives a shit reception in our office. So I had a brainwave.

I've brought in my redundant digital radio for general office use. As long as they keep it locked to Smooth! And I can borrow the old office Radio/CD player to play my classical CDs in my lunch hour, thereby avoiding annoying Betty.

I am currently listening to Bach, calm in the knowledge I won't hear Take That 40 times today.

But Bach doesn't half go on, doesn't he? In fact I'm a bit fucking sick of him.

High Brow

I've been listening to a couple of John Cale albums from the early 70s, the pop masterpiece Paris 1919 and the "I was classically trained, you know" The Academy in Peril. The latter has performed a miracle on me. It has got me into classical music.

But where do I start?

How I could have done with middle class parents, a mother who read Shakespeare and a father who listened to Bach, instead of being saddled with a mum who listened to Jimmy Young and a dad who read Wilbur Smith. I wish I'd had expensive private lessons to learn the cello instead of learning basic strumming guitar chords from my dad's long-haired factory worker friend.

My humble background is a cross to bear, but I don't let it get me down.

On Saturday I got a few classical CDs out of the library and I kind of like them. But I'm a newbie to all this and I don't know which are the cool composers, the majestic musicians or the commanding conductors. It's all a mystery to me.

Is Brahms the U2 of classical music? Is Bartok the James Blunt? Who do I adore and who do I avoid?

How on earth do I acquire taste with no guidelines, no classical "blood", no classical "ear"?

I'd be grateful for your suggestions, my learned friends.

In The Days Of The Miners' Strike

In the days of the miners' strike, one day stood out. It was the day that Gary Yates went down in legend.

Gary was a big, confident lad and thought he could do everything himself. He had a loud mouth and boasted to his mates that he could see off a coach of scabs by himself.

So his mates let him have a go.

The night before his shift, Gary couldn't get to sleep. He was worried he would let his comrades down. By the time he got to his solo shift he was exhausted. He sat propped against the picket fence, couldn't keep his eyes open for a minute, said "oh, fuck it" and fell into a deep sleep. The scabs had a peaceful journey to work.

The incident is known in folklore as Gary "Fuck It" And The Union Nap.


******

In the days of the miners' strike, one day stood out. It was the day that Gary Bates went down in legend.

The lads were huddled around the brazier, taking the piss out of each other when Big Dave piped up that he was feeling hungry.

Gary Bates owed Big Dave a favour. Big Dave had stepped in to stop Gary from getting a beating a few nights previously.

"I'll get you something," said Gary to Big Dave.

So Gary went off to the bakers with instructions to get Dave "a nice cheese and tomato toastie."

Half an hour later, Gary handed Dave his food. Dave opened the wrapper.

"What the fuck's this?" he said.

The incident is known in folklore as Gary "Fuckwit" And The Union Bap.

Get Thee To Butlins

The bankers are on the train, agreeing how it's "unfair on parents" that travel companies put prices up in the school holidays.

Never heard of supply and demand, dickheads?

One of the poor sausages had to pay £4,000 for his family's two week August holiday. In June it would only have cost £2,000.

£4,000? Where are they going? The fucking Moon?

Austen Allegro

We are watching BBC4's Saturday Classics season, catching up on all the stuff we missed first time round.

Last night we finished watching the production of Pride and Prejudice which got a lot of dotty women hot under the brassiere when it was first shown in the 90s. In it, Mr Darcy is truly one dark, brooding cunt.

And there was something we noticed that even the most avid Austen fan might have missed. It seems that in Austen adaptations, the heroes dress to the right whilst the villains dress to the left.

Did Jane stipulate in her will such fine details for any future theatrical productions of her work?

Or is it a costume drama convention?

500 Miles

The short documentary on Edwyn Collins' rehabilitation from his stroke was extremely moving. It's sister programme about the Scottish music scene from the late seventies was a load of shit.

I was ready to learn about Postcard Records and Scotland's indie heritage. What we got instead was an early dismissal of indie labels by Claire Grogan and a dispiriting trawl through 80s bollocks such as Hue & Cry, Deacon Blue, The Proclaimers, Wet Wet Wet et al. They even tacked on fucking Scottish political independence and the SNP and the bloke out of Runrig, none of which has anything to do with the music scene but more to do with washed up minor pop artists trying to keep their names in the media as some sort of spokespeople for a generation of people with crap music taste.

There was no mention of The Skids, the early good Simple Minds and absolutely no mention of Jesus & Mary Chain or even Primal Scream.

How can Edith Bowman live with herself for reading the script that made Scottish music sound about as vibrant as Ireland's?

Much Ado About Nothing

As part of my job I am responsible for making sure the switchboard is always staffed. Due to staff reductions recently I have had to call upon temps, something I hadn’t done for ten years or so. How times have changed!

In the 90s, a temporary telephonist was more often than not an Australian on a year’s stay in London. Now it seems she is more likely to be British. Not just British, but a well-spoken between-jobs British actress.

Three times in the past few weeks I’ve been telling various actresses about the play wot I wrote and I’m getting tired of it. It was, after all, 16 years ago now and it’s a bit pathetic to keep harking on about something that got one derogatory review in the Ham & High.

I think I get on well with actors though I’d like to know what they’re thinking about me. In my experience they’re always really friendly, but you never know what kind of egomaniac is lurking beneath the mask.

I’ve decided I won’t mention my silly little play to the next one I meet. I’ll just talk about them, what kind of theatre they prefer, whether they’ve been on the telly, whether they write as well as act...

...what they think of Darius Danesh.

Pulling

We are enjoying the third episode of the BBC2 repeat of BBC3's excellent comedy, Pulling. I laugh out loud when Karl accidently gives himself a Hitler moustache. I laugh again as he is run over, lifts his arm for help and gets a smack in the mouth for being a nazi. And I laugh when he realises he has landed in dog shit, this time with recognition.

"We've seen this bit before," I say to Betty.

"This was the programme that Ian Penman recommended on his blog. He said that some BBC3 comedies aren't given the accolades they deserve because of the critics' snobbishness towards the channel. We tried to watch this episode at the time. You said it was shit, ha ha ha."

"Oh yes," I say, "I remember."

"There's a bit later where they play The Smiths when he's feeling suicidal. You thought it was too obvious."

"Oh yes," I say. "And here I am enjoying it."

"Ha ha ha."

"I did the same with the Sopranos, didn't I? I said the first episode was too slow until you started watching it. Now I think it's the best thing ever."

"And The Wire," says Betty.

"Did I?"

"You were going to give that up after 20 minutes."

"Was I?"

"Ha ha ha. And you laughed out loud at the Hitler moustache last time too. Did you forget that?"

"Ha ha ha."


N.B. The ha ha ha's in this post signify actual laughter, not cruel mockery.

The Bowls Trip

"The raffle causes more problems than anything. The trouble is, as soon as one year's trip is over, Alf is on the phone asking how many people for next year's. It's what he lives for now.

You've got to feel sorry for him. He must have had a stroke - he talks out of the side of his mouth and dribbles everywhere. His jacket and shirt are covered in saliva. You don't want to brush up against him, although he does have a tendency to get a little close for comfort when coming round with the raffle tickets.

This year we had a little altercation. We missed out on the raffle tickets; we weren't in the bar, we were in the lounge. Alf's 80 year old pitbull assistant started hassling and we gave him some good tempered banter in reply. The pitbull took offence. He didn't like being spoken to like that.

We were eventually worn down and bought some tickets. We won the £6 prize but Len, the organiser of the trips, has funny turns and he tore up our winning ticket.

But good-hearted Len told Alf what he'd done. Alf came to our table and took six pound coins from his pocket and put them beside my drink. The coins were stuck together, covered in an unknown bodily fluid.

I went to the Ladies and washed the coins and my hands with soap and water. I dried them under the warm air hand dryer."


*******


"You must get a hobby when you retire, Geoff."

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's Bob Ogley

You can stick your Jon Savage up your arse. The only true account of punk is here, those times as seen by a true newpaperman, author, raconteur and Betty's favourite columnist, Bob Ogley. Bob not only lived through punk, he lived through the War, dodging doodlebugs, and through the Great Storm of 1987, dodging Sevenoaks's seven falling oaks. Here are some gems from the article...

" I imagine many people younger than me will disagree with my assessment of this noisy, heroin-addicted, sickeningly obnoxious band but I understand their desire to find an alternative sound to the poor music offered in the mid-1970s. I certainly accept their place in history as the group which launched this unforgettable new cult."

Dead right, Bob. What did we have in the mid-70s? Prog, Bob! All those dinosaurs in their mansions with their banks of keyboards. Long-haired layabouts. You couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl until you'd pinched its arse.

"A bit of a rebel himself, McLaren made them work in his shop selling such items as T-shirts and dodgy bondage wear."

McLaren's bondage wear was always dodgy. The zips were always breaking. And many a time was the blood completely cut off from a young man's pride and joy. Older, more experienced members of our society knew where to get more reliable bondage wear. And that certainly wasn't the King's Road.

"The Pistols rapidly picked up a following of arty weirdos and disenchanted speed freaks and achieved instant fame following a TV interview in December 1976 when several times they used a four-letter word - the first people ever to say f... on telly. Instantly, they were a household name."

For "arty weirdos" read "art-school students", weirdos every one, many of whom went on to form their own so-called "punk" bands. The speed freaks had been around for years and were just glad to have some fast paced music to accompany their drug taking. The instant fame of the Pistols was gained at the expense of the career of a good, honest journalist and tv presenter. What they did to poor Bill Grundy was unforgiveable.

My Funny Valentine

Is your figure less than Greek?



Is your mouth a little weak?



When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

Froggie Went A Wooing

Q: What do rude frogs like to watch?

A: Frog's porn.

Yes, I'm not above telling crap jokes during the most moving piece of film on television this week. I didn't shed a tear along with Bobby Charlton but I did with David Attenborough. The Panamanian golden frog is no longer in the wild. Once upon a time you had to watch your step unless you splattered one. Now, thanks to a bastard fungus the only golden frogs left in Panama are in captivity.

Awww. Look at his little hand waving.

Goodbye-ee, Goodbye-ee,
Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee
Tho' it's hard to part, I know,
I'll be tickled to death to go,
Don't cry-ee, don't sigh-ee,
There's a silver lining in the sky-ee!
Bon Soir, old thing! Cheerio! Chin-Chin,
Nah-Poo, Toodle-oo, Goodbye-ee

A Digital Experience

Today we went to the cinema for the first time in two years, encouraged by all those good reviews for the Coen Brothers' latest, No Country For Old Men.

We go to see Coen Brothers films at the cinema. They're always worth seeing once, if no more. We haven't got any DVDs of their films and we won't be getting this one.

Don't get me wrong, it's well worth seeing. It looks good, it's got lots of tension, plenty of humour, some great performances and...

Well, that's about it really. We've seen it, it's filed to memory, somewhere.

Probably worth an Oscar or two but that's not saying a great deal in an age of shite English language films. (The previews of the forthcoming attractions at the cinema confirmed my prejudices).

We're going again in a few days to see the latest film featuring Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood. We always see films with Daniel in as he's a modern day acting giant.

Let's hope the film does him at least a modicum of justice.

Would It Be Too Much To Ask To Play It On A Saturday?

The most embarrassing thing to come out of West Ham's Pardew era was not losing to a Neil Shipperley (for Christ's sake) goal in the play-off final. It was those fucking t-shirts.

I loved Bobby Moore. But those fucking t-shirts, "Moore Than Just A Football Club". What a half-arsed wanky piece of disrespectful advertising. Pardew looked a prick in his and so did anyone else who bought one.

So to tomorrow. We've had all week to remember the Busby Babes. We had our minute's silence before the England game. But tomorrow's the Manchester derby. Manchester united in remembrance. Will the City fans cry? Did the Everton fans cry when Liverpool remembered Hillsborough? Did Bradford Park Avenue fans cry on the anniversary of City's fire? Remember that horrific day?

In the week that the cunts in charge of our national game get erect penises over fucking even more with its history, we've all got to tune into Sky tomorrow, God's day of rest, to cry over something that happened before a lot of us were born. And the players are wearing a special 1950s kit with, get this, no advertising! What a mark of respect! Long, baggy shorts, v-necked shirts, big, clunky boots smeared with dubbin, a ball as hard as a coconut, half-time cigarettes and cups of tea in a steaming dressing room.

It's the no advertising on the shirts that really brings a tear to my eye, though. I hope they'll be on sale afterwards. I want to look like Gary Neville.

Shoot Me Now

I meet my cousin on the train. We bump into each other about once every six months. We talk a bit about old times.

When we were young we used to go tenpin bowling together. Neither of us goes now. But he tells me the bowling game on the Wii console is pretty much as good as the real thing. You can even make your ball curl by using the right wrist action!

He does have a hobby nowadays, though. He goes clay pigeon shooting. It's great. You can spend a whole day doing it or even just a couple of hours. It's a sport of great skill and it's very social. He's tried shooting real birds but it's not as satisfying as shooting the clay sort.

Yes, I say, there must be more luck involved in shooting birds. It all depends on their flight path.

I am right. He takes my interest as enthusiasm for trying his pastime.

"Do you fancy it, Geoff?"

I can't think of anyone less suited to holding a gun and conversing with a bunch of gun toting guys than me. Except perhaps Prince Edward.

"I don't really have the time," I say.

"What do you do with your spare time then? Everybody's got something."

"I write," I say.

"I'M A WRITER!" I shout to the whole carriage.

Life Is A Three Ring Circus

Sunday was the day for the annual church service to celebrate the life of Grimaldi, one of the greatest clowns of all time, if not the greatest.

Separately, clowns and church services give me the willies. Together, they'd be overwhelmingly creepy.

Seeing pictures of the service makes me wonder which songs would be suitable for funerals attended by clowns.

Maybe the following...

Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson for a service attended by a clown who is burying a dear one.

Cathy's Clown by the Everley Brothers for the service of a clown whose next of kin is named Cathy.

You won't find another fool like me by The New Seekers for the service of a clown who thought he was the best thing since sliced bread (or since Grimaldi). "I wanna tell ya, You won't find another clown like me babe, No you won't."

Clowntime is Over by Elvis Costello for the service of several clown colleagues who died in a tragic circus van pile up on the M1.


The vicar would wear a flower which would spurt water into the faces of the mourners as they shook hands to thank him for the service.

Google Search Battles Yahoo Search In Bid For Contains Mild Peril Search Of The Week

"darius danesh gone with the wind what the fuck"

Contains Mild Peril - Review

Today someone found my blog by typing "what a load of shit" into yahoo search.

Frankly My Dear, I Care A Great Deal

Talking with an actress yesterday, as you do, I discovered the identity of the actor who's going to play Rhett Butler in Trevor Nunn's forthcoming stage musical production of Gone With The Wind.

It is none other than Pop Idol failure, Darius Danesh.

Real actors, actors who have trod the boards and put the hours of pain in, are really pissed off with this. And so they should be. Apparently Hugh Jackman, a genuinely talented hard-working musical actor, was originally up for the part but something happened and Darius snuck in there.

There is a crisis in musical theatre. Do we, as a nation, allow these reality show johnny-come-latelys into an artform we've held dear for generations? Trevor Nunn is pissing on the legacy of Michael Crawford.

And I, for one, am not going to stand for it.

I refuse to buy any more tickets for musicals until this abomination is stopped dead in its tracks.

Shake, Rattle & Roll

As you do, we were discussing last night the possibility of forming a kind of skiffle band using medical add-ons to a failing body as musical instruments.

So a percussionist could be playing the false teeth.

A piper could be playing the colostomy bagpipes.

Hearing aids could be used as amplifiers.

A tracheostomy tube could be used as a kind of vocoder.

An amplified (via hearing aid) pacemaker would provide the backing rhythm.

Hooked hands could scratch records.

Any other ideas on this quiet Friday?

2008: Year Of Boredom

I'm bored. 2008 was going to be the year I read and wrote poetry. I'm bored with poetry, with writing it and reading it. To be honest with myself, I'm not very good at either.

2008 was going to be a fiction-free year. I'm bored with reading fiction, can't take it seriously. But what's left?

I went to the bookshop. What about an autobiography?

I bought a bestseller, Bill Bryson's childhood memoirs, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

What a boring book! What a smug bastard! And the advertising inside for his other books! I've never seen the like!

There are thirteen pages of arse-licking reviews. And the inside back cover has pictures of all his other books just in case you hadn't been brainwashed already.

I've got three more books lined up. Simon Napier-Bell's Black Vinyl White Powder. A Drink with Shane MacGowan. And Owning Up: The Trilogy by George Melly, as recommended by Arabella.

Can anybody recommend any other entertaining non-fiction/autobiographies? You'll be performing a public service.


*******


In other news, tonight in the chemist's I asked the woman behind the counter who calls me "Geoff" if she knows me from somewhere.

"Only here," she said.

"Oh, you pick names up pretty quickly, don't you?" said I, slinking off into the evening air.

Look Away Now

Taking the gauntlet from the missus (see her links for more entertaining lists), the following is my list of Ten Songs That No Grown Man Should Own. As meme's go, this is one that all bloggers should have a go at. You think you're too cool, eh?

1. Follow You, Follow Me - Genesis
I could never understand the appeal of Gabriel-era Genesis. Far too clever for me. This, in 1978, was the first time they'd floated my boat. I saw them live a year or two later. They were shit.

2. Hotel California - The Eagles
The Eagles' Greatest Hits 1971-1975 is the world's third best selling album after Thriller and Back In Black. Our school had one AC-DC fan. Nobody liked Jacko or The Eagles. With Hotel California, The Eagles were past their best and in their pomp. Joe Walsh was a new Eagle. I loved Joe Walsh. This single is beyond the pale. but I don't care.

3. Welcome Home - Peters & Lee
My mum loved this song. I seem to remember her developing a fancy for Lennie Peters. This, and I Just Called To Say I Love You are the only two singles by blind performers she has admitted to liking over the years. I always thought Peters and Lee were an item but they were married to different people. The clue's in the name, dummy.

4. Big Seven - Judge Dread
Judge Dread was a big favourite of our Ronnie Corbett-lite friend of the family. We'd sit in his living room on a Sunday afternoon, two young families, and he'd play this sexist filth. Big Seven was a more complete record than Big Six. It is more lyrically rounded and he keeps the Jamaican accent all the way through, not wandering off to South America.

5. Macarena - Los Del Rio
Two creepy, pervy middle aged taxi drivers trying to get off with beautiful young women. Thinking they're in with a chance! No, Grandad. Keep your eyes on the road!

6. Private Investigations (12 inch) - Dire Straits
A vinyl film noir. From the album Love Over Gold about which Wikipedia says "Due to its lengthy atmospheric instrumentals it has been cited as the band's only album that resembles progressive rock, although not quite achieving it." There's something magnificent about not quite achieving progressive rock. A beautiful failure.

7. Call On Me - Eric Prydz
Pervy video with hot babes, ahem, "towelling" themselves down. Played to absolute fucking death on MTV Dance a couple of years ago. Based on Steve Winwood's Valerie, it shouldn't work but it does. Oh yes it so does!

8. Aqua Marina (Stingray Theme) - Gary Miller

Miller provided the singing voice for Troy Tempest. You really couldn't tell, Troy was that good. I was in love with the idea of Marina, a mermaid who would hold my hand and take me through the most unimaginably beautiful coral. She would hold my breath for me in a kiss.

9. The Last Waltz - Englebert Humperdinck
I love the idea of "two lonely people together". I look at all the lonely people. Where do they all come from?

10. Chant No. 1 (12 inch) - Spandau Ballet
Who can forget Robert Elms' poetic introduction to the Ballet's live Scala show? I hear True every day at work. It is my least favourite song of all time, that joke just isn't funny any more. But this slice of white funk still gets me up on the dancefloor.

Titbits

DIY RHYMING SLANG
"You wanna get some UB40 on them squeakin' 'inges."


THE THEATRE COMES TO THE ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT
"I suppose we ought to get that cheque off."

Holy Mackerel!

I love films. Not "film", films. I've loved films since I was in my late teens.

"A bit late to be getting into films," you may say.

But the films I like are for adults. I couldn't sit down with a child and watch a film. One of us would get very bored very quickly.

Heath Ledger is dead, the victim, it seems, of the pressure he was under playing the Joker in the new Batman film. Yes, Batman. A 28 year old man couldn't handle the psychological consequences of portraying a character in a kids' film.

I had a Batman outfit when I was three. I would run through Bournemouth town centre, pretending I was Batman.

It didn't fuck me up.

Skiffle Piffle

My Lonnie Donegan double CD is getting on my tits. It was not cheap, it was a tenner. For a tenner I expect the raised plastic bits which the CD holes fit over to be intact. As soon as I opened the case for the first time, they both crumbled. I expect this from cheap CDs, though why I'm not sure. They can't be saving that much by using crap packaging, surely. Still, at least the front of the case hasn't broken off. Yet.

Another thing that pisses me off about this compilation is the fact that it is a double rather than a single CD. Several of the songs have various versions. There are about five Midnight Specials coming down that fucking line! I don't want four studio versions and one live version of the same song. I want one definitive version. The best. That goes for anybody, except maybe the Beatles whose German versions of their classics sound like different songs. What kind of anal completist actually enjoys listening to the same song over and over?

"But Geoff, didn't you notice the bass player farting halfway through the second chorus in Midnight Special Take Three?"

No, I didn't. And I couldn't give a bollock about it.

Kevin Keegan - Master Of Irony

"When they've worked all week, the match for them, it's a bit like people down south going to the theatre".

Brilliant, King Kev! You've really raised the bar. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time.

You can see through all this bollocks about Newcastle United fans being the best in the world, salt of the earth, community minded, proud of their history, more working class and honest and neighbourly and humorous than other fans, deserving of success more than any other team's fans in the whole wide world. Toon Army, my arse. They can't hold a fucking tune.

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Donna doesn't know it yet, but when she walks through the door to her secret 50th birthday celebration they will be playing Donna by Marty Wilde. Not Donna by 10CC or Donna by Ritchie Valens, but the cover of Valens' song which is "nicer" than the original.

As part of his set, the DJ will play Hey There Lonely Girl by Eddie Holman, the first song which Donna really liked in her teens.

For my 50th birthday bash I'm hoping to walk into the room to the strains of Space (Jefrey With One F) by The Pixies. I will later have a little smooch to Bohemian Rhapsody.

Shut That Door!

Woody Guthrie, Philip Pullman and Larry Grayson may seem like strange bedfellows, but all three had/have a common obsession.

Guthrie recorded several songs about DUST. Indeed, he became known as the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".

DUST is a major theme in Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials. Indeed, his novel entitled The Book Of Dust is due to be published in 2009.

Grayson's stage act included running his finger along the top of the back of a chair, searching for DUST, then exclaiming, "Oooh! Look at the muck in 'ere!"

Indeed.

Jo Brand and the Bruvvers

Last weekend I spent editing all Betty's 60s and 70s compilations down to eight cracking CDs. It was time well spent.

This weekend, inspired by the latest Uncut Magazine CD of influences on Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, I have bought a Woody Guthrie compilation. And to complete my old music spree, I spent the remainder of my HMV voucher on a Lonnie Donegan skiffle CD.

Lonnie was feted on the first of BBC4's Pop On Trial discussion programmes. As big an influence as Elvis on British 60s bands, according to the panel of Joe Brown, CP Lee and 50s throwback Pete Wylie. Stuart Maconie chaired the discussion with his usual chummy aplomb.

On the website you can vote for your favourite track from each of the decades, though I'm not sure if you can tell them which you think is "the most important, influential and entertaining decade". Which is the premise for the series as far as I can tell. Maybe that vote comes later.

I can't decide which is my favourite song from any decade. I like several from each of the lists provided. Why can't we vote for our least favourite? Why haven't they got a shitlist? Surely a decade can be judged by its worst as well as its best.

Back to Joe Brown. Joe got away lightly when it came to a stage name. No Wilde, Fury, Eager, Pride, Power, Gentle, or Fame for Joe. He got to keep his real name. Joe said that Larry Parnes wanted to call him and his band Elmer Twitch and the Fidgets! And Joe refused!

Like the prostitute thing where you have your first pet's name followed by your first street's name, there should be something similar for one's Larry Parnes' name. I'm working on it, but for now Betty has given me and my imaginary band the moniker of Rory Fire & The Coals. I am seventeen and have smouldering good looks.

What's your Larry Parnes' name? The best one will receive a record contract with Pye Records.

The P*ace That's The Best

INT. The discussion is of a deceased colleague. Along the lines of "I bet he's in heaven, dancing to his favourite song, Spi*it In The S*y."

A (MID 50s): I once did some work for the guy who did the original. What was his name?

ME: No*man Greenb*um.

B (18): Gar*th Ga*es?

A: No, Gar*th Ga*es did the cover version! What was his name?

PAUSE

A: I know! Cli*e Jack*on! He was in a band called Doc*or And The M*dics. They're still touring.

B: ?

ME: ?

Me And The Chip Girl

It's time for one of my occasional psychosomatic illnesses. This time it's heart disease. I've been feeling a tightness in my chest, going down my left arm. Yesterday I had an ECG and a blood pressure test. I was fine. "It's not cardiac," said the nurse, softly into my ear in a crowded waiting room.

So it must be digestion related. Because I've read that angina can have similar symptoms to indigestion, it stands to reason that the reverse must be true.

Time to look at my diet, I suppose. As if I'm not always looking at my fucking diet. I have a lot of sympathy for the girl who can only eat chips. It took them years to find out she has gastro-oesophagul reflux disease and that chips are all she can comfortably digest. It goes against the rules, you see. Chips are supposed to be bad for the digestion.

Well bollocks to the rulebook. I can't eat potatoes full stop. Or "healthy" porridge. Or "healthy" omega 3 fatty fish. But I can eat hot, spicy foods and drink alcohol 'til the cows come home. That's against the rules, too.

One thing I've learned about the digestive system is that it doesn't respond to reason. We're all different. It's just that some of us are unfortunately more different than others.

Dance What Off?

This year's Corrie workout babe is Vicky Binns. Vicky plays Molly, mad staring-eyed daughter of lonely, obese, face like a punched doughnut, bottle-bottomed spectacle wearer, baker Diggory Compton. She found love with slack-jawed, overweight, face like a Yorkshire pudding, ignoramus, car mechanic Tyrone Dobbs and has lost her love handles just for him.

Last year's Corrie workout babe was Vicky Entwistle who plays wasp-chewing, face like a bag of spanners, voice like chalk scraping a blackboard, seamstress Janice Battersby.

Next year's Corrie workout babe, according to the missus, is likely to be Jennie McAlpine who plays Fizz Brown. I like Fizz and won't hear a word said against her.

The name Vicky Binns just happens to be a combination of two high street off licences, Victoria Wines and Oddbins. Molly Compton happens to be one of the least alchoholic Corrie characters. Vicky is missing an opportunity.


for more soap workout fun, see Wyndham

Live To Work!

Back at work on Wednesday after our lovely long break and people are saying they were bored at home, desperately missing routine and a reason for getting up in the morning, glad to be back in the office.

How will they cope when it's time to retire? Are we going to have future generations of working 65 plussers, unwilling to get off the treadmill, drawing their pensions and their salaries, accumulating more and more wealth until they're unable to leave their homes?

What is this work ethic bollocks and who's the tosspot who invented it?

Hello 2008

We dispensed with tradition last night. Tradition dictates we watch Hootenanny and shout expletives. But I just wasn't up for it last night. I couldn't bring myself to swear at Macca. Not after the year he's had.

We did turn over just before midnight just in time to see him do the song he always does nowadays because for some reason he thinks we all like it. We don't. This time he was accompanied by little Kylie and the obligatory Jools Holland band with Jools' little brother, Christopher. Yes, I know, our licence fee, etc etc...

Then they counted down from ten to one. We opened the front door to watch the fireworks as the breezy bollocked Scots Guards played Auld Lang Syne. All we could see was some badly dancing middle aged swingers in the window of the house across the road seemingly beckoning us to join them in their new year shenanigans. Well that's what it looked like in our inebriated state, so we shut the door pretty sharpish.

Most of the evening was spent watching The (100) Most Annoying People Of The Year 2007 on BBC3. I'd heard of most of them and most of them did annoy me. Three snippets of information I missed last year include...

1. The revelation that Mick Jagger used to get bees to sting him to enlarge his manhood.

2. The revelation that Bryan Ferry is an aficionado of Nazi style.

3. The revelation that former professional Christian athlete Jonathan Edwards had a crisis of faith and resigned from Songs Of Praise. I didn't know he had presented it in the first place!

My new year's resolution is to keep up with the news that matters.

I'm Shit At Small Talk - Part 437

I go to the bar to order a round. The CD starts again - All Day And All Of The Night. The young barman asks his co-worker if this is The Kinks. She doesn't know. He looks at me. "Yes," I say, "it is The Kinks".

"It's not You Really Got Me, is it?" he says.

"No."

"I like that one. It sounds similar. I like The Kinks."

"Me too," I say. I've always liked the Beatles and Stones but only really liked The Kinks for the past few years."

"I'm a DJ, you know. 60s, 70s and 80s. I DJ'd here on Christmas Eve. Were you here?"

"No."

"I love the 60s stuff. Specially the Beach Boys. I love the Beach Boys."

"Pet Sounds?"

"Sorry?"

"Pet Sounds. It's a Beach Boys album. God Only Knows?"

"?"

"God Only Knows. It's a song on Pet Sounds."

"I like I Get Around."

"Yeah, their earlier stuff is good, too."

My music history lesson over, I pay for the drinks. I go back to our table and continue to talk Jupitus.

Last Man In Hammersmith Palais

The new groups are not concerned
With what there is to be learned
They got Burton suits, ha you think it's funny
Turning rebellion into money

The song White Man In Hammersmith Palais demonstrates Joe Strummer's disappointment with black youth preferring pop reggae over roots consciousness. Joe wanted a black and white revolution, to a soundtrack of serious music. He didn't get it. The white punks were more interested in showing off their fashionable clothes.

How on earth did we lose the Hammersmith Palais? One of London's most "iconic" live music venues? Now an office/live coffee complex! Oh dear.

Phill Jupitus (him again for fuck's sake) is apoplectic with rage that it became the home of School Disco, Le Palais' reliance on the silly mainstream as opposed to the cutting edge of Jupitus music bringing about its downfall. If only it were still open, Jupitus could have performed Wake Up And Make Love With Me with the aging Blockheads. Imagine Jupitus singing "I come awake, with the gift for womankind, you're still asleep, but that gift don't seem to mind." to an audience of portly middle aged men. What a mindbogglingly revolting image!

I shocked myself by agreeing with something Robert Elms said. His parents met at the Palais at a dance. A lot of London's couples did meet there. He said School Disco was performing the same function in the 90s and noughties, though not just Elms's beloved "West Londoners". How many couples met at a Pogues or Cramps gig in the 80s? I never saw anybody copping off.

Maybe we'll see a resurgence of old fashioned dance music, inspired by Strictly Come Dancing and we'll need venues like the old Palais again, with its dance floor and its stage in the middle, not at the end. What we won't see is a new punk or a new Two Tone. The mid 70s to mid 80s have gone forever and a Mick Jones/Tony James tired punk rehash won't see us through the future. Tribute bands and original bands with over the hill surviving members do not a vibrant live scene make.

Your time is dead, Phill. Face up to it.


Geoff ("danced"* at the Hammersmith Palais in the 80s)

* no you fucking didn't, you stood still as a corpse!



To watch go here

See You On The Other Side

It's Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank...

Well, no, not really. I'm not getting drunk, I'm having just enough to make me fall asleep in front of the telly between midnight and 1 a.m. The same as I have at all other weekends of the year.

Each year I think I'm going to try a new drink. This year's was Gin and Dubonnet, the favourite tipple of our current monarch and her deceased mother. The problem is, when would I drink it? I'm not one for aperatifs as I don't have a sit down meal where I have to make small talk with people I have little in common with. Because that is the raison d'etre of an aperatif, isn't it?

So no new drink for me this year. Oh, apart from the port I've bought for Christmas morning, bringing back happy memories of my first alcoholic drinks, the Christmas port and lemons, no stronger than a weak shandy or snowball but nicer than both.

Our Sky+ box is taking one hell of a hammering at the moment. It's 50% free but that won't last for long, there's just so much on! I've recorded all the MR James stuff, knowing we watched most of them last year but not remembering which ones. We've just finished the BBC's entertaining new version of Oliver Twist, mourning the death of Fagin's crow at the hands of the Peelers and sniggering every time we saw the name of the actor who played Bill Sykes. Tom Hardy in a production of Dickens! English teachers all over the land will be wetting themselves.

Tomorrow we will turn the computer on and read any blogs that are active. We will toast you all with a glass of port. We will cook our salmon and steamed potatoes and carrots and green beans. We will microwave our individual Christmas puddings. We will sit down in front of Top of the Pops. We will think of all the suffering in the world, and we will remember...

...Mariah Carey is not just for Christmas.

Ian Dury Karaoke

Assembly Hall, Worthing, Tonight
Shepherd's Bush Empire, Tomorrow

Whatever next? Dawn French with Big Brother and the Holding Company?

Tagged For The First Time

I've been tagged by Glenda. Thank you, Glenda. This is the first time I've been tagged in 25 years of blogging. It's a Christmas questionnaire. So it's probably best if I do it now while you're all still around. You are still around, aren't you?

When people say "Christmas" you immediately think...

My old nan sat two feet away from the telly in front of the Queen's speech, the volume turned up to maximum.

Favourite Christmas memory...

Hopping in the snow with Betty.

Favourite Christmas song/carol...

Greg Lake - I Believe In Father Christmas

Favourite Christmas movie...

It's A Wonderful Life.

Favourite Christmas Character...

The crow in It's A Wonderful Life.

Favourite Christmas ornament/object...

Pretty lights. And Kaz's robin.

Plans for this Christmas...

Stay at home!

Is Christmas your favourite holiday?

No, it's my least favourite. Every other fucker is off, too!


I tag Alison Moyet, Dave Gorman, Emma Kennedy, Stephen Fry, Richard Herring and Andrew Collins. Spread the festive blogging love, celebrities!

What Kind Am I?

This Week
A man and a woman are watching tv. There is a break in the programme. The channel shows the trailer for The Motorcycle Diaries which is on over Christmas. The man says to the woman, "What kind of weirdo is going to watch that?"

Last Week
We are looking through the Christmas terrestrial tv schedules at work. TV Quick or something similar. The others are ticking off all their favourite shows. I'm getting depressed. I say, "The only thing I can see that might be worth watching, apart from Corrie, is that." I point.

Last Christmas Singalong

Last Christmas, I lent you my car
But the very next day, you drove it away
In tears, you couldn't get it in gear
You were picked up by the Specials

Once spliffed out and twice high
You kept your distance behind the Hyundai
Tell me baby, do you recognise me?
After all that gear it doesn't surprise me

(Happy Christmas!) I wrapped it up and sent it
With a note saying "SMOKE LESS WEED", I meant it
Now I know what a fool I've been
But if you're doped up now I know you'll be doped up again

Last Christmas, I lent you my car
But the very next day, you drove it away
In tears, you couldn't get it in gear
You were picked up by the Specials

A crowded room, friends with tired eyes
I'm hiding from you and your ganja vice
My God, I thought you were someone to rely on
Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on
A face on a lover, mary jane in his head
Under the covers, you were smoking it in bed!
Oooh Oooh
Now I've found a clean love you'll never fool me again

Last Christmas, I lent you my car
But the very next day, you drove it away
In tears, you couldn't get it in gear
You were picked up by the Specials



(fretwork by Kotaro Oshio)

La Dolce Vita

The Guardian were yesterday creaming their pants over the appointment of Fabio Capello as England manager. He likes Visconti and Fellini. Mozart, Bach and Ella Fitzgerald. Kandinsky, Mondrian and Klee. He appreciates fine wines, is an adventurous gourmet and visits La Scala when he can. His politics have moved over the years from socialism to rich capitalism, though he still has respect for trade unions.

A picture is painted of a man who will never be friends with John Terry. Unless Terry goes down the Tony Adams route of alcoholism, hitting rock bottom and rebuilding his life by writing poetry. This will not happen while Terry is at the top of his game and in the England team.

I am optimistic about Capello. Although he is a tv pundit in Italy, he is quoted as saying he doesn't like watching football on the box. There are too many close-ups, you cannot see what's happening all over the pitch. Capello sees the bigger picture and no one individual is more important than the team. Capello won't have his favourites. He won't play Lampard and Gerrard together in the centre in a 4-4-2 because they're supposedly the best two English central midfielders. Capello's football is built on defence. Lampard and Gerrard cannot defend to save their lives. Capello will upset some egos.

I'm looking forward to the next few years watching England. The big-headed players and the WAGS can all fuck off. No more Flash Harrys, no more prima donnas.

Fabio's in town!

The Sex Blog Girls

There's a famous quote, fuck knows where from, that men think about sex every seven seconds. It's a load of bollocks, of course. But what about women?

Girl With A High Sex Drive says, "Every seven seconds? What about the other six?"

Jesus Christ, that's scary. That's getting into Michael Douglas territory.

As far as I know, this is the first UK tv programme about blogging. Of course they concentrate on the naughty naughty naughty sex blogs written by women, with nice soft focus pictures of young thin women with small pert tits sitting bolt upright in front of their sexy laptops wearing nothing but knickers and stockings. What a load of shit!

Girl With A High Sex Drive is quoted as obtaining 100,000 readers a month after her first six months of blogging. After eighteen months it was a quarter of a million a month. By her second anniversary it was two and a half million!

This, of course, is bollocks, too.

If I counted all searches for Beverley Callard's breasts on this blog as "readers", I'd be deluding myself something rotten. I think Girl may just have had a few more rude searches than me.

They say there's a blog created every second. There are 343563677468575786789096 million blogs active on the internet at any one time. Good ones, boring ones, funny ones, excruciating ones. There's an interesting documentary or two to be made about this phenomenon.

This wasn't it.

Playing Cards

Last night I wrote my Christmas cards. I have three married cousins I send them to. They all have children.

The three sets of kids are known to me as...

1. & Thomas
2. & Boys
3. & Family

I'm sure Thomas wants to be known as "Tom" or at least "Tommy" by now. "Boys" are growing up, too, old enough to read and wondering why this "Geoff" person doesn't know their names. "Family" are feeling even more put out as this "Geoff" twat doesn't even know how many of them there are, let alone what sex they may be.

It's too much of an effort to ask any questions. I'll just have to make notes when we receive cards from them. Get it right next year.

Ze Listening

The current singles chart is full of Christmas songs old and, er, old. Mariah Carey's warbler All I Want For Christmas Is You is the ladies' choice to download. The Pogues are chasing Mariah's ample behind, pissed as newts. Roy Wood is dangling his luxurious split-ended hair over her barely covered tits. Band Aid are sticking plasters on her scuffed heels. Slade are taking it in manly turns to lift her off the dance floor. A be-jumpered Shakin' Stevens is tinkling sleigh bells with Andy Williams in the background.

But enough of my fantasy!

It gets me thinking. I need some more Christmas songs in my collection.

I mean, I love Phil Spector's album. By all rights it should be shooting up the charts. But I need more. If only I had the all time classic Christmas album in my collection.

I used to. White vinyl, just like snow. December 1981. A great time to be young, dumb and full of Christmas spirit.

What a great album! Cristina, Suicide, Was (Not Was), Material, James White. August Darnell (Kid Creole before he was shit). You'll all know The Waitresses' Christmas Wrapping, of course.

And then in the late eighties, I moved. I gave away my records as they weren't the future. But every Christmas from then on I've wanted my Ze album back.

So I look on Amazon, and there it is. Re-released on CD in 2004. Why didn't I see it before?

So this is my Christmas present to myself. It won't arrive 'til after the big day. But I'll play it in my head this year.

Things fall apart but they never leave my heart
Good Morning Midnight: it's Christmas...



Cristina - Things Fall Apart

Showbears News

1. Elvis, The Bear Formerly Known As Mohammed, is to co-star in the new Ray Winstone vehicle, The Play School Massacre. Elvis will play Little Ted, the vicious sidekick to Winstone's East End gangster godfather, Brian "Fackin" Cant. Elvis says of the role, "It is a departure for me, a new beginning. Impersonating the Prophet was fun at the time, but looking back I think my actions were immature in the extreme. I'm just loooking forward to playing alongside some of the greatest English actors of our generation. It is a dream come true to work with Ray."

2. Knut the polar bear, who celebrated his first birthday this week at Berlin Zoo, has announced that he is in the running to appear as Iorek Byrnison in the follow up to The Golden Compass, the film based on the first of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels. Knut says of his ambitions, "I think I can do it. I come from a showbusiness family, so you could say it's in the blood. I'm very gentle around humans but can play rough when required. I know I've got to lose some weight but the good people at Berlin have recently put me on a diet and I should be in my optimum condition in a matter of a few months. I really see Hollywood as a possibility. There have been rumours that I will be relocating to London Zoo in the near future, but I would refute these most strongly. I've had a taste of stardom and I've liked what I've experienced, but now I'd like a bit of a challenge to go with it. I am 100% certain my future lies on screen"

Chinese Burn

Our annual local restaurant family meal occurred on Sunday. We were celebrating our mum's 76th. My sister was also celebrating the fact that, for the second year running, she won't have to spend Christmas Day in my miserable company. She's off to Whistler where there's going to be 75 metres of snow over Christmas. Or something like that. A Whistler's mother of a snowfall.

The Chinese restaurant was absolutely packed, mainly populated by friends and family of the man with the big badge which stated it was his sixtieth birthday.

"He's not sixty!" exclaimed my mum in a loud voice. "He's seventy if he's a day!"

I ate and drank too much and Monday at work was spent feeling a bit nauseous. The longer the day went on the more I realised the two weren't necessarily connected.

"There's a 24 hour sickness bug going round," I was told.

I'm very open to persuasion when it comes to illnesses. I went straight to the chemists after work. I needed some travel sickness pills to combat the discomfort.

"Hello, Geoff!" said the assistant in a very friendly manner.

I don't know her and she doesn't know me as far as I know. But ever since she started working at the chemists she's greeted me in the same way. I'm beginning to think maybe she does know me. The only place I can think she knows me from is primary school. But I can't tell her age. She might be ten years younger than me. I can't ask her if she knows me from primary school. My date of birth is on my repeat prescription. I could receive a slap in the face.

"You're almost 46, Geoff! You were doing your Eleven-Plus when I was born, you cheeky sod!"

"Well how do you know me?"

She's not over-familiar with the other customers. She must know me from primary school.

She's not the girl who gave me a Chinese burn and made me cry, is she? If she is, that's bit of a turnaround. The little bitch who dished out unwarranted punishment is now handing out stuff to make people feel better.

Well, my dear, let me tell you...

Some scars don't heal.

The Guido (As we call it here)

I'm a needy blogger. I leave comments, not only in the hope of the "LOL, I snorted cocaine all over my monitor" type response, but also in the hope that I will get comments back from that person on my own blog. What a needy bastard!

Most of us are the same. But there are some who don't go pimping their blogs to all and sundry. And some of these are bloody good, too. The following are my favourites. Think of it as Geoff's own Guardian Guide, only better than the stuff The Guide recommends...

Beyond The Implode
I read, but I never comment. Betty reads but she never comments. We're a bit scared.


Musings From Middle England
Willie's back! I was very sad when he stopped. Now I'm very happy he's back.

Ritual Landscape
Essential reading, though you pimps can't comment. Just read and enjoy!

Toasty's Futon
Toasty went. Now he's back. Or is he? Come back, Toasty!


Plug over.

Dead Beat

This is me "On The Road", one weekend in The Midlands about twelve years ago. Betty dressed me up as a hep cat. Didn't I look cool, daddio?

Those were weekends literally On The Road, mainly the M25, M1 and M6. Drives across Cannock Chase, through Alpine glades and past B&Qs. Walks in the countryside in the daytime, eating in curry houses and drinking in pubs in the evenings. Followed by a Sunday afternoon drive home, perked up by a pot of coffee at Northampton's premier service station.

Now the furthest I usually drive at weekends is to ASDA, a five minute drive away. If I feel tired, which I inevitably do in the late afternoon, I have a kip. I have less energy but I need less.

No longer a hep cat. More an old, comfortable moggie.

Word Up

Mouthpiece for a Generation




Hairpiece for a Generation




Codpiece for a Generation

Reggae For It Now

This week I have been listening to the wonderful Trojan box set, Reggae Sisters, a compilation of 60s and 70s songs sung by women. There's something about women's voices and reggae that is irresistible. Take Lily Allen for example. No, please, take her.

The collection includes this song by my favourite 6ft, bald, one eyed female singer of all time.



Of course there's not a great song in the history of the world that hasn't been improved by a wacky English DJ talking shite over its beginning and end, and this video proves that.

My ideal job would be going through the TOTP archive with Betty, choosing performances, mimed or not, to put on a series of compilation DVDs. There'd be a little introduction to each song before it starts, no talking over and no words in the middle of the screen to ruin the video. Until then, we'll have to make do with hilarious Steve Wright and the Beeb's eclectic selection box of classics and mediocrity.

Music Is Life

Scene 1

The radio is locked on Heart. They are playing Is This Love? by Bob Marley.

GEOFF: The thing is with Heart, they don't play any reggae artists except for Bob Marley. Oh, and bloody UB40 of course.

WORK COLLEAGUE NO. 1: Is there anybody other than Bob Marley and UB40?



Scene 2

The Metro newpaper is open at a page which contains an interview with this bloke. He is pictured in close up. The headline says he had a famous dad.

WORK COLLEAGUE NO. 2: Oh, I thought that looked like him. That's Kenny Everett's son!

GEOFF: ??????????????


N.B. When we used to live in the flat, at around the time Novocaine For The Soul was out, Betty constructed a paper E with a moving mouth. We used to sing the song and move the mouth at the same time. E got left behind when we moved. We only moved two doors down and when we see the woman who now lives in our old flat we wonder whether she found E. And if she did, what she really thinks of us.

Nothing To Declare

The Genius Of Photography

I'm enjoying this series but the "Genius" of photography?

This week Denis Lawson read the following about the great photographers...

"What they have in common is a watchful attentiveness to the world and its ways. They see things we miss or don't think about and then report back so that we have a chance to think again."

I agree with the first part of that. But as to photographers seeing things we miss or don't think about? Most of us don't walk around with a camera glued to our eye. But how many times have we thought, "I wish I had a camera on me"? What strange things do we see out of the corner of our eye? What blurry images do we see when we're not quite awake or not concentrating? But we haven't got a camera on us because we're not obsessed with photographing things. The obsessives take what any of us can see and turn it into art. If that's genius, there are an awful lot of potential geniuses, too.


*******


Kenny Everett: Licence To Laugh

More genius on Sunday evening as Kenny Everett was described as a comedy genius on ITV's portrait of the "comedian".

I've never found wacky disc jockey Kenny the least bit funny, but I was hoping to be converted by this programme. The old clips of Sid Snot, Cupid Stunt and Marcel Wave brought back waves of 70s nausea and made me feel nostalgic for those comfortable family humourists from the days before Kenny's "anarchic" brand of comedy, with its chumminess with the production staff forerunning wankers like Chris Tarrant and Chris Moyles (both paying tribute to Kenny in this show).

Watching Kenny was like gatecrashing a private party full of people in on a joke I didn't get. A very lonely experience.

Kenny's "anarchy" took him all the way to a Young Conservatives rally. The voiceover on the programme said...

"Nothing, it seemed, could undermine his position as loveable, cuddly Ken. Until an ill-judged moment of madness at a Young Conservatives rally in 1983."

KENNY: "Let's bomb Russia!"

"Kenny had overstepped the mark."



So let's get this right. Kenny had overstepped the mark by using irony, not by appearing at a Young Conservatives rally at the height of Thatcher's power.

Barry Cryer explained Ken's indiscretion. Kenny was an "apolitical animal". He was "pretty anti-Thatcher".

Ken the iconoclastic genius, taking the piss out of the Young Tories?

He sounds good, doesn't he?

The Cambridge Folk Festival

Nah, not interested. Not my scene. But we caught the end of Friday night's highlights programme and this geezer was getting down and dirty to some mean Appalachian Mountain Balls To The Wall Bluegrass.

I mean, there's catholic taste and there's, well, what on earth would you call this?

Those Early Years

As my grandmother used to say, "Life is hell on earth", as these pictures of the young Geoffrey testify.

Miserable in my pram...



Miserable in the company of others...



For a while I was brainwashed by racist propaganda and life was brainlessly "fun"...



But soon real life kicked in and misery ruled...



School and the proximity of other children only made me feel more deeply the futility of being...




Give me the child until he is ten, and I'll show you the man.

Tony Curtis and George Best

I've got three days holiday left which I'm taking this week. This morning we went to the hospital and were in and out of the fracture clinic in a couple of hours. Pretty good going, I thought. Betty's looking good in her new cast, choosing traditional white rather than a garish coloured one. She looks so at home in white, it makes me want to renew my marriage vows.

Back home, we went out to the shops where I bought a new teapot, a strainer to go with it, and some loose leaf tea. I've just had my first cup and I've fallen in love with tea all over again. The loose leaf stuff is so much more tasty and refreshing than those shitty weak bags. Last week I bought some ASDA Extra Special loose leaf tea bags which cost £2 for 25! And they were crap! They're supposed to be revolutionary with their nylon bags, but nobody in their right mind is going to buy them twice. Buy the real thing! Drink your tea! Get Gypsy Rosy Lee to read your grouts!

The taste takes me back to the old days when bags weren't available, when my nuclear family was all together. I've just borrowed some old pictures from my mum which take me back, too. There are some snaps of my parents in their bathing costumes on beaches when my dad thought he was Tony Curtis. Well, he was more Tony Curtis than Ian Curtis, anyway. Chubbier than Ian.

There are my parents' wedding photos, including both sets of grandparents. Didn't grandparents look old back then? And miserable.

There are some photos of my cousin Michael's wedding to Linda. They made a good-looking couple. He had something of the George Best about him. All the young women at the wedding wore short dresses and were smiling. The old women wore hats and looked miserable.

Michael never drank tea. Or coffee. He was strictly squash.

I wonder if he still is?

Midnight Train To Georgia

The director of last night's Corrie was named Pip Short.

This name takes me back to a few years ago when I had the wit of Oscar Wilde. Now, of course, it's Marty Wilde.

"Do you think," I said then, "Gladys Knight's Pips resembled the Greenwich Mean Time pips? Five short ones and a long one?"

Those were golden days, the like of which I'll never see again.

The Man On The Telly

Watching the moving documentary on George Melly's last days last night, I discovered that he'd had an affair with Molly Parkin. Molly was previously (George's wife) Diana's best friend.

George, it seems, was happier with his open marriage than Diana was. It gave him free reign to shag anybody he wanted.

George and Molly are two of the few famous people I have encountered in my life. I met Molly on a playwriting course in London. George I bumped into as I alighted a train at Diss station on my way to a scriptwriting course. The courses, of course, came to nothing. But the memories of seeing these flamboyant characters close up will stick in my mind for longer than that of my brilliant writing career.

A Director's Notes To His Actors - Abigail's Party

Beverly
You work on the perfume counter at a department store. Your marriage is a mess. You are a very sensual woman. You need sex. Your husband doesn't give you what you need. He is a little jumped up creep who is more interested in his pathetic job than in you. You've invited the couple from over the road to this party. You fancy the husband like mad. He's a bit rough and ready, just your type. His wife's as naive as they come. You'll be able to flirt with him to your heart's content. Sod your pathetic excuse of a husband. You're going to have some fun.

Laurence
You're a workaholic estate agent. You think you're cultured but you're not really. You're also a racist. According to you, the area is becoming too "cosmopolitan". You despise your wife who is sex-mad and has no interest in the finer things of life. She is a philistine and a slapper. She disgusts you. You will die in this play of a heart attack brought on by your wife, not by your job which you love.

Angela
You are a naive, stupid nurse who is bullied by her husband. You are so stupid a lot of his vicious comments to you go straight over your head. You are a good woman, a public servant but you're as thick as pig shit. You can't even recognise the sexual electricity between your husband and your neighbour. You think everything in the garden will come up rosy. Stupid.

Tony
Life has been one long disappointment to you. You weren't good enough to make it in professional football. You're working as a computer operator, for Christ's sake. Your wife is a mousy, stupid little sexless thing who wouldn't say boo to a goose. You're a passionate man who likes a bit of rough sex. The only way you get rough in your marriage is by dominating the little mouse. Your neighbour fancies you something rotten. She's up for it and you're not going to argue if it's there on a plate for you.

Susan
You are the audience on stage. You're a nice "old middle class" woman (a divorcee whose ex-husband is an architect) trapped in an atmosphere of vulgarity and violent frustration. You're only here because you have nowhere else to go as your teenage punk daughter is holding a party at your house ("Abigail's Party"). You know about the arts. You are not racist. You don't think the neighbourhood has gone downhill. You are accepting of everybody, even at this party. But this atmosphere, and especially that horrid woman Beverly will test your patience to its limit. You are a genuinely nice person, Susan. Just like the audience. You are one of us.

Christmas Is Coming

My sister went to church yesterday. They tasted the body and the blood of Christ. I am on the phone to my mother.

She went with a friend from work. She goes every Sunday. Her husband never goes. Your sister will probably go again. Though not every week. It was a very emotional service. I suppose it helps people. Usually when they're getting old. You're not an atheist, are you?

You know I am.

Like your dad. Though he wasn't always one. When we were first married he used to pray every night before he went to bed.

I've always been an atheist. I could never take any of it seriously. We even used to take the mickey out of the vicar at Primary School.

Is Betty an atheist?

Yes. I couldn't live with anybody who wasn't.

You lived with us.

I mean through choice. I couldn't live with a partner who believed in that stuff.

LATER IN THE CONVERSATION...

The trouble with Sundays...there's never anything on the telly when I get up. It's either football or cartoons on all the channels. Nothing for the likes of us.

Isn't Sunday God's day?

Don't take the piss, Geoff.

Commercial Break

More and more bloggers are commenting on Betty's site, referring to her husband, "Geoff", as if I were an 'er indoors type of character and not an internationally renowned blogger in my own right.

That's alright, I can take it. We've both got the majority of our audiences in common and those of Betty's readers who can't see the worth in me...well, we know what they're missing, don't we?

Come on, humour me!

I've got a more needy ego than Betty, though. And my ego tells me to do more, maybe a podcast of my poems. Yes, what a prick!

Then I hear Roger McGough and his smug delivery and wonder whether I would sound even more smug, or even worse, sound like Mark Miwurdz. Penny for the guy, anyone?

So another blog it is, a poetry blog no less. I know it's not going to be popular but you'll be very welcome if you pop in from time to time. I'll attempt to post a poem a week and keep my poetry to that blog and my prose to this one.

Of course those of you who hate my poems will be relieved there'll be no more of them on here. Just pure and simple straightforward social commentary for serious minds.