Gentle Giant

In the pub I overhear a man mention the words "gentle giant".

I hope he's talking about this...



Or maybe this...



But looking at him out of the corner of my eye I know he's talking about this...

Faith School Menace?

I love watching Richard Dawkins documentaries. The naivety of the man is supreme. He cracks me up. Richard brought his kids up to be questioning, skeptical, fully-rounded human beings. He believes that children have the right not to be indoctrinated by their parents or teachers. He believes in a right that doesn't exist. Just like the "enemies of reason" believe in gods that don't exist. How does a young child stand up for their right not to be indoctrinated by religious parents? And if the child can't, who will? Do we have an army of questioning, skeptical, fully-rounded humanist social workers watching CCTV footage of a parent's every interaction with their child? Does a questioning, skeptical, fully-rounded SWAT team storm the home and arrest the brain-washing mum or dad?

Young minds are open to the possibilities of the supernatural, things that go bump in the night. Mums and dads are there to protect their kids from evil ghosts, monsters and carnivorous wallpaper. They're there to cuddle and suffocate with their overbearing love. And if they have a god to help banish the evil from the home and protect the child, they will call upon him.

Maybe A Bunk Bed Would Be A Good Idea After All

I could smell smoke before I saw it. Someone was having a crafty fag.

My mother appeared. She was sitting on the armchair, her right hand hidden from me. I could see smoke rising from behind the right arm of the chair.

I asked her if she was smoking. I said she can't start again now, not after giving up in her 60s. People don't start up again at the age of 78.

She said she wasn't smoking. The smoke was filling the room and my sensitive nose.

I asked her again. She turned to me and regally lifted her hand to her face, as if she were Princess Margaret. She left the cigarette in her mouth and dangled it like a flat-capped commoner.

I reacted like Bruce Lee. I leapt in the air and kicked the offending stick from her mouth.

***

I woke up with a start. Betty seemed to be sleeping. But she often wakes up in the mornings with bruises on her leg.

Nothing Seems Right In Cars

The 60s boy next door has moved up from a Lambretta to a Mini. Today he is out lovingly washing it as we walk past. My filthy, sticky car is a few feet away. If I were a normal middle aged man I'd say to him, "You can do mine when you've finished." I'm not normal, though. Some cars are aesthetically pleasing to me, like the boy's Mini. But that's as far as it goes for me. My car stays plain-looking, unwashed and unloved, covered in tree and bird emissions. I ought to give it a once-over but that can wait till the week before its service.

Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag And Stick It Up Your...

Googling only makes Eliza Doolittle depressed. Is she depressed about the state of the world? Conflict, poverty and "natural" disasters, Eliza?

No, it's the nasty people on the internet saying how fucking awful her music is and how she should fuck off back to public school.

Named after a cockney flower girl who provides wank material eye candy for an old man in payment for elocution lessons, Eliza was born into the world of the stage school female "artist" bollocks infecting current pop music. She is the granddaughter of Sylvia Young!

I hear Eliza's latest song every day on the radio at work. It annoys me so much I've gone beyond hate. I'm somewhere much darker.

The other day I blurted my distaste out loud.

"I've never heard this song before," was the reply, even though it had been played every day for five weeks solid.

And then, probably to spite me...

"I love it! It's really lively! It's got a really lively beat! It's so happy!"

What do you think?

Free Prog & Krautrock!

It will go down in history that the last CDs I bought were Peter Gabriel's first two solo albums. I had them on vinyl a long long time ago and my memory isn't what it is. I still like the first one but that's about it of Mr WOMAD's long, distinguished, boring solo career.

Our house is bursting with CDs, DVDs and books. There just isn't room for any more. Admittedly we have listened to the CDs at least once each. But many of the books and DVDs will have to wait for my release from that hamster wheel called work as Philip Larkin said so eloquently.

I suppose Spotify is my friend. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about it as it makes finding new and old music too easy and hardly rewards the artists for their art. But that's the modern way. They make their money from live shows nowadays. So why should I feel guilty? But I do.

I'm spending a fiver a month on Spotify's "Unlimited" package, free of those five-an-hour British Gas adverts. I suppose it's about time Rupert Murdoch got his grubby paws on it and it's incorporated into Sky Songs.

You Know This Much Is True

I was reading Gary Kemp's autobiography and, boy, did it go on!

Gary can write a mean, lean tune with concise, deep lyrics. But when he starts tapping those computer keyboard keys, well, did we really have to know EVERYTHING about his life? He only reaches his third birthday on page 147!

Three months I was at it, learning more about the Kemp brothers than I thought humanly possible and by the time they'd been through Bert Weedon's Play In A Day for 73 consecutive days I had just about had enough. I stood up from my seat in the train carriage, held the book aloft and shouted at the top of my voice "Tony Hadley is the greatest soul singer the world has ever produced!" and with palpable relief threw the book out of the open window just as we passed Millwall's football ground.

To cut a long story short I had truly lost my mind.

Middle Aged Fred

On Saturday night the conversation was about festivals and live music. I felt so old. I've reluctantly been to one festival: an awful GLC one where the highlight was The Three Johns! And my last gig was Air at the Brixton Academy, which was full of idiots talking all the way through as I kept going to the bar in frustration.

I doubt my cynicism is welcome when live music enthusiasts attempt to get me to join them down memory lane. I couldn't feel less at home if classic cars were being discussed. In fact in my twenties I would spend many hours in pubs listening to my friends enjoy themselves in this way.

I'm not good company. My glass is half-empty, ready to be knocked out of my hand by someone punching the air to Pendulum on the jukebox.

No Dill

I've just bought a sofa online from IKEA after several hours looking for one that will fit through our front door.

In order for IKEA to remember me when I next decide to purchase something, I was obliged to create my profile.

In order to get some uniformity in my life I have decided to have the same profile on my Blogger account, too.

So I am currently a 48 year old male with the following interests...

Beds

Sofas

Chairs

Storage Solutions

I have no interest in tables or footstools but I am open to suggestion on the subject of Swedish food which I know many of you enjoy on a regular basis.

Sorry, I Can't Do Any Better At The Moment

Now Cheryl is going back to calling herself Tweedy and completely disassociating herself from "the best left back in the world", we can but dream that she falls in love with a mid-life crisis "grumpy" comedian, that Jade Goody is brought back to life and back in the arms of her greatest love and that they all go out in a foursome.

Tweedy, Dee and Tweed and Dumb.

Our Week in North Yorkshire

As you can see, we were lucky with the weather. It could have been a week indoors watching the unimaginably awful Frost/Nixon and other DVD delights. We took the Green route to Scarborough by train, tube, train and train. I wouldn't recommend going by tube from Charing Cross to King's Cross with two extremely large bags. But enough about my aunts!




Filey Brigg



Scarborough Links



Scarborough North Beach, Lovely Colours!



Scarborough South Beach, Best from a Distance



Whitby, Goth Heaven



Whitby's Blues Singer, Muddy Boots, Welcome Here!



Moo Moos



Chuff Chuff!

Give Peace a Chance

A friend's nine year old daughter is doing a half-term project: The Life Of John Lennon.

I ask her what she knows about Lennon.

"He was shot by Mark Chapman. We found the video on YouTube."

She has to draw a picture of a Lennon album cover. We find her the Plastic Ono Band cover as a tree is preferable to a close-up of Lennon's face or a full-frontal luxuriously-pubed John and Yoko.

The schoolteacher has asked for the children to bring in Beatles and Lennon CD cases to hang on a tree, presumably a Yoko-style tree of peace. This is unlikely to be a success.

I ask the girl what she knows about Lennon's upbringing. What does she know about his mother?

"She was killed by an off-duty policeman."

Cockney Singalong Sunday

To be sung to the tune of the chorus of Daisy Bell. You know the one: "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do..."

TROUSIES, TROUSIES



Trousies, trousies, love 'em I really do,


I wear trousies all the summer through.


I love to wear me trousies,
Accompanied wiv me blousies,


And socks look sweet
Upon me feet
Wiv trousies and sandals, too.

Buster and the New Boy

At school there was a kid nicknamed Buster who would terrorise the more timid boys. He would demand their pocket money and if they'd already spent it at the tuck shop he would take their savoury snacks and sweets.

He was a truly horrid specimen and the prefects didn't do anything because they fancied his sister who was devoted to little Buster and wouldn't have a word said against him.

One day a new boy joined our school. He was weedy, wore glasses and had a stutter. A perfect victim for Buster's cruelty.

After a month of giving up his pocket money, snacks and sweets, the new boy joined the school's lunchtime Chemistry Club which kept him away from Buster's playground domain. The boy was very enthusiastic about his subject but very secretive and would shield what he was working on from the other swots and the naive teacher.

One lunchtime, as he left the club, he was confronted by an angry Buster in the quadrangle. Buster asked the boy if he had any money. The boy said no. Buster demanded savoury snacks. The boy said he hadn't any. Then, sweets?

The boy produced something Buster hadn't seen before. Little white pills in a see-through flip-top plastic container. Buster asked what these new treats were.

"Only mints," said the boy.

Buster grabbed them from the boy's hand, flipped the top and greedily tipped half the contents into his mouth. He gave a superior smile as he crunched the mints with his strong teeth.

Seconds later, he held his neck. He was burning inside. More than that, he couldn't breathe. Red rose from his Adam's apple to his forehead. His heart was thumping like mad and his brain was an uncontrollable kaleidoscope of colours. He was dying.

With his last breath he forced the words out.

"What...the fuck...are they?"

He fell to the ground and expired. The container of mints fell out of his hand.

Later that year the new boy went to court. The case made the national press. The headlines said...

BULLY BOY TIC TACS

The Heart Ward

My dear fellow,

When I visit your father in hospital, I do not wish to hear about your £2,000 lawnmower, your £8,000 boat, or the "fantastic" wedding reception you went to where the "blinding touch" of egg and bacon sandwiches being served to a plethora of pissed up philistines is the highlight of your life till now.

No, if you've got nothing to say about football or Coronation Street can you kindly keep your mouth zipped shut.

Ghouls & Boys

Well, I got my hung Parliament and probably the best result I could have expected. A horrible one.

But the promise of a referendum on getting rid of the unfair first-past-the-post voting system will be making a lot of Tories choking on their foie gras. I'm surprised Cameron hasn't been lynched.

Speaking with a Lib Dem activist today, as you do, I was informed that during all the dithering they'd been contacted by angry people saying either "I didn't vote Lib Dem to get a Conservative government" or "I didn't vote Lib Dem to get a Labour government." Don't you just hate manic optimists?

So a step towards a fair voting system? That's what I wanted out of this election. Of course PR might produce the same result as we've got now. And there'll be even more people to blame.

2010 Election Broadcast

"Hello, Geoff. I am your Member. Would you like to touch me?"


Yesterday evening I was in a bad mood when I got off the train. My mood didn't exactly improve as I was greeted by our MP and his team as I left the station. David had a big false smile on his big smug face.

Although he's a shoe-in to keep his seat, I'm relying on those of you in marginals (sound like skimpy pants, don't they?) to "do the right thing" and "vote for change".

Now where have I heard those phrases before?

A Future Fairer For All

The latest YouCunt poll results are as follows:-

50% of the UK electorate would like a fairer society
30% of the UK electorate would like a less fair society
20% of the UK electorate haven't got a fucking clue what they want

Of course in the current first-past-the-post system, elections are decided by the people who haven't got a fucking clue. But this time, with the very real possibility of a hung parliament, the 50% of the electorate who would like a fairer society may get one. If the Lib Dems get to hold the balance of power, proportional representation could well be on the cards and the Tory Scum will never form a government on their own again. (Well, that's the theory).

If you want a hung parliament, to help you choose, this site looks just the ticket.

Looks like I'll be voting Lib Dem as a tactical vote for only the second time. Last time I voted for them the bastard came third.

Tijuana Brass Neck

If England insist on playing Terry, Lampard and Gerrard in the World Cup, I'm going to have to support another team.

And as my favorite player of this season has been West Ham striker Guillermo Franco, it's going to be Mexico for me.

Of course our countries have a history of mutual admiration. Who could forget this tribute to Bobby Charlton from Mexico's greatest rock guitarist?

It's All We Seem To Hear About Nowadays

I say to my mum, "Did you hear about Malcolm McLaren? He's dead."

"The racing driver?" she says.

"No, the Sex Pistols manager."

"Oh, the Sex Pistols manager."

I take a different tack.

"And Christopher Cazenove."

"That was strange, wasn't it?"