stalk

Eagle-eyed readers of this blog will surely have noticed that it has been some time since I posted anything, and my bulging email inbox pays sure and unwavering testament to the fact that literally millions of lost souls across the globe have been pining for the mental nourishment that they derive from my words of wisdom.

Leaving aside the moral obligation that I have towards these poor saps, my life has changed in many ways (oh so many ways) in the nine months since I last regaled the known universe with my tedious ramblings. So many ways, in fact, that to even attempt to list them here would be (at the very least) an act of stultifying futility and, besides, I have to go to work in the morning. So, I have taken my sharpest literary knife and pared away all that I consider to be superfluous, in order that I may concentrate on the most significant aspect of my life at the time of writing.

To wit - I have a stalker.

Yes, yes, yes, I know what you're thinking. It would be quite natural for you to assume that my levels of paranoia and self-delusion, already quite considerable, have now been inflated to such ridiculous proportions that I have, quite simply, lost my grip on reality and plunged head-first into the abyss of mentalism. May I assure you, dear reader, nothing could be further from the truth. This shit is real.

And now you are no doubt asking yourself certain questions regarding the veracity of my pronouncements thus far. This is because you are in possession of a keen intellect and an enquiring mind - attributes that I'm sure make your parents very proud (and if they don't, then they should). I must assure you once again that I am not in the business of telling lies, not unless the money's right or it helps me avoid a beating.

 Your first question must surely be "who is the stalker?". Your second question would then be "why is he stalking this no-mark?". The second question I cannot answer with any certainty (although I have an inkling*), but the first is a doddle. I am being stalked by Freebie Boy.

Freebie Boy was mentioned in a previous post which concerned itself with the regular travellers on the X9 bus (AKA The Ship of The Fens), but for those of you who would like a brief re-cap, here it is:

My favourite passenger is Freebie Boy, a loose conglomeration of features seemingly thrown together at random by a deranged scientist during a particularly torrid acid trip (he reminds me of one of the pinheads from Todd Browning’s film Freaks, if I’m brutally honest). His haircut is a fabulous homespun delight and looks for all the world like it was administered during a fistfight with an angry relative. Mind you, this haircut is obviously not some random act of cruelty, as it does serve the very useful purpose of distracting ones attention from his enormous, throbbing adams apple, which I suspect has its own nervous system. He works for the bus company, although in what capacity I dare not guess, and riding on the bus for nowt is obviously one of his perks. The strange thing about Freebie Boy, however, is not his appearance or even the strange smell that he carries about his person. It is his ability to appear at random stops on the bus route, flagging down the driver for his free ride. It’s almost as if he lives everywhere and yet nowhere, a fen-spawned will-o-the-wisp, alighting on omnibuses at will and at random. One day I fear he may kill me and make pillowcases from my skin.

While all of my posts have clearly been inspired by the deep and abiding love that I have for my fellow man, even I am not too blind to see that there remains a remote possibility of my scribblings causing offence to those people to whom I have referred. I had thought that I remained safe from harm with regard to Freebie Boy, my assumption being that his ability to read had been negated by the amount of chlorine in his gene pool. How wrong I was.

It is quite clear that FB has gained access to this blog, which he is somehow able not only to read, but also to understand. His understanding has led to resentment and an obvious desire to exact some form of bizarre retribution upon my person, possibly involving the use of both a knife and a dildo.

"Come come, Nicholas", I imagine you thinking to yourself, "where is your evidence?"

My friends, the evidence is everywhere.

While browsing the second hand surgical stockings in my local Cancer Research shop, whose face do I spy gazing at me from behind the revolving rack of dog-eared Patricia Cornwell novels? 

On the train in the morning, there he is. Nonchalantly standing with a copy of the Metro, pretending to read it as his eyes burn into my very soul.

Windsurfing in the Seychelles, badger-baiting in Chatteris, playing a(nother) gig at the sodding Portland, ordering a takeaway after a night out - whatever I do, he is there. 

Watching. Waiting. His cold dead eyes and frankly astonishing haircut striking fear into the core of my being. His enormous adams apple throbbing and his aroma killing all flying insects within a ten foot radius.

OK, maybe I have been hitting the caffeine a little hard of late. Maybe I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should. My home and work lives have been pretty stressful, it's true.

But you believe me. I know you believe me. Don't you?

*a baby ink.

Beefheart

I’ve refrained so far from writing anything in tribute to one of my musical heroes. Mostly, I think, because the plethora of tributes that were paid to him in the weeks after his death seemed to have all bases covered and I felt that what I had to add was not important. I mean, who really gives a toss about what a man in his mid-forties writes on a blog? Not me, that’s for sure.

However, the passing of Don Van Vliet, alias Captain Beefheart, on 17 December 2010 needs to be marked by me in some small way, if only in recognition of the large part he has played in my musical life since I first heard him on the radio back in 1984.

The man responsible for my introduction to Beefheart was the DJ John Peel (in fact I would say that a great deal of my musical taste is either directly or indirectly attributable to the influence of this great man). Back in those days I was in the habit of taping Peel’s two hour show on a battered BASF C120 (ask your grandad) and then filleting the show, transferring the tunes that I liked onto numerous C90s, which I would then play to death.

I remember it very clearly. It was a Thursday night (although it could have been a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, really. I make all this shit up as I go along) and I was in bed, listening to the radio, with my trusty C120 rolling again. Peel was playing his usual wildly eclectic mix of tunes – in fact the shows were so varied, I am sure that the only person who enjoyed everything he played was Peel himself – and I was drifting into pre-snooze mode, secure in the knowledge that the whole show would be preserved come morning.

My reverie was rudely interrupted, however, by a tune that was quite unlike almost anything I had heard before. I was wide awake in an instant. Fuck me, what is this?

This was “Circumstances” by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. It’s the second tune in the Youtube clip linked below, wind forward 2 minutes and 50 seconds and you’ll get the gist:

So this tune gets transferred to another tape, and is played constantly. I mean it was an obsession. Who was his Beefheart bloke and why did this tune have such a visceral effect on me? I was hooked. I couldn’t get bored with it. Still can’t, as a matter of fact.

Days pass and on a fine Saturday evening I find myself at some kind of gathering at someone’s house. I don’t remember whose house it was, although I’m sure I went there with friends, and I certainly left in a far more inebriated state than the one in which I arrived. None of this is important. What is important is that someone in that house decided to play “Circumstances” by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. At volume. Bloody hell it’s that tune again.

And so it began. Later that year I got my first full-time job in an HMV shop and vigorously utilized the generous staff discount, often to the detriment of food. I bought all the Beefheart records I could lay my hands on and immersed myself in them. From the off-kilter rhythm and blues of “Safe As Milk” through to the career epitaph “Ice Cream For Crow”. And I loved all of it, even the bad stuff.

Beefheart’s music has a singular quality about it. Plenty of people have been influenced by him, but no-one, and I do mean no-one, sounds quite like him.

Anyway, I’m not going to bang on too much, as writers better (or better paid) than me have already showered fulsome and fully deserved praise onto The Captain since he died last year. I just wanted to express my gratitude to a man who enriched my life, although I know that 600 or so words cannot do him justice.

(As I write this, I can hear Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” coming from my nine year old daughter’s bedroom).

Mollusc

Mythical creatures abound in literature and folklore – Kraken, Yeti, Cyclops, the Loch Ness Monster, Intelligent Portsmouth Male etc – and yet there remains one whose legend has not spread outside of its supposed habitat. A creature that, despite its enormous size and the frequency of reported sightings, remains almost unknown outside of East Anglia.

I refer, of course, to Xybythgnys - the Giant Fenland Whelk.

I first became aware of this beast while attending an all-night cheese and mescaline shindig, which had been organised by the friend of a friend of an ex-friend of an avowed enemy. I was discussing the best way to cook lobster with a vegan, a Rabbi, and a vegan Rabbi, when our culinary discourse was interrupted by a man who very closely resembled a raving lunatic, possibly because this is exactly what he was.

It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? is what I very nearly said.

And so it came to pass that, over the next seven or eight hours, this briney old sea-hound twisted my brain into plaits with tales of a creature so terrifying, so utterly vicious and repugnant, that the very mention of it had been known to cause outbreaks of alopecia and rickets in even the most bohemian and cynical circles. An omnivorous demon, slithering across the dark flatlands of eastern England, striking terror into the hearts of man, beast and assorted hybrids of same.

While it is easy for modern types, with their iPhones and bootcut trousers, to scoff at the superstitions of web-toed cretins, I was intrigued by the tale this man told and I found myself wanting to discover more. After the party I also discovered I had married a trio of welders from Birkenhead, but that’s not important right now, and anyway it was never consummated.

I began my research by watching a long-forgotten documentary from 1968, “Xybythgnys – Mollusc of Malice”, hosted by Professor Humphrey Pumphrey, which I was able to stream from an Estonian website. After that I streamed some other material from the same website, not directly related to my research, as a relaxation aid.

The story of Xybythgnys has its roots deep in the mysticism of the Far East (Lowestoft) and traces of the myth can be found in most towns and villages (apart from Wells-next-the-Sea, where they shun the whelk in favour of a cult dedicated to the Winkle of Destiny). Statues, battered and eroded by salt spray, still stand as testament to the power of the whelk along the east coast of England.

Xybythgnys (reproduced by kind permission of the Pumphrey Archive)

I visited Professor Pumphrey at his research centre in Hunstanton, from where he curates the Xybythgnys Archive, a treasure trove of information for the committed Xybythgnysphile. Here are stored newspaper articles, books, eyewitness accounts and photos of alleged sightings of this legendary mollusc. From these we can gather that the flesh of the Xybythgnys was much sought after in Tudor England, due to its supposed aphrodisiac qualities, with rich individuals paying huge amounts of money for what they believed to be the creature’s oozing flesh (although which was usually human tissue, illegally harvested from a leper colony).

Here is an extract from an instruction pamphlet, published in 1542, on the correct usage of mollusc tissue in an erotic context (courtesy of the Pumphrey Archive):

“First take ye the muscle, and having examind such as to be not worthy of entrance to thine lady’s chamber, rub the ooze of the welk along its length. Then shalt thou be of such inflamed proportions, and of such rigidity, that yea verily a cat could not scratch it.”

Unfortunately there is little direct evidence of the existence of the Xybythgnys, other than in the folklore collected in Professor Pumphrey’s cupboard. What photographs there are appear to be, at best, blurred black and white Polaroid snapshots of common sea whelks with no surrounding landmarks to help establish the size of the creature, and the “historical documents” are nothing more than yellowed pieces of paper covered in badly typed nonsense, with obscene doodles in the margins. When I questioned Professor Pumphrey as to the providence of his evidence, he said “Where’s Marjorie? She’s normally here by now. She brings me the paper. You don’t look like Marjorie.”

It was at this point that the good Professor soiled himself and I was politely asked to leave the nursing home, as it was getting near nap-time.

Rupert

I was at a party, sometime back in September. It was one of those good parties – you know, special occasion, good friends, top music and nice weather. The party itself started with breakfast at eleven and progressed very nicely thenceforth, with turntables and cd decks set up for those in attendance (me included) who wanted to spin a few tunes – speakers positioned at the open windows to facilitate garden dancing. Proper nice.

During the course of the afternoon, I became engaged in conversation with a fellow DJ, a friend of the host who I hadn’t met before, and we were doing the usual anoraky thing of chinwagging about music, finding common likes and dislikes, when the conversation turned to The Beatles.

Ah yes, The Beatles. It is a fact universally acknowledged that, should you start a conversation with Nicky Butt, he will inevitably bring The Fab Four into it at some point. It’s an affliction. I know I’m doing it but I am powerless to stop myself. It’s like tourettes*. Professional help is being sought.

Anyway me and this gent, who I shall refer to as Andy (cos that’s his name) were discussing the aforementioned Liverpudlian beat combo, when he expressed, in rather direct language, his dislike for Paul McCartney. Actually, “dislike” is far too mild a word for the strength of passion I witnessed. “Hatred” would be nearer the mark.

The focal point of Andy’s ire was a single by Paul McCartney that reached number three in the charts in 1984, a tune that was seen by many as proof-positive that Macca had lost the plot completely, a perfect advertisement for the “Just Say No!” anti-drugs campaign of the 1980s.

That song, if you haven’t already got the bus to where I’m meandering, is We All Stand Together, credited to Paul McCartney and The Frog Chorus.

Those of you who are still reading at this point may be wondering what the ruddy heck has got into me, but I have heard so many people use this tune as a stick with which to beat McCartney that I feel compelled to defend him. In pubs, at parties, in offices and on shopfloors, I’ve had “THE FROG CHORUS!” shouted at me in a triumphalist fashion by many and varied people, whenever the subject has arisen, as if just the incantation of those three words would be enough to leave even the most ardent Maccaphile floundering in a sea of doubt over their hero’s ability.

But here’s a thing: all the people I have heard slagging off We All Stand Together have one common denominator. They are all adults. None of them are children. I’ll repeat that. They are all adults. None of them are children.

However, play this tune to a young child (or any multiple of same) and the reaction is universal. They love it. They bom bom-bom (bye-eeh-ah) along like creatures possessed. They dig it, and the reason they dig it is very simple.

IT’S. A. SONG. FOR. KIDS.

The reason so many adults don’t like it is simple – it wasn’t written for them – they’re not supposed to like it, not really. Its concept, melody, lyrics and accompanying promo video are aimed straight at tiny brains, and it works.

The problem seems to be that folks have a problem with rock musicians making music for kids. Rock, with its tedious pre-occupation with “credibility”, hasn’t truly embraced the child-like spirit since the mid-to-late sixties, when Pink Floyd were in their Syd Barrett inspired pomp. But other genres don’t have this problem. Woody Guthrie’s Songs To Grow On, Prokofiev’s Peter and The Wolf, Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, all specifically written for children by talented, credible musicians, who also produced music more suited to adults.

I don’t care if you like We All Stand Together or not, if I’m honest. My point is that it’s a kids’ song, written for kids and still being enjoyed by kids over 25 years after it was released.

Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time is rubbish, though. I‘ll give you that.

*you cunt