Love don't live here anymore

I've moved!

Following complaints from Blogger that the amount of traffic I get is fucking with their bandwith or something. I have decided to amble to pastures new.

I may start to re-post stuff from here to the new site, but I might not. Let's see.

Weekly posts, though. Imagine that. Cor.

Meanwhile: Just thoughts, really

Ta ta 

N
x

A cry for help

Writing is, I'm told, something at which I am quite good. I certainly find it fairly effortless, or have done in the past. And there 's the problem. When I started this blog, I had it in mind that posts would be regular and frequent, and that each one would be a dazzling display of my verbal dexterity, effortlessly entertaining and erudite. I imagine that many of my ilk imagine the same, only to have their aspirations subsequently swallowed by the daily drudge.

The comedian Richard Herring has been writing a daily blog for some years now and often makes reference to it in his bewildering plethora of podcasts. I had hoped for the same, exercising my brain so that the muscle became stronger. This has sadly not been the case, as a cursory scan of my posting history will testify. The advantage that Mr Herring undoubtedly has over me (apart from his talent) is that he is a professional comedian and writer, and I work in an office. His daily life will surely allow him more opportunities for inspiration than my Perrinesque schedule offers me. No input, no output, as Joe Strummer put it.

So I am hereby setting myself a challenge which, I am sure, I will singularly fail to meet. One post a week. I was going to type "one post a day" there, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

And this is where I require your help.

I am so singularly bereft of inspiration at this time that all I can write about is how I can't write about anything.

I need your input, suggestions on topics that I can write about.

Anything.

Give me a topic and I'll write about it. It may be spectacularly ill-informed and barely coherent, but that's the risk you take. We do, after all, live in an uncertain world.

Leave a comment here, message me on Facebook or Twitter. Whatever. Help me extract myself from this mental quagmire. You never know, we might end up enjoying ourselves.

Letter to Ernesto 3

My dear Ernesto

What calamity has befallen you? Your last letter has left me shaken and in need of a large dose of Dr Sproule’s restorative powders! Am I to understand that our business arrangements have suffered a blow from which they may not recover? It is hard to decipher your true meaning when your missives ramble so, and I am concerned that your drinking has entered a new and dangerous phase. Please find enclosed a sum of money, which I implore you to spend on making the necessary travel arrangements to visit me here as soon as you can. We must nip this in the bud, whatever it is.

I sent an urgent telegram to our mutual friend at the Polish embassy and have this morning received his response. He confirms that the final shipment has not yet arrived in Constantinople and certain Latvian parties are making certain Latvian threats. I have no reason to doubt that they will make good on their rather sadistic promises if matters are not resolved to their satisfaction. If we do not act with all care and guile, then our futures do indeed look rather bleak.

In other news, a new vicar has been installed in the parish. His name is Baritone-Lint and he has already endeared himself to many, including myself. His Christian benevolence seemingly knows no bounds, and he has already organised a number of social events to raise money for fallen women and orphans. The orphans, when they arrive from London, will be housed in the larger of our cow sheds, while the good Reverend has agreed that the fallen women may reside at the vicarage. There is a meeting in the big hall later this week to discuss how best to utilise their talents, and I have already come up with some splendid ideas in this regard (see accompanying sketches). I have invited a number of eminent notables (Cabinet Ministers, popular musicians and fellow members of the aristocracy) to Gimlet Mansions to prepare for the meeting, and I must say that the response so far has been most enthusiastic. It should be noted at this juncture, however, that I have been forced to burn some of the letters I have received, due to the levels of enthusiasm and detail contained therein, lest they fall into the hands of certain newspaper proprietors.

And now, sadly, to Agatha. The frightful St Clement, of whom I made mention in my last letter, has vanished, taking not only Agatha’s psoriasis ointment but also her life savings. She is bereft, Ernesto, simply bereft, and will not countenance any intervention on my part. She spends her days consoling herself by playing the trombone in the front parlour and singing excerpts from Porgy and Bess. You will recall that her singing voice is poor and her trombone playing worse, but nothing I can do or say will rouse her from this grief-ridden cacophony. Maybe her spirits will rise when you arrive from Dundee. She always had a soft spot for you, brother mine, and she assures me that it is washed almost daily.

And so, once more, I must take my leave. I am weary, Ernesto. Aunt Daphne arrives early tomorrow morning with Cousin Ralph, and I have not yet finished laying the traps.

I remain, your loving brother,

Frimley

Letter to Ernesto 2

My Dear Ernesto

How cruel the gods can seem, and how their capricious natures thwart our happiness at every turn! Still, the bandages come off tomorrow, and the resultant gooseberry crumble was certainly worth paying Dr Sproule’s exorbitant call-out fees. You may infer from this, brother mine, that my latest venture into the world of catering has not been entirely plain sailing. I have nobody to blame but myself for this, as I was insistent that Agatha took time out from her pursuance of all things thespian in order to help me. This was by no means an easy feat, as she has in the past few weeks fallen under the spell of a frightful imbecile by the name of St Clement. This ghastly wretch has filled Agatha’s head with fanciful notions regarding her theatrical ambitions, and has no doubt made attempts to occupy other parts of her body too. I fear the worst in this regard and urge you to intervene in some manner.

Aunt Daphne sends her regards, and hopes that your expedition into the unmapped interior of Africa is proceeding as well as can be expected. Why she believes you to be on an expedition I cannot fathom, as I have made it clear to her on more than one occasion that you are a resident of Dundee, and have been for some six years. You know how she can be, Ernesto, mere facts are not permitted to distort her perception of the world and it is to be remarked upon how much worse she has become since the death of Uncle Thomas. Mother has become her ally in senility, and together they are indeed a force with which to reckon. Their most recent exploits have seen the complete destruction of the vegetable gardens, allegedly in the pursuit of “the fabled turquoise mole of Stuttgart”.  The bill for the hire of the digging contraptions alone is liable to bankrupt me.

In addition to this wanton destruction, I received a letter this last Tuesday morning advising me that the estate (for which I am legally responsible) is now at war with Lichtenstein and to expect “repercussive admonishments of the most krule (sic) nature”. This letter, as I am sure you have already surmised, is written in a style of handwriting that most resembles the perambulations of a drunken spider with green ink on its feet. Combine this with the use of lavender scented notepaper, and it is clear that the bent minds of Mother and her sister are at work here.

Now to matters pertaining to business. Our mutual friend at the Polish embassy has confirmed that all arrangements are now in place regarding the final shipment. Thank you for your endeavours in this regard; it is clear that your powers of persuasion are not to be underestimated. We may expect some terse communication from our erstwhile colleagues in Latvia, but I am confident that any action on their part will be small beer and easily confined. “Bart” also advises me that generous gifts, acknowledging our part in this enterprise, have already been despatched and yours will shortly be arriving in Dundee for collection. I am delighted to recount that mine arrived this very morn, and is currently upstairs getting undressed.

And so I must take my leave. Certain pressures below the waist prevent me from concentrating on this letter for much longer and my vision is already beginning to blur.

I remain, your loving brother

Frimley

Letter to Ernesto 1

My dear Ernesto

Thank you for your letter of the 13th, and please accept my apologies for the delay in responding. Life here at Gimlet Mansions has been frightfully hectic of late, what with Agatha’s burgeoning theatrical career and the accompanying hoo-hah (of which, more later). Mother’s behaviour continues to be erratic and she is, as I write this, shampooing the lawn in preparation for the visit of Emperor Selassie of Ethiopia. I don’t have the heart to tell her he’s dead, as she has also prepared an extensive buffet lunch for His Imperial Majesty, the cost of which is certain to put a terrible strain on our already meagre finances. In addition, her enthusiasm for motorcycle speedway racing has simply shredded my nerves.

Cousin Ralph popped by yesterday, on his way to purchase eggs, and has asked me to send you his best wishes. It pains me to tell you that his appearance becomes ever more dishevelled by the week, and his excuses more fanciful. He now claims to have a letter from a certain Doctor Sproule, advising of his allergy to any form of grooming implement. I find this utterly preposterous, as I’m sure you do, and would welcome your support in this matter. Perhaps you could send me a letter of admonishment, which I may pass to Ralph in order to dissuade him from continuing down this ruinous path. His beard is frankly insupportable, to say nothing of the aroma emanating from his waistcoat.

And so to Agatha. While her enthusiasm (like her tuberculosis) is contagious, her talents are limited to an almost catatonic degree. Following her last audition, for a Senor Immolatione of Stuttgart, I received a hand-delivered missive from said gentleman imploring me to have dear Agatha sent to a secure institution "to preserve the continued positive effects of the thespian art and to ensure that its good name is not forever sullied in the eyes of the public". Needless to say I have not shared this letter's contents with Agatha, for fear of another psoriatic eruption, but I must find a way of somehow curtailing her activities in this sphere, perhaps with a financial inducement of some kind. Any advice you can offer me in this matter will be greatly appreciated, dear Ernesto, for I am reaching the very end of my wits. 

Work on the south garden continues apace and you will be delighted to know that the refugees have now been removed from the summer house and a commemorative pear orchard planted nearby. The onset of spring seems to revive the entire grounds from its wintry sonambulance and it is as if the whole of nature now delights in the pleasures of rebirth. This change in mood has certainly revived my flagging spirits; so much so that I have recently been able to impregnate one of the itinerant workers after several particularly vigorous couplings. The child is due for birthing in the autumn, and I do hope you will be able to visit so that we may celebrate its arrival in an appropriate manner.

And so, dear Ernesto, I must take my leave. Mrs Funge has just rung the dinner bell, and you know how she hates to be kept waiting (we have only just been able to remove all the blood from the scullery walls following the Lord Frankisham debacle). Do write back soon, as all the fellows at the bridge club are anxious to hear news of your adventures in the high pressure world of worm farms.

I remain, your loving brother

Frimley

101

I'm full of coffee and, having just watched Room 101, felt inspired to make a wee list of things that boil my piss, as a form of catharthis. This is designed, in the words of the great Peter Cook, "to get some things off my chest, and on to other peoples'."

Obviously this is a heavily redacted inventory, but I had to write this quickly as I've got some laundry to sort out:

1. Band competitions. Music is not a competition and musical opinion is always, *always* entirely subjective. Who is the best band in Cambridge? Who cares?
   
   
2. The Conservative Party. Do I really have to explain this one?
   
   
3. Ill-mannered people. Just how do you think that being obnoxious, rude or ignorant makes you a better person or the world a better place?
   
   
4. Celebrities. Hate the word, hate the concept, hate the magazines, hate the TV shows. The concept of celebrity demeans real achievement and needlessly elevates the perceived status of preening self-important performing chimps.
   
   
5. The recorded works of Stereophonics. Although I will grudgingly admit that it's quite an achievement making "beige" a musical genre.
   
   
6. Consumerism. Yes, I buy things, of course I do, but I'm increasingly noticing that people are becoming defined by what they own, not by who or what they are. This makes me twitchy.
   
   
7. Masterchef. Cooking doesn't get any tougher than this. Apparently.
   
   
8. Patriotism. You do realise that your country of birth is an accident and an irrelevance, don't you? You don't? Oh.
   
   
9. Writing “should of” instead of “should have”. Were you forcibly removed from school at the age of six?
   
   
10. Playing on people's fears and insecurities to either make money or exercise control over them. Applies to governments, advertisers, organised religions and psychics/mediums. Well done, all of you. No, really.

Plethora

Greetings

As I write, I'm listening to an Elvis Costello album. Brutal Youth, to be specific.  The thing is, I'm not really listening to it, am I? A significant proportion of my pathetically low attention capacity is currently devoted to writing these words on this here blog thing, meaning that I am not devoting myself to Mr Costello's lyrics (which I'm led to believe are quite good) nor his keen ear for a melody. In fact you could say that I'm doing Elvis a disservice by not focussing on an album which I'm sure took him longer to make than it's going to take me to write this.

And this is the problem (well, one of them, anyway).

When I was just a snot-nosed, scabby-kneed chavvy, music was not as easily accessible as it is now. Now it's everywhere, like swearing, or Stephen Fry. The most obscure (and quite often unlistenable) music is mine to hear, simply via a mechanical manipulation of my digits. The internet has presented a seemingly limitless aural vista for my delectation. Meanwhile, at the age of 7, I had three records that I listened to obsessively, at every opportunity that presented itself. Three. Not significantly less than the average digit count of a Portsmouth native (and I'm not including thumbs in this equation - there are places even evolution fears to tread).

These records were: Rubber Soul by The Beatles, Elvis Is Back! By Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly's 20 Golden Greats. Played again and again and again and again, fish fingers for tea, and again and again. I knew every note, every beat, every second of these records and if I listened to them now I would be mentally transported directly back to the front room of 5 Marie Road, Southampton SO19 0EJ.

The reason I used the word if in the last sentence is that I am struggling to recall the last time I actually sat down and listened to an album (or cd or whatever) in it's entirety, devoting all my attention to it.

Like many of us, I have embraced (to a limited extent) the opportunities provided by digital media and now have more music than I know what to do with. On my hard drive, on spools and spools of CDRs, on the racks of CDs and vinyl that I can see from here. And now, when I listen to music, it is usually on my iPod, on shuffle. Or in the kitchen when cooking dinner. Or in the car, another home-made compilation cd in the stereo. In short, I've stopped listening. Stopped listening properly, anyway.

I can often be heard extolling the virtues of such and such an artist, asking folks if they've heard this album or that album by so-and-so and the wotchamacallits. Luckily, I am rarely asked to go into too much detail about what makes the latest release from Fred Skillbuggy & The Crazed Shitrings quite so exciting, and a good thing too. Because the chances are I've barely played it through once.

We all know that New Year Resolutions are the province of the simple-minded (that's a fact and you can go and look it up if you can be arsed) which is why I don't make them.

However if I did make them (which I don't) then I would pick one album per week and just listen to it, as often as possible, from start to finish, with no other distractions. That way I could get through 52 albums in a year, and then maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to listen to all the music in my possession before I die. That is, as long as I don't ever add any more music to my collection, or die tomorrow.

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

Meatloaf

My brain is mischievous. It constantly seeks to fill itself up with information that is of no real practical use. It handicaps me by deleting information regarding the location of car keys or the correct way to wire a plug and replacing it with detailed knowledge of Beatles recording sessions or whole segments of the stand up routines of Bill Hicks. I am sure that this is a source of constant amusement/bemusement/frustration (delete where applicable) to friends/family/work colleagues (ditto), although my contribution to the success of quiz teams has been duly, if reluctantly, noted.

There is no pattern to the storage of this material in my brain, no equivalent to the Dewey Decimal System that might help me make some sort of logical sense of these thought processes. Instead, random snippets will leap unbound from my subconscious and unleash themselves without prior permission on an unsuspecting world.

This brings me to Meatloaf. Not the foodstuff so beloved of our American cousins, but the corpulent musician and actor known to his parents as Marvin Lee Aday. A man who has sold quite a few records over the years, all of them, without a single exception, shit. Of course I am aware that taste is subjective and that this is what makes music such a wonderful, powerful thing. But my dislike of Mr Loaf (I won’t be so forward as to address him as Meat) is deep-rooted and can be traced back to my teens.

I am 14 years old and on a coach heading for Austria on a school trip (the purpose of this excursion has vanished from my memory over the years, but I still have a smattering of German, along with a morbid fear of both lederhosen and National Socialism). The content of the coach comprises around forty teenagers, two teachers and a huge bag of combustible hormones. This being the dark ages (or as some people prefer to call them, the 1980s) the available entertainment is limited – no telly or DVD players for us – but there is a radio/cassette player, which should save us from listening to accordions and oompah music as we travel through France and Germany.

Unfortunately, following a brief survey, it soon becomes apparent that there are only two cassettes on the coach. The first is a 90 minute recording of that week’s Top 20 radio show and the other is Bat Out Of Hell by Meatloaf. The Top 20 cassette does not prove popular among the more conservative elements of our travelling contingent, containing as it does the quite marvelous but not entirely tuneful “Flowers Of Romance” by Public Image Limited, and so begins two weeks of sightseeing around Tyrol, with Mr. Loaf’s “masterpiece” comprising the lion’s share of the soundtrack.

Now I’m all for giving something a fair shake before deciding if I like it or not, but frankly this was tantamount to child abuse. At first the album sounded histrionic, humourless and bombastic and it just got worse on repeated listens. Around and around Austria we travelled, Mr. Loaf’s charmless caterwauling providing the perfect ambient backing for the sounds of teenage gossip, furtive backseat fumblings and motion-induced vomiting.

Trapped in this mobile Hades, I was repeatedly subjected to this enormous pile of testicles masquerading as music for 14 days, to the point where the opening bars of the title track would reduce me to helpless sobs. My teachers clearly misunderstood the cause of my distress and believed me to be merely homesick. I took this as further evidence of their barbarity, alongside their insistence on me studying Jane Austen. On my return to England, I wrote an impassioned letter to the United Nations, describing the abuse I had suffered and suggesting that those responsible should be tried in The Hague. Answer came there none. I can only assume that Kurt Waldheim did not receive my missive.

I am well aware that many people like Bat Out Of Hell, and the sales figures stand as testament to its popularity – it still sells 200,000 copies every year and has sold an estimated 43 million copies worldwide since its release in 1977. All of which is merely another dent in my battered faith in my fellow man. I had always suspected that folks were daft, but this is self-harm taken to extremes.

Bat Out Of Hell is Spector without the sass, Springsteen without the soul. It is a horrible, horrible record. To bastardise Billy The Bard “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Remarkable trouser difficulties

Ah, Tesco on a Saturday. Is there any finer way of passing an hour than to spend it cheek by jowl with your fellow man, each one of you united in that ancient hunter-gatherer ritual that has sustained our glorious species for many millennia?

Of course there is. Any semi-intelligent person could furnish you with a comprehensive list of activities that rank above traipsing around this brightly lit consumer bedlam; licking the underside of a dog, for example, or dipping one’s arse into a bucket of scorpions.

However, Tesco on a Saturday is where I find myself, soaking up the myriad sights and sounds like a bored sponge, while my daughter tries to spend what little money I have on useless plastic tat (possibly made by children younger than her). I am surrounded by the beautiful people – even a misanthropic ball of spite and disgust like me cannot fail to be overawed and humbled by the parade of Übermensch that sashay up and down the aisles of this shopping Mecca.

Take, for example, the gentleman in front of me. He is shaven-headed and overweight, although I do not hold this against him, given that I am less than hirsute myself and certainly no sylph. Instead, what grabs my attention is his backside. It is a thing of malevolent magnificence.

Now, before we go any further, you should know that I am not an admirer of male bodies. I find nothing about them attractive and in my wilder flights of fancy have seriously considered the notion that both heterosexual women and homosexual men are suffering from the same freakish ocular handicap that renders the ridiculous male form in some way inviting. But this man’s bumcakes are mesmerising, holding my gaze like Khan the snake held Mowgli’s.

The cause of the problem is clear to even the most nonchalant observer and can be traced to the absence of two items – the first of these being a belt. The gentleman’s jeans are heading south or, at least, have been heading south and have now come to rest, halfway down his not insubstantial buttocks.

Now I am, presumably much like you, aware of a style of dress among young idiots in which the trousers are deliberately worn in just this way, seemingly to demonstrate the wearer’s arse, in the manner of a female baboon offering up her rear end to a tumescent male. But the possibility that the man in front of me is among this particular band of morons is emphatically ruled out by the absence of a second item of clothing – to wit, his underpants.

Of course, he could well have been wearing something beneath his Florence & Freds but, sadly, whatever was there was not immediately visible and my eyes and brain were being assaulted by the sight of the top half of his naked gluteus maximus, which now seemed to be making a bid for freedom, straining against the bonds of its denim prison like an angry, hairy blancmange. Indeed, there was more hair on the fellow’s sit-upon than could be seen on his head - although, in the same way as my previous mention of his weight, this should be taken as an observation rather than a criticism (people in glass houses etcetera).

The problem I now have is that I have become sucked into the drama of these remarkable trouser difficulties and now I can’t stop looking, simultaneously intrigued as to what will happen when the trousers hit the floor and terrified of what will be revealed. Surely his lumbering gait will serve to persuade his jeans to continue their downward trajectory? Or will his powerful mudflaps serve to keep them where they are?

Watch this space for the next (possibly quite exciting) episode…

Lists

It’s very strange (and slightly unnerving) the way our relationships with our parents change over the years and how, almost out of nowhere, they start behaving in a way you find either amusing or infuriating, depending on your caffeine levels.

My parents split up last year after 45 years of marriage and my Mum has found herself unexpectedly living on her own. And when I speak to her now there are certain traits I’ve noticed which I could have sworn weren’t there a year ago.

To pluck one example from the top of my head, she lists things. Not in the same way that you or I would write a shopping list, or a list of household chores, or errands, or a list of famous people we would like to see crucified on live television. Not those sort of, you know, useful lists. My Mum’s lists appear unbidden during conversations, arriving out of the blue and hanging around for much longer than they really should.

Not only that, but the lists often seem to breed, forming lists within lists and providing the listener with more detail than is absolutely necessary.

For example, I spoke to her the other day and she related to me the sad tale of the death of her freezer. Just before she went away on holiday, she noticed that it wasn’t working and assumed, like we all would, that it had reached the end of its useful life.

“That’s terrible,” I opined, trying to sound as interested as I could while simultaneously playing Football Manager on my laptop, “you had loads of stuff in there, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes,” she replied, “I had that ratatouille in there, some courgette and tomato soup (you know, the one I added butterbeans to, it was absolutely delicious), some sausages from the farm shop up the road, some fish fingers, some veggie sausages, two packs of skinless chicken breasts…”

“Oh dear” I attempted to interject, like a fool.

“A packet of mince, some frozen peas, some of those onion rings that you like, some fish, you know breaded fish (the fish with breadcrumbs on it), the Ark of the Covenant, Shergar’s front legs and the last of the Mohicans.”

I made a noise that I thought conveyed a convincing mixture of interest and sympathy. It went “Hrrrrum?”

Anyway, it turns out that the demise of this cold storage unit was directly attributable, like so many things nowadays, to the actions of my father. He still pops round to Mum’s to do stuff like clear the guttering and mow the lawn (driven, I can only assume, by guilt and a desire to feel that his family are still a functioning unit). He had done something to the wiring in the shed where the freezer lives and he had, basically, forgotten to do an additional electrical thing that turned out to be quite important.

You will, dear reader, forgive my vagueness with regard to the work undertaken by Dad. My Mum did try and explain to me exactly what had happened but I suffer from an affliction which I hope and pray affects others too. This takes the form of not being able to concentrate when anyone is saying anything to me that involves DIY or any of its bizarre spin-off activities. I am not, as many will attest, a practical person. I have friends and acquaintances that have built extensions to their houses, installed kitchens in said extensions and know their way around a combustion engine. Me? I have never even put up a shelf. DIY is a strange, cult-ish world that holds no appeal to me at all and, when people are regaling me with tales of its myriad perversions, it takes approximately three seconds before their voice turns into that of the teacher from “Peanuts”, my eyes glaze over and I find myself mentally transported into a warm and welcoming fantasy world of my own.

So, anyway, I digress. As it was his fault that my Mum’s food supply for the forthcoming apocalypse had been irrevocably destroyed, he had promised to replenish said stocks while Mum was away on her hols.

“I bet he hasn’t” she said, “let’s have a look.”  And off she went, cordless phone in hand, to the shed.

“Oh he has, look.”

A strange sense of foreboding began to permeate my subconscious.

“There’s some mince.”

Oh God…

“And some pork chops, some sausages, some fish fingers, a steak pie, the collected works of Friedrich Nietzsche..."