Month: September 2006

(Suggested by Hg; seconded by dg)

Now fully updated.

Oh Gawd, me aching head. So much for yesterday’s “midnight curfew and don’t let me go to the club“…

…which became an “OK, 1am curfew, and how often am I in town on a Friday night anyway, I DESERVE a little fun in my life”…

…which became an “OK, I’ll just wait until they play the Scissor Sisters, because IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO MY PERSONAL GROWTH AS AN INDIVIDUAL THAT I DANCE TO THIS SONG IN PUBLIC AT LEAST ONCE IN MY LIFE”…

…which, and why did I ever pretend to myself that it would ever be otherwise, became a stupid o’clock stop-out…

(…and they never even played the Scissor Sisters, curses curses, what sort of a gay club are they anyway…)

…which would have been fine, except that I’ve been providing weekend cover for work since 9:00 this morning, as previously arranged…

…so, yeah. What an incredibly daunting list of suggestions this looked like this morning. But I shall go with the “list” option. When the going gets tough, etc.

Still. TEN reasons apiece, you say? Making TWENTY reasons in all? Well, now that my professional labours are done for the day, I shall give it my best shot.

Coming soon, after a shower, a train journey to Derby, a lift to the cottage, and lunch. And a nice sit down with a cup of tea and the papers. And a little lie-down. And a little snooze. And, um, nearly two hours’ sleep. And a pub supper.

And a nice relaxing morning reading the papers in bed with a cup of tea. And, um, oh I know, let’s watch last night’s X-Factor while K’s out entertaining une grande fromage from Les États-Unis. And… oh bugger, this isn’t going away, is it? Right then: sleeves rolled up, palms spat into, let’s do it.

1. After a big night out, it takes me more than 24 hours to recover coherent thought patterns.

(“Recover coherent thought patterns?” Hmm. Well, let it stand.)

2. As Leonard Cohen once said, with an admirable economy of expression: I ache in the places where I used to play.

3. The blight of middle-aged Man Hair has descended: ears, nostrils, and yucky sproutings of pube-like growth on my formerly baby-smooth chest. As a long-time staunch opponent of chest-shaving, having to run a Philshave round me nips kills me, man.

4. Running with this theme: ten years ago, I wouldn’t have had the slightest compunction about entering myself as a contestant at the White Swan’s Amateur Strip Nite (my regular Wednesday night haunt during the spring and early summer). Hell, it would have been only right and proper to “give something back” to my community. Because – and my heterosexual readers will simply have to take this on trust – it’s really not that big a deal, and un-erotic almost to the point of wholesomeness. In any case, it’s not as if I haven’t been naked in public before: in German parks, Ibiza beaches, and… oh, all manner of places really (ahum). At the end of the day, it’s just a willy. Nothing that we haven’t seen before, many, many times.

However, and pushing the willy to one side for a moment: to expose my flubbering baps to all and sundry at this time of life, whilst arguably “liberating” in certain respects, would really be too cruel an imposition upon the good folks of Limehouse. Why, I haven’t even danced with my shirt off in over four years. There comes a time, doesn’t there?

5. I am now of the firm opinion that Top 40 chart music will never again regain the standard of excellence that was set during its golden period: namely, from January 1979 to June 1984. In particular, 90% of all commercial hip-hop, and an increasingly large proportion of contemporary R&B – two genres which I used to love – leaves me stone cold at best. As for current trends in dance music – a genre in which I used to be an expert – I haven’t got the faintest inkling of a clue. I’ve become the guy who only dances when they play something massive like the Scissor Sisters (if they play the Scissor Sisters – see above), reserving my longer workouts strictly for wedding receptions.

6. My grip on celebrity culture is rapidly fading. I have no idea what Lindsay Lohan looks like; I would struggle to recognise Jessica Simpson; and when Orlando Bloom appeared on Ricky Gervais’s occasionally brilliant but worryingly patchy Extras a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t realise he was the celebrity cameo until someone mentioned his name. Hell, I couldn’t even name any of the members of Westlife – and they’ve had twelve Number One singles, for crying out loud.

7. In blogging terms, I’m strictly ancien régime – and my site layout is now so old that I have to apply for planning permission in order to make even the slightest change. (That recent upgrade of the RSS feed logo? Months of paperwork. Months.) As today’s bright young things whizz past – sometimes pausing to pay their respects, en route to the studio – I am left with readership figures which have remained more or less static since the first half of 2004. I’m like the local government middle manager who has been promoted just above his natural level of competence, while his former graduate trainees have all landed sexy positions in the private sector.

8. After twenty-one years in IT, I’m still making my living from IBM mainframes – occasionally dipping into something really daring and modern like creating an XML file, so that the cool web kids can snatch it off me, run away with it, and make it look all sleek and gorgeous on a browser. Object-oriented programming? It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. Look, it’s quite simple. Data consists of fields, held on records, stored in files, and accessed via index keys. End of!

9. A lot of my “best” clothes are over three years old, if not five. (My best shoes are a whopping six years old.) I’ve stopped putting my lenses in every time I go out for the evening, and have become so lackadaisical about trying to look hot and shaggable that I even go to gay bars with my specs on. (Or “cruise shields”, as I used to call them in the 1980s.)

10. I am automatically suspicious about every new technological advancement, partly on the grounds that “we didn’t need that sort of thing in my day”, and partly because new functionality scares me. (My upgraded phone handset has been sitting unused in the bottom of my satchel for the past two months, while I muddle along with my decrepit old black-and-white Nokia.) I’m going to become one of those impossible old people, who resist all attempts from well-meaning younger relatives to make their lives easier. (“Remote control? Very kind of you dear, but I like the exercise…”)

1. Although it might take over 24 hours to recover from them, at least I still have big nights out from time to time. In the past year alone, I’ve partied in London, Manchester, Athens, Hangzhou… and I’ve stopped in the village pub until nearly midnight on, ooh, at least a couple of occasions. Ever the circuit boy, me. Buxton, Bakewell, Ashbourne… you name it.

2. I still get to play in the aforementioned achy places, even if it’s more crown green bowling than snooker these days. From “potting the pink” to… oh, I can’t be arsed. I’m sure you’re all more than capable of making up your own ball-based double entendres. Do I have to do all the work around here?

3. There might be unsightly pube-like sproutings on my chest, but at least they’re not compensating for any thinning on top. My grandfather on my mother’s side retained a more or less full head of hair into his nineties, so there are grounds for hope. Not that I have any aesthetic objection to hair loss, when neatly groomed (quite the reverse, in fact – grrr!), but I’ve got the wrong shaped head for a zero crop. Honestly, it would look awful.

4. The baps may be flubbering, but the abdominal jut has been arrested and the arse is still firm and pert. (Did I ever tell you that my bare arse once ended up advertising a safer sex awareness campaign? Ooh, there’s a story for you. I shall add it to the list.)

5. The singles charts may be in irreversible decline, but my enthusiasm for new music is undimmed, and I can still get all worked up over a good gig by a hot new band in a small venue. Now, some people might say that this was arrested development, or an attempt to cling onto my lost youth – but I simply don’t see why one has to subscribe to a youthful lifestyle in order to enjoy youthful music. In fact, I positively thrive on the contradictions.

6. Who needs an externally imposed celebrity culture anyway, now that we are all self-created micro-celebs in our own nano-universes? The spirit of punk lives on! This is an HTML tag, this is another, this is a third. Now form a weblog!

7. Once a highly respected and influential destination blogger, always a highly influential and respected destination blogger. That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change.

8. Having “heritage” IT skills is actually rather retro-chic. After all, nothing dates as quickly as the currently fashionable. “Push” technology, anyone?

9. Lackadaisical about hotness and shaggability I may have become – but then, people are so much more attractive when they stop trying so hard. As I was reminded on… well, never you mind.

10. At least I know the names of most of the scary new technological widgets, even if I run a mile from actually using them. How many of the rest of you got to fondle a pre-release Nano, huh? Huh?

As tomorrow marks the last instalment of the “One Post Per Day, Or Else I Turn Into A Clapped Out Has Been” project, I’d like to make it extra-special in some way. Therefore, I have decided to solicit ideas from you lot, in yet another of the interactive “community-building” stunts which have made this blog what it is today.

In the comments box, please suggest a title for tomorrow’s post. I will then select the title which appeals to me most, and will endeavour to construct some relevant words to match it.

One title per person only, please. Look, I know how over-excited some of you can get. So don’t go rushing into anything, OK?

The deadline for suggestions is tomorrow (Saturday) at 13:00 (UK time).

HANDY HINT: To save any wasted effort on your part, here are some examples of what not to suggest.

• “Are those curtains machine-washable?” – my most embarrassing sexual experience.
• “Shit for brains!” – the 10 most useless prats that I have ever worked with.
• “Automatics or gearboxes?” – a comparative study.
• “Man of the match!” – my greatest sporting achievement.
• “How did you get that texture into your dumplings?” – my most memorable culinary triumph.

Got the idea? OK, pitch!

1. That Charlotte Church EXCLUSIVE that I linked to a few hours ago? ‘Twas an ingenious hoax, apparently. All credit to PB Curtis for stirring just the right amount of plausibility into the brew.

2. I’m a bit flat and miserable today, so thanks to Cliff of This Is This for making me laugh out loud with two consecutive posts: Just A Cup (an anti-saucer rant), and Just A Coffee (an anti-milky coffee rant).

3. Cliff (eek, I just realised) and Olga aren’t their real names, you know. I mean, come on, really.

4. OK, a bit more detail, now that things are calming down a bit. My friend and colleague JP was hit by a bus, just outside the office in Hangzhou where I worked for three weeks last Christmas. He sustained head injuries, but following a series of CT scans, an operation has not been deemed necessary. His partner has flown out to join him, and they’re being transferred by air ambulance to a super-duper private hospital in Hong Kong on Saturday. dB in the Hangzhou office has been supplying me with regular updates on his condition, and has been doing a fantastic job all round. Alan at Reluctant Nomad has more details.

5. I’m doing mad amounts of music writing this week. A feature length album review for Stylus, which I’ll link to when it’s published. Two gig reviews for t’local paper so far (Bugz In The Attic on Monday, Hidden Cameras last night), and another tomorrow night (David Essex).

6. And as if three gigs in five nights wasn’t enough, I’m attending a proper grown-up Serious Music “recital” this evening: yer Steve Reichs, yer Terry Rileys, yer John Cages, that sort of thing. Talk about a busman’s holiday. (Note to self: avoid the Big Clapping which gave you away as an alien interloper last time round. For “recitals”, dainty little clappity-clappitys are the accepted order of the day.)

7. Today is quite an important date for K work-wise, but we don’t talk about such matters. I’m just leaving a reminder for myself in the archives, that’s all.

8. I’m currently trying out some new-fangled vari-focal gas permeable contact lenses. The methodology is still being developed, and so these kinds of lenses aren’t yet generally available for purchase. However, not having worn lenses at all for the past five or six weeks, I’m having difficulties with them. They’re also bigger and thicker than my old gas permeables, which makes them harder to get used to. I can see myself reverting to the standard models, and using reading glasses as and when necessary. It’s nice to be in the vanguard, but I’d rather be able to see properly, thanks all the same.

9. All I want to do right now is kick my shoes off, lie flat out on the sofa, and stare at whatever moronic telly happens to be on at the time while thinking about as little as possible – which is highly untypical, as I’m usually super-fussy about what I watch. (As a habitual Big Brother addict, I am well aware of the inherent irony of this last statement.) Anyway, I did this for all of ten minutes yesterday evening, and it felt wonderful. Cabbage therapy! Brilliant!

10. Why is it important to drag these lists out to ten items, anyway? I’ll fill this one in when I think of something. Don’t hold your breath.

Maintaining a personal blog sometimes feels a bit like being a contestant on Big Brother. With so much of our Big Important Stuff off-limits as subject matter, we end up wittering on about the colour of our socks, or the price of stamps, or the nice late summer weather that we’ve all been enjoying.

If Troubled Diva really did contain a full and accurate representation of the main events in my life, then you would be reading an altogether different set of posts. Sometimes, the frustration gets to me, such that I feel like digging a tiny virtual hole in the blogosphere and whispering into it – but then we all know what happened to silly old King Midas, don’t we?

The events of yesterday are a case in point. Suffice it to say that a friend is in intensive care on the other side of the world, but thankfully past the critical stage, and steadily improving. As a by-product of this, I found myself caught up in a complex network of e-mails, phone calls and texts, which saw me take on the role of central information bureau for a sizeable number of people, all desperate for up-to-date news. At the height of the drama, I was more or less constantly relaying messages for nearly three hours solid.

One thing which struck me about the experience is how calm, clear-headed, focussed and energised I became – to the extent that I actually started to get a peculiar kind of euphoric buzz. It was only during a short break in the proceedings, during which I nipped outside for a “calming” cigarette (the self-justifying delusions of the “social” smoker really do know no bounds), that I started getting what might be considered the more “appropriate” reactions: anxiety, shakiness, a lurching sense of dread. (There again, it might just have been the nicotine rush.)

Although I don’t tend to talk about this much, I do struggle, on a more or less daily basis, with a generalised, low-level, tired-all-the-time feeling. I guess it’s my default setting. So it did rather creep me out that it took a serious crisis to shake me out of my torpor, and that I was, in a certain sense, almost benefiting from someone else’s suffering.

(At this point, I should pause for a moment, in order to reassure you that many, many other more important and relevant thoughts were also passing through my brain at the same time. I might be a blogger, but I’m not that self-obsessed.)

I experienced the same sensation in late May and early June, in the immediate aftermath of the tragic loss of K’s sister. Again, there was a good reason: there was so much to be done, and so many people to support, and it turned out that I was actually quite good at staying calm under that kind of pressure – in which case, maybe that emotionally repressed boarding school upbringing did me some good after all.

I do understand where these spiritual energy surges come from, and why they have to happen. I’m also well aware of the human capacity for manufacturing guilt at times like these. I only wish that it didn’t take an event of this nature to send the blood coursing through my veins with such productive efficiency.

Get well soon, JP.

– While you were in the shower, I thought I’d save some time for later on – so I’ve packed your socks and pants for the weekend.

– Thank you. But did you pack my weekend socks?

– I don’t understand…

– Let me have a look. No, these are all wrong. You did this last week as well. Those are my boring weekday socks. Haven’t you ever noticed? I wear my multi-coloured stripey Paul Smith socks at weekends.

– Sorry, I’ll change them…

– Hang on, hang on – I still need a boring pair for Monday mornings. So that’s two pairs of stripey socks – plus one spare – and one pair of boring socks. Can you remember that in future, please?

– OK. What about pants? Do you have weekend pants?

– Of course. They’re the dark blue Turkish (*) ones, with the yellow lettering on the bum. They’re roomier than the others, so I can get nice and comfy and relaxed in them.

– So, you want your snazzy socks and your jazzy leisure pants?

– You got it. At the weekend, the Real Me comes alive. Goodbye, dull workaday drabness! Hello, SNAZZ!

(*) A friend of K’s parents owns an underwear factory in Turkey, so there are free samples to be blagged. God, we’re well connected.

Update: So, who did say what? The answer’s in the comments…

Now, I am fully aware that all the Hip Kids have been using Skype for, like, years. Not being so much of a Hip Kid myself, I have only just got round to installing it. Goodness, it really seems quite easy to use! What a relief!

Trouble is, I don’t actually have any Hip Kid friends who use Skype themselves. Nobody. Not one. So I’m stuck making test calls to the nice automated lady. I think she might be getting a little sick of me.

If you’re a Hip Kid and you’d like to be my Skype buddy, then please e-mail me. (I’d tell you my Skype User ID here and now, but I sense this might be Asking For It, in some as yet unknown way. Best to tread cautiously.)

1. No “proper” blog post today. Every well of inspiration needs the odd refill.

2. And definitely no fifth consecutive mention of Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror. Even the most severely thrashed of equestrian corpses must fall apart some time.

3. In lieu of the above, here’s something I prepared earlier: a feature-length review of the third Hidden Cameras album, AWOO. (Synopsis: still way above average, but in danger of running out of ideas. Plus I miss all the rude gay sex stuff.)

4. Still not satisfied? OK, here’s something which I knocked up last night: a gig review of The Victorian English Gentlemens Club (their lack of apostrophisation, not mine) for t’local paper. (There were times last night, perched on my own at the back of The Social, when I wondered whether there weren’t better ways of spending an evening. On the other hand, I’m committed to getting as good as I can get at doing this sort of stuff, and even a dull night can still make decent copy.)

So. Deal? Or no deal?

It’s not often that I am moved to write letters of complaint. A crap holiday cottage in Scotland and aggressively rude service in a Nottingham bar spring to mind, but that’s about it. Until today that is, when an article on the BBC news site sufficiently inflamed my ire.

Under the heading “Sky Mirror unveiled in Manhattan“, some anonymous hand at the BBC saw fit to say the following about Anish Kapoor’s sculpture:

“Kapoor said there were some “good conversations in progress” as to where it would be appearing next.”

“It has previously been placed in Nottingham, where it caused concern over whether it could set people or birds alight.”

Now, as I explained at some length yesterday (in the post directly below this one), the New York mirror is nought but a cheap knock-off of our own fine (and extremely expensive) original, still standing proud and tall outside Nottingham Playhouse. So what got my goat about the BBC article was the implication that the New York mirror was somehow the Sky Mirror. It’s not. It’s a Sky Mirror. There is a big difference.

So busy was I, working myself up into a froth of righteous outrage over this attempt to air-brush the Nottingham mirror out of history, that I clean forgot to get equally outraged over the second inaccurate assertion. I mean, honestly. We might be provincial, but we’re not totally thick. Spontaneous combustion of innocent passers-by was never one of our fears.

True, there was an issue surrounding pigeons – but the “danger zone”, as laboriously calculated and triangulated by the astronomical experts, was way above the heads of even our tallest citizens. A simple protective screen, mounted on the roof of the theatre, was all it took for danger to be averted.

Off went my e-mail. Less than a couple of hours later, I checked the BBC article again. Lo and behold! The text had been altered to read as follows:

“[Kapoor] has created a number of Sky Mirrors, the first of which was unveiled in Nottingham.”

Much more like it, I purred to myself, in satisfaction with an act of public service successfully executed.

However, the outrages were not yet over. I’ve been wondering why Anish Kapoor chose to replicate his Nottingham sculpture, six years after the fact – and in this article from the New York Times (hidden behind a registration wall, so good luck), maybe I’ve found my answer:

“…as Mr. Kapoor puts it, “I don’t think I’m done with it yet,” he decided to revisit the Nottingham “Sky Mirror” in more monumental form in New York.

“Who ever goes to Nottingham?” he added mischievously, when asked whether he worried about repeating himself. “Who’s ever seen it?”

Well, Mister La-Di-Dah Famous Artist, I’m only sorry that we weren’t good enough for you. Off you jolly well trot, then. I’m sure they’ll all love you in New York – but never forget the Little People who helped put you where you are today, eh?

We didn’t pay for a mere prototype, you know. We thought we were getting something unique for our £900,000. Ah well, that’s show business.

I’m not sure whether my home city can take many more of these indignities.

I never expected to mention Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror in three consecutive posts – but then, I have only just discovered that a third version of the sculpture was unveiled today, this time on Fifth Avenue in New York.

For once in our lives, we humble Nottingham folk are way, way ahead of you NYC hipsters. We’ve had a Sky Mirror in Nottingham since April 2001 – and what’s more, ours was the original, so yah boo sucks.

I have to say that this sudden mushrooming of mirrors has caught me off-guard, as I had always had the original version down as something of a misfire. For starters, the project ended up running many months overdue, and coming in some way over its original estimated budget. As I recall, there had been various problems with the manufacturing of the sculpture, as tiny but significant imperfections demanded correction in a variety of far-flung locations. (“It’s gone to Finland for extra polishing” was one of the excuses that sticks in my mind.)

When the Mirror finally arrived, a few days ahead of its official unveiling, I remember my initial awe being tempered by a certain measure of disappointment. As as a great admirer of Kapoor’s work, this was a bitter pill to swallow – but the work lacked the dramatic presence of some of his other major pieces, and I particularly disliked the slight but inescapable distortions in the reflections on either side of the dish. I had expected these reflections to be perfectly smooth, not broken up by the faint concentric circles that could be made out on the surface. Furthermore, I didn’t feel that the images produced in the reflections were of any great note: an inverted church spire on the concave side, and an empty paved area on the convex side. Was this really Nottingham’s answer to Antony Gormley’s Angel Of The North: an iconic must-see, that would bring tourism to the region? Well, hardly.

My suspicions were amplified when Kapoor failed to show at the opening ceremony, his place being taken by that well-known patron of the arts, the ex-boxer and panto regular Frank Bruno. Nevertheless, Bruno worked the crowd effectively on the afternoon itself. He had only accepted the gig on condition that no big speech was to be expected of him; rather, he would “mingle” with the invited dignatories, whose ranks were somehow swollen to include K and myself.

Thus it was that K came to feel a tap on his shoulder from behind. Pausing in mid-sentence, he looked behind, and some distance upwards, to see Bruno smiling back down at him.

“I just wanted to say, that’s a great suit you’re wearing. Makes you look very regal, hur hur hur!”

Well, one takes one’s compliments where one finds them.

Apart from the cost involved – £900,000 of public money, prompting all sorts of local outrage (“What’s that in school books and hospital beds?”) – the Mirror was also touched by controversy of a different kind. As the project’s own consultant astronomer himself warned:

“The mirror will focus light, just as does a magnifying glass, down to a particular point that moves as the sun moves.”

“You need to stop the sun from falling on it in the first place. If you don’t there’s a potential danger. Any pigeons which fly through the beam could be instantly barbecued.”

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed a subtle but significant re-alignment of my hour-by-hour visitor stats. As midnight approaches, there’s a pronounced upwards blip, as regular readers swing by to see whether I’ve met my self-imposed daily deadline. On some days, such as this one, it can be a close, nail-biting call. Especially when, after spending the entire evening slaving away over a feature-length album review for Stylus, I find myself quite, quite drained. Ah me, must they drag my words from the core of my very soul? What more do they want from me: blood? Blogging can be a harsh, pitiless mistress.

Nothing else of significance has happened today, it has to be said. The usual agonising start-of-week wrench away from the comforts of the cottage. (Why do Monday mornings in the Derbyshire Peak District have to be consistently f**king picturesque? Someone up there is mocking me.) A morning spent in fraught near-panic over a new and seemingly impenetrable work assignment, whose mysteries were kindly and patiently unlocked for me over the course of the afternoon. A lunchtime spent in the usual spot: basking in the windy sun-trap of the Playhouse courtyard, beneath Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror, alternately giggling and wincing over a hard copy of the last couple of months’ postings on the ever-magnificent Forksplit. (I like to save them up, and then indulge myself with a marathon splurge.)

After a whole month of four day weekends, this return to a five day working week still feels like a monstrous invasion of my freedom, and Friday still feels like an age away. Whatever shall I find to write about between now and then? Funny how these things always end up taking care of themselves.

Right then. Load the dishwasher, finish my beer (just the one tonight), and then bed, sweet bed. Some days, it can be a real struggle to force myself upstairs, as I have inherited the family penchant for the late evening Second Wind. But not tonight. Tonight, I can hardly wait.

(Photos taken yesterday afternoon at Chatsworth House, courtesy of dearest Dymbellina. I told you those dahlias were dazzling.)

HIT: Our second visit to The Bull’s Head at Ashford in the Water confirmed it as our new favourite country pub with food. I don’t want to say “gastropub”, as that’s not really what it aims to be – despite having been named one of the country’s ten best towards the end of last year. (By persons unknown, but a list’s a list for all that.) Rather, it’s an unassumingly traditional place, with no fancy decor, a straightforward chalkboard menu, no advance table reservations, quick service, and a fairly rapid turnover of tables: you arrive, you eat, you leave, but there’s no unseemly pressure to vacate your places, either. The welcome is an uncommonly warm one, the low-key buzz of the place puts everyone at their ease, and the food is flipping fantastic.

Last night, all four of us chose a minted pea mousse for starters: served warm, on a bed of watercress and rocket, with a spicy tomato sauce. There was nothing remotely showy-offy about it, and yet the clever combination of simple ingredients added up to something stimulating and new, yet wonderfully reassuring at the same time. My baked plaice came in a thick, creamy sauce, and was… hell, I can’t bloody well remember what it looked like, I was too busy enjoying it. Sheesh. The four of us (myself, K, Dymbel and Dymbellina) then shared two puddings: a something (with chocolate), and a something else (with pastry). They were both completely scrummy, and the fact that I can remember nothing else about them (apart from the pastry), should not be read as any sort of indictment. Whoever said that all memories should be catalogued for future reference, anyway?

MISS: Although, before their departure, Dymbel and Dymbellina expressed their wish to publicly disassociate themselves from my slaggings, I have to say that our lunchtime visit to the newly opened “Design Museum” (plus attendant café) at the David Mellor kitchenware shop and factory in Hathersage singularly failed to delight me.

For “museum”, read a single wall of display cabinets, plus a letter box, a rubbish bin, a few chairs, some bollards, traffic lights and a Pelican crossing. Mellor designed them all, you see. My word, but the geographic and functional re-contextualisation of the Pelican crossing… well, it made it look like a Pelican crossing, basically. Still, it was nice if you like looking at old knives and forks.

And many do, don’t get me wrong. It was just that I was hungry, and cranky, and in no mood for delayed gratification.

The attached caff looked stunning, granted: a beautiful row of tables and chairs against a long glass exterior wall, its panels opened to the warm afternoon sunshine, with divinely turned wooden benches spanning its length both inside and out. But, oh, the service. An age to take the order, and at least 35 minutes to bring it to the table – and we only wanted salads. It’s not even as if they were swamped with other food orders; we barely saw another table served while we waited. Then, the coffees: a cafetiere so weak at to be undrinkable, and a nasty, bitter espresso which perfectly matched my mood.

HIT: The gardens at Chatsworth house are currently playing host to an exhibition of modern and contemporary sculpture (yes Virginia, there is a difference), with works provided by the Sotheby’s auction house. All pieces are for sale – but God knows who’s going to be able to afford them, as this is serious stuff. Dali, Miro, Moore. Gormley, Hirst, Kapoor. Names, names, names, sweedie.

The positioning of the pieces around the extensive gardens is bold, ingenious, and frequently quite magical. A Gormley stick figure perches on the roof of the house itself; in the landscaped rock garden, a scaled down version of his “Angel Of The North” looks down on passers-by from either side. A custard yellow Keith Haring figure sits on the main lawn, with Robert Indiana’s bright red “LOVE” letters halfway up the water cascade behind it, and Damien Hirst’s intricately gruesome “Saint Bartholemew, Exquisite Pain” off to the left. Down by the canal pond and the Emperor fountain, there’s another miniature: this time, it’s Anish Kapoor’s “Sky Mirror”, looking even more effective than it does outside Nottingham Playhouse. At the pond’s end, Dale Chihuly’s “Sunset Boat” radiates bright yellows, oranges and reds: the colours of the bizarre glass objects which fill its hull.

It’s not all hits: Joan Miro’s slapdash assemblage “Femme Et Oiseau” causes me to coin the phrase “objets plonkées”, and the space-age optimism of Juan Dubuffet’s “Arbre Biplan” looks as tired and shabby as its cultural contemporary, Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. However the vast majority of pieces complement their settings so well, that you find yourself longing for them to remain there permanently.

(Oh, and the dahlia garden by the entrance to the maze is quite, quite dazzling, my dears; almost as good as the lupins of a couple of months ago.)

The exhibition runs until October 27th, and I commend it earnestly to the group.

Update (1): I agree with most of Richard Dorment’s review of the exhibition for the Telegraph (don’t miss the slideshow), with two major exceptions. Firstly, the Dali sculpture is not on the same axis as the Hirst; they’re at opposite ends of the garden, and the Dali is hidden up a narrow walkway. Secondly, I couldn’t disagree more with Dorment’s suggestion that Manzù’s seated cardinal should be swapped with Condo’s Miles Davis – the current location of both pieces suits them quite wonderfully.

Update (2): Justin has more photos: the LOVE, the Miles Davis and the Salvador Dali.

1. I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’.

The brilliance of this song, currently the Number One single in the UK, is to a large extent due to the way that it is made up entirely of “good bits”. What’s more, each separate “bit” is so good that, even as you’re enjoying it, a part of you is tingling with anticipation for the next “bit”. And it has two consecutive choruses, which is something of a masterstroke.

This is possibly the first single since Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is In The Heart” to enter that select canon of unassailable, Everybody To The Dance Floor Now, You Can’t Possibly Go Wrong, Wedding Disco Classics – and as such, expect it to be soundtracking Happiest Days Of Our Lives for at least the next thirty years. It’s also destined to be the hit for which the Scissor Sisters will always be remembered: their standard, their show-stopper, maybe even their albatross.

(That debut album, as fine as it was, was rather short on tracks which stood up as hit singles in their own right. Maybe that’s why we all got to the point where we couldn’t bear to hear “Take Your Mama Out” one – more – bloody – time – thank you.)

As the lead track from the album, “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin'” also sets a false trail. None of the twelve tracks which succeed it aspire to quite that level of unabashed celebratory glee (the plaintive melancholy of the lyrics notwithstanding) – or indeed, and let’s get this pesky little term out the way right now, campness. (Sigh.)

2. She’s My Man.

Which isn’t to say that some of them don’t come close. Stylistically, this is pitched somewhere between the Elton John of Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player/Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and that short-lived strain of “rock disco” which popped up in late 1983/early 1984 (Michael Sembello’s “Maniac”, The Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited”, that sort of thing). As indicated in the title, there’s also a healthy dollop of gender perversity – but you’ll search in vain to find much more in the way of obvious queerness during the rest of the album. Like The Hidden Cameras with Awoo, the Scissors appear to moving away from the arguable limitations of the sexual-orientation-specific, and towards a more general universality. Timid sell-out, or natural progression? Oh, I know which side of the fence I am with that one.

3. I Can’t Decide.

And with the crisply enunciated line “f**k and kiss you both at the same time” in the first verse, Ta-Dah automatically crosses itself off the list of nice jolly albums for the kids to sing along to during the School Run. Now who’s being timid?

As with so many songs on the first half of the album, there’s a yawning chasm between the carefree jauntiness of the music (here enlivened by a twanging Jews Harp, and Graeme Garden’s son on barrelhouse piano), and the bleak miserablism of Jake Shears’ lyrics. (“My heart feels dead inside; it’s cold and hard and petrified.”) As already alluded to in interviews, some deeply personal shit-storms are clearly being documented here. Unfortunately – and here’s another parallel with the Hidden Cameras – they’re sometimes couched in such private, personal language that it’s difficult to work out just what’s going on. However, the bitter vitriol on display here is hard to miss.

4. Lights.

An absolutely ravishing pastiche of mid-tempo Seventies-style pop-funk (“Couldn’t Get It Right” by the Climax Blues Band springs to mind), enlivened by sassy brass stabs from Bob Funk and Larry Etkin of the Uptown Horns, and lifted into another dimension by the immediately recognisable guitar/bass contributions of longtime Bowie collaborator Carlos Alomar (there are clear echoes of “Fame” in the opening bars of “Lights”). Alomar picks up a co-writer’s credit for his efforts, and it isn’t the last that we’ll be hearing from him.

5. Land Of A Thousand Words.

A surprising choice of future follow-up single, if the sticker on the front of the CD case is to be believed, as this is a big production ballad of the “Mary” school. It’s tedious to harp on about the Elton John comparisons – but really they’re inescapable here, both stylistically and in terms of Jake Shears’ vocal phrasings.

Once again, there’s a pronounced juxtaposition between words and music. While the music carries all the stock certainties of the Big Ballad, the lyrics describe a relationship whose future sounds far from certain. Shears and his lover appear to be hanging on by the skins of their teeth, not ready to give up just yet, but straining in opposite directions none the less.

Trouble is: this kind of material works best when everyone can access the emotions they describe. (Think “Victims”. Think “Angels”. Think “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”.) The impact of this song, lovely as it is, is severely diminished by its lyrical obtuseness. So we’re probably not looking at a second consecutive Number One.

6. Intermission.

In which the previous track’s tastefully restrained string arrangement from Joan Wasser (aka Joan As Policewoman) is cruelly superseded by the sumptuous orchestration on display here, as provided by no less a figure than Van Dyke Parks. Now that they are in a position to do so, the Scissors are choosing their famous collaborators wisely.

Speaking of which: here’s Dame Elton of John on piano again, fresh from tinkling the “old Joanna” on the album’s opener (and picking up another co-writing credit along the way, the greedy bitch).

For all the heavyweight talent on board (not to mention some glorious piano work from JJ “son of Graeme” Garden, rapidly emerging as Ta-Dah‘s unsung hero), “Intermission” styles itself as just that: a short, frivolous distraction, with vaudevillian nods to the likes of “When I’m 64”, Lou Reed’s “New York Telephone Conversation”, and some of Freddie Mercury’s camper (sorry!) moments on A Night At The Opera. And that would have been that, were it not for the continued bleak bite of the lyrics, which peak with the jaunty refrain of “Tomorrow’s not what it used to be, we were born to die, happy yesterday to all, we were born to die”.

It’s a turning point, of sorts.

7. Kiss You Off.

Actually, if Ta-Dah does have an interlude, then this is it. Scything through all of Jake’s accumulated angst over the first six tracks, pistol-packin’ mama Ana Matronic gets her one shot at a lead vocal: and she ain’t pussyfootin’ around, neither. Working an amusingly extended lipstick analogy, she declares “I’m gonna buy me a new shade of man”, and “it’s standing room only for a piece of my pigment”. You Go Girl, etc etc.

However. The Goldfrappy schaffel-stomp of the rhythm track is watered down to the point of inspidity, the song overruns by at least a minute and a half, and Matronic, deeply lovely as she is (we’ve met twice, and I adored her on both occasions) simply doesn’t have the requisite vocal authority. Occupying a similar tonal range to her co-vocalist, Matronic cannot help but come across as Shears Lite.

Maybe mindful of this fact, Stuart Price has been drafted in, fresh from the triumph of Confessions On A Dance Floor, solely to provide something called “additional vocal production”. Hmm. It might have worked for Madge, but all the “treatments” in the world can’t supply the presence which “Kiss You Off” inescapably lacks.

(God, I feel horrible for saying that.)

8. Ooh.

Having reached the pits of despair, and with Ana having crisply dispatched the source of the problem on Jake’s behalf (she’s good to him like that), we’re now climbing up the other side, and back into the light. And so, at last, here’s a straightforwardly happy party tune, free from any contradictory undercurrents. It’s nifty, it’s frisky, it’s funky, it’s the Bee Gees with a dash of Prince, and it’s Ta-Dah‘s nearest equivalent to “Filthy/Gorgeous”. F**k art, let’s dance, etc etc.

9. Paul McCartney.

Actually, scratch that thought immediately: with its speedy two-note electronic bass throb, this is Ta-Dah‘s nearest equivalent to “Filthy/Gorgeous”. (I told you that these were rough tasting notes.) Carlos Alomar and the Uptown Horns are back, although their presence isn’t quite as keenly felt as earlier.

Shears, you sense, is getting his shit together here. “There’s an urgency I’m feeling for the first time”, he tells us, in the song’s opening line. “Do we dream about each other at the same time?”, he muses, with a giddy optimism that is sustained for the rest of the song.

None of which explains its central mystery: why, pray, is the song named after Mister Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft? “Intermission” I could have understood – but not this one, not at all. Someone needs to ask, don’t they?

10. The Other Side.

Now, what was I saying about other sides? The soft disco chug of the guitar echoes “Comfortably Numb”, just some of Jake’s phrasing echoes that of Roger Waters – but that’s where the comparisons end. Instead, this is a tender declaration of love, made all the more tender by the lower, more confidential register that Jake adopts, in one of the album’s best vocal performances. There’s still a sense of distance between the singer and his lover – between the Big Star and the Ordinary Guy, perhaps? – but unlike “Land Of A Thousand Words”, Jake is trying to accommodate the inevitable gap, and to bridge it as best he can.

Oh, and if we’re going to invite our new famous friends along for the ride, then we might as well go the whole hog and rope in Judy Bloody Garland, sweedie. Yes, you heard. 500 extra Camp Points duly awarded. Oops!

11. Might Tell You Tonight.

The natural companion piece to “The Other Side”, this continues in much the same vein of tender romanticism, with Shears retaining that same intimate lower register, and now plucking up the courage to declare his undying love for his new-found beloved. The effect is genuinely touching (or at least it is if you’re an old softy like me), and the song has enough directness and universality to be adopted as an “Our Tune” for any number of courting couples, of any orientation that you might care to mention. If they wanted a change of pace for the second single, then maybe they should have gone with this one instead. (Or maybe they’re holding it back for Saint Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t put it past them.)

12. Everybody Wants The Same Thing.

With our emotional journey complete, all we need now is the Big Anthem at the end – and this number, first performed at Live 8 in 2005, duly obliges in spades. Having learnt his life lessons, Shears now turns to face us, his audience – and he’s got some Big Questions to ask of us, hoo yes indeed. Yup, it’s a Message Song – and hence maybe not to everyone’s taste, but I find it rather uplifting, in a self-helpy Pick Up Thy Bed And Walk kind of way. Then again, I’m easily led like that.

Bonus Track: Transistor.

Oh, please. Do you want me to do all the work for you? Our friends have arrived, and it’s time to go and make them feel welcome.

But if you’re still wondering whether to purchase Ta-Dah on Monday lunchtime: Mike Troubled Diva, he say Go For It. This is going to be inescapable over the next few months, so you might as well start getting used to it.

“Show me your motions, tra la la la la…”

Yes, well. Let’s just leave it there, before too many thoughts of brown wotsits in the ring intrude. One wouldn’t want to Go Too Far.

Just be grateful I didn’t start riffing on this weekend’s other crap pun:
Partum Perineum (The Gentleman’s Relish).
Look, it was FUNNY IN THE PUB, OK?

Yes, it’s the inevitable Contractual Obligation holding post, written at great speed, purely to avoid the ignominious fate of being cast as Clapped Out Has Been in perpetuity.

A bitch of a day, redeemed in just two ways. Firstly, my mood has lifted immensely after popping in for Early Doors at the Red Lion at Hognaston, en route to the cottage. Early Doors (#65) + Marston Pedigree (#6) + first sight of village (#5) = Temporary Abatement Of Self-Invented Angst. A simple equation for a simple soul.

Secondly, I am now the proud owner of an official advance promo copy of the new Scissor Sisters album, Ta-Dah. I’ve just played it for the second time, and fear not, ’tis a good ‘un. I was hoping to blog some rough tasting notes for you this evening, but time constraints mean it ain’t gonna happen just yet. In the meantime, you can listen to it for yourselves – legally, mind – via the band’s Myspace page, available via the link on the right. K says he’s disappointed with it, but I think he’s wrong.

OK, dinner’s on the table. Ooh, dressed crab. I’ll have me some of that!

Catch y’all on the morrow, peeps.

1. Paul Smith shirts.
2. Fat buds on roses.
3. BLTs with slices of hard boiled egg, and plenty of mayo.
4. Audrey Hepburn.
5. The first sight of the village on Friday evenings.
6. Marston’s Pedigree.
7. K’s cooking.
8. Clambering into freshly laundered bed linen.
9. Trashy tarty looking men, who aren’t quite aware of it.
10. The puppy-dog enthusiasm of young posh people.
11. Crossing the threshold with a Bridget Riley.
12. Saint-Véran and Viré-Clessé.
13. Fast wireless broadband.
14. Doing a really good beat-mix on Mixmeister.
15. Pub fish and chips.
16. The perfect communion of shared laughter.
17. Introducing the right people to each other, and watching them hit it off.
18. Re-reading an old blog post, and discovering that it still stands up.
19. Man cleavage.
20. Shaved backs of necks.
21. Pruning the geraniums.
22. Agas.
23. Contemporary ceramics.
24. Semi-abstracted landscapes.
25. Thirst-inducing tulips.
26. Blowsy dahlias.
27. Salacious gossip, safely shared.
28. Al fresco sandwiches at Cast Deli.
29. Hitting Send on a gig review.
30. The comforting orderliness of iTunes.
31. Meeting other bloggers.
32. Jon Ronson’s column in Guardian Weekend.
33. Boiled eggs on weekend mornings, with Gentleman’s Relish on toast.
34. Powell & Pressburger.
35. Choosing presents.
36. Active listening.
37. The total elimination of homophobia as acceptable behaviour in mainstream British society.
38. Everything neatly put away.
39. Art fairs.
40. Dressing up for a smart meal.
41. The creative brain-fizz of a happy hangover.
42. Being a good drunk.
43. A catchy tune with a good beat to it.
44. The rolling twenty-year echo in my head.
45. Making social plans in London.
46. K in his best clothes, leaving the house for a meeting.
47. Getting in on the guest list.
48. Dancing round the kitchen to my new favourite song, knowing that no-one is watching.
49. Discovering things before everybody else does.
50. Spreadsheets.
51. Making people laugh.
52. Snappy phrases which appear from nowhere.
53. Serendipity.
54. Fulfilling a fantasy, then ticking it off.
55. The equidistance of being in one’s forties.
56. Finding common ground with a bright, eager teenager.
57. Finding common ground with a gently subversive pensioner.
58. Freedom from desire.
59. Empathetic feedback loops.
60. Ridiculously tenuous name-dropping.
61. Pop trivia quizzes.
62. An unexpected compliment from someone you admire.
63. Friday nights in front of the fire, decent telly and a good bottle of red.
64. The Social and the Rescue Rooms.
65. Friday early doors.
66. David Sedaris.
67. Classic Al Green.
68. Flirting.
69. Harvest moons.
70. Five-star luxury with a human face.
71. Being a pair of right snarky little madams, knowing that no-one is listening.
72. Cracking the surface of a foreign city.
73. Being in the right place at the right time.
74. Good manners.
75. People who don’t claim to have all the answers.
76. Doing a really good poo, with a cup of tea and a newspaper.
77. Molton Brown (talk about guilty pleasures).
78. Everyhit, YouTube and Wikipedia.
79. Innocent smoothies.
80. Six Feet Under.
81. Horse Meat Disco.
82. Tate Modern.
83. Eurovision.
84. CBT.
85. Seven-mile hikes.
86. Pho for breakfast.
87. Umami.
88. Freshly grated Parmesan.
89. Being the centre of attention.
90. Being part of the gang.
91. Sitting back and letting everyone else do the talking.
92. “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing“.
93. That secret blog that I’m not allowed to tell you about.
94. Friends becoming successful.
95. English wit.
96. The trash aesthetic.
97. The love of my man.
98. The hunky plumber off Desperate Housewives.
99. Bursting into tears during Desert Island Discs.
100. An extra hour in bed.