Category: Archive

It’s a strange omission, considering that there was a huge horse chestnut tree in our garden when I was growing up – but until tonight, I had never played a game of conkers. For me, it was always a spectator sport: something which I enjoyed watching in the school playground at this time of year – but, well, it was a sport, wasn’t it? I never was a one for sport, no matter how loose the definition.

Oh, I used to gather conkers, and jealously hide them in little stashes in the garden where the village kids couldn’t find them (they were always breaking and entering, and it made me slightly cross), but I never knew what to do with them once they were gathered. It involved sharp objects, you see – tools, most probably – and I wasn’t much of a one for tools, either. It was a “get a grown-up to help you” scenario, and I didn’t quite like to ask.

So when the subject came up this evening, I suddenly found myself possessed of a strong desire to right this great historical wrong. “Let’s go and get some now!”, I urged a somewhat puzzled looking K, in an all too rare attack of mid-evening spontaneity.

Off we went, peering our way down the gas-lit crescent unti we found a stash, just beyond the first crossroads to the right of the house. Well, until K found a stash, his conker-gathering instincts being more sharply honed than mine.

Back in the kitchen, I let K do the manly stuff with a meat skewer and some lengths of string.

“Hey, we could video our match and put it on YouTube!”, I chirped, eagerly.

“I am NOT playing conkers on the world wide web”, he retorted, crisply.

K gave me first dibs on choosing my conker. I went for the small shrivelled gnarly one, as I remembered that the large glossy ones were always the first to fall apart.

I was then given instructions on technique: instructions which I found quite baffling.

“No, you’re assuming knowledge”, I huffed. “You’ve got to take it from first principles. So I hold it like… no… well, WHAT then? Like that? But how’s that going to… well, you show me first, then I’ll copy you.”

K’s first shots were of a terrifying physical force. I never knew he was so butch. “You’ll have somebody’s eyes out! Is it safe? Shouldn’t I be wearing protective clothing? A rubber armband or something?”

As it turned out, I did need protection. For every shot which hit – or rather, gently tapped – at K’s conker, there were two or three more which missed it entirely, sending my conker smashing into my wrist.

“Look, I’m bruising. This is a vicious sport! Why was it never banned? OK, I’m getting a tea-towel and wrapping it round my… stop LAUGHING, will you!”

My only saving grace was the impermeable hardness of my chosen conker. No matter how hard K smashed into it, he couldn’t force so much as a hairline fissure. Eventually, his own conker started to crumble.

“Look, you’re winning”, he smiled, indulgently.

“Oh, don’t give me that. Are you deliberately cheating to let me win, like my grandmother used to do when we played cards?”

Ten minutes and dozens of queeny yelps later, K’s conker had flaked all over the kitchen floor.

“You’ve got a one-er there, Mike. If you win again, it will be a two-er.”

But the fight had gone out of me. This was just further confirmation, if any were needed, that I’m just not cut out for one-to-one combat.

Conkers, pah. ‘S for kids innit?

Nursing our wounds, we padded off to watch telly.

Hooray, it’s another lists-in-lieu-of-content, let’s-create-arbitrary-order-from-randomness-because-it-feels-good post!

I’ve weighted these lists as even-handedly as possible between objective and subjective considerations, and between “loved them at the time” and “didn’t discover them until later in life”. However, they’re basically subjective lists, because who wants to read some boring would-be tablets of stone anyway? We’ve got Q magazine for that!

Each list goes down until it feels right to stop, i.e. when some notional threshold of quality is reached. There’s no point in padding things out with crap to get to a nice round number, is there?

Some of these albums are compilations, which I have included (or indeed excluded) for all sorts of highly complicated and very boring personal reasons. If their presence offends you, then please delete and re-number accordingly.

OK, let’s tabulate!

1979:

1. Metal Box – Public Image Ltd
2. The Undertones – The Undertones
3. Off The Wall – Michael Jackson
4. Singles Going Steady – Buzzcocks
5. London Calling – The Clash
6. Broken English – Marianne Faithfull
7. Armed Forces – Elvis Costello
8. Fear Of Music – Talking Heads
9. Three Imaginary Boys – The Cure
10. Do It Yourself – Ian Dury
11. Unknown Pleasures – Joy Division
12. The Specials – The Specials
13. Eat To The Beat – Blondie
14. The Roches – The Roches
15. The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle – Sex Pistols
16. Setting Sons – The Jam

1978:

1. This Year’s Model – Elvis Costello
2. Music For 18 Musicians – Steve Reich
3. The Modern Dance – Pere Ubu
4. Parallel Lines – Blondie
5. The Scream – Siouxsie and the Banshees
6. Ambient 1: Music for Airports – Brian Eno
7. Another Music in a Different Kitchen – Buzzcocks
8. More Songs About Buildings and Food – Talking Heads
9. C’est Chic – Chic
10. Germfree Adolescents – X-Ray Spex
11. All Mod Cons – The Jam
12. Sir Henry at Rawlinson End – Viv Stanshall
13. Love Bites – Buzzcocks
14. Destiny – The Jacksons

1977:

1. Low – David Bowie
2. The Clash – The Clash
3. Aja – Steely Dan
4. New Boots & Panties – Ian Dury
5. Lust For Life – Iggy Pop
6. Leave Home – Ramones
7. Never Mind The Bollocks – Sex Pistols
8. Trans Europa Express – Kraftwerk
9. Live Etc – Gong
10. Zombie – Fela Kuti
11. Pink Flag – Wire
12. Saturday Night Fever (original soundtrack)
13. Rocket To Russia – Ramones
14. Rumours – Fleetwood Mac
15. Love You – The Beach Boys
16. Marquee Moon – Televison
17. Suicide – Suicide
18. One World – John Martyn
19. Damned Damned Damned – The Damned
20. Rock ‘N’ Roll With The Modern Lovers – Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers

1976:

1. Black & Blue – Rolling Stones
2. Rastaman Vibration – Bob Marley & The Wailers
3. Ramones – Ramones
4. Odd Ditties – Kevin Ayers
5. Songs In The Key Of Life – Stevie Wonder
6. Shamal – Gong
7. Music From The Penguin Cafe – Penguin Cafe Orchestra
8. Stupidity – Doctor Feelgood
9. Good Morning – Daevid Allen & Euterpe
10. Station To Station – David Bowie
11. Howlin’ Wind – Graham Parker & The Rumour
12. Olias Of Sunhillow – Jon Anderson
13. Hejira – Joni Mitchell
14. Desire – Bob Dylan
15. Yes We Have No Mananas, So Get Your Mananas Today – Kevin Ayers
16. Teenage Depression – Eddie & The Hot Rods
17. Heat Treatment – Graham Parker & The Rumour
18. Wind & Wuthering – Genesis

1975:

1. Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
2. The Hissing Of Summer Lawns – Joni Mitchell
3. Live – Bob Marley & The Wailers
4. A Night At The Opera – Queen
5. Horses – Patti Smith
6. There’s No Place Like America Today – Curtis Mayfield
7. Venus And Mars – Wings
8. Ommadawn – Mike Oldfield
9. Zuma – Neil Young
10. Indiscreet – Sparks
11. The Rotters’ Club – Hatfield & The North
12. Sweet Deceiver – Kevin Ayers
13. 24 Carat Purple – Deep Purple
14. Discreet Music – Brian Eno
15. Young Americans – David Bowie
16. Lady June’s Linguistic Leprosy – Lady June
17. Ricochet – Tangerine Dream
18. V – Various Artists (Virgin sampler)
19. Velvet Donkey – Ivor Cutler
20. The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table – Rick Wakeman

1974:

1. Inspiration Information – Shuggie Otis
2. Grievous Angel – Gram Parsons
3. Court & Spark – Joni Mitchell
4. Veedon Fleece – Van Morrison
5. Kimono My House – Sparks
6. Feats Don’t Fail Me Now – Little Feat
7. Queen II – Queen
8. Autobahn – Kraftwerk
9. Diamond Dogs – David Bowie
10. Waterloo – Abba
11. The Hoople – Mott The Hoople
12. The Psychomodo – Cockney Rebel
13. Fulfillingness’ First Finale – Stevie Wonder
14. Natty Dread – Bob Marley & The Wailers
15. Pretzel Logic – Steely Dan
16. Old New Borrowed and Blue – Slade
17. Propaganda – Sparks
18. The Confessions of Doctor Dream and Other Stories – Kevin Ayers
19. Before The Flood – Bob Dylan
20. Tales from Topographic Oceans – Yes
21. You – Gong
22. June 1, 1974 – Ayers/Cale/Nico/Eno
23. Caught Up – Millie Jackson
24. Sheer Heart Attack – Queen
25. Now We Are Six – Steeleye Span
26. Relayer – Yes
27. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Rick Wakeman

1973:

1. The Dark Side Of The Moon – Pink Floyd
2. Innervisions – Stevie Wonder
3. Selling England By The Pound – Genesis
4. Call Me – Al Green
5. Bananamour – Kevin Ayers
6. Solid Air – John Martyn
7. Angel’s Egg – Gong
8. The Singles 1969-1973 – The Carpenters
9. Let’s Get It On – Marvin Gaye
10. Flying Teapot – Gong
11. The Human Menagerie – Cockney Rebel
12. Tubular Bells – Mike Oldfield
13. Stranded – Roxy Music
14. Band On The Run – Wings
15. Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player – Elton John
16. Aladdin Sane – David Bowie
17. Sladest – Slade
18. The Plan – The Osmonds
19. Matching Tie and Handkerchief – Monty Python
20. GP – Gram Parsons
21. Masterpiece – The Temptations

1972:

1. Close To The Edge – Yes
2. Whatevershebringswesing – Kevin Ayers
3. Ege Bamyasi – Can
4. Talking Book – Stevie Wonder
5. Transformer – Lou Reed
6. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars – David Bowie
7. Saint Dominic’s Preview – Van Morrison
8. Clear Spot – Captain Beefheart
9. Foxtrot – Genesis
10. Individually & Collectively – Steeleye Span
11. Harvest – Neil Young
12. Below The Salt – Steeleye Span

1971:

1. Camembert Electrique – Gong
2. Hunky Dory – David Bowie
3. What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye
4. Fragile – Yes
5. Tapestry – Carole King
6. Blue – Joni Mitchell
7. There’s A Riot Goin’ On – Sly & the Family Stone
8. Mythical Kings And Iguanas – Dory Previn
9. The Yes Album – Yes
10. Tupelo Honey – Van Morrison
11. Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy – The Who
12. Meddle – Pink Floyd
13. Led Zeppelin IV – Led Zeppelin
14. Bananamoon – Daevid Allen

1970:

1. Shooting At The Moon – Kevin Ayers & the Whole World
2. Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon & Garfunkel
3. Moondance – Van Morrison
4. Greatest Hits – Sly & the Family Stone
5. Andy Williams’ Greatest Hits – Andy Williams
6. Atom Heart Mother – Pink Floyd
7. After The Goldrush – Neil Young

Over to you. What other 1970s album should I have included? Tell me in the comments, please…

Final update: Tuesday late night.

A few days ago, I said this in the comments:

Strange as it may seem, I’m not listening to much recorded music at present. The iPod is bust, and I’m seeing a lot of live music right now (how else does one get to listen to analog?), and spare time is often spent researching the acts I’m reviewing. Plus I’m going through a phase of enjoying silence – which is a bit like when Iggy Pop went sober, explaining that it was the one thing left that he’d never tried…

Of course, these things are comparative; by most normal people’s standards, I’m still devouring new music by the crateful. With that in mind, let us take a random peek into my current crate (actually an orange shoebox, which follows me from Nottingham to Derbyshire and back), and see what we can find.

Note 1: None of what follows is ordered by personal preference. These are merely the CDs which got picked out of the crate first.

Note 2: Artist links are to Myspace pages, wherever possible. This will generally allow you to sample a few tracks off each of the albums. If there’s no Myspace page, then the link will take you to YouTube instead.

Note 3: I’ll gradually be adding albums to the end of this post, as I get the time to write about them.

The Eraser – Thom Yorke.

After the let-down of Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief, I wasn’t going to bother with this one at all, until repeated listenings to “Harrodown Hill” made me change my mind. Personally, I think this is Yorke’s best work since Kid A – as long as you can accept the incessant whining, that is.

(Feeling nervous at a party a few years ago, I once found myself trying to describe Yorke’s vocal style as “I want a toffee apple”. The puzzled looks can still make me wince to this day. That’s actually, physically, wince. I’m not talking figuratively.)

Once the whining has been absorbed and compartmentalised, the other elements in the music can start to take effect, such as the skittering funkiness of the electronics, and the intricate syncopated tickle of the rhythm tracks. This is great Saturday morning hangover music, ideal for scratching the itches of a gently fuzzed over brain. Best dressed album sleeve of the year, as well. (I am old enough to remember when music magazines still had “best dressed album sleeve” categories in their annual Readers’ Polls. Roger Dean must surely lament their passing.)

Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor – Lupe Fiasco.

You know what I was saying about being alienated by 90% of current commercial hip-hop? Well, this belongs with the other 10%, in the bag marked (albeit by snarkier souls than I) “Hip-Hop For People Who Don’t Like Hip-Hop”. Move over, Outkast and Kanye West! There’s a new “conscious”, “thoughtful” rapper in town!

Friendly Fire – Sean Lennon.

His first release in eight years, and a move away from typically 1990s Beck/Beastie Boys eclecticism, towards a more conventional songwriting style. Ace arranger and soundtrack artist Jon Brion has been drafted into the project, but not even his skills are enough to save this unsurprisingly under-par bunch of mid-tempo, moderately earnest, mildly woeful, totally forgettable scraps of well-intentioned but hopelessly unfocussed nothingnesses, which merely come across as the disengaged doodlings of someone who has never really needed to struggle. OK, so it’s easy to project that kind of easy criticism on the poor chap, who is never going to be able to escape the weight of his parental legacy – but Lennon Junior’s reedy, weedy dilution of his father’s singing voice doesn’t exactly help you to place much useful distance between the two.

Update: OK, so there’s a good deal more substance to it than that: the album documents the real-life disintegration of a love affair, as Lennon loses his girlfriend to one of his best mates. However, the burgeoning vengefulness (“You’re gonna get what you deserve”) of the opening song “Dead Meat” is nipped in the bud, as the close friend is promptly killed in a motorcycle accident a week after the song is written about him. (Um, instant karma anyone?) What follows is an exercise in muted, melancholy regret, with the mild-mannered, self-effacing Lennon unable to give vent to darker, wilder emotions. However, neither the songwriting nor the vocal performance are strong enough to sustain the concept. The Marc Bolan cover “Would I Be The One” almost cracks the veneer towards the end, but it’s still too little, too late.

Someone To Drive You Home – The Long Blondes.

I’ve had half an eye on this Sheffield band ever since a sharp-antennaed pal in the biz tipped them for future success, around 18 months ago. Last year’s limited release single “Appropriation (By Any Other Means)” was fantastic, all the “right” people have been raving about them, they sound great on paper… but this, on the strength of just two listens, comes as something of a let-down. I’m surprised that Pulp’s Steve Mackey was involved with the production, as it’s the production which intially disappoints: it’s too generically indie-dour, and could have used some added studio zing and sparkle. Also, where has all the promised art-school wit and sassiness gone? Basically, I was expecting Blondie but I got Sleeper instead. (K’s comment: “I don’t see the point in this album”.)

I might yet be wrong, though. If it turns out that I am, then I’ll be back here with a more positive update.

Ege Bamyasi – Can. (1972)

“What’s that you’re playing?”, I asked K on Friday night, after he had picked me up from the office (a rare, serendipitous treat).

“Aha! You don’t know it, do you?”

“But you don’t buy rock… go on, who is it?”

Several guesses and several huge hints later, I settled on Can. K’s musical tastes are a frequent source of surprise to me. Just as I think I have him pegged, he shifts the goalposts. There was the Northumbrian Folk phase of a few months ago (Rachel Unthank, Kathryn Tickell), and then the unexpected surge of enthusiasm for the Young Knives: the first guitar band since the Arctic Monkeys in which K has expressed anything other than bored disdain.

As there has long been a massive Can-shaped gap in my musical knowledge, this is a welcome arrival. What strikes me first of all is how little the music sounds rooted in the early 1970s. It stands outside of time, ahead of its time: timeless. It’s also more physical, less esoteric – funkier – than I was expecting. I want to hear Tago Mago next. And then a bit of Neu.

Boulevard De L’Independance – Toumani Diabate’s Symmetric Orchestra.

Recorded at the same time as Ali Farka Toure’s Savane, in a mobile studio at the Hotel Bamako, on the banks of the River Niger in Mali, I envision this lot as manning the night-shift, while Ali Farka’s crew worked the day-shift. In this day vs. night respect, the two albums complement each other well. This is kora-led West African dance music, upbeat and richly arranged, and a departure from the unadorned contemplative stuff with which I have always associated Diabate before now.

Incidentally, BBC4 are currently repeating The African Rock And Roll Years, which opened last week with a look at Mali and Senegal. Acts included Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal, Orchestra Baobab, a surprisingly campy Salif Keita, and indeed Toumani Diabate. The next show airs on Wednesday October 11 at 7pm, and will be looking at the development of South African music during the apartheid years. Highly recommended, particularly if you don’t know much about African music and would like a comprehensive crash course.

Milkwhite Sheets – Isobel Campbell.

Another promo; this doesn’t come out until October 23rd. Considering that Isobel Campbell must still be basking in the critical and commercial glow of her recent Mercury Music Prize nomination (for her album of duets with Mark Lanegan), then this is a brave move indeed. These are stripped down Old English folk songs, many of them re-arrangements of traditional numbers, and most with dark/gloomy/morbid undertones. (I want to say “noir”, but I’m not quite that pretentious.) Campbell’s high, frail, fractured voice combines oddly with the genre. On the one hand, I feel she’s over-reaching herself technically; hers is a rough indie voice, not a trained folk voice. On the other hand, maybe that’s the whole point. I suspect that the 4AD/Dead Can Dance art-goth brigade will warm to this one, even if it is destined not to be a major commercial breakthrough.

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And here’s the rest of the current crate, with pithy capsule reviewlets.

Voices Of Animals And Men – Young Knives.

Straight-up, concise, snappy, choppy, song-based mainstream indie, with enough interesting ideas to set it apart. The best of its kind since the Arctic Monkeys?

I Cry Demolition! – Punish The Atom.

A local band who have just split up. This was shoved into my hand outside The Social last week, by one of the former band members. (Either he had a load of spare copies to shift, or else he mistook me for a man of influence.) Noisy post-post-post-punk. Usual influences, but decent enough.

Through The Windowpane – Guillemots.

I have tried, and I have failed. They should work on paper, but they don’t in practice. Too clever-clever, lacks focus, and I really don’t like the harshly abrasive widescreen-epic bits.

Ta-Dah – Scissor Sisters.

Now that the initial “Woo, I’ve got a promo!” excitement has subsided (I need to watch out for that in future), I find myself undecided. (Ooh, Track 3!) I miss the electro-disco, my tolerance level for vaudeville is low – but I have no issue with the 1970s AOR-pop influences. Part of me says the songs aren’t strong enough – but when half the songs have turned into unshakeable earworms, I have to question that.

Back In The Doghouse – Bugz In The Attic.

Like a funkier, mellower Basement Jaxx, with added 1980s soul/funk influences. A good getting-ready-to-go-out album, and also a good all-back-to-mine album. In other words, it sets an “up” mood, without really standing up to close scrutiny (as the grooves have a habit of overpowering the songs). The new single, a fun re-working of Yarborough & Peoples’ “Don’t Stop The Music”, may raise their profile considerably.

Desire – Bob Dylan. (1976)

K’s other surprise Friday purchase (“I’m a twenty-three quid bloke!”), and the only Dylan studio album I’ve ever liked. (The mid-1970s live set Before The Flood also has nostalgic attractions.) The driving fiddle on “Hurricane”, the carefree syncopation of “Mozambique”, the melodic loveliness of “Sara” – it’s as good-time as Dylan ever gets (at least in my shallow, can’t-be-arsed-to-follow-the-lyrics understanding of the man), and hence it’s the only Dylan for me.

Let’s Get Out Of This Country – Camera Obscura.

Nice tuneful Glaswegian indie-pop, from a bunch of self-evidently pleasant and well-adjusted nice young people. Which sounds horribly damning-with-faint-praise snarky, except… well, it actually works very well, with a beguiling warmth and heart to it. A few people from the Peter Bjorn & John album are also involved with this one, and the two pieces of work are a good match for each other.

CSS – Cansei De Ser Sexy.

OK, so it’s something of a shambling mess, from a bunch of Brazilian art-school pranksters who could barely play their instruments when they formed the band – but there’s a rough, good-natured charm to it, and a sense that personal limits are being pushed. Contains another of my favourite singles of the year: “Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above”.

The Warning – Hot Chip.

Having originally dismissed it out of hand as ugly, noisy, jarring and all over the place – and hence not a patch on the languid, low-fi, beer-and-smokes-on-a-summer-afteroon charms of their previous album – I am coming to accept that this might well be this year’s slowest grower. “Over And Over” has just been re-released as a single, and I suspect that it’s going to do rather better this time around.

Real Life – Joan As Policewoman.

Look, you just need to buy this, OK? It’s going to be neck-and-neck between Joanie and Ali Farka Toure at end-of-the-year list-making time, that much I do know.

Son – Juana Molina.

Tenderly strummed Argentinian folksiness, underpinned by lightly dissonant electronics. Haunting and atmospheric. Quiet unhurried mornings, and lonesome late nights in.

We Are The Pipettes – The Pipettes.

Some cool retro-girl-group singles, but too shrill and wacky over an entire album, like eating a bag of sickly sweeties all in one go. Also, a bit too Brighton for me, if you know what I mean. (You don’t, do you? Well, never you mind.)

Stadium Arcadium – Red Hot Chili Peppers.

By The Way was my guilty pleasure, but this sprawling monstrosity of a double album kills its memory stone dead. UGH. WHAT WAS I THINKING? Also boasts the ugliest album sleeve in living memory, which doesn’t help.

Old New Borrowed And Blue – Slade. (1974)

A re-mastered re-issue, and a joyous reunion with an album I loved and lost many years ago. There was always more to Slade than “Skweeze Me Pleeze Me” and “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”, and this shows them starting to get it back, after nearly losing their way to reductive formula. (Of course, the hits didn’t last much longer either, but theirs was a graceful, dignified fading away.)

Norman Jay MBE presents Good Times 6.

(Ooh, get him with his “MBE”, yes yes, great honour and all that, but there’s no need to flaunt it quite so brazenly.)

The appearance of the latest Good Times set every August, just ahead of the Notting Hill Carnival, is becoming one of the (cliché alert but it’s LATE and I want BED) highlights of the musical calendar (SORRYSORRYSORRY). I could have lived without “Rock The Casbah” and “The Israelites” yet again, but the likes of Lena Horne’s “Maybe I’m Amazed”, Pentangle’s “Light Flight” and Chris Montez’s “The More I See You” at the start of CD2 more than compensate.

1000 Years of Popular Music / Front Parlour Ballads – Richard Thompson.

My K’s on a Thommo kick right now – which surprises me (again), but when he’s happy, I’m happy. WHAT a guitarist that man is.

White Bread Black Beer – Scritti Politti.

Ooh! I forgot I had this! Much better than I thought it was going to be. Can I go to bed yet?

Show Me How The Sceptres Dance – Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family.

I haughtily ignored this on promo, but Hg tells me I should give it another chance, so I will. Right, that’s it. BED.

We now return you to your regular programming.

If you still haven’t decided what to do with your crop of quinces this year (and God knows, we’ve agonised), then help is at hand! K and I are here to tell you how to convert your quinces into “membrillo”: a delicious paste, which can be enjoyed with cold meats and cheeses.

K says that you’ll need to set aside about an hour for the main work – but I think you’ll need a little longer than that, as we got all the way through Joe.My.God’s “morning music” playlist, and the first half of the Bugz In The Attic album.

You will need: quinces, caster sugar, cinnamon sticks (optional).

1. First, gather your quinces. You can safely discard the tiny knobbly runty yellow ones; they’re neither use nor ornament.

2. As quince-washing is too dreary a task for the likes of you or me to contemplate, why not get a well-meaning visitor or house-guest to “volunteer” for you? They’ll feel so much more useful, and you get to do something more interesting in the meantime! Do make sure they give them a good hearty scrub, though: the object of the exercise is to remove the downy furriness from the skins.

3. Chop your quinces coarsely, aiming for around eight chunks per normal-sized quince. You don’t need to peel them or core them, but it’s as well to remove their seeds as you chop. Don’t stress up about removing all the seeds, though – just prise out what you can easily manage.

They look gorgeous, don’t they? Go on, have a sniff. But no nibbling just yet, as your raw quince is to all intents and purposes inedible. That’s why we’re making membrillo!

4. Place your chopped quinces in a pan, cover them with boiling water, place the uncovered pan onto your Aga’s simmering plate, and leave the fruit simmering until it softens. In our case, this took around 15 minutes.

5. Drain the softened fruit, and pass it through your mouli. (For the mouli-deprived, a simple sieve will do the job – but expect to use plenty of elbow grease.) A nice smooth purée will emerge on the other side, looking a little bit like apple sauce.

6. Weigh the resultant purée, and add an equivalent weight of caster sugar. K always sets aside a jar of caster sugar mixed with vanilla sticks, in case of spontaneous initiatives like this – but between you and me, the vanilla doesn’t really add anything to the flavour.

7. Stir in the sugar, so that it dissolves into the purée. At this point, you may be permitted your first taste of the membrillo-in-the-making. Good, isn’t it? Yes, tangy. We thought that.

8. If you really want to – and having tasted it, we decided we didn’t – you may also add freshly squeezed lemon juice at this point. But come on, the quinces are bitter enough as they are, surely? Let our cuisine never be over-ornamented.

9. Return the sweetened purée to a clean saucepan. Add a cinnamon stick or two; for our 1.5 kg, we added 4 inches. However, this really isn’t mandatory; the cinnamon adds little of substance, although it’s nice to know it’s there. (A little foretaste of mulled wine, perhaps?)

10. Place the pan back on your simmering plate, and heat the mixture until it thickens and darkens. During the early gloppita-gloppita stages, not much stirring is required – but as the paste solidifies, you need to be stirring constantly in order to avoid sticking and burning. This took us 30 minutes, although the recipes suggested that it would be less.

11. During the final stages of thickening, move the pan over to the boiling plate for a little caramelisation.

12. Remove the cinnamon stick (or sticks) (optional). Turn the mixture out into a lightly buttered dish, and allow to cool and set for around two hours.

13. Your membrillo is now ready for dividing and storing. Cut it into thick slices, wrap them in clingfilm, and store them in an air-tight container. These will keep for anything up to a year.

14. You have just made one hell of a lot of membrillo – more than you could possibly get through in a year. So why not take some of the excess slices, wrap them in grease-proof paper, tie them up with raffia, place them in a basket, and distribute them amongst the needy? Charity begins at home!

The lip-smacking membrillo flavour is particularly well complemented by a mild Spanish cheese such as manchego fresco. It can also be spread on bread, like a jam. Alternatively, we recommend adding some membrillo to some pork chops, for a memorable supper-time treat. Or maybe you have some suggestions of your own? Go on, let your creativity run riot! The only limit is your imagination!

(suggested by Chris, the cheeky mare)

If we’re to emphasise the “to me” part of the equation, then the Civil Partnership legislation has had, and will have, a much greater personal impact upon my life. This can be summed up in three decidedly unromantic words: no inheritance tax. Which sounds base and craven, but it does make a serious impact on the way we view our long-term futures.

However, although this was our primary reason for forming a civil partnership, I have been slightly suprised to discover that, over 21 years into our relationship, being civil-partnered does feel different. Not massively different, but subtly yet significantly different.

Firstly, there has been a slight re-alignment of intra-family relationships: a coming together of the two groups, and an increased level of recognition for our status as partners. I feel just that little bit more bedded down within the family structures, and that’s an agreeable, secure feeling.

Secondly, having a legally recognised status means never, ever, flinching even for a split second, no matter what the situation, in declaring our partnered status, and in referring to each other as partners. It’s the final shedding of the few remaining flakes of the underground/alternative sub-culture. From twilight to daylight, and all that.

As for the age discrimination legislation, it’s certainly true that ageism has long been rampant in the world of IT. On the other hand, we mainframe COBOL dinosaurs do tend to be of a certain age in the first place, so I can’t see myself being affected for the remainder of my time in the industry.

Would I ever have the nerve to launch a challenge under the new Act, though? Such cases must be difficult to prove, and I also worry about specious challenges from crafty chancers, playing the game for their own ends. I once witnessed a former colleague doing this in an analagous context, several years ago: playing on people’s fears of being seen to be discriminatory, and greeting his eventual victory with a suspiciously gleeful triumphalism. On the other hand, it’s irrational and intellectually dangerous to extrapolate a whole position from one incident, just because the incident happened closest to where you were.

All of this ties in neatly with the French comedy which we watched last night on DVD: Le Placard (The Closet), in which a mild-mannered accountant, when faced with redundancy, gets his job back by pretending to be gay, and hence the victim of homophobic discrimination. It wasn’t a deep film – quite the opposite, in fact – but it neatly satirised the new-found caution of those who once would have abused their power. And if that abuse of power is occasionally – very occasionally – to be exercised in the opposite direction, then maybe this is a small price to pay for redressing an altogether larger and more wounding iniquity.

Maybe this is a skewed observation, based on my own atypical experience – but since when did British office workers start feeling obliged to add “Regards” to the end of all their work-related e-mails? This seems to have happened quite suddenly, and I’m not entirely sure why, or how.

It can get a little wearing at times. Nowadays, if I don’t append “Regards” to every single message, no matter how brief – or “Best/Kind regards”, if the recipient has actually done something substantive for me – then I feel like the rudest person alive.

Even during a mad panic emergency, with urgent e-mails constantly bouncing back and forth, you’ll still find that nobody quite likes to be the first person to drop the word. If you were regarding them ten minutes ago, but you’re not regarding them now, then this implies some sort of deterioration in your relationship. Better to keep up the regards, rather than plough on regardless.

Inevitably, an increasing number of people are getting around the issue by adding “Regards” to their signature files – which only increases the utter vacuity of the exercise. Automated felicitations are worse than none at all, surely?

My working theory is that this all originates from working with people in mainland Europe, who have always tended to a greater formality in their e-mails. As this threatens to place the terseness of the Brits in an unflattering light, so we have adapted our language in order not to appear rude to Johnny Foreigner.

In some ways, this is a good thing. Terseness can be read as indifference, whereas politeness may be taken to indicate respect – and if we all feel respected by each other, then we’re more inclined to collaborate and co-operate.

But, really. All this mutual regarding is starting to get silly. Couldn’t we adopt an unwritten convention whereby, after say a couple of dozen “regards”, the individuals concerned could agree to drop them? This could be taken as indicative not of a lack of respect, but of a shift in the relationship towards a more relaxed, friendly level, similar to the way that the French might shift from vous to tu, or the Germans from Sie to Du.

Should we? Dare we? May we?

Kind regards,
Mike

(suggested by Alan)

10 years ago:

Ah, the joys of overnight emergency cover. It is now 3:48 in the morning, and my brain is just starting to fuzz over. Even we night owls have our limits. So let’s knock this one off, as a means of keeping my mental faculties ticking over.

October 1996. Living in the same house in Nottingham that we’re in now. Working for the council, supporting an absolute pile-of-bollox mainframe system which processed bus pass applications for school children. The job basically involved de-bolloxing the hideous cludge of spaghetti code that my predecessors had left for me, before swanning off to sexy jobs in the private sector. Hideously difficult, but strangely stimulating in a masochistic sort of way.

K had just left paid employment in order to start up his own company, and was working out of a shoebox with paper-thin walls. Exciting, pioneering times.

Making regular visits down to Trade, the legendary Sunday morning hardcore techno club in still-ungentrified Clerkenwell. Posting on the uk-motss mailing list, an e-mail discussion group for GLBT types (but mostly G), where I had acquired the nickname “Nice Mike”. Card-carrying urban queer conformist, with my Ben Shermans, 501s, biker boots and petrol blue zip-fronted padded nylon bomber jacket (oh, we all had them).

Records confirm that my Tune Of The Week was “You’re Gorgeous” by Baby Bird.

20 years ago:

Had just started working for the council as a junior programmer. Slightly fazed to discover that there were no actual computer terminals on our desks, just pencils and “coding sheets”, upon which we scribbled our COBOL source code, to be typed in by the data entry clerks. Actually getting computer access meant booking slots on a little sheet of paper. Jolly exciting when we got it, as well. A relaxed team, with a manager who secretly watched the horse racing on a little portable telly in his office.

Renting a rather poky little flat with K, just off Sherwood Rise. Despite the pokiness, we had tarted the place up with lashings of lacquered black ash furniture from Habitat, and named it the Matt Black Dreamhome, after an article in The Face magazine.

Big tune in the clubs: “Love Can’t Turn Around” by Farley Jackmaster Funk. We were very quick off the marks with our Chicago house music in Nottingham. Favourite home listening: Anita Baker’s Rapture. (Wonder whether it still holds up today?)

30 years ago:

Back at boarding school in Cambridge, for the start of the main O-level year, although I had already taken a couple early. Puberty in full flow, hormones running riot, and really bad acne breaking out all over my face (it took another four or five years to clear up). Still in love with the boy in the year below, with ardour undimmed after the long summer break. Father on the brink of announcing his impending marriage to my stepmother – wedding conducted on a weekday in term time – none of their respective offspring invited.

Sharing a study with two classmates during the day, but still sleeping in the dormitories. Enjoying the relative freedom and privacy, away from the junior common room. Leisure time, as at all boarding schools, revolved around brewing instant coffee, making toast, and playing albums. Just discovering punk – a musical paradigm shift which was to piss off my prog-loving study mates severely. Most played record, by miles and miles: the Live At The Marquee EP from Eddie & The Hot Rods. (At least we could all agree on that one.)

40 years ago:

Six months away from starting school, I am already learning to read, somehow managing to do this with the minimum of assistance. (How do children DO this?) I can still remember a rather doomed reading lesson with my mother, which I don’t think was ever repeated.

(Patiently) “Now Michael, what does this say?”

“They’re in a tent!” (Feeling a bit foolish for saying this as it can’t be correct, but it was my best guess.)

(Noticeably less patiently) “No darling, try again.”

The caption, below a picture of two children in a tent said “We are here”. How silly, I thought to myself. How is any child supposed to work that one out?

Instead, I bombarded everyone in sight with constant “What does that say?” questionings. Advertising billboards were major source material: “Go to work on an egg” (copy written by Salman Rushdie Fay Weldon, no less), “Beanz Meanz Heinz” (3/10 for spelling, see me after class), and “Heinz Souperday Heinz” (a bad pun for canned tomato soup, advertised by a little boy of my age in a tomato-red woolen jersey with buttons on the shoulders; my grandmother knitted me a copy, and I was thrilled).

I can still remember My First Book: Kitty And Rover. I particularly remember getting stuck on one page for several days:

It is a pretty ball.

Not knowing that the “e” was pronounced like “i”, as in “bin”, I was completely baffled. What sort of word was “pretty” (rhymes with “Betty”) anyway? My best guess was that it was a paté ball – a pleasingly surreal idea, if a little far-fetched, but we had recently been staying with my grandparents in Dorset, who packed us paté sandwiches for our picnics. My grandparents being quite posh, paté was pronounced “petty”. I didn’t know any different.

The “pretty” issue having been cleared up – I must have given in and asked someone – I raced through to the end of Kitty And Rover without further complication. On reaching the last page, I was ecstatic – I can still remember racing down the staircase and shouting “I CAN READ! I CAN READ!” to old Mrs. Barthorpe who was doing the cleaning in the hall, and I can still remember her smiling gummily back at me. (Dental care amongst the domestic classes still had some distance to travel.)

Phew. The end of the post, and also the end of my emergency overnight support – it’s now 5:21, and I think I’ve reached the jibbering, delirious stage. Can you tell?

God knows how this is going to read in the morning. Well, no matter.

(suggested by Cliff)

Well, I suppose it is – simply because needing something is a more powerful urge than wanting something, right?

Let’s have a real life for-instance. As of right now, I want a beer, but I need a night off the booze. So, clearly, it would be better to deny myself the beer. (Whether I do or I don’t is quite another matter, obviously.)

Then again, let’s imagine that it was a Friday night instead of a Monday night. On a Friday night, as we all know, sobriety ceases to be a relevant consideration – meaning that I could crack on and enjoy the beer, without fretting about petty matters such as my long-term physical well-being. This is clearly the superior situation.

So, if I might be permitted to upgrade the original premise: it’s better to have and don’t need, than need and don’t have.

This philosophy lark’s a doddle, innit?

As promised a month ago, I have somehow managed to post to this blog at least once per day for the whole of September, thus averting the self-imposed sanction of renaming this site “Clapped Out Has Been”. Phew-wee, and yay me.

I also dimly recall promising that if successful, then I would post an inaugural vidcast. Well, a promise is a promise. Bear with me while I source the equipment, and all will be revealed. From the neck up, at least.

I now find myself wondering how many more days I can continue to post, without taking a break. Hmm, there’s a sweepstake in there somewhere. What do you reckon?

Last update: Wednesday afternoon. Updates will be sparser from now on, but I’ll append anything important to the end of this post if needs be.

For those that know him: my good pal and colleague JP arrived safely in Hong Kong on Saturday, and will remain in hospital there for at least the next couple of weeks, under close observation. His partner Big J is there with him, as is DT from our company. Here’s the address of the hospital.

To our considerable amusement, JP has made it into one of the Hangzhou newspapers (*), who somehow managed to “pap” him at the airport, being lifted onto the air ambulance in a stretcher. The accompanying article is, shall we say, something of a work of speculative fiction. As well as giving JP the wrong surname, it claims that he is a 29 year old (he’ll love that!) tourist, who was on a sightseeing bus at the time of the accident (he was knocked over on the street while leaving the office), and that he had a three hour operation (there was none) in the wrong hospital (he was transferred to another one almost immediately).

dB from the Hangzhou office, who has been giving me daily phone updates for the duration, and who has generally been doing a magnificent job all round (as have a whole host of volunteers from the office, who have been maintaining a constant 24 hour vigil at JP’s bedside), has more to say on the events of the past week on his own blog.

(*) It’s a 1mb PDF and the photo’s a bit grim, so caveat clickor.

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Monday afternoon: JP is no longer fully sedated (a precautionary measure while the swelling near his brain was at its worst), and is reported to be in his best condition since the accident took place last Tuesday. He is becoming a lot more alert and observant, the swelling is going down, his neck brace has been removed, and – although obliged to remain horizontal at all times – he is able to move around a lot more. Meanwhile, dB has posted a translation of the Chinese newspaper article on his own blog.

---

Tuesday afternoon: JP’s condition has continued to improve, and he is now able to take medicine orally. He is sitting up in bed, but is not expected to be able to get out of bed for another two weeks.

Scans have shown that the swelling caused by the bruising to his brain is now subsiding. The doctors have said that his neck is now OK (there were some dislocations) and that his shoulder fracture does not require them to immobilise the shoulder.

---

Wednesday afternoon: JP has had his first proper meal since the accident – fish and chips – and is going to start receiving physiotherapy. From here on in, he is basically going to be spending most of the next couple of weeks sitting up in bed and watching TV – so here endeth the daily updates.

(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.)