Category: Archive

“I’m just going off to find someone to f**k. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Ee, we’re such classy bitches in the East Midlands.

This little meme-ette was apparently doing the rounds during the autumn, as initiated by Cliff at This is this. It’s a simple concept, which should need no further introduction.

Update: Hmm, it seems that I should have spelt the concept out in more detail after all. For each entry, the word count should match the age. At least according to your word processing package of choice.

1
WAAAAH.

2
Hello, sister.

3
Happy little cherub.

4
Teach myself to read.

5
Youngest pupil, at girls’ school.

6
Why can’t we have au-pair BOYS?

7
Top of the class, teacher’s pet; precocious.

8
Two years younger than all my classmates; prodigy.

9
Whistle blower on the “show us your willy” scandal.

10
The last days of our idyllic “Janet and John” existence.

11
Mother moves out to re-marry; grandmother moves in to house-keep; devastated.

12
A crush on the headmaster’s daughter causes temporary blurring of emergent sexuality.

13
A crush of infinitely greater magnitude at boarding school causes blurring to cease.

14
Hormonal frenzy during Long Hot Summer of 1976 causes disappointing exam results. Father re-marries.

15
Obsessed with punk, hideous collection of shit brown polo-neck sweaters notwithstanding. Tensions with step-family accumulate.

16
Annus miserabilis. Wracked with self-consciousness, no friends at school, family scapegoat, many wounding rows at home.

17
Slow re-construction of identity commences. First sexual experience, bringing more pain than pleasure. Leave home for London.

18
Selling tourist tat at Hamleys toyshop, saving for solo rail trip round Europe. Doomed attempt to study law.

19
Flunk law, switch to German. Living in cheerful communal squalor. Fantastic social life; barren sex life. Something’s gotta give.

20
Something gives: namely my fear of entering gay society. First date, first gay friend, first boyfriend (not the same person).

21
Experiments in bottle-blondeness. Move to West Berlin. Flatshare with three right-on schoolmistresses in their thirties. Become a “creature of the night”.

22
“Vacuum created by the arrival of freedom, and the possibilities it seems to offer.” Having just found my feet, leave Berlin reluctantly.

23
After Berlin, Nottingham feels drab. Strategy of only dating unsuitable people fails spectacularly, when I fall in love with K. Escape deferred indefinitely.

24
Redundancy from first shitty job comes as a blessing. Our crappy rented flat becomes the “matt black dream home”, all chrome and lacquered ash.

25
Working for the council, not eating meat, sitting on Equal Opportunities committee, spinning house and rap at “alternative” lesbian/gay night. Impeccably PC or what?

26
My club nights become the focus for the “Stop Clause 28” crowd. Constant comparisons with The Proclaimers force me into contact lenses. Bye bye, “cruise shields”…

27
Promotion at work feels like a breakthrough. The “social lynchpin” years reach their zenith, our house becoming everyone’s speakeasy. K commences seven years of intensive foreign travel.

28
Although life is certainly fun-packed, we’re pulling in different directions. K is stressed and needs space; I’m bored and need action. Our social circle has exceeded critical mass.

29
See above. At our local gay flea-pit, I’m quite the Belle of the Ball on Saturday nights. It’s an achievement of sorts. Wild times in New York and Amsterdam.

30
Moving house cures us of Perpetual Host Syndrome, but K is now abroad every other week. We’re quite the style queens, with our minimalist décor and our labels. Sweedie. Darling.

31
The mass cull of family members gathers pace, with the death of my father having particular impact. Correspondingly, my taste for hedonism steps up a notch. The hardcore clubbing years commence.

32
The jet-set years peak, with holidays in California, Barcelona, Scandinavia and Burgundy. Work is pants, but energies are focussed elsewhere. See God on a dancefloor in Clerkenwell, re-emerging with a convert’s zeal.

33
Swap the poofy labels for standard-issue Schott, Sherman, Levis. Volunteer for the local Gay Switchboard. Tenth anniversary party, relationship crisis, resolution. Join the Internet: omniscience at the touch of a button. Hello, world!

34
On said Clerkenwell dancefloor, I’m quite the regular celebrant on Sunday mornings, with the sexy Leicester boys and the gurn-along gang. After seven years in a job I hate, make long overdue sideways move.

35
The dutiful, card-carrying, Gay with a capital G years reach their culmination over Pride weekend: my Apotheosis of Queer. Having ticked off everything on my shopping list of experiences, one question remains: what next? Hmm…

36
Actually, why not work through that list one more time? Might as well. Over recent years, this single-minded dedication has narrowed my focus. Who needs other interests? Frankly darlings, I’ve become a bit of a bore.

37
After the seventh family bereavement in seven years, something inside snaps. Poor timing, as I experience major New Job Jitters, free of the council at last. Text-book midlife crisis kicks in, big time. Worst year since adolescence.

38
Miraculously, K concludes lucrative business deal, allowing us to purchase weekend bolt-hole in the Peak District. Priorities re-arrange themselves, instantly and dramatically. On the weekend we move in, I say my final farewells to the Clerkenwell dancefloor. Closure.

39
Spend six knackering months playing weekend hosts to all our city friends, whilst furnishing the cottage from scratch. Start collection of Gillray caricatures. Social anxiety around posh “county” types. Win 200 quid on quiz show. Change job. Start blogging.

40
Project from Hell, marooned in a Portakabin in the industrial North East. Unexpectedly re-introduced, via blogging, to London gay scene. Play with fire, get burnt. What I took for an epiphany is actually closure of a different kind. Nuff said.

41
An all-new garden for the cottage is commissioned and built, leading to uptake of age-appropriate new interest. In surprise role reversal, commence several months of intensive business travel: several weeks in Paris, then six other European cities. Re-evaluate priorities, and reluctantly quit blogging.

42
Start blogging again. After slow start, have established solid network of valued friends in the village, which now feels more like home than Nottingham. No longer scared of middle age. Tough holiday in Peru causes sequence of illnesses, leading to depressive relapse.

43
Twentieth anniversary of relationship with K. Blogging leads to radio interview, national press coverage, lecturing engagement. First piece of paid journalism appears in Time Out. Start course of cognitive behavioural therapy. Opportunity arises for three weeks working in China over Christmas. Optimistic? Very.

Please feel free to try this at home. Warning: it’s tougher than it looks.

I’m going to say this quickly, before I change my mind.

Perhaps it’s worth explaining that I’m not altogether feeling myself today; the flu-like after effects of yesterday’s typhoid jab have left me feeling floaty, free-form, vaguely delirious.

So if what I’m about to say causes a shit-storm, then these are my mitigating circumstances.

(Yeah, nice try Mike. It’s the old “you wouldn’t hit a man with glasses” line, isn’t it? They’re not going to buy that one in a hurry.)

(See what I mean? I’m talking to myself in public.)

(Oh, just get on with it. You said you were going to be quick.)

(Well, that would be a first.)

(SHUT UP. SHUT UP. SHUT UP.)

Anyone who has spent any time surfing the UK blogosphere over the last month or so will already be aware of 2005 Blogged: Dispatches from the Blogosphere: a newly published anthology of postings from over 100 British blogs, spanning the period from November 2004 to October 2005.

Now, we bloggers can be an awkward, stroppy bunch of buggers when we want to be, and many of us are never happier than when we’re having a good self-righteous rant, or constructing elaborate conspiracy theories from thin air, or wondering just Where It All Went Wrong, because it was Never Like This In My Day. And so, inevitably, the 2005 Blogged project started coming in for criticism well in advance of the book hitting the shops.

“Sticking a bunch of blog posts in a book? A BOOK? That’s ABSURD.”

Not if you’re curious about this whole blogging business, but don’t have the time and determination to sift the nuggets from the chaff. Because, let’s face it, that can be a pretty severe uphill struggle for a first-timer.

And not if you hate reading large amounts of text on a screen, either. I know plenty of people in Real Life who don’t bother reading Troubled Diva for just that reason.

“But all of this stuff is already available on the Internet, for FREE.”

Yes – but I would contend that £8.99 (or £5.39 on Amazon) is a perfectly reasonable price to pay for getting Tim Worstall (the book’s editor) to wade through over 5000 weblogs on your behalf – and presumably all in his spare time, to boot. I can’t even begin to speculate how long that must have taken him.

“And they haven’t even paid their contributors, the money-grabbing bastards!”

Which does rather assume that there’s money in the pot to make the payments in the first place. 2005 Blogged is the product of a small new independent publisher; it will only have a limited print run; and its time-specific “almanac” nature means that it will probably only sell in reasonable numbers for the next couple of months. So what’s less than 1% of next to nowt? Scarcely worth the price of a stamp!

Besides, none of these pieces were commissioned for the book. They already existed – and still exist – on the web, for free; and most of them were probably knocked up in an hour or so, maybe two at the most. Better to pay whatever you can to the people who have undertaken work especially for the book, surely?

And they did ask everybody nicely. And people who said “No” weren’t included. And everyone gets a free copy.

(And I’ve almost convinced myself. People, we live in a micro-payments age. These things are easily arranged.)

But really, none of the above is even any of my business, is it? Especially since I wasn’t even included in the sodding thing. DON’T THEY KNOW WHO I AM?

BIG MISTAKE. BIIIIIG MISTAKE.

(See, I told you. He’s delirious.)

Okay. So far, so reasonable. But, speaking as a punter, who purchased it with his own money in Waterstones earlier in the week, here’s where my issues start.

Firstly, the “blogosphere” which is represented in this book bears virtually no resemblance to the blogosphere which I have been inhabiting for the past four years.

“Oh, he’s just pissed off because his mates didn’t get in.”

No, it’s not that. Besides, quite a few of them did: Acerbia, Blogjam, Green Fairy, JonnyB, Naked Blog, Saltation, Scaryduck, Willie Lupin. Great pieces from all concerned. But my particular beef with Tim Worstall’s selection is this: that the overwhelming majority of pieces come from the “political” wing of the blogosphere.

Politics, politics, politics, for page after page after page. Opinions, arguments, “fiskings“, polemics, rants, rebuttals – most of which concern events which are well outside the real life experiences of the writers concerned.

Sure, that’s a blogosphere. A large one, an influential one, a worthwhile and effective one. Active citizenship. Keeps the self-serving buggers in Parliament and the lazy hacks in the national press on their toes, and Hooray for that.

But it’s not, as this book seeks to represent, the blogosphere.

Because the vast majority of UK weblogs are not political.

And it’s most certainly not my blogosphere, or that of my regular readers and fellow writers.

Okay, so that’s partly because – as Graham Norton once said – I have all the political depth of a puddle. ‘S boring innit?

But it’s also because what many of us look for in a good blogger is not an ability to pronounce on the national issues of the day, but the ability to let us into their lives. Their hearts, their minds, their hopes, fears, dreams, sorrows, triumphs, frustrations, ambitions… their very selves.

Oh dear, I did warn you.

But there is so much great writing out there: oozing personality, full of truth, warmth and wit, packed with illuminating, beautifully expressed observations on people’s everyday lives – sometimes moving, sometimes hilarious, sometimes…

Yes, well.

What I’m trying to say is that, leafing through 2005 Blogged in the order in which it is presented, I’m not getting a sense of the true diversity of British blogging. I’m not even getting much of a sense of the diversity of political opinion, at least not far beyond the respectful divide between the erudite gentlemen of the so-called “pro-liberation Left” and the equally erudite gentlemen of the libertarian Right.

After a while, it all becomes rather homogenised; as if the same writer is jumping about from blog to blog, frantically swapping hats. In this context, the tiny number of admittedly very well chosen “personal” posts comes as sweet relief – but somehow, these also jar against the prevalent mood. Yes, that’s it: they feel like light relief, a snack between the main courses. This doesn’t serve them well.

Consequently, there’s an overall dryness to the selection. This is detailed, insider-ish stuff, for people who spend more time on the op-ed pages than the lifestyle sections. Okay, so I’m shallower than most – but is this really the book that’s going to explain blogging to the general public? I can’t help but feel that an opportunity has been missed here, which could potentially have shifted many more copies. A lighter, more personal, more anecdotal and more writerly selection would have made a great stocking filler for those friends and relatives who still arch an amused eyebrow whenever blogging is mentioned in their presence.

There again, Tim Worstall has, perhaps wisely, stuck to the part of the blogosphere that he knows best. If someone from my neck of the woods had attempted a similar compilation, then the howls of “Oy! What about us!” from his lot would have rung out loud and clear.

And anyone who is prepared to stick his neck out in front of his relentlessly opinionated peers, risking snarky demolition jobs like this one, from people whom he has never met, for scant financial recompense, deserves applause and respect.

(So I won’t bitch off about that ghastly caps-locked ZX81 typeface. OK?)

I nearly finished there. However, before I collapse into a perspiring, feverish, Paracetamol-crazed heap, there are still a couple more issues that I’d like to raise.

1. Since the political blogosphere is overwhelmingly male, it therefore follows that there are almost no female bloggers represented. I can’t really accept any good excuses for this, as it’s not as if female bloggers are any minority in terms of sheer numbers. A large proportion of my blogroll is female. A couple of weeks ago, 75% of the nominees for my Post Of The Week were female; this week, the percentage is again over 50%. So let me tell you, my inner Equal Opportunities rep is going mental right now.

(Why, I’ve had to physically restrain myself from typing “What a disgracefully white heterosexual able-bodied male selection… totally sickening… typical of the patriarchal power imbalance at the heart of yadda yadda yadda…”)

2. Most blog posts are bashed out in haste at odd moments, squeezed out through the cracks of the daily routine. As such, they bear all the characteristics of unedited first drafts. On the screen, as part of the daily cut and thrust of the blogging world, where people whizz through as many posts as they can on their coffee breaks, this doesn’t matter a jot. In fact, it’s part of the essential character and charm of the medium.

However, when you copy and paste these essentially transitory pieces onto cold, hard paper, any stylistic weaknesses become cruelly exposed. Suddenly, we’re reading these words through different eyes, and holding them to altogether more rigorous levels of scrutiny.

(For instance, if I thought that the words I was writing now would end up on paper, I’d be spending a good deal more care and attention on them. Oh, you already worked that one out for yourselves.)

3. Hence, all the matey pseudo-conversational informality of the blog post runs the risk of coming across as an amateurish saloon bar rant on paper. And in certain cases, I’m afraid that this is precisely what has happened here.

4. Which means that a good deal more attention should have been paid to the proof-reading. I’ve spotted many spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes, which could and should have been picked up at the editing stage.

Yeah, like Tim didn’t already have enough to do, in the frantic rush to get the blasted thing out in time for Christmas. But come on, we’re playing by different rules here. I don’t mind. I’m a blogger too. I make allowances. But if I’ve spotted it, then they will spot it – and they will be a darn sight less forgiving. This is our shop window, remember?

I’m going to end this ramble on a positive note: thank God that this book hasn’t lumbered itself with a preface which makes embarrassingly grandiose claims for the medium. You know the sort of thing: Blah blah blah new generation of writers blah blah blah challenging the established order blah blah blah paradigm shift, etc etc etc. Don’t you just hate it when people do that? So Hurrah for editorial humility.

F**k, is that the time? OK, I’m done. Hand me my Lemsip, and let me lie back and watch the shit start flying.

Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been a total bitch. It’s just that I love this medium, and I feel these things strongly, and I needed to say this. Really, really needed to say this.

Update (1): Here’s Tim Worstall’s response.

Update (2): Tim’s weekly BritBlog Roundup – which served as source material for much of the book – can be found here.

Older readers might remember The Naked Novel, in which a selection of bloggers took it turns to write successive chapters of a piece of modern fiction. (I was responsible for Chapter Three.) Sadly, the project ran aground after Chapter Seven, due to a succession of exponentially bewildering plot twists, more characters than anyone could reasonably keep tabs on, and various uncorrected inconsistencies which rather destroyed people’s motivation to continue.

(Still older readers might remember a similar project called “Chapters”, which foundered for broadly similar reasons.)

However, I’m sure that a similar fate won’t befall Blogstory: a promising new “bloggers club together and write a novel” project, as organised by Vitriolica. Indeed, I’m still kicking myself for not volunteering my own services in time. Chapter One, by Clare “Boob Pencil” Sudbery – a published author, no less – has just been published, and it’s a terrific opener.

Here’s the full list of participants. What’s more, each chapter will be hand illustrated, by a crack team of leading lights from the Hand Illustrated Weblog Movement. How’s that for Added Value?

There will be bonus points for the first person to spot Clare’s cheeky little homage to Troubled Diva, buried away in Chapter One. Points, but not prizes. Do you think I’m made of mugs?

I have just spent several hours stressing out over what could be so awful about my Goldfrapp blurb for Stylus Magazine’s Top 50 Singles of 2005, that they hired someone else to re-write it. Was it too personal? Too critical? Too laboured? Too obvious? Too facile? What? What?

TELL ME DAMMIT, WHAT?

Have I ever mentioned that I don’t deal too well with rejection?

Back on the home PC in Nottingham for the first time since Friday, I have just checked my “Sent Items” folder.

Well, whaddya know? Turns out that I sent Stylus THE WRONG F**KING WORD DOCUMENT. Not the one containing my two blurbs, but the one containing my votes, which I had already successfully sent a few days earlier.

So maybe I’m not a shit writer, just a dizzy klutz. At least I get to swap one form of self-flagellation for another. That’s something, isn’t it?

Because I abhor waste, here’s that unpublished Goldfrapp blurb in full.

Ooh La La – Goldfrapp.

At first hearing, this felt like such a crass reduction of past glories: all the tease, the sleaze, the ice-maiden freeze, squashed and squeezed into one blatant shot at the big time. And oh, did we really need to hear that tired old electro/glam schaffel beat again? Weren’t “Train” and “Strict Machine” enough? And did you really need to ram your point home by nicking the riff from “Spirit In The Sky”? We thought you were arty!

However. When “Ooh La La” hit the Top Five, and stroppy old Alison became pop’s new sweetheart, everything started to fall into place. What felt like a mere dilution of Goldfrapp’s craft revealed itself instead as a concentration of their very essence. (Über-Goldfrapp! Ur-Goldfrapp!) What looked like a blank space in place of a chorus revealed itself as the most thrillingly effective use of a single-note refrain since “Ca Plane Pour Moi”. Furthermore, what seemed like a poorly sequenced opener to the Supernature album – setting all the wrong expectations – revealed itself as the exultant, triumphant conclusion of the band’s live show.

Congratulations, Goldfrapp. Now you have your defining anthem.

This is where we were on Saturday morning.

(Photo via K’s moblog)

Yup, at a hunt meet. Or at least at the little drinkies-and-snackettes “do” beforehand, while the horses and hounds gathered in the yard.

That’s not “hunt meet” and not “hunt meat”, obviously. Because that would be Illegal and Wrong.

No, this was a drag hunt – and therefore, provided you can banish the image of distressed Emily Howard types, girding up their petticoats and fleeing across the Derbyshire countryside, absolutely Legal and Humane and Actually Perfectly OK I Think You’ll Find.

Not exactly very rock and roll though, is it? I used to be edgy! I DJ-ed at Miners’ Strike benefits! I had badges! I was at Red Wedge and everything!

Bearing in mind the imminent business trip to China (the visa arrived today), an ever-diminishing part of myself would still quite like to play the good little self-denouncing Maoist. (I’m a Class Traitor! Flog me! Flog me now!) However, this does rather skirt over the fact that I was actually born quite posh. So maybe this is merely a reversion to type. One simply can’t escape one’s roots.

Besides, I had a perfectly lovely morning: sipping mulled wine at 11am (reason enough!) with most of our friends in the village, admiring the beautifully groomed horses, and trying to steer K’s attention away from the beagles. But for me, the moment of epiphany came when the hunt set off, streaming out of the yard and up the lane.

You know how, whenever the subject of hunting is debated on the TV or radio, some posh old buffer from the Pro lobby always croaks out something along the lines of “Yesh, but ishn’t it a marvelloush shight? The sheer magnifishence of the shpectacle is shuch a wonder to behold… etc…”?

Well, the thing is this.

(Oh God. I’ve posted some heavy-duty confessional stuff on this blog in my time, but nothing quite so excruciating. Well, here goes.)

A full assembled hunt really is a marvellous sight. Maybe it was just the mulled wine meeting the hangover half way, but the sheer magnifishence of the shpectacle quite brought a lump to my throat.

All is lost. I’ll be making superior remarks about the ignorance of “townies” next.

Cripes. Troubled Diva would appear to be a finalist in the Best Poof category for something called The Weblog Awards 2005. Now into their third year, The Weblog Awards have emerged from the political wing of the US blogosphere – more specifically, the Conservative/Republican right wing – and this is inevitably reflected in the lists of finalists in most categories. Not least my own, which contains only one blog which was previously known to me.

In fact, looking through my fellow Best Poof nominees – virtually all American, current affairs based, politically Conservative, and slathered in almost identical advertising – I find myself increasingly amazed to have made the final fifteen. Not in the customary “Oh My Gahd, I’m So Not Worthy!” sort of way, but more in a “What The Hell Am I Even Doing Here?” sort of way.

But hey. A popularity contest is still a popularity contest, and you know how much I love popularity contests. Hard-wired for hierarchy, that’s me.

So, if you do feel like casting a vote for Tro-Di, then I’m not about to discourage you. (Please admire the delicately double-negatived understatement of this blatant plea.) However, you will need Macromedia Flash Version 7 in order to participate. Best – and might I say weirdest – of all, you can vote once per category every 24 hours, from now until December 15th. Yup, multiple voting is totally allowed! It’s a whole new concept of democracy, folks! Awesome!

Casting my beady eye over the other categories, I’m pleased to see a few other familiar names making the final cut. From my blogroll, we have:

• Petite Anglaise and Vitriolica Webb’s Ite, in the Best European Blog (non-UK) category.
• Our Man In Hanoi – Best Asian Blog.
• Guyana – Best Latino, Caribbean, or South American Blog.
• JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary – Best of the Top 1001 – 1750 Blogs (according to the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem).

(Of course, what happens next is that every one of the 550+ finalists will make giddy, breathless “Oh My Gahd I Can’t Believe It VOTE FOR ME!” posts, which will sit somewhere near top of their blogs, thus obliging the diligent voter (well, you never know) to read 550+ posts on the same topic. The combined effect is curiously homogenising. Oh, and you’ll soon know those BlogAds off by heart. Go on then, off you trot. Work to do.)

Update: If you visited here between Thursday evening and Friday morning, you might have been treated to a triple-column version of Troubled Diva. It looked a little something like this.

Your regular two-column service has now been resumed. We apologise for any distress and inconvenience that the experimental layout might have caused.

Well, it does seem a shame to waste all that perfectly good white space on the right hand side of the screen.

(The old two-column layout is here.)

Now that my time working for the car manufacturer is drawing to an end, I shall be working in our company’s Chinese office for three weeks over the Christmas and New Year period.

I’m travelling out to Shanghai on Saturday December 17th, and will be returning on Saturday January 7th. I won’t actually be living and working in Shanghai, but in the city of Hangzhou, which is three hours away by car to the south-west.

While I’m there, I’ll be interviewing staff for the Hangzhou office, as there’s a big recruitment drive going on there right now. I’ll be living in a company flat, within walking distance of the office. And yes, don’t worry: I’ll be blogging, just as my colleague JP is doing on a daily basis.

Excited? You betcha.

All Chinese travel tips will be gratefully received.

Yes, of course this is displacement activity for the final part of the f**king never-ending Walking The Forest Path series of posts. (See below. And, eventually, above.) Hey, you should know me well enough by now.

1. Via new-to-me (but actually going for ages) Nottingham blogger Lisa Rullsenberg, some howler fun which made me howl: Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays. Oh, I’ve just Googled and this one is plastered all over the Internet. Doesn’t make it any less funny, though.

2. Just in via e-mail from Miss Mish: Dork Tower, on the subject of de-linking. “Saw this… and thought of you“, she says. Whatever does she mean?

Because I know you were curious: the ceramic masterpiece, repaired (can YOU spot the two damaged fronds?) and revealed.

And before you say anything (because someone already has): no, we haven’t become smack dealers in our spare time. Really! What do you take us for?

(Image via K’s moblog, still going strong, even if I have to make up my own descriptions every time he’s afflicted by Blogger’s Block, which at this early stage of the game is frankly a little previous, don’t you think?)

From the magnificent “Favourite John Peel quotes” thread on I Love Music, shortly after Peel’s untimely passing:

Autumn 78: after playing the debut Undertones EP in full for the second (?) time that week (I know it wasn’t the first time, ‘cos I heard that as well), he went into an extended speech along the lines of “People sometimes ask me what I do this show for. I don’t do it for the credibility or the cool, I don’t do it for the major record labels, I don’t do it for the music industry, I don’t do it for (etc etc)… I do it for people like (pause) The Undertones.” It was all very impromptu and impassioned and emotional, and had quite an impact on me.

— mike t-diva (mikejla@btinternet.com), October 27th, 2004.

A rough paraphase to be sure, but the general gist and thrust of it certainly accords with my memory, and I’d wager that it was about 75% accurate, word for word.

From page 312 of the even more magnificent Margrave Of The Marshes – Peel’s unfinished autobiography, completed in fine style by his widow Sheila after his death – which has had me alternately fighting back tears of laughter and emotion most lunchtimes for the past fortnight:

“People sometimes ask me what I do this show for”, John said. “I don’t do it for the credibility or the cool. I don’t do it for the major record labels. I don’t do it for the music industry … I do it for people like The Undertones.”

Nice one, Sheila! (And there are several other quotes from the same “dimly lit corner of the Internet” – heh! – dotted around her splendidly written half of the book.)

I always knew I’d make it into hardback one day.

First, the disappointment: no Clor! To be honest, it was Clor that I was most looking forward to seeing last night: they made a likeable debut album this year, with a couple of ace singles. In their place, I was faced with the prospect of slogging through two completely unknown support bands. On my own. With naught but draught cooking lager and guilty fags for company. Suddenly, I had a flash of empathy with Pete Ashton, and his noble Going Deaf For A Fortnight project. This could be tough going.

First up, Ralfe Band (note the lack of “the”). A five-piece outfit, with a drummer and four multi-instrumentalists, all neatly lined up along the front of the stage. From left to right:

• mandolin/pedal steel
• violin/keyboards
• semi-acoustic guitar/electric piano/lead vocals
• bass guitar/snare drum & cowbell.

Consequently, every number they played in their short set featured a different instrumental line-up, with band members sometimes swapping instruments mid-song. This worked extremely well, not least because all the band members turned out to be fine, skilled musicians. In particular, there was a fantastic snare drum & cowbell/mandolin break in the middle of one of the faster songs, which earnt the band their first whoops from the audience. (Audience whoops when you’re third on the bill being a pretty impressive achievement round these parts.)

Influences? Hmm, very difficult to pin down. There was an overall Celtic/folky feel, à la Waterboys/Levellers, which made me feel that the band would do particularly well in the south-west of England – but thankfully, they didn’t overdo the raggle-taggle-gypsy-oh crusty-isms (or else they would have quickly lost me). There were also elements of country and blues, a smidge of Bad Seeds/Kurt Weill theatricality, and even a hint of early Cockney Rebel here and there. Without wishing to damn them by association, I could easily imagine a Ralfe Band track on a cover-mounted CD for Uncut or The Word. The readers of Mojo would definitely like them.

They were also being street-teamed to death: promotional postcards quite literally everywhere, and a bunch of Nice Young People wandering round the venue with clip-boards, collecting names and e-mail addresses in return for badges. (Unfortunately, the Nice Young Person I spoke to, having thoroughly enjoyed their set, knew next to nothing about them – which slightly spoilt the effect.)

Ralfe Band, then. Not what you might call bleeding-edge, but they could potentially do very well. A likeable bunch, who clearly love what they do, but perhaps they need to work a bit more on their stage-craft if they’re going to raise their game. (F**king hell, I’m starting to sound like Louis Walsh.) Hope they don’t get chewed up and spat out as nice safe corporate indie-lite; they’re too good for that.

During in the interval, I bumped into two former colleagues – I & J – whom I have often hung around with at gigs over the past few years. Hooray for company! Billy lots-of-mates!

Vincent Vincent & The Villains were on next: a cheerful bunch of piss-takers, whose refusal to take themselves seriously made them impossible to dislike. Sure, the songs themselves were pretty daft – fast and snappy new wave power-pop, with comic lyrics and distinct rockabilly influences – but this didn’t stop the band performing them as if they were stars in their own private universe, whilst also being well aware of the absurdity of their preening and posturing. In particular, the be-quiffed lead guitarist (playing in his home town, with his family in the audience) seemed absolutely convinced that he was some sort of hugely shaggable Rock God – and hence, because he believed it, he sort of was.

God, I’m making them sound like The Darkness. They were nothing like The Darkness. Got that? Good.

The singer was one of those unlikely looking types who often make unexpectedly effective front men. Think 1970s Howard Devoto crossed with 1970s Tom Verlaine, with a cross-strain of 1970s Wreckless Eric. Bulging eyes, high forehead, a Dave-Hill-out-of-Slade fringe (with some suspicious evidence of an incipient comb-over), and bearing a home-made logo on the back of his jacket, which spelt out THE VINCENTS in what could easily have been white gaffer tape. I liked the way that, straight after the first number, he called for the sound engineer to turn down the volume on the lead guitarist. Ooh, power struggle! We like!

Earlier on, I & J had witnessed one hapless member of the band being refused entry to the venue, and actually being chucked out of the front door by the bouncer. This gave them a perfect opportunity to dedicate a song to him – which turned out to be a scathing, sarcastic attack on the pathetic nature of the existence of all bouncers everywhere. So witheringly apt that it could almost have been made up on the spot, this had the band grinning from ear to ear throughout at its startling appropriateness.

Over on the merchandise stand, Ralfe Band had CDs, 7-inch singles, more badges and more postcards. Meanwhile, Vincent Vincent & The Villains had… combs. Yes, combs. Which kind of says it all.

And finally, onto Sons & Daughters – a band whom I had last seen supporting the Fiery Furnaces, at one of the best and most enduringly memorable gigs of 2004. I had a lot of time for last year’s Love The Cup mini-album, which I played incessantly for several months – but having heard both singles from their latest album The Repulsion Box, had felt rather let down. Gone was their distinctive gothic country rockabilly, and in its place was something which sounded a little too close to bog-standard, NME-friendly, typically 2005-style garage-rock. It all struck me as rather short-term, opportunistic, and a waste of the band’s potential – and so I was there to give them one last chance.

Well. I stand corrected. Yes, Sons & Daughters are quite a different proposition now than in 2004 – but in a wholly positive way. There’s a new energy and focus to their sound and to their stage presence: having sharpened up their act, they’re now performing like a proper rock and roll band, as opposed to a nervous bunch of indie under-achievers. There’s confidence there now, and a real sense of attack.

This was especially apparent in lead singer Adele Bethel, who stalked the stage like an avenging fury. Constantly rocking herself backwards and forwards, looking and sounding fantastic, she still managed to hold just enough of herself back to retain that vital sense of mystique.

And guess what: the new stuff sounded spot-on, and a perfectly logical progression from the old stuff; everything blended together seamlessly, with the Love The Cup songs toughened up a bit, in order to match the rockier Repulsion Box material. In fact, the highlight of the whole set was one of the newer singles: “Taste The Last Girl”, which came across like The Au Pairs covering “What Difference Does It Make”. Yes, that good.

Sons & Daughters, then. I sense that this is a band who are now ready for larger stages, and who will know what to do once they’re on them. Next time they play Nottingham, I’ll be less apologetic about going to see them, and more determined to drag my gang of regulars out with me.

Ah, good old-fashioned guitar bands. They may not inspire quite so much semi-intellectualised purple prose as certain other musical genres, but on a freeze-your-bollocks-off Wednesday night in Nottingham, I can think of no better way of spending an evening.

I do hope you’ve all been enjoying my colourful new image borders. Having noticed them first on Dooce, and second on Blogjam, I quickly twigged that these were this season’s “must have” blog accessories – and so spent chuffing ages working out how to code them.

(Don’t ask. Very boring, and I’ve been told off for talking Tech before. Trial and error, basically. Probably lots of better ways of doing the same thing – but now I’ve got it working, I’m sticking with it.)

Anyway, in the course of a recent comments box discussion, I foolishly referred to my border colour as “mauve”. Not so, apparently.

Which, I have to say, bears no resemblence to any “mauve” which I’ve ever seen before – but who am I to question the wisdom of Wikipedia?

qB of frizzy logic – by now my official colour consultant – posited that the colour might be closer to lavender. Which would make it even more pouffey than mauve, but no matter.

Not to be thwarted in her colour matching quest, qB then suggested the rather more old-lady-ish lilac.

However, having consulted the full Wikipedia colour list, I have concluded that my borders most closely resemble thistle.

“Thistle” it is, then. Or at least, “faded thistle”. (Dried thistle? Pressed thistle? Wilted thistle?)

In the meantime, qB was busy developing and naming a brand new shade – a process which she discusses in mind-boggling detail on her own blog. Thus honoured, I can now present the first ever image border in the exciting new colour for Fall 2005…

… frizzy diva!

You can all wake up again now – we’ve finished pissing around with pouffe-assed palettes for today. Keep it pastel, blogpals!