troubled diva

K and I really enjoyed the recent Channel 4 documentary “The Sex Blog Girls“, starring our very own Zoe One Track.

Needless to say, this was my favourite part of the documentary. Two whole seconds of immortality (rounded up to the nearest whole number)! Why, I nearly wore out the pause button…

And then, just a few minutes later, this popped up:

“Darling!“, I squealed at my best beloved. “How could they have got you so wrong?“

(This review appears in today’s Nottingham Evening Post.)

Cardiacs have been described as “prog-punk”. It’s an imperfect description, but perhaps as close as you’ll get. Their music is complex and intense, combining the disciplined intricacy of progressive rock with the all-out attack of 1977-era punk – but perhaps their true spiritual forefathers are mavericks such as Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa. Remarkably, they have been together for thirty years, operating right outside the mainstream, and inhabiting their own singular musical universe.

Brothers Tim and Jim Smith lead the band, resembling Michael Douglas in Falling Down and Uncle Fester from The Addams Family respectively. They were accompanied by guitarist Kavus Torabi (Simon Amstell fed through a distorted lens) and two impassive female singers in matching pinnies. Keyboards were audible throughout, even though none were on stage. This merely added to the mystique. (*)

Faced with such impossible rhythms, the mosh pit responded with precise stop-start timing. Like the band, they too had mastered the art of controlled chaos.

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As I said on Twitter last night: “Best. Band. Ever.” But as I added on Twitter, two wearying hours later: “Toughest. Review. Ever.” It’s always the ones that come out of nowhere and knock you sideways that are the trickiest to nail, as you vainly try to marshall your swirling emotions. (I had the same trouble with Secret Machines last year.) Whereas with the gigs you hate (Manu Chao, The X Factor), the write-up just flies off the page. Evidently, anger must be a great motivator.

As for the mighty Cardiacs: I am more than a little stunned that it has taken a full thirty years to stumble across their extraordinary music. After the show, I asked the nice lady on the merchandising stall to suggest a good place to start. After prolonged rummaging, she selected On Land And In The Sea (1989) for me; an album which contains one of last night’s highlights, the epic “The Everso Closely Guarded Line”, as well as promisingly titled tracks such as “The Stench Of Honey” and “The Duck And Roger The Horse”. I think this could be the start of something.

Cardiacs play the London Astoria tonight, followed by dates next week in Sheffield, Stoke, Manchester and Portsmouth. Really, you should go.

(*) Apparently the keyboards were pre-recorded. Quite how you play music that thrashy and energetic, while still keeping perfect time with a backing tape, completely defeats me.

Postscript: In order to attend last night’s gig, I turned down not one but two invitations to prestigious and glittering social functions: the opening party for Nottingham’s newest casino (in the old Co-op building on Parliament Street), and the opening party for Nottingham’s newest cosmetic surgery (champagne, canapes, complimentary Botox). It’s a glamorous old life, being a stringer for regional print media!

In honour of Zoe‘s marvellous book (available in the shops NOW, and they really do make such marvellous gifts), based on the marvellous blog of the same name, it gives me great pleasure to host a one-off revival of that marvellous 1970s game show (revived somewhat less marvellously in the 1990s)… Mr & Mrs!!!

The aim of the game is simple. How well do Zoe and her twatty boyfriend Quarsan really know each other? In order to find out, I’ll be asking them each ten questions: five about Zoe, and five about Quarsan. They will be answering these question in strict isolation, with no conferring, secret winks, sign language, telepathic mind control etc etc.

For every pair of matching answers, I shall be awarding one point.

If Zoe and Quarsan agree on all ten of their answers, they will have achieved maximum compatibility.

If they disagree on all ten… well, maybe we won’t be surprised.

OK, Let the game commence!

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Zoe, will you please approach the witness stand. My, you do scrub up well. Firstly, I’m going to ask you five questions about yourself. Are you ready? Bonne chance!

1. If your house was on fire, which ONE object would you save? (Please note that the object must be inanimate, and carryable.)

What does inanimate mean? Oh right, I’ve looked it up.
Just the ONE object? Ermmmm – my laptop.

2. If you were obliged to perform karaoke in a public place, which song would you pick?

I would never, ever sing in public – I think people deserve the right never to hear me sing. But IF I really had to, it would be ‘Perfect Day’ had I thought about it, but I just know I’d end up singing ‘Bohemian Raphsody’. Or however you spell it.

3. Which is your favourite post on the acclaimed and award-winning My Boyfriend Is A Twat weblog?

Probably a guest-blogger’s. Or one of the ‘Twat’s Quotes of the Day’.

4. Your household has been described as “a mixture of The Osbournes, Absolutely Fabulous and My Family” – but which character do you resemble the most?

• Sharon Osbourne (played by Sharon Osbourne)
• Edina Monsoon (played by Jennifer Saunders)
• Patsy Stone (played by Joanna Lumley)
• Susan Harper (played by Zoe Wanamaker)

Edina Monsoon, I’m afraid.

5. Which ONE item of Quarsan’s clothing would you most like to destroy?

His poncy-poofy-tracky-trainers, without a doubt.

Thank you for your answers, Zoe. We’ll be talking to you again later. Now please stand down.

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Quarsan, will you please approach the witness stand. Ah, I see that you’re wearing your favourite hooded sweatshirt. The one with gibbons on it. No, you haven’t got time to make a political speech. OK, is Zoe wearing her headphones in the isolation booth? Then we may proceed.

Quarsan, here are five questions about Zoe. Please answer them truthfully – and remember: each matching answer that you give will earn you one point. Once again, bonne chance!

1. If your house was on fire, which ONE object would Zoe save? (Please note that the object must be inanimate, and carryable.)

This is impossible. She’d be running round like a badger with it’s arse on fire. She could pick up anything, anything at all. I’ll go for her laptop or failing that a hairdryer.

As you both said “laptop”, you score ONE POINT!

2. If Zoe was obliged to perform karaoke in a public place, which song would she pick?

She would sing Bohemian Rhapsody. Loudly and badly. She would also fail to get the words right. This has happened frequently. Next time i’m going to put it on You Tube.

Ooh, tricky. You both said “Bohemian Rhapsody”, but Zoe’s first answer was “Perfect Day”. However, as Zoe said that she “just knows” she’d end up singing Bo Rhap, I shall give you the benefit of the doubt, and award you a SECOND POINT!

3. Which is Zoe’s favourite post on the acclaimed and award-winning My Boyfriend Is A Twat weblog?

Dunno. Probably one of the guest posts, probably yours.

Ah, how you flatter me. In which case, as you both said “guest post”, you can have a THIRD POINT! How long can this lucky streak last?

4. Your household has been described as “a mixture of The Osbournes, Absolutely Fabulous and My Family” – but which character does Zoe resemble the most?

• Sharon Osbourne (played by Sharon Osbourne)
• Edina Monsoon (played by Jennifer Saunders)
• Patsy Stone (played by Joanna Lumley)
• Susan Harper (played by Zoe Wanamaker)

Ih give me a chance here. She’s as bossy as Sharon, as batshit as Edina, as pissed as Patsy. But out of the shower she looks just like Susan, so i’ll go for Susan Harper.

QUACK QUACK OOPS! As Zoe went for Edina Monsoon, you earn your first fail. Tant pis! Chin up!

5. Which ONE item of your clothing would Zoe most like to destroy?

My tracksuit bottoms. They’re excellent made by small asian children for Mr Ron Hill. Suitable for all occasions, combning comfort, practicability and style. For some unaccountable reason Zoe takes exception to them and tries to tear them up at every opportunity, even when I am wearing them. In a restaurant.

Well, that one was always going to be an easy lob, wasn’t it? Congratulations, Quarsan and Zoe: after the first round, you have scored an impressive FOUR POINTS OUT OF FIVE.

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Now, let’s see how you fare on Round Two. Quarsan, please enter the isolation booth. Zoe, welcome back. Here are your five questions on Quarsan.

1. What is Quarsan’s most annoying habit? (Please note that you may only pick ONE answer. Nobody said this was going to be easy.)

His farting. Light a match and this house would go up in flames. He is also capable of farting so loudly during the night that he wakes me up.

2. As an ex-pat Brit living in Belgium, which ONE aspect of British life does Quarsan miss the most?

Mountains. Do they count? If not, then bacon butties.

3. And which ONE aspect of Belgian life annoys Quarsan the most?

Shops being shut on Sunday. This isn’t fair – just the ONE?

4. Many otherwise sane and well-balanced couples have instigated an exemption clause known as the “Celebrity Bye” into their relationship. This permits each partner, should the opportunity arise, to enjoy extra-marital physical relations with ONE previously named celebrity, on ONE occasion, with no fear of sanction. If you and Quarsan were ever barmy enough to instigate a “Celebrity Bye”, which lucky celebrity would Quarsan nominate as his Bonk of Choice?

That goes without saying: Kylie bloody Minogue.

5. Finally, and in the interests of balance: which is Quarsan’s ONE most lovable quality?

His ability to make me laugh so much.

Merci bien, Zoe. You did good.

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Quarsan, let’s see whether your answers match Zoe’s. Here we go…

1. What is your most annoying habit?

I have no annoying habits. I have innocent habits that Zoe, in her unreasonable way, interprets as annoying. She’d probably have to decide between bottom burps and my ability to totally ignore her, something many have tried but few achieve. It’s a bit like tuning out the static in your head when listening to Radio Luxembourg. I think the gastrinal aerobics.

Ooh, we were on the edge of our seats with that one, weren’t we, readers? But you got there in the end, Quarsan. Farts it is! ONE POINT!

2. As an ex-pat Brit living in Belgium, which ONE aspect of British life do you miss the most?

Bacon. And mountains. And mountains of bacon.

Well, you both said “bacon”, and you both said “mountains”. That’s almost worth two points! But let’s not get carried away here.

3. And which ONE aspect of Belgian life annoys you the most?

The fact that there are three seperate languages/ governments/ nations in Belgium and this causes confusion and an almost apartheid system. I’ve said that Belgium mostly resembles Rwanda with an economy.

QUACK QUACK OOPS! Ah, y’see? If you go dragging politics into the equation, then you’re bound to come a cropper where Zoe’s concerned. Nul points for this one, I’m afraid.

4. Many otherwise sane and well-balanced couples have instigated an exemption clause known as the “Celebrity Bye” into their relationship. This permits each partner, should the opportunity arise, to enjoy extra-marital physical relations with ONE previously named celebrity, on ONE occasion, with no fear of sanction. If you and Zoe were ever barmy enough to instigate a “Celebrity Bye”, which lucky celebrity would you nominate as your Bonk of Choice?

Apart from Kylie, you mean? Actually, she is beginning to look a bit odd, what’s that thing with the pernamently raised eyebrow? I’m seriously considering turning my attentions to Konnie Huq.

Again, an easy lob where Kylie is concerned. (I know what you’re thinking, but I won’t stoop so low.) Have another point.

5. Finally, and in the interests of balance: which is your ONE most lovable quality? (Please note that you may only pick ONE answer. Nobody said this was going to be easy.)

I can catch spiders.

QUACK QUACK OOPS! Or maybe the way you catch spiders is in itself mirth-inducing? Well, maybe we’ll find out in the next book.

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OK, you two. Shall we look at the final scores?

Well, sacré bleu, zut alors and chouette: you have scored a combined Compatability Quotient of…

… (dramatic pause) ….

70%. How healthy and functional is that? Many congratulations! No, you haven’t won a car! Cue credits!

(Enjoyed the show? Then BUY THE BOOK. I’ve read it! It’s great! And I don’t even read books! What greater endorsement could there be?)

It’s a strange age, 45.

Even up to a couple of years ago, taxi drivers would occasionally call me “young man”. (Usually at journey’s end, as I squiffily fumbled for change. They know what they’re doing, the little tarts.)

Last week, as I was heading into town for my lunchtime cob (local vernacular; means “bap”), some old boy blundered round a corner, rather too quickly. “Sorry, youth”, he muttered myopically, as our guts briefly barged. I can surf off such slip-ups for days.

But there again, see. On my way into the Bodega Social Club the other night, I was kindly spared the effort of walking all the way round the corner to the back of the roped off entrance walkway. As he chivalrously unhooked the front section of rope and beckoned me through, the smirking doorman bestowed this deadly rite of passage upon my stooped shoulders:

“Step this way, Grandad! You come on inside, and take the weight off your feet!”

“Grandad’s on the guest list”, I icily retorted – aiming for Imperious, but landing somewhere around Huffy. Yeah, that told him.

I always knew this would happen. Right from the age of 14, as my occasional dates with Uncle John Peel (“Britain’s Oldest Teenager!” I joked, in the letter I never wrote) became nightly, unbreakable ones, I knew I these were no mere passing generational fancies. No, these passions were for life. (For a fickle little madam, I can be surprisingly steadfast.)

The other night at the Foals gig, with 95% of the audience under the age of 23 and a significant proportion in their teens, I counted just two other middle-aged men, up on the balcony, away from the fray. “Let’s stand at the bar and look like we’re Industry!”, I muttered to Sarah as we wedged ourselves in, dizzy from the fug of Biactol, rotting trainers and two-week-old T-shirts.

I don’t attend such events to be Down Wid Da Yoot, to leech off their energy, or indeed to feel much in the way of collective connection. I go because, on a good night, I get to witness a certain freshness of spirit – an instinct, an attitude, an attack – which has yet to be dimmed by recognition, repetition, routine. By them, or by me.

And besides: I was 19 once, and it hasn’t really changed that much. (Just don’t tell them that. Best if they don’t know.)

That’s why 45 rocks. Halfway between 20 and 70, and close enough to feel you can touch it all.

Caught up in the middle, jumping through the riddle, Grandad’s on the guest list tonight!

DAMN, that was hard work – and a reminder of why I gave up writing feature length album reviews for Stylus a long time ago. So DRAINING, darlings.

But some things simply have to be done, and promoting the new Ayers album to the indie intellectuals of America (even though it can only be ordered on import) was one of them. If it helps nudge the album a fraction closer to getting a proper distribution deal in the US, then the job will have been a good ‘un.

All that aside, the finished piece is as honest an assessment of the album as I was able to give it, grade inflation and all. (Update: link now corrected.)

(If I’d been reviewing The Unfairground in the first week of release, it would have earned a B. If I’d been reviewing it two weeks ago, it would have been a B+. But some things take time, and in any case I’m a firm supporter of the commercially unsustainable concept of only writing album reviews after you’ve lived with them for a couple of months. Which is why I don’t tend to write many album reviews!)

I’m “between clients” this week, and hence engaged in little of overtly economic value. It’s at times like these that the office becomes more like a Day Centre than an actual office. (It gets you out and about; you can get yourself a nice cup of tea whenever you want; there are like-minded souls to chat with; and even the occasional piece of light occupational therapy, just to keep those brain cells ticking over.)

As someone whose default setting is an unspecified low-level anxiety and a vague sense of impending doom (which will somehow involve being “found out”, although I couldn’t tell you what for exactly), this comes as sweet relief indeed. Last Friday night, as my inner anxiety-butterfly did its usual fluttering about, in search of somewhere upon which to alight and tremble, I realised that for once, I had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT WHATSOEVER, EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE REALLY IS AS FINE AS CAN BE. Which was almost disconcerting, as if my security blanket (*) had been snatched away. (Yes, readers: I can even feel anxious about not feeling anxious. It’s a rare skill.)

(And in actual fact, I woke up at around 3:00 on Tuesday morning in a complete state, having just dreamt that I was in major trouble at work… for, um, typing “joy division” into my office manager’s Google. Bearing in mind that I never normally get nightmares – the worst that normally happens being a tedious, never-ending series of Public Transport Frustrations – this was clearly a case of my anxiety glands having to work the night shift.)

So, anyhow, I’m using the time to get through all manner of overdue items on my to-do list (once a certain Procrastination Quotient has been factored in, of course – why, I’m even catching up with long-ignored blogs – hello, everybody!) And the old freelance side of things gets ramped up a couple of notches in the process, of course, to the extent that I can be quite the Picky Madam: why, this very morning, I turned down a last-minute interview with the drummer from the Kaiser Chiefs, no less. (The reason being that I dislike the Kaiser Chief with a rare intensity, particularly that godawful “Ruby-Ruby-Ruby-RUBAY!” effort, which remains my most loathed song of 2007 to date.)

Life of Riley, basically. Which soon shall pass, obv. So I’m loving it while it lasts.

(Reader’s Voice: “So, does this mean a return to your earlier, funnier, me-me-me posts? We liked you when you did them!”)

(Author’s Voice: “I wouldn’t bet on it, Buster…”)

(*) Bad metaphor. Anxiety-butterflies don’t land on blankets; they land on… I dunno… toadstools or something? Sorry, I’m out of practise at this kind of thing. Anyone got any spare pop stars?

Not so very long ago, I compiled a list of “Twenty-Five Things I Want To Do Before I Die“, a list which included, in position #4, “Interview one of my heroes“.

What I had failed to do, of course, was list such heroes as I have. If truth be told, it wouldn’t have been a very long list, as I don’t really “do” hero-worship. And once made, the list would have been quickly whittled down still further: John Peel is departed, and Nelson Mandela isn’t much given to hiring PR agencies who liaise with regional print media, shall we say.

Nevertheless, and to my great surprise and deep satisfaction, the deed is done – and as it turned out, all I had to do was ask. But by crikey, it was strange timing, as only a few days after interviewing one of my sister’s heroes, I found myself on the phone with none other than the towering musical figure of my adolescence, Kevin Ayers.

I could write screeds about the experience: researching for it (by listening to the entire Ayers back catalogue, more or less in chronological order); preparing for it (my initial list of questions ran to over 2500 words, for crying out loud); stressing up over it (Ayers is a reluctant interviewee and his career has been a chequered one, with unhappy wilderness periods to navigate); actually conducting it (the poor line to Southern France causing me to hunch uncomfortably over the speaker-phone, trapped in a gawky parody of whispering in a lover’s ear, with the computer microphone as our pesky interloper); the strange dynamics of interviewing someone as a fan (rather than as someone who merely takes an interest); the equally strange dynamics of two nervous people (for very different reasons) having to construct a dialogue (with two very different approaches, as my extended gabble-fests covered for Ayers’ wary reticence); the initial post-interview euphoria swiftly yielding to excruciating self-doubt (greatly alleviated by the sweet de-brief e-mail from Ayers’ manager, which suggested that I hadn’t made quite such a gushing prat of myself after all); the subsequent transcription exercise (all 36 minutes’ worth, spread over several epic laptop-bashing sessions) slowly revealing an altogether different encounter to the one that my reflex paranoia told me I’d had…

…and finally the editing process, the key to which dawned on me late last Friday night, in an advanced state of refreshment: namely, that it needed to be a process of taking myself out of the conversation.

(Which, now that I came to think about it, is something that I’ve been doing with all of my freelance work, and hence forms a large part of the reason why I seem to have virtually stopped writing old-school me-me-me blog posts. For having focused so hard, for so long, on erasing myself, it feels rather retrograde to start painting myself back in again.)

OK, so Kevin may not have been the most voluble of interviewees – something that I was fully prepared for – but none the less, I found myself quite won over by his laidback, laconic charm, and ultimately grateful that he tolerated my nervous fanboy gabblings with such good grace and humour.

The Stylus interview can be found here, complete with a brief introduction to the man and his work.

If you’re interested in reading more or less the full transcript of our encounter (minus the worst excesses of the aforementioned fanboy gabblings), which gives much more of a sense of the conversational flow, then you can find it here.

(An edited version of this review originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)

There comes a point in every teen idol’s career where the hits dry up and the fans drift away, leaving the former idol with some tough choices. It’s a testing time, and many – if not most – never quite recover. Donny Osmond, on the other hand, is one of the great survivors. As last night’s show demonstrated, he has evolved into a seasoned, natural performer who strikes just the right balance between unashamed nostalgia and age-appropriate maturity.

Anyone expecting a syrupy schlock-fest was in for a surprise, as Donny based much of the two-hour set around his most recent album, an intelligently selected array of classic 1970s covers. Highlights included the funky opener Will It Go Round In Circles, a polished How Long, and the astonishing show-stopper Sometimes When We Touch, whose impassioned sincerity held the audience spellbound. (1)

But of course, with most of the overwhelmingly female audience eager to roll back the years, those old teenybop hits had to be aired. Puppy Love was played for laughs (“just because we’re… pushing fifty!”) (2), One Bad Apple was preceded by a wicked Michael Jackson impersonation (3), and The Twelfth Of Never was seemingly selected from an onstage iPod.

The hysteria peaked when Donny left the stage, strode right through the stalls by perching on seat backs (4), and then emerged at the front of both upper tiers, singing all the while. Thirty-five years ago, he would have been torn to pieces. Judging by his relaxed smile, he no longer misses those days at all.

(Photo of Mister O serenading the circle by my darling sister.)

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(1) I can see you frowning in disbelief from here, you know. But seriously, I mean it: D.O’s rendition of this particular song ranks as one of the most moving performances I have seen all year. There’s no way of knowing it, of course, but I suspect that he’s lived every word. During the earlier part of the show, we had been comparing Donny to Cliff Richard (5) – but here was where the two performers diverged. Cliff could never have sung this song in this way.

(2) “Every artist eventually gets a signature song. Frank Sinatra had My Way. Andy Williams has Moon River. And I get… Puppy Love.” [pulls “gee, thanks for that” face]

(3) …and an interesting piece of trivia: One Bad Apple had originally been written for the Jackson Five (who rejected it in favour of ABC), whereas Michael Jackson’s Ben was originally written for Donny Osmond, and rejected in favour of Puppy Love. (“But hey, I’d rather sing about a puppy than a rat…”)

(4) …steering a straight course right down the middle of the stalls, until he got to about two rows in front of us. At which point, he suddenly angled off and headed straight for my sister, who was obliged – obliged! – to grasp his hand and pull him across the gap between the seats. “I pulled Donny Osmond!”, she gasped. “You cannot imagine the number of strings I pulled in order to make that happen”, I joshed.

(5) Apart from a brief but worrying moment at the start of the second half, when D.O. re-appeared in a capacious blouson jacket with the collar turned up, the thick belt of his jeans spelling out DEMAND DEMOCRACY in big sparkly letters, performing his AOR-tinged 1988 comeback hit “Soldier of Love” in the sort of galumphing messianic style which evoked memories of David Hasselhoff at the Berlin Wall a year later, single-handedly saving the world from the Red Peril. But the moment passed quickly enough…

It’s been a long time since I last plugged Tom Ewing’s splendid Popular blog, over at Freaky Trigger. The premise is a simple one…

The UK’s 1000+ Number One Hits since 1952, reviewed, in order, irregularly, for as long as I can bear to keep doing it. A history of pop in the shape of a chart.

…and now that the story has reached 1973/74, I have re-joined the fray in the comments box.

Here’s a Lazy Ass Sunday Afternoon Cheap Content Cut And Paste Job, containing selected excerpts from the many comments that I’ve made on the site during the past couple of months.

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SLADE – “Skweeze Me Pleeze Me”

This is precisely the point at which Slade could have slid into reductionist self-parody, a trap which they sidestepped in the nick of time with My Friend Stan, but Skweeze Me Pleeze Me j-u-s-t gets away with repeating the wilfully dumb Mama/Noize stompalong formula for one last time, cheerfully giving us exactly what we wanted.

But there was always more to Slade than wilfully dumb stompalongs, as the singles leading up to, and away from, the central Mama/Jane/Noize/Skweeze run demonstrate, and I for one prefer the earlier and the later (Old New Borrowed Blue/Slade In Flame) material.

Speaking personally, Skweeze Me ruled a line in my own 11-year old life, being the last Number One before my parents announced their divorce – a bolt from the blue, which took immediate effect, and ensured that, like Slade, I could never be quite so all-embracingly dumb (”When a girl’s meaning yes she says no”, well REALLY!) and daft and uncomplicatedly gleeful again…

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GARY GLITTER – “I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am)”

Its appeal (or otherwise) is wholly centred around the personality of Mr. Glitter, and its only function is as a vehicle for that personality. If you bought into GG (as I most assuredly did at the time, aged 11), then you’d have bought into “Leader”.

When GG morphed into an overtly self-parodying pantomime act/Queen Mum style “national treasure” (early 1980s – late 1990s), so did “Leader” morph from flashy pop thrill to corny old showtune. And since his disgrace, all its remaining stock value has been wiped clean.

If Michael Jackson had been found guilty, then I reckon we’d still be enjoying “Billie Jean” with clear consciences – because its greatness transcends its creator, whereas “Leader” is shackled to it.

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DONNY OSMOND – Young Love

“Young Love” is my favourite solo Donny hit. The pre-pubsecent songs were too strained and pleading for me, whereas Donny seems a lot more relaxed and at ease here, stretching back and enjoying the peak of his success. The clippety-cloppity Windy-Miller-style “ambling gait” is also a key factor.

Key memory: at the presenter’s suggestion, turning down the brightness control during the video clip on Top Of The Pops, so that only the waggling teeth remained.

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WIZZARD – “Angel Fingers”

Yet to become a serious vinyl collector – that was still a few months way – “Angel Fingers” was a rare purchase, and sounded wonderful when played on the Bush mono gramophone with the smoked-effect perspex hood that my father bought me to cheer me up when my mother walked out on us to marry his best friend.

In the midst of such a desperately miserable year, the surging day-glo joyfulness of glam-pop was exactly what was needed to take me out of myself, and “Angel Fingers” took me further than any other single from that year. I played it incessantly and obsessively, luxuriating in its maximalist thrill, dancing with myself in the sanctuary of my room. (I had routines, and a video in my head.)

Sonically, it’s a fuller, tighter, more intricately worked upgrade on “See My Baby Jive”, with a scintillating pizzicato break and glorious french horns. Wood’s continuing Spector obsession eventually led me back to the original productions, but this was a case of the pastiche surpassing its source.

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THE SIMON PARK ORCHESTRA – “Eye Level”

Matt Monro’s vocal version sticks in my memory for marking the only occasion, ever ever EVER, when my mother was moved to comment favourably on anything even vaguely resembling pop music. I remember her excitedly dashing from her kitchen into the sitting room of her new house, during one of our early visits, wiping her hands on a tea-towel as the song played on the radio, and exclaiming, with a rare glimpse of shining-eyed fervour, “I LOVE this song.”

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DAVID CASSIDY – “Daydreamer”/”The Puppy Song”

Ah, Stewpot and Junior Choice – which was exhumed for an hour on Radio 2 yesterday morning (MOR-NINNG!) as part of the station’s 40th anniversary celebrations, and which I listened to with decidely mixed emotions (Stewpot himself failing to mask the essential bitter grumpiness of the Yesterday’s Man, which seems to be shared by so many former national radio DJs, but why did Two Little Boys reduce me to tears at the breakfast table?)

Looking back, they must have relied on a fairly tight central playlist, year in year out, as all of the songs I predicted got a least a partial airing: Sparky’s Magic Piano, Hello Muddah Hello Faddah, My Bruvver, Right Said Fred, The Ugly Bug Ball etc. And they must have hammered The Puppy Song at the time, hence allowing Dreamy David to hoover up the weeny-bopper market as well as the usual staring-vacantly-into-the-misty-middle-distance early-to-mid teens.

Dreamy David’s 2005 performance at the Nottingham Arena, where he headlined over David Essex, The Osmonds (sans Donny, avec Jimmy) and Les McKeown’s latest pick-up band, ranks as the most grotesquely creepy and disturbing performance I have ever witnessed. Literally hundreds of people walked out early, any lingering teenage dreams cruelly shattered (as an impromptu vox pop outside the venue confirmed).

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SLADE – “Merry Xmas Everybody”

On a personal level, Christmas 1973 was our first since my parents’ divorce, and hence touched by an invisible sadness that no-one spoke about and everyone danced around, gamely trying to resuscitate the magic. (Plying my sister and myself with gifts being one of the key strategies; it was at about this point that the vinyl habit kicked off in earnest.) And so there was something immensely reassuring about “Merry Xmas Everybody”, which depicted the sort of fondly idealised holiday season which we dearly wanted to cling to – but with enough wry realism and unspun warmth for the exercise to ring true.

(Even if I couldn’t listen to the jokey line about Daddy catching Mummy kissing Santa Claus without briefly freezing in embarrassment. Most lyrics in most songs about infidelity, abdandonment or lost love in general had that effect on me.)

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MUD – “Tiger Feet”

Well, this was first and foremost a party record – and in my case, I had a party to go with it. Having been featured on TOTP a couple of weeks ahead of its release date (hence the unusually high entry position, and a brief foretaste of marketing strategies to come), “Tiger Feet” was at Number One over the weekend of my 12th birthday, for which a DISCO!!! was held at home for all my and my sister’s friends and classmates. The good-looking trendy smoothie dude in the village acted as the DJ and brought over a twin turntable – my first exposure to such a wonderous device – and the nice lady from two doors down nipped out on the morning of the party and, to my rapturous delight, brought back a copy of “Tiger Feet” from the nearest record store (”Well, you can’t have a party without having the Number One, can you?”) All hyped up on Cresta, Coke and crisps, we all duly went happy-hardcore bonkers to it (along with “Dance With The Devil” and the comparatively sedate “My Coo Ca Choo” and “Roll Away The Stone”, as well as our next Number One – but, alas, no “Teenage Rampage”), the party climaxing with trendy smoothie dude playing it three times in a row. Dancefloor epiphany or wot!

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SUZI QUATRO – “Devil Gate Drive”

The first half of 1974 marked my brief heterosexual phase, but my particular Dream Gal was foxy, busty, corseted and suspendered Dana Gillespie. Suzi Q was more like one of the lads to me, but the androgyny didn’t push any buttons – clearly I liked my women to be women (*embarrassed cough*).

I prefer “Devil Gate Drive” over “Can The Can”, which left me cold at the time. This one’s warmer, poppier, more of a party record. I do love the way she’s progressively coaxing and urging and commanding, and the way the track ends in a groaning sweaty call-and-response climactic mess (”Come ALIVE! Come ALIVE! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! WOOOO-urrgh!”)

With this, “Tiger Feet” and “Teenage Rampage” all in the Top 10 at the same time, this has to mark the zenith of Chinnichap, followed by a fairly swift decline (but let’s not forget Arrows’ “A Touch Too Much” a few months later, whose rampant sexiness must have been instrumental in steering me away from the bosomy charms of La Gillespie, and back onto my true path).

Filial pride also commands me to mention that my sister won a local “Stars In Their Eyes” competition last Christmas, performing this very song.

And finally, in the Misheard Lyrics department, I initially thought that Suzi Q was singing “down in Dimbleby, down in Dimbleby, down in Dimbleby Drive”. That’s Medium Wave for you…

Long-time readers of this blog will already know of the special place in my heart that is reserved for the music of Kevin Ayers, whose work I have been consistently enjoying over the past 32 years – even though he hasn’t actually released any original new material for the past 15 of those years.

Until now, that is. The expression “stunning return to form” is possibly the most over-used and debased in all of popular music journalism (particularly with reference to every successive release by Prince since, ooh, Diamonds and Pearls or thereabouts), but Ayers’ sparkling new comeback album The Unfairground, if not exactly a “stunning” return (for “stunning” is not really his stock in trade), is certainly delightful, welcome, and wholly unexpected. Having lived with the album for nearly a month now, it is also, in my sober assessment, easily his best work since Yes, We Have No Mananas in 1976 – and that’s me being cautious.

What makes The Unfairground succeed where other latter-day releases have fallen short is this: for once, Ayers doesn’t sound as if he has let the hired hands walk all over him. As with the best of his 1970s solo work, he is once again surrounded by a gifted bunch of collaborators, who sound in tune with his ethos and both willing and able to do his songs the justice which they deserve. This sense of collaboration, commitment and sheer enjoyment permeates the whole album.

And what collaborators! Here we will find old friends such as Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine), Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) and the long-lost Bridget St. John working alongside younger admirers such as Euros Childs (whom I saw last night – see below), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Candie Payne, and members of Architecture In Helsinki, Ladybug Transistor, Of Montreal, Noonday Underground, Trashcan Sinatras and others.

Here’s a track from the new album (featuring Euros Childs, Norman Blake and Bridget St. John on backing vocals, along with the string section from the Tucson Philharmonia), which was sent to me by Kevin’s manager (Tim Shepard, who also drew the cover art pictured above) for the express purpose of making it available on this blog. Hope you like it.

Walk on Water – Kevin Ayers.
(Order The Unfairground from Amazon UK / Amazon US)

A quick word in support of the long-awaited Joy Divsion biopic Control, as I was lucky enough to attend a press screening for it earlier today down at the Broadway Cinema, in advance of its “gala screening” this evening.

Joy Division might have been a Manchester band, but there’s a strong Nottingham link to the movie; lead actress Samantha Morton was born and bred here, a large chunk of the funding came from the East Midlands, and most of the film was shot in the city. The concert scenes were filmed inside the Ballroom of the Marcus Garvey Centre, with crowd extras recruited from the message boards of LeftLion magazine; the Derby Road council flats behind the Savoy Cinema are easily recognisable; and the supposedly Mancunian kids in the opening scene have suspiciously local accents.

The film marks the directorial debut of rock photographer Anton Corbijn, perhaps best known for his work with U2 and Depeche Mode, who also worked with Joy Division in the late 1970s, helping to define their oh-God-I-hate-using-this-word iconic (bleurgh) image. Not surprsingly, the visual aesthetic is closely aligned with Corbijn’s signature style, all monochrome austerity and pared down moodiness. As such, it’s completely in line with the band’s existing iconography – almost to the degree of being an extension of their brand, were I minded to be cynical.

Which, to my relief, and despite niggling early doubts (with every shot exquisitely composed, was the art direction in danger of drowning in its own sumptuous “perfection”?), I’m not. For the tightly controlled visual aesthetic actually serves to preserve the band’s mystique, even as the drama seeks to examine the circumstances which led to singer Ian Curtis’s suicide, aged 23, in May 1980. Or, as I put it on Twitter earlier today, on my way back from the cinema, the film “illuminates the story without puncturing the legend”. It’s a tricky line to walk, and some slightly clunky initial wobbles notwithstanding (or maybe it’s simply impossible not to giggle at the first sight of the earnest young actors playing Barney and Hooky, and at the sight of “Tony Wilson” in a daft wig), the balance is admirably struck.

(Thus, to give one example, you gain an almost literal insight as to how Curtis’s emotional state inspired the lyrics of Love Will Tear Us Apart, without running the risk of permanently devaluing the personal experience that you might get from the song.)

Ah yes: Tony Wilson, whose serious illness was well known amongst the cast and crew, and whose death less than two months ago casts an extra shadow over what was already a distinctly murky drama. His character provides a couple of the film’s rare comedic moments – the lack of which was also noted, with some measure of disappointment, by Curtis’s widow Deborah (darned if I can find the source, but this article by their now grown-up daughter Natalie provides some fascinating background). Control thus becomes something of a dual memorial, as well as making some of the links between Ian Curtis’s and Kurt Cobain’s respective states of suicidal despair all the more explicit (I’m thinking of one concert scene in particular, which shows Curtis no longer able to control the widening gap between what his audience expects and what he is capable of providing).

Highly recommended. Go see.

An edited version of this review originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.

Despite his many visits to the Royal Concert Hall over the years, few in last night’s audience appeared to recognise OMD keyboardist Paul Humphreys, now performing with Propaganda’s Claudia Brücken as part of Onetwo. Despite some initial nervousness (1), their brooding, dramatic synthpop was politely received, (2) with the warmest applause reserved for the instantly recognisable Propaganda classic Duel. (3)

Although they have never won the critical acclaim of fellow Eighties survivors the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure have achieved a similar level of success, on their own terms, without ever bending to musical fashions. You can always spot an Erasure song – but you might struggle to guess the decade in which it was recorded.

For this reason, the duo – Andy Bell as enthusiastic as ever on vocals, Vince Clarke as impassive as ever on keyboards – can easily switch between old and new material on stage, without anyone noticing the join. The new songs may not sell quite as well as they used to, but last night’s capacity crowd lapped them up as readily as the old hits. Opening the set, recent single Sunday Girl (no, not the Blondie number) got all three tiers on their feet, where they remained throughout. (4) Not even the Pet Shop Boys managed that, when they played here in June.

But then, Erasure have always been more Pop than Art, and they’ve never been above letting their audience know that they’re having fun too: the three impeccably glamorous backing singers struggled to keep straight faces during Chains Of Love, and Andy performed old favourite Oh L’Amour as a duet with a fake fur stole called “Mint Sauce”. For beneath all the costumes and camp (paint-splattered suits, ridiculous Andy Warhol wigs, army fatigue cocktail dresses), there lies an unassuming generosity of spirit, which welcomes everyone to Erasure’s party. Long may they party on.

(Photo by Sarah)

(1) …which surprised me, as I was expecting an assured, ice-maidenly, This Is Art Darleenks performance from La Brücken, who seemed somewhat uncomfortable in her own skin. But then the minimal staging didn’t help, with the three performers merely plonked in a static row in front of a black curtain. Arty synthpop needs visuals, donthca know?

(2) …at least, by those who didn’t start chattering amongst themselves or slipping out to the bar. Nevertheless, album sales during the interval were brisk; I bought a copy for myself, and they were flying off the shelf at the rate of two or three per minute.

(3) …whereas my warmest applause was reserved for their cover of The Associates’ Club Country, played in memory of the late Billy Mackenzie, who would have been fifty this year.

(4) …as those of us on the front row could clearly see, if we turned around. For by a remarkable stroke of good fortune, I was approached during the interval by a nice lady (a very nice lady; she’d read my interview and everything!) who asked me whether I was on my own, as she and her husband had a spare ticket for the middle of the front row.

As my pair of perfectly decent press tickets were therefore suddenly going begging, I quickly dragged Sarah and Lord Bargain down from the vertigo-inducing second tier, and passed the tickets on. A significant result all round, which more than compensated for the earlier frustration of failing to offload the spare press ticket on any of my friends.

And let me tell you: front row seats at the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall are a trip and a half. With no security staff to get in the way, you’re mere inches away from the stage itself, which is roughly at chest height (if you’re tall like me), and hence so close that you practically feel like you’re part of the show (if you’re egotistical like me). The sound quality’s not so great, as you’re practically behind the main speakers, but the compensations are considerable.

(That Andy Bell, he couldn’t keep his eyes off me. I sense a connection.)

Way back at the beginning of June, I received an invite to a special “bloggers only” preview, in the screening room of a swanky Soho hotel, of the movie Hallam Foe, which went out on general release in the UK this weekend. Never being one to turn down the opportunity for an ooh-I-saw-it-FIRST freebie, I duly accepted (provided that I could bring along a glamorous lady companion), but remained mystifed as to why anyone would have stuck me on their guest list in the first place.

A bit of judicious Googling led me to suspect the unseen hand of Hugh McLeod at work: he who writes the widely read blog gapingvoid. (You know, the one with the cartoons drawn on the back of business cards.) As it turned out, the hunch was correct. Hugh is an old friend of the film’s director David Mackenzie, and the bloggers-only preview appeared to be some sort of experiment in building a blog-based buzz around the movie, well in advance of its general release. Further to this, an official, regularly updated “making of the movie” blog had been in existence since February 2006, although I had never stumbled across it myself before.

Thankfully, no conditions were attached to the invitation. The assembled bloggers remained perfectly at liberty to write what they wanted about the film, positively or negatively, or indeed not to write about it at all. To my mind, this demonstrated a fairly massive statement of faith by the film’s creators.

Having met my glamorous lady companion (GLC) outside the swanky hotel, we sashayed into the swishy bar, where my GLC kindly got the drinks in: two spirits, two mixers, and virtually no change from a twenty quid note. How exclusive!

What neither of us had realised was that free drinks and canapes were simultaneously being served to the bloggerati in the downstairs bar, adjacent to the screening room. Well, why didn’t they say?

After some difficulty in locating said screening room, we eventually found the vestibule, where a nice lady with a clipboard was ticking off names. I had been wondering all along which of my other blogpals might be in attendance, and now I discovered that, with the exception of my GLC, there were none. This was a totally different group of bloggers, drawn more from the marketing/consultancy/web punditry areas of the UK blogosphere, many or most of whom made their livings from the sort of subject matter which they blogged about. Erk! Eek! Professionals!

As well as Hugh McLeod, who introduced the film and chaired the post-screening discussion, director David Mackenzie was also in attendance, along with the film’s two stars: Jamie Bell (best known for his starring role in Billy Elliot) and Sophia Myles (recently seen playing Madame de Pompadour in Doctor Who). Such exalted company! And all laid on for a bunch of bloggers? Talk about steering through uncharted waters…

And so to the film itself, which began by scoring two immediate massive Plus Points: an animated title sequence by David Shrigley, accompanied by Orange Juice’s fantastic 1980 single Blue Boy on the soundtrack. Indeed, the whole soundtrack – CD copies of which were given away free to all attendees, and ooh look, blimey, an exclusive new track from Franz Ferdinand – demonstrated sound taste, having been assembled from the roster of well respected indie label Domino Records.

In the movie, Jamie Bell plays the troubled youth Hallam Foe: a mixed-up loner who faux-ferally roams around the grounds attached to his capacious family home, with “tribal” daubings on his face and alternately voyeuristic and vengeful fantasies on his mind. His mother is dead, his father has re-married, and his stepmother is a cold-hearted eminence grise who reads his diaries on the sly. A potentially violent confrontation with her in Hallam’s tree-house ends with the two of them having sex (the first confirmation that Young Master Bell is now Quite The Young Man), after which Hallam runs away to Edinburgh, where the bulk of the film is set.

Soon after arriving in Edinburgh, Hallam becomes erotically obsessed with Kate (played by Sophia Myles), whom he spots on the street. He secretly follows her to the city centre hotel where she works, and ends up taking a job in the hotel’s kitchens. In the evenings, he spies on Kate through the windows of her apartment, as his obsession intensifies. The reason for this obsession: Kate is the spitting image of his late mother.

So far, so Oedipal. (And for many film critics, it has to be said: so far, so preposterous.) As for me, the assumption at this still early stage was that we were in for a standard stalker/slasher flick, with Hallam as the twisted aggressor and Kate as the silent victim. All of which was pressing hard on my Big Red Gender Politics Alarm Button.

Suffice it to say that, from this point on, my expectations of both characters were slowly and skilfully subverted, as Hallam and Kate revealed themselves to be more nuanced, more complex, and more intriguingly peculiar and perverse than we had been led to expect. And although many of the same critics have judged the film’s denouement to be far-fetched and unconvincing, I found it to contain recognisable emotional truths, which moved me to the brink of tears.

(Let’s just say that, without wishing to cause undue alarm, I spotted certain elements of my own mixed-up teenage self in Hallam’s character. But not the Oedipal elements, I hasten to assure you.)

Hallam Foe, then. A modestly budgeted independent production, beautifully acted and intelligently directed, which deserves all the support it can get. And yes, I have factored in the distorting effect of the ooh-I-saw-it-FIRST factor…

After the screening, the director and actors trooped back in for what I felt was a rather unsatisfactory and exasperating Q&A session, dominated as it was by a certain self-regarding self-importance on the part of the questioners. This was perhaps only to be expected, given the unprecedented hospitality which was being afforded us, but questions such as “How is blogging changing the film industry?”, and observations along the lines of “Pah, cinemas are old hat, we’ll soon be downloading movies onto hand-held devices, and what do you have to say about THAT?” made me, my GLC, and some of the assembled panellists visibly cringe at times.

Tellingly, when one questioner began by explaining that unlike his predecessors, he was neither a blogger nor a marketeer, Jamie Bell reacted by putting his head in his hands and groaning, with no small degree of force, “OH! THANK GOD!”

But, as I say, uncharted waters for all concerned.

The evening concluded with a Meet And Greet Slash Networking Opportunity on the top floor of a swanky diner down the road. Upon entering, my GLC and I headed straight for a table in the quietest corner, which turned out to be rather handily positioned by the kitchen doors. As a result, we got First Pickings on all the tasty finger food, the moment that it was brought though, freshly cooked and piping hot, by the charming and faultlessly attentive waiting staff. Sod the networking, this was a Major Result.

We stayed put for the duration, locked in conversation, and ended up mingling with no-one (although I did get to chat earlier with Gia Milinovich, a long-standing blogging acquaintance, and briefly with social software maven Suw Charman). Such uncharacteristic aloofness, especially at a blogmeet, ill becomes me… but then, it really was exceedingly good finger food.

(Post title suggested by miles away.)

Words. More words? No. No more words. Words, no more.

Outside: darkness. Inside: black, raven-black, black as ink-stained night.

Beside me, the crust of a half-eaten cheese sandwich curls up in silent reproach.

Semi-digested. Hardening, crumbling, returning to dust. As we all must. But some, sooner than others.

Above me the noose, seductive as your deadly, treacherous smile. Beckoning, siren-like, towards everlasting peace.

All that remains, now. Press Publish, step up, kick away, away, a final gasp, then, no more.

Adieu, dear imaginary so-called friends, adieu. Youve been such a lovely audience.

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W00t, first! 🙂

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LOL I hate cheese sandwiches too… have you tried adding pickle?

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Cheese sandwiches give me nightmares. Stay off the cheese!

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If I were you, I’d try prosciutto with buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes on a lightly toasted ciabatta. Then come back and tell me you don’t love it!

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Sigh. Such powerful writing. I love you work.

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Great post (as usual!), but you need to correct that missing apostrophe in the final sentence. Also, the sandwich metaphor is unconvincing and needs more work.

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There are CHILDREN DYING and all you want to talk about is CHEESE SANDWICHES? You have BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.

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Congratulations on winning Post of the Week!

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Tolerably diverting, but you’re no Troubled Diva.

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after reading dis shitty post i felt like toppin meself to

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Too high and mighty to reply to comments then, are we?

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Hi. My name is Ria Pollof, and I’m researching an item on suicidal bloggers for BBC Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour. Obviously we can’t pay, but it would be great publicity for your blog! If interested, please e-mail me.

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I call bullshit. This is just a publicity stunt in order to land a book deal, isn’t it?

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Self-absorbed narcissistic fame whore. You’ll probably ban this.

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Suicide is the choice of the Islamofascist. This would never happen in America. THAT’S WHAT MAKES OUR NATION GREAT.

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buy prozac cheap prozac prescribed online and shipped to your door order discount prozac now

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Comments on this post are now closed.

(Post title actually suggested by Zinnia Cyclamen.)

Nonono, Mike, while I appreciate the time and effort that’s clearly gone into this, and not being jealous of your lovely sunny holiday afternoon at all – one title is aspirational, beautiful, a window to your dreams and a catalyst to our own imaginings, the other is merely unprompted advice and the gateway to TMI.

Do the other title instead! The other one! Do the other!

– anna

Now then young Diva, you may think it’s clever to change the title of your assignment, but we do not spend hours carefully thinking up titles that will both stretch you and entertain your readership for you to wilfully ignore them. We will therefore expect the set version to be completed and handed in before the end of the month (like wot Anna said) or There Will Be Trouble and You Will Be In It. Do I make myself clear?

– Zinnia Cyclamen

OK, enough already! For I am nothing if not eager to please. The list which follows was compiled this morning, sitting out in PDMG#1, on the second gloriously scorching hot day of our 11-day holiday (which I think I might have briefly mentioned before, in passing).

Unlike its predecessor (see below), the order of which was jiggled around with for “artistic” purposes, this list is presented strictly in order of the thoughts which dropped into my head.

OK, let’s catalyse those imaginings!

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1. Visit Australia.

2. Visit New Zealand. That’s two separate trips, and hence two separate items on the list. No, I don’t consider this cheating.

3. Go for an overnight trip on a traditional rice boat on the backwaters of Kerala. (Thanks for the suggestion, z.)

4. Interview one of my heroes. This year to date, I’ve already missed out on Neil Tennant (holiday-related communications cock-up) and Boy George (UK tour cancelled, and stretching the definition of “hero” in any case). But the time will surely come, won’t it?

5. Meet some of my most long-standing readers and/or fellow bloggers in person. To redress the imbalance of #1 and #2 above, I’m going to condense six items into one: asta in Canada, Peter in Leith, Gordon in Glasgow, Zed in Belgium, Joe in New York City, and the eternally elusive DG in Bow. Amongst others, naturellement…

6. Leave Nottingham. Sorry, Nottingham. It’s not you, it’s me.

7. Give up full-time paid employment, well in advance of the official retirement age.

8. Dance the Hustle.

9. Dine at El Bulli.

10. Attend a Nick Cave concert. To the best of my knowledge, Cave has only played Nottingham once. I bought a ticket, and then FORGOT TO GO, only realising several days later. This had never happened before, and I intend to ensure that it never happens again.

11. Win a f**king blog award for just once in my f**king life, rather than just being nominated and short-listed and long-listed for the f**king things all the f**king time, I mean I know I should be grateful and all that, but to have the carrot repeatedly dangled and snatched away, well, it needs a little resolution is all, and then I can be all gracious and self-effacing and oh-but-these-things-don’t-really-matter, but not before, OK?

12. Host a radio show. Preferably one in which I get to play music. I loved doing those summer podcasts in 2005 and 2006.

13. Throw a 25th anniversary party. (There’s less than three years to go on that one.)

14. See the Northern Lights. Or aurora borealis, if you will.

15. Become a god-father. (As distinct from “Fairy Godmother of British blogging“.)

16. Write an article for a nationally distributed print-based publication. (Time Out London came closest, but not quite close enough.)

17. Get to the bottom of the Beatles mystery, once and for all. (I had a really good lead on this last year, but the trail fizzled out.)

18. Re-visit my home town; it’s “a cocktail of urban and rural where the delights of a modern bustling town centre are complemented by picturesque villages, historic market towns and unspoilt countryside”, apparently. Not having been back since my grandmother’s funeral in 1992, I can only conclude that the old place has seen some fairly massive changes…

19. DJ, for one last time, in an end-of-High-Fidelity kind of way. The old tunes, to the old crowd. I’m not fussed about no swanky venue or nothing; the village hall would do just fine.

20. Finish transcribing the second half of my mother’s memoirs (aka The London Years). Cracking good, they are.

21. Re-establish contact with a certain long lost cousin; I was a page-boy at her wedding in 1970.

22. Get a funky pied-à-terre in London Town.

23. Throw a 50th anniversary party.

24. Ensure that my mother is properly looked after in her old age.

25. Create something which people can remember me by; or, as K put it, “leave a lasting legacy”. Ah, how we feeble mortals strive for the eternal…

(Post title almost suggested by Zinnia Cyclamen.)

(Except that Zinnia actually requested “Twenty-Five Things I Want To Do Before I Die”. As our teachers used to tell us, but did we listen: ALWAYS READ THE QUESTION CAREFULLY.)

(Unfortunately, I didn’t spot the slip until the list had been compiled, with a certain amount of assistance from K, as we hung out in a gloriously and unexpectedly sunny PDMG#1, on the first day of our 11-day holiday.)

(So here’s a list of things that, if we might be so bold, we think that you should do, before you die. We’ve done most of them. But not all of them.)

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1. Go for a balloon ride in Cappadocia.

2. Eat in a three-star Michelin restaurant.

3. Cross the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct by narrow boat.

4. Sunbathe in the nude, in public. It’s not exhibitionism; it’s liberation.

5. Meet one of your heroes.

6. Become a god-parent.

7. Sing karaoke.

8. Do a stint of regular voluntary work.

9. Attend a performance of Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians.

10. Visit the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon.

11. Buy an original work of art.

12. Overcome a fear.

13. Pick something that you’re good at and do it really, really well, to the point where you achieve public recognition for doing it.

14. Become good friends with someone at least twenty years older than you.

15. Become good friends with someone at least twenty years younger than you.

16. Experience an anal orgasm. (See #12 above.)

17. Forgive those who have wronged you; it will set you free.

18. Watch 12 Angry Men.

19. Listen to June Tabor’s And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

20. Read Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day.

21. Order the petit pot au chocolat at the Bibendum Oyster Bar (after lunching on their oysters, naturally).

22. Visit the site of the My Lai massacre.

23. Descend into the Valley of the Kings on a donkey, shortly after daybreak.

24. Drink a pint of Marston’s Pedigree.

25. Eat a slice of Passionate Carrot Cake from the Chatsworth Farm Shop.

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How many have you done?

And which ONE (repeat ONE) thing would you add to the list?

As of less than an hour ago, I am officially on me hols for the rest of the month, my CD Discman choosing to mark the occasion by serendipitously furnishing me with the all-time summer pop classic “Beach Baby” by First Class (as dissected quite brilliantly here) on the walk home, nestling as it is on Disc Five of the newly released 5CD compilation 101 70s Hits, which I recommend unreservedly, despite the very occasional clunker, but then again, at a retail price which works out at 15 pence per track (or even less if you place your order here), there’s really very little to complain about.

But I over-subordinate. To make the next eleven days Truly Special, and bearing in mind that I have become the sort of culturally challenged dullard who only reads books on holiday, I have assembled a Summer Reading List With A Theme. I wonder if you can spot what it is?

Mike’s Summer Reading List With A Theme.

1. The Dying Of Delight – Clare Sudbery.

2. Gods Behaving Badly – Marie Phillips.

3. Out Of The Tunnel – Rachel North.

4. The God Interviews – Natalie d’Arbeloff.

5. The Killing Jar – Nicola Monaghan.

(Well, since I’ve given a talk about them, I thought it might be as well to read a few of them…)

Skoolz out 4evah! Happy holidays, everyone!

Since it has been an astonishing eight months since the last Open Mike session (which was directly instrumental in the launch of Post of the Week, as it happens), I’m going to widen the scope somewhat. Thus, instead of the usual quickfire, first-come-first-served, question and answer format, I’d like you to suggest proper post titles for me in the comments box. I shall then pick the ten most stimulating titles, and spin a few choice bons mots around them.

As we’ve got some holiday time coming up later in the week (11 days of it, to be precise), and as we can hardly expect the weather to be conducive to sun-worship, this should make for a handy little holiday assignment.

OK, fire away. As ever, my box is at your disposal.

By some strange trick of the light (or maybe it was just the Waggledance shandies), I look all Deep and Soulful on this one. Don’t be fooled!

Actually, I think I’m just gazing wistfully out at the smoking area. Yes, that would explain everything.

(photo by Lucy Pepper)