Consequences: Post 5

(posted by Clare)

For the first time, the system had let me down.

Because it did, surely it did… didn’t it?

At some time, it must have done. Or how did I end up a revolutionary socialist, at the tender age of 16? I was angry, and chomping at the bit. I was going to save the world. Because there were wrongs everywhere I looked, and they needed righting.

What made me most angry? Nuclear weapons were the first thing I marched, shouted, jumped up and down about. That was when I was 13. Then I got riled about the unequal distribution of wealth, and the exploitation of the working class. But I’d always been a stickler for fairness. Wherever there was an underdog I’d be there, whether the quiet girl teased at primary school or the mother whose daughter (my friend) was castigating her for not ironing her uniform… “Parents are people too, you know!” was my self righteous cry.

But revolution is quite an extreme reaction. Was it feminism? Is that what did it? Was I a victim of terrible sexism? At the age of five I insisted my teddy was female (why should all bears be male?), and marched around the playground shouting “Boys are rubbish, put them in the dustbin!” I declared myself a supporter of women’s lib at the age of nine and naïvely rejoiced at the introduction of a female prime minister. But do I have any personal tales of misogynist injustice? Nope. I was the only girl studying A level maths. I felt a bit outnumbered. But nobody ever, would have dared ever tell me I couldn’t do whatever the hell I wanted to do.

I honestly can’t think of one single significant example of being let down by the system. Not personally.

But boy, I can tell you a gazillion tales of other people’s pain. The friend who was dragged into the back of a police van on a Saturday night, beaten up and then charged with assault. One of them headbutted him and broke his own glasses. My mate was charged with criminal damage.

I could go on. I won’t.

But you know what? I’ve been trying to work out why somebody would blow themselves sky high if they hadn’t grown up in a war zone. Why they would kill innocent people if they didn’t have blameless dead relatives of their own. What would make them feel THAT strongly about something…

But we do. Human beings. We’re capable of anger, passion, great good and sheer evil. And we always, every one of us, think we’re right.

What we’re not so good at is taking a step outside, and looking at things from someone else‘s point of view. We’ve all behaved badly, we’ve all hurt people. But we all feel happy to condemn when someone else is committing a crime.

There’s no question in my mind that those bombers perpetrated a hideous, heinous, evil act. But that gets me nowhere. I want to know why. I want to know who next. I want to know when. And what scares me most is not that a stranger whose mind I’ll never inhabit has done this terrible thing. The question that burns in my brain is… Could it be me? Could it be you? And whose eyes, and whose teeth will be exchanged for the eye and the tooth of last week’s victims?

The greatest atrocities in world history have been committed at the hands of ordinary men and women. Nazi soldiers and every-day Germans. Rwandan soldiers. Balkan citizens. Large numbers of people caught up in the language of hate, seeking retribution against those they consider to be their enemies. People like you and me, answering the call of “We will not be beaten” and “They can’t do this to us, because we are strong.”

In the summer of 1969, I was born.

That year Nixon gave the go-ahead to “Operation Breakfast” – the covert bombing of Cambodia, conducted without the knowledge of Congress or the American public.

On June 29th, in New York’s Greenwich Village, the police raided a gay bar and sparked the Stonewall riots.

On July 14th, Francis McCloskey (aged 67), a Catholic civilian, died one day after being hit on the head with a baton by an officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) during street disturbances in Dungiven, County Derry.

For the first time, the system had let me down.

Yesterday’s outage.

Apologies for the extended break in service yesterday; this was apparently caused by a wonky server at my (normally faultless) hosting company.

While the site was down, I amused myself by compiling a “state of play” round-up of life in the Big Blogger house, six weeks into the experience. My character over there has been showing occasional signs of going a bit “panto villain” (see also the recent “party manifesto” task), and I’m wondering whether to build on that further (for the sake of entertainment), or whether to rein it in (for the sake of gamesmanship). We shall see.

K and I are relieved to hear that our newest friend Quickos made it back to Belgium safe and sound. He has already started telling his readers all about his exciting adventures with K in the Princess Diana Memorial Garden, and his Daddy tells me that there will be plenty more to come. We are already missing his cheerful little face around the place. No, seriously, we are: it’s the weirdest thing, but we have never before met a glove puppet with so much natural charisma.

Finally, don’t miss the excellent “Consequences” guest post below, from brand new blogger on the block, (and Kevin Ayers fan, woo!) Rob of Eine Kleine Nichtmusik. A full day later, and I’m still quietly seething…

Continue reading “Yesterday’s outage.”

Consequences: Post 4

(Posted by Rob )

“Sing it. Sing it so I can hear all the words.”

There she goes, Mrs Dodds the teacher who takes the choir. A dandelion-head of frizzy white hair appearing over the top of the upright piano, silhouetted against the windows across the classroom. Between us, lines of boys and girls standing ready to sing, some with look-how-hard-I’m-concentrating expressions, some with a kind of easy nonchalance, but all ready to hit those consonants so hard the windows will blow out. (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” won’t be released for another eleven years, but the scene where the aliens’ reply to the human musical tootling shatters all the windows will make such an impression on me that maybe it echoes backwards through time.)

“Toodle-um-a-um-a, toodle-um-a-um-a, it looks like rain….”

And where am I? I’m the new boy, standing near the back because of my height, only in the school for a few months because we’ve just moved into the village. Not totally friendless, but with those guarded friendships you get when everyone else is already formed up into groups and you’re an appendage. Fairly bright: up there in the top five or so, sometimes vying for the top spot with Julia (a nerdy type but I fancy her like mad, just knowing somehow that she’ll blossom into a real beauty) or with Paul (son of one of the teachers, very full of himself, bosses people about, the kind of blond sporty type I am already coming to be wary of). Ten years old and wanting to fit in, that’s where I am.

“Toodle-um-a-um-a, toodle-um-a-um-a, don’t mind the rain….”

At my previous school we’d done French, which I liked. At my new school they do not only French, but German and Dutch as well. It beats me how anyone manages to take in three languages on an hour a week between them, and I’m not sure how much they do take in. However, all that is pretty theoretical because no sooner has my pudgy behind hit the seat in those classes than somebody asks for volunteers to sing in the choir which will be rehearsing at this time each week. And that, said John, is that. Goodbye French, hello choir. I do choirs. I do music.

“He’ll mend your umbrella, then go on his way….”

Picture the tubby ten-year-old, a bit of a nerd with a head full of science and a worryingly good memory for trivia. Also – courtesy of Dorset-born parents – cursed with an accent which to anyone from the Manchester area is redolent of Long John Silver, of yokels with straw stuck in their mouths, of village idiots…. The accent doesn’t show though when I let rip with my boyish treble. It’s a belter of a voice in fact: not King’s College Chapel material, maybe, but decently formed, in tune, and able to get the high notes without straining or cracking. I can certainly keep my end up in the school choir, which I love. The ugly duckling becomes a skylark.

“Singing toodle-um-a-um-a-toodle-ay,
Toodle-um-a-um-a-toodle-ay,
Any um-be-rellas to fix today?”

Terrific. The notes die away. Windows still intact, but we’ve nailed it. Oh, and there goes a hand over on the far left, near the piano. It’s Paul, the abovementioned alpha male of Junior 5. Not a bad voice himself. What does he want?

“Yes Paul?”
“Please Mrs Dodds, Robert Saunders wasn’t singing.”

What?

“Sorry, Paul?”
“Robert Saunders wasn’t singing.”

Has this child gone insane? Not singing? You’d have to cram a sock in my mouth and spray me with tear gas to shut me up.

And then. And then. I can see it now, forty years later, Mrs Dodds hardly even looking at me and saying “Well, we don’t want people in the choir who don’t sing, so Robert can go back to Mr Clowes class. Go on,” because I was standing in shock , “Out you go.”

I can feel around forty pairs of eyes on me. The ones nearest me, mostly female, puzzled because they know I was singing. Paul’s, triumphant. The rest? At the age of ten, the word “Schadenfreude” is still in my future, but the concept has arrived. I put down my music, eyes pricking and throat closing up with anxiety, rage, confusion and embarrassment. I clamber out of the row of children, and leave. I close the door behind me. I let go of a few anguished sobs but I’m literally choked up, and not much comes out. Slowly up the stairs, not wanting to get to the top.

If leaving that room is bad, arriving back in the other classroom to take up French (and German) (and Dutch) halfway through the year is even worse. How do you make an entrance that takes the sting out of “Hi, I’m a failure and have just been binned from the choir for no reason I can comprehend yet”? I may have an awesome capacity for trivia, but the memory of that entrance, indeed most of my memory of that class, will vanish completely. I may eventually learn French and German (even a few words of Dutch), but not from Mr Clowes, though I assume he will try to teach me.

——————————————————–

Forty years on, it still rankles. I can only make sense of the whole incident as a set-up of some kind, whether because Paul was Mrs Dodds’ class favourite or for some other reason. Why else would his unsupported delation have led to my immediate dismissal? No chance to say anything in my defence. No asking the children round me if they had heard me singing. No “You’d better start singing or you’ll be out of this choir” even. Just “Please Mrs Dodds, Robert Saunders isn’t singing” and I’m history. Remembering the incident brings up so many negative emotions that if I wallowed in them I would begin to turn to the Dark Side. I really do want to go back through time and cut Paul in two with my blood-red light sabre. I want to gesture at Mrs Dodds and have her throat close up even more than mine did when she threw me out. “Apology accepted” I would breath metallically at her lifeless form. When I think back, it’s her role in all of this that I find most despicable and hard to understand. Paul, I assume, got rid of an unwanted rival, and fair enough, that’s what ten-year-olds do, if they’re total prats who believe the world is made for them alone. She was a teacher, and teachers are supposed to be the Guys In White Hats when you’re ten years old. For the first time, the system had let me down.

Consequences: Post 3

(Posted by PB Curtis)

“We should be proud of what makes us, us.”

“Ewes? Female sheep?”

“No, Us, upper class.”

“Your usage of us is very u; surely, you mean you, not us.”

“We beg your pardon?”

“One is merely middle class, your highnesses, for which one apologises and feels humble in your presence. I’m non-u, and thus we can’t be proud of it. You wire in, though, and knock yourself out.”

Not exactly the way the conversation went, but a legitimate mimeo thereof. The discussion was class shame – I believe (no, I bet) it was Julie Burchill who said that only the middle class are ashamed of themselves – but my high-born friend seemed to be just as stamped with the Burchill imprimatur, given her call to proud arms.

I’m pro-pride, as a rule. I truly believe that if we spent more time and effort being proud of ourselves for what we do, and what we are, we’d all need less medication and fewer therapists. We’re encouraged not to, however, and the blame for this lies squarely with Evagrius of Pontus.

He is the founding father of charts of infamy with his original list of eight nasty human passions, and argued that pride was the worst of the lot. It’s classical Greek irony, this proclamation that pride is shameful. You can’t help but wonder if he didn’t hate himself just a little, because Evagrius apparently enjoyed great acclaim as a theologian, before – HA! – getting busted having it off with a Roman Prefect’s wife. Then he has the gall to blame pride for his downfall, rather than his penis. With that sort of chicanery, if he was alive today, he’d be a former Tory cabinet minister.

Anyway, I digress. I was in the middle of talking about class structure in Britain, and I go off and get hung up on Greek cock. That is always happening to me. My point was going to be that while pride is cruelly undervalued, actually being proud because Mum and Dad were upper, middle, or working class is missing the point. Fair enough to not be ashamed – which is the noble origin of “working class and proud of it” – but plain old wrong and stupid to really be proud. If only because, as Clare illuminates, there are more sterling qualities than the retarded social construct of class to be proud of. We all know that – right? – but shame remains the more enticing emotion, because it’s become perversely legitimised as humility.

Had “Shagger” Evagrius not been such a weasel, he might have made a compelling case that it’s shame that’s an offence against God, and love, and the self; the world might have been a much better place for it. Pride is a hosannah. Sing it.

Consequences: Post 2

(Posted by Clair)

The corny ones will get you every time…

My life is ruled by cliches. Every day there is a cliche that describes my life, and slowly I’ve got to come to grips with the fact that my life isn’t perfect.

There are good things that happen, and bad things. There are obstacles to overcome and hurdles to be jumped. But despite all this, life goes on.

As a race, humans are remarkably good at carrying on despite everything. We plough through and achieve despite the odds. The odds might be terrible, we may be facing war or poverty, slavery or hunger, but we have a humongous will to carry on. An innate desire to survive, despite all the odds. And I think we should be proud of this. Proud of the inner strength that drives us onward. We should be proud of what makes us, us.

Consequences: Post 1.

(posted by Mike)

Hey ho, here it comes. As the crowd cheers in delighted recognition, Dymbel and I exchange meaningful shrugs. Massive fan that he is, this one has never done much for him. As for me, I grew tired of it a long time ago. Even in the context of last Saturday in Hyde Park, where so many dull songs by lesser acts took on new, grander resonances, I remained unmoved. Now, I simply tune out and drift off.

In the cottage, late last Friday evening. K has gone to bed; I can already hear the snores from upstairs. I’m staring at the telly, pleasantly trashed, not yet ready to let the feeling end, giving free rein to the right side of my brain, letting it lead me through whatever unexpected connections it chooses to make.

Which is when it hits me.

The part of me that I hate, that causes me all the wobbles, the angst, the Self Esteem Issues…

The part that procrastinates, that under-achieves, that won’t dare to try because it’s so sure that it will fail, that’s ruled by fear, that has erected thick barbed wire barricades around the prison yard of its comfort zone…

The part that says I can’t, and I won’t, and why bother, because you can do it better than me anyway …

The part that ties itself up in Gordian knots of guilt and blame…

…it’s just a part of me. It’s not all of me. It’s not even most of me. And so I shouldn’t fall into the trap of letting it define me. Because the greater part of me is better than this.

How do I know this?

I know this because I am loved by the most wonderful man I have ever met.

And if he can see worth in me, then ipso facto, that worth must exist. Because, for all the accusatory shit that I might choose to fling at myself, two irreducible truths remain:

1. All sentimental bullshit aside (she’s the best mum in the world/they’re two little angels), he is the most wonderful man I have ever met.

2. His love for me is beyond all reasonable doubt.

Why hasn’t this occurred to me before? I am loved, ergo I am worthy of love. Accept this truism, and it could me give me some of the strength I need in the perpetual battle which I wage with my darker, weaker self. Indeed, there is no reason why I cannot use the greater part of myself to heal the…

*snap*

And you’re back in the football stadium.

Having stated and re-stated its lyrical themes, the song is now peaking, by means of an extended instrumental passage. Insistent, repeated triplets, steadily increasing in intensity, are rippling out from the stage in waves of pure, positive emotion, accentuated by wordless, staccato barks from Michael Stipe. The stage lighting is bright now – so bright that, even at this distance, I can feel something of its warmth in the cool, damp, dusky air.

In front of me, and indeed all around me, thousands of pairs of hands are stretched up high in assertive V-shapes, obliterating the view of the band, engulfing me in one shared feeling of joyful, certain release.

So, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Everybody hurts. You are not alone.

Ambushed by unexpected emotion. The corny ones will get you every time.

Big Blogger update.

Over in the Big Blogger house, I have particularly enjoyed the two most recent tasks: devising a new festival (The International Festival Of Blog), and inventing a new sport (The “Last To Be Picked” Champions League).

I also had fun dreaming up a lonely hearts advert. Come share my bubbles!

Meanwhile, Miss Mish has explained the rules of Extreme Shoe Shopping, and JonnyB has told us about the time he met Peter Andre. So, you see, it’s not all vast acres of free-form wibble. Oh no. We’re quite the Quality Destination Blog Of Choice these days, I think you’ll find.

Back in the real world, fellow Big Blogger housemate Alan found himself caught up in what sounds like some unpleasantly heavy-handed policing tactics, whilst wandering round Edinburgh in the middle of the G8 protests. The comments at the end of his piece reflect a wide range of views: some of them critical of his judgement, but all of them (to date) expressed in a remarkably (and refreshingly) even-tempered manner. (via)

Continue reading “Big Blogger update.”

It’s going to be Consequences.

As I both expected and hoped, it’s a landslide vote in favour of Consequences (see below). That little vote was basically just a way of absolving my conscience over nicking Vaughan’s fine idea.The people made me do it! Pontius Pilate, me.

There’s still plenty of time to volunteer. I’ll get things rolling in the next couple of days.

The big musical event of the weekend…

…was, of course, a glammed-up Joss Stone pussy-whipping a whimpering James Brown on Friday night’s Jonathan Ross show, as the two of them re-worked Brown’s classic “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”, thereby giving us a glimpse of what she might be capable of, if her “people” didn’t keep saddling with her with lame…

…oh, sorry, were you expecting me to be talking about something else?

Unfortunately, a long-scheduled visit to my mother in Cambridge meant that I didn’t see one single, solitary second of Live8 on Saturday, although we did catch a couple of hours of radio coverage on the journey over. Instead, I spent six hours of Sunday evening, remote in hand, whizzing through the Hyde Park coverage until the recording packed up just before Robbie Williams.

Highlights? Madonna, obviously – although not until she had released the stranded, bewildered Ethiopian famine survivor from her clutches, about halfway through “Like A Prayer”. Snoop Dogg, despite the deeply horrifying and inappropriate potty-mouthedness. Ricky Gervais introducing REM. Apple Paltrow-Martin’s giant pink ear protectors. Mariah Carey summoning her minion on stage to administer a teeny-tiny sip-ette of water, in best diva style. The nervous look on Elton John’s face, when he realised what a state Pete Doherty was in. Green Day belting out “American Idiot” in Berlin. Sting’s “Every Breath You Take”, appositely re-contextualised, stealing the all-important “sunset” slot.

I also – dare I admit this? – really liked Keane’s performance. There, I’ve said it. Please don’t hate me.

Lowlights? Snow Patrol: just not up to it. UB bloody 40. Mariah Carey breaking the “don’t plug your new single” rule (even if, in its studio version, the new single is actually rather wonderful). REM’s “Man On The Moon” being scuppered by an interview with chuffing Razorlight. The whole “finger-clicking” thing not quite working. Crappy random selections from the Eden Project gig (both on TV and on Radio 3), which I’m sure did the event no justice. Chris Martin being an utter dipstick as usual, calling “Bittersweet Symphony” the greatest song ever written, and Live8 “the greatest thing organised in the history of the world”. (Er, the Great Wall Of China, Chris? The Second World War? Swindon?)

Whatevers? The new Scissor Sisters song (despite some nice Peter Frampton-esque vocoder gurgles). Joss Stone, back in the grip of her usual dull repertoire. Velvet “huh? who?” Revolver. Elton John: rocking out, and thus playing against his strengths. Razorlight almost pulling it off, but being let down by a poor sense of rhythm (all that unsyncopated uptempo bash-bash-bashing) and far too much Jim Morrison wannabe-ism.

I bet Pink Floyd were fantastic. They were, weren’t they? (Marcello certainly thought so). So frustrating.

Meanwhile, my sister managed to accidentally wander into the Rome concert, from where she texted me, somewhat underwhelmed by the endless parade of unknown Italian acts.

Back in London, Gert attended the Hyde Park show, and made several postings about it. The two longest ones are here. And then there was Stuart Hydragenic, who provided a multi-part commentary from his armchair. Start here, then follow the links.

What’s that you say? Incisive political analysis? Darlings, please. I have other fish to fry.

OK, who’s up for a little bit of collaborative guest-blogging fun?

A few days ago, Mimi popped into my comments box to say, amongst other things:

Can you come up with some more games to play like the imitation writing game a few weeks ago? I’m kinda bored and I have free time.

How could I refuse? Besides, it has been nearly a year since we last had guest-bloggers on this site, so it’s high time we threw open the doors once again.

This time round, I shall only be requiring one guest post from each contributor, to be made some time between now and the end of July. Since this is hardly an onerous commitment, I’m hoping for a reasonably healthy number of volunteers.

If you’re up for it, then please e-mail me at mikejla at btinternet dot com, stating which of the following three posting “concepts” you would like to work with. I’ll then tot up the number of votes cast, and will go with the most popular option.

1. Blogging Consequences.

This would involve the brazen re-appropriation of a concept which Vaughan introduced on his own site three years ago, with quite marvellous results. Basically, each participant has to take the last sentence of the previous post, and use it as the first sentence of their own post.

2. Weblog archive: July 1995.

Imagine that you were blogging ten years ago, when John Major was still Prime Minister, Britpop was in full swing, and 28.8k dial-up modems were the stuff that dreams were made of. What piece might you have written back then?

3. What I Did On My Holidays.

With the holiday season nearly upon us, please regale us with your most memorable holiday anecdote – be it tragic or transcendent, comic or cathartic, sordid or sublime.

Bear in mind that you should be prepared to adhere to whichever theme receives the most votes. Other than that, feel free to interpret the chosen theme in any way you like. Ooh, I’m getting a good feeling about this already!

Look who has come to stay with Mike and his special friend K in Nottingham!

Hello Quickos, and welcome to the beautiful and historic city of Nottingham! I’m sure you’re going to have lots of really exciting adventures while you’re here. Please say thank you to Mummy and Daddy for the scrumptious Belgian waffles. We had them with strawberry jam, and they were really yummy.

quickos01

First of all, we took Quickos to see Robin Hood. Robin Hood was the most famous man ever to live in Nottingham. He took all the money off the rich people, and gave it to the poor people, so that they wouldn’t be poor ever again.

quickos03

(K says he’s not sure that’s such a good idea, particularly if the rich people are busy making Important Contributions to the Knowledge Economy. Doesn’t K know a lot of big words!)

quickos04

Being photographed with Famous Folk Heroes is thirsty work! So Mike and K took Quickos to Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem for a pint of English beer. Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem is the oldest pub in England, Mike says. Quickos said he hoped the beer wasn’t that old!

quickos05

Here’s Quickos, having his first ever pint of English beer with Mike. (Actually, Mike just let Quickos have a couple of sips, because he’s not really old enough for beer just yet, and Mike was worried that he might be setting a Bad Example.)

quickos07

Ooh, yummy! Quickos loves English beer! This one’s called “Olde Trip”, just like the name of the pub. It makes Quickos feel all silly and giggly. Mike says he’ll need a good long sleep tonight!

Quickos is really, really excited, because Mike and K are taking him to the countryside tomorrow, to see the Princess Diana Memorial Garden. And then on Saturday, Quickos is going all the way to Cambridge, to visit Mike’s Mummy. Mike says that lots of clever people live in Cambridge, because they’ve studied really hard at school and done all of their sums.

Quickos loves meeting all his new English friends.

The Troubled Diva Rough Guide To “World” Music – Part 1.

Although I can drone away about the minutiae of pop music until the cows come home – a pithy apercu here, a deconstructed semiological signifier there – when it comes to my other great love, quote-unquote “world” music, I generally clam up. This is because, where “world” music is concerned, I find I have no particular desire to do anything other than simply listen to the stuff, devoid of any background knowledge or cultural context. For me, the music works on an almost entirely abstract level – as pure form and feeling, articulated and embellished by a strong sense of craft and technique.

Thus it is that I scarcely even bother to scan the translated lyrics, choosing instead to wallow in the sound of the voices. Indeed, a lyric sung in English generally comes as an unwelcome intrusion of literal meaning, jarring against my cliché-primed sensibilities. Keep the meaning obscure, and you keep the mystery intact.

I am also well aware that what we middle class white Europeans like to call “world music” is actually a carefully packaged marketing niche, and that the stuff that “world music” audiences rave over isn’t always the stuff that goes down best in its countries of origin. Example: the last Youssou N’Dour album (the critically acclaimed Egypt) bombed in Senegal, because you couldn’t dance to it. Meanwhile the most popular pan-African artists are probably Sting, Phil Collins, Bob Marley, Eminem and 50 Cent.

In other words, it’s easy to fall into a false trap of cultural tourism, where the attractively packaged “world music” album is actually about as representative of that country’s culture as the beautifully carved wooden ornaments that you can only find in souvenir shops.

Or consider the situation in reverse, where a native African tells you that he really loves your English music: Kate Rusby, Eliza Carthy, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention. Which, of course, is not without its adherents (and rightly so) – but it’s hardly the stuff which you’ll hear booming out of doorways as you stroll down “typical” English streets.

So, maybe for “world” music, it would be better to say “roots” music instead. But then again, I’m no purist. What about all that Senegalese hip hop? Or the contemporary, cosmopolitan influences which Manu Chao has brought to bear on the new Amadou & Mariam album? Or the scratch DJ-ing on the Ojos De Brujo and Miguel ‘Anga’ Diaz albums? Or Rachid Taha collaborating with Steve Hillage and covering The Clash?

And that’s the other problem: reading about “world” music is not only beside the point – but, well, a little bit boring, like a coursework assignment. Better by far to sidestep all the fascinating facts, all the “Is it representative?”, “Am I being marketed to?” head-f**ks, all the cultural tourism baggage…

…and just enjoy the music. Which I do, constantly. Especially at weekends, or in the car, or at any other time where K is within earshot. (In the Venn diagram of our musical tastes, the intersection of the circles is marked “world/roots”.)

Which brings me to my point. If I’m not going to blog about my love of “world” music, then perhaps it’s better if I let the music speak for itself.

In which case, here’s Part One of the Troubled Diva Rough Guide To “World” Music: a continuous mix, containing nine songs, and lasting for half the length of a CD. The second half of the CD will be along in a few days’ time, and the full track listing will appear a few days after that, along with links to all the featured albums.

In the two mixes, I have focused mainly on albums which have come out in the past 18 months or so, with one or two tracks thrown in for historical interest. About half the tracks are African, with the remainder coming from all over the world.

Here are four Yousendit links, all to the same file, which should provide enough downloads to be going on with. Even if you have no particular interest in “world” music, I would strongly advise you to take a listen anyway; if nothing else, these selections make a great soundtrack for sunny afternoons and hot, sticky nights.

Suddenly, Eurovision seems like months ago. Ah, let’s hear it for proper music!

Link one.
Link two.
Link three.
Link four.

PDMG Update.

mpdmg05072

Three summers down the line, and our Princess Diana Memorial Garden continues to surprise and delight. For the first couple of years, the garden’s appeal was primarily to do with the landscaping. This year, with colours and shapes expanding and melding at an astonishing rate, its appeal has become much more about the planting.

We mulched hard in the spring, getting through a dozen sacks of the stuff, and thereby absolving ourselves from a hell of a lot of weeding. We were also lavish with the blood, fish and bone; sometimes a little too lavish, causing some disproportionate growth and unsightly legginess. But it’s all part of the learning curve, and the triumphs well outweigh the disasters.

Last Sunday, we opened the PDMG to the public, as part of the village’s Open Gardens Day. This was the cause of a certain amount of performance anxiety earlier in the week, as it seemed as though the garden was caught in a period of transition; a lot of the good stuff had peaked, while not enough of the newer stuff was coming through. However – and following sustained activity on Thursday evening, all day Friday (we took the day off), much of Saturday, and several hours on Sunday morning – we had succeeded in turning the place round.

This was massively helped by the spectacular eruption of the multi-headed white roses known as Rambling Rector, which reached their absolute peak on Sunday. As in the previous two years, these were the most asked about feature in the garden – and as in the previous two years, it was all we could do not to revert to type, and blurt out our preferred semi-private name: Rumbling Rectum. Such sauce!

The alliums also got a lot of attention this year. I think they’ve become quite trendy. But we were early adopters. (Or rather, our garden designer was.)

Even during Sunday afternoon itself, I couldn’t help whipping the secateurs out, and having a couple of quick extra dead-heading sessions on the geraniums. (Or do I mean pelargoniums?) At this time of year, you could spend your entire day doing nothing but dead-heading geraniums, and I did become a little obsessed at times – even seeing the dead-heads behind my eyelids, every time I blinked. Evil! Evil! Snip! Maim! Kill!

Luckily, we had our ever-obliging house guest Slam to help us, and to mediate in times of trial. Unlike most house guests, Slam always leaves the place better than he finds it… and for that, we love him like a brother. (The way to our hearts is through our cleaning products.)

Chig also turned up unexpectedly – tipped off by a mention of Open Gardens Day in my comments box, impressively enough – on his way back from reporting on a somewhat underwhelming Leicester Pride for Gay Times. This all caused great confusion amongst some of the well-meaning Nice Ladies from outside the village, who clearly didn’t know which of “the boys” was supposed to be with whom. (It didn’t help when I gave them long explanations of the history of the garden, entirely in the first person plural, with my hand casually draped over the back of Chig’s chair. The inclusive smiles and nods he got!)

After 6pm, when the gardens shut, K and I hosted the Unofficial After Party, dispensing gallons of chilled rosé to exhibitors and liggers alike. I was also introduced to J.S., a long-standing reader of the blog, who will not be expecting to find herself mentioned. (Everybody say hello to J.S.!) Oh, we’re quite the horticultural socialites these days, I think you’ll find.

To celebrate our towering achievement, here’s a photographic tableau of the PDMG as it looked last Sunday, and very early on Monday morning. Those with fast connections may care to click on the thumbnails to enlarge. Please also note that these have been lovingly hand-coded. Flickr Schmickr! You can’t beat the personal touch!

Update: I’ve fixed those pesky “file not found” errors. My bad, as the cool people used to say.

pdmg05050 pdmg05070 pdmg05079 Continue reading “PDMG Update.”

UK Singles Jukebox: You Can’t Go Fancying Midge Ure’s Daughter.

After a worrying patch of collective ennui, I made an extra effort this week, handing in an impressive seven blurbs for this week’s Stylus UK Singles Jukebox. However, with my fellow panellists also making extra ennui-busting efforts, and with one of this week’s singles being dropped from the article entirely, only four blurbs saw the light of day. These were for Towers Of London (PUNKS NOT DEAD), Royksopp (generic Habitat coffee table), The Tears (better, but still unconvincing) and Charlotte Church (trying to act her age, but still failing).

Here are the three remaining blurbs:

Jump – The Faders.
“You say you need me… WHATEVER! WHATEVER! I’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE!” With this agreeably bratty pop-rockin’ sugar rush, the follow-up to the awesome “No Sleep Tonight”, The Faders prove once again that they are a) a Very Good Thing Indeed, and b) the nearest we have to a home-grown version of Estonia’s mighty Vanilla Ninja. Whatever the song lacks in melodic variety, the inventively detailed widescreen production and the leather-jacketed, fist-pumping Quatro/Jett attitude more than make up for it. [8]
Taste The Last Girl – Sons & Daughters.
I’m sorry that Sons & Daughters have seen fit to turn their back on the gothic country rockabilly of last year’s Love The Cup, in favour of a more straightfowardly rocking NME-friendly post-punkiness. A natural, organic development, or a market-influenced volte face? Either way, this feels like reverse evolution, and I’m left feeling let down by a band who, only a year ago, promised so much. [6]
Here I Go Again – Mario.
This is going to hang around all summer, isn’t it? Goodness, what a depressing prospect. The equally all-conquering “Let Me Love You” was lame but liveable-with, up to a point. However, this freze-dried, vacuum-packed microwave ready meal of lyrical dreariness and wearying “rock influenced” stodge is going to have me reaching for the remote for weeks. [3]

Ten quick ones.

1. Many thanks to Vitriolica for sending me this marvellous (and uncannily accurate) pen portrait, which has replaced that old Gillray cartoon of the Prince Regent at the top of the sidebar. This was one of Vit’s many artistic contributions to Big Blogger (still ongoing; still mad; still enjoying it), which she has collated here.

2. It’s a shame that I can’t find an online copy of yesterday’s annual Independent On Sunday Pink List: a list of the 101 most powerful/influential British gay men and lesbians. (But, somewhat inevitably, and for all sorts of reasons, rather more of the former than the latter.) However, I don’t suppose it would be too copyright-busting of me to reveal the Top 6: Sharon, Serena, Mandy, Camilla, Emily and Vicky. A little surprising to see Mandy still perched at #3, but at least he retains the distinction of being one of the great comic figures of our age:

I’ve been an Asian-minded person for several years. It was on sabbatical from membership of Tony Blair’s Cabinet that I began to take a keen interest in the remarkable economic and social development of your region.

I suppose that “sabbatical” is one way of describing it…

3. But you’ll be wanting to know how many of the Top 101 are close personal friends of mine, won’t you? (And wondering why K wasn’t included, no doubt. Well, we’re in no rush.) OK, so if we’re counting people that I have met and spoken to (however *cough* briefly), then four people on this year’s Pink List can claim that distinction: Matthew Parris (#80), Jonathan Harvey (#76), Julian Clary (#39) and Graham Norton (#37). Whether or not they remember meeting me is quite another matter.

4. As for the rest: I have seen #100, #67, #56, #38, #33, #25, #22, #2 and #1 on stage (Rabbi Lionel Blue, Neil Tennant, Antony Sher, Angela Mason, Paul O’Grady, Chris Smith, George Michael, Serena and Sharon); I have been in the same bar as #93 (Michael Cashman), #54 (Michael Clark), #47 (Neil Bartlett) and #21 (Stephen Fry); I have been in the same club as #50 (Rupert Everett); I have stood in the same conversational group as both #72 (Nick Partridge) and #36 (Peter Tatchell), without being introduced to either (not bitter); I have been in the same backstage VIP area as #42 (Boy George); I have been at the same party as #16 (Alan Duncan); and I have seen #8 (David Hockney) walking down the street in Cambridge. How über-gay is that? Sometimes, I forget what a card-carrying party member I used to be.

5. Our friend Slam’s reaction to seeing the list, yesterday morning over breakfast: “Right, let me find a husband from this lot.” And moments later: “Well, that’s useless… why haven’t they included marital status?”

6. The British blogosphere’s very own Tom Coates was probably at #102. I’d give him three more years, maximum.

7. Peter continues my Bay City Rollers theme over at his place; the discussion then spills over into his comments box. I’ll be completing the review soon, honest. (He always says that.)

8. Diamond Geezer, in the next comments box down:

So, the whole of the last three weeks, all that readership surveying and analysis… it’s all just been an extended marketing campaign for Troubled Diva mugs?

I couldn’t possibly comment. Passive-agressive, moi?

9. Bloggers! You know when you get talking to other bloggers by e-mail, and they then tell you their real name, presumably expecting you to start using it forthwith… well, is it just me, or does this always feel somehow not quite right, and a bit like your maths teacher asking you to call him Steve?

10. Bloggers! When de-linking someone from your blogroll, or when being de-linked from someone else’s blogroll, it helps to visualise the blogosphere as a perpetual cocktail party, and the de-linker as the person saying: “Well, it has been lovely talking to you, but there are some people over there who I simply must meet.” Because if you deploy this paradigm, then it takes all the silly paranoia out of the situation. (I was originally going to expand this metaphor into an extended “blogging as cocktail party” think-piece… but then I couldn’t be arsed. It’s the heat.)

Mug Lust Rewarded: Anna’s Critical Appreciation Challenge.

Yesterday, I set Anna (the second most typical reader of this blog) a challenge: to compose a critical appreciation of the 40 In 40 Days Project, in 300 words or more, by 10:00 this morning.

Having successfully completed the challenge, Anna would then be able to legitimately tick box #27 in my “typical reader” checklist – thus gaining herself an extra point, and raising her score to 26. This would put her into equal first place with Lyle, thus earning her the Troubled Diva coffee mug which she so brazenly craved.

After posting interesting first and second drafts last night, Anna presented her final draft this morning. I am taking the liberty of reproducing it here.

Dear mike he is a blogger,
who once wrote 40 bits
on family, k, gayness,
and women (who have tits)
he once went through a straight patch, snogged that bird from ‘Vicar D’
who is ‘the one who’s ditzy’.
The show is not funnee,

When tiny, Mikey’s sandbox (a metaphor, I think)
when tipped out on the lawn did bring his mother from the sink
and watching him, despondent, she bitterly complained
I wonder for mikes mother. She bare crops up again.

Except around the time, of course
his dad announced the big divorce
a-sitting on his son mike’s bed
he wept a little, and he said
that mummy forthwith was to be
a-living with one ‘Mr G’
A line was drawn, in life, book, post
this is the part that touched me most.

Same father who at that point cried
much later on, before he died
(at least a couple years before)
would not walk to his own son’s door
On learning that he was a mary.
Oh! Hang on! Not PC, meant ‘fairy’
No, that is incorrect as well, a poof?
Queen? Homosexual? Some word with ‘wooof
Oh bugger, bugger, sorry, hell
I have mess up, I cannot tell
which terminology most pleases
re. mike and the gender he squeezes.

Of course, the only one to benefit
– for twenty years (or most of it) –
from Michael’s squeezes is the man
he met, as part of Grocerina’s plan
a set-up, and for once and all
one that worked, and at the ball
(or club) our michael met his match.

Meanwhile, in Holland, some odd batch
of ugly men, with greying hair
would meet in silent rooms and there
would share the task of jacking off
one for each other, til enough
was had – for Mike, that wasn’t long
his heart not in it, something wrong
Mike ran away and clubbed it up
with some hard-bodied soft porn pup.

And speaking of soft porn, let’s not
forget the man in Hamleys, hot
for Mike and his porn actor looks
he offered roles, but (as in books) (?)
was turned down by our hero fretting
the reputation he’d be getting
if he were to take the job
from his mum, and his dad, Bob.

Bob wasn’t really his dad’s name.
I made that up. For rhyme. Yes. Lame.

This is my third and last attempt
to win, by proving that I’ve read
each every word, not one exempt
of 40/40, half braindead

I’m trying hard, and trying to prove
that over all the rest of yous
I fit some statistical outline
Mike made up to clarifine
Who his most average reader be.

I am most average.
This be me.

Give me the mug.

Genius, no? I think you’ll agree that Anna has more than fulfilled her brief. With this in mind, I propose to award her NOT one, but TWO mugs. One from the “classic” range, and one from the “novelty” range, featuring those irrepressible little critters, the racist ducks. One for Anna, and one for her Beau. Or one for home, and the other for her prestigious and influential workplace.

(This is what we call a marketing “push” exercise, you see: promoting the product by releasing limited stocks amongst key “opinion formers”. I’m not daft!)

Anna Pickard: Troubled Diva salutes your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, your facility with rhyme, and your rampant Mug Lust.

Lyle: for ticking 26 out of 30 boxes, you too will be receiving a mug. How does the position of Official Site Mascot sound?

Non-blogging readers John and Tim: with scores of 11 each, you are officially declared Troubled Diva’s most atypical readers. Mugs all round, boys! Please contact me with your postal addresses, and I’ll do the rest.

As for everyone else who participated: mugs are available for purchase in the foyer. Please don’t all rush at once.

The Bay City Rollers: Nottingham Arena, June 21st 2005.

Additional note: July 5th 2005. Although this piece was only originally written for the small audience who reads my weblog, Google has seen fit to give it a high ranking for the artist concerned. I should therefore sound a note of caution for people who have arrived here via search engines. What follows is a harsh review, which some might consider disrespectful or even offensive. It is, however, an honest and accurate record of the thoughts which went through my mind while watching the show in question. As a blogger, I make no claims to objectivity; however, it is also not my intention to cause gratuitous offence. If this review offends you, then please accept my apologies, whilst bearing in mind that this is just the personal point of view of some random bloke off the Internet. After all, it would be a boring world if we all thought the same way…

As this was the first night of the “Once In A Lifetime” package tour of former 1970s teenybop idols, neither Miss Mish nor I knew quite what to expect. So we were initially a little bowled over by the demographic make-up of the audience, which was almost completely comprised of very excited women in their forties. Very, very excited women in their forties. With tartan accessories. (Some of them had been awfully busy on their Singer sewing machines.) And custom-printed T-shirts. (One lady in front of us had SHANG-A-LANG emblazoned on her back, while her companion had plumped for the more direct LET ME IN.) And cellophane-wrapped floral tributes, to hurl over the barricades at Les, or Merrill, or Little Jimmy, or one of the two Davids. And, in the case of one particularly determined Bay City Rollers fan who spent a good ten minutes before the show engaged in protracted negotiations with no less than three security guards: a teddy bear with a tartan bow around its neck.

(One shudders to think of the negotiation tactics she was prepared to wheel out, although the stony-faced but slightly fearful expressions on the faces of the three guards spoke volumes. At one point, she even started waving the paw of the teddy bear at them (“Look, he’s saying hello!”), in a last-ditch bid to melt their hearts. Conclusion: be very, very afraid of middle-aged women bearing teddy bears.)

As the Bay City Rollers – sorry, Les McKeown’s 70’s Bay City Rollers (there’s a clue in there for you) – took to the stage, almost the entire first three rows of the audience stormed down to the front, where they formed a kind of hormonal mosh-pit. (With so much polyester rubbing together, it’s a wonder we didn’t see sparks flying.) As Mish and I were in the fourth row, on the end of an aisle, we were therefore granted excellent sight-lines to the stage. However, we also had to endure the din of an almost constant pitched battle next to us, as teeming hordes of stoked-up, tartan-clad Angelas and Nicolas and Deborahs and Amandas begged, beseeched and clamoured to get past the security guards that were stationed right next to us. They never gave up, either. Sometimes, one of them managed to distract the guards long enough to allow three or four more to barge through, squealing with glee, camera phones primed and ready. You wonder whether any of them were listening to the music at all.

Mind you, one could hardly blame them for having other concerns. Alone out of the four acts on the bill that night, the music of the Bay City Rollers has steadfastly refused to accrue any modicum of nostalgic appeal whatsoever. It has always been, and will always be, wretched, piss-poor, joyless stuff: cranked out by backroom hacks to fill a lucrative niche, and performed by useful (and ultimately expendable) idiots, with no artistic or emotional investment in their craft, on any level. And I speak as someone with a considerable fondness for supposedly “manufactured” pop, providing it is done with style, or wit, or love (three boxes which the likes of Take That managed to tick effortlessly).

So imagine how much more reduced the experience would be when confronted by “Les McKeown’s 70´s Bay City Rollers” – featuring singer Les McKeown, and an anonymous bunch of hired hands. OK, I’ll give them their due: they were a tolerably competent bunch of hired hands, who blustered efficiently through the Rollers canon while a scarlet-jacketed McKeown (there was an inescapable whiff of Butlins about this) dutifully trotted out the sha-la-las and shang-a-langs with all the emotional engagement of the slightly sad-looking geezer on his own in the corner of the pub on karaoke night.

It was the eyes that gave him away, really. They were the dead eyes of someone who found himself shackled to a body of work which he had almost certainly grown to despise, but which – not having had sufficient wit in his youth to avoid the pitfalls of unscrupulous managers and dodgy contracts – he was obliged to perform, in perpetuity, in order to put bread on the table. Not having made any true emotional investment in his glory days, there was therefore no way for him to recoup any of that investment in middle age. Through his grim-faced, disconnected, slightly pained performance, you could see that performing had probably never held much joy for him in the first place. Yes, he was badly advised and ripped off in the past. But nevertheless, you reap what you sow.

Not that any of this really mattered to the assembled Angies and Nickys and Debbies and Mandys, for whom the years were rolling back apace. They just wanted to sway their hands in the air to Bye Bye Baby and Give A Little Love, go a little mad for a night, and relive the follies of their youth. McKeown was just the catalyst for this collective act of remembrance. It was barely even about him. (Maybe it never was. Maybe he knows that now.) All he really had to do was turn up, stay in tune, and not f**k things up too badly. Easy work, when you think about it.

Even so, McKeown was able to get away with granting himself the odd mild indulgence: a re-arrangement here, a different rhythm there, and even a barmy section in the middle of Shang-A-Lang, where the band suddenly lurched into a few bars of Deep Purple’s Black Night. (Maybe that was one for the small contingent of stoic husbands who had been dragged along for the evening.) Towards the end, he even flashed a couple of broad smiles. However, and without wishing to labour the analogy unfairly, they still struck me as the smiles of a deluded addict chasing a long-vanished high.

Competition: Are you Troubled Diva’s most typical reader?

Based on the results of my recent readership survey, I am now in a position to assemble a detailed profile of this site’s most “typical” reader. Maybe that reader is you?

In order to find out, take a look through the following list, ticking every statement which applies to yourself. Then total up your score, and either leave it in the comments box, or mail it to me: mikejla at btinternet dot com.

The person who attains the highest score will receive a beautiful Troubled Diva coffee mug, ABSOLUTELY FREE. As will the person who attains the lowest score. Because we value diversity.

Eyes down! Here we go!

1. I am male.
2. I am 28 years old.
3. I am heterosexual.
4. I am partnered (but not married).
5. I live in the UK.
6. I live in London.
7. I am in full time employment, but I am not self-employed.
8. I am reading this survey (for the first time) at home.
9. I am a university graduate.
10. We have never spoken to each other by e-mail.
11. We have never met in real life.
12. I have never won a prize on this site.
13. I have my own weblog, and have made at least one posting to it since January 1st 2005.
14. Troubled Diva has linked to my weblog.
15. Mike has left a comment on my weblog.
16. I started reading Troubled Diva in 2002.
17. I first found Troubled Diva via a link on someone else’s blog.
18. I read Troubled Diva every day, or whenever it is updated.
19. Compared to a year ago, I read Troubled Diva just as often as before.
20. I come here on the off-chance that you have updated; I don’t use any form of RSS reader or other update monitor.
21. I read most posts, but skip or skim-read the ones which are less interesting to me.
22. I read between 10 and 25 weblogs on a regular basis.
23. I do not particularly mind either way about this year’s increase in music-related posts.
24. I have never bought any Troubled Diva merchandise.
25. I have never bought a CD as a result of a recommendation on this site.
26. I have discovered at least one blog through this site, which I have then gone on to read regularly.
27. One of my favourite pieces on this site is the 40 In 40 Days Project.
28. I have used the links on the sidebar to read old posts on this site.
29. This site has made me laugh out loud, but it has never made me cry, and it has never made me angry.
30. There is nothing in the world that I would like more than a FREE Troubled Diva coffee mug.

Good luck!

Update: At the time of writing, Lyle leads the Typicals with a score of 26, while John leads the Atypicals with 11.

However, as the comments box will reveal, Anna is mounting a bold (and some might say “nit-picking”) challenge for the lead, with all manner of “Yes, but if you count this, then…” provisos and sub-clauses. In recognition of such crazed Mug Lust, I have therefore set her a challenge, to be completed by midnight tonight (Thursday). Watch this space, as they always say in corporate newsletters.

Readership Survey Results: Part 7.

(With apologies for the break in service; this was occasioned by my retiring to my sick bed for a couple of days, in a heat-induced swoon.)

Right then – let’s knock this tired old warhorse on the head once and for all, shall we?

23. Have you ever used the links on my sidebar to read old posts on this site?

I’ve often wondered whether it was worth the effort of providing a “best of TD” section on the sidebar – because surely no-one actually reads the old stuff, do they? It therefore came as an immense surprise to discover that 92% of you answered “yes” to this question – proving that, with a bit of strategic thought and some artfully seductive post titles, weblog archives don’t have to disappear into obscurity after all.

24. Excluding the comments boxes: Has Troubled Diva ever made you laugh out loud? Has it ever made you cry? Has it ever made you angry?

He wants bleeding emotions now? How many more f**ing questions are there.

Look mate, you provide a product. I read it. Don’t expect me to read it with _insert_ emotion.

You know, I was almost tempted to count this one as a “yes” to the third part of the question. But in the end, 58 people went Ha Ha, 9 people went Boo Hoo, and just 7 went Grr Grr.

Personally, I think I’ve got off way too lightly with the Grr Grrs, as there are times when I look through the archives and think: get over yourself, Mary. But then there’s no greater critic than oneself, is there?

If only I’d had the nerve to add “Has it ever made you horny?” We’ll never know now!

25. Do you have any other comments?

“A faster comments system!”, you cried. “Another blogging management system!”, you implored. To which I say: nay and nay. My comments boxes may be slow at times – but the amazing body of content which they have accrued over the years is just too valuable to chuck away. Also, I neverget spammed. Never.

A large number of people were worried that I might use the results of this survey to change the future direction of the blog. Nope, that was never the idea. However, the survey has been the springboard for an awful lot of reflection over the past couple of weeks. Don’t worry: I’ll spare you the gory details. However, I’ll just say that the period of reflection was much needed.

And then lots of you said lots of very nice things, which made me blush and simper, and cross my legs, and duck my head, Lady Di style, below my long-vanished floppy fringe. For which much thanks.

To reward you for helping me with this survey, I’ll be running a small competition tomorrow. Because it’s been, ooh, weeks since I last offered a prize on this site, and it’s high time I did something to promote the merchandise.

Oh, and by the way. If you’ve been having trouble accessing the RSS feed via Bloglines, I’ve now added a second feed via Feedburner. Both links are up on the top right hand corner of the sidebar, just above the search box. Hope this helps.