The Long Kiss Hello

The last time Kate Bush performed a live concert was 1979. I was too young to go and anyway, record buying and gig going were something totally beyond my boyhood consciousness at the time. A few years later when I’d finally 'got my groove on' the chances of Kate Bush ever performing a live gig again were about as likely as Labour freeing the country from the interminable yolk of Maggie Thatcher. And then, subsequent to that event, as likely as Rolf Harris being imprisoned for sex crimes. 

I’d accepted that it was just never going to happen. Never. I would never (for)ever get to see her live. I accepted it with the same life-weary recognition that I would also never marry any of Charlie’s Angels, never be a crime-fighting superhero or be in any way, shape or form, cool and one of the in-crowd. Sometimes you don’t make your bed, you just accept you need to lie in the one that life has given you.

And then suddenly life presents you with a brand new bed - a four poster with satin sheets, vibrating pillows and gold thread in the tassels. In short, life throws you a miracle.

Earlier this year Kate Bush announced a series of live shows (my quest to acquire tickets is well documented elsewhere). For a Kate Bush fan such a happening is a life changer, a dream maker and a soul lifter of extraordinary proportions. Those tickets were the most desirable entities in the entire universe. I was damned lucky to get 2 of them – even if it meant paying through the nose for hospitality tickets. But really, as a fan, I would have done anything to guarantee my presence at one of her gigs. Eaten broken glass. Voted Conservative. Accepted the new U2 album on whatever device the-powers-that-be cared to hijack it onto.

It’s interesting to note here that rehearsals for the shows had been going on for 18 months… the whole thing must have been one of the best kept secrets in the music world for at least a year. God, but Kate Bush is a canny lady.

Last Saturday, after much waiting, after much imagining and speculation, Karen and I finally attended Before The Dawn at the Hammersmith Eventim (Apollo). Neither of us had been to a gig for at least a decade. Neither of us had been anywhere major without the kids for probably about the same length of time. In fact, being without the kids for a night was a source of considerable and most perplexing anxiety and I won’t bore you with our efforts to secure 2 ultra-trustworthy babysitters (who, as it happens, did amazing jobs to keep our boys happy and safe while mummy and daddy partied the night away). But before the gig we did end up (almost subconsciously) sitting in a park near a kiddie’s playground, almost as if we couldn’t quite function out in the real world without the shouts and calls of youngsters surrounding us.

Having obtained hospitality tickets, our first port of call was St. Mark’s Church, across the road from the Eventim where, at 5.30pm, we had a champagne reception and luxury hamper awaiting our arrival. Although for me this was a by-product of acquiring tickets it proved to be rather special in itself and it was nice to be amongst 200 other guests who were all feeling the specialness of the occasion as we were. It was also nice to have early access to a good selection of the official merchandise without having to fight our way through rampaging throngs eager to buy extra programmes that they could sell later on eBay. I must admit I stretched my credit card as far as it would go and bought a gig t-shirt, hoody, poster, keyring, a Hounds of Love mug and a Rescue Tin which had been compiled to compliment the first part of Kate’s set – a performance of The Ninth Wave (the concept piece from her Hounds Of Love album). It was expensive but I figured this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I didn’t want to leave with regrets or that feeling of “I should have done this and I should have done that…”

The food was superb but I confess I was much too excited to eat properly and, seriously, I would have been happy with a bag of chips – I was just glad to be there. The couple next to us had come all the way from Norway and the people we sat next to in the theatre itself sounded distinctly Australian. A reminder that out trek from Leamington Spa was but a small hop compared to the journeys that some of the other attendees had undertaken.

It was lovely to be able to eat and then wander back across the road to the Eventim in our own good time, enter through the VIP entrance without queuing and find out seats without having to panic about anything. In fact the whole trip had flowed smoothly – a good journey down and we even managed to get parked a mere 50 yards from the theatre entrance. It made us realise that we should and indeed ought to do this kind of thing far more often.

And the gig itself?

Amazing. Truly amazing. I'm having trouble holding back the hyperbole. I couldn’t quite believe I was actually there. In fact I spent the first half of the show trying to reign my thoughts in and focus on being present in the moment. The show was as full and as mind-blowing as all the reports had led us to believe. Best of all, Kate’s voice soared. My worry had been that after weeks of performing it would be showing signs of strain by the time my gig came around but I needn’t have worried. Kate seemed to combine power and delicacy in equal measure and for me that was the main triumph of the night. Her voice is incredible and has lost none of its potency.

Of course, she could have sung dressed in a bin bag and the audience would have lapped it up but it was lovely to be present at an event that was so worth the 30 year wait, that was everything a fan could have ever dreamt of. I won’t go through the set list as that will be available elsewhere online but highlights for me were Running Up That Hill, King Of The Mountain and, of course, the entire Ninth Wave movement. The sets were incredible and Kate managed to weave theatre, film and song into one cohesive, emotionally-full whole. Working the plaintive peep-peep of the lifebelt distress signal into And Dream Of Sheep was inspired and really worked (also reminding me of the click-click of the rifle used so effectively in Army Dreamers). It was wonderful to see The Ninth Wave performed so satisfyingly – I’ve spent years of my life letting my mind wander when listening to it; trying to imagine it turned into a visual spectacle. So gratifying that Kate’s own interpretation was not a disappointment but instead added even more depth and meaning. For me Watching You Without Me and Hello Earth are still the central masterpieces to this entire movement.

The second half of the show was based around the second half of the Ariel album and though quieter and calmer than The Ninth Wave was nevertheless not without its shockwaves – the puppet boy killing the gull, tree trunks dropping down from on high and smashing through Kate’s piano – but the overriding sense of joy that these tracks evoke was what stayed most in my mind. A definite highlight for me was the pulsing throb of the opening of Prologue which is so perfectly redolent of the whirring of bird’s wings in flight. The biggest highlight of the night though was the encore. Just Kate alone at the piano performing Among Angels without any other accompaniment and reminding everybody that as great as all the stage effects and stage direction were, the most perfect, unassailably wondrous thing of all is Kate and her voice and her piano composition. Among Angels is such a delicate stirring piece it really didn’t need anything else at all. For anyone doubting if Kate Bush still had it, they had their resounding answer. A rousing rendition of Cloudbusting finished off the night and was surmounted by Kate yet again thanking us all for being such a brilliant audience (as she had done throughout the evening), thanking us for coming and just thanking us all for being. So many thank you’s from the one person in the theatre who everybody else there wanted to thank with all their hearts. No, Kate, thank you!

It was an uplifting, euphoric evening. I was glad to be even the smallest, tiniest part of it. Number one item on the very top of my secret bucket list totally ticked off.

Ban The Berk

I knew something was wrong the minute I got home.

My letterbox was grimacing. Like it had a horrible taste in its mouth.

Behind the door, laid out on the mat like cat vomit, was the item pictured below.

I felt sickened and shaky. I felt besmirched. Like my home had been violated. I had been on the receiving end of a BNP leafleting campaign. One of their hate-monkeys had actually walked up my path and touched my door. And then had slid something bilious and nasty into my inner sanctum.

My first reaction was to screw it up and bin it without looking at it. But then I thought, “No. Know your enemy.” So I read the leaflet. Every word. And my gut ran through a gamut of emotions. Everything from contempt, scorn and vituperative ridicule to the confirmed belief that these people are genuinely missing a chromosome; that the wiring in their brain is missing a couple of essential connectors, forever denying them the opportunity to reason and feel like normal, adult, articulate human beings.

What I hate most is the way this leaflet doesn’t pose any questions to the reader. It tells. It orders. It assumes. There is no facility here to interact mentally with this leaflet. It doesn’t care what you think. It doesn’t care what you feel. It doesn’t care for your life or the precious individuality of your particular existence. And that is nasty. That should be of concern to everyone who has any truck with this absurd political party.

And then there are the pictures, the images. The lazy buy-in to outdated, outmoded metaphors that only have meaning to idiots whose view of Britain is trapped in some fake, bromide stained stasis chamber of pre-war empire-fed glory full of working men wearing cloth caps, wives who stay at home to cook Beef Wellingtons and children who play solely with gender appropriate toys. And we all extol the Christian virtues of love thy neighbour as long as your neighbour is as British as you are. And don't worry of you have no idea of how to benchmark those Great British credentials because the BNP will do it for you.

Check out the picture of the Burka wearers:

They want to ban the burka because it is “offensive and threatening”. And to drive that singularly stupid and vapid point home they have pictured a couple of Burka wearers flicking their V’s at the camera – thus, in my opinion, totally proving their true blue British credentials forever. But that irony is lost on your average BNP member (and let’s be honest; they are all average). Is the picture mocked up? Is it real? Who cares. It’s like something out of Viz magazine. It is comic and laughable. But it is also tragic and lamentable because there will be some BNP mongrel somewhere, working himself up into an orgasmic fury of outraged indignation over this picture. It is akin to the fake Boer war footage that was played to English citizens centuries ago – shot in a London park but purporting to show Boer atrocities to galvanize the zeal of the average Englishman and give him fuel for the fight. It is nasty propaganda designed to spread hatred and xenophobia. And if that hatred and xenophobia already exist then it is designed to inflate it up into atomic mushroom cloud proportions.

And at the end of the day, is the Burka really, truly threatening and offensive?

Only if you are such a pussy you are scared of women’s clothing. It is no more threatening and offensive than a dog collar or a monk’s cassock and a good deal less threatening and offensive than a BNP rosette.

This entire leaflet does not seek to enlighten or educate. It does not seek to question. Because that would be dangerous and self-defeating. The BNP relies on the stupid misconceptions and inborn bigotry of its incestuous membership to continue its existence. The BNP more than any other party wants to halt upward mobility and free thinking and trap this country forever under a glass jar of anachronism and vile paranoia. This leaflet has but one purpose. To reaffirm the idiocy of those who are already tainted with stupidity and make them feel that they are right. Seductive. Comforting. And, sadly to some, a vote winner – those people whose innate cowardice prevent them from questioning and second-guessing their own assumptions and hatred of people who, if they got to know them despite their different languages and cultures, would be discovered to be just like them. More or less. Just without the silly haircuts. Possibly.

In all honesty, I would rather have had a urine stained tramp shove his cock through my letterbox than this leaflet. In fact, to piss Mr. Nick Griffin off even more I’d go as far as to say I would rather welcome a whole army of Polish / Arabic / Asian immigrants, each of them taking it in turns to make love to my door than to ever have one of these puerile leaflets land in my hallway ever again.

Ban the Burka?

No. Let’s keep Britain for the intelligent and the liberal and the fair minded and those with the guts and humanity to question and oppose hate-filled manifestoes and find a way forward that unites all cultures and all races.

Let’s ban the berk.

Devey For Vendetta

For those of you who don’t have access to UK terrestrial TV (terrestrial? Is that even a proper term that can be applied to the HD digital extravaganza that composes most TV channels these days?) Hilary Devey is the multimillionaire business woman with shoulders pads like two US aircraft carriers playing tug-of-war and a voice like Darth Vader smoking stinging nettles through an Alaskan oil pipe who co-fronts the British version of Dragon’s Den.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the format of Dragon’s Den. Five fat cat business moguls laugh and sneer at the pathetic attempts of various bedsit scientists to come up with “the next big thing” and prise 100K out of their greedily mercantile little paws.

Well, Hilary is one of them. She’s a dragon. She’s the weird mumsy-esque dragon who dresses like an extra from classic mid-eighties Dynasty and talks like Phyllis Pearce from Coronation Street.

She also has a face whose resemblance to someone else has for years been on the edge of my consciousness but has never quite broken through. Until now...

The likeness is uncanny. And I quite like the idea of Hilary practising knife-throwing skills around old London town whilst alliterating huge monologues around the letter V as she blows up the Houses of Parliament to the aural backdrop of the 1812 Overture. This was surely a casting exercise that the film makers of V For Vendetta are now kicking themselves for missing. They needn’t have bothered producing all those masks. Just give her a moustache and a smartly clipped imperial and she’s practically there. I bet she’s even got the hat somewhere in her own wardrobe already.

But for all I’m taking the urine out of this strangely Punchinello cheeked lady I can’t help but quite like her.

There’s something frail and human about her for all she expectorates Piedmont gravel every time she opens her mouth. I quite admire the fact she has made it in the male dominated world of business and made it without emulating (or even emasculating) not only the men but also the other women. Hilary is very much “out there” on her own. She is what people commonly call “a character”. A “personality”. She’s practically her own archetype. The anima of some weird medieval carnival god hand-carved by drunken monks on Lindisfarne as Viking raiders attempted to gain forced entry to their vellum lined inner sanctums. Oo-er.

Hilary appears to emanate her own completely localised biosphere. A Hilary Zone through which we – the denizens of the outside world – are filtered and interpreted before her formidable commerce-based intellect can fully ingest and process us. And if we are lucky, offer us 100K and her worldly-wise business acumen to ensure our new fangled, patent pending self-cleaning pooperscoop gets pride of place at Pets R Us.

Hilary is one of us. Slightly weird, slightly unhinged, more leftfield than Grayson Perry and with the bad dress sense and wardrobe to match. But she don’t care. Hilary is her own woman and does her own thing. She has cut herself adrift from fashion, taste and public opinion. The only thing that keep her moored to the plane of existence that we all share is her uncanny ability to make money. And, I sincerely hope, her unerring ability to throw razor-sharp knives at bent politicos.

Hilary, I salute you.

Long may you reign vainglorious and victorious at the vulpine vanguard of vicarious visual verisimilitude.

The Grand Opening Of The Shed

As a race our expectations of life must surely be the single biggest contributor to our general unhappiness.

As adults we are well acquainted with reality and yet we constantly expect and hope for far more than we know can ever be delivered. This is idiocy and arrogance. We know how the world works, how much it costs and how people like to cut corners. A little thought and a little logic would rein in our runaway dreams and ensure that we are never disappointed again. No more will we be glass-half-full or glass-half-empty people. We will just be a people grateful for having a glass.

Take the opening of The Shard during the week. London's newest, biggest building. In fact it is the tallest building in Western Europe. For the time being.

According to news reports the general feeling was that people - i.e. the hoi polloi, you and me and your mama too - were a tad disappointed by the opening ceremony. It was something of a let down.

I must admit I didn't watch it but just caught the highlights on Newsround (I have kids, OK, what scope do you think I have to watch News24 these days?) - enough in itself to remove the high and the light from any ceremony.

I saw light displays from within the building itself and a laser show from the extremeties of the building. Admittedly there were no fireworks (that I saw) but I dare say they are stockpiling those for the Olympics.

The opening ceremony seemed perfectly adequate to my mind. It's a building, for God's sake. What were people expecting it to do? Develop rocket thrusters Autobot style and blast off to the moon?

It's a building.

Back when I was a kid a new building was opened by having a local celeb cut a pink ribbon in front of the doors and then everyone downed a cheap glass of Liebfraumilch in the foyer and that was it. You counted yourself lucky if you were presented with a sausage and a pineapple chunk on a stick.

It's a building. It doesn't do anything but stand there and gradually fall into decay by the unstoppable effects of entropy.

Be grateful for the coloured lights and the lasers.

Even if they'd installed nude can-can dancers on the top floor no-one would have seen them.

At the end of the day this building is nothing more than an icon and a trophy for the rich and smug affluent enough to live and work there.

Personally I have already re-christened it The Shed and I do hope you will all assist my attempts to see that this new monicker soon catches on.

As for the aesthetics of the building itself... well, I've seen worse. At least it doesn't look like a car park.

One thing does worry me though.

I'm sure London's newest erection has a twin somewhere in Mordor.

Should we be worried?

RealiPolitik

This weekend saw the launch of one of the UK's hottest and most realistic apps. Grand Theft Footpad hit the shops so hard it obliterated the windows and most of the upper stories. Hoodies all over the country became immediately addicted to this fully immersive 3D real-time game, so much so that even after just a couple of hours of play time many of them could no longer differentiate between the real world and the virtual world.

The game - freely available to download - comes in a neat little package initally consisting of a just cause, righteous anger and a jutisified need to protest. Many of the gamers, however, seem to have ripped the packaging off the product without a second thought and are now playing the game for their own ends without actually working their way through the appropriate levels.

For many of the game's low profile users, the original game story of peaceful and justified protest is being seen as laughable when the open style nature of the game clearly allows the gamer to go on the rampage and set and achieve their own not-so-hidden agenda.

For many behoodied gamers the agenda seems to simply be: acquire an iPad / iPhone / iPrisonsentence, cause as much damage to their own community as humanly possible and cause the game's "end of level" boss, the Prime Minister, to cut short his annual break to Butlins and come back to Downing Street to best discuss how to ship these avaricious little thugs out to Afghanistan where they can play war games for real.

A report that a version of this game is soon to be available for the Wii is as yet unconfirmed but a curled fist waved up and down in a yo-yo motion is already being seen as a possible iconic game move.

Royal Wedding Night Shocker!

In a move set to send disturbing undercurrents up Kate Middleton's undergarments, my secret news source has revealed that Prince Philip has resurrected the age old right of Primae Noctis or Droit de seigneur whereby a Lord has the right to take the place of the husband on the first wedded night of any of his serfs' daughters.

"Dashed all!" Said a positively beaming Prince Philip. "At my age one has to take one's pleasure where one can and that young whippersnapper, Willy, has a whole lifetime ahead of him of taking his pleasure where he may. For me, time is running out and, well, bugger it, that Kate Middleton is a comely bit of stuff. Willy will just have to make do with sloppy seconds tonight."

Asked what the Her Majesty The Queen thought of this planned turn of events, Prince Philip replied: "To be honest the little old woman trotted off quite happily, mumbling something about finally having a night orf. I'm popping the Viagra as we speak."

My news source has told me that Palace officials have tried to no avail to point out that Primae Noctis cannot be enforced in this case owing to the fact that Kate Middleton is neither a serf (for all she is a commoner) nor a virgin. To quote Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth I: "that cherry has already been plucked and not by you."

Indeed Prince William has been seen snorting and guffawing around the Palace grounds saying, "I've already 'ad 'er wot my granddad wants to do, ain't I? So's he'll be the one with a wet willy not me. Unless, o' course, he does it the Greek way, know worrimean?"

However, after a Palace official pointed out that Prince Philip is indeed of Greek persuasion, both Prince William's and Kate Middleton's faces were seen to turn deathly white.

This reaction is not at this time believed to have been caused by copious amounts of Charlie (Prince Charles has instead been keeping his fatherly advice on 'how to be a good husband' firmly to himself)...

2012 Is Gonna Suck

No. Seriously. It is.

As soon as I saw our magic red dancing bus containing David Beckham emerging from the smoke and the glory of the Beijing Olympics I just knew that London 2012 was going to a be a teensy bit wince inducing. I’m sure the racing and the jumping and the yachting and all the other stuff that the athletes do will be fine. It’s sport, goddammit. You just get up and do it.

It’s the ceremonial aspect that worries me. Because, let’s be honest, we as a country are not cool. We had a brief spell in the limelight in the 1960’s and that was it. We lost it again. We are the geeks of the world. Our greatest global export in recent times has been the Beckhams. If they are the best and the most noteworthy that our country can produce then we really are foobarred.

But back to the Olympics.

They’re going to suck. And I now have proof. Probably subconsciously, possibly deliberately, the UK’s official 2012 Olympic logo proves it beyond all doubt. I must point out at this juncture that this visual gag was brought to my attention by the 10 O’clock Live team last week. It’s great television at the best of times (though the interviews and debates are frustratingly brief) but this was an absolute clincher.

Look at the picture above. What do you see? Officially you are supposed to see “2012”. Some nutters claim it spells out “Zion”. Ignore them. They don’t know what they’re talking about. What the image actually shows, ladies and gentlemen, is “Lisa Simpson sucking somebody off”.

You’ve looked again, haven’t you? Just to make sure. And it’s there, isn’t it? It really is there. It’s Lisa Simpson and... er... somebody else.

I now cannot look at this logo without seeing Lisa Simpson not having sex with a Bill Clinton stand-in. Though oddly I can still watch The Simpsons and not make any obvious sexual connection at all.

Funny that.

So. The 2012 Olympics.

They are going to suck. Big time.

And that may be a very hard thing for this country to swallow.

Stuff & Nonsense

Technically this is product placement. Or at the very least free advertizing. And I’m selling it cheaply. It’s not as if I’m being offered free tickets, a lifetime’s supply of Dairy Milk or even access to Keeley Hawes’ bra drawer. No. I’m just being offered the faintest possibility of some extra readers finding their way to my blog, the merest whiff of a little extra exposure.

Am I really such a mediawhore that I’ll bend over backwards for such pallid, watery inducements?

Yes. Quite clearly I am.

I received an email from “Bizhan” who works for a company called Nonsense. No wait. It is genuine. Honest. And Nonsense are currently working with the Science Museum in London “on a fun little project around their new 'Who am I?' gallery - which raises interesting questions about what makes you, you.”

And all Bizhan wants before he’ll advertise my blog on every billboard, flyover and internet discussion forum in the universe is for me to pose one small question to you all.

What makes you smile?

Answering couldn’t be simpler. Answers can be by tweet to @sciencemuseum, posted on the Science Museum Facebook Wall, or even written into the comments field below my blog post.

And get this - “They’d especially welcome any video responses”.

Well, given my recent post on Erin Andrews, a video response from Mr Peephole-Pervert (double barrelled – oh so upper class) could be very interesting indeed, though I’m not sure how the Science Museum’s family oriented demographic would respond to such an interesting piece of avant-garde human biology in action.

But hey – that’s not my problem.

So. Onto the meat. What makes you smile?

For me, it’s a great many things (which in itself is surely smile worthy?).

• My wife and kids.
• Holidays – basically any time of year when I am not at work but especially the times when the shit hits the fan and I’m not there to cop any of it.
• Lego – I just love the stuff.
• Old family photographs – though these sometimes make me sad at the same time.
• My youngest son learning to speak – we’re currently at that halfway stage when his verbal outpourings are half English and half Toddlerese.
• My friends.
• A good book.
• A superb piece of televised or cinematic drama.
• Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.
• Hillwalking or spending time in Wales or anywhere in fact where contact with other human beings is at a minimum.
• A clean house (yes, really).
• An unexpected joke.
• Happy memories.
• Gratuitous pictures of Keeley Hawes.

Ok. Now it’s over to you. Don’t let me down, folks. Keeley Hawes’ bra drawer could be on the line here (I’m hoping Bizhan will come through for me – I’m sure he knows people who could help or pull a few strings). Here are some links that might be of use to you in your sterling endeavours (though I'm hoping you'll show your loyalty to my blog by leaving your responses here).

Science Museum: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/whoami
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sciencemuseum
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sciencemuseumlondon

The Krays, George Davis, Harry Starks & Me

So I’m goin’ abaht me business, right? Nuffink too moody, just a bit of wheeling ‘n’ dealin’, nuffink to put the wind up the rozzers, like, but this geezer suddenly appears aht of the blue and ‘as a right go at me. Starts mouthin’ off abaht disrespect and how I’m gonna get me ‘ead blown off if I’m not careful, French kissin’ a sawn-off if you get my meanin’ and I’m like, simmer dahn wide boy, I ain’t done nuffink...

Or at least I don’t think I have.

It all began back in January. It was one of those weeks when I was scratching around for something to write about and, one morning on my way to work, my eyes happened to alight on a piece of graffito that adorned the walls of a boarded-up pub. “George Davis Is Innocent”.

Who the hell is George Davis, I thought? I’d never heard of him. Was he a local lad fallen foul of the law? I confess I Googled him and thus discovered that he was an East End dude who was banged up for an armed robbery which he did not commit. A big campaign ensued to get him released with the likes of Roger Daltry getting on board sporting a “George Davis Is Innocent” T-shirt.

Now whether it was a fit-up or not is not for me to discern. All I do know is the accepted facts of the matter are that he was later proven guilty of another armed robbery and got banged up a second time. You can read my original post here: George Davis Is Innocent.

Now my main impetus for writing the post was just a curious why did some 2010 graffiti artist drag this piece of retro graffiti out of the annals of 60’s gangland lore and splash it over a derelict pub in Leamington Spa? I thought no more of it than that. It seemed quite a safe topic to pursue. 40 odd years old. Ancient history. Pastimes’ graffiti.

Not so. Earlier this week I received quite a nasty comment in response to this post (only 5 month’s late but there we are) basically accusing me of not knowing what I was writing about and disparaging the fact I’d had to get my information from Wikipedia. It seems not being born in 1960’s gangland London and getting my information first-hand is something of an academic crime to the mysterious commenter (naturally he chose to remain anonymous). You can read his comments and my response at the bottom of the post.

Now I must admit here that, rather foolishly – and I do this every time – I stupidly had a go back. It’s so silly. And I slap my own wrist afterwards: don’t rise to the bait, Stephen, let it go! But no. It’s my blog and nobody is having a go at me on my own blog so I hit back with a crudely acidic comment. I was quite rude actually and used a word I don’t very often use. Now that I’ve calmed down I’ve thought better of it and deleted it.

Of course this was a red rag to a bull and Mr A. Nonymous came back. He accused me of all kinds of things. Of being a “green horne”. Of still wearing nappies – or rather napkins. Of being a paedo. And basically suggesting that if I’d’ve been around at the time of George Davis I’d’ve got my head blown off.

Hmm.

I naturally refuted those claims. I’ve been out of nappies for 41 years. I’ve paid for my own education and been around a bit (enough to know how to spell greenhorn correctly). I also doubted I would have got my head blown off. I think – and I stand by this – I’d’ve merely got a slap for being a bit gobby and then Ron and Reggie would have got on with the real business of turning Jack The Hat into a net curtain. I’d’ve been small fry.

Which all leads me to believe that Mr Anon E Mouse is either a small time face from 1960’s gangland London wistfully keeping his memories of the good old days alive or is, as I really suspect, some modern day barrow-boy sucking up the stories of his elders from pub talk and true crime books and has idealized the g[l]ory days of the East End into some kind of “ow’s yer father” make-believe heaven. The paedo jibe gives it away, I think. That’s very much a modern immature person’s insult. Though, of course, I could be wrong.

And that’s the worrying thing. Maybe this person really is a mobster? Maybe Harry Starks has stepped right out of one of Jake Arnott’s fine novels and into reality and is even now preparing a hot poker ready for our “little chat”?

I hope not. I find it bizarre that someone could have been so incensed by that one particular post as to have wasted time and energy insulting me and threatening me over it. What a strange world we live in. I do after all have a disclaimer at the bottom of my blog (if anyone ever bothers to read that far down) stating that the views here are purely mine and are not meant to be authoritative.

It makes you realize that Blogging – for all it is largely fun, light-hearted, personal, cathartic, etc – also has a much darker side. The bits of ourselves that we publish online are accessible to everyone. By the mentally imbalanced as well as the sane and well-adjusted. We are wide open to praise, criticism and threats. All because of what we write.

Does this mean I am going to be more careful in future? Avoid potentially dangerous subjects? Be more circumspect in my views?

What? Are you ‘avin’ a larf? Don’t get tasty wiv me, old son, this is my manna, right? My manna! Now sling yer ‘ook!

No Shit Sherlock

I liked it. I liked it a lot. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movie ticked my box office and then some.

I’m aware that some other bloggers – other bloggers whose opinions I deeply respect – didn’t think much to the movie. Some even gave it a right good drubbing.

And so it was that, with no trifling sense of trepidation, I accompanied my good lady wife to the cinema on Saturday to sample Ritchie’s latest offering for myself.

I loved it. There. I’ve said it. I liked Robert Downey’s Holmes. His performance was captivating. Jude Law was also excellent as Watson. This is the first film I’ve seen Law in when I haven’t wanted to repeatedly punch his smooth smarmy little face until it resembled a blister pack full of Ibuprofen. Maybe it was the moustache? It suited him. Made him less smug. It’s why I have one, naturally.

But of course, I’m not at all precious about the Sherlock Holmes shtick. I’ve never bought into it. Never read the books. Never watched the various TV series and films that regularly pop up on our screens. I’m aware of the legend, of course, but... I’m quite happy for it to be played with. Quite happy for it to be sullied, profaned, pimped and perversely tweaked.

A good job really because this is precisely what Ritchie has done. The fiddle has been kept but the deerstalker and the droopy pipe have gone. The genius intellect is naturally there – it’s intrinsic to the character – but it’s been shackled to a manic, emotionally inept, impulsive, child-man who plainly has ADD and an extreme sports’ addiction to thrills and danger.

And it works. I’ve long believed that any genius must surely plumb the depths as much as he soars to the heights. There must be a balance. The obsessive compulsive behaviour of Downey’s Holmes makes him more real to me. More flesh and blood. More man. There was always something too... stiff, automaton-like about Doyle’s original creation. He was far too “literary”. He couldn’t possibly be real. But Downey’s Holmes – superhuman brawling abilities aside – could be.

And I know others have suggested that Mark Strong (Lord Blackwood in the movie) would have made a better Holmes. But I disagree. As good an actor as Strong is (and he is) there is something too... measured, too chained down about him. His Holmes would have been flat and bland. Downey’s portrayal was rich in suggestion and paradox. Again this makes him more real. More human.

Lastly, although much of London in the movie was CGI’d, I thought it done with care and love. Ritchie obviously knows London. Knows it intimately. This came over in the beautifully crafted establishing shots of the city. The views were true. They weren’t some awful Mary Poppins cartoon approximation of London and “her famous landmarks”. There was something real about them too. And I loved the detail: the ordure on the streets, the filthy glass in the windows of the horse drawn carriages... grit, grit and more girt. All keeping it real.

Ultimately of course the film was just a romp. Good natured. Fantastical. Rumbustious. Honest. With the odd bit of discombobulation thrown in for good measure. I needed something light-hearted and fun and that was what I got. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might be spinning in his grave but I was clapping my hands on the cinema seat with sheer pleasure.

Would I go again?

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Jolly

Everybody who’s anybody in the office has disappeared to London today on a work jolly to see various exhibitions in the big city.

Which means anybody who’s nobody has been left to hold the fort for the day.

Guess where I am?

Yes. Major Moody here at your service, armed to the teeth with clipboard and biro and prepared to defend Pippin Fort to the last drop of Tipp-Ex.

I never get invited on jollies. And it’s not like I’m uninterested in art or history – (the boss has gone to see the Hadrian exhibition). I guess such trips out are reserved solely for the upper middle-management (ooh bitchy) and the museum curators. Building Supervisors are not meant to be interested in arty, philosophical, historical concepts and objet d’art. Maybe if it was a conference on loo brushes I’d be allowed the price of the train ticket and an expenses paid lunch thrown in to boot?

But that makes me sound bitter and twisted and honestly I’m not. Because with the rest of ‘em out it leaves very few of us here at base and we can pretty much do what the hell we like for the day.

While the cat’s away, etc.

Hmm. You know, I feel a coffee break coming on. Followed by brunch.

Jollies? I just love ‘em.

They really work for me...

Nigella Revisited

I received something of a shock phone call yesterday afternoon. It seems a hack from the London Standard had found my Nigella Espresso post and wanted me to comment on a recent article in the newspaper that voiced the opinion that Nigella has become so verbose in her descriptions of recipes that her cook books were actually alienating the small percentage of the UK population who have a below average reading ability.

I was glad to oblige and managed to rustle up something quick during the afternoon, Steve Express style. I don’t know yet if it’s going to be used (I’ll keep you posted on that, naturally) but thought I’d post it here for your perusal.

First: a few excerpts from the original article:

“Nigella's recipes are a bit of a mouthful, say literacy experts: ‘Too many adjectives make her instructions difficult to follow’”

“A survey has found that the chef’s verbose style makes it harder for adults with poor literacy skills to follow the instructions.”

“According to the study, [Nigella] uses long sentences, too many adjectives, extra commentary and personal observations.”

“The survey, carried out by the Government's Get On campaign, looked at a variety of recipes from Smith, Lawson, Nigel Slater, Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay.“

“It found that Slater was the easiest chef to follow, with all his recipes reaching the entry level three standard, or that expected of an 11-year-old.”

“Ramsay said: 'I'd hate to think there might be people who aren't giving cooking and new recipes a go because they are worried about the reading, writing or maths side of things. Brushing up on their literacy could make them a better chef, as well as improving their life.'”
And my pro-Nigella response:

Re: "Nigella's recipes are a bit of a mouthful, say literacy experts"

It's rather amusing to read that a survey has flagged up Nigella Lawson as being too literate for a small percentage of the UK working population and that "too many adjectives" apparently make her recipes difficult to follow.

Too many adjectives? What kind of a criticism is that? Isn't that like saying that Mozart's “The Magic Flute” contains too many notes? Will the removal of all adjectives suddenly render Nigella's cookery books readable by absolutely everybody regardless of their literary skills?

I think not. Poor literacy is as much to do with not understanding syntax, grammar, nouns, participles and verbs as teasing out the meaning of a hundred assorted adjectives though, I'll admit, if you find reading difficult, a wall of purple prose is hardly going to fill you with much enthusiasm.

The real criticism that can be levelled against Nigella then is one of style and I guess you either appreciate her yummy-mummy gastro-gushing or you don't. If you don't then you can always give Nigel Slater a go as, according to the same survey, he is infinitely easier to understand. I'm inferring it's because he uses less adjectives and his cook books are therefore more plainly and simply written. Dull and boring by any other name. Nigella's fans like her because she is so fulsome in her descriptions, because she does go OTT about the colour of cantaloupes and the odour of aubergines. She's sensuous, lush and evocative (which is obviously Nigella's schtick) and her verbal descriptiveness, whilst a sort of taste sensation in itself, actually adds an extra layer to our appreciation of her recipes. Her words enrich our tastebuds as much as the ingredients she uses. But most of all she's entertaining. This is rather an important quality in a TV chef. And it's practically impossible to be entertaining without flinging the odd adjective about...

So why should a small percentage of the population be denied access to this entertainment just because their literary levels fall below that of the national average? Surely the main problem is that 16 per cent of the adult working population have been failed by the Education system? More effort needs to be put into improving these people's literacy levels beyond that of an 11 year old and not in asking our TV personalities and celebrities to dumb down. For Heaven's sake there's enough dumbing down on our TV's as it is. We need to start smarting people up! Isn't it preferable to have our famous TV chefs - normally shrivelling the airwaves with language that would embarrass an East End porn star - actually pushing us to stretch our vocabularies as well as our culinary experiences?

As F word aficionado Gordon Ramsay himself says of people with reading difficulties: "Brushing up on their literacy could make them a better chef, as well as improving their life."

In the ineffable greyness of much of modern life, a bit of purple prose is surely the recipe for success?

Get Me To The Church On Time!

Yesterday I had the consummate honour of being the Best Man at the wedding of my good friends Tris and Emily.

Although as it turned out my actual title for the day was "The Almost But Not Quite Nearly Made It On Time But Didn’t" Best Man. Let me explain.

Normally getting from Leamington Spa (bright jewel of the Midlands) to London is an undertaking so easy as not to be worth discussing...

Yesterday, however, fate contrived to elevate this normally nondescript journey into something closely resembling a labour of Hercules.

Now Karen and I – being smart cookies and not unaware of some of the traffic problems that can sometimes befall the unwary traveller to London – factored in a huge 2 hour buffer zone to the timing of our journey and set off confidently at 9.0 am assured in the knowledge that the odd spot of congestion would hardly dent our schedule and be nothing but a minor aggravation.

I mean the wedding wasn’t until 2.0 pm – this gave us a whole 5 hours to make what should have been at most a 3 hour journey. Plenty of time to read the morning papers in the odd traffic jam on the motorway and still arrive in the Capital with enough time to spare to sup a skinny latte or two in a posh Oxford Street Café before heading off cool, calm and collected to Waltham Forest Registry Office.

Fate however had dictated that we were NOT to arrive on time for the wedding. First we were assailed by a 2 hour slow moving tailback on the M40 before the police turfed everybody off at junction 10. Fine, we thought, we’ll try the M1 instead. Unfortunately road works on the M1 created another 40 minute delay as we were funnelled through a contraflow system which had ground almost to a halt due to someone breaking down half way along it. Eventually we arrived on the M25 which thankfully was fine. Great. Moving again. We could still make it on time, we thought. Though we now had utterly no margin for error.

Ah how Fate must rejoice at such words. No margin for error…

Sigh. Heavy congestion along the sole segment of the M11 that we needed to travel along put any remaining hope we had of arriving on time for the ceremony completely beyond our reach. To add insult to injury after we’d painfully crawled to the end of the M11 the slip road we needed to take to bring us into London proper had been completely closed off due to road works and we ended up being diverted in completely the wrong direction!

Gah!!!!

Anyway, let’s dispense with the travelog. Tris and Emily were wonderful about it all. They delayed the ceremony for 10 minutes in the hope we’d still make it in time but in the end one of Tris’s friend’s had to step in at the last minute to do the business with the wedding rings… and the ceremony quite rightly went ahead. Karen, Ben and I finally arrived about 5 minutes before the end of the ceremony looking sweaty, chagrined and dishevelled with not a skinny latte in sight. The best laid plans of mice and men, eh?

For all that it was a wonderful day and Tris and Em, aside from looking fantastic, were fantastic – it was really great to be in London with so many lovely, warm hearted people and to be made to feel so welcome. We really wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I was able to discharge part of my Best Man duty at least by giving a speech at the reception (which hopefully didn’t die too much of an awful death) and it was very moving to see two of my best friend’s so happy together.

The whole occasion made Karen and I come all over all gooey and romantic too and our boy Ben really hit it off with Tris’s eldest kids, Frankie and Mila.

Worth a five hour car journey through hell?

You betcha.

Congratulations Tris and Emily – may you have a long, happy life together.

Next time we come to see you we’ll take the train.