A few words on the subject
A few words on the subject
A few words on witpop
25th May 2010
Well, ladies and gentlefolk. Here we are again.
It only seemed like yesterday we were here. Do you remember yesterday? Ahhh, it was glorious. The beginning of another week. Seven days of opportunities, of possibilities, of love, life and laughter.
I miss it. I do.
However, no time for love, Doctor Jones. Onward.
The more asute, observant and bored among you fine people may recall I said yesterday (well, warned) that I had two other bits of news. And I do. One is quite nice, the other...well, I'll get the first one out of the way.
Stoke Newington. What do you know about it? Here's what I know:
1. It's achingly trendy to the point of wanting to punch the population of it.
2. It has crappy rail links and is virtually impossible to get to by tube. Which no doubt makes the achingly hip inhabitants feel all rural and pastoral and like God's fucking chosen people. Or at least, Wallpaper magazine's chosen people.
3. Alexi Sayle used to do a routine about it back in 1983 in which he summed up the place with the memorable phrase "Habitat Pine Scattercushions" in that spitty scouse way of his. He claimed in this routine to be in charge of a newsletter called "What's On in Stoke Newington," which was a big bit of paper with "Fook All" written on it. (Cue excited laughter from young hip comedy club alternative types).
4. It now has a Literary Festival.
Yep, the people of "Stokey" (oh Jesus...) have cobbled together something of an impressive line up of events, readings, signings and literary wordy whatnot, taking place from 4th-6th June. Details of events HERE.
I mention this because I (yes me, flagged rather insanely as "a top name in the literary world". Stop laughing) have been invited to perform my no-award-winning-yet-thoroughly-enjoyable interactive lecture "How To Write That Bestseller." Tickets are available here. A good number of you have talked to me about your ideas for books and stories so if you wanna come by and get the low down on the art of the commercial hit, be grand to see you.
But...
Aside from that I am now very proud to be announcing the birth of a brand new project. It's been 13 years and 5 months in the making (granted, with a gap of 11 years in between when I was busy failing to become, despite what the nice people in Stoke Newington think, a top name in the literary world), has taken up every waking moment of my 2010 so far and exists purely for your delight, dear discerning reader.
It's a bit of a departure from the usual. Or it's back to the old days, depending on how you look at it.
There'll be something new to enjoy once a week for you over the next 8 weeks. The (un)luckier ones among you will have a chance to claim a free gift - from me - as thanks for all the support you've given this site since August and me since 1972.
So. Turn up your computer speakers and welcome to the sound of your summer... CLICK HERE
The collected
ill-informed drivel
of
Richard Asplin
May 2010
A few words on where the hell I've been for Chrissakes
24th May 2010
And a very good afternoon to you all, dedicated followers of foolishness.
How the devil may care are you?
Firstly, an apology. It’s been a while, hasn’t it. Since I bothered you, I mean.
Perhaps not worthy of an apology. I would hope and pray that not one of you hangs uponst my every drivelsome word and these inbox arrivals are a mere distraction that are harmless enough when they arrive but hardly the bread of life. Anyhoo, records show the last post had something to do with the third prime ministerial debate.
Cor dear lore lumme, do you remember those days? When the land was all abuzz with tremulous anticipation and excitement about the big change that was going to come like rain one day and sweep the scum from the streets? (I might be getting this mixed up with Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, now I read that back. But the principle is the same. Minus the Mohawk and prostitutes, sadly. Now that would have spiced things up in the voting booths).
Yes, I - like many - was oooh, so thrilled and jazzed and hopped up on late night debates and Newsnight specials and Dermot O’Leary and saying “I agree with Nick” and the polls and the analysis. Yet every iota of this excitement vanished, whisked away into the ether leaving nary a trace at precisely 10:04pm on election night. There I was, full of varying quantities of hope, excitement, pasta and pino noir. And then . . . oh. A huge tired wave of apathy smashed me in the noggin like a tsunami of broken dreams as the little exit poll animation House of Commons graphic chart hurriedly filled with little blue lego men. And whole country went “oh for fuck’s sake…” and went to bed.
I mean “what the hell happened” (copyright every fucking broadsheet editorial for the next 5 days). I, like most, spent a fruitless and lacking in lustre half hour on BBC news and wikipedia trying to find a half way comprehensible definition of “hung parliament.” And I - like most - was crashingly disappointed to find this didn’t mean all the three parties weren’t going to be ceremoniously hanged on Tower Bridge. It meant something to do with “lacks of majority” and “coalitions” and compromise and teaming-up and whatnot. All my interest in the entire process drifted away, aloft on the summer breeze, and I have returned to not really giving a flying bollock either way. We have two interchangeable, ineffectual shiny-moon-faced leaders now (or at least, let’s face it who are we kidding, a leader and his sidekick). Journos the countrywide have broken their blackberries and tweeted themselves into wrist cramp trying to come up with clever portamanti - Cleggaron, Camoregg, Conlib, Libservatives and so on and bloody so bloody forth. (The only one which works is “Condem.” See what they very nearly did there?)
Anyhap, I have retired from the heady arena of political commentary and scuttled away to dream dreams of Tony Benn and Neil Kinnock and Billy Bragg getting back together to from some kind of Old Labour super group, in the manner of Bernard Butler, Johnny Marr and Neil Tennant.
So what have I been doing for a month? (Blimey, it’s been a month).
Well I had something of a funny turn a couple’a weeks back involving crushing moods and scowling black clouds and stompy adolescence, as is my seasonal prediliction.
Let me use this forum to apologise to anyone caught in that particular rainstorm.
I knew things were bad when I attempted - like a good capitalist - to shop my way out of the gloom with a trip to the handsome Waterstones in Kingston. 40 minutes pacing and pacing and retracing and picking up and putting down and sighing and shrugging and realising there wasn’t a single word written by another human being in the last 200 years that I wanted to read. Always a signal that my black dog has turned up with a lead in its mouth, an expectant look in its eyes and walkies on its mind.
What I have managed to do, dear reader howe’er, is figure out through testing and Bunsen burners and vodka and Fosters, that lager does not agree with me and only adds to the onset of these foul head throbbing cataclysmic periods of self-loathing.
This is
a. a great breakthrough. We all know beer in all its hoppy forms has the ability to act as a depressant but the use of a calendar and an excel spreadsheet has finally configured that I’m always worse during and - most impactfully - after, a night on the Johnny-Knock-Me-Down.
b. horrible news, coming as it does but days before the hottest and most cool lager-hungry days of summer so far. And a week before my trip to Berlin, the beer capital of the fucking planet. Dammit, Janet.
Still, good to know. I am now a Vodka & Tonic man, a spirit that lifts mine, rather than sending it spiralling into angry world-hating depressiveness.
Other things. Well, I have been poorly. I was struck down with a nasty “man flu” thing a week or so ago and it laid me under for a handful of miserable, snot-filled, phlegm gargling, vomiting sweaty exhausted days. I’m still not completely better - as anyone within ear shot of my revolting hacking bile filled chest rattles will attest. Am mainlining Beechams and sleep and hoping it won’t ruin my holiday.
For yes, I am off work now until June the somethingth. The first Wednesday in June, whatever that is. Have two days to myself this week (one of which, I note from the clock, is well over halfway through and I have done cock-all apart from tidying the flat, washing up, listening to a Jimmy Carr DVD, fetching parcels from the post office and sorting my wife’s socks from the washing machine).
Do you get that thing, as I do, when you have day off work? That, no matter what your plans, the day off sort of finishes the moment the clock reaches 5:30pm, because then you’re just back to free time you would have had if you’d been at work anyway? Friends of mine who are teachers take this to ridiculous yet understandable levels, and tell me their half term break finishes at precisely 3:30pm on the Friday before they go back, at which point life returns to normal. It’s all very glass-half-empty I know. Still, I can’t help that.
In other news, my mood brightened enough for me to venture back out for a haircut and to Waterstones, at which point everything fell into place and I returned with 5 books. Short, half-assed ill thought out prejudiced reviews follow:
How Not To Grow Up. Richard Herring.
Yeahhh. Not amazing, sadly. I’m a big fan of the Herring’s live work (I can be seen grinning like a fifties doofus in the audience of his “Somebody Likes Yoghurt” Live DVD recorded in Cardiff, apparently. Haven’t seen it myself). The book tries hard to make mature and insightful points about age and responsibility and youth and adulthood and whatnot. And it has some fine passages. In between these, howe’er, are huge chapters about sleeping with groupies, eating Haribo and trying to get a threesome going. Grubby, is the word I’d use.
The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ. Philip Pullman.
Grubby isn’t the word I’d use here. Not one bit. However neither is brilliant. Or dazzling. Or insightful. Or a-good-use-of-your-time-if-you’re-over-the-age-of-twelve, which isn’t a word technically, but you get the point. Apparently this is Phil’s first book for adults, which came as a big fucking surprise to me, pitched as it appears to be, at adolescents who haven’t stopped to think about anything their whole fucking lives. Which granted, is probably a lot of adolescents.
But look, it’s a gently and clunkily told parable about how, stone the crows, who’da thunk it, Jesus was probably just an all right thoughtful bloke but his messages got hyped up and sexed up to make them more compelling miracles and stories for the messiah-hungry masses. Which, if this had never occurred to you before, well, then for heaven’s sake people. Watch the Life Of Brian. It’s shorter, cleverer and makes the same point but with jokes.
Manhood For Amateurs. Michael Chabon
Ooooh, you gotta love the Chabon. And not just because he worked on the script for Spider-Man. He’s the American novelist responsible for the epic and sweeping “Amazing Adventures Of Cavalier & Clay” which is marvellous. And no, not just because it’s about comic books and set in the fifties. All right, quite a bit because of that. But hell, what do you want from me. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for Chrissakes, an awards panel not famed for dishing out the trophies just because someone name-checks Clark Kent.
Sadly.
Anyhoo, this is his new one and it’s a memoir/essay collection about aspects of manhood. Being a boy, being a son, being a parent, being a father, being a writer, being a man. And right up my street I expected it to be (especially as it’s essentially a reworking of the much smarter 1993 masterpiece “The Book Of Guys” by Captain Whimsy himself, Garrison Keillor).
Those who’ve been with me from the beginning may recall “A Few Words on…Things That don’t Work” posted back 14th Oct 2009, the nub of which says that artists who have kids oft’ find themselves churning out their weakest and most self-conscious schmaltzy work as their focus and priorities shift to nappies and hope. Well, Michael, we can now add you to the list. What we have, apart from the odd gem about man-bags (which seem lifted from Esquire magazine circa 2003), a dozen essays on ballparks and gumball machines and baseball cards and picket fences and riding across town and playing in the dirt and the rough and tumble of Speilbergian Everytown Americana, all bathed in that orangey dusky sunset hue of tumbleweeds and Hallowe’en pumpkins and Charlie Brown Christmas specials and Ebbots Field hotdogs and gee shucks kiddo. Let’s put it this way, if the idea that “baseball is a gift that fathers give their sons” doesn’t make you sick into your own mouth, then this might be for you. Otherwise, oh do fuck off Michael.
Voodoo Histories. David Aaronovitch
Now under normal circumstances I have little or no time for the Aaronovitch. I’ve never met the chap and I expect he’s delightful, educated, thoughtful company and an upstanding good egg who always gets his round in (mine’s a Vodka & Tonic Dave, if you’re going). However he does belong to a list of people who frankly irritate me, a list that takes in Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Salman fuckin Rushdie. Oh and we can sling Bellow and Updike on the pile while we’re about it. A pretty heavyweight fuckin’ list of macho typists and donnish mid-life-crises merchants, you'd agree. My problem with these guys is essentially the way they line up dutifully after every major cultural happening (from 9/11 to Hurrican Katrina, from Zeebrugge to Hungerford) to spill 2000 words for a broadsheet on their oh so special take on events. Like we don’t know the ramifications of a tragedy until one of these guys has upended his thesaurus on it. Salman Rushdie writes overblown fairy stories and frankly his take on football, fashion or New York dining could not be less interesting to me. And anyhow, as I say, I’ve always bunged Aaronovitch on this list of The Late Review’s Least Wanted.
However, this book I liked. Essentially a look at how the idea of the “conspiracy theory” (from Diana to Trotsky, from Pearl Harbour to the Holy Grail via 9/11 and Marilyn Monroe) has changed the way we read and understand news stories. And that’s it. Enlightening, enlivening and lots to think about, he goes through debunking and deconstructing the theories and speculation as a counterpoint to the ten million websites who would have us believe “they’re hiding something.” I’m not saying he’s right, but it’s compelling stuff.
And finally,
The Pregnant Widow. Martin Amis.
Am only 101 pages into this and am reserving judgement. Yes, he is the poster boy for the above group of “it hasn’t happened until it’s happened to me” writers, but I’ve read his entire work and I’ve grown up with it so I thought I’d give it a go.
So far? Well “old men want to fuck young women” appears to be the nub. Again.
Hmn. We’ll see.
Anyhap, I have two other bits of news but I’ve kept you long long enough. They’ll be with you tomorrow.
Until then, it’s nice to be back. Glad you could join me.
Love to all
Rx
