octoberwords

A few words on the subject

The collected

ill-informed drivel

Richard Asplin

October 2009

A few words on cliches, compatibility and cwotes

Howdy pardoners. Pardoned anyone interesting recently? Let a serial killer off the chair mayhap?

Tish, I’m being thick.

How you all doing? Terribly marvellous I hope.

As threatened, my first report from life across the water, o’er the pond, the Big Apple, Land of the brave, home of the free willy.

Let’s start with a quiz. Or as our American cousins would say, “hey asshole let’s start with a quiz, ya jerkoff.” Out of the following, which have I made up and which actually occurred during my stay?

Wandering down a leafy Brooklyn street, overhearing a goateed, bespectacled young guy in sweats drinking take-out coffee on a corner discussing taking his treatment to a pitch-meeting?

Breakfasting in a café on 3rd Avenue called “Bruno Ravioli’s” drinking coffee and listening to “That’s Amore” by Dean Martin over the sound system?

A Saturday afternoon watching a dozen beardy orthodox jews with their thumbs out on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway trying to get back to Manhattan without driving on the Sabbath?

A sassy woman in big sunglasses entering a bagel store and asking for “a pumpernickel with everything, with a twist of egg white and swiss?”

Being accosted by a mental wide-eyed woman in Times Square, handing out “Comedy Central” tickets, asking “Whaddya think of screaming drunken dwarves?”

Ordering three pastries, two coffees and a juice from The Hudson Hotel room service and being billed $25?

Any guesses? I’ll give you a minute to have a think.

All done?

Well precisely. All of these ridiculous things actually happened apart from . . . f. We weren’t charged $25 dollars, for heaven’s sake.

It was $32.

For a true Brit like your author, America is a land of clichés. Everything I’d seen in Woody Allen movies and read about in Paul Auster novels is on the doorstep. This, however, rather does bring out my least bearable, autistic, twitchy, Empire Magazine movie nerdiness. I was quite literally incapable of walking a block without spazzing out in adolescent excitement over a movie-moment.

Example? My wife and I enjoyed coffees among the students, pigeons and student pigeons in Washington Square. A beautiful, lush green park of fountains, vendors and musicians.

My observation? “Oooh, this is where Sally dropped Harry after their drive from Chicago.”

Example? We caught a gleaming silver subway train downtown to Balthazaar, a schmancy French bistro type restaurant in “da village.” My entire time on the platform was spent quietly humming Stewart Copeland’s theme to “The Equalizer” eagerly anticipating a trenchcoated Edward Woodward to step out from behind a pillar a la the opening credits.

Example? On converse-throbbing hike north uptown from 17th Street to 59th Street, I dragged my wife east to stare dumbly at the 59th Street Bridge and sit on a bench – recreating in my head with wriggly excitement – the poster for Woody Allen’s “Manhattan.” Like a twit.

(a note on true love, while we’re squishing our Timberlands through the syrupy candyfloss of romcoms: I took my wife’s hand as we left 59th Street bridge and headed back to 1st Street for a Martini. I asked her if she was “feeling groovy?” A remark that got the usual eye-roll and head shake of bewilderment. “What’s the speccy hipster doofus going on about now? Groovy? Why would I?”

Now a younger me wouldn’t believe I would hitch my troth to a woman unaware of a classic Simon & Garfunkel song reference. [I’m sure my discerning readers know what I mean, don’t you? Yes? 59th Street Bridge, Feeling Groovy? No? Oh for heaven’s sake people]. And talent-dodging emotionally stunted novelists [I’m looking at you Hornby] have always lead us to believe that a shared bank of musical interests and pop-culture references are required for a happy betrothment. Nonsense. And anyone out there confused as to why they’re attracted to someone who shares none of their interests should stop worrying and dive in. Find someone who gets you, not someone with a matching DVD collection).

Lecture over.

It’s an irritating habit to be around, my inability to appreciate ANYTHING unless I can tie it to a pop-culture experience. Why would I want to see a building if it hasn’t been in a movie? What’s interesting about a restaurant if Seinfeld hasn’t eaten there? It’s crappy I know. And I suppose I should feel bad about it, trundling from Street to Avenue, humming the theme to “Taxi” every damned time I saw a fat yellow cab, like a popcorn-stuffed Comic Book Guy. (Quite disappointing for me, the yellow cabs. In my head, they’re still those big gas guzzling behemoths with the fat grills and fins, as seen in the TV Show “Taxi” and Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.” Also, driven by Phoebe in “Friends.” All these classic clunkers have gone, to be replaced by sleek modern Fords, each one smart and sleek and bland, like fuel efficient blocks of processed cheese).

I can’t pretend this habit didn’t irritate my wife. Which put me in that thoroughly frustrating dilemma of

stopping mentioning “King Kong,” “Hannah & Her Sisters,” “Die Hard 3,” “Spider-Man” and – for the sci-fi nerdlingers among you – “Q- The Winged Serpent” every ten fucking seconds, to show her I loved her.

Mentioning “City Slickers,” “Seinfeld,” “Moonstruck” and “Ghostbuster” twice as much in order to show I weren’t some damned pussy-whipped cuckolded sub-thumb pansy-assed wimpazoid of a husband.

You can guess which option I chose.

See you soon.

Love to all

3rd Oct 09

By jove, strike a light and suchamabob, we’re back again.

Tch, if this isn’t a bi-polar trait, I don’t know what is.

There he goes, egotistical twerp-mush that he is, launching his website with fanfares and a combination of marching bands, big bands, Alice bands and Mercedes Banz back in August. He rapes the inboxes of the fearful with notions and nitwittery for 30 days and then, come September, the whole thing drops off like a leper’s ligament. And then, come October – the month of Hallowe’en, Diwali and the clocks going back – I’m back with irritatingly frequent drivellings. Tch.

(Actually I should amend the above remark “if this isn’t a bi-polar trait, I don’t know what is.” I actually do know what is. I’ve been researching my new novel – a dark comedy thriller about a therapist and her patient – and according to my research, one of the traits of extreme bi-polarity is, and I quote, “communicating with the Knights Templar.” Blimey, get an app for that, Stephen Fry).

I wanted to talk about something before we start properly. Which is the difficulty in running a site like this one. Or a difficulty in publishing anything regularly I surmise:

I have a list of subjects and ideas that occur to me on an almost hourly basis. This week for example brought up observations I wanted to make about Pornography, Richard Dawkins, Terry Gilliam movies and reformed pop-groups. And I will do so over the next few days, no doubt. However there is the notion of “topicality,” a habit I derided The Guardian’s G2 “Lost In Showbiz” pages for, not 30 days ago.

I would expect tuts, eye-rolls and disappointment from you all when I invite you to read my words on something every Brooker, Burchill and by-line has already spilled ink over a fortnight before.

So I crave your indulgence dear reader. I’m just one man, attempting to hold down 1 wife, 2 jobs, 3 square meals, 4 family members and 5 veg a day. I can’t possibly get this crap up on the site within 24hrs of it occurring to me. So if I should, in four months time, decide to talk about Strictly Come Dancing, FlashForward or the Kennedy Assassination, will you kindly just assume these ideas occurred to me promptly and topically, but I can’t type faster than my brain works?

Bless you.

Was in New York for September 11th, which seemed an apt date to go and visit Ground Zero I thought. My wife couldn’t be bullied into joining me on this trek downtown, and for, I now realise, very good reason. Visiting Ground Zero is essentially a trip to go and stare at some workman’s hoardings behind which The World Trade Centre isn’t.

Downtown Manhattan is a very long way, my wife explained, to go to see workman’s hoardings behind which The World Trade Centre isn’t. There are hoardings that don’t hide The World Trade Centre in Kennington, for heaven’s sake.

I didn’t think this was quite in the spirit of things so I pulled on my Nikes and a hooded sweaty-shirt top and jogged down town in the rain.

On my way I passed a branch of GUESS?, a clothing store. I expect you’ve probably heard of them. They have branches over here too I believe, although I couldn’t tell you where. Seems an incredibly 80’s store to me. Like they should be selling Studio Line, pastel Sony cassette players and vinyl Housemartins 7”.

I had nothing to think about as I pounded the soggy sidewalks, aside from continual Yellow Cab disappointment and skirting around scaffolding, so I mused upon GUESS? as a storename.(I’ll concur that everyone else had this thought back in 1986, but hell, bugger off).

One has to assume that the twitknuckles in the GUESS marketing dept thought that GUESS was a terribly clever name for a clothing store, leading as it would to this hilariously engaging exchange on the streets of Europe:

Twerp 1: Hello.

Twerp 2: Wotcha. (the obligatory greeting in the 80s)

Twerp 1: Heyy, nice grey flecked peg-top trousers.

Twerp 2: Cheers.

Twerp 1: Where d’ya gettem?

Twerp 2: GUESS?

Twerp 1: Uhmm, Burtons? Concept Man?

Twerp 2: Ha-haaa! (wipes tear). Priceless! No no no, “GUESS?” It’s the name of the store!

Twerp 1: Oh I see! GUESS! Bah! (This, according to The Guardian reprints of The Beano, Dandy and Whizzer & Chips, is what the populous used to say before Matt Groening invented “Doh.”)

Brilliantly funny situation, I’m sure you agree. So exhaustingly guffaw-some, it seems bizarre to me that no other fashion emporium thought to brand themselves in a similar manner? If I had a chain of clothing shops I’d be far too juvenile not to brand them in a manner to cause similar hilairity:

Twerp 1: Wotcha.

Twerp 2: Awright?

Twerp 1: Heyy, nice Leo Gamelli crew-neck sweater.

Twerp 2: Innit.

Twerp 1: Where d’ya get it?

Twerp 2: OFFYAGAYMUMSPIMP.

Twerp 1: Whaaaaat?! Off my gay mum’s - ? You looking for a knuckle sandwich, buster?

Twerp 2: Ha-haaa! (wipes tear). Priceless! No no no, “OFFYAGAYMUMSPIMP!” It’s the name of the store!

Twerp 1: Oh I see! Bah!

Twerp 2: You dope. Anyway, where did you get your black patent tasselled slip-ons?

Twerp 1: ADEADAIDSVICTIMSSKIPYOUWALLY

Twerp 2: Whaaaat?! A dead AIDS victims skip? And who are you calling a wally?! Why I oughtta…

Twerp1: Ha-haaa! (repairs rib)Brilliant! No no no, “ADEADAIDSVICTIMSSKIPYOUWALLY” It’s the name of the store!

Twerp 2: Oh I see! Bah!

And so on…

(I haven’t read Murikamis “What I think about when I think about running” but I confidently imagine this is precisely the sort of garbage that occurs to him too).

Anyhap, got down to Ground Zero to find a huge building site, completely obscured by builders’ hoardings, a police cordon and a line of demonstrators handing out soggy pamphlets. According to said speculative papier mache, some Americans, in their way, are still demanding investigation into the events of 11/9 (don’t you hate pedantic know-alls who insist on calling it that? I overflow with self loathing. Infact, I had a shudder of Asplin-based revulsion earlier on when I inserted the apostrophe into “Hallowe’en”). Many questions remain unanswered apparently.

I have no idea what I think about this kind of conspiracy theory. On the one hand, it seems too, too terrible to consider that the US government had anything to do with the death and destruction of that autumn morning. On the other hand, I’m not so naïve as to think that governments the world over have done much worse much more often under the guise of “for the good of the people.”

Like most things of import, I am too thick to know and too selfish to investigate.

And anyway, my righteous anger has been already expended on Eoin Colfer having the fucking nerve to write another chapter in the “Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy” story, so I’m all out of fury.

Plus the internet is hardly the place for conspiracy theories, surely?

Anyway, you’ve a busy day so I’ll get off your screen.

‘Til the next time,

Love to all

A few words on building sites, bi-polarity and brands

8th Oct 09

A few words on

things that don't work.

Good morning munchkins. Me here once more to litter your consciousness with trite crapola and ill-advised whatnot. Hope you’re all well.

Let’s get on. I’m sure you’re busy. I expect, like me you’ve got a lot of serious things on your mind. You’ve probably just watched the deluxe boxed set of Superman III and realised something horrifying. In order to illustrate how evil the “evil” Superman was, the writers

Stopped him shaving

Made him find Pamela Stephenson sexually attractive.

By rights, this makes Billy Connelly the Antichrist. Someone get The Vatican on the phone.

Anyway. I was telling you about my trip, I believe. You left me in New York, gazing at protesters around Ground Zero, trying to get choked up with poignant emotion and realising that standing in shorts staring at a building site in the rain wasn’t doing it for me.

The good thing about holidaying in Noo Yoik Siddy is that it don’t really matter if it rains. It’s the city that never sleeps, so good they named it twice, a toddling town (sorry no, that’s Chicago. Anyway for Chrissakes, you get the idea). There’s plenty to do indoors, which is how I found myself sat alone in cinema (movie house?) on 2nd Avenue watching “Whatever Works” one grey blustery afternoon.

Now. This throws up a half-baked theory I need to get from my chestal area, out into the world. I’m not saying any of this will make sense, but hell, it’s been bothering me a while.

Firstly, cards on the table: I would consider myself a Woody Allen fan, as far as that goes. I have all his early/mid-period movies. Some on DVD, some on VHS and many lovingly taped from TV, with nicely hand-drawn matching labels in oldy-fashionedy writing. The first one I saw was ‘Manhattan’, on late night BBC1 when I was 13 years old. My friend Neal and I both got into a frothing girly shrieking fit the next morning in school when we realised we had found our Holy Grail and both proceeded to hunt down every movie we could. Luckily, the Everyman cinema in Hampstead (carrot cake, espresso and black polo-necks a must) had a season of 3 movies a week where we both boned up, in every sense. (I mean it. What could be more exciting to a speccy, scrawny pseudo-intellectual teenage city-dweller than watching a speccy, scrawny pseudo-intellectual twenty-something city-dweller being quippy and smart with a selection of beautiful women?)

I guess I was lucky to be the age I was, as my most susceptible, mouldable and impressionable years (1984-94) coincided snugly with the Woodman’s most consistent run. Get this lot:

Broadway Danny Rose; Purple Rose Of Cairo; Hannah & Her Sisters; Radio Days; September; Another Woman; Crimes & Misdemeanours; New York Stories; Alice; Shadows & Fog; Husbands & Wives and – ker-ching - Bullets Over Broadway.

What’s not to like? (Well, since you ask, 1990’s “Scenes From A Mall,” the Woodster’s first attempt at performing in someone else’s movie since “The Front.” The movie young Neal and I chose – like twitwits – to drag our pals along to, to show how great Woody Allen was. Sheesh. A move akin to trying convince someone of Jack Palance’s cinematic stature by screening “City Slickers II – The Legend Of Curly’s Gold").

Anyhow, as you pop-culture newshounds will know, the end of this run - 1993 - saw the melt-down of Woodlington’s career when he decided he couldn’t live without the love, companionship and sexual gymnastics of his adopted daughter.

(I was doing stand-up at the time and the best gag I could some up with was this: Mia Farrow eh? What is it with turning her boyfriends onto young Asian girls? She made Woody Allen grope Soon Yi, and made Frank Sinatra feel Soo Yung).

Yeah, I know.

Anyhoo, since this event, the Woodboro has continued to churn out a movie a year and they have, by and large, been utter drivel. I mean it, crappiest crapola of the first order, and I’m not the first person to say so. How’s this for a run of utter pants that nobody outside Paris has seen:

Celebrity; Sweet & Lowdown; Small Time Crooks; The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion; Hollywood Ending; Anything Else; Melinda & Melinda; Matchpoint . . . yadda yadda and so on.

But every year I brace myself, swallow hard, take a deep breath and settle in to the dark hoping that this time, this year, he’ll be back on form.

This year, 2009, I officially give up.

To save y’self the price of admission (£13 if you’re an idiot enough to frequent the Warner Leicester Square), the movie goes like this:

Take an aging, unattractive, bespectacled New York dwelling Jewish intellectual.

Give him a selection of colourful fat male Jewish friends he can kvetch with in street cafes about philosophy and art.

Force him into a relationship with a kooky simple minded beautiful nubile 20-something southern girl.

Have them walk and talk and watch b/w movies and eat Chinese food in brick-lined New York apartments.

Finally, she’ll fall in love with him. They have sex. He cheers up.

Sigh. Even having Larry David play the lead couldn’t save it. Even watching it in a Manhattan cinema doesn’t help.

So, my theory is this. Like many, many artists, creative types need grit to make a pearl.

During his biggest trauma, Allen came up with Husbands & Wives and Bullets Over Broadway, which are about as good as he gets. Then he falls in love, moves in with his beloved and has churned out drivel ever since.

One loses count of artists whose success/happiness/fullfillment/age/family has coincided with the complete downturn in their art and the drying up of their inspiration. Steven Speilberg, Steve Martin, Madonna, blimey even Ben Elton – add your own once-greats to the list.

Some say that age and success means they lose their vitality, their hunger, their need to please and this isn’t surprising nor a crime. Well that’s as maybe and Ill accept that and go quielty into this good night.

However if that is so, could they keep their art to themselves then? Have private showings for their happy and successful friends? I’ll understand, truly.

Be happy, Woody. Or be productive. Don’t try both.

That’s it.

Love to all

14th Oct 09

A few words on going off the (Hornby model) rails

“…This, Rob thought, was unbearable. Did this question really still come up after all these years? Clearly it did and clearly it became harder to answer as you got older. In the time before Laura, it had been easy. He was young and he liked exactly the same music as the young woman asking the question, who was either on her way to University, or an undergraduate, or recently graduated. So Rob could say that he listened to the Smiths (sic) and Dylan and Joni Mitchell and the young woman would nod and add The Fall to his list. Telling a girl that you liked Joni Mitchell was really another way of saying. “If the worst comes to the worst and we get pregnant, it’ll be okay…”

HIGH FIDELITY

We’ll get to this quote and the reason for it in a moment.

But first, what the hell is it with Mott The Hoople? I heard them on BBC6 Music over the weekend. Mott The Hoople? I mean for heaven’s sake. Are there really that many people called Mott that they need to distinguish which Mott they’re referring to?

“Hey, I’m in a band called Mott.”

“Mott? That’s preposterous. Which Mott? Mott the Dragonslayer? Mott the Destroyer? Mott the Baptist? You need to be more specific. It’s just Motts Motts Motts round here y’know.”

Or, if you look at it the other way, how many Hooples are there that we’re not sure which Hoople the band is representing and we need a more specific description?

Twerps.

Anyway, good morning kids. How are you all doing? Lovely I hope.

I did quite a bit of the old reading on holiday. I stocked up on armfuls of books in Heathrow’s WHSmith. For some reason I imagined myself ploughing through one-a-day. I don’t know when I thought I would eat or sleep or wash myself, but there you go. I had some idea that in cities as exciting as New York, as historical as Boston or as picturesque as Cape Cod, I’d prefer to hole up in the hotel room for 12 days, nose deep in a thriller like a numbskull.

Anyhap, while browsing in William Henry Smith’s emporium of literature, journals, periodicals and discount slabs of Dairy Milk, what did I clock but three – count ‘em - three copies of CONMAN, my newest book. There they were, unsullied, uncreased and completely un-bought, spine on in the crime section.

So naturally I did what authors do and I flipped them face out. Precisely the sort of maddening egotistical thing authors have done in every bookshop I’ve ever worked in. Have I learned nothing? This is the fastest way to send them flying back to the returns shelf and off to the pulping mill, but hell, I couldn’t help it. I was on holiday. I hadn’t packed my good sense.

So there I am, having committed this guerrilla merchandising offensive, and I’m wandering up and down, clutching my two books, looking for a third for my 3 for 2 offer, or another one for my 2 for £20 offer, when I spied a chap reading the back of my book and flicking through it.

What to do? Approach? No, that would be weird.

Watch him while he shrugged and put it back? Too hurtful.

Ignore him, try to put it out of my mind, then spot him out in the departure lounge, rugby tackle him to the ground and rip open his carrier bag screaming “2 years it took me to write that! 2 years and nine fucking drafts! And, what, you just DIDN’T FANCY IT? BASTAAAAAARD” while pummelling him with his Samsonite?

Too subtle.

So I approached. Took a deep breath and said, oh so casually, “that’s really good.”

“You read it?” he said.

“Actually,” I said – shamelessly, “I wrote it.”

Couldn’t you just punch me in my stupid pasty potatoey face?

He bought it – probably out of awkwardness but hell, £6.99 is £6.99. And I signed it for him.

In fact – oh Jesus H Corbett, I’m just remembering this now – he didn’t ask me to sign it. I smiled at him as he left and I actually offered to sign it for him.

God I hate myself sometimes.

Over the next few posts, for no reason apart from idleness, is a little round up of my Wally Harrison Smith holiday reading choices for you to print out and throw away.

We’ll start with…

Juliet, Naked. Nick Hornby, Penguin £12.99

Sigh. Why do I even get my hopes up? What was I expecting?

Well it doesn’t matter because what I got was another example of Nick Hornby’s breathtaking inability to write a character that doesn’t act, think and talk like a thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan.

I guess I didn’t notice this gargantuan talent failing in his early days. Remember Fever Pitch? His first-person memoir? It was all “I felt this, I went here, I thought that, I watched Arsenal win the FA cup final.” And us readers took this to our hearts. He had a nice, chummy, chatty, email tone of voice. He sounded much like what he was – a thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan.

(I resisted reading FP for years, actually, as it was clearly a book about life as an Arsenal supporter. Many otherwise trustworthy blokes encouraged me to read it as they said it wasn’t just about football, it was about male obsessions of all types. So I gave in and read it.

And it’s 250 pages about football.

Frankly, my teen obsessions were Chuck Berry, Star Wars, Suzi Quattro and Action Force and it said cock all about those).

Next up? Well, he got away with his one-voice trick again. High Fidelity. Cleverly it was a story written in the first person (“I felt this, I went here, I thought that, I watched The Clash play Brixton Academy”) about, yes, a thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan. So it sounded pretty realistic. As it would.

But the Hornster was clearly tiring of this. He wanted to try something else. Something more ambitious. (But not too ambitious, obviously. That would involve writing).

So he bashed out “About A Boy,” a novel HALF about a thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan, and half – genius! - about a thoughtful, obsessive, tender, teen something North London folk music and Countdown fan.

Nice work Nicky boy.

Since then? Oh Mr Train-Set, give it up already.

“How To Be Good” was written in the guise of a middle aged woman going through a marriage breakdown. A middle aged woman who, frankly, thought, spoke and acted like a thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan.

And “A Long Way Down,” which had many voices – middle aged men, housewives, teenage girls, pensioners etc – all of whom tended to think, speak and act like, oooh, let’s say thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fans.

I’m being mean, I know. I’ve met the chap and he’s thoroughly charming. And in truth, I don’t mind if he can only write in his own voice. If he can only write about what he thinks about his interests in his world. That’s fine. It’s not a bad thing. Blimey, journalists make a decent enough living doing exactly that.

It’s just, know your limitations Nick, that’s all. Stop attempting fiction. Or at least, don’t attempt fiction unless of course it’s about – oh I don’t know, the thoughts and ideas of a . . . hmm…what shall we say? A thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan.

Which brings us to Juliet, Naked.

The main character – Juliet – lives with a fellow. Ordinary bloke. How would I describe him? A sort of thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan type, I suppose. She falls out with him over his thoughtful, obsessive, tender pop music fandom and starts a relationship with someone else. By way of a change, a thoughtful, obsessive, tender pop star. Oh yes.

I won’t bore you with the story – which is the usual guff about growing and learning to be a better person and finding out what life is about (surprisingly, it turns out there’s more to life than being a thoughtful, obsessive, tender pop-music fan. But not much more. Clearly none of the characters have bothered reading High Fidelity. Or been to see “About A Boy. Which is odd, as they’re designed to appeal to thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London couples).

But anyhoo.

The problems, as always, are the attempts at characters outside Nick Hornby’s immediate frame of reference. The voices. Or rather, the one voice that gets passed around. The reader spends the entire book scanning for the “she saids” or “he thoughts” or the “Duncan decideds” or the “Annie believeds” because, without them, one has no bloody clue whose turn it is to have a go on the page as every character, bar none, thinks, talks and acts like a thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan.

Remember the extract above? From High Fidelity?

Well it isn’t. I was playing with you then. I swapped the names to make it more tricky to spot, but it’s actually a quote from ‘Juliet Naked’ and is meant to be a middle aged female museum worker talking to an aging Northern Soul fan.

Not that you’d know.

Scroll back up and read it again.

Enjoy it? No, of course you didn’t. It’s exactly the same fucking dull idea he’s been typing out for the last decade. In exactly the same obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fan voice.

I could go on. But I won’t as I’ve just realised I’m getting all het up and crosspatch thinking about it.

So my final word in this, a bigoted self righteous hypocritical rant of a review: for non thoughtful, obsessive, tender, thirty something North London football and pop music fans, there’s not much fun to be had here I’m afraid. In fact, there’s not much to be had if you are one as you’ve heard it all before when you wrote it in your own damned diary when you were 15.

Nick Hornby. A fine journalist and chronicler of modern life. Not very good at anything else. But that’s okay.

Anyhoo, join me next time, in this, a short series of literary rants, when I’ll completely lose the plot over the new John Grisham: “The Associate.”

Or at least, I would if the damn thing had had a plot in the first place.

Love to all

15th Oct 09

Hello again disciples of the drivel. Or “greetings” as Joey from Bread used to say. Ahhh Bread. Those cheeky scallys and their hilarious benefit fraud. Were we meant to think that the eldest son Joey was a prostitute? Was that the thing? With his open shirts and his black Bentley? Always stuffing his cock full of money (by which I hilariously mean that porcelain chicken on the kitchen table, not his foreskin). It was on TV back in 1986 when I was the shy and blushing age of 14 so I would have been too young to ask my parents, but too old to appear naïve about the leather trouserings of scouse escorts among school pals so I guess it will always be a mystery.

Another mystery from my recent travels is New York’s “Albert Einstein College Of Medicine.” I mean, what? It’s there on 2nd Avenue, a huge building. But Albert Einstein? I don’t know much about the fellah. In fact here is a list of things I know about him:

He had crazy white Doc Brown hair

He was a scientist

He discovered the theory of relativity

He figured out what E equals, which had been bothering a lot of people at the time.

Actually the theory of relativity might be the same as what E equals, but it might not be. Anyway he figured

that out.

He was played by Walter Matthau in the movie “I.Q.”

The movie “I.Q.” also starred Stephen Fry

As does the TV series QI.

I’m getting off the subject a bit

10.

Einstein wished he’d become a watchmaker, according to Alan Moore

11.

Alan Moore knows the score, according to the song, so the above is probably true.

That’s pretty much it. Oh, I think he might have said something clever like “I don’t know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and rocks.”

But I am pretty sure he had sod all to do with medicine. Or at least, he ain’t famous for it. Not like Marie Curie, Florence Nightingale or the research team of Mel Smith, Kevin Klein & Stephanie Beecham. And yet he has a medical centre named after him in New York. Why? Coz he’s brainy? Blimey, so are the team on Eggheads, but I’ve yet to see the Judith Koeppel School Of Music or the CJ DeMooi School Of Needlework. It’s only a matter of time I suppose.

A few more words today, as promised, on the books I devoured during my time across the pond.

“The Greatest Show On Earth” Richard Dawkins / Bantam Press £13.99

Now I’m a fan of “The Dawk,” as most smart people are. Some find him irritating, I know. Some can’t cope with the huge ribbony crease of a wrinkle he’s got down his forehead to his eyebrows like a duelling scar – a crease I’m sure that has come from 50 years scowling at Catholics. Other people think that banging on about atheism is exactly the same about banging on about the baby Jesus so he’s just another type of fundamentalist who worships laboratories and petri dishes instead of churches and chalices.

All of the above are true. Or at least would be true if RD also believed that glass petri dishes magically turned into skin by chanting an incantation and wafting some incense about. Which, as far as my reading of The Selfish Gene goes, he doesn’t.

So I’m not likely to be too impartial about his new book which attempts to spread forth the wondrous examples of evolutionary evidence that surround us. Of which, it would appear, there is shit loads.

It’s a marvellous book, however I would have enjoyed it more if Dicky D (a much better soubriquet and one which would endear him to all) didn’t feel the need to scoff and pity and patronise the religious throughout it. No need.

Yes, there is need in his previous book, which was specifically a challenge to the idea of a God.

But this one is back to his sciencey biology thing which he does so much better and is dampened by his snarky, spikey sniping at Christians throughout. It has no place in this book and undermines it I feel. Imagine if the Selfish Gene read like this:

“We are all made up of encoded genes which act as a recipe for our bodies and minds. Anyone who thinks we’re made up of anything else, and 40% of Americans do, is a fuckwit.”

That’s kind of how it reads. Although he doesn’t say “fuckwit.”

You can tell he’s itching to though.

Let it go, Dicky. Let it go.

"Generation A" Doug Coupland / Penguin £12.99

It appears that Doug Coupland has given up. Jacked it in. Thrown in a towel (not doubt a kitsch Howdy Doody towel from the World’s Fair in 1975, stained with frozen yogurt spilled by a McJobbing computer programmer living in a Motel outside Glendale).

I say this because his latest book “Generation A” wasn’t written by him. It appears to have been written by the satirist Craig Brown as part of a lengthy Private Eye parody.

Either that or Doug Coupland is now writing books that are so Doug Couplandy as to be laughable.

I’ll leave you all to pick this one up and try and enjoy it’s story (bees are extinct so lots of American young people get to be mysteriously stung, hang out together and quote sitcoms, cereal packets, soap operas and pop-culture minutae. I think the idea is that bees are attracted to either kitsch or to novels that have been rewritten a dozen times).

But I’ll warn you. It contains this line on page 79, where one character goes to a reunion.

Ready? Here we go:

“A reunion is always nice, so please insert some generic welcome-home family greetings here.”

I mean for fuck’s sake, Douggy. Make some sort of effort at least. Is it not a novelists job to capture the familiar in a vivid yet unfamiliar way?

If he’s going to do this, then he could have saved us and him the trouble and written the book in one line:

“A new Doug Coupland novel is always nice, so please insert some generic Doug Couplandy plots and characters and ideas here.”

Idiot.

Anyway I’m tired now, so I’ll do John Grisham tomorrow. If you can’t wait until then, you can have this: “yeah yeah yeah The Firm yeah yeah yeah Blackmail yeah yeah ye..? Oh, it’s finished. What happened there then?”

Until then,

Love to all

*This just occurred to me. Richard Dawkins’ wife used to be in the original Doctor Who, playing an assistant. I wonder how much she winds him up when he’s on his sciency-proof-evidence-anti-mysticism rant by shrugging and saying “Yes well, Dick, maybe Dr Who went back in time and planted the fossils? I’ve been in is Tardis. You calling Tom Baker a liar?” and walking out of the room. Often I hope.

A few words on Dan, Dawkins, Doug and disappointment

19th Oct 09

Morning. Let’s start with me getting something horribly unfashionable off my chest (and I don’t mean my silky white Sergio Tachini tracksuit top).

Ready? Okay, here we go. I have absolutely no desire whichsoever to see Terrence Gilliam’s new movie

“The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus.”

There, okay, I said it.

I’m aware of its rave reviews, I’m aware of its spectacular design, I am all too aware also of it being Heath Ledger’s last performance and a rollicking sparklesome wonder of joy. (I am also, as a brief unrelated aside, aware that

Heath Ledger’s name sounds like a big book by Hampstead estate agent’s accountant).

But the fact is dear reader, any “fantasy” style movies, full of clockwork quirks and twitchy Elizabethan ticks and olde buckly shoes and maegical folderol make me roll my eyes back into my head so I can view my own rapidly shrinking brain. Dustin Hoffman danced and pranced in a velvet waistcoatoon and wiry Doc Brown hair in one recently, the name of which was something like “Mr Magoriums Magick Emporium” or “Doctor Twitchakle’s Sprightly Wind-Up Critchakles” or something, the poster for which caused me to vom into my Butterkist.

I don’t know why. It’s the creaky magical realist Strewul Peter clockwork Burtonesque sideshow Gorey dwarf Victoriana and the ensuing bug-eyed twinkliness of otherwise charming performers completely panto-ing it up with buttoned gloves and spats and dials and levers and hot air balloons and air of “there is more in heaven and earth Horatio” crapola. No stomach for it.

So, just in case I was being vague, I won’t be going to see that.

If any of you guys go, and it turns out to be great, shut up about it. When one gets to my age, one doesn’t like to have bigoted presumptions questioned. Just say you like it on Twitter or something where I can’t read it.

(Another thought: If one was to say something on “Twitter” (Tweet I believe youngsters call it) and then immediately regret all 140 letters of it, causing one to immediately post apologies, saying “what I meant to say was…”, would this be described as a “Retweet”? I vote that it should).

And while we’re on the subject of odourously punchable and twee smuggity smugly word-play that, as I think of it, is causing my white GAP t-shirt to metamorph into a Rupert-check waistcoat, fob watch and velvet smoking jacket, I want to get this horrible thought out into the open as well. It’s been scurrying about in my head like a scabby rat and I need shot of it:

‘The “Nought”ies – a cloying middle-class feeling that the last decade 2000-09 has been a waste in which nothing was achieved (ie. Nought).

The approaching feeling that the coming decade 2010-2019 will be the same is called “The Tens-ion.” (Geddit? The Tens? Tens-ion? Oh forget it).

I was going to say something about the new John Grisham, but frankly I don’t know if I can even be bothered now. I’ve looked at my notes that I made on holiday and it was such an appalling read that a little grey cloud comes and hangs o’er my Sony laptop when I even ponder typing a word on the subject.

Okay, I’ll just sum up my feelings on his new one and then we’ll all promise to say no more about it.

“The Associate” John Grisham / Random House £12.99

Jonathan Grisham’s latest pulse-pounding paperback set among box-files, affidavits and green-shaded desk lamps has been heralded by those who are paid good money to herald things, as “a return to the ground that made him famous.” Which I can assure you, the discerning few, means he has at last run out of ideas and he’s decided to rewrite The Firm.

Personally I quite enjoyed The Firm, back in the day. Had a terrible original jacket on the first edition – legal desklamps and legal pads on, not a desk, but a coffin! Dan-dan-daaah! It was like a Point Horror novel. I don’t recall the tagline, but if it wasn’t “he’s studied the law…to death!” then someone needs to have words.

Wasn’t a bad movie either. Had that great jazz piano score, a tight and zippy direction by Sidney Pollack and Tom Cruise playing a young hot shot maverick for a change.

The Associate, however, attempts the same pacey, new-lawyer made to do shady things by shady folk plot and drops it’s briefs in a manner even Robin Asquith would consider vulgar.

In this one, the threat hanging over our Maverick Legal Eagle is the threat to expose a video tape of a college dorm frat-house gang-bang in which he appears to be involved (although isn’t actually seen having sex. Hmn). The owner of this tape blackmails the Renegade lawyer chap into dropping his promise of heartfelt pro bono work (publicising U2 or something) and going to work for a big firm as a spy in a big trillion dollar legal battle. So far, so blah.

At one point he does go to a restaurant in New York called Balthazaar, which is an odd experience to read, especially if you’re on holiday in New York and have just settled down to read a chapter after dinner at Balthazaar. Unsettling.

Anyhap, it takes about 7/8 of the novel – our legal maverick renegade copying files and sneaking PDFs up his jumper – for his dad to find out. Not in a clever way. His dad says “wotcha been up to kid?” and Renegade Q Maverick says “oh nuthin’ just being blackmailed over a sex tape.” Dad promptly visits the girl in the video and asks her not to press charges. She says “oh all right.”

I mean, what?

This done, the dad goes to the Feds, explains about the blackmail, the Feds descend on the blackmailer’s hotel room, to find he’s run off. And that’s it.

I (still) mean, what?

I am wondering if you are familiar - in a way clearly that Mr Grish-Lightening isn’t – with the literary phrase “Deus Ex Machina?” You’re a smart, discerning bunch so I imagine you are. But in case you’ve fallen over onto this site by accident while looking for news of It Bites’ reunion tour (2hrs of “Callin’ All The Heroes . . . the shootin’ up the town

boys”) it means this: The Ghost In The Machine. It’s a term for a solution that comes from nowhere to solve all problems.

Classic example is the Cavalry coming over the hill to the rescue in old Cowboy movies. Saviours from nowhere, with no relation to the plot or characters until that point. It’s lazy and unsatisfying, as anyone who watched Jurassic Park’s crappy “phew, we’ve been fortunately saved, that’s a bit of luck,” ending when the T-Rex wanders on and eats the Raptors. It’s bad writing and no decent story does it.

It’s the reason Superman catches Lex Luthor at the end of the movie, rather than Luthor falling under a bus. It’s the reason Elliot helps ET get to the spaceship instead of staying home and letting him get a cab. It’s the reason Victor Frankenstien destroys the monster he created, rather than waiting for Nick Berry to turn up on a vintage mototbike and cart him off to jail. As an audience, we need the hero to defeat the villain, we need that catharsis, we need that “closure” if you like and we need it to mean something. If The Emperor had been killed by a chicken bone in the throat at the end of Return Of The Jedi, instead of being killed by his apprentice Darth Vadar to save Vadar’s son, yes evil would have been vanquished. But we wouldn’t have cheered.

If you’re writing a story y’self, be good to remember this. Gives your finale a real punch. The sort of punch that letting the hero’s dad sort it all out with a phone call really misses, frankly.

That’s it. Book reviews over. Back to the usual half-assed nonsense next time.

Until then,

Love to all

A few words on phantoms in your photocopier

21st Oct 09

A few words on the latte of the crop

Hello campers. Hi-de-hi? (insert response). Oh suit y’self.

How the devil are you? Terribly lovely I hope. October is rushing by, like a fast Aldgate train hurtling through Wembley Park, leaving summer opportunities on the platform, standing up, watching it pass, checking watches, stretching legs and wandering up and down pretending they knew it wasn’t stopping. I hope the season brought you all you deserved.

A fast thank you to the boyz at Waterstones in Bishop’s Stortford who held the most wonderful bookshop event for me earlier this month. Kettle Chips and Merlot were aflowing, as was the cheeky banter as I did my schtick for 15 of B.Stortfords most upstanding and slightly drunk inhabitants. Jangly jewellery, lipgloss, pleated skirts and winter boots made up the crowd and there was much hooting of laughter and clinking of wine glasses and a few books sold into the bargain. It’s a nice town, the Stort’. Very good for pizza restautants, nibby little chichi boutiques, hair salons, nibby little pizzas, chichi salons and hairy boutiques. And hey, just 20 mins from the centre of London? Remember - as vagrants like to say about piss-riddled doorways – if you lived there, you’d be home by now.

Wanted to speak to you today about portions. Or to be more accurate, ingredients. In fact no, portions. Oh I don’t know. You decide.

Let’s start with this. Are you a coffee or a tea person? I know it’s a stupid Smash Hits magazine question, assuming that it does that you couldn’t possibly like both equally – which natch, you can. And probably do. It’s horses for courses. Sometimes you just want a cuppa (ooooh, a nice cuppa. Mmm. Etc) and sometimes only a coffee will do (ahhh, a nice cup of coffee that. Mmm etc).

See, I think of myself as a tea person (it’s part of my dumb Wodehouseian tweedy English GQ magazine personality. I mean for cock’s sake, I wore a bow-tie to work on Tuesday. A bow-fucking-tie. I know. In my head, I was of course thinking “ooooh, bow-tie. A touch of the Professor Indiana Jones.” Everyone around me was however thinking “ooooh, bow-tie. A touch of the PeeWee Herman").

However, I am willing to reevaluate this part of my gene-tea-c make-up because, looking over the notes I made on holiday, it’s all coffee coffee coffee like I was one of The Andrew Sisters.

In New York and Cape Cod, every opportunity I got I was diving into shops (or drug stores as they call them) to get a bottle of iced-coffee. Not that one measily Yakult-sized bottle was anywhere near enough for a growing lad like your author, so I would buy pairs of bottles and glug them back like it was the last scene of “Ice Cold In Alex” sponsored by Café Nero.

Or at least, I thought that was what I was drinking. It turns out it wasn’t “iced-coffee” at all. It was an “iced-latte” – that is to say, made with milk, not water. Rookie error, and one for whjich a former Coffee Etc barista such as m’self is chastened. I realised this in Boston when I ordered an iced coffee and got a cold black coffee that was pretty much undrinkable without 14 sachets of brown sugar that resolutely refused to melt despite mashing the bastards with a thoroughly unsuitable thin wooden stick for the better part of a day and a half.

Do you do that pointless thing with sugar sachets that I do? Without fail, I always:

Line mine up in a group in my fingers, hiding them behind each other.

Rattle them a bit with a waggle of the wrist and a flick of the finger.

Tear all the corners off in one go

Upend them and pour them all out in a rush as if they’re only one, hiding my secret sachet quantity.

Lord knows why.

In Cape Cod at every opportunity I ordered Espresso Martinis at the bar like a big woofter. Have you ever had one? Man alive, an amazing drink that is served, rather than with an olive, with a Crème Egg skewered on a mint Matchmaker*. And in a similar caffinated Java-based vein, if a restaurant had Tiramisu on the menu, then that was the dessert for me, and banana splits could go hang.

(Do you remember where you were when you first had Tiramisu? Probably not, as your head is full of care and kindness for loved ones I expect, unlike me. I had my first mouthful in the offices of Books etc’s marketing department, on the first floor of Stillerman House, 122 Charing Cross Road, London and quite frankly, it was a life changing event. Man oh man, the creamy spongy, dusty jammy creamy coffee-ey wonderfulness of it. Oooh, I could just go for one now actually).

Anyhow, it was this reevaluation of myself as a coffee-person that brought a sudden, and frightening realisation, that I will now share with the group. (Bout frickin' time. Ed.)

We were in a diner in New York city. We’d spent the afternoon wandering up to Central Park from downtown and we wanted to stop off for some refreshment. Lovely little place, just south of the park, full of cheery fat New York waiter types, with their white aprons and hilarious tourist-baiting schtick. Seats at the rear of the diner were referred to with a huge grin as “the VIP area”, a tedious gag they would haul out with a winkity wink. Fine and lovely, however it was a busy place so once seated, one heard them repeat this rib-tickler about a dozen times. The inevitable downside of rehearsed material. As charming as the material is, it must be very tiring to hear the same gags over and over, day in day out.

My wife says it is, anyway.

Hmn. I guess she must have worked in a diner at some point.

Or something.

Actually, it’s just occurred to me that, p’raps the reason the staff were able to repeatedly trot out this hoary old one-liner without attacking each other with butter-knives was that – no, say it ain’t so – it wasn’t a joke? Perhaps the rear three identical chipped formica tables were the VIP section? Doesn’t say much for their attitude to New York celebrities. I suppose Woody Allen, Martin Scorses and Big Bird are just happy to be recognised.

To be fair, they had another bit of catering whimsy they trotted out to every customer which – again, while charming - was this time frankly disturbing. If one asked where the bathrooms were, one was directed to a door just round a corner behind the wall at the end of the restaurant - a wall that housed a huge mirror. So all the waiters would loudly exclaim in sing-song panto-voices: “The bathroom?! Yes, it’s behind the mirror!” A hilarious voyeuristic sexual violation joke that certainly puts one in the mood for another slice o’Pecan Pie.

Sorry. I was talking about my revelation – as Mick Jagger very nearly said. We were sat at the counter, me with my coffee (natch) and my wife with her juice and I was asked if I wanted cream or milk. I of course, plumped for cream. And thus, cream was dispensed. I stirred it in, all thick and – well – creamy, I suppose. Took a sip, sat back and mused to myself: “mmm, I much prefer milk.”

So why did I ask for cream? I don’t have cream at home, I have Sainsbury’s semi-skimmed. What on earth possessed me to ruin my coffee like this? Was it crazy Big Apple fuelled holiday madness? Did I succumb to my dumb movie-dreams? “Nyaaah, cawwfee an’ cream an’ a donut, bub, an’ keep it comin’. Maaaan, j’see the Knicks last night?”

And I realised, a little later, as we strolled about the park, what it was.

Cream, is inherently better than milk. Everyone knows this. Of course it is. It’s cream, for Chrissakes. Cream.

I mean Eric Clapton wasn’t in a band called “Milk.”

Smug people aren’t described as looking like cats who got the milk.

The highest achievers are rarely termed “the milke de la milke”

There’s no “milk of the crop.”

Given the choice, cream is better than milk and everyone knows it. Don’t pretend you don’t. Of course, as you rightly are right now pointing out in your head, it really does depend. You wouldn’t want cream on your Ricicles, and you wouldn’t put cream in tea. Of course, you’re right.

But –

But it’s CREAM! It’s BETTER!

And I realised that this dumbassed attitude filled my life. At every turn I search out the empirically understood “best,” – by everyone else’s standard – despite what I really want.

I’m swayed by price: Surely the £7.99 bottle of wine is better than the £6.99 bottle? Doesn’t matter which I might bloody prefer.

I’m swayed by quantity: I know I like pasta. So I’ll cook twice as much pasta as a human could possibly eat. Pasta’s nice. Twice as much must be twice as nice.

I’m swayed by taste: Mmm, mustard on a crispy roast potato. Everyone likes mustard on crispy roast potato. So surely five times as much mustard on a potato all crisped and burnt to fuck would be a taste sensation!

I’m swayed by style: Everyone knows the fifties was cool. So the moooooore fiftiesy I look..? Hell, the cooler I must be! Pass the bow-tie, brylcreem, wing-tips and pocket-protector. And hey, let’s get a vest, some untipped cigarettes and smack the wife about too!

It’s childish and silly I know. But I can’t help it. Perhaps you’re the same? Hey perhaps if you are, we could form a support group? Or maybe get matching tattoos. Tattoos can be great.

Hey wait! If one tattoo is great, then surely..?

Quick! Grab a compass, the Quink and a full length mirror! I got a whole body to paint!

Love to all

*Obviously this is a lie, you twerp. Be good if it did though, right?

26th Oct 09

A few words on

Beethoven, Borders and bathchairs

Hello young Jedis.

A fairly-ish long time ago, obviously in this very galaxy we’re currently in for heaven’s sake, I worked for Books etc -

a hip-ish bookshop chain in mostly the London area. (The company bravely attempted to go further north to bring the couch and coffee-shop vibe to the rest of the country and enjoyed varying levels of failure).

Of a Friday night the marketing team (a well oiled machine in which I was an incredibly unreliable loose cog) would biff off to The Angel pub, just behind Denmark Street WC2, where we would bitch about Waterstones Piccadilly and WHSmith discounts and Bloomsbury sales terms. On these boozy book-based benders, we would oft be joined by a group of chaps who worked for out parent company Borders – a gang we cleverly nicknamed “The Borders Boys.” (A creative bunch, us marketing types, oh yes).

Anyhow, they were nice fellahs, each in various charming stages of arrested development (lots of t-shirts, gigs and black denim if I recall). They knew a helluva lot about books and movies and – more than anything it seemed – music. Each of the chaps had their own particular fave genre and were experts in, if not their own fields, then in their own desk pods at least.

One beer would naturally become two. The third round would involve peanuts and we’d settle in for the evening, the subject eventually moving around to music. (Well I’m being kind – it normally descended into “Leonard Cohen vs Bob Dylan” before the boyz had got their frickin’ coats off to be honest). I would eventually be dragged into this conversation and be forced to admit my – what shall we say? – limited musical tastes, to the jeers and ridicule of the assembled opinion formers and stock-order fulfillers.

See – for those who don’t know, which will be at least one of you – my CD collection is a peculiar one I’d say.

I mean, not peculiar to me. But it’s been remarked upon by enough people for me to air this publicly.

It breaks down, give or take a track, much like this:

Symphonic movie soundtracks – a shed load

80s Best Ofs – a bunch

Assorted Acoustic Canadians – a sprinkling

Selected moody crooners – a smattering

Old timey swing – a wodge

Morrissey / The Smiths – the obligatory complete works

A disperate range, perhaps, but limited for all that. Oh and, you won’t have failed to recognise, not exactly “of the moment.” I mean, take Morrissey and Hawley out of the mix. (one of whom is rather 80s, the other rather 50s) and I pretty much haven’t moved on since 1995. It rather appears that I turned 23 and promptly stopped enjoying anything “new.”

In fact, now I give it some thought, considering I’m a 36 year old male, it’s fairly surprising that the following artists make no appearance whatseoever and most certainly never will (not suprising to me, as the following acts are largely ghastly. I mean surprising, perhaps to the reader):

Pulp; Oasis; Blur; Suede; Verve; U2; Prodigy; Chemical Brothers; Van Morrison; Leonard Cohen; Verve; Arctic Monkeys; The Streets; Athlete; Kaiser Chiefs; David Grey; Coldplay; Radiohead; Foo Fighters’ Manic Street Preachers; Muse…

I could go on, and often do.

This state of affairs is if some frustration to my loved ones, quick as I am to dismiss almost everything recorded in the last 13 years:

“But this is great!” they might holler, toe a tappin, fingers a-clickin’.

I roll my eyes and shake my head. “They’re no Housemartins,” I spout, returning to tea and this month’s copy of The Chap, promptly receiving two dead-legs and a frying pans to the gums.

But here’s my theory:

It’s not really the music that’s the problem. Guitar bass drums are guitar bass drums after all.

It’s the lyrics. The terribly terrible lyrics.

Is it age? Is it experience? Or p’raps some mixture of the two. Lyrics have always been as important to me as melody and if the lyrics aren’t quite right, then the whole song falls apart. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been lying in bed on a Saturday morning, sunlight making the curtains glow, Radio 6 Music burbling away.

A song starts. Upbeat, catchy, something unusual.

I prick up my ears, tilting my head just so, like a starling at the sound of a cat’s tread.

Promising, I think. I quite like this. Very promising infact.

Then the lyrics start and the whole bloody thing collapses into a self-conscious 6th form poetry reading and I dive 'neath the quilt in gnashing rage.

Up until the age of 23 it appeared I was sensitive and malleable enough to be moved and enthralled by the words of songsmiths. Be they achingly poetic:

“Oh mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head…”

be they adolescent and pretentious

“She looks like Eve Marie Saint, in On The Waterfront…”

or whimsical and wordplayish:

“They say that absence makes the heart grow fungus…”

but now? Blimey, I’m just a tired old cynicky boobs. Any lead singer warbling about lost love, missed opportunity, old flames or pretty much anything else I’ve pretty much put behind me finds themselves looking at the business end of a dismissive sigh and a rapid off switch.

This, I think, is why grown ups inevitably leave “pop music” behind. Twice divorced aging middle-managers with two kids, a mortgage and a dicky prostate have other worries and concerns on their minds – beyond the trite wishy washy romance of the pop single. They’ve been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, washed the t-shirt, burnt the collar with the iron and now only wear it to clean the car. It might have a toe-tappin beat, but we’re too old and tired to love Angels instead, to try to fix you, to dry your eyes mate, to be brought to the yard by your milkshake or to be surprised that a you’ve just heard that people die while they’re tryin’ to find diamonds, Lily dear.

We have other concerns, other worries, other situations that occupy our thoughts and we'd like our choice of toons to reflect those. Which is why, I believe, the middle-aged end up turning to Classical music. Bach and Brahms and Beethoven wrote symphonies and sonatas to appeal to concert-going grown-ups, rather than squealing adolescent bobby-soxers at Junior Best Discos. Most of the lyrical content of "Classical" stuff doesn't go much beyond "Agnus Dei" (I just typed Angus Dei the first time, which would be an excellent name for a Scottish priest). The rest has no lyric at all. Just strings, brass, woodwind, percussion and a conductor firecly waggling his baton up the front.

Which isn't to say that without words the music is meaningless. Oh good lordy no. A long drawn out Dminor chord on wavering first violins is sad (Dm being the saddest of all keys). It doesn't need Chris Martin to add "if you get so tired that you want to have a bit of sit down" over the top of it to tell us. Similarly, the joyful awakening greet-the-day brightness of Vivaldi won't be made any more effective by having Supergrass singing "who-hooo! Let's go out on our BMXs, it's the first day of summer holidays!" over the top of it.

It's just without words, the tunes, melodies, harmonies and arrangements can speak to adults directly and give voice to OUR feelings and anxieties. For example, the famous 4 note opening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony: "Da-da-da-daaaaaa." It doesn't need words. To a grown up listener, it's clearly saying "I'm going baaaaaald." Or "I hate my bossssss." Or "My house price drooooooopped".

So I'll leave you with what Ludwig Van's orchestration really says to us during his choral "Ode To Joy" movement of the 9th Symphony::

“Lay awake, all my joints ache

I’ve got no pension – biiiiiig mistake.

P’raps Night Classes? Need new glasses,

Sure wife’s orgaaaaaasms are fake.

Half past three, I need ah-a wee.

Colo-on cancer, it must beeeee.

Hair’s receding, gums are bleeding

Eyebrows sprouting liiiiiike a tree…”

Just a theory.

Love to all

Richard x

28th Oct 09