Hitchin' A Ride

Driving in to work this morning, 6.35, I see a young girl (late teens at a guess) on a quietish country lane. As I slow down to pass her (she's standing right where the road bends), she turns and faces the car, thumbing a lift. I drive on.

You don't often see it nowadays, or at least not as much as when I was growing up. I guess stranger-danger has put a lot of people off hitching, and a similar fear puts me off stopping. There's the fear that the girl's just a lure, that hiding over the wall is her violent boyfriend, fresh from Bonnie 'n' Clyding it all over Marsden. There's the fear that the girl might be psychotic herself, or looking to make an indefensible accusation of an innocent, unsuspecting motorist. There's a world of urban legend and sordid stories, from young people offering relief to frustrated truckers to pay their fare to prowling serial killers (both drivers and pedestrians) to unhinged nutjobs who simply won't get out of your car, or insist on listening to Sarah fucking Kennedy on the radio for the whole of the journey. Not to mention Rutger Hauer. It seems far too risky for either party.

But then I start to think, really, what are the odds? Are there really that many murderers, rapists and lunatics out there? And are we giving them power by exaggerating their menace? Wouldn't a little more trust make the world a better place... yada yada yada? Would you hitch? Would you stop for a hitcher? Or would you just floor that pedal and watch them disappear, scowling, in your rear view mirror?




Ten years ago, I wrote a short comic strip based around a true experience, not of hitching, but of a stranger stopping to give me a lift when I was a kid. You can read it online here - it's the second story down, 'Trust', click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

Birdwatchers Of The World Unite!

I'm not familiar with the work of TV presenter Chris Packham, but considering what an obvious Smiths fan he is... perhaps I ought to be. Give that man a golden gladiolus.

The Longest Week (Part 2)

So I picked up the keys for the new house last Tuesday from the solicitors. They were handed to me in an envelope with the address scrawled on the front. I got back in the car, tore open said envelope with my sweaty little fingers, and discovered two identical house keys. Not one for the front door and one for the back, just the same key twice.

I drove to the house and discovered that the key was for the back door. Hmm, I wondered - where's the front door key? I searched the house in case the previous owners had left it somewhere for us, but there were no keys to be found. In the end, Louise rang the solicitors. They called back a few minutes later.

"Oh, the previous owners said they lost the front door keys years ago, so they just used the back door." (It was a Yale lock on the front, so it could be opened from the inside... you just couldn't let yourself in that way.)

Thankfully, though I have no practical DIY skills myself, I come from a family of skilled craftsmen. My brother is a builder, my nephews are a plumber, a joiner, and kitchen fitter respectively, and my dad was a joiner trained in "the old ways". There is nothing more valuable than a skilled family (if you can get them to turn up!) I always feel worthless that I'm the only one without any practical use. Hey, I could write them a comic if they wanted, but other than that...

So my dad came round and fixed a new lock. One of my nephews put up some shelves. Another offered to fix the windows that don't shut properly (!) My brother and nephew #3 helped me move the bigger items (nephew #3 carried a double mattress up the stairs one-handed on his shoulder... ah, to be young and strong).

A few days later, I'm unloading more boxes from the car when the postman stops and asks if I'm moving in. Yep.

"Oh, I better give you this then." He pulls a key from his key ring. "That was my mum and dad's house, I used to pop in for a cuppa when I was on my round. Guess I'll have to find somewhere else for me elevenses now."

Sadly, it wasn't the missing key to the front door. That would have been just too contrived.

The Longest Week (Part 1)

And so ends the longest week of my life. I don't think I've ever worked so hard, for such long hours, and put in so much physical labour. The closest I can remember was when I worked for a couple of weeks on my brother's building site after my A Levels - and that nearly killed me. Clearly I am a wimp of epic proportions, and deserving of neither your respect nor pity (contempt, perhaps), but the good news is that I survived without it affecting my health. My biggest worry going in was that the old nasty Gilbert's Thingy would rear its ugly head (as it did the last time Louise moved house, preventing me from being any use at all) and I wouldn't be able to get done everything that had to be done. Fortunately, it stayed away, and the adrenaline kicked in to keep me going... though I did question (for the first time in my life) whether I really needed all those books, especially after carrying box after box up two flights of stairs over the hottest three days of the year. I started to see the appeal of those bloody Kindle things - and this from a die-hard believer that "the printed word will never die".

We certainly picked the right days to move, didn't we? As everyone else lazed around in beer gardens or sunbathed in their hammocks, Louise and I teetered on top of step ladders with paint dripping in our eyes, sweat dripping from our foreheads, and the will to live dripping from our souls. Of course, it was all worth it in the end... but it was a long, hot journey getting there.

The workload was tripled by all my possessions. All those books, comics, CDs and jabberwocks. Lying in (my old) bed on the night before the move, I was overwhelmed by the size of the expedition ahead. "You'll never move all those without help - it'll be the end of you!" Well, I did, and it wasn't, and there's an enormous satisfaction to see them all up on the shelves in the (new) attic... but again, two flights up? Next time we move in cooler weather.

And yet, tired as we were, we both found it difficult to sleep over the course of the move. It's impossible to switch off your mind from "I've got to do this, how am I ever going to do that, I must remember this (a kiss is still a kiss)". You end up lying awake at 3am mentally putting things in boxes and working out where this goes and which bag you put your flippers in and how on earth you're going to get that mendicant up the stairs into the attic.

I'm sorry, as you'll see my brain isn't quite working yet. Words, as FR David once sang, don't come easy to me right now. More tomorrow - lucidity not guaranteed.

The new house is wonderful by the way. And I did laugh at the Frost Lynch Estate Agents gag in Torchwood. Ask me tomorrow about the keys.

Sunset Over... Meltham?

And so I bid you all a fond farewell from SOS Towers, as I post my final Sunset before moving house. There was some suggestion (mainly from Dan) that as I'm leaving the Colne Valley and sliding over the hill into the Holme Valley, technically I should change the name of this blog. But Sunset Over Meltham just doesn't have the same ring to it, and at heart I'll always be a Slawiter. Besides, were I to stand on the roof of the new house and look due west, I'd still be able to see the Sunset Over Slawit... I just wouldn't actually be able to see Slawit itself. Then again, I couldn't actually see Slawit from the old house either, so really nothing's changed.

I'll be back next week with tales of painting and moving furniture in a heatwave, and hopefully news of PJANG #3. As a teaser for that, here's the full colour back cover by Dangerous Davey Metcalfe...

Wish me well.

A Scaremongers Saturday

Saturday night, in a small, hot, cramped, hot, overcrowded, stuffy, hot upstairs room of a crummy dive stylish entertainment venue in Hebden Bridge, on the hottest night of the year (did I mention the heat already?), the Scaremongers rocked the house.

I've written about shouldbe Poet Laureate Simon Armitage's locally based band before, but I've missed their hometown gigs, so a trip to the hippy-cultural-arty-Fair-Trade capital of Yorkshire was a necessity. I'll save my moans about the idiots in the audience for another post... though I'm not blaming the locals since I know for a fact that the biggest of the idiots - the one who stood on my feet, so desperate was he to be exactly where I was, and then proceeded to invite his entire family / old school posse to come stand with him (one on each of my toes) - was an out-of-towner due to the fact that he was taking the piss out of the Bridge for being "full of wankers". Takes one to know one etc. etc. Oh, sorry, I said I'd save the moans, didn't I? On with the gig...

Seven men and one woman strong, the Scaremongers have an impressive and tight live sound, but it's Simon Armitage's witty northen poet lyrics that make the songs so appealing.

(Boy)
You took me in -
with pillow talk and Bombay gin.

(Girl)
You walked me home -
I woke up naked and alone.

(Boy)
I plucked a rose -
and strew the petals on your clothes.

(Girl)
That rose was dead -
It passed away behind the shed.

(Boy)
But like Humberside is Yorkshire still
and Lancashire is over the hill
and loneliness is Gaping Ghyll,
we never fought and we never will…

(Both)
‘Cos you can do nothing wrong in my eyes.
You can do nothing wrong in my eyes.
(Boy)
Some go looking for tabs and wraps,
(Girl)
and some go loafing with lesser lads,
(Both)
but you can do nothing wrong in my eyes

At one point, after introducing the full line-up, from co-songwriter Craig Smith through to co-vocalist Sue Roberts, Armitage prepared to launch into the next song as some comedian in the audience shouted "and who are you?" He replied, with tongue firmly in cheek, "I'm Carol Anne Spall", prompting cries of "get over it!" and "you wouldn't let it lie" from his fellow 'mongers. "I'm not bitter," he smiled. Frankly, Simon, that post seems like a whole load of unnecessary hassle - you're better off without it... especially if it gives you more time to write songs like Cardigan Girl and Less Is More.

With one album and a couple of singles to their name, the set featured the band's complete recorded output. They seemed surprised by how well it all went, and the calls for an encore, ending up playing two tracks over again - Derailleur and Tea Leaves, which Armitage announced would be featured on next month's cover-mounted CD from The Word magazine, "a small thing - but it means the world to us". They finally left the stage at 11.20, and I dashed out into the night for my first gasps of oxygen in over two hours. Nevertheless, a gig well worth the asphyxiation.

Born In A Barn, the Scaremongers debut record is now available on both iTunes (boo!) and emusic (yay!)... just in case you want to hear more.

Superfolks

An aging, flabby, power-fading super-hero is forced out of retirement by a government conspiracy and deadly threats from his past, only to discover that the world is a much darker, more cynical and dangerous place that the one he remembers from his heyday. Lashings of sex, violence and cod-psychological drama... any comic fans who grew up in the late 80s and 90s will now be crying "been there, done that, bought the T-shirt".

But wait - Robert Mayer's novel (minus the graphic) was originally published in 1977, back when dark, gritty, adult superhero comics looked like this...



Long before the Dark Knight, Miracleman, Watchmen, or even Frank Miller's arrival on Daredevil, Robert Mayer broke serious ground in the world of adult superheroes with his debut novel Superfolks. It's hard to believe that a novel from outside the comic book field had such an uncredited influence on some of the biggest comics of the following decade, yet reading it now there's no doubting that Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Grant Morrison and co. were well aware of it. If Morrison's foreword to this, the 2005 edition weren't admission enough, I'd direct you to Indigo's final showdown with Mr. Mxyzptlk-alike arch foe Pxyzsyzygy in which the impish elfish dissolves away into an all-too familiar yellow smiley face button.

It feel strange, reading this novel for the first time in 2009. So many of its ideas, plotlines, characters and jokes seem over familiar, trite and hackneyed... until you remind yourself that it was written long before the cliches you recognise became commonplace. But it's not just a satire on superhero comics, it takes serious swipes at 70s era politics and social attitudes too. Some of these now seem quite old-fashioned as well, particularly some of the sexual references, but Mayer seems ahead of his time in recognising and lampooning the behaviour and prejudices that his contemporaries probably took for granted. The majority of his comic book references are a little too DC-centric for my own liking (lots of direct mentions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman - plus major characters based on the Marvel Family and others), but the fact that Stan Lee gives this novel the thumbs up is no surprise. Mayer just took what Stan had been doing for 15+ years by this point and turned it up to 10, adding an X-rating for fun.

Frankly, I'm just amazed it took me so long to discover this book...