Robin Hood's Bay

So I wasn't here yesterday. Or the day before. Or Sunday. (Not that you'd have noticed.) Instead, we were in Robin Hood's Bay, between Whitby and Scarborough on the North East coast.

I've visited Robin Hood's Bay a number of times but I do think you can only truly appreciate a place if you actually stay there. Although I've walked down the steep harbour road and admired the higgledgy-piggedly streets of row-upon-row of tiny cottages and grander houses built almost on top of each other, I've never really explored the village as much as we did on this visit.

Strolling these twisty-turny passageways you're never quite sure what you're going to find next. Another row of quirky abodes or a sudden dramatic view of the sea or harbour below. It's sad that the majority of these houses exist solely as holiday homes now, that very few locals appear to live here anymore, but it's still very easy to close your eyes and imagine yourself back in a time when this was a thriving community full of crusty old fishermen and their long-worrying wives, of smugglers and even pirates...

Robin Hood's Bay is a place steeped in legend, from its name which carries a story of Sherwood's most famous son taking a holiday on the coast to defeat French pirates... to rumours of underground smuggling tunnels that still connect these houses as the narrow pathways do above ground.

There's another thriving community at home here too - birds. Loud, fearless and territorial seagulls (we watched one chasing away a kestrel that may have been hunting chicks), sweet-songed chaffinches, and swarms of cheeky sparrows, a bird which is apparently becoming rarer in the towns and cities of the UK - perhaps because they've all moved out to the seaside.

It's a place that fires the imagination, there are stories around every corner, and those locals that do remain enjoy teasing the tourists... from the local shop that may delight in the name of Bob Killer's (ah, but is he Bob The Killer... or does he Kill Bobs?)...

...to the mysterious clifftop house with a spooky top-hatted face peering from the window one day...

...and even spookier faces the following day...

Robin Hood's Bay is a storyteller's delight. I'm certainly feeling inspired...

Here There Be Comics

I'm not actually here today. Where I am is a story for another day. In my absence, here are some much cooler things to read...

Ed is another engaging comic from Sean Azzopardi who's rapidly becoming one of my favourite creators. It involves the life and loves of the titular Ed, a comic book artist and part-time slacker who's just as confused about life as the rest of us. It's a gentle read that hits a number of observational "ah yes!" moments along the way. Azzopardi has chosen a slightly more European / cartoony art style (for the Ed character at least) than other work I've seen from him, but it works well and carries a lot of emotion. I always come away from reading Sean's books with a warm, bittersweet feeling. You want to give his characters a big hug (and I never want to give anyone a hug), even when they fumble their way to a happy ending.

You can order ED (along with many of his other fine comics) from Sean's shop.

My old pal and longtime collaborator Nige Lowrey has put out another Odds And Ends collection of illustration, cartoons, caricatures and one new strip. Every time Nige puts out a book like this, I find myself scratching my head and asking why he's not in professional employment as a comic book artist - especially when there are far less talented artists earning big bucks... but that's just the way of the world. I firmly believe that Nige's big break could still be just round the corner... in the meantime, this gorgeous collection will just have to tide us over. I know he was selling copies at a recent con but I don't know how many he has left. If you want one, pop over to his blog and ask the question...

My newest small press discovery is Robert Wells. You may know him from his Comics On The Ration blog which I've mentioned here before as I'm an occasional contributor (when I have the time)... but until recently I had no idea just what an accomplished writer and artist Rob is. Curiously, we both started in the small press scene in the early 90s, yet I had no idea what Rob was up to, so I've had great fun catching up with some of his older work (you can read the majority of it online here). I especially recommend Gig Guide which reads like a companion piece to my own Top Ten of Bad Gig Behaviour.

The good news is that after a few years away from the scene, Rob has started writing and drawing his own strips again... and hopefully we'll be working together on something for a future PJANG / my new top secret comic project too. Pop along to Rob's new blog for weekly strips like the Jack Bauer piss-take above and news about what else Rob's getting up to. Add it to your blog list!

Building A Rocket Live

It was one of the best gig I've been too in a long, long time. Elbow came home to the Manchester Evening News arena... and blew the roof off.

I wouldn't have thought it possible. Not that Elbow aren't a great band, one of my favourites on the contemporary scene, but much of their music, especially on the current album Build A Rocket Boys has a sparse and intimate quality you wouldn't expect to fill an arena. Many of their songs feature minimal instrumentation and allow Guy Garvey's voice to carry the majority of the melody. And yet, Elbow didn't just fill the MEN... that cup runneth over.

Now officially crowned The Nicest Man In Rock, Guy Garvey continues to write heartwarming lyrical stories of home, friendship, family and love. He emphasized these qualities in his introductions, paying special attention to the hometown crowd... so that by the time the band played Station Approach (a song about returning home to Manchester's Piccadilly Station after too long away) even this proud Yorkshireman was feeling fit to call himself an honorary Manc. His lyrics continue to throw up those trademark sweetly sarcastic endearments ("I miss your stupid face, I miss your bad advice") that somehow contain more honesty and better illustrate the truth of love and romance than any number of "I'll climb any mountain" platitudes. He even confessed that the singalong chant title of new song With Love may well have been unconsciously inspired by the "In One!" call of referee Tony Green from the TV darts quiz show Bullseye.

If anyone doubt Elbow's position as one of the UK's most acclaimed rock bands, look no further than their current showstopper, Open Arms. Tears are welling even as I type the title...

Top Twenty Crazy Songs

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy songs...

20. Slade - Mama We're All Crazee Now

Slade almost missed out on this list altogether due to Noddy's crazy spelling.

19. Super Furry Animals - Crazy Naked Girls

I include this purely because I know it'll double the number of hits this post gets. And not from SFA fans...

18. Huey Lewis & The News - Gimme The Keys (And I'll Drive You Crazy)

After releasing one of the biggest albums of the 80s, Huey and the gang came back with one of the cheesiest. It bombed. Still, you've got to love a video as bad as this.

17. Eminem - My Dad's Gone Crazy

Haillie Jade has just realised her dad is nuts. Took her long enough. But just how nuts...?

Cuz when I speak, it's tongue in cheek
I'd yank my fuckin teeth before 'd ever bite my tongue
I'd slice my gums, get struck by fuckin' lightning twice at once
And die and come back as Vanilla Ice's son

That nuts.

16. Aerosmith - Crazy

In which Steven Tyler gets his daughter Liv, and one of her sexy model friends, to dance around in and out of their school uniforms to sell his records. Which must be kind of the LA rockstar equivalent of sending your kid up the chimney. Crazy.

15. Dr Feelgood - Crazy About Girls

I remember a time when I was crazy about girls...

14. Hot Chocolate - Girl Crazy

...and so does Errol Brown.

13. James - Crazy

Tim Booth isn't crazy - he's just laughing at himself.

12. Guns n Roses - You're Crazy

Axl doesn't just think you're crazy, he thinks you're fucking crazy. It amuses me how many people on youtube dedicate this to their ex-girlfriend... and to Charlie Sheen.

11. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

Before he found solo fame singing "fuck you and fuck her too" to everyone who dissed or dumped him in high school, Cee Lo Green was crazy too.

10. Madonna - Crazy For You

This reminds me of being a teenager in love. I can't even remember who the girl was, but I was ridiculously smitten and certain that if I got her on her own and played her this song she'd reveal her mutual desire. Did it ever happen? What do you think...?

"From the motion picture Vision Quest".

You know - Vision Quest!

No, me neither.

9. Queen - Stone Cold Crazy

One from my youth. Freddie dreaming he's Al Capone. Exhibit A in the case against anyone who believes Queen didn't ROCK.

EDIT: Oh, and I just rememembered Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Why the heck did my computer not suggest that? Has it deleted it? Bugger!

8. Prince - Let's Go Crazy

Let's go crazy
Let's get nuts
Let's look for the purple banana
'Til they put us in the truck, let's go!

Dear old Prince. He didn't have very far to go.

7. The Osmonds - Crazy Horses

The Osmonds got so pissed off about the exhaust fumes from their neighbour's car that they abandoned their traditional boy band shtick and went all heavy rawk... with pleasingly mental results.

Apparently Westlife covered this in 2003. Thankfully I can neither confirm nor deny that rumour.

6. Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy

Whatever happened to Roland Gift?

5. Magnetic Fields - Crazy For You (But Not That Crazy)

You know how Meat Loaf would do anything for love but not that...?

Stephin Merrit has similar issues.

I treated you like radium. I treated you like God.
You were my glass menagerie, did you not find that odd?
I dwelt within and went without and broke my virgin flesh.
I performed acts of devotion as if you were Ganesh, but now
I'm crazy for you but not that crazy.

4. Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years

Sometimes a lyricist writes straight from my heart...

I'm not the kind of man
Who tends to socialize
I seem to lean on
Old familiar ways
And I ain't no fool for love songs
That whisper in my ears
Still crazy after all these years

See also Crazy Love Volume II, from Graceland.

3. Patsy Cline - Crazy

Strictly speaking, this is probably the best song on the list. It should by all rights be Number One. But there's two songs in my collection that, while not quite so classic, mean just a little more to me...

2. Kiss - Crazy Crazy Nights

I've been listening to the Kiss Greatest Hits CD recently. It was suprisingly amazing. I know, you won't believe me.

This was their first big UK hit, though in the States I guess it was considered their comeback. We missed out on the ridiculous furore first time round. I was 15 when I first heard this. No further explanation is necessary.

1. Robbie Robertson - Somewhere Down The Crazy River

And then, one year later, I heard this. Until then I thought Robbie Robertson was just J. Jonah Jameson's stressed out city editor. I'd never heard anything by The Band... and I'd never heard anything quite like this. Legend has it that producer Daniel Lanois created this track by secretly recording Robbie talking about growing up in Arkansas. (I'm not sure I believe that.) It's spoken word, gravelly voiced magic that paints wonderfully vivid pictures and sounds more like an excerpt from a movie soundtrack than a chart hit. And yet somehow it ended up getting played on the radio and made it to number 15 in the charts. There's no way anything like that would happen today and our charts are much worse for it. This remains one of the most atmospheric singles I've ever bought - it's right up there with Ghost Town.



So. Those were my craziest songs... what was I crazy to leave out?

No crazy frogs allowed.

My Car Hates Me

Every time I think I'm getting on top of my finances, paying off my debts, that I might actually have a little spare change to fritter away on comics or mindless ephemera at the end of the month, my car comes along and knees me in the goolies. And it doesn't even have a knee.

I bought this car a little over three years ago. Aware that it'd probably be the last time I could afford such a purchase for a long, long time (knowing I was about to buy a house and take on all the associated gubbins), I asked for recommendations as to the most cost-effective vehicle I could buy. My main criteria was I wanted a vehicle that wouldn't always be in the garage requiring hefty repair bills - I've had enough Fords to know how they yearn for the company of greasy floors and grubby overalls... and don't even start me on the Seat that stole my life savings. (And it called itself a "Friend"!)

Toyota was the consensus. Toyota is reliable. You won't go wrong with a Toyota. And indeed, a few minor teething problems aside, the Toyota did me right. Until the warranty expired...

The first service I took it for post-warranty cost me £600. And that wasn't even at a main dealer. I was still wincing from that a few months later when the gearbox packed in. Another £500. Last summer it needed a new exhaust which caused me no end of trouble thanks to the useless muppets at KweekFeet. A month ago I took it in for a puncture repair and ended up needing another two new tyres on top. And now the catalytic converter is cracked. £420, including fitting and VAT. (At least the damned thing wasn't affected by the big Toyota Recall of last summer... though if it had been, I would have been able to claim it back.) And don't even start me on the price of petrol...

The worst of it is, the car seems to know. It knows when I have spare cash. Last year when my parents were kind enough to give me some cash to help with the new house... less than a week later the gear box exploded. I got some money for Christmas... and the tyres needed changing. My birthday cash... three days later, it's all gone... and then some.

I know it's crazy to anthropomorphosize a hunk of inaminate metal, but it's not like a car that hates its owner is entirely without precedent. Take Christine. Or The Car. Or even Chugga-Boom. I'm telling you though, if the bloody thing doesn't start treating me a little better, I'm trading it in... for an Audi.






(That was a joke, obviously. I cannot afford an Audi. Even if I could, I can't afford for right-thinking people everywhere to consider me an utter, utter c*** every time I sit behind the wheel. Apologies to those of you who are offended by vile four letter words. I promise not to write 'Audi' again unless I absolutely have to.)

You Never Die On Facebook

Driving to work yesterday morning, I stopped to admire the Sunrise Over Slawit. It's a sight I only get to enjoy on certain weeks of the year - by next week, when the clocks go forward and the sun rises an hour earlier, I'll be too late to catch it. Luckily I had my camera with me this time. This is the old Wireless Station on the appropriately named Pole Moor. The lines in the sky are jet trails, I hadn't noticed them when taking the picture, I certainly wasn't trying to line the first one up with the pole...

Turning 39, I've been thinking a lot about getting older. Is it wrong to be looking forward to retirement at my age? I'm so fed up of the working grind and feeling uninspired by how I spend the majority of my waking day, I long for a time when I'll be able to get up when I like, go out and enjoy a sunny morning like this, spend more of my time writing and doing the things I enjoy. I suppose that's only natural, but I don't want to start wishing my life away either...

In the Grauniad magazine this weekend they had an article featuring photographs and interviews with people who had lived beyond their 100th birthday. It made sad and sobering reading. Although some remained positive, many spoke of simply waiting - even wishing - to die. They appeared to have little pleasure in their lives, had long since lost most of their friends and even family (one man, aged 108, told of how his only son died at the age of 64), and couldn't even rely on their own bodies any more. So much for living to a ripe old age.

Is it better to burn out or fade away? A former colleague of mine died last year, still a young man. I hadn't spoken to him in years but we'd exchanged brief communications on Facebook. I'm reminded of this every time I visit that site now, because his profile is still active. Either his family haven't been able to delete his account (it's hard enough when you're alive - imagine trying to do it for someone who's died) or they've decided to leave it open in his memory. The internet grants us all immortality, whether we want it or not. If you're reading this post in the year 2085, I hope I'm not still around to read your comments...

I don't want to die tomorrow, but I have no desire to live forever - or past my usefulness either. (Some might argue I'm already living on borrowed time in that regard.) I just wish I had more time to enjoy the prime of my life...

We should all be allowed to retire at 40. 20 years of the working grind is enough for anybody. Maybe then I'd get to lie in the sun more like our Wispa...

(Because what the internet really needs is more pictures of cute cats. If you're reading this in 2085, I doubt that has changed.)

Adventures On The High Teas

Stuart Maconie is back on the road, now venturing further from the safety of his northern birthplace (which he explored in Pies and Prejudice) to investigate the myths of Middle England, home of Jane Austen, Nick Drake, David Brent, Margaret Thatcher, Fred West, Midsomer Murders, Brief Encounter and Tubular Bells. It's an easy life being a celebrity travel book writer: you get on a train, spend a day wandering round Chipping Norton or Burton-On-Trent, sample the local wares, chat to a few disgruntled passers by, make a few notes, nick a few bits from other people's books or blogs, then cobble it all together with wry humour and a little seasoning - voilà, £11-99 in Waterstones. I might resent it if Maconie wasn't a writer first and celeb second, if he hadn't worked his way up through the NME trenches, if he wasn't so warm and avuncular, at times even bordering on fascinating.

Often here, the opinions become more important than the places. You're liable to come away from this book knowing more about what Maconie thinks about Top Gear, complaint culture, the British railway system and Jane Austen vs. George Eliot than you are the Cotswolds, Tunbridge Wells or Leamington Spa... on which he steals a quote from one blogger, Oliver's Poetry Garret, though sadly misses out on referencing the true champion of Leam, Steve at Bloggertropolis. Steve, your agent needs to work harder.

As with his previous books, Maconie becomes most enthused when talking about his first love, music, pottering round Nick Drake's graveyard or scouring the hillsides that inspired Mike Oldfield. For me, the most interesting chapter is the most northern, when he arrives in Buxton, Derbyshire - a town I know, and would question its "Middle" credentials - but that's because I rarely venture any further south at risk of being shot. Still, reading this book made me think it might be worth the risk... one day.

This Is The Last Birthday I Will Ever Celebrate...

...and sadly, I have to celebrate it with Bryan May... why couldn't it have been Freddie?



Still, on the plus side, life finally begins next year...

...and at least I'm not as old as Bruce Willis, who's 56 today.

Top Ten Rubbish Songs

Proof, if proof be needed, that it's possible to compile a Top Ten songs about any subject... even a load of old rubbish.

Special runners-up prizes go to Garbage and the Trash Can Sinatras...

10. Lonnie Donegan - My Old Man's A Dustman

Skiffle-king Donegan angered traditionalists with his turn to musical hall comedy in 1960 - but it proved one of his biggest hits, as well as his third and final Number One. In case you didn't know what a dustman was, the title also provided the following, slightly less poetic parenthesis... (Ballad Of A Refuse Disposal Officer).

Me, I always wanted to know what those "gor-blimey trousers" his old man wore were all about...

9. Blanche - Garbage Picker

Southern Gothic country madness helmed by husband and wife duo Dan John and Tracie Mae Miller...

My debonair style impressed you,
But you kept asking where I shop,
And that day you saw me picking by the roadside,
Was the day that our romance stopped.

8. Raveonettes - Love In A Trashcan

Those crazy Danes, they'll do it anywhere...

7. Johnny Cash - Country Trash

Listening to this song, I feel a strange kinship for Johnny Cash. I suppose I'm doing all right for country trash...

6. Blur - For Tomorrow

The song that gives the album Modern Life Is Rubbish its name, inspired in part by the fact that when they first moved to London, Damon Albarn's parents lived next door to John Lennon. Or so it says on Wikipedia. Which probably means it's bollocks.

5. The Faces - Debris

Rod Stewart used to be cool. Rubbish?

4. Michael Anderson - White Trash Shakespeare

I have no idea where I find these things. This is from a contemporary country album which also contains an excellent song called Raymond Chandler Said. I think someone might have pointed me towards that while compiling my Top Ten Detective Songs.

3. New York Dolls - Trash

While I don't share Morrissey's undying adoration of this band, this is probably the best thing I've heard from them: a raucous slab of pre-punk glam with a nice Mick Jagger impression from lead singer David Johansen.

2. Suede - Trash

25 years later, Suede recorded virtually the same song - yet made it sound completely different. There is a direct line from David Johansen through to Bret Anderson, but I'm not sure the Dolls were the inspiration behind Suede's biggest hit. Maybe it's just one of those glorious flukes pop throws up from time to time.

Maybe, maybe it's the clothes we wear,
The tasteless bracelets and the dye in our hair,
Maybe it's our kookiness,
Or maybe, maybe it's our nowhere towns,
Our nothing places and our cellophane sounds,
Maybe it's our looseness,


But we're trash, you and me,
We're the litter on the breeze,
We're the lovers on the streets...

1. Carter USM - Rubbish

The only problem with that Suede song, much as I love it and want to make it Number #1, is that it's not very British, is it, Bret? Where I come from, we don't have trashcans, we have rubbish bins.

"What do you think of the programme so far?" asks John Peel midway through this track. Wisely, Jim Bob and Fruitbat leave us to provide our own answers...

I wish I'd discovered Carter back in 1992... why did no one tell me?

From the black bag skip in the parking lot
It's a short bad trip to the candy shop
Where the shrimps sell smack to the jelly snakes
And the kids buy crack in their morning break


And the grass grows bluer on the other side
Where the old girls queue for their Mother's Pride
For a slice of life it's a bargain sale
The price is right but the bread is stale


From the high rise priest of the office blocks
To a five year lease on a cardboard box
From the old queens head to the Burger King
In my '57 Chevy made from baked bean tins


And when I drive that heap down the road
You can hear that cheap car stereo
Volume knob turned down low
Rubbish on the radio

Those were mine... what's your favourite rubbish song?

The Adjustment Bureau

I used to have a recurring dream wherein someone I trusted implicitly led me to a room I'd never been to before only to reveal that the world outside that room no longer existed, that my life until that point had been one huge cosmic joke, that everyone and everything I knew had been created to lull me into a false sense of security, and this was the punchline: nothing I believed was true.

I've always been fascinated by stories wherein characters discover that their life is not their own, that they're just pawns in some much bigger game, that - as Gloucester puts it to King Lear - "as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods... they kill us for their sport". Stories in which we're forced to confront the man behind the curtain. And though I've never read much Phillip K. Dick (something I intend to put right very soon), his short story The Adjustment Team appears to be a classic of the genre.

The concept has been adapted and updated by writer/director George Nolfi as the latest big screen outing for Matt Damon, The Adjustment Bureau. The film has received mixed reviews and unfair comparisons with Christopher Nolan's Inception, but I loved it. It's unusual these days to see a movie where you just don't know what will happen next.

Damon's flourishing politician David Norris accidentally stumbles across the fact that his life is not his own due to a slip up by his overworked "handler". The Adjustment Bureau, a supernatural organisation of benevolent "angels" are guiding Norris towards political success because they know he can have a positive impact on the world, and they won't let anything stand in his way - certainly not an unplanned romance with a kooky dancer played by Emily Blunt.

What makes the conceit effective is that the Adjustment Bureau themselves are neither all-powerful nor omnipotent. They have powers beyond ours, but they also have to follow rules and procedure like everybody else. They're just doing their job, and sometimes they don't even know why - their employer doesn't always let them in on the bigger picture. Anthony Mackie and Mad Men's John Slattery do an excellent job of portraying the day to day frustrations of these bureaucratic guardians, so we sympathise with them almost as much as we do their pawn, Norris.

The film is by no means perfect. Emily Blunt's character is one of those adorably / annoyingly eccentric Hollywood girlfriends who simply don't exist in real life. Terence Stamp hams it up like Zod as Adjustment Bureau hardman Thompson. The script stumbles into clunky exposition and the final dramatic set-piece seems contrived to give us an action-packed third act the story really doesn't require. But despite all that, I still preferred it to Inception - because this film has heart. It has a warmth that Nolan's film was lacking, for all its eye-bleeding special effects, and it spends time building characters we care about. I won't argue with anyone who tells me Inception is the better film, but I know which one I'd rather watch again.

Mixing Pop and Politics...

"Mixing pop and politics, they ask me what the use is
I offer them embarrassment and my usual excuses..."

Before the gig, in the Academy bar, we overhear two blokes discussing the forthcoming entertainment. "It should be a good gig," says one. "As long as he stays away from the politics," says the other.

Really, now. Isn't that a bit like going along to a Lady Gaga gig and hoping she stays away from the slutty dresses? The politics are such an important part of Billy Bragg's persona, he wouldn't be Billy Bragg without them. And while much has been made of the fact that the bard of Berking now lives in a lovely "mansion" on the cliffs of Dorset, it would be churlish to deny him the rewards of his success - particularly when he continues to fight the good fight as vocally as he ever did. Saturday's gig, it transpires, is actually a charity event organised to raise funds to help defeat the far-right BNP party in the North West. "Hope Not Hate" is the message, and given that this is exactly what brought Billy to Manchester on Saturday night, you can hardly expect him to stay quiet on the subject.

"As Brother Barry said
As he married Marion
The wife has three great attributes
Intelligence, a Swiss army knife and charm"

But even the man himself admits there are two kinds of Billy Bragg fan. There are those who are brought to him through the politics, who feel stirred and empowered by his performance of songs like Between The Wars, World Turned Upside Down, NPWA and There Is Power In A Union. And there are those who fall instead for his pithy, heartfelt, witty and truthful kitchen sink relationship dramas and "love songs". Valentine's Day Is Over, Saturday Boy, A Lover Sings and the forever devastating Levi Stubbs' Tears. I've always been in the latter camp, though I respect and agree with many of Billy's opinions in the former and have no problem showing my support for a cause like "Hope Not Hate". I've seen him live many times now, and though I always prefer the shows that are steered towards Billy the performer rather than Billy the revolutionary, I accept that they're two sides of the same man, and that sometimes one will take prominence over the other. Fortunately he maintains his sense of humour whichever badge he's wearing, and it's impossible not to be inspired by him either way.

"A cynic is just a busted optimist" he says at one point in the show, and he makes me think about how easily I let cynicism rule my own life at times. Reading this blog sometimes, you might think that the cynic has won. But I do strive to be optimistic - it's essential if I'm to continue striving to achieve my ambitions. Optimists keep trying, cynics give in. So maybe I'm not as cynical as I sometimes think... and maybe it takes a little Billy Bragg rabble-rousing to remind me of that every now and then. You've got to keep fighting for what you believe in, and you've got to keep believing in yourself. We're all of us Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards...

"If you're lonely, I will call -
If you're poorly, I will send poetry


I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint"

Dead Father's Club

I'd seen Dead Fathers Club compared to Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time - a young adult book that's crossed over and ended up appealing more to older, proper adults. This comparison was almost enough to prevent me from reading it as I found Haddon's novel patronising and annoying. However, when I heard the premise of Matt Haig's novel I had to give it a shot... and I'm so glad I did as it knocks The Curious...Dog out of the pound.

Philip Noble is an 11 year old whose father has recently died in a suspicious car crash. When the old man's ghost turns up and informs Philip that his death was actually murder... that Philip's uncle is responsible... and that unless Philip takes revenge, his father will be trapped as a ghost forever... well, fans of Shakespeare's greatest play might get an idea where this story is going.

When Uncle Alan starts putting his moves on Philip's mum... when Philip meets the friendly daughter of Uncle Alan's bumbling business partner (and her over-protective brother)... when two of Philip's schoolmates begin acting suspiciously like they're in Uncle Alan's employ... to be or not to be, anyone?

Given that Hamlet is my favourite play, I loved the parallels, but Haig is smart enough to know his story can't survive on those alone. And there comes a point where the path of Philip Noble's life has to take a different course from the great Dane's... the exciting thing for the reader is wondering when that will be. Philip is such a likable character, we hate to think he'll meet an end as tragic as Hamlet, though I was surprised at how far the author took him. It's fair to say Dead Fathers Club is an engrossing read for young adults and proper adults alike - even those who aren't familiar with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune - but for anyone who is, it's damned near essential reading. Smart, touching, and very funny too.



More recommended reading over at Comics On The Ration where today I'm reviewing Chew: Taster's Choice from Image Comics.

A Little Hope Is A Dangerous Thing...

No #fridayflash from me this week as I'm resting my short story muscles, but here's a true story, a cautionary tale that might strike a chord with my fellow writers and creative types. It's about taking risks to get your work noticed... and the danger of getting your hopes too high, too quickly...


(Names have been changed to protect the innocent. My name, therefore, remains unchanged.)


Recently in the evil Day Job, I've had reason to be in contact with the touring agent of a successful and well-known writer and TV personality. For the purposes of this story, we'll call the writer Alabaster Cuttlefish. Although our plans in regard to the Day Job failed to come to fruition, I found the agent I'd been dealing with to be a warm and personable type (a rarity in my job) so I decided to do something I'd never done before: use my contacts. People are always telling me it's not what you know but who, and that success in the arts is as much down to luck as talent... so why not?

Privately then, I dropped the touring agent - for the purposes of this story, we'll call him Tantalizing Margarine - a short email explaining that, outside the evil Day Job, I was a writer of far more interesting things, but that I'm terrible at self promotion, and find it hard to get my work seen by the right people. Having just completed my latest novel, I was faced with the daunting prospect of shopping it round potential agents, and wondered if he - being someone who worked with a number of successful writers such as Alabaster Cuttlefish - knew of any friendly literary agents who might be receptive to browsing a few chapters and giving me their feedback.

Tantalizing Marmalade replied quickly, telling me he was no expert on the literary field, but asking what my novel was about and who I saw as the target reader. I responded with a single paragraph synopsis and, after scratching my head for a little while, suggested the kind of reader I was aiming at... namedropping one of my favourite writers, Jubilee Bumblebee.

"Funnily enough," came the reply, "I happen to be best friends with Jubilee Bumblebee's editor at Trouserpig Press - and I also know his agent." (So much for not being an expert on the literary field!) "Tell you what, send me a chapter and I'll have a quick look..."

Never has so much been read into one idle ellipsis by one so foolish. Suddenly, my heart was in my mouth. This could be it! This could be the big break I've been looking for! "Take this Day Job and stick it!" My future starts here. I shot back an email with the first chapter and a more complete plot synopsis (plus a note to the effect that I would understand completely if he don't feel it was worth taking any further. After all these years writing, I was used to rejections). Then I sat by the computer, clicking Send & Receive on my inbox to speed up his reply. At last, I told myself, this was my moment...

I didn't have long to wait. Tantalizing Marmalade soon came back, responding that although he enjoyed the synopsis and structure, the style of the writing wasn't really for him - though he recognised he probably wasn't the target market. He went on to offer further constructive criticism... which I appreciated and took on board... while inside, inside I was dying.

If you could draw my hopes like a polygraph line they would shoot off the chart like Superman before the needle returned to the paper and tore through the bottom of the sheet like a serial killer's knife through a silk negligee. All in the space of one afternoon. Which may be why I'm not cut out for being a writer. It isn't that I lack the drive or (possibly) the ability... it's that I just wasn't built for rejection, and even after all these years, every time someone responds negatively - or without interest - to something I've written, I want to pack it all in and become a Yak farmer.

But I'll get over that. I've had plenty of practise. I know not every book is for every person, and the more successful a writer, the more the critics love to rip them apart. Just look at that infamous bestseller champion Teriyaki Concrete! I wonder if he cares that 50% of readers think he can't even string a successful sentence together? Or does he just concentrate on the 50% who'd buy his weekly shopping list in hardback? Perhaps such things don't matter once you're a success. The real trick to surviving the submissions process isn't about learning to deal with rejection... it's about learning not to get your hopes up. That's the killer. Because sometimes, hope is all that keeps you going...

Things I Have Been Listening To...

I bought my first new CD of 2011 yesterday. It's the new album from Elbow (who I'll be seeing live in a fortnight). I haven't received it yet.

So... what have I been listening to in the meantime...?



John Grant's Queen Of Denmark album was included in quite a few critics' Best of 2010 lists, and for once the critics are right. The former Czars frontman's debut solo effort is an enticing mix of 70s MOR and witty, personal, caustic lyrics that reminds me of Harry Nilsson at his underrated best. The song above has the best video (featuring the sad life of an unemployed superhero) but I reckon my favourite track on the album is Where Dreams Go To Die which features the following, heartfelt chorus...

Baby, you're where dreams go to die
I regret the day your lovely carcass passed my eye

Lily Rae's debut album Oh No! is only available to buy from the Indelicates' Corporate Records site, but I'm so glad I took a flyer on it. She has a similarly dark and witty lyrical style to Simon & Julia Indelicate, magpieing her influences from Morrissey, Jacques Brel and Victoria Wood, though after a few listens each track becomes uniquely her. There's a wonderful bitterness to songs like Diane, it's pleasing from one so young...

Diane - what do you see in him? The boy's a knob...

Plus, she has a song called Don't Sleep In My Cardi. What else do you want? Blood?



I wasn't as taken with The Libertines as the music press were back in 2002. They had some pretty good songs, but Pete Doherty annoyed me and the idea that they were a 21st Century answer to The Smiths never really took. That said, I always kind of cast Carl Barât in the Johnny Marr role - guitar god, but no frontman. Dirty Pretty Things did little to persuade me otherwise, but his solo album shows real promise. He hasn't quite found his own voice yet, so many of the tracks sound like Bowie, Brel, Bret Anderson or, obviously, The Libertines - but they still sound good. My favourite is Je Regrette Je Regrette, though I'd have liked it more if he'd called it Angry Birds...

I'm a wretch, I'm a wretch
A tosser at a stretch
I got stuff on my chest
This woman sent me west


I didn't pay her taxi now I'm failing to impress
These angry birds
Such angry birds...

I discovered Tom Williams & The Boat via Steve Lamacq. I want to call Tom a teenage troubadour and not just for the obvious alliteration. I'm not sure if he is still a teenager (though looking at his youthful face makes painful tears wet my crow's feet) but he writes well from that perspective, particularly on the song Concentrate...

They don't know my dad
He's this town through and through
Old school, fifty-something, balding, racist
So his mates are too... but me I'm a modern man!

This is available on the See My Evil EP, downloadable from Tom's website. His debut album is also out now, but I haven't got around to that yet.

Finally (for now), an oldie-but-goody from Bradford's finest rock exports (argue that all you like, Smokie and New Model Army fans)...

number9dream

Working my way through David Mitchell's back catalogue I arrive at his second novel, the one that steals its title from Lennon, hence my reluctance to read it earlier.

I'm glad I left number9dream till last as it's my least favourite so far. It starts strong, introducing Eiji, a 19-year old Japanese Billy Liar type who's searching for his unknown father. The story mixes fantasy and reality in entertaining fashion so you're never entirely sure whether what's happening is really happening, or just the product of Eiji's overactive Manga-fuelled imagination.

So far so good, and while many of Mitchell's books alternate between different characters, time streams, realities etc., this one appears to stick firmly with Eiji's story... until about half way through when Mitchell veers off on multiple tangents unrelated to the main plot. That was a little too late for my brain to cope with though, and unlike the intricately woven variations of Ghostwritten or Cloud Atlas, I found the diversions in number9dream to be unnecessary distractions that eventually killed my interest in Eiji's story completely.

Mitchell's writing is as crisp and clever and beautiful as ever, so there's still much to admire here... just nothing to sweep me away in quite the same fashion as his other books. It certainly won't dissuade me from reading his latest, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

Drive Angry 3D

I've been openly mocking Nicolas Cage's new film, Drive Angry 3D, since I saw the first poster.

Especially considering the woeful travesty that was the fat-faced, Elvis-voiced goon's last flick, Season Of The Witch.

Especially considering I hate the current obsession with forcing unnecessary (and really quite shoddy) 3D fx into every single big budget pic Hollywood churns out these days. (I read the other day that Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of The Great Gatsby* is even going to be filmed in 3D... WTF?)

Especially considering it has one of the worst titles of any movie released this century...


So, with all that in mind, why the hell did we go see it?

Because we're fools. Fools, I tell you, crazy fools!

Because I've seen nothing but worthy, intelligent Oscar contenders over the last few weeks and I needed some trash.

And because sometimes, shit films can be fun.


But do you know what? Drive Angry 3D isn't as bad as you think it will be. It's actually a big cheesy helping of B-movie fun. If you enjoyed Tarantino & Rodriguez's Grindhouse double bill, this shares a similar lineage and combines the best elements of both.

The premise is straight out of a 70s shlockbuster. Nicolas Cage has escaped from hell to take revenge on the sneeringly evil cult leader who killed his daughter and stole his only grandchild. (Yes, Cage is now old enough to play a grandpa. Cut him some slack on the fat face.) Along the way he hooks up with sexy, spunky waitress Amber Heard who drives some huge slab of speedy American-made metal and needs help dealing with her abusive redneck boyfriend. Cage also tries his best to steer clear of a demonic accountant played with scenery-chomping glee by William Fichtner (you know, the guy Hollywood always hire when they can't afford Christopher Walken). Much car-chasing, truck-exploding, shotgun-blasting mayhem ensues, all in the worst possible taste, punctuated by crass-but-funny one-liners and heavy rock power chords. It's utter nonsense, but it knows it. And you can't fault it for that.

Only two things disappoint. One is the cameo by NYPD Blue's Charlotte Ross (aka the third Mrs. Sipowicz) as a trashy waitress who gets to have sex with Cage while he kills a gang of attacking meatheads. It's a cute scene and there's nothing wrong with Ross's performance, it's just a shame to see her reduced to this kind of role, botox and all.

And then there's the 3D. Which I still think both gratuitous and distracting. I'd much rather have watched the film without it, though sadly we weren't given that option. And I still resent having to pay an extra £3 to watch a movie in a format that actually makes the visual experience less distinct, harder to follow, and much less enjoyable. But I appear to be in the minority on that one.

Still, against all odds, Drive Angry 3D delivered. I even appreciated the character names - Milton (Cage), Piper (Heard) and Webster (an unexpected cameo from David Morse). More thought went into this picture than you'd ever have expected... but let's face it, you weren't expecting much.



*Sadly, that wasn't a joke.

Friday Flash - Dinner At Eight

I'm taking a break from the #fridayflash stories after this week while I concentrate on a few other projects. I love the discipline of writing these stories to deadline, and have greatly appreciated the feedback from fellow #fridayflashers and regular Slawit readers alike. But I've had to resort to older stories more and more over the last few weeks, and while it's fun to drag them out and dust them down and see if they still stand up, it's also a huge cheat.

So while I recharge my short story batteries, I leave you with this delightful Come Dine With Me menu from back in the good old Elephant Words days.

Dinner At Eight

So we’re having your friends over again, and you’ve told me to prepare something special. Being the dutiful little wife you always expect me to be, I’ve put a great deal of thought into tonight’s menu – and knowing how particular your friends can be, I’ve prepared them each their own individual dish, as follows…

For Martin, whose monobrow is Cro-Magnon, who was born wearing an animal logo over his heart, and whose chins the turkey wants back: T-bone steak, medium rare, served with asparagus tips, a fresh green salad, chopped pistachio nuts, and 8 to 900 milligrams of burnt thallium salts. That should give him three more days to use the word “methinks” wittily in conversation, to slosh and gargle his Merlot because it “releases the flavour”, and to tell everyone he meets how his wife was born under the sign of Dexys, so her parents christened her Eileen. (Even though she was born twenty years before that song was even written!)

For Eileen, who gave us dirty towels when we stayed the weekend, who kisses her miniature poodle with tongues, and who was so horrified by the death of Princess Diana that her hair turned platinum blonde overnight: braised lambs kidneys in garlic butter on a bed of spinach, served with artichoke, purple flowering broccoli and a reduction of calvados, crab apple and antimony. Perhaps this will finally stop her asking, “You’ve been married ten years now – why no kids?” (“Because we discovered something called birth control, my dear. It’s fucking wonderful.”)

For Trevor, who, like a budgie, hasn’t ever seen a mirror he hasn’t wanted to look in, whose silver threads among the gold fall regular victim to the genocide of Grecian 2000, and who is currently dating a girl not born until his seventeenth birthday (if you ask me, ‘cradle-snatcher’ is just a polite way of saying paedophile): pan-fried pheasant breasts in a tangerine and crème fraîche sauce, cavolo nero and new potatoes, garnished with parmesan shavings and mercury chloride. Although initially concerned that he might notice and question the rather distinctive crystals of HgCl2 sprinkled across his platter, I’ve since decided that between his ingénue, my cleavage, and the tantalizing reflection in his silverware, Trevor’s attention will be taken.

For Kelly, who spells her name Cheallaigh, who trained as a synchronised swimmer and hasn’t ever lost the smile, and who last time we got together insisted on showing everyone her bikini line at the table (in the restaurant): Salmon en Croûte (fish is, after all, good for the brain) served with horseradish, beetroot and chopped dill. Rolled into the pastry, its flavour disguised by lemon juice: taxine – taken from the leaves of our very own yew tree. (You are always encouraging me to do more in the garden.) I’ve chosen an especially low calorie recipe for Cheallaigh in response to a conversation we had about dieting at Cliff and Carrie’s New Year’s Eve party. “They say eating less helps you live longer,” she told me over her second slice of Black Forest Gateau, “but it also reduces your sex drive. I think when I’m older, I’d rather be plump and up for it like you than… well, skinny and frigid like poor old Eileen.” My grandmother, god rest her soul, would have said of Cheallaigh: she thinks she’s chocolate, and everyone wants a lick. Not after tonight.

And for you, my dearest Raymond, given that you long since stopped asking what I’d like to do this weekend; that you’ve never learned to cover your mouth when you yawn; and that last month I overheard you telling Trevor that mental arithmetic has never been my strong point… (“I've got a head for figures – the wife's got a figure for head. Ho ho.”) Given also that there are three things we never talk about over dinner in this house: religion, politics, and the female orgasm; and given that at most of these infernal parties you force me to cater for, I feel about as welcome as a zit in a wedding photograph: I’m serving arsenic, straight up. I’ve put it in your scotch, since that’s the easiest way to get you to down it in one. Enjoy your duck…

Top Ten Songs About The 90s

50s...

60s...

70s...

80s...

And finally...

The 90s is just as maligned as the 80s, if not more so. But I'll defend it with equal fervour. Though it was something of a rollercoaster personally, musically it was my time. Britpop gets a lot of negative press, but so many of my favourite bands came from that era that I can forgive it the thuggish excesses of Oasis.

Pulp, Blur, Suede, the Manics, Radiohead, The Verve, the Divine Comedy, Ash, Gene, My Life Story, Catatonia, Supergrass - even Ocean Colour Scene and Shed Seven had their moments. In many ways, these bands represent my teenage revolution - even though I had to wait till I was in my 20s to properly embrace sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Well, ill-advised relationships, Jack Daniels and Britpop, anyway.

As with the other lists, this is NOT a Top Ten Songs FROM The 90s... only a Top Ten Songs ABOUT The 90s...

10. Travis - Tied To The 90s

Let's start with the obvious one (though not quite as obvious as the one we'll end with). Travis began life as a cute, knockabout indie band. On their second album, they discovered big ballads. On their third, they discovered pandering to the lowest common denominator and trying to beat the upstarts Coldplay at the game the stole from Travis in the first place. On their fourth album, they lost. What went wrong, eh?

9. Seahorses - 1999

I always thought the Seahorses had more potential than their one album and final unrelated single showed. John Squire got bored too easily and went off to paint pictures of dolphin. He could have been a contender...

16 sweet Chablis sham kisses
17 nothings whispered in her ear
18 attempts on her best pair of knickers
1999 was a hell of a year

8. Moxy Fruvous - Stuck In The 90s

Weird Canadian comedy hipsters from the early 90s who released one classic album (Video Bargainville) and then decided to try and become proper, serious musicians... which was much less entertaining.

7. Eminem - '97 Bonnie & Clyde

In which Em tries to prove himself a suitable father to Hailey by singing Will Smith lullabies and trying to murder her mum. Again.

What can I say? It appeals to my warped sense of humour.

6. Picture Centre - Fireworks October 1990

A band so fey and ephemeral they make Belle & Sebastian sound butch, this is wonderful 3am chill-out stuff. A band so forgotten, they don't even rate a Wikipedia entry. But I remember them.

Just.

5. Blur - End Of A Century

See, I was going to select 1992 , which is all very well, but not really a patch on the song above. So that's what you get.

End of a century?
It's nothing special...

4. Carter USM - The 90s Revival / 1993

Ah, Carter. How I wish I could claim to have been a huge fan of your under-appreciated oeuvre "back in the day". Sadly, it passed me by. Only now, in the 21st Century, am I finally coming to appreciate your greatness. Just in time for your forthcoming reunion tour. That'll be a true 90s revival.

3. Fountains Of Wayne - '92 Subaru

Most car songs celebrate classic '57 Chevvies and their ilk. The FOWs can only afford a late model Subaru, second hand from some old ladies out of state. Ah, but they love it like a Caddy.

2. The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Instant Repeater '99

Often when you see a year on the end of a song title it's only there to show you when the song was recorded - or, more frequently in the 90s, remixed. Tonight though, Swedish serial guitar abusers TSOOL will actually sing '99 like it's... well, erm, the next record in our countdown. (Even though the song itself was released in '96.)

1. Prince - 1999

Like it was ever going to be anything else. Originally released in 1983, a much bigger hit in 1985, reissued for no reason I can figure in the final year of the millennium (unless you're one of those people who believes the final year of the millennium was 2000)... a song that created its own idiom.

Somebody once told me that come the 21st Century you'd never hear this record again. "Why would anybody play it once it's out of date?" Um... because its sentiment is timeless? There's no reason not to party like it's 1999 even in 2011 if you want to.

As for my own millennium memories... I had the flu so I spent the turn of the century in bed. (It really was 'nothing special'.) Was it as good as everybody thought it would be...?



And so we end our countdown of songs about decades. I won't be compiling a Top Ten Songs About The Noughties because it's all still too close and there aren't yet enough decent ones to go round. Maybe one day...

In the meantime, do you have a favourite song about the 90s? If so, you know what to do with it.

Next week, something completely different...

Rubbish!

Good Morning Nantwich

I never listened to Phil Jupitus's 6 Music breakfast show because up until very recently I didn't have access to a digital radio. It seems not that many other people listened to it either, if we're to believe Jupitus, but then it did run in the early days of digital, and long before the recent 6 Music Renaissance. I was however interested to read his experiences of working in radio, because he's passionate about a wide variety of music styles and outpoken against playlist radio...

"I am stunned that modern radio is still so reliant on computer-selected, pre-programmed playlists. I can understand the appeal of this on a chart-based station, but what was the point of hiring somebody with an extensive knowledge of music as well as a none-too-shabby record and CD collection and then not letting them use either facility?"

Throughout his time at 6, Jupitus continually butted heads with his bosses about the music he was allowed to play on his show. I guess for a station that was allegedly championing new and alternative music, the desire to play Coldplay every hour was still strong...

"I loved the chaotic slalom of John Peel's musical selections... I saw no reason why I shouldn't play 'I Enjoy Being A Girl' (by Peggy Lee) and immediately follow it up with 'Staring At The Rude Boys' (by The Ruts). Surely any half decent radio show should thrive on this kind of wilful eclecticism? Just because you play contrasting musical styles from decades apart is no reason people should tune out, and if they do, then bollocks to them."

Personally, I've always believed there's space on the airwaves for a station as diverse as the one Jupitus dreamed he'd be working at... but it seems the people in charge believe otherwise. Jupitus even begins to doubt the potential of such a business model himself as the book goes on (though he does offer home-produced internet radio up as the medium's one potential saviour).

As well as unimaginative music policies, Jupitus also has much to say about radio presentation styles. The most enjoyable chapter in the book comes when the author forces himself to sit through an entire 4 hour local radio breakfast show... can his sanity survive?

"The shouty breakfast shows all appear to be predicated on deceit... Who decided that people who played records on the radio should evolve such an absurd style of speech? How can the people who do it even begin to think that it is a normal way to behave?"

In the end, the comedian, writer and TV presenter is forced to conclude that radio is not for him. Like many who have worked in the industry, the restrictions on creativity and individuality prove just too much.

"I loved deejaying but hated being a deejay... I took it all too personally and too seriously. I found playlist radio an anathema, and still do to this day."

Back in 1993, I created a comic called The Jock in which a group of rebel DJs fought to stop a faceless corporation called Yourent taking over radio and conquering the world with their bland, mind-controlling muzak. Almost 20 years later, that book now seems archaic. Yourent won. And the Jock wasn't the only loser...

The Devil's Arse

To celebrate our fifth anniversary, I took Louise somewhere really special. Somewhere she's always wanted to go. Somewhere that's the epitome of romance, sophistication and glamour. Forget Paris, Rome or Hawaii...

I took her to The Devil's Arse.



Set in the Peak District town of Castleton, directly below the medieval Peveril Castle, the Devil's Arse boasts the largest natural cave entrance in the UK. The tour guide explained how the cave itself often floods and that in days gone by, the noise of the flood waters draining away was thought to sound like Satan himself... passing wind.



During the 17th Century, the cave was home to an entire settlement of rope-makers who lived there rent free. In a dark, slimy, smoky, dingy hole in the ground, prone to flooding. Kind of like Bradford, without the urban garden.



The tour took us deep into the cave, through a 3 foot high tunnel and into a large chamber with a huge drop known as the Devil's Cellar, from which, legend has it, you could hear the River Styx below. We tried, but all we could hear were the annoying children who'd been dragged along on the tour by their parents and the chuntering of the miserable Man At The Back who didn't like that the tour guide directed most of his explanations at the kids and appeared to be auditioning for a job as a presenter on C-Beebies. (In a rather surreal moment, there was a video playing old Dangermouse episodes for kids to watch while they waited for the tour to start. Something else the parents were far more interested in than their offspring.)



That said, it's a fascinating place to visit, and the idea that the cave itself was created by the limestone remains of millions of tiny sea creatures compressed together millions of years ago - south of the equator - continentally shifted over the centuries to create a huge cavern in northern England... well, when you think about that, it boggles the mind.



Anyway, never let it be said I don't know how to show my lady a good time. Romance is alive and well... and living in The Devil's Arse.