"Comes over one an absolute desire to move"

(Apologies if this is just a note to myself - hopefully it might be of wider interest, though.)

Geoff Dyer recently reviewed, with some enthusiasm, my supervisor's new biography of D H Lawrence for the Daily Telegraph, and so it's with a certain neat circularity that I offer some thoughts on his own book about Lawrence, 'Out Of Sheer Rage'.

To call it a biography would be wrong. As the subtitle - 'In The Shadow Of D H Lawrence' - would suggest, Dyer never emerges into the sunlight long enough to give us much of a glimpse of the book's ostensible subject. Dyer recounts his travels around the globe visiting the places Lawrence lived, all with the aim of eventually writing a biography of his own, but what the reader is presented with is a curious book which is actually about NOT writing a biography of Lawrence, or at least trying and failing to do so. It is telling that at one point he recalls very nearly being distracted from visiting the D H Lawrence Birthplace Museum in Eastwood by the sight of an IKEA when en route for Nottinghamshire. This is, as he freely concedes, "a book full of irrelevancies".

Indeed, 'Out Of Sheer Rage' could more properly be called an autobiography, offering as it does a portrait of its author's life. The rambling passages relating his procrastination, especially those at the beginning of the book, can begin to become a little wearisome and there's also an unnerving candour to his self-analysis, but nevertheless Dyer reveals himself to be, like Lawrence, an endearingly grumpy old man at his happiest (or at least his best) when venting his spleen on seemingly anything and everything. His admission "What I like most about Lawrence is his temper" could have gone without saying.

It goes without saying that this is an utterly unscholarly book, something which Dyer openly flaunts. Indeed, much of his ire is directed squarely at academia. He is particularly and memorably scathing about a volume of essays edited by Peter Widdowson: "How could these people with no feeling for literature have ended up teaching it, writing about it? ... I kept looking at this group of wankers huddled in a circle, backs turned to the world so that no one would see them pulling each other off ... Walk around a university campus and there is an almost palpable smell of death about the place because academics are busy killing everything they touch". Harsh words indeed, and ones with which I'm inclined to argue, not least to point out that in this very book he writes about giving an academic paper himself.

But when Dyer takes a break from amusing anecdotes and rants of which Lawrence would be proud, stems the flow of words in the service of little more than filling the pages, and actually gets down to the matter at hand, he is unerringly accurate (almost in spite of himself) about what it is that makes Lawrence such an engaging writer.

On his critical writings: "Each of them is an electrical storm of ideas! Hit and miss, illuminating even when hopelessly wide of the mark ('the judgement may be all wrong: but this was the impression I got'). Bang! Crash! Lightning flash after lightning flash, searing, unpredictable, dangerous".

On the powerful allure of Lawrence's letters and manuscripts: "The finished works serve as a prologue to the jottings: the published book becomes a stage to be passed through - a draft - en route to the definitive pleasure of the notes, the fleeting impressions, the sketches, in which it had its origins".

On the letters: "The endless fascination of the letters lies in his bottomless capacity for change - from blazing anger to good humour in the space of a few hours or minutes - his capacity to recover from any setback, to always give life, to always give himself, one more chance".

Dyer is particularly good at communicating the reasons behind his estimation of the travel book 'Sea And Sardinia' as Lawrence's best work, dwelling upon the simple beauty of its opening line, "Comes over one an absolute desire to move", and continuing: "The experience is created in the writing rather than re-created from notes. Reading it, you are drenched in a spray of ideas that never lets up. Impressions are experienced as ideas, ideas are glimpsed like fields through a train window, one after another. Opinions erupt into ideas, argument is conveyed as sensation, sensations are felt as argument. This immediacy is inscribed in the writing of the book".

Dyer isn't blind to Lawrence's faults, nor is he defensive in every aspect of his life or work. He mocks his paintings, and claims that certain of his weightier novels hold no interest whatsoever, preferring the more prosaic detail of the letters: "The fact that Lawrence wrote 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' means next to nothing to me; what matters is that he paid his way, settled his debts, made nice jam and marmalade, and put up shelves".

Towards the end of the book Dyer paraphrases Lawrence in saying he is writing it as a means of shedding his interest in the man himself. The Telegraph review suggests the project wasn't a complete success from this perspective, but no matter. What 'Out Of Sheer Rage' does, in its own perverse and idiosyncratic way, is the precise opposite - it rouses interest, it illuminates, it vivifies. In other words, Dyer's book proves wrong the very claim it contains, that you "can't write any kind of book about Lawrence without betraying him totally".

Links (aka The Shameless Self-Promotion Corner):

My BBC Nottingham feature on Lawrence.

Guest Blogging Dream Team: D H Lawrence (via Troubled Diva).

Andrew Motion reviews 'D H Lawrence: The Life Of An Outsider' in the Guardian - predictably he thinks more attention could have been devoted to the poetry.

A ticking off

As excuses go, it's up there with the best.

Today (Wednesday) I managed to be late meeting a friend for lunch because of the clocks going forwards. On Saturday.

How exactly did I manage that, I hear you ask? Well, it all stemmed from being sat in front of a university-networked computer for which - for some bizarre reason unknown to me - the clock hadn't changed.

So there I was, blissfully typing away, safe in the knowledge that I had plenty of time to spare, only for a phone call to reveal that in fact I hadn't.

Oh dear.

Arriving at the designated meeting point flustered and 25 minutes late, I found myself trotting out the truth, when it would probably have been less embarrassing just to have pretended the rendez-vous had slipped my mind.

So, next time someone claims their homework has been eaten by their granddad or it's their dog's funeral, trust in their naive honesty and believe them, rather than dismissing it as lame bullshit. You never know.

The follow-up

If you happened to be intrigued by Friday's revelation that He Who Cannot Be Named spotted bona fide rock legend Jimmy Page eating a KFC meal, and you're desperate for more details - what he was wearing, what he selected from the fast food emporium's mouthwatering menu, the manner in which he consumed said meal - then you can satisfy your (frankly freakish) curiosity here.

For another tale of celebrities interacting with the real world, check out this entry on Richard Herring's blog Warming Up. Turns out that, on the very day we saw him in Kings Heath talking about yoghurt and over-intrusive checkout assistants, he had had had another bad experience in Sainsbury's. Very odd.

Nottingham residents might also like to read this post, written the day of a gig at the Lakeside Arts Centre, in which he reflects on The Tales Of Robin Hood - "I was slightly scared to be in Nottingham, which has recently acquired a reputation for being a crime hot spot, with assaults with weapons on the increase. So it was reassuring to be sleeping so close to a tourist attraction which reminded us of a simpler more peaceful Nottingham, where a gang of outlaws who lived in the forest used to spend most of their time stealing stuff and shooting people with arrows".

Incidentally, thanks in part to Herring but in main to Phill, I'm now hooked on Internet Scrabble. I took a while to settle in and get used to the etiquette and lingo ("Hang on, what the fuck does THAT mean?!"), but now I'm cooking on gas. Annoyingly - but probably mercifully for the sake of cred - my internet connection seems intent on sabotaging my efforts by repeatedly breaking down in the midst of games. Oh well.

Unlucky for none

The latest issue of Skif's fanzine Vanity Project is available now - issue #13 it might be, but you'll not be cursing your luck for procuring yourself a copy, stuffed full to the brim with goodness as it is. Inside, you'll find the following (alongside the usual championing of well-deserving but lesser-known bands and labels):

Interviews: The Scaramanga Six, Akira The Don, Snap Ant

Label profiles: Suilven, My Secret Garden

Album reviews: Low, Hot Water Music, Lucky Pierre, The Fiery Furnaces, The Arcade Fire, Magoo, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, Scritti Politti, The Others, Milky Wimpshake

Single reviews: The Kaiser Chiefs, Six By Seven, Snap Ant, Ambulance LTD, Athlete

Live reviews: The Radio Dept, The Magic Numbers, The Kills, Kimya Dawson, The Go Team!

If you want to read anything featured in the current issue, you can access it online here, but if, like me, you prefer a paper copy - on this occasion nearly as thick as a slice of bread - you can get one free of charge by getting in touch with Skif via the address or email on the VP website. What you waitin' for, huh?

Eggheads

Imagine my amusement when a momentarily confused J asked me whether I'd like to go and see the film 'Kenzie'. An easy mistake to make, considering that he, like his near-namesake Dr Alfred Kinsey, regards himself as something of a "sexpert".

Frankly, the likelihood of a Hollywood biopic about the Blazin Squad and 'Celebrity Big Brother' star seems far-fetched, but if Geri Halliwell can publish two different autobiographies (or is it three?), then it's certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility. Presumably it would feature fewer revelations about the pioneering work of a courageous American scientist and more dicking about in a giant egg costume with Bez and John McCririck.

Feel good hits of the 29th March

1. 'Caterwaul' - ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
2. 'Love Steals Us From Loneliness' - Idlewild
3. 'Life On Mars?' - David Bowie
4. 'Sometimes I Feel Like...' - Six By Seven
5. 'Hanging On The Telephone' - Blondie
6. 'This One's For You' - The Concretes
7. 'Silver Rider' - Low
8. 'E-PRO' - Beck
9. 'Save Us SOS' - Hot Hot Heat
10. 'The Widow' - The Mars Volta

Coming up on SWSL this week: an assortment of album reviews. Yes, I know - real proper music writing! I can hardly believe it either...

Blogwatch

Hurrah! Real genuine new content on Excuse Me For Laughing - lots of it! And it's ace too! He Who Cannot Be Named offers his views on recent gigs by indie-darlings-from-across-the-pond Rilo Kiley and The Arcade Fire, as well as on Jean-Luc Godard's 'Weekend':

"I urge you to watch 'Weekend'. Watch it, because none of your friends will have and you just have to tell them about a certain mad as a bag of ferrets French film that likes fucking about with the medium and likes barking Marxist philisophy in your face while decrying the crumbling moral body of the Western world. The problem is that modern film has evolved a grammar that is staid and all too audience pleasing. Sometimes, we need de-education. Sometimes we need to grubby our hands in the basic nutrients of cinema and get in touch with our Iron Age-equivalent cinemagoer. Old films have ways of surprising precisely because the common garden viewer has left it so far behind. Still, I preferred 'Pierrot Le Fou'. That's the one for Godard virgins. The sun, you see, it's always the sun, spraying its rays on a diamond sea. That and Anna Karina stabbing someone in the head with scissors. Lovely, so very lovely".

Elsewhere...

Inspector Sands takes the Tories, Rebekah Wade and Paul Dacre to task for "gypsy-bashing", while Jonathan takes a more general look at political opportunism and the success of recent campaigns in bringing pressure to bear upon our elected representatives and shaping policy decisions;

Kenny reviews another stack of novels, including Haruki Murakami's 'Kafka On The Shore', Michael Chabon's 'The Final Solution', Ian McEwan's 'Saturday' and Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go';

Del writes about Woody Allen and his heroes - "It occurs to me that many of my heroes are those who refuse to shy away from the harshness of existence, but strive to present it honestly, change it, and most of all, laugh about it: the absurdity of life on earth";

Thanks to Phill aka Mr Fixit, Mike's BBC Radio Nottingham interview is now up online.

And finally...

Amidst all the festivities for St Patrick's Day (otherwise known as Guinness Aid), Sarah celebrates St Cuthbert's Day. What do you mean, you didn't know it was the 20th March? Or that he's the patron saint of Northumberland?

This week on Stylus

Ian Mathers is left disappointed by Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band's new LP, Horses In The Sky - "If this is your first experience of the band, you might still find it fresh, but personally I’m beginning to feel radicalism fatigue. Maybe someday the left will be able to express anger effectively, use it to accomplish and convince rather than falling into the twin traps of rancid bitterness and (seemingly) baseless rage".

I admit to not being greatly appreciative of their last offering, 'This Is Our Punk-Rock', Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing, but 2001's Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upwards is a tremendous record, and its closing track 'The Triumph Of Our Tired Eyes' trumps anything Godspeed You! Black Emperor have ever done.

Talking of whom... Ian's penned a fantastic appraisal of their EP Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada on his blog - Godspeed's finest hour?

Elsewhere:

Bjorn Randolph reviews Queens Of The Stone Age's Lullabies To Paralyze - "Without the radical studio experiments of Rated R or the goofy radio-dial concept of Songs For The Deaf, the whole affair seems a bit directionless. Even the hypnotic motorik rhythms of the debut, while now a familiar sound for the band, were pretty intriguing at the time. Next to those past triumphs, the new album comes off as a well-crafted holding pattern, a collection of good songs without any strong or new ideas behind them. Call it the Queens' Ill Communication, if you like".

The UK Singles Jukebox featuring 50 Cent, Erasure, Roots Manuva, Tom Vek and British Sea Power amongst others. Mike is now a regular contributor, and by all accounts loving every minute of being able to write at length about music without being made to feel guilty by a section of his readership...

Quote of the day

"Once again, we're being told that home taping (in the form of ripping and burning) is killing music. But it's not: it simply exists as a nod to the true love and ego involved in sharing music with friends and lovers. Trying to control music sharing - by shutting down P2P sites or MP3 blogs or BitTorrent or whatever other technology comes along - is like trying to control an affair of the heart. Nothing will stop it."

Thurston Moore writing in Wired about the joys of mixtapes. Speaking of which, I really ought to look into downloading Mike's Bloggers' Disco MP3 files...

(Thanks to David for the link.)

White band man

So, Tony Blair's been sporting a white Make Poverty History wristband. Quite telling that he got given it rather than shelling out the £1 it would have cost him, but at least he's wearing it I suppose. Whether he's doing so in all sincerity is another matter, of course.

Perhaps it's just another ruse cooked up by election campaign strategists: "Yeah, Tone, wear it and then you'll come across all concerned and compassionate to all those pesky people who plague you with emails, without necessarily having to do or commit to anything. The public outward show of support and conviction is what matters. Plus you'll be down with the kids. Youth demographic - very important. And you'll make Gordon look even more out of touch."

Make Poverty History

Text message of the day

"Wow. I just watched jimmy page eat a kfc. My life is complete."

Thanks for that, He Who Cannot Be Named. Our lives are now complete too.

"No more than the ordinary lactose tolerant person"

RICHARD HERRING / TOM BINNS / GARY BELL / RHODRI RHYS, 22ND MARCH 2005, CHEEKY MONKEY COMEDY CLUB, KINGS HEATH

Tonight's compere Dave recalls a heckler labelling him "Ronnie O'Sullivan ... in a hall of mirrors". Harsh but fair. My first thought is of an even fatter Mickey Quinn (former Portsmouth and Newcastle hero, for those of you not acquainted with one of football's more colourful characters). Either way, he's rotund and jovial, warming things up nicely for the arrival of the first act.

Rhodri Rhys is a well-spoken Welshman (no, really, how did you guess?) who claims the Vikings took one look at the women when they got to the Welsh border and opted to stick to pillaging alone. Perhaps overly confident given the strength of his material, he nevertheless raises a few laughs.

Second act Gary Bell is a more unlikely success. A barrister by day, he's dressed soberly in jumper and shirt and, together with his slightly unkempt squall of hair, he looks every bit like Boris Johnson's cousin. This ten-minute slot is only his sixth gig, but he's a remarkably assured performer with a nice line in dry satirical comment: Camilla Parker-Bowles is, he claims, "the most offensive thing I've seen on the arm of a royal prince". He also suggests we should just tell David Blunkett we've introduced ID cards, and if he asks to see them we can just produce our Blockbuster cards...

Tom Binns starts very promisingly indeed, with a segment based on a hospital radio DJ that owes something to Peter Kay and Steve Coogan: "That was Whitney Houston with 'Where Do Broken Hearts Go' - well, there's a furnace out the back..." He then mentions a song request for a self-harmer: Rod Stewart's 'The First Cut Is The Deepest'. It's just a shame that Binns - a contributing writer for 'Trigger Happy TV' and Kerrang! radio DJ who used to present 'RI:SE' and also appeared in 'Fist Of Fun' and Partridge's 'Knowing Me Knowing Yule' - loses his way quite so dramatically after this and it fizzles out into something of a damp squib.

As strange as it was seeing Stewart Lee in the small upstairs room of a pub in Sutton Coldfield, it's even stranger seeing his former partner Richard Herring in the small back room of a pub in Kings Heath, performing on a low stage in front of an ill-hung curtain and an assortment of horse-brasses. Herring is, after all, a comedy legend, as Dave helpfully reminds us before announcing the final act's arrival on stage.

To be fair, Herring has cut his cloth accordingly, and looks every bit the sort of comic who should be performing in the small back rooms of pubs in Kings Heath on low stages in front of ill-hung curtains and assortments of horse-brasses - his hair is long, his jacket is of black leather and, most important of all, his shirt is loud.

Herring might begin with the fairly standard stand-up fare of graffiti - and, more specifically, graffiti in toilets - but it's what he does with it that marks him out as a cut above the other performers. Breezing through some fine material vaguely familiar from old installments of Warming Up, he arrives at his tale of being mistaken for some kind of perverted yoghurt fetishist by a supermarket checkout assistant who, upon seeing the contents of his shopping basket, announced "Someone likes yoghurt".

Indeed, yoghurt-related material makes up almost the entire remainder of the set, as he laughs off the idea that he goes around different supermarkets buying nine yoghurts in each "so as not to arouse suspicion" and insists he's never once filled a bath full of yoghurt and rubbed it into his "anal cleft". It's testimony to his talents that he can turn this most trivial of incidents into comedy gold, and keep an audience half expecting a cascade of knob gags laughing hard throughout.

If there's one disappointment, it's the short duration of his set. I could have listened to him go on about dairy-based desserts for at least another half hour.

(Incidentally, full marks to the DJ who, during one of the intervals, saw fit to subject the audience to Ciccone Youth's 'Into The Groove(y)'. Good work, sir.)

Link:

Cheeky Monkey Comedy Club. The site includes a link to an extraordinarily comprehensive list of comedians' biogs - a very handy resource.

"Why do people keep going on about yoghurt?"

Following last night's gig I contacted Richard Herring, and here, in the first interview to appear on SWSL (hopefully not the last), he talks about stand-up, his latest show 'The Twelve Tasks Of Hercules Terrace', his blog Warming Up, 'Little Britain', online Scrabble and, of course, yoghurt...

What do you like most and least about doing stand-up? Making complete strangers laugh is a pretty unusual way to make a living...

"I love the immediacy of going on stage and doing your stuff and finding out whether people laugh or not. I also like the fact that generally in stand-up I am playing to a group of people who don’t know who I am, so if I can make them laugh then I must be funny (as opposed to fans who have paid to see just me and I know will probably find me funny). Dealing with a crowd is exciting and rewarding and the fact that people can join in and shout stuff out also gives the experience an edge (even though they usually shout out rubbish). I don’t like how tiring it is doing all the travelling and worry about it eating into my writing time. And I don’t like it when I die on my arse, but that doesn’t happen so much these days!"

'The Twelve Tasks Of Hercules Terrace' features a reference to writing on the face of a dead baby with a biro. Do you ever wonder "How do I get away with saying things like that to an audience of strangers"?

"Not really. I think I know why I get away with it. Because people understand it is a joke and see what I am getting at. Comedy should act as a release valve and sometimes it is funny to be offensive with someone that you trust, exploring an unpleasant theme without really meaning what you are saying. I hope people trust me and something like this joke, once in context, is so extreme that it can only be taken as being funny. Occasionally people don’t get stuff like this and complain, but I have thought carefully about it. I am not trying to actually offend anyone, and believe that joking about the most horrible and unpleasant things helps us deal with them in some way and often takes away their power over us."

Your current stand-up routine centres on material about a supermarket checkout assistant looking in your basket and saying to you "Someone likes yoghurts". Does this come from a desire to challenge and test the patience of the audience? Or is it more a challenge for you to keep their interest and keep them laughing while only using the most (initially) mundane and unpromising of anecdotes?

"It started from thinking that this was a funny incident and once I’d written about it in Warming Up I realised it was something that people identified with – it’s horrible when you are judged by something like this by a stranger and oddly unsettling. It has developed into a bit of a challenge because I have noticed that a section of the audience doesn’t find it funny or isn’t expecting someone to talk about this – but then that is, I suppose, a lot of what makes it funny. I haven’t really thought about it that much. It’s developing organically. I wanted to do stuff that is about attitude or me as a person rather than just being about jokes and what’s nice about this routine is that it gives me the chance to discuss this, as well as what makes people have different senses of humour. You’ll have to work it out for yourself."

In the FAQ section of your website, you say: "Personally I am quite glad to leave the 'Herring' character from Lee and Herring behind. It was a sort of parody of myself at 18, which would seem a strange thing still to be doing at 40." But 'The Twelve Tasks Of Hercules Terrace' starts off with you talking about how you don't really feel like you've grown up. Does performing comedy keep you young?

"I think it possibly can keep you being immature in not always a good way. It allows you to get away with being young and self-indulgent for longer. But I think no-one really starts to feel old. I remember my gran always saying she still felt like she was 20 even when she was 80. Ageing is a difficult thing to take on board for any of us, but most people don’t have the flexibility to behave like an arse like a comedian does. Also though I hope that because I think about life and stuff in so much detail with my job, that in some ways it makes me more mature."

You talk about "the 'Herring' character", but your material often seems very personal - 'The Twelve Tasks Of Hercules Terrace' obviously started out as something of a personal crusade and happened to become a new show. How much of yourself do you reveal onstage, and how much of it is a mask?

"I think the stuff I did in Lee and Herring was more of a character, but still with recognisable aspects of the real me – which is why it amused us to talk of ourselves as 'characters', because sometimes it was true or an extension of the truth. The 'Hercules' show is probably the most true version of myself (or of what I was like at a specific time) that I’ve ever revealed (Warming Up is often exaggerated for comic effect or goes into the realms of fantasy). In 'Hercules' I am looking at a real version of an extreme time in my life. But it’s never going to be the exact real me as I chose specific things to talk about and I am presenting a personal view of myself."

Consecutive Number Plate Spotting and online Scrabble - would you say you have a nerdish streak and an obsessive and addictive personality? How easy is it to laugh about these aspects of yourself in front of people?

"Yes and yes. I exaggerate my nerdishness a little, but I think everyone has these secret obsessions and that’s why they can readily laugh at me. Comedy is mainly about being truthful and then hoping other people recognise themselves in what you’re saying. I have no problems with people thinking I am a nerd. I don’t see why obsessively liking pop music is any cooler than obsessively liking Scrabble. Well maybe a bit."

Do you see yourself still performing stand-up in ten years’ time?

"Yes, I hope so. I hope to be performing stand-up until I die and I hope that is more than a decade away."

How much has Warming Up helped get the creative juices flowing for other writing? Does blogging ever feel like a chore?

"It’s helped a bit in that I have a huge store of material to draw on for new projects, but often it’s the only thing I’ve written in a day. Some days it is very hard to think of anything to write about and I sit for an hour or two with nothing occurring to me. But often this will lead to one of the more imaginative entries as I suddenly recall some trivial incident. It’s good to force myself to be funny about things that aren’t obviously amusing. The yoghurt thing would never have occurred to me otherwise."

What ideas / projects are you working on at the moment?

"A Scrabble sit-com 'Word Nerds' and possibly a running sit-com set in a running club. 'Little Britain' script editing / writing, lots of little quizzes and panel games, writing new stand up material for my gigs and Edinburgh show, possibly writing a book of the 'Hercules' show. Lots of other things."

How have you gone about turning Warming Up into a radio series?

"It is a mixture of monologue and dramatisation, but I’ve essentially started at the beginning and chosen the best entries and then re-written them slightly. I need to do another draft and then we’re pitching it to the powers that be."

You've written on Warming Up about having meetings with the BBC lately. What’s it like to pitch ideas to a commissioning editor? It must be disheartening to pitch things you think are great to someone who has no sense of humour or who just isn't interested.

"It depends on the person you’re pitching to. Generally if I get as far as meeting them then they probably already like me a bit and are supportive. This long into my career I am aware that the chances of a meeting leading to an actual on air programme are fairly slim so I don’t go in with massive expectations."

I noticed on Warming Up that you’d been asked to write a sketch for ‘Little Britain’. How did that come about?

"I was asked to script edit as David and Matt both know me and like my work. Then I had an idea of how to adapt one of their new sketches and they agreed that I could have a go at it. It might well not be on the final show."

What’s the best word / highest points score you’ve ever got in online Scrabble? Did your opponent understand the expression 'Cheg on'?

"'Jinglet' was the most satisfying word, for the risk value. I have not used that expression online so don’t know. I would guess not."

Which of the twelve tasks are you most proud of?

"Winning the false boat race probably. But the Marathon and 50 dates were also pretty cool. And parachute jumping!"

What's your favourite flavour of yoghurt? What flavour of yoghurt would you like to invent?

"I don’t like yoghurt that much, OK? Why do people keep going on about yoghurt? I only like it as much as a normal person. Certainly not enough to invent a new flavour. Though I would like to see a commercially available 'yoghurt of every flavour mixed together' yoghurt to save me having to concoct my own… Not that I do that. Because I don’t."

Many thanks to Richard for his time. Hopefully we'll be able to refer to him as "Richard Herring from off of the telly" again very soon.

Links:

Richard Herring's website.

The SWSL review of 'The Twelve Tasks Of Hercules Terrace' at the MAC last month.

Super Sunday

Just when exactly did Sunday evening TV get good? It always used to be an arid plain of 'Keeping Up Appearances', 'Monarch Of The Glen', 'Heartbeat' and 'Last Of The Summer Wine'. OK, so the latter two are still there, immovable monstrosities in the schedule, but there seems to be an awful lot of good stuff on to compensate.

Take BBC2's 'Help' for instance, the new vehicle for Paul Whitehouse. The show's co-writer Chris Langham plays a psychotherapist while Whitehouse undergoes radical transformations to play all of the patients. Where 'Happiness' was hit-and-miss, 'Help' is gentle, well-observed and genuinely funny. It's just a shame there are only two episodes left in the current series - surely it'll get recommissioned?

And immediately afterwards there's 'Outlaws', which, like many of BBC2's best recent offerings, started off life on BBC3. I never thought I'd be able to forgive Phil Daniels for 'Sunniside Farm' and his arsing about in 'Parklife', but he's excellent in this legal drama-cum-comedy. Good lawyer, bad lawyer - so far, so meh. But the script is superb and each episode I've seen has been very watchable indeed. So, another series would be nice, this time with hour-long episodes rather than the half-hour installments that seem to fly by too quickly, please.

The downward spiral

You know those moments that make you fear and despair for the future of the human race?

Well, I had one on Saturday, when, returning from town, I walked past the Academy, where nearly 100 youths had accumulated in the drizzle in salivatory anticipation of catching a brief glimpse of the band that would be headlining the venue later that evening.

The object of such adoration and adulation?

Good fucking Charlotte.

Hell in a handbasket, my friends, hell in a handbasket.

"Pork-loving couple say 'pie do'"

Yes, it's Spot The Sun Headline on the BBC website again today.

After Friday's marvellous tale of swanicide comes an item about a couple of pork-pie fetishists who decided to have a three-tier "wedding growler" at their nuptials rather than the more traditional cake.

You don't know what a relief it is to know that there's already a Pork Pie Appreciation Society. I was thinking that's something else I'd have to do... Now all I need to know is how to become a member. And then how to join the campaign against that yellow jelly stuff that threaten to spoil many an excellent crusty pork pie.

'(Is This The Way To) The Woolpack?'

Following hard on the heels of the news that Sir Ian McKellen is to star alongside the likes of Bradley Walsh and Keith Duffy in 'Coronation Street' (no, not the pantomime production you were thinking of...) comes the revelation that wrinkly chart-topper Tony Christie is to make a guest appearance in 'Emmerdale'. Unlike McKellen, he'll be playing himself.

How long before Vincent Jones, Eric Hall or Terry Venables turn up in Walford?

Top of the blogs

In the wake of a recent short-lived attempt to come up with a chart for the top blogs, Britblog have weighed in with their own. Another good feature on what is already an excellent site for discovering new blogs of interest.

(Thanks to New Links for the, er, link.)

Party politics

It had been far too long since our last visit to The REP, and didn't this production of Harold Pinter's 1958 masterpiece just remind us of that fact.

The play itself is captivatingly strange. Set in a boarding house on the coast, it's focused on Stanley Webber, who is the only lodger until the appearance of two sinister characters, Goldberg and McCann, who put the unemployed musician under duress and induce him to suffer a nervous breakdown before leaving with him before the owners of the boarding house can mount sufficient objection.

It's not hard to see why the play divided its first audiences - it closed the same week it opened, but not before Sunday Times reviewer Harold Hobson had declared Pinter "the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London". An unlikely melange of near-slapstick comedy (particularly the dialogue between boarding house owners Meg and Petey), surrealism and kitchen-sink drama, 'The Birthday Party' also has a strong sense of menace, an underlying threat of violence bubbling away and coming to the surface on occasion. The adjective "Kafkaesque" isn't ascribed to it lightly - there's a sense of absurdity, bewilderment and everything only being half-explained familiar from The Trial.

It seems churlish to single out individuals for praise in such a universally superb production, but Dame Eileen Atkins as Meg deserves special mention, her nervous tics and suffocating mothering of Stanley played to perfection.

Reasons To Be Cheerful #8

(If you're wondering what this is all about, click here.)

The REP

Situated at the end of Broad Street, and thereby helping to confer upon Birmingham's most notorious booze strip a semblance of culture and class, the REP - as the Birmingham Repertory Theatre is better known, and indeed as it brands itself - is widely regarded and respected as one of the finest theatres outside London.

In actual fact, it should be more properly referred to as the New REP, the Old Rep being situated on Station Street just down from The Electric Cinema.

A stylish glass-fronted building, the REP has a couple of bars as well as a very reasonably priced restaurant, with an appealing lunch menu as well as a value-for-money pre-show menu in the evening.

The theatre itself is large, with comfortable seats arranged in fairly steeply banked rows to ensure excellent visibility from all angles. In my experience its reputation certainly seems well founded, 'The Birthday Party' only being the latest of several visits to uniformly excellent productions, with fine acting, astute direction and creative sets the norm. In the autumn we saw a very good performance of Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible', and then shortly afterwards an even better production of Tom Stoppard's 'Arcadia'.

Those in charge aren't afraid to take risks with lesser-known dramatists and writers, either - secondary venue The Door regularly offers up opportunities to see smaller productions of a good standard. Indeed, it was The Door's production of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's play 'Behzti' ('Dishonour') that provoked an outcry from incensed Sikhs last year, propelling The REP firmly into the national media spotlight.

Tickets can be booked on the day - subject to availability, of course - for as little as £6.50 for the main theatre. A small price to pay for real quality on your doorstep.

"Hilarious & co"

'Nathan Barley' finished tonight with possibly the best episode of the whole series. "Preacher Man" Dan had the pleasure of watching Nathan drink a cup of black coffee with scrambled egg and smoked salmon in it on his recommendation, but the man behind Trashbat had the last laugh.

It was a half-hour filled with very distinctive Morrisisms, from the 'Labour Party Conference' game Pingu was playing on the X-Box to the junkie choir going around schools. He might have taken the concept of ordering someone into doing lots of bizarre and offensive things down the phone straight from his 90s radio show, but it still made for entertaining viewing.

I enjoyed the shout-out to Vernon Kay ("Keep it MENCAP"), but Nathan's finest moment was when the bloke from the film company referred to his pranks as satirical and like "Swift as 'Jackass'", and he replied, "Yeah, or ... even faster".

The series might have been a bit of an in-joke with a quite specific "chuckle demographic", but then Nathan Barleys aren't confined to East London, even though they're highly concentrated there. Probably something that'll work better if watched in sequence, and with repeated viewings revealing new facets all the time, but hardly the dramatic slump in quality certain Morris fans were claiming before the series aired.

Quote of the day

"On Monday morning a police car came whizzing up the lane with a very charming young man and a very beautiful young lady. They didn't accuse me of killing the swan, they accused me of being in possession illegally of a corpse of a protected species. I had to give a statement. I offered them coffee and asked them if they would like to try some swan terrine but I think they were rather horrified. That was a mistake, wasn't it?"

Yes, I rather think it was, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

I bet whoever Sir Peter gave the chance to write this news story will be grateful to him for having brightened up their day.

(*In-joke alert* A news story about swans - are you clenching your fists and grinding your teeth yet, Paul?)

Wonder what swan tastes like, anyway. Like chicken, at a guess.

Blogwatch

Welcome...

Here's What's Wrong With You, a Nottingham-based blog with a difference in that it's written by an American.

Meanwhile...

Mike recounts his moment in the glare of the media spotlight earlier in the week, including a BBC Radio Nottingham interview - "Darlings, I could have danced all night. They practically had to drag me out of that studio. But I was just getting into my stride! Sod the news! I'm on a roll here! As I wandered through the city centre to the office, the strains of '(Is This Way To) Amarillo' blasting through my iPod, it was all I could do not to start swinging my arms, Peter Kay style, and greeting the early morning shoppers with a smile and a wave. 'Good morning Bulwell! How's it hanging, Arnold? Coming atcha, Top Valley!' Eamon? Natasha? Get those sofas plumped up! Michael is ready for you now".

Elsewhere...

Vaughan writes a fantastic post about silence - "Sadly, of course, London silence - in the middle flat of a Victorian conversion overlooking a fairly busy road - is not the most satisfying silence in the world, but it'll have to do for the moment. All I know is that I've treasured every moment of listening to nothing more than the central heating ticking over";

Jonny B returns from Rome on excellent form - "We have neither a Starbucks nor a Pizza Hut in the village, so I was tremendously excited about travelling to the home of good coffee and Italian food"

Inspector Sands defends and justifies his ownership of a Nike Stand Up Speak Up anti-racism band - for what it's worth, I don't agree, but he argues his case well as always;

Paul contemplates naming a new cat - "My wife keeps suggesting names that she thinks are relevant to us, eg 'Trent' or 'Tyne'. I think naming the poor creature after its ultimate resting place is a bit on the harsh side";

Swiss Toni enjoys a good laugh at the Catholic Church's response to Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code' - "How many people have died in the name of 'The Da Vinci Code'? From what I can work out, and I haven't read it, the worst thing you can say about it is that it is crap literature. I don't think it's caused any wars - a bit of tourism perhaps, but no massacres or burnings at the stake or anything like that";

Skif is starstruck at the prospect of interviewing John French of The Magic Band;

Mish goes to the National Theatre, has a fag in the company of the Spanish Ambassador and marvels at how petite Penelope Wilton is;

Vicky takes Allan Brown to task for a snide and cliche-ridden article on blogging in the Scottish Times on Sunday;

N invites suggestions as to what he should ask Robert Kilroy-Silk when he visits his workplace this week.

And finally...

Jonathan tells someone where to stick their imaginary periscope.

Say it with spray paint

Graffiti spotted as I was trundling into Nottingham Station on the train this morning:

"Happy birthday Jo, I love you"

Not the sort of hastily scrawled or etched graffiti one might find on the back of the door in a pub toilet, but meticulously crafted in white and an assortment of reds, surrounded by an array of hearts.

A very public declaration of affection - a genuinely grand romantic gesture, given the artist's willingness to flout the law in making it.

Aww.

Graffiti's always fascinated me. OK, so if it's badly done it can be an eyesore, but more often than not it adds some much-needed colour and vibrancy to grey concrete structures and ugly industrial buildings. And if it's not particularly artistic, it's funny - again I'm thinking of the train route into Nottingham, where a couple of lines converge, and one wall loudly proclaims "You gettin head off ya mum"...

[*Meta-alert!*] Blogging's a bit like graffiti. Regardless of protestations to the contrary, the reason bloggers put their words up online rather than simply keep a private diary is so that they're publicly visible. The difference is that, unlike graffiti, blogging's legal, though what you say can still get you into trouble.

Perhaps the urge to be a graffiti artist lurks within us all.

Quote of the day

"Someone asked me how I cleaned up, so I said I had my blood completely changed. I was fucking sick of answering that question, so I gave them a story."

Keith Richards, quoted in this Observer Music Monthly article debunking the ten greatest rock 'n' roll myths.

(Thanks to Andrew for the link.)

"He wouldn't even have the imagination to see whether the tea-cosy would make a serviceable hat"

Skif of Hobo Tread reviews Stewart Lee's show at the Liverpool Laughterhouse on his Box Social comedy blog.

"Once a twist is caught up, there is another subversion of the conventional anecdote to latch onto, and he treats his comedic devices like a magician keen on expulsion from his Circle."

Meanwhile, the recent glut of comedy reviews on SWSL is set to continue, with a trip out to King's Heath to catch Richard Herring in stand-up mode very much on the cards.

Feel good hits of the 16th March

1. 'Morning Bell' (Amnesiac version) - Radiohead
2. 'Goddess On A Hiway' - Mercury Rev
3. 'Bochum (Light Up My Life)' - Six By Seven
4. 'Walk Into The Sea' - Low
5. 'Too Long Awake' - Idlewild
6. 'School' - Nirvana
7. 'Helicopter' - Bloc Party
8. 'Leif Erikson' - Interpol
9. 'The City Consumes Us' - The Delgados
10. 'Na Na Na Na Naa' - The Kaiser Chiefs

More than words

MERCURY REV / THE DUKE SPIRIT, 11TH MARCH 2005, BIRMINGHAM ACADEMY

I'm starting to develop an intense dislike for the Birmingham Academy. In fact, it's verging on a loathing.

Which is unfortunate, given that that's where about 90% of the gigs I go to take place.

And it's not just the shitty lager which I refuse to endorse by mentioning the venue's full name.

On Fridays and Saturdays I understand the need to get people cleared out for the club night, but is it really necessary to impose a 10pm curfew on bands, which tonight means doors open at 6.30pm? I only live five minutes' walk away, but my companion for the evening has a significantly longer journey.

The upshot is that we walk into the venue, catch ten minutes of The Duke Spirit, and are just getting onto their rumbling, raggedy, slouching wavelength when Leila Moss mumbles "Thanks a lot, goodnight" and she and her bouffant-haired accomplices are gone. The only support band, a band I wanted to enjoy, and they're offstage by 7.55pm. They must have come on at 7.15pm. Great.

During the main act the venue continues to do its level best to ruin the evening. Or, rather, the bar staff do. After the intensely irritating experience of the PJ Harvey gig back in September, I am in no mood to miss a good portion of the headliner’s set by being continually overlooked in the queue, especially when tickets were £15 a pop. And yet that’s exactly what happens.

Twenty minutes after setting off for the bar, a mere ten second walk away, I return with a couple of pints and try to get back into the groove.

Mercury Rev are not a band whose music I’m particularly familiar with – my girlfriend owns All Is Dream, from which several songs are taken tonight – but neither that unfamiliarity, nor the shortcomings of the venue, nor the infuriatingly garrulous Friday night crowd can stop me enjoying their set.

1998’s Deserter's Songs paved the way for the breakthrough success of The Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin album the following year which unfortunately eclipsed that of the pioneers. At times it’s hard to see a chink of light between the two bands – perhaps unsurprising given that they’re both produced by Dave Fridmann and Mercury Rev frontman Jonathan Donahue, possessed of a gorgeous voice, used to play guitar with the Oklahoma oddballs.

There’s the same sort of wide-eyed wonder in the music, too – a reverential awe in the face of nature, human existence and the magnitude of the universe reflected in their lyrics and represented in the projected images in front of which they play. Yep, whether they like the label or not, they’re 21st century hippies.

However, while Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots saw Wayne Coyne and company edging towards minimalism and electronica, Mercury Rev continue to pursue an expansive, romantic, piano-heavy sound tainted by Americana and a hint of Gothicism which evokes the widescreen vistas and clear starlit skies of the Catskill Mountains that the band call home.

The set is at first heavy with tracks from new album The Secret Migration, latest single ‘Across Yer Ocean’ particularly impressive, with older tracks like ‘Tides Of The Moon’ sprinkled in, and, as with the songs themselves, it takes time for momentum to build. But build it does, and penultimate song ‘Goddess On A Hiway’ is incredible, more than enough to compensate for the absence of ‘The Dark Is Rising’ and ‘Chains’. A three song encore concludes with ‘Spiders & Flies’, and then it’s 10pm and everybody out.

The one gripe I have about Mercury Rev’s set has nothing to do with the music. It’s the projections. Images, fair enough. They add to the whole experience. But why bother with all the quotations? It just make them look pretentious and diverts attention away from the performance as punters crane their necks to read the latest pithy words of wisdom (more often than not, some cod-mystic pronouncement that sounds impressive but doesn’t make a great deal of sense).

When the music is quite so eloquent, why bother with words?

Link:

Kenny's review of the gig.

Stylus’s Bjorn Randolph reviews The Secret Migration.

A hard luck story

Commiserations to Mike, Troubled Diva having missed out on a Bloggie in the Best Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgender category. Still, being nominated for the awards is a fantastic achievement in itself, and there's always next year to go one better.

In advance of the awards announcement, Mike was interviewed for the BBC Nottingham website about Troubled Diva and the nomination by the newest blogger on the Nottingham block, Phill of Danger! High Postage, and will be appearing on the radio (that's the wireless to you, granddad) tomorrow. Click here to read the website interview - as Swiss Toni has commented, "Hurray! Some press coverage on Nottingham that doesn't involve gangs or guns!"

Mike's also taken the opportunity to compile a list of Nottingham bloggers, and thus introduced me to the likes of By The Sea Shore, Swiss Toni's Place and MovieBuff. He's even conferred upon yours truly the status of honorary Nottingham blogger even though SWSL Towers is now situated in the heart of Birmingham and very much is a tower. Unlike those who seem to receive honorary degrees, I am not a flabby, unctuous old duffer who's never visited the city in his life. There is Nottingham content in them there archives if you look hard enough - you're not here under false pretences, honest...

"Technically a Polanski, yeah"

On Friday I returned from Mercury Rev and a couple of post-gig beers for a real treat. I just had time to watch the penultimate installment of 'Nathan Barley' which we'd taped - the best yet, incidentally, especially the characteristically Morris-esque concept of "stray" (straight-on-straight gay) sex - to catch the second of Alan Partridge's two slots on the mostly-excruciating 'Comic Relief' telethon.

Always a pleasure to see Alan back on the telly, and though he wasn't great, his interview with a grown-up former Milky Bar Kid (played by Simon Pegg - he definitely has that "Milky Bars are on me!" look about him) who had been bullied, turned to booze and selling himself on street corners still raised more than a chuckle. Discovering his interviewee was gay, Partridge asked, "So, how do you relax? And I don't mean poppers..."

Better still, shortly after half midnight C4 screened footage from Nick Cave's Brixton Academy show on the November tour. I caught the last four songs - 'Hiding All Away', 'There She Goes, My Beautiful World', 'Red Right Hand' and 'Stagger Lee' - and was impressed by how well the film-makers had captured the atmosphere and intensity of the performance. It brought welcome memories of the amazing Wolverhampton gig flooding back.

Is it just me...

... or could Sir Ian McKellen's forthcoming appearance in 'Coronation Street' - a lifetime ambition, apparently - be one of THE must-watch TV moments of the year? Not just a one-off, either - he's in for ten episodes. Chow on that, Lorraine Heggessey.

It's certainly rather more enticing than the prospect of Tommy Ball and Bert Kwouk guest-starring in 'Last Of The Summer Wine', the concluding ten minutes of which I had the misfortune to see yesterday. This particular episode featured a large inflatable swan. The consequences weren't hilarious, I assure you.

Quotes of the day

"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work ... I want to achieve it through not dying."

Woody Allen. Who else?

Blogwatch

(Belated) happy birthday to Sarah!

Best post of the week: Nick on his love affair with London - "London is a cruel mistress, but I am becoming numb to her nefarious commercial charms, to her planted desires and avaricious encouragement. I still love her, though. I love the way she smells". (The post does incorporate a review of Embrace's Brixton Academy gig, though - you have been warned...)

Elsewhere...

Mike's annual Which Decade Is Top For Pops? feature comes to a conclusion with a victory for the 1980s;

Skif is left unimpressed by Blackpool - "Amongst all of this are a fair amount of mystics and palm-readers on the seaside strip, including 2 booths for Gypsy Petulengro who has been in place (well, places I guess) for over 40 years. Her vestibules are littered with 10x8’s of the Gyspy herself with her more famous clients. These pictures give an insight into the cultural life of Blackpool, as Russ Abbott rubs black and white shoulders with Roy Walker, Isla Fisher and Keith Chegwin. Blackpool, it seems, fell into a black hole in the early 80’s and for this reason, it is a town that allows Cannon & Ball regular work";

Del is sick of being told how brilliant 'Little Britain' and Scissor Sisters are;

Paul's domestic bliss is rudely interrupted when he arrives home to find his kitchen's sprung a leak;

N argues that most people just don't have the time to spend reading books - "We’re supposed to speed-date, fast-food, Slim Fast. Whatever we do – copulate, eat, diet – we do it only because we have to. And we do it as quickly as we can. Bang, onto the next thing. Even when I do see people reading a book, they’re doing something else at the same time: eating, riding a train to get some place, or topping up their tan. Multi-tasking - just like their line-manager taught them - on their own time";

Mosher encourages support for The Chris Lucas Trust, a cancer charity;

Inspector Sands follows the London Underground's lead and invents some slogans for badges to be worn by public transport users - "Of course, the most useful badge of all would be 'FUCKWIT' - but with their tinny earphones and tendency to brandish iPods, they don't need a badge, do they?".

And finally...

Phill spots a loophole in the admissions policy at the Rescue Rooms.

Quotes of the day

A Stylus special...

"Oh dear god. Right, so now the first half-hour of the chart is...sorrry, what in the fuck is this...Two men are bleating at each other about last night's Eurovision selection programme, and specifically Jordan's participation in it. One of them, who sounds like he's trying to encourage you to take A-Level Geography, reckons she would have been representing 'England' if she had won. They make the staggeringly insightful points that she has fake breasts and dyed hair. They also talk about Javine's breasts. Cookie, oh Jesus... There is now some impossibly stilted banter. They do a phone interview with someone off 'Coronation Street'. Why...What for...What the fuck is this shit?"

William B Swygart pens a brilliant obituary to the UK Top 40, pointing out in the process that not once during the revamped show was mention made of the death of former Radio 1 DJ Tommy Vance that day.

"I don’t like this. Warnings / Promises is an accomplished rock record made by an accomplished rock band. 'Back-to-basics' is a conservative epithet and this record is made by conservative men, more interested in craft than inspiration, bound by a subconscious will to safety. Idlewild now sound like REM. Which is to say that the unbound fury became passion and then became earnestness. Which is to say that the maelstrom of white noise became electric strands of silver and then became slide guitar. It has one pace, and that pace is 'mature'."

Nick Southall on Idlewild's new LP - his review's without question more a warning than a promise. Still, I enjoyed their last, The Remote Part, even though the noise was toned down significantly then.

"This is it? This is the great revolution? This is what topped the critics’ charts, inspired a million rapturous articles and blog posts and personal testimonies? This? This rancid stew of sour indie self-regard, the disingenuous assurance that no, now we’re making pop music (so for once it’ll be good, lol)? I realize that one cannot actually hold Broken Social Scene accountable for the comments of others, but anyone who referred to this as some sort of pop masterpiece has hopefully listened to the radio in the interim."

Ian Mathers pulls no punches about Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People LP in the On Second Thought feature. I certainly wouldn't go this far - it's a decent album - but I must confess to wondering what exactly it was that got people foaming at the mouth.

MEME Aid: The Bloggers' Disco

In aid of Comic Relief, Mike's come up with a great fundraising concept.

The idea is a brilliantly simple one: you should imagine the Best Blogmeet In The World, Like, Evah, and suggest one song which you'd like to be added to the Bloggers' Disco playlist. For each song suggested, Mike will donate £1, up to a total of £100.

I've given this some serious thought. Many of the possibles that have sprung to mind would be purely to provide a real contrast to the jollity and brightness of some of the songs already on the playlist (yes, 'Love Shack', I'm looking at you) - 'Mogwai Fear Satan', 'Exit Music (For A Film)', Johnny Cash's cover of 'Hurt'.

Then there were the pop songs that would grace any party - 'Freak Like Me', 'Milkshake', 'Crazy In Love'.

And then there was the thought of "Wouldn't it be ace to see what people did in trying to dance to 'Chris Michaels' by The Fiery Furnaces?"

But finally I alighted upon a song that's pop in the sense that that's what it does to your eardrums. It's short, it's messy, it's fantastically noisy, it would sound amazing through a big PA, it's 'Never Understand' by The Jesus & Mary Chain.

If you want to help empty Mike's pockets by taking part, then click here and follow the instructions.

When recognition comes

I hope you'll forgive me making mention of the fact that The Other Place - Black & White & Read All Over, where all my musings and rantings about Newcastle Utd have been appearing since August - has been featured, albeit briefly, in a blog review in the latest issue of football magazine When Saturday Comes. Not too bad for a mere sapling of a blog, I think you'll agree (if you can pardon my crowing about this in the first place, that is).

Just thinking how several other "normal" bloggers - my B&W&RAO co-writer Paul, Inspector Sands of Casino Avenue and Pete of Expecting To Fly - all also lead double lives writing about football. Better than being bigamists, eh?

Catching up

A hastily-convened blogmeet-of-sorts took place in Nottingham on Tuesday - Mike was there, so was Mish, as well as friends Alan and Caroline, all meeting Paul for the first time. Sadly the latest addition to the city's blogging community, Phill, was working and thus unable to make it.

Even though there was far too much conversational energy expended on Ms Katie Price, it was a very good night.

Don't know about anyone else, but it also felt a bit sordid meeting somewhere other than George's (RIP). Paul, true Geordie that he is, was bemused and impressed by the napkins upon which his pints of John Smith's were routinely placed. As was I, for that matter.

Goin' back to my roots

Not that this necessarily applies to anyone at all, but if you're interested in seeing some piccies of the town I called home for eighteen years, then click here.

The images are a bit deceptive - patches of blue sky, lack of chundering lads over from Ashington for a big night out, absence of shopping trolleys bobbing merrily up and down in the River Wansbeck...

Nah, it's a good place really, though it's a matter of relief rather than shame that I am yet to visit the town's Bagpipe Museum.

(Thanks to Sarah, a fellow Morpethian, for the link.)

Guinea pig

(A homage to Jonny B - not that I'm in any way claiming to fill the void while he's away sunning himself in Rome, you understand. No, keep on visiting his place in his absence because Jill Twiss is house-sitting.)

I volunteer to have my head read.

Naturally I am worried.

What will my head say?

Will it embarrass me?

Will it even be legible?

Unlike palm-reading, which is done by wizened bandanna-wearing gypsy crones in caravans at fairgrounds, head-reading is carried out by Scientists in the sort of clinically clean laboratories which are so brightly lit that, if you’re at all hung over, your eyes start to feel like they’re bleeding.

Fortunately, yesterday was my weekly day of abstinence. Even then, it’s still very bright indeed.

Upon arrival, I learn that the Scientists will be aided in the head-reading process by a machine called an MRI, which contains a magnet.

This is no ordinary faintly-amusing-fridge-magnet or red-and-silver-move-it-around-to-give-the-man-iron-filing-facial-hair-magnet.

It’s a BFM (Big Fucking Magnet).

Before entering the room in which the MRI is housed, I have to divest myself of anything metallic. This, it is explained, is because the BFM is so powerful that it can rip out piercings, surgically implanted metal plates etc.

A thought pops into my head: the thought of a piece of metal, implanted without my knowledge, bursting 'Alien'-style out of my torso during the experiment, and me suffering a horrible death surrounded by my own now-external internal organs.

This is not a comforting thought.

I lie down on my back, and my head is clamped into place. By looking up at a mirror placed in front of my face, I am able to see a swirling pattern of dots, not the scenes of gratuitous violence the film 'A Clockwork Orange' has led me to expect.

I am handed a "panic button", which I can press at any time to stop the head-reading process.

I am reminded of a story called 'The Chicken Switch' which fascinated me as a child. A journalist interviews a trainee astronaut about to go into an isolation chamber for a month. During that month the journalist experiences all kinds of horrific visions, suffering from extreme paranoia about the astronaut's condition. When he emerges, the journalist asks how he has resisted flicking the chicken switch. He gazes at the journalist and says something like, "In the minutes before I went in, I picked someone I'd seen recently and focused all my fears and anxieties on them. It could have been anyone, it could have been you...".

As I am slid gracefully into the belly of the machine, I feel a pang of remorse that Angela Lansbury will be suffering acute psychological trauma on my account.

Half an hour later I emerge, the panic button unpressed. Though my hopes of a "Today I was good for the Scientists" sticker are dashed, there is a bounteous stockpile of sweets.

I am invited into the Scientists' inner sanctum and am shocked to discover they have neither white coats nor glasses nor beards. In fact, two of them are ladies! I await Jeremy Beadle or that fat one off of 'Emmerdale' leaping out and informing me it's all been an elaborate and hilarious hoax.

I am shown images of the inside of my head, and one of the Scientists informs me my optical nerves are exactly level, which is apparently unusual. Something to boast about down the pub.

The same Scientist then does one of those computerised facial reconstruction things. I sit and watch. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was just arsing about.

The resulting hairless version of myself looks like someone off 'Crimewatch', someone who might assault you with a pool cue if you looked at his pint funny.

Or like a prehistoric man unearthed in a bog: "Peat Ben. The contents of his stomach reveal his last meal was one of bacon and cheese sandwiches".

I walk home, my head read, kicking myself for missing the opportunity to dress as a guinea pig for comic effect.

Whisky whine

Of late, rock 'n' roll concerts and me have been like ships that pass in the night.

I missed out on The Wedding Present and Willy Mason, both sold out before I got my arse into gear, and I'm cursing myself for being similarly tardy and losing out on The Mars Volta at the Academy tomorrow night and the Bright Eyes / Rilo Kiley double bill in Wolverhampton.

Last night's Raveonettes gig at the Academy was another matter, though. The gig wasn't sold out, and at £8.50 for three bands (they were supported by Dogs and The Boxer Rebellion) it was reasonably priced, but I opted not to go anyway. Not really being able to spare the money or time was one factor, as was the suspicion that the immediate thrill and rush of Raveonettes songs - their last LP Chain Gang Of Love was the 2003 SWSL Album Of The Year - might mean they have less long-term appeal.

The main reason, though, was the fact that the gig went under the banner The Jim Beam Music Tour 2005.

Of course, corporate sponsorship of gigs and tours has been going on for a while. Even before NME secured the backing of Shockwaves for their annual tour it could have been said to be a corporate event promoting NME. It's just that in this case the whiff of corporate involvement is more of a stench, a desperate attempt to reach that binge-drinking youth demographic.

Witness the promotional flyer I picked up at the venue:

"Jim Beam is recognised around the globe for being at the forefront of unique music events at all levels."

At ALL levels? Are you sure? Do Jim Beam help teenage bands pay for the hire of village halls?

"The Jim Beam Music Tour 2005 is not about musical trends or scenes. It's about supporting real music of real quality, performed by a cross section of the most exciting emerging artists on the radar today."

Well, what is "most exciting" at any one time is generally what is trendy. And, from what I can gather, neither Dogs nor The Boxer Rebellion are exactly out of sync with what else is Down With The Kidz at the moment. As for "real music of real quality" - well, the poppists would have a field day with that sort of sub-Stereophonics blathering.

"Jim Beam believes that over time you are ultimately judged not by your label, but by what's behind it. Because with real Bourbon, as with real music, [cue big corporate slogan]'The Stuff Inside Matters Most'".

Oh dear me.

Needless to say, there is no such issue with Friday's Mercury Rev / The Duke Spirit gig, for which I did get off my arse to buy a ticket.

Email of the day

From G, a propos of nothing in particular...

"Dear 'Points Of View',

Why oh why oh why does the BBC insist on ruining harmless children's television with filth and vulgarity?

You can imagine my disgust, whilst watching 'Dick And Dom In Da Bungalow', a message appeared at the bottom of my sceen informing me 'coming up next: Creamy creamy muck!'. I hardly think this is suitable material for such a young age group.

I switched off immediately without actually watching the article in question and then burned my television. I shall also be writing to the Daily Mail and Mary Whitehouse, even though she is dead and probably full of maggots by now.

Yours sincerely

Disgusted

Cumqueef Mills
Twatfordshire"

Feel good hits of the 8th March

1. 'Havana Affair' - The Ramones
2. 'Last Orders' - Arab Strap
3. 'Diana Ross' - The Concretes
4. 'Do You Realise??' - The Flaming Lips
5. 'Is This All That I Came For?' - The Delgados
6. 'Fight' - Sons & Daughters
7. 'Black Tongue' - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
8. 'Drawerings' - Dinosaur Jr
9. 'I Predict A Riot' - The Kaiser Chiefs
10. 'Killing All The Flies' - Mogwai

Overheard

For anyone who, like myself, is fascinated by accidentally overheard snippets of conversation: Tube Gossip.

Three particularly good recent examples:
"She's desperate to get broadband and I think we both know why."
"I very much doubt you will be alive in twenty years time."
"Jenny Eclair is like a black hole where comedy dies."

That last one is the sort of pronouncement He Who Cannot Be Named is prone to make. I wonder...

(Thanks to Bedsit Bomber for posting the link in the comments box of this post on Assistant.)

Blogwatch

If ever you should find yourself in need of a listening ear, then look no further than Dead Kenny. If the recent four-part album review compendium posted on Parallax View is anything to go by, then he's been doing nothing at all of late EXCEPT listening...
Part One - The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Rico, Sondre Lerche.
Part Two - Willy Mason, Bonnie Prince Billy & Matt Sweeney, Low, Mercury Rev.
Part Three - LCD Soundsystem, Chemical Brothers.
Part Four - The Others, The Beat Up, The Fiery Furnaces, The Arcade Fire.

A warm welcome to...

Pete Ashton, a sometime Brummie blogger;
Office Shaped Prison, newish home of an old friend;
The World Of Jill Twiss, whose post about the lack of basis board games have in reality is especially good.

Congratulations to...

Del, who's moved house and whose blog is one year old;
Lord Marmite, whose new job is likely to restrict postings on Amblongus.

Elsewhere:

He Who Cannot Be Named struggles to piece together a coherent account of last weekend's Slint-curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival - "I puked all Friday night into the tin dustbin. You know how after the drink and food has been expelled, then you get the gut bubbles and finally the luminous bile. That was me";

Kevin is disgusted by Pitchfork's coverage of the new John Frusciante solo album Inside Of Emptiness;

Meg is confronted with the prospect of a messy break-up - "Breaking up is hard to do. Now every time I pop into a different sandwich shop for lunch, near my new office, I find myself scanning the passing crowds on the street beyond the plate windows, in case one of the Deli-from-Helli employees is out and about, making a delivery, and catches me cheating on them - or rather, cheating on their memory. The guilt. The shame";

50 Quid Bloke reflects on the New Bob Dylan (NBD);

Wan reviews Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil's 'The Story Of English', which sounds similar to Melvyn Bragg's excellent 'The Adventures Of English';

Donna's been to see the burlesque show at the Electric Cinema - "And yes, there were strippers. We saw stars on nipples, flowers on nipples and the promised tassels on nipples... and Elle McPherson-type bodies were not required. Sheesh";

Creepy Lesbo takes Julie Birchill to task for her recent comments on chavs - "Julie Burchill jumps on any bandwagon which is going to get her a bit of publicity for being 'subversive' until she tires of it. She'll soon find something else to whore herself publicity-wise with. And if I were a chav I'd tell her to fuck off and stop using them to fight her own class wars/issues".

And finally...

Anna finds herself mesmerised and terrified by Tom Cruise's eyebrows.

"The country of my heart"

Isn't it great when you get given a platform to spout off about something - or someone - you love? Well, thanks to Phill for offering me the opportunity to write this: D H Lawrence - relevant or relic?.

Still not sure about being referred to as an "expert", though...

Quote of the day

"The LTLP staggers in, like a character Hogarth would have airbrushed out for being too likely to frighten the children."

Jonny B, in a post in which he wishes we were all back living in Victorian times. The post also features an anguished yelp of "ANGUS DEAYTON!!!"

Chasing the dream

'The Perfect Fool', published in 2001, is comedian / journalist / "opera director" Stewart Lee's first and to date only novel.

The book recounts the adventures of a disparate group of oddballs and fuck-ups which includes: two lazy wasters from a Dire Straits covers band; a whacked-out hippie with an obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes him search endlessly down the backs of seats for cigarette butts; a bloke with no memory but who's convinced he used to be an astronaut; and a woman trying to escape her past, having indulged in an activity not fit for publication on a family website like SWSL.

The first half is set, for the most part, in Lee's London - a scruffy and grim urban jungle - and the second in the flat expanses of the Arizona desert, where all but one of the central characters meet up and join forces, each pursuing their own dream or quest. The action is complicated by the fact that one of the characters is himself being pursued by the shadowy Hampstead Man.

Though not as laugh-out-loud funny as I'd anticipated, and with an ending which is too neatly resolved, 'The Perfect Fool' is an enjoyable enough yarn featuring some memorable caricatures, as well as being a serious meditation about belief and the lengths to which it can drive people.

Cool hand Ruth

RUTH THEODORE, 2ND MARCH 2005, BIRMINGHAM BRISTOL PEAR

Quids in - two of 'em, to be precise - with a flyer for the latest A Different Kettle Of Fish night over in Selly Oak, the first to feature a live act.

The term "singer-songwriter" is often quite enough to strike fear into my heart, but over the course of two half-hour sets Southampton's Ruth Theodore tries her best to convince me that it needn't be a dirty word.

Whilst some of her more placid and serene songs get lost amidst the chatter - a sad inevitability when not everyone present is prepared to give her their attention - she's at her best when attacking her electric-acoustic guitar with passion, vigour and startlingly quick hands.

The louder songs have a bluesy sound as well as classical hints, and plenty of neat lyrical touches too.

With DJs filling in the gaps around the live sets, we're treated to a healthy mix of rock and indie, including Pavement, dEUS, The Futureheads, Queens Of The Stone Age and Graham Coxon.

It has to be said, though, that French DJ Phillippe Bergeroo blots his copybook by allowing the three-headed mid-90s monster that was Dodgy to roam freely amongst us. I'll put that down to his reliving the memory of spinning Britpop records in his hometown of Lyon when but a slip of a lad.

Punk pop perfection

For the last two nights the Electric Cinema has become something of a rock 'n' roll high school, the screening of the recent documentary film 'End Of The Century: The Story Of The Ramones' being an educating and informing experience for many of those (like myself) only barely acquainted with the band's turbulent 21 year existence.

There is no narrative voice-over, and so the band members are essentially free to tell their own story unmediated by the film-makers. It's unsurprising, then, that what comes across most clearly is the fact that each of the three core members have such distinctive and different personalities.

Joey: a left-wing liberal Jew, gangly and gawky, socially awkward, not blessed with the chiselled features or natural charisma and self-confidence that makes a conventional frontman. Joey's brother recalls his surprise when he "started attracting girls, girls that weren't on medication".

Johnny: the focus of the band, a hardline right-winger, strong-willed and unapologetically controlling and dictatorial but the originator of some glorious riffs and a much-copied guitar-playing stance, Peter Pan agelessness and bowl haircut that transcended time.

Dee Dee: the funny and fun-loving fuckhead bassist, always courting trouble, mixed up with drugs and unsavoury characters. His acceptance speech at the 2002 ceremony for the Ramones' induction into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame: "I'd like to congratulate myself, thank myself and give myself a big pat on the back. Well done Dee Dee".

Their differences could have threatened to tear the band apart, particularly the unvoiced and unresolved feud between Joey and Johnny after the latter stole the singer's girlfriend and eventually married her - but, as Johnny puts it, the band came first no matter how badly they were getting along on a personal level.

The film traces the band's beginnings in the Forest Hills area of New York, through their performances at legendary club CBGBs, being signed to Sire by Seymour Stein, the 1976 London gig when The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Stranglers were all in attendance (Johnny Rotten wanted to meet the band but was scared he'd get beaten up, fearing they were some kind of gang), the nightmarish recording of End Of The Century with Phil Spector, the 'Spinal Tap' esque revolving cast of drummers, Dee Dee's hilarious attempts at producing a rap album, and winds up with their retirement in 1995 and the deaths of Joey from cancer and Dee Dee from an overdose. (As well as Joey and Dee Dee, Joe Strummer also makes an appearance, and it feels strange to be spoken to so much and on such an intimate level from beyond the grave.)

The music isn't lost amidst the soap opera, either - at times the film is staggeringly loud, and has a Ramones-T-shirted punk in the row behind us moshing away vigorously. What strikes you is both the rawness and blistering pace of their songs, but also the strongly melodic qualities. Their place in the pop tradition is I think affirmed, as is the fact that they were great songwriters, unlike many of their gobby peers.

Though they have proved hugely influential in convincing people to start playing and form bands of their own, and they achieved longevity against all the odds, the lack of real commercial success despite the accessibility of the songs clearly rankled with them. Quite how this was the case is left hanging.

Talking heads

Stylus's Clem Bastow on the Top Ten Things Musicians Have Told Me In Interviews, featuring PJ Harvey, Blondie's Clem Burke, Noodles of The Offspring and Andrew Innes of Primal Scream.

I once had a conversation with Seafood about Chevy Chase films and listened as Pavement's Stephen Malkmus waxed lyrical about the quality of the fish 'n' chips in Hull, but my favourite has to be the time I asked a very inebriated Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap which was his nemesis, alcohol or women. "Neither", he replied, fixing me with glazed eyes, "I'm my own nemesis. I'm a penis".

Also on Stylus: Sarah Karhl reviews The Mars Volta's new LP - "Whereas the somewhat timid and searching De-Loused In The Comatorium was all about surprising audience, critic, and probably the band itself, Frances The Mute is a self-assured organic animal that’s should come as no surprise to anyone. Perhaps not the culmination of their work, it’s a strong step towards it and a great listen.".

It's yet to get a spin on the SWSL stereo (I'll need to prise The Great Destroyer off it first...), but I'm certainly intrigued.

'Ray'-warded

The Oscars may be an overpuffed, overhyped, grotesquely lavish back-slapping session but it was still good to see that Jamie Foxx was deservedly victorious in the Best Actor category for his starring role as Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford's wonderful biopic 'Ray', triumphing over such established names as Clint Eastwood, Johnny Depp and Leonardo di Caprio in the process.

'Ray' also scooped the award for Best Sound Mixing, though it missed out in the Best Film, Best Director, Film Editing and Costume Design categories.

Another recent release which I enjoyed even more, the offbeat comedy 'Sideways', was disappointingly though not unexpectedly a bigger loser. Alexander Payne lost out in the Best Director category, but had some consolation in scooping the Best Adapted Screenplay award for his reworking of the Rex Pickett novel on which the film is based.

'Sideways' never had much hope of stealing the Best Film crown from the big hitters, but for Virginia Madsen and particularly Thomas Haden Church to be overlooked for the Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor awards respectively was very unfortunate.

Links:

The complete winners' list.

A BBC feature on Jamie Foxx.

Feel good hits of the 1st March

1. 'Death Of A Salesman' - Low
2. 'You Can't Hurry Love' - The Concretes
3. 'Winterkill' - Kid Dakota
4. 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' - The Smiths
5. 'Miss Direction' - Love As Laughter
6. 'Oh My God' - The Kaiser Chiefs
7. 'The Coast Is Always Changing' - Maximo Park
8. 'Party The Baby Off' - The Icarus Line
9. 'Will You Smile Again' - ...Trail Of Dead
10. 'No One Knows' - Queens Of The Stone Age