So I'm Back
Who knew? Apparently my credit card details expired and my website has been down for a couple of weeks. The world yawned, scratched its collective arse and went back to sleep.
But I’ve coughed up and I’m back up. And so are my Mick Taylor articles.
So what’s next? More economics. Some stuff about music in the 70’s / 80’s. Roman battles in the second century AD. Same old but, new.
Yeah. Worth the $200+ Square space rips me off for to get my back catalogue back.
Tim Robson: Top Posts 2018
Tim Robson Top Posts 2018
The Timmies Awards
As we head to the vinegar strokes of 2018, I thought I would list the top blog posts of 2018. And then list the top blog posts that should have been were it not for the poor taste of the public ganging up with my own obscurity.
Top Posts Written in 2018
1) Top Mick Taylor Studio Tracks
2) Top 10 Britpop Songs
3) 20 Minute Playlist : The Queen at Live Aid Test
Most Read Articles in 2018
1) Mick Taylor and that Guitar Solo
2) Tom Petty and the Death of Gene Clark
3) Mick Taylor - Street Fighting Guitarist
4) Top Mick Taylor Studio Tracks
5) Top 10 Britpop Songs
What should have been the top Articles (aka Tim’s Favs) 2018
1) Le Baiser de l’Hotel de Ville - Tim discusses Robert Doisneau
2) Deleted Scenes - The Growing Chill of the Censor
3) Some words on Impermenance - Tim reflects on time passing
4) Brighton to Manchester Train - Tim remembers this 7 hour journey before mobile phones
5) 20 Minute Set Lists. Oasis. Beatles. Abba.
Tim Robson's Blog 2018
Christmas 2018
Raising a glass, Tim Robson exclusively speaks to this website about his 2018
2018 ! Christmas 2018. So, here I stand at the threshold of another Christmas. Joy to the world!
Christmas tunes are playing. Mince pies are waiting to be eaten. Bottles of Cava, Port and whiskeys (sans ice) stand ready to be downed. Hangovers to be endured.
However, the 2018 band is still playing, the dancers are still on the floor and our story has not yet finished.
So over the next few days, I’ll be revisiting the year on this blog. Looking at the hits. The frequent duds. The blogposts where I was on it (like a bonnet). The diatribes where I missed the mark like a current day BBC comedian at a Northern working men’s club in the 70’s.
We’ll review Normandy. Trier. The Lake District. So many places.
My many attempts to capture history on these pages.
The music I listened to, reviewed, included as a YouTube video
And. And. Mick Taylor. Mick Bloody Taylor. That article I wrote a couple of years ago still tops the charts as the most popular thing I’ve ever written. That one article accounts for between 30 - 50% of the traffic on the site.
I’m a one hit wonder. That’s what I am. I’m the bloody Birdies Song. I’m Joe Dolce. I’m Cinderella Rockafella.
Roll with it.
Laters potatas!
Tim
The Wisdom of Neil Diamond
Oh no! Tim’s written another LinkedIn article
So, I’ll be welcoming some of you here from LinkedIn. Your first visit probably. Welcome.
Pat yourself on the back; you are the curious, the trendsetters, the pressers of random hyperlinks. Well, enter of your own choice, hand in your prejudices along with your coats, disrobe yourself of received wisdom and take a glass of my Voltaire cocktail (a little rum, a little vermouth, a dash of old fashioned free speech). There’s space down there on the carpet at the front.
So, history… Again. Maybe I have delighted you long enough? I should let some of the other ladies have a go? No? Okay, history it is then.
In my LinkedIn article I distilled the whole of human history down to seven life lessons. As you do. Like some fucking middle management Yoda with a penchant for Suetonius, I draw my unwilling readers in like that goddamn tractor beam in Star Wars. Yeah, from the first movie, in the original trilogy. The good ones. And now, like the Millennium Falcon, you are held captive on my Death Star along with the regular crowd of ardent readers; potential girlfriends checking me out, Mick Taylor fans, Indonesians, ex-girlfriends stalking me, that sad nutter from some basement in Didcot.
Let me quote from the article to give those of you who didn’t read it a flavour. Life lesson number six which - I think anyway - is one of the best:-
We are the stories we tell.
For several years I’ve been working on a riff about people being the stories that they tell. Of course, I probably stole the idea from a hundred different places. But I believe it. Nothing summarises a person (a nation, a culture) more than the stories they tell about themselves. Think about it. When you tell a story about yourself to friends or colleagues, how do you cast yourself? Hero? Villain? Put upon martyr? Joker? It doesn’t take a Freud to notice this.
Socrates does not sleep easy tonight because I think I gave the old pederast an intellectual kicking. Yeah.
But how pretentious was the article? Let me just consult my digital meter. OMG! The needle is pointing to ‘head firmly up arse and modelling it as a rather fashionable hat’ pretentious. That’s how much. With a feather.
Of course I quoted Ecclesiastes and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. What again? Regular readers here will know they are the only two books I’ve ever pretended to have read. I’m a poor man’s philosophe. But in the kingdom of the blind, the man with two trip wires tends to come out on top.
But all the same, I’m kind of liking the feeling of being some sort of urban philosopher with jokes. The cap fits and I’m snapping that brim smartly. I mean, hasn’t everything I’ve been writing here on this website been comedic philosophy? Bon mots, bon-bons, bonfire of the vanities?
Yes, yes it has Tim.
Well anyway, welcome, bookmark the page. It’s a journey we’re all on children, a little wisdom and humility and ridiculousness will go a long way.
“I am, I said.” says Neil Diamond. “And no one heard. Not even the chair.”
All about that. Thank you Neil.
Some Writing Success
Did I know then that 10 years later the first chapter of Hit and Run Lover would be published?
It appears that - in terms of competition wins, places etc - 2017 was a horrible year for Tim Robson, the Writer. (Yes, that one. Not the other one.) Basically, although as active on the Apple MacBook keyboard as ever, seemingly nothing tangible came out of 2017.
"It's cause you're shit, Tim."
Maybe, maybe.
Anyway, if you take a look at my Roll of Honour page, you'll see that 2018 has started with a brace of third places in literary competitions. Yes, if that sounds like some Monopoly £10 second prize in a beauty contest Chance card, you'd be right. But I'd rather be third than fourth, eighteenth rather than thirty-second, praised rather than ignored, rewarded as opposed to not.
All publications are special, but I wanted to shout out Hit and Run Lover. This was a novel I wrote over several years. I spent ages on it; editing, rewriting, printing out, deleting, rewriting again. A real labour of love. And all for nothing. So, I'm particularly glad that the opening chapter is being published by those doyens of style, Grindstone.
What next?
As I think I've hinted before, I'm back writing another novel. It's contemporary, London-based, and benefits - I think - from lessons I've learnt the hard way about how to pace, add style and characterisation, plot. The more mature Tim Robson.
"What a pompous arse you've become."
Yeah.
Tim Robson - Top Posts 2017
Tim Robson - self regarding 2017
(In which Tim babbles about his year in blogs, talks website statistics and - like some jaded good-time girl - tries to understand your preferences)
- What is it with South East Asia and porn?
- What was my theory about Tom Petty’s culpability in the death of Gene Clark?
- What has Wandsworth Council been doing in 2017 to piss away taxpayers’ money?
- What got Tim so upset with Sky in April that the blog literally fell off the rails under the weight of forced anal rape metaphors?
- Why did I post a video of American Trilogy on 21st January?
- And who the fuck lives in Didcot Oxfordshire whose idea of a guilty pleasure is night in with a whisky, some rabbit fur and a long, luxurious read of this blog?
And who knows when and how to get out of the ever convenient but ever bereft list format style of writing?
Questions. Questions.
So, 2017, almost over, probably not lamented, certainly not celebrated, a prophet without honour even within its own fading span. Blog-wise, where did we go? Did we progress? Did we solve any conundrums, right any wrongs, add one iota to the sum of human knowledge?
To answer this, let me remind you of an old story. Do you remember the one where – unseen – a mouse is fucking an elephant in the arse when the elephant inadvertently stands on a thorn and lets out a great howl of pain and the mouse – still pumping away - shouts, “Yeah, take it bitch!”
I’m not exactly sure what the point of that story was. Am I the mouse? Are you the elephant? Who knows? Sometimes my ways are unknowable, my motives inscrutable, my metaphors a jammed rifle that backfires like some madcap 1940’s cartoon.
Anyway – let me attempt lucidity… I’ve been analysing the traffic stats of this site, and on every measurable scale, 2017 was the year this blog entered the big time, broke all records and had more readers than ever. Thank you all for coming here, even if you only read one article.
As I’ve grumbled here once or twice, my average demographic is probably some middle-aged guy, in his mum’s basement in Lubbock Texas, turning to fat, drinking some bourbon, listening to golden era Stones and, in between accessing niche interest porn, reading my articles about Mick Taylor.
Mick Taylor. Mick Fucking Taylor. I guess I’m gonna have to continually be ‘The Mick Taylor Guy’. By far most of the traffic that comes to this site is directed at the two Mick Taylor articles I've written. If only I could think of a way to monetarise your interest, I’d be rich. If I charged a mere $1 for a sneak-peak at my Mick Taylor articles, I’d have amassed, I dunno, a few hundred bucks by now.
Anyway, here is my list of my favourite blog posts in 2017. It's a good way to ease yourself into my muse.
Tom Petty and the Death of Gene Clark
Mick Taylor Street Fighting Guitarist
Things I know longer give a fuck about – dancing
Next, I'll go through my favourite moments of 2017 and my favourite songs. But for now, let me leave you with:-
Tim Robson's New Novel
Is it just me or am I getting more distinguished looking? Tim Robson, polo neck. Class.
“A writer wrote a word a day
Carefully selected.
Until he had marvellous novel
Everybody rejected.”
It's been three years since Franco's Fiesta stormed the lower reaches of Amazon's best selling charts. Some days it manfully sold its way to the top 100,000 paperback sales in the world (or UK, or Brighton or my road or something). I think I've given out those 10 copies now to friends and family. Did you get one?
A question I'm (never) asked is, when are you going to write another. Well, what with the writing, editing, promotion, the hotels, the literary festivals, the groupies, who has time? And some authors should stick at just one book (looking at you Harper Lee). Well, I feel I've got at least another book in me. I didn't achieve all I wanted with Franco's Fiesta (fame, money, groupies, lead part in the film of the book, soundtrack, album, er, yeah. Wanker.)
So, lately, quietly but methodically I've been planning my next novel. Ha! Yeah - planning. As if I didn't just pen some crap and then edit it and think, is this a short story or does it deserve another chapter? Well, this latest one, deserves another chapter. And probably several more after that.
So, what's it about? In answer to this, let me quote myself using some bullshit I penned for a small publisher who took one of my short stories:-
“I’m lucky to walk along Lavender Hill every day on my way to work. And every day I observe hundreds of interesting characters who cross my path. Who are they and what are they doing and why are they here?
Teeming with ideas I get to my office ready to start writing a new piece. And then, I think - “fuck it” and just write about myself. Again.
I am my own God.”
Amusing, eh? But not so true this time - just as it wasn't for Franco's Fiesta. I can use that thing - what's it called? - oh yeah! imagination. I make stuff up. That doesn't mean I don't steal people or events or places from real life, because I do. I put them all in a black velvet bag, shake the pieces and draw from it randomly. And write.
But I'm more conscious of posterity, more aware of precedents, less convinced of my uniqueness. I'm also getting to like longer sentences, longer sentences with sub clauses, errant thoughts, asides, funky punctuation and literary allusions. Fuck short sentences. Precision can be reached by either the front door or via a circuitous route through the back door.
I will say this. I've been quite influenced by some of the books I've read recently. Breakfast at Tiffany's was great but then so was The Go-Between. And others. But I think I'm pitching for that capturing the zeitgeist stardust.
Anyway, two chapters down. Slow progress but it will speed up, I know.
Place your advance orders now!!
Mick Taylor and Tim Robson
Honfleur
Occasionally I look through the analytics of my website. I've also recently signed up to Hotjar which provides free analytics for small scale sites like this. And what do I conclude?
More people are coming to this site month on month. I'm breaking internally records frequently. It's gratifying to know that my work (my huge body of work) is being read by more and more people. And people from all over the world (I'm big in Indonesia - who knew?).
BUT YOU'RE ALL READING ONE FUCKING ARTICLE !!! Mick Taylor and that guitar solo.
It's like Chuck Berry writing the genre defining rock songs but having his largest hit with 'My Ding-A-Ling'.
Come on people, I'm better than this! I write about stuff, you know.
- Modern Dating
- Me.
- And yeah - Mick Taylor in the Stones a couple of times.
I get that Mick Taylor's great. He is. Why else would I write about him? But FFS! I'm more than the sum of my Mick Taylor articles.
Yeah. Chasing my audience away with a shitty stick. I'm an artist, dammit.
Tim Robson says "Sorry"
"Where are you going?" Tim Robson engages with the audience mid 90's
Shambolic - the aptly named band.
(Self Indulgence Alert)
I have some dark moments from my past that play on my mind. Where I feel an apology is owed to those that I hurt.
Awful relationships? Cruel jibes? Insensitivity? Missed birthdays? Can I get an amen from all those who know me. But let's get specific and name where a sense of atonement is most needed.
I am truly sorry to those who suffered in the 90's listening to my various bands in the 90’s. Jesus! there were some bad gigs.
So - who gets the apology? Sadly few as my band didn't play Wembley that often. Well, not at all. We had a gig in Finchley once. Awful.
Tempting Alice, The Hare and Hounds, Brighton 1992
Tempting Alice was an indie, baggie type of band with decent musicians. I was the singer. At our penultimate gig, following my normal warm up of a few doubles, I decided to swing the mike around like Roger Daltery. Inevitably a fumble occurred resulting in some painful microphone to singer’s head action. End of Set 1 with singer on the floor. Set 2 opened with me now demanding I play guitar on one of my own songs. A sensitive folk ballad went down in flames in a hail of overwrought feedback as I pushed it all the way to 11. Overdoing Pete Townsend this time, my energetic wind-milling ending with the amp and myself falling off the stage. No one rushed to help.
Tempting Alice - let's not be shy about it; I was the heart-throb as well as the singer in this band.
The Pinter Boys, Amex Sports and Social Club, 1994
Two years later, I was leading a power trio. For this gig, I enlisted a Bez like tambourine player and my then girlfriend to sing harmonies. The Tambourine player had no rhythm and my girlfriend couldn’t sing. The bassist muttered darkly about Yoko Ono. Using a borrowed guitar that went out of tune on the first chord, I bludgeoned the audience by playing as loud as possible. The audience disappeared. The band played on. However, as I also edited the staff magazine, I gave the gig a glowing review.
Shambolic at the Norfolk, Brighton 1995
After some ‘musical’ disagreements, The Pinter Boys became Shambolic. Shambolic were my band and I was the lead singer and lead guitarist and Der Fuhrer. We deserved the – at first – disinterest of the sparse audience and then – after I broke not one, but two strings – their derision and boos. A real low in the history of live music. A truly shite gig. Captured on tape to my mortification.
Shambolic - battling the apathy of the crowd, fighting the growing drunkenness (on stage!).
Shambolic at Sussex University Free Festival, 1995
“Get off you wankers!” – an anonymous audience member.
How was this allowed to happen? How did those students so self-hate that they booked my band to play at their festival? Drinking my rider like a thirsty 70’s rock band, I took to the stage in what might be termed ‘high spirits’. At once abusing and pleading with the audience, I occasionally broke off my ranting to play a few songs. Mistake. Soloing on my knees at one point I managed to pull my guitar lead out to the biggest cheer of the set. The low light was an out of tune rock version of Kim Wilde’s Kids in America. The rape scene in Deliverance had more sensitivity.
Shambolic, New Cross, London 1995
Backing up a band of 17-year-old wannabes, this New Cross audience wasn’t really in the mood to listen to a band seemingly made up of Status Quo roadies. I managed six songs before breaking a string prompting the venue manager, with enthusiastic cheers from a partisan audience, to tell us to get off (he may have used another word). London's never been a great town for my band. Tough audience.
Shambolic at the Freebutt, Brighton 1995
Awful, shameful and embarrassing. Friends came, friends laughed, friends left. The highlight of the gig was someone from the audience standing behind me with a large sign saying ‘This Man Has No Penis’ as I soloed on oblivious. Briefly I thought I was bringing musical joy to the world. No, they’re just laughing at you Tim.
Shambolic at The Road House, Crawley, 1995
My, this was a lousy gig. In one sense, it was a success as we got out without being hit. I decided to play sober to up the musical quotient. And then I realised it wasn’t the drink that held me back; it was me. No one who was there – band, punters, staff – will ever look back on this night with pride. You should visit the Road House now to view the plaque put up after the gig which reads ‘Shambolic died here, on stage, 1995. Good’.
Road House. Shambolic died that night. Again.
Shambolic at The Hare and Hounds, Brighton 1996
For the last ever Shambolic gig, I somehow got us booked to the scene of my downfall 4 years earlier. This time I made sure I was well and truly pissed before I plugged my Marshall in - provoking the inevitable ‘Can you turn it down mate’ from the barman. Off my tits, I missed out whole sections out of songs, fluffed every solo, sang out of tune, forgot the words and decided I was now more a ‘comic’ than a frontman. The gig ended with a ragged ‘Sweet Transvestite’ from the Rocky Horror Show before I sacked the other two members of the group live on stage. They didn’t look too upset.
My career in a rock band was now officially over. For those that saw these gigs, who suffered through that cacophony of dissonance and feedback I called music, I heartily apologise. They were shockers – drunken fiascos, self-indulgent and artistically redundant.
Sorry or not though, I miss those days.
Did you see Shambolic?
Probably not! Leave a comment. If not, read more 90’s misadventures when I was mistakenly called to stage in a blues club in Chicago as Eric Clapton. It wasn’t pretty!
Conquering the Web
Tim Robson doesn't drink coffee no more.
Occasionally I break habits, turn things around and walk a different path. In these moments I have cider instead of wine, the pesto chicken instead of the steak, wear Oxblood shoes instead of my usual two tone brogues. But sometimes more than that; impulsively joining a gym, or booking a weekend away, quitting coffee (yes, I did the latter last week).
On Monday, I'm starting a night class in Richmond. Web Design.
Huh? How's that work Tim? You're writing this on a goddamn website already.
True, I am, but - like my chatting up skills - I can always get better. So after 10 weeks, expect new things, great things on this website! What? Who knows? All I do know is :-
1) It was a total bitch setting up this website with me falling down more blind alleys than a drunken gimp running wildly through a nighttime Souk.
2) There's loads of stuff I could be doing here that is just too much of a faff to work out myself. Most of the controls on this website I've no idea how to use. Who knows, the text could be dancing across the screen backwards in multi coloured letters as I charm and amuse. Or maybe I can work out how to link this website to Social Media.
3) Monetise my fanbase. Well obvs kids. Wait for timrobson.eu sponsored by Tom Ford or Waitrose Bavette Steaks or, indeed, Battersea Arts Centre. How much, I mean, how much, have I plugged this place in the last year? A shit load. I mean, getting 10% off my drinks - though my membership expired in April - doesn't nearly cover all the free advertising they get from this site. Nowhere near, at market rates.
4) The chicks. Computer classes are well known as pick up joints. We all know that. A smile, a sly wink followed with "You coming out for a cheeky drink, love?". We all know where it leads. As you were.
5) There is no five (Oh grow up Tim).
So what I'm saying is - quite literally - watch this space!
Tim Robson (Making Britain Great Again)
Inevitable Unions
Parc Barbieux, Roubais
A few words on modern dating. It seems I return to this subject in most of my short stories. There's something magical, mysterious, maddening about the dance, the etiquette, the splendour of those moments when everything matters, anything could happen and someone special is involved. The course of love is, of course, neither straight nor completed oftentimes. But it provokes and pushes me to be a better writer. "Sad songs - they say so much."
Take some of my (entirely fictional) words on the subject. (All short stories and extracts @Tim Robson).
The Decline of the Dinner Party
Take the over 40’s dating scene. It transpires we never really get past the angst and exhibitionism of our teen years. Modern life – divorces, hook-up culture, porn – forces us to replicate the cycle over and over again. We may dress better, and drink wine instead of snakebites but, emotionally, we remain staggering around the teenage disco. Mullets, this time, are probably optional.
* * *
Insignificance
“So, here I am, at The Thirst. Single!” The lady laughs again. Should I offer her a drink or ask her name? Not sure of the etiquette.
“When did you separate?”
“Yesterday. He’s staying in London tonight and the kids are with my mother.”
Christ! She didn’t hang about. But what with the newness of the pain and Gerry’s betrayal I sense she has a motive and I, well, a rare window of opportunity.
***
About Twenty Minutes
I turn over and she makes a suggestion. I have one or two of my own which leads to a rustle of falling clothes. From my wallet, I produce a roll of notes and lie back. Her skills match her beauty or does her beauty make me appreciate her skills more? I drift into semi consciousness gazing at her, analysing each seductive curve, enjoying the teaching certainty of every touch, wanting the moment to last but knowing it will not.
***
Bang the Beat!
Avice escaped me years ago. Her doppelgänger holds my hand now, challenging me into action. We’re alone in her flat, late into the night, both a little drunk. Who even has dreams over forty? Impossible dreams that are edging improbably towards reality? It’s now, Joss!
Heart-beating, I lean in to kiss Ann. It feels right. The circle has turned. I’ve waited thirty years.
Thwack! Ann slaps my cheek and not softly. She lets off a high-pitched cackle.
“Easy there Grand-dad!” she hoots. “I think you just embarrassed yourself.” She gets up and disappears out of the room. I’m ashamed of myself. I make ready to leave.
Ann returns with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
***
The Bottle and The Sock
Our sentences collide. Kate looks at me, serious all of a sudden.
“I’m tired of playing games. Tired of pretending I’m cooler than I am, listening to good looking guys talk at me, being an object for inadequate men getting back at their ex-wives. It’s so exhausting.”
I know when to listen. Kate smiles. A sly smile.
“Can you to do one thing for me?”
“What?”
“I want you to stand on your chair, call for quiet and propose a toast to Donald Trump and let everyone know how much you love him.”
“Here?” I say scanning the hipsters swarming around us. “This isn’t a fly-over state, you know. People have been lynched for less.”
“Those are my terms. You can’t be a troll all your life. Sometimes you have to come out and say what’s on your mind. Defend your beliefs in public.”
***
The Winter Train
She laughed nervously and drank her wine, electing not to respond to this obvious move.
“I see, that’s how it is, eh?” he said. If he were younger perhaps, he would have attempted to win her over. But that wasn’t his way, these days. These days he was staunch and strenuous no more.
She stayed quiet hoping the moment would pass. Although she’d missed her train, they’d be another soon. To stay would be a mistake. She’d done the right thing by saying hello, by listening to him, buying him a drink. But now it was time to go.
“If we’d have met for the first time today, with no history, would we have got together?” he asked.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate, Tom,” she said reaching for her bag.
“I was just wondering because, I thought that, as you got older, men started to gain the advantage.” His voice was flat, resigned. “But that’s not true, is it?”
She had no response to this and so allowed the silence to grow.
***
Online Dating
“U iz wel fit! Lol!!”
It’s an unlikely cri-de-coeur, a rallying cry, a thought made flesh. Well; it’s a mating call. A distillation of all I know and all I am after two years of hard training. Let’s see what response it garners, eh?
I hit the ‘send’ button. Over the next half an hour I copy and paste this stunning message to twenty more ladies. Blondes, brunettes, professional, tattooed, coy, shy, bold, sexy, knowing, intellectual, smiling, frowning, slim, large. Whatever. Ain’t fussy.
***
In Sambuca We Trust
I know this is a prelude, a feint manoeuvre; faux outrage before she goes back to enjoy make up sex with him, sex that should have been mine. It will be hard to forget this one. The stakes were higher, the hurt is deeper.
And sure enough, five minutes later Megan is gone with a kiss for each of us. I shake my head bitterly. James is so pissed he doesn’t notice my anger. Or if he does he puts it down to the usual late night Alan mood – alone, failed, drunk, ranting. Yep – all of the above. I order two more drinks. Nothing like a hangover to solidify the also-ran, almost there, silver medal unfairness of it all.
The drug dealer passes me with a tall blonde. “I think you left your fishing rod on the dance floor mate,” he says as they leave.
***
In Between Days
“Okay, you can come back so long as you stay on the sofa and leave early. Is that clear?” She wags her finger at me. With history beckoning, I’ll agree to anything right now and so nod my head.
But on the walk back to her house, it’s not too far, we hold hands and it’s natural and unforced and lovely, and I am once again the man I always wanted to be, the man who is seen as interesting and desirable by someone who is likewise. Our stars are hitched, our steps in tandem, and we gently skirt around the edge of possibilities. Whatever happens, happens rightly.
We sit side by side on her sofa - the lights dim, our breathing rhythmic - and the smell of her perfume, and the closeness of her body, is alarming, nostalgic, shocking even. Erotic in a way I’d long forgotten and never expected to experience again. I allow that most dangerous of emotions, hope, to suggest itself.
Yes I've used this video before. I love this song. And it kind of encapsulates - better than I do - what I want to say. I dryness in the throat as you gulp down nostalgia. I was there. Once.
Mick Taylor.Com
Tim Robson. In Bruges. Mick Taylor not pictured.
As you know, this website's URL is www.timrobson.eu.
The .eu suffix is, of course, amusing to me for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, timrobson.co.uk and timrobson.com were already taken. A little research has revealed that they've been taken by some goddamn tennis professional who doesn't seem to have used his website since about 1894. He was, apparently number 490 in the world in 1983. Who knew? Thing is, I was probably number 822 myself. Playing lefthand. Anyway, he's somewhat greedily grabbed my name on the internet. And not used it. Bastard.
And there's that other Tim Robson 'writer' out there who writes wanky business books about how to fellate the boss and achieve your goals by showing up, pulling off, or something. Haven't read it. Amusingly Amazon assigned his book to me for a while and my sales shot up by at least a couple of copies. Yeah, okay, so my figures doubled. Whatever. I'm sure management consultant Tim Robson is a nice bloke, and all, but he winds me up as he seems to be SEO'ing my ass into second place.
There's only on Tim Robson - writer. He's funny. Bald. A hit with da ladies.
But in some ways the other (lesser) Tim Robson - writer, helped to take out 'Pervert Tim Robson' from Google's Tim Robson first page search results. For some time - before I took up the internet burden of my name - some peado in Yorkshire was the man. The Tim Robson you were directed to. Now imagine all the dates, ex-friends and curious ex-girlfriends I missed out on during these years of internet quietude.
"Oo - I wonder what that sexpot Tim Robson is up to now?" Tap. Tap. Tap. "Pervert Tim Robson Jailed". Erm. maybe I won't get in touch.
Images. Stealthily as my popularity grows (this month has already had the third largest traffic ever and we're, like, only half way through) - the more Tim Robson (me, the hunk, keep up!) pictures appear. Currently, two in first line of images thanks to my good friends at Almond Press.
So - what has this got to do with Mick Taylor? Fuck all. But as people seem to come from all quarters of the world to read my Mick Taylor articles, I thought I'd cheaply cash in on that. Yeah, I'm that sad and I'm that low.
But enjoy the Mick Taylor video below. A great, great version of 'You can't always get what you want' with a guitar solo so ridiculously good, it preaches the gospel. From about 3.10 MT kicks that proverbial ass.
The Decline of the Dinner Party
Somehow, my life hasn't turned out this way.
“Since the baby, she never wants sex. I mean ever.”
“Define never,” I say, these things being somewhat subjective.
“Lucky if I get it on a Sunday morning. The brat always wakes up in the middle though. It’s like it has a sixth sense. I start pounding away and then it begins with the crying. Happens every time. I usually come with the sound of crying in my ears.”
“Hers I bet.”
Phil hasn’t heard. “It’s got to the stage where I literally cannot come now unless I can hear crying. If there’s no crying, I can’t come.”
Imagine a world where Branwell Bronte came home to the parsonage in Howarth one winter's night a bit pissed. His sisters and the good reverend have gone off to bed and the fire in the sitting room is almost out. Stumbling around, he finds a load of papers on the table and throws them on the fire. They burn brightly and Branwell falls into a drunken sleep as the only copy of Wuthering Heights goes up in smoke.
Or what about; it's summer 1965 and the Beatles, fresh from playing The Hollywood Bowl turn up at a pre-arranged meeting at Elvis Presley's Los Angeles pad. The Fab Four and The King chat and someone gets out instruments and one of the Memphis Mafia says, let's record this. But the guy with the tape machine puts the reel on badly and so nothing is recorded! (BTW - this didn't actually happen. Though they jammed a little, as far as I know there are no bootlegs of this famous summit meeting).
Or maybe in some early Christian Council following Nicaea in 325, a bunch of bishops are choosing which gospels to go in The Bible. Naturally they select the Gospels of Judas, Thomas, Philip and Mary. "Throw that nonsense written by those heretics Matthew, Mark, Luke and John into the city's dump" they might have shouted.
You get the picture.
Things of value hidden, lost, thrown away.
Well, it was nearly that way this week when I left my rucksack on a Thameslink train back to Sussex. Just got up off the train and forgot my bag. Which had all manner of electronic devices and personal stuff packed inside. Including this laptop. As I'm constantly working on articles, short stories, poems, history, the laptop has many irreplaceable words of wisdom, fun and import penned by me on the 19:23 from Clapham Junction after a couple of wines at Battersea Art Centre.
For example, the quote above, is included in my current story - The Decline of The Dinner Party. Image if it had been lost to the world? Luckily, a cleaner handed in my bag and the world need not mourn the loss of untold, incalculable but well-written Robson.
I'll leave you with another from the lost story that was found again:-
"It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."
Whoops, that's Luke 15 but here's some real wisdom:-
“I work in fracking. You know, extracting gas from rocks by high pressure water techniques.”
“You’re joking!” she says as though I’ve admitted to a liking for casual racism.“No, it’s an interesting job and it’s well paid and I love the moral dimension.”
“What the fuck is the moral dimension?”
“Well, as I’m sure you know, cheap energy means cheap fuel, which means that pensioners and poor people don’t die in winter. Cheaper energy lowers industry’s costs, makes them more efficient and provides job opportunities for millions of people. This reduces welfare and increase taxes to pay for good things like doctors, nurses and schools. Julie, it’s a moral mission to get that gas!”
The world has been saved these words and wit. Rejoice at that news!
Rocking The Ides of March
Tim Robson - pushing away the girls in lycra (not pictured). Battersea April 2017
Famously Caesar was warned by a soothsayer to beware the Ides of March (approx 15th March). He ignored the soothsayer. You know what happened next. Probably - if you asked the spirit of Julius about his view of March - I suspect it would be along the lines of:- 'Not my favourite month to be honest, prefer July actually'.
But me? Well March has proved to be a record breaking month for this website. More of you have read my street philosophy - with more visits, more followers, pages views; basically, more of everything, more than any other month like - evah! Bigly. Even with the usual stalkers discounted, the graph of my fame - for that is what it is - is off the chart. Well it would be if I hadn't recalibrated the scale, but you get the point.
Now, as a man of introspection and self reflection, I could ask, why.* However, I prefer to ask, 'why not'? But let's turn the telescope the other way and look at why. Well, I started my 'Things I don't give a fuck about' series in March. Hardcore writing promoted on Facebook. Dragged in the punters like a stripper in an after hours Rochdale pub. Then there was the Chuck Berry's obit. Serious. Measured. One string bender to another. Remember the video of Tim playing a medley of four favourite middle of the road songs? One for both the ladies and musicians. What's not to like?
Bizarrely though, the most popular blog post was something I wrote in December about Mick Taylor playing Sympathy for the Devil on Get Yer Ya Yas Out with the Stones. There were loads of website hits from the States for this piece of stellar rock history. BTW, if you haven't read it yet (why not?) go and search it out. Fun, opinionated, well researched with a decent video at the bottom, it's by far the most popular thing I've ever written. Not the best though. My recipe for Beef Ragu still brings tears to my eyes (the honesty, the flavour. I rock in the kitchen).
So - as the Monday night running club hums around me here in The Battersea Arts Centre - lots of lycra, lots of girls** - I must put March behind me and rock into April.
There's stuff about April. Me and April. April in Paris. Long, long ago. Get me pissed enough and I might write about it, here in the record breaking Tim Robson blog, Click that RSS feed now!
Until then, cheers, I couldn't have done it without you (break records that is, the writing I could have done on my own, but you know what I mean).
Cheers
(See the video below. Sort of this blog set to music - silky, hip, ethereal; probably better 20 years ago.)
* Just joking - shallow and inane. That's how I like it!
** Some random 40 plus nerd is wandering around the young girls in lcyra in his running shorts, leching. They ignore him. Like, doh! What a prat - mate, just put them in your bank and move on.
Play that Funky Music - White Boy!
Tim Robson - gigging in Hove. A different century. Tucked T shirt.
When I pick up my guitar my fingers form themselves around the same old familiar chords and runs as I tend to return to a short list of songs time after time. I've tried over the last few years to remember new songs but I forget them after a couple of plays. Drink I guess. Age. Befuddlement. Whatever.
So what would you hear, listening in at my kitchen door?
The Ballads
It's Too Late - Carole King / Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell / Walk on By - Dionne Warwick /
The Blues
Me & the Devil / Hoochie Coochie Man / I'm a Man
Honky Tonk Women / Country Honk / Brown Sugar / Love in Vain / Satisfaction
Others
Proud Mary - Various / I Get A Kick out of You - Frank Sinatra / Return to Sender - Elvis Presley / Run to Him - Bobby Vee
80's
Wake me up before you Go-go - Wham / Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi / Say Hello, Wave Goodbye - Soft Cell
As a special treat I recorded especially for this article - for you - this video of four of these songs.
The One That Got Away
The shame. Tim Robson drinks Magners over ice and contemplates the lost article.
Had a great idea for a blog post last night.
But I've forgotten it.
Can't have been that good.
Somehow, I don't think Balzac had this problem.
Yeah
A Solipsism Too Far.
Jeremy Corbyn at PMQ's yesterday
I have this gift. When I hear some words or phrases my brain simultaneously translates them into what linguists call Tim's English. Tim's English is a strange variation from Common English in that the main differences are not driven by dialect but by meaning. Let me give you some examples to explain what I mean:-
English Tim's English
Tim's English . Solipsistic bullshit. Made up bollocks to amuse the writer of self referential blogs.
Barista. Wanker who serves coffee (I hate coffee shops - do you know that?)
Jeremy Corbyn. Albert Steptoe
We welcome diversity. Apart from diversity of thought.
Striking to protect public safety. Bullshit.
Women don't worry about such things. Lies
I'm only thinking of the children. And a holiday in the sun.
Trump's not my president. Whiney baby loses dummy
Hard Brexit. Leave the EU as mandated in the UK Referendum 23rd June
Franco's Fiesta. Rejected manuscript
Austerity. Smaller than trend increases in government spend. Doubling of the National Debt
"The people in Battersea Arts Centre would really enjoy your blog Tim." - Balls meet knife.
Green Energy. Tax on the poor and old to give rich lefties bragging rights
Facebook Friends. Annoying wankers you used to know but accepted their friend request one night when you were pissed. Surreptitiously blocked later when sober.
"I've only had two glasses of wine." Two plus two...
"You're really funny Tim!" I prefer my men tall and boring.
Aid Superpower. Country where help for the poor or elderly or infirm is rationed so rich politicians can feel good about themselves spending other people's money on ridiculous vanity projects overseas.
"It's your round" What, again?
Racist Someone who disagrees with the (left-wing) speaker. Used to close down debate and legitimise subsequent unreasonable behaviour (see reaction to Brexit or Trump)
Tories Socialists who went to public school or grammar schools (before they closed them down). Social mobility? Ladders? Move on, nothing to see here.
"I only started writing last year." Liar
BBC / C4 Comedy Panel Show Unfunny left-wing shit
Edgy Comedy Unfunny left wing shit
Tim's Blog Funny, balanced and penetrating analysis
Funny, balance, penetrating analysis Bullshit
Tim's Sapphic Misadventures
Tim Robson has been up close and personal with one of these two ladies
Are there more lesbians these days or is it just my fevered imagination?
Maybe it's where I go (Brighton / Battersea). Or maybe it's my rugged good looks attracting the waverers. Or maybe it's more socially acceptable in 2017. Who knows.
But this march of the sisters doesn't upset me. Well, apart from one thing...
Three times in the last month, sat at my table, tapping away, looking both authorial and yet approachable, I've been smiled at by single attractive women. Now, being eyed up by women is pretty usual for me - I am a basic pleasure model after all - but even-so, their interest tweaked my own. Maybe, smile back? Offer a drink? I'm a machine; turn me on and I deliver results.*
And then. And then their girlfriend turns up and they start to kiss. And not in a peck on the cheek kinda way. Tongues involved. One particularly attractive couple of ladies next to me on the train a couple of months ago were snogging and feeling each other up all the way from East Croydon to Burgess Hill. It was like I'd stepped into some porno movie. But with no part for me. I mulled about this - overly long - when I got home. Too long.
Okay, so maybe I view all of human life through the lens of my own single status (why not?) but it's a cruel trick ladies. A cruel trick I fall for time and again. Which means I'm increasingly getting paranoid, afraid of hitting on a lesbian by mistake. I respect people's lifestyle. So now, I don't do anything. I look away when a single, attractive girl smiles at me. Read more Roman history.
Yeah. That would it Tim. Lesbians. Why you're single. Yeah.
* The bullshit is strong in this one tonight.
The Bottle and The Sock
Adrian Gurvitz. Big in Belgium apparently
My blogging has been somewhat sporadic of late. You've noticed? You may not believe it, but I write much more than I publish. Whilst there's many a slip t'wix cup and lip, there's many a dodgy blogpost that gathers cyber dust in this site's Draft folder - ruthlessly rejected from a public airing.
So, I reserve the more outre ramblings and website bootlegs for my short stories. You see my short stories are 'literary' and as such all manner of solipsistic navel gazing is permissible. Demanded, in fact.
Standard Tim Robson short story:-
Single 40 something professional (optionally short and bald) meets some quirky, and yet attractive, lady in, say, Battersea Arts Centre. They drink. They joke. They laugh. They may or may not end up together. The world turns and scratches its arse. The end.
Between you and me, I think I've entertained us all enough with this particular plot line. Which is a shame because I've just churned out another in my Henry Ford production line of short stories. This new opus has all the plot features listed above plus the added, and experimental, bonus, that the action takes place in two bars, not just Battersea Arts Centre. Fuck off James Joyce, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough! I feel I'm growing as a writer, you know; exploring ideas, running with creative concepts, challenging myself. Screwing with that envelope.
Yeah, whatever Balzac.
Anyway, The Bottle and The Sock will be the last in this particular series of what some are already calling (me mainly) my Clapham short stories. I feel I've outgrown the medium. I'll still enter these unfertilised children into competitions. My stuff may be samey but it's good. Production line Tim Robson is better than niche anyone else.* Watch the list of stories published grow like a national debt under a Labour government. Or indeed, the bloody Tories. Doubled?
So if I'm not writing short stories what will I be doing with my undoubted - if little recognised - literary talents.* Poetry? Perhaps - but part of me thinks this is like the UK concentrating on minority sports at the Olympics and winning loads of gold in, say, pistol shooting. Or Canoeing. Or sailing. Who gives a fuck? We'd all prefer a 800m win like the Brighton god that is Steve Ovett. Or Seb Coe in the 1500m. Twice. Alan Swells.
Of course I mean a novel. There's a great state of the nation, the times we live in, epoch defining novel in me. It's what the world needs right now (well, about 2018 as opuses take a while to write a classic. In an attic. Cause I'm an addict.). And without revealing too much of the plot, I think it will hit the zeitgeist of now like a whingeing fucking lefty bitching about losing another election.
So - without revealing the plot too much - what will this American Psycho for the second decade of the 21st century be like?
Well I thought it might be interesting to follow the activities of a mid 40's professional guy, divorced, short, bald, and his attempts to come to terms with his life via meaningless dates. I think I might set it in - I dunno - Sussex and Clapham. Or Brighton. And Clapham. Lots of ideas. Many possibilities but I think I've got the core of my story.
What do you think? A page turner, no?
In my left hand is rock. In my right is roll.
Notes
* Hyperbolic boast not backed up by fact.