The Contrast Between Harmony and Invention

Although I'm best known for my rock criticisms, for my long and extended discussions of the might and majesty of I think I Love You by the Partridge Family or the soft rock velvety fist of The Carpenters' Goodbye to Love, in reality, I actually spend most of my time listening to Vivaldi.

When? Well, when I write. When I commute. When I eat. Always Vivaldi. Now there's a joke (not that funny but I'll repeat it) that says that Vivaldi didn't write 500 concertos but one concerto 500 times. While there are recurring motifs and musical cycles in his music, to dismiss the Venetian maestro as a one trick pony is to underestimate him hugely. And you'd also miss out on some great music.

I would argue - and do! - that the mathematical precision creates a comforting level of expectation and familiarity in the listener. I love hearing him follow the rules of a musical spine. So that he can then, like a great Blues artist, use this solid platform for all manner of interpretation and invention. 

I'll pick three Vivaldi pieces that I rate above most. And I'll start with something well known:-

Winter - The Four Seasons (Largo)

For years I hummed this tune unknowing of what it was until an Italian colleague placed it for me - no, not within The Four Seasons - but in the larger parent movement - Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione. Or Opus 8. If there is a more beautiful tune in the world, I don't know it. This melody, so fluent and so evocative, is framed against the tick tock of pizzicato strings. The flowing lines and rise and fall of the melody, against the mechanical sawing of the backing strings, creates magic. Every time! Straight to Number One!

Mandolin Concerto - RV 134 (Allegro)

Dig those power chords! This is classical music delivering the ferocity and riffology of Led Zeppelin, 250 years before Jimmy Page plugged his Gibson into a Marshall stack. Feel the full force of this baroque wall of sound. Showing that classical music can provide depth and power 100 years before Beethoven smashed it all the way to 11 in his 5&9, this is head banging stuff. If you like classical with attitude, this is your track!

Concerto for 2 Oboes - RV 535 (Largo)

The Vivaldi lover's Vivaldi. Interweaving and delicate oboe lines cross and uncross, creating peace, magic and love. This is probably the piece I'd pick for 'and I listen to classical too' slot on Desert Island Disc. Less well known that the Winter piece, it shares with it a dignified beauty. It's so stately you want to salute it as it flows past you graceful and serious. Music for grown ups.

* * *

There's more. So much more. Vivaldi didn't restrict himself to an album every two years with a couple of singles in between. No, the red headed Venice boy, cloistered with his orphans in the Ospedale della Pietà churned them out for years. La Stravaganza, L'Estro Armonico, the hits just kept coming. And then stopped, abruptly and he lay completely forgotten for two hundred years.

As we know though, he came back in a big way. Adverts, films, best ofs; he's now up there with the classical big boys. Seek him out. 

Or don't. I don't care. But if you see me on a train this is what I'm listening to. 

s-ciào su bitches

Tim

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Whatever happens, happens rightly

Recently I've been reading my long-neglected copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. For those of you who are not familiar, Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor between AD 161 - 180. He was the last in the series of 'The Five Good Emperors' -  Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pious and himself. This time (96-180) is often considered the height of the Roman Empire, where the borders reached their fullest extent, the walls were built and the citizens within enjoyed relatively long years of peace and good governance. 

Marcus fitted the Platonic ideal of a philosopher-king. Invested with supreme power he was also a thoughtful and mediative man. He wrote Meditations whilst on the campaign trail fighting the Germanic tribes as a stoic guide to life and as a personal diary to himself. Stripped down, his philosophy was that life is essentially inconsequential, but what determines a worthwhile life is acting rationally and for good and not to be emotional about temporary highs or lows for they are as nothing in the broad sweep of history.

The above quotation - Whatever happens, happens rightly* - piqued my interest. It summarises in just four words, a whole philosophy and is thus a very powerful sentence. It appears on the surface to embrace a form of karma; that we are unwitting actors within a cosmic Fate of which we have no control but I think it goes a little deeper than this.

One has to understand where Marcus was coming from in order to do this full justice. I think the following quotation helps clarify a little more:-

Many grains of incense fall on the same altar: one sooner, another later - it makes no difference.**

Like the wisdom of Solomon I'm so fond of in Ecclesiastes, Marcus details the outward futility of man's actions. In this example, incense falling on the altar being a metaphor for successive waves of human generations, Marcus points out the folly of human vanities. The short term seeking of pleasures, accolades, profit, will be all be forgotten in the grand scheme of things.

A gloomy message, yes? And yet no - a realistic message, for Marcus discerns patterns and repetitions in human drama. Let's look at another quote to demonstrate:-

Reflect often how all the life of today is a repetition of the past; observe that it also presages what is to come. Review the many complete dramas and their settings, all so similar, which you have known in your own experience, or from bygone history... The performance is always the same; it is only the actors who change. ***

Anyone who has lived a few years can see the truth in the above and smile in recognition. This is even more emphatic for students of history. In politics, war, economics, human relations, there is, as I quoted previously in different article, 'nothing new under the sun'.

So far so rational. But what about the 'happens rightly' part? Doesn't this suggest some moral agency in what happens in life? Some 'good' pre-determined outcome? I would be equivocal about this. I suspect Marcus is using the word 'rightly' in a mechanicalistic manner, that universal laws of nature and humanity will always reassert themselves - like some cosmic regression towards the mean. For example, a forest may be cleared but, left to itself, it will grow again. 

However, despite this, Marcus also believes in being rational, humane and good. In fact he believes that this is the only point of life; to live a 'good' life. And whilst one can only control oneself, the more good in the world, the better the outcomes and the higher the level of, temporary, human happiness. Nothing is perfect, everything has to re-won, the lessons of history always have to relearnt but, given a reasonable and sympathetic character, then things can be made better. And, that is what is important in life.

My quibble - if I have one - is that whilst I agree with much of Marcus' gloomy observation about each generation having to relearn the lessons of the past, is that I have a stubborn belief in the Enlightenment's idea of progress. Although each generation does have to relearn history and human relations, it does so not from some ground zero each day but 'standing on the shoulders of giants'.

Knowledge, inventions, the rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, transparency, capitalism, food production, cheap transport, fast communications, the universalisation of knowledge via the internet, better health, drugs, sanitation; these are things that are spreading at the fastest rate ever in human history. We - pace Marcus - living only in the present - tend to ignore these advances but they are there and they are real. ****

So, what are we left with as base material concerns are stealthily obliterated? How can the sentient person avoid spiritual degradation, a creeping ennui? By doing good. Personal kindnesses. Rationality. Reason. Thoughtfulness. Curiosity.

The real battle, as suggested by Marcus Aurelius and other ancients texts, is, and always has been, individual and internal. And this is a fight that has to be won every day.

Firstly, avoid all actions that are haphazard or purposeless; and secondly, let every action aim solely at the common good. *****

Normal service resumed in the next article where I discuss the latest series of The Voice.

Laters

Tim

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NOTES

* Meditations - Book IV, 10

** Meditations - Book iV, 15

*** Meditations - Book X, 27

**** One of the problems with a 24 hour media and - dare I say it - ignorant journalists with no understanding of history - is that the sensational, the temporary, the critical always wins the battle for attention against the long term, the underlying trend, the comparative. We are, as a world, empirically, more free, richer, healthier, better fed than EVER before. That is not to say that there aren't problems nor that there aren't temporary set-backs but, if you compare the world with 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, let alone 500, there is no comparison that we are better off in so many ways. Whether we are happier or more spiritually fulfilled is a completely separate issue, however.

***** Meditations Book XII, 20

Hit & Run Lover : Gigging in the 90's

Who knows? Memory is a fickle thing. Like making a film, we choose what to remember, what to recall, what to forget. So the story below may have been unintentionally changed during the intervening years. Like all good history, a certain judicious editing and some appropriate embellishing helps it pack a more meaningful punch. But - hey! - enough of my yacking!

So, back to summer 1995: Oasis and Blur were duking it out in the charts. Brit Pop was in the air and we all thought it was the mid 60’s once again. Down on the South Coast my group, Shambolic, was on the much ignored at the time, but now completely forgotten, Still Hazy After All These Beers tour which consisted of a gig in Worthing Battle of the Bands (we lost), one free festival at Sussex University and two painful gigs in dreadful Brighton pubs for no money.

Our very badly photocopied poster with which we promoted the tour in Brighton laundrette windows reads as if I was trying to provoke an audience rather than attract one. Underneath the group’s name was the motto, or threat, “We flip you over and play your b side”. A little further down, and against a backdrop of three silhouetted figures, the following quotes were helpfully italicised:

Adrian (drums): Actually I’m a chartered surveyor.

Roger (bass): I don’t worry about rhythm or notes that much. It’s more instinctive than that.

Tim (guitar and horn): I tend to get the girls.

Down at the bottom the blurb painfully suggested three chords, two haircuts, one pound entry fee; zero talent.

And if you had paid that one pound, what would you have got? There’s a live tape out there which includes a performance of my song (and later book) Hit and Run Lover at one of the larger gigs on the Beers Tour of 1995. ‘Out there’ in this case means there’s a tape in my kitchen drawer and probably Roger the bassist’s got a copy too. So about as out there as a gay sixteen year old in China.

Anyway, the ‘limited edition’ tape contains the full performance of Shambolic playing the ‘anti racism and transgender awareness’ free festival at Sussex University in 1995. It wasn’t quite Woodstock. There was stage mounted behind East Slope and so, from this height, the sound could be heard right across campus. Various local bands were interspersed with humourless harangues by po-faced left-wing student politicians who all seemed to be bearded ex public school boys called Josh talking shite about the working class. Despite this, it was a lovely early June evening and there was a large and mellow crowd. Roger handed the guy on the sound deck, a stoned student, a C90 tape of Gerry Rafferty to record over. And so Shambolic at Sussex University has been preserved for posterity with occasional leaks from Baker Street in the quiet bits where the roar of the crowd should have won the audio scrap with 70’s AOR. But the quality of what’s committed to that tape? Need it be said? It’s not quite the Who Live at Leeds. 

It starts with a voice shouting out: “Get off you wankers,” as I drunkenly try to tune up before petulantly demanding another beer. Denied, I ask the audience to raise their hand when they think I’m in tune. The mike picks up mild derision from the massed ranks of not too interested students who - to be fair - had just suffered a twenty minute oration from the co-chair of the Sussex University Revolutionary Communist Party on the subject of, oh I forget. I don’t think even he knew what he was banging on about. Leftie bollocks anyway. I was pissed so I wasn’t really listening. Roger, bored of my tuning and trying to move things along, stormed up to the mike and yelled like a smacked arse, “Okay you might recognise the start of this one, the rest of it is called Hit and Run Lover.”

Sadly, Roger forgot that he had a bass strapped to him and so clumsily smashed the neck of it against the mike stand as he turned to go back to stage left. BOOM! Cue much hilarity amongst the audience at our expense. Actually at Roger’s expense because I can remember joining in the derision, curling my fist and shaking it rhythmically in his direction. Wanker! Good start. Good band harmony.

So how should the song have started? Well I used to graft the chord sequence from Nirvana’s Smell’s Like Teen Spirit to cheaply liven up the beginning of Hit and Run Lover. It confused people long enough into listening before I lurched into my own song. It was a musical amuse-bouche. However, at this gig, on this recording, shall we say I adopted a more 'freestyle' approach?

I hit one or two stray chords shockingly out of tune before crashing into Smells Like Teen Spirit. The thing is though, being pissed, even I was confused as to what I was supposed to be playing. Random chord followed random chord as I thrashed the guitar desperately trying to find my way back to the tune. Roger, never quick in these matters, frantically tried to work out what I was up to and, not surprisingly, failed. His bass is mostly quiet in this introductory period except at those key points where a wrong note might be exposed most mercilessly. At those points he plucked his thick strings as hard as he fucking could. TWANG! Meanwhile Adrian delayed his entry until he thought he knew the beat. And then changed it four times in the opening ten seconds. For some reason he threw in an epileptic drum roll just as I was quieting down for the verse. Absolute anarchy. This wasn’t freeform jazz – it was a haphazard shambles without even the excuse of deliberate dissonance to redeem itself. Crap, in fact.

My voice comes in, hoarse, drunken and out of tune. Words are stumbled over, ad lib asides offered between lines; solos are fluffed. The tape records the band sticking shakily to the predefined structure of verse-chorus, verse-chorus, before I go rogue by forgetting the middle eight - brazenly yelling into the mike, “Don’t worry, they won’t notice, carry on”. I then proceed to ruin this by standing on my guitar lead pulling it noisily out onto the stage floor cutting off what was already shaping up to be a pitiful and painfully out of tune axe-man solo. Adrian stops drumming, Roger continues his bass and, sans guitar, I rap some observational bollocks about some bloke in the audience’s mother giving a crap hand job for a tenner. Roger stops in disgust just as Adrian comes flying in on the crash symbol like he was providing the soundtrack to the second coming. And so Hit and Run Lover ends on a fluffed and out of place drum solo accompanied by a barely heard, and off mike, ‘wanker’ from yours truly directed at who knows who.

A pensive, almost shocked, silence greets the end of this master class in mediocrity. Bring back the commie guy for some serious hard line Marxist shit! Anything but this!

“Can I have a hot dog?” I bellow drunkenly into the mike. This probably made more sense at the time and yet now serves as a fittingly appropriate coda to the song, the band and the era. 

***

And yet I can't remember a time when I was happier.

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Going Off Safari

I think I've solved my website problems. Yes, you can all breath again, the crown jewels of online blogging have been returned to the Tower and all is well once more within the online kingdom.

Which means, I've switched from Safari to Chrome. You see Chrome doesn't drop like Safari and lose my blogging pearls of wisdom. And I can watch my Amazon Prime easier.

Win: win.

Utilising my new freedom from the oppression of lost marvels, I'll be updating more frequently. 

Plenty to talk about, loads to comment on, axes to grind and rock to roll.

Tim

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Bowie

(Wow! This blog is getting harder to write. The more I watch Bowie the more I realise he was a fucking rock god... With good hair. Bastard!)

I think anyone who is interested in music, who writes about music, has to be saddened about the news today of David Bowie's death. Also, having grown up in the 70's and early 80's you can't be unaware of the cultural impact - possibly bigger than record sales - of Bowie. It's sort of a truism to go on about Bowie being an 'artist' who continually reinvented himself, challenged himself, push the boundaries etc etc. I'll leave that sort of analysis to pale young men who can cry into their copy of Low. Me? I thought he wrote and performed on some of the best records and so let me give you - drumroll - my Bowie top five...

(Note the first song I ever knew of Bowie's was Space Oddity. Probably the 1975 reissue. Also the first Bowie song I learnt to play on guitar. Great song. Not on the list! Also; Rebel Rebel, Scary Monsters, The Man Who Sold The World and Sound and Vision - exquisite all - don't make the list.)

Ashes to Ashes (1980)

Weird and wonderful. You had to be 12 and be an avid Top of The Pops watcher to truly get how great this song was when it came out. A sort of New Romantic pre-curser; so atmospheric and memorable. Who could forget the video where various Bowie weirdoes do that strange dance in front of a digger? The first contemporaneous Bowie song I remember. Hitting Number 1 can't have hurt!

Under Pressure (1981) - Queen and David Bowie

Two artists at the top of their game. A strange collaboration, an amazing, different, beautiful song. Pop mastery from two greats. I remember it being shiny and special when it came out. Not run of the mill. A collaboration that worked and pushed forward pop.  Not equalled until Vanilla Ice nicked the riff ten years later (only joking). 

Heroes (1978)

Embarrassingly, I didn't know this one until The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 (which is weird as I watched Live Aid and he did it there). This is one that grows on me more and more and more. I remember blubbing when the UK team marched out to this tune in 2012 at the start of the Olympics. "We can be heroes" is the cry of the disenfranchised, the bored, the underachieving. Just for one day. We can be heroes. And that one sustained note on the guitar. Genius!

Velvet Goldmine (1971)

Now we get to real Bowie appreciation! This was on the b side of the Space Oddity re-release (1975) along with Changes. I used to play this a great deal in my teens. Strangely I dug the sound of this song - not the lyrics. To me it suggested doomed 4th century Cataphracts riding out into Parthia to defend the late Roman Empire. You must remember that at the time I was listening to this I was reading a lot of Roman history. Never underestimate the porous nature of children/teens! To me it still suggests epic but proud failure.

Ziggy Stardust (1972)

Come on! What guitarist has not played this Mick Ronson riff? I think along with Queen's Greatest Hits, this was the sound of our common room. Bowie commands the form, commands the medium; this is 'God given' in it's simplicity and brilliance. I could have picked Rebel Rebel or Jean Genie for guitar riffs also but this one is one that I remember as being 'cool' in the 6th form. And if it was cool then, then it it's cool forever. Remembering the days when me and Jerry would earnestly play through this - tablets handed down from the rock gods indeed.

RIP David.

Tim

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The Theft of Knowledge

Just like to say - thank you to whoever is the God of the internet or my website for losing my last, well researched epic of a post.

Seriously guys, thanks.

There was great stuff in there now denied to humanity and history. It's the missing gospel, Tacitus' lost annuls, the scrolls and wisdom flamed in the Great Fire of Alexandria's ancient library.

Whatever.

Okay, it was just some pissed up list about Christmas songs, but still.

Annoying.

Yeah.

Tim

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What else for a cold January night? Xmas music, of course!

Well - that's Xmas 2015 finished. Flushed away around the U bend of history. The tree is packed up, the lights stuffed in boxes, baubles awaiting their mid-year dropping and natural selection. My cat turns over and yawns. It rains.

But what I want to talk to you about - obviously being as it's January - is Xmas music. I know, Tim the contrarian strikes again. I could argue that I've had a month of listening and sifting my favourite Christmas songs but, I won't. I just like to swim against the tide. Nob.

Christmas music, can be divided into five categories. Yes, this is like, the law, so I will abide by the categorisation:

1. Carols
2. Hollywood type Christmas songs (roughly 40's to the 60's)
3. Cheesy Christmas pop songs (roughly 70's to the 90's)
4. Folky / ethnic type Christmas songs
5. Miscellaneous

I'll be posting the results of these hotly fought contests over the next few hours / days / whatever. An agog nation holds its collective breath.

Merry Christmas

Tim

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Archimedes' Arse

It's a well-known story that whilst the Sicilian/Greek mathematician Archimedes was taking a bath, he noticed the water level rose. Now, today that's like, doh!, of course, mate, but at the time, this was one of great discoveries of the Ancient Greek world. Up there with the kebab even. It founded what we amateur, but enthusiastic, mathematicians still like to call, The Archimedes Principle.

Now, me and Archimedes may not have much in common, but we both reached a revelation whilst we were sat in a bath. Well, in my case, some other bloke sat in a bath. Bitching about how cold the water was. Yeah, I know, I know - time out - this blog takes in an eclectic range of subjects but I seem to be straying towards the banal tonight, and yes, I may have reached the limit of your 'WTF is he on about' - o'metre....

But bear with me Robsonites (@Tim Robson 2015), this shaggy dog tale gets both more profound, and less. The prime mover behind this paradox, some bitching pensioner, discovered that when he bought a costly newly built house last month, the bath water was 'tepid'. Yeah, not hot. He rang in to shout about this. At the time I was doing some charity work for a local business, answering their phone and helping people with housing needs (all right, temping in a building warranties call centre, whatever). So, after some digging, some questioning, some reflection, I found the cause of my caller's ire lay within the sturdy confines of the 2010 Building Regulations (section G).

This unlovely piece of legislation - actually, that modern equivalent of totalitarianism - a Statutory Instrument - sets the delivery temperature of bath water at between 44-46C (plus or minus 2C). This is to stop pensioners burning their arses in hot water and moron parents scalding their babies. Laudable aims, I think you'll agree. But, as JS Mill wrote in On Liberty "You're having a fuckin' laugh, mate." (Can't remember the exact page so I'm kind of summarising a more complex argument about the balance between a paternalistic state and individual liberty. John would agree with my précis though, don't worry about that).

But anyway, like my good mate Archimedes, I came to a revelation and 'Eureka' moment in a bath. Sort of. So I've developed my own principle. A principle future historians will no doubt call, the Robson Principle. Here goes:-

The weight of regulation curtailing individual liberty and the free market is equal to the total mass of legislators, lobbyists, and pressure groups (collectively known as 'wankers') available to justify their existence by annoying everyone else with vexatious and irksome rules using stealthy subclauses and statutory instruments. Or some shit like that.

Okay some of the words may need tuning. And the sentiments. And the conclusion, but damn it!, I think I'm onto something. I strike a blow for freedom, justice and the soul of man. Sips pint. Or something. Whatever. Passes the time between cat feeding times.

Anyway, I've just pulled the trousers down on my new article on Linkedin which explores the same themes, albeit in a more business friendly fashion. You see I can do both high, and low and every gradation in between. 

It's a talent.

Maybe Archimedes' bath water was too hot. Hence him leaping out. Just a thought.

Cheers

Tim

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A Veneer of Success!

Do you remember my blogpost about how to write Dystopian Fiction? (July 12th) It was one of most viewed blogs (right up there with my thoughts on Autumn and how to cook beef ragu). Anyway, my thoughts must have meant something because the short story I submitted - A Veneer of Civilisation - has been placed and will be published in an anthology of like-minded stories next year.

Read all about it here. 

I'm getting regularly placed in competitions now. You should see what I'm working on at the moment! Sure-fire winners...

And there's a Xmas treat for this blog coming up next week!

Laters

Tim

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be

Increasingly I find myself drawn to the Bible. The King James Bible. Of course.

I'm not remotely religious if you define religion as believing in supernatural stories, impossible events, miracles, ridiculously tight social codes. The sublimation of self, or humanity, to an abstract idea. Or if you believe that your belief is superior to any other person's belief. We are all grubs poking around on a dirt ball. None of us know the answers. 

But some of us at least ask the questions.

Religion also discusses the great philosophical issues, the futilty of man's existence, how we should navigate living together as social beings. As a writer - though it might not seem so - I like to address big issues, confront existential questions. And more and more I find myself reaching for my battered copy of the King James Bible (or googling it online!).

Why?

1) It's a comfort, and a shock - to find that all the issues have been dealt with before, discussed before. As Ecclesiastes 1 has it, there is 'no new thing under the sun'. It also has some words to say about each generation forgetting the lessons learnt by the previous. It's humbling but reassuring to know that we all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors.

2) As a writer, I can see The King James Bible is a beautiful document. The phrasing and quality of writing is top notch. I find myself marvelling at its ability to be at once profound but also carefully constructed so it could be read aloud. It's in the cadences, its in the repetitions, its in the well chosen words where the artistry lies. And it was deliberately made so. 

3) As we live in a multi cultural society - and we do - then I find myself drawn towards investigating my own culture. The invisible thread that runs through England, the Anglo-sphere, through our history, is laid bare in the King James Bible. My ancestors would have known its words, understood its allusions, recited its parables, sought comfort and strength in its words.

To find wisdom. To write better. To understand better my own culture. 

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

And who would disagree?

Laters, my flock

Tim

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Not in My Name

This blog doesn't usually stray into geo-political insights. In fact it's a refuge against it. So much of political discourse today I find ill-informed and shallow, reduced to sound-bites and twitter lines to take. Great issues - immensely complex and accompanied by history hardly anyone bothers to understand - are dealt with in primary colours, simplified and glossed over.

But as I get older, and maybe this is the way of things, I can't see a war I support. I become less gung-ho and spot shallowness and bluster in arguments to blow fellow human beings to smithereens. I suppose the last couple of decades has shown the limits and problems with Western interventionism - civil wars, lawlessness, religious maniacs, a tide of immigration.

So as Parliament debates today the motion to commit British forces (air & logistics & surveillance) to Syria, I can only say, 'Not in my name'. It's an uncertain trumpet, an instinctive pull rather than a factual push, but when you're unsure, killing (and that is what bombing is however precision) is never the answer. The iron law invoked appears to be the law of unintended - and seldom good - consequences.

Of course, I'm an armchair general, my voice carries no weight nor interest from others, I have no palatable solutions to stop the spread of militant Islam, but the rush to war leaves me cold.

Tim

This Week's Hot Hits!

I'm back with some picks from my current playlist. Turn them up - especially the last!

Flares and Manchester!

Stone Roses - I Am The Resurrection

Manchester swagger. Ian Brown schooling Liam Gallagher. Epic guitars, epic bass, powerful drums. Epic Length. Flares. Daft hats. John Squire, Mani, Reni cooking up a storm. Ian Brown singing in tune. So good they don't even bother going for the chorus until two verses have passed and then the song goes into a four minute axe-led instrumental that is anything but guitar-wank. The dog's bollocks of the indie scene; it's vastness, virtuousity, and Manc cockiness always gets men of a certain age onto the dance-floor. Tim coughs and moves on.

Pele and Bobby Moore Swap Shirts 1970 Award

I Think I Love You - The Partridge Family

Like a shadow at the edge of town, a half-forgotten dream, this song dances on the far horizon of my earliest memories. David Cassidy was hip when I was young (along with the Osmonds, T-Rex, David Essex). He may have been a pretty boy in a hit TV series cashing in with a pop career, but, by god, it's a whacky song, weird and episodic, with a kick-ass chorus. A true pop classic.

Obligatory Stones Live Track!

Midnight Rambler - Live at Leeds 1971 (Sticky Fingers Special Edition)

Keef whacks a foot thru his amp, and stomps his way - in a dirty-blues fashion - through this Let It Bleed epic. Add Jagger giving a shit on his vocalisations, playing a blues harp like a blind cotton picker on double time. Chuck in Mick Taylor - the most under-rated of the cohort of great British blues guitarists - adding dextrous licks like a bastard. Yeah it's 13 minutes long but put it on when you walk the dog, when you're at the gym, when you're cooking; when you're trying to explain to your kids just what the hell rock music is about. The Stones at their best. The Greatest Rock n Roll Band in the world, indeed.

1966 or 2012 Award

The Noisettes - That Girl

How this song wasn't written, recorded in the 60's and then discovered a couple of years ago, I don't know. Unbelievable nostalgia bait it may be, but I love the retro feel, the boy and girl harmony, the impeccable taste, the aching hip vibe. 2012 FFS. Why aren't this group more famous? Took me ages to track this down. A party track.

Incongruous but Special Award

The Carpenters - Goodbye To Love

The Carpenters invent soft-rock, the power ballad! Typically gorgeous Carpenters song, sad, touching, well orchesterated. Karen's aching beautiful vocals. Richard's perfect arrangement. And then. And then. Tony Peluso fucks it all up with the guitar solo handed down from the rock gods themselves - heavy, fuzz toned, did-you-spill-my-pint hardness, providing the perfect foil to the Carpenters middle of the road class. It shouldn't work but it kicks ass! A fusion that, Rousseau-like, pushes human progress towards something better. A song that just pisses on all imitators that followed. Long Live Tony! Long Live Karen!

But for now this is my song. And it's goodbye to love.

Laters

DJ Tim

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I Am the Resurrection.

"I was saying something. Oh yes. Maria and English literature. We argue about its relevance, English Lit. As an academic subject as opposed to a leisure activity. I write, she reads. I read, she deconstructs. What annoys me is the way they (as in ‘They’ – those buggers who populate an ill informed argument. Yes, ‘Them’.) er, yes, the way they take something that's for everyone and raise it above the heads of the people for whom it was originally meant. Alienation I believe it’s called. Yes, you can see I’m better read than I let on. However, it's all bollocks, your honour." 

Tim Robson - Neil Diamond's Beard (early 90's)

 

I've been reading some of my stuff from the early 90's. The superbly titled unpublished novel - Neil Diamond's Beard. Was it any good? Was I a literary enfant terrible tearing up Brighton in my 20's? It's an attractive image but I'm perhaps not best placed to answer. However, what I would say is that lifting the lid on your younger self is sometimes a wondrous thing, sometimes a shocking thing. You forget so much, the passage of time smooths the edges off the anger, laughingly points out your conceits and can make a mockery of your juvenile attempts at a deeper truth, a coherent worldview.

But - and it is a big but - there's a vibrancy in the writing, no doubt about that. I know my brain had then been captured by Martin Amis, Jack Kerouac, by a cinéma vérité confessional style that confused reality for readability, and yet... It's a two fisted brawl of a novel, no punches left in the locker, no attitude unexplored. There's also a willingness to be honest and truthful which, however polished and skilled my writing has now become, and however much the self-edit red pen excises the wilder prose, I still endeavour to retain. Not for me plastic emotions and gossamer thin characterisations. It's all, or it is nothing.

So - what are the major differences I notice in my writings of the early 90's?

1) Smoking in pubs and restaurants (see picture above, Aug 1989). It seems like ancient history now. How we all accepted cigarettes in an indoor environment. How every table had an ashtray. How your clothes and hair would stink when you got home. Strangely I miss it - but only as a sensory shortcut to my youth, not as a going concern.

2) Lack of mobile phones. How the hell did we communicate back in the day? I seem to remember a lot of confusion and hanging around and detailed planning. Now we all just go out and kind of navigate to each other when we feel appropriate. Our 2015 ability to track each other would have been perceived as phenomenal, and perhaps sinister, in those pre mobile phone days. Conversations were more intense however without a constant distraction bleeping on the table, calling you to wonders elsewhere.

3) Political correctness. Strangely I found this worked both ways - both more and less at the same time. This was Brighton at the dawn of the 90's, not a Northern working men's club in the 70's. But some casual incorrectness creeps in. Words, phrases that I would be uncomfortable to use these days pepper the narrative. But perhaps that was youth. There's also a suspicion of the corrosive chilling effect of thought-crime in the writing. PC was both stronger but less prevalent. The war hadn't been won so the PC army wore combat fatigues.

4) How my world-view had more passion but less depth. An assertion is not an argument. Experience moderates the fires of youth. There's nothing like reality to piss on a dreamer's parade. Certainty is the preserve of youth.

5) I'm a better writer now. Fact. The work is littered with errors and stylistic howlers that poke the reader in the eye. I wouldn't publish what I wrote back then. There again, a decent and sympathetic editor (like me 25 years later) would have done wonders. 

6) Despite that, I am very definitely - and distinctly - me. The themes, patterns, style, worldview are there, in infant form perhaps, but there nonetheless. It's reassuring isn't it, that stripping away temporary conventions and fashions, forgiving naivety, lack of experience, undeveloped skill, your voice and passions remain constant.

And rather frightening too.

Cheers,

Tim

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Robson takes the silver!

A pot of freshly brewed coffee. A bowl of crispy Cornflakes. A fed cat. Happy kids watching age inappropriate TV shows. Country music on the radio. A trip to Chessington in the offing.

Surveying my little empire this morning, the Gates of Janus are briefly shutted.

Came second in a flash fiction writing contest last night. Fear not though, executive recruiters, I won't be quitting the corporate world just yet. I'm going to donate my winnings to, er, well, the ice cream maker my kids have an eye on.

In my left hand is rock, in my right, roll.

Read my stylised effort, The Earnest Conversation, here. 

Many thanks to Michael over at the Cult of Me.

Cheers ears

Tim

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What's In A Name?

I've been writing short stories. Profound, aching, searching for empathetic truisms short stories. The sort that make brave men cry and women smile that there are males who so understand the human condition.

Puppies weep, kittens frolic and I hit the 'bollocks' button by mistake.

Anyway - titles. Here are some I've been using recently. 

• The Song of Vivien
• The Twenty-Pound Note
• In Between Days
• The Four Twelves

I debated calling one Karen Carpenter's Last Meal but decided against it as it was offensive and I'm a closet Carpenters fan (Goodbye to Love has to be best power ballad, ever).

Whether these will be the Wuthering Heights, Trumpet Major, Old Geriot of the later 21st Century I'll leave for posterity to decide. Personally though, my writing has now reached heights unknown since I drunkenly penned a Martin Amis parody in 1993 and won £500 quid for my troubles. A future blogpost perhaps? Maybe. My public need to understand I wasn't always pressed against the glass watching the dance from without.

Off to buy some cat litter bags.

Tim

* Do you like the photo of a younger Tim, buff and hirsute, standing next to Oscar Wilde's tomb in Paris? 

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German Companies

One day I write about The Beatles, the next about EU regulation. I muse about the coming autumn and discuss the influence of childhood on memory and the way we live our subsequent lives. I have what is sometimes called ' depth', a hinterland that takes me on a ceaseless, maniacal search for truth wherever it may lead. It's a painful journey, a search for the soul in these Godless times, but that's who I am. It is the scrap of ground I claim as being mine and 'on ne passe pas' as we say in this corner of the early twentieth century.

Whatever dude. What is today's ramble about?

Well, to show the integrated social media marketing drive for which I'm famous, I'd like to talk about German companies. About how families set up a company, have a row and then sporn two further ones. For example, Merck and Merck, Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud, ADIDAS and PUMA. It's a fascinating subject and one that I explore in depth over at LinkedIn.

The untold story behind my omnipotent business writing is the suppositions that fail. I'm happy to pull back the curtain here and reveal some of my false premises. Like Aldi and and Lidl being related (they're not). About Kelloggs and MW Kelloggs being related (they're laughable not). About Rolls Royce cars and engines being related (they are but - hey! - who cares).

So - if you get chance - read my article on German family companies. It's a rollercoaster of a ride, a read on the wild side, a clinking Wunderbar of an article that will one day be collected into an anthology and taught at business school - or normal school even - The Collected Wisdom of Tim Robson, Part 1 - The Wilderness Years.

And on that note (Bb) I'll sign off.

Tim 

The Falling Leaves...

And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither with the wind
And they crumble in your hand           

Autumn is the season of endings where summer tapers into nothing, leaves fall, nights draw in and the promise of Spring lays cold in the ground. It's the end of flowers and heat and late nights, no more smells of new mown grass, double edged roses and charcoal.

And yet, I always see Autumn as a beginning. The beginning of a new term, a new year, new friends. A countdown to Christmas and parties and frivolity. Bonfire night (never Halloween) and frosty morning walks around lakes flanked by bejewelled trees of yellow and orange.

Many of my new beginnings - and there have been many - have taken place in Autumn. Some of the most vivid memories come accompanied by a soundtrack of fallen leaves, with falling temperatures and dark nights. I remember a stormy day in Brighton, so many years ago where the wind blew and the rain fell... But no, I won't go there. Not now.

So, I'll leave you with a cheer for the coming Autumn and a wish that great things, memorable things, unusual things, happen to you. As I wish it for myself.

Autumn; life's new term.

Reflectively, and yet optimistically,

Tim

* The quote is 'Leaves That Are Green' by Paul Simon

I love points. I am a robot.

I like to think I'm rational when I shop. When I buy things I have an internal nexus that weighs up price, quality and convenience. But also included in the mix, at a secondary level, is any potential loyalty points / rewards I can gather in the transaction.

Reward points should not trump price, quality or convenience but all things being equal, a loyalty scheme can influence purchasing decisions. Let me give you an example:-

I live near to a Tesco supermarket and so for convenience and price, I often shop there. Therefore not only does it makes sense to have a Tesco Clubcard but also a Tesco MasterCard which doubles up my Clubcard points. My rewards behaviour is subsidiary to my primary motivation - location and price - but as I have made a decision, it would be stupid not to maximise my rewards for each transaction.

The rationale is, if you are going to shop somewhere always maximise your ability to earn rewards. For this reason, I tend not to use cash as cash will never bring me the rewards that paying by a credit card will. Obviously, you have to settle your bill every month to realise the benefits, but, so long as you do, the following proposition works:

In each transaction try to be rewarded in some way. If possible twice.

Looking through my wallet I see I have twelve cards that offer rewards. Clearly I'm serious about this! (Love the picture Tim, BTW. Thanks Tim.)

The other side of the equation is that the benefits need to be realisable. In the case of my primary duo (Tesco Clubcard and Tesco MasterCard) they certainly are. Free cinema tickets, free family days out in Chessington, travel to France. All have been paid for by Clubcard points. Again, as I was going to make the transactions that funded these freebies anyway, it would be sub-optimal not to take advantage.

So far, so perfect market / rational consumer. I am a robot. But, two things occur to me:

1) The recent EU regulation on capping interchange levels. This will have the effect of lessening the number of linked rewards points you will get from your MasterCard / Visa loyalty schemes. For a scholarly, and yet accessible, article I wrote on this subject, look here.

2) An app/device that can convert random stray points on underused loyalty schemes to a consumer's preferred scheme... Well, that would be next level for the rational consumer. That way I could move my tiny allocation of Shell Drivers Club points or BA Miles, over to, wait for it, Tesco Clubcard Points (or Beefeater Grill!). I know there has been rumours of this sort of scheme but as yet I've not seen a decent prototype...

And so friends, get rational. Suck eggs.

PS, I like to dance too.

Tim

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Number 11 is better than Number 1

Someone asked me what my writing strategy is the other day. "Scattergun," was my response.

However, I have been entering short story competitions fairly regularly. Usually I enter the day before the deadline and frantically push myself to knock stories into shape (usually editing down). I find the pressure concentrates the mind and sharpens the pen.

I'm pleased to say my (excellent) story 'In Between Days' was placed in the top 32 of the 'To Hull and Back' competition. Added to this I was in the Top 11 of the Ifanca Helene James Short Story Competition.

Obviously winning is an over-rated concept, man! Top 32 - it doesn't get better than that!

More news from the literary front line soon. Has anyone bought my book recently? I hear it's really cheap these days! Christmas is coming. Just saying'.

Cheers

Tim

* The ruined gatehouse at Bramber Castle subtly suggests a more honest aspiration.

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