An Interview With Tim Robson

Tell us something about Tim Robson.
Tim is six foot, attractive, loads of hair. Girls tend to be drawn to his looks but then back off when they realise he has no depth. He’s lost many girlfriends to this short, bald guy who follows him around cracking intellectual jokes.

When and why did you start writing stories?
The 70’s. To get girls.

How would you describe your writing style?
Better than it was last year. Not as good as next year.

Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from?
Overachievement.

What is your favourite time for writing?
When the bar is open. Your round?

Where is your favourite location for writing and why?
See the answer above. I live it, man.

What other writing do you do – non-fiction, poetry, etc?
Abusive comments on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

What is your earliest memory of writing a story?
Seven

Are you someone who plans their writing in detail or do you just launch into an idea and see where it goes?
Preplanners should be rounded up and placed against a wall. And have their fucking research thrown at them. Write with total freedom. But edit like a Nazi.

People say you should only write about what you know. What is your view on this?
Right wing.

Writing can be a lonely occupation or hobby. What is your advice for coping with this?
Masturbation.

It’s said that in the future everyone will be published but no one will be read. What is your view on this statement?
I would like to introduce whoever said it to my good friend, Mr Baseball Bat.

How do you cope when your writing is ignored or rejected?
I blog. My stuff tends to be accepted.

Do you ever experience writer’s block? How do you overcome this?
Life is far too interesting for there to be a white page in your mind. Walk, look, observe. Sit in a bar and listen. Walk the streets. Look at each thing and ask wherein lies its story, its value. It’s purpose.

What do your friends and family think of your writing?
Little.

Who is your favourite author and what is it that really strikes you about their writing?
Balzac, Hardy, 80’s Amis, Iain Banks, On The Road, French Lieutenant’s woman. Hank Moodie. Anything by Tim Robson.

What has been your proudest moment so far with your writing?

The first cheque. 1994. £500 quid. Paid my council tax FFS.

What do you hope to achieve in the future with your writing?
World domination. Money. Multiple attractive sexual partners in various combinations. The Freedom of the City of Rochdale.

If you had to give one piece of advice to a novice writer, what would it be?
F*** Off.

Tim's Blog RSS

Beneath the Veneer, The Past Appears

Hiding for years behind an advertising board, this older pre-war painted advert for a long dead company appears like a tidal island on a house on Wandsworth Road. The board that obscured it for so long also protected it and kept its colours fresh.

(Underneath the current modern advertisement board there's another old style ad peaking out for the same company.)

An amazing find. Am I alone in finding these things fascinating?

Tim's Blog RSS

The Lavender Hill Mob

To supplement my earnings as a writer (cue laughter).... What? I don't make millions from my scribblings? Sadly no. Anyway, to supplement my earnings as a writer, I started working for a great, small company a couple of months ago. It's based on Wandsworth Road, London, just beyond Lavender Hill and close to Clapham Old Town / Common. Which means, I'm commuting again. 

(Should I write a blog post about the frustrations of being a commuter, the appalling manners and habits of my fellow passengers? Maybe - right after I finish this novel I'm writing about a boy wizard in a school for magic, who has a dark past...)

My walk to and from work takes me past the Grade 2 listed Battersea Arts Centre. Formerly Battersea's town hall before absorption into Wandsworth, it's a beautiful late Victorian building. It's currently undergoing a renovation. I know this because the outside steps and pavement are being revamped as I write - beautiful slabs of stone awaiting to be laid. They're not doing it on the cheap. It's good this piece of heritage is in such good hands.

The restoration work going on April 2016

Anyway, it is my custom to stop here as I await my evening train and write the odd blog post (hello world!), pen hackneyed poetry - my new thing - or tweak a short story. The bar is a great space - the vibe of an old school refectory hall with parquet floor, mismatched furniture and flickering candles. I can people-watch the pre-theatre crowd as they tweak their beards or polish their nose rings. 

Actually it's a bit more broad based than that (well, not much to be fair) but the clientele are a merry bunch, like the bar staff. A simple menu of rustic burgers (beef/jerk chicken/ pan fried humus or some shit like that) and sharing plates tempt the hungry writer... The plays my hipster friends are here to see however, all seem to be absolute leftie bollox - unchallenged, lazy victimhood-claiming rants spewed out to an unthinking Guardian reading audience. Perhaps I should go along! Or put my nob in a blender. Choices. Choices.

Amusingly, the beard who's sharing my table with his - not unattractive  - date, is seriously over-reaching. He's wanking on about some Time-Out review of tonight's opus about whales (called Wails). Aside - I wonder if I could get a whale steak here? Probably not. Anyway - he's earnest in his denunciation of those global capitalistic, UKIP supporting whalers who are triggering the safe spaces of tuna or bearded twats or something. Blah Blah Blah. Probably Donald Trump's fault.  Anyway, this seems to be working with his date who's nodding her head at his sage bon mots. Maybe I should update my routine, no?

Anyway - the wail of the curtain going up has moved my good friends from the table and I'm now alone penning sundry character assassinations. But - and this is the bit I want to leave you with - you can never close off a place, or shut out people just because you don't agree with them. I laugh at them and poke fun at them in a public forum because I live in land where to do so is part of our culture and I'm free to do so. And hideous lefties that they undoubtably are, what I share with them is SO much more than what I disagree with them about.

Everything is permitted in the UK unless banned. Other cultures and countries give you licence to do certain things. Think about it. There's a world of difference.

But I'm happy to be here in the lovely confines of Battersea Arts Centre and I'm glad even the lefties will have a good night with their righteousness to keep them warm. I think my earnest friend may well have something else to keep him warm!

Tim's Blog RSS

1993 seems to have been a good year...

I was halfway through a blogpost on great gigs from history that I didn’t go to but wish I had. But I ran out of steam chugging through some old familiars - Elvis, Beatles, Stones. Yeah, yeah yeah. Whatever granddad. I've saved the draft so it will doubtless appear on these pages one spring morn when I'm short of ideas about urban architecture or obscure ancient philosophy.

I decided a more interesting, truthful and insightful article might be to record some decent gigs I actually did see. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, I lived once and have the stolen set-lists to prove it! Whilst Taylor Swift puts on a helluva show, and Sam Smith has a high voice, I have been in the mosh pit a few times in the past and have worn the spilt lager with pride. So let's sift the memory for musical gold and share some nuggets with you.

Teenage Fanclub / Julianna Hatfield Trio - Brighton Event 1993

The Fannies were touring their album Thirteen which, although containing the classic homage to the late great Gene Clark - called imaginatively 'Gene Clark' - was a bit shit and a let down after Bandwagonesque. But they're good live and played The Concept and Everything Flows and were generally loose and in what you could term 'high spirits'. What was a revelation however was the undercard, Julianna Hatfield. I knew her not before that cold night on Brighton seafront. She was great! I've been a fan ever since. The Trio was loud, heavy and just right in those dancing days of grunge before Kurt chewed on a shotgun and blasted us into Britpop. And she played one of my - now - all time favourites - I Got No Idols (guitar version). So, a special night all round. Not sure I got laid later on but it feels like I did. In my memory.

Probably didn't though.

Rod Stewart - Hyde Park 2011

Always loved Mr Stewart but bollox'd on free corporate VIP booze I farkin' luv'd the Rod! Ronnie Wood was there, Stevie Nicks did that floaty thing, Adam Ant reminded us it was an awfully long time ago since he was famous. I was around the back in the VIP area, artfully smoking cafe cremes and drinking Gin and Tonics, laconically watching the backstage live video monitor and soaking up the atmosphere of a corporate fat cat. Then, before I knew it, I was mingling with the plebs in the crowd yelling my head off with Rod for 90 minutes. I remember a phone message I left someone from the gig - hoarse, drunken, shouting along to Sailing or Baby Jane or Hot Legs... Happy Times.

Lisa Stansfield and Blue Zone - Rochdale Football Club 1986

Musically, a bit of a bore, frankly. I was there because I did Classical Studies with Lisa's then musical, and now real-life, partner Ian Devaney. I knew Lisa from years before when we were both in the school play together. Oh the stories I could tell! But on that night I was not there for the music (not really my scene). No, young be-mulleted Tim was mainly trying to chat up girls from my sixth form. I was about as successful at this as Blue Zone was storming the charts. But I remember Lisa providing me with a live personal soundtrack as I cranked out those mid-80s chat up lines to young girls with big hair and shoulder pads. 

Blur – Reading Festival 1993

This has gone down in history as the day Blur re-invented themselves and played a storming set on the second stage that ushered in Britpop. Yes, they did premier quite a bit of Parklife and yes they played most of my personal favourite, Modern Life is Rubbish. I hate festivals usually so what the hell was I doing there? Wish I knew. Glad I did but no idea.  In retrospect the music at the festival was mainly shit – the headliners were The The FFS – so you can see why Blur caused all those writers of NME to mythologise their set as year zero for a British fightback. Seen Blur many times before and since but this was the best gig I have ever seen them play. Interestingly enough, Radiohead were on before Blur and I probably saw them for a couple of minutes dashing back from Eddie Izzard. But who knows - they were shit in those days.

More tales from 1993 (and other years) another time. Won;t be talking about my experiences watching New Model Army, Dr and The Medics, Tanita Takarum, Sleeper, Alexander O'Neil (why oh why oh why)....

Laters, potatas

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS

Maybe, Maybe, Maple Ladies...

It was only recently that I realised that a great many of the female singers of my favourite songs were all from Canada. I've spoken in the past about my conversion, slowly like Constantine and Christianity, towards female music. It was a process that could never be pinned down to a specific date but, as in The Battles of The Milvian Bridge or Frigidus, it's only later that the real significance can be discerned (or imputed retrospectively).

Canada has produced some pretty damn fine female singers. Let's take them in chronological order, as they appeared to me, shall we? And give them a song each.

Alanis Morrisette - Head over Heels

Anyone who doesn't like Jagged Little Pill (1995) is a fucking idiot. There aren't many perfect albums out there. The odd Beatles long player, Astral Weeks - Van Morrison, Achtung Baby - U2, The Byrds first album, but Alanis delivers HUGH on her third album. It's funny, provocative, and the music is as tight as it gets. I picked Head Over Heels because I think it's the most complete song on the album, musically and lyrically. It's optimistic and happy, a honeymoon period song. The sort of song you'd always hope someone would write about you before they find you out.

It was, of course, the high water mark of Alanis. A bat-shit crazy hippy, she'd delivered her one stab at posterity before disappearing up her own backside. She's still there allowing her to hand over to her fellow compatriots...

Celine Dion - Think Twice (1994)

Okay, so she's like your mum and hogs the middle of the road like some corporate VP asked to comment on anything controversial at a staff meeting. And seriously, what was the point of General Wolfe dying folks? Vous avez un fucking rire. True but no one denies that the girl can sing and sometimes, given serendipity and the right song, she's queen of the last dance, erection section. I always liked 'Falling into You' which is dreamy and fluid, and shows off Celine's beautiful tone. But recently I've been drawn towards Think Twice. She floats in this song, serenely sailing towards the island of beautiful melodies, thousands of waving lighters marking the way. Noodling heavy guitar and treated drum 90's beats, provide the requisite soft-rock back drop to this classic. And that high sustained note! You go girl!

Fun fact; Think Twice was written by British song writer Andy Hill, who, if he did nothing else, is famous for writing all my favourite Bucks Fizz songs including the 80's pop masterwork that is Piece of the Action.

Well I know it sounds funny but I don't wanna be in love // I just want a piece of the action.

Another unsung British hero.

Shania Twain - You're Still The One

I had a view about Shania Twain for years - namely that she was sexy and sassy and the singer of comedy lightweight country songs that had punning titles - step forward, Man, I Feel Like A Woman. And then I came across this song. A totally different vein. There's a vulnerability about her voice, it sounds raw, late night, cracked; honest. No jokes, no routines, just a sincere acoustic strum you could image down The Bluebird Cafe (yes, I watch Nashville). I love the backing vocals and the way they anticipate Shania's lead on the chorus by half a bar - "You're still the one..." The tune is special but the way she delivers it. Man, I Feel That Woman's Power.

Shania's got a very devoted fanbase and reading their comments about the behaviour of her erstwhile husband, Mutt Lange, who's the subject of this song, is instructive. Apparently Mutt thought it good idea to cheat on the beautiful Shania with her best friend. Classy mate. Real classy. I guess Mutt's no longer the one.

Avril Lavigne - Take Me Away

She's like so, whatever // And you could do so much better

Sure she's a brat and - like Pink - if her lyrics are anything like her real personality, she's probably really hard to be with... But. But. I love her shouty grungy guitar driven sound, even if she is, in her own words 'A motherfucking princess'. I first got into Avril around 2003, about the same time as Lucie Silvas. I'd play her album 'Let Go' constantly - getting down to Sk8ter Boi, Complicated, chuckling to the smut of Things I'll Never Say. But the apogee of Avril, for me, was her second album, Under My Skin, where the guitars are ramped up to eleven, the vocals still crystal clear, the harmonies challenging, not smooth. This is RAWK album, sung by a teenage girl backed by some severe amplification. Hell yeah! I could pick any of the songs on this album - Together, Forgotten, My Happy Ending - but Take Me Away is probably the most representative - borrowing grunge trick number 1 (this is the quiet bit / this is the loud bit), angsty lyrics, great singing, great harmonies.

I can't handle this confusion / I'm unable... // Come and take me away,

Footnote to the Avril story. My girls have graduated a little away from Taylor Swift and into shouty arms of Avril. I'm cool with that. I'm down with the kids, yeah. I was there first! Now I just await their conversion into Beatles fans. Elvis fans. Stones fans. I'll save The Smiths for myself!

Tim's Blog RSS

Competitions Update

It's an exciting time.

Apocalypse Tales - After The Fall is now out in Kindle and will be out in paperback on Amazon 31st March.

Check out this

You gotta love the scarf action and the 'I'm not looking at the camera' selfie pose. Humble and yet assured.

Well in that vein - my latest literary success was announced this week. I came third in another competition this time with my story 'The Twenty Pound Note'. I'll post a link once I've penned my author profile and selected the appropriate 'hello ladies!' picture. It is, after all, a calling card for my brand. I'll have to work on those brand values.

And it's sunny. And the magnolia trees are coming into bloom.

- On the lash in Brighton tonight.

Both high, and low.

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS

Classical Britain

My British soundtrack... 

Let's start with classical first. I'll return to rock, pop and folk later... I'm not exactly breaking any barriers with my selections here. They are all rather safe and well known. But, that doesn't stop them from being damn fine tunes and each in their own way, evocative of Britain. 

Elgar - Nimrod, from the Enigma Variations

Majestic and stately, respectful and slow to anger but shaking the earth with its wrath when roused, Nimrod is England in musical form. Or at least, my England. A lot of people go with Pomp and Circumstance as the patriotic high point of Elgar and I agree that Land of Hope and Glory is a perfect, end of the proms, flag waving, ditty. But Nimrod... Swelling is the description I would go with. Building and building until it's power dominates the room but then, fading just as swiftly as it has come. Along with Vivaldi's Winter (Largo) this is one of two essential classical pieces for me. And to me - it is England - not boastful nor proud but solid, right and beautiful. 

Parry / Blake - Jerusalem

There's a recording of me and my mate Stephen singing this in 1986 accompanied by my drunken Casio keyboard playing (with clap-clap drumbeat). Not my greatest recording ever. I only say this as an illustration that it's always been a favourite of mine. Based on a poem by William Blake (written whilst in West Sussex - green and pleasant land, indeed), the musical setting was provided by Hubert Parry in 1916. Rightly Jerusalem has come back recently as an anthem for everyone (the Suffragettes used to use it with Parry's permission) and not just the Tory Party. If England needs a national anthem, this is it. 

And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England's mountains green

Anonymous (but let's go with the Vaughn Williams setting) - Greensleeves

One from Tim's Desert Island Discs circa 1975. Who could not like this medieval song from the 16th century? Probably not written by Henry VIII, it is nethertheless a window into Tudor times when so much of our national story was forged (Church of England, the break with Rome, religious tolerance, Shakespeare, the first colonies, a powerful queen, the successful defence of the realm by the nascent royal navy). I particularly like the interpretation of the lyrics that suggests that the Lady Greensleeves was a whore because whores' dresses were green from lying in the grass so much! No, let's give the lady a little more class than that, shall we?  I like the Vaughn Williams orchestral fantasia version because it seemed to summarise Merrie Olde England as characterised by, say, the Carry On Films. There's something very English about the tune and something very post-war about the WIlliams' setting (even if he did write it in the 30's).

Yeah, I know. All three are very English. Sorry about that Celtic fringes. Occasionally England needs to be heard too!

Tim's Blog RSS

God-like power

One of my passions is urban architecture and how cities change over time.

I’ll explain.

Take a large corporate plc with many employees. Staff come and staff go. There is no such thing as ‘the staff’ over any period of time. There can only ever be a snapshot of employees at any given moment.

As Pocahontas said – I paraphrase – you never can put your hand in the same river as, it is always flowing, always different. Yes, the wisdom of Disney.

It is the same with urban architecture. It is always changing and the only thing that tricks us into thinking it is not is the fact that bricks and mortar typically change more slowly than humans (or rivers) and so we don’t see it.

I first became interested in this subject when I was eleven. I used to walk through a housing estate on my way to school and every day for months I passed a house -  a house where a rather large extension was being built. Day after day, I would trudge past with my briefcase and French horn and for a few months, this state of incompleteness was my experience of this house and this journey. Now, of course, the extension has been built for thirty odd years and has taken on a look of permanence. But I remember a time when it wasn’t there and a time when it was incomplete. My ‘snapshot’ is different to most.

This little experience gave me a love and interest in the urban built environment. Hey - it’s better than watching football or soaps! Old pictures of Rochdale, Brighton or London, for example, excite my interest. I found a picture once of the Houses of Parliament being built in the 1850’s with Big Ben only partially constructed. How the Londoners must have marvelled and how that incomplete tower must have been their reality for months, if not years. History literally in the making.

So urban architecture in transition is always of interest to me and if I see something being built or changed I try to snap a picture and record that moment of transition between one solid state and another. Capture the ephemeral nature of the built environment.

Unsurprisingly given the above, I did a master’s degree in portfolio management in the 90’s and, as part of it, authored many theoretical projects to develop the South London and Brighton built environment. This was an interesting period – right after the property crash of the early 90’s – and there were many underused or derelict sites lying undeveloped, in places we would now see as property hotspots.

I especially remember the site at the bottom of Edward Street opposite The Royal Pavilion in Brighton. It had been a derelict shell for years with a short term use as a temporary car park. My limited proposal was to build a hall of residence for the polytechnic as you couldn’t give away flats in those days. But what’s most interesting now to remember, is the fact that this site – right in the heart of historic Brighton – lay abandoned for years. Hard to imagine now, but cities ebb and flow with the years; we, who live in them, just don’t recognise this.

An interesting aside to this period in my life was that I was in charge of real estate for American Express Corporate Travel - the division with the largest portfolio of space in the UK. When the lease of the HQ building in the Haymarket ran out, I was tasked with acquiring the replacement. And I found it by walking around the then unfashionable district of Southwark - south of Blackfriars Bridge. This was the real old London experience where you could still imagine the Ripper wielding his knife on unsuspecting late night revellers unwisely walking through the narrow streets of tall warehouses.

I acquired a building on Blackfriars Road that was – in Amex terms – incredibly cheap. At that point the Jubilee Line extension hadn’t been completed and Southwark tube station – just yards from my building – wasn’t yet complete, let alone open. Today the area, with great tube links, is a thriving commercial part of London but when I was in the market, it was a backwater, and - as some eminent real estate professor at my university told me like the perennial late night black cab driver - no-one wants to go South of the River!

So when I walk past ‘my’ building these days, I experience several emotions. Firstly, pride in my accomplishment, of course. Reflections about how my decision influenced hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. About how I changed their lives permanently. Oh the power! Yes, the beginnings of my nascent God complex… But what I really remember - as I walk around - is my first impressions of a central London area, next to the Thames, with no tube, no intrusive glass towers, that was covered in post war Corbusier inspired hideous concrete offices but also rather marvellous back street pubs filled with growling cockneys and cigarette smoke.

It’s not just buildings that change the character of cities!

Do know what? In that period, I couldn’t even give away offices in Argyll Street and New Bond Street. Can you imagine that? I’d go up and meet the agents who’d tell me how they couldn’t get rid of my space – opposite the Argyll Theatre, amongst all the high end fashion shops. That I’d have to lower the price and give rent free periods. Different days. Different times.

Different times.

More tales from the life urban and architectural soon.

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS

George Martin

Okay - The Clash had it right. "No Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones."

Because they're the big three, right? The Crassus, Caesar and Pompey of rock. And I agree. I remember being sad in 1977 at The King's death. I was fucking angry when Lennon was shot in 1980. I loved it when Travis performed a George Harrison tribute at The Brits in 2001 to kids too stupid, too gauche, to understand the death that had just happened.

And so George Martin passes away.

He would be famous for many things but his decision to sign The Beatles has to rank as one of the cleverest, smartest, most profitable decisions ever made. He auditioned the Beatles in June 1962. In March 1964 the Beatles were numbers 1-5 in America.

Let me just say that again in case any of you younger people don't get it.

In March 1964 The Beatles were numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 in the American charts. So fuck off any One DIrections out there. You are literally shit under McCartney's shoe. And John Lennon? Seriously ladies, go and get another tattoo and fuck the Queen of Chavs. Leave the music to George Martin and the Beatles. You are, quite simply, nothing.

Because behind The Beatles was always George Martin. The Beatles would still have been The Beatles without him (see She's Leaving Home and, shamefully those twats on Newsnight who highlighted The Long and Winding Road - a Phil Spectre orchestration)...  But in a million ways he pushed and facilitated The Fab Four.

- Can't But Me Love starts with the chorus because of him

- Sgt Pepper was all about George Martin

- He invented ADT (automatic Double Tracking)

- He scored Yesterday for strings 

- He made I Am Walrus the kick-ass proto-type Oasis it is

- He made Strawberry Fields Forever from pieces of Lennon brilliance.

- He came up with idea for Please Please Me - an album in a day. He also speeded the single up to give the Beatles their first hit.

- He does a mean rock n roll piano. Check out Rock N Roll Music - that's George rocking out on the ivories.

- He went independent from EMI in 1967 and so broke the monopoly of the record companies on how their artists sound

- A million, billion things large and small that created the greatest rock and pop group ever. My views on this are not sanguine, nor debatable. 

And on top of everything he was a genuine English gent who fought in the war, the sort we seem in short supply of these days - restrained, decent, modest and competent. A good bloke.

Sorry this is so inadequate George; you deserve much better from me.

RIP

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS

My book comes out on...

The good people at Almond Press tell me that Apocalypse Tales will be out on 31st March in both Kindle and paperback formats. Originally titled 'A Veneer of Civilisation by Tim Robson with some other stories by a bunch of randoms' I persuaded Almond to let the book be a celebration of those other writers too. No point me crowding out all the publicity and hype from the other guys whose stories I'm sure will be popular with my fans too. Hence, Apocalypse Tales.

You can view it on Amazon here... 

As the time comes towards publication, I'll be interviewing myself as I am, it is said, the only person who is my own equal.

Yeah.

Blogposts to come in March:

1) Interview with myself about the publication of A Veneer of Conversation.

2) An article exploring the pop goddesses that come out of Canada.

3) Why Brexit is the only solution for June 23rd.

4) When Nelson met Wellington. Sept 12th 1805.

5) A new series on living architecture. How we live amongst the past and yet ignore it or, worst, just don't see it.

A fun-packed month of literary highs, then. But when I'll get to write these, I don't know. My New Year's motto of never saying no to a social engagement is really kicking in now. I have four events to attend this week. That's about double the entire back half of 2015!

And the book comes out too.

Cheers

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS

Thank You

So the stats are in...

For the eighth straight month, this website and this blog, had a record breaking month in February.

More of you are reading my musings, more and more and increasing in numbers! The few is being added to.

Okay, so I get why. Where else would you get such an admixture of high and low art and culture, lessons in history and philosophy, commentary on the state of life today?

Answer, nowhere.

But, despite my god-like genius, I can still say 'thank you' to you, my loyal - and expanding - throng of readers...

Thank you!

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS

Me and George Galloway

I attended the Grassroots Out (GO) campaign meeting at the QE2 Centre in the heart of Westminster last night. The event - as shown on TV news bulletins and in the press - was packed to the rafters. Standing room only. As I attended on my own, I found a good single seat near the front and so could watch all the speakers with ease. Even take a couple of pictures and videos.

Most of the press attention seems to have focused not on Farage tearing it up but on George Galloway being the surprise mystery guest. A few self-indulgent journalists and political hacks have made subsequent fools of themselves by saying they walked out in protest. Hundreds, said the Telegraph. Well, as I say, I had a good seat and I didn't see this. It's the nature of these large events that people are constantly getting up and down, to the loo, and so that's what it appeared to me. 

I only found out about the 'mass' walkout later when I read about it. Which prompts me to ask, who makes history - those who were there or those who write it up? I guess we know the answer to this question. Hence my blogpost.

For what it's worth, Galloway made a rousing speech that won over his audience. He was probably conscious that although GO is an ecumenical, all-party leave group, the audience in the room would comprise mainly of Kippers and old-fashioned Tories. It's a trope to say that although you don't agree with Galloway, you can see he's a good orator and worth watching. Well, I tread the line on consensus on this one, pleased that I've seen him in the flesh winning over a potential hostile audience with rhetorical flourishes, historical allusions and old time tub thumping. 

I wonder if he'll become the new - and canonised - St.Tony Benn (who he name-checked effectively last night). In his day, 70's and early 80's, Benn was despised by friends and foe alike. Later he became cuddly Uncle Tony, democrat and preacher of the old time socialist religion. Maybe this is George's future?

As an interesting aside, as the queue to get out was so long, I elected to go down the back stairs away from the throng awaiting the lifts. Walking down a service corridor guess who I should bump into? Only Gorgeous George himself.

"Great speech George," I said.

"Thanks," he said.

It is in such moments that history is written. Did I tell you I met Madonna once?

Power to the People!

Tim

- BTW, my attendance at the meeting and my views of the referendum will be coming soon to this website. I tried to write these thoughts earlier but got lost up my own backside somewhere around The Peterloo Massacre, The Rochdale Pioneers and William Wilberforce. I'll work on brevity!

- To see Galloway's speech, but alas not me, paste the following into your browser  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8cF93B58Vw

- Amusingly - in the pub opposite the QE2 - I stood next to Mike Reid the former Radio 1 DJ. Thank Christ he wasn't the mystery guest!

Tim's Blog RSS

Nigel Farage last night

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

Tim's Blog RSS

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

Tim's Blog RSS

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.

Tim's Blog RSS

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

Tim's Blog RSS

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

Tim's Blog RSS

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

Tim's Blog RSS

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

Tim's Blog RSS

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

Tim's Blog RSS