The internet, porn and the opiate of the masses

One of the major differences between my parents' generation and mine and probably between mine and my children's is the way we consume news. I literally cannot stand anymore to watch the BBC (or other channels) as they push their own news agenda. The prominence they give to stories (women's football anyone?). The stories they cover. The stories they don't cover. What angle the reporters choose to push. Who the guests are.

"Tonight we're discussing spending lots of taxes on some bullshit cause de jour. Supporting this we have Mother Theresa, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Opposing is Adolf Hitler. "

Suddenly we're all supposed to be interested in The Ukraine, or Syria, or Iran, or wherever public school educated lefties in editorial positions decide we need to be lectured about next.  And then - like magic - the issue disappears as the cameramen go onto the next story. Don't get me wrong. There are things that happen in these, and other places, that are newsworthy, but I don't necessarily agree on the broadcasters' news agenda, nor their selective editing or timings. So in 2015, for instance, there was the migrant crisis and all those pictures of young men walking across Europe was on TV every night. This year the numbers flocking to Europe is up. But during the referendum period, did we see any pictures of this? It was happening but strangely, not on our TV screens. Funny that. 

A couple of years back, The Ukraine was all over our screens. The toppling of democratically elected - but corrupt - president by the mob was shown in a sympathetic light. The fight back against this in the east of the country and Crimea, was presented as a bad thing. Especially when Russia joined in. If you supported the EU and approve of the demonising and provoking of Russia, you would push one angle. If you hated the EU, you would push another. Personally, the ignorance and propagandising of our TV coverage sickened me. 

So I decided to do some reading on the history of The Ukraine. What I found was a region so rich with history, wars, pogroms, dirty dealings, hatreds going back centuries that any non specialist would hesitate to say anything, let alone push an agenda. So the attempt by our TV and newspapers to pickle this into a Russia - Bad, pro EU Ukraine - Good narrative just seemed wilfully ignorant. Or deliberate.

The good news is that today there's no excuse to not to be your own news editor and set your own agenda. There's a big, vast internet out there. With a few clicks you can watch videos, read articles from many sources, check facts, go into depth and make your mind up. This democratisation of knowledge is one of the greatest advances in human history. Everything available at just a few seconds notice! 

But surely we need gatekeepers -  shout the statists, the control freaks. The people who were in charge or those who seek to control basically despise, forever and a day, their fellow humans. We're allowed our vote but god forbid we start to challenge received wisdom, start to push back, start to baulk at the titular binary choices we're offered that actually are just two cheeks of the same arse...

Well - getting rid of de haute en bas tossers who love control, is a good thing and actively to be encouraged. As I get older - as faith in my own certainty diminishes - my faith in the collective wisdom of people grows.

But, and it's a big BUT, if we are to be our own editors, if we are to determine our own news agendas, there comes responsibility too. It's the other side of the coin of freedom or liberty. The sentient person has to be aware of their own biases, their own agendas, their own ability to think the best of their own side and do down the other. It's human nature but the zealot, with eyes in the mid distance, ears shutted, is always to avoided.

So - what to do? Read widely. Read across the divide. Engage with arguments. Test out your own. Push your understanding. Improve yourself. 

Yeah, it's a bitch, I get that. But ignorance swirls around us, waiting for victims. Bad people await at the gate waiting to be let in. Ambitious people will try to manipulate you. 

"Libraries gave us power" sang the Manic Street Preachers, in another era about an even earlier era. And so they did. And their modern day equivalent - the internet - still does. Use them. Or lose them. There are people who'd rather you consumed the opiate of celebrity gossip and porn whilst real power was being curtailed.

Next blog post will go through some of my favourite sites...

Let me leave you with The Beatles semi live on The David Frost show pissing on absolutely everyone (as per usual)... 

A Little Bit of Folk

When I was in service in Rosemary Lane

Other than the homegrown Lisa Stansfield concerts I went to in the mid 80's - about which I've written before - Steeleye Span at the Manchester Apollo was one of my first ever 'gigs'. Young Tim loved the folkie sound! Simon and Garkunkel have to be top five for me. I love British / American folk music. It often gets characterised as twats with beards, beer bellies, fingers in their ears singing about sailors and shady ladies!

Which is basically what Rosemary Lane is about. Actually, I had the privilege of seeing the late, great, Bert Jansch live in concert in Brighton in 1990's. He didn't do Rosemary Lane. Bastard.

I've often thought that it would make a great book or film to depict the British folk scene in the mid-60's. The scene that created Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, John Renbourne, Jackson C Frank, Simon and Garfunkel, and loads of others. They all knew each other, played in the same places, did versions of the same songs. Nicked each other's guitar style.

So let me be your guide though some the highlights of the great folk boom of the 60's / 70's - which probably reached its apogee with Sandy Denny duetting with Led Zeppelin on The Battle of Evermore - a crossover folk rock song like no other. The mighty Zep did what they did with the blues - amped up the power, took what's best in the genre, co-opted the best female folk voice ever, and created the folk hammer of the gods.

Anyway - here's Tim's top 10 acoustic / folkie / whatever list.

Top Ten Folkie / Acoustic Music

1) Bert Jansch - Rosemary Lane (1971)

2) Fairport Convention - Who Knows Where the Time Goes

3) Steeleye Span - All Around my Hat

4) Martin Carthy - Scarborough Fair

5) Simon & Garfunkel - Bleecker Street

6) Van Morrison - Beside You

7) Gordon Lightfoot - In the Early Morning Rain

8) Pentangle - Light Flight

9) Renaissance - The Northern Lights

10) Jackson C Frank - Blues Run the Game

Number 6 also appears on my top ten songs ever. I could pick half a dozen Paul Simon songs for this list but I limited myself to one.

Extra Waffle about Bert Jansch

One of the most influential guitarists ever to come out of Britain. Solo artist, part of the folk supergroup Pentangle and then back to solo again. Jansch seems a genuinely nice, self-effacing guy, as I can recall when I saw him back in the 90's. Needle of Death, from his first album, is such a sad song, tear-jerking even now, and as empathetic a song as I've ever heard. It Don't Bother Me, from his second album, is classic Bert - folkie, intricate guitar figures, detailing love's woes. But I'll plump for Rosemary Lane. Traditional song, rendered traditionally, this was the first folk song - after Steeleye Span - to really get to me. It details the seduction of an innocent servant girl by a travelling sailor. He loves and then leaves. Jansch's version - like Dylan's House of the Rising Sun - reverses the sexes, he sings from a female point of view. Love this song. Bert Jansch - a great soul who died in 2011 - the guitarist's guitar player.

From the BBC special c.'70. Enjoy.

Renbourne left and Jansch right. Scat singing. A bit of jazz, a bit of blues, some folk and a whole lot of soul. 

Augustus Had to Have 31 Days Too

The month of August, Augustus, is upon us. As I mentioned, somewhat vaingloriously below, July was a record month for this blog. Well, let's blast that out of the water.

Let's review...

There are three blogposts I didn't finish, waiting in a crocodile-shaped queue in the 'unpublished' list. They may come out. The Dead Pubs of Clapham oscillates between a blog-post about lost England and a short story about lost Tim. Not sure which yet. There's an Elvis blog with some cracking live footage waiting to be aired. And there's a hat tippin', paying my dues blog about the writers, blogs and websites I read to keep informed.

And yet that is just the tip of the iceberg. In a normal month, that would be a good haul but for Augustus (my dearly beloved and missed cat, and the first citizen of Rome he was named after) that is not enough. Here's what I plan for the next 31 days (if Julius got 31 days, Augustus was gonna bloody well get the same).

- Edward Hopper. An appreciation. Yes, I branch, tentatively into art. Is there no beginning to my talents?

- Led Zeppelin. Often mentioned on this blog. Power and grace, tight jeans and bare chests. Why these guys (the three that are left) aren't Lords of this realm is a fucking disgrace. The Beatles of the 70's with double necked guitars and killer riffs.

- Brighton. If I'm from Rochdale, Brighton - for all it's faults and leftie bullshit - is my spiritual home. And yes, I include Hove into the mix.

- Discussion on some short stories that are coming up for their judgement. Let's hope I have to update the Honours Page many, many times.

- Maybe something about the Romans. Fuck it, why not my take on Augustus?

Let's salute the month of Augustus. 

Tim

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I'm a lovin' July!

July was a record month for this blog. 

The most RSS feeds ever. Yeah, RSS feeds. All that. Internet. Clicks, flicks and chicks. Technology. RSS feeds. No, I haven't got a clue what RSS Feeds are but apparently they're really important and indicative of how many people are book marking my stuff. Or something. Whatever.

The main thing is that the numbers don't lie. There were more RSS Feeds in July than any other month. And no, it wasn't me coming back here many times. That would be just cheating myself and what's the point of that? (I've tried anyway - doesn't work).

To be honest - and when aren't I - I can see why the numbers are high. No, I can. Good writing, jokes, art, culture, bollox.  It's a journey this blog. Yeah, and we're all on it. Well, I'm on it right now. On the lager anyway.

So let's raise a glass to me.

"To Tim"

Tim

BTW - the thing under these words is the RSS feed thingie. Click it. Doing so will change your life. Gives you more Tim than any lady ever wants without cocktails and getting back at a loathsome ex.

Yeah.

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Bukowski, Maupassant, Graves and Bronte and Wilde.

i remember when I was 19 sitting in a field - wind blowing but the day warm - with a bottle of 1979 Portuguese red and a slab of blue cheese and a copy of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. And the grass rustled, and the leaves made that sound they only make in high spring and I turned the pages, drank the wine and ate the cheese. The day got dark, the bottle emptied and the book finished.

I was going through an Oscar Wilde phase (no, not in that way) - in that I read Oscar, wanted to be an aesthete, well-rounded, well-read, lettered and all that. I swore that although I thought Wuthering Heights the most magnificent book, I would never read it again, so perfect was the time and place.

Yeah, what a nob. I get that now.

More or less finished my primer on Charles Bukowski. Yes, he has some style, and yes he has viewpoints, but, frankly, towards the middle, it all seemed a bit, well, one note. So, he drinks. So, he likes the bigger woman. Yeah, he likes horse racing (yawn). So, he has consistent but incoherent views on poetry and the human condition. But I stated to feel imprisoned as though trapped in a bar with a ranting drunk next to me, grabbing my shoulder and raging about things I don't care about. 

Next on the night-table, The Best of Guy du Maupassant, I've not yet pinned to my wall of prejudice. He hovers mid-air, awaiting my judgement. The historian in me is interested in the Franco-Prussian War setting a war which tends to be forgotten these days. The eternal truth that war is hell. How this is forgotten and then rediscovered, as though the first time ever, each time mad men, ambitious men and the stupid beat the drums.

But, for a comforting ritual, I'm reading the second of Robert Graves' Claudius series - Claudius the God (just finished I, Claudius). I've read these books many times but I keep coming back to them. The second isn't as good as the first, but it's still a rattling good read. I feel though I could be a little more ambitious but, as this is the book I pick up before lights out, a challenge is probably the last thing I need.

As for writing myself, I've taken the week off from creation. It's strange - isn't it - then when I'm busiest I want to do more and when I'm not, I do less? Actually, it's probably not that strange at all. Probably it's basic human psychology. (He sits down, embarrassed, to the sound of titters from the back).

Anyway, I have the Stilton, the weather is just right - being warm and breezy - I have Hardy's Wessex Tales to read. Now can anyone tell me where I can buy a 1979 bottle of Portuguese red?

For £1.99?

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Defer, Delay and Enjoy!

Owlsey and Charlie, twins of the trade // come to the Poet's room.

Back in the 1980's (or was it the 1880's, seems a long time ago) we practised what is known in economic parlance as 'deferred gratification'. Some of you older readers will remember that; some of my younger readers will be scratching their heads and asking 'wot's that? lol!!'

Mainly it manifest itself by saving up money for something, taking a half an hour bus trip into Rochdale town centre, buying a single or computer game, getting the bus back again and sitting and listening to said record or load said computer game (to find it didn't work).

It was an interesting system of meeting wants; making the buyer wait for a period of time before certain wants were met. The theory goes that, by making the end-user wait, they put more value on the goods or services eventually purchased.

Well that was the theory anyway. 

Now, with the internet, most wants can be met instantaneously or much more quickly than previously. If I want a track or a book or want to read about the Battle of Zama or The Franco-Prussian War, I can do so with just a few mouse clicks. It would have amazed my younger self, and it's still pretty revolutionary to my older self.

But what does it do for the soul? If your wants are met so easily? No waiting. Often no saving. Just click, click, move on? Do we value things less?

Deep questions. Sort of pint three philosophical ramblings before ordering a whiskey and going off on a rant about Southern Rail or broadband speeds.

So, do I value music less now than I did in 1984 when I'd make that bus journey into Rochdale, buy Lionel Ritchie's 'Hello', take the bus back and put it on the turntable, play it eight times in a row and realise it wasn't that great after-all (sorry - Lionel, it's not that bad actually. Just making a point. Could have picked Nena - 99 Red Balloons, but you came to mind first)?

I think that residual value might have something to do with when it was bought. Extraneous factors. When you're sixteen, pretty much everything is new, everything is the first, everything marks the way to a whole series of other choices. At 48, although I like new tracks, none of them will ever have the impact on my brain as the first time I heard Jumping Jack Flash or The Battle of Evermore.

On my itunes, I have more or less everything from my past I like, filling in the gaps and buying stuff I've never heard is the nature of the game. Most of the hard-to-get tracks have been found (thanks Jay).

One eluded me for years. Jefferson Airplane's Mexico. A single without an album. A musical orphan, hard to find. Well, I found it today. As my original copy was on a long deleted 80's compilation Best of Jefferson Airplane cassette, I hadn't heard the track for, I dunno, fifteen years.

And I still like it. For it's lyricism, it's musicality but also because I remember Tim took the bus to Rochdale town centre, went to the library, hired the cassette, took the bus back, thought most of the tracks crap but loved this, the last track on the album.

Interestingly, I thought the track dealt with some 19th century Mexican revolution, perhaps involving Napoleon III and Maximilian. A romantic, nobel interpretation. Now - thanks to Wiki and online lyric sheets - I know it's actually about cannabis smuggling and Richard Nixon. FFS. I could have done without that unasked for want - curiosity - being met. Deferred or not.

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"I had that Emile Zola in my cab, last week."

“It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” *
 

I think, like Sleeping Beauty, I must have pricked my finger towards the end of the 1990's and slept for nearly two decades. It was a strange sleep - I can remember where I was and what I did and events that happened. Outwardly I was the same - eating, drinking, working - but something key, something vital was missing. A spark had gone out.

I think I lost my natural curiosity. The ability to take an oblique view, to check - like some tosser French existentialist - all my assumptions, all my biases. But more than that, to grow inside, to nourish - yes I'll say it - the soul. Yes, I agree I sound like a nob. I'll bear that burden.

And it is only lately that I've rediscovered a sense of wonder, discovering how very little I know, that my knowledge is parochial and patchy. There's nothing brave about admitting ignorance but I do so. Which reminds me of one of my favourite Charles Bukowski quotes I've been saving up, waiting to use on this blog:-

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” 

So, what to do? Well, me being me, I won't be dyeing my hair green, putting on a dress and joining The Labour Party or any other crazy type of thing. Neither will I (probably.. dunno) get a leather jacket, a motorbike and drive too fast down Sussex country lanes. No, my moment of clarity comes in very Tim like ways:-

Read More

- Fiction. There' so many authors I've never read. You have to make time for this. Commuting helps. Much more 19th Century French literature. Probably not Zola who - on my brief acquaintance with him - is unremittingly dour. Too dour. Much more Balzac. But also more Great American novelists. More Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe, Roth...

- History. I have a history degree. But that's a piece of paper (lost, I think). I've always kept an eye on my favourites - Rome, 20th Century American politics, Tudors but there's so many gaps in my knowledge. So, expect me to bore you about the Dark Ages following 476, Eastern European history, The English Civil War, Marlborough, The Seven Years War etc etc. As Silent Bob says to Jay in Chasing Amy:

Bitch, what you don't know about me I can just about squeeze in the Grand fucking Canyon.

In this instance I guess I'm 'Bitch' and Silent Bob is my lack of knowledge on history.

- Thought. Management speak bollox, self-help books, fads and contemporaneous SHOUTING mean nothing to me. There's a whole world of thought out there and we pretty much know what it is from Plato, to The Bible, to St Augustine of Hippo, to Luther, Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Goethe, the Enlightenment, blah, blah. From my (limited) reading I conclude, like Harold MacMillan, "Events, dear boy, events" tend to distract us from underlying issues. The state of the human condition / behaviour has always been the same, IPads and Facebook or no. I'm curious as to what the great thinkers of the past observed. I don't expect it to make me happy but like Marcus Aurelius counselled, disenchantment is a desirable - and stable - state.

Poetry

Apart from Hardy, my knowledge of poetry is shocking. I could blame my state schooling for this. Oh okay, I will. See the video below of Peter Hitchens shaming a panel of leftie Neanderthals on Question Time. Watch it all as it tees up Hitchens nicely. It almost makes you weep the way his erudite knowledge, respected finally, is gradually slipping away from us all. Well no more around this parish! Also - I want to start committing some to memory because a) you carry it around with you b) it gives my ageing brain a workout!

Music

- Classical and more classical! Playing lots of Beethoven right now. Just downloaded his 7th. There was a programme (on the radio on the TV, dunno) which had the third movement as its theme music in the 70's. I did think it was the Galloping Gourmet (remember that!) but now I think it's just the Horse of the Year Show. So like Alex in The Clockwork Orange, plenty of Ludwig van. But also Handel, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Bach. I've no desire for dissonance. I work with the grain of my tastes.

I'll leave you with Prince Hal's soliloquy from Henry IV (Part 1). My O Level play. I always liked this speech. It speaks to me now more so than it did when I was a 15 year old.

I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyok'd humour of your idleness. 
Yet herein will I imitate the Sun, 
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world, 
That, when he please again to be himself, 
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at, 
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. 
If all the year were playing holidays, 
To sport would be as tedious as to work; 
But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come, 
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. 
So when this loose behaviour I throw off, 
And pay the debt I never promised, 
By how much better than my word I am, 
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes; 
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground, 
My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault, 
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off. 
I'll so offend to make offense a skill, 
Redeeming time when men think least I will. 

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* Luke 15:32 KJV

Rochdale - God's own town.

I come from Rochdale. Technically I was born in Yorkshire, but from the age of two, my home town, and where I still call home, is Rochdale.*

For those that don't know, Rochdale, despite it's dour Northern and - in recent years - somewhat unsavoury reputation, is often quite beautiful. My parents still live there and I love going back. I've always been proud to come from Rochdale.

I have the eyes of returnee now. Everyone in Rochdale is proud of their town, to me, with my Southern perspective, I can see why.

I see wonder in the Moors that surround the valley of the river Roch, the urban parks, the splendour and bracing walks around Hollingworth Lake. Sentimentally, I see beauty in the rows of terrace houses, the indomitable spirit of the inhabitants who - lest we forget - took on the boss class in the worse excesses of Victorian factory exploitation and invented the co-operative movement in 1844.

A muscular and unapologetic working class culture - patriotic and self-supporting. You get off the M62 at Rochdale and are met by the sign - "Rochdale - Home of Cooperation"**. Not many towns have a boast that spans the world.

The people.. Funny. Friendly. Don't take any shit.

Rochdale Town Centre

The town centre, a triumph of Victorian ambition, urban planning and architecture, was always impressive. The wide open feel of the town centre was created by a bridge that enclosed the River Roch;  one of the largest bridges in the world. The Grade 1 listed town hall, a gorgeous Gothic building, represented civic pride and the local centre of democracy for so many years. Opposite the town hall the Grade 1 listed war memorial - like the more famous one in Whitehall - designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens from public donations - sits in a peaceful garden flanked by the Grade 2 ex Post Office building.***

Stupid, ignorant, local counsellors have conspired to rip the heart out of one of the most beautiful Northern town centres by digging up the bridge, building inappropriate modern buildings all over the place and fatuous, empty shopping centres, side-lining a wondrous natural town shopping street (Yorkshire Street). The venality and short sightedness of local politicians never ceases to amaze me. Brighton suffered from them to in the inter war years and - with the Green Council - did recently.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Rochdale - despite recent scandals and being resolutely working class - can, and always did, hold its head up high. To quote JFK:-

Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum ["I am a Roman citizen"]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "I am from Rochdale." Therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Rochdalian!"

He's right. Hold your head up Rochdale. There is no finer place in the world.

Tim (Ich bin ein Rochdalian - really!)

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* I also claim dual citizenship with Brighton & Hove

** Farcically - orginally the council put up - "Rochdale - home of the Coop" 

*** This war memorial was where I first saw tramps / drunks / beggars. I remember them from the 70's

The Grasshopper and the Cow. A modern guide to dating.

“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.” *

One of the problems of dating in Brighton - if you hold what some might classify as right-wing views - is that your potential date will be, with a 90% level of certainty, a virtue-signalling leftie. You're stuck with a choice - to stay quiet and fail gracefully to get sex or to reveal your politics and be damn certain not to.

Saying you voted Brexit perhaps, or admire Nigel Farage, is literally like turning up to the wine bar dressed in full Gestapo uniform with a copy of The Final Solution in your top pocket. There again... The hard left these days seem to love a bit of anti-semitism. Can't get enough of it.

Saying you support low taxes, a small state, free trade and capitalism is usually - and disingenuously - met with hysterical guilt-by-association accusations. That's because, to a leftie, holding a few non leftie views means you must subscribe to a whole set of others too. So, I say, Brexit for democratic reasons, they say racist; I say low taxes and they say I want to burn the poor. Maybe piss on them first. 

Therefore, on a date, it's easier to take the cowardly, pragmatic approach. When your leftie date jabbers on about some social justice outrage de jour, just smile and take the conversation off at a tangent. Lefties generally - and especially in their natural environment within Brighton - tend not to meet people who disagree with them out loud.  Silence is taken as assent.  So she'll not spot the evasion but will take the change of subject as affirmation of her point of view - a point so obvious it should be, like, the law or something. The science is settled, the debate is over, the platform is not open, safe spaces are not going to be invaded. 

It's a bit like Facebook (of which I'm not longer a member). The busy grasshoppers chirp noisily  all over the timeline whilst the bovine Brexit / Tory supporting multitudes stay suspiciously quiet. Hence the outrage when these special snowflakes actually lose (see my article on 1992 election and the narcism of the self-righteous). They literally cannot comprehend it. Everyone agrees with them.

But - Edmund Burke fans - in looney-tunes Brighton, the fucking grasshoppers are in charge of the town and rigidly boss the poor cows about. 

Does that mean I'm a cow? Hell no, I'm a bull me. El torre! Just a rather quiet one.

So where does that leave the nominal right-winger (libertarian actually, thanks) in his quest to bed the leftie date? Well, about in the same position as with a right wing date. Or a liberal date. Or a date with woman of no political views.  

Politics, I've found, aren't actually the primary driver in the dating scene. Other, more corporeal attributes, claim that sovereignty.

It's possible I may return to this subject.

Tim

* A rather good, and prescient quote from Edmund Burke. Beware the mob!

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The Clapham Sect

I work in South London, in Clapham. On Wandsworth Road. Just off The Common. 

Surprisingly, although I did my Masters degree just down the road at Southbank University, I never really explored the area that much. My girlfriend and I used to take the tube north and wander around Pimlico, neglecting the wonders of South London.

I can put that right now. Battersea Arts Centre you know about already. I'm working on an article / short story called The Dead Pubs of Clapham which, well, talks about the dead pubs of Clapham. You'll like that.

Clapham Old Town is just a few minutes stroll from my office. And there lies, workmanlike and unshow-ey, The Holy Trinity Church. Splendidly set on the Common itself this eighteenth century evangelical church was the home of the Clapham Sect. 

The Clapham sect - including William Wilberforce - used to meet and pray here. They were prime movers behind the Slave Trade Act in 1807 and the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act. But not only did they drive the abolition of slavery in both Britain and her Empire but, with the establishment of the naval West Africa Squadron in 1807, Britain then used her considerable military muscle to stop the trade completely. Our navy was employed to enforce the abolition of the slave trade.

The church still stands in splendid isolation on the Common. If you are in the area (and it's a beautiful area) take a few moments to visit it, reflect and think of those who came before us who fought the good fight. And it was a hard fight. The easy thing would have been to do nothing. I'm sure most countries in the world have proud boasts, acts of enlightenment and empathy that are produced to show they are a great society.

But Britain has many. Many proud boasts. Standing on Clapham Common, passed daily by thousands of people, is a representation of one of them. We should talk about our past more and not through the unseeing eyes of today, the triviality, easy choices. 

The landmarks series continues next week with my views on the pies at the Amex Stadium in Brighton.

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Thoughts on Trump

If I were to vote in American elections, I'd be severely unhappy. Americans seem to face a choice between an hereditary Bush or an hereditary Clinton. Obama came out of nowhere. He certainly was the first black president and he was so good he secured the Nobel Peace Prize in his first month in office. Yeah. Way to go Barry!

Clearly I'm more on the Republican side than the Democrat. If I lived in the US (and was a citizen) then I'd be a registered Republican. My choice for presidential candidate last time would have been the libertarian Ron Paul. My choice this time would have been his son, Rand Paul. I like the fact that they are so unfashionable they hark back to unyielding founding principles, principles which offend today's society that likes to bend rules based on emotionalism or expediency. I like the fact that both are strict Austrians in economics - no borrowing, currency backed up by real worth, no support for mal-investment, the superiority of the market over political judgement. They also are also anti-war which, as I've written before, is probably one of three or four dominant political characteristics (along with democracy, free speech and capitalism) I believe in.

But both lost. Ron, controversially against Mitt (only in America) and Rand to the force of nature that is Donald Trump. 

Now I didn't follow the Republican debates until about October / November but then - as usual - I was hooked. Okay, they're false formats and candidates with with well scripted (and delivered) one -liners often do best over the more cerebral, reflective candidates. Sorry Jeb! But this is democracy in the raw. America is great at that (though big money is, I admit, a problem).

I became, after Rand's early demise following the New Hampshire primary, fascinated by Trump. And not especially because of what he said, or what he'd do (BTW these two concepts can be very different animals - hello Barry, talking about you, again).

So why's Trump interesting as a phenomenon? 

- He is politically incorrect. I'm fucking tired of people telling me what to think or say. Politicians are scared to say anything controversial these days. This timidity has spread to social media, corporations. How long before this cultural stalinism spreads into the private sphere? It's a deadweight on ideas, thoughts, creativity, laughter. Good manners and civility should be a person's guide. One thing about Trump we can all agree on; he's not politically correct. 

- Trump isn't beholden to vested interests as he self-finances (see the above about campaign finance). I'm not saying that I support rich people only running for office - of course not - but I think America needs a good dose of 'fuck you' juice sprayed at lobbyists. 

- He isn't scripted. He says what he wants. For the antithesis of Trump, see The Marco-bot as he trotted out the same answer four times when challenged by NJ Governor Chris Christie. The career politician - in the US, in the UK - who parrots the party line, eyes closed or focused on the mid distance, gets my goat. I love the mavericks - the Farage, the Livingstone, the Franks Fields. Party politicians - like executives at big companies - always live in fear and slavishly toe the party line.

- He's successful outside politics. Yeah, sure he fronts the American Apprentice but he is also a successful business-man. Now I don't worship businessmen - they need balance - but I prefer them to career politicians or corporate wankers. Businessmen who own their own company know about risk, making decisions and taking accountability. Most politicians do not. They just like to spend other people's money gathered by force.

- He's funny! He is! Watch a speech. Funny goes a long way. Humour is very under-rated. Humour shows to me a real person. Someone who is funny (it's a skill) shows intelligence both intellectual and emotional.

- He might cause a massive re-alignment. Talking to those who are always written off - lower classes, tax payers, the law abiding - might catch on. Sort of a Brexit demographic. He might just bring the whole shit-house down. Good. Democracy is too precious for the parties to think they own it. Fuck 'em! In a democracy, the people are always right.*

- Lastly, and let me just have one trivial reason, his ongoing success pisses off exactly the right people. The BBC, The Guardian, Facebook twats, bien pensants everywhere. His on-going success makes them so incoherently angry it's worth electing Trump just to watch them explode with self righteousness and condescension for their fellow man.**

So this is The Donald without me looking into his policies (and did I mention his unbelievably attractive wife Melania and his daughter Ivanka. No? Whoops just did!).

Shit hair though.

Cheers

Tim

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Notes

* People are always right. This is always true and I don't buy the view that the people are too stupid or will be led astray by populists. However, my own caution to this would be that ordinarily a representative democracy works best and also that there should always be a decent lead up before a populace votes. Otherwise you run the risk of the Facebook-isation of politics (virtue signalling votes as 'likes', short-termism, shallow not contiguous policies).

** As a democrat I've never been more appalled than I have been over the last few days where Facebook emotionalism allies with hard-core and nasty undemocratic forces. What some unthoughtful people on the losing side of referendum. The Guardian, BBC etc (usual suspects) are playing a VERY dangerous game. In a democracy you have to accept an adverse result. To do otherwise leads only to violence and civil war. I never thought I'd write that about Britain and I pray the cry-bullies think about what they are doing and pull back. Not respecting democracy might become a habit which can be learned by all sides. And the denigration of their fellow citizens as stupid is right out of Marx's false consciousness playbook. And we know that dictatorship follows.

John Major and all that.

In June 1992, John Major - against the odds - won a Parliamentary majority in the UK General Election. He hadn't been predicted to win and Labour, under Neil Kinnock, looked like it was finally to take over the reins of power after thirteen long years. The Tories were tired and had killed off the great Matriarch, Margaret Thatcher. Me and everyone I knew, voted Labour. We had the momentum, we had all the celebrity endorsements. Our moment was now. How could we lose?

And then the results came through and the feeling of giddy anticipation turned to dread as one-by-one Labour candidates went down against their opponents. The pleasure at seeing Tory Chairman Chris Patten lose Bath was negated at the realisation that Major had a workable majority and that 13 long years would now be 18, at least.

Gosh! I wish social media had been around in those days! I would have spent the whole of the next day ranting on Facebook, posting links to articles that called into question the democratic verdict of my fellow citizens, how really Kinnock and Labour had won all the arguments and that only old and selfish people had kept them from government.

I went to work the next day full of righteous anger and fully expecting my colleagues to be similarly burning with the injustice of it all. No such luck. Most of my team at work had voted Tory. Older, wiser perhaps. I was shocked. They never talked politics in the office. They never disagreed with my leftie rants. And yet they still voted Tory!

Up until now, I didn't know anyone who voted Tory. And here I was surrounded by them. How had I not known (didn't they roast babies on fires to keep warm?) and how could they have been so stupid? Readers, I was shocked and angry. Selfish bastards. Stupid bastards, brainwashed by the Sun, The Mail, The Tory Media. Bitching about them later with my friends - who all voted Labour - we moaned 'why didn't they think for themselves'?

I was twenty four. I was also stupid.

I can relay this story now because, well, I'm older and perhaps have a little more perspective on life. I wouldn't call it wisdom because the first casualty of experience is, certainty. The old 'the more I know, the less I know' trope. The future is unknowable, unmade, events and inventions happen. What doesn't change however, is human nature.

Which is kind of a long intro into Thursday's vote... Interestingly enough, in 1992 I was editor of the staff magazine at a large multi national. Before the 92 election I penned an article (never published) on what I considered to be the biggest non-issue of the ballot - the EC, as then was, the EU now. My view was that all three main parties supported membership and that the issue wasn't discussed. I wanted to know who I could vote for to express my point of view.

And my point of view on the EU has been pretty consistent for about 30 years, ever since Jacques Delors came to TUC congress in 1988 and persuaded the left to support a supra-national, non democratic way of getting their domestic agenda imposed on Thatcher's Britain. I was appalled at the willingness of many 'progressives' to jettison their mistrust of a non-democratic, corporatist club in order to win some baubles (The Social Chapter). Denied the ability to introduce their policies in the UK due to the good sense of the British public, they decided to go over the public's head.

And at the time I supported the ends but not the means. For, I reasoned back then, what happens if this benign dictatorship does something I don't like? How do I change that? How do you veto it? How can you change the leadership? Of course now, 2016,  I support neither the ends nor the means. I'm a bit of a purist on this - Britain should decide its government and its policies for the good of Britain. If we don't like it, or the government make a mess of it, we can chuck them out. To me, the symbol of Britain's democracy has never been Big Ben, Parliament, our free press and courts but, on the morning following an election, a removal van. A van bustling out the departing Prime Minister, so powerful just the day before but now, scuttling peacefully away at the will of the people. 

That my friends is democracy. We just got that back.

To those bitching on Facebook, starting petitions; basically throwing their toys out of the pram, I say this, accept the result, move on and embrace the new opportunities we now have to forge our way in the world. We have many friends across the world, a well used language and, despite the EU elites being angry, many envious - non fascist - friends across Europe. Never forget, the Dutch and French also had their referenda in 2005. Both voted no to The Lisbon Treaty. Both were ignored. When democratic means no longer work, non democratic means become the logical solution. We have escaped that (though some people don't realise it). Let's hope my good friends in Europe get the chance (again) to have self-governing peaceful democracies.

Cheers

Tim

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Today I resigned from Facebook. It's an amplified version of that 1992 pub conversation my friends and I had following John Major's win. Back in those days you had to win arguments - now you just signal arguments. I think we've lost something.

Sign here to petition Parliament to remove David Lammy the Labour MP who has actually suggested ignoring the results of the referendum. Not only is it stupid and laughable but dangerous. This man is not fit to be an MP. Thanks to the great Rod Liddle for starting this.

The Gracchus and Brexit and political murder

Some thoughts about the referendum as we move into the last few days.

It's a strange atmosphere - after months of getting pummelled, Leave had started to pull away from Remain. I watched as poll after poll starting giving the 'right' result, hardly believing what I was seeing, crossing my fingers so as not to jinx the result. And then a madman murderers a leave MP and - though the facts are hazy - seems to be right-wing nut. 

Let's just say straight off - and this isn't pro-forma bullshit - as a democrat and patriot - this act, like the murders in the recent past - Airy Neave, Ian Gow and Sir Anthony Berry - takes a little bit of our soul, our democracy. It steals something from all us. Like tribunes in Ancient Rome - elected to serve and counter-balance the patrician Senate - MP's work for and represent us and should be inviolate. Jo Cox seems to have been liked by all who met her. Additionally she leaves behind a husband, three children and many friends and constituents who will all now miss her. 

But, she was obscure and I think I probably disagree with most things she espoused. Terrible and tragic though her murder was, we have an important decision to make on Thursday. The affairs of a great nation shouldn't turn on emotionality, even in 2016. No amount of shroud waving and mawkish sentimentality can put this decision off, nor, if Jo was half the great democrat I'm sure she was - should we. 

Politics is passionate and better when, verbally, the gloves are off and arguments get aired and debated. I have no tolerance for 'safe spaces', for passive-aggressive diatribes against tone, subject matter or 'the science is settled' closing-down mechanisms. Fuck that. If Farage wants to talks about immigration let him. If Osborne and Cameron want to bull-shit about WW3 and financial armageddon, then be my guest. If Will Straw and the Remain campaign want to get in the dirt and use a dead woman to shut down their opponents arguments then, tasteless and base as they are, go for it but be prepared to be called out on it.

As ever, Rome provides many illustrative examples from the Gracchus Brothers, to the clashes between the generals of the later republic, the bread and circuses of the Julio-Claudians onwards, the lassitude of the third century, the grit of the Danubian Emperors, the re-invention under Diocletian and Constantine. It was often violent and not pretty. We've - hopefully - lost the murderous end-game, but, nutters aside, kept the passion

So calls for restraint and civilised debate should always be viewed with a sceptical eye. If not physical or murderous - and please don't debase this threshold - then argue away. Why curtail free-speech, should always be the question. Who benefits from shutting down debate? Who gets shut out? Arguments need to be tested on merit, not locked away. 

As I've quoted before, I think the most realistic song on politics is The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again'. Unlike most political songs it's written from the standpoint of the powerless, the little person observing that the heat of political battle is often just froth (for them). Things just have a habit of working out. 

I pick up my guitar and play // just like yesterday// and get on my knees and pray// We don't get fooled again // Meet the new boss // Same as the old boss

Anyway, the debate is screwed up currently. Hopefully, the good sense of the British people will see past the tragic murder of an MP - who was a mother and politics professional, who had dodgy views - and make a decision.

I almost wrote informed there. But informed is not where we're at. It's in the instinct, the gut; this is no technocratic X in a box. This is about YOU as a person.

I will return to this.

RIP Jo Cox

Tim

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Terry Meets Julie

Britain is great for many reasons: Parliamentary democracy, inventor of team sports, abolition of slavery, religious tolerance, war-like but fair-minded; these are sterling attributes. But that is not the subject of today's ramble through the back waters of my memory - no, today we're gonna talk about Britain and pop / rock music.

Any small land that produced - off the top of my head, it's not hard - The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, The Sex Pistols, Duran Duran, Wham, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Coldplay can't be all bad (aside - are we shit now? Take That were all right but One Direction?)...

No other country except the USA - infinitely larger - can go toe-to-toe with us. (I haven't even mentioned my own musical career.) That's the embarrassment of riches we have here.

England : Stones, Beatles, Led Zep, Oasis, The Smiths, Lisa Stansfield (Rochdale reference)

Wales: Tom Jones, Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers 

Scotland: Teenage Fanclub, Del Amitri, The Lost Soul Band, Rod Stewart (by his own definition)

Northern Ireland: Van Morrison, The Undertones

All right. England and Scotland punch above their weight. Wales and Northern Ireland less so. I might return to this. Certainly an article on Jock Rock is overdue and why 'You Can't Win Them All Mum' is just about the best song you've never heard of ever...

But here are some great Brexit songs from lesser known bands, that sum up the UK for me:-

Sham 69 - If The Kids Are United

Any group who have a chorus, ‘We’re going down the pub!’ is both bold and just right. Sham 69 were, for about five minutes in the late 70’s, famous for their very English, very football terraces sing-a-long tunes. Hersham Boys, Hurry up Harry, and If The Kids are United. These may not be great art – I don’t think Jimmy Pursey ever intended them to be – but they do go for the balls like all the best songs. They represent an English white working class culture that is often ignored, often derided but still exists if you look for it. These guys manned the squares at Assaye and Waterloo, fought in the trenches and battled fascism saving Europe (not the EU) with their spirit, banter and patriotism.

The Kinks - Waterloo Sunset

Before Ray Davies tumbled up his own arse in the 70’s, he was a damn fine song-writer. Addressing English type subjects in See My Friends, Days, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, The Kinks were a very English band (once they’d got over playing souped up versions of Louie Louie). Stuff like The Village Green Preservation Society I can take or leave, but a song like Victoria will always be greeted with a smile. There’s a great line in it: “Land of Hope and Gloria, Land of my Victoria.” Doesn’t get much better than that! But for pop genius, observational subtlety, the summation of ordinary life, this story of young lovers meeting after work in London has to be top. Yes, Waterloo Sunset is that strange thing, a perfect pop song. From the distinctive guitar lick, to the plaintive but catchy melody to the ordinary but so special lyrics “Terry meets Julie every Friday at five o’clock.” A moment of sunshine on a cloudy day.

The La's - There She Goes

The gods offered Achilles the choice of a short and marvellous life or a long and boring one. Some shit like that anyway. He chose, of course, short and famous. Some rock god must have come down to Lee Mavers in Liverpool the 80’s and, after paying a quid to mind his car, offered young Lee the same bargain; one hit wonder or a long career of mediocrity. Luckily for us Lee chose, one hit wonder. The La’s There She Goes is a wonderful thing; the chiming Byrds like guitar@, the infectious tune, the ambiguous lyrics. This Scouse pop rings out - even thirty years later - as fresh as a 17-year boy pissed on cider in a room full of scantily clad girls. I love by the way, the setting of this song in the 90’s remake of the film Parent Trap as the American Lynsey Lohan is driven around the sights of London in a Rolls Royce. Clichéd perhaps but countries are defined in broad brush strokes, not detail. This song, complete with Lee Mavers, should have been played at 2012 Olympics.

---

Why is it that Britain is so good at this stuff? Why is it - after years of French bitching - not only does everyone at the Eurovision sing in English but the presenters now don't even bother with their home language anymore (let alone French). Possibly it's down to the (historically disputed) vote in the US after independence to vote  for English as the official language and not German. Whatever; the talent of Beatles to write catchy songs, the Stones to write brilliant riffs and Led Zep to turn poor black blues into heavy rock gold - would have won out anyway.

We should celebrate our artists more. And we don't need the fucking EU to - as Pete says - 'Pick up our guitar and play, just like yesterday, and get on our knees and pray, WE DON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN.' (yes, spurious 1975 reference alert).

Vote leave. 

Tim

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A Sort of Update

I commute up to London everyday. Which gives me time to read and time to write. I don't know whether it's because I'm older but I don't seem to sleep on trains the way I used to. 

I've got two or three short stories on the go at the moment. They inch forward everyday; a changed word here, a scrubbed sentence there, a plot development sometimes. Mainly though I edit on trains. I leave inspiration for snatched moments, scribbled notes in forgotten pockets.

I've also started reading again. Just finished The Dubliners by Joyce and The Well Beloved by Hardy. For my recent birthday - thank you all for the cards and gifts - I got some notable short story writers. I'm at a stage where I think I have my own voice, but it's always useful to check back to see how others have done it, to see how they undermined or subverted conventions (or not).

So, I've finally got around to reading Charles Buchowski. I'm reading Hardy's short stories, and collections of shorter works by Balzac and Maupassant. I do it because I like them and get pleasure from them and, if an attractive lady, sat opposite me on the train, thinks I'm well read and interesting by my choice of reading material, who am I to disabuse her?

(Normandy brown cows, in orchards, eating buttercups and long grass before making camembert. Classic image. In the rain.)

Night

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Je suis en vacances....

Crepes, cidre, galettes... Yes, I must be back in Normandy (with a brief trip to Brittany next door).

Went to the Caen Memorial musee today. Wanted my kids to understand what previous generations of British, Americans and Canadians did to liberate Europe. We forget so soon. I think a longer blogpost is called for on this subject and this excellent French museum (I always think the French do these things very well).

But, until then, another cidre and see you soon!

Tim

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All Must Have Prizes

I was long-listed in a recent writing competition (TSS Quarterly short story competition)**.

What on earth does long-listed mean? Is it some hideous all must have prizes* bollocks where, even in a competitive medium, organisers must assuage the egos and feelings of the entrants? Possibly. Personally I would prefer a straight forward hierarchy, like this:-

1st Place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place. Losers (you're shit and you know it).

I suppose I am becoming a dreadful curmudgeon.  So I shall take my long-listing positively in a - 'I didn't win but I wasn't totally crap' type way. Which is awfully big of me. Mature even.

So what was 'The Winter Train' (for that is what my entry was called) about, I hear you ask. Okay you didn't ask and don't care but this is my blog, on my website, so I will bloody-well talk about it.  

Well, since you ask, it's about old lovers meeting by chance after twenty years, both observing the passing of time on the faces and personality of the other, both assessing how the equilibrium of power in their relationship might have changed so many years later. Yes, serious themes from a serious writer at the top of his (long-listed) game. A real page-turner.

As a literary joke - i.e. not a funny one - I incorporated many lines and themes from the poetry of Thomas Hardy into the story. Particularly poignant were his later poems where he recalled in verse the courtship of his recently deceased wife, Emma. I even called the main characters Tom and Emma FFS!

I've been rereading Hardy's poems recently. Let me end this blog with At Castle Boterel one of his most evocative, and as I get older, most moving poems. I may have borrowed - as Hardy did himself in his prose - themes and words from this and other poems. We are all referential; I take mine, de haut en bas - so here is the high.

At Castle Boterel (1913)

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,                       

And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,

I look behind at the fading byway,

And see on its slope, now glistening wet,

Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted

In dry March weather. We climb the road

Beside a chaise. We had just alighted

To ease the sturdy pony’s load

When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of

Matters not much, nor to what it led,—

Something that life will not be balked of

Without rude reason till hope is dead,

And feeling fled.

It filled but a minute. But was there ever

A time of such quality, since or before,

In that hill’s story? To one mind never,

Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,

By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,

And much have they faced there, first and last,

Of the transitory in Earth’s long order;

But what they record in colour and cast

Is—that we two passed.

And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,

In mindless rote, has ruled from sight

The substance now, one phantom figure

Remains on the slope, as when that night

Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,

I look back at it amid the rain

For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,

And I shall traverse old love’s domain

Never again.

NOTES (yes I realise that notes on a blog post is intellectual masturbation. Don't knock my hobbies. But sometimes extra info, credits or explanations are in order. Deal with it.)

* All Must Have Prizes - A quote from Alice in Wonderland (which I've never read to be honest). My adaptation of it is from the great Melanie Phillips' book of the same name which details the corrosive effect of decades of progressive thought in education. Dumbing down teaching so that, literally, for our super-special snowflakes, 'all must have prizes'.

** I always know when I'm up for a prize because I start to get some interest in one of the most unvisited parts of my website - Other Writing. The judges of competitions always check here to see if I've already published my short story entry - in contravention to the rules - on this august public forum. Me being me, I decided to change the content of the page to an open 'Dear Judges' letter which ends with a plea for them to give me the prize and offering them a kick-back if they do so. Realising that this might be counter-productive to my chances of winning contests, I've amended the text recently. Sometimes my urge to joke is not funny.

The Star of Brexit - The Movie

The Leave side in the EU referendum have released a feature length documentary on the reasons why the UK should free itself from the tentacles of Brussels. It’s called Brexit - The Movie.

 You can find it on YouTube. Yeah, it’s partisan but, that’s the point, right? It marshals the arguments about why the UK should become at one stroke more internationalist and independent by voting out.

 All good stuff, but, if I may drag this away from high politics and into, er, the realm of the individual for a moment.

 You see, at 1 hour, 6 minutes and 40 seconds – at a guess, I’ve not checked, today anyway– well, yours truly plays a walk on part in Brexit – The Movie.

 In fact, it’s a key scene and some (well, me) are already saying it’s a pivotal scene.

 Check it out. Both the movie and my inadvertent – but happy -  bolstering of the Brexit cause.

 I didn’t even get paid! But some things are more important than money.

 Vote in for Europe (love Europe) and out of the the EU (hate unelected, supra-national corporatists)

Cheers

Tim

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Lord Farage appears in this movie. As do I. 

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I Love The Way You Walk...

Spring has hit the UK! London (and Sussex) is warm and cheerful with daffs handing the baton over to bluebells before the grinning faces of Marguerites sprint down the back straight and breast the tape of summer. Girls are wearing summer dresses and I've even put away my John Lewis mac. At least for this week (though, perversely, it's now raining in London).

I was dancing around in the kitchen the other night making a curry and playing some decent tunes. When I dance, I dance. When I rock, I roll. When I cook, I dance. And so the circle turns. There is nothing new under the sun. For everything there is a season. Anyway, I was blasting out The Crystals 'Da Do Ron Ron' which is one of the best feel-good songs ever. But - sorry Phil - not great in the lyrics department. So I thought I'd do a quick article on crap lyrics, starting with:-

The Crystals - Da Do Ron Ron (1963)

"Yeah my heart stood still. Yeah, his name was Bill."  

Nuff said. Great song (BTW - I think the last 20 seconds of this song,  a classic anyway, when Spectre goes into overdrive, is possibly one of the finest moments of pop - ever!). Barmy lyrics though.

Cast - Sandstorm (1995)  (who? Yeah, I know. Scouse group. Bass player of the La's. Briefly famous.)

If there was a list of books that will never be written 'The wit and wisdom of Cast's lyrics' must be, unlike their records, Top 3. John Power writes the shittiest lyrics. He can't see a lady without discussing how she 'walks' and, yes, this leads inevitably to a comment on how she 'talks'. Searing insight mate.

The true awfulness of his lyrics come in the following double couplet with a happy ending:-

Let me take you by the hand
Try to understand, walk me to a land, try to understand
I ain't nothing but a man

Neil Diamond - I Am, I Said (1971)

As is well known, I am Neil's biggest fan. The moody man in black of the 60's, to the long hair denim Live At the Greek incarnation through his later years as Mr Sparkly Shirt... He's my guy. So this one hurts.

I Am, I Said is one of my favourite songs. About his sense of disenchantment at the false promise of fame, his relocation from New York to LA, his disintegrating marriage; this is the ultimate facing yourself in the mirror and telling it as it is song. The lyrics are actually very good, but Neil drops the world's biggest clanger in the chorus:-

I am I said, to no one there // And no-one heard, not even the chair.

Not known for their listening skills chairs, usually Neil. I can't defend this lazy writing.

Rhythm is a Dancer - Snap! (1992)

This one is suggested my good friend and ex-colleague Glenna. I actually quite like the lyric for its ridiculousness and Euro-babble nonsense. It's hard-hitting, uncompromising and plainly daft.

"I'm as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer"

Yeah, mate. Did Goethe or Hegel write that, first? Bollox it may be but, it can't be denied, it's a great dance tune. 

Billy Bragg / Kirsty McColl - New England (1983/4)

I was 21 years when I wrote this song // I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.

Huh? They're good lyrics, surely Tim? Yes, actually they are, I agree. But compare and contrast to Simon and Garfunkel's 'Leaves That Are Green' from 1965:-

I was 21 years when I wrote this song // I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.

Eh? How's that happen? Pure laziness and, er, theft. It's not as though Billy's usually crap at lyrics (even if his politics are shit). Even New England has some of the sharpest lines from a pop song ever. Poor, very poor. But I do have a good idea for the opening of this novel I'm writing:-

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Sounds good, yeah? 

And now, as I have to complete a new short story inspired partially by the literary conceit adopted by  Thomas Hardy in The Well Beloved, I must leave you.

From Battersea, good night

Tim 

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Story published in Artificium

Here is the link to Artificium where my story 'The £20 Note' is published.