Battle Hymn of the Republic

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January Thoughts

“Blow, blow thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thy art not seen
Although thy breath be rude.”

How can you tell it's January?

- Some nob in lycra shorts, a beanie and carrying a collapsible bike panted into the seat next to me on the train this morning. Naturally he was about 45 years old. Red faced with misplaced virtuousness, slimy with sweat. Out of his trendy back pack he produced a 'power shake' and made a show of drinking it loudly with many manly gulps. The green goo probably had berries in it and some spinach or kale or whatever. Tosser. He'll be depressed and fat by March wondering where his wife’s gone and why his kids hate him. Seen it a million times.

- The car park of the local leisure centre is overflowing with wall to wall Renault Espaces as the obese attend their obligatory January health classes (that cost twelve months of subscription). In the gym, they will walk slowly on running machines and do two sets of 1.5K weights, all the time talking loudly to similarly obese friends. Before having a Mars bar, coke and cigarette to celebrate having not showered. Luckily, the car park will be clear again mid February.

- Here in Battersea Arts Centre, the Monday night runners club is swelling more than an adolescent boy's trousers spying on the female changing room. Being all around 28-32 they should just hang signs around their necks 'I want to get married'. Some might wear 'and have babies' too for good measure. Given their age and fitful nature, the group will be half the size by March. Still, lots of weddings to attend summer 2018. 

- The world is full of people doing a ‘dry’ January. Frankly this is about as exciting as getting a hand job when drunk from a bored transvestite in torn fishnets at the end of a long shift. Or so my mate Dan tells me. The radical thing - the cool thing - is to have a 'Get pissed in January' January. That's what the clever people do.

You can tell it’s January because the cold is never as cold as it should be, the snow is never that thick, the money never lasts, the resolutions fail, ennui tears at your soul and good intentions whither.

You can tell it’s January because January is just like any other damn month.

Happy New Year.

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Loose Ends

The Ancient Roman general Sulla twice turned his armies on Rome. Caesar just the once. Later. But who remembers Sulla? Crossing the Rubicon trumps The Battle of the Colline Gate in our collective memory. Which just goes to show that posterity goes to the those that write things down (Caesar) against those that don't (Sulla).

Yeah, a new year hasn't blunted the edge of my pretentiousness. If anything the Xmas break has sharpened it. When not overeating or drinking, I used the time to read up on the decline of the Roman Republic whilst simultaneously ploughing through the decline of the Empire four hundred years later.

I think it's called having depth. Polymathic. Or being single. Whatever.*

Which is I guess a somewhat irrelevant introduction to the real purpose of this blog - tying up loose ends. And what loose ends are these, Tim? Well, the loose ends that I left on this blog at the end of 2016. And no, by loose ends, I don't mean the lady in Quench Bar in Burgess Hill a couple of weeks ago who I never called. **

What I mean is - yawn - Christmas songs. 

Briskly - 

- Best crooner type - Frank Sinatra - The Christmas Waltz

- Best cheesy Xmas song - Last Christmas (RIP George)

- Best carol - Can't choose. I like all five. Like a contemporary school sports day - you're all winners. ***

And lo! we become 2017. Saturnalia is over, the Xmas tree packed away, novelty Santa egg cup awaiting the chill festivities yet to come. 

Let me leave you with an intimate view of Mick and Keef being surprisingly good in 2016.

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Notes (why?)

* Polymathic. Whacked it in. No spell check appeared so I guess the word exists!

** Literally cannot turn it off.

*** "Ever feel you've been cheated?"

Golden Era Xmas Songs

Gosh - I'm so over Christmas.

Today we're nominating the Golden Era of Christmas songs - Bing, Frank, Ella, Tony, Dean. Hey! You know. Class. In a glass.

I'd like to side track and pay tribute to the guy in the baseball cap who reversed from a side street tonight into a busy Wandsworth Road - one handed! His other hand was, naturally enough, holding his phone. Kudos mate! You are my Xmas ***t.*

Nominees

1) Frank SInatra - The Christmas Waltz

2) Nat King Cole - The Christmas Song

3) Snow - Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Trudy Stephens

4) Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer - Dean Martin

5) Tony Bennett - Winter Wonderland.

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* Those that know me well will be able to fill in the blanked letters on this four letter word.

Mick Taylor and that Guitar Solo

They say the Devil has all the good tunes (except when he goes down to Georgia, of course!). But perhaps just sympathising with Old Nick also conjures up a decent tune too.

I remember the first Stones album I bought myself. I was 15. Coming off the back of a couple of Greatest Hits compilations, I went and bought the live album Get Yer Ya Ya's Out. Live albums can often be a mistake as they tend to offer thin, over-emoting, out-of-tune and unnecessarily long versions of well-loved – and crafted - studio songs.

But not so Get Yer Ya Ya's Out...

It's a tour album commemorating the infamous 1969 US Tour - yes the one that ended with the screw up that was Altamont. I come back to this album frequently. I can safely say; I learnt to play guitar strumming along with this album. Recorded at Madison Square Garden, it captures the Stones as they transitioned away from Brian Jones and into the demi-god led outfit that included Mick Taylor. Finally, the Stones had some serious lead guitar muscle to complement the Human Riff, Keef. They would get better in the next couple of years, but this is the only official live album of the Stones Mark 2 line up.

My fav track was Track 1 / Side 2: Sympathy for the Devil. (“Paint It Black you devils! Do Paint It Black!”) E-D-A verses dropping to B for the chorus. Brilliant to play along with and attempt the extended guitar solo at the end of the track. Yes, I learnt my pitiful lead axeman skills from this track. Well at least for the first minutes of the solo anyway! Because suddenly the solo gets hard - real hard. What is a rhythm guitarist's best ever solo morphs into a shit-hot guitar hero work-out. You can hear the change about 4:30 into the track. It’s almost as though Keef took a snort half way through and felt emboldened to shout "Oi! Hendrix, Clapton - come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!"

But YouTube and the internet have revealed the mystery behind the split personality on Sympathy for the Devil’s guitar solo. For of course – Keef plays the first half and then hands over to Mick Taylor. In less than two minutes, Mick Taylor pisses on Richards and - in the cock-measuring contest that was the Stones – for the next five years, never again would Keith attempt to challenge Taylor. There has only ever been one lead guitarist in the Stones and his name was Mick Taylor.

I’ll write in due course more about this golden era of the Stones. When they really deserved the moniker ‘The Greatest Rock n Roll Band in the World’. But for now, listen to this audio and you’ll see what I mean. Keef starts soloing at 3:18. Mick Taylor takes over the baton at 4:30 and from 5:20 streaks down the back straight to take both the tape and the Gold Medal.

As I said, the Stones would get better after 1969. Taylor would get more confident – aware that his fluid, melodic soloing would propel songs like Midnight Rambler, Gimme Shelter, Street Fighting Man to ever higher levels. But Get Your Ya Ya’s Out is where it began and, on Sympathy for the Devil, you can hear him shyly but definitely, take over the band’s sound.

Enjoy.

To read other Mick Taylor related articles, click here...

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Christmas Cheese

I wish it could be Xmas everyday, and here it is, Merry Christmas, I'll be lonely this Christmas, Stepping into Christmas, Stop the Cavalry, they said it would snow blah blah blah.

We all know the hey-day of this genre - the 70's and 80's. It's probably the most ubiquitous of my Christmas song categories but also, my least favourite. But - culturally - these cheesy types of festive songs evoke Christmases past, slow dances with girls long forgot in venues either burned down for the insurance money or long converted into flats.

And the nominations for best cheesy Christmas song go to:-

1. 2000 Miles - The Pretenders
2. All I want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey
3. Last Christmas - Wham, Cascada, Taylor Swift
4. Wrapped in Red - Kelly Clarkson
5. One More Sleep - Leona Lewis

Yeah - I added a couple of more modern ones as I think the genre kinda died in the 80's but these last two are pretty decent reinventions (I've posted Kelly Clarkson's song here already).

Sorry for the multi artist nomination for Last Christmas but I like Cascada's version and Taylor Swift's Holiday EP is pretty awesome and her Last Christmas, countrified, is a great interpretation. 

Anyway - results in a couple of weeks! Please enjoy The King looking (and sounding) his best in 1968 in his comeback special. And yes, it's Elvis on electric lead guitar.

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A Carolling we will go!

I'm going to be publishing a shortlist of carols and, towards Christmas, I'll choose one as the 'Ultimate Carol'. I'll list the other categories in the coming days but The Best Christmas Carol is the most important category.

I did think about opening the results up to a public vote but:

1. I can't be arsed
2. Only two people would vote (both me from different IP addresses)
3. Last time I opened up the comments section on this blog someone helpfully pointed out that I was a sad, pathetic man with no friends who was probably sat in his underpants spewing forth vitriol at the world to hide the fact that he was an inadequate loser.*

So, here is the shortlist:-

1. Every Star Shall Sing A Carol
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
3. The Star Carol
4. In the Bleak Mid-Winter
5. See Amid the WInter's Snow

Contenders that just missed out:-

• Little Donkey
• O Little Town of Bethlehem
• Ding Dong Merrily On High
• O Come, All Ye Faithful

So what am I looking for? Well, it's a cocktail, naturally enough. Tune and melody - of course. Many carols fall by the wayside with their insipid or dirge-like melodies. There's a reason why there's about 15 well known carols - many of the others are poor.

Secondly, nostalgia and the power of memory. For a few years I was a Church of England choirboy. But also my schools used to sing carols as part of unashamedly Christian assemblies. Carols were as much a part of Christmas as anything else. Increasingly, in my evolving memory, carols are a growing part of the experience. Which leads me to the third criteria; the spine tingling feeling you get from a carol being sung at full-blast, led by an organ and choir belting out a full counterpointed arrangement as they deliver the nativity story with power and eloquence. A musical but muscular Christianity indeed!

I'm not ashamed to say - I'm a cultural Christian. As I get older I know, it's who I am. It's home. And what better way than through melody to evoke childhood? I'm already looking forward to my one church visit a year when I take my kids to the local Church of England candlelit carol service next week. I spend most of the service with tears in my eyes. Happy tears.

So there are the nominees. My taste is a shifting scale - one moment here, the next there. All the carols mean something, all are worthy. If there's a couple of unfamilair ones, take a listen on Youtube - they are there.

Anyway - a bit of Bert Jansch doing In The Bleak Mid-Winter

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* Clearly the person knew me. It sort of paraphrased - whilst eschewing the flowery language - my own short stories. We are the stories we tell, unfortunately.

An Early Christmas Present!

Merry Christmas readers. Enjoy!

Tim Robson still rocking that cardigan. Hip cat. Play those blues, boy!

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Art or Arse?

I came home last night to find my author copy of Artificium 4 waiting on the mat. This book includes my story 'Second Thoughts'. 

I wrote this story this summer on many, many train journeys back and forth between London from Sussex. There's many disparate events, people, happenings pickled into just one little story about two people going on a date. On some journeys I would change just one word. Often I would spend half an hour editing one paragraph so the tone and the language were correct. What I wrote, what I submit these days is filtered like a fucking Bavarian beer.

Flicking through the printed version though I noticed a couple of things that jarred; stuff I didn't remember; asides, clarifications, extra bits I didn't pen. Now, admittedly last night I was coming down off a good meal (with G&T, wine and port with the cheese) at Gordon Ramsay's London House. So, it could have been just me. (It's often just me). But clearly something wasn't right.

I checked again this morning. Yep - they'd been some editing on my sacred words. How dare they! One especial 'addition' to my text comes right at the end, in the penultimate line. Now I'd deliberately changed tone in the story and so by the last page the theme is one of regret not bitterness. From regret comes salvation. You follow the lead character's thought processes until he gets to this epiphany. 

It's quite touching and if I hadn't written it, I'd think it was an excellent piece of writing.

But like a child with some felt tips 'improving' the Mona Lisa, some jocular words are added before my final, payoff line. It's art, dammit!!!

Fuck it. I got £50 which I spent on a few (two) bottles of wine in London. I have another 'book' to add to my growing collection of near misses and second prizes. 

I'm not precious.

Much. 

Tim

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The other Don

Run Run Rudolph!

Last January I - somewhat bizarrely - promised to publish a list of my favourite Christmas songs. But like a drunken middle-aged man with performance anxiety, who's just met a gorgeous girl and is a bit out of practice, I sadly failed to deliver (the Xmas article).*

Sorry. 

And so here we are, one year on, with my growing readership unaware of what my taste in Christmas songs is. How can that be and must it be tolerated? Obviously not. It's time to let y'all know. Let me remind you of what the categories were:-

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 / world music type Christmas songs
5. Miscellaneous

Well, I'm gonna do some listening in the next few days, remind myself of the contenders, maybe record a video of me playing a couple. Who knows? My axe is cold and needs to be warmed up. On camera. And actually this is important stuff. Food, family, music; hopefully these are givens and so pretty universal. Food I can cover in a later post. But music. Well, it was my first love.

One day I'm gonna write a classic. Maybe in an attic? Cause I'm an addict. An addict for shite lyrics.

So, from London, bon soir.

Cheers

Tim

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*Yes that metaphor was too long. Just having fun with words. It's clearly not based on personal experience. Well, except a story my friend Dan told me. He tells me he's fine now, I believe.

Top 25

I thought I'd take a look at what my i-tunes says are my top 25 tunes. My i-tunes takes input from the following:-

• The computer itself
• My i-phone
• My kids ipads
• The ipod in the car

So therefore my top 25 tunes are not purely my tastes. Luckily for me, my girls play - and then over play - a particular song, and then never play it again. I'm a bit more constant in my likes!

To get in my top 25, you have to have been played at least 106 times (Henry Purcell - Rondeau). To top the charts, you need 265 plays (Vivaldi - RV535 iV Allegro - concerto for 2 oboes). 

What do we find in the list Tim?

Vivaldi - 7 'tunes' or 28%

Lucie Silvas and Taylor Swift are the only other artists that appear more than once (2 each).

Classical - 11 tunes or 44% (as well Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Beethoven, Elgar and Debussy)

0 Beatles. In fact the nearest Beatles song has 'only' been played 46 times (their final rooftop, complete with police, going-down-fighting Get Back).

1 Stones (live Street Fighting Man 1971)

1 Coldplay (Viva La Vida - Tiberius? Constantine? Pilate?)

3 definitely from my girls (Taylor - Shake it Off and Blank Space, Iggy Azelea - Black Widow)

1 from Iceland - Yohanna Funny Thing Is

0 Elvis (The highest Elvis - at 32 plays - is the rather mawkish Don't Cry Daddy)

Randoms - Neil Diamond (Glory Road), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Save the Population), GRL (Lighthouse), Todd Rundgren (I Saw the Light)

Dance - Matrix & Futurebound - Control

Most recent addition - Shania Twaine - You're Still The One. Added in February 2016. 110 plays.

---

So what does any of this prove?

1. I'm commuting again. I tend to listen to classical and Vivaldi on trains
2. The top 25 played (apart from Elgar, Vivaldi and Lucie Silva - Breath In) doesn't match up with my self-defined favourite songs.
3. I'm self-amusing again. Sorry. Music is important to me!

More updates next year when I reveal the shocking news that Vivaldi totally takes over the top 25 list (and he might, looking at the many, many concerti bubbling just under the top 25).

Split pea soup for lunch.

Tim

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The Great or The Apostate?

Where Tim discusses fourth century Roman history. Note, at this time, the Empire was well used to having more than one Emperor.

The Emperor Constantius II was a right bastard. The massacre of the princes - where he killed off his male relatives in Constantinople during a family gathering following the death of his father Constantine The Great in 337 - was just the sort of ‘real’ history that gives Game of Thrones legitimacy.

One nephew that survived the cull was Julian. A bookish and pious prince, he was spared because he was so young and, well, a bit of a nerd. But ten years later - following the overthrow of Western emperor Constans – cousin Constantius needed a partner to share in the burden of the imperial purple. Turning first to Gallus, Julian's older brother – who he later killed - Constantius eventually elevated Julian into the family business as Caesar of the West in 355.

Here the boy became a man. After kicking some serious German butt, Julian became popular with his legions. Cousin Constantius got jealous and there followed lots of 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough' correspondence between the two emperors until Julian marched East at the head of an army in 361. And then – miraculously - Cousin Constantius died leaving young Julian the sole master of the Roman world. What to do?

Well, what Julian did - in his brief two year reign – was turn the clock back on Christianity and attempt to re-establish the old gods. You know, get rid of all this Christian rubbish legitimised by Constantine. He also thought Persia was up for a bit of Roman steel and so marched off deep into the Sasanian Empire, never to return. Killed by a random spear, Julian left his troops miles from safety on the Euphrates and in the feeble hands of his short-lived successor Jovian.

So why do I tell the story of Julian the Apostate? 

Well, unlike his uncle Constantine (the Great), he only had 2 years to make his mark. Constantine had 31 – with 13 in sole charge of the Empire. Constantine changed the course of history. Julian flamed out quickly and his successors Valentinian, Valens and Theodosius reaffirmed the Christian hegemony (give or take the odd Arian, or semi Arian, heresy). Julian was an anomaly and Western history writes that Constantine looms large whereas Julian does not.

Can one person change the course of history? Or – as in this case – a solitary spear? What if Julian had lived and reigned twenty years? Would he have quashed Christianity and reduced it into a cult, one of many, like Isis, Mithra or Sol Invictus, that bubbled around in the later Roman Empire? It’s possible that Christianity could have gone underground only to re-emerge stronger, much as it did during the persecution of Diocletian sixty years earlier. It’s impossible to say. It’s a little like powerful newspapers; do they lead opinion or merely reflect it?

What’s of interest though for those who seek parallels in history, who look for patterns to help with understanding the present day, is the theory that there are turning points – yes kings and emperors – but social, religious, military too, that alter the course of history. The trick is to spot whether events have produced a Constantine the Great or a Julian The Apostate.

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Brighton Beach Scumbag

“This could be the saddest dusk I’ve ever seen
Turn to a miracle, high-alive
My mind is racing, as it always will
My hands are tired, my heart aches
I’m half a world away.”

— Half a World Away - REM, 'Out of Time'

Memories of early 90's Brighton

Out of Time

Michael Stipe of REM noticed that any given fan's favourite REM album tended to be the one that came out straight after that fan graduated from college.

My fav REM album is 'Out of Time' - as near a perfect album as ever made. And yes, it came out the year after I graduated. REM have just reissued and repackaged a 25 year anniversary edition of Out of Time. I played it again today. Still sounds good. But I've never drifted away from it. It's one of those very few albums that form the core of my musical taste. I probably consciously play the whole album through once a year - every track.

When Out of Time originally came out I lived in small flat in the Kemptown area of Brighton*. On the way home from my job, job, I used to stop off at The Hand in Hand pub, and - in my memory anyway - Out of Time was always playing.

Awkward Pivot and Segue

Brighton's changed pretty drastically between then and now. Whilst it still maintains the old Regency squares and buildings, the pier and the pebbly beach, it has been infilled, taken over, gentrified, redeveloped, stuffed full of wanky coffee shops and i360's. It always had a certain kind of Bohemian hipness - a post-war Berlin vibe where anything goes within the bubble. Well not anymore - it's corporately trendy. And that isn't the same thing at all. 

Yeah, I know I sound like a things-were-better-in-my-day drone. Let me carry that burden, readers, for the road is long. With many a winding turn.**

The Brighton of the early 90's was still seedy, much more parochial than now, bathing in the afterglow of Graham Greene, with wide open derelict spaces right in the centre of town (it wasn't yet a city). There were loads of uneven car parks where buildings had been demolished (or bombed) but there was no money to redevelop. Shops were closing down. Even the main shopping centre was falling apart. The UK was in the middle of a recession. Our 'now' culture forgets that stuff happened before Brexit. Yeah - we've had recessions even before 2008. The shock, eh?

Brighton still returned two Tory MPs at the 1992 election, as did Hove.

The pubs in town pretty much still had their original names and weren't the marketing confections they'd later become but real boozers. I remember one - The Bath Arms - still there right in the middle of the Lanes. The furniture was all shabby - I remember always sitting on the same saggy and ripped sofa. Now add to this faded glory the ever present waft of cigarette, pipe, cigar smoke which fugged the air, and clung to your clothes and hair. Yes, pubs had a real atmosphere in those days!

In my mind's eye, it was either a dreary wet winter's evening or a fabulous summer day. No in between. Shuffling around in a black denim jacket, through the rain, taking shelter in a derelict shop front, maybe accompanied home by some girl I'd just met in The Basement nightclub down on The Steine. Well, the club's all gone and I never saw the girl again. She was called, er, Anna? Maria? Don't worry she won't mind my confusion; I told her my name was Bryan.***  (Yeah - see my October 18th blogpost about this girl. So I turn my life into stories? Sue me!)

Hove Lawns and the (near) complete West Pier December 1993 from my balcony.

For a couple of years I lived in a fabulous - landmark -  four bedroom flat at the bottom of Grand Avenue in Hove. Private car park, internal lift, brass fittings, front and side stone balconies overlooking the seafront, two bathrooms, cricket pitch sized internal hall. I paid £137 a month and the landlord - trying to sell the flat -  just couldn't give it away. The price was around the £130,000 mark, I seem to remember. 

I enrolled in night school and got myself an A level in Theatre Studies. If I have a fault - it never takes much for me to fall into pretentiousness. Now imagine me doing a Theatre Studies course - pursuing a theme through Strindberg, Stanislavsky, and finally Steven Berkoff.  I seem to remember being at the premier of Berkoff's Brighton Beach Scumbags at the Sallis Benney Theatre October 1991... I suspect I was tumbling up my own arse at a furious pace.

(My girlfriend at the time complained I was often 'theatrical'. I acted all upset about this and stormed away to write a song about that very conversation. What an absolute, horrific nob!)

I formed a band. We played in all the shitty Brighton pub venues for no money. I named us Charlotte's Treat (after Charlotte Street in Kemptown) before changing the name to Tempting Alice.  When the band broke up I started - and ended - my solo career in The Great Eastern pub, Trafalgar Street, autumn 1992. As it was next to Brighton college I managed to get quite a few of my drama classmates to attend. Unfortunately for my self esteem, one of the few other blokes on the course chose this exact moment to announce he was coming out. Selfish bastard; I played on oblivious. No one listened. Or clapped. And I broke a string. Afterwards, I pocketed the £20 and never played a solo gig again.

Tempting Alice with Tim Robson centre (stage)

Out of Time?

“There is still a city with the same name, and there are streets with the same name too, in the same locations, but what happens there is so transformed, in thought, word and deed, that it is not the same place. Is it better, or worse? I cannot not really tell. It is certainly different.”

— Peter Hitchens - Sunday Express 11/11/16

Interesting that Hitchens was writing (beautifully as ever) last week about Oxford in the context of Leonard Cohen whereas I chose Brighton in context of REM and Out of Time. I started writing this piece back in August but because I thought it was a solipsism, a vinegar stroke of an article, I never published it. I've attended to it, edited it, changed parts, deleted much in the last three months however. And my conclusion?

The music still plays. The buildings are (mostly) still there but the streets beat to a different set of people. Who I knew, the relationships I had, gone, absolutely. Failed domesticities. The friends, dispersed, mostly not lamented. The work, ignored at the time, forgotten now completely. Occasionally, turning a corner in Brighton I encounter the shiver of yesteryear's ghost. Just faintly - 'like an ill-remembered character from a novel read years ago, or the strains of a once familiar melody playing softly in another room'.**** But mostly, the past is a different country and, more than that, half a world away.

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NOTES

* When I say Brighton, I mean both Brighton and Hove. Although their characters are quite different, I moved seamlessly between the two. Of course, they are now joined as one city.  

** Fun fact - Elton John played piano on The Hollies - He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother. Why I sledgehammered that reference in, who knows. How unsearchable are my judgements.

*** Bryan Robson. Geddit!!! Oh, I was a hoot in those days. For youngsters - he was a footballer and captain of England when I cared about this.

**** @Tim Robson - The Song of Vivian. I apologise for quoting myself but sometimes - not enough - I am a fucking great writer.

Street Fighting Man

So Trump got elected. 

Read what I wrote here on this blog back in June about the Trump phenomenon and why people might support Trump:-

- 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.

And lo! it came to pass. We have The Guardian going into meltdown, the BBC adopting the tone of a state funeral, narcissistic (funded?) cry-babies protesting on the streets, dickhead celebs reneging on their virtue signalling threats to move to Canada. Yeah, the same shit that followed Brexit.

The serious point in all of this is that, once again, there are forces deliberately attempting to de-legitimise democracy. Reading articles in the Spectator, Guardian and Independent this week, commentators that are taken seriously (why?) have been attacking the very foundation of democracy. Apparently some voters - those that disagree with said bien pensants - are 'low information', thick, sexist, racist or whatever sub-Gramsci cultural hegemonic bullshit technique is being pushed. 

It's nasty, elitist and anti-democratic and I hate it.

As with Brexit, so with Trump; it's not the revolution that frightens me. It's the counter revolution. Now that really is scary. Never support the mob. One day the wind may blow in the opposite direction and you might find its howling anarchy beating at your own door. Be thankful we settle our differences in the ballot box and not on the streets. 

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Life's Good

The wonders of the internet...

Here's three clips from long-forgotten TV shows showing collaborations.

First up - Keef and The Killer killing Little Queenie by Chuck Berry. Sheeet Boy! This is good.

And then, one of my favourite collaborations. Bobby Darin and Stevie Wonder doing one of my favourite songs - Tim Hardin's If I Were A Carpenter. Raw, informal, watch as these two greats light up the small screen...

Finally, one of my favourite songs - Moonlight In Vermont (beautiful, beautiful - such economy of words, such imagery)... Frank - behind the beat of course, interpreting; Ella, perfect and slinky as always. Enjoy!

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Second Thoughts

“A prophet is not without honour except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own household”

The interesting thing about commuting - if the rail companies or unions don't mess it up - is that it gives me a couple of hours a day where I must decide how to occupy myself. Time was when I used this space as an opportunity to catch up on sleep or get pissed reading the 50p Evening Standard.*

Now, my time is pretty much spent writing or reading books. Is it because I'm older I don't want to waste my time with fripperies? Possibly - who knows, who cares? But one thing is true though; I've written more in the last six months commuting whilst I've held down a job in London than I ever did in the previous twelve months at home supposedly 'writing'. 

I know, I know. Profundity drips from my fingers tonight.

Anyway, one of the short stories I wrote this summer between Burgess Hill and London is to be published next month. The clever, creative editors at Artificium chose to publish 'Second Thoughts' and I can't praise enough their discerning judgement. They spot talent. Rightly and regularly... Well, at least twice.

Second Thoughts details the dating problems of a short, bald, middle aged professional man.  It breaks rules, conventions and, probably, wind.**

Now where the hell did I get the inspiration for this story? Well, I had to dig deep, to be totally honest. Real deep. Had to put myself into the character of this prince among men, this diamond in the dirt, this prophet without honour. See life from another point of view. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes... All that.

Okay, it's kinda based on me.

Again.

But apart from the high standard of writing, the taboo breaking honesty, the epic characterisation, this story - like one of the many oriental massage parlours on Lavender Hill - promises a happy ending. Maybe that's my new thing. Optimism. Empathy. Smiles. 

Actually, there are only about ten things that make me smile in this world. Many are cruel or twisted, some illegal, some just, well, weird....

But one of the things that makes me happy, is the Mick Taylor (led) Rolling Stones 1969-74. Watch Mick tear it up on one of fav Stones songs - Gimme Shelter. Okay, this is nothing to do with second chances or, indeed, this blog-ramble but, as Aristotle once said, "Fuck that, bring on the dancing girls. And another amphora of wine! Who took my olives?"

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* I wrote an article one night for the dearly departed London newspaper which they accepted. It described the culture of drinking on the 6pm train home. When I sobered up I begged them to pull the article and offered in its place - The 10 Rules of The Office Leaving Do which they duly published. Good orginal. Good recovery. I am...I said.

** Crap joke, I know and yet, and yet.

*** The more discerning - and frankly odd - members of my blog community will recognise this picture of yours truly as a still from my recent, already legendary, performance of Fixing To Leave.

The Children of Septimius Severus

A somewhat pretentious title, no?

That's deliberate.

Today I start a new feature where I actually start to publish my own fiction. Yes, it's free to read. It's like I drank from the socialist Kool-Aid or something. Get it whilst it's lukewarm.

The Children of Septimius Severus is an especial favourite of mine. As well as sending up myself, it takes the piss out the whole self-publishing, literary agents/gatekeepers scene. I've moved on from this now, I hope.

Mostly though, I hope you find it funny. I aspire to literary greatness but, like with most things, I'd settle for just being funny. Just however is a very BIG word.

Let me know what you think!

CLICK HERE TO READ

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A Rainy Afternoon in Brighton

"Outside it feels like it will rain. There is a cold wind blowing. Trafalgar Street is bleak and dark fingers of shadows icily mark our way. I feel out of time as around me autumn becomes winter. We walk closely together. Quickly and in silence - our breath marking the climb to the station. It starts to rain. Heavily. We shelter in a shop front. We face each other inches apart.

I do up another button on my black denim jacket.

The rain is now bouncing off the floor. We are well sheltered though in the shop front, snug in our cocoon.  We look at each other. She seems to be daring me to make a move. Life has Moments and this is one. She's staring at me intensely but I find myself unable to cross the divide. It's just not in me. I'm twenty three and she's just nineteen yet I still can't make a move. I have no power at all. I’m like the rain running down the hill in front of me, powerless to alter course. I stand useless, devoid of direction, waiting to be shown a way."

Neil Diamond's Beard. Tim Robson 1991

(I think I'm a better writer now. Even posting the above passage, 25 years after writing it (FFS!), I've lightly edited it. Too many adverbs. Too many non-deliberate repetitions. Still; a nice scene of a Brighton now gone. A Tim that has gone. A girl that was never there.)

Brighton Autumn 2016

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Fixing To Leave

13th October song.

If you know, you know.

Otherwise enjoy my songwriting abilities circa 1990.

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Hanging's Too Good For 'em!

Okay - as I commute to London everyday,  I am well versed in all the usual gripes and moans every commuter has:-

1. Late or cancelled trains
2. Overcrowded trains
3. Wankers barking into their phones
4. Overloud music leaking from headphones
5. Drunk passengers being 'funny'
6. Smelly people or ill people sneezing all over you.
7. etc etc

However, I've noticed a new one which, whilst small, is annoying and becoming more so. Bear with me, this may be a pet peeve but my cat's not listening so I need to vent.

No-one uses luggage racks anymore.

Eh, come again Tim?

No-one uses luggage racks anymore.

Me? Well, I find a seat (if one is to be had) get out my laptop or book and put my bag on the overhead luggage rack. That's what they are there for, afterall. It seems that is so twentieth century. The new rock n roll, is to put your bag on the floor by your seat. And then stretch your feet over the bag and so invade the space of the person opposite. Or, straddle your bag so that your feet are now in the space of the person next to you.

Also the new etiquette demands that if someone who's space is thus diminished by your selfishness raises a concern - either vocally or passive aggressively - then you should look - and act - aggrieved. Of course my feet are taking your space - can't you see I've got my bag on the floor you fuckwit?

I've started getting militant. When I find a seat and some twat has got their bag either in my seat (popular) or is so large it is causing my neighbour to spread their feet into my space, I always politely offer to put the offending bag in the luggage rack. It's interesting doing this when the offender is some strapping bloke.

Anyway, pet peeves are just that - something that annoys you that isn't a biggie. 

But it's fucking annoying - what with everything else going on with Southern railways.

Selfish, inconsiderate bastards.

And the guards are going on strike again tomorrow.

FFS

Tim

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