How To Troll

I love trolling. What's trolling? Basically the deliberate act of winding people up online via newspaper website comments boards. Getting some tedious 'the science is settled' lefty impotently raging gives me the horn. 

So how does one do this successfully?

1) Pick your battle ground. Obviously The Guardian website is the gold standard of trolling. It's where virtue signalling lefties come to feel good about themselves. My role is to make them leave a little less smug, a bit more angry.

2) Never read the article you're commenting on. Let's face it, The Guardian is just rag a for journos who never grew out of sixth form 'it's not fair' agitprop. I can guess their viewpoints by the headline. The only originality is how ridiculously leftwing and authoritarian they can get. Blah blah blah. Ignore. Just fight the fanboys underneath.

3) If you have good arguments, use them. Show off. Pull apart threadbare assertions, expose ignorance, exploit contradictions. Make your arguments short, pithy and - most important - deliberately provocative. Earnest discussions are for bores. Take your point and simplify whilst amplifying. This acts like catnip to lefties; they can't resist piling onto a forbidden viewpoint. A full throated support of Trump usually works.

4) More fun - play the man, not the ball. It's so unfair and exasperating but it's guaranteed to get your target hopping mad as they fall off their high horse and scrabble around in the dirt with you. 

5) Use humour. Lefties hate humour. They have this smug, condescending de haute en bas kind of sneer which - on the BBC and Channel 4 - passes as humour. Not to be mistaken for real humour. Doesn't work with a hostile audience. Drag your target from the comfort of a Radio 4 panel show circle jerk to a working men's club in Sunderland and 'did you spill my pint, mate?'

6) Create straw men and a fictitious mythology about your target. I owned one self-righteous lefty by constantly suggesting he used to work for Stephen Byers - the dreadful ex-Blairite cabinet minister (nothing more insulting to a Wurzel follower). They tried ignoring me, laughing it off, attacking me, using appeals to authority and then just outright fury. I win. You lose. Loser.

I call this strategy the 'Shakey' strategy. One ex-colleague made the mistake - just once - of coming to work wearing double denim. I made up this whole back story about how he was Shaking Stevens' biggest fan. It used to wind him up but he thought that by playing along with it, or laughing it off or ignoring it, I'd stop. Yeah, right.  I'd be on a call and say "Sorry, I can't hear you as XXX is playing fucking Green Door at top blast again." From then on he was known as the Shakey guy by all. He left. We don't keep in touch.

7) Dicking about with people's online moniker's is always fun. If you can twist it to something obscene - great! If not change it to something funny. Or juvenile. Diminish your target by making them ridiculous. Although everyone pretends to be high-minded and want to follow a debate, if you change someone's moniker from 'love_Corbyn' to 'love_farmanimals' no one will take them seriously again. I win. You lose.

8) If all else fails, just go for straight out abuse. Something like 'I can hear the rustle of tin foil', 'did mummy let you use the computer again?', 'Isn't it time for your meds?', 'Shouldn't you be at school', 'Does it hurt not having a girlfriend?'... Low but effective.

9) Parroting. Just copy and paste your target's contribution but change a couple of words so the meaning is the opposite of that intended. Then end it with a jaunty - 'fixed it for you!' Keep doing it and ask them how long they've been a member of UKIP posting such right wing tosh.

10) For people who write pages of tedious shit bloviating about a subject in some lawyerly or condescending manner, just attach a comment at the bottom - like a teacher - 'Too long. Learn to be more succinct and people might read your stuff'. For the serious minded this triggers them like nothing else. You can then move to employ mockery or straw man whilst changing their moniker to something stupid or rude.

This may seem pathetic, girlfriend displacement activity but those cultural wars need to be fought. Mad ideas need to be challenged by all means necessary. Ridicule and mockery are actually serious weapons. All dictatorships hate humour. For in humour we find truth and the truth is often not spoken about whereas false narratives (like the emperor's new clothes) abound. Banned. No platformed. Fight. Fight the power.

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Me & The Devil

Bye bye Warelands. 

Some blues.

Deep voice - must be serious. It's the last kitchen tape from this house. The Beatles leave Abbey Road. Elvis has left the building. Tim leaves Warelands... 

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Rocking The Ides of March

Famously Caesar was warned by a soothsayer to beware the Ides of March (approx 15th March). He ignored the soothsayer. You know what happened next. Probably - if you asked the spirit of Julius about his view of March - I suspect it would be along the lines of:- 'Not my favourite month to be honest, prefer July actually'.

But me? Well March has proved to be a record breaking month for this website. More of you have read my street philosophy - with more visits, more followers, pages views; basically, more of everything, more than any other month like - evah! Bigly. Even with the usual stalkers discounted, the graph of my fame - for that is what it is - is off the chart. Well it would be if I hadn't recalibrated the scale, but you get the point. 

Now, as a man of introspection and self reflection, I could ask, why.* However, I prefer to ask, 'why not'? But let's turn the telescope the other way and look at why. Well, I started my 'Things I don't give a fuck about' series in March. Hardcore writing promoted on Facebook. Dragged in the punters like a stripper in an after hours Rochdale pub. Then there was the Chuck Berry's obit. Serious. Measured. One string bender to another. Remember the video of Tim playing a medley of four favourite middle of the road songs? One for both the ladies and musicians. What's not to like?

Bizarrely though, the most popular blog post was something I wrote in December about Mick Taylor playing Sympathy for the Devil on Get Yer Ya Yas Out with the Stones. There were loads of website hits from the States for this piece of stellar rock history. BTW, if you haven't read it yet (why not?) go and search it out. Fun, opinionated, well researched with a decent video at the bottom, it's by far the most popular thing I've ever written. Not the best though. My recipe for Beef Ragu still brings tears to my eyes (the honesty, the flavour. I rock in the kitchen).

So - as the Monday night running club hums around me here in The Battersea Arts Centre - lots of lycra, lots of girls** - I must put March behind me and rock into April. 

There's stuff about April. Me and April. April in Paris. Long, long ago. Get me pissed enough and I might write about it, here in the record breaking Tim Robson blog, Click that RSS feed now!

Until then, cheers, I couldn't have done it without you (break records that is, the writing I could have done on my own, but you know what I mean). 

Cheers

(See the video below. Sort of this blog set to music - silky, hip, ethereal; probably better 20 years ago.)

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* Just joking - shallow and inane. That's how I like it!

** Some random 40 plus nerd is wandering around the young girls in lcyra in his running shorts, leching. They ignore him. Like, doh! What a prat - mate, just put them in your bank and move on.

70's Films

I've been working on a blog post about the 70's for a while. Handwritten memories in a leather notebook...  Yeah - I can remember the 70's. Lots of long hair, rounded collars and power cuts. A few years later - in the later 80's - I worked for a Tory MP and edited a Conservative In-Touch leaflet for voters that basically painted the 70's as a huge 10 year drift into communism (fault of Callaghan, Wilson, Benn, Heath and other assorted fellow travellers). There's something in that, of course, but my actual memories of the decade - as opposed to my political views - are fabulous; warm, comforting, happy.

I'll post the 70's article when I've finished it and - more importantly - edited it into something readable. But let's not shy away from a list when one hoves into view. So, today's listette is the best films of 1970's with a slight bias towards films I actually saw. Yeah. In the 1970's at ABC Cinema in Rochdale.

Star Wars - of course. I saw it when it came out in 1977 and was pissed off it would 1984 before it came on TV. These were days before videos. Amazon Prime etc. Christ this movie is big now. BIGGER in the 70's when the tech wasn't so dated. I collected the cards. Swapped them at school. Iconic movie. 70's classic. It doesn't get much better than this.

The Long Good Friday - Obviously didn't see this in the 70's! Bob Hoskins on fine form and Helen Mirren looking (as she always does) stunning. Dream girl. London as it was late 70's - a shit-hole but ringing to the song of Cockneys. A time piece of a world in transition before Thatcher reinvented the country.

The Three / Four Musketeers. Richard Lester screwing over Olly Reed, Michael York et al by claiming to make just one movie but then cutting it in half and releasing two. Funny, irreverent, full of humour, British character actors and daring-do. I think I saw this one rainy holiday in Dorset 1974.

Manhattan - I thought this one better than Annie Hall. Shot in black and white. When Woody Allen was vaguely funny. Didn't see this until the 80's. Plot: Woody forms an inappropriate relationship with a much younger girl. Mmm, yeah. An artist, right?

Animal House - I don't think I've ever progressed beyond this story of the worst Frat House on campus. Kent Dorfman. Wow! Tim Mattheson, John Belushi lead the lads into one gross out misdeed after another. Sporned a genre.

Apocalypse Now - "Saigon. Shit!"  President Andrew Bartlett goes off to kill The Godfather to sound of the Doors while reading Heart of Darkness. Or something like that. It goes on for, like, nine hours and is always on when I come back pissed from the pub. A bit here. A bit there. Oh, the deleted French scene. Must be director's cut. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"

Monty Python's Life Of Brian - What can I say? Possibly one of the most iconic and funniest films ever. So many scenes that are now comedy gold. Hard to see that it was controversial at the time. Christianity is a bit of a soft target though, isn't it? Not then, apparently. I suppose one could imagine a comedy team doing a piss-take of another religious figure from a different, militant religion now? Edgy, no? No? They'd rather take lame shots at Trump? How we've progressed since the 70's.

The Godfather 1&2 - Mario Puzo / Francis Ford Coppola's epic tales of a mafia family in New York. What's not to like? Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, James Caan, Robert Duvall. "Forget about it". Not.

Well there you go - some great films. Some good times. Superman in January 1979 at the ABC in Rochdale was memorable only because it was the Winter of Discontent and so the heating was off. Good times.

BTW - I reserve the right to add a couple more as I want to publish this and I've left my initial notes at home... Yes, I do draft these out sometimes. I know it looks stream of consciousness but, it ain't.

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I Swear It's Not Too Late

“No more: - where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.”

— Thomas Gray (Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College)

It's the gaps that hurt...

Helping with one of my girls' history homework recently. This is a pretty safe bet for a bit of daddy show-off time. I mean what can schools throw at me that I don't know? Backwards. Upside down. Usually, the only problem with me helping out with the homework is a) that it's either The Bloody Tudors because 1485-1603 is like, the only time in history. Ever.  b) Wet behind the ears 22 year old teachers doing lessons on how Britain was a racist, imperialist piece of shit that exploited the rest of the world and so caused all subsequent poverty, famine and wars with sidelines in - don't you know that Islam kinda invented everything in the 12th Century and that Christians persecuted everyone, everywhere and like, SLAVERY! man. Only Britain and the US had slavery and it was only brought to an end by some freed slaves doing a dance somewhere and, who's William Wilberforce and the West Africa Squadron anyway? Yeah.

But history lessons... Although the actual topics within the eras the school picks may be bollocks on stilts, I know the broad facts, right? Usually true but this week it was all about the pre Civil War reign of Charles I. And I know jack shit about this. Well, okay, I know more than 95% of the population, but that's a pretty low bar. Ignorance isn't bliss. I'm tortured by my lack of knowledge. It physically upsets me. Why don't I know? How can I be a sentient human being if I don't know about the Ship Monies? I'm the anti-noble savage. I have to know everything.

And as I write this three general thoughts occur to me:-

1) The shocking ignorance of our 'leaders' who feel they can invade Afghanistan, Syria, Libya with no understanding, appreciation or curiosity about the history of where they are committing troops. How can supposed sophisticated politicians make life or death decisions from total ignorance? It's really quite sickening. 

2) The flip side. Clearly, ignorance can drive decision making but pursuit of knowledge can make one appear weak, unsure; unable to make a decision. I have a split personality; on some things I always need more data before I form an opinion; on other things - mainly personal - I make my mind up in nano seconds. But for historical pronouncements, I've found it expedient to temporise fully aware that my high level of knowledge only makes me more conscious that I actually know nothing.

3) The universal truths of history. Always forgotten. Every generation thinks it is the first.

So what is the point of knowledge? What is the point of studying history? I heard the drumbeat of war for Afghanistan. For Syria. For Libya. It seemed wrong at the time, worse now. These days - inexplicably it's Russia that's the MSM bad guy. Why? Who is pulling the strings?  I get bombarded on TV and radio about Russia. Trump and Russia. But for what end? - Ukraine? Crimea? Georgia? Sanctions? Who understands these counties anyway? This region? I find ignorance so all-prevailing that the only sensible position to take is scepticism. 

And the main way we can fight back is to read. Read history. Ancient history. Understand the Renaissance. The Enlightenment. Understand why we are where we are where we are. It is no accident. See patterns. There is 'nothing new under the sun'. And then withdraw your support. Not in my name. Vote for anti war candidates. 

I'll leave you with one thought to think about. What is the difference between Russia/Syria booting nutters out of Aleppo and the US/UK/etc/Iraq booting nutters out of Mosul? One was daily charged with war crimes, the others painted as liberators. I see no difference. The bombs still kill innocents whether you're an evil bastard or saintly. All is vexation. And vanity.

Interestingly, Aleppo conjures up images of battles long gone, long forgotten, bigger, more catastrophic. I look at a map and see that Marcus Crassus met his end with his legions nearby at Carrhae. One of the great disasters of the Ancient World. Is that comforting? Possibly. 

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all things must come to pass; but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places.

All these are the beginnings of sorrows.”

— Matthew 24: 6-8 (KJV)

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And here's the Byrds singing the wisdom of Solomon (Ecclesiastes 3) with the tear-jerking modern addition of 'I swear it's not too late' after "A Time for Peace'.

Chuck Berry

Who started rock n' roll? How did rock start?

Well, it goes back to Fats Domino, Muddy Waters, Bill Haley perhaps. But who are the archetypes? 

Elvis. Of course. Little Richard. Awopbomoloola! Jerry Lee Lewis. Great Balls of Fire...But if you're a guitarist, it was Chuck Berry who died yesterday.

Like many, I came to Chuck Berry second hand. As is well known, The Beatles and the Stones sprinkled Berry songs all over their early albums. The Stones continued to blast out a couple of Berry songs live late into their career. So, I'd be listening to Get Yer Ya Yas Out for example, and you'd hear amongst the well known Stones songs - Little Queenie, Carol.

It's safe to say, that not a day goes by without me hearing a Chuck Berry song (as I tend to have the Stones live on my iPhone and so, Let It Rock etc are always there). Interestingly enough, the latest song I downloaded last week was a Chuck Berry song by the Stones - Bye Bye Johnny.

His career is well known. His brushes with the law. His partnership with Johnny Johnson. His combination of upbeat R&B, electric guitar riffs, clever lyrics about school, cars, girls. His trouble with the law. His miserliness. His take the money and run attitude to live performances... Yeah, he wasn't a perfect individual. But I guess he didn't have to be. He was an original.

And me. My group used to play Johnny B Goode. And that is all I will say it. We killed Chuck long before yesterday. He deserved better!

It's funny but the scene in Back to the Future where Marty plays Johnny B Goode to the 1950's kids provides one of the best obituaries. Rock n roll was an alien force that quickly took over the world. Chuck Berry led the way with his twin string lead attack.

BTW I don't apologise for showing the Stones below playing Chuck Berry in 1969. My experience of Berry was second hand. He created the platform which elevated others - masterfully demonstrated by Keef and the boys here.

Oh, and if you go back to April 26th 2016 on this blog, Chuck Berry is one of those I said I would write about if they died. One of the greats.RIP Chuck. You had a good innings.

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Things I No Longer Give A F*ck About - Dancing

“We dance to a couple of tracks. About 10 years ago, I learnt the art of looking okay whilst dancing. Less is more. Kind of sway and essay a few small but rhythmic swishes with the arms. Nothing flashy but nothing ridiculous. The aim of the game is to keep female interest neutral. The dance test is there to weed out the drunks and the arseholes. It’s not there to impress a girl so the trick is to avoid succumbing to the masturbation of your more expressive moves. No matter what beer or bravado might tell you.”

— Tim Robson - In Sambuca We Trust

What happens when your dancing days are over? When you jerk awake to find yourself on a dance floor - drunk (t'was ever thus) and surrounded by people half your age sniggering at some bald granddad making a penis of himself?

Oh readers, this epiphany happened a couple of weeks ago. After a heavy session in Brighton I 'found' myself on a dance floor staring at my feet realising that all sense of rhythm and dignity was absent and that I was a figure of ridicule. One foot moved. And then the other. And the arms kinda did their own thing. Neither timing nor beauty was achieved. Just lumpen dad dancing.

And thus mortified, my sober self came to a pact with my drunken self. Dancing; it's something I don't give a fuck about, anymore. Back in the day, you know, 16-30, if you wanted to meet a woman then the disco (club now grandad) was the place. And getting down on the dance-floor was where it was all at. I remember the days when porting a bottle of beer and cigarette on the dance floor was the height of cool (maybe shades too). And then the 'erection section'... That's the last dance to you young people, when the DJ would play a few slow ones at the end to facilitate the evening's romances.

But not anymore. You see, number one these days is my looks (clearly). Most women come onto me because of them. Naturally. But, for those that don't - few, weird - my major selling point is verbal. I wrap my partners in a blanket of humour, knowledge and experience. They know they'll be okay with me. Looked after. 

But dancing. It's no longer within my repertoire of seduction. I've retired this particular aphrodisiac. It's been growing in me for a while. Obviously my friends and I go to 'age appropriate' clubs these days. You know, basically late night bars with a small dance floor, a DJ and blokes in suits and girls of a certain age, not unaware that older guys might have a roll of cash on them. 

“I suggest Megan and I leave the dance floor. Drug dealer is still flanking the edge, now looking a bit meaner, a bit harder. I’m sure he likes to get stuck in, show some steel; impart the leather. He steps in my way as I attempt to pass. He smiles in a ‘man of the world’ way I could never pull off. It’s all a game to him. Everything here is mortifyingly serious for me. ”

— Tim Robson (In Sambuca We Trust)

And yet. And yet. Maybe it's a place-time-mood thing. Getting down / strutting my stuff seems easier in the summer, feeling slim and wearing my mate Dan's Hartington floral shirt. Yeah, all over that like a rash. So, so, maybe, dancing is not yet in the Things I Don't Give a Fuck About just yet. If - like Glenn Miller - you're in the mood. Not pissed. Toned. With the right girl. Maybe I could bring this technique back from the dead. Show those youngsters how a 'Like a Virgin' era Madonna fan used to do it at Tiffs in Rochdale in the early 80's.

“The music changes. Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit. William starts jumping around like it’s 1991 again. I do too. Big mistake. Suddenly the floor is filled with pogoing Neanderthals. All the women have fled, leaving a horde of sad, drunken men air guitaring. How attractive do we look? Not very. ”

— Tim Robson (Route One)

I'm conflicted. Aware that I could look like an arse but also aware that, in the right setting it's who you are, firstly, and then it's who you want to be. Some say your dancing style is analogous to your love making. I'm good. Sooo good. I got moves. Just a bit rusty, yeah. 

And that dear readers, is my take on dancing. And now some Shakey. My dance teacher.

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Play that Funky Music - White Boy!

When I pick up my guitar my fingers form themselves around the same old familiar chords and runs as I tend to return to a short list of songs time after time. I've tried over the last few years to remember new songs but I forget them after a couple of plays. Drink I guess. Age. Befuddlement. Whatever.

So what would you hear, listening in at my kitchen door?

The Ballads

It's Too Late - Carole King / Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell / Walk on By - Dionne Warwick / 

The Blues

Me & the Devil / Hoochie Coochie Man / I'm a Man 

Stones

Honky Tonk Women / Country Honk / Brown Sugar / Love in Vain / Satisfaction

Others

Proud Mary - Various / I Get A Kick out of You - Frank Sinatra / Return to Sender - Elvis Presley / Run to Him - Bobby Vee

80's

Wake me up before you Go-go - Wham / Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi / Say Hello, Wave Goodbye - Soft Cell

As a special treat I recorded especially for this article - for you - this video of four of these songs.

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Things I no longer give a f*** about (1)

So I'll start with sport because that was really important to me but it's now less significant than a trip to the barbers with a picture of paul mccartney in my hand asking if I can look like this and coming out looking like a fuzzy egg instead. sport was really big with me in the 70's and the 80's when it all seemed to matter and things and life were more real and went onto to become memories and not regrets or worse nothing. i supported liverpool from bob paisley's time - keegan, clemence, case, hughes, heighway - you'll never walk alone - but had a season ticket at man city in the year they bought Trevor Francis for over a million, you know a couple of years after cloughie paid a million and forest went onto win the European cup. euro success was sort of relay race in those days as Liverpool forest villa swapped who was the boss club which reminds me that Liverpool won the European cup in rome in '77 against Borussia Mönchengladbach with nine english players, one irish, one welsh. the players in those days came from the cities around the ground and cared about the club weren't removed in big houses in cheshire with agents and hangers on and wags and spit roasts but seemed decent blokes you'd meet down the pub and watch a game with*. rip brian greenhoff. yes I used to care but now i don't. and then ovett coe and then ovett coe and cram and don't forget peter elliott tough of the track yorkshire man who made it hurt for the others and had more balls than any runner i've ever known except kris akabusi who went toe to toe with the american individual gold medal holder on the last leg of the 400m and beat him. kinda did that phil brown thing and BTW there's a phil brown road around here in an estate off wandsworth road. but ovett and coe were the class in a glass trading world records and gold medals other countries' runners were just filling up the quotas in their races. but that's all gone now and i hate athletics as all doped up cheats and i hate football as all overpaid mercenaries falling in the penalty area and what would tommy smith or ian gow have made of these ballet dancers - ripped them off at the knees and taken the red like a man throwing their shirt on the pitch in disgust and served their three match ban like men whilst worshipped by the terraces and winked at by the manager who probably graduated through the ranks themselves. yes terraces all gone now after bradford after hesel not the fault of the fans the fault of the greedy clubs who take the money and despise the fans the passion the loyalty. doesn't matter now all about tv revenues and far east shirt sales and marketing rights and buying players abroad rather than give kids here a chance and nurture talent. greedy bastards. so i no longer care about sport not about football not about cricket hate rugby athletics golf and in fact any fucking sport sorry sorry but i find it all rather pointless and contrived. i'm aware that somewhere something is missing and that some moments stick in my head that make me cry and make me yearn for those days when the cop ruled and when we had the best runners but do you know what i don't miss sport i don't have the time for sport and i don't have the energy for sport and so sport would be the first thing i no longer give a fuck about...

But if I ever met Steve Ovett. Or Seb Coe. Or Steve Heighway. Kevin Keegan. Ray Kennedy. Iain Rush. Phil Neal. 

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Brian Greenhoff used to drink in the bar where I worked. Always down to earth, good to chat with never gave it the I'm a star treatment. He was a man who liked his drink, his fags and had some good stories to tell. RIP Brian - there's some great Youtube moments out there.

The One That Got Away

Had a great idea for a blog post last night.

But I've forgotten it.

Can't have been that good.

Somehow, I don't think Balzac had this problem.

Yeah

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What's a DVD anyway?

I like the word cohere. It's one of those words, not complicated, not a tongue twister, that sorts the linguistic sheep from the inarticulate goats. The donkeys from the asses. The Trumps from the Hillarys.

I mention this not because I'm a pretentious nob - I am, of course - but because it reminds me of something I once wrote (I paraphrase):-

"The list format helps the struggling writer cohere a random set of unrelated facts and opinions around a predefined structure to save them actually having to be creative."

Or something like that. Snappy, eh? Some of my best work lies on the cutting room floor of the draft folder, or banished into the dusty corners of the hard drive.* Which is my way of backing ungracefully into a flimsy article which has a list at its core.

Tim's Top 5 DVDs

DVD's - remember them? Yes, grand-dad, I do. What we had before the internet and Amazon Prime and Netflix. I still have some DVDs, tucked away in my French oak coffee table. Well, that is, until I sorted them out yesterday and packed them up in cardboard boxes. I'm moving house, you see. 

Necessarily, this little list has an air of a few years ago. I don't mind that - so do I. 

Clerks - Foul mouthed, funny, low budget, clever.  "36?"

Groundhog Day - Bill Murray relives the same day over and over again until he finds redemption.

Lost in Translation - Bill Murray has an unconsummated but profound romance with Scarlett Johansson (haven't we all?)

Before Sunrise / Before Sunset / Before Midnight - Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy in a classy, verbally rich, trio of films shot over 21 years.

The Wicker Man - Early British 70's horror set in Scotland with great folk music, Britt Ekland and a shocking end for Edward Woodward.

And that's it. I thought you might like to know.

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* Beating it hard tonight. 

Lavender Hill

“I commute into Clapham Junction everyday. My office is a twenty minute walk up Lavender Hill and Wandsworth Road.”

— Tim Robson - Bang The Beat!

Lavender...

The word lavender conjures up the sun drenched, hazy fields of Provence. Or perhaps some choppy, warm-toned Impressionist masterpiece. Or it's a section of a busy thoroughfare in South Central London. Yes, it’s probably the latter.

One thing you won’t find much of on Lavender Hill is, well, lavender. Maybe some discarded pizza boxes, plenty of rubbish strewn waste bags, an upturned supermarket trolley or a decaying Christmas tree thrown onto the street. But not much lavender. The shrub that gave this area its name has gone. Long gone.

The green fields of Lavender Hill. Picture TR

My entrance and exit point to this urban dreamscape is Clapham Junction railway station. Not sure what a junction is, but as to the Clapham part, well, that’s a little bit of historical postcode snobbery. A fib. This is Battersea. Not Clapham, which is posh and a mile away. Battersea is working class. Engineering and manufacturing back in the day. Less so now. Maybe we could rename it Lavender Junction? Help shift those new million pound apartments, no?

There’s a pub. There’s always a pub, isn’t there? The Falcon is pretty special though. One of those big pubs you only get in London. The ones dripping with large baskets of flowers, partitioned rooms, and back lit smoky glass. This one sports a famous horseshoe bar (the UK’s longest apparently). I don’t drink there though – nor the Slug and Lettuce next door. However, the facilities are handy so I’m pretty much a regular.

The Falcon. Piss stop.

So up we go, up Lavender Hill, ambling wistfully through these London fields. Past the retail splendour of Arding and Hobbs, sprinting past Fitness First, KFC and numerous Lebara money transfer shops where bored staff sell cheap booze and fags, whilst conducting mobile phone conversations that sound important, but probably aren't.

There was a girl once. There's always a girl, behind the memories, driving the words. We were students at South Bank University on Wandsworth Road. I used to catch the Number 87 bus up and down Lavender Hill to Clapham Junction. If I was more observant, as I sat on the bus all those years ago, I would have noticed a local oddity – a genuine London eatery – the Pie and Mash shop. The historian in me likes the fact that this relic of old London, of its working class eating habits, is still there. I like that. But I don’t go in. Not a fan of eels unfortunately. But it's cheering to know it’s still there nestling amidst the numerous Thai, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and assorted restaurants.

Eels. Jellied. Yum.

Battersea Library, police station but, most wonderfully (and where this drivel is mostly written) the Grade 2 listed building that used to be Battersea town hall but now doubles as Battersea Arts Centre. They used to build beauty, those Victorians, put the effort in, make buildings things of wonder and aspiration.

“Kate and I are meeting in Battersea Arts Centre. I’m late. I scan the bar. At a corner table is a woman who bears a passing resemblance to Kate’s online dating profile.”

— Tim Robson: The Bottle and the Sock

However, money was always an issue, even in the 1880’s. None more so than The Church of the Ascension, a big, bold - God is terrible, God is almighty, repent ye sinners - church at the top of the hill. It’s a massive stone structure with Byzantine influences by way of Carcassonne. It should have been adorned with an equally gigantic phallic tower but the original architect pissed the money away, was sacked and the church was completed sans spire. Nerdishly, I own a copy of the original architectural plans from 1875.

French / Byzantine architecture meets Victorian brick shit-house, muscular Anglicanism.

“There’s a tramp whose regular perch is the low surrounding wall of the Ascension of the Lord Church on Lavender Hill. Kicking back with his can of strong lager, he likes to shout abuse at the passing world. His favourite trick is surprise; hunched harmlessly over his carrier bag one minute, and then, as though roused from sleep, pouncing like a lion the next.”

— Tim Robson - About Twenty Minutes

And then we're walking downhill. Go past - hurry! - The Crown pub. Last week, as I was leaving, I witnessed some ritualised urban ballet as two drug dealers squared off to each other out on the street. Held back by their various women folk screaming, "Leave it out Jon, he's not worth it!" I waited for my Uber to take me to the station as the performance played out. Don't know who won. It's probably on YouTube somewhere.

This part of Lavender Hill is all shit council flats and massed ranks of mopeds parked on the pavement outside nondescript takeaways. Let me explain lest you live in a town where cuisine laziness hasn't yet set in. Every eatery on Lavender Hill - and there are many, so many - has a fleet of mopeds waiting to take the indolent, the obese, the time poor banker-wankers, their genuine, wood fired Neapolitan pizzas. This, children, is what decadence looks like. Fight, fight, against the dying of the light and cook from scratch you lazy bastards!

“We continue walking down Lavender Hill keeping our own counsel. Once again, our pace is well matched and we walk together, three feet apart. As we near the old Cedar pub, she slows.”

— Tim Robson: About Twenty Minutes

Lift up your eyes. There is beauty in the most unusual places.

There are many places that offer a 'massage'. Strangely they always want to massage - for extra, for cash only - those parts that don't often get massaged in - say - more mainstream establishments. Happy endings are promised. Not always delivered. I avert my eyes, clutch my pearls, lift up my skirts, and run from these places. 

And so, after a mile or so, Lavender Hill finishes at Cedars Road and hands the A3036 baton over to Wandsworth Road in a fistful of Tesco Expresses, coffee shops and Premier Inns. We are now entering Lambeth and our story must end here.

What happened to Battersea? Abolished in 1965, apparently.

And so where does all this take us? An old London Street. Full of Victorian buildings. What signifies?

“And with clear, cold eyes
And newly acquired candour,
I sift these departing delusions;”

— Tim Robson - Delusions

Well, everything. And nothing. From the confident Victorian public buildings, to the sturdy 19th Century housing for the workers, to the bold and confident Anglicanism. To the many, many cultures that have taken root here, left their mark on the shops, restaurants, even the pizza delivery boys that criss-cross unknowing through this urban thoroughfare. To the pubs, open and closed, converted or renovated, silently bearing witness to wars and coronations, disasters and triumphs. History shines through, hiding amongst these stones, these relics, peeping shyly from under the brim of modernity. The breath of London, old London, still blows gently in this cityscape. And if you look hard enough, you will find some lavender. Yes, even on Lavender Hill.

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Lavender. On Lavender Hill

All pictures of Lavender Hill, Tim Robson February 2017

It's Worth The Wait

I've been penning an article on Lavender Hill for a week or so. And taking the pictures. As it's quite close to my heart, I wanted the words to be just right. I need to do justice to the place, to what it means to me.

Okay - I've been on the piss for a week.

On Lavender Hill.

Sorry.

Tim

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Bricks and Mortar

One of my date destroying, oh is that the time, passions is urban architecture and how cities change over time.

I’ll explain.

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

As Pocahontas said – I paraphrase – you never can put your hand in the same river, it is always flowing, always different. *

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

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

Stuff in transition is more interesting than in a resting state.

Battersea Power Station 2016. Yep, just one chimney, not four. It now has three. Before having four again. Transition. Photo TR

Old pictures of Rochdale, Brighton or London, for example, excite my interest. I found a picture once of the Houses of Parliament being built in the 1850’s with Big Ben only partially constructed. How the Londoners must have marvelled and how that incomplete tower must have been their reality for months, if not years. History literally in the making.

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

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

A partially built i360 in Brighton late 2015. Photo TR

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

Long ago. Things were different.

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

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

Walking past ‘my’ building these days, I experience several emotions. Firstly, pride in my accomplishment, of course. Then, reflections about how this decision influenced hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. People met people, people left people, new jobs, new connections. Oh, the power! Yes, the beginnings of my nascent God complex…

But what strikes me now - as I walk around - is the contrast with my first impressions of this central London area, next to the Thames, that – 20 years ago - had no tube, no intrusive glass towers and no high rise and unoccupied apartment blocks. No wanky baristas in small batch coffee shops. Back then, the area was covered with post-war Corbusier-inspired brutalism, but also, some rather marvellous backstreet pubs filled with growling cockneys and cigarette smoke. All gone now.

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

In that period – mid 90’s - I couldn’t give away office space in Argyll Street or New Bond Street. Can you imagine that? I’d go up from Brighton to meet the agents – in Brook Street no doubt - who’d tell me how my space, right opposite the Argyll Theatre, amongst all the high-end fashion shops, was difficult to shift.*** That I’d have to lower the price and give rent free periods. Them was different days! This was before the internet really got going and everyone became their own start-up.

Property – in particular commercial property – exists in periods of feast or famine. Under supply and over demand lead to oversupply and under demand. And the cycle repeats itself. It’s like some visible manifestation of capitalism.

Here in Clapham I walk the same route up and down Lavender Hill / Wandsworth Road twice a day. I get to see the urban environment incrementally change. Scaffolding erected, demolitions, gangs of labourers, white vans. For instance, the nearly complete new Premier Inn off Cedars Road. The whole of the last year this old temple / church has been patiently restored and extended. Even the derelict Victoria pub next door has been spruced up for a new leasee. It looks good. **

And the point? For me, it’s stories, it’s backdrop. Someone once said that it’s almost impossible to write a history of an event because history is not neatly divided. There’s always a back story and there’s always consequences afterwards. The same applies with the built environment. And so it reveals to me stories. Streets challenge complacency, they show progress (or regression). But the urban environment is never still, never complete.

By this time, my date has left and I’m left with the bottle and the sock. T’was ever thus.

 

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Notes:-

* The wisdom of Disney. I use the best and I use the rest.

Dating Advice from Theodosius II

Close your eyes. Picture this…

Tim arrives for a date. (Girls; linger on this image for a while. Take your time. Go on - indulge yourselves. You’re worth it!)

So, I’m showered and smelling of - I dunno - David Beckham deodorant and Obsession. Wearing jeans and jacket. Smart shoes. You lucky girl whoever you are! We do the get-a-drink thing and sit down. We talk about our day, how we got here, some random observations about the bar we're in (for it will be a bar). And then. And then.

Well apparently, there's websites out there that supply approved first date questions. If you run dry of conversation, you're supposed to throw one of these into your date to get things going. For example: -

·       Who is the biggest influence on your life?

·       What was your favourite movie / song of all time?

·       Who is your best friend and why?

·       What were you like growing up?

·       What's your goal in life right now?*

·       What's your bucket list of places to go to?

·       Blah - fucking - blah

It's rehearsed spontaneity, the wisdom of a parrot, the 'I'm mad me' humour of the unfunny. In other words, nothing - nothing would turn me off more than some lady asking me to discuss the greatest influence on my life. **

Of course, I accept that someone who reeled off some bollox question has probably put some thought into our date which in itself is charming. Or an indication that she goes on a lot of dates and is on auto-pilot. Or boring.

The point stands for blokes though too. Boring bastards with no wit but tall enough to get some girl to agree to a date. If you then rely on pre-scripted bon mots, well I’d have to put you to the sword like Stilicho in Ravenna. No mercy ladies.

This somewhat reminds me of the ‘Chechnya’ scene in Brigitte Jones where Brigitte – in order to impress upon Hugh Grant her seriousness – intones ‘But what about Chechnya’ and he responds ‘I couldn’t give a fuck’ and asks her to talk about her lesbian experiences (or just make shit up).

And the purpose of this curmudgeonly ramble? Advice to a perspective girlfriend? Advice to nervous dates that they just be themselves and let the god of wine be your guide? Perhaps, snidey bitching from life’s sidelines? Yeah, that’ll be it.

So, let me leave you with some real advice:-

No-one regrets what they did. They regret what they didn’t.

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NOTES

*Seriously – what’s my goal right now? On a date? Er, let’s think… Ooh, it’s on the tip of my tongue (like you will be in half an hour).

Was that crude? I apologise. But weakly.

** The greatest influence on my life? I would, of course, answer ‘drink’. I mean, like, doh! Exit pursued by a bear.

*** The Monday night find a husband / running club is humongous tonight. Lots of ladies. They completely outnumber the nerds trying to (get laid) get fit. If I wasn’t double their age, I’d seriously consider donning the lycra myself.

And Theodosius II? Well, he was ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire in the early 5th Century. When asked about what qualities he wanted in his future wife, he replied, "Well as long as she's good to look at." And so, that's what he got, a good-looking wife. A simple story but effectively rendered, I feel. 

Prince. FFS

Watch this homage to George Harrison. And then watch Prince Roger Nelson tear it up at 3.36.

Legend.

Or as George would have said Leg End.

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A Solipsism Too Far.

I have this gift. When I hear some words or phrases my brain simultaneously translates them into what linguists call Tim's English. Tim's English is a strange variation from Common English in that the main differences are not driven by dialect but by meaning. Let me give you some examples to explain what I mean:-

English               Tim's English

Tim's English .              Solipsistic bullshit. Made up bollocks to amuse the writer of self referential blogs.

Barista.                         Wanker who serves coffee (I hate coffee shops - do you know that?)

Jeremy Corbyn.           Albert Steptoe

We welcome diversity.     Apart from diversity of thought.

Striking to protect public safety.  Bullshit.

Women don't worry about such things.  Lies

I'm only thinking of the children.  And a holiday in the sun.

Trump's not my president.  Whiney baby loses dummy

Hard Brexit.   Leave the EU as mandated in the UK Referendum 23rd June

Franco's Fiesta.   Rejected manuscript

Austerity.     Smaller than trend increases in government spend. Doubling of the National Debt

"The people in Battersea Arts Centre would really enjoy your blog Tim."  - Balls meet knife.

Green Energy.   Tax on the poor and old to give rich lefties bragging rights

Facebook Friends.  Annoying wankers you used to know but accepted their friend request one night when you were pissed. Surreptitiously blocked later when sober.

"I've only had two glasses of wine."  Two plus two...

"You're really funny Tim!"    I prefer my men tall and boring.

Aid Superpower.   Country where help for the poor or elderly or infirm is rationed so rich politicians can feel good about themselves spending other people's money on ridiculous vanity projects overseas.

"It's your round"   What, again?

Racist                    Someone who disagrees with the (left-wing) speaker. Used to close down debate and legitimise subsequent unreasonable behaviour (see reaction to Brexit or Trump)

Tories                    Socialists who went to public school or grammar schools (before they closed them down). Social mobility? Ladders? Move on, nothing to see here.

"I only started writing last year."      Liar

BBC / C4 Comedy Panel Show      Unfunny left-wing shit

Edgy Comedy                                   Unfunny left wing shit

Tim's Blog                                        Funny, balanced and penetrating analysis

Funny, balance, penetrating analysis   Bullshit

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Tim's Sapphic Misadventures

Are there more lesbians these days or is it just my fevered imagination?

Maybe it's where I go (Brighton / Battersea). Or maybe it's my rugged good looks attracting the waverers.  Or maybe it's more socially acceptable in 2017. Who knows.

But this march of the sisters doesn't upset me. Well, apart from one thing... 

Three times in the last month, sat at my table, tapping away, looking both authorial and yet approachable, I've been smiled at by single attractive women. Now, being eyed up by women is pretty usual for me - I am a basic pleasure model after all - but even-so, their interest tweaked my own. Maybe, smile back? Offer a drink? I'm a machine; turn me on and I deliver results.*

And then. And then their girlfriend turns up and they start to kiss. And not in a peck on the cheek kinda way. Tongues involved. One particularly attractive couple of ladies next to me on the train a couple of months ago were snogging and feeling each other up all the way from East Croydon to Burgess Hill. It was like I'd stepped into some porno movie. But with no part for me. I mulled about this - overly long - when I got home. Too long.

Okay, so maybe I view all of human life through the lens of my own single status (why not?) but it's a cruel trick ladies. A cruel trick I fall for time and again. Which means I'm increasingly getting paranoid, afraid of hitting on a lesbian by mistake. I respect people's lifestyle. So now, I don't do anything. I look away when a single, attractive girl smiles at me. Read more Roman history.

Yeah. That would it Tim. Lesbians. Why you're single. Yeah.

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* The bullshit is strong in this one tonight.

The Bottle and The Sock

My blogging has been somewhat sporadic of late. You've noticed? You may not believe it, but I write much more than I publish. Whilst there's many a slip t'wix cup and lip, there's many a dodgy blogpost that gathers cyber dust in this site's Draft folder - ruthlessly rejected from a public airing.

So, I reserve the more outre ramblings and website bootlegs for my short stories. You see my short stories are 'literary' and as such all manner of solipsistic navel gazing is permissible. Demanded, in fact.

Standard Tim Robson short story:-

Single 40 something professional (optionally short and bald) meets some quirky, and yet attractive, lady in, say, Battersea Arts Centre. They drink. They joke. They laugh. They may or may not end up together. The world turns and scratches its arse. The end.

Between you and me, I think I've entertained us all enough with this particular plot line.  Which is a shame because I've just churned out another in my Henry Ford production line of short stories. This new opus has all the plot features listed above plus the added, and experimental, bonus, that the action takes place in two bars, not just Battersea Arts Centre. Fuck off James Joyce, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough! I feel I'm growing as a writer, you know; exploring ideas, running with creative concepts, challenging myself. Screwing with that envelope.

Yeah, whatever Balzac.

Anyway, The Bottle and The Sock will be the last in this particular series of what some are already calling (me mainly) my Clapham short stories. I feel I've outgrown the medium. I'll still enter these unfertilised children into competitions. My stuff may be samey but it's good. Production line Tim Robson is better than niche anyone else.* Watch the list of stories published grow like a national debt under a Labour government. Or indeed, the bloody Tories. Doubled? 

So if I'm not writing short stories what will I be doing with my undoubted - if little recognised - literary talents.* Poetry? Perhaps - but part of me thinks this is like the UK concentrating on minority sports at the Olympics and winning loads of gold in, say, pistol shooting. Or Canoeing. Or sailing. Who gives a fuck? We'd all prefer a 800m win like the Brighton god that is Steve Ovett. Or Seb Coe in the 1500m. Twice. Alan Swells. 

Of course I mean a novel. There's a great state of the nation, the times we live in, epoch defining novel in me. It's what the world needs right now (well, about 2018 as opuses take a while to write a classic. In an attic. Cause I'm an addict.). And without revealing too much of the plot, I think it will hit the zeitgeist of now like a whingeing fucking lefty bitching about losing another election.

So - without revealing the plot too much - what will this American Psycho for the second decade of the 21st century be like?

Well I thought it might be interesting to follow the activities of a mid 40's professional guy, divorced, short, bald, and his attempts to come to terms with his life via meaningless dates. I think I might set it in - I dunno - Sussex and Clapham. Or Brighton. And Clapham. Lots of ideas. Many possibilities but I think I've got the core of my story.

What do you think? A page turner, no?

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

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Notes

* Hyperbolic boast not backed up by fact.

Battle Hymn of the Republic

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