Robsonramblings - Top Articles 2022

Year end reviews suck. They’re a lazy way of creating an article out of nothing. A rehash of previous ideas, a quotidian summary of stuff already out there. The scene that celebrates itself.

Yeah, yeah. But still, you know… Here’s mine for 2022.

The good news is that my site traffic has gone up 20% year on year. Impressive, huh? Obviously the raw numbers matter here. I mean a jump from 5 to 6 readers is a 20% increase but not a leap that suggests I give up my day job anytime soon.

Luckily, my readership is in the thousands so that doesn’t apply to me. And not all of the views are Tim Robson of Burgess Hill. 50% perhaps. So where are my readers tapping in from? Well, the Anglosphere mainly with the USA number 1 (47%) and the UK number 2 (24%). Zimbabwe and Taiwan slug it out to be the most unengaged.

And what do my readers like to see? Which topics show a bit of ankle to titillate the casual - or returning reader? Unfortunately, economics doesn’t seem to be very popular which is a shame as it’s what I write about mostly. And history coupled with economics seems to mine a whole new seam of indifference.

Which is a slow way of saying, it’s the cultural, music articles that grab the most views.

1) Mick Taylor and that guitar solo yet again tops the charts. People really want to read about Mick Taylor and his guitar solo on the live version of Sympathy for the Devil. It’s a good article and great version of the song. Read it. Or re-read it.

2) Mick Taylor’s top studio tracks. That Taylor boy drags readers to the site. I guess I need to write more about the 69-74 Stones.

3) Rome: The 4th Century in 5 Battles. Part of my series of discussing each Roman century using the spine of 5 battles. Constantine, Julian, Theodosius… What’s not to like?

4) Domina - Series Review. Sky’s dramatisation of the Livia and Augustus’ relationship during the first part of Augustus’ time as emperor.

5) Face of Yesterday: The Curious Tale of Binky Cullom’s brief tenure in this prog rock post Yardbyrds band. A perennial fav (I’m playing Renaissance now).

6) Rome: the 1st Century in 5 Battles. Continuing the series. This time with the Teutonburg Forest massacre, The Invasion of Britain and the siege of Jerusalem.

7) Time Waits for No-One: Mick Taylor’s greatest Stones song… Yes, MT again!

And seven will do. I think you get the point. I should write about mid period Stones, TV reviews about Rome and perhaps, a little popular history too. Let me do some A/B testing over the coming months. But if you start seeing article about Megyn & Harry you know I’ve sold out.

Probably less - or more accessible - economics articles and certainly less about the pensions markets, derivatives and government bonds. However, these type of articles tend to be a copy from my LinkedIn persona. They bolster my gravitas.

And we all need that.

Mary Chain, Mascara, Morrissey and Me: SUSSEX UNIversity IN THE 80’s

Natalie. Or Brigitte? My next door neighbour but briefly - East Slope, Sussex University

Natalie lived next door to me. She was years older - at least four. That was an unbridgeable gap in those days. She appeared experienced and sophisticated in a way that I wasn’t then and probably am not now. And she was also French; dark haired, beautiful, sexy. I’d only gone to university and got Brigitte Bardot living next door to me!

And then, mid-term, she moved out. Our juvenile antics must have irked her. Oh - the bottomless pain of separation! The exquisite misery of emptiness! Surrounded by hundreds of eighteen year olds I was alone, so alone.

I played Hatful of Hollow endlessly. Morrissey incongruously spoke to me. ‘Please, please, please let me get what I want’ he sang through my cheap speakers. There was silence from the empty room next door.

East Slope, Sussex University, autumn term 1986.

---

I was driving my daughter around ‘my’ Brighton last weekend. We were stopping off and photographing all my previous addresses throughout Brighton and Hove. Some I stayed at for a matter of weeks, others for several years. Many looked decrepit, a handful were grand, very grand. I had situational memories of all of them. Job. Girlfriend. How cold they were (it was alway cold in Brighton flats).

On the way back to Burgess Hill we stopped off at Sussex University. I’d lived in three campus apartments over two years - East Slope, Kent House and Park Village. Let’s see if I could retrace once familiar steps and show my daughter, well what? Where Natalie left me bereft all those years ago? Mmm, maybe not. But where I lived certainly.

But like most universities since the 80’s, Sussex has got bigger - ‘welcoming’ more and more students in order to meet Tony Blair’s ridiculous 50% target. Add to this to the maniacal drive to recruit loads of fee paying foreign students and you have a university with near four times the number of ‘clients’ it had when I went there.*

So although we drove past many familiar buildings, there was a new feeling about the campus. It seemed very closed in whereas it always seemed spacious when I was there. Tricks of time, perhaps. Sussex was a relatively small university in the 80’s and the student body was split fairly evenly between public school tossers and the brightest and best of the comprehensive system. 4500 students in all - one third living on campus. It felt like a village. A village out in the Downs, ten minutes train ride from Brighton. It sported Sussex red brick and the architect - Basil Spence - had designed the layout so that it nodded vaguely in the direction of a classical Roman forum. (I know this stuff because I used to do campus tours for prospective parents and students in my third year. £3 a pop, I remember.)

Shades at night! TR in his Kent House student room 1988 - alas the call from the Jesus & Mary Chain never came.

There were the bars of course. East Slope bar was notorious because of the cheap drinks, the scrum to get those cheap drinks and the sticky floor caused by said drinks being too difficult for students to navigate the plastic glass of Kronenberg from glass to mouth without spilling. (Pints were 60-70p). Park Village Bar rates a mention as it was the home of the Julie’s Jinx a pint of every spirit going starting from a base of half a cider. These cocktails never lasted long in your stomach.

Sussex has changed since the 80’s. New high rise accommodation blocks bestride and dominate the northern end of campus. All those extra fee paying students have to live somewhere I suppose. Inside, these alien structures are probably very nice with all the mod cons our current flock of students demand. But the village feeling, the uniqueness of the first red brick university, has gone. And so has East Slope, so named because all the student accommodation was in single story flats rising gently up a hill. All gone. And yes, that flat where I met and then mourned the beautiful Natalie, now gone completely.

To be fair the other buildings from then to now, looked tired. Park Village looked in particular on its last legs with rotting woodwork, overgrown green spaces, windswept rubbish piled up in corners. Not how I remembered it at all. But then what I truly remember is the spirit, the ephemeral feeling and not just the concrete. I remember the summer of 87, and every window being open and blasting out the newly released Joshua Tree. I remember late night parties and lying on the grass in the warm June air, talking bollocks about politics and music and gossiping over plastic glasses of cheap red wine. I remember reading Wuthering Heights for the first time out on the fields next to Park Village; fields now covered with blocks of flats and car parks.

It’s the people and the time; the young people interacting, doing stuff, each other, laughing and joking that defines a place, an era. I guess I always knew that.

Park Village party, June 1988. TR lying down in white (with hair!)

So even before further buildings are torn down, as East Slope has been, the transient spirit my cohort possessed has gone. Each successive intake make their own memories, their own version of what a university community means. But that time is heartbreakingly brief and we’re left - if we ever venture to go back - with the mere bones slowly rotting away. The flesh has long gone. The spirit died the very moment we walked out that last day Summer Term ‘88. And maybe that’s correct.

And Natalie? Fuck knows. She shacked up with some professor, moved into a flat behind the station in Brighton and - for all I know - got married, had kids and never thinks about me. But if she does I hope she plays The Smiths.

Tim Robson 17B East Slope 1986.

(I like live versions of songs. This solo version from Morrissey - years later, different lyrics - captures though the wistfulness of time passed. Hence me selecting it. You’re welcome.)

• Fifteen Minutes with You… From Reel Around The Fountain, The Smiths

• Foreign student income. Perhaps that why the British universities whined like bitches when the uneducated population voted for Brexit? Call me old fashioned (puts down pint) but shouldn’t the primary function of UK universities be to educate the children of this land first?

Mary Chain, Mascara, Morrissey and Me: SUSSEX UNI IN THE 80’s

Natalie. Or Brigitte? My next door neighbour but briefly - East Slope, Sussex University

Natalie lived next door to me. She was years older - at least four. That was an unbridgeable gap in those days. She appeared experienced and sophisticated in a way that I wasn’t then and probably am not now. Also she was French; dark haired, beautiful, effortlessly sexy. I’d only gone to university and found Brigitte Bardot living in the next room!

And then, mid-term, she moved out. Our juvenile antics must have irked her. Oh - the bottomless pain of separation! The exquisite misery of emptiness! Surrounded by hundreds of eighteen year olds I was alone, so alone.

I played Hatful of Hollow endlessly. Morrissey incongruously spoke to me. ‘Please, please, please let me get what I want’ he sang through my cheap speakers. There was silence from the empty room next door.

East Slope, Sussex University, autumn term 1986.

---

I was driving my daughter around ‘my’ Brighton before one of the recent interminable lockdowns. We were stopping off and photographing all my previous addresses throughout Brighton and Hove. Some I stayed at for a matter of weeks, others for several years. Many looked decrepit, a handful were grand, very grand. I had situational memories of all of them. Job. Girlfriend. How cold they were (it was alway cold in Brighton flats).

On the way back to Burgess Hill we stopped off at Sussex University. I’d lived in three campus apartments over two years - East Slope, Kent House and Park Village. Let’s see if I could retrace once familiar steps and show my daughter, well what? Where Natalie left me bereft all those years ago? Mmm, maybe not. But to get a sense of where I lived certainly.

But like most universities since the 80’s, Sussex has got bigger - ‘welcoming’ more and more students in order to meet Tony Blair’s ridiculous 50% target. Add to this to the maniacal drive to recruit loads of fee paying foreign students and you have a university with near four times the number of ‘clients’ it had when I went there.*

So although we drove past many familiar buildings, there was a new feeling about the campus. It seemed very closed in whereas I remembered it as much more spacious when I was there. Tricks of time, perhaps. Sussex was a relatively small university in the 80’s and the student body was split fairly evenly between public school tossers and the brightest and best of the comprehensive system. 4500 students in all - one third living on campus. It felt like a village. A village out in the Downs, ten minutes train ride from Brighton. It sported Sussex red brick and the architect - Basil Spence - had designed the layout so that it nodded vaguely in the direction of a classical Roman forum. (I know this stuff because I used to do campus tours for prospective parents and students in my third year. £3 a pop, I remember.)

Shades at night! TR in his Kent House student room 1988 - alas the call from the Jesus & Mary Chain never came.

There were the bars of course. East Slope bar was notorious because of the cheap drinks, the scrum to get those cheap drinks and the sticky floor caused by said drinks being too difficult for students to navigate the plastic glass of Kronenberg from glass to mouth without spilling. (Pints were 60-70p). Park Village Bar merits a mention as it was the home of the Julie’s Jinx, a pint of every spirit behind the bar starting from a base of half a cider. These cocktails never lasted long in your stomach.

Sussex has changed since the 80’s. New high rise accommodation blocks bestride and dominate the northern end of campus. All those extra fee paying students have to live somewhere I suppose. Inside, these alien structures are probably very nice replete with all the mod cons our current flock of students demand. But the village feeling, the uniqueness of the first red brick university, has gone. And so has East Slope, so named because all the student accommodation was in single story flats rising gently up a hill. All gone. And yes, that campus flat where I met - and then mourned - the beautiful Natalie, now gone completely. A metaphor there, probably.

To be fair the remaining buildings from then to now, looked tired. Park Village specifically seemed on its last legs with rotting woodwork, overgrown green spaces, windswept rubbish piled up in corners. Not how I remembered it at all. But then what I truly remember is the spirit, the ephemeral feeling and not just the concrete. I remember the summer of ‘87, and every window being open and blasting out the newly released Joshua Tree. I remember late night parties and lying on the grass in the warm June air, talking bollocks about politics and music and gossiping over plastic glasses of cheap red wine. I remember reading Wuthering Heights for the first time out on the fields next to Park Village; fields now covered with blocks of flats and car parks.

It’s the people and the time; the young people interacting, doing stuff, each other, laughing and joking that defines a place, an era. I guess I always knew that.

Park Village party, June 1988. TR lying down in white (with hair!)

So even before further buildings are torn down, as East Slope has been, the transient spirit my cohort possessed has gone. Each successive intake make their own memories, their own version of what a university community means. But that time is heartbreakingly brief and we’re left - if we ever venture to go back - with the mere bones slowly rotting away. The flesh has long gone. The spirit died the very moment we walked out that last day Summer Term ‘88. And maybe that’s as it should be. Life is ever onwards and never static.

And Natalie? Fuck knows. She shacked up with some professor, moved into a flat behind the station in Brighton and - for all I know - got married, had kids and never thinks about me. But if she does I hope she plays The Smiths occasionally and suffers a momentary flashback to her time at Sussex University as the unwitting star of a movie she’s never seen.

Tim Robson 17B East Slope 1986.

(I like live versions of songs. This solo version from Morrissey - years later, different lyrics - captures though the wistfulness of time passed. Hence me selecting it. You’re welcome.)

• Fifteen Minutes with You… From Reel Around The Fountain, The Smiths

• Foreign student income. Perhaps that why the British universities whined like bitches when the uneducated population voted for Brexit? Call me old fashioned (puts down pint) but shouldn’t the primary function of UK universities be to educate the children of this land first?

The Good Life - Part 1

“society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”

— Karl Marx - The German Ideology*

The other day I gazed at my Twitter feed and saw the same news item retweeted and commented upon by several of the people I follow. Making the same points with various degrees of humour or waspishness. I was literally gazing down at my own personalised echo chamber. Comforting, affirming and totally corrupting.

We all know - or at least I hope we do - that to live the good life, you should be understanding, humble, a seeker or truth and knowledge. What is a good life? Well, read my dissection of Marcus Aurelius here. We should all try to widen our sources of information, and gain new perspectives and thoughts.

This feeling grew after the election in December. I should have been happy - and I was - but a feeling in me grew that perhaps I was missing something. On a whim I trimmed my right wing and libertarian sources and upped my left wing and radical sources. I always had a few (George Galloway, Jimmy Dore, Tulsi Gabbard) but now I wanted left wing voices to be more represented on the panels of my thoughts. My politics is complicated and I wanted my sources to reflect this, to challenge myself.

But last week I went further. As any reader of this blog knows, I have interests in Roman history, history generally, architecture, London and art. But my Twitter feed did not reflect this. So I actively sought out Twitter feeds that nourished what I actually like beyond the narrow prism of politics - archaeological finds and digs, art exhibitions, great architecture from around the world.

And so my twitter feed - my guilty pleasure - is now (for now) more representative of me as a whole, including the better half of my soul. When I look at my feed I want to stray from Trump’s tweets, to a campaign to save a Roman villa in Gloucestershire, to what’s happening next door at the Tate, to the painful internal process of good solid Labour MPs as they try to work out why they got the recent kicking from the UK electorate.

The same with books. The same with podcasts. The same with YouTubing. Music. 2020 has to be the year of diversity of thought, that most important but under-rated of qualities. It is a central pillar that buttresses ‘a good life’.

Next week, I discuss that how reducing your alcohol intake, eating moderately across all the food groups, quitting smoking and exercising regularly might actually make you more healthy. It’s part of my new series; Stating the Bleeding Obvious.

* Footnote - the Marx quote… This always struck me as ridiculous when I read this back at University. We all had to study Marx a lot, and this quote seemed to summarise the unrealistic nature of communism as envisaged in The German Ideology. But if one substitutes work and replaces it with thought, then, not so crazy…

Tim Robson: Latest Blogs

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, singer in REM, once noted that a 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 (apart from the instrumental Endgame).

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 jazz age 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 this sounds 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, Brighton in the early 90’s was either a dreary wet winter's evening or a fabulous summer day. No in between. And I was forever shuffling around in a black denim jacket, through the rain, taking shelter in derelict shop fronts, maybe accompanied home by some girl I'd just met in either The Basement or The Gloucester down on The Steine. Well, the clubs are 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.*** 

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 back then 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 our conversation. What an absolute, horrific nob!)

I formed a band. We played the usual venues - The King and Queen, The Hare and Hounds, The Freebutt - 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 on one night 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 evening to come 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) about Oxford in the context of Leonard Cohen whereas I chose Brighton in context of REM and Out of Time. 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.

Tim's Blog RSS

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.

**** Originally published in 2016 but revised 2019

The Wisdom of Neil Diamond

So, I’ll be welcoming some of you here from LinkedIn. Your first visit probably. Welcome.

Pat yourself on the back; you are the curious, the trendsetters, the pressers of random hyperlinks. Well, enter of your own choice, hand in your prejudices along with your coats, disrobe yourself of received wisdom and take a glass of my Voltaire cocktail (a little rum, a little vermouth, a dash of old fashioned free speech). There’s space down there on the carpet at the front.

So, history… Again. Maybe I have delighted you long enough? I should let some of the other ladies have a go? No? Okay, history it is then.

In my LinkedIn article I distilled the whole of human history down to seven life lessons. As you do. Like some fucking middle management Yoda with a penchant for Suetonius, I draw my unwilling readers in like that goddamn tractor beam in Star Wars. Yeah, from the first movie, in the original trilogy. The good ones. And now, like the Millennium Falcon, you are held captive on my Death Star along with the regular crowd of ardent readers; potential girlfriends checking me out, Mick Taylor fans, Indonesians, ex-girlfriends stalking me, that sad nutter from some basement in Didcot.

Let me quote from the article to give those of you who didn’t read it a flavour. Life lesson number six which - I think anyway - is one of the best:-

 We are the stories we tell.

 For several years I’ve been working on a riff about people being the stories that they tell. Of course, I probably stole the idea from a hundred different places. But I believe it. Nothing summarises a person (a nation, a culture) more than the stories they tell about themselves. Think about it. When you tell a story about yourself to friends or colleagues, how do you cast yourself? Hero? Villain? Put upon martyr? Joker? It doesn’t take a Freud to notice this.

Socrates does not sleep easy tonight because I think I gave the old pederast an intellectual kicking. Yeah.

But how pretentious was the article? Let me just consult my digital meter. OMG! The needle is pointing to ‘head firmly up arse and modelling it as a rather fashionable hat’ pretentious. That’s how much. With a feather.

Of course I quoted Ecclesiastes and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. What again? Regular readers here will know they are the only two books I’ve ever pretended to have read. I’m a poor man’s philosophe. But in the kingdom of the blind, the man with two trip wires tends to come out on top.

But all the same, I’m kind of liking the feeling of being some sort of urban philosopher with jokes. The cap fits and I’m snapping that brim smartly. I mean, hasn’t everything I’ve been writing here on this website been comedic philosophy? Bon mots, bon-bons, bonfire of the vanities?

Yes, yes it has Tim.

Well anyway, welcome, bookmark the page. It’s a journey we’re all on children, a little wisdom and humility and ridiculousness will go a long way.

“I am, I said.” says Neil Diamond. “And no one heard. Not even the chair.”

All about that. Thank you Neil.

Tim's Blog RSS

Goodbye Tash.

I’ve made a momentous decision…

Like all momentous decisions, the actual decision itself was only taken after heavy consultation with my good friends Mr Whisky and Mr Not-Bad-Red-For-About-Five-Pounds. The latter friend sets the framework, discusses options, maps out different scenarios. The former (Mr Whisky) is the closer of the group. The decision maker. He shoots. He scores. He can’t help but decide. He cannot - and will not - sit on the fence.

Yesterday, my aforementioned good friends and I, decided that we’d had enough of moustaches. That they were ridiculous and unsuitable. But we went further than that. We were done with facial hair in its entirety.

That is a momentous decision.

For the last four years I’ve been constantly with a beard. See Tim. See facial hair. Close cropped beard. Full beard. Scruffy beard. Tidy beard. Goatee beard. I’ve distrusted clean shavenness. I’m dubious about soft pink skin on my face. To shave is like, so 2004. Or something.

But last night the razor came out. The shaving cream was applied. Bold strokes and nimble blade work swept from ear to ear. The moustache was no more. The last stand of facial hair had been wiped out and sent down the plug hole.

And so I braved the Lake District weather today, naked of face. The slings and arrows of outrageous weather whacked my newly shorn visage as I mounted Cat Bells. Didn’t feel a thing.

So we’re left with; does it suit me? Does the clean shaven look knock years off me? Make me look younger and more vital?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Makes me look fatter though and my bottled friends are agreeing with me on this point right now.

What do you think?

Clean shaven in front of Lodore Falls. Cheeks sucked in. Allegedly.

Tim's Blog RSS

The Master of Social Media

Connecting a website to Facebook. Or visa versa. Wow - how hard can it be? And I’ve got a qualification in computing… Did a website coding course at night-school last year.

But can I connect Squarespace to Facebook?

No. No I can’t.

Pressing buttons like monkey on a typewriter on a deadline to recreate Shakespeare and all I get is, well nothing. Dead air, missed connections, severed logic.

There’s a metaphor in all this, I’m sure of it.

Tim's Blog RSS

Things I Will Never Do*

At fifty you start to realise that you are what you are and start not to care overly about how you are viewed by others. This is both a strength but also a weakness. But, as you no longer give a fuck, the opprobrium doesn't matter. But with acceptance of character comes realisation of its flaws.  Perhaps there are things I'll never do. The list might go something like this.

1) Play golf. Sport of wankers, poxy rules, dickheads, sportsmen. 19th holes. No desire, no interest, I won't accept any club that will have me and petty rules just irk me.

2) Hold dinner parties. Used to. I think you need a wife and boring mates. Don't have either.

3) Go to Glastonbury. Posh twats who chant some nonsense in support of a terrorist supporting, anti British communist and then go home to their flats in Chelsea. 

4) Do drugs. Never appealed to be honest. Yeah smoked some weed at university but nothing else. No interest. Sorry. Booze is my lady one glass at a time. I can't betray her.

5) See Elvis, The Beatles, Oasis, Queen (shit I had a ticket for Maine Rd 1986 and didn't go), and hundreds of others. You look back and go... why didn't I?**

6) Live up to my own high expectations. 

Tim's Blog RSS

See note ** below.

Here's a link to Lisa Stansfield's 1st single - Your Alibis. This came out in 1982 when we were in the school play together back in Rochdale. The B Side was Springsteen's  'Because The Night' which I remember Lisa saying she wished was the A side. But the A side was my favourite. Sounds very French! I remember playing her - in return - one of my songs on the piano in a break during rehearsals. She liked it. If only I was more pushy!

* Things I'll Never Do. Isn't that the title of that pretty decent song by Stockhard Channing in Grease.

** But I did see, in no order and forgetting loads - Blur, Meat Loaf, Suzanne Vega, The Pretenders, The Milltown Brothers, Captain Sensible, New Model Army (God, they were shit), Black Grape, Alexander O'Neil, Liam Gallagher, Taylor Swift, Rod Stewart, The Charlatans, Lisa Stansfield (up close and personal), Squeeze, Julian Cope, Sleeper, Alvin Stardust, Cast, Stormzie, Shambolic, The Pinter Boys, Tim Robson

Dating in Battersea Right Wing Style

A Crap Date in Battersea Arts Centre

(A Star on Lavender Hill excerpt @Tim Robson 2018)

One of the problems of dating in Battersea, if you hold right-wing views, and I do - mildly and quietly - is that your potential date will be - by habit, by convention – culturally of the left. They’ve never met anyone like me, most are appalled I even exist. Therefore, I have a dilemma - to stay quiet and fail gracefully to progress the relationship, or to reveal my politics and be damn certain not to. I mostly choose the shorter path.

I’m also a bit of a nob. That doesn’t help.

Chloe and I met via some online dating agency. We agreed to meet for a drink in the bar at Battersea Arts Centre. So far, so Guardian Soulmates.

“Well Chloe, digital marketing, what does that actually mean?” I said with more bravado than tact.

Chloe looked disgusted, as though I’d demanded her best mate’s number. But the lure of being condescending proved too much. “I run word-of-mouth campaigns to organically connect brands with sympathetic networks and communities.”

“Yeah, all of that, love it - gets me a little stiff frankly - but what about digital marketing?” I laughed to underline that this was a joke. A slightly risqué joke perhaps, but still a joke between adults. On a date. Chloe though was a little younger than me and so treated life in an appropriately serious manner. Laughing at life’s absurdities is something the millennial generation appeared to have jettisoned. Shame; I used to like humour.

“Traditional marketing only concentrates on consumer relationships defined by the act of purchase. Digital marketing is about creating communities.”

“Communities that buy stuff?”

“That’s part of it.”

“So not very different!” I laughed, so alone.

“What do you do then?” Chloe asked somewhat perfunctorily. In my profile, I’d written some bullshit like skywriter or dream-maker. Basic pleasure model. I like to arouse curiosity even where none is merited.

“I manage accounts.”

“Who for?” she asked – interest momentarily piqued, itchy finger on a LinkedIn request.

“A small merchant acquirer.”

“What?”

“We sign up shops and restaurants to accept credit cards. Like this place. Means you can pay for my next drink with your Gold Amex!” Again, humour. Mistake. She heard the bit about her buying me a drink but missed the rest. Oh dear! No one gets me.

 And then - how very quickly - Chloe’s participation in the conversation declined into monosyllabic disinterest. There was an overwhelming possibility of an early morning meeting. Or the unfortunate calamity of a sudden headache. Sadly, my dates often end with unexpected haste.

But I aim to please, to give a party bag to my departing ladies containing the full right-wing arsehole experience, to provide a cautionary tale to pass onto girlfriends over a bottle of Prosecco after a hard day creating organic, but brand-aware, communities.

“So, Brexit. Great result, eh? Finally, free from our European masters!”

Chloe was gone in less than a minute clutching her pearls. I think Wandsworth voted 98% in favour of remaining in the EU. If only a couple of boxes of postal votes hadn’t got lost, there would have been a ringing 110% endorsement.

I reflect on this date as I pass Battersea Arts Centre. My reflections are warm but never salutary. I repeat the same mistakes and fall too willingly into the same traps just as I walk the same route, encounter the same people, and have similar thoughts each and every day. On Lavender Hill.

Tim's Blog RSS

Tim Robson warming up at Battersea Arts Centre

Lavender Hill - An Opening

A Star on Lavender Hill (excerpt) - @Tim Robson 2018

It's approximately 2400 steps from one end of Lavender Hill to another. I walk one way in the morning, and the other in the evening. Typically I do this journey twice a day, five days a week.Through constant repetition, I can tell you the best places to cross the road, which coffee bars have the smallest queues, the most likely spots to encounter beautiful girls.

I can calibrate precisely the lateness of my train by the characters I meet as I begin my journey. If I’m early, for instance, I’ll pass a tall girl with the poise of a model striding through Clapham Junction Station concourse. Her long creamy hair is salon-perfect, clothes au courant, make-up professionally applied. She draws stares from those who see her for the first time, or those – like me – who hope to see her every day. Who she is and what she does is a mystery. My attempts to catch her eye and thereby swap a smile are coldly ignored. Being beautiful allows you to be dismissive with random strangers. 

Often, as I walk up the right-hand pavement, I pass a young professional lady – twenty-five, twenty-six – who, in the glow of Debenhams’ window display, occasionally does return my smile. It’s a validation and I seek it out. But when I’m late, which thanks to my insufferable train, I often am, she’s gone already. I’ve observed that she catches a bus around the corner on St John’s Road at 8:45; anytime later than this means I miss her smile. What if we talked one of these days? Went for a drink? Became lovers?

These pleasant thoughts are driven from my mind though as I pass the Corner Stone Christian bookshop where some crazy Korean dances in the doorway. He’s there in all weathers, practising karate moves and raving in some weird English/Korean gibberish. Why this spot and why the elaborate performance is unclear but, all the same, I avoid the wild riddles of his eyes and instinctively move towards the curb.

Between the library and the police station, they’ll be two yummy mummies, thirsty for quarter-shot lattes, wearing tight fashionable leggings, slowly pushing their baby strollers in tandem towards the Social Pantry Cafe. If I’m late, I'll struggle to get past their pavement-blocking phalanx of buggies and bags. If I’m on time, I’ll slip into step behind them, listening to their unvarying stories - children, husbands, other women - until they cross at the lights on Latchmere Road.

The Falcon, anchoring Lavender Hill

Tim's Blog RSS

The Seven Traits of Curious People (remix)

Whoops! I did it again.

My Linkedin profile now proudly bears another article, another blind stumble through the dark alleys of wisdom. Yes, I recently posted The Seven Traits of Curious People. All very worthy and an exciting read, no doubt.

Why curiosity, Tim?

Why not, arsehole?

Seriously, why?  Explain to us your thoughts in this windswept and ill-visited corner of the internet?

Okay. Let's lift the curtain behind the creative process this one time shall we?

At university I studied some evolutionary biology and psychology. Totem and Taboo, The Future of an Illusion, some bollocks by Marx (obligatory at Sussex), Durkheim's Protestant Work Ethic, Hobbes, Rousseau, Masters and Johnson and Shire Hite (for the more racy stuff). Recently, I've been reading my copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, marvelling at Ecclesiastes and listening and purusing Jordan Peterson. 

What interests me is the un-variability of the human condition. Again and again, Marcus Aurelius returns to this theme; how everything has been done before. Human emotions and dramas that is. Okay so we have a laptop and a mobile phone, Tinder and central heating but the pride, the wants, the seeking of status, the lies we tell others and ourselves; not changed. 

And this interests me. Whilst we perfect the material side of life, the spiritual aspect remains the same. Marcus was, of course, a stoic who believed in the Pagan Gods. Solomon was a wise but over indulged King who sought meaning in life when none appeared to him  (all is vexation and vanity). He moved away from his god (Jehovah). 

Where rests truth and where lies meaning?

Fuck knows, to be honest. But let's be curious about everything, open our eyes and seek answers, however small, however insignificant.

Or maybe I've just turned fifty and so have tripped over the stone marked 'existentialist crisis'?

But I haven't the money for a red Ferrari, I don't seem able to attract women twenty five years younger than myself and I can't grow a ponytail. So, navel gazing philosophy and flimsy theories it is then.

As usual. Or as Danny Dyer - sage of our time says - Ter-wat!

Tim's Blog RSS

Passion's Puppet

“Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.”

— Marcus Aurelius - Meditations IV

Music.

Yes, to me music is the start and end and everything in between. It is the goodness, the evidence of the divine, the transportation from the banal the sublime. It's felt in the fragile wistfulness of Debussy's Claire du Lune, the raw power of the Pistol's God Save the Queen, in the once and future sound of Video Killed the Radio Star, right through to the aching nostalgia of Fairport Convention's 'Meet on The Ledge'.

It is the bounce of an 80's disco as - a then - unfamiliar Madonna's 'Holiday' hits you through a throbbing bass vibrating the floor, the smell of perfume and the heady mix of cheap lager and youthful camaraderie. 

It is the soaring guitar riff of The Charlatan's 'Just Lookin'' cutting through the air at Brighton's Event.

It is Lisa Stansfield and Blue Zone at Rochdale Football Club in 1986 - all mullets and big glasses.

It is a drunken Tim standing onstage at a Chicago Blues Club in a long overcoat playing and singing 'Mannish Boy' with all the passion tequila and respectful homage can muster.

It is in the choral movement of Beethoven's Ninth and it's epic climax - power, grace, counter melody. This is the riff-heavy 5th to the max with God thrown in.

It is the feel and beauty of Vivaldi's Winter Largo from the Four Seasons, impossible not to believe that this is the greatest melody ever written

It is a fifteen year old boy listening through expensive headphones to Jumping Jack Flash for the first time and being blown away by the power of rock.

It is in the poignant sadness of The Winner Takes it All as it plays through a soon-to-be-empty Brighton flat, a too-painful soundtrack to a failed domesticity.

It's The Beatles going down fighting on a rooftop in central London January 1969 playing themselves out one last time with Get Back.

It's in the all-to-apt breathing rhythm and aching guitar solo of Savage - Annie and Dave's masterpiece.

And it's in the two seconds between the middle eight and the scatter-gun guitar solo where my Marshall Valvestate 8080 growls feedback in anticipation, a horse about to bolt,  a future direction, an awesome power awaiting to be unleashed on 50 people in a Kennington pub as I kick off the best guitar solo I've ever played.

Fate was indeed at my elbow that night.

Tim's Blog RSS

* Passion's puppet is, of course, a telling phrase from my go-to Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius. 

A Veneer of Civilisation - Tim Robson

Read it here online for the first time. My 2016 published dystopian epic - A Veneer of Civilisation.

Enjoy.

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS

Read Tim Robson's Second Thoughts!

I've posted my short story 'Second Thoughts' up on the Random Writing page.

It was published late 2016 having come 2nd in - now defunct - publisher Artificium's 2016 short story competition. I've written about the experience, and the genesis of this story before.

I hope you like it, and if you like stories of dating confusion, prejudice and second chances, it's for you. I'll publish more of my winning stories in the following weeks.

Tim's Blog RSS

Carfax Tower Oxford - then and now

Can anyone spot the difference between these two images taken 32 years apart on top of Carfax Tower, Oxford?

2017

1985

Tim Robson - Top Posts 2017

(In which Tim babbles about his year in blogs, talks website statistics and - like some jaded good-time girl - tries to understand your preferences)

- What is it with South East Asia and porn?

- What was my theory about Tom Petty’s culpability in the death of Gene Clark?

- What has Wandsworth Council been doing in 2017 to piss away taxpayers’ money?

- What got Tim so upset with Sky in April that the blog literally fell off the rails under the weight of forced anal rape metaphors?

- Why did I post a video of American Trilogy on 21st January?

- And who the fuck lives in Didcot Oxfordshire whose idea of a guilty pleasure is night in with a whisky, some rabbit fur and a long, luxurious  read of this blog?

And who knows when and how to get out of the ever convenient but ever bereft list format style of writing?

Questions. Questions.

So, 2017, almost over, probably not lamented, certainly not celebrated, a prophet without honour even within its own fading span. Blog-wise, where did we go? Did we progress? Did we solve any conundrums, right any wrongs, add one iota to the sum of human knowledge?

To answer this, let me remind you of an old story. Do you remember the one where – unseen – a mouse is fucking an elephant in the arse when the elephant inadvertently stands on a thorn and lets out a great howl of pain and the mouse – still pumping away - shouts, “Yeah, take it bitch!”

I’m not exactly sure what the point of that story was. Am I the mouse? Are you the elephant? Who knows? Sometimes my ways are unknowable, my motives inscrutable, my metaphors a jammed rifle that backfires like some madcap 1940’s cartoon.

Anyway – let me attempt lucidity… I’ve been analysing the traffic stats of this site, and on every measurable scale, 2017 was the year this blog entered the big time, broke all records and had more readers than ever. Thank you all for coming here, even if you only read one article.

As I’ve grumbled here once or twice, my average demographic is probably some middle-aged guy, in his mum’s basement in Lubbock Texas, turning to fat, drinking some bourbon, listening to golden era Stones and, in between accessing niche interest porn, reading my articles about Mick Taylor.

Mick Taylor. Mick Fucking Taylor. I guess I’m gonna have to continually be ‘The Mick Taylor Guy’. By far most of the traffic that comes to this site is directed at the two Mick Taylor articles I've written. If only I could think of a way to monetarise your interest, I’d be rich. If I charged a mere $1 for a sneak-peak at my Mick Taylor articles, I’d have amassed, I dunno, a few hundred bucks by now.

Anyway, here is my list of my favourite blog posts in 2017. It's a good way to ease yourself into my muse.

Covetousness

Tom Petty and the Death of Gene Clark

Inevitable Unions

Mick Taylor Street Fighting Guitarist

Whispers and Echoes

How to Troll

Things I know longer give a fuck about – dancing

Lavender Hill

A Solipsism Too Far

Battle Hymn of the Republic

Next, I'll go through my favourite moments of 2017 and my favourite songs. But for now, let me leave you with:-

---

Tim's Blog RSS

Tim Robson's New Novel

“A writer wrote a word a day
Carefully selected.
Until he had marvellous novel
Everybody rejected.”

— Annoymous

It's been three years since Franco's Fiesta stormed the lower reaches of Amazon's best selling charts. Some days it manfully sold its way to the top 100,000 paperback sales in the world (or UK, or Brighton or my road or something). I think I've given out those 10 copies now to friends and family. Did you get one? 

A question I'm (never) asked is, when are you going to write another. Well, what with the writing, editing, promotion, the hotels, the literary festivals, the groupies, who has time? And some authors should stick at just one book (looking at you Harper Lee). Well, I feel I've got at least another book in me. I didn't achieve all I wanted with Franco's Fiesta (fame, money, groupies, lead part in the film of the book, soundtrack, album, er, yeah. Wanker.)

So, lately, quietly but methodically I've been planning my next novel. Ha! Yeah - planning. As if I didn't just pen some crap and then edit it and think, is this a short story or does it deserve another chapter? Well, this latest one, deserves another chapter. And probably several more after that.

So, what's it about? In answer to this, let me quote myself using some bullshit I penned for a small publisher who took one of my short stories:-

“I’m lucky to walk along Lavender Hill every day on my way to work. And every day I observe hundreds of interesting characters who cross my path. Who are they and what are they doing and why are they here?

Teeming with ideas I get to my office ready to start writing a new piece. And then, I think - “fuck it” and just write about myself. Again.

I am my own God.”

— Tim Robson - The Rejected Manuscripts interview.

Amusing, eh? But not so true this time - just as it wasn't for Franco's Fiesta. I can use that thing - what's it called? - oh yeah! imagination. I make stuff up. That doesn't mean I don't steal people or events or places from real life, because I do. I put them all in a black velvet bag, shake the pieces and draw from it randomly. And write.

But I'm more conscious of posterity, more aware of precedents, less convinced of my uniqueness. I'm also getting to like longer sentences, longer sentences with sub clauses, errant thoughts, asides, funky punctuation and literary allusions. Fuck short sentences. Precision can be reached by either the front door or via a circuitous route through the back door. 

I will say this. I've been quite influenced by some of the books I've read recently. Breakfast at Tiffany's was great but then so was The Go-Between. And others. But I think I'm pitching for that capturing the zeitgeist stardust. 

Anyway, two chapters down. Slow progress but it will speed up, I know.

Place your advance orders now!!

Tim's Blog RSS

What'll you be having?

(Part 2 of the Self Indulgence series)

Although I don't often drink, I think an article on my drinking habits is well overdue. The world tugs at my sleeve and begs to know.  Afterall, I know you all want to buy me a drink, right?  So let's take a look

Pre-University - The Rochdale years

Ah - The Brown Cow, The Grapes, The Elephant and Castle, The Madison, Yates Wine Bar. Yes, young Tim cut a dash in Rochdale. What would you buy him? Well, frankly anything, but if pushed snakebite and black (do you wanna cherry with that?), or Bacardi and Coke.

Student Days

I remember one sunny day in May 1987 sat in a field drinking a 1979 Portuguese red, eating Stilton and reading Wuthering Heights. That would be the high point naturally. However, awful, gut rotting cocktails, Kronenberg 1666 for 70p, cans of pale ale and pints of lager and lime, these were the real drinks that powered my intellectual assault on the left wing fantasy that was Sussex University in the 80's.

Girls, Amex and nightclubs

Amex used have a Sports and Social club where the drinks were cheap and where younger members of staff got pissed and then got off with each other. In and out of love, young Tim used to be double parked with large whiskies and lager. Apparently doubles - downed in one - and in a manly fashion, allowed my 'funny' personality to take a walk.

The docility

One thing that annoys me is smug couples in their late 20's, early 30's playing at being mature and living their domestic existence. Earnest dinner parties are held, polite conversation dominates, babies are born and careers pursued. Received wisdom and cosy consensus are very much welcome. Craft beer is drunk sparingly and The Sunday Times Wine Club's box of mixed eagerly anticipated. Yes, I was that person. Once. My smugness has gone. Gone. 

Unexpectedly Single

Cigarettes and alcohol. Sambuca, whiskey, wine at home, beer when out out.

And now (late 30's)

Wine. Mainly Cava. Large glasses of red. Interestingly enough, I was out with four girls a couple of weeks ago in Hove. Yeah, me and 4 girls. Sounds like the cue to a joke, right? Anyway, like a girl, I had a glass of wine. They all drank pints of lager. I'm going to have to road-test this new sophistication, try it on for size and see what it brings.

Anyway, I thought you might like to know.

(BTW I like my indulgences somewhat of the selfish variety).

Tim's Blog RSS