This Is This

This is a song by Men At Work.

It’s a strange thing doing a cover version of someone else’s material. On the one hand you feel like you’re using someone else’s toothbrush, on the other, you learn something new every time. It brings you out of your comfort zone as a writer. My rule with covers is to do them differently from the original and do good songs that people might not have heard before. There’s no point to in doing a version of Every Breath You Take when you can bring something to an undiscovered song by some 1980’s antipodean pop overnight global sensations.

Just finished this tonight, so listen, download, even enjoy, here

Interesting fact? I recorded the drums last, in the manner befitting a dufus, so I had to play them live to everything else, including the guitar break.

Don’t ever go and see a fortune teller.

When I was 20 I was living in New Orleans, working in a radio station on a 3 month internship from university in the UK. A friend of mine from England came over to see me and wanted to partake in the black arts of voodoo (etc) so I took her down to Jackson Square where the fortune tellers worked their tables. She picked someone and said I should go and see one, too. Having nothing better to do I thought I’d sample a bit of the gumbo mumbo jumbo.

I picked this guy who read runes, because it appealed to my northern European roots. He had a beard and looked kind of Middle Earth and funky, so I pulled up a chair and the stones were cast.

One of the first things he said was: “You’re going to be fine when you get back to England.” (This guy’s good, I thought sarcastically.)

“Your exams are going to be OK, too.” So he could tell I was an English university student. That’s pretty easy.

Then he looked serious for a second, then a sympathic concern before he paused and said: “Something’s going to happen.”

“Ok,” I said.

“You’re going to be OK, but something will happen which will affect you and you will learn from it. You might not feel ok, but something will happen and I think that’s all you should know.”

He gave me a specific date and said: “It will be round about then. You’ll be OK, though. Remember this.”

I didn’t worry about it, but thought it the rest of the day. I knew fortune tellers tend not to tell you bad things will occur, so I took “all I’m saying is that something will happen” to be Bad Things. “You’ll be OK.” Bad Things will happen to a friend of mine. The runes guy seemed pretty serious.

A few days later I called a trusted friend and told them about what had happened and said a friend of mine, and most likely a mutual friend, since we were pretty cliquey, was going to die on a specific date.

“Who do you think it is?” She asked.

“I don’t know. Mark?” (not his real name) It kind of made sense; or at least he was the least unlikely. “Yeah, Mark,” I said with more conviction. Mark was one of my best friends and we practically lived in each other’s pockets since we were 14.

Six months later, on that exact day, the phone rang.

Don’t ever go and see a fortune teller.

In the park near where I work there is a bunch of homeless drunks who congregate and mostly mind their own business. Occasionally, they drift into the shops to buy booze, which is the only time our lives ever cross.

Yesterday I was walking up to the shops and this scary wierdo in rags walked by me having a mumbling rant to himself. They staggered towards me with a vacant look, murmuring the whole time, and I thought he was going to say something to me. As he went past, I muttered to myself in despair: “This fucking city, I swear to god,” just quiet enough so no one could make it out, but out loud, nonetheless.

As I was saying this, I noticed a smartly dressed lady walking towards me suddenly looked concerned and veered away from me as I approached. She took my mumbled rant as a sign of madness.

“No,” I wanted to say, “I’m not mad, it was someone else. I’m not crazy, it’s this city. It’s full of nutters.” I wanted to point out the scary wierdo and say: “It’s him. He’s barking, Diana Ross bonkers.” But that would have proven her point.

And it was kind of wierd the way I muttered to myself. It was like tourrettes for introverts.

I let her go thinking I was a nutcase, then started wondering if my scary wierdo was complaining in the same way I did about a wierdo more scary that he.

Although, you know really, when you think about it, that’s only like a quarter of a century.

Thing is, I still dress like that.

I love my wife madly. I am the luckiest guy in the world. I bore her, she bore two children, she bears me, I bare my soul and yet I must have some untapped potential that she can still see when all else doubt me on my own advice.

But when I find things like this hanging in my wardrobe, everything is tested:

Exhibit A

There are certain things, OK? Like finding my clothes hanging on a doily with wings. That’s all I’m saying. I can be pushed. Next time this happens, I am leaving the seat up for a week.
Note to self: Do some ironing once in a while.

I’ve been loving the Glastonbury coverage on TV. I saw The Killers set and went out and bought the album straight away.

The coverage has been great - you can even go interactive and flick between the stages. I haven’t actually done this yet, I’m afraid that if I push the red button to check out what’s on at the Pyramid Stage, someone will paint my kids’ faces, a naked man with a rucksack will walk through my garden while someone tries to sell me a wrap of speed.

Keane were outstanding, although this morning I have woken up with Somewhere Only We Know in my head. It’s got that great lift in the chorus:

So iiiiiiiiiiif you have a minute why don’t we go?
Taaaaaaaaalk about it somewhere only we know.

…but I think they let themselves down a bit. “why don’t we go/only we know?” It doesn’t scan. “Amigo.” Now there’s your rhyme and you go from there.

So iiiiiiiif you have a minute why don’t we go?
Thiiiiiiiiiink about it, we’ll watch Three Amigos.
Iiiiiiiiii’ve got DVDs of everything.
So why don’t we go?
I’ll call Brian Eno.

I’m getting to grips with search terms for this site so that people who are looking for useful information are instead be diverted to here where they can goof off.

So now when you go into Yahoo and type “this is this” you end up here.

Aside from that I still get more searches for pikeys than anything else. But swearing really brings out the really wierd searches. If I use a rude word (which has been known), I get searches for that and one other word in that day’s posting and the combination is so mind-boggling that I think some of you, though obviously not you, have issues.

Even more baffling is that people who have expressed an interest in copulation and, say, rude waiters, actually go on to click on a link which is clearly labelled as a post about poor customer service experienced on my lunchbreak. Do they think: “Right, the house is empty, the phone is off the hook, time for mucky browsing. ….. right after I read about this Cliff Jones guy, who has a funny story about being charged too much for a decaf latte.”

But the best search I have ever had arrived yesteday from someone who typed into Yahoo:

i can’t find a page so can i have a list off websties

Sir/Madam, I salute you and I love your work. Bless you for thinking technology actually listens to you. Faith is a powerful thing. You even said “websties”, just like me.

In the Wimbledon report on This Morning this morning (what?), Annabel Croft said “It’s incredible - Andrew Murray literally took apart Radek Stepanek yesterday.”

I wonder if they were watching the same match as me, because Stepanek looked OK when he left number one court yesterday.

That should teach me to watch GMTV first thing in the day. Hey, I work in the media business OK? I have to know the mood and watch trash. People who ask me incredulously “Ewww, you read The Star?” (low-rent big-selling tabloid sleaze) get met with my reply, “Excuse me, I have to know the buzz of all segments of society from stock market traders to bricklayers, so yes: I read The Star because people read The Star. ”

Plus it’s full of jubblies.

Cool Bands I Secretly Don’t Like But Should

The Eagles (redneck pop), The Doors (circus blues), Radiohead (artschool rubbish), Bob Dylan (wheezy rambling), The Kinks (mockney ditties)

Uncool Bands I Secretly Like But Shouldn’t

Natasha Bedingfield, Men At Work, James Taylor, The Police, Crowded House, Justin Timberlake, Ace of Bass, Cyndi Lauper

Well, it’s that time of year again. Posh Londoners have clamoured for tickets to sit out for hours in the sun and hope that Cliff Richard doesn’t make an appearance. They will perch on a hillside eating overpriced food watching a big TV screens and see British hopefuls outshon by contenders from all around the world. I’m talking, of course, of Glastonbury.

I have good memories of the festival, and I’d like to go again one day. In the meantime I get my kicks out of the children making me cards on Father’s Day. Son, 5, keeps asking me which card I like better. Boys are so competitive. Daughter, 3, keeps picking up her card and bringing it over to me, as if she can recreate the day and light up my face just like she did last Sunday, and to only my surprise, it works every time.

So you can keep your dance tents, your jugglers, your spicy tofu noodles (actually I’ll take those noodles) and your didgeridoos - I’m all right at home.

When I was about 5 my dad was driving my sister and me around round near our house when we stopped at some traffic lights. We pulled up behind a car which looked familiar, being driven by a tuft of hair I couldn’t quite place. Dad put us in the picture.

“Hey look,” he said,”It’s Nana’s car.”

Sure enough it was my maternal grandmother out and about, no doubt on mission to buy Smash. Smash was powdered mashed potatoes, very big in the 1970’s, and she always had lots of it whenever me and my sister went round.

We waved to her, but she didn’t notice. Or at least the wisps didn’t move. Was she dead? Imagine dying at a red light, waiting for it to change, being mocked by a flashing green man. But she wasn’t dead, I throw that in merely for comic relief.

“She hasn’t seen us,” my dad said.

He tooted the horn. She looked left and right, which is kind of a granny thing to do since we were on a single lane road so logically the tooting would have to come from the line of cars in front of or behind her.

We kept waving, but she didn’t see us, or even check her rearview mirror. As the lights changed to green, my dad gave one last friendly toot before we pulled away. You know, one of those short “pip-pip” ones you do when you leave someone’s house.

At that point my grandmother reared up, turned around and gave my dad the traditional British two fingered “fuck you” salute. She mouthed something I was to young and innocent to understand and she drove off in a cloud of blue smoke, blue rinse and bluer language as she took a friendly greeting to be a stranger’s criticism of her driving.

Nearly 30 years on, I still don’t have the guts to bring it up with her but I often ask my dad to tell me the story again for a laugh.

I worry that the raisins in my muesli gradually collect at the bottom of the box, so that by the end of the week I have a disproportionate cereal-to-raisin (C2R) ratio and I throw the box away. Maybe someone could invent raisins which are lighter than granola? Or develop some kind if edible velcro system by which the fruits could adhere to the grains. I worry that they conspire against the muesli: “Dig deep lads. If we stay together there’s a chance we could make it.”

Apart from that, nothing much phases me.

Over the weekend I:
Painted fences (literally)
Built bridges (figuratively)
Cleaned out my closet (both literally and figuratively)

Son, 5, is into whales. Nothing makes you prouder when they learn stuff without you, but it also makes you feel like they are not yours any more. When they are babies you long for them to grow up, when they start you hope it doesn’t happen to fast.

“Dad, whales are incredible. They eat krill and their babies are bigger than a car.”

(Me thinking: he’s growing up. There’s nothing more I can teach him.)

“Can you imagine never seeing your mother after you grow up? That’s what whales do.”

(He is learning and time will fly. Then he will fly. Every week now is a like a day - a day in which the hours are short.)

“But it’s OK, because their voices can be heard for miles and miles. About… ninety nine, a hundrety two, fourty seven and nine - that far.”

(There goes another one, probably.)

“And did you know that whales have no teeth?”

(Gotcha. Woohoo! I can still teach teach you a thing of two. How much you have to learn, my son. I swell with paternal pride and say:)

“What about sperm whales and narwhals? They have teeth.”

“Daddy,” he says in mock reprimant, “I’m talking about blue whales.”

(tick, tick, tick…)

There’s a friend of mine who asks himself questions while he is talking. “Why does he do it? Presumably because he thinks it makes him sound more interesting.” Like that.

Sometimes he asks two questions like this:

“Is it a good idea? Possibly. Can we do it? Probably not. ”

This is double self-engagement which fails even more miserably in its intention to make what (s?)he says sound snappy and engaging. What if books started that way?

Was it the best of times? Possibly. Was it also the worst of times? Yes.

Or songs:

Where where my troubles yesterday? They seemed so far away. Are they here to stay? It looks that way now.

Where was I born? In a crossfire hurricane. Who was I raised by? A pitted toothless hag.

Is there a lady? Yes. What does she know? All that glitters is gold.

Am I a firestarter? Yes. What kind of firestarter am I? A twisted one.

In the UK we are obsessed with people getting bullied. This is because the national conciousness is steered by middle-class, middle aged people with children and opinions. So, the price of petrol, availablity of a plumber, quality of school dinners and a lack of role models is more important than, say, pollution, crime or Britain’s lack of sporting success.

We also love condemning things that are bad, or illegal, instead of saying what we are going to do that is right. We are critical of bad things and it gives you the effect of living as a member of the opposition. This is not a good thing and I am complaining about it, which makes me English.

We wear armbands to demonstrate that bad things are not good. Awareness for cancers and disgusting behaviour can all be worn proudly on your sleeves. I’m all for them raising awareness about illness, but the ones that condemn a mindset are silly. Blue ones are anti-bullying. Black and white ones are for a campaign against racism. Or they are to promote Nike, who is anti-racist, but whatever helps the cause, in my view. But hang on - isn’t racism illegal? And isn’t the law there to protect people from it? The best promotion you could give the campaign is not to be racist. Really, I don’t care who isn’t racist, just like I don’t care who isn’t a murderer. I want to know who the actual racists are and put bracelets on them, so I can single them out for my own type of bullying.

We could give them what’s left of the really bad school dinners. Then they’d need a plumber all right.

1. Good Evening, I’m Lonely

2. Give Me Ninety Seconds

3. This Just In: I Love You

4. First With The Story But The Last To Know (see lyrics section)

5. Breaking News, Breaking Hearts

6. Elsewhere, Me

7. Reporters In The Field

8. Filing For Divorce

9. We Might As Well Be Foreign Correspondents

10. Have A Great Weekend, I’ll Have A Nice Life

lyrics

First With The Story But The Last To Know

You join us live here at the station,
the time is 9 o’clock pm.
There is no cause for celebration
’cause your leaving me for him.

I should give you all a warning:
on any other night I’d say,
“Thanks for joining us this evening”
but I’m on my own today.

Chorus
In this reporter’s opinion,
I can not stand to see her go.
I watch over my dominion;
first with the story…
…but the last to know.

There may arsonists in Texas,
and with the fires that they start,
they’re causes blazes down in old San Antone
but there’s a burning in my heart.

Sporting heroes may know glory;
they stay on par for the course.
But where she used to file her stories,
she’s just filing for divorce.

Chorus
In this reporter’s opinion,
I can not stand to see her go.
I watch over my dominion;
first with the story…
…but the last to know.

The news will always keep on changing,
the autocue will always roll.
But in my heart a different story
tops the headlines of my soul.

There are riots and there’s madness,
a whole rich tapestry of news.
Well that don’t cover up the sadness;
left behind is just the blues.

In my bathroom there are containers everywhere. I would like to point out that four of these belong to me: shaving foam, deodorant, moisturizer (what? so?) and aftershave.- that’s it. Yet most of the time the area surrounding the family sink looks like a travelling medecin show. There are tubes, vials, bottles, boxes and sticks of all manner of oils, potions and lotions.
Most of the time I don’t ask what does what, but every so often a new bottle appears. This week I noticed one and on the front under the brand name is said: “Now with breakthrough ingredient NuCellin.”

Breakthrough? When did ingredients aquire celebrity status? Was NuCellin saying to itself: “Right - I’m going to give it one more year, and if it doesn’t happen, I’m going to join Uncle Iodine’s accountancy firm?”

Do chemicals have agents? “There’s a new concealer which you’d be perfect for, babe. I really feel this is right for you.”

And just far would an ingredient go to breakthrough? Ingredient Big Brother? “Day 12, and Aloe Vera is in the Diary Room.”

The ingredient Oscars?

“…and the best use of an alcaline in the an antacid goes to …..’Rennie’!”

“Oh my God, I wasn’t expecting this. I would just like to say that none of this would be possible without calcium. Calcium, this one’s for you, hon. I love you chalk. And everyone at GSK for making it chewy. I’m just glad the industry is taking heartburn and trapped wind seriously after too many years of standing by doing nothing, leaving millions to avoid savoury snacks and some rich foods.”

It is a crazy madness that must end.

Joke of the day, by the way:
Why did the baker have smelly hands?
Because he kneaded a poo.

Son, 5, wants to paint our house. Or I think he means he wants me to paint our house. Either way, he’s got it all thought out. “It could be green with a big rainbow around our door,” he says.

I am torn between fathery duty, laziness and people thinking our house has turned into a gay bar.

Actually, I may have struck gold with an idea for a reality TV show called “How Gay Is Your House?”. It blends Queer Eye with Changing Rooms. Add cookery in there and you’ve got a hit. Ready Steady Gay Rooms - Well groomed urban homosexual men attempt to bring a touch of class by redecorating a home in 20 minutes or less.

Apologies to Americans who don’t know some of these shows. And gay people. And gay Americans. And five year olds. And rainbows, who surely should have some say in all this.

I had a conversation this week in which someone said I was “eliminating the possibilities.”

“I’ll eliminate you,” I replied.

“If you kill me,” he said, “you will only make me stronger. Others will come.”

I blame the movies.

It’s a strange thing, the accent of south east England. It’s the indigineous twang of an area from roughly 400 miles squared and yet right now there are 25 million Chinese people leaning to speak English that way. By 2016, 70 per cent of the world’s population will speak English, and a lot of them will sound like they come from Guilford, because that’s how people speak on those Linguaphone tapes.

It’s an odd one - the “a” sound “can” and “can’t” don’t sound the same round here and no one can explain why. This is how I talk and I pronounce “store key” exactly the same as “stalky”. Admittedly unless you run a badly lit houseplant shop, this isn’t going to cause much confusion, but it’s still wierd.

There are some things I don’t blog about and those are easy targets. Politicians for a start, and religion. And supermarkets. Another one is names of funny foods from other countries. Oh look, here’s a packet of cigarettes from El Salvador called P-Holes! Hilarious. “I’d like 20 P-Holes please.” zzzzzzzzz

Funny foods in your own country, though? Open season. Sainsbury’s stands accused of calling food by foreign names to make them sound tastier. Exhibit a yesterday when a slender French loaf was proudly labelled a “Pain Flute”.

And I’m off.

Now, to most people, this won’t look like “pain” as in “pain au chocolat”, this will look like pain. So Pain Flute looks like “flute of pain”, which sounds rude and sinister. I try to shut out nasty images of a sadistic James Galway (who actually looks like the bloke from the Joy of Sex books) performing bizarre rituals performed to the strains of Jethro Tull.

Sainbury’s should expand on the range, from Discomfort Piccolo straight through to Agony Bassoon. That brightened up my day. Everyone: fear the pain flute, for that be the flute of pain.

James Galway’s website is called superflute.com

Navbar browser problem now fixed. Thanks to MiramarMike and JonnyB for the advice.

Why do people show you photographs of events that you were at? I never get this one. You go and visit people and out come the snaps of the last time you were there like two months before. Most of the time, they are pictures of you being round someone’s house doing nothing. And sometimes in the corner of the photo I can see a pile of photos which I was looking at when the photo was taken.

Unless I am establishing an alibi or there are ghostly apparitions hovering next to me, I’m not too bothered at seeing pictures of myself somewhere, but of course I’m too polite to say anything. While I look at the pictures, they take more pictures and so the cycle of madness continues.

Now in this crazy digital age, you can have pictures and get prints almost instantly. Like with Polaroid cameras, someone can take a picture of you and show you it immediately. Why do they do it? “Look, there’s you right there on the couch. You’re sitting just like you are now. That was a great minute, two minutes ago… And do you remember I took your picture? Here’s a photo of it here. Cliff, take a picture of your father and I sitting here.”

I always write songs on holiday even though I never take any instruments. Absence and the heart, I guess.

Anyway, it’s in the music section of my song page.

Things I like: the solo (yeah, solo!), the bridge, the upbeat feel, the ending. The first line is a good one: I stare at the map and take comfort in the name of where you are.

Things I like less so: it’s too low for my limited range, and the second verse sounds flatter than Kansas.

Tinseltown has gone crazy with the remakes. Cape Fear, The Italian Job, Psycho, Planet of the Apes, Romeo and Juliet - they all go through the remake mill. Old films get a new line up, a little pixie dust here, a little A-list there, everyone makes a ton of money and we’re all happy.

It’s safe to say that if the current trend continues, every film ever made will get made again. They should remake films two at a time, combining the plots and characters. That way, they can remake the films quicker and get back to making original movies as soon as possible. So double your pleasure with the following remake combos.

1. You’ve Got Jaws
The surf and turf platter of remake combos. A succcessful business man starts up an intimate friendship with a stranger over the internet, only to discover that the recipient of his affections is a two and a half ton man-eating shark.

2. Herbie Goes Sideways
The Love Bug takes time away from a mundane and unfulfilling life to embark on a well-scripted tour of the Californian vineyards. Don Knotts stars.

3. A Midsummer Night’s Shaft
Blaxploitation movie gets the Shakespeare treatment. Contains Bottom.

4. Raiders of the Lost in Translation
Two renegade archeologists and long-haul travellers battle Nazis and insomnia in a Tokyo hotel. The Arc of the Covenant has remained hidden for more than 2,000 years inside a room, but which one?

5. Apollo Se7en
The true story of an ill-fated space mission and subsequent murder mystery. What’s in the box? It’s not just dangerously high levels of CO2…

6. The Truman Showgirls
Reality TV with a twist, in which a troup of burlesque dancers unknowingly have their every gyration followed by an audience of millions. Contains bottom.

7. Fargo and Away
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman star as two hapless criminals who embark on a land rush on the western frontier. A love story action adventure with a hilarious kidnap sub-plot.

8. Nightmare on Wall Street
A rogue trader seeks revenge on his former whistleblowing colleagues by suggesting bad stock tips to them while they sleep.

9. A Few Good Will Hunting
A murder at a Marines base leads to a tense courtroom battle where a janitor emerges not only as the chief witness for the prosecution but also a juror and a gifted defence lawyer.

10. View to a Kill a Mockingbird
Bond is back - and he’s got 24 hours to save a town from inherent racism. But can he win the trial and the hearts of his children?

Barely after I bang on about our place in the heavens, I go off and spend a few day under them.

Home looked like this:

With views like this:

Time spent lighting fires and keeping the kids away from them reminded me of a few things, namely:

I think way too much.
I watch too much TV.
I pay too much attention to where I am going and not enough mind to what I’m doing.
No matter where I am, I do and say stupid things.

Such as:

Getting lost in the car
and
realising the map is packed in a case under all your other stuff
AND
having to unload your car onto the road to find out where you are
AND
then realising you are doing this in the exit lane of a fire station where the bay doors are open.

I also brought to an end a long and drawn-out welcome conversation with the overzealous landowner with words “Well, this beer’s not going to drink itself…”

Is being conscious of your stupidity the first step to awareness? Does knowing how far you are from where you need to get to help you on your way there?