Posts from — October 2005

I worked for a radio station over the summer in New Orleans where I foolhardily rode out Hurricane Andrew.

Wrote a book (unpublished) and moved to Manchester. The university, coincidentally, stood where my dad did his RAF training.

Set out alone travelling for a month round Europe and Turkey. Slept on roofs and started playing guitar.

The Sum Of All Years is an autobiography where the word count for each post is limited to the corresponding age for that entry.

England felt like home again, as Luke, Guy, Lindsay and others became my family, friends and brothers.

I walked into a health food, alternative remedy place yesterday and walked straight up to the counter and asked if they had any aspirin.

The look they gave me was priceless. Try it sometime.

I might walk up to a drug dealer and ask if he has any organic caffeine-free drinks that can stop me feeling bloated.

That’s the headline promo flag on the front page of today’s Independent.

Maybe tomorrow they will have a pop at the Jewish folks. Or people with excema. Ooh – what about Thalidomide kids?

It seems that the media can have a pop at men, gingers and posh people with no reprisals whatsoever.*

Still, it could be worse. I could be Prince Harry.

*Actually, I did reprise just a bit, but they’ll never write back.

Sure, I know we’ve had John Peel Day when the late DJ was remembered a couple of weeks ago with gigs in his honour, but that day was the anniversary of his last broadcast and today is one year since his death.

I think the pioneer of the airways and champion of independent music would have welcomed any alternative festival, so here it is – Alternative John Peel Day. Sure it may not be a big event now, but the first Glastonbury was a few hundred revellers getting groovy on free love and cheap milk, so why not? In years to come I could grow a nasty beard, put up fencing around this site and annoy locals while my best postings arrive by helicopter.

For now, though, I thought as a tribute to John Peel I could make this page load at the wrong speed or something, or change all of my links to go to websties no one has ever heard of.

But the man who trumpeted teenage kicks should be best honoured in song. (Straps on a guitar while audience emits a groan.)

Sixteen marks the halfway point of the Sum Of All Years so to break things up – and because it’s Alt John Peel Day – here’s a song about the adolescent priviledge of indecision. It contains some lyrics I am most proud of, because rock stuff is hard to write. The Killers and The Strokes do it brilliantly.

Here’s a bunch of links because I’m new to this and not sure which will work.

Play the song:
56k dial-up cheapseats connection

Broadband rattle your jewellery speed

If that doesn’t work, go here and click “Music”.

Played in a dixieland pub band with guys 60 years my senior. Just a coke, oldtimer.

Life got good again, like it does. I made friends, met a girl, travelled lots.

Patron: “Waiter? Waiter.”

Waiter: “Oui, Madame.”

Patron: “I see you have chicken on your menu. Is it free range?”

Waiter: “Non, madame. Ze menu is recycled. It is ze cheecken who is free range.”

Patron: “I see. Was the chicken ethically reared?”

Waiter: “I was not that close to ze cheecken myself. It is a very sad story. I will ask Jean-Claude.”

(Waiter disappears to the kitchen then returns)

Waiter: “I can assure you that zees cheeken lived a life better than those of most Londoners.”

Patron: “Excellent, excellent. See, it’s important to me as a consumer that the food on my plate has not raised inhumanely.”

Waiter: “Of course, Madame.”

Patron: “I also wanted to check that it had not travelled too far to get to my plate.”

Waiter: “Madame?”

Patron: “Food miles. You know, I don’t want to be responsible for my meal to be responsible for CO emissions cause by the unnecessary transport of food to the consumer.”

(Waiter disappears to the kitchen then returns)

Waiter:”Ze cheeken comes from a British regional farm which is family owned.”

Patron: “And can you t-”

Waiter: “The family in question have a 120-year lease on a smallholding constructed using reclaimed limestone and hardwood railway sleepers made from sustainable woodland not connected in any way with South American deforestation.”

Patron (slightly embarassed): “Just one more question.”

Waiter:”Oui, Madame.”

Patron: “Was the chicken placed on a conveyor belt, dunked and stunned in a tank of cold, electricified water before being beheaded by a machine, dumped on a slab, had its arms and wings torn off, been gutted, hosed down and placed dead in a fridge waiting to be cooked and served with vegetables?”

Waiter: “Absolument, Madame”

Patron (handing back menu): “That sounds lovely, thank you.”