This Is This

Employee: Jesus Christ

Reports to: God

Achievements

- Successfully turned water into wine on time and to budget.

- Forgave others despite the fact that they clearly did not know what they were doing.

- Fed the 5,000 despite a lack of resources. Vegetarians should have been better catered for.

- Managed a team of twelve disciples.

- Worked closely with Lazarus and subsequently rose from dead.

- Gave presentation on the mount using visual aids and prepared speech in which meek were blessed.

Valued work behaviours

Forgiveness

Turning of other cheeks

Fasting

Manager’s comments

Jesus’s employment has been, on the whole, very successful. Despite working for his father (me), he has conducted himself in a professional manner throughout. His arrest at the hands of the Romans has not affected his standing among his followers and the walking on water had the competition reeling.

Jesus needs to focus the afterlife on the threat from the smaller emerging religions and should not underestimate the power of celebrity endorsements.

He should work on his written skills, instead of delagating the duties to his direct reports.

He should also manage the expectations of the meek and should consider offering a share option scheme instead of them inheriting the Earth.

On the whole, Jesus put in a solid performance and I am sure that he will rise to the challenges that lay ahead in Easter.

Signed: God, Jesus, Human Resources

It has been cold the last few days. I’ve been cold too, but mostly it has been cold.

It’s funny how people say “I am cold”, thinking the conditions are something particular to themselves. Next time you are feeling cold, try thinking “it is cold and I can feel it”. It puts you right there in the experience of your environment.

The cold exists and you are mindful of it. What’s even nicer is that it’s the same cold everyone else can feel. These are the same conditions in the same air that your parents and their parents and the parents before them felt and you are a part of that same experience long after they have died. Doesn’t that warm you up a bit?

I might be experiencing how cold it is at this very moment, if I happen to be outside while you read this.

So are you cold, or is there more to it than that?

There’s no clear distinction between youself and the weather, your condition and the conditions, if you take a second to think about it.

I can’t imagine my generation getting nostalgic later about grunge or indie music.

When my dad talks about first hearing Charlie Parker and it really means something. But I can’t imagine my kids saying: “Dad, tell us about the golden age of shoegazy intraspective guitar bands.”

“Ah, well, your mother and I used to take grunge dancing lessons together. She was something else - a vision in flannel. How did it go, honey? A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my burrito… Great days, son…”

Music is so eclectic now, and I hesistate to say it’s all been done, but we’ll bore Generation Z senseless with our comparisons. Our mums’ and dads’ mums and dads had no point of reference when they first heard Elvis or Little Richard, but the comparisons are starting already.

Orbital? Sounds a bit like Kraftwerk. David Gray? Sounds a bit like Jackson Browne. Natasha Bedingfield? Sounds a bit like Cindi Lauper.

I had a pretty strong notion that anything our kids stick on in years to come will prompt a rolling of the eyes from us and the words: “You know who this sounds a bit like? Honey, who were those guys who did the song? You know, ‘look at the stars…. they were all yellow for you….‘ Screenplay, Foreplay, Colditz, Fairplay, Trade fair. What were they called? … Ah yes, Coldplay. It sounds a bit like them. Mixed in with some Kraftwerk. Except you can hear the words.”

Like an idiot, last year I published my new year’s resolutions in this blog. And now, exactly an idiot, here’s how I did.

1. Become a better banjo player. This means practice.

Kind of, yeah. I’ve been working at it OK. The tea towels in our house go missing because I stuff them into the pot to deaden the sound, and stick a pillow on my lap for further muffling. Banjos are loud. You can play them soft or slowly.You really have to just drop the clutch and go. So am I any good? No I’m OK. But I am better, which give me a respectable score.
Score: 6/10.

2. Keep writing the book. At least two hours a month, so as to make progress and not obsess. I have trouble doing anything by halves.

Writing my grandfather’s hellography of his days in the trenches of the Western Front turned out to be a litany of daily mud and hate. I will start it up again sometime, but for now my time and happiness are worth too much, so I have declared an uneasy ceasefire with the memory the men of the 9th King’s Liverpools.
Score: 1/10

3. Use the Japanese calligraphy set my wife bought be for Christmas 2003. I haven’t even opened it. She’s a good woman and I don’t deserve her.

Total and unmitigated failure. It’s on the bookshelf somewhere.
Score: 0/10

4. Lighten up - try not to think bad thoughts.

So-so. I think a lot of worst-case-scenario stuff can be productive, but U should probably be happier. I’m aware of that and that has its own merits.
Score: 5/10

5. Spend more time with my dad.

A bit. I find that having kids takes up a lot of time but we all make time to do things together, and if that can include my dad, then that’s fun.
Score 5/10

6. Paint the garden fences with that waterproof protector stuff.

I did four out of ten panels.
Score: Lets see, that’s….. 4/10

7. Plant a plum tree in the garden.

No. I grew tomatoes, sunflowers, peppers, courgettes, beans and tons of flowers, but you would have seen more plums at a eunich’s skinny dip than in my garden this year.
Score: 0/10

8. Watch no reality TV whatsoever. This doesn’t include docos or News, but it does include drivvel like What Not to Eat, Changing Organs, Back to the Plague, How Shiney is Your Heiney? and shows of that ilk.

Haha. Although I did cut down massively. I saw none all the way through and some I didn’t watch at all.
Score: 8/10

9. Buy nothing on credit.

One holiday, mail order clothes because that’s how they work, but I paid them off pretty quickly.
Score: 8/10

10. Use this (points to head) before opening this (points to mouth).

Getting better, but still said some stupid things, leading people to assume that I don’t know this (points to elbow) from this (points to arse).
Score: 6/10

Total Score: 42/100

Cliff sets himself goals to which he has trouble committing. While he is ambitious, he needs to be more realistic when setting his sights. 2006 will be a tough year for Cliff, not least because he will have the responsibility to be a better person rather than a more productive one. Plum trees can wait. It’s what matters to other people that should matter the most to him.

Cheers all - I’m going to be posting (although less than usual) over the holidays. I have my holiday tree all set up and I’m going sing holiday carols and hope that I get some nice holiday presents from Father Holiday.

Cheers for reading over the last year, you know? I have really enjoyed writing it and if it’s made you think or smile then everyone wins.

Now go on, get out of here and have a very merry Christmas.

Walken With Dinosaurs
Quentin Tarantino produces this gritty educational documentary featuring actor Christopher Walken among CGI-animated dinosaurs. Contains adult language such as mesozoic and cocksucker.

Because it’s my birthday, I thought I’d share the funniest headline ever.

OK, I talk a lot about music and what I like, but I’ve never done the Desert Island Discs thing. For those that don’t know (ie those on a desert island), it’s ten records you would take if you were stranded on a remote piece of land that’s another word for island.

So now it’s time to nail my colours to the mast and pick the ten records I could most not live without. I also set the rule of not being able to use compilations, greatest hits albums and live sets which take in a bunch of material from a long span of someone’s career.

It’s going to have to be a mix, because I’m a complex and flawed individual whose hankerings have the turning circle of a guppy.

1. James Taylor - October Road.
If I couldn’t hear and love Baby Buffalo, Traveling Star or October Road, I’d probably already feel dead.

2. Aaron Copeland - Appalachian Spring
The last few notes sound like the feeling you get at the end of your good birthdays.

3. Keith Jarrett - The Koln Concert
One man and his piano and that’s it. I know this record backwards and it still amazes and confounds me like a soulmate.

4. Bob Mould - Poison Years
Quiet angst in a nutshell.

5. Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
I love this album because there’s so much to it, from the guitar-laden fuzz of Gratitude to the hip hop heights of Pass The Mic.

6. REM - Green
I think the irony of Stand would drive me a little crazy on the island, but I love this album. I still have no idea what Orange Crush is about.

7. Dixie Chicks - Home
Sentimentality, blazing country, bluegrass and jaw-dropping performance make this an essential album.

8. Francis Cabrel - Sarbacane
From Animale to Rosie and C’Est Ecrit, this album is incredible.

9. Julie London - Round Midnight
I love Julie London’s voice. I could listen to her read a phone book and still hang on every word.

10. Lou Reed - New York
Honest and varied. Nothing fancy and all the more special for it. Plus there is amp buzz between the songs, giving at least the very cool impression that he recorded this in one sitting.

This was very tough, so here are the also-rans:
Money Mark - Push The Button
Orbital - In Sides
Stevie Wonder - Talking Book
Loose Tubes - Delightful Precipice
The Killers - Hot Fuss
Joni Mitchell - Blue
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Dulcinea
Jackson Brown - For Everyman
Paul Simon - Graceland
Counting Crows - Recovering the Satellites
Elvis Costello - Mighty Like A Rose
Portishead - Dummy
The Police - Outlandos d’Amour
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
Sugar - Copper Blue
and anything by:
Dewey Balfa
Charlie Parker
Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs
… for being the greatest masters of their fields.

It’s always good the see the days start getting longer. Winter gets the better of me at times and there’s something about the smallest day of the year that makes me feel hopeful.

After today, the days grow long,
the air warms up while I get strong,
I head back to where I belong
after today has gone.

After today the trees get thin,
it matters less where I have been,
the black dog, silent, sinks back in
after today has gone.

After today the smile returns,
the mind no longer toils and burns,
the road uphill winds down and turns
after today has gone.

After today the spirits lift
but darkness waits down in the rift
where once again next year I’ll drift
after today has gone.  

I got a Christmas card over the weekend from my neighbour Tony. I have spoken to him a few times and we’ve even been round for drinks at the house of another neighbour. He’s got two great kids and a lovely wife. I went across to his house one time in the dead of night to check up when I heard their burglar alarm going off. He probably thinks I am a nice guy, which is why he sent the card. In all, I’ve known him in a wave-and-keep-driving capacity for about 7 years.

The Christmas card was delivered by hand through the door with our names on it. I tell a lie - it had my wife’s name on it (let’s call her “Wife”), but it said “To Nelson & Wife, have a very Merry Christmas.”

That’s right, Nelson.

He thinks my name is Nelson. All the times I have spoken to him, he thought he was talking to Nelson. He’s probably joked about how we should have named our son Half-Nelson. He’s probably said to his wife, “You know we should have Nelson and his family over.”

Uh oh. He’s probably said to his wife, “You know we should have Nelson and his family over.”

What do I do if he asks? He’d be horrified that he addressed me as Nelson. He’d never pass it off as a lapse. “Oh, I was writing a card to my cousin. His name in Nelson and he looks just like you.” No one in England knows anyone called Nelson. How do I let him know? Do I send a card back from “Cliff and Wife”, or is that rude?

Or should I just go with Nelson and save him the embarrassment? That could be risky. A true Nelson wouldn’t shy away from risk, but I’m a Cliff. Cliffs aren’t traditionally risk takers.

What do I do? The lines are open.

Talking of boycotts and stuff, Hitler’s favourite movie was King Kong. That is a This Is This fact.

How come they got to call “King Kong” “King Kong” when there’s been a previous version? I thought they gave them different names to clear up any confusion.

You know how we’ve had “William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet” because there was a Franco Zeffirelli one done in the 1970’s, or “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (which I haven’t seen because the title kind of gave the plot away). The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is called “The Chronicles Of Narnia”, presumably because there was a cartoon film of it with the book’s title around when I was a kid. Likewise “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” to distinguish from the other films in which Errol Flynn buckled swashes and stuff.

There have been lots of films based on The Adentures of Huckleberry Finn and they’ve had loads of different names.

If they remade the Magical Mystery Tour they’d have to call it something like “The Fab Four’s Great Bus Adventure” or “Lennon and McCartney’s Excursion Into The Unknown”.

I might go and make some really cheap film versions of very popular books just so my lawyers can make sure that subsequent films have to have crap titles like “Jack Kerouac’s On The Road”.*

As far as I know, the original King Kong was called just that. Maybe the Kong family aren’t bothered because they sold the rights in return for the best anonymity that money could buy. This would be limited, bearing in mind that they are a family of giant monkeys with a famous son and a fanbase that included the Furher.

*I don’t actually have lawyers. I mean, there’s a guy who has done my will, and when I die he knows what to do, but some parts are out of date and a guy I haven’t spoken to in 15 years will get lots of guitars out of the blue. He’ll probably go: “Cliff Jones, eh? Bummer. Put them over there.”

Bugger.

Reader’s voice: “You know, I like him better when he’s funny.”

I have this friend (female, mid-fifties, you know the type) who doesn’t like John Major. She looks down on him and thinks he’s generally what she calls “not a good sort”.

This isn’t because he was the Chancellor who gave us the Poll Tax, or the Prime Minister who took us into a costly war with Operation Desert Storm. She doesn’t like him because he had an affair.

Now affairs are bad. I have friends I no longer speak to partly because they have had affairs, but this is because I rate my friends as people and I hold a mean grudge. John Major, however, is a public figure so his indescretions have nothing to do with my opinion of his work running the country. Even if I had any views, they wouldn’t matter a lot to him.

I asked a friend who also went to Live8 who he thought the best bands were. I said I was blown away by The Who, but he wrote them off on account of Pete Townsend downloading something I can’t write here because the searches I get are wierd enough already.

It’s bollocks though. Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall is a great album. What? It is. It’s the first album I ever bought. So what if he sleeps in a glove and wears a diamond-encrusted monkey on his oxygen tent? That’s a great fucking album. But there are people that don’t like his body of work because they don’t like the work of his body. Allegedly.

Whatever did or didn’t happen didn’t even indirectly influence the album. Why shouldn’t you appreciate someone’s work or achievements when not everything they have done outside of their field has been above board?

Sure, if Osama Bin Laden was making great bluegrass records in his cave, I’d probably choose not buy them (although the reverb on the banjo would be interesting, cause they can sound a tad dry), but that’s because he’d be getting my money, which is different. But would my opinions of the work be changed if he and the Opium Hill Heroins belted out a great version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown? Not a jot. I hear he also builds good roads.

A friend of mine doesn’t like Wagner because Hitler loved the stuff. Another friend doesn’t like Newcastle United because they have those fans who paint stripes on their bellies and take their shirts off when it snows.

Where does it end?

It’s like saying: “The Beatles?! Pah! They made that Sergeant Pepper’s which was influenced by Pet Sounds, the result of Dennis Wilson’s fascination, some might say obsession, with the Wall of Sound production style created by Phil Spector, who was arrested on suspicion of shooting a lady in his house. Don’t talk to me about Paul McsoddingCartney.”

or

Me: “We’re taking the kids to Spain next summer.”

Know It All: “Really? Well. Let me tell you a little something about Mr Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of your precious jet engine. He tried to ban hot drinks throughout Europe. In the 1950’s he saw them as a threat to the productivity of this great nation. Think about that next time you’re sipping coffee at 35,000 feet. That’s why I drive everywhere, because he was such a sicko.”

Get a life. It’s not just for Christmas.

Here’s another on from celebrated Armenian wordsmith Jeff Nicols (who you really should check out, by the way). It was written for his son on his first birthday. It’s kind of simple, but it’s got a nice music-box feel to it.

Small hands have never reached so far nor eyes beheld such trust.
No little heart has beat so strong a rhythm into us.
No words yet formed but music rings from such a tiny voice.
It hurts sometimes to love so much, sometimes we have no choice.

This week I perfected the art of tantric guitar playing. This is where you muck about for hours on end and never produce a song. Actually, you do, but it’s like one whole long song that lasts for hours and it’s not a very good one.

Sting would be proud. I think I will develop tantric blogging where I write something for ages and never publish it. No, hang on, I do that already.

The true story behind the Wham! song, as told by the chav/muse, Nikki Simms.

Last Christmas, right, he gave me this his heart. Tell you what - next day? I gave it to Kevin Atkins. So then he says this year he’s giving it to someone who fancies him and I’m like: “whatever”.

Then at Sarah Finch’s party it was heaving and he didn’t come over but he was totally checking me out. He was all like: “you don’t remember me do you.” And then he was all like: “Whatever, cause I ain’t bovvered.”

More shenaniganning at ’tis the season.

Drunk South African stranger to me last night: “The English and South Africans are completely the same. Completely. Except they have a totally different manner about themselves.”

Department Christmas party… beers everywhere… and blue drinks… I had no choice…

Come on faculties, get it together. What have I ever done to you? Apart from that.

In the meantime, please visit ’tis the season, a festive webstie put together by sisters Meg and Anna with contributions from JonnyB and me. They are all very funny and working on a site with them makes me feel like I am sitting on the cool kids’ table for lunch.

I like the word “y’all”. We should use it more. Lots of other languages have a plural for “you”. Why don’t we have one for the second person?

English is a great language - no masculine and feminine nouns, fewer tenses to our verbs and literally buttloads of nouns. Including that one.

We have so many words that normally one will do where other languages have to use loads. You know what “counterclockwise” is in French? “Le sens inverse dans le sens des aiguilles d��une montre.” Sacre bleu, indeed.

In English you’re got the words “sickness”, “illness”, “ailment”, “disease” and “affliction”. In French they have one word “maladie”. They don’t have lots of descriptive words for the same thing. That’s why there are no French Eskimos.

But they have the word “vous”, which is the plural of “you”, or “y’all”.

We’ve all have had the following conversation:

Me: “You coming?”

Person: “Me?”

Me: “Yeah, but the others as well.”

Person: “You mean all of us?”

Me: “Yes, you and you and you.”

Persons: “OK then, we will.”

It’s a waste of time.

Imagine a hostage situation:

Police negotiator with megaphone: “Come out with your hands up and you will not be hurt.”

Terrorist: “OK then, here we come, but we want to make a statement to the press before we are arrested and we want to”

BANG!!!

Terrorist: “Aggghh!!!! What did you shoot me for?!?!”

Police negotiator with megaphone: “I meant that guy. Yes you. You will not be hurt. The rest of you are liable to be shot by one of our many snipers surrounding the building. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”

It’s a linguistic minefield and one which needs to be cleared. Maybe Paul McCartney could get involved. On Sergeant Pepper there’s a line that could have done with the plural: “…we’d like to take you home with us, we’d love to take you home.” That’s open to misinterpretation.

Y’all 8. Think about it.

Every four seconds someone says you when they mean y’all.

Snap.

Snap.

I don’t mean any offence over the carol singing thing, honest. I found the carols beautiful and enchanting.

Especially the Latin ones. Outlandos d’amour harmonica plectrum dominos minibus.

I went to a carol service at the weekend. I hadn’t been to one in ages and it was great. It really was, and I haven’t said or sung anything in church in nearly 10 years.

A few ground rules for carol singing, though, which I had forgotten. The word “heaven” is usually one syllable. Sing two and you’ll find yourself half a step behind the congregation. Same with the word “over” - one syllable: “o’er”. “Gathering”, though, that’s two, as is “fuel”.

“Gloria” is thirty three syllables and “Maria” is five, unless you’re singing West Side Story, in which case you’re in the wrong place. If that happens, try to pass it off like you did it on purpose and walk out slowly with your friends, snapping your fingers with intent as you make your way to the door.

(Video Tape: Narrator to camera, walking)
Dateline Never Never Land, and a day when the future nearly pailed (brief pause) into insignificance.

(VT: Jack and Jill out walking their dog)
(Voice Over)
Local sweethearts Jack and Jill had it all. Two ordinary kids with hopes and dreams, but this day turned into a nightmare.

As the couple left the house in the early hours of Friday morning, everything seemed normal. They were heading up the hill behind their house to get a bucket of water Jack had left up there from the previous morning.

Chad Mussourgsky, the local fire chief, was on duty that morning.

(VT: Chief Mussourgsky interview)
“It was a typical morning. What the guys calls the “Neverland Mist”. We get the wet weather blowing in from the Enchanted Forest and it just covers everything like a wet blanket, especially up in the hills.”

(VT: Jack interview)
“I had left my pail up there from the night before and our irrigation system had been on the fritz since the Grand Old Duke of York’s military excercises hit the mains. 10,000 soldiers had ruined the underground pipes with their endless marching, so the only way to get water was from the well up on the hill.”

(VT: Sketchy re-enactment of Jack slipping)
(Voice Over)
What happened next is uncertain, but it appears that Jack lost his footing, resulting in a fractured crown.

(VT: Jill interview)
“Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack go down, and I slipped and started rolling down the hill, but it was much later.”

(VT: Sky, ground, sky, ground, sky, ground. Blurred)
(Voice Over)
It was the quick thinking of Chief Mussourgsky and his crew who intervened when they were just seconds from disaster. The chief’s first aid knowledge was vital to their survival. He is typically modest about his role.

(VT: Chief Mussourgsky interview)
“I did what every fireman would have done. I was just coming off my shift when the call came in. They’re lucky, because half an hour later the Kings Horses and the Kings men would have been on duty and those guys are ******* useless.”

(VT: Jack and Jill out walking their dog)
(Commentary Jack)
“I owe everything to Chief Mussourgsky. If he hadn’t have been there I could have died. Both my parents have very weak crowns and I’m not sure I would have pulled through.”

(VT: Jack and Jill out walking their dog, Chief Mussourgsky comes into shot, plays with dog and shakes hands with Jack)
(Voice Over)
So if you’ve left a pail of water in a perilous location - leave it there. Especially when it has been raining.

Always wear the proper shoes and propective crownwear and never, ever go up a hill without telling someone where you are going.

Thank god that this time, at least one nursery rhyme (brief pause) had a happy ending.

Next week: A woman whose ignorance of birth control led to her living in a piece of footwear amid scenes of breadless domestic violence.

Is it, though? How can it begin to look a lot like Christmas?

It can begin to look a little like Christmas. Or if your attention is sidetracked you can suddenly realise: “Wow, I never noticed this before but you know suddenly it looks a lot like Christmas.”

I don’t mind Christmas songs, but some of them have the worse titles, from the patronising “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (slams down phone) to the minimalist “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” to the geographically and gramatically challenged “We Three Kings Of Orient Are”.

And who else thinks “Pret a Manger” sounds like a chain of motels from biblical times?

To show I’m not bitter about the whole “beginning to” thing, here’s a picture of baby Jesus, which, if he weren’t in his cradle, would look like he is raving.

A few Internetians have taken up a The Sum Of All Years challenge. It’s great to think that people I’ve never met are running with the idea and in many ways, are doing it better.

Bonnie’s got at least a picture for each year. Hal did the first 26 years in a single posting. Chip is carrying the torch and BrYan only went ahead and created a whole index section on his site before he got to year 3.

December update - here are some more. Yay this.

1000 Shades of Grey
Troubled Diva
Stressqueen
Crinklybee
Merial.com

And here’s me again.

On the back of a Head & Shoulders bottle in my bathroom there is a little chart for their science bit.

Please bear with me, because this is quite complicated, hence the diagram.*

In the illustration, you can see that as the “Amount of Washes” increases on the X-axis, the “Amount of Dandruff”, shown here along the Y-axis, goes down from something unspecified to a degree detailed on the chart as “LESS”. The arrow downwards makes it clear that “LESS” is an inferior quantity to what it was when it was higher.

So you can see that within the first six washes with Head & Shoulders, the dandruff decreases from something more to a lesser amount on a scale with no quantities on it.

This country.

*the diagram to which I refer is shown here at the top right of this entry.