This Is This

Katy was asking before about my particular views of Nigella Lawson, since I brought it up over Christmas.

There are some things I like about her, and others I don’t.

She is the mature, curvy and sexy, which I like not only as a guy, but also it’s a social “that’s what I’m talking about” to all the billboard-gracing teenie-waifs who look a little like adolescent boys. Anyway, you know what I’m saying.

But me and Nigella - it would never work out, because she has too much hair for a chef. It’s offputting for someone who prepares food for others to be so follically gifted.

Also, the news team here at This Is This has been getting unconfirmed reports of a lift in the facial area of Nigella, and I have never been able to make my mind up about how I feel about facelifts.

And her recipes don’t work. For anyone. I have asked loads of people. In fact, I asked the teachers when making small talk in the staff room of my teacher’s school and they agreed with me that nothing worked. It’s like they didn’t try them out before going to print.

You couldn’t really make up the situations I get myself into, and often in a blog when people present themselves you get all savant and none of the idiot.

I work in the news, and I enjoy it mostly. Much like Huey Lewis, the news and I are synonymous. So when I snatched a haircut today, I made sure I looked after some important (current) affairs.

Today has been a busy day in the news, and if you’re reading this in the archives, the chances are you aren’t Saddam Hussein. I have been planning some tasteful coverage and laying down boundaries of what can and can’t be shown if the former Iraqi dictator’s body is handed out to we the media. Not this blog, I mean the day job.

I check with our picture team to find our who is on call tomorrow and called our video guy to check he would be available to get some footage to me if any came up.

“I can’t talk,” he said, “I’m on a motorway. I’ll pull over and call you back.”

He doesn’t normally answer the phone when he is driving but since it’s me and I know he would have heard the news on the radio, I consider it a flattering professional courtesy.

“Not urgent,” I text him back and step out to get a haircut.

I’m sitting there cloaked up and having it cut when my phone rings. I squirm a little because I know this is Video Guy who has pulled into a service station in his native Wales to get in touch about a breaking news story, so I want to take his call. The barber steps back, cutthroat razor in hand.

Now, I’m aware that because I work in the news, it is easy to sound like a twat. About half an hour after the second plane hit the World Trade Center, I knew I was going to be at my desk for the next 15 hours and I went out to buy a load of sandwiches and drinks for my team, and everyone in the cafe was watching the news instead of serving me. I said, “Can you hurry up with the sandwiches please, I’m a journalist.” Cunt is not the word.

I console myself that it might have sounded funny, like in Fawlty Towers when the guy says: “I’m a doctor. I’m a doctor and I want my sausages.” No, I think cunt is the word.

I am much more mindful of both Ps and Qs these days, so back in the barbers, there are a lot of factors at work.

I want to keep the conversation short, because the barber is standing by, with other heads to see.

But I don’t want to keep it too short, because Video Guy had stopped his journey on his day off to return my call.

I can’t say the words “execution” or “Saddam” or “Iraq” because the barber shop is run by an Arabic family next to an Arabic market, and they play Arabic radio and have Arabic verses everywhere and out of respect, I don’t want to sound like I’m capitalising on an Arabic tragedy, which of course I am, but more about that here.

Video Guy: Cliff, hi.

Me: Hi - thanks for calling back. I’m right in the middle of something, so now I can’t talk long.

Video Guy: No problem - what’s up.

Me: If we get the video of this actual, um, thing, we can run it but we have to have a disclaimer somewhere.

Video Guy: The actual execution, you mean.

Me: Yeah. That.

Video Guy: But that won’t be until after the Haj, will it?

Me: I’m hearing Saturday.

Video Guy: Saturday? Wow. What do you need?

Me: Just the video encoded. We’ll take care of everything else. I’ll send you a list of who is on duty in case you can’t get me.

Video Guy: OK, great. Can you include me on any mails to them?

Me: Will do, but it looks likely it will be soon.

Video Guy: What have you heard?

Now this is the bit where I think about saying that they won’t kill him over a Muslim festival of Eid or the Haj, but I decide against it. The barber thumbs his blade behind my ear.

Me: Just some things. But I might be wrong.

I add the “I might be wrong” because I don’t want to sound like a twat to him, either.

Not that I minded. Sometimes you matter less than your surroundings.

We were having a party over Christmas at our place and we had some friends and kids about, about twenty five people in all, and I have to admit it, even I thought it was nice having a full house for a bit.

The children were getting ready to play pass the parcel and my dumb was somewhat founded when my wife called on me to put on some lively music.

“I don’t have anything. All my music is downbeat,” I said to her and anyone. I seem to be doing that a lot these days. It’s not the music is depressing- well, yes, some of it, but it’s generally mellow, soulful and probably too adagio for things.

I may have looked a little self-depricating to the point of downheartedness, because a lady tapped me on the shoulder and said: “I like your music. I have liked everything you played.”

I found some Abba in between Keith Jarrett and Richard Thompson and thanked her wholeheartedly.

Because it means a lot when you share taste with someone. It’s as much about what you like as what you’re like and when that’s validated, it’s a cool thing. It’s even better when not everyone shares your taste. It was nice to hear that voice from the crowd that evening.

It’s like this site. It may not be the most popular blog, and it’s never going to set the world on fire and that’s OK. There are a few people who like it and that’s enough for us all. Voices in the crowd, because it’s a huge crowd. And if you know anyone who is like you, then they might like this too, so send them a link - it all counts and it would mean a lot to me.

So here we are, standing on the doorstep of another year, me wondering if it’s a friendly wave and publish or if perhaps I should say something I could regret.

Thanks for visiting over the past few years, months or sooner if you’re new. I’m pleased as hell to be the custodian of your readership in some small way.

So while the new year may not change things in itself, and though the sadness may never go away, let’s hope that we ourselves may get better, that we can enjoy the laughter in the passing of time and that the years, in our growing wisdom, will be merciful.

Happy new year everyone. Best wishes for 2007.

Go on, really.

Oh all right then.

The Three Word Story is back.

Yeah, me too!

I shit you not, and Suz has come in with a late entry on a festive spin, making it look so easy.

Check it out:

“You don’t understand your power over the common man,” said Alistair Campbell.

The words seemed to echo endlessly around their cell. Digging a tunnel had proved fruitless and oddly phallic. Finding a vein had been the laborious task ahead, but they opted to forge ahead while singing “We Are The Champions”.

It wasn’t until they stopped singing that they realised they were never going to see Gdansk. In the dark, damp silence, the candles sputtered out. “Bugger,” said the slightly balder spelunker, “we need tallow - and FAST!”

“WAIT!! What’s THIS!?” Alistair exclaimed, puzzled.

“Tinsel? Surely not!”
———–
Latest three words by Suz

What happens next? Up to you.

Email your three words

One story, three words at a time.

Three Word Story

Cheers Suz. It’s not as easy as it looks.

I was doing the laundry last week when I dropped a sock in the cats’ waterbowl.

“Oops,” I announced to anyone who would listen, “I got the cats’ water on daughter’s sock.”

The cat looked round and said: “Miaow.” This probably meant: “Daughter’s sock just fell in my water.”

Depends on your point of view, I guess.

At what point did Yoda decide to retire in the Degoba system?

Looking back at the prequels, you see a confident Jedi Master, head of the class, prom king, West Point’s star quarterback, most likely to destroy the baddies, etc.

Then by Empire Strikes Back, he’s living in a swamp, still with his Jedi powers while the Empire narrowly run the show in the whole galaxy. Aside from hanging up his lightsabre too early while a mob of ragtag rebels take on the biggest threat to the universe, why has he chosen a cesspool as a homestead for his retirement instead of Florida, Tenerife or Bournemouth?

Maybe he owed someone money and was lying low for a bit. Maybe he doesn’t want to split his pension with Mrs Yoda, or there’s some kind of Jedi tuition malpractice issue which the council agreed to cover up if he cleared off.

Either way, it’s weird.

I have been watching Christmas DVDs with the kids.

Not some mince pie-related indulgance, I write of course of the death of James Brown.

Callous headline, but at least I didn’t go with Get Up, Get On Up, Stay On The Scene - because, you know, that would be wrong.

Or Not Now James, We’re Busy - which would only be clever to a small handful of people, which in my book is not clever at all.

I saw James Brown live at the Nice Jazz Festival when I was about 15 and would have been blown away, had Miles Davis not already done the job earlier that evening.

It’s good that he gave us music, bad that he beat his wife. If anyone should have been a godfather, it (what’s the past tense of ain’t?) him.

But it’s cool that for once, something knocked the Queen off the headlines, because let’s face it, she’s there on Christmas Day because she’s the only story in town.

Channel 5 said she was “down with the kids” - they actually said that - because her speech was available on podcast. Podcast my arse, I bet she didn’t upload it herself or put it on You Tube. Or One’s Tube.

If she were cool she would have made some kind of cultural reference:

This year, we remember the sad demise of one James Bryne, who use to fill not only performance hyses but also his own trysers.

So it’s with slight regret and a great back catalogue that we dip our heads and go down on one knee while a member of our entourage places a cape over our shoulders and we acknowledge that the band in the sky just got a whole lot funkier.

I had visions of posting every day over Christmas and saying what I thought about Nigella Lawson and, I don’t know, all kinds of important updates, but the truth is I’m too busy and I think that’s going to continue while I get ready for Christmas, try and shake this cold and do some essential things.

My birthday was good - we went out and saw the James Bond film, which was great, apart from the bits where Incidental Man starts commentating to Supporting Actress on a poker game for the benefit of us, the audience.

“He’s got three aces and a nine. If the next card is a joker, he has to go fish.”

Yes, thank you.

It was a bit rubbish, like in those Roy of the Rovers comics where someone in the crowd goes: “Roy’s taken in round the back. If he scores this, the Rovers will be in the Cup Final.”

I think Incidental Man should have been in every scene.

“James is going into cardiac arrest. If he doesn’t start his heart again he’s going to die from a lack of oxygen to the brain.”

“James has a text message. He’s going to get caller info and dial the number and find out whose phone rings.”

So anyway, back on the 27th, I imagine. In earnest anyway. Possibly with less earnest before then, or sin gusto.

Cheers all have a great break if you’re on one.

“Cliff has finished writing. If he hits publish, this post will go live and anyone with an Internet connection will be able to read it.”

It may be hard news for you to bear, but I actually am the Prince of Darkness and this stands to reason, because there is more of it today in the northern hemisphere than on any other day and this is my 35th birthday.

The good news is that after today the days get longer and for this no one breathes a deeper sigh of relief than me.

The winter solstice is the reason we have Christmas when we do and old Emperor Elagabalus in Roman times who decided that the winter festival of Saturnalia, a time of general relaxation and merriment, would extend until December 25.

The solstice is not some hippy gimmick - it’s a planet/star thing. The Aztecs knew it, the Egyptians knew it, the Celts knew it like hell and sure enough I know it. It may get colder, and I may get older, but it might just get easier.

I also have a feeling this is going to be a huge year, so stick with me.

Related Post:
After Today

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=30058&in_page_id=34

Dear Miss Golborne,

I read with interest your decision to rename the children’s Christmas function as a ‘Winter Party’.

Is it possible you are offending Christians by removing the name Christmas from their holiday celebrations?

I ask this with the utmost respect - I am not Christian myself and I make no purile comparisons or favour one majority or another.

Also, are there any other religious festivals, (Eid, Vesak, Purim, Diwali, etc) which will be renamed so as not to offend people of other faiths?

Cliff Jones

Maybe it’s the journalist in me, or the fact that my family is fucked by politics and ill-conceived diplomacy, but I take everything at face value and I do not like gossip.

I give no fucks for hearsay, don’t care about suspicions and have no time for notions. If someone ever hints to me that me that someone might have a hidden agenda (and I can even feel myself getting angry at putting it in this limp-assed way) I will ask a direct question like:

“Are you saying that Person A is trying to undermine Person B?”
“Do you mean that Person C is sleeping with Person D?”
“So you’re suggesting that Person E is trying to gain Person F’s favour for financial gain?”

And normally, the answer from the conspiracy theorist is something non-committal, like:

“Well, look at the facts…”

No. You fucking look at the facts and tell me what you really think. If you have a point to make, at least draw a conclusion.

That’s the editor in me saying: “Come back when you have a story.”

The person making the flouncy accusation then says: “All I’m saying is Person A is perfectly placed to benefit from a possible outcome.”

Right, so you’re saying nothing really, are you?

Politics, I swear to god. Politics are to family what holes are to cheese. The more cheese you have, the more holes. But the more holes you have, the less cheese.

Tell me what you mean, and I’ll go on the record and ask that person if what you suspect is true, OK? Otherwise don’t talk to me about your theories.

I got a Christmas card this year from a family member that said, “We may not always be in touch, but you’re often in our thoughts.”

Oh yeah? Well fuck you and send an email every once in a while. Merry fucking Christmas. How do you like those thoughts?

Dickhead.

I have an aunt who asks questions in the negative. It’s a northern thing, I think, but when she used to call and say: “Is your dad not there?” and he actually was, I used to say. “No.”

Or if he wasn’t in I used to say sometimes: “I’m afraid you’re right.”

I get this all the time.

“Are you not cold like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well do something about it.”

“Do something… about not being cold?”

“What?”

Or if my mother in law at the table says: “Aren’t you hungry?”

I have to lie to her in order to get across how I feel.

So I nod my head and smile, agreeing with her that I am not hungry, because I am, and she comes round with the potatoes.

We were flying into Vegas from the Grand Canyon in an eight seater propellor plane. I was about fourteen at the time. The trip over the hot air of the Mojave Desert was extremely bumpy and it felt like someone was smacking the top of the plane as we bobbed up and down on waves of turbulance.

Black clouds conspired all around us until the smallest one hit us with a lightning bolt that took our breath away. I reasoned - because reasoning is all you can do when you have no hope - that it was better to be hit by lightning off the ground than on.

A few years before, a thunderstorm broke out at baseball practice and in the sudden downpour, we ran into the dugout while forks of lightning hit the trees around the diamond. One friend of mine further back in the outfield was slower to get to the shelter and picked up a couple of aluminium bats. He ran across the open ground towards the dugout, bats flailing like bludgeons while thousands of volts charged above him, waiting to find the shortest route to the ground. We were cub scouts then and that was pretty much the extent of our knowledge about how the world worked, but it was enough to know he was in no small amount of peril, so we screamed at him to drop the bats. Conan the Barbarian had just come out - he was in his element and at risk of joining them. He made it to the dugout, where the administration of noogies was a given.

So I figured if you were going to get hit, the air was god’s way of giving you a big set of rubber boots.

Las Vegas emerged like a bruise a few minutes later on the horizon and the pilot asked us to quell our nervous chatter while he spoke to the air traffic controllers who would thread us into an approach between the monster 747s and DC10s.

As we came to touch down, the pilot looked in panic at his controls, hit a few switches - the same switches, several times, which can’t be good. He looked out every window he had, over his left shoulder and further back over my shoulder and climbed and banked hard to the left, looking up and around as he did. Two and three hundred-seater jets roared to our left and circled above us to the right.

We looked at the pilot who watched the skies and headed back out towards the desert.

He turned around and shouted: “That was interesting! We lost contact with the tower! Our radio went dead and you can’t land at an airport without a radio! Its too dangerous!”

We looked at him helpless. We watched him, the skies, then him, then the ground. I think at some stage we blinked, then watched the skies again.

“The radio is not functioning!”

“Oh don’t say ‘functioning’”,  I thought. People always use big words in a crisis. Biopsy,  severance, malignant, proceedings, collision. Say “it’s fucked” or something, but don’t use the big words.

“When you lose radio, there’s an automatic signal that goes out to say you’ve got no radio and they give you priority - but that’s not working either! We’re getting out of here!!”

The good news was that the Arizona skies had cleared to cloudless, and 20 minutes later we landed in relative safety at an airstrip in the desert, out of sight of Las Vegas or anywhere. The runway was barely big enough to land on, but we touched down and stretched our legs, relieved to be on the ground.

In the middle of nowhere.

With no radio.

In the days before mobile or satellite phones.

Where the only building we could see was a small one-room structure at the end of the runway with a chain and a padlock across the handles of the double door.

There was a payphone next to the building, and the pilot reached under his seat and pulled out a ziplock back full of loose change and headed towards the phone.

He turned and said, “Folks, I’m just going to call the office and tell them where we are and they are going to send an engineer and a bus to get you all back to your hotels.”

When he returned, he said: “They’re going to be a couple of hours.”

It was more like four, but we sat and talked and got to know each other. Some sheltered from the desert sun under the wing of the small plane until as the sun changed colour and dipped under the a darkening sky, a wedge of dust grew bigger and bigger until you could make a bus at the front of it.

The doors opened to a chorus of angels and a flurry of cokes, beers and apologies and we were back in the world we had grown to know.

—
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Sorry, person.

You the person.

That’s what Time Magazine says, because it has named “You” as Person of the Year because we be blogging and Youing Tubing and having our say and stuff on the Internet.

So you are the person of the year. Well, not you in particular. I use the royal you.

I think it was my post about the Take That reunion that swung the jury, but who can say?

Anyway, now we get to join the list of people like General Westmoreland, the Pope and Adolf Hitler as the year’s most influential people.

Remember Hitler? Here are the closing lines from the Time Magazine article which named him man of the year in 1938:

To those who watched the closing events of the year it seemed more than probable that the Man of 1938 may make 1939 a year to be remembered.

Great things people. Great things.

I find it fun to think that I have supernatural powers. Like when you walk under a streetlight as it turns off and pretending it’s something to do with you. Or when a dog calmly pays attention to ony you and everything you do in a room full of people and you imagine it knows what you are thinking.

Yesterday was an example of this.

I went out to buy a craft shop to buy an A1 piece of black card. First of all, I started off looking stupid by saying to the woman at the till: “Is this A1?”

Because I don’t know right? How the fuck should I know? Anyway, she nodded at me like I’m an idiot and then I realised I should have asked my second question first.

“Is it black?”

I should point out to those who don’t know that I am colourblind. Not totally, but I can’t pick out subtleties in colour. Or anything, sometimes.

She looked at me like my next question would have been be to point at my feet and say, “Earth. Right?”

“It’s black, yes,” she said, almost incredulous at my lack of awareness of colour and the ISO 216 standard paper size system.

“Great thanks.”

She rings it up

“£3.50.”

I hand over my card.

“Sorry,” she said. Actually, no, she didn’t say sorry - fuck her, “there’s a five pound minimum on cards.”

“Really?” I looked mildly annoyed. I didn’t have time to pick out things I wanted to make up the extra £1.50, so I said, “Right, I’ll just take another one of these.”

I walked over to the poster section and got another one. Why I was in a hurry to buy a sheet of A1 black card isn’t important at this point, but it was then.

She rang them through and then looked dumbfounded. She paused, looked at the receipt and the screen and called her colleague over. She mumbled something about a card refund to him and he said to put them through again.

“Um,” she stated, “I’ve only charged you for one by mistake. I need to charge you for the other one, so I need to do a refund on you card and then charge you for both.”

“That’s OK,” I said, “I only wanted one.”

The colleague looked at her and says, “That’s a lot easier. We’ll just do that.”

She nods.

Woo hoo! And I win.

Her mistake was doing the thing that she said she couldn’t do, which she could, she just didn’t want to. The thing that I wanted in the first place.

I tapped the card I didn’t want and say, “Can you put this back?”

“Um, OK,” she said.

Supernatural mind trick or just a heady mixture of incompetance and luck?

My bus company is thinking of cutting some of the big coaches I catch into London, so they sent round a questionnaire for passengers to fill in.

It asked what time you leave in the morning and what time you return in the evening and what your address was, so they can have on one handy sheet all the convenient information about where your house is and its times of occupancy.

I skipped the address part and put in my postcode and email.

The next question was:

Q3: “Morning: Where do you board the bus, at what time and where do you alight?”

Which I answer honesty and as good as I’m able.

Q3a: “Afternoon: Where do you board the bus, at what time and where do you get alight?”

It’s the opposite route at a different time.

Q4: “If the answers to Q3 and Q3a are different please explain why.”

I think about this for a second.

“Because the questions are different. I can not catch the same bus to work that I get home in the evening. It defies the laws of physics.”

Seriously, though, if they want straight answers they should ask decent questions.

Where do these people alight?

This morning, just now.
Here.

Colleague 1 (matter of factly): “Another one.”

Colleague 2 (astonished): “Really? No.”

Colleague 1 (downheartened): “Fraid so.”

Me: “Wicket or prostitute?”

It’s not the best of times for a dry spell.

Regular readers notice that I haven’t been posting every day, which had become the norm of late. First time visitors will hopefully find this confession a refreshingly honest and novel way of admitting that I am a bit slack.

My excuse is that I have been writing for ‘Tis The Season, which is an online Xmas Xtravaganza produced by Meg and Anna, who run blogs of which you’ve seldom read the like.

Meg’s was the first blog I ever read and made me think (for a couple of years) about starting my own and doing it really well.

It’s still a notion I hope to fulfill, but until then, the emergency exits are here, here and here.

Cliff says: If you leave me now, you’ll take away the biggest part of me

Cliff says: Oooh oohh ooooh no baby please don’t go.

Cliff says: Bah bah bah bah bah bah….

(a couple of minutes pass)

Colleague says: That went out to most of the fifth floor. I’m in a meeting.

Cliff says: I don’t care. Let them hear me.

One thing that bugs me is how parenting is regarded as a chore, or something to be overcome.

Page 21 of today’s Telegraph:

A Mother’s Guide To Surviving Christmas
How to cope with cooking, shopping and those nativity plays.

What? 

If you need help surviving nativity plays, you should not have kids or celebrate Christmas. If you need parenting advice from the Telegraph, you should be neutered.

Sorry. These are just my views.

If you don’t like them, I have others.

I drove my hangover to the Post Office this morning to pick up a replacement lenscap I lost taking this photograph. I was driving along on my own, singing my guts up to Distant Sun, my song du jour (de la semaine, en faite), wondering why I felt so good.

Then I realised it was just because I was out and about. I reckoned I have had twenty minutes sunlight in total this week when I went to have lunch with two friends. That is not good.

Lunch + friends + daylight = good.

Day - daylight = bad.

It’s dark when I leave for work, it’s dark when I leave the office. I didn’t make time to leave the building for lunch and instead ate what I brought in. And even that time with my friends when I did go out, I didn’t even make the time to eat with them, because I grabbed something at my desk and ate there.

This, I realise, is not good, and I have used the sun and work as an excuse. “Work’s always there, the sun rarely is - I can’t go chasing it.”

But leave it to me, I will sort it out.

Harry Potter got his name because his dad made plates
(a constant source or ridicule among his so called mates)

They pots his dad turned at the wheel were, socially, anomilies.
The only thing that Harry threw were full-on, proper wobblies.

But no one ever heard his rants, his words fell on deaf ears,
rants were only for the mugs, which caught his wasted tears.

Then one day as he cleaned a lantern, there among the dishes,
a genie floated from a lamp and said: “You got three wishes.”

Harry rubbed his eye aghast and thought of his desires.
He thought: “A plate-free, normal life is what I most require.”

The genie motioned to the lamp and hovered in the air.
“I do not have all day you know, I’m double parked in there.”

Driven by low self-esteem and tempted by debauchery,
Harry said: “I hate my life. It’s all so fucking saucer-y.”

Inspired by Harry’s choice or words, deliberate or not,
he shipped him off to boarding school where he became a swot.

But academic efforts earned him thrashings by the day.
And Harry soon began to rue the day he went away.

While the simplest things are often the hardest to define, they can be the easiest to understand.

Quality. Value. Style. Love. You know what they are but I couldn’t explain any one of these better than anyone else, and yet they make us human beyond tears, toes and thumbs.

Love. Men of science as recently as Haddaway have pondered its nature.

In song you get “Love Will Keep Us Together” and less than a decade later they’re saying “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. Oh, and it spreads, can build a bridge, don’t cost a thing and does it good.

———-

Three Word Story

“You don’t understand your power over the common man,” said Alistair Campbell.   

The words seemed to echo endlessly around their cell. Digging a tunnel had proved fruitless and oddly phallic. Finding a vein had been the laborious task ahead, but they opted to forge ahead while singing “We Are The Champions”.

It wasn’t until they stopped singing that they realised they were never going to see Gdansk. In the dark, damp silence, the candles sputtered out. “Bugger,” said the slightly balder spelunker, “we need tallow - and FAST!”

“WAIT!! What’s THIS!?” Alistair exclaimed, puzzled.

Latest three words by Ed, then Hennie

What happens next? Up to you.
One story, three words at a time.
Email your three words

I put up blinds in the conservatory at the weekend. They were the kind that pull along on a rail and they will replace the old static ones that allow moisture to build up on the windows.

And now you appreciate the title. Headline of the year, that, and yeah, I know it’s December. I was pacing myself.

I was under the weather all bloody last weekend. Blue so much the sound of laughter made me smirk with bitterness. Hrmph. But there is little better than manual work to beat misery, or at least to sand the edges off your outlook to fit the day you deserve to have.

Depression is like a door that needs painting. You don’t get around to it, because you don’t feel like it and can’t see the use. It’s only going to get weathered and need painting again and it will look as tired and worn as it does now. Then you feel pathetic because not only does it look bad, but you know that you’re the one that didn’t paint the door which looks awful and it was your choice to do nothing and it’s all your fault, you loser. And you can’t be bothered to go all the way to the shop and make a choice because your judgment is rubbish. Eventually you convince yourself that the door would be better left unused altogether and you’re left with staring out of windows.

Of course, you know it’s going to look better with it painted, which is also why people who have depression can be very organised and highly productive. Not in a manic way, just because they are in search of the gratification that comes with finishing something and going: “Yes. I did it! Woohoo, and more to the point, fuck you!”

And that’s why I enjoy DIY. I knew a recovering alcoholic that got into woodwork to such an extent that the friend who shared his house nearly moved out. But that kind of toil, like writing, is socially acceptable isolation and gratifying and productive and there isn’t much that fits those three categories.

Plus it’s there, and that’s possibly the biggest deal. You did it. There it is. Check it out.

There is a great programme on Channel 4 here in the UK at the moment called How Music Works which looks at the origins, development and use of things like rhythm and melody.

The shows are excellent, and it’s a tall order, because they are aimed at musos and non-musos alike. So I sit there and nod through the first half hour, and then there’s something that really shakes my tambourine.

Last week’s one was about harmony, and how harmony comes from harmonics (which I didn’t know and, kind of: duh, but wow).

They were saying how the Church in western Europe was against harmony of any sort, and then it got hip, but remained opposed flattened notes in a major chord (ie. a minor chord), because they thought it was the work of the devil.

But the early Renaissance composers started spiking the punch with flattened passing notes right under the padres’ noses.

Can you image songs without minor chords? The devils work my arse.

I know what you’re thinking. Did he use one apostrophe, or did he use none? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a weblog, the most powerful medium in the world, and would blow your mind clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel mucky?’

The Thats were on telly over t’weekend (ooh-er). I watched it and I have to say they were good.

Shush now.

It’s only when you realise how many rubbish ones there are trying to copy the good ones, that you realise something is actually not that easy. Like blogging, a bit.

I’ve always wondered about Gary Barlow. He writes songs and those labours stay in the blood, so he’s probably got bags of new tunes knocking about that he can’t use because people don’t want to hear them.

But they busted one out on the show after the usual standards, and it was just wierd. It was a bit Sergeant Pepper on LSD.

What?

It was?

OK, it was Sergeant Pepper on loads more LSD.

Can I say, in the highbrow defensive style of Tom Paulin: “I rather liked it.”

————
Cliff Jones is on annual leave. This was not written by him and I do not share my opinions.

His.

I don’t share his opinons.

Vapour trail X, a cross in the sky,

hangs in the air where the planes flew by.

Proof, were it needed, that memories float.

Kiss at the end of the letter she wrote.

A lot of journalistic grammar is rubbish.

As organisations, we are told, companies are always referred to in the singular.

Ford announces its results.

Sheraton builds new hotel in Gdansk.

But when the company sounds plural, hacks slip into thinking a company name is actually a group of people.

British Airways are increasing the number of routes they operate.

Sport teams are always plural.

Everton are playing in Europe.

The Eagles are in the playoffs.

Granted, the chances of either happening are slim, but what happens when a football team is also a company?

Chelsea announces merchandising deal after record losses.

or

Chelsea announce…

And what happens where a person is a company, like Donna Karan, or Yves Saint Laurent?

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