This Is This

I wrote a post this morning and my PC crashed and now I have to go to work.

So over to you. Give me a topic for a post. Ask a question, say what’s on your mind, suggest something and I’ll post back on here by way of reply.

Yes, it’s rock and roll cheese, but it’s my cheese.

(turns keyboard towards the audience and nods confidently at the sidebar before facing front with a “fuck, yeah” face)

I realise there was a contradiction in yesterday’s post when I said I didn’t like highbrow things then mentioned a Radio 4 podcast. I actually do, I just don’t like the tone of those shows.

Radio 4’s good but what does annoy me that some people think you can’t be informative and goof around. Some people think you have to be negative to express an opinion. Some people think that if you swear, then you somehow devalue your argument.

I say fuck those people.

I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but at least I’m thinking outside it.

If this site aims to do anything, it’s to have a laugh, mess around, throw up some ideas about everyday stuff, and yes, if necessary, find out who the hell played sitar on Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”

I wouldn’t presume I come close to that here, but if we can keep on doing what we’re doing, then we’re doing OK.

————
Update: More than OK - this from twobluefish, written by the eloquent Quick in Sydney.

Sometimes I forget about how much the highbrow bothers me. Why is it that so much of anything that’s perceived as clever is either up its own arse or it gets all smug and wishy?

Among other things, I listen to a Radio 4 podcast called Front Row which is good apart from the tone, which really grates with me. Even at the beginning, Mark Lawson tells us about the terms and conditions in a way that is so smug, I don’t know whether to play along by looking concerned with a chinscratch of “terms… yes, quite” or to stick my ipod so far up Lawson’s arse he’ll be voting for whoever gets my arse in the slammer the fastest.

No, I’m good. Give me room.

It’s one hundred years since John Wayne (real name Marion Morrison, OK? See Hemingway’s Law) first swaggered barrel chested into the world. It was The Duke’s centenary last week, as well as that of Lawrence Olivier, bizarrely. But it took, as I suspected, about 53 seconds for Lawson and his Hampstead lefty pals to mention that John Wayne was an arch conservative with few sympathies for anything good (they mean liberal)

This bugs me. Unlike other actors, John Wayne only two hats: one was a Stetson and the other was made of cold, hard steel. But this didn’t make him of less value than Sir Larry, because it’s all about the show. There’s this assumption with people who place too high a value the perception of their intelligence that too much success stands in the way of their imposed artistic merit.

This is bullshit. The Beatles, Stephen Spielberg, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare - all appreciated on a massive scale and worth their salt in gold. But the intelligencia don’t pay respect where it’s due. There’s an equation that if the popularity is less but the talent is roughly comparable to a decent standard, then that somehow gives the artist credibility.

I don’t know what the formula is because I’m not bothered it enough to give fucks to this matter. Although clearly I’ll base a blog post around it, sure.

So happy birthday Lawrence Olivier and John Wayne. I like to think they’re up their somewhere having a beer.

Hey you know the band in the sky debate? What if there’s a play in the sky? Sir Larry and The Duke, Jimmy Stewart, Natalie Wood, Lana Turner, John Belushi and the guy who played Leo McGarry out of The West Wing in a sitcom about a ragtag mob of hapless angels posing as a team of writers trying to sell a radio sitcom based around giant centipede. The show, called “It’s Got Legs”, would combine slapstick with politics of the media business.

———-
Late entry - Steve Martin, right? My Theories, Part One: Age

Technically it’s still the weekend, because it’s a holiday in the UK, which means I haven’t thought much of anything constructive to say.

What? You don’t own me.

OK, you kind of own me.

You made the effort of going all the way to somewhere else on your screen to call up this website, so I didn’t want to come up empty handed, because then we’d have that whole awkward thing where you pretend that you weren’t really looking for a daily post anyway and you have to make a series of faces that go like this:

The “Hiya, hey…” face
The “Um, there’s no post today” face
The “Right, ok then, what do I do now?” face (this is the shortest face of them all)
The “Casual smile how you doing?” face
The “You know what? I’m actually cool” face
The “Cheers then, see you” face

So to avoid all those faces, and in the absence of a decent post today, how about the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra doing a jazz rhumba version of Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic?

It doesn’t exist, right? Just believe.

Or:
Instru-mental

There are certain instruments which will always remind me of particular songs. It’s normally the weird ones, because things like 12 string guitars have been used in hundreds of tunes, but if you say slide whistle to me, I will always think of Groove Is In The Heart by Dee-Lite, even though if I am handed one, I will try and play a famous slide guitar riff.

Come on, you’re dead inside if you can’t see the funny in a slide whistle rendition of the opening notes of the Hendrix version of All Along The Watchtower or My Sweet Lord.

But anyway:

Pop Songs I Think Of When I Hear Certain Instruments

Harp - She’s Leaving Home by The Beatles

Sitar - Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder

Synth snare - Funkytown by Lipps Inc.

Glockenspiel - King Of Pain by The Police

Oboe - Handbags And Gladrags by Rod Stewart

Clarinet - Rhapsody In Blue by George Gershwin

Harmonica - Love Me Do by The Beatles

Digeridoo - One Way by The Levellers

Pan pipes - Walking In Your Footsteps by The Police

Hammond organ - Whiter Shade Of Pale by Procul Harem

Harpsichord - Four Seasons In One Day by Crowded House

Bowed upright bass - Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police

Plucked upright bass - Walk On The Wild Side by Lou Reed 

Distorted bass guitar - Gratitude by The Beastie Boys

Mandolin - either Losing My Religion by REM or Maggie May by Rod Stewart

Baritone Sax - either Girls And Boys by Prince or Hungry Heart by Bruce Springsteen

Kazoo - Black Gal Blues by The Delta Boys

The latter I’ll post one weekend as part of the audio posts. It’s an old recording from the 1930s and it never fails to make me smile.

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Related posts
Free And Singles Part 3 (Thoughts on Signed, Sealed, Delivered)

Nina Simone - Suzanne

This song is one of my favourites - all heartfelt, proud and understated. Carly Simon said that love comes and goes, but love not allowed to run its course just burns on in a heart forever.

It’s a beautiful tune, subtle and powerful. You forget that it’s long, that it’s a trio, that it was written years ago; that even you have felt like this.

Just when you mean to tell her that you have no more love to give her,
she gets you on her wavelength and she lets the river answer that you’ve always been her lover

Listen - Nina Simone - Suzanne

There are some words and habits I’ve picked up from places I’ve lived. From living in France I like having salad after my main course. From the US it’s mostly vocabularly.

I was talking to Wendy (you know, Wendy) yesterday and I said “eraser”. Now if you have caught the audio posts at the weekend you’ll know I don’t sound American. Maybe the odd word, but that’s it. Anyway, I said eraser.

A hush descended. Then another. She breathed as if to speak, paused, then did: “You can say rubber.”

“True,” came my reply.

I had been making the point though was about stationery fetishes and the feeling of writing in biro on a rubber. Or ball point pen on an eraser. If they are both new then it’s a strangely fulfilling experience. Same thing writing on new trainers. Or sneakers. Damn these subtle differences in languages.

But it feels good. It’s like peeling the foil off a fresh jar of coffee, or throwing something REALLY high in the air and catching it without having to move. Explain that.

Have a great weekend. I’ll do that weekend song post thing starting tomorrow and see what we can’t cook up.

Let’s go to the phones now. (Message boards. We don’t actually have phones.) The topics are:

Habits and fancies you’ve picked up from living somewhere else
Doesn’t have to be different countries, just things you do differently now because for a while you were a fish out of your regular water.

Weird everyday stuff that feels good

Go, ahead caller.

Oh, and free Bronze Club membership (or upgrades where applicable) to anyone who ends their message with a cheesy shout out to a friend who doesn’t read this site anyway.
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One of the best things about this time of year is the way the garden takes shape. I make no bones about my enjoyment of gardening. OK, I make some bones, but it’s OK. I’m 35 now and I can admit such things while I can back them up by the apathy of golf. Age is OK though. Clive James said the trick of growing older is not to stop the sliding, but to find a graceful way of staying slid.

The grounds of This House are literally festooned with pots and growbags alike in a riot of, well, green for the moment, but that’s all about to change.

We’ve got lobelia and clematis (which both sound rude, [*snork*]), petunias, marigolds, violets and dwarf sunflowers which grow to about two feet tall. There is a bird’s nest fern, a lilly hosta which produces tall stems of lavender flowers in mid summer, a bonsai sycamore which I’ve grown from scratch over the years after I potted a sapling I caught growing out the side of the house.

Hungry? I’ve got three kinds of bell peppers, six strawberry plants and two blueberry bushes. The berry plants are a few years old and look ready to go for it this year. Last year wasn’t bad, but this year? Look out. I’m growing a trough full of sprouting broccoli, three tomato plants, two courgettes and rhubarb in a big pot in between two pear trees I planted in the ground a couple of weeks ago. They are being trained against the fence, in holes in the patio I built. The space around the roots is filled in with a bluey slate that looks soft when it’s wet.

It’s a modest affair, even though it sounds like an industry. I don’t have much space and the sun does most of the work, but I like getting home from the day and going round with a watering can, pinching out sideshoots and thinking that one day, years from now, and if nothing changes, I’ll drink mint juleps in the shade of the trees I planted.

And if I don’t, then that’s OK. At least I got to plant them with an intention way back now.

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Old (er)

Socks on first. No question.

OK, I don’t look my best parading around on a behosed trouser hunt, but think about it. If you put your trousers on first, you have to roll up the pantlegs to put your socks on anyway, costing you precious seconds. Socks on first and you’re good to go. Therein lies the deal. It’s ergonomics.

If you got John Harvey Jones into my bathroom he’d tell you the same. He was a consultant who would tell businesses how to become more efficient. He once told the Manchester Evening News that their drivers needed to make more left turns on their paper delivery routes. As we drive on the left, it meant crossing fewer intersections. So the managers plotted new supply routes, fuel consumption dropped by a third and deliveries were made earlier.

Anyway, he’d approve. Socks on first and turn left.

This possibly falls into the category labelled too much information.

I can’t believe I’ve just discussed the productive edge of socks before trousers.

There’s not much to say today - something happened and I’m woefully unprepared. I was going to do a powerpoint, I had props, eminent keynote speakers, a song and dance number, opening credits, three guests and band.

I feel you’ve been a little shortchanged today, so here’s what we’re going to do. Every weekend as well as the audio post (which isn’t yet a regular feature because I’m not sure it’s that good*), I’ll put a song up and I’ll share some stuff out and we all get good listen. I have a few things you might not have heard, and I have the notion it’s a shame. Plus it’ll give me the chance to go back and unearth some musical treasures I have lying around.

I promise you classics, rarities, a bit of new stuff, songs to humble, songs that make you feel like you’re ten feet tall, but always an earful of brilliance, and sheer at that.

Sound good?

* Jump in any time, here

This Is Classic: The Spider, Man, Is Having Me For Dinner Tonight

Why do they say “Time now…” on live TV?

You don’t need it. Time is now. Now is time. Pick one and go with it.

Time now for the weather where you are.

Time now for our phone-in competition.

Time now for a look at the papers.

In fact, that last one. Of course it’s a look at the papers. We’re on TV. We’re looking.

And we’re live, so if we do something, it’s going to be now. If you have to tell me about something before you show it, just say “papers”. Or technically: “Newspapers.”

It’s very difficult being me.

The time now is ten minutes past eight.

Findus Crispy Pancakes
Tarragon, balsamic vinegar, cayenne pepper and jasmine. None of these are in Findus Crispy Pancakes, and yet once again, the frozen food conglomerate has triumphed in the field of pastry-based processed foods.

Their use of cornstarch and potassium chloride combines to create a fusion of tastes, closely resembling not only the picture on the packaging but also the packaging itself, so intense are the textures.

Since the 1980’s Findus have developed the dish to the status of genre, but let vanish in the air everything you know about crispy pancakes.

Enjoyed with a divine latticework of Bird’s Eye Potato Waffles, they reach culinary heights to make spin the most lofty of taste buds.

Pop Tarts
Kellogg’s have elevated the toasted pastry to almost an art form and the new mochachino variety brings more to the table than many would have thought possible. Playing on our adult savours but appealing to our childhood desire to cover baked goods in icing and then toast it, the breakfast giant has created, in effect, the giant of breakfasts.

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Related posts
Highbrow Reviews Of Ordinary Things - Part 1: Film and TV

Tomorrow: Seriously, I’ve no idea. I’m winging it. Any ideas? I’m not joking now. Look at my face.

Being a kid is all about desires. I want that. This is going to be the best ever something. I’m going to get the biggest one.

Being an adult is about managing your desires. I won’t have a boat. I can’t learn to fly unless I sell my car. I’ll save my money and splash out on the last weekend before payday. She wants to be left alone - I’ll call her later.

It’s OK to want stuff, though. Ralph Waldo Emerson asked: “Who can set limits on the remedial force of spirit?” It’s human nature to push on. That’s why we have progress.

But it’s important not be too hung up on your desires. Take what you get, in other words.

On Monday I said this about a song which has been the soundtrack to my excellent week:

I have a favourite new band, called The Hold Steady. It’s a mixture of Counting Crows, Black Crowes, Cheryl Crow and Status Quo, some lyrical Brian Wilson, all wrapped together with some early Bruce Springsteen.

Anyway, Springsteen with all the other Crowses, Quoses and God Only Knowses, it sounds too perfect right? Well, I heard Stuck Between Stations over the weekend and was blown away. First line is “There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right ” and they had me at “There are nights”.

There were blistering guitars in short bursts, piano holding it together, backing vocals and lyrics like “She said you’re pretty good with words, but words won’t save your life and they didn’t so he died.”

I put the song on my vox site so you could have a listen. I think it’s great - maybe even a little Bob Seger. Turn it up like it’s Sunday - The Hold Steady with Stuck Between Stations.

In keeping with the spoken word theme at weekends, here’s another audio post. If you’re reading this in RSS, you’ll have to click here to visit the page.

If you’re actually virtually already here on This Is This, then you’re all set.

High fi - Broadband/cable

Low fi - Dialup

Tomorrow: Desire

There’s a fictional village at 29 Palms in the Mojave Desert called Wadi al Sahara where US Marines practice walking among, and not killing, Iraqi people.

The Arabs there are genuine enough, 500 Iraqi-born civilians who go about their business much as they would in Baghdad. They are there rocking the casbah to give the grunts the experience of being in a “genuine” setting so they can adjust to the cultural nuances of Arabic life.

It makes sense, of course, because if all the armed forces do is train to kill bad Arabs, then bad Arabs is what they will expect. The fewer enemies you make, they lower the casualty figures. If it saves one life, etc.

I would like to volunteer for a similar position when the UK is finally get invaded by the US, which, is only a matter of time. I could set up shop somewhere in California, on the payroll of the State Department and do English things. I could stand in queues and get brassed off but say nothing when the person in front of me in the supermarket has eleven items instead of ten. I could be ironic* and crap at sports.

US military forces would be able to observe British life in it’s fullest by building its own village called Newcastle-under-Flightpath. Stick it on the end of a runway for a touch of authenticity.

You can already build a British the high street by numbers. Bookies, chemist, failing local greengrocers, coffee place, bank, cheap jewellers, catalogue shop, mobile phone store, pebbledash council offices, temping agency, pub, pond with dumped shopping trolley and overpriced multi-story car park. Surround the whole thing with an unnavigable transport system and you’re all set. Don’t build too many schools of hospitals though, remember: this is the UK.

But I get to live in California, yeah?

Anything to help the war effort.

Have a good weekend, or come back tomorrow. The two shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

Tomorrow: I tyre of this life - audio post. Spoken? Word.

*I say “could”, I actually am. I was being ironic.

Finding Nemo
Andrew Stanton has stepped out of the shadows of John Lasseter to direct his own animation which is evocative of early Czechoslovakian cinema verite at its finest.

In Finding Nemo, the eponymous protagonist becomes separated from his father, Marlon. In the first scene, a barracuda kills Nemo’s mother, leaving Marlon to bring him up as a single parent in a hostile enviroment. The missing Nemo finds friendship in Dory, a parrot fish played by lesbian Ellen DeGeneres.

Stanton’s use of the mis en scene is evocative of both nuances and je ne sais quelles, a postmodern pastiche of road movie and film noir, drawing on influences as diverse as Kurosawa, Warhol, Nietzsche and Chomsky.

Top Marx.

You’ve Been Framed
The clip show has been around as long as celluloid, but this programme elevates it to a prolific status not achieved since the early physical comedy of a young Buster Keaton.

Here are too many recurring themes to explore here, but the most popular seem to be children contorting their faces after ingesting something distasteful and elderly people who do not regain their footing after a fall, instead preferring to adopt a carefree air of nonchalance while remaining fell.

Always in the background is the disembodied voice of the narrator, provided by Harry Hill. This is a reminder of the unconscious mind and the juxtaposition between intention and outcome.

Things I learned while writing this post: my spell checker knows the words pastiche, Czechoslovakian, eponymous, nonchalance, juxtaposition and barracuda.

Plus: Shit from Shinola. Can you tell the difference? Five easy pointers, only in tomorrow’s This Is This

But seriously, Tomorrow: Boom Show Wadi

———

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Highbrow Reviews Of Ordinary Things - Part 2: Food And Drink

If writers lived like farmers
they’d wake before the sun
and milk the situations
of things that they had done.

If writers lived like farmers
the work would never end.
The trusted forms of rhetoric
would stack up end to end.

If writers lived like farmers
the kids would lend a hand
and plough the page for typos
I wrote but hadn’t planned.

If writers lived like farmers
I’d wallow in the doubt
of writer’s block and search the sky
for words in times of drought.

Tomorrow: Things get a little intelligencia on your arses.

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Lord Of The Things

I have two part Burmese cats. That is, I have a part Burmese pair of cats, not Burmese cats in which are in two parts. They have placid characters, slender faces and one in particular, typical of his breed, is very vocal.

He makes a kind of beeping, buzzing noise similar to the weird kid in the Battle Of The Planets cartoons, if that’s a reference that works for you.

Me, I like to mess around. I’m a goof, and I think being silly is an important part of life.

One of my cats, Matthew, called Moo Moo due to a reason not for here, sleeps outside my bedroom door, and every morning he greets me and answers a direct statement with a chirping noise as a pad by, near somnambulant, towards the shower or news, depending on which I decide should wash over me first.

On Saturday he did his thing.

Moo Moo: Chirp.

Me: Morning, Moo.

Moo Moo: Chirp.

I stop.

Me: Really?

Moo Moo: Chirp.

Me: And how many were there?

Moo Moo: Chirp.

Me. I see.

Moo Moo: Chirp.

Me: But you’re sure, yeah?

Moo Moo: Chirp.

Me: Good. Well, that’s good. Is there anything else you can remember? Anything at all. Names? Accents.

Moo Moo: Chirp.

Me: OK. Well, it’ll probably turn up somewhere.

Moo Moo: Chirp.

Me: Fish bites, just like every morning.

Moo Moo: Chirp.

He looks assured and follows me downstairs.

Tomorrow: If writers lived like farmers

I have a favourite new band, called The Hold Steady. It’s a mixture of Counting Crows, Black Crowes, Cheryl Crow and Status Quo, some lyrical Brian Wilson, all wrapped together with some early Bruce Springsteen.

I’ve heard Russel Crow’s band, called Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts but I don’t cite them as an influence, even though they make me laugh, with lyrics like “I’m going down to Queensland…”

Down? Really? From where? Papua New Guinea?

Anyway, Springsteen with all the other Crowses, Quoses and God Only Knowses, it sounds too perfect right? Well, I heard Stuck Between Stations over the weekend and was blown away. First line is “There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right ” and they had me at “There are nights”.

There were blistering guitars in short bursts, piano holding it together, backing vocals and lyrics like “She said you’re pretty good with words, but words won’t save your life and they didn’t so he died.”

I love music - it wraps me up and sends me away. It makes me think things that make me think where the thoughts came from.

I used to go to the Albert Hall a lot to see the classical concerts of The Proms. Sometimes things I knew, like Mozart’s “Delate A Mouse”, but oftentimes new things, and from work I’d meet my dad and have a couple of pints around the corner before the show. (I’ve just realised the building is round, so it has no corners and that’s a joke I never used, but will every time from now on.)

Two other things about the Albert Hall: one is that it’s carpeted throughout. Not just the floors, but the walls, the seats, the trim of the bar - it’s a dark velour shagfest.

The other thing is that it’s hot. There are no windows and it’s a dome and in the popular summertime proms, it feels like it could gently lift off over Hyde Park. Add Mahler and a couple of beers to that and your mind’s in a place, like right before you drift off and you’re in that half waking state, floating along on the regrets and ideas of alpha waves but never setting down anchor.

Music makes you do things you can’t explain. Why can’t I listen to the end of Oliver’s Army without going “Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooooh, oh-oh-oh-oh”? Why did I kiss her? Oooh, or why didn’t I kiss her? An akward silence would have precipitated the move, instead of a cool song making me think that apathy was some kind of a statement.

At its best, music is like love. It can make you feel like whatever you are doing is the most important thing. Which, I guess, at that moment, it must be, but music makes you realise it.

Except that right now I’m listening to that song and writing this, which isn’t the most important thing. But you’re the best judge of that, and since this is where you’re spending your time at this very moment, then just maybe it is.

Tomorrow: Swearing-prone transatlantic blogger shares observations of mirth and woe with bittersweet outlook and pleasing turn of phrase

Plus: Conversations with cats and the importance of silly.

Nice post from my dad today about music I used to listen to when I was a kid.

OK, now I’m just showing off.

Cornmeal muffins, y’all. It’s the weekend.

I was tagged by Sooz to do a Lucky Seven (see hers), so here goes. Veteran readers might know some of these already, but so bear with me while I repeat myself perhaps. It’s tricky, though. What do I mention? The sad stuff, the wierd stuff, or funny stuff?

Ah what the hell - here are seven things about me:

1. When I was a kid, our family used to get Christmas cards -
from Kurt Waldheim
It’s a long story, but the Secretary General of the UN used to greet our seasons. At the time I was more impressed that he used to be an actual stormtrooper. But then I found it wasn’t the kind of stormtrooper I thought. These aren’t the cards you’re looking for.

2. My fingers all curve into the middle
So if you look at my left hand from the top, the pinky curves right and the index finger curves left. Only the middle one is straight. My right hand is the exact opposite.

3. I hate cucumber
It tastes of chewy water with a twist of something like nothing else on earth, thank god. And it stinks.

4. I can blow out air indefinitely
Non-stop that is. Someone once bet me I couldn’t hold a note on the saxophone for a whole minute. I took the challenge and held it for nearly an hour. At the time I wish I had known about spread betting. It’s called circular breathing and it doesn’t come in handy at all.

5. I very nearly joined the Army
I went to Sandhurst military academy for tests when I was 16, I came first in physical training out of a group of fifty candidates and I was all set. I changed my mind almost literally at the last minute, on the day of the medical and I didn’t become a soldier.

6. I had the world’s poshest first kiss
After sunset with Leonora, on the tennis courts of a private boarding school in Surrey.

7. I was in an emergency landing in a light aircraft
We landed in the desert

Right, friends, here’s how it works. The premiership football season ends tomorrow.

If Everton finish (no, come back - there’s a prize!) - if Everton (English football team that means the world to me) finish in the top seven of the premiership table then we get to play in the Eufa Cup, which is a pan-European tournament in which BIG teams play. I mean Barcelona, AC Milan, Manchester United, Real Madrid (that’s as in Royal, not real as in Real Ghostbusters or the Real IRA).

But it’s no help that we’re playing second-in-the-league Chelsea this weekend. They’ve played us up in Liverpool at Goodison Park and now we have to play them there tomorrow.

It’s all looking a bit Elvis Costello.

Come on, I use that joke once a season. There’s six months free Bronze Club membership to anyone who can explain that in the comments below.

Existing This Is This Bronze Club members will be upgraded to Silver, which includes use of the pool, arcade and petting zoo during off-peak hours. Silver Club members with six or more These Are Points will be allowed to apply for Silver “Extra!” membership, pending status. This does not affect anything and has no cash value. There is no redemption.

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Related posts:
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Blue Highways

As they get older, people adopt the accents of their childhood.

This is a funny one, but after the age of retirement (sixty five for men, sixty for women), their accents revert to the ones they had between the ages of eight and fourteen.

Exhibit

My dad (exits are here and here)

Born in Liverpool between the wars, Ted Jones never sounded like a Scouser to me when I was a kid, but as he’s gotten older, it has crept up on him, stalking his larynx like a vengeful lover. One day I’m going to call him up and he’ll sound like George Harrison in Hard Day’s Night with an accent thick enough to strip paint.

Don’t get me wrong, la, it’s gear.

I used to think my theory was down to was Expat Syndrome. You know where people who leave their homeland become caricatures of their countrymen.

I grew up (and I use that term loosely) in the States and France, so I’ve heard people wax lyrical into their sixties and gins and tonics about baked beans with accents that were throwbacks to Ealing comedies.

But what about where people haven’t live somewhere since they were kids and then move to a different region of the same country and start talking with the accent they grew up with? That’s where my theory kicks in.

Oprah sounds more southern all the time, and has ditched the long Madison Avenue vowels for the clipped informality of the bible belt of her Mississippi adolescence.

Alan Bennett became more northern.

Spike Milligan’s an interesting one. Born in India to an Irish father, he developed a parculiar Indo-Celtic lilt in his post-Goon twilight.

Dan Ackroyd sounds more Canadian by the year, and one day I’ll wake up and a southeast Pennsylvanian inflection will produce a lazy merge of syllables to my own kids’ delight and, god help them, blogs.

Hey, it’s the weekend. Have a really good one. Posts on Saturday and Sunday, or I’ll see you Monday.

Finish it smiling, right?
 

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Related posts:
Accents

People who look older than they are when they are young look younger for longer. 

Exhibit A

Actually, I only have one exhibit, so just:

Exhibit

Huey Lewis
Born Hugh Anthony Cregg, III, on July 5, 1950 in San Francisco,  Huey Lewis looked older than his years when he embarked on a musical career with a pocket full of harmonicas and a fist full of dreams. Hounded perhaps by the rigours of constant touring and California sunshine, the singer/harmonica had what you would politely call “looks beyond his years”.

Here’s a picture of Lewis (right) in 1977, proudly posing with Bay Area band Clover with the world at his feet at the age of twenty seven. I would say he could pass for early forties.

Six years and a brief stint in Thin Lizzy later, here’s Huey again in News-era 1983:

Fourty four, maybe, right? I’m saying thirty three to you.

After the News, the weather. But not of the face of Huey, whose looks, yep, mid forties despite clocking up half a century in this still from 2000 sleeper hit Duets.

He looks like 1977 Huey after a few late nights and a haircut.

Consider there is twenty three years between these pictures, and something doesn’t add up.

I could wheel out Little Richard, Prince, Elvis Costello and loads of others, but the fact is:

People who look older than they are when they are young look younger for longer.

Everyone! - “If This Is This…”

Tomorrow: My Theories, Part Two: Accents

I have a theory that the reason there are so many fights in ice hockey is that it’s a girly sport.

No, let me finish.

It’s the skating part. It’s effeminate. Most of the ice skating we see in our childhood is associated with billowing chiffon and sparkle, classical music and bunches of flowers and people tumbling over and “breaking their hearts” (which can’t happen, by the way - you can’t fall in love in six minutes on the ice, not at that speed).

Aside from the frills and spills of figure skating you’ve got things like Disney On Ice where folks who should know better dress up as Winnie the Poo and skate around with neither dignity nor scruples. This is not what AA Milne intended. Look at you. And put some pants on, for god’s sake.

If you give a stick to any self-respecting man in this situation, he’s going to find any way to beat the actual poo out of his fellow skaters. And if that man had been made to endure a childhood of long winters and short jibes about choosing ice skating above football, he’s going to lash out. I don’t care if he is Canadian, everyone’s got their breaking point.

I call it Hemingway’s Law. Ernest was dressed as a girl by his mother until he was six, and as soon as he could, he volunteered for front line duty in a world war, hunted big game in Africa, drank hard, wrote books of dark beauty, then blew his head off with a shotgun.

So if we rationalise that Papa did it, we are closer to understanding that hockey players aren’t aggressors, they are victims - they are trying to shake the association of Snoopy captured in mid-pirouette on the funny pages of otherwise serious newspapers.

You don’t fuck with a man in sequins.

Maybe some Canucks will back me up here?

I’m not sure if you can pick up this site way up and over in Canada, or it might be a couple of months behind out there.

What do you mean we’re live? Like all over the world?!

Can they do that?

So with the grip regained after steering into the skid of a bank holiday weekend, I say welcome back. If you’re anything like me, which is a broad category to start with, then as you’re getting older, you’re growing a little stuck in your ways.

A bit staid, a tad settled, somewhat jaded perhaps. The stick’s not yet in the mud, but it rests against the dirt while the storm clouds conspire, sad and heavy with purpose, as if trying to find the words to deliver some bad news.

Yes, it’s a thin distinction between a groove and a rut and it dawns on me that I actually like a lot of films that other people don’t like. I work with a lot of people who are simply brilliant. By that I mean very clever, rather than shiny, although some of them are quite shiny.

Trouble is, people who are clever often turn into those clever people, who “find Scorcese predictable” and who talk about “Robbie Williams’ trite pastiche.”

?, right?

I, on the other hand, am too old (cough 35 hhrmmp) to care what other people think that what think is cool, so I do not conceal that I think Man In The Moon is a great film, or how there is something about Huey Lewis’s voice that I love.

So

Cheesy Films That I Like That Lots Of Other People Don’t Like
(what is it with the titles these days? See GWYSWOLAAOLAATTCNW)

Anyway

Fandango
Judd Nelson and Kevin Costner are great in this bittersweet road movie about youth. There a lot of films about youth, but not many which are bittersweet.

Star Wars
More cheese than a vegetarian picnic.

Field Of Dreams
And cheese. Heh - fields of cheese. Cheesefields. Yeah.

Hannah And Her Sisters
I’ve said before how much I love this film, and it’s so cheesy, but the characters are great and the script is tight and believable.

Rumblefish
It’s Camus for kids - none more cheesy, but Dennis Hopper plays the proud father with of which nothing left to be proud (technically) while Matt Dylan chases a legend he doesn’t need. “Somebody ought to put the fish in the river.” What? Cheese.

Smokey And The Bandit
East bound and down… Rolling up and trucking… Brilliant. I don’t normally like the cute thing, but Sally Fields in this? Sure. Goldie Hawn I could happily leave for dead though - she’s just fucking irritating.

Fifty First Dates
I like the minor characters in this - the Hawaiian cook, Adam Sandler’s cheesy friend and Drew Barrymore’s dad. Same with Along Came Polly because I like Ben Stiller, but Alec Baldwin and Hank Azaria make it for me.

Back To The Future
Oh, come ON. Who doesn’t like this? “Dad. Dad-dad-io.”

I like films that span lots of years:
Blow
Goodfellas
Little Big Man
Boogie Nights
Walk The Line
Godfather
Etc

and biographies:
Bird
Patton
The Benny Goodman Story
Backbeat

But NOT Lady Sings The Blues, because Diana Ross can’t act, she’s crazier than a biscuit full of hats and Billy Holliday didn’t sing the blues.

Tomorrow: Ice ice baby

I have mixed feelings about the apologies for slavery. Yes, the government should apologise for capitalising on human suffering, because governments are like companies in that they go on and thrive on profits gained from past endeavours.

What I don’t really get is modern Brits apologising for their country have once been slave traders. Should I apologise? I’m white. Should I feel more sorry than the descendants of slaves because I’m more likely to be descended from slave owners?

You only have to go back a generation or so to see some pretty disgusting behaviour in my family for which I give no fucks. Why should I care what my ancestors did?

One reason is that you can’t apply modern morals on the standards of the past. I remember my grandmother describing a late contemporary of hers as “a fine man, a good husband - he never laid a finger on her.”

What?!? Ex-fucking-cuse me? Is the mark of a good husband someone who refrains from domestic violence?!

The other reason is that we are not our forefathers. As far as I know, there is no slave-trading gene which compels us to own plantations in the Indies, built by the toil of human traffic.

I’m not about to go and make friends with German boys whose grandfathers and fathers were killed by the seven shades of hell unleashed by generations of my family over the past century.

Slavery and war were awful episodes in my direct history which produced a scale of suffering I hope I will never endure, least of all witness, but prolonged self-flagilation, while good for highlighting awareness, is a sign of selfish despair that serves no humane purpose.

Mike of Troubled Diva is putting together a podcast of contributors to Shaggy Blog Stories, so if I pull my finger out a bit and mention it here, he’s bound to include it.

So here’s something I’ve never done before - a reading of one of my posts.

High fi - Broadband/cable
Low fi - Dialup

Yes I do sound like that and yes I did say the word “realise” three times in fifteen seconds.

And if you’re one of those, you know, readers - then here’s the post.

The Shaggy Blog Stories book was Mikes idea and I originally wrote about it here. It’ll make you laugh and help people who don’t have much to laugh about.

Please can buy the book, which costs £8.96 (US $16.26), of which £4.64 (i.e. 51.8% of the cover price) will go to Comic Relief once printing costs have been deducted.

As of last week I’m both proud and humbled to report that it had sold 482 copies, raising a total of £2141.04 for some extremely important projects around the world.

Mr Angry of I Am Livid came up with a great way to wind up the customer service people at Comet, an electrical appliance shop here in the U of K.

I have no resistance

His is also very funny

Hermes was the son of Zeus and god of shepherds, land travel, merchants, weights and measures, oratory, literature, athletics and thieves. He would have made an excellent encyclopedia salesman.

He was an eloquent fellow, known for his cunning and shrewdness. He was an exceptional thief and a very resourceful guy. He invented the flute.

It’s a great set of skills to have. I think it’s better to know some stuff about a bunch of stuff than to know a shitload about a couple of things.

“Stonewall” Jackson, General in the confederate army during the American Civil War under the command of Robert E. Lee, knew what I’m talking about.

Before the conflict between the states, Jackson, like many high ranking officers in that bloody campaign, fought in the Mexican War of 1846-48, then after five years in the army, he resigned and took up a position at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington where he was Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, and Instructor of Artillery. Now that’s a CV.

Actually Jackson’s dying words, said in a pneumonic delirium far from the booming guns, are among the most simple, eloquent and damn near as good as any ever muttered:

Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees.

I say it each Friday but don’t think it’s not from the heart - have a good weekend.

——– 

About yesteday: there seems to be come confusion over the killer first lines post from yesterday. Two people have asked me where I got them from. They aren’t actually from any books at all. I just made them up, although I am flatterd that anyone would do any research before writing here. I would like to apologise at this time to any proper writers whose reputations may have been harmed by any association, implied or otherwise, with this webstie.

There aren’t many songs I can play on guitar all the way through from memory - not ones you’d know anyway, but I can jam and pull off licks and write songs. If you stand in front of me, though, and call out “Freebird!” or “Chilis!”, I’ll probably just stand there like a goof.

Intros, though - oh man. I can play some fucking intros. Purple Rain, Day In The Life, Fire And Rain, Stairway (obviously), Alive, Purple Haze, Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right, Wish You Were Here…

I could go on. Actually, no I couldn’t.

Which is ironic, because the intro to this post is longer than the post itself, which deals with killer first lines to stories.

“It’s porn, Tomasz,” he said, “pure and simple.”

The sun rose early, but slower than her temper.

Opening day was always an occasion, but free hats?

He regained his breath to find that everything blue was making a humming noise.

Birds generally don’t stare.

He checked his text messages one last time before deleting them, holding only his phone and the memory of how much he loved her.

I always buy my underwear out of town, where I seldom wear any.

I’m terrible at writing stories. Maybe it’s because I think life is funny or complicated enough, but for some reason I can’t write fiction.

First lines are OK, though. Maybe I could be a pinch hitter where I come off the bench just to deliver a killer first line.

I could walk up, all swagger and steely gaze as I emerge from the dugout. Go ahead, load the fucking bases, what do I care?

And here’s the pitch.

“Belgians,” whispered the master, ” - watch yourself.”

When we look back into space, we’re looking at the past.

The light from distant galaxies and constellations beams out to us from so far away that it has taken thousands, millions, sometimes billions of years to reach the Earth, so we’re observing what has already happened.

If there is any other life out on other planets all those light years away, and they’re watching us, they’re seeing our history. With a telescope powerful enough, they could even watch past historic events and then let us know what happened.

This would blow my mind were it not for two things, for which I feel compelled to commit first degree buzzicide.

1. To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn
The alien wouldn’t really be able to watch Gengis Khan’s Mongol hoards maraud across the Asian steppes or find out if the Vikings ever made it to America or unravel the collapse of the Mayan civilisation because of one simple reason: the Earth turns. Our observers, if they could witness the past, would be watching on location in a day unless they were circling the Earth above a fixed point, which, if they were light years away, is pretty unlikely.

You know when a line of skaters do that revolving human chain thing? The two in the middle are hardly moving, but the ones on the outside are skating their guts out, right? All billow and pumping thighs - can you imagine?

One sec.

Anyway, I doubt aliens, even the really smart ones, could do that even if they were a squillion (yes it is) light years away, not without banging into everything on the way. “‘Scuse me, pardon us, coming through, filming here, press pass, historic mission, beg your pardon” - I mean think of the paperwork for a start.

So it wouldn’t be a comprehensive study, but they might be able to discover what Aristotle had for his lunch one day.

“Stardate 105/652/1.3, Sector G5, Quadrant 5, Four Across, geggs, (9, 4)*” - Aristotle shuns classic Mediterranean diet for Tex-Mex. Who knew? Transmission ends.”

2. This Just In
If the aliens could witness the past, it would mean the light was taking so many years to reach them, and it would therefore take just as long for the information to be relayed. So the news about Aristotle’s lunch, if they witnessed it today and sent the deal back at the speed of light, would reach us sometime around noon in 4336.

Hardly seems worth it.

Tomorrow: I say “you wanna be starting something?” You got to be starting something.

* Go on, you’re thinking about it, aren’t you?

A play in one act and scene

A talent agency, where a representative is talking to one of his clients in the afternoon and the strictest confidence.

Agent: What they’re looking for is a jazz singer.

Talent: But I’m a crooner. I’m no jazz singer.

Agent: Neither was Neil Diamond, baby.

Talent: And that film nearly killed him.

Agent (singing): Love on the rocks…

Talent: Love on the rocks my arse.

Agent: Rocks my ass, too, baby. Now I’m going to put this down on a piece of paper, and I want you to consider it.

The agent scrawls something, rips the paper from the pad and slides it across the desk to his client.

Client: This is a drawing of a penis.

Agent: A penis today, David, but we’re talking nationwide syndication, merchandising, spinoffs.

Talent: I want to seek alternative representation.

Agent: This town ain’t so big, David.

Talent: I don’t understand you any more.

Agent: I’m saying jazz singer to you.

David walks out

–

Tomorrow: Time travel