This Is This

I’ve mentioned work a couple of times recently, but I am always careful to when I stick in conversations and snippets from my conversations with employees.

A blogging colleague was surprised recently to be reminded by our Human Resources department of the office policy on blogs.

Right now I’m fighting so many urges to put in a joke after that line but I can’t. It’s a shame actually because it’s a funny one, but one of the main points of the policy is that you can’t…. - no I can’t even say what it says not to do because that could be seen as company strategy which you could send to a friend.

If I said any more about it I would probably become persona au gratin, and then I’d have to cover myself in a load of cheese and stick myelf under a grill until browned but not burned, and that’s not a good career move.

That wasn’t the joke, by the way.

Yes, it may surprise you to know I have a job. But work can’t sack me for telling people I work, nor can I get in trouble for sharing conversations that don’t revolve around policy, particularly where I don’t mention who I work for.

The other day, someone at work said fuck.

See? That kind of thing is fine.

The important thing when writing a blog is to imagine that everyone reads everything. Prospective employers, current employers, partners, kids (oh shit) - everyone can read it and assume they do.

I’m going on holiday for a short while from Friday, but there will be posts every day through the magic of forward scheduled publishing with all the crazy tenderness that is that internet.

The posts might be small, but they’ll be here even though I won’t.

If you’re commenting for the first time or from a computer then your posts will probably get held in moderation for me to approve when I return. I won’t be gone that long, so please bear with me.

When selecting a croissant at work, do not point to it and say “I’ll take one of these bad boys”. It is a French pastry. It is so not a “bad boy”, it’s not true. A bagel could kick its ass and have it for breakfast.

Do not tell anyone that you went to Glastonbury three times in the Nineties. No one cares that Shed Seven are a great live band and that it never rained.

But mostly:

Do not say “No, but I can be” and then walk off to a meeting room. It tells everyone you are looking for another job.*

Alternative responses should be:

“I want you to do exactly as I say. You should see a blue wire and a green wire. Take the shears and make sure you’re standing on the rub- Sally?!? I need you to do with me. I can’t do this without you, OK Sally?”

“Right, I see. Is it an itching or more of a burning?”

“Excellent. I knew you’d see sense. So it’s Banco Commercia De Los Brasilia, number 54639758. Thank you, Senator.”

“Uh huh… No way… Serious???? ….. How did you hear about this….. You’ve seen it?….. Yeah DVD clubs….. Really? No way…. And you sure it’s him?…. Give me one sec.”

“Today’s your birthday? No baby, I’m just kidding. Sure I do.”

*Not recently of course, ha ha. No. Ahem.

 ”Hey, Sad Monkey. Want to ride bikes?”

“Yeah right!!! Come on, guys - let’s go. Ha ha!”

How long have I been doing the Weekend Song thing now - eleven, twelve weeks?

And I’ve never mentioned James Taylor?

Pssht, now.

Really?

(noise of clicking and ruffling of web pages)

Yeah, no, you’re right.

It was too hard to choose one song from a forty year career, so I went for two.

Traveling Star
I had to pick this for the bittersweet feel and for everyone with the road in their soul but the heavy highway shoes that go with the suit you wear for the living you do.

James Taylor’s daughter Sally sings on this - sister of Ben (who did Think A Man Would Know a couple of weekends back) and daughter of Carly Simon.

Their voices go really well together and you can enjoy singing the different parts when you play it over. Or why not become America’s greatest singer songwriter yourself and start your own musical family with whom to record your own version?

Oh that’s right - because you’re not James Taylor.

Watch my back and light my way.
Watch over all of those born St. Christopher’s Day.
They hunger for home but they can not stay.
They wait by the door.
They stand and they stare.
They’re already out of there.

Listen: James Taylor - Traveling Star

Baby Buffalo
You know, at the start of every Weekend Song entry, when I sit down to write these descriptions, I usually start with “I love this song.”

Then I cross that part out, and I get on with the business of writing, because if I didn’t love the song it wouldn’t be on here. Why would I bother giving you a song if I felt any other way?

But, you know, just this time - I LOVE THIS SONG.

If this blog could be one song, I’d probably pick this one.

The animal breathing at the beginning, barely audible, the imperceptible trill of a chord at the start, the opening guitar riff, the shuffle of the brushes and the kick drum like waves against the hull of your tethered spirit that you will, one day, one day soon, set free. And the first dissonant harmony at “time on a river”. Play that back - just that one part from the first verse - “time on a river”. God.

The whole thing’s just ridiculous.

Hold on to now ’til you have to let go.
Easy through your fingers; everso.
I’m just guessing ’cause I don’t know.
Maybe it’s a blessing. Well I sure hope so.

Listen: James Taylor - Baby Buffalo

I realise it may be very boring talking about the working of this site, but I’ve done a bit of work on this site overnight and you read this so you may be interested. We’ve come a long from the early days of the first post I ever wrote on here in October 2004 when the site looked like this

So, anyway, two things.

1. Become a member of the This Is This street team
I found out how to do an email thing so you can tell your friends about this site with very little effort from you. Just click this link, put their email in the To box and hit send. That’s it.

Why not give the gift of websites this summer. And get this - 6 months’ free Gold Club membership to anyone who does.

Spread the word - send This Is This to a friend

2. Archive
I discovered this week that there was no monthly archive before July 2006. It was all there, and you could search for individual posts, but it wasn’t set up right from the nav bar on the right?

Want to read the first month of this blog?

Want to rubberneck on the perspective of a news editor before, during and after the July 7 bombings?

Actually this is interesting because no one suspected anything and everyone reacted the same. Read from the bottom up. Live 8, conversations about god, a train journey on the bomber’s run the day before, London attacked, reaction and relax. Read from the bottom up, since the oldest post are at the bottom.

The weekend song tomorrow is actually two songs. Think of it as an A side and a B side like when we had vinyl. That’s records, kids, in the days before the Internet. OK, it’s an anachronism.

Have a great weekend.

…So crooned Louis Armstrong and lamented Pete Fountain through a clarinet with a tone as sweet and sad as a losing army coming home in smaller numbers.

Reading Confederacy Of Dunces yesterday stirred me up considerable. I could picture the streets, hear the accents and smell the food.

New Orleanians love their city. It’s kind of like people from Liverpool, where Scousers bang on about their city. It’s almost embarrassing, but it’s very endearing. “Ok, dude. Jesus.”

Nothing is shocking and maybe that’s a combination of heat and humour. My friend Mike, after an unusual absence of two weeks, appeared back in my circle of friends with the news that his dad had died.

“Jesus, Mike,” I said, “I’m sorry. What happened?”

“He got stung man,” he said, like he knew I’d be surprised. “Stung by a bee.”

“A bee?! Was he allergic or something?”

“No, he got stung plenty. I don’t know what happened.”

“Fuck. That’s fucked up. A bee shouldn’t do that. Just one bee?”

“Yep. But it was big. This bee was hiding under our house.”

His eyes twinkled as we both silently conjured up the black comedy of a huge insect lurking in wait under the porch to orphan him.

It’s hard to judge people there. Our percussionist in the band was a really nice guy, and one day up at a house in the north part of town by Lake Pontchartrain we got a warning from with a guy with a megaphone hanging outside his car, barking at us to get inside our houses. A couple of minutes later a sprayer truck lumbered past, dispersing a mist across the street the way it did every couple of weeks.

“Well, we better get in while they are spraying.”

“Mosquito control?”

“Yep. We got mosquitoes up here be goin’ down to the French Quarter, biting all the niggers and faggots and coming back up here giving us all that Aids shit.”

And until then he seemed like a nice guy.

I have been to New Orleans a couple of times to visit before I stayed there for three months, but that must have been fifteen years ago. It was a holiday romance I guess which was never left to run its course. I was working for a radio station between summer and autumn terms of university and it offered a contrast and escape from Manchester.

It was a turbulent time and emotional time personally. I was in a working (and paying) band, I rode out Hurricane Andrew, I had just broken up with a girl I’d been with for seven years and looking back I may have transferred my rebounding affections to the place in the bourbon glow and the way the light hit the city off the river.

I know what it means to miss New Orleans.

Today’s story is the masterpiece by John Kennedy Toole. It’s hilarious, deep, political, it has great characters, brilliant dialogue and it’s set in New Orleans in the early 1960’s. For two of those points alone it would be worth reading, but when you throw them together? Look out.

You can buy it here in the UK and here in the US. Look it up - even the story of how it eventually came to be published is worth a book in itself.

I used to live in New Orleans and for that reason I could not resist doing the accent for a couple of characters - the temptation was too great and something tells me I should have paid self-consciousness considerably more mind. A New Orleanean accent, by the way, is not a Southern accent. It’s closer to Long Island than Mississippi, as the story explains. Kevin Costner in JFK and Doctor John have it. Matthew McConaughey does not. That said, I am really truly sorry for anyone who takes affront at my misguided intonations.

I’ve no idea why Ignatious sounds like the baby in Family Guy, but he’s got that indignant patronising tone that seemed to fit right.

If I won the lottery I would, as well as doing that billboard thing, get this made into a film. Many have tried and all have failed, but one day I’m sure this will be a movie.

This is probably the second to last one of these I’ll do, because it hasn’t been one of my best ideas, but I did promise I’d do four of these, so I’ll carry that out. 

Listen: Confederacy Of Dunces

A lot of people say to me: “Cliff, I read this site every day and I like the way you write - what do you look like when you’ve just had very little sleep with your hair cut too short?” Well, hopefully this post will answer those questions and more.

I’ve just come back from a long weekend spent in a log cabin on a farm in the Midlands and I feel completely refreshed. No DVDs players, no computers and no electricity. Nope, just a wooden floor and canvas walls and the elements - oh, and a woodburning stove, gas lamps, sink, a cooler box, table, chairs (obviously, what good’s a table without chairs?), flushing toilet, radio, mobile phone, my car and my wits upon which to survive. In other words, I got back to basics.

It was good. I didn’t even write much, apart from this:

It’s 9:55 in the evening and I’m sitting in a tent with views of Leicestershire rolling off and vanishing behind me like the mist of breath on a mirror while I’m turned in towards a page, writing this by candlelight above a three-beer smile.

I don’t want to overdramatise this, because the weather has been awful over the last two days, and I’ve been secure behind canvas walls with a strong pine floor under my feet. I’m in the glow of a storm latern and a small wood-fired stove, listening to a piano Grieg’s Piano Concerto while the kids sleep soundly a few feet away.

It gets better than this - of course it does, but this will do until better happens.

And that’s pretty much it, which for me was gratuitously unproductive for a four-day stretch. Everything I have written since Thursday on here until now has been a LIE. Or at least it was scheduled to publish while I was away, but apart from that it was a LIE because I didn’t write it and then hit go, like I usually do.

But it was good. I took walks and pictures like this (right). I know I don’t look very happy, but that’s often me and I thought I’d be honest after what critics of this site (myself, at least) are already calling the Great Forward-Publishing Ruse Of July 2007. Maybe I was going for pensive. Maybe I was pensive for going. In the background you can see one of the so called tents I stayed, if not slept, in. Click the picture if you want to see the full size high-res nosehair version, but I’ll fully understand if you don’t.

Things had been getting to me lately, to be honest. Last Thursday I had this exchange in a meeting with a new member of staff who had just finished her first week where I work.

New colleague: I’m really getting the feeling that people here understand the business we’re in and really want to make things happen.

Me: Yeah, that’ll wear off.

So I’m back - a bit windswept if not more interesting, to pick up with my little blog gig and a raft of one-stop word to brain solutions.

Thanks to Wendy for being Monday’s subject, the joke of which she was the butt for a post I pulled out of mine.

On Tuesday I asked for questions for my iPod divination project. So, you asked me questions and I put my iPod on shuffle to give you an answer through my interpretation of the opening lyrics and general vibe of the tune. I answered these on Thursday.

On Thursday EVENING, right?,

Wendy all rocks up with:
I’m late! I’m always late! Cliff, the iSage of the um, something, will I ever kick this habit of mine of being late? Will I ever be on time for anything? Does this look like 2 questions? I mean 3 now? Jesus, 4. I’ve stopped.

You know what the question is. Can you help? 5.

Paul Weller - Wild Wood

High tide - mid afternoon
People fly by in the traffic’s boom
Knowing - just where you’re blowing
Getting to where you should be going.
Don’t let them get you down
Making you feel guilty about
Golden rain bring you riches
All the good things - you deserve now.

Ah, Wendy. Glad you could join us.

I think your… sorry. Ready?

I thi- um.

OK? You’re sorted? Good.

I think you problem is partly about transport and self-denial. People flying by in the traffic could be an obstacle, booms or no booms. I have very liberal views on timekeeping myself.

I’m not sure what golden rain means, and you know actually I don’t want to.

Hang on: “blowing“?

Get off my website.

Heard the one about the dyslexic extroverted web addict farmer?

He kept an online dairy.

I promise you this will not become a regular feature.

Desperate and uplifting, pop and hard rock, melodic and monotonous, sensitive and angry - there’s a bag of contradiction in this blaster from Sugar. I once did something I’m not proud of to see this band, but they are great. Maybe another time.

The end of this song does something to me, and I wish I knew more about the mechanics of music to explain. It’s like the bass is different, or only one of the chords changes but everything else stays the same. It goes somewhere, but just enough anyway.

It’s a subtle thing, because the last verse just sounds resolved where the others sound open. It’s the middle ground between acceptance and resignation, where so much of adult life pitches up starts planting hedges.

And the song’s so simple. Sometimes you just need a punchy bassline and a tiny drumkit to get the point across. And no chorus. Or a guitar solo. Or fancy lyrics.

Tell me I’m your favorite thing.
You can tell me anything.
I wouldn’t mind.
Dream about you every night.
Something tells me that’s not right.
I wouldn’t mind, I wouldn’t mind.
Not at all.

Listen: Sugar - Your Favorite Thing

Humping Jack Flash
Honky Bonk Woman
Massage In A Bottle
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brothel
Tits My Life
Last Night A BJ Saved My Life
Like A Player
You’ll Never Wank Alone
Giving On My Own
Blister In The Bun
Beautiful Gay
A Whiter Shade Of Pole
Another Prick In The Wall
Painted Love
I’m Snot In Love
Spack Oddity
I Want To Mold Your Hand
Come Of Eileen
All Shoot Up
Shite Room
Pets Stay Together
With A Little Yelp From My Friends
Gay Tripper/We Can Fork It Out
Bust In The Wind
Bang A Mong
London Balling
The Poker
Love Bill. Tear Us A Part (add some punctuation)
You’ve Lost That Loving, Peeling (this is fun)
Can’t Guy Me, Love (woo hoo!)
Rim A Believer (or add a letter)
Crapper’s Delight (add a letter)
She Gloves You (add a letter)
Hold One I’m Coming (add a letter)
Bad To The Boner (add a letter)
God, Vibrations (take a letter away)
Everything I Do, I Do It. Or You. (Remove a letter, add some punctuation. Fuck you, OK? My rules.)
(All right, let’s get it over with…)
Cock Around The Clock
Cock With You
Jailhouse Cock
We Will Cock You
Sittin on The Cock Of A Boy (OK, two letters, but come on…)
(and, because it would be rude - even ruder - not to)
Jizzman
All That Jizz

Don’t you dare go not having a great weekend.

On Tuesday I asked for questions for my iPod divination project. So, you asked me questions and I put my iPod on shuffle to give you an answer through my interpretation of the opening lyrics and general vibe of the tune.

The results (pause) were staggering.

Thanks to everyone who replied - I have now been itching to publish this since I got the results, because I have solved all of your problems.

Readers took part in their twos and threes with questions ranging from… Ach, have a read for your yourselves.

Katy says:
O Mighty iPod of Cliff, will the lovely man upon whom I currently have my eye and I ever just sort it out and get it together?

Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith

You talk about things that nobody cares
You’re wearing out things that nobody wears
You’re calling my name but you gotta make clear
I can’t say baby where i’ll be in a year  

Well, Katy, things look a little uncertain. I’m not sure whether the above lyrics apply to you or me, or maybe they apply to lovely man. Thing is we just don’t know.

But is not knowing really all that bad? Isn’t that the heart of the heart? Isn’t that - kind of, you know - the point? If love came with rules then we’d all read the back of the box and argue over who was going to be the car. That’s not life.

Best of luck with that.

Dawn asks:
Oh powerful arse- liking anal Viking…
Will John and I’s new company be a success or should we throw in the towel now and get while the gettin is good?

Here I Come - The Roots

He said: “Yeah, you better come out with your hands up. We got you surrounded.
I’m in the back, changing my outfit. He said: “Blink, we gonna send the hounds in.”
I said: “Wait, cause here I come, here I come, here I come.
“You boys get ready, cause here I come, here I come, here I come.”

Dawn, Dawn, Dawn - you’re in a spot, but there is hope. The outfits reference I got: is there some kind of element about this company that’s in the entertainment or service industry?

It’s something - one sec - to do with giving. You’re giving someone something and I’m thinking money. There’s money being given to someone, either from you or to you. It’s green money, and there’s a man on one side wearing a wig. I’m seeing eagles. Are there eagles anywhere connected to your business, Dawn? Specifically green eagles. Does that make any sense?

It kinds of sound like you’ve got to do it. Think of Ned Kelly’s last charge, or Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid when they’re running from the law and it’s either get shot or jump into the chasm and the rapids far below.

Butch: What’s the matter with you?
Sundance: I can’t swim.
Butch: Why you crazy, the fall will probably kill you.

Any help?

By the way, since you married Leemer, I have had Status Quo’s Down Down in my head. “Dawn, Dawn, Leemer and Dawn”. Is it possible you could marry someone else? Darren Day, perhaps, so I can have Nina Simon’s Feeling Good in my head?

So there you have it. I’m proud that I was honest and up front, and I got to answer every question I was asked (Seriously though, two? TWO?) Was I tempted to go for the next song instead of the first on that popped up? Hell yes. And you know I checked, so just don’t.

Katy’s love interest one would have been The Ocean by Led Zeppelin (Singing in the sunshine, laughing in the rain…) and as Dawn’s professional advisor I would have channeled Dio by Tenacious D (Dio has rocked for a long long time Now it’s time for him to pass the torch) and imparted something rubbish instead of the comprehensive and sound business advice you read before.

Here’s an extract from The Singing Wilderness, by Sigurd F. Olsen, who writes about nature with a humility and reverence than inspires the same.

You can buy it here in the UK and here in the US.

Apologies and congratulations if you live elsewhere, you’d be able to look it up faster than me if you want to buy the book. And while I’m on the subject, I think it’s cool that this site has readers in China, Singapore, New Zealand, Borneo, Australia, (I shit you not:) Guam, Egypt, Israel and even Scotland.

That’s not me showing off, that’s YOU showing off. Look at you. All Guam. With your Borneos.

Can I say something?

The story.

The Singing Wilderness is divided into four sections, one for each season, and each of those broken down into chapters about on one aspect of nature. I chose The Way Of A Canoe from the Summer section, and it’s beautiful.

To be honest, I’ve never even read the whole book through, although I’ve had it for ten years. I dip into it and get taken away. Since it’s confession time, I’ve never been to the region he’s writing about; the North American backwaters around Lake Superior.

But if someone can turn a phrase about paddling a canoe and write about “the swirls, the smooth, slick sweeps and the vees that point the way above the breaks“, then I’ll read it.

I hosted the audio in Soundclick, which means you can stream it and download it if you want and upload it to your i-thing whosnames and take it with you. You may have to register to do this but it takes less than a minute and you’ll be able to download future midweekers at a single click. I’m registered with Soundclick myself and I don’t think I get any spam from them, so they’re pretty good.

Enjoy.

The Singing Wilderness

Play high-quality audio

Play low-quality audio (recommended for dial-up modem)

Download the MP3

A Blog Post In Two Parts
by Cliff Jones

Humid
It’s humid right now in London. It’s just muggy.

My in-laws call it “close”. “Oooh, it’s close,” they say disapprovingly, and every time they declare it such, I want to say “…but no cigar.”

I say it in my head though, reader. I say it in my head.

But it is. It needs to rain properly. Not English rain, either, I mean it has to piss the fuck down.

You’ll notice that my command of the language has diminished none, because of yesterday’s sweary bollocks. It will return to normal, though.

It’s nature week all week here on This Is This and the theme continues for the Midweek Story which is so beautiful it will have you reeling and make you think there’s more to life than sitting in front of a screen reading a guy’s thoughts.

iKnow
I’ve been doing this blogging thing for a few years now, so obviously I honestly think I can change your life, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it.

Well, not me exactly, but the power of music. So, having nicked this from Katy, you ask me questions and I put my ipod on shuffle. 

Leave your conundra or dilemmae in the comments below, or mail iknow@thisisthis.org and I’ll be back on Thursday with the answers, gleaned from the opening lyrics of whatever song is channelled through.

Seriously, don’t mess around with this, though. Proper questions only.

We’re dealing with forces we barely comprehend.

I’ve recently added a lot of people I know to my page on facebook, where, after painful deliberations, I added a link to this blog from my profile.

Facebook’s great, and through networks I’ve had invitations from old friends and colleagues with whom it’s nice to be back in touch.

People, like me, look at a contact’s friends and, I would imagine, go: “don’t know them, who’s that?, what is she wearing?, oh hey - they’re friends with Cliff Jones”.

Then, at a click of a button, they send message to me which says they wish to connect, and if I know them then I agree and they become a contact of mine.

All this is great, but what started off as a networking tool for US students, is now were popular in the UK, and, not surprisingly, among gainfully employed members of the electronic media, which is where I work.

So when your colleagues get onto it, inevitably your boss, former bosses and prospective employers will also connect to you and your page which has a link to this site.

Do I want the director of some huge rival (and potential new boss) to know I use the word “bumclown”?

Well, when the director of that company updated his facebook page with a personalised url under his “homepage” section, I had to have a look. What was it? A professional network of other directors? An treasure trove of the internet’s corporate secrets?

No.

It was a blog of funny shit he’s see on the web.

So to bloggers the world over, and professional people: it’s all cool. It’s all right that I hold down a very serious job and write this stuff on the side. Everyone needs a laugh and a way to let off some creative steam, so to celebrate, I’m drawing your attention today to a site which is hours of fun with randomly-generated swearing.

Just this morning it generated ”anally relaxed monkey drummer”

Enjoy.

Do I still get the job?

Here you’ve got seafaring references in an a cappella intro with one male and female voice. For that alone, it deserves to be the weekend song, but then add in cello and whistful lyrics, and we’ve got ourselves a tune.

I must have listened to this hundreds of times and I still couldn’t tell you where the drums or the guitars come in. They drift in like a daydream and stay with you like a good meal. The arrangement is beautiful and the words make you think there is sense beyond reason.

Burn off the haze around the shore
Turn off the crazy way I feel
I’ll stay away from you no more
I’ve come home to stop yearning 

Listen: Ben Taylor - Think A Man Would Know

There’s a stork which stands there patient and proud as I pass by the river on the drive into town . He’s a metaphor for something, I don’t know, but he probably needs a name.

He’s there most days, by the sign about fishing rights, thinking “What are you going to do, I’m a fucking stork. I should be out delivering babies or something? Get real - I fish; this is what I do. License this.”

He’s not flustered by the cars or anything. I don’t know if storks have eyelids, but if he does they never bat, as he melts from a mass to a silhouette as twilight turns the light grey.

Tomorrow’s song is about nature and longing, as is the midweek story on Wednesday. It sounds sad, like todays post, but they’re not. It’s all good right now and right now’s what matters.

Keep that with you and have a great weekend.

Seven hours later….
Oh COCKS - It was a heron! Herons don’t even deliver babies, so that joke’s fucked for a start.
I’m such a shmoe. What do you want for nothing? Research?

The summer, as I keep moaning, hasn’t really kicked off. We get glimpses of blue skies and promises that things will get better, but then it’s echoes of Spring or worse - premature lapses of grey, like early omens of an inevitable slow but steady demise into Autumn.

The cold these days is the warning sign before the bend.

Tomatoes, anyway. Or the plants thereof.

Mine are stringy, pathetic reminders of last year’s plants. I thought I was doing something wrong, but they are in the same position as they are every year, right there on the east fence.

Hey - funny how that makes my house sound bigger than it is. It’s a fence and it’s on the east. My point is it gets the sun from about 11 and then right through until it sets.
But having spoken to those with fingers are darker hue of green, I have discovered that no one’s having much luck.

So why, glancing out the window from the shower today, do I notice in my neighbour’s garden plants three to four feet high pregnant with litters of under-ripe plump green fruit?

On their east fence, just like mine.

Their house isn’t bigger than mine. It’s just a fence and it’s on the east. Technically, it’s my west fence. I also have a fence to the south, which runs the length of my grounds and eventually connects the two.

Tomatoes.

Are they trying to taunt me? Where do they get off trying to keep up with the Joneses? Especially when I am the fucking Joneses.

Well, it turns out they bought the plants that way, matured in a heated greenhouse and the plunked down in their garden. “Right there against the east fence. Next to Jones, so every morning in the shower he sees our plants.”

What’s the fun of buying mature tomato plants? It’s the horticultural equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

You may as well buy tomatoes. Where’s about the nurturing? The feeding? The pinching out?

Fuckers.

Watch this grow. (I do a sort of slow unfolding of my middle finger.) Oooh, look at that. Mmmmm, that’s going to be a beauty. (Visual gag) There it comes. Look at that? You like that?

Assmonkeys.

Also - today is Henry David Thoreau’s (Thoreau’x?) birthday. He’d be 190 today and he was a friend of my man Ralph Waldo Emerson. I’ve written about both a lot on these pages, and here’s a post inspired by HDT written about this time last year.

This week’s story is Mollusks by Arthur Bradford.

Arthur Bradford was unknown to me and I discovered him in a McSweeney’s anthology when I was in New York.

You can buy it here in the UK and here if you’re in the US.

It’s a great short story, read here in its entirety by me, marred only slightly by one of my cats going through the flap between 1:40 and 1:56 and then coming back in at 3:27 and then a plane going over after four minutes, but in a way, I think they make the recording sound both homely and dramatic.

Finally, if you like the idea of this, please send the page round, talk about it in your blogs if you have them, tell the people on the bus, whatever. I’ll try this out for a month. Who knows, I may get me a podcast.

You can also let have your say about the story of the idea in the comments, and thanks - no - “Thank You” for listening. This shit isn’t as easy as it seems in my head when I think this stuff up; it takes dedication and I’m grateful to be able to share it.

Reading Jesus, the story already.

Listen: Mollusks - Arthur Bradford

Now I’m not one to complain, as you know, but have you noticed that pubs smell?

Back when people were able to smoke on planes, when you had eighteen rows of tokers sucking them back, I don’t think you really noticed the distinctive cabin smell. They all smell the same. It’s kind of a heady mix of manmade fabrics, plastic, cheap perfume and custard.

Now to some of you, those may be the permeations of a good night out, but I find it bizarre how all planes smell the same.

Maybe it’s a CAA regulation that I don’t understand. They could bottle it and call it Fish Or Chicken, Mile High or Doors To Manual.

Anyway, that’s not why we’re here. Pub smells, right?

Cigarettes make everything smell. My mum smelled of Opium (the perfume, not the drug) and Kent (the brand of smokes, not the county). Had she chucked the weed, I’m sure I’d able to draw on nicer childhood things like apple crumble, heavy knits, the lavender from her garden and Boots hand cream.

Pubs, anyway.

They smell of wet wood, old carpet, beer and chips. This is what I would imagine South Yorkshire would smell like after the recent floods. Oh come on, you have to laugh.

It’s a good idea though. It will discourage those people who aren’t really smokers from having the occasional cigarette with their drinking buddies. I wonder if there’s such as thing as social cancer?

I think I’ve just revealed that I am very cheap. I’m sure the bar in the Novotel smells of French hostesses and chilled Muscadet (which are also permeations of a good night out), but I wouldn’t know, because I sometimes duck into Wetherspoons for a cheeky pint at lunchtime.

Having kids means most of my pub time is taken up in the evening, and where I work there’s a big divide between the nasty old boy pubs and the gastro-pubs, and sometimes I don’t feel like paying £12 for a plate of butternut squash risotto with a cranberry jus. Or coulis. Or whatever the fuck that it is.

Sometimes I just want a pint of Stella and a bowl of good chips.

Tomorrow you’ve got the Midweek Book, an audio post and arguably (meaning “I can’t remember”) a This Is This first. I’ll try it for a month and see how it goes. If you like the idea, send it round - I can’t reckon the currency in doing it if too many people aren’t getting kicks, because all this stuff takes time and effort and I’ve only got so much of either.

But I know you’re going to love tomorrow’s post. You have one day to find some headphones and the rest of your life to listen.

This week’s going to be better than last. I’ve had a skinful of sleep, the sun is shining, unread emails read are down to double figures and I have a plan to do something on this blog that I haven’t done before.

OK, I’ll tell you.

Stories, right? Short stories, read out by yours truly. Or me, if we can’t get him.

I was thinking about this the other day and kept turning over the same three things:

1. We don’t read as much as we should.
2. We all own a pair of headphones.
3. I have a lot of books.

I’ll make them available for download so you can put them on your ipods and stuff, or you can stream them down right there and then if you spend a lot of time at your computer.

There will be an archive and stuff so you can listen back to stuff, and if you have anything you want to share, then please send them along and we can share them that way.

But let’s get some things straight, if only because I’ve figured out how to do numbered lists in Wordpress:

1. This is not a showcase for my own writing. While some of the stories will have been written by me, it’s a way of sharing good writing you may not have heard before. Blog knows you read enough of my stuff every day.
2. This is just for fun. There is no commercial benefit in this at all. Please don’t get all copyright on my ass about the author’s permission. These are just extracts from books which I encourage you to buy. I’ll include a link to the books in question so you can spend you money on them. Remember that my site is free so please be cool. An audio extract is a sample of your enjoyment of the writers fare. Please don’t circulate the MP3 files beyond this site but feel free to direct people to the posts where they can find them. And if you put them on your site and charge people to hear them, then everything’s just wrong.
3. I do not like the sound of my own voice, but it’s the only one I have. Let’s get past that and move on. Life’s too short and we may learn something or enjoy yourselves.
4. This is not a book club. No. Jesus.

If you like the idea, let me know.

I’m feeling like this is a proper website now. We’ve got pictures, you’ve got the weekend song, a reading from a book, you’ve got me goofing past former heads of state. In return I get tolerance over my ups and downs, clarity of truth (mostly) and the pressure of dragging my mind’s arse up and out for a cause. Yeah, it’s a mission. I don’t care what that makes me. You’re reading.

Anyway. New things. I’ll try it for a month, running audio posts every Wednesday.

It was an odd weekend, all told.

To start with, someone said “dramastically” to me and I nearly bit through my lip.

When people do that, it must be what it’s like for those crazy people who can look at equations and be bothered when something doesn’t add up. Mental, right? The irony being that I think “fucktard” is a brilliant word.

But this is different. It sounds like someone who thinks something is in tune but it’s not, and I look around thinking, “Is it just me? Did no one else hear that? Have I got some kind of dog-hearing that only picks out made-up words?”

It worries me that no one else winces when they hear the word “architected” in meetings.

I may, at times, be the world’s biggest arse.

On a plus note, I was walking out with my son this weekend when I spotted Douglas Hurd coming around the corner towards us.

What do you when confronted with Britain’s Cold War-era Foreign Secretary? What’s the protocol?

I guessed you say a cheerful “Morning!” and keep walking.

I did just that, adding a smile for good measure, because the sun was out and it came easy.

I bet he’d never say “dramastically”.

Me and Baron Hurd, you see. A dying breed.

This may sound a little crazy, but work with me. You read this so I guess you’ve grown accustomed.

Picture something you’ve done that felt good recently - anything at all. Something that helped someone maybe, the time the ball of paper flew across the room and landed straight in the bin, the thing you said before you thought it that got everyone either laughing or enlightened deep in a “fuck yeah” moment, or just anything that went down all right. Maybe it was this week just gone.

Whatever it is, imagine that thing in a movie in your head with you as the star and put that moment somewhere in the middle and make the thing of whatever it was be the title of your film.

Got that? Feels good, right?

When that film ends, something’s got to play out the credits.

This is that song.

It’s got New Orleans grooves, a desperate pleading vocal ride singing sad words all happy, punchy horns, high male harmonies, Dixieland clarinet over dry guitar riffs like you wouldn’t imagine and - AND … sousaphone at the end.

Thing I like to do is listen to what else is going on during the guitar breaks. The arrangement’s hilarious. Sousaphone.

And if this doesn’t put smile on your face, then I honestly can’t help you.

They got your number, scared and running,
but I’m still waiting for the second coming of Ophelia.
Come back home.

Listen: The Band - Ophelia

Oh - what’s your film called, by the way?

One of the nice things about social networking is that it keeps you in the picture without being in the frame. Let me explain.

I was contacted this week by a school friend, Hannah from Bermuda, with whom I probably would not otherwise have stayed in touch.

It would have been weird picking up the phone to the mid-Atlantic, saying: “Hey. Just wondered what you are up to, whether you had a favourites quote, if you were married and what your religious views are, should you need them. Maybe you have a blog or a page on the web where I can see pictures of you.”

Or maybe that would seem weird because we now have other, less intrusive ways of getting in touch.

But things like Facebook and Myspace keep you in touch through less vain methods. I was on an IM with my buddy Iain yesterday. We used to work together and we’re in touch more weeks than we’re not with one thing or others.

We conceded that we’re not big phoners, and without the online networks of former colleagues we would have fallen out of touch, even though there aren’t many other people I would want less be drift away from on the social undercurrents.

The net and personal sites keep us tethered, bobbing along on the mooring until we choose to set sail.

Speaking of online stuff, John Smeaton is being hailed as an “Internet hero” by the newspapers. This is bullshit, because if he’d been celebrated in the newspapers, he wouldn’t be called a “press hero”. If I’d been calling up my mates (doubtful, see above) and spoken in hushed, reverential tones befitting the Smeato, he wouldn’t be a “telephone hero”, would he?

The Internet lets people express themselves, but don’t forget that it’s the singer and not song. As far as the soul, it’s the music, not the CD that does the heavy lifting.

So that’s it about it for this week. If you’re back tomorrow, the weekend song will have you smiling right through until Sunday.

My own religious views, by the way, are somewhere between lay Buddhist and lapsed agnostic.

But like I was saying - it’s the journey, not the road.

Have a great weekend.

Some people from the office were going to see Justin Timberlake at the O2 in London last night but before that they found themselves talking to me at work.

They were girls (oh yeah…), younger than me, so I was naturally weary of sounding like I knew more about pop music than them, for fear of being Cool Dad. But there are a couple of Justin albums at home, as well as Beyonce, Timbaland, Nelly Furtado, Beyonce and a lot of R&B pop.

So, I’m not going to make out I was being actually cool, but I think I was down with the kids and holding my own. Actually, just reading that back…

Moving on, it became clearer that they may have thought I going to the gig, because I was getting ready to leave as I was lyrically waxing Justin. And again…

One of the girls asked me as I grabbed my work bag: “Where are you sitting tonight, Cliff?”

With my other hand I reached for the groceries I bought at lunch. “On my couch,” I said, looking into the bag, “eating toast.”

“You’re not going to the gig?” asked the other.

“Um, no.” The way you do when you don’t want to answer but have to. That um sound.

“Eating toast!” I could hear the laughter as I walked out of the office.

I am so not bringing sexy back. I’m actually taking away the sexy. I’m removing every last vestige of sexy, creating a vacuum from which no sexy can escape.

And instantly I remembered that I am not them. Last week they were at Glastonbury. If I were there, I’d still be recovering, and they are seeing Justin while I eat toast on my couch.

It was nice, though. I had Dippy Eggs.

Work Conversation

Colleague: Did you know about the thing?

Me: No.

Colleague: OK, because I sent you two emails about it.

Me: Ah.

Colleague: No, I know you’re always keen to talk instead of email.

Me: Yeah, I have about 230 unread emails. It’s never the best option.

This is true. There is a note at the bottom of my emails that says:

Cliff Jones
Title, Job
Big Company

Is your electronic reply really necessary?
If not, call
Tel: +44 (0) phone number
Mobile: +44 (0) mobile number
or
email: myemail@BigCompany.com

Colleague: 230 work emails?

Me: Yeah, I get about 80 emails a day. That’s not even the other things.

Colleague: Such as?

Me: There’s always loads of porn and stuff.

Colleague: Really?

Me: Yeah, but no one ever replies.

Colleague: Funny guy. Are you here all week?

Me: I am.

Colleague: Shame.

A couple of words for the motherfuckers who tried to bomb the airport at the weekend.

If you’re going to bomb an airport, don’t do it at Glasgow, OK? By accounts, one of the would-be bombers was dropped by baggage handler John Smeaton as the terrorist tried to get bombs out his burning car.

I can think of few people harder than a Glaswegian baggage handler. A Nepalese herder? An Afghan miner? A Tasmanian rigger? No, I can think of no one else who would call you “pal” while deep frying your head.

These people endure low wages, long winters, World Cup humiliation and Andrew Murray. Do you think they are going to be phased by a burning Jeep full of explosives driven through a glass door into their workplace?

I can imagine the baggage handler stopping short of murdering the guy, then handing him over to the police, saying: “Do that again, wee man, let’s see what happens.”

I can hear suicide bombers planning their next move, saying “You know Steve*, next time I’m thinking Luton.”

Compassion’s a funny thing. Do I have any for someone who doesn’t deserve it? Yes, because everyone needs it. I feel bad that the world is such a mess that someone has to blow themselves up to prove a point, or that they are such a mess that they think it will. But I’m with the baggage handlers. I’m picking sides, and fuck you.

About yesterday: I’ve been low lately, not resting much, not helping myself out. I had no intention of joking around today, but that’s good. One of the reasons I have this blog is to get myself up here, drag myself if I have to, and do something other than the necessary - every single day. That whatever happens, I can lift my head at the end of a post and say “I’ll meet you back here”.

Thanks.

*Why are they always called Steve?

It rained a lot this weekend just gone and the summer doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing.

You get seasons narrow as creeks sometimes - driving out yesterday at the edge of the woods and July I saw conkers on the trees and leaves falling off them.

June’s gone, taking with it longer nights and good omens. Midwinter always brings me solace, but until this year I didn’t know the summer solstice would scribble in my silver cloud with grey.

Sorry you’re cast in its long, dull shadow.

Inspired by Wendy

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ISTP) Your personality type is reserved, methodical, spirited, and intense.   Only about 6% of all people have your personality, including 3% of all women and 8% of all men
You are Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving.