This Is This

As an afterthought to the thing I wrote about originality. Yes, a lot of it has been done, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it too. Everyone’s wearing clothes - doesn’t mean I shouldn’t too. Believe me, I should. But you can feel free.

So other people have written about stuff and maybe better, it doesn’t mean that I should do it. Other people have also written that.

Singing’s something we don’t do much of in public, because we’re not as good as other people. Well, I don’t write as well as Mark Twain - that doesn’t mean I should hang up my pencils. Also, he’s dead, so I’ve got the edge on old man Clemens.

Ah - The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein - I love writing with my ipod on shuffle.

So you’ve heard what you’re saying before. How many variations of the twelve bar blues are there? Without influences and refinements and interpretation, there would be no rock and roll and I don’t want to think that.

Other people write. Other people play guitar. It doesn’t matter if it’s been done. Do it anyway, but do it your way. Woody Allen said:  “80 percent of success is showing up.”

Make it you own. Don’t just set up stuff for someone else. There are no statues to Ernie Wise.

Who cares if you’re not going to get much in return? That’s creativity for you.

I said the other day how this blog isn’t hugely popular. I meant I’m not hugely popular. This site will never get me tables or chicks.

Picture the scene -

Taxi driver: ‘Ere - you’re that bloke ain’tcha? The one with the siteblog, yeah? That’s That, That Is?

Me: This Is This.

Taxi driver: That’s the one. Here’s one for you. It’s all been done right, but do it, yeah? But make it yours.

Me: Right.

Taxi: ‘Ow many cabs do you fink there are in West End? Must be faahhhhsands. Don’t stop me, does it? You should stick that in your blog.

Me: Right here’s fine.

Never going to happen is it? Partly because cabbies don’t talk like Victorian music hall cockneys, but also because I’m not going get recognised in the street, but that’s OK.

Blogging’s a simple formula and those doing it expect nothing in return. I write these posts and they get out there and you read them. Simple, but it involves a degree of dedication, although probably not as much as it takes to read it.

The only trick is taking the time - giving until it hurts, and when it does, looking at my sleeves, rolling those puppies up and giving some more and never asking for so much as a rusty fuck in return.

Do what you do, do it well, and never don’t do it if you enjoy it just because someone’s done it better.

Hey. Back now, and every time I am it makes me think of the relationship I have with my blog. Things happen, and I think: “Should I write about this?” Actually two major things happened that I can’t write about because I have friends (what?) who read this and it wouldn’t be right to break the news to them here. If you know me, next time we speak, all you have to do is say: “What are the two pieces of news?” and I will tell you personally. And if you’re the ninth caller, you go into the prize draw for a holiday to Cancun (OOooooooh!) No seriously, ask me.

Last week I mentioned AOL, the company I work for. That night I spoke to my dad and the first thing is asked me is why I decided to go public with my employer after four years of blogging. “Go public” sounds a bit pompous, because I wasn’t really hiding it, I just chose not to say where I worked, for a few reasons:

It’s an internet company
And a media company. A huge one. I was worried that if this blog got really popular, then critics could argue it’s because of who I work for. That changed of course when I realised this blog isn’t really popular. Also, lots of people who work in the media have blogs and their sites aren’t known as Throwing Musings by Pete Stevens from The Daily Sentinel, or Blog Cabin by Sarah Zucchini from TFR Online News. No. Sarah Zucchini has her own site and does her thing at work separately. Also, there are lots of sites written by people who don’t work in the media which are far more popular than mine. Which is a good thing, because can you imagine how boring that would be?

Lots of people have blogs
Far more people blog now than they did four years ago, so working for a company like AOL does not give me an edge. I have made some great friendships at AOL and I link to blogs run by my friends, who mention the company and other colleagues, so if you’ve been reading this over a while you’d know who I work for because they have left the company and they write about it themselves.

Social networking
If you’re on My Space or Linked In or Face Book (I refuse to do those stupid CappedUp shitness they put in your titles. It’s Play Station, OK? ShitHeads.) then you can easily trace me, this blog, my Flickr page, my friends networks of work alumni, etc and find out a bunch of things. It makes me careful not to put personal details anywhere, but it’s stupid hiding the big things, because you’d find out if you wanted to.

Work/Life balance
I have a healthy one, I think and I keep the two separate, as I do with personal stuff. No one wants to be burdened with my problems. My policy has always been to mark out the two. “This is my site, this is my shite.” Where I can, that is. fs something has happened that’s going to affect my writing, then it’s fair to share that. If I’m cracking jokes all week and then announce some tragedy from earlier on, then that would seem a little odd. As for work, I wouldn’t link to my site from the pages I edit every day at work and I never write about the company or strategy on this site, because that would get in trouble and understandably so.

More later, here as usual. I re-discovered saunas at the weekend. Good god I’m relaxed.

The more voices there are, the more frequent the repetition. As people’s consumption of media increases, the distinction between influence and copying gets a little fuzzy.

Take my Facebook status updates. I’ll think of something funny to say and up it goes. I did this once and within half an hour a friend changed their status to say they were doing the same thing because they thought it would get a laugh. I mean, thanks, but also - no. Because that person and I shared no mutual friends, they copied my content to appear funny to their own circle of contacts. The fact that that I will be the only person who knows this didn’t matter to them, because all their network will think they are being original. It’s not worth saying something about, but you know.

With so many blogs and social networking applications out there, there has never been more pressure to be original, but if you’re creating content yourself, don’t forget that web audiences are very widely read.

There is more content out there than ever before, so you’d think there is less chance of someone seeing your idea and the content you ripped off, right? Wrong.

People consume more media because they do it more efficiently. Personal digital recorders help us catch up with TV shows and try out new ones on whims our schedules would never otherwise accommodate. RSS readers pull in posts from blogs, headlines, features and editorial opinion columns.

As well as volume and efficiency, there is speed. Online articles are usually less that 500 words. We digest them like candy floss and go buzzing along to the next one. Being well read doesn’t involve pouring over column inches any more. Television programmes, after adverts, can be a little as 23 minutes. People take in a lot of information and will spot something they’ve seen before.

People have never been exposed to more creativity, so writers need to make sure their material is original - because it sure as hell won’t stay that way for long.

(342 words)

I mentioned Demitri Martin on Friday. Funny guy. He says if he ever saw an amputee being hanged, he would shout out random letters.

I have a number of involuntary comedy responses. One of them is when if someone asks me if I can smell something.

Example.

Someone: Can you smell smoke?

Me: Yes. S-M-O-K-E.

See? You actually sPell it. Genius.

Another one is with accents. Admittedly I can’t do many, but if someone says Jeff Buckeley, I will always repeat it in a broad Yorkshire accent. I don’t know why it’s so fun to say, but it is. Same with R Kelly. “All right, our Kelly.”

More? OK.

When I’m on the phone and someone asks me if I have a pen, I sometimes say proudly: “I have several.”

Or a colleague asks: “Have you had a haircut,” I say: “Yeah, load of times.”

I’m just going to keep going.

If someone mentions a road when discussing their travels, say the A332, I will always pay kudos and add: “That’s a great road.”

How I don’t get punched continues to amaze me.

Tomorrow: How increased consumption of media both threatens and encourages original creativity

This is a version of the Fleetwood Mac classic. It’s off the Home album by Dixie Chicks, which is one of my desert island discs.

Can you play a banjo slow? And who needs drums? And what’s wrong with a little slide guitar?

Yes, no one and nothing at all.

I explained yesterday that I was away for a few days and that this post is being written and was schedules on Thursday night. Because I won’t be able to access my blog for a while I’m a little worried in case there were to be an actual landslide while I’m gone.

If hundreds of people are injured or killed in a tragic event, I won’t be able to pull this post. Oooh, the excitement. Maybe I should choose a different song.

No - natural disasters be damned, I’m sticking with it.

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing cause I built my life around you.
But time makes you bolder children get older and I’m getting older, too.

Listen: Landslide

—
Related page
Weekend Song archive

Hello. You have reached today’s post. I’m sorry I’m not here to write this blog as I’m either in a meeting, on holiday or on the tube, but please read the post after the beep.

**BEEEEEEEEEEP**

I guess technology lets me publish here every day so there’s not reason not to. It’s like how you can be in contactable when you have a mobile phone. Sure, you can turn the phone off, but is turning the phone off a bit like ignoring someone’s friend request on Facebook? No. Maybe that way lies madness.

With a phone, all you need is a signal and battery. Time happens anyway. Forget time. You don’t need time. You’re already in touch. Demetri Martin says batteries only have two states - they are either working, or they are dead. That’s got to be an miserable existence.

I was nearly on the TV news on Wednesday night. Channel Four came into the office that day to do an interview about protection from child pornography online. Actually, I swore earlier on in this post. I wrote the f word but now because of what I’m writing about I’m going to have to take it out because I know I’ll get some bad searches when I mix child pornography with casual swearing. You can guess where the f work was because I replaced it with another f word. (Clue: it’s in italics)

The TV news team did one filler shot of people working at their desks and it was my cluster of desks at work. Of course I wanted to say: “When will this be on?” but I was too cool. For a bit. Then I asked “When will this be on?” and they said the seven o’clock news on Channel Four. But they cut me out, the forgetters.

OK - Weekend Song tomorrow as normal then Involuntary Comedy Responses will take us through until Monday where I’ll write something about how increased consumption of media both threatens and encourages original creativity.

Have a great weekend. That’s Saturday and Sunday, OK?

I mean it. Both days.

I discovered yesterday that there are at least three parties which are almost identical to an S Club party.

I actually like pop music. I shouldn’t even have to say actually, like I’m defensive. I like pop music.

Say You’ll Be There by Spice Girls
Don’t Stop Moving by S Club Seven
Push The Button by Sugababes
Life Is A Roller Coaster by Ronan Keating
Rudebox by Robbie Williams
Beautiful by Christina Aguillera
Baby One More Time by Britney Spears

All good. Then there’s your classic disco pop, your Abbas, your Michael Jacksons, you Bees Geeses, about whom I’ll not have a word said.

I don’t like all that elitist crap about not liking something because it’s popular. Sure, I’ll listen to Tom Waits and pour through old book stores in the old quarter of Nice, but I’ll always celebrate popular things.

If I could choose between having a blog which was popular and one which was acclaimed by a few people, I’d go for the numbers ever time. That is if I could write exactly the same. But yeah, link me up. Put me in facebook, I don’t care. All I ask if the opportunity to prove that millions of page impressions a day wouldn’t change me.

I’m off from tomorrow for a short break, for a few days full of books, beers and saunas, and not work, but posts will keep happening here, sure as the sun will come up, as natural as the rising and falling of your breath.

If I don’t reply for a bit, that’s why. If your comments are held in moderation, then I’m sorry and I will return on the good ship This Is This to run it aground and storm the beaches of approval, carried on the waves of- oh you get the fucking idea.

Virtual me tomorrow. Actual me soon after.

Here’s something I didn’t know yesterday - my dad is in Wikipedia.

We have healthy competition, me and him. I get married, he gets married*. I go to university, he goes to university. I get a blog, he gets a blog. What can I say, I’m an early adopter.

But lately he’s been overtaking me. He sees me having kids and holding down a busy job and he guns it and overtakes me by writing a book. What’s that all about. It’s just a bunch of words typed on a page for other people to read. I could do that. I could totally do that.

Seriously, though, I am immensely proud, and happy to take a back seat on this.

The French Riviera: A Literary Guide For Travellers is out in paperback in a couple of weeks and you can order it from here in the UK or here in the US.

So now he gets an entry in Wikipedia. It’s like the who’s who of the internet. It’s like he’s more who than me.

While we’re sharing the links, a big This Is This style congratulations to Wendy, who today celebrates one year of blogging on It’s A Life

Now, there are blogs and there are blogs, right? It’s A Life is definitely the latter, and how many sites can you say that about? Nice job Wendy and here’s to another next year.

*Actually Writer’s Moll made me laugh this week when she wrote about a recent trip in France with this line: “I’m doing no better (in French) the next day when a woman thinks I’m suggesting her ducks are sick when I ask if they’re mallards.”

“You cock! You fucking knobend! What the fuck are you doing? Watch the fucking door, you cunt!”

Word for word, I swear to god that those are the first words I heard that morning, not including the family and fellow commuters. The cyclist pulled up to the door of the bus among the commuters caught bracing in a squall of expletives.

This was made worse because before leaving the house I had accidentally swallowed half a cap of Listerine. What gets rid of the taste of mouthwash? Nothing, that’s what. There’s nowhere to go from there. You can’t go back and you can’t go forward. It’s just a big minty paradox.

He was cycling on the pavement by a crowded bus stop when the doors opened. A driver will tend to do that to pick up passengers.

A few passengers to the cyclist: “You should be on the road.”

The bus driver said nothing. I kept quiet, too, because even though I’ll take a challenge, there’s no point in arguing with someone when they’re furious. They won’t see sense and you’re likely to make them madder than a cut snake.

Reasoning with rage is like writing words on little bits of paper and throwing them into a fire.

I get annoyed by cyclists on the pavement because they are vehicles. Cyclists go on about their rights to use the road, but many of them don’t. I am excluding parents with kids here, because it’s a safe and responsible way to get around.
Same goes for cyclists using the pavement to avoid going around a three lane roundabout the wrong way in order to get to the street around the corner.

But rush-hour cyclists should be on the road, especially when I leave the house. If the world could just work that way, that’d be great. Thanks.

I said last week there are countless things every day that make for decent blog posts.

This week I’m saying how there are many more things (count them) that do not.

Three examples today:

1. Some at work said recently: “Mac widescreen and the new geos”. Immediately I thought that would make a pretty good band name. Not as good as “Jay Peg and the Bitmaps“, but pretty good. This would not be good enough to make a whole blog post.

2. Drinking a herbal tea and, when I took the first sip, got a piece of wet flower in my mouth. I swore, and wondered how many people before me had ever said “fuck” before picking jasmine off their lip. Probably not many. Again, not a blog post.

3. After the whole heated soup debate last week I was thinking about my third choice for my top three all time soups of all time in the world ever, and I’ve got the image of a bowl of Miso soup saying in a tempting voice: “Me so soup.”

But add the three together, and you might have a post.

Not the king of posts, but it’s Monday.

I’m a pretty determined person, but I like to think I’m open to ideas.

You might say I am stubborn (I would say single minded) and a bit controlling (I would say a helpful). Speaking of which, there’s this great joke. I say “Knock, knock” right? Then you say “Who’s there, OK?” And I say “Control freak.” Like that. And then you say “Control freak who?”, yeah?

I’m kind of bad at taking compliments, too.

It’s more than self-effacing, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t like the attention, I guess. Yeah, I know. My blog you’re reading.

But common exchanges go thus

Person: Those are nice trousers, Cliff.

Me: Thank you. Yes. Um. Beige.

Person: (nods)

Here’s a brilliant thing from my collagues in AOL France. They’re really enjoying their professional lives, as you may have read. Just dandy. So good in fact that they made this video 

It’s good to see a few familiar faces having a laugh and I wish them all the best in the future.

“Hugh, you’re the most amazing sea cow, I’ve ever met.”

“I meant manatee. Hugh - I’m so sorry. I know how much you hate that term. I should go.”

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Related posts
The Adventures Of Sad Monkey
The Adventures Of Incredulous Panda

This little belter of a song is off the new Matchbox Twenty comeback album which was released this week. I hadn’t even noticed they were gone, and as  far as I can think, I’ve never heard a song by them before, but there’s something about this that’s both infectiously relentless and relentlessly infectious.

Balls-out drumming, acoustic guitar getting hammered by the rhythm guy, everyone’s singing along to the chorus and my god I think we just might be OK.

We’re not perfect but we’re doing it, and with considerable style. Since I heard this song a month ago, I have not been able to get it out of my head and it deserves to be in more places.*

Say your goodbyes if you’ve got someone you can say goodbye to.

Listen: How Far We’ve Come

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Related page
Weekend Song archive

*Which doesn’t go for a lot of things in my head, but yes this once.

The cold moved in yesterday, at least into the air which fills the Thames valley. Fog rolled convincingly for the first time, almost humbly apologetic and overdue while pilots on the approach switched their attention to headsets no doubt as my bus thundered and wheezed me into London.

No one asks me where I get ideas for my posts, but if they did I’d tell them there is no idea or plan at all.

A story in the news, a turn of phrase, a piece of music, a moment of hesitation - anything will spark an idea. Inspiration is fleeting but powerful and ignored at your peril. It’s the landed shark on the deck of the boat.

I always carry a pencil and paper around and write something when I have a spare few minutes. If I get an hour I can normally write a week’s worth of posts from start to finish, but taking an hour rarely happens.

While I can’t guarantee the quality, I can produce something every day.

That’s it. No magic, just a guy with a pencil and a pad and a little inspiration.

I love this time of year. Thomas Wolfe said “All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.”

Autumn is my favourite season and I’m glad to see it coming on. Coming home last night ahead was a sunset like a sigh that seemed to say “This is your time.”

And you know what? I kind of think it is.

More about that later, but for now, that’s the way the week looks. Have a great weekend and I’ll meet you back here.
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Related posts
October
Rocktober

I have written before that I am the least clumsy person I know. I have cereal bowls from the 1970’s, glasses gone cloudy like glaciers and all manner of things which are not built to last lasting.

I can boast about this because I have many other faults. I mean, I don’t like put cheese in soup or anything, but I have some minor flaws.

Maybe I’ve got enhanced spacial awareness or something. Or just really dependable thumbs.

My thumbs are very strong. On the right you’ve got the one (no I don’t have names for them) that holds up a saxophone. My teacher said you should lift a sax lightly.

Not like the annoying 80’s lofty tippy wailing sax pop solos -oh god - but it sounds better when you don’t have 7 pounds of brass, nickel and pearl pressing down on your bottom lip.

“And don’t let the neck strap take all the strain,” he would say in his heavy Nicois accent, “- balance, balance”, which in French means both “balance” and “swing”; perfect for this.

The other one holds down chords on a guitar with a higher action than Snakes On A Plane.

If you’ve ever lost the use of your thumb, you’ll know how essential they are. I put a knife through mine once. Normally I’m safe using tools on account of my not being clumbsy.

I take precautions. I wear gloves, I get a steady footing and put on safety goggles so big that when I’m hunched over and concentrating, you’d swear Miles Davis was in the room with you. But this one time my surehandedness left me with a blade in my thumb.

For the following week, most of my thoughts were preoccupied with shoelaces, hoping they wouldn’t come undone at work and cause me the embarassment of asking a colleague to tie them for me.

They did once, and the colleague in question obliged, but didn’t spare me the shame of talking me through the process, using metaphors of bunny ears as part of his instructions.

Did you know lemurs have ball and socket joints in their thumbs?

I don’t know why I just said that. Many things sound better in my head than on here. Sometimes I don’t even know why I have a blog.

I guess it keeps me out of print.

For now.

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Related posts
(or “REALLY? Have I Been Doing This Blog So Long That I Have A List Of Thumb-Injury Related Posts? Is That What It’s Come To?”)
Halloween
The Big Meeting

Here’s some cool traffic this week from a google search to this site. 

I was talking to Wendy of It’s A Life. Or It’s A Life’s Wendy, if we’re being all media about it.  

We were having a typical conversation, for us anyway, so I thought I’d include it here with her approval, of course. If you know me and we talk, I’m not going to post our conversations up here. I don’t go round doing that. But here’s a conversation between me and her last week. If we really want to be showbiz, I’d say “This Is This ft. It’s A Life”.

Lunchtime, midweek last

Wendy: Sorry, I was eating when you called before.

Me: Were you? That’s OK, I didn’t notice.

Wendy: Well, I was having soup.

Me: What kind? Cream of mushroom?

Wendy: No, it was-

Me: Cause you see, cream of mushroom is the king of soups.

Wendy: No it’s not.

Me: It is. I was eating cream of mushroom soup as a kid years before I even liked mushrooms. That says something.

Wendy: It’s not the king of soups. It’s not even - it’s like a pretender to the throne. It’s like a prince in Belgium somewhere. Thirteenth to the crown.
 
Me: How can you say that? Like it’s some bastard child or something that no one talks about.
 
Wendy: It will never be king. It’s the Prince Harry of soups - at best. At best.
 
Me: Rubbish. OK, top three soups. Go.
 
Wendy: Tomato with cheese on it.
 
Me: What? Tomato with cheese?
 
Wendy: Yeah. Sprinkled on. But it has to be Heinz.
 
Me: You can’t put cheese with tomato! That’s not right! Although you have it with pizza. So, yeah, maybe.
 
Wendy: I’m not talking like cheese and tomato soup. It’s tomato soup with cheese on it.
 
Me: Ok. I guess. Next.
 
Wendy: My potato soup. Really rich and lovely.
 
Me: Like a winter vegetable thing. Parsnips?
 
Wendy: It can have parsnips.
 
Me: Three.
 
She started talking about an old boyfriend’s mum’s soup, but I don’t remember the details. I kind of stopped listening. I mean, I was listening, just not listening. There may not have even been a three. I can’t really say - not with any authority.
 
Wendy: You?
 
OK, I remember this bit. It was about me.
 
Me: OK - cream of mushroom soup. Obviously. The kin-
 
Wendy: It is so not the king of soups.
 
Me: Yes it is. Two - vichyssoise. Eh?
 
Wendy: OK.
 
Me: It’s cold, but good. It even sounds like a queen. Three - I’m going to say miso soup.
 
Wendy: No.
 
Me: What?
 
Wendy: It’s nothing.
 
Me: It’s refreshing. It cleanses the palette.
 
We went on like this for a while. I got on to bouillabaisse, which I don’t eat. It blends the line between soup and stew, but it’s kind of like emptying a trawler net into a bucket. (We argued about miso soup a few days later, and I feel I won on the grounds that she was unable to define “nothing”.) From here we digressed into chili con carne.
 
I said chili con carne was Spanish for “beans with rice” but she disagreed and said beans wasn’t chili.
 
Me: It has to be. Con carne. “With meat”. The other word must be beans. It has to.
 
I looked it up on a translator site and it turns out beans in Spanish is haba. Chili in English from Spanish comes out as chili. Chili is chili. Chili ain’t something else.

This is why no one talks to me, I think.

Headhunter: Hello. Is that you?

Me: Yes, this is me.

Headhunter: Can you talk?

Me: I can.

Headhunter: How about now?

Me: Hrmphh…. Mrphhhh…. Hrawghhhh…….

What’s up, Sunday. My head hurts very much this today after watching England’s marvellous victory over France in the Rugby World Cup.

It’s quite simple really:

        Beer + Wine
     ———————    =   Hangover
        World Cup

I lived in France for several years when I was a kid and a highlight in my sporting calendar was England against Les Bleus in the Five Nations. It’s kind of like a derby match, which made last night extra special, topped off by me sending a text to my dad who was watching the match with his wife in Bordeaux.

He went to Bordeaux with his wife, that is. I should explain that just in case you think he has a wife in Bordeaux who he meets up with to watch rugby matches.

The Bordelais love rugby and wine, so it must have been a good experience to watch us tonk them on French soil. Admittedly we didn’t win by much - by no means a gulf of tonking, but it was enough.

Kenny Rogers must be pleased. Still no word from Dolly Parton.

Speaking of derby matches, Everton play Liverpool next week. It is a match I hate because of the pride at stake. Unless we win. More about that later. If we win.

OK, I thought I better post something, even though my head is very fuzzy. Not much else to say.

Um - this is good. I wonder if there are any more girl singers with south London accents (Lilly Allen, Adele, Kate Nash) who are being advised to just sing straight because we’ve all had enough. But serious, this time, watch that video. I really like the melody - it’s very original and a nice song for a Sunday hangover.

Right. That’ll do it. I know it’s late and not much, but it’s better than nothing, and I can continue to be a one-hit wonder on a daily basis.

If you’d like to know more about hangovers, you can turn on our television channel at This Is This TV and not have your say about the issues in this post because it’s a one way medium.

This is full of dreams and hope, and we could all use a little of that.

I would have picked this tune for the drum fill before lift to the chorus alone, but it gets better. It’s got a great hammond organ, jangly guitars, and a lovely melody with harmonies singing out - let’s face it - all our dreams at one time or another.

I could say more, but I’d just be holding you up.

We’ll drive, one thousand miles an hour.
We’ll fly by wheat fields and water towers.
We’ll go. We’ll go and we’ll go and we’ll go. Let’s go. 

Listen: 1,000 Miles An Hour 

—
Related page
Weekend Song archive

I was twenty one years when I wrote this post. I’m twenty seven now, but I won’t be for long.

Only joking, reader. How are you?

Yesterday I wrote about my Tom Hanks hair. Not curly. Not straight. Tom Hanks hair.

I get uncomfortable writing about my appearance, which is wierd because I write a lot about myself, although admittedly without giving too much away. But physically, I’m slight and athletic with delicate features, which is why I can never go to prison.

I’ve never understood the term “a butt that won’t quit”. Would it consider redundancy if the terms were good? I’m more proud to admit that my ass has never been fired; although it does get approached my headhunters.

I’ll leave it on that note. But they were only satellites.

Come back tomorrow. You’ve got your Weekend Song, then next week I’m kicking it off with a sketch called “When Recruitment Consultants Go Bad”. The anthropomorphic delights of animal exploits return with “The Adventures of Hugh Manatee”, the king of soups and - oh boy - just a whole bunchload of other things.

Have a great weekend.

Bloggers are often accused of navel-gazing, but today I’d like to aim higher and tell you about my hair.

I keep it fairly short because my hair is kind of curly. Not like Robert Plant/Leo Sayer curly, but not staight like Jackson Browne/Jim Carey.

It’s kind of in between, on the outskirts of unmanageable, but not out of control. If my hair were an employee, I’d probably be thinking about some kind if performance plan rather than a straight out verbal warning.

In terms of celebrity, I have Tom Hanks hair. About one in twenty-five people have it and it’s not a big deal. I get up, I go to  work, I raise a family, I eat what I like - I lead a full life. Seriously, though - I  have Tom Hanks hair. A little lighter, but Tom Hanks hair.

I keep it fairly short. Not Forrest Gump length, because all short hair looks like Forrest Gump hair. But let it get a bit longer, and - hello! - Turner and Hooch.

Longer still and we’re talking Splash, and, before you know it, you’re looking at Bosom Buddies. And not in a good way.

I’ve had it very long, a la Castaway, and very very short, in the Apollo 13 style.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the similarity even though it ends there. In fact it’s useful, because I can picture what my hair will look like longer just by running through a mental checklist of his work.

As an aside, I think he is a great actor, but my friend Paul disagrees. He says that Tom Hanks will aways be Forrest Gump, the simple, dorkey, loveable guy next door.

For this reason, he calls all Tom Hanks films by their relative names. So you have Forrest Gump And The Mermaid,  Big Forrest Gump, Forrest Gump In Space, Forrest Gump Goes To The Baseball, Forrest Gump With Aids, Forrest Gump Has Mail and Forrest Gump And The Nazis.

Paul has normal hair. Kevin Costner/Matt Dillon/Al Pacino normal hair.

I opened a can of worms, if not woop-ass, the other day with the religion thing. I don’t think religion is a bad thing at all. I think anything can be a bad thing, it’s just that religion is so influential that it gets the rap a lot of the time. Planes are a bad thing. And booze. And the internet. They can also be good.

It has to be a personal choice, I guess. I do think that without the church, a lot of people would have less morality than they would otherwise and that would not be a good thing.

But that’s enough from me. I think that beliefs are relative and personal.

Listening to someone bang on about what works for them is like rock explaining to scissors how paper always wins.

In the words of Fleetwood Mac, you can go your own way (go your own way).

— 
Related post
God: Complex
Jesus Christ - Annual Employee Performance Review
The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit
For God’s Sake

You know how some black men call each other nigger?

I don’t have a problem with this, and I wouldn’t be entitled to an opinion on it either way, since I am a middle-class English white guy, whose only oppression is self-inflicted.

But I can understand it’s a term of endearment that reclaims an insulte inflicted upon black people, so it’s defiant. I get that.

What I’d like to do is live somewhere in the world where English people have been treated unfairly and then call my fellow countrymen “Limey”.

“What’s up, Limey?”

As an affectionate jibe, I would use it in a light moment of mocking reproach:

“Limey, please.”

Of course, if anyone who wasn’t English called me Limey, that would be totally out of order. Me and my home(count)ies would step up in their face and mumble something about it not being cricket and later write some strongly worded emails protesting the term.

—
Related post
Rudyard Says The N Word

It’s blogday today, 8 October, and it’s hard to think that it’s three years since I started this site. 

Thank you for reading this over the last year. It means a lot to me that you do.

Three years, though. I mean that’s crazy. The world’s changed in three years. Back then, 8 October was a Friday. Swear to god. I mean, that’s just off the scale crazy.

As well as getting me writing every day, I am as dumbfounded as I am humbled by your repeated custom. And also proud. And also about the nature of reading. I mean truly reading. Real reading is a willingness to let the writer change you.

So I wanted to say thanks for sticking sweet right here.

Live well, good health, stand strong and never let your worries get you down.

Cliff

—
On this day
2006
2005
2004

I don’t really get the whole thing about organised religion. It’s not the church stuff that I mind so much, but I’m put off by the organised part.

I tried it once, but I couldn’t get it to sync with my phone, so I just gave up. I might still have the cables somewhere.

Maybe someone will bring out a Facebook plugin or an RSS feed. Then I might be on board. Perhaps it could work with my Outlook calender.

The kind of religion that suits me if the one with post-it notes stuck on fridges and crap I should have done ages ago. I’d have a lot of time for a church that goes: “Holy fuck! - Is it Sunday already? Quick - where do we keep the hats? Jesus.”

If this song doesn’t capture one of the greatest vocal performances in the history of popular music then what are any of us really doing?

In terms of delivering a great frontman performance, Louis Prima read the back of the box (once), threw it away, fixed a delivish twinkle in his eye and said through a steely grin: “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Confessional. Self-effacing. Self-assured. Riding the horn solos like a wild fuck, building like an empire, then crushing all before it. The Romans should have done it like this.

The time is April 1956. The place is the Capitol Records Tower, which opened earlier that month.

It starts off like a piano bar number, a little rye, perhaps a shade Noel Coward.

The snare comes in after the second verse. It’s a great clean hard snare sound, not before and even then only halfway through the first chorus.

What were they thinking???

It’s a great clean, hard snare sound, almost like a military, deep marching band snare.

But here it comes. Bridge.

And I’ll sing her - sweet love songs…

And it draws no conclusions.

She will only be…

It shouldn’t work.

Bab de bo ze bad. Diddlybap.

Oh and it’s nobody. Cares for me there’s nobody cares for me.

Say again?

“Cares for me there’s“ ??

It shouldn’t work. But oh god how it does.

He shouts through the horn solo. “Let him blow! Let him blow!” The tenor sax is wailing and he’s backing off like anything could happen.

Where in the rules, right?

This is followed by the greatest trombone solo ever recorded. That’s James “Red” Blount.

Then it holds the same note for the staccatos while the sax changes notes.

Scat singing and chorus and (who’s with me?!) we’re going all in this time.

Baby. Honey. Sugar. Darling. I. Ain’t. Got. Nobody.

Keep up, and a straight face.

Gergious gergious.

Now wrap it up.

And that.

Is how.

It’s done.

Listen: Louis Prima - Just A Gigolo / I Ain’t Got Nobody

So I’ve been reading about the American Civil War, and one thing that strikes me is how people talked.

In fact, it’s a common thing I notice that up to a point, that further back you go, the more eloquent people talk. Generally. OK, it’s not a great theory, but stick with me. Remember that its mostly not the opinion that matters, but who has it.

Consider Stonewall Jackson’s last words:

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

That’s pretty eloquent. And these guys, though generals, were pretty rough-hewn soldiers.

General Lee didn’t care much for novels and plays. He thought they “weakened the mind”. And yet he gave us yesterday’s quote, which is some pretty fine talking.

Considering my dying words will probably be something like:

Arrghhhhhhh!!!!! My FUCKING leg!!!!!!!!! Oh god, it hurts like a bastard!!!

…I still flatter myself to have a way or two with words, a point upon which you could choose to agree if your tastes run that way.

But I listen to some young people today and it’s like they are taking ages to say something really stupid. Like this. Or this. Or this.

Maybe in fifteen years time people will consider the language I use to be high-faluting. Even the phrase high-faluting is now high-faluting. In fact, there isn’t even a modern equivalent criticism of eloquence. That’s how bad things are.

I know I say it over and over, and feel free to shoot me down, but have a good weekend. I can picture the end of summer like it’s already a memory, so enjoy some time for yourself.

So have a great one. OK. Good stuff. No definitely. OK. Brilliant. All right. Yep. Bye. Bye, yeah. Yeah. Drinks, whatever. Great. Sounds awesome. All right then. Bye. Bye.

Jesus christ.

What? Hello? No, no - what? Yeah, no, something else. This guy here, no not you. Look, I better -no. Anyway. Take care. Talk to you later. Byeeeeeee.

-click-

—
Related posts
My Theories, Part One: Age
My Theories, Part Two: Accents

OK. It’s 11:53pm and I’ve promised to post every day, so I’m putting this here.

Lame.

Thing is, I drive myself pretty hard. I set out to write a post every day and that’s what I’m going to do. 11:54.

General Lee said: “Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less.”

There are worse things to live by.

11:55

I don’t know why I post every day, but I said I would, so I do. I don’t really know what good it brings, but it’s something I set out to do. Also, if I tell you I’m going to do something, then I’m more likely to stick with it. It’s a pride thing - it’s how I gave up smoking.

Monday will mark three years exactly since I started this blog so it seems a shame to give up now. The fact that tomorrow’s post is already written is neither here nor there, because right now, today is all that matters.

11:56

I don’t even really know why I’m writing this now apart from the fact that I know you probably won’t read this until morning. That aside, I think that writing in my blog about writing my blog is pretty boring in itself.

But there you have it.

If you do enjoy reading this site, and I know I don’t say this a lot, but feel free to send a link round on Monday. Pass it around, by all means.

I read a few really good blogs which enrich my day and I wouldn’t have known about them if someone hadn’t told me.

Give a friend the gift of This Is This

For just no pence, you can make a difference.

Now I feel really stupid. But you know, you’re reading this and if you enjoy it, then why not, right?

There is a guy I know. Let’s call him Jeff. Jeff Clones. Actually, he’s imaginary. And he never blogs about work, and besides which imaginary people are not allowed to work in the UK. True. Thatcher.

But if he did work for a company, I imagine he’d have all kinds of funny conversations in the office, especially if the business was going through hard times and they were all looking for jobs.

Colleague: Here’s a job for you Jeff. “Editor, Cross-stitch and Needlepoint Monthly.”

Jeff: No way. Never again.

Colleagues: (laughing)

Jeff: Those mother fuckers.

Back to me though, now. I have become just a leeetle bit obsessed with the American Civil War.

OK, not the war as such, but the Battle of Gettysburg. This is because I’m reading a book called The Killer Angels and it is the best book about war I have ever read. I know books are supposed to transport you to other areas, but this has done completely done it.

It’s told from the point of view of the officers, so it keeps switching between Lee, Longstreet, Chamberlain, Buford and them, but in chronolgical order. So what you get is the story through the eyes of a General praying for forgiveness as he sends his men to attack heavily fortified ground, then the chapter ends. The next chapter starts from the vantage point of a Colonel defending that position as the others raid it.

Can I put it down? Can I fuck. Sorry, that was rude. May I fuck.

The man who wrote it got the dialogue where possible from letters and memoirs and stayed faithful to official records and historical accounts, so it reads like a novel but it’s obscenely good and accurate. If anyone wants it when I’m done, all you have to do is answer the question in the competition you can enter at the end of this post.

…

Which General lead the Confederate Army during the Battle of Gettysburg?

Is the answer:

1. K Fed
2. General Lee
3. Boss Hogg

So that question again is which General lead the Confederate Army during the Battle of Gettysburg?

Good luck.

Comments cost 79p and remember to ask the permission of the person who makes computers.

- an historical comedie

Trondheim - 1017

Sigrid: Morning Inga.

Inga: Morning Sigrid - how you making?

Sigrid: Not bad.

Inga: Is he home?

Sigrid: He is. But he says he’s going out again next Friday. Finland this time.

Inga: Finland? What for?

Sigrid: Some longboat exposition. I say: “You’ve got one longboat already, what do you want with another one?” He says: “These are different.”

Inga: Right.

Sigrid: He says something about oar locks and I just glaze over. It’s long and it’s a boat, that’s all I know. And where are we going to put it?

Inga: My Dave’s the same.

Sigrid: Of course this means more raids.

Inga: Uh oh.

Sigrid: I’m sick of it, Inga. Not just the raping and pillaging, but the travelling. He was gone three months last time.

Inga: Is that the one Gunter died on?

Sigrid: No that was the one before that.

Inga: How are the other kids?

Sigrid: OK. Last time Greenland, before that it was Iceland. Now he wants to go even further.

Inga: Further? He’ll fall off, won’t he?

Sigrid: Not according to Leif Ericson.

Inga: Oh him.

Sigrid: Sorry, I know you had a thing once.

Inga: That’s OK.

Sigrid: I’m like: “There’s nothing there!”

Inga: Right.

Sigrid: He goes: “Not according to Leif, there isn’t. Leif says there’s another country.” But there isn’t another country.

There was an awkward silence. Then Inga ventured

Inga: You should have married Fernando.

Sigrid: My Nanny. He would have gone to the end of the Earth for me. And no further.

Inga: Sigh. You guys were good.

Sigrid: “Leif says they have potatoes. Leif says I need a new longboat.”

Inga: Try talking to him.

Sigrid: I have. He just tows the company line. “I was like this when you met me, Sigrid,” he says, ” ‘Invade, raid and trade.’ You knew how it was.”

Inga: And you can’t go with him? Like the trip to York?

Sigrid: Not really. I don’t like the cold.

Inga: You should really call Fernando.

Sigrid: I may do.

Inga: Listen, I better go. The shark meat needs digging up and you know how he gets…

Sigrid: OK babes, take care.

We’re going to break things down for you now a little bit; change the tempo with this next one. This is called Forchette.

It’s a song about what greed does to good people. It’s based loosely around the invention of the spork, the hybrid eating utensil which has made millions of lives easier, revolutionising eating on the go.

Not much was known about the invention of this implement. It’s actually French in origin, invented by a couple in happier -well, you’ll see. 

Anyway, I wrote this so that unsung heroes of the spork can finally be sung. By you.

Click the picture to see the chords and lyrics and have a go yourself if you play an instrument. It’s in 4/4 with kind of a blues-rock feel to it, but if you want to make any changes, then that’s cool. Whatever works best for you, man. It’s all about the music.

View the song
Download the sheet music