2018: Sans Contrefacon: Myleene Parker

Ha! See what I did there! Anyhoo…. when I was very young I used to go for long walks on my own. I remember one epic from Parkhead to the Glasgow Art Gallery, I must have been around 10? (See above!) I loved going to the gallery because they had a dinosaur in the front hall and a cut-away model of an ocean liner which was always surrounded by gawping kids. (The only art I can recall was Dali’s “Christ of St John on the cross” which hung in a stairway, not sure it’s there anymore). I can still remember the route now and it is around 5.5miles. (I may save it on Komoot, just because…) Tollcross Road, Duke Street, George Street, Sauchiehall Street, Kelvingrove. (I may have actually gone further north along Great Western Road and down Byres Road but you know I’m getting on a bit and cannae remember..) A long way for a 10 year old to walk, I think I even walked back along Argyle Street and London Road. I can actually remember sitting on the wall outside the gallery feeling a bit lost and lonely. What were my parents thinking? Do kids still do this sort of thing now?

I wish I could remember more about being a boy? Myleene probably doesn’t even though…

Say mama, why am I not a boy? 

Since one has to choose, with soft words I can say it 
Without forgery I am a boy 
And for an empire, I do not want to undress 
Since without forgery I am a boy 

And therein lies the rub, the original is in French, and it’s much better. And my French, though poor, is good enough to know that “without forgery” is a pretty poor translation of “sans contrefacon”! Myleene is the French Madonna or, maybe, Kylie and it’s a pretty safe bet that is she were singing this in English I probably wouldn’t give it a second listen! Although it is a good tune and, well, see comments about Lana del Rey above!

But, I was a boy and too young and naive to know there was any other way to be. My first flame sitting alongside me here (Nan Quinn… remember? Do try and keep up at the back!) was an early indication that I was, er, straight, though I was unaware there were any other options at the time! I grew up too fast while wasting time but never quite found my future in the fire escape trade!

So, a 23 year old boy it is; a walker, a procrastinator, a dilletante, an introvert, a listener, a writer of poor prose, taker of indulgent pictures.

A boy… who even struggles counting up to 60!

 

2017: Video Games: Lana del Rey

So, about those circuses…. I’m rubbish at video games. I was probably born about 5 years too early to be really good at them even though I have been around since the early years of pong! (Great game! Plugged in to the back of your, if you were lucky!, colour TV,  2 controllers that were pretty flimsy and you played tennis with two white paddles on a black background! Probably used about 500 bytes of RAM!) Over the years I have indulged of course but have never reached the mastery necessary to win a couple of millions dollars in Atlantic City. (Still haven’t played fortnite!). As noted previously my first gaming crush was Doom and then, pretty soon after that, Quake and Duke Nukem! (Nothing had ever quite reached the pleasure of the Duke growling “come get some!” and then going into a loo for a wee! Games nowadays! Pah!) Over the years I’ve, as with most things, not been an early adopter of the latest game, console etc, partly financial, partly an inbuilt marketing resistance and partly my well honed powers of procrastination!

Since the boys came along and started getting into games I have taken less and less interest. Mainly because whenever I played against them they were always several levels above me and would always whupp my ass! I’ve played mainly driving games and FPS, I like to try other games but get bored very quickly once I have seen the pretty graphics for a while and worked out how the game works. My gaming interest can easily be summed up by the fact that I would be unlikely to ignore the charms of the lovely Miss del Rey in favour of playing video games:

I’m in his favorite sun dress
Watching me get undressed take that body downtown

I say you the bestest
Lean in for a big kiss put his favorite perfume on

Go play your video game

Hmm, now let me think? I do like this song, I know Lana is probably not the most technically gifted of singers and there’s probably a lot of Pro-tools trickery going on here but I do like her voice. I like the video as well which is quite apt given the title. It serves to prove that my inbuilt marketing resistance noted above is not perfect and, in common with, oh around 50% of the planets population, I am not impervious to the sales potential of a pretty girl!

I still have a console of course (two actually, XBox and PS4). I have lots of games which I try briefly but soon tire off. The consoles rarely get used. I feel guilty playing games when I could be doing other stuff! I shouldn’t of course but, well, you know, mortal coil and all that! In the winter I cycle indoors using Zwift, that’s the best of both worlds!

2016: The First Attack: The Proclaimers

So while we’re on the Scottish theme let’s do this shall we? (I really must get around to doing that Scottish playlist!) The second pair of Scottish Reid brothers come from Leith (a quaint harbour town on the Firth of Forth m’lud.) And, initially at least, made simple passionate songs with declamatory vocals and acoustic guitar backing. Good stuff, and they sing in Scottish accents! Many good songs but this has always been my favourite, see I am an old romantic, I keep telling people but they won’t listen! (Why won’t they listen?)

Since I started being impressed

By the things that move me 

All the treasures that I missed

Came back to stand around me

And as I curse the wasted time

Good words, sadly for the atheist in me I suspect there’s something about God in this ‘ere song but, as I’ve said, I’m rubbish at interpretation so there might not be. I always miss things in lyrics after all I still don’t know if it’s “Parker” or “Farmer” or “oooh we’ll remember him” or “Who will remember him”? I think I prefer the sound of words to the actual meaning of words, see Yes, Sigur Ros and Cocteaus as mentioned above. It’s a cop out. My lack of education and lack of well defined critical facilities mean that it’s easier for me to hide behind the veneer of stream of consciousness  rather than having to work out some meaning. Also my prejudices get more pronounced as I get older. Yesterday I saw a stunning girl walking by, then noticed she had a large tattoo covering her shoulder- bang! no longer stunning! The Proclaimers are great and come across as nice, intelligent guys then they say “God”, or indeed “the chief” and, well, sorry….

I like poetry but it’s better heard than read. Reading takes work and, well, you know. That’s probably also why I’d rather see a pretty picture of a tree than read about “a host of golden daffodils”. I’ve seen many photo essays over the years where I can glean the meaning far clearer than I would in any poem or song…. Paints a thousand words and all that! Sadly, like most people nowadays,I don’t read much anymore. I’m off today, in the past I would spend at least part of my days off in the library and would return with arms full* of books. I still do of course, I’m not a philistine, but the quantity is certainly less than before and I definitely read fewer actual books. I try to avoid the lure of the screen but it is so difficult. The TDF has just finished and while I only watched a couple of stages live, I recorded them all and, even with some severe editing, that was 5hrs a day screen time for 21 days, and that’s just cycling! Factor in some football and some foreign crime dramas and it is little wonder I read so little. Every so often I have a digital detox but, as I think I may have noted before, this is becoming more and more difficult to do… but I need to give it a go again and go all analogue for a month! Yay!, books, paper and pen, easy-peasy! (Still need music though! Oh and cycling! And…)

*  I know this is all badly written nonsense but I do struggle sometimes. I did with this. Is it “arms full”, “armfull” or “armful”? I suspect it’s the latter but I plumped for the first version – I have not lost too much sleep to this!!  

2015: The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn: The Pogues

..people don’t want to know your dreams though. As meaningful as it seems to me, as dark, as poignant, as weird they are, after all, garbled tweets from your subconscious, as unlikely to bear analysis as most tweets are from the truth. So, staying with an ex-boss in a run down apartment in the Holy Loch, walking to the waters edge to traverse Arthurs Seat, not having my walking boots, just my white shoes. In a hurry, my Tom Cruise running. And awaken and laugh at tales of horses, Austrian heads of languages and of eggs in the bath. To work by bike, where was this energy on Sunday? Of old people you want to protect who don’t want protection. And girls in red dresses, the one turning heads as she glides past the other meriting not even a glance. “It’s not all just about money and family you know”. And friends in Manchester seeking help, I’ll do what I can but why the haste? Kick back and enjoy the time before entering the cogs of the machine once more. But my advice, often sought, is seldom heeded. So, they appeared on stage in smart suits for the opening bars and lines:

“McCormack and Richard Tauber were singing by the bed,

there’s a glass of punch below your feet,

And an angel at your head”…

…and, bang!, the suits were off and the dancing began. Jigs can do this as I’ve said many times before I suspect I am far more Celtic than I like to think! And Shane is, I think, still going, still with a whisky in hand that Celtic urge to self-destruct through the bottle still to the fore and we saw them twice in various Hammersmiths the second time a farewell of sorts standing by the speakers, the passion of the show dulled by the imminent parting, But the parting was short-lived and all went well. And the band played on with diminishing results and Shane’s craft and voice did sadly depart but he has the songs and Victoria. So my Celtic needs are fulfilled by King Creosote, Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat. And Aidan makes me think of Bill.. What mad schemes is he concocting now? Choirs? Drives? Burning another million pounds? Dead sheep? Or is he milking the royalties and also “living in a house, a very big house, in the country?” We all become old. Everything gets older. Rage, rage etc etc. No Eden, we need the outliers, the rebels, we need the ones who rage against the dying of the light and are not content with the “very big house in the country” but “oh no, not me, I never lost control”. I’m too comfortable in my suburban life, my meals, my family, my friends, the occasional walk and cycle, a fix of culture now and again. The bread and the circuses. Yes I get angry at Boris and Nigel but what’s a boy to do? My lethargy and procrastination will always win out. I’d like to think of myself as being the first on the barricades but I’m no leader and so reluctant to be led, to be seduced by the syrupy words of deception. We are all individuals! We can think for ourselves, we don’t have to follow anyone. And Shane probably follows, but I don’t know who that might be?

2014: The Copper Top: Bill Wells/Aidan Moffat


I work in a bank. Strange on so many levels but mainly because I have no real interest in money. Of course I’d like some more please (wouldn’t everyone!) But I’ve never gone out of my way to get any more or to make what little I have go any further. I think I have that strange Presbyterian guilt about talking about money and of finding the whole subject slightly seedy. There are probably some fairly deep social reasons for this but being “relatively” poor for most of my life I think I use my disinterest as a shield to protect me from the fact that I haven’t got any. Of course that “relatively poor” says a lot. On a global scale I’m certainly more well off than most, I live a fairly comfortable life in one of richest countries of the world so, well you know, #firstworldproblems and all that.
I’ve just dealt with a customer who has been scammed out of £4500, a big loss to be sure but I’m not sure that she is going to let the loss destroy her! (Hopefully she’ll get it back!) I’ve never had enough money to lose on a large scale anyway, even small loses piss me off. This partly explains why I don’t spend much, I want to avoid the guilt when the initial excitement of the purchase passes, which it always does. All of this does beg the question why I continue to work in a bank? I have no interest in money, my customer service skills are very poor and TSOTST are hardly the most progressive employers on the planet. It says much for my lack of ambition and laziness that I’m still here after so many years. There are so many threads that I am reluctant to pull at, my “career” is one of them. Being uneductated, unskilled, untrained I have worked in service industries for most of my life. I do occasionally beat myself up a bit for not having done something more worthwhile with the working hours I’ve had but hey, I’m doing what most people do. How many people actually work in a job they really enjoy? Very few of us. My regret is not so much that I have essentially worked 40-odd years to line someone else’s pocket but that I have not done anything in that time worthy of note or remembrance. Hey-ho, bread and circuses and all that!
Oh well, this is because I’ve just been listening to this year’s track, a lament taken from the excellent “Everything’s getting older” album. If I was to record an album I fancy I would sound a little like Aidan Moffat (the boy from the Arab Strap!). Probably wouldn’t of course but I am always slightly taken aback by how Scottish I sound on recordings. To real Scots I suppose I sound like a sassenach but presumably to people around hereabouts I do sound slightly alien! (Perhaps Nigel should look at having me deported!) Strangely enough, given my liking for Scottish bands generally, I have never listened to the Arab Strap. I should make more an effort, I spend £10 a month on having access to a music library of several million songs yet I always end up listening to the same stuff, same bands, same playlists. Lazy.

2013: The Wild Ones: Suede

When I was a child I was given a gun. Not a proper one of course, I doubt there actually were any guns in Scotland in the early 60s. This was a raygun which made a ratcheting sound and flew sparks when you pulled the trigger. I loved it! My parents wouldn’t let me out with it for ages because they were afraid I would lose it. Of course I wouldn’t! When finally they relented I was thrilled and happily walked along the banks of the Clyde zapping various aliens. Then, of course, I was mugged and my pride and joy was stolen! I don’t think I’ve ever got over the lose. I’m still looking for the bastards who stole it! One day I shall have my revenge! My parents were angry of course but they could see how upset I was so they didn’t give me too hard a time. I didn’t have many toys, when I grew up it was pretty much a choice between toys or food and, well you know….

We did have a Scalextrik once but I think we never got much use from it because a) it was quite tricky to control the cars and b) the transformer kept burning out! Why we didn’t get a replacement I’ll never know, they only cost £3.10 (Ha!). We made our own racing games after that with paper and pencil, folded up bits of paper with the drivers name on it and a pair of dice! (My favourite was Jacky Ixcx (?)) How the long winters nights just flew by! Now kids with their fancy consoles can win millions of dollars playing Fortnite but is it as much fun? (“Kids of today they don’t know they’re born…”, “When I were a lad…”, “Chateau de Chasselas…” etc, etc)

As I didn’t get much in the way of toys when I was young I have a tendency to over-indulge in gadgets now that I am older. I have got a shelf in the study with various cameras I have collected over the years. None get used because phones do all that now. On a daily basis I use two phones, a tablet, a laptop, a kindle, a cycling computer, a cadence sensor. I do, occasionally, switch off from the grid but sadly I think my urge to “play” with something is probably hot-wired in me!

Suede would have none of this of course. I very much suspect their idea of playing is very different from mine. They always came across as slightly sleazy and their toys where unlikely to be cadence sensors! (I bet Kraftwerk have got cadence sensors!) Mind you, Suede were from the suburbs themselves and amidst all the sleaze like Animal Nitrate they would occasionally sing about Picnics by the motorway et al. Brett is a great singer and I have many favourites of theirs, the Wild Ones is one.

And as I open the blinds in my mind I’m believing that you could stay
And oh if you stay I’ll chase the rain blown fields away
We’ll shine like the morning and sin in the sun
Oh if you stay, we’ll be the wild ones running with the dogs today…

Holidays are very much the suburban thing but, as lovely as this is, I’m not sure I have ever shined in the morning!

2012: For Emily whenever I may find her: Simon And Garfunkel

I suppose I am a romantic. A romantic in the sad Werther way not in the St Valentines way. I dream and drift, and wallow in my fantasies about beauty forever just out of reach. This song tells the tale well.

“What a dream I had,

Pressed in organdy

Clothed in crinoline

Of smoky burgundy

Softer than the rain…”

Art Garfunkel sings this beautifully and it is probably the most romantic song in here. I knew an Emily once. I knew her during my lonely Hanwell days. We worked together briefly at Sainsbury’s in Ealing and I suppose I did fancy her for a while. We’d get the bus home to Hanwell and I think she liked me in a “friend” sort of way. (Most women I know like me in a “friend” sort of way!) Apparently, her boyfriend was the drummer with Saxon, a fairly successful HM band from oop North, but I was never aware of him being around much. We didn’t really keep in touch, a pattern that was to repeat itself a lot over the years to come. Whilst I was living in Hanwell my shyness was fairly crippling and I was far too scared to make any sort of romantic overtures to her. My only relationship of any sort before my dearly beloved was with a girl called Pauline from the shoe shop opposite. We flirted across the street from second floor windows for weeks. Finally myself and one of my friends “Ian” from Sainsburys plucked up the courage to ask Pauline and a friend of hers for a date. Score. Pauline was much the prettier of the two and I felt quite pleased that I got the good-looking one of the two. (Mind you, Ian was no great catch although he did have a car!)

I think we went to the cinema on a joint date, which, I think, went well. Pauline and I met up a few times after that but, after a disastrous night where I spent a platonic night with her listening to (whisper it!) the Bay City Rollers, we never saw each other again. After a few angst ridden months I promptly fell in love with my very own Emily.

Simon and Garfunkel are another one of these Marmite acts: Paul Simon is a great songwriter but his best stuff was always with Garfunkel and Art’s sweet voice didn’t quite fit the scene in the sixties and seventies. When they both went solo the magic was gone though and I think they grow to dislike each other intently. Funny that. Nirvana grew to hate playing “Smells like teen spirit” and before Kurts untimely “demise” they refused to play it at gigs, which doubtless pissed off their fans most of whom probably were there for one song! I suppose when you live in each others pocket or play the same song over and over it can be very easy to grow to detest something!

2011 The Battle of Evermore: Led Zeppelin

Now, this one I did get right! It says a lot for the type of person I am that my favourite Zeppelin song is one of their quieter ones. It also hearkens back to another foible I have mentioned previously; my contrariness in going for the least obvious choice. This is the 3rd track from Led Zeppelin IV and is the one immediately preceding Stairway to Heaven. Stairway is great of course but I’ve always preferred the pastoral feel of this one, Stairway starts similar but turns into a rock maelstrom halfway through and, while that’s fine, I’ll stick with Sandy Denny thanks. Ah yes, Sandy Denny. Uncredited on the album of course, (Zeppelin had some strange seventies stuff going on where they couldn’t even put the artists names on the record), but somehow I knew it was her. I had my usual adolescent argument with the afore-mentioned Chris Hogg about this one as well, but, as I say, I got this one right.

I’m pretty sure when I went out with the likes of Chris, Peter, Richard etc we did discuss other things other than the minutue of pop records but I’m not entirely sure what. These were probably my last proper male friends. All came to our wedding, but we lost contact pretty quickly after that, girls can do that to you you know. I say pretty quickly but I think it was pretty much immediately. I can’t recall any of my male friends ever visiting us in our first home together in Ealing. I think Cheryl and I were so besotted with each other that we had no time for anyone else. After them? Not so much. I’m pretty hopeless at making friends anyway but I’m even worse with men. I wish I knew why…its partly shyness, lack of confidence, not being a great drinker, finding the whole locker room schtick a bit of a turn off, avoiding team sports and sport generally. Ultimately though, I think I just prefer the company of women. I suppose over the years I have formed a number of very close friendships with women that, in other more confident but less trusting hands than mine, could have developed into full blown affairs. In general though I have been a good boy.

I would, of course, like to catch up with some of these old friends at some point but I doubt I ever will. I suppose you drift apart for a reason. A few years ago (2007 more or less) I did a photo series called “Where are they now”, several (all?) of the protagonists in these pages are featured in the series, I had pretty much lost touch with them all back in 2007, so they have all long gone in 2019! Doubtless I’m not alone in this but I do occasionally wonder about thee old friends, colleagues etc and, in my own self-obsessed way,  wonder if they ever think about me. (Italics mine!)  Introversion does this to you you know. 

2010: This Charming Man: The Smiths

The woman of my dreams described me recently as “a charming man”, which I suppose is a compliment. Sadly it is one of those compliments that doesn’t have the same resonance as “a sexy man” or “a really clever man” but, hey, I’ll take anything that comes my way! Also “woman of my dreams” may be over-egging it a little. The lady in question is one of the few girls I know that turns me to jelly, so to speak, but I guess, like everyone, she too will have her issues. We are none of us perfect. I am in a “happy” long term relationship with the real woman of my dreams which is just as well because, frankly, I’m rubbish with women.

I suspect Morrisey is rubbish with women as well, he certainly seems to be from his lyrics and his general outlook. I’m not even sure he is gay. The Smiths were great and wrote some great tunes but they were very much of their time. Morrisey has released a fair number of solo albums but I lost interest ages ago and, frankly (Mr Shankly?) he does come across as a bit of a dick now. The Smiths were a bit of a marmite band and it was easy to see how people didn’t like them. What they weren’t, of course, was miserable. Johnny Marr was too good a musician to let that happen regardless of the words that Morrisey might use. It used to annoy me that people couldn’t see the humour inherent in just the title of, say, “Heaven knows I’m miserable now!” but, oh well. This Charming Man is one of their earliest songs and one of their best. In fact, if one can’t be bothered listening to their entire back catalogue one could get the whole essence of the Smiths by listening to the opening bars of this and the immortal first line:

                “Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate, will nature make a man of me yet?”

Poetry, yep I know what you’re saying. As always I was a few months late to the party but successfully saw through the hype to the fun to be had! As well as being a few months late to the party I was probably also a couple of decades late as well. The Smiths make archetypal bedsit-rock for lonely teenagers so happily married suburbanites like me weren’t really who the songs were aimed at. But, hey, I’ve always been shy, I’m socially awkward, hate parties and get hideously tongue-tied around pretty girls. It does still bother me a little that in my later years I still haven’t lost this. Get me in a 1-2-1 and I can happily converse and be relaxed talking about anything but take me out of this setting and I fall to pieces. The “woman of my dreams” alluded to above and I have had quite a few varied conversations, and should we ever have a proper face to face I’m pretty sure I would not turn too much into a quivering jelly. Pretty sure. Probably. Maybe.

(Picture note: couldn’t find any desolate hillsides in Surrey!)

2009: The Voice: Ultravox

Many years ago Cheryl and I had a cycling holiday in Holland and Belgium. It was great and we simply pitched up on a ferry into Vlissingen and cycled until we found somewhere to stay. Looking back I wonder how we planned this in pre-internet days? How did we know where to stay, where to go? I presume we had maps and guidebooks but I can’t for the life of me remember. We stayed mainly in hostels, some good, some bad but, in the main, had a great time. Well I did, Cheryl was recovering from an op at the time and I think she’d have preferred lying on a sunbed somewhere. Such are the compromises we make! Anyway, towards the end of the holiday we ran out of steam a bit and decided to cop out and take the train from Ghent to Bruges. This was quite glamourous and I remember being impressed about how modern the train station was compared to the tat we had at home. They even had large screen TVs playing music videos! One of these was “the Voice” by Ultravox, which, as well as being a great video, was one of my favourite songs at the time. I was comforted hearing it as it reminded me of home but also because it has a European feel which made me feel part of the whole European family.

Sadly, those days seem to be passing us by now. I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider in Europe. There are many reasons for this, partly linguistic, partly geographical, partly political and so on. However as we’ve now voted to leave the EU I feel these divisions will only increase. I love Europe and feel no real need to travel anywhere else in the world as, culturally and geographically, it fulfils all my needs. I am sad that we have voted to leave but sadder still that our European cousins are, understandably enough, probably glad to see the back of us.

The Voice is lifted from Rage in Eden, still after all these years one of my favourite albums. Although Ultravox were popular in their day they were never trendy. They were briefly when they were Ultravox! but when John Foxx left he took the exclamation mark with him, Midge Ure joined and the Euro-Electro hits started! They were pilloried by the music press then, (I think they liked the exclamation mark?) but I for one thought they were much better than the old version. Much of the mid-eighties electro-pop hasn’t aged well but I still have a soft spot for Ultravox and OMD which, thankfully, will never age. Something else I have rarely mentioned in this tome is the album cover. Album cover design has declined rapidly since the advent of the CD and digital streaming but I still like a nice album cover. Rage in Eden is one of my favourites, cool sub-Bauhaus graphic design which, unlike Roger Dean who I mentioned previously, matches the music perfectly. (Ultravox! first album was produced by Eno, I still prefer the Conny Plank stuff myself!)