...ruffles...

We were recently asked to DJ at a wedding but the bride and groom wanted to know what kind of music we would play. As it happened, I had a mix on CD, which I had put together for Penny and Mike’s wedding. The CD put the kibosh on the gig for the following reason; the mix was, apparently, too modern. It wasn’t a mix of Gabber Jungle Trance (vocal or dub), it had 8 number 1’s and not one record that failed to break the top 10. Nor was it particularly ‘modern’ the average record was six years old.

It seems they wanted 60’s and 70’s stuff, which is, by my calculations 30-40 years old. Put into context, if my parents listened to 40-year-old music at their wedding reception, they’d be dancing to the Charleston, and I’ve checked, they didn’t.

Last night we went to see the Ralph Little Show recorded for the BBC. No real reason other than it’s a kind of fun thing to do. As we walked into the Auditorium they were playing Parklife by Blur, followed by a stream of mid nineties Britpop classics. McCalmont and Butler, a duo whose brief peak was at least four years ago, played out the show. Ralph Little’s dire questioning of Rocket Ronnie O’Sullivan asking how “Mad” things were, or, fawning over Ronny O’Sullivan’s Loaded style laddism, very 1997.

When we got home, the Stereophonics were on telly, and the drummer looked like he was some really bad 70’s rock cliché. As opposed to a really bad 21st Century rock cliché.

What I’m saying is that is the world moving too quickly for people? It seems to me that people began falling off the treadmill in about 1995 unable to keep up with changing music and fashion trends. It’s not my age, Ralph Little can only be 22-23 yet ever he is stuck in 1994. Is it not time that we stopped modernising for a bit to let us all catch up. Give me six months to master Crash Bandicoot on the Playstation, then I’ll buy a Playstation 2.... I'm coming, I'm coming.

Like hiking in the hills, modernisers should sit on a rock with their sandwiches and enjoy the view, whilst others’ catch up. Me, I’m stuck around 1998 and I admit I enjoy it, maybe I don’t want to modernise, and therefore maybe none of us do. Maybe it’s just time to stop.

Yep, let's stop being modern.

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Labels: General me

I'm not ripping up any anthropological trees by saying that Americans are fat. They are a race of monstrously obese people, and whilst as a visitor it is fun to gasp at the portions, indulge a little and laugh at the backsides, it is not an understatement to say the obsession is killing America.

But food isn't America's pastime, Baseball is, it's a charmingly archaic sport apparently untouched by the ugly corporate monster. That's how it feels at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Redsox and the oldest ballpark in America. The game is a series of time honoured and wholesome rituals. Boys in their late teens dress in Red Sox Uniforms, complete with balls, bats and gloves . Each game begins with a ceremonial first pitch from some esteemed guest and is followed by the gratingly patriotic singing of the national anthem. The preamble is completed when a small brat announces...

"LET'S PLAY BALL"

Even during the game the rituals keep coming - Christ, in the 7th innings everyone stands up for The Stretch and sings a song accompanied by a live organist. This is a sport that still negotiates player's wages through trade unions. It's like it's been ring fenced off from the modern world and that America needs it in order to take a break from rampant modernisation once in a while.

It took me three pitches to realise we'd started - and I was concentrating. The other 31,998 spent the first five innings buying and consuming a bewildering variety of concessions from wandering hawkers. So complicit was the consumption of Crackerjack, hot dogs, peanuts, cotton candy and Coke at $4 a bottle that it is easy to consider baseball as less of a sport and more an imaginative way of consuming junk food.

During this opening feast the Red Sox players minds' were clearly on what The Sausage King was selling outside as the Texas Rangers raced to a 3-0 lead. The crowd greeted this with a general disinterest, probably because they had spied a lemon slush seller making their way up the terrace. The only acknowledgement of the game was when a fly ball hurtled into the crowd and everyone scrambled to grab the ball. The winner held it aloft and everyone around applauded politely before returning to their food.

In the 6th the Sox pulled one back, and in the 7th they tied the game up at 3... or made it 3-3. And then, at this point, as it approached it's exciting climax, with the game balanced finely between the resurgent Sox and the dominant but wilting Texans... people started going home. Perhaps through indigestion, or maybe because people wanted to avoid the rush at Wendy Burger, but about 1/3 of the crowd chose to forgo the final two innings, in which Boston notched 2 more runs for an exciting victory. Weird.

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Labels: Sport

A friend who I seldom see anymore has a rule: when somebody calls him from another room he doesn't answer because he thinks the caller is being lazy. I like this rule, it's a principle in practice. I'd love to think I'm as assertive with my principles, so when Emma phones me up whilst I'm ambling down Oxford Street looking for a suit for Penny's wedding and asks me to get a pint of milk from the Tesco 45 miles from where I stand, and not 150 yards from her, why do I do it?

Emma is on school holiday, she gets a lot of holiday a year. If I put this to her, she says that a. she deserves it and b. what is she supposed to do? teach an empty classroom? My answer to this is a. yes she does, she works exceptionally hard and is very good at her job, I want her to have a nice time on holiday and b. no of course I don't but I would like her to do a few house chores as well as shopping, and making grand interior design plans. She tells me how unreasonable I am, and looks at me like I am not a liberal happy go lucky chappy, but a miserable sexist misogynist who doesn't want a girlfriend but a slave. Then I feel bad and travel 45 miles to get a pint of milk, but consider this...

Emma works approximately 1290 hours a year, and has 390 hours of holiday, she therefore needs to work 3.3 hours for an hour of holiday. I work 1680 contracted hours a year, and have 154 hours holiday, I have to work 15.3 hours for an hour of holiday. Emma justifies her 390 hours holiday by saying that the extra hours she puts in during term justifies the extra holiday. We can therefore assume she is working, like me, 15.3 hours for every hour of holiday, which nobody sees because it's done at home, for each of the 390 hours of holiday, she works an additional 12 hours outside her contracted time or, an extra 4,680 hours a year. Now if she works 1290 hours a year, or 215 days, that means she's doing 21 hours overtime every day, working 27 hour days. She gets to work by 8am, which means she's working until 11am the next morning. Emma stops working on the previous day three hours after she gets up for the next day! In her career so far she's worked five months more than she's actually lived, in her mind it's Christmas! So where are my presents?

Now, she's not currently wearing Christmas knitwear and singing carols so am I really being unreasonable to ask her to dedicate some of the 13 weeks of holiday to the tedium of chores?

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Labels: General me

I have a theory that I am not a gregarious person because my first primary school, Burnside, was a school opened to cope with kids not able to go to the areas overfull school. I lived miles from most of my friends, so my friendship making skills were hampered by my lack of interaction with people out of school. I was far from a lonely or unhappy child, but I'm sure this had an effect. This kind of pschological analysis deserves me a spot on Big Brother I think.

Despite this I have now got the most fantastic bunch of friends. On Saturday, as an honoury girl at Penny's Hen Weekend, I had the rare opportunity of taking a step back to enjoy some of the friendships I have. I drove away feeling refreshed and full of energy. Centre Parcs creates an unerring sense of Stepford evil as blissed out nuclear middle class families ride around on bikes worshiping in a central glass dome protruding menacingly out of the conifers. You can feel its seductive presence that convinces you that the outside world is a terrifying prospect. I dwelt heavily on the right adjective for the next sentence, but couldn't come up with anything more fitting than lovely. I had a lovely afternoon with a group of lovely people, some are friends I've known for years, some I didn't know at all, but all were lovely.

Saturday night was Paul's 30th in Reading. I've known Paul, Pete, Ian and Richard more than 20 years. They've remained close since school but I've drifted. It's partly my fault, but it's as much to do with circumstance than anything malicious. The debut of Pile of Wank, the band formed for the party was analogous of my position within this group. Whilst the band played on, I stood on at the back watching. When you grow up with someone, as Paul and Pete have, you create a friendship that means you can play "I Will Survive" on wah wah guitar and Kazoo in front of 80 people. When you don't, you cling slightly to the sidelines hoping to get a bit of that inspiration, but it takes very little to cut you adrift. I enjoyed the night, but was left with a sense of melancholy as I dabbled on the margins of the party. I accept this fate, it's the result of my tardiness towards friends, and Burnside school. I will try to do better in the future, but I suspect circumstance will have me again. The band were fantastic, Paul's punk pop baritone Fergal Sharkey Undertones vocal is a demonstration of an untapped talent, Pete's immaculate lead guitar provides a polish that all great bands need, and Richard and Ian's rhythm section is tighter than a g-string on a fat bird. Fantastic.

Sunday I saw the little bag of crying that is Sophie, how can someone who farts so much, pulls the most gruesome of faces and makes the ugliest noises be so cute?

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Labels: Friends

Four years ago we went to 'Skint on Fridays' the London residency of mid-league DJ Norman Cook. We'd been before, and seen Norm play slots at a couple of festivals. We were fans, and, though it's hard to believe now, it was nice to be part of an 'underground'. Norman was about to release a new single, The Rockerfellar Skank. Simon had 30 friends there, including Her, it was a warm spring evening and there were good vibes all round. Norman's set took the roof off, it had everything, Run DMC, Blur, Prodigy, Young MC, Deadly Avenger. He dropped Rockerfellar Skank and during the proposterous break down he stood and grinned with his patented finger waggling in the air. We all stopped and applauded, he then proceded to drop Out Of Space and we all sang along. It was a 'moment'.

If I've had better nights, but I don't remember them. Since then we've seen Norman play Fabric and Brixton Academy and Homelands and, now, Brighton Beach in front of 250,000 people.

The organisers couldn't have predicted a 700% growth on last year's crowds, so there can be no criticism of the fact the sound system was inadequate, nor the way the event stretched the Brighton infrastructure to its limits.

Like The Beatles at Shay Stadium, this wasn't about the music or the performance, which was OK. This was about the defining moment, a higher gear that Norman couldn't have imagined he had. But it was also about the chaos, which was friendly and unthreatening always, the boats in the sea, the police helicopter hovering above the crowds, getting onto the beach and seeing the heat haze distorting the distant stage, it was the enormity of the event and knowing also, that nobody was in control. This wasn't corporately constructed, you didn't go down there thinking that you were going to be part of history, like attending a royal funeral, it was an exciting accident, you had no idea how it would turn out. Because it was so far out of my sphere of normalcy, I now can't believe I was there, it was superbly exciting.

Despite all the chaos, we were eased through without a care, we got steak and chips in the Laines, and got to the beach about an hour before he went on. We missed Midfield General because we were stuck in traffic. What we saw of Diggers was excellent - Leftfield, KLF, er, U2. We could pretty much hear everything and had good-ish views. When they pulled the plug on Norm, we hiked back to the car, and were home by 1am. So whilst the whole place apparently collapsed, we had a rather easy ride.

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Labels: Music

Whilst reading the Oxford United discussion forums on This is United I have found an equally useful licence to have; "I'd Love To Be Proved Wrong". Oxford is owned by Firoz Kassam, he built a stadium against almost insurmountable odds and funded the club for three years, however the club have dropped two divisions in three years. The blame for this slide is regularly placed at Mr Kassam’s door. You see Mr Kassam is planning, apparently, to run the club down and make millions of pounds from (now take your pick here).... professional rugby, a motel, a cinema, or fiendishly cackling whilst wearing a cape tying Penelope Pitstop to some train tacks.

The nightmare scenarios described by the contributors to the forum regularly preclude the phrase 'I'd Love To Be Proved Wrong But'. This licence absolves you from responsibility for what you’re saying. Why would you love to be proved wrong? Wouldn’t you prefer be proved right? Wouldn't it be gratifying to have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve read the situation correctly. "ILTBPW" allows you to sit on both sides of the fence at the same time rather than contribute to something. In footballing terms, it's a licence to moan and not go to games, but leaves the door open for you to return when things get better. This absolution of responsibility is what many Oxford fans want; it gives them the freedom to moan about things that they refuse to take any responsibility for their part in the sorry situation.

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Labels: General me

Some years ago whilst sitting in the gardens of a small Oxfordshire publisher enjoying one of many sunny lunchtimes, my venerable friend Dave aka Rave, an altogether brighter, and more successful chappy than I, but prone to a bit of pisstake began to recieve his daily dose, my particular gambit opened with "Rave, with all due respect..." to which the young raver retorted with, "With all due respect, yeah, a fucking licence to take the piss". Proving fundamentally that three years at Cambridge weren't wasted on him.

It wasn't that I was impressed by Dave's eloquence, but by the identification that "With all due respect" is a particularly useful licence to own. The key to the phrase is, of course, "all due", referring to the fact that respect is pending and that it will be delivered in full. The downfall is that what remains un qauntified is how much respect there is in the first place. It's like going into a pub and asking for a full glass of beer, handing over your money, then the barman pulling out a thimble filled to the brim. The pisstaker, like the barman, retains the knowledge on how much respect, or beer, is about to be given. The pisstakee expects more respect than the pisstaker is likely to give, so when the pisstake is delivered, with the respect still undefined, it is delivered with less respect than the pisstakee ever expected. This works particularly well with more subtle criticism, i.e. "With All Due Respect, I think you may be misguided" really means "The amount of respect I reserve for you equates to wiping shit off my shoe, and from what you've just said, proves you are not only shit off my shoe, but shit off my shoe that is wrong."

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Labels: General me

On Saturday we went on the London Eye for Penny's special birthday treat and, conincidently, a long held Christmas presents from Emma. Each trip is on the Eye is known as a flight, because, Emma claims, 'It's owned by British Airways', which would suggest BA are a little pre-occupied with reminding people they fly planes; no wonder they're losing £40 gazillion a day. This flight concept and the idea that we're going on a big ferris wheel provided the axes for jokes whilst we queued. Simon had forgotten his passport, I wanted to hang my legs over the edge of the carriage and rock it and where were the oily gypsies hanging off the carriages taking your fifty pences? All the while the meeters and greeters smiled, which is to be applauded.

The flight is a curious sensation. Because you are hermatically sealed in a pod it's difficult to get any sense of height because all the elements that make you aware of your surroundings are trapped on the outside. This seperates you from what you're seeing, like in a film, just with a very poor story, but great cinematography. On balance I prefered being trapped inside than feeling the wind in my hair. It's a great thing to do, and like everyone, I now want to go on it during dusk, night, rain, snow and armageddon to get the full effect.

Afterwards we went to All Bar One opposite the Angel tube, they ran out of bitter, which is surely a sackable offence for the bar manager. If anyone knows their name, let's dob them in. The bitter was a rather manky London Pride anyway, but the problem with having to switch to lager for me, is that the next morning I have a hangover and spend the rest of the day feeling headachey, paranoid and maudling. It only takes one lager to do it to me, I should learn I suppose.

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Labels: Friends

For years I've engaged in gentle and harmless sibling rivalry with my sister. Nothing serious, neither of us are competitive enough to be bothered about who is the more able plumber, or who would win in a pole vault competition (me, in both cases by the way). It's just all the normal stuff all kids do, little mickey takes and jokes, mucking around establishing a hierarchy based on some fairly sketchy criteria.

Anyway, all this time, I've sniffed the gentle aroma of victory... I've always been the witty one with the sharp comebacks, and the cooler taste in music (Duran Duran Vs Orbital) whilst she has adopted the endearing, slightly ditzy, girlie persona which makes you a lot of friends, but does jack-all in winning sibling jousting. And then sensing the big win, just as I slap the big double or quits bet onto the table, she only bloody goes and produces a baby. Eclipsing everything I could ever possibly hope to achieve. Not only that, she's coping with motherhood more naturally than she used to cope with going alone to the campsite toilets to brush her teeth on holiday... now how the bloody hell am I supposed to match that?

We saw Sophie on Sunday. She farts alot, but she's amazing.

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Labels: Friends

On Friday I became an uncle for the first time. At about 11pm my sister, after a 23 hour labour that sound like nothing short of butchery, a little Sophie (name: tbc) finally popped out. I don't know the details of the birth, I know Kirsty was due to be induced, but don't know what that involves. I asked Emma's friend Jo, the mother to 9 month old Alice, Emma's goddaughter. She said something about knitting needles and used the word "Vaginal" and I had an involuntary loss of hearing for a while. My mum used words like "Suction", "Epidural", and "Stitches" referring to the labour. I chose not to listen to the detail. None the less, I don't think the induction was needed as things began to happen naturally on Thursday night.

My dad, who, as he approaches retirement is the quickest draw I know on work email, sent through a message on Friday morning saying the baby was due "About lunchtime". Lunchtime passed, and mid-afternoon tea... if you take mid afternoon tea, and past the end of work and on into the night. All the while there was no news. Funnily enough both dad and I independently came up with the same analogy of how that feels. It's like waiting for an Apollo space landing craft to re-enter the atmosphere and regain radio contact with mission control. I was a little more specific choosing Apollo 13 for my analogous reference point, dad chose the whole Apollo space programme and wasn't too discerning about which mission it was most like. Presumably, whilst we dreamt up clever analogies, Kirsty felt like she was passing the whole Apollo space mission, ground crews and all, out between her legs.

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Labels: General me

I thought I'd start a blog on the basis that during quieter moments I've been reading other peoples'. I don't really know where to start so I just thought I'd do what everyone probably does.... put up a test posting.

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Labels: General me