History, bands, piers

History – magnets and bulletproof vests

I've just finished American Smoke, Iain Sinclair's (supposed) look at the Beat Generation writers. It's as much about America as about here. Most of the writers he's concerned with spent time here, or settled here for serious lengths of time, or in the case of Lowry, came to live in Rye, and Ripe, and die here. History, a sense of place, place in time, sticks to Sinclair. It adheres. It's there on every page.

Towards the end of the book he writes about the history of Hastings. He may have a flat in St Leonards, but he lives, and has lived for most of his adult life, in Hackney. Yet he's absorbed, he's somehow taken on the local history of Hastings.

Sinclair absorbs. Something he probably can't help doing. Probably isn't aware he's doing. I must have a non-absorbent exoskeleton. I could live somewhere for years and still not have a clue about the recent, middle, or ancient history of the area. I struggle, generally, to separate history (which, to avoid repeating mistakes, you need to learn from), and baggage (which is entirely undesirable).

Being Teflon-impervious to history does not rule out having an instinct for place. A feeling that being somewhere causes. I knew, somehow, as soon as the family moved to Sutton, that I was bored. Just a few miles north, Mitcham and Tooting were infinitely more interesting. It was only on reading Michael Moorcock's hugely under rated Mother London (it should be on the GCSE English Lit list, definitely on the A level syllabus) that what was instinctively interesting took more shape. Lavender Avenue, where the Kings College playing fields were, before they were sold off and built on, was named for the lavender fields, cultivated by the Romany population. Rocky on the Phipps Bridge estate, where the Bath Tavern became a no-go area in the nineties. While managing betting shops in the area in the late seventies and early eighties, I got a call to take over the South Wimbledon branch in the early afternoon. The regular manager had had to dash off when he received reports that his horse had escaped from its enclosure. Years later the council tried their best. They installed receptions on the ground floor of the high rise blocks. Some had a concierge employed to keep an eye on things. Attending a shut in lift call, we were going up to the top floor motor room, and called the other, working, lift. When it arrived, a man came out. “Hello fellahs” he said, leading away his pony.

Stop off along the south coast, and Brighton is what you'd expect: a city now. Expensive, busy, buzzy, plenty going on. Sussex Cricket in the summer, the Albion in the winter, the new Amex (Tampax) stadium as you head in from the northeast. Restaurants aplenty – good value food at a premium, unless you do some research or just hit lucky. Then some sleepy places, some with a bit of hidden edge. Peacehaven (post-war, peacetime development), Newhaven, (same) Seaford at the top of the Downs, then Eastbourne. Conservative. Of the old, for the old. Bexhill. Spike Milligan's “God's waiting room”, with the De la Warr Pavillion making a comeback as a local music and comedy venue. Someone has decided strip away the staid and conservative approach. The building is post-modern, iconic, and deserves the new and edgy rather than the old and the stodgy. Ladysmith Black Mambazo were fantastic, as were The Decemberists, a band with a number one album in America playing Bexhill. Unbelievable. My Morning Jacket were a noisy blast of fresh air. Lau were just beautiful, and no doubt grateful to Laurent Koscielny for saving his accordion factory. The fact that Elvis Costello (legend – we are not worthy) stopped off at the De la Warr this February says it all. Marcus Brigstocke was hilarious. Local lad Eddie Izzard, a long time ago, was whimsical, beautiful, funnier than he's any right to be.

Hastings Pier once was a venue to reckon with. The Who. Jimi Hendrix. Others. Do the google thing. I have: The kinks, The Small Faces, Pink Floyd. Genesis (that would've been with Peter Gabriel), Hawkwind, Curved Air (You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUnjMI81vAA how has the keyboard line from this not been endlessly sampled?), Status Quo (the only band that still smokes Player's No 6 and saves the coupons) Geno Washington Band (oh-oh-oh Geno), yet now there's the White Rock, specialising in the Bootleg Beatles and Roll-Right Stones, Big Zeppelin and Fat Lizzy.

Hastings Pier's gone, as, sadly, are most.

American Smoke, after three hundred odd pages of Sinclair prose, and each paragraph weighs a ton, arrives back at the seafront, Hastings, and a 4,000 strong protest march, fifes and drums, ending in a dance and feast, under banners refuting recognition of the ruling government and royal family. Rebellion. Hastings. Just down the coast from conformity.

Alchemy and accordions

Saved – the accordion factory

Laurent Koscielny, as if there were any need of reasons to love him more, is part of a consortium that has put £600,000.00 in saving the accordion fcatory in his hometown. This made me think of two things.

One: accordions.

Some musical instruments are logical. Understandable. The mechanics are fairly straightforward. Like a guitar. A box, designed to resonate, to amplify the sound, with a neck and strings attached, in order to make the sound in the first place. Maybe simplest of all: drums. Hit one thing with another thing to make a noise.

Not so the accordion.

It breathes. It has a huge, pleated, wheezing lung. It has a keyboard. A vertical keyboard, attached to the wheezing bellows. To occupy the other hand, there's an array of buttons that would make an astronaut turn away frightened by the complexity. No doubt there's a range of setting options on the hidden back of the thing, too. It's a mysterious instrument. Played by musical alchemists.

Two: what would other football clubs rescue, musical instrument factory-wise?

Chelski: balalaika.

Norwich: banjo (ding-a ding-ding ding-ding, ding ding ding...Deliverance style).

City: Stradivarius, Steinway, anything expensive (actually (according to Google) a Bosendorfer Imperial is the most expensive piano – but no-one's heard of them outside of the posh-piano world).

Swansea: harp.

Cardiff: male voice choir.

Ipswich: banjo.

On arriving in Birmingham...

...DLL said:

“Now we're here, are we the ones with the accents?”

That's up there with the big philosophical questions. The sound of one hand clapping. Trees falling with no-one to hear them. Now, does the regional accent disappear when you arrive within the region?

There's those triggers actors use to get started with a regional accent. For the Brummie I think a Jasper Carrot line would be quite good, from his story of trying to remain under cover as Birmingham supporters at the wrong end of the ground, away to United, and undone by his mate's shouted:

“Oy! Carrot! They've got no cowin' Bovril!”

Neighbours (UK) February

Neighbours (UK) February

David Cameron is laying on his bed, looking at a tablet computer. Samantha Cameron is at the bedroom window, pulling back the curtains and looking out.

CAMERON: Oh no. It's all kicking off in the Ukraine and Crimea. More opportunities to look inept and ineffective on the world stage.

SAMANTHA: It's all kicking off next door, too.

She opens the window.

SAMANTHA: Oy! Wayne-oh. Oy! Up here!

CAMERON: Oy? Wyne-oh?

WAYNE: Hey! Samster...

CAMERON: Samster? What in the name of everything...

WAYNE: ...how're ya doin'?

SAMANTHA: Good mate, you?

CAMERON: Mate? Samantha, have you been hanging around with those neighbours?

WAYNE: Yeah, good. What'cha fink? Cool or what?

SAMANTHA: It's fantastic...what's it all for?

Cameron joins Samantha at the window. Wayne's garden is a mass of tents, teepees, and similar temporary shelters. Kids or all ages are running around all over the place. Just as Cameron arrives at the window, a sound system starts to play Exodus by The Wailers.

CAMERON: Do you know what time it is?

SAMANTHA: Relax. It's after eight. The morning tractors and horseboxes will start moving soon in any case...

CAMERON: That's not the point, is it...

WAYNE: Hey! Cammo.

CAMERON: Cammo?

WAYNE: Oy! Dave! I fort you was pumping out Somerset. [Sings] “Oi am arr zider drinker, oi drinks it all-ah de day...”

SAMANTHA: Camp out, is it?

WAYNE: Yeah. Comin' down for a bacon sarnie and some tea?

SAMANTHA: You bet. Builders.

CAMERON: You bet? Builders? What's going on?

SAMANTHA: Just popping next door for a bit. You do your Ukraine stuff love. Shall I fetch you back a bacon buttie?

CAMERON: Buttie? Er, no. No thanks.

Preppers and deniers

There's things I don't understand...

...too many to think about listing, but there's some new ones...

...for example:

Why relax planning laws on building in national parks and areas of outstanding beauty, just when huge areas of land are under water, and more progressive nations are recognising the need to preserve natural wetlands to absorb the inevitable additional water? Why relax those planning laws when there are, across the EU, 11,000,000 empty properties? Sufficient vacant real estate to house all Europe's homeless twice over?

Why the fuss about Scotland wanting to go their own way? The vote won't come down to impassioned pleas or well-reasoned arguments, it'll be an inevitable two-finger salute at remote rule by Westminster career politicians from rich families, public schools, and oxbridge. It's like asking the characters in an Irving Welsh novel whether they're going to side with their mates on the Hibs terraces, or the knobs swigging Bollinger in a private box at Murrayfield.

Preppers

BLISS says it's best not to know some stuff. She's got a point. It is probably somewhere between 'best' and 'easiest' not to know some stuff. It's probably most expedient, or most practical, in some cases. There's also forewarned, forearmed, and informed decision-making.

There's that thing about a feeling of impending doom overwhelming heart attack event victims before the attack event. Now, BLISS regularly calls me the 'A' word, and I must admit, watching 'The Bridge' I did understand the suggested Asperger's suffering character's response:

- Are you listening?

- Yes.

- Only normally people say 'yeah' or 'uh huh' or indicate that they're listening.

- We're in the same car. How couldn't I hear what you're saying?

I have to admit to that. I have regular “are you there” questions down the mobile when, frankly, I've not spoken because the other person hasn't come up for air, gone on for ages, presumably breathing through their arse, and I've not interrupted their flow. There's coping and hiding mechanisms, but throwing people off their flow just to let them know you're still there is, frankly, rude, in my opinion.

Anyway, it's odd how so many refuse to pick up on the end of days. It isn't down to empathy, but down to statistics and observations. It's down to the fact that we're already going to have a 110 mm to 160 mm rise in sea level, monsoon and drought, by 2030, guaranteed, unless we exceed targets. We allow countries to buy carbon allowances from elsewhere disregarding local effects. Politicians think in four year (at best) terms, and frankly, Mr Mainwearing, we're all properly doomed.

So, the preppers are prepared. They have a website, they have bunkers in their gardens, they stockpile tinned food. Just as the nuclear, guaranteed mutual destruction, concrete fall-out shelter goes out of fashion, the climate-change defence system comes in. They share best practice and ways to survive when the water levels rise and the month-long storms arrive. They're the opposite to climate change deniers, I suppose. Be prepared. Dib, dib, dob, ging-gang-gooly, and all that.

A good curry (can be) hard to find

Harder to find a decent curry

A date! I put a shirt on. At the weekend. The weekend dress code, for me, is tracksuit trousers (with the optional additional mud after the Saturday walk with the dogs) and hoodie (with the optional additional spare food supplies ingrained after cooking the first meal). Stubble. Bed hair. Shuffle-inducing slippers. Constant cup of super-strong coffee, black, no sugar. In pop music song title (as in (What's so funny about) Love Peace and Understanding) or boxer's names (Iron Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard) I'd be (He's a right scruffy bastard, is that) Istvan Fallok, or Tatty Ivan. Breaking the dress code, it was shirt, jeans. Brogues. Not best bib and tucker, not suited nor booted, but compared to the norm, top hat and tails.

I've got a 50/50 record recently, in terms of getting decent curries, and, frankly, that isn't good enough. BLISS' was particularly disappointing, and that's more important than mine, because she's more discerning, and curry still represents the best vegetarian option, the widest choice if you don't eat meat.

It started well. We got the prime parking space, the only one for miles, right outside. Between the skip and a large 4x4. Nice table, attentive, efficient service. All good until the papadums arrived, soggy. The Tooting curry blog places extreme value on the quality of the papadums. Get them right, is their theory, and what follows is likely to be spot on, too. She sent them back. Rightly so. They changed them without any fuss, too. Ah! The conspiracy theorist pops up on the shoulder to say “if they swapped them almost instantly without any fuss, they must've known they were palming off old, soggy, stale papadums in the first place”. Batch two were better, still a long way from perfect, but good enough to shovel up some lime pickle, strong and salty, onion salad (not chopped properly – a red ink 'must try harder' / 'see me later' – something so simple getting it wrong is really unforgivable). A decent yoghurt dip, but too sweet for me, and too runny (milk, not yoghurt) and too yellow.

BLISS had sag paneer and garlic rice. The rice was good, the main absolutely floating in an artery-clogging sea of ghee. Too much even for my high oil-tolerance to consider reasonable. She asked for it to be madras strength. The bit I tried was nothing like it. A bland spinach and cheese purée floating in fat. The curry equivalent of baby food. My channa masala was pretty routine. It can be an amazing dish, done well. This was a mediocre dish, done adequately. I had a vegetable balti with too much onion, nice potatoes, and little else identifiable vegetable matter. Some carrot, peas, mushrooms, anything would've been nice, and I should've asked them to spice it up a bit, because it didn't taste of much at all, really. This is a curry house, and I have a right to expect some fresh chillies in a balti dish, don't I?

The chilli naan was good, though. Elastic, resistant to the bite, and liberally peppered with green chilli slices and coriander.

Luckily, the company was as good as it gets.

Either I'm becoming increasingly picky and jaded, or it's getting harder and harder to find a good restaurant in which to eat curry. I can't help wondering whether it's down to the increasing popularity, somehow. Apparently people actually like wine a couple of steps higher on the sweetness register than they admit to, and I imagine that no curry house ever went out of business because their food was too sweet and cloying.

Maybe it's me being spoiled by regularly working and visiting areas where the competition is incredibly intense, and where you can get a filling, satisfying and tasty dosa for under a fiver. Maybe it's time for a quantum leap in the preparation, presentation and policy of curry restaurants.

Overall, it wasn't that bad. A personal nadir was a MM birthday lunch where we ordered a selection of vegetable dishes that turned up as a selection of vegetables in an identical, bland, sweet, cloying sauce. That was just dispiriting, joyless food in nice dishes. The last Tooting café curry I had turned up in burnt-black pots, with missing handles, eaten from a selection of school-dinner plates from uncovered formica-topped tables, but had been prepared with some care and attention, and was delicious.

The worst view in sport?

The worst view in sport?

That was a Fighting Talk question. Michael Vaughan won by explaining the view when fielding at short leg, peppering his response with 'arses'. He's right. It's a horrible place to field. Close to the bat (and close to the batsman's arse), having to take regular evasive action, and hoping the bowler does not stray down the leg side.

Cricket and arse. So, in my experience, the worst view is the unexpected changing room close up of G's arse. Vaughan played professional cricket. He captained England. He's used to changing in a room that merits the description 'room'. Even the most bullish estate agent would struggle to classify our changing facilities as much more than cupboards. Bijou. Cosy, as in cramped and overpopulated. The only thing missing is the Tokyo underground-style members of staff cramming us in. A close up is exactly that. Enough to put you off your tea. Permanently. Sensitive new players have had to have counselling, therapy, spells in institutions. Whatever the National Health paid the surgeon (or mad hospital janitor) who did his pile operation, it's nowhere near enough. It's a Moon landing conspiracy theory arse. All the lunar landscape someone inventive with a movie camera would ever need. Near-on life-size, too.

As for one alternative answer, coming out of the blue corner and facing Mike Tyson in his heyday, well, at least there's the chance to put your gloves up, bounce once or twice, fake a hamstring tweak and depart physically intact, pride severely dented.

G's arse, or Iron Mike at his peak? Bring it on. Let's get ready to rumble!

3001 – 1001

On a recommendation, I ordered 3001, The Final Odyssey, from the e-library facility. The search (on 3001) also turned up “1001 tips on how to do just about anything”, or something like that. In a moment of madness, caring not a jot about the 60p reservation charge, I ticked the box and went for it.

Popular book, it hasn't turned up (3001 has).

I have a feeling it is going to (only partially) fill the gap laft by the Profanasoraus, finishing Sh*t My Dad Says, and the funny catalogue having too little product turnover.

We have received other, alternative free information through the letterbox, however, so:

• If you're hungry and have a Rooney-like taste for the older woman, there's lunch clubs (two home-cooked courses for £5) starting up in a couple of local care homes. Might give that one a miss. We'll all be there soon enough without volunteering.

• Abel & Cole will deliver a box of seasonal, organic veg to your door. My distrust of the food industry has kicked in, because the produce is described as 'ethical, healthy, seasonal, delicious,'. The “local” is missing. They want 99p to deliver it, too.

• Morrisons have offers on broccoli, salmon fillets, Jaffa Cakes and Coors Light (among other products).

Just thought I'd let you know.

Keys, a right headache

Headache? Tense, nervous, headache?

That was the question on those adverts, long ago. The answer was that nothing works faster than Anadin. Or a guillotine. Here's a tip: someone, say your overweight, high-blood-pressure, falling apart at the seams husband, for example, says “what's it mean when you've got a sharp, well-defined, stabbing pain in the back of the head? Just off to one side. Won't go away?” The answer that's required, that's willed with every nerve ending and synapse, the reassuring, comforting answer, is: “probably less than nothing at all. Take a couple of pills, relax. It'll go away in no time.” What isn't really wanted is a more professional, medically correct, but worrying answer. Like this:

ME: What's it mean when...headache...etc.?

BLISS: [Looking at the weight problem, sizing things up, taking my blood pressure with just her eyes, changing, miraculously, Superman-in-phonebooth-style into a white coat, stethoscope, and sensible shoes] Stroke? Mini-stroke perhaps.

Look, I know that's medi-speak, but putting 'mini' in front of 'stroke' is like putting 'slightly' in front of 'dead'. Or 'a bit' in front of 'pregnant'. I got in the 'or a brain tumour' before she could. I could see how it was going. FJ recently had a near-collapse walking around Romford and ended up in hospital.

“They've rebranded it” he said, on his mobile, still in the hospital, after I'd found out why he wasn't responding to phone calls “I've had a heart event.”

Keys – damn and blast them – part one

Will Penny and his family were on holiday, driving around France. They locked up the car and went off to eat, and returned to find that they'd locked their keys inside the car...

...I realise that's an olden-days thing: you were once able to push down the pushy-down thingy, hold in the door release button on the outside while shutting the car door, and there it was, locked. Before anyone even realised that the need to open the vehicle from the next county existed...

...they did what anyone would do, and started breaking into their own car.

The police arrived, they found out just how inadequate their French was, when under pressure and when dealing with slightly hostile policemen unhappy about their car theft figures. More police arrived. Eventually, but only after some emergency interpretation and Inspector Clouseau-isms / Keystone Koppery and the birth of one of those unforgettable anecdotes, and at least one near-arrest moment, things were sorted out, one of the policemen produced a tool from his car and deftly popped the door open.

Months later, we were playing volleyball. There was the double-whammy shot. A spike into the corner that involved winning the point and whacking the ball into someone's car. I rose at the net, leaping like a can of tinned salmon, and with that wonderful 'thunk' sound that signals good contact, got a decent spike on the ball and sent it into the corner. One bounce. Hah! It smashed into the bumper and front grille of Will's car. Cue big cheesy grin: “sorry mate” (I didn't mean it).

“Look” someone said, “ you've broken it. Something's fallen off!”

Will got on his hands and knees, and retrieved the fallen-off item.

“I don't believe it” he said.

He was holding a small, metal box, with a magnetic strip that had held it onto the bodywork, and inside were spare keys.

Keys – damn and blast them – part two

I lost the keys to the Volvo. In the sea. We were on a small, isolated beach in the middle of nowhere. We'd travelled light. All we had were some towels and beachwear. We posted MM in through the sunroof. I managed to hot wire the ignition, but not to override the steering lock.

The AA sent...well...The Simpsons have based Barney Gumble on what the AA sent. He arrived, about three hours later. Luckily an Italian family with a Winnebago took us in. Sunstroke had turned to hypothermia. I remember Barney swigging on a large bottle of what looked suspiciously like his own urine, clearly backwashing, and then offering me some.

He dropped us back at the chalet. The next day calls were made, faxes sent, and we went off on a long, difficult public transport round trip to pick up new keys from a Volvo main dealer. It was, to use the technical term, a right old kerfuffle.

Months, maybe years later, the Volvo needed a new radiator. The old one came out. On the bottom of it, in a small, metal, magnetic box, were the inevitable spare keys.

February Prince of Darkness Special

Prince of Darkness Special

Peter Mandelson, Prince of Darkness, enters the room where his Man Friday, Terry, is watching Wales play France in the Six Nations Tournament. Terry is wearing a France Rugby replica jersey, and holding a rubber chicken. Mandelson is wearing a pair of bib 'n' brace waders, in a welly-green colour, and a yellow sou'wester.

MANDELSON: Well? What do you think?

TERRY: I think, boss, that you make a better door than a window.

MANDELSON: What?

TERRY: I think, boss, that you're in the way of the telly.

MANDELSON: Oh Terry. You and your football.

TERRY: Rugby, boss. Six Nations rugby. Wales and...

MANDELSON: Whatever. What do you think? The outfit? Is it me?

TERRY: You're not going to that club again, are you? After what happened last time?

MANDELSON: No, Terry. I'm going, or I'm shortly going to be asked to go to, Somerset.

TERRY: What for? It's under water, isn't it?

MANDELSON: Well, first Owen Patterson went...

TERRY: Who?

MANDELSON: The one who pitched up in polished brogues and cheesed everyone off no end? The minister for the environment and killing badgers? The...

TERRY: Yeah. Whoever. So what're you wearing that get-up for, then?

MANDELSON: Next was Cameron, in wellies and a fleece, doing his man-of-the-people impersonation...

TERRY: Boss, the game's about to kick off. You look like you've fallen off a North Sea trawler. What's this got to do with the price of fish?

MANDELSON: Very good, Terry. Very good. Well, after Patterson and Cameron, it's a matter of time before they call in a true political heavyweight...

TERRY: Tony Blair? Isn't he busy with that News of the Screws court case? Advising what's-her-name? The Ginger phone-hacker bird?

MANDELSON: No Terry, a real big hitter, the comeback king, the...

TERRY: Oh. I see. That'd be you, then, boss, yeah?

MANDELSON: Yes, Terry, I'm going to stride through the flooded streets...

TERRY: Boss...

MANDELSON: What, Terry? I was just getting into...

TERRY: Boss, what happened when there was a spider in the bath?

MANDELSON: I called you, Terry.

TERRY: Before you called me.

MANDELSON: I may have screamed, a bit. You know how I am with...

TERRY: And when the toilet blocked up?

MANDELSON: Er...

TERRY: And when I was emptying the u-bend under the sink?

MANDELSON: Yuck. That was gross.

TERRY: So what do think Somerset's flooded with? Perrier water?

MANDELSON: Er, I hadn't thought of that.

TERRY: There's going to be Richards the size of...

MANDELSON: Richards?

TERRY: Richard the Thirds, boss. Floaters. Bobbing around with the tamp...

MANDELSON: Enough, Terry.

TERRY: Rats, boss. There'll be rats.

MANDELSON: Terry! You're spoiling this for me...

TERRY: There'll be...

Mandelson runs from the room, ripping off the braces of the waders and the sou'wester. The door slams. There's the sound of distant sobs.

TERRY: Thank god for that.

He settles down to watch the game, opens a can of Kronenbourg 1664 and starts tucking into a bowl of moule mariniere. With a French loaf, naturally.

They just don't get it

No pain, no gain

In this article:

http://aeon.co/magazine/altered-states/why-we-need-pain-in-the-games-we-play/

Michael Thomsen discusses pain in sport, and concludes that it isn't some side effect, but is absolutely central, underpinning winning and losing every game played.

People who play competitive sport, as opposed to a comparable sample who maintain fitness levels through visiting the gym, swimming and suchlike, have higher pain tolerance. Pain thresholds, where people recognise, notice the presence of pain, are the same across the two groups.

One thing too frequently forgotten or glossed over, is the psychological value of appearing impervious to pain. In simple terms, a boxer lands his best shot, ever, on his opponent. Who does not flinch. What's left? What can he do? MM recently said, and he might've been quoting me here, that one of the most satisfying feelings in football is when an opponent comes in with a fierce challenge, intending to (maybe) win the ball while inflicting maximum damage, and ends up in agony, having injured himself. While you come away with the ball, leaving him in your wake.

Which all seems at odds with this:

https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/21/women-cheerleading-ballet-sports-helen-grant&sa=U&ei=rl0IU4O3E4KM4gSN5ICADw&ved=0CAYQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNEdmVCrl1xI6S9G0MefUEn8jO36Zw

All that Olympic chest-thumping, legacy-bragging and political point-scoring, and we don't have a minister for sport. We have a minister for sports, equalities and tourism. Helen Grant. She says that women should consider “ballet, gymnastics, cheerleading and even roller-skating”.

Just as we have a minister for the environment, who, as a climate change denier, simply doesn't get it, we have a minister for sports spouting health and wellbeing platitudes, who patently does not get it either.

Sport can often have nothing to do with health and wellbeing. Sport is a compulsion. Something many don't feel they have a choice about. Participating, competing, means getting out of bed on a freezing cold Saturday morning to face a long trip to a hostile away fixture, with a cold, a headache, tired and aching limbs, and an ankle (or knee, or wrist, or whatever) already bandaged and bound to cause no end of grief the next morning, and the next, and the next.

There's nothing wrong with health and wellbeing. Being well and healthy are absolutely desirable. They don't necessarily make anyone happy. There's definitely some crossover with sport. But they very much not one and the same. It's time for our politicians to admit that they're far too solitary creatures, far too personally driven, far too selfish, to understand, to get, team sports.

“We know what you are.”

Anon. Various terraces everywhere.

Cuckoo Madame

it's no wonder you're shy.

You're Greta Garbo,

you're the witch of Salem.

You're anti-social, and

you are too bloody lonely

for the likes of us.

Robert Wyatt, Cuckoo Madame

Memory, and the absence of memory

Memories

“Time moves in one direction, memory in another. We are that strange species that constructs artefacts intended to counter the natural flow of forgetting.”

William Gibson, Distrust That Particular Flavour

Called to a smoke alarm sounding, by a neighbour, we arrived at a flat 'known' to the fire station. Somewhere we could expect to visit once, twice a year. The bloke was late thirties, early forties, drink-addled, prone to forgetting. He forgot his keys and called us to get him in when locked out. A routine developed, easy to pop out beading, remove the glazed panel to the door, flick the internal Yale thumb-turn. A couple of times were more serious, burnt dinners, bath overflowing. On the last occasion I saw him, he was dressed, as usual, in a suit designed to fit someone else, shirt and tie, hair long and scruffy but immaculately cleanshaven. Regardless of how he did or didn't fit into society, regardless of the burden he did or didn't represent on the welfare state, taking into account the monies he no doubt paid in, in his better (or worse, depending on your view) years, he made me laugh. Whatever marbles he'd drank away, a sense of humour shone through. On the last occasion I saw him (and there's alternatives for no further visits: improvement, moved elsewhere, forced to move, put away somewhere 'safe') he'd burnt some sausages. Burnt them enough to set off the smoke detector:

“Er...yeah,” he said “I forgot I'd put them on. Sorry guys.”

But not enough to render them inedible:

Worried that he may have heard us coming and hastily disposed of the evidence, into a rubbish bin or wastepaper basket of inflamable materials, I asked:

“Where are they now?”

“Well, they weren't too burnt...”

“Oh?”

“Well, they're...er...in my face.”

Ah, well. The neighbours insisted on calling in the government rottweilers, police, social workers, whatever. Poor bloke. Dealing with the authorities, blessed with a sense of humour, and with some marbles left, is a horrible task.

Fire-people are now hybrids. Part social / community workers, part smoke detector installers and maintenance personnel, no longer big, burley, bust in the door and extinguish the fire types. Whether or not that constitutes progress and improvement depends on your point of view. And on whether your house is alight. If you are in the latter position, you may just want one of the older-fashioned chaps to appear.

None of us were anywhere near sensitive soul territory, but neither were all of us insensitive, ignorant, unintelligent, and unable to empathise. Everyone's flat, everyone's car and neighbourhood is a palace, a Rolls Royce equivalent in terms of pride and achievement (an insured Micra, to a teenager, represents a massive proportion of their annual earning potential), and any and all run down areas have more civic pride to them than those newly gentrified, no community sanitised suburbs.

We met Hannah, a contemporary of my mum's, one night. She had a similar story. Running from the war, from both Germans and Russians, they left everything behind. A wrench for a young child, unable to fully understand what was happening.

Something hardwired itself into Hannah's memory, something she couldn't shift. She became a collector. Indiscriminate. Non-selective. Unable to turn anything down. She opened her front door, just a crack. Not because of suspicion or self-preservation, but because of the floor-to-ceiling piles of free newspapers in the hallway. Every room was the same. Free video tapes advertising timeshares (this was pre-DVD) despite her having no video player. At least not in any accessible location. Books. Packets, tins, full and empty. Plastic milk bottles washed out and filled with water.

The house had a water leak, that was affecting a neighbour's lighting circuits. Eventually, after some investigation and light removals, we shut off the leg of the water system causing the problem. We'd already radioed control requesting the duty social worker. He told us the history.

She had been housed in a massive, five bedroom Wandsworth Edwardian house. When the council moved her out, and on, there was a massive number of skip-fulls of her collected junk taken away to landfill, or the SELCHP incinerator, perhaps. She'd signed care in the community agreements, but something was hardwired in her, to start collecting again.

My mum now has no memory at all.

That means she can't read, because by words three and four she's forgotten words one and two, so they float before her, without context or meaning. She can't watch the television, or do the jigsaws she once passed time with. She long ago became unable to knit.

Memory. It plays tricks, and, eventually, lets you down.

Swandown

American Smoke – Iain Sinclair

The book flits to and fro across the Atlantic. About halfway through, at the moment there's parallel strands: a town in Kentucky, venue for a particularly bloody civil war episode, the town where William Burroughs pitched up for his later years, and Ripe, where Malcolm Lowry died, in 1957.

I've always wondered just how well-read authors are, beyond the review copies they receive. I've realised just how little I knew about the post WWII American writers, the Beat Generation. I could've rattled off Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg, then started to falter. Can I have Bukowski? Too late? Hubert Selby Jr? Doubt it. I wouldn't have thought of Lowry. I'm low of books to list and claim as read, too. Hunter S Thompson? Nope, he's Gonzo Journalism, much later and something else altogether, maybe someone continuing in the tradition of...

Of the big three, I've only read one book:

Jack Kerouac: Just On The Road. So long ago that the only thing I can remember is that I enjoyed it. In that case, why didn't I look further, get hold of a copy of The Dharma Bums or Big Sur?

William Burroughs: any number of aborted attempts. Maybe one of those right book, wrong time things. I'm not low on aborted attempts, and there's quite a few eventual completions: Crime and Punishment, Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time among them. Often it's been a question of practicality. Needing to read the library book first before the loan expires. Needing something lighter and slimmer for public transport, something easier when distractions are rife. I know Steely Dan are named after a strap-on dildo in The Naked Lunch. I don't suppose that really counts for much.

Allen Ginsberg: ziltch. Not a word.

I didn't even have have Lowry identified as a Beat Generation writer. Another aborted attempt: Under the Volcano. Abandoned for absolutely no good reason, other than the problem of tackling those first few complex pages repeatedly when my head was full of other stuff, unable to shake it off and out and get the clear run the book needs and deserves.

Lowry frequently used the Yew Tree, at Chalvington, and is buried in the cemetary at Ripe, along the A27. He lived in Rye, too. Sinclair describes Rye as the twee, cobbled place it is. Great to visit, no so great to live there: the local secondary school is in and out of special measures, the place depends almost entirely on tourism for employment, a seasonal existence. The surrounding areas are more attractive, if you can afford to live there. A little further east and there's the oddity of Lydd, and the stark, unreal beauty of Dungeness, where Simon Ings clearly set the early chapters of Wolves. The Yew Tree now is a popular pub serving way more food than drink. It once was one of those out of the way places, where the conversation stops should a non-local come through the door.

Swandown

Sinclair and Andrew Kotting took a swan-shaped pedalo from Hastings, around the coast and up the Thames to Hackney. It wasn't a Flintoff-style midnight, drunken jape. It was planned and filmed. There's a full-length documentary. It was released in 2012. London Olympics year.

They encountered hostile security forces on approaching the Olympic development site. Sinclair write about some of the displacement, jackboot approach, and insensitivity to local concerns in Ghost Milk. The borders of the site were patrolled by Gurkhas. Obviously bog standard G4S goons, as used to put illegal immigrants and asylum seekers through the wringer (not all of them survive the experience), were considered too soft to do the job properly.

The Olympics are a political event. There's no need for massively expensive 'bids'. For 'bid' read 'bribe'. Committee members are wined, dined, goody-bagged up to the eyeballs. Countries spend millions trying to secure the games. All the expense could be saved. It would be fair to put the names of the countries able and willing to host the games into a random number generator, and put them in order, accordingly. That would remove all the political wrangling, all the whispered corridor meetings, all the bribery and corruption.

There's a massive spend on an entirely irrelevant opening ceremony. Countries compete for the best opening and closing ceremonies that have nothing to do with the sport that follows. The circus comes to down. Pomp, rite, ceremony, and massive expense.

There's a television series BLISS and MM watched. It left many shaking their heads at how communities were allowed to be disassembled, destroyed, by uncaring, jackboot development and urban planning. In a few years, there'll be a similar retrospective on how the people of Stratford and the wider area were treated, businesses displaced, pockets lined and politicians left crowing about hosting the games and their 'legacy'. A legacy that includes no more funding for basketball, a sport open to anyone with a hoop and a ball, and played on small courts in inner city areas. Twenty of twenty nine sports reported drops in participation, grass roots participation, between April 2012 and April 2013. There is no government plan for school sports. Nothing clear and certain and encouraging team sports, anyway. There's a Newham website with before and after photos. It suggests that sanitised, branded and corporate means better.

Wolves

Simon Ings – Wolves

I tore through this in no time at all. Set in the near-future, expanding on the Google-specs theme to optical implants and treatment for servicemen blinded in battle, it examined the border between augmented reality and an actual reality that is observer-dependent and therefore subjective in any case. There's a whole lot more than that going on, too. Coming-of-age flashbacks, a murder / suicide mystery, a love triangle.

Every book should leave you with some lines embedded. The narrating character in Wolves on stupidity (I'm not flicking back to quote exactly, but it's something like this):

“Stupidity isn't a lack of intelligence. It isn't a lack of knowledge. Stupidity isn't a lack or an absence, at all. It is a powerful force.”

There's a copy available as of tomorrow, when I return it to the library.

William Gibson

He writes in threes. The Sprawl trilogy, The Bridge trilogy, The Blue Ant trilogy. This is the truth:

“The future is aready here – it's just not evenly distributed.”

We're due the first instalment of the fourth trilogy. Soon.

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth Sunday

Sarting, predictably, with the predictable.

Daydream Nation

Any album with two (yep, two) songs referencing William Gibson just has to be worthy of at least one listen. No Steely Dan style obscurity, either. No need to rack the brain then resort to some internet research in any case to find the hidden literary references. The Sprawl is named for Gibson's setting for parts of Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive (unofficially known as The Sprawl trilogy).

Great albums normally have great opening songs, Teen Age Riot is one of those. It doesn't let up after that, really. All killer...

A musical missing link, where punk meets indie, I suppose. Incredibly strong songs and melodies. 1988 sounds a long time ago, Daydream Nation doesn't.

There's one tip: less is more. Forget the multi-cd enhanced, souped up, de-luxe and super-de-luxe versions. They just confuse things and introduce a lot of sub-standard live and demo versions. Stick with the basics, the original twelve song double album is just right. “Enough” as Mr B O'S says “is as good as a feast”.

Dirty

This is the one with the knitted doll's head on the cover, usually also only found in super-de-luxe extended additional bonus format, and better without the 'extras'. Swimsuit issue is a song Liberal Democrat mps might pay attention to:

“Don't touch my breast – I'm just working at my desk”

A triple-whammy kick-off with 100%, Swimsuit issue, and There's a Sound World, before Drunken Butterfly and that “I love you, I love you, I love you...what's your name?” line.

Sister

Not as immediate as Daydream Nation, but a favourite, and album that really works as a whole.

Washing Machine

This starts with Becuz, and a mid-tempo melodic groove under Kim Gordon's breathy vocal. It's funny how a band like, say, The Who, who I absolutely go weak at the knees over, dewey-eyed about seeing the full-on, Keith Moon version at Charlton, a band that, in my mind, can do no wrong, yet a band that, under deeper scrutiny, produced little in the way of albums that are listenable in the 2010/s. Tommy seems lame, a concept album when those were rare things, that hasn't stood the test of time. Quadrophrenia, long, massive, sprawling, over-stretched. In short, they depend on the singles: I'm a Boy, Pictures of Lily, My Generation, Substitute, and others, and the Who's Next album, in particular the adrenaline rush and sound politics of Baba O'Riley [“teenage wasteland, it's only teenage wasteland”: 1970/s tory unemployment, UB40/s, No Future; 2010/s bankers greed, Reaganomics not reversed, tuition fees are financially crippling, just another tax on kids being young], and Won't Get fooled Again well, there's a philosophy, right there, mine, in the words of (just maybe) the best rock 'n' roll song ever: “meet the new boss...same as the old boss”. But Sonic Youth remain niche, cult, minority, despite a list of so many joined-up, wonderful albums.

Goo

Last one before work stops and serious football starts. Mary-Christ has a B52s feel. Disappear is just a great song. Now here we go. Liverpool at ours in the cup.

Sorry. Ends here. Full attention required.

Powercut

Sorry, love, power's off

High winds and overhead power cables don't mix. Low population density does not make us a priority for reinstating our supply. We were among about 500,000 without power, then among 190,000, then 74,000, then in the last 30,000 to get our electricity back.

Now, I understand how things work at the moment. It is a public relations exercise, turn the stats to your advantage, so that the more people you get back on line in the shortest time, the better your reports are going to read. I'd like to suggest an alternative approach.

After eliminating any real and present dangers (like substations on fire, supplies to hospital operating theatres, that sort of thing), I'd propose listing the other areas, putting them into some random order generator software, and then cracking on with whichever came out in the top three of or four (no need to delay kicking off operations).

The others should then be put into some sort of competition. I don't care, really, rugby sevens, football, spoof, Texas hold 'em, trivial pursuit, whatever. I know the most populated areas would be at an advantage, anyway, with a wider pool of player to choose from, but at least some gutsy underdog would stand the chance of jumping the population numbers queue, and there'd be some more interest generated, albeit difficult to follow without power, wifi, and all that stuff.

I would particularly like spoof. A spokesman said:

“Instead of just going for the most-populated areas in prioritising our repair works, we've provided an even playing field by starting with computer-generated random operations, and then left it to bunch of blokes with between zero and five coins in their hand. We don't fully understand what they're doing, but they seem happy with the method and are dropping out in turn, giving us a reverse-order to work to.”

Or arm wrestling. “The Southeast champion outgunned Essex's best, so we're concentrating our efforts there before moving east of the Dartford Crossing”.

Light that candle

So, with the light just about fading enough to justify lighting a candle, with the fire lit for heat, and the cooker doing oven stuff to keep one room warm, the power was restored.

Easy, then. Resort to the candle, and, instantly, power's back on.

Useless without electricity

I got the food processer out before realising it would be useless. I tried to charge up battery-dead phones. Eventually I found a radio that worked on two AAA/s. Overall, I didn't do very well. I got as much work done as possible without remote access to photographs and files. Then I got sort of lost. I kept having that “ah – that works on battery power” brainwave, before realising that the wifi needs mains electricity, rendering the inspiration useless.

Valentine's Day Special

Winter

Dark in the afternoon

Lights on in every room

Winter came round so soon

BLISS isn't a fan of winter. Neither is MM. BLISS sort of jumps up and down when it's Spring. I listened to Aim's Cold Water Music in the car and the opening lines reminded me of her.

She is a fan, however...

...of Scrabble...

...a game she's annoyingly good at. Over twenty five years, and I've won only once (aided, in a three player game, by some strategic seat-picking), and, in fact, only once before come anywhere close to winning (when she disallowed a perfectly good 'fugue' – that was easily in excess of twenty five years ago. I'm not bitter, and (obviously) not hyper-competitive.

So my Valentines card has HAPPY, reading horizontally, in Scrabble tiles, with vertical VALENTINES and DAY leading off the HAPPY, which provides the 'A' in Valentines and the 'Y' in day.

Inside, she's signed it THE CHAMP, also in Scrabble tiles, hand drawn.

“The scores on the letters are right” she said.

I said something about replacing an 'A' with and 'I'. Not a very good response, but, as usual, I did what I could with the letters at my disposal.

I like the seasons

I don't have a favourite, and I don't buy into the national smalltalk obsession. There's weather every day, I find myself thinking, frequently, get over it.

But I must admit, after six to eight weeks of monsoon season, and without any big-time respite being forecast (the radio four weather bloke actually described next week as being “not exactly better, but less bad”), it's starting to wear a bit thin.

Crossing those spontaneous rivers flowing across the roads is tiresome and causes delays, and the landslips and sink holes are worrying. There's a lot of infrastructure depending on ground support, and it's a matter of time before roads, drains, and all manner of stuff starts feeling the lack of solid ground where it always was before.

Working outside becomes impossible when even pencil notes are washed away, paper turns to mush, and pockets fill up with rainwater.

Valentine's evening

Who says romance is dead. I made BLISS and DLL nice curries and even gave them a half share of the naan I'd bought to go with my chickpea and potato leftovers.

Admittedly, there was then an irreconcilable parting of the ways, as they went to watch Holby Casualty with the Midwife True Life Hospital with Manky Bits In Close Up (HD) while I watched the Sale v Saracens game. Big brawny sweaty blokes rolling around knee deep in mud. I repeat the question, who says romance is dead?

The ten most borrowed are...

The most-borrowed library books

According to the statistics people, the top ten borrowed books are:

1. The Affair, Lee Child
2. A Wanted Man, Lee Child
3. Fifty Shades of Grey, EL James
4. 11^th Hour, Maxine Paetro
5. The Last Straw, Jeff Kinney
6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff kinney
7. Guilry Wives, James Patterson
8. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel
9. I, Michael Bennett, Michael Ledwidge
10. The Casual Vacancy, JK Rowling

That's a mixed list, and only JK Rowling's life after Harry Potter was on my to read list.

Worryingly, total loans are falling, year on year, pretty much every year, down from 460 million in 1998/99 to 263 million in 2012/13.

Why do library loan statistics to the tax / financial year thing and have to incorporate two years in one?

Diary of a Wimpy Kid was top in London, A Wanted Man in the North East, A Shark in the Dark! Was top on Merseyside, and The Real Katie Lavender in the South East.

Generally, the kids section is getting as much traffic, now, as the adult books. I've used the library less (and I'm making a note to self here and now to reverse that trend) because of the enjoyment of the e-reader. Two things, really. I borrow most books through reservation, as soon as they are published. As a result I have three choices: plough through them within the loan period of three weeks (scant time when I'm pushed for any reading time Monday to Friday and the book is long); hand it in and try to get back in the queue (because there's a list of reservations and an extension isn't available); or keep on regardless and run up the fine. For those huge, weighty hardbacks, the e-reader is much easier on the wrists, and the temper, than the big, heavy, paper version.

Now I still love books. I love MP3's. That doesn't mean I don't still love CD's and vinyl records, and there's no mutual exclusion between paper and epub versions. I have drifted towards the electronic form, and need to think on those use it or use it lines about the libraries.

Before fitting BLISS' old car stereo...

...to replace the broken one in mine, I did the internet research thing. I actually laughed at the bloke (fifth comment down) who said, after the first four moaned about the blanking plate locating lugs (see – I've picked up radio-installer jargon in a day) breaking off as soon as you try to pop it in place, that, yes, of course they broke, “if you're a ham-fisted clumsy accident prone strongman”. Something like that anyway. I made a mental note to take care.

Well, call me a ham-fisted...

I glued the blanking plate in place, the right way up according to all information and photographs available. The stereo clip on front frame promptly de-clipped and the radio disappeared into a dashboard black hole.

Needless to say, there's been a number of quick fixes (all failed after varying lengths of time) until I abandoned aesthetic considerations and now I have a fantastic, working, radio and cd player with a mp3 player connection. Granted, you can see some parcel tape, and a cardboard schim (an ASDA own-brand ibuprofen box, appropriately enough), but the bugger is no longer disappearing into the dashboard black hole.

No fun, some people

Boring boring railway safety people

Our train line is a bit suspended at the moment. Or one bit of it is anyway. It's literally suspended, as the rain has washed away the supporting subsoil and stuff and left it sort of hanging there, in mid air. So, it's no longer exactly level. It's no longer adequately supported. It's liable to move a bit if something (like a train) went over it.

On the other hand...

...it's not exactly hanging by a thread, it's just at bit of an angle, is all, and...

...while there's no support, it's still attached to the tracks that are supported, and the sleepers are still fixed to the tracks, and...

...it may indeed move a lot, it may not move very much at all, total catastrophic failure isn't 100% guaranteed.

Nevertheless, the boring health and safety cotton wool wrappers have had the final say and there's a replacement bus service. No imagination, some train operators.

All they need do is tell the drivers to put the pedal to the metal coming up to the (slightly) dodgy bit. That's all. Get up a head of steam, and they'd be past the hanging there section in seconds. It would also bring a bit of much needed excitement and interest to an otherwise boring commute. The 06:20 to Charing Cross would be a better place if everyone put their hands up in the air and went “wah-hooooo!” on the switchback railway bit. They could even set up one of those theme park cameras and sell photos at the exit gates on arrival in London.

Instead, there's a bus. Thanks, dreary folk in high viz vests. Hope you get paper cuts off your clipboards.

The gangs that ran drugs...

...illegal firearms, human trafficing, that sort of traditional gang area of operation, are moving into wildlife crime. The reason? The authorities are soft on them when they get caught. A man with £500,000's worth of ivory was fined £5,000. The maximum penalties are a joke. Something needs doing or there'll be no more elephants, rhinos, and other species with anything considered valuable outside of zoos.

The UK's favourite crisps...

...are, frankly, boring:

1. Cheese and onion
2. Ready salted
3. Salt and vinegar
4. Prawn cocktail
5. Chicken

Here's mine (crisps only):

1. Marmite
2. Bovril (sadly and inexplicably discontinued)
3. Add your own salt (I throw away the blue bags of salt)
4. Worcestershire sauce
5. Ham (France and Spain)

Snacks (in no particualr order):

• Salt 'n' vinegar chipsticks
• Pickled onion monster munch
• Frazzles
• Quavers
• Monster munch (other – beef and spicy)

Upmarket:

1. Scampi and lemon fries
2. Bacon bites (Tooting Poundland was doing mixed bags of (1) and (2), three of each in the multi-pack, for a quid – that's worth three pounds of anyone's money)
3. Pork scratchings
4. Twiglets
5. Cheese footballs

Special mention: French Fries (all flavours).

Brother Sport - Animal Collective

Brother Sport

There's a live version on the Animal Collective Centipede Hertz bonus cd. This is everything all those bible-bashers warned roll 'n' rollers about. Loud. Jungle drums. Screams. No words. Unintelligible words. The drums insanely high in the mix. Kick drum insanely high in the drum mix. Hypnotic. Trippy.

Here's MM's take on it:

Happy New Year YAAKpackers

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances (Tumblr being a knob and crashing whilst I was writing it, on two seperate occasions), my review of 2011 will come a little bit late. Probably somewhere in that ‘I’m-bored-of-reviews-of-the-year-gone-by’ period of time.

But in the meantime, I hope you have some time to rest, recuperate and take stock of the important things. It’s easy to lose yourself in a post-yuletide wilderness around this time of year, and there are a lot of trees to see woods through.

So as a treat here’s a story:

I hate winter. The only two things I like about winter is football and Christmas. I hate the cold. I have Reynard’s and my hands go orange and blue. Then my hands go white. Then my hands go even whiter. Then I have to get blood into my fingers and toes where there is absolutely no blood rather urgently or risk amputation.

I hate the dark. The dark is oppressive and affects my mood. It makes me feel like I have to waste my life indoors and it feels unnatural and unforgiving.

I hate the rain. I hate the wind. The wind and rain together make me really cold. I hate being cold. See above.

I hate buses. Buses take an hour and a half to get from Brighton to Eastbourne, which is a 40 minute car journey.

I hate having £5 in my bank account. I hate knowing I have to get the 7.30 bus tomorrow to get into work at 9.00 (this time a 25 minute car journey). Blah blah blah, first world problems, white whine, spoilt brat.

But I got off of the hour and a half bus I spent the last of my money on, into a foul evening of sheeting rain and howling wind, before the 7.30 bus tomorrow morning, into the cold, cold night that was driving into my face, making my ears ring, my teeth chatter.

And I listened to this.

And I smiled.


* * *


Open up your throat.

That's a cheap way to fill a post – just nick the boy's effort and paste it in, heh!

We saw Animal Collective. It was, without any doubt, right up there with the best of the best. The bass drum was actually rattling things. Like internal organs. How the building stood up to it, I don't know. No hi-hat. A balloon shaker instead. Songs ran into each other. Images were projected behind the band. All four, together. The sort of experience that leaves you shaking at the end. They played Brother Sport, a great song.

The studio version starts with the 'open up your throat' call-and-response, keyboard pan pipes – then the drums thud in for the 'way you play' phase. Next, the hypnotic section, repetition with slight changes, vocal pops and rhythm shakers, which segues into the 'real good shot' vocals over bass and shakers before the synthesiser whoops give that early indication (ghost film music style) that something's about to take off. Six minutes of blissful noise.

The live version is longer by just over a minute (MM's much more natural writing about music – I just agonised needlessly over 'is longer' as against 'clocks in at'). Less crisp and looser without any hint of the chaos it could easily descend into. The vocal interplay is superb, the percussion just has to come from a keyboard loop as much as the drums, and there's a reminder of rattling internal organs (I think I suffered a detached heart, lung, other minor bits of offal).

This is strong, inventive music. This is what you get when non-virtuoso kids with inspiration, ideas, and the dedication to master the techniques they need, develop a bit of chemistry and spark off each other.

Open up your throat here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9WVVWSdlSk

Monkey Riches is up first. Headphones up as high as you can stand now. Bit higher. Teeth loosening? Tad higher, I think.

All killer no filler. In Mo' Meta Blues Questlove talks about deejaying, and his theory is that you need some filler, so that when the first few bars of killer hit the turntable, ears prick up and feet hit the dance floor. See Animal Collective for an alternative theory: there's no let up. Not a second to catch your breath.

Dallas Buyers' Club

Dallas Buyers' Club

I read somewhere that the pedants are embroiled in a row about just how much of the 'based on a true story' line should be preceded by 'loosely' or even 'very loosely'.

Give them a big “whatever”, E-for-the-earnestness-of-your-efforts, and watch a great film anyway.

A heterosexual, homophobic, rodeo-ing, coke-snorting, bareback riding good ol' boy cops aids from a needle-sharing hooker, takes on the drug authorities, the hospitals, revises some opinions along the way, and stretches his thirty day life expectancy to seven years, with some help from his friends and his determination and ingenuity.

However (un)faithful to the facts, there's some great lines, and an emotional examination of how entrenched attitudes can change in the right circumstances and environment.

American Smoke

Iain Sinclair goes to America, on a number of occasions, in search of the Beat writers, and their legacy. Being Iain Sinclair, somehow, this involves Camden and the second-hand book trade, Hackney, St Leonards-on-Sea, as well as Kentucky (William Burroughs), New York (Ginsberg and others) and loads of places (Kerouac).

There's the Sinclair geographical imperative, that sense of belonging somewhere. Every venture starts from somewhere, and that home base affects the experience and the perceptions.

Sinclair's good at giving people he meets along the way their head, giving them the pages to express themselves in their own words. There's a great piece in Hackney that Rose Red Empire where a barber who had operated in the area for thirty or forty years is simply let loose to tell his story in his own way. He does the same here with survivors who were on the peripheries, first-hand observers.

The Shock of the Fall

The death of a sibling leads to a descent into madness. Nathan Filer is a mental nurse, and he's written a superb first-person account of that descent, in the uncaring community system. The day centre Matthew Homes (not his real name – he's mad, not stupid, he tells us, all the names have been changed to protect the innocent) attends is closed down due to spending cuts. Life on the ward is described as tedium broken up by smoke-breaks and taking buckets of pills.

What struck me was something that I'd never really considered, the neither here-nor-there nature of mental care for most patients (service users, they're called at the day centre in the book). Before his problems began, there are fond and happy memories of life with a brother and loving parents. In full time care, there's the tedium, but a degree of certainty. It must the in between that's impossible. The 'support contracts', where does support become prying? Where does privacy become secrecy? The grey areas of life are the trickiest at any time and in any case, and must be impossible when a mind is scrambled, over-heating, and not functioning at full capacity.

Nathan Filer picked up a first novel prize, and it is a book that will either be torn through quickly, or cast aside early on. There's no end of funny lines, and the emotional attachments and tensions of family life are explored in the context of Matthews behavioural difficulties and problems.

Wenger-ball and the cost of Arsene-omics

Arsenal: Wenger-ball, and the cost of Arsene-omics

Catalysed by the 5 – 1 rinsing delivered at Anfield yesterday, but built on years of Arsenal, Wenger's Arsenal, and now Wenger's trophyless Arsenal, I think there's two problems that need to be resolved before there's going to be any real chance of picking up some silverware.

We have to play Wenger-ball

Which is fine, when you're winning. For example, yesterday, it didn't take long to work out what the officials were going to give us: nothing. A decent amateur club will have someone on the park who, either naturally, or through learned behaviour and orders, will get the picture and start getting into the officials faces. The most successful clubs do it even when they're winning, because they want to stay winning, or to win by more. United under Ferguson were masters, to the point where as a player was booked, he took a back seat in berating the referee, to be replaced by a team mate without a yellow card. Wenger appears to see himself as a custodian, as a curator of the beautiful (and it is a beautiful) game. Professional sport is all about winning, and doing whatever it takes to win, or to maximise your chances of winning.

I wonder, now, whether the departure of some of our better players, and some of our more spiteful, more practical, players, might not have something to do with Wenger's insistence on adherence to his philosophy and ethos. If the opponents have a player prone to going down, going off, clearly unsettled by rough treatment, then rough him up.

Jason Burt was hopelessly wrong in the Telegraph. We don't need less Jack Wilshire petulance and willingness to get embroiled in feuds, we need more back-up for Jack, and more of that type of player so he doesn't stand out so much.

Wenger needs to concede that it's about winning, that sometimes there's a dark side to winning that makes all the difference, and that all the time there's a dark side that can give you an edge, or restore an even playing field when things are against you. I don't for a moment suggest we turn into Stoke under Pulis. But the best teams have a player who will turn to a referee giving them nothing and tell him that if he doesn't start looking after them, they'll start looking after themselves, and he'll have carnage to deal with.

Arsene-omics

Wenger has spoken out about the money side of the game, about unsustainable player wages (although he doesn't mind pocketing a decent wage himself), about the need for financial fair play. He appears by nature conservative, adverse to shifts in the environment and unable to adapt to paradigm change.

The simple case is that the team with the most points, and not the most points per pound spent, wins the league. The team that gets to the final and wins the game lifts the cup. Not the losing semi-finalist after income / expenditure adjustment and sustainable practice bonuses.

Too frequently Arsenal fans write about the oil-money clubs as if they're not real rivals because they have that oil-money. To win anything, at some stage, we need to overcome Chelsea or City, or a club that have themselves beaten one of the mega-rich two. As more big investors become involved, the situation isn't going to ease anytime soon. Anyone hoping the financial fair play rules will have teeth doesn't have that hope on the basis of any experience or precedent.

Sometimes there's overwhelming needs that trump any requirement for financial prudence or achieving value for money. I think the January transfer window was one of those, only because not enough business was done in the summer. I don't expect Wenger to morph into Redknapp overnight and splurge on anyone (a) available and (b) willing to transfer and see if some of them work out; but I did expect a more practical, commonsense, and less entrenched approach. That hasn't happened, and we were sat at the top of the league with (to use his words) players in the red-zone in positions where the cover clearly was insufficient: at centre forward, where Bendtner hasn't suggested he represents a viable back-up to Giroud, and at centre-half, where we're one injury or suspension away from a defensive shuffle, with Sagna moving into the middle and Jenkinson coming in at right-back, in turn leaving us no right-back cover.

Overall, sadly, because he has been a great manager in the past, the club seems hamstrung and inhibited by the manager, or by some of the manager's sticking points, or by the club not taking responsibility, and over-ruling the manager on those points.