so good to be an ant who crawls atop a spinning rock....

Earworms of the Week

“All the Young Dudes” – Mott the Hoople

Written by David Bowie, of course but it’s very specifically the Mott the Hoople version that’s been pinging around in my head since I heard it on the radio whilst I was getting ready for work the other day. Speaking of Bowie, I watched a large chunk of “The Man Who Fell to Earth” the other night. Is that film supposed to make sense? It’s awful, but I was mesmerised by it for about 90 minutes before finally tearing myself away. Anyway. This is a marvellous record.

“Don’t Stop Me Now” – Queen

I hate Queen. Sadly, this popped into my head whilst I was pushing a trolley around Sainsburys, and dislike the band thou I do, it would be churlish to attempt to deny the weapons grade power of this record.  What can you do?

“Up the Junction” – Squeeze

It’s not specifically this song that I’m earworming, to be honest… but I woke up on Thursday morning with a kind of wordless generic Squeeze song running around my head. I hummed along for a little bit, decided it wasn’t actually a song at all, but of all the songs it seemed to be a composite of, it was mostly this one. Is this how McCartney felt when he woke up with “Yesterday” in his head and couldn’t believe that it wasn’t a song that had already been written? Have I woken up on a goldmine and completely failed to cash in? Hmm. Doubtful. If the finished product sounded a bit like Squeeze, I can’t imagine that I’d be making all that much money out of it, eh?

“Gentlemen and Players” – The Duckworth Lewis Method

Probably inspired both by spending a weekend watching England beat New Zealand in the cricket, making use of my membership of Nottinghamshire to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon at Trent Bridge watching the Pro40 and by the fact that I’ve snaffled some tickets to watch the Duckworth Lewis Method on the night before the first Ashes test in July (even if I knocked back the chance to interview Neil Hannon). This is a lovely album full stop, but this song is so evocative of so many of the things that make cricket such a wonderful game. Is there anything more splendid than sitting in an English summer and watching a game of cricket? The best of games, in fact. British Lions notwithstanding.

“All Along the Watchtower” – Jimi Hendrix
“Enjoy the Silence” / “Personal Jesus” – Depeche Mode

One of my colleagues is just back from watching Depeche Mode at the O2, and we were all a little bit taken aback when two of the younger members of the team professed total ignorance of the band. It turns out that they actually knew a couple of the records (they knew the “reach out and touch faith” bit of “Personal Jesus”, for example), but were essentially blissfully ignorant. What gets me is the total lack of curiosity. They say that this stuff is all before they were born, but I listen to music by people from before I was born, so why should they be any different? I probed. They’ve heard of the Beatles of course, and Presley and the Rolling Stones and the Monkees and Madness… and also Jimi Hendrix, apparently. This then led to a debate about record sales: I reckon that Depeche Mode have probably sold millions more records in their career than Jimi Hendrix has sold… so how come they have heard of the one and not the other? I asked Ollie, one of these kids and with us on a Sandwich Placement year, if there was a band in his life who had changed EVERYTHING and completely shifted his musical thinking. He thought for a while, and then came up with Coldplay’s most recent album (the one I like the least). Mmm. He's 20 years old.  Maybe there is no hope.

“Eton Rifles” – The Jam

David Cameron is a fan, apparently. I can’t help but think that he’s misunderstood it. Big Smiths fan too. Must have loved this photo, then.  Johnny Marr loved it.....

Actually, on the subject of idiot Conservative politicians, I got into a conversation with one of the other younger members of the team this week too.  She thinks that Boris Johnson would make an amazing Prime Minister..... as she's moving just up the road from me, I told her that she's forbidden to vote until she understands why this would be a terrible idea.  As C. says... the Athenians had it right all along by restricting the right to vote to those who knew how to use it....

“Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” – Green Day

This was played by a string quartet at the wedding I was at the other week, just after the ceremony and as the happy couple were signing the register. It took me a moment to place it, but when I did, my next thought was to wonder if it was really appropriate for a wedding. It’s about the break-up of a relationship, right? Still, Michael Stipe says he was always amazed to see so many snogging couples in the front of an R.E.M. gig when they played “The One I Love”, and that couldn’t be much more bitter a song. Nowt so queer as folk.

“Stuck With You” - Huey Lewis and the News

Speaking of snogging, there’s an article in the Guardian today about how the French have finally put a word for “French Kiss” into the dictionary. “Galocher”, which literally means “to kiss with tongues”. Actually, I think there was a french term for this already that was something to do with shovels, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story. My first kiss with the current Mrs Swisslet, of course, took place in the cafeteria at Tamworth Services and was soundtracked by this song. Good times.

“My God is the Sun” – Queens of the Stone Age

Album out on Monday and I’m now the proud owner of a ticket to the Saturday of the Download festival to watch QotSA along with the likes of Motorhead and Iron Maiden. That should be a good day, I reckon. QotSA at Rock City in about 2001 were one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to, and they weren’t too shabby at Glastonbury in 2011 either, so it should be a set worth seeing, especially if the new album is good. I’ve not seen a gig at Donington Park since I saw Thunder, The Almighty, Skid Row, Slayer and Iron Maiden at the 1992 Monsters of Rock Festival. Now those were the days.

Have a good weekend, y’all.

so why so sad?

Sad?
	I couldn't really say why exactly, but yes.
	Obviously. It's you.
	Yes, but I'm clearly just as sad for knowing exactly why it's sad.
	HELLS NO!
	Shouldn't the hand print be in black?
	Meh.
pollcode.com free polls

(No changes will be made as a result of this survey. Terms and conditions may vary. Please consult the bill payer before casting your vote.  No refunds.  Valar Morghulis.)

put your name on it....

We had one of those lunchtime retirement dos in our office the other week.  You know, the kind of thing where they book out a meeting room, take in a few apologetic cans of beer that no one will drink and then salute someone for wasting the best years of their life at work.

They're not usually my thing, to be honest... but I made a point of attending this one for two reasons: firstly because forty years at one company is no mean achievement, but most importantly because this guy may just be the most pleasant man in the world.  I think it's fair to say that he wasn't always the most effective of operators, but in spite of that, no one had a bad word to say about him.  Not a single person.  There was simply no dirt to dig up on him at all and everyone was genuinely sorry to see him go.  A lovely man and well worth fifteen minutes of my time to say goodbye.

Besides, they were serving cake.

And what a cake!  We have a catering outlet in our office, and they will bake cakes for occasions like this.  To mark forty years of sterling service, we had a massive sponge cake, covered in icing.  It was round, but about ten times bigger than your average victoria sponge.  It was massive.

Here's the thing, though.  It came with cutting instructions.  A suitably large knife was provided, but was a diagram of how the cake should be segmented really be necessary?

How hard can it be?

I wonder if they've ever had complaints: "We ordered a cake for sixty people, and we only managed to squeeze forty-seven slices out of pathetic confection.  I demand my money back forthwith!"

Well, if you order a cake for sixty people, it seems you get instructions and an explanatory picture explaining how you segment this round sweet treat into sixty slices.  Perhaps the problem is that it is round?  When confronted with a round cake, I suppose people probably like to cut segments.  Fine on a normal cake, perhaps... but on a giant cake?  Folly. Pure folly.  The slices will be unmanageable and your portion potential is greatly reduced.  You've got to go rectangular.  It's the only way.  Squares, perhaps.  Right angles definitely.

.... Or perhaps you could assume instead that a room full of people collectively responsible for millions and millions of pounds of budget each year might just be able to slice a cake of any shape into the required number of pieces without instructions?

Hmm.

No.  You're right.  Instructions it is.  It's either that or bake a square cake.

some of those that work forces....

butter wouldn't melt....

I took the cat to the vet on Saturday morning.  Two hours later - two hours! - I emerged with a problem:  I was going to have to attempt to put a pea-sized drop of ointment into her eye once a day for the next week.  You'll have seen the jokes about giving a cat a pill, I'm sure.  Let me tell you... I don't think putting ointment into a cat's eye is much easier.  You're no doubt better at this than I am, but for us, this is a two-person job and involves swaddling her up like an egyptian mummy and then holding this squirming bundle tight as you attempt to hold one eye open long enough to apply the ointment before the whole thing escapes and a seething mass of claws and swearing.

This is bad enough, but unfortunately it didn't end there as the vet also asked me to collect a urine sample.  If you're anything like me, then you'll be wondering how on earth you do that.  Do you just pick up and squeeze or what?  Well, no.  I now know that you get some special,  non-absorbent litter and then simply shut the cat in until she pees and you can collect the sample.

Easy, right?

No.

Our cat is - and always has been - very fastidious.  She has a litter tray, but ever since she was a kitten she has always preferred to go outside.  She finds the whole process distasteful, I think.  When she was small and was shut inside during the day, she used to wait until we were back from work before hopping onto the litter tray.  As soon as the deed was done, she then wanted the whole unpleasant mess cleaned up as soon as possible, her disgust visible to all.  As soon as she was old enough, we installed a cat flap and no one was happier than her.

So.  At about 5pm last night, I shut the cat flap and put the special litter in the tray.  The cat fairly quickly wanted to go outside, of course, and stared balefully at the cat flap for a while, complaining.  I introduced her to the tray to remind her it was there and hopefully what it was for, but she wasn't interested.  Too soon.  I tried her again several hours later, before going to bed, but again she wasn't interested yet.  I was half expecting to be woken up at about 4am by a cat anxious for an al fresco toilet visit, but nope.... at 7am when I got up, the cat was fast asleep on a chair without a care in the world.  I had a quick check around for suspicious wet patches.  Nothing.  After a bit, she came down for her breakfast, but although she clearly needed to pee, and cast the odd baleful glance at the litter tray, she was appeared damned if she was going to use it.  As we had to go to work, we simply shut the kitchen door and left her to it.

As we walked past the kitchen window on the way to the car, the cat was already on a work surface staring at us with a look of "Yeah?  So I'm on the worktop.  What are you going to do about it?  Fuck you!"

C. popped home at lunchtime - so some 17 hours since we shut the cat flap - and the camel-bladdered little madame still hadn't gone and still wasn't interested in the litter (although by now she wasn't keen on being picked up and having her tummy pressed).  Fuck you, I won't piss where you tell me.   Defiant to the last.

An hour or so later, and still shut in the kitchen, she finally gave up.  After much scratching and pawing at the litter, there was suddenly a sound like the bathroom tap being turned on, followed by the sound of a disgusted cat trying to get the hell out of there as fast as possible, scattering litter everywhere, such was her haste..... the sample was duly collected and delivered to the vet whilst it was still warm.  Mmmm.  Delightful

As the front door was finally opened, the look on the cat's face was apparently a sight to behold: she was simply incredulous that this could not have happened five minutes earlier and spared her the unpleasantness.

Mind you, as it's been raining here all day, since she's been freed, the cat hasn't actually been outside at all.  She's fast asleep on a chair, secure in the knowledge that she could go out if she wanted to.  That, apparently, is enough.

[a cat post, Internet.  You're welcome.....]

a strange fear gripped me....

Earworms of the Week

Electric 6 – “Gay Bar”

I’m working on a project for something called a “Technology Bar”. Inevitably, that has been abbreviated to “tech bar”, and we’re only a very short leap from there to this extremely potent earworm. I did suggest that we renamed the project entirely, but apparently having a “Gay Bar” means something completely different and might not be considered appropriate.
Pfff. Squares.

Fleetwood Mac – “Albatross”

It’s quite remarkable how soothing it is to hear this record as you have your first cup of tea of the day. It’s also quite astonishing how far away this is from the band that Fleetwood Mac became. I can almost hear the seagulls.

Daft Punk – “Giorgio by Moroder”

I spent most of the first half of the week listening to the new National album – which is excellent – but inevitably as the week has gone on, I have drifted into listening to the Daft Punk album. I streamed it from iTunes last week, and I wasn’t initially bowled over by it at all. It seemed decent, but nothing grabbed me in the way “Get Lucky” grabbed me when I first heard it. You know what? It’s really good, although I doubt you need me to tell you that. My favourite track is this one. It’s long and has the epically unpromising premise of having the now-73-year-old talking about his life. It’s brilliant though. Moroder has an interesting story, which is a good start, but the tune behind it, when it kicks in, is just fantastic. It’s over 9 minutes long, but it definitely doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. I’m not one of those people who is saying that this is a solid gold classic record already, but certainly I’m not one of those people who hates it and is determined to say how much they hate it. I instinctively prefer the National album, mainly because they’re very much more my default music preference, but Daft Punk have really got something, no question. A very, very accomplished album.

Thin Lizzy – “Whiskey in the Jar”

A single mention of the Cork and Kerry mountains by an Irish colleague at last week’s wedding and I was away……

Ash – “Burn Baby Burn”

Not my favourite Ash song (mmm. “A Life Less Ordinary”. Or “Orpheus” or maybe “Goldfinger”. “Kung Fu”, even). Not even my favourite Ash song from this album (“Shining Light”), but y’know, this is kinda catchy, isn’t it? They did some great records, didn’t they? Speaking of great records, and Ash and Supergrass are vaguely connected in my head, have you hear the new one by Gaz Coombes ("One of These Days")? It’s brilliant... although I can't find a link.  It's on iTunes, mind.

The Knack – “My Sharona”

Unbeatable. It’s practically perfect.
Wooo!

Rodriguez – “I Wonder”

Pretty much worth the price of entry for this lyric:
“I wonder how many times you had sex
I wonder do you know who'll be next”
I bought the OST to the film “Searching for Sugar Man”, and boy it’s good.

Simply Red – “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”

As you know, I hate Mick Hucknall, so you can only imagine how much this particular earworm is giving me pain….Let me explain: C. has been assessing this week and she came across one guy who was completely and unironically like David Brent. Awful, apparently…. And then she got back to the office to the news that someone had hired this guy to work on her team. Ahahaha. Well, eagles may fly high, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines, so…. David Brent, of course, famously recorded the definitive version of this song.

The Flaming Lips – “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”

Celebrating their 30th anniversary. I’ve never been their biggest fan, and in fact I don’t know all that much of their stuff at all…. But this song is just deliriously brilliant.

The Smiths – “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”

Speaking of deliriously brilliant….. On the BBC4 documentary the other day, I was watching a musicologist at a piano explaining the genius of Johnny Marr. For this song, he was talking about how the verse is in interesting minor chords, but suddenly this all resolves into a completely irresistible major chord for the chorus and you can’t help but feel uplifted…whatever the lyrical content about suicide pacts. To be honest, as a teenager, I was more interested in relating to Morrissey’s heartfelt lyric about darkened underpasses…. But I’ve kissed a girl now, so we’re all good and I can appreciate the music now. Beautiful song by an untouchably brilliant band. As Steve said in the comments below, probably not my favourite band, but DEFINITELY the band that I hold the dearest and that has meant the most to me.

Right, well…. That’s it. Enjoy the long weekend, peeps.

over and over.....

I saw Daniel Kitson performing on Sunday.  He was excellent.  I love the fact that he's a stand up who:
a) Sat down for the whole duration of the show behind a desk on the stage
b) Doesn't talk down to his audience.  At all.  He's not afraid to toss out ideas and thoughts and theories that assume that you are basically an intelligent human being and will be able to follow.  You actually have to concentrate on what he's saying for the best part of two hours with no interval.  I really like that.  He's not above the odd knob gag, obviously....but frankly, who is?

Anyway.  The show was about lots of things, but one idea that has stuck in my head was about memory.  Kitson talked about how strange it is when someone has a memory of you that you don't remember at all.  He also talked about how no one, even two people who were in the same place and saw the same thing, will have the same memory of anything.  I love this kind of stuff, and it's one of the reasons that I really enjoyed studying history... the simple, but mind-blowing, idea that there is no such thing as a FACT.

FACT.

Anyway.  I digress.  When musing about the nature of memory, Kitson theorised that our memories are not actually little freeze-frames of an event in our lives, forever frozen in time exactly as they happened, but instead they are living things that are constantly changing and evolving.  In other words, we remember these things because we keep thinking about them and giving them a polish, and that in the act of polishing them before putting them back into storage, they are subtly changed over time.

That's an interesting idea.  Is it true?  No idea.  But what I do know is that I'm starting to get the same sense about this blog.  I've been writing this now since early 2004.  That's a long time.  You tell me, but I do sometimes get the impression that I'm telling you the same stories over and over again.... with the memory of that event getting subtly changed each time I tell it.  In my head, I was convinced that I saw Iron Maiden when they played at Donington in 1988, but when I wrote about it the other day, something made me check and it turns out that I actually saw them play there in 1992.  I had to go back over the post and correct some of the chronology, not to mention deal with the fact that I'd written the whole post around the assumption that I'd seen the band when they were touring "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" and not "Fear of the Dark".  Dammit.

So what?  Memory can play tricks on you, right?  Yes of course, but whenever I sit down and write about how I first started listening to The Smiths (or feeling fat or whatever), I get this creeping sensation that I've probably told this exact same story here before.  Slightly differently.  Broadly the same, I'm sure, with most of the key points appearing the same every time, but each time I put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper to write about that event again, I'm probably moving my own memory further away from what actually happened.

Is that a big deal?  Not really.  I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter at all.  In fact, it's mildly interesting to see how my OWN perspective on an event in my life is shifting.... but you will tell me if I start to bore you though, right?  If I'm repeating myself incessantly and telling you about ever-more-fictional events in my own life, then you will let me know, won't you?  I don't mind it when a TV programme starts with a quick recap of what's happened so far to bring you up to speed, but that's not a TV show in its own right, is it?

I'm beginning to bore myself, and that's never a good sign.

Monkey.  Minature Cymbal.  That's me.

wishing I was skinny....

There was an advert on the TV a little while ago - for Dove, I think. I’ll let the Guardian describe the premise:

“The ad follows a forensic artist, one of those people who draws crime suspects based on witnesses' descriptions. In this case, he draws facial portraits of several women based solely on what they tell him. He can't see them. Then he draws pictures of the same women based on what people who have only interacted with them for a short while describe. In almost every case, there's a stark difference between the two images of each woman. The self-described portraits are uglier, sadder and almost sour-looking in some instances”

[you can watch the advert there too, if you're interested.]

The idea, I suppose was to show how our own mental image of ourselves is often a lot more negative than the reality.

I mention this because I’ve recently been forced to consider my own view of my body. Since I was about 7 years old, I’ve always had a view that I’m fat. I think this came from the simple fact that from around then, I started to be bigger than average. Hardly surprising really, given that I’ve ended up nearly two meters tall, but it’s incredibly damaging to a seven year old to have legs too big to fit into an average pair of shorts and to be forced to wear something with the magnificent label of “chunky shorts”. Since then, I’ve generally struggled to find off-the-peg clothes that really fit me because they’re cut for the average person and I’m not built like the average person. That shit stays with you.

By the time I was at University, I was fully grown but was also pretty hefty – a good six or seven stone heavier than I am now. I’m big and I have broad shoulders, so my frame hid the heft pretty effectively, but I was still a pretty substantial physical presence. Not fat, I don’t think, but my mental template was already fixed. Ironically, I was actually even nicknamed “Chunk” for a while.

I’ve lot a LOT of weight since then. My ribs show and everything; you can see the muscles in my stomach. I’m long and lean, but I still immediately reject it when people say that I am skinny. It’s simply not the way that I see myself and I probably never will, no matter how much weight I lose (and I’m lighter now than at any point in my life since I was a teenager, I think). I actually had someone ask me if I was still trying to lose weight the other day. I’m not, but she was marvelling at the enthusiasm with which I told her that the banana bread I was eating was entirely fat free. I eat it because I like it and it tastes good, but the way I describe it makes it sound like I’m dieting.

My MS is challenging my perception of myself too: I already knew that the muscles in my arms and shoulders are wasted to some extent (that’s one of the reasons I swim), but the specialist pointed out to me last week that my left thigh is noticeably less well muscled than the right due to wasting, and I’m gradually being forced to face up to the physical toll the disease is taking on my body too.

I’ve been bumping into a friend of C’s at the gym quite a lot recently. We’re reasonably friendly, so we tend to have a laugh about how we always seem to meet half-naked in the changing-rooms or up by the swimming pool, and rarely fully-clothed. But who doesn't enjoy meeting someone they know on the side of the swimming pool, eh?  Not at all awkward.  Anyway.  C had coffee with this guy the other day, and as she was talking to him about my bio-mechanical woes, muscle wastage etc. and how it’s all affecting my running, he remarked, “Yes, I could see at the pool that he was looking a bit spindly”

A bit spindly? I’m still struggling to adjust to the idea that I’m not fat. But spindly?

Who wants to look a bit spindly?

only words....

Someone called me a spastic in the office the other day.  She was referring to my inability to come out and join them for a run by saying that "I was a bit spasticated".  It would be going too far to say that I was shocked by the choice of words, but I was certainly a little surprised.  I don't think anyone has called me that since I was at school.

Of course, back then, being called a "spaz" or a "joey", usually accompanied by the appropriate facial expression, was entirely commonplace.  It's all Blue Peter's fault, of course:

"In 1981, the last year of his life, Joey Deacon was featured on the children's magazine programme Blue Peter for the International Year of the Disabled. He was presented as an example of a man who achieved a lot in spite of his disabilities. Despite the sensitive way in which Blue Peter covered his life, the impact was not as intended. The sights and sounds of Deacon's distinctive speech and movements had a lasting impact on young viewers, who quickly learnt to imitate them. His name and mannerisms quickly became a label of ridicule in school playgrounds across the country".

No kidding.

I have no idea if it's true, but the story goes that the Spastic Society changed their name to Scope to try and escape the playground association, but all that happened is that subsequent generations of schoolchildren simply belmed at their mates and said "Scope" instead of "Spastic" at them.

Kids, eh?

I don't know if it's simply because I'm older or if we actually live in more enlightened times, but, on the whole, this kind of casual bigotry is far less commonplace than it used to be.  Back in the day, we were just kids and we didn't really know any better, but language is important and words can hurt.  The elimination of this kind of casual, unknowing prejudice from most people's everyday vernacular is an entirely good thing.  After the huge success of the Paralympics, it seems entirely possible that the average person's understanding of disabilities like cerebral palsy is much greater than it used to be, and surely we're all the better as a tolerant, accepting society for that... or at least heading in the right direction.

That said, I actually used the word "flid" in conversation last week too.  It's a word that I haven't used in more than 25 years, but one that we used to use all the time to mock someone for being a bit of a weakling.  I was talking about a colleague who always seems to be getting colds, and I joked to someone else that, "back at school, we used to call someone like that a flid".

No sooner had the words dropped out of my mouth than I realised, probably for the first time ever, the derivation of that word and I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself.  I hadn't used the word in years, but every time I had used it, I had been completely ignorant of what it actually meant.  Yeah.  Ignorant.  There's no better way of putting it.  I didn't know any better.  Well, now I do know and I won't be using it again.  Once in two decades is still once too often.

Words have power.  Choose them wisely.

not like any other love....

It's thirty years and one week since The Smiths released their debut single, "Hand in Glove".  I realise I'm a little late on this and should probably have mentioned this last week, but I've been listening to the band a lot over the last few days and have been thinking about how much they meant to me.

I can actually remember the Top of the Pops that featured the band's debut performance in November 1983.  They played "This Charming Man" and Morrissey caused quite a scene waving his flowers around the place.  Do I remember that?  No.  I remember watching it because "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel was UK number one and I do remember watching that, dressed up in my dressing gown.  I didn't get into the band until much, much later.... some time in late 1992 or early 1993.

The first albums I ever owned were things like Adam and the Ants, Nik Kershaw, a-ha and Five Star.  The first album I ever bought for myself was "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden some time in late 1987.  This was an enormously formative period in my musical life and I spent enormous amounts of time listening to bands like Aerosmith, Guns N Roses, Queensryche, The Almighty, Poison, Faith No More and - save me - Poison.. briefly, and I never really got into Motley Crue.   By the time I turned sixteen, although heavy metal was still a real staple part of my musical diet, I was also starting to listen to The Doors, Lou Reed (especially his "New York" album) and was discovering classic rock by the likes of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.  The charts at the time seemed to be a pretty bleak place, and - somewhat ironically given how much I like them now -  I viewed people like the Cure, the Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays and James with a deep suspicion, never mind the rest of it.  I don't remember coming across the Smiths at this point, but I'm sure that if I had, then I would have loathed them.

Nirvana caused a bit of a stir, of course.... although, for a fan of rock music, it really wasn't such a great leap from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers to the Seattle scene.  At least it was real music, right?  The first album I listened to after my parents left me at University was "Southern Harmony and Musical Companion" by the Black Crowes, and at some point in my first year at Warwick, I attended a legendary Faith No More gig at the Birmingham NEC where seat covers rained down on the band as they played their encore of "Easy".  I had posters by people like Therapy on my wall and I was happy with my black leather biker jacket listening to heavy metal.

And then The Smiths changed everything.

I can't even remember how it happened, or how I even ended up with a borrowed cassette copy of part one of their greatest hits, but somehow "Half a Person" struck a chord and I never looked back.  I was nineteen years old, but I think emotionally young for my age, and there was just something about Morrissey's lyrics that spoke to me.  It was always about the lyrics too, at least at first.  Not for the first time and certainly not for the last time, it was Morrissey's words that chimed with a lonely teenage boy who craved an emotional connection.  He just seemed to have an uncanny knack of expressing a yearning I wasn't able to articulate for myself; he seemed to understand how I felt.  An appreciation of what Johnny Marr brought to the band only came much later.  For me, then at least, it was all about Morrissey.

I hungrily began to buy the music.  Ironically, at the time, it was actually quite hard to get hold of Smiths CDs: the originals were out of print and the Warners reissues hadn't yet begun.  I can vividly remember trawling a record fair at the Birmingham NEC and coming home triumphantly with a French import copy of "Hatful of Hollow" on CD.  Imagine that.  Now you can just download pretty much everything the band ever recorded instantly.  It's not a proper album, of course, but "Hatful..." remains my favourite long player by the band.  There's just something about the rawness of those session versions that really brings those songs to life.  Morrissey's yelp on "This Charming Man" is just electrifying.

I never gave up on rock music, but I also began to listen to bands like Blur, Suede and Radiohead.  Mostly, though it was always The Smiths and then Morrissey's solo work.  Nothing else touched me in the same way and I'm fairly certain that nothing else has got close since.  They are without a shadow of a doubt the most important band in my record collection.

The Smiths weren't a perfect band ("Golden Lights" anyone?), and goodness knows Morrissey is increasingly a loud-mouthed, opinionated idiot who doesn't think before he speaks... and they also seem to have more than their fair share of irritating fans who try to write about their favourite band in the way that they imagine Morrissey speaks, using mainly song lyrics for their turns of phrase.... but in spite of all this, and in spite of some of Morrissey's solo output, no other band has meant as much to me as The Smiths.  No one.   I found them relatively late and long after they had ceased to exist, but no one else has inspired such a fierce, possessive devotion in me.

I have been listening to a lot of their back catalogue this week, and the records still sound amazing to this day.  The chemistry between the band members, especially between Morrissey and Marr, just sparkles and crackles out of the speakers.

I've done a lot of growing up since I was nineteen years old, but there's a part of me that will always be that shy, lonely boy who found comfort in these records, and I'll always be grateful to the band for that.

send this one out to the old school....

This is a massive few weeks for new releases: this coming Monday alone sees the release of both the New Daft Punk album, "Random Access Memories", and "Trouble Will Find Me" by the National.  Last Monday saw the release of Vampire Weekend's third album, "Modern Vampires of the City".  The schedules are packed with decent music just waiting to be released.

I don't know about you, but I always feel that this now produces something of a dilemma: CD or download?  Instinctively, I'm still the kind of person who likes to buy a physical copy and file it in the appropriate place on the shelves with my other CDs.  Some of my friends have got to the point where they've more or less sold or given away their entire collection of CDs, but I've got hundreds and hundreds of them and have no intention of getting rid of them any time soon.

That said, my consumption of music is now almost entirely digital.  Even when I have a physical copy, the very first thing that I will do with it is to rip it into iTunes and add it to my music library.  The CD itself may never actually get played before it gets put onto the shelf, and I will listen to the MP3 file either streamed to some speakers from my laptop or by using an iPod/iPhone.  I used to have a little wallet of CDs that I kept in the car, but these days it's just a simple cable and we're good to go with an iPhone wired directly into the car sound system.  That CD wallet is now kicking around inside the house somewhere, with the CDs still in it from the last time it was used.  Here it is..... Gorillaz, Rufus Wainwright, Snow Patrol, Arctic Monkeys, Beatles, Billy Joel, Kings of Leon, Killers, Editors, Moby, Radiohead.... so about 2005, I would say.  I've never even bothered to put the CDs back in their cases.

I suppose it's true that I quite like having a physical copy as backup.  I do buy and download music all the time, but I'm not quite at a place where I entirely feel comfortable putting my whole music collection into the cloud.  Some stuff, yes... and instant gratification is a marvellous thing, and back catalogue albums are often ridiculously cheap to download too (especially if you shop around).   But as I sat in front of Amazon the other day wondering if I should buy a CD or just pre-order the download of Monday's new releases, the price difference wasn't big enough to make me feel like I was wasting money on a physical copy.  So I bought the CDs.

Besides, I kind of like having them around.

It's only a few months since we put a new shelving system into my cave to allow me to put all my CDs and books and things in one place.  It had been stressing me out for months that, if I wanted to put my hand onto my copy of "Graceland", one of the many albums in my collection that I've never quite got around to ripping, then I didn't know immediately where it was.  Now I do, and when I last fancied listening to it, I pulled it down, ripped it, put it back on the shelf and then streamed the music from my laptop through my good speakers.  Job done.

Apple TV is slowly starting to change the way I consume films - I bought my first ever film in the cloud the other day, "Batman: the Dark Knight Returns part 1".  It sits on Apple's servers and can be downloaded onto any of my devices at any time, but I do not possess a physical copy.  At the moment, that's the exception rather than the rule in my collection, and it's a slightly odd feeling, but it is SOOOOOO convenient.  Storage is cheap, but I don't want a de-facto set of servers in my house and I'm more than happy to outsource that service to Apple or to Amazon to do it for me.  I've never really got into Spotify, but I imagine it's a similar sort of thing.

Ah, but I'm only renting content and who is to say that these companies can't strip it away from me at any time.  Well, let's not forget that I bought the original Star Wars trilogy about four times in different formats and in different versions.  Just because I owned it on VHS didn't stop me buying it again on DVD.... this isn't really so different to that, is it?  I suppose I could have held onto my VHS player, but I willingly upgraded to something else.

Anyway.  What do you do? Do you download everything or are you a (mostly) luddite like me?   Thinking about it, it's probably just as well that I never got into vinyl.  Can you imagine what my house would look like now?  Didn't John Peel's house need reinforcing to support the weight of all his music collection?  Well, maybe not quite that....

Incidentally, on the subject of my new shelves....

.....now that's what I call a proper bookshelf.  It's not a man cave without many virtually identical books  of cricket statistics (and some Shakespeare folios).

broken heroes on a last chance power drive....

Is it a good thing or a bad thing when a medical professional tells you that you’re a fascinating case? The two physios I’ve seen over the last six months were both fascinated by my calf muscles. They see calf muscles all day every day, right? It was slightly unnerving that they were especially interested in mine. I saw the sports injury consultant today. His first question to me when I walked through the door and we’d exchanged pleasantries was,
“So, what’s your sport?”

This threw me somewhat, as I see myself as a hobbyist at best. I dabble with running, swimming and cycling, but I’m hardly Mo Farah, Michael Phelps or Sir Chris Hoy, am I?

I’ve been having mechanical problems, as I keep telling everyone, and I discussed these with the specialist, although he was equally as interested in my multiple sclerosis, when it started, how it first presented itself and how it affected me now.

The long and the short of it is that he wants me to keep running and is keen to get me back on the road as soon as possible. Within 15 minutes of meeting me, he’d already gauged that running was vitally important to both my physiological and psychological sense of wellbeing and he was adamant that this should continue for as long as possible. He’s right, of course. Running is important to me; it’s when I’m running that I feel as though I’m free. It’s painful and it’s hard and it’s often a slog, but it brings on a sense of good, honest fatigue… not the creeping lassitude you get from MS. I swim and I cycle, but neither of them have quite the same effect on me as running. Running just feels purer somehow.

I drop my left foot when I run. I have a lack of dorsiflexion in my left ankle. My left thigh is noticeably less well developed than the equivalent muscle on the right (not that I’ve ever noticed before today - I guess that explains why that new pair of skinny jeans felt like it had one leg tighter than the other.  It wasn't the jeans cut weirdly after all - it was me). These things are all likely to be caused by neurological issues and are causing me to run differently as I get tired and this in turn is causing mechanical problems in my feet, calves, knees and groin. Cumulatively, these problems are adding up and are really affecting my ability to run and taking a physical toll on my body.

When I feel fatigued, it can sometimes be hard to get out of the door to go for a run, but I always make myself do it. Always. For the first time in my life, I’m worried that this iron will might actually be causing me to hurt myself. I can push through fatigue, but if the fatigue is causing my body to break, then maybe I should stop?

Nonsense, says the specialist. I may have to cut my miles back and start to do more cycling and more swimming, but he’s damned if he’s going to let my neurology stop me from running altogether. We can work on the flexibility of my ankle and the strength of my glutes to support my knee as I run. He’s seen 39 year olds without MS in worse physical condition than me, and with the miles on the clock really starting to add up, some kind of wear and tear is inevitable.

More stretching. More physio. More running. Adapt, adjust and keep running.

So, in summary: fuck you, multiple sclerosis. This show is still on the road.

flirt....

My wife seems to be under the misapprehension that I am a flirt.

It has long been a standing joke in our household that, if everybody has some kind of secret super power, then mine is the ability to charm ladies of a certain age, waitresses and checkout girls.  Well, as super powers, I'm pretty sure there are worse ones to have....

There has been some concern, lately, that the target range for these powers is extending; that as I get older, my powers are beginning to expand to affect a younger audience.  To my mind this reflects nothing more than the fact that as a bald, married, middle-aged man, most members of the opposite gender consider me pretty harmless and behave accordingly, but my wife is sceptical and keeps looking at me with narrowed eyes as though I'm guilty of wilfully charming all young ladies who have the misfortune to cross my path.

An example: we were in Sainsburys doing the weekly shop on Sunday afternoon; my wife was busy selecting bags of assorted seeds and I manoeuvered the trolley into the next aisle.  As I rounded the corner, a lady with a small child sat in her trolley was coming the other way, we did that thing where we both stopped and waited to see who moved first, and then I scampered the long way around the corner with my trolley to leave her as much room as possible to get past.  I carried on up the aisle to pick up some bottles of soda water.

As I was about half way down the aisle, my wife caught up.
"Did you hear what that woman just said to her child?"
"Um.  No.  What did she say?"
"Just after you'd gone past her, she turned to her child and said 'He was a nice, smiley man wasn't he?'  What did you say to her?" (It was hard not to hear a slightly incredulous, accusatory tone to her voice as she asked this question, but perhaps I imagined that....)
"I didn't say anything to her"
"You must have done!"
etc.

It appears that my wife simply finds it hard to believe that - to that lady, at least - I might just be a nice, smiley man pushing his trolley around a supermarket.  And what could possibly be bad about having a husband who is seen as being a nice, smiley man? Why does there have to be some kind of other, more complicated agenda-that-I-don't-really-understand at work?  Maybe I'm just happy-go-lucky by nature?

Well, that lady only saw me in passing in a supermarket.  How could she possibly know that I'm really grouchy, argumentative and untidy?  True, but it's actually quite difficult to convey all of that in a brief smile as you navigate your shopping trolley around a corner and I'll admit that she may have taken away quite the wrong impression of me as a person.  In fact, she has no idea who the real me is at all.

It really takes a little more time and commitment to get to know me properly.

*sigh*

I've never understood women.  Quite how anyone thinks I am in any way emotionally equipped to flirt with one is entirely beyond me.

not beaten yet....

I've just completed a 5.10 mile run.  I ran all the way with my wife, and she was delighted with our overall pace of 9.09 minutes per mile.  I was less pleased.

It's not that I mind running with her - far from it - it's just that over the last couple of months, running has become a real struggle for me.  Physically, I mean... in a reversal of R. Kelly's conundrum in Bump n'Grind, the mind is telling me yes, but my body.... my body is telling me no.  Runkeeper tells me that in December last year, I managed 15 runs, this in addition to a couple of swims represents a pretty reasonable effort, I think.  An average week consisted of around 15-20 miles of running.  In the last couple of months, I have been forced to savagely cut this back to a solitary run a week of about 3-4 miles in length.

The reason?  My body just can't seem to take the strain.  It started with cramping in my calves, then it was plantar fasciitis in my left foot, then a problem with my left ITB and now it seems to also include stiff hips and two sore knees after every run.  I suspect that this is all caused by my tendency to "drop" the left side of my body when I get tired, and that this is having a mechanical knock-on across my body as I try to compensate.   Mechanical, yes... but also likely to fundamentally be neurological in origin and related to my MS.  I wish it wasn't, but I fear that it is.

I'm off to see a sports injury specialist doctor on Wednesday, and I'm hoping that he'll be able to pinpoint the physical problems and to identify a solution..... but I am also preparing myself for the news that there may ultimately be nothing he can do if the problem originates in my brain.

I'm adjusting already to the change in my exercise schedule: I'm swimming more and I've started replacing my long run every week with a cycle, but it's just not the same.  Oh, I'm sure I'll adjust further and I'm certainly not going to give up running easily.... but equally I'm not an idiot, and there's only so much punishment the body can take and there might come a point where even I have to just accept that.  It doesn't matter how strong my will is.

This evening's run was longer than I have attempted for some time.  The pace was reasonable, albeit around 45 seconds to a minute per mile slower than I would have run it in December.  It's just that it was physically really difficult from the mid-thigh down from about a mile in.  My heart and lungs were fine, but pretty much everything else was telling me a different story.

I'm 39 years old now and have a few miles on the clock (Runkeeper alone has clocked up around 2100 running miles for me since November 2008).  I'm pretty big for a runner and a little wear and tear on my body is probably to be expected.  I don't want to blow this out of all proportion, and perhaps I'll get good news on Wednesday and everything can be back to what it was before.  Maybe.

And if not?  Well, I'll be sad but life moves on.  Life already is moving on.  I might get a new bike and find some proper hills....

her arms are wicked and her legs are long...

Earworms of the Week

"Snooker Loopy" - Chas n'Dave and the Matchroom Mob

Inevitable, probably.... given the presence of several of the matchroom mob on the BBC coverage of the recent World Snooker Championships.  Willie Thorne baffles me: he wasn't that good a player by the standards of the very best and he is a resolutely uninsightful commentator... and yet he persists.  The best commentators are able to "see" the shots that a player might consider in any situation and are able to enlighten the audiences about risks and how the break is planning out.  Willie Thorne, on the other hand, either waits until the shot has been played before expressing a view ("Oh, and that's a poor choice of shot") or he will say something inane like "Well, whether that break means anything in the context of this match, we'll find out in the next 24 hours".  Utterly pointless.  Great sport, though.  Has Ronnie threatened to retire again yet?

"Shadow Pico" - One Direction

I don't even know what song this is mocking, but this video is pure, unalloyed genius.

"Them Bones" - Alice in Chains

Brilliant.  Popped up on a playlist in the car the other day and has been sat in my head ever since.  This song was released in 1992 and still sounds resolutely contemporary today.

"Demons" - The National

One of my favourite bands.  I also heard "Slow Hands" by Interpol this week, and although they're another band I love, I was reminded again how much better Matt Beringer's vocals are.  He's got a lovely, honeyed singing voice and some beautifully tortured lyrics.  New album due later this month and I can hardly wait.

"Spoonman" - Soundgarden

New album by Soundgarden out too, I hear.  I've not heard a single thing off it, to be honest.  This is great though, eh?  For me, they're a bit of a nearly band.  Good in parts, but never quite the sum of their parts.

Theme tune to "Game of Thrones"

I loved the books and I'm loving the TV adaptation, but this might just possibly be my favourite credits ever.  I love the way that it shows you the world of Westeros in exquisite detail, revealing a slightly different set of locations every week to match the plot and sometimes to foreshadow events to come.  It's brilliantly realised and is also a great way of reminding you of the geography of the world and the physical separation of the characters.

"Tender" - Blur

More and more, this is my favourite song by the band.  I heard "Parklife" on the radio this week too, and that sounded pretty good, but this is on a wholly different level simply because of Albarn's emotional commitment to the song.  As I always say too, a truly epic performance at Glastonbury a couple of years back too.

"Man Smart (Woman Smarter)" - Harry Belafonte

Not just a song, but in my experience a statement of absolute, irrefutable fact too.  Oh yes, smarter.  That's right. That's right.

"Razzamatazz" - Pulp

Pervy, which is just how Jarvis Cocker should sound.

"Hello, I Love You" - The Doors

Simple.  Beautiful.  Memorable.  Enduring.  There's a reason that people are still playing this song on the radio, you know.  Just try not to think of how it all ended bloated, bearded and in a bathtub, eh?

Right.  That's your lot.  Have a good weekend, y'all.

blowing every time you move your mouth....

I'm not normally into management books.  I'm sure they contain all sorts of wisdom, but I do wonder whether even the best of them are destined to be endlessly name-dropped into conversation by people who haven't taken the actual time to read and digest the ideas for themselves and are content just to pretend that they have and hope that's enough.

There's enough of that going on at my office, in any case.  The current favourite at our place, monkeys and elephants aside, is to talk about Stephen Covey's "Urgent/Important Quadrant".  The director mentioned it once, so like all self-respecting middle-managers, the next level down rushed to pretend that they all knew what he was talking about.  My boss actually went as far as standing up to draw the quadrant for us in a team meeting, after proudly proclaiming that he read quite a lot of management literature (which probably explains a lot).  He then, pen in hand, proceeded to make an absolute prize idiot of himself in his failure to articulate a fairly simple theory.  At one point, I actually took pity on him and googled the quadrant on my phone and drew it on the board for him.
"No, that's not it..."

You really can't help some people.

Anyway.  I've made an exception, and on the basis of a recommendation in the Guardian, I've picked up a copy of what has been described as the most insightful book on management ever written.... only the book itself wasn't written about management at all, it was written about the army.

The book is "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence" by Norman Dixon, and it was written as long ago as 1976 and seeks to examine the root causes of famous disasters in British military history.  Apparently, his conclusions are eerily appropriate to a management environment.

I haven't read the book yet, but here's some selected blurb from a review:

Dr Dixon postulates that it is the military organisation that contains the potential to create incompetent leadership or to promote incompetent persons to positions of great power and responsibility. … He lists several characteristics and values which the military holds in high esteem and strives to achieve, as well as their negative consequences. Among these are:

• Uniformity, to the extent of oppressive conformity and the crushing of individual thoughts and the devaluation of initiative.
• Hierarchy and the importance of proper authority, to the extent of a fear to report bad news to superiors, the rejection of suggestions or corrections from the lower ranks, and hostility towards those of lower rank who initiate action without permission, however effective or necessary the action was.
• A love of regularity and regimentation and an inability to think outside of drill.
• The fact that ambitious and achievement-oriented officers are highly esteemed and respected in the military, so much so that self-serving and vainglorious officers are sometimes promoted to high leadership, with disastrous consequences....

....All else being equal, a well-equipped, well-trained fighting force will be made ineffective by the presence of an incompetent leader, and no amount of military intelligence, regardless of how accurate and timely it is, will be used effectively by an incompetent general.....

He gives several examples of incompetence:

• Sending a military force to a situation without a clear mission or objective.
• Sending a military force into a situation without the legal ability to defend itself or the mandate to fulfil its role effectively.
• Leaving a military force in a situation where it becomes progressively more committed, to the point where it is unable to withdraw safely, or when resources and lives have to be continually poured into a situation with no clear end.
• The lack of political will to sustain losses, or an unrealistic political definition of “acceptable losses”.
• Withdrawing a military force before the successful completion of objectives.

All of this sounds very familiar indeed and easily applicable to my office.

Today I learned we have a new KPI: at the start of every project, we have to estimate the number of requirements we think we will have.  As the project progresses, we will then be benchmarked against our original estimate to see how close we were.  If we're close, we'll be green.  If not, we won't be.  No explanation is given as to why this is a useful, meaningful measure, but my boss is now pouring the necessary effort into ensuring that we are green for this new KPI, no matter how pointless it is.  Because, obviously, the NUMBER of requirements you have is far more important than the QUALITY of them, no?

I'm starting to appreciate Kafka a little more each day of my working life.

Well, at least in this particular field of incompetence, no one dies.....Well, only on the inside.

culture sucks down words...

I've had my ups and downs with Primal Scream.  Well, more downs than ups, truth be told.  I own two of their albums - Screamadelica and xtrmntr - but they remain one of the worst bands I have ever had the misfortune to see playing live and I can't quite escape the feeling that they're blaggers who are trading on past glories.

The gig was at the Reading Festival in 1994, where I seem to remember that they were headlining the Friday night.  They were quite a big deal at the time, and were touring the follow-up album to Screamadelica, "Give Out But Don't Give Up".  One of my housemates of the time was a massive fan, but I just didn't hear it.  "Rocks" was a massive hit, but it was basically pretty unimaginative, wasn't it?  Hoovers keep a hooverin'?  My opinion of them was quickly set into stone when they proceeded to play that song twice in the same set.  It seemed that they were so pleased with it, they thought they'd play it for us again.  The only other time I have seen a band do that was when U2 opened and closed their set with Vertigo... and at least they were trying to work an operatic theme at the time.  I thought it was a sign of creative bankruptcy.  Kowalski and xtrmntr partially changed my mind, but my suspicions lingered.

I've been listening to BBC 6Music quite a lot recently, and in the main it's been a joy: I get to hear new stuff by Daft Punk and the National together with classics by Depeche Mode, the Stones, the Who and people like that.  One of the downsides is that it's inevitable that I hear a few records that I don't like.  One of these is the latest single by Primal Scream, It's Alright, It's OK.

I won't mince my words: it's shit.  The tune is not in the least bit memorable and the lyrics are just a sequence of pointless platitudes.

It's alright, it's ok
You can do
Just what you want to
Take your time
Walk away
You can come back
If you're supposed to

Seriously?  That's it? Is that the best you can do?  NOT.  GOOD.  ENOUGH.  I know that not everyone is going to write lyrics like Manic Street Preachers or David Bowie, packed full of symbolism and references.... is it wrong for me to expect my musicans to at least try a little bit?  Even if that's only to have a decent tune.....I can forgive a lot for a decent tune.

I saw Dido on Later....With Jools Holland the other day, and she was awful too.  Now, I'm not one of those people who automatically despises everything that Dido does, but her current single is shockingly lazy: clunky, obvious chords and this lyric:

No love without freedom
No love without freedom
No love without freedom
No freedom without love

What?  And presumably no cheese without crackers?

Maybe it's me.  As I was in the car this afternoon, "Hello, I Love You" by the Doors came onto the radio.  Great record.  Then I caught myself: was I operating double-standards here?  Is this not exactly the same kind of lyric that I've been criticising as being lazy?  I know Jim Morrison thought he was a poet, but this isn't exactly Tennyson, is it?

Hello, I love you
Won't you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you
Won't you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game

But, you know what? The lyrics are simple, but they're definitely not simplistic:

She holds her head so high
Like a statue in the sky
Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long
When she moves my brain screams out this song
[amazing key change]
Sidewalk crouches at her feet
Like a dog that begs for something sweet
Do you hope to make her see, you fool?
Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel?

Not to mention the absolutely killer tune. Yeah, this is a wholly different class of song. They're still playing it on national radio today for a reason, you know.... If they're playing any Primal Scream songs at all in 40 years, I'm guessing it won't be their current single.

...And then the DJ played "Motorcycle Emptiness" and everything was right with the world again.

he's not what you'd call a glamorous man....

In spite of the glorious weather, I spent a good part of the bank holiday weekend shut up indoors watching the TV coverage of the final of the Snooker World Championships from the Crucible theatre in Sheffield.  Well, who needs a suntan when you can watch a sport as gripping as this?  At its finest, snooker bares the souls of its competitors like almost no other sport.  One of the players is always forced to remain in his seat, disconsolately sipping on a glass of mineral water as he watches his opponent notch up another massive break.  There's nowhere to hide and not a damn thing they can do to influence the result.  In those circumstances, the eyes truly are the window onto a tortured soul.  It's almost cruel to watch as their hopes slip away slowly, ball by ball, frame by frame.

At one point, the TV cameras went out into the crowd picking out famous faces: oh, there's Stephen Fry.  He's a huge fan of the game of course.  There's Phil Taylor.  He knows all about the pressure of appearing in a world final.  And so on.  Eventually, the camera came to rest on a pair of guys, sitting side by side and with the most remarkable, unbelievable haircuts perched improbably upon the tops of their heads.  They looked like they had come from another planet.

"Ah", said Willie Thorne, "There's Serge from the band Kasabian and Noel Fielding sitting next to him."  As if that wasn't quite enough information, popular culture guru Thorne (aged 59) then felt the need to add, "Kasabian are one of the biggest rock groups in the country at the moment and Noel Fielding is a very funny man indeed."

Erm.  Thanks for that Willie.

The camera lingered for a while, and I just marvelled at how incongruous they looked sat with the rest of the crowd assembled for the snooker.  I've been to the Crucible to watch the snooker a couple of times, albeit never for a final, and my lasting impression was that the whole place smelt vaguely of fags and stale bacon grease and had the clientele to match.  These two looked about as out of place as a pair of splendid birds of paradise sat amongst a flock of dowdy town pigeons.  They also, by the way, looked completely ridiculous.

I was reminded of the time - a few years ago now - that I was pushing a trolley around Sainsburys and I bumped into a bunch of guys who all clearly thought they were in Motley Crue in the Los Angeles of about 1988: you know, long hair, aviator sunglasses, ripped jeans, studded leather jackets and massive cowboy boots.  Big hair.  I can't emphasise the hair enough.  they had really, really big hair.  One of them was in the trolley and they were waving around bottles of vodka and cases of beer as they browsed up and down the aisles.

This was in Sainsburys.  In the middle of the afternoon.  In a retail park just outside Nottingham.  It was astonishing; a truly remarkable sight.  If Serge from Kasabian and Noel Fielding looked out of place in the Crucible theatre, then these guys looked suitably bizarre amongst the normal suburban, middle-class shoppers of your average Sainsburys.  Asda this is not.  They too looked like they had come from another planet - certainly from another era -  and I found myself wondering what they did for a living in the real world.  Serge is an actual rock star and Fielding likes to imagine that he is the comedy equivalent, but I suppose that at least both of them have day jobs that give them the permission to look quite that ridiculous.  What about this lot though?  Perhaps they all worked in a call centre and did their normal shopping after work during the week?  Maybe they only went the full powder-perm rock look at the weekend?  Maybe they were in a Motley Crue tribute band playing Nottingham that weekend.  Who can say?  I certainly didn't fancy stopping to ask them.  They were a touch rowdy.

Perhaps I should ask Willie Thorne?  I'm sure he'd know.

you took an instamatic camera and pulled my sleeves around my heart...

This weekend, I am accompanying my wife to some industry black tie dinner in Frankfurt.  Speeches will be:

a) On the pharmacy industry
b) In German

Entertainment will be provided by:

a) Ronan Keating.
b) Seriously.  Ronan bloody Keating.

Because I am there to escort my wife, and because some of the most important people in the industry will be there, it will probably be bad form if I get drunk and throw up on her billionaire boss's shoes.  That said, there must surely be a happy medium between "depressingly sober" and "horrifically and embarrassingly drunk".  There had better be: to keep my sanity, I think I must find it.

We went through the planned agenda for the evening earlier, and apparently, at the end of the evening - well, before the disco dancing to David Hasslehoff records - there is a "night cup".  This, I'm informed, is the German version of a nightcap.... presumably the Germans liked it as a concept but are too logical to consider a "cap" an appropriate vessel for a drink and adapted the expression from the original so that it made more sense.  Also on the agenda was the news that, whilst the conference VIPs are attending a series of no-doubt fascinating talks in the afternoon, the hotel salon will be available all day for the wives to have their hair done and other assorted beauty treatments.

Tempting though the beauty salon and the chance to have a good natter with the other wives might be, I think that I may instead find myself a bar and start taking the edge off the evening with a stein or two of excellent German beer.

Someone at work asked me today which airport we were flying from.  I have no idea.  My job is simply to turn up and support my clever wife.

...and to look beautiful, although I think that goes without saying.

no more unethical treatment of the elephants....

Like any large business, an inordinate amount of time seems to be spent trying to decide what box to put people in. This starts with the recruitment process, but it isn’t too long before you’re learning your Belbin preferred team roles, your Myers-Briggs type and whatever other models are fashionable at any given point. A few months ago, the senior managers in our department all started carrying around a little book that helped you to understand what kind of animal you were. There were four options: lion, dolphin, elephant or monkey. You answered a few questions and then you could learn the insight that your “animal” threw onto your management style. I can’t even remember what animal I came out as, but the whole thing is clearly bollocks, isn’t it? Well, the author had thought of this and covered off this possible criticism in his introduction.

I’ll paraphrase.

“You might wonder how there can be several billion people in the world and only four personality types. Well, there are only four types of race in the world too…”

I forget now what the four races were (Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid and Austroloid, I think…), but I’d read enough. This was such manifest bullshit that it was actually funny. What happens when a Caucasian person and a Negroid person have children? How do you determine the race then? At what point do you decide you need more than 4 categories to catch the subtleties of the entirety of humanity? And what on earth has this nonsense got to do with management styles? Is it relevant to wonder what happens when someone of type “Lion” hooks up with an “Elephant”? For my money, this is tip-toeing frighteningly close to eugenics.  It’s bollocks, and the people who actively subscribe to this stuff should be as kept as far away from management roles as possible.

Anyway. One of the colleagues I’ve been working with mentioned to me that she was about to run a Myers-Briggs session for another team (she works in HR). She decided to have a go at guessing my “type” and came up with ESTJ.

ESTJ
Practical, realistic, matter-of-fact. Decisive, quickly move to implement decisions. Organize projects and people to get things done, focus on getting results in the most efficient way possible. Take care of routine details. Have a clear set of logical standards, systematically follow them and want others to also. Forceful in implementing their plans.

This compares to the actual type I came out as when I last sat the test.

INTJ
Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – for themselves and others.

[the other types are here.  There are 16 of them.  Better than 4, but not by much]

I tend to think that, on balance, the whole thing is basically nonsense and subject to so many variables as to make the attempt to put me in a box something of a waste of time, but I suppose this is passingly interesting up to a point.

 I’m definitely an introvert (the “I” as opposed to “E” for extrovert)… this doesn’t necessarily mean that I can be found in the kitchen at parties, but it means that I often find social interaction with people very tiring, whereas apparently extroverts derive energy from this kind of interaction.

I mentioned this to my wife. Her response?

“Decisive?!!!
Takes care of routine details?!!
Not you, my dear!”

Charming.  I rather tartly retorted that she has no idea what I’m like at work, to which she wondered who saw the better part of me.

 The cat, obviously.

Mind you, I suppose the problem is not tests like these themselves, it’s when people take them at face value as offering any sort of genuine insight into how somebody ticks. Even the best observed, researched and tested of these tests is still shooting in the dark when trying to understand something as complex as the workings of the human brain. Still, you get to bring in some consultants to sell you this bullshit in a flashy presentation at your big team meeting, you hand out copies of the book to the members of your management team and it saves you from actually having to come up with your own insight and observations on the individuals you manage, I suppose.  Why use your own brain when you can recycle something from elsewhere?  That's pretty much the only rule in the management handbook, isn't it?  Original thinkers need not apply.

Nah.  Personality typing isn't really for me. The Man ain’t gonna put me into no box. A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

I am UNKNOWABLE.

…. typical bloody Elephant.

let's go native....

A friend once asked me where I was born.
"Northampton" I replied.
"Ah yes.  You've got a Northampton accent."

This remark mystified me somewhat.  I've never really considered myself to have any kind of an accent - does anyone? - but given that I only spent the first 18 months of my life in Northampton and have spent almost no time there since, it seemed highly unlikely that the accent had somehow rubbed off on me.

My dad is from Plymouth and my mother is from Essex.  I was at a boarding school between the ages of 7 and 18 and then I went to University, first in Warwick for three years and then in York.  I lived in York for a year after completing my Masters degree and then moved down to Nottingham, where I've been ever since.  I don't even know what a Northampton accent sounds like.  It seems inconceivable to me that I have somehow got one.

Many years later, after I had been living in Nottingham for a few years, someone else asked me where I was born.
"Northampton"
"Ah, that makes sense.  You have an accent that sounds like it straddles the great vowel divide"

I didn't know what that was, but apparently it's an imaginary line drawn across the country between Bristol and the Wash and it acts as a sort of linguistic tipping point.  You know, "sconn" on one side and "scone" on the other.

"I asked the maid in dulcet tone
To order me a buttered scone
The silly girl has been and gone
And ordered me a buttered scone."

For reference, I say "sconn".  But I also say "barth", and "H" is an aitch and not a haitch.  And, for my American friends, it's also definitely ALUMINIUM.  There's a whole extra syllable, you know.

Anyway.  I mention this because I think I am largely without accent.  Received pronunciation.  I realise that this is likely what everyone thinks, but in my case I think it's true.  English, for sure, but other than that, rather more difficult to pin down to any specific location.

....except that this evening, I warmly greeted someone with a broad "'EY OOP".  I didn't add the "me duck" onto the end of the sentence, but I might just as well have done.  I've lived in Nottingham now for 15 years, longer than I've ever lived anywhere else in my life and it appears the accent is finally rubbing off on me.

Hmm.  I'm not at all sure how I feel about that.

A good introduction to the dialect can be found here.  Sample quote:

"To the outsider, the Nottingham accent might make the person speaking it sound thicker than Barry White's shit on Boxing Day morning, but don't kid yersen; it’s actually the most complex dialect in the UK., drawing in and absorbing speech patterns and slang from Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire and the South before spitting them back out in a concentrated stream of inflection, tone, tempo and swearing."

Perhaps I should just relax into my fate.

Or move.

Yer get meh, me ode fookin dookeh?