Fuzzy Glow

It's all ok now. It's been sorted. The hit has been called off.
For my loyal fans, the tedious wordwar that sparked between Mr Skate Raider and myself has dissipated like so much ice in a pint of Magniers cider.

Speaking of which, since when did people put ice in cider? And this Magniers stuff - proof (if ever it were needed) that even White Lightning could appeal to the zeitgeist generation y-ers by making some arty adverts with a bit of languid music and chucking a blue cocktail umbrella in it. What's next? Special Brew served in shot glasses and drunk through a decapitated Twirl?
Tennants doled out in neon syringes with lines from Velvet Underground songs etched on the side? Actually that one would just appeal to their existing demographic.

How far will it go? It's still just crap cider. If you think about it, Ireland hardly has the ideal climate for growing apples anyway, but it's become the specific selling point of the product. As if you could absorb some of the laid-back, lovable, easy-going Irish charm by merely quaffing some cider made with rubbish apples. Well sod off. I'll stick to my syringe of Tennants thanks.

Unwitting Dialogue

I seem to have engaged in an unwitting dialogue about blogging with someone.
That's ok - I ruminate about blogs because I'm fundamentally suspicous of the motives for having one. I'd love to say "yeah, I just got a blog because y'know I like the idea of an impersonal online diary that details my wacky thoughts for my own amusment", but that would be a fat old lie. It's curiosity. Does anyone else think like me? Am I any good at writing random stuff? Is there actually anyone who finds this stuff interesting? I don't actually need anyone to answer that. It's kind of rhetorical.

I was unfair in my previous post, I'll admit that. I genuinely didn't believe that anyone would read this stuff anyway, so when someone did I was slightly nonplussed, more nonplussed than when I was called a tosspot by some kind of lovable web terrorist. Nonplussedness has now receded into reflection, rather like being a buddhist and being crapped on by a seagull that's actually the reincarnation of your own nan.
Not sure what I'm rattling on about now. Hopefully something or someone will stop me before the end of this sente

Moving Eulogy Forces Return

Since being labelled a tosspot by a complete stranger, I felt it time to overhaul this ramshackle site, streamlining it into an exocet of class and style, basically by adding another post and changing the name. It's a rebranding exercise.

I've just realised that I'm making an assumption here though. It's not just complete strangers who label me a tosspot, I'm sure. There's probably people I know that would say the same. Either way, it's the first time I've been insulted by the internet.

One thing I have noticed about the Thanet blog list (which I seem to have been enrolled on) is that people seem to drop self-referential hints that they actually socialise in real life. That makes blogging a massive neon wank festival. Do you people run into eachother in the supermarket and talk about your blogs? Why not just talk about it using your mouths and sounds (or "speaking")? What motivates people to think that they have audiences who actually care about what they write? It's easy, trust me, to sit here and painstakingly edit swathes of text until you've refined everything you've got to say into a tiny ball of potent eye poo.
That's the problem with "blogging". It's usually a cringeworthy exercise in shouting "LOOK AT ME".

There's reams of stuff out there written in the style of suffering martyrs to their own counter-culture fame. You can almost hear the deluded Morrissey-esque sigh as they find themselves forced back to shovel more of their insight onto a ravenous public, to keep the demand for their gift at manageable levels of mass hysteria. Sadly, the only people who read blogs these days are the people who write them, which disqualifies immediately from having anything worthwhile to say.
It's like a load of bald men sending eachother gift-wrapped combs. The fighting has long ceased.

Disclaimer: I think that originator of the comment may be that bloke with the spider-web tattoo on his face who's always outside the bank. If it is you, I honestly DIDN'T have any change.

Bus Mongs #3 - The Betrayal

Oh woe!! Woe is me! For the bitterest of all betrayals has occurred.

Those who I thought were the stout yeomans of common sense. Those who I thought untouchable by the pervading trend in idiocy. Those I thought I could trust.

Yes, The Drivers now merit their own entry after a particularly painful episode.



Previously, I had thought that these men, these long suffering footsoldiers had been immune to this ill wind. But now they have joined the ranks of the damned.
Picture the scene. I am engaged in reading a particularly ludicrous passage of The Spear by James Herbert. Enjoyable nonsense, a real page-turner. I was looking forward to delving into the netherworld of the vividly described nazi version of the Wicker Man, drifting home in enjoyable isolation. Cocooning myself no less into a steel case of oblivion to the collected Bus Mongs around me. But no! No! No such favour would be granted. Liltingly, deceptively, music started to play, it sounded ambient almost. Background ambience - this could have even enhanced the experience. But no, the half formed smile was snatched from my face and it's foetus crushed under the foot of aural pain.

The driver, under some crazed spell, had brought his tape. His Phil Collins tape.

As the whiny slaphead wove his terminally mediocre melodies around my ears, I felt close to tears.

"Oooone more night-ah"

Far from being a paen to his leaving love, it seemed he was mocking me. One more night of this bland shite assaulting my ears. One more night of pain. I resorted to placing my headphones on my head, musicless, just to buffer my senses from this assualt by this erstwhile geography-teacher's music collection. To no avail. To no avail. I write this with tears in my ears.

Actually, thinking about it, the drivers are usually arseholes anyway - what did I expect? Other drivers deserve passages to themselves, entire posts. This, usually inoffensive, chap had offended by offering offensively inoffensive music to my offended ears. But still, I shall be more wary of resting on my bus laurels. If I lower my guard, they strike.

The Streets - A Grand Don't Come for Free

Imagine Alan Bennett in a burberry cap, sans Thora Hird, but with a penchant for recreational drugs and living in a high-rise in Birmingham. That's The Streets. And while buying this record left me feeling gritty and urban, I kidded myself that invention was the intention and it's retention comprehension. Because that's probably a decent rap in Harrow or perhaps Milton Keynes.
What I'm trying to say is that this album was way outside my normal purchasing demographic. Normally, I walk smugly along the neat hedgerows and net curtains of the "safe" options that have already achieved legendary status, or the quirky pavement cafes of artists that you know won't attract passing trade (and therefore attention).
But I went to the bad side of town to buy this record. Metaphorically. In reality, I got it from an online retailer so didn't really go anywhere. But for someone as un-versed in the ways of rap and urban music as I, this was a trip to the badlands.

I did not wish to assume the mantle of chav amongst my peers, but a performance by the Streets on the Jonathan Ross show could only be described as electrifying. From my scant knowledge of such music, it seems to burst and flow with the unrefined energy that renders it so essential in the eyes of impressionable young'uns like our chum in the picture.
Comparing The Streets with the chav phenomenon is lazy and unimaginative, but the similarities are there. The diction, the themes, the little details, the pre-occupation with nightclubs, drugs and booze. The slight whine and staccato rhythm of the vocals is another indicator, and the pulsing beat almost forces you to strut in that exaggerated chav way. But to give them their due, the album is thought-provoking, relevant and exhilerating in the way that the chav is not. Whilst your average street-chav can only hope to be a garish characature of someone with something worthwhile to say, The Streets write the manifesto for a movement which prides itself on being largely directionless. To be a chav is less to strive for something, but to avoid being a host of other things from what I can tell. It makes punk look well-informed and refined. Take the energy, the hope, the reason for fighting or making a noise out of punk, and you have Blairpunk, or the chav phenomenon. A social cult based on a bland and unstimulating society. Where they all have just enough money to afford that new spoiler for the Fiesta or that new Sovereign ring, just enough to get smashed in a bus shelter with some girls with big earrings. There's nothing heroic about the chav, and in many ways, there's nothing heroic about the downright grotty world in which The Streets live, rolling spliffs in front of the Bill, hanging around in nightclubs for people who don't turn up, taking drugs through boredom, the droning confrontational chat-up patter, hanging around in queues, trying to phone your mum. It's not exactly Dr Zhivago. But it's real. And for an uncompromising truth, and an uncompromising document of our time, this is hard to beat. And occasionally hard to bear.

Bus Mongs #2 - The Quickening

As promised, here's the next instalment of bus mongs. I bet you've been looking forward to this, haven't you...

2. Bus Monitors
Now, in every walk of life, in every profession, in every place where humans exist there are heirachies. I accept these heirachies with varying degrees of grace. But, if there is one thing that makes me want to stick two fingers up to "The Man" and form a rock n' roll band, it's people who assume importance and status without any requirement for them to exist. I have to be careful here to convey exactly what I mean. I want you to understand.

Two elderly women on my bus service have elected themselves bus monitors. As far as I know, there was never any formal nomination. Let's be clear; these people have assumed the position of bus lords. This basically involves:

a) Sitting right behind the driver and shouting conversations at him in a "spirit of the blitz" style dialect.
Eg: "Ooh 'ello Frank, I 'ope you'll be putting yer foot down today, my Bert's expecting his dinner!".
Essentially, mindless, insiduous prattle. The volume at which these conversations take place cow everyone around them into aural submission. No-one can read, listening to music is impossible, and quiet chats with friends are verboten. Essentially, this is an exercise in illustrating that they are friends with the driver, and so assume some of the importance they crave by association. They rarely look around or even notice other bus people, the bus people they nominally claim to represent.

b) Getting on the bus first. This is truly the raison d'etre of the bus monitor. They force themselves, elbows and handbags flailing, onto the buses first for three reasons. Firstly, this (again) gives them the air of importance and status that they crave. Secondly, getting on the bus first gives them first choice of seats - they can then position themselves in prime bus real estate for loud driver conversations. Thirdly, this allows them to have protracted chats with the driver, and fumble for their tickets whilst a large queue stretches back outside getting drenched in the rain.

c) On the rare occasions where a new driver has been in place (I always feel great sympathy for these hapless footsoldiers, thrust naively onto the battlefield), bus monitors enter a state of heightened awareness. Not content with shouting often unnecessary directions into the side of the driver's head, they will also offer information on who normally gets on at those stops, whether to wait for them if they aren't there and other classified, bus-monitor-priveleged information. MI5 themselves would have dossiers less detailed on members of the Taliban.

d) On the rarer still occasions where the bus makes a wrong turning, the bus monitors become a flurry of activity. "Wrong way!" they shout, whilst looking around incredulously at fellow passengers, as if the driver had defaced a war memorial.

e) Bus monitors are the guardians of bus protocol. Although they can blatantly disregard other passengers, any kind of ignorance on the part of other passengers is met with disapproving looks. Any breach of accepted protocol, whether or not you have ever been in this country before, been on a bus before, have the use of your arms and legs etc is met with their clear disgust.

Wedged into their seats with their old-woman paraphanelia, these are actually quite sad individuals. I can only imagine the voids in their lives must have become slightly less yawning when they found solace in bossing people about on buses. In two years of bus usage, I have yet to see them justify their self-appointed positions, and on top of it all, they clearly enjoy this. They act like they are doing me a favour. If getting on my nerves and stinking of Parma Violets is somehow helping me, I can only marvel at what my shortcomings must have been to start with. Perhaps I was too relaxed and the bus didn't smell of Parma Violets enough. We can but wonder.

This is just a small sample of the irritations that these people cause, and for once, I am not just saying that because I can't think of anything else. It really is just a small sample.

Bus Mongs

In case any of you people care, I am one of the hardy souls of this world who commute to work. Yes, I get the bus. And I like it. In fact, a 30-45 minute journey in the morning is an unbelievably relaxing way to get to work. In a carefully temperature controlled cocoon, you can pop a bit of music on and watch the scenery, leaving all the actual "doing" to someone else. Namely the driver. It's difficult to convey the benefits of merely sitting, doing nothing, on an adequately comfortable seat, and not having to worry about anything for half an hour.

This is, in theory, superb.

However, my idyll in this metal tube with wheels is frequently tested by putrid invaders. Invaders of the worst kind. Space invaders, if you like. I have attempted to categorise them in a new series, starting below. All users of public transport will identify them. And though they have many names, their presence is unmistakable.

1. The feckless youngster.
Yesterday a regular user of my bus service, a feckless young girl, brought into sharp focus why I hate other bus people so much. Perhaps I should avoid the term "bus people", as this either suggests a gypsy-like existence in an abandoned bus, or people who actually resemble buses. Either way, it's not what I am trying to say. Basically, I shall now define "bus people" as people who get the bus, in order to avoid confusion.

Anyway, her crimes against me are myriad and serious. In an international court of bus law (ICBL) she would probably be tried and sentenced to death.
We have a distinct history. It all started when, about 18 months ago, this individual started to wait at my stop. Looking little different from the usual slack-jawed windowlickers of my home town, I paid little heed, instead assuming my favourite bus-waiting position of roughly perpendicular to the shelter in order to look up the hill, legs heroically akimbo like the Collossus of Rhodes. I was somewhat surprised when she boarded the private vehicle which takes me to work. Perhaps I had misjudged her, despite her appearance and demeanour.
A few weeks passed with respectful silence between us. All was well, and I felt we had formed an invisible bond of ignoring eachother. But then, a terrible thing happened.
One day, she approached the bus stop, and I was unfortunate enough to momentarily lock eyes with her. This, as most people would doubtless know, is a pre-cursor to some kind of conversation. To my alarm, I had discovered that my mouth was open as well. Snapping it shut, I did my best to rescue the situation. I noticed that something was different about her... something was amiss. My mind raced to pin it down. Of course! Her hair. She had dyed her hair.

"I like your hair" I said, before the full disastrous impact of what I had done hit me.

I had sparked up a conversation with a bus person! No more louche days reading in the window seat, listening to the latest grooves. No more beautiful days watching the speeding countryside. I would be sucked in, engulfed in this desperate harlot's whirlygig of hair chat. Maybe the whole situation would escalate to shopping, or worse, work. Oh cruelest of all fates!!! Why? Why did my tongue forsake me, when I most needed it to stop it's diabolical dance!

"Oh, thanks, I only di...."

By this time I had run onto the bus. I couldn't risk more contact or possible friendship with this woman. She would doubtless destroy what little peace I could wrestle from my day. More would come of this, I was sure, and indeed it did.

An insidious campaign of irritation followed. Once, the bus arrived ridiculously early, and we both missed it. An uncomfortably long period of waiting ensued, before it was clear that no bus would be coming. I was forced by the situation to offer a non-commital "I think we've missed it". She rudely turned her back and stormed off, frantically jabbing at her mobile phone. As we were both bound for the same destination, and we had both missed the same bus, a nice gesture would have been to offer a place in the lift she was undoubtedly arranging (although I would have turned her down on principle). Instead she glared at me as if I had somehow Karmically arranged the absence of the bus in order to ruin her day.

This week alone, of the 5 days which are busable, she has neglected to have a ticket on 3 days. This is not only gyppo behaviour, but is also an embarrassing social situation, which I seek to avoid at all times. All 3 times, she has been "let off" the fare, which has only exponentially increased my contempt for her.

Then there's the running. I get on the bus first, due to clever kerbside positioning. She gets on immediately afterwards, and I swear she runs directly behind me, hurrying me along. I feel obliged to hurl everything into the seat and dive out of her way. Why she feels the need to hurtle up the bus is a mystery to all except me. To me, it is but more evidence of her idiocy.

It's clear she thinks she is the J-Lo of the bus community. Well she got her commupance today alright. As the bus drew near, some schoolchildren passed us. Their cries of "She's got a £2 handbag!" were delight to my ears as they systematically humiliated my self-important co-busee, who dresses like someone doing an impression of a character from Sex in the City down on their luck. Other times the bus has pulled away, as she frantically runs behind it, and I have merely sat, smiling smugly. Oh, good will have it's days. But such are the cosmic forces of yin and yan that my victories are only part of a timeless struggle. One which must be won at all costs.

Franz Ferdinand

They're Good, but Let's Not Start Any Wars Over Them

Well, in a new section of the page, I look at music and decide whether it's any good, for the benefit of you, the reader. I will call it "My Opinion on Music". Or "Reviews". Yeah, that one.



Well, Franz Fedinand (or "The 'Nand" as I haven't christened them) are a Scottish indie type outfit. That doesn't do them justice - "Indie" is used far too loosely nowadays to have any real meaning. In this instance, let's take it to mean that they are progressive and slightly non-conformist.
What's their sound like?
I'll tell you. They owe a big debt to Tom Verlaine and Television. That kind of skewed funkiness cut through with some melodious guitar work and bass lines. Then, in other instances, lead singer Alex Kapranos sounds like a more coquetteish Ian Curtis. Either way, the mix spells funky and the music spells good.
There's flashes of Iggy Pop's The Idiot in the density of some of the tracks, flashes of The Pixies in the pop-artful approach to lyrics. Bizzarely, some parts of the album also recall Blondie at their Parallel-Lines zenith. You work it out. I can't be bothered.
I've read and heard comparisons to "The 'Werk" (Kraftwerk). This is pretty crass on the surface - there's snatches of German on some tracks, which is probably the main reason for the comparisons. However, having said that, there is an undercurrent of a peculiarly teutonic baroque. Difficult to pin down, but themes like darkened cinemas and dancing with men called Michael conjure a particularly Weimar atmosphere, in my mind at least.
So we've established that their influences are a smorgasbord of left-field artists. But what is the driver that make The Nand stand out?
Well there are moments of adreneline pumping brilliance. The type that makes you want to go out and have a fight or run really fast, like all the best music does. The opener "Jacqueline" is a multi-layered romp which displays a joy for words and sound which is refreshing. It's slightly self-consciously skewed - it's not full-on absurdity, but has kind of taken a toffee hammer and tapped the norm hard enough to make it less normal. Rhyming "spectacles" with "erecticles" is one such example. The barnstorming chorus, which extols the virtues of holidaying is another.

A well rounded debut, all in all, but as a friend said to me after the Stroke's first album - "Where do they go from here?". They might have just painted themselves into a corner by releasing something so polished so soon. Time will tell, but until that time tells, don't go assassinating any Archdukes.