Gertsamtkunstwerk

Top Albums

Rolling Stone reveals top 500 albums ever

I have 6 of the Top 50, but, I have to say, it's a very partial list. It's basically a list of albums that you would expect middle-class white men between about 39 and 54 to own, comprising only 3 female artists. Nothing has gone through my mind as being a "But surely they should have included..." I don't think that it adds anything to the common weal to compile a list like this. In fact I find it somewhat irritating, reminding me for all the world of certain men I knew, especially at University, who chose their music collection, and criticised mine, on the basis of the image it projected, whereas I chose mine because I liked it.

Dandy highwaymen

The Guardian reviews a book about the real Dick Turpin. Of course, it's historically important to examine the true facts, but myths and legends do enrich life's tapestry.

The first time I read Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman I went 'Wow!' The second time I cried. And I was 27 at the time. It merits being read aloud, difficult though that is. Reading it aloud just now caused goosebumps.

Strip and Singles

More Adam. A tape that has on one side, Strip, and on the other side, the Antmusic EP (hands up all those under thirty who even know what an EP is), and various B sides.

Strip continues that jazz funky thang started on Prince Charming. Strip could almost be described as a concept album in that it has an ongoing theme running through it - erotic or even kinky sex. Except for the one track that was released as a single, Puss 'N Boots (and maybe there was a subliminal message there). But, in the end, Strip was a pretty forgettable album.

It is educating and liberating when you are about fifteen or whatever to hear this kind of stuff and know that however salacious the words, the music makes it seem really quite pleasant.

The B sides (and this is really just for the aficionados are:

• Juanito the Bandito
• Kiss the Drummer
• Physical (You're So)
• Red Scab
• Press Darlings
• Christian D'Or
• Beat My Guest
• Whip In My Valise

Listening to some of these now, I wonder whether it was a deliberate strategy by Adam to teach the teeny boppers like me a lesson or two. Adam and the Ants had spent years doing the circuit of grotty clubs as a punk band late Seventies, then Kings of the Wild Frontier propelled them onto Top of the Pops in October 1980 and suddenly they were the latest Boy Band, with a large contingent of 11-14 year olds going completely gaga about them. It must be one of the weirdest transformations in the history of pop music. Whatever Adam felt privately, he never gave the impression in his many interviews in Smash Hits, Swap Shop etc that he felt any contempt for us. but I think that the B sides, and the kinky sex tracks were probably his way of making it clear that he really wanted to make music for grown-ups.

During the punk era - or New Wave or whatever - I read something in the Sunday Telegraph saying that the Youth like this loud music because their hearing is at a different frequency to adults, and it's not surprising that adults don't really like it, because of changes in the frequency of hearing. I don't know how true that is, I'm certainly prepared to believe it. However, despite my relatively advanced age, I am absolutely delighted to report that the music still gives me that same adrenaline rush of raw unbridled emotional nihilism and the urge to mosh is irresistible. (Mind you I suddenly realised earlier that I was headbanging to Beethoven's 9th earlier).

I feel sorry for today's youth being spoon-fed safe bland manufactured pop devoid of emotion. But I wish I could have been a bit older and been a proper Punk...

Ode to a vegetable

I have a number of different versions of Handel's sublime Ombra mai fu aka the Largo from Xerxes. But which is the best?

Ombra mai fu
Di vegetabile
Cara ed amabile
Soave piu

Never was the shade
of vegetation
more dear and friendly,
more sweet

I have whittled down to a shortlist of three, based on the goosebump factor.

Bryn Terfel - sings too falsetto in the recitative, but in the aria, the timbre of his bass-baritone is so rich and so nearly pure. And the lower strings resonate like velvet. Definitely three goosebumps.

Plácido Domingo - oh heck, there's no contest, his voice is richer and more resonant than Bryn's, as he caresses the ears. Itzhak Perlman's stupendous violin plays the recitative gorgeously, but in the aria, to my surprise, I don't like it as much as Bryn's Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Five goosebumps. This morning I would have predicted Bryn Terfel to be the overall winner.

Kathleen Ferrier - do I make allowance for the technically primitive recording? That aside, I don't rate her at all in the recitative. In the aria, she sings much more slowly than the other two, and her voice has an ethereal quality. The LSO under Sir Malcom Sargent is unimpressive, which is a shame, because there are moments of four goosebumps, but I would have to settle for an overall three.

I'm not sure about old recordings. I suppose they have a curiosity value, and, of course, it means that we living today have the privilige of listening not only to the current top singers, but also to those who died years ago. There was a programme on telly recently about Caruso. They played one of his records, and I thought, "I'm sure he had a good voice but I simply don't hear it on this,", and, frankly, that's all how his legions of fans would have heard him sing. Then there was a film clip and I went "Oh! Wow!" Then I find Vesti la Giubba on the interwebnet, and I am undecided. Yes, it tells me that he must have had an amazing voice, but, when it boils down to it, there are so many more recent, technologically better versions of Vesti la Giubba, do I have to waste my time listening to Caruso?

Georgie Best, Superstar

For some reason, I can't post a comment to Chunnering, so I am going to post here about George Best

What is even more depressing is the knowledge that he was blessed with so many gifts - supreme skill, ravishing good looks, charm, intelligence (except for the obvious) and a succession of beautiful wives, and he's pissed it all away.

Manners

Cathy has an interesting take on The art of holding doors

I will admit to being a practitioner of 'hold it and pass it to the next person'.

What amazes me in the office and in hotels is that if I hold open the door for members of the lower-classes* who are carrying a heavy or bulky load they all feed a need to express their gratitude in most effusive terms dolloped with a huge undertone of surprise.

I can only surmise that I am in a tiny minority of 'suits' that feel it is basic common sense and courtesy to hold a door pen for someone less able. But there again, courtesy is my middle name. (Oh, wait, it's actally my surname - hey, to what extent does one's name, family or given, influence one's personality?)

My particular bugbear occurs in the workplace. You wait inthe lift lobby so long that you have exchanged phone numbers with and promised to be godmother to the children of the random vague-colleagues stood there. The lift comes, and despite the fact that half a dozen of you have been stood there long enough to qualify for a long-service medal, some twunt comes straight from the front door and gets into the lift before the group of lifelong buddies that has been formed in the lift lobby. And I thought we were supposed to be 'civil' servants.

*For the avoidance of confusion, I use this ironically...

The Beeb Rocks

Update: The blogosphere is wonderful: Tim has got there already:

My pro-Beeb statement is here

Hat tip to the wonderful Bingo who incidentally poses an interesting ethical dilemma on another post.

It seems that the Great British public are having a rare attack of common sense YouGov found that 67 per cent trust BBC news journalists to tell the truth, compared with 31 per cent who trust the Government.

Meanwhile, a big hand of solidarity from this striker goes out to my brethren having a proper strike over the right sort of issue.

I have to say, bringing us out on strike on these two days, of all days, is typical of the utter nitwit posturing Trotskyite so-called leadership of my pathetically inept Trade Union who actually have a message saying Strikes receive massive publicity.

We are a Civil Service Union. You would have thought that someone might have considered that the publication of the Hutton Report might warrant a little more attention than a walkout by a bunch of 'penpushers'. But they're so busy pursuing their own agenda they're incapable of seeing the world around them.

Cunts.

I now put out a call-to-arms to my fellow country people. The BBC is your birthright. Defend it. After the NHS and the scenery it is the singlemost important reason to be proud to be British.

Absolute Torch and Twang

I have been blogging for *almost* two years, and I am shocked that in that time I have barely mentioned kd lang. I can't believe that, having adored and worshipped kd for - let me see - twelve years, she barely figures on this blog.

Just to set the record straight - I absolutely adore kd lang, who is the only woman I have ever had a celebrity crush on. She is close to perfection. I have eight of her albums, plus the single of Crying she did with Roy Orbison. I have actually seen her live, and, you know I have been to so few pop gigs that is really remarkable, as is the fact that I travelled to Brighton especially to see her. And I screamed hysterically (ish).

What can I say? I am not a fan of Country 'n' Western, on the whole, and some people class kd as C&W. To me she transcends categorisation. She writes many of her own songs, and when she covers other people's she does so in a way that makes all preceding versions irrelevant. As it happens, I find it easy to sing along with her songs because our voices lie in the same range. Although, of course, she has a brilliant voice and mine is on the borders of croak-and-squawk with an occasional reference to the tune. (Actually, goddammit, I used to be able to sing, what the fuck I have been doing smoking for the past twenty three years - and smoking seriously for 17? Fuck fuck fuck!)

Just on the album from which this post takes its name, I will single out Big Boned Gal and Nowhere To Stand, one a boppy hoe-down-ish song, the other an absolute Torch miracle. Both of them tackle issues of social marginalisation. and they do it with gorgeous music and a gorgeous voice.

Much more kd to come!

Unplug the jukebox and do us all a favour...

...which actually is my attitude when I walk into way too many pubs these days...

A hectic social whirl combined with working and too much telly imposed a moratorium on my systematic listen-blog of my entire record collection.

Back in the days it was universally acknowledged that pumping up the bass made the Adam and the Ants experience mind-blowing. I don't actually have a bass to pump up on my stereo (as opposed to the mono multi-changer that had to suffice for too many of my formative years). I now have an EQ thingy that lets me choose between Disco, Soft, Clear, Heavy, Live and Hall. Or flat. And a Superwoofer that be off, med or max.

I have spent an hour-and-a-half listening to Kings of the Wild Frontier and Prince Charming, and have concluded that both of them must figure in my top ten albums of all time. Both of them contain a multitude of tunes that are right up there as bubbling outside my top twenty songs, although not actually in there. Listening brought back so many memories. Prince Charming took me back to Christmas Day 1981 (guess how I acquired this record...?) and I repeated my feeling of surprise at how, although you think of Adam and the Ants as being double drums and heavy guitar, there is a heavy 'jazz funk' influence.

I also thought about the influence that celebrities have on young impressionable teeny boppers. Goody Two Shoes led me (temporarily) to eschew drinking and smoking; S.E.X. had a far more profound influence. Just short of fourteen, I acquired a record on which my hero sang

Let all the braggers brag
Sex
S-e-x
Virginity’s no crime
Your body should be yours
And sharing it sublime

What a fabulous mantra!

Fight deprivation

In an earlier post, I mentioned my views on top-up fees. As well as attracting a representative of the Socialist Workers Students Society, I also attracted a comment from Simon, who shows he can argue clearly and logically without recourse to banal rhetoric. I'm sorry Sarah but I'm just a bit long in the tooth been there done it still have the t-shirts. Debate is not forwarded by parroting the slogan-of-the-week from Socialist Worker.

However, and Simon please don't take this as a personal attack, what struck me was that the comment contained one or two sweeping assumptions. I do agree that the bar has been raised in terms of entry to jobs, and that a degree is necessary where A Levels used to be sufficient.

But I am a socialist. This means many different things to many different people, but to me it's about recognising that as individuals we prosper when society prospers, and that society cannot prosper when opportunity and decency is denied to members of our society.

I'm afraid I don't live in a society where everybody is ready, willing and able to go to University, if only the funding package were right. I live in a society where one in ten adults is reported to be functionally illiterate; and where children arrive at Primary School unable to eat with a knife and fork, or conduct a simple conversation. Nearly half of sixteen year olds will not get five A*-C at GCSEs. Many are so alienated form the education system that they won't even take them. Many are dropping out of school at fifteen or younger.

Where I live we have gangs of teenagers whose sole raison d'etre is getting their puff and hanging around street corners being intimidating (and, just for the record, skunk doesn't induce feelings of laidbackness in addicts ). There are areas elsewhere where the current generation of teenagers is the third for whom permanent unemployment is the norm.

The reason I believe so passionately in pre-school and Early Years education is not so that the academic will be even better educated and socialised (although it would be a desirable by-product). I have a socialist Utopian dream whereby every child starts nursery at 3 and continues in an Early Years centre until seven, when they will start formal school. I don't believe in the hot-housing of 4-year olds. until the age of 7 they should be learning by play, by discovery, in an environment with a high adult-child ratio. Why is it that the typical adult-child ratio in Reception 1:30 or at best 1:15, yet a University tutorial group may only comprise six students?

My socialist utopian dream seems so simple, and yet I know it is so difficult. Give every child a chance between 3 and 7, and you have a chance of a society where almost every young person and adult feels that they have a role and a purpose. Where they are not hopelessly alienated from the system before they reach double figures. Not just in order to go to a third-rate University to do a meaningless subject, but actually to play a part in society. (The last I heard there were 100,000 vacancies for skilled workers in building and allied trades).

A child that is alienated at 7 is unlikely to opt into the system later on. When I was Chair of Governors I had to exclude a seven year old for violence, from a school that normally welcomed children excluded from elsewhere. It is a thoroughly horrible thing to do, a heart-sinking and eye-opening moment. You try to rationalise that, by being excluded, the child will get special attention, home tuition or a place in a Pupil Referral Unit. But you know with the LEA resources stretched to breaking point it would not be anything remotely like an education. That was eight years ago. I don't know what happened to the child. But I can guess. The inevitable trajectory must be to illiteracy, drugs and criminality.

Conversely I was involved in a conversation with the steel pan teacher. Somebody enquired after a couple of former pupils, who, I gathered, came from a dysfunctional background and were out-of-control. By then, in their late teens, the girl was playing in a top London steel band, the boy was a useful boxer on the local amateur circuit. A conversation with my cousin's husband the other day, who for many years gave up his own time to coach the school teams, and now teaches in a school where every child is a member of an orchestra - they actually have year orchestras - in a state school - reinforces the importance of extra-curricular activities.

Yes, Higher Education is desirable and should be defended , but if I ran the country I would invest in quality education for under 7s, and turn the arts and sport from cindrella to core subjects. The economy suffers if we don't have a highly skilled elite, but the economy suffers when so many resources are needed to clean up failure

Over a period of nine months I audited many schools in an Inner London Borough. One secondary school contained teenage boys that were physically intimidating, and eyed me with suspicion and hostility. I'm sure they would have robbed me if there hadn't been two burly security guards permanently stationed at the front gate (I hovered close to them when I took my smoke break). Another secondary school had taken a zero tolerance approach to violent behaviour, and was showing a record-breaking recovery from Special Measures. This ensured that the majority of children got a decent education; the flipside was that it left the irredeemable to pursue a murderous path through their neighbourhood

Thoughts of death and dying

Two unrelated blog posts have been a little in line with my own thinking of late. Not as morbid as it seems.

Mr. D has a funny story about music at a funeral, which is strange because yesterday I was thinking, what music do I want at my funeral? For quite a while I have fancied Going Underground by The Jam, although perhaps Eternal Flame by The Bangles has a more appropriate title. But musically and lyrically I prefer Going Underground.

Do you have any suggestions? And if anybody suggests Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On, I will find out where you live, buy a sawn-off from a dodgy geezer in a pub, come round your place and personally ensure that you don't have time to plan your own funeral - your heart will not go on because you will, in fact, be dead

Meanwhile, Ale Fan (no permalinks, it's Tuesday 27th January) has a discussion on how we mark the eventual - and ever more imminent - demise of Thatch. My line has always been champers round my place. But there are alternatives.

Be prepared

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about Mike. Mike was one of my fellow councillors but sadly dies in October 2001. Very soon after I first met him, folowing the 1998 elections, I knew that he was dying. The first time I experienced the death of a friend, and the first time I really experienced the death of someone my own age (over the years unfortunately I have known of quite a few former classmates/colleagues etc dying but after the end of our association).

Mike told a select group that he was HIV positive, and only eighteen months later he was taken into hospital with pneumonia, and he subsequently gave us details of his drug regime and, in typical Mike style told of how Lord Waheed Alli was browbeating him into taking his drugs.

Mike was Labour Party through and through. Although he had worked as a nurse, he turned to working for the Labour party. He claimed his job, before and during the 97 Election was to tell Peter Mandelson every time a newspaper had outed him (this was before Mandelson was completely out to the public).

Steve and Kirsty were with him as he died - despite having fulltime jobs and being Executive councillors, they gave up many hours to Mike. I failed to do so, which made me realise I was not a very good friend. Mike could have died at any time, but in very characteristic style made sure he lived along to watch, and analyse, Tony's keynote speech to Conference, dying just a few hours later, satisfied that Tony's speech had been sufficiently inspiring. His ashes were scattered over College Green, outside the Houses of Parliament.

I have many memories of Mike - drinking until two in the morning after a Labour Group meeting (although I had work the next day); Mike's trademark word of disapproval 'tawdry' - in a Grangemouth (Scotland) accent. Arguments with Steve about the veracity of whether Mike really could have had a thousand sexual partners (I said yes, Steve said I was just perpetuating the myth of gay men being promiscuous). Arguments with Mike about sexuality - I suggested to him the fact that he slept with women made him bisexual, he said it made him a gay man that sleeps with women.

We formally met a couple of weeks after the election. In the first Labour Group I had invited the chair to get everyone to introduce themselves because there were a few unfamiliar faces among the new intake of fresh keen young evangelists with a mission to change Lambeth. But, for whatever reason, we didn't actually speak until a bit later, when, in the Labour Group office I made an overture. I sensed his hostility.

In the July we had an away weekend, which was fundamental in forming us a group, storming many ideas and norming (management theorists will question the absence of performing - that came later). A few days later I met Mike in the Town Hall's 'local'

He, like many others of the new intake, had been warned about me; that I was a Loony Lefty and unreliable. At the away weekend I had shocked many of those who didn't previously know me by being constructive, non-loony, thoughtful, and, most of all, a good laugh, who, by playing the clown helped people to relax and bond. As the months and years progressed people realised that I wasn't a Loony Lefty, but someone wh questioned the assumptions of the Leadership, not necessarily out of oppositionalism, but out of a desire to ensure that all major decisions had actually been scrutinised with intellectual rigour.

In my final two years I was told repeatedly that I was wasted. I explained that six years of being marginalised had rather removed the ambition and drive. I find pavement politics dull and uninspiring (although worthy and necessary). I actually got most satisfaction from the quasi-judicial functions, such as Benefit Review Boards (although I was dropped from those for disagreeing with the Chief Whip), Licensing, Planning, and appeals of various sorts. Why did I get the most satisfaction? Because I have the brain - and training - to examine the facts and make an evidence-based decision.

Does it matter?

Oh god, this return to Political Gert just isn't working. Of course the Hutton Report is desperately important.

Or is it? I just can't bear to read the detailed analysis, let alone the actual report, of an enquiry into a very narrow and arguably esoteric event. Obviously, the death of David Kelly was sad - for those who knew him it was deeply tragic. But, as far as I can gather from the skim reading I have done, the Hutton enquiry looked specifically at a piece of journalism that was at best, ill-judged, at worst, deeply unprofessional. Not the first time that someone has been deeply unprofessional. And still the world continues to turn.

There has been insufficient analysis of why we even went to war in the first place. Just for the record, I happen to think that Tony in his naive idealistic mode really believed that he was on a mission to rid the world of evil - an admirable quality - but no one had the guts to tell him what us cynical plebs knew instinctively - it was way more complicated than that. I understand and applaud Tony's desire to get rid of Saddam Hussein, whose brutality is without question and deserves no apologia, no relativism, no "yes, buts..."

However, I know, and it frustrates me that my Prime Minister doesn't seem to, that no action takes place in a vacuum. Taken in isolation, getting rid of Saddam was obviously, in itself, a jolly good thing. But in the grown-up world, it has consequences, some of them desperately awful. And I was never convinced that there was sufficient consideration of the consequences.

So the headline turns into Crisis cuts through the BBC

Alastair Campbell had to resign as PM's Official Spoke, because, so the clich� said, "When the spin doctor becomes the story, the spin doctor has to go."

But when the BBC becomes the story, can the BBC resign?

I am terrified at the possible consequences of this. I love the BBC, and I strongly believe that I own it. I feel free to criticise it, because overall, I think it is a wonderful thing. I am frightened by the Murdoch-inspired attacks on it (incidentally, although I detest Murdoch, I do believe that he has a moral duty to constructively criticise the Beeb).

People rage against the philosophical anomaly of the licence fee. It is, in effect, a taxation. It would be impossible to set up a broadcasting corporation to be funded on this basis now. I become frustrated by the 'dumbing down' of television, and the fact that the glories that used to belong on BBC2 or even BBC1 are now on BBC4.

More specifically, I do so passionately believe in the supremacy of BBC News. Time and again, it is the news broadcaster that actually provides thoughtful analysis (I can't watch Sky News for longer than the headlines) ; it's the BBC that keeps up an army of reporters in remote places; it's the BBC that brings the stories that dominate more than just the disposable rolling news agenda.

I fear that the days of the BBC in its current form are numbered. And we will never love it as much as we do after its demise.

After they were famous

Having dredged The Flying Pickets from the deep recesses of my phenomenal memory - actually, I think it was stimulated by a fascinating documentary on the Miners' Strike the other night (I have a post forming in my head that marks the return of Political Gert...).

I got to thinking about how The Flying Pickets as a musical phenomenon became so. I first came across them as guests on various light entertainment TV programmes that seemed to be the staple of television in the early 80s, when on Saturday nights I had the choice between watching whatever my parents wanted on the TV, playing records very quietly in the dining room or sitting in the freezing cold bedroom listening to a battery operated transistor radio - in the earlier years fighting negotiating with my sister for the dubious right to do the last two.

You know the way the mind works - it's like surfing the internet and clicking on seemingly irrelevant links that take you somewhere unexpected.

I started thinking about Val Doonican. Those of you above a certain age must remember Val Doonican. Safe, comfy entertainment for an early Saturday night. But have you noticed how he has become a complete non-person in the world of telly-reminiscing. Thankfully, there is a website dedicated to Val Doonican. Which is a comfort.

Humour

Anyone who knows me will know that I simply can't tell jokes. What, of course, is embarrassing is that I insist on persisting, and when people groan, or look embarrassed, or realise that they have a cuticle that urgently needs picking, I just self-deprecate "I can't tell jokes".

It worried for me ages, it seems such a girlie thing for someone for whom the term 'ladette' may have been invented (although I'm not quite sure what one calls an ageing ladette).

One of the great revelations of being elected to Lambeth Council almost ten years ago wasn't the confirmation of my oratorical skills, or my strategic thinking, or my ability to analyse a budget or a problem, or my political instinct, or my natural empathy with vast swathes of the electorate, or my popularity (born from courtesy) with officers.

No, my greatest ability is my spontaneous humour. It's a really special feeling when something just falls out of my head without any effort, and it makes me laugh, and more importantly, it makes my interlocutor laugh. Like yesterday, Sandra was moaning about DWP withdrawing from our strike, saying that if it's supposed to be a strike about solidarity between the workers across Departments, they should support us. I quickly pointed out that with delegated pay bargaining, we are only legally allowed to be in dispute with our own department, , otherwise it would be secondary action, and then we would all become Flying Pickets, and that would be awful, because we'd all have to sing a capella.

See, it was frigging hilarious when it tumbled spontaneously out of my over-active brain. But I can I recount in a way that's funny. Can I heck?

Maybe it was my tone of voice. I'm quite good at tone of voice. And facial expression. Maybe I should have been an actress. Damn it, I should have been an actress. But I have no recollection of ever having an opportunity to act way back in my dim and distant past. Or wanting to.

Chaos, utter chaos

The thing I hate secondmost about being English is our inability to cope with the weather. I suspect that Gordon will make some disparaging comment about London, but I remember similar experiences in South Manchester.

I'm lucky, it took me only slightly longer than normal to get home. This was because a) I stupidly went to the back door of the Tube Statiion which always closes at 7 pm and b) the District line was supended due to an 'incident' at Mansion House, which is definitely below ground so probably wasn't weather-related but a random London Underground thing.

I had to walk to Victoria, which was no great hardship. Okay, my slightly-too-long-trousers got slightly damp from trailing though the slush but, hey, we'd had all of, ooh, half an inch of snow. It didn't even feel especially cold - although I was reasonably well wrapped up. I arrived just in time for my train which left on time and didn't seem adversely affected by the weather. My bus came almost immediately, although I was surprised to see so many people at bus stops at this time of night.

And then we reached the South Circular. A woman and two children got on at the penultimate stop and explained they had walked from Tulse Hill and were grateful for just one stop. I looked to my right and I could see eight buses, including five Routemasters, outside my house and another four in the tailback which was further than I had ever seen it on that road.

Get a grip. It's a light flurry of slow. Okay, I can probably rememeber with extreme clarity every incident of settled snow since about 1969, but still, it didn't even go up to my ankles.

Just because we generally have moderate temperate weather doesn't mean that we don't occasionally get "extremes". Why oh why oh why oh why can't we cope with it?

*Sigh*

Stupid people

It's the little things that annoy. Perfectly pleasant people. But irritating. Last night, I popped out for a smoke, and was chatting with a woman from the next-but-one section. A passer-by paused and asked the quickest way to St James's Park. The vague-colleague said, quite aggressively, "It's opposite you." The tourist looked confused so I clarified, "Do you want St James's Park or St James's Park Tube?", even as colleague was interrupting, "It's over there..." Turns out that the tourist wanted yer actual Park as a shortcut through to Piccadilly Circus. So I directed her to the end of our building, and a left turn, where she would see a gate and she'd have to cross the road.

Towards the end of my lunchbreak I was waiting in the lift lobby, fags in one hand, walkman in the other. Music blasting into my earholes and me feeling a mixture of chilled, inspired, transported and aroused, when another woman from the same next-but-one section came up to me and said something. I pressed pause, unplugged an earphone and expressed a questioning "Er?".

"We could all do with one of those sometimes," she said. My response was a withering 'yes'. As soon as she was out of sight (and, hopefully, earshot) I did a frustrated jumping up and down on the ground, an exaggerated strangulating motion and a groan of despair.

I. am. not.wearing. a. Walkman. as. a. dramatic. cry. for. help. and. a signal. that. I. crave. attention. but. in. an. effort. to. cut. out. inane. comments. from. stupid. people. (and increase my piss poor productivity).

So much for being chilled, inspired, transported and aroused in my lunchbreak.

Revolting studes

I just popped out for lunch. I couldn't quite understand the discreet, but nevertheless, heavy police presence. Until I saw a minibus from UWICSU (University of Wales in Cardiff Student Union), presumably down to protest the top-up fees. A two-ambulance, two-prone-bodies, one motorbike RTA that shut half of Victoria Street didn't help.

People who oppose top-up fees live in a dream world. Universities are under-funded. In a socialist utopia the shortfall would come from general taxation. But the capitalist Press rail against taxation. Anyway, it is patently obvious that an increase in general taxation would be much better spent on pre-school and Early Years education. Perhaps if the young children of woefully inadequate parents can be given a decent education before the age of seven, society will pay a much lower cost of taming the ferile beasts as they approach and pass their teens.

Of course it is worrying to leave University with debt. When I left in 1989, I had to take a commercial loan with a commercial bank, at an annual interest rate of 29%. My monthly payments were about 30% of my net pay. It was incredibly difficult living like that. Hey, I survived. It was a major contribution to me learning about responsibility, negotiating with commercial organisations and growing up.

The middle classes are bleating; stories about the poor suffering are somewhat disingenuous. Perhaps the middle classes want to go back to my era, or to that of my mother's generation, when the only people who went to proper Universities (Manchester for her, Nottingham for me) were an absolute academic elite (okay, an elite who possessed the ability to pass exams and were fortunate enough to have supportive parents).

If 18 year olds are deterred from Higher Education by the prospect of a debt that doesn't need repaying until their earnings reach a decency threshold, perhaps they really aren't sufficiently motivated or mature, or lack the intellectual rigour to benefit from a massive state handout, paid for largely by people who themselves didn't have that opportunity to seize.

Of course, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of hard cases. But hard cases make bad policy.

Personally, I think that the parents of any sudent under twenty-five should be obliged to pay, up front, an inflation adjusted amount in tuition fees equivalent to what they paid in school fees.

Now shoot me!

Update: Adrian says it so much better...

Another review

The Guardian also carries a positive review of the opera I'm going to next week.

It's cool this; reading rave reviews and knowing I have a ticket.

The photo I didn't take

We landed in our hotel and went into Stockport town centre. I won't talk about the red retro-stylee but modernly technologed record turntable I saw, nor the £80 knee high black leather boots with ultra-slender stiletto three inch heel and padlock and chain that I refused to buy on the basis that I would never wear them.

We found a carparking space and I cursed that I had left my camera in my hotel room. Imagine the bright blue sky (with fluffy clouds). Imagine looking up at Stockport Viaduct as a Virgin train glides across. Framed beneath the arches is a now beautiful, once dark satanic, mill, and floating through the sky about to land at the airport is a gleaming white jet.

The perfect juxtaposition of old and new engineering.

But no camera.

EU bans Thai chicken

EU bans all Thai poultry imports

I've been struggling all evening to find the wording for the witty remark. Instead I'll play it straight.

I would wager any amount of money that this will significantly affect the sales of chicken curry, Thai style from the supermarket ready meals counters. There will be people who will only read half the panic.

Doesn't affect me, I'm more a yellow vegetable girl.

Yum Yum!

More celebrity worship

I've had a couple of more thoughts on the article below, about Celebrity Worship.

I take exception to the assumption that celebrity worship is driven by looks. If you take David Beckham, whom I admire, but don't worship; or Plácido Domingo or Jonny Wilkinson, my most enduring and most recent celebrity crushes, what they all have in common is that they are exceptionally good at what they do. And I enjoy what they do.

What reallyturns me on about Plácido is his voice. With Jonny and David, I would far rather watch them play a match (and win...) than stare at any photo of them or watch them being interviewed or whatever. Okay, they all happen to be good looking, too, but I doubt I would particularly notice that if it wasn't for their supreme talent.

I jest about my celebrity crushes, and having 'fessed up, I think it's bloggable subject, but I don't take them too seriously.

What is worrying is when you hear of people whose lives revolve around their idol. Those sad people holding a vigil outside Michael Jacksn's courthouse. Or people whose houses are a shrine to Elvis Presley. Or what's going on in people's heads? You hear stories of fans who accuse their favourite singer or player of not smiling at them this evening "What have I done to upset you?", not realising that the venue is filled with thousands of other people.

Then you get the stalkers. I simply honestly cannot imagine a situation where I would actually stalk a celebrity. I will freely admit that I fantasise a great deal. I have always lived an imaginary life in my head. When I was very young (pre-school) I had imaginary friends. As I grew older, my imaginary friends took on the personas of real living people. All those fantasies about my imaginary-real friends have to be based on the assumption that some event occurred to make them become my friend. I suppose if I was the mad stalker, or simply delusionist, I would engineer a situation whereby I actually met the object of my desire. But because I can separate reality from fantasy I can't see any point in doing that. Can you imagine how it would go?

(Assuming you've been wise enough to choose a situation where they're "on duty" - after a match or concert, say - rather than hassling them in a restaurant or whatever).

Me: I'm a fan of yours
Celebrity: Oh, right
Me: Can I have your autograph, please (NB I haven't collected autographs since 1985...)
Celebrity: sure, who shall I make it out to?
Me: Gert, please. Oh, and can I have a kiss?
Celebrity: (depending on who it is). Yes. (Or No)
Gert: Oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh. I'm never going to wash my face again. Can I take you home and shag you. You know you've been waiting all your life for me. I'm the one for you. We're soulmates. Ditch the bitch you're with and shack up with me.
Celebrity: Er, looks like another mad stalker woman. Next, please.

I just wonder whether it has ever crossed the minds of the delusionally stalking-type fans that a) they're just one of many; b) most celebrities are at least a little bit irritated at the obsessive fan; c) if you are of the delusionally stalking personality type what on earth makes you think that your chosen celebrity is going to be attracted to you specifically when there are thousands of sane women who wouldn't say no if asked; and d) if the celebrity of your choice is married or in a longterm relationship, maybe it's because they want to be.

And have you ever noticed on the telly, the people they show who are madly obsessive about their chosen celebrity are almost always mingeing?

Celebrity worship

According to Ananova, Beckham tops celebrity worship study. Out of curiosity, and only for the sake of blogging, I wandered over to the survey and answered the questions.

Some of them were distinctly scary.

Are you and your favourite celebrity soulmates? Doubt it; we've never met, for a start...

Would your favourite celebrity be pleased if they found you sitting in their car? Er, probably not...

Would your favourite celebrity be well chuffed if you broke into their house and ransacked their possessions for a momento and then waited naked for them to come home and demanded that they accompanied you to the Red Planet? Can I go fifty-fifty on that one?

Are you in fact a psychotically deranged threat to society who urgently needs a restraining order, or, as an alternative, a reality check and a sense of proportion? I'll phone a friend - oh, I don't have any friends...except for my favourite celebrity, of course, who's just so in awe of me that he just doesn't answer my phone calls

And here's me thinking that I'm obsessive, but all I can strongly agree with is that the work of what my favourite celebrity does brings me pleasure, that I enjoy reading about them, and that I think about them when I shouldn't.

It would be pretty cool if we bloggers could organise a campaign to skew the results. I suggest that we all answer it as if we are dangerously obsessed by a celebrity blogger - Wil Wheaton or Tom Watson or someone like that.

This looks like seriously unscientific research to me...

CBeebies news

New Andy Pandy littered with sex references

I used to have a rubber Andy Pandy doll.

But all the stuffing leaked out.

Restless

There are so many things I could - or should - do with my evening. The shoulds include making a bit of an effort to keep up with Real Life friends - eg by reading, or responding to emails; the house is a mess; there's buttons to be sewn back on and little chores to be done.

Then there are things that fall between duty and pleasure. These include catching up with the blog reading, with which I am struggling badly. Editing a few photos. I should watch Panorama on the Hutton enquiry. But I don't want to, even though I abhor the not-knowing. I have such a backlog of photos to edit, and maybe to publish.

Maybe I'll watch the double episode of ER, but, you know I really don't feel enthusiastic about watching ER. I have books galore to read, but can I be bothered.

I have an opera that I taped ten days ago to watch, but to do it justice I will need to concentrate.

Maybe I will just go and have along soak in the bath, and then waste the rest of the evening writing the same crappy fiction thing in notebooks that I have been doing on and off for three months.

I can see the cycle developing, I've been there before. I get too obsessed, too into the crappy fiction writing thing, which isn't about being creative and literary but just an outpouring of some brain-obsession.

It's a sign of depression. Not real clinical depression, but the physical manifestations, not being bothered to do the things that matter, or the things that I enjoy.

Maybe it's the time of year, the fact that I'm not really seeing much daylight. Maybe it's poor diet - maybe I need more vitamin and fresh fruit. Maybe it's lack of sleep - it's not healthy going to bed at two and getting up at half seven. Perhaps it's lack of exercise.

But they're all contributory factors to a torpor and ennui that add up to a general feeling that I'm pissing my life away.

Keeping up with the Joneses

I'm starting my pop CDs at Norah Jones, bought last year. I'm not sure about it. Cutesy, easy listening and pleasant, but I think I was rather put off by Jimmy asking me to take it off the CD player: he was annoyed by her twangy voice singing songs that were too similar. I'm not sure I would want to defend that position in an argument with a Norah Jones fanatic, but it's a notion I can't quite shake from my mind. It's the sort of thing that I can imagine that people would put on at a dinner party. Only not the sort of dinner party I attend. At one, a Thanksgiving dinner, a throwaway remark by me about the Poet Laureate led to one person screaming "Typical American feminist" and another yelling "Typical gay man", before the Typical American Feminist took the Typical Gay Man off to the bedroom to liberally dose his fingernails with Stop 'n' Gro. After the opening track, Don't Know Why, I'm tempted to say that "Is that it?"

Especially knowing that there are 9 kd lang, a Kirsty MacColl and a Madonna to follow.

And next up is Tom Jones's Reload, an interesting compilation featuring duets with other singers. Another 21st Century purchase. During my mini-pre-mid-life crisis I worked in a pub, where this featured on the jukebox. The sort of pub where people don't listen passively, but dance and sing along. The atmosphere's lively, but lary...One great favourite was 'Sexbomb', and it always made me laugh. The actual words are

Sexbomb sexbomb you're my sexbomb. And baby you can turn me on

Terry Mc, whose song this was, used to sing, with no sense of irony or self-awareness 'I'm a sexbomb' - he isn't.

A compilation like this is almost guaranteed to be a curate's egg. Tom Jones, of course, does what he does best: singing (but is it really singing or merely tuneful-ish shouting?). Some of the collaborations are masterful, notably Sometimes We Cry with Van Morrison when he's good, he's bloody amazing but I've never been tempted to explore him further), and, surprisingly, Natalie Imbruglia on Never Tear Us Apart. My overall favourite track is I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone with James Dean Bradfield, especially its anthemic mood and ear-bleeding screeching guitar, which kind of contradict the words.

I did try listening to this in my Walkman on the journey to and from work. It's years since I used a Walkman just to commute. I don't like it - there are too many changes on the journey, and I find it strangely disorienting. It would make more sense if I was travelling door-to-door by bus.

Dilemma

I'm torn. I don't see any point in striking over pay - it's counter productive: if I strike and lose two days pay, that doesn't magically get redistributed to the colleagues on poverty pay. Besides, as a specialist I have the benefit of a significant pay lead, and being in middle management, I get a fairly decent whack for limited resposibility. I doubt that our majority is particularly convincing and almost certainly on a low turnout. However, I have an in principle problem in crossing picket lines. Besides, I've never been on strike in my life, and may find blogging opportunities from it (or maybe I'll just stay at home and do sod all).

The Big Number

Attention attention attention!

It is nearly four years since the Big Number change in Uk dialling codes.

The London dialling code is 020. IT has been for four years

Don't give me a phone number and start it 0207.

I am dialling from within London, I don't need to dial 020

/rant over

A rod for my own back?

For twenty-five years* I have been collecting records, tapes and CDs at a fairly prodigious rate. I dread to think how much money I have spent, especially in the days when I was skint. Add on the cost of taping all the vinyl (which now sits on a high shelf in the bedroom - next to the teenage diaries, actually).

It seems criminal that there's stuff I never play nowadays, let alone have an opinion on, yet I must have liked it enough to buy it (or, at least, tape it off a friend).

I did play through my collection systematically, but that was about ten years ago. I have been playing my pop CDs alphabetically by artist - I'm currently up to Meatloaf - but the tapes are being ignored. I have just sorted them into alphabetically by artist, rather than chronology of obtaining them, and realised why I never did it before - most tapes have two albums on them, and there is no way of establishing a pure alpha system). However, undeterred, I have decided to play every one of my tapes, impurely alphabetically, as well as each of my CDs.

note to self Classical CD; Pop tape; classical tape; Pop CD; - don't follow rigidly, passion must rule, ultimately

I just cheated, because having blogged about Deacon Blue yesterday, I decided to play Raintown, which set me off on the tape quest. Raintown is backed with U2's The Unforgettable Fire. Which, I have to say, is rather forgettable, apart from Pride (In the Name of Love) which I have on CD multiple times. Raintown hangs to gether well as an album, with two outstanding songs - Dignity and When Will You (Make My Phone Ring)? Both of these were bought in a record-buying splurge in the months after starting a real job - they date from the Westcliff era.

I then picked out the first one alphabetically, also dating from the Westcliff era. Friend or Foe is actually much older as an album, but for some reason - probably financial - I never bought it. This tape is written out in Helen-in-Glasgow's handwriting; the other side is Manners and Physique - I seem to recall I bought that and taped it for her.

I was a bit scared getting this out, because I was so obsessively into Adam Ant/Adam and the Ants when I was a teenager, and there's that really scary feeling that maybe you'll be left staring at your hands wondering why you invested so much emotional energy.

Well, Friend or Foe is fab!!!!!!!! (oops she reverts to adolescent over-use of exclamation hyperboles). Starting with the title track, moving onto the jolly Something Girls, and the funky Place in the Country. If they were the only good tracks on the album, it would still be ace, but Goody Two Shoes is yet to come (evocations of the heat of summer of 1982).

This post is being brought to you by much over-excited bopping. I really really really can't understand why, way back in the early 80s, stuffed shirts somehow portrayed Adam and the Ants as the end of music. I mean, why? Yes, they were mind-blowingly radical - ooh, they used double drumkit - and they wrote about some fairly obscure abstract concepts, but, ooh, did they have tunes, and energy, and - they were so so so so fab. Youngsters today don't know what hasn't hit them with their identikit formulaic manufactured 'stars'.

I'm going to see if I can blog every album. You don't have to read it; it's my blog, my diary, the outlet for my slight anal tendencies. I'm not providing links - if you're desperate, you can use a search engine, or if you're really desperate, come round to my place to have a listen. Hopefully, you will be surprised by the slightly eclectic nature (although, ultimately, I'm an Eighties Pop Tart). Hopefully, I'll also be honest and actually play Phil Collins and Gloria Estefan...

*oh my god, help me, help me!

Future night out

I do believe in things being circular, and everything having a pattern. You will recall me writing about the first opera I ever saw on telly. I was thinking that I have never actually been to an opera in London - Manchester and Nottingham, yes, but not Covent Garden, one of the great opera houses of the world. The prices have put me off. Then I remembered that I am a reasonably high earner without dependents and decided to treat myself. What's showing at Covent Garden next - but Les Contes d'Hoffmann. I tried booking online but failed miserably - for some reason, online booking often rejects my Switch card, possibly because it's a new fangled one with no issue number , so I had to ring up. The guy said "Is that two tickets?" "One, I'm afraid my partner doesn't like opera sufficiently to be persuaded to come along - but he's learning, slowly..." "Hoffman is very good to see as a first opera," said the booking man. "You know," I said, "it was the very first one I saw on TV, way back in 1981..." "It's the same production," said the man. "Yeah, but the not same singer," I said with a pout. "It's in rehearsal at the moment, it's being played through the loudspeakers, it sounds very good," said the booking man. Well, it does have Rolando Villazon and Willard White in it, so I can't really complain that I'm being fobbed off with nobodies.

(And in case you suspect that I am moneybags in disguise, don't fear - I've now got binoculars on my shopping list, in order to see properly from my relatively affordable seat way up higher than the gods.)

What should I wear?