I have an apology to make. An apology that is around 30 years late. Something I've wanted to do for about 25 of those years. It is to a teenage friend who I joked with, taught to play guitar riding together on a bike, skipped lunch with, followed to Aberdeen, and then let down when he was going through a difficult time in a relationship.
I would like your help to facebook this, tweet this, or use whatever method you have to let as many people as possible know about this message. There is no reward for you. Only some peace of mind for me.
To avoid a bunch of freaks and nutters contacting me and claiming to be him, I've devised a series of questions that only he will know the answers to. Here they are:
What follows Swan?
What is High?
Fill in the gap: _______________ crasp.
What is the second and second last letters of your middle name?
Where is the NAAFI?
Thanks for your help.
Wednesday 25 September 2013
Monday 23 September 2013
12 Taxidermists in Every Village
I heard this during a cosy, feet-over-the-arms-of-the-soft-furnishings chinwag on the radio today. I thought at first that someone had carjacked my ears and replaced them with desiccated marshmallows. There was a wireless chat about taxidermy as art - all very interesting, until the nameless pundit made the unprovoked statement that, not so long ago as the crow flies, there used to be around a dozen taxidermists in every village and small town.
Can you believe that? What's the population of a small village, taking into account that it's hard to find one that isn't manacled to some city via a suburban sprawl? Ok. Forget sprawl. Just think demographically of a country yokeltown about, say, 40 or 50 years ago - 1963. (Well, I'm old enough to remember that a pre-decimalised pint of beer cost seven and a half pence in Kirkcaldy before I left. It's now around 40 times that much!) So I was there. I don't remember being offered a career in taxidermy then. Perhaps the career officer thought there were far too many of them as it was. But a dozen ... in every village?
Who would be left to do the blacksmithing, midwifery, baking, butchering, fishmongering, building, farming, teaching, doctoring, cobbling, knot-tying, etc., etc? And if you ever had the slapdashery to suggest a short, debonair jaunt in the family Roller to some neighbouring community, you'd never get out past all the stuffed animals. And if, before sundown of the following Tuesday, somehow you did manage to escape, you'd have to confront a similar assorted menagerie, of the cushiony variety, as you approached the freaktown of your destination. All those staring, glassy eyes, stiff tails and surprised expressions.
It doesn't bear thinking about. I wish I hadn't. I won't get to sleep now.
Can you believe that? What's the population of a small village, taking into account that it's hard to find one that isn't manacled to some city via a suburban sprawl? Ok. Forget sprawl. Just think demographically of a country yokeltown about, say, 40 or 50 years ago - 1963. (Well, I'm old enough to remember that a pre-decimalised pint of beer cost seven and a half pence in Kirkcaldy before I left. It's now around 40 times that much!) So I was there. I don't remember being offered a career in taxidermy then. Perhaps the career officer thought there were far too many of them as it was. But a dozen ... in every village?
Who would be left to do the blacksmithing, midwifery, baking, butchering, fishmongering, building, farming, teaching, doctoring, cobbling, knot-tying, etc., etc? And if you ever had the slapdashery to suggest a short, debonair jaunt in the family Roller to some neighbouring community, you'd never get out past all the stuffed animals. And if, before sundown of the following Tuesday, somehow you did manage to escape, you'd have to confront a similar assorted menagerie, of the cushiony variety, as you approached the freaktown of your destination. All those staring, glassy eyes, stiff tails and surprised expressions.
It doesn't bear thinking about. I wish I hadn't. I won't get to sleep now.
Wednesday 18 September 2013
Turandot and the Irregular Patchwork of my Brain
Last night, watching a live transmission of Turandot from the Royal Opera House to several hundred venues round the world, I was under no duress. It wasn't like being a kid pushed into the girls' toilets; forced to wear a hand-me-down cardigan with reindeers stampeding across it trying to get away from their own aesthetic; bullied at the age of four-and-a-half to stand in the middle of the community hall and sing a verse of A Gordon for Me. No, I went there voluntarily.
And it was splendid. Everyone taking part was magnificent and at the height of their artistic abilities. The sets, props and costumes bathed me in the colours of a 1950s sweet shop. The musicians and singers were outstanding. Turandot and Liu sang beautifully. Nessun Dorma was delivered effortlessly. The audience were ecstatic.
But I just don't get it. No. I don't get it. I'm very conscious of the fact that I was brought up among coal miners to believe that opera was for posh folk. A place to be seen in best frock as much as a musical experience. Being reasonably self-reflective, however, I haven't sandbagged my mind, blocked its intrusion with ashlar bagfuls. I have seen quite a number of operas now: La Traviatta, Salome, La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, Barber of Saville, Falstaff, etc. And still, I don't get it. I can appreciate the art, but I'm not pulled in.
Those formally-trained voices push me away. The baritones do nothing for me; the quavering sopranos are icy cold. The notes they have been given to sing, the chord transitions (the rarity of a Nessun Dorma is an exception that illustrates my point) and the unexpected phrasing and melodic leaps that stab you in the chest are few and far between.
I suspect it's my flinty heart and the irregular patchwork of my brain that is to blame. Oh dear!
And it was splendid. Everyone taking part was magnificent and at the height of their artistic abilities. The sets, props and costumes bathed me in the colours of a 1950s sweet shop. The musicians and singers were outstanding. Turandot and Liu sang beautifully. Nessun Dorma was delivered effortlessly. The audience were ecstatic.
But I just don't get it. No. I don't get it. I'm very conscious of the fact that I was brought up among coal miners to believe that opera was for posh folk. A place to be seen in best frock as much as a musical experience. Being reasonably self-reflective, however, I haven't sandbagged my mind, blocked its intrusion with ashlar bagfuls. I have seen quite a number of operas now: La Traviatta, Salome, La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, Barber of Saville, Falstaff, etc. And still, I don't get it. I can appreciate the art, but I'm not pulled in.
Those formally-trained voices push me away. The baritones do nothing for me; the quavering sopranos are icy cold. The notes they have been given to sing, the chord transitions (the rarity of a Nessun Dorma is an exception that illustrates my point) and the unexpected phrasing and melodic leaps that stab you in the chest are few and far between.
I suspect it's my flinty heart and the irregular patchwork of my brain that is to blame. Oh dear!
Monday 16 September 2013
When even Angels Utter Profanities
'When the corners of the landscape press in ever closer and angels utter profanities...' I heard this on the bus, or else I'm starting to talk to myself. 'When that happens,' the voice went on, 'it's time to get off.' So I got off. The vehicle was chockful of pirate grins and understudies for villains for the next audition. There was also a screenwriter writing pages of action, by which I mean there was nothing on the page apart from a few rudimentary pen-scratchings. What would prehistoric cave-dwellers made of them? Evidence of the intelligent life to come. I peered over his shoulder as the bus made no provision of leper-squints. I couldn't see any drawings of mammoths at all.
The pavement cracks were wider today. Just makes the likelihood of being eaten by bears so much the greater. It would give me an excuse for avoiding my talk on Grammar and Creativity. Sorry, I'm being digested by Bruin. But pavement life is full of canoodling pigeons spattering everywhere and crooning their half-finished numbers, trying to invent jazz. Something flew overhead. I could feel the wing flap and the bad language.
The pavement cracks were wider today. Just makes the likelihood of being eaten by bears so much the greater. It would give me an excuse for avoiding my talk on Grammar and Creativity. Sorry, I'm being digested by Bruin. But pavement life is full of canoodling pigeons spattering everywhere and crooning their half-finished numbers, trying to invent jazz. Something flew overhead. I could feel the wing flap and the bad language.
Saturday 14 September 2013
Flashbacks Without the Lights
I'm sitting in the cinema. Seat at an angle. I expect the previews, but the picture in my head whirs into focus instead. The six other Monday-nighters think it's the big movie. The summer blockbuster.
There's my Dad, the square-jawed film star, and me, the cheap sidekick, taking a greyhound for a walk. Early Ealing Studios perhaps or maybe one of John Grierson's slices of black and white grit. We pass a heap of rubble on a stretch of waste ground.
Life is hard without technicolor. Our house was condemned as unsuitable for human habitation, escapist humour or grace before the war was even a twinkle in Adolph's eye. A damp and dirty infestation fit for heroes. My mother cooks on one iron ring that swivels reluctantly over the open coal fire. The production values are good. Her dream, she says, is to have two iron rings so that she can boil potatoes and worry some stew at the same time. This is so authentic. The portrayal of life on a raw, broken-glass edge of a wall, with nothing worth stealing on either side.
The black and white flickers into colour tints. For on this waste ground there grow a few lupins. Purple spikes that drain to yellow and then cream at the tips. The scene goes fuzzy, goes grey, out of focus. The sound falters, out of sync. All seven of us stamp our feet. I look round at the other six. Whose film is this, anyway?
The picture becomes clearer. The words are struggling out of pre-Dolby time. Does someone speak? 'Let's pick some and take them home. Nobody will mind.' Who says that? Does my Dad read his script with feeling?
'Would your Mum like these?'
Maybe he thinks the two rooms are so dingy, a gas mantle glowing desperately onto the central fly-paper yellow and sticky with with black flies, that a few flowers will brighten up the place. What is the motivation here? Coal mining - dirty and dangerous - poor pay - demoralising - here is a free gift of nature. Does he think he can make amends for the nights my mother and I, as a four year old, turned the sharp corner into the dark, empty, midnight street, wishfully thinking that this would be the moment he might return from his drinking and womanising with some money still in his pocket. Perhaps the director wants an act of kindness here. Remorse flitting across hardened features.
Audience reaction: wet popcorn.
I cry tears for the boy that was me - the child actor who needs protection from this harsh script, from the absence of love in this man's method acting. I need this man, this Kirk Douglas chin, this Robert de Niro darkness to say: 'Yes. Let's pick those for your Mum.' Even at that age the child star knows that people have flowers in their houses. He has heard it talked about on the radio and seen it in a cartoon at the Palladium.
The scene is re-taken, re-edited, like some false memory, Get it right. I can't stand this. My chair flips up. I move back a dozen rows. The cinema has emptied. Now, I can hear more clearly.
FATHER: I think they're called lupins.
BOY: Take one home for Mum.
FATHER: (Pulling back on the greyhound's lead) Don't be stupid.
There's my Dad, the square-jawed film star, and me, the cheap sidekick, taking a greyhound for a walk. Early Ealing Studios perhaps or maybe one of John Grierson's slices of black and white grit. We pass a heap of rubble on a stretch of waste ground.
Life is hard without technicolor. Our house was condemned as unsuitable for human habitation, escapist humour or grace before the war was even a twinkle in Adolph's eye. A damp and dirty infestation fit for heroes. My mother cooks on one iron ring that swivels reluctantly over the open coal fire. The production values are good. Her dream, she says, is to have two iron rings so that she can boil potatoes and worry some stew at the same time. This is so authentic. The portrayal of life on a raw, broken-glass edge of a wall, with nothing worth stealing on either side.
The black and white flickers into colour tints. For on this waste ground there grow a few lupins. Purple spikes that drain to yellow and then cream at the tips. The scene goes fuzzy, goes grey, out of focus. The sound falters, out of sync. All seven of us stamp our feet. I look round at the other six. Whose film is this, anyway?
The picture becomes clearer. The words are struggling out of pre-Dolby time. Does someone speak? 'Let's pick some and take them home. Nobody will mind.' Who says that? Does my Dad read his script with feeling?
'Would your Mum like these?'
Maybe he thinks the two rooms are so dingy, a gas mantle glowing desperately onto the central fly-paper yellow and sticky with with black flies, that a few flowers will brighten up the place. What is the motivation here? Coal mining - dirty and dangerous - poor pay - demoralising - here is a free gift of nature. Does he think he can make amends for the nights my mother and I, as a four year old, turned the sharp corner into the dark, empty, midnight street, wishfully thinking that this would be the moment he might return from his drinking and womanising with some money still in his pocket. Perhaps the director wants an act of kindness here. Remorse flitting across hardened features.
Audience reaction: wet popcorn.
I cry tears for the boy that was me - the child actor who needs protection from this harsh script, from the absence of love in this man's method acting. I need this man, this Kirk Douglas chin, this Robert de Niro darkness to say: 'Yes. Let's pick those for your Mum.' Even at that age the child star knows that people have flowers in their houses. He has heard it talked about on the radio and seen it in a cartoon at the Palladium.
The scene is re-taken, re-edited, like some false memory, Get it right. I can't stand this. My chair flips up. I move back a dozen rows. The cinema has emptied. Now, I can hear more clearly.
FATHER: I think they're called lupins.
BOY: Take one home for Mum.
FATHER: (Pulling back on the greyhound's lead) Don't be stupid.
Tuesday 10 September 2013
Harald the Merciless is such a Bad Boy
Forgot to mention that The Bullying Of Harald Ruffsnape is free for a couple more days. It's one of several backstories to a futuristic medieval story in progress. I say in progress. What I mean is that this mammoth, epic spectacularum began its squeaky, wooden-wheel journey through the time-slip of my head about 10 years ago. But then it is a big project: The Reptile Wars. I want to make a few backstories available for the avid fantasy digester in need of escape therapy. But, of course, other zingers throw themselves suicidally in my path. 'Take my life!' they say. 'Set me free of your brain-chains!'
Other immediate work includes: promoting The Badgers of Beechen Cliff and completing the formatting and illustrating of an imminent series of English books about to be published by LCP, as well as the ongoing labour of lyric-writing. After that, languishing and attempting to attract attention by waving a tattered Scottish saltire is a modern, realistic novel for adullts - all adults; not just the Scottish variety. But I've yet to pursue publishers with that. I'm sure it's got legs enough to run off and find its own publisher, but it's still in short trousers and requires some sustenance and maintenance through puberty.
The English books are calling, so more in a few days.
Other immediate work includes: promoting The Badgers of Beechen Cliff and completing the formatting and illustrating of an imminent series of English books about to be published by LCP, as well as the ongoing labour of lyric-writing. After that, languishing and attempting to attract attention by waving a tattered Scottish saltire is a modern, realistic novel for adullts - all adults; not just the Scottish variety. But I've yet to pursue publishers with that. I'm sure it's got legs enough to run off and find its own publisher, but it's still in short trousers and requires some sustenance and maintenance through puberty.
The English books are calling, so more in a few days.
Sunday 8 September 2013
Skyhookers are back with their Thieving Grimaces.
Skyhookers with their acrobatic climbing skills keep scaling the walls of the authorial citadel. They should get their own ideas, but, then, ideas are thin on the ground, don't you find? Presumably, that's why they've been employed by my network of competing publishers, i.e. to get their kid-glove mitts on the verbal treasures. They come at me from all directions: scam-touches, cracked-whippets exploited in hungry messenger form, unrobed fatales of all three genders, cat-squatters and armed piglets, which, when you think about it are the worst.
Have you ever had that experience? It's dusk and you find yourself for no good reason at the far end of a wrongtrack street when, out of the gloom of burger and fried chicken joints steps some tinkling spurred sub-species of the swine family, an armed piglet. He knows there's the price of a book deal on your head and he wants it for his paymasters. Who faces down first? In my case, I run like billio!
My current problem, however, are the men on the scaffold. I didn't order a single one of their stupid metal tubes, so their only motive for this vile erection can be my scribbled notes in the drawers and cupboards of the ramshackled filing system I call home.
Or maybe it's just the window cleaner.
Have you ever had that experience? It's dusk and you find yourself for no good reason at the far end of a wrongtrack street when, out of the gloom of burger and fried chicken joints steps some tinkling spurred sub-species of the swine family, an armed piglet. He knows there's the price of a book deal on your head and he wants it for his paymasters. Who faces down first? In my case, I run like billio!
My current problem, however, are the men on the scaffold. I didn't order a single one of their stupid metal tubes, so their only motive for this vile erection can be my scribbled notes in the drawers and cupboards of the ramshackled filing system I call home.
Or maybe it's just the window cleaner.
Saturday 7 September 2013
Street Party with Rollercoaster and Hunters
Beautiful evening. Rollercoaster and Hunting Fraternity in the sky as close as ceiling paper. Fires are burning in the back lane, because we know how to enjoy ourselves. They asked me to buy wine. The budget should not exceed, so I got together several boxes of Chilean red and Sauvignon Blanc to the tune of £498.60 - Bargain! We left some for Christmas, but managed to put away enough to keep my wine society in credit for a few months longer.
Nobody played guitar but I was dying to be asked. Instead, I conversed about stepping into the black anti-world of non-work, the I-Ching of dry-stone-dyke reconstruction, the wondrous world of the American car-driver, pediatry and its unfathomed benefits, the mistakes one can easily make while twittering, especially with multiple accounts, the experience of being taught by shit teachers that you cannot draw, and various other topics while standing holding a glass of the finest red and juggling a vegi-burger, a pasta salad and other unidentifiable edible substances. Great evening!
Nobody played guitar but I was dying to be asked. Instead, I conversed about stepping into the black anti-world of non-work, the I-Ching of dry-stone-dyke reconstruction, the wondrous world of the American car-driver, pediatry and its unfathomed benefits, the mistakes one can easily make while twittering, especially with multiple accounts, the experience of being taught by shit teachers that you cannot draw, and various other topics while standing holding a glass of the finest red and juggling a vegi-burger, a pasta salad and other unidentifiable edible substances. Great evening!
Friday 6 September 2013
The Black and White Monster Show
Switch on your irony headsets, because everything is laughable about what we're doing here. This is what I think, but remember to take into account the writer's paranoia, the free-roaming imagination and the 5 miles of perma-ice we call logic in my shed. This is what's happening. Britain is not Top of the Pops anymore. Hasn't been for eons, but instead of letting the padded shoulders drop, kicking off the elevated heels and hammocking the afternoon of our imperialism away with a sparkling G and T, we've decided to kalashnikov the poor dumb creatures called badgers. We've monstered them into public enemy numero uno - prime suspect of the spread of cattle TB. The scientists can't make up their mind. I sympathise with farmers - it must be heart-break hotel time for them, but if badgers are not the cause, the problem won't disappear.
Anyway, the Badgers of Beechen Cliff was inspired by all the hoo-ha, and of course, if there any furry creatures around for me to be on their side, that's where you'll find me.
Buy the paperback here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the%20badgers%20of%20beechen%20cliff&sprefix=the+badgers%2Caps%2C145&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Athe%20badgers%20of%20beechen%20cliff
OR, THIS WEEKEND, you can download the ebook version free. Take a look. Let me know what you think. Write a review.
Anyway, the Badgers of Beechen Cliff was inspired by all the hoo-ha, and of course, if there any furry creatures around for me to be on their side, that's where you'll find me.
Buy the paperback here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the%20badgers%20of%20beechen%20cliff&sprefix=the+badgers%2Caps%2C145&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Athe%20badgers%20of%20beechen%20cliff
OR, THIS WEEKEND, you can download the ebook version free. Take a look. Let me know what you think. Write a review.
Tuesday 3 September 2013
Maverick Drummer and Baffled Pianist
Another one of those gigs. Ventured forth with the Lookalike song - big hit, convulsive beer-spillage among the befuddled fans. But I know they liked it. Almost singing along, making up their own words since they don't yet know the originals. I managed to skewer my own bottle of the golden stuff before it attached itself to the free hand of the drummer. Did a few hand-me-down blues ditties with the old Epiphone strings taking a battering. Spent the rest of the evening trying to bend them in tune. Didn't matter. We were all on our seventh round by then and the palm-slapping became ecstatic.
So, readers, what would you like? Anybody out there need some lyrics for their band? Sometimes they come with chord structures and tunes, if you're lucky.
So, readers, what would you like? Anybody out there need some lyrics for their band? Sometimes they come with chord structures and tunes, if you're lucky.
Monday 2 September 2013
Soundlickers and Hot Water on the Side.
I knew a man, now lifted up on angels' tails to the great distillery in the sky, who said, when offered a glass of water: 'Oh, I never take it neat.' So much better than the soundlickers, spam-scammers and verbage pushers who insist on everything just so with a little hot water on the side. They squat mid-sentence ready to pounce with blah blah opinions and words so weary the very syllables are yawning as they tumble from the lips. They are the walking abattoir of speech and thought.
Example: 'I've known Sue since college. She got a poor third. Went out with Tom after me. Tall bloke. Nice Italian shoes from Dolcis. Not there now. Built a block of flats. Just a mile from the housing estate. Same as where Daphne lives. But her kids got into drugs. Hard to believe it could happen there. The people are good stock. You know. I mean... drugs, when they've got car ports and everything.'
That old man I mentioned would have got up and soft-shoe-shuffled round the table with a glass of the golden nectar in his hand, accompanying himself to a whistling version of Sunny Side of the Street. Better things to do. And when the time came for the trigger-happy mouth to leave, he would have said: 'I guess you'll be having a fox's breakfast... a pee and a quick look round!'
Let me know if you'd like an explanation of hot water on the side.
Example: 'I've known Sue since college. She got a poor third. Went out with Tom after me. Tall bloke. Nice Italian shoes from Dolcis. Not there now. Built a block of flats. Just a mile from the housing estate. Same as where Daphne lives. But her kids got into drugs. Hard to believe it could happen there. The people are good stock. You know. I mean... drugs, when they've got car ports and everything.'
That old man I mentioned would have got up and soft-shoe-shuffled round the table with a glass of the golden nectar in his hand, accompanying himself to a whistling version of Sunny Side of the Street. Better things to do. And when the time came for the trigger-happy mouth to leave, he would have said: 'I guess you'll be having a fox's breakfast... a pee and a quick look round!'
Let me know if you'd like an explanation of hot water on the side.
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