Are you sitting comfortably?

The Machine have moved on stylistically since Solar Corona and seem a bit funny about this album’s popularity, which they don’t seem inclined to reissue despite the sky high prices asked on eBay or Discogs. 

Mitlernen

I’ve been attempting to learn German for ages without much success. It doesn’t really matter -  I’m only doing it for fun. The German for snail is Die Schnecke, this is quite funny on its own (suggests a creature that sneaks around). Lovelier though is Das Schneckenhaus for snail shell (I’m sure you can work out the literal translation). And, my final bit of snail related German: im Schneckentempo - at a snail’s pace. Ich lerne deutsch im Schneckentempo.

She who must be obeyed

Our hamster snuffed it a while back and after a lot of persuading I consented to our upgrading to a cat. So we've got a cat. She's a rescue cat and she was introduced to us as Mimi. I wasn't that impressed by the name really; the naming of cats, as we all know, is a difficult matter, and one that should be decided by their owners. But once bestowed a name cannot be taken back. Looking Mimi up I discovered that it's a diminutive of Miriam and that the meaning of Miriam while obscure, may mean sea of bitterness. Which is totally cool, and, given Mimi's unhappy previous life, not entirely inappropriate. Much to my wife's irritation Mimi absolutely loves me, constantly sitting on me, sticking her bum in my face, etc. the works. The missus doesn't get a look in. I have a similar effect on most cats actually. I like to think they recognise in me a kindred feline spirit. Or possibly I just smell a bit fishy.

Doug

Every now and again I get really into the idea of going to see a band play a gig somewhere in Europe. It always seems totally feasible to begin with, what with Airbnb and advance Eurostar tickets, but to date dithering and/or other commitments (and factoring in beer money) have put paid to any of these expeditions going ahead. 

I discovered Doug Tuttle a year or so ago, I don’t know how. He’s released a few records and despite the fact it all sounds much of a muchness I favour It Calls On Me over all the others and ended up buying a copy on lovely translucent syrup coloured vinyl. After getting massively into it I looked into whether he was touring, and the answer was: not really. He was doing one gig in Europe, at the Barcelona Psych Fest, which, as it happened, was due to fall on my birthday weekend. As above I pondered for a while, but I had a couple of other things coming up that were going to cost a bomb so I cooled my jets. Both the other things have however fallen through. As indeed has the Barcelona Psych Fest. What a year, eh? 

I brake for modern nature

I was having a cigarette in the smoking area outside a gig a bit back* and was drawn into a conversation with my fellow smokers, the gist of which was that the band were rockin’ that night and that weren’t there a lot of good gigs at the moment. One guy, who was quite pissed, slurred that, yes, there were a lot of great bands around, but none of them were English – there are no good English bands he declared, with a dismissive wave of his arm. We stood around and you could almost hear our collective minds whirring, but after about 20 seconds we all just sort of nodded, no one had been able to come up with anything. I had thought immediately to mention Ultimate Painting, but unfortunately they’d split up a short time beforehand.

I’d first seen Ultimate Painting supporting White Fence at the 100 Club, quite often I miss support bands as the friend I go along to most gigs with has a bee in his bonnet about the price of pints in venues. In my opinion it doesn’t really make that much difference in London, but there we are. But yes, anyway, very glad we caught Ultimate Painting on this occasion - they had wisely opened up with their eponymous track and within seconds the whole crowd was bopping along. I saw them a few more times and was due to see them again when news of their split broke. They were on the verge of releasing an album which was subsequently mothballed - no doubt it will emerge at some point in the future and be hailed as a lost classic and the murkiness of the split pored over.

I got a copy of Jack Cooper’s solo album but didn’t listen to it for a few months and then only because I’d got a new car that had a functioning CD player. It’s pretty good - he did a good lagniappe session on Aquarium Drunkard too.

But anyway, that album has been, in my opinion, exceeded by his latest thing Modern Nature. The track above is probably their best so far and, in a move that quite tickles me, they’ve started both the gigs I’ve been to with it. I mention all this as I realised that they were actually the last gig I went to, before all this lock down business, on 4 March.

They also do dead good tee shirts.

*Possibly King Tuff back in August 2018.

A journal of the plague year

The last time I went into central London was on 27 February to go and see Grimm Grimm at Cafe Oto. It’s a great venue and this was a good gig, I got there about 10 minutes before he came on and blagged a rickety chair right at the front as he was sort of tuning up. The track above sounds quite gentle doesn’t it? The live version would not have been out of place on Isn’t Anything. I’m not sure where I picked up on him - I looked at his past gigs and I can’t believe I haven’t seen him before, he’s played loads of gigs at all the usual venues supporting bands I really like. Bit of a bummer.

The last time I went to the pub was Friday 13 March before travelling up to Sheffield on the following Monday for a fortnight off to see friends that was to have taken in gigs by Julian Cope and Lee Scratch Perry. Obviously those and a couple more since then have gone out the window. And I doubt very much that I’ll be seeing Acid Mothers Temple at the end of June or trundling along to Raw Power a month after that.

Other than that I’m having quite a good lock down. I’ve never been much of a one for drinking at home and if I’m not drinking I’m not smoking, so feeling pretty bright eyed and bushy tailed at the moment. I know I’m going to completely overdo it when the pubs do finally reopen, and I have pined for the pub on a couple of occasions, but it is nice to have this break imposed from above.  I just hope all my favourite places are still there when it’s all over.

A little bit of politics

Except it shouldn’t really be political. But somehow it seems it is. I’m not sure why I’m surprised but the barrage of contempt and ignorance thrown up by rather a lot of police officers and their uncritical supporters has left me dazed and confused. And angry. Anyway, here you go, check it all out, sign the petition etc.

Slowly but surely

I went to see Holly Golightly play the other night (May 12th, to be precise). I've been meaning to get to one of her gigs for years, so I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that it was great. That at least is the fuzzy impression that I'm left with. Over the course of the evening I had rather a lot to drink and can't really remember too much about it all. (I do remember Fabienne Delsol was in the crowd. Stood right next to me for a while actually. I affected a nonchalant attitude, she seemed unmoved.)

So, I can't remember stuff like which songs got played, but I do remember being particularly pleased at two or three of the choices. And, er, Slowly But Surely may have been one of them. It's probably my most recently acquired favourite track of hers - the LP version is just immaculate (the kind of thing that might have got into the Top Ten in the eighties maybe) but I prefer the demo version on the b side of On The Fire. Both are amazing.

Anyway, I didn't know it was a cover version until about two weeks ago. Here's the original. Yet another upset for my tending to prefer whichever version you hear first theory (I may scrap that theory). I like this better. The harmonica has a more yearning quality, the vocal more forlorn.

Beermat of the month

This series idea has not proved to be the goldmine of blog posts that I expected, to be honest. Beermats these days are pretty boring. It's a shame. But this one's not too bad, a bit of a Spacemen 3 vibe going on I think. It's for the Big Smoke Brew Co. As I always say the quality of the beer is immaterial, but as I also always say, it's actually pretty nice: their Dark Wave porter is great and if they haven't got that then their milk stout is also excellent.

Benchmarking exercise

We've not had a park bench post for a while have we? Here you go - this sturdy little beauty and many others just like it can be found in the Virginia Water bit of Windsor Great Park.

I noticed the other day that the very first benches I mentioned on here have been removed. They've replaced them with really boring ones, the kind of thing that you can get in garden centres.

Word of the day

Hamsteren v., to hoard. Discovered on Wednesday while flipping through a Dutch/English dictionary in Oxfam, it just leapt out at me.

Space age bachelor pad

Is it wrong for a man to be envious of his hamster? Above is our hamster's habitat, or one of them any way. This is his fun palace (it has a running wheel). His other pad is a much more spacious, though more traditional residence.

New hamster etc.

I've been absent for a while. In this time I've nearly posted.....twice. Something about a gingerbread man biscuit (too whimsical, I decided). And when I got a copy of the Spectrum/MGMT 7" on the Great Pop Supplement. My god, did you see that sleeve? So beautiful. The track's not bad either - Spacemen 3 cover Little Doll basically. The Spectrum track was called Bo's Web which brings me to: we have a new hamster. Bəʊ is, uncontroversially, how his name is pronounced. As to the spelling, my wife maintains that it's Beau (as in Brummell), whereas I say it's Bo (as in Diddley). As I remember it my rationale for Bo Diddly was that Bo (our hamster) was so small. So, like diddly squat, ie: nothing, a paltry amount (of hamster). My wife is at a loss to explain as to how he takes after the famous Regency dandy. 

Other than that there's a round the world post just sitting there, waiting for the MP3 to be uploaded. And a new, very unoriginal, series idea to follow that. I used to have a few half formed posts sitting in the draft folder of my email account, but I came in pissed one night a while back and accidentally deleted them all. No great loss really (except for one about some Mervyn Peake drawings, and the top ten best songs ever one, and a questionnaire style one, that was quite funny).

Added to that is that life has been pretty good. It's occurred to me before that I don't post that much when I'm happier. I know I was certainly stuck in a miserable job when I started this blog. I am, at the moment, very happy in my work. I get in at 7.30am, blink, and it's home time, whether I like it or not. I am, additionally, fairly happy with the other bits of my life. How have I achieved this state of bliss? The usual stuff: how many records have I bought since October? I couldn't tell you, a lot though. I've got enough pairs of Clarks shoes to last me about ten years. I've acquired a fairly perfect striped blazer (burgundy and navy blue, quite subtle. All it lacks is a thin yellow stripe). The girl on the coffee concession is clearly in love with me (she gives me extra stamps on my loyalty card. Or is this a common ploy? Anyway, it's getting a bit ridiculous, I would say around fifty percent of my stamps are bogus).

Been to see some great bands (White Fence and Ultimate Painting at the 100 Club, musically absolutely outstanding). Looking forward to Moon Duo and Belle and Sebastian in April and May. Slightly bummed that I couldn't get tickets for Lee Perry (why did no one tell me about the International Ska festival sooner?). He's playing the day before Good Friday, so no hangover worries and also Good Friday falls on my birthday. (Did you know, I was born on Easter Monday and my birthday won't be on Easter Monday again until 2051, what a weird holiday it is eh?).

So, yes, no new cafes, no new lighthouses and no new beer mats but everything's been just lovely.

Rambling man

I like the attitude of this pedestrian marking, he looks a bit more purposeful than other, more languid looking specimens. And, to me at least, he seems to wearing a pair of Clarks Albernis.

Magical mystery spore

On a lovely stroll through Richmond park today I stooped occasionally to poke about the undergrowth looking for magic mushrooms. I never find any and today was no different. Such behaviour feels very conspicuous in this popular park and picking any discoveries would have been a fraught experience (my cover story if challenged would have been that I was looking for stag beetles). This sort of thing is so much easier in Derbyshire. On the subject of paranoia, an Apache helicopter flew over at one point, a most unpleasant sight.

Anyway, check out one of the fungi I did encounter. Quite fearsome looking, I'd never have guessed it was edible, but according to some probably not very reliable internet research by me, it's a parasol mushroom (the name becomes more appropriate later on in its development) and is quite tasty. It reminds me of one of those German hand grenades.

Which side are you on?

Or, are you a roundy or a squary? Without wishing to put words into the mouth of the late Roger Hargreaves I think his colours are pretty clearly nailed to the mast.

I often bewail the fact that this country is held in the poisonous grip of a right wing media, but generally kids books are full of this kind of leftist propaganda - where does it all go wrong? So much for the Jesuits and their "give me the child" business eh?

I have already sung the praises of the Mr Men books and the part they played in my moral education. For the record I also enjoyed the slightly more madcap Timbucktoo books, but I don't remember seeing these Roundy and Squary books at all. Suppressed, no doubt, by the Establishment. 

Troll

As I'm sure you all remember once upon a time the word troll was used to describe a creature that typically lurked beneath a bridge and that might occasionally emerge to pull off your limbs and eat you alive. The word has recently become somewhat sullied in its application to all those many, many individuals whose online comments give a terrifying glimpse of the staggering levels of spite and mean-spiritedness lurking in the hearts of the great British public.

Anyway, I found this (the ladybird 1977 edition of TheThree Billygoats Gruff) when I was on holiday this summer and just had to buy it for the sheer loveliness of the drawings. Minutes later I showed it to one of my friends, telling him to brace himself for a high quality nostalgia rush. Only to be told that, "that wasn't my troll". He's a couple of years older than me. Turns out as well that his Doctor is Jon Pertwee.

Oh well. Anyway, the troll - he bears quite a resemblance to Vince Cable, does he not? (I might send it in to Private Eye.) I'm struggling a bit over 2015 and I read the interview with Vince in the Observer last weekend keenly. When I got to, "...if you're a Guardian-reading Labour supporter in Torbay or Wells or Twickenham, you know you're faced with a choice between the Lib Dems and some Tory. What are you going to do? You think these bastard sold out. I'm going to teach them a lesson. And have a Tory MP?", I nearly choked on my Nutty Clusters.

Down to lexington

I went to see Pete Molinari about a month ago and, as is the way these days, snippets of the gig have been posted on youtube. I won't lie, the main reason I'm posting this particular song is because you can actually see me on it. My luxuriant hair and chiselled cheekbone (and itchy nose) can be seen obscuring the bass drum from time to time. It was during this tune also that I nearly heckled. (At the 51 second mark I was going to shout "Judas!" but I bottled it. It would have been funny. It's a shame.)

I enjoyed this at the time and the first few songs from what I remember, but as the evening wore on I found the electrified set a bit muddy for my liking and I left during the last track in search of more drink.

Upsettlement

Either Dollar in Teeth or Return of Django appear on just about every ska compilation ever...compiled. And they're seriously good tracks. Other than those two though I admit, my knowledge of Upsetters instrumentals was scanty.  Anyway, the other week, after twenty years of not really being that bothered I decided to check out some of their other output. I pondered which track to post and was torn between Sipreano and Tipper Special. Ska and more so dub can test even my taste for repetition, but these two though I find thoroughly satisfying, mainly on account of their slight weirdness I think, a defining attribute of the famous Lee Perry production. Regarded as a legend in this household and I know all my friends feel the same way, is he famous in the real world?

I was going to leave it on the question there, but I spoke to my brother shortly after I'd written it and so I asked him. He had absolutely no idea who he was. Didn't even know what he did.

Anyway, Tipper Special. I opted for this one on the grounds that it's drier.

Lesser spotted lighthouse

This summer we returned to Somerset. I was dismissive last year of Watchet lighthouse, clocking in as it does at a mere 22 ft. A glorified pepper pot. However, I decided I might as well go and take a look and was mildly won over. It's not a bad little lighthouse, though it's not really a lighthouse.

The harbour walls (which seemed very high to me) were, here and there, eroded in a most interesting way. Very alien-looking I thought, and well worth a photograph.