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26.2 miles in under 3 and a half hours. Sounds easy on paper and I will be posting regular updates, the highs and the lows. Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

Friday 24 April 2009

Russel Grant is my friend

Now, this term is bandied about far too much, “oh, I met the Queen at the Palace the other day, it was so surreal” No it wasn’t. You were at the palace to meet the Queen. That is not surreal

Now I was on the toilet Twittering to the general universe about whether I should go and have some sushi for lunch and in a flash RUSSELL GRANT replies telling me I must.
THAT my friends, is surreal.

Friday 17 April 2009

Review - William Elliott Whitmore at Borderline


About a decade ago a band limped on to the scene, hung around for a bit and then promptly disappeared, although they stayed together and still release albums and tour.

They were instantly recognisable for singing style of Tom Gray. It was a husky, smoke infused drawly growl which peppered such hits as Whippin Piccadilly and Get Myself Arrested. It was a subtle voice which fitted nicely into their rag tag multi instrumentalist line up evoking a sound more entrenched in the American South than South Bermondsey.

Tom Gray was in his early twenties at the time and had the voice of a 70 year old lifetime smoker and it just oozed from his lungs coating the songs in Americana.

William Elliott Whitmore is into his thirties and whereas he is a Jack Daniels swilling Iowan he sounds much less convincing.

I was taken in by it initially on record and was struck by the stark instrumental use and husky bark which contrasted to great effect.

I was convinced that he was black and knocking on heavens door. When I found out he was only 30 something and white I thought, nice idea.

Then the idea started to grate with each listen but I had already bought tickets for the Borderline gig.

Whitmore is a very personable young man. Bearded and wearing a pork pie hat he was every inch the musician as he wandered around mingling with the punters. He remembered people from previous gigs and spent a fair amount of time with each fan who wanted a chat. If this job doesn't work out he should consider a position in customer service.

Taking to the low, intimate, wee Borderline stage he opened a full bottle of JD and handed it to the audience to polish off. Another nice touch.

His playing style is bold rhythm strokes, be it on banjo, or less successfully on acoustic guitar. The songs are solid and stand up well as solo accompaniment but the playing is rather rudimentary and it all got a bit samey after a while.

He can hold a crowd well and everyone was rapt, but I got a little bored and went back to meet Allan Jones the editor of Uncut.

Another bottle of JD got opened and passed around and he left the stage to huge cheers and I admit the gig improved after the obligatory encore.

The voice, oh the voice. It sounded better and less contrived than on record but it is so put on it sometimes sounds like he is swallowing frogs and trying to regurgitate them again.

Will he be around in a decade? I'm sure he doesn't know anything else, but he won't be on the radar round these parts unless he changes his style as it was just a little tedious.

Thursday 16 April 2009

Abercrombie & Fitch


I have experienced a horrific vision of the future of shopping. It is truly stomach churning.

The Abercrombie and Fitch store off Savile Row is the most pretentious and overblown shop in London and that is up against some stiff competition.

For a start the grand stone building remains nameless. You just know it's there or you don't. You're in or you are out. It smacks of elitism before you cross the threshold.

Outside is a congregation of lumberjacks and eighties luminescence chic, a place to hang. It's a destination for tourists. It's the place to be. Apparently.

Step inside and you pass a half naked, very fit bloke who stands there looking pretty, showing you what you want to look like but can't. Cause you're not pretty enough. You will never be A&F good but you can spend a lot fooling yourself you can with their clothes.

Oh the clothes! They are woeful.

They look like the clothes Next and Burton were churning out 10 years ago. they are dull, samey, cheap and nasty looking bundles of tat.

They are layed out in grand, beautiful rooms which are so dimly lit, presumably to hide the fact that the threads are uniformly shit.

It's a tremendous building and with the right product it could be a wonderful addition to the sumptuous shops on New Bond Street. But they are selling cheap shirts and polo tops to vainglorious wankers who have been fooled into thinking they are buying into something substantial.

On top of the crush of wandering imbeciles being fooled out of their money every surface seems to have been doused by their musty mouldy mildew fragrance. It reeks.

The shop assistants stand around like some kind of Stepford family for the Top Shop generation. What they are trying to acheive has baffled me.

All I like to do on my lunch hour now is to stand and laugh at the fools and their money.

Monday 6 April 2009

More running


I have started a brand brand spanking new regime.
I am running home from work every week day. That's six and a half miles every day, five days a week.
Then I'll do an 8 or 9 miler on Sunday.
It's so liberating. I am saving £150 per month compared to when I worked in Croydon. That's £1800 per year. And that my little bloggers is a fucking stack of cash.
Allied with burning around 5000 calories every week, I should have about a 2" waist come summer.
Let the good times roll. 

Snail Mail


My auntie contacted me today.
She contacts me about 3 times a year.
She contacts me by post.
How quaint is that? Snail mail the old-fashioned way.
I haven't seen her in about 6 years I think, and all this time we catch up. Very. Slowly.
So we cover the big topics. Ones which can be covered and then left to fester for a few months. 
What are you doing now, how was the snow for you, what does your wife actually do.
Three subjects and then pop a stamp on the envelope and put it in a mailbox.
Can't wait to know what interests her nowadays. 
I'll let you know in August.

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Running update


Well last week was kind of a washout. I only managed to run 4 out of the 6 days and it's just not good enough. Only 23 miles were clocked up and that isn't going to get me round a marathon course in under 3 hours.

This week I have done 11 miles over Monday and today. I know tomorrow will be off the agenda as my mate is coming round to drink wine and download copious amounts of music. Then me and the wife will be up and out early. 

Thursday will be a 7 miler then Friday, Saturday and Sunday will see another 20 miles covered.

That's more like it.

Review: Bronson


I still don't have a purpose in life. I want to be successful, happy, have kids, a loving marriage, yada, yada, yada.

When I was 14 I wanted to be a music journalist, and I still do, although the goalposts have changed dramatically. Still, it's an ambition of sorts. I'll take it.

Michael Peterson wanted to be famous for being a thug. A violent, indiscriminate hooligan. And, by jove, he's done it. By changing his name to Charles Bronson, growing a Victorian wrestler's moustache and being bald as a coot, he is infamous. 

Played on screen by the raw talent that is Tom Hardy, Bronson isn't so much brought to life as set in stone. His crimes and temperament are legendary anyway, so being able to visualise it, rather than imagine it is no great achievement. 

The man spent 30 years in solitary confinement. And they said the Watchmen was unfilmable. Why did the director Refn try this of all biopics? The key lies in its execution and place in the film sphere.

It is an arthouse film. Refn's use of theatre, addressing the camera, panto, cartoon and lighting all serve to make a potentially boring 90 minutes utterly engrossing.

Much has been made of the lack of answers the film gives as to why Bronson is the way he is. That is not the point. Bronson is a buffoon, a cross between a Forrest Gump and Ronnie Kray. He has no point and to create this film, Refn has demonstrated that you don't need a conclusion. Just tell the pitiful story of this contemptible, mindless idiot. But tell it well.

And Hardy and Refn combine to leave you, not asking questions, but clapping your hands at a job well done. Hardy's unflinching, bulked up performance ranks alongside Stuart: A Life Backwards and I look forward to him making continually demanding and brave choices.

It is a film I will gladly watch again. Even though I find the character of Bronson so utterly vile and wanton, I can somehow ignore that and just watch a beautifully crafted film. I will not waste one second thinking about his plight, his aims, his point, I just wait with baited breath to see what the team will produce next time.

My Barclays Bank complaint


In these times of economic difficulties, it would seem a good time to ensure that your customers are getting the service they deserve. If this applied to me, then you think I deserve to be treated like rubbish.

Let me list a catalogue of errors made by yourselves and then please let me know how you intend to make it up to me. i am feeling distinctly unloved, even though I give you over £20,000 of my money each year to mess around with. First, at the end of October last year, I was the victim of fraud. So I canceled my card and filled out forms for you to find out where the missing dough was. You never got back to me with the findings that this form was supposed to, ahem, find. Maybe it was an 'Inaction form', in which case, it did its work. My card took over a month to come through, following several phone calls, and if I may be blunt, balls ups by your Croydon North End staff. That's over a month without a debit card in the run up to Christmas. I don't have any loans and no credit cards (is that why you hate me?) so my current account is my only source of dosh.

Secondly, I ordered some statement copies so i could prove to a company that i had paid them a cheque so they would let me go on their course to better my life. One month later, no statements, but you took £5 out of my account anyway and sent me a sodding chequebook. Who is running the show there? Are you on Sir Fred type bonuses, lighting big fat cigars with my £5 bills and laughing? I could not go on the course, so you have set my personal development back 6 months.
When I called to get the £5 back the guy on the end of the line finished the lengthy call with a sales pitch for contents insurance. I nearly laughed myself silly. It's all take take take isn't it with you lot. How about showing me some love. I even foolishly tried to set up a savings account nearly a month ago and still have not heard a peep from you.

What is wrong? Have I upset you? Did I steal your marbles when we were little? Please let me know why I shouldn't go elsewhere with my moolah. Yours, stultifyingly dumbfounded, Jim Emery

Monday 16 March 2009

Review: Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle


Stewart Lee, 41st best stand up ever! A great, original comedian who is back on our screens tonight in his own show.

Chris Moyles's literary ambitions get rightly, roasted as does Dan Brown. Radio 4 grasping popular culture and its comedy content, all a precursor to an attack on the autobiography of Asher D also hits the spot - brilliantly.

The supporting sketches, none of which will be repeated with catchphrases as nauseum, are the right length and give the show a depth and makes it even more likeable.

Can Lee do any wrong? Not in my eyes. I am a snob, like him and despair of the pit of thickness people are happy to wallow in. Being a bit clever seems to be taboo nowadays. Ask the University Challenge types who accepted their disqualification with utter dignity. 

His rambling, descriptive, deadpan style is a great antidote to the sketch cockery of Little Britain, Tate, Corden and Horne. I say deadpan, there is always a knowing smirk at the corner of his mouth and for those of us who are in on it, it's an added plus.

Will the dumbing down of society and culture desist in the wake of this show? No. But we can feel that bit more smug, and we don't care.

Rolling Stones - Cocksucker Blues


This film has been banned, ever since its conception in 1972. There is a court order, which still applies today, stating that no-one may view the film without the director being present. With that in mind, I present a review based on spurious speculation....

Presented in black and white and colour, the film follows the Glimmer Twins and the rest of the Stones (Mick Taylor era) on tour to promote the awesome Exile on Main Street album.

 Interspersed with intimate footage of Mick and co are up close and equally personal moments of the band performing. The cameras get so close to the action, even when they are playing to thousands of fans. And this less than three years after the murder and mayhem at Altamont.

But there is a reason for this blase attitude and that is the copious amounts of powder flying about. One of the reasons it's banned is because it shows the touring party, including Jagger, openly sniffing the marching powder backstage.

A lengthy passage showing Jagger in a trance performing Midnight Rambler is spellbinding, as he crawls around and stalks the stage. This is in glaring pinks and shows the band romping in its full majesty. This then cuts back to the entourage talking about and experiencing the joy of cocaine, once more.

Then the film takes a darker turn as Richards and a couple of pals go straight for the horse. It is no wonder they never wanted this shown. While he is strung out in one part of a room backstage, Ahmet Ertegan, founder of their legendary record label is just feet away. It truly is a different era.

The cast of beautiful people also includes Stevie Wonder, Andy Warhol, Biance Jagger and Tina Turner, all of them just players in the main story of the kings of their world, Mick'n'Keef. "Anything to get away from those 39 people" Mick says at one point as they are driving down a freeway. It's clear that touring was tedious business at times, even among the drugs, mayhem and nakedness.

The live bits are gloriously loose and ramshackle. Without the sheen of trained camera angles and Scorcese being coerced by Jagger into how to do his job it shows the band at their best. Wonder joining them onstage for Uptight and Satisfaction is a mess but so uplifting and Jagger and Keef combing for a raucous rendition of Happy is brilliant.

It is after this Keef vehicle that we cut to a naked groupie with her legs open, covered in cum. This opens up a whole section where groupies dominate proceedings, handing out spliffs, jacking up and being naked. This is the part of the tour you only hear in articles, but it's all there.

If you can get yourself a copy of this film and can get a sit down with the director to see it, I urge you to do so. I hear it's very, very good...


Friday 13 March 2009


Great game for Comic Relief, set up by Peter Serafinowicz. I plumped for Aubergine Vincent. Only £2 a go. Fun for all the family. http://www.justgiving.com/peterserafinowicz

Wednesday 11 March 2009

How To Buy music


If you are looking for inspiration on what music to buy next, I have already sung the praises of The Wire magazine if you wanted to look forward and discover music.

If you wanted to look back, though, you could do worse than checking out this website:  www.muzieklijstjes.nl/mojohowtobuy.htm . Yes it's Dutch, but as it collates information which is purely artist names and album titles, all the info is in English.

It lists the top ten albums of the best releases of a certain artist, band, label or genre as voted for by the readers of Mojo magazine. And they are usually pretty spot on.

So, if you wanted to kickstart a John Martyn or Quincy Jones collection, this is for you. I have found these lists invaluable and I hope you do too. Let me know if it helps in any way.

Monday 9 March 2009

The marathon with no race


Today is the start of my marathon training. I haven't signed up for one yet, but that's just detail. I will be running 6 days a week and that will be a total of about 50 miles each week. I will let you know the ups and downs as I go. I started with a gentle 4.5 miler today and continue with a 6 mile run tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Thursday 5 March 2009

Thank you so much - you're the greatest


Took in a bit of the old culture today in old London Town and visited the Photographers Gallery, just off Oxford Street.

The wife and I were making our way upstairs and a woman stood at the top, waiting for us to pass. I went up first and sort of nodded my head in a thank you type manner. Then my wife made her way past the woman and didn't make any gesture. The woman at the top of the stairs then said very loudly, "Well a thank you wouldn't be too much trouble would it?"

The goddamn bitch. I just said "Shut up, if you don't want to let people past without them giving you a fucking trophy, don't fucking bother." A smart come back. Now, I would only say this if I was in the right to do so.

The stairs were plenty wide enough for 2 people to pass each other. I had already said thanks with a nod of the head, she must have missed it. If you can't do something nice without expecting someone to bestow a knighthood on you then stay out of the being polite game. It's not for you.

I count myself as one of the most chivalrous people around and open doors for anyone who follows me. I don't drive, because I know I would still be at the same junction 9 days later, letting people out. To have my good name besmirched like this was grossly unfair.

Still, I was happy with my reply and that's the best one can hope for in a situation such as this. 

Monday 2 March 2009

Andrew Collins


Back in 1994, the editor of Q magazine decided not to put the new and upcoming band Oasis on the cover, or even to feature them in its pages. He said he would wait until they had a top 10 hit.

Did this guy deserve to be in the top job if he wasn’t prepared to take a chance on a new band? It shows he wasn’t a risk-taker. The first person to say no would be the man himself – Andrew Collins.

In a talk he gave to my journalism degree class on Thursday evening, he was very self-effacing, humorous, nervous yet composed. From his days illustrating Puzzler magazine, to the heady heights of working on five of the big six BBC radio stations (“I won’t do Radio 3 – I don’t like classical music”) and interviewing Rourke, Winslet et al at this year’s BAFTAs, he waxed lyrical.

I would be the second person to say that his writing isn’t memorably great (he would be the first, again) but I have always liked his style of broadcasting. His partnerships with Richard Herring and Stuart Maconie have produced some very funny and engaging moments and his radio shows were always lucid and gave the listener rewards for tuning in.

It was interesting to hear how, as a freelancer, he keeps having to ferret for work, grabbing bits here and there. I’m sure it’s not as much of a struggle as many others in his position, but I expected him to be constantly in demand. His work ethic does, provide some clue to his relative financial status where work is concerned. He very rarely works evenings past 7pm and never on weekends, unless it is vital.

He responded to the various questions with long, in-depth and informative answers and had the class enthralled. He is very modest and thinks himself very fortunate to have had the life he has been blessed with. A mixture of luck, cheek, begging, hard work and valid opinions has kept him near the top of his game for 20 years.

At the end of the session, I got to thinking about risks. As editor of Q, he received a call from a 16 year old girl who demanded to write the cover feature on the Manic Street Preachers, who were about to release their first album. He refused and some ten years plus later, he spotted the girl’s name again, this time as a political writer for the Guardian.

Tania Branigan has since won awards and accolades for her reporting. What would have happened to her if Andrew had given her the dream start? His magazine’s profile could have been raised and that could give hope to a trade that is very cliquey and difficult to penetrate. Would anyone have taken that risk? I think the worlds press could be a lot healthier if people did.

Sunday 1 March 2009

A favourite day out




If the wife is at work and I need to get out of the house, I know the best way to spend a few hours. And that's what I did today.

After an hour long run around Wimbledon Park and a quick shower, i head up to London town and make my way to the National Gallery. A few Titian's later and the hunger pangs from the run take hold.

Near Leicester Square, on the edge of Chinatown, is the Tokyo Diner. This unpretentious little eatery is perfect for the lone diner and I timed it right today and bagged a table for four. The Word magazine had plenty of room to spread out and I flicked through, at my leisure, until the Katsu Don and cold spinach in sesame sauce arrive.

The simple rice. pork and egg dish and vegetable side fills me up nicely, all washed down with endless free green tea. The bill is just £12 and they don't accept tips. the best way to 'tip' is to keep on coming back and to tell your friends.

After the scran, I had back towards Charing Cross to visit the amazing National Portrait Gallery. this is my favourite gallery and could do the guided tours. I know the place so well and always make sure I go to see the John Singer Sargent and Sir James Guthrie canvas's of important people from the Great War. They sit opposite each other and evoke incredible feelings. especially the face of a young Winston Churchill gazing through the amassed politicians straight at you. 

Other highlights on offer are Jillian Edelsteins' photographs including Blur; Julian Opie's Blur quadriptych; Andrew Tift's stunning depiction of the Kinnocks at home; Pete Postlethwaite by Christopher Thompson and the massive, ingenious acrylic image of a photograph of Sir Paul Nurse.

But the treats are endless and as I gaze into the eyes of the great and the good it truly humbles me. It is a remarkable place and a perfect way to spend an afternoon on your own in London

Friday 27 February 2009

Waiting to go


Time does go slow when you don’t do any thing all day at work. At home it just flies by, you can be watching every single episode of a series of 24 and it would only seem like about 5 hours. Here, the time may even be going backwards.

My new boss said I can go straight after lunch, which, for me is 3 o’clock. Great stuff! That means I can go home, get changed, have a 6 mile run in the sunshiii-iine, shower, changed, and then be at the National Gallery for 6pm, where I am to get right cultured up. Init?

As I type this, I have just received an email inviting me to an Employee Of The Year awards dinner at the Marriott hotel in Birmingham a week on Thursday. I nearly laughed myself silly. I have been offered an award for my work for charity (I did a half-marathon last year). What a thoroughly, bloody decent bunch of people.

Thursday 26 February 2009

Wire- Are all things with this name excellent?


How have I missed it? For so long, I have been searching for a magazine to take me to the next level. I want superior, no-nonsense journalism, which entertains and, more important at the moment, educates.

I have stagnated in the past for the past three years. Mojo magazine has been my Gideons Bible for the past 10 years. Other titles died, some became unreadable, populist pap and the rest were just glossy lists masquerading as music journalism.

Wire magazine, like its Baltimore based namesake TV show elevates a dying trade to a level previously unseen since whichever heyday you can relate to. It's on issue 301, I have a lot of catching up to do.

At 100 pages, it is slim, classy, attractive, uncluttered and oozes quality writing from its pores. I have always sought new music but, obviously, Mojo is not really where to look. Even the Fleet Foxes, who were championed across the board, are household names, leaving no room for the seasoned music Nazi to cock-a-snook.

In the next 2 weeks I will be seeking out the possible pleasures of Andrew Cyrille, Joe Morris, Kong Nay and Menace Ruine. The only thing that connects them is their independent spirits and originality. I will even try my ear at jazz once more. Never got my head around it before and this is the last time. But the magazine makes it sound so fascinating. I am excited about music again.

And I haven't felt like that for years. 

Working out my notice


The resignation letter landed in my boss’s lap on Friday afternoon, plonked there by myself, stifling a smile as broad as Cheshire itself. It was the start of winding down and being invisible.

I am just approaching a week of being dispensable and it is feeling really rather good. It is getting to be quite difficult to fill my days, but enough aimless wanders to the deli or the library seem to do the trick.

When I do finally get back to my desk, the mountains of paperwork are not there, the queries too have been funneled toward the new boss. People are even saying, “Why am I asking you? You don’t care!” And it’s true, but there’s no need to vocalize it. Surely my slouched seated stance and distant stare out of the window is evidence enough.

I even woke up an hour late today, which made me late for work. But I still found time to arse around on Twitter at home before my shower, safe in the knowledge that no-one is going to give two hoots if I walk through the door late. And no-one did.


It is a bit like being invisible. Arguments are breaking out among my staff and I am sitting back and watching, like I am at a tennis match. And smiling. It justifies my decision to leave. No-one looks to me for a resolution, no-one asks for an opinion. I have another week left, at least, and I think you are going to see my blog count go up. Because I am writing them all at work.

Las Iguanas - Eat Latin, Big Breasts


At night, the South Bank transforms into a sight London can be proud of. Its shafts of light and subtle neon and electric signage pump a life blood through the concrete carbuncles, which in the stark honest daylight deflate any sense of pride.

Circling the Royal Festival Hall are shops and restaurant chains which come from the accepted higher end of the retail and dining spectrum. A Giraffe nuzzles alongside a Strada beneath the old Hall, and Ping Pong forms an Eastern Bloc with Feng Sushi on its west side. In prime position, jutting out on the corner of the top deck is the vibrant and colourful Las Iguanas.

Imploring you to ‘Eat Latin, Drink Latin’, and if you could get a table, you would more than likely love to. We visited at 9pm on a Wednesday evening and had to wait half an hour to get seated. To the bar, then!


It is a small, functional bar, which serves the whole restaurant and the two guys whizzing up cocktails and cracking open ice cold bottles of Cusquena coped admirably. We weren’t allowed to get our drinks on a tab, even if we were eating. With the bar area right by the bar, this seemed reasonable.

We were seated at a cute corner table, which was right by the stairs (apart from the odd clumpy footed office type it wasn’t noticeable) and scanned the A3 sized menu. The delights on offer were plentiful and straightforward to follow and we ordered from the 3 for £12 tapas option for starters and had a risotto and xinxim for mains.

The drinks were a mixed bunch. My caiprinha was, and always will be superb. It’s a very hard drink to get wrong and all about the cachaca, which at Las Iguanas is their own brand. Made at their own plantation in Brazil, it has a simple, pleasant taste – as you would expect from a drink made with only sugar cane and water – and the trick is to keep mixing the ice and the lime in the glass while you enjoy it.

The passion fruit and orange cooler for my tee-total wife, however, was a wash-out. Essentially £3 for an orange juice. No zing, no zang, and no repeat sale. The tap water was excellent.

As the calamares, chorizo and quesadilla starters swamped our little table for two, my wife decided to point out the big, perfectly formed breasts, which would be in my line of vision for the duration of my meal. Not hers - a blonde floozy who, because of this corner seating thing, was not 6 feet away and with no-one to obstruct the view. I will try and remember the food though.

The chorizo in a rioja jus, was tasty, although a little stingy with the sausage. If they are going to scrimp, maybe better to put them in a smaller dish. The quesadillas were stuffed with giant portabello mushrooms and topped with creamy brie, fired up by a beautiful, chunky salsa. The calamares come drizzled in a light aioli dressing, which used to be spicy but alas, no longer. They are small crunchy pieces that melt in the mouth. The breasts – “Are they real?” my wife enquired. I was trying to concentrate on the food, honestly.

The xinxim, a creamy chicken and crayfish concoction, is tangy and fragrant and served with green beans and plantains. The green beans are always difficult to keep warm and I don’t think they have ever reached my table above around 10 degrees. The broth itself is a guilty pleasure but there was too much of it and the poor bits of chicken looked lost. A bit like a pair of small hands cupping giant breasts.

The wife – oh there you are – was a tad disappointed by the seafood content of the Bahian risotto, which was also a bit dry and needed pepping up with some of my surplus xinxim lake. The flavours in both are fantastic and you can get every one of them in spades, however, the balance of ingredients is a bit lopsided. Unlike those perfect breasts, pulsating across the way.

We skipped the desert. A mass of naughty chocolate puds being devoured in the flightpath of zeppelin one and two may have edged me into Bill Clinton territory. The service was friendly and unobtrusive, the prices, more than reasonable for a sell-out South Bank eatery and the funbags truly….OK this has got to stop. Recommended
Price for 2 including 2 cocktails and glass of wine and service - £50
Food – 7
Drinks – 7
Atmosphere – 8

Breasts – 36DD

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Daily Mail penetrates the young


I am always shocked and saddened when a perfectly normal looking person sits next to me on the train, unzips his manbag or rucksack and pulls out a copy of the Daily Mail and starts to read intently. I can half-understand him picking it up from the luggage rack for something to do, but even then, given the choice, I would just leave it there and glower at it every now and then as though it was listening to Rhianna too loudly on its tinny headphones. This guy yesterday was young, late twenties, wearing a suit, no tie. His hair was spiky and, dare I say, funky? I would have been disappointed if he had pulled out a copy of Q magazine as he appeared to me to be more of a Uncut or Word reader. If he was your young professional, and not just wearing the jacket and trousers as a Superdrug team leader, I would have expected a New Statesman or Economist. (I couldn’t, at that point, hazard a guess at the guy’s political stance – I can now.) The Daily Mail emerged from that Jansport back pack like a radioactive sanitary towel, contaminating and horrifying all who come into contact with it. In the readers case it horrifies him or her with its mild invective on the decline of this scepter’d isle and its degenerate inhabitants. It contaminates their minds like an unstoppable cult, spreading its hate and ideologies on Middle England. What is it about this rag that attracts my traveling companion and his peers? This was one of the issues I had to address in my essay to get on to a BA course at university and now, coming up to completing my second term, I am no closer to understanding the answer. The free CD’s are probably the bait, but the hook has to be the content, and the content, both in layout and actual words, is dated and regressive. It really should only appeal to people who are too set in their ways to know, or want to know, better. It takes all sorts to make up a democracy and for the under thirties it would be foolish to think everyone thinks along the same lines as me and my peers. Maybe they are too young now to remember the Thatcher years, the Major years, even. But they cannot all be unaware of the antipathy held toward them. Conservative politics with conservative values were all but consigned to the dustbin with fluorescent day-glo and white rimmed sunglasses. Now it seems they are all coming back with aplomb.

The retro attraction of the eighties music scene, seems to have gathered pace and with it the return to the Tory values of old. The mixture of right wing politics and a young, fresh faced leader of the Conservatives, a la Blair in the nineties, are helping to revive the Mail’s brand at a time when the whole industry faces ruin in some of its constituent parts. Should I, as a journalism student, be happy that young people are reading the printed word at all? Possibly, but with the dumbing-down of content across the board, I don’t see how I can defend any of them at the moment. As Patrick Wintour states in The Guardian, “Social network sites risk infantilising the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity.” This could quite easily apply to newspapers.

Sunday 15 February 2009

Mystery shopping


Tonight I assumed the nom de restaurant Mr Linehan. I went undercover in one the outlets of a chain which boasts my brother as ops manager. Having nothing else in my head at the time other than the recently scanned pages of Graham Linehan's website, I decided to steal part of his identity.

Las Iguanas is a South American, Latin food and music extravaganza with a healthy whack of cachaca thrown in. The colours are bright and the food plentiful and is a great place for large groups to sample the various tapas and multi coloured cocktails.

I will post a review, maybe not from this visit but from A visit at a later date.

Saturday 14 February 2009

Review: Morrissey - Years Of Refusal


His recent activity on our shores have caused the legions of fawning fans to rise to the surface once more, defending their fay hero to the hilt.

It seems our Moz would do anything rather than stay in this country. It seems he is less loyal to his loyal following than, I'm sure, they would like. He is no better than Phil Collins really. Stay in the U.S. or Italy, anywhere, just not Britain. Just nip over, raid their manbags and purses and flee like Raffles into the night.

Before he starts his biannual theft of the nation's overdrawn bank accounts he has dropped another one of his much hyped solo albums. The man who railed against the record companies so effectively on 'Paint A Vulgar Picture' is doing the rounds, laughing at Wossy's gags on his chat show and looking very uncomfortable. The credit crunch truly must be universal. He has even resorted to a strip with his band to try and shift a few extra units. Sellout? Well let's look inside. 

It's a hairdrying, furnace blast opener in 'Something Is Squeezing My Skull'. He sounds positively masculine, barking the names of prescription drugs out against the howling tsunami of his full-on band. It has the light thrash of a limp Therapy? under his Manc-Irish Proclaimer-lite chorus. 500 miles?

The next two bang along in a similar fashion, like Spector has burst in to the studio and told everyone to play like there were 50 of them at gunpoint. 'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris' takes the foot off the pedal in a Stranglers on the Bontempi kind of manner. 'All You Need Is Me' is fine, it has a great lilting verse but the chord changes are somewhat pedestrian.

The Spanish clippity clop of 'When Last I Spoke To Carol' is a welcome respite from the unnatural tone of the album and provides one of the highlights. It's playful, and shows the humour that Morrissey used to display so well and in such abundance. He also manages to stray of the lyrics and 'wo-wo' giving the tune an air of spontaneity.

Halfway through and I am just crying out for a lead guitar line or a frickin' piano or something to break the monotony. The beautiful bass of Andy Rourke is a very distant memory and this very tiring album wears thin very quickly. Even when the Spanish trumpet reprises for 'One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell'.

'It's Not Your Birthday Anymore' and to be honest I am not looking forward to it if someone is going to get me this half-arsed, one-trick pony of an album. I'm going to get my copies of Strangeways and Vauxhall and pour myself a Baileys. Hopefully next time Morrissey deigns to darken our shores he can come bearing finer gifts than this.

4/10

Goody Goody Gum Drops


Jade Goody, the media personality created for us and by us will shuffle off this mortal coil at some point this year, says her publicist and doctor Max Clifford.

The news has been met with yet another shrug of the shoulders by a public numbed to the point of indifference by over-saturation. Death in the news holds no real emotion any longer unless it's met in some horrific, new fashion or part of a grisly murder spree.

How should we feel? Some strange people are saying that she deserves it, etc. How did it get to this? A woman who doesn't know where East Anglia is is wished dead by the very people who once laughed their Burberry caps off at her thickness.

While I have no real feelings either way on the subject, I don't know her after all, she will still leave her children motherless. So she is put in the quite unique position of using the only asset she has ever had, the media, to play out her final few months to earn some cash to leave for the kids. There is no money left in her perfume and she won't need to hire another PA, well not on a permanent basis.

So she will be in the glare of the spotlight as she slips away from us and as it is the public who put her there in the first place, the least we can do is have a few manners and smile awkwardly in her direction when she pops up in the papers and cock our heads yo one side and maybe say 'aah, it's the kids I feel sorry for.' 

And then next time Big Brother comes around you can vote with your remote control and help hammer the final nail in that coffin as well.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Twitter - Bandwagonesque


It's been a long time since I have jumped on a passing bandwagon. And not just that, I have embraced Twitter with gusto and even bored my friends to death championing it.

I have never been a social networker and hate the very thought of faceless chat rooms. I didn't really use my natty MacBook for much more than selling a few CD's on ebay and writing essays for university. 

When Stephen Fry, the archdeacon of Twitter started to bleat on about it I actually sat up and took notice. It's Stephen after all. I have sat up and followed his career since the mid eighties when I understood very little of what he said and laughed mainly at his use of the word Cuntyblast. I know Pip Schofield is also a Twitterer but I stopped following him when he left the broom cupboard. he held little cultural capital for me once he dropped the gopher.

So I gingerly dipped my toe in the sea of Twitter and found the site to be uncomplicated and very take it or leave it. I have mostly taken it. The simplicity and unadulterated, dare I say it, fun, of Twitter is immediate and charming. It has little of the vitriol found in chatrooms and if you choose who you follow carefully enough, you are usually guaranteed a chuckle a day. 

There really are some very amusing 'ordinary' people out there. I don't think it's any coincidence that top writers and journalists use the site. the pithy one-liners they can pilfer for their jottings or sitcoms are endless. The fact that the comments usually have no surrounding context leaves the reader with a laugh and a lot left to his or her own imagination.

On the more academic and serious sides, Twitter has become a networking tool, linking me to media types as well as newspaper websites updating me on the breaking news. But we can get so much more than what the big guns want us to count as stories. We have a new method of providing the news and creating an agenda. twitter is even becoming a news story in itself which is like them watching us watching me watching you watching them and so on.

In a nutshell, as I keep telling the non-believers, it is what you make it. you 'follow' who you want to follow and the experience can be a very rewarding one. It is a glimpse into the future of journalism in a way as newspapers struggle for air, people turn to the net and create their own news agenda by picking and choosing from a wealth of information and tailoring it to their day-to-day needs.

You don't have to follow the celebrities, you don't need to know what Will Carling ate after his bike-ride, but it can break up the Twitterverse you create and provide a welcome distraction before you dive in once more to glean the gen you want, when you want.

Carluccio's restaurant review


Kilburn High Road used to be the hub of a thriving music scene. Before the Blockheads, Ian Dury called his group Kilburn & The High Roads. That was over 30 years ago and the road looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since. Littered with old man pubs, old men and litter, the place has more than its fair share of drunks and homeless. The shops are a jumble of bric-a-brac, charity and pound shops; Woolworths, is now closed and boarded up and was one of only a few name brands. In some ways this was quite endearing, the refusal to have a Starbucks next to a Gap next to a Starbucks lent the road a sense of grubby nostalgia, always yearning for the days of strikes and a struggling economy. its food outlets are uniformly poor. Greasy spoons and greasier chicken shacks vie for the credit crunch quid with dimly lit Italian family-run joints which are only good for taking Lefty Bompansero to get whacked. However, off the High Road, about 5 minutes walk away from The Golden Cock (it’s there, look it up) is the Little Bay restaurant and this was only 30 seconds from where we lived. This gem of an eatery is one of just five and I was fortunate enough to live only five minutes away from their Croydon outlet when I was unfortunate enough to live there. They offer well-cooked fresh ingredients for an unbelievable price and the quality is nearly always excellent. Two of you can whip in there, have three courses each, a bottle of wine and escape with change from £30. The wife and I went as often as we could and that was when the economy was bouncy and we all had thirty credit cards each. We since moved to the more affluent suburb of Earlsfield before the fat cats in the City got found out and ruined it for all of us. Earlsfield is the polar opposite of Kilburn. Instead of bearded men shouting at the traffic the streets teem with runners and hockey players jostling past suited and booted young professionals. Instead of Dev’s Bargain Basement, you will find independent wine shops and posh charity shops where you can pick up a second hand Dolce & Gabbana blouse. Instead of the Texas Chicken Lickin’ Shed you can dine out at Mel’s, Hannah’s or Willie Gunn’s, but you better take one of those credit cards (if the bank has let you keep any). When a poorly run bar shut down in October Carluccio’s sprung up in its place, almost overnight it seemed. We peered in the window and thought, ooh another pricey, posh place for Earlsfield, then we looked at the menu and the prices and thought, ooh, we may be able to eat here. So we did. While not as cheap as the inimitable Little Bay (nowhere is) Carluccio’s offers authentic Italian plates, mostly for well under a tenner. Apparently, they have been around since 1991, but they have always slipped under my radar. Maybe it’s like that phenomenon where you hear a word for the first time, then you never stop hearing that word. Maybe its not. I have walked past their places loads of times and just never noticed them. Maybe they should change their exterior to leap out at me a bit more. Come to think of it, they shouldn’t. They are always never less than full. The restaurants are light and spacious with simple chairs and tables, which echo the simple yet effective cooking they serve. We started with calamari and rice balls. The squid was competently fried and served with a simple lemon slice and lettuce, which, to be honest, is all it needs. I abhor the acidic white paste it usually comes with. Squid is a very delicate flavour and the last thing it needs is to be lost in an overpowering tartare sauce. The rice balls were firm and held together on the fork well, a creamy mozerella filling oozed from one and the other a deep, rich ragu and served with a red pepper sauce which was well justified, adding a zingy flash to the palette. I had just time to swoosh with a mouthful of fresh mint tea when the mains landed. The wife had a large plate of fresh linguine pasta, tossed with plenty of clean, fresh frutti di mare, garlic, herbs and a hint of chilli. I demolished a cold duck breast salad with firm green beans and potatoes. Generous plump green olives brought the whole dish together beautifully. There was a little too much of the olive oil and balsamic dressing but it’s a minor quibble. It is Italian cooking you don’t find on these shores very often. Keep it simple and fresh. It really is that easy. Throw in such reasonable prices and maybe we can sign the rent agreement for another year.

Work and its downside


Work is OK. In fact its more than OK. I don't mind it at all. It gives me the freedom to my university work, scan most of the internet, send amusing emails to my friends and every so often a little bit of actual work to break the monotony of free time. Then I get problem people, in the past they get the hint and leave. This one isn't going anywhere. He's a stubborn kind of fellow and acts like a big girl's blouse. We have barely said a word to each other for weeks. I like to think it doesn't bother me and the actual situation, taken on its own doesn't. I can sit there without saying a word to him for years. But as part of a pretty fantastic life as mine is right now, it's a spanner in my well oiled works.
Home life is peachy and I keep myself busy twittering, blogging, keeping fit, going out with the wife, watching 24, writing essays, speaking to friends. It's all so easy at the moment. And Lord knows I love an easy life. So, what to do? Well, I can't go into too much detail yet, don't want to jinx any impending decisions, but I am being proactive about it. Until this happens I will just have to tolerate this thorn in my side and pretend I like the people in my office more than I usually do, just to spite him in a weird way. And I know he's doing the same thing. Strange days indeed.
The next week could be a stunning success or an absolute, numbing headache and ballache for me. But at least I have the ball in my court and I am doing something about it. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Saturday 7 February 2009

More Miles


Another week, another Miles Hunt gig. This time it was just him and his violinist and partner (?) Erica Nockalls. In the intimate back room of the Half Moon Putney, it was the perfect place for Miles to hold court.
After the pretensions of the previous week, being kind and polite to everyone in the Birmingham Town Hall, he was back to his sweary, loutish best. The songs were peppered with forthright profanity-strewn anecdotes and most of the audience lapped them up. There was a small group of Wonder Stuff fans who chatted throughout the opening salvo of new material.
"If you lot shut the fuck up, it makes my job a lot easier. Why don't I come to where you work and talk like cunts while you try to do your work?" He volleyed forth.
Indeed, I had fallen out of touch with Miles' solo material since his earlier 'depressing trilogy' of the 90's. But the new stuff is better, enhanced as they are by the superb playing of Nockalls. Her talent is unquestionable. It would just be good to see her get a bit more involved in the stories as she is in most of them. A bit of patter between the two would make the 'act' gel and Miles can truly be part of duo as it states on all the promo material.
The anecdotes included tirades at Bono, en erstwhile target, and usually included Miles getting a bit miffed at something or other. Great story about a blowout on a California highway and a good Stuffie story about their radically different tastes in music introduced the subject of the dearly departed bassist and drummer, Bob Jones and Martin Gilkes.
The new album "On sale tonight, with other lovely souvenirs" is well worth the investment to further explore the duo's take on folk rock as is their last effort, Not An Exit.
The audience was filled with late thirty to forty-somethings and a fair few of them were very pissed indeed, stumbling around the venue, possibly imagining being in the Melody Maker tent at Reading circa 1992. But the atmosphere was genial and had an air of old school reunion.
Miles' voice is getting better with age and has lost some of its early naive charm. Bottles and bottles of red wine and thousands of fags later, he is becoming a great draw on this circuit and if the songwriting stays at this level, he will be able to shout at and harangue his ageing fans for years to come.

Thursday 5 February 2009

Carol Thatcher


Where are Adrian Chiles and Jo Brand? They are the worst kind of cowards. The sort you hate at school. Grass to the teacher and then hide away while the offender takes the hiding the may or may not deserve. 
THATCHER WAS WRONG to say what she said. It was crude, offensive and vulgar. But she said it in a conversation which was not in the public domain. It wasn't even caught on a mic by mistake. Chiles and Brand could not bear to take someone to task themselves and scampered to their bosses like cowardly little shits.
This is just another symptom of the bloody Sachsgate affair where idiots wrongly take the high moral ground, but in such a way that makes someone a loser and someone a winner. Is there no talking to people? Can one party not reason with another at the BBC any more. A new, odd and unsettling culture of fear has descended and it will only get worse.
Thatcher needs to be sat down and told why that term is offensive and we should accept her apology and move on. We should keep her off the telly, not for being a mindless racist, but because she is, frankly, not good at presenting.

Nick Cave



The long-faced uber overlord of populist doom rock is fast becoming a veritable national treasure. He is Australian, yet the UK has taken the ex-junkie to their bosom with aplomb. It is quite a recent development, starting with Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus and gathering rapid momentum with the chart conquering, barn-storming Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! LP of last year. Released in March, he only stopped glorying in its success in November with two sell out shows at the grand reopened Troxy in London's grimy side of Limehouse.
Now, a lot of his fans, his true fans, fans who have been with him since the scuzzed up, fucked up days of the nihilist Birthday Party, through the God fearing, revenge wreaking of his early bad Seeds albums 'From Her To Eternity', 'Your Funeral, My Trial', et al. claim that he has sold out with proper tunes and soppy-arsed ballads. Fortunately, I only got Nick around the Murder Ballads album so I am not one of these people. To be honest he scared my pants off before that. When he would gaze out, all ivory faced and blank from my cherished NME I would quickly flick to a comforting piece on Carter USM or something to take my mind off him. 
Surely for those 'fans' he is trying to appease all comers with his side-project Grinderman, being the unsatiable workaholic that he is. Nowadays I own every single studio album he has released and immerse myself totally in his genius. His music has taken me back to the folk music of the 1920's where he has taken so much inspiration. The man is a walking reference book of the last century and of the ancient worlds of Greece and mythology. A poet up there with Cohen and Dylan, some say and I agree. I look up the references he alludes to. never happy to rest on a traditional structure of writing, he will put it all in and then with the help of the latest Bad Seeds take out the crap.
A decade and a bit love affair with heroin has not destroyed the man, it has enhanced him and he can look back at an astonishing catalogue written in the depths of addiction and come out the other side with a family of four boys and a loyal wife and write songs more in keeping with this new routine. It is a natural progression. Selling out is a lazy way of saying that the guy has moved forward in a career of thirty years. People grow up. Some don't, like Mark.E.Smith, and he still writes the same kind of stuff. And that's fine too. Just as long as what you are saying is still vital and original it doesn't really matter does it?

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