A quick update.
The main talking point over here has been our weekend trip out to buy house accessories. This involved an expedition into Chavistan which lies close by all Londoners but is still a shock when revisited after an absence. Mel finds these occasions very trying and was on her high horse even before we reached Homebase. She spotted an ample young woman in the street whose ample forearm carried a Burberry handbag. It was the trousers that really got her going though, in particular the ample rear area that carried the word 'Heartbreaker'.
“Ha! More like Chairbreaker,” snorted she.
We swiftly chose a new light fitting for the dining room, avoiding the carriage lamps, Tudor braziers, dungeon torches and Louis Quinze chandeliers. Our choice was brushed chrome and Dimmable. It remains to be seen whether it is also Droppable after a misunderstanding back at the car boot. We shall find out when the electrician comes to fit it on Fri.
The school work is getting done very smoothly with a professionalism reminiscent of the Leeds Utd side of the 70s - the original 'well oiled machine' as I remember. Last night Jake had English and Plurals which was a bit trickier than it first appeared. Measles, darts, scissors.
“Trousers is plural,” I confirmed.
“Trousers ARE plural,” asserted Zoe.
A lively discussion ensued which soon threatened to undermine my status as Court of Appeal (Homework Division). I remembered my own struggles with grammar as a child and recalled vainly trying to parse “Baggins, we hates it!” at a stage when such a task was probably better left to an Oxford Professor of English. In the end we agreed that the word is plural and the garment are plural.
Lastly I must mention that I came second in a search for “hardest geezer in britain”, only outranked by our own Diamond Geezer. Millwall fans take note.
I'm in the middle of the busiest and most stressful period of my life for several years. I wish I could compose a brilliantly witty apology for the lack of posting here but it hasn't appeared yet.
I'll be back as soon as I can.
Thank you for your patience.
Jake has been the proud owner of a cornet for the last month or so, rented from the School, and he plays it fairly regularly, without sanction or coercion. It's shiny and loud, perhaps a motorbike pre-substitute, with the important difference that I would like protective gear for myself, not him.
He has thrown himself into cornetry with all the vigour and carefree joy he has hitherto reserved for drilling free kicks past me in the park. I have yet to decide whether the recent appearance of a 'For Sale' notice two doors down is related.
Yesterday he must have been feeling particularly carefree. Hungry for a new challenge, he fought his way through 'God Save the Queen'.
“Never mind her,” muttered Mel, “what about us?”
I posed a question here yesterday (see below) and had some interesting answers. I have come up with a few ideas of my own. Here is what I think, grouped under four lumpy headings.
1. Guilt.
The British rockers who first explored the dark side of fame were predominantly white Art students who grew up in post-war Britain and lived through Austerity, a period of Government sponsored self-denial and material shortages. I think this probably made some of them uncomfortable with the extremes of material indulgence thrown at them in their twenties.
The hip hop elite are predominantly black ghetto children who dreamed of wealth in guiltless innocence and are more than happy to have got their hands on some. No apparent downsides were foreseen or are yet discovered. (Eminem stands as an exception here, as so often; 'Stan' does hint at some of the darker sides of fan obsession and the demands of stardom.)
2. Art.
The rockers had a mission that contained artistic considerations. The less specific this mission the less concerned with the downsides they were. I don't remember a Black Sabbath song complaining of the emptiness of fame. I do remember Ozzy embarking on a fifteen year mission to drink the planet dry.
The rappers are more comparable to the current generation of footballers in England. They feel quite comfortable being rewarded enormously for something they clearly do much better than anyone else who is trying.
3. Early Days.
Hip hop is very young; the novelty has yet to wear off. Its livers, noses and psyches have yet to give out.
The Beatles never complained in song about their lives in Hamburg which seeem to have consisted of 24 hour a day rock, drink, pills and occasional sex. That was exactly what they joined up for, and compared to a life in 1959 Liverpool it probably felt like a much more attractive option for a rebellious young man. These feelings were actually expressed by Brian Wilson in 'I Get Around' which is all about how great it is to be in a band, with your mates, making money, always on the move, not going steady and never missing with the girls. Three years later its writer was a wreck, his weaknesses cruelly exposed by a combination of exhaustion, pressure and drugs.
4. Truthtelling.
Rock music is expressionist in philosophy. Rockers learn to value their ability to express their current states of mind. This ability is what others value in them and they learn to nurture and protect this ability in their turn. Cobain fell victim to this. As I understand it he grew to resent trotting out his real pain as a form of cabaret. Don't mess with expressionism - it's too true at times.
Hip hop is expressionistic too but has limited its range to boasting and celebrational topics. As yet most rappers have the consciences of pop stars, and are still working through the ambitious parts of their personalities. We await the hip hop version of The Wall. Perhaps it will never come. To date the MCs feel unable to complain about wealth or parties. That would currently be in worse taste than describing murder or rape. It would be a slap in the face to the millions of fans who have made them what they are. We are living through the collective validation phase, of the people and the music. We still await the personal angle that the rockers were left with by the late sixties.
Fame starts out wonderful. It is usually intensely wanted and on arrival is not too closely inspected. Smart individuals tame it and bend it to their own purposes. Others merely become mini-Caligulas. The postcards we receive from those on their own journeys to these different outcomes reveal different things at different times.
For me one of the interesting things about rock and rap is the bulletins we receive from their stars. Generals, explorers, inventors, businessmen may all write their autobiographies but never as a series of snapshots crystalising their states of mind on a near daily basis. The documentary nature of these art forms give them a special intimacy denied to the heroes of other generations and their admirers. Now we know what being a star is really like, for good and bad.
(Thrown together before I forgot it all.)
I'm really busy at the moment and finding it hard to keep either quality or quantity going here. But I do have one question which occurred to me recently as I surveyed the last thirty or so years of my life in popular culture.
Hip hop is (now) all about how totally GREAT it is to be a star: the homiez, the money, girls who can't say 'no', drugs, life as endless party.
Rock n roll at its zenith was about how TERRIBLE it is to be a star: the isolation and dishonesty generated by too much money, girls who won't take 'no' for an answer, the debilitating effects of drugs, the burden of an artistic nature compromised by commercial concerns, life as one long empty party.
Who's lying?
We've been having a bit of a 70s revival round at ours recently, largely due to Mel's purchase of the Maroon 5 CD which tips its hat to a number of acts from that era. I mention this as explanation for why Ted Nugent was nearer the front of my mind on Fri night than was strictly necessary, or desirable. Anyway...
Our baby sitter was ecstatic on Fri having just got her hands on Cup Final tickets for her and her husband, committed Millwall fans the pair of them. Millwall is technically our local team here, a stark contrast in both location and performance to Carlisle Utd who are only just in the same country, a Pluto to our Sun as it were.
I am almost entirely neutral about Millwall as a team; their supporters are a different matter. If they had all been like our nice baby sitter down the years then they would never have picked up their reputation for thuggery, and indeed might even have funded their habit with cosy nights in round at other people's houses, enjoying other people's televisions. They could have been The Caring Club, but then again their night match attendances might have been a bit sparse.
I once saw a revealing TV documentary about football violence in the 80s featuring a troop of ultra-psycho Lions' fans called, I think, 'F Troop'. Asked whom they most hated they replied “Northeners.” Why? “They think they're so great, comin' dahn 'ere from Bristol...”
I remember their visits to Carlisle in the 70s when I was a season ticket holder. I have not seen them play since, and the Cup Final presents an interesting opportunity for me to recapture the peculiar shock I felt when I first heard a massed choir of cockneys singing “Miw Waw”. Several hundred travellers who had not brought one L between them.
Jake's Year are to perform Robin Hood this term and on Fri he was cast as Much the Miller's Son. A neat symmetry there as the very next day his father was performing as Much the Worse for Wear.
Fri night was School Quiz night.
Quizzes make me nervous but the omens were good. The baby sitter and the taxi both arrived early, requiring me to rush through the beers I had set aside to fortify me. So we set out in good spirits armed with snacks and plenty of wine. As we sat in the Hall our team mates arrived in pairs bringing olives, cooked meats, bread, crisps and plenty more wine. I opened a bottle and sipped edgily, acquiring yet more fortification. By the time the event began I was probably verging on the impregnable.
The Hall was packed. Our hosts for the evening, two middle aged ladies, introduced themselves. Lady A shuffled papers while Lady B picked up the microphone.
“I hope you can all hear me,” she began. “If it’s too loud...”
“...You’re too old!” cried a voice. It was mine. Others might have heard a pin drop but I was treated to the sound of blood pumping into my face.
Despite that early setback we collectively cruised into the lead and held it throughout the contest, never needing to activate our backup plan which was to use Google via a team member's WAP mobile. Victory was duly secured and our prize was several bottles of wine - an invitiation to disaster but welcomed in that heady moment as joyously as any returned sinner ever was.
Sat morning was a rueful affair. Youth recently recaptured had again absconded, leaving a trail of remorse marked out in corks, record sleeves and other items whose identities are best left unspecified. If we had been well enough to sit through 'What Morning-After Dynasty Are You?' we would have been the Hangoverians.
On the way back from the park on Sat afternoon I pointed out Tom Phillips' house to Jake, who had asked where precisely he lived.
“Is he rich?” he asked, scrutinising the place. “Like, a millionaire?”
I explained that a life devoted to Art was not really the best way to become very wealthy, and that on the whole Artists didn't expect to become rich, as they were driven less by a hunger for monetary reward than by a need to express something about the nature of the world, and no, he probably wasn't a millionaire.
“I didn't think he would be,” he replied cheerily, “because if he was then he wouldn't live in a dump like Peckham, would he?”
What a big subject this parenting thing is! And that's this month's exclamation mark right there. Best to be open about these things.
I'm not really sure which School of Parenting I could justly be said to belong to. Possibly the 'I'm always right unless I expressly admit I'm wrong' School. Anyway, sometimes it's easier to define a position by its opposites so I declare that I consider all of the following to be bad reasons for becoming a parent:
I wanted someone to love me, so I made this:
My large car seemed a little too empty at the back:
I like bossing people around:
I had unallocated surplus income and too many clothes already:
I wanted to have someone carry my name into history:
I've got these brilliant ideas for names:
I couldn’t be bothered to walk three feet to get a condom out of a drawer:
I fished this pram out of the canal and it seemed a waste not to use it:
The retainers will need someone to look up to when I'm gone:
I absolutely love those little baby trainers and was too embarasssed to buy them just to put them on the mantlepiece:
My tattoos didn't bring me the happiness I expected:
I've always wanted a train set:
'Friends' was over and my diary was looking a bit sad:
I wanted a council house:
They might start creating hereditary peers again and I would hate my children to miss out:
I was running a bit thin on ideas for my blog.
There are better reasons and they include:
I get far too much sleep:
I look better with Weetabix in my hair:
I'm sick of thinking about me, me, me:
My bottom is too small anyway:
Work, drink, work, drink - all too predictable:
I like reading Instructions:
The policemen round here are beginning to look youngish:
I've always enjoyed 'I Spy':
I'm bored with getting to the end of my sentences:
Pop music is all rubbish these days. Can someone tell me who actually likes this stuff?
I've always been interested in batteries and it seemed a shame to waste all that knowledge:
Life without sex is a lot simpler.
I hope that answers any questions you might have had.
This term's first meeting of the Philosophy Club was yesterday and I arrived home last night to find Zoe bursting to tell me all about it. Apparently they had discussed the Elgin Marbles and who should rightfully have them. This struck me as a political rather than a philosophical subject but fascinating nonetheless and as I settled down with a glass I anticipated with relish her account of the proceedings.
I was expecting to hear about the concept of ownership, the idea of heritage, the burdens of conservation and the reduction of world culture to consumer item. Indeed I had several insights of my own ready to go before the cork was out of the bottle, and having never adopted a settled position on this issue I was looking forward to an opportunity to clear my mind re the tug-of-love Marbles.
Unfortunately the discussion as related to me seemed woefully dull and the mood of the meeting turned out to be that if there was going to be a squabble over them then nobody should have them.
We sent her there to learn critical thinking but I suspect she's just had her first lesson in parenting.
I hear rumours that Clare Teal, British chanteuse and spearhead of this year's jazz revival, has landed an enormous record deal. First Norah Jones then Jamie Cullum, now la Teal. So after all that, jazz turns out to be the new rock n roll.
I feel optimistic about the direction that popular music is taking, based on the last few months' listening anyway. And is it just me or are there less boybands around? And if so, why? Have they all been at it so long that they are now Manbands and thus less visible? Are there really less of them? Has the biz finally abandoned this particular arms race?
Not ever having been a ten-year-old girl I don't think I was ever meant to like boybands but I always had deep problems with the whole concept, especially as it developed in the 90s.
For me there was always a lack of focus in a pop act consisting of five cute individual faces. I never liked the Bay City Rollers who were pioneers of this strategy back in the 70s; partly the horrible music and nasal singing, mostly the ridiculous fashionising of tartan. Tartan for goodness sake, that stripey stuff worn by shortbread and poodles.
I was nearer the target age back then but I was probably the wrong sex, or maybe just the wrong gender preference. I always thought the Rollers' contemporaries The Osmonds or The Jackson 5 were operating on a much higher level and by 1975 had established the classic viable multi-face model. They had better songs but more importantly they covered a broader age range, exhibiting a shrewdness lost on later generations of Svengalis. They were families containing one for all the family. Take That were modelled on the Rollers. Nuff said.
I never quite understood the modern concept of giving all the members one line each. If the song in question was about partying till you dropped then it might work. 'Dance to the Music' by Sly and the Family Stone pioneered this technique and in my opinion still sounds fabulous. But I think the relay approach seriously weakens the focus of the passionate ballads which are so often the staple fare of the genre.
So the Olympic Torch song was born. Oh dear. Does a young girl imagine that all the members of the band are singing only to her, or just her one favourite and she ignores all the others? Would an imaginary date with Boyzone require a minibus or a scooter?
I have yet to decide whether this is the ultimate artform for the short attention span, or whether it is just defensive thinking by the marketing types in our record companies. Anyway the whole idea smacks of weakness. Are five average singers better than one good one? Is this the final victory for choice over quality? Paganism over Monotheism? Milk Tray over a bar of Bourneville?
No matter. For me the impact of these intensely personal songs, which would once have been crooned by a solitary lovelorn pin-up, gets laughably undermined when they are sung by what amounts to a choir. It also amuses me the way that the emotional temperature gets stoked higher and higher as the parade of gel-tops seek to outdo each other. Overwrought delivery: guaranteed. And an impartial observer might be tempted to ask why any one of the band members can feel so devastated when he's clearly still got his mates and appears to be living, unsupervised, on a sun-drenched beach. Heaven for most nineteen-year-olds, no?
Perhaps Ms Teal's deal is proof that it has finally occurred to the money men that it takes so long for a boyband to complete the cycle of recording, promoting and fully exploiting a sucessful album that the target audience has grown beyond the reach of the potentially lucrative second album. History teaches us that settled farming is a more reliable way of putting food on the table than Slash and Burn. Let’s hope CT grows up strong and nutritious.
Anyway, I'm optimistic.
Kept up the fierce cultural pace this weekend, in particular a visit to the National Portrait Gallery. I enjoyed it immensely although the bus journey there proved unexpectedly stressful as Jake peppered me with questions throughout. He seems desperate to establish the boundaries of the knowable in the shortest time possible.
So I was subjected to a barrage of enquiries which included “What is the most shocking news you've ever heard?”. “What is the worst restaurant you've ever been to?”, “What is the most boring book you've ever read?” etc etc. None too soon the Gallery loomed up like a welcome friend, took Jake off my hands and mesmerused him with the longest escalator he had ever seen. Child happy: one future question avoided.
We all enjoyed the selection from the postcard collection of Tom Phillips. The rest of it is only a few doors down our street, as he is a near neighbour of ours. Which I mention purely for reference and not at all by way of boasting.
We then had a good look at the Tudor portraits which tied in nicely with Zoe's History homework. She was absolutely riveted to see at first hand the paintings which appear as illustrations in her textbooks. Jake wasn't. I was trying to interest him in some particularly fine rendering of the veins in an Elizabethan courtier's hands when he asked me “In football, which is more annoying, to hit the crossbar or the post?”
I couldn't answer and my eyes moistened slightly as I remembered the recent fate of my own team, a loyalty to which was into my blood and streaked through my flesh before conscious choice was mine to make, a club I had then followed through endless adversity only to see it drop out of the League not twenty four hours previously.
In a small soapbox moment I would like to speak up for the many millions of football supporters who doggedly trail behind a team that never has a chance of winning anything, ever. Those who follow Manchester Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool may know disappointment but they can never truly know what it feels like to be saddled with the inescapable love of a club that only ever serves up disappointment.
Fever Pitch would, in my opinion, have contained much more genuine anguish if it had been written by a life-long supporter of Carlisle United.