Well, what a complete waste of a week that was. Low level illness, bad weather, aimlessness all round.
Ten days ago we had a jolly run down to Newhaven on the south coast. Not our first choice, you understand, but Brighton was full. We did cliff top walks in horizontal sleet and a tandem ride down to the sea. Bracing, and as close to nature as Peckhamites should choose to get in one go. It all ended up with Mel getting some sort of food poisoning, which she put down to fennel sausages in Pizza Express. Not something to share with your closest family in the confines of a Travelodge family room.
This weekend we did nothing at all. Roll on spring.
Couldn't sleep last night and as I lay there, sliding my limbs around searching for that optimum position both warm enough for the body yet cool enough for hands and feet, I found my mind circling round a phrase I have read several times in newspaper reviews recently. The phrase was "so and so popped up 'Zelig-like'..." I greatly enjoyed Zelig the film, and for anyone who doesn't know it, it is the story of a man who managed to place himself consistently at the crossroads of history yet somehow was never noticed at the time. I began to review my own life, wondering what it would look like seen in this light. Here is a first draft.
1975. My first taste of fame. I announce the world premiere of Johnny Morris's orchestral suite 'M4: The Story Of A Motorway' in my capacity as part time station Assistant, Radio Carlisle (Sundays). In a curious parallel neither my career as radio announcer nor his as orchestral composer are destined to flourish.
1978. London. I play lead guitar for legendary heavy metal German rockers The Scorpions. We are loud. The rhythm section is awesomely tight. The other guitarist has outrageous thigh-length white leather boots, the sort that brook no opposition. The room throbs. I fail the audition.
1979. I lead a funk-soul band to Geneva for a two week club engagement. We fly out thirteen strong. I come back with six members after a truly astonishing fortnight which included a Saudi Arabian princess, Colonel Gadafy's brother, Petula Clark and venereal disease. Quite a cocktail, much imitated. Several members go on to achieve prominence and one is now arguably the UK's leading jazz trumpeter. Another becomes a prostitute.
1980. I am approached to produce an album by hoary sixties rockers The Troggs. It takes two weeks, on and off, and is titled 'Black Bottom'. They smoke a lot. And swear. A lot. We do not discuss crop circles. I get paid £60 when the album is licensed to France, which turns out to be my only reward, as the company I did it for disappears and I get airbrushed out of history by all subsequent discographies. However, I still have the original vinyl copies released in France, Germany and Holland and my name is on all of them.
1982: a) On tour at a college ball somewhere in Devon I spot a friend playing in another band and go backstage. He is sharing a dressing room with Alex Harvey, a former hero of mine. Mr Harvey needed a comb because he had misplaced the one he usually used during 'Framed' which he planned to perform that night. I attempt humorous banter. I stop when threatened. I don't see the show. I don't get my comb back. Mr Harvey dies a fortnight later.
b) I play on a slew of recordings by British proto-funksters Loose End(s), none of which are any good. They learn from this and go on subsequently to be the UK's top homegrown soul artists, before words and genres like r 'n b, new jack swing and urban get invented. I am prepared, if pressed, to take credit for all of this.
1984. I help to put a gerbil named Kevin in the charts. This kicks open the door for a generation of boybands and pop muppets, by proving to major record companies that it is perfectly possible to sell records with an artist who not only can't sing, but can't even talk on his own.
1985. Regrets. I don't play at Live Aid. I'm not even invited, although I was dealing with one of the organisers at the time on an entirely separate matter. This resulted in my sitting in an office about a week before the concert, listening to one end of a phone conversation with Bryan Ferry, who was clearly not keen to do the gig. Several assurances were given to him and on the day he was there. I still wonder if I couldn't have stopped him. Then, when I had the chance.
1986. I produce a record by Musical Youth, under the guidance of an A&R man who was actually younger than the band. There was no escaping either the ironies or the career implications of the situation and both the record and the band were speedily consigned to oblivion. A turning point in the history of young, black Britain.
1987. A very good year.
I play on a hit for Pepsi and Shirlie. My part, which I thought up by myself, consists of two notes. I get paid and Pete Waterman buys me a curry afterwards. I decide I could get used to this. An entire generation hear the record and go on to imitate my parsimonious style.
I play on one track of George Michael's 'Faith' album and, at the last minute, I receive an invitiation to the launch party. It's not my invitation because my name is written on a strip of masking tape that covers someone else's name. I don't sulk, and later attend the most star studded party I have ever seen. The Savoy is rammed with A-list celebs, almost none of whom could possibly be said to have had anything to do with the record. I try the old "So, how do you know George, then?" routine on a few familiar faces but the results are discouraging. The musicians stand in a corner and get drunk.
I join in on backing vocals for legendary rock gods Bad News on their autobiographical classic '**ck Off Bad News' as featured in the film 'More Bad News'. We sang "back off". Honest.
I feature as a member of the house band in an experimental BBC2 comedy series called Hello Mum. Where Monty Python had left out punch lines. Hello Mum left out jokes. Much subsequent TV comedy has followed the path we blazed but without the freshness we brought to the concept. The one exception is probably the drummer of that very house band, who has gone on to make an absolute fortune writing the 'Mr Bean' films. Well done, that man. I'm sure our little chats put him on the right lines.
I appear in a Lenny Henry Xmas Special pretending to be a member of early 70s jug band Mungo Jerry. I mime behind Lenny singing 'In The Summertime'. We sound right and are all dressed very realistically. This is particularly hilarious for me because I actually was a member of Mungo Jerry for six horrible weeks in 1981, until yer main man with the lambchop sideburns attacked me on stage (in a pub in Leytonstone) and I thought it prudent to leave. I have a continuity polaroid somewhere of Lenny pretending, very realistically, to attack me. I develop the theory that art imitates life. This will catch on, one day.
1988. The England Football Team release a single to coincide with Euro 88 called 'All The Way', written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman. The squad proves somewhat deficient when it comes to pitching and holding harmonies and is extensively helped out in the vocal department by myself, Mike Stock and Matt Aitken. I must point out that this was a very raw England side in the studio, becalmed as it was between the Kevin Keegan era and the arrival of Gazza. The team's performance on tape, however, outstripped by some distance their performance on the pitch.
Quite by accident I come face to face with Mrs Thatcher in the foyer of the Haymarket Theatre, London. I still wonder if I couldn't have stopped her. Then, when I had the chance.
(To be continued, if anyone asks for more)
All the bloggy parts of my psyche have been on other duties for the last few days, coping with a strange working situation. It's been tough. Not too much to do, just a load of silly politics. The professionals involved all support me but I'm under attack from the amateurs. The twist is, of course, that the amateurs hold the purse strings.
I think this sort of thing is probably unique to showbiz which seems to be the destination of choice for ambitious dabblers. It goes like this. "I've got some money and some GREAT ideas, but I can't realise them myself, so I'll get in some people who can." That is the top line of the deal, but terms and conditions apply. These include:
- I am never wrong.
- If I ask for your opinion I expect you to agree with me.
- For the avoidance of doubt, disputes arising hereunder shall be determined by the laws of my personal taste, not by common sense or the light of experience.
- Only my feelings are allowed to be hurt, Everyone else is doing a job, whereas I, by contrast, am putting my very soul through torment for this.
- The calendar says what I want it to say and in no way determines what is and is not possible.
- I am allowed to forget what I said last week but I am not obliged to forget anything you have ever said. I am allowed to forget the context, though.
- I am allowed to make vague and generalised criticisms - like 'It's boring' - but no similarly generalised defence shall be admissable.
I think this is the moneyed version of the punk myth. People in this position think that they are cutting through all obstructions to express themselves in a pure and untainted manner, with the clear sight of someone flying above the fog of detail, unfettered by received notions of what might be possible. They wish to play their tune using people rather than an instrument and in the end what they are buying amounts to no more than an expensive, self-tuning guitar.
Yesterday I sat on one of our lovely London bendy buses - Jake calls them 'accordion buses' - wondering whether this phenomenon appears in other, more traditionally demanding areas of human endeavour. "Guys, I've got this great idea for a factory. We could make something that people, like, really wanted and it wouldn't be just some little factory, cos we could build it really big and impressive so that people would be, like, really impressed with us. Boeing did it so I know it can work. And it could be good for all of us."
Or.
"Guys, I've got this great idea for an army. I can't shoot and I've not studied military history, but I've seen 'Zulu' six times and I've got the DVD of 'Saving Private Ryan' out from Blockbuster at the moment. I thought I'd like to do something a bit like that."
Does this happen in the real world? Except in the life of Mark Thatcher, that is?
Dunno. Anyway there are things I did conclude as I crawled down Regent Street in bright sunshine. For example: it seems to me that those among us with short attention spans should not aspire to become movie moguls. You will need to watch the thing more than once, mate. Trust me.
Saturday in Peckham dawned crisp and clear as a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. We had plans, the first of which was to make our way to The Fairfield Halls in Croydon to hear a concert of popular classical music aimed at children. The train took us there unerringly, despite the bald assertion by National Rail Enquiries that our journey was not possible. Once there, we were treated to a varied programme and I had no trouble staying awake throughout, mostly thanks to a display of good old fashioned virtuosity from the Classic Buskers.
My refuelling stop in the Hall's Cafeteria beforehand was less satisfactory. At first I needed the coffee to get me over the shock of the price of the cake. Then I needed the cake to take away the taste of the coffee, Then I needed the coffee to take away the taste of the cake. Now I appreciate how easily cycles of dependency can creep into one's life.
Afterwards the carefully balanced plan was to do some clothes shopping at Marks & Spencer (child nightmare), preceded by a visit to Pizza Hut (adult nightmare). We grown-ups don't like Pizza Hut but we made the best of it, which in practice meant that I made a semi-bald assertion that I wouldn't eat anything in there and Mel announced that she wouldn’t sit in the window in case she was spotted. I ate half my pizza which semed to taste entirely of salt. "Lovely," I said when asked about my meal by the young be-gelled waiter.
We moved on to M&S for some inter-generational payback. I was interested to see how long it would take before Jake threatened to throw himself on the floor. The youth of today may strike fear into older hearts with Eminem but we oldies should not forget how powerful a weapon we still possess in Eminess.
Jake's weekend homework was titled 'Looking At Liquids'. I decided to help him out and did extensive research on Saturday night, closely examining several glasses of my favourite liquids from a number of angles.
Fwoar! The house stinks. It smells like extra strength fox poo to Mel but my years in music have given me different nose skills and I suspect that our new uphill neighbour may be growing a forest of mutant skunk plants in his basement. Anyway it is the worst thing that has happened hereabouts since the blockage in our sewage outflow led to the arrival of upwardly mobile excrement in our downstairs bath.
It’s yet another lesson in how appearances can mislead. Our unusually tidy house is a sham, all deceiving beauty outside yet all corruption within, as a whited sepulchre, or market stall pear.
And now a return to controversy. I read a glowing review of Look Around You, a comedy nostalgia piece shown earlier this week on BBC2, mimicking the slow, educational, patronising style of 70s programmes like Tomorrow’s World. All naff clothes, long hair, naive synthesiser music and cheap graphics. And no gags. I thought it was about as riveting as watching jellies set, which would probably make breathless viewing by comparison. Haven't we had enough telly about telly? Does anyone think this loving tribute was worth the effort of one thirty minute show, let alone a series? The yoof won't watch it on Beeb2 and wouldn't know the originals anyway, and for us oldies I thought it was painfully light on actual humour as opposed to accurate imitation. Like getting an impressionist faithfully to read out a real Denis Healey speech as opposed to having a Mike Yarwood routine. Have we gone so heritage barmy that this stands up on its own?
So tell me I'm a crabby old git/humourless Licence Fee whinger. Your views are welcome.