my life as a artist
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not so mellow capello fellow
Friday 14th December 2007 11:51 PM
If you're the sort of Rory blogwatcher, who in these times of rampant global injustice, finds it frustrating when I write about football, then I'm sorry, but I make no apologies about doing it again. Sorry. If you don't want to know the latest score on the England manager, then look away now, or if it's being read to you, stick your fingers in your ears and shout 'Na na na narny na' very loudly.
I predict that Fabio Capello's spell of management with England will be brief, and end in tears. His expressed admiration for General Franco, Hitler, the Yorkshire ripper and Davros, head of the Daleks, is a worrying sign. English footballers are about power and passion, and as only about three of them have got the level of technique that Fabio is used to working with, I think he'll struggle, and when he struggles I fear he'll resort to the tactics of his heroes, and start exterminating people.
The England manager's job is of massive symbolic importance to the psyche of the nation, especially in the lower chakras, and since they've given the job to an Italian, I feel sexually humiliated. After the flaccid impotence of Steve Maclaren, I was excited by the possibility of the moist vacancy being filled by a tumescent Harry Redknapp, or some other outstanding English member, but instead find myself being cuckolded by some Mediterranean, jut-jawed Mussolini-alike.
I don't want you to think there's any racism going on here. While I believe that sunshine and an olive oil-rich diet can lead to an excess of energy, that can easily become violent extremism, (as opposed to the mere grumpy stoicism that you get with rain and potatoes), it goes without saying that I think many Italians are absolutely gorgeous, including Gina Lollibrigida, Gianfranco Zola, 'thunder and lightning, very, very frightening' Galileo Galileo, and, of course, Garibaldi biscuits. I've also heard that Fabio's got two brothers, Coolio and Groovio, who are apparently a bit more laid-back than him.
Steve Coppel(o), as a choice, would have been fine with me. As first name on the team sheet for Manchester United and England for many seasons, he would have commanded the instant respect of the players, and I believe the fact that he's got the mannerisms, complexion and facial features of a tortoise, indicates a deep, underlying reptilian wisdom, that we haven't seen since the days of Alf Ramsey.
One other obvious candidate, who's English, and had success at international level, is Hope Kelly, the England women's team manager. She's certainly got more tactical nous than most, and, except for Kevin Keegan in his pomp, by far the curliest hair.
The English candidates have got so much to bring to the table. Stuart Pierce has got experience with the under-21's, passion and mad eyes, Sam Allardyce has got big jowels, Alan Curbishley's got a quizzical smile, Gareth Southgate's got a beautiful soul, Gary Megson's got ginger hair, a dog's got his bone in the alley, a cat's got nine lives, a millionaire's got a million dollars, King Saud's got 400 wives, and Alan Shearer's got a tell-tale dimple of determination on his chin, that tells me if he'd been offered the job, he'd have done really great. Steve Bruce, Ron Atkinson, Carlton Palmer, Sammy Lee. As Hovis Presley would have said, the end is listless.
Posted 11:51 PM | 1 Comments | Permalink
have you got a light?
Friday 14th December 2007 12:26 AM
My idea of a party these days is being in a room with more than two people and smoking cigarettes. C'mon everybody, let the good times roll! I fought and died in two world wars for this country, and during my time in the trenches, a cigarette was considered a beautiful thing, a small beacon of hope and comfort in that bleak, all-hating world. According to the press, we won both those wars, so why can't I have a fag with my celebratory pint?
My mate Steve, who's dissatisfied and from Yatesbury, was asked not to smoke when he was at Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain, in a force eight gale. I sometimes worry that the suffocating health and safety culture, as promoted by the increasingly authoritarian Whitehall hologramobots, diminishes the potential of human experience. Danger and risk should be welcomed into our lives, for they can often lead to innovation, solidarity, courage, and serious injury.
This morning, in the newsagent, Greg-behind-the-counter was looking particularly grave, the crumpled heaviness of his creased and furrowed frown in marked contrast to the sleek buoyancy of his perfect Anna Wintour power-bob. He said he'd seen this Plato film, about God throwing googlies on the wall with a torch, and had come to the conclusion that the material world was nothing but the shadow of the fourth dimension, and that all these newspapers he was selling, were by extension, nothing but the shadow of the shadow of the fourth dimension.
Even though I hadn't seen the film, I had to agree that most of the newspapers, and especially the tabloids, were distinctly lacking in substance. On the cover of The Star was a picture of a prone David Beckham, naked, except for a brief pair of tight underpants, underneath which he appeared to have a scrunched up Gary Neville. It was the shadow of the shadow of the shadow of the fourth dimension, and at that time in the morning, it was really horrid.
Celebrity bollocks is a deadly foe in the common persons struggle for identity, and me and Greg felt under attack. We both suddenly felt the need for the comfort of something sinuous and soothing, so we left the warm trench of the newsagent and went outside for a fag, into no-man's land.
Posted 12:26 AM | 1 Comments | Permalink
hello out there
Tuesday 11th December 2007 4:34 PM
Hello out there, or, bearing in mind that I'm beginning to suspect that outer-space is exactly the same place as inner-space, hello in there.
Did you know that human beings are generally the mean size of an atom and the sun? Alan Shearer mentioned it during a discussion of the Aston Villa, Portsmouth match on Match of the Day on Saturday night. Gary Lineker, who was expecting Alan to say something more along the lines of 'Benjani's done great there', seemed genuinely excited. Intimations of the underlying divine order behind existence seemed to suffuse the BBC studio with an air of renewed hope and understanding, and on this form, I'd say that Alan Shearer was a shoe-in for the post of England manager.
Further to the Linton Kwesi Johnson blog from last week, Linton's first response to 'was this poem written with irony?' was a low, growled, 'That is not my aesthetic.' This weeks 'Poetry through history' reverted to type, with an epic poem by Very Very Dryden about the fire of London. According to Very Very, it seems the king did everything semi-divinely possible to put out the flames, and that the ultimate culprit was the wind, which, rather suspiciously, came from Belgium.
On Friday evening I drove to Bollington in Cheshire to do a stand-up gig. The M62 at that time, in the rain, with a bit in the middle of the windscreen that my sub-standard wipers would only smear, was a true test of my warrior spirit. The concrete surgeons of the highways department were mine enemy, and as I turned south onto the M60, I felt that, as a malevolent foe, they were ever-vigilant. As far as I'm concerned, the A6 is a big, important road, and if I'd built the M60, when I crossed over it, I'd have said something. As it was, I had to intuit. When things started to feel really 'A sixy', I took the next exit, and ended up in a place called 'Edgely', which, according to my AA book of the road, didn't exist, and was in fact, just a play on words.
However, Bollington, which really puts the ling in Bolton, found me. I got the gig via Agraman, the human anagram, who only books me into places where he feels the audience would be willing to put up with my pleasantness. I got an encore, and they seemed to like it all, except for one line. I was explaining about the roots of words, and how 'education' is taken from the Latin, 'educare', and means 'to be bored in an under-ventilated room'. They laughed at that, but when I followed it up with, 'if you say it three times, it means 'I'm going to spend all the money on bombs', there was complete silence, which being the sound of no-hands clapping, had a certain zen quality to it. All I could say was, 'just me then', and move swiftly on to a posh knob-gag.
After the gig I was explaining to the compere, Dynamite Dave, that twenty years ago the comedy circuit had a bit more edge. 'Yes', said Dave, 'but it's different these days, there's nothing to protest about, is there?' Dynamite, Dave, dynamite.
Posted 4:34 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
Bishopthorpe Social Club
Friday 7th December 2007 12:11 PM
Thanks to the media savvy of the fabulous Tom, here's a few extracts from me and the Travelling Libraries, (Mike and Brin) ,at last night's gig at Bishopthorpe Social Club, which is a lot like the Buena Vista Social Club, but in Bishopthorpe. It was a benefit for the York Corinthian Foundation, a fabulous football team and charity, to raise money to connect a school in Tanzania to the national grid.
Apparently we raised more money than last years quiz, and it gave me a chance to show my fellow Corinthians that my comedic skills aren't just restricted to the football pitch.
Posted 12:11 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
linton not-crazy johnson
Monday 3rd December 2007 12:16 AM
I've just been listening to Linton Kwesi Johnson reading his poem 'Di Great Insohreckshan', about the Brixton riots of 1981, on a Radio 4 programme called 'Poetry through history'. This was surprisingly edgy stuff for Radio 4, and I think they got more than they bargained for. The poetry was powerful and, 'because the wind doesn't howl in iambic pentameters', quite raw. After the first ten minutes of celebratory and righteous 'lootin' and a burnin', I sensed the producers wishing they'd chosen 'The charge of the light brigade' instead.
Unfortunately, during the last five minutes of the programme, my attention was divided by a chicken coming in to the caravan and trying to have perfunctory, but enthusiastic, sex with an attractive tea-cosy, completely unaware that the cosy's delicious body-warmth was being provided by a freshly brewed pot of Earl Grey tea, underneath.
By the time I'd cleaned up the mess, and counselled the chicken, to a point where I thought it was fit to go back out into the farmyard, the programme was over. During a silent affirmation with the chicken, however, I did manage to catch an extraordinary exchange between the poet and the white, middle-class presenter.
I can't remember the exact words, but the presenter more or less said, ' So Linton, this poem was written twenty-six years ago…since then, the battle for racial equality has just about been won, what, with Trevor MacDonald reading the news and stuff …. is the poem still relevant?.. in fact, would you say, in retrospect, that you wrote it with a certain amount of irony?'
My shock, at such a crass, tit-knob of a question, was picked up by the chicken, whose subsequent squawking drowned out most of the poet's reply. I think it was something along the lines of 'No, irony is for English poets'. (this is Linton speaking, of course, not the chicken squawking). I haven't got a 'listen again' facility, so if anybody heard the reply, and wasn't having to deal with a sex-crazed chicken trauma (with tarka dal and pilaw rice?) at the same time, I'd be grateful if you could tell me what it was.
Meanwhile, an overseas reader, whose validation word of the day was 'urgent', thanks me for penetrating the media black-out of Somalia. It pleases me to think that I might be lighting a candle by complaining about the darkness. When I say 'the darkness' here, I am of course referring to the influence of the demon-controlled structures of the planet, and not the high-pitched soft-metal warblings of a popular beat-combo from Lowestoft. You can't complain about a man with curly hair who believes in a thing called love.
Posted 12:16 AM | 4 Comments | Permalink
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