Pole Axed

When people find out I had a short-lived Journalism career, they tend to ask "so why did you pack it in?" to which I reply "because I wasn't a big enough arsehole", and we all have a jolly good laugh.

Actually, the truth is that I was sick of the crap money and long hours. By the time I was about to hand my cards in, I was a Sub-Editor and was offered a promotion to Production Manager. Granted, this was for a small publishing company, but even then I knew it would provide contacts and experience to move up in the world: the guy who had vacated that role had done so to essentially take a dream job with a famous English sports team. But I'd decided at that point that I preferred being home for five in the evening every day, rather than seven some days and past midnight on others.

That said, the "arsehole" point stands when you check out a number of the prominent "columnists" that work for the leading UK tabloids. This is a position a journalist tends to rise to when it is proven their willingness to spout any old objectionable bollocks is matched only by how much of a fuckwit they are. Yet the rewards can be significant - take Richard Littlejohn, for example. A man who made a habit of spouting "you couldn't make it up!", only for it to be found out that he usually does. A man who shrugged off the murder of prostitutes by the serial killer Steven Wright because "none of them were going to cure cancer". He still calls women "birds" in the style of his beloved 70s TV shows, derides Health and Safety as meddling and is generally a total bellend.

Currently, he lives in gated community in Florida, paid for the huge sums of money he's paid by the Daily Mail. Thus, many look to follow in his steps. One such chancer is James Delingpole, who comes out with total arse discharge like this. I wouldn't recommend clicking that link if you get wound up too easily, and also because it probably helps him get paid. Needless to say, his views can perhaps be best summed up with this picture:

Men shouldn't play with dolls, it seems. And girls like pink. Let men be men, and let women get on with the important work of having babies and looking pretty. Evidence? Pah! He has anecdotal proof to back up his watertight assertions. The same way I can say my kid brother loved his My Little Pony dolls as a young lad. And he's not even gay, James! All the same, curse my parents for not smashing those dolls and insisting he play with a toy gun instead. It certainly explains why he's fucked up in life, being a respected teacher with a PhD and a stable relationship that's lasted over 10 years. But the bad news is, he's a teacher, so he can pass on his VILE POLITICALLY CORRECT views onto another generation. Oh, the horror.

See, I can do the whole "anecdotal evidence" thing too. Where's my column in a national newspaper?

Another reason Journalism wasn't the bag for me is my lack of patience with idiots - people like Sunny Jim, essentially. And my horrific spelling. Luckily, there are many other folk better than me for this. One such is this blogger here, who does a wonderful job of dismantling the article and the man himself. Even when he tries to be a smartarse on Twitter, she keeps her cool when I would have been banging on his door asking if he'd like to repeat himself to my face. Then to the pavement.

2013, We Hardly Knew Ye

A much delayed piece, this, as I struggle to get my writing mojo together in the face of all manner of issues, none that important, but all combining into a huge ball of apathy. Which is a bit like life, when you think about it, isn't it? No?

English viewers will suggest Charlie Brooker does this kind of thing x100 better with his TV show that I help pay for, but let's face it, he's not as pissed off as he used to be since he hooked with with Konnie Huq and started a family. You used to be one of us, Charlie: bitter, alienated and raging at a world that simply wouldn't listen to any inarticulate rants. I bet you're gunning for a Knighthood. Yeah. You and your chum David Mitchell, with your glamorous wives and personal happiness. How dare you!

I digress.

Footballer of the Year
Once again, my choice of 2012 proved to be something of a jinx, as van Persie suffered a short spell of bad form and more recently, has been a total crock with numerous rumours stating he's spat the dummy about Alex Ferguson retiring.

With that in mind, perhaps I should pick Ashley Young, in the hope that the under-performing clogger is quickly sold back to Aston Villa. But no: honesty demands I say David de Gea, who over the course of 2013 went from derided by the media to earning plaudits galore. His form across 2013 was superb, and in a season where we've been frequently laughable, he's saved the bacon on numerous occasions. One particular save up at Sunderland was straight from the Peter Schmeichel playbook.

Watch now as either his performance level crumbles and/or he's sold to Barcelona.

Album of the Year
Actually, I've not bought a single "new" album for ages. Getting old, perhaps, but nothing is really grabbing me. Instead, I've continued to raid the past, buying classics by Catherine Wheel and Graham Parker.

However, I did go to three storming gigs this year: World Party, Bob Mould and Bruce Springsteen all put on amazing shows. World Party was the most intimate, it just being Karl Wallinger with two other musicians in a small venue, on which I was at the front. Mould wins the prize for loudest - again, being at the very front helped, but my ears were still ringing four days later, amazing the volume created by a three piece band. He played a great mix of Husker Du, Sugar and from his great last album (2012) Silver Age.

The Boss, though, was the most epic. Despite being in a stadium, a fair distance from the front, you managed to feel the guy's energy. Something like three hours on stage, with no pauses and no let up, Springsteen proved to me why he's always up on those "Must See" lists for concerts. Into his 60s, with more energy than any of the pretenders could dream of.

Game of the Year
Obvious choice, but Grand Theft Auto V wins the title through the amount of enjoyment I got out of it. There was plenty of enjoyment to be had from The Last Of Us and Remember Me, but GTA takes the cake. Best part of 50 hours spent to get through the story, and I'm pissed off I lent it to a mate now, as I want to take a spin round the city with Kenny Loggins DJing some classic rock. I never was one for the Steve Miller Band, but hearing Rock'n Me while cruising down the coast was a pretty cool moment.

What do you mean, it's not real?

Absolute Aching Arsehole of the Year
My kid brother is a teacher, and so is his wife of six months. With that in mind, this year's winner is again Michael Gove, whose single-minded road to fucking up generations of the country's youth through his own refusal to budge from his own dogma continues unabated.

So, in the unlikely even googling your own name has lead you here: Michael Gove, I hope your ballbag goes septic.

"I found this photograph... tender face of black and white"

I don't head back to my hometown very often these days, but when I do, and I'm in the bedroom where I spent far too much of my childhood, I have had the same ritual over the last six years.

When my paternal grandfather died, we found a cache of old photos in his flat, maybe 100 or so black and white pics. I go through all of these when I'm back. There a lot of him when he was a kid, and it's strange to see the stern old man, made so by experiences of war and personal loss, as a smiling young boy alongside his kid sisters.

There's also a few documents, one of which is my great-great-grandparents' wedding certificate, from 1907. Perhaps appropriately for this time of year (just about!), they were called Joseph and Mary and it feels strange to hold something that symbolises the beginning of their lives together. As I recall, he lived just about long enough to see Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

There's also their youngest daughter's wedding certificate. Her name was Jane, born in 1911, and her death in 1989 was my first experience with loss. From the photos, there are plenty of her, as she was close to just about everyone in my family. When my dad lost his mother, she kept him and grandpop from totally falling apart by making sure they actually ate - men of the time being totally unable to cook.

Again, it's a surprise to see the sweet old lady I knew in her younger days, wearing shades and smoking cigarillos. There's a pic of her wedding day too, in 1937.

Cool lady

Getting married in a black dress - fantastic. Maybe it was common back then for all I know, but it seems pretty damn hip to me. She still lived in the house in that pic by the time I came around, and I spent many a happy weekend there and playing in the ruins of nearby Penrith castle with her watching and warning me and my brother not to climb too high up the medieval walls.

What always frustrates me is all the pictures is those with people in whom my father and I have no idea about. Are they relations? Friends? What's the story? I can only wish my granddad had shared when he was alive and filled in the gaps.

I am directly related to somebody in this picture. 

Take this one, for example. Where is it? What's the occasion? Loath as I am to reduce to cliché, but it is tremendously evocative of a world that no longer exists, especially when I consider the people inside are somehow connected to me. Though I go back maybe twice a year tops, Cumbria remains a huge part of me and I think always will. Grandpop's pics remain a reminder of why this is so.

Take a Rocket Ship to Mars

Tags are so often misleading. I love a lot of the Shoegazing bands of the early 1990s: Ride, Slowdive, Lush, Pale Saints... but one band is often lumped in with them, with no real reason beyond journalistic laziness.

Sure, on a casual listen, Catherine Wheel's first album Ferment almost fit in with that. It had loud guitars that droned at moments and Rob Dickinson's vocals could at times be a little dreamy. Yet, there was plenty to separate them from that whole scene, which may explain why they outlived many of their contemporaries and also the relative success they enjoyed in the States that others didn't.

For starters, the band were from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk - hardly rock and roll heartland, and miles away from London or the then-hip Manchester or Thames Valley heartlands. Dickinson at least was well into his mid 20s by the time their debut came out in 1992, having spent time working designing for Lotus prior. Perhaps this prior experience came out in the song Black Metallic, the video for which got some play on MTV and was lyrically written about the love of a car. 

Where the quartet, Dickinson alongside Brian Futter (lead guitar), Dave Hawes (bass) and Neil Sims (bass), had was the ability to properly rock out from the dream status of their contemporaries. It also helped that in their quieter moments, they were guided by Tim Friese-Green, who had helped Talk Talk make some of the most amazing music of recent history. 

The band were huge fans of Talk Talk, and under his guiding hand made a wondrous entrance to the world. I Want to Touch You showed the band could do sexy and the title track put down their abilities to create quiet/loud dynamics. I've long been keen on putting that song on compilation albums for people, chuckling to myself that the innocent receiver will crank up the volume, only to kill their ears at the moment the sonic assault cuts in. 

As they would frequently do, the band toured North America extensively, and perhaps toughened up their musical muscles as 1993's Chrome shoved the band as far away from any perceived roots - though those paying attention to their b-sides including covers of Husker Du might not have been surprised. Producer Gil Norton wiped away a lot of the density of their earlier work in favour of a more, well, metallic sound, though Show Me Mary was a great hit single that never was. 

With the double hit of Ursa Major Space Station and Fripp, the band hit heights that surely blew any competition out of the water - Dickinson sighing that "I'll follow you through time, 'till it's not worth living" over a crescendo of guitars and drums that demand to be heard loud is a frankly sublime moment . That it never crossed over to a bigger audience seems unjust beyond words. 

1995's Happy Days had a very American Alt-Rock edge to it, much more in kilter with bands like the Smashing Pumpkins. Opener God Inside My Head featured some very heavy playing and some uncharacteristic metal-eseque grunting from Dickinson.

At it's best, it was magnificent, as with the quietly fuming Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck, the funny Shocking and the hook-filled Judy Staring at the Sun, which featured Belly singer Tanya Donnelly on vocals, and might have done better as a single not for the fact it was about a drug addict. Another single, Waydown got some MTV notice with a somewhat literal air-crash themed video, but mainstream acceptance remained out of reach.

A tendency to place as many "new" songs as b-sides had created a fair old amount of non-album material over the years, and the compilation Like Cats and Dogs was released to warmer reviews than Happy Days. Featuring most pastoral material, it set the tone for the next album, which would turn out to be their masterpiece. They even made Pink Floyd sound good, with a version of Wish You Were Here.

Adam and Eve, out in 1997, should have been "the" album. As usual, it didn't work out that way. Not that they were getting much help - legend says Rolling Stone were all set to give them a high score in the review, only for it to get marked down in the edit. Quite why remains a mystery, as in terms of music in 1997, for me, only Mansun's Six comes close. OK Computer looks like a bunch of teenage angst in comparison, as while both have a hint of prog, Adam and Eve manages to keep things interesting, even when all but two of the 13 songs clock in at over five minutes.

I simply cannot emphasise how essential the album is. If you have an interest in rock music, alternative or mainstream, seek out Adam and Eve now. It is perhaps a complete a piece of work as can be imagined. The entire band is on top form and I can't write anymore than to suggest you go listen to it in one sitting and wonder how you did without it beforehand.

But, when all came down perhaps they knew the chance had gone. It wasn't until 2000 before they reappeared. When the band took up things again, they had dispensed with bassist Hawes and got Friese-Green back in the producer's chair to make Wishville. Sadly, it was a lax effort and not long after, the band went on a hiatus from which they have not yet returned. 

Subsequently, Dickinson released a solo album (Fresh Wine for the Horses) in 2005 but more recently spends his time with his Porsche 911 renovation business in Los Angeles, going back to his original trade. Video footage suggests he looks annoyingly good for his age and takes great pride in his work. On a more musical tint, he appeared on two tracks of the 2011 album These Hopeful Machines by US electro artist BT. 

Wintertime Blues

There’s several reasons I haven’t written anything on here, none of them actually any good.

Or maybe one is, in that I've just been too tired. This seems to happen every year, that I get to December and simply gas out and then head off home for Christmas week, where a few days of being fed by my mother replenishes my energy levels for another ten months or so. It’s pathetic, really, that I still need this at the age of 32.

There was also a fun few hours in hospital a bit ago, where I had a lump of plastic and metal shoved into my chest with no little force. The loop recorder (as they call it), is supposed to take a snap shot of my heart activity next time I have a black out, on the assumption someone I know is around to activate the thing with this little box thing I carry around with me. All I can say is that the process of putting it in may be the most painful experience of my life – but, hey, the girls love a scar. More importantly, a good friend of mine (who I hope reads this) is going through a hell of a lot worse at the moment, which puts my petty moaning into sharp relief.

What I have managed to do is a little bit of gaming, reading and listening to music.

The Last of Us
‘Citizen Kane of Gaming’, according to one review, which is a gross an overstatement as you’ll hear all year, for an experience that is essentially Resident Evil with a higher budget.

To it’s credit, the acting is excellent, especially Troy Baker as Joel, the male lead, and the storyline, although not exactly as amazing as Charlie Brooker makes out, is engaging to the degree that you keep playing through some somewhat atypical survival horror sections to see what happens next. That you spend the game playing as a man driven to amorality by virtue of just trying to survive in a world gone to shit is an interesting slant – especially as he makes no attempt to apologise or feel bad about his actions.

The Last of Us is about a linear a game I’ve played since Final Fantasy XIII (which also starred Troy Baker, funnily enough), which isn’t my cup o’tea most of the time, but it managed to look pretty enough to keep me interested and to it’s credit, the combat sections can provide some cool moments: blowing up a group of four armed-to-the-teeth soldiers with a well-placed nail bomb was a satisfying a game a moment as I’ve had all year.

Solid 8/10 experience for the whole package, but nowhere close to what the hype what have you believe – the game dynamics would get 6/10 from me on a good day.

Grand Theft Auto V
Call me shallow (because I am), but I bought right into the hype for this at the last moment. I had resolved to wait till the price come down a few months after release… but no, I ended up picking up on release and booking the following day off work to put in some serious time.

GTAV doesn’t give you much more leeway in the actual storyline than The Last of Us (bar one choice at the end which gives three different conclusions) but has a stronger perception of choice. Between missions, you’re free to explore a huge city, play games or just get up to the usual chaos you can in these games.

There’s issues with the storyline, in that Rockstar don’t seem to have got a handle on how to write good female characters. Like The Last of Us, there is a torture scene – but here, you have to take an active part rather than just watch. It made for an uncomfortable moment, but that’s the nature of the character you are playing at that time – he’s a complete psychopath with very little in the way of morals or grip on reality.

It hasn’t quite topped Vice City as my favourite GTA title, but it was a rewarding playthrough in any case, with plenty of laughs and moments of total awesomeness. More so than TLoU, it pushes games as a serious form of entertainment by sheer dint of how much it sold in the days after release – can only other medium compare with those figures?

Autobiography by Morrissey
Despite the likes of Private Eye getting all uptight about the sums being thrown around for the rights to this, Stretford Moz’s tome was among the most anticipated books of the year, surely?

As it was, we learn the guy sure can moan. It seems everyone in the world has at some point fucked him over, his mother excepted, or died young, though Elton John, of all people, leaves a positive impression in their single meeting. The details of his childhood are interesting, but there’s relatively little about the Smiths period – the man himself could justify this with the fact it made up only a small period of his life (five years), but it’s the part I would wager the majority of us are interested in. Apparently, he also remains in the dark as to why Johnny Marr quit.

What we do get is almost the same amount of space dedicated to the court case that pretty much put the mockers on the chance of there ever being a full Smiths reunion. Fair enough, it does appear Moz was done over by a vindictive judge, but he goes on, and on, and on. It sets a tone for a downhill slope, as his comeback ten years ago is described in a series of numbers of chart placings and attendance figures at gigs. The revelations of his romantic forays with men and women seem scant consolation for wading through the rest.

Catherine Wheel
I’ve actually made some inroads into writing a piece of this band, who are my favourite musical discovery of the year despite them not having released a note in over ten years. If I can sort my shit out, I'll try to finish my overview of their work.

Past Amusements

Finding myself in a nostalgic mood, I thought back to days spent in amusement arcades. My hometown only had one, and it was full of fruit machines, one-armed bandits and the like. I had no interest in them. I had to wait for our holidays to Butlins in Ayr for those kind of kicks.

Back in the 1980s, home computers were still rather basic. My faithful old Sinclair +2, with it's massive 128k of memory, brought me many hours of gaming joy, but an arcade offered kicks on a whole new level. In the days of HD gaming with a Playstation and a decent sized TV, it seems like a different world that we had to leave the home to get gaming with full colour and amazing sounds.

As an aside, one time we swapped the joys of Ayr for the Pontins, in Southport. While in the arcade, playing what I remember as a kind of Spy Hunter clone, I was pushed aside by a bigger boy (I was seven) who took my turn. I was found in tears by my cousin, who was nine years older than me and a bit more "handy". Within minutes, I had my turn back and a few extra 20p pieces for my trouble. So, for you, big man, my hero ever since, here are my choice arcade classics on which many a coin was spent.

Out Run

Bloody Sunday drivers!

You see, living in a small town in the back end of nowhere, we didn't have much in the way of glamour. Out Run offered a whole warehouse of it. Drive a Ferrari, with a girl beside you, racing across exotic locations at high speed. What more could I want?

The selling point, I think I can state with authority, was the soundtrack. Talk to someone (OK, a man) of my age and play Magical Sound Shower and you'll see them glaze over.

I remember the first time I played Out Run. It was in Blackpool, on a day trip, and you had to sit in a car shaped cabinet in which my feet just touched the pedals - lucky I was tall for my age. As it happened, I wiped out on the first corner and stormed off in a sulk before my dad told me that didn't mean it was game over. Alas, the wasted seconds did mean it soon was.

Rampage

High rise living ain't too bad. Unless this happens.

So, some bizarre accident turns you into a huge monster. The obvious response is to destroy just about every city in the USA. I'm sure we can all relate to the premise that Rampage brought us.

Playing either a giant ape, lizard or wolf, the mission was to just destroy as much as possible, while avoiding the unwanted attentions of the military, who don't take kindly to your attempts at town planning. 

I'm not sure how "new" it was that you could have three players going at the same time was, but it felt amazing at the time. It meant my moaning brother could join in, though my dad remained constantly useless and would generally skulk off back to the bar area after being defeated early doors. On the plus side, it meant random strangers could join in - nice way to make friends amongst the usual "entertainment" that a holiday at Butlins involved.

Operation Wolf

What this had, which I'd never seen before, was a copy of a Uzi submachine gun attached to the cabinet. You had to aim with this to kill all the mooks that were unfortunate enough to cross your sights, which seemed revolutionary at the time.

Another quiet trip to the shops ruined, then

Needless to say, there was a lot of killing to be done if you were to rescue the hostages that had been taken for a reason I can't remember, if there even was one. All that mattered was that they were there, and about 5000 soldiers needed to be slaughtered to get to them. Not that I ever got to the end. No, I saw this instead:

Shouldn't have had that kebab last night, eh?

At least they were polite about your death. 

City and Country

I recently watched, for what I think was the fourth time, BBC's excellent documentary Synth Britannia, part of which explored the feelings of alienation post-war British town planning could bring -underpasses, tower blocks and endless grey concrete - and how it influenced the music of people like Gary Numan, John Foxx and Cabaret Voltaire.

This brought to mind my recent trip to Preston - I met my bessie mate at their (in)famous bus station, to reach which requires you to walk through this underground walkway that was like stepping back into another world. I have expected we would get assaulted by a gang of droogs. 

Being brought up in a small town in the back end of nowhere, I wasn't aware of these strange pieces of architecture. It wasn't so much grey in Whitehaven - the colour that springs to mind when I think of my hometown in the 1980s would be brown. The largest building in town was the multi-story car park, and the brown bricks used in that were also used for all sorts of things in town.

The car park was a strange building. In my dad's car, we would go from broad daylight to almost total darkness in seconds as you climbed the ramp. To get out, you crossed the bridge and went down this odd narrow circular passageway which always stunk of piss. Thinking now, I've no idea if this part of the structure is still there.

In 2013, the place has changed, for the better. There has been huge amounts of money put into making the harbour look pleasant. 25 years ago, it was a dump, with derelict cranes and two huge silos dominating the area. Tram lines that ran from North to South sides were a sad reminder of the then-recent demise of the last coal mine in town. When the tide was out, you would see shabby little boats sat on the mud and it looked tragic, so to go back today and see a shiny marina that holds a festival every summer... well, it makes going home that little bit nicer.

I live in a city now, but Manchester has also changed a lot in the last 30 years. The horrid Hulme Crescents are long gone and the city centre always seems to have some glass tower being thrown up to replace some old piece of crap from the 1960s - the city that inspired Ian Curtis to write lyrics such as Shadowplay is pretty much gone, bar the odd signifier like the the Mancunian Way.

Despite my love of electro music dealing with the horror of living in the concrete jungle (my current favourite is Underpass by John Foxx), I'm fairly sure having a childhood where 40 odd miles of mountains and lakes just at the end of the road means I couldn't hack the real thing. In the last couple of years, I came to realise that despite nine years living here, I'll never be a city lad: my heart belongs to Cumbria, though I do hope they knock down that bloody car park sometime soon.