And In Every Home...

Today is the last day of my two week break (weekends don't count) and it struck me that I still consider the place I am now, my parent's house, as 'home' despite not living here for over six years now. My flat in Manchester is merely where I live.

Part of this attitude might be down to knowing that at any point in time, I can be given my notice to move out, which doesn't help in terms of settling down somewhere. Not that I think it means you have to own your digs to make it your own. After all, my nan has lived in the same council house for the last 65 years - which is ridiculous on some level, as the rents paid in that time must have covered the actual value of the house several times over.

Perhaps you can't really have a home if you live on your own, that it's the people you share it with that make it so. In the house I sit in at this moment, where I grew up, my parents are still here and there's reminders of many others that add up to the feel of somewhere you can feel safe.

If anyone is actually reading this, I'd be interested in opinions and thoughts, as this has been playing on my mind for a bit of time now. I used to joke that "home is somewhere you can wander round in the dark without causing yourself serious injury", but I'm guessing that's actually a lot more to it...

In the City

Whilst spending a few hours in Helsinki last week, I wondered how long it takes for you to really get to know a place.

After getting off the boat from Tallinn along with numerous people lugging cheap Estonian booze on trolleys, my few hours in Finland's capital gave the impression of a place that I could easily chill out in. Weirdly, the city seemed absolutely overwhelmed by emo kids - never in one place had I seen so many teenagers dressed in ridiculous looking jeans, t-shirts of bands I'd never heard of and with half a tin of chemicals in their hair.

Which brings me back to my original point: is Helsinki like that all the time, or did I just pick a day where it happened to be so? Maybe there was a gig on that evening.

Despite being only a two hour boat ride (or 20 minute flight), it's a very different city to Tallinn. A lot larger, for one thing, but also more 'familiar' to my English eyes, which I initially attributed to a lack of a Soviet-era influence. Another aspect was that Helsinki seems to be more multi-cultural in terms of it's population, much like Manchester. Weirdly, when asking for directions to the bus station, and then the train station, both the women I asked were American.

Coming from a small town in the back end of nowhere, most cities have always seemed that much more huge to me, which can put me off. London, for example, is somewhere I'll quite happily never go to again. Manchester is different, perhaps as it's much more compact - you can walk across the city centre in no time - which gives it a slightly more easygoing feel, knowing you can get out and into sticks in not too much time. Helsinki felt a little like this, enough to make me curious enough to maybe consider spending a few days more there.

Finally, I did have one unpleasant experience, whilst at the airport. Bored, with time to hill and euro coins to spend, I went to buy a pack of sweets. All the labels said nothing to me, so I picked one at random, hoping to some Haribo-esque teeth rotting delights. Microseconds after putting one in my mouth, I realised I'd bought a pack of the Finnish equivalent of Bassett's Allsorts. Urgh. And as you know, it takes fucking hours to get that taste out of your mouth.

Murder, Misery and then Goodnight

The day prior to flying across Europe, I jaunted down the M62 to Liverpool to check out Kristin Hersh at the Academy 2, accompanied by the always charming Nickyxx.

Whilst not a huge fan of Ms Hersh's work like my good friend, I have enjoyed several Throwing Muses albums and checking out a gig by her other band, 50ft Wave, six years ago provided a top night out. So making the effort to negotiate Liverpool's one-way system didn't seem too much of a hassle in return.

Once inside the pretty soul-less venue, it's a surprise to see the large amount of emo kids knocking about. It would be nice to think that they'd been checking out the 4AD back catalogue, but the truth revealed itself in the first of the two local support bands. The Kill Joys wander on stage and their various friends all crowd down the front to root for them.

A four piece with a combined age of what looks about 75, they bash through their set with gusto. Shame that their moves are all taken from the Big Book of Rock Cliches. They clap their hands above their heads during a drum breakdown and the bassist in particular seems to really want to be a star, with his foot permanently on his monitor. Fine musicians all, especially the propulsive drummer but a real lack of actual, y'know, tunes that you can remember.

Which is pretty much the same problem our next bunch of contenders have. Frankincense moved through their set competently, but failed to stir my interest at all. Over a week later, my main memory is the dreadful haircuts of the guys playing guitar and bass. But what do I know? A quick google check would suggest they've been approached to have their music on some American TV shows.

Then finally, the main attraction. We're pre-warned by a guy that I assume is her manager/husband that Kristin "doesn't talk much", so he explains her new album is taking the form of a book. Presumably, you buy the book, which in turns allows you access to download the actual music.

Unlike my only previous sighting of her, in a pretty much full-on rock gig, Hersh is solo and acoustic here. I've seen this set-up fail many times, but as an excellent guitarist with a voice capable of carrying songs with little backing, Hersh doesn't need to worry. Though I don't recognise most of the songs, it's an entertaining show that passes by with a strange kind of dream-like quality.

Hersh does actually talk between some songs, explain origins of the odd number. It's strange to think of someone so shy being able to do the whole touring and performing gig for so long, but her stories are amusing, especially the one about a neighbour who named both his sons Errol Flynn.

Trooping back to the car afterwards, though, Nicky expressed a feeling of disappointment over the gig and reckoned Hersh was well off her game, even to the point where she wondered whether this would be the last time we'd see her on the road in these parts. Would be a shame if so, as I still really hope to see a Throwing Muses gig, ideally complete with returning Tanya Donelly.

Summer Holiday

So, alas, I have returned. Back in England, where skies are grey. My first 'real' summer holiday since 2005 is over, leaving me to attempt to cling onto memories to tell myself I'd managed to break from the norm for a few days.

I'd travelled to Estonia several times previously, and enjoyed the fairly chilled out nature that perhaps comes with having only a million and a half people in an area the size of the Netherlands. Plus the beer is ace. What I hadn't fully anticipated was the freakish heatwave that has stormed over Northern Europe. Temperatures in the 30s have been common place for a few weeks now, which isn't great when 90% of your wardrobe is black and it's a good idea to keep your legs covered up less people are mentally scarred by the sight of them.

Though my first night saw a huge rain storm and a thunder/lightning storm (always good at unsettling me), the next day saw the sun give all it had, which it continued to do so. Having not experienced that kind of heat in about 15 years, it certainly made for some hard work walking out around in the daytime.

By accident more than design, my time in the towns of Pärnu and Viljandi was marked by next to no access to the internet, meaning my only news source was from CNN, which is always good for a laugh. Though not spending hours in my hotel room watching TV, I did enjoy two particular shows: one was a old cartoon that featured no speech, but seemed to be the product of a deranged imagination that had been through one bad acid trip too many.

Secondly, I caught some package showing what I assumed were the Estonian pop highlights of 1983. Judging by this, prog rock went down very well in those parts. A particular highlight was this little number:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4BOXkPACS4&feature=related

I'd love to know if the magnifying glass is relevant to the song or just some bizarre idea the video director had. Always interesting to listen to songs in a style you're familiar with (i.e. rock) but have not the faintest idea what is being sung about.

To move on in another direction, I'm not the most travelled bod around. The list of countries I have visited reads Spain, Portugal, France (for a day), Germany, USA, Latvia (for a day), Estonia and Finland (again, for a day), but it did occur to me how much Britain seems 'different' from the rest of the Europe. Though every European country is naturally different from the others, there does seem to be a common 'vibe' (for want of a better word) that isn't evident at home. Of course, this could just be the sense of not being in the land of the familiar, or that they drive on the other side of the road.

Perhaps this is why I face down my fears of travel, to be somewhere different. There's a lot to be said for sitting under a tree in the middle of the ruins of a 14th century Estonian castle, staring up to a sky populated by a solitary cloud, hearing nothing but the chirruping of insects and letting your thoughts go wherever. Living in a city as big as Manchester, finding such moments is a rarity.

Then, before you know it, you're back home on the 43 bus from the airport, sitting behind a couple wasted from the Friday night session while all you want is to not be there for a little while longer.

I Travel

The good news is that I'm now done with work for the rest of the month. No need to stress and worry about that for two weeks. As part of this, I'm leaving the country on Sunday morning.

This is also a good thing, but it does mean several hours journey time, which isn't so. I hate the actual physical act of travelling - it makes me incredibly nervous and it takes just about every ounce of mental energy I have to often not collapse in a whimpering wreck in the airport departure lounge.

Of course, I recognise why this is so. I'm a self-control freak. I like to feel that I have command of my situation at any given time. Obviously, this is usually nigh-on impossible given the infinite number of random events that can happen to us at any time, but it's important to me to feel like I have a handle of things anyways.

Which is a bit tricky when you put your life in the hands of a pilot/train or coach driver and you can't just stop at any time if you feel so. So I get more and more anxious in the days leading up, trying to reassure myself that I can back out at any time if I so wished.

I never do, though, and I won't this time. My hands may be shaking tonight and through the Kristin Hersh gig I'm going to tomorrow, but despite all the words I'll tell myself, I know deep down I'll board that plane. And when I do, the fear will almost vanish, because it's too late to do anything about it then.

All of this is a protracted way of saying I'll be gone for most of next week, so won't be writing any nonsense, unless I find a spare computer with internet access. Y'all take it easy in the meantime.

Swearing is Big and Clever

Taking pride of place on my bookcase is my collection of early Viz annuals. Flicking through them over the last few nights, I'm struck again by just how hilarious they are.

It's worth saying at this point that I can have a very crude sense of humour. I've always been of the mind that you can't beat a good dick joke, so a magazine with a recurring strip entitled 'Buster Gonad and his Unfeasibly Large Testicles' was always going to pique my interest.

However, where Viz succeeded from being just a load of comics with swearing and knob gags was it's tone. Strips like 'Sid the Sexist', 'Biffa Bacon' and 'The Fat Slags' worked because they were spot-on. Growing up in Northern England, I knew people like those characters in the real world.

Sid was a particular favourite. Creator Simon Donald got the mouth Geordie wanker down to a tee: Sid may fancy himself as a "Tyneside's Silver Tongued Cavalier' and boast to his mates of his sexual exploits, but the truth is that he's a 30something virgin who lives at home with his mother. Similarly, Chris Donald's "Roger Mellie - The Man on the Telly" seems ahead of it's time, showing a caricature of media personality as a coke-sniffing, boorish womaniser that's become more common in these celebrity obsessed times.

Add in that were the bang-on parodies of tabloid shock stories, such as a car-park attendant who claims to have bedded a series of Hollywood actresses. Whichever member of the Viz team wrote this has my respect, as they got the style perfect while still managing to extract enough farce to get the laughs.

I first got into Viz in my student days, perhaps somewhat predictably. A friend from Darlington had bought a copy which came with a collection of the best of the letters page. That was enough to keep me creased up for days, and I became a huge fan.

Between 2000 and 2008 or so, I bought every new edition of Viz before I give up on it. A lot of the strips just weren't that funny ('Woman Man' being one culprit) and highlights such as 'Drunken Bakers' didn't justify handing over my cash. Perhaps it was losing the Donald brothers, both of whom left the magazine in the early part of the century.

But I still keep an eye out in the charity shops for any annuals and collections from the 80s and 90s. Like every good bore, I've let phrases from Viz enter my own lexicon: a slightly rude sounding comment will bring a "fnarr" from me every time, thanks to numerous reads of the adventures of "Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres".

I keep meaning to track down Chris Donald's "Rude Kids" book sometime, but for now, I'll make do with guffawing over "Mickey's Magic Monkey Spunk Moped" and "Bertie Blunt - His Parrot's a Cunt".

South Africa 2010: A Reflection

That's the World Cup done for another four years, then. And as per usual, the final was crap of the highest order, which is to be expected. I can't actually remember there being an engaging final in all my 22 or so years of following the game.

It matters not. On the plus side, we got first-time champions, which is nice. Shame it was Spain, who constantly failed to impress me to the degree I felt I was supposed to. Great goalkeeper, yes, and David Villa is a world-class striker, but seven goals in six games isn't exactly thrilling.

Enough of the negativity. My highlights of the tournament were:

a) New Zealand being the only team to go home unbeaten. In their game vs Italy, I was willing them to hold on and felt a tension I never did during any other game.

b) Diego Forlan shutting up those pathetic pundits who have labelled him "Man United flop" for the last six years or so. Despite his development into one of the top strikers in Europe, in this country he never seemed to escape a time where he was hardly a consistent starter. Joint top scorer and a series of show-running performances mean Diego can feel very proud of his achievements.

c) Javier Hernández slightly easing my worries about the forthcoming season.

And the negatives:

1) The lack of exciting football. It's a strange World Cup when Germany are one of the most exciting teams, but kudos to them for playing some great counter-attacking football. I see them as a good bet for Euro 2012 when their core of young players have a couple more years experience.

2) Mark Von Bommel being a complete prick in several games.

3) The media coverage in England. Fuck. Ing. Hell. Seldom have I seen a less informed bunch of apparent experts in one place. The biscuit grabber for me was Mick McCarthy expressing surprise that Argentina's Veron was the same Veron who had played for Man United seven years ago. Jesus H. Corbett. Here is a man getting paid to be an 'expert' who is also apparently paid a fair whack to manage a team, and he isn't aware that Seba Veron has actually enjoyed continued success at club and international level since he left England.

Rant over. Viewed from my sofa, the tournament was a bit of damp squib, and not because of England's hilarious antics. Perhaps next time, the Sun's campaign "Maybe, Just Maybe, England won't make complete bell-ends of themselves". The question now is whether all the pre-summer hype of it being the first African World Cup makes any difference to the horrific levels of poverty and disease in the country - will any of the money made trickle down to the people? The cynic says no, but I do hope that the last four weeks will be of some benefit to people whose struggles make my own bleatings seem as stupidly insignificant as they truly are.

In the Year 2525

A subject a friend and I seem to debate about on a regular basis is whether advancement of technology is a good thing. They think a return to simpler times may be one way people can attain some kind of contentment or happiness, whereas I see continued jumps forward as having the potential for great things.

The best example of my argument is the internet, which I see as a very good thing. Yes, there's negative aspects of it, and very serious ones at that. However, I believe as a form of mass communication it goes down as one of the most important inventions of history.

On a simple level, it's made it easy for people to stay in touch. When my great-aunt left England in the 1950s to live in Australia, it was letters (and late expensive phone calls) that were the only way of knowing what was happening in each others lives when such a distance existed. Nowadays, I can talk to a friend in Australia for as much as we like online, the eight-hour time gap permitting.

There's also what the internet has done for journalism. 'Professional' journalism is on it's arse: reading a newspaper now is generally as informative as a copy of 'Whizzer and Chips' and hacks like Richard Littlejohn get paid obscene amounts of money to sit in a Florida mansion bashing out tired cliches about the death of their "once Great" Britain.

However, the rise of blogs has seen many very talented writers get their chance to get their words out into the world. You can read a couple of them via the sidebar on the top right of this page. As a one time journo who escaped, I can only tip my hat to such people for the effort they put into their articles.

Perhaps my stance on technology is too influenced by watching episodes of 'Star Trek' and playing futuristic games like "Elite 2" as a kid. The latter allowed you access to a whole universe and the freedom to do as you pleased: be a trader, a miner, a pirate, a soldier, a bounty hunter. It made me want to live in the year 3200. Even films like Blade Runner seemed to have a certain cool, despite the bleak setting.

So yes, bring on your jet packs and robot butlers. OK, we might end up being wiped out when the machines rise against us, but you've got the take the rough with the smooth and there will always be one man who'll teach us to break out and smash the robots back to junk. Or not. Still, exciting to wait and see, right?

Organ Morgan

When I received my new passport last week, there was a leaflet for the Organ Donation service, and it made me wonder if I was on the register.

The reason I might not be is that as a new born baby in 1981, I had a blood transfusion. As this was in the days before they screened donations, it precludes me from giving any of my own red stuff, which is annoying.

As it turned out, a phonecall confirmed I was on the organ donation register (apparently I'd ticked some box on a DVLA form) and the issue I had in mind didn't matter. As long as you're not HIV positive or have CJD, you're all OK. This cheered me, as it would be good to know that when I finally roll a seven, my lifeless shell might actually do some good for people still living.

When I was younger, I remember having arguments with my brother as he wasn't keen on giving up his bits and bobs when he finally did hand his cards in. He couldn't explain it beyond not liking the idea of having his heart, lungs, whatever cut out after death. In recent years, I'm happy to say his stance has changed, but I remain baffled by people who find the idea so unappealing.

I've been told, and I hope to be corrected on this one, that there may be some religious beliefs that get in the way. If this is true, then it confused me even more. Surely if there is a god, they would be very happy with the idea of you saving lives after your own has ended. After all, this is a mortal body, to be left behind when you pop your cork. Isn't it your soul you're supposed to worry about? If so, then I'd think keeping a few others ticking over is bound to help you with the bod upstairs.

I'm aware I'm simplifying and even being a bit facetious here. My general point is, you're going to die, so try to do a good thing and agree to help someone out after you cash in your chips. Assuming you aren't mangled to death in a mincing machine, or something.

Recording Records

When I was a teenager and first beginning my love affair with music, all I would generally want for Christmas and birthdays was more albums. My mother would roll her eyes at the bands I would reel off and ask two questions:

"What kind of a name is the Psychedelic Furs?"

and

"How many CDs do you need, anyways?"

The answer to the first is that it's a great name. As for the other, I'm not too sure. It occurred to me again a few weeks ago when a friend glanced round my living room, noted the racks of CDs and said "bit of a collector, then?" Now, I never thought myself as such, despite the fact all my albums are ordered first in genre, then in alphabetical and chronological order.

I don't own that many DVDs and my games collection tends to change as I swap older ones for new challenges. My music, however, is constant. The only time I gave away an album (partly in exchange for 'Metal Gear Solid' on Playstation), it troubled me so much I had to buy the album again a few months later (Human League's Greatest Hits, if you want to know).

For the most part, I can tell you where I bought most of them. My copy of Solitude Standing by Suzanne Vega was bought at the branch of MVC (remember them? I still have my loyalty card somewhere) in Bedford while the House of Love's Babe Rainbow was picked up at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles.

Cliched at it sounds to semi-quite from 'High Fidelity', there was a time I could probably place my records in the order I bought them. If I tried to do that now, it would start with Divine Madness (a 14th birthday present, I recall) and end with Listen On: The Best of the Railway Children.

I'm beginning to believe this kind of behaviour is on the wane, as we fully embrace the digital age and we download our music. Not too long ago, we had some kind of event celebrating independent record stores, and we should, but recognise that things are changing and examine how it can help the musician in terms of getting tunes direct to the listener without the costs of packaging and distribution.

That said, I'll miss moments like I had at this record store in Aldershot many years ago, the day before I left town. Purchasing a dusty vinyl copy of The The's Soul Mining, some 60s Merseybeat type record was playing. I enquired to the owner, who informed me the band were called the Gaylords.

After much guffawing, he told me "yeah, and the funny thing was..." before he noted his wife had pulled up in her car and he left without finishing the sentence, leaving me wondering for all eternity.

Half a Dozen of the Other

Not too long ago, I had the misfortune to see the first episode of the remake of classic 60s show 'The Prisoner'. Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of the original. With this in mind, perhaps I was always going to be disappointed.

For starters, if using the horrific plot device of insomnia wasn't bad enough, they choose an actor with the charisma of my microwave to act as the hero. Perhaps it improved over the series, but life is too short for me to investigate without some glowing references from people I trust.

Instead, I'd much rather watch the original series again. The product of the, frankly barking, mind of Patrick McGoohan, it requires the watcher to pay attention and fill in the gaps for themselves. We're never told who the main character is: only that he is a agent of some kind who resigned from his post for reasons unknown. Captured and taken to the surreal and sinister Village, where every citizen has numbers rather than names (our man being 'Number Six'), he faces constant attempts to break him and find his reasons. His interactions with other members of the village are undercut with doubt on who he can trust.

Unlike the remake, most episodes featured a different actor as Number Two, charged with breaking Six. This allowed McGoohan's character occasional victories, as while he might not escape the village, he resists attempts to destroy his stubborn individuality and make him a contented member of the community. This meant we get to see (at the time) weird ideas such as dream manipulation, personality transplants and using mind altering drugs as a form of integration.

A favourite #2 of mine was Leo McKern's, who cheerfully admits he's just as much a prisoner as six, and returns at the close of the series to execute "Degree Absolute", all of which leads to the insanity of the finale, which features machine guns, the Beatles, a judge and either all the answers or none at all, depending on your viewpoint.

In the years afterwards, McGoohan was always reluctant to explain just what the Prisoner was supposed to mean, firm in the belief that the scripts said everything. He was right, of course. In some interviews, he stated a belief that humanity was moving too quickly into the future, reflected in the penny farthing bicycle motif throughout the show. I've never totally agreed with the man on this one, technophile that I am, but the ideas of constant surveillance and eroding of individuality have remained pertinent ones 40 years on.

McGoohan spent the rest of his career somewhat in the shade of the legacy of the Prisoner, though I thought he was excellent as two sadistic authority figures in 'Escape From Alcatraz' and 'Braveheart'. He was also a good enough sport about his legacy to provide a wonderful cameo in the Simpsons episode 'The Computer Wore Menace Shoes', showing him still a prisoner but creating an escape vessel made from toilet rolls, plastic forks and scabs.

The best thing that can be said about remakes is that no matter what anyone says, they don't sully the qualities of the original. I've got the DVDs and can watch them anytime and they'll remain as fascinating and brilliant to watch as before.

You Need Wheels...

... as the Merton Parkas once noted. And I'm happy to say I have mine back in full working order. Four months ago, it seemed destined for the scrapheap, but an unusual piece of massive good luck has seen her happily sat back outside my flat.

I'm aware that by driving to work everyday, I'm an evil, polluting piece of dirt who is killing the planet bit by bit. Well, you can blame the wonderful people at Stagecoach Manchester for their absolute inability to provide a prompt, efficient and good value public transport system. I mean, my car is hardly economical and I only use £4 more on petrol than I would on a bus ticket to get to work and back every week.

What this means is no more stood at the bus stop, waiting. No more listening to the crappy music from some prick's mobile phone. No more surly bus drivers complaining you don't have the exact change for the fare ("I'm not a bank!" Oh, fuck off) and an extra 15 minutes in bed every morning.

Just in time for summer too - I plan on taking a few trips out at weekends over the next couple of months, weather permitting.

Added to this, my passport arrived today. I had taken the unwise step of booking some flights a few weeks ago before I'd got round to renewing the old documents. With two weeks to take-off, I was beginning to get a little bit paranoid but today it arrived, complete with gormless new photo. Well, it's the law to look a complete dick, isn't it? It's just to amuse the bods at the airport.