I'm not sure the old adage "your memory plays tricks on you" holds water until you get past a certain age - that point where childhood becomes a golden age of innocence and fun until part of you snaps you back to the realisation that it was actually just really fucking boring. Moments of fun out with your mates that make up 1% of your life between having to stay in because it was raining. Again.
It's like I wonder if I really did actually watch the 1990 FA Cup final, or just think I did because I've seen the goals countless times since. Why can't I remember Kurt Cobain killing himself, when I was 13 years old at the time? Can I really not remember anything from a six month gap in early 1995?
Problems with recollection hit me the other day when I was thinking of a record store I used to frequent in my 18 months or so of living in Aldershot. For those unfamiliar, it is a small town maybe an hour on the train South West of London, most famous for it housing the barracks of a large number of soldiers. When I think of the place, I remember the last time someone punched me and, by no coincidence, it being the last time I punched somebody else. People with Northern accents were not popular.
It had a couple of decent places to buy music, though. Plus an Our Price. One was a small shop located in the nightmarish vestige of the shopping centre (of sorts) in the town centre. I think I bought Giant Steps by the Boo Radleys, Otis Blue and Shine 5 on cassettes for a fiver there. It may well have been a fire sale, as it closed down shortly afterwards.
There was also a cool little video game store, for some reason labouring until the terrible name of 'Kart Klub'. I bought a Playstation 2 there, and the guy behind the counter recommended some horrific RPG game that involved vampires in a mansion the size of Ohio, apparently, which was enough to make me suspect their judgement was duff.
But anyway, the other record store, my brain tells me, was called Spinna Disc. Or I think so. The internet seems to support this but when I try to find it on Google streetview I just come across some pizza takeaway place. And isn't that depressing in a way? But then I worry that perhaps it never existed in the first place and my memory is false. Honestly, I'm worried I'm becoming an unreliable narrator in my own life.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Monday, 12 November 2012
Music to Make Me a Mad Man
Meanwhile, back in the real world, not one currently being invaded by aliens (see last post for details), I've had my tolerance for it shortened by hearing an abomination of a cover version the INXS classic Never Tear Us Apart by someone called Paloma Faith.
I'd never heard of the lady in question before, and I'm sure she's a nice enough lady who loves her mam, but her reading of the song is (to these ears) a complete fucking disaster. For one thing, you're onto a loser by going up against Michael Hutchence: the guy was complete sex on legs and the best rock icon of the 1980s, so Faith has no chance of getting close in those stakes. Secondly, the arrangement of the song is tired arse gravy and she even seems to struggle to hit the notes from the original.
But what really stoked up my wish for Immediate Nuclear Holocaust was the whole bag o' shite was put out due to an advert campaign by British department store chain John Lewis. This is part of a trend of adverts using "contemporary" versions of 80s classics, usually in some acoustic fashion. I'm not saying it's a bad thing in the scale of human suffering, but the people behind it need to be tracked down and stopped.
I think the whole mess began, oddly enough, with an actual indie popster. Fyfe Dangerfield, best known as singer from Guillemots, did a version of Billy Joel's She's Always a Woman that got picked up for a particularly gruesome John Lewis Christmas campaign ad. Given I hate the works of Joel, this didn't bother me too much.
However, when it was Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want being sacrificed at the alter of Don Draper wannabes everywhere, something needed to be done. I know it isn't illegal, and it isn't really doing any harm, but I still find my blood boiling whenever I hear these songs anywhere.
Perhaps the problem is that all these young stage-school trained singers don't have anyone writing songs for them anymore. In the first days of pop, you had the whole Brill Building teams knocking out songs by the hour. Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman churned out loads of hits for the glam rock bands, Stock, Aitken and Waterman did the whole production line approach in the 1980s.
But I can't think of any modern equivalent. This is the age of the Simon Cowell-type figure, who has the talent brought to them live on TV, before moulding them in the fashion of the day and binning them off when the next thing comes along - wither Shayne Ward? And while Cowell might have many talents, writing songs is not one. So they naturally just run through rock and pops back pages, offering slightly modernised versions of the classics.
Then when you need something with a bit of edge for a more serious project such as selling Christmas presents, luckily all those old alternative classics will do a good job. The way things are, I expect Dead Souls to be used in life insurance ads within the end of the decade.
I'd never heard of the lady in question before, and I'm sure she's a nice enough lady who loves her mam, but her reading of the song is (to these ears) a complete fucking disaster. For one thing, you're onto a loser by going up against Michael Hutchence: the guy was complete sex on legs and the best rock icon of the 1980s, so Faith has no chance of getting close in those stakes. Secondly, the arrangement of the song is tired arse gravy and she even seems to struggle to hit the notes from the original.
But what really stoked up my wish for Immediate Nuclear Holocaust was the whole bag o' shite was put out due to an advert campaign by British department store chain John Lewis. This is part of a trend of adverts using "contemporary" versions of 80s classics, usually in some acoustic fashion. I'm not saying it's a bad thing in the scale of human suffering, but the people behind it need to be tracked down and stopped.
I think the whole mess began, oddly enough, with an actual indie popster. Fyfe Dangerfield, best known as singer from Guillemots, did a version of Billy Joel's She's Always a Woman that got picked up for a particularly gruesome John Lewis Christmas campaign ad. Given I hate the works of Joel, this didn't bother me too much.
However, when it was Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want being sacrificed at the alter of Don Draper wannabes everywhere, something needed to be done. I know it isn't illegal, and it isn't really doing any harm, but I still find my blood boiling whenever I hear these songs anywhere.
Perhaps the problem is that all these young stage-school trained singers don't have anyone writing songs for them anymore. In the first days of pop, you had the whole Brill Building teams knocking out songs by the hour. Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman churned out loads of hits for the glam rock bands, Stock, Aitken and Waterman did the whole production line approach in the 1980s.
But I can't think of any modern equivalent. This is the age of the Simon Cowell-type figure, who has the talent brought to them live on TV, before moulding them in the fashion of the day and binning them off when the next thing comes along - wither Shayne Ward? And while Cowell might have many talents, writing songs is not one. So they naturally just run through rock and pops back pages, offering slightly modernised versions of the classics.
Then when you need something with a bit of edge for a more serious project such as selling Christmas presents, luckily all those old alternative classics will do a good job. The way things are, I expect Dead Souls to be used in life insurance ads within the end of the decade.
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
ALF Must Die!
What have I done? By buying XCom: Enemy Unknown have I just thrown away at vague vestiges at any kind of real "life"? Probably.
Already, its received rave reviews from just about everywhere. Which isn't surprising, as I expect a lot of video game journalists are around the same age as me. Thus, they remember the original UFO: Enemy Unknown in 1994 as a high watermark of the drama you can get from being sat at a computer. So I was very keen to sample an updated version of this, with the added bonus of being old enough to (hopefully) be better at the resource management side of the games that is as equally vital as killing aliens.
The basic gist isn't hard to work out: nasty things from space are coming to get us, and they obviously need stopping. To do this, we (the player) have been charged with leading XCOM, the squad formed to get the job done. Cut scenes add a sense of drama as we're introduced to the backroom bods developing new weapons and cutting up aliens on the autopsy table. A handy tutorial eases you into the battle scenes, which I imagine will be very handy for younger players.
Because, XCOM works on a turn based system, which in an age of 100mph racers and frantic first person shooters, may seem a little quaint. You also can't just go wading into the field guns ablazin', hoping to kick some ET arse. Patience, forward planning and using your whole squad are order of the day, making the scraps more like a game of chess.
For me, so far, having only bought the game on Monday, it has created moments of incredible high tension: a solider hiding in cover - do I risk them running across open ground or play safe? The aliens punish bad moves without no mercy, and the fact you can name your troops just makes it worse when you fool yourself it's a good friend of yours under fire: Captain Simon "Crash" (the games provides nicknames for those that last long enough to gain the experience) Vint has managed to hold the line for me so far, though, so top work Si!
XCOM Enemy Unknown is one of the most compelling video game experiences of my life, even only this early into the game. I'm faintly aware that tradition dictates a whole heap of shite from another universe is about to fall on my lap (they can't keep throwing mooks at me, surely), but that adds to the drama. Around every corner could be some huge fucker like Predator waiting to munch on my poor troop's lower intestine. If you don't hear from me a while, I'll be hunched over my control pad, worrying about just that...
Already, its received rave reviews from just about everywhere. Which isn't surprising, as I expect a lot of video game journalists are around the same age as me. Thus, they remember the original UFO: Enemy Unknown in 1994 as a high watermark of the drama you can get from being sat at a computer. So I was very keen to sample an updated version of this, with the added bonus of being old enough to (hopefully) be better at the resource management side of the games that is as equally vital as killing aliens.
The basic gist isn't hard to work out: nasty things from space are coming to get us, and they obviously need stopping. To do this, we (the player) have been charged with leading XCOM, the squad formed to get the job done. Cut scenes add a sense of drama as we're introduced to the backroom bods developing new weapons and cutting up aliens on the autopsy table. A handy tutorial eases you into the battle scenes, which I imagine will be very handy for younger players.
Because, XCOM works on a turn based system, which in an age of 100mph racers and frantic first person shooters, may seem a little quaint. You also can't just go wading into the field guns ablazin', hoping to kick some ET arse. Patience, forward planning and using your whole squad are order of the day, making the scraps more like a game of chess.
For me, so far, having only bought the game on Monday, it has created moments of incredible high tension: a solider hiding in cover - do I risk them running across open ground or play safe? The aliens punish bad moves without no mercy, and the fact you can name your troops just makes it worse when you fool yourself it's a good friend of yours under fire: Captain Simon "Crash" (the games provides nicknames for those that last long enough to gain the experience) Vint has managed to hold the line for me so far, though, so top work Si!
XCOM Enemy Unknown is one of the most compelling video game experiences of my life, even only this early into the game. I'm faintly aware that tradition dictates a whole heap of shite from another universe is about to fall on my lap (they can't keep throwing mooks at me, surely), but that adds to the drama. Around every corner could be some huge fucker like Predator waiting to munch on my poor troop's lower intestine. If you don't hear from me a while, I'll be hunched over my control pad, worrying about just that...
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Football in the Family
As I've written before, football has changed to an incredible degree over the past decades. Players are paid more, top level grounds are of much better quality for players and spectators and just about every professional game in England is filmed for posterity. Often, the past is made to look overly romantic by people who weren't there, much like many aspects of life.
Journalist and broadcaster Gary Imlach's My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes is a book I really should have read a long, long time ago. The central thread seems to be one of regret of a son not asking his dad more questions when they had the chance, and a mission to fill in the blanks of his own knowledge of the old boy's life, but there's also plenty on the realities of being a footballer in the post-war era.
Stewart Imlach was a genuine football star of the late 1950s, playing for Scotland at the 1958 World Cup and starring for Nottingham Forest when they won the 1959 FA Cup. A long way from his roots in a Scottish fishing village, the kind of place everyone leaves, not moves to. A star in youth football, he was picked up by Bury, quickly making a name as a quick left winger. Becoming a much watched player, he's soon on his way to Derby County, a move which doesn't work out, and he's passed onto Forest, where he plays his part in the their last shot of glory before the Clough years.
In that game, he was considered by most witnesses, including the legendary Stanley Matthews, to be the Man of the Match. He was a hero at the top of his game playing for a team with the potential to win further honours. However, football being as it was at the time, within a matter of years, he has dropped down two divisions through various managers' whims. At Coventry City, he is sold on by the man who did more for players' rights than just about anyone - Jimmy Hill. The author manages to interview the man, and is initially shocked when he can't remember the exact details of why he didn't want his dad - only to reflect that Hill would have dealt with hundreds of footballers over his long career.
Where the book succeeds best is showing the life the players had: Imlach Snr spent his summers doing various joinery jobs to bring in extra cash, he first finds out about his transfer by reading it in the local paper and there's the fact that Scottish players lost out financially from being in the squad that went to the World Cup. There's also vindictive managers and those that run the game treating players as little more than serfs due to the "Retain and Transfer" system that they were so reluctant to scrap, despite it turning out to be infringing on players' rights as workers.
Towards the end of the book, Gary Imlach works on trying to get his father awarded an actual "cap" from the Scottish FA: at the time, they were only given to players who played in a "Home" international against England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Even in the modern era, the authorities remain obstructive and inept. An English company makes him a replica instead, much to the old player's pride. That the Scottish FA should behave in such a way towards a man who represented his country with honour comes across as contemptible.
My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes works excellently as a biography and a general football book - essential reading for fans of the game.
Journalist and broadcaster Gary Imlach's My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes is a book I really should have read a long, long time ago. The central thread seems to be one of regret of a son not asking his dad more questions when they had the chance, and a mission to fill in the blanks of his own knowledge of the old boy's life, but there's also plenty on the realities of being a footballer in the post-war era.
Stewart Imlach was a genuine football star of the late 1950s, playing for Scotland at the 1958 World Cup and starring for Nottingham Forest when they won the 1959 FA Cup. A long way from his roots in a Scottish fishing village, the kind of place everyone leaves, not moves to. A star in youth football, he was picked up by Bury, quickly making a name as a quick left winger. Becoming a much watched player, he's soon on his way to Derby County, a move which doesn't work out, and he's passed onto Forest, where he plays his part in the their last shot of glory before the Clough years.
In that game, he was considered by most witnesses, including the legendary Stanley Matthews, to be the Man of the Match. He was a hero at the top of his game playing for a team with the potential to win further honours. However, football being as it was at the time, within a matter of years, he has dropped down two divisions through various managers' whims. At Coventry City, he is sold on by the man who did more for players' rights than just about anyone - Jimmy Hill. The author manages to interview the man, and is initially shocked when he can't remember the exact details of why he didn't want his dad - only to reflect that Hill would have dealt with hundreds of footballers over his long career.
Where the book succeeds best is showing the life the players had: Imlach Snr spent his summers doing various joinery jobs to bring in extra cash, he first finds out about his transfer by reading it in the local paper and there's the fact that Scottish players lost out financially from being in the squad that went to the World Cup. There's also vindictive managers and those that run the game treating players as little more than serfs due to the "Retain and Transfer" system that they were so reluctant to scrap, despite it turning out to be infringing on players' rights as workers.
Towards the end of the book, Gary Imlach works on trying to get his father awarded an actual "cap" from the Scottish FA: at the time, they were only given to players who played in a "Home" international against England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Even in the modern era, the authorities remain obstructive and inept. An English company makes him a replica instead, much to the old player's pride. That the Scottish FA should behave in such a way towards a man who represented his country with honour comes across as contemptible.
My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes works excellently as a biography and a general football book - essential reading for fans of the game.
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