As I mentioned in my somewhat unfocused rant from Monday, I had been let down by a video games store in my desire to purchase Mass Effect 3. Yesterday, I trooped up to town and got my £5 deposit back and on leaving, reflected it may be the last time I set foot in one of those shops, if rumours are to be believed.
It's not too surprising. A lot of businesses are struggling these days - video games and music being two areas copping for it the most, in the main part due to the rise of websites such as Play and Amazon, which are often a fair bit cheaper. A lot of people may crow or not give a toss if some chain goes bust ("they were always dead expensive anyways") but as I noted, the people who work in these places are often teenagers looking to make a bit of spending cash. I certainly don't envy them (or anybody else, for that matter) trying to find new employment.
As an ardent gamer for the best part of 25 years, it's coming to an end of an era for me. On the days my brother and I were dragged wherever by my parents, going to a games store was just about the highlight of the day. Even if I didn't have the change to buy anything, looking through the racks to find a potential purchase was enough. Besides, I could always beg 50p from my dad if I could get the pleading expression on my face right. Or I could, ahem, persuade my brother to chip in, back in the days where I could physically intimidate him.
Back then (a term which makes me sound like a right old git), you got most of your games from little shops owned by nerdy looking guys with beards who would boast of once having a conversation with the guy who made Manic Miner. All these seemed to disappear around the time big business sussed out that there was serious money to be made in the industry.
Yet even the likes of HMV are now struggling, which doesn't make for good prospects for what little indie shops are left. Though I've used online shopping a fair bit myself, I would miss the choice. After all, how many of us wake up in the morn and think "I fancy a new game/album/book" - not anyone in particular - and jaunt out for a search for something that looks a bit interesting. It's how I came out buying Fallout 3, something that turned out very well, so this is one shopper who will miss the days of casual browsing. I may get used to eventually buying everything online, but it'll take a while.
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Monday, 5 March 2012
Failing to Keep Calm and Carry On
As I've noted before, like Peter Griffin, a lot of things really Grind My Gears. I think it’s a result of being an overly anxious sort that I get wound up easily, resulting in inarticulate rants against anyone unfortunate to be in the vicinity. A friend reckons I’ll come out of the other end of this at the age of 50 as a kind of Buddhist Guru type, permanently chilled out and prone to dishing out pearls of wisdom to my kid brother’s children/grandchildren that I imagine will be forthcoming now he’s just got engaged.
Not now, though. No, for now I remain a man permanently on the edge of an aneurysm brought on by things like:
1) If any one organisation has gone straight to the top of my shitlist, it’s GMPTE. That’s the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, for those outside the confines of the Best City in the World (Super Scientist and Stud Muffin Professor Brian Cox said so, which makes it true).
I could easily go off on one here about the lack of decent, affordable municipal transport provision in the city, but the main source of my ire is that on trooping to catch the bus one recent morn, I found myself waiting for 25 minutes longer than expected. Later that day, on checking online timetables, it was revealed that the schedule had been changed. Just a shame, then, that GMPTE had failed to change the timetables at the actual stops.
Now, I know what you’re saying. “My dear boy,” you sigh. “Why didn't you take another route when it was clear the one you wanted wasn't forthcoming?” But it’s never that simple, is it? You can be stood there, in the pouring rain at 7am and you will not be moved, because you just know that as soon as you’re round the corner, that sodding bus will chug along, merrily leaving you behind. So you will not be moved. You will wait as long as it takes, even as the water drips down your hair into your eyes and the feeling in your toes begins to fade. The timetable says the bus should be there, and that’s the bus you will take.
Incidentally, the changes that were made now mean the journey between home and work takes me an extra ten minutes. So that’s 20 minutes of my life gone every day I go to work. Thanks for that.
2) This post was inspired by buying some milk this morn. Now, this is an essential purchase on a Monday as I’m unable to function without a high level of caffeine in my bloodstream. I’m sure some of you know the horror as arriving at the workplace, pouring said drink and when adding milk, seeing the flakes of manky dairy product rise to the top. Despite the “use by” date saying March 10, it has gone off. Cue sigh, a brief moment of wondering whether to risk an upset stomach by drinking it anyways before pouring it down the sink and shifting my sorry arse back to the shop.
By my reckoning, this happens once every 50 cartons of milk I buy. But everytime never fails to bring about a deep sense of existential despair in my bones, as if the sight of what should have been a reassuring cup of coffee going down the plughole is instead my very soul washing away. Honestly, sometimes I could weep.
3) That the release date for Mass Effect 3 appears to have been put back from Tuesday to Friday. Now, anyone who knows me will know how excited I am by this game, to the degree I had put in a pre-order with a Certain High Street Game Store for the full-on package with lots of useless shit included, primarily to ensue I had the extra content promised. Additionally, I have booked Wednesday to Friday off work so that I could properly hammer it without causing my lady friend immense boredom.
However, fate has decreed otherwise. Not only do I apparently have to wait three more days, but said store have decided not to sell the game after all, rumour being because they’re too skint to pay EA for the copies up front. Bastards!
It’s all incredibly trivial, I know, but as Mozzer once noted, such a little thing makes a big difference.
On a final rant, something that seriously grinds my gears that isn't minor is when some old fart Cardinal says two fellas or two lasses getting married is an “aberration” that will cause moral decline across the nation. I've not got a boyfriend, and I don’t plan on getting married at all, but if two other people want to do so, then all the best to them. It doesn't destroy the “sanctity” of anything, it doesn't mean jack shit to anything except the happiness of two people. As I know by my tragically advancing age, we’re in the 21st century now, so let’s make an effort, eh? Cardinal Keith O’Brien, to use his own words, is a “grotesque subversion” of a man who probably wants people to be as miserable as possible so that they may take guidance from some old dude in Rome rather than seek fulfilment through concepts such as love and emotional peace with a partner they are able to be with free of stigma and prejudice.
He’s probably just jealous of all those happy campers having hot guy-sex anyways.
Not now, though. No, for now I remain a man permanently on the edge of an aneurysm brought on by things like:
1) If any one organisation has gone straight to the top of my shitlist, it’s GMPTE. That’s the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, for those outside the confines of the Best City in the World (Super Scientist and Stud Muffin Professor Brian Cox said so, which makes it true).
I could easily go off on one here about the lack of decent, affordable municipal transport provision in the city, but the main source of my ire is that on trooping to catch the bus one recent morn, I found myself waiting for 25 minutes longer than expected. Later that day, on checking online timetables, it was revealed that the schedule had been changed. Just a shame, then, that GMPTE had failed to change the timetables at the actual stops.
Now, I know what you’re saying. “My dear boy,” you sigh. “Why didn't you take another route when it was clear the one you wanted wasn't forthcoming?” But it’s never that simple, is it? You can be stood there, in the pouring rain at 7am and you will not be moved, because you just know that as soon as you’re round the corner, that sodding bus will chug along, merrily leaving you behind. So you will not be moved. You will wait as long as it takes, even as the water drips down your hair into your eyes and the feeling in your toes begins to fade. The timetable says the bus should be there, and that’s the bus you will take.
Incidentally, the changes that were made now mean the journey between home and work takes me an extra ten minutes. So that’s 20 minutes of my life gone every day I go to work. Thanks for that.
2) This post was inspired by buying some milk this morn. Now, this is an essential purchase on a Monday as I’m unable to function without a high level of caffeine in my bloodstream. I’m sure some of you know the horror as arriving at the workplace, pouring said drink and when adding milk, seeing the flakes of manky dairy product rise to the top. Despite the “use by” date saying March 10, it has gone off. Cue sigh, a brief moment of wondering whether to risk an upset stomach by drinking it anyways before pouring it down the sink and shifting my sorry arse back to the shop.
By my reckoning, this happens once every 50 cartons of milk I buy. But everytime never fails to bring about a deep sense of existential despair in my bones, as if the sight of what should have been a reassuring cup of coffee going down the plughole is instead my very soul washing away. Honestly, sometimes I could weep.
3) That the release date for Mass Effect 3 appears to have been put back from Tuesday to Friday. Now, anyone who knows me will know how excited I am by this game, to the degree I had put in a pre-order with a Certain High Street Game Store for the full-on package with lots of useless shit included, primarily to ensue I had the extra content promised. Additionally, I have booked Wednesday to Friday off work so that I could properly hammer it without causing my lady friend immense boredom.
However, fate has decreed otherwise. Not only do I apparently have to wait three more days, but said store have decided not to sell the game after all, rumour being because they’re too skint to pay EA for the copies up front. Bastards!
It’s all incredibly trivial, I know, but as Mozzer once noted, such a little thing makes a big difference.
On a final rant, something that seriously grinds my gears that isn't minor is when some old fart Cardinal says two fellas or two lasses getting married is an “aberration” that will cause moral decline across the nation. I've not got a boyfriend, and I don’t plan on getting married at all, but if two other people want to do so, then all the best to them. It doesn't destroy the “sanctity” of anything, it doesn't mean jack shit to anything except the happiness of two people. As I know by my tragically advancing age, we’re in the 21st century now, so let’s make an effort, eh? Cardinal Keith O’Brien, to use his own words, is a “grotesque subversion” of a man who probably wants people to be as miserable as possible so that they may take guidance from some old dude in Rome rather than seek fulfilment through concepts such as love and emotional peace with a partner they are able to be with free of stigma and prejudice.
He’s probably just jealous of all those happy campers having hot guy-sex anyways.
Friday, 2 March 2012
History Lesson
I can't help but admit that I'm a total geek when it comes to the history of Manchester United. I love knowing obscure facts and trivia. The worst part is that I can't help correcting people on such things - such as the dad of a friend talking about us beating West Ham 6-1 in 1966 and me butting in "it was in 1967, actually".
Because of this, I've really enjoyed Andy Mitten's series of books featuring former players talking candidly about their careers. We're The Famous Man United and Glory Glory! covered the 1980s and 1990s, now United! United! does the same for the 70s.
It was the most turbulent – and least successful - decade for the club since the 1930s, with five managers overseeing the legendary Busby team of the 60s decline into relegation. A single FA Cup win (plus the Division Two championship) were all the silverware fans had to cheer.
From 1973 to 1977, the club was managed by the flamboyant Tommy Docherty. Though his first full season saw the club endure relegation, they bounced back with a style sure to make older Reds misty eyed, based on youthful energy and skillful wingers. In 1977, they defeated Liverpool 2-1 in the FA Cup final a year after losing out to Southampton – a victory made sweeter as it prevented them from winning an unprecedented treble that United themselves would do in 1999.
All looked good: the forward line of Jimmy Greenhoff and Stuart Pearson (both interviewed here) offered flair, strength and mobility, wingers Gordon “Merlin” Hill and Steve Coppell had pace, unpredictability and industry backed up by young full backs Jimmy Nicholl and Arthur Albiston. The general view was that United would challenge for the big prizes.
Days after the cup victory, it was revealed Docherty was having an affair with the physio’s wife and was sacked with immediate effect. He was replaced with the more sedate Dave Sexton, whose more studied style of play never endeared him to the crowd, not helped by his sale of Stretford End heroes Hill and Pearson, replaced by the industrious Mickey Thomas and aggressive target man Joe Jordan.
Being a well- known hardcore United fan doubtless worked in Mitten’s favour in getting stories from the former heroes. We get honest opinions on teammates and managers. Martin Buchan, captain throughout the second half of the 70s into the early 80s, is complimented by many for being a great leader but is also described as "maybe not as intelligent as he thought he was" by another.
The managers also polarise opinion, especially Sexton, who did have his admirers in the team, such as Lou Macari while others believe the job was too big for a man who intensely disliked dealing with the press.
More so than the previous books, subsequent fortunes of the players after United vary wildly. Joe Jordan is enjoying no little success as assistant manager to Harry Redknapp at Tottenham Hotspur and Sammy McIlory has done wonders as manager with both Macclesfield Town and Morecombe. Gordon Hill runs a soccer school in Texas while Buchan (stated as being "cooler than the Fonz" by fans impressed by his smooth style on and off the pitch) works for the Professional Footballers Association.
At the other end, cult hero Jimmy Greenhoff lost everything when he was a cheated by a partner in an insurance business and, sadder still, has not spoken to his brother Brian, also a United player in the 70s, in decades. Gerry Daly (of the chant “five foot eight, underweight, Gerry Daly’s fucking great”) has suffered terrible personal tragedy and ill health. Several players remember Scots hardman Jim Holton, whose United career was stopped in an instant by a broken leg at Sheffield Wednesday and would die of a heart attack aged 42. Mitten fondly recalls the crowd’s chant of "six foot two, eyes of blue, big Jim Holton’s after you" by stating the man was six foot one, had brown eyes and if he did want to get after anyone, he’d have needed a motorbike to do so. All the same, Holton was good enough to represent Scotland in all three of their undefeated games at the 1974 World Cup, including a credible draw against reigning champions Brazil.
It’s true that this generation of players may be the last for whom playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world wasn't a ticket for life. Many have gone back to "normal" lives once the playing days ended: much-maligned reserve goalkeeper Paddy Roche works as a delivery driver, something you can never imagine a current top-flight player ever having to do outside gross financial mismanagement. Indeed, Lou Macari expresses incredulity when he hears of a "fringe" United player of today buying a £900,000 apartment.
The only negative I take from the books is that I'm jealous of the author for living my dream job - but at the same time I recognise the hard work the guy has put in since founding United We Stand when he was 15. True Reds won't do much better than investing in to his fine work documenting the history of our club.
Because of this, I've really enjoyed Andy Mitten's series of books featuring former players talking candidly about their careers. We're The Famous Man United and Glory Glory! covered the 1980s and 1990s, now United! United! does the same for the 70s.
It was the most turbulent – and least successful - decade for the club since the 1930s, with five managers overseeing the legendary Busby team of the 60s decline into relegation. A single FA Cup win (plus the Division Two championship) were all the silverware fans had to cheer.
From 1973 to 1977, the club was managed by the flamboyant Tommy Docherty. Though his first full season saw the club endure relegation, they bounced back with a style sure to make older Reds misty eyed, based on youthful energy and skillful wingers. In 1977, they defeated Liverpool 2-1 in the FA Cup final a year after losing out to Southampton – a victory made sweeter as it prevented them from winning an unprecedented treble that United themselves would do in 1999.
All looked good: the forward line of Jimmy Greenhoff and Stuart Pearson (both interviewed here) offered flair, strength and mobility, wingers Gordon “Merlin” Hill and Steve Coppell had pace, unpredictability and industry backed up by young full backs Jimmy Nicholl and Arthur Albiston. The general view was that United would challenge for the big prizes.
Days after the cup victory, it was revealed Docherty was having an affair with the physio’s wife and was sacked with immediate effect. He was replaced with the more sedate Dave Sexton, whose more studied style of play never endeared him to the crowd, not helped by his sale of Stretford End heroes Hill and Pearson, replaced by the industrious Mickey Thomas and aggressive target man Joe Jordan.
Being a well- known hardcore United fan doubtless worked in Mitten’s favour in getting stories from the former heroes. We get honest opinions on teammates and managers. Martin Buchan, captain throughout the second half of the 70s into the early 80s, is complimented by many for being a great leader but is also described as "maybe not as intelligent as he thought he was" by another.
The managers also polarise opinion, especially Sexton, who did have his admirers in the team, such as Lou Macari while others believe the job was too big for a man who intensely disliked dealing with the press.
More so than the previous books, subsequent fortunes of the players after United vary wildly. Joe Jordan is enjoying no little success as assistant manager to Harry Redknapp at Tottenham Hotspur and Sammy McIlory has done wonders as manager with both Macclesfield Town and Morecombe. Gordon Hill runs a soccer school in Texas while Buchan (stated as being "cooler than the Fonz" by fans impressed by his smooth style on and off the pitch) works for the Professional Footballers Association.
At the other end, cult hero Jimmy Greenhoff lost everything when he was a cheated by a partner in an insurance business and, sadder still, has not spoken to his brother Brian, also a United player in the 70s, in decades. Gerry Daly (of the chant “five foot eight, underweight, Gerry Daly’s fucking great”) has suffered terrible personal tragedy and ill health. Several players remember Scots hardman Jim Holton, whose United career was stopped in an instant by a broken leg at Sheffield Wednesday and would die of a heart attack aged 42. Mitten fondly recalls the crowd’s chant of "six foot two, eyes of blue, big Jim Holton’s after you" by stating the man was six foot one, had brown eyes and if he did want to get after anyone, he’d have needed a motorbike to do so. All the same, Holton was good enough to represent Scotland in all three of their undefeated games at the 1974 World Cup, including a credible draw against reigning champions Brazil.
It’s true that this generation of players may be the last for whom playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world wasn't a ticket for life. Many have gone back to "normal" lives once the playing days ended: much-maligned reserve goalkeeper Paddy Roche works as a delivery driver, something you can never imagine a current top-flight player ever having to do outside gross financial mismanagement. Indeed, Lou Macari expresses incredulity when he hears of a "fringe" United player of today buying a £900,000 apartment.
The only negative I take from the books is that I'm jealous of the author for living my dream job - but at the same time I recognise the hard work the guy has put in since founding United We Stand when he was 15. True Reds won't do much better than investing in to his fine work documenting the history of our club.
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Live and In Person
Like, I suspect, a lot of people, one of my big problems with modern day soul/R'n'B is the unyielding subscription to the foghorn style of singing that emerged at the end of the 1980s. The recently seven-thrower Whitney Houston started this trend before it was powered up by the likes of Mariah Carey. R Kelly would appear to cover it on the male end of things.
Old Git that I am, it all seems a long way from the days of Motown and Stax – Beyonce Knowles may well be highly regarded today, but I doubt she’d have made back-up for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. To whit, listen to Otis Redding’s Live In Europe album to see a singer with an instantly recognisable voice giving it some major effort on the stage. There's a hardness to his voice that has been eradicated from a lot of pop music in the last 30 years.
Recorded in Paris in 1967 and released months before his tragic death, Live in Europe remains my favourite live album. How could it not be? This is Otis Redding. Backed by Booker T and the MGs. And the Memphis Horns. The perfomance was part of the Stax Revue that toured the continent and Britain, also featuring Sam and Dave among others – enough for me to have long stated that if I was Doctor Who for a day, that seeing the show would be top of my list of things from history to check out.
What makes this such an red-hot album is Otis’ showman skills – you can sense the crowd are in his grip. At the end of I Can't Turn You Loose, he screams “I know you think I’m gonna stop now – I ain’t gonna stop – HIT IT!” It’s wonderfully thrilling. Elsewhere, he manages to out-raunch Jagger on a frantic run-through of Satisfaction and take the Beatles’ Day Tripper in a totally different dimension.
The set ends, inevitabely, with Try a Little Tenderness, perhaps his anthem. In it's last seconds, his pleading reaches new heights and it's no surprise that the crowd beg him back for just a few more seconds.
What made Otis such a giant was not just his voice. With (Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay, it’s clear that he was looking to grow as an artist and take his music into new directions, fired up by how the Beatles had outgrown their early sound. Live in Europe, in a way, acts as an end of a chapter, leaving us to wonder what dimensons he (along with Stevie, Marvin and Curtis) would have taken Soul in the 1970s.
Old Git that I am, it all seems a long way from the days of Motown and Stax – Beyonce Knowles may well be highly regarded today, but I doubt she’d have made back-up for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. To whit, listen to Otis Redding’s Live In Europe album to see a singer with an instantly recognisable voice giving it some major effort on the stage. There's a hardness to his voice that has been eradicated from a lot of pop music in the last 30 years.
Recorded in Paris in 1967 and released months before his tragic death, Live in Europe remains my favourite live album. How could it not be? This is Otis Redding. Backed by Booker T and the MGs. And the Memphis Horns. The perfomance was part of the Stax Revue that toured the continent and Britain, also featuring Sam and Dave among others – enough for me to have long stated that if I was Doctor Who for a day, that seeing the show would be top of my list of things from history to check out.
What makes this such an red-hot album is Otis’ showman skills – you can sense the crowd are in his grip. At the end of I Can't Turn You Loose, he screams “I know you think I’m gonna stop now – I ain’t gonna stop – HIT IT!” It’s wonderfully thrilling. Elsewhere, he manages to out-raunch Jagger on a frantic run-through of Satisfaction and take the Beatles’ Day Tripper in a totally different dimension.
The set ends, inevitabely, with Try a Little Tenderness, perhaps his anthem. In it's last seconds, his pleading reaches new heights and it's no surprise that the crowd beg him back for just a few more seconds.
What made Otis such a giant was not just his voice. With (Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay, it’s clear that he was looking to grow as an artist and take his music into new directions, fired up by how the Beatles had outgrown their early sound. Live in Europe, in a way, acts as an end of a chapter, leaving us to wonder what dimensons he (along with Stevie, Marvin and Curtis) would have taken Soul in the 1970s.
Monday, 27 February 2012
Hacked Down
When I tell people I used to be a journalist, the first thing they usually say is "But D.C., I thought you knew who your dad is?" and we both have a good laugh. Because let’s face it, being a hack doesn't come with a good reputation these days – images of scruffy losers digging through Hugh Grant’s rubbish bin springing to mind.
The second thing they might say is "so why did you want to be a journalist?". Well, the thing is, as a young shitkicker, I very quickly worked out that I couldn't play football for squat. To be frank, I was as close to useless as could be. Despite being a good foot taller than everyone else, I was useless in the air, and my pace could be measured by watching landscapes erode. Not that any of this stopped John Terry, mind. Obviously my political views must have held me back. Ahem.
In a moment of clarity surprising in one so young, I decided that if I was never going to be good enough to run out at Old Trafford, I’d have to compensate by *knowing* more about the game than my peers, which I soon was able to say. At some point, someone must have suggested a good use of this, um, skill would be being a football journalist. Seemed logical enough at the time, and I set about it with what for me counts as gusto: just doing well enough in my exams to get the absolute minimum required to go study Journalism at uni.
In three years doing just that, the main thing I learnt was that I wasn't cut out to be a journalist. Concepts such as “house style” were repeatedly emphasised and I picked up very quickly that to get ahead in this game, the most important skill is to shut up and do as you’re told. Even in sports reporting, there’s an agenda beyond what seems a simple matter of writing about a football match.
Despite this loss of innocence, I still wound up spending two years of my life as a professional journalist. At the time, I figured that having spent so long being “trained” to do something, I may as well try to get some use out of my degree.
"So what’s it like?"
The first thing to state is that in 99.999% of working for a publishing company, the glamour is around the zero mark. Most hacks do not work in London for national newspapers. Most work for publications like local rags in nowhere towns or, as I did in the main part, those Business-to-Business magazines that Have I Got News For You like to take the piss out of. Bicycle Seat Sniffer Monthly, that kind of thing.
"So why did you quit?"
The best reason anyone should ever need – I was bored.
Well, bored and skint, really. Journalism is not a well paid way to earn money. My starting salary (albeit seven years ago to the day) was £10,500 a year. The weirdest part was that I had been earning the best part of £50 a week more in my previous job doing menial data inputting, a job that also involved a cheaper and shorter commute.
At first, it wasn't so bad. The editorial and design team was made up of good people and we had a positive atmosphere that made getting through the slog of deadline day a bit easier. I also got some assignments that I actually enjoyed working on and took such a great deal of satisfaction from that I still have the cuttings to this day.
Yet as is such in the industry, turnover is high, not helped by readership appearing to be getting lower. By the time I handed my cards in, I may have seen my salary to rise to £13,000, but I was doing the work of just about two people to earn it. One particular deadline day saw me leave at 2.30am. All part of the job, I know, but when I found myself back at the bus queue some four hours after getting home, I came to the conclusion my life needed to take a sharp turn in a different direction.
The final thing I get asked is “would you ever go back to it?”
To which I reply “no”, for two reasons. One is that I've been out of the game far too long now. As with a lot of jobs, the key is always contacts and experience, of which there are countless others out there with much better supplies of both.
Secondly, as I've stated on here before and is known by anyone with half a brain, print media is dying so fast that the priest is hovering outside waiting to give the last rites. Hence, the industry is still desperately trying to work out ways to make their online services work. Ian Hislop may sneer at the fine work that a lot of blogs do, but he is doubtless worried that the work Private Eye used to deal almost exclusively in is now also done by writers such as those on Tabloid Watch and Zelo Street – both with the advantage of instant publication and costing nothing to the reader.
Of course, I’m also more than aware I may not have had the talent and/or attitude to get ahead in the industry.
I’m quite happy writing this lil’ol blog and the odd thing for No Ripcord – the best thing of all about this medium is that there’s no editorialising. If someone on No Ripcord wants to say the new album by whatever landfill indie band is flavour of the month with the NME is a bucket of shite, then he’ll have the backing of his editor to do just so, not being at the mercy of advertising revenue to toe a certain line. Freedom to write whatever you like (within legal boundaries, of course y'honour) - it's bloody fantastic.
The second thing they might say is "so why did you want to be a journalist?". Well, the thing is, as a young shitkicker, I very quickly worked out that I couldn't play football for squat. To be frank, I was as close to useless as could be. Despite being a good foot taller than everyone else, I was useless in the air, and my pace could be measured by watching landscapes erode. Not that any of this stopped John Terry, mind. Obviously my political views must have held me back. Ahem.
In a moment of clarity surprising in one so young, I decided that if I was never going to be good enough to run out at Old Trafford, I’d have to compensate by *knowing* more about the game than my peers, which I soon was able to say. At some point, someone must have suggested a good use of this, um, skill would be being a football journalist. Seemed logical enough at the time, and I set about it with what for me counts as gusto: just doing well enough in my exams to get the absolute minimum required to go study Journalism at uni.
In three years doing just that, the main thing I learnt was that I wasn't cut out to be a journalist. Concepts such as “house style” were repeatedly emphasised and I picked up very quickly that to get ahead in this game, the most important skill is to shut up and do as you’re told. Even in sports reporting, there’s an agenda beyond what seems a simple matter of writing about a football match.
Despite this loss of innocence, I still wound up spending two years of my life as a professional journalist. At the time, I figured that having spent so long being “trained” to do something, I may as well try to get some use out of my degree.
"So what’s it like?"
The first thing to state is that in 99.999% of working for a publishing company, the glamour is around the zero mark. Most hacks do not work in London for national newspapers. Most work for publications like local rags in nowhere towns or, as I did in the main part, those Business-to-Business magazines that Have I Got News For You like to take the piss out of. Bicycle Seat Sniffer Monthly, that kind of thing.
"So why did you quit?"
The best reason anyone should ever need – I was bored.
Well, bored and skint, really. Journalism is not a well paid way to earn money. My starting salary (albeit seven years ago to the day) was £10,500 a year. The weirdest part was that I had been earning the best part of £50 a week more in my previous job doing menial data inputting, a job that also involved a cheaper and shorter commute.
At first, it wasn't so bad. The editorial and design team was made up of good people and we had a positive atmosphere that made getting through the slog of deadline day a bit easier. I also got some assignments that I actually enjoyed working on and took such a great deal of satisfaction from that I still have the cuttings to this day.
Yet as is such in the industry, turnover is high, not helped by readership appearing to be getting lower. By the time I handed my cards in, I may have seen my salary to rise to £13,000, but I was doing the work of just about two people to earn it. One particular deadline day saw me leave at 2.30am. All part of the job, I know, but when I found myself back at the bus queue some four hours after getting home, I came to the conclusion my life needed to take a sharp turn in a different direction.
The final thing I get asked is “would you ever go back to it?”
To which I reply “no”, for two reasons. One is that I've been out of the game far too long now. As with a lot of jobs, the key is always contacts and experience, of which there are countless others out there with much better supplies of both.
Secondly, as I've stated on here before and is known by anyone with half a brain, print media is dying so fast that the priest is hovering outside waiting to give the last rites. Hence, the industry is still desperately trying to work out ways to make their online services work. Ian Hislop may sneer at the fine work that a lot of blogs do, but he is doubtless worried that the work Private Eye used to deal almost exclusively in is now also done by writers such as those on Tabloid Watch and Zelo Street – both with the advantage of instant publication and costing nothing to the reader.
Of course, I’m also more than aware I may not have had the talent and/or attitude to get ahead in the industry.
I’m quite happy writing this lil’ol blog and the odd thing for No Ripcord – the best thing of all about this medium is that there’s no editorialising. If someone on No Ripcord wants to say the new album by whatever landfill indie band is flavour of the month with the NME is a bucket of shite, then he’ll have the backing of his editor to do just so, not being at the mercy of advertising revenue to toe a certain line. Freedom to write whatever you like (within legal boundaries, of course y'honour) - it's bloody fantastic.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Talk to the Body
There’s nothing much worse than a cliché that becomes horribly true at your expense. Thus, I have came to the realisation that now I am officially an old bastard in my early 30s, I cannot get away with my dubious dietary and lifestyle habits anymore without some payback. The warranty on my body has expired and, as is the way, it's beginning to fall apart.
As things are, I feel like I’m at a point where I could easily go down the slippery road that leads to the one place I swore I’d never go – that of being a fat bastard. The signs are there: I’m around 20 pounds heavier than I was a couple of years ago, and indicators would show a lot of that is in the belly area. It’s not too surprising either, given for the last eight years or so my nutritional needs have been met by plenty of breakfast cereal, cheese sandwiches and pizza washed down by beer.
It’s not like I've not been warned either. A couple of years ago, I was invited to go play some five-a-side football by a work colleague. Despite my love of the game, I’d not played it in any form outside Playstation for the best part of a decade. Too much running around for this trooper. But this would be playing alongside a bunch of lads in their mid 40s, so I reckoned it would be a leisurely kickaround that even one as slow as I could keep pace with.
As they say, how wrong can you be? In minutes I was wheezing like a mono-lunged asthmatic who’d just been forced to run up a hillside, hiding my shame by offering to play in goal for the rest of proceedings. Did I learn? Did I fuck. Once the aches had subsided (which turned out to be several days later), I elected to keep any notions of exercise as far from my mind as psychologically possible.
Until recently, when getting my sorry arse into a pair of jeans with a 32 inch waist has become a wee bit of a squeeze. You wonder "how the hell did that happen? I was the guy who could shovel nothing but Pringles, Mars Bars and fizzy pop down his gob all day and suffer only shite skin in retribution!" I can deal with the grey hairs, wrinkles and creaking knees, but the idea of having even a tiny bilge tank peaking out of my shirt is beyond unacceptable.
Vanity? Of course, but we all have a bit of that, unless you’re the bod sleeping in a puddle of your own Diamond White-tinged piss in a park somewhere. Thus, a line is to be drawn in the sand – the 32nd year of my life, things have to change.
Not that I’m going to be hitting the gym, you understand. No chance. I visited one, once, and found it one of the most terrifying places I could imagine. My own personal Room 101. I've no ambitions to get in “shape” or be able to run more than 100 yards without needing a bit of a lie down. With luck, all it’ll need is a few ten minute bursts of basic exercise a day and knocking certain beverages on the head outside weekends.
Basically, do the absolute minimum to get by. Why change the habits of a lifetime? Not until my second heart attack, at least.
As things are, I feel like I’m at a point where I could easily go down the slippery road that leads to the one place I swore I’d never go – that of being a fat bastard. The signs are there: I’m around 20 pounds heavier than I was a couple of years ago, and indicators would show a lot of that is in the belly area. It’s not too surprising either, given for the last eight years or so my nutritional needs have been met by plenty of breakfast cereal, cheese sandwiches and pizza washed down by beer.
It’s not like I've not been warned either. A couple of years ago, I was invited to go play some five-a-side football by a work colleague. Despite my love of the game, I’d not played it in any form outside Playstation for the best part of a decade. Too much running around for this trooper. But this would be playing alongside a bunch of lads in their mid 40s, so I reckoned it would be a leisurely kickaround that even one as slow as I could keep pace with.
As they say, how wrong can you be? In minutes I was wheezing like a mono-lunged asthmatic who’d just been forced to run up a hillside, hiding my shame by offering to play in goal for the rest of proceedings. Did I learn? Did I fuck. Once the aches had subsided (which turned out to be several days later), I elected to keep any notions of exercise as far from my mind as psychologically possible.
Until recently, when getting my sorry arse into a pair of jeans with a 32 inch waist has become a wee bit of a squeeze. You wonder "how the hell did that happen? I was the guy who could shovel nothing but Pringles, Mars Bars and fizzy pop down his gob all day and suffer only shite skin in retribution!" I can deal with the grey hairs, wrinkles and creaking knees, but the idea of having even a tiny bilge tank peaking out of my shirt is beyond unacceptable.
Vanity? Of course, but we all have a bit of that, unless you’re the bod sleeping in a puddle of your own Diamond White-tinged piss in a park somewhere. Thus, a line is to be drawn in the sand – the 32nd year of my life, things have to change.
Not that I’m going to be hitting the gym, you understand. No chance. I visited one, once, and found it one of the most terrifying places I could imagine. My own personal Room 101. I've no ambitions to get in “shape” or be able to run more than 100 yards without needing a bit of a lie down. With luck, all it’ll need is a few ten minute bursts of basic exercise a day and knocking certain beverages on the head outside weekends.
Basically, do the absolute minimum to get by. Why change the habits of a lifetime? Not until my second heart attack, at least.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Guts or Not, Still No Glory
Weeks after the Italian dude decided he couldn't be arsed managing the England team anymore, the dust appears to have settled and the matter of the next guy to take the fall is put aside while the more important matter of the league title race is decided. Thankfully.
At the time of writing, it’s looking nailed on that “Honest” Harry Redknapp will get the gig, especially since his acquittal from wrong-doing. His line that he was, essentially, too stupid to have been able to pull off the financial shenanigans he was accused off must surely rank alongside the Chewbacca Defence.
Though you sometimes wonder if it was indeed a front. A rumour was doing the rounds that when the time came to submit his Spurs squad for the Europa League, he knocked up a badly spelled list with "Ask Joe" (being Joe Jordan, his assistant) for the last three names. Scurrilous, perhaps, but somehow believable.
The key word we've heard, once again, bandied around the media is ‘passion’. Capello, being Italian, didn't have it for the job because he was foreign. Not that it appears to have hindered the Irish, mind, with Trappatoni taking a squad of has-beens (Keane, Given, Dunne) and average also-rans to the European Championships. Perhaps the Irish are less fussy - their most successful manager of all time coming from the country that they’d have every right to hate most of all may well have lowered some prejudices.
Redknapp, it has been judged, does have the passion for the job. England needs an Englishman who understands the spirit for the three lions (that most English of animals, natch) and knows the words to God Save The Queen. All 100 verses, and especially the one about battering that lot North of Carlisle.
But let’s stop a minute, and consider the only manager who could really be considered a successful England manager: Sir Alf Ramsey. Look at the footage of when the fourth goal is scored in the 1966 World Cup final – all around is the chaos of English celebration, except for one man. Ramsey remains seated, calm and dignified. This was a man who undertook lessons to tone down his Essex accent into something more ‘respectable’.
He also had little time for the media, which is an area I always thought Capello was on a hiding to nothing. Redknapp, of course, has his column in a newspaper and his son as a pundit on Sky Sports. Like Terry Venables before him, he’s a London boy part of the capital media scene – journalists know they’ll get little bits of information to keep everybody happy. Capello seemed to have no interest in talking to hacks outside his basic duties as England coach: his personal life, for one, was kept strictly off-limits.
In the end, despite a comparatively leisurely progress to the Euro finals this summer, the press were desperate for him to go and have their (or "the people’s") man in. Capello may well have been looking for an excuse to bail – sticking up for John Terry of all people seems an odd way to make a stand – and perhaps he thought that he was on a hiding to nothing in terms of getting any decent results out of the squad.
Not that he was blameless as a coach, presiding over some of the worst performances by an England team at a World Cup since the first two games in Mexico ’86. Additionally, the decision to allow David Beckham to hang around the squad was a beyond odd choice from a coach with so much experience. After the snottering at the hands of the ever-reliable Germans, he doubtless should have taken a leaf from their book and looked to build a squad of hungry young players for 2014. Signs of this were seen when the likes of Danny Welbeck, Phil Jones and Kyle Walker were blooded, but an insistence on keeping Terry, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in the squad – despite repeated failures in various championships – gave the impression of a man afraid to make all the changes needed.
As things are, we need to see if Redknapp's ego blinds him to common sense and he takes the job. Yet no matter who is in charge, it's a struggle to see England impressing this summer, especially when they have to get past France, Sweden and Ukraine. Comedy hi-jinks may well be there for the nation to enjoy.
At the time of writing, it’s looking nailed on that “Honest” Harry Redknapp will get the gig, especially since his acquittal from wrong-doing. His line that he was, essentially, too stupid to have been able to pull off the financial shenanigans he was accused off must surely rank alongside the Chewbacca Defence.
Though you sometimes wonder if it was indeed a front. A rumour was doing the rounds that when the time came to submit his Spurs squad for the Europa League, he knocked up a badly spelled list with "Ask Joe" (being Joe Jordan, his assistant) for the last three names. Scurrilous, perhaps, but somehow believable.
The key word we've heard, once again, bandied around the media is ‘passion’. Capello, being Italian, didn't have it for the job because he was foreign. Not that it appears to have hindered the Irish, mind, with Trappatoni taking a squad of has-beens (Keane, Given, Dunne) and average also-rans to the European Championships. Perhaps the Irish are less fussy - their most successful manager of all time coming from the country that they’d have every right to hate most of all may well have lowered some prejudices.
Redknapp, it has been judged, does have the passion for the job. England needs an Englishman who understands the spirit for the three lions (that most English of animals, natch) and knows the words to God Save The Queen. All 100 verses, and especially the one about battering that lot North of Carlisle.
But let’s stop a minute, and consider the only manager who could really be considered a successful England manager: Sir Alf Ramsey. Look at the footage of when the fourth goal is scored in the 1966 World Cup final – all around is the chaos of English celebration, except for one man. Ramsey remains seated, calm and dignified. This was a man who undertook lessons to tone down his Essex accent into something more ‘respectable’.
He also had little time for the media, which is an area I always thought Capello was on a hiding to nothing. Redknapp, of course, has his column in a newspaper and his son as a pundit on Sky Sports. Like Terry Venables before him, he’s a London boy part of the capital media scene – journalists know they’ll get little bits of information to keep everybody happy. Capello seemed to have no interest in talking to hacks outside his basic duties as England coach: his personal life, for one, was kept strictly off-limits.
In the end, despite a comparatively leisurely progress to the Euro finals this summer, the press were desperate for him to go and have their (or "the people’s") man in. Capello may well have been looking for an excuse to bail – sticking up for John Terry of all people seems an odd way to make a stand – and perhaps he thought that he was on a hiding to nothing in terms of getting any decent results out of the squad.
Not that he was blameless as a coach, presiding over some of the worst performances by an England team at a World Cup since the first two games in Mexico ’86. Additionally, the decision to allow David Beckham to hang around the squad was a beyond odd choice from a coach with so much experience. After the snottering at the hands of the ever-reliable Germans, he doubtless should have taken a leaf from their book and looked to build a squad of hungry young players for 2014. Signs of this were seen when the likes of Danny Welbeck, Phil Jones and Kyle Walker were blooded, but an insistence on keeping Terry, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in the squad – despite repeated failures in various championships – gave the impression of a man afraid to make all the changes needed.
As things are, we need to see if Redknapp's ego blinds him to common sense and he takes the job. Yet no matter who is in charge, it's a struggle to see England impressing this summer, especially when they have to get past France, Sweden and Ukraine. Comedy hi-jinks may well be there for the nation to enjoy.
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