1st February 2003

This is "wise words" coming to you from the frozen waste of North London.
I don't what happens in most other countries around the world, maybe you
can tell me in the forum, but when we have a substantial snowfall the
entire country comes to a standstill. In this case it was not the entire
country but a big chunk of the south east corner. I was arriving back in
London just as the white stuff started falling yesterday afternoon and by
the time I had made the half hour journey north from Euston it was falling
thick and fast. For those of you who don't live in the south it was a big
one and huge tracts of motorway and roads were gridlocked with traffic
after several accidents and no doubt a few sliding bumps. My wife was in
work four hours away and the night staff that were due to take over could
not get into work which meant that she had to stay and work nights in the
hospital which is probably just as well becasue she don't like driving in
the snow. When she came home in the early hours this morning she said the
roads were littered with abandoned cars and even abandoned buses. The only
ones who seemed pleased about the weather were the kids who were out in
the street making snowmen and having snowball fights. The partner of a guy
who works with my wife is Australian and she certainly made the most of it
by going out in the main road and building her own snowman as this was the
first time she had seen snow over here. I take my hat off to her becasue
she was on her own and she is in her late twenties and must have looked
like a psycho to most of the passers-by. I have just come in from my local
pub where I was watching a band and it seems to be on the the thaw but if
it gets colder later then we could be in for some more fun tomorrow. As I
said I have just come back in from my local music venue and while I was
there I received some good news: it seems that the local promoter has lost
his grip on all the music nights there because the band who were playing
had organised this Friday night gig themselves. This means that I will be
speaking to the landlord tomorrow and sorting out a gig for myself and
maybe a little album launch so all of those people who travel to see me
play will have their wishes granted shortly when I announce a gig in
London ( I hope they are still smiling when the see how much a fucking
hotel room costs in these here parts). I will try and have it sorted by
the time I do the next edition.
As I said earlier I was up in Liverpool to watch The Reds take on the
mighty Arsenal. I took the opportunity while I was up there to record an
interview with Spencer Leigh on Radio Merseyside which will be aired some
time in the near future. Spencer is a bit, well actually a lot, of an
authority on music, especially the local music scene and has written books
and contributed many articles about Mersey artists past and present as
well as presenting his show on the radio. I took the Baby Taylor up there
and played a few acoustic tunes which he recorded and I will post the
interview on the site when I get a copy of it. Before I saw Spencer I had
a swift half with Mrs Reed and we discussed the current woes of our footy
team. I went to the game and despite the worries that we might get rinsed
by a team who are at the top of their game we managed to steal a draw.
Although the draw was not as good as a win it was an entertaining game and
it was good to watch the current Arsenal team playing live. While we are
on the subject of football, a subject I know you all love, I went to see
Millwall play Southampton at the new St Mary's Stadium. My mate Liam and I
met up with Southern Claire and The Duke who were our hosts for the
afternoon. It was an exciting game that ended in a draw after the plucky
Saints scored in the dying minutes. I am now looking forward to the replay
down at The New Den next Wednesday. I liked St Mary's Stadium but I feel
that these new stadiums don't have any character and they all kinda look
the same. Liverpool are about to build a new ground and I am not sure if
it will end up looking like one of these generic footy stadiums that are
cropping up all over the place. I guess we will have to see when it is
finished. As long as my seat in the new ground is as good as my seat in
the current one then I guess I will be happy.
Musically the rich vein of writing form has continued and I have been
recording a few things on my new hard disk recorder. I replaced the Mackie
with an Alesis and bought some new computer hardware from PC Dave in
Bolton and with a little help from Ket and my mate Si I have got my gear
running and looking good. I am looking forward to the coming months of
swearing and cursing at the shiny inanimate machinery in my studio when
they decide to fuck up (which they always do). I was thinking the other
day about the comparison between computers and cars. If you bought a car
that stalled everytime you accelerated with the radio and headlights on,
you would take it back to the garage but we all seem to accept the fact
that these machines play up and crash and generally cause us greif at one
time or another. If you pay £1000 for something I expect it to work
brilliantly and before I get mails from the Mac snobs telling me to get a
Mac, shut the fuck up because they fucking do it too.
I have been to see a couple of movies recently which I will review in the
following paragraph. "Gangs Of New York": Daniel Day Lewis is top and Leo
Di Caprio is not. I wonder how many movie roles Leo would get if he looked
like Martin Clunes? In the handsome stakes he gets an Oscar every time but
I don't think he is a very good actor and alongside really good actors
like DDL and Jim Broadbent he just looks a bit poo.Went to see "City Of
God" which is a Brazilian movie about little Brazilian gangsters in the
ghettoes of Rio.This was a good movie if not a little depressing as it was
filmed in the slums of Rio and it makes you realise how lucky we are to
live in houses with heating and electricity.
Now for the obituary column. These pages have resembled chapters of "Breif
Lives" with all these pop stars dropping off. We lost another recently
with the death of Maurice Gibb. When I was a 14 yr old punk the "squares"
were wearing white suits and suffering from Saturday Night Fever and I
could not admit to having any liking of the high pitched squealing
associated with The Bee Gees. I realised that my prejudice was ill-judged
and The Bee Gees have written some great tunes, my personal favourites
being "You Should Be Dancing" and "Jive Talkin'". Whether you like the
high voices, white teeth and big hair (well we have all been there haven't
we?) you have to admit that when you hear some vintage Bee Gees it is very
hard not to shake your groove thing. Maybe Mo is up there now showing Joe
Strummer how to harmonise. I bet if he had done some high backing vocals
on London Calling he could have made Mick Jones sound a little better
(sorry Mr P).
As we have had our Xmas weather a month late I think I will close this
week with a snowman joke.
Q: What did one snowman say to the other snowman?????
A: Can you smell carrots??