Toy call-out


Not that this blog is intended to be some kind of community notice board or anything, but a nice man called Steve Berry has been signed up to write a book based on the old TV Cream Toy Catalogue - a list of toys that started life as a TV-inspired top 100 and has expanded from there. To illustrate the entries in the book, he needs pictures of toy products. This is proving tricky. So he's looking for an avid collector of '70s and '80s board games and toys with an attic full of them who'd be prepared to let the author go round and photograph them for the book. ("Buying it all up on eBay would bankrupt me," says Steve.) In return, a credit in the book is offered.

If anyone can help, go to TV Cream and click on the Toy Catalogue link.

As you were.

[Incidentally, I do own the Tufty Road Safety Game pictured, although the pic is taken from a site that sells handmade doll's house furniture. I like the idea of someone going to the trouble of making a tiny Tufty Road Safety Game. There is hope for us all.]

Arctic Monkeys, Brixton Academy, April 27, 2006
The sixth time we've seen them since November, the second at Brixton, and what an improvement on Bournemouth International Centre, for self-evident architectural reasons. It was our tickets to this, the last night of their woefully brief first UK headline tour, that saw us through the vacuum of Bournemouth. You can rely on Brixton. As predicted, it was a riot. If you lurk around the Arctic Monkeys Forum, you'll see an awful lot of conflicting attitudes to gigs, especially as they get bigger, depending on who's posting - "old" fans (ie. those who liked the band before they got to number one), who consider themselves a cut above; and newbies, who tend to be 14, write in txt language and fancy Alex (example: "How F*CKIN' AWESOME was that gig!! Love the arctic monkeys sooooo much!! Can't believe how amazin it was. I'm still buzzin now!! If you've never seen them live then u dnt even understand how great they are!! Met Alex after aswell awww he's so shy but soooo amazin!! Awwww well wanna see them live again!!" - to which the withering response from an older fan was, simply, "Bedtime!") There is also a lot of lazy talk about "chavs" taking over at gigs and "white stilettos" - such sweeping social generalisation from people so young!

The truth is, these gigs are full of all sorts: Oasis-type beer monsters, who created a seething moshpit at Brixton tonight (and must have been thrilled to see Noel Gallagher in the crowd, whose presence precipitated community singing); small boys with hairless chins enjoying the first flush of gig-going and probably losing their shoes in the maelstrom, about which their mums will take a dim view (nothing wrong with that - it's me, aged 15, seeing U2 on the Boy tour, or Bauhaus, or Theatre Of Hate); and older, wiser music fans, usually in couples, reenergised by the joy and complexity of the Monkeys' songs and musicianship, and feeling the years just evaporate on the spot (nothing wrong with that - it's me, aged 41, er, now).

There's a lot of pushing, and punching the air, and pogoing, and certain factions throw beer in an act of pure joie de vivre - albeit one that could only occur in the pampered West, where kids have so much money they can afford to chuck it in the air. It's marvellous to be a part of all this. There's also singing. Accurate singing. It's a Monkeys tradition, but when it's as widespread as for, say, Sun Goes Down or Mardy Bum, it's truly inspiring. The build-up to the band's entrance, from a position halfway between the mixing desk and the front, was electric, despite another flat set by the Little Flames. (The mix tape was terrific, throwing Rock'n'Roll Star up against The Source featuring Candi Staton and Pretty Vacant and No Diggity.) Their arrival, though heralded by none other than John Cooper Clarke ("my new best mates"), was as unassuming as ever, but ignited a squall of airborne lager and arms were raised across the auditorium.

After that, it was the same old set, in the same old order (Riot Van to A Certain Romance, with no surprises inbetween except for the rhythmic intro to Ritz To The Rubble, and an appearance during Sun Goes Down by the Scummy Man himself, ie. the actor from the video), with no encore. This doesn't matter in the end. It's what we came for. Andy (bassist) stood on a speaker and leapt off. Alex muttered, but sounded sincerely grateful in his old man's way. New songs Who The Fuck's Arctic Monkeys and Leave Before The Lights Come Onwere superb, and largely unaccompanied, as the crowd don't know them yet. We threw ourselves into the throng. Not exactly down the front, but further than good sense would normally allow, buffeted and bashed by the pure, unfettered primal energy of the crowd.

Emerging, soaked through with sweat, into the cool Brixton night, looking out for those in our party we had lost in the multitude, I was reminded of so many other occasions on those same steps down the years (the first being Siouxsie And The Banshees in 1984, after which it was back on the Goth coach to Northampton; the most memorable being The Smiths in 1985), but this really was one of the best. A curry and some Arctic Monkeys in the car home (thanks for driving, Paul) rounded off a fine evening of musical entertainment and contact sport.

How F*CKIN' AWESOME was that gig!! Love the arctic monkeys sooooo much!!

Bedtime!

The Apprentice: Week Ten

[SPOILER ALERT! . . .]

The least interesting episode yet, I'm afraid, although the outcome was a nailbiter. With a 3.45 call ("What? In the afternoon?" said Paul, wishfully), the five alpha contenders were whisked off to Istanbul and cast away on a huge floating nightmare called the Grand Princess. (Some members of my own family love cruises, but the idea has never appealed to me, I'll be honest.) Sir Alan was on holiday, linked via satellite phone and laptop like a modern-day Charlie, so Nick and Margaret, suitably attired for the Mediterranean like two diplomats, took charge, while Syed and Ruth set out to prove that two heads are no better than three - at least not when one of them belongs to Syed, who, to his credit, unspiked his hair for the occasion of playing a jumped-up floating redcoat. Velocity - Michelle, Paul and Ansell - always looked like the stronger crew, and - with Ansell once again edited into the background - they took the lead early on, with what can only be described as A Good Idea: organising a Strictly Come Dancing competition. Simple, contemporary, effective.

Meanwhile, Invicta squabbled and brainstormed and spoke over each other (not bad for just two people, and a portent of what was to come) and eventually cobbled together a "Fun Day" that was to have involved driving golf balls into the sea (vetoed by a no-bullshit entertainments officer and Sir-Alan telltale), later amended to driving golf balls into a net (or through it, as it turned out), then driving golf balls at a sheet (also vetoed by our man in the epaulettes, seemingly on aesthetic grounds). They ditched golf altogether, and went for "pool aerobics", an event that attracted a sum total of zero punters. The quiz was a success, in that some people turned up ("What do the letters HRT stand for?" - a line I wish I'd written for a sitcom about a cruise), but Ruth had bought too much prize champagne and they had to give it to the ship's staff - thus reducing their final profit, potentially sinking Ruth later on. The backwards egg-and-spoon race seemed to go off alright for the three old gentlemen who took part. And the tennis was so exciting, even Syed and Ruth didn't bother turning up for it, their instincts exercised instead by - guess what? - some selling. The raffle tickets! The fact that Syed didn't know how to sell raffle tickets, or read from a sheet of paper into a microphone, or whoop with any feeling for the wrinkled passengers, surely marked him out for the long walk home. Surely!

You had to admire Paul, once again. He threw himself into it, and got himself on telly - the onboard satellite channel, which probably had a bigger audience than Davina (satire), and was anchored by two "wired" Americans who laughed at everything anyone said. Even getting up and sitting down was a riot for these two. The guy fancied Paul, bigging him up with the curiously American description, "The jacket's going, the hair's gelled!" Paul weatherd this particular storm of humiliation, and the punters with numbers on their backs and little interest in daylight turned up for the event, despite Invicta's advert in the ship's newsletter being in a box.

The profit said it all - over a grand for Velocity, three hundred quid for Invicta (or was it dollars?) - and despite other considerations, like customer satisfaction, being "factored in", there was no getting round it: Syed and Ruth had arsed it up royally. The other three went off for yet another victory holiday, to "fucking Rome" (our tour guide, Paul: "There's the Colisseum where Gladiator was filmed . . . there's . . . pause . . . There's just shit there!"). Syed and Ruth battled it out in the boardroom, where Sir Alan, jetlagged, gave the English language the biggest mangling of the week, speaking of a "row of beans" at one point. My heart sank, after some unedifying bickering and the red cheeks of Ruth, when it looked like Sir Alan was going to fire the woman over the bloke. (She hadn't performed well, but at least she knew how to sell raffle tickets.) But he dummied us. Syed got the finger. A nation stood up and did some shadenfreude aerobics. He turned the collar up on his overcoat, purchsed, one assumes, in the East End where he was raised by stray dogs, and got the hell out of our lives, still giving it 110 per cent in the taxi. Ruth entered the final four.

Who's next then? Two next week, and if impact was a factor, Ansell would be one of them. Mind you, he's had some nice freebies out of it, having been on the winning team almost every week. The quiet man. I'll stick with Ruth as my favourite, but Paul's still in with a strong chance.



Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven
Week Eight
Week Nine

A lovely, life-affirming sight on the way into work today. (I am still commuting in to the sitcom office most days a week, leaving the house at 8.30 in the morning, walking to Redhill, enjoying the sunlight and the birdsong, sometimes eschewing the iPod altogether until I get off the train at the other end, to mask the noise of human beings and the Tube.) As my train came over Battersea railway bridge this morning, into Victoria, I glanced down at the old rusty barge that seems to be permanently moored on the north side of the river. It has THE WEASEL written on it in white paint, as if that's its name. It doesn't do much, THE WEASEL, except for hold water and look rusty. Except today, as a beautiful heron was standing in it, wading in the water. Clearly, as I was on a train, I only saw it briefly as we went past, but it was enough to lift my heart. I saw three cormorants flying over at this very spot the other week. These are the things that make the commute almost bearable. Find out more about the heron here

The West Wing goes live



ER, Will & Grace, The Bill, Coronation Street, that Quatermass experiment: all TV shows that have gone live as a gimmick. There's no need for it. It merely generates publicity and probably gives the cast and crew concerned a rare buzz, like working in rep again. Trust The West Wing to pull off the same stunt but for intellectual and contextual reasons: a live presidential debate between the fictional candidates, Vinick (Alda) and Santos (Smits). Now, I've read on various blogs and forums that it was unscripted. Don't be silly. Of course it was scripted. It was written by Laurence O'Donnell Jr and directed by Alex Graves. There's no way NBC are going to turn an hour of almost-primetime (well, Sunday night) to two actors doing improv, even actors of this stature. This was planned and blocked and rehearsed like a short play, and yet managed to retain a sense of live-ness that made it exciting even when watching it un-live, some weeks later, in the wrong country. It was a great episode. Gimmicky by defintion, but also sly, in that the candidates touched on issues that were not touched on by the real candidates, Bush and Kerry, in the last televised debate. As we have come to expect, this is political porn - an idealised version of real life.

I wish there was a transcript somewhere - I've searched all the political blogs and can't find one. (If you do, let me know.) The chairman was real-life journalist Forrest Sawyer, who did a calm and authoratitive job, telling off the live studio audience for clapping (which, of course, will have been scripted, just like the guy who shouted out, "You liar!" at Vinick and was removed, Walter Wolfgang-style, by the truth police). When Vinick called for the usual rules to be torn up, so that they could have a "real debate", it actually felt - I don't know - dangerous. Also convincing was when they moved out of range of their fixed podium mics, and were handed roving mics. This was clearly designed to allow the actors to roam.

"How many jobs will you create?" Sawyer asked Vinick.
"None," he replied. "Entrepreneurs create jobs. Business creates jobs. The president's job is to get out of the way."

"Republicans have tried to turn 'liberal' into a bad word," said Santos. "Well, liberals ended slavery in this country."
"A Republican president ended slavery," Vinick retorted.
"Yes, a liberal Republican, Senator. What happened to them?"

It was chilling to hear this fake-Republican say he'd rather drill for oil in Alaska and upset a few animals than, hypothetically, drill in the Grand Canyon and upset some tourists. (Alda, a committed liberal, must have relished doing this material.) Equally, you could hear a pin drop among the Democrat households of America when Santos vowed never to go to war over oil, and urged Vinick to join him in this solemn promise. He refused. George W Bush was probably watching Extreme Makeover on the other side. (Which, incidentally, whupped The West Wing in the ratings that Sunday night. It managed to squeeze its total up to about 9 million from the usual 8, but this is small beer in the world of network television, especially for a show that once commanded audiences of 18 million.)

A genuine poll after the debate went out revealed that Vinick's fake-approval ratings had gone up. Alda did do a marvellous job. But then, he is an actor and isn't going to be president. Those italics are to remind me, not you.

Two albums that have killed me



Morrissey: Ringleader Of The Tormentors
Understandable hoo-hah greeted Morrissey's comeback in 2004. You Are The Quarry was warmly clasped to the national and international bosom because it was so great to have him back, signed to a record label, putting a record out that seemed buoyed and enriched by his self-imposed exile in Los Angeles. (It was self-imposed. We didn't really run him out of town with flaming torches, it's just that the truth is less headline-grabbing than the myth.) But Ringleader is so much better.

Produced by Tony Visconti with strings and sound effects and noodling and crashing drums, it is an album bursting with sound. These are some of the biggest songs Moz has committed to tape, and not just, like Life Is A Pigsty and Far Off Places in terms of sheer noise and grandeur. Dear God Please Help Me and At Last I Am Born are the album's real bookends, one wracked with doubt, the other seemingly filled with a conditional joy. He's always picked the best lead-off singles (even Dagenham Dave, off Southpaw Grammar gave hope!), and You Have Killed Me is right up there with Everyday Is Like Sunday, The More You Ignore Me and You're The One For Me. Such superb lyrics: "As I live and breathe/You have killed me."

Moz is on fine form throughout, lyrically, whether being blunt ("If the USA doesn't bomb you") or obtuse ("Visconti is me/Magnani you'll never be" - reference not to the album's producer, but to Italian director Luchino Visconti, and, I presume, to Italian actress Anna Magnani, star of Roma, Citta Operta). And honest! The "explosive kegs between my legs" line has been over-quoted by reviewers keen for an angle. Yes, there's a bit of sex on the album, but he always sang about sex in The Smiths, whether he wanted to get his hands on your mammary glands, or admitted to being a man of slender means. It makes for a neat headline: Morrissey gets some. But Ringleader is so much more than that. It's frank and at the same time shrouded in mystery. Rome is obviously good for him. Someone on a Music Week vox pop on 6 Music last week said that Morrisey was "old and fat" - what an idiotic thing to say - clearly the thoughts of a 19-year-old. Morrissey looks as good as he's ever looked. Age becomes him. All of this makes for his best album since Viva Hate - far better than Vauxhall And I, the landmark most seem to compare it to.




Secret Machines: Ten Silver Drops
Second album from the Texan trio, relocated in 2000 to New York for whatever's in the water. I have only recently purchased their first, Now Here Is Nowhere, on the back of this, what many are calling their first masterpiece. I concur. Just eight songs, most of them over five minutes long (and the magnificent Daddy's In The Doldrums coming in at almost nine), this is epic rock of a most subtle and intriguing order. Singer Brandon Curtis has a rather quiet voice, which really adds intrigue to these big rock canvasses. The rousing opener, Alone, Jealous And Stoned comes on like Coldplay, with chiming guitar, but as soon as he starts singing, it takes on an altogether more personal and cracked aspect. The drums of John Garza are massive and there's a lot of racket here for three guys. (I'd love to see them live, and see how they reproduce it.) I'm hearing so many disparate reference points, ranging from Placebo (that'll be his voice) and Gene Loves Jezebel (don't be scared) to old school Simple Minds. This is big music, but not without intricate feelings. It has capitivated me - and the single, Lightning Blue Eyes, seemed quite underwhelming when I heard, or saw, it on MTV2, with its slow-moving video. Now, in context, it reveals itself to be a marvellous, hypnotic beast.

On our recent drive to Bournemouth and back, these two albums provided a satisfying soundtrack. From different ends of the musical and geographical spectrum, and yet linked by sheer ambition and scope. Add these to Whatever You Say I Am and you've already got a pretty excceptional year for albums.

The Apprentice: Week Nine

[SPOILER ALERT! . . .]

The final six, with Ruth moved to Invicta alongside Syed and Tuan, and Paul moved to Velocity alongside Michelle and Ansell, for a simple case of flat-letting in Clapham and Battersea (although at least one property was actually in Vauxhall, which tells you all you need to know about London estate agents). It was fun seeing Syed out of his depth and admitting it, albeit blaming it on the property business rather than his own shortcomings ("It's not my bag"). As an East End lad, he proved his lack of knowledge of what can only be described as Another Part Of London by mistaking a railway bridge over the Wandsworth Road for Wandsworth Bridge, which traverses the Thames. (Viewers from outside London may not appreciate the significance of this, but believe me, you'd have to be pretty stupid. And Syed is pretty stupid, despite those "flashes of brilliance" later identified by Sir Alan. How we loved seeing him wandering about, lost, shouting out, "Nicholas? Nicholas? Nicholas? Nicholas?" to passers by.) Michelle and Paul didn't get on, but that's because she reminds him of his nemesis Sharon, and because she seemed to confine him to base rather than let him sell, which is his strength. Mind you, he also had little time for the property business because unlike his usual gig, headhunting, where you can "talk a job up, talk a job down" (that sounds like a useful skill), letting a flat has too many "variables". Syed then criticised Tuan for using too many "financial terms" when selling, like "consultant" and "variables". Now I'm no economist, but they don't sound like financial terms to me.

Ruth came into her own once again, with a Brummie war cry of "In comes the Badger!" She closed five of Invicta's six deals (or leads) and did so through sheer, hard-hatted confidence. I'll have to check but I think I picked her out of the herd early on, and I congratulate myself for doing so. She's such a winner that even when she wound up on the losing team - and, by dint of numbers, up before the beak with Syed and Tuan - she was given an official reprieve by Sir Alan, who gave her the thumbs-up for admitting she's in this for herself. So, Syed and Tuan sweated, while Velocity went off for a cookery course with Raymond Blanc at what Sir Alan believes is called "Le Memoir", but is actually called Le Manoir (good idea: give Paul and Ansell more rich food - let's hope Paul didn't spill anything on any of those elaborately badged rugby shirts with the collars turned up for maximum drink-your-own-vomit effect). Tuan's minutes were numbered. As project leader, he had again failed to project or lead, and though fluent in his defence, had nothing of any coherence to say. Why should Sir Alan hire him? "Because I won't start three steps back." No, you won't start at all. Syed once again proved incapable of shutting up, even when Sir Alan warned him, and he even tried to talk after Tuan had been fired!

The big question is: did Sir Alan call Ruth "dear" in the boardroom, or was he just saying "here" in that special East End barrow-boy accent of his?

As the numbers are reduced, so is the programme, like a fine Raymond Blanc sauce at Le Memoir.


Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven
Week Eight

Bring on the backlash!



The end of innocence. The day we travelled to Bournemouth to see Arctic Monkeys play an arena for the first time. It's been a short, strange trip, watching as Arctic Monkeys turned from a genuine fanbase phenomenon to a national newspaper story to what they are now: a major international band, too big for the smaller venues where people fell in love with them. We caught onto them late - I've never been too cool to admit that - after the London Astoria gig that cemented their reputation, before they had their first number one; but once we'd downloaded all the demos and live tracks, we circumnavigated their ballooning success by getting tickets for a gig in Cologne at a tiny club called the Underground in November. It remains a magical memory: we could see the whites of their eyes (and their whiteheads, actually), it was like an away match, except for a team from the lower divisions; we bonded with other English fans, sang along, felt the visceral thrill of having travelled to a foreign place to catch a band play and even queued up to see Alex Turner afterwards and paid our respects. ("You were fucking brilliant," were my exact, starstruck words. "Cheers. Thanks a lot," were his in response. He's developed his interview technique a lot since then.)

Since Cologne, we've seen Arctic Monkeys in Dublin (first night of the NME Awards Tour - non-partisan crowd, relatively small, old-theatre venue), Sheffield (utterly partisan crowd, relatively small octagonal venue, basically a college gig) and London (biggest venue thus far, Brixton Academy, very much post-album success, much beer being thrown, lots of new fans, but still exciting, thanks to the venue itself). Bournemouth International Centre, upgraded due to ticket demand, is no place to see Arctic Monkeys. Not on a Bank Holiday Monday.



These photos were taken, by me, in the summer of 2004, when I went to Bournemouth to attend that year's Annual Tony Hancock Appreciation Society Dinner. Little has changed, except the KFC pavement-ads have been worn away by the traffic of chip-eating holidaymakers. The top one shows the Bournemouth Eye, a charmingly low-rent attraction, suitably branded by the local radio station. It's a balloon. You queue up, get in. It goes up. It comes down. Yesterday, as an added bonus, it was buffeted by high winds and looked pretty hairy up there. Bournemouth is one of those places that's stuck in the past but makes overtures to the present, and the two sit uncomfortably side by side. It's still a last resting place for pensioners, but must also attract "young people" or die, hence the appearance of superpubs like Walkabout. When I was here in 2004, I had to make my way back from the dinner, on foot, through the main thoroughfare at chucking-out and chucking-up time. It was like Newscastle-On-Sea. No place for promenading old folk.

This time, it being slightly out of season, there was room to move about the town freely and smell the vinegar and spun sugar, but there was still a hint of booze and danger in the air. And what with all those visiting Arctic Monkeys fans, it was a good day for the Tourist Board. We drove down (an hour and half, door to door, M25-M3-M27-A338, which rather surprised us, and left us with more Bournemouth time to fill than anticipated) and made use of the BIC's excellent parking facilities. We strolled the pier, breathed deeply of the sea air, searched unsuccessfully for a decent restaurant along the main street with restaurants on (all closed except for the pubs and chicken shacks), then struck lucky with a bistro attached to a hotel, the Lampeter, from whose terrace, against a rising breeze, we were able to eat reasonable fish and chips and salad, overlooking Bournemouth's famous gardens. But what of the gig?



The main hall of the BIC seems to hold about 6,700, according their website. Clearly, with an album having almost sold a million in the UK, there are enough fans to fill such a soulless space. Our seats were in the upper tier, K69 and K70, as far away from the Monkeys as we have ever been. This was, if nothing else, a novelty, and we were glad to have a seat while the below-par support acts were on. (For the record, Reverend & The Maker, all deadpan Mancunian swagger and New FADs shapes, were better than Liverpool's The Little Flames, who were like a limp version of Ghost Dance or some other Goth almost-ran from the late 80s - the crowd only really cheered when the useless singer announced their last song. It's a pity Arctic Monkeys didn't try a bit harder with the supports for their first post-album headline tour. What about some of these Sheffield hopefuls we've heard so much about? Whither Milburn?) After a few incidents down in the vast moshpit with security, including the break-up of a fight, which was an ugly thing to see, even from above, and the taunting release of a number of condom balloons in response to a beach ball being confiscated, to venue-wide booing, the band finally came on to riotous, roof-lifting applause. Even from a distance, this was chest-swelling to behold. And they've upped the lightshow ante, with well-chosen backlight and what I hesitate to call "spots", what the band's worrying skin problems at the moment. In all, it's a professional show, good sound, and a relatively generous set-length: that's an hour and ten minutes, a good 20 longer than they were alloted on the NME tour. So what went wrong?

The venue went wrong. Sitting up there, too far away to see the band's faces, with weak-bladdered idiots going to the toilet all the way through the set, squeezing back into their seats like latecoming patrons at a cinema, and people standing up to dance and being firmly advised to sit back down by overworked stewards ("for safety reasons," according to the signs - the same "safety reasons" that disallowed us from even taking water into the venue in a plastic bottle, another reason for security to have to constantly roam the auditorium, like a BIC KGB). I actually don't much like dancing in the tiny area in front of a fold-down seat, and I didn't mind sitting it out, stamping on the floor and banging my knees in time to the music, but the constant to-ing and fro-ing robbed the event of any atmosphere. Also, on another note of sheer geography, it was odd to see Andy, the bass player, standing so far away from Alex and Jamie, as if to make use of the bigger stage. (He threw down his bass at the end and kicked a mic stand, clearly unhappy with what had gone before.) Alex summed it all up with his first comment. Looking up into the vast nothingness, and referring to the upgrade, he said, "Well this is too fucking big."

It was. The band played brilliantly, with Matt metamorphisising into a Rock Drummer before our eyes (at least I think it was Matt, can't be entirely sure from that distance), Jamie occasionally moving from this mark and Alex still muttering to the crowd as if playing a tiny club ("This one's called Scampi And Chips"). Biggest treat - and unexpected, reading reports from previous gigs on the Monkeys forum - was a solo rendition of new song Despair In The Departure Lounge, a plaintive heart-tugger with an arch "Del Boy falling through the bar" reference from the forthcoming EP, and already a favourite in our car. Of course, it being new, and slow, and plaintive, the crowd treated it as an inconvenience before the next hit, and greeted it with what Alex described as "blank faces." Shame, really. It confirms his skills as both a songwriter and a performer, midway between Morrissey and Billy Bragg. (And is appallingly produced on the EP, by the way.)

The drive home was one of mixed feelings. Glad the band have so many fans. Not that keen on some of them. Glad we saw them when we did, where we did. Those days are gone. Looking forward to Brixton Academy, where the thrill will be retained by the sloping floor, the urban excitement and lack of stewards. We listened to the Morrissey album, the Secret Machines album and the Monkeys EP, whose title song (also played tonight), Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?, implores, "Bring on the backlash!"

Not yet. The Monkeys are still big, but the excitement got smaller.

Switch
The time has come. I don't like to preach, so I'll simply lay out the facts as I understand them, and step back. We in the UK need to wean ourselves off non-renewable energy sources. They pollute the air, accelerate climate change (which is already barrelling out of control around our ears) and encourage reliance on centrally-generated systems. Also, one of them is nuclear power, which can't be good, surely? Any power source whose byproduct has to be buried for thousands of years before it's safe can't be an attractive choice. Some things are just wrong and nuclear is it.

In our house, we've recently switched our electrictiy supply from a partly-renewable supplier to Ecotricity, which is unique - it's 100 per cent renewable. You can do other things to save energy like not leave TVs and videos on standby, turn off lights when you're out of the room etc. but how much better to only use wind-powered energy in the first place.

They urge you to pass the message on, so that's what this is. Ecotricity, founded in 1995, has built 17.5MW of new wind energy and currently supplies enough electricity to power 12,000 homes. It's good, but it's not enough. They have 26 further wind turbines approved and ready to build (that's 15,000 more homes), and all they need to do so is sign up more customers. The target is 37,000 customers. Here's the good bit: it doesn't cost a penny more to switch over! To not do so, you would have to have a very good objection. Perhaps you disapprove of big windmills. If so, fair enough, you are entitled to that view.

Anyway, if you're even slightly interested, click on the Ecotricity link and have a read. As you were. Now, back to the reviews of telly programmes.

A tendency for Tennant

Pardon me for the tardiness of this entry, but unlike people who work in banks, I have not had a holiday. I worked, in the sitcom-writing office, all day Friday, then put in a shift on Saturday and Sunday morning, before going to work at 6 Music on both days. It has not been a relaxing Easter - barely time to consider the real reason why we celebrate it. However, there was a resurrection at Saturday teatime (may I call it that? - teatime?): the full-time return of Doctor Who. First episode, second series: New Earth. There are some reviews already up on Outpost Gallifrey, the first stop for anyone more than interested in Doctor Who. Most are positive, with caveats, and, at time of writing, only one really laid into it. Graham Kibble-White's review, lukewarm, is at Off The Telly. I think my views fall somewhere in between.

How well I remember the first episode of the new Doctor Who last year, when Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, under the guiding hand of Russell T Davis, reenergised entire generations of old fans, and sucked in a new one. And as the Autons first attacked, we had a ghostly visitation from a hapless Graham Norton, talking to his director and still miked up from Strictly Dance Fever, which had gone out before. A techinical hitch that should have ruined this momentous occasion, but kind of didn't. It made it all the more exciting.History was made.

The handover from Eccleston to David Tennant seemed so natural and preordained (as in: who better?), it was less of a jolt than it ought to have been to see his debut in the Christmas Invasion special. As such, despite the groaning weight of Radio Times-sponsored hype, seeing him take up his rightful place alongside Rose in the Tardis on Saturday was not so earth-shattering. David Tennant, in a pinstriped suit and long coat: of course. His relationship with Rose was heady from the start - none of the lecturing and doubt that characterised her early days with Eccleston. Indeed, they were like two young lovers when they touched down in the year Something Or Other With A Lot Of Noughts, lazing on the grass, windswept and with the sap rising. When Rose subsequently found her body taken over by the Lady Cassandra (voiced again by Zoe Wannamaker) and proceeded to snog the Doctor, it was a blessed relief. Get a room.

So we like the new Doctor, we like the fizz his arrival has put into Rose, but do we like the story? It was all too reminiscent of previous episode The End Of The World from the last series - deliberately so, of course - where we first met Cassandra and the big old face in the jar (who also made a reappearance in New World, his departure giving Tennant the arch line, "Textbook enigmatic!"). I could have done with something a bit wilder and more original for episode one. (RTD, as we call him, defended this in Confidential on BBC3 - one I didn't make an appearance in - saying he wanted to reassure viewers by putting in recurring characters to counterbalance the shock of a new Doctor. I didn't buy this. What are we, babies?) Too much was crammed in and, due to the one-story-per-episode format of the new Who, it was all too conveniently dispatched and tied up at the end. Compare and contrast with the wham-bang jeopardy-and-rescue climax of the first episode of the last series, featuring the Nestene Consciousness under the London Eye. Doesn't compare. This episode frankly lurched: it looked both stunning (the vast pod chamber housing the human guinea pigs) and cheap (the hospital sets), and was both frightening (the release of the zombie-like guinea pigs) and daft (the multi-coloured vaccines). I accept the new emphasis on camp and comedy, but for my money, it leaned too much on Crackerjack style verbals and shoehorned-in modern references, like the word "Chav", which I doubt will survive that many billion years into the future.

At the end of the episode, I still liked Tennant, and I still like Doctor Who - to which I'll be tuning in, same time, next Saturday - but for a series opener, it was a bit silly, and a bit reliant on past glories. Next week's - Queen Victoria, werewolves - looks a whole lot better.

I never much liked the Two Fat Ladies with their dirty fingernails and, at least in the case of Clarissa Dixon-Wright, the unsavoury views on foxhunting, but the Hairy Bikers - clearly forged on the same anvil by enterprising BBC producers - are a breath of fresh air. They are, as it says on the tin, hairy and they ride motorbikes. Simon King is the larger, bear-like, blond-bearded one from Newcastle (apparently a first assistant director and locations manager for film and television, recently working on the Harry Potter films), something akin to a Northeastern cross between Jerry off of ER and Chuck Aspegren, the real-life Pennsylvania steelworker cast in The Deer Hunter. David Myers is from Barrow-in-Furness, balding and slightly less beardy who, ironically, was a steelworker who joined the BBC as a make-up artist, specialising in prosthetics. They appear to be mates, but I'll be prepared to find out that they they'd never met before the pilot. They certainly have a matey chemistry as they ride around the world in search of local delicacies that they can rustle up in some tin cans over a candle on a plank of wood. Like all the best TV cooks, they love their grub. This week's episode in Turkey saw our boys knock up a Sultan's delight with stuff like char-grilled aubergines, Kasseri cheese, grated courgette, Yorkshire puddings spiced with cumin and allspice (Dave loves allspice), and a big old pot of lamb.

I can add nothing more profound to my appraisal, other than to say: it's nice when two new genuine enthusiasts come along. It's what the BBC does best.

The Apprentice: Week Eight

[SPOILER ALERT! . . .]

Down to seven, and one of the very finest episodes. Task: to choose two prototype product designs from some design hopefuls (no takers for the giant, fluffy banana hammock then) and flog to "the trade", just like Sir Alan's been doing for 40 years with his "ugly mush". Velocity - a sort of business-hopeful version of Tight Fit with Ansell flanked by Ruth and Michelle - picked what seemed like loss leaders to me: a Sputnik-style coat stand that fitted into a cardboard tube but had to be assembled in front of potential clients and an eighty-three quid concrete light. Meanwhile, Invicta - its gender bias very much in the other direction with Sharon taking up the "nicey nicey" slack against at least two bull elephants, Syed and Paul, and the "patsy" Tuan, who was later to admit to Sir Alan that he fills the jobs other people don't want to do - plumped for a revolutionary no-spill-no-overfill petrol can (which looked to me like the very fibreglass thing you see at product design degree shows that will never, ever feel the underside of a price gun) and a nifty looking shelf unit, or at least nifty if you just want to display a magazine, an air freshener and a candle. One priceless furniture dealer tore off the emperor's new clothes by saying, "It's bent metal." They had until a very specific 6.30pm to sell as many of these Wilf Lunn-style objets d'uselessness as their bullshit could carry to "the trade".

Syed seemed to sense that this was his last chance and threw himself into his specialist "skill set", ie. going for the kill, closing a deal and telling people he's from the East End. That, and being Syed, or "The Liar" as Sir Alan's aide Margaret christened him back at the table. He ignored Sir Alan's advice not to try to sell to the big retailers, targeting B&Q, Sainsbury's and Texaco, who, amazingly, told him to write them a letter. Eventually, he talked his way into some rich bloke's house in Lewisham, who put his name down for 300 petrol cans, lighting up the faces of Syed and Tuan like Victorian urchins at Christmas. Unfortunately, it meant that they didn't get back to base for 6.30 and the team were penalised by 25 per cent of their takings, despite Syed's convincing excuse of bad traffic ("all the roads were closed" - all of them?).

Velocity's gamble paid off, as well-targeted independent retailers on the Fulham Road for shoppers-with-more-money-than-sense liked the stupid coat stand and the lights that improve with being knocked about and chipped (a USP valiantly pushed by Ruth, who didn't believe it any more than we did). They only fucked up once, when thinking too big and being told by the owner of nine stores that he was prepared to take the hat stand but not pay for it, as the designer was lucky to have one in each of his shops. Michelle and Ruth called him a "wanker" as they left, when in fact they were the "wankers". I can't remember what Ansell did, but he did it, and the team won a day of facials at a "top" health spa. At least these three seem to like each other's company.

Unlike Invicta, whose internal animosity wouldn't fit on a dozen bent-metal shelves. Paul made the funniest faces in the boardroom and was rightly spared the final reckoning. That was down to The Liar, The Planner and The Whinger. (Only a woman, Sharon, would be accused of whingeing. If a bloke was doing it, he would be accused of interrogating an idea. Sir Alan really doesn't like women. He thinks they're nice and nice is for wimps.) It's easier if Syed thinks you're shit and tells you so in public. If he quite likes you, as he does with Tuan ("You were a soldier!"), the betrayal is more euphemistic and ultimately more depressing: "He can plan, but he can't sell."

I had hoped Syed was going. He caused Sir Alan to tell him to shut up three times, but walked away by dint of having less ovaries than Sharon, whose days have been numbered since the private jets. Sir Alan fired her because she is the wrong gender. Retaining her dignity, she did not whinge.

I loved it when Paul, having failed to shift some bent metal to a camp shop-owner who goes to the gym too much, observed that "these kind of people need a kick up the arse." Did he mean furniture retailers, Londoners or gays? Either way, "they're always reading books, drinking coffee and eating croissants." Not like back home in the North, eh, Paul, where people only read the Racing Post, drink beer and eat coal. Prick.

I hope Ruth wins. And if it's true that Michelle and Syed "got it on" during the filming of the series, she's off the bottom of my chart. I hope he gave it 110 per cent and proved that he is the best performer. Shut up! Shut up!


Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven

Thoughts on Chilli
The title quote comes from Ahmed, a Moroccan cab driver who often drives me home from Redhill station of an evening. (My routine is to walk to the station in the morning, a 30-minute walk, and cab it home after a hard day.) I get a cab home from Redhill so often, especially with working in London six or even seven days a week at a time currently, certain among the regular drivers know me. A handful, the friendliest, the ones who chat, ask me how I am, and I ask them back and we fall in to conversation during the five minutes the journey takes. Ahmed, whose name I only know because of his driver ID, is so familiar he seems professionally insulted if I tell him the name of my street. "I know," he will say, usually adding, "my friend," as that's the way he talks. I know he was born in Morocco as he was reminiscing about how much simpler life was then. About a week and a half ago, as we agreed that the longer daylight hours were good for the soul, he said, philosophically, "The seasons go and come." The phrase has stayed with me.

Chilli's passing, last Sunday, was all too sudden. The pain her absence causes just proves that for such a small cat, she exerted a massive presence in the house. (We knew this already, and didn't need her taking away from us to prove it.) Very few people really knew Chilli, as she was shy, shier than Pepper, although neither liked visitors much, due, we think, to being traumatised by lesbians as kittens. (No offence to our old neighbours when we lived in the flat in Streatham, but their love of cats led one of them to pick Chilli up while cooing over them, at which she leapt five feet to the ground and scarpered back to the saftey of the bedroom, scarred for life.) The pair of them would retreat to the bedroom whenever foreign voices entered the house. Especially if the voices belonged to children. Only Pepper might emerge, tentatively, hours later, but even she preferred it to be the four of us. As such, heating engineers or other single visitors might meet Peps, but rarely Chilli. She was not a lap cat. But neither was she aloof, just quiet, considered and wise. When she wanted a play-fight with her sister, or a mad moment in the garden, or a game chasing small, rolled-up corners of paper flicked by us, she would get it. And because she was less vocal than Pepper, any sound she did make was cherishable: the tuna song, the warning before she leapt up on the surface, the bird-watching chirrup, the occasional announcement. It's only now that she's been gone a whole week that we truly appreciate how big these small gestures were. We couldn't haved loved her more.

Showing no outwards signs of illness, it seems she had a heart defect of some kind, which caused the blood clot, which caused her to lose the use of her back legs, suddenly, on waking up from a serene, curled-up sleep on the sofa after Green Wing last Friday night. It was, of course, horrifying to witness, normality snatched cruelly away, confusion, distress. I won't detail her last hours, needless to say, the epilogue to a happy, loved and active life involved vets, intervention, hope and an unecessary drive (she hated the car). I'd rather not think about the Saturday and the Sunday, which is not denial, just a choice. Grief has brought with it guilt and anger, but these must fade. She was only ten, too young to die. We were counting on a lot more of her. Pepper is bearing up incredibly well, but still looks for her sis.

I have had to work every day since last Friday, whether broadcasting or writing a funny sitcom with Lee, and it's been hard. I have felt distant, disconnected and physically run down, tired, sore throat, mouth ulcers. There is a picture of Chilli on my mobile. Although you have to welcome distraction, it also seems somehow disrespectful for any kind of normality to be resumed. (Anyone who's been through the grieving process will recognise this.) I keep looking out at the willow tree, which has just started to show green. That's why I took a photo of it. Chilli would sometimes dash out, with the wind up her backside, as we used to say, and run straight up the tree. It was an incredible sight, reminding me of her adventurous spirit when we first moved to a house with a garden and they experienced the outside for the first time. Up the tree she went. I had hoped, and expected, to see her do it again now that the summer was approaching. But seasons go and come.

Two new US dramas: dismissed



This was rubbish.



And so was this. That's a relief. We've got enough things to watch as it is.

. . . There will be people out there, perhaps a great many, who will think of you as a hero. I just don't for a moment want you thinking I'll be one of them.



Friday night gives you Wings

Green Wing, Channel 4, 9pm
The West Wing, More4, 10pm
A purely coincidental constellation of programmes, but both leaders in their field: a British comedy that's original and addictive and way too long, and a US drama that's impeccable and intelligent and doomed. Episode 2 of Green Wing was a massive improvement on last week's shaky first. Though some plot percolates - Caroline's unrequited love for Mac, Sue's covert self-impregnation with Mac's sperm, Martin's romance with Karen - it's the interaction of the characters that keeps it ticking over. There is no narrative arc with Boyce's baiting of Dr Statham, but it continues to entertain. (Incidentally, Mark Heap provided some tip-top physical comedy this week when confiscating Boyce's "potty putty" - harking back to his physical cabaret roots in the Two Marks, who used to juggle and unicycle in the old school Arts Council style.) I know it's not to everyone's taste, but the sheer stupidity of Sue wearing a large squirrel head reminds me of the penguin wandering the corridors in Gregory's Girl and that can be no bad thing.

The West Wing is, of course, dying before our eyes, playing out its final series in grand style. As Bartlett's presidency winds down and his hair whitens, the Santos campaign takes centre stage. This is OK, but it leaves me, as a big fan of Will and CJ and Toby and Margaret and Kate and even Annabeth, with little to hang on to, which is why last night's episode, the melancholy number 5, Here Today was a tonic. More White House-based, it was all about the revelation of who leaked the NASA story to the New York Times (deliberate shades of Plamegate). If you don't want to know the answer (and they dummied me), LOOK AWAY NOW . . .

It was Toby. They handled it brilliantly, by whom I mean writer Peter Noah and writer-turned-director Alex Graves (who really threw some shapes, framing simple stuff like Toby and Babish in an incredibly dramatic way, with deep focus throughout - you never really notice the direction, it just moves along at a lick and never misses a corner, but this episode had a real Hopper-esque beauty, if that doesn't sound too pretentious). I was actually starting to nod off midway through, thanks to a general grief-linked tiredness, but when Toby was summoned, against counsel's wishes, to see the President, I sat bolt upright. How will we live without this magnificent programme? I may have to start watching it again from the beginning.

The Apprentice: Week Seven

[SPOILER ALERT! . . .]

I'm remembering the visceral excitement from last year when you get down to the last eight. Sharon and Michelle, once almost an interchangeable double act, were split up, on account of Michelle not having been Project Manager. In a neat piece of choreography for the fashion task, she and Tuan (the only other PM virgin) were made captains, with the team of three getting to choose who they'd most like to work under, putting Michelle in charge of my-personal-favourite-again Ruth, the all-too-genial Ansell and plank-walking Samuel.

Meanwhile, smooth-talking Syed, ineffectual Tuan and cocky Paul got to patronise Sharon, even though she was the only one with fashion experience. They sidelined her when choosing their lines for the Top Shop sell-off, and Tuan's negotiating genius ensured that they somehow managed to allow Ruth to take exactly which lines her team wanted (the catwalk-hot "Gothic" and "Admiralty", a word very few of them could actually say), while he came away with seconds. Now that's what I call sleight of mouth. (To use the correct pronunciation of his name, it was a case of, "Tuan" - "You certainly have been".) This put Sharon into a sulk, which Syed complained was bad for morale, and when they finally got to the shop floor, she quite understandably took her ball home and refused to make any fashion decisions for useless Tuan. "I don't know" - that is his catchphrase.

Treats from the task itself included Michelle skiving off in the VIP area and selling a thirty quid skirt to three timewasting French tourists after an hour and a half of buttering them up and feeding them miniature bottles of champagne; Ruth once again proving her licks in the cold, hard act of selling shit to people; Syed ogling a seemingly willing female customer in the pink changing rooms; Ansell and Samuel in their New Romantic scarves (that is so not a good look!); Syed annoying Paul with his "fucking skinny jeans"; toad-like Top Shop boss Philip Green gracing the shopfloor and asking for a hundred quid's worth of outfit - while Ansell fucked about, Ruth admirably came up with one and was then criticised because it only came to sixty-six quid. This bit was worth the price of admission just to see Sir Alan in a state of awe in the presence of the retail king.

Again, a few quid separated the two teams in the final count, and Michelle's team lost. The victors went off to a country house hotel for hot tubs and clay pidgeon shooting, a prize presumably tainted for Sharon, who must surely despise every one of the three blokes she had to spend it with, despite Syed's pathetic attempt at peacemaking, his toast conceding that she looked very glamorous in her dress. (Actually, for a fashion "expert", poor Sharon looks quite horrible in most things she wears and needs Trinny and Susannah to sort her out.)

Michelle should obviously have taken Ansell and Samuel back in to the boardroom for the kill, but, in an overt play for Sir Alan's sympathy, she took his advice and let Ansell off the hook in favour of her mate Ruth (whom he had pilloried mercilessly just because she didn't impress his boyfriend Philip Green). It was never going to be Ruth. As long as she's selling shit, Ruth is the only truly competent female apprentice, mirrored only by Paul. If one of these goes in the next few weeks, it will be a miscarriage of justice. I have even learned to like Ruth's boardroom bulldog scowl. We're in the groove of Sir Alan's sense of drama now, and if he gives one of the three a lengthy dressing down, usually the PM, it's always one of the other two who gets fired. Today, after a beating for absentee-manager Michelle, but with every justification, it was Samuel, whose catchphrase, "Can I just finish speaking?" was finally answered. Yes, you can finish speaking. In the cab.

There are still too many makeweights left. The non-micromanaging Michelle did herself no favours today. Tuan likewise. Syed, like a wounded and frightened animal, has stopped the flipchart bullshit and resorted instead to swearing. He'll take on any fucker in the house. He may have to.


Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six

Martin, formerly drummer with The Wonder Stuff, has died after a motorbike accident, aged just 41. In what is already a sad week, I feel upset about this, as I spent a lot of quality time with the band in the early 90s, on the road in Europe and America. Martin was a gentle soul, who was brave, sensitive and singleminded enough to consent to be interviewed specifically about his wife, Penny, and son, Barney, in Select in 1993. I don't think the rest of the band thought it was such a good idea, but Martin was his own man. Our thoughts are with his family.



You can post condolences here

Chilli
1996-2006




















I don't want to go into any detail. Suffice to say, we loved her, and we will always love her. God bless you, my sweet.

Two DVDs with an Eastern European theme


Night Watch
The most expensive film in Russian history, released there in 2004, where it broke all box office records, and in the rest of the world in 2005, thanks to distribution by 20th Century Fox. It's a cross between Lord Of The Rings and Blade Runner, a vision of the present in Moscow based on the notion that a centuries-old truce between Light and Darkness is about to be broken. It's visually arresting, with more camera trickery and strange editing than Green Wing, and the look of a graphic novel (even though it's based on a non-graphic novel), and you can't help but be awed by some of the showboat stuff, like the sequence in which the camera follows the downwards trajectory of a single rivet, popped from the panel on the side of an airliner, as it descends to earth and plops down an air vent, only to end up in a coffee mug. Sadly, such wizardry does not necessarily a satisfying narrative make, but it's a good ride. The DVD offers a dubbed version as well as a subtitled one. The latter has to be preferable, as what's the point of watching a Russian film and not being able to savour the crunchy sounds of the language?


Everything Is Illuminated
Not a Russian film, an American one, directorial debut of actor Liev Schreiber, but one that's set in Ukraine, as novelist, vegetarian and "collector" Jonathan Safran Foer (played by the big-eyed, upside-down-eyebrowed Elijah Wood) travels there, in his suit, to discover who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Actually, I've found out that it was shot in the Czech Republic, but the effect is the same: endless arable land, high sunflowers, dirt roads disappearing into the horizon, great fields of wheat, reminding me of that great Woody Allen speech in Love And Death: "The crops, the grains. Fields of rippling wheat. Wheat. All there is in life is wheat. Oh, wheat! Lots of wheat! Fields of wheat. A tremendous amount of wheat!" It's a road movie, and one that doesn't quite hang together, but nevertheless throws up some poignant and funny moments, thanks to the performance of Eugene Hutz, lead singer in real life with Gogol Bordello, who recently passed through the 6 Music Chart, as Safran Foer's translator ("Many girls want to be carnal with me as I am such a premium dancer").

Didn't get to the end of this film as we were tired out.

Green Wing ready

After a Channel 4 build-up that would make even The IT Crowd jealous, Green Wing returned this evening. My experience of watching it has been retropsectively tainted by what happened to one of our cats almost immediately afterwards (more news on that when we know what's happening), but I'll try to be objective about the programme.

I loved the first series, pretty much from note one. The speeded-up-slowed-down camerawork never irritated or distracted me, as it did some people, indeed it struck me as emblematic of the show's storming self-confidence and willingness to bend the rules. The hour long episodes much surely create as many headaches for the writers as opportunities, but I've never sat through one thinking, "They're padding this one out a bit." At the end of the day, an eight-episode run is the equivalent of 16 half-hour sitcoms, and we're banging our heads on the wall trying to write six. So all credit to the invention of the writers, led by Victoria Pile, and the fluidity of the direction by Dominic Brigstocke, but let's be honest, the genius is in the performances.

It's a kind of forced naturalism that's become the norm in British TV comedy, from The Office and People Like Us to Man Stroke Woman and The Thick Of It, but that said, Green Wing's lithe and unfettered cast take it to a bendy, stuttering new level. I am particularly fond of Michelle Gomez as Sue White, who seems to be operating within a spin-off programme all of her own, Stephen Mangan as Guy Secretan, who delights in every act of oily arrogance, and Mark Heap as Dr Statham, who has found the perfect outlet for his twitchy Englishness. This first episode, over-dominated by the coma of Dr McCartney and his hallucinations (although you had to love the Star Trek bit), gave everyone plenty to do, and its killer moment occured, as they so often casually do, in the HR office, where everyone was mimicking the pregnant actions of Harriett (Olivia Colman). Top quality clowning.

I have every confidence that Episode Two will be better. I'm in for the series.

Can I just get this off my chest?

Where's the bloody apostrophe? I can just about cope with the band not knowing how to punctuate (they are, after all, pretenders to the Oasis throne, whose titles include Round Are Way and Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants), or the desinger of the sleeve, who's probably in his twenties and thus a victim of the decline of comprehensive education during Thatcherism, but nobody at any stage of the production of the artwork?

Let's assume the title means a law of nature, a law belonging to nature - then it's Nature's Law. If it's a law belonging to many natures, it's Natures' Law. But it's only Natures Law if it's a law pertaining to, but not belonging to, a number of natures (ie. if it was a law pertaining to onions, it might be Onions Law). The lyric runs: "You should never fight your feelings/When your very bones believe them/You should never fight your feelings/You have to follow nature's law."

I rest my case, and weep for the future of mankind.