Thoroughly enjoyed seeing Strictly Come Dancing through to the end this year (despite the inordinate amount of filler required to pad out the final to well over two hours - how many times does anyone need to see that montage of the finalists' previous dances and rehearsal-room tears?). It was only when they introduced last year's winner, Mark Ramprakash, who I have confirmed is a cricketer, that I realised I must not have watched it last year. This will be because I was doing my radio show on a Saturday, I expect. I definitely watched bits, if not all of the first three series, because I remember Natasha Kaplinsky and Claire Sweeney and the elegant Zoe Ball and Julian Clary being voted back in despite his lack of ballroom dancing ability, proving that the public vote with their hearts, not their heads.

This last aspect - the "human factor"" - is, one assumes, why the men always do so well (I think it was an all-male final last year): the granny vote! Well, this year's winner, Alesha Dixon, formerly of Mis-Teeq, was a deserving one. She was easily the best dancer of the run, and - so I learned over the weekend - not professionally trained, which I had assumed, her being a pop singer and all. Good on her. Matt Di Angelo should have been disqualified for looking like a scruffy bastard with that facial hair anyway.

The reason I mention the show, which I like for reasons unprofound, is that the final reached new levels of vacuity. Every contestant or friend/relative of contestant interviewed used the phrase "journey" to describe what had been some ballroom dance training. I've noticed this a lot in 2007. One can no longer have an experience; one must go on a "journey". Thus, Alesha Dixon did not perform an increasing number of different dances on telly over 12 weeks; she went on an incredible "journey." Equally, Matt Di Angelo, formely of EastEnders (although I've no idea who he played), did not perform an increasing number of different dances on telly over 12 weeks, only to be beaten on the night, he went on an amazing "journey". (Presumably, his "journey" wasn't as good as Alesha's, since it ended in defeat on national television, but it was a "journey" nonetheless - a bit like going on holiday, which is also a "journey" and finding out your hotel doesn't look like it did on the website.)

I think we can guess where this new obsession with "journeys" come from. The United States of America, perhaps? The world of therapy, perhaps? (I have absolutely nothing against therapy, by the way, and am in fact fascinated by human psychology, but when phrases like "journey" and "closure" seep into everyday language, I fear for the future efficacy of therapy itself. You're going to get patients turning up and talking about their "journey" as if they know what they're talking about.) It's been weird since the death of Princess Diana and the first flush of success in the country of Jerry Springer, to see a nation mutate from monosyllabic emotionally constipated introverts to one of externalising, emotionally incontinent extroverts, where a problem aired is a problem halved, and if a confession of infidelity or sexual malpractice isn't made on television, it hasn't been made at all. Who knew we British would get so good at talking about how we feel? In many ways, this is healthy. But we are in danger of going too far, and bestowing unimportant, mundane, easily-explained experiences with psychological and emotional significance that they don't merit.

Not everything we do is a "journey". I've just wrapped some Christmas presents. It wasn't a "journey". It was a task. I went to Waitrose yesterday: now that was a journey. But not a "journey". The year is coming to a close. It's been an experience with ups and downs in it, a few changes, a few new things, a few old things - but it's not necessary to analyse it as a whole and discover what kind of "journey" it's been.

Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest. I needed closure on it.

Labels: celebrity, journey, tv

Let's just run through some of the best things of 2007, lest this potentially oppressive and wrongheaded time of year get us down. I've done singles and albums, but these are a few of the cultural and social equivalents of the life-affirming pied wagtail:

Books
Rumsfeld: An American Disaster by Andrew Cockburn
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - quite the most depressing novel I think I've ever read in my life, but compelling like no other
Fiasco by Thomas E Ricks
Al Qaeda by Jason Burke (came out in 2006 in hardback, but let's not quibble) - I had this in my bag when I was stopped and searched last week under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The police officer didn't see it.
Bit Of A Blur by Alex James
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - short but sweet
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein - actually I'm still in the process of reading this (it's my bedside read, which is often the slowest of my on-the-go books, as I tend to go to bed to go to sleep), but it's proving a powerful join-the-dots exercise
Shepperton Babylon by Matthew Sweet
The Damned Utd by David Peace - another oldie, but I'm catching up with this exciting British-born, Tokyo-based writer, and enjoying GB84 at the moment
Imperial Life In The Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran - also halfway through, but considering how much other reading I've done on the Iraq war this year, it adds a refreshing perspective by focusing on one aspect of the fiasco
Believe In The Sign by Mark Hodkinson - he sent me a copy of it, as he's a self-publisher, which is in itself admirable, and I get sent a lot of books on a nostalgia/memoir theme which aren't always worth reading, but this one, about supporting Rochdale in the 70s, is
Tescopoly by Andrew Simms
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
Jamie At Home by Jamie Oliver - a cook book I've actually used

Films (because they come out on DVD so quickly now, some of these are already available on DVD, but if I start including DVDs we'll end up with last year's list of best films, and there will be no demarcation between one year and the next - and then where will we be?!)
The Lives Of Others - a tie for Film Of 2007 with ...
Control
Tell No One
Hot Fuzz
The Bourne Ultimatum
Letters From Iwo Jima
Zodiac
Sicko
Michael Clayton
3:10 To Yuma
Knocked Up
This Is England
Half Nelson

TV programmes
Cranford, BBC1 - thought I'd throw something homegrown in at the top, before we turn into the 51st State of Televisual America
The Mighty Boosh, BBC3 - haven't had time to write about the third series yet, but I think it may be their best; certainly their most cohesive and together, and the episode about Howard's birthday was almost Seinfeldian in the way the plot strands met up at the end
Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib, C4
Comics Britannia, BBC4
Heroes, Sci-Fi, then BBC2
The Sopranos, E4, C4 - the final Season was elegiac, slow, confident and magnificent; also, not in any way predictable
The Wire, FX - in my opinion, Season Four was as good as any that have gone before, right up there with Season Two
Californication, Five - I note that this is not everybody's cup of tea and I don't watch it for the scenes of a sexual nature, it's Duchovny who carries it
Entourage, ITV2 - can't believe I'm so late with this: loving Season Three, and now into Season One on DVD
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
The Riches, Virgin 1 - truly, an acquired taste, but one I've been more than prepared to acquire - unlike Dexter and 30 Rock and Ugly Betty, which failed to ring the appropriate bells and made Sky+ life a little easier to manage
Britz, C4 - not perfect, but as good as way as any to prove that C4's still got it, drama-wise, in its 25th birthday year
Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, C4 - can't watch The F Word, but this is Gordon doing something useful
Monarchy, BBC1 - documentary series of the year
Malcolm & Barbara, ITV1 - one-off documentary of the year; its images may never leave me (what a shame it was entangled in the "fakery" rows - a piece of publicity-chasing that should have been beneath everyone involved)
Strictly Come Dancing, BBC1 - the crown prince of talent shows, it shouldn't have worked, but it does, chiefly because it's about ability and learning and self-improvement, and these are not bad things to find in a BBC programme at this difficult time. Unlike Big Brother, which I watched all the way through this year, witnessing some people ballroom dancing for coins and compliments does not make me feel dirty afterwards
Saxondale, BBC2 - sitcom improves in second series: not an easy trick to pull off
Jamie At Home, C4
[I'm bound to have forgotten a few TV shows, so chuck a few more into the pot]

Live events
Carter USM reunion, Brixton Academy - specifically, singing along at the tops of our lungs to The Impossible Dream
Marcus Brigstocke & Friends, Canizaro Park, Wimbledon - part of a local festival it brought together an amazing lineup of Brigstocke, Jeff Green, Rich Hall, Adam Hills and compere Shappi Khorsandi: weird layout, constant drizzle, it being the summer, but a fine crowd and a good time had by all
Aracde Fire, Brixton Academy - do I only go to gigs at Brixton Academy? It seems so; a quasi-religious occasion
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, Royal Albert Hall - My First Ballet, and a minor revelation, not least the fantastic percussion of toes on wood, which I wasn't expecting
Porgy & Bess, Savoy Theatre - made doubly thrilling for the unexpected chance to see Clarke Peters (he plays Lester Freamon on The Wire) live
Guys & Dolls, Piccadilly Theatre
Live Earth, BBC - only joking, it was shit beyond belief; I actually preferred Concert For Diana

Highs
Winning the RTS Breakthrough award and the Rose D'Or for the unfashionable sitcom Not Going Out (plus two untelevised British Comedy Awards)
Appearing on Richard & Judy for the first - and, it seems, last - time
Becoming Mark Kermode's regular understudy on News 24 (next slot: January 4)
Attracting goldfinches, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, robins, greenfinches, starlings and the occasional woodpecker to my bird feeders (with the odd wren pecking around on the ground)
The lost child benefit CDs and the fact that this howling error may have torpedoed Labour's hopes of bringing in ID cards
All those pheromones I released at the gym
The Day The Music Died
Cancelling MySpace
Ignoring Facebook


Alright, just for balance:

Lows
Constant headaches from orchestrated lobbying and cowardly abuse on this blog
BT meltdown
Losing my old laptop in flooding (although I like my new one better)
The BBC phone-in "scandals" and the glee with which certain quarters of the media met the news of resultant job losses (including that of my friend Leona)
Driving through the West End of London after 1am, following stints on 6 Music, and realising just how many businesses leave their lights on all night - it really is business as usual isn't it?
Deciding to stop taking the Guardian on grounds of its conservative views on medicine, then having to go back as the Independent was just boring - ah well! So much for the principled stand!
Having the blog described by someone called Stella on the 6 Music message boards as "lots of poorly-written TV reviews" - actually, this made me smile!
Anticlimactic publication of That's Me In The Corner, accompanied by almost no reviews and through-the-floor sales (but thanks to those who sought it out in darkened corners of bookshops and actually enjoyed it)

High/Lows
Leaving 6 Music in March after five years. I was sad to go, but at the same time it was liberating, not having to project unbiassed BBC views any more, and as for getting my weekends back - sweet!

Happy Christmas and may your God go with you!

Labels: books, films, gigs, music, tv

My Favourite Songs Of 2007
Not controversial. I don't think it's been a vintage year for albums, but there have been some truly great tracks that give me hope that, for all the stodgy, stompalong indie in the Top 30 and bands like the Corteeners being feted as the next big thing, we're not going through a fallow period like we did in 2001-02. I'll go for a Top 35 and see what happens. Bear in mind I have yet to hear the new Wu Tang Clan album, which may alter everything*. I'll put them in order but frankly, after the Top 10, I like them all very much, and being 21 or 22 is pretty much random. I look forward to your own suggestions, and apologise, once again, for Comments Moderation, especially over the weekend when I'm away from my desk. All will come through on Monday morning, if not before.

1 Foundations Kate Nash (Made Of Bricks)
2 Golden Skans Klaxons (Myths Of The Near Future)
3 Archangel Burial (Untrue)
4 All I Need Radiohead (In Rainbows)
5 History Song The Good, The Bad & The Queen (The Good, The Bad & The Queen)
6 Liquid Lives Hadouken! (single)
7 No Cars Go Arcade Fire (Neon Bible)
8 The Creeps Camille Jones vs Fedde LeGrand (single)
9 Grand Canyon Tracey Thorn (Out Of The Woods)
10 Babylon's Burning The Ghetto Lethal Bizzle (Back To Bizznizz)
11 Go Tell The Women Grinderman (Grinderman)
12 Keys Open Doors Clipse (Hell Hath No Fury)
13 Men's Needs The Cribs (Men's Needs, Women's Needs)
14 My Moon My Man Feist (The Reminder)
15 Here Comes That Day Siouxsie (Mantaray)
16 Cartoon Dad Jim Bob (A Humpty Dumpty Thing)
17 Ocean Of Noise Arcade Fire (Neon Bible)
18 On Call Kings Of Leon (Because Of The Times)
19 Illegal Attacks Ian Brown(The World Is Yours)
20 Old Yellow Bricks Arctic Monkeys (Favourite Worst Nightmare)
21 Ice Cream New Young Pony Club (single)
22 Police On My Back Lethal Bizzle (Back To Bizznizz)
23 Behave Charlotte Hatherley (The Deep Blue)
24 The Next Untouchable Cajun Dance Party (single)
25 Lights Go Out Client (Heartland)
26 Is There A Ghost Band Of Horses (Cease To Begin)
27 Boxing Champ Kaiser Chiefs (Yours Truly, Angry Mob)
28 Dream Of Infinity Shitdisco (Kingdom Of Fear)
29 Morden Good Shoes (Think Before Your Speak)
30 We Danced Together The Rakes (Ten New Messages)
31 Not Over Yet Klaxons (Myths Of The Near Future)
32 Hummer Foals (single)
33 Fluorescent Adolescent Arctic Monkeys (Favourite Worst Nightmare)
34 Leap Of Faith Hadouken! (single)
35 Wide Awake The Twang (Love It When I Feel Like This)


If pushed (and as I say, I've heard a lot of albums this year that really didn't fulfill the brief of a great album, not Jamie T, not The Rakes, not even Band Of Horses or Ian Brown - lots of promise, and lots of fine moments, but not the full album's worth of magic):

My Favourite Albums Of 2007

1 Made Of Bricks Kate Nash
2 Untrue Burial
3 Myths Of The Near Future Klaxons
4 Neon Bible Arcade Fire
5 Favourite Worst Nightmare Arctic Monkeys
6 In Rainbows Radiohead
7 The Good, The Bad & The Queen The Good, The Bad & The Queen
8 Hell Hath No Fury Clipse
9 Runout Groove Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Tiime
10 Reformation Post TLC The Fall

*I went into HMV to buy this on Monday, the day it came out, and they had sold out. I asked an assistant, who admitted that somebody had ordered 12 copies instead of 112. I've since ordered it from Amazon and it hasn't come yet. It seems to be a bit of a curate's egg, so we'll keep an open mind.

Labels: music

Unbelievable. Apologies to anybody who comes here regularly, but the previous post descended into puerile abuse and I was forced to shut it down temporarily (for the record, unless he/she was also posting anonymously, this had nothing to do with "Stockhausen and Waterman", none of whose comments I had to remove). This keeps happening. I'm going to continue blogging, but I'm going to have to leave Comment Moderation on, as I'm spending half my time removing anonymous abusive posts at the moment. It's bloody tiresome, and it's taking all the fun out of it. As previously stated, I write stuff on here because I enjoy it. Unfortunately, because it's posted under my own name, and because I operate on the fringes of the public domain, this makes me fair game for abuse. "Collins, you're a fucking knob," ran the contribution that broke the camel's back. How does one respond to that? "No, you are!" I'm sticking with the previous analogy: you're round my house, talking about stuff, and if you're round my house, you have a bit of respect for me, and for others. This is not a forum. Bad Science is a forum. The Comedy Forum is a forum. The British Sitcom Guide. Comment Is Free. Any number of BBC forums. But you have to register to join a forum, and you can be thrown out. Anybody can post on here, under any pseudonym they like, with no comeback, no email address. It's actually more open than a forum. So the only way to stop a decent dialogue descending into abuse or just childish idiocy is to regulate it. I do so with a heavy heart, as it will involve a queueing system, and goes against my instinct for free speech. But I am so close to being worn down into the ground by it, it's for the best. Those who seek to call me a fucking knob only do so because it's public. If that luxury is taken away, they soon go away. (Calling someone a fucking knob in private is no fun, as who will be impressed if there's no one to see or hear it?)

Labels: abuse, blog, idiots

Finally finished Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks, just in time to call it one of my books of the year. (It was published in hardback last year, so it's officially one of the books of last year, but I read it in paperback this year, so fuck off. I rarely read books in hardback, so my books of the year are always books of last year. Ain't it always the way?) Thomas E Ricks is an American journalist with a sound CV of military reporting behind him - he's currently senior Pentagon correspondent at the Washington Post. This book, dedicated to "the war dead" is an exhaustive account of the occupation of Iraq up to mid-2006. It actually begins with George H W Bush's decision not to remove Saddam Hussein from power in 1991, but concentrates on his idiot son's reign after September 11, 2001, when "everything changed." Ricks constructs his narrative from testimony of everybody from the top down in the US military, quoting emails home from disillusioned grunts and memos sent between departments at the White House and Pentagon. If there is a villain of the piece, it's not George W Bush. He barely features, beyond unconvincingly cheerleading at press conferences and assuring the media that Iraq was going really well. This is not his war.


It's Rumsfeld's war - as set out in even more embarrassing details in Rumsfeld: An American Disaster by Andrew Cockburn, which I've also read and, hey, came out this year! Assisted by Tommy Franks, who certainly aimed to please his masters, if nothing else, it was Rumsfled who underestimated troop numbers, consistently failed to address post-invasion policy (which is why there wasn't one), and overruled the State Department, parachuting in loyal Republicans with no direct experience in the Middle East to help run the Coalition Provisional Authority under Paul Bremer, who also comes out of all this as a prize dick. So many mistakes were made through sheer arrogance: the failure to seal the border with Syria, through which sympathetic fighters poured when the great public order vaccuum was created; the failure to stop looting after the fall of Saddam, which decimated the infrastructure in Baghdad; the break-up of the Iraqi army (something Bremer seemingly ordered without direct say-so from anyone in Washington), causing further unemployment and fuelling the insurgency; the "de-Baathification" of Baghdad, which left the occupiers with only a few surviving Iraqi ministers to play with, despite the fact that under Saddam, many civil servants joined the Baath party because they had no choice and were not necessarily pro-Saddam fanatics; it goes on. As indeed does the occupation, way beyond the end of this book.

You come out of the other end of it not hating the military. How can you, when they are doing the job that is handed down to them? Certain commanders in certain areas of Iraq did a good job of dealing sympathetically with the locals and attempting to build bridges with them, but this good work was so often undone by a new regiment (with different tactics) taking over the same patch. Although Abu Ghraib is the cornerstone own-goal of the whole sorry mess - the flashpoint at which public opinion, even in flag-waving America, turned against the occupation - the impression given is that it really was a few bad apples on the ground. It would be wrong to imagine that all US troops in Iraq were idiot, hotheaded, frankly homoerotic racists. (It still amazes me that servicewomen were involved in prisoner abuse - and have no real defence as to why they either got involved with those awful photos, or stood by while others did. Just goes to show: you shouldn't have preconceptions, good or bad, based on gender.)


I'm now reading Imperial Life In The Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the much-admired book specifically about life inside the Green Zone, where a little America was recreated for those working in the CPA's inner sanctum. This book really brings alive what Ricks constructs through testimony. I realise I am obsessed with the Iraq war, or that must be the impression given. In a way, I am. After September 11, I really resisted the received wisdom that "the world had changed" that day. I resisted it because it seemed like a convenient, wound-licking western media concept, but as time has passed, I've come to realise that, sadly, the world did change. Because when American foreign policy changes, or is allowed to change, the whole world changes with it, such is that country's imperial power. Thus, the occupation of Iraq - botched, bloody, almost humorous in its surreal uselessness - becomes the key event of our times. Global security spreads out from the Middle East, and has done since 1991, when the US struck its bases in Saudi Arabia, and the likes of Osama bin Laden found a new focus for their war against the infidel. The rest is history, as they say.

Interestingly, I was stopped and searched today at the train station by police acting in accordance with our very own Prevention Of Terrorism Act. The stop was courteous and the search pretty flimsy - they looked in my bag, that's all - but it still involved my name, address and date of birth being taken down by an officer of the law, which made me feel indignant, to say the least. They gave me a leaflet, which I read on a bench as I waited for my train. Luckily, I got to the bit that said, "If you are stopped and searched you are entitled to a copy of the form, which is completed at the time of the stop." So I went back to the officer and asked for this. She was again courteous, and finished filling it in, so that she could give me my copy. In the reasons for stopping me, she had entered a section of the Act, mentioned that I was heading on a train into London, and that I was "also carrying a black holdall." This makes me a terrorist suspect. Before September 11, 2001, I don't think it would have. So well done, everybody. The other figure who barely gets a mention in Fiasco, the most complete history of the Iraq war, is Mr Tony Blair, who made anyone with a bag going to London a terrorist suspect with his puppy-dog enthusiasm for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld project. What a shame his legacy goes pretty much unmentioned.

Jay Garner, first "viceroy" of Baghdad, replaced by the hapless Bremer, reported back to Rumsfeld and told him what he - a man on the shop floor - felt had gone wrong. Rumsfeld couldn't care less, saying, "Well, we are where we are, there's no need to discuss it." It was, by the way, retired Marine general Anthony Zinni, former chief, US Central Command, who provided the quote I have used for the headline. Try getting anyone at the Pentagon to nod sagely at that.

These faraway blunders affect us all. (Except: are they really blunders? It's convenient to think of the Bush administration as idiots, but they're not, are they? I just can't see, having read this and the other books on the subject, how the current mess can benefit them? It may even lose the Republicans the 2008 election, and that's no good, is it? Fiasco and Rumsfeld and Emerald City don't comment on the motives of the Bush administration. That's for raving nutters to speculate upon. But they don't paint a pretty picture, and they're Americans.)

Labels: al-qaeda, books, iraq, terrorism, war

So, it's ten years since my biography of Billy Bragg was publlished. I know this because the reason Billy agreed to help me write and research it, thus making Still Suitable For Miners official and authorised, was because, in 1997, he was fast approaching his 40th birthday. This seemed, to him, like a good time to take stock and put his life in order (he was also selling the flat where he kept his archive and putting it all in storage). I'd just left my day job, and was finally in a position, after ten years in offices, to knuckle down and write a book. It all fell into place (and I remain grateful that Billy responded to my well-timed overtures and decided that I was the man for the job, having interviewed him a number of times for the NME and Q). Billy and I spent six months in 1997 travelling around his past and present, from Barking to Oundle to Dublin, and meticulously going through his effects and diaries. He gave generously of his time, as did his partner Juliet, and we came up with what we felt was a definitive book, one that he'd be happy to give to his son Jack when he ready to read it, five years old at the time of publication. Although Billy had no stake in its royalties, he helped promote it, and sold copies of it through his merchandising stall on tour. In all, Still Suitable For Miners was a happy and prosperous experience, and author and subject became friends. Since then, the book's been republished with a new chapter twice, and thanks to ongoing interest in Billy, it could be the gift that goes on giving. Ten years on, and Billy is about to turn 50. On December 20th.

On Sunday, Juliet had persuaded him to mark this milestone by appearing "in conversation" at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. It was a terrific occasion, with Billy actually playing some of the key vinyl records of his early life on an actual record player (Dylan, Clash, Linda Ronstadt, the Watersons, Thin Lizzy), interspersed with warm chat and a few songs on either acoustic or electric guitar, including a couple of new ones, a few very familiar (Levi Stubbs' Tears, New England, There Is Power In A Union) and a real rarity, Riff Raff's Here Comes The Now, which I've certainly never heard him play live before. The hall was full of fans who'd probaby heard most of Billy's stories before, but it didn't stop the evening being personal and amusing and profound in its own way, as this man we'd been listening to for 25 years sat in an armchair, grey of hair and reminisced about half a century. What stopped it being mawkish was Billy himself. After the final song, he thanked everybody who continued to support him, and claimed, with lump in throat, that he only keeps going because of the inspiration he gets from his fans.

In order to force Billy to celebrate his own birthday, the inner circle of associates and family were armed with a laminate (see: above) that got us into the party afterwards. This was, in itself, a rare occasion, in a bar buried underneath the Royal Festival Hall. A chance to see old friends, many of them from the 80s. There were two NME editors in the room: Neil Spencer, now a registered astrologer of course, and Conor McNicholas, who was unsurprisingly tired of talking about Morrissey, but in good spirits otherwise. It was great to see Karen Walter, too, who has been the NME's "editor's secretary" (ie. she runs the office) since Danny Baker still worked there and never ages. She remembered Neil Spencer personally sending her home with a copy of Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy by some bloke called Billy Bragg, telling her it was a life-changing record. It was, and for so many people in that bar on Sunday. Peter Jenner, Tiny Fennimore, Dylan Walsh (Billy's plugger for years, and like so many of those Billy has worked with, a friend of the family now), photographer Steve Double (with whom I did Billy in Amsterdam for the NME in 1992), Jerry Dammers (who told me a tale of bad behaviour by Morrissey at an Artists Against Apartheid gig the Smith played in the mid-80s), Carl Smyth, Ken Livingstone (gig but not party), Riff Raff alumni Wiggy and Ricey, my old colleague Phill Jupitus, who DJed alongside a man I assumed to be a bloke who looked like Paul Weller but who turned out to be ... Paul Weller. What a treat. There was even a cake in the shape of Billy's old Orange amp. It was lovely to see Billy's mum, Marie, too. I'm not sure she remembered me coming round her house in Barking ten years ago to go through a box of Billy's childhood memorabilia in her front room, but I remembered her. She's the only person on earth who still calls him Stephen.

Happy birthday for the 20th, Stephen William Bragg of Barking, Essex.

Labels: arts, Billy Bragg, Morrissey, music, NME

Having debuted last December as Totalshambles, the Official 6 Music Band re-formed this year for our difficult second gig. This time, we were called VCS Soundsystem, which is a 6 Music in-joke that's too dull to explain. From last year's lineup, we retained Jim Simmons on keyboards and vocals, Mike Hanson on guitar, Jude Adam and Nemone on vocals, and myself on drums. Our new bassist was Ian Painter, who's also in Candidate, and we were proud to induct Shaun Keaveney on vocals and guitar, and Zoe Fletcher on vocals. Mr Gideon Coe guested on Garageland, and Tom Robinson guested on his own War Baby, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and Gimme Some Loving, along with Tim Sanders, saxophonist extraordinaire (he's in the Kick Horns - blessed, we were!). We started with Addicted To Love and moved through a variety of covers old and new, cool and uncool: I Predict A Riot, Golden Skans, Kids In America, Video Killed The Radio Star, Lassoo, Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Keaveny's finest hour, with false moustache), My Sharona, Honky Tonk Women, Golden Skans and Waterloo to finish. When I say "difficult second gig", it wasn't really. It was the 6 Music Christmas party at the Loom basement club in Central London. Considering we'd had three rehearsals this year, only one of which had all band members at it, I think we coped admirably. Mike threw Keith Richards shapes, Jim set his keyboard to 80s on more than one occasion, Tom was so good it's almost as if he's a professional singer and has been doing this for 30 years, and "the girls" were on fine form throughout. I made a few basic errors, including ending War Baby a bar too early, and losing a stick, but nobody noticed. You don't play the drums to get noticed. Or captured in many photographs - which is actually a blessing, as I don't look too good when I'm behind a kit. If I can post a bootleg up here, I will. You can see the whole set of photos - if you're a member - on Flickr. (Don't worry if you're not - the best ones are reproduced here.)









And a big hand for Jim, without whose enthusiasm, organisational skills and keyboard wizardry, neither Totalshambles nor VCS Soundsystem would ever have got off the drawing board. Next year, we really must play Jump by Van Halen, rather than just threaten to. (Hey, I'm not really qualified to be in the 6 Music Band this year - who knows whether they'll let me back next year!)



I actually had the time of my life.

Labels: 6 Music, drums, music

Today I made my writing debut in The Daily Telegraph, thanks to a commission that came through yesterday afternoon at 2pm from a man I used to do a bit of work for at British Airways' in-flight magazine High Life (which just goes to show how the media works: one chunk leads to another chunk, as long as you deliver clean copy, on time, to length and with a cheery smile, which I have always been at pains to do). It was quite a buzz: I had two hours to write a 1,200 word "think piece" on DCI Gene Hunt and how he will cope with the early 80s in the forthcoming Life On Mars sequel Ashes To Ashes, which I can't wait to see. There are a couple of on-set pics on Philip Glenister's own website. Anyway, it's good to write something so fast and see it on the newsstands the next morning.

Labels: journalism

So, wish us luck tonight at the first ever untelevised British Comedy Awards! Just my luck to finally get a nomination in the year that ITV drops the show due to the "voting irregularities" that are still under investigation after this summer's wave of premium rate phoneline scandals. Anyway, for your information, these are the nominations:

[NB: I was going to put an asterisk after the nominee I want to win, but I started doing this and it was a flawed project, as of course I want Not Going Out to win, and in some of the categories I am not fussed one way or the other, and I've only seen half an episode of Gavin & Stacey, so can't really judge its merits. Instead I've gone out on a limb and put the asterisk next to the one I think will win ...]

BEST TELEVISION COMEDY ACTOR 2007
DAVID MITCHELL
Peep Show (Objective Productions for Channel 4)
JACK DEE *
Lead Balloon (Open Mike for BBC Four)
KEVIN BISHOP
Star Stories (Objective Productions for Channel 4)
LEE MACK
Not Going Out (Avalon for BBC One)

BEST TELEVISION COMEDY ACTRESS 2007
CATHERINE TATE
The Catherine Tate Show (Tiger Aspect for BBC Two)
LIZ SMITH
The Royal Family: The Queen of Sheba (Granada Productions for BBC One)
RUTH JONES *
Gavin & Stacey/Saxondale (Baby Cow for BBC Three/Baby Cow for BBC Two)

BEST COMEDY ENTERTAINMENT PERSONALITY 2007
ALAN CARR & JUSTIN LEE COLLINS
The Friday Night Project (Princess Productions for Channel 4)
SIMON AMSTELL *
Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Talkback Thames for BBC Two)
STEPHEN FRY
QI (Talkback Thames for BBC Two)

BEST MALE COMEDY NEWCOMER 2007
JAMES CORDEN *
Gavin & Stacey (Baby Cow for BBC Three)
MATHEW HORNE
Gavin & Stacey (Baby Cow for BBC Three)
MATT BERRY
The IT Crowd (Talkback Thames for Channel 4)

BEST FEMALE COMEDY NEWCOMER 2007
JOANNA PAGE *
Gavin & Stacey (Baby Cow for BBC Three)
RUTH JONES
Gavin & Stacey (Baby Cow for BBC Three)
SHARON HORGAN
Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive/Pulling (Jones the Film for BBC Three/Silver River for BBC Three)

BEST NEW BRITISH TELEVISION COMEDY (Scripted) 2007
GAVIN & STACEY
Baby Cow for BBC Three
LEAD BALLOON *
Open Mike for BBC Four
NOT GOING OUT
Avalon for BBC One

BEST TELEVISION COMEDY 2007
GAVIN & STACEY *
Baby Cow for BBC Three
PEEP SHOW
Objective Productions for Channel 4
STAR STORIES
Objective Productions for Channel 4

BEST NEW COMEDY ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME 2007
AL MURRAY HAPPY HOUR *
Avalon for ITV1
FONEJACKER
Hat Trick for E4
THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW
So Television for BBC Two

BEST COMEDY ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME 2007
HARRY HILL'S TV BURP
Avalon Television for ITV1
NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS *
Talkback Thames for BBC Two
THE FRIDAY NIGHT PROJECT
Princess Productions for Channel 4

BEST LIVE STAND UP 2007
ALAN CARR
DARA O'BRIAIN *
SIMON AMSTELL

BEST INTERNATIONAL COMEDY SHOW 2007
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM *
HBO Entertainment for More 4
THE OFFICE: AN AMERICAN WORKPLACE
NBC Universal for ITV2
THE SIMPSONS
Twentieth Century Fox for Sky One / Channel 4

BEST COMEDY FILM 2007
BORAT
20th Century Fox
HOT FUZZ *
Universal
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE
20th Century Fox

Of course, these things are never an exact science, so the fact that Peep Show won last year doesn't necessarily mean it, or David Mitchell, won't win again this year, although it does seem a bit old now. Gavin & Stacey is such a shoo-in for Best TV Comedy, surely that leaves the field open a bit in Best New TV Comedy.

(I have been once before, way back in, I think, 1997, when myself and Stuart's Movie Club was on, and the same production company produced Lily Savage, so we were on Paul O'Grady's table. The main thing I remember, apart from Buster Merryfield tripping up as he walked past our table, is that at the after-show, the Chuckle Brothers said a confident and warm hello to Stuart and I, even though we'd never met them before. Maybe comedians are nicer than you thought.)

Labels: comedy, Lee Mack, Not Going Out, sitcom, tv

Goodbye, MySpace! Inspired by Miseryguts, who cancelled his MySpace account in October, I decided to cancel mine. At 11.22 today, I pressed the fateful button. It already feels good. I considered shutting my account at the beginning of the year, but the mercenary within convinced me that it would be a useful way of publicising That's Me In The Corner, so I stayed on. I duly sent a bulletin out to all of my thousand or so "friends" (some of whom are actually my friends, or at least acquaintances, or pop stars and comedians I have met or worked with, so I don't wish to insult anyone with those speechmarks), saying that my book was out. This clearly had no appreciable effect on sales, and in fact made me feel a bit dirty. I'm not one for group emails, so why I thought this was OK, I don't know. The demons of commerce had infected me. (Hey, I thought, struggling indie bands send me news of their latest gig in Harlow every day on MySpace - why not do the same? There's no harm in it.)

Anyway, I found the strength of will today, and I'm free.

To be fair to myself, I only opened a MySpace account in May last year in order to have a race with Richard Herring, to see who could get the most "friends". He overtook me almost immediately, and had doubled my tally within a month. He is more popular than me. I accept that now. (Mind you, his job is to stand in pubs and clubs and try and get people to like him, so he tries much harder than I do, hiding behind the printed page and other comedians.)

I don't have a problem per se with social networking sites, and I certainly have no problem with the people I know who use them, but for me, it had turned into yet another timewaster. I am my own boss; if I spend work hours tinkering about on the internet, it's only my money I'm losing. And anyway, having a blog is enough of a commitment, and far more enjoyable and personal in terms of keeping a dialogue going with like-minded souls. (And some unlike-minded ones.)

That said, deep down, part of me suspects we're all going to hell, and convincing ourselves that random people are our "friends" when they are merely collecting the equivalent of football stickers, just like we are, is not only insane, it's detrimental to the national conversation and to the useful evolution of the species. I love the internet, but at least with personal blogs and specialist forums, you choose where to go and whom to converse with. On MySpace, especially when your "friend" total passes the couple of hundred mark - and it does, as these things are truly viral - it's just unmanageable. In light of yesterday's controversy about touting for work with group emails, I'd say it's actually a bit more focussed to do so via MySpace, because you have to be "accepted" by someone to be their "friend" first (just typing that sentence made my head hurt). At least when I shamelessly sent a bulletin about my book coming out, those who received it had either requested my "friendship" or "accepted" my request of the same human concept. We had something, however tenuous and virtual, in common. It makes sense to get involved if you're constantly gigging, as a band or a comedian, but I'm not. Also, and this is the crucial factor, MySpace looks fucking terrible. It's slow and ugly to negotiate, and those who "pimp" their pages are only doing so within fairly strict aesthetic parameters. Also, the more complicated the design, the slower it is to load. I've been on people's MySpace pages on a BBC computer and they've crashed Explorer.

So farewell, then, "friends" who don't know me, or think I still I have a show on 6 Music and want me to play their record. Farewell to unwanted messages from soft porn webcam sites which have nothing to do with "friendship" and to people who replace their avatars with messages about Madeleine McCann. It's been real.



Actually ...

Labels: MySpace

I know it's the last refuge of the scoundrel, but may I say a few words about spam? I read an excellent article on the subject of junk email in the New Yorker in August, and it put the whole subject into neat perspective. (It's available to read here.) I learned that nearly two million emails are dispatched every second, 171 billion messages a day. As Michael Specter wrote, "Most of those messages have something to sell. Even the most foolish and unsavory advertisements can earn money - in part because the economic bar for success is so low. If somebody wants to send you junk mail the old-fashioned way, through the Postal Service, he has to pay for it; the more he sends, the greater the expense. With electronic junk mail, the opposite is true: it costs a pittance to send a million messages - or even a billion - and recipients almost always spend more than the sender." Some good facts: In 2001, spam accounted for about 5% of traffic on the Internet; by 2004, it was over 70%. In some places, it's now up to 90%.

I usually get around 100 in my junk inbox between when I leave my office at 6pm and log on again the next morning at around 9am (that's when the bulk of it comes, obviously, as it's not coming from the UK, is it?) - I only go through it because certain emails I actually want slip through the net, and I have to check. You get used to deleting spam - don't recognise the name of the sender, it's in Chinese, it's an image of a woman with no top on, the subject line includes the words "penis" or "dick" subtly disguised to sidestep filters ("d!ck" or "dik" or "pen/is"). In among the endless ads for replica watches and stock options, I find the ads for penis enlargement devices/potions insultingly crude on the whole, as I whizz past them at record speed, and it does offend the prude in me that topless women can appear in my inbox uninvited. You probably get exactly the same spam as I do. It's like a plague. That said, beyond transient offence, they do no actual harm, and should I ever actually want some herbal Viagra, I know where to get it.

Of late though, I've been collecting some of the charming subject lines for penile dysfunction aids, which, one must assume, are designed to attract potential customers. I think they tell us something worrying about male sexuality in the 21st century. Here are some that recur currently:

[Warning! Some of the following are quite explicity rude]

Enter the New Year with a bigger pen!s!
Make your willy bigger and harder in just a few weeks!
Kindle a passion in her heart with your magic stick
Re:You wondered how to obtain true masculinity. Here is the answer:
The volume of your male meat is absolutely essential!
Beat her womb with your new big rod, so that she knew who wears the pants!
does she like cum in her face? bust out massive amounts of semen so she can slurp it up
Re:Make your tiny lace a true symbol of your power
Please your wife with a big hard shaft!
If you treat your filly as a goddess, why not become a God in her bedroom?
Have a great night with your girlfriend!
Create a furore in her bedroom on New Year!

In some ways, they're quite sweet, going on about the New Year and kindling passion and pleasing your wife or filly or girlfriend. I'm taken by the idea of someone wishing to "create a furore in her bedroom". That's just so vague isn't it? You could do that by letting a moth in. But the euphemisms for the male member do tend towards the aggressively macho - big hard shaft and male meat and new big rod and symbol of power (the one mentioning a "willy" seems a bit comical in the company of these pounding metaphors). Is it any wonder masculinity is in crisis? Pharmaceutical companies needs us to be ill, and if we're not ill, we're no good to them, and if their last lot of pills cured us of something, they need to invent something else, and quick! I'm not suggesting sexual dysfunction isn't a real problem - clearly, it can be, and with unhappy knock-on effects - but surely it's not as rife as this daily avalanche of ads subtly suggests? Why must men aspire to having a "magic stick"? Since when did we have to do conjuring tricks with it, too? And can one not "become a God" without a tape measure? By all means, "have a great night with your girlfriend" - it's a lovely idea. But might that great night not also include a nice meal, or a film? Must it hinge on the girth and consitency of a part of the body? Since 99% of these ads are aimed explicitly at heterosexual men, does this mean that homosexual men have no problems in this area? Does my Mac filter out gay spam? Or is it that gay people don't respond well to this kind of sell and there isn't much call for it? And if you were the kind of man who felt that "beating her womb" to prove your masculinity was a good idea and was prepared to click on a dodgy link and part with money to assist in that mission, wouldn't you also be exactly the kind of man who probably doesn't have a wife or girlfriend? (I often get an email advertising a realistic rubber lady's vagina, too. Now that seems well-marketed.)

All potent questions, I think. Keep your comments clean.

Labels: internet, sex, sexual dysfunction, spam

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Labels: internet, price comparison