The Ponseti Method (Concise Crossword #3478)

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Steve

He was always Mr Marks to me, although he would probably have been called Dr Marks to his colleagues…

He was younger then of course and I seem to recall him as Dr Finlay, Dr Doolittle at times and quite possibly, Dr No, all of whom where grafting a corner out for themselves on the available platforms of the day.

It used to be a strange old trip across to Clatterbridge… The C3 or the C4 as far as New Ferry Toll Bar, then the 60 or the 64 across to Bebington and then the hospital bus to the site itself. Dad didn’t drive then and it was always a long day, arriving early generally, waiting in the queue to be seen, the hope that your name would be called first but it never seemed to happen that way.

Sometimes Bernadette would be there, her pale skin showing beneath her black hair, carrying her leg with a shuffle, the remains of the Polio that her young life had left her with.

I pressed my nose to the window, looking out into the ‘quad’, where the soft toys and the rocking horse sat quietly in the steady, wet rain. Maybe we could get pizza or Chinese food in the arcade by the Crossville bus depot. There was always a treat to be enjoyed on these adventures.

Mum would be careful to keep me within earshot, waiting for the call… Mrs Bryne, Stephen Bryne… They always got my name wrong.

It’s Byrne… Byrne… It’s not that hard surely.

The Sunday Express lay crumpled at the back of the bookcase, the crossword was torn and unfinished but I could just about make out one or two of the answers. Igloo… Perfume… Redress… Tester.

I liked words, the way they could scatter across the page and find themselves a home in the ebb and flow of a sentence, allowing me to trace or track their history.

Prior to my interest in all things Catholic, I would make an eternal commitment to the pun and to the mess I would occasionally find myself in.

‘Stephen Byrne’… I instinctively jumped and Mum gathered up our bits and pieces before trailing me in to see the Doctor.

His hands were cool as he pressed gently into the somewhat withered, fleshy limb. The plaster was a little ragged and the napkin I had taken from the the tea trolley, doubled as a handkerchief, while he spoke to me softly, asking if it was painful, whether it was numb or whether I had any pins and needles.

It was getting late and to the surprise of both of us, he decided a fresh plaster would be needed. The hot, wet bandages, had a sizzle about them in his clutches, while the nurse, with her soft Scottish lilt, played out a conversation with Mum, something about Whisky and Galore and they all shared the joke between them.

Temporarily, I was placed in the old wheelchair and pushed back from the treatment room… The look on Mums face was woeful…

She had promised something nice to eat for tea… Instead, she was having to spar with the nurse and sought an explanation with Mr Marks…

There was nothing to it, just a precaution and seriously, it was nothing to worry about… She was beside herself with sorrow.

The growing darkness had taken the light out of the sky and to this day, some 55 or more years later, I will never forget the sadness in her eyes.

I don’t remember her leaving… It’s a mystery still.

I managed to ease myself asleep eventually… Summoning all of my strength to grapple through another night,.. In the morning they took me for my bath, taking care to trail my left leg over the side of the tub

There was a tune running through my mind… I didn’t know it then but it was ‘Take 5’ by Dave Brubeck. Everybody seemed to be humming it and I did my exercises to it on the way back to my bed… A few sit ups and an attempt to carry my body weight on my hands.

There was no malice to the decision to keep me in overnight.

No debris either… No tissues…

Just the smell of the plaster of Paris and the ghost of my fixed stare at the door… Haunting me still.

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31st December 2011

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Steve

 

Due to the excesses of Christmas and New Year, the blog page for ‘Last day of the Month’ will be a day or two late. I have published what it is completed so far and will develop the page before the 12 days of Christmas are finished with.

Have a wonderful New Year. We are off to a family bash within the hour and I still haven’t had a shower, a shave or a bite to eat.

Marvellous….

 

December 1st.

World Aids Day…. BBC reports 30 years ago this week were trying to understand this strange disease that had led to more than 70 deaths in San Francisco among gay men….

Not a word about that, or the Day of Action, or anything else really, other than Jeremy Clarkson clogging up the airwaves, after his foot in mouth comments about the strikers and marchers in support of the ‘Day of Action’.

I am in my sick bed, aching and sweating and not sure if it is coming up or going down. I telephone work to give my apologies and my boss, Tracy G calls me back to see if I am ok. She has been worried about me and has noticed that I am not myself. I re-assure her that it is flu like symptoms and not related to my previous health problems. She tells me to stay off work until Monday and to catch some sleep. I take her at her word and it is Friday morning before I feel well enough to get up.

I have an appointment at the Anti-Coagulation clinic for my blood test and think about re-arranging. My INR was really high last week …. 4.7 …. way over my limit…. They want to re-test me again.

I have a quick swill in cold water and pulling on jeans and a fleece, zipped up above my chin I decide to go regardless. There is only one waiting ahead of me and Dawn, the receptionist is her usual chatty self. I am tempted to tell her my friend Robert has a soft spot for her but decide to bide my time. I need something more damning to get the conversation going with that one….

St Andrews Day…. Svetlana Stalin…. (NOV)

Mervyn King, from the Bank of England is all doom and gloom but I can barely concentrate enough to drive up to the hospital….

There is a murmuration of starlings filling the sky and Honour Attacks in the UK are at nearly 3,000 for the past year….

A recent survey of bank notes, tested by Kent Police are found to contain traces of 11% of Cocaine…. almost treble what it was 6 years ago….

American Bankers win the lottery…. Socrates dies…. Philosophy football….

A lovely dedication to Gary Speed at Goodison but a similar result to when he played…. We lost…. Euro Draw…. FA Cup Draw….

Trial treatments are to get a boost in the NHS ??? Is this new marriage between Clinical Researchers, The Independent Sector and the NHS going to lead to faster, better, more available services for all…. ?

There are reports of concrete blocks being thrown from road bridges, in Chelmsford and Shrewsbury, onto the moving cars below…. at the same time, reports suggest that there are 4m young people in the UK who don’t own a book….More research is investigating and exploring the ‘sleep genes’….

I think mine must be in the washing basket as it’s 2am and the radio refuses to lull me to sleep…. There are the first stories of ‘weather’…. Snow in Glossop, the ‘Snake Pass’ is closed and I am thankful for my bed after all….

Europe is still in a deep hole and when Gareth calls down for a cup of tea, the talk is of ‘anti-economics’ and the beast that is consumerism…. The Eurozone Credit ratings take a bit of a hiding in the end of year reports….

News comes of the death of the Brazilian footballer Socrates. What a fantastic name. What a player…. dead in his bed after his struggle with alcoholism….

Gary McKinnon, the arch hacker, is described as having Aspergers and being unfit for a fair trial….

Military Intelligence gets a casual mention in the background from the radio…. an uneasy coupling I always felt…. Two suicide bombers create havoc in Afghanistan…. It is 70 years since the bombing of Pearl Harbour…. The army is wary, as the protests rise in the wake of the Russian elections…. Even Gorbachev throws in a dissenting voice….

Defence cuts may rise to 22,000….

I get another e-mail from Wally . Yes it is Ottawa where he lives, working hard t his job as well as managing to run an Independent record label…. from his own house I would imagine…. he is delighted with the CDs I have sent him and I am eager to get my hands on the material he has sent to me as a thank you…. The Internet has got a lot to answer for but it’s ability to put people in touch with each other is undoubted…. as long as you want to be found you will be…. I decide to use the e-mails I have sent to him in the form of another blog page….

Freeze Frame – A Compilation

I have an hour or so out of the office. I have got to drop off some prescription medication, to a Pharmacy in Plas Madoc. It is windy and cold and getting back in the car, I turn on the heater, listen to Radio 4 and roll a cigarette. The afternoon play is in full force, a piece by Peter Tinniswood, a writer I have long admired. It lasts the journey back through Ruabon, Rhostyllen, past the cemetary and ‘The Oak’ and down towards town, through Pen-Y-Bryn, up Brook Street, Hill Street, Regent Street and Grosvenor Road. I love driving in town in the day time. Come 5pm it is a nightmare…. What we could do with is a park and ride…. That may help….

There are still people dying by the hundred in Syria and Assad gives no indication that the bloodshed is about to end…. The Arab League want an end to the regime…. Another Afghan bomb….

My desire for a park and ride bears no comparison to that kind of madness…. 

The weather turns colder and across Scotland the schools are closing and the electricity lines are down…. there is talk of winds of 165mph…. I am glad we have got the new roof on although it isn’t nearly as bad here in North Wales….

A soldier from Stoke is found guilty of arson and causing an explosion…. He is also found guilty of inciting racism…. I should think so, his appeal for all Mosques to be ‘nuked’ is right out of the military intelligence files….

An unarmed US drone drops quietly into Iran, causing consternation to its owners and a propoganda coup for its recipients to show off….

There are deaths in Melton Mowbray…. I can’t help thinking of Pork Pies, where they are produced in all of their glory….

I have a busy morning at the drop in and find myself doing the ‘duty’ shift on the Friday afternoon. It is a bit of a grind but generally, I like the constant flow of people, all needing in one way or another to be patched up and sent on their way. It makes the time go quickly too and before I realise it, I am at home with a glass of red and all set for Friday Night Club.

I check the mailbox, yes the package from Wally has arrived. Fantastic…. 5 no 6 CDs, some details about reviews and a note from the man himself…. Marvellous…. E-mails are great but there is nothing like getting some mail in your box….

I don’t know whether I worded that correctly….

The Father calls down and Gareth of course and I play the Roy Moller and later an album from fellow Welshmen ‘Armstrong’…. the tunes tick through nicely as we indulge ourselves, as usual, in what’s left of our memories and turn them back into conversation….

Gareth remembers a guy he knew who would head to town for a nights drinking, wearing a pair of ‘cripplers’…. usually someone elses shoes…. usually because they didn’t want to go home and needed proper shoes so they would be allowed in to the nightclubs….

I recalled in my own local pub, ‘The Wheatsheaf’, when I was in my late teens, the lads would all swap each others clothes, those who were heading for a late session, having to wear ties and shoes….

I laughed out loud, it really tickled me as I had seen it with my own eyes too….

The Father cracked a nice joke in keeping with his habits…. How do you make God laugh…. ? Tell him your plans….

We recalled old brands of strong beers, ‘Black Challenge’ and ‘Tungsten’ that, for me to remember, were just like drinking liquid metal…. my own favourites had been ‘Party Sevens’, a large tin with seven pints of beer in it…. ‘Whisky Mac’, a kind of whisky and wine mix…. ‘Gold Label Barley Wine’ and ‘Exhibition Cider’…. when I thought about the recent years, all filled with banner headlines of the blight of ‘anti social behaviour’…. we were just the same…. just kids really with the usual problems…. I finally make it to my bed for about 2am and watch a little TV.

The winds have caused a turbine to explode off its huge stantion…. amazing…. Sarkozy gives a Gallic shrug when asked about the UK role in the forthcoming summit in Europe…. Clegg is distraught…. I am ready for dreaming….

Saturday…. A lie in…. Mums Birthday…. Adrian coming to visit later today with Lliwen and the boys…. It is his birthday tomorrow…. Saturday Pass for Bogster….

Joel and Tina call with Lana and Jamie after having been out for a bite to eat together…. I play Janet the new tracks we have recorded…. she likes them…. we head for a bath and bed….

Sunday…. another lie in…. unheard of…. The climate change conference runs over by two days in the hope that the big polluters can agree to make substantial cuts in emissions….

The Xmas tree on the Korean border is causing unease and Noriega is to be extradited from France and will face charges it seems in Panama….

 Visit to EP….

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Freeze Frame – A Compilation

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Steve

 

In November 2011, Jon Arne Madso, the Norwegian proprietor of the Freeze Frame Website, was in Liverpool with his friends Erik and Paal for a social visit to the city. Jon Arne has been in touch with Steve Byrne, the singer with Freeze Frame for 5 years now and they have met on three previous occasions. As interest has continued to grow in the band, Jon Arne proposed another meeting to catch up. Also, it was an opportunity to complete a more comprehensive history of their work, as well as to try and settle on a running order for the elusive album that never was.
 
The interview took place in the Hanover Hotel, on the evening of 6th November, in the company of a couple of excellent pints of Guinness.
 
 
01 Touch (Crackin’Up)
02 Your Voice
03 Conversation Piece
04 Foxhole
05 Furnished Heart
06 At Your Scenario
07 Seeking Professional Advice
08 My 10,000 Mile Home
09 Brother Brother
10 Touch (RCA/Inevitable)
11 Personal Touch
12 Where’s The Girl
13 Keep In Touch
14 Today Tomorrow
15 Only A Boy
16 It Makes Me Cry
17 Culture Won’t Wait
18 Someone 
 
 
Q. Steve, it is great to see you again and to get a chance to talk through your memories of those early 80’s days.
 
How do you remember it all starting ?
 
Ronnie Stone and myself first met in 1980/81. I was singing in a little punk/new wave band called ‘The Posers’, doing a lot of gigs around the North-West of England in pubs, bars and clubs. Our claim to fame was playing Erics’ Club in Liverpool at Christmas time, on a bill organised by Skeleton Records, owned and run by a guy called John Weaver from Birkenhead. John ran a record shop as a front to some of his other ‘businesses’.
 
Ronnie did some production work for Skeleton and was booked to run a session for ‘The Posers’. We were a group of friends with jobs and living with our folks, but it was a buzz. We did some great gigs and built up a strong local following, helping to lend some hope to our futures. Don’t forget, this was at the time of Thatcherism and the devastating impact it had for working class communities in the UK.
 
Ronnie proved to be different class; With firstly ‘Next’, then ‘Afraid of Mice’ and ‘The Blank Tapes’, amongst other successes already under his belt, he was that something that we/I needed. He joined us for some gigs on guitar and we soon hit it off and became friends. He was a couple of years older than me, which is a lot when you are 19/20yrs, but he was a diamond. Brought up on the 50’s and 60’s tunes of his older sisters he really knew his stuff. A good self publicist, but a diamond all the same. I learned so much from him, mainly his approach to writing and his quiet way of getting things done. He has a sharp mind and doesn’t suffer fools easily….. Probably why I haven’t seen him in about 15yrs……… ha ha…. Seriously, he would make an ideal Manager or Impresario as his ability to big up the important stuff and not even mention the dubious stuff was fantastic. Particularily on the radio…. he was a fortified natural….  
 
His philosophy on writing was…. Just do it, it will get better…. We started writing together immediately, me sending him lyrics and he in turn furnishing me with cassettes of ideas and demos. He was very encouraging towards my early efforts and he helped me enormously.
 
Q. Was Ronnie studio based at that time ?
 
He had a cellar in the house he rented in Oxton, Birkenhead…. no really he did…. and we worked there for months sorting through songs and ideas. We had a Fostex 4 Track cassette machine, an old Revox and a Teac. Each in turn got used for recordings but the Fostex got hammered. I moved up to Birkenhead from Ellesmere Port with my girlfriend Lorraine, who became my first wife a little while later and we got a first floor flat in the same house as Dave Hughes, from Dalek i and OMD. The flat had previously belonged to Keith Hartley, the lead singer with Godot and much more, and I see Keiths name crop up occasionally. He engineered one of my favourite albums, Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub.
 
There was a definite feeling that we were gathering momentum and getting some shape to our ideas.
 
We finally agreed on the name Freeze Frame, in respect of our ‘Godley and Creme’ fascination and we were off.
 
Q. The momentum quickly realised itself with the vinyl release of ‘Touch’. That must have been exciting.
 
This was our first single, on Crackin’ Up. A guy called Dave Owens, also from Birkenhead, operated this short-lived but important little label from Temple Street in Liverpool City Centre. There were only 3 releases on the label all told – this single, the compilation cassette ‘Crackin’ Up at The Pyramid’ and another single from a band called ‘The Frantic Elevators’. The lead singer was the soon to be famous Mick Hucknall from ‘Simply Red’.
 
The Crackin’ Up ‘office’ was one of a number of rooms upstairs in an old grain warehouse, at different times used by Tim Whittaker the drummer from Deaf School, (he was a painter by this time), Steve Grace from ‘Nasty Pop’ (making a living as a carpenter) and the later to be ‘cult hero’ Craig Charles, from the TV series Red Dwarf, plying his trade then as a Poet. Craig compered a lot of shows at The Pyramid Club and usually did a stint between band changeovers.
 
The track sounds a little naive now of course but the re-recorded version that we released later, highlighted its qualities as a song.
 
Q. Looking at the contemporary history, you made a lot of progress quickly. Did it feel that way…. were you conscious of that ?
 
The time between the first and second singles was a real buzz. We had got to know Jerry Lewis, the owner and co-founder of Erics’ Club in Liverpool. He was busy pouring resources into his new adventure, Amazon Studios, as a way of maintaining his development of Inevitable Records. They already had singles by Wah Heat, Dead or Alive, Dalek i Love You and China Crisis. Amazon was in Kirkby on the outskirts of Liverpool and we got mixed up with a rare bunch including the ‘Glass Torpedoes’, ‘Building 44’ and ‘China Crisis’ themselves.
 
We also met Gil Norton at this point learning his trade as an engineer, with an 8 track and later a 16 track machine. He would phone us with ‘down time’ hours at Amazon and we would head over from The Wirral. A perfect arrangement. He became a vital cog in our own ‘Crucial Three’….
 
We had worked previously with a little company called ‘Cloud Nine Productions’, run by two guys, Dave Roylance and Mike Glasspole. They were based in Amazon and produced a lot of jingle work for radio. Dave had been developing an idea for a concept album built around the ideas of ‘Atlantis’. He went on to co-write the theme music for the popular soap opera Brookside and completed a concept album based around the stories of ‘The Tall Ships’. Sadly, I heard recently that he had passed away.
 
Before we settled on the name Freeze Frame, we did a few shows under the band name ‘In a Glass Darkly’, supported by China Crisis. I seem to recall, but you would have to check it out with Gary and Eddie, that these were amongst China’s first shows. The gigs were in a club in Ellesmere Port called ‘The Waverley’, renowned for it’s red light clientele.  
 
We continued to write and build up the body of work that would give us a real head start. We did a tour during this period as Godot, with Dave Hughes and Martin Cooper from OMD, almost incestuously supporting Dalek i Love You, with Alan Gill from Teardrop Explodes. We got involved in the building of a studio in Birkenhead with them at that time and were given some free studio time. It all helped to cement the ‘Oxton Scene’, a different animal than pure Liverpudlians. We also had Lizzie Johnson from The Passage, a Manchester band, working with us as a backing vocalist. Another Oxtonite.
 
Q. The arrangement with RCA Records seemed to come at a perfect time. Was it a big shift in terms of your focus and your plans ?
 
The whole thing suddenly ratcheted up. Jerry did a deal with RCA to lease the Inevitable label…. invested in a 24 Track, Solid State Logic Studio, and we managed to secure a publishing deal with Hit and Run/April Music, the company who run ‘Genesis’. There was a bit more money around and we paid for some decent photos to be done by a guy called Tom Wood for the Foxhole sleeve and had a bit more cash to pay Steve ‘Jacuzzi’ Hardstaffe, another of the Birkenhead set who did all of our sleeves. Clive G joined us at that point from ‘Afraid of Mice’. I remember his audition at Ronnies place and he got the job as much for his flexibility and genuineness as a person, as he did for his musical ability. He fitted in and he was a big asset in terms of technique and ideas.
 
We started getting some airplay and did a John Peel session for the BBC. That was a real highlight for me. We had also started to work with Dave Bascombe who had had some success with ‘Tears for Fears’. He was a really decent guy and again, someone I learned an awful lot from. We went down to his place at Livingstone Studios in Wood Green in London and he came up to Amazon.
 
REM were working at Livingstone Studios on ‘Fables of the Reconstruction’, at the time. I would love to say we got along real fine but we never even met them. Gutted. I do remember meeting an Irish band there, called ‘The Blades’, and meeting Billy J. Kramer in the kitchen over a cup of tea.
 
Q. How was the recording schedule delegated ? Was it a continual process ?
 
A lot of the work for Seeking Professional Advice was done at Livingstone but, the bulk of the session overdubs and all of the extra tracks for the 12″ were done at Amazon. We contemplated a ‘Cultural’ idea for the songs but this work in progress was temporarily shelved, when the A-side -SPA- started to become obvious. Our old friends ‘The Posers’ got due recognition on the sleeve for past times, as the original version of SPA was recorded at that first session, overseen by Ronnie.
 
In the gaps between releases Ronnie was doing a range of musical jobs, including working with the Irish band Auto da Fe and filling in for China Crisis. He was also demoing transistorised Vox AC 30 amps and wangled himself a beauty. He was also doing casual work for a friend of his, Cliff, who owned a dry cleaning business. What a guy.
 
I was busy making whatever cash I could on labouring jobs and factory work. I had three kids already and on the way to having five in all. There was a little money from the publishing but not enough for us to live on.
 
We also managed to continue to do some gigs and at various times played at The ICA for a Capital Radio Session, The Marquee and The Venue, all in London, as well as some shows supporting ‘Fat Larrys’ Band’. That was a great mix. Their orange flares and our punky tight leathers…. mmm 
 
Our trips to RCA at the time were legendary when it came to helping ourselves to the new releases in the Press room. We also did another BBC Session, with Kid Jensen, a Canadian DJ who was popular for his eclectic approach to his playlists. His show segued into Peels Radio One show on weekday evenings.
 
Q. For the next release, you returned to your first single. Why was that ?
 
It was a great song and deserved another chance to be recorded. We were becoming predominantly studio based as Freeze Frame, despite the occasional shows. We fleshed out the new wave of sounds of Oberheim drum machines and Ensonic keyboards, as the undertow to the next batch of songs. Mixed with real session players the songs found a natural rhythm, based around the concept of Touch.
 
Ironically, we were supposed to be the ‘album’ artists when Inevitable was leased over to RCA. One of the other bands signed at the same time, ‘A Box of Toys’, were single focussed. Our material just kept getting the nod for release. Their track, ‘Precious is the Pearl’, is glorious though I must say.
 
We also recorded a version of ‘Life is Just a Game’, the original Touch B-Side at the same time, as well as other tracks for a hoped for album. Ronnie had been on holiday to Turkey where his ‘brother in law’ taught with his Turkish wife. While he was there he bought a ‘saz’ guitar and quietly wrote some musical pieces for it. It is one of those that you can hear on ‘Where’s The Girl’.
 
Q. Did the label arrangements continue to be satisfactory ?
 
There was a part of us that felt a little unhappy here and there, with regard to the role of the record company and advertising and distribution, as well as the changing relationship with Inevitable as Jerry became more embroiled in the politics of his job. 
 
Effectively, he owned the studio where his artists did their recording and he got paid for releasing the records on the company he owned. Nice work if you can get it.
 
He didn’t break our balls though, he allowed us full artistic freedom with cover design and rarely questioned the choice of material. Where we failed if at all, was to not take advantage of delivering it to the next level. An album. That was a big desire. A big hope.
 
Q. He continued to have some musical input though didn’t he ?
 
Jerry himself oversaw the final 12″ release, ‘Today Tomorrow’. I really enjoyed those recordings, using some horn players on ‘Only a Boy’ who were fantastic and the incredible Linda Wright singing a duet on ‘It Makes Me Cry’. I’d love to say I made a real day of it with Linda but, to my loss we did our vocals at different times. My singing voice had relaxed a little and I was feeling more confident in myself. We did another bunch of gigs, attracted some airplay as always but it was getting to decision time. RCA didn’t pick up the option, we managed to squeeze out of our publishing arrangements and despite not being able to fulfil all of our goals, we were relatively unscathed in the great scheme of things.
 
Q. That wasn’t the end though was it ?
 
We continued on for another year or two as ‘Push Button Pony’, teaming up with some old friends from Liverpool, Andy Redhead and Jon Corner from ‘A Select Committee’ and ‘3D A Fish in C’ respectively. We did a bunch more gigs and recorded an album worth of demos for a little French label called Carrere. The tunes were excellent and we did some more radio but Carrere didn’t bite and we had to make some decisions ourselves.
 
I applied for college to do my degree in Youth and Community Studies and Ronnie continued on in whatever role he could pick up, either as a producer, engineer or guitarist. He originally came through art school and had lots of options. He is still doing it now.
 
Q. Our ‘imaginary’ album concludes with the final two tracks. How did they come about ?
 
The missing tune ‘Culture Won’t Wait’ had become available on ‘The Inevitable Sampler Vol 1’.
                                                                                                                                                                       
music…isms: Small Hits and Near Misses (compilation, 1984)                                                             
                                                                                                                                                                       
It was great to see an album full of artists we had grown together with, finally get an overdue label release in LP form.  
 
Ronnie and I only saw each other occasionally from that point on. After qualifying from college, I moved into my current work and used to pop around to Ronnies to drop off a bagful of condoms that I used to get free through work. He was sure keeping himself busy in whatever way he could.
 
The final track on the CD came out under the eponymous name ‘Someone’, in case of any hangovers from previous publishing arrangements and was released on ‘The Inevitable Sampler Vol 2’.
 
Ronnie was working out of a studio near Chester, belonging to Bobby from the 70’s Cabaret outfit, ‘The Black Abbots’, (The band that spawned Russ Abbot). 
I am not sure whether this ever got an official release but it does exist, ‘INEV 19’, as I have a copy myself. We shot a video in the studio to accompany the track but I don’t remember ever seeing it. I would love to.
 
It was predominantly artists that Ronnie was producing or otherwise working with and is well worth listening to. Jack Roberts, an artist we had both worked with, ‘The Tidemarks’, ‘The Orphans’ ‘The Fade’ all come to mind.
 
I haven’t seen him now for about 15 years, like I say, although I hear mention of him here and there and smile with satisfaction when I see him credited with some new release or other. I was working in a little studio in Wrexham, run by a guy called Nino, and he knew Ronnie well and our history. I was able to pass on my regards. I don’t know whether he got them.
 The final track on the CD came out under the name ‘Someone’ in case of any hangovers  
Q. Did you continue to be involved with music ?
 
I played on intermittently throughout the early ’90s with a band called ‘Slaves Again’, writing another batch of tunes and playing a lot of local gigs but never looking to release anything with serious intent. I moved up to North Wales in 1998.
 
I set about writing and recording a whole new set of material, as a somewhat cathartic approach to my first marriage going under. It was certainly that. Some of that material is due to be made available under the name, ‘More Songs About Kitchens and Stairs…. The Llay Tapes 1998 – 2003’. A selection of noisy home demos that I was always threatening to record again. Free the music I say.
 
It is a flurry of material, made during a series of congregations with musical friends and family. Usually involving a good helping of red wine. It is due to be released in early 2012, under the name ‘The Jazz Cigarettes’.
 
Q. And since the ‘Millenium’ ?
 
From 2000, I began doing some gigs with some other friends who were well established in the literary field as ‘The Chester Poets’. They had had a lot of their work published and had developed a musical sideline as ‘Celtic Spirit’. They wrote a ‘Celtic Opera’ over a period of years and I was proud to have been involved. I was also delighted to have taken the role as ‘The Dark Power’, when it was performed a number of times in Chester.
 
So there you have it. I got married again in 2006 and have barely written a song since…. Ha Ha…. That’s not quite true actually, I have written a couple of dozen or more but have only just recently started to draw them together for finishing and recording.
 
I met up with my friend Rob Riley, a co-survivor of ‘The Llay Tapes’ only last week and we got two tracks down during an afternoon when I was off work. One is called ‘Motown Stranger’ and the other is a gospel piece, written as a replacement for the Old Rugged Cross…. Ha Ha.
 
Seriously, I seem to go to a lot of funerals as I get older and its about time we had a new funereal option. It’s called ‘Please Go On’. Both songs will get an early airing through the ‘MasterBakers’ Facebook page as soon as they are ready.
 
Watch this space.
 
Q. Thanks for your time Steve, it has been very revealing for me. Will we see you soon ?
 
Well Jon Arne, seeing as you have informed me of your wedding to Gunnhild next May, then I am hoping that it will be very soon.

Put another log on the fire.

 

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30th November 2011

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Steve

 

November 1st and the wind lifting the clinging leaves from the branches, slowly exposing the strong laboured limbs, in the warm, damp air…. it is raining over St Pauls and is gradually wetter further North, around the Scottish coasts, while here it remains mild….

There is some discussion about pricing alcohol by the unit in Scotland, causing consternation among the drinking classes. It is true though that they have the highest alcohol related mortality rate in Europe.

A 92 year old woman in Harlow is refused alcohol because she has no ID.

Speaking of Scotland, it is the 75th Anniversary of the first television broadcast, by John Logie Baird, from the Central Hotel in Glasgow. We stayed in the hotel back in 2007 for Hogmanay and had a great few days in the city. The hotel window looked out onto the platforms and it was an extraordinary time to be in the city. Perfect for people watching. The greetings visible from our perch under the eaves of the hotel, looking out onto the platforms was tremendous. Its buildings are very reminiscent of Liverpool and I felt very much at home.

It is also the anniversary of Channel Four in 1982, at the time, a similarily brave development in telecommuniation in its own way.

I scan the news stories…. Tougher penalties for gang members including a new offence of ‘carrying a gun with intent to supply’. DrugSpeak, adapted subliminally to help describe these troubled times…. Squatting may be made illegal, (as if that’s going to stop anything) and a story about the Japanese PM licking rainwater from puddles in defence of his opinion that there is no local radioactive contamination, in the wake of this years earthquakes and leaking power stations.

In the Irish Republic, a bit of over-realised double accounting reveals an extra 3.6 billion in the coffers, barely a spadeful in the 150 billion sized pile.

Pakistani bowlers are to be sentenced after the spot fixing revelations.

The Greeks are feeling the weight of Europe crushing their spirit…. the birds are arranging themselves into little squadrons and arrowing through the darkening light, in dress rehearsals for their various, defining journeys.

The threat has gone in the skies over the African deserts but to the East there is famine. Just text ‘FOOD’ and make your donation.

Fracking for shale gas off the Lancashire coasts causes earth tremors and one American commentator describes them in terms of ‘Seismocity’.

Westminster Council are raking in more money from parking fines than in Council Tax. The newspaper item brought back nightmares and memories of Dame Porter, described at one time as the High Priestess of Tory sleaze. Strikes are inevitable it would seem in response to the pensions row. I have never had a pension, expecting that the least my kids would do for me is to bury me.

I had a dream…. I was in Sutton Way and met someone called Colin Daly ???

Metropolitan Police officers are charged with offences related to over zealousness, when arresting a driver in a Mini, smashing the windows with baseball bats and terrorising the suspect. They were also charged with misusing confiscations.

Assuange loses his extradition appeal and the cocklers are up in arms. There maybe a Referendum or a Resignation in Greece.

Sir Alex makes it through 25 years and Walter Swinburne hands in his notice….

I catch a re-run of  ‘Frozen Planet’, the new Attenborough, before taking off the new varifocals and burying my head in sleep. I have got a stye and it’s a sure sign of fatigue and restlessness. I have been dreaming heavily as I always do when I am not smoking…. vivid with strange tales I can almost hear the music to.

There will be a new Bond – Skyfall – number 23 in the series, to be screened next year on the 50th anniversary of the first. I am happy to say that I only saw one of them all the way through, ‘Diamonds are Forever’, in a Dublin picture house in about 1971. I remember coming out into the bright afternoon sunshine and catching the bus to Dun Laoghaire.

At St. Pauls, legal action is suspended…. he himself would be pleased with that…. while at the G20, in Cannes no less, Sarkozy exclaims in platitudes that if the Euro fails then Europe fails.

Gorgeous George prays for consensus….

Barry Feinstein dies, the glorious photographic foil to many a rock and roll session. Genius is a much overused term but true when it comes to Barry. Iconic.

I bumped into Keith Hett, an old Labour Party activist originally from Liverpool, who I met not long after I first came to Wrexham. He was mixed up with Marek, Liz Lewis, Joe Wilson and Carol Cooper at the time. A rum enough crew. Myself and Farrell organised a number of events with them, publicising ourselves along the way. John Marek at a Poetry Slam was a sight worth seeing. Keith is 75 now and thinking about standing for the council again, an honour he has already held. I gently try to dissuade him and suggest, truthfully, that he has done enough. He has had cataract and prostrate trouble and deserves a few warm nights at home in the Winter, talking with his lovely wife instead of knocking on doors. His eyes still sparkle above his smile and his history would make a book worth writing…. and reading…. and living….

rev and go.

Friday Night Club and the usual mix of reprobates. Father Andrew arrives first, his heavy coat glistening with the rain, as confused as I am regarding the early darkness and the similarily early hour. Tracy and Andy, then Bogster just before Amanda. Lana and Elika but no Jordan tonight, she is ice skating. The Father, Bog and myself slipped into the front room to leave some space at the kitchen table. All we needed were Port and cigars. Tea, red wine and funny fags would have to do.

There was some early talk about faith and plagiarism, that was eventually tempered by mention of the new trend for mystery shoppers, online murder as marketing and franticness, a new concept of mental health that leads you into going to Cathedrals.

Rob arrived, stuffing the house with his loud laughter, full of his friendship and cans of Grolsch. Talking darkly occasionally of wishing for another DVT….. as some sort of deterrent.

‘ I myself, would do anything to be able to do nothing ‘…. It was a funny night nonetheless, filled with fellow societarians. Another Farrellism if I ever heard one.

I vowed to buy ‘Apricot Jam and other Stories’, by Solzhenytsin on the advice of The Father and we played a few sides of Steve Knightley before I headed for bed shortly after they left. It was almost 3am.

 I make a note to have a listen to Beirut on his recommendation.

There is a big road crash overnight and we wake to the news of early deaths on another Bonfire night….

Everton lose again but Daisy is back at full throttle during a spell up at the Mother in Laws. She is on a SORN at the moment (Daisy that is), while the scaffolders do their stuff, ready for our new roof.

The smell of gunpowder and the intermittent waft of burnt rubber from a stray tyre. Poor Sassy the dog, she is petrified of the fireworks and tries to settle herself beneath the kitchen table…. I stay in the house, in case of emergencies, watching towards the grass on the green as she goes, the fire flourishing quickly while the bodies, clutching bottles of beer slowly shift towards the remaining heat.

Gorgeous Georges Greek Gods and Goddesses…. reject the plans for Coalition and Consensus.

I got an e-mail from the Shelflife stable, from Wally. I have a hankering that he is from Portland or Ottawa…. who knows in this interplanetary world.

We strike out for an early bath, taking a glass of this and that with us and enough for a few jazz cigarettes.

Sunday. I lie in bed thinking of Jon Arne and the excitement of seeing friends again. Gunnhild is probably doing the same. My thoughts are somewhat purer than hers at this time, as she will be missing him I am sure.

Janet regales me with the noise of the TV, leaking up the stairs into the bedroom from the kitchen below. It is almost 11am and we have coffee, sipping between the comforting noises of our cigarettes…. ‘Life death, life death, such is the sound of human breath’…. We pack a bag and are ready…. it’s just before 3pm.

We call at Alan and Audreys, to sort out the deal for the proposed holiday to Cancun and drop them down to Laura for a bonfire party with the grand-kids. After a quick visit to see the folks we head for the train with arrangements duly made for our return around midnight.

It is only a week or two since we last made the journey. I could close my eyes and know which station to get off at…. it is somewhat comforting. We alight at James Street and turning right out of the entrance we take the first right into Days Inn where the Viking boys are staying. We ask at reception but Jon Arne isn’t registered in his own name. We try the bar on the 1st floor but it is almost empty. We understand why, when the Guinness I order and the small glass of white wine for Janet leaves us little change from £10. Where’s your mask mate ?

I try the reception again and coming out of the lift I pass a maybe familiar face. I am sure that was Paal ? I try a cigarette outside and sure enough, minutes later Jon Arne comes through the small entrance lobby. He looks really well and we embrace, before heading up to the boys on the 5th floor.

It is great to see them all, Jon Arne, Erik and Paal, looking as healthy as when we first met. We find Janet who has waited in the bar and have another round of hugs and welcomes. There are provisional arrangements to catch a meal and we set off to find ‘Bistro Francs’, on the recommendation of someone at the hotel. We find it eventually at the other end of Hanover Street and we are guided to a table. I forgot my glasses and can’t read the menu, unsurprisingly, as most of it is in French. Jon Arne, Janet and myself opt for the two course deal that comes with a bottle of wine. Each. At £15 it is superb value. Paal and Erik choose pints of Lager and just a main course.

Paal pays.

Thank you.

We head up town to the Hanover Hotel, a favourite haunt and somewhere where we had enjoyed an inebriated night all together before. We don’t have much time as the last train is 11.30pm. Jon Arne is getting married and on the lookout for a decent suit while he is in Liverpool. We are thrilled for him and Gunnhild and at the risk of causing us concern he wonders whether we would be able to go across to Norway for the ceremony. What…. Norway, for the wedding of Jon Arne and Gunnhild. You bet your life. I give him my word and already Erik is calling his partner to see if they can accomodate us. It is tentatively agreed. We are back at the station and Paal nips up to the room for a bottle off Loitens and some chocolate for us. I trade them a copy of my proposed CD release…. ‘The Llay Tapes…. More Songs about Kitchens and Stairs’. I am not sure who got the best deal.

Friends. We only find a handful.

Through all the years and the life and love we find and the strength and the sadness and the sleep it all brings…. Hang on to them.

We embrace again, wave from the lift down to the bowels of James Street station and we are gone.

For now.

A first frost.

We didn’t see it as it was gone before we woke. We could have slept all day but the ceremony for Kath called. Mum made some breakfast and coffee and we waved again to the folks, off on our way again. We were home to Wales with an hour or more to go before the service. I had a quick shower and decided not to shave. Pain in the arse some days. I was still pretty decent from the day before and dressed quickly in the black of the day, the dark hues coloured with the red check, peeking out from the inside lining of my beloved Harrington.

The crematorium was packed and we could barely get a parking space. I hadn’t seen anything like it. We tagged on to the queue looking at the hearse as it arrived in the distance. We watched the coffin being wheeled in and minutes later we still hadn’t moved an inch. The people in front of us spoke a very rich, mix of Welsh which I had never associated with Kath and we realised we were in the wrong queue. We scampered into the service just in time. Julie Ellen didn’t get in at all, not realising the situation. It was sad in its own way of course but clinical as Cremations tend to be. Betty and Julie with Amanda and Mrs Roberts, with Janet and myself sharing a few after service drinks. I hadn’t realised that Betty was from Maidstone and I mentioned an interview I had travelled down from Wrexham for, just before the Millenium. Betty sent down a couple of chilled Boddingtons for me after we got back to Tan Y Dre. 

We arrive back in time for a bottle of red and a jazz cigarette, as the relative inanities pour from the radio. It is a comforting sound though, as always, despite the commentary. Brodie Clark is getting his head squeezed by Theresa May, after the biometrical foul up that has seen the contours of the security measures, that safeguard the country, stretched to a level of calmness that begs a storm. I wouldn’t fancy his job.

The cause of the motorway crash appears to have been poor visibility from firework smoke. Dreadful.

I give the bonsai its last feed, hoping his withered leaves refresh themselves for the spring….

Wayne Kelly wins the World Scrabble Championship with the word ‘Travails’ and  Peter Allen offers him an opportunity to prove his worth…. NTULYWA…. Well?

All the talk is of the poppy ban on sportshirts, the furore over Jacko’s doctor and the death of Joe Frazier. I hear police have got George Foreman for it and have given him a good grilling. The Red Arrows lose another member and the Burnley great Jimmy Adamson dies…. Berlusconi is dead in the water….

I have never felt comfortable with the whole poppy thing. Somewhat flippantly, I used to pronounce that I will wear one when we bring an end to wars. But really…. I still feel exactly the same…. make a living not a killing.

At work the next day I am heading from town with my newspaper, tomato soup and cheese sandwiches for my lunch. There is a message for me…. one of Janets uncles has killed himself, hung in Acton Park. In the panic Janet left me a garbled message and I didn’t even know which uncle….. I immediately thought it was Steve…. No…. Dave Barker.

I arrived at the house and everyone is stunned. The doctor comes and prescribes some medication for Audrey and the house fills and falls with the visitors who come and go. The news is followed the next day by the news of Carmels father passing away as well as the sad death of Jim Woodall. A lovely man, found a week or so after losing his way with his Alzheimers.

Brian Gould also passes away, the architect of New Labour in his own way and while the Headteachers opt for strike action, coming out for the first time in their 114 year history, there is another earthquake in Turkey…. protestors are out again for the Student Loan debate. EMI records is sold once more….

Despite my feelings for the whole remembrance idea, I still manage to find a quiet spot at the gate outside work and think what I think on 11/11/11. A lot of my own family over the years including my Fathers namesake, Great Uncle Joe Byrne, was killed in Belgian and French fields. I also think of Judith Sambrook, in Wrexham Magistrates Court, guilty of not filling in her Census form as a protest to Lockheed Martin, pureyors of military hardware as well as helping to ‘process’ the Census, on behalf of England and Wales.

No sooner had the smoke died away from the remembrance cannons, than cuts of 16,000 were predicted for the armed forces as part of the Governments proposed austerity cuts.

Father Andrew rang to tell me about Scorcese’ new documentary film on George Harrison…. It was nice to hear from him. I told him I knew it was on but I would wait…. I might even get it in my Xmas stocking…. Berlusconi gets his due and there is a new George in Greece.

Monday already, I think about a duvet day but it is too close to my week off. Lord Justice Leveson starts the enquiry into Media Standards and expects the lives of at least 28 News International journalists to be magnified. Lord Treacy too, opens the Stephen Lawrence enquiry and it is confirmed Anders Breivik, the Norwegian murderer, is  insane. 

Norwegian and Murderer are not two words that you would normally see together.

The Lord Mayor holds the annual banquet….

The unemployment figures are at a conservative 2.62 m with over 1m young people among their number. I mentioned it a few months ago, the NEETs are the new kids on the block. Growth is down and the St Pauls crew have orders to leave by tomorrow night.

The Beech in the car park at work is almost golden, its boughs ready to let its treasure fall…. I must get a photograph and remind myself to bring my camera…. Nonny (my colleague Sonia) is busying herself about her college work, worrying unduly about her assignment…. what she needs is to form another band…. Nonny and the CBTs….. When I get home, I do a little work on a couple of songs, hoping to get some recording done when I get down to Rob Rileys rest home when I am off work next week.

I take a last draught from the morning news….. Basil D’Olivera has died, Gaddafis son is captured and there is more trouble in Syria.

We head to meet the family for the procession up to the crematorium again, in memory of Dave. I can only describe the whole affair as anguished nothing more nothing less…. Dave has picked his own music, The Who and Frank Zappa get a turn each…. it is the only light relief that we enjoy.

Back to the house for sandwiches and on up to ‘The Gate Hangs High’ for a few rounds of drinks. Unfortunate name in the circumstances. I head home for about 8pm and I am in bed for just after 9pm. It has been a dreadful week. I can hear various people drift back to the house and I dream through the noise and wake just after midnight. All quiet. I go down and have a glass of red and a couple of cigarettes before heading back up to bed. Janet slides in beside me an hour or two later having been sleeping in Elikas room. I get up again.

What a day…. What a night…. What a week….

It was all about me…. and you.

I am up early and head into town to the bank, managing to get myself a breakfast in Crumbs Cafe and read the papers. I get back just as Janet is heading out shopping. The phone goes as I rise from the kitchen up the stairs. Lanas’ waters have gone. Another little treasure on the way or you could say, another member for the female mafia that are already in the house. Me, Clint and Jamie get bullied enough as it is. Janet is back and to from the the hospital and still no sign. She heads for an early bath and Joel comes around with a couple of bottles of Tuborg. Interesting. We sit and smoke and play our guitars and make some rough plans for recording. He is off work himself this week. Kian is staying and wanders in and out watching and listening. He is going to have another sister and we tease him a little. Not that he is worried, he loves it and can give as good as he gets already. Lana still hasn’t started her labour so by Sunday afternoon they decide on a Caesarian again. She had hoped for a natural birth this time. Not to worry, as long as everything is alright with them both.

There are more than 30 dead in Tahrir Square in Cairo as trouble flares before the elections….There is a new man in Spain…. I put the dinner on low and wait for news.

A little girl…. Nevaeh…. Beautiful.

I have been looking forward to my week off but I just can’t get going with myself. The radio growls on…. housing stock to increase as part of the new Housing Bill. I can just hear it now ‘….Get building Britain….’ The great and the good make the Leveson enquiry while the banks set about cutting ties with Iran, as punishment for their contemplation of the nuclear option. I try to get some work done but the windows are filled with bodies, as they get the work on the new roof done. There is banging and scaffolding and tiles being loaded for next door. The dog barks constantly and I just want to sleep or cry. I feel shattered. I really feel the pace sometimes these days.

I get myself out of the house and go and see the baby around lunchtime. She is gorgeous, dark skin and very like her Dad. The sun is warm and the wind is almost still and even walking to the shop later, the smoke rose perpendicular from the ridge tiles of the roof, encasing the heat from the fire below. The air grows a little cooler and the wisps of breath catch my face as I walk briskly back home.

Pol Pots boys fill the muted TV screen as I head for bed.

Coincidentally, the debate goes on about the preference for natural and Caesarian births. The POVA issues, the Child Protection issues and the NICE guidelines all get a tidy up kind of a mention.

The new Metropolitan Police Chief gets a run out. He talks of a ….’ permafrost of bureaucracy…. ‘ They are on the backfoot in Bahrain with regard to recent torture allegations…. the new Muslim Brotherhood get a talk through….

I head down to see Rob on the Thursday and we set about getting some tunes done…. I have written some lyrics for one of his instrumentals…. ‘Motown Stranger’ and get the vocal overdubs done quickly. We have got about 4 hours to do the session and I waste 30 minutes because I can’t play all the chords to my other preferred choice. I root out an alternative and play Rob the chords while he vamps out a keyboard arrangement. I get the vocals down pretty fast again, mainly because they are all written and ready for a change and we sit smoking a jazz with 20 minutes to spare. It was like a Peel session…. I think in the car on the way back, that I could do with a patron…. Harriet Shaw Weaver who looked after James Joyce was from Frodsham, only a few miles from Ellesmere Port.

The radio in the car talks about the first transgender footballer, an American Samoan, who have just won their first game in their history…. For a moment I thought the radio mentioned a ‘ a syphilising effect ‘ but realise it said civilising.

There is a mention of snow but I still make the trip to the shop for wine in my shorts. I am determined to wear them through until December…. More MOD computers have been ‘mislaid’ and news comes of the deaths of Shelagh Delaney and the Liverpool poet Peter Redding.

We enjoy a Friday Night Club for the first time in a while and entertain Amanda, Bog, Father Andrew and an emptyhanded, tobacco less and already drunk Bryn, star of many a previous Friday. We wind him up slowly and get him talking about Nazism and the art of lying about his conquests. Bog has devised a plan for a website, ‘Ask Brynster’, where callers are encouraged to seek help with lies to get out of tricky situations. Bryn has a motto and it is ‘Lie to get by’…. Munchausens online. Bryn Bonkers….

We are awoken by Elika, Jordan and Kian, all keen for an early breakfast. Jan takes them shopping. I watch Glyn and Sheila march up the street in tandem after their trip to town. He is 91, I can’t believe he is that age. Does he ever wonder…. ‘Is it today ?’ …. Kay brings her youngest to a house with no Kath. I chance the shop in my shorts again and come back with papers, wine and Crimbles, a perfect mix for a Saturday afternoon match before heading back to work. Football…. a glorious irrelevance….

I get gradually inebriated and head for a couple of hours sleep, already practising the routines for work on Monday in my head.

Janet wakes me about 9.00pm and I can’t believe it is so late. I get up for a bite to eat and a glass of grog listening to an interesting article about sports stars and depression.

‘Curiosity’ is on its way to Mars, as the fallout from Nato airstrikes on the Pakistan/Afghan borders are described as ‘unfortunate deaths’. What a line.

Barrymore busted…. the last thing I hear on the TV news before shaving, bathing and taking to my bed.

Sunday. I get up early and throw the radio on as I make coffee. Gary Speed has died…. found hanged at home. I am totally shocked by the act, the context and try vainly to fathom the possible reasons. Who knows…. who ever knows.

A ship sinks off Anglesey and Prince William is at the controls from RAF Valley for the rescue atempts…. 5 dead…. Two clubbing deaths in London, possibly XTC…. unusual these days.

Bog called down for an evening brew, seeming confident about his Fathers improving health…. we talked of long coats, More cigarettes and hanging around in shop doorways, smoking and talking…. What was that about. I squeezed a last hour out of the weekend and felt short changed by my time off…. I didn’t see the folks, nor the girls, nor Jamie and Snez and Chloe….

I was glad to get back to work.

Martin and Sonia were both off on annual leave so myself and Peter, with the undaunting support of our volunteers ran a lively drop in session for 40 or more. Clint has got the plasterers in, like Ragged Trousered Philanthropists…. him and his Dad making a grand effort with his bedroom. 

Ken Russell dies, leaving a huge legacy in his wake.

In Los Angeles, the tent protesters are offered a move to the outskirts of town for a proposed commune. I watch the clip of Fenton and The Deer and his owner again.

The Autumn Statement arrives on the eve of the Day Of Action. Jodie calls to do her stuff with Janets’ hair and makes a lovely job of it. Much shorter than usual but a great shape. Kev and Tracy call down and the honeymoon plans are talked through. The Lake District for the boys, bit of walking, talking and drinking. The girls consider an all inclusive for a hot weekend away. 

As I set my alarm, both of the Mersey Tunnels are closing for the strike, at the same time as the 1st Harry Ramsden Chip Shop, in Leeds, does the same thing after 83 long years.

The day is a flurry of bickering and biting, as the knives come out for the various defences of the right to protest…. Work longer, pay more and get less back…. Typical of the justice handed out by the Tories. Students storm through the compound of the British Embassy in Tehran…. Jacko’s doctor gets 4 years in prison.

I watch the weather forecast as I ready myself for a shower.

Rain and wind to come but you can’t deny, Autumn has given us the strength for another Winter…. On its final day, we salute those we have loved and lost already….

I head to my bed sick to my stomach.

Rest in Peace

 

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31st October 2011

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Steve

 

October 1st…. the telephone line is still down. No chance of getting my ‘Last day of the Month’ article for September done now.

I find some solace in the fact that I have got to go to town to watch the Derby. We don’t have the Murdoch channels and I get a lot of comfort from the fact that I can access free Football Streaming. OK, it’s a bit hit and miss regarding the speed of the feed and the potential for a Singapore commentary but, equally, there is always Radio 5.

I am wearing tailored shorts and my black and pink Everton colours, cutting a hopeful jib along the Holt Road in the autumnal sun. I am singing Husker Du, ‘Dead set on Destruction’, heading for an early Guinness.

I went to the bank first, to see how much money I didn’t have. Roughly about a tenner I was thinking to myself as I fed the card into the hole in the wall. Christ, £41.42p…. They hadn’t taken my overdraft charges. They are usually swallowed up on the last day of the month. I took a tenner and walked down to Lloyds via W.H.Smiths for a paper. The Snecklifter from Jennings was on offer and I waited eagerly. Two people came after me and were served first. The next guy, who was really in line before me, asked for coffee and the barmaid disappeared behind the corner of the counter. A young chap came out of the back passage at the same time and served someone at the far end. I was boiling. I hate rudeness, I take it personally like you should with any injustice. I grabbed the ‘Independent’, spead out for an hours reading and stuffed it in crumples under my arm, exclaiming noisily about the service in this shithole. I headed for One to Five, a decent enough if expensive alternative. At least they have enough TV’s on show. I ordered a Guinness. I was still seething and, leaving my breakfast half drank on the bar, I went back for the rest of the cash at the Halifax. It was still there. I couldn’t believe my luck. I could actually, we lost 2-0 and the only good point was meeting Andrea, a Carlisle born Blue, with Red overtones, who I hesitate to call a football mongrel because of her lovely way and also, for not taking my seat to watch the game when it was offered. We talked of Gwyneth and St.Catherines in Birkenhead and more besides before we bid each other goodbye. All the very best….

I made my way down Charles Street for some flowers for Jan and a bottle of Red at the local Dick Turpin. Bastards, they should wear a mask the prices that they charge. I met Angela and Liam, Wyndham and Wendy, Paddy and Mandy, Vernon on his way back home from the pub after the game…. I felt like I belonged. It was a good feeling. Wrexham has been really good to me over the years.

It was still only early when I got home considering…. no broadband as yet…. I had a flick through what was left of the paper and sketched out some ideas for future consideration as blog pieces or new stories… one about growing a cannabis plant at my Mum’s one summer…. one about the kids when they were younger, God love them, probably to be called ‘In a minute’. I managed a bit more work on the detail of a piece half written, called ‘The Painters’…. sketching young Deans face in my mind “…. a block of a jaw but with curiosity in his eyes and a smile to more than compensate.” Another about hanging around the shops when we were younger and a classic about an old friend, John Corner.

21:12…. Jamie sent me a text and after a bout of soul searching in remembrance of the game, we agreed that at least we still had each other…. I wiped down the surfaces in the kitchen, listening to Moonglow, my projected funeral music…. (NB see below), with a fistful of kitchen roll in my pocket… Imaginary cymbals to lead the march into the church grounds…. Jamie called it the best day of his life…. Christmas time, having been out for a few pints with the lads after work…. I wanted him to belong to something other than me and him and us…. It would be good for him I had hoped. My boy. Another possible story?

The lowering light ticked the day off, onward and forward to the clocks as they rehearsed going backwards.

8.00am…. a loud knock at the door, I thought it was the police…. the man from BT had arrived to sort out the phone line. He had a brew and went down to the green box, poking around with a live looking screwdriver. He went on to the exchange and rang to give an overview of the damage…. cable to…. and a junction to…. and have you had a new service provider…. half of the wiring is missing. At last. It was on…. Hurrah…. Only thing left was to call AOL and tune in to Bombay time to get it sorted. I was so happy that I did the Customer Questionnaire with them…. and Janet did the same, by way of sorting out the lap top later that night. It had been a long 10 days. Totally ravaging my scheduled blog post.

Theresa May rumbled on about the Human Rights Act being an obstacle to due process…. I watched the students in a hubbubble of life as they poured into the grounds of Yale College. Freshers week…. thoughts of Cartrefle and Handbridge…. Atacana telescope…. Seeing back as far as when almost nothing was happening…. A panoply of distant star life…. dragging the Aurora Borealis as far south as Alabama…. Patrick Moore, what a guy…. what a glockenspiel player…. I wondered if he could play Moonglow…. Somewhere in Chile…. Some idle talk on the radio about the Speed of Light being innaccurate.

A radio review of the life of John ‘Motty’ Motson trailed away behind the noise of the dryer. Unusually, the match between Accrington and Tranmere was called off mid-game due to serious injury. I could almost sense his measured voice become commentary…. he said the three most important things to remember where…. roughly where play was…. the score of course…. and how long is left to play. Good advice.

News comes of the death of Graham Dilley, firmly fixed in the memory of my own time…. Headingly ’81…. brave warrior…. news too of Bert Jansch and soon after of Steve Jobs, already ill for some time and fronting his life with impressive dignity.

Cameron tries to talk growth in the face gloom and fear as another Peer is described as ‘…. nothing but a conman….’.  More mumblings about Pakistani cricketers, about Sarah Palin realising she is a reactionary lightweight and choosing not to stand for the presidential race, as well as the voice-overs from The Simpsons, being dumbed down to usurpers so as to save money…. Eat my shorts. At £145 pounds the proposed cost of the TV License is still great value at less than 50p a day…. for the BBC…. I would always be happy to pay more.

The Rooney family are at it again…. accused of match fixing…. you won’t get a bet on for the rugby this weekend…. maybe a little Quantitive Easing is overdue in the greed stakes…. 

Friday Night Club and some conversation about Rural Participatory Practice. You have got to give it to Gareth, he certainly knows his stuff. Andy and Tracy B came to visit with his tales to the lads in ‘The Hand’ about his music lessons…. laugh….. what a great ruse to fool his mates…. Gareth and I discussed the value of putting your CDs in the freezer to give them a crisper sound…. We chew through the jobs issues in Caia Dark…. I was playing ‘Real Life’ by Magazine and remembered when Al McCullough went to audition for the drummers job…. Thoughts of Toddy and another reminder to myself to make some contact…. Kelly’s Heroes…. Hugh Cornwall signing a card for Shelley….

We got proper looked after by Lana and Kayleigh and had plenty of laughing gear for the weekend and more.

I drift through Saturday and Sunday in a welcome, settled foggy blur, that as always helps keep the day away. I love doing nothing…. I am a master at it. I lean in to the music again, sat at my computer and thinking of Roddy Doyle, his words making me smile as they mirror my actions.

I remember the sea, off the warm Venezuelan coast, almost a year ago already…. I was a June baby…. well, if you approximate my conception…. maybe the 16th…. it’s possible…. A Bloomsday boy….

Jon Arne has been in touch about the visit in November. I sense the sadness still in the lives of his loved ones. Amazingly, a houseplant that he and Gunnhild had bought for us during their last visit, 3/4 years ago now, had flowered again, with a visible flash of red to show itself off with.

Jan is baking again and Kian has come to play his version of helping…. he is good at the whisking but better at spoon licking…. I tell him to have the hedge-hog flavour if he wants crisps…. he is disbelieving…. We talk about Macca’s wives as news comes of 19 deaths in Cairo…. No footfall increase there…. nearly 7 billion bodies on the planet…. wow…. memories of wine mouth…. those were the days…. Paul and Nancy do the deed on the anniversary of Johns 71st…. I e-mail Rob who is working through his current bout of tolerance…. Umbilical Red.

It was Jamies birthday. I sent him a text from work and arranged to ring later. He is off for a few days…. idle talk of Hoddles resurgence…. maybe he is meeting up with Jamie for a bit off peer mentoring….. against a background of the endgame in Sirte…. Kelvin McKenzie sullies the radiowaves for a while with his putrid garbage, while the problems for the Blackberry users continue…. I rang but Jamie didn’t pick up so I left a message.

I was on duty again at work…. two referrals to do, one prison release for a quick assessment, a few prescriptions and a couple of calls. I wander over for the car and wait for Jan listening to the Radio 4 news about shadow banking…. dredging the last of the North Sea barrels.

Liam Fox resigns over the Adam Werritty affair…. one V sign away from the truth…. Peter Allen again, nosing in the respective troughs…. good man.

Father Andrew, Rob and Kev, as well as the usual regulars showed up for the Friday Night Club…. Andy and Kev had never met and I was as surprised as anyone could be…. Bog introduced his anamorphic distortions and between cups of tea he propounded his ideas…. I sang through the melodies I had written for Rob for his instrumental, Winter. He seemed to like it and we laughed at his cool, Fleet Fox image…. I had been hoping for an early night as we were off for a days Guinness to Liverpool in the morning…. but no chance. It’s 3.30am when I fall into bed.

The day in Liverpool was superb. We have had a number of jaunts in recent years with various friends and loved ones. With Alan and Audrey, together with Kim and Andy we have had some real crackers.

We met up at ‘The Wheatsheaf’ in EP, our local and the home of past glories, now thankfully a Weatherspoons. We have left the car with the folks on a promise to return sometime near to midnight. The number of other, closed and boarded up establishments that have fared worse is a matter of sadness. After a full breakfast we take the train from Overpool to James Street, steering clear of the early football traffic in town and heading for some early refreshment in ‘The Pumphouse’ in the Albert Dock. The sun is warm and the air is still, with barely a breeze from The Mersey and the seemingly endless early Autumn days are full of life; shadows and light. We catch up with each other over a few cask, together with a mix of halves of Guinness and lager and limes. We pass through ‘The Crocodile Bar’ somewhat quickly in deference to the company. Three Blues, stuck in a quagmire of red shirts. On to the ‘White Star’ for the late kick off against Chelski. Even the doughnuts that we buy in Matthew Street can’t shake our disappointment at the result. We grab a burger at McDonalds, thanks to a triage arrangement that helps manage the queue and sit outside ‘The Beehive’ before heading up to the ‘Hanover Hotel’, an old favourite that never fails to please. It is busy in the way that hotel bars always are and we adjourn to ‘The Central’ and in turn ‘The Midland’, before heading for the last train.

We are full of the laughter and happiness that friends can bring with them. Together with the memories that they continue to leave us with.

We get talking to a young lad on the train, Sean, who must have been about 15. He is a diamond and we talk through our madness before he gets off at Spital.

We say our goodbyes as the rest of the crew grab a taxi and we head to see the folks, where we sit up talking and laughing and reminiscing until about 4.00am and ease our way into my old bedroom, full of the ghosts who finally tuck us safely to sleep.

We head for some lunch to toast a belated birthday to Dad and after a misfire at the ‘Hooton Arms’ head for ‘The Chimneys’. I have been past it hundreds of times and wish now that I had ventured through its doors sooner. Chicken, both Hunters and Shropshire Blue Cheese, Gammon for Dad and Beef and Ale pie for Mum…. it really hit the spot. Washed down with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with sweets and coffee to taste it is magnificent.

We say our goodbyes after dropping them off and strike out for the border to Wild Wales.

We get back in time for a chilled evening before heading back to work. There are armed police in Tan Y Dre, dealing with a domestic but they are just out of sight from behind the blinds in the front window…. the back plate of a Police car has been set on fire with lighter gas by a couple of bystanders…. cheeky bastards have got some front these days. Edwina is on the radio, trying to defend herself against her indifference to poverty…. I soothed myself with a recent purchase, an architecture book about Liverpool buildings. I am instantly sucked in to a world that I will never know but equally, that I have known all my life. The ongoing Hillsborough enquiry reveals news that cabinet papers are to be released. A pyrrhic victory for now. 

News that Immigration numbers are to fall coincides, as these things do, with the unveiling of a new statue to Martin Luther King. Protests continue in cities all over the world about the austerity measures, the bankers and Capitalism generally.

Wales dared to dream…. better luck next time boyos.

Dale Farm and the Miners deaths in Swansea fuel the the news…. Peter Hain demands more emergency provision for face workers. There is an unusual perspective doing the rounds that Vincent Van Gogh  may have been shot by someone other than himself. The Palestinians and Israel prepare to swap prisoners…. 1,000 to 1, pretty good odds…. Fox allows that some inappropriate blurring may have taken place…. the Booker nominees are dreading being seen as too readable.

They are kicking the statues in Sirte…. Gaddafi is dead…. murdered in the street…. Cameron describes it as great day for the Libyan People.

I had been to see Doctor O in Occupational Health as a 12 month follow up to being back at work full time. He was a decent man and kindly excused my lateness. I had mixed up the time and instead of standing outside consuming cigarettes I should have been at my appointment. All’s well. In his words, stopping smoking is a no brainer…. 50% reduction in associated risks within 12 months. I determined to stop, maybe next Monday…. maybe. I thought of Alan Carrs’ book on stopping smoking. Chapter 11 – The good things about smoking – The page was blank.

My external hard drive, containing all of my music folders takes a tumble courtesy of a snagged lead and a clumsy shoe. I am gutted, I can’t get it to work…. I try it again but nothing, not a bar. Just a worrying beep. Saturday I spend at home chuckling to myself as Clint swears at the FIFA game on the TV…. Gaddafi is in a freezer in a supermarket like some ghoulish variation of a fairground attraction.

I try to have a tidy up of the papers, I make a better fist of throwing them out than Oliver Letwin does…. they are in a neat pile by my side at my end of the kitchen table. I am idly absorbing the click and whirr of the news…. the protesters at St. Pauls are making their so far peaceful mark and the Health and Social Care Bill gets tucked up for bed with some rubbish about choosing your own consultants.

Kian comes baking again as news breaks of the earthquake in Turkey. Poor souls, with no bed to call their own and the dead being pulled from between the slabs of prefabricated concrete.

They are calling it the Official Liberation of Libya…. an Arab Spring full of wretched grief…. a terrible beauty of its own.

Stephen Nolan questions the protesters around St. Pauls Cathedral, enquiring as to what they are complaining about…. playing the devil again. A fireman, Cockney Charlie, describes his anger, “… People are sick and tired of top down politics…”.

Heavy rain falling over Wicklow and Dublin, drenching the fields and turning the roads into rivers. I think of McGuinness and Michael D and the recent Presidential elections. He is very small apparently.

I am sitting at the kitchen table, two days into a tobacco free life, with every synapse screaming at me for nicotine. The binmen were the first to get a tongue lashing, just this morning. Lazy bastards leave more mess than they take with them. And they couldn’t take the newspapers because the bag contained the wrong type of cardboard. They wouldn’t have made it down the path in the old days when they had to lug a big stainless steel bin around. Idle fuckers. Janet rings to remind me to take the peppered steaks out of the freezer. She is working late. There is enough bits left in the various boxes for me to make a funny fag and I suck the fumes deep into my lungs. Smoking is a beautiful curse all the same.

The Eurozone is at deadlock with the Italian lads fighting in parliament as they fail to reach any austerity agreements. Greece is almost in ruins…. and the French and the Germans bide their time, waiting for each other at every turn in the road. The referendum vote identifies 80 or more dissenters and Cameron is cornered. Too many to punish and too few to really matter.

Bring on the bitterness.

Joel calls down for the first time in a while. We have bypassed each other here and there these last few weeks, through work or life or anything else that seems to get in the way. We mull through his recent promotion and then throw around our thoughts on the often thankless task of managing a team of dispirate individuals. I direct him towards some Group Work principles. Wiki has a decent page but try also http://www.infed.org/groupwork/

We make some plans for trying to meet up in November, to finish off some ideas for new tunes. Old tunes actually, a few cover songs if we can manage it.

I watch a little TV. Joanna, fronting a piece about Crete mentions the ‘wine dark sea’. I am reminded of Joyce who described it as the ‘scrotum tightening sea’. The news spits an item about Tevez, fined four weeks wages….£800,000. I make a quick calculation based on net allowances for my own paid employment. It would take me approximately 32 years to earn that. Obscene. I put my headphones on and play a little Pete Townshend. ‘I’m the One’ hits the spot and I take to my bed.

The resignation comes from St Pauls. Poor Giles. A raw deal over the politics of people and the visibility of the tentage in the grounds of the cathedral. This is one to run and run I think to myself.

I head to the Warfarin clinic and ease through the afternoon before Friday Night Club. It is quieter than usual in respect and memory of Cath, our neighbour who has passed away. I saw her daughters outside the doors as I got to the hospital, talking into their mobiles with tears staining their red faces in the afternoon sun. Amanda called, along with The Bogster of course, as well as Jordan and a surprise visit from Bryn. Lana and the kids, along with Elika and Tash readied themselves for a fancy dress party to celebrate Halloween. They would have been quicker on brooms as they managed to get themselves lost as usual. Amazing. We sat and talked above the noise of the soaps and finally the radio. Thank heavens. James called, Cath’s son. It was the first time I had known him to be in the house. Lovely lad, lovely family, always polite and courteous and would never pass you. God Bless.

I put myself through the usual pain by watching my beloved Blues, up from my bed in time for the midday kick off.

Ah well.

Janet has opened an account with Bet 365 and we huddle around the scores hoping for the right results. Jamie and Clint usually go to town on Saturday morning and put the bets on for her. She has put a tenner in the kitty but the two lines on the virtual coupon come to nothing. She quietly blames me. She will be betting on the outsiders at Wincanton on a rainy Tuesday afternoon next.

News arrives of the death of Jimmy Saville, disturbing our memories of guys and gals and clunk click and how Jim could fix it for everyone.

Joey is coming to stay, while Joel and Tina have a well earned night off and head for the cinema. Kian stays to keep him company but the little fella denies any thoughts of sleep to himself, preferring tunnels and lollipops and conkers.

Kev and Tracy arrive with bags of Indian delectables from the ASDA and we set the oven controls to heart of the sun. With a few glasses of wine we are at our best with the banter. We reminisce about Jimmy Saville and Kev concocts a glorious story about Saturday night TV with Brucie hosting a joint rolling sketch for the Generation Game, with Howard Marks as referee. I swear I was crying with the laughter. We toast the proposed Easter nuptials and I allow myself a huge relapse on the smoking front between trick and treaters knocking on the door. Bryn calls again and we share the last of the drink before heading to bed just after 1.00am.

We’ve got big plans that don’t include you.

With the clocks about to go back, we borrow an extra hour of the life we are due and wake up on Sunday time, hoping for it to go by a little more slowly than usual.

More ‘graves’ are found in Libya and no-one knows who the ‘rebels’ are any more. British succession makes the news again and one of the old guard from Saudi shuffles away to make way for an older brother. Another member of the Bletchley Park crew passes on, that’s three this year for me to know of…. details of Thatchers Peerage expenses fill my casual gaze at the Sundays…. as Martin and myself were saying about work only last week, between mouthfuls of soup and sandwiches; ‘ …. I’ll keep turning up until they start turning me away ‘.

I remember to call the folks. We had missed the visit of Kev and Rita, coming across the sea from Stavanger, Norway. Not to worry, we will meet again soon hopefully. We chat through the sketchy details…. Mums leg is still bad after a couple of falls on the pushbike…. Dad has got a touch of CPOD. He doesn’t seem unduly worried as they have sorted out his dodgy Asthma diagnosis on the back of it. He has got a new inhaler and is feeling brand new. He has nearly finished the Guralnick biography of Elvis and like me was enthralled by the madness of it all. Ten pages or so left for bedtime. We will catch up next week when we go to visit Jon Arne and his band of Vikings on their trip over to Liverpool. We will stay in EP and try to catch Jamie, Snez and Chloe for a bite to eat sometime on the Sunday. Belated birthdays. Janet is in constant touch with the girls about Christmas shopping.

I realise I have missed a call from Pete S and remind myself to ring him back.

There is talk of Cancun next year with the Reilly – Freemans. Bring it on.

Gareth arrives full of talk of Dylan and the never ending tour that he has been on, but that he continually questions actually exists. We talk of the leap of faith that we have both felt with our respective art. His Bobness has been there for me always. Like ballast, balancing my rock and roll sway. Good man.

China is looking at Europe inquisitively. Quantas strike a deal. North East America is covered in 80cm of snow. Christ, not a good sign for us.

Graham joins Giles in the list of casualties for Christopher Wrens gaff, following the first Sunday service for a week or so. Vain attempts to see off the smell of violent protest. It’s coming…. you can’t deny dialogue…. eventually. 

Welcome Back…. October 31st…. The day when the population of Planet Earth clocked up 7 Billion members…. When UNESCO allowed Palestine full membership despite the disagreements with the US and Israel…. Last day of the Month…. the official date for NATO to withdraw their services in Libya. After 26,000 sorties…. 14,000 strikes…. 5,900 targets hit and still no data yet on the extent of the casualties.

They wouldn’t have dared in Iran or Syria or North Korea or Saudi or….

 

NB. The version I would like is by the Benny Goodman Quartet with Victor Feldman on vibes. At 3m 25s it is as fine a piece of music as I have ever known, running ‘Monks Mood’ by Theolonius himself, a close, rare second in the variables.

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30th September 2011

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Steve

 

No sooner have the salutes fallen/faded/flags run down from Wooton Bassett than the Defence Ministry outlines Armed Service personnel cuts…. Nearly 2,000 Army and Navy lives less dramatically shifted to one side, ready for burial…. Internment….

Brize Norton takes on the baton of repatriation….

Friends of Libya meet in Paris to mull over their options…. 63 Nations…. Sarkozy and Cameron…. 42 years to the day that Gaddafi took control…. The Meaning of Life…. Powerful Symbolism…. Russian and Chinese delegates continue to question the role of NATO in the conflict…. As for the African Congress they are still quietly protective of their own despite it all….

1st September also brings the 72nd Anniversary of the outbreak of the 2nd World War…. a full 30 years before the ascent of the current Libyan power base….  

The number of jobless households in the UK hits 4m…. many of them with sleepy pupils who are eking out the time till term begins…. Those long hot summers….

The ‘Independent’ highlights issues for the tobacco industry…. Constantly patching up the papers like all the dubious dealings and relationships we encounter…. the butt of a story and the noiseless ash from the spillage….

…. We catch the first of what will be numerous programmes about 9/11…. pulverised bones…. no survivors…. those bodies falling from the upper floors…. seemingly so serene in their ferocious acceptance…. The major players…. Mayor G and his deputies, Where is George/Wally….? Flight 93…. Let’s Roll….

The deadline for Sirte is extended by a week….

Troops to Teachers…. Within the Freeschools programme…. To improve literacy and numeracy…. Knowing that you mean it…. discipline….

Friends of Libya promote a new constitution and democratic elections….

Sex offences up 60%….? There are no male teachers in more than 4,000 Primary Schools….

While I wait in the car after my visit to the Warfarin clinic I catch a Radio 4 programme – ‘Spirit of the Beehive….’

Friday Night Club…. I really look forward to a weekend doing nothing…. Kev and Tracy bring lovely news of their nuptials…. another wedding is always more welcome than another funeral at my age…. you can only gush so much…. Amanda/Tracy B/Andy/Lana and Kian/Jordan/Gareth of course…. We talk some more about my plans for being an Apiarist…. Jan is quietly amused by it…. Joel and Gareth roll the dice….

I don’t manage to get out of bed until 1 o Clock after being disturbed by next doors builders at 8am…. I had got up for a coffee and headed upstairs, back for a re-sleep….

We arrange an early evening meal at Holt Lodge again, for a welcome celebratory carvery…. I bump into Nicky B at a wedding and he is catching up with himself on a weekend binge…. Yes, I will let Helen know that you need to see her…. Elika and the girls finally head for town about 10.30pm and at last we get a few hours to ourselves…. Lovely…. We eventually take Nick Drake to bed with us….

Hague refutes MI5 and CIA involvement in the Gaddafi government…. Common enemies…. Rendition…. nicely out of tune….

‘ Freedom, Democracy, Justice, Equality and Transparency…. ‘

Saline nurse…. Trial by media…. Speed testing for Airline Passengers…. Mathematical analysis…. Nolan allows the press and the police to bite chunks out of each other….

BBC i Player…. Mo Farah…. Janet in the garden…. Daz and Nia on their way with Conor after his visit to Sheffield…. Decathlete extraordinaire….

There is talk of televising court appearances in the wake of the riots…. The abortion debate wrangles on…. Independent Counselling…. James Murdoch is going to find himself back in court by the looks of things…. PJ Harvey wins the Mercury….

Bombardie and the story of the trains from Derby…. Germany awaits…. 50p Tax rate…. Russian Aircrash kills Hockey Team…. Irrational fears – Fruit Stickers…. Incumbent NI manager is criticised by Sanchez ????

The Con MP for Hexham described himself as ‘ ridiculously well ‘ following his recent tumour…. T/C from Shelley…. Holiday…. Bites to eat…. Card for Carmel…. Spent the night with Kate Bush aaarrgghhhh…. Iraqi deaths – Violent Procedures – OECD Growth 1%…. Red and Black…. the fascinating prospect of a show that ensures counsellors are available to tidy up the mess for the losing contestants…. Like all game shows…. Galliano secures himself a suspended sentence…. Like throwing rotten fruit and veg at someone in the stocks…. Christians and Lions…. The rollerball like wheel…. I console myself with ‘Take the Money and Run’…. loud on the headphones…. Mister Miller…. Elika and the headache…. ‘…music is my life…’ Gambling channels and betting online…. Red or Black….

Obama’s speech…. Theresa May and the Gang Show…. Assymetric Warfare…. threats of attacks on NY and DC….

BBC Reporter killed by US in a case of mistaken identity…. Liverpool Port and the Cruise capers…. Dockers

A quieter FNC tonight as there are some birthday celebrations for one of Clints’ friends in ‘The Hand’. He is 18 (well on Monday) and already a well known and respected, seasoned drinker in ‘town’…. Jan has popped up for one drink to send her regards…. Gareth is going to write a book he informs us and begins to morph into his megalomaniacal narcissistic self…. He regales me with the conversation he has had this morning with his JSA officer…. ‘ Is that all you have got going on in your life…. to be critical of me and others like me…. ‘ How insignificant are you….? A tiderade washing the clutchings of the moment away….

Vanity searches…. eyes mesmerised…. Thursday will be fine for the trip to Liverpool…. hoping to see Fred before then…. ‘Lodge Life’…. I’m on Misery Drive with a Motown Stranger, Ted’s in the shed with a chain-saw…. with a zero moment of non command, what’s the zero moment of truth…. for…. he didn’t get the job…. gutted….

Little epiphanies…. feeling and process…. Pay to Leave donations…. please….

I reminded myself to send him a copy of ‘Time Won’t Let Me’ by The Outsiders…. on his path to recovery…. TIDY…. A nightful of LKJ  wrapped around a handful of classics from the stacked drawers…. I made it to bed for a triple Family Guy and drifted off to Death hath no Fear…. performed by the The Maelor Theatre Orchestra….

Egyptian protestors attack the Israeli Embassy in Cairo in retaliation for border guard deaths…. Britains rivers – RSPB…. Zanzibar Ferry deaths…. Gyratory…. David Walliams swimming the Thames….

The first tomato from the hanging baskets outside tastes sweet enough to be classed as an apple…. small and perfect…. Arrest over Welsh football murder…. all others released without charge…. The sky is a periwinkle blue….  faded likeness in memory of 9/11 perhaps….  when the madness began…. bringing joy to a lazy saturday….

The Nato strikes on …. Bani Walid…. Let the endgame commence…. starting stopping and stopping starting…. The girls are heading out, drinking their own weight in Vodka and WKD and finally allow us to relax in a noiseless night with The The…. A mulling Vince Cable helps narrate the story of the WMD speeches of Tony Blair…. TUC…. avoiding the conflict at his own door…. back to London for further news…. The Vickers report on banking is imminent and Ed Miliband calls for all unfit bankers to be struck off…. I was quietly pleased that it was a few days to pay day and the fact I had virtually nothing in my pockets eased my concerns over the local Halifax closing…. The Council would have to pay me in notes…. ha ha….

9/11 The story continues….

An extraordinary Sunday…. Most of the morning was allowed to designate the muted TV as a quiet, warm, cheery looking cornerpiece for the usual trill of the radio…. Peter Allen and Stephen Nolan relaying pre-recorded highlights, interspersed with the live commentaries for the day…. concerns about three missing fire trucks and three unknown new arrivals on the shores of Americay… The replayed original coverage, as delivered by Simon Mayo, was as riveting as it was at the time… I remember I was lying in bed, at 2.00ish in the afternoon and heading down to the kitchen for a cup or glass of something or other…. 

‘ God is our refuge and strength ‘ Jacob…. Obama…. The oak trees were regaled, one a survivor of the original day beneath the WTC’s…. I remembered a poem…. when they started the recalling of the names…. from Aamoth Jnr…. to…. Zukelman…. There were two Byrnes…. Paddy and Tim…. A pear tree….

The naming of parts…. Henry Reed….

‘…. And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers…. ‘

 

To be continued

 

 

 

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Welcome Back

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Steve

 

After the recent problems with connectivity we are pleased to announce that normal service has almost been renewed.

However, there are one or two points of order.

The September episode of ‘Last day of the Month’ will be published later this evening in its current, annotated and curtailed format. It will be allowed to be finished in due course.

The October edition will be published subsequently, to allow for appropriate sequencing.

In its current form, the programme will be brought to a finish on the Last day of December 2011. It is hoped that a hard copy of our work so far, will be made available soon after, with additional complementary resources.

For your patience and time,

I Thank You.

SJB.

 

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Apologies

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Steve

 

 

Due to unforseen technical problems, we have been unable to bring you the latest edition of ‘Last day of the Month’ for September 2011.

Please be patient.

These issues have been provisionally resolved.

Normal business will be resumed as soon as possible.

 

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31st August 2011

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Steve

 

August 1st, the weeks stretch out towards the final Bank Holiday before Christmas, the last day of the month bringing an end to the meteorological summer.

Life continues to be a montage, or a marriage, or a mirage …. maybe all three.

I am back at work, hot on the heels of the camping adventures. I check the diary for my week and realise that I have two late nights to negotiate and two afternoons of duty…. Cool, I like duty. It is a chance to get to deal with everything and everyone who falls through the door. In that way, it feels fresh and we all get to gain a little more insight into the world of our clients. Most, I have met before over the years and I am on first name terms with. Others are a little more withdrawn, anxious even, understandably caught up in their own broken space.

I have started to get some attention for a piece I wrote on the Blog about Steely Dan. I am delighted, as without piling it with any external links, it is sitting somewhere between pages 7 and 8 on my AOL Search.

Sarah West becomes the first woman to command a Navy Warship, HMS Portland, in its 500 year history.

Friday Night Club, with a late visit from Tracy B and Andy. He has been working away all week and got caught up in the tiredness of it all; the driving, the late nights and the early starts. They head for home earlier than usual.

The markets continue to fluctuate with the USA losing its international AAA+ status on the back of the nosedive of the Dow Jones index. Down to AAA…. hardly a dent really in the gas guzzling chassis that is western progress.

News arrives of the polar bear attack in Norway and the death of the young man on a schools expedition…. sad. It reminds me of the fact that I must send a condolence card to Jon Arne and his family.

We chew over the fact that it is going to be a busy month….

When Saturday Comes. 

The Football Championship starts, with a commentary for the Birmingham game. I think of Gary T and despite our differences here and there, was glad that we had resolved our friendship before his tragic death recently…. off The Aquaduct at Froncysillte – the village of Trevor to you and me. 120 foot above The Dee I believe at its highest point.

My first thought when I heard, was so selfish…. That’s Joel and Tinas’ favourite place…. why there ???

Where else.

Gary was a Brum and a big fan of his variation of The Blues, a season ticket holder these past few years again and undoubtably, he would have automatically tuned in to the rat-a tat-tat of the afternoon commentaries, bringing the early bouts of a new fixture list to life.

Stuart Kuttner and Rebekah B make all the columns over the deleted e-mails from News International Corps…. Even Heather Mills makes a substitute appearance in a mess that is demanding of extra time.

The Taliban shoots down 31 US and 7 Afghans in the biggest loss of US life in one incident in Afghanistan. An Argyll and Southern Highlander is accused of keeping body parts, fingers to be precise of Taliban Fighters.

The War of the Flea continues to rage.

We had been invited to a party up in Brymbo. A 50th for Dave BP, famous drummer with the band James and a genuinely, self effacing nice guy. He is an old friend of Daz and Nia, our erstwhile companions in this life of kids, kissing and camping. I had been to the house a couple of times before, ten or more years ago, with my old mucker Colin Farrell. It was nice that Alison, Dave’s long term partner remembered me. She was as lovely as I remembered her. Daz and Colin would have rubbed some sparks off each other believe me.

Where are you Farrell ? Last seen in Wetherspoons in EP, overheard by my son Jamie ordering drinks with a barful of friends. Great.

We drove the five or six miles up into the hills. It was nice and relaxed, with a few glasses of red under the covers of various outstretched tarpaulins and gazebos. I was balancing an unusual variation in plastic glasses, clumsily twisted and locked from two sections, stem and bowl into one. I passed it between my hands and sat it on the bench we had commandeered for the duration. The noise continued to ratchet up from the conversations around us, Dave treating us all to an impromptu set on the small stage prepared for the occasion. Before long everyone was slaughtered, talking incessantly, choking on the diarrheoa like glut of words and wiping the whiteness of the dry corners of their mouths. When you are (relatively) straight, as I am these days, it is hard to keep up, a reminder of the changes these past months and years. It was a nonsense that I looked in at these days, unlike previously when I would have wallowed in it, demanded it even…. Scenester.

I chatted with Simon, trying to disguise the fact that I had lost control of the red wine glass, turning it onto the inside and bottom of my light coloured jeans. I made a lame attempt to negotiate a taxi without much luck. Fuck it, let’s walk.

Turning the first corner I came upon a fight in the local, ‘The Tai’. Two women and three men beating the daylights out of each other. It was like a trailer for a Wild West movie. I watched for a few minutes before moving on. Generally, the walk is downhill thank God. All of Wrexham glistening in the distance. Undulating here and there through the heavy rain via Brynteg, Moss, Gwersyllt, Rhosrobin, Rhosddu, Park Avenue, Maesydre and finally, at last, home. Home and safe.

Daz, Nia and Jan barely realised I had joined them when I finally got myself up from my bed. In their sweet madness, they were viewing photographs on the laptop at the kitchen table. Lost to it all. Fair play. I left them to a day of recovering and headed back to Brymbo for the car. There were no buses and I had no cash for a cab, so I walked back….uphill. Not advisable with a few hours turn around, but do-able all the same. Just….

I passed through the stirrings of the Sunday morning. A man on a bike, greeting me loudly as if he knew me, a small woman being walked by a dog as it strained towards the long grass. Skirting the radio mast in the distance, as if judging my best option for an assault on what looked like the Eiger, I picked a manageable path in my mind. Rhosnesni Lane, past the Nine Acre field, Garden Village, Rhosrobin again and the avenues up through Gwersyllt once more. Across the grass over Moss Valley and up the steps to The Castle pub. Right turn, past the White Hart and the Cross Foxes and slowly, pulling my legs beneath me over the brow of the last hill. I took a break with a bottle of coke from the Spar, choosing not to buy tobacco. What with these lungs ? The man who pulled the gate behind him, as I passed his house with its tidy garden, knew with a grin what I had been through…. ‘not long now boy’ he remarked. I paced on, like one of the crew that you see muttering to themselves, walking endlessly, strung out on a cosh full of Largactil.

Old thoughts of Victoria Road and Cae Pentre, the barmaid in The Castle trying to get my bet on in time…. a winner…. Nine Acre of all things.

I parked the car at the back of Jan’s work and headed for a few cask in town. Marky P and John H tried the Money Trick on me, while I sat on a town bench, eating triple chocolate cookies and swigging Irn Bru. 

– What are up to Steve ?

– Waiting for Godot.

I had a few of the Jennings Sunbeam in The Nags Head and walked the last mile or so home. Home again…. safe.

The weekend had given birth to an amniotic rush of riots…. the bucketfuls of news that wash the words of the presenters, mirrors in general the excitement of news, rather than the news story…. a variation of the coverage for the Arab Spring protests…. can you compare a bunch of 15/16 year old kids with the Security Services in Syria…. and what about the overseas analysis of our world…. all from the safety of my own chair…. Well.

COBRA met again. Stamp it down…. A Robust response.

Gareth called and we discussed these and other matters. I noted, silently to myself that we all seem to have nothing in common other than that we are all different. I was reminded of Brother Kev’s great observation;

– ‘ If things are going to be the same then things will have to change ‘.

We remembered Porthmadoc and the member of The CAT team that we encountered.     Christians Against Tourists.

By the time Gareth left we were still on lockdown…. Wrecked…. For a Fiver…. Horizon…. A World of Colour….

Janet and myself shared a triple chocolate cookie, from the bag that Marky had previously had his eye on…. at peace with each other again.

The e-petition is standing at 76 thousand, encouraging the loss of benefits and tenancies for the convicted individuals after the riots. Hillsborough tops the 100,000 ceiling, demanding the full transcripts and information that exists somewhere to be produced…. evidence for the dealings of those affected.

While I was back at The Maelor Hospital, awaiting my check up after a recent visit to their theatre, the radio heralds stories of the ‘Good News Network’. What a great idea. The talk continues its own post mortem of recent events…. dissection and reflection…. It delivers a poignant speech from the Father of his boy, killed in Birmingham along with 2 others in a drive through. The night courts are working overtime and Cameron gives the optional orders to shoot rubber bullets, for the first time on the Mainland.

Stories of MS and its associated genetics, as well as for Mark Kozelek in London…. Wish I was there.

A palindrome day 11/8/11.

Andy R called up again for the FNC and Gareth was dutifully reminded of his recent whisky chaos. We worked our way through the rich seams of luck that enabled all of our paths to meet. Both of them drinking mugs of tea and me steadily draining my glass of red. Andy left with some tunes by Richard James and Sun Kil Moon in his pocket and hurried down in the darkness, to the waiting lift from his daughter Eloise. 

“…. and found some things there that nobody’s seen, place ain’t the same no more….”

Happy accident…. I’ll use that.

TB and Andy J arrived again, clutching wine and lager and with Tracy P in tow, on an occasional excursion from her new home in The Hand.

It was late already and getting on for 2 o’ Clock when everybody left and Jan settled me down for a spread of Tarot. I tried to resist.

The Magician, The Fool, Death, The Devil, The Wheel of Fortune, The World, Justice and The Sun…. Now that’s what I call a hand…. It was a question of when….

We tore through the conversation, suddenly turning it on its side with an indignant white wine sauce, stoking our feelings and words. I hadn’t felt as if I had spoilt the holiday ?…. Apparently everyone noticed…. I like the van…. safe…. I felt a little bit bruised by the time I headed for my bed.

The Google Dance sees off my latest offering as my piece on Steely Dan shifts me out of the Internet Search Charts from Page 6 to oblivion. Ah well.

There has been a flourishing well of motifs, signs, signatures and portents….

Our game had been postponed at Tottenham following the riots and I was trying to get an hours sleep before heading for TB’s Party….

I was in bed on a Saturday afternoon…. I drifted and began to feel a creeping paralysis…. I coouldn’t shake it off. I felt two hands either side of my pillowed head and the voice above me spoke in a soft whisper….

“…. Ah, he’s asleep….” I struggling to stir, as if pinned down as my own eye turned to look back at me. A last big effort and I finally made it to my feet, rising and stretching to the memory…. Very strange….

There was a good show for the bar-b-cue. I was starting to feel a little like Michael Winner. Janet had taken Tracy B to the Lady Lever Gallery in Port Sunlight, as a distraction from the preparations for her birthday party. There was a nice mix of family and friends, old and new…. talking with Barry and Tyler, Kerry and Nia.

I took off about 11pm…. the chill of the evenings coming earlier and earlier. I caught up with the radio…. still raking over the dust of the riots…. The indignancy of the commentator luring the words out of the radio caller, playing a tight game of devils advocate…. the smattering of sad unfortunate deaths…. a disaffected and uncaring youth…. Have you not heard of the Gin Riots ? Try this then…. Wikipedia – List of Riots in London.  

Janet rustled up a great breakfast to see Daz and Nia and young Annie and Elvis on their way, and before we had caught our breath we were back to work….

Pay day…. still a great day despite the monopoly imposed on it from credit transfers, virtual banks and virtual money. These have consistently destroyed the joy of the brown envelope …. shaking the coins and counting the neat corners of the notes…. you never really knew how much you would get….. relying on the generally sour-faced mix of secretaries to get your tax and emergency code sorted. I remember in most jobs it was the norm, getting my money wrong for the first week or two.

In my lunch break, I treated myself to new editions of Mojo and Uncut (as always), a pouch of Drum Gold, a scratch card (in case I didn’t have to go back to work), a Manchester Tart and a copy of The Independent.

When I was 16 and claiming a bit of dole (it was £7.70p back then), I would head to the Patisserie Anglais after calling to the Post Office…. Melody Maker and NME, 10 B+H, a quick bet on an outsider at Manny Cooks, a Strawberry Tart and The Mirror…. I hadn’t started to read The Guardian at that point. What a creature of habit I am.

We had a few, long restless nights, tossing and turning and smoking and sighing until we made our peace once again. In good time for the weekend visitors…. The folks were heading up to Wild Wales.

We had originally planned on a trip to Bantry for this month but Dad wasn’t so well after news of his Aneurysm. Friday night, the usual houseful …. Kev…. Bog…. Tracy P…. Even Rob had an invite but maintained his Marlon Brando like reclusivity.

Oven baked chicken and vegetables…. strawberry cheesecake…. a few glasses of wine and the hubbub of the chat around the kitchen table. Lovely.

Saturday…. a lazy morning with a light breakfast followed by  a visit to Nancy and Paddy in Coedpoeth graveyard. The NEWI stones, set in relief – Masons, Carpenters, Bricklayers…. I gazed at them as I sat at the traffic lights…. thoughts of Cartrefle…. Misha…. We headed to the Pant Yr Ochain for a pint, taking a trip past the back of the old place in Llay and ordering a  Titanic Stout.

A little overcast with a drizzzzle falling as we turned back for home to ready ourselves for an evening meal at Jamuna, our favourite Indian. The folks seemed relaxed and happy, glad to be out of the space that is theirs and comfortable in the space that is ours. Mum rattled off her impersonation of Pat, her face twisted in an uncommon shape. 

‘Did I spoil your holiday….?’

We threw around the 252 charge sheet and settled our conversations over the rumble of the radio again. 

On to The Jamuna and a late anniversary meal for us, held back from July. Poppadoms and Chutney, Korma, Jalfrezi and Chicken Shashlik, sweets and coffee. I was stuffed. We all were. I drove back after only two small reds. We saw the folks off for a change and stayed up a little longer for a last glass and a smoke to oil the talk. It was good to feel as if we had gathered up all the pieces we had misplaced from each other this last week or two. It was good to feel safe and warm in each others arms.

Sunday, we had arranged to go out for lunch and with Lana and Jamie, Joel and Tina and the three respective grand kids…. if you include the two preganancies the girls shared between them we were 13 in all…. Lucky for some I say.

We got the folks back home to EP for early evening and hugged one another for the joy of happy times. I made good on the road back, blowing a kiss to the border sign as I always do…. Welcome to Wales.

Kian stayed over and we watched the bat from the back step as it circled the house…. Tired, we fell into bed, catching part of the emotional service for those killed in Norway…. I had remembered to send a card to Jon Arne.

Monday again. Overnight the news of the advance on Tripoli. Evening and the beautiful purple clouds climbing over the deepening red decline of the sun, dividing out the late August evenings. Already since June, we have lost two hours to the light. Elika and Clint are back from the V Festival. Safe enough, if stinking a little of the piss and beer after squatting in a field with 60,000 wreckheads for the weekend. Good on them, I hope they forget the worries of the hygiene and remember the joy of the moments ….and do it all over again sometime soon.

We are expecting rain….

A Red Arrow plane falls from the sky. Another dead pilot. His wife is so composed as she faces the media, her words so soft…. I don’t know whether I am in shock or in awe.

The numbers of riot arrests and prison remands is swelling and bulging, like a bubble in a tyre awaiting the moment to explode again…. Thatcher – Major – Blair – Brown – Cameron…. The famous fucking five…. 30 years of riotous comment…. I have to say Major is my own favourite. In spite of, or maybe because of the Currie affair. Health of the Nation.

I so wanted it to be Blair, the first (and the only so far), PM that I have voted in during my lifetime.

Tripoli has started its fall to the Rebels ? It would have been a destination for my Father post Suez. Ironically he was a volunteer during National Service in England. 

The Winehouse Report concludes no illicit drugs in her system but it remains to be seen whether Px drugs and alcohol were to blame. Remember Presley, Jackson and many more in-between.

Branson survives a fire.

Britains’ Youth Crisis is propounded from all and sundry…. witness young Samuels getting tasered, along with other more newsworthy individuals at large. There are harsh sentences, for prison and university students. I am not sure which is worse…. as the clearing system crashes. 190,000 hopefuls for 30,000 places. A-Level results rise for the 29th year in a row. Prison time bomb…. 20% of 16 – 24 year olds are currently unemployed.

The NEET generation poke their tongues from the newspaper headlines, having a look back at us all the same, reflecting our own incapable selves.

The deaths of Jerry Leiber, Nickolas Ashford and Robert Robinson are sadly final while Steve Jobs is forced to retire on health grounds.

Following on from the A-Level results and the madness of the pursuit of the university places, the GCSE’s seem to be saying…. ‘ People aren’t stupid enough….’ as the system crashes again.

An earthquake jolts the fault line under the basements and cellars of New York, leaving a frightened city taking to their beds tonight….

On a lighter note, and I am happy to receive confirmation of this, Long, Jean, and Silver, all scored in the weekends football games. I have been reading Treasure Island on and off since we went cruising last year…. in the Caribbean that is, not on Corporation Road in Birkenhead.

I have been writing a song with my good friend Robert, a surviver of the Llay Years, a fellow keeper of the Llay Tapes and a comrade ever since. I thought it might help with my confidence, after all it is what I used to do. My usual reasons for writing lyrics are personal pain, but I haven’t written one in 8 years, it all dried up in a pool of…. I just want to sing again…

We were in Criccieth again for the annual family Bank Holiday weekend. There was a good crew as always. The Bolan cover of the edition of Uncut that we rolled up on, brought memories from 1970 of Gail T and Margaret B…. engrained whispers of the lyrics to ‘Hot Love’.

A friend of Arwel with the hairy hands brought some logs to compete with the store of pallets from Cadwalladers. The girls discussed a Bitch and Stitch evening, to alternate with the usual Friday Night Club.

Gaddafi negotiates his future from my sparsely used radio. What a guy. £1m pound reward.

A field in Criccieth…. home to the wedding ring that I lost…. for now.

Saturday night and I fancy another glass but give my last Guinness to the lovely Nia instead, while she and Daz swap niceties for a while around the white heat of the fire…. I hear but don’t listen and head for the warmth and safety of the van instead…. listening to the ghosts of Johnny Cash coming through the trees.

Passing Frongoch on the trip home, I raise a salute to all of the memories.

Sunday…. e-bay clothes…. Joel – Tina – Cantril Farm – Kenny Holmes – A better class of poverty…. Good news on the wires about the Kev and Tracy story…. All the very best…. A tag on a false leg…. Hurricane Irene…. causing more damage to NY and the east coast before heading on up to Canada….

A nice piece about words that we aren’t using…. Aerodrome…. I find that a little unusual or should it be Aerodrone…. Like one of those letter ladder games…. how about Amiodarone, an anti-arrythmic for when you are poorly….

Mercenaries executed by rebels…. Smug radio Nick H…. alright for you in your warm studio…. Mindfulness…. Empathy…. Truth…. remand sentencing is a feeding frenzy, box ticking, arse watching…. Lockerbie bomber and Yvonne Fletcher…. CNN breaking news…. Coma/Dead…. Jails will be full in weeks…. actually undermining justice…. 4 years for a Facebook riot that didn’t happen.

 The gold leaves dance down from the trees along the Holt Road, spilling their way through the quick air and start to pile up in the gutter. I check my money at the bank buying newspapers and a bottle of Red.

Dani rang, it was great to hear her voice…. we had managed to miss each other all summer…. she was in my thoughts often these days…. We discussed her holiday and the problems with the passport…. Christina’s Mum would do it again…. Genetics…. Christina was once held in Manchester Airport, apparently with the fingerprints of a serial killer on her hands…. I wonder if my hands will be warm enough through this winter….

Work again…. five days squeezed into four. Janet had me rub some skin cream in her back to try to clear the changes in her natural pigmentation. For some reason I thought of the underground bunkers in Libya, hacked through with sand coloured stone…. the cream was of a similar hue. The lotion was out of date like most things in the ‘medicine cupboard’…. apart from Paracetamol and Ranitidine…. and Warfarin and Statin and Amiodarone….

It was nice, a day not talking – not because we had to but because we didn’t have to…. Libyan rebels within sight of Sirte….

Gareth called to say hello, pinning the tail on the donkey that is life…. He has got an interview for a job…. We talk of the Celtic Tiger and the English approach…. all punishment related…. understandably…. belonging…. London London London.

We toasted the outcome with an imaginary Gin and It.

We picked up on it again when he called back on Tuesday evening…. An umbrella approach that encapsulates rather than isolates…. that brings that sense of belonging we like to feel….

Gaddafis’ wife and children head for the repressed ally that is Algeria. The World Athletic Championship bemoans the rules regarding false starting…. Well what do you expect…. this is TV scheduling for you…. reliant on the Commercial Dollar…. Gaddafi himself gets the ultimatum to be out by Saturday.

Tony Sale, another of the Bletchley Park crew passes away.

My Steely Dan piece is on Page Two…. Hurrah….

Labile…. it makes me want to live forever…. Not so for the friends of Wooton Bassett…. Repatriation…. as Travellers are evicted in Essex…. A tragic mystery in New Brighton….

In my chair in Mill House, 14 years ago tonight, with nowhere to go…. the news broke of the death of Princess Diana. The next morning, having slept in the office, I received a key of goodwill from my friend Brian…. I will never forget his kindness…. It really was the beginning of the end…. 31st August…. Last day of the Month.

‘ …. A voice of reason in the all new age of reality….’

 

NB. The answer to the question in the June edition of Last day of the Month is now available at the bottom of its respective page.

 

 

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Steely Dan – Katy Lied

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Steve

 

When I saw this well, I just couldn’t believe that someone was actually selling it. I had walked down from school, through Grange Road in Birkenhead three or four times in the past month, heading purposefully for Skeleton Records and unusually, I had not really come across that much of interest.

I knew the album was released and available of course, but I’d had no luck in getting myself a copy, without some way of hustling the money to pay up the full price.

It became like a nagging interior monologue in my head – What do you think Donald ? I don’t know man, you better ask Walter – I liked those moments when I only had that to compare it all with.

The vague idea was, I would steal a few cricket balls, glinting like shiny red apples in the box when I looked at them. The office door in the gym was left open now and then and sure enough…. I quickly counted about 10 and took two, one for each pocket so as to disguise the evidence.

I had hoped to sell them, back at home… One of the Chester lads took them off me on the bus for £2. He reckoned he could make another £1 on the pair where he was from. He asked me if I could get a basketball. How much ? Depends. I’ll pay £10 for a Medicine Ball.

Boys.

I can’t remember in what order, or for which albums I needed, but I also sold amongst other things; Fishing Tackle, …. I also stole a £1 note from the blazer pocket of John Kelly (humblest apologies John) …. His father Noel owned a Sports shop…. and some old Florins from my Dads coin collection. Thinking back these were probably for cigarettes circa decimalisation while they could still be spent. Plus a pound for the Gilbert o’ Sullivan 45 record from that lad in the 5th Year…. ‘Alone Again Naturally’ …. my mum would kill me if I owned up to that one….Sorry Mum.

This is getting too Catholic for my own good. Guilty as charged.

‘Katy Lied’, hinges on the solid backbone of a beautifully crafted suite of songs, that even with repeated listens, leak away almost nothing in the way of fat.

Bad Sneakers. Rose Darling. Doctor Wu. Your Gold Teeth II. Throw Back The Little Ones.

It’s quite a short album by contemporary standards. Of the ten songs only ‘Your Gold Teeth II’ exceeds more than 4 minutes. Remember, this came out 2 months before ‘The ‘Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table’ by Rick Wakeman. I know, I saw it on the racks. I even listened to it. The way you had to…. we were learning…. the way we did when absorbing music continually at that age. I did, in my defence, avoid the spectacle of the ‘dancing on ice’ performances.

Within ‘Katy Lied’ there is anguish everywhere you look, piled high in each corner and yet the whole, is full of an accepting optimism.

Standing at Woodside bus station in Birkenhead, waiting for the C4 back to Ellesmere Port, I watched the hands on the Town Hall clock push around to 4.10pm and eventually, finding a seat up the front on the top deck of the bus, opened my pack of 5 Park Drive and lit a cigarette. I read the sleeve-notes and looked at the curious photographs on the cover, turning it over and over in my hands. I just wanted to get home and get under my headphones. Many years later, I even wrote a song about the whole glorious occasion.

I remember coming in through the back door and slipping into the chair in the living room, nearest to the front window. I don’t recall exactly the lay out of the space at that time, but remember well my parents and my brother Kev, watching television and eating food from their lap, served from the hatch, while I listened to their voices, bleeding through the intermittent silences between the tracks.

I was trying to hear the sureness of the changes I had heard about, signalling a shifting of prescence between the ‘old’ band members and the manicured settings for the new recruits. There was a feeling that ‘the band’ had broken up…. remember this was when we got our information from the NME and Melody Maker…. once a week…. You wouldn’t hear that much radio talk about Steely Dan that was for sure. Apart from a slice of an ‘In Concert’ appearance on the OGWT there was barely any ‘video’ footage either.

Unexpectedly, ‘Black Friday’ makes for somewhat of an uneasy start. The rolling guitars, despite the efforts of Denny D and Walter cry out for Jeff Baxter. It is full of reflection and ploughs its way with a weary, expectant air. It is by far, the nearest to formula that a side from this album could be. The lyric is sharp as always, and coloured with the proper and personal names that litter the albums narrative from the start, but it has a concrete arrangement, that is setting quickly and firmly, within the shuttered, oblique memories of Pretzel Logic. It is too earnest and unsurprisingly, made it as the first 45rpm off the album. A record company cert that. Even so, for all my criticism…. I wish I could have written it.

Mmm.

And then….

Michael McDonald, saves his first clear and discernable words in the Steely Dan pantheon for….

‘Going Insane…. Laughing at the Frozen Rain…. So Alone….’

I often wonder how the conversations rattled on between DF, WB and Michael. I have a hopeful consideration, that he found his form early in the afternoon and went home to pick up his groceries in a paper bag, gently humming ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Movies’.

I somehow doubt it.

‘Bad Sneakers’ stinks of class, it is almost nauseous with it’s self-belief and knells a defiant …. we shall expect no less…. for all the staggering rest. Supreme, in procuring a slice of barely digestable lyrics and allowing them to become so much more over time. It is unprecedented in it’s hope, it’s relief and it’s purpose.

‘Rose Darling’, brings no respite from the tangle of emotion. It plays out its understated sureness magnificently. Fagens’ voice is sublime, it’s authority a far cry from the supposed reluctance about singing, that history would have us believe about him and his relationship with his own voice.

Where previously, the complexity of the songs had enticed my admiration, my friend, Mr Nigel, one of five names that I can always stand to hear…. taught me about the simplicity of ‘Rose Darling’ and its relative depth.

‘Daddy Don’t Live….’ struts along to Jeff Porcaro’s insistent beat. Where the fuck was Hackensack ?…. It would have taken days of rooting and tooting to find that out in those internet freedays.

With ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Movies’, playfully arousing as it is, they are a rabid coupling as they wrap themselves around ‘Doctor Wu’.

Oh ‘Doctor Wu’. Siren like, holding yourself high. As if bearing a hostage from helplessness to danger, who wonders …. ‘Have you done all you can do’ ? It is exhiliratingly cinematic in its scope.

‘Your Gold Teeth II’…. What can I say. Surely, impossible to even contemplate writing nevermind playing. Unbelievably, it trumps YGT from Countdown, striving and reaching and scaling its’ heights, nailing this summit of rarified air, leaving me gasping, trying to steady my excited heart.

‘Chain Lightning’ continues to sound to these ears like a Bob Dylan barrel-organ romp to match ‘Rainy Day Women No’s….’ The only thing missing is a wailing harmonica….

The common observed thread for this song, is that of a Nazi rally but, I have to admit it was the furthest thing from my own thoughts until I read that about it. 

With ‘Any World that I’m Welcome to’  we have the nearest thing to the early Brill Building pieces. Some of these had a life before and were subsequently refurbished, including ‘Caves of Altimira’ from ‘The Royal Scam’.

They form a neat, twisting pair in my mind….

‘Throw Back the Little Ones’ (Barrio) – The voice again, is so full of purpose, consuming the uneasy words sounding almost like a theatre hall singer, Newleyesque …. Fagin like…. holding on for dear life to the unrehearsed script. Waiting for an aside to halt the ad lib….

Somehow, remarkably, it takes and remains in full control.

….

‘Katy Lied’ was always more than an album. It was a time and a world that I was always welcome in and despite the passing years, indeed because of them, it was an awkward album in some ways. Others I am sure, would recommend different Steely Dan albums than this. 

Of the previous albums’ highlights, ‘Do it Again’ after all, is an absolutely perfect beginning to all that would become important and show that, from now onwards, everything would be different from how it used to be.

Really.

I know that kind of statement is usually saved for Beatle commentators but at 6 minutes long it is a dark, streaming dream of a song with a considered tight arrangement, fleshed out and coloured with immaculate solos’. It has a superb vocal stuffed full of confident phrasing. What is this shit about Donald not being able to sing. I am almost certain that he put that rumour around himself. He thrives on that kind of alienation. They both do.

‘Countdown’ dwelt in Razor Boys and Pearls of the Quarter while ‘Pretzel Logic’ bathing in a similar deep undertow to the territory of ‘Katy’, used the raw material that would see them forge their futures.

” Bring your heart along and you can add to the pure conviction…. ”

Donalds’ keyboard arrangements are the most important difference in the five immaculate vertebrae of the key songs from ‘Katy’ Lied. Like a latter day Prufrock, measuring out a life in other peoples coke spoons. Allegedly.

The urban angst, jazz tinctures and disco future tremblings of ‘The Royal Scam’, ‘Aja’ and ‘Gaucho’ respectively, would duly follow.

The mature musings of the solo sets, have covered the lush ground that pre-empts and cradles the rehabilitating ‘Two Against Nature’; together with the sharp, often removed eye of ‘Everything Must Go”.

As for Donald and Walter well, I have never met them of course. The nearest I ever got, was being an old friend of Gary and Eddie from ‘China Crisis’. 

I hope I would have liked them, although even if I had, I imagine they would have slit my throat if I ever told anyone.

Surely the whole back catalogue deserves a re-appraisal. It is bitty and predictable generally and there must be occasion to get the the oddites onto one disc.

‘Dallas’, ‘I Sail the Waterway’…. My old copy of the ‘Citizen Box Set’ even has the wrong chronology.

Even Bob has done that for us and look at how much material he has to manage.

No offence.

As for the album itself, the whole piece ends with  a piano flourish…. exactly as it should do.

Some of my favourite Steely Dan songs are not on this album…. but no album could hold these songs like this one.

As the old saying goes…. Form is temporary, class is permanent.

Side One.

01 – Black Friday
02 – Bad Sneakers
03 – Rose Darling
04 – Daddy Don’t Live In That New York City No More
05 – Doctor Wu

Side Two.

06 – Everyone’s Gone To The Movies
07 – Your Gold Teeth II
08 – Chain Lightning
09 – Any World (That I’m Welcome To)
10 – Throw Back The Little Ones (Barrio)

Released 1975 on ABC Records.

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