Certifiable achievements

When we are young we are given certificates if we do something well, even up until a degree (when we are still, effectively, kids). Maybe they help. Maybe they give us the encouragement we need. Maybe, like Steve Martin in The Jerk, posing with a fancy cocktail by the side of a swanky man in a swanky magazine, maybe they help us “be somebody”.

And then it stops. As adults I guess it’s just expected of us to do as well as we can; in life, in work, in play. Every now and then someone may say “well done!” but there’s no badge, no piece of paper.

Perhaps a wage is the adult form of approval. If so, I have let standards slip since my young days.

What da ya want for nothing? A rrrrrrrrrrubber biscuit?

Here’s some of my earlier, certifiable achievements.

1- The swimming certificate.

That’s not too bad. An Endeavour Award from The Swimming Teachers’ Association of Great Britain and the Commonwealth! Signed (well, as a 9 year old I would have taken it as a signature) by Henrietta, the President.

I was also given a sew on badge which my Mum sewed on to my trunks… no picture, I’m afraid.

Well done me! Now let’s take a look at the back of the certificate:

Hmmm. That’s specific. I can’t remember now just exactly what I did to achieve this award, but going off the Examiner’s Remarks it could have been anything from a full length of the pool to sticking my feet in the disinfectant tray. I suspect the latter. Still, it’s nice to see “tenacity” being used. It was only about a year ago that Jim, one of the players on my pool team (cue sports here, not swimming pool), paid me the compliment (I think, I hope) of calling me a “tenacious fucker”.

2- The singing certificate.

My Mum can sing. My sister can sing. My Dad played the piano and was also the church organist. I was expected to sing too. And, when I was 10, I entered some kind of singing competition. Here’s my certificate:

Sound work generally. Ha! Who’s going to tell a 10 year old they were awful? Even Cowell wouldn’t stoop. The song was The kangaroo. “The kangaroo is bouncing on his big fat tail/ he bounds across the hillocks da da da da da…” Yes, I’ve forgotten the words.

Years later we (me and Trev) resurrected this song for our first live tour. I was the kangaroo, and we had a huge fat tail made. The song had a pause in it, sort of like this; The kangaroo is bouncing on his… (pause) big fat tail! I would keep coming in too early and Trev would chastise me. I’d leave a longer and longer pause, but never long enough,and Trev would taunt and chastise me the more. Then, when I would leave the longest pause acceptable to a paying audience, Trev would jump in ahead of me, taunting, chastising, berating; demanding to know where I was.

We performed this on the first night of the tour. The show lasted three hours. We had to cut stuff. The kangaroo song went.

At this same festival I sang another song. One I can’t remember and for which I have lost the certificate. Some sort of classical piece. I remember one thing; I came third. Out of three.

3- The flower arranging certificate.

Let’s end on a high.

It’s the same year. 1973. I’m 10, possibly 11. And it turns out I was good at flower arranging. I got two first class certificates. One for an arrangement using only one type of flower (sweetpea’s) and the other for a miniature arrangement. Sadly, there’s no pictures of these winners. But they were good. I promise.

Maybe I should have taken note of these early signs. I wasn’t cut out to be a swimmer or a singer, though this hasn’t stopped me joining Note-Orious, the choir to which I now belong.

But perhaps I should have been a florist.

Aalborg- the Movie(s)

Just under a month ago me and Zoe enjoyed a weekend in Aalborg, Denmark, courtesy of www.visitaalborg.com. I’d entered a competition to be a guinea pig. And I won! All I had to do in return was record our trip. I said I’d blog, and I did. If you want to read my Aalborg stuff and see the pics, just click on the Aalborg category down in the category cloud at the bottom of this page. (I know, category cloud, don’t blame me, that’s the future for you.) If you can’t be bothered scrolling down, just click here. And if that’s beyond you, just enjoy the films with their pleasing music.

Yes! I told them I’d make a film. At that point I didn’t even have a camera. I had my camera camera, a lovely gift from a very kind reader of my blog, and I know I could have filmed with that, but I’m old fashioned and don’t get these multi-purpose things. I’ve still not got used to music centres. And so Zoe very kindly bought me a Flip camera. What would I do without free holidays and kind friends?

Now the Flip thing is easy. Shoot, upload, click something and then it’s on YouTube. It’s easy. If you have a new(ish) computer. My computer is over 10 years old now. It has a 55GB memory. It is so slow it has taken me a month to upload a 30 second film.

They’re here now. They’re not much to look at. I’m maybe better at still stuff. I didn’t think it all through. I’ll never be given a free holiday again.

But at least they are accompanied by cheesy music. The music comes free with Flip. I used it because I was scared I’d get into trouble with the law if I used proper music. I was desperate to use Strange Animal by Sparks to accompany the zoo film, but I just didn’t dare. What if Ron Mael came after me, with his long arms and his ambiguous stare?

Here’s the films. First up, the Zoo film with a Woody Allen-esque jazzy vibe. Oh, and despite what you may have heard Whatever Works is funny.

Next, off to the art gallery with some low-rent Snow Patrol/Take That crap.

And Karolinelund, with a Flip piece called, oh I can’t remember, a Steel Band Calypso thing that just about drowns out the music of the arm wrestling machine man, but not, unfortuantely for you, my inane ramblings.

That’s it. Apart from the other films you’ll find under the cloud thing.

Oh, and I thought up a slogan: Aalborg- go there, it’s nice.

I hope I get sent somewhere else soon (other than prison or a loony bin… although either of those would be ok-ish, as long as I didn’t have to do any rude stuff or any fighting- it’d put a roof over my head).

Time to stop. I have to head to choir. I’m supposed to have learnt the words to The Time Warp by tonight. I haven’t. Bring on prison. Choir prison.

It’s astounding, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll…

The Feet of God

Last weekend I was up in Manchester. That’s where my mum lives and it’s also where my sister, niece and nephew were on their annual trip ‘home’ from California. And this weekend also coincided with St. James’ Church annual parade around the parish. The Whit Walk. Something peculiar, it seems, to the North of England.

My family have been connected to this church for, well, possibly, over 75 years. My dad was the church organist until his death in 1983. My mum is still in the choir. My sister and the kids join in with everything when they are over. Me? Well, I was in the choir. Then I went to university, then moved to London, and, perhaps, the twin evils of education and swanky London living have left me a little less keen. I wouldn’t say Godless or evil, just not so sure about parading around the streets of Salford dressed like a blue nylon monk.

Zoe won’t step inside a church. It’s all for the safety of others. As soon as she’s through the door the font tends to bubble over. I told her it’d be ok. We’d just walk alongside, take a few pics, enjoy the spectacle.

This was before I was press-ganged into wearing a high visibility vest and ordered by the police to assist in crowd control and traffic diversion. There are some things you cannot say no to.

And so Zoe walked around with my nephew William, who, at the last minute, ducked out of the more formal procession. And he made a film. He possibl;y forgot to look through the viewfinder. I’m not sure. Maybe he is just avant garde.

William’s creative when it comes to this church stuff; read his take on communion from a year and a half ago when he was 6. When we watched the film back I asked him what he wanted to call it. Possibly mindful of World Cup events he went for the inspired title of The Feet of God. Here it is:

This yearly walk involves two churches; St. James’ and, from across the road, St. Thomas’.  St. James’ is Church of England, St. Thomas’ is Roman Catholic. They walk together.

Stirrers

In the Godstone Farm tea room they have labelled their stirrers, “stirrers”. Those little plastic things that I use as oars when I put my non-existent Action Man in his non-existent canoe. Look! Action Man complete with tea stirrer.

I wonder why they chose to labe the stirrers but none of the other items of plastic cutlery or single serving condiments? Do farm visitors regularly pick them up and stare at them as if they were from the future? (the stirrers, not the people. People from the future would know a stirrer when they saw one I’m sure). Perhaps the staff are sick of people going up and asking “do you have something for er… stirring the tea?” What’s wrong with teaspoons? When did they go out of fashion? Did some folk see the stirrers as some kind of new-fangled cake cutter? Were they trying to eat their cakes with a stirrer, a crumb at a time?

I can’t think about this anymore. I have to go to choir. Bye.

Bigmouth strikes again

I’ve a big mouth. I can’t help it. If I could I would. It’s always been with me and to some degree it’s part of my undoing. As a child of three or four, at nursery, the teacher would sit me on her knee and look down into my mouth to jokingly see where all that noise came from.

It’s never gone away. Occasionally I am allowed to forget. But there’s always something there to remind me.

In relationships things can be fine and dandy. Love can be in the air. It can be all around. Then one day, and I rarely see it coming, she will lean in to me, and carefully and gently go “sshhh.”

Here I am as the appropriately titled Launcelot Gobbo in a Salford Youth Theatre production of The Merchant of Venice.

"conscience", say I, "you counsel well."

Today, on the train, I did something I rarely do. I had a phone conversation with David Mercer, an old friend and a man partly responsible for putting us on TV all those years back in 1987. He’s to blame folks for ten years of Trev and Simon. Now he runs Total Eclipse TV.

I don’t like talking on phones on trains. I avoid it. I don’t like others talking on phones on trains. I scowl at them. But today, for maybe something like the third time in my life, I talked on a phone on a train. And I forget, I’m a big mouth. No matter how hard I try, when I think I am talking quietly I clearly am not.

Getting off the train at Charing Cross I sat on a bench to finish our conversation. A smart middle aged businessman approached me and I asked David to hang on a mo. The businessman told me off; he said that I obviously loved the sound of my own voice. I was embarrassed, mortified, shamed. I apologised. I tried to apologise more but he wasn’t having it. He’d made his point and moved on. He was off.

I am sorry. And to all those people I bothered who didn’t have the heart, nerve or whatever it takes to say something, I apologise. I just wish this man had scowled at me, said something on the train, instead of saving it up with a dig at the end of the journey. But it can take guts to say something and maybe his move was the best to make.

For what it’s worth, I do not love the sound of my own voice. I doubt I love any part of me. I know he didn’t mean it so, but I have been thinking about it so. I must have some kind of crazy ego about me, after all I’m typing this now and who knows who’ll read it, but no, my voice is the constant bane of my life.

Maybe it’s an illness, maybe I can be cured by a voice coach. But it is difficult for me to face up to it as such a problem. I choose to think I am quiet and unobtrusive, but every know and then my own voice yells at me through the reactions of others.

As I thought about this post; as I thought about the comments of the man; the voice I hear in my head is still mine. Try listening to your own voice and see if you can hear it as you would like to hear it; maybe sounding like Sinatra or Morgan Freeman. I’ve tried, but I can’t do it. It’s always me. And me doesn’t half go on.

Tonight it is choir. It’s our birthday. We are a year old. tonight I can sing loud and blend in.

Like Trumpton

Sort of. The choir I sing in, Note-orious, had one of our rare public performances yesterday. It was the Upland Road Street Party- though how a road can have a street party is beyond me. I guess a road party just doesn’t sound as much fun.

Here’s some young whippersnappers who played at the street party last year, just to give you an idea. Yes, that’s how it works. We turn up, stand in front of someone’s house, and sing. Here’s our setlist:

• Rhythm Of Life.
• One Day Like This.
• Unworthy of Your Love.
• I Don’t Feel Like Dancing.
• This Nearly Was Mine.
• James Bond Medley.
• Chasing Cars.
• Shine.

In time I’ll hopefully get hold of some pictures. For now, here’s Mayor Hook… oh, excuse me! The Worshipful the Mayor Councillor Jeffrey Hook to give him his correct title, and the Dulwich Ukulele Club.

The Worshipful the Mayor Councillor Jeffrey Hook tells a joke or two

The Dulwich Ukulele Club don't clean windows

When exactly do you mean?

I’m an old misery and I rarely get excited by things. What is there to be excited about when the best thing you’ve seen in your life is a monkey washing a cat in a sink?

But occasionally things come along that surprise me. And when they are computer related I’m even more surprised. Twitter, Facebook, blogging, they’re all good for a bit of a daft laugh but if they weren’t around we’d all get by with a few friends, a few books and a few drinks.

Then along comes Spotify. It took me a while to sign up. The name meant nothing to me and I didn’t know what I was getting into. I fear that every website or web thing is out to get me, to rob my bank accounts. Though I should know better. Any cyber criminals looking into my doings would more likely take pity and deposit rather than withdraw.

But Spotify has earned my love at the moment for this:

Popchor Berlin – How Soon Is Now (The Smiths)

When a song that meant so much to me in my youth can still mean so much to me in my old age maybe it’s time for a big rethink. Or just too late. I love this song and I love this version. I want to be in the Popchor Berlin (translation; Popchoir Berlin… or Berlin Pop Choir). I want to be their friends and I want to live in Berlin. I want to be called Herr Hans Hickson.

If you like this listen to their version of Devo’s Mongoloid. I like it. And I’ve never heard the original.

And why not try this slightly Flying Pickets style version of First of the Gang to Die:

Robin Danar – First of the Gang to Die

I know that sounds bad, and maybe it is, but I like it.

And this:

The Lancaster Orchestra – Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

That’s enough for now. Give them a listen. drag yourself down and cheer yourself up.

Every kiss every hug seems to act just like a drug

This post is going to be about The Lord of the Rings. No suitable photos for that, so instead I’ve put up the flyer from our Circus of Evil tour (they tried to get us banned in Jersey- who they? The Church of course!) It looks a little like that bit in the LOTR- the flaming eye bit. the Eye of Salamander or whatever.

So, last night I went to see The Lord of the Rings- the Fellowship of the Ring. At the Royal Albert Hall. With the London Philharmonic Orchestra and a bunch of choirs providing the soundtrack. And that’s a bit of a weird thing to do. After all, the music isn’t like a stand alone piece, a symphony say, where listening to it is the be all and end all. It’s there to serve the film. Should it not be as distracting as seeing some hairy hobbit hobble off the edge of a 70mm screen only to be touched up by someone from makeup?

But it works. Beneath a huge suspended screen stood the 200 or so singers and musicians. The conductor had a monitor in front of him, showing the film. A red vertical line would glide across the screen, followed by a green one; conductor traffic lights, telling him when to go. And once they were off a circular blip would pop on and off to, I guess, help him keep time.

I like the film, but I’m no Middle Earth expert. I wouldn’t say I thought Gandalf was a gangster from The Sopranos (that would be silly) but I was under the impression that Frodo went off to destroy the ring with his best friend, Sam Mendes. I now know better. Watching it with all those people doing their thing it was easy to forget they were there, so perfectly were they servicing the epic story unfolding (sadly for them) behind. And then you’d look at them all, singing their hearts out, bashing drums, blowing trumpets (I know my orchestra stuff) and it would amaze. The only downside? Epic music goes with epic scenes, what to watch? Well, the film of course… back to what the job of the soundtrack is. But then a quick look at who is doing what can really make you… well, cry.

When whatisname dies. Sharpe. Sean Bean. Red Riding. I’ll get there. Barrowman. You know the one I mean. A man, I think, not an elf or a hobbit or an orc. Anyways, he dies a noble death. After been tempted to take the ring from the little one, a scene showing the dark heart lurking in all men, he repents and dies saving the others from an attack of creatures with bad teeth, bad hair, and covered in oil. He dies by multiple arrow wounds, like a Yorkshire Saint Sebastien, and as he dies he is accompanied by the voices of the choir. But the women remained seated and the orchestra (mostly, I think) remained silent. The voices were of the males in the choirs (the men and the pre-voice break boys). And looking at them it brought home something that wouldn’t have been at the forefront of my thoughts if I had just been watching the film. The film spoke , and they sung, of the passing of innocence; how time and age leads us to temptation, how we grow old, and how we can redeem ourselves through doing the right thing at the right time. As James Gandolfini says, “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Confusion

Sometimes I wish I was this man. In a way, I was. But only for a day or two and only for pretend. But sometimes it would be nice to be a cobbler, breeding pigs and slaughtering them to make comfy pig shoes for Robert de Niro (for that is what this man did). That’d be after Bobby de Niro had been upstairs to visit my son, the chiropodist, to have his corns and bunions seen to. And the sketch was called, quite naturally, Cobblers to the Stars. And some may wonder why we are not on TV anymore.

But if I was this man (and his name sadly escapes me) my days would be simple; cuddling a pig, killing a pig, making a pair of shoes out of it for, let’s say, Clooney. No! I feel great shame. There was no plan in this, I’m just writing as I podcast, making it up as I go along. And it’s struck me; George had a pig, a big fat pot-bellied Vietnamese pig called Max. Now no longer with us. He used to sleep with Max. I’m sorry. It’s all pretend. I wouldn’t really harm a pig. let me change that last bit… making a pair of shoes for, let’s say, Mickey Rourke. or Vince Cable.

Anyway, I’m not this man. This man doesn’t have to deal with Twitters and people writing on his walls. Someone’s just written on my wall! I don’t even have a house! How can I have a wall in a computer? What is Facebook? What is Twitter? What more things will I have to join? It’s call ed social networking. When I was a kid we called it going out to play. Or visiting. I made this “joke” last night at choir, and it fell, like my singing, flat. That’s because they thought I was referring to a social networking website called “Visiting”.

Oh, I moan. And no doubt, in thirty seconds time, I’ll be as addicted as the next twitterer.

Twitter – vb – to talk rapidly and nervously in a high-pitched voice.

When is someone going to start up Shut-up.com? You go on it, tell your 5678 followers what you are up to and you get back 5678 replies telling you to “Shut up.” And then when we all get fed up with that we start up Shut the **** up.com and so on.

I’m not really moaning. I like it all really. Sort of. I just wish I had a job to stop me from doing it all. Some proper work. With pigs.

You can hear the various Confusions here:

New Order Confusion

ELO Confusion

The Zutons Confusion

To the Devil a Daughter

My comedy partner, Trev Neal, bought me a boxed set of Hammer horror films for Christmas. 21 films! And beautifully packaged, but that’s by the by. Last night I watched To the Devil a Daughter. I had fond memories of this film from when I was young, but then I realised, it’s nothing to do with it being a good film. If you were a teenager in the 70′s, and you’re like me, you’ll have fond memories of any film with nudity in it, even one as bad as this.

It’s a poor film that makes no sense at all. I think. Something to do with Astoroth and making Nastassja Kinkski an avatar for him. Astaroth? Avatars? Aren’t they the little pics we use on computers? Anyways, women give birth to demon babies, then have the babies crawling back inside and really, it’s all just one big excuse to show us some good old fashioned bush, by George! At one point, the devil baby, clearly a bloody glove puppet, sticks his tongue out and we can see it’s not a real tongue, but a tongue made out of a condom, covered in blood. I’m not making this up.

When the film isn’t being so… satanic… Anthony Valentine (the nasty Nazi from Colditz) plays Mastermind with Honor Blackman… I bet she was wishing she was back with Bond when they filmed that scene. There’s almost no soundtrack, giving the film a realism at odds with the nonsense we’re seeing. Richard Widmark’s the big star, and, according to an accompanying documentary, he was hard to work with. He couldn’t believe how unprofessional Hammer were. Gregory Peck and William Holden probably said “Do it, Dicky, we had great fun with those Omen films.” (I’m just going to assume they knew him, and called him Dicky Widmark).

Then there’s Brian Wilde, Foggy from Last of the Summer Wine, and the soft guard from Porridge. Here he plays a holy man who looks after the Church’s library of evil books.

I can remember so little of it now. And that’s after seeing it last night. The main thing I remember is the bloody puppet baby crawling up Nastassja Kinski’s legs as she writhed around on a bed and licked her lips. no change there then; I felt fifteen once more. which is maybe slightly worrying. The film was released in March 1976. Nastassjia Kinski was supposedly born in January 1961. This was Hammer’s last film. Perhaps they had to do a runner. And I’m off now, to choir; to try and purge myself of the evil Trev Neal has brought into this house.