The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Damned impressive

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Venue:

The Power Station, Auckland, NZ

Date: 02/06/2023

In the very character-forming early teen years, if you followed The Damned, you were the serious punk type. Despite the silliness of Captain Sensible, they were a Proper Band who mean it, man. They delivered loud, urgent-sounding music with their fans snarling, gobbing and falling around, thoroughly enjoying the freedom they found.

I liked the music but I didn’t like the thought of pretending to be rebellious. You sort of had to pick a side when you were 13.

As time went by, the acts I went to see couldn’t gob their way out of a paper bag, even if they wanted to – and this was fine by me.

So when a friend suggested seeing The Damned, I had a small pang of reticence but remembered that I am 56 now – those tribal days are over.

There were actual young people stage diving and moshing but no gobbing. My friend and I were reminiscing about that awful practice and he cringed at the memory of NZ audiences gobbing at bands long after the UK audiences had stopped.

It brought to my mind live concert footage » Continue Reading.

Witty moments

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I don’t think we have done one of these for a while. A post on my “dog”:thread brought to mind a very funny line I remember from Clive James – “They say Sophia Loren’s body was designed by a committee….of perverts!”. You need to imagine the great man’s delivery there,

And then I remember something my wife said when I observed that New Zealand is small…but feels big at the same time. She replied “that’s deep…but shallow at the same time”.

So I’m in the market for witty things said by the rich and famous but also that stinging rejoinder or that chucklesome one liner you heard at work or at the chemist.

ATM – I want a dog

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Or, more to the point, the family wants a dog. I have fond memories of our border collie when I was their age and I do think there’s life lessons when it comes to looking after a dog – keeping it happy, healthy, fed and exercised. I’ll be looking to the whole family to share in this but I am realistic enough to know that after a brief period of devotion, over the long-term, this responsibility of daily care will fall to my wife and I.

We now have 4 teenage children in the house and this has been something I have been delaying because our house wasn’t well fenced. We now have a dog-proof fence so we are pretty much mutt-ready. We haven’t told the cat but he has had a good look at the fence and even with his pea-sized brain, he knows something’s going on.

According to the song, Pet Shop Boys wanted a chihuahua, but I’m not looking for a tiny yappy thing. I also don’t want a giant slobbery buffoon, unaware of its size and strength. Don’t want a staffy, rottweiller, Alsatian or anything along those lines. A mid-size pooch about the size of a » Continue Reading.

Swearing Allegiance to the King is OK

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I would be roasted alive on other internet places for this opinion. But I think this place has a more mature, considered take on things generally- so here goes.

The Coronation is very much a religious service. The millions that follow the Christian faith through the Church of England believe that the monarch is anointed by God to be Defender of the Faith and that as a member of that church, you are expected to swear allegiance to the monarch – as you would towards God, because that church believes the monarch is a divine appointment.

During the service, the congregation and the people viewing at home will be asked to say those words because it is what they believe. Those of us who aren’t CofE won’t have to.

In the Catholic mass there’s stuff you have to say out loud about believing that there’s only true, Catholic apostolic church and the Pope is yer man. Catholics will repeat those words but nobody else has to.

Storm in a teacup.

Don”t Bore us…Get to the Chorus!

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That was the title of Roxette’s greatest hits compilation. Not a fan, but I admired the ESL-ness of that title and indeed any act that avoids the title “Best of…” or “Greatest Hits”.

“Hits out of Hell!” – Meatloaf. The brilliant pretencieux-ness of Japan’s “Assemblage”.

Any more for any more?

Truth or Consequences

by 20 Comments

When Trump lost the Election in 2020, he loudly blamed the voting machine technology, saying it had been compromised by his political enemies. This was repeated verbatim by Fox News and reported as fact. The main culprit being one Tucker Carlson – a TV presenter

Fast forward 3 and a bit years and Trump’s lies have now cost Fox News $787m because they had to admit the whole story was bollocks and pay that money to the makers of the voting machines to compensate them. Tucker Carlson has now left Fox News, probably fired.

The settlement for defamation was the largest paid to anyone, ever. The high price reflects the seriousness of the allegations and allows Rupert Murdoch and Fox News the ability to draw a line under the whole sorry affair and hopefully avoid being tried for treason.

Now, Sir Rupe is not known for chuckling away his sorrows and letting bygones be bygones. He’s a vindictive character and seems to be in turmoil in his personal life. In his mind, Trump’s lies – harmless and lucrative fun for many years – have now cost him a hell of a lot of money. He won’t starve » Continue Reading.

Clog Dance, Violinski – reimagined for 2023

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With recent reissues of DSOTM and Tubular Bells hogging the headlines, today’s reissue of Clog Dance by Violinski might get lost in your news feed. But not here!

The song has of course been covered and reissued many times – not least in the form of 1991’s Mik Kaminksi-penned musical “CLOGS!” that featured a very young James Corden in his first starring role as Little Clog. Little Clog was the youngest child of the Clog family who, against all odds, take the footwear world by storm with their homemade clogs.

Mik said – “My vision for the show concerned the phenomenon of nominative determination. After all, I’m called Mik Kaminsky and I’m a violin player, so my band HAD to be called Violinski, right? So lo and behold…we’re a great success! Me and my pal from Wimbledon, Mike de Alberqueque, thought that there was something in this – and the rest is, as they say, history.”

The show enjoyed a solid pre-West End provincial run spanning nearly two weeks in the west country. With the country in turmoil following the toppling of Margaret Thatcher a year earlier, financial support for the project fell away. This was a » Continue Reading.

Memento Mori – a new Depeche Mode record

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What does it sound like?:

Those of us who thought the death of Andrew Fletcher in May 2022 might put an end to Depeche Mode were very wrong. Memento Mori translates as “remember we must die”, but that doesn’t apply to Depeche Mode. It might even be one of their little jokes, but more on that later. If we fast forward 50 years, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore will be gone – but there’s every chance that Depeche Mode will still exist as a going concern.

This album hasn’t bedded in yet but it’s important to write down first impressions and perhaps revisit these later when it settles in to its place at the table.

Before we get on to the music, the cover art is definitely a return to form. The record is beautiful thing to have and to hold in your hands. On the back cover we see a human skull on a table with two empty chairs either side. Inside, the same image but with Dave Gahan and Martin Gore sitting on the chairs. Does the skull represent their deceased friend…? Or is it simply a reference to the ancient motif associated with the album’s title? To » Continue Reading.

Mercury is the closest planet to Earth

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…most of the time. This is because it whizzes around the sun every 88 days, so it often gets itself closer to us than the Venus, which is supposed to be our nearest neighbour. Mercury does this more often than it doesn’t, if you know what I mean.

While this may be a bit mind-blowing….wait – there’s more. Mercury is also, on average, the closest planet to every other planet in the solar system. The attached article and video explains everything.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/solar-system/a26839314/closest-planet-to-earth-on-average/

Gary Lineker – a 21st Century David Watts

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He could have played first class cricket, but chose football. Scored 48 goals for England and won the Golden Boot in a World Cup. Never booked. Played for Barcelona, learned Spanish and speaks the language fluently. A relaxed and confident TV presenter. Married to Betty Boo*. Quick-witted, podcast pal of Danny Baker. Multi-millionaire.

But his greatest achievement is leading the opposition to the Government’s repulsive anti-immigration rhetoric and his absolute refusal to take back what he said. He’s great.

*actually, I’m not sure about that one.

Poncey Music – est-il temps de réévaluer cela?

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A recent reference to poncey music on another thread got me thinking. It’s a sub-genre of pop music that suffered greatly during the 90s when most formerly reliable poncey pop acts became tanned, billowy-shirted anthem merchants at a stadium nowhere near you. New bands seemed to be gritty, tuneless Lo-fi or sweaty gruntalongagrunge peddlars. This then led to the laddism of Britpop when we chewed with our mouths open and pretended to be hard.

I think only one act navigated this period flawlessly and that is (the) Pet Shop Boys. They played shows at The Savoy, they released a soundtrack to Battleship Potemkin, they thought about Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat – which is really skimming the surface. Even relatively recently there’s this one embedded here “Love is a Bourgeois Construct”. Musique-du-ponce par excellence.

Before the 90s you could hardly move for songs about philosophy, poets, architecture, religion or politics – but we have snuffed most of that out now. A great many of these songs were wonderful. What poncey songs or » Continue Reading.

What would be THE most valuable record – if it existed?

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A recent post on selling records (and my own experience 25 years ago) leads me to conclude that keeping records as an investment is not sound financial advice. Even if you’ve taken really good care of them. My pristine copy of Heaven 17’s Luxury Gap, with signatures on the cover, turned out not to be the pension fund I thought it would be.

Could there be a genuinely priceless record in existence somewhere? If so, what would it be?

My thought is a unplayed pressing of “That’s All Right” in an original paper sleeve owned by the estate of Elvis Presley’s mother. On it would be a written “This is for you, Mama!”, signed and dated by Elvis.

Or…found under a floorboard at Menlove Ave…a high street recording booth disc dating from 1960 featuring a very young John & Paul larking about with a very rudimentary version of Love Me Do?

I think that even these items would probably change hands if the purchaser was a Musk or a Bezos or the Sheik of Araby. Ten million quid would do it. But I’m happy to be wrong.

What Truss is really saying…

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The former PM has written a long essay on what happened in 2022 when she was PM for 44 days. She introduced the fiscal policy that she always said she was going to do. Conservative MPs said “yeah! That’s more like it!” and the Daily Mail’s headline said “AT LAST! A TRUE Tory Budget!”

The trouble is that the knock-on effect on gilt markets sent pension funds hurtling towards insolvency and then the spooked equities markets ran for their lives. This meant the Treasury had to find 65 billion pounds to stabilise everything. Seemingly, Rishi Sunak knew that this would happen and every single other economic commentator alive. And the Daily Mail. And those Tories who voted for her 6 weeks earlier.

So why did nobody tell Liz or Kwasi Karteng? That’s the main beef Truss has with all of this, according to the article. She learned of the consequences after-the-fact and was blindsided by political opponents in her own party who knew this would happen – and then once it did, they cane in and took power themselves.

Truss talks about a left-leaning sentiment in the country but it’s mainly an economic system calibrated to maintain the status quo, » Continue Reading.

Writing a Pop Song using ChatGPT

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I saw a TV item about ChatGPT earlier and decided to give it a whirl. “What choo talkin’ ‘bout, BC?” I hear you cry. Well, let me try to explain:

ChatGPT is Microsoft’s new AI robot that accesses all of the internet and communicates with you in a human-type way so that you can get it to do stuff for you. This is beyond asking Siri when Tesco opens…you can talk to it and give it a project. So I told it that I had written an instrumental synth pop song called “Pelmet”. I actually have (it’s not great – it sounds a bit like Popcorn) but it works well as a ringtone. It needs a lyric to be a fully rounded pop song.

So…ChatGPT thought about it for literally a second and replied “what do you mean by the word “pelmet” in this context?” I replied “it’s just a word to use as the title”. It replied “I see…” and then gave me this instantly:

***

Verse 1: Shine like neon, light up the night Feel the rhythm, make everything right Dancing in the dark, never felt so alive With the music pumping, we’ll survive

Chorus: Pelmet, pelmet, » Continue Reading.

David Sutherland – RIP

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Obituary

David Sutherland drew the Bash Street Kids, Minnie the Minx and other strips for The Beano. Incredibly, he’s been doing it since 1960 so most of us will have enjoyed his work at some point.

The list of brilliant gags is too long but these occur to me:

When the class is well behaved and paying attention, the Teacher panics and breaks into a cold sweat. The Teacher’s wife is basically the Teacher but with a female hairstyle and a pretty dress. Also, Cuthbert Cringeworthy is suspiciously similar in appearance to the Teacher. When the class is facing the front, Smiffy faces the back. Any mirror that is in the same room as Plug, breaks before he even looks at it. A telephone receiver will hover and vibrate in mid-air when there’s a call.

Jacinda Ardern resignation

by 32 Comments

I can fully understand her decision to step down. Like everywhere it seems, there’s around 2-5% of the population who are fully immersed in conspiracy theories and hidden agendas where Ardern is being paid by big pharma to promote and help spread COVID in order to make billions for her and her lizard mates, who are also, er, trafficking children for a giant organisation that’s top secret and no one knows about. We have our own media personalities here who go by the Hopkins/Farage playbook and get a stupid amount of airtime.

These people aren’t harmless though, the words they use – particularly when directed at Ardern – are disgusting highly personal attacks and misogyny is very much the order of the day, love.

Conservatively, Ardern’s handling of COVID saved over 10,000 lives in NZ. Her approach was health-based, not driven by the economy. Her calm, decisive and reassuring way of handling of the crisis gave her the biggest populat mandate at a general election for decades. That was in 2020, which seem like the sepia-tinted good old days now. The occupation of the parliament grounds about a year ago was scary. As we saw with the Christchurch mosque » Continue Reading.

Let’s have a wider grump about halfwits in general

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We’ve talked about the fuckwits who conga-train into the middle of that gig you’ve been looking forward to. But let’s not forget that they are everywhere and operate at all times. For this thread, I’m not looking for the bad parking or the littering type – bastards that they are – but the more subtle behaviours.

Geoffrey Fourmyle (not his real name, but that’s who he looked like, George & Mildred’s neighbour) used to go to a church I went to. He was blessed with a wife and three children – two pre-schoolers, one baby. As you can imagine, their family group was a logistical nightmare, but there they were, right at the front every week. At that time, I was in a similar position and I admired how organised they seemed to be.

One week, we actually got ourselves ready in good time and got decent seats near the front. The proceedings start, and the packed hall pile into singing whatever hymn it is with gusto. I notice a kerfuffle at the very front, Geoffrey is there with his family and they are looking bewildered and distressed – Geoffrey has a baby in his arms. His eyes are » Continue Reading.

Kelly Monteith

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Obituary

Sad to hear that he died yesterday. His TV show didn’t have the sketch and stand up performance formula – we were invited into his “home” and much of his comedy was based on mundane domestic observations and how women and men relate to each other. I’m sure it has dated terribly but it was something we all watched and there were many laughs to be had. I think he started “married” to Gabrielle Drake and then over the years they divorce and the comedy then turns to him having mixed success as a single man. He portrayed himself useless and unlucky in love but I noticed that he seemed to end up in bed with a different (absolutely stunning) woman each episode.

Unusual shops

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Went into a Pool shop last week and by the door they had a selection of very smart and expensive pool tables for sale. I thought I was in the wrong place but further into the shop they had domestic swimming pool equipment, pumps, chemicals and cleaners. Covering both bases. Genius!

The Afterword Guide to keeping you away from halfwits* at concerts

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*The site rules quite rightly forbid me from using cuss words in the title but for the avoidance of all doubt, I’m talking about fuckwits.

These people usually travel in groups and were first identified as a phenomenon by @chiz over a decade ago (see link below ).

Academics have drawn a blank over their actual purpose but their role is to arrive late and then joyfully conga-train into your eyeline and earshot at a gig and in their endearing, red-faced, pre-loaded way, shout/chat/laugh and buy drinks throughout the set.

So – here is how to avoid them.

Don’t go outdoors

They say sunlight is the best disinfectant but not when it comes to avoiding fuckwits. They thrive in the open air, particularly during the day. If you are seeing an act in the open air at a stadium, I don’t think you can avoid them.

An eye-wateringly expensive ticket won’t save you either. If anything, this is the worst thing you can do. Estate Agents, Bankers, Financial Services sales teams are fertile fuckwit incubation pods with unlimited funds. Ed Sheeran at Wembley Stadium? God help you.

Avoid major acts

I’ve » Continue Reading.

China Crisis 40th Anniversary Tour

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Venue:

The Tuning Fork, Auckland

Date: 10/12/2022

On a summer Auckland evening, you may imagine the sun, hazy over a deep blue sea. You may imagine yourself comfortably seated in a wide open grassy landscape with a glass of wine, a small picnic perhaps, with half-closed eyes, nodding your head appreciatively to the floaty melodies of China Crisis. The gentle, lilting music seems to beckon and then welcome the gradual appearance of stars in the darkening sky above.

But actually it pissed down. And China Crisis were playing in an indoor venue.

Meanwhile, the hapless thousands that turned up to see Guns n Roses across town at Eden Park found themselves soaked to the skin by the time Axl screeched his first screech. Opening remarks from Eddie Lundon thank us for NOT going to see Guns n Roses (as if this was a genuine dilemma faced by anyone at a China Crisis gig).

This was the first of many moments of comedy as the evening went on. A China Crisis gig is not just the music, a large part of the show is Gary Daly’s talent as a storyteller. This is a talent he shares with Neil » Continue Reading.

So then…I’m meeting China Crisis!

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I’ve had a bit of a dilemma recently. China Crisis are doing a show in Auckland this Saturday and I want to see them – but my usual live music companions are in the “No!” and the “Hell, No!” camp.

So I am going back to my teenage years and going by myself – hanging out quietly at the back, by the bar, with a can of Red Stripe. Except…the (very reasonable) ticket price includes a “VIP Meet and Greet” with the lads themselves. I have no idea what this entails. All I know is you have to get there an hour or so earlier than when the doors open.

I could forget all about that and turn up just as they come on as per my teenage MO but I am intrigued enough to want to meet them.

I have heard that these packages can vary a great deal. I’d be OK with a handshake and a few words but what if I get to hang out with them for an extended period of time? I’m not sure what I have in my locker other than “I like that song you did…”. What would you say to » Continue Reading.

Been back in England

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I was last there in 2016 and have just had a couple of weeks in the London area for a family thing.

I really enjoyed it and although I am not as misty-eyed as Kev Keegan in my clip, I share some of the sentiment expressed in his song. A comment on YouTube suggests it’s so good that Liam Gallagher should cover it! High praise indeed. Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to share with you some thoughts:

1. The public transport options in London are amazing. Using my own contactless debit card, I paid peanuts for all the buses, trains, tubes and trams. There were plenty of them too, all the time. I took a red double decker bus from St Paul’s and travelled over Tower Bridge at sunset for less than 2 quid. Honestly, go anywhere else in the world and see if it’s this easy to get around. I found myself on Oxford Street on “Black Friday”. Crowded but not mad – lots of boarded up shops.

2. Friendly people. Most of the time, people are up for a laugh. The massive proviso I must place here is – as long as you are not wasting » Continue Reading.