Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Raymond on the ruminations of a Tragic Football Tourist
For the second round of the Scottish Cup, I decided to head to Annan to watch the home side take on East Stirlingshire. My extensive pre-match research revealed that these clubs had something remarkable in common, in that each have endured a single ‘ghost’ season when they disappeared off the football map.
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For anyone who hasn’t seen it, ‘Hunted’ is a TV show in which ten folk have to go on the run and stay hidden for 28 days. The contestants are allowed to take anything they are able to carry and are granted access to a bank account containing £300. They are being pursued by a crack team of investigators who have all kinds of surveillance powers available to them (including the ability to seize computers, hack email accounts and open mail). Any contestants who can evade these ‘hunters’ for 28 days will win a share of £100,000. Apart from being an entertaining programme, ‘Hunted’ provides a grim reminder of just how much access the state has to your personal information and all of your electronic communications. British citizens are the most observed people in the western world and the average person is caught on CCTV around seventy (yes, 70) times a day.
Two young Londoners working together –Madu Alikor and Ayo Adesina- have been making life difficult for the investigative team, so last week the hunters upped the ante. Dr Donna Youngs is described as an ‘Investigative Psychologist’ and her job is to help profile the lives of the fugitives, » Continue Reading.
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Raymond on the mystery and wonder of the Scottish Cup.
When the draw for the first round proper of the Scottish Cup was made, I drew up a wish list of the ties I fancied attending. As a football tourist with no fixed loyalties, my plan for this year’s competition is to visit some grounds and, perhaps, some places I’ve never visited before. A number of intriguing possibilities presented themselves, but events conspired against me. The weekend of those first round ties coincided with my wedding anniversary and my wife had selfishly booked a weekend abroad to celebrate. Not only did she expect me to go with her, she could not be persuaded that a visit to Deveronvale, Galashiels or Inverness to watch a first round Scottish Cup tie would surpass any of the supposed delights to be found abroad.
Astonishing, I know.
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Year: 2016 Director: Steve Read and Rob Alexander
This isn’t a ‘career-by-numbers’ fluff piece.
It follows Gary Numan and his wife as they leave the UK and try to settle in LA with their young family. By the looks of it, the crew was given more or less unlimited access to the Numan household, with the result that Read and Alexander have produced an amazingly candid piece. There’s no sense here that we’re being presented with anything that has been particularly dressed up for public edification. Gary and his amusingly bonkers missus Gemma come across as a lovably eccentric middle-aged couple, a less annoying version of The Osbournes.
The narrative tension focuses on the fact that, having hit a creative brick wall and suffered a serious bout of depression, Gary is under pressure to produce a special ‘comeback’ album. It’s going to be his first new work for about seven years and –as the family acclimatises to their new surroundings- we get the impression that their future depends upon the success (or otherwise) of Poppa Numan’s new record. He talks frankly about his Asperger’s syndrome and about how it has informed his creative process (and imposed limits on » Continue Reading.
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Raymond on The Road to Hampden takes a detour through the footballing hotbed of Castle Douglas.
There were a couple of decent options for the neutral supporter last weekend in the second preliminary round of the Scottish Cup. I opted to drive to Castle Douglas to attend the tie between Threave Rovers and Linlithgow Rose.
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Raymond on The glamour and excitement of preliminary qualifying round of the Scottish Cup
You may (or may not) have noticed that this season’s Scottish Cup has already started. There’s something great about the Cup, particularly if -like me- you’re not a fan of the Old Firm. In fact, the phrase ‘not a fan’ does not do justice to my Old Firm antipathy. I’m more like the opposite of a fan; an ‘unfan’, if you will. For ‘unfans’ of the Old Firm, the best thing about the Cup is that, unlike the League Championship, in which no club from outside Glasgow has triumphed since 1985, it gives us a decent chance of witnessing some other team lifting the trophy.
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Raymond on age-ism, blame and shame.
Given the amount of propaganda spewed out in the EU referendum campaign, it is hardly surprising that some folk reacted to the result in a way that would more appropriate to, say, an invasion of the earth by hostile aliens. Within our increasingly large over-reaction community, it would appear that losing an election is not something that is considered to be a legitimate part of the democratic process.
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The bar these days, is set very low for TV chat shows. The anaemic ‘chat’ invariably amounts to little more than actors, writers and musicians promoting their latest work.
This is a terrific clip from 1971, in which two men disagree on a big topic. Apart from the fact that anyone publicly subscribing to Ali’s views would probably be crucified in 2016, what is impressive is that a remarkable man felt comfortable enough to say what he said, his interlocutor understood and responded appropriately and -amazingly- nobody in the audience appeared to faint.
It was a civilised discussion about controversial ideas; we should have more of that on the telly.
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Raymond on Everything reminds me of music
The Move had a hit in 1971 with a song called ‘Chinatown’.
The track started with a gong, followed by some gentle wind chimes, before Bev Bevan’s thunderous drum roll kicked in. Every time I use the pedal bin in my kitchen, I am reminded of this song.
Let me explain how this happens.
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I was in a shop yesterday and a song came over their PA system which I really liked. Unfortunately, it featured on a compilation that someone had put together, with no between-song announcements. I asked the person at the counter if he knew what the song was; he answered in the negative and I’m sure I saw him reach for the security ‘panic’ button under the desk.
The singer was male and -I think- American. It could have been a singer-songwriter, maybe not a million miles removed from the kind of thing that Josh Rouse might do. The vocal hook on the chorus repeated the phrase ‘Kissing Girls’. I can’t recall any more of the lyric, but I think the gist of it was that the singer wasn’t getting enough ‘kissing girls’ action.
Whoever wrote this song was clearly influenced by mid-70s soft rock and liked McCartney-esque melodies. It had some nice chord changes and it sounded too well produced to be a local band; the instrumentation was quite lush and I’d guess that this person (or band) must have spent a few bob in the studio.
I’ve googled ‘Kissing Girls’ and nothing of interest comes up; » Continue Reading.
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Raymond on More guff about the creative process
When I was a lad, it was quite the thing for people to sing at family gatherings. I had relatives who would regularly ‘do a turn’ and entertain the company with a song or two. At the time, I was too young and self-conscious or, later, too cool for school to appreciate any of this. I didn’t really know much at the time and had a slightly patronising view of folk who could (and would) get up and do a song at parties; it all seemed a bit passé to me.
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‘Giorno del Cacciatore’ (Day of the Hunter) is an Italian film from 1982, directed by Alessandro Fuccili and starring Tomasso Pascal, Nicoletta Salvati and Flavio Benedetti.
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… occurs 2 mins and 3 seconds into this track, right after Peter Gabriel sings: ‘the stars come down like a swarm of bees’.
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Those who don’t live in Scotland may not be aware that we have a newspaper called ‘The National’. It has a very pro-independence slant (which is fine – most newspapers have a slant), but I’ll admit that I have only bought and read it twice and -on both occasions- found it dismal and hagiographic.
‘The National’ has just, perhaps, taken things to another level with the publication of a speculative piece about how Scotland would look, 50 years after gaining independence. I’ll link to the article in the comments section below. If it had been published in a North Korean newspaper, we’d be sharing it and laughing at it (which is exactly what we should do now). It’s difficult to be polite about an adult who can write something like this and even harder to be polite about a newspaper that publishes it.
Unless there’s a subtle level of parody that I’m missing, this is just all kinds of wrong.
Here’s an extract:
“There have been numerous highlights in the past five decades, but there’s no doubt about Scotland’s finest hour on the international stage, which came early in the life of the newly independent Scotland. The removal » Continue Reading.
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Why do they do it?
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Raymond on Enjoying the journey, not worrying too much about the destination.
Like many music lovers of my vintage, I’ve spent the last six weeks or so listening to David Bowie CDs and trawling youtube for clips, interviews and rarities. There is plenty I could say about how important Bowie was to me, but plenty of other folk have pontificated on that topic and I’m not in the mood to add to it. All I will say -for now- is that Bowie, an inspirational figure in life, has become an even more inspirational figure in death. The fact that he could produce interesting work as his life was ebbing away seems to be entirely in keeping with his status for my generation. If he can do all of the things that he did while knowing what he knew, then perhaps those of us who undertake artistic pursuits purely for pleasure should get our fingers out and get on with writing that book, painting that picture, making that film, or –in my case- recording that album.
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Author:Michel Houellebecq
Depending on which reviews you read, Michel Houellebecq is either a novelist of ideas and an original thinker, or he’s a blowhard contrarian and polemicist. I know which side of the fence I’m on.
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Length of Read:Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Houllebecq writes good speculative fiction. The fact that it has the power to upset some people says rather a lot about the prevailing intellectual orthodoxy.
One thing you’ve learned
That the future might look a lot like the past.
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Was that Eddie Izzard or Angela Merkel presenting that awards thing on the telly?
I’ve got the sound turned down, so it’s hard to tell.
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Now that would be a thread and a half.
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I wish I had a better justification for this thread, other than the thought that -if only we could establish some kind of connection- it might get loads of comments.
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Raymond on Thinking about how we ought to talk about a difficult topic
Such is the degraded nature of our national discourse on the topic of immigration that I feel obliged to start this piece with a statement, or -in modern parlance- a trigger warning.
I am a free-marketeer. I believe that capitalism, while far from perfect, provides the greatest good for the greatest number. I believe this because all of the available evidence leads me to that conclusion. Further, that belief in the free market comes with a belief in the free movement of people, which means that I am in favour of immigration, including economic migration.
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April 2016
Tue 05 Liverpool Echo Arena Thu 07 Nottingham Capital FM Arena Sat 09 Leeds First Direct Arena Sun 10 Manchester Arena Tue 12 Glasgow The SSE Hydro Thu 14 Newcastle Metro Radio Arena Sat 16 Birmingham Genting Arena Sun 17 Birmingham Genting Arena Wed 20 London The O2 Fri 22 London The O2
General Sale: Friday 13 November 2015 at 9am GMT
That is all.
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The heated discussion over on our latest ‘Beatles’ thread got me thinking about how generations tend to stay loyal to the bands they grew up with.
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I thought this was a joke, but it’s not.
Mike Watson has been appointed to Jezza’s front bench as education spokesman. That’s Mike Watson, the convicted firestarter.
Who on earth is writing these scripts?
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Raymond on How not to write a song for Shania Twain
A few years ago, I was asked to provide some material for an up-and-coming young female country singer. A friend in the business who was familiar with my writing style (I was going to use the phrase ‘writing prowess’ there, but that would have been a bit of an exaggeration) thought that I might have some songs which -given the right treatment- could have worked for this particular vocalist. My name was passed to the singer’s manager, who also happened to be her mother. After a perfunctory phone call (“I’ve been told you write songs. We’re looking for songs”), an appointment was made for us to meet. I packed my guitar and notebook and drove out to a big house in the country, about a mile and half from the middle of nowhere.
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