As I’m sure you know by now, TV doesn’t really set my fuse alight. I try to avoid the thing if at all possible. Paradoxically, put me in a situation where there is some form of tele-visual entertainment and, like fleas roond a shite, I’ll be inextricably drawn to it. Reeled in like a flapping guppy on the end of a hook.
The other day, while frittering away the odd hour, I sat down with the kids to watch the latest craze in the ‘hapless competitor pits his wits against an invincible assault course’ stakes. Takeshi’s Castle, for those who don’t know it, is like a Japanese version of ‘It’s a Knockout’ on a date with ‘Robot Wars’ where they both end up partying with ‘Jackass’ and ‘Gladiators’. If I’m not mistaken though, this a little light on the old ‘Jeux sans Frontières’ and wee bit heavy on the ‘Humilient sans Pitié’ aspect.
This is ‘Total Wipeout’ without the glitz, Jill Wagner and the two smooth dudes.
This is geek central.
This is a contest with no winners.
Instead you get a bunch of manic, bespectacled oriental misfits and Craig Charles doing his best Jonathan Pearce style commentary.
Judging by his innuendo laden script, I’m pretty sure Takeshi must be Japanese for arse bandit, with the so called imperial guard using water cannons to pierce the contestants ring.
To paraphrase the great Messrs Brookmyre & Connolly, “All good fun until someone loses an eye!”
Anyway, between the bouts of sprinting across floating stepping-stones and running across rolling logs, were the inevitable commercial breaks.
This troubled me a little more than all the double entendres about rings and spurting weapons, which, to be truthful, the kids didn’t get.
In the world of the 30 second soundbyte we appear to have moved on from the usual ads for shampoo and cosmetic life enhancement to something apparently a little more sinister.
Given that it was five in the evening, I expect the advertisers were targeting a different audience, so it came as no surprise that the odd Walt Disney ad or something, perhaps just a little bit too ‘pre Christmas’, flogging the latest Nintendo gadgetry, crept in to the scheme of things. What was surprising was the number of ads asking for sponsorship of something or other purporting to be a charitable cause.
Adopt a penguin claims the WWF. That’s the World Wildlife Fund and not the World Wrestling Federation, although that really would be amusing.
Imagine Dwayne Johnson being assailed by a pack of marauding nuns.
They’ve also got one about adopting a Polar bear.
Or there’s the one with the footage of some jungle, talking about a snow leopard that is so rare they don’t have it on film.
Another flashes up images of a sad eyed hound with the voiceover claiming how “Sam loved his owner blah blah blah”
Then, “for just five pounds a month you can give etc etc.”
Sponsor a dog – get your very own pet. No smelly carpets; no hairy furniture; no walks in the pissing rain picking up snappies full of shite.
There’s also the serious business of famine and disease in the Third World.
“Sami is eight years old. She would like to go to school and become a teacher but since her mother died, she has had to stay home and look after her father. He has had three heart attacks in the past year and can’t work. Just five pounds a week will help Sami go to school or will provide fresh water for her village blah blah blah.”
It all starts to sound like some old sad country western song.
“ Oh my granny is a cripple in Nashville....”
This is all serious stuff and I know I shouldn’t scoff but if all of us supported all of these causes we’d all be penniless, sitting in doorways wrapped in blankets begging off the pandas or the penguins as they passed by on their way to the office.
I know the world’s f4cked and the polar ice caps are retreating. I know there’s a hole in the ozone layer bigger than the collective arsehole of a thousand mammoths. I know the indigenous tribes of the rainforests are being shafted and driven out of their natural habit as the modern world destroys all in its path but, and it’s a big BUT, why the screaming f4ck does anybody think that a whole load of bizarre television ads are going to make things any better.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Call me a heartless cynic if you like, but someone is making money out of the plight of others less fortunate.
Surely all the money that is spent on advertising campaigns, glossy brochures, cuddly toys and membership packs would be better spent actually helping those who need it.
What about getting the governments concerned to take a good look in the mirror.
What about spending even a fraction of the budget that is ring fenced for the attritious defeat of so called enemies just because they so happen to be custodians of some oil rich desert.
And what about all these so called charity causes?
OK, so everyone knows about Oxfam and WWF but who the hell knows about the rest of them?
This is only a step away from Bible belt evangelism.
Gimme your cash – I’ll show you the Lord.
I’m sure I’m just being paranoid and there is a very strict vetting of the ads that the TV channels can run, just as there is strict vetting of the TV evangelical corps in the USA, but what about the papers or the internet.
We all know that the average newspaper is about 30% saturated with ads to the point where no one enters the nether region between the TV page and the sports pages and we all know what a pain in the arse the web is with the ubiquitous pop up ads. Similarly, we know all too well that a large percentage of blogs are now supported by banner ads or cover pages, and how much of a nuisance it presents.
All that nonsense about getting ripped in two weeks or losing 40 stone in a fortnight is, I’m sure, treated with the incredulity it deserves, all of which just goes to prove that if someone is flogging something that seems too good to be true, it’s probably because it is. That wonder supplement the medical profession won’t endorse is probably going to leave the girls with a big pair of sweaty bollocks that Buster Gonad would be proud of. The guys will end up with man-boobs that make Jordan look like Kate Moss.
End of the human race?
Watch this space.
Now all of this charity nonsense is fine if we are aiming at the next generation of adults and attempting to create positive attitudes towards the needy. We can understand the dichotomy; the balance between what could be done, what should be done and what must be done but, knowing how easy it is for kids to get lured by things like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, it’s easy to see that, without the benefit of ever having been skewered upon the horns of a dilemma, it is a very small step that is required to convince our offspring to part with the cash.
Our cash.
Speaking of which, what about the other latest craze in advertising.
Mizuba mobile, Envirophone or the Scottish version ‘ah’ll gie yi a can o special for your deid mobie’.
Stick your old mobile in an envelope, send it to this address and we’ll send you some money.
One participant claimed to have gotten a hundred and fifty quid.
One slight flaw in this equation though. If your average mobile costs about a hundred and fifty and most people have upgraded because their old phone is crap; if you stick your old Motorola talking brick in there, you know you’re going to get sweet FA back. It’s not even worth the postage stamp.
Then there’s good old Postal Gold.
Well there’s a gaping chasm of opportunity for the unscrupulous to sneak into if ever there was one.
Short of cash? Got some gold or silver lying around. Fear not. Stuff your swag into an envelope, stick our address on it and we’ll send you some cash.
Get outta town.
Do you think ma heid buttons up the back?
You can see where this is leading can’t you.
The perfect outlet for shifting stolen goods.
No need to stand in the pissing rain every Sunday at the local car boot sale hoping your last victim doesn’t amble past, just stick it all in an old jiffy bag, pop it in the mail. Two weeks later, Fanny’s yer auntie, big wad of notes pops through the letterbox.
Seriously, where does this stop?
Even the government have got in on the act with their cash for your f4ckt motor scheme.
Maybe the beleaguered NHS could do something similar. Send us your unused medication and we’ll send you a free ticket to a medical consultation with the GP of your choice – just make sure you’re really ill and the symptoms are glaringly f4cking obvious.
Perhaps the council could expand upon the recycling theme. Chuck all your unwanted furniture out in the street and we’ll send you a free DHSS token to the value of one free life membership to Sky+. On second thoughts, they’ve already done that one haven’t they?
Again, all jolly good fun if the motives are fair and true. Why shouldn’t we recycle and get a bit of cash back. We are in the midst of an economic and ecological crisis after all.
But just as there are unscrupulous car dealers who look like a cross between a rottweiler and a stubbly mr potato head; and just as there are unscrupulous timeshare owners who look like Grant Mitchell after he’s been tangoed into submission; there will be numerous entrepreneurial little shites, each with a proliferation of get rich quick schemes tucked up their sleeves.
This is the stuff of Esther Rantzen and ‘That’s Life’ or Nicky Campbell and ‘Watchdog’. The trouble now is that it has stepped off the back streets and the small ads and into our living rooms.
My idea for the future?
Adopt a Bank.
Never mind sending all your gold, jewellery or mobiles and getting cash.
Send the bank of your choice all your crap and save it from extinction.
In return, we promise not to lose your money and, as an added scoop, we’ll convert all your unwanted goods into cash so we can award our highest paid bakers a nice fat hefty bonus.
Now where did I put that silver chandelier I nicked from the neighbours?
Music?
…anyone who really knows me, knows why this is here, today.
My first guitar hero. I can’t believe its been eight years.
George Harrison – Beware of Abcko
http://www.sendspace.com/file/idp8fk
thenewno2 - Music Hall Of Williamsburg, Brooklyn
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qrv5h5
John Lennon – MSG
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pb4dyx
Paul McCartney – Electric Proms
http://www.sendspace.com/file/n6dkvz
Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs – Live at the Old Town School of Folk Music.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ako703
Duke Spirit – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0l2j66
Tom Waits – Fast Women & Slow Horses
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zovkqh
The Felice Brothers – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f41hqq
Paddy Casey – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pzqo6o
Solas – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/unhbig
Live in Toronto
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cpdtgf
Biffy Clyro – Live at Barrowlands
http://www.sendspace.com/file/k5hui5
Bruce Sringsteen – Live at Max’s Kansas City
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8i4f3v
Richard Thompson - Live in Detroit
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nlfe99
Dr Feelgood – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jw3dpd
Enjoy till next time...
Hooli
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Monday, 16 November 2009
...all the truth in the world adds up to one big lie...
As much as I hated to admit it to myself, I was a worried man with a worried mind.
A thousand times I wondered to myself, “What did this mean”
The voice from the very heart of me made a great show of reminding me that I was only human but all the while, the taunts from inside my head grew like an avalanche, sweeping me tumbling into its crashing depths, trying to convince me of something entirely different.
Like a man with an unexplained illness or an ache that never leaves, was I condemned to suffer within the clutches of this dichotomy that, with one hand, would hold me to the wild and irrational fear that something was seriously off the slates, while with the other, would drag me grudgingly towards the reality that there was a perfectly simple explanation and that the very existence of the doubt in my mind was what was solely responsible for its perpetuity.
Was I prepared to let myself be tormented in this manner?
Was I so blind to my own reality that I couldn’t see what I was doing to myself?
I was gripping on, white knuckled, to what I called reality, with every vein in my body popping out and fit to burst. Rationality was on the run. It had escaped me and I had no way of apprehending it before its absence caused me serious harm. In my mind I had posted the APB but my body wasn’t up for the search.
That’s what this was about really.
Blind panic.
I’d stared over that particular precipice once in my life and I didn’t like the view.
I knew this was no rollercoaster ride. No PepsiMax.
From there, at least there was always an element of certainty and finality to the whole affair.
OK, maybe you came out the other side with your kegs full of shite or with your tits poking out the top of your dress but at least there was an end. You knew you could close your eyes, clench your arse cheeks or grab hold of your top and it would soon be over. You knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
This particular thrill ride offered no light and no tunnel – maybe not a bad thing since I was in no way ready to make the long floaty journey towards the big bright light. No, this was more of a wide, unending expanse of blackness, a desert of desperation, featureless, dry and stretching out before me; then it was a room, also featureless, with no windows or doors, no fixtures, no fittings, filled with oppressive, crushing white light.
If only there was a way to take some of that blackness from the desert and exchange it for some of the white light. If only there was a way to achieve balance.
I knew the answer was out there, somewhere in the ether. Was it so indistinct that my fallibility was betraying me? My instinct had never failed me before but here it was, bereft of answers at a time when it was about all I had to rely upon. I felt like I was being sucked into a swirling vortex, a tornado of lost souls reaching out to me for redemption.
What was happening to me?
Was I about to turn into one of those vegetative slobs, sitting watching second hand, second rate American drama shows while the days slipped agonisingly by me. Was I condemned to soak up days of reality TV or sit through hours and hours off meaningless football matches as they all blended into one, supping pishy lager, pretending the ball wasn’t there in an attempt to inject some interest but all the while just longing for a final whistle that has inevitably been delayed for a disproportionate length of time by the third official and his electronic placard?
Would I be forced to exist on a high fat diet of take away pizza, burgers, crisps and coke and be left to live in a single, ever decreasing room, while I got fatter and fatter, watching shockumentaries about families who disintegrate because they are all too fat to get out the front door, having to get their food delivered through the window; real life playing an extended parody of TV parodying real life?
Surely not. I only did it twice
Yes, it was a deliberate act but it only consumed an aggregate of five hours of my life.
It didn’t mean anything to me. Not really.
It was only f4cking TV.
What this really meant, in cold hard facts, was that BBC3 actually managed to cobble together the worst excesses of the past decade, squeeze them into a five hour extravaganza of shame, indulgence and downright stupidity, and come up with a spanking new pair of boots.
This was ‘The Noughties – Was That It?’
It started when I was in the other room but I was drawn by the mention of text messages, the debasement of our language, charity fatigue, celebrity babies and the nanny state.
As I’m sure you can appreciate, all subjects dear to my heart.
What followed was a top one hundred, commented upon by the usual noteworthies, and blended with equal measures of ‘Grumpy Old Men’ and the contents of my insane mind.
Despite the ironic omission of that most omnipresent staple of modern TV, the Top 100 chart show, this was enthralling stuff. I even downloaded the first part from BBC iPlayer so I could watch John Bishop over and over, dead panning about how three legged races should be banned from school sports day in case the three-legged community were offended.
This was ‘modern life is crap’ documented and there for all to see.
These were my very thoughts, on screen.
This was the lament of a hooligan, forced into an existence of conformity.
How many times did it hit the mark; how well did it portray the cynical self, mocking the stupidity that surrounds it; how well did it inwardly look at the role each of us had in playing along with the ideal, conforming to the notion that celebrity is good and that it is right to aspire to that lifestyle.
So we can all dress like Posh & Becks or Jordan & whatsisface; we can smell Britney or Avril and, although the true celebrity chip is one none of us will ever cash, the average home in the western world can have all the trappings of modern life – wireless network; flat screen TVs; laptops; games consoles; alarm clocks that wake you to subdued lighting along with the smell of croissants and latte in the morning.
The information technology overload and the way we have all instantly become open access or, potentially at least, in the public domain, has left us with a deeper set paranoia than a snake in rocking chair shop. The fact that we can’t even go for a piss without first getting a permit and a password then, weeks later, finding some kid in a mud hut on the Masai Mara has stuck it up on You Tube, makes worrying about whether or not your shades are exactly the same as the ones Beckham wore in some stupid ad, more than just a trifle meaningless.
Modern life is a security nightmare.
Everything we do is password protected.
Take the other day as an example. I got up, washed, dressed, made a coffee and set off to work. To get my bike out of the shed, I had to jiggle the barrels on a combination lock. I cycled the short distance to work where the back gate to the premises presented me with a combination keypad. Entering the code failed to release the locking mechanism. A couple of further attempts confirmed that the mechanism was indeed, f4cked. I reached through the mesh fencing of the gate with a bit of wire that just happened to be lying among the leaves and, after a couple of attempts, pulled open the handle on the far side. This, I put down to resourcefulness; the one thing that life has taught me to treasure.
Once in my office, I fired up my PC and went for another coffee. When I returned, I was faced with a network log on pane, into which I keyed my unique password which requires to be changed every month. Having safely negotiated that, I went to check my e-mails. Again, another log on pane appeared and again, I keyed in my unique alphanumeric, the one I change voluntarily every month to keep it concurrent with my network password. Then I decided to open the other programs I regularly use, each requiring a unique password; each requiring updating every 28 days. Not every month, every 28 days – spot the obvious synchronisation error.
During lunch, wishing to cancel a Direct Debit, I called my bank. Having managed to navigate behind the automated answering service, I actually got to speak to a real human being; one who was actually working in my branch.
“I’ll redirect you to our telephone banking service” he said.
Before I could do anything about it, I was talking to someone who wanted to know my bank account number, my sort code, my postcode, the first and third digits of my personal telephone banking security code, the name of my first pet and my mother’s maiden name.
I was waiting to be presented with my pornstar name.
Geezabrek. How in the name of festering f4ck am I supposed to remember that lot? I only use telephone banking about once every two years and only set it up so that I didn’t have to speak to the automated thingy.
Eventually, I give up and resolve to visit the nearest branch after work.
Once there, to ensure that I don’t come out to a Y frame minus wheels and seat, I chain up my bike and lock it with another combination padlock, this one only has three barrels so it’s got a different code to the shed lock. I get to the door of the bank and I’m presented with an automated transaction machine, hole in the wall to you and me, I punch in my Personal Identification Number and withdraw some cash.
“Might as well check my other accounts while I’m here” I think to myself. I punch in another two different Personal Identification Numbers and, satisfied with the results, head into the building to discuss my needs.
Satisfied that the local council will be getting no more of my money and flushed with my success, I nip into the local shop and buy a bottle of Coke and a packet of crisps to celebrate.
As I’m walking back, I glance up and catch sight of the CCTV camera that is studiously tracking my progress. I attempt to remove the cap from the Coke bottle but it is wound so tight that, when I eventually gather enough force to break the security seal, the bottle spins from my hand, hits the ground and explodes into a gushing fountain of pale brown froth. I manage to halt its dervish like antics with my size ten just in time to capture the last remaining 40ml before it is centrifugally ejected from its captive.
The bottle is pierced through the bottom and I know that the little bubbles issuing forth from this rupture mean the contents will be about as lively as heaven at Halloween.
I pick it up and do a quick 360 in search of a bin.
Nothing – potential hiding place for an incendiary device.
Not a bin in sight.
I’m now sticky of fingers and seriously pissed off. I can’t even toss the f4cker over the nearest hedge because I’m on candid f4cking camera and I swear to myself that if this lands up on You’ve Been Framed, I’ll personally replicate the whole scene but only after I’ve wedged the bottle between Harry Hill’s butt cheeks.
Disconsolate, I go for the crisps. I pinch both sides of the bag between forefinger and thumb and attempt to separate the two adjoining sheets of film.
“This would be a lot easier if I wasn’t stuck to the exploding Coke bottle” I think, so I lay it down and have another go. The bag flies open and splits down the side, spilling half the crisps like confetti around the, now fully drained, plastic bomb.
I unlock my bike, cycle home and lock the bike back in its resting place for the evening.
Now that I’m home I decide to check my blog comments. Another password to access Google.
Then I check to see if there are any new torrents circulating. Another three passwords.
By the time I get to bed around midnight, it's like someone is playing a cine-loop of the matrix coding inside my head. I close my eyes and all I see are random chains of numbers and letters. My brain is pulp and I'm left with the feeling that I've been raped of my anonimity.
Nothing is left with a grain of sanctity.
Even Belle du Jour has been exposed.
So now, you’re no doubt wondering what the point of all this is.
The point is that paranoia and insecurity has led us to the point where unseen forces are running our lives. We have become like those annoying little unidirectional bevel slotted screws and ratchet capped bleach bottles.
We have become tamperproof.
It’s like that Kevin Spacey line in the Usual Suspects, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”.
The greatest trick the Safety Nazis pulled was convincing the world that it was in danger and needed to be protected from terrorists, cranks and spookheads.
Ground glass will be put in your product unless it is hermetically sealed and tested to withstand the pressure of two atmospheres. Someone could sabotage your product and inject it with poison.
If you go for a 'Forrest Gump' without entering your password and pin number a whole load of fish are suddenly going to swim up your arse and you’re gonna burst.
F4cking bollocks that’s what it is.
This great scheme, designed to prevent the bad guys from getting in, is like something out of the Dragons Den. Didn’t it dawn on anybody that if the bad guys can’t get in then how the f4ck are you or I supposed to get in.
It’s never ending.
Things have definitely changed.
The stuff that used to work doesn’t work anymore.
Everything is a lesser version of what it used to be. Everything has dumbed down to lowest common denominator. If it's shite we just chuck it out and get another one and quite happily accept that the reason it was shite was for our own safety.
The ‘no win no fee’ brigade have poisoned our minds for too long and we have collectively just bought into the whole charade.
Why can’t they just piss off and leave us alone.
Bob Dylan – Live In Frankfurt
http://www.sendspace.com/file/efwbir
TRB - Live At The Bottom Line
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7licst
Blind Pilot – We Are The Tide
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1rlw92
Prefab Sprout - Edinburgh – 25.02.1984
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nm1cq5
Tom Morello – Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pjq9u9
Icicle Works – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/rbdmhb
Edwyn Collins - I’m Not Following You
http://www.sendspace.com/file/69nn66
The Waterboys - Live In London
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0b8kke
Ray Davies - Live In Trondheim
http://www.sendspace.com/file/t1byq6
Matthew Sweet - Live In Turin, NY
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6yn48f
Townes Van Zant - Paisley Park, Wellington
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pfjyt7
Warren Zevon - Solo, Rochester
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1mi9cv
White Stripes – Live in Las Vegas
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7o4aur
Enjoy...
Hooli
A thousand times I wondered to myself, “What did this mean”
The voice from the very heart of me made a great show of reminding me that I was only human but all the while, the taunts from inside my head grew like an avalanche, sweeping me tumbling into its crashing depths, trying to convince me of something entirely different.
Like a man with an unexplained illness or an ache that never leaves, was I condemned to suffer within the clutches of this dichotomy that, with one hand, would hold me to the wild and irrational fear that something was seriously off the slates, while with the other, would drag me grudgingly towards the reality that there was a perfectly simple explanation and that the very existence of the doubt in my mind was what was solely responsible for its perpetuity.
Was I prepared to let myself be tormented in this manner?
Was I so blind to my own reality that I couldn’t see what I was doing to myself?
I was gripping on, white knuckled, to what I called reality, with every vein in my body popping out and fit to burst. Rationality was on the run. It had escaped me and I had no way of apprehending it before its absence caused me serious harm. In my mind I had posted the APB but my body wasn’t up for the search.
That’s what this was about really.
Blind panic.
I’d stared over that particular precipice once in my life and I didn’t like the view.
I knew this was no rollercoaster ride. No PepsiMax.
From there, at least there was always an element of certainty and finality to the whole affair.
OK, maybe you came out the other side with your kegs full of shite or with your tits poking out the top of your dress but at least there was an end. You knew you could close your eyes, clench your arse cheeks or grab hold of your top and it would soon be over. You knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
This particular thrill ride offered no light and no tunnel – maybe not a bad thing since I was in no way ready to make the long floaty journey towards the big bright light. No, this was more of a wide, unending expanse of blackness, a desert of desperation, featureless, dry and stretching out before me; then it was a room, also featureless, with no windows or doors, no fixtures, no fittings, filled with oppressive, crushing white light.
If only there was a way to take some of that blackness from the desert and exchange it for some of the white light. If only there was a way to achieve balance.
I knew the answer was out there, somewhere in the ether. Was it so indistinct that my fallibility was betraying me? My instinct had never failed me before but here it was, bereft of answers at a time when it was about all I had to rely upon. I felt like I was being sucked into a swirling vortex, a tornado of lost souls reaching out to me for redemption.
What was happening to me?
Was I about to turn into one of those vegetative slobs, sitting watching second hand, second rate American drama shows while the days slipped agonisingly by me. Was I condemned to soak up days of reality TV or sit through hours and hours off meaningless football matches as they all blended into one, supping pishy lager, pretending the ball wasn’t there in an attempt to inject some interest but all the while just longing for a final whistle that has inevitably been delayed for a disproportionate length of time by the third official and his electronic placard?
Would I be forced to exist on a high fat diet of take away pizza, burgers, crisps and coke and be left to live in a single, ever decreasing room, while I got fatter and fatter, watching shockumentaries about families who disintegrate because they are all too fat to get out the front door, having to get their food delivered through the window; real life playing an extended parody of TV parodying real life?
Surely not. I only did it twice
Yes, it was a deliberate act but it only consumed an aggregate of five hours of my life.
It didn’t mean anything to me. Not really.
It was only f4cking TV.
What this really meant, in cold hard facts, was that BBC3 actually managed to cobble together the worst excesses of the past decade, squeeze them into a five hour extravaganza of shame, indulgence and downright stupidity, and come up with a spanking new pair of boots.
This was ‘The Noughties – Was That It?’
It started when I was in the other room but I was drawn by the mention of text messages, the debasement of our language, charity fatigue, celebrity babies and the nanny state.
As I’m sure you can appreciate, all subjects dear to my heart.
What followed was a top one hundred, commented upon by the usual noteworthies, and blended with equal measures of ‘Grumpy Old Men’ and the contents of my insane mind.
Despite the ironic omission of that most omnipresent staple of modern TV, the Top 100 chart show, this was enthralling stuff. I even downloaded the first part from BBC iPlayer so I could watch John Bishop over and over, dead panning about how three legged races should be banned from school sports day in case the three-legged community were offended.
This was ‘modern life is crap’ documented and there for all to see.
These were my very thoughts, on screen.
This was the lament of a hooligan, forced into an existence of conformity.
How many times did it hit the mark; how well did it portray the cynical self, mocking the stupidity that surrounds it; how well did it inwardly look at the role each of us had in playing along with the ideal, conforming to the notion that celebrity is good and that it is right to aspire to that lifestyle.
So we can all dress like Posh & Becks or Jordan & whatsisface; we can smell Britney or Avril and, although the true celebrity chip is one none of us will ever cash, the average home in the western world can have all the trappings of modern life – wireless network; flat screen TVs; laptops; games consoles; alarm clocks that wake you to subdued lighting along with the smell of croissants and latte in the morning.
The information technology overload and the way we have all instantly become open access or, potentially at least, in the public domain, has left us with a deeper set paranoia than a snake in rocking chair shop. The fact that we can’t even go for a piss without first getting a permit and a password then, weeks later, finding some kid in a mud hut on the Masai Mara has stuck it up on You Tube, makes worrying about whether or not your shades are exactly the same as the ones Beckham wore in some stupid ad, more than just a trifle meaningless.
Modern life is a security nightmare.
Everything we do is password protected.
Take the other day as an example. I got up, washed, dressed, made a coffee and set off to work. To get my bike out of the shed, I had to jiggle the barrels on a combination lock. I cycled the short distance to work where the back gate to the premises presented me with a combination keypad. Entering the code failed to release the locking mechanism. A couple of further attempts confirmed that the mechanism was indeed, f4cked. I reached through the mesh fencing of the gate with a bit of wire that just happened to be lying among the leaves and, after a couple of attempts, pulled open the handle on the far side. This, I put down to resourcefulness; the one thing that life has taught me to treasure.
Once in my office, I fired up my PC and went for another coffee. When I returned, I was faced with a network log on pane, into which I keyed my unique password which requires to be changed every month. Having safely negotiated that, I went to check my e-mails. Again, another log on pane appeared and again, I keyed in my unique alphanumeric, the one I change voluntarily every month to keep it concurrent with my network password. Then I decided to open the other programs I regularly use, each requiring a unique password; each requiring updating every 28 days. Not every month, every 28 days – spot the obvious synchronisation error.
During lunch, wishing to cancel a Direct Debit, I called my bank. Having managed to navigate behind the automated answering service, I actually got to speak to a real human being; one who was actually working in my branch.
“I’ll redirect you to our telephone banking service” he said.
Before I could do anything about it, I was talking to someone who wanted to know my bank account number, my sort code, my postcode, the first and third digits of my personal telephone banking security code, the name of my first pet and my mother’s maiden name.
I was waiting to be presented with my pornstar name.
Geezabrek. How in the name of festering f4ck am I supposed to remember that lot? I only use telephone banking about once every two years and only set it up so that I didn’t have to speak to the automated thingy.
Eventually, I give up and resolve to visit the nearest branch after work.
Once there, to ensure that I don’t come out to a Y frame minus wheels and seat, I chain up my bike and lock it with another combination padlock, this one only has three barrels so it’s got a different code to the shed lock. I get to the door of the bank and I’m presented with an automated transaction machine, hole in the wall to you and me, I punch in my Personal Identification Number and withdraw some cash.
“Might as well check my other accounts while I’m here” I think to myself. I punch in another two different Personal Identification Numbers and, satisfied with the results, head into the building to discuss my needs.
Satisfied that the local council will be getting no more of my money and flushed with my success, I nip into the local shop and buy a bottle of Coke and a packet of crisps to celebrate.
As I’m walking back, I glance up and catch sight of the CCTV camera that is studiously tracking my progress. I attempt to remove the cap from the Coke bottle but it is wound so tight that, when I eventually gather enough force to break the security seal, the bottle spins from my hand, hits the ground and explodes into a gushing fountain of pale brown froth. I manage to halt its dervish like antics with my size ten just in time to capture the last remaining 40ml before it is centrifugally ejected from its captive.
The bottle is pierced through the bottom and I know that the little bubbles issuing forth from this rupture mean the contents will be about as lively as heaven at Halloween.
I pick it up and do a quick 360 in search of a bin.
Nothing – potential hiding place for an incendiary device.
Not a bin in sight.
I’m now sticky of fingers and seriously pissed off. I can’t even toss the f4cker over the nearest hedge because I’m on candid f4cking camera and I swear to myself that if this lands up on You’ve Been Framed, I’ll personally replicate the whole scene but only after I’ve wedged the bottle between Harry Hill’s butt cheeks.
Disconsolate, I go for the crisps. I pinch both sides of the bag between forefinger and thumb and attempt to separate the two adjoining sheets of film.
“This would be a lot easier if I wasn’t stuck to the exploding Coke bottle” I think, so I lay it down and have another go. The bag flies open and splits down the side, spilling half the crisps like confetti around the, now fully drained, plastic bomb.
I unlock my bike, cycle home and lock the bike back in its resting place for the evening.
Now that I’m home I decide to check my blog comments. Another password to access Google.
Then I check to see if there are any new torrents circulating. Another three passwords.
By the time I get to bed around midnight, it's like someone is playing a cine-loop of the matrix coding inside my head. I close my eyes and all I see are random chains of numbers and letters. My brain is pulp and I'm left with the feeling that I've been raped of my anonimity.
Nothing is left with a grain of sanctity.
Even Belle du Jour has been exposed.
So now, you’re no doubt wondering what the point of all this is.
The point is that paranoia and insecurity has led us to the point where unseen forces are running our lives. We have become like those annoying little unidirectional bevel slotted screws and ratchet capped bleach bottles.
We have become tamperproof.
It’s like that Kevin Spacey line in the Usual Suspects, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”.
The greatest trick the Safety Nazis pulled was convincing the world that it was in danger and needed to be protected from terrorists, cranks and spookheads.
Ground glass will be put in your product unless it is hermetically sealed and tested to withstand the pressure of two atmospheres. Someone could sabotage your product and inject it with poison.
If you go for a 'Forrest Gump' without entering your password and pin number a whole load of fish are suddenly going to swim up your arse and you’re gonna burst.
F4cking bollocks that’s what it is.
This great scheme, designed to prevent the bad guys from getting in, is like something out of the Dragons Den. Didn’t it dawn on anybody that if the bad guys can’t get in then how the f4ck are you or I supposed to get in.
It’s never ending.
Things have definitely changed.
The stuff that used to work doesn’t work anymore.
Everything is a lesser version of what it used to be. Everything has dumbed down to lowest common denominator. If it's shite we just chuck it out and get another one and quite happily accept that the reason it was shite was for our own safety.
The ‘no win no fee’ brigade have poisoned our minds for too long and we have collectively just bought into the whole charade.
Why can’t they just piss off and leave us alone.
Bob Dylan – Live In Frankfurt
http://www.sendspace.com/file/efwbir
TRB - Live At The Bottom Line
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7licst
Blind Pilot – We Are The Tide
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1rlw92
Prefab Sprout - Edinburgh – 25.02.1984
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nm1cq5
Tom Morello – Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pjq9u9
Icicle Works – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/rbdmhb
Edwyn Collins - I’m Not Following You
http://www.sendspace.com/file/69nn66
The Waterboys - Live In London
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0b8kke
Ray Davies - Live In Trondheim
http://www.sendspace.com/file/t1byq6
Matthew Sweet - Live In Turin, NY
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6yn48f
Townes Van Zant - Paisley Park, Wellington
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pfjyt7
Warren Zevon - Solo, Rochester
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1mi9cv
White Stripes – Live in Las Vegas
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7o4aur
Enjoy...
Hooli
Friday, 6 November 2009
As requested
OK, so my attempt to recover the original link from RS failed so, at last, here are working links to SS
Hue and Cry - Bitter Suite / Remote
http://www.sendspace.com/file/iq4hyn
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xhc3h9
I guess when the fun police hit this the killed the RS links too.
Hue and Cry - Bitter Suite / Remote
http://www.sendspace.com/file/iq4hyn
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xhc3h9
I guess when the fun police hit this the killed the RS links too.
Monday, 2 November 2009
...living in a city of immigrants, I don't need to go travellin'...
Around this time of year, while the rest of the country is enjoying half term holidays, we grumpy Scots are just returning from what has long been known as the tattie holidays.
Back in days of yore, the 70s in my case, this was the time of year when, in order to give the teachers time sharpen their swords and fettle their broomsticks, all the schoolkids got two weeks off to go tattie howkin’ at the local farm. For your part in this gruelling spectacle, the local squire would pay you 20p a week with the added bonus of a boot up the arse on a Friday – if you were lucky.
Ah how the times have changed.
For a start, potatoes are machine harvested and child labour is most definitely frowned upon. I only have to mention household chores to be reminded of the ugly truths about slave labour, child cruelty and the minimum wage.
With our west coast adventure of this summer now consigned to the memory bank and with the kids refusing to let up about being trailed to the arse end of nowhere for a fortnight, this year, as with every other year in recent times, we dipped our collective big toe into the festering pool that is the package holiday.
I’m not quite sure how it all came to this as both my wife and I are quite independent travellers but the package holiday seems to be the thing that fulfils the obligation of giving everyone in the family something in return. It’s a bit like going to McDonalds in that none of use would put it even at the lower end of the favourites spectrum but you know what you’re getting and you know that you’re still going to be hungry afterwards.
Yes the great British package holiday, Brits abroad, scenario. It’s little wonder they tried to make a soap opera out of it.
If you’re dreaming the sort of dreams that involve scantily clad nymphs and crates of Carlsberg or maybe if you’re just plain lucky, you pay a couple of grand, get on a flight at your local airport and three hours later you land somewhere a good fifteen degrees warmer where you transfer to a spacious modern hotel set amid the backdrop of an idyllic palm fringed beach. Two weeks of sun, sea and sand later you reverse the procedure and you’re back in the pissing rain knee deep in fallen leaves.
Fully relaxed and brimming with fond memories.
If you are at the opposite end of the scale, you’ve probably been on Watchdog more times than Nicky Campbell and Lynn Faulds Wood put together and are currently licking your wounds over the loss of fifteen grand to a time share shark.
Somewhere in between is the reality.
You hand over your cash for two weeks in the sun that is preceded by a 120 mile trip to the nearest available airport during which, when you’re less than five miles from the car park, you endure a two hour siesta on the M8 as four lanes funnel in to one on the way to Ibrox. The car park and check in safely negotiated, you then have to wait around for four hours as the flight time has been changed by the tour operator and there is an added delay of two hours because your plane is still in Gatwick getting the upholstery cleaned because someone pissed their pants on the previous flight.
Finally you get on your flight and squeeze into your seat which offers as much space and functionality as a confessional booth. There is however a drunken hen night on board which, when scratched against a drunken stag night, produces just the right kind of spark designed to piss the cabin crew and the other passengers off.
Praise be to the lord for the iPod.
Fortunately, the plane takes off and lands safely, you don’t get deep vein thrombosis and the Hail Mary’s aren’t being freely administered by the cabin crew.
The equivalent of a Black Mariah pulls up to escort the warring hen and stag factions to their appropriate accommodations courtesy of the state. Sea view not included.
If you’re a bit adventurous, you’ll land, not in Majorca or Ibiza, but in Turkey whereupon you will have to hand over one crisp Bank of England tenner per person for the priviledge of a franked stamp on your passport. It does also prevent you, law breaking aside, from facing a Midnight Express type experience at the start of your holiday.
Once you get out of the airport, you get the good old transfer bus. With the night time temperature at 25°C, you’d have thought the very least the tour operator would have done was made sure the bus had air conditioning. No so. Never mind though, the driver will always be on hand to pass out plastic cups of chilled water, except when he’s driving that is, which is all the way to the resort where, if you’re very, very lucky, your hotel will be the second last stop and not the very last.
When you get to your room you then have one of those conscience shattering moments where the bell boy stands sheepishly at the door, waiting. All you have is a twenty quid note, some coppers and a wad of traveller’s cheques.
Eventually you find a pound coin that has slipped through the hole in your pocket, down your trouser leg and into your shoe.
His look of distaste says it all but that’s what he gets for not sticking in at school and turning into a moochin little bastart.
Eventually your head hits the pillow at 3am local time (that’s 5am your time).
The bar is blaring some shite that makes the birdy song sound like Beethoven’s fifth and a gaggle of drunken Geordies pour in off the street.
Next morning, you miss it. Completely! You surface at 12.30 just in time to go to the reps welcome meeting where she blabs on some irrelevant shite about boat trips here and beach parties there, all designed to get you to shed all that extra cash you brought with you.
Then there’s the reps’ party night. This is the best night out you’ll ever have! Free admission to some anonymous black and chrome UV drenched club, like a throwback from the 80s, playing drum ‘n’ bass so loud it makes your ears bleed plus, you get a free drink in every pub you can manage after that.
All for 50 Lira per person.
All just a good and legitimate excuse for the reps to get together, get totally shit faced, then pair off and shag one another without feeling guilty about it.
Ah and of course we mustn’t forget the Turkish night. (You can substitute Greek, Spanish, Portuguese or whatever other country you’re in. They all do it and the result is always the same).
...“if you don’t do anything else, there’s one thing you must do while you’re in Turkey, you must go to the Turkish night here in the hotel” she says, “25 Lira a head, eat as much as you like, barbecued kebabs, all the traditional mezes, free belly dancer, break dancing group and traditional Turkish folk dance group”
Then you get all the pep talk about strict baggage allowance and prebooked seats which you’ve heard more often than that song from Four Weddings and a Funeral, so you consign all this to the refuse tip at the rear end of your mind along with all the other shite you’ve heard throughout the year and off you go.
Now duly acclimatised to your surroundings and having found the less than amply stocked mini market, you check out the hotel pool where you are set upon by the hotel activities and entertainments rep.
This will doubtless be someone with boundless energy and a vocal delivery that suggests he was cross pollinated with a hyena then vaccinated with the old gramophone needle tipped with some of Ben Elton’s DNA – and not the funny stuff either.
“Monday night live footy, Bolton versus Coventry. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night, all the Euro action with Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea; Friday night live footy blah blah.
So in an attempt to escape the dreaded Champions league, you make sure you eat out every night.
Your quest for some gastronomic delight takes you to the beach front.
A nice romantic stroll along the prom; just the ticket for getting you ready for dinner.
You barely manage to get a hundred yards from the hotel before you’re accosted by some dude bearing a wadge of leaflets declaring 20% off or a free bottle of wine if you eat at such and such a restaurant.
If you haven’t experienced this, you’ll have to trust me on this one, but it’s no lie, all the restaurants are the same, they all offer the same discounts and the wine is pish no matter whether it’s free or costs forty lira a bottle.
Take my advice, go to the first place you come to and stick to it. That way you’ll save yourself being hassled more than once.
So you get yourself set up nicely at a table overlooking the lapping waters as they reflect a crescent moon and a splash of multi coloured neon. You survey the menu and, not wishing to dine on egg and chips, you elect to have something from the Turkish section of the menu. A simple chicken shish is just about right. When it comes it is beautifully presented on a bed of rice and accompanied by some pan fried peppers and onion. The kebab itself amounts to about four chicken breasts threaded onto a skewer and is big enough to feed the average family of four. Tastes pretty damn good too, you think.
Things are looking up.
You settle up and find you’ve fed the four of you plus had a couple of beers and cokes for the kids all for under forty quid.
Things are definitely looking up.
You amble into the night, past the numerous other door managers of the ensuing gastro-gauntlet. They all want you to eat in their establishment. Politely at first, you make your excuses about already having eaten, put on your best tweedle dum pose and flap your hand horizontally about your throat.
By the time you’ve gone through this a dozen times, the whole charade is wearing a bit thin and politeness is coming at a premium. To keep it safe you head away from the prom to a street lined with permanently open shops and a seemingly endless array of dance pubs. The try to lure you in with the usual array of cocktails, happy hours and two for one deals. The shops offer the usual holiday wares and the finest, ‘genuine’ designer clothes. Worst of all, they too have door managers. To say the patter is worse than the Barras on a late December Saturday is an understatement.
Genuine designer fakes, 3 for a tenner, cheaper than Asda. The difference between your average barrow boy and this lot is that the barrow boy has at least veered into the path of education. This becomes apparent when the shopkeeper is faced with someone who actually knows what he wants and how little he is prepared to part with for it.
What you are looking at may look like the genuine article Chuck Taylor Converse baseball boot but you know well enough that they are a careful fake. You remark to the dweeb that what you actually have on your feet right now is in fact the real deal, bought from the Converse website and that he is talking through a hole in his bunnet.
Incredulous, he pursues his prey and tries to flog as much of his wares as he can. He knows that even if he sells you one pair at a quarter of the marked price, if there is such a thing, that he has made a profit. He also knows that, unless he is facing a complete f4ckwit, there’s no way on earth he’s going to get his asking price. The fun is in the chase and in trying to shift as much crap onto the unsuspecting customer as possible.
So on it goes.
“Normally these forty pounds” he says
“Forty?” you say, “ten more like. These are only 35 quid at home for the real thing”.
“Thirty” he says “it’s the end of the season I have to sell my stock”
“You’re takin’ the piss” you say “I’ll give you ten”
“For you my friend I give you very good price. I give you my very best price of twenty five” is his retort. He’s getting rattled but he sticks to his course, pulling out more and more different colours and styles.
“Ten?” you respond
“Best price I give you two pairs for forty five”
“I don’t want two pairs. I want one pair and I’ll give you ten pounds. It’s what they’re worth plus that’s what the guy up the road is selling them for”
It’s at this stage that the tone changes slightly.
“They’re not the same! Poor quality! Different to this! If they are same, I give you these free!”
This is shaky ground because he thinks you’re bluffing but he’s rattled and desperate for a sale. You know you’re not bluffing and tell him ten is your final and only offer.
He starts to get a bit abusive so you turn and start to walk out. The floor is strewn with fake converse boots of every colour in the rainbow and the torrents of abuse are equally colourful. You wander 20 metres up the road in a fury at being insulted and buy two pairs for twenty quid.
Deal.
Although you have the moral victory under your belt, you daren’t risk walking back the way you came swinging your purchases by your side, so you amble back to your room just as the footy has finished; just in time for the bar to kick into life. It’s the f4ckin Birdy Song again, swiftly followed by all the party hits from the 80s. By the time you’ve heard half an hour’s worth of Michael Jackson, Prince, Kool & the Gang and Lipps Inc, you’re borderline psychotic. You’re wishing you’d held off on the shopping for an hour.
Eventually, sleep takes over and you enter into the Phil Connors phase of the holiday.
Sleep, Breakfast, Sun, Sand, Book, Pool, Entertainments Rep, Turkish Bath Rep, Footy, Kebab, Barter, Insults, Bar, “Let me take you to, Funky Town”. Zzzzz.
For the sake of your sanity, you’ve been wise enough to pack an impressive selection of tartan noir and enough gigs of iPod to keep you chilled for the duration.
Getting towards the end of the week and you’re reminded that you’re the only person this side of Christendom who hasn’t signed up for the 75 lira extravaganza that is the Turkish night.
“Turkish barbecue, meze, eat as much as you like, free belly dancer, free break dancer, free Turkish folk dance group”
The fact that you’ve dodged the commitment every time you’ve been asked would normally be seen as a signal but these guys are nothing if not relentless so you cave in and part with your 75 lira.
You think to yourself, fair do. It costs about 80 lira for a meal out so it’s not that bad a deal.
What you have failed to account for is that you still have to pay for all your drinks and, since it’s the last week of the season, the hotel is almost empty and the atmosphere is like a tramp’s funeral.
You head for the food and load up on aubergine, peppers and cucumber meze and, not wishing to look greedy, take one piece of chicken and a meatball topped with a spoon of rice.
Tastes ok. You finish your beer and head for seconds.
You get there to find that all that remains is the meze. What the f4ck happened to eat as much as you like.
The chef, having read the script, realises that the turnout is going to be low. He doesn’t want to shuffle loads of barbecued meat into the cat and has no comprehension of the concept ‘eating for Scotland’. Nor does he have any idea of the difference between ‘eat as much as you like’ and ‘being ripped off’.
Oh well, I’ll make sure and grab four desserts you think.
Hah.
Don’t be a complete bam.
Who said anything about desert.
So you settle back with another beer and refuse to participate with the belly dancing charade. She’s not an old boiler, you think to yourself, doesn’t have a face that looks like it’s been on the receiving end of an Andy Roddick serve, at least that’s something to be thankful for. At least she is actually dancing and hasn’t just slapped her arse and flashed off the ripples.
Then it comes, after the humiliation of some poor unsuspecting blokes, and the final dance; the sting. Traditional to the belly dance is the fact that you are expected, nay, obliged, along with all the other punters, to tuck some bills into the dancer’s bra. It’s at this stage that you’re probably wishing you could stick a pelican’s bill up her arse (and the entertainment reps arse too).
All you have is a twenty so that gets slipped inside a sequinned strap and off she goes.
You start to do a quick math and figure she nets about 200 quid. Not bad for a tip.
Then the breakdancers hit the stage. You check your wallet and realise that all you have left are more twenties.
F4ck that for a game of tiddlywinks you think and drag the family back to your room.
75 Lira for two helpings of meze, four mini-burgers and four dried up chicken breasts.
32 lira for a couple of rounds of drinks
20 lira in tips
At least you have the satisfaction of having bailed out before you were another 40 lira shy.
Then Funky Town starts up again.
Soon, Saturday comes, and you’re thinking ah well, it’s the weekend, let’s head for the beach, then you see it.
The very thing you’ve been fearing!
The evil of the satellite!
Worse than the fact that, thanks to Google, you can look down upon anywhere in the world.
There it is in big f4ckin’ white letters on the big f4ckin' black board
Live tonight X Factor Finalists Show
Live on Sunday X Factor Evictions Show
Aw surely the f4ck not.
I’m sure, like me you go on holiday to get away from all that crap.
No?
Really?
Now there’s the problem.
Supply and demand.
What the public will bear.
You look around the pool and it all drops into place.
It’s reality TV central. It’s all Courtneys and Kenzies. Chantelles and Jades.
Tattoos and piercings. Beer bellies and butt cracks.
And the parents aren’t much better.
So you trundle through it enjoying the good bits, but knowing at the end of it all, you will remain unfulfilled.
Then, in the shape of the return flight, the sucker punch comes weighing in like a wrecking ball on speed (talking of which, by the time you get to the airport at 2.30 am, amphetamines are what you’re gonna need).
You get on your flight home, armed with your duty free stash, gratified that you didn’t take up your tour reps offer of prebooked seats at a tenner a throw since you appear to be sitting next to all your family constituents. You think about it for a while then come to the conclusion that it’s an even bigger money spinner than the belly dancers bra.
Boeing 757, roughly 300 seats, £10 per person for a pre booked seat, three grand for doing absolutely sweet f4ck all.
Tommy Cook, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Four hours later, minus two hours time difference and and hour for daylight saving, you touch down in Glasgow airport to find the carpark attendant has gone awol and all that is manning his station is a half empty bottle of Irn Bru.
Ten minutes later, he returns and you realise you have been better taking your chances and talking to the bottle of Irn Bru.
Eventually, you wind your way back onto the M8 at 5am and drive through 20 miles of roadworks. Eager to avoid another three points on your driving licence, you crawl along at 40 mph, by the time you hit the 70 zone and as the white lines hypnotically shoot past you, you’re biting the heel of your hand, the inside of your cheek, your fingernails and anything else that’s available in a vigorous attempt to keep the melatonin in check. Daylight comes with a merciful blast and you finally get home after being awake for 26 hours.
You head off to bed, a frazzled mess and realise that while you’ve been away, a clan of rodents have decided to use your airing cupboard as a squat, the plants have all died and the bathroom is full of flies, presumably having hatched out of one of the aforementioned rodents that has since left this life.
You wonder why you bothered and resolve to go camping on the West Coast of Scotland next year.
As a post script, a week later you go shopping in town, just to see what it’s like to find something you want and hand over the cash without any aggro. You hear so many different accents. See so many exotic looking faces.
You think of why you go abroad in the first place, the sampling of a different culture, the different tastes and smells.
On the way home you pick up a Doner kebab and again, you wonder why you bother.
All of this is of course is partly exaggerated, partly fictional and partly said for effect but, as they say, no smoke without fire. After 5 separate holidays in Turkey, much as I love the place, I fear the writing may be on the wall.
And so the music...
Steve Earle – Live – three different gigs
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5imi1o
http://www.sendspace.com/file/k9bjtq
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vlfj0e
Hothouse Flowers – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1p7laz
Josh Ritter – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/u2bxzk
Jakob Dylan – Live at the Newport Folk Festival
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2hlai7
Emma Pollock – Live Session
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bqpm4n
Natalie Merchant Cumberland County 1999
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ewxhzu
Common Ground Opening Concert – re upped – old file seems to have died
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f6qoms
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gb4e3n
British Sea Power – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/iy98pm
Pearl Jam – Bridge School 2006 – re upped – old file seems to have died
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qrl0mm
Counting Crows – Atlantic City
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h4f9jg
AA Bondy – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gy6r22
Warren Zevon – Captol Passiac NJ
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cf113h
Wilco – Vicar Street Dublin - correct link in comments
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cf113h
Steve Forbert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/62cg7u
Enjoy
Hooli
Back in days of yore, the 70s in my case, this was the time of year when, in order to give the teachers time sharpen their swords and fettle their broomsticks, all the schoolkids got two weeks off to go tattie howkin’ at the local farm. For your part in this gruelling spectacle, the local squire would pay you 20p a week with the added bonus of a boot up the arse on a Friday – if you were lucky.
Ah how the times have changed.
For a start, potatoes are machine harvested and child labour is most definitely frowned upon. I only have to mention household chores to be reminded of the ugly truths about slave labour, child cruelty and the minimum wage.
With our west coast adventure of this summer now consigned to the memory bank and with the kids refusing to let up about being trailed to the arse end of nowhere for a fortnight, this year, as with every other year in recent times, we dipped our collective big toe into the festering pool that is the package holiday.
I’m not quite sure how it all came to this as both my wife and I are quite independent travellers but the package holiday seems to be the thing that fulfils the obligation of giving everyone in the family something in return. It’s a bit like going to McDonalds in that none of use would put it even at the lower end of the favourites spectrum but you know what you’re getting and you know that you’re still going to be hungry afterwards.
Yes the great British package holiday, Brits abroad, scenario. It’s little wonder they tried to make a soap opera out of it.
If you’re dreaming the sort of dreams that involve scantily clad nymphs and crates of Carlsberg or maybe if you’re just plain lucky, you pay a couple of grand, get on a flight at your local airport and three hours later you land somewhere a good fifteen degrees warmer where you transfer to a spacious modern hotel set amid the backdrop of an idyllic palm fringed beach. Two weeks of sun, sea and sand later you reverse the procedure and you’re back in the pissing rain knee deep in fallen leaves.
Fully relaxed and brimming with fond memories.
If you are at the opposite end of the scale, you’ve probably been on Watchdog more times than Nicky Campbell and Lynn Faulds Wood put together and are currently licking your wounds over the loss of fifteen grand to a time share shark.
Somewhere in between is the reality.
You hand over your cash for two weeks in the sun that is preceded by a 120 mile trip to the nearest available airport during which, when you’re less than five miles from the car park, you endure a two hour siesta on the M8 as four lanes funnel in to one on the way to Ibrox. The car park and check in safely negotiated, you then have to wait around for four hours as the flight time has been changed by the tour operator and there is an added delay of two hours because your plane is still in Gatwick getting the upholstery cleaned because someone pissed their pants on the previous flight.
Finally you get on your flight and squeeze into your seat which offers as much space and functionality as a confessional booth. There is however a drunken hen night on board which, when scratched against a drunken stag night, produces just the right kind of spark designed to piss the cabin crew and the other passengers off.
Praise be to the lord for the iPod.
Fortunately, the plane takes off and lands safely, you don’t get deep vein thrombosis and the Hail Mary’s aren’t being freely administered by the cabin crew.
The equivalent of a Black Mariah pulls up to escort the warring hen and stag factions to their appropriate accommodations courtesy of the state. Sea view not included.
If you’re a bit adventurous, you’ll land, not in Majorca or Ibiza, but in Turkey whereupon you will have to hand over one crisp Bank of England tenner per person for the priviledge of a franked stamp on your passport. It does also prevent you, law breaking aside, from facing a Midnight Express type experience at the start of your holiday.
Once you get out of the airport, you get the good old transfer bus. With the night time temperature at 25°C, you’d have thought the very least the tour operator would have done was made sure the bus had air conditioning. No so. Never mind though, the driver will always be on hand to pass out plastic cups of chilled water, except when he’s driving that is, which is all the way to the resort where, if you’re very, very lucky, your hotel will be the second last stop and not the very last.
When you get to your room you then have one of those conscience shattering moments where the bell boy stands sheepishly at the door, waiting. All you have is a twenty quid note, some coppers and a wad of traveller’s cheques.
Eventually you find a pound coin that has slipped through the hole in your pocket, down your trouser leg and into your shoe.
His look of distaste says it all but that’s what he gets for not sticking in at school and turning into a moochin little bastart.
Eventually your head hits the pillow at 3am local time (that’s 5am your time).
The bar is blaring some shite that makes the birdy song sound like Beethoven’s fifth and a gaggle of drunken Geordies pour in off the street.
Next morning, you miss it. Completely! You surface at 12.30 just in time to go to the reps welcome meeting where she blabs on some irrelevant shite about boat trips here and beach parties there, all designed to get you to shed all that extra cash you brought with you.
Then there’s the reps’ party night. This is the best night out you’ll ever have! Free admission to some anonymous black and chrome UV drenched club, like a throwback from the 80s, playing drum ‘n’ bass so loud it makes your ears bleed plus, you get a free drink in every pub you can manage after that.
All for 50 Lira per person.
All just a good and legitimate excuse for the reps to get together, get totally shit faced, then pair off and shag one another without feeling guilty about it.
Ah and of course we mustn’t forget the Turkish night. (You can substitute Greek, Spanish, Portuguese or whatever other country you’re in. They all do it and the result is always the same).
...“if you don’t do anything else, there’s one thing you must do while you’re in Turkey, you must go to the Turkish night here in the hotel” she says, “25 Lira a head, eat as much as you like, barbecued kebabs, all the traditional mezes, free belly dancer, break dancing group and traditional Turkish folk dance group”
Then you get all the pep talk about strict baggage allowance and prebooked seats which you’ve heard more often than that song from Four Weddings and a Funeral, so you consign all this to the refuse tip at the rear end of your mind along with all the other shite you’ve heard throughout the year and off you go.
Now duly acclimatised to your surroundings and having found the less than amply stocked mini market, you check out the hotel pool where you are set upon by the hotel activities and entertainments rep.
This will doubtless be someone with boundless energy and a vocal delivery that suggests he was cross pollinated with a hyena then vaccinated with the old gramophone needle tipped with some of Ben Elton’s DNA – and not the funny stuff either.
“Monday night live footy, Bolton versus Coventry. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night, all the Euro action with Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea; Friday night live footy blah blah.
So in an attempt to escape the dreaded Champions league, you make sure you eat out every night.
Your quest for some gastronomic delight takes you to the beach front.
A nice romantic stroll along the prom; just the ticket for getting you ready for dinner.
You barely manage to get a hundred yards from the hotel before you’re accosted by some dude bearing a wadge of leaflets declaring 20% off or a free bottle of wine if you eat at such and such a restaurant.
If you haven’t experienced this, you’ll have to trust me on this one, but it’s no lie, all the restaurants are the same, they all offer the same discounts and the wine is pish no matter whether it’s free or costs forty lira a bottle.
Take my advice, go to the first place you come to and stick to it. That way you’ll save yourself being hassled more than once.
So you get yourself set up nicely at a table overlooking the lapping waters as they reflect a crescent moon and a splash of multi coloured neon. You survey the menu and, not wishing to dine on egg and chips, you elect to have something from the Turkish section of the menu. A simple chicken shish is just about right. When it comes it is beautifully presented on a bed of rice and accompanied by some pan fried peppers and onion. The kebab itself amounts to about four chicken breasts threaded onto a skewer and is big enough to feed the average family of four. Tastes pretty damn good too, you think.
Things are looking up.
You settle up and find you’ve fed the four of you plus had a couple of beers and cokes for the kids all for under forty quid.
Things are definitely looking up.
You amble into the night, past the numerous other door managers of the ensuing gastro-gauntlet. They all want you to eat in their establishment. Politely at first, you make your excuses about already having eaten, put on your best tweedle dum pose and flap your hand horizontally about your throat.
By the time you’ve gone through this a dozen times, the whole charade is wearing a bit thin and politeness is coming at a premium. To keep it safe you head away from the prom to a street lined with permanently open shops and a seemingly endless array of dance pubs. The try to lure you in with the usual array of cocktails, happy hours and two for one deals. The shops offer the usual holiday wares and the finest, ‘genuine’ designer clothes. Worst of all, they too have door managers. To say the patter is worse than the Barras on a late December Saturday is an understatement.
Genuine designer fakes, 3 for a tenner, cheaper than Asda. The difference between your average barrow boy and this lot is that the barrow boy has at least veered into the path of education. This becomes apparent when the shopkeeper is faced with someone who actually knows what he wants and how little he is prepared to part with for it.
What you are looking at may look like the genuine article Chuck Taylor Converse baseball boot but you know well enough that they are a careful fake. You remark to the dweeb that what you actually have on your feet right now is in fact the real deal, bought from the Converse website and that he is talking through a hole in his bunnet.
Incredulous, he pursues his prey and tries to flog as much of his wares as he can. He knows that even if he sells you one pair at a quarter of the marked price, if there is such a thing, that he has made a profit. He also knows that, unless he is facing a complete f4ckwit, there’s no way on earth he’s going to get his asking price. The fun is in the chase and in trying to shift as much crap onto the unsuspecting customer as possible.
So on it goes.
“Normally these forty pounds” he says
“Forty?” you say, “ten more like. These are only 35 quid at home for the real thing”.
“Thirty” he says “it’s the end of the season I have to sell my stock”
“You’re takin’ the piss” you say “I’ll give you ten”
“For you my friend I give you very good price. I give you my very best price of twenty five” is his retort. He’s getting rattled but he sticks to his course, pulling out more and more different colours and styles.
“Ten?” you respond
“Best price I give you two pairs for forty five”
“I don’t want two pairs. I want one pair and I’ll give you ten pounds. It’s what they’re worth plus that’s what the guy up the road is selling them for”
It’s at this stage that the tone changes slightly.
“They’re not the same! Poor quality! Different to this! If they are same, I give you these free!”
This is shaky ground because he thinks you’re bluffing but he’s rattled and desperate for a sale. You know you’re not bluffing and tell him ten is your final and only offer.
He starts to get a bit abusive so you turn and start to walk out. The floor is strewn with fake converse boots of every colour in the rainbow and the torrents of abuse are equally colourful. You wander 20 metres up the road in a fury at being insulted and buy two pairs for twenty quid.
Deal.
Although you have the moral victory under your belt, you daren’t risk walking back the way you came swinging your purchases by your side, so you amble back to your room just as the footy has finished; just in time for the bar to kick into life. It’s the f4ckin Birdy Song again, swiftly followed by all the party hits from the 80s. By the time you’ve heard half an hour’s worth of Michael Jackson, Prince, Kool & the Gang and Lipps Inc, you’re borderline psychotic. You’re wishing you’d held off on the shopping for an hour.
Eventually, sleep takes over and you enter into the Phil Connors phase of the holiday.
Sleep, Breakfast, Sun, Sand, Book, Pool, Entertainments Rep, Turkish Bath Rep, Footy, Kebab, Barter, Insults, Bar, “Let me take you to, Funky Town”. Zzzzz.
For the sake of your sanity, you’ve been wise enough to pack an impressive selection of tartan noir and enough gigs of iPod to keep you chilled for the duration.
Getting towards the end of the week and you’re reminded that you’re the only person this side of Christendom who hasn’t signed up for the 75 lira extravaganza that is the Turkish night.
“Turkish barbecue, meze, eat as much as you like, free belly dancer, free break dancer, free Turkish folk dance group”
The fact that you’ve dodged the commitment every time you’ve been asked would normally be seen as a signal but these guys are nothing if not relentless so you cave in and part with your 75 lira.
You think to yourself, fair do. It costs about 80 lira for a meal out so it’s not that bad a deal.
What you have failed to account for is that you still have to pay for all your drinks and, since it’s the last week of the season, the hotel is almost empty and the atmosphere is like a tramp’s funeral.
You head for the food and load up on aubergine, peppers and cucumber meze and, not wishing to look greedy, take one piece of chicken and a meatball topped with a spoon of rice.
Tastes ok. You finish your beer and head for seconds.
You get there to find that all that remains is the meze. What the f4ck happened to eat as much as you like.
The chef, having read the script, realises that the turnout is going to be low. He doesn’t want to shuffle loads of barbecued meat into the cat and has no comprehension of the concept ‘eating for Scotland’. Nor does he have any idea of the difference between ‘eat as much as you like’ and ‘being ripped off’.
Oh well, I’ll make sure and grab four desserts you think.
Hah.
Don’t be a complete bam.
Who said anything about desert.
So you settle back with another beer and refuse to participate with the belly dancing charade. She’s not an old boiler, you think to yourself, doesn’t have a face that looks like it’s been on the receiving end of an Andy Roddick serve, at least that’s something to be thankful for. At least she is actually dancing and hasn’t just slapped her arse and flashed off the ripples.
Then it comes, after the humiliation of some poor unsuspecting blokes, and the final dance; the sting. Traditional to the belly dance is the fact that you are expected, nay, obliged, along with all the other punters, to tuck some bills into the dancer’s bra. It’s at this stage that you’re probably wishing you could stick a pelican’s bill up her arse (and the entertainment reps arse too).
All you have is a twenty so that gets slipped inside a sequinned strap and off she goes.
You start to do a quick math and figure she nets about 200 quid. Not bad for a tip.
Then the breakdancers hit the stage. You check your wallet and realise that all you have left are more twenties.
F4ck that for a game of tiddlywinks you think and drag the family back to your room.
75 Lira for two helpings of meze, four mini-burgers and four dried up chicken breasts.
32 lira for a couple of rounds of drinks
20 lira in tips
At least you have the satisfaction of having bailed out before you were another 40 lira shy.
Then Funky Town starts up again.
Soon, Saturday comes, and you’re thinking ah well, it’s the weekend, let’s head for the beach, then you see it.
The very thing you’ve been fearing!
The evil of the satellite!
Worse than the fact that, thanks to Google, you can look down upon anywhere in the world.
There it is in big f4ckin’ white letters on the big f4ckin' black board
Live tonight X Factor Finalists Show
Live on Sunday X Factor Evictions Show
Aw surely the f4ck not.
I’m sure, like me you go on holiday to get away from all that crap.
No?
Really?
Now there’s the problem.
Supply and demand.
What the public will bear.
You look around the pool and it all drops into place.
It’s reality TV central. It’s all Courtneys and Kenzies. Chantelles and Jades.
Tattoos and piercings. Beer bellies and butt cracks.
And the parents aren’t much better.
So you trundle through it enjoying the good bits, but knowing at the end of it all, you will remain unfulfilled.
Then, in the shape of the return flight, the sucker punch comes weighing in like a wrecking ball on speed (talking of which, by the time you get to the airport at 2.30 am, amphetamines are what you’re gonna need).
You get on your flight home, armed with your duty free stash, gratified that you didn’t take up your tour reps offer of prebooked seats at a tenner a throw since you appear to be sitting next to all your family constituents. You think about it for a while then come to the conclusion that it’s an even bigger money spinner than the belly dancers bra.
Boeing 757, roughly 300 seats, £10 per person for a pre booked seat, three grand for doing absolutely sweet f4ck all.
Tommy Cook, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Four hours later, minus two hours time difference and and hour for daylight saving, you touch down in Glasgow airport to find the carpark attendant has gone awol and all that is manning his station is a half empty bottle of Irn Bru.
Ten minutes later, he returns and you realise you have been better taking your chances and talking to the bottle of Irn Bru.
Eventually, you wind your way back onto the M8 at 5am and drive through 20 miles of roadworks. Eager to avoid another three points on your driving licence, you crawl along at 40 mph, by the time you hit the 70 zone and as the white lines hypnotically shoot past you, you’re biting the heel of your hand, the inside of your cheek, your fingernails and anything else that’s available in a vigorous attempt to keep the melatonin in check. Daylight comes with a merciful blast and you finally get home after being awake for 26 hours.
You head off to bed, a frazzled mess and realise that while you’ve been away, a clan of rodents have decided to use your airing cupboard as a squat, the plants have all died and the bathroom is full of flies, presumably having hatched out of one of the aforementioned rodents that has since left this life.
You wonder why you bothered and resolve to go camping on the West Coast of Scotland next year.
As a post script, a week later you go shopping in town, just to see what it’s like to find something you want and hand over the cash without any aggro. You hear so many different accents. See so many exotic looking faces.
You think of why you go abroad in the first place, the sampling of a different culture, the different tastes and smells.
On the way home you pick up a Doner kebab and again, you wonder why you bother.
All of this is of course is partly exaggerated, partly fictional and partly said for effect but, as they say, no smoke without fire. After 5 separate holidays in Turkey, much as I love the place, I fear the writing may be on the wall.
And so the music...
Steve Earle – Live – three different gigs
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5imi1o
http://www.sendspace.com/file/k9bjtq
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vlfj0e
Hothouse Flowers – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1p7laz
Josh Ritter – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/u2bxzk
Jakob Dylan – Live at the Newport Folk Festival
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2hlai7
Emma Pollock – Live Session
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bqpm4n
Natalie Merchant Cumberland County 1999
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ewxhzu
Common Ground Opening Concert – re upped – old file seems to have died
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f6qoms
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gb4e3n
British Sea Power – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/iy98pm
Pearl Jam – Bridge School 2006 – re upped – old file seems to have died
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qrl0mm
Counting Crows – Atlantic City
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h4f9jg
AA Bondy – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gy6r22
Warren Zevon – Captol Passiac NJ
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cf113h
Wilco – Vicar Street Dublin - correct link in comments
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cf113h
Steve Forbert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/62cg7u
Enjoy
Hooli
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