Wow. Unbelievable...

Since my last blog the greatest (some might say only) issue to face humanity has been whether we would get any tickets to see Kate Bush at her residency at the Apollo later this year.

You have to approach these things with trepidation. Many of my generation had *that* poster on their walls (if you are too young to remember 1979, ask your father) and I grew up in the period that spans Kate's first five albums, So it's a major part of my early teens - from the genuine (although I am sure expressed differently) WTF at "Wuthering Heights" to seeing the "Cloudbusting" short with Donald Sutherland as a support to "Back to the Future" on an early, and I suspect spectacularly unsuccessful, date. (I was more interested in the fact that Challenger had been lost that day - she wasn't).

So having missed Kate's previous live shows, on the reasonable grounds that I was 11 and lived 300 miles away, I have to see these ones, don't I? "Oh, but", says Nagging Voice Of Gloom, "she must be 55 now. Ain't going to be doing that much of the Wuthering Heights cartwheels now, is she?"

Maybe so, NVOG, but there are some things that you have to do.  Last year's Stones in Hyde Park may have shown that Mick Jagger has kept himself in trim, but he wasn't the be-tunic'd poet of 1969. And the Stones are pretty much a tribute band to themselves nowadays. Last decent track/album? Fuck knows frankly because most people listen to the cheap Greatest Hits CDs.

Kate Bush has always been a show-person. OK, one who doesn't tour, but she understands the need for persona and reinvention - in the same way as Madonna has done for the last thirty years. Those of us who remember her last flirtation with the charts - King of the Mountain from Aerial - on which she does a pretty good Elvis impression. (Evens at the moment on whether Rolf Harris will be reprising his role on some of the bits from that album.) So whatever she is, and isn't, she is going to be interesting.

And so with trepidation I entered the buying frenzy on Friday, and emerged successful. Two tickets. Row J of the stalls. Central. I am excited already and there is still five and a half months to go.

Apologies to those expecting a blog that was either political as I promised, or not solely about Kate Bush. Normal service will be resumed in due course - though not necessarily until October ;-)

Oh Well

The dog ate it. I was ill. The wi-fi was down.

None of those are true. I must admit I thought it had been two weeks since I wrote a blog. It's been four. That is really slack. And I don't have a great excuse, I just haven't got around to it. Sorry!

What have I missed? Well, some of you may have missed my Voxcetera concert which played to a packed St Sepulchre in London last week. It was fabulous to do, and I think those attending enjoyed it too. For the first time we really took ownership of some tricky Britten and, having now heard a recording, made it sound really good. Plus of course there are those spine-tingling moments - like the way the D minor fortissimo chord towards the end of the Esenvalds piece just hung in the air and never seemed to die away.

Back to earth with a bump, I watched "Mr Toad and the Sell-Out" on BBC last night (aka the Lib Dem and UKIP debate). Clegg is Mister Political Expediency - and has been so often that he's probably retained the trophy by now. But Farage - dear God help us. In the same way as creationism got clever by evolving (maybe a bad choice of word there) into intelligent design, UKIP is just a more respectable "we hate Jonny-foreigner" party isn't it.

Watching the debate over a grotty internet link and Twitter makes one smugly complacent that no-one's falling for that old shit again. But I fear that's not the case. UKIP is generally picking up support across the spectrum, from those who are disenchanted with the political class and with, generally "Them". It's Farage's affable pub-bore facade that makes him so credible with so many. They are going to do well in the Euro elections - it's not a question of whether they beat the Lib Dems for 3rd place. I'm afraid they will do a lot better than that. That is just so embarrassing. Farage is a French M. Le Ros-bif  caricature. And Stew Lee's brilliant dissection of UKIP a couple of weeks ago doesn't counter it - UKIP voter's aren't watching stuff like that.

In case you hadn't noticed, alongside getting fit, my 'don't get political' and 'don't get sweary' New Year's resolutions have gone by the board. If you keep coming back to the blog for its gentle humour and flights of fancy, you may be disappointed (though I've not written for four weeks, so on reflection probably no more than you have been already).

Anyway, back to work... more soon

Cigarettes and credit fraud

I had a very odd experience on Monday night, for which I have absolutely no explanation. I was sitting and reading when I had an intense craving for a cigarette. I wasn't reading anything about smoking, nor had I been in the company of smokers, and I hadn't had a drink or anything. Nor had I had a stressful day, or a row with the kids or anything else that one might think of as a trigger.

It's well over two years since I stopped smoking, and I found it quite easy to stop. I think that is because I really wanted to. I had found it incredibly difficult the twenty times before – which is probably why those ones go down as failures. And I think that’s because I felt I ought to stop, rather than that I wanted to. Five days of “ought to” are easily trumped by “but I need one”.

Stopping played a little bit of havoc with my metabolism for a while, and there is the need to “do something” with your hands, but avoiding smokers for a couple of weeks and it was done.

So why then did I finish a chapter and then think – “Ooh, time for a ciggie”? And when I went to have a cup of tea and a (purely medicinal you understand) chocolate biscuit, these didn't satisfy the desire. It was about an hour afterwards that the feeling had passed.

I know many ex-smokers who say they still have that sort of craving often. Usually it is linked to (or perhaps enhanced by) booze, but they get through it. And if they are somewhere were they can have a cigarette, they probably do, and feel bad about it the next day, but don’t rush out to buy a packet of twenty before work.

And since Monday? Nothing. No desire at all. And that is despite having been with people who smoke at various times, so having access to the stuff. So I’m putting it down to some small and usually quiet part of my brain that woke up, had a bit of a moan and then either dozed off again or was beaten into submission by the more regular contributors to my consciousness*.

And that leaves me just a little nervous – because things that I thought were in the past and dealt with, clearly aren't.  I need to keep my guard up.

Helpfully, I’m delighted that my bank has helped make this easier for me by cancelling my plastic card for reasons of fraud. So, I can’t buy ciggies even if I want to. To be fair, they are doing their job as the card has been scammed somehow (and it was clear from my call with them that they think they know where this happened – they just won’t tell me. It’s always a garage isn't it?).  So I support what they are doing, of course. I just think “shit, I've got no money” even though I can’t actually think of anything for which I need it. Think that I’m going to need to start keeping a hundred quid in a safe place somewhere as a fall back. But then it’ll be there when Mr Craving calls. Or Mr Burglar for that matter. Oh dear, what to do?

* Note for any brain experts reading this – yes, I know that isn't really how the brain works, but it’s a model that makes me comfortable, like the one where I still imagine the bank has a box in a safe with my money in it. Or did have, until the fraudster struck.

(Sort of) in Defence of the Daily Mail

I apologise for (or perhaps, see below, I only regret) the intermittent service at the moment. I am just incredibly busy with work stuff. Which I don't talk about here as a matter of policy - but lets just say i) not enough hours in the day and ii) fairly major expectation gap.

So I have just grabbed five minutes while I have a sandwich and, rather than looking out of window at sunny Croydon, I thought I'd drop in a few words.

I'm not really sure what is going on in the world right now (due to general busy-ness). But I saw one of those wretched interviews on Newsnight where Harriet Harman and Laura Kuenssberg got all semantic about "apologise" as opposed to "regret". Whilst I don't think that we can hold Harriet responsible for things she had little influence on 30 years ago, I was left thinking "oh just answer the f**king question" - my loathing of the political class generally has now evidently come so far that they have lost all sympathy.

Not (as if you would ever think it) that I have any time for the Dai1y Mai1 - how ironic for a paper that printed the famous Charlotte Church "all grown up" story to say anything about paedophilia (and if you say "that's different" then the answer is that legally, no, it isn't really). But of course it must not be the case that we disregard a story merely because of the vile rag it is printed in. Let's face it, if ten years ago we had been asked "which newspaper will break the MPs expenses scandal?" who would have said the Telegraph? That's as typical a Guardian (or even Eye) story as you would ever see.

So it is troubling when I here people say "ignore it, because it's in the Mail", knowing they would get all serious if it was in the Independent.

Print journalism is hugely under threat. Why buy a paper when the internet is free and mobile? And then to seek to limit freedom to publish reduces them to pictures of kittens and drunk slebs. But when it comes to the next expenses scandal equivalent - who else is going to break the story? Some blogger writing whilst eating his sandwich? A free press with some power (and integrity) is needed to hold governments to account, and like it or not, that does mean you have to put up with the Daily Mail.

Home comforts do not sit well with the wider world

I am enjoying a relaxed weekend with the kids. It's nice when the most demanding calls of the day are "tea or coffee?" and "shall we go out for dinner?"*.

Other than that, I am persevering with Flemish politico-crime drama "Salamander", trying hard to work on music for the forthcoming Voxcetera concert, and trying but failing not to care about the Six Nations.

More of the same this afternoon I think. With a little ironing, perhaps a visit to the gym and doing my accounts for the end of January (whoops). Actually, there is no way the last of those is going to happen.

I'm also watching the situation in Ukraine with a mixture of disappointment and worry. We seem to be at a point where the EU and Russia's influences are in the balance and I do not see it ending well. Ukraine is one of those places about which I am really ignorant. At school it wasn't a country so its distinct issues were not covered, and since then whilst I am aware of the Orange revolution, alleged Presidential poisoning etc, I don't know why the issues are the issues. And today's BBC News just doesn't give that sort of detail.

It also brings how how for all our apparent security in Europe, global stability is at best short-term if not completely illusory. Couple this with the economic situation and I do feel sorry for anyone growing up today.


* Coffee, and let's see what that new ribs place is like , if you were interested.

The BRITS - a middle-aged perspective

One of the perils of spending time occasionally with teenage children is that their habits do not coincide with mine. For the two who are currently on half-time, this means that they are operating on roughly Eastern US time (up about noon - bed about 3am). The only problem with this is that I either have to bow out of interesting conversations because I have to work in the morning, or I come into work exhausted because I didn't. Falls into the nice problems to have category.

On the downside though, I came in last night to find them watching the BRIT Awards. Something that I had long thought of as in my past. I remember Blur dominating with Parklife, Chumbawamba v Prescott, Jarvis etc. But I have outgrown that. I had planned to sit and read a little, and perhaps follow the BBC2 Folk Awards on the red button, but plainly that wasn't going to be allowed. And yes, I could have gone upstairs and kept myself to myself. But I do enjoy the boys' company. So instead I turned into my father. "Call that music?" "Oh, I know the original of that one ...." And there is some real talent out there. Nile Rodgers of course. Pharrell Williams also. But some I didn't know. The guy out of Bastille can really sing. So can Ellie Goulding but she sounded like she was outside her comfortable rang, so there wasn't enough power to compete with a thousand drummers.

And there were some entirely expected things too. Katy Perry without Autotune is not a good thing. And rockers from Northern cities who try to be sophisticated and cryptic come across as pretentious wankers. And comics trying to satirise the whole sleb-culture that they are part of tend to die on their arses - even if they have sorted out their tax affairs.

So, as you can tell, I ended up getting into the programme - and even more so Twitter's reaction to it. Catty, unpleasant, roaringly funny - it provided a splendid backdrop to the evening. So nice to know that in thousands of homes across the country, so many of us are doing the same and thinking the same - from wondering why Lorde came dressed as Edward Scissorhands to wondering why James Cordon. (Not why anything - just Why?).

So I can't say my evening made me feel particularly enthusiastic about the state of British music, but British humour is thriving, and we should all be thankful for that.

Turner

Before I start, I was mesmerised this morning watching Randall Monroe's latest cartoon on XKCD here. Doesn't relate to the blog in any way, but do have a look, it is strangely beautiful - to me anyway.

So - a day off today, making a long weekend. Like to say I've done lots, but no. Waiting in for a delivery of flooring (due anytime from 8 - 5 and it's now 15:43...). Have managed to catch up on one or two domestic chores, and had a bit of a rest, and read a bit.

On Saturday I went to the Maritime Museum at Greenwich, which had an exhibit of Turner's seascapes. I struggle with visual art often - I struggle with a painting being better or worse thought of because it is by x rather than y, and on what 'good' means. But the little of Turner I knew suggested I would like it. I was surprised to find his smaller sketches and watercolours much more engaging than the big set piece oil paintings. The oils were I am sure technically brilliant, but the sketches seemed to have so much more life to them - particularly the ones of whaling and whalers.

Whilst in Greenwich, I had a look at some of the other exhibits. I guess most museums have to aim at children now, but there was little to engage an adult. I came across a small exhibit around the East India Company. This is something I know very little about - the Mutiny and, well, that's about it really. But this was a business, operating with all the effective powers of a state - with its own navy and armed forces. Exactly the sort of thing that people worrying about happening today as the power of the nation is seemingly eroded. A book has now been found and I will be working to improve my understanding.