It barely seems five minutes ago, but it's now a couple of years since we moved out of hell.
We got lucky in the end: buying a small bungalow on a quiet road with little traffic. No boy racers tearing up the street (if you don't count the local lads who seem to insist on pulling wheelies on their bikes all the way down the busy bypass two roads away), no 3-day parties with open door policies to everyone in a five mile radius and no 2am fights about who ate the last slice of pizza.
The house itself is not a bad size. At some point in it's past it had an extension done in a uPVC build that is half-extension, half-conservatory. There's a small bit of lawn at the back and a pull-in area at the end of the path for a few cars. We even have a garage - though as it was built in the 60s it's too small for modern cars and has an asbestos roof (fine until you come to move it, so they tell me)
Prior to us the house only had two previous owners: someone who lived there from 1960-61 (approximately), followed by a family who only moved out when they moved into a retirement flat.
Which makes the random Christmas Card all the stranger. It's to a Mr & Mrs R. White - and as far as we can tell no such person has ever lived here. It's certainly not the names of our predecessors and none of our neighbours even recognise the name from nearby. It's always inscribed to an Uncle and Aunt from a family of three and, of course, being a Christmas card there's no return address.
We've had this same card every year that we've lived here and, to be honest, it makes me rather sad. Firstly it suggests that in the past few years that we've lived here these two sides of the same family have had little or no contact with one another - otherwise surely they would have the correct address. Secondly because there's little or nothing I can do about it. I would love to be able to re-unite these family members, if only by returning the card to its sender.
It makes me wonder: not just about the state of their family relationships but of mine as well. How easy it is in this busy world to lose contact with family members and friends: whether by falling out or simply the process of getting on with the day to day things. My cousin, for instance, who I love to bits; but it could be a good 15 months since I've seen her and her boys are growing up quickly. My sister-in-law, that I'd like to be closer to, but who lives so far away.
I sometimes feel frustrated, as I suppose so many people do, that it always feels like it's me that has to make the effort to keep the relationships going: and that no one seems to do the same to me - I don't know how true that is, but I guess that at the end of the day it doesn't really matter as long as someone makes the effort.
There was a famous actor (famous in the UK anyway) who died recently. Not long before his death he had tried to reach out, not for the first time, to his former acting partner from the sit-com they were both known from. Back in the 70s Actor #1 had inadvertently told a story to the press about a minor occurrence in Actor #2s life (that, upon hearing his wife was pregnant, Actor #2 had swerved the car and nearly crashed). Actor #2, who was deeply private, never forgave him and never spoke to him again.
It's simply not worth it. Whatever has happened in your life, if it's at all possible: reach out and build that bridge before it's too late.
Last year we received a second random Christmas card, this time from Ireland, to a different family - who have also, so far as we can tell, never lived here. We have not received a second one from them so far. Let's hope they sorted it all out eh?
Thursday, 21 December 2017
Tuesday, 31 October 2017
Diminishing Returns
It seems increasingly doubtful that I shall be buying the new Morrissey album.
I know, right?
And I appreciate that there will be those of you reading this post and thinking either:
a) Well, so what? or b) Who?
So: Stephen Patrick Morrissey, erstwhile Miserable of Manchester. Singer and front-man with 80s icons The Smiths who, despite the lack of mainstream media support, burned brightly and have become one of the most important and influential bands of their time.
And then, at the height of their fame, Morrissey (as he is usually known) and the others in the band fell out and went their separate ways. Johnny Marr, once tagged as a guitar hero, went on to work with a whole number of bands in all sorts of format: seemingly happy to be just under the surface of fame, whilst the others spent most of the 90s and 2000s sueing each other over rights and payments.
And for a while Morrissey's solo career was promising. His first couple of albums were a good blend of pop and heartfelt sentiments - but with each passing release he seemed to be trading on former glories, repeating the same complaints and then, bereft of a record contract, he vanished.
Seven years passed and then You Are The Quarry came out - a tour-de-force of a comeback, as vital and energetic as anything from his glory days....
To date it has not been matched. Frankly I didn't even make it all the way through his last album World Peace Is None Of Your Business and haven't been impressed by the new stuff either...
Why am I telling you this?
Well: I always used to be a bit of a completest: once I liked a band or an artist I would keep following them, buying their latest release and eagerly looking forward to the next. In this way I have almost every album by the Pet Shop Boys, Manic Street Preachers, New Order and a few others, as well as a good sized back catalogue of early Genesis and Peter Gabriel
But they say that your heroes either die young or live long enough to disappoint you - so I guess the question is: how long should you stay loyal? How long do you keep buying the new stuff hoping there will be a return to form?
Here's a few examples:
Bjork: she is the musical equivalent of Marmite (a yeast extract spread for toast known to divide opinion) and is, to say the least, eccentric. Much of her solo stuff is verging on weird and experimental and that's fine as far as it goes - but as of recent her albums have also been lacking anything approaching a tune. She's still getting rave reviews for her innovation and approach, but would it hurt to do something that I could hum along to?
New Order:
Haven't bought the new album despite the rave reviews. Peter "Hooky" Hook has left and, despite all the accounts of what a bad person he can be, it's not the same without him fighting his bass guitar to the death
Pet Shop Boys
Haven't bought their last 3 albums as I got bored of listening to daft throwaway tunes like "I'm With Stupid" (I mean, honestly...)
U2:
Apparently they have recorded their new album but have held back on releasing it in the wake of Donald Trump on the grounds that they are "no longer sure it says what they wanted it to" - and if the band don't have any confidence in the songs, why should I?
I guess it's the same for people who've owned every I-phone since the start and now feel a morbid need to remain loyal and buy every upgrade.
I guess it's the need to hope: hope that something that was once great can be great again - like maybe through them we can recapture that time when those things seemed to be the centre of our universe?
Maybe it's me then that is the problem: maybe I've moved on from those times when hearing Morrissey reflecting the confusion I was feeling was somehow comforting despite the air of misery and maybe hearing him still trying to pay lip-service to those things is just too much to bear....
I know, right?
And I appreciate that there will be those of you reading this post and thinking either:
a) Well, so what? or b) Who?
So: Stephen Patrick Morrissey, erstwhile Miserable of Manchester. Singer and front-man with 80s icons The Smiths who, despite the lack of mainstream media support, burned brightly and have become one of the most important and influential bands of their time.
And then, at the height of their fame, Morrissey (as he is usually known) and the others in the band fell out and went their separate ways. Johnny Marr, once tagged as a guitar hero, went on to work with a whole number of bands in all sorts of format: seemingly happy to be just under the surface of fame, whilst the others spent most of the 90s and 2000s sueing each other over rights and payments.
And for a while Morrissey's solo career was promising. His first couple of albums were a good blend of pop and heartfelt sentiments - but with each passing release he seemed to be trading on former glories, repeating the same complaints and then, bereft of a record contract, he vanished.
Seven years passed and then You Are The Quarry came out - a tour-de-force of a comeback, as vital and energetic as anything from his glory days....
To date it has not been matched. Frankly I didn't even make it all the way through his last album World Peace Is None Of Your Business and haven't been impressed by the new stuff either...
Why am I telling you this?
Well: I always used to be a bit of a completest: once I liked a band or an artist I would keep following them, buying their latest release and eagerly looking forward to the next. In this way I have almost every album by the Pet Shop Boys, Manic Street Preachers, New Order and a few others, as well as a good sized back catalogue of early Genesis and Peter Gabriel
But they say that your heroes either die young or live long enough to disappoint you - so I guess the question is: how long should you stay loyal? How long do you keep buying the new stuff hoping there will be a return to form?
Here's a few examples:
Bjork: she is the musical equivalent of Marmite (a yeast extract spread for toast known to divide opinion) and is, to say the least, eccentric. Much of her solo stuff is verging on weird and experimental and that's fine as far as it goes - but as of recent her albums have also been lacking anything approaching a tune. She's still getting rave reviews for her innovation and approach, but would it hurt to do something that I could hum along to?
New Order:
Haven't bought the new album despite the rave reviews. Peter "Hooky" Hook has left and, despite all the accounts of what a bad person he can be, it's not the same without him fighting his bass guitar to the death
Pet Shop Boys
Haven't bought their last 3 albums as I got bored of listening to daft throwaway tunes like "I'm With Stupid" (I mean, honestly...)
U2:
Apparently they have recorded their new album but have held back on releasing it in the wake of Donald Trump on the grounds that they are "no longer sure it says what they wanted it to" - and if the band don't have any confidence in the songs, why should I?
I guess it's the same for people who've owned every I-phone since the start and now feel a morbid need to remain loyal and buy every upgrade.
I guess it's the need to hope: hope that something that was once great can be great again - like maybe through them we can recapture that time when those things seemed to be the centre of our universe?
Maybe it's me then that is the problem: maybe I've moved on from those times when hearing Morrissey reflecting the confusion I was feeling was somehow comforting despite the air of misery and maybe hearing him still trying to pay lip-service to those things is just too much to bear....
Thursday, 19 October 2017
Early One Morning
4am on a Saturday and I'm in that phase just between sleep and wakefulness, my brain turning the old cogs. There's a snippet of an idea for a song bouncing around in my head and I'm wondering - if I leave it and try and write it in the morning, will it still be there?
The answer, of course, is no.
It's very rare that I sit down with my guitar and think "Right: I'm going to write a song now" and anything useable emerges. I'm fully aware that there are plenty of people who do precisely this: and probably a few of them earn money from doing so. Usually these days what will happen is that I will get a fragment - half a lyric and a bit of a tune - whilst doing something else and will make a note of it on my mobile phone. I'm a bit ruthless with these and if they haven't developed into anything within a week or two I delete them and assume they never will.
On this occasion I'd had two quite similar fragments appear in short succession. Initially I'd thought that maybe they would be part of the same song, but then the second fragment became a song of it's own and for a while it looked like the first would sit, neglected, on my phone until the next clean-up operation came along.
But somewhere my brain must have been working on the problem; because here I was - awake at 4am and trying to decide what to do.
Finally, aware that I wouldn't get any sleep with the words roaming around in my head like lost sheep looking to be herded somewhere, I got up and made the short journey to my desk: accompanied by the appropriate amount of stumbling over cats in the dark and reaching for light switches that were not where I remembered them being.
With the words now written down I retired to my bed, switching off lights and trying not to step on the cat, hoping that now I would now get some sleep.
And then the next line came.
Swearing lightly under my breath and trying not to wake Herself I clambered out of bed, danced around the cat, groped for the light-switch and wrote the next bit down. It was around this point that I realised my fragment fitted in quite nicely to the idea - so I now had a promising intro to a verse, a bit of a chorus and a bridge.
Back to bed. Close my eyes, aware that it is now 5am and I need to be up at 7 as I have a one day course in Blues Guitar ahead of me: a course that I'd quite like to be awake and sentient for if it's not too much to ask.
Fragment four arrives. Part of verse one. This time Herself stirs and asks if everything is ok and in a slightly tense voice I reply that yes it is, it's just inspiration calling at an inopportune moment. She goes back to sleep and this time, over the next 30 mins or so, I pretty much get the rest of the song written, aside from the chords which will have to be worked out at a more sociable hour.
As a result of all the to-ing and fro-ing I'm now awake before the alarm at 6:30am and so I pour myself a bowl of breakfast and switch on my computer. Once we're through the interminable time it takes for everything to warm up I log into Word and, with a few adjustments, type up the scribble on my piece of paper into something legible without having to go and find a modern equivalent of the Rosetta Stone.
Don't get me wrong - I like being creative and am pleased with the resulting effort, so much so that I resolve to play it at my next appearance at a Folk Club (where it goes down like a lead balloon much to my disappointment) - but I do sometimes wonder how it works.
Terry Pratchett wrote that ideas are like bolts of lightning and that some people are more susceptible to being hit than others and added that the right ideas might not always hit the right heads: which is one of the many reasons you see so many surprised looking cows. Agatha Christie would answer, when asked, where she got her ideas from, "why Harrods of course; where else?"
I think that a large part of it is believing in the first place that you can be creative and then actively trying to be creative - once you do those two things the ideas will come: some easier than others perhaps, but still come.
As for me well, my ideas may not change the world or, apparently, be suitable for folk club attendees, but sometimes they amuse me and my friends and maybe that's enough
The answer, of course, is no.
It's very rare that I sit down with my guitar and think "Right: I'm going to write a song now" and anything useable emerges. I'm fully aware that there are plenty of people who do precisely this: and probably a few of them earn money from doing so. Usually these days what will happen is that I will get a fragment - half a lyric and a bit of a tune - whilst doing something else and will make a note of it on my mobile phone. I'm a bit ruthless with these and if they haven't developed into anything within a week or two I delete them and assume they never will.
On this occasion I'd had two quite similar fragments appear in short succession. Initially I'd thought that maybe they would be part of the same song, but then the second fragment became a song of it's own and for a while it looked like the first would sit, neglected, on my phone until the next clean-up operation came along.
But somewhere my brain must have been working on the problem; because here I was - awake at 4am and trying to decide what to do.
Finally, aware that I wouldn't get any sleep with the words roaming around in my head like lost sheep looking to be herded somewhere, I got up and made the short journey to my desk: accompanied by the appropriate amount of stumbling over cats in the dark and reaching for light switches that were not where I remembered them being.
With the words now written down I retired to my bed, switching off lights and trying not to step on the cat, hoping that now I would now get some sleep.
And then the next line came.
Swearing lightly under my breath and trying not to wake Herself I clambered out of bed, danced around the cat, groped for the light-switch and wrote the next bit down. It was around this point that I realised my fragment fitted in quite nicely to the idea - so I now had a promising intro to a verse, a bit of a chorus and a bridge.
Back to bed. Close my eyes, aware that it is now 5am and I need to be up at 7 as I have a one day course in Blues Guitar ahead of me: a course that I'd quite like to be awake and sentient for if it's not too much to ask.
Fragment four arrives. Part of verse one. This time Herself stirs and asks if everything is ok and in a slightly tense voice I reply that yes it is, it's just inspiration calling at an inopportune moment. She goes back to sleep and this time, over the next 30 mins or so, I pretty much get the rest of the song written, aside from the chords which will have to be worked out at a more sociable hour.
As a result of all the to-ing and fro-ing I'm now awake before the alarm at 6:30am and so I pour myself a bowl of breakfast and switch on my computer. Once we're through the interminable time it takes for everything to warm up I log into Word and, with a few adjustments, type up the scribble on my piece of paper into something legible without having to go and find a modern equivalent of the Rosetta Stone.
Don't get me wrong - I like being creative and am pleased with the resulting effort, so much so that I resolve to play it at my next appearance at a Folk Club (where it goes down like a lead balloon much to my disappointment) - but I do sometimes wonder how it works.
Terry Pratchett wrote that ideas are like bolts of lightning and that some people are more susceptible to being hit than others and added that the right ideas might not always hit the right heads: which is one of the many reasons you see so many surprised looking cows. Agatha Christie would answer, when asked, where she got her ideas from, "why Harrods of course; where else?"
I think that a large part of it is believing in the first place that you can be creative and then actively trying to be creative - once you do those two things the ideas will come: some easier than others perhaps, but still come.
As for me well, my ideas may not change the world or, apparently, be suitable for folk club attendees, but sometimes they amuse me and my friends and maybe that's enough
Sunday, 20 August 2017
Cricket Whites And Multi-Coloured Coats
Back in the 80s the Doctor Who convention came to town.
Of course: back then being a science-fiction fan meant something different. You were, by and large, white, male, pale from reading too many comics and single. You were also useless at sport, full of acne and obsessed with detail. Where Patrick Troughton ate his peanut-butter sandwich on day 28 of shooting season 4 was of critical detail.
And equally, of course, pretty much all of the above was just bunk. Apart from the sandwich: these things matter, you know.
The show had just been cancelled, no longer able to cope against the more expensive and more slick shows coming out of the USA like Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X Files had ended the days where a props man at the BBC could spray-paint a sleeping bag silver and stick two antenna on it and get away with it.
And there was, despite all my denials above, a certain demographic at the conventions: ranging from bluff old men with pipes who could remember watching William Hartnell from behind the sofa to teenagers who could barely remember the "classic" 70s show.
The events were largely affordable: tickets were reasonably priced, autograph sessions were free. E-bay would see the end of that: the price of a signing shooting up as "celebrities" saw what they were worth and wanted a slice of the pie.
And just occasionally, maybe one out of every five hundred people at the convention, you'd get someone turning up in their home-made Jon Pertwee costume, or wearing the cricket whites of Peter Davidson or, if you were really going to go for it, the garish frock coat of Colin Baker (a costume that even the actor himself said was "the sort of costume that you want to be inside of staring out from"). There were slightly more of these fans at the Star Trek conventions: with Next Generation and then Deep Space Nine in full flow all of a sudden they were everywhere and you could see the corridors of the Albert Hall being filled with people in Star Trek Uniforms: still predominantly male, but a small amount of women now seeping into the crowd - perhaps drawn in by the handsome stars. At one memorable convention Michael Dorn (famous for playing Klingon officer Worf) asked a German Star Trek fan (who, frankly, looked like he had glued a Cornish pasty to his forehead) "Why do you dress like that? I used to get paid to do it!"
At some point I slowly trickled away from the world of conventions: they certainly stopped coming to my home town after 3-4 years and as the prices went up and it moved out of the reach of the amateur collector I lost a little bit of interest. My sci-fi/fantasy going experience became the norm. All of a sudden it was quite fashionable and ok to be watching Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and those who were fascinated by sci-fi were no longer considered social lepers who lived with their parents and were afraid of direct sunlight (unless they were Twilight fans I guess...)
I was reminded of all of the above today when I went to a nearby arts centre to watch a film (Last Portrait in case you are interested: a slow moving character piece about an artist who finds himself increasingly struggling against his own legend) only to find the corridors of the place festooned with people in costume.
The answer to why was, of course, that there was some comicon event in place in one of the other halls...but in the intervening years something had changed.
First of all: the convention goers were almost uniformly in...uniform.
Secondly: the turn out was probably somewhere around 75-90% women
But most interestingly of all, and despite the costumes, none of the people there were recognisably...a thing.
Back in the 80s I had occasionally joked of going to a Star Trek convention dressed as Kerr Avon -a joke that only a true nerd would get - the point being that those who did go dressed in costume were always Picard or Riker, or a Klingon - or maybe a Borg. It would always be a Tom Baker scarf draping to the floor...
...But although there were definitely a few Jon Snows and Tirion Lannisters around the main difference was that most of the people there were dressed in costumes as their own creation: people or races inspired by, but not actually of, the universe they were fans of. There's been a lot of talk of steam-punk in recent years (a thing where you have sci-fi, but with a retro feel - so as if steam engines powered space ships etc) and this seems to have led to people feeling free to express themselves in whatever form they want to: not tied to a specific genre.
I'm not sure what to make of this to be honest: I think on the whole I think it is a good move as programmes, and books, like these should be the start and not the end of imagination...and I like the fact that it's become so mainstream...but...
...I do wonder if the market isn't being saturated now...we're on the fifth re-boot of Batman, the third of Spider-man...every major studio seems to be creating it's own "universe" and if you want to see the new Avengers film then you have to have seen the last three Captain America ones...channels like Netflix are producing their own shows and as for Game Of Thrones well...you can hardly feel a breeze without someone saying "winter's coming" in a heavy northern accent
My fear I guess is that the films are running into the same problems that the comic books did: the "where do you go now" problem where in order to give bigger and better thrills you have to tell bigger and bigger stories
Those in the know will know, of course, that the dying world of comics was at least partially saved back in the 90s by the works of Alan Moore and his like that have gone on to influence the films - but every trend and fashion comes and goes just as swiftly so I hope that the companies have something else in their back pockets for when the fans grow up and put their costumes away.
I couldn't go to a convention now, of course, I'd stand out a mile and wouldn't have a clue what anyone there was supposed to be: maybe that's the way it should be. After all: not all of us can be Kerr Avon at a Star Trek convention now, can we?
Kerr Avon: a cold-hearted, logical and increasingly paranoid rebel and outlaw fighting against the evil and corrupt Federation...
Of course: back then being a science-fiction fan meant something different. You were, by and large, white, male, pale from reading too many comics and single. You were also useless at sport, full of acne and obsessed with detail. Where Patrick Troughton ate his peanut-butter sandwich on day 28 of shooting season 4 was of critical detail.
And equally, of course, pretty much all of the above was just bunk. Apart from the sandwich: these things matter, you know.
The show had just been cancelled, no longer able to cope against the more expensive and more slick shows coming out of the USA like Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X Files had ended the days where a props man at the BBC could spray-paint a sleeping bag silver and stick two antenna on it and get away with it.
And there was, despite all my denials above, a certain demographic at the conventions: ranging from bluff old men with pipes who could remember watching William Hartnell from behind the sofa to teenagers who could barely remember the "classic" 70s show.
The events were largely affordable: tickets were reasonably priced, autograph sessions were free. E-bay would see the end of that: the price of a signing shooting up as "celebrities" saw what they were worth and wanted a slice of the pie.
And just occasionally, maybe one out of every five hundred people at the convention, you'd get someone turning up in their home-made Jon Pertwee costume, or wearing the cricket whites of Peter Davidson or, if you were really going to go for it, the garish frock coat of Colin Baker (a costume that even the actor himself said was "the sort of costume that you want to be inside of staring out from"). There were slightly more of these fans at the Star Trek conventions: with Next Generation and then Deep Space Nine in full flow all of a sudden they were everywhere and you could see the corridors of the Albert Hall being filled with people in Star Trek Uniforms: still predominantly male, but a small amount of women now seeping into the crowd - perhaps drawn in by the handsome stars. At one memorable convention Michael Dorn (famous for playing Klingon officer Worf) asked a German Star Trek fan (who, frankly, looked like he had glued a Cornish pasty to his forehead) "Why do you dress like that? I used to get paid to do it!"
At some point I slowly trickled away from the world of conventions: they certainly stopped coming to my home town after 3-4 years and as the prices went up and it moved out of the reach of the amateur collector I lost a little bit of interest. My sci-fi/fantasy going experience became the norm. All of a sudden it was quite fashionable and ok to be watching Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and those who were fascinated by sci-fi were no longer considered social lepers who lived with their parents and were afraid of direct sunlight (unless they were Twilight fans I guess...)
I was reminded of all of the above today when I went to a nearby arts centre to watch a film (Last Portrait in case you are interested: a slow moving character piece about an artist who finds himself increasingly struggling against his own legend) only to find the corridors of the place festooned with people in costume.
The answer to why was, of course, that there was some comicon event in place in one of the other halls...but in the intervening years something had changed.
First of all: the convention goers were almost uniformly in...uniform.
Secondly: the turn out was probably somewhere around 75-90% women
But most interestingly of all, and despite the costumes, none of the people there were recognisably...a thing.
Back in the 80s I had occasionally joked of going to a Star Trek convention dressed as Kerr Avon -a joke that only a true nerd would get - the point being that those who did go dressed in costume were always Picard or Riker, or a Klingon - or maybe a Borg. It would always be a Tom Baker scarf draping to the floor...
...But although there were definitely a few Jon Snows and Tirion Lannisters around the main difference was that most of the people there were dressed in costumes as their own creation: people or races inspired by, but not actually of, the universe they were fans of. There's been a lot of talk of steam-punk in recent years (a thing where you have sci-fi, but with a retro feel - so as if steam engines powered space ships etc) and this seems to have led to people feeling free to express themselves in whatever form they want to: not tied to a specific genre.
I'm not sure what to make of this to be honest: I think on the whole I think it is a good move as programmes, and books, like these should be the start and not the end of imagination...and I like the fact that it's become so mainstream...but...
...I do wonder if the market isn't being saturated now...we're on the fifth re-boot of Batman, the third of Spider-man...every major studio seems to be creating it's own "universe" and if you want to see the new Avengers film then you have to have seen the last three Captain America ones...channels like Netflix are producing their own shows and as for Game Of Thrones well...you can hardly feel a breeze without someone saying "winter's coming" in a heavy northern accent
My fear I guess is that the films are running into the same problems that the comic books did: the "where do you go now" problem where in order to give bigger and better thrills you have to tell bigger and bigger stories
Those in the know will know, of course, that the dying world of comics was at least partially saved back in the 90s by the works of Alan Moore and his like that have gone on to influence the films - but every trend and fashion comes and goes just as swiftly so I hope that the companies have something else in their back pockets for when the fans grow up and put their costumes away.
I couldn't go to a convention now, of course, I'd stand out a mile and wouldn't have a clue what anyone there was supposed to be: maybe that's the way it should be. After all: not all of us can be Kerr Avon at a Star Trek convention now, can we?
Kerr Avon: a cold-hearted, logical and increasingly paranoid rebel and outlaw fighting against the evil and corrupt Federation...
Friday, 7 July 2017
Mr P.C.
"So what did you do last night, get up to anything much?"
I smile and savour the moment: this must be the fifth or sixth person I've said this too, but I'm still looking forward to the reaction, "Oh nothing much," I say, "just watched a naked pensioner performing a head-stand"
As, apparently, you do.
I'd say it had been over 12 months since I'd even thought about doing any art: I don't know why - the muse had just gone elsewhere...besides I had long ago run out of wall space and unsuspecting friends and family members to foist my "art" onto
And then, one long Bank Holiday weekend when I had nowhere to go and nowhere to go there with, I had delved into my folder for the pack that'd I'd bought two years previously that showed you how to create a pastel-pencil drawing of a fox (contents: 1x book, 10-12 pastel pencils, grid) and switched Spotify over to play Leonard Cohen on shuffle...and two days later (give or take the odd break for food, sleep, conversation and mind-numbing television) I had a rather nice drawing
And, in one of those odd twists of fate that sometimes occur, a day or so later I received an email from my occasional art teacher Mad Penguin Lady. I can't remember, I feel sure I must have mentioned her before but a brief recap: about four-foot nothing, always wearing pink corduroys, from somewhere in the Netherlands and having once painted a giant depiction of two penguins under a palm tree ("a sort of allegory for Adam and Eve")
The email was advertising her latest session of life drawing sessions on weekday evenings: a night of the week that, until recently, had been No Good For Me as I was often working in London :but now found me free.
I was surprised and pleased to receive said invitation: having seen that she had moved to another area and having assumed this would mean no more sessions in the swealtering heat of the studio crowded with 14 clothed people stood with frowns of concentration and 1 decidedly naked one just let them ogle them without a word of complaint.
I have to say: a 60 year old man standing naked on his head for five minutes is not something you see every day - apparently he is known for his unusal poses...at what point during the evening is appropriate, for instance, to say "Hey, I think I have a drawing of you on my wall..."
In the many years that I've been going (on and off since 2003) to the classes I've only managed to create two drawings that were worth framing and keeping, spending most of my time getting angry and frustrated with myself for something that looked like a jelly tot that has been left too close to the fire - but this time I was determined to just relax and enjoy myself and see if I couldn't learn a thing or two.
As it was: in the final session I did produce a picture that I was happy with, although I doubt it will end up on a wall and this time around I did manage to stop myself getting annoyed - so a result of sorts. Whether I improved at all or not: the jury is still out.
At this time I was still scouting around after my success on the Jazz course for a local group or orchestra I could try out with: determined that the only way I could now improve my playing would be to play with others....
About a year previously I had been approached by Herself's father with a proposition. He had been rather drunk at the time and I naturally assumed it was the Real Ale talking when he asked if I would be interested in performing a saxophone recital at the church where he plays organ and had, with foolhardy abandon, agreed to do - now it was rapidly approaching and I was practicing my pieces 2-3 times a week to knock the final corners off them
In the end the performance went very well: there were a couple of fluffed notes (though oddly I got the most complex piece completely right - an achievement I haven't managed to reproduce since) but no one other than me seemed to notice or care.
It wasn't just me performing - my sax was interspersed with some fairly serious and complicated organ pieces and a singer who was accompanied by her piano-playing husband. It was from these two that I finally got a lead to a local orchestra...who met on the same night as my Life Drawing Class...(ah you see now, the link is not as tenuous as you thought)
I left some contact details and eventually got to speak to someone about attending and, sure enough, a few weeks later I turned up and...duly sat there all night not coping.
A lot of sight reading was needed with a horrible Disney medley that changed pace several times and I just couldn't keep up with...and the first two weeks there was no music available for me to take home and practice
So after a week's break and having finally got hold of half the music I went back again...and of course they played the other half that I didn't have...and I was suddenly given different copies of the ones I had...
It was one of those nights that, by the end of it, I wanted to throw my saxophone out of the window into a nearby river and I'm afraid that when the conductor asked me how it had gone I was a little brusque (I later emailed and apologized and he was fine)
This was Monday evening and since then I haven't had much chance to look at the music and practice and I'm not sure if I'm going back or not (if you'd asked me on the night I would have been VERY sure)
This is the downside of the creative process: it can be bliss when it's going well. You can lose an afternoon doing nothing but blending two colours to form a third, or sketching out an outline - or you can spend it throwing endless pieces of paper in the bin. The same tune played two days running can be frustrating and then perfect: I've had more than the occasional saxophone lesson where I've wanted to give up...I guess you have to take the pain with the pleasure
But then there was Wednesday
I'd found out recently that there was a pub nearby that had a resident 5 piece Jazz band (guitar, keyboard, drums, bass and trumpet) with whom you could join in if you were willing to bring your instrument of choice - myself and Argent had actually initially thought about going two weeks previously but it had been in the middle of the first real heat of the year and neither of us had fancied it - and then the previous week we had gone along just to size up the opposition
The applicable word would be: intimidating.
Blimey Charlie but the band were good - able to play tightly along with newcomers, playing to a very high level. We went home that night wondering if we were mad to even consider going and joining in...but then the individual members had all been very friendly and you only live once - besides: what was the worst that could happen? No one there would know us and if we stunk up the room we could just never go back.
And so we went, horns held at our side, and hid in a corner where we thought maybe the singer/host might not see us if we decided to chicken out...
and again the band were top notch
The first half of the evening - from about 2030-2130 is just the band with a singer/host for the evening and then a 20 minute break during which hapless fools can fall on their sword, approach the host, and volunteer.
And so I got out my sax and started quietly warming it up, playing slowly through a John Coltraine piece I'd learned on the course called Mr P.C. (we'd done it slower than he does) - at which point the keyboard player passes me, hears what I'm playing and excitedly says, "hey, Mr P.C. you playing that tonight? Let's go for it"
It would have been like kicking a teddy-bear to have said no.
The break ends and the singer says "Pixie or Argent - do you want to join us?" and like the coward I am I practically shove Argent off her chair to go first...only it turns out that the band are dead set on playing some Coltraine - and so we swap places
For those of you who don't know, and i didn't until recently - one standard trope of Jazz is you play the tune twice at the start to give people an idea what you are doing, then each member of the band solos over the top in turn, and then you play the tune twice more to remind people where you'd started off
I ask the keyboard player for an A so I can tune and beg the drummer not to play it at full speed and he agrees. The resident trumpet player asks me if I want her to play alongside and I say that it's probably a good idea
And then we launch into it
At close-to-top speed
Gits
And somehow or other: I knock the ball out of the park. Not a single note wrong, my solo flying away under my fingers so that I have no memory of what, or if, I played and then all I have to do is stand there and wait whilst everyone else has their own solo before we return to the tune at the end
And then it's over and I'm shaking hands with some of the band and returning to my seat, head slightly buzzing.
It was just what I needed: a big success to bounce me back from the previous fail. A shot in the arm to get me going again
And of course, the next day at work:
"So what did you do last night then?" they ask me, "naked pensioners again?"
"No," I reply with a grin that won't fade till at least Friday, "Even better"
I smile and savour the moment: this must be the fifth or sixth person I've said this too, but I'm still looking forward to the reaction, "Oh nothing much," I say, "just watched a naked pensioner performing a head-stand"
As, apparently, you do.
I'd say it had been over 12 months since I'd even thought about doing any art: I don't know why - the muse had just gone elsewhere...besides I had long ago run out of wall space and unsuspecting friends and family members to foist my "art" onto
And then, one long Bank Holiday weekend when I had nowhere to go and nowhere to go there with, I had delved into my folder for the pack that'd I'd bought two years previously that showed you how to create a pastel-pencil drawing of a fox (contents: 1x book, 10-12 pastel pencils, grid) and switched Spotify over to play Leonard Cohen on shuffle...and two days later (give or take the odd break for food, sleep, conversation and mind-numbing television) I had a rather nice drawing
And, in one of those odd twists of fate that sometimes occur, a day or so later I received an email from my occasional art teacher Mad Penguin Lady. I can't remember, I feel sure I must have mentioned her before but a brief recap: about four-foot nothing, always wearing pink corduroys, from somewhere in the Netherlands and having once painted a giant depiction of two penguins under a palm tree ("a sort of allegory for Adam and Eve")
The email was advertising her latest session of life drawing sessions on weekday evenings: a night of the week that, until recently, had been No Good For Me as I was often working in London :but now found me free.
I was surprised and pleased to receive said invitation: having seen that she had moved to another area and having assumed this would mean no more sessions in the swealtering heat of the studio crowded with 14 clothed people stood with frowns of concentration and 1 decidedly naked one just let them ogle them without a word of complaint.
I have to say: a 60 year old man standing naked on his head for five minutes is not something you see every day - apparently he is known for his unusal poses...at what point during the evening is appropriate, for instance, to say "Hey, I think I have a drawing of you on my wall..."
In the many years that I've been going (on and off since 2003) to the classes I've only managed to create two drawings that were worth framing and keeping, spending most of my time getting angry and frustrated with myself for something that looked like a jelly tot that has been left too close to the fire - but this time I was determined to just relax and enjoy myself and see if I couldn't learn a thing or two.
As it was: in the final session I did produce a picture that I was happy with, although I doubt it will end up on a wall and this time around I did manage to stop myself getting annoyed - so a result of sorts. Whether I improved at all or not: the jury is still out.
At this time I was still scouting around after my success on the Jazz course for a local group or orchestra I could try out with: determined that the only way I could now improve my playing would be to play with others....
About a year previously I had been approached by Herself's father with a proposition. He had been rather drunk at the time and I naturally assumed it was the Real Ale talking when he asked if I would be interested in performing a saxophone recital at the church where he plays organ and had, with foolhardy abandon, agreed to do - now it was rapidly approaching and I was practicing my pieces 2-3 times a week to knock the final corners off them
In the end the performance went very well: there were a couple of fluffed notes (though oddly I got the most complex piece completely right - an achievement I haven't managed to reproduce since) but no one other than me seemed to notice or care.
It wasn't just me performing - my sax was interspersed with some fairly serious and complicated organ pieces and a singer who was accompanied by her piano-playing husband. It was from these two that I finally got a lead to a local orchestra...who met on the same night as my Life Drawing Class...(ah you see now, the link is not as tenuous as you thought)
I left some contact details and eventually got to speak to someone about attending and, sure enough, a few weeks later I turned up and...duly sat there all night not coping.
A lot of sight reading was needed with a horrible Disney medley that changed pace several times and I just couldn't keep up with...and the first two weeks there was no music available for me to take home and practice
So after a week's break and having finally got hold of half the music I went back again...and of course they played the other half that I didn't have...and I was suddenly given different copies of the ones I had...
It was one of those nights that, by the end of it, I wanted to throw my saxophone out of the window into a nearby river and I'm afraid that when the conductor asked me how it had gone I was a little brusque (I later emailed and apologized and he was fine)
This was Monday evening and since then I haven't had much chance to look at the music and practice and I'm not sure if I'm going back or not (if you'd asked me on the night I would have been VERY sure)
This is the downside of the creative process: it can be bliss when it's going well. You can lose an afternoon doing nothing but blending two colours to form a third, or sketching out an outline - or you can spend it throwing endless pieces of paper in the bin. The same tune played two days running can be frustrating and then perfect: I've had more than the occasional saxophone lesson where I've wanted to give up...I guess you have to take the pain with the pleasure
But then there was Wednesday
I'd found out recently that there was a pub nearby that had a resident 5 piece Jazz band (guitar, keyboard, drums, bass and trumpet) with whom you could join in if you were willing to bring your instrument of choice - myself and Argent had actually initially thought about going two weeks previously but it had been in the middle of the first real heat of the year and neither of us had fancied it - and then the previous week we had gone along just to size up the opposition
The applicable word would be: intimidating.
Blimey Charlie but the band were good - able to play tightly along with newcomers, playing to a very high level. We went home that night wondering if we were mad to even consider going and joining in...but then the individual members had all been very friendly and you only live once - besides: what was the worst that could happen? No one there would know us and if we stunk up the room we could just never go back.
And so we went, horns held at our side, and hid in a corner where we thought maybe the singer/host might not see us if we decided to chicken out...
and again the band were top notch
The first half of the evening - from about 2030-2130 is just the band with a singer/host for the evening and then a 20 minute break during which hapless fools can fall on their sword, approach the host, and volunteer.
And so I got out my sax and started quietly warming it up, playing slowly through a John Coltraine piece I'd learned on the course called Mr P.C. (we'd done it slower than he does) - at which point the keyboard player passes me, hears what I'm playing and excitedly says, "hey, Mr P.C. you playing that tonight? Let's go for it"
It would have been like kicking a teddy-bear to have said no.
The break ends and the singer says "Pixie or Argent - do you want to join us?" and like the coward I am I practically shove Argent off her chair to go first...only it turns out that the band are dead set on playing some Coltraine - and so we swap places
For those of you who don't know, and i didn't until recently - one standard trope of Jazz is you play the tune twice at the start to give people an idea what you are doing, then each member of the band solos over the top in turn, and then you play the tune twice more to remind people where you'd started off
I ask the keyboard player for an A so I can tune and beg the drummer not to play it at full speed and he agrees. The resident trumpet player asks me if I want her to play alongside and I say that it's probably a good idea
And then we launch into it
At close-to-top speed
Gits
And somehow or other: I knock the ball out of the park. Not a single note wrong, my solo flying away under my fingers so that I have no memory of what, or if, I played and then all I have to do is stand there and wait whilst everyone else has their own solo before we return to the tune at the end
And then it's over and I'm shaking hands with some of the band and returning to my seat, head slightly buzzing.
It was just what I needed: a big success to bounce me back from the previous fail. A shot in the arm to get me going again
And of course, the next day at work:
"So what did you do last night then?" they ask me, "naked pensioners again?"
"No," I reply with a grin that won't fade till at least Friday, "Even better"
Tuesday, 28 March 2017
The Song Remains The Same
Q: How do you get a Jazz musician to earn a million dollars?
A: You give them two million...
Ah the life of the itinerant musician: never an easy profession. The endless driving home on darkened and empty motorways, at four am wedged into the back of the van behind the snare drum and the bass player's right armpit whilst the singer and the lead guitarist get all the girls. Propped up on Prozac, never sure which city you're playing in...playing in half-empty bars to a half-listening audience (if you're lucky)
Most musicians start out this way: playing small pubs, open mike nights in cities where the locals didn't know there was going to be music on and are far more interested in the match on the satellite TV than listening to a band going through the motions of a bad Dire Straits cover version.
Or the wedding gig: where the well-meaning bride and groom hired them in to play their favourite music: failing to recognise that what the guests really want to do is quietly chat about Auntie Enid's historectomy whilst raising old family grudges and silently re-writing their wills, and are sufficiently less interested in the back-catalogue of Michael Jackson and Dexy's Midnight Runners
OK: so far I've been deliberately painting the less attractive side of the world of musicianship.
Take my life, as of recent.
Last year my brother came home from a day trip away to the centre of cosmopolitan England which, it turns out, is also the centre of the British Jazz movement (who knew? Not me. Not the concrete cows that used to be visible in a field from the train station and are now safely secured in the shopping centre. Not the locals either as far as I can tell). He came back with a leaflet for a venue that as well as evening concerts provides day courses in a variety of different styles: from Cajon drums to Mandolin, from Blues Guitar to home recording...and Jazz improvisation.
Let me say this right at the start: I'm a bit of a hypocrite here. Present me with a CD wherein Dave Gilmore of Pink Floyd noodles away on his Fender Stratocaster (or whatever he's playing these days) for the eight minute solo on Comfortably Numb and I will cheerfully listen....give me some of this endless, self-indulgent Jazz wibbling and I'll happily cut my ears of in preference for giving it the time of day.
It's been the bane of my saxophone lessons for the last 7 years (I know! And I still haven't learned the damn thing!) as pretty much every session ends with 10 minutes improvisation...
It's usually around the two-and-a-half minute point that I run out of ideas and start looking at my watch.
I think the difference is: structure. When you have a blues solo, or Messr Gilmore, Clapton, Hendrix, King et al step up the solo is a part of a wider story - fitting in between the words to flesh out the song, whereas in Jazz and improv the solo is often the whole of the thing.
And also: I never really have any feeling for it, or particularly understand why said thing that I did was good or bad when the teacher tells me so.
But because mucking about and making stuff up is such a big part of playing sax I decided that maybe what I really needed was to go on one of the courses on offer at the venue and initially took a one day course with my old friend Argent (remember her? She's doing ok out there, not blogging but keeping me company in many musical adventures) in Jazz Improvisation hoping that maybe doing it in another environment, with a different teacher and different musicians something would finally click
And it sort of did: because what we did was learn a piece of music first - Milestones by Miles Davis was one, I forget the other (could have been All Blues, but with my memory...) - and then play the tune before taking it in turn to do a smaller improvisation section before playing the tune again (which is, apparently The Thing You Do when Jazzercising)
And actually: it helped. Putting it in context of a larger and more coherent thing was so rewarding that I immediately signed up for a follow on course over six weeks from January - March: The Jazz Experience.
The plan was simple: learn a couple of "jazz standards", play them as a group (actually several groups: one large 20 piece orchestra and three smaller groups) and, on the final week, foist them upon the unsuspecting public, largely comprised of friends and family from the relative safety of the main stage of the venue.
This resulted in 6 Sundays in the middle of winter driving 50 miles down the motorway and back at ungodly hours, trying to remember the pieces by heart and not forget the weekly amendments and still try and have some kind of life outside....no bass player's armpits were harmed in the process.
The concert itself passed in a blur, it was only an hour and it felt like we'd barely started when we finished. I made a few mistakes (which I was largely able to cover up) but was generally pleased with the solos I played: my main regret being that the venue was so far away, thus limiting the option of taking things further.
What did I actually learn: well, that bit's quite hard to define, but it gave me more of an idea of where I am down the long road towards achievement...particularly towards the end of the course when I was having a conversation with the teacher who had led our group.
Teacher: (looking at my saxophone reeds): "You should consider getting some better quality reeds more suited to an intermediate player like you..."
It was at this point that I laughed and retorted, "ooh, intermediate eh? Air's getting a bit rarified up here...after all this time I've finally climbed the dizzy heights to being average"
Actually - I never said it half as cleverly as that but we both laughed and joked and found it funny (it still amuses me)
Intermediate is a good place to be, and I'd say it was about right: there were some players in the group who had been playing two or three times longer than me but whom I could happily play the socks off, whilst there were rank beginners who were already showing signs of catching me up. In the road to becoming good at something you never really reach the end: you just climb the next hill and see where it takes you
The important thing is to keep climbing
A: You give them two million...
Ah the life of the itinerant musician: never an easy profession. The endless driving home on darkened and empty motorways, at four am wedged into the back of the van behind the snare drum and the bass player's right armpit whilst the singer and the lead guitarist get all the girls. Propped up on Prozac, never sure which city you're playing in...playing in half-empty bars to a half-listening audience (if you're lucky)
Most musicians start out this way: playing small pubs, open mike nights in cities where the locals didn't know there was going to be music on and are far more interested in the match on the satellite TV than listening to a band going through the motions of a bad Dire Straits cover version.
Or the wedding gig: where the well-meaning bride and groom hired them in to play their favourite music: failing to recognise that what the guests really want to do is quietly chat about Auntie Enid's historectomy whilst raising old family grudges and silently re-writing their wills, and are sufficiently less interested in the back-catalogue of Michael Jackson and Dexy's Midnight Runners
OK: so far I've been deliberately painting the less attractive side of the world of musicianship.
Take my life, as of recent.
Last year my brother came home from a day trip away to the centre of cosmopolitan England which, it turns out, is also the centre of the British Jazz movement (who knew? Not me. Not the concrete cows that used to be visible in a field from the train station and are now safely secured in the shopping centre. Not the locals either as far as I can tell). He came back with a leaflet for a venue that as well as evening concerts provides day courses in a variety of different styles: from Cajon drums to Mandolin, from Blues Guitar to home recording...and Jazz improvisation.
Let me say this right at the start: I'm a bit of a hypocrite here. Present me with a CD wherein Dave Gilmore of Pink Floyd noodles away on his Fender Stratocaster (or whatever he's playing these days) for the eight minute solo on Comfortably Numb and I will cheerfully listen....give me some of this endless, self-indulgent Jazz wibbling and I'll happily cut my ears of in preference for giving it the time of day.
It's been the bane of my saxophone lessons for the last 7 years (I know! And I still haven't learned the damn thing!) as pretty much every session ends with 10 minutes improvisation...
It's usually around the two-and-a-half minute point that I run out of ideas and start looking at my watch.
I think the difference is: structure. When you have a blues solo, or Messr Gilmore, Clapton, Hendrix, King et al step up the solo is a part of a wider story - fitting in between the words to flesh out the song, whereas in Jazz and improv the solo is often the whole of the thing.
And also: I never really have any feeling for it, or particularly understand why said thing that I did was good or bad when the teacher tells me so.
But because mucking about and making stuff up is such a big part of playing sax I decided that maybe what I really needed was to go on one of the courses on offer at the venue and initially took a one day course with my old friend Argent (remember her? She's doing ok out there, not blogging but keeping me company in many musical adventures) in Jazz Improvisation hoping that maybe doing it in another environment, with a different teacher and different musicians something would finally click
And it sort of did: because what we did was learn a piece of music first - Milestones by Miles Davis was one, I forget the other (could have been All Blues, but with my memory...) - and then play the tune before taking it in turn to do a smaller improvisation section before playing the tune again (which is, apparently The Thing You Do when Jazzercising)
And actually: it helped. Putting it in context of a larger and more coherent thing was so rewarding that I immediately signed up for a follow on course over six weeks from January - March: The Jazz Experience.
The plan was simple: learn a couple of "jazz standards", play them as a group (actually several groups: one large 20 piece orchestra and three smaller groups) and, on the final week, foist them upon the unsuspecting public, largely comprised of friends and family from the relative safety of the main stage of the venue.
This resulted in 6 Sundays in the middle of winter driving 50 miles down the motorway and back at ungodly hours, trying to remember the pieces by heart and not forget the weekly amendments and still try and have some kind of life outside....no bass player's armpits were harmed in the process.
The concert itself passed in a blur, it was only an hour and it felt like we'd barely started when we finished. I made a few mistakes (which I was largely able to cover up) but was generally pleased with the solos I played: my main regret being that the venue was so far away, thus limiting the option of taking things further.
What did I actually learn: well, that bit's quite hard to define, but it gave me more of an idea of where I am down the long road towards achievement...particularly towards the end of the course when I was having a conversation with the teacher who had led our group.
Teacher: (looking at my saxophone reeds): "You should consider getting some better quality reeds more suited to an intermediate player like you..."
It was at this point that I laughed and retorted, "ooh, intermediate eh? Air's getting a bit rarified up here...after all this time I've finally climbed the dizzy heights to being average"
Actually - I never said it half as cleverly as that but we both laughed and joked and found it funny (it still amuses me)
Intermediate is a good place to be, and I'd say it was about right: there were some players in the group who had been playing two or three times longer than me but whom I could happily play the socks off, whilst there were rank beginners who were already showing signs of catching me up. In the road to becoming good at something you never really reach the end: you just climb the next hill and see where it takes you
The important thing is to keep climbing
Friday, 3 February 2017
Your Latest Trick
Let's be honest: right now, if you are approaching a till in a shop with the intention of paying with your smart watch there's a high probability that the person behind you thinks that you are a pretentious idiot.
I've had this happen to me a few times now, where I've been standing in a queue with my ever-so-last-century coinage in my hand, ready to take out a small payday loan so that I can afford to pay the extortionate amount being asked for in exchange for a cup of coffee, only to be delayed as someone in front of me insists on pushing back their sleeve, twisting their arm (thus spilling half the drink) and holding their wrist at the correct distance from the scanner for the signal to be transmitted and paying without the arguably quicker but less flashy alternative of getting their debit card out of their wallet.
I must admit to being a little bit guilty here myself because after some initial grumbling about not seeing how it can make transactions any safer I now regularly pay via contact less with my bank card, thus saving me having to input my PIN and probably shaving 20 seconds off what would have otherwise been a more lengthy purchase interaction.
Now I know this is going to sound out of fashion and like an old man grumbling but the basic, single purpose I wear a watch for is because I want it to tell me the time.
Back at school when I was a kid I experimented with digital watches. Most of them had two or three buttons and a read out based on an 8888 square in poor LEDs. One or two even had alarms. As a kid I was even banned from wearing a watch at school - the culprit being a clockwork Mickey Mouse watch from disneyland that ticked so loudly it disrupted the class.
Eventually i returned to a simple watch with hands - I've probably had my current one for 15-20 years with only the occasional change of strap or battery and am in no immediate rush to upgrade.
But the thing is with the smart watch is that I can't help but feel that people are jumping the gun a bit.
Take the mobile phone, When these first came out in the 1980s they were exclusively used by Wall Street types and came with big battery packs, antenna and a transmission distance only slightly better than standing at the other side of a room and yelling at the person you wanted to talk to.
Nowadays of course you have phones that can control drones, book you a table at a restaurant, organise your fitness regime and take prize winning photographs - but the problem is the rate at which the technology is changing.
Apple and their contenders seem to be releasing new, improved iphones every six months ago that via a tiny improvement or change immediately render your previous phone as obsolete as a penny farthing bicycle - I've personally resisted buying a new games console since the Playstation 2 largely because I got tired of having to buy a new one every year or so because the new version wouldn't play my old games (and because of the price of the games themselves)
And I'm not convinced by the 3D systems going around at the moment - they seem clunky and gimmicky
Personally my suggestion is to hang on for a while and see what comes next - meanwhile in the short term if your watch is still telling you the time then surely that's good enough?
I've had this happen to me a few times now, where I've been standing in a queue with my ever-so-last-century coinage in my hand, ready to take out a small payday loan so that I can afford to pay the extortionate amount being asked for in exchange for a cup of coffee, only to be delayed as someone in front of me insists on pushing back their sleeve, twisting their arm (thus spilling half the drink) and holding their wrist at the correct distance from the scanner for the signal to be transmitted and paying without the arguably quicker but less flashy alternative of getting their debit card out of their wallet.
I must admit to being a little bit guilty here myself because after some initial grumbling about not seeing how it can make transactions any safer I now regularly pay via contact less with my bank card, thus saving me having to input my PIN and probably shaving 20 seconds off what would have otherwise been a more lengthy purchase interaction.
Now I know this is going to sound out of fashion and like an old man grumbling but the basic, single purpose I wear a watch for is because I want it to tell me the time.
Back at school when I was a kid I experimented with digital watches. Most of them had two or three buttons and a read out based on an 8888 square in poor LEDs. One or two even had alarms. As a kid I was even banned from wearing a watch at school - the culprit being a clockwork Mickey Mouse watch from disneyland that ticked so loudly it disrupted the class.
Eventually i returned to a simple watch with hands - I've probably had my current one for 15-20 years with only the occasional change of strap or battery and am in no immediate rush to upgrade.
But the thing is with the smart watch is that I can't help but feel that people are jumping the gun a bit.
Take the mobile phone, When these first came out in the 1980s they were exclusively used by Wall Street types and came with big battery packs, antenna and a transmission distance only slightly better than standing at the other side of a room and yelling at the person you wanted to talk to.
Nowadays of course you have phones that can control drones, book you a table at a restaurant, organise your fitness regime and take prize winning photographs - but the problem is the rate at which the technology is changing.
Apple and their contenders seem to be releasing new, improved iphones every six months ago that via a tiny improvement or change immediately render your previous phone as obsolete as a penny farthing bicycle - I've personally resisted buying a new games console since the Playstation 2 largely because I got tired of having to buy a new one every year or so because the new version wouldn't play my old games (and because of the price of the games themselves)
And I'm not convinced by the 3D systems going around at the moment - they seem clunky and gimmicky
Personally my suggestion is to hang on for a while and see what comes next - meanwhile in the short term if your watch is still telling you the time then surely that's good enough?
Friday, 13 January 2017
Live It Up
I'm now officially old.
To be fair - I think I was born 60 and it got worse as time went on, but there are several things that have led me to the conclusion that the top of the hill is now behind me.
The first thing that tells you that your dotage is upon you is the way that women (usually Grand mothers and young mothers) refer to you, particularly when they are pointing you out to a young child that is in their care.
It starts well with, "do you see that boy there" and moves on to "that young man" before the inevitable "that Gentleman" and finally, of course, "that old man" (by which they are trying to warn their kid "keep away, he could collapse at any second")
The second thing is, of course, new technology. (Author) Douglas Adams famously once wrote that "anything invented before you were born is in the Natural Order Of Things, anything between then and around 35 years is a New And Exciting Gadget and that anything invented much after your 40th year is Against God And Must Be Stopped.
I was actually having a conversation around the second point at work the other day with a girl half my age who was saying things like "oh I can eat whatever I like and never put on any weight" and "I can't ever see myself not understanding new tech the way my grandmother does" - and yet even she, spring chicken that she comparatively was, admitted that there were elements of social media, such as Twitter, which she didn't really follow (Twitter is beyond me I'm afraid: please explain where the joy is in reading half a stranger's text message). My personal gripe is 3D movies - if the story wasn't good in the first place then some actor waving to the screen and arrows flying out at you isn't going to make it any better (I studiously avoid them and will only go to 2D screenings)
Thirdly, of course, my pop culture references regularly go over the heads of people working in shops. Just recently we went to a hobby shop to buy some glue, pens and other craft materials (we're very fond of gluing pens together in our house...) and whilst Herself was rummaging through her cavernous purse I joked to the assistant that "this is what happened to Lord Lucan and Shergar, you know: they got put in her bag for safe keeping"
Now I'm aware that anyone in the US may not get the reference to the disgraced 60s Lord whose clothes were found abandoned on the beach in the wake of the Police wanting to speak to him in relation to a murder, or to the Grand National winning horse that rumour has it may have been stolen by the IRA with intentions of ransoming it before they realised how hard a thoroughbred is to look after - but both are familiar names in the UK: or at least they should be.
However: even after a brief summary of the Lord Lucan affair (which, incidentally, happened before my time as well) the expression on the girl's face remained polite-yet-liable-to-call-security-at-any-moment.
Fourthly - and I just became aware that this post, although not originally intended to, is slowly turning into a list-o-fives post - I'm hopelessly out of touch with New And Upcoming Musical Artistes. This is something I actually regret - we used to have a 1/2 hour music show here called Top Of The Pops which showed you the top 40 selling singles in the chart and if that were still on today then I would be fully versed because a half-hour music show is about the right length for me and I can't be bothered with all these 1 hour music video shows you get on the digital channels
The most up-and-coming music act that I recently discovered was Gregory Porter: who it has to be said has a great voice and some wonderful tunes - but he's only a small amount younger than me and he sings Jazz - so it hardly qualifies me to announce that I am "down with the kids" (slang for hip - and by god does using the word "hip" make me sound even older)
Fifth - all of a sudden I find young people deeply annoying.
Actually that's not true: all my life I've found them deeply annoying, but it's got worse. Particularly on public transports
There's this nice old image of the traditional Brit who sits in his shed all day, quietly stoking and smoking a pipe whilst he ponders over a tricky crossword, who never complains despite being kept waiting at the station for 5 hours (other than the occasional sigh or tut) and who absolutely DOES NOT spend the entire 2 hour train journey having a loud and vacuous phone conversation about their sex life whilst playing BubbleSaga or Angry Birds on their tablet
I have to admit to being a bit of a hypocrite here because as a child I used to insist on carrying around a small case of magic tricks and "entertaining" fellow passengers when the train broke down (which was a frequent occurrence back then) - quite frankly: if I met myself as a child now I would cheerfully stab myself to save anyone else the pain - but to be fair I was a hell of a lot quieter. I don't know whether it's a thing of getting older or what, but it seems that anyone below the age of 17 is unable to speak at any volume lower than a bellow that would start an avalanche
Finally, of course, I have recently discovered the local Folk Club Scene.
For those of you who don't know Folk Clubs are still quite common in the UK and they usually have one or many of the following attributes:
* Real Ale drinkers - people who insist that beer has to be made Traditionally and by some bloke using his bath tub - to be the real thing
* Acoustic instruments - they're still bitter about Dylan going electric
* songs written over a 100 years ago, usually about how grim it was being a miner/weaver/peasant, containing "fol-de-rol"s or heavy innuendo
* people old enough to have heard the songs the first time around
* and, to be fair, a really friendly and informal atmosphere that is a hell of a lot of fun
But what they don't have: is young people - and this is a thing I've heard and seen a lot of recently. On the stand-up course I did the teacher bemoaned the fact that the audience watching him now were the same people as 10-15 years ago and that no new audience was coming through - and it's the same in the Folk Clubs - I may be getting on a bit, but the large proportion of people there are 15-20 years older than me and I wasn't aware of anyone younger
Which is a bit of a shame - I'd hate these clubs to go out of business and to vanish like so many things because they clung onto a forgotten ideal of what the world was like
Which brings me to the final thing about getting old - becoming afraid of change. It's very easy to complain about things changing (as I've just proven) and history is full of people moaning that INSERT NEW FANGLED THING HERE is wrecking our society and changing things irretrievably but hey - change will happen regardless.
Better to accept it and move on: maybe therein lies the secret of eternal youth?
To be fair - I think I was born 60 and it got worse as time went on, but there are several things that have led me to the conclusion that the top of the hill is now behind me.
The first thing that tells you that your dotage is upon you is the way that women (usually Grand mothers and young mothers) refer to you, particularly when they are pointing you out to a young child that is in their care.
It starts well with, "do you see that boy there" and moves on to "that young man" before the inevitable "that Gentleman" and finally, of course, "that old man" (by which they are trying to warn their kid "keep away, he could collapse at any second")
The second thing is, of course, new technology. (Author) Douglas Adams famously once wrote that "anything invented before you were born is in the Natural Order Of Things, anything between then and around 35 years is a New And Exciting Gadget and that anything invented much after your 40th year is Against God And Must Be Stopped.
I was actually having a conversation around the second point at work the other day with a girl half my age who was saying things like "oh I can eat whatever I like and never put on any weight" and "I can't ever see myself not understanding new tech the way my grandmother does" - and yet even she, spring chicken that she comparatively was, admitted that there were elements of social media, such as Twitter, which she didn't really follow (Twitter is beyond me I'm afraid: please explain where the joy is in reading half a stranger's text message). My personal gripe is 3D movies - if the story wasn't good in the first place then some actor waving to the screen and arrows flying out at you isn't going to make it any better (I studiously avoid them and will only go to 2D screenings)
Thirdly, of course, my pop culture references regularly go over the heads of people working in shops. Just recently we went to a hobby shop to buy some glue, pens and other craft materials (we're very fond of gluing pens together in our house...) and whilst Herself was rummaging through her cavernous purse I joked to the assistant that "this is what happened to Lord Lucan and Shergar, you know: they got put in her bag for safe keeping"
Now I'm aware that anyone in the US may not get the reference to the disgraced 60s Lord whose clothes were found abandoned on the beach in the wake of the Police wanting to speak to him in relation to a murder, or to the Grand National winning horse that rumour has it may have been stolen by the IRA with intentions of ransoming it before they realised how hard a thoroughbred is to look after - but both are familiar names in the UK: or at least they should be.
However: even after a brief summary of the Lord Lucan affair (which, incidentally, happened before my time as well) the expression on the girl's face remained polite-yet-liable-to-call-security-at-any-moment.
Fourthly - and I just became aware that this post, although not originally intended to, is slowly turning into a list-o-fives post - I'm hopelessly out of touch with New And Upcoming Musical Artistes. This is something I actually regret - we used to have a 1/2 hour music show here called Top Of The Pops which showed you the top 40 selling singles in the chart and if that were still on today then I would be fully versed because a half-hour music show is about the right length for me and I can't be bothered with all these 1 hour music video shows you get on the digital channels
The most up-and-coming music act that I recently discovered was Gregory Porter: who it has to be said has a great voice and some wonderful tunes - but he's only a small amount younger than me and he sings Jazz - so it hardly qualifies me to announce that I am "down with the kids" (slang for hip - and by god does using the word "hip" make me sound even older)
Fifth - all of a sudden I find young people deeply annoying.
Actually that's not true: all my life I've found them deeply annoying, but it's got worse. Particularly on public transports
There's this nice old image of the traditional Brit who sits in his shed all day, quietly stoking and smoking a pipe whilst he ponders over a tricky crossword, who never complains despite being kept waiting at the station for 5 hours (other than the occasional sigh or tut) and who absolutely DOES NOT spend the entire 2 hour train journey having a loud and vacuous phone conversation about their sex life whilst playing BubbleSaga or Angry Birds on their tablet
I have to admit to being a bit of a hypocrite here because as a child I used to insist on carrying around a small case of magic tricks and "entertaining" fellow passengers when the train broke down (which was a frequent occurrence back then) - quite frankly: if I met myself as a child now I would cheerfully stab myself to save anyone else the pain - but to be fair I was a hell of a lot quieter. I don't know whether it's a thing of getting older or what, but it seems that anyone below the age of 17 is unable to speak at any volume lower than a bellow that would start an avalanche
Finally, of course, I have recently discovered the local Folk Club Scene.
For those of you who don't know Folk Clubs are still quite common in the UK and they usually have one or many of the following attributes:
* Real Ale drinkers - people who insist that beer has to be made Traditionally and by some bloke using his bath tub - to be the real thing
* Acoustic instruments - they're still bitter about Dylan going electric
* songs written over a 100 years ago, usually about how grim it was being a miner/weaver/peasant, containing "fol-de-rol"s or heavy innuendo
* people old enough to have heard the songs the first time around
* and, to be fair, a really friendly and informal atmosphere that is a hell of a lot of fun
But what they don't have: is young people - and this is a thing I've heard and seen a lot of recently. On the stand-up course I did the teacher bemoaned the fact that the audience watching him now were the same people as 10-15 years ago and that no new audience was coming through - and it's the same in the Folk Clubs - I may be getting on a bit, but the large proportion of people there are 15-20 years older than me and I wasn't aware of anyone younger
Which is a bit of a shame - I'd hate these clubs to go out of business and to vanish like so many things because they clung onto a forgotten ideal of what the world was like
Which brings me to the final thing about getting old - becoming afraid of change. It's very easy to complain about things changing (as I've just proven) and history is full of people moaning that INSERT NEW FANGLED THING HERE is wrecking our society and changing things irretrievably but hey - change will happen regardless.
Better to accept it and move on: maybe therein lies the secret of eternal youth?
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