my life as a artist
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i ran em all
Monday 18th August 2008 10:53 PM
Although I think drug-use in sport is generally deplorable, this weekend I was delighted to see the Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt, take time out from the 100 metres final at the Olympics, to roll himself a small joint during the last twenty metres. Although technically illegal, I saw it as an injection of rare humanity into the increasingly boring buttocks of the Olympian beast-machine, and anyway, in my opinion, the laws on marijuana should be relaxed, and if it's decent stuff, really relaxed.
Meanwhile, in his hermetically sealed, space-age, one-piece swimsuit, Michael Phelps roars like a muscle-filled, fibre-glass walrus, the inevitability of his victory a fact as inescapable as one of his farts. There's a dramatic conflict going on here, between the flatulence produced by his diet, and the swimsuits reluctance to allow it egress, that I'm hoping to explore in my latest film, called 'Escape to Victory', starring Michael Caine as stomach acid and Sylvester Stallone as a twenty-five egg omelette.
The real story of the week for me was Alf Tupper's sensational gold medal win in the 1500 metres. Alf's been funding his Olympic stay by working nights at a local engineering company, as a welder, and on the way to the stadium he fell asleep on the Beijing underground and missed his stop. He had to run half a mile to the stadium, stopping only to eat double fish and chips, and by the time he got there the race had already started. Having no time to change, he joined the race in his heavy, hob-nailed working boots, and despite the class-prejudiced taunts of Lord Coe and his pals, won the race in a world record time.
Alf Tupper, a nineteen year-old welder, lives with his Aunt Meg in Greystone, and because the house is one-up-one-down, sleeps on a mattress on the kitchen floor. Out of his weekly wage of twenty-five shillings he gives her twenty-two and six and keeps half-a-crown for himself. Meanwhile, Frank Lampard earns two million, eight hundred thousand shillings a week and probably has his own bedroom as well. Bloomin' toffs!
Posted 10:53 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
how green is my gathering
Friday 15th August 2008 4:54 PM
On Saturday I'm casually scheduled to do a gig in Sunny Jim's solar-powered cabaret, at the Northern Green Gathering, somewhere near Ripon, and in anticipation of some awkward questions from the green police, I've been sorting out my defence.
In the last few years I'm aware that by taking a couple of flights to Malawi and Kenya I've deepened my carbon footprint considerably, although it was only after much consideration that I decided to go by airplane. My initial thought was to go by space-hopper. On some of the early models the ears are closer together, and it makes for a really comfortable riding position, but ultimately they're too slow, and to be honest, a bit too bouncy for my liking.
In the every-day-to-day reality of my ecological kitchen-sink drama, I always try to use Ecover cleaning products, ever since I had a conversion on the road to Domestos. I found out that not only does Domestos kill germs, but it maims, tortures and humiliates them first, whereas Ecover just asks them nicely if they wouldn't mind leaving. Even though this all takes place on a microbiological level, you can't underestimate the value of small acts of kindness.
FIVE DAYS LATER
I needn't have worried. No defence needed. From Yarm, York, Worksop, Widnes, Morecombe and Dewsbury we came, regular, cherry-topped tofu cheesecakes, creamed from the soya milk of northern suffering. It's 4:30 am in Banjo Bill's Jam Tent, and there's a robust young woman in a fur bikini, with theme-park hair and para boots, belting out an indecipherable, but in-tune song to the accompaniment of a pulsing mass of fiddles, accordions, saxophones, guitars, drums, trombone and a curly-haired Chas on miniature Chinese pump organ. There's a non-profit old testament prophet, who by the sturdiness of his stick could be from Dewsbury, dancing with a keen, polyester novice from Pontefract, and by the look of things I think the no-smoking rules must have been relaxed. Give me that old time religion, it's good enough for me.
After such an invigorating and wholesome week-end of simple pleasures, I find it hard to imagine why anyone would go to the bother of invading another country, when you could just as easily go there on a cycling holiday. If you feel you must possess another nation, I suggest doing it by e-mail. On Monday, for instance, I got a bit grumpy after reading about Huddersfield Town's disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Stockport, so in the afternoon I decided to annexe France. To be fair, it could have been anyone, I just wanted to lash out. I e-mailed the French government and told them that I'd annexed them, but was granting them complete autonomy, and they were to carry on as though nothing had happened. I haven't had any MIG jets strafing the caravan this week, so I presume I must have got away with it.
Posted 4:54 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
ridin along in my automobile
Sunday 27th July 2008 10:32 PM
I'm in my m-reg, metaphor-pimped, soul cyber-car, drunk on imagery and stoned on strange connections, speeding down the poetry highway, freewheeling towards the county line, when I see the cold blue light of reason flashing in my rear-view mirror. I'm pulled over by Marshal Steve from the geography police, and he rummages in my comment box and tells me that Glastonbury is in Somerset, not Wiltshire, and could he see my poetic licence, please? I tell him that I was so busy trying to find assonance with 'Blackburn, Lancashire', that I didn't notice that the lights had changed, and he laughs and lets me off, and says, 'Have a nice day in the life!'
Last week, one of my mates, I can't remember if it was Reg or Vic, was telling me about Iceland and the happy fact that they don't really go in for armies. After securing independence from King Lurpak IV of Denmark, in 1918, they were too skint to establish an army, so they made do with a coastguard and an Icelandic Crisis Response Unit, to sweep snow off people's doorsteps and stuff.
In April 1940, following the Nazi invasion of Denmark and Norway, the Icelanders suddenly thought it might be a good idea to get an army together, so they sharpened all the shovels and started training up sixty officers, but unfortunately it was too late, because on 10th May they were invaded by the United Kingdom. They didn't see it coming, and when I was reading it on google, I didn't see it coming either. Why have I never heard or been told that Britain once invaded Iceland?
Although my knowledge of Iceland is sketchy, and the event long ago, I nevertheless feel a deep sense of tribal shame at my countries violation of what, according to Reg or Vic, is a very fine and peaceable nation. When I first think of Iceland, I experience involuntary images of frozen food and a shared car-park with Aldi, but fairly soon I manage to overcome my conditioning, and instead think of glaciers, volcanoes, nightclubs and free geo-thermal power. As for the character of the people, I marvel at how the bushy-browed gravitas of Bjork is leavened by the elfin unpredictability of Magnus Magnusson.
From 1940, according to Wikipedia, Iceland fell under the jurisdiction of North Yorkshire County Council, until the famous Cod Wars of 1976, when King Findus V1 wrestled back his country's sovereignty by the strategic use of huge shoals of cold and slippery, but highly trained fish. Good for him!
Posted 10:32 PM | 6 Comments | Permalink
carry on camping
Wednesday 23rd July 2008 5:20 PM
Ah, the thirst-quenching wetness of words! Vague sweet moisture sucked from a sea of contemplation, blown inland on winds of inspiration, raised by mountains of granite will into the engirdling stratosphere of concept, then condensing and falling in laughing droplets of light, splashing meaning onto the arable farmland of our parched and outstretched tongues. Plop!
Did you notice how the exclamation mark looks like a pictogram depicting rain? Speaking of which…
I read the news today, oh boy!
Ten thousand discarded tents in Glastonbury, Wiltshire,
And tho' the tents were rather small,
There was nothing wrong with them at all,
Now they know how many thoughtless, bourgoise brain-outs were at a greenpeace fest-i-val….
I'd love to turn them on… to the fact that there's similar sized out-of-town gatherings currently going on all over Africa, called refugee camps, and would like to point out the ghastly irony of their actions. Yeah, whatever!
Every day, 300 million people in Africa live on less than one euro a day, (that's each, not between them) while the cows that now graze on Mr Eavis's farm, along with all the other cows in Europe, receive a daily subsidy of two and a half euros (that's each, not between them), which they mostly spend on drugs. I don't know if that's irony, but it's certainly ghastly.
Rick Astley was ghastly as well, but in a vastly different way.
Posted 5:20 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
a different electric kettle of fish
Sunday 20th July 2008 10:56 PM
I'd like to take this opportunity, in fact grab it with both hands, firmly enough to have it under control, but not enough to throttle it, to apologise for the recent blog-drought. It's still going on, and this is just a brief desultory shower.
I've just been on the road for two weeks, taking in the Glastonbury and Workhouse festivals, and other noisy water features, after which I've come home to fulfil some urgent filial duties. My Mum's flat has been renovated and revamped by the council, in consultation with Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen and Lulu, so she's been staying with me in the meantime (my Mum, that is, not Lulu, who shouts and goes boom-bang-a-bang too much for my liking).
Since the workmen finished going boom-bang-a-bang last Friday, I've been doing that mad, monomaniacal, midnight magnolia and wood-chip thing again, in an effort to restore my Mums flat, and indeed my Mum, to their rightful place. Although keen to return, she says she'll miss the beautiful view, my wholesome vegetarian cooking, and the high quality of the passive smoking.
I'm sure Katy speaks for you all when she writes in to say I was fantastic at Glastonbury. Thank you. After the gig I went backstage and hung out with James Blunt, Katie Melua, and Gilbert O'Sullivan and we had a lively game of scrabble. Later Neil Diamond and Shakin' Stevens turned up with some Tunnocks caramel wafers and a bottle of squash, and we partied until way past eleven. It was quite trippy.
Back in the mundane (but still muddy) world of football, even though there's still strawberries ripening on the vine, tomorrow sees the second game of the season for the mighty, yet humble and approachable, York Corinthians. Though we're sons of warrior gods, some of us still need a good eight hour kip the night before a game, and as I'm one of those, I'll have to go to bed now.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, I hope to talk to you soon, and I'll try harder not to make a stranger of myself , OK? All right then, goodnight! See you soon! Laters, eh?
Posted 10:56 PM | 1 Comments | Permalink
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