Friday 11th January

It was 1967, and in the sleepy backwater of Stowmarket, Suffolk, my home town, things were about to change.  For years the outside world had hardly touched the town and its equally sleepy denizens whose highlight of each year was the Carnival.  This usually consisted of a series of floats decorated by local groups such as the Scouts and even the residents of certain roads would sew and saw and build quite remarkable edifices which would be mounted on flat-bed lorries and paraded through the streets.  I was often on the Scouts lorry myself, and this along with the accompanying fair on the recreation ground was about it.   For some reason in 1967 it was decided by the Carnival Committee to hold a ‘pop’ festival at the local football ground on the night of the Carnival.  The young people of the town and local villages would be catered for by this forward thinking and caring committee of local volunteers who had absolutely no idea what a ‘pop’ concert would entail.  The thing was planned months in advance and enquiries to managing agents made and the ‘group’ were booked.  They were an entirely unheard of but aspiring blues band called Pink Floyd, who unbeknown to anyone here in Suffolk were beginning to make serious waves on the nascent ‘Underground’ scene in London. Ticket sales were slow until in the March of that year the band released ‘Arnold Layne’ shortly followed by ‘See Emily Play’.

Suddenly they became massive, and the concert coincided with ‘Emily’ reaching number 8 in the charts, and ticket sales took off.  This was that wonderful moment of liberation we old hippies look so fondly back on; a time of beads and bells and kaftans and ‘Sergeant Pepper’ and ‘Let’s go to San Francisco’ and all that peace and love stuff, before Altamont and the end of the short but wonderful hippy dream.  Anyway as the concert approached a few of us in the lower sixth who thought we were better informed than most intended getting to the concert really early.  We had read about the psychedelic light shows and the drugs and the incredible music, quite unlike the two singles, and we thought we were in for something brilliant.

It was still daylight and I was at the makeshift bar inside the venue getting steadily drunk on stout and cider, a most lethal combination, when in walked four guys with long hair and groovy clothes on.  We got talking and I was delighted to discover it was the band themselves – Syd Barret, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright.  We chatted about music and life in general for half an hour and I even got them to sign a ten bob note.  It felt like they were my mates, you know – the boys in the band just about to play.

They left and soon the gig started.  As darkness fell and the opening notes of Astronomy Domine pierced the air the light show began and I was transported to another level.  It was the first time I was totally engulfed in and obliterated by music.  I was also dead drunk and cannot remember much after that first song.  I also spent that famous ten bob note (worth a fortune now) on even more stout and cider and was ill for days after.

But in my own quiet unassuming way I feel I may have nudged them on to even greater things, though modest as I am I have never before publicly declared my part in their undying success.

Thursday 10th January

The words are by that most apposite of lyricists Paul Simon, who has so often hit just the right spot; his words perfectly matching the beautiful melodies he creates.  But what does it mean?  In the context of the song it was a metaphor about personal relationships, how no matter how hard we try, nothing lasts forever.  But in a wider context it is about the atrophy of everything.  Except perhaps for diamonds almost everything else atrophies; and at a rate too.

And we all start out with such confidence; that first blinding love is so strong it will surely outlast time itself; your first flat is decorated with care only to be sold as soon as the market allows you to move on up; that shiny new car is polished to perfection every week until one day you notice how shoddy it is looking and grudgingly take it to the carwash.  But sooner or later everything put together falls apart, and lovers depart and houses are just a headache and a money-sponge, cars rust in the driveway and that smart coat hangs like a rag behind the front door.

And so also our confidence and our optimism lose their shine, our grand plans are gradually redesigned as we learn to accept less and complain more.  Where are the great Socialist ideas of our youth?  Put an end to War?  We cannot even disentangle ourselves decently from Afghanistan.  Make Poverty History? We cannot even make it a recent misdemeanor but are busy cementing it into place as the bedrock of our society.  Fair Taxes for All?  When the rich have just had a tax-cut paid for by lower than inflation increases for the poor.

Or is this just the perspective from those who have reached a certain age when indeed everything put together is already falling apart.  Let us hope so.  Let us hope that the young still believe that things can get better, and will indeed do something about it.  Maybe all that self-absorption we complain about, their obsession with the internet and celebrity and technology will indeed make the world a better place before their ideals sooner or later fall apart too.

Wednesday 9th January

‘Hey, bird brain.’  Is quite an insult, or usually meant as such.  Birds are known amongst other things for having tiny brains; they are supposed to have evolved from dinosaurs which also had remarkably small brains, or so we are told.  But both dinosaurs and birds have been remarkably successful animals, as are their land-evolved descendents tortoises and crocodiles.  For all our big brains who knows how long we will survive as a species.

But how like us many bird-brains are; their characteristics mimicking ours – small brains or not.  Just watch a woman putting on her make-up and preening and pouting in front of her make-up mirror and it is just like a bird adjusting their feathers in the morning sunlight, even the flicks of the head – until they are quite happy with their appearance.  Or the raptor like instincts of the smart business man, always on the lookout for a weakness he can exploit and vulture-like he descends only on wounded prey and tears them shred by shred.  Or the gannet-like greed of some who simply cannot stop gorging themselves with food.  The swan-like serenity of those who know they are beautiful and admired.  The squawking bragging crows who know it all and never hesitate to tell the whole world.  The stoical penguins resolutely warming their solitary egg in the most awful conditions. Just like some humans.

Birds may have small brains, but they are remarkable animals who even now are adapting to rapidly changing conditions, witness urban sea-gulls who have moved quite happily inland to feed on human trash.  And when one observes the stupidity of big-brained humans to be called bird brain may indeed be a compliment.

Tuesday 8th January

It is interesting that the great post-war consensus on benefits which lasted for about sixty years is breaking up.  After the Second World War it was generally accepted that poverty was a bad thing, and that when people fell on hard times there should be some sort of safety net.  Even Thatcher never really dared to challenge the principle that people at the bottom needed some help.  It was always, and sometimes only grudgingly admitted that most of these unfortunates were there because of circumstances beyond their control, although Norman Tebbitt’s ‘On your bike’ comment was maybe the first public raising of the idea that some if not most of those on benefits were ‘work-shy’, or ‘milking the system’.   And just as we bewail the anti-social behaviour of a few wealthy tax-evaders it is the failure of the system we should criticise more than the few who abuse it.

But what is happening today is a wholesale attack by the present Government on the whole concept of benefits.  Universal benefits such as Child Benefit are being eroded, and Tax Credits are progressively being reduced and will, I am sure, disappear altogether soon.  Even such innocuous benefits as the winter Fuel Allowance are now fair game for those on the right.  The problem with benefits being completely means-tested is that for many it is demeaning to have to admit poverty in the first place in order to claim that which they are entitled to.  Universal benefits carry no stigma and though not ‘needed’ by some are still appreciated by millions more who would never consider themselves ‘poor’ enough to need assistance.

We are rapidly returning to an earlier almost Victorian attitude to the poor, that they are somehow responsible for their own situation, and should be grateful for whatever crumbs we deem fit to fall from our copious tables.  ‘Why do they not work?’ the right wing asks (even of the disabled), incredulous that anyone should be so lazy as not to be employed. ‘Where are the jobs?’ reply the poor, ‘If we had work that paid us decently we would all rather work.’

And I can assure you that the National Minimum Wage will be next in the sights of our friends on the right, after all the market should be free, and if someone is willing to (or so desperate to) work for such a meagre pittance why should anyone stop them.

Monday 7th January

For your New Years Resolution I mean, and more importantly have you given up giving up whatever it was you gave up yet?  For some it will have been chocolate, for others cake, but maybe it was something a bit more serious like salt or sugar, or more mundane like bread and potatoes.  Or maybe not even food but the really tough ones like cigarettes or dare we even mention it booze.  And why in the first place did we ever think that giving up something would either work or be in the slightest good for us.  A couple of years ago I gave up sugar in tea and coffee.  Tea was pretty easy, after a few weeks I had forgotten I ever took it, but sugar in coffee has taken far longer to kick, and even now sometimes with maybe a slightly guilty look around me I still slip in a half-teaspoon, especially in instant coffee.  But what good has it really done, I am still addicted to my daily almond croissant, which as I no longer take sugar in drinks I feel no guilt about at all.  And don’t even let me near pannetone or rich fruit cake, with or without icing.  Spotted dick and custard, golden syrup pudding, and any form of apple pie and I am there with my bowl like Oliver asking for more.

I have never really smoked, just pretended at parties, and for a while I affected a pipe.  Easy to give those up, though the Christmas cigar lasted a while longer, and now I would run a mile from tobacco.  Alcohol is more complicated, because I do enjoy an occasional drink, and while I can happily go for a week or two without a drink, the thought of never having another drink would be hard to swallow, much harder than a nice glass of port anyway.  And the medical profession is quite split on the relative benefits or not of alcohol.  But really – even if it is proven that giving up cheese, or wine, or actually anything you enjoy, will give you a year or two more of life – will those extra years be worth if it if your life  is made miserable by your diet.

So whatever you have given up, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons, and if you aren’t sure then just give up giving it up and enjoy.

Sunday 6th January

I am currently reading the latest Culture novel by Iain M. Banks – The Hydrogen Sonata.  It is the usual reassuring mix of witty eccentric ship minds trying to keep peace in an unruly Universe.  The author has a great turn of phrase, and uses sarcasm in a most creative way, witness the following riposte….

“Please don’t make the mistake of imagining that any contribution you might wish to make to this conversation will be at any point but its conclusion.  Any decisions have already been taken without you.  You are dismissed.”

As a put-down it is almost without equal.  How many times have I wished to a) have conjured up such words and b) had the audacity to use them.  It is the sort of phrase one reads again and again just to relish the words, to roll them around in your mind and to try to remember them, to store them up for possible future use.  Though even having them in my armory, reassuring that they will be, will not be enough, for one has to actually have the moral superiority to execute them efficiently.  Mind you just mouthing them to oneself when confronted by Mr. Big Mouth or Mrs. Bore-My-Arse-Off will almost be as pleasing.  You won’t have to actually say them out loud, just whisper them to yourself and smile the idiots away.

So remember when next time someone needs shutting up, dismissing, ignoring or just reprimanding the words to use are “Please don’t make the mistake….

Saturday 5th January

The headline in City AM, a free newspaper about business in London, is about Twitter being valued at 11bn dollars.  After the Facebook flotation fiasco one wonders who conjures up these figures, and just who will buy the shares.  And the wider questions about Social networking and what it might evolve into.  It is all so new, nobody had heard of Facebook or Twitter twenty years ago, and doubtless the social media we will be using in twenty years time nobody has heard of today.  And what will it all look like?  Will it still be as addictive or will we have grown up somewhat and learned to use it a tad more sparingly, not exposing ourselves quite so much, not re-tweeting gossip so unthinkingly, not replying so thoughtlessly?  Will it evolve indeed into something much more powerful, a real new media?  Or will the forces of Capitalism learn to control it and manipulate it for their own private gain?  At the moment I fail to see how either Facebook or Twitter can earn any real money, and from the other side of the blocks, how companies can really make it work for them.  It has certainly added cost as every company now feels compelled to have a web-site and a Facebook and Twitter feed, and there are new companies springing up to provide feedback as to how effective all this social media chatter really is.

Maybe I am just getting older, but my understanding of the thing is that the main reason people are using social media is that it is free.  And if it stops being free I doubt how many will continue to use it.  In the same way that certain people I know but do not condone are into downloading free music and films from dodgy websites, will now be very unwilling to start actually paying for content ever again, I think that social media and free on-line newspapers will die if we suddenly have to pay for them.  And I for one have never ever clicked on one of the Ads on the side bars.  I suppose that constantly seeing certain logos and names must stick in ones consciousness so maybe you are being subtly seduced into the advertisers world anyway, but it must be expensive, and about as cost-effective as leaflets through doors.

Anyway, I will continue to use Facebook and Twitter until something better comes along.  But I suspect that in twenty years time we will all have moved onto something else that makes today’s social media look antiquated; I just hope that it will be still be free and not another successful way of enslaving us both mentally and economically.

Friday 4th January

We first encountered, or actually became aware, of Marianne in the mid-sixties.  She was the equivalent of what today is called a WAG, a pop-star’s girlfriend, and like Anita Pallenberg and Jane Asher definitely from the upper classes, in fact Marianne’s mother was aristocracy somewhere in Europe.  Marianne was photographed tumbling out of cars and nightclubs and then suddenly she had a single out, and it was a bit twee and some of us thought – ‘oh-oh, Mick is getting a bit above himself, promoting his moll as a singer.’   She had one or two minor hits and then seemed to disappear from view.  After the drugs busts and the infamous Mars bar incident and the fur coat with no underwear she seemed to just bow out of public life, soon to be replaced by Bianca, an even more exotic beauty, on Mick Jagger’s arm.

She made a film ‘Girl on a Motorbike’, where she looked great, and unzipped her jacket to reveal a gorgeous body, but it was hardly acting.  Then nothing as she apparently spiraled into heavy drugs and at one point was homeless and sleeping rough. She obviously still had friends though as she suddenly re-emerged in 1976 with a brilliant album of raw rasping songs of an honesty and power we never knew she was capable of called ‘Broken English.’.  In fact who knew she could even write songs. She has carried on over the years releasing far more new music than Mick and co. could ever manage, and has refused to be tied down to any particular genre, switching from classical to rock to country with ease.  And her voice has just got better and better despite the smoking and drinking.  I saw her twice in the last few years; both times she was a little drunk on stage, but sung well despite that.

I cannot quite keep up with all her releases but one well worth a listen is ‘Vagabond Ways’

Thursday 3rd January

The trouble with my job is that if I do not do it I have to do it.  By that I mean that if I have time off I still have to do the work I would have done if I had not had the holiday.  Not that that stops me, it is simply the price I have to pay.  And now the days of reckoning begin; I have three clients and there will be almost two weeks of Accounts to process in three days, so longish hours beckon.

I really wonder sometimes how much longer I can carry on; some days I am Mr. Invincible, and others I just want to throw the laptop out of the window and stop work altogether.  I am in the process of trying to organize the summer so I can work maybe 6 or 7 days straight and then say 10 off, and do essential bits by e-mail.  That would in theory allow me to spend more time in France, though a lot of flights maybe.  We will see – a lot depends on our clients and how they fare in 2013.  I am amazed that one largish American restaurant is still open as its losses are colossal.  One other group is contemplating moth-balling at least one restaurant too, so it is quite possible that by natural wastage I will be down to three days or even less quite soon.  But then again there are rumours of new openings and new customers, so you never know.

Part of my trouble is that I am happier letting others make the decisions for me, and letting fate decide is always easier than actually making things happen.  But for now it is nose the grindstone time, which in a funny maybe slightly masochistic way I almost enjoy, just to catch up – then we will see.

Wednesday 2nd January

All of yesterday I was disoriented, it felt as if my brain were in someone else’s head and I couldn’t quite connect.  I must admit I had a few drinks on New Year’s Eve, maybe 4 glasses of wine in total, which for me is a lot, but I don’t think it was just the drink.  We saw the New Year in twice; once in the square in Eymet and then an hour later on BBC2 with Jools.

The town was dead, I mean absolutely dead.  At 8.30 Café de Paris was closing.  There was a posh dinner at Couer D’Eymet at 29 euros a head but nothing else was open.  We tried the Tortoni and though they only had four customers they said they would stay open a bit longer.  The French, at least here in the provinces spend New Year with the family over a big meal.  In the end there were just five of us in the only bar open and all of ex-pats and the town misfits.  There was James, the old man with the beard who graciously will accept a drink from anyone, Gareth the Welsh pipe-smoking loner, and Bill the Teetotal Brewer who makes the foulest real ale I have ever tasted.  We chatted until 10.30 and were duly ejected.

But suddenly the square started to wake up as people gathered, and there outside the Tourist office were three old ladies making crepes, and serving hot mulled wine.  Then at twelve we all walked to the ruined chateau for fireworks.  Lovely, and quite different too.

But the next day I was totally disoriented all day; it was as if I had a blanket over my head so everything felt fuzzy.  I was flying back too, which made my mood somewhat more dull.  The flight was fine, though I could hardly remember it at all later.  Home by 8.30 and I watched the news channels and fell asleep during Match of the Day (as usual); in many ways quite a wasted day really.