Over the Half Term holiday, I had a visit from our local Reform Councillor. The first one to be elected in our area, and he was obviously chuffed with himself and his shiny blue rosette. I was loading my car up in preparation for a trip to the tip when I saw him knocking on the neighbours’ doors, and though I didn’t immediately know what party he represented, I had my suspicions.
When he approached and identified himself, I gave him both barrels.
“Turn around, go away and never come near my house again.”
“Very well, sir,” he replied, obviously accustomed to abuse, “that’s your right in a democratic society. But do you mind if I ask why you’re saying that?”
“Because I’ve seen what’s happening in America and I don’t want the same thing to happen over here.”
“Well, America’s very different to here.”
“It won’t be if you lot get in.”
This went on a bit more, and I ended up calling him and his brethren a “bunch of racists”, which he denied, quietly, as he moved on to the next house.
Afterwards, I regretted my outburst. I should have just turned away immediately and not let myself be drawn into any kind of discussion. Why didn’t I?
Because he was outside my home. And as such, he was directly invading my Environment.
You may remember in the last couple of editions of this very sporadic series, I mentioned Dr. R. Douglas Fields’ list of nine triggers for anger, summed up in the acronym LIFEMORTS. I’ve previously looked at the first three letters – L for Life or Limb, I for Insult, and F for Family. The next is E – the anger we feel when something invades our environment, our home, our safe place – even our personal space. In a recent interview, Dr. Fields explained…
“… animals who are territorial will protect their territory with violence. And we can see that in many animals in nature. But humans are fiercely territorial. Trespassers will be shot.”
“One of the main functions of territorial behaviour for humans is the preservation of privacy. Having a place where we can control who has access to us and when is essential for normal day-to-day functioning, and a lack of such control can be quite dispiriting and stressful.”
It goes on to suggest that this is one of the reasons homelessness has such profound psychological effects on people. We are hard-wired to need our own safe cave to retreat to when the world gets too much. And when the sabretooth tiger steps into our cave looking for a meal… how can we ever feel safe there again?
When I was in the Sixth Form and we’d just started passing our driving tests, we would occasionally get to borrow a parental car and give friends a lift home from school. I have a vivid memory of the time we dropped my friend Rachel off at her house only for her to come running back out in tears moments later. Her home had been broken into while everyone was at work / school, and the burglars had ransacked the place. The police even found a shotgun propped up against a wall in the living room, suggesting that the thieves might have had to leave in a hurry – perhaps when they heard us pull up outside.
Rachel and her family were obviously deeply affected by this, but they were tough Yorkshire folk, and I guess they got over it. Her parents stayed in that house for a good many years afterwards, but I know a lot of people never get over a burglary or home invasion, and their only option is to move.
Scientists suggest we don’t have to be in a place for a long time for us to start feeling territorial. One study, cited in Psychology Today, reported that…
“…when a person seated at a table in a university snack bar for five minutes or less was approached by a stranger who asked them to move, they invariably complied and often offered an apology as well. However, if the person had been seated there for a much longer period of time, they usually refused to move.”
Have you ever been sat on a park bench, just enjoying the sunshine and the birdsong, the breeze on your face… and someone else has plonked themselves down on the same bench? On your bench? How does that make you feel? Maybe you’re a sociable soul and you welcome the company. Or maybe it depends how long you’ve been sitting there.
Territorial rage can even exist on the interweb. I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets a bit miffed when I receive spam comments on my blog – but it’s worse still when Mr. Angry From Purley has a rant about something I’ve written. And check out all those people getting into heated arguments on social media – your Facebook account is another safe space. When some dickhead invades that with a comment they’d never make in real life… watch out!
Territorial anger is a natural human reaction then… so next time a Reform candidate comes knocking on your door, don’t beat yourself up about slamming it in his gammony face.
Here's a song about someone who gets very angry when someone invades his space... be warned that it features a fair bit of bad language. Even worse than what I said to the Neo-Nazi.
And so we reach the end of our trawl through the tracks on
my son’s supposedly favourite in-car CD… just as I was finally forced to
consign those precious discs to the annals of history. But wait… all is not
lost!
Keep reading to discover the saviour of our in-car
entertainment!
First though, the final four songs on CD108…
Track 20: Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Shop Around
Smokey’s first big Motown hit, Shop Around betrays his doo
wop roots far more than the polished soul standards he’d soon be celebrated
for. The track was originally credited to "The Miracles featuring Bill
'Smokey' Robinson" – and thus a legend was born. It was also the first
Motown record to be released in the UK (on Decca) – it wasn’t a hit though;
Smokey would have to wait another seven years before he was allowed into the UK
charts.
According to Casey “Shaggy” Kasem via iffypedia, Motown boss
Berry Gordon rejected the first hundred songs Smokey wrote for him as “garbage”
before finally agreeing to take #101. I dunno, it strikes me that pop stars
worked a helluva lot harder back in the day.
Some may claim that Shop Around displays a rather sexist
attitude to finding a life partner – I’m not offering it up to the Cancel
Culture Club committee though, because – let’s face it, the advice comes from
Smokey’s mum. Better yet, here’s an answer record from Debbie Dean, the first
white artist signed to Motown, released not long after Smokey’s hit.
Another case of the old “after 108 CDs, I’d run out of the
obvious tracks by X”. When You Were Young was the fourth single to be released
from the third Del Amitri album in 1993. It still made the Top 20 – amazing
considering that its two predecessors (Just Like A Man and the wonderfully dour Be MyDownfall) both only scraped into the Top 30.
This is also a case of a song I don’t expect Sam gets at all
– I doubt I appreciated its lyrics when I bought the album in my 21st
year on the planet. I do now…
The disappointment of success Hangs from your shoulders like a hand-me-down dress And down nostalgia's rocky road You watch your former lovers growing old
So look into the mirror Do you recognise someone? Is it who you always hoped you would become When you were young?
Justin Currie wasn’t even 30 when he wrote that (though he
did have some amazing sideburns). He’s always been a Grumpy Old Man.
Track 22: Jimmy Cliff - You Can Get It If You Really Want
The original, but not the version most people will be
familiar with, since it was Desmond Dekker who took this track (almost) to the
top of the UK singles chart in 1970. To be honest, I reckon most people (with
the possible exception of Ernie) would be hard pressed to spot the difference. They’re even the same length.
Great tune, whoever’s singing it.
Track 23: Smash Mouth - Walkin' On The Sun
Another of those big US ska-punk hits from the late 90s. Iffypedia tells me this was written in response to the Rodney King beating and
subsequent riots. In that, I guess it channels the same themes of many of the
classic 2-Tone hits from 20 years earlier.
Smash Mouth came from California, and this
(their biggest hit?) comes from their debut LP, Fush Yu Mang (see what they did
there?). If you were listening to the radio at all in 1997, you’ll easily
recall it… and probably their follow-up single, All Star, as well.
Anyway, I’m pleased to read that they’re still out there, smashing mouths,
thirty years later.
And so we end our review of this particular CD. But despite not having a CD player in my new car, the Sam CDs will live on. I discovered that as well as the slot for a USB (from which I listen to 2+ hours of my own new music every day as part of the commute), there's also a slot for an SD card. And I thought they went out with digital cameras! (Yes, I'm sure people still use digital cameras. But you know what I mean.) So I uploaded Sam CD174 - the latest edition - onto that... but you'll be pleased to know that I also burnt it to an actual CD, for old time's sake.
Anyway, I've enjoy going through this CD and writing about the songs... so I thought maybe I'd try it with another one. But rather than pick a CD myself - I'm throwing it open to you guys. Give me a number between 20 and 150, and I'll reveal which songs were on that CD. (Nothing before 20, as the songs will all be really obvious... and nothing too recent because there's probably stuff on those that I've featured here in the last year or so.) If nobody gives me a number, I'll just use a random number generator. Or draw straws...
My old car started making a noise. Not a very loud noise, but a noise I knew wasn't there before, and so I took it to the local friendly mechanic who diagnosed it as terminal. With 92,000 miles in the clock, it needed a new clutch, a new gearbox... who knows what else?
So I had to trade it in for a newer one. But while that was going on (never an enjoyable process - in fact, dealing with car salesmen is right up there with contracting Ebola or being stuck in an elevator with Donald Trump in my book), I still had to drive the old car to work every day (a round trip of 60-70 miles), hoping it didn't pack up completely. It was a very stressful couple of weeks.
None of those is really appropriate as I haven't (and probably never will) bought a brand new car. The one I've traded in for is 5 years old, and that's pretty new for me. So I'm going to settle for this...
Tyler Ballgame is my first name to watch of 2026. He's got a classy Roy Orbison vocal delivery (developed while singing Crying at Open Mic Nights), with nods to Harry Nilsson, Elvis, Macca and... well, a little bit of the old Father John Misty self-awareness.
