I also found a review of the last time Billy Bragg played Holmfirth - Saturday the 2nd of December 2006. This is timely because I'll be seeing him on the same stage, 18 years later, next Saturday night. I might compare reviews then.
Billy Bragg - The Short Answer
But it was the post below that caught my attention, particularly as it tackled a similar topic to this week's Self-Help For Cynics. This was written when I was still working in the wonderful world of radio advertising...
FRIDAY 15 DECEMBER 2006
It occurred to me this morning that a blog, by its very nature, must always wear your polite, public face. For obvious reasons, I can’t come here to carp about my job or the noxious individuals I come into contact with through said job, those especially maleficent characters I’d cheer to see floating face-down in the Leeds-Liverpool canal. (Does that make me a bad person? Why don’t bad things happen to bad people? I refer you back to Jarvis Cocker’s song of the year, ‘Running The World’.) I suppose I could set up a second, anonymous blog for that purpose, or use an alias… but even then, I’d have to remain circumspect with the details to avoid giving away my true identity. How many of us cherish a dream of the day when we no longer need this job, when we can finally interrupt our meeting with that complete and utter bumhole and tell them what we really think? But you can’t use a blog for that, even anonymously (though I’m sure some people do, braver – or foolhardier - souls than me). Still, that’s what I have my fiction for. It’s how I deal with the world.
Fortunately I work with much nicer people these days. (Except Bob.) Unfortunately, I don't write fiction any more. Unless you think this all might be made up?
Invaderband - People Who Are Happy Are Ill
On a related issue, please take care when receiving emails from the sort of person mentioned above, and forwarding them on to your like-minded, co-suffering workmates. Be careful about adding a little comment, such as, say, ‘What an absolute tool!’ Be extra-careful that you’re not – rather than hitting ‘forward’ – actually replying to the worthless piece of gutter-froth who sent you the email in the first place. Believe me when I say you’ll wake up at 3am in a cold sweat regretting an error such as this.
Still good advice, almost two decades on.
The perfect excuse to listen to a shamelessly OTT chunk of hair metal...
Gutter- froth!
ReplyDeleteI might have to borrow that.