A couple of weekends back, Louise and I went to see Stewart Lee at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. He's long been my favourite comedian - Louise isn't quite as big a fan, but she did admit he was "quite good" this time.
As usual, his routines are meticulously crafted, self-aware, and full of meta-commentary on the art of stand up comedy itself... though they appear random and ramshackle, like Lee himself. The climax of this show was a long bit in which Lee pretended to go through an average week, making "Hello and goodbye" small-talk to a colleagues in a workplace environment. I'm not going to try and replicate it, but it was full of clichéd conversation such as...
"Morning... yes... good weekend? Do anything nice? No, not really... took the dog out."
"Seeya! Have a good evening... doing anything nice tonight? Oh, lovely. Well, enjoy!"
I found this painfully funny. Painful and funny. The dull repetition of banalities seemed a metaphor for our treadmill existences... well, you can probably see why I approved.
The show's being filmed for Netflix, I think. I won't recommend it, because comedy is even more subjective than music, but it did make me laugh. A lot. And then cry myself to sleep that night...
There are many songs which include both Hello and Goodbye in the title. Beyond the obvious one by That Scouse Band. Gilbert O'Sullivan wrote one too, although it's about him trying to seduce a lady and her telling him to do one. Like a lot of Gilbert's songs, it sounds vaguely creepy nowadays.
Here's another one of those, though it fits perfectly with our Mid-Life Crisis theme, as it's about an older man worrying he can't keep up with a younger woman. Which we dismissed last time as a non-starter. There are some great lines in it though, regarding the passing of time... and all its sickening crimes...
And I'm not getting any younger
Gone are those days when school reports were all I feared
Now for the first time in my life
I'm seeing something I don't like
And am powerless to prevent from happening
One day you'll find out for yourself just what I mean
The irony is, I'm sure that when I retire, I'll miss those casual day-to-day exchanges that Stewart Lee mocked. Because I largely like the people I work with. And always have, thinking back, in every job I've had. Not management, obviously. I have had some good bosses, but they were mostly line managers. The bigger bosses were largely tossers - both in radio and Further Education. Only in my current job can I look all the way up to the head teacher and find people I generally respect and get along with.
Of course, there's always a few people in every workforce who are complete tools. There's only one particularly big eejit in my current setting... you all know the type, the sort of person who as soon as you see them in the corridor, the first word that pops into your head is "knob", or your own equivalent of choice. (Side note: I just blew up Google by asking for a synonym of synonym.) Interestingly, all my immediate colleagues find this one individual just as loathsome as I do... which makes me wonder, what must it be like to go through life either:
a) blissfully unaware that everyone you work with thinks you're an arsehole?
Compared to a lot of my friends, we didn’t get a video recorder
till quite late – probably 1985 or ’86. Not soon enough to record the first
series of Moonlighting when it aired, but I taped and kept every episode from the
second season on. An even bigger thrill was in store at the weekend...
By the time I was 15, I was regularly baby-sitting on a
Friday or Saturday night for my brother or sister’s kids, so a trip to the
video shop beforehand was a must. I’d usually grab two or three films: a
blockbuster (small ‘b’ – we didn’t get a Blockbuster near us till the 90s), a
teen movie (I must have watched Ferris Bueller fifty times before it became
available to buy) and the worst 80s horror flick I could find. I worked my way
through all the Halloween & Friday The 13th movies and their
ilk, developing an abiding love for the slasher movie, though I never really
dug Freddie Krueger. I mean, it was all just a dream!
There is no greater symbol of 80s nostalgia than the video rental shop. Within a decade, video had been replaced by DVD, video shops
had been replaced by online DVD rental (remember how Netflix started out? DVDs
mailed to you in the post!) and within the blink of an eye, we were all swamped
with choice fatigue by the streaming platforms. Everything you could ever want
to watch available whenever you want to watch it (except when it’s not). Things
were so much simpler back in the good old days…
I don’t have anything particularly revelatory to add to this
post, no specific anecdotes to illustrate the excitement of a Friday night
trip to the video shop, when compared to the mundanity of flicking through
endless online options. Still, this delightful little time capsule from Moxy
Früvous, released back in 1993 at the height of the video rental boom (hard to
believe, but DVD didn’t come along till 96/97) does the job for me…
Don't be too confused by the
little reviews On the back of the box, just pick
up the boxes, all the boxes you can use The hipedi-hoppest videos in the
land Maybe something foreign, maybe
something panned, maybe something formerly banned Perhaps it's something you can
watch with friends, or something that inevitably lends Itself to shapely curves and bends
of exploited women and their friends Perhaps it's "New York, New
York" with Liza Minnelli and Mickey Rourke No. That's not right... It was
Robert Deniro, everyone's favourite video… hero
We arrive in the Cambridgeshire city of Peterborough this week, birthplace of Erasure's Andy Bell, Maxim Reality & Gizz Butt from The Prodigy, and Ashton Merrygold from JLS. Me neither.
One of my favourite Sheffield bands, The Long Blondes, wrote the following tune about Peterborough, which is never very far, they tell us, although they do conclude "I'd rather be in Sheffield than Peterborough".
I gave up trying to explain why I was never a Gerry Anderson fan years ago (even as a young boy, I couldn't suspend my disbelief that they were just puppets) because too often I saw the tears or rage or regret welling up in the eyes of those for whom Anderson was a god. I get that: if someone tries to tell me why they never liked Spider-Man, I'd probably react in the same way.
I'm not sure I can get my head around your love for the Joe 90 theme tune either. Other Anderson shows had far better tunes, surely? Thunderbirds? Stingray? Even Captain Scarlet's "This is the voice of the Mysterons" - that still manages to send a chill down my spine, even though the show itself left me cold.
One thing I do like is that back then, TV shows had proper intros. That's 3 and half minutes before the show even starts! No way would that be allowed in today's attention-span-deficit TV culture. I miss that slower pace.
Martin started the bidding with a very strong contender, Taking the title from one of Wham!'s greatest hits and updating it to show what Freedom meant to him now that he was a solo artist, this is an excellent demonstration of the way George matured as a songwriter. Yes, it's a year song, but the 90 meant much more than just "this is when I'm releasing this track".
1. Bow Wow Wow - C30 C60 C90 Go!
Congratulations to C for stealing the points for this one. And no, this won't pop up again at Numbers 60 and 30, because the rule book says no song can appear more than once... and because C90 was by far my cassette of choice. The mix-tape maker's dream!
Which brings us to 89. I think there's pretty much only one choice, but your suggestions are welcome...
He's also considered one of the fastest guitar players in the world... and he's made some pretty cool solo records. This one is rather sweet...
There are six billion people on this planet But I'll only ever fall in love with two One is a black and white photo of Grace Kelly And the other you might like to know is you
Grace Kelly to Garbo Clawed their way to the stars I think they knew No I don't care who you are Just sign the line and away you fly Take a chance and join the dance And you can make the sound Take a chance and join the dance And we can go to ground Go to ground And I don't care who you are Just sign the line and away you fly
The former Stray Cat frontman was born in 1959 and everything he loves comes from that year...
Well the prince said, "Hey, Grace Kelly Would you be my wife?" And Bobby Darin sang Mack The Knife They took Eddie Cochran, what could we do? Once he was gone we knew that rock and roll was through. We had technicolor at the scene of the crime Coupe Devilles rolling off of the line.
If this song doesn't make you crack a smile, then I think we're going to need a chisel...
Royalty, lord it looked good on me Buried in silk in the royal boudoir or going nuclear free Or playing Crokinole with the Princess of Monaco Telling my jokes to the OPEC leaders, getting it all on video
You're either going to dig this or you're not. Probably not, since most of you aren't even Queen fans, and this is just a wannabe-Freddie. As wannabe Freddies go though, it's pretty great. Pity Mika couldn't follow it with anything even half as amazing.
I try to be like Grace Kelly But all her looks were too sad So I try a little Freddie I've gone identity mad!
One of those songs that will no doubt divide the readership of this blog... with me on one side and everyone else on the other. But who wants to be popular? Yes, it does owe a lot to It's The End Of The World As We Know It (But I Feel Fine) by REM... but it's still a monster. And the video's brilliant.
Get used to it, anyway... it could well pop up again whenever I need it...
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
The kind of brilliant "keep smiling even when you don't feel like it" song which E specialises in.
The actress gave up all her old dreams
And traded up now she is a queen
Royal families don't have time for that shit
Your crystal ball, you keep it hid
1. Lloyd Cole - Four Flights Up
Lyrical genius ahoy! You don't just get Grace Kelly in this song, but Truman Capote too. And a diamante crocodile! Nobody does it like Lloyd...
You came driving back to town In a beat up Grace Kelly car Looking like a friend of Truman Capote Looking exactly like you are Yes, I know that's your charm
Yes, I chose an Oasis song. It's not completely unheard of. I reckon this is one of their best, perhaps because it owes far more to The Kinks than The Beatles. Plus I like Rhys Ifans in the video... but more on that later.
Here they come, gone 7am
Getting satellite and Sky, getting cable,
Bills and Bens and their mums and their friends
Who just really, really want to be loved,
Uncle Teds and their legendary vests
Helping out around the disabled,
From the flats and the maisonettes
They're reminding us there's things to be done.
Nothing lazy about those lyrics.
See also the gorgeous One Lazy Morning by Brett Anderson, solo (i.e. the rest of the band stayed in bed).
What a bunch of lazy bleeders the Supernaturals were - not only lazy lovers who can't be bothered getting into bed... but when they eventually do, they moan I Wasn't Built To Get Up. They can't even stay awake in their videos.
When it came time to select songs about sloth, Morrissey was obviously going to feature. Take your pick from The Lazy Sunbathers or All The Lazy Dykes... but this one's my favourite: quintessential Mozzer...
Please don't worry There'll be no fuss She was... nobody's nothing
When he awoke The sea was calm And another day passes like a dream
1. The Lemonheads - The Outdoor Type
While the rest of the artists on this Top Ten are bone idle Brits (with the exception of comatose Canadians Moxy Früvous), the laziest man in rock has to be American "Slacker King" Evan Dando. This could well be my favourite Lemonheads song, in which Evan confesses his lethargic credentials...
I can't go away with you on a rock climbing weekend What if something's on TV and it's never shown again? It's just as well I'm not invited, I'm afraid of heights I lied about being the outdoor type
