Welcome to International Noise Awareness Day, a day which seeks to highlight the detrimental effects of living in a noisy place. Now obviously, I like a bit of noise from time to time, but just imagine if every second of every day sounded like a mash-up of these...
Sometimes, you just need a bit of peace and quiet, yeah?
Loud environments don’t just overwhelm the ears. They can raise blood pressure, disturb sleep, and even slow down how well children learn. Many studies warn that constant noise wears down both the body and mind.
Today then is a day to turn the volume down and enjoy something a little gentler on the ears...
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.
There are big schedule changes afoot at my favourite radio
station, BBC Radio Scotland. For years now, I’ve been listening to late night
shows from that station (and a couple from BBC Radio Ulster) to help me get to
sleep, and to keep my mind from racing when I wake up in the wee small hours.
Radio has always been a big part of my sleep routine, even as a child I slept
with the radio on and if I woke up in the night, it was reassuring to have a
friendly voice there playing interesting music to keep the night at bay.
These days I don’t listen to live radio, but through the
wonder of BBC Sounds, I always have a bank of shows to go to in the night.
Mickey Bradley and Ralph McLean on the Irish station; Iain Anderson, Natasha
Raskin-Sharp, Roddy Hart and Ricky Ross from Scotland. There’s nothing on Radio
2 or 6Music for me anymore. 2 is too mainstream, far too much chance of hearing
U2, Celine Dion and Simply Red. 6Music is too in love with dance music, or more
likely to play something too loud which will wake me up with a hammering heart.
And I can’t listen to commercial radio (what’s left of it) because of the ads
(irony, I know, because I spent a large part of my life writing those bloody
things).
Anyway, Radio Scotland has a new programme controller, and I
lived through enough of those in my time in radio to know that it’s rarely good
news. Most new programme controllers arrive in the job with a mantra of “If it
ain’t broke – fix it”, and so it is at Radio Scotland. Two of my favourite
shows are ending while a third is being shuffled to the weekend in order to
create a new regular late show that will appeal to the 45+ demographic… i.e.
it’ll sound just like Radio 2. I may be prejudging, but I expect we’ll hear a
lot more U2, Celine Dion and Simply Red.
Farewell then to veteran broadcaster Iain Anderson, who's been on Scottish radio since the days of the Ark, but has always been a
reliable place to go to hear the best singer-songerwritery material of the last
60 years. And an even sadder farewell to the wonderful Natasha Raskin-Sharp, a
presenter with a Peel-like commitment to shining light on artists that never
get played anywhere else on the radio. I’ve listened to both their shows for
over a decade now, I’ve welcomed them into my home, they’ve become warm,
stalwart, dependable friends, and I’ve valued the comfort they’ve given me in
the long dark nights of the soul… I fooled myself into thinking they’d always
be there.
There’s a
campaign running to save these shows, to get BBC Radio Scotland to reverse
it’s schedule changes (slated for the New Year), a campaign backed by a lot of
the independent Scottish musicians who have come to rely upon the shows for
airplay. I’ve signed the petition (currently at 15,000 signatures), but I don’t
hold out much hope. Because I’ve worked in radio, and I’ve seen too many good
presenters forced out over the years because the market testing showed audiences
didn’t want individual choice or musical eclecticism.
A week or so before the announcement, Iain Anderson played
my favourite song by Mark Germino, and took a moment to dwell upon its message.
I didn’t understand the significance at the time. I do now.
Now, one day a man in a pinstriped suit Took the owner of the station to a restaurant booth His pitch was simple, “you'll increase your sales “If you only play the song list we send in the mail.” He guaranteed a larger audience Less confusion and higher points “But your drive-time jock won't get to do his thing. “Hey he's not half bad, tell me, what's his name?”
I've left out the obvious ones like Mad World, I'm Going Slightly Mad, Patsy Cline and Aerosmith. Here are a few more tunes that almost made the cut this weekend, starting with some Pop Punk from 1999...
Finally for today, a lady whose work "blends elements of gothic rock, doom metal, and folk." This one though wouldn't sound out of place on a David Lynch soundtrack...
And here's another pair of posh English lads with an interest in the game...
Remember when you were more easily led Behind the cricket pavilion and the bicycle shed Trembling as your dreams came true You looked right into those blue eyes and knew...
Another Neil, Mr. Hannon of The Divine Comedy joined with Thomas Walsh of Pugwash to pool their musical expertise and love of cricket as The Duckworth Lewis Method. In case you're wondering, they're named after "a mathematical formulation designed to calculate the target score (number of runs needed to win) for the team batting second in a limited overs cricket match interrupted by weather or other circumstances".
I had a clue all set to go for these guys, involving Jack & Vera meeting an Oxford detective... until I realised that if anyone identified them, it'd give the game away immediately.
I'm not sure Tom Petty would have known one end of a cricket bat from the other, but he did write a great song about a batsman sent in at the end of the day...
I’m thinking back to when I worked in radio. When I moved
into the advertising department, there was a guy already working in there who
everybody liked. We’ll call him Kevin, because… no, I did that joke last week,
didn’t I? He wasn’t called Kevin. But Kevin was the exact opposite of Bob, the
guy everybody agrees is a dick. Kevin was wonderful.
He was so witty and charming and talented and kind… seriously, you’d love him.
The problem was, I didn’t take to Kevin at all. I just
didn’t get what everybody else saw in him. I mean, he wasn’t a Bob-level dick,
but out of everyone in the office, I found him by far the hardest to warm to,
and definitely the least welcoming. He seemed a bit stand-offish, and I
clearly got the impression he thought that he was better than me and that I
didn’t deserve to be working in the same department as him. This was never
overt, and you could well just put it down to my infamous paranoia, but I don’t
think it was purely in my imagination.
Putting aside the (possibly paranoid) idea that Kevin
treated me differently to everyone else he met, why else might I not like
someone everyone else thought was great?
To try to answer this, I waded once more, neck-deep, into
the sewers of the interweb, and the first link to come floating past was this
one from Headspace: What happens
in the brain when we dislike somebody?
Guess where the finger of blame gets pointed almost
immediately?
Yep, it’s our old friend the amygdala. When we decide we don’t
like some, “’there
is preferential activation of the amygdala’,” which means the brain region
associated with fear and aggression flares up. This visceral, emotional
reaction can spark a long-term pattern of dislike when it’s validated by
action: if you perceive that someone has hurt you, your fear of them becomes
rational.”
Essentially, we’re back to the storytelling brain creating
neural pathways in reaction to negative stimuli – it’s why I learned to hate
New Order all over again. But this isn’t really answering my central question –
why I dislike Kevin, when everyone else thinks he’s Superman.
When you instantly dislike someone, you’ve made a snap
decision that they’re threatening based on minimal information.
Ah ha – tell me more!
And they do… with six different
suggestions as to why I disliked Kevin…
1. He’s different.
Humans are wired to like and bond with their own tribe.
This one is the basis for all forms of prejudice, especially
racism. It’s about instinctively not liking anything that looks or appears different to
you. Many of us are able to overcome this in-built reaction because we teach
ourselves (or someone older and wiser has taught us) that it’s bullshit.
Of course, using your conscious mind, you can overcome
this bias. This is why education is so valuable.
That’s what I was trying to say.
Anyway, I can’t really
apply this to Kevin. He wasn’t particularly different from me – we had the same
skin colour, hair colour, similar height and weight… he wasn’t even a particularly
good-looking dude for me to feel inferior to. And he liked or was interested in
many of the same things as me. We were definitely from the same tribe, so there
was no reason to take against him on the surface.
When you get that bad ‘vibe’ from someone without knowing
why, it could be that they reminded you of a previous negative experience.
Again, I’m not sure I can make this fit. I’d encountered a
lot of unpleasant people by this point in my life, but Kevin didn’t really
remind me of any of them. Apart from people I’d met previously who everyone
else seemed to like… hmm. Could that be a clue?
This one’s more about suppressed memories of someone you’ve
met before. Like, say, you meet the school bully twenty years later in a
completely new context and you don’t even recognise him, but your subconscious
mind does, and it’s this which sets your amygdala screaming.
Which is fair enough, but I’d never met Kevin prior to starting
in the department. I’d seen him round the building, but that was about it.
Except…
when I had seen him around, I guess I’d seen him talking and laughing and
getting on with other people… yet he’d never made any attempt to talk to me.
Could it be that he’d taken an instant dislike to me? Did I remind him of
something threatening? Was the problem with Kevin’s brain, not mine? I guess
I’ll never know the answer to that one…
OK, so, this is where it becomes murky. Because I was going
to work in the advertising department with literally no previous experience. I
had recently passed my English degree and was writing on a regular basis – I
could easily evidence creativity, which is what got me the job… but I was new
to the concept of using creativity to sell things. Kevin, on the other hand,
was seen as the star writer in the department. He’d won awards!
Jealousy is often a big reason for disliking someone for
no apparent reason. Jealousy results from upward social comparison. You see
someone who’s better than you or has what you want, and you feel jealous.
That stings. That really stings. But I have to accept it as
a possibility for why I didn’t like Kevin. Although it doesn’t really explain
why he didn’t like me. Unless that was all in my imagination.
Or… prior to going for that job in advertising, I had made a
(small) name for myself in the station on air. (This was prior to the
arrival of my nemesis, the programme controller I referred to as “Tim Allen”
during my
long-running series about my days in commercial radio.) The show I
co-presented featured quite a lot of creative content – comedy sketches and
characters that went down well with the listeners, though I’m sure I’d cringe
myself to death if I heard any of them again today. Anyway, I’d been on air doing
all this “funny” stuff for a few years prior to my move into commercial
production… and chances are Kevin had heard some of that. Maybe he’d formed an
impression of me from that (“he’s just not funny”) or maybe – longshot, I know,
but we need to cover all bases in answering this question – maybe he was a teensy bit jealous of me. Yeah, he’d been winning the awards,
but only for writing ads. He hadn’t been doing the funny stuff just for funny’s
sake. Maybe he was angry I’d had that opportunity and he (being clearly much
more talented) hadn’t. Anything’s possible.
People tend to hide their flaws and ignore the qualities
they need to develop. So, when they come across someone having the same flaws
as them or having the qualities they want, they hide again.
For example:
You lack confidence, and confident people put you off.
Nail, thy head is hitteth, you might well be thinking.
And it’s perfectly feasible that this is the answer: Kevin
was a confident guy and I hated his confidence. Although it’s equally possible
that he was just as insecure as I was, but much better at hiding it and coming
across as confident. Which would link back to my longshot from #4… but this is
all supposition, there’s no science to it at all.
When we meet people, we’re constantly making snap
judgments about them. If they display welcoming and open body language, we feel
good. If they show closed body language, we feel off.
Clearly, this is the case with Kevin – he actively went out
of his way to get on with everybody else in the office, but stayed cool around
me. And that’s still the case to this day when I bump into him in the book of
faces. One of my (friendly) old colleagues will post a photo or a memory from
our past and various people will leave a nostalgic comment… and there’s me and
Kevin in the same (virtual) room all over again, talking to everybody else but
ignoring each other.
We’re quick to put people in the ‘friend’ or ‘foe’
category because, again, the mind doesn’t want to take any chances. It makes
these critical decisions based on minimal information gleaned from body
language, facial expressions, and voice tone.
The ironic thing is, Kevin left soon after I joined the department (was it me?) and went on to a successful career writing for TV comedy shows. Despite many attempts to follow in his footsteps, that never happened for me. Maybe that’s because he was more talented than me… or maybe it’s because he was more confident. It doesn’t really matter in the end: he won. And here I am, thirty years later, still fretting over this, while I doubt he's given me a second thought...
I watched the final episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm last week. You may or may not be familiar with the show in which Seinfeld co-creator Larry David plays himself as a miserable old misanthrope constantly butting heads with societal niggles. Like most comedy shows, you’ll either connect with it immediately or wonder what all the fuss is about. Being a miserable old misanthrope myself, I have found Larry a wonderful companion for the show’s duration, and while I don’t always agree with his grievances, I do understand why he gets so worked up about them.
But this isn’t a post about Curb Your Enthusiasm. I wouldn’t argue with anyone who said the show was long past its best and wasn’t as funny or as incisive as it once was. After 12 seasons, Curb had definitely become comfortable, but there’s a lot to be said for comfort TV, and I did so enjoy being invited to share in the ups and downs of Larry’s life… especially when you never knew which celebrity guest star was going to pop up to be offended by him next. Bruce Springsteen appeared three times in the final series… that in itself made my day.
12 series though… I’ve watched this show for quite some time. And I knew that wasn’t a series a year, because Larry took regular breaks, especially during the pandemic. Still, I was shocked when I looked back and discovered the first series ran 24 years ago! Hang on a minute… I’ve been watching this show for 24 years?
And suddenly, I was taken back to the year 2000. Where I was. Who I was. A completely different person. There’s a popular misconception that all the cells in the human body renew themselves every 7 years, and while that’s not 100% true, there is something in it. I was 28 years old when I started watching Curb. I lived in a different house, worked in a different job, had an entirely different social circle. Liked slightly different records, felt different emotions, saw the future… and the past… in an entirely different way. Somewhat ironically, when the show launched in 2000, Larry David was 52. The same age I am now. I’m not sure why I related to him so much as a 28 year old. In the final episode, he proudly announced that he was 76 year olds… and had never learned a lesson in his life. It made me wonder how many I’ve learned… and how 76 year old me will feel in another 24 years. 2000 doesn’t seem that long ago, and time gets faster every year. 2048 is just around the corner…
Montgomery Clift is another of those names I recognise more from song lyrics than actual movies, though his name is mentioned in the same breath as Marlon Brando and James Dean as a pioneer of method acting. Red River, From Here To Eternity and The Misfits are among his most famous roles, though he turned downing iconic roles in High Noon, Sunset Boulevard and Shane. A car crash in 1956 left him dependent on alcohol and drugs for pain relief, ultimately leading to his untimely death ten years later.
Montgomery's filmography is pretty strong... but his Celebrity Jukebox contains some real heavy hitters, starting with The Clash...
Say, where did I see this guy?
In "Red River"?
Or a "Place In The Sun"?
Maybe "The Misfits"?
Or "From Here To Eternity"?
And everybody say, "Is he all right?"
And everybody say, "What's he like?"
And everybody say, "He sure looks funny"
That's Montgomery Clift, honey!
From there, let's visit my favourite Tom Waits album, Nighthawks At The Diner...
And it's a skid mark tattoo on the asphalt blue
Was that a Malibu?
Vroooooom, vroooooom
Yeah, it's Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift
Coming on to the broads with the same old riff, yeah
And, just to take a break from the heavy hitters, I take you to back to 1979 for an encounter with Italian Prog Rock band New Trolls who namedrop Montgomery along with Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr in this joyous little ditty...
This lot, on the other hand, hail from the early years of the current century... but count among their influences The Birthday Party, Suicide & The Gun Club...
Following the appearance by Doctor Jones ("the dog was called Indiana") on yesterday's Snapshots, I thought it would be nice to lead today with a woman who could always drink him under the table: Marion Ravenwood, aka Karen Allen. She was pretty good at dealing with Starmen too.
8. Fictional world - anagram rejected on grounds of taste & decency.
I could not bring myself to come up with an anagram for Bucks Fizz.
Before you accuse me of scraping the barrel, Bucks Fizz will always have a special place in my heart as the band that encouraged my sexual awakening. This track is just pure cheese though...
