TENNANT & LOWE TO A CARDIFF BEAT

An unplanned write-up of the Pet Shop Boys 'Pandamonium' tour at the Cardiff International Arena:

Such is the evergreen staying power of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe that a staggering 25 years after the release of ‘West End Girls’ into the UK charts the Pet Shop Boys are still drawing in the crowds. Planted in the centre row of a sell-out Cardiff International Arena, I surveyed the room, expecting the stands to be awash with mardi gras rainbow colours, and jubilant screaming queens with pointed hats. I instead found myself amid a diverse collective, ranging from the 80’s Hawaiian shirted throwbacks - recapturing their novateur vogue days – to the mainstream bubblegum pop girls and fashionable indie-intellectuals – here to appreciate the tongue-in-cheek passé chic. But, first we would have to endure Sophie Ellis Bexter.

The show opened with the giddy 80’s hit ‘Heart’. Tennant and Lowe emerged from between two walls wearing head-cubes that looked ridiculous enough to be cool. Two backing singers, also with cubes for heads, played on a fake keyboard - an affirmation of the duo's reluctance to feature ‘real’ musicians on stage. ‘Heart’ playfully bridged into another frothy love affair ‘Did You See Me Coming?’ after which, Neil addressed the Cardiff crowd, introducing a mish-mash of ‘Can You Forgive Her?’ and ‘Pandemonium’ – forgoing the rampant orchestra hits of Very to fit the happy-clappy beats of Yes’s ‘Pandemonium’. As one of my favourite songs, I would have preferred a full version of ‘Can You Forgive Her?’.

As one would expect from Tennant and Lowe, there is always room for a political reference. ‘Building A Wall’ sees a toing and froing between Chris and Neil, ‘Protection! Prevention! Detection! Detention! There's nowhere to defect to anymore!’ The songs climax harked back to Pink Floyd’s ‘Wall’ concert with the demolition of the two walls they emerged from. Rather fittingly, ‘Go West’ maintained the politische fragen - this time with a Soviet twist.¬ Video projections featured iconography relating to the fall of communism. The whimsical arrangement of ‘Go West’ was a noticeable highlight - consisting of a new ‘Paninaro/Opportunities’ mash-up.

The upbeat momentum continued with an obliging fan-boy jolt: a previously unperformed coupling of ‘Two Divided By Zero’ and ‘Why Don’t We Live Together?’ complete with dancing New York skyscrapers and a snappy Disco tease of ‘Opportunities/In the Night’ - allowing Chris to take centre stage for a jig that received the most rapturous applause of the night. ‘I was faced with a choice at a difficult age…' was the tie-in to ‘New York City Boy’, conjoined with a pleasing rendition of ‘Always On My mind’.

A verse of ‘Closer To Heaven’ juxtaposed into a revised version of ‘Left To My Own Devices’ that lacked the orchestral flourish of the Introspective original but was busy enough not to need it. A laconic piano solo by Chris – and a rare smile – signalled a change in mood. Trademark Pet Shop Boys melancholy ensued with a rare treat called ‘Do I Have To?’, a bitter-sweet ballad about being involved with someone who has a lover, ‘Tell him that you're weak/Beg him to be strong/Say you're very sorry but you were wrong’. Neil, now in a tuxedo, is accompanied by two ladies in red ball gowns dancing the Tango – head-cubes still in place.

‘King’s Cross’ reflected the feelings of despair in a world where no one listens, or cares; the end of the line where hopes and dreams are crushed, 'The man at the back of the queue was sent to feel the smack of firm government' – pertaining as much to today’s Con-Dem Nation and the icy thumb of Thatcherism. ‘The Way It Used To Be’ aroused the mournful despair felt when enduring adulterated love; a male dancer’s stirring routine effortlessly foretold the emotional turmoil, ‘I don't know why we moved away/Lost in the here and now we strayed’. Brooding reflections continued with ‘Jealousy’, featuring a passionate pas de deux of a disintegrating relationship that climaxes into a violent dissolve, ‘I wish I’d never met you/or that I could bear to let you go’. Tennant’s asexual twain resounded the worldliness of someone who understands what it feels like to languish in reflective solitude, ‘I tried to see your point of view/but could not hear or see for jealousy’.

The tempo shifted up a gear as the dramatic drumbeats of ‘Suburbia’ lifted the crowd. ‘Suburbia’ was the song that hooked me to the Pet Shop Boys’. It tells of the rotting and decaying suburban world hidden behind plush picket fences, ‘Stood by the bus stop with a felt pen in the suburban hell/And in the distance a police car to break the suburban spell’. Its chorus remains as infectious and timeless as ever. For ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This?’ Neil performed a duet with a posthumous Dusty Springfield; appearing as a backdrop on the great wall, “Tonight we remember Dusty Springfield,” he exclaims. ‘All Over The World’ is turning out to be a crowd anthem, but why the boys felt the need to squeeze in a cover of Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’ among a gay disco-come-euro-pop mélange featuring ‘Sea Vida E’, ‘Discoteca’, and ‘Domino Dancing’ I'll never know. Regardless, they stamped it as their own - and it allowed an opportunity for Neil to don a cloak and crown.

The last song was the Disco version of ‘West End Girls’ that took me back to teenage nights in London among the hypnotic neon colours of Leicester Square, Soho, and the West End - voyeuristic worlds where, ‘No one knows your name’. It was a fitting end to a celebration of the duos lasting legacy. Neil Tennant’s voice – as good as ever - contained no notions of masculinity or femininity, but somehow managed to express euphoria and wry nihilist romanticism that was more impassioned than the most powerful of vocalists.  To me, the Pet Shop Boys are the forefathers of simplicity, elation, and melancholic despair; tackling personal issues such as alienation and escapist fantasy, self-acceptance and broken relationships, unrequited love and secret affairs. Matters of the heart  are intertwined with affairs of the mind, employing art, culture, history, literature and politics - to a disco beat.

There was a youthful exuberance that came across in Tennant and Lowe tonight; these cool uncles certainly haven’t chosen to slow down or to rest on their laurels - nor have they resorted to churning out lazy renditions of tired classics in order to please the unappeasable pop culture. It was a pleasing set that whooshed by faster than an important deadline. The emphasis of this tour was geared more towards euphoria than on cultural avant-garde, and having exhausted them on the last set of tours, the boys have omitted all songs from their previous two albums – Release and Fundamental – along with expected chart hits which cleared room for some older novelties.  For all their theatrical indulgences, there is never a trace of ego, pomp, or pretence to be found. In the music industry, that is an irony in its self. The Pet Shop Boys are a band with nothing left to prove, and tonight, if front of an appeased Cardiff crowd, these torchbearers of sophisticated pop-art made a point of proving why.

THE SIMPLE ACT OF CARING

Collected during 31 years of riding the roller-coaster of life. 

There is nothing greater than when souls connect in inexplicable ways, sharing the good times and the bad; the laughter and the tears. Your life will be enriched with good memories of the friends and loved ones who have played a part in your journey through life; they will mould and shape you with their influences and inspire you to shine. There's more than enough room, so don't come in to conflict with yourself when you find yourself caring for more than one person at a time – emotions have no rules or restrictions; they are yours to do with as you please. Do with them as you please! There are billions of human souls on this world, and each has the potential to stir you and improve your life in different ways. Welcome and celebrate each and every one.

You can't measure love with a spirit-level and you won't always be sure what the other person feels about you - not until we can all read each other's thoughts, anyway. You were trained not to reveal your true feelings from the time when you were a child and told: 'don't give me that look' or ‘don’t look so miserable’ - right up to the civility that you have to display to a family member or work colleague that you can't stand the sight of. Think about how well you can pull it off - there are better actors than you in the world. But risk is part of the game of life, and so is blind faith.

Everybody walks to a different beat and it is natural that peoples feelings will be different to yours. You will be disliked by someone, someday - yes, even someone as adorable as me! Don't resent that person if they don’t feel the same way about you as you do about them - there is, was, and always will be a 50/50 chance of someone liking or hating you; it is that clear-cut - it is the natural order of things.

Some of the best people you will know are the ones that will leave you alone to fight your demons in order for you to earn your strength. You may fall out from time-to-time, but friends will be friends; you will both endure if you are meant to. Find no place for jealousy in your life, but if you have to be jealous, hide it well. You may one day be put in the position of someone claiming to care for you when you feel nothing for them. Be gentle with them but remember that you didn't choose for them to care - it is theirs to endure, just as it will be yours when the time comes. And it will.

Direct envy in a positive way towards the ones you hold dear. Never stop learning about them, earning their trust, and gaining their respect. Be proud of their achievements and celebrate their success; you are witnessing landmarks in a persons life, be grateful for that gift. Never rest on your laurels; you are only as good as your last encounter, so don't ever assume that you can just pick things up where they left off - sometimes you may even have to start all over again.

The hardest thing to do is to say goodbye, whether in person or apart. You will not always understand why it has to be. A time will come when you are the one who chooses to walk away; there will be times when you can't face to walk away.  There will be times when it is too late to say goodbye. Each goodbye will be different; remembered with a song or a taste, a name or a place; a smile or a tear. Scripted scenarios will always play out in your head - confused and clouded thoughts of how things might have been so different; what you didn't do, what you never said. The hardest word you will ever have to say is goodbye; the hardest word you will ever hear is goodbye.

You will get hurt! It will happen without warning and it’s called ‘hurt’ for a reason. It has to be felt and cannot be explained - you will certainly know it when it hits you. Let it take you when it comes; flood your lap with tears, rock yourself to sleep, play melancholic tunes or drown yourself with booze; endure it and understand it because it will stay with you for a long time – and life will always ensure that there is more where that came from. Keep hold of the good memories, even if it makes you angry or hurt about having to someone go; they were a part of the days of your life; remember that you are something because of them.

Caring is the most magnificent thing that you will ever do, whether in public or in private; briefly or indefinitely. Live it, own it, and cherish it. It is a privilege to care and a reward to do so; it costs nothing and is worth everything. It is a personal adventure that will fire and inspire you to be at your best. I tell you this because in my life I have been charmed and disarmed, deflated and dejected, accepted and rejected.  I have won some and I have lost some; I have pulled some in and I have pushed some away. I have had to say goodbye and I have not had the chance to say goodbye. I have a life full of fond memories and stories to tell; encounters that have taken me to heaven and hell.  I tell you all of this because I have cared.  I tell you all of this because I have been there.  I tell you all of this because I have nothing to regret. I would tell you more but I haven't finished learning, yet.

NOTHING IS TRUE

I would like to dispel a rumor:

It would appear that on the very same night out that me and a respectable group of friends were on, a similar group - also consisting of two men who didn't lose a bet, a wine-swigging commando, a Pimms abusing pirate, a pom-pom jiggling cheer lady, and a dejected Smurf - may have tore up some cringe-worthy and, quite frankly, criminally embarrassing moves on an empty dance floor in the black hole that is Blackwood.

I would also like to categorically deny our involvement in pointing to every bouncer's SIA licence that we passed to a chorus of 'we've got one of those', and waving at the CCTV cameras to get their attention. One particular member of staff, who thinks he's a writer, is far too mature, civilised, and level headed to wear his hat on the way out of a club that thinks too much of itself and doesn't allow hats - getting himself permanently barred in the process by responding, when told not to come back, by elevating his middle digit and replying with 'not fucking planning to, arsehole... and by the way: I've got one of those.'

Nor, at any point did he play on the flirtations of a strange and disturbing man with questionable sexuality from Cardiff in order to get a triple whiskey for himself and a Pimms for his colleague before he, and the group, made a hasty retreat. He also didn't applaud at the sheer lack of dignity while stood witnessing a group of 'New Look' branded orange lady-chavs tearing the living hair extensions out of each other outside the kebab shop. It would have been unfortunate - judging by the pickled state he was in - if he was put in the position of having to act coherent in front of his younger - and more responsible - work colleagues' parents that were giving him a lift home that night - before stumbling home to his girlfriend and confessing his undying love over some left-over sweet and sour chicken balls.

In actual fact the staff had a super evening of light-hearted banter and intellectual conversation while sipping port and eating cheese and onion crisps. At the end of the night while discussing the pros and cons of Parliamentary reform and Proportionate Representation, one colleague - a respectable writer and poet - was asked if he would be returning to Blackwood in the near future. 'It was a spiffing evening, my dear chap,' he replied, 'but I wasn't fucking planning to.'

WHAT DOUGLAS DID FOR ME

Originally posted in 2009

This blog - 'The Whole General Mish-Mash' - is named as a homage to the late, great Douglas Adams. To celebrate 'towel day' I write about the tall man attached to a defective nose that continues to inspire me to this day - and so does Douglas.

When Douglas Adams' The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy was broadcast on the radio it was 1978. At 2PM on Thursday, January 4th 1979 I arrived in the world, disrupting a rather nice meal in the process (I could never get the hang of Thursdays). From early on in my youth The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy always seemed to attract my attention in some form or another. I remember the early 1980’s: a betamax recording of the BBC TV series that my Grandparents had taped, I would watch it almost every day. My father had recorded the radio plays on cassette tapes and played them often. I also remember playing the interactive game on the Amstrad computer. Most of the narrative content of the radio series was too much for a young boy to understand, but I remember being captivated by the characters voices: the rotund and consultative tenor of The Book, the frustrated and hapless Arthur Dent, and the forlorn and dejected tones of the pessimistically depressed android, Marvin; - “Life, don’t talk to me about life”.

Into my teens and the 1990’s - Sarcasm and irony became my close companions. During reading sessions in English classes I would stick to the four Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy novels along with Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and sequel novel The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. The more I read them, the more I grew to understand Douglas Adams’ social commentaries on the world. I began to encounter things in life that could have easily been knitted into the ridiculously overblown and random scenarios from his works: local authorities, money, politics, salesmen, science, bureaucracy, evolution, relationships, religion and creation. There were, are, things in life that should be logical and straight forward but have been tainted and confused by some rule, regulation, or procedure.

One of my favourite parts of the The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy is the story of the ‘B Arc’: Two of the main characters find themselves on a space ship full of hair dressers, documentary makers, marketing executives and telephone sanitizers who have been persuaded that their planet is doomed and have been dispatched in a scout ship to colonise a new world. But it was all a rouse to rid their home planet of this “load of useless bloody loonies”. Two years after crashing on a prehistoric planet, Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent attend the second annual meeting of these undexterous outcasts, who have completely failed to adapt to their surroundings, concentrating instead on filming a documantary about the Captain and the loneliness of command, they haven’t invented fire because they are still devising a marketing strategy, and they can’t decide what colour the wheel should be. Forrest leaves have been adopted as currency, and the solution to over inflation is solved by burning down the forests. The big twist in the story comes when the planet is revealed as being prehistoric earth, and that its settlers would evolve into the human race. I studied Business Management and Media at college and cannot relate to this enough.

Douglas Adams' ability to scale-down the big issues was paralleled by his ability to take insignificant objects and give them greater meaning than the sum of their parts: Towels, bypasses, bulldozers, fish, tea and a bowl of petunias; some of a few things given a higher design. The unique context in which these things are placed has taught me that there is nothing wrong with not having a sense of proportion; given the right context a cup of morning coffee can be far more significant than the history of creation.

In addition to radio and writing novels, Adams worked as a script editor during Tom Baker’s stint as Doctor Who. His unique and bizarre sense of observation was the perfect match for Baker’s cosmic clown. I was a fan of the Tom Baker era long before I discovered that Adams was it’s script editor. Douglas Adams also collaborated with John Lloyd on The Meaning of Liff: a dictionary of meanings that there aren’t any words for yet. After realising how arbitrary the real English Dictionary is - it misses huge wodges of human experience - Adams and Lloyd set upon writing a dictionary of experiences people recognised, but there wasn’t a word for.

The Salmon of Doubt - published in 2002 - is a posthumous and eclectic collection of writings, drafts, articles, observations, un-finished novels and other mish-mashes extracted from Adams' computer (Over 2000 documents existed in total). This book has the biggest influence on me; it inspired me to start writing and this blog. In The Salmon of Doubt Douglas Adams makes light of his towering height, his big nose that does not admit air and how he broke it with his own knee while playing rugby, stood up. He teaches the Americans a thing or two about tea, and offers the Traffic Police an insight into road safety in relation the fundamental laws of the universe. To me The Salmon of Doubt is a firm testament to the fact that Adams was more than a novelist. He was an observer; capturing moments that would have passed most of us by. I have no doubt that Douglas Adams could have made eating Corn Flakes an interesting read. His expertly-placed words transcend each page as if he is speaking to you over a roaring log fire and an ice-cold bourbon; informal and deceivingly simplistic.

Another of my favourite Adams' pieces is from The Salmon of Doubt; an excerpt from Animal Passions where Douglas writes about his relationship with two dogs: Maggie and Trudy. Every morning the two dogs would scratch frantically at his door, urging him to for a walk with them (They weren’t even his dogs). Every day Adams would oblige and walk with the two dogs, during which, they would completely ignore him. It is a simple and charming tale, told in a natural and quirky way; he conjures these two dogs to life, describing their interactions towards him and each other, his place in the relationship, and the love he found for these two dogs.

It wasn’t until Douglas Adams death that I began finding out more about him as a person. I discovered that we shared a few things in common: our parents divorced when we were young, we often came across as ‘strange’ to our families, our teachers at school couldn’t work out if there was something mentally wrong with us, we spent most of our school days getting out of games, we enjoyed acting and writing, and we are are both atheists. In 2000’ish I purchased a book about evolution written by Richard Dawkins called The Blind Watchmaker. It shed a lot of light and logic into my life, and crystal-clear-clarity about my place in the grand scheme of things. I was surprised to discover while reading The Salmon of Doubt that Douglas Adams chose The Blind Watchmaker as the book that changed him. Dawkins dedicated his book The God Delusion to Douglas Adams after his death. Another sort of six-degrees-of-separation thingy was that Adams, like me, was a Pink Floyd fan; he named their 1994 album The Division Bell and performed with the band on his 42nd birthday (the same age that his daughter was born). Adams' official biography shares its name with the Pink Floyd song Wish You Were Here. David Gilmour performed the song at Adams' funeral.

When socialising, I like to slip in a clever Douglas Adams quote, like a secret handshake - acknowledgment suggesting that we are like-minded people. I always follow “drink up” with “the worlds about to end”, I cannot enter an elevator without wondering if it fears for the future, and I wonder what would have become of me if the lemon soaked napkin had not arrived at my table in time. Like Douglas Adams, I also like the ‘whooshing’ sound that deadlines make as they shoot past. I view tea, towels, baths, poetry, Rickmansworth, Thursday, mice, Fenchurch Station, mattresses  - and much, much, more - in a very unique and special way; a Douglas Adams way.

Douglas Noel Adams prematurely died of exercise in 2001 but his star continues to burn bright in all those who celebrate the life and times of this wholly remarkable man, and the remarkably remarkable works that he left behind.

So long Douglas Noel Adams, and thanks…

DONE WITH DOOLITTLE

What a relief that we finally got shot of  Dai Davies - the Independent MP for Blaenau Gwent, leader of the People’s Voice Party and ex Campaign Secretary to the great Peter Law who, it’s fair to say, he has succeeded in absolutely no respect. The Tories closed our rail link in the 1980’s, Labour re-opened our rail link in the 2000’s, Dai couldn’t even keep the bus link to the rail link running for more than 365 days. He openly voted against equal rights for gay couples – in a borough that saw the BNP finish very closely behind Plaid Cymru, and ahead of Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party in the elections -and claimed £350+ per month of food allowances during the summer months, despite Parliament not sitting.

Last year - under Dai - the Council turned off the street lights at night in an attempt to save energy which was deeply unpopular with the local residents – something to do with the increase in night attacks, opportunist crimes, shed burglaries, and the council CCTV cameras not being able to see anything.  Even with the lights of my car switched to full beam, I was driving blind at night. Over 9,000 locals signed a petition calling for the policy to be overturned. Eventually the Council crumbled under the pressure.

Dai has been nicknamed ‘Dai Doolittle’ at Westminster because of his poor performances in Parliament. When he can be arsed to turn up he throws cutting questions that every Blaenau Gwent resident is eager to have answered:

• He asked the Secretary of State for Defence for what reasons his Department plans a retention period of one month for reports of unidentified flying objects.
• He asked the Prime Minister if he will hold a reception at 10 Downing Street to celebrate the victory of the England women's cricket team in the women's cricket World Cup tournament in Australia.
• He asked what provisions in rules of court permit physiotherapists to appear as expert witnesses.
• He asked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of the transcript of his question and answer session from New York which was broadcast on Radio Five Live on 23 September 2009.
• He asked the Minister of State, Department for Transport for what reasons data collected in in-flight flight recorders are not transmitted in real time
• He asked the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department has spent on the purchase of new chairs for its main building in the last two years.

It should also be noted that in over 1200 questions submitted just a handful contained the words ‘Blaenau Gwent’. Thank fuck we’ve seen the back of him!

TONE DEAF DENIAL

Dedicated to friends who can't sing

Long ago I could sing, but now I'm not so sure 

I'm a cross between Bono and that bloke from The Cure 

I can't hit the high notes or the bits in the middle

Like an underground busker with just one string on his fiddle 

But after a tipple it all starts to change 

I’m a tenor and a baritone with a limitless range 

With the voice of an angel; dogs howl along with glee 

Is it the feedback that's deafening? No... sadly it’s me!

BALANCED AND IN BALANCE

As a type 1 diabetic I am examined on an annual basis – it’s a bit like an end-of-term report, but without the cheating. These tests are designed to keep track of my liver & kidney functions, weight, cholesterol and blood glucose levels – to name a few - and to detect and prevent the many occupational hazards that come with being pancreatically challenged like neuropathy, hypertension, Ketoacidosis, and not being able to get-it-up. A few weeks ago I was called to the local GP for my end of term blood test. I was required to fast for ten hours which would be more like twelve hours since I couldn’t eat after 10pm and my appointment was at 10am.

This was daunting for me because I’ve never done it before and was probably going to drop the ground in a hypo before food found its way to my rescue. There was the added complication of shift work, as well. Thinking on my hands I worked a way around this dilemma by only taking half of my insulin dose before bed. By morning my blood levels were high enough not to spring any surprises. I arrived at the doctors promptly late and presented the nurse with an early morning urine sample that I had saved for this special occasion – it still pains me to know that I’ll be filling those little buggers for the rest of my life.

Speaking of taking the piss, my mother used to pull a prank on her new nursing students. She would fill a urine sample with flat Lucozade and send the trainee away to test the sugar contents. When the sheepish student would return with the clinically improbable results my mum would ‘tutt’ and exclaim that there was only one way to get an accurate sugar result, and would then drink the contents of the sample. The look on the newbie’s faces must have been priceless - though not as priceless as the look on my mother’s face would have been had the sample ever got confused. My mother also used to send the newbie to fetch a nine centimetre diameter cafeter from a nearby nursing home. Anyway, I digress.

A few weeks after my bloods were taken I attended another appointment to discuss the results of the test with the practice nurse. We had met before, but she couldn’t remember. That was until she looked at my results - apparently I’m their best student (I laughed at that one). I was delighted to be told that my cholesterol, blood pressure and Hb1Ac were right on target. I had put on a few pounds but was probably naked the last time I was weighed and was wearing Doctor Martens on this occasion – every little helps. She examined my feet, which is another thing I hate having done - and on this occasion my feet could have wilted a Chelsea flower garden. What I was not prepared for was the concern that the nurse was about to show with regards to my tight diabetic control.

The nurse appeared to be going along the assumption that I was letting my diabetes control my quality of life. I immediately jumped to my defence and argued that I keep good control of my diabetes because I know my routines and I’m a smart arse. She gave me a look like that of a wife whose husband had just told her that he only buys Zoo magazine for the literary content. I gave her a look back; the look of a husband who has just told his wife that he buys Zoo magazine because he likes tits. I thought about telling her how much of a committed perfectionist I am, that I’d gotten the hang of diabetes quite early, and that I am in no way restricted by my condition. Also, if she liked, I could walk on my own water for an encore. I thought I might come across as sarcastic and big headed if I put it like that; so I did.

By the second month of becoming diabetic I had worked out my own system. I recall having a conversation with my mother during which she said “so… you’ve decided to ignore all of the advice that the nurses have given you and do things your own way? You are definitely my son!” The nurse couldn’t seem to get around this; she couldn’t find anything to pick fault with. I pointed out that if diabetes was controlling my life I wouldn’t have not gone to all the concerts that I have been to, or gotten utterly plastered in London’s West End without keeling over. I wouldn’t have passed my driving test, or visited Prague and Paris. I wouldn’t be enjoying meals at The Vine Tree and Uncle Chan’s Tasty Wok (RIP), or sipping Tequila Sunrises at the Cardiff Mardi Gras. I wouldn’t be walking every square inch of Tottenham Court Road like a kid in a sweet shop, or scaling steep hills to buy coats and eat Irish breakfasts. I wouldn’t be the unique, balanced and grounded individual that I am today.

And with that, I clinched the argument.

STAND UP NIGHT: THE ABSENCE OF COMEDY

Tonight four comedians took to the Beaufort Theatre stage and killed the art of comedy before my very eyes, taking a large irreplaceable slice of my mortality with them. Still, you've got to see the funny side, haven't you?

I hadn’t been to a stand-up comedy show in ages –the last time was to see that guy called Eddie Izzard. The King’s Head comedy night in Crouch End, London – where I’ve drank my way towards forgetting several New Years – hosts a comedy night on a Thursday and has always been on my ‘to do’ list. For interesting reasons I missed my monthly visit to Londontown and my chance to cross off the comedy club from my ‘to do’ list. I would, instead etch a new entry into my ‘not to do’ list in the form of a comedy club which would take place 170 miles and a bridge away from Crouch End: in the cosy Ballroom of The Beaufort Theatre. At least it was still taking place on a Thursday.

A fiver can get you a lot of satisfying things, but what it can't buy you is two hours of your life back. Comedy night sounded like a good idea at the time. It was only a fiver for a ticket and the chosen venue was at the nearby theatre where I used to work; the theatre where I spend a year charming the work colleague that would become my girlfriend – who, nine years after I wooed her into submission, still puts up with me. We arrived at the 'comedy night' and took our seats amid a sold-out crowd of 20. A few minutes into the first 'comedy' act, it became apparent that we had been lied to from the outset and I have given serious thought to filing for compensation under The Trades Description Act.

For two hours we were bombarded with crass and dated material from the well worn, cider stained pages of 'Toilet Gags for Dummies'. The only thing that made me sit up and take notice during the entire two tortuous light years was when The Buzzcocks was played during the interval. Who would have believed that a Canadian could do sarcasm better than the British natives that crafted it - a yardstick of how dismal the other acts were - commenting that the January snowstorms almost led him to buy a scarf. He was, by far the best of the bunch, likening Canadians to the Welsh because we always fail to get into cup finals, we are nice, and we live next door to a country we hate. His jokes, though, were buried a long time ago alongside British democracy - but at least he didn't resort to using any of the already exhausted Thesaurus entries for genitalia in order to get cheap sympathy laughs.

The most cringe-worthy of the questionable comedians - and the only Welsh one to add insult to the festering wound - struck the death-blow of his dying act by dropping his trousers.  This summed everything up quite aptly: his act was totally and literally pants; at least Max Boyce had a leek. Then there was the compare from Bristol. There's a fine line between having a laugh with the audience and being an obnoxious twat; he had obviously snagged his Bristolian bollocks on that fine line. If he was actually cutting and cleaver with his words it would have been funny, but audience retorts shouldn't get the most laughs at the compares’ expense. Normally, hecklers are a pain in the arse, but in this instance they provided the bulk of the entertainment – only in the Valleys could this happen.

So, what do you get if you take a Bristolian, a Canadian and a Welsh odd-ball, put them on a stage and give them free reign with a microphone? For the love of Zeus don’t look for the punch line; go to Wetherspoons and watch some of the tanked-up locals, instead - you'll piss yourself laughing!

COLUMBO - PRESCRIPTION: MURDER

If I'm brutally honest, I discovered that Dirk Benedict (Templeton “Faceman” Peck from the A-Team and Lieutenant Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, for the mentally challenged) was playing Columbo by accident. I was suffering with terrible wind on a breezy Tuesday morning in Cardiff and had to quickly dart up a side alley to trump one off. It was while I was killing the Ozone Layer that I saw a poster for Columbo - Prescription: Murder.

Prescription: Murder was the first Lieutenant Columbo case ever written; it was originally a stage play before becoming the pilot episode for the television series. Psychiatrist Roy Fleming is in trouble with his wife after answering the call of a female patient on their wedding anniversary – the patient turns out to be his young actress bit-on-the-side, Susan Hudson. Roy’s marriage had been sour for some time so he plans to kill his trouble and strife, ‘She just won't come around to my way of thinking,’ he explains to his mistress.

Randy old Roy does away with Mrs. Fleming at their swanky apartment – using the standard strangulation method - and recruits leggy Susan, dress as his wife, to act out a domestic between them at the airport resulting in her storming off and leaving Roy to travel alone. Mrs. Fleming would later be found dead at the apartment, presumably killed by an opportunist burglar. It would have worked had Roy managed to kill the bitch properly! He returns from his trip to Acapulco to discover that the body is missing and a scruffy looking detective in a dirty raincoat is snooping around the place. It turns out that his wife was merely comatosed and she spent the brief time she had left repeating her husbands name before popping her clogs - for good, this time.

The chess game commences as the seeds of doubt are planted and Columbo uses psychological games to try and pin the murder on Fleming. Grating away, he lures Roy into a false sense of security by leading him to believe that the disarming detective is just a washed-up cop without a clue. In one scene Columbo visits Roy and proposes that he visits him on a weekly basis because he seems to rub people up the wrong way and tends to forget things. The shrink suggests that things are often forgotten for a reason, to which the Lieutenant replies 'Oh, I hope not, sir! I left my wife behind at the bowling alley last week'. Columbo finally manoeuvres his suspect into admission with the reluctant cooperation of Susan, who overhears Roy explaining to Columbo that he feels nothing for her. Case, check, and mate to Lieutenant Columbo.

50 minutes in to the show Dirk Benedict entered stage-left to a warm reception; a further 30 minutes passed before he delivered the classic line 'just one more thing…’ It was apparent from the first word that Benedict had nailed the character. Articulation, body language and facial expressions were as close to Peter Falk as they could have been. Dirk is looking good for his age, too - my girlfriend was forced to ponder the dilemma of finding a near geriatric attractive - not unlike my morally unsound Jessica Rabbit dilemma.

I don't go to stage plays very often, but then we don't get many cult icons in town very often - particularly ones portraying one of my favourite TV detectives. Unlike the silver screen, the theatre still remains loyal to the originals; I shudder to think what Columbo would look like if Guy Ritchie ever got his bastardising hands on it. I’m glad I took a trump down that side street, and I’m considering swapping my cinema tickets for theatre tickets more often – the result is always more gratifying. There was one more thing, but I can’t remember for the life of me what it was.

FIRING A WARNER SHOT

My thoughts about Warner Music pulling out of free music services:

Warner Music is withdrawing its catalogue from free streaming music sites like Last.fm and Spotify - "Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed. The 'get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price' strategy is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future."- stated Warner Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr (say that when you’re fucking piddled.)

It seems to me that Edgar’s beef is directed at listeners like the friend I like to call Sara - because that is her name. Sara listens to music for free using Spotify – while rubbing her hands together and going ‘Mwhahaha’. Sara gets a short jingle to listen to every now and again – technically getting more music for free - but the differences between her free service and my paid subscription are too few to mention. Then there’s the man that I shall call Mike – because Mike’s need friends, too. Mike is Edgar’s type of guy; he buys CDs from music shops. Mike is of the vinyl generation where artwork and physical touch is just as important as the sound of the music. He is not interested in new fangled fads like Spotify, but like most of us who no longer rub sticks together to make fire he rips his CD’s on to an mp3 player. Mike buys one CD a month - roughly the cost of my Spotify subscription - while Sara listens to music for free because she is quite rightly looking a gift horse in the mouth. My other friend, Alice, listens to music on the radio because she’s on the dole and her laptop is knackered.

What isn’t stated is the amount of money that Sara is leeching from the music industry. This is because she isn’t leeching anything; the free service royalties are being paid for through advertising – like the jingles on Spotify. But that’s not good enough in the piggy eyes of fat cat Edgar! What we have in Edgar is a dinosaur with an angry bee in his bonnet: spoilt online freeloaders getting something for nothing - I wonder how many lazy hippies he beat up on in the 60’s. This petulant gripe is backed up by the fact that Warner is only withdrawing from 'free services’ - suggesting that Spotify Premium and other subscription services will be granted exclusivity (and why not have a secret handshake, too).

I am only paying a monthly Spotify subscription because I like the ‘bells & whistles’ like offline downloading and mobile software. The vast majority of free listeners are casual listeners and students pleading poverty over bottles of Lambrusco and fantasising about the day when all music will be liberated from the shackles of the evil money-grabbing corporations - because bands are held at gun-point when they offer themselves to billion dollar corporations. It is nobody’s fault – not even the Ramones – that online music is evolving at the pace it is. But the fat cats aren’t making it any easier by changing the rules when it suits them - and shitting on the loyal music listener.

Warner is planning to slam it's door shut in the faces of royalty funded and legal music services -  it should do so at its peril. The internet is getting faster and illegal file sharers are becoming harder to catch. Streaming services like Spotify & Last.fm are among the only legal and logical solutions in which to combat piracy. The majority of Spotify, Last.fm  and other such  free streaming service users will sooner turn to file sharing than throw money to fat bastards like Edgar Bronfman (hic) – they’d be paying for subscriptions already if that wasn’t the case.

WHEN TECHNOLOGY ANNOYS

Technology can be a wonderful thing, but no matter how advanced it becomes - and how seamlessly it fits into our lives it eventually does something to piss us right off.

Take the other day for example.  In preparation for a long-distance journey I decided to punch up some new music on Spotify and look up a gig or two of music to download on to my netbook overnight.  I woke up dull and early the next morning only to find that Windows had decided to install some security updates that had required a restart - my Spotify downloads had amounted to squat. I decided instead to use my mobile and stream the albums that I wanted to hear using Bristol airport's free Wi-Fi service.  However, the Spotify mobile app doesn't bother asking the user if they want to wait until a convenient time and place to update; it is a case of 'update me now, or don't use me at all'. Conveniently, my phone was out of memory and had no space to download the update. 

I had recently updated to Quickoffice version 6 on my Nokia E71. It didn’t give me a choice of which part of the device memory to install it on, resulting in my phone memory now being bloated with useless Quickoffice enhancements and additions that will never get used – except for the smell-chick.  Despite uninstalling some apps that I could live without for a few days there still wasn't enough room for Spotify Mobile. I use Quickoffice for writing-on-the-go so getting shot of it wasn’t an option. I was past the point of veering so dangerously on the cliff of composure and the only music I wanted to hear was the relevant personnel of Spotify and Quickoffice wailing in pain to the rhythm of me stamping ‘awkward twat’ on their foreheads with a white-hot brandishing iron.

‘Why didn't you take out your netbook and use that, you awkward twat?’ I hear you ask.  Well, because I knew that if I did I would have spent the next five minutes after booting clicking cancel on Java, Nokia, Logitech, and Windows updates – one of which would certainly have required a restart, and in needing to do so, would insist upon popping up a message to remind me that it needed to do so every several soul destroying minutes. Also, the MacAfee trial that was preinstalled on my netbook was due to expire so I wasn’t planning to go online until it was removed – Boy was I going to regret that! I thought that software and technology were supposed to enhance our lives and aid us in our day-to-day tasks.  If so, what happened?  Why can’t computers just work properly? - ‘Get a Mac instead, you awkward twat!’ I hear you say.

Upon returning home from a holiday I settled down with my girlfriend to view some of the Sky+ treats that awaited us, only to find that most of them had failed to record because the Sky+ box had conveniently crashed. This was the last straw.  Before I had time to debate whether downloading the missing programmes was illegal - because, technically, if the technology that allowed us to view programmes hadn't decided to fuck up in the first place we would have seen them anyway - we had already settled down to enjoy them; without the adverts, too.

I normally choose to pay for my software, music and movies; I also pay my television license - along with the extortionate Sky+ HD subscription fees. If the Corporations and the cyber police ever want to succeed in preventing people from illegally downloading music, movies, and television programmes then they should try making the paid, legal alternatives much easier and friendlier to use.  Having to plough the internet for answers to questions and then hanging on the phone to speak to robots is only going to encourage the less persistent people among us to seek out easier alternatives.

ONCE A SIMPLE ACT

Part of creature habit, he gathers for his feed 
lusting liberal consumption; mealtime simplicity
Life now lived by numbers; he weighs and shoots up three
He'll be hyper-high this evening; overdosed on gluttony

WE LOVE PARIS IN THE SPRINGTIME

Our last visit to Paris for Ceri's 30th birthday:

A special day like a birthday is not an occasion for a cheap booze-up with friends and phantom acquaintances while the last days of Rome re-enacted themselves on the glass confetti streets of Cardiff – there are 364 days to do that. Ceri’s 30th birthday would be celebrated in Paris. We were returning to our favourite location: St Michael - where the Pantheon, Notre Dame, Latin food quarter, The Great Canadian bar, and Duncan McLeod’s houseboat are all within frog’s leap of each other.

We arrived at the lobby of the Quatier Latin hotel after 9pm. The hotel manager was sat with his feet propping up the desk reading what - judging by the off-white colour of the pages - was something a little more intellectual than Le sport De Dimanche. He was dressed like a physics professor: wearing brown corduroys and a green knitted jumper. The lobby resembled a classroom; bookshelves hugged the four walls. Reclining on a large three-seater sofa was three men – also dressed as physics professors – gazing intensely at their laptops as if the earth would stop rotating if their tunnel vision was distorted for even a second. In the far corner of the room were two other gents locked in a game of chess. I couldn’t help thinking that we’d booked into the French branch of the Diogenes Club.

I was playing the part of a concerned diabetic in need of his next meal; my snack supply was depleted and the Jelly Babies were starting to feel edgy. The hotel Professor handed out some forms to fill in, collected them once complete, marked them, and advised us of the best places to eat, which should not, he advised, be the restaurant at the end of the street - it was in his words: ‘disgusting’. We settled for a small cafe across the street where the lady serving spoke good student English - good enough for me to negotiate my way into a large cheese and ham Bruschetta. One coffee later and we headed back to our room for Morpheus to have his way with us.

As badly as coffee and orange juice goes together in terms of taste, they provide the perfect kick-start to the day – if the bitter taste of the orange doesn’t wake you, then the caffeine will. Fed and stimulated after breakfast we embarked on our first EVA to the Panthéon. The Panthéon was originally built as a church until someone suggested storing their honorary dead countrymen there. Foucault's pendulum swings at the centre of a vast, domed room. It is named after the French physicist Léon Foucault who conceived it as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. Surrounding the pendulum is a Greek-cross layout with paintings and large statues of women sporting hefty cleavages. At the far corner is a door leading down to the crypt; we would be in good company down there: Victor Hugo, Louis Braille, Voltaire, Marie & Pierre Curie, and Alexander Dumas are in residence there. Placed on the stone tomb of Victor Hugo was a page torn out of a scrapbook that read ‘Dear Mr Hugo, here is a drawing of a carrot’ – below it was a rough sketch of a cartoon carrot (your guess is as good as mine!)

After a brief look at Saint Sulpice church - which has taken 100 years to build and still isn’t finished but has a nice fountain - I studied a map that I had purchased. It was specifically designed to make what we were looking for impossible to find. We were looking for Montparnasse Cemetery, but even the GPS on my phone was making every effort to ensure that we didn’t find it. Walking for over half an hour and making several course corrections our persistence was rewarded by the appearance a street sign. Montparnasse Cemetery is the eternal resting place for many of France's intellectual and artistic elite. It is a tightly packed mass of tombs and graves, each trying to out-do the other – I was expecting to see some with conservatories and water features – maybe even a shrubbery.

For Ceri’s Birthday we took a long stroll along the river Seine en route to Les Invalides – a place of all things military and where Napoleon’s tomb sits, among other decorated war heroes. On display at the War Museum were army uniforms dating as far back as the 13th Century – and some silly looking ones they were too, and a little poncy. I was impressed by the large portraits on the walls that were not protected by a glass frame - and all the better for it because I could get right up close and admire the fine details of the brush strokes. After looking around the museum we entered Napoleons resting place situated in a large hall; his grand sarcophagus sits prominently under the Les Invalides dome. Napoleon's family and several military officers who served under him are also to be found nearby, and a number of Generals, Admirals and Marshals are stored in the vault below – even in death serving under Napoleon.

The Russian Premiere was visiting Paris. According to the news the French Government was holding a sale on warships – buy one, sink one free. The busy main streets were lined with traffic wardens and armed police sporting thick knee pads and guns that meant business. Every so often there would be a buzz of activity, the roads would clear, and a fleet of black cars with blacked-out windows would come speeding past – the cars were Renaults, of course. Top Gear once tested claims that a Renault Megane could collide with a wall at 30 mph without the driver sustaining a scratch. When you see the way the French drive, you’ll understand why: French motorists assume that red and green lights adjacent to the black and white stripes painted on roads are just Christmas decorations that the local council keeps forgetting to take down; pedestrian walkways are simply the moped equivalent of a bus lane. French cars are also designed in such a way that the horns require sounding in order for them to accelerate.

Alas, our short trip soon found its way to a speedy conclusion, and before we had time to say ‘Sonne Lemitina’ we found ourselves homeward bound, being musically serenaded by a wealthy looking busker with albums for sale on the train to Charles De Galles airport. We had a bite to eat before the flight. I tried fish fried rice for the only time and Ceri parted with a preposterous amount of Euros for no less than nine crisps and a couple of crumbs that were packed in a bag so big it could have doubled as a secondary parachute on a Russian Soyuz rocket. We soon found ourselves on the other side of airport tedium and, finally, aboard the familiar propeller plane that would carry us home.

Baggage handling is commonly where time loses all relative will to conform to the natural laws of the universe and grinds to a halt. Time’s trade union must have cut it a good deal this time because neither it nor our cases were willing to hang around Bristol airport for longer than they had to. But the universe has a wicked sense of humour and a red hot jibe was waiting to meet us at Bristol Temple Meads in the form of a late train at the peak of rush hour. After a long wait our train finally arrived. Once on board were we informed that we would have to catch a different train again at Newport – and I hadn’t packed my stab-vest. By the time we reached Ebbw Vale, and home, the stresses of the journey had been made redundant with the help of a Chinese takeaway; we still had some days left to enjoy and plans needed drawing out. I was already digging deep into the colliery of my thoughts and mining away at my next blog.

With the few days leave that we had left we ventured into the countryside for long drives in the visiting sun stopping for meals that were far more exquisite than anything our pallets had encountered in Paris. The exception was a steak that was presented to me raw on a hot stone. The way to eat it was to cut off small pieces and frighten them with the stone for a few seconds. I could have surrendered my tortured soul for a cup of tea in Paris, which had a great deal to learn about the art of serving dried leaves in boiling water. Someone recently expressed their dumbfounded snobbery at the idea of us going all the way to Paris and not sampling the rich, culinary delights. It became apparent while dining in the country that there are no rich, culinary delights that come within a waving white flag of what our countryside has to offer. The tea isn’t half bad, either.

THE RED BARRON RETURNS

I was never a fan of Michael Schumacher. In fact I spent each and every race hoping that he would fall off the road. He always struck me as a cold, arrogant bastard; prepared to use dirty tactics in order to win. Over the 12 years that he dominated Formula One I supported the underdogs; hell, I even rooted for David Coulthard at one point. As pretenders came and went, Schumacher remained the constant threat throughout his career. Then, in 2006, Schumacher hung up his helmet after rewriting the record books like no other driver will do again. He was the last of an old breed; a legend from a dangerous age – the age of Mansell, Senna, and Prost; thoroughbred racing jocks with the right stuff. History had severed a tie, and racing had lost a relic of a golden age.

Before the glitz, glamour and billion-dollar venues, motor racing was an oily balls-to-the-wall world where fatalities were high. Mere mortals marvelled at the bravery of the fearless throttle jocks, hanging their fragile, four-wheeled tin cans over the edge of reason for what could likely be their last living moments; a time of wild-eyed adrenalin junkies with weathered faces, aerodynamic sideburns, and 200 mile an hour moustaches; shaking off their hangovers, stubbing out their Marlboro cigarettes against the front tires of their rides, before saddling up in to the cockpit that contained a wheel, three pedals, and a stick - all of which the jocks would play like musical instruments; wringing every last note from the thundering power-horses, and each tenth of a second out of the living, breathing tarmac that was hell bent on killing you dead.

The 1000 horsepower, turbo charge, ground-effect cars of the early 80’s produced so much grip and G-force that they were eventually banned through concern that the throttle jocks would pass out in mid-corner. There was little in the way of driver protection either; the throttle jock’s head and upper shoulders would meet the full force of the elements. The corners and turns of yesteryear commanded faith and respect - a giant leap of courage where only the bravest, boldest and Canadian would hang it all on the edge, and then some, around a fifteen mile ‘fatality circus’. Today’s most daunting corner - Eu Rouge – has been reduced to a flick of the steering wheel, with run-off areas the size of a runway. When the drivers arrived at the Suzuka circuit in 2009 – an un-touched and un-sanitised racer’s playground - it chewed them up and spat them into the gravel traps.

Those glory days were dangerous times, where the fearless pushed their luck to the edge, and some fatally pushing the envelope too far. Such was the art of driving the fastest and most advanced machines ever to grace the ground. In the 1990’s, German rooky Michael Schumacher was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with drivers who had met their own fragile mortality and punched its lights out on countless occasions. The do-or-die days of old had now become a distant memory, but the danger was still fresh. But the racing world was changing, and danger was becoming more of a concern to the rule makers – these were sportsmen, not test pilots. Everything changed in 1994 when Ayrton Senna, one of the greatest of them all, perished during an unceremonious accident – mortality had thrown a sucker punch. The rule makers had seen enough; this could never be permitted to happen again. As a result, the cars were slowed down and the drivers encased in protective cocoons, tracks were sterilized and the margins for error were widened. Into the late 90’s and the millennium, injuries continued to happen but Formula One never lost a life at the wheel again. Safety, not danger, was the new buzz word, and the throttle jock fraternity had little choice but to swallow it.

The man to beat after Sennas’s death was Michael Schumacher. For over 12 years he was the undisputed overlord of the throttle jock fraternity; an elemental phenom with an undeniable aura of arrogance that only gazes upon those with true greatness. Pure 100% proof racing talent flowed through his cold, icy veins. He had an aura; that 'something' extra that can't be explained - he defined what it meant to have the right stuff. Even on his worse damn day, he was the predator, the relentless thorn in the side; the man everyone needed to beat. He was sometimes beaten, humiliated, and even outclassed, but a single race doesn't win a war and he always came back punching harder, more determined, focused, and feared. When he retired he left a gaping hole in the racing fraternity, a missing slice from the top of the throttle jocks’ pyramid. In every decade there was a particular era where one driver dominated; the Fangio era, the Stewart era, the Prost era, the Senna era. After the Schumacher era ended, there was no longer one single man to beat; no one with the right stuff. After 2006, Formula One entered the Hamilton-Alonso-Button-Massa-Vittel-Webber era.

Ask a dozen racing pundits who the man to beat today is and the English will claim that it’s Jenson Button or Lewis Hamilton; the girls will probably say Nico Rosberg, and those with common sense will crown Fernando Alonso as the main man. There are some very fast, capable drivers in the current racing fraternity; each exchanging moments of flare, taking turns to bath under the light of victory. But the word here is ‘each’ – each driver is talented, there’s no doubting that, but they are of the same breed, the same mould – not one of them stands out as having the right stuff. Senna and Schumacher rose above their rivals; their moulds were one of a special kind. There was something ethereal about them that couldn’t be explained; an unfathomable ability to bend the immutable laws of physics and friction as if the elements – the wind, the rain, and the ground – sung to them. Yes, there are some fine drivers out there, but fine is fuck-all when you’re breathing the same fumes as someone great.

Throughout 2007, 08 & 09 the smoothie-drinking-Jesus-loving-junior-jocks continued to battle on the racetrack, each claiming to have the ‘right stuff’ - to be the next big thing to dominate the post-Schumacher era. In 2009, the last of the old school jocks, ex-Schumacher gunner, and title contender Rubens Barrichello showed the youngsters what the right stuff was about on his best days: on occasion, against his younger rivals, he displayed good-old-fashioned hunger, passion, determination and balls to the very end. None of the current fraternity has succeeded in becoming great so far, and while the smoothie-drinking-junior-jocks squabbled among themselves, Schumacher was eyeing his return. Order would soon be restored.

In December 2009, Schumacher announced his comeback to battle. After re-writing record books and retiring through lack of motivation, he grew bored of playing with fast toys on empty tracks. He was hungry again for the real thing; the heat of battle, the sweet taste of champagne victory – the challenge. Doubters have already questioned his decision, claiming that he is too old. Others say that a comeback could tarnish his reputation; he could become the washed up has-been – records don’t mean a thing when you’re finishing last. He will certainly have a lot to prove, and a lot to lose. That’s what makes him hungry - that’s what makes him dangerous. Doubters can doubt (that’s why they’re doubters) but I, for one, am glad to see the arrogant bastard back. I never thought I’d say it, but I respect him more for doing it; more than winning the Belgian Grand Prix from 16th, more than breaking down in front of the world after equalling the number of wins won by his idol Ayrton Senna.

I’ve never believed in this bullshit obsession over age; teams strapping children into the cockpit and any drivers over 35 being branded as ‘over the hill’ – Damon Hill became World Champion at 36, Nigel Mansell was 39 and won his last race at 41. Juan Manuel Fangio – in his late 40’s - was putting drivers over 20 years his junior in their place – not just by beating them, but by crushing them. Age will not affect this comeback - this is a legend we’re talking about; a seven-time world champion. You could take the youngest, fittest human being with lightning reflexes and strap him in a car, but without instinct he would be nothing. And that’s what the great drivers have that the fine drivers don’t: they feel the car, they predict the car, they understand the car; they are the car. No, I don’t think age matters one damn bit to people like Michael Schumacher; cars change, tracks change, instinct stays forever.

Nor do I believe that fitness makes a difference – Nigel Mansell wasn’t the most streamlined of drivers, neither was Juan Pablo Montoya; weight and fitness never stopped them from winning. I remember being stood on the pit wall of the British Grand Prix – where Schumacher was about as welcome as Stalin taking an evening stroll through Central Park. It was a summer heat wave and the tarmac was dancing and rippling under the intense rays of the midday sun. Schumacher had broken down and was running back to the pits. He ran past me, so close that I could count his eyebrow hair. In the baking heat, in full race gear, there was not a bead of sweat or shortness or breath - it was as if he had stepped out of an air conditioned Bentley. In contrast, on race day, a grid of baked racing drivers stood under the shadows of umbrellas and sat huddled against parts of the pit wall yet to be conquered by the heat. Even if fitness was an issue, Schumacher is an Olympian.

Another doubt in the minds of the doubters is that Schumacher’s new team will produce a dog of a car, making him look a bit of a joke – another Jacques Villeneuve. Who knows what the car will be like in the heat of battle, but one other thing that separates the great from the fine is the ability to wring the impossible out of a bad car; to push it beyond its lame potential and make it dance – currently, this ability is only apparent in Fernando Alonso, who performed miracles in his two years at Renault. I have no doubt that Schumacher will leave his younger team mate in a different time zone; he will definitely teach the car to dance. If it’s a rain dance he’s teaching, then he’ll bend the laws of physics, time, and space as an encore.

When all is said and done, the proof is in the doing. Maybe he won’t be as quick as he was in his prime – that might just put him on the same pace as everyone else. I really hope that he does well; his absence has made me grow fond of him - I appreciate what he brought to the sport; how fucking epic he was. Arrogant he may be, cold he may appear, but ‘that’ press conference in which he broke down was a revealing moment; a mortal display of what this man machine is really about; he is arrogant, cold, relentless, and detached because he has to be; that’s how he ascended to the untouchable level of greatness. He is also passionate, hungry, proud, and maybe even in awe of his own potential. He is only doing his job; it’s not his fault that he does it on a higher plain than anyone else.

ECLECTIC MUSIC STREAMS

Some thoughts about online music and my musical journeys...

I am currently sat at my table eating a mid-morning snack while listening to music. By table I mean my desk at work. By mid-morning I mean that it's 3:00am. By music I mean nothing chart-worthy. Yes, those night shifts do come around mighty fast these days. Thank goodness for netbooks, mobile broadband, and a stereo that turns all the way up to eleven! I like my job - even the night shifts - but it's hardly the line of work that stimulates all of the senses. I tend to keep myself semi-alert by the following means: 1) copious amounts of coffee, 2) loud music, 3) seeing how long I can keep a small duck levitating using just my mind, and 4) jabbing myself with sharp, pointed objects and making my fingers bleed. Only three of these stimulants are, in fact, true.

While singing sweet nothings into a mug of strong coffee I try to be as eclectic as I can over the course of my night shifts. During a particular night shift I decided on the Obscure Post-Punk and New-Wave music station, streamed via mobile internet and Last.fm. A few hours later, while settling down to a coffee that wasn't in the mood to be sung to, I checked my Twitter feeds where someone had recommended the new 'Massive Attack' album. Curious, I strolled over to my netbook, fired up Spotify - cutting Siouxsie and her Banshees off in mid-wail - and gave it a listen. It was that simple! Many moons ago I would to have to have ventured deep into the bowels of Cardiff, to an endangered animal called a music shop, exchanging small green pieces of paper in return for a magical shiny disk. This morning I was able to surf the rhythmic ripples of online diversity at my leisure.

It is through music streaming services like Last.fm and Spotify that I continue to discover new and interesting beats; you cannot put a price on them. Before the internet (hard to imagine, I know) it was difficult to track down music that stood out from the social zeitgeist - in a small Valleys town in the middle of nowhere, with only a Woolworths to buy CDs from, anyway. My short term music fixes were satisfied by tuning in to night time radio shows like John Peel - the Messiah of all thinks new and eclectic. But hearing music on the radio was one thing; tracking it down was like parting an ocean…and paying for it with pocket money? Fat chance! Everyone else I knew was clogging their ear canals with the same noise in order to go along with the acceptance flow.

I was part rose in South America during the mid 80's - far away from the New-Wave music scene I had taken an instant liking to - I became used to the beats and sounds of Hindu and Caribbean music. A nearby Dutch community were mad about Abba, and the 70's disco scene; thankfully, I wasn't. When I returned to Wales and started school there were two distinctive - and, to me: alien - musical divides, neither of which I was keen to embrace. In the blue corner was Rock music - crap until the nineties when Grunge gave it a good kick up the arse. In the red corner was Rap music - crap until a controversial white boy gave it a good kick up the arse (no, not Vanilla Ice). I was venturing into the Progressive Rock sound and being recaptured by the gravitational pull of the New-Wave and Synthesizer sound.

My father was the biggest influence on my musical education during childhood (I say 'was' because while he is still alive and kicking, his musical taste isn't). My musical explorations mostly took place at his London flat; it was filled with the pages of NME, Q, Mojo, and Kerrang magazines, and it hosted a sound system that was the corgis' bollocks. During school holidays I would listen to my father's CD and record collections while he was at work, returning home to Wales with a taped armoury of eclectic delights that had remained timeless throughout the ages. In London, I felt free from the sonic sameness of my adolescent society where only two genres existed - both of which stunk like the school changing rooms at the end of a P.E. lesson.

During my rebellious teens I became influenced by the Post-Punk/Grunge movement that had trickled its influential way into Heavy Metal - a vast improvement on Rock. In my new Comprehensive School I found myself among a group of rebels without a dress code; spending our time buried away in derelict school cellars where Therapy?, Pantera, Nirvana, The Ramones, and The Sex Pistols tore obscenities through the exhaled smoke of herbal pursuits and spat dysfunctional ripples in angst-patented potions - bubbling, froffing blends of K Cider, Tennants Super, and blackcurrant cordial: the angry snake that bit back. I started going to gigs  and music festivals, soaking up the raw energy of live music.

My social soundtrack changed again during the mid nineties when I started college; a whole new sub-culture of individualism had evolved just to greet me. Rock and Pop wannabes would sit huddled the far corner of the main hall with a CD player that sang the songs of The Doors, David Bowie, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan. My musical exploits were helped further by the fact that I was studying music genres as part of my A-Level Media Studies. My social circles outside of college were encumbered in the repetitive loops of Trance and Dance music - most of it played on a hissy copy-of-a-copy cassette tape that coughed and spluttered through distorted tin speakers fixed to the parcel shelf of someone's Vauxhall Nova - coughing and spluttering with its own repetitive groove. My Electro-Pop and Progressive Rock pursuits continued, along with a steady regression back into Grunge and Heavy Metal.

In time, the ashes of social flourish sailed away on the winds of my departed student bliss, and I found myself in more cultured company, weathered and worn by the personal changes that had occurred in my life. I had put away childish things and started exploring wider musical fields like Jazz, Blues and Classical music - a job at the local theatre provided the perfect place in which to indulge my interests. It was a new century and I had become acquainted with the internet, where a music site named Napster captained the pirate sea, scattering its musical booty to the masses - something for everyone. Online music services quickly rose to the fore, providing the resources to embark on musical endeavours without entering a music shop.

In 2010, internet streaming services like Last.fm and Spotify offer a vast database of information: biographies, discographies, even suggests similar artists to listen to; stations and playlists can be tailored by genre, even gender. Software is readily available to download and use on mobile phones; music can be streamed using 3G and Wi-Fi networks - music on the move. Over the last nine years I have indulged in music that - once upon at time - there would have been more chance of seeing me smile cheerfully through the steam at a locomotive convention than listen to. The saloon doors of choice have been blown wide open. I still flick through the pages of music magazines and wet my musical pallet in London for old times' sake. Sometimes I even listen to the odd bit of Obscure Post-Punk and New-Wave.

...AND ON IT GOES

The world doesn't understand dark-light-wrong-right-good-bad-happy-sad:

The world economy is buckling under the weight of careless fat cats and their bloated bank bonuses. The media manipulates and decides the trends of those who are incapable of independent thought. The circus clowns that call themselves politicians continue to extend the yardstick of already mind-boggling levels of incompetence. Judgement and ridicule continues unabated within the laughably civilised social order targeting age, race, colour, status, sexual orientation and indifference. 

Unnecessary wars continue under the cloaks-and-daggers of backward religious delusions and political power gains. The human race continues jostling for breathing room on an already overpopulated planet; irreversibly tipping the scales of an already damaged and unbalanced ecosystem with reckless precision. Plants and animals face a destiny of extinction; a future as a  reference page in the annals of man's murderous legacy. The fragility of human life when pitted against the magisterial powers of mother earth is on constant display; hundreds of thousands will fall victim to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, hurricanes... and the universes greatest threat: The Human Race.

WORDS FROM THE DEVIL

Those with a religious dysfunction will believe this blog post to be the workings of the Devil and his Rock 'n' Roll.

Anyone who knows me well enough will know that my views on religion are thus: it has no place in a developed, civilised age and should be abolished once and for all; it’s religious leaders tried for crimes against humanity, Muslim men lashed to see how they like it, evangelists auctioned to the slave trade, the Vatican converted into a Wetherspoons, and all secular wealth injected into Haiti relief efforts. I certainly don’t believe in an afterlife of infinitely pleasurable copulation on a silver-lined-four-poster cloud - as good as it sounds. To me, organised religion is the root of all evil, and recently the restrained embers of my secular fire of hate have been stoked by several self righteous pokers.

First was the pretentious sermons that Radio 2 insists on farting through the airwaves. The first was about the relevance of school nativity plays which, apart from being a form of brainwashing - and child abuse - brings families and communities together in harmony to share and enjoy treasured and beloved moments, and I think I’m going to be sick. Apparently, the nativity play takes an old biblical story and makes it new and exciting (yippee) with a more cutting narrative  - and better special effects - to be shared among friends, and in doing so spread the word of God and the messages contained in the Holy Bible - you know: of rape, murder, incest, pedophilia, genocide, buggery, sodomy, loving thy neighbour’s ox – and other things that are looked upon as sinful among the secular barn-pots.

The second sermon began with reference to Christmas, and the aptly titled Spice Girls song “Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want” – clearly an attempt to appear hip and within twenty years of the pop zeitgeist, though I couldn’t help but observe the paradoxes between ‘Girl Power’ - a phrase associated with third-wave feminism – and its insertion into a secular context where oppression and inequality among women is still prominent. The vicar - or whatever the fucker was - went on to state that secular society still upholds the true meaning of Christmas - because while others are indulging in mindless money-spending, they spare a thought for the sick, dying, starving, and poor – while also engaging in mindless money spending. Heaven forbid (see what I did there?) that other types of religious believers and atheists should be included among the carers of the world. He then had the cheek to state that anytime somebody wishes someone a ‘Merry Christmas’ they are in fact saying a small prayer/blessing. Yeah, right, and I’m Jesus in a tu-tu.

The thing that got my back up about these sermons is that most of them made some sense – the importance of community, caring for others, and so on - until the very end where some vague and un-necessary religious spin was inserted leaving the whole thing to sound lame and deflated - “Enjoy time with your family, be nice to everyone you meet, think about those less fortunate than you, the world may be a pretty fucked up and unjust place but the son of God was born just for you, died just for you, and came back to life just for you…so... um... there”.

I was, at a later date, made aware of the ridiculous Ireland Blasphemous Law, which makes publication or reference towards secular belief in a blasphemous manner a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The fact that the law restricts freedom of speech is of little importance to the Catholic Church. A few days later the Vatican chimed in again, this time with one of its cronies launching a ‘my religion is better than yours’ campaign on Christianity for apparently allowing the Muslims to "Islamise" the western continent. To me, one organised religion is just as infantile as the other, though there seems to be a blinkered obsession with Muslim fundamentalism - so much so that no one views Christianity and Catholicism as being one step down from it in terms of militancy.

America, I fear, has already fallen victim to the militant and belligerent construct of creationist fundamentalism. I completely fail to understand how, in a country that brought us Star Trek, Babylon 5 and many other free thinking, thought provoking ideas is refusing to show ‘Creation’ – the story of Charles Darwin – because it is ‘too controversial for religious America‘. Equally shocking is that only 39% of Americans believe in the theory of evolution - which isn’t a theory at all, it’s a fucking fact! The backwards Christian movie review site Movieguide.org described Darwin as: "A racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder. His half-baked theory directly influenced Adolph Hitler and led to atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering". Hitler was unavailable for comment, however he has been previously quoted as saying “Hence today I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”

TV evangelists are just as evil as the hatred spreading Muslim extremists like the Taliban. With astonishing depths of ignorance they assign good events to God and bad events to the Devil. They are the vile, possessed, hate-mongering, congealed spawn that continues to decay the closed minds of the KKK-loving-sister-shagging-homophobic-religious nut-jobs found praying in the good 'ole US-of-A. God Bless America; says it all. If you want proof that evangelical Christianity in America is nothing more than a political hate cult, then look no further than Pat Robertson; the evangelical bigot who, in the aftermath of 911, suggested that God was punishing Americans for allowing gays to marry, and who recently stated that Haiti had "made a pact with the devil" which brought on the recent devastating earthquake. These senseless evangelical con-artists compared President Obama to Hitler, and then sat by and witnessed human suffering in the aftermath of the Haiti disaster while having the fucking cheek to blame the victims. One thing’s for sure: these sanctimonious c*nts won’t be delving into their evangelical pot of blood money to assist the humanitarian efforts.

As you might have grasped by now, I passionately despise the egotistical conceit, superiority and sheer pigheadedness of all deluded and self important secular drones. The fact that they earn a living through preaching this prehistoric and infantile dross is fraudulent enough in itself. We are no longer living in the dark ages; there is no need to continue believing in an omnipotent being that works in mysterious ways in order to explain the inexplicable workings of the universe. I simply cannot understand how supposedly sane and rationally minded people still believe in this mind-controlling bullshit, nor will I ever befriend or trust anyone willing to contract this pitiful mental disease.

“When one person suffers from delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called Religion.” – Richard Dawkins.