Kingdom of the Absurd

Wake up and spot the coffee

2011-09-30T10:59:00.002+01:00

This piece is trending today for no apparent reason, since it's over a year old. It has relevance perhaps due to Spotify's vastly increased numbers yielded from the US launch and their facebook tie-in.

There still seems to be no solution to the 'how to get paid' problem, particularly for new acts. Spotify ceasing to exist wouldn't help much either. Where do we go from here?

Spot the subscriber, BRITschool success and DIY detail

2011-09-23T16:30:00.004+01:00

Spotify this week announced that it had reached the magic number of 2 million paying subscribers. It's a good number and speaks well of their interface and success in selling the streaming model.

Obviously it may have been a harder number to crack had they not limited the freemium model previously offered and harder still had they not launched in the U.S.A. which at one point seemed like it might never happen.

In the same week an indie band called Uniform Motion revealed some stats and info about the pitfalls of 'doing it yourself' in an excellently written blog which may do more for them than their music ever could. It's an extremely relevant read for everyone interested in the music business.

The BRIT School alumni (a horrifically American sounding term for a very British project) meanwhile celebrated 65 million album sales globally with a bit of spin and self-congratulatory-back-slapping.

They're nice stats and all British musical success is worthy of celebration but have they produced anything other than pop? Their top tens suggest not and it is clear that their success now (and possibly in the future) is becoming self-fulfilling. The record labels who once used to scout around areas where successful bands were emerging need now only camp out on the lawns of the school itself.

Since the School invites many label people to 'lecture' their pupils they need not even do that, it's not like they're working hard to find the talent the school is doing it for them and developing it in a manner that they have proven to be successful. Is this really rock 'n' roll?

Superstar DJ, here we....oh.

2011-09-19T08:36:00.002+01:00

I can translate the bit at the end, he says: 'the whole set is on hard disk, and it's just broken'

Iggy only knows

2011-06-17T17:55:00.001+01:00

It’s an odd day when you get to confront your own hypocrisy. In many ways I’ve been doing that in public (though not with great visibility as it was via this blog) over the last few weeks in trying to square my views on ‘synching’, or the use of popular music for commercial/brand purposes.

It was spurred initially by a knee-jerk reaction, a ‘how dare they’ moment, to the VW commercial and its use of what I consider to be one of the greatest songs ever recorded. I did make the point at the time that my thoughts and views were compromised and far from clear cut. There’s a grey area where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, and your position is influenced by your views on that artist or piece of music.

So, that’s my ‘get-out clause’. I accept that it’s flawed and I was forced to try and reconcile these thoughts in the middle of the mosh-pit at the Isle of Wight Festival on Saturday. It was from this position that I saw the great Iggy Pop, no stranger to advertising and a subject of similar anti-advertising bile over two years ago.

I clearly still regret that he is most well known for starring in ads and regret that this, alongside allowing the song ‘Lust For Life’ to be synched in an ad for cruise ships (as well as better use in the film Trainspotting), is probably the source of his greatest income.

I still love the music though, and can see the possibility that the advertising earnings have allowed his ‘art’ to return to the extremities. No-one could call his Stooges-era music ‘easy-listening’ and if doing ads means that The Stooges carry on playing (as they have for the last five years or so) then it’s something that I should accept, or even welcome.

There lies the hypocrisy; can I accept the taking of commercial money if it allows art to flourish? Can I say for certain that Iggy uses one to fund the other? It could be that re-forming The Stooges was a financially-rewarding decision in itself, that the demand for the band was there and not for a solo Iggy Pop.

Without doubt it irks me that someone of his historical import is recognised for appearances alongside a puppet in ridiculously irritating adverts and it is unquestionable that it undermines his credibility. This much was obvious from the initial reaction of the crowd on Saturday, some of whom were less than interested and given to shouting ad-related abuse – all of which was sadly lacking in wit. If the best that you can think up is shouting the advertiser’s name or ‘I prefer the puppet’ then you really shouldn’t bother sharing.

On the flipside it allows me to be ‘holier’, to recognise Iggy’s role in the formation and fermentation of punk and to be able to argue that The Stooges were formed as part of an anti-hippy sentiment rather than being anti-corporate and thus it’s not the sell-out that you could accuse John Lydon of. Similarly Lydon claims that his Anchor money helped him to reform PiL (who also played at the Isle of Wight) proving that it’s an ongoing argument.

Perhaps it’s the very definition of a dichotomy (or this is)one that rages within and will never be resolved.

Back in the day (the 1977 type day) it was all about credibility, the faintest whiff of commercial taint and your cred was history. Bands wouldn’t even appear on TV for fear of losing it. I disowned certain acts for daring to spend too long trying to break America; desperation was not credible, chasing the cash was really not credible.

Now the line is blurred, for some acts any commercial association is seen as a badge of honour – a trophy, because you can never have too much bling. Commerce and art have to live together and we probably have to accept it, particularly if you believe that music is free. There are still levels though and it’s clearly an individual choice to where you draw the line and whether you forgive those who cross it. Iggy is redeemed, largely due to his back-story and unassailable cool, others will struggle.

God Only Knows....#3

2011-06-07T15:31:00.003+01:00

I like Volkswagen, it’s important that you should know this. I’ve bought two of their cars in the last decade, it’s a reliable brand and I’d be happy to drive with them again. This is not about VW; it’s about the denigration of art by association, or commercialisation.

Naturally I’m aware of how pretentious that sounds, I know very little about art and not that much about music but I do know what the song ‘God Only Knows’ means to me, and it doesn’t have anything to do with a fucking van.

My last post (below or via this link ) dealt with the reasons behind what the music industry calls ‘synchronisation’ or ‘syncing’. I understand why acts do it, particularly new acts. I have less sympathy with older artists who have made their money and are now just throwing extra pennies in the pot.

I would like to blame the publishers or the money-men, or the labels – anything to spare me the thought that the people who created this majestic piece of music allowed it to be sullied in this manner. Sadly the artist always has the right to veto, particularly in these circumstances. That they chose not to actually tarnishes my feelings for them.

In truth I’d hope that everyone involved in this process feels some shame. VW have made a great deal and linked a very well known song to their product, albeit by some spurious ad-speak (the concept of being ‘in harmony’ linking driver, van and song and leading to me feeling genuinely sick every time I see or hear the ad). In the process though they’ve reduced a sublime and beautifully crafted piece of art into a backing track, a song that has always had the ability to reduce me to tears now does so for entirely the wrong reasons.

I suspect that classical music aficionados have put up with similar feelings for years, though the argument that using certain pieces in advertising has probably extended the range of appreciation among non-aficionados and partly led to the existence of Classic FM. Popular music is an entirely different beast, when used well (you could possibly cite the early Levi’s ads , Guinness/Leftfield and even the recent Lucozade Tinie Tempah execution) it can be inspirational, uplifting and iconic. Used badly and it’s just a badging exercise, an attempt to be credible or improve status by association. Used very badly (and I have to argue that the VW ad is this) and it’ll succeed in making the individual feel disdain for all involved.

Probably I’m just being precious. I have every right to be so, and would hope that artists insist upon it. They take time to create music, in some cases it comes straight from the heart. Do they really want everyone to think of commercial products when they hear it?

In contrast I don’t feel the same way about BMW’s use of ELO’s Mr Blue Sky (although it didn’t initially sound like the original version) or Vauxhall using Feeder’s Pushing The Senses, in the latter instance I am pleased as Feeder have always deserved a better and wider and bigger audience.

In the case of God Only Knows some of those involved in that process are no longer with us, and in their memory alone this deal should never have been made. The song itself was one of the most technically sophisticated pieces of popular music to be recorded at the time (1966), involving a process of creation that would defy belief even using modern studios and equipment. It is taken from an album that many regard as the finest ever made and the song itself is rated highly by most critics: Mojo magazine ranked it as the 13th greatest song of all time. Pitchfork Media named it the best song of the 1960s and it is 25th on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Paul McCartney is known to consider it to be his favourite song.

As a piece of music it is stately, harmonious and enchanting. In some respects it defies superlatives, it gives something new with each listen and is one of few that I could hear daily and never tire of. The lyrics and music adorned the walls of my bedroom for many years and I have owned it in multiple formats – including many of the re-releases Pet Sounds has endured.

God Only Knows is a rhapsodically, serenely, melodious, euphoric slice of heaven for those who don’t even believe in a higher order. It encapsulates the joy of love and life within the wonders of music and lyrics. It transcends genre or classification being wondrous, magnificent and timeless; it is a slice of perfection in a beautifully bound package. It is everything that you’d hope that music can be.

I guess advertisers take a risk using music at all, they cannot envisage the wrath or despair it induces in those who regard it so highly or personally. I have little doubt that VW thought they were creating a mini-movie, a history of people’s love for their product. Love for a car is a lot less likely than the love for an inspirational piece of music though, and I wish to a God that I don’t believe in that they’d used a different song this time.

Interlude (G.O.K. #2)

2011-06-07T15:30:00.000+01:00

I was ready to unleash a stream of bile, an invective, a torrent of abuse against the commercial use of one of my favourite songs; then I paused.

I frequently tell myself (and others) not to hit send on something they might regret, or may not even be fully understood. If I take stock on this maybe it isn’t that important, most people don’t take music that seriously. Others may just believe that the song concerned is just a nice pop tune, not the major development in popular music or timeless classic that I believe it to be.

It’s all about perspective. Maybe some people do love their cars that much, probably the creative types involved in the commercial believe that they’re paying homage to the song and the vehicles involved.

It is subjective, of course. I was also wary that I was unleashing vitriol against a company to whom I’d recently proposed a sponsorship deal. They foolishly knocked it back in preference to one of their own ideas, one that they don’t actually have the budget to execute properly. Generally speaking I don’t take these things to heart and it certainly didn’t influence my feelings about the ad – I was having those before the ‘knock-back’ and would’ve published them either way.

I suppose I didn’t want to think that my thinking, and consequently my writing, was compromised. If I’m going to commentate on popular culture and express my deep-held beliefs then I should just get on with it. Those will be printed above, very soon.

God Only Knows

2011-06-02T11:33:00.001+01:00

Recorded music, it’s in the sync: Synchronisation that is, a buzz word that’s been knocking around for a few years the meaning of which has been bastardised to neuter the actual intent.

Let me start again. In commercial music terms ‘syncing’ is the means by which a song is used in a TV show or a film, a game or a commercial – often in partnership with the creators of the aforementioned to help to popularise the song or artist.

The term first came into popular usage (for this purpose) when the industry – in which I include publishers, managers and record labels – realised that this could be a vital new promotional stream for acts and songs and that they should view it more pro-actively, rather than charge standard fixed commercial rates for each usage.

At its peak the marriage of right film, right song and right artist produced great results. Witness the case of Wet Wet Wet and ‘Love is all Around’ or Bryan Adams and ‘Everything I Do’, both hugely successful examples of applying a song to a film from which everyone benefits (except possibly the discerning music-lover but that’s another opinion).

From here chaos descended. As with everything the music industry achieves the stampede to clamber aboard the bandwagon began in earnest. Indie-labels and artists began to swamp US TV shows aimed at ‘like-minded-teens’ and advertisers also started to sniff around. In defence of the industry they were seeing the demise of pop-TV as the once-omnipotent MTV moved its focus from music and even stalwarts like Top Of The Pops disappeared – they needed a way to be on TV and it began to be all about the sync.

I may have summarised two decades in one paragraph there but I only intended to sketch in the background of what has become the very slow process of ‘selling-out’. There are certain artists who would never allow their music to be used for commercial purposes or partnerships; people like Tom Waits spring to mind but there are many others. In general terms they had the benefit of being in the industry when recorded music sales could still generate something of a profit. The era before it became so easy to obtain music for free whether by theft or by streaming, the time before the collapse of recorded music.

Now they tell us it’s almost impossible to make money from music sales and whatever your view on this (Adele may have a different perspective to, let’s say, The Horrors) and whose fault it was it has made it a lot easier to justify the process of synchronisation. Now you can sell your soul because no-one else will buy it and you’re convinced it’s the only way to get to market.

I started typing this morning with the intent of spewing bile and tearing hair, my wrath will perhaps be explained later (in the next blog) because the inevitability of syncing is that sometimes the product or the place are wrong. Additionally it is obvious that an advertiser with a budget will prefer to tap into something recognisable rather than risk something new.

In the meantime this piece on ‘syncing’ is two years old and you may not recognise some of the bands it references – this seems somehow appropriate.

What they said

2011-05-25T10:43:00.002+01:00

Here's two sobering pieces on the fate of modern musicians and the industry in general.

The Quietus piece would've benefitted from some judious editing but the feeling is right. Bob Lefsetz nails it from an American perspective but he continues to be right about one essential thing - in the end it's all about songs.

Go to Youtube?

2011-03-15T09:43:00.003Z

The long tail theory means that nothing ever dies but it still concerns me that it can take so long to find things. The case in point (today) is this from David Ford. I can't say he'd crossed my radar previously but this is very clever, and not a bad song either. How do these things gain critical mass? I guess it's as I said previously, it's getting harder and harder to find the diamonds in the dust - but they're definitely out there.

Fame

2011-01-28T16:00:00.001Z

What's not to love?

http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson5.html

The art of the album sleeve

2011-01-28T12:29:00.002Z

I don't know who has time to compile this stuff, I don't even have time to look through the full 80. What I have seen is enough to warrant posting this link: http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/01/24/the-worlds-greatest-album-covers/ Genuine works of genius, though you may suspect that some of them aren't genuine. I have my doubts about no.10 'Jesus Use Me' by The Faith Tones.

The Pilot is set to take off

2011-01-27T10:50:00.003Z

If I've devoted my January to an exploration of new music (or at least music that's new to me) then I should give a big 'shout out' (as I believe young people no longer say) to The Pilot Project. It's a new music initiative that compiles and allows access to what they consider to be significant new talent. An interesting and easily used site, I suggest you take a look - and definitely listen.

The return of myspace?

2011-01-21T10:18:00.003Z

I hadn't been on myspace for some-time, probably longer even than I'd last been here. It is greatly improved and remains the place to find new music. Recently I've found none better than this - http://www.myspace.com/hollypartridgesongs - if Holly Partridge isn't a huge star by the time that 2011 closes then I'll eat my own socks.

Naturally she has a history, it helps. It's a story to tell when you eventually get stuck in front of interviewers. She writes great songs and seems to perform them pretty well. It's hard when you hear something like this not to get immediately excited and share it with everyone, perhaps it's too early - they're still considering their options with regard to record labels, as well they might.

Real talent is rare, Holly has it.

Things I might do with more time.....2

2010-05-31T19:41:00.002+01:00

Write this blog more often! Look at other people's blogs more often.

Spot stuff like this, much earlier.

Although this might be better titled, things I might do with more time (and knowledge) as I wouldn't know how to do that.

Things I might do with more time...

2010-03-19T10:38:00.000Z

I guess I've always known that I didn't have enough time to dedicate to this blog, but it's only when you see what other people can do with their time that you really feel the deep pangs of envy.

This segue of album covers is sublime:
Amazing Album Covers Mix and Match | The Design Inspiration

The state we're in

2010-01-22T17:14:00.004Z

At the start of Jan I mentioned that there was too much talk, the music industry is a rampant mess of differing opinions. Certain recent debates have begun to back that up, as if it needed confirmation.

Firstly Tom Silverman of Tommy Boy records (home to De La Soul amongst others), gave an interview stating his opinion on how difficult it was to create success for new artists. It’s a lengthy piece broken up into three different sections, echoing a lot of points I’ve been making for a while – but in a more educated and substantiated manner.

To give a couple of highlights he says:

"The labels are getting more cautious. There are two major concerns we have. One is, the labels, both majors and independents are more conservative; they’re not going to take risks on artists or invest in artists just because they hear the demo and they like the songs or just because they can pack a house. That’s not enough – at least not the major labels. They need to know the artist is going somewhere between 30 and 60 miles per hour already to make an investment in it.

One of the things we identified in that three times as many people buy singles as a whole album, it probably doesn’t make any sense to make a whole album, or it’s a waste of time and money in the studio making an album when they’re just getting started, because every artist breaks with one song. And they might as well focus on finding that one song before they waste the money on the album.

The flow of music from artist to fan is going to be more important. It didn’t used to be important because there wasn’t the kind of 24-7 contact between artists and fans. So as you build your fans, they’re not going to be happy with one album every two years anymore. That’s not going to work. After three months, they’re off finding another artist that’s going to take your place. If you want to keep their interest, you have to keep at the top of their consciousness, and that requires new creative on a constant basis".

Tommy quotes Nielsen sales stats to back up his argument, one that has since been countered by Jeff Price from Tunecore, who questions the validity of the numbers.

Meanwhile today’s CMU daily prints the sales stats from the The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry's Digital Report. It notes the growth in the digital industry – 10% in track downloads, 20% in album downloads but also recognises that the growth is not compensating for the decline in CD sales. Overall revenues were down 12% in the first half of 2009, and the record industry has seen a sales slump of some 30% since the launch of iTunes.

Everyone does seem to agree that single track downloads are the significant future growth area, it still appears to me that musicians are not responding to that need. It seems slightly ironic that ‘evil’ labels used to force bands to try and produce more hit singles, to generate airplay and coverage. Frequently the artist community used to resist, now it would appear that it’s the market that’ll force the issue. Perhaps it was always this way.

Where are the prophets?

2010-01-21T16:44:00.003Z

We need guidance. Media has become so fragmented (or consolidated) that we no longer know who to trust. Who can adequeately and informatively recommend new (and old) music to us?

In times gone by it was a small number of magazines or writers, a handful of radio presenters - some of these still exist but they have less influence than ever.

Some people rely upon their networks - social or otherwise, what can the rest of us rely on?

I wrote on this in longer form, here.

Global solutions

2010-01-17T18:29:00.002Z

Pandora, LaLa, Rhapsody, Spotify. All music streaming/recommendation sites with one commonality, none of them are available globally.

The music industry is in the can, strategically speaking. It can’t stop people stealing; it also seems incapable of finding the best way to monetise the creation of music.

The old model was to sign a band, develop them or allow them their creative space, record them effectively and take them to market. You’d probably release a single, send them on tour with a similar sounding but more popular act, get them on radio and TV and with luck they’d sell enough records for a return on the investments you’d made getting them to this stage. Then the hard work would begin in reaching the next stage, but that’s another matter.

These days the decision on whether to take the initial investment is tempered by the fact that you know it’s possible for as many people to steal the music as to pay for it. Where once the labels would bank on breaking a single or quantity of singles big enough to make people want the album, now they’re not so sure and nowhere near as secure.

Now they want to share your touring and merchandising revenues via the legendary 360 deals, they want to minimise their risk – and who can blame them?

Of course you’d be right to reserve your rights on such issues and ask instead about where and how they’re innovating – what are they doing that will make your music timeless and readily available. One thing I believe they need to do is start acting globally.

If they believe that streaming is the answer to illegal downloading then can we please have a universally approved streaming service? In some respects we can understand that they wanted proof that the ad-funded streaming model would work, they probably now believe that it doesn’t. What they might be better asking is ‘had this model been available globally would it have fared better’?

Spotify used ad-funded streaming to drive a mixture of that offering and a subscription service. The key selling-point of the subscription service was portability, the ability to take the streamed library wherever you go. Sounds great to me but……I can’t currently make a call on upgrading my Spotify membership because I don’t believe the industry is confident enough to say that they’re the one.

I get the impression that there’s better services (or a better price) waiting around the corner. Whilst I have that impression the money stays in my pocket and the business drifts into inertia. We’re still looking for a solution; please can we make it a global one?

Cultivate & communicate

2010-01-13T16:40:00.000Z

By now I’m sure you know what a social network is. I have little doubt that you’re in one, maybe two or even more. What musicians often fail to recognise is that a network can quite easily revolve around them.

When people go online they invariably do so to make contact with others, their ‘friends’. Frequently these ‘friends’ are deemed such because they are work or school colleagues (present and past), or they have similar interests – music is foremost among these interests.

In the present climate artists have to consider and cultivate their public profile, to feed the fanbase. The rewards from this can be limitless. If a fan feels that they have a personal relationship with you, their loyalty is almost guaranteed. A small but dedicated fanbase can keep an act recording and touring for years beyond their time in the limelight. They are the reason why bands like Marillion are still active.

If we accept that a certain section of society knows how to obtain music for free and has few qualms about acquiring their collection in that way, then we probably also feel that these people are beyond education. Not so. Think of it this way, which are you less likely to steal from – a faceless ‘corporation’ or a friend?

I’m not about to tell you that it’s easy, fans can be very demanding. This said is it that difficult to post an online tour diary, exclusive photos (taken by you, on your mobile) or whatever else to your website, your myspace or your twitter?

Feed the fans and they are likely to stay loyal for longer. The future is in these relationships, in the ‘long-tail’ rather than the short-term. Fans are honest, they’ll give you feedback that you won’t get anywhere else and like anyone else, they’ll stick around if they’re getting what they want. Fans always want more, are you ready to give?

Show me the money

2010-01-12T13:22:00.001Z

How are we making money in music industry these days? Consensus has it that there’s no revenue in the recorded music, that’s just a way to gain fame via airplay, and subsequent revenue will come from your touring/merchandising, etc. I think we’ve heard the statement so often that we all now just regard it as fact.

Of course it can’t be completely true, there is still money to be made in sales of singles and albums, it may just be that you have to use a selection of unusual methods to increase your yield. Selling your body-hair in exclusive packaging may be one route, but not one favoured by many I suspect.

Struggling musicians probably need to reappraise their goals, is it about a long-term future making music, or is it about instant fame? According to some if you keep your cost base low and your ambitions realistic then it’s possible to survive.

One thing is very clear. The future is about communication, constant communication.

musical conservatives

2010-01-08T16:00:00.000Z

We’re in for a period of conservatism in this Country, but at heart the great British public have always been fairly conservative folk particularly when it comes to music. We all get excited by emerging trends and brave, challenging new music but the public? Well, they go out and buy James Blunt.

Highest selling albums 2000-2009
1. James Blunt - Back To Bedlam
2. Dido - No Angel
3. Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
4. Leona Lewis - Spirit
5. David Gray - White Ladder
6. The Beatles - 1
7. Dido - Life For Rent
8. Coldplay - A Rush Of Blood To The Head
9. Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
10. Take That - Beautiful World
Source: The Official Charts Company

The albums are adventurous compared to the singles. It would seem to be a sad decade indeed when Shayne Ward (who?) and Bob The Builder can claim top selling singles in a ten year period, but the bulk of it is about really talentless TV competitions and charity, and Shaggy?

Highest selling singles 2000-2009
1. Will Young - Anything Is Possible/Evergreen
2. Gareth Gates - Unchained Melody
3. Tony Christie - (Is This The Way To) Amarillo
4. Shaggy - It Wasn't Me
5. Alexandra Burke - Hallelujah
6. Band Aid 20 - Do They Know It's Christmas?
7. Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head
8. Shayne Ward - That's My Goal
9. Hear'say - Pure And Simple
10. Bob The Builder - Can We Fix It
Source: The Official Charts Company

Then, there’s radio. There is a great argument that most stations are only giving the people what they want – the rise and consolidation of syndicated blandness is something to really fear. Do the stations control the listener’s tastes or is it the other way around?

Most played songs 2000-2009
1. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
2. Take That - Shine
3. Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancin
4. The Feeling - Love It When You Call
5. Sugababes - About You Now
6. Take That - Rule The World
7. James Blunt - You're Beautiful
8. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
9. Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head
10. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
Source: PPL

I think there are some great songs in there; Take That’s Rule The World is a towering pop song even if that’s a sad, reluctant admission to make. Crazy is also one of those songs where you wonder at the majesty of it, but don’t go and buy one of Cee Lo’s solo albums on the strength of his vocal as the one I bought was nowhere near as good.

I suppose the bulk of them I could happily live without ever hearing again, I do listen to more radio than the average person though.

There is something to learn from this if you’re making music. A well crafted song with a good melody and a strong chorus should get you far. It may not, but it’s probably the only way to feature in these charts.

Let the (in)action begin

2010-01-07T13:11:00.000Z

I often think there is too much talk, and not enough action. This is as true of me as it is of anyone who routinely sits and types out a few random thoughts. Routinely probably doesn’t mean once in the last three months with regard to this blog, but that’s how things go sometimes, life & work takes over.

With the start of a new year I thought it might be best to try and summarise the problems currently inherent within the entertainment industry in order to focus my own mind as well as anyone else’s.

Naturally it won’t be comprehensive and I don’t have the answers to all the problems but over the last year it has become clear that there are a few fundamental issues which refuse to go away. I hope to note these on a day-by-day basis over the next week, to avoid boring you to death. Here are two for starters:

Price:

It’s a marketing fundamental – price. Setting it incorrectly can destroy any product. My issue has been that the price difference between ‘physical’ and ‘digital’ is inconsistent and damaging. I wrote about it here in relation to e-books but the same is very true of music. Why is a physical CD generally the same price as a digital-download?

If you take the view that a certain section of society still view digital as ‘free’, then the rest of us need to be incentivised into joining the digital revolution. I still have yet to buy an ‘album’ by download because the physical product can often be obtained as cheaply and is far more flexible. My digital purchases have been single or multiple tracks, which leads to the next point.

Singles:

If it’s clear to me that the future of the music industry is in ‘singles’ (for want of a better term), why are the labels and the musicians still not thinking this way? Who is out there putting out a consistent stream of quality singles? The business model is still about the album, but to become established you have to have a great song or a series of great songs.

Much was made of the Beatles appearance in the top sales figures for the last year and decade. Lots of praise was heaped upon them when the re-masters were issued, what few people mentioned was their work-rate. I wrote about that here and the stats are worth re-visiting: The Beatles released twelve original studio albums, thirteen EPs, and twenty-two singles (mainly featuring original music not found on their albums) in just eight years between 1962 and 1970.

Maybe you think the market conditions were different, and maybe they were. Maybe you think The Beatles were unique, and maybe they were. Maybe other bands are moaning too much and not working hard enough?

I may be Devil’s Advocate here, but if it’s now easier to get your music to market – from recording studio to website in under a week is achievable – why are no new bands achieving the same productivity and progression that The Beatles did?

The state of Spotify?

2009-10-09T14:38:00.003+01:00

I am something of a Spotify obsessive. I believe that it can play a major role in the future of the music industry, I just fear that it may not be allowed to.

In prior blogs I have doubted that the current advertising and subscription model could work, I believe it can - but not at the current price.

Today Spotify founder Daniel Ek writes eloquently to/in The Times and makes some excellent points about the industry as a whole.

To an extent it's a vicious circle, a catch-22: the advertising-model will only work when they reach a vast number of users and the company will only last when it achieves the right balance of subscribers to free-users.

For the ad-model to work they probably have to crack the States, where Spotify is still not available. One label is holding out on them and Ek's letter and the subsequent news-article are part of the ongoing process in attempting to change that situation. He needs to buy time.

They are interesting arguments, but if Ek succeeds in re-modelling the price of streaming (to his company) the labels may find themselves besieged by radio stations and similar music-broadcasting companies also wishing to re-negotiate their rates. It should be noted that radio stations in America work under different rules relating to payments for their music, an explanation of which can be found here and here

Though I have vested interests in saying so, I strongly believe that radio will play an ever-increasing role (in the UK particularly)in the divisive areas of streaming and music discovery. UK radio is uniquely placed in already having agreements with the labels & publishers, as well as direct relationships with the artists which could see it moving to a different level.

Streaming itself may well (eventually) succeed in killing the illegal download, removing the motivation or necessity to do so, but if we believe that file-sharing exists because of pricing issues then it may be that the Spotify subscription price may also have to change.

Spoti-fried

2009-09-11T15:45:00.004+01:00

So apple approved spotify for itunes, people were surprised. Perhaps they forgot the business that apple are in - selling hardware. itunes exists as a means to an end, to supply music/apps to ipod devices. As anyone who sells to it will testify - itunes is not a brilliant retail platform, it is functional at best. It has the massive market-share as a result of the desirability of the devices, not by being retailer of the year.

It remains to be seen whether spotify is the itunes killer. Given that the spot-app is only available to those paying the premium I would suggest not. As usual there are economic reasons why I feel this way. Spotify premium is £9.99 per month and, whilst it has some great bells and whistles, you still don't own the tracks. In essence it just adds to their portability.

Given that most people go to itunes for single tracks (£0.79 to £1.29ish?) and single tracks are seen as the future perhaps the Spotify premium fee will be the hurdle that is just too high.

At the initial advent of Spotify many of my colleagues had predicted that the natural route for itunes to take would be full-track-previews. Perhaps they didn't fancy the fight with the labels to acquire such rights, maybe they've moved on.

Some of those same friends and colleagues are now convinced that apple are getting a large chunk of the Spotify premium fees, in time this may or may not be proven. If, as many believe, Spotify's business-plan is to build the numbers then sell-out this may well be true.

In the week that they were added to itunes Spotify UK went back to being 'invite-only' for non-premium subscribers. This was either very clever or very stupid - at the time that you get your best press you remove the option of the free trial. If you want to move people on from file-sharing-freeloaders to heavy-streamers it is certainly a big mistake.

In the meantime apple just sell more devices, and one of the additions to the new nano - an FM radio. Once wi-fi becomes king, broadband becomes super-reliable everywhere and the iphone is the device du jour maybe we don't need Spotify as we'll have access to any radio station on the web, including those new ones that let you choose the songs........

The path to hypocrisy?

2009-09-06T08:51:00.002+01:00

I realise that this would only be ironic if they were blocking the cycle-path with a road sign for a festival of cycling, rather than one of motoring. This said it seems contradictory for any council that continually promotes itself as being cycle-friendly to block the paths with anything at all.

This is one of Coventry's busiest roads - there were two to three blockages along the path which runs up the Kenilworth Road on either side of the busy A45. As these events take place in the nearby Memorial Park all the time I guess I'll just have to get used to it. Sadly that stretch of cycle path is very useful for inexperienced riders like myself.

Is Sweden ahead of the streaming curve?

2009-08-27T12:51:00.004+01:00

By the end of 2009 we might have a better idea of what exactly is going on in the digital world. When we can eventually analyse the accounts of record labels (a task I'll leave to someone more qualified)we might start to understand where the future is - whether it is downloads, physical product or streaming. Until then we have opinion and conjecture.

Published reports/features eminating from Sweden suggest that streaming is starting to take over. This feature from Swedish Wire states clearly that the Swedish arm of Universal is already earning more from Spotify than it is from itunes.

It seems like a bold statement, and others have their doubts. I imagine a few accountants in artist-management offices are very eager to see those account spreadsheets and royalty statements.

Spotify is of Swedish origin and Swedish Wire clearly likes to celebrate Swedish success, some of which may be due to recent Swedish legislation aiming to crack-down on downloaders and file-traders. With the UK Government suggesting similar enthusiasm for a crack-down perhaps the same will happen here - on the day after the legislation came into force Sweden noted a 30 per cent fall in web-traffic. Possibly the file-traders were spending their day trying to find the loop-holes.

As I indicated last week (below), I fear that artists now hold the key to Spotify's future. Its success in the home-market may be an indicator of future trends, or it may just be a red rag to the big bulls in the artist community.

Spot the streaming problem

2009-08-19T17:17:00.004+01:00

I have previously noted some of the ongoing difficulties plaguing the music industry with regard to downloads and streaming.

Everyone seems convinced that a subscriber-led streaming service will be the solution to illegal P2P downloading. Others have tried, but Spotify seems to be the industry and consumer favourite at the moment. The Guardian thinks it knows why, repeating a belief that has been circulating for some months - the labels have shares in Spotify

The Guardian seem to be suggesting that the artists will not see this cash, an allegation I'd have to question. If this belief begins to circulate it will lead to an inevitable exodus of artists from Spotify. Bob Dylan has already left the building

If it's all in simple mathematics then the digital problem still exists. I read in this week's edition of Music Week that Spotify in the UK is processing 10 million streams per day, which should result in a sixty thousand pound royalty payment (on standard current terms) to artists/labels every day.

If Spotify is currently getting £82,000 per month in ad revenues and has only 17,000 paying £120 a year for the premium service then there's a significant shortfall. The digital solution is still not an obvious one.

Free is still free, in Radiohead World

2009-08-18T14:22:00.003+01:00

Backing up words with action, that's why we still love Radiohead.

The new song is available for download, free of charge:

http://www.waste.uk.com/Store/waste-radiohead-twisted+words.html

While you're there you may want to pay for this one:

http://download.waste.uk.com/Store/did.html

In memory of Harry Patch, proceeds from which go to the Royal British Legion.

Still Britain's most vital band.

Punk isn't dead, oh it is actually.....

2009-08-17T12:56:00.000+01:00

A fair price?

2009-08-14T10:23:00.004+01:00

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or so they say. There are many though who believe that the internet is a free market for both thought and art. It’s been an interesting time for this debate – or at least for anoraks like me who have a vested interest in it. Let’s try to summarise the past few weeks, with appropriate links for you to explore further, should you wish to do so.

The RIAA vs. Tenenbaum

The Record Industry Association Of America (RIAA), the US record label trade body, sued student Joel Tenenbaum for illegally sharing licensed music via a P2P network. The RIAA has been quite active in the last few years in suing individuals whom they have been able to prove were involved in illegal file-sharing – uploading copyright controlled music for the use of others. Few of the cases get to court but Joel Tenenbaum sought the backing of Harvard lawyers to create what may become a landmark legal case.

In other countries the music-industry bodes, like the UK’s BPI, have pursued a different approach to file-sharing by actively targeting sites that provide the means/platform for individuals to ‘share’ rather than targeting individuals. So they’ve gone after Kazaa, Pirate Bay, etc. like (the original) Napster before them. The crux of this thought may be based in PR; they wouldn’t expect to get the sympathy of the media or other individuals by chasing down poverty stricken teenagers or students. The BPI has also made a major (media) case of pursuing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to control their individual users, something the ISPs, in the main, have resisted.

The crux of Tenenbaum’s defence has been that it’s unfair to pick on one individual for something that everyone is doing, and that his case should be subject to a ‘fair-use’ policy. The labels argue that if it’s illegal then it is illegal, end of.

The repercussions will go on, as will file-sharing because (as the next sections show) the World seems to have become skewed with regard to the rights of musicians.

http://www.thecmuwebsite.com/daily/index.html
http://joelfightsback.com/

60% don’t think musicians should earn from online music

In a recent survey of 2000 web users, 60% said they didn't think musicians should receive royalties when their music is downloaded online. The survey, conducted by 'network integration specialist' Telindsu, asked 2000 consumers a very specific question. Did they agree with this statement: I think musicians should derive royalties from their albums, singles and music videos that are downloaded online? Three fifths (1200) disagreed.

OK, it’s a small sample, and I have no statistical break-down on the age of the participants – a point which would probably influence the results quite radically – but I would hope that we’re all surprised that this many people question a musician's personal right to earn from their music.

It is probably the case that the record labels and copyright industries are doing a poor job at explaining why it is that the very concept of copyright exists in modern society, and the artists themselves have probably not helped.

When sites like Napster first emerged those musicians who came out publicly against them received widespread public disdain. The mainstream media – slavishly following public opinion – echoed these opinions and some artists, wanting to seem ‘down with the kids’, joined in by criticizing their record labels – a point which may have led people to believe that file-sharing is actually OK.

Those were the early days and we’re now in a mature, technologically advanced, marketplace – the arguments need to change and the artists need to stand up for themselves again. It’s a simple message really: ‘if you steal my music, how do you expect me to be able to afford to keep making it?’ Who is going to pay, not Chris Anderson it seems.

Chris Anderson’s long tail and the ‘free’ philosophy

Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of future-techy magazine Wired. He’s what most people would call ‘a player’, a man of influence. One of his key creations was the terminology ‘the long tail’; originally a Wired article and later a book the long tail refers to the economics of the internet age – where the future of business will rely on selling lesser quantities of a greater range of products over a longer period.

His new book seems to argue that the future of business is actually ‘free’. I haven’t had time to read it all but the crux appears to be that if something can be made available digitally then it should also be free. That this information is contained in a book currently retailing for £18.99 might seem a bit ironic but I’d encourage you to obtain a free read (or listen) here.

To be fair to him he’s not essentially saying that people shouldn’t get paid for their work – otherwise he’d have probably wasted his time writing a book - but that there should be different methods of payment and probably different pricing structures. Personally I’d worry about who sets the price and how, in the future, we’re ever going to make money from any artistic endeavours. Do we have to get out our begging bowls, or is it all about the PR?

You gotta PRay to get paid

Spotify launched a clever PR offensive this week. The message was that they’ve developed an app for mobile use of the service but they were concerned that apple might not approve it for use because if you can stream things then why would you buy them from itunes? They were subtly accusing apple of potentially being anti-competitive; a commercial giant abusing its market-dominance? Heaven forbid, who’d have thunk it, perish the thought, etc.

Common consensus is that file-sharing may be a thing of the past if people can stream any music they want, for free. In the UK Spotify is our leading exponent of this – and very good it is too, I’m using it as I write this.

Educated commentators have always been concerned that it’s not a good long-term model and that Spotify can never hope to pay the labels & artists what they will eventually demand for the rights. Most Spotify users currently use the free model which gives you an advert after every four songs, but as every user will know the variety of advertisers and content isn’t vast, suggesting that the Spotify business model is very reliant on people upgrading to the £9.99 per month premium offering.
Notably the suggestion is that the mobile model will only be available to premium, i.e. paying, users and may therefore be the prime route for Spotify to take. If apple were to turn it down then as the key player in the mobile + music market they’d be dealing a serious blow to Spotify’s chances – and potentially the music business as a whole since it’s largely believed that the labels have a share in Spotify. Hence this week’s PR efforts.

Is there a conclusion?

Amusingly there was a banner ad on Spotify as I was using it, for Chris Anderson’s book. The caption was ‘get free for less’. As far as I can tell, free is free – but if no-one gets paid then nothing (of any worth) will get made.
Musicians have some work to do to illustrate the fact that they have to get paid, that people can’t live without money – unless they live with their parents of course.

If we assume that most of the people involved in file-sharing, those who think musicians shouldn’t earn from their online rights are under-25 then we may begin to understand why they do what they do, and think what they think.

Kids don’t understand the costs of living, some of them are barely aware that money doesn’t grow on trees. Through their influential role and hold over children musicians could help us educate them about economics – what things cost and why they should pay for them. Perhaps if they understood that some musicians have to live hand-to-mouth to create their art they’d be less willing to steal from them. Maybe.

The blogger's guide to artist management (part 2)

2009-08-14T10:20:00.002+01:00

Having established (below) that I didn’t make a great job of it, you’ll hereafter appreciate that this fact doesn’t prevent me from sharing my opinions on the subject of music artist management. Sounding semi-educated without testing that ability is the role of every commentator, skilled, experienced or otherwise.

So, you want to manage talent? Frankly it’s a tough gig, and probably getting tougher. Breaking a band these days is harder than ever – there are more routes to ‘market’ or to the audience in general, but finding the right one and ‘exploiting’ it successfully is extremely difficult.

The future is a difficult territory to map. A manager needs to be aware of trends and understand the elements which will favour his or her act best. Some of this can be gleaned from looking at history and the career path of similar acts. This will be despite the fact that your act might like to think that they’re one of a kind.

In the past the aspiration of every artist was relatively simple, they all wanted to get a record contract, a deal with a label, in order to get their music released into the world. Success could be measured by the size of your contract, how many labels were fighting over you and what the winning company were prepared to put behind you.

People can now sit in their bedrooms and get music into worldwide circulation, getting people to notice and appreciate it is a different matter though. Getting people to pay for it is harder still.

The amusing, or distressing, thing is that after all the hype about ‘freeconomics’ and the ability of artists to create their own social networks thru and with their fans, this has still not resulted in bands having the ability to create their own break-through to global success. The latter element still seems to revolve around finding a large company to manufacture, distribute and effectively market your music. No-one has yet managed to do it solely; no-one can do it without help.

So, what are the roles of the manager? Part advisor, counsellor, life-coach, solicitor, publicist, entrepreneur, accountant and music business expert – combine some or all of those elements and you may be successful.

Everyone talks about the only money for artists now being in live performances, but in order to gain an audience you have to have created a name for yourself – and this is the element which remains the most difficult. A good manager has to know how to ‘cut-through’ and to make an act ‘stand-out’

A good manager acts as a conduit between the artist and the world at large, allowing his charges to create and vent their artistic temperament whilst he effectively ‘sells’ it. Some acts are capable of doing both but they are something of a rarity. If I were to list the key attributes a manager needs it might go something like this:

• An unstinting belief in his/her artist(s) tempered by a good sense of commercial reality.
• Deep pockets.
• An existing or recent link to a semi-successful act.
• A knowledge of the market – generally and specific to their act.
• Common sense.

Sounds relatively simple, but rarely is. The most difficult part might actually be in managing the expectations of the people you’re working with. It goes without saying that most acts have to possess incredible self-belief, a problem which finds most managers jettisoned – even when they may be on the verge of success. The roadside is littered with managers who found themselves surplus to requirements as a band signed to some label or other – simply because the label knew someone who ‘could do a better job for them’. Artists are frequently blinded by the promise of success; you can never expect the same loyalty that you may waste on them.

Given that it’s such hard and frequently unrewarding work, why does anyone take it on? Inspiration and belief is everything – occasionally you come across an act who you wholeheartedly believe needs to be heard by many more people. When this moment comes you’re possessed by a compulsion to do something. Whether you work in the music business or just love music these moments are like revelations, epiphanies – when you’ve had one you can do nothing but your best to make it work. That being the case I can only wish you luck.

The bluffer's guide to artist management (part 1)

2009-08-14T10:13:00.002+01:00

I once thought I'd be a great band manager. Lacking in any real musical ability but having a deep love of music it seemed the obvious choice, a potential career path to run alongside my existing music journalism (which, frankly, has never paid). Then I tried it.

It was the mid to late 80's; the specific point in time has become slightly blurred by the passing of even more time. I was friendly with a number of bands in the general Birmingham area by virtue of hanging around in the wrong places, writing for local media, broadcasting for the BBC (locally) and promoting the odd gig on a random basis.

I had knowledge of music, media, marketing and publicity. I still have some of these skills, partly amplified by time and experience. Consequently I was invited by my friends in a band we should call Red Shoes (because that's their name) to help manage them.

Music managers of the time fell into three possible categories -

Close friends of the band who didn't mind cold-calling to get gigs and helping them to hump the gear around.

People with too much spare cash (but often not enough) who wanted to be in the music business, or to at least say they were.

Ex-musicians or recording studio workers, or people with existing 'successful' bands looking to expand their 'stable'.

None of the above was a reliable formula for success, but there seemed to be a glut of talent around and most of it went un-noticed. Sadly Birmingham was not considered 'cool' in music industry terms, certainly not on a level with Manchester or even Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield or Cardiff - all towns/cities that have been deemed to have a 'scene' at any point in the last thirty years.

Although the whole Stourbridge scene blew up in the period where I could've conceivably said 'I was there' and I knew a few bands that went on to great success there were a great many more that disappeared without trace. Were it not for recent developments you may have been able to say the same of Red Shoes.

That Red Shoes were accomplished musicians was a given, they wrote great songs and performed them well. The interplay between main vocalist Carolyn and guitarist/co-vocalist Mark was the core of the band and each was the perfect accompaniment to the other, personally and musically.

They slightly defied classification, something I should've played more on - albeit that this was a time when the best way to sell something was to compare it to something else. Right now we'd have termed it alt. folk/Americana but I don't think I'd even heard the term Americana at that time.

It was a period in time where r.e.m. were about to become mainstream but the vogue was for scuzzy indie guitars, shoegazing or electro-pop, Red Shoes weren't easily pigeon-holed and most labels didn't really know what they'd do with them. Perhaps my failings were in not being able to elucidate this for them - this is how it's going to work, and this is how you should sell it.

I probably lacked the self-confidence or self-belief to do this effectively. The one A&R man I did convince of their talents similarly lacked the budget and confidence to make it work, though he spent some time trying. He eventually quit the music business to become a missionary in Africa. I genuinely hope I wasn't in any way responsible for this.

This could easily have become another music business sob-story. Inexperienced manager wrecks hopes of genuinely talented band. For a long time it looked that it might go that way. I had made the mistake of combining friendship and business, things that rarely prove compatible, and when mixed neither usually survive. But........

Earlier this month Red Shoes released their debut album, Ring Around The Land. A masterful piece of work, completed with talented collaborators who understood and appreciated their art. You could say that it's at least 20 years too late, but there's no such thing as perfect timing - fortunately for them great music is timeless.

The full story, written by someone who can write and has a better understanding of music than me, is here. It is worth your time, this is a classic of the 'good will out', and true talent will overcome all adversity - but only as long as you stick at it.

Part two - the proper guide to band management is above.

Another qualified album review

The Red Shoes guide to Freeconomics is here, tells you a little of what you need to know about breaking through today, it was always about relationships:

pop is dead?

2009-08-14T10:11:00.000+01:00

From the millions of words expelled into the stratosphere following Michael Jackson's death, one phrase rings truest: we may never see his like again. Take that in any way you chose, my point is that the king of pop may never be deposed - pop careers no longer have that longevity, new artists do not have the potential to sell the same quantity of music, artists are not allowed to develop that way. The king is dead, etc.

It's a problem that the music industry needs to address but seems unable to do so; we just do not appear to be creating mega-stars with cross-over potential and lasting appeal. There were many factors that contributed to Jackson's success but a combination of talent and timing was the primary one.

To this you can possibly add persistence. You may not have realised it but his major breakthrough album, Off The Wall in 1979, was his fifth solo release. It also followed a four year gap since his last album. The four initial solo albums were characterised by their lack of major singles - approx one per album - and 73's 'Music & Me' could justifiably have been called a flop.

Compare Robbie Williams' fortunes on his first solo release - he was in the similar situation of having been in a popular band, but the unfamiliar one of almost being dropped when his album looked like flopping. He was saved by the single, Angels, picking up heavy airplay but it was touch-and-go. Had he been dropped at that time he'd probably never have recorded another album and would've currently been back touring with Take That. It's open to opinion as to whether this would've been the best thing for everyone.

Current artists do not enjoy that level of backing from their labels, whatever the size of your deal it would normally be expected that one flop = dropped. Having taken a battering over many years labels cannot afford to fund risky prospects anymore, nor have they been keen to do so for some time.

This is not to attack record companies per se; accountants and bean counters have taken over most industries and we're all looking for the fastest-fix to financial constraints. There's no such thing as easy-money but can you really blame the labels for trying to guarantee success with short-term measures? It's all about protecting the investment.

The other problem is the market itself and the route to reach it. When Michael Jackson finally bloomed into pop mega-stardom in the 80's he was aided by the fact that there were fewer media outlets and they were powerful. The audience was concentrated on a smaller number of radio stations, magazines, newspapers and TV stations, meaning that a key record release could reach a maximum audience with substantially less effort than required now.

He also had the timely and simultaneous rise of MTV to exploit and the only way to really own the songs was to buy the albums. Will the planets ever align in the same way again? Who could potentially attain the same level of stardom, will any other pop star be known in every small town in every country of the world?

I know of no such artist, all the genres are so carefully segmented now that there are few edges to be blurred. Usher might be a very famous RnB act, Eminem might be a very famous Hip Hop act, Beyonce might be a hugely successful soul/RnB act, and they may all have crossover hits but none are ever likely to be a global phenomenon.

Another remnant of a bygone age? Talent and timing were everything, and the rest is 'history'.

slack blogging

2009-08-14T10:07:00.002+01:00

I know. I've been slack. I'm about to post a few entries that originally featured on my weekly newspaper-site blog or here to be precise.

They are random thoughts on the state of the music industry, collected here to keep them in a sort of rational order, or possibly an irrational order. This will allow me to add appropriate links and shorter thoughts in the coming weeks.

That's the theory anyway.

Britain’s got psychological problems

2009-06-03T14:19:00.001+01:00

In the wake of the Susan Boyle controversy Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has said that it’d be ‘impractical’ for them to psychologically screen all entrants to the competition. She’s right of course, but instead of impractical she could also have used the term ‘counter-productive’. The entire joy of watching the initial audition process would be destroyed if they were to exclude people due to borderline personality disorders.

It probably says something about my personality but I have no interest in seeing people with moderate talent trying to prove their worth, I’m far more interested in the legions of the misguided and (possibly) psychologically-impaired who think that they have something special to offer, when in truth they’ve always just had special-needs.

The malignant spread of reality TV seems to prove that I’m not alone, clearly most couch-potatoes like a dose of delusion with their evening meals. We all like to laugh or gasp at the ‘hilarious’ efforts of those who believe themselves to be the next Madonna, or Elvis. It’s the modern-day equivalent of bear-baiting, or maybe it’s dog-fighting for non-chavs or bare-knuckles for non-pikeys. Seeing Cowell savage would-be contestants, tearing their hopes into tiny pieces, is a bizarrely-ritualistic form of entertainment taking us back into the arena with the gladiators and the emperor who can turn fate with a simple twist of thumb-up or thumb-down.

As the tabloids look to feast on the remains of the competition and carve their pound of flesh from its rotting corpse, the ‘qualities’ have been keen to establish whether ITV or the programme-makers could’ve done more to assist the psychological well-being of the contestants. To which the answer surely has to be, yes, but do they want to? It may be impractical to offer screening or testing to all contestants but they could’ve done more for those they knew to be at risk.

I may expand on this here, otherwise here's some other takes on the story.

mass-produced apostrophe abuse

2009-05-17T20:33:00.000+01:00

Crime stoppers?

2009-05-06T12:01:00.003+01:00

Another interesting anti-crime initiative, this one courtesy of Northamptonshire Police who are apparently about to spend their summer nights bellowing at residents who've left windows open.

Should this one spread I fear it may cause more crime, anyone - police or otherwise - waking me in the middle of the night might have cause to regret it. I'm sure it will give the 'officers' some amusement as they pursue their lonely night patrols.

Aporkalypse Now

2009-04-30T13:03:00.004+01:00

It's all about the language. A swine-flu outbreak is probably less worrying than an epidemic which, in turn, is less concerning than a pandemic.

Pandemic sounds catastrophic. The reasons for this are obvious. For one it reminds us instantly of panic and also of pandemonium. When you think of pandemonium you may not think of the dictionary explanation (below from dictionary.com) but even so, you know it's bad.

Had the media been hamming it up or using similar puns we'd be a lot less worried, but instead we have the hype (written about beautifully here) and the World Health Organisation with their helpfully serious messages.

If you give numbers to the scales of risk then you run the risk of panic. If I hear numbers in this context I always think of the Richter scale or gale forces - the higher the number the greater the devastation.

Ben Goldacre's piece makes the point very clearly - the margins of error are huge. More people are dying of other diseases but we don't have the same level of panic about those - which is probably to do with the means of transmission.

It seems that once every few years we have to have something to panic about, the language makes that very obvious.

pan*de*mo*ni*um

–noun 1. wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.
2. a place or scene of riotous uproar or utter chaos.
3. (often initial capital letter) the abode of all the demons.
4. hell.

Pass the pigs

2009-04-29T16:38:00.006+01:00

Amongst the things I've learned from media coverage of the swine flu PANDEMIC, is some interesting language - pandemic is a greatly underused term (possibly a good thing) but, until today, I'd never heard the word prophylactic used out of a sexual context and to mean preventative measure. That it was used by an English MP in a press conference is even more amazing.

I learned that the quasi-surgical face masks (currently becoming very popular) probably don't prevent transmission of infection to you, but might help to stop you transmitting the virus. Thus, wearing one is not as selfish as it might otherwise appear.

I also learned (via the BBC) that we shouldn't be sneezing into our bare hands. This makes a lot of sense, but the alternative option is to rummage around in the handbag I don't carry to find the disposable tissues I won't have with me. Or - as the BBC suggested in all seriousness - sneeze into the crook of your elbow.

I fear that I may take more people out by swinging my arm up to my face than swine flu will eventually finish off in the UK but we shall see.

Incredible video

2009-04-29T14:09:00.001+01:00

This is incredible, with or without music it's worthy of much wider circulation. Not that this will help!

Jade Goody, the musical

2009-04-23T11:27:00.002+01:00

There are times when I struggle to find anything that I think fits the content of what might conspicuously be called 'absurd'. I guess this explains the random and irregular nature of these postings.

This, however, certainly fits the bill. Sometimes it's hard to believe your eyes and it would seem to be a tasteless joke, a punchline in search of a question.

I have no doubt that my inbox will soon be flooded by people suggesting songs that would work in the context, who would really want to write it?

Defeating the object?

2009-03-30T16:28:00.004+01:00

The following is taken from today's CMU Daily, recommended reading, sign up at http://www.thecmuwebsite.com/ I post it here because I'd originally predicted (here) that if I don't have the time to update my own blog on a regular basis how do we expect celebs to do so......

FIDDY DOESN'T DO HIS OWN TWEETS
Shocking revelation this: 50 Cent doesn't do his own Twitter updates. They are written by his internet business manager Chris Romero. Romero told The New York Times he takes quotes from interviews Fiddy has given and uses them for the site, and seems to think that it's all okay. "He doesn't actually use Twitter", he's quoted as saying. "But the energy of it is all him". Well I, for one, am shocked, saddened and disappointed. And I'll be telling my PA to add an update to my Twitter page to that effect forthwith.

It was only a matter of time, I just didn't expect it to be such a short space of time before someone got 'found out'. I suppose we now have to wonder how much it matters. I think, at the moment, it does.

Headline of the year?

2009-03-27T10:05:00.003Z

I'm always on the lookout for bizarre headlines, even when they're not linked to fabulous stories. This one covers all bases including the obsession with google-earth, google-streetmapview360, googletoiletcamview or whatever.

Schoolyard penis seen from space

Taking an infantile game to a whole new level. A similar story, but inferior headline, lurks here

Sorry seems to be the easiest word

2009-03-26T10:44:00.003Z

To work in broadcasting at the moment is to be in a perpetual state of apology. I'm even apologetic about being remotely associated with broadcasting. Look, I'm sorry.

Of late all broadcasters have made a 'show' of signing up to a 'commitment to honesty in broadcasting'. Morally we know that there's an element of PR involved in this but as a guiding principle it has significant merit.

This said can we really be claiming that we're honest in our apologies?

Broadcasters and their management may regret the offence they've caused but is it really honest to apologise for something you know wasn't really offensive? Something that only caused offense when it was appropriated by other media and shown out of context to those with very low tolerance thresholds. These people don't normally consume your output and you wouldn't really want them as listeners/viewers anyway. Do we honestly have to apologise to them?

I'm already sorry, OK?

Edited highlights

2009-03-05T09:40:00.003Z

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with multiple blogs and I've given up archiving the mercury blog here.

However, it may be worth putting the outtakes in this space, so from this blog, I couldn't find a way to shoehorn this bit in - because I thought I'd already covered the territory.

It refers to U2's high-profile of late and the evolution of the music industry. Older acts are back out hawking their wares, but what space does it leave for those trying to break thru? Do we still need the older acts to finance the newer ones? The answer is 'probably'. Here's the out-take:

The fact is that all acts have to work harder these days because they're becoming less relevant to our lives, we have so many more choices of what to do with our leisure time from DVD box sets to Twittering. In some cases the audience has moved on, got older, doesn't listen to as much music (tragic, I know) and certainly doesn't buy as much. U2's biggest album The Joshua Tree achieved over 25 million sales, 'No Line' will be lucky to do a quarter of that. Coldplay's Viva La Vida, last year's biggest-seller, is currently around 7 million worldwide sales. The work that U2 put in now may not alter that but it certainly buys the media's affection for a while.

It's not like a DVD extra but maybe it is. Or not.

Thanks.....

2009-02-27T13:11:00.002Z

For some reason I'm always drawn to the list of 'thanks' in CD booklets. Not sure why as I've only ever been on one (or two) and they're generally the usual parade of producers, record execs, management and family. The most rock 'n' roll message I've come across thus far was taken from Velvet Revolver's Contraband and reads:

"...Dr Cannom for resuscitating me"

There's a better explanation of this brief aside here but it definitely caught my eye. Can I find anything better?

Tories hate the public

2009-02-11T13:37:00.009Z

To be factually and grammatically correct maybe that should read 'Tories hate The Public'.

It's the latest in a probably futile attempt to make a political issue of the biggest white elephant since the millennium dome. Yes, we all know that it cost a lot of money and it isn't finished despite being in the being-built stage for many years and having been open for a year or so.

I still don't know who thought that West Bromwich needed to make an artistic contribution to the Black Country, but they should've looked to Walsall for inspiration. The Public has never fulfilled its remit, but now it's there surely we need to find a way to make it work?

Words I learn from my children

2009-02-10T09:17:00.002Z

noob

In some ways it was inevitable. The kids would reach an age at which their slang would be inpenetrable to me. Most of it I ignore but when some is directed at me I tend to challenge them on it. Interestingly they didn't really know what a noob was, just that it was an insult used by online communities. So, I win this one by discovering via urban dictionary that noob is a slight abbreviation of newbie, someone who's new to something and doesn't understand the ropes.

Consequently it's a bigger insult online than off, as noobs are castigated for not observing the rules that all the online bores know too well. An elitist insult, yawn. Score one to the old boy.

Word of the Day #3

2009-01-26T15:14:00.002Z

Sybaritic
I suspect we all want to satisfy our senses, and wallow in luxury - at least I hope so. Hedonism is the only ambition in town.

I found this word in the Terry-Thomas biog, Bounder, which contains fantastic anecdotes if being somewhat short on emotive detail. Almost 'bang on' you might say.

I knew nothing of Sybaris, but now I do and I'm happy to share it with you.

Time for the FA Cup cliché

2009-01-24T10:44:00.002Z

Another round, another cliché. Perhaps 'under-doggedly' works well; for those teams who play in the lower divisions but through their persistence manage to harass their way through at least 60 minutes of a match against premiership opposition without being overwhelmed. Of course it all ends in tears, but maybe only after a replay and an open-top bus trip through their town.

I just fear losing to another team in claret & blue.

Perceptionism

2009-01-22T08:51:00.004Z

Today's metro horoscope suggests that I challenge my public perception. Without discussing the merits of bothering to read a horoscope I'm forced to wonder how you even attempt to change other people's perception of you.

The key problem is do you know how you're perceived by others? It's hardly as if you can get them to complete a questionnaire. If we accept that what you see isn't necessarily what you get, how much can you actually know of yourself or others?

Like many of my thoughts and considerations, these may be questions without answers. You can only hope to project the image you'd like to see of yourself, the image you admire in others - that's the ideal, then hope for the best!

Question

2009-01-13T09:30:00.003Z

If I smile at everyone I see today, how many of them will think I'm a simpleton. How many will think I'm drunk, or mentally deficient, or a dirty old man? How many simply won't notice?

Are there fixed percentages or does it depend upon the smile, or the individual receiving it? Will the perception improve if the individuals already know me, or does that depend on if they like me or not?

Or should I just not bother, and frown - as usual......

The wrong arm of the law

2009-01-12T16:24:00.002Z

When not infringing civil liberties at least the plod can be relied upon to prosecute serious criminals

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/7795835.stm

Word of the Day #2

2009-01-06T16:08:00.002Z

Spunkalicious

A friend of mine, who happens to be an esteemed psychologist and life coach, insists we should all start to use this. He wants to ensure its inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary 2009. Use it unsparingly, or spunkaliciously whenever, wherever it fits.

Never trust your online 'friends'

2009-01-05T16:42:00.002Z

Or at least never ask them for help:

http://www.shipmentoffail.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/9479.jpg

The Nostrodamus process

2009-01-04T12:36:00.002Z

It's a new year, so in a very predictable fashion it's time for everyone to prophesize over what'll happen in the next 12 months. The only reliable prediction is that by the end of December we'll all have forgotten what predictions were actually made.

Word of the day #1

2008-12-10T13:05:00.000Z

Seigneurial
Taken from Orlando Figes’ book The Whisperers.
I’m two-thirds through this absorbing history of Stalin’s USSR from the viewpoints of the people who endured it. The Whisperers is engrossing in its tales of horror but mostly by virtue of the volume of individual stories portraying the true scale of the catastrophe of Stalinism. Judging by this feature in today’s Guardian it is also a very timely read.

Question #1

2008-12-09T13:52:00.000Z

Can you tell a man's history from the scars on his shaven head?

Uneasy Rider

2008-11-26T16:15:00.000Z

This month I've been learning to ride a bicycle.

I'll sit back a second while you digest that information.

I know you thought you were reading the blog of a middle-aged- professional on the fringes of the music industry, rather than that of a six-year-old removing his stabilisers but there you have it. I never learned when I was younger and now I have to suffer the ignominy of having strangers gawp at me as I wobble around the parks of Coventry. This in itself is not unusual as strangers seem to stare at me generally and at present I always wobble - hence the bike training.

I'm not quite sure why I never learned in childhood; a combination of disinterest and relative poverty I s'pose with a heavy bias towards the former. I wasn't a sporty child so that may have had some bearing even though I still spent more time outdoors than children today seem to.

I'm now forced into it, being unable to run and finding swimming about as entertaining as daytime TV, I needed another form of cardio exercise. Cycling isn't as easy as it looks though, I'm still having trouble with a few things - steering, speed, braking, gears, perineal discomfort (y'know) and knowing where to put my massive feet on the tiny pedals.

Aside from the stares I get whilst trying to learn (the ones that make me feel like I've grown a second, even uglier head), the worst thing is that other people make it look effortless. At least with running I knew that I was doing something that few others had the inclination or ability to do, with cycling it appears that everyone from the very young to the very old can already do it.

When you tell people you're learning they at first look at you as if you're simple, and then go onto tell you that it's easy, conveniently forgetting that they learned a long time ago when their brains were more porous and their sense of fear less pronounced. I'm getting over the latter. At least now I don't feel like I'm going to maim or kill myself every time I go out, although a couple of pensioners and some small dogs might want to renew their insurance policies before they come across me.

The other problem is that there's no-one to teach you how to do it; no-one to run behind you holding the seat. My kids are very proficient but they seem rather unwilling to accompany their old man on a bike ride. The obvious shame of being seen with an adult who can't ride a bike is clearly too much for them, particularly as the adult is me. My daughter finds many excuses from staying in bed, catching up on episodes of the Bill or even doing homework. Being 12 I guess she has a highly developed sense of embarrassment and social standing. Since I have neither of those things I can career around the park with only the density of my bones and my skull to worry about.

I also have yet to find a cycling proficiency course for 44 year olds. Even if I did, I'm not sure I'd want to go. I think I'd feel like I'd slipped down the evolutionary ladder, somewhere around amoeba. There are enough opportunities in every week for my self-esteem to take a battering without joining a bunch of people who are all attempting to do stuff they should've learned years ago.

I am getting better - I'm now using four gears, so only another seventeen to go. I also now seem to be able to stay in the saddle for 10 mins at a time. Eventually I want to do that standing up pedalling thing that I see everyone else doing, and to be confident enough riding on the road to go out and buy myself a helmet. For now though not embarrassing the children would be sufficient.

The Hand Of... Oh God, Not Again!

2008-11-26T16:12:00.000Z

Being British I can bear a grudge with the best of them. I like nothing better than to nurture some perceived grievance and to slowly plot some revenge I will probably never enact. It's a national pastime, probably up there with whinging and moaning, we clearly all love to hold grudges.

This said, even I know where to draw a line. Time is usually a great healer, is there any point in wanting to piss on the grave of a school bully when you haven't seen that oaf in almost 30 years? Similarly one might think that English sports writers could move beyond the shadow of the war whenever we face Germany in any fixture. Guys, it ended 60 years ago and war is not the basis for puns. Not now, not ever.

Naturally we enjoy the schadenfreude (tactical use of Deutsch word, use the link to look it up if you need to) of some enemy or other coming to grief, even when we played no part in it. We also seem to relish the downfall of the famous or fatuous thanks to our build 'em up, knock 'em down mentality. Thus, there is Maradona. One-time king of football, latterly known for his drug problems and carrying enough blubber that he looked like he had two baby elephants wrestling in his tracksuit.

It's a fact that Maradona was one of the most gifted footballers to grace the grass of many a pitch, but you'll rarely read about that in England. Instead, I can guarantee, that accompanying any text about him will be some reference (usually in the headline) about the World Cup Goal he scored against 'us' using his hand. Since he then referred to it 'tactically' (if not tactfully) as the 'hand of God' this will usually, if not always, feature in the article.

Picking, at random, Tuesday's edition of The Times there was a mention of 'the hand' on the back page followed by two articles inside which also referred to it. Three mentions within three pages. All papers have also carried quotes from Terry Butcher, one of England's 'defenders' that day, who says he'll never forgive Maradona for that goal.

You might think that Butcher would be happy about the nature of the infamous goal, generally because it obscures the memory of Maradona and his cohorts running rings around the England defence and Butcher in particular. Yes, it was cheating and it caused some pain at the time, but those of us who go to football on a regular basis see similar injustice every week and England have had dubious penalties and other decisions go in their favour on a random basis before and since then.

The main problem about the 'hand' goal, apart from its ongoing repetition in the press and the stain on Maradona's ability, is that it frequently allows us to forget about Maradona's other goal in that game - one of the best you'll see in any match, World Cup or otherwise.

MARADONNA - BEST GOAL IN HISTORY (YOUTUBE)

Can we please remember Maradona the genius, skipping at least six challenges as he picks up the ball in his own half and dances through the England defence before escaping the desperate lunge of Butcher himself to slot the ball home? This is a moment of football history we should all rejoice in, despite the fact that it was against England.

Sadly, we're not that magnanimous. On You Tube vids of the 'hand of God' goal have been viewed over a million times, but the better goal (above) has been seen on a far less frequent basis. How ridiculous is that?

In case you didn't know, the 'hand of God' goal was scored in 1986. 22 years ago, the common thread between Argentina and Germany is of course that we've been to war with them both. We have one Remembrance Day per year for real heroes and genuine hardship, but it seems that there are many more opportunities to dredge up ill-feeling and petty grievances.

Brand Punk

2008-11-26T16:09:00.000Z

I went to see Rancid at the Academy the other night. They were great, in case you were interested. I suspect it's slightly more likely that you've never heard of them, which is a great shame - but it doesn't seem to hold them back. For the uninitiated they're an American punk band formed in San Francisco in 1991 who've released six albums and never really troubled the UK chart much. To quantify this statement I should note that their biggest album hit in this country was in 2003 and reached 29 on the chart.

On that basis and your relative and understandable lack of knowledge of them, you'd probably wonder how they manage to successfully tour the UK, playing 13 nights in Academy-sized (2k) venues. Is this further evidence that the live music industry is thriving while recorded music goes down the pan?

Maybe it is, but more fundamental to their 'success' is probably the fact that they understand their fanbase and they're consistent - they don't deviate and they've never really compromised their art for commercial purposes.

The major sea-change in the music industry over the last five to ten years has been that acts can have a more direct relationship with their fans than ever before. They can communicate with them through websites they own themselves or blogs and e-mails that they write themselves. They have, to an extent, cut out the middle-men and profiteers and subsequently they can more easily turn their art into a direct lower-cost sell, they also receive direct feedback more instantly.

Clearly the 'bigger' the act becomes the harder it is to achieve this, one-to-one communication is the first sacrifice, but they can still be seen to have a more direct relationship than ever before - and this alone will be the key to success for more and more acts in future.

I've read a lot lately about how commercial brands (not bands!) need to be more in touch with what their customers want, but it's very hard to achieve. Your washing powder may be used by millions of people, but do they really want to talk to you about it? I doubt it; they have better things to do with their time.

This is where the music industry has a 'head-start' on the commercial world, a lot of people define themselves by their musical tastes and would be only to keen to develop a 'relationship' with their favourite artistes. It has kudos and a sheen of celebrity attached - but not too much because the latter instance is why a lot of new bands fail.

Artists are too ready to seek the instant fame and revenue potential that they think is attached to having a big record deal. The big deals are all gone of course, a thing of the past, and whilst I can see that there's a benefit to having someone else pick up the bills it isn't the only route to market. These days you're likely to have more success in music by having ideals and demonstrating them clearly - by being principled and sticking to them.

Rancid, and their ilk, haven't all gone the Radiohead route of 'choose what you pay' downloads, but they all maintain a healthy fan-base by upholding their punk principles. The original onset of punk opened the doors for a lot of initiative - independent record labels, promoters and the like. It was refreshing to see on Tuesday that even old punks can still blaze the trail, they can still make it happen and still find an audience. They can even teach the new boys a few tricks - keep it real.

Contains Mild Peril

2008-11-26T16:08:00.000Z

I'm not sure if you've noticed but Cinema classifications have become works of comic genius. We've come a long way since the board of censors just scraped a random ranking on each film without any indication of why it was given; now every film has a little description of why you might (or might not) want to go and see it. More often than not the descriptions are becoming almost as compelling as the films.

I'd like to share a few favourites with you before I reveal the absolute classic of all film rankings. My most recent update from Odeon Cinemas told me that a film I'd never heard of (and rated PG, for all ages essentially) contained 'mild language and sexy dancing'. I was tempted if only to find out what censors think sexy dancing actually looks like - I suspect it was nothing like the image I had conjured up in my filthy mind.

Another film on show that week, 'The Edge of Love', contained 'strong language and bloody injury detail' which probably tells you all you need to know - just the one detail mind. Similarly 'Taken' is described as having 'strong violence and scene of torture' in which I'm not sure whether they've left out a definitive 'a' to nominate one scene or a plural 's' for many. Or possibly the censors are either illiterate or having typographical problems, it happens to us all.

Frequently you may be forced to wonder whether you favour strong language or violence, it's a hard choice made no easier by the classifications of 'Death Race' and 'Righteous Kill'. The former contains 'strong violence and language' whilst the latter has 'strong language and violence'. I hate to be petty (that's a lie btw) but does this mean that the language is stronger than the violence in one and vice versa in the other? I think we should be told.

Sometimes the descriptions are quite precise - 'contains hard drug references, bleeped strong language and sex references' or 'contains infrequent moderate sex references and language' (infrequent and moderate? Forget it). Occasionally they might make the film sound more interesting than it is, for instance 'Mamma Mia' contains 'mild language and sexual references' which sounds a damn sight more enticing than saying 'contains Meryl Streep, lots of Abba songs and is primarily for women and gays' but obviously a lot less accurate.

The daddy of all film classifications has to be the one given to Beowulf. Where most films have a sentence at most, Beowulf's specifically worded classification was four paragraphs long - it was practically a book and almost certainly better than the film itself. I am compelled to share the highlights of this epic classification:

Bloody disembowelling
Repeated monster eyeball stabbing
Monster's heart ripped from chest
Monsters ripping people in 2 (not sure why the use of number rather than word)

And of course my favourite of all time -

Sung references to masturbation and fellation

Frankly with a review like that, who wouldn't want to see it?

It was so amazing that I actually took a photo of the printed note on the door of the theatre. I'm only sad that I couldn't capture the whole page (and that it's not a better pic). I include it here only because you may not otherwise believe me.

Should you wish to research this matter further the following site will be of interest:

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/recent/index.php?media=film

This one is even better since it also reveals the latest 'adult' features to find their way onto video: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/recent/index.php?media=film

The Brand and Ross Perspective

2008-11-26T16:06:00.000Z

I'm rapidly reaching the conclusion that one of the most important attributes to possess is a sense of perspective. I wasn't going to comment on the Ross/Brand/Sachs affair but since it's still running out of control like a herd of bulls being stung by wasps in a china storage warehouse, I feel the need to call for calm. Storm, meet teacup.

As I sit here writing there have been 30,000 complaints to the BBC about a broadcast aired almost three weeks ago. That's 30,000 people with nothing better to do, but get on their high-horse and comment on something they didn't actually hear, something they've only read about. Something they have no need or cause to be offended by.

So, a presenter used a swear word. Get over it; it was after 10pm at night. So they might have offended an old man who used to be on TV. They apologised and he's forgiven them, get a grip. They may also have offended a 23 year old woman. I suspect that since she's in a burlesque group called 'The Satanic Sluts', she is not offended easily. She may only have been aggrieved that she wasn't in the Country early enough to take advantage of the resulting publicity. Yep, that's cynical but she has employed Max Clifford and it is 2008. I wonder if Sachs was more embarrassed/outraged by Ross & Brand than he is by his own granddaughter spilling all the gory detail in The Sun.

I've worked in radio for over 20 years and during that entire period I don't think the stations I've worked for would've collectively received 30,000 complaints. In the eight years I spent broadcasting for the BBC (WM), I doubt that I had a cumulative of 30,000 listeners. Thirty thousand is a lot of people, a lot of complaints - but what exactly are they moaning about?

Given that the issue has now reached fever pitch, been in every newspaper and TV bulletin and even discussed in parliament it has moved a long way from the original broadcast and the original issue of offence. I suspect that people are now complaining for one of five reasons:

1. This shouldn't happen on the BBC, because they're an institution to whom we have to pay a license fee
2. They don't like Brand, or Ross, or both
3. They like complaining
4. They like being angry
5. They believe too much of what they read in the Daily Heil Mail

Point 3 is a very important one. I read a lot of letters in various papers describing Ross & Brand as talentless. More than 30,000 people would have to disagree with that, otherwise the BBC wouldn't be employing these incredibly talented people in the first instance. It may be a large number of complaints but it's still a small percentage of the population. The larger number who listen to both clearly can't be bothered to complain about complainers.

This is 30,000 people with too much time on their hands, complaining about not much really. The people who heard the programme were those tuning into Radio 2 specifically to hear Russell Brand, they know what to expect and wouldn't have been offended. Those people might have only complained because it wasn't actually funny or offensive enough. There are a lot of those people which is why Brand was employed by the BBC.

It's become a circus, one with too many clowns and a ton of elephant shit. The complaints escalated from 1,500 to 30,000 within three days; all because of the media coverage, not because it was all so offensive.

The worst thing is that there are more important and urgent atrocities going on in the world for people to complain about. Sadly none of these issues would inflame 30,000 people enough to put pen to paper or finger to phone. Normally these people are too apathetic, which is a very sad state of affairs.

I am beside myself over the tens of billions in profits made by BP & Shell in the last quarter. Yes, I know they're businesses and exist to profit. I also know that BP is a British one paying taxes to our Government so I should be happy. I'm not. BP was a former nationalised industry so previously we'd have seen all of those profits. So, even though I'm not a communist per se I'm still pissed off that during the start of this recession, at the time I was paying over £1.20 for a litre of diesel, the petroleum companies were bathing in our cash.

If I had more time I might write a letter. 'Dear BBC.....'

A non-runner's guide to irony, greenery, Motown and Jamie Oliver

2008-11-26T16:02:00.000Z

I've become nervous about using the word 'ironic'. I blame Ed Byrne. Since he famously trashed the Alanis Morrisette song of the same name it has put the fear in me. What if I get it wrong?

In case you may be in the minority of people who've never seen it, then please join me in this celebration: "It's called ironic but it's written and sung by a woman who doesn't understand irony"

IRONY - ED BYRNE (YOUTUBE)

Anyway, to take the risk, it was the Coventry Half-Marathon last weekend. I've run it for the previous two years and last year was my best ever time over that distance. Even weirder, considering it's 13 miles of slog, I really enjoyed it. Sadly I'm now banned from running - on a surgeon's advice, and that tends to be the kind of advice I take. It seems that I've destroyed part of the cartilage in my left knee and now if I run I'm just banging bone against bone which isn't advisable, apparently.

When I did run I wore Asics trainers, not particularly easy to find in my size, 14. A few wks ago Asics opened their first European store, it happens to be on a street down which I walk whenever I have to work in London - which is frequently. Is that ironic?

Join me now in this tenuous link. Gordon Ramsey runs marathons, his fellow celeb-chef Jamie Oliver does not. I have grown to like Jamie though; he tends not to take the easy option. It'd be easy to go on telly with a cookery prog - God knows there are enough of them. Jamie's last few TV series have had a message and a cultural impact, for this alone he should be praised. His school dinners programme made a difference, he achieved something - could you say the same of Ainsley Harriott?

His latest TV excursion, Ministry of Food, has been criticised for 'chav-baiting'. I may be simplifying the issue but I think you get the point. Heaven forbid that someone should go on TV and point out that there is a gulf between rich and poor and that has an impact upon education and diet. For this we should praise Jamie - he didn't have to do it, he could've sat at home and pocketed the Sainsbury's dollar (more of this below) but he clearly feels he has a responsibility.

No irony here perhaps. Until you reflect that the whole notion of the 'MOF' prog is to get people cooking, to share recipes. He's based it on a pyramid format where every one person he teaches passes it onto four people who in turn each pass it onto another four. Very clever, and it's aimed at people who have more time on their hands than money. It seems a shame then that the book of the series retails for £25. Would his publishers mind if we took photocopies and shared them around? I suspect they would.

As regular readers know I recently stopped shopping at 'Britain's biggest discounter'. Not for their crimes against English, but for other moral reasons. I have since been using Jamie's mates or, as I've recently seen them advertised, 'Britain's greenest supermarket'.

Does it seem green to you that 200g of Kenco coffee is more expensive than buying 2 jars of 100g? I presume there's more glass used in two jars than one, there's also considerably more glass in either of them than there is in the 200g refill pouch that is also on sale at a higher price than the 200g jar. It's probably unfair to take them to task on a single non-green issue but as it's something I purchase I can take the risk, I can also take the photos which is a very weird thing to do.

I guess I was protecting myself against legal action whilst obviously hoping that Sainsbury's are less litigious than Britain's biggest dicks-counter, as that was one of the reasons I'd stopped going there.

Once upon a time I didn't understand Motown. I thought it was music for weddings. A few acts turned my opinion. The Four Tops were one of them. Who can fail to appreciate the drama in their songs and the precise and powerful delivery of it? Levi Stubbs, rest in peace: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/arts/music/18stubbs.html

For more Jamie Oliver 'backlash', this is also worthwhile: http://jamiegohome.com/

It's A Free World (Baby)

2008-11-26T16:01:00.000Z

I love the internet. I also hate it. I have no idea how we managed without it. It's a bloody time vacuum though, isn't it? The time you're spending reading this could probably be spent more productively, as could the time I'm spending typing it. This is me thinking direct to print, if it was a podcast I'd be thinking aloud, both of which are equally dangerous for all concerned.

The net seems to put so much at our fingertips - with every keystroke I feel like I'm either on the edge of some great revelation or equally likely to fall off the precipice into a porn explosion. Accidentally of course, the purveyors of porn have cornered the market in search engine optimisation, google anything and you'll get a porn option at some point or other. Or maybe that's just the things I search for.......

Sadly we don't seem to be too willing to pay for what we get online. We use it to find stuff cheaper or, preferably, free. You aren't paying to read this and I'm not getting paid to write it - is this the future of journalism, the uneducated spouting off for the pleasure of the illiterate? I mean no offence but if I wasn't a fame-junkie who needs the ego-boost of having his name in 'print' then neither of us would be here now. You wouldn't be having your time wasted by me - it'd probably be someone else instead.

The music industry was first to feel the impact of global data transfer and a recent report stated that '95% of downloaded music is illegal' (source; IFPI Digital Music Report 2008). The upshot of this is that a whole generation is emerging, a generation who believe that everything is meant to be free - from information to music. The long-term impact of this is a world of entertainment with no obvious means of funding itself. Do we not all believe in a fair wage for a service provided?

What the new generation term 'dead-tree-media' is in serious decline, all news media has a surfeit of competition - instant or otherwise. All old media has invested in new media outlets with no real idea of when one will eventually replace the other, and even if the new can survive as an independent entity.

As the global markets head for recession, we may all find ourselves in a position where bartering of a service is the only worthwhile currency. In this market do I have anything you'd pay for? I don't have any practical talents as such and the editors of the Mercury may be paying the right price for these musings. Could I really feed my children with my knowledge of the UK live music industry and a large slice of media experience? It's already tough out there; perhaps I need to think about starting an allotment.

I don't want to worry you, but in the cold light of economic collapse you may want to analyse what you're worth. I've started to wonder, and it's bloody scary. All contributions to the Paul Flower preservation fund (PFPF) welcomed - I clearly can't trust any banks so send me your pledges and I'll advise on the appropriate transfer method.

Give 'Em Enough Rope

2008-11-26T15:56:00.000Z

"Don't have any heroes, they're all useless."
John Lydon, 1976

What becomes of the broken artist? When all your credibility is cast into the wind where do you go? On a nostalgia trip obviously - but when the catalogue cash cow is milked dry and the horse well and truly flogged then perhaps you can rent your former notoriety to commercial enterprise. Thus we see the one-time enemy of the establishment, John Lydon, selling butter, it clearly wouldn't melt.

John Lydon - Countrylife Commercial (YouTube)

It probably seems archaic that we once expected more of our rock stars. Young people today might be surprised that we once held them up to be figureheads, role-models and icons. What an incredibly stupid thing to have done.

I guess The Pistols were a flash-in-the-pan, over before they began, but for a while they were an incandescent ball of fury - a H bomb at the heart of the entertainment industry. I was too young to be a punk, still at school with an adolescent love of heavy metal, but I could appreciate the spirit and enjoy the energy of it all. It clearly had an impact and led to some great music, opening the door for artists and labels in a frenzy of creativity.

Long after it all fell flat, in death and dishonour; we should perhaps admire John Lydon's tenacity - his brazen-faced attitude and the delight he seems to have in being an irritant. Where once he wound up the powers that be, now he annoys those who believed in him, having becoming a cartoon caricature of his reputation. At the very least he is occasionally entertaining, some never reach those heights.

In the end does everyone sell-out? People probably had greater expectations of The Clash, radical-chic with global punk sensibilities. As John Lydon filled our TV screens in tartan last wk, so The Clash released three 'new' products - one of which, a coffee table biog with glossy photos, must surely be ironic. A punk coffee-table book?

In the future there will probably be no credibility, just good & bad. Already the boundaries are very blurred - people seem to have much broader taste in music and reject any ridicule that would once have been attached. Cheese is embraced, pop is no longer parodied but celebrated, and celebrity is all.

Currently there are still those who haven't sold their soul, Radiohead spring readily to mind, but artists trying to break-through in 2009 will find themselves facing the choice of whether to appear on advertising-funded free-music-sites or keep their songs to themselves. Do you give in or do you take every available route to the 'market'?

It's hard to be an ethical musical force, in the future you'll have to take the money before you can run - then just hope you can get far enough away if you eventually become rich. What would Radiohead do today, stick to their beliefs and risk ruin or join myspacemusic with the rest of the hopefuls and be funded by ads? In the end all artists will be working for 'the man'. It seems a long, long time since 1977 - how far we've come since punk.

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
John Lydon, San Francisco Winterland, 1978

Political Aliens

2008-11-17T14:49:00.000Z

The British political conference season is upon us. Brummies who may have tried to walk through what they previously considered to be their own public square will be more than aware of this. The security lockdown for a conference by a party not even in power does seem on the wrong side of excessive. We can only hope that all those well-protected Tories are out using their discount vouchers in our clubs, restaurants & bars so that we do see a positive balance to our local economy.

Other than this visible intrusion there's barely a ripple of excitement caused by the conference or anything else in British politics, it is relentlessly dull. I suppose politics isn't really built for stimulation, even the arguments and petty jibes are yawn-inducing, and used so repetitively that they become ineffective.

The fact that politics touches all of our lives should make it relevant, important even. The presence of politicians essentially makes it quite the opposite. Politics is essentially practiced by people with no grasp on reality, people who've lived their entire lives within institutions - from higher education to the Houses of Parliament. These people have no idea how to engage with us, even when they've been repeatedly schooled in the practice. They are the essential proof that there is a massive difference between theory and reality.

Essentially now it's about leaders. Do we buy into the over-educated Etonian in love with his own soundbites or the principled but dour Scot who says one thing and often does something else entirely. Do we really have anything in common with these power-obsessed individuals?

I always vote but the very concept of casting favour in the direction of those who are so desperately needy for it seems alien to me. They may pretend to want to help you but really they're ego-driven-power-crazed aliens who want to be top 'man'.

Perhaps Dave could at least try to humanise himself by spending some time with me whilst he's in the area. We could take a brisk jog away from the sanitised areas of Broad Street. Head away from brindleyplace on the canal towpaths, away from the over-priced and under-sold luxury apartments, run under the Dudley Road and past all the disused industrial buildings, the scrap-yards and into the heart of what used to be a manufacturing industry before Thatcher.

Failing that we could just go to The Wellington on Bennetts Hill, have a few pints of Pig on the Wall and talk shite. Then we'll stroll down to catch the train from New Street and laugh at how run-down the station is, perhaps we'll also wonder how trains that are advertised on the trainline website can suddenly disappear. Or even muse about why the pre-recorded voices of the announcements weren't given phonetic pronunciations of some of the local place-names.

I doubt we'll have that much time, so maybe he can just come down the baggies with me. He can probably still afford to buy me a pint in the ground before the match, as I'm certainly not paying the £3 they want for it these days. Maybe after a few stellas he might agree to buy my Bradford and Bingley shares. Probably not though, he doesn't look quite that stupid.

Metalic k.o. - What do you want from live?

2008-11-17T14:44:00.000Z

Sometimes it's hard to feel sorry for international mega-stars, they have fame, adulation and money - but sometimes they also catch an unnecessary crock of criticism.

Witness Metallica, they took the unfortunate stance of opposing Napster & music-file-sharing at a time when everyone began to steal music and they've been whipping boys ever since. Whatever your opinion on this issue and the point that it's led us to in the decline of recorded music sales, surely they deserve a second-chance?

They're currently under fire (again) for two reasons and I have sympathy for them on one of these. Frontman James Hetfield took the time during their O2 gig (£5 entry and proceeds to charity remember) to ask people to put down their phones and just enjoy themselves. His comment was that "a 2 second blurb of shitty Metallica on youtube is not gonna make you famous". Naturally it ended up on youtube:

YOUTUBE

Obviously I believe in free will and free choice but this is one of those things that also irritate the hell out of me. Why is it that so many people feel the need to take photos or video when they're at a gig? Is it not enough to be there and to enjoy it? Do you really have to prove you were there? Do you really have to record a clip of video that shows nothing but some flashing lights and poor audio to remind you of a minute or two of a song that you missed because you were too busy f**king about with your 'phone?

I went to see Nickelback at the NEC (or is it LG Arena?) last week - at the behest of my 12 yr old daughter. It was just the same there. The band had barely walked on-stage before hundreds of brightly-lit screens appeared above people's heads. Those people presumably now have photo and video of some shadows, bangs and flashes - there was a lot of pyro - and a loud song-intro they'll barely be able to deceipher. That'll be something to show the grandchildren.

I blame the growth of the so-called 'social media', in some ways it's restricting our actual sociability. Instead of actually socialising we are too busy creating a profile or image of ourselves that shows how sociable we are. We're too busy trying to record a vision or write a message about the experience, instead of just experiencing it. I don't need a Large Hadron Collider to prove that a different universe exists; it's all around me - people not living but trying to demonstrate that they lived. They were nearly in the moment, but that moment passed them by.

As for Metallica, it seems all is lost. They are now seen as the flag-bearers of the old system, 21st Century Luddites. Lest we forget that they changed metal/rock forever and are one of the World's best live bands. Their 2nd crime last week was to be release a great new album, but on CD version that is clearly over-compressed and consequently sounds crap. Ironically, one of the reasons that this has become obvious is that there's also a game version of the same recording - for Guitar Hero - which sounds much better. This is a crime I can't exonerate them from; frankly they should be ashamed of themselves.

It could be an argument for what are apparently termed - 'audiophiles' - people who can recognise when something sounds wrong. I'm not sure what's wrong with being one of those. The decline of recorded music - be it CD or MP3 - in my mind is partially due to bad technique at the mastering stage of CDs. Old folk like me can hear the difference and the difference is not good.

This is potentially the subject of a wider argument, which I may return to at some stage. In the interim there are some links below which give the jist of the situation, please pursue them if you're interested.

I'm constantly told that the live sector is flourishing. Perhaps it's because live now sounds much better than CD or MP3. Or perhaps it's because people need content for their youtube and facebook pages.........

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/does-metallicas.html

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/universal-cance.html

http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/2008/09/metallica-death-magnetic-sounds-better.html

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/will-metallica.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clqfjh_TeSU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlNZ6aDkAHM&feature=related

http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/2008/09/metallica-death-magnetic-stop-loudness.html

Art? For Art's Sake...

2008-11-17T14:40:00.001Z

I don't really understand 'art'. This may not come as a great surprise to you; possibly you already have me typecast as the archetypal black-country-bloke. I'm not about to burst that bubble at the altar of modern art, or any art from any era come to think of it. Or any altar.

This is not to say that I don't appreciate art, I recently stood in awe at the base of 'The Angel Of The North' and consider most of Gormley's work to be quite brilliant. I suspect that - like music - the concept of what we individually consider to be 'great art' is a hugely personal decision. And then there's the other stuff.

Every week or month there is some example of the 'other stuff' to inflame or amuse us, even when rational common sense demands that we should simply ignore it. This week it comes courtesy of Andy Savage and his lightswitches at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol.

In case you missed this story, Andy's 'art' is two normal light switches, one on the ground floor and one on the first floor at the gallery. The unpretentiously titled 'switch' has a twist - as the ground floor switch controls the lights on the first floor and the first floor switch obviously controls the lights on the ground. Genius.

I know a lot of people in new-build houses who'll be ecstatic to discover that what they'd originally considered to be an electrical design fault is actually a priceless work of art. Or possibly it only counts as art if it features in a gallery and was installed by someone who might have attended Art College.

I suspect this is the crux of our argument with 'art'. Can it only be called by the correct terminology if it has a scruffy but pretentious tosser applying some deep & hidden meaning to it? Witness Damien Hirst's work, a pickled shark in formaldehyde? That'll be 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' of course.

I generally like Hirst although I wouldn't pay to see his work; I think he's earned enough. I don't have a problem with anyone's perception of what art might be. I figure that quite a few people are probably more culturally liberated than I am. I suspect my problem is related to what I consider to be the 'emperor's new clothes' - an unmade bed being 'art' because Tracey Emin put hers in a gallery.

If art is truly something that appeals to the emotions, above all other senses then we choose the art that we love. I consider the song 'God Only Knows' by The Beach Boys to be a work of art. On the basis of charging for modern art would it be the case that if Brian Wilson had only made one recording of the song and sold it to the highest bidder he'd have earned more than the £70.5m that Damien Hirst trousered last week?

On the other hand there is Banksy. That his stencils earn lots of money might be dubious but the fact that his work is greatly accessible, often has a point to make and pops up in random locations is reaching the masses in a way that most galleries never will. What's not to love?

That this argument is cyclical and ever recurring is obvious. However, I was surprised to find that people were making the same points over a century ago:

"To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it."
Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art? (1898)

I can't argue with that.

The Wrong Mercury

2008-11-17T14:38:00.000Z

The Mercury Music Prize is a weird thing, I'm not sure anyone can adequately explain why it really exists. Their website has a reasonable stab at it: 'The prize exists solely to champion UK music by promoting the 12 albums of the year by British or Irish artists'. Given this I'm not quite sure how the American Alison Kraus sneaked in this year, possibly under Robert Plant's greatcoat or behind Mark Lanegan, another American collaborator who was found on last year's list. I mention him as he's superb, around 6ft 6in tall and has the deepest voice on earth.

Anyway, back to the Mercury. It started 17 years ago as a sort of reaction to The BRITs which were considered 'too mainstream' - something The Mercurys could never be accused of. However, when you consider this as your rationale then having any pop albums in the shortlist seems something of a contradiction. In 1997 The Spice Girls' 'Spice' was on the shortlist which was surely an anomaly in every sense of the term.

I always figure that if I own or have at least heard around a third of the albums on the shortlist then I can probably still consider myself as contemporary or eclectic; every year I just about squeak by. This year I've heard five and probably still listen to three of them - so that's probably a result. Here's the list for your own analysis -

Adele 19
British Sea Power Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial Untrue
Elbow The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle Shine
Last Shadow Puppets The Age of the Understatement
Laura Marling Alas I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon Stainless Style
Portico Quartet Knee Deep in the North Sea
Radiohead In Rainbows
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset The Bairns
Robert Plant & Alison Kraus Raising Sand

To further complicate matters the prize itself is named after a sponsor that no longer exists, Mercury having once been a telecoms firm. Hence all subsequent sponsors get to add their brand to one that went bust. Having a generic title gives you free rein of course and the website helpfully informs us that 'All genres of music are eligible and all albums are treated equally'.

It's hard to argue against a winner like Elbow when the judging criteria are so open. Musical taste is a subjective matter, it is tricky to evaluate the comparative merits of artists work within the same genre - so how do you decide fairly between dubstep (Burial) and folk (Laura/Rachel) or jazz (Portico)?

The formula for the shortlist seems simplistic enough: 3 x pop, 3 x indie, 2 x urban, 2 x folk and 2 x artists that no-one has ever heard of. For The Portico Quartet this year, try Zoe Rahman in 06 or Susheela Raman in 01, Thomas Ades in 99, John Tavener in 97, etc. I love the fact that it gives a spotlight to albums in an age where single-track or selective-track downloads would appear to be the future, but with only 12 they could at least all be fairly accessible?

Some artists seem to drop on the shortlist just by virtue of releasing an album - both of Arctic Monkeys releases to date (and their frontman's side-project this year), both of Amy Winehouse's but no winners, Radiohead have four appearances on 17 shortlists (five if you count Thom Yorke's solo album, on 2006's shortlist) but no winners and PJ Harvey had three until she won it in 2001, since which nada.

The classical artists may be happy to share a shortlist with their pop & rock contemporaries but none has yet lifted the trophy. Perhaps more bizarre in the year of Britpop's peak (1994) there were at least a couple of more-likely winners than M People who actually took it home.

For this reason it has always seemed a wilfully obscure award. For example they picked Badly Drawn Boy in 2000 ahead of clearly better albums by Doves & Death In Vegas. Or going with a drum n bass frenzy in 1997 picking the admittedly great Roni Size; but suggesting that 'New Forms' was better than Radiohead's 'OK Computer' or The Prodigy's 'Fat Of The Land' may have been a mistake.

If the best thing we can say about the Mercury is that it's unpredictable is that a solid enough basis for a ceremony? It throws a spotlight on a wide variety of musical titles, which is a great thing but how many of us are now inspired to go and listen to The Portico Quartet or Rachel Unthank? Sadly, me neither.

What we really need is The Sunday Mercury Music Prize. I may compile a shortlist by walking blindfolded around HMV in the Pavilions and picking up whatever CDs I knock to the floor. You can then choose the winners by drawing raffle tickets, or rolling a dice to match the number I've randomly given to each of the discs. I have a feeling it could easily be as valid as the real thing. I expect Channel 4 to commission the TV documentary shortly.

Is English Football Doomed?

2008-11-17T14:36:00.001Z

As one of my favourite bands once said, 'let's get this straight from the start': I'm not a sports commentator, I'm just a fan. I actually tried commentating once, for clubcall, I was useless. All you had to do (at the time) was update every 15 minutes and whenever a goal was scored. I think I was covering Shrewsbury vs Scunthorpe and it didn't help that one of the teams scored three goals in close succession - I couldn't update the phoneline quick enough, as I was concentrating on reporting the last goal another one would go in. I haven't tried to do it since - to be fair they haven't asked me.

Now there's almost too much coverage; too many media owners and sponsors pitching for the same slice of the same pie. Consequently the clubs get greedier and the price of admission gets harder to afford. We've seen this process escalating for a number of years now; just when you think it can't get any more ridiculous it does just that.

One of the ongoing debates has been whether the cost of football will eventually become beyond the man-in-the-street. To an extent this has already happened, my last football-related blog mentioned that the average fan had become both older and richer, the football spectator has gone from working to middle-class. With the credit crunch now starting to bite the cost of being a fan will soon be beyond most of us. If I hadn't already bought my season ticket there's no way I'd be stumping up £40 for a category A game at the Hawthorns. Cup matches have been the first to suffer, at all grounds these fixtures have been sparsely attended and they will become ever more so.

Currently I'm choosing to actively spectate rather than passively support, my money goes on the physical participation of attending the game and not the sedentary satellite subscription. One can see that the top clubs are thinking only in terms of the latter, with an increasing number of foreign owners flooding into the sport it's one of the only ways that they'll get to see what they own. In sport as in life, as the rich get richer the poor will eventually get shafted.

It is usually the job of the football fan to hate their club's owners of course and Mike Ashley at Newcastle has become this season's pantomime villain, with Dennis Wise as his evil-dwarf and an Icelandic ugly-sister from West Ham thrown in to keep a tight rein on the purse-strings.

Should we really be vilifying these people for trying to balance budgets? This is what normal businesses do. None of us can afford to employ bungling comedic managers, even if they are folk-heroes, and not many of us can sustain over-spending if the raw materials we buy don't make the end-product any more successful. I'm aware that I'm over-stretching this comparative analogy to manufacturing businesses but I think it's worthy of consideration, because without it we all invite our clubs to be the playthings of disinterested playboys.

We may consider that Manchester City have caught a lucky break, exchanging one potentially dubious owner for a considerably richer version, but the knock-on effect could destroy all clubs as we currently know them. Rich men competing with each other to prove the size of their wallets will be an ego-fest to fill the back pages, and may give us all some amusing 'david and goliath' moments, but we will all feel the knock-on as normal clubs struggle to compete.

It's been a long time since football clubs made their living from hard-working, locally-raised players - even the smaller premiership squads are overflowing with foreign talent. This is in no way a xenophobic thought, but it seems very odd that we may be supporting a process by which our national game will be played out by American/Saudi-owned teams managed by Spaniards composed of non-English-players sponsored by global corporations for the benefit of worldwide TV audiences on channels owned by Australians and Irishmen........oops, I think we already are.

Things change and progress is not always obviously beneficial to all, this may be considered as the survival of the fittest. Our club-sides already succeed on an international stage where the national side has ceased to do so. When the European Super League is eventually ushered in, as it inevitably will be, we may be forced to wonder where it all went wrong. Will all Man City fans really then be seeing it as the time when it all went right?

Brands on the Run

2008-11-17T14:33:00.001Z

I am interested in the psychology of marketing. I'm not proud of it, but a man's got to be interested in something (other than football & women) and it's better than stamp-collecting, train-spotting or morris-dancing. Although in its defence I understand now that morris-dancing is all about the beer; it's an excuse to go on day-long pub-crawls with your mates. Apparently wives don't mind as they know their morris-dancing spouses have no chance of pulling whilst wearing silly clothes, bells on their ankles and carrying sticks. They might want to consider the shame of having their loved-ones seen publicly in this pursuit though.

I digress. I can defend my interest in the mechanics of marketing as it's a by-product of my work. I have had cause to work alongside marketing-folk in promoting events or radio stations or the like. It comes to mind now as one of my key clients, Virgin Radio is in the process of changing its name. Consequently some of my friends and colleagues have spent many hours in, and out of, over-illuminated boardrooms agonising over whether the brand means more than its name.

Of course it does, but sometimes there is scant evidence to support this. Let's take some popular current media campaigns. You may have seen the Aryan-type racing a car around Germanic landmarks with Wagner blasting in the background, or the supporting press ads featuring the Eagle made of car-parts. You might possibly have been able to correctly recognise that this ad is for Citroen, or more likely that it was some French car-maker claiming to have learned something from the Teutonic race. Personally I feel that the possible reason that some people buy Citroen is that they're not German. They're buying them for their non-Deutsche features. Presumably if you wanted a car with German efficiency and features then you'd buy a VW or a BMW, or whatever. Why would you want to buy fake German?

My main worry (as someone interested in the psychology) would be that Citroen are undermining their brand. Are they suggesting that up to this point the cars they made were basically crap? That they needed to nick ideas from their European neighbours? Do Citroen play these ads in their increasingly-patriotic homeland? I doubt it.

By contrast the Germans seem to be on the run; the last BMW ad I saw seemed to be so similar to the recent Honda ads that I'd think they could be sued for plagiarism. The French want to be German but the German's know that drivers now think in Japanese.

Another, more subtle, example is Gordon's Gin. No doubt you've seen the billboards and press-ads. You may not remember them, because essentially it's just another picture of Gordon Ramsay with a slogan and a bottle. You see the link obviously, Gordon Ramsay - Gordon's Gin. Except, of course, it isn't Ramsay's gin - it's Alexander Gordon's gin, and was invented hundreds of years before Ramsay was even born.

I don't drink gin, and the presence of a potty-mouthed celebrity-chef wouldn't change that habit even if I do like him on TV. I guess they're playing on the concept that it's something to do with 'taste' - both Gordon's have it. To the untrained eye though I would suspect it just makes it look like Ramsay owns it. I suspect that he's also linked to a lot of other products, in and out of the kitchen. Consequently his impact is diminished and the brand is devalued.

What's in a name? When Virgin Megastores became Zavvi their profits actually increased, even though that looks like a crap name. Marathon became Snickers to align with its European branding which sort of makes sense, I didn't stop buying them. Now it's going back to being called Marathon which is slightly more perplexing as a whole generation will have grown up with Snickers!

Within a month when Virgin Radio definitively and decisively becomes Absolute Radio it will still have a similar music policy and key-presenters and the new owners will want to improve and promote if anything. Do people listen to a radio station because of its name? Fortunately the research says no. Like many Virgin-named brands, it hasn't been Branson-owned in many years, the name is licensed, and the new owners don't see the point in investing in a brand which they can never properly own. Many things in marketing confuse me, but this seems to make great sense. For the sake of my business I hope that everyone else agrees.

Football Unfocused

2008-11-17T14:30:00.000Z

My friend Chris lives in New York. He sent me a message on facebook yesterday; it said "full of gloom yet?" I needed no further explanation. I knew exactly what he meant. As fans of West Bromwich Albion this is the state in which we live three quarters of each year, every year, wherever we're living.

I didn't miss the football season. At all. I was happy to enjoy the European Championships and appreciate the style and craft of the combatants without thinking about any misplaced patriotism. I had no emotional investment; I could experience it on a purely passive level - a voyeur, if you like.

If I try to think back to a time when I really enjoyed going to the match on a regular basis it would probably scare me. It may be that this time was actually 30 years ago. Certainly this would be true if I were thinking of success and attractive performances in the top league; it was also the time that I started actively going to 'the match'.

For a few years I was watching a great team, skilful players who played with a great spirit and didn't need to kiss their badges to prove their loyalty. I was amongst people who I considered to be like me, born of the Black Country and proud to stand and sing for their team. Last week I read that the average football fan is middle-class, male and in his forties. I once considered this to be special, now I've become average.

This is my main hobby, although I'd consider it more likely to be called an obsession. I use my leisure time to do it and frequently have to negotiate and arrange other responsibilities around it. It's time that I could be spending relaxing, but I never emerge from a match in a relaxed state. At best I leave exhilarated, at worst suicidal, but most frequently I'm just disappointed. Fed up that they don't do what I expect of them.

The thing is that I expect very little, perhaps only for them to try harder......or to not capitulate quite so easily to hoofers and cloggers, to fight fire with fire. I don't even expect them to win, often.

My default position is pessimistic. I have endured too many defeats snatched from the jaws of victory to even contemplate celebrating victory before 85 minutes. And even then we'd need to be three goals clear.

Frequently I ask myself why I bother; there have been times when I've given it up completely. I refused to go during the Ron Saunders years, a time in which we betrayed our philosophies - if such a word can ever be true of a football team. The directors made a bad appointment and Ron consigned us to years in the wilderness. At least that's how it seemed and still seems.

I guess I started going again as a social experiment! It was one of the few ways to see a lot of my friends in the same place, but once the terraces came down it was never really been the place it once was.

Now I find that if I'm not there the anxiety about how they're doing eats away at me, consumes my mind at the time that they're playing and if, as is usually the case, we've done badly then it'll frequently ruin my day completely. I know it's ridiculous to feel this way about something I can have no effect upon but even though I'm a relatively intelligent middle-aged man in my forties, this is what happens. I think I need help. My relationship with the Albion is dysfunctional at best.

I don't even do the 'banter'. I work on the basis that if you can't take it then you shouldn't dish it out. I definitely can't take it. I don't agree that it's more important than life or death, it sometimes feels that way though - and during the games themselves it is all consuming.

So, why bother? It's one of the few 'real' communities I belong to. There are frequent displays of wit and humour & a continual sense of a shared belonging, a real crowd mentality. Equally I sometimes hate some or all of them and I'm sure they hate me too. It's a social club that I'll never be able to leave. The football provides rare moments of intense pleasure and longer term bouts of sheer frustration. It goes with the territory and it seems that I'm stuck there. Boing boing, indeed.

Festivals - Part II

2008-11-17T14:25:00.000Z

Once upon a time the outdoor rock festival was attended by one type of music fan. Usually male, unusually scruffy (one set of clothes for the entire weekend), long-haired and generally into rock.

Things have changed. Thankfully. Festivals are now a major social gathering, as much about the experience as the music - possibly much more about the experience in all honesty. But, what kind of experience is it?

Thanks to being a V Festival regular and present at Hylands Park last weekend for the third year running, I'm able to give you a guided tour - of sorts. At a festival normal human behaviour is abandoned in favour of the communal survival instinct.

Patrons/fans/billies (rhyming slang): It's a mixed-crowd these days. The fashions are incredibly varied, although the welly plus denim mini-skirt is still a perennial, particularly amongst the men. There were so many pairs of wellingtons out that the oil industry should consider sponsoring British festivals. You may consider this an odd link but wellies are made from PVC, a by-product of petroleum. Until I began to write this I thought they were all made of rubber, how wrong I was!

Anyway back to the festival-fashion show. Hats are still very popular; they tend to fall into certain sectors. Quite why so many people want to wander around with wide-brimmed straw creations on their heads is beyond me - it's like a thousand Crocodile Dundees have invaded the country. Thankfully the 'trilby' as popularised by Pete Doherty seems to have faded from view but the gay cowboy (multi-coloured & sequined) is still around. As for the crusty-mountaineers, woolly and generally striped with ear-flaps and pom-poms, the less said the better.

Fancy-dress: You're away for the weekend, with limited clothing in unpredictable weather. Naturally you want to spend that time dressed as spider-man. Or as a ballerina-fairy; again I'm referring entirely to the men.

Food: In times gone by you might have been lucky to see a chip van at a festival, these days it's much more varied, a selection of fast food to shame the centre of most towns. It's still a fair bet though that a concession named 'Hamburger Heaven' may be only 50% accurate at best.

Over the weekend period a large amount of this food will find its way onto the floor, which finally gives those wellies something to repel if it deigned not to rain in that time.

People taking photos on mobile phones: Blame Facebook. These days you can't go to any gig without seeing vast numbers of people taking pics on their mobiles. It's clearly not enough to have the experience; you also have to prove you've had it. I wouldn't mind but most pictures taken on mobile phones are crap. I have a 2mb camera on mine and this is the kind of result I get.

There are no prizes but if you can work out who it is I'll praise you highly.

Musical variety: At some festivals the music is an irrelevance, and rightly so. I tend to use the opportunity to see as many acts in a short-space of time as possible. By doing this I've worked out what makes a good set. Sing-a-long hits. There's a simple reason for this, in a wide open space with a limited speaker volume and those pesky weather conditions, your music will only project so far. If the crowd are also singing the songs then you have a better chance. On Sunday morning I saw The Stranglers (possibly for the first time in 20 years), 30 minutes and I knew every song - perfect. I strolled across to see The Rifles who I'd heard good things about and they were also pretty good, but not quite the same. Returning from their stage I went to look at Squeeze - perfect festival set.

Lenny Kravitz got this tragically wrong on Sunday (in my opinion), too much musicianship - great for your own gigs but not at festivals. In contrast Amy Winehouse almost got it right - your performance may not be up to much but if the crowd know all the words and want to support you then you can't lose.

Scheduling tragedies: You can see a lot of acts at festivals, including some you wouldn't cross the road to see for free in normal circumstances. The major tragedy of V for me was Muse being on at the same time as The Prodigy. I have a great belief that Muse are all show and few songs, so it had to be The Prodigy on home-turf and I made the right choice. The crowd went mental.

Walking in straight lines: Impossible at festivals. If you're not avoiding the mud or discarded food, you're dodging the fact that people will lie and sit anywhere - sometimes nowhere near a stage and in the middle of what is a clear walkway for thousands of people. Someone will sit there. There's also the problem of avoiding people walking in the same or opposite directions, none of whom are walking in a straight line.

Tired and emotional people: Until recently I was aware of this euphemism for drunks but had rarely seen it so vividly demonstrated. Clearly a lack of sleep on the camp-site plus a large quantity of alcohol contributes to people getting in this way. The number of people I saw crying was only equalled by the vast number of folk arguing on their mobile-phones with their other halves. Often this may have been due to them being separated in the crowds. They probably needed a fishing rod with wombles stuck to the top.

Fishing poles & wombles: Flag-poles have become a mainstay. OK, you get seen on the tv pictures and it helps others to find you. People have taken this to new extremes at both ends of the spectrum - from a helium balloon tied to a twig to a pair of cuddly toys on the end of very long fishing-poles, it's all the rage.

Male urinals: These have become an unusual but regular site of late. They are basically a line of giant moulded plastic buckets where men stand in the open-air and do the necessary. Frankly they become superfluous after a while as it's well known that men will urinate against any upright surface - natural or man-made. I even witnessed one woman doing this on Saturday night.

Now you probably have more than you need to know about the festival experience, no doubt some of you could add more points. I look forward to them.

Festooned, in a field

2008-11-17T14:21:00.000Z

I had so many potential things to write about this week (Olympics, age-discrimination, Jade Goody, the start of the football season) that I became paralysed thinking about them all, and consequently wrote nothing. Part of the reason for this was that I spent my weekend in a park in Chelmsford.

Chelmsford is a place I've visited for around 3 to 4 days every year, in August. I wouldn't go there for any other reason but the V Festival. I have no idea what the town's like as I never spend any time in it, instead I spend 72ish hours in a park or a hotel bar and a very short time in bed, asleep.

I first went to a festival when I was very young in the early 80's - 1980 to be precise with the very first Monsters Of Rock event, headlined by Rainbow. I graduated to camping events a little later. Thanks to the interweb, I can now clarify this as the 1982 Reading Festival. My abiding memories are of sleeping badly in a small tent and buying home-made cider in 2 litre jerry cans - musically it was all about heavy rock. I can now see that Iron Maiden played it but I don't remember their set. I have clearer memories of Budgie, Diamond Head and the fact that they had two stages - next to each other. I vividly recall Dave Edmunds stopping his set mid-song as the two sets of audience were hurling bottles and toilet roll at each other and obviously not listening to him. He stopped to ask who was winning.

I effectively gave up camping and weekend events after going to Glastonbury in 1985. Wikipedia refers to a very wet event with mud and slurry (liquefied cow dung in fact) in front of the pyramid stage - I have some other recollections. Arriving on the Friday my mate Tony chucked a burger wrapper at me, having not anticipated this act I took no defensive action and it hit me in the eye knocking out one of my contact lenses. As I'd brought no glasses and have very bad eyesight, I spent the rest of the weekend in a bit of a blur.

Consequently I lost my mates on the Saturday night, my only memory of which was hearing The Style Council start their set. I was in the stinking toilets at the top of the hill at this time. I was badly equipped for the rain with no wellies (I have size 14 feet) and not much in the way of waterproofs; I seem to recall we slept in Tony's car.

It was also a real eye-opener (pun intended, sorry) in terms of the quantity of drug use - substances of all kinds were on very open sale. Along the main walkway to the Pyramid stage you could buy anything and I watched as a guy bought a hit from a man burning a lump of cannabis resin - he was holding it in tongs whilst the 'buyer' inhaled through a bottle with the bottom cut out. Since they've more than cleaned up the festival since then I'm aware of how unbelievable this story will sound.

From this point on and for a long time after, I limited my festival-going to one-day events like the Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Park. This would later become the first festival that I worked on, having started working in live music by then. By the time it ended its first long run in 1996 I had become the show's press officer managing all international press at the event. Those memories may be saved for another day, and I will return very shortly with my thoughts on this year's V - the ones I'd originally intended to write when I sat down today!

Cruise Control

2008-11-17T14:19:00.000Z

I'm back. This is probably as much of a relief to you as it is to me - not at all.

Given that you can now work from anywhere it's possible that I don't need to be back at all. I try convincing my many employers of this detail. It rarely works.

I was able to prove the flexibility of the technological age whilst viewing the wonders of the ancient one as I was on a cruise ship around the Greek islands.

Sending e-mails from the middle of the ocean is a bizarre revelation, but the novelty wears thin when the signal drops out due to unseen geographical phenomena.

Telling someone you've been on a cruise seems to age you instantly.

You seem to wither before their eyes like a Hammer Horror vampire in a shaft of sunlight.

Even people older than me don't get it. Cruising seems unable to shake its perception as being the preserve of wealthier OAPs.

It doesn't help that I was with the people who 'do cruises for people who don't do cruises'.

A flawed concept as, by the time you book, you have instantly become a person who does do cruises because you've paid to go on one.

It's a bizarre slogan anyway, one which reinforces a negative perception.

Instantly you have the mental image of having to elbow octogenarians to the ground in order to get to the pool, in fact I only had to do this twice.

They should concentrate on the positives. Most of the facilities on a ship are much better than ones you could get in a foreign hotel, unless you're very rich, of course.

You can also wake up each day in a new destination.

This is a major selling point to someone like me with the attention span of the average ADHD child. I also can't sit in the sun too long or I start to fry, talking of which ......

The food, the unlimited access to food.

The scale of food production on a ship is simply staggering, almost industrial. I've worked on festivals where they feed hundreds of crew in shifts, but that's nothing in comparison to this.

The quantity, variety and excellence of the cuisine was breath-taking. Or it would have been had anyone bothered to take a breath between shovelling enormous portions into their already overworked gullets.

They suggest you can gain 2lbs in weight every day on a cruise. For some people I'd think this was possible in each of the three-hour sittings for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

If eating ever becomes an Olympic sport I think I've found the venue - and some of the competitors.

The facilities are so good that despite the fact that the cruise called on some of the most historic and beautiful places in the World, some people didn't seem to leave the ship at all.

This is judging by the fact that they'd marked their territory in the usual holiday fashion by leaving towels on all the sun-beds. If we think this is stereotypical of another nationality, we need to think again.

I was, however, pleased to have escaped that blight of most modern holidays - not once did I hear someone boast about how cheaply or how last second they'd obtained their holiday online or on teletext.

That was some relief. Perhaps then it's the cruise for people who don't spend their lives on teletext, or the cruise for people who don't do diets. I'll eat to that.

Holidays - Who'd Have Them

2008-11-17T14:16:00.000Z

I'm on holiday. I don't hesitate to share this with you because, even if you know where I live, I have an alarm and a house-sitter.

I also have a pack of ferocious Rottweilers who'll no doubt be starving by now as the 83 year-old house-sitter will have forgotten to feed them.

Some of this last sentence is untrue, although I do have a highly-trained attack guinea pig.

I'm not sure what holidays conjure up for you - probably a mixture of sun, sand, rest, culture, relaxation and laughter. For me it's usually sunburn, sunstroke and an opportunity to embarrass myself in a foreign country.

Once, in Turkey, I combined two of these misfortunes by managing to obtain a pure white handprint on an otherwise sunburned belly.

To this day I have no idea how I did this, and I unfortunately have very big hands.

The local restaurant which we'd attended on a regular basis (why do British people pick one bar or restaurant and stick with it?) recommended Greek yoghurt for sunburn.

They'd previously advised the same remedy for diarrhoea, with similar success.

Possibly I was eating it or rubbing it on for the opposing symptoms, however I figure that if I lived and worked in a holiday resort I might be similarly inclined to take the p**s out of the tourists.

As someone who has worked in sales at various points in my life, you'd imagine that I'd be good at that other holiday pursuit, haggling. Sadly this is not so. I think I once mortally offended an OAP selling belts on a Portuguese market stall by offering her less than the ticket price.

She looked mightily unimpressed as she snatched it from my hands. Naturally I tried the trick of turning my back and walking away, and ended up with no new belt.

I'm never really sure why we're encouraged to haggle when abroad. It's not as if we can usually speak the language that well, or at all.

Like most English people I speak one language, badly. I feel pretty guilty about this, but generally fail to do much about it.

When I'm on holiday I try to learn the right words for 'hello', 'thank you' and 'beer'. It can frequently take me the best part of two weeks to learn these and I can often get them mixed up. Asking for two thank-yous in a bar doesn't usually work too well.

Once, in Austria, I decided to test my impeccable knowledge of Japanese on some other tourists.

Unfortunately my impeccable knowledge of Japanese had been learned from my Cheap Trick At Budokan album (yellow vinyl, possibly slightly racist in retrospect?).

What I thought was 'hello' (dom arigato - phonetically anyway) was actually 'thank you very much'. They laughed. They may well have been Chinese anyway.

I was also fond of amusing the residents of Germany.

At the time I was trying to impress my partner (used here because I can't remember if it was before or after we got married) with my sub-standard secondary-school Deutsch. The bulb in our bathroom had blown and as I eloquently explained to the staff: 'Das lamp in die badenzimmer ist kaputt'.
I'm still reasonable confident that this is roughly correct, however they looked at me like I'd gone out - rather than the bulb. It was never changed.

Possibly - as in most UK hotels - the staff were from somewhere else entirely. German is a terrible language to learn, though. I really wish we'd learned something more useful at school.

English perhaps.

Why I'm Boycotting Tesco

2008-11-13T13:30:00.000Z

I've been boycotting Tesco. Unfortunately I'm not sure they've noticed.

My boycott is almost three months old and whilst I possibly wasn't spending excessive amounts there (£6,500 a year's a lot to me) I still thought they might've spotted that I'm not aimlessly wandering around their aisles.

I once interviewed the guy behind Clubcard and he told me that if someone stopped shopping with them they would know 'within three weeks'. Perhaps they now make so much money that they just don't care?

For over 10 years I've used Tesco almost exclusively as my main supermarket, my retailer of choice. I have some affection for their layout, for their range of goods and for their prices.

As someone interested in marketing, I'm even a huge fan of the Clubcard - up to £4 return for every £100 spent and discount vouchers for stuff you buy? Who could resist that, even if it does mean that they know you better than your mum does and have a better record of your shopping habits than even you do?

I've even used Tesco although it's a mile further away than my nearest supermarket. I previously had an aversion to the nearest one (Sainsbury's) because their owner put so much money in Tory party coffers. Possibly I put too much thought into my choice of supermarket.

In truth it's now hard to avoid Tesco.

They have eight shops in an easily accessible range from my house and they sell everything. I'm still beholden to them for contact lenses and car insurance, for example. They're a British company doing very well in the world markets. They have a lot they can be proud of.

Unfortunately, their treatment of journalists is not one of those things.

In Thailand, Tesco has been criticised for aggressively pursuing their critics. A writer and former MP, Jit Siratranont, is facing up to two years in jail and a £16.4 million libel damages claim for saying that Tesco was expanding aggressively at the expense of small local retailers.

Tesco helpfully responded by serving him with writs for criminal defamation and civil libel.

I didn't stand up for local food producers when they complained of Tesco pressure, or even local retailers threatened by Tesco's relentless expansion policies. I didn't stand up for residents who didn't want another major supermarket in their backyard or green campaigners moaning about their transport hubs.

But there's always a point when it gets too close to home - and pursuing writers or journalists was the final straw for me.

Tesco are also pursuing a case against The Guardian, who had claimed they were involved in a complicated process to avoid tax - the newspaper's mistake was in suggesting it was the wrong kind of tax they were avoiding.

Let's face it, we'd all avoid punitive taxation if we could find a legal way of doing so. In Tesco's case the sums of money involved are probably astronomical - they make a big difference to the bottom line.

But that's not the issue.

The issue is the aggressive way they appear to be fighting to hide the facts, rather than facing them in the open. When you enter the legal arena, everyone's ability to discuss the issues gets wrapped up in legalese and red tape.

I'm sure it's valuable to them that people are now too scared to criticise. To me it represents the action of a bully and I can't really condone spending so much of my money with a bullying corporation.

The actions of one person are probably irrelevant to a company that makes £2 billion in profit each year.

But, as they continually say, every little helps.

The Waiting Game

2008-11-13T13:25:00.000Z

I went to the hospital today. Nothing serious, I'm sure you'll all be uninterested to hear. I'm actually just trying to get on a waiting list.

A few years back I was told I had a torn cartilage. It took about 14 months and a scan to reach this conclusion, but as it wasn't bothering me much at the time it was decided to leave it alone.

Eventually, I was informed, it would probably give me some grief and I'd need it sorted.

A few years of running (or in my case advanced strolling and wheezing) and a couple of half-marathons later it has started to become somewhat more problematic.

So, I had to be re-referred to the original specialist who'd presumably put me back on a list to have the op.

What I hadn't taken into account was that I'd wait a few weeks after seeing a doctor, get sent two passwords in order to make an appointment (which random identity thief would want to steal my appointment?), see the specialist and then get another appointment for a pre-admission test, which was today.

Everyone has an NHS horror story in their closet, born usually from the expectation of such and from an over-reliance on a system that frequently has unrealistic demands placed upon it.

I'd chosen an early appointment, working on the theory that they wouldn't have built up a backlog by that time, and rolled up slightly early for it.

Coventry has a brand new hospital on the grounds of it's old one, which takes you a little by surprise if you haven't been for a while. You turn a corner onto the site and exclaim 'Sh*t, where did it go?'

Being a new building with plenty of signage I was slightly bewildered to find no directions to where I needed to be, thankfully this was easily solved by waiting at the front desk and asking the right questions.

This was 'where is the pre-admissions centre' rather than 'why is the pre-admissions centre not listed on those two long boards which have every other ward and department listed comprehensively, individually and alphabetically'? Sometimes you have to know when to ask the right thing.

I then proceeded to an empty reception desk in an alarmingly busy waiting room, and waited. By the time a small queue formed and I was directed to a seat, I was in a slight rage caused by the fact that the person behind me had her letter placed on top of mine (it's always the little things in these scenarios) as I was of course ahead of her.

I counted to ten (silently of course) and started to read a book, you should always have one with you in these circumstances - though I'm not sure an Auschwitz memoir was a great choice - whilst trying to ignore the ailments of those around me.

A pre-admissions test eventually transpired to be a form; four pages and 51 questions about my health.

My favourite of these was 'Do you hold your breath during sleep'. I was unable to call anyone to clarify this, and not aware of it myself (as I'm usually asleep at the time) so I ticked no and I hope for the best.

The final question was the curiously worded, and I quote: 'Tick if you are take any of the following'. Even my PC is aware that this is grammatically awkward.

Following the form was a height, weight and blood pressure check - all of which I could probably have done without bothering to go near a hospital, because let's face it who really wants to go near one, new or otherwise?

If I never go to Dudley Road/City Hospital in Birmingham ever again it'll be a major relief to me, I live in great fear of that place and its close resemblance to a Victorian asylum.

So, my hospital visit was over in less than 20 minutes. I still had to pay a three pound parking fee for the privilege as they have no short-stay option, a fact that always makes you think you're going to be there for a hefty duration.

I left with a photocopied leaflet about the anaesthetic: 12 pages stapled together in the wrong order and worded as if it's written for a child. I particularly enjoyed the list of side-effects and complications which could occur - including under 'rare or very rare complications', Damage to the eyes, nerve damage, death and equipment failure.

I'm still not sure why death is hiding above equipment failure or if the equipment referred to is theirs or mine.

Obviously talking about the NHS, hospitals or ailments is really the preserve of the old, and a clear sign that I'm on my way there. So here's a photo of my knee, taken at an ungodly hour of the morning in a Prague hotel-room after I'd fallen on it (the knee, not the hotel room).

Btw - it doesn't always look like this.

Fashion Unconscious

2008-11-13T13:24:00.000Z

"Music was my first love, and it will be my last". So sang John Miles at some point in the 70's and whilst I don't have much time for the song I can't disagree with the sentiment. I've worked on the fringes of the music industry for over 20 years and what was an obsession has become a profession, I'm fortunate to make a living from something that started as a pleasure. Consequently it means a lot to me; three decades from when I bought my first record I'm still seeking out the pleasures of music.

One of the industry commentators I read regularly, Bob Lefsetz , has many opinions on the future of the music business and has often claimed that you can no longer tell what's really popular from the CD sales charts. Obviously he's right, given the decline in sales and how people really obtain music, but where he strays from the point is in the statement that you can really tell what's popular from the band T-shirts you see on the street. Clearly he hasn't spent much time in England of late.

I started as an interested observer of the rock t-shirt as fashion item boom, amused that so many young people would wear the colours of dated old rockers from the 70's and particularly the 80's metal phase. It was also a good time for me as I found myself having lots of fashionable items in my wardrobe for a change, by accident rather than design.

Unfortunately my amusement soon faded when one day working at BRMB and sporting a Ramones shirt, I bumped into a feckless pop duo who'd achieved some popularity by being on pap-idol. When one half of the witless wonders told me that he had the same T-shirt I was barely able to restrain my glee. After passing some similarly sarcastic comment in his direction I vowed never to wear it again, how could I be seen in the same shirt as some fool from reality TV?

My anger was compounded this time last year when I went on holiday and found myself sitting on a plane next to a man around my age. He was wearing an AC/DC T-shirt. They were the first band I ever saw live (at Birmingham Odeon) so I naturally complimented him on his taste. 'I don't know their stuff' he replied, 'I just liked the shirt'. It was a long flight but no further word passed between us, so deep was my contempt.

I guess it works like this: I am quite happy to see music create a fashion - tribes become easier to identify and music is so important to me that I like to see it playing a part in the lifestyle of others. Band T-shirts as fashion items is something else entirely. Music is a part of life, fashion seems vacuous in comparison - it's barely an accessory.

I know some people possibly feel equally strongly in the opposite camp, but they're wrong. I have always believed that to wear a band T-shirt is to almost advertise the magnificence of that act to others; it's a mark of ownership - a sign of your taste. How could you wear the shirt of a band without knowing much about them? Would my 'friend' on the plane have happily worn a Village People T-Shirt if the font was attractive and the design bold?

I suspect pop-boy knew nothing of the long history of The Ramones or their far more valuable input to music than his blip of fame. For all he knew The Ramones could've been rampant homophobes with far-right leanings who relished the thought of murdering young pop singers. For the record, they weren't, they didn't and they probably wish they could've.

It's not fashion, it's a statement. Don't wear it if you don't know anything about it. Or if you're going to wear it then at least do some research and make sure you're not looking like more of a fool than you clearly are. Finally, buy an official shirt - a lot of those bands could probably use the cash. Whether some of them should make any more records is another matter of course.

Disclaimer: The models/actresses gratuitously used in these photos may be huge fans of the bands whose shirts they are wearing and possibly not representative of this text, but I think you get the point.

Suburban Absurdia

2008-11-13T13:09:00.000Z

When I was asked to consider writing these blogs (I know it's improbable that someone wanted me to do this, but bear with me) I thought it would be appropriate to give them a theme.

All the popular blogs seem to have some kind of theme, whether it's a home-worker railing against their multiple employers and cold-calling salesmen or something like a 'diary of a call girl'
Obviously these things can often be fiction, not actually written by either prostitutes or, even, girls - rather by unpublished authors looking for the newest marketing gimmick.

Whilst brainstorming (in my own brain, by myself) an intended 'theme' I thought I should also have a title, which I'd imagined might be 'Suburban Tales'.

This title also had an explanatory subtitle, 'locating the absurd in the apparently everyday'.

Before you see fit to comment, I already know that I clearly need to get out more, or think a lot less. In any case I abandoned the title idea, partly because I thought it might be too limiting - I might not see something absurd every week - and also that the length of the subtitle might actually exceed the content of the piece.

Having said all of this, and possibly already tested your patience, I am able to give you an idea of the kind of content I'd originally considered appropriately absurd.

I have cause to travel to London on a regular basis. This cause is 'work' or to give it a more vulgar but accurate form, 'money'.

As you might have heard, the new Mayor of London made a snap decision to ban the consumption of alcohol on the tube-lines which make travel in the capital such a joy.
Maybe it's the alcohol that made them a joy; this has yet to be determined. This ban came into effect on June 1st and Londoners obviously marked its imminent arrival with a night of partying on the underground.

As with many unofficial parties, the 'last night of drinking on the tube' descended into chaos and saw some stations closed by the police.

Nothing surprising there you might think, and indeed you'd be right until you fast-forward to the Monday after the event and my arrival at one of the tube stations that was closed.

My descent into Euston Station was rather more colourful than usual, because the entire arrivals concourse has been re-branded by an advertiser.

You currently find yourself surrounded by beautiful scenery across all the walls. These rolling hills and mountains can only advertise one thing - vodka.

So, on the day after the ban which was appropriately the morning after the 'morning after' the party, the entirety of a station which was closed by 'yobbish drunks' (© the tabloids) is now dedicated to advertising alcohol - a substance you're forbidden from using in the vicinity of the ad.

It is possible that the people responsible for the ad are revelling in the irony of the situation, and celebrating their cleverness in taking advantage of the resulting profile. I suspect not though, I imagine (knowing how long such campaigns take to plan) that it was a huge accident. A mistake.

The images are very pleasant, though. They are meant to conjure up the purity of the spirit they're advertising; huge pastoral scenes - the biggest of which is a picture of a giant Finnish lake.

Lovely, except that in the very centre of the lake, affixed by blu-tack, is a white A4 photocopied bulletin from the metropolitan police. The poster is seeking witnesses to a sexual assault that took place at the station. It sort of ruins the effect. *

In conclusion you may like to savour the slogan that accompanies the ads: 'vodka from a purer place'. Really, you couldn't make it up.

It may not be suburban, but it is certainly absurd and possibly inappropriate. These are characteristics I frequently embody, as you'll discover if you stick with me for a few weeks.

*It may seem even harder to believe but the agency responsible for the ad has a picture of the wrap on their website. The image they use is exactly the one I'm referring to The police notice is to the right of the red sign.

To Blog or Not to Blog? That is the question

2008-11-13T12:58:00.000Z

Dave doesn't blog. He reckons he's too old.

By definition, since we were in the same school year, this means that I am also.

I try not to be ageist - at my age it'd be somewhat self-defeating. I also wonder if I should be taking maturity advice from someone who runs a comic shop.

In his defence it is the largest comic and sci-fi emporium in the whole of Birmingham, so he deserves some respect. He has risen to the top of his retail game.

Dave also had a comic published last year. This effectively means that more people have paid more money to read his work than they ever have mine.

I used to write a column in a free music magazine. When eventually I graduated to grown-up newspapers I can't kid myself that anyone coughed up the cover-price for my work alone.

Not even my mum. She had it delivered every night regardless.

I don't have creative envy. Again, it'd be self-defeating.

In the same school year as me and Dave was Rob, who went on to draw the 'Flanimals' in Ricky Gervais's children's books.

Another of our contemporaries was the best artist of them all and now creates fantasy figurines for retailers. I have no artistic ability, so I'm not fit to judge.

My abiding memory of art at school was when Mr Jackson crafted a sculpture of Jesus on the cross.

Unfortunately, when it left the kiln, Jesus' stomach had exploded - something to do with air bubbles in the clay. Possibly he was trying to teach us something biblical via allegory, but I doubt it.

He didn't look best pleased.

From the achievements of my classmates you might think I'm referring to a private college for the artistically gifted rather than some bog-standard comprehensive.

In truth it was probably below bog-standard. My school would never have topped any Ofsted rankings.

Fortunately schools were not graded that way back then. I think the school points system worked something like this: 10 points if 70% of the children turned up regularly, 20 points if 70% of the teachers did the same, 30 points if the school survived all vandalism and arson attacks during the term.

People tend to glorify their school days.

The best years of your life apparently, if you survive the bullies, knife-crime, teacher-apathy and the rigorous testing.

What did I learn from school? Perhaps that only the strong survive.

I learned eventually to become independent, to be self-sufficient. In a sense self-determination is the central to the development of all online activity.

People can do so much more by themselves and for themselves, even creating different identities should they wish. The advancement of computers and the dawn of the internet have led us here.

Thus, if I want to write a blog and Dave doesn't then we are entirely justified and currently able to do so.

Finding people to read it, or even think about paying for it is a different matter. Free speech and freedom of information seem to have no currency. It's a free world baby.

Only the strong survive. Unfortunately this moment of realisation dawned long after I'd escaped the confines of educational establishments.

Almost the whole of internet activity is based around an amplification of the self, interaction and social networking compels you to be involved and exaggerate elements of your real personality.
It will become one of the great philosophical questions of our time: 'If I'm not online do I really exist?' Or as a fellow Sunday Mercury blogger put it: 'I surf, therefore I am'.

So many sites seem like an exercise in 'showing off' whether they're Friends Disunited, Farcebook or the next one to explode, Twit-ter.

Similarly I have the writer's curse - the overwhelming desire to see my work in print.
These days print would seem to mean a screen of electronic type, but it's all the same to those of us who regularly need our ego inflated. My appearance here is possibly to satisfy my self-worth.

If a blog falls in cyber-space and there's no-one there to read it, does it make any sense?

The other question remains unanswered: are bloggers self-possessed or self-obsessed? Most are one or the other, and some are both. It all begins as an extension of your diary and develops from there.

Eventually you realise that your opinions are as valid as most others - perhaps even more so than some.

Of course, you might think this because you're mostly just interacting with yourself. It's self-validation or auto-flagellation perhaps.

Maybe Dave is right. Be sure to let me know or I'll think I'm on my own out here.