Poor Man About Town

I was using the bus yesterday. Some man in his late fifties boarded the bus, he came and sat down in the seat opposite. He was wearing a cardigan cum winter coat - it looked like it was made out of bath rug. I did not pay him much mind until from out of nowhere he produced a tin of strong lager from which he was gulping down. He concealed the tin, opened, into a pocket in his bath rug jacket. These guys are ingenious in smuggling opened beer tins onto the bus.

Labels: alcohol, alcoholism, beer can man, buses, public transport

I was listening to the News Quiz on Radio 4 and heard Sandi Toksvig say:

"I still can not get used to David Miliband being foreign secretary. Do you not get the sort of feeling that his parents took him into Parliament for a sort bring your child to work day and forgot to take him home and now he's got a job"

Funny you should say that, Sandi

Labels: comedy, David Miliband, Radio 4, satire, The News Quiz

Sod's law, I spend a shed load of money on a tv licence only to have the tv go on the blink! I bet any money that if I did not have to get a tv licence it would be working now. I guess that my tv did not like the idea of going legit and so rebelled. The telly is old and appears beyond, I guess that I am going to have to get one of those cheapy tellies.

Labels: Television

I had only two quid left, I had to raid my personal poor box again - sifting the silver from the brown, I found 20 x 5p coins (20 shillings in old money) equals a pound - this got me another day's bus pass. Must get a monthly when I get paid. I still have two tins of ministrone soup in work, so I scrounged a couple of slices of bread to have the soup. Then I contacted the bank to attempt negotiate something that will not make me so impoverished towards the end of the month. After loads of padding around the key pads I got put through to the call centre in some exotic place where the call centre operatives earn about 1/8th of my salary but live the life of Posh Spice and David Beckham. I was given another phone number to ring which turned out to be a fob off (fuck off). Rung the bank again, exotic call centre with that Byzantine approach to dealing with customers. More waiting and more holding with incredibly trashy music which was really getting on my nerves. After about an hour, I was told I was told that I must go to my branch to renegotiate things!. Why the fuck did they not tell me that in the first place. My bank has made thousands out of me and other poor saps, I hope I win the lottery and then I'll show them. I hope my bank goes the way of Northern Rock - bastards.

Labels: banking, byzantine, Call Centres, poor, poverty

There are many occasions when I have been waiting in the queue to use a cash machine when the person in front receives the message that his / her account has dried up and the bank would not be doling out any more money. The look is one of dismay - the look of being a few pence away from hunger. The next step is this



The bank would not give me ten quid out of the cash machine, I did not have the fare to go the supermarket to use the coinstar machine. I had to charge up my Oyster card. Bloody hell, it was a huge job sifting the silver from the brown, I managed to pay for the three quid bus pass by a mixture of 5 and 10p pieces - this is a sure sign that one is impoverished. Oh the embarrassment.

Labels: cash machines, coinstar, credit, crunch, skint

Taking this line from the old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young number I decided to teach my teenage daughter about Rock 'n' Roll - the base root of all pop music. She likes all the guitar bands as well as some of the classic bands of the 60's and 70's; she even likes Elvis. Oh no, things have to go a bit further than that, I thought, I regaled with her various hits of the 50's. This little tune grabbed her attention:



In spite of Frankie singing like an angel, she was quite impressed with the gestures and expressions of the band. It's a great song with great lyrics. Beautifully performed.

Labels: culture, Music, rock, rock and roll, the 50's, youth

Watched some programmes on BBC4 about pop music on BBC television. Top of the Pops documentary was ok. Then we were treated to an episode of Top of the Pops from 1968; gosh most of the music was shit with the exceptions of The Move and Status Quo. Then we had Juke Box Jury - the guest Jurors were David McCallum, his then wife, Jill Ireland and Nina and Frederick.



The first disc was Poetry in Motion by Johnny Tillotson, it got savaged by the Jury who complained that the saxophone was too raucous. Then they were regaled with early 60's schmalz such as John "Mr Piano" Henderson's Honky Tonk Concerto along with Pinky and Perky both of which were met with unanimous approval.

Poetry in Motion is a great record - considering the recording limitations of the time, there is an awful lot going on - the raucous sax mingling with a very dreamy soprano voice, how they managed to mix that is beyond comprehension. I guess at the time it did sound somewhat avant-garde - the beat chops and changes - sublime stuff.

Hear it for yourselves



Yet I recall reading Mick Farren's book Watch Out Kids where he expresses the view that the youth reaction to the mainstream schmalz triggered off rock cultural revolution in this country and in its turn the politicisation of youth. Even Germaine Greer quotes the book.

Labels: pop, rock, Television

I was watching a number of programmes Dance Britannia on BBC4 tonight. It was great, they blew away all that grumpy bullshit. I was inspired to look on Youtube to look for some more good vibes and found this:



Although the sound production is a bit muddy, the musicianship is excellent.

Yep, Otis Redding - this man and his band knew how to rock. He inspired and influenced numerous British rock bands. I used to read about him in the New Musical Express in my youth, but nothing really registered - Sitting by the Dock of the Bay, Respect and My Girl were the only things I knew in the audio, but seeing him and his band live really made me feel quite good. Now I can go to bed in a good mood.

Labels: Music

I can be quite liberal when it comes to table manners. Greg Proops asked who, in private, scoops ice cream into a bowl?. I don't consider myself a prude when it comes to sex; but when the table and sex come together you have a choice - either you eat from it or you shag on it, of course some people use food as a sex aid. That's their business.

When I go into a restaurant, however, I expect a fair degree of decorum from my fellow diners - of course, this respect is reciprocated. This was not the case when I went into a Chinese Restaurant in Central London today. There was a couple in their late teens but fitted the twelve year old bill. The male of the couple was sporting a baseball cap under its peak was hanging that rather irritating lopsided fringe favoured by twelve year male old pop stars. The female was a blonde bimbo.

They pawed at each other like two dogs on heat, they exchanged bodily fluids by long wet kisses; all of this done in the middle of a restaurant where people were trying toeat. This activity was really getting on my nerves. Worse was yet to come, the lopsided fringe male had his meal to brought to him; he stopped eating mid-way, pawed at his girlfriend and wet-kissed. Bloody hell, I did not need to witness a mating while eating.

It would be a really good idea for the government to introduce legislation stopping people under the age of 25 entering restaurants unless they are accompanied by a forty year old.

Labels: eating, Food, Manners, snogging, teenagers, twelve year olds, youth