What finally got me back up there was a concert in Camden – Department S and Spizzenergi.  I have actually lost count of the number of times I have seen Spizzenergi now, but I had never seen Department S.    Stalkers may remember that I was going to take Chrystal up to see Spizz in December, but Crawley got snowed in so she had to go on her own.   Much to my surprise she actually liked it.  She had never shown much of an appetite for punk rock before, but said that she had a great time.

Department S were interesting.  I never really knew much about them at the time although obviously I had heard Is Vic There?  I was glad to get the chance to hear them play it live because it is one of those iconic songs.  There are a few punk/new wave bands who never really reached much beyond their core audience but had one song that everybody had heard, or at least heard of – like Bauhas with Bela Lugosi’s Dead, the Ruts with Babylon’s Burning, the Psychedelic Furs with Pretty in Pink or, I guess, Spizzenergi with Where’s Captain Kirk?

They did do the big hit, but I found the rest of their set to be excellent too, even though I didn’t know any of the songs. The singer has a real presence and they are still writing new songs, which is good to see.  I thought the end of the set was strange though: in the last song the singer put his jacket back on and did the “we’ve been Department S, goodnight” bit and went off stage, but the song carried on for what felt like five minutes after that in an extended instrumental.

Spizzenergi were exactly what I’ve come to expect.  Part of me would like to be surprised by new material or a very different selection of songs, but the other part of me quite likes to hear the same songs.  That is not to say that it is always identical, the arrangements gently evolve over time rather than get a radical re-working.   The highlights for me are Soldier, Soldier, Central Park, Kirk, the Model, Virginia Plain and Island.

I think I’m largely responsible for Island to get on the set list.  Years ago Spizz gave me some copies of old demo and rehearsal tapes from the Spizz Oil days and there was one track on there that had never been on any record at all even though, to my ears, it was better than some tracks that had been released so I asked about it and it ended up in the repertoire, despite the rest of the band not really liking it much. I think.

Thinking about it, there aren’t really many other songs they could include.  Quite a lot of the older stuff is really quite experimental and arty.  Much as I love the Do A Runner album, a lot of it probably wouldn’t work live and a lot of it was quite keyboard-centred.   I wouldn’t mind hearing Dangers of Living though.  I reckon that would sound good with this line-up.  A couple of the football songs would go down well too, even if they are a bit too specific to past tournaments.

It was all good fun and it gave me a chance to try out the Flip video camera, with mixed results.  I learned a couple of things about it.  Firstly it has trouble focussing in very low light, which is true of most auto-focus camera I suppose.  Secondly it doesn’t like it when a really big bloke stands right in front of you.   I only filmed two songs – here is one of them:

One of the things I like about the band are thet they all seem to be really enjoying themselves, and it was a pleasure to be able to share the evening with our daughter, who seems to be loving life up in that London.  I don’t think there is much chance of her moving back home after her course finishes.

Now I’ve got the taste I mustn’t leave it another year before going up to town.  Maybe I’ll pop up to see that vorticists’ exhibition at Tate Britain and see a few other sights.  Perhaps take Jayne up the eye [[Oops.  That came out ruder-sounding that it was supposed to]] or pay a visit to the zoo?

One thing I won’t do is make the mistake of walking from Euston to Camden again.  What a depressing area the hinterland of Euston station is!

You know when people say that something is not worth the paper it is written on? Here is Nick Clegg holding that very piece of paper.

Am I a bad parent?  I was a bit disappointed to find out that while the student protests were going on in London our daughter was in London…

…in a university lecture hall.

Anyway, a good excuse to include a photo that is sure to become an all-time classic and feature in many election leaflets for years to come, but probably not Lib Dem leaflets. (Hat-tip to Tom Watson)It is an interesting row this one.  During PMQs today Clegg was in the chair while his master was out talking at students in China and he took a bit of a beating from Harriet Harman who started by asking how his plans to abolish student fees were progressing.   There have been attempts to deflect criticism by pointing out that Labour introduced fees after saying it wouldn’t in a manifesto, and probably some reference to how compromises have to be made in a coalition, but I don’t think that is the point.  I don’t even think that whether tuition fees and student loans are a good or a bad thing is the point either.

I think the real lesson is not to sign pledges.

Manifestos now have got ridiculously large, trying to cover everything, yet also quite vague to allow for the fact that circumstances may not always allow that many things to be done the way you intended.  I think that new governments do try to work to their manifesto generally, even if a lot of specifics don’t work out.  But that is not what this is about.

Abolishing fees, or opposing increases may have been in the Lib Dem manifesto, but that is not the point either.  I doubt if there was a candidate for any party in the last election, or any previous ones, who agreed with every single part of their party’s manifesto.  There were certainly items in mine that I didn’t like, for example the Trident renewal, but that didn’t stop me preferring our set of policies overall and I think any sensible candidate accepts they will have to agree to differ on some specific points.

In this case the manifesto is irrelevant.  Lib Dem candidates all specifically singled out that one policy and publicly stated that they supported it, signing pledges to say they would vote against any increase in fees.  It was a very specific and explicit statement with no wriggle room at all.  The wording was a bit of a giveaway though, with its implicit assumption that the person signing it would not actually be in the government.

We all know the Lib Dems didn’t expect to be in government any more than I expected to win the seat in Horsham, but I was quite wary of signing all those pledges that I was being asked to on an almost daily basis by various pressure groups.  I may have signed specific pledges on things like not repealing the anti-hunting laws or not renewing Trident but only because I knew that is what how I felt and I would have been quite prepared to vote with my conscience on them whatever the party line was in a parliamentary vote.

Otherwise I viewed all these pledge requests as being little hostages to fortune in the unlikely event of Horsham turning red.

It is rare that politicians or aspiring politicians make such very specific and unequivocal statements, and now we can see why, but having done so you should stick with them shouldn’t you?

There was a request to all candidates to sign a similar pledge about the Equitable Life settlement, which I declined but which Francis Maude and many other Tories did sign.  I’m sure the campaigners, who recently described George Osborne’s settlement as “woefully inadequate”, will have kept their copies of who promised what.  It will be interesting to see if they feel that the Tory MPs voting for the £1.5bn figure acted in accordance with the letter and spirit of that specific pledge and what happens if they think not.  Nothing major I expect, but maybe some entertaining squirming.

I know that there was an active grapevine amongst Equitable Life customers, so my response will have been widely disseminated.  It will have made quite a few people who were unlikely to vote Labour anyway determined to not vote Labour, but I was happy to escape with my integrity intact.  I think I would rather lose honourably than win dishonourably, but don’t get me started on Woolas!

I think it is safe to say that there will be rather more reluctance to sign up to pledges in future elections, and at the same time more attempts to get candidates to sign them.

Very frustrating.  I would love to go up and see him again, but there is a small chance we will be moving that day so it may not be practical.  Never mind.  I have seen him a few times before – three times solo and once with Mano Negra – so its not the end of the world.

I can thoroughly recommend it.  I don’t think anybody else on the scene at the moment provides so much energy or attracts a crowd with such an atmosphere.  With any luck his current tour will bring him back to London again, preferably the Brixton Academy.

I enjoyed it on a couple of levels. Apart from the story, there was a more personal level of enjoyment which was an element of nostalgia.   Molly ans Simon, the two main characters, met while at Goldsmiths which was just up the road from where I lived for quite a few years, so parts of the book were set in my old manor, even to the extent of an actual street name ringing a bell.So I was already reading with one part of my mind comparing the descriptions of being young and living in London, but then there was the aspect of Simon’s sexual preferences.  Basically he is gay but has a thing for straight men and gets turned off by other gay men.  It sounds implausible, but when I lived in London one of our friends – well more a friend of a friend – had similar tastes and often told us tales of seducing soldiers from the London barracks and shared the secret of his tactics with us,¹Â  so I had some sort of real-life template for the character.  I reckon it made the whole thing more believable for me than it might otherwise have been.

Anyway, here is what I wrote:

I am always a little bit wary of celebrity novels, especially those written by comedians who have been on TV a lot, in case they turn out to be weak books sold purely on name recognition.  It is an irrational worry really as I have previously enjoyed novels by Sean Hughes, Eric Morecambe, Alexie Sayle, Ben Elton, Mark Gattiss and Stephen Fry but I can’t shake it. With this book the worries disappeared within the first couple of pages.

There is not a lot of depth to it, although that is fitting as the two main characters are pretty shallow people, sometimes the plot leaps forward a little too quickly, and it certainly ends far too suddenly, but for all that it is a good read. For most of the book I was in a rush to find out what happened next and at least liked the characters enough to be wanting everything to turn out OK for them.

As you would expect from a comedian, there are quite a few laughs in the book, more from lines that characters come up with than from descriptions or situations, but there are some darkly surreal situations too.  I like the way that Clary threw in a few false turns too, where it looks like the story is heading towards a particular place and just as you are pre-emptively yawning at the predictability of it the story goes somewhere else instead.

I read this on the sofa between World Cup games, but I reckon it would have made a good holiday book. By the end of it I decided that I will probably track down his previous books at some point, although I know they won’t give me what I really want, which is to know more about the enigmatic and creepy Lilia Delvard from this story.

Watch out for: Clary ‘doing a Martin Amis’ and putting himself into the book, albeit as an ‘off-stage’ character.

1. it involved very specific videos

It is really hard to judge from a description or even a photograph what sort of impact a large-scale work like this can have.   It sounds a bit meh: a big box made to look like a shipping container that you can walk into, but it is dark inside…  but then the plastic boxes were a lot better than I expected, and the Weather Project far outshone¹ any mere description.

The Turbine Hall is a massive space, awesome in its own right when it is empty, and large-scale works can gain an extra impact just from the sheer scale, combined with the setting, so I’ll reserve judgement until I can see it for myself.

One thing is for sure, I’m not likely to be able to enjoy the sort of access the TV crews and journalists were getting, where they could walk into the box alone: the Tate Modern is always packed, and deservedly so.  Us average punters will probably be walking into the box in the company of a party of 30 students, unless we can find some way of being there when the doors open and before the school buses start to roll up.

1. sorry about that

Who could have imaged that the nutty boys would come back with, effectively, a concept album?   It is full of good tunes but, more than that it is tremendously atmospheric and joyous: a celebration of London that is at the same time both majestic and ramshackle, much like the capital itself.

Of course the old hits like Baggy Trousers, Our House and Night Boat to Cairo will still induce a wave of nostalgic affection, but if I went to see Madness and they just performed the new album, plus the Dangerman Sessions I would be happy.  Or was I the only one who thought the Dangerman records were brilliant?   I think they are playing the Brighton Centre in December.  Wonder if there are still tickets left?  Could be even more fun than the Labour conference…

Zoe & Robert

It has been a big weekend, with two late nights.  On Saturday Jayne and I went to the middle of nowhere for a family wedding and then tonight I took Frankie up to London for some live comedy.The wedding was my cousin Robert, who is also my godson.  I don’t think I have every done anything godfatherly which seems to have been the right thing to do as he has turned out to be an admirable young man.  I am basing this opinion his friends.  He moved from his village in Essex to Surrey quite a while ago and most of his old crowd from Essex turned up at the wedding as well as all his new gang from Surrey.   They were both lively crowds and I figured Robert must be doing something right to have made so many good friends.

The family photo

Not only that, but you could tell he was truly happy with his new wife, Zoe.

It was good to see that part of the family again as well.  The way things are I very rarely see my cousins, in fact I don;t think I saw Robert at all since his Dad’s wedding ten years ago.  I do’t think we are a particularly close family…  its not that we don’t like each other, just the opposite, we just don’t live in each others’ pockets all the time.

I know it will not be so long until we see everybody again.  For a start, Jayne and I intend to have a big party on out 10th anniversary to renew our vows.  This is to make up for the fact that we married almost in secret with no family there at all.

Jayne didn’t fancy two late nights in a row, so I took Frankie up to London to see the comedy night at the Lyric, Hammersmith.  I decided to drive there because it has been a while since I drove in London, also to avoid the depressing late-night train scenario.  It worked well on the way home – only took an hour to get back from Hammersmith, door-to-door.

Getting there was another matter.  The plan had been to get up there, grab something to eat and then go to the show, but we ended up getting there just in time for the start.  I had forgotten that traffic in London on Sunday evening is worse than Crawley during the rush hour!

It all worked out in the end though, and it was worth all the hassle to see Al Murray live.  Also on the bill were Wilson Dixon, Naz Osmanoglu, Alistair McGowan and Richard Herring.  They were all good, although the problem I am having with Alistair McGowan is that I don’t always get the joke.  Since I stopped watching TV much I find that I don’t recognise half the impressions he is doing, but I’m sure they are as spot-on as the ones I do recognise.

All in all a good weekend.  I don’t feel very relaxed though.

Spizz on stage at the 100 Club 3/9/9

Went to see Spizzenergi (again) tonight.  I’m not keen on going ‘up west’ when I have to work the next day, but it was to mark 30 years since the first Spizzenergi incarnation, and having seen them on tour back then in 1979 I thought it would be good to make the effort.

As always it was a cracking show.  The current band have been with Spizz for a long time now so they know the material intimately.  It helps that they are all very good musicians individually.  I’m always surprised that none of them has been ‘tapped up’ by a bigger band.

Bigger defined as one that plays often enough to make it a feasible full-time job.Spizzenergi played for over an hour, starting off with 6000 Crazy, finishing off with their cover of The Model and inbetween doing Soldier Soldier, Kirk, No Room, Central Park, Spock’s Missing, Energy Crisis, Amnesia, Mega City 3, Virginia Plain, and a few more.  They did the whole of Clocks Are Big Machines Are Heavy as well.

One interesting song was Summer in the Greenhouse, which is basically their football song We Are The England with environmental lyrics. I was still hearing the football lyrics in my head.

Another little highlight for me was hearing the song Islands.  I think the band don’t really like it much, but I do.   It has never been released before but I heard it on some old Spizzoil demo tapes ages ago and kept asking Spizz why he never released it or played it live.  Whether it was my nagging that eventually got it on the playlist I don’t know, but good to hear it live at last.

Spizzenergi onstage at the 100 Club 3/9/9

It was a lively show though, with a varied audience.  There were some traditional punks (i.e. younger people in old school outfits and hairstyles) and some real old punks – some who have become more respectable than others.

The mosh pit was a chaotic beer-storm of people who should know better – i.e. people my age and older – which was good to see.  At one point Spizz did descend into the crowd to physically threaten somebody who had lobbed a pint glass on the stage – and then the stage was invaded by a drunken dwarf.

I don’t think I have ever seen that before…  look closely in the photo here and you can see him shortly before he started causing trouble.  Quite a sight seeing a three-foot high bloke being manhandled off the stage by two bouncers of typical bouncer build!

There were also some lukewarm attempts at stage-diving, which is ambitious when the stage is only a foot off the ground.

All together it was a good night, spoiled slightly by having to dash off to get a train back out to Sussex.  A shame there was no Airships, Hot Deserts, Risk! or Dangers of Living on the set list – but you can’t have everything can you?  I wonder if the band can be tempted out of London to do a LMHR benefit in Crawley or Horsham?  I’d love to see some of the local young bands getting a chance to share a stage with one of independent music’s true originals.

• Juggling
• Stilt walking
• Any other circus skills
• Singing
• Dancing
• Knitting
• Yoga
• Posing as a statue
• Tai Chi
• Playing guitar
• Playing violin
• Playing trumpet
• Playing any musical instrument

Also I was getting paranoid about doing anything that would require amplification as I had a mental picture of the sky opening and pouring down on expensive hired electronics.

I was left with only a couple of possibilities:  getting in touch with LMHR for some decent banners and reciting the poem The Hangman, leaving me with only 50 minutes to fill, going to the fancy dress shop in Horsham for a suitably eye-catching costume – perhaps even doublet and hose and reciting some killer Shakespeare solioquys.

Mind you, I did see a statement from the Met police that nudity per se was not a criminal offence so there was always that last resort….  I think we all had a lucky escape.