Arkse

Thanks to City Life for the image.

The woman opposite me has a curious way of pronouncing the word 'ask'. It isn't the traditional 'akse' you sometimes hear, but has a longer vowel sound at the beginning. Her accent in general is hard to pin down - maybe German, maybe Australian, and she is an odd one. Most of her staff are of Portuguese or South or Central American origin and once she was talking to two of them about something or other, when the subject of women came up.

"You guys..." she said "always seem to like Eastern European girls..." The men looked at her and she went on: "You always have your fingers in Polish women." Amid the hubbub, nobody but me seemed to even notice that she'd said it, and I think the lack of fluency in English meant that the two blokes didn't really grasp what had happened. Nor do I believe that this was intentional bawd on her part. She spends ages on the phone talking to various people in loping, slow sentences, and chuntering to herself as she laboriously types up emails while sipping at her mug of tea.

Last Monday, once again off to the BBC Radio Theatre for a recording of Chain Reaction. If you've never been, I would recommend it. Free tickets can be obtained by joining the mailing list on the BBC website, although there is an element of luck involved, and - despite trying every time they come up - I have never managed to bag any for the News Quiz or Just a Minute. Advice if you do go: don't go in too early. There is a bar, but it is eye-wateringly expensive. The audience is forced to wait in a narrow corridor with no more than 6 chairs, and, with around 200 people crammed in, it really isn't a pleasant experience. More advice: don't have too much to drink (if you're that rich), because getting out of your seat is not easy, especially with so many highly sensitive microphones picking up your slightest exhalation. However...

Our show the other night (one episde airs Friday 19th Aug at 6.30, the other at the same time the following week - if you're interested. Peter Hook was doing JCC in the previous one, so well worth catching on iPlayer if you hurry) featured the talents of the actor Kevin Eldon, Mark Steel and the legendary John Cooper Clarke, fortunate as we were to be there for the recording (in the wrong order, which is very broadcast media, I'm sure you'll agree. This at least allowed for some amusing context private gags to tickle our fancy) of two consecutive shows. First, Eldon interviewed Steel and then Cooper Clarke interviewed Eldon. It was all so quintessentially R4, gently disparaging remarks about Kent, self-mocking nerdish obsessions and a heartfelt and hearty dig at Richard Starkey.

JCC was on fine form (especially bearing in mind - if Wikipedia is to be believed - the way he has spent the last 10 years or so of his life) with an extended riff on a film he is thinking of making - a sequel to Snakes on a Plane - called Parrot in a Car. He held it together (with some solid support from Eldon) for around 40 minutes before flagging and needing a nudge from the producer, but we in the audience had had a great time by then. Funny that I never managed to watch the guy when he stood up before the Pistols or the Clash, but have now seen him sitting in a chair shooting the breeze with another 50ish bloke.

The official @MCFC Twitter feed was set to beam its updates to my phone, but with no signal in the theatre, they all came in a mad rush - the first half at the interval while I queued for the toilet (0-0 and a tad concerned) and the second half as we were heading up towards Oxford Circus (4-0 and what a debut for Kun - even if it was only the bloody Taffs we were hammering) for the tube ride home and a closed chippy. It's going to be a good season.

The Paths of the Dead

Thanks to Lovely Old Tree for the image, though I suspect this was not the source...

You know me and the genius loci thing. Cor blimey, I love it! We get what we deserve, I suppose, and thank god at least that we are still alive. So it was with interest that I tuned into Start The Week last night on R4. Much as I do love spurious semi-scientific theories such as homeopathy for example (what's not to love about that shit, man?) I am no great fan of Andy Marr, 'cos he sums up for me the worst of the Beeb as far as I'm concerned. Makes a mockery of the 'left wing bias' criticism the Corporation so often faces with his la-de-dah voice and big ears, so he does.

Thanks to London Speaker Bureau for this one.

Hiyever, last night's programme (which had to have been put together at extremely short notice, given the topicality of the banter) was superb. It explored the geographical singularities of that cess pool which has become known as Whitehall, harking back to Henry's day to illustrate the longevity of these little rat runs between Monarchy and Parliament as they carry out their silly dances for power. The lovely Clegg was caught out, I heard, nipping out the back door of somewhere or other yesterday - purely by chance, as some hack happened to be passing by and got his BB out quick as a gun in Fallujah to let everyone else know - and the particular dark alley he had been scuttling along had been used since at least 1540. I urge you to podcast the show or iPlayer it, or anything. It's good.

In direct opposition, E20 has never existed. Least of all tonight, so the kids are of course asking:

"How long is this news???!!"

I for one welcome our new indistinguishable insect overlords.

Thought For The Day

For once, I actually enjoyed TFTD this morning. I normally reach over at lighting speed to switch off the set when it comes on, especially if its Rabbi Lionel Blue, or even worse that dreadful Ann Atkins woman. Today though, it was some woman from St. Paul's cathedral talking about the spiritual dearth in our lives brought on by this hectic rush we're all in. She used the metaphor of light, and how our cities have thrown the natural rhythms of the world upside-down, so that a poor confused blackbird trills loudly at 3am in February, thinking he is greeting the rising sun, but is in fact (like a poor relation to Oscar Wilde's nightingale) flogging a dead horse. There was also a nice comparison with the enervated City trader, sitting up through the night to catch the latest on the foreign markets, stealing a march on those less able to stand the intensity of a 24/7 lifestyle.

Overall, as I said, it was a good piece, well crafted and thoughtful, but I wonder what was really at the root of it? It was one of those soft Christian things (so soft that you might even struggle to discern a religious message in it at all) and the fact that a female member of the clergy delivered it only served to emphasise this softness. But (as any good semioligist kno) what is not said is as important as the words which are uttered. And of course, she was saying, we are all lost in this brave new world, where god has been taken from us, leaving a huge vacuum in our souls. If we took a little time to listen to the message of god in our hearts, we might go some way to making the world a better place. There is also a harking back in this message to the arcadian days of 100% church attendance, a time of true faith, when we were all far less confused because our moral compasses were all fixed firmly on magnetic north. Now all we get are disparate groups slugging it out sloganeering on the sides of buses.



Given that there were far fewer surveys asking children if they were feeling generally content in the middle ages, I think it's difficult to say. I think she has something to say about disruption of the natural rhythms of day and night, summer and winter, though. No good will come of it, and as I've said before, the world can only be a better place without a 24 hour Tesco or a McDonalds (like the one at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street) which - ridiculously - closes for 45 minutes a day.

That's my thought for the day. Now I'm going to listen to us giving that nice young man Gareth Southgate a much needed fillip. Bless you all!

Class D

Listening to the Today Programme this morning on the bus, and couldn't help but snort loudly at an interview with some prick from the Magistrates' Association who was on to protest at the (further) re-classification of cannabis to a Class B drug. Not so much this, actually, as what he was decrying as the obfuscation of the issue by newly issued Home Office guidance on dealing with cannabis, which now recommends a fixed penalty for possession. His point, for what it's worth, was that this guidance was causing confusion amongst the morons in the chair at the Magistrates Courts and undermining the principles of community justice.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the laws and the wars on drugs (and I think you might be able to guess on which side of the divide I sit) I found it to be incredibly insulting that, when asked, this pillar of the community didn't know which other drugs were also included in the B classification. Neither, as it happens, did Ed Sturton, so the matter was dropped. This is a paraphrase of the segment of the interview as I remember it:

ES: Just to clarify, what other drugs are included in Class B?

MG (Magistrate Guy): You've got me there. I'm not the sort of person to get involved with Class B drugs...

ES: No, neither am I. So, if you don't know, and I don't either, let's not go there.

Now, I wasn't fully aware of the drugs in Class B, but I thought (correctly as it happens) that speed might have been one of them. Here is the current Home Office guidance, which has since this morning been amended to reflect the changes discussed on the Today programme. Speed (unless used to inject) Ritalin and Pholcodine (whatever that is) are included. Magic mushrooms are Class A, while ketamine is Class C! I ask you.

Well, don't even get me started on the later interview about the DEC Gaza appeal with someone from UNRWA and a very shouty James Naughtie...

Freak Zone

I'm not a fan of Stuart Maconie on those Channel 4 list shows, but I've fallen in love with his schtick on 6 Music. Sunday nights, 5-8. What great playlists! Stuff you just wouldn't hear anywhere else, with the exception of a trip to a convention, a visit to an eBay niche or a specialist record shop.

Tonight he played (among others) some Bob Downes. Like TS Eliot's cat name thing (thanks to ep for that) there are some things which you share with everyone you know, some which you share with certain friends, some with a smaller select group, and ultimately things you only share with yourself. Speaking personally - hell, what's the point of blogging, otherwise? - Bob Downes was, until now, one of those things. His Deep Down Heavy album was part of my uncle's record collection in the early 70s, perhaps because my uncle had some avant-garde friends, or perhaps because it was released on the MFP label. Who knew? Who cared? It was like some kind of memory revelation hearing his name on the radio, and a whole era of my life re-surfaced - like the Kraken waking.

As a result, I found Bob Downes' website. Apparently, he hasn't read a newspaper or magazine for 38 years, hasn't listened to the radio for 15 years, and since January 07, has stopped watching TV news bulletins. I have exchanged emails with him, which makes me feel kind of special.