The Future And What It Holds

The Coles are heading to the historic and improbably large city of London in February, sans children, to spend a weekend doing stuff. We’ll probably go to the Victoria and Albert Museum, might trot to the Tate Modern and certainly will saunter around a market or two on the Sunday. I have a furtive eye cast in the direction of the newish Fopp Megastore on the Tottenham Court Road that the raffish D speaks of with joy in his heart. It has its own cafeteria apparently. Whatever next? I did try and find a gig to attend on the Saturday night but nothing captured the ol’ imagination. Jarvis Cocker was the best bet and, well, my pulse didn’t exactly race at the prospect. Instead I picked up a brace of tickets for Pinter’s People at the Haymarket don'tcha know, a collection of sketches written by Harold Pinter between 1958 and 2002. Bill Bailey is in it. I think its previews start tomorrow so I’ll be watching out for what the critics have to say with interest.

Festival Fancies

This Thursday, the headliners are being announced for the Friday and Saturday nights at the Green Man Festival. It’s exciting wondering who’ll be playing and obviously it is bound to be someone quite folky and leftfield. Two acts spring to mind that might fit the bill: Midlake and Sufjan Stevens. I know I’ve seen both within the last six months but I’d love to check them out on a summer’s night out of doors with a starry sky as a backdrop. All will be revealed this week. I’ve used all my internet searching skills to track down rumours but to no avail.

I'm enjoying the Field Music album a great deal. The songs are fabulous and when I'm less busy I'll pen more about it. I note that the recording is a mere 31 minutes long with its eleven songs rattling along at a considerable rate of knots. I didn't think they made 'em like that any more but I'm heartened that they do.

Three

I had viewed the end of this week with some excitement. Astonishingly, I had three, yes three, things to look forward to. On Thursday evening an expeditionary force of four set out for Bristol to visit the Colston Hall where Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy was performing at a concert party. I enjoyed this. S and I agreed today that this would have been a belting gig at a smaller venue like the Fleece and Firkin or the Academy but ‘Prince’ and his band put on a decent show and I appreciated the fellow’s whimsical and good-humoured stage presence. The songs were evocative if a little one-paced; the numbers where eccentric chanteuse Dawn McCarthy sang backing vocals proved the highlights for me. Her voice is gorgeous and blends with the main man’s beautifully.

My second cause for exhilaration was the chance to buy some of those new-fangled compact discs this morning. At the library I picked up the second Portishead album (“Another eponymous recording!” I hear you ululate) and Amnesiac by Radiohead which I already owned on download but fancied owning ‘for real’. In Fopp I bought the Field Music and The Good, The Bad and The Queen albums I desired so fiercely. I’m playing the Portishead album as I type these words. I have plenty of work to do tomorrow and I’ll play my new recordings then.

My final gobbet of thrillingness occurred this afternoon at Kingsholm Stadium where the marvellous Gloucester team leapfrogged Wasps into third place in the league with a deserved and pleasing victory against an under strength but awkward Sale outfit. The whole fifteen played smartly but I salute Adam Balding for continuing his fine run of form. Andrew Hazell was my man of the match for his fine running, support play and ability to snap up not just the 50-50 loose balls but the 40-60 and 30-70 ones too. Iain Balshaw had a splendid match too; he really is an intelligent footballer who mixed up his kicking and running games stylishly. What shrewd signings we made before the start of this season; Lawson, Bortolami, Nieto, Califano, Balshaw and, to a lesser extent, Walker and James have made grand impressions on this punter.

Versions of Note

The mighty BBC 6Music radio station is doing a thing called Cover Lovers at the moment. Listeners can vote for their favourite cover version of all time and there’ll be a Top 40 countdown of the hotly awaited results this Saturday. I haven’t voted but I do have my favoured tracks. Here’s my Top Three:

1. If You’re Looking for a Way Out by The Tindersticks (top) (originally by Odyssey (bottom)) which takes an already lovely song and adds shovel loads of melancholia and passion over a stunningly produced arrangement. A thing of beauty. My favourite.

2. Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil (originally by Tim Buckley). A breathtaking and fragile masterpiece.

3. Police and Thieves by The Clash (originally by Junior Murvin). From the awesome first Clash album. Is it reggae? Is it punk? Who cares!

Honourable mentions – in no particular order – for the following:

Only Love Can Break Your Heart by St. Etienne (originally by Neil Young).

Tainted Love by Soft Cell (originally by Gloria Jones).

Mr. Pharmacist by The Fall (originally by The Other Half).

Femme Fatale by Tracey Thorn (originally by Velvet Underground).

David Watts by The Jam (originally by The Kinks).

Strange by R.E.M. (originally by Wire).

I often wonder how much money the critically acclaimed but distinctly non-mainstream Wire have made in their career and what proportion of their earnings came from the luck of R.E.M. admiring the quirky and angular art-rockers and including Strange on the multi-million selling Green album.

Harvesting

I’m tremendously excited about a brace of long player releases that are due to hit local (and distant) record emporia this week.

Field Music’s Tones of Town has been harvesting spiffing reviews for its atmospheric pop sensibilities, sumptuous harmonies and darned fine tunes. I adore the Sunderland collective’s eponymous debut; it is as quirky as a rooster on the moon, jumpy and angular enough to keep the listener on the edge of his (or her) seat, and packed with joyous, fabulously intelligent songsmithery. It is well known enough not to be hailed as the ‘great lost album of the noughties’ but I still believe that an insufficient number of hepcats are aware of it. Wise up, frères et soeurs.

Talking of eponymous debuts, I can’t wait for Damon Albarn’s latest project and album, The Good, The Bad and The Queen. Albarn strikes me as being one of those ‘love him or loathe him’ characters and yesterday’s Observer reflects this appraisal of the Blur frontman. Two reviews of the album adorn the journal’s pages. In the Observer Music Monthly, the recording is hailed as ‘one of the most surprising and magical records for which Damon Albarn has ever been responsible’ while in the ‘Review’ section, a mealy-mouthed Kitty Empire reckons that ‘like most of Albarn's output, The Good, the Bad and the Queen is not a bad record, it's not quite as great as Albarn thinks.’ Frankly, for me, Albarn can do no wrong. I liked the two Gorillaz albumz enormously for their wit and beaty bliss, the Mali Music project was full of character and rootsy charm while the entire Blur output, especially the astonishing last trio of recordings, Blur, 13 and Think Tank, remains the benchmark that all modern British beat combos should aspire to for invention, charm, musicianship, wit, ability to reflect the zeitgeist and, importantly, move, stimulate and engage the listener. I won’t have a word said against the geezer. I’m looking forward to owning this album enormously.

I sense that, in a way, I’ve just reviewed two albums that I’ve not heard yet. I just hope they live up to the hype!

Barry Davies

My word, I miss Barry Davies. I heard his gentle tones on a Radio 4 trailer yesterday and immediately came over all funny. His marvellous association football commentaries were everything those of irksome John Motson are not; while the tiresome ‘Motty’* continues to pay too much homage and respect to the undeserving, unintelligent and drab celebrities of the sport, Davies will ever be remembered for his laconic world-weariness, his impatience with hype and the over-hyped and, essentially, his intellectual assertion that football was ‘only a game’ (albeit, it times, a beautiful one) and much splendour lay beyond it. For Davies-philes (and I know S remains one) there are a couple of places worth visiting. His wikipedia page contains brief biographical details along with a list of memorable quotes that will bring a lump to the collective throat of the Davies cognoscenti. And the BBC allows one to relive the famous ‘Frannie Lee commentary’ (‘Lee. Interesting. Very interesting…’) again and again. Gorgeous.

* I can cope with Motson’s schoolboy-like love of statistics and history. That’s me, that is.

Meaningless Yet Meaningful

Gloucester 19 – Leinster 13

To be frank, I didn’t really feel like attending this fixture a few days ago. The injustice of the Agen result had sorely tested me and I felt convinced that all that remained was a meaningless match against a hot and slick Irish outfit who could very well humiliate a weakened home side. As things turned out, I was proved utterly wrong. The right noises came out of Castle Grim all week and it seemed apparent that, for the sake of pride, the club was all out to win. Selection hinted at this. The marvellous, marvellous performance proved it.

The match itself developed into a classic encounter. It may be a touch simplistic to describe events as a battle between the Gloucester forwards and the Leinster backs but the home eight dominated in both tight and loose while the pack’s picking and driving were as fine as I have witnessed at the old venue. The Leinster three-quarters were always dangerous but brave and incisive tackling kept the try count down to single Brian O’Driscoll poach that equalised the Cherry and Whites’ early penalty try. A seven-all score line at the break was a concern as Gloucester had played the first period with a gusty gale behind them but a heroic performance lay ahead. Some Gloucester substitutions this season have been criticised but coach Ryan had it spot on after the break as beefy and belligerent displays from replacements Califano, Azam and the forgotten man of the squad, Will James, a revelation with his abrasive, bullish galloping, demonstrated. My man of the match was Peter Buxton who, again, drove the hard yards, made the energy-sapping tackles and grafted, grafted, grafted for the city. ‘Bucko’ is in the form of his life and he is my player of the season thus far; such an unfashionable, unselfish and effective force deserves every plaudit going.

At the end of the day, the thrills and spills of this fixture mean nothing tangible in terms of trophies and qualification. However, the victory was against a team packed with internationals desperate to vanquish in order to attain a home quarter-final draw; the confidence gained from Leinster’s insouciant dispatch will hopefully prove a springboard to further success and, if so, this could prove the most telling result of the season thus far.

Cheer

I shall venture to Kingsholm tomorrow to cheer on the Cherry and Whites against the hordes from Leinster. Disappointingly, there is nothing to play for for the home team except old-fashioned pride and, worringly, Leinster, with a dazzling array of backs on display, will be seeking a substantial victory in order to further their hopes of a home tie in the quarter-finals. I fear for my favoured team but look forward to and hope for a gritty performance, plenty of ‘dog’ and, perhaps, a memorable and morale boosting result. If nothing else, it will be remarkable to witness the world’s best centre, Brian O’Driscoll plying his trade at the historic ground.

I downloaded a couple more Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy albums today. I have popped Master and Everyone and I See a Darkness onto my MP3 player and shall give them a listen tonight. All the reviews I have read lavish praise upon these recordings.

Vert Enough

The deed is done and I’m off to a festival this summer. I booked a brace of tickets for this August’s Green Man Festival earlier this evening, one for me and one for the affable Warrington-bred S. I anticipate that other comrades may be heading to Brecon in the hols too. I hope so. No acts have been confirmed yet but by February I should learn who is playing and, by all accounts, the bill is an exciting one. In a way, knowing who is going to be playing can help determine what CDs I listen to this spring; it will be lovely to head off to Wales having really ‘got into’ a number of acts that otherwise would have passed under the old radar. I’m glad the tickets are booked; I reckon with this being a Glastonbury year, there might be a few disappointed people seeking a Green Man ticket soonish so getting in early might prove salient. As I’ve mentioned on here before, I don’t enjoy sleeping under canvas (an understatement!) but I’ll put that thought to one side for a while and start planning a mental-health-enhancement programme in July.

This may not be uptown Jamaica but we promise you a treat

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy accompanied me as I strolled along the supermarket aisles this morning. The worthily bearded lo-fi singer-songwriter was not there in person as I perused the choices in the cereal section but I was playing his stunning recording The Letting Go that A wistfully delivered into my life earlier this week. It’s a beautiful album full of space, understated calm and sweet, sweet melodies augmented by some striking male/female harmonies courtesy of Dawn McCarthy and the man himself. I’m keen to hear some more by this fellow. I’ve heard The Letting Go five or six times now and each listen reveals more layers and more depth to the album and I’m excited by the knowledge that there is an extensive back catalogue to explore. As I am part of a expedition setting manfully out in a fortnight to see Billy at Bristol’s Colston Hall I am naturally eager to investigate his earlier stuff.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

Last night’s loss against Agen was hard to take. Gutless capitulations are among the most awful losses to contend with but the defeat in France, brave, heroic and underpinned by gritty defence and exhilarating attack, seems almost harder to bear. I was convinced yesterday evening, and remain resolute in my opinion today, that the officials cost us the match with a series of shockingly inconsistent and deplorable decisions. Gloucester deserved at least two penalty tries (and, crucially, one towards the end), an Agen forward should have been shown a red card for holding the Italian behemoth Nieto by his flowing tresses while continually punching his gnarled visage, and Michael Tindall was binned immediately for entering a ruck at the side while French players, although penalised for similar and worse offences, were spared the yellow-hued punishment indicator. I dislike the city club losing any match but I feel especially miserable about the Agen defeat. We didn’t deserve this. I sense we were cheated and that hurts.

On a happier note, I observe that the main Gloucester library in Brunswick Road is hosting another mighty sale of CDs and DVDs on Saturday 27th January. I shall be there and I hope to have saved enough of my pocket money by then to really make the most of the opportunity.

The Forrester Fellow

James Forrester has signed on the dotted line today in a new deal that will keep the expressionist back row rascal at the city club until 2010.This news pleases me. Like Ryan Lamb, Forrester thrives more obviously on harder pitches, and when the ground is firm and a warm sun is on his back there are fewer more abundant talents to value. I would suggest that – and I type this as the rain lashes against my Longlevens windowpane – James needs to prove himself more consistently on the wintry mud plains and tag a bit of unfashionable Bucko-ism onto the rest of his bewitching talents. As things stand, I’m relieved he remains at Kingsholm; there are few match winners and gain line breakers of his quality in the English game and I hope to see his talent fully fulfilled in the next stage of his career.

Like a sucker, I always fall for the spin that accompanies any new signing or re-signing at Kingsholm and allow my eyes to mist over at the gorgeous expressions of appreciation the coaches seem to reserve for the new or renewed players, and the players for the city club. On closer inspection, I can’t believe James Forrester actually uttered these words today: “As a group we are very clear about where we are heading. The coaching environment is really stimulating and the players are given the responsibility to go out and play attacking rugby, which suits my game perfectly. The training facilities at Hartpury College are the best I’ve seen at club level, so the whole package is there.” He didn’t really say that, did he?

Do Belle & Sebastian Songs All Sound The Same?

I picked up a couple of 2006’s most critically acclaimed long players on Saturday for the princely sum of a single British pound. Admittedly, I don’t own these items but the local library in Longlevens allows members to borrow two CDs for the price of one on Saturdays. As a result, I am tapping these words onto my screen while I listen to Neko Case’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, a pleasing and tender collection of (I hate the expression) alt-country songs, delivered in a crystal-clear voice. This is only my second playing and I admire it thus far without being as astounded as some of its glowing reviewers would expect. I also hired The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian. This is full of melody and wit and enjoyable numbers but, and I risk being lynched by floral skirt and ironic hairgrip wearing hordes here, a lot of Belle and Sebastian songs do, in my very humble opinion, sound the same. The formula seems to consist of a wibbly-wobbly (I can think of no better word) tune coupled with heaps of singing about the pain and angst of what everyday life must be like for someone who doesn’t have to consider mortgage payments or car insurance and only has to worry about whether its cool or not to enjoy late-period Tallulah Gosh records. The Life Pursuit is a fine record with some outstanding moments. It just seems a wee bit smug. I've been struggling with a virus for the past few days so perhaps cute indie-pop isn't hitting the spot for that reason.

Fowl Play

I promised back here that I’d report on the Cole chicken project and am pleased to do so today. It has proved a heady year for our poultry-keeping hobby. Back in the early summer, our two chickens, Hetty and Bella started getting broody, sitting on their eggs all the blinking time and becoming quite fierce if you took away the egg or disturbed them in any way. I suppose we could have continued putting up with this rather juvenile behaviour but instead we got hold of some fertilised eggs from a fellow fancier which we placed under our pair of birds and waited to see what happened. How exciting!

The momentous day that our first baby chick hatched is easy to recall: it was June 10th, the morning of the day that England kicked off their World Cup campaign against the doughty Paraguayans. I remember thinking, ‘Not now! I’ve an incredibly important association football match to inspect!’ Anyhow, after a week, five chicks had hatched and they were very fluffy and cute and everything a bona fide chick should aspire to. As the days passed, it transpired that four were female and just one, rejoicing in the name ‘Tweetheart’, was a strutting, haughty cockerel in the making. The good burghers of Longlevens would never allow us to keep a noisy cockerel so Tweetheart had to leave along with Peckham (named after the brave England skipper) and Angel. They went to a good home in the country.

We decided to keep a couple of hens, Pasty (named after the former Longlevens, Gloucester, Gloucestershire and England ‘A’ rugby footballer, Mark ‘Pasty’ Cornwell) and Grey Bird (a grey bird). I think Grey Bird was originally called Charlie and later became known as Dickie. They are adults now I guess and, happily, are producing eggs for us. All four in our family of hens lay practically every day so we enjoy about one hundreds eggs each month from our tiny flock. They are gorgeous eggs too and all the better because they came from happy – some would say spoilt – birds who live in our garden. Our chickens have a rectangle of land where they stroll around all day, eating and drinking and stuff before retiring to their des res Eglu or rabbit hutch. Their favourite foods are pasta (especially the variety known as 'spaghetti'), rice, cheese, worms and grass although they mainly consume something called layers’ mash. They drink only water.

Here are some photos. Look above you. Some captions:

1. Some baby chicks, a day or two old. England are still in the group stages of the World Cup.

2. Hetty with adopted son Tweetheat (four to six weeks old). England are probably still in the World Cup which has now reached the thrilling ‘knock-out’ stage.

3. Hetty and Tweetheart again at about the same time.

4. Today. The World Cup is a distant memory. Left to right: Hetty, Pasty, Grey Bird, Bella.

Londres

Yesterday was tiring but fun, a lengthy day spent in the capital sandwiched by two longish train journeys, the first of which rendered us five-and-seventy minutes late, ruining my well-planned schedule. We still packed a lot in, including an hour or so sliding at the Tate Modern before a hearty and spicy ‘Ruby Murray’ in Notting Hill. I am suffering from London Eye fatigue; yesterday’s ‘flight’, my third, was a touch underwhelming and I reckon the novelty has now worn off. It was almost a case of ‘Oh yeah, there’s Big Ben. Hmmm, the Gherkin…’ I don’t think I’ll travel on it again. My debut, a couple of years back, was thrilling though.

As so often happens, a heavy day is followed by a visit from Mr Migraine the next morning and I feel decidedly groggy today.

What do points make?

Gloucester 15 - London Irish 3

Oh dear. This must rank as one of the dullest matches I have witnessed at Kingsholm. The appalling weather conditions conspired with some less than satisfactory decision making to throw up a game that was short on excitement, thrills and any real skill or intelligent football. It was dreary but at least Gloucester collected four points and prevented our opponents, potential rivals for top-of-table spoils come late spring, from attaining a bonus point. As suggested in my words previewing this fixture, Balshaw eclipsed the boy Foster, and in a twenty minute cameo ran thoughtful lines, chose angles that Pythagoras himself would have saluted and, importantly, scored the try that made the victory safe. Lamb did not enjoy his best game for the city but the wind and rain excuse him and I feel he was, in the style of a Nazi leader at Nuremburg, only obeying instructions when kicking down his opponents’ collective neck so much. One to forget.

This morning was exciting though. I appeared on the Phill Jupitus Breakfast Show on BBC 6Music. I texted in my correct answer (‘Oliver Twist’ for posterity) and, minutes later, the show’s producer Phil Wilding called me and asked if I’d like to speak to Phill live on air. It was enormous fun and the jocular host put me at my ease skilfully as we chatted about Christmas and various CDs from last year. I’ve won a couple of books which are on the way, my first prizes from that fine radio station for ages (I must have won seven or eight prizes in the past). Naturally, being a vain so-and-so I was straight onto ‘Listen Again’ at the show’s conclusion to hear our jovial dialogue. It will be online for one week – our exchange takes place two hours and fifty minutes into the show and you are able to fast forward in units of five or fifteen minutes.

Happy New Year.