Croatia 2, Australia 2...

I leaf through the little red, clothbound notebook I started using about this time last year. The entries range from the inexplicable:

"From legend to twat", Callum Best

...through proper writer's notebook stuff like these unused pub names for an autobiographical novel:

The Grim Horse, Kingston

The Dead Lion, Brentford

The Cow & Snuffers, Streatham

The Nag's Head, Fulham

The Cocked Gun, Gunnersbury

The Bleak Midwinter, Basingstoke


..some character names:


The Legendary Brian Cough

Lesbo Mouthpiece

Roachy Calendrix

CHURN [not sure if this is a name, or just a spurious entry...]


...aides memoires:


Kursaal Flyers

Ray's Famous [underlined] Pizza



...some Eliot:

Trying to use words and every attempt
Is a wholly new start and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say or the [can't make this bit out]
One is no longer disposed to say it and so each [illegible]
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipement, always deteriorating
In the general mess of impressions [or?/of?] feelings
Undisciplined squads [shouldn't this be squadrons?] of emotion


....some Morton Shadow's A-Z of Pop outtakes:


Boy George:

Real name: George Dowdy
Religion: Church of the Poison Mind

Brian Bno:

Invented ambient pop, collaborated with Bowie, Talking Heads, U2. Created Lord Snooty, Dennis the Menace & Gnasher etc.



...spurious calculations of how much compound interest might accrue on a £90,000 lump sum in 1 year:


£159,789.51 [that can't be right!?!?!]


I listen to Heroes all the way through. The 24 bit remaster is more detailed but still reeks authentically of that Hansa-by-The-Wall ambience - what a studio! There seemed to be such a sense of possibility then. More of a compulsion to experiment, to make the most of one's freedom; to expand, to grow. That's the real power of Bowie and that whole Changesone- thing - you could use your life and art as a means to find out who you were or what you wanted to be, "and the shame fell on the other side". Freedom was understood differently then, I guess ("I, I can remember standing by The Wall.....") Because it was valued more. Now the future is laid out before them like a trail of sweets. Modern pop is shit. What happened?

I watch Sugar Rush with the volume down, listening to Another Green World. 'Sombre Reptiles' accompanies a long, lingering, lesbian kiss.

A late Harry Kewell equaliser puts Australia through to the knockout phase where they face Italy for a place in the Quarter Finals.




© 2006 Swipe Enterprises