Cameron urges 'back to back to basics' approach as new revelations shock Met....

David Cameron has launched a valiant last ditch attempt to reunite the warring ranks of Tory MPs by once more claiming the moral high ground in British politics. Stung by claims from some quarters that he's a 'clueless, chinless berk' who has 'lost it', Cameron met reporters and delivered an impassioned plea for his party to 'go back to back to basics'. Speaking from a remote hillside retreat in Tuscany where he's currently holidaying with the people who actually run the country, the PM recalled the spirit of John Major in an attempt to reignite the flagging Conservative party flame.

Seated behind a protective cordon of security guards cunningly disguised as 'ordinary people' but all of whom look more like the 'synthesizer with a strap' player in some bloated and tedious German soft rock band on a very bad hair day, all with massive erections, the Prime Minister urged his party faithful to revert to tried and tested means of delivering electoral success. 'Look, I'm not gonna kid you that this is gonna be easy' said a tanned and relaxed PM in between taking sips of champagne from a glass proffered between the rear cheeks of a loyal fag, 'but it worked for John Major and it might just work for us.' Warming to his theme, Mr. Cameron continued, 'I know, I know, you're all thinking "this is a bit rich coming from you, you boss eyed liberal toff. You used to bang on about 'detoxifying the tory brand' and called your faithful foot soldiers "swivel eyed nazi cunts", but please, hear me out.

It might seem hypocritical to launch a moral crusade, especially at a time when we're turning a blind eye to all the highly dubious stuff we've all been asking the police to do for the last 20 years. Adopting the identities of dead babies and getting all manner of commie pinko slapper bitches banged up just in case they give us something we can rely on in court when they reach the moment of crisis, despite being married with kids themselves might not seem like the sort of thing we should be condoning, let alone paying large amounts of public money for in these supposedly austere times. (Another jeraboam of the Krug please Anatol, this one's ever so slightly on the tepid side). I certainly hope they didn't do that with mine - or use our dead baby's identity for that matter. And let's not even go there with the hate campaign we've been orchestrating against those poor people the Stephen-Lawrences. But, hey, come on - we're the Tories! When has a bit of complete and utter hypocrisy ever bothered us if it means we can lord it over the lower orders and appeal to enough lobotomised louts in the Midlands who think the sun shines out of Norman Tebbit's jacksy to win the key marginals?' Besides, if it all goes pear-shaped - as now I think of it it did when John Major tried the same trick despite having half his cabinet bonking one another and him not being averse to a bit of Edwina Curry himself (and who can blame him, I say?) even then we'll virtually get a Tory government in any case, regardless of who wins - just like we did in 1997."

The Prime Minister fleshed out the announcement in familiar fashion with a more detailed list of policy initiatives that had hastily been scribbled on a piece of recycled scrap paper, and referred any difficult questions to which he didin't know the answers to the Deputy Prime Minister, himself holidaying with a troupe of Burlesque artistes and high class call girls in Mustique.

xxx
Bob

Loss...

Love, love, love.

And loss.

The most recent.

I found the calm, still centre of myself and things were fine. And then we got a cat.

How do you describe a cat? How do you describe a hurricane? Oh you can make a stab at the outward manifestation of it; the markings, the little rabbit's feet, the infinite ground pepper flecking of his beautiful coat. You can draw up the generic idea of a swift rotating V that sweeps up towns and motorways in its path. But you can't see the force that drives it any

George...

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets. (1935-1942)

Highbury bore me. Oh, alright; Hampton bore me, if you must know. The Bearsted Memorial Hospital, 17th April, 1965. But we'll come back to that, I'm sure.



Highbury may not have borne me, but there is a North London connection. My Mother's family moved over from Belfast to a house at 497 Archway Road (I think) some time in 1953. Mum would have been about eighteen. Mum's father, Robert George Knight - known as George - was a painter and decorator. He invented a tool that helped you paint up to the skirting board called, appropriately enough, The George. It was patented, I believe. I never met either of my Grandfathers. Dad's father - like him, a Joseph - had died before they were married and George left his wife (my grandmother) Sarah - everyone called her Sadie - for another woman shortly before the same big day. My Mother banned him from the ceremony I believe, so distraught was she at his infidelity and subsequent departure. He's notably absent at Sadie's side here on August 29th, 1959 as the wedding party spills out onto the Archway Road from the Methodist Church on the corner of Jackson Lane.



Liz, Joe and well-wishers all eagerly awaiting the news of the Arsenal's 3-3 draw with Wolves at Molineaux...

My grandmother was a frequent presence in our home as my sister and I were growing up, so we never really heard that much about grandfather George and I suppose I just assumed him to have been long dead - which, if my Mother's attitude to him was anything to go by, he pretty much had been from the day he packed his bag.

Sometime in the early seventies, my grandmother (that's her to the left of her daughter, the bride in the photo above) moved out of 497 and took a small flat above a sportswear shop on Green Lanes, just by Haringey Station. From the window in the small kitchen at the rear of the flat you could just about make out Haringey Stadium where there used to be dog racing and, some time in 1973, the tail of comet Kohoutek just visible flying into the away shirt yellow of the sunset. In January 1975, I went with my Dad from that same flat to Highbury to watch my first game; a pitiful 1-1 draw with lowly York City in the third round of the FA Cup. It was a short tube ride from Manor House to the Arsenal. It felt like what I suppose it was; a second home.

Dad had been a fan of the club since childhood. He'd grown up in the afterglow of the great Gunners sides of the 1930s, possibly even going to see them play Brentford at Griffin Park in the Inter-war league or cups. The first game of football I remember seeing was the televised 1971 FA Cup final between Arsenal and Liverpool. It was another George, Charlie, whose spectacular winning goal and famous cruciform collapsing celebration of it that captured my heart and imagination that day.



My sister has left me some family photographs for safe keeping and I spend much of the Bank Holiday Monday going through them. Here's Samuel Crawford, born according to his death certiicate, "about May 1880", with his son-in-law George, in a photograph probably taken somewhere around Brookeborough in the very north of Ulster where the Crawford's family home was.



Whilst I'm looking among the documents in the loft for my Mum and Dad's marriage cerificate, I come across those recording the deaths of mum's side of the family. There's Samuel's and my great grandmother's. Sadie died in 1982 - only a year, I notice, after her long-lived mother (and my mother's namesake). Elizabeth Ann Crawford, nee Bullock; was born in 1885. She was born a year before Arsenal was formed. And then I come across George's death certificate and I realise that I've never bothered to check when he actually died. I feel my chest tighten a little when I see the date; 22nd May, 1971. So I could have met him, but never did.

It felt very strange, coming down from the attic with that thought - like losing something you never even knew you'd had. And the strange symmetry of football, of winning and losing - finding a new George only to lose another two Saturdays later. And that game, which had until then been a fixed, unyielding point of reference; a pole star by which I could navigate my youth suddenly veered off, Kohoutek-like; no longer a reliable crutch for the time-ravaged memory; now that whole month has splintered into a kaleidoscope of uncertainty. How much had my Mother known of her father's illness? Had his death come out of the blue? Why hadn't I picked up on her grief - if, indeed, she'd shown any. And if not, why not? How had the woman who through all of her life had proved so extraordinarily forgiving and charitable towards others been unable to extend those virtues to her own father? Had he gone peacefully, like my father, in his sleep?

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.

In the garden, late May, serene and tranquil, untroubled by the sadness of the world, I hurl myself down in a cross on the grass; a double winner, a Georgina glittering in the youthful sun. For weeks this goes on, months; all the pleasure of the world encapsulated in one goal, one timeless prostrate celebration.

Out there, in another world, another May, another George lies dying, lies dead.

The Urghers...

...and now, it's time for our weekly round up of goings on in Umbridge with The Urghers...

'TUMTY-TUM-TY-TUMTY-TUM-TUMTY-TUM-TY TUM TUM....'

Anthea is causing quite a stir amongst some of the Umbridge locals with her new comedy breast shaped hotpots, although Maurice is unimpressed and Tom says he'll stick with his ‘overpriced convenience food’ thank you very much even though Anthea has promised to model a pair for him if he still thinks that he'll find anything to match them in the ready meals section of the Umbridge Asda all of which is a bitter blow to Maurice and Jazzer who have decided to give up collecting eggshells for Mozambique and were going to start collecting Fray Bentos steak and mushroom pie tin foil lids for Uganda, blissfully unaware that Anthea has secretly bought up a job lot of them to customise with glace cherries which leaves Eddie to admit to Ruth that he still has concerns about Joe who, even with his calliper off, is a shadow of his former self - although he did prove to be a natural in the midfield holding role for the Umbridge XI before getting stupidly sent off for cything down the opposition's centre half who was though on goal with only Joe to beat by using one of his crutches and he's now worried that his three week suspension might mean he's not even able to make it to the micro-brewery visit, which poor Jim is really looking forward to as only a recovering alcoholic can, though Maurice is surprised when Lynda approaches him for the eponymous leading role in the Robin Hood production playing Friar Tuck but is quick to denounce Lynda’s big plans and says he has no inclination at all to make his debut now unless he can take over from Jazzer in the role of Maid Marion, using a split down the middle Friar/Tart costume in the style of the late Tommy Cooper, an idea to which Jazzer is beginning to come round to when Mike, who is awaiting results of a sputum test following the death of two calves is relieved to find out that the results are positive - it was definitely sputum - but when Alistair finally stops by with the good news Caroline and Oliver are unsure how to react especially as Joe’s rejection of their compensation offer has left them feeling that, although on the one hand, an increased offer could put an end to the whole scenario; on the other, a renewed offer could put an end to the whole scenario, causing Joe’s solicitor’s to push for more than just a printed apology in the Umbridge Argos and a large portion of chips and we'll say no more about it but just as they're beginning to come arould to the idea if he'll throw in a pickled egg each, Caroline is further set back when she finds out Kathy will be leaving the Health Club, taking all of her creativity and expertise with her along with several exercise bikes, a dozen treadmills, four of those rowing boat type seats and her complete collection of flat screen television monitors all of which leaves Helen feeling overwhelmed.

'TUMTY-TUM-TY-TUMTY-TUM-TUMTY-TUM-TY TUM TUM....'

The Idiot...

The Ballad of Russell and Roberta...

The scene: Day three of Roberta and Russell's Bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton for a Slightly Less Iniquitous World Order and already the boredom is beginning to set in....)

Rob.: So, run me through this Bed-in for a Slightly Less Iniquitous World Order thing again....

Rus.,: Well, basically babes, we are opposing a tyrannical and illegitimate archetype that guarantees, prima facie as an inevitable function of its paradigm, rampant global inequality and has no moral legimacy whatsoever and by lying here in bed as we are in our cosy Imperial sized bed at the not inconsiderably expensive and luxurious Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam we are striking a *damaging* blow to the empirically unsustainable power elites of global finance and the world moneyed elite. Plus it's nice to be able to catch your breath once in a while in between hosting all those awards ceremonies and just chillax with a likeminded old babe-buddy....

Rob.: Ah, that's sweet! OK then. So, we're in Am-ster-dam! That would explain those breakfasts. What's with the ham and cheese at this time in the morning? And ALL that BREAD? I mean, I like a slice of slimsea every now and then as much as the next woman, but this is beyond a joke. And that heavy brown stuff with the millet on it - that *is* actually edible is it? Only I've been using mine to keep me pumps from sagging. If you find a slice on the shagpile, I'd give it a miss if I were you - it might be one of mine. Sorry, I've digressed. What were we talking about...?

Russ.: ...opposing a tyrannical and illegitimate archetype that guarantees global inequality and has no moral legimacy whatsoever and striking a *damaging* blow to the empirically unsustainable power elites of global finance and the world moneyed elite....*kind* *of* important....

Rob.: Oh yes, that. Right. Well, obviously I'm right behind you - well, right *next* to you, just to make that clear to the watching world media... - on that. Absolutely 'shoulders' Russ. Bloody peeve me off they do, those banking wotsits and the whole global whatjermacallit of inequalitous erm...farragos...no, hang on, he's that UKIP chappy. But yes, right on, bro/sis, to all of that. I'm just not quite sure what we are going to do about it all just by having a slightly lengthier than usual lie-in in a very plush Amsterdam hotel, is all....

Russ.: Well, it's *media* *exposure* babe, obviously Darling! Just think, there won't be a *single* newsdesk on the planet that won't want to put two gorgeous squire/ettes like us lying provocatively draped together 'neath silken sheets in a *known* global hotspot of depravity and debauchery - sorry, I didn't mean to spit on you...here, use my cravat, that should get the worst of it off. You can use the rest to slick your sideboards back. Just because we're lying in bed for a week doesn't mean that you have to lose *all* semblance of basic human hygiene you know. I mean, how long have you had those socks on - oh no, hang on, it's a bit of Stilton from breakfast that's got stuck in your calliper. I'll ring up for some tweezers from room service in a mo...we're getting low on the Moet front anyway. You've made me lose my thread here. Where was I? Oh yes. The media. See, normally, a stunt like this would just be some boring way of getting publicity for a new movie or gameshow or autobiography or something, but this is *completely* *different*. See, we're making ourselves look *absolutely* *ridiculous* for world peace....or whatever it was I said earlier....see, it's you with yer bloody mindless interjections about breakfast throwing me off my stride. I had it all figured out a minute ago but now all I can think about is avoiding your improvised shoe expanders cobbled together from items of traditional Dutch breakfast comestibles. Honestly, no wonder the poor world's in such a state...

Rob.: I can kind of see the logic of it where you're concerned, but what about me? I mean, I don't have *anything* like your profile. I can't even get Lucy Adams to friend me on Facebook - and she's been in the same room as Chris Effing Patten for crying out loud. You'd think she'd need all the friends she could get. And I went to junior school with her...

Russ.: ...you went to school with Lucy 'Loosey' Adams....?

Rob.: Why certainly. Look here....what does that say on the top left of the middle leather calliper strapping....?

Russ.: [reading slowly, as if trying to make out a well aged motto scratched into worn leather] 'Roberta, you is such a MING. Luv Luce H...'

Rob.: She used to kick away my sticks too...

Russ.: Don't put yourself down babe - you're a vital part of this team. I mean, what would I do without your songs?

Rob: Yes, and before you start on about it, when I said that was the last time I was going to fart 'I'm forever blowing bubbles' into a punchbowl of Drambuie breezers, I meant it...

Russ.: No, I mean *your* songs...

Rob: Oh right, ta. Oh yes, which reminds me, I've had an idea for another one - in fact, a whole ruddy LP we could do to cash in on...I mean, commemorate our glorious struggle against the paradiddles of globular inequusness...

Russ.: Go on...

Rob: Well, it would be called the Wedding Album and all of side one is just one track with us saying each others names in a variety of silly voices for half an hour...you know, 'Roberta.....Russell....Roberta....Russell....Roberta!!....Russell!!!!!............Roberta?....................Russell???.....'

Russ.: ...yes, I kind of  get the concept babe...

Rob.: ...and we could have a pretend slice of wedding cake and a facsimile of the certificate and....here, Russell.....stop rubbing up against me like that....'ere.....are those twenty deniers you've got on....Rus-sell!! Ah, Jesus, do we have to go through all this again. I'm still waiting for the stubble rash to subside from the last time. Oh go on then, but don't get snagged on me calliper again...and tell that lot with the cameras to look away....

Paul Davis

I actually went to school with this guy and he's finally made it!

Which is a good job, because he owes me some moolah.

Check him out by clicking on the words that comprise his name.

It's a Coooooool site!



Love on y'all,



Bob

Sir Harrison Birtwistle's Indespensable Guide To Contemporary Music...

This week: Drum 'n' bass

How do,

As ye know, I'm a plain speakin', Accrington born laddie me and I doesn't care to mince uz words. Ye'll get none o' the sort o' fancy Dan fripperies ye would from yon poncy Southern Music critics from this un. (Most of 'em are right bloody pooves an' all, like as not). No, I speak as I find me, call a spade a spade and if ye don't like it, happen as like ye'll know where tha's can shove it!

Anyroad, this week I've listened to yon Drum 'n' bass music and quite frankly, if ye want t'truth, I'll give it ee straight: I've never heard such a flamin' racket in all uz born days. It's bloody murder on tha' eardrums - worse than bloody Peter Maxwell Davis (if ye can believe that!) I was fair near tearin' uz ears off after the first couple or three bars, it were such a cacophony. Tuneless bloody racket it is, I'm not kiddin' ye. Happen as like yon young uns'll go doolally o'er it but if y'ask me, it's nowt but a bollockin' pile of old shite.

Let's be havin ye,


Harry
This week: Franz Ferdinand

How do,

As thee know, I'm not one t'shy away from plain speakin', me. I'm an Accrington born laddie and proud o't and uz doesn't care t'mince uz words. I like t'shoot from t'hip, does I. Thee'll get none o' yon meally mouthed blatherin' and a-mitherin' from this un. None o't'pompous peregrinations and regurgitated bourgeoise platitudes of yon poncy, la-di-da NME journalists from this un, thee can count on't. No, I speaks as I find me, calls a spade a spade and if tha doesn't like it, tha's can take a flamin' hike and take tha beggarin' wife with 'ee!

Anyroad, this week I've listened to yon Franz Ferdinand and, if thee wants t'truth, I'll give it thee straight, no beatin' round t'bush: thez are a shower o' feckin' shite if ever I did hear't. What a flamin' racket! Never heard such a pathetic heap of codswallop since uz did t'first run through of t'Orestia at t'flamin' Festival Hall with yon twatting one-armed conductor. Cacophony? I'll give thee bloody cacophony. I've heard more sense comin' out me own arse after one of t'wife's stout and mushy pea pies than out of yon singer's bloody gob. Thez make t'bleedin' Gang o' Four sound like t'Nolans and no mistake. By heck, I'm not kiddin' ye - I'd rather eat uz own shite than have t'put up wi' yon caterwaulin' again. And jest t'put t'bloody silk cap on't, yon singer's one o' them fancy Dan bleedin' Southerner Guardian columnists an' all. Bunch of pooves thez are, and no mistake. Tha'll not get this un wi' uz back to 'em for a kick off, I can tell thee.

Happen as like yon young uns'll go doolally o'er it but if tha asks me, Franz Ferdinand? Thez nowt but a bollockin' pile of old shite.

Now, get away with thee before I teks uz bloody belt to thee,


Harry

The boy with the hole in his heart...

The scar was a zipped up fly of blistered skin. It ran for about six inches down the middle of his chest. It was as if someone had taken an iron to some worms and a passion flower and then a translucent skin had been allowed to form over the resulting mess. Most of our scars were visible back then, his was just the most apparent and the most extreme. There was a spina bifida boy with crutches and a calliper in the year below and another sturdy girl with a stiffening fixture on one leg, but their manmade buttressing somehow seemed to make them less, not more fragile. We were all always getting cuts and grazes, but they mostly came from falling over. The knees of Ian Davis and Brian Nederhoff in particular seemed to be perpetually scabbed or bleeding, bleeding or scabbed. Tall and gangly Big Birds, they both seemed especially prone to going down. A strange mustard coloured ointment would be daubed on to the blackcurrant jam of their wounds and somehow, soon, everything would be alright, their tears become smiles once more. But nothing as extreme had befallen us as had the boy with the hole in his heart. You didn't get a scar like that just from falling over.

We didn't call him the boy with the hole in his heart back then, of course, but Pharoah Kid was Pharoah Kid even then, only rarely to his face. It was just the way our minds worked, I suppose. His unruly shanks of growing out ruffian crop hair were abstracted into a crude, linear, side-on Egyptian caricature. In much the same way, the boy with the hole in his heart was The Milky Bar Kid owing to a passing similarity to the kid from the TV advert which, now I think about it, didn't extend too far beyond them wearing similar round framed, high magnification spectacles and both being kids. But it seems right to call him this new name now, to turn that lifelong reminder of a childhood hole in the heart operation into the stuff of metaphor. Because now we too know a little of what he went through. Our hearts have all been yanked out, pummelled, probed and prodded, put back in and the wounds, however poorly, however ineptly they disguise the trauma undergone, have been stitched up. There were no surgical gloves, there was no anaesthetic for us though.

And then there was Harry. That strange meeting at Kefalinnia Airport. The odd rightness of that Greek setting; him returning from the Island of Odysseus which we'd observed for the previous two weeks from our lazy poolside, unaware that he had been secluded there somewhere on one of Ithaca's rugged boobs. Harry, still the quiet centre of it all, his fame and renown even greater than when I could claim to know him. Those Ustinov locks hoary now but deserving of the laurel leaves they always seemed to be requiring then. But so sad now, and lost looking, with Sheila gone. And me, my Mother living on through me, perhaps, inhabiting me, something anyway making me become the compassionate, concerned 'good with people' son - perhaps the man she'd hoped one day I would become. The past healed, then, in a moment, with that firm and more meant than was ever said hand clasp and his straight in the eye, sincere entreaty to 'take care of yourself'.

The past is healed. It can be written now, with love. Because I tried before to write it but there was still anger in my heart. But now there is no room for that. Not with so many gone. First Bill, my Mum, then Dad and now Sheila. Only Harry and Jo-Jo remaining now of all our parents. How can there be room for anger? What is it Larkin says? 'All that survives of us  - remains of us? - is love'. And whichever it is, that's true. 

All that is left is love. Love, love, love.

Thank You Mr. Howesey...

For being Europe's premier bass-playing train driver...

Oh, and for this:



I've only watched 250 times so far....


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© 2007 Swipe Enterprises

Delete blog option #1,468...

Controversial self-styled web terrorist and housewife superstar Roberta Swipe has died at the age of 48 in a state-sponsored Bed & Breakfast in Norfolk of an unspecified groin ailment. It's the second time in as many months that the barely known and much-despised contrarian author of 'My Life in the Bush of Tights' and other spectacularly unsuccessful (not to mention unpublished) works has taken her own life in a failed attempt to drum up some semblance of a readership. Swipe, once again, leaves behind a harem of fictitious celebrity wives due to her belated conversion to Islam/a partially successful sex change - the harem is thought to include Bette Stove, Tara Palmer Tompkinson and Lyndsey de Paul to name but eight. However, under stringent new anti-terrorist laws the actual names of the estimated 412 concubines cannot be published, only communicated by semaphor at night within a 12 mile radius of Hartlepool. Swipe's Tabbyssinian cat, Monty, was once again unavailable for comment.

Tributes to the much mourned (not to mention deceased) broadcaster and wit have been pouring in from across the blogosphere. The grief-fuelled outpourings of Titty Abimuss, author of the popular, mildly erotic and highly instructive 'Girl with a One Track Mind' blog were pretty representative. 'Roberta was a much misunderstood artist who even bore a vague resemblance to a normal human being at times', wept the celebrated author who is frequently wheeled out at random by BBC news 24 and so on to pontificate on all matters vaguely related to the internet (or sex - so she'd be a dead cert for sex on the internet stories, actually, now I gthink of it) in a lull between youthful sexual partners. 'She didn't help matters much by writing in Swahili and changing the address of her blog every five minutes, but I for one will very much miss her, if only because she was actually quite a dab hand at spelling words such as chlamydia and such like that I often have a problem with - and before you get all snooty, you try leafing casually through a Chambers concise when you've got half a hundred weight of key grip going hell for leather with a chamois over your private portions in the back of a catering trailer...'

The news of Swipe's repeated demise comes at a time of growing concerns over internet freedom. 'Roberta was many things - and most of those involved wearing badly laddered pantyhose and rather too much foundation - but at least you knew where you stood with her; usually with your back firmly up against the wall!' commented Van Istski, rhythm guitarist and farfisa organist with popular post-punk trio the Labial Tizers. However, in a move designed to placate his angry europhobe backbenchers, Prime Minister David Cameron is said to be considering a public beheading and massed booing of Swipe's corpse as an example to others. A Downing Street insider opined, 'this Swipe bint is a tremendous example of the harm that an unrestrained and feral internet can do. These people can say whatever they please and it's often downright offensive to someone or other, somewhere on the planet which is, if you ask me, unspeakably beastly. And I should know, I frequently fagged for Nicholas Soames so there's little I don't know on the subject of unspeakable beastliness, I can tell you. Skidmarks like tractor tryes is only the half of it, ducky. Now, all we're calling for is sensible regulation and light monitoring so that we know exactly what everyone is writing at any given time and can intervene to have them locked up in order to stop anyone who might otherwise try to blow up our citizens from being offended.'

For reasons of national security, the Roberta Swipe Show blog will be closed down at midnight tonight.

Bobcast #79

Eddie, are you kidding???? Listen, download, ignore here...

xxx
Bob

Velma...

velmavideo from Robert Swipe on Vimeo.

xxx
Bob

Transvestite Pop Star Hacked to death in Second Brutal Hacking to Death Incident...

Robert Swipe, the transvestite Pop Star and self-styled 'First Lady of Web Terrorism' has been found viciously hacked to death by Islamofascist Global Terror Suspects in his West London home. Swipe, who up until his untimely and sensationalist murder was trying to kid the world that he was still only 45, left behind several wives, one viciously carnivorous but ultimately lovable Tabbyssinian cat and two half-eaten Snickers bars which, in typically contrarian style, he insisted upon referring to as 'Marathons' right up to the bitter end. At a hastily arranged press conference/champagne buffet and reception held in the back of the Prime Ministerial limousine, David Cameron made the following statement:

We condemn in the strongest terms this vicious and unprovoked assault upon one of our Nation's most expendable stand up comedienne's/talentless pop wannabees. Robert Swipe may have been typical of his class; a decadant, amoral loafer with all of the ambition of a demotivated sloth suffering a major existential crisis and about as relevant to contemporary British society as a vaguely racist Lance Percival 45 rpm disc, but he was often completely harmless and had, to his credit, as much intention of voting UKIP as my wife and I have - although of late Samantha has, worryingly, begun to make some rather alarming comments about asylum seekers and 'squeezing the cripples' until the pips squeak'. Much as I would like to reassure her that both of these are indeed very high on the list of current Government policy priorities, I have to be very careful of what I say in public in case the Deputy Prime Minister finds out. Robert will be sorely missed - not least at the ballot box in the forthcoming Eurpopean elections where - I won't lie to you - we need every single non-UKIP vote we can get our hands on, no matter how unsavoury and morally dubious some of the lifestyle choices of these grimey little toerags might be.

The circumstances surrounding Swipe's brutal hacking to death with a saracen sword-style machete remain surrounded in the usual bogus fug of obfuscation that surrounds carefully orchestrated symbolic state executions masquerading as random atrocities aimed at spreading fear and terror amongst an otherwise docile and harmoniously co-existant multi-cultural society. However his murderers are believed to have broken into his bijou West London home in a fashionable part of Feltham (nowhere near the terrorist hotbed Young Offenders institute) and savagely hacked him to death in a vicious and brutal manner. The terrified perpetrators then beat a hasty retreat to await arrest in a crowded nearby street, posing for photographs whilst telling the rapidly swelling crowd of onlookers that, rather than voting for UKIP at the forthcoming European Elections, they could send an even more powerful message to the Coalition by agreeing to be swallowed up by a new Caliphate sweeping its way majestically across Europe, from Southern Spain to the Russian steppes, with the Eurozone being effectively replaced by a return to the feudalism of the Middle Ages. 'You'll be begging for the EU to come back by the time we've finished with you', one of the murderers is supposed to have informed Adam Boulting before helping himself to a bourbon biscuit offered to him by the hastily convened Sky outside broadcast catering unit.

Swipe's widows, Sophie Rayworth, Michal Hussein, Wendy Hurrell, Emily Maitliss, Kirsty Wark (Kirtsy Wark???) and Tanya Beckett (Swipe converted to Islam in 2006 precisely in order to take advantage of its more liberal attitudes to polygamy) are convinced that their former husband (and lover) was the victim of a shady collaboration between the CIA, the British Government and the laughably incoherent and ineffectual assortment of so-called terror cells grouped together under the supposedly terrifying umbrella of 'Al-Qua-bloody-eda'. "We want the truth about Bob's viscious hacking to death by Islamofascist Global Terror Suspects in his West London home to come out", said Bob's harem of wives in a carefully worded - not to mention synchronised - statement. "We know the CIA and 'Al-Qua-bloody-aeda' have been in cahoots since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and have now forged a mutually beneficial 'enemies of convenience' arrangement  that allows both parties to benefit from massively inappropriate levels of funding from their government and the Saudis respectively. This may be convenient for the organisations themselves, the military/industrial complex, the global power balance and News International, but we have lost a much-loved husband and a tender and giving lover not remotely fazed by the complexities of pleasuring multiple newsreaders in the 24/7 digital information age. A part of us died with Bob and we now have only our vast collection of sexual aides and Trevor McDonald to comfort us at this most difficult of times."

Bob's cat, Monty, was unavailable for comment...

xxx
Bob

2012 Games Hit by Savage Coalition Cuts...

The prestigious London Olympics set to be staged in summer 2012 could become the latest high profile casualties of the ongoing cuts sanctioned by the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition. Seb Coe, himself a high profile tory supporter, was the first London 2012 official to break ranks and come out in public to condemn the government for extending its austerity programme to what had been hoped would be a joyous sporting occasion.

"I'm fecking livid!" Snapped former middle distance champion Coe, in between taking swipes at a punch bag with a photograph of Steve Ovett sellotaped to the top. "We're hoping to lure the word's finest athletes over here for a wonderful athletics tournament when all the time the rug is being pulled from under our feet by those cowardly politicians. First they let the anti-cuts protestors abscond with several thousand quid's worth of Boris Johnson's hire bikes (sponsored by Barclays) and now they've told us that the games won't be exempt from the cuts either. It's a rotten shame as we were hoping to use the bikes for the Cycling pursiut in our lovely new state of the art Velodrome - or flipping bike shed, as it'll no doubt be by the time Cameron and Clegg have had their way with it."

"And that's just the start of it", continued Lord Coe. "How's Hussein Bolt going to feel when he turns up and finds there's only enough cinder track laid for him to run the 50 metres?

We're only making plans for Nigel...

Exciting developments here at Swipe Towers. As many of you will know, I've been a long standing opponent of Britain's membership of the European Community - well, you know me and foreigners! Never have got on with them - especially the French! And don't start me off on the Germans... what was it Tom Lehrer said?:

We taught them a lesson in 1918 ....
...and they've hardly bothered us since then...

Erm, *hello*!?

So you can imagine my unbridled joy when I get a call from UKIP leader Nigel Farage asking if I'd be interested in appearing in or doing the voice-over for their next Party Political Broadcast. 'Just try and stop me, Nige!' I chortle down the line as I rifle though the old wardrobe for a suitably exotic tweed three piece - well, you can never look too stylish for voice-over work, can you? 'Indeed, I can go one further,' I tell him as I run the rule over a rather dapper pair of plus two and three-quarters that haven't seen the light of day since my last tour of the 19th hole with Alice Cooper back in the heyday of his peak time 'A round with Alice' pro-celebrity golf and wine tasting televisual spectaculars. 'If we're really going to build on the solid start you chaps have made in the recent local election and really start powering on to become a major force in British politics, you're going to need to get your social media campaign sorted, and PDQ. Now, don't take this personally Nige, but pleasant old cove as you'd no doubt be to sup a couple of tankards of fiercely independent British ale with in the snug bar of the Dandelion and Artichoke, I'm guessing you don't know one end of a Twitter from a Joined-up FaceTube, am I right?' There's a cascade of pooterish snorting from the other end of the line. 'Right-ho, Nige - leave it to me.'

Well, we've all got to play our part haven't we if we want to drag this sad and begraggled country kicking and screaming from the mire of Federalist craziness, Health and Safety straight jacketing and Political Correctness gone mad and back up to where it really belongs - in the 1950s. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've nothing against your average Nigerian or Somalian. No. Indeed, some of them have been amongst the most reliable domestic servants I've ever had the pleasure of fining a week's wages for dozing off in the larder whilst on kedgiree stirring fatigues. The sun shines on Englishman and wog alike, who could disagree with such a basic, noble sentiment - after all, is not such a progressive notion of brotherhood and commonwealth the very foundation stone of our blessed and eternal Empire? Exactly. I'm no racist - indeed, I'll take my sturdiest 12-bore to the first curmudgeonly rascal who dares suggest I am and have them publicly horse-whipped by the Royal Hussars' finest into the bargain. No, I'll happily break bread with any tint of darky, be it in Nairobi, Lagos or Mogadishu, once the forced repatriations start.

So I'm straight on the old Skype contraption to my new buddy from across the pond, the startlingly witty and (I'm sure she won't mind me saying) rampantly horny, hot piece of ass, Kelly Oxford. Kelly and I first 'bumped into one another' on Twitter. I was immediately drawn to her no-holds barred approach and her mastery of the pithy put down. Indeed, she was able to sum me up in as little as 9 characters. I felt she was perhaps a trifle lazy with the 'camp' bit, but the 'cunt' was certainly spot on... Kelly's in mid-tweet when she comes on the line. 'I'm just Barrcking Obama' she tells me. I didn't realise that legalised that too, not so soon after allowing sodomites and lady poofters the right to the old matrimonials. Strange country. Always has been.

Now, I know what you're thinking - this Kelly Oxford dame might have the anglicised name and look like as English a rose piece of pereipheral eye candy totty from the aristos of reality dramas, Made in Chelsea as you could ever wish for, but isn't she (forgive the non-PC terminology) a septic? Yes, yes, yes, I see the irony and - if they haven't bloody banned that too - if you'll forgive the industrial expression; what the bollocking hell if she is?

Look, it's impossible to disentangle the history of our beloved isle from that of its more illustrious former colonies, would you not agree? Similarly, our destiny has been forged -and for the better I'll have you know - by many a former colonial. Without the likes of, to choose just one example from literally six or seven, Ian Macgregor, who helped poor departed St. Margaret break the yoke of militant trades unionism, we'd still be piling our refuse sacks onto the local village green and have a currency that would look like green shield stamps compared to the Drachma. The day that this country can't open its doors to outsiders in order to rid itself of filthy fifth columnist enemies within is the day this pride nation of ours might as well fall on its ceremonial sword and hand the levers of state to the ruddy Liberal Democrats once and for all.

But I digress. Kelly's pretty soon on board when I let her know that she'll have unlimited scope (well, 140 characters) to be as rude and nasty to foriegners and the mentally retarded as she likes. 'Today Twitter, tomorrow the world!!' she tweets me later on. I smile and go back to Yesterday. They're re-showing 'The Nazis: a warning from history' in its entirety.

Bobcast #78...

You know the drill...

Scott...

One of the most pleasing aspects of putting together the 'Urbane' LP has been the opportunity to work with some of my personal favourites and heroes from the world of pop. Obviously Eno's involved too - incidentally, I swear he eats his own body weight in Jaffa cakes over the course of a session - although his contributions have got so quiet and ethereal of late that I just tend to turn the level of his synthesizer down completely and crank up the mic on his feather boa. Sounds much the same - in fact, a bit grungier if anything...

Lana del Rey was an unexpected but very new addition to my close-knit coterie of collaborators. I'd expected her to be somewhat more of a diva than she turned out to be actually. Her penchant for milk stout was particularly surprising - especially so when taken with a Cinzano top. I'd had an odd inkling about the pickled onions though, as it goes, and so was able to congratulate myself on my excellent foresight whilst watching her guzzle down a couple of jars in between crates of Mackeson. I was flattered but still a little irked to discover later that she'd swanned off with a couple of my favourite blouses after laying down the tambourine part on 'Sparklejumpropequeen' - although, to be fair, she probably pulls off a wire wool and cheeseystrings combo with a little more elan than I ever managed. They probably do need a broader shoulder, with hindsight.

So you can imagine my unbounded joy when one of my favourite ever singers, Scott Walker called to ask if there was anything he could do to help me put the finishing touches to the album. Obviously Scott's about the only person currently operating in the music business who could reasonably be described as being more outre than your humble scribe - obviously as I'm almost comepletely vegan, it rather rules out the possibility of using a dead pig's carcass as a percussion instrument to recreate the viscious slapping meted out to Mussolini and his wife (Clara?) as they hung from lamp-posts. Obviously, I'd have no such qualms about using Nick Clegg, but I've just not had the time to hunt him down yet, but I'll catch Scott up one day in the wierdo stakes, just you wait and see!

Scott arrives looking dapper in a baseball cap and a pair of luminous Mickey Mouse ears. I'd been warned to expect a somewhat erratic presence but even an eccentric old dufferette like me is a bit taken aback when he insists on talking in a high-pitched and squeaky voise and calling me 'Pluto'. Still, he's otherwise no trouble at all and certainly not a biscuit-hoovering gannet along Eno lines. Indeed during the marathon session the poor thing is more than happy to graze on nothing more elaborate than a hardened crust of cheese he'd spied lurking at the back of the fridge. He nibbles on this occasionally throughout the day in between making odd peeping noises and twitching his nose.

Lunch sorted, we head up to the attic and, when I can stop him from nosing around the skirting boards for five minutes, Scott begins to layer some dissonant string parts onto my song 'Gone'. It's a complex and time consuming process which entails him lying spreadeagled over the keyboard playing a series of chords as dictated by the random gyrations of his enviably wiry torso - must look into the nutritional values of hardened cheese rind; it's obviously working for him. Of course, that's the easy bit. The difficult and laborious part is sifting through hundreds of takes to find the one that sounds most out of tune. It's no wonder his LPs take so ruddy long - I'd have cracked by the second week and be phoning up the rest of the Walker Brothers to ask if they wanted to do an album of saccharine Archies covers played by five year olds on the ukulele, but Scott's obviously made of sterner stuff. I keep wanting to tell him he should let me produce him - it only took me six weeks to churn out the tuneless twaddle that was Bedroom Burlesque and I didn't have to lie on top of the keyboard once - but I hate to disturb a proper artist when they're at work.

Finally, after what seems like a month, we manage to comp a section that comprises of absolutely no melody whatsoever and I'm able to usher him out of the studio (carefully avoiding the cat, who has a current body count of 21 mice, 1 rat and a wood pigeon to his name) and wave Scott a cheery farewell. Blimey, that was hard work. I've barely time to wind up another dumb waiter-full of bourbon biscuits to keep Brian going as he starts adding 'Enossifications' to Scotts sting overdub than it's time for Emmerdale. I must be due for retirement soon, surely...?

Gone...

xxx

Bob

42 words about 'Urbane'...

Obviously there comes a stage in one's career where the need to court popularity from one's massed millions of admirers becomes almost a total irrelevance. You've done all the wearing a kimono to get a bit of attention  and pretending to be a Nazi bit and you just want to get on with what you do best: grouting. You've got so much money in the bank you could end Third World debt by giving up six months interest alone, so what else is there for you to do with the last few dull years of your life but have the occasional 3-day Skyping session with Ricky Gervaise and pals and bask in the Caribbean winter? Well sod that! The need to create, create, create is still all consuming.  So, my hordes of brainless lackeys have hit upon a fabulous plan. They told me at our last webinar/virtual catch-up that I had gone way beyond this point of brand recognition several LPs ago and it might now best served my interests to announce a complete conventional media blackout/radio silence/internet account Omerta and leave everything to the bods in the Viral Marketing department who will, I'm reliably informed, get me onto every news bulletin in the civilised world without me needing to do so much as take my eyes off the current ever-so tricky Jenga manouvre. As Ross would no doubt say, "*FINE* *BY* *ME*!!!"

So, I leave you not only with a new LP (out soon from all good retailers. And HMV) but also 42 words that I believe really get to the heart of the Chothic (no, I've no idea what it means either) nature of the current ouevre (ditto). Right, I'm back to me plank insertion before Stephen Merchant eats all the Bourbons. Here are your 42 words humanoids:

Panglosian
Dissonance
Rentaghost
Defenestration
Gengolphus
Plantagenet
Garribaldi
Bling
Cadaverous
Dork
Wagnerian
Semantic
Gorgonzola
Frenetic
Bijou
Caliper
Drachma
Volleyball
Pincer
Draconian
Vituperative
Peruvian
Lithe
Scalloped
Finbar
Animatronic
Zoob
Recalcitrant
Fol-di-rol
Rendered
Immutable
Koan
Hotline
Botticelli
Runes
Clippy
Stanza
Cormorant

Madonna@80...

Personally, I've never quite forgiven her for that 'Hand of God' incident. Still, at least she never tried to bite anyone's arm - well, apart from Sarah Bernhardt, obviously...

xxx
Bob

Birthday goil...

 Ah well, another candle on the cake tomorrow - it'll need to be a pretty big one to fit them all this year. Not that I'm particularly age conscious - indeed, I'm rarely conscious, period, but that may well be as much down to the Drambuie Breezers as to any incipient senility. I hate using the phrase but 'when you get to my age', you tend to treat each day as a bonus - especially when you've lived life with an acetylene blowtorch trained on the centre of the torch as I have been wont to (Grammar Nazi aside - *why* is Blogger underlining the word 'centre' as if I've spelled it incorrectly? Did we actually win World War II? See, there, it just did it again. Ridiculous.) Anyway, assuming I make it through until tomorrow before the spellchecker gives me a stroke, I trust as many of you as possible will be joining me up in town for the big Official State Birthday Celebration shindig that Dave, Nick and all the lads are putting on for me. I'm sure you'll have seen coverage of the preparations on the news over the last couple of days and are like me scratching your head and wondering why the hearse bearing my coffin will be collecting me from the chapel of rest and not the Coach and Horses as I requested. Probably Dave and Nick's idea of a little joke at my expense. Or is that Michael Gove? Anyway, God only knows what they'll have planned for my 30th next year - probably a lynching if this lot drift any further to the right. Which reminds me, how is Kenny? Anyway, you should come along. After all, you are ruddy well paying for it.

But enough rambling about my birthday celebrations. You'll all be wondering I know how the new album's coming on and I have to say, at the risk of sounding a self-satisfied old toadette, it's progressing rather well. After having held out for as long as possible from joining the digital revolution, I recently invested in some new recording hard- and soft-ware and the results have been quite dazzling if I say so myself. I really wish I'd taken the plunge sooner. The microphone is proving a particularly solid upgrade - especially since the baked bean tin and string arrangement I've been using up until now was beginning to fray. Not to mention dent. Of course, as with all progress, there's a downside. As much as the new sense of clarity is a boon, obviously there's a cost in that you can now hear most of the lyrics. And the singing. But after the initial heebeejeebees have died down, you do get used to it - well, the cat has at any rate. Mind you, he's long been pretty much inured to the idiosyncrasies of my vocal technique as he's probably strangled more water voles than I've had hot dinners. 13 mice, 1 rat and 1 pigeon is the current body count. I'm thinking of shipping him out to North Korea - he'd soon sort 'em out. So, what can the avid listener expect from the new album? Well, it's probably my most accomplished LP to date and that production gloss is compounded by a growing sense of lyrical maturity. The title track being a case in point:

 Oh dear what can the matter be 
I got stuck in the lavatory 
Stayed there from Monday to Saturday - 
Oh what a state of affairs... 

So I hope you'll all brave the elements to join the celebrating throng up in Westminster tomorrow. I'll be handing out a few signed test pressings of the new LP - well, we have to do something to try to keep the numbers down; Health & Safety etc. Why else would Cameron and Clegg be going?

Toodle-pip!

Open mic night: 22/11/2012...

Never forget the golden rule of the open mic: it was good last week, so it will be awful this. You hope against hope that it won't always be the case, but invariably it is. I say it was awful, but I can't really speak for the first hour or so as I don't get there until after 10pm as it's a late night at work. But Cas's last words to me on Wednesday after our weekly practice session are along the lines of 'get there at 10 because I can't wait to play the stuff we've practiced'. Getting back home from work, wet, brain-dead and tired, I could happily flop in an armchair and yell abuse at the screen whilst watching Question Time with the sound muted (well, we all have our own ways to unwind) but I leave a mildly disgruntled, long-suffering partner in crime to head back out into the rain, trying to keep the worst of it off my little 4 watt Vox amp and my caseless £80 Strat copy with my overcoat, and down into the steaming pit of rock 'n' roll debauchery that is the Cow & Snuffers. No matter how tired or apprehensive you might feel, the pull is always too strong to resist.

Mick the Landlord pulls me up a free pint of 'Buie and I try to hide from view of  'the stage' so that I can at least savour a couple of gulps of grog, but it's hard to be discreet when your amplifier is causing a blockage on the well-trodden route to the ladies loo and Paula the Landlady is flecking both one's (facial) cheeks with parodic aristocratic French mistress kisses replete with much exagerrated lip puckering and butterfly wings arm flapping. Sure enough, I'm spotted and make my way through the adoring crowds to the tiny corner of the pub into which a drum kit, PA system and various other forms of amplifiers have been arranged to form a Krypton factor-esque obstacle course for the daring handful of musicians. Once a week they attempt to insinuate themselves between this jungle of mischievously angled microphone stands, noose-like cables and illuminated music stands in order to attempt to bluff their way through a carefully selected repetoire of popular favourites and hoary old chestnuts. In short, imagine an area the size of a modest king-size bed decked out by Salvador Dali and co. along the lines of their first Surrealist exhibition only with an overloaded household electrical current running through it and you have some idea of the extreme bodily contortions required by the artiste in order even to stand on - or, more accurately, in - what we might with heavy irony refer to as 'the stage'.

"What kept you?" "What time do you call this???""Thank God you're here!" The imploring throng pat a legendary shoulder, shake a saintly hand, grasp at a messianic arm as I move amongst my flock. Their pent up desperation for my arrival wafts me onward, their sheer desire spiriting me towards 'the stage'. It's quite touching at first, until the bubble is rudely burst. "Thank God you're here - Zak said she was waiting for you to get here before she'd go up and sing. Come on - we've been waiting all night to hear her."

And Zak - Cas's daughter - is indeed here and sporting an early modernist masterpiece by way of her coiffure. Resembling the charred remnants of a crop circled cornfield that's been razed to the ground, her short back and sides are topped by an electric blue ball of coiled plaits. It's lovely to see her. Where do you start with Zak? Studying at Oxford, super model good looks, voice of an angel and with all that, add in a zen-like poise and self deprecating niceness that many with a zillionth of her talent or accomplishment lack. So, all in all, just your average teenager, really. Jo, her Gran, is there too - only Gran seems far from apposite when used to describe this lady. Only the grey of the hair might offer a clue - unkempt in fiery abandon, it's like something out of Blake and emblematic for me of the bold, bohemian spirit I've known since I was a kid. The hair, like the spirit, is no less wild, than it was back then, just lacking that black lustre of yore. I give Zak and Jo a hug, ask Jo if she's had a chance to play - she's blossoming into a fine jazz pianist since studying improvisation. With each week it's harder to equate the confidence and authority of some her playing with the timid-seeming soul we almost had to lead screaming up to the piano when she first performed here. She has played and, barring the obligatory music stand disasters and accompanying blizzard of carefully prepared cribs and sheet music, it went OK.

Lovely Julia is on 'the stage' with her shiny new Yamaha semi- acoustic and, with Bluegrass John - charming hard-to-believe-he's-a-pensioner - on acoustic and Cas on stand-up bass we lurch through 'I'll be your baby tonight'. My poor attempts at the kind of fills you'd hear on an early Johnny Cash record (who, incidentally, sounds not entirely unlike our Bluegrass John here) are saved from total, tuneless mediocrity only by the judicious addition of a few intermittent cutting out and spluttering noises, the kind usually associated with a faulty lead. Or Adrian Belew. It's always easier when the first one's out of the way, thinks the eternal optimist in me. Then a Cornish-looking debutante - Sue(?) -  gets up to sing an old folk number about white something or other. I say debutante, you understand, because it's her first time 'on stage' at the open mic, not because she looks like Yasmin le Bon or some similar glamorous upper crust fillie. Simon (no, not another le Bon) knows the chords to 'White something or other' so he plays acoustic and harmonises with Cornish looking Sue (?) and, not really knowing what else to do, your humble scribe interjects a bit too loudly with a few trademark Exile-era Keef/Proud Mary-era Creedence-style slurs. It's awful, but a bit better than the first one.

Simon gives me a nod and asks if he and the other guys from Grand Union - his wife Kate, Cas and fellow gooner Gerry, who also moonlights as the Cow & Snuffers' resident kit basher - can do one more song before he and Kate have to go. They have a gig on Saturday and I'd expected them to want to use this session as a final rehearsal for that, but with an unusual turnout of wannabe performers tonight, they've obviously only had a limited time to play. It's fine because I can sit down and have a breezer or two and catch up with Zak. One song turns into two and I find I'm feeling a bit wound up - a combination of not playing well earlier, having kind of known that something like this might happen - that I'd get all psyched up to play and then not get the chance, despite having spent all yesterday afternoon practicing for what I knew would only be, most likely, a 10-15 minute spot - and of partly not really wanting to be here in the first place.

Several flute solos later, Zak finally steps up before her adoring public. I've been wanting to hear her sing 'I only have eyes for you' - our arrangement based on the gorgeously loopy Flamingoes version - for a while, but as soon as we start, I make a fundamental error of judgement. The arrangement relies on some beautifully abrupt and oddly unsettling (for a doo wop record) 'shoo-wop-shoo wops' and in order to make these work, I need to contort myself through the cat's cradle of cables and isometrically arranged stands to a position somewhere in the vicinity of a microphone. However, in doing this, I realise with mild alarm that the position I've adopted (at the cost of some considerable discomfort, most pertinently a rakishly angled cymbal perilously close to my crack which I keep backing into and getting jammed up there) was perhaps ill-advised. Whilst allowing me to 'shoo-wop' like a queen, sadly I'm also positioned in such a way that Zak's gently skanking body is almost completely obscuring the chord sheet I'm relying on to get me through the song. It's turning into one of those evenings. All the 'shoo-wops' in the world won't disguise my inept chording. My casual acquaintance with the structure of 'I only have eyes for you' becomes a total stranger during Bobby Vinton's 'Blue velvet'. Oh sure, we'd rehearsed it yesterday and it sounded fine- only that was in Bb. Zak prefers D which, not to get too technical about it, is a long, long way up from Bb - at least on my fretboard it is. I end up soloing as at least it will only sound fucked up one note at atime, rather than in clumps of fucked-up-ness if I stick with the chords.

Something has to change - and fast. I pluck out the stacatto opening riff of 'I'm blue (the gong song)' and suddenly we're motoring. Cas and I share the bluesy harmonies of the call and Zak lets loose on the response in a cascade of gong, gong, gong, gong g-g-gong gong yeahs, Gerry pinning it all down like Al Jackson and the place starts to move. A handful of folks are dancing and I can spot the row of regulars propping up the bar mouthing along with our voodoo mumbling. It comes to a halt and I feel that at least something's worked for me tonight. Happy to have finally got into it, I get a bit hacked off when Cas calls a halt to the proceedings. But then we find out it's only ten to eleven so there's the usual dithering - probably only a couple of seconds, but in the adrenalised timespan of the performer, it feels like about 3 days - what to play and at some point I go into a minor 'I'll play anything you want me to play and if you don't want me to play anything I won't play at all' style wobbly.

More dithering about whether to do 'Run baby run' even though like a divvy I didn't bring the chord sheet with me in my rush to get out. I suggest 'Sympathy for the devil' and we're off. Cas thinks afterwards that the potency of our rendition is sparked by my channeling some of my frustration and aggression into the song, but I actually become quite calm quite soon into the song. Gerry once again gets his target acquisition system locked straight on the groove and starts to enjoy himself with the tom toms. Cas throws in some spirited growling harmonies on the chorus and the woo-woo mantra that we finish on and for a brief moment, it's like you're floating on air with the chug of Richards' guitar as your shield and Jagger's barbed lyric your spear. I don't even have to look at Cas, I can sense the relief in his voice that we're finally cooking and that I'm at last starting to enjoy myself. I try not to look at my neighbour Geoff, who is old Bill, when I sing 'just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints'. Old Bill, Old Nick, none of that matters anymore, in the moment of the song. There's still an internal frisson though at the transgressive power the words somehow seem to have maintained, but the real power it contains is something wordless, elemental. You feel the full power of the song like a pistol in your pocket, the dancers lose their clothes, become a warpaint-daubed tribe. A strange telepathy of the spirit takes place. None of us, performers, dancers, needs to say it, we just know. We know that everyone in the room is involved in this song, that we are merely the channel for it.  And I realise that none of the rubbish they have written about this being some diabolical evocation or summoning up of evil spirits is true. You know it, you can feel it. This is no satanic ritual. It's an exorcism.

                                       

The Beverly Brothers Rifleman Rehearsals - vol.1

Balu & the boys getting in trim for the show...

Captured in stunning HD audio verite, our new podcast series showcases popular local beat combo/anarcho-skiffle-ists the Beverly Brothers preparing for tonight's show. So join Balu and Bobcat Beverly for 3/4 of an hour of high-octane semi acoustic meandering and see if you can guess tonight's theme ahead of the show!

Download The Beverly Brothers Rifleman Rehearsals - vol.1

Love on y'all,

BOB(CAT)

Austerity: Greek Style...

The first clue that all is not well comes as you step down onto the baking Tarmac at Kefillinia Airport. Its only when you stare up with your own two eyes and gaze for a while into that fathomless expanse of azure that the true magnitude of the Euro Crisis hits you with all its full and terrible force. For it seems that, despite the endless EU bailouts, notwithstanding every miserly and lecture-accompanied doling out of ECB aid, for all the harshly apportioned austerity measures and talk of European Armageddon, the simple fact remains as clear and as stark as that infinity of blue up there. The bankers and the technocrats have all had their say, but now, it seems, you're stood staring up at Greece's very own bottom line. It breaks down like this: Greece is broke - so broke, in fact, that they can't even scrape together enough to afford to put a single cloud in the sky.

And then there's the unemployment - particularly bad among tourists and holidaymakers. In fact, there seems very little useful activity whatsoever for these poor battered souls to undertake at all beyond the odd desultory length of breast stroke in the gently rippling Man City blue of the pool, perhaps straining occasionally to pat a lethargic mitt at a luridly hued beach ball, or summoning the effort to mutter a muted 'on me 'ead son' at their despairing offspring before returning to the default activity of the indignado; an unproductive backfloat circuit of the pool. they stare up forlornly at that pitiless pauperised sky then head back down the cypress lined terraces to the shade for a long, cool drink; the time-honoured solace of society's demoralised and unwanted souls.

We were warned before we came out that we'd need to be careful using ATMs as the recent election result might lead to a run on the banks, and that turns out to have been wise counsel indeed. In fact the situation is so bad that the town has even had to install an additional cash machine merely to cope with the hordes of people attempting to withdraw their life savings in order to spend it on two weeks worth of very reasonably priced fish platters, ouzo and ridiculously disproportioned measures of gin and (apparently optional) tonic.

Some of the better off among the jobless have had enough already and, fed up with the torpor of poolside idleness, decided to strike out for a better life elsewhere, causing the forlorn multitudes unable or unwilling to severe ties with their former life to stand guard around the harbour. They wave tearful farewell to their former compadres as they head off to seek a better life for themselves and their families in their ostentatiously sized and extravagantly glistening power cruisers.

One such vessel - a sort of sea-faring, shining black and white equivalent of one of Usain Bolt's hi-tech running shoes is making its escape as I potter down to pick up some croissants for breakfast - well, one has to keep oneself active and apply some sort of routine, even if all sense of hope has gone. Two fighter planes roar overhead; a prophesy of imminent menace. The boat soars through the glass-calm waters leaving the rest of us here with nothing to do but float and drink and silently hate the Germans.





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Austerity: Greek Style...

The first thing you notice when you step out onto the baking Tarmac at Kefillinia Airport is the sky. Notwithstanding the numerous EU bailouts, ECB handouts and scandalously misapplied austerity measures, the situation in Greece just seems to go from bad to worse. Once you actually get here and peer up with your own eyes, up into the fathomless azure, only then do you realise the extent of the misery gripping this poor blighted land. Whatever the reason - bank runs, Armageddon-inducing deficits, the very folly of European Monetary Union itself, it seems the poor Greeks have reached their own bottom line. The sad fact is this: they can't even scrape together enough to be able to afford a single cloud.

And then


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Bobcast #76 - Featuring Exclusive David Bowie Interview!!

When Bowie met Bob...

Bobcast #75

Fall in love with Europe all over again with Bobcast #75...

xxx
Bob

Bad, bad people on the rise...

There's a knock at the door. It's our neighbour's son, Harry. Hardly recognised him. He used to be such a nice polite young man; you know, just your ordinary, run of the mill angsty teenage kid - skinhead haircut, swastika neck tattoos, bovver boots and a dog-eared copy of 'Mein Kampf' and Skrewdriver LP under each arm. Seems he's fallen in with a bad crowd of late though, or something. Probably just a phase, but unless I'm very much mistaken he's been flirting with extremism - and, judging by the Jesus boots, chunky sweater and ginger sideburns - he seems to have embraced a particularly poisonous brand. Poor parents. Must fair break their hearts. Imagine putting in all that hard work and effort, raising a kid as best you can only to see them grow up to become a liberal democrat.

Indeed, the kindle edition of the Guardian he repeatedly waves under my nose during our fractious exchange, jabbing a grimy-nailed finger at it occasionally for emphasis, is a dead give away - as is the decidedly macro-biotic aroma emanating from his pullover. Sure enough, once he's spent a good quarter of an hour castigating the previous administration for bankrupting the Treasury and embarking on a Churchillian soliloquy about serving the national interest, it becomes evident that he's not only gone lib dem but seems to have headed straight over to the most mentalist margins of the hardest of the hardline deficit reductionistas. I just let him rant on, shuffling nervously in a vain attempt to hide from his vision the antiquated 'Don't blame me, I voted Liberal Democrat' sticker I keep forgetting to scrape off the porch window. In the end, I'm left hoping that the elaborations of a luminous marker on the nearby 'Justice for Blair Peach' poster will provide sufficient distraction - indeed, I find I'm particularly drawn to a rather buxom looking, pink (I'm assuming) peach myself. Tragic case that. Wonder if he's out yet?

After a lengthy deliberation on Nick Clegg's current initiatives to put an end to century's of racism and the difficulties of getting the banks to lend to small black businesses "...frankly, they just don't *want* to work, some of them..." he finally gets to the point. Which is, basically, you know, am I interested in joining in on any of the Big Society initiatives that are going to be starting up in the neighbourhood shortly? And can he consider me to be sufficiently won over as to be one of his Champions?

It's hard to know what to do in these situations, isn't it? I mean, part of me just wants to nut him one and ask him to bring his pal Vince over for some of the same. Incidentally, and straying from the point at hand briefly if I may, is ours the only home in the United Kingdom in which 'laying a Vince' is a long-acknowledged euphemism for a particularly extensive bowel movement? I sincerely hope not. Anyway, as I say, the initial response is the desire to deploy blood curdling violence, but then the fruits of all those hours of zen meditation and mindfulness mantras kick in and I am able to take a more enlightened and karmically beneficial position. So, in the end it was all agreed. I start on Tuesday. A full weekly wash, polish and valet service for Vince Cable's government limo. Four hours a week, with time off for good behaviour. Still, could have been worse; Danny Alexander has a pathological fear of body hair, apparently...

xxx
Bob

Bobcast #73: Robot...

Listen to/download Bobcast #73, an exclusive preview of the new Swipe LP, "Robot", in its entirety. To download the individual tracks and donate, visit the SwipeCore site...

xxx
Swipe