You Have To Listen To This

In their pomp and looking pretty fly

Listen while it is available - Pete and Clive - this is a little tribute to the matchless collaboration of Pete Atkin and Clive James. After listening, search out the 1970's Pete Atkin albums - this can involve a little looking under internet rocks but it can be done. Bloody brilliant. The most recent stuff is available on Spotify for free, but the true glory (at least to my tin ear) is in the early output. National treasures both.

Advent 22

Today we have the quite brilliant Clive James. Because his work is so accessible it is easy to overlook the enormity of his intellect. He is poet, lyricist, critic, commentator and novelist. It was dipping into his awesome Cultural Amnesia that gave me the idea for the calendar this year. Mine is a motley collection of twenty-four thumbnail sketches from the edges of reason. James' is an imperious array of one hundred plus cultural essays. Still imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. His essays and my calendar have only one common subject and that is Margaret Thatcher.

Clive James' best work? The lyrics he wrote for Pete Atkins' compositions in the 1970's - the more recent stuff is not quite as good. My absolute favourite lines,

I've got the only cure for life/ and the cure for life is joy/ I'm the crying man that everyone calls laughing boy.

 

 

... Are Not Brilliant (An Occasional Series On Random Antipathy But With Some Reasons To Be Cheerful Artfully Chucked In))

I'm sorry to return to this pitiful whelp but really is there any excuse for John Bercow? Judge for yourself as he ventures a wholly unconvincing attempt at humility -  Bercow self-aggrandises

a big fan of my band
Strange Bedfellows

I have libertarian tendencies but there really is something more than a tad distasteful about the self-proclaimed champion of freedom of expression cowering, sorry sheltering, in the diplomatic citadel of that defender of all that is good and right, er, Ecuador. Sheltering moreover from that oppressor regime, er, Sweden, which Scandinavian banana republic seeks to bring him to book for being a bit too liberal in the way he availed himself of sex. Congratulations then to Julian Assange who joins the much maligned Saddam Hussein in attracting the sympathy of that other hugely clever and reprehensible character, George Galloway. Misery truly does acquaint a man with strange bedfellows. Strange Bedfellows, by the way will be the name of the jazz/fusion combo I will found when I learn to play the drums. Nice. I will wear the only wrist watch for a drummer, the Omega Incabloc Oyster Acutron 72. A little cultural reference there for all you Pete Atkin fans. You are not alone.

no offence Thommo
 but you just annoy me

I feel a bit of a heel about this last one because apparently he's not been well but shit here goes anyway: Derek "Thommo" Thompson. Am I the only one who squirms every time his gurning presence blights the laudably intelligent Channel 4 racing coverage? I know, I know, I'm becoming peevish in my old age, but what else is there left?

Ooh that's weird - I've got the old iTunes on shuffle and it's just started up with a Christmas song, in fact a perfectly good one, but you just can't listen to that stuff in August. It's wrong. I've shifted to the next track, The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore by the Walker Brothers. Better. Which has now given way to track 2 side 1 of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, which if you don't know (and you really should) is Fly On A Windshield. Followed now by the theme tune from For A Few Dollars More. I know, eclectic! A fitting menu for a dilettante - which is one for 10cc fans who might be paying attention.

Finally, not a whinge but in fact a taster for a blog to follow. Here is a line from a television series I came to late but about which I am going henceforth to rave - "he's on our graduate fast-track scheme, but he's doing it at his own pace." If you don't know what it is you'll have to wait until next time dear reader because Lily Allen is now singing Cheryl Tweedy and that must mean it is time for bed.