Closed again until further notice

Thank you for dropping by. Now click "Next Blog".

And if you are one of the dozens of assorted enquirers who come here via a Google search for a particularly stupid brand of beach wear, that is so skimpy as to make a piece of string look substantial, bearing a similar sounding name to this blog, then I not only feel sorry for you, I suggest you get your kicks somewhere else - click on this: Very Hot Stuff Naughty Banned which should provide you with the satisfaction you seek.

UPDATE 1 August 2010: Despite closure, this blog has been getting 40 - 90 hits per day, mostly because of two or three posts that have now been removed, such as the one eluded to above. And there I was thinking people were actually interested in this. Another reason, I am afraid, not to revive it.

You may still read the 900 odd blog posts in the archive, many of which are free-standing articles. There is wisdom in them, and even I had something to do with that. I am leaving it to stand as a record of the thoughts of one nobody who lived then, and wrote about it because he thought it meant something.

UPDATE 2 August 2010: The stats for this have been revealing. The blog is not dead. The less ephemeral posts still get a lot of hits. Not all are random searches, and traffic comes this way from other blogs. I am thinking of reviving it, but if it does, it will be different. Not all diarists write with a readership in mind, but it is nevertheless gratifying that there is some interest, other than the usual raft of pervs. I have been working on a book for the past decade. In a shameless act of self promotion, this book will be linked to in the not too distant future. I confess that the blog wore me out, so in future there will be no comment platform and no links to other blogs and few, if any, current affairs posts. Sorry, but it became a distraction and I don't have the energy to engage in constant dialogue. I really don't. I have prolonged bouts of tiredness and other things which make it difficult for me to sustain this, regardless of the fact that it was drawing thousands of hits a week at its peak. Which was nice. Thank you for reading.

Comments are closed.

Sailing

Some say it is like riding a bike - you never forget. No, sailing is not like riding a bike at all, unless the bike is in the middle of the sea and requires more limbs than a cephalopod to make it go.

On Sunday We had a typical Scottish summer's day; occasional rain, cloudy, a bit of sun and it was a lot colder than it should have been for the middle of June. The sea state was calm and the wind was minimal. We were doing between 3 and 6 knots. For the first time in years I had a go at the helm of a very nice 23 footer, courtesy of the people who have invited us to join their boat club. I was nervous, but found that wonderful sense of calm and grounding that I find I get whenever I am at sea or near it.

As fate would have it, someone nearby has just put a Westerly (a Cirrus, I think) up for sale that would do us nicely. At the moment I am skint, but when the boat comes in....

There are probably three places in the world that I feel fully at home; jazz clubs, the Lincolnshire Wolds and the Sea. As luck would have it there is a jazz boat in the Forth, so sometime soon I shall have a go.

We went on the trip boat to Inchcolm with Master Weasel on the Saturday and again the weather was patchy, but on the whole not rainy. Young Weasel got attacked by seagulls nursing their young. He retreated with poo on his Goretex. Given that he has trekked the Himalayas and walked from Wales to London, done the Three Peaks Challenge and is clearly not a quitter, it was quite a triumph of nurture over nature.

Patience

Yes, I know it is only Wednesday but I have my sights on the weekend. Boating Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting. Also there are VFRs staying. At the moment I am basking in constant daily drizzle. Hopefully it won't all be a washout.

Blogging will be light as there is much to do and as I write I am looking out for the courier who is supposed to be delivering to life jackets.

If anyone has something to say, or wants a platform on here, please feel free. If I think it is suitable I will bump it into the text. Thank you for your patience.

Ping! Just had an idea! What advice would you give to the English if they were considering a move up to Scotland?

Number One, get a house with a conservatory or you will never see daylight again. Two, never attempt to walk out of a Supermarket or Cornershop without getting your Twofer or your Bogof, or you will be chased down the street by a distraught sales operator with the other item in their hands and whose only wish in life, at that moment, is to make sure you get your money's worth. Number Three, Clean Public Lavatories are the norm here. Many have floral arrangements that make the Chelsea Flower show look half-hearted.

Plain Sailing

After a break of nearly ten years it is time to get another boat. The last time we were afloat it was on a narrowboat, a 57" beauty built by Sagar Marine, who now appear to concentrate on the increasingly poplular Dutch Barges. We lived on it and sailed it regularly for two years. I suppose I could write a small book on that experience, let alone the rest of my odd life. Before that, we had a little cruising yacht in the Bristol Channel - not something I would recommend; anything under 30 foot in that place is going to be tossed about like an empty crisp packet. You have the second highest tidal rise and fall in the world, fast tidal streams and very severe weather at times. Sailors all have stories that they would rather be private about - usually something very stupid they did that resulted in a near catastrophe. I am no exception and, I shall keep it to myself for the time being. All I will say is that on another occasion we experienced a savage storm whilst moored up and we had a terrifying time on our pontoon, trying to tie down the boat to a pontoon that was swishing about like a TRex with it's tail on fire, and preventing the boat from bashing itself to pieces. It was a weekend many will not forget. We got off with a couple of hundred pounds worth of damage. Many skippers lost their boats.

But back to the present. I am starting to like the learning curve, the process by which I shall re-learn all the old skills, and some new ones, and by which we shall eventually purchase another sailing boat. Since we last sailed, GPS has become more or less standard; indeed I believe you can even get it on a phone. Life jacket technology has improved and VHF has undergone a massive and clever upgrade to DSC.  Here, for the geeks who read the blog, is a very useful little video about DSC:

That's all for now, I am off to brush up on my phonetic alphabet and read up on the VHF course syllabus.

Jody Grind

I may have mentioned this before, but Jody Grind was a band who appeared in Boston at the Assembly Rooms on 15th December 1970, and I was there! They were touring their Album of the time The Far Canal. I seem to have been a busy little groover in those days because the same month I saw Dream Police and Matthews Southern Comfort at the Gliderdrome. Of course, I missed loads of great bands at the time; Trees, The Strawbs, and Fotheringhay, but managed to catch T Rex and Ginger Baker's Airforce, all in a heady 12 months. Being a very poor student of only 16 years of age, together with a lack of appreciation of folk music, may have had something to do with it.

If you are wondering where you were but cannot remember that far back, this site http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/yearbyyear.htm has all the details, where I got mine. It will tell you what bands appeared where between 1966 and 1975, a long with lots more.

Here anyway is Jump Bed Jed from Jody Grind's Far Canal. Grind have more or less disappeared off the radar; even main man, Tim Hinkley's leads go to dead sites.



I think they have a sort of Yardbirds/Clapton/Bruce/Winwoody sound. What do you think?

UPDATE: I have been finding out about the Boston Gliderdrome, the venue that had so many headline acts in the sixties and seventies. It closed in 1973, due to regular bouts of vandalism on dance nights. The former resident DJ recalled:

They were happy times, which from a dance point of view came to an end with a spate of vandalism during the early 1970s.
On many Saturday nights at that time it seemed to be a competition to see how many seats could be slashed to ribbons, or how many light bulbs could be broken, and despite warnings that the dances would end if this wasn't stopped, there was no response – and dances ceased abruptly in March 1973 after several hundred pounds was spent on repairs, only for further damage to be caused the following Saturday night.

This is typical for Boston, which has always had a fairly unpleasant atmosphere at times, one that always bubbled over on high days and holidays and one which was a big reason I left and never went back. Wikipedia reports on a particularly nasty episode:

Most immigrants have come from East Europe and Portugal. This has led to some social tension, which came to a head during the 2004 European Football Championship, when something akin to rioting^[5] occurred briefly with windows being smashed and shops looted, police cars overturned and set alight. Trouble once again erupted in the town, when England were knocked out of the 2006 world cup by Portugal, and there were clashes between riot police and fans from England and Portugal. Some pubs and bars in the area were vandalised with windows being smashed and tables, chairs and glasses being thrown at rival fans, riot police and shops and bars. The local Portuguese bar called 'The Volunteer' was attacked by native youths, who threw missiles, smashed windows and were in possession of petrol bombs. The youths surrounded the bar and trapped the Portuguese supporters inside. Riot police broke the situation up soon after.

Interestingly for me, they opened the "Glider" again in the Nineties but closed it again after catastrophic losses due to poor ticket sales:

I think the biggest problem is that people just do not realise how much some of these groups cost. And I don't think I would be believed if I said the loss on the Paul Young (sold less than 300 tickets) debacle alone was in five figures!
It's not just the star attraction that has to be paid. There's advertising, lights and sound equipment, heating and lighting, the disco, extra staff and security people.

Tell me about it. Most bands you will have heard of, with any kind of track record, even one that is a bit old, will not start talking to you for less than five figures and an outfit that maybe had one hit but still struggles on can ask for a grand. I was trying to sell between 100 and 200 tickets in small venues so did not stand a chance with the big boys. But it was soul destroying to see the lack of interest in unknown artists who, in my opinion were hugely talented. Somehow, I think the culture of small to medium live music venue listening has changed. Nobody goes just to hear live music, neither will they take a chance on a band they don't know. They appear to go in order to get very drunk. It is impossible to do hear the band anyway because people talk over it. The live music scene is a bit depressing unless you go to specialist, smaller, gigs. I don't intend to get involved in that anymore. I am glad I went out on a bit of a high note.

Blackness and Despair

It started a couple of days ago. It was a sunny day, I was on a pleasant mission, but I was in a foul temper. That in itself should have alerted me that something was wrong because, I don't get bad tempered that easily. Rarely in fact. And so it was that today I was near to tears. I felt dreadful. I particularly felt so lacking in confidence and so defeated. Sometimes, thankfully this is very rare. I just want to sit in a heap of misery.
As a result, I have been clumsy and inept. I remember, 30 years ago being in a newspaper office, trying to type some story and literally stopping dead, mid sentence, unable to continue. I had convinced myself I could not write a word and that I was just a pathetic piece of shit. Self loathing. Pity. It just is not me.

As a result, I nearly ruined the dinner and gave us third degree burns. My recipe literally exploded all over the kitchen. It took an hour to clear the mess up.

I am ok now, and it has passed, but it is scary and not a great place to be. I felt so small. By naming it, by looking at the reality of my life and by standing on the sea shore watching the sun set, I was able to deal with it, I think. That and listening to Dr Weasel rehearsing her lecture to me, that she is giving in London next week.

I am not sure about the fuss about this bloke who has shot a lot of people. There seems to be one of those outpourings of national hysteria, a la Princess Di. Individually, the deaths are a tragedy to the loved ones left behind, but, do me a favour, national stress and grief is fake and unhelpful. There is no need to change the gun laws just because, once every ten or 20 years, somebody freaks.

People are still going on about David Laws. I think the poor sod has had enough of his life being picked over by the media, don't you?

Being in the slough of despond has meant that I had very little time for what has been going on elsewhere.

The Bilderbergers are meeting again; Mandy and Boy George will join a lot of eminence grises at a posh hotel in order to decide how the world is going to be run and the price of Diamond White. No, no really. If there was a conspiracy to rule the world, they have done no more and no less than to fuck it up. Apparently the Euro is on the agenda. Fat chance of a group of old farts and has beens being able to do anything about that crapuolous piece of monopoly money, even if they are all secretly gay with Greek boyfriends.

And now, time for a tune. One for the weekend. Many of my loyal and sadly, old readers, enjoy the songs, and as one email correspondent pointed out, the little dancing people seem just about able to swing along to anything. So, for the little dancing people on the right, with the funny Bertie Basset head, swivel on this suckers!....

OH, YOUR RED SCARF MATCHES YOUR EYES,

YOU CLOSED YOUR COVER BEFORE STRIKING,

FATHER HAD THE SHIPFITTER BLUES,

LOVING YOU HAS MADE ME BANANAS,

Friday Caption Competition; (if the picture is worthy of one)

Dennis Hopper and the Counterculture

George Pitcher was scathing recently about the work of Dennis Hopper (deceased) and his role as a totem for the Counterculture. Pitcher comments:
Hopper evidently really did believe in the power of hippies and might even have thought he was one. And that was just crass. 
The piece more or less tries to demolish the whole ethos of that small window of hope between the Summer of Love and Altamont.

I am not sure what Pitcher means by believing in "the power of hippies" but he thinks the era was "a cheap con-trick perpetrated on us in the Sixties largely by spivs and hucksters".

To some extent I can go along with this. Wherever hippies congregated, there were some lowlifes there to rip them off. There were plenty who were only in it for the money. But there were plenty who were not. Of course, there was drugs. Drugs permeated all things hippie. Drugs perpetuated a delusion and either you left them behind, or they left you behind. I knew people who killed themselves in the 60's with drugs. One day they were there spouting love and peace, inhaling the best Red Leb, the next  they were inhaling their own sick.

But for all that, there was something good. For a while, some of us tried to imagine a world without war, a world of sharing, without greed and a desperate sense of ownership as identity.

It is difficult to fight if you are mellowed out by a joint, which is probably why the Americans were so shit in Vietnam.


The counterculture was about challenging the status quo. People were suspicious about those in authority; that they were not to be trusted. The counterculture said we were being told lies. Gee, they were way off beam there, those dirty hippies, weren't they?
So ok, maybe Easy Rider was a bit Hollywood and a bit fey, but it was informed by the zeitgeist and appealed to all of us that just want to step off the bus  and who above all wanted the truth and ride a ride a fecking cool motorcycle.