View from meeting room A.
This is what you get when you are waiting on the eastbound District Line platform at Acton Town. Waiting, waiting….
The Cross Rail development at Victoria.
You may have seen my blog wondering how anything ever gets built. It’s here if you didn’t.
Haven’t done a top ten for a while. Apologies dear reader, but they take quite a lot of effort, uploading tracks, photos ‘n’all. But here’s a good one to get things going again.
The Manic Street Preachers aren’t a band that I always regarded as great favourites, but there are a few songs that I’ve always had great affection for. Recently I was writing about them for my book on music. I had them in my chapter on Britpop, while recognising that they weren’t really Britpop. They started earlier, lasted longer – they are still going – and their roots are different. Less sixties nostalgia, more connections with punk (especially The Clash). But they peaked in 1995 with their album “Everything Must Go” and shared the stage at Knebworth with the ultimate Britpop band, Oasis, in 1996.
As I wrote about the Manics, all the memories came back, including the tragedy of their guitarist Richey Edwards, who disappeared in 1995, never to be seen again. Suicide by the Severn Bridge was suspected, but never proven. But I also listened more closely to a couple of the albums that I’d bought but never really given much time to. Especially “Know Your Enemy” from 2001, which was associated with a trip to Cuba where the Manics were the first Western band to play there for twenty-odd years. Fidel Castro was in attendance! As a result there are a couple of tracks in this ten that might not have made it before. I’m glad they have. Because they are so good.
The band, minus Richey, are James Dean Bradfield on vocals and guitar, Nicky Wire on bass (and chief lyricist) and Sean Moore on drums. They have just released their 11th studio album, “Rewind The Film”. This is them in 2013. Moore-Wire-Bradfield.
So let’s go, ten down to one, as usual.
10. You Love Us, from Generation Terrorists
1991 single, precursor to the first album. An audacious early rocker, with some of that punk spirit. This single version even has a bit of Iggy Pop at the end. I always think of it as a flip side to the Rolling Stones “We Love You” too.
9. Australia, from Everything Must Go
I just like this as a dynamic, catchy rocker. It’s not about Australians, just the Manics’usual pessimism and anger. Australia synonymous with escape here.
8. Motorcycle Emptiness, from Generation Terrorists
Another early Manics tune, and for the true fans, one of the keynote songs. Who knows what motorcycle emptiness is, but it sounds like an epic kind of emptiness. And the song has that epic, panoramic sense too. You understand.
7. If You Tolerate This (Your Children Will Be Next), from This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours
It’s a Spanish Civil War thing, you know? The most Manics of Manics song titles. With a lovely melody, punched along by an electronic drum beat. The follow up to “Everything Must Go”. It did the business – this was a No1 hit single. Can you imagine that now?
6. La Tristess Durera (Scream to a Sigh), from Gold Against The Soul
The last words of Vincent van Gogh apparently: “the sadness persists”. It’s a punchy, hard hitting song, which I always thought was another Spansh civil war type thing. In fact, it’s about the travails of a British war veteran, who feels utterly forgotten. All together now, I see liberals…
5. So Why So Sad, from Know Your Enemy
This is one of the songs I’ve got to know and love recently. Even though the album title sounds like a classic Manics political statement, the album is their first true foray into more personal lyrics. Their songs have always had a tinge of melancholy. This one is right in that camp, but in a wonderfully upbeat way. Happy/sad pop. The minor keys lifting you up rather than down. And even with a bit of doo-wop.
4. A Design For Life, from Everything Must Go.
I guess a lot of people would have this as their No1. Probably their most perfect pop song. The symbolic song from their finest album. Rock, pop, sixties strings. Sweeps you along. So why haven’t I got it as No1? Well, there are three more which just have a special, personal, appeal…
3. Ocean Spray, from Know Your Enemy
Another of my new favourites. Everything I said about So Why So Why Sad (apart from the doo-wop) applies here. Feels sad and yet so uplifting. It’s a song about fighting for a better place, I think.
It’s easy to see, it’s easy to see, to see only white where colour should be…
2. Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier, from Everything Must Go
What an evocative title. That sense of the dead end, and yet the dream…
It’s the start that grabs me.
20 ft high on Blackpool promenade – Fake royalty second hand sequin facade – Limited face paint and dyed black quiff – Overweight and out of date…
That last line stings!
I’ll tell you what though. I respect those Elvis impersonators. We used to have one at the school summer fair at my children’s primary school. Invariably it rained. But Elvis never gave up. In his late Elvis Las Vegas style garb, he crooned the songs that made the grannies – and plenty of others – relive their youth. A real trouper. A man in love with rock’n’roll. Any man in love with rock’n’roll is in love with life.
1. Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, from Send Away The Tigers
When I first heard this tune, on the radio, in 2007, I instantly fell in love with it. I hadn’t listened much to the Manics in recent years, but that didn’t matter. There was just something about it that hit all my buttons. I had it on repeat on my iPod as I walked into work; it was all I wanted to listen to. That doesn’t happen very often. It’s a magnificent, soaring pop song, again with those minor chords lifting it higher and higher. It’s simple, a boy-girl thing, with a bridge, sung by Nina Persson of the Cardigans that takes you to a special place. And then at the end a guitar solo of utter splendour. You might listen to this and say, what’s the fuss, heard it all before. You might. It’s nothing new, I admit. But I do think it is one of the greatest pop songs ever written. I really do!
Thought I’d start a new series of photos snapped on my iPhone – still languishing on a version 3 at the moment. Daily scenes – never mind the quality, feel the place. With apologies in advance for likely bias towards West and central London, but I’ll try to branch out from time to time.
Normally I’ll just post one photo, but today, for starters, I thought I’d have two. Contrasting sporting scenes.
This is the Ealing Half Marathon, which finished in our local park, Lammas Park. I caught it after the elite had finished, but credit to everyone who took part.
And then, a scene from my favourite bike ride: from Kew Bridge down to Putney Bridge along the Thames towpath – and then back home via Fulham, Hammersmith and Chiswick. At Putney there are loads of boathouses. In the background here you can see Fulham’s football ground, Craven Cottage, and in the distance, Wembley stadium, which is miles away. A bend in the river and no tall buildings allow a glimpse of the national stadium.
Shan’t commit to every day, but will try for as many days as possible.
Back soon!
I was reminded today how much I loved this when I first saw it on Jules Holland’s Yew Year’s Eve Show a couple of years ago. Dizzee’s own rap, “Stand Up Tall”, combined with Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Awesome!
An ambient-techno-rave classic from 1991. One of my favourites from the era.
I’ve been listening to FSOL as I write about all the brilliant electro-dance music in the early 1990s. “Papua New Guinea” is just about the best. This is what I wrote about it for my book:
“1991 was a good year for electro-dance. One of the best was “Papua New Guinea” by The Future Sound Of London. It was at the ambient end of the rave sound, with a hymn-like chant, which sounded at first like la-di-da-di-da. And maybe it was – I never bothered to find out. It was spacey and somehow eastern – it was called “Papua New Guinea” after all. It was music to watch waterfalls by. The torrent pounding, fragmenting, refracting the light. The vocals looped over an alternatively shimmering and pulsating beat, which would have been highly danceable in the right place, the right frame of mind. I simply found it an entrancing piece of music, and timeless. It’s as magical today as the first time I heard it.”
I bought “Papua New Guinea” first as a twelve inch single – ah the days of vinyl! – but then got it again on the band’s CD “Accelerator”. The track here is off the album. It’s worth a listen. Nothing else quite matches “Papua New Guinea”, but there are some great beats and loops and blurps to keep your electro-buds stimulated. Give it a go, if you like this sort of thing.
A bit of a mixed bag. OK, but not great. Early days and all that, but the doubts hover.
For West Ham, in particular, early season optimism is now officially over. An ugly battle for a mid table place seems the best prospect. Still, I only predicted 8th and that’s still not out of the question.
The problem is twofold.
First, it still hurts to see West Ham play such direct, risk-averse, functional football week-in-week-out. According to the stats, we have attempted the fewest passes of any Premier League team, and when we do, we have the lowest pass completion rate. Before today’s grim 0-0 at Southampton, the pass completion rate was 72.4%. Today it was 68%. That’s OK if you just want to let the other side have the ball, hoping to nick it and break quickly. But is that all West Ham are going to do? It hurts!
Second, we do have a lot of our best players – our forwards – out injured. The talismanic Andy Carroll, who cost £15m to keep, is out it seems, for the rest of this year with a recurrence of an ankle/foot injury. Stewart Downing, £5m from Liverpool, is crocked. Joe Cole has another hamstring injury. In four games, the team has drawn blanks three times. After an assured start, 2-0 against promoted Cardiff, it’s been 0-0 at Newcastle, 0-1 at home to Stoke (Stoke!) and another stalemate today at Southampton.
Still, looking on the bright side, that’s five points, we’re tenth, and if we kept up that points-to-games ratio for the rest of the season, we’d stay up, no problem.
Benefit of the doubt because of the injuries, but come on Sam, give us some excitement! Even Stoke played better football…
The rugby season is only two games in, and there’s nothing really to worry about – yet. I missed the 16-15 win over Wasps at Twickenham, but Quins were pretty lucky to escape with the points, as Wasp fly half Andy Goode had a conversion attempt with the last kick of the game – and hit the post. Could have been 17-16 to Wasps. Still, fine margins and all that…
Fortunes were reversed in Quins first home game, on Friday night, against much-fancied Northampton. In filthy conditions – fizzing rain for most of the game – both sides mostly kicked, but did a good job of giving us some entertainment. Quins attacked more, with Nick Evans putting in some probing chips to the wing, but Northampton looked more dangerous when they went forward. Both sides missed penalties, but Quins missed more. Three looked easy (two for Evans, one for Botica), but I imagine that it must have been difficult to plant your standing foot steadily with so much surface water on the pitch. Saints ran out 13-6 winners, scoring the only try. That was a right shambles, with a comedy of errors on both sides in the Quins 22, before Saints managed to get it out wide for a simple touchdown.
Before the game, when the teams were read out, Northampton’s line up sounded awesome. They had a decent side last year and have strengthened, with notable signings, George North (hero of the Lions), Alex Corbisiero (another Lions star) and Kahn Fotuali’i, top Samoan scrum half. Quins have mainly relied on the continuing progress of their youngsters, which is fine, because they are so good. But Saints just looked that bit bigger. Not better, but probably suited to the nasty conditions on Friday.
I have a lot of faith in the Quins strategy of mainly developing their own academy players, with, of course, a touch of external embellishment – Nick Evans, the New Zealander, is still our main creative force. But there is a risk that it will consign the team to a battle for fourth place, with Leicester, Saracens and Saints grabbing the top three places on the basis of brute strength and resources – again. Shades of the football Premiership. Quins as Arsenal? The most exciting to watch, when on form. But just short when it comes to the crunch. Quins are mentally – and physically – tougher than the Gunners and did of course win the Premiership final as recently as 2012. But relative to the other contenders, they rely on wit, speed and guile rather than brute force and that is harder to sustain as a season progresses, injuries bite, and the internationals take their toll.
So two games in, I’m confident of another playoff place in the Premiership, but I’m not sure I’d risk my money on anything better then fourth in the regular season, with a hope, then, of something happening in the knock outs. And then we’re in the group of death this year in the Heineken Cup. Clermont d”Auvergne, Racing Metro of Paris and Llanelli Scarlets of Wales. Will be great games to watch, but tough, tough, tough to get past both French teams.
Lots to look forward to with Quins, then. Challenging, but it is still possible to dream. And there will be dazzling moments. With West Ham, we need a bit more style, a bit more entertainment. Trouble is, that is risky and Big Sam doesn’t do risk. But too many more scoreless bores and the fans will begin to grumble…
As fans always do!
I work in an office near a large construction site in Victoria, where work is underway on the new Crossrail project. I said “work”, but one of the enduring mysteries of building sites is how anything ever gets done. As I walk from Victoria tube station to the office I pass by the Crossrail building site. There are a lot of men (and the odd woman) in bright orange jackets, with their helmets and goggles, standing around. Some of them stare at mobiles and pieces of paper. Some chat or point. One or two sit in motionless diggers. Three stand by a gate onto Buckingham Palace Road, ready to open it and block the pavement if a lorry arrives with a load.
Overhead, six or seven cranes lurk, their only motion being a slight swaying in the breeze. All is peaceful.
How does anything ever get built?
Now, I appreciate that much of the construction on this site at the moment is probably taking place underground. But this sense of busy inertia is there at any building site. Take a look at the next one you see.
From all this inactivity, slowly but surely, structures emerge and buildings form. And still, men stand around in orange jackets, looking up at the miraculous edifices that have grown from their unstrenuous efforts. How they have done it I don’t know, but the building has been built.
This is not unique to building sites. I once visited the Rolls Royce factory in Derby (2001, I think). We walked through a building full of half-finished aircraft engines. Magnificently complex and gleaming, awesome in prospect. Again a lot of men were standing around. One or two tweaked a nut or turned a screwdriver (robots were surprisingly scarce). Others drank tea. The atmosphere was serene. Time clearly needed to be taken on these ultimate machines. Perfection was all. Progress was stately. Or so it seemed.
I suppose an office isn’t that different. The vast majority of people are in front of screens, staring, tapping the keys. Expressionless. Others lounge in meetings, discussing who knows what. Thinking about who knows what, too. When my children were very young and they asked me what I’d done at work that day, I’d say “well, I talked to some people, I wrote some emails, and er…”
So maybe standing around on a building site, or a factory isn’t really all that different. And at least at the end of it, there’s a building, or a machine to appreciate. A thing.
Crossrail will be brilliant when it’s finished. And all those men (and women) will be able to say “I built that”.
Even if they were just standing around most of the time.
The transfer window shenanigans were madder than ever in the run up to 2 September in the Premier League. While most of the economy languishes in recession, the top football clubs, pumped up either by their oligarch benefactors and/ or the ever increasing TV money, looked to spend huge sums on new players, to boost their chances of a top four or six finish.
The biggest story was, of course, the sale of Gareth Bale by Spurs to Real Madrid. For around 100 million euros. Wow! Obscene really, but that’s football at the highest level. Spurs’ chairman hung on until the last moment to transact the deal, partly, I think, to try to sabotage any Arsenal deal with Real over any of their players. But it didn’t work, because the second biggest deal of the window was Arsenal’s. Totally out of character, as they splashed 50 million euros on the German playmaker, Mesut Ozil.
Ozil at Arsenal. That is so, so exciting! One of the world’s greatest attacking midfielders. A star in a brilliant German national team. The man who supplied more assists than anyone else to Cristiano Ronaldo in the Real team. Deemed surplus to requirements by the management, but not the players. Many have been lamenting his departure in the last few days. Wooed by Arsene Wenger, who could tell him, in German, how much he would be valued at Arsenal. How a team would be built around him…
Yes, Arsenal. My second team, by the way. West Ham is and always will be first. But when it comes to winning things, it’s Arsenal I find myself following. Just like my son, dad, father in law, brother in law. Except Arsenal haven’t won anything since the FA Cup in 2005. They have qualified for the Champions league every year though. And money-wise, that is what matters. On top of that they have built a new stadium – the magnificent Emirates Stadium – made money from the old site and basically set up a business model which is just now starting to pay dividends. They are in a sounder financial position than any other major club in England.
So now is the time for take off. And for the fans that is always about buying exciting new players. Arsenal don’t have a great track record of that in recent years . Their edgy fans have got edgier. And this summer looked for a while to be the least productive yet. A young striker from France, Sanogo, was for a long time, the only addition. The anti-Wenger faction – Arsene knows is no longer a consensus – were in full voice.
But at the last, they pulled it off. Mesut Ozil! What a buy.
Except, except, is that what Arsenal most needed? Another attacking midfielder? They’ve already got Wilshere, Cazorla, Ramsey, Walcott, Rosicky, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Arteta. Ah yes, Arsene loves his attacking midfielders. Sticks a lot of them on the wing where they are less effective. Puts others in defensive midfield. The philosophy is that a good player can play anywhere. It’s not a bad philosophy, until you come up against the hard-nosed formations of Chelsea and Man City, with their two holding midfielders, or the dogs of war in teams like Everton and Stoke.
Most observers, and Arsenal fans too, recognised that what Arsenal needed to do was strengthen the spine. Keeper, centre back, defensive midfield, central striker. They didn’t do much of that – Flamini back from AC Milan on a free transfer, plus a reserve keeper, was all.
Instead they bought Mesut Ozil for £42m.
It’s a romantic deal. To hell with strengthening the spine – it’s OK already. Let’s go world class in the creative area. Inspire all the other, already excellent, players. Become the finest, most irresistible attacking team in the country again. The 1970 Brazil of the Premier League. Sweeping all before it, with its attacking prowess. No need to worry too much about defending. Attack is the best form of defence.
It’s a fabulous notion. I so hope it succeeds. But I fear the pragmatists – Mourinho, Moyes, so many of the bottom half managers – including my own Big Sam at West Ham of course – will find ways to stifle the creatives and exploit the weaknesses in that spine.
But let’s dream. Ozil inspires young Jack Wilshere to greater feats, slips those incisive passes to Walcott and Giroud and Podolski. Combines with Cazorla and Wilshere and Arteta in ways that you would only imagine possible at Barcelona, when Messi, Xavi and Iniesta get going. It’s possible. Arsenal could be the dream team.
That must be Arsene’s vision. He has staked his all on attack. He is the romantic. I’d so love to see him succeed. Wipe away all the cynicism, show that football in its most beautiful form can succeed outside Barcelona.
I’m not too optimistic, but I’m dreaming.
Thoughtsfromwestfive 