Issue #103. May 13th - 26th, 2005
Sometimes
Still we didn’t really talk – the silence was too perfect, filled as it was with the gurgling of the water and the somehow muted twittering of the birds. Sharp sounds, and fragile, so that we didn’t want to interfere at all.
By Johan Hugo
The Climb
Emily Harris was not the kind of girl who complained, she was not even the kind of girl who normally got angry about things, but today she was fuming.
By Rachel Queen
Sleeping Alone
The first day, the first night, was easy. You were still locked in me, and we held the world at bay, all bouncing bombs and baritones and did you see me dance with my shirt off and holler into the setting sun and recall the days we crafted turning sewage into stars? Did you see me?
By Tom Bickell
Only One More Vote Than God - My British General Election 2005
This is an account of my election campaign. I campaigned for Rose Gentle in East Kilbride and Craig Murray in Blackburn - and stood myself as an independent candidate. Read all about it and about the wider election results in the UK.
By Duncan McFarlane
Live review #1: Amsterdam (The Life Cafe - Manchester)
everything is totally worthwhile, when you can recognise that life is often shit, that it is more than likely going to be a battle, but that it is a battle worth fighting and winning.
By Johnny Mac
Live review #2: Decoration (Cuba Cafe - Manchester)
here is a band that are poised on the edge of something, it can go one of many ways, it could be deserved greatness, it could be cruel obscurity, it could be simple inertia; but if you ask me I would, without exception tell you that this band should go directly to the top of your ‘bands to see’ and ‘records to buy’ lists.
By Johnny Mac
Record review #1: The Melancholy Death Of The Chemistry Experiment (The Chemistry Experiment)
Have you ever found yourself walking along a busy night-time street, looking at the way that car lights shine on the oily greasy street and watching people dressed elegantly in black attending parties, and suddenly thought:
"this life doesn't quite belong to me, but I like it anyway"?
By Rachel Queen
Record review #2: Mama Scuba (El Shake)
Mama Scuba are at their best with the short and poppy El Shake – more of that please!
By Grainne Lynch
Record review #3: Countermine (Letters)
Countermine are a five piece band from Bath, and according to their website, have not yet released a record. Instead they have built up a following by playing live all over the UK.
By Grainne Lynch
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Sometimes
Sometimes in a yellow field - a yellow butterfly. You said that once, to me, and then shrugged and laughed as if it wasn’t perfect. As if it wasn’t the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I was astounded then, and still am – that you came up with that, that you could laugh it off like that… and that you were telling me.
It was the first time that it struck me that you might stay. And that’s why it was the first time that it struck me how unlikely it was that you were with me at all. I’d idealised you before of course, not expecting to be proven wrong, and not being disappointed. I didn’t see any harm in it then – and I still don’t. But a part of me knew that you were going to leave me, because that’s what happens, and so it didn’t bother me that I didn’t deserve you. I knew it was unlikely that a girl like you would be with a guy like me – but the fact of your imminent departure made that irrelevant. It was that moment that I first really recognised the incongruity. And yet – there I was, and you with me and talking to me about butterflies.
From that moment on there was nothing left but blind faith… and I found that too in me, somewhat to my surprise.
The occasion was another day. You know, just another day. (That is, if I remember correctly! Here is probably where you slap me on the shoulder and you say “Typical! Forgetting that it was our 5-month anniversary!” or something, and then pretend as if it was, and to be in a huff. Then you’ll smile again, right? Right? Ah…!)
Well, the way I remember it, is as just another day when we were in danger of being bored, and neither of us liking that, went in search of something to do. That was before the time when boredom was a luxury we could seldom afford. We hadn’t learnt to luxuriate in it yet – it made us edgy, and we wanted to run. From boredom that is, but the moment that you said that that was what we wanted, somehow it became quite literal. We wanted to run!
I can’t remember where we started from, but anyway, we didn’t start running just there – we had to find a place to run in. It couldn’t just be anyplace – it had to be… well, not special exactly – we’d make it that by running there – but it had to have the potential for specialness at least. I thought I knew a place, and so we got in my car and went… to run.
It was a little field – not quite a park, not quite an empty lot, but just a little manivured field in the middle of a suburb where I’d walked to once or twice when I’d lived on that side of town before. I’d almost forgotten it was there – I remembered about it then. Who knows why? (Who? The same person, perhaps, who knows why I am writing to tell you all this now… though that person could be me, glancing through the rain-washed window of this distant town as I think of you and yellow and butterflies…). That is where we’d start - or rather, what I liked about this field was that it led off into a little track that ran along between the river and the riparian houses, separated from them by a bough of leafy trees bent over to form a sort of organic tunnel. That is what I wanted to run through. The track wound up to a pool, higher up, beyond the houses, where we could splash and cool off again. The idea was that we’d each launch some form of boat – a feather, a leaf, a flower, anything there were two of that would float – and then race them downstream, following. That was the idea we had, or that I had, but I told you and you laughed and squeezed my hand as I shifted gears, so I thought that would be alright.
It was spring and green and not too warm yet, and the little field had not been mown too recently, so that it was lush and green and very soft. And covered in a tiny rhizhomatic type of groundcover – a weed, really, I suppose – which was, importantly, bursting out in a promiscuous display of butter-yellow blossoms. It was lovely. We stopped and locked the car – yes, even there, without a soul in sight and only the distant barking of a dog to remind us of the town that was still around us.
We looked at each other, smiled, and I stole a kiss. We didn’t say a word. We set off rapidly. We ran.
Across the field and underneath the trees, running running running. Now you ahead, now I. Legs pumping like our hearts, grinning when we could inbetween gulping down lumps of air. Running.
We were at the stream. We stopped and still didn’t speak – we had no breath left. You were the first to regain it, and you used it then to splash me well and wet, huge handfuls of ice-cold water, running straight down from the mountains we could glimpse above the tree-line. That brought me round soon enough I guess, and you weren’t exactly dry yourself by the time we turned around and walked back, rather more sedately, hand-in-hand. We’d looked around desultorily for something to race but didn’t find anything – not least because our hearts weren’t really in it. (Speaking for myself, that was because you held mine, trembling, in your hand for every moment then, and since. I hope you’d say the same for you, and I’d believe you if you did, because it’s true).
Still we didn’t really talk – the silence was too perfect, filled as it was with the gurgling of the water and the somehow muted twittering of the birds. Sharp sounds, and fragile, so that we didn’t want to interfere at all. We listened, and the river ran past us, to the sea no doubt. At the last bend before the field again, you suddenly broke your hand away from mine and ran again, ahead, towards where the trees were already opening up. I stood still and let you, watching as you went.
I couldn’t see the field yet, but I could see you as you stopped. I could see your shoulders lift as you gasped, your hand jump up to your mouth. I didn’t know if anything was wrong and ran now too, to get to you, just ten or so quicker steps really. When I reached you, you were pointing already, at my car. My heart sank into my shoes – I’d been burgled just the week before.
But then you said, simply, “Look!” And I realised that you weren’t pointing at the car at all, but to a haze of tiny butterflies drifting right in front of it across the field, basking in the latish sun. You were in awe, and why not? And so was I. they danced and weaved and some bobbed down towards the flowers, and I put my arm around your peaceful shoulders. And then you looked at me and smiled and kissed me through a fringe that was straggling and wet and sweaty across your face, and you smiled some more and said: “Sometimes in a yellow field – a yellow butterfly.” And I? I fell in love with you again – as for the first time and for real.
And I held onto you as tightly as I could – and I still do: on days like these when everything is cold and grey and miserable, and you seem so very, very far away, my thoughts of you are like those butterflies, floating eternally above those butter-yellow blooms, and everything is almost alright again, except that I miss you more. My yellow butterfly, in your yellow field, so far away.
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The Climb
The sky was heavy with inky black clouds and her head was heavy with dark and jumbled thoughts about life. She strode out purposefully towards the top of the hill feeling the anger that had built up inside of her beat at he skull with each step.
Emily Harris was not the kind of girl who complained, she was not even the kind of girl who normally got angry about things, but today she was fuming. The day had been the same as any other filled with needless bitching, petty squabbles and people placing far too much importance on details that were insignificant in the long run. The only difference about today was that today it had just been too much for her. By 5.30 her neck was knotted and her head was pounding and she needed to escape. Without really thinking about it she found herself climbing the hill.
The hill was situated on the edge of town. It had a small train which in the summer time ran up and down carrying tourists, but more importantly it had a view of the sea.
Normally Emily would look at the small flowers that grew in grass, or back at the town getting smaller, or up at the sky, but today she was three quarters of the way up the hill before she even focused her eyes on the surroundings. Even then she only took notice of her environment when she stumbled on uneven ground.
Emily carefully climbed down to a ledge, which was just out of view of the main path so that if anyone else came up the hill she would remain hidden. The grass was dry, but the earth was cold. Emily leaned back on the sandy ledge and closed her eyes momentarily. She watched the patterns of light flicker on her eyelids and listened to the sound of birds anxious to roost.
When she opened her eyes everything seemed brighter and clearer. The sea was deep grey almost purple, it stretched out endlessly, wrestless and unforgiving.
As she watched her mind became clearer and her troubles became smaller. She felt small, but not insignificant. She felt she belonged to something much bigger and it suddenly felt silly to worry about… well about anything.
She breathed in deeply her cheeks were still burning and her legs aching slightly but she was alive.
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Sleeping Alone
The first day, the first night, was easy. You were still locked in me, and we held the world at bay, all bouncing bombs and baritones and did you see me dance with my shirt off and holler into the setting sun and recall the days we crafted turning sewage into stars? Did you see me?
You met me at the right time. I was on the verge of either disappearing forever or crawling into a mandatory half-life. It was easy for me to fall for you, and your promises of fulfillment, and when I was with you I could scrape at the sky, drill holes into the clouds and let in shards of daylight. Others saw the night, as it drew in from a purple-grey twilight, as the best time of the day, but I preferred the daytime, all its colours and sizes and shapes and dancing shadows, and I liked to meet you head-on, early on, in the shadows of the store and we'd walk along the long-abandoned steps to the top of Briars Head and you were always in a rush to get me there and I'd tell you "slow down, slow down- what's the rush?" but you always got your way and I'd find myself quickening my pace.
At its summit, we'd say nothing. We'd lay back and dissolve into the silence. Sometimes I'd sit up and let out a huge sigh and I'd catch you looking as if to say "what's wrong?" and I wasn't sure what was wrong then and I still don't know now but back then I would fall into your open arms and ressuring smile and I felt protected from Wrong, safe from ailment, and you gave me strength to curse the world and its flabby fucking fucked-up masses, you let me dream and decipher the earth at a distance and they cannot touch me now they cannot touch me now they cannot touch me now, here, with you, their designer faces and combustable breasts all a leap year away.
Saying goodbye was always the hardest thing to do. We'd stagger down into the real world of loansharks and governments, businesses and war, kids on swings and serial killers and lies lies lies. Our gait would grow stiff-legged and slow as the realisation of the real world sunk in, and we'd say goodbye in the 5pm shadow, at the dawn of another rush hour, the death of another day.
I never knew what to tell her about you. She'd talk about her day and it would bore me, and I wanted to tell her about my day, tangled up on a disused quarry pit, wrapped in a bubble of sighs and stars, touching other-worldly futures and deciphering the day, keeping wolves at bay- I wanted to tell her all about you but when she asked me how my day was I'd feign an air of nonchalance and merely say "ok".
The closer I got to you, the closer I felt I was near some kind of purity, some truth. It was as if I was only ever my real self around you. I began to crave the mornings, to wish away the dreary night. Sometimes I couldn't sleep. Waking up at 3am became a regular occurence. She'd ask me why I wasn't sleeping and I'd lie and tell her I was working but really, all I was waiting for was your indominatable ascent as the sky turned a amber hue and I thought of Fitzgerald and his sun also rising and looking back, I must have resembled a mess, but you made me believe I was beautiful and that everyone else was wrong and the world was crooked and ill.
We began to steal away the night time too. Being freelance, I could always trust in that age old adage that I was working late and, to her sad eternal credit, she had in me such a hearbreakingly assured trust in me and what I said that she never questioned it. And yet it seemed that the more I felt I was letting her down, the more I turned to you, to this other-worldliness, shaking the ghosts off my back, pretending they didn't exist. I realise now that it was a Catch-22 situation- The more I felt I was letting people down, the more I turned to you and, subsequently, the more I let them down.
Yet, nothing functioned without you, and I knew it. I fought for you, and she knew it. I hollered evil, wicked, unecessary cruelties at her, unjustified and obscene, and she left me. And as soon as she was out the door I was down to our familiar meeting place and to you. I took you home. I could see you, I could be with you all the time but, like any mistress worth her salt, you were a drain on the finances. I'd skip meals to spend time with you. Every last penny was spent on you. We talked of dreams of faraway places, ports and harbours, stations and laments, but it got no further than that, just talk, just drowned ecstatic moments. I began to grow bored of you, but still I couldn't let you go. I guess I was afraid, afraid that sceptres and demons you held at bay would spare no quarter in their hunger for my pithy soul. Each day I would tell myself that I wouldn't see you again. Each day ended with me drawn into your arms. Each day I'd hate myself and want to die.
So what was it that clicked on the first day that I didn't meet you? Some kind of Holy, ephemeral revelation? Some Damascus-like discovery dissolving all doubt? Nothing quite so spiritually awakening. I was doubled up over the toilet, unable to move, vomiting blood, and I told myself "Look what you have become; look what she has turned you into- Look at you, look at you LOOK AT YOU."
For the first time in 8 years, I looked.
It's been 3 months now. Every day I've been tempted. There have been days when I haven't slept, just paced around the apartment, nights with the bedsheets soaked in sweat, and I've screamed and hollered and faced demons from my past, but it HAS got easier- Sometimes they give up and allow me a few hours rest. I've started shopping on the internet, so I am less tempted to leave the apartment to look for you- Somehow it's easier if I don't see you in the flesh, if I can't purposefully pick you up. I am working more, and it's still a novelty to get out of bed in the morning and clean my teeth without my hands shaking.
So where are you now, my quarry muse, my mistress, my fortress, my escape- Where are you now?
She smiles.
She is always just around the corner and she knows it.
And so do I.
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Only One More Vote than God – My British General Election 2005
This is an account of my experiences of attempting to get involved in politics in the 2005 election campaign. If you’re looking for a happy ending or a story of triumph over adversity I suggest you stop reading now. If you’re willing to accept a story about giving it your best try then read on. I apologise for the length of it – but honestly – a lot happened and I met a lot of people.
Contents:
A meeting with the Armed Forces Minister – and an army recruiter
Down to Blackburn/Demonstrating against Jack Straw
Leafleting – Reality bites and some Phone Calls and Chance Meetings
Paxman the One-Trick Pony/The Bigger Picture
Indecision 2005
It started off with weeks of anxiety and indecision. The only good thing I can say about these is they won’t be repeated. Once you’ve been involved in politics once it becomes a far less frightening proposition.
I wasn’t certain whether to wait and see if Labour moved back to the left after the election , stand as an independent candidate separate from any party , or campaign for the Scottish Socialist Party . .
The Scottish Socialists have sound progressive principles which they stick by through thick and thin. Some of them can sometimes use what I see (maybe I’m wrong) as over the top rhetoric and presentation which goes down badly with some voters. They have a red star as their symbol which, while they’re not communists, looks communist.
I’d also got the impression from going to some party meetings in Wishaw a couple of years ago that I didn’t fit in with them. Maybe I met people who weren’t representative of the whole party – or maybe I misinterpreted what they were saying – but one motion from the branch was demanding nationalisation of everything the minute the Socialists formed a government. Apart from the pointlessness of nationalising everything the Socialists will never get enough votes to form a single party government. One branch official felt Tommy sheridan , the party leader at the time had 'gone too far to the right on economic policy'. This seemed to me about as believable as accusing Ghandi of warmongering.
Discussion moved on to the idea that changing the electoral system to proportional representation would be a ‘betrayal’ of the voters who each voted for one party – not a coalition government. This ignored the fact that the only reason the Socialists even have members elected to the Scottish Parliament is that there is a small element of PR in Scottish Parliament elections Also non-proportional electoral systems ignore the votes of anyone who didn’t vote for the winning candidate or party – often 60% or more of voters. These weren’t, as it turned out, the party’s official policies – but they did make me think twice about the socialists.
I also had the hope that by presenting policies without any particular ideology or party label I might be able to pick up votes from people of all ideological persuasions – and give people who might otherwise not have voted another choice that might motivate them to vote. That still might be possible in my view – but it’s certainly not possible in two weeks of campaigning starting at the last minute. .
Decision One – Volunteer
I decided at first not to stand at all. I’d campaign for independent candidates instead. Rose Gentle, a woman from Pollock in Glasgow whose son Gordon was a Scottish soldier killed in Iraq, announced she was standing as an independent anti-war candidate against Adam Ingram – a Labour party MP and the armed forces minister - in East Kilbride (Adam used to be a CND member and go on peace marches in his youth). The Scottish Socialists stood down to allow her a better chance and there were hopes that the other opposition parties might follow their lead. .
I managed to find a contact number on the Scottish CND website and by Wednesday evening was at a campaign planning meeting where I met Rose , George McNeilage , and various other current and former residents of East Kilbride and Glasgow from various party backgrounds – mostly Scottish Socialists and former Scottish Nationalists.
The atmosphere was great – none of the rivalries, pettiness, factions or distrust that there had been in the few Labour party meetings I went to back in 1997 in Clydesdale. Everyone was there with the same purpose – get Rose elected. Everyone had the same motives – hold the government accountable at the ballot box for lying to involve our country in an unnecessary war and make sure that more people like Rose’s son Gordon didn’t die in wars that shouldn’t have been fought.
On Saturday we met outside East Kilbride Shopping Center and began foisting leaflets on everyone entering or leaving the shopping center at various exits. Most people were polite or positive – a few refused leaflets or threw them away.
East Kilbride shopping centre a big place by the way – at one point I got lost in it at night and had to ask directions out of it while carrying a ladder which had been used to put posters on lamp posts earlier. After asking whether I was cleaning windows a friendly couple gave me directions and even took a Rose Gentle leaflet when I explained why I was there. “Anything that’s against Ingram” said the husband.
I met his young son another evening when leafleting houses – the wee boy remembered me well saying ‘haw windae cleaner, you’re that windae cleaner int’ye?’. I confessed and leafleted him a second time.
Leafleting houses and flats is much harder work than leafleting shopping centres – especially when it’s raining but even when it’s dry. If you want to be fit I recommend leafleting houses three times a week. A week solid of it left me needing new and sillier looking trainers after my feet were covered in blisters and my flash looking old trainers had been severely damaged. My knuckles were skinned from letterboxes and I’d learned not to put my fingers too far through the letterbox in case a dog was waiting.
The other volunteers and organisers were great people – Nicola and Jack (both former Scottish Nationalist Party members) , Roddie , Kier , Mark and John (still Scottish Socialists) among others. Most either lived in East Kilbride or used to live there. Nicola Fisher’s behaviour incidentally was once described in a court case by the then Labour leader of Glasgow City Council as the “worst intimidation in his life” after she criticised him in the street for supporting the Iraq war. The judge ruled that Labour councillor Frank McAveety “must live a very sheltered life”. While Nicola certainly expresses her views and doesn't back down on them I certainly couldn’t see how anyone could describe her as threatening.
I’d also phoned Craig Murray – the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who was sacked for criticising torture by the Uzbek government – and told his campaign I’d come down to Blackburn to volunteer with them against Foreign Secretary Jack Straw MP.
Decision Two – Do Both
A couple of days into campaigning for Rose Gentle I decided to stand myself as an independent candidate in the constituency I live in (Lanark and Hamilton East – which before the boundary changes was Clydesdale). This wasn’t the ideal time to decide this. I now had under 3 weeks to campaign and wouldn’t have leaflets of my own to deliver till 13 days before the election – but I felt that if I didn’t do it at this election I might put it off forever and always regret not trying.
I was worried that when the Socialists who were involved in Rose’s campaign found out there might be a lynching from the nearest lamp-post since there was a socialist candidate also standing in my constituency. When they found out they were pretty good about it.
From then on during the day on weekdays I was up first thing in the morning organising my own campaign , updating my own campaign website – www.duncanmcfarlane.org, making up leaflets , travelling to the election office in Hamilton to pick up official forms and to the printers to hand in drafts and look at proofs , or filling in forms and getting signatures.
In the evenings and at weekends after a quick meal I’d be off to East Kilbride to leaflet for Rose Gentle until 9 or half 9 at night. I was exhausted and at times quite stressed but it felt like I was doing something worthwhile.
On Thursday during the day I went out to deliver some of my own leaflets for the first time with the help of my mum – who’d been leafleting with some friends of the family for me for a few days. Unfortunately my first leaflet was just a bit too subtle for its own good. It opened with a quote from the sitting MP – Jimmy Hood – stating he was ‘a firm supporter of the Prime Minister’ – which with Blair’s nose-diving popularity is a dubious position to be in. It then had a photo of Tony Blair holding up the parties’ ‘Forward Not Back’ manifesto. His finger was over the ‘d’ making it read For War Not Back’. Above the photo was the text ‘He sent our troops into an unnecessary war in Iraq’ Below it it read’ Don’t let him back in to send our troops into Iran’. After some other issues it read ‘Vote for Something Better – Vote Duncan McFarlane (Independent) on May 5th’. Unfortunately we found out later that most people thought this was a Labour leaflet – never try to be too clever with election leaflets – it has to be clear at the first glance what (or who) they’re for or against.
On Thursday night we had to prepare my election communication – which was pretty much a manifesto printed on both sides of a sheet of A4 - for delivery by the royal mail. Their conditions are very strict. Leaflets must be in bundles of 100 , placed in boxes labelled for the right sorting office and no box must weigh more than 11 kilograms. Unfortunately the printers had bundled the leaflets in bundles of 75 to 150. Luckily I had a set of digital cooking scales (bought to weigh things to work our postage for sale on ebay) and some friends, a cousin , my mum and a brother to help sort this all out remarkably quickly – and on Friday me , my dad and my brother Malcolm got the boxes delivered to the Royal Mail’s main sorting centre in Springburn. Then it was off to the wedding of some friends – I went back after the meal and meant to go back to the reception but I was so exhausted I ended up falling asleep.
A meeting with the Armed Forces Minister – and an army recruiter
On the second Saturday of the campaign we arrived to leaflet for Rose Gentle outside the shopping centre in East Kilbride. We managed to see the elusive Adam Ingram MP (or ‘Saddam Ingram’ as some people in East Kilbride call him) , with a small entourage of supporters , in full campaign mode.
I got a (bad)photo of him with my digital camera. “From The Sun are you ?” he asked, laughing. I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions. “When are you going to debate Rose Gentle then?” (Ingram had so far refused to agree to Rose’s challenge of a public debate). “Why would I do that?” “Because she’s a candidate in the election in this constituency – Are you going to have a public debate with any of the other candidates here ?” “What for ? Who are you ?” I’m a volunteer with Rose Gentle’s campaign” “Are you from this constituency?” ‘No’ “Then you know nothing about the constituency or what people here want” “I do now – I’ve met lots of them – half Rose’s volunteers are from here – and I’ve met more leafleting” “You’re just exploiting that poor woman’s grief” “No – we didn’t ask Rose to stand she chose to. We only came here after she decided to stand so that no-one else’s son or daughter would be killed when they didn’t need to be.” “You just want to close down the armed forces completely” “No – I just only want them to be sent to war when there’s no other choice and not when it’s an unnecessary war”.
Adam Ingram turned away to talk to a constituent. “You’re wasting your time talking to that guy” said John, the secretary of the Socialists in East Kilbride. We set up the Gentle campaign stall and suddenly the Armed Forces Minister and his entourage were half walking, half running away round the corner. We had secured the main entrance of the shopping centre for Rose’s campaign! The Green party were leafleting at the bus station but relations with them were fairly cordial.
We saw Adam Ingram and his wife go into chemists later at another entrance we were leafleting. They didn’t come out while we were there. I hope they weren’t frightened of us. Certainly a face to face political debate over life and death issues can be pretty stressful for everyone involved but there was never any threat of it being anything more than a heated debate.
I also got in a dispute with a Territorial Army recruiter. He accused me of spreading “propaganda” that “makes my job harder”. He was sticking to the discredited line that torture was just a few bad apples at Abu Ghraib. I asked him if Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross are all propaganda organisations. He also claimed that no Territorial Army recruit would be sent to Iraq unless they chose to put themselves on the active service list. I’m a bit dubious about that – from what I’ve been told by people who were called up many of them had no choice in it whatsoever. If he was telling that to recruits it better be true.
Down to Blackburn
After a failed attempt to get my debate with Adam Ingram covered in the papers (fair enough maybe I was a bit self-absorbed there but I thought it might help Rose) I was driving down to Blackburn to Craig Murray’s campaign.
I arrived late on – too late to help leaflet that day – met Craig and his volunteers and went out for an Indian with them. That night I slept in the same room as Matt who muttered in his sleep ‘Fuck you. I disown you and your campaign. You are a twat.’ I was a bit offended until I realised he was talking in his sleep and remembered he’d told me he’d had a talk with Jack Straw earlier quite similar to mine with Adam Ingram.
We were staying with Anne – who lives in Blackburn and has been campaigning against Jack Straw for years. She sometimes gets over-excited but she more than makes up for that in her kindness and her determination.
The three of us drove down to Craig’s election office in the town centre where we found three builders putting up scaffolding which was beginning to cover all the campaign posters in the office windows. They gave some confused account of how ‘the gaffer’ (Craig ?) said it was all fine and “the guy upstairs” had asked them to fix his windows on this Sunday since it was a quiet day. I got photos of them and their van’s registration and Matt got a video of the three of them. They didn’t like that – “What the fuck’s he doing with that fucking camera?”. They took the scaffolding down and left though. Who sent them? Was it an honest mistake or malicious? We still don’t know.
Craig very kindly agreed to a photo with me and to us endorsing each others’ campaigns. His volunteers included everyone from Anne and Maurice from Blackburn to Peter – a Ghanian who Craig helped get asylum when he was Ambassador to Ghana – to screenwriters like Matt and students from London and Belgium. One was Richard Wilson – who is writing a book called ‘Titanic Express’ about a notorious massacre in Burundi in 2000 in which his sister was murdered. There was even a Plaid Cymru supporter who’d driven all the way from Wales.
They were all nice people and next we were off to leaflet houses. Frustratingly the first lot turned out to have been leafleted already due to a mix up but the second lot of flats and houses hadn’t – though there were still a few fairly arrogant people in flats who decided that since they didn’t want a leaflet no-one in the flat should get one.
Demonstrating against Jack Straw
By about half three we were starting a demonstration along with the Liberal Democrats , Muslim groups including the Muslim Public Affairs Committee and some Stop the War coalition leaders against an election meeting Jack Straw was holding in a nearby building. I should know what building it was but between lack of sleep and rushing around I forgot to ask or check. I was provided with makeshift sandwich boards and placards.
Most of the people attending the meeting were Asian community leaders and businessmen – almost none were white or female other than Labour councillors.
Anne was as full of determination as ever and shouted anti-Straw slogans and waved her banners for hours on end. At one point she was banging two banners against the iron gates of the (school?) compound while shouting ‘Sack Jack , Sack Jack’ for several minutes. That got the BBC cameras turned onto her but I was worried about whether it would help or hurt Craig’s campaign. Anne is a great person and I agree with her - I just worried that the BBC would use a short clip out of context to make her and Craig’s whole campaign look unbalanced. When I saw it on the news a few nights later it didn’t look so bad though.
An Asian cleric of some kind was handing out spoons to everyone entering and leaving and making jokes through a loudspeaker in another language – someone told me it was urdu. In urdu the word for ‘lapdog’ sounds very like the word for ‘spoon’ and he was making a pun.
An Asian boy came up to me with a pad and pen. He wrote 'Hello. I am deaf. Do you want to talk?' 'Yes' I wrote back and we agreed that we both wanted Jack Straw to go. He wrote that he would vote for Liberal or 'Independent' (Craig Murray).
I got talking to some of the stewards – all Asians – who were to prevent us getting into the hall where Jack Straw was speaking (we never tried to). They were debating with an Asian Stop the War coalition leader. They said they were there to follow ‘the barrister’ who they trusted. The Stop the War leader accused them of not thinking for themselves. They said they’d vote Green or independent but they weren’t from this constituency and it was just a job. One had a ‘vote Labour’ sticker on his yellow steward’s overcoat. I asked him why he wore that if he wasn’t a Labour voter. He said it just came with the coat. ‘It’s just a job’.
. After an unfortunate detour down the worryingly named A666 Maurice gave me and Peter directions back to the Indian restaurant where Anne was already eating with Giselle Portenier - who had been filming us all earlier. She’s a Canadian and was making a BBC documentary about Craig’s campaign which will probably be shown in the next couple of weeks.
Anne was keen that I tell her about my own candidacy but when I did she wasn’t greatly interested. ‘Aren’t the Lib Dems likely to win there?’ In the event she was wrong – but then so was I when I optimistically pointed out I would get votes by opposing Private Finance Initiatives that they were ambivalent about. Giselle, Anne and Peter were all pleasant to talk to though and we had a good meal.
That night at Anne’s the neighbours were singing loudly , playing loud music and banging on the walls. At first we were afraid we might be being targeted for a sleepless night by Craig’s opponents. That turned out to be paranoia though and the noise ended at about 2 a.m.
The next day Craig’s election communication’s delivery was still being refused by the Royal Mail’s artwork vetting team – and frustratingly they wouldn’t say why. I apologised for only staying for a day before heading regretfully back North up the motorway and home.
The Big Debate
From then on it was leafleting for myself – and preparing for a debate with the other 7 candidates on the Wednesday. I was worried that if I did badly in that debate I might end up without more than a couple of dozen votes.
In the event it went quite well. I’d researched and prepared and re-written a speech on Iraq and the Private Finance Initiative until I was happy with it - and while I was shaking at first while making it – and had to read from my notes for most of it – it went down well. The organisers – some local ministers – had decided there would only be 3 minutes for opening speeches and that a bell would be wrung 30 seconds before the 3 minutes were up and again at the end of three minutes. That was pretty disconcerting – and I had to ask for 10 seconds extra – which led to some laughter – but the whole speech was delivered.
The other candidates’ speeches were good too – though the Conservative candidate – who hailed from Surrey – had declined to turn up due to a pressing business matter and sent his election agent in his place. His agent represented his party reasonably well (as much as I dislike his party) – though his claims that Iraq was now a safer place and a democracy were me with a bit of laughter. Jimmy Hood MP’s speech was mostly presentable enough – apart from an opening rant about the ‘disgrace’ of people ‘not giving our troops the support they need’ now they’re at war. That went down like a lead balloon. The ‘Operation Christian Vote’ candidate was an extremely genuine man who frequently quoted seemingly random passages from the bible.
I found answering questions from the audience much easier than I expected though the 1 minute time limit for answers didn’t leave much time for thought – and no-one likes being asked what their position on abortion is.
I was quite encouraged by the way the debate had gone but I doubt it had much effect on the way people voted. There were about 200 people there but no reporters from local newspapers as far as I know and most of the people there were there to support one candidate or another – and were hardly going to vote for a different one.
After the debate some of the Socialists including the secretary of the Bellshill & Uddingston branch came up and talked to me. ‘Why are you standing as an independent Duncan?’ asked Clive – the former Chairman of the Constituency Labour Party. ‘I don’t agree with Labour’s policies any more’ ‘I’m not Labour – I left years ago for the Socialists’. ‘Oh right’. I was embarrassed not to have known – and uncertain whether I’d been right to stand as an independent now. These ex-Labour socialists – and their candidate Dennis Reilly – seemed a world away from some of the meetings in Wishaw.
I prepared a longer speech for the public meeting I’d advertised in the local papers but since I’d been ambivalent about standing at first I’d not advertised it in our leaflets and the adverts had only been in one week’s papers no-one turned up – leading to a mixture of relief and disappointment. I ended up delivering my speech to a room full of people I knew who were already going to vote for me.
Leafleting – Reality bites and some Phone Calls and Chance Meetings
After the debate I at last decided to do what I should have done from the start – get leaflets printed with a photo of myself on them and pointing out the faults not just of Tony Blair but the policies of Gordon Brown and the Lib Dems on PFI and rail privatisation. I decided it would be worth paying the printers extra to get the leaflets folded to save time. Unfortunately the way I asked them to fold them was the wrong way – and we ended up staying up late at night folding them the other way so that my picture and not Tony Blair’s showed on the outside. We put a copy of my election communication – a manifesto of policies – inside each leaflet as the positive message including contact numbers and email address. That was to provide a positive choice after the leaflet – which was largely negative – criticised the policies of Blair , Brown the Conservatives and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems.
I started getting a few texts , emails and phone calls. Some were from people in Larkhall and Hamilton who said they’d vote for me after asking questions on my position on other issues including abortion and independence for Scotland.
After hours of leafleting in run down estates wondering if anyone here even votes or cares about the issues you’re raising it was an extremely good feeling to get just one person saying ‘I agree with you and I’ll vote for you’. One woman even said she agreed with me on opposing torture – so some issues are moral issues to everyone – of any ‘class’ or ‘income group’ – and not every vote is decided by economic policy.
After seeing just how bad the conditions that a lot of people in Hamilton were living in though I decided to add policies on government funded apprenticeships in trades like plumbing and joinery to my website as well as support for the minimum wage to be increased faster and benefits to be increased and better housing provided until more people can be got into work. I felt better after that – but most of these people won’t have had a computer let alone internet access. I should have had either a separate leaflet including policies that would make a real difference to their lives or included those policies in my election communication. I’d assumed Hamilton was a prosperous town full of middle class voters – in fact it varies widely from millionaires to the middle class to severe poverty and even some flats full of alcoholics and drug addicts.
My aunt Oona and my former Primary school teacher Mrs Rogers phoned to wish me luck.
Other phone calls were less supportive. One man phoned me to ask me if I was for or against fox hunting ‘Against’ – ‘And what about abortion’ ‘I’d want adoption as an option, and you could look at the time limit , but I’m against a ban – that’d lead to illegal abortions and women dying too’ ‘So killing a baby’s not as bad as killing a fox?’. Luckily he didn’t keep going for long.
Then there was the man whose leaflet had apparently been incorrectly delivered. This was apparently an outrage, It should’ve been in his mailbox at the top of his stairs. It was at the bottom of the stairs. If I couldn’t deliver leaflets properly how could I deliver policies for the people of this constituency ? Etcetera. He wasn’t having apologies. The fact that it was probably someone else volunteering with my campaign who delivered it wasn’t acceptable either. Eventually I told him to vote for someone else who delivered leaflets more perfectly.
Then there was the phone call that was a list of dozens of questions on ‘moral issues’ – abortion , euthanasia , gay marriage , whether the next coronation ceremony should be Christian or multi-denominational. The first two I could take seriously. After that it was hard to care but I answered all the same.
Leafleting Forth my cousin Alec met a former Labour councillor who my parents and aunt had leafleted for years before. My cousin insisted I come and meet this man and I was very glad I did – he told me not to get too down no matter what the result was – in his first attempt in a council election he’d only got thirteen votes.
On May 3rd me and Alec got soaked to the skin leafleting one part of Hamilton while my parents wisely stayed in their car in another.
Being independent seemed to go down well with most people we talked to. Most of them told us they wouldn’t vote Labour again. One man who said he’d vote for me still remembered Tommy McAvoy and Bill Tynan – now a Labour MP and MSP respectively – and their role as Union organisers in the dispute over a Hoover factory in the 1970s which led to its closure.
At one point I offered two women a leaflet – one thanked me the other asked for one for herself. I gave her one. “Independent ? Aye . I’ll vote for you – all the others are a bunch of fucking bastards”. I considered this a sweeping generalisation and suspected her enthusiasm may have owed at least as much to drink as actual enthusiasm for my policies or candidacy but I was soaked and looking for votes so given the circumstances I grinned and thanked her.
Continuing down the hill we came to a huge flood where rain had pooled at the bottom of a hill. A learner driver’s car was half sunk at the bottom of it. A guy on a motor-cycle splashed impressively through it – immediately flooding his engine so he stalled just above it. A naked, heavily overweight man peered out his window at us as we waded on to leaflet his block of houses.
Things looked up later when three friends - Grace , Ailie and Nicola came and helped us.
On May 4th we were finishing Forth – then off to leaflet as much of Bothwell as there was time for. That night we sat down to pizza and chips again – our meal every leafleting night (no time for anything else). We were out of time. Between us and friends helping out we’d leafleted around half of the part of Hamilton that was in the constituency , parts of Uddingston and Bothwell , all of Forth , Lanark , Carluke , Braidwood , Kirkfieldbank and Crossford. It wasn’t nearly enough – but it was an amazingly good effort in just 13 days since we got the first leaflets.
Election Day
This was it. We couldn’t campaign any more. It’s illegal to campaign on election day. .
I put on my election suit (well new jacket, old shirt and black trousers) and went down to vote for myself – just in case it would be enough to keep me my deposit or (dreaming now) win me the election (aye , right).
My youngest brother David was threatening to vote Lib Dem – but I’m (pretty) sure he didn’t do it. My pal Cameron came round – he’d voted for me and so had his parents. Well – at least it wouldn’t be ‘Duncan McFarlane (Independent) – Nae votes’. .
By 10 pm the polls had closed. We drove down to the count at Larkhall Leisure centre. On the way in we met Ian Gray – our local SNP councillor and father of David’s friend Stewart. Ian thought his son might have voted for me.
David texted me – one of his friends had texted him saying he’d voted for me – and now he was a bit worried and he’d like to know what my policies were. I couldn’t help laughing.
In the counting hall I got talking to the SNP candidate John Wilson whose views were a breath of fresh air in a lot of ways – that politics should be an open debate to generate the best ideas with parties accepting ideas from their opponents. I even talked to the UK Independence Party candidate and Robin Mawhinney of Operation Christian Vote. There is remarkably little rancour between candidates. It’s so stressful to be a candidate that you can’t afford to be at each other’s throats – civility and friendliness even to people whose political views are completely opposed to yours makes the whole thing survivable.
I looked around the tables watching the votes stack up - Hood X , Hood X , Hood X on and on in massive piles. There were a few SNP and Lib Dem votes , the odd Conservative one – and almost none for McFarlane (Independent) .
The Scottish Socialists were here. I talked to their candidate Dennis Reilly and to Clive and several others.
The returning officer informed us the result was about to be announced. No-one would get to make a speech except for the winning candidate – and no-one doubted who that would be.
Jimmy Hood MP (Labour). He wasn’t exactly magnanimous in victory. “The SNP are down to third place…..Where are the tories?”. Nor was it highly original “Forward not Back”.
He did however have over 20,000 votes. I had just 416. The only saving grace was that that was one more than Operation Christian Vote’s 415. Is that really a victory though ? To be only one vote ahead of someone who I would have previously been tempted to dismiss as nice and genuine but eccentric and representative of an unusual religious sect. Is that how most people saw me in this election too ? The best (if slightly blasphemous) spin I could think of to put on it was that I’d beaten God by one vote – unfortunately Jimmy Hood had beat him by 20,000 ; Alternatively ‘Voters swung by 1% to me in this election’.
.The SNP and the Lib Dems hadn’t come close to beating Jimmy Hood. He had a majority of almost 12,000 votes – only around a thousand votes less than the majority a Labour candidate would have had if everyone voted the same way they did in the last election in 2001 – taking into account boundary changes.
So even the Iraq war hadn’t changed most Labour voters minds? That was how it seemed. Even the number of people who turned out to vote was almost identical to the last election - a 59% turnout.
The Conservative candidate, who didn’t consider the debate sufficiently important to turn up to and lived in Surrey, had got over 10 times as many votes as I had despite my good performance in the debate and living here most of my life.
It seems blind loyalty to parties despite massive changes in their policies is even more ingrained than anyone had thought.
Around 23,000 votes for opposition parties counted for nothing.
“Remember – our strength is in unity” Dennis Reilly , the Scottish Socialist candidate (802 votes) , told me as he left.
I was in two minds about that. It seemed to me that the only strength that mattered in Lanarkshire was being the Labour candidate.
I comforted myself with the thought that Craig Murray , Rose Gentle and Reg Keys would have done better. One of them might even have won.
It wasn’t to be. Craig Murray got over 2,000 votes and kept his deposit – but the neo-fascist British National Party got over 2,000 too (were those scaffolders BNP ?). Rose Gentle got over 1,500 votes – but less than the Greens. Reg Keys did extremely well – getting 4,000 votes and putting Blair to shame in his speech (you can also see a video of it here) – but Blair , Straw and Ingram were all re-elected with big majorities , though reduced shares of the vote.
I texted people from Rose’s campaign – they’d fought a great campaign – and Craig and Anne to tell them that in my opinion being beaten opposing torture is a hundred times better than winning defending it.
Aftermath
I can’t say I was elated about my own result but it was probably unrealistic to think that a last minute campaign of two weeks with everything rushed could do any better.
The first leaflets were a bad mistake – everyone I’ve talked to thought they were Labour leaflets and that we hadn’t leafleted them. The second ones were much better but too little too late – and didn’t deal with the needs of people on low income or unemployed in bad housing.
Looking again at Craig, Rose and Reg’s campaigns they’d done well. They may not have won their own seats but the national coverage they got contributed to losing Blair’s supporters a lot of seats. I emailed them to tell them so – and George Galloway’s ‘RESPECT’ to congratulate them on George’s victory in Bethnal Green and Bow.
Jimmy Hood MP was quoted in one of the local papers saying that the “chattering classes” debating whether our troops should be in Iraq “won’t have helped the cause”. The article went on “Political weakness,he said , encouraged more insurgency”.
Oh really Jimmy ? Are Reg Keys , Rose Gentle and Ann Toward , whose sons were killed in Iraq the “chattering classes” for wanting our troops brought home ? Are the 60% of the British public or the 58% of Labour voters or the majority of Iraqis who want them home before the end of the year ? How about the International Institute for Strategic Studies or Sir David Omand , one of the Prime Minister’s advisers , who both say the Iraq war has strengthened Al Qa’ida ? Maybe the real ‘political weakness’ comes from politicians who won’t call for the Prime Minister to resign so our troops can be brought home instead of watching them die in the equivalent of pouring petrol on a fire to try an put it out.
Jimmy Hood MP rightly voted against the Iraq war. It's not over though and like some others who voted against the war he's long since stopped opposing it whether for 'the good of the party' or out of the mis-guided belief that the occupation could ever build a democracy in Iraq rather than act as a barrier to it.
A campaign to end Private Finance Initiatives in South Lanarkshire’s hospitals and schools would be my next plan. Always worth keeping trying even if it is against the odds
Paxman the One-Trick Pony
The next day I saw Jeremy Paxman’s interview with Galloway which was quite laughable. First Paxman asked George is he was ‘proud’ to have put one of the ‘few black women MPs out of Parliament’. What a ludicrous, racist question. George answered quite reasonably that it was nothing to do with race – it was about policies. Oona King backed Blair and voted for the Iraq war , RESPECT opposed Blair and the war.
Paxman , like a one-trick pony , attempted to replicate his famous interview in the early 90s when he asked the same question of Michael Howard 13 times after Howard repeatedlly evaded it. Unfortunately for him Galloway had already answered the question – and simply left when he attempted to repeat it.
Republican Senators went on to try to accuse Galloway of accepting bribes from Saddam consisting of millions of barrels of oil. Quite how he is meant to have kept millions of barrels of oil secret is not explained. Nor is any actual evidence provided – merely reports of what Iraqi sources have told them (sounding suspiciously like the ‘evidence’ for weapons of mass destruction) and some Iraqi government documents – which will very probably be exposed as forgeries like the almost identical documents ‘discovered’ in Iraq which the Telegraph newspaper and the US military tried to use against Galloway previously.
You can read about and watch a video of George Galloway's statement to and questioning by the US Senate on the BBC website
The Bigger Picture
The overall result of the election satisfied no-one (with the possible exception of Gordon Brown). Labour still has a majority – but a much reduced one. The Conservatives , Lib Dems and SNP had taken a few seats – but not as many as they’d expected or hoped for.
After some dejection at Blair not losing his majority entirely I began to look on the bright side. There are over 30 Labour MPs solidly opposed to Blair on most issues who’ll vote against him in parliament almost every time. With a majority of only 67 a rebellion of just 34 Labour MPs can block most of Blair’s wilder ideas – and any attempt to go to war on Iran would almost certainly result in him being replaced as party leader. Apart from that even Blairite MPs now fear losing their seats – so British involvement in any war on Iran may well have been averted.
Labour under Blair or Brown is likely to be even more unpopular by the next election – unless they are replaced or forced by backbenchers to adopt more progressive policies. Either result would be an improvement so long as the Conservatives don’t get in.
Blair has been elected on the lowest share of the vote of any victorious party in British history – just 36% of the vote (and on a 60% turnout just 21% of the electorate) getting Labour over 50% of the seats in parliament. In the precarious position he’s now in a swing of a few per cent could end in a conservative government at the next election. The only solution is electoral reform - proportional representation – and that would give us all a real choice of voting for whoever we really supported in future elections.
If there’s a hung parliament at the next election the Lib Dems could ask for it as the price of a coalition.
Either way once we get it there’ll be no more of people voting for the ‘least bad’ party in order to keep the other one out. British parties , like those in New Zealand after PR was introduced there , are likely to split so that people who detest one another will no longer uncomfortably inhabit factions of the same party that are constantly at war with each other. Then they’ll form coalitions and electoral pacts of people with similar views. A rainbow coalition of socialists , greens , liberals , social democrats and Independents like the one New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark leads would not be out of the question.
Polls show that 62% of people in Britain want P.R for British elections.
If you want to sign an online petition backing electoral reform in the UK or support it in other ways visit www.makemyvotecount.org.
After 18 years of the Thatcher and Major and 8 of Blair there’s a chance of a real change for the better at last.
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Live review #1: Amsterdam (The Life Cafe - Manchester)
As Kev and myself stroll along Deansgate towards John Dalton Street and the seductive Life Café we talk idly about days gone by, when we drank much more, and generally had (at least through the warm glow of rose tinted spectacles) a fantastic time chasing girls, swilling Guinness, and whole heartedly doing whatever seemed natural in the pursuit of the good life. This, at least with Kev and me had always included going to see bands, we have a similar taste in music, and as, erm, amateur musicians ourselves have a pretty good idea of what is good and what is bad – of course not everyone would agree with us, but in the words of the late, great John Peel ‘I am right and you are wrong’.
Fortunately for the two of us, one of the bands that we have seen many times over the years has contained the scouse legend that is Mr. Ian Prowse, a song writer of the highest, and I mean the very highest here, order. ‘Prowsey’ has with his two bands, Pele and now Amsterdam delighted us with his tales of love and loss, of hope and hate, and of glorious revolution; his political heart on the sleeve approach fits right in if you find yourself meeting up with his stance on anti-globalisation, anti-establishment, anti-royal, anti-authority, anti-bloody everything...nah, he’s not that bad, honest – just think of a working class scouse hero, with the attitude of Dylan, the energy of Springsteen, and a Tranmere Rovers season ticket and you’re almost there.
Well, look, I’m getting a bit off the point here – the reason why we find ourselves ambling up Manchester’s main thoroughfare on an unseasonably balmy Tuesday night is that the aforementioned Ian Prowse and Amsterdam are in town tonight, and for one night only. So we’re going.
The Life Café is a relatively new venue, and as such it’s still what us thirty somethings would refer to as ‘a nice gaff’, it’s subterranean location, subtle and understated lighting and open brick construction give it a warm, homely, secure feeling and so we collect our ‘city centre price’ drinks from the bar with a definite feeling of comfort and confidence – this is somewhat surprising as the last two Amsterdam gigs I have attended have both resulted in disaster – but that is another story for another time, tonight we are here for the main act, and we don’t have to wait long.
The band arrive onstage with a confident, vivacious, and overtly happy aura which soon translates over to the audience. They are on the fourth date of the tour and obviously enjoying it immensely. They kick into ‘Takin’ on the World’ with an elevated level of gusto and the crowd respond with rapture. People here definitely know the score as they sing along passionately to the opening track of the forthcoming album. A gusty, forceful acoustic take of ‘Nostalgia’ follows sharply and then into an epic hustling and bustling ‘Joes Kiss’ dedicated to it’s inspiration Joe Strummer, wherever he may be. The way that Ian Prowse throws himself and his Telecaster into these performances you would think that the spirit of both Strummer and the (yet to be dead) aforementioned Springsteen had taken up residence somewhere in north western England.
Prowse neatly sashays into an acoustic take of ‘Understanding Sadness’, a gloriously desperate plea from the heart, originally released on the Pele ‘The Sport of Kings´ album. The band wait patiently until the denouement of the song before easing in a gentle crescendo that pushes the sentiments home with a subtle but direct intensity you find it impossible to ignore. Next up is a triple whammy of ‘in your face’ brutally intense absolute pop rock shellshock taking in ‘The Glorious Day’, perhaps the most obvious and immediate song of the forthcoming album, the rollicking, bollocking arse kicking romp of ‘Megalomania’ and a particularly intense rip through ‘Feels Like Growin’ Up’. The tempo is relentless and the band, as one tear through the recent ‘hit single’ ‘The Journey’ with hardly a pause for breath.
The man’s left wing leanings are both admirable and apparent, and he confesses to voting Labour last week with his fingers crossed and thinking ‘fuck off Tony Blair you wanker’, some habits are just too hard to change, and you’ve got to admire Ian’s ability to reconcile himself with whatever decisions he makes in life – this is all recounted as an intro to the classic ‘You’re a Phoney’, the writers direct criticism of Blair which first surfaced some years ago. Just goes to show, you can hate a man, but the party is what matters. Someday soon Blair will be yesterday’s news, but socialist principles will always win out in the end, comrade.
Supposedly to close the set we get the new single ‘Does This Train Stop on Merseyside?’ if you haven’t heard this I insist that you track it down, it was played frequently by John Peel before he died, and John’s wife Sheila told how the song moved him to tears, and tonight would have been no different, there is a buzzing, vibrant intensity about the performance, a melodic intensity that rips your heart from your chest, screws up your guts and drags faint tears from the back of your eyes. These moments are the times that you feel most alive, when you know that everything is totally worthwhile, when you can recognise that life is often shit, that it is more than likely going to be a battle, but that it is a battle worth fighting and winning. These are the times when you ultimately understand sadness.
The band merge the set and the encore, the two blending into one and we are treated to ‘A Town Called Malice’ where Prowse wields his Rickenbacker like a reincarnated 20 year old Weller, and then rip-roaring takes on ‘Lifestyle’ and a special ‘Raid The Palace’ (dedicated to ‘all you lot who have followed me around for so long’) which takes the roof off the place.
In one incarnation or another Ian Prowse has been crafting the most important social commentary of the last 20 years, and the forthcoming album ‘The Journey’ is a perfect tableau to present these works. If you know about this man you will buy it, if you don’t know about him, then you need to buy it. If you just like fantastic rock and roll, which tells a valid tale, eloquently, passionately and vehemently then I suggest you look out for Amsterdam.
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Live review #2: Decoration (Cuba Cafe - Manchester)
Recent months have seen a groundswell of comment, of rumour and hearsay regarding Decoration; they first came to attention of many with their Peel Session last autumn – one of the last before the great man passed on. Talk at gigs, in pubs and on the good old internet suddenly seemed to always include the word ‘Decoration’. Now many bands reputations are established through media furore, hype and stuff and nonsense, whilst many more have to struggle for years playing in the toilets of back street venues up and down the country before they gain any level of success – if of course they ever do attain these accolades; and it seemed that Decoration may have been getting a little more attention than they deserved. That was until I heard their forthcoming album, a collection of songs, written from a thoroughly refreshing perspective. Decoration take the standard four piece rock and roll guitar, vocals, bass and drums line up and add in a definite northern angle, a distinctly definitive style, and a sense of individuality. Imagine Jack Duckworth fronting The Fall and you’re on the right tracks.
The Cuba Café is, surprisingly enough a balmy beachside Caribbean hangout in the backstreets of Manchester’s Ancoats, bordering the city centre on one side and the wastelands on the other. Its usual guise of a lap dancing joint is sidelined tonight for the welcome appearance of Decoration – although the question does arise, would I rather have live music or a live woman, clad in her scanties parading her assets in my face – a tough one, but for tonight, and tonight only I’ll go for the band.
Arriving late from London, due to the bank holiday traffic mayhem Decoration take to the stage in a hurry, and the logistics of being unable to sound check are soon evident, the band appear slightly troubled by this, but at the same time self assured and confident in both their songs and ability, it’s not cockiness, just a sense of comfort which soon spreads to the audience.
It is patently clear that the majority of people in attendance are here to see Decoration, despite them being place second on the bill (bumped up from third due to the aforementioned traffic jams). ‘Pavey Ark’ opens the set – perhaps the first ever song to be named after a Lake District peak – a significant block of rock that is mirrored perfectly in the song. Lyrically a poignant tale of the failed desperate search for peace and a place to call your own, told through the eyes of a boyhood search for solace in Britain’s foremost National Park. Broken strings make for a slight pause before the set continues with ‘Escape Routine’ and despite ongoing tweaks with the sound there is a definite glow in the crowd. The music is infectious, impossible to ignore and the crowd who had nattered endlessly through the support act are all taking note with intent.
‘Joy Adamson’ is an out and out cavalcade of a song, if you can’t shift your feet to something like this then I suspect there is something wrong, seriously wrong. It is, like the vast majority of Decorations cannon an up tempo pop rock number, again with a thrillingly unique and heart warmingly objectivity on its subject matter. Lyrically a tale of a hopeless romance told as a parallel to Joy Adamson’s relationship with the lions basking in the Savannah sun, and when the guitars explode on the break they literally take your internal organs along with them, it’s that powerful.
The ‘technical hitches’ again rear their ugly collective heads on the intro to ‘Job in London’, which on record is ushered in with a beautiful dynamic guitar arpeggio which slowly builds up to a luxurious crescendo throughout the song. These picked guitar lines are bordering on inaudible, and it mars the performance somewhat – although it still has the audience swaying and oozing obvious appreciation. ‘Pine’ which contains the classic line “Who knows. I might never have found you, touching your toes in the Alpine section of the garden centre – where anything grows” is destined to become a real crowd favourite. Stuart Murray’s flat northern vowels are shown off to their full. Lovers of the likes of David Gedge and Mark E. Smith will appreciate the delivery of a song in something other than an American accent. Northern pride at it’s best. ‘Intercom’ follows swiftly on and again shows off the lyric writing at its best, with a few stolen lines at the least. Songs that actually tell stories, songs that paint pictures, songs that make films obsolete – the imagery is so vivid you have all these mini kitchen sink soap operas going on in either glorious technicolour or scratchy old black and white in the cinema that is your imagination. This is not background music, it’s not passé and it’s impossible to let it slide by without being dragged into the undertow.
The utterly euphoric and intensely optimistic double whammy of ‘I Tried It, I Liked It, I Loved It’ and ‘Every Dog has its Day’ bring the set to a rapturously warm ending. Music has the power to bring you down, that is undoubted, but Decoration show here how music can bring you round with an inherently positive outlook, when even tales of loss, of disappointment, of betray and disillusion can somehow be tempered with inner strength and the commitment that “I’ll carry on...without you”, and deep down you know that they will, and that they will be better for it, and that, without exception they will succeed.
The band were obviously disappointed with tonight’s show – in contrast to the audience. A Lack of a sound check and, it must be said, a somewhat ineffective sound engineer didn’t set them up to blow us away with the intensity and volume that they have both captured on record and that their songs so richly deserve. They vowed to put this right for the Manchester audience at their forthcoming show at Dry Bar. However, if this show will do anything it will (at the end of a series of great shows) make them just that little more determined to be the best that they possibly can be. From a spectators point of view, here is a band that are poised on the edge of something, it can go one of many ways, it could be deserved greatness, it could be cruel obscurity, it could be simple inertia; but if you ask me I would, without exception tell you that this band should go directly to the top of your ‘bands to see’ and ‘records to buy’ lists. Decoration are simply the most comfortable, individual, exciting and innovative band around, and with their forthcoming record (Don’t Disappoint Me Now) they have put together a set of songs that are both second to none and totally unparalleled in today’s music scene. They have guts, flair, panache, balls, style, skill and maturity...they write fucking great songs and deliver them with a smile.
What more do you need?
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