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Stories:
Ancient Rituals and Belly Flops: Welcome to the World Of Sport
British wrestlers - with a few exceptions - lacked the flair and athletic energy of their American counterparts. However, they created a pantomime-style world filled with bizarre characters who captivated the grandmothers who traditionally sat in the aud
The Not-Knowing
Whatever the reason, one thing seems clear to me; so-called 'ordinary' members of Japanese society would rather the problem didn't exist, and their way of dealing with it is to pretend that the problem doesn't exist.
Shaking Hands
"Let me take that for you, love" he'd said. "But you don't know where I'm going" she'd replied with that glimmer of a smile, a chance, that these days crushed him. "Ah, we'll find it" he'd grinned.
Home is Where the Heart is
... they can take all that because tonight he is falling through your window on a nondescript February evening in a nondescript nothern town and he is telling you that he loves you.
The Sea
...sometimes I would turn to her and make to speak but she would be sleeping and there was nothing nearer to heaven than the sight of her sleeping, so I would smile and leave her to it.
Absolutes are deceptive
A turtle, Velka Odmonorov thought, or a terrapin. Or a frog. He looks like a frog, with those eyes and those rubbery lips. A frog in a badly fitted yet expensive suit. Probably worth a fortune. Head of some multi-national or other. Yes. Definitely. One da
Gravity
Alas, Kieran is Kieran, and they didn't quite see the funny side when he stood on their toes, breathed meths in their face, and whispered "Tai-chi make you feel no pain, bitch-boy."
The Years
But we can't stay kids forever. One by one begins the exodus from the home; some, fuelled by love, to make homes of their own; others, fuelled by inherent possibilities of prose, of sound and vision, to view the whole world as their home and to duly wande
Inebriation
Everything is perfect, here, in our bubble, our own wayward path to
Thank You, Baby
Gary and Carmichael surveyed the wreckage of last night. A leather boot still wedged itself amidst the shattered glass of the coffee table. nother leather boot sat at an angle on top of the television, with a bouquet of carnations hanging out of the top o
Waiting
God may well be waiting for you in the next life, son, but here on this earth, the daily process of living is something you have to come to terms with yourself. Somehow.
Doused
He felt an inward surge of conceit, pride at still being able to fit into said blazer (vanity ought not to be the preserve of the young, he thought) after, what, thirty-three years?
Winning Battles, Losing Wars
He got up, walked over to the window, and saw the moon sink low, sillouhetting the battlefield and the wars between the sexes.
The mechanism of the push bike
I don't know how many times I crashed my bike but, at a push, I'd say seven or eight. I maimed startled pedestrians, fell headlong into piles of bin bags, head first into steel bins, smelt the abyss and just kept on pedalling, scraping the sides of parked
Idle thoughts on a Shiftless Saturday
I have given up trying to find my 'niche' in life. I have much in common with one person. I have a lot in common with 2 people. I have a few things in common with a few people. I have one thing in common with (according to agencies that record the intrica
The Night shift
I knew something wasn't quite right when I heard Carl in the classroom adjacent to mine arguing with his students about the present continuous
Lessons In Love
I should have known. I should have known after she signed off the first e-mail she ever sent me with the words ALL MY LOVE ALWAYS (yes, the capitals were her emphasis, not mine.
What The Pillar Of Salt Held Up
I'm told by my mother (who's a kind of nurse) that she was told by people in white coats (who are kind of doctors) that if the clot had moved or built up anymore then I would have been dead.
Home
Is this what happens? In this life, where what you strived for all of your life becomes a dot on the dot of a dot on the dot of a dot on a big, fat, unscrupulous, unknowing, unloving dot. Christine closed her eyes, but only for a minute. Life was a lie.
On Age
It occurs to me that I’m old. Older. No. Old, old, old. I don’t mind as much. In fact I don’t mind at all, were it not for the three stray white hairs protruding from the side of my left temple that, to all intents and purposes, look like they belong on a
And for my next trick
Money didn't bore her but what you could buy with money invariably did. In the end anyway. Boredom. That's what it was.
Revolving doors
On Thursday she told me that my brother was pregnant and that my cousin, who actually is pregnant, was six MONTHS overdue. She then accused another cousin who, having contrived to marry a solicitor and, as such, wasn't short of a few bob, of stealing off
For Someone That Knows It
Once, we had high hopes- Once, we had such very high hopes.
'The Honourable Profession'
Professional football was deformed at birth. The game was never honourable, never decent, never rational or just.
Working at it
Some things just aren't supposed to work. Like Cornelius. Maybe it was the name, but fate had it that he, like things, just wasn't supposed to work. "I'm not supposed to work" he said to his mum over toasted panini with sundried tomatoes and a skinny, de
On Home
Sometimes, if I catch the sun at the right time, I see me staring back at me from the porch and remember the days when this had no porch.
Notes From a Man on the Production Line
That's it! I've quit the job! The ecstasy of my burden being removed. The weight off my shoulders is almost physical. I'm drained of it all. Now, to know that one can concentrate his life on doing what he wants to do is the most fortunate and precious fee
Walking
The end of the day was best. Buoyed by life and our ascent into the hills, we'd collapse into each other on the sofa, slurp on ice cold beers and laugh at Fools and Horses re-runs. Life made sense then.
Tales from the Front Line - Part 4
The second half became a dizzy salvo of ‘whiskey nowt in it’ as Bob and I hurtled into the past-caring stage of inebriation. There’s a point between, let’s say, your third and your sixth drink, when the sober realms of logic and common sense remain like t
Chance
Then something within himself changed. He didn't find God or anything remotely close to that, but he did find a way of living through the hell he felt day in, day out.
'Momento Mori'
There is always a way of undoing all of the calamity in the same way that the fool has undone all of the good in life, all of the life, all of his life. It's just a question of the revealing, and if this tale ends abruptly then what then what then what?
Time on our Hands
There's plenty more fish in the sea, Mike. Dozens of beautiful women that do not desire to be covered in urine.
The End Game
What was it all for? Why, why, why? Where did it go? It looked to me as if it joined up with his neck-hair. They were the biggest sideburns I had ever seen. I sat transfixed. For the first time in my life, I had an overwhelming urge to undo another mans s
The Years (part two)
You can only do so much for people. It doesn't matter who they are. If they can't help themselves, if they don't want to help themselves, then you may as well watch the sun come up and let them figure it out for themselves
Equations
You had spent the day doing what? Watching time pass you by, first in dribs and drabs and then, the drink setting like the setting sun, time became the enemy, the tsunami.
Calluna Vulgaris
You would make sure she didn't see you, winking at Niall as you crept up behind her and grabbed her around her waist, flinging her up in the air, her excitable shrill echoing through the drowsy amber sky.
DJF
You wouldn't believe what's happened to me! The way my life has gone.
Schooldays
Part 1
We catch up with Cooney a day or so later. He is not embarrassed at all, which makes us think that he MUST be mad. No one dares mention what he did, because we figure that if he is mad, then there is no telling what else he could do
School Days
Part 2
He felt that he would achieve nothing, that killing me would never destroy me, if you know what I mean, that no amount of guns or bombs could kill ideas... ideas and beliefs, they would remain long after the last trigger on the last gun
Schooldays
Part 3
My sister has a boyfriend, and he is always at our house, and she locks her bedroom door and turns the volume up on her stupid stereo playing stupid music... she can do what she likes, but I wish she did not make so much noise.
Schooldays at Christmas
Part 4
At least I can fall back on the comforting fact that I do not believe in another God or baby Jesus or whatever, so whether I sing or I do not sing, it makes no difference to me...
Tales from the front line (part 2) Tales From The Front Line Tales From The Frontline (Part 3) Sister Janice Please Come Home! Interviews:
Dutch Courage: On the Trail of 'At The Close Of Every Day' An interview with the Trashcan Sinatras: The Band You Wished You Were Sobbing Murdoch Does A Bruno (An interview with) Idaho: Music To Remember Me By Son Son Film:
Trumbo, Fast, and a guy called Spartacus Trumbo, Fast, and a guy called Spartacus Once upon a time in a mess? Books:
Becoming Charles Bukowski John Fante: Still Full of Life Becoming Charles Bukowski MAGGIES DIRTY OFFSPRING? On the trail of Irvine Welsh Music:
MOZ ODYSSEY- A Travelogue (PART1)
Badly Drawn Boy: Genius or Goofball?
MOZ ODYSSEY- A Travelogue (part2) Twenty thousand beats under the sea with aqualung What made the Smiths great
Politics:
The "Sunny Delight Generation" Blood The tills have eyes What the fire fighters strike really means Bring Me Sunshine: A Short History of the Weathermen One Hundred Percent Red Momento It Happened This Week Too, You Know... The tills have eyes - part 2 Travel:
Other Things:
Guilty as charged
Managing your hangover Superstitious Minds Monuments to Great British History: The Pub Reviews:
The Trash Can Sinatras - An interview with the Trashcan Sinatras: The Band You Wished You Were Morrissey - MOZ ODYSSEY- A TraveloguePart 1 The Smiths - What made the Smiths great Idaho - (An interview with) Idaho: Music To Remember Me By Badly Drawn Boy - Badly Drawn Boy: Genius or Goofball? Aqualung - Twenty thousand beats under the sea with aqualung At the close of every day - Zalig Zijn De Armen Van Geest - CD LP / vinyl 10" The Bed - Soma Riot Wave Machine - Demo cd single At The Close of Every Day - Dutch Courage: On the Trail of 'At The Close Of Every Day'
E.L.I.Z.A.B.E.T.H"
She had obviously been working on her spelling, which ought to be applauded in these dark days of the text.
How did I get here, in some floozies flat in a rather notorious district of the city of Nottingham? I have no idea.
It's a funny thing, alcohol. How else would you explain the fact that, in the nippy month of October, a slightly-larger-that-your-average-man is manoeuvring his layers and layers of saggy skin out of his garments atop a well-worn mahogany table in a crowd
the editorial board of this half-baked rag try to convince you all that they had somehow concocted to not only make a dog talk but to have it solving problems too. Well I'm not having it. And neither, dear readers, are you. It's time to take action.
I like my job. One minute I'm extolling the virtues of Axel and Minco (the Dutch duo that make up 'At The Close Of Every Day') and, before you know it, I'm interviewing the blighters! Note to self: Say good things about people and they will flock to you.
I wish someone would ask me what I'm like in bed (good at sleeping).
Stuart Murdoch. He sings in a band." "A band? Hmmm…There was a man in earlier on. Pale, skinny, ginger hair…looks like he could do with a good meal and a makeover." Librarians these days. All style, no substance
Wow, that's a real compliment to the band. Thank you. (But that just tells me you're a very sad and desperate person who should be on a plethora of mood elevators.)
...whatever you do, do not stop living for something that can not be changed or be bought back, but what does he know?
there was this twisted knot in the pit of my stomach as I picked up the receiver and listened...
For it seems to be a law of nature, or of history, that men who prefer slavery to death inevitably get both.
Those who have tried to tell his story and keep alive the struggle for freedom and democracy have found themselves under attack from those who own and control the society they, and we live in.
"I shall write a review of a film" I said, grandly. "what, by tomorrow?" they said. "Er, yes! YES! I will watch a film and write about it. All by tomorrows deadline" I said, suddenly feeling like a hero to their collective friends.
"You sure those are shot glasses?" I said, somewhat dubiously.They looked more the size of those disposable cups you get out of coffee machines.
And now you, there, perusing this saintly tomb, are going to ask me: Who the hell is John Fante?
At this point in the tale, Chinaskis friend gives a baby a shot of the whiskey.... but there was no way were were giving a shot of whiskey to an innocent, defenceless, child. For one thing, neither of us has kids. Instead, we gave a tiny saucerful to one
What is Irvine Welsh then? Working class hero? Schemie boy done good? spokesperson for a generation? A corruptive and manipulating capitalist? Probably all these things and much, much more.
"Dizzy London, home of the brash, outrageous, and free." Free? FREE? Nothing in London is free, Morrissey, or even remotely close to being free.
"Have You Fed The Fish?" he asks, though when we would have got the chance is anyones guess, as he never actually went away
But it is the encore, "There is a Light that never goes out", another old Smiths classic, that produces the biggest cheer of the night, and is sung by an audience that suggests that their very life depended on it. And, for an hour and a half, it feels a
one of these sons of Satan has at last validated their pithy existence...by selecting the song "Strange and Beautiful" as the musical backdrop for a worldwide advertising campaign for Volkswagen
They talked about miserably damp flats and stagnating at work in a job you hate, or they talked about unfulfilled love in a way no one else in the history of popular music ever had, and when they wanted to get political, boy did they get political!
come the next election day, the party leaders are enlisting the help of figures from the world of pop music in the hope that their endorsements might spark some activity in what remains of the brains of the "Sunny Delight Generation"
Did you ever love us? Did you? There was a time that I thought you did.
For him to say that he felt he had virtually got the job is a miracle akin to George Bush knowing that France is in Europe and China is not.
I want to tell you how I wake up each morning and sift through a media conspiracy of lies, corruption, and yet more lies, and I shake at the very real thought of our democratic process pummelled to a shadow of any former self, submerged under the jackboot
Published in the 18 June 1969 edition of the SDS's newspaper New Left Notes, "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows..." (a lyric borrowed from Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues") was the founding statement of the Weathermen o
this was no group of pseudo-socialists, or knitting circles wanting the Bomb banned, or middle-class students hollering about globalisation; This was Glasgow, this was 35,000 very angry men from deprived Glasgow housing estates.
When you asked what capitalism was he would tell you it was the exact opposite of what he was and that, for you, was enough to detest it more than anything else on this earth.
Whilst the whole world no doubt trips over itself in reams of uber-orgasmic hyperbole at the Friends of the Heroes birthday party, there is another reason, another anniversary that should make any decent citizen of this here world walk about the rest of t
You didn't have to even be a member of the Communist Party, or even the Labour Party...
I want to ask a kind policeman in Glasgow for directions to the train station and to not understand a single word of what is said to me. These are the things that make Britain what it is, great or otherwise.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but vomiting the remnants of congealed kebab meat and cheap white wine at 5 in the morning is hardly my version of heaven. There's no serenity, no angels, no great light, no sacred tunnel of overwhelming love, just carrots
In particular fishing communities on the East coast of England, it was considered bad luck if you saw a pig, a PIG, on the way to your ship.
It's also the place where in the haze of a many a drunken hour I have purchased a cockatoo, been stripped naked by a counterfeit policewoman, been barred for falling through a wooden table, and sniffed amyl nitrate in the toilets on OAP's bingo night.
This is the band who have spent the best part of 15 years ignored by all and sundry whilst still being the best that the last 15 years have had to offer.
Part 2
Then there is nothing but noise in the darkness, a football chant "morr-iss-ey, morr-iss-ey, morr-iss-eeeey", then the chime of bells, big bow bells of London, and the he, HE, is finally there.
There was no inbetween with The Smiths. You can't just 'like' The Smiths, in the same way that one can 'like' The Beatles- that would be impossible. And there, implicitly I think, lies their greatness
You may, or may not, have heard of Idaho. The truth is you should, becausefor the last decade they have been playing some of the mostheart-stoppingly, gut-wrenchingly beautiful music around.
Yet in the midst of all this festive furore, I push my luck at a modicum of redemption, not by joining the Salvation Army and giving out cold mince pies to the homeless, but by, erm, partaking in said bloodshed and purchasing the new Badly Drawn Boy album
one of these sons of Satan has at last validated their pithy existence by plucking Matt Hales (for it is he who is, in effect, Aqualung) from pop music's bargain basement (where, sadly, his two previous incarnations, Ruth, and the 45's, reside)
I concur with that view up to a point- darkness aplenty pervades this, their debut collection
The second song on the demo, ‘Time Against The Tower’, leaves me baffled. Is this the same band whose mundane noise I had forced myself, out of a sense of fair play, to listen to?
The impression they made is still in my nerves and veins. But next week it can be a completely different person or band