Unclehood Part II

Last week, my sister
gave birth to a bouncing baby girl.
At home. In the living-room. In an inflatable pool.
They're going to name her Iseult. Maybe.
Thing is, they're finding it hard to decide.
They have a few weeks in which to make their minds up.
Before the official birth certificate has to be signed.
In the meantime, my nephew
has given his new sibling the nickname of "Mossie".
Turns out that it means "first-born" in Swahili.
Not strictly-speaking accurate then,
but you never know, it might just end-up sticking.

SMS Attack

It's a Friday night.
Her booze-loosened thumb's been working overtime.
The bombardment of textual malice
sends my old-skool 3310 teetering towards meltdown.
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The View From Cripplegate

The subterranean theatre has a
strict NO-LATECOMERS-ADMITTED policy.
That's the reason why I'm sat here;
eating stewed pasta-bake with a plastic fork.
I'll be fine. I've got my Murakami to read.
I'll just sit it out. Wait for the interval. Maybe have a wander.
On the way here, I read a newspaper article
about how some brown bears
had chased, caught, killed and then eaten
a macaque monkey at a zoo in the Netherlands.
The article upset me,
but that's the law of the jungle I suppose.
Even in captivity.
Part history, part political fable,
the play that I've missed the start of also has an animal theme.
So I've been led to believe.
It's based on one of the masterpieces
of Arab and Persian culture.
I have friends involved.
You could say I'm here out of a sense of duty.
I booked the tickets weeks ago.
My intended "date" for tonight couldn't make it in the end.
His 11th hour replacement is all alone in there;
sat next to an empty seat.
My empty seat.
I feel bad about that.
Where once there were plague pits,
now stands this rabbit-warren of steel and concrete brutalism.
"Her Majesty The Queen", reads the placard;
"opened the Barbican Centre for Arts
and Conferences on the 3rd of March 1982."
And here was me thinking it was older than that.
It looks older than that.
Shakespeare Tower is the (joint) 14th tallest building in London.
It rises 403-feet into the stagnant air above.
One of the country's
foremost eye-surgeons lives near its summit.
His only daughter and I
once talked about making love, up there,
on the balcony of that wind-swept eyrie.
High above the city.
Far from the madding crowds.
Times have changed however.
As they are wont to do.
That'll have to go down as an opportunity missed.
If I'm not mistaken, they're ringing the bell for half-time.

Hogswatchnight

I've never died on-screen before.
I've also, never before, worn
a large tooth-shaped helmet on my head,
and stood guard outside a fictional castle
situated on a flat planet
which exists on the edge of reality
and is carried through space on the back of a giant star turtle.
There's clearly a first time for everything.

Do You Remember Britpop?

I've spent most of the day beneath the bedsheets;
trying to recover from a mild virus of some kind.
And now? Well, now I can't sleep for toffee.
Trawling through the multifarious digital options
on my remote, I happen upon an hour-long documentary
about the making of Pulp's anthemic 'Common People'.
Was that really over 10 years ago?
Have they really gathered together various "experts"
to talk with sincerity about the reasons behind
its lasting impact on the musical landscape?
Jarvis Cocker is sat, all alone, at a booth
in the New Piccadilly Cafe on London's Denman Street.
His hair is somewhat longer these days, but he's
still buying the bulk of his clothes second-hand.
He smokes a cigaratte whilst they show clips
of Pulp headlining the Glastonbury festival in 1995.
They show footage of Jarvis revisiting the
Town House recording studio and Saint Martin's College
and the band's old rehearsal rooms situated above a pottery.
There are shots of Sheffield for good measure.
And even some old family home-movies.
If you look closely at Pedro Romhanyi's iconic video
for 'Common People', you might notice a buxom girl
riding a chopper bike in the background. Her name is Julie.
And she doesn't look at the camera throughout.
Julie did the wardrobe on that video, aswell
as on several other Pulp videos of the period,
including 'Lipgloss' - in which she also appears,
wearing a cheap blonde wig and a babydoll négligé.
Julie also did the wardrobe on the video for Blur's
equally anthemic 'Parklife'. Just for good measure.
Jarvis, reputedly, wrote the song 'Acrylic Afternoons' about her.
It's a song which appears on Pulp's 1994 long-player 'His 'N Hers'.
I happened to be passing Julie's house on the bus last week.
It was a warm and sunny day in the Wormwood Scrubs area;
reminiscent of that time we first kissed
over the embers of a disposable barbeque.
I thought about getting off the bus a few stops early,
walking up to her front-door, ringing the bell
and asking her if she ever thought about me at all.
Y'know? In that way I sometimes find myself thinking about her.
But I was running late for an appointment.
The wheels on the bus kept on going. Round and round.
To be honest, I'm not sure I'd remember the house number now.
Though I'm pretty sure I'd still be able to recognise the wallpaper.


Video for 'Lipgloss' by Pulp

Lyrics to 'Acrylic Afternoons' by Pulp

Anti-Folk 2006

We arrive on Tin Pan Alley
with our bellies all full of burger and milkshake.
The singer from David Cronenburg's Wife splits his trousers.
Mister and Mrs. Dufus party-on like it's 1969 or-some-such-shit.
J.J. Crash proudly wears
his burgundy Jack And Jeff Lewis T-shirt.
More than half the members of Milk Kan fail to show.
Filthy Pedro's wisely remembered
to pack his devil-horned gimp-mask.
And throughout it all,
the 12-Bar's famous old forge (1635) looks on
in silent judgement.
I can't think of a better £6 I've spent this century.