The Mail on Sunday looks like being successful and the Daily Express looks like it will fail in their respective campaigns against and for, respectively, double summertime. That's where the clocks go forward two hours this summer and was cleverly named 'Berlin Time' by the Mail who formed an unlikely alliance with Scottish farmers to campaign against it.
Interestingly, The Times was among those favouring the move to bring us in line with European time. The Mail on Sunday, noted: "The proposal was even backed in a Leader page opinion piece in The Times – perhaps appropriately, given that the same newspaper backed the appeasement of Hitler in the Thirties and Stalin in the Forties."
While it is always amusing to see one paper knock another, it should be remembered that back in the 1930s, it wasn't just our stuttering inbred royal family who were pro-Hitler but a very prominent national newspaper also carried the headline: Hurrah for the Blackshirts. Which paper was it? The Daily Mail of course.
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I caught a film on TV the other night in which Will Smith played a superhero called Hancock whose life was turned around by a PR man. The superhero was a boozy, unpopular slimeball and the PR man was a nice, honest man trying to make the world a better place. Talk about far fetched.
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An old schoolfriend contacted me via Facebook after what must be eight years with the possibility of a writing job for one of his clients. I knew that all those years of telling the world what I had for breakfast via my status updates would eventually pay off.
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Mark Lawrenson is rubbish and anyone who thinks otherwise clearly isn't a true football fan. And I know I'm not alone in thinking that. So there.
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And the Oscars? What's that all about? Yet again a top award goes to someone for doing an impression rather than the much harder 'acting' job of making a two dimensional made up character believable and real (which Colin Firth can do admirably well, by the way).
And why, exactly, were Paris Hilton, Jamie Oliver and Katie Price in Hollywood for Oscar parties? What the hell has anything that happens there got to do with them?
And the award for grouchiest blogger of the day goes to....me. Cheers, Solly
Monday, 28 February 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Espana Wordy
Catherine Zeta Jones got a CBE for something or other. Possibly charity work for Help the Aged, I don't know. But add that to Lord Sugar, Lord Coe and Lord Archer and you see why the honours system in this country is so corrupt and phoney. I hate it, as you can probably guess.
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We all do it. We all pretend that what we do for a living is really complicated and only years of training and experience can make us do it better than everyone else - whether that's plumbing or IT or journalism or teaching. Well, maybe not teaching. And certainly not travel journalism. No offence to all my mates who are travel writers but destination stuff, it's really not rocket science. I've done a couple and all you have to do is remember some simple rules. Let's pick a place at random. Ilford, say. But try this with your own home town and you'll see how easy it is to be a travel writer. It's so easy, some newspapers let celebrities write their own travel pieces. So here's how to do it.
First, start with a cliche. Ilford is a town of contrasts. That's a good one. Google 'a city of contrasts' and you will get results for Havana, Frankfurt, Mumbai, Istanbul, Hamburg, Caracas, Bratislava and Bogota. And that's just the first page. Most of it written by pompous travel writers who probably own a hat and a cream suit and have lost all touch with real people.
Next, chuck in some topographical, geographical and historical shit to justify the city of contrasts shit. Eg: Ilford lies nestled between the old East End of London and the brave new world of Essex, leading to a clash of cultures that has existed for over 100 years.
Say something nice about the people. Mention the phrase 'melting pot' and mention some ethnicity. Ilford was settled by Hugenots, Jews, Chinese, Irish, Indians, that kind of thing.
Chuck in a made up fact posing as a myth or legend using the words 'they say.' Like, 'they say King Arthur stopped in Ilford on the way to Camelot.' And then add a complete non-sequitur to prove you know a wide range of useless facts. 'Centuries later it became the home of the world's first ever disco.'
There's more of course. A bit of personal stuff that you think makes the piece different from someone else who may have written about the same place. 'This is the face of Ilford that you won't find on the tourist map'. Or makes it funny 'this is the Faces of Ilford that you won't find on the map...Faces the nightclub that is.' And imagine the reader holding their sides as they split.
Finally, end with a schmaltzy piece of crap that will make the tourist authority press office love you and possibly help get your quote used on their literature. 'The Romans came to Ilford over 2,000 years ago and liked it so much they stayed for 200 years. And after being treated to the town's famous hospitality, I can see why!' Ho, flaming, ho. And that's how Judith Chalmers made a living for 127 years.
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Saw Guernica the other day. In Madrid, where it wasn't allowed to be shown for decades by Picasso while Franco was in charge. Having laboured under the misapprehension that Picasso was a bit of a fruitcake, I take it all back. I thought the painting was wonderful and completely understand why there is so much fuss about it.
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As you can guess, I've had a few days in Spain. Madrid, Segovia and Salamanca. They all have a Jewish quarter. Was trying to work out why and then it struck me. The reason there's so many Jewish quarters is because we never do anything by halves.
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Back home now after a trip where two return flights cost just £90 and five days of putting a cat and dog into kennels/cattery cost a further £112. Work that one out.
Wish you were here?....Solly
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We all do it. We all pretend that what we do for a living is really complicated and only years of training and experience can make us do it better than everyone else - whether that's plumbing or IT or journalism or teaching. Well, maybe not teaching. And certainly not travel journalism. No offence to all my mates who are travel writers but destination stuff, it's really not rocket science. I've done a couple and all you have to do is remember some simple rules. Let's pick a place at random. Ilford, say. But try this with your own home town and you'll see how easy it is to be a travel writer. It's so easy, some newspapers let celebrities write their own travel pieces. So here's how to do it.
First, start with a cliche. Ilford is a town of contrasts. That's a good one. Google 'a city of contrasts' and you will get results for Havana, Frankfurt, Mumbai, Istanbul, Hamburg, Caracas, Bratislava and Bogota. And that's just the first page. Most of it written by pompous travel writers who probably own a hat and a cream suit and have lost all touch with real people.
Next, chuck in some topographical, geographical and historical shit to justify the city of contrasts shit. Eg: Ilford lies nestled between the old East End of London and the brave new world of Essex, leading to a clash of cultures that has existed for over 100 years.
Say something nice about the people. Mention the phrase 'melting pot' and mention some ethnicity. Ilford was settled by Hugenots, Jews, Chinese, Irish, Indians, that kind of thing.
Chuck in a made up fact posing as a myth or legend using the words 'they say.' Like, 'they say King Arthur stopped in Ilford on the way to Camelot.' And then add a complete non-sequitur to prove you know a wide range of useless facts. 'Centuries later it became the home of the world's first ever disco.'
There's more of course. A bit of personal stuff that you think makes the piece different from someone else who may have written about the same place. 'This is the face of Ilford that you won't find on the tourist map'. Or makes it funny 'this is the Faces of Ilford that you won't find on the map...Faces the nightclub that is.' And imagine the reader holding their sides as they split.
Finally, end with a schmaltzy piece of crap that will make the tourist authority press office love you and possibly help get your quote used on their literature. 'The Romans came to Ilford over 2,000 years ago and liked it so much they stayed for 200 years. And after being treated to the town's famous hospitality, I can see why!' Ho, flaming, ho. And that's how Judith Chalmers made a living for 127 years.
--------------------------------------------------------
Saw Guernica the other day. In Madrid, where it wasn't allowed to be shown for decades by Picasso while Franco was in charge. Having laboured under the misapprehension that Picasso was a bit of a fruitcake, I take it all back. I thought the painting was wonderful and completely understand why there is so much fuss about it.
--------------------------------------------------------
As you can guess, I've had a few days in Spain. Madrid, Segovia and Salamanca. They all have a Jewish quarter. Was trying to work out why and then it struck me. The reason there's so many Jewish quarters is because we never do anything by halves.
--------------------------------------------------------
Back home now after a trip where two return flights cost just £90 and five days of putting a cat and dog into kennels/cattery cost a further £112. Work that one out.
Wish you were here?....Solly
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Banger out of order
Why do we say VW as an abbreviation for Volkswagen when there are four syllables in the former and only three in the latter?
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This is why I love local papers.
http://www.harlowstar.co.uk/News/Harlow-man-cleared-of-assault-by-sausage.html
It's not just the story, which is funny enough in its own right, but they even illustrated it with a picture of a sausage. Just in case we don't know what one looks like. And they don't caption it. So we don't know if it's the banger used in the assault, or 'a sausage, similar to the one used in the assault.'
The best example of lazy picture captioning came last year during the annual flying ants crisis.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/835511-flying-ants-plague-london
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I've packed one off skiing. Another is spending half term with her mum. And the third is going to Valencia for some concert or other. So me and Mrs Solly have decided to go out to Salamanca for a couple of days. I've managed to book a hotel next to a casino! She thinks we're going for a second honeymoon, but I had to point out that, as I've been married before, our honeymoon was a second honeymoon. For me anyway. She doesn't see the funny side of jokes about my first marriage. Women, eh?
On the plus side, I'm not taking my laptop and I don't have a fancy phone so no more blogs until the end of next week. Hopefully she'll appreciate the sacrifices I make!
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Something strange is happening in the garden of Solly (that's not a euphemism. I mean my garden). Loads of our trees are dying. Cordylines at the front (they're like palm trees, we get a lot of them in Essex) and Acacias in the back (I like the upper case though it may not be completely necessary).
Looking it up online I think the Cordylines are a victim of the snow but not sure about the Acacias. We're going to leave them to see if they recover but if anyone has any advice.
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Hate's a negative emotion and I try not to dislike people who I don't know just because they come across as wazzocks on TV. But the blokes who present The Gadget Show? I'd like to see them do a consumer test on electric chairs. Particularly that geezer with the white hair and dark eyebrows who tries really, really hard to make us all think he's eccentric. It's like the bloke at work who says 'I'm completely mad I am' and wears a tie with Disney characters on to prove it.
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Tickets to the Champions League final this year, which is at Wembley, are going to be around £225-300. I don't think my lot will get there but having seen the prices, I have got this over-riding hope that Arsenal get there and lose.
Hasta la vista...Solly
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Irie Member You-oo
According to secret police files, Rastamouse is seven times more likely to be stopped by the police than Fingermouse or Dangermouse.
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Had my first taste of live Wagner last night (the composer not the X Factor one). Which was different. Imagine singing to you missus 'Would you like a cup of tea?' and she sings back 'yes, I would' and I go 'with milk and no sugar' and...well you get the idea. It's not got a lot of songs, there was an anti-semitic subtext that I totally missed until I read about it in the programme and it was in English, which is just odd. But that's the ENO for you, a people's palace of a theatre in Covent Garden. Unlike the nearby Royal Opera House, it has far fewer of those corporate types you see milling round Bow Street. The advantage of this is that the seats and drinks are cheaper and the staff are a bit chattier (they'll let you change seats in the interval if there's one spare).
It also makes for a strange crowd. Predominantly old, mainly posh (neither of which are that surprising I suppose) but very gay. Lots of Quentin Crisp types discussing the time they saw Tristan at the ENO (and I think they mean Wagner again, not some mate) and quite a few middle aged women who look like a cross between Sandi Toksvig and a female vicar.
Still, better than the tube home where I found myself surrounded by Arsenal fans and was overcome with the smell of Eau de Smug.
Back to Parsifal. Thoroughly enjoyable, though I would prefer a few more songs but then I don't know my arias from my elbow.
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The Telegraph used to be very particular about language. Nowadays, though, if you register on the Telegraph website they don't allow you to use upper case letters for your screen name. A proper noun, in lower case? The world's gone mad, as Richard Littlejohn might say.
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Dinner with my brother this Saturday night. He's bringing his new girlfriend who, apparently, is very young and married. She's nervous about meeting me in case I judge her. Which is ridiculous. I'm narrow minded enough to judge people long before I ever meet them. I think it comes from selling stories to the Daily Mail.
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Dave King, with whom I studied journalism at Harlow has decided to join me in writing for fun rather than work and has started his own blog. A link appears at the side of this page.
Our whole year was banned from The Hare in Harlow, one of my proudest moments. And that group includes people like Daily Mail columnist Sandra Parsons, Guardian diarist Hugh Muir and Andy Roberts, who wrote one of the finest books on Northampton Town you are ever likely to read.
All of use went into local papers after college and Dave went one further by becoming editor of one, the Swindon Advertiser. Like a growing number of my middle aged friends, he is an exercise freak. Don't understand the fascination myself but then I dare say he'll outlive me by a few decades and have the last laugh.
I remember Dave as a very fast and occasionally erratic winger in our football matches. I can only hope he writes in the same style.
I told him that writing a blog is cathartic. Until he gets his first critical comment. Good luck mate.
I reckon the secret is to have a good headline and a good sign off.
Er...bye. Solly
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Had my first taste of live Wagner last night (the composer not the X Factor one). Which was different. Imagine singing to you missus 'Would you like a cup of tea?' and she sings back 'yes, I would' and I go 'with milk and no sugar' and...well you get the idea. It's not got a lot of songs, there was an anti-semitic subtext that I totally missed until I read about it in the programme and it was in English, which is just odd. But that's the ENO for you, a people's palace of a theatre in Covent Garden. Unlike the nearby Royal Opera House, it has far fewer of those corporate types you see milling round Bow Street. The advantage of this is that the seats and drinks are cheaper and the staff are a bit chattier (they'll let you change seats in the interval if there's one spare).
It also makes for a strange crowd. Predominantly old, mainly posh (neither of which are that surprising I suppose) but very gay. Lots of Quentin Crisp types discussing the time they saw Tristan at the ENO (and I think they mean Wagner again, not some mate) and quite a few middle aged women who look like a cross between Sandi Toksvig and a female vicar.
Still, better than the tube home where I found myself surrounded by Arsenal fans and was overcome with the smell of Eau de Smug.
Back to Parsifal. Thoroughly enjoyable, though I would prefer a few more songs but then I don't know my arias from my elbow.
------------------------------------------------------------
The Telegraph used to be very particular about language. Nowadays, though, if you register on the Telegraph website they don't allow you to use upper case letters for your screen name. A proper noun, in lower case? The world's gone mad, as Richard Littlejohn might say.
------------------------------------------------------------
Dinner with my brother this Saturday night. He's bringing his new girlfriend who, apparently, is very young and married. She's nervous about meeting me in case I judge her. Which is ridiculous. I'm narrow minded enough to judge people long before I ever meet them. I think it comes from selling stories to the Daily Mail.
------------------------------------------------------------
Dave King, with whom I studied journalism at Harlow has decided to join me in writing for fun rather than work and has started his own blog. A link appears at the side of this page.
Our whole year was banned from The Hare in Harlow, one of my proudest moments. And that group includes people like Daily Mail columnist Sandra Parsons, Guardian diarist Hugh Muir and Andy Roberts, who wrote one of the finest books on Northampton Town you are ever likely to read.
All of use went into local papers after college and Dave went one further by becoming editor of one, the Swindon Advertiser. Like a growing number of my middle aged friends, he is an exercise freak. Don't understand the fascination myself but then I dare say he'll outlive me by a few decades and have the last laugh.
I remember Dave as a very fast and occasionally erratic winger in our football matches. I can only hope he writes in the same style.
I told him that writing a blog is cathartic. Until he gets his first critical comment. Good luck mate.
I reckon the secret is to have a good headline and a good sign off.
Er...bye. Solly
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Love is...never having to say you're Solly
I always thought if I ever made a bit of money I'd hire a room at The Dorchester, a couple of call girls and a few grams of coke. But let's me honest, it's more likely to be the Travelodge, a dirty mag and a Diet Coke.
That's what Valentine's Day does to your mind when you get to a certain age. Romantic? No, this year was a night watching middle child performing in a school concert.
And I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't have it any other way. Not with my back.
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Tomorrow night my year of culture sees me going to see Parsifal, a very long opera by Wagner that - if I was a character in Curb Your Enthusiasm - would leave me open to accusations of being a self hating Jew. (Do try and see that episode when it's repeated on Sky Atlantic, it's excrutiatingly delicious).
Those who look closely for such things reckon this tale of Christ and dark forces is the most anti-semitic thing Wagner did and there are various tales that he did not want a conductor called Levi to oversee early performances though he relented.
Personally, I don't care. Wagner probably had some unsavoury views at a time when a lot of people were unenlightened. I don't think his music is anti-semitic. It is unfortunate that Hitler decided to adopt it as 'our song' for the Nazis. But he was also a vegetarian dog lover, as am I, and it hasn't made me into a Nazi, nor any of the other folk I meet when I'm walking Goebbels in Epping Forest.
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According to some PR blogs I've been reading recently, it seems the industry is quick to condemn the use of jargon though slow to actually stop using it themselves.
Blue sky thinking and kick it into the long grass are now old hat. New ones I've heard include 'a soup to nuts solution' which is hilarious. Though 'raping the natives' is perhaps too unPC even for this industry.
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When you spend most of your life helping PR companies you lose sight of the fact that, perhaps, sometimes you don't do a very good job of PR-ing yourself. So over the next week or so we'll be sending out a little flier to all our friends in the world of PR telling them how wonderful our agency is. As I'm in a PR mood I may ring you up three times to see if you got it, opening the conversation with 'hi, how was your weekend'. Or I may just get my most junior member of staff to do it.
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According to the papers, the Elle Magazine awards gave a gong to Cheryl Cole for her contribution to music. And they say satire is dead.
Auf wiedersehen pets...Solly
That's what Valentine's Day does to your mind when you get to a certain age. Romantic? No, this year was a night watching middle child performing in a school concert.
And I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't have it any other way. Not with my back.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow night my year of culture sees me going to see Parsifal, a very long opera by Wagner that - if I was a character in Curb Your Enthusiasm - would leave me open to accusations of being a self hating Jew. (Do try and see that episode when it's repeated on Sky Atlantic, it's excrutiatingly delicious).
Those who look closely for such things reckon this tale of Christ and dark forces is the most anti-semitic thing Wagner did and there are various tales that he did not want a conductor called Levi to oversee early performances though he relented.
Personally, I don't care. Wagner probably had some unsavoury views at a time when a lot of people were unenlightened. I don't think his music is anti-semitic. It is unfortunate that Hitler decided to adopt it as 'our song' for the Nazis. But he was also a vegetarian dog lover, as am I, and it hasn't made me into a Nazi, nor any of the other folk I meet when I'm walking Goebbels in Epping Forest.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to some PR blogs I've been reading recently, it seems the industry is quick to condemn the use of jargon though slow to actually stop using it themselves.
Blue sky thinking and kick it into the long grass are now old hat. New ones I've heard include 'a soup to nuts solution' which is hilarious. Though 'raping the natives' is perhaps too unPC even for this industry.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you spend most of your life helping PR companies you lose sight of the fact that, perhaps, sometimes you don't do a very good job of PR-ing yourself. So over the next week or so we'll be sending out a little flier to all our friends in the world of PR telling them how wonderful our agency is. As I'm in a PR mood I may ring you up three times to see if you got it, opening the conversation with 'hi, how was your weekend'. Or I may just get my most junior member of staff to do it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to the papers, the Elle Magazine awards gave a gong to Cheryl Cole for her contribution to music. And they say satire is dead.
Auf wiedersehen pets...Solly
Friday, 11 February 2011
Bellend Sebastian
Did you know West Ham United is an anagram of The New Stadium. Thanks to happy Hammer John Halpin for that one.
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I so want this story to be true but I fear it may be apochyphal. It's a very funny tale about Sebastian Coe, or Lord Smug of Uphisownarsington as I believe he became under some Tory government.
A few years ago a reporter went to interview him and as he approached Seb, the former runner who was never as well liked as Steve Ovett, put down a copy of Herzog by Saul Bellow and stood up to greet him. The reporter was impressed that here was a sportsman with a bit of culture.
A couple of years later the reporter was having a drink with a colleague who had been to meet Lord Coe that day. 'That Lord Coe' said the colleague, 'you'll never guess what he was reading when I met him.'
You know the rest. Maybe he's just a very slow reader or liked the book so much he read it again and again. (I've read it - it's on the required reading list for every atheist Jewish pseudo-intellectual - and it's not THAT good.)
Anyway, that's all I want to say about this week's decision to award the Olympic Stadium - or the Lord Coe's Ego Memorial Ground - to West Ham. Personally, I think it should have gone to Orient.
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So Mubarak has gone. The first dictator to be toppled by Facebook. Like.
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Is the Daily Star supporting the EDL? It's a valid question after a couple of stories the paper has run recently which, to many, have given the right-wing party some very favourable coverage. This is The Guardian's Roy Greenslade on the issue which explains it well http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/feb/10/dailystar-english-defence-league
Daily Star (and Daily Express) owner Richard Desmond claims he didn't know that the Star were taking this line.
Personally, I think the Star imagined it would pick up circulation by tapping in to the anti-immigration consensus among a lot of potential working class readers and somehow imagine the EDL is not quite the demon of the right that, say, the BNP is. I think they're wrong.
I've always had a good professional relationship with the Star. Starved of resources, their small cabal of staff do a remarkable job most of the time and they are among the most pleasant to deal with from an agency point of view. I suspect the decision to highlight the EDL was taken high up and will, if continued, backfire when advertisers decide they don't want to be associated with it.
And I think Desmond, who is a very active member of the Jewish jetset, will come to realise that supporting an anti-Islam organisation today is not a million miles away from the Daily Mail supporting the blackshirts in the 1930s. At least I hope he will.
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My mate Kevin's funeral today. A good Catholic send-off, they really know how to do it. Church service in St. Albans with some rousing hymns and the most tear-jerking but also uplifting speech from his magnificently stoic widow, then down to the crematorium where he went to the strains of Don't Stop Me Now by Queen and then to the pub for a glorious drink and cigarette fuelled goodbye. I pretty much held it together until I saw his six-year-old son put a flower on his dad's coffin.
It was at the pub that I heard about one of those 'why the hell not' kind of things blokes do. A couple of Kevin's mates have, for the last year, been going to the nearest pub to every underground station in London and having a drink in each.
The results are published on a very entertaining blog in which every drink and every pub is reviewed and is called Tracks Of My Beers which any sub would be proud of.
Always happy to publicise someone else's blog so... http://tracksofmybeers.wordpress.com/
Cheers....Solly
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I so want this story to be true but I fear it may be apochyphal. It's a very funny tale about Sebastian Coe, or Lord Smug of Uphisownarsington as I believe he became under some Tory government.
A few years ago a reporter went to interview him and as he approached Seb, the former runner who was never as well liked as Steve Ovett, put down a copy of Herzog by Saul Bellow and stood up to greet him. The reporter was impressed that here was a sportsman with a bit of culture.
A couple of years later the reporter was having a drink with a colleague who had been to meet Lord Coe that day. 'That Lord Coe' said the colleague, 'you'll never guess what he was reading when I met him.'
You know the rest. Maybe he's just a very slow reader or liked the book so much he read it again and again. (I've read it - it's on the required reading list for every atheist Jewish pseudo-intellectual - and it's not THAT good.)
Anyway, that's all I want to say about this week's decision to award the Olympic Stadium - or the Lord Coe's Ego Memorial Ground - to West Ham. Personally, I think it should have gone to Orient.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
So Mubarak has gone. The first dictator to be toppled by Facebook. Like.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Is the Daily Star supporting the EDL? It's a valid question after a couple of stories the paper has run recently which, to many, have given the right-wing party some very favourable coverage. This is The Guardian's Roy Greenslade on the issue which explains it well http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/feb/10/dailystar-english-defence-league
Daily Star (and Daily Express) owner Richard Desmond claims he didn't know that the Star were taking this line.
Personally, I think the Star imagined it would pick up circulation by tapping in to the anti-immigration consensus among a lot of potential working class readers and somehow imagine the EDL is not quite the demon of the right that, say, the BNP is. I think they're wrong.
I've always had a good professional relationship with the Star. Starved of resources, their small cabal of staff do a remarkable job most of the time and they are among the most pleasant to deal with from an agency point of view. I suspect the decision to highlight the EDL was taken high up and will, if continued, backfire when advertisers decide they don't want to be associated with it.
And I think Desmond, who is a very active member of the Jewish jetset, will come to realise that supporting an anti-Islam organisation today is not a million miles away from the Daily Mail supporting the blackshirts in the 1930s. At least I hope he will.
-------------------------------------------------
My mate Kevin's funeral today. A good Catholic send-off, they really know how to do it. Church service in St. Albans with some rousing hymns and the most tear-jerking but also uplifting speech from his magnificently stoic widow, then down to the crematorium where he went to the strains of Don't Stop Me Now by Queen and then to the pub for a glorious drink and cigarette fuelled goodbye. I pretty much held it together until I saw his six-year-old son put a flower on his dad's coffin.
It was at the pub that I heard about one of those 'why the hell not' kind of things blokes do. A couple of Kevin's mates have, for the last year, been going to the nearest pub to every underground station in London and having a drink in each.
The results are published on a very entertaining blog in which every drink and every pub is reviewed and is called Tracks Of My Beers which any sub would be proud of.
Always happy to publicise someone else's blog so... http://tracksofmybeers.wordpress.com/
Cheers....Solly
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Bob Marley's doughnuts
Congratulations to Hugh Whittow on becoming the new editor of the Daily Express - and proving that getting sacked by The Sun for not bringing home Blackie the Donkey did not hinder his progress.
Younger readers, look up the tale of Blackie to see Fleet Street tabloids at their best/worst (delete where you think applicable).
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There's something a little sad about the fact that for most white kids living outside Britain's cities, their only exposure to reggae is a BBC children's character called Rastamouse who has the catchphrase Irie.
Growing up in the mean streets of the East End - or the middle class commuter suburbs of Essex, depending on who you are having an argument with - meant you were exposed to a variety of different cultures. Did you know the rowing boat routine to Oops Upside Your Head originated in Room at the Top in Ilford, and the world's first disco (ie where kids danced to records rather than live bands) was created by Jimmy Savile at the Ilford Palais across the road decades earlier?
We got to hear reggae a lot more in those days, it strikes me. There was mainstream stuff, of course. The odd chart hit for someone like Bob Marley (how did he like doughnuts? Wi Jammin' of course), Steel Pulse and Sugar Minott or people like General Saint and Clint Eastwood appearing on the bill at a Save the GLC or CND or Rock Against Racism concert.
Then there were the real fans who tuned in every week to hear David Rodigan on Capital Radio, who could name every King Tubby hit or the more hardcore dub which some of my friends were into and occasionally I would be dragged to a party in a housing estate in Tottenham to drink Red Stripe, smoke dope and then be sick outside where, hopefully, none of my new ethnic friends would see me.
But even my half hearted interest in reggae seems a lot more than a generation raised in an R&B, X Factor dominated era. I know it's a grumpy old man thing to say but there just doesn't seem to be the same variety any more.
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It's funny but the miniature porn baron David Sullivan has figured on the Solly radar a number of times dating back to my teens.
Baron von Muffhausen (that's enough porn nobility puns...Ed) first came to my notice when I was doing a college course in journalism at Harlow (morning sessions - shorthand, typing, phone hacking, three hour boozy lunch followed by a tutorial on how to fiddle expenses).
We all trooped along for a day trip to Snaresbrook Crown Court to see the legal system at work and lo and behold we witnessed the jailing of Sullivan for some kind of immoral earnings charge. It was great fun. Back then he was not so much a porn magnate as a fridge magnet.
By the time he came out of prison and returned to his Chigwell home (Stradbroke Grove, same road as Bobby Moore as I recall) I was a junior reporter on the Ilford Recorder and was sent to his house to interview him. A Swedish woman let me in to the hall - black carpet, dark walls and I could see in the living room a glitter ball and long stainless steel bar. At the top of the stairs was a large china Leopard on sentry duty. She went up to get the famous Little Lord Fondleroy (no more, please...Ed) when I heard a lot of shouting, a squeaky voice piped up 'Get him out' and what sounded like burly men's voices and the stomp of Dr Marten's approaching. The Scandinavian lady came rushing down the stairs shouting 'you go, now, quick quick, please' with a look of panic in her eyes. That transferred to me and I scarpered.
Then a few years later the diminutive sex thimble (one more and that's it...Ed), by now living just down the road to me in Theydon Bois and dressing like a second rate 1970s quiz master, both hired and fired me in the space of three months. While shifting at The Sun, I took a contract at The Sunday Sport where, amongst other things, I wrote the letters page. Then three months later they fired me. I have been disciplined or had official warning letters everywhere I have ever worked but this was the first place to fire me.
And now, all these years later, he is writing in the Standard (admittedly better than most Standard sports hacks) about how I (and other Spurs supporters) shouldn't be allowed to move to Stratford as if this was his life's dream. And he is accompanied by that hatchet faced assistant who we're not allowed to insult any more. Also, his brother drinks in The Mutant Arms, my old local, so it seems I can't escape The Sultan of Schlong (you're fired...Ed)
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The things I do for a living. Today we wrote a story about how fleas jump. Strikes me everyone knows only two facts about fleas. If humans had the same properties we'd be able to leap over St Paul's Cathedral and have a 10 foot penis. I wonder if David Sullivan knows this.
Cheerio...Solly
Younger readers, look up the tale of Blackie to see Fleet Street tabloids at their best/worst (delete where you think applicable).
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There's something a little sad about the fact that for most white kids living outside Britain's cities, their only exposure to reggae is a BBC children's character called Rastamouse who has the catchphrase Irie.
Growing up in the mean streets of the East End - or the middle class commuter suburbs of Essex, depending on who you are having an argument with - meant you were exposed to a variety of different cultures. Did you know the rowing boat routine to Oops Upside Your Head originated in Room at the Top in Ilford, and the world's first disco (ie where kids danced to records rather than live bands) was created by Jimmy Savile at the Ilford Palais across the road decades earlier?
We got to hear reggae a lot more in those days, it strikes me. There was mainstream stuff, of course. The odd chart hit for someone like Bob Marley (how did he like doughnuts? Wi Jammin' of course), Steel Pulse and Sugar Minott or people like General Saint and Clint Eastwood appearing on the bill at a Save the GLC or CND or Rock Against Racism concert.
Then there were the real fans who tuned in every week to hear David Rodigan on Capital Radio, who could name every King Tubby hit or the more hardcore dub which some of my friends were into and occasionally I would be dragged to a party in a housing estate in Tottenham to drink Red Stripe, smoke dope and then be sick outside where, hopefully, none of my new ethnic friends would see me.
But even my half hearted interest in reggae seems a lot more than a generation raised in an R&B, X Factor dominated era. I know it's a grumpy old man thing to say but there just doesn't seem to be the same variety any more.
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It's funny but the miniature porn baron David Sullivan has figured on the Solly radar a number of times dating back to my teens.
Baron von Muffhausen (that's enough porn nobility puns...Ed) first came to my notice when I was doing a college course in journalism at Harlow (morning sessions - shorthand, typing, phone hacking, three hour boozy lunch followed by a tutorial on how to fiddle expenses).
We all trooped along for a day trip to Snaresbrook Crown Court to see the legal system at work and lo and behold we witnessed the jailing of Sullivan for some kind of immoral earnings charge. It was great fun. Back then he was not so much a porn magnate as a fridge magnet.
By the time he came out of prison and returned to his Chigwell home (Stradbroke Grove, same road as Bobby Moore as I recall) I was a junior reporter on the Ilford Recorder and was sent to his house to interview him. A Swedish woman let me in to the hall - black carpet, dark walls and I could see in the living room a glitter ball and long stainless steel bar. At the top of the stairs was a large china Leopard on sentry duty. She went up to get the famous Little Lord Fondleroy (no more, please...Ed) when I heard a lot of shouting, a squeaky voice piped up 'Get him out' and what sounded like burly men's voices and the stomp of Dr Marten's approaching. The Scandinavian lady came rushing down the stairs shouting 'you go, now, quick quick, please' with a look of panic in her eyes. That transferred to me and I scarpered.
Then a few years later the diminutive sex thimble (one more and that's it...Ed), by now living just down the road to me in Theydon Bois and dressing like a second rate 1970s quiz master, both hired and fired me in the space of three months. While shifting at The Sun, I took a contract at The Sunday Sport where, amongst other things, I wrote the letters page. Then three months later they fired me. I have been disciplined or had official warning letters everywhere I have ever worked but this was the first place to fire me.
And now, all these years later, he is writing in the Standard (admittedly better than most Standard sports hacks) about how I (and other Spurs supporters) shouldn't be allowed to move to Stratford as if this was his life's dream. And he is accompanied by that hatchet faced assistant who we're not allowed to insult any more. Also, his brother drinks in The Mutant Arms, my old local, so it seems I can't escape The Sultan of Schlong (you're fired...Ed)
----------------------------------------------------
The things I do for a living. Today we wrote a story about how fleas jump. Strikes me everyone knows only two facts about fleas. If humans had the same properties we'd be able to leap over St Paul's Cathedral and have a 10 foot penis. I wonder if David Sullivan knows this.
Cheerio...Solly
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