Yes!

I was trying to avoid looking at the shopping of the woman in front of me. She positioned her copy of the Daily Mail on top of some of it, and while I wasn't quite taking in the front page headline the words "NOW" and "FOREIGN" were clearly present and if I'd bothered to try to take it in I would have ended up feeling miserable, and I'd been feeling relatively cheery until that point. (I suspect the word 'NOW' was the real killer; amazing how such an innocuous word becomes so utterly loaded in the wrong hands.) Instead I turned my attention instead to the display of DVDs by the counter, as some copies of The King's Speech were leaning over and putting them back seemed a good way to distract myself from printed xenophobia.

The first curiosity of the display was that the seemingly haphazard selection - a collection of classic musicals here, a 3 disc-set of romantic comedies there, Alvin and the Chipmunks positioned next to Transformers - was actually carefully planned, as the titles of the films had been printed on the back of the display. Which meant someone had presumably spent hours trying to work out the optimum configuration of DVDs for maximum impulse-buy effect, or possibly that someone has come up with some sort of algorithm; Oscar wins squared over family appeal and multiply by the square root of Kate Hudson, or something.

The algorithm had positioned a 3 CD-set of the Lord of the Rings films next to The King's Speech, and as the queue was quite slow I had time to consider this further as, with its £5 price tag, there as something oddly appealing about it. Now, I've never seen any of these films, never had any desire to see any of the films, never read the books, have absolutely no interest in the entire orc-y saga. I have no idea if there are any orcs; I think I may have played the wrong computer games at the wrong moment and it put me off the orc-y world of fantasy for life. (Well, I do get the occasional urge for another go at Lords of Midnight, but it's not quite the same thing.)

But what I do know that all of the films are extremely long (at least part of the reason for not going to see them, as I regard any film that's much over two hours with suspicion. I still haven't seen the last Batman film on the grounds that a film about Batman does not need to be three hours long, no matter how good everyone might insist it is. And I'm far more interested in Batman than a load of bloody elves). And it's that that I think tempted me; for a fiver it seemed you got an awful lot of film, and being someone who can get tempted into trying something by a timely 2 for 1 offer in Sainsbury's on a Saturday morning (or miscellaneous bread-based products from the reduced to clear rack of a weekday evening), it defnitely held some appeal. If an item that the Daily Mail reader had placed rather precariously near the edge of the conveyer belt hadn't toppled on to the floor and distracted me, I may have ended up buying it. (Naturally, despite her despicable choice of reading material, I picked the item up and popped it on the converyer belt; remain decent in the face of evil, that's my motto.) (It's not my motto.)

But this would have been madness. Where would I find the time to watch three long films I'm not interested in? I have piles of programmes I've recorded to re-watch at a later date gathering dust, a games console I hardly ever use, a Spotify playlist of albums I'd like to listen to that runs to 6 days and the occasional urge to play Lords of Midnight, so why on earth would I watch a series of films I have no real interest in? Boasting an excellent price-per-minute of film clearly isn't enough. What on earth is going on in my stupid head? Have I been warped by the craziness of capitalist credo gone mad? Or am I just a fathead?

It's nearly Christmas. Don't answer that.

Three posters and four people in flourescent bibs, and you still didn't spot that there were engineering works

I was sat in a comfy chair at my parents', digesting the huge dinner I'd just consumed while my mum asked me how Facebook works, when I heard possibly the most asinine thing I've ever heard in all my days.

My parents listen to a radio station named after a precious metal that plays old records all day. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing - I like old records - but their playlist tends to be rather narrow; any station where you might hear In The Year 2525 by Zager and Evans (*) twice in the same day really isn't trying. Anyway, today they were playing lots of tunes by The Beatles and associated acts for various reasons, and at the end of one Lennon song - let's say Instant Karma, that one's not too bad - the DJ starts speaking. I'm paraphrasing a little, but he said something along the lines of the following:

"Playing lots of Beatles and Lennon today, it would have been John Lennon's 71st birthday and I'm sure he would have been celebrating it at Paul McCartney's wedding if he hadn't."

Now, it may not be apparent to the layman but as someone with an eye for this sort of thing I feel I can point out that this sentence doesn't seem quite complete. It's almost as if the person saying it decided that they needed to end it early, perhaps because they realised that the only logical conclusion to it would have been "... was shot", and decided that this might spoil the otherwise cheery sentiment.

But this isn't the only issue I have with this sentence. Even if we ignore the possibility that John Lennon may not have survived another 30 odd years if it hadn't been for the hastily passed-over event, even someone who isn't that familiar with The Beatles would be aware that Lennon and McCartney's relationship was somewhat uneven. And while some people do mellow with age, some people become incredibly cantankerous and unforgiving, and while a highly-trained psychologist may be able to predict such things, an idiot DJ's thoughts on the matter would be essentially worthless.

And this is before we even consider the different course McCartney's life might have taken if Lennon hadn't had the the unfortunate incident which we apparently can't mention. If a butterfly flapping it's wings can cause a hypothetical hurricane, an old mate not getting shot by a nutter would presumably impact on someone's life quite a bit as well. Reunions? Court cases? Not meeting Heather? Anything could have happened that may not have led to today's happy event (happiness of event to be determined at a later stage when hindsight is available).

So, in several respects, this sentence is utter, utter bollocks, driven by a strange desire to create a cuddly everything's-all-right-after-all view of the world rather than talk to your audience as if they were capable of thought. And yet someone - no idea who; all presenters on this station sound exactly the same and make no impact whatsoever - is paid to say things like this. So maybe Zager and Evans were right all along.

(*) No points if you forgot the (Exordium and Terminus), but a bonus point if you identified the song as being "utter shit".

I haven't mentioned trains for a bit

On the train back from the seaside I was taunted by some small children.

All right, some small girls.

It started when one of them, who'd been bounding excitedly from seat to seat in the way that children who've had a day at the seaside and have therefore probably consumed far too much sugar will do, bounced into the seat in front of mine and then peered over the top of it at me. I looked up at her and smiled, she laughed and then began a game where she would peer at me from around the side of the chair, leaping back when I turned to look at her. This was all very sweet.

"You're silly", she said. "You're a silly man. You're a big poo poo willy!"

And then for what seemed like several minutes she repeated the charge that I was a poo poo willy. Her sister toddled over at some point and joined in, albeit not quite as clearly as she was too young to be able to form the words properly. Eventually the mother came over to remove them. She ignored me as she walked past; I'm not sure if this was out of embarrassment, or because she'd decided that I was beneath contempt, or because she'd decided that I was a paedo.

Upon changing trains when we reached the main line, I found myself sat across the way from a couple of... no, I'm not going to call them 'goths', that would be needlessly reductive, but they were dressed in a manner that suggested that their plans for the evening involved listening to dark, doomy music of an industrial hue. He was in PVC trousers, big boots and a difficult-looking collar; she was wearing fishnets, a tiny skirt and those boots where the entire sole lifts you several inches off the ground (*). This looked to me to be an uncomfortable way to dress for long-distance travel, although I suppose that you can't really take your PVC trousers with you and change in the train toilet on the way.

At was at about this point that I decided to eat some of the fudge I'd bought earlier in the day.

There was a time when I would have knowingly smirked at their outfits, but these days I'm more inclined to be impressed by this sort of thing. It's not as if I was ever really part of any subculture where dressing up was ever part of the deal, and I wonder if I missed some important rite of passage by not being part of anything. I suppose that when I used to go to gigs where the bands were all teenagers wearing too much glitter and mascara playing for an audience of teenagers wearing too much glitter and mascara that I could have adopted the too much glitter and mascara look, but I was too fat (glitter and mascara suiting the tubbier gentleman as well as PVC trousers), too old (being 22 invariably made me the oldest person in the room, saving the odd member of bar staff and the band's parents if they were present) and had a job in tax publishing; it would have been *wrong*.

As we neared London she went to the loo. "That must be difficult" I thought to myself, and then wondered why I should think such a thing.

(*) Which I thought might be called 'platform boots', but a quick search suggests that they aren't. So you'll have to guess what they're called yourself while I remain secure in my lack of knowledge of women's footwear.

Too long (too dull) for Tumblr

It wasn't the woman who seated me at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen's fault that I cleared off without ordering anything, at least as far as I can tell. She explained the menu, explained the ordering system (you have to order at the counter and give them your table number), she was politeness personified. At that point in proceedings I was confident that my burger-based lunch was going to go smoothly. The options on the menu were intriguing. I wondered why I'd never been to a branch before.

(I would say that I seem to have spent all of my week off eating burgers of various kinds, but actually the burger rampage started before I finished work at the end of last week. Just think: every time I eat a burger Morrissey feels angry. Wish I'd had a few more now.)

It was partly the fault of the woman in front of me at the counter. She'd brought a small child up with her and the small child kept running off, and instead of giving her order she made to go after the child, then didn't, then did, then didn't, then stood around uselessly gawping while the bloke behind the counter stared at her. Eventually a man I assume was her partner came along to get the child; why on earth didn't she just leave the child with him in the first place?

Anyway, this gave me time to look over and realise that a family had taken over my table. I hadn't left anything to indicate that I was sitting there, because it wasn't a day for coats and I don't leave my bag sitting around on its own while I'm elsewhere because I wasn't born yesterday, but then I didn't think I'd have to. The woman who seated me was there with them, but I can't imagine that she'd sat them at the table next to mine as there were at least six of them and the next table only sat four, which is why they'd taken over mine.

I suppose it's partly my fault, because I should have stayed in the queue, made my order and then got the people to leave my table, but I suspect that with their small children they'd have been quite a nuisance. I'm probably being a bit unfair but I always suspect that families with lots of small children are going to look down their nose if they deal with me. "Well, look at us with our children; how dare you suggest that just because you were sat at this table first and have ordered food to be delivered to this table that we should vacate it! Look at you with your bag! We have spawned on several occasions, therefore outrank you. Now, hie and away with you, before we spawn again and outrank you even further!".

I left the woman who seated me to sort this out and returned to the counter, where two people had leapt in ahead of me. And then, having decided that everyone in this place except for me and the woman who seated me was an idiot and that I didn't want to be here any more, I kept going. And for this state of affairs I mainly blame the Gourmet Burger Kitchen for not hiring enough staff so that they could come to the table and take your order; if you can't be arsed to do that, in a place where there are plenty of other options for lunch (including another overpriced burger place, where I had a burger and a chocolate milkshake to boot), once in a while you're going to lose a customer.

The man who broke the bank at Monte Carol

For the last couple of weeks there's been a bloke stationed outside the entrance to the Underground at Liverpool Street holding a sign bearing the slogan "YOU NEED COFFEE", with an arrow pointing to a concession on the other side of the concourse. (The sign is square and on the end of a pole, so it's held like a Roman standard or its modern day equivalent, the Golf Sale sign.)

I use the word 'stationed' because the bloke has adopted a number of poses. On a couple of occasions he's been slumped on the floor, feigning sleep and leaning against his sign. On others he's been standing, propped up against the sign and with his eyes closed. The idea, I suppose, is that you see him and think 'that's how I'm feeling, I must go and buy some coffee', although as I haven't spotted anyone turning around and heading in the direction that the arrow is pointing, I'm not sure that it's been particularly effective.

This morning the man had his eyes open and was looking alert; I'm not sure if this was because he was supposed to be showing the after-effects of what happens when you drink coffee or if someone had tried to rob him, which I would imagine is the most likely outcome if you had slept on a station concourse for two weeks.

This got me to thinking about job satisfaction. Because presumably the bloke's job isn't solely to sit outside the entrance to a station holding a sign; he can only do that for about four hours or so each morning, and you're not going to be able to feed yourself on the wages earned from sitting outside a station holding a sign for four hours a day. I'm guessing that the bloke is employed by the coffee-selling concession (well, baguette-selling concession - I guess they're trying to make themselves relevant to something other than the "it's late and I'm hungry but I don't want to go to Burger King" market) in some other capacity and has just drawn the short straw, or possibly he runs the concession stand and is doing this as a stunt to get himself in the company newsletter. But sitting outside a station with your eyes as several thousand people tramp past doesn't seem like a satisfying way to spend your time, what with the risk of dozy commuters trampling all over you and you not seeing them coming.

But then last night I was lying in bed trying to stop myself from thinking about work, and being particularly vexed that I was doing this as I'd only just woken up after nodding off while listening to a particularly intellectually rigorous edition of In Our Time. (*) And I suspect the bloke whose morning involves sitting outside a station pretending to sleep and holding a sign probably doesn't have this issue when his head hits the pillow. And if the bloke had a blog he'd probably do a much better job of ever writing anything in it because of not really having much time when he's got home late from work. So I'm in no position to judge, really.

(*) My current favoured method of getting to sleep, not because the programme is boring - it isn't, most of the time at least - but because it's not easy to follow and requires a lot of concentration so that I might understand one sentence in two rather than one sentence in three, and having to concentrate late at night makes me sleepy. Or maybe it's all down to the mellifluous tones of M Bragg.

No, it's definitely the concentration thing. It's 2011 and I'm doing a joke about M Bragg having a funny voice. Maybe the Rapture wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

Deficient Skeleton Saturday: This is not a music blog II (or: Bad Draft Thursday)

That's a pleasingly convoluted title. Clearly I'd been thinking about Bad Drafts long before the last time I did one of these. Anyway, I was thinking about this one earlier in the week for topical reasons (well, because Marc Riley mentioned the album in question) and it seemed as good a time as any to get this out of my system. From 3 July 2010, then:

There was a display in the supermarket relating to what I assume was a special issue of Q, the 100 albums you have to hear before you become middle-aged OH NO TOO LATE or something like that. I spotted it the other week and didn't really think anything of it, as I'm trying to avoid things like "buying stuff unless it's important" at the moment on the grounds that if I don't I tend to run out of money horribly in advance of pay day and as such racks of cheap CDs are dangerous territory.

I passed by a little closer at the weekend as I had business near the end of the fruit aisle, and as such was able to note that one of the albums prominently displayed was the distinctive splodgy cover of Screamadelica. And this caused me to suck a thoughtful tooth, as Screamadelica is an album I remember well.

When my then chums and I were about 16 or so, Screamadelica was an album we listened to an awful lot. Thing is, none of us could afford to buy many albums (and we were all too lazy and feckless to get a job to enable us to buy more) so the ones that we did own got played a lot. And because my chums were the sort of people who were really very cool indeed and liked all the most exciting, cutting-edge stuff (their opinion) or hopelessly fell for any hype going (my opinion) it was fairly inevitable that a copy of Screamadelica would turn up at some point.

I wonder now if the reason I took against Screamadelica was deliberate contrariness or just not thinking much of it. Pretty much everything else they enthused over didn't meet my rigorous standards: I recall a chum coming around with a copy of The Drowners and me saying "is that it?" when it was finished. And I didn't get the Manics at all. (I didn't really *get* the Manics until Kenickie came along and I read mailing list epistles by lots of people who really loved them, that being the nature of the Kenickie internet fanbase, but even then I never particularly wanted to listen to their records, which I tend to find disappointingly important when it comes to liking bands.) But I never came round to any of those, so maybe I was being right all along. I never came round to The Smiths or Joy Division or all sorts of other things that I probably ought to like either.

But all this lead me into thinking that I should give it another listen, which the magic of the internet allows. (If only we'd had Spotify when we were 16. Kids today, eh? Don't know they're born. Tcha.) I think the issue for me at the time with Screamadelica was that after Movin' On Up (which I liked) it all seemed to blur into one great melange, and I needed more of a pop thrill than it provided; I just wasn't ready for songs that lasted longer then three minutes, let alone ten. I'm not sure I'd necessarily hold that against it now but I can see where I was coming from; most of the songs, such as they are, don't really go anywhere. There's things I don't remember (Inner Flight, for example, which I rather like; maybe we fast-forwarded that one? And the really horrible sax solo I'm listening to now may have been something I simply chose to forget) but it doesn't strike me that I've been missing something important for the last (Christ) 19 years.

And yet I like other similar things that have come since. Surf Solar springs immediately to mind as something that probably wouldn't have existed without Screamadelica (what with having the same producer and all) but which I really like. So, while I have no particularl interest in ever listening to this again, I can at least see that it's (hnngh) important. And this is the disturbing thing, realising that things from my childhood have become part of the canon, or at least someone's canon anyway.

Reason for deficiency: Dunno. Seems OK now that I look back at it. Wussy final paragraph, I suppose. I always feel a bit uneasy when I'm commenting on music, particularly if I'm asserting that something is clearly influenced by something else; I've always been a bit envious of people who can tell what things sound like and track the way types of music evolve and that. I saw a box set of Screamadelica and Give Out But Don't Give Up for three quid the other week. Didn't buy it, natch.

Don't try to finish what you ain't got started

How to tell you're in the pub with people who work in publishing: it's Friday evening, drink has been taken and discussion has turned to umlauts.

But anyway.

If there's one thing in the world I'm not qualified to do (and there are millions, from rewiring a house to preparing a banquet for the Queen of The Netherlands; the only things I am qualified to do are check the spelling and do some DTP work in 2005) it's to offer relationship advice. Which makes it all the stranger that someone asked me for some the other night, and while I tried manfully I was of very little use. However, if there is one piece of advice I can offer, it is this: if you're asking two men in their mid-30s for relationship advice when you're in the pub on a Friday evening with people you work with, you're probably not quite ready to embark on anything particularly significant.

Just a hunch.

What made it worse was that at least part of the reason that I'd stayed in the pub, beyond the initial couple of halves of lager I'd intended to drink due to the curious stomach ailment that nearly caught me out on a train home the previous day (I'd had to dash to the Liverpool Street station toilets, or at least as close to a dash as I could manage in the circumstances), was the big-eyed look of interest the same person had given me earlier in the evening when I'd explained some fascinating (NB not fascinating) aspect of my new-ish job. This was a poor reason to stay for a number of reasons, not just the ones relating to my belly. But I did it anyway, because it's very important that I never learn under any circumstances.

(It's odd that anyone would assume that because you're of a particular gender that you're able to offer an insight into the thinking of any other person of that gender and thus can answer the question "you're a man, why do you think he hasn't called?". And it's only in this area that such a thing is expected; for example, in the last few days nobody has said to me "you're a man, could you give me an insight into the mind of Colonel Gaddafi/David Walliams/Spiderman?".)

Also, in attempting to prove my lack of qualifications I ended up letting on slightly more about some recent events than I ought, which I'm hoping nobody who might have been sober or better at holding their drink will have overheard. Still, at least looking suspiciously at people will add an extra frisson to the working week.