The Bus Shelters of Ilford Review of 2007

Some good things happened; some bad things happened; I have a headache.

The little baby Jesus' second attempt at posting a picture

I like to think that I won Christmas this year.

Advertisement

Diligent readers will note that the archives have mysteriously expanded to take in both Bus Shelters Of Ilford 1: The False Start and Bus Shelters of Ilford 2: The Wilderness Years (which, in the manner of Star Wars, are actually parts 3 and 4, but to mention that now would only confuse the issue, and so we shan't), or at least the bits of them that I care to reproduce now. I may run a sweepstake as to when I'm going to get fed up with the whole thing and delete them again; my inside knowledge would suggest next March, but then I do lie to myself so and as such I'm probably not a reliable witness.

I haven't decided on a title for Bus Shelters of Ilford 3. Which, I suppose, gives me something to do over the next few days, at any rate.

The baby Jesus' first attempt at filesharing

With there being nothing on the radio much worth listening to, during the last week I've been spending the mornings listening to various Christmas-related programmes that I'd recorded in previous years. This morning I was listening to the end of Baker & Kelly's 2005 BBC London Sports Review of the year, which, as you would expect from a programme taking an in-depth look at the sporting events concerning a city and surrounding suburbs with a population numbering several millions, concluded with commentary on the merits of Christmas In Hollis by Run DMC followed by the playing of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town by Joseph Spence, with additional clips for further entertainment, as if such a thing would be possible.

And this reminded me of an incident last Christmas which ordinarily would be too painful to share on a public forum, but which forms such a cautionary tale that it would be irresponsible of me not to.

Last December my then-girlfriend happened to mention that she didn't have any Christmas-related music, and so naturally I set about making up a compilation for her. I can't recall the exact tracklisting I came up with, but it probably wouldn't have been all that surprising; I suspect that Just Like Christmas by Low featured, probably something off of the Sufjan Christmas albums and selections from It's A Cool Cool Christmas (*) and the first couple of Simon's splendid Christmas compilations. To conclude I selected Joseph Spence, as an amusing afterthought that she might appreciate. I handed the disc over; she was intrigued at the existence of Christmas-related tunes she'd never come across by bands that she liked, The Fall, The White Stripes and Clinic in particular.

A couple of days later, exchanging texts on Christmas Day, she mentioned that she'd played the CD for the first time after dinner that day at her parents'. And while I didn't think anything of it at the time - she'd told me that her mum's musical tastes weren't far from her own - it occurred to me this morning that, out of the context of my attempts to amuse their daughter, Joseph Spence's version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town may not have worked in quite the way I'd intended. And that, furthermore, the fact that things at this stage seemed to be going really quite well, and yet we'd broken up within a few weeks, may well have had something to do with this. (Of course, it may well have had something to do with my various failings as a boyfriend, but slippery slopes have to start somewhere, or something like that anyway.)

So, er, the moral is; don't try to be funny when making up a compilation for your girlfriend, as it's probably going to backfire. And don't eat sprouts, because they're desperately unpleasant.

(*) This year XFM seem to be making great play of the fact that they aren't playing any Christmas music, as apparently it's all shit. Given that it's impossible to listen to the station for 20 minutes without encountering The Pigeon Detectives this seems a bit rich, but is further compounded by the fact that, once upon a time, they would commission an album like this. Hurrah for progress.

Go away, Reverend And The Makers

I've just received an email 'inviting' me to the Ocean Colour Scene after party. Obviously this is 'inviting' in the sense of 'having to pay to get in', but even so.

I'm not sure why it's been decided that I should receive such an invitation. I am worried, this close to Christmas, that this is the first indication that I've been a bad boy this year and not to expect anything from Santa. Or possibly it proves that marketing emails are sent utterly indiscriminately, but surely such a thing couldn't be possible in these modern times in which we live.

Roland Keating stamping on a human face forever

It's odd; when I first saw the adverts for the Royal Albert Hall Christmas concerts on the tube (which, to my mind, is the first sign that Christmas is actually on the way) back at the end of November I felt... well, not excited as such, but I did at least feel quite glad that the festive season would soon be upon us. And yet now, with the festivities and merriments in full swing I feel... I don't know, not quite in the mood somehow. Not even a cheery Sufjan Christmas tune has the desired effect at the moment. It's not that I'm dreading Christmas or anything, and it's not that I'm not organised - only one present to buy; Christmas cards sent to all relatives who might bitch about me to my mum if they don't receive one - it's just that it's, well, not happening somehow.

What's worse is that mentally I already seem to be on holiday. This was fine yesterday, when I had a day off, but not today, when I had to go to work. Having had about four hours sleep. As such, by the time I left work, and with all sorts of stuff to sort out tomorrow that I'm not looking forward to dealing with, I was in no mood to be annoyed by any headlines in any piece of crap free papers on the tube home.

Which was a shame.

The "It's Eastenders, but set in the 1800s' headline I spotted, which I would imagine was introducing a story about Oliver Twist, was bad enough. I suspect that I haven't read enough Dickens to have the right to be offended by this sort of crap, but, well, I'm going to be offended anyway. I only see one episode of Eastenders a year, when I'm around at my parents' for Christmas, and if Dickens had had such a limited imagination - will this year's plot be the wedding on Christmas Day despite nobody ever getting married on Christmas Day? Or will it be scenes of people having a party being intercut with scenes of someone suffering some great trauma/trying to top themselves/fending off a crazed attacker? Who can say? - then I suspect his renown wouldn't have lasted quite as long as it has. (See also: "If Shakespeare had been alive today he's be writing for Coronation Street'. No. No he wouldn't. What you mean is 'I want to feel better about watching utter bilge'. Please stop it.)

But my annoyance at this was topped by a piece which appeared, from the headline, to imply that women were particularly attracted to men who worked in publishing. So eager was I to demolish this argument that I even sought out the article in question, only to find out that I'd misinterpreted it. Instead the gist of the article seems to be that 'women who work in publishing are attractive and not choosy', which is frankly a rather unpleasant way to look at things. Which, at least, confirms everything I ever knew about piece of crap free papers.

Good Night Then

On my way back from London, frozen and vaguely miserable, I was slightly cheered to see a group of today's youth with the nice short hair on their way to a gig. I could tell that they were on their way to a gig because they were all wearing white t-shirts that they appeared to have customised themselves with slogans pertaining to the band that they were going to see. And this is behaviour I approve of; it's always good to see that the kids still care.

I was never a part of that sort of thing, which is a bit of a cause for regret for me now. When I was the right age for making t-shirts to show my adoration for bands, there wasn't a band for me to adore. My chums were heavily into Suede and the Manics, but I never really bought into either. They both seemed faintly ridiculous to me, and whenever I suggested this I was looked at as if I'd just said something particularly dimwitted, which didn't do anything to persuade me that the whole business wasn't slightly silly. (Not that being slightly silly has ever been an obstacle to me adoring a band, as a quick glance at the top artists on my Last fm page will confirm.) By the time bands I could adore came along a few years later, I was too old to feel comfortable in a home-made t-shirt with a slogan scrawled on it. My time had passed.

Anyway, I felt slightly cheered that these kids had gone to the trouble of making these t-shirts, but only slightly cheered because the band they'd gone to the trouble for was the Kaiser Chiefs. Which seems like a wasted opportunity to me; I have a certain regard for the first half of the first Kaiser Chiefs album, but even if they hadn't made a lot of bad records since then I still wouldn't have them down as a band worth getting in to to the extent that five of you would make t-shirts up.

see also 'Bah! Humbug!'

It probably says a lot about my being an irretrievable publishing spod that I was really quite pleased to discover the existence of the Society of Indexers' Christmas Cards. I particularly like the Christmas Carol-themed one: "laughs, splendidly, illustriously and brilliantly 71-2" indeed.

Between this and the ramblings about imaginary Subbuteo leagues elsewhere, I've more or less guaranteed that I'm going to die alone and unloved, haven't I?

Now we are not burdened by love

The first mistake was not going to see Future Of The Left instead. I haven't seen Future Of The Left since last year, as they have the unerring habit of playing in London on nights when I just can't make it, and every time I've been to a gig instead of the work Xmas do (which I've done more than once; the work Xmas do is not something I've always wanted to attend) I've always ended up slightly regretting it, and so I went to the work Xmas do instead.

The second mistake was the curry. Because the curry had the desired effect. It lined the stomach, which on the plus side meant that I didn't have to join in the scramble for canapes, but on the other hand meant that, several bottles of lager down, I still wasn't even vaguely drunk. I wasn't even needing to go to the loo after every drink.

(I am currently drinking lots of water, on the grounds that the last thing I want is to have a hangover after not being drunk. That would be really crap.)

And so it was that, as the dancefloor began to heave, I found myself edging further away. Because I don't dance. Because I can't dance; I'm awkward and cumbersome and the horrible self-consciousness that I carry around with me at the best of times goes into overdrive, because it knows all too well that I look ridiculous. I'd like to dance, but it feels... well, wrong. If I was drunk it might be a different matter because the inhibitions may be lowered, which is rather sad, but there we go. Everyone else hits the dancefloor; I mentally compile a list of songs that I want to listen to on the way home. I'm wired wrong, or something. I suppose that I could join in, but not only would I feel stupendously awkward but I'd feel like an utter fraud as well.

The nadir, such as it was, was Disco 2000. It's firmly my territory, and yet all I wanted to do was skulk around the bar. As, quite clearly, I wasn't going to dance to anything, there wasn't much point in hanging around, and so I headed out into the cold West End and made my way home.

Like a tart's bedroom

I've remembered what the other terribly important thing was. If you're going to show The Buzzcocks live in concert, as some channel or other was doing on Saturday night and which I watched a bit of because I was in no mood to move from the armchair I'd made myself comfy in and because despite being extremely tired I was refusing to go to bed before midnight because it's Saturday, dammit, and I still have my youth, what's the point in going to the trouble of diligently obscuring all of the swearing if they're going to end the show with Orgasm Addict? Whose sensibilities are they trying to protect, exactly? Is there a great swathe of the viewing audience who'll turn off a concert by an old punk band the moment they hear the word 'fuck'' but will be perfectly content if it's replaced with 'fu[crackling noise]' and aren't going to be upset by a song that isn't even subtle about being about wanking at the end of the show?

Three minutes in Southend

... what? Oh, er, I've been... well, not busy, as such. I've been boring. Which, admittedly, isn't all that different from the usual state of affairs, but this has been a period of unexceptional boredom, one that's been darned difficult to find anything much to write about.

(Apart from being stood opposite the unpopular union leader Bob Crow on a train. At least, I think it was Bob Crow. He looked like Bob Crow, but he also appeared to be wearing mascara, which doesn't really befit a union leader. Or at least, not one that looks like Bob Crow, anyway.)

However, this weekend has brought much hoopla, as I have been busy noticing things. Here are some things that I have noticed:

1. Dustin Hoffman appears to be starring in that film that Troy McClure was going to appear in at the end of that episode where he marries Selma;

2. Something else that seemed terribly important at the time which I now cannot remember.

I was planning a tremendous Christmas feature to amuse myself, but it seems awfully impractical at the moment as well. Oh dear.