My final blog of the year, I am ridiculously proud of the fact that I have managed to write a daily blog throughout 2012, and hope to continue the pointless but ultimately enjoyable process in 2013. I find that starting my writing day with a blog does help shake the cobwebs off and help me loosen my brain for proper writing. Not that I've done a great deal this year. Looking at my 'to-do' list for 2012, I am annoyed with myself for not getting a great deal ticked off. On the other hand I have concentrated mainly on radio this year, and am proud of what I've achieved in that area. The year began on Trent Sound, (literally, with a show on New Year's Day), and ended a little messy radio-wise. On Trent Sound I deputised twice on the morning show, something that tested my ability by presenting in a whole new style. I also covered three editions of Nottingham LACE, once with Rapunzel MAP, (who for reasons best known to herself, doesn't speak to me anymore), once with Jason Loftus, and once on my own. The solo show is the one I'm most proud of, having sorted out all the guests and running order myself. I sat in as co-presenter on Castle Rock and had a lot of fun with Lee Beaumont, sadly I was unable to return the compliment to him on The Sunday Alternative. The same goes for Notts Live, having had both Bainy and Andy Haynes present with me. Losing Erik Petersen was a bit of a blow, as we had big plans, but the year ends with us being mates again. Penny Reeve was another welcome edition to the show, and I thoroughly enjoyed the two of us taking the show in a more musical direction, as it was originally intended. Our mixture of musical tastes worked well together, and her leaving the show was a sad loss. It was only internal circumstances that made me decide to leave Trent Sound, but I'm glad that I did it while the show was on a high.
The Sunday Alternative returns to radio on Sunday 6th January on Top Wave Radio, a newly launched Internet station.
Something I never expected in my wildest dreams, was the opportunity to present a show for an American radio station. It was by pure luck that I found Robin Hood Radio, (I was researching children's radio serials and wondering if there had been a Robin Hood series, typed 'Robin Hood radio' into Google), and chancing upon their website thought at first that it was a station based in Nottingham. I pitched the idea of a Nottingham music showcase, marrying Robin Hood with his home, and they loved the idea. I have had nothing but positive feedback and encouragement from them, and look forward to continuing our relationship. I have big plans for the show, including recording special live sessions for American airplay. The tracks from the sessions will also (assuming the bands are in agreement) be used on The Sunday Alternative. At some point it would be great to be able to visit them in Connecticut and do some live editions of The Sound Of Nottingham UK.
I will be presenting a weekly podcast for The Maze, one of Nottingham's favourite live venues. These begin with the first show released on Friday 4th January. My presenting the podcast is my payment for their kind use of the studio facilities for my live sessions.
Radio took priority over other projects this year, but I do hope to be able to tick a few things off my revised 'to-do' list in 2013. There are a few filming projects that have been gathering dust, so hopefully I'll be able to get them moving. In January, I met up with my friend Lloydie, a comedian and writer, to discuss a sitcom idea I wanted his help writing. It was a positive meeting, only hampered by the fact that we didn't do anything about it. I saw him in town last week finishing his Christmas shopping, and reminded him that we need to set some wheels in motion. Who knows? We are both busy, although he has written a book which sounds hilarious.
In January, I have another Kindle book coming out called First Draft. This is basically all of the reviews I wrote for The Nottingham Evening Post (as I still call it), before I had to mutilate them for submission. That will be out very soon, and I will make it as cheap as possible.
The audio book of A Christmas Carol went down very well, so I will be doing more Dickens Christmas books in December 2013. It was originally my intention to do the lot this year, but I decided that doing one to test the water was a better idea, and now I know it works I'll knock some more out. I will also do the audio book versions of Musings and Christmas Musings.
I have permission to release two CD compilations of live sessions from not only The Sunday Alternative, but my old Sherwood Radio show. They were held up and held up and should have been out for Christmas, but I am now looking at Easter.
This year I will also be making better use of my ownership of Ayup The Duck, the mallard that comes and swims in the Market Square water feature. I really haven't exploited the commercial possibilities of this, despite securing the marketing rights to 'the duck in the fountain' several years ago. The long awaited kid's activity book will be coming out, and there will be a 2014 calender.
I often look back on old blogs from the beginning of the year and am embarrassed by the things I say I'm going to do but don't get around to. For that reason, I am not going to list things I want to do this year.
At the moment, I don't have a great deal of reviews lined up for the paper, but that can change. I've enjoyed that a lot, and will keep a look out for people dropping out so I can hoover up what's left. Having recorded an interview with Alexei Sayle, I am looking forward to getting the Nottingham Laughs series underway.
There are several podcast ideas written down, namely carrying on with Steve's LP Box for the time being. I also wish to bring back Covermount, in fact there are a few still unreleased editions. New potential shows include a series on sitcoms, a reboot of Charity Shop Film Guide, and a documentary series on my favourite bands.
On a personal level, I suffered emotionally from the seemingly sudden transition in my daughter. We no longer see a lot of each other as her social life has become important. I didn't really fit in at school, so I am not going to begrudge her. She knows I love her and that I'll always be there for her. Spending Christmas with her was wonderful, and made up for the heartache I had suffered. Although I hope to spend more time with her in 2013, it will once again be up to her.
My relationship with Mandi continues to be the best I have ever had. I can honestly say that no other woman I have ever known can hold a candle to her. Internet dating is fraught with potential disaster, as my dating history in 2008 prior to meeting her can testify. We hope to have a family of our own one day, but not straight away. We would also like to get married, but we are both already married to other people and I have no idea where my estranged wife is. One day we'll sort that.
All in all, I am happy with my lot. We are healthy, (although I still haven't had my bum scare looked at), in love, and have food and a roof over our heads. I didn't become a millionaire by the time I was twenty one, and I doubt I'll become one before I turn thirty seven in August. But I don't hold too much importance on money anyway, so fuck it.
On paper, it looks as if I'm in for a busy 365 days, (minus weekends, school holidays, and days when I quite simply can't be arsed), but time will tell. I have a lot to look forward to, which is all anyone can ask for.
My daily blog will be available as an audio book next year from Bandcamp. As with the other audio books, it will be available as a free download with the option to pay what you like. I don't expect people to pay everyday, but perhaps a weekly donation would be nice. Kindle users also have the option to get my blog delivered on publication for a mere 99p a month. Things like that, along with the PayPal button at the top of the blog, help me to provide free content. If you enjoy the blog, or the podcasts, then please show your appreciation. Imagine I'm a busker, the Bandcamp and PayPal options are my guitar case, and your donation is the change you drop in.
My one regret is that I was unable to get The Old General statue dressed up for Christmas. Future historians will mark Christmas 2012 down as the year a tradition dating back over 120 years didn't happen, thus breaking the chain. Every time I pass the closed down pub on the tram, I feel upset for my failure to maintain a tradition of such importance and guilty for ruining the Christmas of everyone in Nottingham. The Old General donning a Santa suit was how we knew that Christmas had started, so in effect Christmas didn't really happen for this fine city this year. I will pull out all the stops next Christmas to make sure it doesn't happen again. Even if it means breaking in to do it and getting arrested for it. If it comes to that, nobody in Nottingham will settle until I'm freed for doing something so important to start with. They may even give me the keys to the city for my dedication.
Happy new year.
SONG!
Monday 31 December 2012
Sunday 30 December 2012
Mandi didn't wake me up until twelve, and was all ready to go to my dad's for lunch. She had to go earlier to use his scanner, and trusted me not to fall asleep again. Rather than appeal to everyone's expectations that I would do just that, I got up and had a shower, fed the cats, had a cup of tea, and arrived at my dad's at half past one. We had toad in the hole for lunch, as we have all had enough of roast dinners at the moment.
When we got home, Mandi had a kip while I put the television on. Channel Five, (yes, it still exists) were showing Seven Brides For Seven Brothers at five, a film that I had previously never seen. Or at least I don't remember seeing it, I knew some of the songs so maybe I have seen it in bits, as I have with so many films. I wanted to watch it to satisfy my love of musicals, but to be honest I found SBFSB a bit shit, (quote for the DVD cover). The whole premise is something that quite frankly would never get past the censors these days. I know it's easy to say that with a lot of films and television shows, (for example, in a lot of black and white films including It's A Wonderful Life, a film that everyone loves, the only black character is a domestic servant), as standards and tastes have thankfully improved. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers was basically a lesson in using sexism and kidnap to find a wife, and they will eventually fall in love with you. Still, the songs were okay.
On the subject of entertainment that wouldn't happen today, while I was waiting for Seven Brides, I caught a bit of Holiday On The Buses, one of the big screen spin offs that 1970s sitcoms used to inexplicably earn. I have written before of my affection for naff old sitcoms so I won't cover old ground, but one tiny point did interest me. In this film, despite there being no mention of it in the television series or subsequent films, Arthur and Olive have a young son. Now, every element of On The Buses looks dated and firmly where it belongs in another time, all apart from the young son. A few years ago, his hairstyle would have looked 'of the time'...
When we got home, Mandi had a kip while I put the television on. Channel Five, (yes, it still exists) were showing Seven Brides For Seven Brothers at five, a film that I had previously never seen. Or at least I don't remember seeing it, I knew some of the songs so maybe I have seen it in bits, as I have with so many films. I wanted to watch it to satisfy my love of musicals, but to be honest I found SBFSB a bit shit, (quote for the DVD cover). The whole premise is something that quite frankly would never get past the censors these days. I know it's easy to say that with a lot of films and television shows, (for example, in a lot of black and white films including It's A Wonderful Life, a film that everyone loves, the only black character is a domestic servant), as standards and tastes have thankfully improved. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers was basically a lesson in using sexism and kidnap to find a wife, and they will eventually fall in love with you. Still, the songs were okay.
On the subject of entertainment that wouldn't happen today, while I was waiting for Seven Brides, I caught a bit of Holiday On The Buses, one of the big screen spin offs that 1970s sitcoms used to inexplicably earn. I have written before of my affection for naff old sitcoms so I won't cover old ground, but one tiny point did interest me. In this film, despite there being no mention of it in the television series or subsequent films, Arthur and Olive have a young son. Now, every element of On The Buses looks dated and firmly where it belongs in another time, all apart from the young son. A few years ago, his hairstyle would have looked 'of the time'...
The only photo I could find
...whereas nowadays, he is sporting the exact same hairstyle that half of the male cast of Disney Channel sitcoms seems to favour. And before anyone asks, my daughter used to watch Hannah Montana and The Suite Life Of Zac And Cody, and they all had that 'helmet' hairstyle. Maybe fashions really do keep coming back.
Using the catch up service, and having woken Mandi up as asked at six, for her to fall back to sleep and not surface until eight, I caught up with a few Christmas bits that I had missed. I managed Sarah Millican's Christmas special, and the 1976 Christmas edition of Dad's Army. It was an episode I had seen before called My Brother And I, in which Arthur Lowe played the dual role of Captain Mainwaring and his drunken brother. They really don't make them like they used to. Dad's Army always seems to be on television, yet I frequently find myself watching episodes that I haven't seen before. Maybe the BBC just keep sticking the same ones on? There are two more Christmas episodes of Dad's Army that I will hopefully catch before they fall off the end of the seven day limit.
Out of curiosity, Mandi and I watched a Christmas episode of Postman Pat. I loved this show as a child, as did my own daughter. I would read her the books and watch the videos (yes videos, Emily was born at the end of last century when video use outweighed DVD use, those were the days), and the episodes were hilarious. There aren't many children's shows that you can watch as an adult without them being ruined. Nostalgia is only a worthwhile currency if you leave it where it should be left. On my 25th birthday, I was given a box set of The A-Team, and was saddened to see that what once appeared to have been the best show ever made, was actually rubbish. Rose-tinted glasses should remain worn at all times. The only exceptions are The Muppet Show, (never intended to be a children's show, its original airing was eight o'clock on Sunday night), Paddington Bear*, (the original with the stop-motion animated bear against a pencil drawn backdrop, brilliantly funny), and the original episodes of Postman Pat. As good as any classic sitcom, the antics of Postman Pat were worth watching again once the kids were asleep. The modern version however, is terrible. I feel sorry for today's children if this is what they have to watch, when we have kids, they will be shown the original. His mouth moves now, and he seems to drive a van, a lorry, and a helicopter. Such training opportunities were never available when I was a postman!
*Mandi and I once came up with a scenario in which a chimpanzee butler could create chaos at a dinner party, and I attempted to create either a storybook series or a CBeebies age sitcom based on the idea. I eventually aborted the idea, as I couldn't get away from the Paddington Bear influence. Shame.
Saturday 29 December 2012
It only takes a glance over the schedules on the Christmas 24 channel to see that releasing a Christmas film is seen by some as an easy way to put bums on seats. It's the same with songs, if you write a 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday', or even something a shit as 'Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)', then you are financially laughing. Even if the festive ditty doesn't set the hit parade on fire, it'll be included in the Christmas countdowns on music television channels every year, and played on the radio. Doing my American show's Christmas special, and listening to the Notts Live Christmas special, demonstrates that there are still great Christmas songs being written. Maybe the days of the massive Christmas hit are behind us, after all there will never be another Irvin Berlin, or Noddy Holder for that matter. If you only write one song in your whole life, make it a Christmas song, that way you'll be on the radio every year and shoved on a CD compilation album. Money in the bank.
Films are different. There are but a handful of really good Christmas films, ones that make you laugh and cry in equal measure. If anyone ever asks me, (I say 'ever', it has happened once in my life), what my favourite film genre is, I simply tell them 'Christmas'. There is a formula to the Christmas film that follows a warm but ultimately predictable path:
Busy Workaholic Dad: BWD will seemingly care more about his job than his family, and this will cause him to miss the school play, forget to buy presents, and come across as an all-round grumpy git. The simple truth is that he loves his children and his wife, and justifies his marriage to his job by saying that he is providing the nice house and lifestyle that they have. Maybe it'll be an old man with magic powers, or an old lady, or a death (Christmas films can be surprisingly dark in tone), but something will happen to snap them out of it and become a loving and caring dad and husband. This coincides with being fired from, or walking out of his job, and realising that there are more important things in life, for added effect this will happen on Christmas Eve. Examples of this include Elf, The Man In The Santa Claus Suit, Jack Frost, and Miracle On 34th Street (although in the last example, it's a woman).
Love: People who long to meet 'the one' will set up the storyline that they have always been unlucky in love. We may see them in flashback with their ex-partners, or we may see them exchanging longing glances across a busy workplace. They meet and fall in love on Christmas Eve. Examples include Love Actually, and Nativity.
Lack of Christmas Spirit: LoCS people hate the most wonderful time of the year. If the boss is a LoCS, then they will have their staff working on Christmas Eve, and maybe even Christmas Day. In the final act of the film, they suddenly learn that Christmas is brilliant, and apologetically awards a Christmas bonus to the poor, put upon staff and hosts a party. Again, this will usually happen on Christmas Eve, possibly after being shown the error of his/her ways by way of a night of visits from ghosts. All LoCS stories owe a debt of gratitude to Charles Dickens.
A combination of all of these scenarios can be seen in the film Nativity. Released in 2009, it combines LoCS, Love, and throws in the 'we'll do the show right here' mentality of the best musicals. The film has you crying from about half an hour from the end. Also, wouldn't we all have loved to have had a classroom assistant like Mr Poppy when we were at primary school?
Watching Nativity brought home to me the period of life when Christmas was the most exciting, it was when I was the age of the kids in this film. I don't think the concept of infant school, junior school, and senior school exists anymore. In my experience, there are just two schools, the one you start going to as a child, followed by the one you go to from the age of eleven. The school portrayed in Nativity was an infant school as I remember it, and when we were introduced to it in the film, it was the run up to Christmas. The excitement of the build up to the season has never been topped since those days. Nativity took me right back to making decorations to take home, the cardboard post box for cards, and of course the lead up to the school play. I briefly touched on all these things in my recent blog about A Christmas Gift To You From Phil Spector.
The Christmas school fete happened after school, usually on a Friday and was in reality nothing more than a jumble sale with added festivity. The Christmas edition of Crackerjack was aired on the Friday before Christmas, (usually the day we broke up from school for the holidays). The school play allowed us that freakishly delightful opportunity to be in the school building in the evening.
I seem to remember being in a nativity play when I was very young, probably a one-line gift bearing wise man with a tea towel on my head. My recollection of it is sketchy. When I was a child, I had very little ambition with regards the stage, (I actually remember wanting to be on the radio at a very early age, and used to make my own shows with the help of two tape recorders), but looking back I am a bit put out about my lack of board treading when a schoolboy. It was my part as a waiter in A Medieval Christmas, (see the picture in the linked blog), that was my biggest role in a school production. Again, I have very little recollection of this, apart from the two of us holding a big tray with a pig's head on it, and reciting quite a sizable bit of dialogue. Even looking at the cast list, I struggle to remember the plot. I'm guessing that the teachers decided that there were too many people to cast a nativity. Another year, I was in the band and credited on the typewriter created programme as 'percussion'. Not even the fucking drummer! My big moment was when I was in the hand bell team, six of us with bells and not a single one of us could read music. The music was written out in numbers, I can still remember the tune to a piece of music called 'Music Box', it works on a recorder too if you cover the right amount of holes:
3 1 4, 4 4 5 5 5 1, 3 1 4, 4 4 5 5 5, 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 4 4, 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 4, 3 1 4, 4 4 5 5 5 1, 3 1 4, 4 4 5 5 5
Funny the things you remember!
Films are different. There are but a handful of really good Christmas films, ones that make you laugh and cry in equal measure. If anyone ever asks me, (I say 'ever', it has happened once in my life), what my favourite film genre is, I simply tell them 'Christmas'. There is a formula to the Christmas film that follows a warm but ultimately predictable path:
Busy Workaholic Dad: BWD will seemingly care more about his job than his family, and this will cause him to miss the school play, forget to buy presents, and come across as an all-round grumpy git. The simple truth is that he loves his children and his wife, and justifies his marriage to his job by saying that he is providing the nice house and lifestyle that they have. Maybe it'll be an old man with magic powers, or an old lady, or a death (Christmas films can be surprisingly dark in tone), but something will happen to snap them out of it and become a loving and caring dad and husband. This coincides with being fired from, or walking out of his job, and realising that there are more important things in life, for added effect this will happen on Christmas Eve. Examples of this include Elf, The Man In The Santa Claus Suit, Jack Frost, and Miracle On 34th Street (although in the last example, it's a woman).
Love: People who long to meet 'the one' will set up the storyline that they have always been unlucky in love. We may see them in flashback with their ex-partners, or we may see them exchanging longing glances across a busy workplace. They meet and fall in love on Christmas Eve. Examples include Love Actually, and Nativity.
Lack of Christmas Spirit: LoCS people hate the most wonderful time of the year. If the boss is a LoCS, then they will have their staff working on Christmas Eve, and maybe even Christmas Day. In the final act of the film, they suddenly learn that Christmas is brilliant, and apologetically awards a Christmas bonus to the poor, put upon staff and hosts a party. Again, this will usually happen on Christmas Eve, possibly after being shown the error of his/her ways by way of a night of visits from ghosts. All LoCS stories owe a debt of gratitude to Charles Dickens.
A combination of all of these scenarios can be seen in the film Nativity. Released in 2009, it combines LoCS, Love, and throws in the 'we'll do the show right here' mentality of the best musicals. The film has you crying from about half an hour from the end. Also, wouldn't we all have loved to have had a classroom assistant like Mr Poppy when we were at primary school?
Watching Nativity brought home to me the period of life when Christmas was the most exciting, it was when I was the age of the kids in this film. I don't think the concept of infant school, junior school, and senior school exists anymore. In my experience, there are just two schools, the one you start going to as a child, followed by the one you go to from the age of eleven. The school portrayed in Nativity was an infant school as I remember it, and when we were introduced to it in the film, it was the run up to Christmas. The excitement of the build up to the season has never been topped since those days. Nativity took me right back to making decorations to take home, the cardboard post box for cards, and of course the lead up to the school play. I briefly touched on all these things in my recent blog about A Christmas Gift To You From Phil Spector.
The Christmas school fete happened after school, usually on a Friday and was in reality nothing more than a jumble sale with added festivity. The Christmas edition of Crackerjack was aired on the Friday before Christmas, (usually the day we broke up from school for the holidays). The school play allowed us that freakishly delightful opportunity to be in the school building in the evening.
I seem to remember being in a nativity play when I was very young, probably a one-line gift bearing wise man with a tea towel on my head. My recollection of it is sketchy. When I was a child, I had very little ambition with regards the stage, (I actually remember wanting to be on the radio at a very early age, and used to make my own shows with the help of two tape recorders), but looking back I am a bit put out about my lack of board treading when a schoolboy. It was my part as a waiter in A Medieval Christmas, (see the picture in the linked blog), that was my biggest role in a school production. Again, I have very little recollection of this, apart from the two of us holding a big tray with a pig's head on it, and reciting quite a sizable bit of dialogue. Even looking at the cast list, I struggle to remember the plot. I'm guessing that the teachers decided that there were too many people to cast a nativity. Another year, I was in the band and credited on the typewriter created programme as 'percussion'. Not even the fucking drummer! My big moment was when I was in the hand bell team, six of us with bells and not a single one of us could read music. The music was written out in numbers, I can still remember the tune to a piece of music called 'Music Box', it works on a recorder too if you cover the right amount of holes:
3 1 4, 4 4 5 5 5 1, 3 1 4, 4 4 5 5 5, 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 4 4, 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 4, 3 1 4, 4 4 5 5 5 1, 3 1 4, 4 4 5 5 5
Funny the things you remember!
Friday 28 December 2012
I once lived with a girlfriend who was in the 'Christmas is over at the stroke of midnight on Boxing Day' camp, which was a bit of a conflict with my opinion that it is still Christmas until January 6th. This girlfriend, who was annoying and interfering enough at the best of times, (opening my mail occasionally, throwing important things away, peeling the wrong stickers off CD covers*, that kind of thing, not the ideal girlfriend for a man with depression and OCD), once tried to ruin my Christmas. I'm sure that she didn't do it deliberately to upset or annoy me just that she was in the wrong camp when it came to Christmas.
*You peel off the price sticker only, and not the incidental stickers about the CD itself. When it first came out, I bought Nirvana's album MTV Unplugged in New York. I took it out of the little CD sized bag, (from Woolworths, a place we always think about at Christmas) and removed the price sticker. I then made a throwaway comment to my girlfriend, (let's call her Tracy, in fact let's call her Mad Tracy) about the system regarding CD stickers. This particular CD had a sticker that said something along the lines of Featuring acoustic versions of Nirvana's classic songs including 'Come As You Are'. Acting on a hunch one day when I returned from work, I went straight in without even pausing to take my coat and shoes off and made a beeline for the shelf containing my CD collection. Trembling with anger, (because I knew what the outcome of this was going to be thanks to experience of living with Mad Tracy for far too long), I removed the CD from the shelf, and sure enough, the sticker had been peeled off. I immediately rang Mad Tracy at work, trying at first to make out that there was nothing wrong, and asked her what time she would be finished. She said she was finishing work at four, (I was working in a pub so I was obviously on the lunch shift to have been home at that time). I told her that she had plenty of time to go to Woolworths and pick me up a brand new copy of MTV Unplugged in New York because she had peeled off the sticker despite what I had said. She said I was being ridiculous, but I felt as if I had right on my side, as she used to do things like this to piss me off on purpose. I told her that I was putting the chain on the door, and she wouldn't gain access to our house until she had righted her wrong. At quarter past four, she arrived home and shouted for me to let her in. I asked her to put the new CD through the letterbox and I would. She hadn't bought a replacement, so I didn't let her in. Woolworths was a short bus ride away, and closed at half past five, so I told her that if she spent too long on the doorstep playing fuck about not being able to get in, she wouldn't make the shop. Realising that I wasn't going to back down about it, she relented and went and bought me a replacement CD. This was the first time that I won a stand off.
I used to have issues with anger; I'm not like that anymore. The reason for my behaviour was frustration. Mad Tracy wasn't a control freak as such, just totally lacking in trust. She also thwarted my career plans to an extent, although not as badly as my wife did, but that's further in the future. Mandi allows me to get on with things without questioning or trying to stop me, something my wife never allowed. Mandi isn't jealous of my career or worried about me going out socially without her, because she trusts me and doesn't try to ruin my night by constantly phoning me.
Anyway, I digress. This is about Christmas. Mad Tracy was actually the first person I ever spent a Christmas Day with alone; it was the first year I didn't go home to my parents. We lived in a shared house in Boston, and the other occupants had gone home for Christmas. Tracy and I actually had a nice day; we woke up fairly late, watched television, made something like a Christmas lunch, (turkey fillets or something, but with stuffing balls and veg), even if we did sit watching telly eating off our knees, and taking advantage of the house to ourselves, had sex on the sofa, making sure to turn the cushions over afterwards. This was also the first time I experienced a shop being open on Christmas Day. Boston in Lincolnshire in 1994 was still a bit behind the times, pubs used to close at three o'clock in the afternoon, and everything closed on Sunday. I was on my way to the pub to get some cigarettes from the machine before they closed for the afternoon, and noticing that our local newsagent was open for a few hours, popped in there instead as vending machine fags were always a financially bad decision. Having spent this nice day together, I assumed that Mad Tracy shared my love of the festive season.
To finally get back to the beginning, I got home from work one night on December 28th, (maybe 1996 or 1997, maybe 1998) to find that Tracy had taken all the Christmas decorations down. As I have already said, she was in the wrong camp. Not only had she taken the decorations down in every room, she had also thrown away the Christmas cards. I was furious, and gave her the full January 6th routine. It was late, we had a row, and as if to make a point, I spent the next few hours putting up the Christmas decorations. She was pissed off at me for putting the decorations back up on December 28th, which in hindsight might have looked a bit strange, but I was determined. After all, Christmas isn't over on December 28th is it?
I won my second stand off; I was getting good at this.
It annoys me to see how few houses actually bother with Christmas decorations. In the days after Boxing Day, it always delights me to see houses that have still got the decorations up, and make the effort to put the outside lights on. Every year I tell Mandi how next year I'm going to set up a Christmas decorating business and advertise to the houses that haven't bothered this year. I always forget of course. Some houses are content with a Christmas tree, but that is the only Christmas effort, no other decorations. What is even worse in my opinion is how many shops have stopped looking Christmassy already. In the short walk from the train station yesterday, when I got home from taking Emily home, to the Market Square, (for none-Nottingham folk, that takes you through Broadmarsh Shopping Centre, and past a street of shops including The Body Shop, H&M, WHSmith, Poundland, Thornton's, and countless mobile phone shops. Hardly anyone still had the decorations up. A lot of shops take them down on Christmas Eve, and replace them with adverts for the sale, disgraceful.
I am so glad that I now share my life with a woman who shares my love of Christmas, to the extent that we are still lit up, still decorated, and still eating a lot of savoury buffet food and chocolates. We are also watching Christmas films. This afternoon we watched Mrs Miracle 2: Miracle In Manhattan, It's Christmas, Carol, (A reworking of A Christmas Carol in which the Scrooge character is a woman called Carol, see what they did?), and Santa Jnr. Although the first two films made me cry, the first one more so, I found Santa Jnr a bit predictable, (unlike all the other Christmas films that keep you guessing right to the end, read that last bit in a sarcastic tone), and basically a rewrite on the Miracle On 34th Street story. It was good to see Christmas films on television though. We still have a lot to get through, and that applies to films and food. Last night we had a buffet spread and invited Katy and my dad round to watch Singing in the Rain. I know it isn't a Christmas film, but any excuse to watch one of the best musicals of all time.
Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in order to bring back Christmas, as it was falling out of favour. It's a shame we don't have him around nowadays to give us a helping hand getting Christmas back on track.
*You peel off the price sticker only, and not the incidental stickers about the CD itself. When it first came out, I bought Nirvana's album MTV Unplugged in New York. I took it out of the little CD sized bag, (from Woolworths, a place we always think about at Christmas) and removed the price sticker. I then made a throwaway comment to my girlfriend, (let's call her Tracy, in fact let's call her Mad Tracy) about the system regarding CD stickers. This particular CD had a sticker that said something along the lines of Featuring acoustic versions of Nirvana's classic songs including 'Come As You Are'. Acting on a hunch one day when I returned from work, I went straight in without even pausing to take my coat and shoes off and made a beeline for the shelf containing my CD collection. Trembling with anger, (because I knew what the outcome of this was going to be thanks to experience of living with Mad Tracy for far too long), I removed the CD from the shelf, and sure enough, the sticker had been peeled off. I immediately rang Mad Tracy at work, trying at first to make out that there was nothing wrong, and asked her what time she would be finished. She said she was finishing work at four, (I was working in a pub so I was obviously on the lunch shift to have been home at that time). I told her that she had plenty of time to go to Woolworths and pick me up a brand new copy of MTV Unplugged in New York because she had peeled off the sticker despite what I had said. She said I was being ridiculous, but I felt as if I had right on my side, as she used to do things like this to piss me off on purpose. I told her that I was putting the chain on the door, and she wouldn't gain access to our house until she had righted her wrong. At quarter past four, she arrived home and shouted for me to let her in. I asked her to put the new CD through the letterbox and I would. She hadn't bought a replacement, so I didn't let her in. Woolworths was a short bus ride away, and closed at half past five, so I told her that if she spent too long on the doorstep playing fuck about not being able to get in, she wouldn't make the shop. Realising that I wasn't going to back down about it, she relented and went and bought me a replacement CD. This was the first time that I won a stand off.
I used to have issues with anger; I'm not like that anymore. The reason for my behaviour was frustration. Mad Tracy wasn't a control freak as such, just totally lacking in trust. She also thwarted my career plans to an extent, although not as badly as my wife did, but that's further in the future. Mandi allows me to get on with things without questioning or trying to stop me, something my wife never allowed. Mandi isn't jealous of my career or worried about me going out socially without her, because she trusts me and doesn't try to ruin my night by constantly phoning me.
Anyway, I digress. This is about Christmas. Mad Tracy was actually the first person I ever spent a Christmas Day with alone; it was the first year I didn't go home to my parents. We lived in a shared house in Boston, and the other occupants had gone home for Christmas. Tracy and I actually had a nice day; we woke up fairly late, watched television, made something like a Christmas lunch, (turkey fillets or something, but with stuffing balls and veg), even if we did sit watching telly eating off our knees, and taking advantage of the house to ourselves, had sex on the sofa, making sure to turn the cushions over afterwards. This was also the first time I experienced a shop being open on Christmas Day. Boston in Lincolnshire in 1994 was still a bit behind the times, pubs used to close at three o'clock in the afternoon, and everything closed on Sunday. I was on my way to the pub to get some cigarettes from the machine before they closed for the afternoon, and noticing that our local newsagent was open for a few hours, popped in there instead as vending machine fags were always a financially bad decision. Having spent this nice day together, I assumed that Mad Tracy shared my love of the festive season.
To finally get back to the beginning, I got home from work one night on December 28th, (maybe 1996 or 1997, maybe 1998) to find that Tracy had taken all the Christmas decorations down. As I have already said, she was in the wrong camp. Not only had she taken the decorations down in every room, she had also thrown away the Christmas cards. I was furious, and gave her the full January 6th routine. It was late, we had a row, and as if to make a point, I spent the next few hours putting up the Christmas decorations. She was pissed off at me for putting the decorations back up on December 28th, which in hindsight might have looked a bit strange, but I was determined. After all, Christmas isn't over on December 28th is it?
I won my second stand off; I was getting good at this.
It annoys me to see how few houses actually bother with Christmas decorations. In the days after Boxing Day, it always delights me to see houses that have still got the decorations up, and make the effort to put the outside lights on. Every year I tell Mandi how next year I'm going to set up a Christmas decorating business and advertise to the houses that haven't bothered this year. I always forget of course. Some houses are content with a Christmas tree, but that is the only Christmas effort, no other decorations. What is even worse in my opinion is how many shops have stopped looking Christmassy already. In the short walk from the train station yesterday, when I got home from taking Emily home, to the Market Square, (for none-Nottingham folk, that takes you through Broadmarsh Shopping Centre, and past a street of shops including The Body Shop, H&M, WHSmith, Poundland, Thornton's, and countless mobile phone shops. Hardly anyone still had the decorations up. A lot of shops take them down on Christmas Eve, and replace them with adverts for the sale, disgraceful.
I am so glad that I now share my life with a woman who shares my love of Christmas, to the extent that we are still lit up, still decorated, and still eating a lot of savoury buffet food and chocolates. We are also watching Christmas films. This afternoon we watched Mrs Miracle 2: Miracle In Manhattan, It's Christmas, Carol, (A reworking of A Christmas Carol in which the Scrooge character is a woman called Carol, see what they did?), and Santa Jnr. Although the first two films made me cry, the first one more so, I found Santa Jnr a bit predictable, (unlike all the other Christmas films that keep you guessing right to the end, read that last bit in a sarcastic tone), and basically a rewrite on the Miracle On 34th Street story. It was good to see Christmas films on television though. We still have a lot to get through, and that applies to films and food. Last night we had a buffet spread and invited Katy and my dad round to watch Singing in the Rain. I know it isn't a Christmas film, but any excuse to watch one of the best musicals of all time.
Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in order to bring back Christmas, as it was falling out of favour. It's a shame we don't have him around nowadays to give us a helping hand getting Christmas back on track.
Thursday 27 December 2012
There are a few things, looking back over my blog for the last few days, that I have missed out. Nothing trivial, just nuggets of info about how we keep Christmas.
When I arrived home from collecting Emily on Sunday, we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol. For the first time ever, I didn't cry at the end. Not even the bit where Beaker gives his scarf to Scrooge. I think my research into the adaptations of A Christmas Carol has dulled my senses to the story. If I had my wish, and life was like a musical, then I would have returned from town singing 'One More Sleep 'Till Christmas'.
To recap my blog of Christmas Eve, when I asked Emily if she believed in Santa, we remembered an occasion from years ago. Emily was only little, and we were walking somewhere in the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, (the week when nobody can quite put their finger on what day it is), and we saw Santa. What we actually saw was an old man who looked JUST LIKE the great man, except that he was in civilian clothing. He was smartly dressed and looked like Kris Kringle in Miracle On 34th Street, (another film I cry at). Clocking that Emily was convinced he was Santa, he winked and smiled at Emily, as if playing along with the game that he was indeed the reindeer driving present delivery man. It was wonderful that this perfect stranger joined in with the childhood innocence that Santa was walking along Redcar seafront, but in retelling this story on Christmas Eve 2012, Emily pricked the wholesome wonder of the story: "He was either the real Santa, or a nice old man, or a paedophile". Merry Christmas!
The film You've Got Mail is a film very close to the hearts of Mandi and myself, due to its subject matter of a couple who meet on the Internet. There is a line from the film spoken by Tom Hanks, in which he tells of how the autumn makes him want to buy school supplies. He says that he would buy her a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils. In a flash of romance, I broke away from the two females in my life on Christmas Eve by nipping to a stationers to attempt a homage to this line. On Christmas morning I presented Mandi, the love of my life, with a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils.
When I arrived home from collecting Emily on Sunday, we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol. For the first time ever, I didn't cry at the end. Not even the bit where Beaker gives his scarf to Scrooge. I think my research into the adaptations of A Christmas Carol has dulled my senses to the story. If I had my wish, and life was like a musical, then I would have returned from town singing 'One More Sleep 'Till Christmas'.
To recap my blog of Christmas Eve, when I asked Emily if she believed in Santa, we remembered an occasion from years ago. Emily was only little, and we were walking somewhere in the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, (the week when nobody can quite put their finger on what day it is), and we saw Santa. What we actually saw was an old man who looked JUST LIKE the great man, except that he was in civilian clothing. He was smartly dressed and looked like Kris Kringle in Miracle On 34th Street, (another film I cry at). Clocking that Emily was convinced he was Santa, he winked and smiled at Emily, as if playing along with the game that he was indeed the reindeer driving present delivery man. It was wonderful that this perfect stranger joined in with the childhood innocence that Santa was walking along Redcar seafront, but in retelling this story on Christmas Eve 2012, Emily pricked the wholesome wonder of the story: "He was either the real Santa, or a nice old man, or a paedophile". Merry Christmas!
The film You've Got Mail is a film very close to the hearts of Mandi and myself, due to its subject matter of a couple who meet on the Internet. There is a line from the film spoken by Tom Hanks, in which he tells of how the autumn makes him want to buy school supplies. He says that he would buy her a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils. In a flash of romance, I broke away from the two females in my life on Christmas Eve by nipping to a stationers to attempt a homage to this line. On Christmas morning I presented Mandi, the love of my life, with a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils.
Instead of place settings at the Christmas dinner table, everyone had a National Lottery scratchcard with a festive theme with a potential top prize of £5,000. I provided everyone with a penny to do the scratching, and I would love to end this blog by reporting that one of our number scratched their way to the top prize. I can however report that my dad won a pound and my nana took two pounds. It's a result!
Wednesday 26 December 2012
In the early hours of this morning, this appeared in our back yard.
The saggy quality of the balloons told me that these weren't new, unless of course they had been undone and inhaled by someone who thought that they were the first to ever give themselves a squeaky voice. It is possible that yesterday was someone's 21st birthday, but you don't let your birthday balloons have their freedom straight away do you? Mandi buys a festive helium balloon every Christmas Eve, which stands in the living room for the rest of the holiday, getting lower and lower as it deflates, eventually resembling an old woman's bosom. When the decorations come down on January the 6th, alongside all of the usual last-day-of-Christmas celebrations, I tie a note to the balloon wishing an unknown recipient good wishes for the new year. I have never received a reply.
This morning was a bit of a mess, as all three of us had to get ready for lunch at The Willow Tree. We made it eventually, meeting up with my dad and nana for a lovely Boxing Day meal. Given that we still have a plentiful supply of turkey indoors, I opted for the roast beef. After the meal, we went to my dad's for a few drinks and a film. We watched Elf, Emily's favourite Christmas film. During the course of the season, Emily is able to watch Elf time and time again. I'm glad that she enjoys it, but to my mind this spoils Christmas films. I can only watch each film once per season, otherwise I don't feel as if I'd get the full enjoyment out of it. So far this season I've watched It's A Wonderful Life, Christmas With The Kranks, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Nativity, and cried at the right moments in every one. I have never cried at White Christmas for some reason, not to take away from it as I think it's a lovely film, just not a seasonal eye moistener.
The three of us were home in time for Eastenders, after which Emily had a shower and prepared for the journey home tomorrow. Mandi went to bed, and Emily and I watched A Muppet Christmas: Letters To Santa before turning in for the night.
Tuesday 25 December 2012
The big day began at eight o'clock this morning, when Emily came into our room with our two Christmas stockings containing her contribution to the Christmas Eve pound shop dash. We opened our gifts on the bed, and I drew a moderate laugh by putting two Christmas stockings on my feet as socks. I am after all, a hoot.
We hadn't been downstairs very long when there was a knock at the door. I had hoped for a group of carol singers all dressed in Victorian costumes ready to regale us with a selection of festive favourites, before we invited them in for some smoking bishop and a mince pie. It turned out to be someone wanting to talk about Jesus. I very politely pointed out that if they cared that much for Jesus, then they would be at home with their families celebrating his birthday. They pointed out that Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas, to which I replied that we do in this house, before closing the door. I don't allow any present opening until I've had a cup of tea in my special Christmas cup, so we put the Michael Buble CD on and had a drink, before the three of us gathered in the front room to open our gifts. Mandi likes to have presents under the tree before Christmas Eve, but I have stipulated that when we have children this cannot happen. Having presents under the tree before Christmas Eve renders Father Christmas redundant, and would ruin the magic. This is why I wrap my presents on Christmas Eve night when the rest of the house is asleep. After we had opened, we had breakfast while listening to Junior Choice on Radio Two. Of course the 'junior' part of this show's title is ironic nowadays, as all of the people contacting the show were grown ups who wanted to hear novelty hits from their youth. The usual round up of tunes were trotted out; 'My Brother' by Terry Scott, 'Don't Jump Off The Roof Dad' by Tommy Cooper, 'Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West' by Benny Hill, the list goes on. If Ed Stewart retires or dies, then I am nailing my colours to the flag, I want to take over this Christmas Day tradition. I know it is broadcast live and to present it would mean going out to work on Christmas morning, but I could present it from BBC Radio Nottingham. Seriously, I want this gig. I know I'm regarded to sit on the cooler side of the fence where music radio is concerned, but most of these songs were played on The Sunday Alternative and they went down very well with my listeners. If my serious, 'proper' music audience can appreciate them, albeit ironically, then it won't hurt them to let their hair down on Christmas Day.
Dad and Nana arrived at about half past twelve and had a cuppa before we returned to the front room for more unwrapping. Mandi had taken charge of dinner this year, and turned down most of the offers of help. She made us a big jug of champagne with clementine juice, with pomegranate seeds on top, it certainly makes a change from the traditional Bucks Fizz that everyone was having. We had GOLD on telly, as they were showing Morecambe and Wise all day, and I received the wonderful Christmas present of my daughter telling me she loves them. That's right up there on my 'that's mah girl' chart with her opinion that David Bowie is cool.
On last year's Christmas edition of The Sunday Alternative, Erik and I talked about Johnny Cash, and I asked on air if Erik has seen his Christmas specials. He hadn't and that remained true until one o'clock, when I texted him telling him to switch over to Sky Arts 1 for the 1976 show, (I forgot to document in the blog the fact that we are friends again). I sent apologies to the rest of the Petersen family.
Top Of The Pops made its usual return, but there is still something wrong. The biggest problem is the presenting team of Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates, who just aren't cut out for the job. Whoever is in charge should watch the old editions and see how it's done. There must be some of the 'personality' presenters from the old days who aren't yet on the sex offenders register and are able to present it.
I helped in the kitchen a little bit, by carving a face in one of the sprouts. The idea was that someone would find it and win the game. The game of 'find the sprout with a face and win nothing', I sense a new family Christmas tradition being born!
Dad and Nana arrived at about half past twelve and had a cuppa before we returned to the front room for more unwrapping. Mandi had taken charge of dinner this year, and turned down most of the offers of help. She made us a big jug of champagne with clementine juice, with pomegranate seeds on top, it certainly makes a change from the traditional Bucks Fizz that everyone was having. We had GOLD on telly, as they were showing Morecambe and Wise all day, and I received the wonderful Christmas present of my daughter telling me she loves them. That's right up there on my 'that's mah girl' chart with her opinion that David Bowie is cool.
On last year's Christmas edition of The Sunday Alternative, Erik and I talked about Johnny Cash, and I asked on air if Erik has seen his Christmas specials. He hadn't and that remained true until one o'clock, when I texted him telling him to switch over to Sky Arts 1 for the 1976 show, (I forgot to document in the blog the fact that we are friends again). I sent apologies to the rest of the Petersen family.
Top Of The Pops made its usual return, but there is still something wrong. The biggest problem is the presenting team of Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates, who just aren't cut out for the job. Whoever is in charge should watch the old editions and see how it's done. There must be some of the 'personality' presenters from the old days who aren't yet on the sex offenders register and are able to present it.
I helped in the kitchen a little bit, by carving a face in one of the sprouts. The idea was that someone would find it and win the game. The game of 'find the sprout with a face and win nothing', I sense a new family Christmas tradition being born!
I was also assigned the task of preparing the canapes, smoked salmon parcels and some pate and Melba toast. We weren't having lunch until about four o'clock so these were a nice diversion for Nana, who has to eat at one o'clock.
Rather than have everyone come to the table and get in our way, or have a rush of arms helping themselves to the food in the middle and risk knocking candles over, Mandi and I plated up everyone's meal and set it out. I carved the three bird roast, (I say 'carved', they fall apart as soon as you show a knife in its direction) and opened the champagne. If it looks like my contribution to the domestic work didn't amount to much, in my defence I did do all the washing up, (there were several rounds of washing up), and do the pudding.
Emily didn't stay the full week of October half term this year, and so we didn't have the time to make our own Christmas crackers. We had to make do with shop bought ones this year, (wipe your tears, this isn't turning into a tragic life story, we managed), so Mandi bought some with a game of Charades and Humbug, in which we either had to hum a song or do the full Give Us A Clue bit on a film or television programme. This game was played at the table, and we didn't keep score so there wasn't that competitive edge that sometimes spoils a Christmas Day afternoon. It was nice to see the game of Charades come back into our Christmas though, it has been absent and missed.
I fell asleep watching Doctor Who, and Mandi had gone upstairs for a kip, but when it had finished I did the pudding, (we have never had Christmas pudding straight after dinner). I must confess to not using a homemade pudding, a friend of mine is a pastry chef and we have had his pudding for the last few years. The evening drifted into a nice chilled out lull, in which I started reading Going To Sea In A Sieve, Danny Baker's autobiography. Of course we then watched Eastenders with turkey sandwiches, (mindful of the fact that we were having a three bird roast, we also bought a turkey and cooked it yesterday so that we had sandwich filling), and an array of nibbles that I couldn't seem to interest anyone in. I had to take a tablet to kill heartburn/indigestion, but I recovered and lived to eat again.
Much later on, when Emily was in bed and my Dad had gone home, (Nana went hours before anyone else), I sat and contemplated. Dad had bought me a teapot and some loose leaf tea, (and a tea strainer, which out of the three he made me open first) so I made a proper tea and read some more while a clip show of Christmas television moments played in the background. We also cracked open the Marks and Spencer buscuit tin!
Last year, several factors prevented me from 'feeling' Christmas, this year I really enjoyed it.
"And it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge".
Charles Dickens
Monday 24 December 2012
Christmas Eve is often considered the favourite day of the festive season, with the excitement that it brings, Mandi and Emily certainly favour this day and it was lovely to spend Christmas Eve with my daughter for the first time in years. I'm more of a Boxing Day man myself, as I find it to be a relaxed extension of what came before it.
To my amazement, Emily was awake and dressed by the time our (not really cousin) cousin Daniel came round to drop off presents. This was far more than I managed. After a quick breakfast of ginger and date loaf toast, we were all dressed and ready to go into town. This was the third year of our traditional 'pound shop dash', which gets harder every year, and this year Emily was included as we all went our separate ways into our chosen shop to buy our stocking fillers. I have never won one of these before, but I finally became the champion this afternoon, we should make a trophy that we award each other with every Christmas Eve. If I'd thought of that sooner I would have done it, especially as my name would have been top! After meeting back up, we went for afternoon tea at British Home Stores.
'Posh' is maybe too excessive a word, but I'm pretty sure that BHS cafes used to be better than this. We didn't eat anything hot due to the manky quality of the food on offer, but had a disappointing cake and a drink before meeting up with my dad for a Christmas drink at The Malt Cross, a pub that has never disappointed me and probably never will. Before we went there, I broke off to make one more purchase of a romantic nature for Mandi. In fact it was so romantic that even Emily allowed herself an 'aww' of approval. After a bit of a sullen start to Emily's stay, I was pleased to see that she joined in and wasn't permanently on her phones, (she has an iphone and a Blackberry for reasons best known to herself), texting away, thumbs a-blur. In fact, she was delightful company. After dinner she watched the phone more than the telly, but at least only during discreet times.
After a few festive pints, (it wasn't until I got home that I remembered that I hadn't had my usual Christmas Eve glass of Tia Maria with fresh orange juice-it's like having a chocolate orange in drink form, I'll have to have two next Christmas Eve), we made for home. Christmas Eve is essentially what Emily used to refer to when she was little as an 'in day'. While Mandi had a bath, Emily helped me to wrap her presents. I enjoy doing my wrapping on Christmas Eve, as it's like I have finished the final task before the big day. Earlier I had asked Emily if she still believed in Father Christmas. She said she wanted to, as she believed in the magic. I couldn't help thinking that was the perfect answer, and something we should all aspire to, the spirit of Christmas right there from a usually moody teenager.
Mandi made her traditional Christmas Eve dinner of ham boiled in Cherry Coca-Cola, with jacket potato and sweetcorn. It takes hours to do, so there were a variety of nibbles on the go to put us on. The Grinch was on television, which I was half watching. I don't think I've ever seen this film all the way through, which given my love of Christmas films is a bit odd, especially as we have it in our DVD collection. Dad came round for dinner, and we all watched The Snowman on DVD with time for an interval before the entire nation came to a standstill for The Snowman And The Snowdog, the hugely anticipated sequel.
We all know The Snowman to be a work of art that has stood the test of time and become a Christmas must-watch every Christmas Eve, even though Channel Four frequently drop the scheduling bollock of showing it on the wrong day. If you only heard the musical score, you would be able to picture every frame in your mind. Everything about The Snowman says class, very little has been made in recent years that matches it for Christmas quality, which is why it remains a part of our Christmas just as it has done since Channel Four first aired it. Making a sequel was either going to be the biggest thing in the world, or a dropped clanger of epic proportions. Actually, it came down somewhere in between in my honest opinion. I wanted to love it, I wanted to declare that we were getting this on DVD as soon as it came out and that it would proudly join our collection of Christmas films that we drag out every year. I wanted my tear ducts to go into overdrive, not just for the sadness when the (SPOILER ALERT) snowman melts, but for the sheer genius of creating a piece of work as equal in greatness to the original, sticking two fingers up to the notion that animation has to be done on a computer these days.
I am sad to say that I felt a little deflated as the end credits rolled. After asking my daughter to cool it a little with her phone use, I couldn't really go on my phone to inspect Twitter. However, I imagine that it became a massive trending topic, and might even have caused the 'over-capacity' whale to fill the screen. I might have preferred it if the film introduced us to the original boy James as an adult with maybe kids of his own. If that was the house where James lived, there has been a hell of a lot of development in the last thirty years, as he lived in the middle of nowhere before, now the house was in suburbia. It was a nice touch when the dog came to life, although a little far-fetched, (picking something out as far-fetched in a film about a snowman that comes alive and can fly, you can fill in your own responses to that).
After Eastenders, and a festive collection of seasonal specials including Mrs Brown's Boys and The Vicar Of Dibley, we went into the front room and I finally did something I have always wanted to do; I read The Night Before Christmas to Emily. NOW I feel like a dad! When Emily had gone to bed, I wrapped her presents with Mandi while we watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas, I much prefer this original version.
Before going to bed, we checked Santa's whereabouts and saw that he was in France. We decided to go to bed as he was getting close!
To my amazement, Emily was awake and dressed by the time our (not really cousin) cousin Daniel came round to drop off presents. This was far more than I managed. After a quick breakfast of ginger and date loaf toast, we were all dressed and ready to go into town. This was the third year of our traditional 'pound shop dash', which gets harder every year, and this year Emily was included as we all went our separate ways into our chosen shop to buy our stocking fillers. I have never won one of these before, but I finally became the champion this afternoon, we should make a trophy that we award each other with every Christmas Eve. If I'd thought of that sooner I would have done it, especially as my name would have been top! After meeting back up, we went for afternoon tea at British Home Stores.
'Posh' is maybe too excessive a word, but I'm pretty sure that BHS cafes used to be better than this. We didn't eat anything hot due to the manky quality of the food on offer, but had a disappointing cake and a drink before meeting up with my dad for a Christmas drink at The Malt Cross, a pub that has never disappointed me and probably never will. Before we went there, I broke off to make one more purchase of a romantic nature for Mandi. In fact it was so romantic that even Emily allowed herself an 'aww' of approval. After a bit of a sullen start to Emily's stay, I was pleased to see that she joined in and wasn't permanently on her phones, (she has an iphone and a Blackberry for reasons best known to herself), texting away, thumbs a-blur. In fact, she was delightful company. After dinner she watched the phone more than the telly, but at least only during discreet times.
After a few festive pints, (it wasn't until I got home that I remembered that I hadn't had my usual Christmas Eve glass of Tia Maria with fresh orange juice-it's like having a chocolate orange in drink form, I'll have to have two next Christmas Eve), we made for home. Christmas Eve is essentially what Emily used to refer to when she was little as an 'in day'. While Mandi had a bath, Emily helped me to wrap her presents. I enjoy doing my wrapping on Christmas Eve, as it's like I have finished the final task before the big day. Earlier I had asked Emily if she still believed in Father Christmas. She said she wanted to, as she believed in the magic. I couldn't help thinking that was the perfect answer, and something we should all aspire to, the spirit of Christmas right there from a usually moody teenager.
Mandi made her traditional Christmas Eve dinner of ham boiled in Cherry Coca-Cola, with jacket potato and sweetcorn. It takes hours to do, so there were a variety of nibbles on the go to put us on. The Grinch was on television, which I was half watching. I don't think I've ever seen this film all the way through, which given my love of Christmas films is a bit odd, especially as we have it in our DVD collection. Dad came round for dinner, and we all watched The Snowman on DVD with time for an interval before the entire nation came to a standstill for The Snowman And The Snowdog, the hugely anticipated sequel.
We all know The Snowman to be a work of art that has stood the test of time and become a Christmas must-watch every Christmas Eve, even though Channel Four frequently drop the scheduling bollock of showing it on the wrong day. If you only heard the musical score, you would be able to picture every frame in your mind. Everything about The Snowman says class, very little has been made in recent years that matches it for Christmas quality, which is why it remains a part of our Christmas just as it has done since Channel Four first aired it. Making a sequel was either going to be the biggest thing in the world, or a dropped clanger of epic proportions. Actually, it came down somewhere in between in my honest opinion. I wanted to love it, I wanted to declare that we were getting this on DVD as soon as it came out and that it would proudly join our collection of Christmas films that we drag out every year. I wanted my tear ducts to go into overdrive, not just for the sadness when the (SPOILER ALERT) snowman melts, but for the sheer genius of creating a piece of work as equal in greatness to the original, sticking two fingers up to the notion that animation has to be done on a computer these days.
I am sad to say that I felt a little deflated as the end credits rolled. After asking my daughter to cool it a little with her phone use, I couldn't really go on my phone to inspect Twitter. However, I imagine that it became a massive trending topic, and might even have caused the 'over-capacity' whale to fill the screen. I might have preferred it if the film introduced us to the original boy James as an adult with maybe kids of his own. If that was the house where James lived, there has been a hell of a lot of development in the last thirty years, as he lived in the middle of nowhere before, now the house was in suburbia. It was a nice touch when the dog came to life, although a little far-fetched, (picking something out as far-fetched in a film about a snowman that comes alive and can fly, you can fill in your own responses to that).
After Eastenders, and a festive collection of seasonal specials including Mrs Brown's Boys and The Vicar Of Dibley, we went into the front room and I finally did something I have always wanted to do; I read The Night Before Christmas to Emily. NOW I feel like a dad! When Emily had gone to bed, I wrapped her presents with Mandi while we watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas, I much prefer this original version.
Before going to bed, we checked Santa's whereabouts and saw that he was in France. We decided to go to bed as he was getting close!
Sunday 23 December 2012
It was while I was up north collecting my daughter that I really took notice, but I was shocked at the large number of shops advertising (or rather boasting) about opening up for business on Boxing Day. I know that the 'January' sales now start on this day, but is it really necessary? Nobody with any common sense, or feeling for the season, goes out to buy a new sofa on Boxing Day, and we all have enough food in the house to feed the whole street.
The origins of Boxing Day lay in the custom of domestic staff being given the 26th December off in return for working on Christmas Day, they would be given a Christmas Box* containing clothes and food to take home for their families.
*The phrase 'Christmas Box' is also used to describe tips given at this time of year, don't forget your postman. As an ex-postman I can tell you how appreciated a fiver is, they do about 500 houses on a round so it makes for a good show of thanks for going out in all weather.
It's hard to tell who is ultimately to blame for the fact that Boxing Day is seen by many as the first day of the sales. Is it the people stupid enough to go out shopping on Boxing Day when there are films to watch, food to eat, and family to see? Or is it the shops themselves for creating this ridiculous frenzy based on their own greed? Debenhams, to use one shop as an example, open many of their branches at six o'clock in the morning. This means that the staff have to wake up at five o'clock at least, depending on where they live in proximity to work. That's waking up at five o'clock on Boxing Day morning to go to work, how can you enjoy Christmas Day with that hanging over you?
Despite the changes in trading laws over the years, a lot of retail staff are coerced into working at these unsociable times. What they are not told, is that Sundays and Bank Holidays are voluntary, and they cannot get sacked for refusing to work. I know that there's more money involved in working on these days, but I'm sure anyone would choose to enjoy a proper family Christmas.
If you work in retail then please remember to ask yourself what is more important to you, family time or double time?
The origins of Boxing Day lay in the custom of domestic staff being given the 26th December off in return for working on Christmas Day, they would be given a Christmas Box* containing clothes and food to take home for their families.
*The phrase 'Christmas Box' is also used to describe tips given at this time of year, don't forget your postman. As an ex-postman I can tell you how appreciated a fiver is, they do about 500 houses on a round so it makes for a good show of thanks for going out in all weather.
It's hard to tell who is ultimately to blame for the fact that Boxing Day is seen by many as the first day of the sales. Is it the people stupid enough to go out shopping on Boxing Day when there are films to watch, food to eat, and family to see? Or is it the shops themselves for creating this ridiculous frenzy based on their own greed? Debenhams, to use one shop as an example, open many of their branches at six o'clock in the morning. This means that the staff have to wake up at five o'clock at least, depending on where they live in proximity to work. That's waking up at five o'clock on Boxing Day morning to go to work, how can you enjoy Christmas Day with that hanging over you?
Despite the changes in trading laws over the years, a lot of retail staff are coerced into working at these unsociable times. What they are not told, is that Sundays and Bank Holidays are voluntary, and they cannot get sacked for refusing to work. I know that there's more money involved in working on these days, but I'm sure anyone would choose to enjoy a proper family Christmas.
If you work in retail then please remember to ask yourself what is more important to you, family time or double time?
Saturday 22 December 2012
Mandi and I went out with Katy (who has only just got round to telling me that this is how she spells her name, rather than my 'Katie') last night for our traditional, (by which I mean 'second') Christmas meal out/present exchange. We had originally planned to go to The Bell but it was too busy and ended up at Dolche, an Italian restaurant where we had our six month anniversary meal out. We began with a drink in town, which was busy with the last day of work brigade, who had some twats among their number but were an otherwise good natured bunch, after all this isn't a fighting time of year is it? Not unless you want a place on the naughty list.
I remember one Christmas in our old flat on a main road, when I heard police cars whizzing past and remarking that it wasn't very Christmassy a sound to hear. I had the idea for the police to take out a newspaper advert, and poster adverts in bus shelters and bill boards, asking that people don't do anything massively illegal at least on Christmas Day. That way, although they can be on call, the police can go home to family rather than hanging around the station waiting for something to happen.
After the meal, we carried on drinking around a couple of pubs, including an Irish bar that we had never seen before. I must walk around with my eyes closed, as it is on Mansfield Road (a very busy road in the centre of town for non-Nottinghammers), on the side of Victoria Centre. Maybe this is a magic pub that inhabits an alleyway and only materialises at Christmas? I'm trying to do a scenario from The Man In The Santa Claus Suit, a film nobody reading this will have heard of. After we had said goodbye to Katy, we went to The Willow Tree for a pint, and then bought an unnecessary in hindsight bag of chips to eat at home.
We had another fairly full day planned today, in which we had to finish our Christmas shopping. I'm not known for my calm and patient nature when it comes to the city centre on a Saturday afternoon as it is, but the last Saturday afternoon before Christmas Day nearly tipped me over the edge and there was a feeling that I might have, (despite not being a violent man at all), ended today by punching someone squarely in the face just because I had been bumped into one too many times. There was one aspect of Christmas shopping that I hadn't prepared for however, and that is the mythical 'three for two' offer at Boots.
There were a few things that I wanted to get from Boots for Mandi, and I decided to take advantage of this offer. I waited patiently in the queue to pay for my purchases to be told that the things I had chosen were not included in the three for two offer. It said on the shelf that they were indeed three for two, but it appears that Boots operate an offer akin to a secret code. I went back into the shop and chose another three items, to be told once again that they weren't in the three for two offer. On my third attempt, I left the basket of shopping on the checkout, turned on my heels and walked out of the shop. Mandi later informed me that they have two separate 'three for two' offers, one for bathroom/beauty, and one for gifts. My argument was that I wanted something that was on one hand a bathroom/beauty product, but packaged as a gift, which side does this fall on? It turns out that even the staff in Boots aren't one hundred percent sure themselves. Once I had calmed down, I went back into Boots and bought two items at full price. As much as I like the idea of saving money, I don't want to spend so long in a branch of Boots that I end up dieing in there.
As if that wasn't bad enough, I then went to WHSmith to buy Mandi a book that she was after. The book had a sticker on announcing that I could buy two books for twenty pounds. The book was about fourteen pounds, so for two at twenty I would be winning. The only problem was that every single book in WHSmith had a different sticker on it; 'Two for £20', 'Buy one get one half price', 'buy two for the price of three', 'buy two, get a free DVD', 'find another book with this sticker on it and we'll give you a million pounds and sex with the shop assistant of your choice', the list went on. I bought the book, and ignored the offer stickers. You could spend days in WHSmith and never get a decent match. If I had the code breaking ability to crack these offers, Mandi could have had several extra presents and I would have saved literally tens of pounds.
I remember one Christmas in our old flat on a main road, when I heard police cars whizzing past and remarking that it wasn't very Christmassy a sound to hear. I had the idea for the police to take out a newspaper advert, and poster adverts in bus shelters and bill boards, asking that people don't do anything massively illegal at least on Christmas Day. That way, although they can be on call, the police can go home to family rather than hanging around the station waiting for something to happen.
After the meal, we carried on drinking around a couple of pubs, including an Irish bar that we had never seen before. I must walk around with my eyes closed, as it is on Mansfield Road (a very busy road in the centre of town for non-Nottinghammers), on the side of Victoria Centre. Maybe this is a magic pub that inhabits an alleyway and only materialises at Christmas? I'm trying to do a scenario from The Man In The Santa Claus Suit, a film nobody reading this will have heard of. After we had said goodbye to Katy, we went to The Willow Tree for a pint, and then bought an unnecessary in hindsight bag of chips to eat at home.
We had another fairly full day planned today, in which we had to finish our Christmas shopping. I'm not known for my calm and patient nature when it comes to the city centre on a Saturday afternoon as it is, but the last Saturday afternoon before Christmas Day nearly tipped me over the edge and there was a feeling that I might have, (despite not being a violent man at all), ended today by punching someone squarely in the face just because I had been bumped into one too many times. There was one aspect of Christmas shopping that I hadn't prepared for however, and that is the mythical 'three for two' offer at Boots.
There were a few things that I wanted to get from Boots for Mandi, and I decided to take advantage of this offer. I waited patiently in the queue to pay for my purchases to be told that the things I had chosen were not included in the three for two offer. It said on the shelf that they were indeed three for two, but it appears that Boots operate an offer akin to a secret code. I went back into the shop and chose another three items, to be told once again that they weren't in the three for two offer. On my third attempt, I left the basket of shopping on the checkout, turned on my heels and walked out of the shop. Mandi later informed me that they have two separate 'three for two' offers, one for bathroom/beauty, and one for gifts. My argument was that I wanted something that was on one hand a bathroom/beauty product, but packaged as a gift, which side does this fall on? It turns out that even the staff in Boots aren't one hundred percent sure themselves. Once I had calmed down, I went back into Boots and bought two items at full price. As much as I like the idea of saving money, I don't want to spend so long in a branch of Boots that I end up dieing in there.
As if that wasn't bad enough, I then went to WHSmith to buy Mandi a book that she was after. The book had a sticker on announcing that I could buy two books for twenty pounds. The book was about fourteen pounds, so for two at twenty I would be winning. The only problem was that every single book in WHSmith had a different sticker on it; 'Two for £20', 'Buy one get one half price', 'buy two for the price of three', 'buy two, get a free DVD', 'find another book with this sticker on it and we'll give you a million pounds and sex with the shop assistant of your choice', the list went on. I bought the book, and ignored the offer stickers. You could spend days in WHSmith and never get a decent match. If I had the code breaking ability to crack these offers, Mandi could have had several extra presents and I would have saved literally tens of pounds.
Friday 21 December 2012
I've written before about how we all have a collection of Christmas films that come out at the same time as the decorations, and how the holiday wouldn't be complete without some of them. We have been mainly watching different films of A Christmas Carol this year, mainly because I'm researching them for a book. Last night when we came back from dinner we watched Kelsey Grammer's musical version which took liberties with the book, but did add an interesting back story to some of the characters. I suppose you can pretty much do what you like seeing as the book is obviously out of copyright restrictions. It was like watching a long episode of Who's Line Is It Anyway? in which Clive Anderson gave them a situation involving a mean old man and some ghosts and told them to tell a story.
There is one film that I always insist on watching, although no other member of my family ever shares my enthusiasm, so I end up watching Santa Claus Conquers The Martians alone. Actually, Mandi was in the room, but was on her laptop. She checked to see when the film was made, as I imagined it to be a 1950s production, but it was made in 1963. Hollywood's idea of martians hasn't really changed since those days, and thankfully, neither has Santa Claus. He smoked a pipe in this, which I always like to see. Political correctness and a change in attitudes towards smoking being depicted has taken Santa's pipe away in recent times, but it is worth noting that in The Night Before Christmas, (which is where we get our image of Santa, not Coca-Cola despite popular legend) Santa had a pipe. I'm sure if Santa was real, he'd be a pipe smoker and why not? It would be a different story if he had a fag on, or took heroin. But then again...
There is one film that I always insist on watching, although no other member of my family ever shares my enthusiasm, so I end up watching Santa Claus Conquers The Martians alone. Actually, Mandi was in the room, but was on her laptop. She checked to see when the film was made, as I imagined it to be a 1950s production, but it was made in 1963. Hollywood's idea of martians hasn't really changed since those days, and thankfully, neither has Santa Claus. He smoked a pipe in this, which I always like to see. Political correctness and a change in attitudes towards smoking being depicted has taken Santa's pipe away in recent times, but it is worth noting that in The Night Before Christmas, (which is where we get our image of Santa, not Coca-Cola despite popular legend) Santa had a pipe. I'm sure if Santa was real, he'd be a pipe smoker and why not? It would be a different story if he had a fag on, or took heroin. But then again...
No brand loyalty!
I digress. What I love about this film is its inherent crappness, as it falls into the 'so bad it's brilliant' category. Charity Shop Film Guide was created with that in mind, the enjoyment of finding an obscure film that you can watch and laugh both with it and at it at the same time. I had planned at one point to branch out the Charity Shop Guide ethos into a show about vinyl albums found at charity shops, (usually brass bands, Mrs Mills, Max Bygraves, and compilation albums that don't feature the original artists), to further celebrate the rubbish end of the entertainment industry. There's something that appeals to me about trying to deliberately make something piss-poor in order to champion the underdog. I spent ages pitching the idea of a semi-regular film showing based on the Charity Shop Film Guide series to Screen 22 and Broadway cinema a while ago, but they both turned the idea down. When Broadway cinema decided to steal my idea and turn it into Bad Film Night, it was a success so I know that the idea does have legs.
It was interesting for me to find out that Santa Claus Conquers The Martians is what is known as an 'orphan film', which basically means that nobody owns the rights to it. This is why it is always available on cheap label DVD, (I paid a fiver for it a couple of years ago), because anyone can choose to release it. This means that a remake would be relatively easy to do. The problem with remaking it though, is keeping it rubbish. The beauty of the film is how cheap it looks, it would still have to look like it was made as a Blue Peter project otherwise something would be lost. To make a sexed up alien film with fancy effects would ruin it somehow, in the same way that the old Doctor Who episodes from the 1970s look better than the modern ones. You can appreciate the effort that went into a rubber costumed monster on a planet that looks like a quarry, especially next to today's lazy CGI effects.
Thursday 20 December 2012
I can't believe that today was the first time I used Thea Caffea, an old fashioned English tea shop in Nottingham city centre. Hidden away down Enfield Chambers, it is like stepping back in time to the days when Lyons Corner Houses were as ubiqutus as Starbucks is today, (although they were a lot nicer obviously). Waitresses dressed in black and white, mismatched china, proper tea in a pot, (not tea leaves), and home made cakes. The good old fashioned tea shop is making something of a comeback, which is a good thing as they can serve future generations. Thea Caffea was 80% old women who had probably been going there, (or somewhere like it) since time began, but it was nice to see some younger people in too. It's nice to use the cool places like Lee Rosy or Hartley's, but you can't beat using fine china for your afternoon tea. A pot of tea for two of us, which gave us two cups, and a slice of Christmas cake each, came to eight pounds, which isn't bad for a nice place like that.
It was my nan's birthday this week, and so we had all arranged a family meal at The Willow Tree, but this time my uncle, aunt, and cousins came along too. As with all social occasions, I was really nervous beforehand for some reason. Despite my bravado, I'm actually very shy in situations such as this. My family are great and there was no need whatsoever for me to feel this way, and it was great to see them all again.
We watched Eastenders on iplayer when we got back, which has been consistently brilliant all year. Now that Jamie Forman has left the show, someone needs to cast him as Dick Dastardly in the live action remake of Wacky Races.
It was my nan's birthday this week, and so we had all arranged a family meal at The Willow Tree, but this time my uncle, aunt, and cousins came along too. As with all social occasions, I was really nervous beforehand for some reason. Despite my bravado, I'm actually very shy in situations such as this. My family are great and there was no need whatsoever for me to feel this way, and it was great to see them all again.
We watched Eastenders on iplayer when we got back, which has been consistently brilliant all year. Now that Jamie Forman has left the show, someone needs to cast him as Dick Dastardly in the live action remake of Wacky Races.
Wednesday 19 December 2012
It occurred to me writing yesterday's blog that there isn't a Sunday Alternative Christmas special this year, which is a bit of a pity. I had (since about May) had a series of festive themed shows lined up for the 2nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd of December, with a special 'it is still Christmas' show lined up for the 30th of December and a Christmas close down show on January 6th. There was also going to be a special comic show on Boxing Day in which I played the worst cover versions in history, given my notoriety for playing covers. Obviously these were all going to be Trent Sound shows, so I'll have to leave it to my former colleagues to spread Christmas cheer. I think it's a shame that Trent Sound weren't granted an FM licence this year, as it gave a little extra spark to the Christmas broadcasts last year. Tonight I listened to Notts Live, sadly only catching the last hour in which they played some of Nottingham's best Christmas tunes. A few of them can be heard again on my show for Robin Hood Radio this coming weekend. The nearest thing to a Christmas special this year is the returning podcast series Steve's LP Box, which I have recorded today and is now available to listen to. Although I am also doing a Christmas edition of The Sound Of Nottingham UK, so I'm not ignoring the festive season altogether. It would be nice to do a live show towards Christmas, maybe next year will bring that back.
I fancy the idea of filming a traditional Christmas special, in the same style as those shows that used to be always on at this time of year. Val Doonican, Max Bygraves, Bing Crosby, and even Johnny Cash made this kind of show. There isn't anything like it nowadays, and even though it wouldn't get on television, it would be a good thing to put online on Christmas Eve. Obviously to maintain the traditions of Christmas specials, I would film it in the summer.
I fancy the idea of filming a traditional Christmas special, in the same style as those shows that used to be always on at this time of year. Val Doonican, Max Bygraves, Bing Crosby, and even Johnny Cash made this kind of show. There isn't anything like it nowadays, and even though it wouldn't get on television, it would be a good thing to put online on Christmas Eve. Obviously to maintain the traditions of Christmas specials, I would film it in the summer.
Tuesday 18 December 2012
It's hard to believe that it is two years since I recorded the Christmas edition of my show on Sherwood Radio, and having heard it today for the first time in a year, I'm pleased to see how it has stood the test of time. The mix of old songs, Christmas number one hits, and alternative Christmas classics made it an almost perfect Christmas radio show. Last year I did a Christmas show in two parts on Trent Sound, in which we ran through the Christmas number ones in order, but it fell apart in the second half as the quality of the songs dropped dramatically. The second show, on New Year's Day this year, was a risky one for me to do with my reputation in broadcasting, but I managed to pull it back and The Sunday Alternative carried on untarnished.
The Christmas show on Sherwood Radio went out on Tuesday 21st December 2010, and went down so well that I decided to have an 'as live' repeat of it last year on Tuesday 20th. It is online at the Internet archive, and is available to download. When I get time I'd like to eventually put them all on Mixcloud, but that has so far eluded me. I am thinking of re-recording the show without all the Sherwood Radio mentions, (although it is always amusing to hear those adverts for ironing services) and syndicating it around radio stations for a regular Christmas airing. It would actually make a good television show on one of the music channels, they are full of Christmas countdowns at this time of year. Among the usual annual blasts of Slade, Shakin' Stevens, and Mud, there is a gap in the market for an alternative Christmas collection.
If I remember, I'll stick it on my to-do list.
The Christmas show on Sherwood Radio went out on Tuesday 21st December 2010, and went down so well that I decided to have an 'as live' repeat of it last year on Tuesday 20th. It is online at the Internet archive, and is available to download. When I get time I'd like to eventually put them all on Mixcloud, but that has so far eluded me. I am thinking of re-recording the show without all the Sherwood Radio mentions, (although it is always amusing to hear those adverts for ironing services) and syndicating it around radio stations for a regular Christmas airing. It would actually make a good television show on one of the music channels, they are full of Christmas countdowns at this time of year. Among the usual annual blasts of Slade, Shakin' Stevens, and Mud, there is a gap in the market for an alternative Christmas collection.
If I remember, I'll stick it on my to-do list.
Monday 17 December 2012
I have always been nocturnal by nature, even when I was a baby I would stay awake until the small hours before sleeping all day. This trait has never really left me, and these days I find that I work better at night. Writing my blog, articles, reviews, even recording the podcasts and radio shows, are all done after midnight. I once read that we only need four hours sleep a night, or multiples of four. That is how I do it now, but every now and again my body crashes and I need to catch up on my sleep. Last night I went to bed at seven o'clock, (only intending to go for an afternoon nap), and woke up at ten o'clock this morning. Fifteen hours sleep is not a multiple of four, which might be why I felt fuzzy headed for most of the day.
There was, and still is, a huge list of things that I want to get done before Christmas that I might not. On Sunday I'm going to collect Emily, and then it's Christmas Eve, Day, and Boxing Day so I don't want to be working then. In fact, I don't really want to be working until after Christmas. The Sunday Alternative returns on January 6th, but in this incarnation it will be pre-recorded, which means I'm recording that on Saturday 5th, so the Christmas holiday isn't going to work out properly for me at all. At some point this week, I want to record the Christmas edition of Steve's LP Box, and the Robin Hood Radio show, but time is running out.
The proposed book First Draft, a collection of my music and comedy reviews before I snip them into newspaper sized write ups, might not happen this side of Christmas now due to time. I will probably stick it out as a new year thing, to catch all the Kindles that Santa delivered.
There was, and still is, a huge list of things that I want to get done before Christmas that I might not. On Sunday I'm going to collect Emily, and then it's Christmas Eve, Day, and Boxing Day so I don't want to be working then. In fact, I don't really want to be working until after Christmas. The Sunday Alternative returns on January 6th, but in this incarnation it will be pre-recorded, which means I'm recording that on Saturday 5th, so the Christmas holiday isn't going to work out properly for me at all. At some point this week, I want to record the Christmas edition of Steve's LP Box, and the Robin Hood Radio show, but time is running out.
The proposed book First Draft, a collection of my music and comedy reviews before I snip them into newspaper sized write ups, might not happen this side of Christmas now due to time. I will probably stick it out as a new year thing, to catch all the Kindles that Santa delivered.
Sunday 16 December 2012
We both woke late this morning, so late that we felt the need to text my dad to say that we'd be a bit late for lunch, (my nana is obsessed with time, and if we aren't there by a certain time then she badgers my dad to ring us, trouble is I don't know what our certain time is). As it turned out, we were there for half one anyway, which is our usual time to arrive.
It seems strange not working on a Sunday night anymore, but it is nice to not have to clock watch. Helping myself to another plate full of food is also nice, as is the feeling of having a proper Sunday. This afternoon we went to the Arboretum for the annual Christmas event, with brass bands and pretend mulled wine. There seemed to be a bigger turn out than last year, but a lot of the people there were the wrong kind of people for a thing like this. We missed the brass band, but we caught the choir singing some carols. Too many people talked all the way through the songs, a group of chavvy looking girls behind us were trying to sing along in a mocking fashion, and children were running around the bandstand seemingly with their parents blessing. These weren't Arboretum people, next year they should organise an event to take place at the same time at the forest, as they seemed more of a forest crowd.
The feral children who were running around the bandstand rather than watching the show had obviously not had the fear of Santa's naughty list instilled in them. You would imagine that if you had no control over your child, or no idea how to teach them about discipline, then this time of year should be ideal. All you have to do is tell them about Santa's preferential treatment of good children, and you're laughing. When I was a kid, I lived in fear of the connection between my behaviour and Christmas presents, or rather the potential lack of them. What made this worse was that there was a man dressed as Santa in attendance, (not the real Santa of course, he's far too busy at this time of year to piss about with this sort of thing), and the kids were misbehaving in front of him. That is how Britain became broken, the fear of authority has gone. These kids will grow up to become the kids who aren't worried about the consequence of telling their teacher to fuck off, safe in the knowledge that the teacher can't really do anything about it.
It starts with Santa. If these little shits had to suffer a Christmas with no presents, then we could reverse the tide and bring back respect.
It seems strange not working on a Sunday night anymore, but it is nice to not have to clock watch. Helping myself to another plate full of food is also nice, as is the feeling of having a proper Sunday. This afternoon we went to the Arboretum for the annual Christmas event, with brass bands and pretend mulled wine. There seemed to be a bigger turn out than last year, but a lot of the people there were the wrong kind of people for a thing like this. We missed the brass band, but we caught the choir singing some carols. Too many people talked all the way through the songs, a group of chavvy looking girls behind us were trying to sing along in a mocking fashion, and children were running around the bandstand seemingly with their parents blessing. These weren't Arboretum people, next year they should organise an event to take place at the same time at the forest, as they seemed more of a forest crowd.
The feral children who were running around the bandstand rather than watching the show had obviously not had the fear of Santa's naughty list instilled in them. You would imagine that if you had no control over your child, or no idea how to teach them about discipline, then this time of year should be ideal. All you have to do is tell them about Santa's preferential treatment of good children, and you're laughing. When I was a kid, I lived in fear of the connection between my behaviour and Christmas presents, or rather the potential lack of them. What made this worse was that there was a man dressed as Santa in attendance, (not the real Santa of course, he's far too busy at this time of year to piss about with this sort of thing), and the kids were misbehaving in front of him. That is how Britain became broken, the fear of authority has gone. These kids will grow up to become the kids who aren't worried about the consequence of telling their teacher to fuck off, safe in the knowledge that the teacher can't really do anything about it.
It starts with Santa. If these little shits had to suffer a Christmas with no presents, then we could reverse the tide and bring back respect.
Saturday 15 December 2012
People of Nottingham will be aware of Lee Rosy, the independently run cafe in Hockley, a rather cool and hipster-ish part of Nottingham City Centre. It is where the artistic, creative folk go for coffee, tea, and homemade cakes. The trouble is that it is always really busy, with a three tier hierarchy of seating; the basement, the cafe area, and finally the window when you've really made it. Getting a seat is always a problem, and even earning the nickname of 'Nottingham's Mr Radio' doesn't cut any ice. You can't even get yourself a window seat if you have a radio show in America that champions Nottingham music. Nothing cuts any ice with these people, everyone is treated equally, which I don't agree with as they sometimes allow people in who aren't even in the media. I am joking of course, the staff shouldn't give preferential treatment to anyone, regardless of what they do.
Around the corner from Lee Rosy is another independent cafe called Hartley's. A little while ago I came up with an advertising slogan for Hartley's, "For when Lee Rosy is full". Hartley's sells a range of hot drinks, from ordinary tea and coffee right up to the fancy daft-achinos and croissants, but also sell bacon sandwiches and such. It doesn't really know if it wants to be a basic cafe, or a hip hang out, and falls somewhere in between. Mandi and I went in there again today, because Lee Rosy was full. The strange thing was that Hartley's soon filled up, I wondered out loud, (on Twitter) where people were supposed to go now. I told Mandi that we should open a cafe in Hockley called 'Third Resort', marketed as the place to go when Lee Rosy is full, and Hartley's is full. If both were full, then people would have to come to us.
To be honest, I think I am starting to prefer Hartley's to Lee Rosy. Maybe it's because you can at least get a seat. It's a smaller place with fewer seats, most of them round the window so you are sure to get a window seat. It isn't as pretentious and elitist as Lee Rosy, although it is just pretentious enough to keep the riff raff out.
We went our separate ways to go Christmas shopping, although I only managed to pick up a few bits. What I did manage though, was a visit to the newly opened mushy pea stall in Victoria Centre. Sadly, it wasn't very busy for a Saturday afternoon, which made me wonder why I hadn't been invited along to the Nottingham native coach trip that had obviously been organised without me and the four people at the stall, and also wonder where all the thousands of people in town were actually from? A non-mushy pea eating place that's for sure. I had met up with my dad to come here, and congratulated the boss on his stall. He knew all about mushy peagate, and made a point of telling us how everything was home made. Next time, I imagine the queues will snake around the entire Victoria Centre, after all, everyone moaned when the pea stall closed down before!
I love a nice Christmas effort
Around the corner from Lee Rosy is another independent cafe called Hartley's. A little while ago I came up with an advertising slogan for Hartley's, "For when Lee Rosy is full". Hartley's sells a range of hot drinks, from ordinary tea and coffee right up to the fancy daft-achinos and croissants, but also sell bacon sandwiches and such. It doesn't really know if it wants to be a basic cafe, or a hip hang out, and falls somewhere in between. Mandi and I went in there again today, because Lee Rosy was full. The strange thing was that Hartley's soon filled up, I wondered out loud, (on Twitter) where people were supposed to go now. I told Mandi that we should open a cafe in Hockley called 'Third Resort', marketed as the place to go when Lee Rosy is full, and Hartley's is full. If both were full, then people would have to come to us.
To be honest, I think I am starting to prefer Hartley's to Lee Rosy. Maybe it's because you can at least get a seat. It's a smaller place with fewer seats, most of them round the window so you are sure to get a window seat. It isn't as pretentious and elitist as Lee Rosy, although it is just pretentious enough to keep the riff raff out.
We went our separate ways to go Christmas shopping, although I only managed to pick up a few bits. What I did manage though, was a visit to the newly opened mushy pea stall in Victoria Centre. Sadly, it wasn't very busy for a Saturday afternoon, which made me wonder why I hadn't been invited along to the Nottingham native coach trip that had obviously been organised without me and the four people at the stall, and also wonder where all the thousands of people in town were actually from? A non-mushy pea eating place that's for sure. I had met up with my dad to come here, and congratulated the boss on his stall. He knew all about mushy peagate, and made a point of telling us how everything was home made. Next time, I imagine the queues will snake around the entire Victoria Centre, after all, everyone moaned when the pea stall closed down before!
Friday 14 December 2012
Everybody is guilty from time to time, of seeing a news report from abroad, and not giving it your attention because it is too far away to be of concern. However, mainly due to checking Twitter while I was out this afternoon, I pieced together the fact that there had been a shooting in a school in America. This jolted me when I listened to the radio and realised where in America. My connection to Connecticut is tenuous, but the recognition was enough to make me sit up and take notice of this terrible story. Some fucking lunatic managed to get into a school and shoot children and teachers. You can't imagine what life is like right now for the families of the victims.
Mandi and I went to my dad's for tea, and I took along a DVD of A Christmas Carol to watch afterwards. I have fallen behind a bit in my mission to watch a daily version, so will be writing a guide book to versions, rather than a day-to-day guide as originally planned. This version starred Albert Finnay, doing an old man voice for Scrooge, and doing his impression of Arthur Seaton as the younger self. Unless that's the only voice he can do.
Mandi and I went to my dad's for tea, and I took along a DVD of A Christmas Carol to watch afterwards. I have fallen behind a bit in my mission to watch a daily version, so will be writing a guide book to versions, rather than a day-to-day guide as originally planned. This version starred Albert Finnay, doing an old man voice for Scrooge, and doing his impression of Arthur Seaton as the younger self. Unless that's the only voice he can do.
Thursday 13 December 2012
There was once a time, believe it or not, when The British Comedy Awards was the ultimate awards ceremony of the year, unpredictable and dangerous with more than any show's fair quota of so-called 'water cooler moments'. Over the last few years it has become a watered down shell of what it used to be, down to this year's demotion to midweek rather than prime time on Saturday night.
Best Entertainment Comedy Programme:
Harry Hill's TV Burp was victorious, with Graham Norton and Alan Carr's chat shows nominated, along with Celebrity Juice, which somehow found itself nominated in a category with the words 'Best', 'Entertainment', and 'Comedy' in the title. The award for Harry Hill was well deserved, as Saturday evenings on ITV have never been the same, the nation used to come to a standstill for Burp, which could be why this year's X-Factor wasn't the same.
Best Sketch Show:
This went to a show called Cardinal Burns. Me neither.
Best Sitcom:
Hunderby. Me neither.
Best New Comedy Programme:
Hunderby. Me neither.
Best TV Comedy Actor/Actress
Peter Capaldi and Rebecca Front for The Thick of It, which given the competition was fairly easily won.
Best Male Television Comic:
Lee Mack, although any of his fellow nominations could have won; Sean Lock, Harry Hill, and David Mitchell.
Best Female Television Comic:
Jo Brand won, although I'd have preferred Nina Conti to have picked up the prize. She's not really a television comic though.
Best Comedy Entertainment Personality:
Charlie Brooker picked up the prize, although he didn't thank Victor Lewis Smith for the inspiration in his acceptance speech.
Best Comedy Breakthrough Artist:
Morgana Robinson, who I've only seen a bit of. I'd have voted for Nina Conti again if I'd been in charge.
The Writer's Guild Of Great Britain Award:
Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer once again prove how fuck-brained the BBC's decision to axe Shooting Stars was.
Outstanding Achievement Award:
Once known as the lifetime achievement, Sacha Baron Cohen delivered a brilliant speech in character as Ali G. The fact that someone so young (in comparison to past winners) took this gong means that all the legends have either already been given the award, or are dead.
The 2012 King or Queen of Comedy:
Jack Whitehall, so I'm not entirely sure exactly which side of the title was won.
I also wonder if Jonathon Ross is the right person to host proceedings these days. He was brilliant in his day, but rarely raised a titter with his introduction routine.
They also need to give a special award for innovation to Richard Herring, but probably never will.
Best Entertainment Comedy Programme:
Harry Hill's TV Burp was victorious, with Graham Norton and Alan Carr's chat shows nominated, along with Celebrity Juice, which somehow found itself nominated in a category with the words 'Best', 'Entertainment', and 'Comedy' in the title. The award for Harry Hill was well deserved, as Saturday evenings on ITV have never been the same, the nation used to come to a standstill for Burp, which could be why this year's X-Factor wasn't the same.
Best Sketch Show:
This went to a show called Cardinal Burns. Me neither.
Best Sitcom:
Hunderby. Me neither.
Best New Comedy Programme:
Hunderby. Me neither.
Best TV Comedy Actor/Actress
Peter Capaldi and Rebecca Front for The Thick of It, which given the competition was fairly easily won.
Best Male Television Comic:
Lee Mack, although any of his fellow nominations could have won; Sean Lock, Harry Hill, and David Mitchell.
Best Female Television Comic:
Jo Brand won, although I'd have preferred Nina Conti to have picked up the prize. She's not really a television comic though.
Best Comedy Entertainment Personality:
Charlie Brooker picked up the prize, although he didn't thank Victor Lewis Smith for the inspiration in his acceptance speech.
Best Comedy Breakthrough Artist:
Morgana Robinson, who I've only seen a bit of. I'd have voted for Nina Conti again if I'd been in charge.
The Writer's Guild Of Great Britain Award:
Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer once again prove how fuck-brained the BBC's decision to axe Shooting Stars was.
Outstanding Achievement Award:
Once known as the lifetime achievement, Sacha Baron Cohen delivered a brilliant speech in character as Ali G. The fact that someone so young (in comparison to past winners) took this gong means that all the legends have either already been given the award, or are dead.
The 2012 King or Queen of Comedy:
Jack Whitehall, so I'm not entirely sure exactly which side of the title was won.
I also wonder if Jonathon Ross is the right person to host proceedings these days. He was brilliant in his day, but rarely raised a titter with his introduction routine.
They also need to give a special award for innovation to Richard Herring, but probably never will.
Wednesday 12 December 2012
I've never done an end of year list, as I can never remember what books or records I have bought during the calender year. Also, I buy so much old music, (I prefer 'classic') and receive a lot of new stuff in the post, (a lot of my CDs have the line 'promo copy, not for sale' on them. I once thought it would make a good album title, but it might backfire in the same way as calling your band TBC would), so it's hard for me to judge. So I've decided to attempt a list, in the form of an award ceremony. I did think of making some awards and presenting them to each person, but I really couldn't be arsed.
The Steve Oliver Awards
Gig of the year: Captain Dangerous
The album launch party for The Empire Never Ended took place at the Rescue Rooms on June 2nd with a headline gig backed by a sixteen piece orchestra. It showed why Captain Dangerous are one of, if not the, best bands in Nottingham. I know they divide opinion, but they are woefully underrated and deserve the success that less worthy artists are running away with at the moment. I saw Guns and Roses at the Arena few weeks before this, and Captain Dangerous put on a far better show. There will be a day in the future when some of us will be able to say that we saw Captain Dangerous in the relatively intimate surroundings of the Rescue Rooms, and the queue outside the sold out Nottingham Arena won't believe a word of it.
Bar staff of the year (club/venue): Glee
The staff at Glee are attentive, efficient, and polite, exchanging a polite chatter if time permits. In other words, they are a disgrace to the job!
Event of the year (music): Branch Out Festival
A Sunday afternoon/night of the cream of Nottingham's music talent, stretched over the cream of Nottingham's music venues. I felt stressed out trying to plot my route around the day making sure I saw the best bands, so I can't begin to imagine how stressful the organisation was.
Scandal of the year: Mushy peagate
Goose Fair was rocked this year when THE mushy pea stall did away with the traditional bowl and ladle of mint sauce, in favour of the shop-bought squirty bottle. Hopefully, order will be restored for Goose Fair 2013.
Event of the year (none-music): Sillitoe Day
The launch of the Alan Sillitoe smartphone app, which lets you follow the locations from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. It featured talks from historians, writers, and readings by David Sillitoe, and took place at Nottingham Contemporary, (making it the only good reason to go into the place that I've ever witnessed, apart from when they have bands on).
Thing of the year: Nottingham Trend
On April 20th, Tony Bates prompted everyone in Nottingham to tweet about all that is good with our city using the hashtag #Nottingham. This led to #Nottinghamrocks becoming a massive trending topic on May 29th, showing everyone unlucky enough not to live here how they are missing out.
Tuesday 11 December 2012
I begin with a slight confession, the remit behind my series Steve's LP Box was that it had to not only be a classic album, but one that I actually own. Having started life on Trent Sound, I intend on bringing the show back as a podcast in the new year, which has the advantage of not being hampered by the 58 minutes required by radio (an hour is actually 58 minutes due to the hourly news). This means that I can do longer albums without having to omit songs, or a shorter album without having to pad. To bridge the gap until the new series, (available exclusively as a podcast), I decided to make a Christmas special, which is where my confession comes in.
My vinyl copy of Phil Spector's Christmas Album went missing a while ago, and I haven't been able to replace it. Not on vinyl anyway, and I kept hitting a confusing brick wall every time I tried to Google it. Instead of the album I was thinking about, I kept finding A Christmas Gift For You From Philles Records, or A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector, and the cover wasn't what I remembered.
My vinyl copy of Phil Spector's Christmas Album went missing a while ago, and I haven't been able to replace it. Not on vinyl anyway, and I kept hitting a confusing brick wall every time I tried to Google it. Instead of the album I was thinking about, I kept finding A Christmas Gift For You From Philles Records, or A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector, and the cover wasn't what I remembered.
The tracklisting however, was exactly as I remembered it:
- Darlene Love 'White Christmas'
- The Ronettes 'Frosty The Snowman'
- Bob B Soxx and The Blue Jeans 'The Bells Of St Mary's'
- The Crystals 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town'
- The Ronettes 'Sleigh Ride'
- Darlene Love 'Marshmallow World'
In those days, we had to lift the whole thing up, and put it down again. You kids don't know you're born with your auto-reverse on your cassette Walkmans.
- The Ronettes 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus'
- The Crystals 'Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer'
- Darlene Love 'Winter Wonderland'
- The Crystals 'Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers'
- Darlene Love 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)'
- Bob B Soxx and The Blue Jeans 'Here Comes Santa Claus'
- Phil Spector and Artists 'Silent Night'
Further research taught me that the album I was thinking of, and the album I kept finding, where in fact the same thing. However, A Christmas Gift For You was the original album, released in 1963. I was thinking of this...
...which was a free gift with this...
...not that it really matters, as they are both essentially the same album.
So this will be the first and only addition to Steve's LP Box that I don't own, although I did once so I'm counting it. In order to be able to do this edition, I had to download the album.
Listening to the album instantly brought back a flood of memories of childhood Christmases. Phil Spector's Christmas Album was one of our family's Christmas collection and it made its annual debut on decorations day. Even after not hearing it for so long, I knew the order inside out. I have written somewhere before about how the ipod shuffle option has ruined our knowledge of tracklistings, in the old days we could hear a song and know what was coming next because we remembered from the album. Once 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' comes to an end, we know that 'Come As You Are' is coming up next. The opening bass riff to 'Another One Bites The Dust' enters our brains as soon as the cymbal crash climax to 'Bohemian Rhapsody' fades away. There's even an old rock n' roll compilation that my dad used to have on in the car when we went swimming that I still have, and even now when I hear 'At The Hop', I expect 'Barbara Ann' to follow.
I digress. Phil Spector's Christmas Album is a masterpiece. It isn't just one of the best Christmas albums ever, it is one of the best albums full stop. Every song is a work of art, you will smell the pine of the tree just as soon as the needle touches the record, (quote for the sleeve should they ever reissue). Memories came flooding back with every track, but the memories were one rose-tinted amalgamation of childhood Christmas. I don't even think all the memories were mine to be honest, that is the power of this particular album. I was transported back to the happiest period of my childhood, when we lived in Norfolk. The decorations are up, (my mum used to go to town with the Christmas decorations, which is where I probably get it from), and all the family are there. The school has one of those cardboard pillar boxes for us to post cards to our friends, (my 13 year old daughter recently tweeted that she was sad that senior school doesn't have the school postal system, and I share her pain, it's one of those harsh realities of growing up), the snow is falling, and we had mince pies and pop after the school play.
My portrayal as a waiter is one that I have no recollection of.
In my image of this Christmas past, both sets of grandparents are there, as is my younger brother. This is the problem, we only lived in Norfolk for a short amount of time, and only spent two Christmases there. My paternal grandparents spent Christmas 1985 with us, and then my grandad died in February 1986. My younger brother was born in January 1987, just before we moved to Hastings, so never actually spent a Christmas in Norfolk. What I'm conjuring up in my head is the perfect Christmas that I've been striving for in adulthood, but never actually had. I've had very enjoyable Christmases, but I'm always aiming for an image of Christmas that is seen in adverts.
The podcast will be available later on at some point, certainly before Christmas Eve.
I listened to the album in its entirety, the hairs on my arms standing on end from the opening bars of 'White Christmas'. By the end of it I was in tears and covered in goose pimples.
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