Discovering and rediscovering nursery rhymes

In July 2022 I became a father for the first time. Given my age I suggested calling him Chesney as he might be the one and only, but my idea was met with tumbleweed.

This post isn't about me as such, nor to a certain extent him either, but being reunited with nursery rhymes. They are fantastic, aren't they, not least because it gives me the perfect excuse to sing and dance around like a twat. I met my partner at a karaoke bar back in 2005 so as you can imagine we consider singing the rhymes more of a pleasure than a chore. I can't speak for all parents but shuffling nursery rhymes is a great way of engaging with children, and it relaxes our son (at the time of writing of course). One night he had a nightmare that prompted relentless screaming. The biggest problem was that he was still asleep. Thankfully, knowing that nursery rhymes worked a treat when the chips were down, he stopped crying immediately, woke up and gave me a look that said, 'and your problem is?'.

Mind you, I'd forgotten how dark some of the rhymes are. Humpty Dumpty and Jack and Jill with their broken skulls, a baby falling from a treetop, malnourished animals, butchered blind mice, and Wee Willie Winkie, who comes across as someone you wouldn't leave your kids with. 

Other than various ducks disappearing from mummy but rescued, where are the happy endings? Even an episode of Peppa Pig posed that question. Bambi and The Snowman still torture me today. I mean, yes, snow melts so it's not an unpredictable ending but maybe there could be an edited version with a note saying 'see you next year' or something.

The rhymes are an intriguing mix, not just for the content but the tunes themselves; inevitably within the shuffle there will be different versions of the same song - one with a strong melody, one with a different melody, one with different lyrics, one immaculately produced, another down to its bare bones, etc. One version of I Can Sing a Rainbow misses the uplifting part ('Listen to your eyes', etc), which makes me wonder whether it was pure laziness, the composer didn't know the chords, or his/her keyboard ran out of memory after 1 minute 30 seconds.

The deeper the dive, the more interesting it gets. A general search or request (for example, 'play nursery rhymes') will, in London Underground terms, provide a general mix akin to the Circle Line; it's the same rhymes every time, albeit random. However, if you request a specific 'station' on the Circle Line ( let's say Baker Street), it brings in other stations that 'sound like' the said choice because there are several lines running on the... [snore]

In simpler terms, if you find a rhyme you like within the shuffle, you can choose that one next time and it will bring in other rhymes, and the more you do this, the more familiar you become with the artists or production team.    

One record label I discovered, Loulou and Lou, produces a range of music and other materials for babies and young children with visual impairment, instrumental lullabies and rhymes in foreign languages. Good stuff. However, I came across their mainstream rhymes, which I initially thought were intriguing; for example, a version of the usually upbeat Simple Simon with melancholy pianos and a male/female duet, a bit like Deacon Blue or Beautiful South. I quite liked it but then I remembered I was a fortysomething and not a baby [insert gag from partner here] and it didn't seem right. I listened on. Along came jazzy versions of Old MacDonald and Ba Ba Black Sheep with Marilyn Monroe-esque vocals and possibly the blandest ever version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. What sort of market were the label aiming at?

I visited Loulou and Lou's home page and there it was:   

"No pre-programmed fuss in our nursery rhymes. All of our music is made with real old-school instruments, by professional musicians, in a real studio. Because music deserves to be made with love, especially music for children!"

That's just wrong in every sense. Nursery rhymes are meant to be fun, aren't they? Catchy with the power to make you hum the tune for hours on end, whether you want to or not. There is a reason why the classics mentioned elsewhere have stood the test of time, so turning them into smug jazz-produced rhymes and draining them of their charm and melody seems farcical to me. Is there genuinely a market for soulless, joyless middle class households with kids chained to a piano and forced to go to classical music classes rather than play football with friends? 

I also discovered, and would recommend, Rainbow Collections, which specialises in tweaked nursery rhymes. Lavender's Blue is beautiful with its Fairytale of New York-esque strings and tinkly synth patterns, as is a similarly-produced gentle version of Little Bo Peep, both part of a lullaby collection. Weirdly, though, my favourite rhyme on that album arguably shouldn't be on there. Ring a ring a roses in isolation is outstanding but because of its structure and the fact it rises to a crescendo towards the end doesn't fit into the idea of settling a baby to sleep.

The most intriguing artist I came across was Rosie Hetherington (who may or may not have been a member of the Top of the Pops dance troop Legs and Co in the 1970s). She first stood out when I heard her version of the prolific Three Little Ducks, which featured rubber duck noises from her Toy Box Band. It sounded tragic when I first heard it, and it didn't help that her voice sounded like a Blue Peter presenter, but the more I listened to her collection the more I realised she was arguably the best fit in terms of engaging with young children. Her rhymes were based on live performance and this doesn't do her justice. Soundtracks generally tend to be disappointing because they don't replicate the context of the rhymes. I go to a singing group on Mondays and it's great fun but I'm sure it would sound terrible if recorded. If I was planning to hire someone for a toddlers' party it would be Rosie or someone of her ilk. It might sound cringeworthy to me but sometimes, to quote a character in Mary Poppins, we have to think of the children.

Anyway, I'll leave you with five of my favourite discoveries. You might sneer and say they are soooo 1975 but who cares.       

Sleepy little Benjamin

This is an example of the Baker Street theory. I asked specifically for the infectious Fish and Chips and Vinegar and it followed up with 'similar artists'. So this was a great find considering it didn't appear in any general searches. And of course, Benjamin can be replaced by your baby's name. 

Five little speckled frogs

If only life was as simple as frogs dipping in the pool and munching some most delicious grub. Glub glub.

Apples and bananas

'I like to eat, eat, eat, apples and bananas'. Just the one line but it cleverly takes us around the vowels, ending with 'I like to ute, ute, ute, uples and bununus'. Bonkers but genius. 

The Bunny Hop

A joyous earworm, so catchy that I have been prone to humming 'Hop, hop, hop like a bunneee' in various locations. 

Say hello to the sun

Sweet dreams matey.

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Alexa, [please] play Saint Etienne

I have an awkward relationship with Alexa (other voice-activated systems are available), which you may have guessed from the title.

You wouldn't tell your kids to bark out orders rather than make polite requests, would you? Well, I hope not. Let's just say I struggled with the 'orders' initially. My partner laughed. I got my own back when she 'ordered' Alexa to play chill-out music to help her sleep and was ignored. She could have just asked me to explain the offside rule. Alexa was clearly waiting for the magic word, or as Sarah Cracknell sings in Saint Etienne's Burnt out car, 'A simple good morning or hello would have done.'

Voice-activated requests orders can be useful, especially if you have kids screaming about. 'Play Teletubbies/The Baby Club/Baby Shark, nursery rhymes, etc' tends to work, unless you have undetectable accents, whether in English or from abroad. Then it's either inadvertent robotic snobbiness, plain human rudeness, or a source of satire. You could of course just uninstall everything and return to the likes of flicking switches like we all used to do. In this new age that sort of thinking fucks everything up in the house, especially when our cleaner visits. 

As I write, I'm unemployed and when I am not applying for jobs me and my partner have a sort of unofficial upstairs-downstairs agreement. She works in the office and I do the mundane stuff, like cooking, dish washing, feeding the cats, clearing up their litter, etc. Nothing wrong with mundane, though; it makes me lose myself and write something like this. The lengthier the mundanity the better it gets. Suddenly I've become a talking head, a Pet Shop Boys fan, along with others - probably Stuart Maconie and David Walliams - mapping out their career and the ups and downs. 'The problem with Behaviour is that, while a beautiful album, it wasn't the dance album everybody was expecting in 1990. It was probably 10 years too early and sales suffered as a result.' Or 'Disco 2000 by Pulp is one the best songs ever written. Almost like a celebration of failure.'

I've become a sucker for Channel 5's talking-head style nostalgic look back at the charts in the 1980s and 90s, the top 30 singles from each year. More talking heads and interesting tit-bits like both members of 2 Unlimited being angry at their record company for stripping a rap from the verses and a full chorus from both No limits and Get ready for this, leaving just the 'Techno, techno, techno, techno' part from the former in the UK release. On hearing snippets from the original versions, suddenly '2 Untalented' and 'There's no lyrics' pastiches become a tad harsh. Then there are the many singles that were supposedly originals but were actually covers of obscure songs from 1968, or cutting-edge remixers back in 1989 like Coldcut, who had hits with the likes of Lisa Stansfield and Yazz before they became famous, looking like bald grandparents with white beards.

One day, when I started cooking a pasta bake, I decided I needed music to reward the mundanity further, and that's where Alexa is at 'her' best. Admittedly soundtracks are hit and miss; Alexa's claim that 'she' is shuffling songs is a bit iffy and narrow. Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Divine Comedy were largely Greatest Hits, and often played in the same order, while Black Box Recorder and Empire of the Sun were limited to one album and usually the one that I didn't know or the one I considered the weakest.

Then I suggested Saint Etienne, one of the most underrated acts in my lifetime. I've always liked them, especially their Smash The System Best of collection, but sometimes album by album it's a tough listen - or rather the albums in isolation don't do them justice. Someone I know said that Saint Etienne were good but their albums were mediocre because they were padded out with instrumentals, interludes and masturbation with grooves and samples as they were unable to write enough conventional pop songs within a short space of time. John Earls, a music reviewer on Channel 4 teletext (that might be in 'ask your parents' territory), described one Saint Etienne album as being 'the usual singles and filler - but WHAT singles. 7/10'. 

But when shuffling Saint Etienne while preparing a pasta bake it all makes sense and my appreciation for them has skyrocketed. One minute I'm dancing like a twat to classic bubblegum pop, the next I'm nodding to raw hip hop, then taking inadvertent time-outs during a cute instrumental or guitar ballad. The only thing that suffers is the pasta bake, which takes twice as long as it should do. Thankfully I usually start making it when neither me or my partner are particularly hungry.

I have especially connected with them since moving to London because they often focus on London and its outskirts. I once saw Mario's Cafe in the distance when I was walking through Camden and Kentish Town, and I used to take a train from London Bridge on the Caterham & Tattenham Corner route on the way to work. It split at Purley and I headed two stops towards Tattenham Corner. The band preferred Whyteleaf to Caterham. Oh well. 

Looks like this week's pasta bake is ready. Alexa, [please] stop.

 

 

  

Two decades in the capital

In 2011 I wrote this, a post about London life. It reads like one of those Tourist Guide reviews on the web. Unique, decent attractions, good transport links but be prepared to feel lonely and skint. Two-and-a-half stars. Well, 10 years on and I’m still in London and no longer that tourist.

Funnily enough my head began to turn not long after I published that post. I stumbled my way into a job as a TV listings sub editor at the Press Association in Howden, not far from Leeds. I had been unemployed for a long time and although I was applying for jobs regularly – about 15 a week – my confidence was so low that these applications became more like vague punts; waiting for the inevitable thanks but no thanks responses. In the evenings I'd go to an Arab cafe to get away from it all and live on the other side of the world for an hour.

The interview invitation email said that it was advisable to get a taxi from Howden station because it was a 30-minute walk to the office. Fair enough. I reached the station at about 11.30, expecting to find the usual platforms with mini cafes, maybe a mini WH Smiths, stairs with various signs and exits and, er, a taxi rank. 

Howden is a stop on a main line route from King’s Cross St Pancras towards Scotland so not exactly beyond expectations. Instead, nothing. A boarded up café and a slightly disturbing route to the exit by crossing the tracks. I was also the only person to leave at the stop. True, there was a pub, The Barnes and Wallis Inn, but it didn't open until midday. 

It started pissing it down. I began the walk to Howden, which took about 15-20 minutes at a fast pace. Howden is officially a town but couldn't be more village-like if it tried, the most amusing feature being a cafe that closed for lunch. The Press Association was tucked into a corner approaching a main road. The interview went pretty well: a combination of a chat followed by a various subbing tests.

I had booked a ticket for the return train journey that was two hours away so had time to go for a pub meal. Hmmm, I could actually live here, I thought, but to be honest I didn’t really think about the practicalities because my gut feeling was that I wouldn’t get the job – I didn’t finish one of the tests – and despite very encouraging feedback I was right. But two weeks later I got a call from the interviewer as someone had resigned. I was a bit flustered as I’d just come home from another rare interview in London but I said yes. That was as good as it got.

I signed the contract but from that point on it was clear I was being messed around. My first task was to find somewhere to stay. That actually went very well. I visited the area again and despite having narrowed my options to three, I already knew what my first choice was based on the friendly chat I had with the couple who owned the house, and photos of the room. It was in Goole, a 20-minute bus ride to Howden and the job was 9 to 5. What could go wrong? At that point, nothing. However, a few days later I got an email from the company telling me I would be working in a different team so I needed to sign another contract. I was a bit miffed although there was one bonus: it used a shift pattern that totalled a four-day week, and this would give me an extra day to spend with my partner in London at weekends. I sent an email asking if they would book me taxis home for late shifts. Rather than a friendly response I got a stern are-you-having-a-laugh-esque reply with some capitalised words in bold and underline. Charming. In retrospect I should have given them a polite fuck-your-contract then and walked away but I couldn’t; this was a job with a big company and who knows what opportunities could arise. So I reluctantly signed the new contract.

I told my would-be landlady, who was understandably concerned by this, and after some research she found me two late-night taxi services, one of which claimed to be a 24-hour service. I later found out that this service was operated by one person and that he only worked during the night when he had a big job such as taking someone to an airport. Great. The other company was based several miles away and its drivers were unwilling to operate at stupid o’clock for similar reasons. Early mornings were just as bad. I was due to work an early weekend shift, only to find out that the main taxi company in Goole, despite being open, didn’t operate until 9 am, and the first bus service was about an hour away.

In the first 48 hours of the job I found myself having to sign two more contracts: in the first instance my terms had changed; my notice was period had been slashed from one month to one week. Then the guy from HR had a little chuckle, confessing that this contract ran back to front so I needed to sign one more.

I quite liked living there with its slower pace and the chance to say good morning to complete strangers and thanks to the bus driver – thankfully I already knew the etiquette as my early years were spent in the north – but by Friday I couldn’t wait to get out. Work, or the shift system at least, was a hopeless mismatch; I didn’t have a car, couldn’t get one for health reasons, and I wasn’t happy with the lack of support from the powers-that-be on that. I did like the team I worked with, and the team leader was kind enough to give me lifts home when possible, even though he lived in the opposite direction, but ultimately it didn’t work out. Two months later I was practically shoved out of the back door. I felt depressed as I hadn’t done myself justice in the role I had but then again it wasn’t the job I applied for.

Ten years on and I’m living in Stratford, East London, with my partner. We stayed in Cricklewood for another five years, moving up the renting ladder to a one-bedroom flat in a block of 30 that was converted from an old people’s home. It was superbly managed and it was a tough decision to leave but we found ourselves with enough funds to step on to the property ladder. Our main criteria was a home near transport links. We were also targeting trendy newbuild two-bedroom flats but quickly realised that it was almost impossible as they were snapped up at a rate so rapid that any appointment we made was cancelled by the time we’d set foot.

Initially we looked at Watford as I’d lived there but found out that it would be more expensive to travel into London so we inched closer to Harrow, which looked a good bet geographically but was too expensive. We then tried Tottenham, where a new trendy area was rapidly growing not far from Tottenham Hale station, which had some great connections. But like in Harrow, all the properties were being snapped up faster than the proverbial hot cake. We spoke to a newsagent about the area as a whole. "Well, um, it's not as bad as it used to be," he replied. The final nail was a chat with a work colleague, who said, "Ah yes, that's where the London riots started."

Having said that, Stratford's reputation wasn't much better but there was a strange charm about it. The first time we walked through the shopping centre the atmosphere was vibrant. During some evenings after the shops had shut there were random classes or events taking place, including breakdancing and skating. There was a massive beatbox booming and it felt like we had gatecrashed a Run DMC video. Westfield shopping centre had also recently opened and I was initially obsessed about it; seemingly everything I wanted was there, and there was a Food Court providing food ranging from Japanese and Indian to Caribbean and Italian. Oh, and fish and chips as well. Then I remembered I was a thirtysomething bloke who didn't like shopping.

The Olympics had just taken place and suddenly it all made sense. The deciding factor was the transport links, which knocked spots off the vast majority of stations outside central London. Two tube links, various overground routes, national rail services to the south and east and two separate tramlines. It was like the railway equivalent of the Spaghetti junction, only more interesting. Our house was a five-minute walk from a tramline that ran to London International Airport within 20 minutes.

I look at my time in Howden with fondness. Pleasant, friendly people, a more relaxed lifestyle. But ultimately the highlight was a trip to the station every Friday evening. Hundreds of people would be walking together on the road for about a quarter of a mile, then veer into a floodlit car park, leaving me to trudge on in pitch black as street lamps disappeared. After 20 minutes The Barnes and Wallis Inn greeted me, and with two hours to spare I would enjoy a three-course meal. On the train and in first class - booking weeks ahead can be extremely rewarding - plenty of hot chocolate and snacks were served. 

No matter how tired I felt, once St Pancras welcomed me about three hours later I knew I could switch to autopilot and exploit the many paths that would carry me home.                    

The ones that got away

The Guardian recently compiled a list of the 100 greatest UK number one singles. As a Pet Shop Boys fan I was pleasantly surprised that West End Girls was chosen as the chart-topper but of course it's all circumstantial; had Vienna by Ultravox, Common People by Pulp, God only knows by the Beach Boys, Born slippy by Underword (all number twos), not to mention Blue Monday by New Order (a wonderful record and I think still the best-selling 12-inch record of all time, the list would look very different. Or would it?

I was actually more intrigued by the bottom end and my first thought was, well, we've had a lot of shit number ones, maybe we are dipping into best of the worst territory. But Whigfield? Well, she was the first debut act ever to enter the charts at number one back in 1994 but other than that, er... Craig David, Justin Bieber? Really? In fairness you could argue that it's actually quite a refreshing list - no straight bats, a mixture of classics stretching back to the 1950s flirting with frantic beats post millennium - but I quickly realised that there were some significant omissions, ranging from 'brave' (Britpop) to shameful (in my opinion, obviously).

So here it is: a top 10 of what could have and/or should have been in that top 100. Admittedly it's a difficult criteria to break down. Should I go with 10 songs that people in general would likely go with and say 'oh yeah' or just songs that I particularly like and say 'screw you'. In the end I thought, sod it, just pick 10 songs and see what happens...

10. Olive: You're not alone (1997)

A classic from the eerie drum and bass, trip hop scene in the mid-1990s that spent two weeks at the top. Behind the ravey synth stabs is a touching song about longish distance love. It's been covered many times, the most recent being one of those annoying, 'tear-jerking' versions that appear in an advert or a charity plea (think also Everybody wants to rule the world by Tears for Fears, True faith by New Order, and Rick Astley's Together forever as three examples) to make people think it's the original version. Give me hands in the air every time.

9. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Back to life (1989)

A very weird omission, to the point where I kept having to read the top 100 in case I'd missed it. Quite an influential act, given their unique drum programming that led to commentators and musicians alike calling it 'the Soul II Soul beat' for a while. The perfect transition into the 1990s and a four-week spell at the top. They pulled out of Top of the Pops with this song after the producers insisted that Wheeler had to mime. She refused and that was that.

8. The Beautiful South: A little time (1990)

A difficult choice because people tend to associate the Beautiful South with Song for whoever (another number two hit) so would they remember this one? Well they bloody should...

I've had a slightly awkward relationship with the Beautiful South over the years. Their Carry on up the charts greatest hits album is one of the best collections of songs around but I went off them after seeing them at the Birmingham NEC back in about 1995. The songs were great but Paul Heaton came across as a bit of a twat, smoking on stage, talking smug bullshit and doing some unnecessary vocal gymnastics. Even worse, in the row in front were endless grinning couples swaying left and right and I thought, do I really want to be like them?

Ironically this is a rare song where Heaton isn't involved (other than writing it). He takes a backseat while the other two vocalists, David Hemingway and Breanna Corrigan, duet in a heartbreaker detailing the break-up of a relationship due to non-commitment. The final verse is particularly touching with Corrigan walking away with a 'here's what you could have had' type of narrative. Anger, sadness and defiance in less than three minutes. Just one week at the top. 

7. Shakespeare's Sister: Stay (1992)

 

A shocking omission for this classic and slightly disturbing duet, which sounds like a straightforward love battle but the video suggests it might relate to a life or death situation. The first two gentle verses sung by Marcella Detroit gradually build before being gatecrashed by Siobhan Fahey's explosive entrance in verse three to bring this song fully into life. I first wondered whether it may have been omitted due to its length at number one (8 weeks) and the subsequent listener fatigue factor but Believe by Cher (7 weeks) and Queen's Bohemian rhapsody (14 weeks in total over its two separate releases) were there so no excuses.

6. Simply Red: Fairground (1995)

 

Once upon a time, Simply Red burst out of their coffee table cosiness and made an interesting record, a floorfiller sampling the thumping beats of Give it up by The Goodmen with an ambient soundscape. It's a shame this was more or less a one-off (the other candidate being Sunrise in 2002, which shamelessly but brilliantly sampled I can't go for that by Hall & Oates to create a fresh soulful pop song) because there was potential Everything But The Girl-esque reinvention there. Fairground shot straight in at number one (the first of four weeks) on the day I arrived at the uni digs in Nottingham.  

5. Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds: Three lions (1996)

Just a year later Simply Red were at their worst with We're in this together, the 'official' Euro 96 song, so bland that chances are you've forgotten that fact; certainly the song anyway. Thank goodness for Three lions: a rare football song that - unlike most England anthems over the years - reflected the real mentality of most England fans: hope and idealism rather than expectation. 'Three lions on a shirt, Jules Rimet still gleaming, thirty years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming.' Perfect. 

Funnily enough, the two songs in some senses reflected Euro 96. As great as the atmosphere was throughout the country, the football itself was average. No real classic matches and the documentaries relating to the tournament were over-romanticised with what-ifs, if-onlys and whys. There's a poem about that somewhere. Having said that, England's defeat to Germany coincided with the end of the first year at uni so there was a sort of correlation in sadness. The country out of the competition and us students knowing that the campus was no longer ours. 

Of course you might be asking about the equally brilliant World in motion, which was also ignored by the Guardian, but I decided to stick to one football-based song. 

4. Backstreet Boys: I want it that way (1999)

If you are allowed to include Will Young, Justin Bieber, Take That and East 17 (I do like the latter two) in the top 100 then there's no excuse for leaving this song - a guilty pleasure classic - out, to the extent that I had to check whether it actually made number one. It did, albeit for a solitary week. I actually quite liked them in general, with Quit playing games, As long as you love me and Shape of my heart being other, er, favourites. I also remember singing along to Show the meaning of being lonely every day on the way to work (alone in my car obviously). The one problem with the Backstreet Boys was that - a bit like Stock, Aitken and Waterman - the production was very similar on each song, so small doses and all that. 

3. Oasis: Don't look back in anger (1996)

It's always fascinating writing these sorts of blog posts because sometimes you discover stats or information you were unaware of. For example, none of Oasis's eight chart-toppers stayed there for more than one week, which is absurd given that they were probably the biggest band in the world at that point. Chart behaviour had changed by then and there was a rapid turnover in terms of number ones but even so... 

It's a good song but was always playing in some shape or form during my first year at uni and it drove me bonkers. But post-uni I once sang it, and two other Oasis songs, with a live band that included at least two of my friends in a pub owned by my best mate's family. The first two songs were disastrous, largely because the speaker monitors were facing in the wrong direction so I couldn't hear myself sing and was spending too much time fiddling around with the microphone. The reaction of the crowd was silence. This song, despite being arguably the most difficult, went bizarrely well and actually received some warm applause. We leapt off the stage: leave when you're sort of winning...

2. Ace of Base: All that she wants (1993)

In a top 100 filled with a bias towards pop gems rather than predictable singer-songwriters, the absence of this record, a three-week chart topper that is basically the dictionary definition of 'Europop' with its bouncy synth reggae beats, is another puzzle wrapped inside an enigma, etc. 

I first discovered this song on MTV, which was at that point a European feed, and this and many other songs - What is love by Haddaway and 74-75 by the Connells being two other examples - were out long before the UK release. And this meant I was often bored of them by then. But in the battle of the Swedes (discounting Abba), Whigfield got the nod. Never mind.

1. Madness: House of fun (1982)

To prove I did listen to music before the 1990s, here is the biggest miss of the lot. Regarded as the best 'singles band' by some - despite this song being their only chart-topper (two weeks) - Madness were the sort of band everybody liked in some shape or form, whether the tunes, the wacky videos, or their Top of the Pops performances, my favourite being Our house, which featured a stage setting as a living room. And Madness had a darker side too with songs like Embarrassment, which confronted the issue of mixed race prejudice.

I was only five when House of fun came out and although I'm not going to pretend to analyse it in talking head format, when you are that age and a song called House of fun comes on the radio, you aren't going to ignore it are you, just like I didn't ignore Hit me with your rhythm stick. Weirdo.

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That time has come and gone, my friend

Back in 2004 when I lived in Watford, me and a group of friends went to see The Day After Tomorrow, a US disaster movie about Earth entering a new Ice Age following the neglect of global warming. Great film and all of us were quite giddy by the time we left but hey, that sort of scenario would never happen in our own lifetime would it? Anyway, you can probably guess where this is going…

My previous blog post focused on the hustle and bustle of Central London in a positive manner; barely a month later and we’re experiencing something so eerie, frightening and unprecedented that it’s the sort of thing you wake up to and think, wow, why did I dream that and why didn’t I think it was rubbish and wake up? But you don’t, do you. The only time this has happened – and it’s still vague and probably doesn’t count anyway – is when I had one of those naked in public dreams (yeah I still get those) and at a public gathering I felt so humiliated that I actually remember saying or murmuring, ‘this had better be a bloody dream’.

I guess one of the issues with coronavirus is the ‘not knowing’ aspect and the helplessness of it all. But why did the UK dither for so long? Right at the beginning of 2020 my partner called it; she told me about a disease escalating at a rapid pace in China. She said, how would you feel if we stocked up with food, drink and other essentials, isolate and work from home. What, really? She warned that it would spread to Europe within weeks and yep, she was right. Now, admittedly she is a virologist/bioinformatician, so has good knowledge of how diseases spread but surely there are senior figures who work with the government who would be on top of this.

The problem is, this dithering action reflects the lack of leadership the UK has had over the past decade within the various governments and senior figures and you have to question why plan Bs have been so conspicuous by their absence, and why there is so much complacency. I could provide a timeline from 2010 that would put all parties to shame but I’ve decided not to, except to say that we as a whole are not stupid and predictions can never be safe: see Brexit, coalition governments, tactics that backfire, etc.

On 12 December 2019 it was the company Christmas party in Croydon. It was decent, much better than the previous one despite being at the same venue, with a spicy buffet rather than bowl food. I could have partied all night had it not been for the annoying generic DJ who played hip hop for most of the night when all of us wanted ABBA, The Beatles, anthems from the 1980s and 1990s and basically everything the guy wasn’t playing. Admittedly this is a guess but the average age at the party was somewhere in the region of 35 to 45, for god’s sake.

So at about 10 pm I gave up and took the short walk to East Croydon station. This was, of course, also the day of the General Election. I sat down on the train to London Bridge and checked the exit poll. I sighed and felt completely lost. For the first time ever I hadn’t voted for any of the top three parties for various reasons. The only consolation was that my constituency is one of the safest seats in the country, with the Labour MP securing more than 70% of the vote, so it didn’t really matter.

On the train some youngsters were sitting in front of me. They were Labour campaigners drenched in red and yellow and they looked so upset that I felt like crying myself.

Covid-19 may be the tip of a melting iceberg but for me this country has been in a transitional period for a while. There is anger but with an increasing feeling of unease, reluctant defeat and a desire to escape from it all. Pet Shop Boys songs Into thin air and Dreamland are examples, and when the usually fluffy pop act Saint Etienne write an angry song about moving to another planet, you know there’s a problem.   

Technology is becoming increasingly influential and humanised at a rapid rate. When you go to an airport as big as Heathrow and the gates open via scanning a passport, when you have GP appointments online or on the phone, and when you turn on various lights and equipment using speech rather than flicking a finger, you wonder what will happen next and why. Neil Hannon of Divine Comedy mocks this in a song about an appointment with a psychotherapist being conducted by a robot. Then there’s social media of course, although you could argue that the culture of bitching and yelling has always existed but been kept behind closed brains.

Not that I’m a technophobe of course. As I write there’s a laptop alongside me containing everything I need to work from home, and the web remains an essential tool, especially when you are doing research or fact checking. I wish I’d had that available when I interviewed the sadly deceased Gordon Kaye for a UK Gold TV digital listings project 20 years ago. I asked him a question based on him being best known for ‘Allo Allo’ and he seemed miffed that I didn’t know he was in Coronation Street way before that. And of course there’s the iPhone with the web at my fingertips; also essential for ideas for blogs and poems when I’m on the bog.  

The lockdown, self-isolation issues are horrible but maybe, just maybe, once we can get a grip of this virus, society can get the kick up the backside it needs. No more taking anything for granted for a start, no more complacency and maybe the realisation that we human beings need each other more than we think.

I’m as guilty as anyone. I don’t meet up with my friends and family enough and that’s based on my own complacency. That’s been taken out of my hands for the near future at least, as has football. I just assume that I can watch it or play it when its available but that has frozen, as has Euro 2020. Funnily enough the last time I took a proper journey outside was to a football session: a competitive game but ultimately about 15-20 people from a mailing list playing on a three-quarter-sized astroturf pitch at a school. As I journeyed to and from the game, it had the ring of one of those World War films where a pilot tells his family that he only has one mission left, then he would return home. And then of course…

Usually there is a lot of banter at these football sessions. For example, one week a player got absolutely panned when he mistakenly took his daughter’s trousers as his post-game change of clothes rather than his own. But the changing room was somewhat muted this time, other than post-match analysis of a 9-9 draw in which my team came back from 5-0 and 9-4 down with yours truly scoring a last-gasp equaliser with a belter from 30 yards tap-in from three yards out (sorry, had to mention that). No-one knew when we’d play again, although at least the playing behind closed doors option wouldn't be an issue. It was ‘see you mate’ rather than ‘see you next week’, which was reciprocated.

Now it’s about patience. Football doesn’t matter, it’s all about helping one another to survive, worshipping the NHS for the incredible work that doctors and nurses are doing to save lives while risking their own, and praying that scientific research and testing makes enough of a breakthrough to gradually restore relatively normal day-to-day life soon. Oh, and it would allow me to get a bloody haircut.

          

            

  

The journey to Hotspot

On 24 January 2020 Pet Shop Boys released their 14^th studio album, Hotspot. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bang on about being a long-term fan, especially given I did that 20 years ago during my MA Writing course as part of a collection of stories and poems. A guy reviewed the collection for the uni paper, Platform, and mocked my contribution with that sort of Steve Lamacq-esque sneer that people who consider anything beyond guitars as the devil give. It was something like it being pointless, “especially as it was about the Pet Shop Boys!” Ha ha, etc. But I recently came across my piece and he was actually right: it was boring.

One rule about my fandom is that I have to buy whatever it is on the first day of release, whether a CD single or an album. It used to be easy. In 1999, for example, I was doing a part-time job in a post room at a solicitors in Northampton, where I was based at the time. It was 6-10 am so once I got out I strolled into town, bought the then new album, Nightlife, at HMV, and drove home. Since then, however, it’s become more and more difficult. I’m now based in London so you’d think I’d be sorted; even though HMV had gone bankrupt a few years back, there were still plenty of stores left. But…

Let me take you back to December 2018. I was at work in Coulsdon in Surrey and planning to head to Central London afterwards to buy what was then the latest album by Florence and the Machine for my sister’s Christmas present. This, however, bounced forwards when I was spotted sniffling and making a Lemsip in the kitchen and told to go home and rest. The plan itself wasn’t really affected as I still had to go via central London to get home anyway. What could go wrong?

In the good old days I had three great options. I could go to Oxford Street, where there was a massive HMV store – one of the biggest in the UK – or take a short walk to the Bond Street branch, which was literally across the road from the underground station that housed both the Central and Jubilee lines. Equally I could just go straight to Stratford and go to a store in the Westfield Shopping Centre. On this day it had been reduced to two – the Stratford branch had recently closed – so I headed to Oxford Street. To my surprise that one had gone as well. So off to Bond Street and, er, no. 

I popped into a clothes shop and a member of staff said there was another branch about half a mile away. Sorted. Unfortunately it was a tiny store and stocked every Florence album apart from the new one. He recommended a bigger branch in Covent Garden and mentioned the name Fopp. I assumed he meant that Fopp was part of Covent Garden. I looked at one of those ‘You are here’ maps when I got there and there was no mention of Fopp in the F section. I looked confused enough for a member of staff at the station to ask if he could help. I mentioned Fopp and he gave me instructions. They were very good, to the extent that I walked straight past it; except I was still inadvertently oblivious to what I was looking for (hi, U2).

I found myself on Shaftsbury Avenue, near Piccadilly Circus, and looked at another ‘You are here’ map. Still no Fopp. I was getting irritated and sweaty. I’m at my worst when I get irritated – you could apply that to most people of course – but it’s even worse when I know that there is something obvious that I hadn’t worked out, whether it’s not remembering where the exit was after a blood test in one of the many hospitals I’ve had to visit (in fairness I usually laugh that off), or not being able to find something that I knew I’d filed away sensibly. The worst one was forgetting where the entrance to Fenchurch Street station was despite using the station several times. But this was close, particularly given that the instruction contained that horrible phrase, ‘you can’t miss it’.

Several minutes later and Mr Headless Chicken was still walking up and down Shaftesbury Avenue. Most people didn’t know what I was on about but thankfully a guy at a pop-up stall did and pointed me back to where I’d come from. About a minute later I looked across the road and there it was: a bloody shop with a trendy sign. Then I found out that the Florence album hadn’t been released yet. Only kidding.

Forward to 24 January 2020 and off to Fopp from home this time. I was recovering from more man flu so I was a little groggy, though probably because I hadn’t been outside for three days. Thankfully I’d done my homework and Fopp was still in existence. But what time did it close? Was I up against it? Er, of course not. This is bloody central London and in fact the store didn’t close until 10pm on a Friday. A 30-minute trip via the Jubilee and Piccadilly lines later and I arrived at Covent Garden station. I’d forgotten just how packed it is during rush hour; commuters are advised to use Leicester Square instead for a reason. The official exit is by lift and the very much frowned upon alternative is to climb the spiral staircase – 193 steps – with warning signs about it being the equivalent of climbing five storeys and only using it an emergency or evacuation. So obviously I chose that option. 

I wouldn’t recommend it but having done the same at Russell Square (an identical scenario) a couple of times I knew it wouldn’t end in tears. Besides there were others willing to take it on as well and when that happens it’s actually quite fun. Some were tourists who seemed to classify it as some sort of London bucket list achievement and they were laughing and urging one another on with fake breathing exercises.

I’d forgotten just how amazing this part of London looks when floodlit on a Friday night in the winter. And of course there’s the pre-weekend happy atmosphere so I walked into a pub to sample it; well, either that or because I desperately needed a piss. On to Fopp and I was in and out within a couple of minutes with Hotspot tucked away in my man bag. I wandered around like only I can when I deliberate over how to get somewhere or anywhere and returned home via Holborn on the Central Line. When I got in I placed the CD in the rack, put my headphones on and listened to the version I’d downloaded earlier.

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Poetry

       

Has rhyme had its time?

Some of you browsing this may know that in the past year I've set up another blog known as What if I... dedicated solely to poetry. I did this after stumbling upon a notebook containing many of my poems from my MA writing course that I'd taken during my early 20s.

I suddenly had a burst of ideas for new poems. Why did that happen? At first I thought it was totally bizarre, largely because I hadn't written a poem in two decades, but I realised when I started browsing them that I wasn't 'him' anymore. Back then I was an angst-ridden sod and the poems reflected that. So as I gradually moved on, subconsciously at least I abandoned poetry because I associated it with vulnerability and ran out of ideas. I'd dismissed the idea that poetry doesn't have to be depressing or personal all the time. Not that I'd flicked a switch and suddenly turned into a happy chappie of course but my mindset had at least become more balanced.

So I thought to myself, could I write poems based on the new 'me'?

I don't do politics but I've always had a theory that in a tense political environment, where society is horribly divided over issues like Brexit, non-elected prime ministers, lies and Trump, an air of real tension and cynicism boils over and ripens creativity. It's often been said that the 1980s was a horrible decade for politics but a brilliant one for art, with anger, cynicism and satire triggering a fruitful world for the likes of pop music, film, TV and literature.

Three decades on and my enemy was Southern Rail, which had become a satirist's dream, albeit a nightmare for commuters like me. Constant delays, cancellations, staff problems, the wrong kind of sun, sneaky massaging of statistics and several strikes. One day I was checking the timetable at the end of a day at work and several trains had been cancelled for no apparent reason. 'You Southern bastards,' I ranted. Then I chuckled to myself as I suddenly pictured an infuriated northerner shouting it as if it was a football match between Leeds United and Chelsea. I instantly had the ingredients for a poem, based on the temporary death of geographical prejudice. I actually published Southern bastards here because I wasn't sure if it was a one-off or not.

I mentioned to a couple of people at work, when asked about what I had studied at uni, that I'd done an MA in writing, which had included writing poetry. To my surprise they were genuinely interested and one colleague liked the idea of people writing a poem each and during a sunny day have a picnic where people would read their poem. At the time of writing this hasn't happened yet but it made me sit up and wonder if I could still do it. Challenge accepted.

You might be wondering what all this has to do with the title. Well, here's why. The other day I was tentatively googling poetry readings and competitions. I wanted to know what was out there. As you'll have seen, the poems I've published so far on What if I... are all rhyming ones, as are those in the pipeline. You can imagine my surprise when I learned that rhyming poetry in some quarters is frowned upon these days. Indeed, some poetry judges apparently openly advise entrants not to submit rhyming poetry.

I was totally baffled. Forgive me for being somewhat naive but isn't rhyming a huge asset in poetry? Not to mention its rich history and tradition in the poetry canon. Admittedly I'm a borderline fraud when it comes to poetry; my knowledge of famous poets is pretty poor, to the extent that when I was working on Deleting happiness I remember questioning whether I was ripping off 'that Stop the clocks poem'. Thankfully I wasn't. In fact I was closer to ripping off Ruby by Kaiser Chiefs.

I even went as far as looking at the dictionary definition. "Literary work in which the expressions of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm." Pretty much what I expected. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not dismissing free verse, especially as it has also existed for centuries; in fact I'm quite jealous of people who can write poetry that way. And funnily enough, when looking back at my work in 1999, I noticed that I was using free verse quite a bit but my vague recollection is that those poems resulted from stream-of-consciousness exercises and were a bit messy as a result. My rhyming ones were better and some have aged fairly well although now I would class them as the equivalent of pop music demos; they needed extra production and that may yet happen.

The problem I have with free verse is it can easily stray into 'what does this actually mean' territory - the equivalent of some abstract and conceptual art - and a clever poet can exploit this. On the MA course part of our assessment involved teaming up with a colleague and analysing their work. One of the class wrote more or less exclusively in free verse. She was teamed with a pretty unpopular and objectionable bloke and in his assessment he allegedly described her poetry as pretentious rubbish.

The argument poetry judges apparently provide is that rhyme is overly restrictive and forced, and is likely to lead to cliched filler. But isn't that the challenge? To overcome those hurdles? Some believe restriction is a good thing. Father Ted and IT Crowd writer Graham Linehan said that the success of those shows was partly down to putting restrictions on its characters; for example deciding Fathers Ted, Dougal and Jack wouldn't actually conduct any services, and likewise Moss and Roy wouldn't be fixing computers; so the focus would be on the characters themselves and exploring their quirks to create plots.
 
I revisited my school days. Philip Larkin: did his poems rhyme? Yes. Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen: did their poems rhyme? Yes. Shakespeare: did his poems rhyme? Largely yes. Rudyard Kipling's If : did that rhyme? Yes. Are these still on the national curriculum? At the time of writing I believe so. Which begs two questions: what on earth has happened, and why can't modern rhyming poetry be celebrated as well? Even 'Poet Laureate' sort of rhymes.

Pop music has arguably had the biggest influence because the elite doesn't do popular, and over the years lines have become blurred. I love pop but song lyrics tend to prioritise catchiness over substance, particularly in rap music, which displays the sorts of rhythmic patterns that many poems do even if the lyrics are somewhat disposable. I don't have a problem with that but when Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays and Black Grape fame was described by the now deceased Factory Records boss Tony Wilson as the best poet since Yeats, it was difficult not to snigger. Even Ryder thought it was bollocks.

Then again, when you read works by Benjamin Zephaniah, whose Rastafarian award-winning street poetry and its phonetics are playful and just about as accessible as it gets, perhaps there is a happy medium. But will he break his way into 'the canon'? Probably only when he is dead. The tutors on my MA course didn't particularly rate him.

There's also Roger McGough, whose amusing yet quite reflective poetry usually has a playful rhyme scheme. I went to one of his readings during my early 20s and loved it. He's hugely popular and yet some critics are uncomfortable with his 'fun' and accessible style of poems. I would loved to have studied him at school let alone on my MA but I don't think he has been universally respected enough to be part of the educational canon; which is a shame because some of his works are targeted at children. He said in a recent interview that children are natural poets because they make the sort of off-the-wall observations that poems thrive on. Adults suck the creative side out of them by using rational thought.

I was dangerously close to doing Drama at A-Level rather than English Literature. In induction week the teacher posed the tantalising question: 'What is theatre?' and it prompted a good discussion. But I got talked out of it.

So what is poetry? Are rhyming poems now just considered song lyrics without a chorus? I checked mine again. The closest to that scenario is Gate 22, which is the first poem I wrote specifically for the poetry blog. I gave it a rhythmic feel as I thought a mini rap battle would be fun and without sounding overly smug I think I could write a catchy chorus quite easily. I like it as it is for now, though, especially as it took a long time for everything to come together.

Ultimately, I guess that like everything in life, poetry has evolved and become more expansive. After the 2012 London Olympics, with its spectacular opening and closing ceremonies, Sebastian Coe said that the key was not to compete and make it better, but to do something different. There's nothing wrong with taking poetry to other places but it shouldn't be to the detriment of its 'traditional' form as far as I'm concerned. Unlike bloody Christmas records, the poetry canon should at least be left ajar.

What I've learned is that in my poems I can be playful but I don't have to be 'me' every time. And when I look back at my efforts from two decades ago, that's probably for the best.

Read my poetry here