Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Today we disappeared down to Brighton. It was originally supposed to be for the day, but ended up being for the afternoon. This time of year and when you are not about to invest large amounts of wedge in entertainment, an afternoon to see the sea and potter is about right.

Having walked down the street from the station, ellefurtle and I walked along the prom a whiles before going down on to the scree slope that passes for a beach along much of the south coast. Walking on loose pebbles is frankly knackering so we amused ourselves like five year olds and sat down preparatory to hurling stones at other stones. This entertained us for much longer than should really be admitted by two adults. We wandered over to the pier (the one still standing) and took a stroll around the comatose amusement area - it's a bit early in the year for much to be happening, but as at least one kiosk was open, we obtained four sticks of Brighton Rock: the real stuff with Brighton written through it, before wandering into The Lanes in search of a pub lunch, which we finally had at a splendid little hostelry called "The Cricketers".

One fish and chips, one chicken goujons and cheesy chips, plus two pints of San Miguel later, we were ready to explore The Lanes, which are a little bit like a gestalt version of Covent Garden as imagined by the Islington Set and placed in an English provincial town. They are also built on a Moebius Strip, so that you can pass the same place several times despite not obviously turning back on yourself. We discovered this by walking in what appeared to be a direction away from The Cricketers and past The Brighton Armory - a militaria antique shop. That was nice, but we somehow ended up back at our starting point and went past both places twice without obviously turning around. Luckily, by keeping the sea off to our left, we were able to break this loop by walking through what, if the amount of jewelry shops is any evidence, is actually downtown Antwerp (or Antwerpen or Anvers depending upon your linguistic preferences).

Truly I am a Prince of Amber.

Finally we made it back to the station by way of Model Zone where I purchased a Corgi 1960s comics version Batmobile, thus:

for the princely sum of £6.99 in their sale.

Back to London Bridge by 17.00 and back home by just after 18.00. A bit of a lie down to recharge the batteries and now off to find some further sustenance and maybe an episode of the X-Files.

I love lazy holidays.

Well, I am still at home having woken up this morning feeling manky. Right now I feel a bit of a fraud as apart from the occasional coughing fit I am OK, so I shall probably be back in work tomorrow. There's only so much daytime telly any sane person can take, and I don't want to screw over my recovery by venturing outside for anything more prolonged than dropping rubbish in the bin.

I had intended to make use of the time in starting a new NWO character, but the inspiration won't come right now, so I am leaving it a few hours in the hope that the creative juices will start flowing.

I thought instead, that I'd put together the vaguely promised list of my personal favourite 10 rock songs, which will of course be entirely subjective and be entirely changeable, especially the deeper down the ten you get. I like to think the range is quite wide, for rock is a broad church ranging from the heavy acid teeth grinding stuff at one end, to the melodic almost orchestral at the other, with some quite poppy stuff thrown in at the lighter end. If nothing else, compiling the list will keep telemeister quiet; he's been bugging me to make the list since I mentioned it in passing.

If you are interested (in fact, even if you aren't) ( it's all behind the cut... )

In the next stage of a low-intensity war of extreme pointlessness, in which telemeister has decided to pit his preference for bottleneck blues against mine for rock the louder, bastard offspring of the delta, I present here, the caddyman guide to musical development.

As told by Mr Roll and Mr Woogie, both of whom have since left the business (though the latter's partner, Mr Boogie still tours the dance halls).

Oncepowntahm there was down in the mouth of Old Man River hisself, down on the very delta, a sound they called the Blues. The Blues done lost his wife, his job, had kicked his dog and his liver was suing him for abuse. Nonetheless, people were mighty impressed by Ole Blue, and one day they up and walked him up to a place called Nworleens where he done come close to killin’ hisself on Comfort, so sad was the boy.

Any road up came the day when Ole Blue opened his sad old eyes and there he was, wandered clean up the ways to Chicago. Lost his bottleneck on the way (mebbe to pay his fare) and then got hisself a job. Poor Olde Blue still was depressed awhiles though, but he hung on in there.

Some years passed, and despite it all, Ole Blue got fat on good corn from the prairie; made a little money and got into business for hisself. Sad enough to report, the market wasn’t what he thought it was, and he took hisself a younger business partner and formed the trading concern of Rhythm and Blues. Thanks to Mr Rhythm they jollified their business a mite and soon the bubblegum and pepsi-cola brigade made ‘em richer than Croesus. Course, Ole Blue was still depressed, so when he got drunk again and lost his stake in the company on a turn of cards to a pair of shysters no one was real surprised.

Ole Blue still plays guitar, and sometimes he picks out the bottleneck and goes back to his roots. People still like him, that nice old man, but they buys their music from his old company, now trading as Rock’n’Roll them fancy shysters who done took Ole Blue an’ his buddy Rhythm fer all they had. Course, they kept the old name fer awhiles, then sold it on as R&B. At least no-one associates Ole Blue with that no more.

Anyways, the world don’t generally like mean folks who do old fellers out a what’s theirs by rights, and some years later, them boys, Rock and Roll got their comeuppance. They was out enjoyin’ their ill-gotten gains when they slipped further off the rails. Mr Rock didn’t know where to draw the line and soon was hanging around with ladies of ill repute named Mary Jane, and mekkin’ loud noises late at night and gettin’ picked up by the law.

Mr Roll left soon after, leaving Mr Rock on his own. Somehow he still keeps on going, getting louder an’ louder. But his voice is goin, now.

Ole Blue’s still down on the delta, mind, and occasionally he meets up with his old friend rhythm an’ they kicks out a tune for the old days.

People still like Ole Blue.

Next: By which I mean "if I can ever be bothered"; how Folk emigrated, got sunburnt and hung-over and became bluegrass. Then the story of how he bought some cows, got depressed and ended up in Tennessee, distilling whiskey he couldn’t drink and slowly becoming country after his liver gave out.

I have decided, apropos nothing, that Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird is one of the ten greatest rock songs of all time. Not as good as Starless by King Crimson, but pretty damned good.

I think that sometime over the next few weeks I shall give some deep thought to this, and create my top ten all-time rock list. Doubtless it will be immediately out of date, but hey, that's the nature of the beast. Trouble is, I'm already wondering in what order to place Tales of Great Ulysses, Strange Brew and Badge by Cream, and whether all or any deserve to be in the top ten.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew, here.

Who out there can tell me anything about the bands Arcade Fire and/or Mercury Rev?

I've just seen them both on Jools Holland, and they picqued the old curiosity.