'We were worn haggard with unsolicited autobiographies'

thursday

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:49:56 GMT

sunday

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:05:27 GMT

I tried to do NANOWRIMO this year, but 13,648 words later it just wasn't happening.

sunday

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:44:43 GMT

My meditations were soon suspended by the sound of a gravelly, hacking cough, which emanated from one of the perspiring bodies lying supine before me. Before I could retire to the nearby table, where my husband, who is also an eminent food critic, was seated, a rather portly cauliflower had leapt from the spike on which he was impaled and began to mutter a string of lurid expletives.

Embarrassed, I restored my lolling tongue to its customary place - tucked fast inside my mouth, with a slightly superior smile providing the portico to my face - and made a concerted effort to put my blouse back on. The carrot with whom I had been consummating my passion fell to the stucco floor with a wallop. Startled, I let out a gasp.

As I did so, a cloud of beery fag breath began to glide up my nostrils. Hardly the scent I had anticipated from a restaurant of this calibre.

"Take your filthy hands off of that!" came a splutter.

It was the cauliflower.

"I - do pardon my advances, I -"

Useless; the cauliflower's jaundiced stare was enough to give anyone the willies. Unnerving. I stood stock-still, hoping that the carrot would leap to my defence. But its filigree perm was already visible through the stained-glass windows: only a cloud of soil testified to its having been present in the first instance.

Within seconds the cauliflower was in my arms, its rough stalk pressing against my navel. Surprised though I was, my lips responded, with fierce, biting kisses that tasted faintly of macaroni.

"Attagal. Now we're talking," the cauliflower breathily intoned. "That carrot always had the best of everything right up until now. Asshole. It better get what's coming to it."

"I bet it must reel in quite a few hopefuls at the opticians'!" I replied with a chortle, as our sweat began to mingle and parboil.

It broke off from our clinch and turned to glare at me.

"What's that?"

"Oh, just a topical joke, never mind."

"Journos. Always turn your hand to the worst of it. I'd keep your voice down if I were you, at least while the asparagus is in earshot. It never got over certain rumours you fellas put out." He glowered. "There's a libel case if I ever saw one."

Desperate to divert the cauliflower from legal disputes, I fastened my legs around the pulsating tuber yes and though I'd previously entertained a rather disparaging view of cauliflowers yes always thinking of them as the younger brother of broccoli after a bad bout of anaemia yes I found my personal judgements now guided by my libido yes it was rather a nice younger brother when you got up close yes very handsome though a strange looking family of plants all in all yes what do you call it Brassica oleracea yes we didn't eat much of them when I was a girl wonder why that was yes thought they were only fit for rabbits yes well how wrong can one foodie be yes what a restaurant this is I love it yes the pulses are going like mad in particular the butter beans who have never seen the likes of this before yes and who needs a husband anyhow not me and yes oh yes oh yes it was done.

It was only the beetroot, who wore a mitre and clasped a gold-tipped staff, who made me feel an ounce of guilt. Reader, I chopped it into discs and fixed a salad.

monday

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:17:56 GMT

monday

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:44:32 GMT

Believe me when I tell you that I know how it feels to be down and out. I'm no hussy duchess spinning out sob stories for a fast buck, you know. I've lived it. My tale is not ersatz. There once was a time, sweet reader, when I knew the mean streets of unemployment like the back of my petal-soft manicured hands. Now, my experience falls more to dinin' out - ohohohohoh! - but I can still bend an ear with the best of them when it comes to doling out advice. Small wonder that I have been selected for a series of motivational workshops to yank no-hopers out of their self-imposed indolence. They're a lousy bunch for the most part but they take a lot of pep from me.

I tell them, Friend, you must begin to absorb inspiration from the landscape which immediately surrounds you. It wasn't for nothing that I named my first exhibition at Paree Fashion Week 'Carpet' - that came directly from the areas I was dealing with around that time. Each morning, I would rise at 11:30 sharp and whilst the first thing I looked upon was my ceiling, amid its peel and damp and all the internal reminders that I really ought to do something about that mould engulfing the paint job, the second was invariably my louse-eaten carpet, grey and moulted, housing my alarm clock radio through which came the strains of Liz Jones on Radio 4, prettily pouring invective on the horse by which she had most recently been jilted. That was what I looked upon, and heard.

My floor made no fleeting impression, let me assure you of that. Even as I burst through the narrow doors of the Jobcentre - each second Monday, if I remember correctly - it came bubbling, seething like magma through the crevices of my mind. One afternoon in particular I found myself so caught up the effervescence of this fabric that I nearly missed my name being called. Which would rather have scuppered my shopping plans for that fortnight! Fortunately some oaf sitting opposite had memorised my name through weeks gazing at my visage, and he gave me a sharp, unmannerly (though not unsmitten) kick which alerted me to the appropriate signing-on desk.

All of that, however, is hardly the point. Whilst all eyes were on me during my eventual 'Carpet' campaign, a current down-and-out such as yourself won't benefit much from duplicating it. Because it's patented, and it made such a sterling impression in the fash world that they'll be onto you quick sharp. Wintour will give you a good hiding before you make it so far as the runway.

No: my point is this. Your stimulus is there already. It exists. Do not be afraid to look to it, to explore it, to revel in it. You need scarcely step a yard out of your comfort zone. In your case, I imagine there are plenty of wonderful little trinkets stuffed down the arms of this particular sofa that might well come in handy.

Don't get to thinking I've been laggard all these years - I was a scholar too. Prior to completing my Health & Beauty Awareness course in London, I was locked in the salon each evening, toiling slavishly to attain the high standards parrotted by our lecturers. It wasn't all Angel's Tit and bubbly.

Sadly for me there was a glut in the industry during my graduation year, so I wasn't able to soar into employment so effortlessly as some of my peers did. Quite the opposite. I had to wave goodbye to the penthouse and move back into the family estate. Mother had begun cooking for two in my absence; I advised her to reduce it to one. Lord knows my parents could afford to lose the odd pound.

I reserved my days to seek occupation, and my evenings to languish in elegant despair. I slept like Talia and allowed my hair to acquire an impenetable coating of sebum. Reader, I wept. Finally, gritting my teeth, I reassured myself that I must be overqualified. I considered leaving my degree off applications altogether. I embraced recession chic with the best of them, so it was quite a relief when Alexander called to say he had a vacancy devised specially for little old me.

But those days are long past, even if they are a grim reality to you. So I shall sign off with a quick roster of possible subject matter to get you started on your own hypothetical fashion careers.

1. Beverage
Do you know that fluid you use to deaden your senses? Sometimes it comes in nectar hues, other times in opulent, damson red. Or in a shotglass, redolent of barley, matured in an oak cask. Ample scope for a trend. Perhaps you could focus on the silhouette of the glasses they come in, and have your models wear structured corsets and farthingales to replicate the different shapes.

2. Sudocrem
Unfortunate, isn't it, the sheer proliferation of spots brought on by a period of stress and self-loathing? That is why you keep a tub of Sudocrem by your bed. At nights you whack it on and pray for the fairies to come while you sleep, and leave your face as smooth as it was twenty years back. This is a silly fantasy, but it could be used to considerably less silly effect in your first photoshoot. Have all the young gazelles smear it onto their faces and bodies. To me that says audacity, it says tribal, it says the bold interplay between cleanliness and dirt.

3. Disapproving spectatorship
There is a starchy, slightly large lady at special events and gatherings whose killer question is always: "So what are you doing with yourself these days?" You are invariably reduced to rubble when trying to respond. She is impervious to your voice as you slip and stutter, and interrupts you so she can begin living through some young entrepreneur niece or nephew you never met, and telling you exactly where they're up to in their careers. You are turned to stone beneath her chill gaze, silenced and petrified. Voilà! Could she be a Medusa, engorged on a sweet salary, modelling drapes of chenille with a very fashion-forward gold band guiding the eye towards all those snakes sprouting from her head? That's for you to find out.

4. Envelope
These chaps exist to convey your job applications to the office in which they'll be torn up. But wouldn't they look nice on a catwalk? Texturally, that is. Don't try reproducing the shape, instead, use the coarse pulp consistency as a starting point. I'm thinking shift dresses enlivened with cameo brooches, and peter-pan collars you can seal.

5. Telephone
Another bastion of futile communications. How it used to quiver and vibrate with entreaties from young men hoping to gawp at you over a nutmeg lasagne! But now it is silent, and still. Why not channel that hollowness, that sensation of a cavity into your work? Loop the phrase "You have no new messages" over a triphop track and improvise a static screen on your primary model's chest. The new way to do this look is to crossbreed it with sleek futurism by incorporating a few choice pieces to articulate your vision, as we say in the industry.

Best of luck!

sunday

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:22:04 GMT

"The sad litany of another bookshop forced to close its doors."

monday

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:18:00 GMT

wednesday

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:44:13 GMT

C'mon boys, snap into it!
Signals thirty-one, sixty-nine, eighty-four
Rah! Rah! Rah!

When you feel your brow start to perspire
And your little heart begins to tire
Say!
It's time for a swig.
Chaps, I only want to get wasted
And I think that you'd better face it:
Sa -
- turday will be big.

Some nights though I can't get off my face
Sober twelve pints on I feel disgraced
Could -
It be that I'm cursed?
La'Gos, Magnet, Woody's, Slaters oh!
I shall head wherever caters to-o
This fever and thirst.

Every day the booze intake's bound to soar, my boy,
Every day I wind up breaking the law,
Oy-yoy!

Once I down another dirty pint
Find a dollface of the purtee kind
Boy!
My luck's on the rise -
And how!

Though those handsome bee-bees sting just right
Ain't much chance we'll make whoopee tonight
Pour -
Some shots down her throat.
Even while the hard-boiled bouncer checks
I can feel it deep inside my kecks
Sweetheart
You'd best get your coat.

If I could just get near that rear and call it mine, bird
'Twould be the great event of 2009, lerd.

Rootin'! Tootin'! Scrootin'! Atta gal!
Gee, this is liftin' -
My morale!
Alpha, beta, gamma, delta!
I'm as pleased as Punch I felt her!

Let's fix a habit,
You're sure no nun,
Easy as pie, we're almost done,
You've got It! from your guts to your garters
Let me inspect the latter for starters.
Hop! Skip! I'll send you to the dean
He could spare a lecture if you see what I mean.

When I start up fornicatin' some folks greet me with surprise
But there ain't no maybe in my baby's flies.

[Orchestral interlude]

Once I've coaxed her round into my gaff
Introduced her to my Uncle Spaff
Say!
I'm quite in the pink.
Let's ride down to something furrier
Gee, I mean we'll go the furrier
Soon
And buy you a mink.

When we make it to the parson's door
I'll renounce my crooked ways for sure,
Starch
My collar and tie.
You may pick the finest ring you see
Just please do not take it personally
When
A fit girl walks by.

But for now is that some gin, tee hee
Give it here, there's no consoling me.
Why,
There's no finer bliss.
Say! my love for liquor has you vexed?
By gad, what on earth did you expect?
Proud and statuesque I stand erect
And I'd snort my own piss
If!
I Thought!
That!
It!
Would!
Get!
Me!
Wrecked!

ARTICLE magazine

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:10:26 GMT

I ARRIVED THERE ON A LANGOROUS AFTERNOON, having followed the paths I remembered from adolescence. Liverpool’s Chavasse Park had been a glory in its time. An expanse of pale, arid grass, inhabited almost exclusively by scores of soap-fearing teenagers. As the back garden of the Crown Courts it served one function only: a meeting ground for displaced youth. This had been their space and they had appropriated it and misappropriated it, but, staring around me now, I began to feel that I had dreamt the whole thing.

Instead of wasteland, I stood at the border of a neatly manicured square of lawn offset by an enormous set of steps. Instead of Korn hoodies I was surrounded by dead-eyed young women racing from outlet to outlet. The only suggestion of leisure was embodied in weary shoppers assembled upon the steps, reviewing and regretting their purchases.

Had I taken a wrong turning?

My suspicions were alleviated at the sight of the swarthy policeman I had pilloried for help. Dismounting from his steed, he gave a small salute and approached.

“You’re here about the old park, then?”

He unsheathed a yellowing parchment.

“This is a survey we got the kids doing a few years back.”

“So you were interested in their survival at the time?”

“Well, we did our best to cooperate. As you’ll see, they weren’t quite reciprocal.”

Assailed by a muddle of statistics, I tried to make sense of the general mindset of the Chavasse population. 11% claimed to have “nothing better to do” than go to Chavasse Park. A further 32% “wouldn’t consider alternatives”. 7% griped at the police for “harassing us”, whilst 71% played it safe with the complaint of “scalls fighting us”.

My memory flickered back to the bygone roars of “SCALL WAR!” and “BIZZIES!” which preceded bouts of rampaging through the streets. Ordinary jurisdiction hadn’t applied to these stampedes, nor to any aspect of Chavasse life. Pipsqueaks blithely handed over their pocket money at Eurowines, renegades stayed out past dinnertime, daredevils skateboarded atop self-assembled blazes, stoners fell into stupors, and ambulances pulled up at the site with grim regularity.

Yes, this had been their bull-ring. Here the significant battles were played out. Here they had cadged cigarette butts and swallowed vodka at ten in the morning. It was a landscape for romance, for lavender goodbyes and libidinous tussles upon stretches of concrete. It was a chance to meet folks outside of the classroom. Strangers were molested with familiar whines of “I need hugs!” from over-friendly souls, usually with the epithet “Random” prefixed to their names.

I toyed nervously with my pince-nez.

“But where did they all go, officer?”

He laughed a gristled, food-processor’s laugh.

“That’s what we’re stuck on, lady. Never thought we’d shift them at the time. Then the bulldozers pounced down, the shoppers arrived and we haven’t heard a whisper since.”

“Yes, but the bulldozers were around even then and nobody believed it would change anything. I remember one fellow, Bullshit Chris, who swore down he could grind the machinery to a halt simply by glaring at it.”

He winced. “Let’s not forget that this Chris you speak of also used to perform certain acts on butchers’ wares – I won’t repeat what – in exchange for alcohol. We received more than one call concerning the welfare of a pig’s head.”

Of course. A good thirty months older than his peers, Bullshit Chris had formed a notorious part of the scenery. He wore a long trenchcoat and would linger near shivering girls until, dropping their guard, they failed to protest when he draped it around them. At this juncture he would knot the sleeves and make a lunge for his victim.

Further mating techniques fell to his imagination; he was a self-professed Mafia member and used to rhapsodise over his dab hand with an underwater flamethrower. If that didn’t reel in the ladies, well, he didn’t have much else.

I recalled another boy who had traipsed the streets with an old lemonade bottle, into which he would empty the contents of abandoned pints and call it a cocktail. He would hunt and gather neglected chip dinners then pop them into the microwave once he got home. How his scrawny limbs used to quaver in trousers wide enough to throw a marquee party in.

More and more forgotten scenes sprang into focus; a frantic duel fought with several splattered mackerel that had been on offer at Tesco. Endless pairs of childrens’ fairy wings recycled on great strapping girls of sixteen.

“It was a resourceful community,” I mused. “Hardly surprising they didn’t survive the regeneration.”

“This is it, you see, sweet cheeks. The council doesn’t want vermin clinging to their thrifty little days on the grass. We want shops and restaurants that are recognisable all across the country, we want money changing hands, we want stylish punters who would previously have headed to Manchester.”

“What about Chavasse himself? What would he have wanted? Who was he?”

“Noel Godfrey Chavasse was an army officer honoured with two Victoria Crosses, doll face.”

Two V.C.s and a park to aid the city in recollecting him ever after. Now his name represented nothing more than an addendum to a £1bn shopping centre, albeit one sanctioned by Steven Gerrard’s spouse.

Perhaps this was the way of things. The black-clad youths didn’t think of 1916 heroics while they were slaughtering the opening chords of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ over and over and over on a cheap acoustic, or while they were busy crashing antlers to Cradle of Filth. And they in turn were forgotten as moneyed denizens began to plump for translucent apartments and gold headbands chez Urban Outfitters. Both Noel Chavasse and his metal’ed minions were well and truly extinct.

The policeman must have noticed a certain level of moisture accrue in my eyes.

“Come on now, don’t let it upset you, cutie patootie,” he murmured, with a tweak to my nose. “I’m sure they’ve gone to some better place up in the clouds.”

“Oh, it’s nothing! Nothing! Just a bit of grit in my eye. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a mocha frappuccino to catch.”

Across the walkway I bristled, past glass-fronted palaces, symbols of visibility and pride, through which I could spectate upon the ruthless customers as they whipped out their wallets; beating on, I stomped, borne back ceaselessly into the past, humming ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’ as the tears caught in my throat and strains of “Awww mate gorra cig” fell upon deaf ears.

tuesday

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:47:33 GMT

My brother's football team, June 2006

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:52:05 GMT

Eater, 2009

tuesday

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:40:16 GMT

The Pretty Prince of Parties
Friday 13th February

saturday

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:05:45 GMT

saturday

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:52:53 GMT

A fine bit of post from the unrivalled Lovelady.

friday

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:04:20 GMT

thursday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:01:58 GMT

Happy Birthday Eamonn

tuesday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:00:54 GMT

ON BOARD THE CHEERFUL LIZZIE
Central Hall, Renshaw Street, 1928.

Captain Growler, to the right, was my dad's Uncle Tommy, from Malvern Road in Fairfield. His three brothers, John, George and Charlie (who is the grinning child, and my grandad) are also in the photograph, along with some other boys named Sam McCawley, Jack Brewster and Eddie Head. Tommy carried a satchel wherever he went. He once spluttered in rage, "The dog's got me blimmin' battenberg!" - to the endless amusement of his nephews.

He wrote the play, along with many comic songs, one of which he is said to have given to George Formby. And, according to Foster family folklore, which is routinely circulated around its four surviving members on Christmas Eves and special occasions, the Diddy Men were his creation. Ken Dodd nicked the idea when they were on the same comedy circuit.

Can this be true? We'll never know. We can hope for pride's sake that his version never induced people to sleep so swiftly as Dodd's did. Diddy dodd did.

monday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:59:23 GMT

monday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:58:26 GMT

The Glorious Fourteenth of June, 2008

sunday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:56:11 GMT

sunday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:52:46 GMT

tuesday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:51:27 GMT

sunday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:46:48 GMT

Like the remembrance of a guest
That tarrieth but a day.