Catadonia

Back in the 80’s when I was listening to This Nation’s Saving Grace (along with fellow Mancunians the Smiths they probably were!), David Icke would have been locked up if he'd predicted Mark E. Smith would one day read out the classified check on Grandstand. One of the best things about YouTube is that people are constantly posting things that would be dismissed as urban legends/absolute shite by right-thinking citizens. Rumours are circulating that the Yanks might try to upstage us by getting Iggy Pop to read out the NBA results on CNN. Watch this space.

There’s some great banter between Smith and Ray Stubbs here too. My only minor gripe is that Smith didn’t do the Scottish results as well: Elgin City 2 ah Dumbarton 3.

For anyone else who missed it or still doesn’t believe me here it is again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQcoPUEskA&mode=related&search=

More Fall and Mark E Smith info @:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=51313488

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=44940909

Also now available on YouTube is the Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith. It's a balanced BBC 4 documentary which shows Smith and the Fall, warts and all. Highly recommended for fans or as an introduction to this extraordinary group:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=C-Ff-7ui9BY

I’ve been looking at some stuff about accents on the BBC website. There’s a test that you can do to see how well you can recognise British accents and a few languages as well. I scored 8 out of 10. I need to brush up on the difference between Lancashire and Yorkshire accents while I think I can forgive myself for not knowing Bengali from Punjabi. Why not have a go yourself?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/voices/accentsurvey.pl

You can also listen to people from all over Britain talking about the way they speak. It’s a pity that the BBC doesn’t know what Scots is but they are not alone there. Much of the Scottish population doesn’t seem too sure either, even those who speak it. Anyway, I liked the Inverness students' conversation (Voice clip 1) although they're speaking English with a Scottish accent and not Scots as the webpage claims. I suppose the BBC will be telling us next that Scots is slang. However the first speaker does mention a few expressions from Doric (North East Scots):

Fit like = How are you?
Aye, aye = Hello
Ken? = You know?

If you really want to hear Scots then you'd be better listening to these speakers from Peterhead:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/group/scotland-peterhead.shtml

The Inverness student also mentions ‘rubber bumpers’ which is a bit of a joke in the Inverness area because the two words seem to define the local accent with its long vowels, soft R’s and other tamed down consonants.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/group/scotland-inverness.shtml

I’m not a huge tennis fan. I used to tune in to Wimbledon and forget about tennis for the rest of the year. In recent times I’ve seen a bit more of the French Open and less of Wimbledon which doesn’t get extensive coverage here in Spain. This morning I watched Andrew Murray’s match against Rafa Nadal at the Australian Open. I’m not much into flag waving jingosim and don’t see the point of it at all in individual sports. All the Union Jack brandishing that goes on at Wimbledon/Henman Hill (or is it now Murray Mountain?) is cringeworthy. But I was rooting for Murray in his match against the Spaniard. There’s something good about seeing a young Hibs supporter from Dunblane take on the second best player in the world and leaving him in a sweat.

There's just so much odd Smiths stuff surfacing at the moment. Did the Smiths visit every school in the country apart from mine? It's funny given Morrissey's apparent hatred for them (see Barbarism Begins at Home). Just another one of the many contradicitons surrounding the band and the lead singer in particular. Oh well, at least I did see the Smiths live once - at Eden Court, Inverness, 83-84, not long after the release of the first album. I even had their autographs as my uncle worked in the theatre at the time and got them for us. Sadly I appeared to lose them just around the time the group became legendary. Anyway, I was just getting over the Charlie's bus episode when I found this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rolR4Ou8t8w&mode=related&search=

I'm already enjoying the fact that it's light after 6pm in north west Spain. Sorry British readers.

I no longer need my belt. I've put on weight for the first time in 20 years. This time next year I might have Phil Taylor's trouser size.

My targets include writing a second book and publishing a collection of poetry.

I've mixed feelings about the possibilty of seeing Morrissey make a fool of himself at Eurovision in May.

I'm looking forward to the movie about Joy Division's Ian Curtis. Control is due to be released in the UK in March or April. It is based on Touching from a Distance by Deborah Curtis. For my review of that biography see the Dec. 05 archive.

It’s been a slow start to the year. No sooner was I back on Spanish soil than I was struck down with the flu. It came on Reyes – the sixth of January – present giving day in Spain. So in a way it was a bit like going down with flu on Christmas Day. I had been saying that I didn’t care too much about catching it provided my holidays in Scotland were over. Well, my ‘wish’ was quickly granted by the Reyes Magos (Three Wise Men). I got some good presents though including a DVD of the entire 5 series of Still Game. As usual I brought back a load of books. One treat to myself was ’78, or How a nation lost the World Cup. It’s supposed to inspire me to get on with my own book based around events of that time.

I’m hoping I don’t have to go too far away for a while after experiencing the new airport security policy. At Liverpool Airport it was unbelievable. There are Lennon lyrics scattered around the place and the airport slogan is Above Us Only Sky. It’s a nice touch but Imagine All The Terrorists might be more apt. One poor guy standing less than a metre from his bag in the check in queue almost had it whisked away as a suspect device by Easyjet staff. My first reaction was that maybe they were just trying to look efficient for the cameras of that Airport programme.

But just before going downstairs to the security check we had to re-arrange a small suitcase in order to fit a laptop in it that would have to be taken out again two minutes later to be scanned seperately. I then had to wait to retrieve my stuff from the trays because there was a perspex panel blocking the way meaning that a member of staff had to come over and slide the trays down the belt. When the said member of staff, a John Aldridge lookalike, appeared, he slid the tray containing the laptop down the belt like a bartender sends whisky along the counter in westerns. Luckily nothing appears to be damaged. Then he had the cheek to tell me to hurry up and collect my things because they needed the trays.

Even Madrid Barajas seemed slightly more relaxed despite an ETA bomb attack just a week previously. The bomb was placed in a car park, a warning was given and the area was evacuated. However, the authorities failed to find two sleeping Ecuadorians and they were killed in the blast.

This makes you well aware of the arguments. Yes, of course high security is better than being blown up. But I can’t help thinking there wouldn’t be so much need for it if the British government had the courage to back off from American expansionism. This ‘special friendship’ comes at a cost and we are all paying a small price. Anyway, I’m tempted to spend my next holidays in northern Portugal or anywhere else that is easily reachable by train or bus.