my summer holiday by D Beckham

we went to a plaice called doych land and we played and sven sed i wos the best and then we caim hom erly and sven sed it wos cos of frank hoo was crap and wayne hoo had bin bad then sven woz gone and i dont like the new man cos he dont let me play no mor

The Season so far.....

My first non match-going season in god knows how long, and what happens? United, top of the league, unbeaten, maximum points. Typical. If I was there, we'd be rubbish. It seems with International matches rearing their ugly heads again this weekend that it's an opportune moment to take stock of the Season three weeks in.

It's been a cracking start, with United playing confidently, and our main rivals stuttering - it's usually the other way round. Even with Scholes & Rooney out due to pre-season shenanigans, we've coped admirably, with the second string players stepping up and showing that they're up for it - Mr Fletcher notably - and Carrick looks to be fitting in well, though it's early days yet to be judging him. Goals seem to be coming from eveybody (Silvestre? Who woke him up?) and Ronaldo's getting jeered at every away match. Good. We love it when the world's against us, and although he's a little shit, he's United's little shit and don't you forget it. Good to see Chelsea & Arsenal getting beat as well. As the Tesco ad says, every little helps.

It's one of those season starts like the old days where we've got bizarre company below us. Portsmouth second? Villa third? Everton? The world's gone mad I tell you. "Ah, but it hasn't" says the voice of reason inside my head - it's amazing how a couple of inspired buys in the summer can lift a team, or in Villa's case, booting David O'Dreary and "deadly" Doug Ellis out and installing yer man O'Neill as manager. It seems there may be life in the Midlands yet (and it's good to see m'lady's beloved Wolves up there in the Championship - McCarthy's team don't play too pretty but they're grinding out results, and that's all that matters at the moment). Still it's early yet and we're sure that the once everything settles, you'll be finding Pompey and the rest in their natural midtable habitat.

So we come to the bottom of the Championship.. and doirty Mackem bastards Sunderland, who looked to be in freefall after "give the ball to" Niall Quinn's takeover, but things have taken a Rohld Dahl-esque twist with the appointment of his good mate (ahem) Mr Royston Keane as manager. Now, heaven knows what sort of boss he's going to be, but if he manages in the style of his captaincy, god help those players if don't give 100% on the pitch. He's played under two of the best managers ever (Clough & Ferguson) so something's bound to have rubbed off. He's not a man to accept second best, although you're only as good as the tools you've got to work with, so let's hope he can get those tools playing.

Now, I wonder who's sitting in my seat nowadays?

Single Review - U2 "Discotheque"

Last one for now... honest.

U2 "Discotheque"
Chart Position #1
Released February 1997

Of all the U2 singles, why this one, I hear you mumble? Well, why not?I love it and it pissed off a lot of their fanbase who refused to go with the band's new direction.

I really liked U2 in the Nineties. Don't get me wrong, I liked them in the 80s also but I began to tire of them around the "Rattle & Hum / we love America" era, and began widening my musical horizons a bit, but was pleasantly surprised to see that they too had widened their own when "Achtung Baby" was released, and I re-embraced the band. The ZOO TV era was U2 at the peak of their powers for me; playful, experimental, never dull and releasing some great music. When it was announced that their next album, "Pop" would be more dance orientated than their previous releases, it didn't bother or surprise me, bearing in mind their dalliance at that time with dance remixes and the "Zooropa" tracks such as "Lemon" & "Numb".

Unfortunately, 1997's "Pop" album was a bit of a disappointment all round, with the band seeming not to have the courage to go through with a total makeover; it sounded a bit "this will have to do" in places (due to them not having the record ready in time for the inital release date) and really only a couple of the tracks fitted into the "dancey" category, "Mofo", "Do You Feel Loved" and the first single, "Discotheque".

But what a opening single. Built around a rumbling Adam Clayton bassline, Larry Mullen Jnr's clattering percussion and the Edge's dirty guitar riff, this single is unlike anything that they released before or since. Bono wanders into "Fly" vocal territory throughout with lyrics faintly alluding to Ecstacy, whilst the track grooves along in a stop start manner - it's a really dense Flood production, with lots of busy layers going on, and one which they've never been able to pull off live. In retrospect, it also sounds like they've been listening a bit too much to "Begging You" by The Stone Roses... (but that's a good thing!)

The single version is the one to go for - the album version isn't quite right, being just not punchy enough, but the single mix (by Mark "Spike" Stent) is right on the nail. Of course, dressing up as the Village People in the video was something some fans have never been able to forgive. It seems as if the band have written this era off as a failure as well, continually trying to redo the tracks and making them worse (see the piss-poor new mixes on "The Best Of 1990 - 2000"). The following albums have seen them revert back to their old ways, almost going back to how they were pre-Rattle & Hum, which is a shame, as they could take more risks but seem to choose not to, having had their fingers burnt in the "Popmart" tour era.

But this was a number one single. Deservedly so in my opinion.

Single Review - Saint Etienne "You're In A Bad Way"

SAINT ETIENNE "You're In A Bad Way"
HEAVENLY HVN 25
Chart Position #12
Released Feb 1993

A fun throwaway SE track which has become a staple of indie discos since. Reworked from the basic version on "So Tough", the single version has the magical credit of "Additional production by Alan Tarney" - the man behind the best A-ha and Cliff Richard singles. His additional keyboard flourishes make this the pop gem it should always have been.

How can you not love a song which opens with:
"Toast is burned, / and your coffee's cold, / and you leave all the post `cause it's nothing but bills again. / Home from work, / put the TV on. / Get your kicks watching Bruce on the old Generation Game"

I've got fond memories as I saw them live for the first time around the time of this release, at Manchester University, supported by a little known group called... Pulp. Also, they did a couple of great appearances on "The Word" and "TOTP" for this single, where they looked fantastic, (well, Sarah did anyway).

Plus it's got 3 of the best additional tracks they've ever done on the CD & 12", with "Archway People", "California Snow Story" and "Duke Duvet", all interspersed with dialogue ala the first two albums ("Spongbake!")

And it was their highest chart position at the time.

Still, the band didn't like it: here they are talking about the track from Melody Maker:

Sarah: It was supposed to be a joke, but Alan McGee said "Brilliant! Got to be an a-side!" And it was our biggest hit.
Bob: He placed this huge millstone around our necks. Placed a huge albatross round our necks. Hahahahahaha! It was a big hit, though, wasn't it?
Pete: Albatross? Yeah, it was Number One.
Bob: No, You're In A Bad Way.
Pete: You're In A Bad Way was our Albatross.
Bob: It was supposed to be a cheesy Herman's Hermits thing, stupid lyrics and that. We wrote it in about ten minutes. We were in a big A-ha phase, and we thought it was going to sound like Cry Wolf, but instead it sounded like...
Pete: Cheese Wolf.
Bob: Oh dear.

Anyway, here's an NME cover from that time and the TOTP appearancea:

Single Review - James "We're Going To Miss You"

JAMES "We're Going To Miss You"
MERCURY CD JIMDD 24
Chart Position # 48

There's more to James than "Sit Down" & flowery t-shirts you know.

By 1998, James had released their "Best Of" and were on a second career high after 5 years of misfortune. However, beneath the surface there were still some in-house creative disagreements over their next move, and the following ironically titled album "Millionaires" was less experimental than before. Although generally well received by critics, it was surprisingly not well received by fans or the general record buying public (nearly always the case once a greatest hits is released - everything afterwards gets ignored). Which is a shame as there's some good stuff on here, the sublime "Just Like Fred Astaire" which we'll get to in due course and this: "We're Going To Miss You".

The album version is quite a dark track and not obvious single material, with a meandering intro. However, the band went back to the studio to rerecorded the track to making it more punchy, with the ever reliable Dave Bascombe on mixing duties for radio friendliness. It's got a superb rousing chorus (I love it when it sounds like all the band is singing together) and brooding verse lyrics which apparently are a spell against anybody wanting to do harm to Mr Booth:

"This is not, this is not, a song / This is a shield, this is a charm, with your name on / By this beat, by this verse, I'm protected / From your heat, and your curse, is reflected / If anybody hurts me"

Read into that what you will. Of course, it bombed, being released in December 1999, when nobody in their right mind would release a track, let alone the third song off an album. And James had only one more (excellent) single and album left in them before Tim Booth left, but I feel that they're a pretty much unappreciated & forgotten band these days and this needs to be rectified, starting here.

Single Review - Air "Surfing On A Rocket"

AIR "Surfing On A Rocket"

single released by Virgin: April 19, 2004

This has been on almost permanent rotation in the car for the last two weeks. Dunno about you, but after the "10000hz Legend" disaster, I wasn't expecting much from Air again. But "Talkie Walkie" was a return to the form that made "Moon Safari" an enduring classic... but this single from that album passed me by at the time. It was only recently on compiling a "Best Of" for the car that I picked up on it.

It contains one of the most gorgeous guitar lines ever (ahh, those minor keys), breathy French vocals (not female but the lads themselves), bizarre lyrics about surfing bombs, some great keyboard noodling in the middle and a sudden ending (always a winner). Nigel (Radiohead) Godrich's production is superb, giving a focus to the song that sometimes the band's own production lacks. It's a chill out track that deserves to be played LOUD.

Singles Reviews - New Order "Fine Time"

This is the first in a series of my own reviews of some of my favourite singles, first posted in the Cookd & Bombd forums, as part of their "Verbwhores 1000 best singles" thread.

Hope you enjoy.

NEW ORDER "Fine Time"

Factory FAC 223-7
Chart pos #11

New Order go to Ibiza and come back with this.

My first reaction to hearing this single on the radio for the first time was “What the fuck….?”. It sounded absolutely mad. Now I’m talking about the 7” version here. Not the album version, which is longer, rearranged with time to breathe. No, the seven inch, which compacts everything into a three-minute package of dance mentalness (which is odd really as you can’t dance to it).

This wasn’t, and still isn’t typical New Order. The track screams in all guns blazing, with Barney’s semi-angry vocal “You’re much toooooo youuuuuuuuung..” over a busy squelchy acid backing (apparently the genre called Balearic, m’lud). There’s no chorus to speak of. A pastiche of a Barry White lurrrrrve monologue (“Oooooohhhhhhh. Sophisticated laydehhhhhhhhh”). A dead stop in the middle of the track. Weird synthesized voices. No trademark Peter Hook bass until the end. And sheep noises. Add a beautiful Peter Saville sleeve (as ever) and Barney doing Bez-type dancing on prime-time TOTP and you’ve got a winner.

We thought that the “Technique” album would be more of the same. It wasn’t, and I’m glad, because this track stands on it’s own as a gem to be cherished. It hasn’t dated because it sounds like nothing around at that time or since. As innovative as “Blue Monday” but it’ll never get the praise. Except here.

Weight Update!

Weigh in this week, and I've lost six pounds, even with having to pig out at V2006. Hurrah.

To celebrate I had a Dominos.

Hmmmm.

V. Wet

We went to the V 2006 Festival at Weston Park last weekend and a jolly time was had. Here's a brief review.

Saturday

Rain.

Rain rain rain rain... rain. Which means mud. We'd been checking the weekend weather forecast over the previous few days, and the enevitable conclusion was that it was going to be wet and muddy. So one trip to Millets later, Celia & I were suitably equipped for the weekend in macs & wellies. The environment was not a prob. This being our third V at Weston Park, we were used to the layout and where everything would be... or were we? Oh no, co this time they'd changed the layout, for the better, and certain stages had moved (we never actually got to the Channel 4 stage all weekend).

After getting our bearings, and some well needed grub down us - hurrah for Giant Yorkshire Puddings with sausages, mash and gravy! - and getting our beer tokens and doing a little shopping (see Celia's groovy top, right) we saw some of Sugababes' set, before retreating to the JJB Tent/Arena to listen to Imogen Heap and then Nerina Pallot who was really good, in a early Sheryl Crow sort of way. More beers and a trip to the Bacardi stage followed - a weird place rammed where the bartenders poured and served your Bacardi drinks in time to the very loud DJ set in the background, whilst the springy floor meant that everybody there was bouncing up and down in time to the beats. As it was so rammed it felt necessary to get doubles - see left.

And still the rain came down - the ground was holding up reasonably well and we didn't care about the rain due to our protective gear. However, we fancied seeing something guaranteed to be good, and Paul Weller on the main stage wasn't doing it for us, him playing shite album tracks when all the crowd wanted was a few singles and some Jam tracks. So back to the JJB to see The Beautiful South. Unfashionable they may be, but boy did that tent rock. SingalongaSouth time with "Rotterdam", "Good As Gold", "You Keep It All In" & "Old Red Eyes Is Back". Fabulous.

We got out in time to see Faithless tearing the main stage apart with their hits, transferring surprisingly well to the live arena and making the place seem like a club. Night drew in, the rain eased slightly, and Morrissey took to the stage for the finale, playing a set comprised mainly of his new album, some recent singles and Smiths classics like "Panic", "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" (we didn't), "Girlfriend In A Coma" before rounding off with a fierce "How Soon Is Now". Great stuff for an oldie.

Then the long walk out. What would the next day bring?

Sunday

Sunsheeeeeeeeiiiiiiine.

Yes, no rain today, and no reason to rush to see anybody. We meandered in to hear the end of Kula Shaker, did a little bit of shopping again in one of the clothes stalls, whilst listening to The Magic Numbers in the background, more Yorkshire pud (hurrah again) and beers before settling down to listen to Bloc Party, who were alright but never anything better than background fodder. Over to the JJB for Echo & The Bunnymen, who never let me down, doing a 35 minute set of hits - tremendous stuff. We got sidetracked after this trying to get an inflatable Motorola V3 phone from the area where the promo guys were throwing them into a hungry waiting crowd. It was only thanks to the tenacity of Celia that we managed to wrestle one away from some guy who tried to nick the one I had my grip on. So we had something comfy to sit on, whilst watching Keane and having a beer/breezer .

Then came Beck, and his puppet band, which had to be seen to be believed. It's odd listening to him and then seeing a puppet on the big screen lipsynching to "Devils Haircut". His set meandered to a close before a video was shown of what the puppets had got up to that day (hilarious stuff really) before the man came back with "E-Pro" & "Where It's At". Bloody brilliant.

Then the headliners - Radiohead were as good as ever. No surprises (hah! a pun) as they ran through there most popular stuff, (special note must be made here of the efforts of the sound crew - it sounded crystal clear from wherever you stood - fabulous) before we raced over to the JJB to catch some of Fatboy Slim's set - let's party like it's 1997. The guy's a genius, mixing loads of new stuff like Gorillaz & Gnarls Berkley with his own tracks, and the tent was rocking, with Celia giving loads of rave shapes. Great stuff.

We wandered back out to catch the last bit of Radiohead where they were doing "Karma Police" & a rare outing for "Creep" which drew in many a non-fan like zombies in the night "Urrrrgh... Creep... I know this one....". First time I'd ever heard them do it live as well. And then that was it. Home...

... and our temporary home this weekend was with the fabulous Karen & Stef, who handily live in the nearby village of Shifnal, and who kindly let us stay over the weekend. No camping for us! There's no adequate way of thanking them for putting us up, and for giving their generous time and lifts to and from Weston Park. Oh, and for accompanying us to East End Balti House in Shifnal, for the best curry I've had so far, and staying up drinking until the early hours, watching Modern Toss and for Stef's bacon butties in the morning. Let's not forget the Badger cat in a box.

The Shifnal posse - we salute you!

Who ate all the pies?

It's Monday and it's day three of the diet. Yes, I'm on the old Slimming World so it's green & red days all round. Got to lose a couple of stone. Well, say "got to", I don't actually have to but as I look pregnant at times it's probably best all round. So Celia & I enrolled last Thursday, the big shop was done on Saturday and it's full steam ahead. Cut out the Dominos pizza & chocolate, and keep an eye on the beer. I'm taking my lead from Celia as she did so well last time, and kept most of it off, so I've got a role model and someone to make sure I don't cheat. Watch this space for updates. Hopefully, by November i'll be a bit thinner, but we'll see. Greebo cat is also on the diet as he weighs a stone. He's a little barrel. So it's a cutback on the biscuits for him.

The Secret Life of Daleks

Celia had a strange dream the other night, about the scenario where the Daleks are part of a Union.

Yes, bear with us, don't move off to a more sensible website.

It does bear the question, what do the Daleks do when they're not murdering and invading? Do they have down-time? Do they have a home-life? Hmmmmm.... we both had a think...

Scene i:

(Two Daleks come on from stage right: interior crappy Wetherspoons pub)

(Dalek 1) Jeff: Awright Pete?

(Dalek2) Pete: Yeah, awright Jeff.

Jeff: So, how's the missus Pete?

Pete: (wiggles his eye-stalk) Doing awright thanks mate, y'know... typical wife really. She's a lovely piece of kit, but at the end of the day, she's a Cylon, know wot I mean? And you know how they are.... they just give you grief year in year out... especially as she's old-skool Cylon. Should have hung on for one of those sleek new blonde ones!! But she's got a heart of gold. Literally. With wires and everythink.

Jeff: (wiggles plunger in exasperation) You know, my Pauline, a real goer in the that department, know worramean, but gawd, she's a real Cybernightmare when she goes off on one... "Why aren't you hoovering the stairs, blah blah blah". I hate the bastard that wrote it in that we could hover. I could pretend not to make it to the top landing before that.

Pete: Yeah mate you've got the worst of both worlds there mate...emotionless and a woman.

Jeff: Too right. I bought her a gold necklace the other week. She went mental. Coughing & spluttering everywhere. How was I to remember she's allergic?

(Jeff and Pete both take a moment to dip their plungers into a pitcher of Lager)

Pete: Burrrrp. 'scuse me. Always catches me circuits that does.

Jeff: Y'know...I do wonder sometimes why we do this job. That Davros is always goin' on about 'supremacy' and 'extermination' - but where does it get us?

Pete: Nowhere. Some perks would be nice, other than the obvious job satisfaction of exterminatin'.

Jeff: Job satisfaction? What job satisfaction? I go home mentally tortured after a day of murder destruction and mayhem, "Exterminate this", "Exterminate that"... it's always the bleeding same, century in, century out. I got home the other day and exterminated the cat by accident. It doesn't make socialising any easier either- I always end up killin' potential mates. Remember the Orion curryhouse incident?

Pete: hmm gotta point there son. I do think that Sontaran asked for it though.

Jeff: Yeah. Bloody rugby crowd. Anyway (hushed dalek tone) I think, right, we, that's us two, should form a Union.

Pete: WHHHAAATT??

Jeff: Shhhhhhhhh... yeah mate...a union!

Pete Why would I want to be in a Union?

Jeff: Well... errrr, look at your working hours for a start. For me, after 12 hrs, me laser starts to short circuit due to overuse. Surely its against UEC regulations?

Pete: Hmmmm...

Jeff: AND what about pay?

Pete: Pay would be nice.

Jeff: EXACTLY mate. Davros is there, lording it about, fancy buttons to push and everything, prawn sandwiches, Rigellan wine and what do we get? Not even Luncheon vouchers.

Pete: Errmm...

Jeff: AND it's very well for the fat Emperor to sit on his backside in his fancy spaceship orderin' us about, giving it all that about worshipping him, but who's gonna tell my missus that our two week holiday on the Costa Skaro is cancelled due to another ill prepared "invasion of the planet Earth"??!!

Pete: (sips more lager through his plunger) That'll be you Jeff.

Jeff: Exactly - muggins 'ere. Another wasted two week invasion of Earth, only to be sent packin' by that bloke in that blue box and his latest bit of skirt, when I could be sunning it up by a pool with my Pauline.

Pete: (Pause) I did like the curly haired one though, him with the scarf. He was alright- he gave me a few jelly babies once. Nice bloke.

Jeff: Yeah yeah, I'll give you that. Better than that psycho from Salford last year. He wouldn't give you the time of day.

Pete: Yeah. he just had a hissy fit and started flappin'. His bird had to sort that out.

Pete and Jeff (together): Northern poof.

Pete: She was a bit of awright though.

Jeff: You shouldn't be looking. You newly married and all. But this brings me back to my point. Our working conditions are the worst in the galaxy.

Pete: Such as?

Jeff: Well as I said - no pay, no contracted working hours - and no sick leave. Davros makes you commit hari-kari if you have a sniffle.

Pete: Yeah look at Mike last year. Poor sod.

Jeff: PLUS... plus... (sips more lager, getting more and more loud and drunk) plus...no contract, no bonus pay. No overtime. In fact... no pay at all - supposed to do it for the greater "Supremacy Of The Daleks". Tell that to my bank manager. Didn't help me get that bank loan from him.

Pete: No way... and after you fixed his sink as well. Did you....?

Jeff (burps loudly) Exterminate him? Yeah.

Pete: Fair do's.

Jeff: AND we have to put that stupid voice on. "DO NOT MOOOVE" and so on. Bloody daft in this day and age.

Pete: Yeah. In the 70's, they made me sound like Zippy from Rainbow.

Jeff: He was Davros' brother you know. Still, at least putting that voice on for thirty years helped me lose that Welsh accent. AND that Davros - he ain't so hard & clever y'know. He's crap without wheelchair access. And can he nip into any branch of Halfords for spare parts? Nope.

Pete: He thinks giving us a spray-job of metallic car paint is giving us an upgrade.

Jeff: Exactly mate. Diabolical liberty.

Pete: Although... the missus quite liked it. I was council-house grey before. And I had a kitchen whisk replaced by a proper laser, like. It was a bit of a face lift.

Jeff: I bet she gave you the eye when you came in the house looking like that, eh? Whorrrrrrrr.

Pete: Awww, she loved it- she was bombin' around like KITT off of that Knightrider. Zoom-zoom, zoom-zoom, her little eye went. So romantic.

Jeff: Aww. Lahhhh-vely.

Pete:(looks at watch) Cor blimey, I better get back to her... I only told her I was nipping out to the jetwash for a clean. You know, that old Davvy might think he's the Boss, but we know who the real boss is don't we mate.

Jeff: Bruce Springsteen?

Pete: No you dolt. Her Indoors.

Jeff: Ohhh. Yeah. Do you think the woman behind the bar will let me use the disabled bog?

Exit Left.

No butt yeah butt no

Well, Italy won the World Cup, as I hoped. Funny thing was, that with all the build up to the match, and all the talk of it being Zidane's last match, I stated to lean towards wanting the French to win.

Extra time sorted that one out.


Whatever a player may say to you on the pitch, you don't react, certainly not with your head. Certainly not when you're ten minutes away from penalties, and when you're the man the rest of the team will be looking upto as chief penalty taker.

Zinedine Zidane is a player that, as a neutral, you looked as a class above the norm. I've watched him play at Old Trafford against us in Champions League matches and he was a class act to be admired. Okay, he has that Gallic temperament, like many before him, and he could get a bit naughty. But there's a time and a place for that. And when it's your last ever game for your country and professionally, in the bloody World Cup final, you'd expect more than headbutting an opponent as if it was a common assault in a pub car park.

It may or may not have affected the outcome of the match. After all, the coach made some odd substitutions bearing in mind a penalty shootout was looking very likely. So well done to the Italians for beating that penalty hoodoo. But if you're French, right now you'll be looking for someone to blame, and Zidane has more than filled the role of the World Cup pantomime villain, previously played by Ronaldo earlier in the tournament.

All that experience, all those medals, all that acclaim. Yeah, it'll all be remembered in time, but at the moment, all that will be thought when you mention Zidane is of that headbutt.

Grudge grudge, wink wink

There's still apparently a football tournament going on. Somewhere in Europe I think. Oh yeah, Germany.

Let's face it, since England got knocked out, who gives a toss? It's now not a question of who you want to win, more of the team you'd like to win that you least hate.

Celia & I were supporting the Germans. "Ah, but what about the war? You can't do that" I hear some of you exclaim. Well, that's the past and nothing to do with new Germany, just as the new German side under Klinnsman is nothing like the German sides of old (Rudi Voller's comedy 'tasche haunts me to this day). Celia has family in Germany (Guten tag, Nici!) and I was following them because out of all the sides that have taken part, I think they're probably the ones that have been the most consistent and played within the true spirit of the tournament.

AND they've got a player called Bastian Schweinsteiger, who sounds like a character out of a German 70's sitcom, where every week at the end of the episode he'd get into some godawful predicament with his trousers down, with another character shaking his fist at him shouting "Schweinsteiger!!!" before fading to the credits with a theme tune that is a cross between "Van Der Valk" & "Man About The House".

Ahem.

So often it is the case that the host nation plays well as the pressure is off them to an extent - look at England in Euro 96 for a prime example of this, and what a joy that was, even if the Germans beat us (again!).

So it was a bit of a downer that Italy sneaked a victory against the Germans the other night. If it had gone to penalties, it was a dead cert the Italians would be the ones crying. Realistically, though, the Italians deserved to win that one, and I hope that they beat France in the final, as:

a) we hate the French (must be true -"The Sun" says so), and
b) it would mean that most Italian restaurants up and down the country can replace that tatty picture of the 1982 World Cup winning squad.

It was pleasing that Germany won the meaningless 3rd place play-off final against Big Phil's Portugeuse side. Which brings me to Cristiano Ronaldo. What a
c***. Strong words I know, but hey, I'm a Manchester United fan, and frankly, contrary to the song, he's never been as good as Beckham & he's not welcome back at OT. Yes I know he's a great player but that wink has done it for me. He knew what he was doing when he waded in to nag the referee (after all, that part and parcel for a United player) and yes, Rooney deserved a sending off but slimeball Ronaldo shouldn't have been involved - his little wink to the dug out to say "job done" goes totally against every thing I love about the game. It's nothing to do with England getting knocked out, we were crap and didn't deserve to be there. The boy has so much talent, but his predilection for diving and cheating, whilst the norm for Portuguese teams, has no place in a United team. It was gratifying to see that the football fans really appreciated his talent during the rest of the tournament by booing his every touch of the ball.

United fans defended Beckham to the hilt following France 98 when everybody was gunning for him - yes he was petulant and he got sent off but there was nothing in his behaviour which could make you call him a cheat. We'll do the same for Rooney next season - he's a genius but he's got that red mist he can't control yet, but only because he loves the game and wants to play, and those who stop him get a kicking.

However, Ronaldo can cock off to Real Madrid as far as I'm concerned. He seems to be burning his bridges with the club anyway, saying he's had no support from the management. Fine, put your own spin on it, son. We've only nurtured you through some difficult times for you, and so this is how the fans who've tolerated your wingeing and crappy stepovers in lieu of actual goals are repaid is it? If you stay don't be surprised to get a frosty reception, son.

Pet Shop Boys, obviously

Liverpool. Never my favourite place in the UK but when one of your favourite bands is playing there on their first tour dates in 4 years, you have to bite the bullet and make the effort to travel to land of bindippers. And so we did.

Summer Pops is a month long series of concerts set each year in a very large tent in the middle of Liverpool docklands, usually featuring MOR/Radio 2 fodder doing their old hits, so to non-fans PSB would seem like the ideal choice for this sort of show. However, Messrs Tennant & Lowe have never been ones to trade on their past and as they were back on form with the superb new “Fundamental” album, it was a no-brainer to head the wrong way down the East Lancs Road to see them.

Bearing in mind I’m an experienced gig-goer, Summer Pops was a bit of an eye-opener. Firstly I was shocked at how easy it was to get to the venue, and how many gigs have you been to where you could safely park opposite the entrance 50 yards away? Not being the most glamourous locale (lovely view of some gravel there) but who cares? It was so civilised! No queues, no aggression, everybody was just chilled. Plus! Plenty of clean toilets!. Great. Not many young fans there, but it wasn’t full of screaming queens as the media would have you believe make up the fan base of PSB (but that’s a rant for another day).

Avoiding the out of tune begging bagpiper on the way in, myself & Celia took advantage of the hot summer evening to potter outside the tent having a quick drinkie, whilst listening to the din of the support act, Client, who were a bit generic electro pop and not really worth bothering with. One tray of chips and a couple of t-shirts later we entered the main arena, to find that our seats were really rather good, with a fine view of the stage (though I did have the obligatory 6ft bloke sat in front of me).This wasn’t going to be a problem though as there was no way anybody would be sitting. Although there were a few thousand people there, it was really quite intimate and personal.

The last PSB show we saw was in 2002, when they were going through their “real band” phase, with no theatrics and musicians on stage. It soon became apparent that this was more like the old “Performance” days, when the two dancers appeared dressed as Neil & Chris, before the real duo wandered onstage opening with the compulsively repetitive “Psychological” from the new album.

What initially looked like a dull stage set soon inventively transformed when they kicked into “Left To My Own Devices” & “I’m With Stupid”, with video projections, lights, and bizarre props (giant cowboy hat? Check. Man dressed as a top hat? Check. Bush & Blair? Check) turning what was a good gig into the best personal party you’ve ever had. Celia had turned into a teenager next to me and was frugging away like it was 1990.

This was PSB having fun. Neil strode the stage all night, giving his all and sounding better than ever whilst Chris stood stage right clad in trademark hat & coat, tinkling away at the synth & probably surfing the net on his Mac, occasionally grinning. Merging new track “Minimal” to the old forgotten classic “Shopping” was an inspired move. For the first time in years they played “Rent” in its original form, and it sounded fresh.

The dancers gave their all, dressing up as gold lame cowboys for “Streets”, wearing flowers on their head whilst popping up from behind gigantic Pythonesque cardboard Chris & Neil heads during “Always On My Mind”. Old hand Sylvia Mason-James complemented the two male backing vocalists fantastically throughout.

Not all fun though. We had the obligatory sit-down where us oldies could rest our dancing feet. “Dreaming Of The Queen” was quite sombre and moving, with video footage of the Diana Funeral procession projected onto the movable stage backdrop. Surprise of the night for me was the album snoozefest “Numb” which came alive on stage, especially poignant as it was used the night before on BBC’s World Cup coverage to accompany the montage of another England failure.

The show ended with possibly the best track off the album, “Integral”, which has instantly become a singalong fave, with Neil enjoying himself dressed as some military dictator. Cue the encore with a Tennant-less version of “So Hard” enabling him to have a costume change in time for the final salvo of “It’s A Sin” & the inevitable “Go West”, which caused an outbreak of chanting and pointing west. And that was just Celia.

The icing on the cake was when we left, sat in the car minding our own business, when a steward knocks on the window, and offers to guide us safely away from the venue through the traffic cones. How nice. I can recommend the Summer Pops to anybody (though anybody who went to watch “Whitesnake” the next night needs help).

Whilst I guess nothing is going to top their “Performance” tour, this was in a league of it's own.


Setlist:
Psychological / Left to my own devices / I’m with Stupid / Suburbia / Minimal / Shopping / Rent / Always on my mind / Where the streets have no name / Home and dry / Numb / Dreaming of the Queen / West End girls / The Sodom and Gomorrah Show / Opportunities (Let's make lots of money) / Integral

Encore:
So Hard (Morales mix) / It’s a sin / Go West

It's Thursday, it's seven o'clock & it's... oh, axed.

Top of the Pops axed. You'd expect me to pass a tear at this sad news, but then again... no (to quote Elton). Unfortunately, it's about time, because the way TOTP is at the moment, it's like looking at a lame dog struggling to crawl up the stairs every Sunday. It needs putting out of it's misery. No good putting a nice shiny collar on it and then shutting it in the back yard for no one to see... ahem. Enough canine comparisons. Let us go on.

It's a cliche to say that TOTP hasn't been any good for ages. Let's face it, everybody has said it at some point in the last 30 years, because the memory cheats - TOTP has always been good & crap, usually in the same edition, because it reflects the charts. For every Jam there's a Lena Martell, for every All Saints there's a Ricky Martin, for every Roxy Music there's Mud. But the cliche is actually now correct. It's a shambles.

For people of a certain age, or old bastards as they are known, the 70s era of Top Of The Pops featuring the likes of Slade, Noel Edmonds, Bowie ("who's that poof with the make up?" says yer Dad) & Pans People is firmly fixed in their minds as the classic years. I was a bit too young to appreciate all this, coming in at the arse end of punk, and whilst watching clips of the lovely Babs, Cherry Gillespie & co frug their way through Gilbert O'Sullivan songs has some appeal to me now ("Phwoor"), it's two eras that have it for me.

1983 to 1990 (or the classic "Now That's What I Call Music" years) is the golden age for me. Okay, there was a lot of shite on, but wasn't that always the case? From New Romantics through Live Aid Rock via Pete Waterman Pop to House & Baggy - these were the years where you'd go into school on the Friday morning and talk about such topics as Howard Jones' daft mate & his mental chains, Frankie's "Two Tribes", Kylie going round Sydney in her open top limo, Madonna's pink wig, the new Duran video, Marti Pellow's shit-eating grin, Sabrina's gravity defying breasts (pictured left) and how George Michael can't be a poof, look at his girlfriend.

And that's the key point - it was firmly entrenched as Thursday night entertainment, stuck before Eastenders or Tomorrow's World. Things started to go wrong in the 90s, when tinkering with the format started happening. The early 90s were a bit dodgy for TOTP, experimenting with live vocals during an era of faceless dance music, and having too many MOR artists appearing, making the show more like Pebble Mill at times. The show really needed a kick up the arse, and got it when producer Ric Blaxhill took over the reins of the show, coinciding with the rise of Britpop. This was my second favorite era: from 1993 to around 1997, every week there would be something great - Bjork, Pulp, Take That, Spice Girls, Kylie, Oasis v Blur, guest presenters like Vic & Bob, Damon, Kylie, Jack Dee - there was still something to talk about the next day at work. I've still got many of these shows on luddite VHS and they're great. There were "exclusive" performances but the basic format of the chart was adhered to.

However, ITV's Emmerdale was starting to beat TOTP in the ratings in the Thursday slot. So the BBC sneakily moved the show to Fridays during certain sporting events and left it there... opposite Coronation Street, in a move which was reminiscent of what they did to Doctor Who in the 80s (but that's another story). Whilst the quality of the show stayed more or less the same (as ever, dependent on who was in the chart at that time), who was watching it? Everybody I knew watched the antics of the residents of Weatherfield, or was too busy getting ready to go out. Families would be split now, between the soap or the tunes. "But there's a late Saturday repeat" says Mr BBC Press Office - yeah, only good to insomniacs or people staggering in from a nightclub with a kebab and a wee nightcap. And don't get me started on TOTP2.

So it struggled on into the 21st century... but wait! Hurrah! Help is at hand! In a genius move, the Beeb brought ex-Ed The Duck-fister Andi Peters (below) in from his dumbing down of the youth department at Channel 4 to overhaul the show, and he fucked it well and truly up with imbecile presenters, magazine type articles ("Hi, I'm Cheryl Tweedy & this is us, Girls Aloud in our hotel, in Japan exclusively for TOTP" - cheers), a rundown of the album chart (why??) and criminally, no actual records from the chart, just "exclusives". It was as if they wanted it to fail. And fail it did, Peters jumping the sinking ship back to presenting, his job done, and the show being eventually shunted into the background like some embarrassing incontinent relative, over to BBC2 on a Sunday. Yeah, cos music shows have always done well on a Sunday. Dickheads. Plus they show clips from old editions of TOTP just to add insult to injury, to avoid having to have too many bands on (expensive) and in this process avoid compiling new TOTP2 shows. It's now trying to be all things to all people yet satisfying nobody. Unless you're a Fearne Cotton fan.

The decline is nothing to do with the changing formats for music. "Downloads are all the rage"- nim nim nyur, crap: CDs replaced vinyl, MP3s replace CDs, life goes on, it's still music. "But there's plenty of other outlets for music such as the channels on SKY which serve the viewer better" they say. Yeah right - the same 20 videos shown over and over covered with text messages and replaced by phone in quiz shows during the night. On every channel. I'd also hardly call "Later With Jools Holland" an adequate substitute. The moment the BBC moved away from the fundamentally simple concept of TOTP - that is, you release a single, if it gets in the Top 40 you'll probably have a chance to be on the show, you drop down the charts, you don't - is the moment that the show began to go off the rails. Putting the show on at a time when it has no chance of a major audience share was the death knell. Moving to BBC2 on a Sunday was more or less the last rites being given. All the programme needed was some TLC (no, not the group).

Bizarrely, the BBC say TOTP2 & the magazine will live on, as will the foreign versions of the show. Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys (who worked for Smash Hits, also sadly gone this year) said this on the subject: "We've felt that the BBC have gradually run down the show since the mid-90s, not trusting the chart-based format, moving it from its classic Thursday evening slot on BBC1 until it ended up on BBC2 with inevitably smaller viewing figures. 'Top Of The Pops' is a world-famous name in music television and it's a shame to see it disappear. Actually, it's worse than a shame, it's a mistake."

You can only hope that they're on the last edition. The only good thing I've seen recently is PSB doing "I'm With Stupid" on the show, with dancers in Blair & Bush masks (pictured). It would be fitting to have something decent on it... like the old days.

Shit. I've become a person of a certain age.

That Tramore Feeling

Ever felt blissed out?


You know that moment where everything's right with the world. And months or years later, even on the crappiest of days, you think back to that moment and you're temporarily there again and the worlds okay for a few hours.

Mine is walking barefoot with Celia along Tramore beach with the warm waves from the Atlantic ocean splashing around our feet, the water so clear we could see the golden sand, sun beating down on our backs.

Tramore, for those who care, is a little seaside resort off the South Coast of Ireland, down the road from Waterford, which is big with surfers. The gorgeous Celia & I spent a week there last year, which was fabulous, and I can recommend it to anybody who’d like to get away from it all for a while. I'll probably wax more lyrically about it later.

If I ever want to chill out, I cast my mind back to that afternoon in September last year, where Celia & I unwound, and I’m gone.

If I can ever experience something that can match that, I’ll be a lucky person.

That Tramore feeling.