To blog or not to blog

I’ve had a somewhat musical few days one way or another although at times deteriorating into discord and approaching cacophonous, but I shall start with something altogether more melodious. Let me confess a guilty sin: as I was growing up I was a huge fan of ABBA and listened to their music pretty much constantly. Don’t hate me – I was young, impressionable and had a crush on Bjorn! Coming out as an ABBA fan was a somewhat brave thing to do, when considered in the context of my peer group and the bullying I endured at school. I could have made my life easier by liking Adam and his Ants or Dire Straits, Duran Duran, Genesis or OMD, but oh no, I had to go for the group with the least possible street cred and the worst stage costumes ever designed. I was a bully’s wet dream, pre-packaged and offering all the ammunition they could ever need. Even I will admit that I was a misfit, speaking with a non-indigenous accent, short, unsporty, academically engaged (or a ‘swat’ if you prefer)  and struggling with my sexuality; I was bound to be a target and the slings and arrows of outrageous children found their mark. What do you do when all the kids are calling you a puff and you think they are probably right? So I escaped into art and music; headphones cut out the taunts and I took my comfort there. Don’t pity the child though as those experiences have made the man. Music gave me the escape I needed; I remember the euphoria of hearing that a new album or single was due for release and the excitement of getting the train from the village where we lived into Middlesbrough on a Saturday morning with my saved-up £5 note and a ritualistic trawl around Woolworths, WHSmiths and Our Price to see which shop sold the album at the best price. Then the decision – cassette or LP? Record departments had their own unique smell, vinyl and cardboard, which you just don’t get these days. I remember when “The Visitors” was released (Nov 30, 1981) my parents told me that they would buy me it for Christmas, but that was a month away! It was one of the first albums in the world to be recorded entirely digitally (ABBA pioneered quite a few musical advancements) and I had to have it! I managed to buy the cassette version without anyone knowing, and listen to it in secret. Then on Christmas day I acted all surprised and delighted. Sorry Mum, but a boy has needs!

Buying music now holds none of those joys with downloads and app stores providing instant, but shallow, gratification. Maybe I should blame ABBA for that and for the development of all-digital recording techniques which paved the way for the ephemeral music download.  There’s just no excitement any more, at least not the excitement born of anticipation and the pleasure of ownership. So ‘thou shalt not covert’ may be a good principal when applied to a neighbour’s wife (or even his ass, no matter how pert it may be) but those discs really meant something to me, I was proud of them and I kept them pristine, scratch-free and perfect. It isn’t the same waiting for Amazon to deliver a CD or a tune to download from the interweb. You can’t hold an mpg file in your hand, you don’t have a tactile relationship with the physical album; material music on palpable plastic has become, well, immaterial.  I mourn that but, when all is said and done, the world moves on.

As did ABBA who, as a group, didn’t last forever although a few solo projects kept my addiction sated and the collaboration with Tim Rice that resulted in the musical ‘Chess’ gave me many hours of pleasure. I saw Chess in London in its first week of opening – a big adventure for me as it meant getting the bus for a six-hour trip to the city and an overnight stop amid the bright lights, turmoil of cars, dazzled by the crazy magic and city chaos.

Last week, by complete chance, I spotted that our cinema was showing a recording of Chess, filmed in the Royal Albert Hall last year to mark the 25th anniversary of its release. So I had a wonderful few hours in an almost deserted cinema in the middle of the afternoon belting out show tunes and reliving some of the guilty pleasures of my youth. Thank God that nobody was there to see me and that the sound system drowned out my caterwauling. I’m such a hypocrite – as I’ll demonstrate later.

Musical theatre, I admit, is one gay stereotype to which I subscribe, and my record collection (well, CD collection really although I have boxes of vinyl in the loft and ironically no deck on which to spin them) includes Les Misérables, Evita, Cats and Jesus Christ Superstar as well as several recordings of Chess. I like the extended narrative that these shows bring and the songs are iconic. Like ABBA songs, even if you don’t profess to ‘liking’ then, you recognise them and probably in moments of weakness might even find yourself singing along. I know you know “I Know Him So Well”! You maybe even recall “One Night in Bangkok” – and remember, Confucius say, “Man who walk through revolving door at airport with erection, going to Bangkok.”

I hadn’t listened to Chess for years but was still word-perfect in all but the parts where they had changed the lyrics. (Note: THEY changed the lyrics, I didn’t get them wrong!) Word-perfect doesn’t mean pitch perfect though and I’m sure the melodic accuracy I heard in my head would have sounded less tuneful had anyone been sitting close enough to hear! I don’t care; I haven’t had as much fun for years!

There was a concert in Hyde Park at the weekend to celebrate ABBA, their songs and subsequent ventures including Mamma Mia, Chess and some of the work they have been doing since the group drifted apart. It was broadcast on Radio 2 and I bloody missed it! I will be making full use of the iPlayer to correct that error, although I shall do it alone, secreted away, so as to not inflict my addiction on anyone else. We addicts like privacy.

I missed the tribute concert broadcast because David and I went out for the day for a drive up the Pennines and over Saddleworth Moor to take some photos. It was most refreshing to get out into the wilderness, although Myra Hindley country has an unnerving quality at the best of times. We came back through some of the Yorkshire mill towns, with their huge, imposing factories and warehouses, blocking the light and blackened with an age of grime, the colour of their industrial past. William Blake was spot on when he wrote about our ‘dark, satanic mills’ in the poem that we now recognise as the hymn “Jerusalem”. I like a bit of Blake, both the William and the “…’s Seven” varieties. The Jerusalem connection takes me neatly into the last night of the proms…

…which is what I ended up watching on TV on Saturday for lack of anything better to do. I rather think that with my complete inability to sing in tune I somewhat crucified Jerusalem. The poem refers to the suggestion that a young Jesus was brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea (where they allegedly visited Glastonbury). There are many tales rooted in this concept, including stories that the Holy Grail is buried under the Tor, but they can wait for another blog. Jerusalem is constantly proffered as England’s National song ( see http://anthem4england.co.uk/ ) and it gets my vote over Land of Hope and Glory or Rule Britannia any day.

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green and pleasant Land.

But the ‘music’ didn’t stop there as the peace and tranquillity of England’s green and pleasant land – well, our back garden – was utterly smashed the other evening by the most astonishing sonic performance I have ever heard. Chinese-man-next-door (not to be confused with Chinese-woman-over-the-road) seems to have invested in a Karaoke machine and with abundant amplification was assaulting all auditory acceptability with an absolutely atrocious acoustic accompaniment. I failed to categorise the wailing as pop, rock, opera or ballad: It was indefinable although I would say it definitely would NOT be found listed under ‘easy listening’.

I find the Chinese language somewhat shrill and uncomfortable at the best of times but this was a combination of fighting cats, strangled wife, nails on chalk board, baby crying and emergency siren, punctuated with an attempted baritone that resembled the noise you’d get if a fog horn tried to mate with a buffalo at the bottom of a very deep well. He reached a crescendo and I hoped I could get the rest of the washing off the line in relative peace, while I still remained tympanum-intactus, Oh no. The second track began and Chinese-man-next-door started up again. Now to give you an idea of how bad this was I will tell you that it took me a good first verse and chorus to recognise that the tune was in fact not a Chinese funeral hymn but was actually the Rod Stewart hit, “Sailing”. At least that is what the karaoke machine was playing. Chinese-man-next-door somehow seemed to be trying to rearrange it to fit a pentatonic scale (which he then managed to massacre). Ironically, for a song about sailing, it doesn’t travel well, and the translation into Chinese had all the elegance of an epileptic sperm whale, mid fit. I was reminded of the Morecambe and Wise sketch with Andrew Preview/Andre Previn where Eric plays the piano and Previn accuses him of playing all the wrong notes. Eric’s reply is, “I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”. Well, Chinese-man-next-door went one step further and managed to sing all the wrong notes all in the wrong order, plus I think he invented a few new ones along the way too.  So, you would think that the wailing and straining couldn’t get much worse? Think again. He then started to vocalise the instrumental break, “Ahhh, Ahhhhh, Ahhh, Ahhhhhh” etc (sort of like the sound you might make whilst trying to sing at the same time as having one of your teeth filled) but now accompanied by bloody bagpipes – the most un-musical instrument ever inflicted upon human kind, with the only possible exception being the School Recorder!

Maybe Chinese-man-next-door should get together with Chinese-woman-over-the-road and form a group with him on ‘vocals’ and her on the bagpipes, which, let’s be honest, are really just a recorder with an airbag attached – I could probably make one with a penny whistle and an old hoover bag (you don’t get them any more these days either). They could call themselves “The Take Aways”. She has a face on her that could sour milk and he looks like he’s been hit very hard and at speed by a projectile wok – his ears even stick out like the handles on either side and I’m pretty sure his hair is made of Teflon. They’d make an ideal double-act. They could sing songs by Tim Rice, or release a cover version of such hits as “You’ll never Wok Alone”, “Wok on the Wild Side” or the Simon and Garfunkle classic, “I am a Wok”.  I shall write off, on their behalf, for an application form for next year’s “X-Factor” as I believe the nation deserves to hear this awesome new talent.

But good news dear reader, for Chinese-woman-over-the-road has started hanging her underwear in the bedroom window again. I know not why she stopped, but her smalls are back with a proliferation of panties and gussets galore. Maybe, like the amount of wool on sheep, or the quantity of berries on a bush, this is a portent of a bad winter. Perhaps I should start an “old wives’ tale” of my own:

When the panties are none
We will have sun

If you see her trolleys
You will need brollies

When the gussets show
There will be snow

Now you may be wondering how, when my theme for today has been musical, I feel I can link in the window wonders of woman Woo, well I shall avoid the obvious references to “Chinese Laundry Blues” and simply state that she wishes to get some Air on a G-string. Over to you, Mr Bach.