The Best Fighter In Town

There's always a deeply flat feeling inside you the day after playing a good solid gig I find. Last night our band played an exciting, tight set - and there's no describing exactly how good that feeling is, being on stage in front of people, jumping up and down, feeling the music, strumming that guitar as hard as you can and singing the words in such belief and conviction that they could be wedding vow. A feeling of true highness. An ecstasy of the soul. It makes it all the more difficult to contemplate or wonder where that feeling has gone by the time you get to the following evening, a Saturday evening, and are spending it at home on your own. You wonder if that brilliant feeling was even there in the first place - and whether it will ever come back.

Today is the 10th anniversary of the death of Joe Strummer, lead singer of The Clash and many more things besides. Joe died of an undiagnosed heart defect on the morning of the 22nd of December in 2002 after being out walking the dogs. He'd just embarked on a new exciting resurrection of his career with a new band and was creating and writing a style of music that not only reminded us of his early years in The Clash, but was tinged with an edge of something completely different, completely fresh. There is no telling what he would have achieved and created in the following years, if he hadn't died unexpectedly at the young age of only 50. 

He achieved a great deal in his short time. Formed and fronted the most important band of all time, never being blinded by their success, played in several other bands, made films, became a role model for thousands of young people, and wrote hundreds of inspirational and accessible, relevant songs - I think its surprising how much of the music we listen to has lyrics that bear absolutely no relevance to our lives and situations, we just swallow the same old standard words all the time, never reflecting on what they actually mean to us. A that's the main thing he provided - a real character, someone you could identify with, a far cry from some of the pomposity and other worldly lives some highly revered artists are perceived by us to have. 

I suppose for me, being 16 at the time and just finding The Clash for the first time, the feeling left behind after Joe died is very similar to how I feel tonight. Its a weird flat feeling to think that someone with such energy and drive - just check out some of those early Clash performances on youtube - suddenly be gone, and in the time of his own renaissance and resurgence, just leaves you wanting more and wondering what could have been. Euphoria, then silence. 10 years is a long silence for one of the loudest voices out there.

But everything is temporary, whether its a half an hour set at a little music club on the south coast or an entire lifetime, it won't last forever. But that never makes it unimportant. Any achievements small or large all count, and won't be forgotten. For me, Joe Strummer provided us with more than most. When I'm angry, happy, sad or indifferent, there's always room to listen to his music, his words and his attitude. For that I will eternally be grateful, if only in the small capacity that a fan can, and those recordings and words will never die. So, I'm sitting here tonight, feeling quite morose and lonely - but next to a record player blasting out punk rock at top level makes things a little better. So I'll raise a glass to Joe tonight, who in my mind will never really die.

Monday 27th August - Edinburgh

My summer break is nearly at an end. I've only been off for 12 days, but suddenly the idea of being back at work tomorrow fills me with an ineffable dread. My job isn't too bad I suppose, but there's always something wonderfully free about not being there.

A majority of my time off has been spent in the act of drinking and laughing - two of my favourite things - and I visited the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for 5 of my days off. A wonderful mix of comedy and beer, and in possibly my favourite city in the world, such is the atmosphere and buzz about the place during the month of August. This was my 3rd trip to Edinburgh, and my second in a row to the Fringe - and it could become a real habit to return there every year.

This year I went with three mates and a great time was had by all, ducking in and out of pubs, stand-up gigs, theatre and street performances. And eating and drinking an awful lot. Largely pizza and beer I think - which is probably what caused the hotel room to smell so badly. I honestly think the Methane levels in that room from our collective farts over 5 days could have provided a breathable atmosphere from an alien Emissary from Uranus. (And that wasn't just an anus joke, I just Googled "methane-rich planets" and the only one it came up with was Uranus, which Google goes on to inform me is the third largest planet in the solar-system, with the fourth highest density, and is named after the ancient Greek god of flatulence.)

Of course, if we had to have entertained the Ambassador of Uranus in that hotel room I struggle to think that we could have provided him/her/it with much meaningful conversation until at least midday, once our hangovers had subsided. We could probably have fed him some crisps and nuts from our extensive supply, if that's what aliens eat, and let him finish the Independent crossword to keep him busy - while he was gulping in great lungfuls of our live-preserving anal-emissions, waiting for someone important like the PM or the Queen to turn up and greet him.

And so our Edinburgh experience quickly passed. It's a wonderful place and at that time of year, and I have often thought how great it would be to do a show up there, even though I know that unless you are vaguely well-known, most people putting shows on will return home at the end of the month having made massive losses and performed to largely empty rooms, which can't be anything but crushing. But I suppose that is part of the magic of the festival, that everyone can have a go if they're bold enough, and that some of the performers do end up making it big.

Monday 11th June - Eggs

The thing about putting all of your eggs into one basket is that if you drop that basket you are left with no eggs at all. They are all smashed and broken. But if, on the other hand, you de-cantered your eggs into several different baskets, and then happened to accidentally drop one of the said baskets, then you still have some eggs left in your other baskets. You do however limit yourself to an, albeit guaranteed, much smaller omelette. Whereas the first method, the single basket method, leaves you the outside chance of the biggest omelette you have ever seen in your life.

I think what I'm trying to ask here - in the style of an Eric Cantona of cookery - is; is it better to concentrate on one goal fully and solely, or to spread your ambition over a wider field?

I'm not at all sure, but I do like omelettes.

Sunday 10th June - Threat

A couple of weeks ago I received the following unexpected text message from a number I didn't recognise;

'Stay away from my girlfriend you piece of shit. I'm gonna fucking kill you. I know where you live.'

That's weird, I thought, and slightly scary. To my knowledge I hadn't been going anywhere near anybody's girlfriend in the first instance, and secondly, I'm not a piece of shit. Am I? It surely must have been some kind of administrative error from the sender of the text, managing to get the number of the wrong Tom Sadler - and from my research earlier in the year, there seems to be rather a lot of Tom Sadler's about, so easily done I suppose. 

But the fact that they'd obviously made this admin error in finding my phone number may also have meant they'd managed to get my address too, which brought the second half of the text into play; the fact that they were going to kill me. And not just kill me, 'fucking' kill me. Presumably implying in the literal sense of the word, some kind of sexual edge to the act of murder - surely the only appropriate murder for the 'piece of shit' who's been knocking around with this bloke's Mrs would be to, in his eyes, knock me around before knocking me off, or even to exact the punishment in such a violent manner as to cause my untimely death.

All this was worrying.

Until my friend texted me saying it was him - using someone else's phone to send the text as a hilarious joke. And that is the punchline to this anecdote.

Sunday 27th May - Hot

Within the last week summer seems to have finally arrived, suddenly and quite unannounced.  After a month's solid rain the clouds have parted and left the country bathing in a sub-continent-like heat-wave. Barbecues are organised, the beach gets crowded, and everyone starts to get very sunburnt. Nearly everyone I saw in the supermarket over the weekend were buying bags of ice cubes too, as if they were in imminent danger of melting if they weren't bought that day. Just like when it snows you get the impression that we just aren't prepared for any slight fluctuation in climate, even if it does happen at least once every year. 

The other thing you notice is the amount of body parts suddenly on show - body parts which should never really see the light of day. Pasty white limbs, flabby bellies and unsightly hair are now visually on offer everywhere you look, as if the right to display them were under immediate jeopardy. The new rule at my work allowing shorts to be worn to the office has revealed pairs of legs which may not have seen the light of day for 20 years or more. 

I was even shocked to be standing at the railway crossing on Friday, only to after a minute or so realise that the woman standing next to me, waiting for the gates to open, was wearing just a bikini. And carrying a plastic shopping bag. She obviously thought it was hot enough to just nip out to do her shopping in what was effectively just her underwear - which is what a bikini is by the way, not appropriate clothing alternative for the summer months, just a bra and knickers designed for going in water. For what it was worth she was pretty good looking, but I couldn't help but wonder what I'd look like myself if I'd just popped down the shops in nothing but my pants. Maybe I'm being a bit old-fashioned, just seemed over the top to me. Not sure where I put my wallet if I went shopping in nothing but my pants anyway.

Yesterday I myself contributed to the stereotypes of the heatwave by going to the cricket and getting highly sunburnt. I wouldn't change it though, there's something about the sunshine that doesn't just burn skin, it also warms the soul, makes you happy.

Thursday 3rd May - Bad Breath and Polling Day

Today I've been thinking about bad breath. Specifically about a bad breath emanating from  the bloke that has just sat diagonally opposite me at work. It stinks. It's not a smell I can define as such, and I couldn't offer any other notes than; rotten, lingering, and it put me off my sandwiches, but it certainly tainted what was already a very average day.


I found myself wondering just where it came from (other than his mouth). How does such a small, bearded man - and I'm not suggesting being small and having a beard has any connection to his condition, I'm just setting the scene - but how does such a small, bearded man produce such a large quantity of foul-smelling exhalatory gas for such a long time? Surely he'd run out of his reserves of bad breath eventually? Apparently not. And with every slight sigh, or short spell of speaking, he emitted a potent gust of halitosis across the, perhaps 2 or 3 metres between us, which settled comfortably around me. Like an unwanted extra colleague, impeding my personal space. 


Now I don't know what was causing it (from the smell I could hazard a guess it was from a combination of not cleaning his teeth enough, and eating dog shit sandwiches for breakfast), but the thing that got me was that this guy seems be a massive attraction to some of the women at work. They flock to him. Like flies around a dog shit sandwich. Seemingly, having bad breath is no inhibiter to attracting the opposite sex, which I had never thought possible. It seems I may have wasted valuable time before almost every date I've ever been on, always taking care to spend ages cleaning and flossing my teeth, and even chewing gum, before setting out. This guys probably cleans them once a week and turns up to the meeting place chomping on a raw onion, and she can barely contain herself from mounting him there and then on a bar stool. It just doesn't seem right. I wonder if Sean Connery had bad breath in those Bond films?


Aside from practicing to see how long I could hold my breath for large periods of the day, the other noteworthy event today was voting. It's always a depressing sight every May when the local elections come along and I make my way down to the Polling Station at Lancing Parish Hall to cast my vote for whichever candidate isn't Conservative - which usually leaves me about 1 candidate to choose from. The miserable looks on all of the people who have to work there from 7am to 10pm to satisfy the needs of what can't actually be many people who bother turn out for it. But I quite like voting myself, and am quite proud that in the 8 years I've been eligible to vote I've never not made it down there. I always feel like if I haven't bothered to vote, then I don't really deserve the right to criticise those in Government, local or national, and criticising them is the only way we can really keep them in check. 


Sadly, in the 8 years I've been voting - including 2 general elections, yearly local elections and european - I have never backed a winning candidate, since I live in probably the safest Conservative seat in the country. And I could never bring myself to vote Tory. Not unless they propose handing out free Listerine daily to small, bearded men in their next election manifesto. 

Monday 23rd April

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it anyway", so said Mahatma Gandhi. Presumably he hadn't spent all nearly all weekend and a Monday evening watching episodes of 'Hustle' on youtube which, while entertaining, does seem almost like I've been wasting a lot of time. But I must say I find Gandhi's quote an encouraging idea, an idea which perhaps justifies some of the hobbies I have.


I didn't spend quite all of the weekend watching Hustle - and, for those who haven't seen it, check it out it's great! - and managed to spend much of yesterday evening drinking with friends in Brighton, and had quite a few ales in the end. This served as an interesting prelude to the radio show I heard this evening where former MP Anne Widdicombe was investigating the effects and possible solutions of a binge drinking problem in our society. This seems to be the latest in a long line of reports in the media on this subject, which tends largely to be damning against those who go out and drink to excess. 


Now, I agree that in some cases that binge drinking is a problem, but I don't think it is as large a problem as is generally perceived. There are always comparisons to places like France where people, apparently, enjoy drinking in a more 'cultural' and 'reserved' manner - and this seemed to be the largest argument in this show tonight, that we should be more like that here in Britain. There is also the fact that alcohol abuse causes so much spending on the NHS, where perhaps there could be money saved if the drinking culture was changed. I agree with many of the points these kinds of shows make concerning the issue, but I think they all seem to miss the fundamental point about why people go out on a Friday and Saturday and drink heavily and to excess - they do it because it's fun. 


If they didn't enjoy it, people wouldn't do it. And it must be enjoyable, otherwise people wouldn't give themselves the awful hangovers the next day if they didn't think it would be worth it for the night out. Although, if I'd known I was going to suffer from the other side effect of a night on the beer - terrible wind the next day - I may have drunk a little less last night. Was in so much agony today, just about managing to hold what felt like several cubic tons of fart gas inside me for he benefit of my colleagues. (For reference, I think Fart Gas is somewhere between Helium and Argon on the Periodic Table.) The more I listened to the show, the more I wanted to take Anne Widdicombe out one night and get her really drunk - although not for romantic purposes. She could even teach me a few of her famous dance moves. 


Right, back to Hustle I think. Imagine in this episode Mickey Bricks and the gang will manage to set up some witless thug in a mind-boggling con that will look like its sort of gone wrong until there's a big reveal near the end and they all end up in Eddie's Bar at the end and have a good laugh about it. Like every week. 


Glad I've discovered this programme, otherwise I could easily just be wasting my time.