The Observer team of journalists, contributers and friends have all written on a variety of topics... how to divide up this work is quite tricky... but we'll have a go.

Travel
Oliver Gray on Carriacou
Oliver Gray on Tulsa
Sam Leyden on The Faroe Islands
Richard Williams on Granada and Ronda
Richard Williams on Dublin
Richard Williams on Catalonia
Richard Williams on Las Vegas
Pete Harvey on Cork
Max Jones on P&O
Max Jones on Ibiza

Music
Richard Williams on American Music Club
Richard Williams is Up All Night in Dublin
Oliver Gray on John Peel
Oliver Gray on SXSW
Oliver Gray on Grandaddy
Oliver Gray on Peter Bruntnell
Sam Leyden on Tim Westwood
Max Jones on Glastonbury 2002
Ally Birch on the Fender Strat 50th gig

Various
Simon Waddington on the US Election
Max Jones gets sick
Max Jones goes Carnival
Max Jones goes Circus
Richard Williams & Sam Leyden talk to Mark Oaten
As featured on Radio 4...
Richard Williams goes Democrat
Ricardo Rodriguez presents Science
Keegan Wilson goes out
Keegan Wilson has a go
Keegan Wilson gets probed


Carry On Carriacou
The Swiss Family Robinson ... My father wanted me to read it, so I pretended I had. Swallows and Amazons ... I tried to make my children read it but they didn't even pretend to. Robinson Crusoe ... scary. Lord of the Flies ... even more so. And Oliver Reed with ... ooh, what was that woman called? Damn sexy anyway. Yes, Desert Islands 'R' Us.
But where do you find a desert island? I had a plan that included a whole load of ever-diminishing islands, which, if all went well, would lead eventually to a Crusoe experience.
First stop, Barbados. If you ever thought about flying anywhere with Virgin, get in the internet and book now. It's unlike any other flying experience you will ever have. From the moment you sit down, beautiful blondes ply you with alcohol, food, tea, ice-creams and anything else you need (within reason) to occupy you in the few free moments you have between watching uninterrupted Hollywood blockbusters on the dinky little screen in the back of the seat in front. That'd soon cure Dennis Bergkamp of his fear of flying.
In the immigration queue at Barbados, we met a lady who was going to stay with her thirty-year younger Barbadian lover. "Do you think he will like my dress?" she asked. Not knowing his tastes, we said we thought he would. Behind us was a Londoner called Rob, returning to his Grenadian homeland with a device for sterilising the beer silos in the Carib brewery. He'd been back the month before and picked up a rôle in the first feature film ever to be made in Grenada, "The Duppy Project", only to blot his copybook by getting off with the leading lady. No, he said, he wouldn't be going to the premiere.
We spent two days in Grenada, and besides checking out the capital St. George's, were let to a secret hot spring, buried deep, deep in the rainforest. We paddled, plucked bananas from the trees and gathered nutmeg kernels from around our feet. Grenada is the Spice Island, after all.
Our destination (reached with the aid of a tiny yellow eight-seater plane) was Carriacou, an island with a population of just under six thousand, just thirteen miles long and one of the few spots in the Caribbean not to have been spoilt in any way. There are no "resorts", no cruise ships call here and we were the only tourists. Yes, in theory it was Hurricane Season, but the last hurricane here was fifteen years ago and the only manifestations were the occasional short shower of warm rain to dance around in, plus a slight surfeit of mosquitos.
The advantages of being the only tourists soon became clear. Just a few steps from our house was a beach which effectively was private, since there was never another person there. A trek over the hills led to Anse La Roche beach, accessible only by hiking or by boat. No one was there either. Down the coast was the aptly-named Paradise Beach, miles of glorious sand with nary a person to be seen, yet ... yes, it wasn't a mirage, a sweet wooden beach bar called Hardwood. Here resided Joy and Joseph, who was later to turn the Crusoe dream into reality. And the final perk: For eating out, all you had to do was choose a restaurant, ring it up, say what you'd like to eat and they would open specially for you. We became used to walking into rooms in which just one table had been laid. Lobster a-go-go, by the way.
But first, more islands. The Osprey took us to Petite Martinique (not to be confused with Martinique or Mustique), where we bought a divine take-away Roti before hopping a water taxi over to Petit St. Vincent, a privately-owned millionaire's hideaway island which kindly tolerates riff-raff like us lolling on its beaches and snorkelling in its waters. But here, if you have the money, you can hire a cottage, so it isn't a desert island either.
The dream was finally attained one idyllic day, when Joseph ferried us over in his self-constructed boat to Sandy Island, a speck of silver sand with its own coral reef, one and a half palm trees and a couple of manchineels. Normally there might have been a yacht or two anchored nearby, but today they were all off sailing somewhere. It was us, the pelicans and shoals of millions and millions of brightly-coloured translucent tropical fish. While we lay in the shallows, they flopped around on our chests. We'd packed a Carib and a mango and kept saying, "God, life will never, ever be better than this."
The people of Carriacou are wonderfully kind and hospitable. Many of them live in conditions of cheerful poverty and would love to welcome visitors who will take the island as it is and not seek to impose an alien culture on it. This adventure didn't cost much more than a package tour, but it was truly a life-altering experience.
www.olivergray.com
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24 Hours From Tulsa
Tulsa is uniquely associated with one song. The only trouble is that the entire point of "24 Hours From Tulsa" is that dear old Gene Pitney is still a day and a night away from Tulsa as he sings of his indiscretion in a hotel room which means that he can "never, never, never go home again". And neither Gene nor songwriters Bacharach and David had any connection with Tulsa anyway. It merely met the requirement of being a two syllable town beginning with a consonant.
Tulsa isn't easy to get to. Despite the lonesome whistles of the freight trains as they traverse the downtown area, there is no Amtrack passenger service to Tulsa and nothing much in the way of buses either. Luckily, there's Tulsa International Airport, accessible from Gatwick via a brief stopover in Minneapolis.
You get around by car, car and car. This is quintessential mid-America, where you drive absolutely everywhere: to the malls, to the bars and above all to the churches. This isn't just the Bible Belt, it's braces and corsets too. There are simply thousands of churches in Tulsa (I counted 3420 in the Greater Tulsa Yellow Pages): Methodist, Baptist, Adventist and any other kind of - ist you care to mention. Most of the buildings are gigantic, and on Sundays they need extra shifts of police to control the churchgoing traffic. Confusingly, the illuminated signs announcing guest preachers are identical to those advertising visiting bands in the nightclubs. Thus, cruising for some music on our first night, we pulled into several church car parks before eventually locating Fishbonz, a classic student-filled mid-West roadhouse.
The pervasive air of religious fervour in Tulsa had an unexpected spin-off when our daughter got her finger stuck in the car door on the forecourt of a shopping mall. As she writhed screaming on the floor, a lady pushed forward through the crowd. Good, we thought, a first aid expert. No such luck - the lady was kindly offering to pray for her!
The next day, I caused complete consternation by suggesting walking, ooh, all of 500 metres to the local gas station to buy beer. Walking? The very thought! But that was as nothing compared to my attempt, as a pedestrian, to purchase a burger at Sonic's Drive-In hamburger bar. The system couldn't cope with this unconventional behaviour, so I had to pretend to be a car, stand in a bay and communicate via intercom, the burger eventually being delivered on roller skates.
But the churches aren't Tulsa's only buildings of note. Tulsa is dubbed "Terra Cotta City" on account of some quite charming and very unusual art-deco landmarks, including many listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Probably the best known are the Brook Theatre and the Union Depot, but we were most impressed by the Adams building on Cheyenne and 4th. It felt more like Barcelona than Oklahoma. All the wealth in these buildings came from the oil boom in the 1920s, commemorated in the 8-storey high statue if the Golden Driller, who stands proudly outside the Exposition Center. Tulsa still has an air of prosperity. It's a technological centre, with the rusting old oil pipelines now carrying fibre-optic cables.
So if 24 Hours From Tulsa could be virtually anywhere, how about 24 miles from Tulsa? Ah, now we're talking. "Route 66" is a better song anyway, and Tulsa is the place to get a real feel for the Mother Road. The route of dreamers and drifters takes you out from West Tulsa to Sapulpa, with its restored Main Street and its Route 66 memorabilia shops and roadside diners. The rest of Route 66 has been subsumed into the interstate system, but here you can really get an impression of what it must have felt like in the glory days of the 40s and 50s, when Sapulpa was an oil boom town. The museum run by the local historical society is a gem.
Another place to get your kicks is in Tulsa's parks. Far from the flattened dustbowl expected by readers of The Grapes Of Wrath, Tulsa is set in undulating hills and woodland. Our park of choice was Hunter Park. Here you can play disc golf, a gentle form of golf played with frisbees rather than clubs. There's also a range of museums and art galleries, the most prominent being the Philbrook Museum, which houses Italian Renaissance art. Music lovers will be intrigued by Cain's Ballroom. the Carnegie Hall of country music, as well as the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. Tulsa's favourite musical son is Leon Russell, sixty years old this year.
There are plenty of other good day trips, especially if you're interested in the 39 federally registered Native American tribes which reside in Oklahoma (the word itself coming from two Choctaw Indian words meaning "red man"). Just 70 miles south east of Tulsa, in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, lies Tahlequah, capital of the Cherokee Nation. The town itself is dull, but just outside it lies the Cherokee Heritage Center, a magnificent and profoundly moving tribute to the thousands of NativeAmericans displaced and forced to trek half way across America on the Trail of Tears, to their new home in Oklahoma. Here we were also given a personal demonstration of Indian crafts and a guided tour of the reconstructed Indian village.
At the slight risk of OD-ing on Heritage, another great day out is to Bartlesville, where Frank Phillips discovered oil (inevitably christening it the "66" brand) and used some of the proceeds to create his Woolaroc Ranch, nowadays a wildlife park and beautifully presented museum, largely filled with Western and Native American paintings. A hundred miles further on into the Ozarks, but definitely worth the effort, is Eureka Springs, a kitsch but irresistible mountain spa town and artistic community. Its speciality? Jacuzzis For Two in every B and B. Whoopee!
www.olivergray.com
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Northern Exposure
Tell someone you’re going to the Faroe Islands and you can usually expect one of two responses. One is the look of surprise – astonishment even - that such a place might rate as anyone’s holiday destination. An inability to imagine how a few rocks known here for their prolific production of fish - and, let’s face it, almost nothing else - might have anything to offer the discerning traveller.
If we are to call this the ‘Why’ response, then we might well call the second one – characterised, usually, by a look of utter blankness – the ‘where’ response or, perhaps, even the ‘what’ response.
But let us deal with the preconceptions of the first. Situated in the top end of the North Atlantic, a few small dots in the water between Iceland and Norway, the Faroes, true enough, aren’t your average summer retreat. At 200 miles to the nearest neighbour (Scotland’s Shetland archipelago), these Danish-owned islands are cut off from, and largely ignored by, the rest of Europe.
Out of sight, out of mind, then, you would think. But perhaps that is part of the attraction. In actuality, the Faroes are as close to us as Spain or Italy, yet they have been relatively untouched by British Tourism. Do not, though, read untouched as unsuitable. The Faroese tourist industry is alive and healthy - supported in the main by Danish visitors – it’s just that we know relatively little about it.
Outside peak season access to the islands can be difficult, with Faroe-bound planes departing from Aberdeen just once or twice weekly. Throughout the summer months, though, Atlantic Airways operates an additional two flights per week from London Stansted, making the Faroes an entirely viable option for British holidaymakers.
All flights arrive at Vágar Airport (on the island of the same name), reputed to be the only spot in the whole of the Faroes with enough level ground to support a runway, such is the ruggedness of this country’s terrain.
For the Faroe Islands are, indeed, a country. While they still fall within the kingdom of Denmark, since 1948 the Faroes have enjoyed a Home Rule government, and, with their own banknotes, stamps and even language (itself, a wonderful hybrid of Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian), the Faroese people rightly regard themselves as a separate nation.
It is then, that the Faroes can boast the (somewhat disputed) claim of having the World’s smallest capital city. Tórshavn, which houses a little over one third of the country’s 48,000 inhabitants, is now easily reached from the airport, thanks to a recently opened road tunnel between the islands of Vágar and Streymoy.
Tórshavn exists, in many respects, as an unlikely microcosm of a European capital. The ingredients are all there - shops, bars, museums, a park – but it is in the presentation that it gains its individuality: the surrounding hills, the narrow lanes, the colourful houses and, perhaps most remarkably, the incredible amount of space. Almost without exception, the houses are low and detached, with good size gardens surrounding, and often broken up by barren patches of rock and greenery.
A stroll up to the lighthouse, or through the park to the Faroese Art Gallery is always recommended, but for me the highlight had to be Tinganes. From the lovely Hotel Tórshavn (where we enjoyed a couple of nights), this tiny and picturesque peninsula is almost on one’s doorstep. Separating the two harbours around which Tórshavn is based, Tinganes is the site from which the rest of Tórshavn has spread. With its miniature grass-roofed houses, and narrow streets and passageways, it would be easy to mistake Tinganes for some model village built for the tourists. Yet the whole place is entirely genuine. The ancient buildings are still inhabited, and the Løgting – the Faroese parliament – meets here in a stunning wooden building at the end of the peninsula.
Tórshavn is an excellent weekend destination. Unlike other European Capitals, one does not have to spend hours travelling between places of interest, and, with tours to most other parts of the country departing from here, and so, as far as activities go, one is spoilt for choice. For those staying a little longer, however, it is well worth seeking out the far-flung corners of the islands for yourself.
The Faroes operate an incredibly efficient public transport network, and so getting somewhere is not usually a problem. Buses zigzag their way across the country, connecting with ferries to whisk you off to the outer islands. For those really wishing to travel in style, though, a trip on a helicopter is not to be missed. As several communities on the Faroes are not linked by road, the helicopter network is a lifeline for many inhabitants, and, reflective of this, the cost of travel is remarkably low. And of course the ride itself is an experience not to be forgotten. During our journey, from Tórshavn to Klaksvík, we were rewarded with remarkable views over the rugged landscape, and also a great insight into the bizarre, localised weather system that operates. We departed Tórshavn, amid low-slung cloud and hill fog, to be greeted, just 12 minutes later, with a clear blue sky and townsfolk lounging around outside, enjoying the sun!
Following a night in this colourful town, we caught the ferry over to Leirvík on the island of Eysturoy. A bus, and then minibus, took us from there to Gjógv, in the far north of the country. Just travelling in this country can be a joy. The gaping fjords, the towering cliffs, the tiny settlements – the ever changing scenery provides all the entertainment you need.
Gjógv, like a great many Faroese villages, has less than one hundred inhabitants. A few small houses clustered around a harbour, huddled in the folds between bird-covered mountains – it’s film set material. A trip to one of the more remote villages is essential to any Faroese holiday. It presents the visitor with the opportunity of coming just a little closer to understanding the lives of these remote islanders. Gjógv should, I think, be particularly recommended, as the youth hostel, styled on a traditional Faroese residence, has an excellent balcony, from which one can gaze down upon the ocean, marvelling at the near-permanent daylight that characterises the Faroese summer.
With time running out, we moved on to the town of Vestmanna. If you read any Faroese tourist guide, you will read about Vestmanna. The Bird Cliffs, it would appear, are widely regarded as the highlight of any Faroese holiday. Luckily, they live up to their reputation. The English-speaking Gunnar Skúvadal runs excursions from the harbour several times daily. His trips, lasting two hours, sail right between the cliffs, and are guaranteed to take your breath away. Skuas and terns circle above your head, puffins and guillemots perch on nearby rocks, and, as the boat rock bobs in the Atlantic waves, surely one of the most appreciated cups of coffee ever served.
I have mentioned before the localised and constantly changing weather of the Faroes. The clouds, sun, wind and rain come and go – we were prepared for that. What we were not prepared for was our last day.. I’m not talking hot by Faroese standards (July average is 11ºc), but a genuine, hot, shorts-and-T-shirts day. On recommendation, we headed to Saksun, a village on the west coast, with a population of less than forty, and, we were told, a beach.
And what a beach! From the village, a path descends to an enormous tidal lake. Waterfalls cascade down the sides of the surrounding cliffs, and a channel flows up to the lake from the Atlantic. A little way along the bank of this river, luscious green hills rising straight up from either side, you emerge onto the most incredible beach I have ever come across. The clear waters lapping at the steep sides of mountains, while sheep graze away happily on the near-vertical cliff edge. The near-black, volcanic sand bakes your feet. One suspects that, were the Faroes ever to brand themselves as hot summer destination, this would surely be their front page photo. Sunbathing and swimming were not, I recall, on our itinerary at the start of the trip.
Prior to taking this trip, I had made the assumption that a week would be more than enough time to explore the Faroes. Even as a self-confessed ‘enthusiast’ for such destinations, there’s only so much you can do, I assumed. Yet now I realise how little, relatively speaking, we actually managed to fit in. Out of a possible eighteen islands, we visited five. We never visited the magnificent bird colonies of Mykines, never climbed the mountain of Enniberg to take in the view from the highest sea-cliffs in the world (750 metres). What we did do, though, and what we did see, was entirely unique and utterly stunning. And perhaps most amazing of all, it didn’t rain all week!
For details of flights to the Faroes, or package tours, visit the Atlantic Airways website, at www.atlantic.fo
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The Real Spain
What’s the first thing to do when you get to Malaga? Get the hell out of there, says Richard Williams, who spent a week in Andalucia exploring a few untouched places, including Ronda and Granada
Cheap flights to Malaga aren’t anything new, but once you’ve tacked on your travel either up to Heathrow or across to Gatwick then it can start to eat into your budget big time. But for those of us living in the South, the problem has been solved.
Southampton Airport has always been quick and simple, and with new airline FlyBE dumping flights to Southern Spain for around the £100 mark, getting to the sun has never been easier. Their Malaga flights leave at 6.40am, which can be a bit of a shock, but at least it means you get the first day of your holiday in the country you’re visiting.
The flight was fine. You don’t get any free food but if you do get peckish then £3 can get you a tasty BLT, plus there’s all the usuals such as tea, coffee and, I guess, booze.
The Malaga coach station is a short taxi ride away from the airport, from there you can get to almost anywhere else. The Spanish coach and train services are very good, and (compared to UK prices) ridiculously cheap, we were headed to Ronda, an ancient city in the mountains that spans a huge gorge, we jumped on the 1pm and let the air-conditioning kick-in.
The first hour and a half of our coach ride was a bit of an eye-opener, we headed west along the coast, past endless lines of chip-shops, pubs and sunburnt fatties. Each to their own I guess, but this isn’t Spain, it’s just somewhere with the same name.
Set either side of the 100m deep El Tajo gorge, Ronda is, amongst other things, the home of modern bullfighting; this is where Pedro Romero invented the rules of la corrida and where the great Antonio Ordoñez (immortalised in Hemingway’s ‘Dangerous Summer’) had his ashes spread across the bullring.
Going from the new town and across the Puente Nuevo bridge (completed in 1793) you enter the old Moorish town, home to most of the ‘sites to see’ and a handful of hotels and bars.
Our place of rest was the stunning La Casona de la Ciudad, a building over 500 years old that has recently been converted to a bedroom hotel. The sumptuous lobby was bedecked with antiques and exuded an air of old-world elegance. Built around a covered courtyard the first floor rooms were large, comfortable and great to look at. I’ve been fortunate enough to stay in some tasty hotels in my time but this was taking it one step further, once you take into account the pool, the mini-bar and the fine food on offer you realise you could easily live here. And it wouldn’t cost you a fortune, either.
Ronda itself is incredible. Big enough to get lost in and small enough to get to know well. The new part of town is ‘new’ in a sixteenth-century kind of way; just across the bridge and on from the Plaza de Espana runs the Calle Virgen de la Paz, to the left of this main street you’ll find the Plaza de Toros, the tourist information centre and a sheer drop of 300ft, to the right runs a parallel network of up-hill streets, filled with shops, bars, cafes and the occasional busker knocking out a Clash tune.
Back in the old quarter we discovered the Casa del Rey Moro (below), the House of the Moorish King, a tumble-down mansion whose exterior hides a cooling symmetrical garden and a 365 step climb to the Rio Guadalevin below. Getting down was hard enough, getting back up I don’t even want to remember.
After an early lunch at Bar La Farola of gigantic cheese and ham rolls (plus a couple of beers - all for €7) we stumbled around town basking in the general feel of happiness that seemed to float over Ronda. And who wouldn’t be happy living here? The sun is shining, the views are incredible, the city looks fabulous and, as far as we could see, there were no dodgy looking youths with baseball caps hanging around looking like the world owed them a favour.
Come 7.30pm and we’re hungry. We drag ourselves away from the pool and head for Restaurante Sol y Sombra (below), which rates highly in most guide books. When we get there the place looks shut, we enter nervously and are greeted with warm surprise. This is Spain, after all, and people don’t eat ‘til late. But it did mean that we had the place to ourselves, it was like something out of a Robert DeNiro movie.
After picking a table and ordering a G&T, a relaxed looking chap wandered over to our table, I said a few words in Spanish, and he answered back in perfect English. Ladies and gentlemen, our host for the evening, Señor Pepe Mayo, a wonderful chap whose suggestions, kindness and general charm made the three hours we spent with him a complete joy.
As for the food, what can I say? In Spain, if you have a piece of cod (which I did) it will taste like cod, more like cod than any other cod you have ever tasted. The same goes for the asparagus - it tastes (wait for it) like asparagus! The freshness is almost shocking... everything tastes of what it is, and it all tastes great. The Navarra wine was crisp, the saffron and squid ink sauce was stunning, the almond ice-cream a dream and the strawberry cheesecake to die for.
Coffee followed, as did more drinks, Pepe was awaiting a party of 100 at 11pm but nothing seemed to worry him. A man who knows what he’s doing and can do it really well. If you ever go to Ronda, pop in to Sol y Sombra, say hello, and spend a few hours eating very, very well. Top class.
On the way back to the hotel we popped into Faustino, a crazed bar with walls were decorated by posters. They were all of the usual suspects; the Virgin Mary, a famous matador, and hidden behind the cigarette machine, Laurel and Hardy. I know, I asked myself the same question.
The next day we were heading to Granada. It was going to be a drag leaving Ronda but I figured we’d be back.
And sooner rather than later.
The train from Ronda to Granada takes three hours. In the air-conditioned carriage it was close to being cold.
From our seats Granada looked cool and welcoming, and then we got off the train and it hit us... all 37 degrees of it.
We jumped into a taxi which made quick work up to the Plaza Nueva, Granada’s semi-pedestrianised main square and as close as we could get to our hotel without walking.
After a quick look at the map we trundled the last couple of hundred yards up to Cuesta Aceituneros, a tiny street that didn’t look like it could house a public toilet, let alone a hotel.
The entrance to La Casa Capital Nazari looked pretty scary, a huge wooden door and an entrance phone. On first impressions it didn’t bode well, but you know what they say about first impressions.
For the second time on this holiday a hotel door opened and we found ourselves standing in gloriously opulent surroundings. Dark wooden beams and art-lined walls stared down at us, an open courtyard acted as a lounge and finally we were out of the scorching heat.
The room we had was small but wonderfully turned-out, and for the first time in my life I had remote-controlled air-conditioning. How cool is that? About 18o to be exact.
We had unintentionally arrived just at the end of the Corpus Christi celebrations, a week long fiesta of music, merriment and general craziness, the town was packed and after a well deserved siesta we walked down to the imposing Renaissance cathedral. On the cathedral steps was a stage, and playing on that stage was a band whose business card surely read ‘Weddings, Parties, Bar Mitzvah’s’. They were gamely belting out euro-pop to an audience of Senior Citizens who were letting their hair down and dancing with old-school gay abandon.
The Spanish have a certain respect for their elders, and it’s not difficult to see why. They give as good as they get, and they party as hard as anyone else.
Further into town and the Plaza del Carmen was playing host to an outside bar, a massive marquee and a local flamenco troupe comprising of guitar, orange box percussion and what seemed to be about twenty singers. The crowd were clapping and waving their fans in appreciation, an old timer wandered around selling crisps and all ages mixed together having fun.
That night we ate at Arrayanes, a highly recommended Morrocan restaurant no bigger than the average front room. I had chicken and Sharon had the beef. I don’t know what part of the chicken I had but it seemed like all of it. Arguably the biggest piece of flesh I’ve ever chowed down on. The beef was fairly incredible as well, both dishes had been cooked to the consistency of butter - now, I
understand food pretty well, but I’m still unsure how this total feast came into being. Quite something.
Day two found us heading up to the Albaicin, the old part of town that overlooks Granada’s most famous monument, The Alhambra. At first, the Albaicin seemed like a never ending display of whitewashed houses sitting silently in Sunday reverence, but as we reached the top of one particularly steep climb the street suddenly turned into a small square, from which led other streets and other squares. Bars, gallerys and even a few shops were opening for business, a whole new district was coming alive in front of us.
This was Granada a few hundred years ago, with just the addition of a few banks and parking spaces. We chose a cafe and sat until lunch with ice cold cervezas and a plate of olives.
The Mirador Morayama has the reputation of being one of Granada’s best restaurants, it’s also one of its most difficult to find; numerous wrong turns and dead-ends all added to a growing sense of hunger and frustration. This better be worth it. We were led through the restaurant's lush gardens and into the main dining area, our host kept walking and we kept following, up two flights of stairs and round many twists and turns until we reached our own private table, which just so happened to be in our own private dining room, with our own private waitress. So this is why Bill Clinton eats here.
I’ve probably said too much about food already, and there’s more to follow so I’ll keep this brief. For a starter I ordered a ‘Selection of local sausage’, that’ll be easy, I thought. And then they put the biggest plate of meat I’ve ever seen in front of me. There go my arteries.
Two hours later and we needed to sleep. This being Spain it’s kind of accepted practice to have an afternoon snooze, so after stumbling back down the hill we got the remote control going and flaked out.
The tradition of tapas is strange, brilliant and simple; you buy a drink, they give you food. You buy another drink, they give you more food. It’s almost the perfect invention, and all over Granada there are places to put this brilliant plan into operation, you just choose your bar and hope for the best.
We chose the Bodega Castañeda, complete with its huge vats of sherry and wine stacked high behind the bar. We were only going to stay for one, but it was just too good to leave. If I remember correctly, the tapas (in order of appearance) went as follows; tortilla, bread and olives, a huge plate of prawns, potato salad, manchego cheese, serrano ham and more besides. Our barman, Ignacio was the epitome of rakish charm, Sharon pointed out that there was a touch of Pierce Brosnan about him, and she was right, if James Bond was ever going to pour you drinks and give you great food, this is how he would do it. Backed-up by a fearless team, Ignacio presided over a flurry of bar activity the like of which I’ve only ever seen on a saturday night in Dublin, and all without losing his cool. The best bar in the world? Probably. The best barman in the world? Definitely.
Strolling back through the throngs of people you realise just what a great party town Granada is, everyone is out and having harmless fun. You wouldn’t think it was midnight on a Sunday.
Our last day in Granada was spent at The Alhambra, Spain’s most visited monument. It’s difficult to know where to start when talking about The Alhambra, like the Grand Canyon (or any other world-wonder) it seems silly trying to describe it, better writers than I have tried and failed. Let’s just say it’s an experience, one that takes you back to the 11th Century and shows you a side of European history a million miles away from our own.
So go to Granada. If you don’t go for the history, you can go for the fun. If you don’t go for the fun, you can go for the art. And if you don’t go for the art, you can go for the food and drink.
A top place and no mistake.
www.flybe.com
www.lacasonadelaciudad.com
www.casacapitel.com
www.granadainfo.com
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Dirty New Town
When I first went to Dublin ten or so years ago, I imagined a small, peaceful hamlet, populated by dancing elves and smiling leprechauns. A land where time stood still and the Guinness flowed freely. Strangely enough, I was wrong.
At least I’m not the only one. To this day, friends of mine head over to the Irish capital in the belief that they’re about to experience a change of pace. A new way of thinking, a way of life that that hasn’t been seen in England since 1953. And they’re wrong too.
Dublin is a big, multicultural, European city. A city of wealth and speed, where houses cost half a million and the drinks cost almost the same.
Ten years ago, you could walk the streets of Temple Bar and struggle to find a sandwich, these days you can’t move for restaurants: Indian, Thai, Morrocan; they’re all there. You might as well be in Soho, and that’s the point, really. For Dublin read London, for London read Barcelona, for Barcelona read San Francisco, for San Francisco read any big old bustling city. They’re all cut from the same cloth, sure, one may be wetter, one may be foggier, but if you’ve been to one of them you should know what to expect of the others.
Dublin is a fine city. To me it’s like a second home, I know my way around and I have my favourite haunts. I’ve also stopped thinking of it as fairy tale land. It’s a place where stuff happens, it may happen slightly differently than other places but it happens all the same.
Barcelona, San Francisco, the luxury of travel affords me the right to say ‘been there, done that’ and I ain’t going back. Okay, Alcatraz is cool and Gaudi’s Cathedral is Gaudi’s Cathedral but after that I’d rather be sitting in the Waterfront, Howth, overlooking Dublin Bay.
Any time is a good time to visit Dublin. In summer you may even have the bonus of good weather, that’s one thing you’ve heard that is true; it rains a fair bit. As the locals would put it, there’s lots of ‘soft’ days.
One of the reasons for making the short hop from Southampton is the pub culture. The Irish like their drink, but unlike over here, it’s something to do as you enjoy yourself, not the sole reason for going out. The recent smoking ban in ‘enclosed working spaces’ has been enforced in pubs and bars too, and although there is some resentment at the new law, people are taking it in their stride, laughing in the rain as they light up outside.
Now there’s another difference. While, in Dublin, the confirmed smokers getting cold are chatting amiably, in England it would more likely be ‘Did you look at my Bensons?’, fist fights and more bloodshed.
Coming up alongside the pub culture is the new Dublin bar culture. Almost every (once) dissused warehouse or factory has been turned into a red brick and stainless steel drinks emporium. Best of the bunch is The Market Bar, a cavernous barn that also serves some of the best tapas this side of Southern Spain.
Table service is also a big thing. I guess the boozers are so busy that everybody trying to get to the bar at once would be a nightmare. Instead, nine times out of ten, you walk into a pub or bar, sit down and someone will be over. Very civilised.
The famous Temple Bar area is well worth a look. Let’s face it, it’s always funny to see a huge group of drunk Scandinavians in oversized, green, comedy hats wondering where all their Euro’s have gone. There’s a couple of good pubs but the prices are high and the word ‘touristy’ (if it really exists) springs to mind.
Food-wise, ignore the places offering ‘authentic Irish cooking’ (you’ve had meat and potatoes before, haven’t you?) and go to The Alamo, a cracking Mexican place that seats about six. Anyone familiar with Cafe Pacifico in Covent Garden will love it. Why? Because it’s loads better. Big burritos, tasty nachos, a great ‘selection plate’, and ice cold bottles of Corona. The Alamo is what’s good about Temple Bar, if there is such a thing as The New Ireland, then this is surely it.
But if you’re still thinking that Temple Bar is a quaint old return to the simpler things in life, then you can have that opinion blasted away by popping into the three story Urban Outfitters that resides there. Just like the one in San Francisco, just like the one in Santa Monica. Bringing the New World back home.
Another great place to eat is Odessa. Difficult to find but worth it. Observer Sales Exec Simon Thorpe had a burger there about sixteen months ago and claims not to have eaten better since.
Other names for your list: John Kehoe’s off Grafton Street; perhaps the best pub ever. Yamamori on South Georges Street; cheap and healthy noodles. Places to visit: Howth, Sutton, Malahide and Bray, all a bus ride away and all worth it, particularly Howth and Sutton where you can sit by the sea and eat fish and chips.
So go to Dublin. Don’t think you’re going to travel back in time to a magical land, but do think you’re going to eat, drink and sleep well in a colourful and vibrant city.
And with the trains like they are, you could probably do it quicker than Waterloo.
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Homage To Catalonia
Annoying things that happen No. 367: You’re meeting friends for a quiet drink when somebody says loudly “I’m flying to Berlin next weekend.” How wonderful you think, that must have cost an arm and a leg. “Actually”, the voice says, “the flight was only 17p”.
How did they do that? I hear about these cheap flight all the time but I can never find them. Or at least I couldn’t. These days it’s all changed. These days I am that person in the pub. The one you all hate.
My sudden change of fortune was based on nothing but faith. The faith that these flights did exist and if you got them when they were advertised then they were yours. It also helps if you travel from an airport that most people forget about, and couple that with an airline that are the epitome of ‘no frills’. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Bournemouth and RyanAir.
Last December, in the space of ten days, I went to both Spain and Ireland. And my flights were 1p each way plus tax. Bringing the whole thing in at a whopping £15 return for each destination. You can’t get from Winchester to Waterloo for that. Unless you have a travel card. And don’t mind arriving cold, late and dirty.
So, Bournemouth Airport I hear you cry? Is it anywhere near Bournemouth? Well, yes and no. We drove down the first time and had no problems finding the place. The check-in desk is right in front of the main entrance so when you get there it’s very easy to deal with. No walking around for hours trying to find the right counter, just in the door, join the queue and away you go.
If you find yourself getting there by public transport, Christchurch is, in fact, the nearest station. From there it’s about a tenner in a cab.
RyanAir don’t allocate seat numbers. So it’s first come first served, based on the passenger number you’re given at check-in. We were there so early that my number was 001. Not many in front of me, I can tell you.
The rest of the airport is just as airports should be: it’s small, clean, easy to navigate and comes complete with a Bureau de Change, a WH Smiths and plenty of places to buy food, drink and cheap aftershave.
We were flying to Girona. A small town in Spain which (on RyanAir’s website) exists in brackets after the word ‘Barcelona’. After I bought our tickets I became slightly worried about our destination. Visions of a grim, industrial, Catalonian backwater loomed large, but my subsequent research turned up quite the opposite. About 60 miles from Barcelona, Girona is a charming Medieval city, cut in half by the river Onyar.
The flight itself was a piece of cake. Unless, like me, you hate flying, but we won’t go into that now. Sure, you don’t get any free food or drinks with RyanAir but who cares? You’re only in the air for an hour an a half and everything else is tip top standard. The cabin crew are friendly and the pilot knows how to drive a Boeing 737. What more do you want for £15?
At Girona there was a long queue for the Barcelona Bus, we had already made the decision to go against the grain and stay in Girona itself, deciding on a more relaxed few days than Barca would probably allow.
The taxi into town was about €25, which didn’t seem bad as it was quite a distance and there were six of us to split the cost. The hotel we had booked was the Hotel Penninsular, right by the river. Now, I love hotels. Don’t ask me why, I just do. It must be the Howard Hughes in me. And this hotel was great. For what we got it was a bargain to rival the flights, €55 a night (this is sensible Europe remember, so that’s for the room and not per person) for which you got a huge bed, remote controlled blinds, a big old bathroom and sattelite TV that showed The Simpsons in German. Hmmmm, Teutonic...
Anyway, Girona. A great place - what can I say? We spent three nights there and it was superb. The old part of town is a maze of streets and alleys, littered with bars, restaurants, religious iconography and bridal shops. There’s also a large art gallery, a museum of cinema and a huge cathedral. The new part of town seemed fine, too. All the shops you could ever want and plenty of places to sit down and enjoy a cafe con leche. Or a cafe amb lett as they say in Catalan.
Spain isn’t renowned for its vegetarian options, so full marks to La Polenta, a tiny but excellent restaurant in the old part of town that deals only in food of the ‘sin carne’ variety. We went there Saturday night and it was very good, I had a bean burger which was most interesting, unlike any bean burger before or since. Tasty.
The Girona Jazz Club is also an absolute must, a very cool hang-out with an acoustic trio revisiting old Pat Metheny tunes. A couple of quid to get in, Amaretto’s the size of small buckets and crushed velvet sofas to sink into. the perfect late night bar.
On the Sunday we caught the train down to Barcelona and spent a few hours looking at Gaudi’s unfinished Cathedral and saying things like “which is the front end?” It’s impressive enough, and when it gets finished it should be great. From the little we saw, Barcelona itself is a bit like San Francisco, only without Alcatraz. And Alcatraz is by far my favourite bit of San Francisco. We jumped on a train and went back to Girona for one last meal.
Hidden away near the Jazz Club we found a Morroccan restaurant which turned out to serve the Food of the Weekend. We had these sardines which were just stunning, and the Beef tagine was a treat. A few hours later and we were stuffed, sitting in the Celtic Ale House, drinking Red Stripe and talking to an ocupational therapist from London. It was a strange end to our visit but it seemed somehow appropriate. For the life of me, I can’t remember why, but at the time it did.
The next day it rained. We did breakfast, ordered a cab, got on a plane, drove in a car and were at work by midday. And you should all do the same. Not the going back to work thing but the long weekend in Girona. All in all it was less money than a weekend in London and much more pleasant. Also, why go through the grief of getting to Barcelona when you can just stay where you land? Girona is a great place and should be treated as a destination in itself rather than just a launch pad for more famous places. Book that flight now!
www.ryanair.com
www.flybournemouth.com
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Paris, Nevada
We left LA just after midday. Down on Venice Beach the sun was beginning to take hold and in the hills it was ten degrees further up the scale. Under these circumstances there’s only one possible course of action - and that’s to head for Paris.
Back home we all know how easy that is, stroll up to the station, get yourself to Waterloo and grab a ticket for the Eurostar. But LA to Paris? That’s got to be more than a short hop. A good few thousand miles, some serious jet-lag, a lot of bad airline food and a four inch cinema screen.
But that’s Paris, France we’re talking about, not Paris, Nevada – and certainly not Paris, Las Vegas.
Flying over the the 300 miles from LA you start to realise what an insane and brilliant idea Las Vegas is. As the endless desert slowly sweeps away a bright shining beacon appears out of nowhere, a city where anything is possible and where everyone is one throw away from a house in the Hamptons. It's easy for us Europeans to be sniffy about Las Vegas, the first time I was here I thought I’d enjoy it in a kind of ‘post-ironic’ way – laughing at the kitsch with my superior English sensibilities – but within 24 hours I just loved it. And the second time is turning out to be even better, thanks mainly to the place where I’m sitting now, the 2,916 bedroomed Paris Hotel and Casino. This, my friends, is quite a place.
Outside our bedroom window is a 50 story half-scale Eiffel Tower, the paths to and from the 85,000 square-foot Casino are cobbled, there’s an Arc de Triomphe outside, a roof-top pool, a buffet serving crab claws and lobster, about ten world class restaurants and all the staff speak at least twenty words of French. Hey, don’t laugh, that’s about seventeen more than me.
A lot of Vegas resorts seem to be ‘almost there’, whereas the Paris has definitely arrived. It’s a feast for the senses, almost an assault of the senses, but not one you’d want to hide from. It sucks you in and everyone you encounter just seems so damn nice, everywhere you turn there’s a ‘Bonjour’ being thrown your way, and if you’re still feeling cynical about this place, well too bad, maybe you were never breathing in the first place.
Connected to the Paris is Bally’s Hotel and Resort, nowhere near as grand as the Paris but worth checking out for the history – this is the place that used to be the old MGM Grand, where Dino held court at a higher ticket price than Francis Albert, and across the road is the legendary Caesars Palace, which under one roof houses more shops than West Quay and The Brooks put together.
So if you’re planning a trip to the West Coast don’t get all precious and miss this place out. Las Vegas is anything you want it to be, it’s a microcosm of American Society, a temple of excess, a stately pleasure dome, a 24 hour heads-down no-nonsense party town, it’s the best and the worst of everything, let’s face it, it’s life.
And take my advice – stay in this place – for us nervous Northern Hemisphere types, the Paris is the perfect base for the madness outside. You want single deck Blackjack? They got it. You want shopping? They got it. You want to stay in the only place in Vegas with a Strip-side restaurant? They’ve got that too. And as for the bedrooms, well… I could go on.
So, Paris with a twist – and a BIG twist at that – but this is a wonderful place and don’t let anyone tell you any different. It’s where all your dreams can come true. Don’t believe me? I got here sixteen hours ago, won 150 bucks and saw Tony Bennett live in concert. Oh yeah, and I was sitting next to Denzel Washington. Life, as they say, is good.
www.parislv.com
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Corks - A - Hopping
Cork is a charming University and Cathedral City where the welcome is warm and the craic is good. It is also ideal for leisure tourism of all kinds.
Golfers will be thrilled by the choice of 23 courses. Some of these picturesque ‘walk-spoilers’ are surrounded by water which is apparently a good thing.
The same water provides the venue for many more sporting pursuits. As we go to press the Ford Cork Week is just beginning. This is an internationally acclaimed festival of sailing that attracts hundreds of racing entries and thousands of spectators every year.The local waters can also be fished, dived and windsurfed!
Located in the south-west of the Emerald Isle, this picturesque corner also offers visitors a rich diversity of scenery, cultural and historical pursuits.
For instance the town of Cobh (‘Cove’) just South of Cork was the port of departure for 6 million emigrants to America and convicts to Australia. There is a heritage centre there and a bronze statue of Annie Moore the first woman to be processed into America on Ellis Island. Cobh was renamed Queenstown after a visit by Queen Victoria, it then reverted to its Irish name in 1921 after the Republic gained independence from the truant and illegitimate English monarchy.
Cobh was also associated with the ill-fated Lusitania and the last port of call for the Titanic. The heritage centre provides an immediate representation of all the major historical aspects of the town. Modern multi-media techniques and ‘flash cards’ convey the historian’s chosen themes successfully.
Music fans are well catered for too; the Witness festival is an annual rock event that this year welcomed bands including Oasis and the Foo-Fighters. Cork hosts a prestigious Jazz festival in October and of course it wouldn’t be Ireland if the pubs weren’t rammed with traditional drums and mean fiddlers.
Cork and Kerry can be enjoyed at your own pace with walking, cycling and horse riding positively encouraged. There is so much to see and do, or not depending on what you have in mind. There is accomodation available to suit every pocket too. From luxurious five star hotels like the Kingsley in Cork Victoria Cross to bed and breakfasts.
For more information about visiting the region visit Cork & Kerry Tourism at www.corkkerry.ie
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Boat Drinks
A gaggle of us journalists were met at the Portsmouth ferry terminal by our leader for the two day trip, the lovely Natalie. She led us onto the ship, The Pride of Le Havre, and straight into the Club Class lounge. We fortified ourselves with free champagne and then had a chance to wander round the vessel.
I personally spent the journey standing on deck for ages, with intermittent trips to the bar. However, some other members of the group reported back that apparently the shopping on board is very good. My purchases stretched to 200 cigarettes (£32, much cheaper than here,) and the obligatory giant Toblerone, but there did seem to be a vast array of cuddly toys, perfumes and all sorts of stuff.
Then we had dinner in the on board Langhams Brasserie, which was excellent. I went for veal and pepper sauce, with minted feta in a pitta bread to start with. Both were delicious, although I could not help eyeing up everyone elses meals too. From what I could work out I chose very well with the main course, but I think the best starter prize had to go to field mushrooms in a mature cheddar sauce, as chosen by Sara from the Western Evening News. I had this on the way back and it was stunning.
When we arrived at Le Havre we made our way to the hotel, the lovely Hotel Vent D’Ouest. The hotel is easy to find as it is situated next to the tallest building in Le Havre, the Saint Joseph Church. The church has an amazing spire, with a huge great illuminated cross at the top. Quite impressive really. The hotel has 33 rooms and a great bar. The room I was in had a nautical theme, and was lovely, and the breakfast was more than adequate. Doubles start at around 75 euros and are well worth it. Have a look at www.ventdouest.fr.
Myself and the redoubtable Paul, from a paper in Gloucester somewhere, had a few beers in the bar at the hotel and then took ourselves out to a nightclub on a boat called the Duplex. I really enjoyed it, particularly seeing French youth breakdancing to Hip Hop music! Great stuff, although I was not so impressed by the six quid price tag on a pint of Stella!
Thursday was a tour of Le Havre, which is a lovely city. The port was a favourite of the Impressionists, who used to go there to take in the sea air and compose their paintings. Unfortunately, in the war the town took a total pasting from German bomber planes, and a lot of it had to be rebuilt. That is not as bad a thing as it may sound, though, because the city has evolved into a great mix of modern and historical.
There are some striking modern bridges and the like, and a big cultural centre called ‘The Volcano.’ Opinions were divided as to whether this building worked or not, but I thought it was great. They were playing host to a Ukrainian dance troupe when we were there. However, we could not go and see them as we had to go and eat in a really amazing seafood restaurant on the beachfront! Never mind eh?! This restaurant, La Patite Rade, was the gastronomic highlight of the trip, I had some kind of shellfish affair with poached egg and hollondaisse sauce on top, followed by and excellent steak and pepper sauce, then a cheese board to die for! In fact, all the cafes and restaurants we went to in Le Havre were very good. The shopping is also good. We got taken on a guided tour of all the shopping malls, of which there are loads, and every form of shopping is represented. There is a great market for cheeses and meats and vegetables, and of course more cheap booze than you can shake a stick at. The clothes shops are nice too, but I must confess I started to get a bit grumpy when, after a days walking round town we were shown round a haberdashery! We went to a hairdressing museum as well!
On the Friday we headed off to Montvilliers, a town just up from Le Havre. Montvilliers is lovely. The Abbey there was the highlight of the trip to me. The Abbey dates all the way back to 684, although it was destroyed by those pesky Vikings in 850. It got rebuilt as a Romanesque church and then became Gothic, before being converted into a prison around 1794. The buildings were sold and broken up, before it got reappropriated for the public and restored to how it is now. There are great battle pictures all over the place, and a lovely slide show with classical music in the background. The place has a real sense of history, and is a real highlight of the region.
Then we had a quick look round a town called Harfleur, which was nice, although I could not help but feel that the local tourist office were clutching at straws somewhat when they showed us round the library! Harfleur is very proud of its Christmas market, which is on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of December. Another delicious meal in a restaurant in Harfleur, this time cooked by a man who used to be the chef for Francoise Mitterand and it was time to head back. This time we were on a ship called the Pride of Portsmouth. Equally nice as on the way over, yet more great food in Langhams, and I won £6 on the roulette wheel. You can’t argue with that!
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Flybe to the Choons
Now you can fly to Ibiza from Southampton International Airport.. Max Jones did..
I got down to the airport at about seven ‘o’ clock on Friday evening (27/6/03), a party was being thrown for assorted journos, and anyone who was getting the inaugural flight to Ibiza. We stood in the viewing gallery, bopping away to none other than Judge Jules!
The bumph said that the airport was ‘recreating the ambience of an Ibiza superclub,’ but I think they had a couple of aspects wrong. For one thing, in an Ibizan superclub you can smoke, quite an essential in my opinion, and, for another thing, the champagne would certainly not be free!
Needless to say, the journos attacked the champers with great glee, studiously ignoring the missives exhorting us not to board the flight drunk! At around 10.30 we jetted off, and landed in Ibiza a mere two hours later. We got to the bar at around 2am their time, and it was great. It was all done up in a Middle Eastern style, mellow ambient music to soothe our weary souls, and vast amounts of red wine to slake our Herculean thirsts. Then we got taken off to one of the superclubs, a little spot called Eden.
Eden is great, all Greco Roman pillars and lunatics.The music was a cracking mix of house tunes, and after a while the water came on. Suddenly we were stood in a swimming pool, while sprays and jets poured water all over us. One of the little dance stages was literally like standing under an enormous shower. This is a great thing to happen in a very hot club, and, so long as concerns such as mobile phones, watery lager and wet fags were forgotten, every one seemed to enjoy it. I know I did.
If I remember rightly I was up on the dancers podium at some point in that never ending quest to get the perfect photo for you, dear reader.
After this, our group leader, Flybe marketing honcho Jim Chapman, and myself headed over the road to a bar. We sat there chewing the fat for a good couple of hours, both happy in the fact that you could get a beer at seven in the morning, and, better still, look at some of the prettiest girls I have ever seen. And they were drinking beer at seven in the morning as well! Perfect.
Then it was back to the hotel, where the morning was spent hanging out by the pool, swimming, getting really hot again, swimming again, and so on and so forth. The same applied to beers. Open one, drink a bit, it turns into beer tea, open another, drink a bit, and on and on.
After a few hours of this, myself and Ed, from a news agency down in Bournemouth went off to the world famous Cafe Del Mar. It was shut, but we found another nice little spot next to it. Then started another happy afternoon of bashing back beers, followed by swim and a stroll back to the hotel. Our task at this point became to find our respective girlfriends a present that looked as if it cost more than it did. This proved virtually impossible, so Clare ended up with a Pascha sarong that cost a fortune. And she did not like it.Never mind.
After a snooze it was back over to the Cafe Del Mar, which was open this time. It is an amazing place to watch the sun set, people juggle fire, boats moor and the beautiful people parade up and down the boardwalk. We did not parade, but simply sat there and drank very large Bacardi and cokes, at very large prices. Ibiza is not cheap. Although one can go to the supermarket and buy six cold bottles of San Miguel and a pack of camels for £3, once you get into the realms of the clubs and trendy bars you are looking at a fiver a drink, and around £27 entry for the clubs.
It did not bother me in the slightest as we were only paying for our drinks on the Saturday, and there is not such thing as a free lunch, but I think on a two week jaunt over there one would have to be careful.
This became more apparent on the Saturday night when we headed off later to a club called El Divino. This was your proper Ibiza bling bling club. Virtually everywhere was a VIP area, and trendy, beautiful people strutted about everywhere. On the large terrace outside we saw Vernon Kaye from T4. He is very tall. It was good to see all that scene, but it is quite hateful really. The dancers were good. I liked the lovely bikini clad girl. Matt, my friend, seemed more keen on the big black guy dressed in leather shorts, a jerkin and a cowboy hat.Still, at least something for everyone cannot be a bad idea.
After all this fun it was back to the hotel, and then off to the airport to catch the 6am flight back.
It was great fun, but did seem too short. Another day would have been perfect, enough time to go to another club, do a bit more beach and rent a moped.
I really cannot thank Jim and his colleague Kally from Flybe enough for being so helpful and such a laugh, and Annalise from Southampton Airport for being so pretty. I went on the new Flybe service, which zooms over to the Balaerics in a matter of a couple of hours from Southampton. Although budget, the planes are not too bad. I am six foot four, and was sat in a window seat, yet I still had enough legroom. That is saying something.
Flights are around £100, which is a veritable bargain.A rum and coke on the flight is £3.50, which isn’t! Phone 08705 676 676 for more details, or look at www.flybe.com
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Gratitude Walks
I’m sitting outside a London coffee shop with American Music Club. A guy wanders over. "Hey, my favourite band in the world," he says. "Do you take requests?". Mark Eitzel, lead singer and major songwriter, answers in the affirmative: "Sure, what do you want us to play?" Suddenly, the guy goes blank. "I can’t think of anything," he stumbles. "Don’t worry", reassures Eitzel. "We can’t remember them all. And those we can suck."
Mark Eitzel, if you couldn’t guess, is a fairly modest man. He’s also thoughtful, polite and well mannered. I try to buy him a cup of coffee but he’s not having any of it. In the end, my money goes to the waitress and his goes on the table. "When this is all over," he says, "if you pick that money up and put it in your pocket, I’ll be a happy man."
Between 1983 and 1995 American Music Club produced a string of albums that stand-up to this day. They sounded different, a rolling, tumbling collection of songs that put everybody else in the shade. Here was a band who were happy to try new things, who merged country, rock and roots influences. A band who had a pedal steel player. A band whose skyscraping sound could nail you to the floor in a heartbeat. A band with Mark Eitzel writing the songs. Could it get any better? There are those that think not.
And then it was all over. Eitzel went on to release a much loved collection of solo albums, Danny Pearson (bass) went on to play with Clodhopper and do his solo thing, Tim Mooney (drums) set up Closer Studios in San Francisco and Vudi (guitar) moved to LA, bought some cool hats and started driving a bus. Ten years later, and these four guys are back together. Older, wiser and with a new album, ‘Love Songs For Patriots’, that sees AMC pick it up where they left it off. But this is a leaner and meaner AMC. An all new AMC that knows and understands the power at their disposal.
"It feels like a new American Music Club because we’re playing more confidently now", says Eitzel. Tim Mooney suggests his own theory: "To me, it feels like the same old American Music Club. But with a lot more energy than we had at the end there." Eitzel thinks about this for a second. ""Yeah, I know, I guess that’s the way I feel. I was thinking about that this morning while pondering one of the new reviews from back home". Eitzel shoots a negative look at Mooney. "Oh, really?" Questions a despondent Mooney. "Yes – motherfuckers, thank you very much".
Throughout their career, AMC have been plagued by the tag ‘depressing’. It’s an easy shot for journalists and an even easier one for those who don’t get it. But is it true? Sure, if you count depressing to mean clever, considered and honest. There’s a wealth of humour in AMC, it may be as black as coal but it’s still there. If a song such as ‘Blue And Grey Shirt’ makes you want to slit your wrists, then you probably shouldn’t be buying records in the first place. To me, AMC have always sounded hopeful, they may tell a sad story, but they get up the next day and go back to work., just like the rest of us. It’s real life. Destinys Child telling kids to eat at McDonalds - that’s depressing.
"It’s lazy journalism," states Eitzel. "I mean, aren’t we beyond the miserable thing yet? The rictus of pain? I mean, please? I don’t think this record is all so depressing. I mean I bet the last Guns And Roses record was more depressing that this record."
To illustrate the point, here’s their version of a small reunion show they did six years ago. As the story is told in Sean Body’s excellent book ‘Wish The World Away’, this tale seems full of heartbreak, lost hope and broken relationships. But to hear AMC giggling their way through it now, you realise just what great friends they are, and just how stupid the ‘depressing tag is.
Eitzel: "Six years ago we did a little reunion show opening up for Danny. That was interesting."
Vudi: "Was I there?"
Pearson: "You were sitting at the bar, you didn’t want to come on stage!"
Eitzel: "You were like, I’m not fucking playing Western Sky ever fucking again!"
One thing is for sure, Love Songs For Patriots is a huge record, packed with great hooks and ripping choruses. They produced it themselves and seem to feel ‘more ownership’ of it than their previous records. "It’s a lot looser," stresses Eitzel. " Because we don’t have Vudi in the city all the time, we didn’t have a chance to sit there and really practice and practice and practice and practice and practice. So basically me and Tim and Danny would just come into the studio, try the songs maybe seven or eight times until we felt like it was done. There were no laboured processes, no ‘let’s try it like Flipper’ or ‘let’s try it like the Rolling Stones’. It was just, okay, that sounds good, we’re done."
So it sounds like the album they wanted to make? Mooney: "I think so. We were hearing Mark’s new songs, learning them, recording them, trying to capture them fresh." And if AMC carry on from here, Eitzel sees no reason to change the methodology. "I’ve produced records before, Tim’s produced records before, we all have. What’s the point in spending all that money on getting someone else? Tim has a full-on studio, we’re not lo-fi people."
Later that evening, AMC play a storming set to a packed house. The audience hang on every word and the band are on top form. They fill the old songs with new life and the new songs with their old passion. The laugh, they joke, they stumble and they succeed. AMC live are a very real proposition. You feel that anything could happen, and quite often it does. It’s one of the reason they mean so much to people. Eitzel: "The security of being able to do a good show every night – the feeling in your bones that when you go on stage it’s going to be good. That feels great. To me that feels better than sitting at home looking through my cuttings or worrying about the bands who’ve ripped us off. That shit is worthless."
"It means something to me that it means something to others." Says the soft spoken Mooney. "When you’ve had a hard day and you’re stuck in the van trying to get to Munich or wherever you think ‘I could be doing better things than this’, then when you get to the show, whoever’s there is pleased to see you and you just have to be responsible enough to give them the best you can."
"Or at least give them something that’s real," counters Pearson. Mooney thinks for a second "I think we always pull off the real," he says. Eitzel laughs: "Unfortunately, we always pull-off the real" And if they didn’t? "We’d probably be super-successful!"
A call comes through and it’s time to leave. We say our goodbyes, shake hands and American Music Club wander off to the sound check. I pick up Eitzel’s coffee money, put it in my pocket and walk the other way. Everybody’s happy...
Love Songs For Patriots is available now on Cooking Vinyl
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Up All Night
The best minds of the Winchester music scene were in Dublin last weekend for the Bud Rising Festival. Being the most rock and roll newspaper in world, The Observer were also in attendance. Richard Williams tries to remember.
It’s Saturday night and a six foot tall chicken is navigating the damp, cobbled streets of Temple Bar. He looks drunk and probably is.
Across the road, six bigger-boned women in pink stetsons are flexing their cellulite and wondering why no pub will let them in. It’s 9pm, it’s tourist central and no-one is thinking of ‘responsible drinking’.
The Bud Rising Festival happens in Dublin every year, it’s sponsored by Budweiser and it happens in every venue, pub and doorway the city has to offer. And for some random reason, this years festival had a big slice of Winchester going through it. First up were DJ duo The Filthy Dukes, co-fronted by Olly Dixon, formerly of Stoney Lane but now resident in Brazil. Olly had come back to the hood (if Europe can be described as a ‘hood’) to host a massive night at London Super-Club Fabric on Thursday. By all accounts there were billions of people there and the Dukes rocked the house with their eclectic mix of hard house and mid-period Quo. Fabric went so well for the Dukes that Olly and Tim (the other, slightly less bearded Duke) had high hopes for Dublin. We met up with them at the Temple Bar Music Centre, where we were also joined by Olly’s brother Tim - but we’ll call him Dixie from now on to avoid confusion.
We were greeted at the door by the promoter, an attractive young lady with a eye patch. I’m not 100% sure that Olly greeted her with the words ‘I didn’t know it was fancy dress,’ but I kind of think he might have. Anyhow, we were shown to the backstage area, given some wrist bands and told to drink as much Budweiser as we could. This is fairly easy, as it tastes of nothing and has less alcohol content than tap water. Thank God the vodka was free too.
The Dukes hit the stage sometime around 10pm and soon got the crowd going by playing records and waving their arms. Tim was especially good at this and also wore a nice cardigan which was a lovely touch. Olly looked a little confused at first but then found the button that makes everything sound underwater and this obviously made him happy.
The crowd loved it and were soon getting down to a cracking mix of Mylo, The Rakes and Franz Ferdinand. An hour and a half slipped by, the Dukes finished their set and we retired to the roof terrace where we argued with a drunk and then ran away.
One person we met was a DJ from Bournemouth. He kept posing me one word geographical questions. ‘Branksome?’ he’d ask. To which I’d reply ‘Sandbanks’ or even maybe ‘Hengisbury Head’ - this seemed to please him greatly and we were getting on fine until he burnt my hand with a cigarette. This seemed like as good a time as any to leave.
On the way back to the Dukes hotel we stopped in at Rasher Byrns for a burger and some chips. There’s a few places still open for food at 3.30am in Dublin but Rasher’s has got some class about it. More than Abracadabra anyway.
Outside we met a couple of guys from Birmingham. One of them was a bit of a dude (the other was a fat racist) and was having problems with his love life back home. Due in some part to the amount of booze going around Sharon (my wife) seemed to come up with a plan that made perfect sense to this guy. He was delighted and wondered if we could help him with another problem - had we seen a six foot tall chicken wandering about?
By this time the Dukes and Dixie were ready for bed. ‘Brownsea Island!’ I heard some twat yell, we got a cab and went home.
Saturday belonged to Switches, a band who could one day own the world. Sitting behind their drum kit is none other than Jimmy Gardener, also of this parish. If that wasn’t enough, Jimmy is also ‘stepping out with’ sultry soul sensation Sara Fawcitt, formerly of The Sense and now of Gracie. How’s that for rock royalty, eh? Anyhow, we all went off to Whelans to see Switches and dude, they rocked. Hit after hit tumbled from their tiny frames and it’s no small wonder that a big (and I mean BIG) record deal has already been signed and great things are seriously expected. The Dukes loved it, the crew loved it (we now had one extra, Sharon’s brother Steve) and by sun-down talks were already on for a Filthy Dukes/Switches remix.
Next stop was a Spanish restaurant called La Paloma where the gang expanded again in the shape of Maria, a waitress from Cordoba. Dixie speaks Spanish so it looked like a good opportunity for him to practice her tongue. If you see what I mean.
We then went off to The Hub where the Dukes were due on at 11. The Hub is a strange, dark, underground bar that lacks many things, including customers. The barman didn’t have a till roll either and so couldn’t serve us drinks. By 11.30 though these problems were solved and Jimmy and Max from Switches had turned up to join in the fun.
Never ones to rest for a second, the Dukes packed up their gear and headed for The Globe on Georges Street for another set. Mob handed we followed them up there. The place was packed and the Dukes got the audience they deserved. By this time Tim was paying for his Budweiser, as was Dixie. ‘I hate the stuff,’ he cried, ‘but the marketing has got to me’.
It was 4am and we were all tired and emotional. We said goodbye to Dixie and the Dukes. They went on to meet a man from Sheffield who claimed to have performed an unnatural (and possibly illegal in Ireland) act on Peaches Geldof, daughter of Sir Bob. We’ll never know if he was telling the truth, I do hope he was. Welcome to Bank Holiday Monday and welcome to 1000 people going mental in The Olympia. There’s a band on stage and they’re called Razorlight and their drummer is Andy Burrows and he’s from Winchester.
It’s maybe the biggest mosh pit I’ve ever seen, stretching from the front of the stage to the back of the hall. They love this band, they go wild. It’s an impressive sight.
After the show, we go back down the hill for drinks in The Morgan. Andy says the new album is almost done. Hopefully it’ll be out before the festival dates. People come up and ask for his autograph and Andy is a complete gent.
Andy is officially the joint nicest man in rock ‘n’ roll - along with Jim from Scarlet Soho of course - and he takes time talking to people and telling them things and generally being a decent chap. He also bought pizza in Eammon Doran’s which was the mark of a true star.
Eammon Doran’s is a pub/take away pizza parlour owned by Huey from the Fun Lovin’ Criminals - it’s a big old gaff and it’s open late so that’s why we’re here. A couple of locals come over to chat and Andy asks them if they’re in a band? ‘No’, replies one of them, ‘but we are in the process of stealing an amp’. Turns out there was a band playing downstairs and one of their amps is just ripe for the plucking. I think they did it, but don’t quote me on that. We go outside for a smoke and then things get a bit weird, some guy takes it upon himself to repeatedly shout ‘Johnny Borrell is a nasty man!!!’ at the top of his voice.
Of course, this being Ireland that’s not exactly what he said, but you’ll just have to insert the worst four letter word you can think in there for yourself.
He then started singing Libertines songs and swaying slightly. Hmmm, interesting, I’m thinking. But it was fine, we left the pub and went back to the hotel and had a Baileys. And that was about the last drink I could manage. And the last thing I can remember.
All in all, a very good weekend. Rock on Winchester, indeed.
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John Peel
“That was Bastard Kestrel and now here’s the latest 12-inch from Napalm Death …”
I was working at the computer as usual when I heard the news. It wasn’t Radio 1, which no self-respecting music lover would ever listen to during the day. Instead, the news was on Five Live, the rolling news channel. For some reason, it had been embargoed until 2 pm, so instead of an urgent news flash which might have caught the attention and perhaps prepared one for shocking information, it was the matter-of-fact tones of the newsreader which began the scheduled bulletin: “The veteran broadcaster John Peel has died of a heart attack while on holiday in Peru.”
I yelped, literally jumped a foot into the air, was momentarily unable to breathe, and then burst into tears. Within minutes, my in-box was crowded with brief statements of disbelief from similarly-affected friends.
My daughter, who was working temporarily for an independent record company, rang to say that a deathly hush had descended on the offices. We all had the same thought: “What the hell are we going to do now?”
In the UK, rain forests’ worth of Peel tributes and reminiscences have already been published, but few of them have attempted to explain the true feeling of loss. At a party I attended at the weekend, there was a round of applause when the band played ‘Teenage Kicks’ and dedicated it to Peel. The middle-aged audience could only have known him for his maudlin – and, to me, unbearably twee - ‘Home Truths’ show on Radio 4. Their musical tastes would probably run the gamut all the way from Tina Turner to Phil Collins. Confronted with the likes of The Fall and Kanda Bongo Man, they’d have switched off in seconds. Still their instinct was one of affection.
But the “what are we going to do now?” question was the one which came immediately to the mind of anyone involved in trying to get people to listen to new and unusual music. In a country where most radio stations play middle-of-the-road tracks programmed by computer, Peel was the only hope. Send him your offering in a jiffy bag and he might – just might – play it on his show. He might even – joy of joys – invite you to record a ‘Peel Session’. I have had that thrill of hearing a track I have sent him being played at some unholy hour of the morning, and friends have had the even greater excitement of recording a live session. Peel offered the only chance of exposure, and the feeling of grief at his death is compounded by the knowledge that he will be impossible to replace.
Everyone has their own Peel story. Mine is quite a good one. I had been spending quite a lot of time in London with my old school friend Roger and his girlfriend Sheila. One day I got a call from Roger: “You’ll never guess what’s happened. Sheila went to a recording of Top Of The Pops and she’s left me for some bastard DJ called John Peel.” Which wouldn’t have been that interesting, were it not for the fact that Peel’s devotion to and constant public mentioning of Sheila over the next thirty years would make her easily the most celebrated housewife in the country, with the possible exception of the Queen.
Back in the world of the present, I’m often approached by young bands asking for advice and support on getting started in the industry. The tactic of recording a demo or a home-made single has lost some of its charm since most record companies make it perfectly clear that they no longer listen to them. Nonetheless, Peel famously did listen to them, and if he liked them would play them. In countless cases, this would lead to the bands being signed and – tragically rather too often – then going off in musical directions which would condemn them never again to appear on Peel’s show. In much the same way as the other netherworld in which I myself am involved (small-time gig promotion), Peel effectively acted as an unpaid and soon-forgotten (by the record companies, not the artists) talent spotter for the music industry. No need to mention more than a few names: Led Zeppelin, T-Rex, the Faces, the White Stripes …
John was always praised for his championing of the ‘new’, and that’s where his uniqueness lay. Less often mentioned is his willingness to abandon music he had previously promoted when something else took his fancy, a habit for which the music press is correctly lambasted. But this ‘predictable unpredictability’ was all part of his charm, and offered hope to every budding musician with off-centre instincts. His charmed life at the BBC was a unique anachronism and his passing may well be an insurmountable body-blow for those musicians. Please let it not be so.
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SXSW 2004
Here’s a taste of the uniquely enjoyable madness that is South By Southwest. Every evening, all evening, at the Junction of Sixth and Trinity, a group of Christian evangelists try to convert the many thousands of sinners streaming past. As every building is shaking to the bone-shattering volume of punk bands, rock bands, metal bands, blues bands and Japanese Hardcore Transvestite Glam-Slam bands, the only way they can convey their message is to shout. But they are not alone. Permanently challenging them is a wizened old hippie dressed in nothing but a skimpy leopardskin chemise and a thong. His method of countering God’s word is to shout even louder than them. He roars terrifyingly into their faces for as long as they are there, which is a long time. It’s great entertainment, but there’s no time to spare, for we have 1200 bands to see.
The madness continues. In an event where eccentricity is almost de rigeur (Robyn Hitchcock comes across as being perfectly normal), London act Paul The Girl, dressed in a silver lamé dress and a trilby, is playing a looped Led Zeppelin song to fifteen people on the 18th floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. She is warming up – I kid you not – for Jamie Cullum.
At Elysium, the singer of one of the many Japanese all-girl groups present is reading her between-song patter from cue cards. The front row of the audience is having a great time. "Say ‘rock & roll’", they plead.
SxSW is famously impossible to review, because at any one moment, scores of bands are playing concurrently in different places. Teeth-grinding dilemmas are a permanent reality. Franz Ferdinand or Athlete? Razorlight, the Veils or the Gourds? How do you decide? Why, you drink loads of beer and do whatever seems right at the time, which is almost certainly wrong. My best example: Choosing Drive By Truckers rather than the Polyphonic Spree, on the basis that it would be easier to get in. It was, but the Truckers were a load of sub-Lynryd Skynryd bombastic country rock, of a standard lower than hundreds of other bands around this weekend.
So what is the "real" SxSW? Is it the industry bashes where labels, and, increasingly, national cultural agencies show off their new artists? These ones are good to suss out, because they invariably dole out lashings of free beer. The UK Showcase "pre-party" (may have got the terminology wrong) saw snooty music journalists mingling with Radio 2 DJs and the likes of Tom McRae and Thea Gilmore being terrifyingly cool. Refreshingly uncool and just charming were Aqualung, who played this event acoustically. "We’ve never played at a wedding before", observed Matt Hales.
Nearer to the "real" SxSW was the brunch party at Maria’s Taco Express, hosted by Aljandro Escovedo, a respected Austin musician who is currently much in the limelight on account of a serious illness. As breakfast burritos crunched all around, the huge but cuddly Nicolas Tremulis pricked the bubble refreshingly with some swampy Chicago blues. "If there’s anyone influential out there", he cried, with unusual candour, "don’t sign us, we suck!"
Even closer to the "real" SxSW (maybe on account of being miles from anywhere, conducted in the Church of the Friendly Ghost, a prefab on a suburban trailer park), was the Ba Da Bing party, featuring those lovely Sons and Daughters, a Glasgow band who are relishing the increasing attention their hugely entertaining mutant punk-folk is receiving. They have the added advantage of being frienfs with Franz Ferdinand, which means that they are going to be heard by lots of people. Seldom has a band deserved it more (and seldom, incidentally, has a band been more drunk).
Ah, Franz Ferdinand. The event in which an act that no one has heard of is booked into a little venue but then turns out to be the hottest ticket in town is definitely part of the "real" SxSW. The mayhem of this show is hard to describe, and there is absolutely no doubt that FF is a great band, but there is a certain arch knowingness about them which takes the edge off. Credit where it’s due, but once you’ve got it into your head that Alex Capranos is actually Wilco Johnson and Nick McCarthy is a member of Spandau Ballet, it’s hard to concentrate. Whatever you do, though, don’t try to stare out the bassist – he’s scary. So allow me to observe that the band immediately before FF, namely Clearlake, stole the show as far as I was concerned. With their pastoral melodies, melancholy lyrics and unstudied, low-key delivery, this is a band whose patience will one day be rewarded.
If you can get over the feeling of "Oh God, what if there’s a fire?", Stubbs Barbecue on Red River is probably the best place to be. Here, I contrived to see Detroit’s Von Bondies twice – one of the few bands for which the expression "You rock" is truly apt. Las Vegas’ semi new romantic revivalists The Killers impressed too, as did the showbiz-dedicated Hives, trying out some new songs on us.
One really rewarding thing to do at SxSW is go and see a band that you’ve liked before and find that they don’t let you down. Stellastarr* opted to play a little show at the Red Eyed Fly rather than a schmoozefest showcase, and it worked. This is a band you should take someone to see who wants to understand what rock and roll is all about. They are just incendiary. Bassist Amanda Tannen would stir unworthy thoughts in the most respectable of gentlemen, while Shaun Christensen really should invest in a trouser roadie. Similarly un-disappointing was Jesse Malin at the Cedar Street Courtyard. This New York ex-punk is charming, literate and humorous, plus has a lovely voice and great songs. A new album from Jesse later in the year is indeed something to look forward to.
Mentioned in dispatches: Sarah Sharp, whose "do-it-yourself" ethic has resulted in "Fourth Person", an astonishingly accomplished album which will kick-start her career; International Noise Conspiracy, deft masters of the art of scissor-kicking, microphone-lassooing and vying with the Hives in the "Scandinavians in daft outfits" stakes; Robyn Hitchcock - so it’s true he’s still big in the States; the Black Keys, whose "turn it up to eleven" distorted blues couldn’t have found a more appropriate home than Antones; American Music Club, who gave the lie to the notion that legends shouldn’t re-form (as unfortunately demonstrated by Big Star); representing the huge Aussie contingent, a shockingly well-behaved Sleepy Jackson. After two technical breakdowns, even the mildest-mannered band would have smashed their instruments, but the Sleepys’ mood was positively mellow. Great, though; … oh, and a couple of dozen more.
Disappointments: The Veils (it just doesn’t work); Graham Parker (he’s been at the same thing for too long); Electrelane (amateurism is sometimes good, but not in this case); and Cerys Matthews, who looked and sounded virtually unrecognizable in her perfunctory set. And by the way, if this all seems a bit indie for you, it’s worth mentioning that other artists appearing included NERD, Kris Kristofferson and – yes – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
No two reviews of SxSW will mention the same bands, and certainly none will agree on a highlight. Mine had the unexpected bonus of being a bolt out of the blue. The scruffy, Grandaddy-style unkempt bunch of apparent Austin slackers called Centro-Matic didn’t look promising at all, but the explosive performance of their anthemic songs – think Radiohead meets Neil Young with a healthy dollop of grunge thrown in – caught the soporific audience on the hop, chewed them up and spat them out, exhausted.
It was a low-key afternoon affair at the Red Eyed Fly, so there probably weren’t any cheque book-waving A & R men shouting "sign 'em". But there should have been.
www.olivergray.com
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Grandaddy
My top musical memory of 2003 was of Grandaddy, publicly claiming to have "taken every drug we could lay our hands on", blasting out their charming hybrid of hi-tech and pastoral prog at unthinkable volume to a field full of wasted but adoring Glastonbury-goers. The synergy was perfect, and it's a moment Grandaddy won't forget either, a highlight of what, for them, has been a brilliant year. Speaking backstage at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels, Keyboard player Tim Dryden recalls: "Glastonbury was one of our best shows, and it was a very special moment for us, because we'd never played in front of an audience that size. It was even a little bit frightening, but it meant a lot to us because it showed we'd come out of our shell a bit more and the band had matured. And the technology behaved itself" (frantic knocking on wood).
It's all a long way from the gang which grew up in Modesto, in the Santa Cruz area of California, a place of surfers, pelicans and silicon chips. This is definitely a band which is a community rather than a business. "Jason and I were in high school together and pretty much all of us met through skateboarding. We were all friends long before we were in a band, we skateboarded together; we're not one of those bands that had to advertise for members".
A band as unique as Grandaddy could only really have emerged from the inherent contradictions of life in Southern California. "I can honestly say that all the music is written because of where we came from and the fact that we grew up together. 'Sumday', particularly, contains a lot more personal stuff from Jason about things that were happening to him, but anyone listening to our albums will understand that they came about because of where we're from."
So what's with the "sprinklers that come on at 3 am", then? Tim smiles before explaining the song "The Group Who Couldn't Say": "The song is written about people who are cooped up in offices, in a cubicle with a computer, and they don't have a different experience, you know, they go home, watch TV and go to bed, and they don't really experience what's going on around them outdoors, until finally someone takes them to the forest and shows them what life is really all about. It renders them speechless."
Apart from being the most artistically and commercially successful year of Grandaddy's career, there was one frightening moment which occurred during their fall tour of the US: "Jim go run over by a truck."
What?
"Yeah, he was just walking off the tour bus and he tripped on the steps. He was drunk, of course, everyone in this band drinks too much. Anyway, he just fell into the road. It just happened that he fell under a production truck just next to the bus. The truck was moving and Jim somehow managed to roll out of the way so that the wheels just missed his head and caught his shoulder."
Grandaddy is a unique and precious band. Let's hope they learn to look after themselves better.
www.grandaddylandscape.com
www.olivergray.com
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Baring the Bruntnell
You'd be forgiven for thinking that Peter Bruntnell is American. For a start, although he isn't too keen on the expression, the songs and structures on his most recent CD, the best-selling "Normal For Bridgwater" fit firmly into the "alt-country" bracket, and he acknowledges the effect that Neil Young's "After The Goldrush" has had on his work.
Further, all three of Peter's albums have been issued on US labels. The more rock-orientated, yet still mercilessly melodic "Cannibal" and "Camelot In Smithereens" both appeared on Almo Sounds, a label set up by the indefatigable Herb Alpert, a man who knows his way round a good tune. And the career-defining "Normal For Bridgwater" is released by the American label Slow River.
Yet Peter is as un-American as can be. Still living in outer London, though in the process of relocating with his family to deepest Devon, he considers himself to be a native of the suburban town of Kingston on Thames, although he was actually born in New Zealand, of Welsh parentage. In actual fact, the album reflects several lengthy periods spent in Vancouver, so the feel is more Canadian than anything else.
Peter's natural environment is playing in crowded bars, either with his four-piece band or with his guitarist sidekick and brilliant instrumentalist James Walbourne. Ten years on the dole and playing throughout the UK and Europe, plus six or seven Stateside visits, have turned Peter into a consummate live performer, to the extent that he thinks (possibly correctly, although to the non-hyper critical ear, the album sounds just magnificent) that "Normal For Bridgwater" is best experienced live:
"I suppose I do feel happy with it, although I did get quite a shock when I listened to it about two months ago, because we play the songs live now with a lot more dynamics and in a more relaxed way. But I do still like the record and I like the songs on it."
It sounds very much as though Peter, after casting around for a musical modus operandi, has experienced the serendipity of choosing a style which also happens to be truly commercially accessible.
"Well, I don't set out to write for anybody other than myself, so I don't really consider it commercial, even though it might be. It's not something I'm conscious of."
Are the songs on the forthcoming album in the same style?
"Yes, they're a continuation of the last record. With my first two albums, I was confused, whereas with 'Normal For Bridgwater', I decided I was going to do exactly what I wanted to do, and if people like it, great, and if they don't, tough. That's why I'm quite pleased that the one I consider much more honest is the one that people like more."
What on earth can be the significance of that odd album title, and indeed the languid "NFB", its accompanying song?
"A couple who are friends of mine ran a particularly rough pub in Bridgwater (a small town in the UK West Country), and the landlady was telling me one day that the doctors in Bridgwater use the abbreviation NFB (= Normal For Bridgwater) when describing their test results for slightly disturbed local patients."
If you think that's eccentric, it's not half as charming as the album's undoubted highlight (and live tour de force) "By The Time My Head Gets To Phoenix".
"That was an item on a news programme one evening, where there was a group of people in England who wanted their bodies sent to Phoenix, Arizona for preservation in some cryogenic tanks, to be frozen and then revived in the future. But the weight of a human body made it too expensive to ship in an aeroplane, so they're going to cut the head off the first one that dies and freeze that."
A new album from Peter is eagerly awaited, but it seems the wait will have to be a little longer:
"I've got twelve songs written and my management company is in the process of talking to a couple of labels, so the record will be recorded before the end of this year and released early next year."
Does this mean that the association with Slow River is no more? Suddenly, the normally intensely communicative singer finds himself totally speechless. After a long pause, all Peter will offer is:
"Umm ... I don't think we're gonna do another record with Slow River."
Would you care to elaborate?
"No."
So that's that. But the moment the conversation returns to music, Peter is back on top form:
"There's a song on the new album called 'Tabloid Reporter'. It's about a journalist from the News Of The World who posed as a potential business partner, lured the Radio 1 DJ Johnnie Walker into a meeting and asked him to score him some coke. Consequently, Johnnie got thrown off the BBC for a while, so I wrote this angry song which attacks that journalist and others like him."
It's going to be another classic.
www.peterbruntnell.com
www.olivergray.com
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Westwood Ho!
As part of the national Youth Music initiative, Radio 1’s superstar DJ, Tim Westwood visited the Tower Arts Centre, in Winchester, to host an exclusive music workshop for local children.
Think you know about handshakes? Think again, my friend. When Tim Westwood arrives on the scene, his fans are treated to an array of greetings and gestures that is nothing short of incredible: fingers are snapped, wrists are clicked, elbows thrust upwards and chests banged against each other in a mark of true brotherly affection... Man, this guy is cool.
His fans swarm around him as soon as he steps out of his car (itself a souped-up 4x4 with blacked-out windows – the very epitome of rudeboy chic). They twist their caps round and pose next to his number plate (RAP 30X). One ardent follower has dragged his hifi speakers along for Westwood to autograph. The star is only too happy to oblige.
In a couple of days, Mr Westwood will be back in Winchester, playing to an audience of thousands at the Homelands festival, one of the star attractions at the site’s new Hip Hop Arena. Today, though, he is living up to one of his genre’s maxims: yes, Westwood is ‘keeping it real’. What’s more, he’ll be giving us advice on how to do the same.
It’s just gone five o’clock, and the youth are filing into the theatre. Westwood, meanwhile, is in the toilets. He adjusts his sweater, strikes a couple of poses at the mirror, and he’s ready.
Sitting recumbent in his chair, microphone in one hand, Westwood is every bit as chilled as one would imagine.
As a patron of two charities – a young offenders’ institute and Body & Soul, which works with young people dealing with HIV – the world-renowned star is used to passing on his knowledge.
He starts off his talk by giving us a potted history of his career to date. Through 10 years hosting Radio 1’s legendary Rap Show, Westwood has become something of a household name. It would be easy to forget, though, the struggle that – as almost every DJ knows – precedes such success. Westwood talks openly about his rise; from working in bars, putting on events, to getting slots on pirate radio and, later, on Capital FM.
His ‘rags-to-riches’ tale is interspersed with anecdotes about working with the stars. Ever wanted to know what Dr Dre is really like? Just ask Westy (apparently he doesn’t get high any more because he’s too busy in the studio).
On the subject of drugs, Westwood offers some advice for aspiring DJs: “A lot of artists are not getting high – 50 Cent doesn’t smoke, Jay Z doesn’t smoke... I don’t think I could have kept my momentum up if I was getting high.” Perhaps most astonishing, however, was the revelation that “There’s only a couple of people in the rap game now who are getting high... And that’s Method Man and Redman.” Now that we did not know!
After his talk, Tim invites questions from the audience. He talks openly about all aspects of ‘the game’, and has plenty of advice to offer the wannabe stars: suggesting which decks one should invest in (Technics, even though they’re “mad dough”); discussing the merits of a ‘street team’ (“they put me up with the latest of what’s happening on the streets, you know, the slang or whatever... Yeah, the street team is mad important”); and underlining the importance of not getting caught up in the ‘nonsense of the game’ (something which was “mad fundamental” to him).
So, following Westwood’s informal lecture on superstardom, what better way to continue the entertainments than with demonstrations from a couple of aspiring performers hoping to follow in his footsteps. Homelands organisers, Mean Fiddler, together with the Youth Music foundation, recently ran a competition to discover talented young artistes in the region, the two winners of which have been awarded a slot at the prestigious music event.
It was a tough gig for first winner, DJ Slayer. A 10-minute slot to a small seated audience is never going to be an easy ride for a trance DJ, particularly when the assembled have just been told – and by a superstar DJ, no less – that dance music is dead. Nonetheless, his mixing is seamless and his choice of thumping tunes will, no doubt, prove most welcome when he rips it up on the main stage this Saturday.
The next man up, Mr Mouth, is a top notch beatboxer. For those unfamiliar with this most unlikely of activities, beatboxing involves, DJing without decks. Confused? You should be – armed with just a microphone, Mr Mouth mixes, scratches, sings and raps, all at the same time! Like his hero, Rahzel, or fellow-Homelander, Killa Kela, Mr Mouth with leave you both astonished and confused. His slot, at 4.00pm in the Hip Hop Arena, should prove a festival highlight for all who catch it. Respect due.
Talking to Tim Westwood afterwards, it’s clear that he holds high hopes for both of the winners. After all, they’ve both clearly adopted his ethic of hard work to get this far. “There’s a strong do-it-yourself ethic within the scene,” he says, “and hard work pays off.”
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Glastonbury 2002
After paying £20 to some gap toothed local to park in his garden, we availed ourselves of some of his home made scrumpy and headed off down the hill into the dark.
We were at Glastonbury, all set for three days of lunacy, cider and dancing, and I for one was very excited about a line up that included Orbital, Coldplay and No Doubt. My friend was gleefully excited about seeing ‘Queens of the Stone Age,’ whoever they are.
But first, before entering the festival we had to run the gauntlet of frustrated youth trying to get in for nothing. This year the fence was truly enormous, 15 foot high and mad of shiny metal, with a metal lip on the top to put off ladders, grappling hooks and ninjas! Big security guards were placed at very regular intervals, and Land Rovers patrolled the perimeter. They had even welded the metal floor to the fence to stop would be tunellers!
There were still an awful lot of people chancing it though, and, having verified that they could not get in over the fence, were reverting to more tried and tested methods. Stories abounded of muggings and intimidation. Some nice young man from the North West of the country asked me if he could just borrow my ticket to go in and find his friends. Harshly, I turned him down, which seemed to cause him vast umbridge.
The fence certainly worked, though, and numbers were well down on previous years with robberies from tents falling by 75%. It also did not feel like you were taking your life into your hands every time you went to the dance stage. So, in we went, and it was brilliant. Tents up in the Green Fields and we were off and running.
I strolled past the Native American chanting tent, and decided to wait till later before learning some rural skills or how to fashion a flute from wood. I went to see Doves who were good, and then fortified myself with some hot spicy cider from the blue bus before going off dancing.
Saturday dawned bright and sunny, and, falafel in hand, I strolled to the Pyramid stage to be woken up by Dreadzone, who did it in their own inimitable reggae/techno style, and all was good in the world. Unfortunately they were closely followed by the worthy American songstress Ani Defranco, who did her best to plunge everyone into a morass of despair with her rousing ditties about crack babies, racism and the plight of the whale. Luckily she was followed by uber babe Gwen Stefani and No Doubt. Orbital did it for the evening, and then we went ballroom dancing in the Green Fields. The roller disco and ‘ballroom’ really did take inspired madness and style to new levels. People dressed up in tuxedos and dancing to a 16 piece band, and champagne was being swigged from the bottle with gay heady abandon.
After watching the sun rise at the stone circle to the dulcet tones of the bongo drum, I crawled back into my tent. Sunday was the turn of Rolf Harris, and the irony of seeing all the new age travellers, goths and bug eyed ravers dancing to a septugenarian illustrator was quite fantastic. Then, a bit more of a dance and it was time to come home unfortunately, although the garage, crisps, pies and flush toilets was worth waiting for!
A great time, and I think that the extra security kept out all the villains, enhancing the ‘vibe’ of the festival, not ruining it as some people were claiming.
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Fender Stratocaster’s 50th Anniversary
Staged to mark the 50th anniversary of Leo Fender unleashing probably the World’s most iconic instrument and to raise money for Nordorff-Robbins Music Therapy, which treats trauma sufferers through music, this was the night rock came together and got it very right. With such a worthy cause even such dross as shouty Geordie girl shambles Kenickie could have played and attracted a modest crowd. As it was the line up was jaw dropping and called on some of the instruments finest practitioners to show their wares to eleven and a half thousand people.
The event was everything new music isn’t. There was only a half tokenised nod to releases of late with the inclusion of Amy Winehouse, who is not much of a guitarist and her ‘jazz’ was lost on those wanting classic rock, and Hobbit wannabee Jamie Cullum who was just plain rubbish.
As for those who can actually play the instrument, they are rightly revered and respected. The fact that The Crickets (obviously performing without the long time unavailable Buddy Holly) were one of the openers testifies what a high profile event this actually was. Hank Marvin, one of the first British players to sport the instrument in this country also featured early and was his reliable, clean self. At different points in the evening Brian May would appear (his best moment was a rebel rousing performance of All Right Now with the incredible Paul Rogers of Free – one of the show stealers), as would the science defying image of blues infused rock ‘n’ roll that is Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood. Country picking wizard Albert Lee collaborated with violinist Theresa Anderson and frenetically ran up and down the fret board like a possessed Texan, before former Genesis members Paul Carrack and Mike Rutherford spoke for Middle England and its interpretation of the guitar, finishing with a faultless version of ‘The Way We Walk’.
In between artists there were video bites from those not present, the most emotional being from George Harrison who in his psychedelic phase painted his Strat with day-glow paint. It was fitting and met with applause by a very knowledgeable crowd.
There were nods of respect to Hendrix at various points during the evening, no more so than by Gary Moore who turned his amp up to eleven and attempted to demolish this glorified aircraft hangar with his version of Red House. Yes, it was very Spinal Tap, but it was perfect on such an occasion. The bigger names began to emerge, beginning with the fashion unconscious Joe Walsh of The Eagles, who got a bit lost and simply sustained a solo for twenty minutes. Then as Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) after just one track introduced David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) for their collaboration of classic Floyd, the gasps of breath around the arena spoke for themselves. Gilmour is the master craftsman of his generation – the economy, accuracy and life that so floods his playing sets him apart and perfectly compliments his still haunted vocals.
There is no doubt that the super group assembled to back former Yardbird and new experimentalist Jeff Beck would have served this headlining legend well, but it was all sadly missed. Not that anything could take away from what was a spectacular evening of craftsmanship in a no nonsense environment. When it comes to guitars and rock stars an old saying inextricably links them: They don’t make ‘em like they used to.
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Election 2004
George Bush is President... again. Simon Waddington, The Observer's man in California, gives us his thoughts on another four years.
This morning almost 300 million Americans will wake up as I did, to learn that George W. Bush has been re-elected as the President of the United States of America.
If cast votes are representative of the overall population, then almost 50% of Americans will be elated that their candidate won, but for the remaining 50% of Americans, "morning in America", a phrase coined by Ronald Reagan in the Eighties, never looked so bad.
As a British citizen living in California for ten years, I have enjoyed a fascinating perspective of the American political system, and in turn, America itself. But until four years ago I didn't have much interest at all in what was going on. It really didn't seem to matter much at all - life was simply business as usual. Coming to America at the start of the Clinton era I had been enjoying the benefits of life in a period of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity, while simultaneously watching the blooming of the Internet as a world communication system and a mechanism for deliverance of people power. In 1994 when I landed as a "non-resident alien" email and the web browser were just interesting novelty technologies, ten years later as a "resident alien" (green card holder) they are a way of life.
But something else important happened in the intervening years. The slow and steady creep of corporate influence into American politics reached a point where it could dominate how politicians and elections are funded, and how the media sells the candidates to the American people. Simultaneously, the Internet has achieved a critical mass of users where it has also become a powerful influence in American politics. More and more the individual people of America are using it to communicate among themselves without a multi-billion dollar media company being involved, and more and more they are discovering something very interesting: that America really is full of people with an incredible diversity of opinions, beliefs and ideologies, and yet, when it comes to the polling booth, is an amazingly evenly divided country. Tools like the Internet have only served to bring that big melting pot of American culture, ethnicities and religion to a fiercer boiling point than ever. Take all that energy and then force it one way or the other and something or someone is bound to get hurt.
Within the narrow confines of America's two-party winner-takes-all electoral system, voters everywhere realised that in spite of all the complexities of running a country, they would ultimately be asked to choose just one of two candidates with (apparently) diametrically opposed opinions on almost every important issue.
As with many second term elections this one rapidly became a vote for or against Bush and Kerry became not the Democratic candidate but the anti-Bush candidate. Those that didn't like Bush, regardless of their political persuasion held their noses and voted for Kerry. Voting for anyone else like Ralph Nader was a waste of time and effectively a vote for Bush, as was not voting at all - a silent consent for the status quo. Thus many Americans have taken a heightened interest in this years election, even dubbing it ‘the most important in their life’. And if the election was the most important, then surely so is the outcome.
Back in 2000 few Americans, even Republican politicians, could have predicted how the years 2001 through 2004 would have turned out under Bush. Except that is a select cabal of right-wing thinkers in Washington, who, through a complex web of personal connections and a long history of Bush involvement in the Middle East and the oil industry, had his heart, mind and ear.
That group described itself as ‘The Project for the New American Century’, everyone else dubbed them ‘Neo Conservatives’. They advocated a stronger, more interventionist American foreign policy. America, they said, could only stay number one in the world if it actively and pre-emptively asserted its right to be so. By doing this, they claimed, world peace and stability would be ensured. All the world needs is a strong leader that shows everyone right from wrong and has a big enough stick to enforce this view. This is exactly how Bush sold himself in the election debates - over and over we heard how he is the strong, decisive leader and Kerry was the flip-flopper who'd go running to the UN at every opportunity.
Like Shakespeare's Macbeth, the Neo-Cons believed they had seen a vision of the future - a strong America that must act first to ensure its de-facto status as world leader. With Bush in control, that’s the Republican view of the world. It’s also what Republican voters are buying into, even if subconsciously.
In this years election Bush has continued to sell the message that its security can only be ensured if it continues in that role. To be safe you must be strong, be certain and above all be a winner. This, it turns out, was a very popular message with American voters this year.
Which brings us to the rest of the world...
If recent international polls are to be believed, world opinion will be that America has morphed from a nation lead by an unpopular and dangerously unilateralist President, into a unpopular and dangerously unilateralist nation.
With the re-election of Bush the ability of American people to dissociate themselves with the actions of their government will diminish. So will the willingness of other countries to make a distinction between America the nation and America the people.
The partisan politics that have slowly but surely split America will continue to propagate beyond its borders. The end result will be nations labelled as ‘with us or against us’. Americans are notoriously patriotic and there is no such thing as a ‘stiff upper lip’ in America - an attack on their country in any way, shape or form is like waving a red flag to a bull. So the increase in international rhetoric (and actions) against America will increase unrest at home. The pro-Bush supporters will become more incensed and the anti-Bush supporters will become more willing to dissociate themselves from the image that George Bush is projecting. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that will go on and on and on...
One can only speculate over what impact this will have on global peace. For those that oppose Bush it seems to be a self fulfiling prophecy - the more America deems it necessary to project its military power to eliminate terrorism the more people we will find to fight against us. "What became", they ask, "of that goofy compassionate conservative whose idea of interventionism would be spending the weekend clearing scrub on this ranch in Texas?".
Thus four more years of George W. Bush will certainly bring a shock to the many Americans who had believed the story sold to them over the past two years. The story that states there is a huge international coalition of support for their actions in Iraq. Indeed, during the election debates, Bush continued to repeat this claim even though Kerry was kind enough to interject that a few thousand troops from the UK, Spain and Poland do not represent any such a thing. Americans will encounter incredulity as to its continuing actions around the world. More and more they will find themselves alienated from the rest of the world and more and more they will find themselves becoming either disillusioned with Bush's impact on America's image, or adopting it as their own. Which path they take will depend on their knowledge of the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, Americans for the most part are not well travelled, with less than 20% holding a US passport. And, in spite of their ‘melting pot’ culture, they’re notoriously ignorant of foreign cultures and exhibit a low tolerance for a multiplicity of ideologies.
Those that stay at home are subject to an American media that is dominated by programming made in America by Americans for Americans. This results in an incredibly narrow perspective of the rest of the world - in the extreme case Americans expect the rest of the world to be just like them - eager capitalists seeking the essential individualistic freedoms of wealth and property, or completely unlike them - dangerous freedom haters who eschew the cult of the individual and hate shopping. These may seem like simplistic generalisations, but this is how he sells himself to his base of voters, which he famously labelled as the haves, and the have mores’.
Recently I encountered an example of an America who came back from a holiday in Spain very irate - he just could not believe the level of interest and anti-Bush rhetoric the Spaniards exhibited. To have interest in our election is one thing, but to actually give a damn about the result seemed too much, especially when it contradicted the pretty portrait painted by Bush of Spain as America's great ally in Iraq.
If Americans get irate when other countries have an opinion on our local politics or ridicule our leaders, how then, I ask myself, do the people of other countries feel when they are unceremoniously labelled as part of the ‘Axis of Evil’, their leaders labelled as dictators and tyrants, and their people consigned to the level of freedom haters?
In the next four years anything could happen as the last four years clearly showed. The anti-Bush voters certainly fear we'll see a massive escalation of military actions by the USA. This will require huge increases in military spending, sky-rocketing deficits and an even bigger national debt. Worst of all they fear the draft.
America's policy of pre-emption in Iraq has also set the standard for nations across the world who have a grudge against their neighbours and enemies. It has become a justification for arms escalation from those that fear such pre-emption - North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons being a case in point. All-in-all, the fear is that America's new found aggressive pre-emptive foreign policy will lead to a net decrease in the safety of all people across the world.
Even if the Bush war on terror ultimately runs out of money and support, there is a fear that American society itself will be attacked as the ultimate arbiter of Americas identity. The Supreme Court is stuffed full of conservative judges. An overturning of the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision on a woman’s right to choose abortion is widely anticipated, along with further decisions that will attack the constitutional separation of church and state that has so far largely kept religion out of US politics. The government may then create more ‘faith based agencies’ that spend federal money but discriminate against recipients based on their religion (or lack thereof). Also feared are more rulings in favour of the rights of corporations and against the rights of people, especially with regard to their privacy, right to dissent and right not to be labelled a terrorist or enemy of the state. A given is that Bush will continue his efforts for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between a man a woman only - in direct contravention of his 2000 election campaign stance that gay marriage was an issue for individual states to decide and not a federal issue.
Even without the Supreme Court on his side it is clear that George Bush fully intends to continue with his policy of letting money do the talking. He wants to cut social security, he wants medical care even more privatised and he wants to put more and more kids into schools run by businesses instead of local government. The US government itself shows that the trend in America is that the rich do get richer and the poor do get poorer. Income and wealth has shifted alarmingly out of the middle and working class (and you thought America didn't have a class system!) and into the top 5% of the wealthy, or even more alarmingly into the top 1%. A greater percentage than ever of Americans is not working (as opposed to purely unemployed, a statistic that does not include those who have given up looking for work), and a greater percentage than ever have no health insurance and are existing with an income level classed as poverty. America has been in this place before - before the social upheaval of the depression era and the subsequent massive changes instigated by Franklin .D. Roosevelt. Changes that brought in workers rights, social security and limits to the power of large corporations.
What will become of the beleaguered anti-Bushites during his next four years? From my California home I've met many sane, intelligent people who seriously contemplate moving overseas - Europe or Canada is the most mentioned destination. Such relocations are unlikely to occur, few people have the luxury to uproot on a whim, but certainly they are an indication of how seriously people take the re-election of Bush. It shows that they believe that America is becoming, or has become, a country they just don't feel comfortable living in anymore. I'm not sure why it is that Republicans choose to hunker down and fight against a President they don't like (see the documentary "The Hunting of the President"), but Democrats choose to stay home, talk and anguish about it or just plain run away! If Michael Moore and a few other prominent voices are to be believed, democrats just need to organise, get off their apathetic rear-ends and fight the good fight bringing democracy to the streets in whatever way is necessary. No matter what happens, clearly many people believe - on both sides of the Bush fence - that at stake is the very identity of America and what it stands for.
The most pessimistic of the anti-Bushites believe that in the Bush Presidency, America has lost its way, become deluded by some gilded false idol, and a siren song of fear, uncertainty and doubt has caused us to relinquish essential freedoms and put personal gain over the common good. Unless something moves to stop it, there will be a return to global instability along with a new age reminiscent of the 1800s, when plutocratic and wealthy corporate barons were running the country for their own benefit.
The documentary ‘Berkeley in the Sixties’ paints a picture of how student unrest and dissent against the Vietnam war spiralled out of control and became a national phenomenon that ultimately shut down the conflict. Many people believe that any effort to re-instate the draft will have a similar effect in America. People may trade their vote for a tax cut and a promise of personal safety, but when it comes to their children's lives a higher standard is going to be used to judge the government - one that will surely not garner a majority support.
Will the anti-Bushites resort to such tactics? Will civil unrest become the hallmark of the second Bush term? One of the most caustic Bush critics I have talked to pointed out that historically a great revolution required a long period of oppression under a brutal dictator or regime, implying that another four years of Bush may be enough to awaken the American people to revolt. Personally I somehow doubt it, even though riots in America are certainly not a thing of the past - recent experiences in Los Angeles during the Nineties proved that, and show how easily the worlds ‘number one democracy’ can lose control of its populace.
Yes, the re-elected Bush and his supporters will probably be insufferably arrogant and take re-election as a carte-blanch endorsement to achieve as much as they possibly can. However, the humiliating loss by Kerry against a president widely labelled as ‘the worst ever’ will be enough to revitalise the Democrats and other opponents. Efforts to improve the American democratic system by eliminating the electoral college, eliminating corporate money from politics, allowing transferable votes, and proportional representation will take much longer than four years to have effect. Perhaps lifetimes or centuries if America as an institution survives that long.
In the mean time Democratic and anti-Bush supporters will continue to organise more and more effectively until a populist candidate can emerge to fight the 2008 election -when we know for sure that George W Bush will not be on the ticket There are even signs that the American media system is beginning to wither under public pressure for more objectivity. More people are writing to newspapers and protesting media bias, or simply setting up their own independent news sources and counter-spin channels.
Some say that Hilary Clinton could be the candidate to beat the Republicans in 2008 but its too early to say - if Bush continues to foul up badly enough even a glove puppet fielded by the Democrats could win in 2008. Two more years of Bush could be enough to end it all - the congress and senate could swing far enough to the congress in 2006 that Bush becomes a lame duck President unable to do what he wants. Regardless, Bush opposition will continue - four more years of dissent and protest may wear down the Bush opponents but it will be character building stuff that will define a generation and invigorate political participation in a way unseen since the Vietnam era and the social unrest of the 1930s.
Ultimately, the Achilles heel of Bush's second term in office will be his own golden idol - money. In his first term Bush set simultaneous records for tax cuts and increases in government spending in a way that instigated long lasting impacts on the financial well being of America. Tax cuts and increased government spending may be the double dose of recovery medicine, but the impact of four more years of Bushanomics will have a devastating effect on America’s viability. Foreign investment and confidence in America will dwindle, exchange rates will hurt our imports for essential foreign resources we have become dependent on, and Bush will then face an embarrassing quagmire at home as well as overseas. Economic failure and war saw an end to the George Bush Senior era and they will definitely usher out his son, even if it is four years late. Seven years of America at war spending billions every week on bringing freedom to everywhere but home will hurt the population badly. They will no longer be willing to continue to endorse a continuation of Republican profligacy - something they always assumed Democrats were fond of.
So where did Kerry go wrong? I don’t believe he did. Kerry played himself just as he was chosen to. I believe it was the Democratic party that went wrong by fielding a candidate that was just too middle of the road to inspire support. Bush supporters were always going to vote for Bush, but swing voters and the non-voters needed something more than Kerry to get their X on the ballot form. Howard Dean may have been mocked by the media, may have been controversial by wanting to get out of Iraq, but he was ideologically their strongest candidate. Even if he had lost against Bush he would have defined an identity for Democrats that was something other than just being the anti-Bush party. I don't think Dean would have balked at being labelled a liberal, and I don't think he would have been afraid to point out that Bush the emperor has no clothes on. Personally I believe that Dean would have been able to get a sufficient number of apathetic non-voters to the polls in addition to the anti-Bush voters who, regardless of the candidate, would "hold their noses and vote" - as many did for Kerry.
If Bush had campaigned in 2000 with his 2004 message of ‘fear, uncertainty and doubt’ dictating global interventionism and empire building he would never have beaten Gore. Such a message of doom and gloom, contrasted with the bubbling dot-com era that preceded 2000 would never have won the hearts and minds of America. However Bush did campaign and win with that message in 2004 and the reason that it worked is still the terrorist attacks on America of September 11th 2001. What we have learned since then is that Osama bin Laden got Bush and the American people on the run by using their own fear against them, and three years on the fear is still eating them up. Bin Laden hasn't needed to launch another terrorist attack - even the idea that they are vulnerable, and every American knows they are, is enough.
And America will always be vulnerable to terrorism, as will every nation. And there is simply no such thing as winning a war against terrorism. America needs to look to other nations that have successfully dealt with terrorism and aggression against them by disillusioned unhappy factions. After two world wars the rest of the world has mostly learned that there is no such thing as military eradication of beliefs and ideologies, just individuals and economic wealth.
If America continues to insist on the use of military might to pre-emptively eradicate anti-Americanism, it will eventually find it necessary to turn that might on its own people. Something that is the very antithesis of the America dream.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, a dream that could be shared by everyone. I’d just rather it wasn’t delivered at gun point.

Simon has also supplied us with a few related links of interest: The first is just plain funny (as long as you're not easily offended) - it's a new map of the USA
http://civicspacelabs.org/node/view/1210

The second is another map, showing results county by county, instead of state by state. Simon points out that "you need some way to factor in the population density in those blue
dots. We need to scale the districts based on their population, so SF, LA and NYC and other places are huge and the vast empty wastlands of Wyoming and such are tiny. More importantly, the map doesn't indicate the percentage of the
Bush majority. A few areas in the country like Utah are strongly
pro-Bush, but even there 27% of voters still went with Kerry. The majority of tracts of Red are actually very nearly a neutral white with just a shade of Red."
County by county map

Another interesting one is this radio program. It tells the story of how one man made up his mind which way to vote. Scary. And then it gets worse...
http://www.thislife.org/ra/276.ram
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Don’t try this at home. Or anywhere else for that matter
I was aghast to hear that my friend Michael had lost £50 by his inability to eat eight Big Macs in an hour.
Surely such a task would be ludicrously easy, I thought. I love Big Macs, and I love eating, so, after few beers I threw down the gauntlet to Michael, and took up the challenge myself.
Turning up at my friends house on Monday evening for the challenge, I was quietly confident. I had prepared myself by eating just a light salad and a milkshake at lunchtime, and going for a walk beforehand.
Unbeknown to me, Michael had invited loads of his friends over to watch the spectacle, and, as I was led out into his garden, I could imagine how a Christian being fed to the lions in Roman times must have felt. Still, I got stuck into the Big Macs in front of me, and was travelling nicely, having got four down me in just over ten minutes.
Quietly confident, I got stuck into my fifth, starting to work up a bit of thirst by now. Luckily I was ably assisted by my pit team, Gareth and Serge, who made sure the water kept coming. By now the burgers were taking an awful lot of mastication, and a little walk seemed prudent. I had to be accompanied by an impartial judge to stop me doing ‘a Roman’ and vomiting before starting again.
I got back into the ring, and burger number six was s struggle. Then, on burger seven I hit the wall! My body may as well have said to me ‘no chance mate.’ The last Big Mac had taken on a persona of pure evil, and I had to throw in the towel, much to my chagrin!
Still, I sportingly handed over my £50, plus £17 to cover the cost of the Big Macs, to Michael, and headed home a chastened but much wiser man. Still, I think I will never visit McDonalds again, and that has got to be worth a quid or two!
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Carnival
What better way to spend a sunny bank holiday than swigging gallons of Red Stripe, jiggling around foolishly and washing it all down with a goat curry and a rum punch?
That’s right, I spent the weekend at the Notting Hill Carnival, and it was awesome. On the bus on the way over there we realised that several other people had the same idea, but on the Sunday, children‘s day, the crowds were not too tragic.
This was despite the best efforts of the local constabulary. Some of their crowd control systems defied all logic. For example, if a street is incredibly busy, what better way to control the mass of bodies than to put a fence at the end, with a very small gate in it? Or, another good one is to close off all the pavements, forcing everyone to walk in a bit of road three metres wide! Still, apart from the bizzare tactics of ‘de babylon’ the weekend passed without a hitch.
On Sunday we followed the floats, marvelling at the costumes which take all year to create, and ‘winding our batties’ to the steel drums. A ska sound system did the trick for a dance, and then the frantic search for an after carnival party ensued, as they shut down most of the systems at 7 o clock. We did quite well, managing to end up at a party hosted by a Kiwi pornographic film star!
Unfortunately it was not very good, so we went to a night club, then, tired but happy, returned back to my friend’s house.
Monday dawned grey with the prospect of rain, but we headed West again, Monday being the day at carnival when people traditionally have more of a party.
Sunday is floats, Monday more sound systems, and we found a blinder! Not too crowded, and they were playing real old reggae. The DJ was so cool that he was unafraid to play popular songs, such as Bob Marley ‘Is This Love’ and Junior Mervin’s ‘Police and Thieves’. Dancing in the sun to Marley, Red Stripe aloft, was a carnival moment so good it was almost a cliche!
Walking back down Ladbroke Grove caused another great moment. As the remnants of the floats trundled past, each one with a slipstream of dancing bodies in its wake, one MC enquired as to whether anyone was from Jamaica. The answer was a resounding yes, and so he put on the Jamaican national anthem, which boomed down the Georgian house lined road. To say it was received gleefully would be an understatement, and, in my case at least, certainly confirmed the old adage that white people can’t dance!
On that note we decided to call it quits, and strolled off into the night clutching a fish fritter. However good the music, floats, people and drinks are, there is no way to make goat curry, dumplings and fish fritters nice!
Apart from some pushing and shoving, which is inevitable in thin streets made thinner by the boys in blue, the carnival passed very peacefully. This is quite a feat when you have a million hammered people in one area. There were only a hundred arrests. At Reading, a festival attended by less than 100 000 people, there were 64 arrests. Yet, carnival is in continual jeopardy of being banned, and attracts 12 000 police. Why is that?
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Clowning Around
It was with great excitement that I took myself down to Jay Miller’s Circus last week. It was to have been even better, as we were supposed to have been taking two of the special needs children that Clare teaches. However, neither of them could come, so we invited a couple of friends instead. No offence to them, but it was not the same as taking a couple of kids along.
Hannah seemed very excited, but watching my mate Paul, a laconic, crop haired Northerner, gazing at the clowns and jugglers balefully seemed to lack some of the magic of a shiny eyed, euphoric child full of the awe and wonderment that is the big top! Still, never mind.The show kicked off with ‘The Texans,’ a whip cracking, knife throwing duo who sounded like they hailed from Texas via Bristol! Very good though.All of the other acts though, were from the home of the circus, Russia. Or rather, in this day and age, at least from some of the old states, notably Bulgaria, Moldova and The Ukraine. After ‘The Texans’ there was a juggler called Angel, who was excellent. He was even better when he came on later with a tightrope and his mum. It was getting silly at one point, as he span stuff off every limb and then put a wheel in his mouth and started spinning around a pool ball in that!
All of the acts were great, but a particular highlight had to be the Duo Peris, a paunchy Spanish fellow and his chica, who span around on a circular table at breakneck speed on roller skates. This might not sound so impressive, but bear in mind that at points the man would be holding the woman by his neck as she spun on her teeth! They also asked for a volunteer from the audience, and the ringmaster kindly ‘volunteered’ Hannah.
Her look of terror as they picked her up and span her round like mad was great, but I think a well placed screech from her caused them to stop! My laughter did not last long, however, as I got pulled up to be a volunteer for the clowns. Hilarious I thought, as they made me try to wear a hat that did not fit, laughed at my girth and tried to make me do the splits! Still, I think the audience liked it at least.To be fair, though, the clowns were very good, and very funny. I think I even saw Paul crack a smile at one point! They showed their dexterity, too, when the wife of the team hurled off her clown costume and attached herself to a metal hoop. This was elevated to the top of the tent, while she proceeded to do death defying gymnastic moves off it. Brilliant.
There was a contorting boy, too, named Vitaliy, who put his body into bizarre shapes for a while. Fascinating, but a bit akin to a medieval style freak show for my liking.
Next came The Silva Troupe, latterly of The Bulgarian State Circus.The girls in the Silva Troupe could almost rival her in beauty, though. This ‘gang’ of two girls and four boys would come in at various intervals.
At one point they shinned up ropes and did tricks, then they did some amazing skipping moves, but the piece de resistance was at the end when they did their Russian Bar act. Beautiful women being hurled in the air while they do up to three somersaults at a time cannot be bad really.
At the interval we availed ourselves of some candy floss, and there were pony rides and face painting for the kids.
All in all, a great night out. In these days of DVDs, Playstations and the internet, it is nice to go and see some genuine showpeople at work.
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The Mark Oaten Interview
It’s sometime after ten on a wet Wednesday morning and the Liberal Democrat MP for Winchester has already been at it for hours. More than anything he now needs two things. The toilet and some sugar.
Since the 1997 election, Mark Oaten has gone from potential near-miss to potential Prime Minister, a young buck with a big pile of ideas and an even bigger pile of charm. He seems sincere and open, someone you’d go down the pub with. Someone for the quiz team.
It’s the day after the Gibralter referendum and the subject of the Rock comes up, “I can’t get hung-up about the issue”, says Oaten, ‘but the official line is that the problem has to be solved with the full support of the local people.”
So five minutes in and he’s already gone ‘off-message’, he checks his pager and explains;
“I’m party chairman so I have to be careful at times. If, as party chairman, you say anything, it’s assumed that it’s an official party line. Equally, it defies logic that politicians have to go round ‘on message’ all the time. I’ve said it several times; ‘this is my own view - it’s not actually the party view’, so what? Is that a hanging offence? I think the public would prefer and respect their politicians a lot more if they turned round and said ‘look, I’m not actually comfortable with this’, I’m still a Liberal Democrat and I’m still passionate about that but just because I think slightly different on an issue doesn’t mean I think my party’s mad or bonkers. All politicians in all parties should do a lot more of that to be true to ourselves. The electorate aren’t stupid; they don’t believe that we believe every single thing that ‘the party’ believes in, in the same way that they don’t. You’ll hear me saying that a lot more and you’ll hear me getting into trouble... but so what?”
In some political quarters, one guaranteed way of getting into trouble is mentioning a single European currency. The perceived wisdom is that the Tories say ‘no’, Labour and says ‘maybe’ and the Lib Dems say ‘yes’. But is it all that cut and dried?
“We believe it’s in the national interest to be part of the Euro.” explains Oaten. “We believe there should be a referendum, so that everybody in the country has a say and we don’t see any reason for delaying this. We think there’s been a long period of dithering. I don’t think everything in Europe is ideal, I get slightly irritated that the French and Germans run Europe, but I know one thing for sure; if we’re not part of the Euro, we’ll not be able to have any influence at all, so the way for us to get in and reform Europe and make it work for us is to be part of the Euro.”
But if we’re talking trade, surely America’s where the real money is?
“If we get this right we can have the best of both worlds, we can be part of Europe with influence, but also keep the arrangement with America. America see us as a gateway to Europe, we’ll get investment coming from America, and the rest of Europe will have to still use us because we share the same tongue as America. We can be part of both, it’s not an either/or.”
What about Gordon Brown’s set of criteria, do the Lib Dems subscribe to the opinion that a certain economic situation must exist before entry?
“If I’m perfectly honest about it, I suspect there’s only one criteria that matters to the government and that’s whether they think they can win the referendum or not. If they thought they could, Gordon Brown would walk into the house of commons and say ‘I’m delighted to tell you that all the five economic criteria have been met’. Markets adjust, and the criteria will never happen until they say ‘we’re going to do it’, so actually, from the point at which you make the announcement, the economic conditions materialise. You then have the argument and then the referendum.”
And could that happen next year?
“I personally think we’ll be going to war in January, it’s not my personal belief that we should, but that’s my assessment of the situation, and in those circumstances I do think it would be difficult for Blair to move towards a referendum on the Euro just now. There’s just too much happening, too many uncertainties, too many difficult decisions to take the country through at the same time.”
He may not admit to it, but the word on the street is that Mark Oaten is the next leader of the Liberal Democrats. If the party continue onwards and upwards then that puts him close to Number 10. I wonder if he’s ready for the Big Job.
“If the Liberal Democrats are to make massive gains at the next election, which I believe we are, if we’re going to overtake the Conservatives, which I believe we are, it will be largely due to Charles Kennedy running a fantastic campaign and being a well-liked, affable and popular leader. So in those circumstances the last thing the party wants is for him to say ‘I’m not carrying on’.
In reality, 0.000001% of the population outside of Winchester don’t have a clue who I am. They may know who Menzies Campbell is, they probably know who Simon Hughes is, but they all know who Charles Kennedy is.”
But the party can only be as ambitious as the people in it. You do want to be Prime Minister, don’t you?
“I want to get into government. I didn’t join the party to spend time on the backbenches, I joined to get the policies I want into operation... and so I’d love to be home seceratary, I’d love to be foreign seceratary, of course I would.”
But if you say ‘I’d love to be home secretary, I’d love to be foreign secretary’, isn’t the next statement ‘I’d love to be Prime Minister’.
“I’m not sure that I would. That is just such a phenomenally intense job that it’s almost beyond any human being to be able to do that.”
But if you were called upon?
“It’s not a realistic option. I honestly don’t think that’s an option at all. I’m absolutely convinced that Charles Kennedy can do the job by the 2009 election. But would I want one of the top jobs? Of course I would.”
Some would say that the only good leader the Lib Dems need is a bad Tory leader. So who’s best for the cause? Iain Duncan Smith, Ken Clarke or Michael Portillo?
“It doesn’t matter. IDS is a disastrous leader, he has no direction and he’s out of touch. Ken Clarke would divide the Tories in a way that would make recent events look like a tea party. If you thought that having eight people rebelling over same-sex couples was something, wait until Europe comes on the agenda. It would be absolute chaos. Portillo? Is this guy a real social liberal? Has he really changed his views that much? Even if he is a real moderniser, the fact that they have to put a three line whip on allowing gay couples to adopt demonstrates that the party is not able to modernise. Portillo would not be able to do it, he cannot take those individuals with him.”
So the Lib Dems are in power, what are you saying to George Dubya?
“I would be tapping him on the shoulder and saying ‘look, don’t go alone’ - we’ve kept peace in this world because of the international community of the United Nations. You’ve got to work within the framework of all these international institutions, you cannot go alone on this.
There needs to be a vote in the House of Commons on this. I was appaled that during the recess I could have detailed chats to people about this in the Black Boy or the Wyckham yet we weren’t allowed to sit in Westminster and talk about it. Everybody else was talking about it and we weren’t talking about it in Westminster. Potty.
I wouldn’t describe myself as being a natural dove, I’m not afraid of military action, I don’t like it but I’m not afraid of it. But I find people who are quite gung-ho being cautious on this one.”
With such a strong emphasis on spin and media control, has modern politics become a shining example of the medium being the message?
“Increasingly it is. As the media dumbs down it’s increasingly hard to get your message across in a way that people can understand without it being just a soundbite.”
So how does your PR background help?
“Charles Kennedy, some colleagues and I went away last weekend to look at this whole question of messages, rhetoric and language. We have a new policy on the Health Service which is to take control away from Whitehall and decentralise services down to a local level. Now, you may understand that, I understand that, but if I’m knocking on somebody’s door and they’re saying ‘I haven’t had my hip operation for eight months’ and I turn round to them and say ‘that’s not a problem, we’re going to take control away from Whitehall and decentralise services down to a local level’, what does that mean? So coming up with a form of language which explains what you want to do in a way which somebody can understand is difficult, it’s hard work. Labour started with the language, and then put the policies to match the language. They opinion-polled, they focus-grouped and they said ‘if you say tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’ that will work, and they worked backwards from that point saying ‘okay, what policies do we have to come with to make that slogan work?’ What we’ve done is come up with the policies and then putting it in a language that people understand. And that is quite hard.
How then do you think will Labour be judged, as a great political idea or a great PR idea?”
“When we look back on ten years of Labour people will have to ask themselves ‘was it all spin and no delivery?’ Their hearts may be in the right place but I think the jury’s still out on that one.”
In most people’s minds, the Mark Oaten story begins with the ‘97 election. Richard Hugget, a maverick politico, stood against him as ‘Top Choice Liberal Democrat’ - he polled around 640 votes. It looked like Mark Oaten had won by two, the Conservatives disagreed and after much fear and loathing a by-election was called. Mark won by 21,000. So how does he feel about Richard Huggett now?
“I’m as bitter today about Richard Huggett as I was six or seven years ago. That whole thing put my family and I through an enormous amount of stress for six months and I still feel angry about it. It brings out my nervous twitch.”
I suggest that when all’s said and done, it could, perhaps, be argued that Richard Huggett was the making of Mark Oaten. The man who helped turn a two vote majority into a 21,000 vote majority.
“But it would have meant a lot less stress. I was very unhappy when I first got elected, the first year was very difficult, very tough. Instead of being able to get on with the job we were thrown into the limelight. Everybody had a story, everybody had a view on the court case, everybody had an anecdote. It was a tremendously tough time.”
These days, Mark just gets on with the job, and his future looks brighter every day. The madness that surrounded his Parliamentary birth no longer defines him. He’s now his own man. All that other stuff happened a long time ago... even if it does have a habit of cropping-up on the odd TV quiz show.
Mark smiles; “So if nothing else”, he says, “ I’ll go down in history as a question on University Challenge.”
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As featured on Radio 4...
Recently, Jeremy Hardy read out the following on Radio 4's News Quiz. The letter from Mr Duncan was in reply to an article by Max Jones detailing the Bishop of Winchester's opposition to same-sex adoption. Our reply (with a little help from The West Wing) has caused quite a stir...

Dear Editor,
I wanted to respond to the article in your October 23 edition by Max Jones. As a committed Christian since 1954 and the father of five children, I totally support the Bishop of Winchester in his opposition to couples other than heterosexual being allowed to adopt children. Perhaps this should also include "common-law" relationships proven to be stable. After all, in God's eyes, if one has a sexual relationship with a person of the opposite sex, then you are "bound" to that person. Sadly, our society these days treats sex as entertainment and a commodity, as opposed to the cementing of a special relationship as intended by our Creator.
What you have to consider, is that our God's laws do not change with the passing of time. Throughout the pages of the Bible - the Christian Handbook - homosexuality is condemned. It was the main reason why Sodom (sodomy) and Gomorra were destroyed. Jesus Christ pronounced that it has always been God's design for a relationship to be between one man and one woman, for life. Allowing for the failures in our own lives, divorce and, under certain circumstances, remarriage is permitted. I have been through that situation myself.
Whether or not you voted the Bishop in is not relevant here. The Church must stand for goodness and right-ness. Jesus Christ demanded of his followers - of which the Bishop is one - that we are to be the "salt" and "light" in this world. Salt prevents decay and light shows the way. So don 't knock the man, he is following orders from a much higher authority than any government of this world.
Yours sincerely,
Stuart D. Duncan

Good point well made, Mr Duncan. As you say, 'God's laws do not change with the passing of time', and it clearly states in Leviticus 18:22 that homosexuality is an 'abomination'.
Which reminds me, there's a couple of things I need a little guidance on... firstly, if I wanted to sell my daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7, how much could I expect to make from such a deal?
Also, the newspaper business being what it is, my colleague Pete sometimes insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? Or is it okay to get some outside help?
Lastly, does the whole city really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? And when, as it instructs in the ‘Christian Handbook’, I burn my mother for wearing garments made from two different threads. Do I torch her whole or just a bit?
It's a moral minefield and no mistake.
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We, The People...
As the media continue to discuss and dissect the finer points of the forthcoming war with Iraq, one official voice remains strangely unheard; the voice of the American majority, the voice of the party that polled more votes than anyone else in the 2000 Presidential election - the voice of the Democratic Party.
Sharon Manitta describes herself as ‘part genetic defect, part political junkie’ and works as a Self-Employed Textile Conservator based at the Wiltshire County Council Conservation Centre. She also has another job, and it’s a fairly impressive one, too. She’s the Press Officer for the Democratic Party Committee Abroad, an organisation that takes in over thirty countries, holds seats on the Democratic National Committee and is treated as the ‘51st State’ by the rest of the main party.
Originally from New York State, Sharon started off her political career at the age of 12, stuffing envelopes for JFK in the 1960 election. Later, at Drew University in Madison, she had her phone tapped by Tricky Dicky, a dubious honour but an honour none the less.
On New Years Eve 1977 she pitched-up in England, armed only with a frightening knowledge of politics, history, and fashion. She went to work.
“ It took me about a year to find Democrats Abroad”, said Sharon, “ and when I finally did it turned out that the chair lived only four blocks away from me in London!”
Juggling two jobs can be hectic at anytime, but Sharon remains committed to both her conservation work and the political arena, she claims to cope by adopting an age old CIA tactic; “ If you’re being tortured it’s best to distract yourself with another form of pain, and in a way, that’s what I do. I have no desire for elected position, but I firmly believe that I have an obligation to democracy. That I have to put something back. Voting is just so important, if you don’t vote, how can you complain? And the less people who do vote, the more unsavoury those elected will be.”
Mobilising the overseas vote is one of Sharon’s main considerations. She doesn’t care who you vote for, as long as you do vote, and to that end encourages any US Citizens living here (whatever their political leanings) to make contact, and they’ll be pointed in the right direction.
“ You have to register in each year that you want to vote. If you registered in 2000 and you want to vote in 2004, then you’ll have to register again. But it’s a small price to pay.”
The conversation naturally turns to the impending crisis in Iraq. I wondered how different things would be if it were President Gore holding down the top job?
“That’s very difficult to say. The general trend of the Democratic Party is against the war. Trouble is, there are so many positions an individual can take; should we go it alone? Should we get a second UN resolution? Are we against war on any account? Maybe Bush and Blair know something we don’t? It’s a question that transcends politics, but we are not gung-ho for this war. Whatever anybody says, Middle America does not wake up every morning wanting to kill people.”
In the UK and US press, the American anti-war movement has been almost completely overlooked, but Sharon assures me it’s there.
“There were marches from San Diego to New York, thousands of people took to the streets, but it just wasn’t reported. It’s somehow seen as un-American to be anti-war, it’s as if the McCarthy era has returned; the feeling is that if you don’t support what Bush is doing you’re being unpatriotic, but Bush did not win Florida, he shouldn’t be there. What’s happening in America is driving me nuts, but I love my country and I am a patriot”.
America, if you needed to be told, is a big place made up of many different people. In fact, that’s the point of the place. A nation founded on the huddled mass of immigration that headed West in search of a better life; a melting pot of cultures, races and religions who found a collective identity under the stars and stripes. The American nation is no different than any other nation, we are not defined by our leaders, we are all individuals. These days it’s considered somewhat racist to describe the Irish as thick, the Indians as smelly or the English as stuck-up. But stand up in a room and say ‘all Americans are obnoxious and arrogant’ and you’ll probably get away with it. Why? I don’t know, because it’s as stupid a thing to say as anything else I can think of. And it’s just plain wrong. Remember, it wasn’t the American people who, in the months before September 11th 2001, offered the Taliban $43,000,000 to run a oil pipe through Afghanistan - it was Bush’s friends in the oil business - and, vote for vote, the American people had him in second.
So, if you ever get tempted to tar all Americans with the same Bush-covered brush, just stop and think of Sharon Manitta and the millions like her.
America may have its faults, but who are we to cast the first stone?
Democrats Abroad: Tel: 020 7724 9796
www.democratsabroad.org.uk
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When Guinea Pigs Ruled The Earth
An amazing discovery in Tio Gregorio, Venezuela has turned the world of natural history on its head.
The fossilised remains of a giant Guinea Pig (Phoberomys pattersoni), have been unearthed 250 miles west of Caracas, leading some experts to ask if these mighty mammals once ruled the world.
The earth was a very different place 8 million years ago and a guinea pig the size of a car would have no difficulty in exerting its authority. It could roam the pampas with impunity, challenging all that came before it.
Winchester resident and cavie keeper Sue Clarke was shocked to hear of this discovery. "I’m shocked," she said. "My pet ‘Stella’ seems so docile, I had no idea that her ancestors ruled the world. Do you think they’ll take over again?"
The Observer would like to make it clear to worried readers that no evidence exists to back-up these fears. That said, evolution is a funny old thing, and who knows what’s just round the corner?
The guinea pig as we know it was brought to Europe in the 16th century. The first people to keep them were the Incas in South America, who liked them both as pets and as a light lunch.
A new born guinea pig has fur, open eyes and can hear. They’re also born hungry, with their first meal only a couple of hours after entering the world.
Contrary to popular belief, guinea pigs are more closely related to the horse than the rat. They may look like rodents, but they’re not!
We asked Heather Moore of Marwell Zoo if she thought Guinea-pigs would rise again "not this century" she said. There are plenty of Guinea-pigs and their relations Porcupines and Maras to be visited at Marwell.
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The Big Night Out In Brackley
"If you’ve six months to live and are in constant pain, real bad pain that rips apart your back, shoulders, neck and head, the last f___ing thing you need is people continually asking if you are okay. Who wants that?"
Martin and I were sat in his back garden, enjoying the lazy feelings that the sweltering heat gives. That afternoon I’d arrived back in Brackley, and over a bottle port he was updating me with information of Richard, this guy he works with, who has Spina Bifida, although Martin calls it Spiney Beefeaters disease, and he calls Richard ‘Spiney Beefeater’.
At work, Martin will wait for Spiney Beefeater, he’ll lurk behind corners and in dark shadows, armed with a bucket of soapy water, hosepipe or some other unpleasant surprise. He’ll wait and then pounce.
"You see, Keegan, most people don’t know how to treat Spiney Beefeater. He’s clever, he used to be a psychologist, but the disease has taken his sharpness away, he might forget things, you know. He scares people at work, he reminds them of death and they either ignore him or ask him if he’s okay. What kind of life is that? I treat him like I treat everyone else, Spiney Beefeater’s a good bloke and as such I’ll fill his Wellington boots with glue when no one’s looking, just like I do everyone else’s. I’m trying to toughen him up, show him that he doesn’t have to put up with bulls__t. Now at work, he pounces on me and starts beating the crap out of me, he’s a tough little f___er. In a few weeks time we’re off island hoping around Greece, with Michael this other guy from the Chicken Factory. You’ll meet them both later in The Plough. We’ve booked and paid for the holiday, it should be a laugh. If you’re dying then you want to be out having fun and not waiting for it to happen, you know we’re all dying, slowly. Shall I open that wine?"
Much later on we walked into the Plough, everything was little hazy and wobbly. I had trouble putting names to the faces that I recognised. Some people gathered round, asked what I’d been doing for the last twelve years.
"Prison," I joked, with utmost sincerity and a look that said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it, but push me and I might be persuaded.’
"What for?" My old school friends asked suspiciously.
"Everything," I deadpanned.
"Even…"
"Especially that," I nodded my head knowingly, even though I had no idea what ‘that’ really meant.
Chris Rich chuckled and affectionately punched me hard on the side of the arm and said, "You haven’t changed a bit have you? You’re still stupid Keegan."
The rest of the time in the pub passed me by in a blur, Richard and Michael turned up at some point and the drinks became stronger, more exotic and outlandish, until the bar finally refused us because Martin insisted that he didn’t care what he drank as long as it had flames coming out of the top of it.
We walked back to Martin’s house and I would have forgotten this walk if it hadn’t of been for those two drunken middle age women who kept lovingly pawing at me and calling me Cain Dingle. It was reminiscent of the 1970 World Cup, I was Pele and these two women were Bobby Moore, and what ever tricks I tried I just couldn’t shake them off, they were always there.
They didn’t believe me when I told them I wasn’t Cain Dingle and didn’t care that I had a girlfriend, they just continued groping at me, trying to take advantage of a man who seldom drinks, but who’d been drinking all afternoon and evening. I felt like the victim of one of my own pranks, which is why I told them that I would only go back to their house if they’d slice open my stomach and drink my blood and then let me do the same to them.
"But it has hallucinogenic properties," I called after them, faking a sound of desperation as they marched off into the darkness, calling me a ‘weirdo’.
"All us soap stars are into it. We all do it!" I shouted before they disappeared from view.
Back at Martin’s it all went a bit crazy. One minute Spiney Beefeater was eating his Indian takeaway and the next he was spitting it everywhere and raging about his father and the Leicester Baby Squad, who he said were a gang of crooks that worked for the Krays, and whom his father was a member. Spiney was going ballistic, catch his eye and he’d threaten you with his knife and fork and plate of chicken korma.
It was with a struggle, but Martin managed to pick Spiney up and dump him in the porch. He locked both doors to the porch and gave him strict instructions to cool off, but Spiney was having none of this and contemptuously threw his glasses out of a small window. He ordered Martin to unlock the door so he could go out and find them, because without his glasses he couldn’t see and might break something, by accident of course.
Martin yielded to this threat and unlocked the front door, and, laughing like a madman, Spiney bolted away into the night and was gone. The next day we learned that Spiney had walked all the way back to his home in Northampton, some thirty-odd miles away.
The next day before leaving I told Martin that I thought he’d created a monster in Spiney Beefeater.
"I know," he said, and I couldn’t help but hear the heartfelt compassion in his voice, "but at least he’s having fun and not sitting around expecting to die. He’ll be okay, the doctor’s have been telling him for years that he has six months to live, but he proves them wrong every time."
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Have A Go Zero’s
Last week the Broadcasting Standards Commission published a report claiming that hospital dramas have led to a trend in viewers who think they can treat medical emergencies, some even believing they can carry out surgery.
One ambulance man described to the BSC a situation whereby he’d been called out to see a victim who had suffered a fit, "This other guy had obviously seen something on TV or film, that you put something in their mouth to stop them biting their tongue, so he pulled out a fifty pence piece. So not only am I dealing with this guy fitting, he's now semi-choking on a fifty pence piece. It was chaos."
Each night since becoming aware of this report, I’ve been having a recurring dream: I’m ambling down a busy high street when I collapse to the ground, desperate for oxygen. All around me buildings are growing taller, racing up towards the sky, eventually they block most of it out. Myself, and the crowd, which has now gathered round to watch my wretched form struggling for air, are shrouded in an eerie, eclipse-like darkness. A middle-aged woman wearing a smart business suit confidently strides out of the pack of curious onlookers. As she does this she commands them to "make room," "stand back" and "give him some air." Thank the Lord, I think, someone who can help me.
Skilfully, she removes a biro from her jacket pocket, holding it aloft and waving it for everyone to see. Then with all the authority in the world she says out loud, "What this man needs is an emergency tracheotomy," before leaning down to quietly whisper in my ear, "Don’t worry love, you’ll be okay. I’ve seen this done on Casualty."
She raises the biro high above her head and takes aim at my throat, edging her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and squinting both eyes to aid her in this process, and before she can slam it home… I wake up.
I once played the Good Samaritan, stopping to help an old lady who’d collapsed in a Southampton park. It happened a few years ago, but I remember it clearly. I was walking home from a job interview, and I was just passing the parks at the top of London road when I happened to spot a group standing around her. I walked on by, but instantly felt guilty, so decided to help. It was a cold, wet kind of a day and I thought she could probably do with some warming up. Fortunately, at the top of London road is a hearing aid centre, and although they didn’t have a blanket, the nice lady behind reception was able to give me the one she kept in her car.
I laid this blanket down on the old lady and couldn’t help noticing how lifeless and grey her skin appeared; it was like an old leather ball, washed up on the beach and dried out by the sun. She did not move, and I began suspecting she was dead; maybe she’d had a heart attack or something? I waited with the others for the ambulance crew to turn up, who on arrival shunned everyone away, back to their lives, except me, because I had to wait for the blanket. Perhaps she really was dead, was my immediate reaction to this ambulance crew’s abrupt behaviour, but these thoughts were quickly replaced by a sudden uneasiness at having to touch the blanket and take it back. Then, before I could dwell on any more on this and let my uneasiness turn into revulsion, one of the ambulance crew gave her a good old medical slap in the face. My jaw must have dropped when he did it a second time, much harder, because he turned to me and said, "She does this all the time, don’t you, Doris?" At which point she stumbled back into life, babbling on about not being able to breathe. She was drunk, very drunk, so drunk that she’d woken up and thinking she’d died.
I declined this opportunity to laugh uncontrollably in her face and say, "Yes, you have died. In fact, you’ve been dead a long time. Welcome to Hell. You’ll be here forever, there’s no escaping this place. So enjoy!"
This would have been bad for karma - both hers and mine - a nut-bar who’d just botched a job interview trying to scare her half silly with childish ideas would not have been very nice. Afterwards I would have felt bad, and besides, she must have already felt that life was unbearable, because it seemed she regularly tried to reach oblivion through drink, and telling her that she was already dead and in Hell would have been wrong, and pointless. So instead I returned the blanket to the receptionist, explaining that it had been most helpful and that she was very kind to let me have it.
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The Other Grapes of Wrath
When I am nervous strange things happen to me. I arrived early at Royal South Hants Hospital. The elevator ride and conversations at various reception desks whizzed past, and before I knew it I was sat directly opposite my consultant, Dr Robert. An unlikely looking doctor was my first impression; he wore no white coat and had shifty eyes. I bumbled through an explanation of symptoms, which he listened to before instructing me to remove my trousers, underpants, and ‘hop up’ onto the bed. Seconds later I was lying in a foetal position, bracing myself for the first of his probing fingers.
Naturally, I was hoping for a speedy process, but Time had its own ideas, slowing down to what seemed like a halt. The only indication of any movement in time was the occasional pinch that I felt in my inner sanctum. I failed to wake: this was no dream.
There I lay, a glove puppet, Sooty to his Mathew. I envisaged a career for us; who knows, one day we could’ve played the Royal Variety Performance, or Vegas? The dreams of superstardom were then interrupted by a stream of cruel questions that ran wildly through my thoughts, ‘what if that’s not his hand, what if he says in a hillbilly drawl, "You’re my puppy now"? What if the door opens and the real Doctor Robert walks in, declaring this man to be an Impostor? Why would a medical student choose to do this? Does this fate await student doctors who don’t pay enough attention in class: they’re given the short straw of medicine? Is this where the term ‘bum deal’ originates?’
I didn’t know why a person would want to do this and felt it inappropriate to ask; wanting to get to the bottom of things seems to be the most reasonable answer.
I groaned. Not at the awful pun in the last line, but because I felt a pain inside. ‘I hope his watch hasn’t just fallen off,’ was my immediate concern.
Then to my surprise it was over.
Predictably, he said, "You have piles. It’s a simple opera…"
"You can’t. They’ve grown on me. In fact they’re closer to me than my own family."
I’d turned myself into a cheap gag merchant in order to make it abundantly clear that there’d be no operation, regardless of how simple. It was time for me to leave, and considering the nature of his work I thought it best not to shake Dr Robert’s hand. Instead I said goodbye and walked out with my piles - unlike my dignity- still intact.
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