We are on. . .

Apologies to anyone who took my advice and downloaded I Love You You Big Dummy and whacked up the volume and was in any way appalled by Howard Devoto blurting out the f word. I'd forgotten about that. Hey - that was the seventies! But it's great though, isn't it? And while you are downloading things download The Stooges No Fun to hear Iggy Pop before he was an insurance salesman.

Peter Kirkham got in contact to say that he had heard John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten was now a property developer. After a little Googling I have to say that however unlikely this seemed it does appear to be the case. He also appears to want to break into TV. Presenting Property Ladder would be perfect wouldn't it? Altogether now - Property in the UK. . . it's coming sometime - maybe. . .

My laptop went off to Dell for some tough love, as predicted.

I'm bored

I'm the chairman of the bored. . .

If anything was going to work as an antidote to my flirtation with seventies nostalgia, it was going to be seeing Iggy Pop doing an insurance advert. Insurance? Iggy Pop?

I saw Iggy Pop in Manchester in the late seventies. He was wearing nothing but a pair of leather trousers with a horse's tail sticking out of the backside, like he was some kind of demented fawn. He was like a force of nature.

Seeing Iggy pop up on TV was all a bit sad. Younger people won't know who he is, surely, and anyone who does will hardly be attracted by the godfather of punk selling out. It is even more tragic than John Lydon doing a butter advert somehow (and heaven knows that was bad enough).

No fun.

Epiphany

Christmas is officially over. The cards have come down and the wreath is in the recycling bin. In Venice Epiphany (the Christian celebration of the visit of the Magi) has the added attraction of the Bufana - a witch who leaves sweets in children's stockings (or ashes if they've been bad!). There is even, apparently, a rowing race down the Grand Canal featuring men dressed as old ladies.

My son went back to school today and I was in my office in earnest, doing all kinds of dull but important pieces of displacement activity. My laptop has been playing up and though I know that it is going to have to go back to Dell to get fixed, still I let one of their technicians attempt to fix it by remote.

While he was doing this, my agent called. Philippa was ringing to check my availability for a meeting with Bloomsbury, to talk about the latest book and to discuss what happens next.

I always slightly dread the 'what happens next' discussions. It's not that I don't have lots of things I want to do. Far from it. It's more that I get stressed trying to decide which of the many things I'd like to do is the one that has most going for it.

I guess it's just a wave of nostalgia

For an age yet to come.

An old Buzzcocks song, if you're wondering. Actually, I rather like the Penetration version as well.

But there we are. Having said I dislike nostalgia a couple of posts back, I have been indulging in some in the last few days. It started with a reminiscing session with Paul Grunfeld and the resulting post brought contact from Helen Chase who is writing a book about one of my favourite bands of the late seventies - Magazine.

So if any of the old Manchester crowd reads this and happens to have any photos or memorabilia from that time, then get in touch and I'll pass it on to Helen - or go directly to her (her email is in her comment posted a few posts back). And if you don't know Magazine's music, then go and download I Love You You Big Dummy or The Light Pours Out of Me or Give Me Everything and whack the volume up.

Helen was asking me what my impression of Manchester was in those pre-New Order days and it brought back a lot of memories, good and bad - but that has as much to do with my age and my character as the place or the music scene. Having said that, one of my great regrets is not performing in a band. I was in a band for a short time (and had a white Les Paul copy guitar with perspex knobs on) but we never actually played (and sadly that is a vital part of the definition of a band). Ah - how different the world might have been if we had.

Or not.

But I always hated people older than me banging on about the sixties and how fantastic it was, and I was always determined that I would not be the same about the seventies, however much I enjoyed myself at the time.

And as for people who are nostalgic about the eighties - well, words fail me.

Match postponed

I drove my son into the middle of nowhere for his first football match of the New Year only to have it cancelled by the ref because the ground was frozen. All the parents were naturally very disappointed that they had to miss standing around in sub-zero temperatures.

It is actually cold! It's winter and it's cold. Who'd have thought it?

Obviously if you are reading this anywhere in the world where it gets properly cold in winter, you won't be at all impressed, but here in Cambridge, a couple of nights of frost and the shops already look like they've been looted.

Have to go. Must panic-buy some groceries before it's too late.

Vaporetto-lag

Ever since we got back from Venice I have felt like I was on a boat. We spent so much time on vaporettos that my brain seems to have decided that I am permanently shifting balance to accommodate the rocking of a boat. I am finding it hard to walk in a straight line. My wife says she feels the same. It is very odd. What would we be like if we went on a cruise?

Happy new year

So here we are at the start of another year. . .

There is always that strange mixture of excitement and melancholy - well, for me anyway. I understand that the notion that January 1st is in any way the start of something new is totally spurious as the date is arbitrary, and yet I can never stop myself from falling into that trap of thinking that I can, snake-like, shed a skin and be renewed. And I can never quite stop myself from feeling disappointed when this proves not to be the case and come July I'm still the same vaguely misanthropic malcontent with a big nose and anger issues.

Here's my New Year Payne's Grey:

My blog came to a rather sudden halt some time back in November - and I've had complaints! The reasons for this breakdown in communications are many, but I will be magically filling in the gaps with blogs I started but never published.