I Am Not The Beatles

 

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

“Desire is experienced as a gift : we privilege people with
our desire for them, though they don’t always recognise
quite what an honour they are being given.”

Adam Phillips - Terrors and Experts

Love can be many things : a battlefield, a losing game, a many splendoured thing. But - no matter what your personal opinion of love may be at this present moment - one thing it always is, is a transaction.

Taking this undeniable fact to its logical conclusion and using a bit of lateral thinking, Stylistics thus wish to make a suggestion designed to help us all during these tough financial times. Instead of giving out money to get the stuff you desire they say, why not give a little love instead?

What A Lovely Idea !

It certainly is.

Unfortunately - rather like your first visit to the prize booth after using the shoddy ticket / reward system employed by amusement arcades on many of Britain’s piers - the range of products actually available in exchange for your love is disappointingly limited.

Indeed some may suggest that the aforementioned pier system is vastly superior to this lovely suggestion, as at least with that you can walk away with something concrete you didn’t have before you went in - even if

a) it is a dusty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles plastic key ring, which
b) cost you nigh on twenty quid - playing as you were on an endless series of shitty fruit machines in order to get enough tokens to acquire it in the first place.

Please be warned then that if you choose to use Stylistics latter method no plastic key rings are available, and that only yet more love can be traded in return for your initial little love outlay.

So I Can’t Give A Little Love For Oven Chips ?

Much though I would love to say that the freezer section in Sainsburys now recognises a little love as legal tender, I am afraid that the answer is no - which of course makes the idea behind this song less of a transaction… and more of a straight swap.

What A Shame… I’m Right Out Of Oven Chips.

On the plus side though there does seem to be an inflationary bonus attached, as you only have to give a little love to Stylistics in order to immediately have the much bigger and better bona fide full on intense why don’t we move in together love thrown right back in your face.

And although this is admittedly enough to scare just about anybody off who was only making a tentative enquiry, what with all the emotional trauma I’ve gone through with Falco recently the idea of anybody loving me these days certainly makes a nice change.

What’s The Song Like ?

Like a mobility scooter on a motorway : dangerously slow.

Indeed, so ponderously does the lead singer express himself to his beloved over the most unhurried backing track in existence, at some points you may well fear the whole thing is about to shudder to a complete halt and start playing itself backwards.

Where Are Those Lovely Stylistics Now ?

This is a tricky question to answer as first of all this seems to be the only release by the band which, presumably for some legal reasons involving people leaving, was released with no ‘The’ as part of the band name - and secondly because a bit like all that silliness which once afflicted Beggar & Co - there are now actually two bands vaguely bickering over which is the real one.

In one corner we have Russell Thompkins Jr. - an original member of The Stylistics who formed in 1968 and had massive hits such as You Make Me Feel Brand New - now singing alongside three other chaps who were also in The Stylistics and Stylistics at some point (although not necessarily at the same time as Russell) who call themselves The New Stylistics.

Whilst elsewhere we also have another original member called Airrion Love singing alongside three other chaps who may or may not have been in The Stylistics or indeed Stylistics at any point at all… yet performing in a band called The Stylistics.

Confused ? You will be :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stylistics

Do Stylistics Give Love A Bad Name ?

No.

The same cannot be said for the website below however - as it is asking you to share the most intimate private moments of your utterly personal emotional and spiritual experiences of love… in exchange for a sample of some shitty perfume :

http://www.philosophygiveslove.com

Does Anyone Give Oven Chips A Bad Name ?

Yes - Jamie Oliver.

As apparently, when he was doing all that DON’T KILL THE CHILDREN nonsense a few years back, the sales of oven chips in supermarkets plummeted as a direct result. Luckily however, a company called Elmwood were on hand to charge McCain a pretty healthy £40,000 in order to draw some new pictures onto a plastic bag and thus - theoretically - save their frozen arses from collapsing :

http://tinyurl.com/psw8b4

http://www.elmwood.com/flash/?#/home/

Yes, it seems they utterly transformed the product - but only… stylistically.

Money Update

Cost : I give a little 8 pence
Current Value : for 2 pounds and 23 pence in return.
Current Profit : Gosh - 335 pounds and 75 pence. Which has made me rather chippy.

Want to hear You Make Me Feel Brand New - which apparently uniquely for a (The) Stylistics record has both Russell and Airrion singing on it - with the addition of some words scrolling annoyingly along the bottom ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUfAwwIgpNY

Like the annoying scrolling words but can’t stand the voices ?

http://ronansonlinekaraoke.com/sing.php?id=190

Supporting Cast Update: Oliver, Jamie; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

 

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

Sorry I haven’t written in a while - but I do have a good reason. I promise.

Have You, By Any Chance, Been Out Of Town ?

Initially I went Out Of Town, yes, but it soon became obvious this simply wasn’t drastic action enough. So I thus made the decision to Get Outta Town instead - and, let’s face it, you can’t get much more out than that.

Why Did You Get Outta Town ?

Somebody wanted to buy something at the exact same moment that somebody else wanted to sell but, rather than celebrate this success of capitalism during such fickle financial times, there was a major sticking point as nobody wanted to find out if what was being sold - or, indeed, was being bought - was a work of either fact or fiction.

The word was then rather unfairly put out by persons unknown that it was me who was causing all of this factfictionfriction - a charge which I vehemently deny incidentally - and this in turn caused lots of heat to come down presumably transforming the aforementioned attempted transaction into a Fahrenheit 451-esque fireball.

Having then consulted with my good friend Dan about this disturbing chain of events, he suggested that getting the hell Outta Town was very possibly the only viable option open to me.

Bloody Hell. Where Did You Go ?

Dan was quite helpful here too, as he first said that perhaps going North to Alaska would suffice, or possibly South to Rio and - after a bit of musical pragmatism - he even pointed out that I could try travelling east to Atlantic City or, rather obliquely, ‘west as far as you can go’.

Unfortunately, seeing as about as far west as I can actually logically go around the earth without ending up precisely where I started from is just a small percentile of a degree to the actual east of where I currently am, I didn’t really feel this final suggestion fitted the whole Get Outta Town criteria at all - indeed, some friends thought it may even be some sort of trap… so I chose Rio instead.

Would You Recommend It ?

Moving on the floor now babe with a bird of paradise who wore a cherry ice cream smile I suppose was very nice, yes… it was a bit like a birthday or a pretty view - but then I’m sure that you that it’s know it’s just for you.

Right. This Is, Presumably, An Example Of That Famous Deadly Sense Of Humour I’ve Heard So Much About…

Who told you about that ?

I Heard A Rumour.

Heard a rumour ?

They Said You Had A Broken Heart ?

I did, indeed after 8 weeks or so of endlessly dancing on the sand not unlike some river or other, I was downright depressed. At that moment though at the end of the drive some lawmen arrived - which certainly made me feel alive alive alive for a few moments I can tell you. Still, I took my chance, and it turned out that luck was on my side - and I tell you something…

I Know What You’re Thinking…

I tell you something…

I Know What You’re Thinking…

Alright then… what am I thinking ?

You’re Wishing You’d Never Started Quoting Duran Duran or Bloody Bananarama.

Errr… yes. That is precisely what I am thinking actually.

And ?

I’m just going to head into a hasty denouement and hope nobody notices.

Good Plan.

So, it turned out that the police had taken a rather close look at this whole Get Outta Town case and done something I had completely failed to do ie look at the actual record itself and not just rely upon the song and the record cover for clues.

And it was here where they pointed out to me that the song title had unexpectedly metamorphosised from Get Outta Town into a rather more specific Fletch, Get Outta Town - which was odd. Taking the view that if Dan couldn’t even decide upon the correct bloody song title then he probably had no idea who he wanted Outta Town in the first place, the whole thing was declared a massive misunderstanding and I was allowed back.

What’s more, as Gary Glitter once said - although I cannot 100% guarantee that he agrees with the sentiment at this exact moment in time - It’s Good To Be Back.

What’s The Best Bit ?

If you happen to know the words to the spoken intro of Thriller you may wish to recite them over the instrumental which starts at 3 minutes and 4 seconds, as they are totally identical. Dan even manages to squeeze in a Jacksonesque Hee Hee! to try and ease you into it if you feel a tad uncomfortable.

What’s The Worst Bit ?

The rest of the song I am afraid as, rather ironically, if you do choose to do the above then that is about as thrilling as this record ever actually gets.

Tell Me About Dan !

Laughably, Wikipedia claims that our Dan is best known for the songs ‘Instant Replay’ and ‘I Can Dream About You’.

This is a total nonsense of course, as he is quite obviously best known for writing and performing the utterly brilliant ‘Relight My Fire’ in 1979. Indeed, so good is his original version, some fools even claim it to be better than the majestic masterpiece recorded by Take That many years later. They are though, as already noted, fools. Don’t believe me?

Our Dan Fabulousness ( which incidentally includes a ‘legendary 6-minute intro called Vertigo, used often in nightclubs as a floorfiller before the real song’- ahem - ‘breaks loose’ ) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsWM_EDhcsQ

Take That Brilliance :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWPUespcblU

Which do you prefer ?

Can I Relight Dan’s Fire ?

No.

Indeed, if you do happen to find yourself dreaming about him then I wouldn’t really recommend holding him tonight - as he sadly died in 1994.

http://www.danhartman.com/

He first joined a band - called The Legends - when he was 13 and was then asked by a chap called Edgar Winter to join his not particularly imaginatively named Edgar Winter Group. They then had a number one hit in the US with a musical monstrosity called Frankenstein :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1mV_5-bRPo

After that Dan then wrote and performed on their next hit, Free Ride in 1972 :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQB83__ONuo

Before he then left to make all that lovely disco and MOR rock stuff, very successfully producing James Brown’s Living In America:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHqUipinDyw

Slightly less successfully, doing the same with Tina Turner’s Steamy Windarse :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9rptVFplpg

Wrote some new age stuff,

http://www.amazon.com/New-Green-Clear-Blue-Hartman/dp/B000008GF2

and… well…. died.

Was Dan All Hart ? Errr… Man ?

This certainly seems to be the case, as nobody has a bad word to say about him at all - particularly the musicians who have since been helped by his posthumous foundation :

http://danhartmanfoundation.org/gratitude.html

Which is nice isn’t it ?

Tell Me About Getting Fact From Fiction

The first recognised historical novel (ie a fictitious story plastered onto a historically factual setting) was apparently written in the 14th century by Luo Guanzhong and is called The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms. It is acclaimed as one of four of the most influential novels in the history of Chinese literature, and is based upon events in the tumultuous years at the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of China. Want to read it ? I have just tried and I warn you now, fascinating though it undoubtedly is, it is long - and contains about five and half thousand characters :

http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/ThreeKingdoms/

Can’t be arsed, but want to read about it ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Classical_Novels

Can’t even be bothered to even do that and just want to read my favourite bit ?

” I saw the fragments of a shattered stone one spring time on the hillside, when, alone, I walked to greet the sun. The pines distilled big drops of dew unceasing; sadness filled my heart. I knew this was the Stone of Tears, the stone of memory of long-past years.”

And it is this wonderfully lilting melancholic phraseology which proves that Historical Fiction - as a genre - had nowhere really to go but down… pretty much mere milliseconds after it was first invented. After all, that one paragraph probably reads better than Philippa Gregory’s entire career doesn’t it ?

http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence
Current Value : 1 pound and 20 pennies. The B-side by the way is the rather chocolatey M&M Remix of I Can Dream About You. Not since Owen Paul sang the words You’re My Favourite Waste Of Time, has a record so relied upon a stonking chorus for it’s existence :

Current Profit : 219 pounds and 82 pence. Want to know all about that film I’ve never seen, called Fletch ?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089155/quotes

Supporting Cast Update : Chase, Chevy; Guanzhong, Luo; Gregory, Philippa; Take That; Winter, Edgar; Duran Duran; Glitter, Gary; Bradbury, Ray (He wrote Fahrenheit 451); Jackson, Michael

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

Dull, boring and tedious may be your generally disappointing day to day experience of the miracle of life - but it could be a whole lot worse. Imagine, for example, a world within which we can only dream.

Freed from the monotony of the mind numblingly mundane, this new constant dreamstate your randy brain suddenly found itself in would admittedly create the odd completely brilliant day where your current hollywood crushes, entire boy/girlbands and that cute new temp in the office all one by one revealed the tantalising secrets of their underpants to you with a rather pleasing regularity.

But whilst dreaming of such things happening may make David Valentine’s theory seem initially tempting, it wouldn’t really be the entire story - as most the time of course, your dreams are completely bonkers.

Just the other night I dreamt I was being chased down eerily lit corridors by an unexpectedly large and bizarrely bloodthirsty duck. To add to the confusion, this duck also had an alarming propensity to morph into the severed head of a primary school teacher whose name I can’t even remember.

With this in mind, David’s desire to create a new reality where such a thing would be an even remote possibility seems - at the very least - to be highly irresponsible.

Why Does David Want Us To Only Dream ?

He wants to harness the power of the Jungian Collective Subconcious so we can all start dreaming about representing our respective countries in the Commonwealth Games.

After all, David’s subtext appears to be rather rudely suggesting, only dreaming is about as close as your fat lardy arse will probably ever get to it.

Is His Song Much Of An Event ?

It all starts off quite exciting with David doing his best Gary Barlow on a running machine impression, pushing and shoving and huffing and puffing against snare drums the size of Steve Cram’s thighs… but then, just like starting the third lap around a running track, it all suddenly becomes rather repetitive. So much so in fact that you may well find yourself reconsidering your position on this whole dreaming stuff, and instead resort to begging David to turn his song into a nice short 100 metre sprint rather then the long distance event he so clearly desires.

The problem here is that after using the first verse to vex his various minor complaints such as roads not generally being bouncy enough and the fact that every now and again he gets a little bit sweaty, David finally unleashes a ferocious chorus of such muscular enormity and athletic power it could leave you walking funny for weeks.

“Owww,” you may wish to exclaim at this point whilst rubbing your orifice of choice with expectation, “just imagine the state of this after the key change.”

Bloody Hell! There’s A Key Change Too ?

Errr… no - and that’s the problem.

David does absolutely everything else right like writing a ludicrously over the top instrumental which - despite only lasting 13 seconds - still gives the impression of being long enough to win the pole vault without the help of any actual poles, but he then clumsily knocks the metaphorical bar off with his metaphorically musically challenged knees and totally fails to finish the job.

And this is a genuine shame as without that much needed energising key change, We Can Only Dream slowly goes as discoloured and limp as a three week old lettuce leaf attempting to run the London Marathon.

Where Is David Now ?

He is currently in the middle of a self imposed marathon of his very own – as for the past 7 years he has been the resident piano player in this pub on Hope Street, Edinburgh :

http://www.edinburghpubguide.co.uk/PubDetails/Ryans_Bar_82.html

Fun though this sounds, the reviews for the bar itself are strangely subdued. One customer even claims he got refused entry

“…for having a maroon jersey on”

which, whether he likes it or not, seems eminently sensible to me.

When David isn’t tickling his ivories in front of disinterested drinkers who definitely aren’t wearing maroon, he also owns and works as a sound engineer at Heartbeat Studios in the same city :

http://heartbeatstudio.co.uk/index.htm

The illustrious roll call of luminaries who have recorded at Heartbeat include the George Watson’s School Pipe Band :

http://www.gwc.org.uk/pipeband/index.html

Blatant George Watson copyists, the Stewart’s Melville Pipe Band :

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=2846886265

Ripoffs of the George Watson copyists, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards :

http://www.scotsdg.co.uk/

And, errr, Nazareth and Runrig :

http://www.nazarethdirect.co.uk/nazareth/?q=node/67

http://www.runrig.co.uk/home.html

Meanwhile, David himself has also recorded at his own studio with his own band who are called RAF and – despite the fact that I (and very possibly you) have never even remotely heard of them – they have historically been signed to Warners and A&M :

http://www.aor-fm.com/bands/805_r_a_f.aspx

In an interesting digression, from their second album onwards RAF were joined by a man called Peter who used to be in Jethro Tull and who now writes music for Melanie C. Click on ‘music’ at the following link to hear some samples :

http://www.peterjohnvettese.com/

Anyway, want to hear some RAF ? Of course you bloody well do :

http://heartbeatstudio.co.uk/raf.htm

Excitingly, David mentions this very record at the link above too, and has even included a streaming interview he did with Radio Scotland at the time.

An Interview! Is It Totally Brilliant ?

It certainly is.

As first of all we learn that David would absolutely hate the possibility of describing this record as an anthem to hope – but then just can’t stop himself from doing so - and he then informs us that one of the people singing along to this huge chorus is previous 200 metre sprint gold medalist… Mr Allan Wells :

http://tinyurl.com/4w8r6o

Are You Sure You Didn’t Just Dream That ?

Absolutely.

There are apparently many ways to make sure you are not currently dreaming, but one of the best is to always have a readily available ‘dream object’ with you. The idea is that each and every time you look at or fiddle with your dream object you do a test to see if you are dreaming or not - and logically, seeing as you are always in your own dreams, there is bound to be a point where you do this test only to find you are dreaming so you can then immediately take conscious control of it.

It is generally recommended that the test you choose involves you trying to do both something you can’t do when you are dreaming and then something that you can.

So, seeing as

a) I have just managed to read these very words on my computer screen (normally impossible in a dream apparently), and

b) nobody I fancy has just walked through the door and immediately sat on my face

it appears I am most definitely awake and that, yes, I am currently rather sadly listening to Allan Wells singing.

http://tinyurl.com/538tpv

“Lucid dreams are those in which a person becomes aware that he is dreaming. As he realises this the character of the dream changes, and as long as he remains in his state, he continues to be in a lucid dream”

How Would I Lucid Dream If We Were Only Dreaming ?

Worryingly, Swama Krishnananda says you probably already are only dreaming (or even possibly only being dreamt) - as he claims that life and conciousness are so bizarre we can never truly be sure that being awake is real, let alone being asleep. In essence, he says that seeing as we cannot extricate ourselves from either state and view them disconnectedly from the outside we cannot really prove their (or indeed our own) existence :

http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_91.html

“How do I know that I am awake just now? Why should I raise a question like this, unless there is a difficulty involved in it? Have you any proof to establish that you are now in the waking state? There is no proof, because all proof arises after you have the certainty and indubitably of the fact of your being awake.”

 

So David Went To All The Trouble Of Recording This Record Only For It Not To Exist ?

Yes.

But, hey, that’s life.

Errr… possibly.

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : 2 pounds and 11 pence

Current Profit : 217 pounds and 84 pence. It is, as David rightly points out, a hard road.

Supporting Cast Update : Jethro Tull; C, Melanie; Barlow, Gary, Jung, Karl

 

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

I don’t know what beats your patience, but I can certainly tell you what beats mine : the seemingly endless burbling of the Berwood Shitfu.

The Berwood Shitfu ? I think I’ve heard of that… is it a type of bird ?

Not it’s not.

But it is the phonetic representation of the acronym, BWDShTFU – Bassists Who Don’t Shut The Fuck Up.

Are Freeez in possession of their own Berwood Shitfu ?

They most certainly are.

And He Never Shuts The Fuck Up ?

Well he does pause briefly after 2 minutes and 29 seconds, but this is really just to have a quick sip of tea to help refocus his energy so he can then carry on bludgeoning his way through his baffling onslaught until the end of the song a full 1 minute and 30 seconds later - by which time even the vocalist sounds a bit bored by his apparently limitless bass related blatherings.

‘You know it really does hold me down’, he sings subtly suggesting that the one thing that most definitely does need ‘holding down’ is the bassist – preferably by strapping him to a table in a high security prison, whilst his poor abused bass guitar is re-housed anonymously under some sort of bass protection program designed to stop it’s owner endlessly slapping seven shades of shit out of it.

So What Is The Song That Beats My Patience All About ?

I have absolutely no idea, I was far too busy being distractedly transfixed by that aforementioned bloody bassline which jumps about all over the place sounding for all the world like an annoying succession of small farts in a bath where the bass player has discovered that, depending upon how he angles his bottom at slightly different depths in the water, he can get different tonal resonances emanating from the bathtub.

Who Is Freeez’s Berwood Shitfu ?

He is a chap called Peter Maas, and he is absolutely impossible to track down.

Did he write a book detailing the life of Sammy The Bull Gravano ?

http://tinyurl.com/6zmwl3

We don’t know. Was he so fascinated with this ‘reconstruction of a dodo’, he took a photograph so he could examine it further at home ?

http://tinyurl.com/55yro8

It is impossible to tell. Does he now play a ludicrously large blue drum for Big Toms Lazy Jazz Band ?

http://tinyurl.com/59fo4d

This information is sadly not forthcoming either… but guess what ? We are not the only ones searching for him - just take a look at this :

http://tinyurl.com/6yma6p

Peter ? Where are you ?

Where Are The Rest Of The Freeezers ?

Peter isn’t the only one currently missing I’m afraid, as they have all buggered off - every single one of them : John Rocca, Andy Stennet, Peter Maas and Paul Morgan. I can only presume at this juncture that they were all involved in a group plane accident which killed each and every one of them… just like Burnette’s Big Bopper.

Luckily for posterity however, Freeezer John managed to release a solo single just before he was wiped off the face of the planet. It is called I Want It To Be Real - and was apparently a number one dance hit in America in 1987 :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r7xAus_Zno

“I thank the father in heaven for permitting to be raised in such a wonderful decade of music,I mean does any other genre compare?maybe.,but this one is mine!thank you lord!”

And, no, I have no idea if they’re being ironic either.

Despite this lack of recent sightings this is, it turns out, a very well connected record indeed - as another Freeezer (a previous drummer) is the wonderfully named Everton McCalla who also played in a band called Light Of The World, Freeez’s first single release featured a Freeezer with the equally brilliant name Jean Paul Bluey Maunick who left almost immediately to form the band Incognito and their lead singer John Rocca went on to release yet another song (this time under the band name of Midi Rain) called Always in 1991 which was produced by a chap called Tommy Musto.

This seemingly disastrously dull list of facts means That Beats My Patience is actually inexplicably linked with both Beggar & Co’s not really very crazy life and Lenny D and Tommy Musto’s doomed attempt to convince us that everything is most definitely bamboo - which got me excited for, oooh, minutes.

What should I do if I ever encounter a Berwood Shitfu?

Do NOT, I repeat do NOT, engage them in any eye contact whatsoever or their overcommitted stare will force you - out of politeness - to comment on their undoubted talent of consistently playing at double the speed of the rest of the band.

From personal experience the only thing that brings any hope of a successful resolution is for you to suddenly strike a pose across the room from them just like Mick Jagger in the Rolling Stones’ Harlem Shuffle video and then, doing your best slightly ageing Jagger-a-like shimmy, walk towards them singing “Doh-ooh-woh-ohh-won’t… do the Berwood Shitfu” directly at them.

And That Works ?

Usually, yes.

It seems to confuse them enough to stop playing and ask you what the fuck you think you’re doing.

If this brave Mick Jagger inspired move fails though, you only have one further option - buy them a t-shirt to try and shame them into silence :

http://tinyurl.com/5de4×2

You know it makes sense.

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence
Current Value : Incredibly, somebody wants 44 pounds for the 12″ of this. I bet you it’s got a bloody bass solo - can you imagine the horror ? Anyway, this 7″ is worth a really rather tiny… 50 pence. Which is just 1 pence more than Julia Fordham’s oral sex extravaganza, Woman Of The 80’s.
Current Profit : 210 beating pounds and 8 little patient pennies. It’s an increase - but not much of one.

Supporting Cast Update : Jagger, Mick; Rolling Stones, The 

 

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

Phobias are strange things.

I, for example, am quite scared of flying and - even when friends of mine patiently explain to me that if I took my own health and safety even remotely seriously I’d be far better off being terrified of my own car - the phobia I have still continues based upon what I am convinced are two unassailable facts :

a) It has been known for me to find myself as a passenger in a plane. And,

b) It has been known for planes to find themselves dropping out of the sky and pulverising all the passengers, who have just spent the previous five minutes screaming in sheer fucking terror with the sure knowledge that they are - without a doubt - about to die, into a rather unpleasant passenger pulp.

It is important to note here that no matter how seemingly remote this personal plane pulverising process may theoretically be, the fact remains that it is still some sort of a possibility… and thus my phobia continues. After all, if the aforementioned events get all Venned Up together then all that needs to occur is for circlefact A to intersect with circlefact B in any shape or form whatsoever… and I would be utterly buggered.

No matter how much I try otherwise however, I am finding it curiously hard to get all worked up about the painful possibility of somebody setting fire to my testicles. It is a possibility it could occur I suppose, but a situation within which I would find myself with my testicles dangling out, ready and available for such a treatment and with a willing testicle torcher loitering around in the near vicinity seems like such a laughably remote convergence of conditions to surely render any worry worthless.

Roger Waters has no such qualms.

He frightens himself with the thought of his little ones burning with alarming regularity - usually when looking at his own children.

Why Would Anybody Want To Set Fire To Roger Waters’ Testicles ?

They don’t - but then nobody particularly wants to murder me by turning the plane I happen to be on into a huge flaming odious fireball of death either, and that doesn’t stop my phobia.

Interestingly in Roger’s case his phobia has been informed by past events, as what seems to have occurred at some unspecified point during his fatherhood is that he once looked in on his sleeping children in the middle of the night having presumably just gone for a pee – but crucially forgot that he was currently naked.

Thus, when leaning over into their cots to check if they were OK, he accidentally briefly dangled his two precious little ones directly onto his children’s Donald Duck nightlight.

Which must have hurt.

Errr… What Has All This Got To Do With The Tide Turning ?

Well, the likelihood of such a terrifying testicular event ever occurring again is virtually zero, so the tide turning is quite obviously a metaphor for Roger slowly overcoming his resulting ball burning phobia – it wasn’t easy though, as it got so bad at one point that he couldn’t even put his head around the door without the glow of Donald Duck giving him the jitters.

Mind you, I don’t really blame him for becoming a bit fearful about it all - as he apparently burnt himself so badly at the time that he had to dial 999 for an ambulance to attend in order for him to become the recipient of some urgently needed personal emergency medical attention.

You Mean, He Needed Some Live Aid ?

Yes.

The Tide Is Turning ? After Live Aid ?

Amazing isn’t it ?

What A Dreadfully Moody And Serious Song.

It is a dreadfully moody and serious song.

However, unlike the action of getting your bollocks burnt into near extinction, it doesn’t really bring a tear to the eye.

What Are Roger’s Best Bits ?

If Roger over-enunciating the word ‘crap’ as if he’s bizarrely regressed to be a 16 year old boy who has just sworn at a teacher raises a slight titter within you, then the male voice choir which join him for absolutely no apparent reason around the 4 minute mark may well floor you entirely.

Incidentally, if you do get as far as the choir please beware : you still have another 1 and half minutes to go.

Where’s Roger Now ?

He’s here, and his real name… is George :

http://www.roger-waters.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Waters

http://www.myspace.com/georgerogerwaters

Why Does George Say ‘The Tide Is Turning, Sylvester’ At The End ?

This song is from a not remotely ridiculous sounding concept album called Radio KAOS. You can read all about it below - if nothing else it explains that bloody choir :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_K.A.O.S.

Anyway, the album version of this song apparently has a ‘hidden verse’ at the end of it performed entirely in morse code - which, of course, isn’t a remotely pretentious thing to do in the slightest. When transcribed, it reads thus :

“Now the past is over but you are not alone
Together we’ll fight Sylvester Stallone
We will not be dragged down in his South China Sea
of macho bullshit and mediocrity”

Yes, George is talking to Sylvester Stallone essentially requesting him to stop making such shit movies - and this really quite incredible fact means this record is strangely connected to Jean Beauvoir‘ s study in talcum powder and Bill Medley’s ever vibrating shit removal machine… which is something I am sure George would be thrilled by.

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=7881

Did The Tide Really Turn After Live Aid ?

It is a slightly contentious issue :

“Much of the money raised by Live Aid went to NGOs in Ethiopia, some of which were under the influence or control of the Derg military junta. Some journalists have suggested that the Derg was able to use Live Aid and Oxfam money to fund its enforced resettlement and “villagification” programmes, under which at least 3 million people are said to have been displaced and between 50,000 and 100,000 killed.”

Still - at least Queen did well out of it, eh ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Aid

http://liveaid.free.fr/

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence
Current value : Straight in at number 11 valuewise… 4 pounds and 95 pence. I am not really convinced it deserves it though… Gosh : this record actually reached the dizzy heights of number 54 - which would of course be tremendously exciting if it wasn’t a mere six places above where Gay Gordon and The Mince Pies got to as well.
Current Profit : 203 pounds and 57 pence. TWO HUNDRED POUNDS ! Who’d have thought it, eh ? On the same day that a very nice person from Boys Wonder popped in to say hello as well (see comment from Jones on the right if you’re interested). Fabulous. Oh, by the way, somebody has actually managed to make this record sound even more overblown. Impossible ? Not if you put Barack Obama speaking over the beginning of it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s9ubMQX7WE

Supporting Cast Update : Duck, Donald.