As a child growing up in the frozen North, we did, as might be expected, get snow from time to time. For some reason though it rarely seemed to fall particularly thickly or hang around for very long. It was great fun when it did of course, and from even a young age I was able to appreciate the stark beauty of a familiar landscape mysteriously submerged beneath a blanket of frosty, pristine white. One day though,something else happened as well, and my appreciation of the phenomenon was elevated to a whole new level. On that day the snow was much heavier than usual, and when we woke up in the morning it was still snowing - big fat flakes, and thick blankets of them too. At some point either during or immediately prior to breakfast we received a phone call, and my respect for the forces of nature in all their wild and fearsome glory was assured.
School was shut.
Since that day I’ve dared to dream and hope for a repeat performance. And yesterday friend, nature finally came through with the goods for me. Apologies if you were one of poor souls marooned on the roads trying to make an urgent hospital run, or trapped in your own home without food or warmth, but thanks to the wintry touch of General February, this simple cog in the capitalist machine had his weekend extended by a whole extra day, and for that I can’t help but be thankful.
Moving on, I actually had some marginally interesting nights out in January. On the 21st I went to see the League of Gentlemen 10 Years On retrospective at the BFI on Southbank. Three favourite episodes on the big screen followed by a lengthy Q&A with the League themselves. Back in the day the League was perhaps the perfect show for me - a perfect confluence of my interests, influences and obsessions. Since then, despite all concerned having done things of interest, it’s only Jeremy Dyson who’s succeeded in producing something a slightly more adult me has enjoyed to quite the same extent (Funland). As such it was quite sad hearing them all acknowledge those days of mad energy and crazed inventiveness were long behind them, and that to achieve that just once in a lifetime is rare enough.
Then last week I went to the Roundhouse to hear Luke Haines read from Bad Vibes and perform a small set. Incongruously, the venue was shared with Grace Jones, which made for some interesting people-watching in the Roundhouse’s crap bars whilst I waited for the room to open. The reading/q&a/set was disappointingly brief, but let’s face it, you’re not going to draw Haines into a protracted anything if he’s not up for it, so perhaps that was for the best. The book is brilliant by the way, and certainly the only one you’ll ever need to read about Britpop. Many biographies of the period have tended to focus on the chemical and sexual excesses going on behind the scenes with tabloid salaciousness, but to Haines treats all that as tangential to the far more serious business of skewering the ability, talent, and character of his contemporaries (including himself).
My reading for Jan:
- The Unsettled Dust by Robert Aickman
- Cold Hand In Mine by Robert Aickman
- The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner
- Black Summer by Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp
- The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
- Bad Vibes - Britpop And My Part In It’s Downfall by Luke Haines
The standout book of the month was Bad Vibes, although was a pretty good month all round to be honest.
