A few weeks ago we unearthed some old school books belonging to my brother and myself.  They were from Primary School and we had a good chuckle reading through them (and lamenting that our handwriting was better then than it is now).  Amusingly it was clear that – despite having some degree of ability with language – I was very easily bored by tasks so often lapsed into putting very little effort in!

As a child I was also clearly quite a pompous little sod, and incredibly cheeky with some banter with my then teacher – Mr Collier – that might’ve got me in trouble had he been a less understanding character!  It ultimately left me disappointed as I was clearly holding back my talents – such as they were – whilst in Rich‘s books we were treated to expansive volumes of juvenile thought-trains which made very interesting reading!

Fast-forward a few weeks and I found some more writing I’d jotted as an almost-adult around the time I’d have been at University.  Not actual university work (aside from a short story I had to submit for a creative writing module), just ramblings.. and my gosh, it was quite a cringeworthy exercise too.  Isn’t it strange how you can change so much in your attitudes and outlooks in a relatively short space of time.

That said, we’re talking a decade or more in this instance.  Decades are often used as notional benchmarks for changes in fashion, attitudes and values – so perhaps it’s not unreasonable that as a person you undergo these kinds of changes on that kind of timescale.  At least I hope so, I guess that late-teen into early-twenties era is quite a life-defining period as you are bombarded with experiences.

There’s something a bit discomforting in reading through something you wrote yourself and thinking that you were actually a bit of an arse, though!  Hopefully that means I’ve grown up a bit now!  Perhaps it’s a blessing that older blog posts (I’ve been blogging fairly consistently for at least ten years or so) I have written are lost to the mists of time (unless you’re nifty at using Archive.org’s ‘way back when’ machine!).

And no, I’m not going to reproduce any of it online (the pic above is for illustrative purposes only, and not an excerpt of anything I produced, although the red-penned teacher feedback is very typical of the kind of comments we found within my work!).

In fairness to David ‘Camera-on’, his Tory tosspots aren’t the only party to follow this line of campaigning.  Our constituency is awash with billboards featuring Gordon Brown with outlandish claims as to what he may or may not have been responsible for.

Do you know what I’d be more interested in?  In how they plan to fix it.  British party politics is not a subject I’ve ever really engaged with – the fabrication of New Labour under Phoney Tony delivered us a wonderfully superficial personality-politics, and he won based on it against an opponent with no discernable personality.

So I fear David ‘call me Dave’ Cameron will press home an advantage in the forthcoming election, amongst a population disillusioned with politicians in general, and eager to scapegoat the charisma-less incumbent Prime Minister – and of course – buying into the media furore that somehow we’re all on the verge of poverty because of the ‘credit crunch.’

What’s most upsetting for me though, is where I live there really is only a choice of Tory or Labour.  Of course, there are other candidates – but they have zero chance of winning – do I vote with the party that actually approximates my values (read: ‘the least odious of the options, because none of them represent my values’), or do I place a tactical vote for Labour simply to stack against a Conservative vote?

Democracy my arse.

You’re always likely to be a bit biased when you read a book written by a friend, but this one was doubly-intriguing being about Albert Ball – a World War 1 pilot from Nottingham who I remember my granny waxing lyrical about when we saw his statue in the grounds of Nottingham Castle when I was a child.  A riveting, moving and emotional read.  I’d recommend it!

Link to buy is just here, review I submitted to the publisher below:

To try to put yourself in the midst of events occurring less than 100 years ago is hard, Mark’s book effortlessly slides you into a terrifying world where death and loss are foisted upon people. Without time to prepare, they deal with it and bear suffering us modern-world softened people can only imagine.

As a proud son of Nottingham I’m well aware of Albert Ball, but this intricately researched story along with insightful and imaginative filling in of the details leaves you feeling like you knew him, his family and – of course – his sweetheart. The story is charming, harrowing, horrifying and ultimately haunting.

What makes this book particularly brilliant is the evokative way in which it is able to place you at the scene, in the cockpit, in the trenches, digging for victory in Blighty – all without labouring the details. It gives you enough to let your imagination colour an often bleak surrounding.

I think there is great value in people understanding better what our forebears went through in order to secure and protect our freedom, and that our our Allies – without being at all preachy this is the best example of this I’ve found.

Albert Ball’s dad, Albert Ball Snr, moved heaven and Earth to ensure his son was remembered in Nottingham in statue form, and in France where he died and was buried. This memorial pays great tribute to that laudable aim, too.

You could do a lot worse than spend a few days reading this!

"MAKE POVERTY HISTORY! CHEAPER DRUGS NOW!".. oh, it's not him is it?

…. with a right stinker of a hangover.  A well earned one, though!

Music overload for me, infrequent gig-goer that I am.  Fresh from an exciting road trip to see ZZ Top in London I was treated this week to untypical Londoners Alabama 3 perform in my home town at the quintessentially splendid Rock City (without the sticky floors these days, which in many ways is a bit sad).

They were awesome.  Much like with the bearded Bluesmen from earlier in the month, I was really only fleetingly familiar with their material largely thanks to Rich I think – that will change though, these guys were ace.  A shambolic collection of people, a shambolic collection of music styles – it should be rubbish, but it’s fooking awesome.  If you get a chance to see them perform, please do yourself a favour and do so.

Enigmatic and strangely charismatic frontman D. Wayne and the unfeasibly deep-voiced Larry Love orchestrate a great show.  Even if the former does have an alarming resemblence to Frank Gallagher of ‘Shameless’ fame.  It was quality, I’ll be keeping an eye out on their future tour dates.

After that we hotfooted it to Tilt, which back in the day was the original site of The Cookie Club, to see Moules and Wiggins play some Blues which was also great; despite the fug of alcohol and ears ringing – it was a great opportunity to relax and chill over a few beers!  So if you fancy a bit of Blues action, pop down to Tilt on a Thursday evening and check them out – you won’t regret it!

Leacock don’t know what he’s done
His hair looks daft stuck in that bun
He can’t say, Teale can’t see, McEveley punches just like a gay
Leacock don’t know what he’s done
His hair looks daft stuck in that bun…

So this is how it feels to be Cloughie
Managing a bunch of scumbags
This is how it feels when they all run after a flag

Team bus leaving the City Ground
Savage tears, face pricked with hate,
Half-baked threats to a local lad
Who left him feeling quite irate,

So this is how it feels to be Cloughie
This is how it feels to be small
This is how it feels when your team wins nothing at all

Tyson’s led the flag parade
Now Derby launch a false crusade
They can’t watch, they can’t see, they won’t admit the hypocrisy

So this is how it feels to be Cloughie
This is how it feels to be sad
This is how it feels to be not as good as your Dad.