First Porn Star.


This is the Burges. It looks kind of bland here but when I was growing up this place was treacherous at the weekends after 10:30PM because it's where all the chip shops, kebab shops, bus stops and taxi ranks were. This meant that late at night all of the drunken hordes who'd been filling themselves with rum and coke, strong lager, and cider and black came here to get chips or find taxis. There were always fights; every night, and always some girl caterwauling in white high heels clutching her chips. It was good training. I think people from small cities in England develop a 6th sense about violence out of necessity, and often the ability to become invisible. These are spiteful places because the towns and cities are so small there's a good chance that if you get into a ruck with someone you'll see them again the next week. And there's fuck all to do in places like this except dance and drink and screw, like the song says. Only in Coventry blokes never danced much and to chat up girls they favoured beating up all the other blokes in the room as a mating ritual. Aah, the good old days. God knows what it's like now...probably the same with hoodies and more kitchen knives.





Lady Godiva who mysteriously rode through the city naked to reduce taxes on the people. I'm not sure if I was an evil landowner that my wife riding a horse through town with her kit off would encourage me to lower taxes, but whatever. Maybe I missed that class in evil squire school...? Anyway, as it's part of the city's history every hour, on the hour, a naked plastic woman on a horse pops out of the clock tower in the City Centre to give us all a pervy thrill. Oh, and the bloke covering his eyes above is the original peeping Tom, who supposedly went blind after copping an eyeful of the naked posh bird on a horse riding down the street. Whether this was because of divine retribution or excessive self-abuse, historical records are unclear.

Coventry Canal

I ran along the Coventry Canal towpath. It's been redeveloped and it leads through the industrial corridor of the city and it's quite pretty in places. I stopped my run this morning when I got here:





This is the factory where I first worked when I left school. It's mostly closed now but it used to be a big chemical factory and we'd unload tons and tons of chemicals and spare yarn for reprocessing. It was hard and dirty work and a great impetus to get out of Coventry and not end up like the old men who were working there with rotted lungs and who would argue about their brooms. No disrespect to factory workers - I come from a long line of coal miners - but it made it clear to me that I didn't want to get stuck doing that forever. There's a fence up there now, but back when I worked there you could, if you had a boat, sidle up and walk directly into the factory. Considering the amount of volatile chemicals in there (I still have burns on my arms from some of them) I always thought it would make a vulnerable target. But I guess back then the IRA preferred pubs and post offices, both of which were bombed in Coventry.




This is the junction of two canals (Coventry and Bedworth Canal and the Oxford Canal). Back during the industrial revolution these were the freeways of the time, which is a quaint idea now. They were built with 7 inches difference in water lever, hence the lock that connects them. Even back then no one could agree on formats, not even for water.

Enough of the History of the Midlands - I'll be getting into WWII Military Insignia or model aircraft next. (For the record, the Germans had the best uniforms, hands down...)


There was still a lot of institutionalized drinking in England. Many of the people I saw along the canal were just drinking to kill time. It was sad to see - all of these people would have had a purpose 50 years ago, even if it was a shitty job making car parts. What's going to happen when all the disenfranchised people get bored of being broke and hopeless? When their children grow up seeing everything but getting nothing? Here's a man taking four cans of lager in a bag for a walk. It was about 10:30AM...





I noticed in England there were plenty of Cross of St. George flags flown over pubs and houses and gardens. I gather that there's been a debate there of late about the nature or English nationalism and if it's possible to be proud of England without becoming a racist fuckwit. It's a shame pride in one's history and culture has been hijacked ever since I can remember by the BNP and their ilk and while I might feel proud of some parts of English culture I feel stymied by what the fascists do with that kind of spirit. And make no mistake, they're on the rise again with the BNP getting elected to local councils and a soft-peddled message of "Immigrants are taking over...". The sad thing is I can't see anyone really taking to the streets in opposition like they did against Oswald Mosley and his cronies back in 1936 on Cable St. Not nowadays. The country's been fleeced first by Thatcher (who should be tried as a traitor) and then it seems by Blair too of late - the disenfranchised will want to blame someone and there's no working class any more. Might as well pick on the Poles, the Somalians, the Muslims....thirty years ago it was that Pakistanis and the Indians, fifty years ago the Jamaicans, before that the Irish and the Jews.... in hindsight, maybe I jumped the gun wanting to celebrate being English. Monty Python, The Beatles and The Office don't really make up for all that, do they?




And this flag was flying over a pub in a traditionally Indian / Pakistani part of the City. My dear old mum reckoned it was because of St. Georges day. Me? I think there's not too many people who have a GIANT cross of St. George flag under the stairs for one day of the year - not unless they're trying to make a fucking big point to all the people in the neighbourhood.

And as you'll agree, you can see how some people would want to protect their racial purity, and natural superiority....I mean, look at us, on the march. I'm filling up...



But what do i know? I'm still against selling-off British Telecom and I find it hard to say Tory without adding the word Scum.

Coventry.

It's a strange treat coming here; like visiting a nostalgic theme park.

I was particularly taken today by a display of drinks in a discount store. The flavours, which are a little hard to see, are Iron Bru and Dandelion and Burdock (which I can't describe but if I said it was nearly a liquorice flavour soda it would be close) are popular kids drinks, except these are "fortified" with Vodka (note also Orange flavour and finally, "Blue" flavour, like someone couldn't even be bothered to come up with a name, "Fuck it, it looks like paraffin, let's just call it blue...."). Such low-quality it seemed to me that I took a photo for the blog.

I've taken photo's wearing big mickey-mouse ears on the North Korean Border and in Tian'anmen Square without a problem but I got told I wasn't allowed to take photos in "Home Discount" in Coventry. I can't think why, I mean, what's wrong with selling very cheap alcopops? Wouldn't you be proud of it? I guess industrial espionage is a big problem when you're pimping crap like this. When I was younger we'd joke about super strong lager like Tenants Super but these days even those Wino's drinks seem to have acquired some dignity. Still, with no more jobs in the country you have to have something for the young people to do, eh?




The "Home Discount" emporium. Stricter security than the centre of China during the Tibet Protests...

Just in Case There Was Any Doubt.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c


Not too much to argue with here, is there?

Picture This...


Nearly everyone on facebook will have seen this photo soon, I'm sure, and the accompanying text sent with it goes something like:

"interesting pic showing Chinese Military donning Tibetan Monk's robes before going on to riot and cause trouble disguised as monks.....circulate this pic please"

I don't know what the Chinese army were doing carrying a bunch of Tibetan Monk's Robes as the photo doesn't really prove anything, but it's hard to think of another credible explanation. Doubtless the Chinese Government will say something like "Chinese
Soldiers prepare to go undercover to infiltrate separatist groups" or "Why is the Western media interfering in China's domestic policy?" (and thus changing the subject, again).

But....hmmmm....

I love Beijing and the people and the country - one can't blame a population for its crappy Government, right? But I can't help but think of two places all the indignant Westerners should be focusing their energies instead of bitching and chest-beating about China on the Guardian Messageboard; places closer to home with human rights issues - it's smug, racist condescension focusing largely on China's Human Rights problems--of which there are many--without trying to clean up one's own back yard; like fixing/civilizing those savage little yellow people takes precedence over, say, an illegal prison near Cuba, or the treatment of immigrants in prisons in the UK....and I love the USA too, btw. It is a fucking great idea, truth be told, better than all that classist bullshit I grew up with. But nowhere gets it completely right and while China should not be excused there's just something so sanctimonious about the concerns with China's human rights issues now. Lots of haughty, colonialist hand-wringing that smells just off. I don't think China's faults should be ignored, but it's like people are soooo upset about it yet at home, with issues with their own Governments.... I mean, to be honest, considering what's happened since 2001 it's risible that the citizens of both the UK and US can get upset at what happened in Tibet when they're funding the situation in Iraq. And symptomatic of a western point of view of Asia. I'm not defending the appalling Chinese Human Rights record, or saying it shouldn't be brought out for discussion, but it's the superior tone it's discussed in I object to. And if you've seen white people in Asia this might make even more sense; we're like a rash....


To be honest, after spending nearly five months in China I just can't see China changing to adopt Western standards. Why would they? Their culture is over 5000 years old, and they revolutionized their system only 60 years ago (Before the PRC was formed in 1949 China was, mostly, run as a feudal society with the poor being eternally very poor and the rich being very rich, hence the revolution after the disillusionment with the Emporer and his over-privileged, ineffectual ilk). They're already getting all the trade they want because of our demands for cheap products. Assuming that at some point in the future the Chinese government is going to say, "Shit, this system seems to be getting us lots of money and influence, but you know, isn't it time we were just a bit nicer?" is naive, bourgeois bollocks. China's only real issue will be when its own middle class start wanting the same freedoms of travel and investment as we have in the West. That's what 's going to change China, not some sabre rattling from Western Governments who dare not upset China too much in case it impedes the import of $2 towels and tee-shirts at Wal-Mart (Or Asda, in the UK) and thus alienates their own voters.

China's name in Chinese is Zhongguo which means "Middle Kingdom". They don't care so much about the rest of the world as most of their experiences of the rest of the world in recent history have been negative - be it the Japanese invading Manchuria, or the Portuguese and British forcing trade concessions on China (the Opium War, which funded the British Empire, was the UK going to war with China for the right to sell heroin to the Chinese people....), or the French, Germans and Americans all coming to get a cut. So of course, yes, they'll improve Human Rights for the Olympics...sure. You want fries with that?

That's what I think. But wtf do I know? My last last job was holding a flashlight for Holly Hunter at a sales conference...

Anyway, soldiers playing fancy dress, anyone?

Pig People


Back in New York now for 2 weeks. The time has flown because I've been working pretty much non-stop since I got home. I've just finished ten days running a corporate hostility lounge for the Tribeca Film Festival and this week I'm working on the Rainforest Charity Concert at Carnegie Hall.

The corporate hostility lounge was a freebie place to hang out, see short movie screenings and to get a drink during the film festival to credit card holders. What I'd forgotten, as it's been a while since I worked at a special event, is what pigs people are. After a couple of days where some people had figured out there were tasty snacks passed around at 7PM every night and a free bar, people were coming for the food and then abusing the wait-staff because the free food was too slow in arriving, or it wasn't the menu they'd expected, or the free bar didn't have the right brand of whiskey / vodka. The free popcorn and dips table was like a refugee camp with people filling their pockets with popcorn and walnuts and power bars like they were starving. Honestly, this after reading some more Freud about man's destructive, violent nature and I'm just about done with people. It's depressing watching fat, greedy fuckers grab handfuls of nibbles to line their pockets - this wasn't an impoverished student film fest. but a middle class, high end credit card do....no one was going hungry yet people behaved as if a) there wasn't enough free popcorn for everyone & B) like they had a right to abuse the staff because of some dubious, heightened status because they were in a fucking ballroom no completely open to Joe Schmo.

On the plus side, I met some good people who were working the event and who were equally shocked so I guess not everyone should be tarred with the greedy fucking pig brush.

New York is the best city in the world. I'd nearly forgotten, Beijing is a foxy minx and LA a daydream but coming home and I realise I love it here. After 11 years one would hope so.

Everytime I blog now it seems I tap into a reservoir of bile. Hmmmm. Maybe I'm done? Maybe my cold black heart is all writ out?

See? Every cloud....

"Dong Bei Ren"


....which means North-East person, in Chinese. The NE people have a fierce reputation in China (and that's fierce as in feral, not fierce as in Chelsea). Anyway, in the Northeast I visited two cities: Dalian and Dandong.

Dalian from the hill. It's a HUGE port, miles of containers - I've never seen anything like it except in Hong Kong. It's also famous for being beautiful and maybe it is by Chinese standards although I didn't get that so much - they're big into football, see the giant ball in the middle of the funfair. Every taxi driver wanted to talk about football, it was like being in Highbury. There are some nice beaches there which looked pretty clean even though the water was freezing. (I'm English so I paddled).






Russian Street in Dalian. The Chinese were grateful to the Russians for helping win the war agains the Japanese (I think) and granted the Russians the right to run trauns from Siberia to the port at Dandong and I guess this themed street developed in response. It's a curiosity but like themed streets everywhere in the world just sells tat.




From my hotel room in Dandong I could look across the river at North Korea. The hotel kindly provided telescopes in these rooms so you could spy on North Koreans doing something Axis-of-Evily, like playing Hacky-Sack or fishing in the river at low tiede. The nefarious bastids, evil hacky-sack, too, I'd wager.






This is the most Eastern part of the Great Wall. The river is the border with North Korea, beyond are North Korean fields where they are no doubt growing evil rice. It looked like a very understated border - I kind of expect with the Evil Chinese (are the Chinese still evil? I can't remember...) and the Evil North Koreans that there'd would be all kinds of blofeld shit along here and machines for making poisonous clouds that can rain acid on white babies and rockets aimed at the West but I didn't see anything. Then again, they're kind of friendly and it's bit like the US / Canadian border at Windsor, them being evil together and that. Having lots of guards would only get in the way of their evil plotting against us, right?




See? as if to prove my pint - this is the border check when you come into China. Looks like a cafe if you ask me. Probably come over for a cup of tea and a chat about killing the imperialist, capitalist scum down in Taiwan....while trying to buy D&G fake bags, of course.



The bridge on the right is the remains of the one the US "accidentally" strafed during the Korean war. North Korean left it this way. Later the Chinese rebuilt the bridge on the left. At night they're both lit up, but the one on the left is lit only half-way because the North Koreans can't be arsed making it look pretty at night. Of course, I think that's because evil plotting's easier to do on an unlit bridge, isn't it? And I suspect the Chinese made their side all schmancy just to show off....




Look! North Korean fisherman doing some evil-fishing!




Behind me, the Great Wall and on the right, North Korea. On me, big, fat eyebrows I borrowed from Neko Case.

Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again.


Sort of.

I am enjoying my last few days in Beijing and because of some unforseen good juju from the Chinese web guardians and because my other blog had reached capacity I'm back here.

A lot of nothing has gone on since I last blogged - I've been hanging out, writing, traveling a little and pondering life's big questions such as "mortgage, how to pay?"

But in a rare show of brevity I'm going to let some pictures speak for themselves, mostly.

Below are some photos of my trip to Pingyao, one of China's old banking capitals in Shanxi Province about 500 miles or so Southwest of Beijing. It's an 11 hour train journey, which is pretty comfortable in a soft sleeper unless your compartment is full of NOISY OLD PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SPEAK OR DO ANYTING QUIETLY EVER AT ALL EVER FOR ANY FUCKING REASON. Which was a shame for them as when my stop came at 4:32am I obviously couldn't get out of bed in anything other than a BIG SHOUTY WAY.

A man needs his hobbies, eh?

But, enough. Pingyao:

Things weren't so tough in the Ming Dynasty. Sure, the buildings were small but they did have plasma-screen billboard advertising.




An unfortunate name for a restaurant?




A modern manhole cover.




Can't help the Chinglish....Pingyao Beef is delicious (and sometimes it's donkey 'beef', but whatever, yum yum, piggy's bum). But noddle?




My hotel was along here....







Hova, big with the Mings, it seems...

Long time no type.....

For some reason the govt have allowed me to access my site this evening so I'm using the opportunity to tell you that I am and have been blogging here recently, as this site I can get onto regularly and reliably.


See you there?


http://howdoyousay.normblogs.com/

Evenin' All.


I think the weirdest thing is that I haven't been here for 2 1/2 years and I feel completely at ease. Shame my Chinese sucks, but at least it's amusing the kids.




Web access seems completely unrestricted except for some BBC feeds. I feel like I've been gypped a bit, as I remember it being harder to get to some sites.... I was hoping for a man in the wilderness feeling but here I am, not even in the country a full day and blogging. Imagine if Captain Oates had said, "I'm just going outside and may be some time." only to return a couple of minutes later to tell everyone, "Did you know there's an Esso garage just behind this big snowdrift....?" I feel a bit like that.

And on that note, I'm off to Starbucks, where small is still called fucking tall.

All That You Can't...

I'm going to China for three months tomorrow. Don't know anyone there (not really) and have only a vague plan of what I'm doing beyond learning Mandarin. I'm excited by the Stingray feeling (anything can happen in the next half hour!). I had this plan 2 years ago just before The Strokes started touring. Going to China for an extended period is the second item on my hit list. I am a very lucky boy.

By take-off I'll be fit to burst and feeling like the first 8 bars of Metal Guru or the guitars and horns on Eddie's Big Bird where it doesn't sound like it will ever come down or Paul Weller playing anything on a Rickenbacker or all of I Want You (She's So Heavy) but especially the bit where George changes pick-ups half way through or Albert and Matt playing GfC or hearing Reptilia live or Common People in front of 90000+ people and I don't care if they're my mates because they all rule or my new polka dot shirt that only took 25 years to get here or shopping with Mick at Oswald Bailey and cooing like affected effeminate pigeons over the linings or laughing with Rob and Graham on the way home from The D&T after stopping at the Parson's Nose or Audrey looking for Cat or Li going batshit-crazy on the roof or hearing from someone who's got under your skin or listening to Embarrassment and Gangsters in 12 hole burgundy docs or typing THE END after 118950 words and 439 pages and I'm spent.


Not sure I can blog from Beijing - I think there may be a block on the site. Guess I'll find out soon enough. Not that you'll miss me, I know you're all fickle tarts and you'll all be over at Harley's, Lucas's and Jamie's blogs once I've gone.

Happy Holidays. See you in 2008.

Maybe.

Ruby Murray Worry


I am concerned. Many of my (washed) tee-shirts smell of curry when I take them out of the closet.

There is no curry in the closet. What if I'm starting to smell of curry and my tee-shirts have caught it? Then what? It would be a disaster, socially, that is. A catastrophe.

More Tooth Aches:


Nothing going on so I'm fixating on my new tooth. I was thinking that as I'd spent so much on tooth # 30 and it doesn't do anything other than look vaguely off-white in my mouth how much better it would be if I'd had it fitted with a little light like those kids in Shibuya have on the ends of the cell-phones? Then I'd have a disco mouth, which I've always quite fancied, and I'm sure it would add a whole new dimension to lots of activities. It might even get people to pay attention when I'm talking.

And as for getting my teeth fixed before going to China--apparently I messed up. A friend sent me a snippet from the esteemed UK Sun newspaper that told of a dentist called Wang Wal who, to help his patients relax during procedures, procured prozzers to give them blow jobs. I'm not sure how this worked, or if I'd be able to sustain the required interest while a man drilled into my tooth (wouldn't it be strange if it became an erotic fixation and you had to do it at home afterwards as the "only way it works now, love"?) but I felt gypped. I'm going to check on Dr Wang Wal's practice to see if you get the good drugs as well and if you do, then I'm taking a bumper bag of sweets and no toothbrush to Beijing....

SS Starbucks

Only in New York. I was in Starbucks at 7:45AM on Tuesday morning (this is the day before Halloween) killing 10 minutes before an appointment when I noticed that sitting nearby was an SS Officer, dressed in a green wool SS Tunic, jackboots, black jodpurs, mirrored aviators--the full monty. He struggled to put on his utility belt (water canteen, empty clips, etc) and then started chatting with another couple of guys who came in. It looked like they all wanted somewhere to hang out.

His conversation was how the country was going to hell, how the biggest concentration camps weren't run by the Germans but by Stalin, blah, blah...all, no doubt, opinions based on very selective readings of history. He claimed to have guns in New Jersey, (which was worrying) and he wanted to live in the Pacific Northwest as he "couldn't be himself in New York anymore. And he never thought he'd say that." (Lots of survivalist and right-wing weirdos live in the Pacific Northwest)

He'd gone to a lot of trouble to look like a stylized SS Soldier (although I doubt many of the original Nazis had styling haircuts and Rayban Aviators...) but the funniest and most insulting thing was his complaint that he'd watched The View (Women's magazine program shown every weekday in the US, higher brow than most) and "all I'm going to say is that there were three white women, probably Jewish women, arguing with Whoopi Goldberg. You know? You see what I'm saying?" I wasn't sure what cock-headed point he was making to his simpleton friend, other than maybe it was obscene they weren't all anglos (quelle horreur!); but excuse me for being amused by the thought of the SS tuning in to The View, and then getting offended. I guess even pig-ignorant, impotent, fantasists playing at make-believe meanys have standards...

Spooky Tooth

It's a sad sign of the times when the only thing one does of any note is visit the dentist. Today I went to another dentist to get a root canal done. He couldn't numb it. I know, because every time he put a very cold thing on it to see if it was numb it still hurt like a bastard. He gave me like 6+ shots with a syringe straight out of a Tim Burton movie and was kind of getting tired with me not getting numb; but probably not quite as tired as I was getting with him sticking a freezing cold piece of whatever on my hyper-sensitive tooth. I know, I'm mummy's poor little soldier today...

So now I have one tooth in my head that's cost me $3000.00. It doesn't even look that good but it will, I've been promised, not trouble me any more ("You've lost your nerve!" he quipped to me). This is one good thing as in two weeks time I'll be on a flight to China and I don't want to learn the Mandarin for "What are you doing in there, doctor, because it hurts to buggery?" The other good thing is that I got some vicodin, and only a churl would complain about that. I'm not sure if it's to dull the soreness in my mouth or the red ache of my amex statement. Whatever, lucky me I could afford the treatment.

I wonder what people do here if they can't afford treatment - it's kind of criminal that one has to pay for all this stuff (actually, I think it's true of dentristry in the UK now, too. It didn't used to be--thanks margaret thatcher, you evil old crone. Couldn' we burn you on the bonfire on November 5th instead of a Catholic effigy--you did more to f*** up the country than Guy Fawkes ever attempted with his gunpowder plot). I mean, don't we all pay enough taxes these days to cover things like essential healthcare, or did I get something wrong?

Oh yeah, I forgot. I'm paying Haliburton and Blackwater to get that oil for my SUV. Sorry, my bad.

I think it's time for my vicodin....

A Happy Place; Like My Dentist's Chair...


Nothing to post about over the past month or so. Got a Chinese visa, have booked a flight, and have spent the past five weeks working on this:






It's now 115,000 words long and 429 pages high. There's a strange satisfaction in the numbers, regardless of whether its any good or a pile of crap. More type-memory than flight-memory. Arf.

Over the remaining four weeks before my trip I'll be trying to rewrite the 115,000 words as best I can so i can forget about this completely once I'm in China and start work on the next one, which I'm eager to get into like a fat kid with his Christmas chocolate. I'm quite surprised at how dark this one is, and then again I'm not. It makes me laugh, and if I can ever sell it, maybe it'll do the same for you; or not. I really can't tell anymore. I just take what comfort I can from its heft.

In other news, when I've not been rewriting what I've already rewritten (which is the best part of writing for me, kind of like overdubbing guitars when you're in the studio), I've been listening to Keren Ann, Terry Hall, Albert's guitar playing, rediscovering Kate Bush (The Sensual World reminds me of a coach holiday to the Moselle Valey near Koblenz in 1990 with my then girlfriend. The river was glassily placid and there were small fires streaming ghostly smoke across the surrounding vineyards; it was amazing. I wanted a job piloting a barge up and down the river so I could see it every day. I still wouldn't mind that, to be honest), Feist, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. I've even managed-afer 5 weeks of being home-to get my time back for running the course around the park. And finally, on Friday, I went to my dentist and he insisted on giving me gas for a filling which meant that by 8:30AM I was floating around his office like a big, pink blimp and giggling as he gouged a hole in my tooth with a steel spike; it's an unusual place to feel happy is a dentist's chair. Life is good here in New York City. What's not to love?

Which is why I'm considering leaving for a year and going to live in comparative poverty. It doesn't do to get complacent, does it?

120 Days of Sock'em:

I am tidying my apartment - it's something that I've avoided properly for months but I've run out of places to put my clean laundry so it had to be done.

Because on every tour I end up buying new socks when I run out of clean ones or when all my bags get nicked I've accumulated over 120 pairs of socks. Including the unopened packets that I also brought back with me I reckon I don't need to wash my socks for nearly sox months.

For some reason, that impressed me. I was going to see how many I could fit on my feet at once but then I remembered I'm at home now, not on tour. (I still haven't completely let go of the idea...)

I've also acquired a big, fat, sox month long business visa for China. I'm leaving on November 13th. That should be interesting...

Hammer Horror.


I got back to New York after my last trip exhausted, as usual, but also glad of the extra time I spent in London and Paris.

It's a strange feature of touring / traveling that getting home is both a good and bad thing. I'd ached for my own bed (literally in my bunk on the bus-a bunk that had started to smell of rabbits, for reasons I could never fathom unless it was either me or Albert below, but we're both very clean--just like Paul's Grandad) but when I got back I found myself missing England more than I ever have.

My American friends have told me my accent is back and I know when I was in England I was slipping in my Coventry accent again; deliberately too--which is about like making yourself fat for a laugh.

(Coventry Accent 101: Say Water without pronouncing the T, same with Butter. Use the word Scratter to describe someone who doesn't pay their way and is always trying to cadge ciggies or drinks or anything. Affirm everything not with Yes or even Yeah but with "Arh." said with a dipping chinese-style third tone. Duck is pronounced with a nasal U sound and no C. Not that we use the word Duck-off there much. Call a bread roll a Batch. Replace the words really and extremely with the word Dead. Classy, innit?).


Anyway, back in New York I started watching some of the twenty DVDs I bought in HMV and Virgin. These are mostly old British films and largely a bunch of 1970's Vampire films made by Hammer Productions. They were all shot in England with parts of Suffolk, I think, made to look like Transylvania. They were all full of comely wenches and most had Christopher Lee in them as Dracula. Oliver Reed makes an appearance as the Werewolf (he was dead good-looking before the drink destroyed him) and Peter Cushing is the man I'd most like to have as my grandfather if I could have a third and Peter Ustinov wasn't available.


Ingrid Pitt - Vampire Hottie. Part of me still wants to date a Goth (and Goth was still cool in Coventry and Leeds long after the rest of the world had got into rave music. Amy Lee got married already, didn't she?).




Christopher Lee - the James Bond of Draculas.



It's strange how these cheesy, dated movies have stood up over time. I can still remember scenes I'd only seen once on a Friday night when I was about 12. They left an impression, that's for sure. To be fair, comely wenches and a single flash of boob (usually by the end of the second reel) coupled with dark and powerful undead super-antiheroes is a powerful aphrodisiac for a 12 year od boy.

It's funny to find a vivid sense of self in something from your childhood. The same can be said when I listen to The Jam, I can instantly be transported to being angry and eager and fifteen and crazed with a huge unsatisfied appetite for life. Not like the jaded old tosser I am now.... It's good to know that those feelings from back then don't go away, but something happens over time that makes them less accessible.

I also got copies of David Essex's movies That'll Be The Day and Stardust, both classic (if a little contrived) British Rock movies back when we were good at such things. Ringo was in That'll Be The Day (and Keith Moon makes a cameo!) and it was one of the first films me and my brother recorded and kept on video (along with Papillon and Billy Liar).

To a large degree these movies were--apart from hanging around at soundchecks when The Jam played Birmingham--my first introduction to the behind the scenes world of the music business (there were no VH1 Confessionals back then). I think it's still pretty accurate now. Well, everything except the bit about making dogs OD on Acid. I don't think anyone does that anymore these days.

Things to do in Paris When You're Dead.


After the tour I felt dead. I usually do. And despite being in one of the most fantastic cities in the world (and it is...) and being in very special company I still felt tour-drained.

However, I saw some very wonderful sights, some old, some new.

Place des Voges - I think this is my favourite Parisian park. It looks like the setting for a monet painting.



None more dead.

This is Serge Gainsbourg's grave. Last time I went it was raining and I was smoking gitanes. I left him a pack. This time I didn't have any fags for him. Definitely too much fucking perspective. (Note the respectful fan tributes - even the metro tickets left for Serge didn't litter the other graves nearby. Not like the abomination that is Jim Morrison's grave in Pere LaChaisse--where the scummy hippies scrawl their pompous bollocks over the nearby gravestones and sit and get pissed nearby. Because it's important to write your tired, tepid, stoner insights on unrelated gravestones. Because your unique insight and vanity means you don't have show any respect for the surrounding families. Fuckwits. Kill them. Kill them all.)



Ever get that feeling someone's walked over your grave?

How cool is this one? It looks like Gaudi designed it--and it's got my name on it.



I liked this one because it's got the world's most depressed statue on top. Whoever was buried here wanted to be sure someone would always be grieving.



And Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir's dual grave. Fittingly minimal. Dead classy.




Montparnasse is my favourite Parisian cemetery. I think being an old git enabled me to enjoy it all the more. I'm starting to feel like I'm robbing time from one of them....

I got to visit the catacombs for the first time. They're an amazing labyrinth running for miles underneath the city. This location was originally a quarry but they moved the human remains buried at Les Halles during the plague years here when they developed Les Halles. Later, in a super-French style, someone decided the bones needed to be stacked stylishly. It's spooky and surreal and fantastic.










On my last afternoon I went to a gig. Because I love them so. Fortunately this one was in a park next to the Seine and in true French style what would be a throway field in the UK or USA was a design triumph with balloon rides in it, a cool railway bridge, a riverfront esplanade, several water features and fountains and two giant glasshouses open for exhibits (well, one was, but I'm not complaining). Got to love France. If you don't, you're probably dead. Trust me on this.

Balloon rides - I have a feeling there's some link to the Montgolfier Brothers here but I'm guessing (and too lazy to look it up).





People in glass houses....



Oldies but goodies....this never gets old. It's always breathtaking, especially when it's up close.




From underneath the base it seemed completely implausible that it was built when it was as it's so huge. It also looks like a giant weird spaceship. As places to go when you're hurting, Paris has to be one of the best...

Ghost Town:


I was born and bred in Coventry. For years - from the age of about 12 until just recently - I wanted to get as far away from it as I could. At the end of my last tour I went back to visit my mum and my brother and for the first time in ages found the place intriguing and illuminating. (It probably isn't for anyone else...)

Coventry once boasted a busy, overcrowded, medieval-designed but developing city before WWII. The city centre becamse so congested the council were trying to find ways to relieve the congestion. Then the Luftwaffe blitzed it during the war, and razed the city centre to the ground. From a bustling medieval city centre to a wasteland with a ruined Cathedral in no time at all.

Not wasting any time (and after the allies bombed Dresden in return--see Slaughterhouse 5, so it goes) the city was rebuilt quickly int he post war years around a new city centre design by architect Donald Gibson. His revolutionary idea was to remove all the cars and to pedestrianize the centre of town.

Sadly, this had the effect of making the town centre one of those good-on-paper ideas as it sanitised the city centre and made it bland and lacking in dynamics.

Then, in the 1970s the city got hit badly by the recession when all the car factories and heavy industry started to close. Double-whammy. Coventry changed from a place where my grandmother's generation would once talk about the city's character and craftsmen with pride to turn into the most violent city in Europe. There was nothing left.

This is where I grew up.

What I noticed on this trip is that compared to almost anywhere esle, and with the recent redevelopment, it's not such a bad place. It has a lot going for it. In fact, the main problem seemed to be the people. Many were aggressive and feral looking, almost all of them looked round-shouldered and beaten. When I first walked around the city centre on the recent bank holiday afternoon I was surprised by the sharp stares and skulking aggression I encountered before I realised that I may be a poncey git from New York now but I did grow up a spiteful little fucker, just like the little shits hanging around the precinct trying to menace the shoppers.


Once I got my game-face back on I had a hoot walking around Coventry. The city's improved a thousandfold since I lived there, there are cafes and restaurants and stores open at the weekend and it's not so bleak (but that might be because I don't live there). I felt sad for the people; there was a haunted look to many faces that went beyond the usual English dourness. I remember when I lived there that not only did I feel like I came from nowhere, there probably wasn't much point in trying to aspire to much outside. It's shit, innit, Cov? Women who'd look at home striding the streets of Manhattan pushed prams hunched over; kids who should be developing games companies or starting businesses skulked around the centre of the precinct. If everyone in Cov said it was brilliant for a year the city would go into turnaround, I'm sure.

Friends I've made since, from other regional cities didn't share this view. They might say Leeds is shit but it was never the end of the line for them. Or they'd brag about Sheffield like they were - gulp - proud of their hometown. All foreign feelings to me.

It's a shame that the song that captured the tone of the city in 1981 can still be relevant today. Back then there'd been a recession, now it seemed more like an attitude, or a nickname that's been allowed to stick. Give a dog a bad name....

Enough of my yacking. This is where I'm from.


I'm from Coundon (pronounced Cown-Dun). My mate Graham was in the Coundon Dogs, they rode around on 50cc scooters. I didn't have a scooter so I wasn't cool.




This lush lawny area is misleading. Until I was 10 it was waste ground that we'd ride our bikes over. In fact when they were laying new pipes (water,gas, etc) we used to roll them down the hill towards the traffic, sometimes with people in them. I went down a few times in a steel drum. And we used to roll old car tyres down the hill but they sometimes went into the oncoming traffic and we'd have to leg-it. Kids, eh?






This is the street I was born on. Everyone's got three cars now. Back when I were a lad there was at most one Ford Cortina per house.... Those are conker trees - we used to strip them every autumn, first with sticks and later with a nut tied to a bit of string you could lob up over the branch and then yank on to shake the conkers down. We made a right mess. We didn't care about playing conkers so much as getting them. It was a good place to be a kid. Plenty of fresh air and space.




These flats up the road from my mum's used to be considered a bit fancy. Roger the poncey, short-tempered hairdresser lived in one and he was divorced, which was considered quite outre back then. Now it seems they lack a certain class. I'm a great believer in being able to gauge a nation's pysche by its pornography and its advertising. This truck says it all. This shop used to sell women's clothes now it sells cheap booze.



The road into the countryside just past the White Lion pub at the top of my mum's street. When I was a kid we'd ride our bikes up here; when I was an adolescent we'd drink in the pub and try to go snogging with girls. I did a lot more bike riding than I did snogging. What can I say? I was a late bloomer.



People often jump off these blocks of flats when they can't handle living in them anymore.




Coventry's infamous ring road. It's a local road for local people. Not many outsiders get it right first time.



We used to run across the ring road but someone put up a big boring fence so now you have to walk over bridge. It's no fun. However, it gives a view of the city centre. The brown building is the Post Office. The IRA tried to blow it up in the 70's. Bleak, innit?




Part of the pedestrianized precinct. At night, when the shops shut and the people go home the city centre gets very empty and the only people you can see wandering around are packs of kids on their way somewhere or shitfaced on cheap/potent lager. That's when Cov' gets menacing. Doesn't look so bad here, does it? It's lairy at night. You don't make eye contact.



This used to be HMV where I came to read the music papers without buying them. A forerunner of Barnes and Noble in that respect. Now there are a lot of 99 Pence stores in town and this huge Pawnshop. That's a bit depressing.



The Burges. Where the chip shops, the bus stops and the taxi-ranks are. When the licensing laws in Britain meant everywhere had to close at 11PM (pubs) or 2AM (clubs) by about 11:30 and 2:30 this place was teeming with drunks trying to get chips and buses and taxis. I saw more fights here than I care to remember. You had to keep your eyes open. Anyone who wanted a ruck knew here was the place to start it. And all repressed English towns at closing time are full of angry people who want to fight. We'd walk down here to the Parson's Nose chip shop which was the best chippie in Cov. This photo was taken at 11:30AM on a Tuesday. The pub, the Coventry Cross, was doing a brisk business which made me sad that people didn't have anything better to do. It seemed indicative of the overwhelming feeling of the city.



The Parson's Nose and Mr Porky's. Two late-night institutions. Yes the sign does say Faggots, Peas and Chips All In. No, I'm not going to tell you what that means except to say that it was the primo-after pub meal if you could afford it. I rarely could so I'd usually get Saveloy and Chips. Typing this is making my mouth water.

The woman who ran the Parson's Nose was infamously rude to people--especially girls. There was always someone crying outside of here and often another row brewing.




Mr Porky's - he sold pork batches with stuffing. (Batch is Coventry for bread roll or bun. But it's a batch, right?). Never let it be said we didn't have any choice.



You'd eat your chips on the walk home as you'd never have enough money for a cab (well, townies might, if they had apprenticeships or something).


The station, looking south towards London. That misty strech of track always seemed like the portal to another world. I rarely went to London. It was like Narnia to me as a teen. And when I finally escaped and moved there, the world really did open up. But this view reminds me of being abitious and clueless.




Good. Now I've got that out of my system....