Thursday 28 February 2013

Vichy Shake




L’enfer, c’est les autres (Jean Paul Sartre Huis Clos 1944)

Newcastle’s progress to the last 16 of the Europa League occurred, from my perspective, in a vaguely unreal manner. Mainly this is due to the banal television coverage of our away leg victory over Metalist Kharkiv by ESPN, whereby it appears that the kind of shaky, hand-held mobile phone footage you’d ignore when scrolling through YouTube has become the standard of picture quality we must learn not just to tolerate but to expect from broadcasters other than BBC or Sky. In addition, ESPN’s constant use of Chris Waddle as a summariser for our games provides an extra sheen of trite incompetence, meaning it was extremely fitting our winning goal by Shola (he might not do much else, but he doesn’t miss from 12 yards does he?) came from the spot. As ESPN has been completely bought out (Premier League games and all) by BT, it is more than apt that our last appearance on that channel on a Thursday night required Waddle to repeatedly use his personal linguistic foible pelanty. However, no longer will Newcastle’s European fixtures be relegated to recondite corners of the TV schedules; we are going free to air in the next round which, looking at the opposition, may well be as far as we get.

Liverpool’s defeat to Zenit St. Petersburg, as well as being an insufferable tragedy for the entire proletariat as the red shirted, never walking alone, wholly innocent, sporting tribunes of the working class have been vanquished, leaves ITV4 with a hole in their schedules on March 7th. Spurs might be on at 8pm in a glamour clash with Inter Milan, but our away leg against Anzhi Makhachkala, now taking place in Moscow not downtown Dagestan, kicks off at 5, so we’re live at teatime. At least the early start means I’ll get to watch it in full and play 5 a side at the Lightfoot on the same night, which is what I call a result.   Waddle’s tortuous speech, Liverpool football club’s propensity to mawkish grief at the drop of a home point and the abysmal quality of current sports broadcasting might all be soft targets for my ire, but I make no apology for taking aim at them. There are other targets to come as well.

Not that our performance in the Ukraine merited much criticism of course, other than Danny Simpson’s appalling error of judgement in combining a short sleeved shirt with gloves and tights. You’re either cold or you’re not; decide!! More seriously perhaps, Cabaye’s woeful delivery of a series of free kicks in to the box caused irritation, especially regarding the relentless monotony with which he hit the first defender; it reminded me of Keith Gillespie in his pomp. Don’t laugh.

Being positive, Shola was effective in his role as the slothful fulcrum of our attack, Haidara had a more than handy debut, suggesting there’s a promising young player in there and Krul was absolutely outstanding in the last 15 minutes, when Kharkiv decided they didn’t want to go limply out of the competition and fancied having a go at us. The fact they didn’t breach the defence was down to the much maligned Dutch keeper who has finally started playing at the standards he’d set last season; typically enough, he was injured in a late and seemingly innocuous challenge that will see him miss the next round.

Many of our travelling fans will miss this Anzhi tie as well, partly through expense; for a start we’re being asked to pay £26 for tickets, when Anzhi fans are getting comparable ones for £4, much to UEFA’s indifference. Mainly though, our fans, other than the likes of Biffa, Fink, Glenn Wallace and The Undertaker, will be missing out because of a combination of inconvenience, as a result of Thomson cancelling plans for a one-night stay charter flight and the tortuous bureaucratic nightmare involved in obtaining a visa during the two week window between full time in the Ukraine and kick off in Moscow. The official travel advice from the club is as follows -:

Newcastle United are advising supporters intending to travel to next week's UEFA Europa League fixture with FC Anzhi Makhachkala in Moscow to apply for their relevant travel visa urgently, after advice from the Russian National Tourist Office. Applicants are encouraged to use the Express Service, which offers a processing time of two working days and enables successful applicants to enter Russia on a single-entry basis. The Express Service is priced at £210. Applicants who are self-employed, company directors working from home and those not in employment may be required to show bank statements for the last three months which have a current balance of £100 per day for the duration of their visit. They must show the applicant's name, transactions and current balance.

In short, the whole thing is a complete and utter pain in the arse, before the cost of the trip is even considered. No wonder we are expected to be followed by less than 50 people in temperatures expected to be several degrees below zero. Mind, I had an insight in to those conditions on Saturday 23rd February; waking in Tynemouth on a cold but clear morning, I saw texts on my phone telling me of games postponed inland because of a rumoured 4 inches of snow that had fallen overnight. Disappointed and unbelieving, though with a fond hope that South Shields v Hebburn would beat the deluge, I headed inland on the Metro to assess my options. The fact that from Monkseaton onwards the place resembled Narnia meant I fully expected Andy Hudson’s eventual call telling me Filtrona Park was unplayable. Time constraints ruled out the idea of taking in Whitehaven v Jarrow Roofing, the only Northern League game to escape the weather. Similarly Kirbymoorside in the Wearside League wasn’t an option.

Amazingly, games were still on in the Alliance, at Alnwick, Wallington, Wooler and Hexham; these rural outposts are normally the first games called off. Intent on maintaining my record of having seen a game every Saturday since August, I took the train to Hexham. Once we hit Prudhoe, there wasn’t a flake of snow to be seen. Arriving at 13.55, I still missed kick off, even though the ground is directly opposite the station, mainly because there’s no access unless you skirt round Waitrose and in through the Leisure Centre. Viscount Allendale owns the land, so the Wentworth Stadium bears his first name in a touch of self-aggrandisement that John Hall and Mike Ashley would be proud of.
 

I’m not sure if Wentworth is a football fan, but if he is, he’d have loved this game. The home side, near the top of Northern Alliance division 1, lost 3-4 at home to basement side Newcastle University, who are ironically the geographically closest team to my house (beating Heaton Stannington by about 100 yards). The University had 8 points a month ago, but lost them all for fielding ineligible players and are facing a tough struggle to avoid the drop. They took the lead after 8 minutes, as a decent day gave way to a torrential bout of snow and the referee opted to play with a green football, with the deftest of headed own goals, conceded a comical equaliser when the keeper air kicked a back pass, then regained the lead when the Hexham keeper miskicked a clearance 2 yards to an attacker. 1-2 at half time and the weather lifted; in the time it took me to be served with a gorgeous filter coffee from the Leisure centre café, the sun had come out and the pitch cleared.

The second half was played in pleasant conditions, if a little cold, and was of a higher standard. Four times the University took the lead, but only three times could Hexham claw their way back in to the game. As full time sounded, I left the decidedly pleasant ground in a happy mood, having enjoyed a great game and the great company of Prudhoe fan and bus driver Alastair Speight and his son Liam, which was helped by me catching the 15.45 back to town. Then, checking an email from Newcastle United on my phone, my mood immediately darkened -:

Sunday Is French Day - Make Sure You Get Involved!


St. James' Park is set to have a little more joie de vivre on display than usual this Sunday after Newcastle United's home fixture with Southampton was designated 'French Day'.

In homage to our growing Gallic contingent, which now stands at ten players following five new arrivals from across the Channel in January, 'Le Toon' fans are invited to dress up, paint their faces and bring along their Tricolore banners early to immerse themselves in a French-inspired theme across the stadium.

There will also be chance for a sing-along before kick-off as singer Gavin James Burke arrives on Tyneside to join in the festivities, with further themed entertainment on the pitch at half-time. Ticket holders in the family enclosure, meanwhile, will be in the spirit of things with a team of dedicated face painters.

And the pièce de résistance is yet to be revealed, with several other surprises awaiting fans at Sunday's game.
Events and entertainment will be taking place from 1pm on Sunday and fans are advised to arrive early to ensure they don’t miss any of the action.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Prior to receiving this, my main fear about the game had been that it would turn in to another Reading fiasco; snow on the ground, the ball in the air and the points down the drain. Even worse, it now seemed that, having loaned Sammy Ameobi to them, we were going to impersonate Middlesbrough, the club I hold most responsible for buying in to the whole modern football as EuroDisney experience with face paint, foam hands, replica shirts, music after goals and consciously whacky fans in fancy dress. Do these people have no dignity? Obviously, Middlesbrough football club, based in a place that endured race riots in recent memory (which may account for some of the venom and vitriol sent in Sammy’s direction after he signed for them), had to change their fundamental philosophical approach from the way they used to behave, when to attend Ayresome Park was to take your life in your hands. Indeed, most respectable football people in Middlesbrough turned their back on the home town team, choosing instead to follow Newcastle or (mainly) Liverpool, resulting in the death of the original Burragh in 1986, a false renaissance and the mid-90s embrace of all that’s loathsome about the modern game, which looks like it is happening again, bearing in mind their five-figure crowds on the back of cut price tickets. To be fair to Middlesbrough, other than dreadful lies in November 2008 about Newcastle fans attacking a Burragh supporting pensioner, when no such attack took place, the club has successfully rebranded itself as a sporting Wacky Warehouse; they still play Pigbag for instance.

Let’s be frank about it though, this sort of hideously embarrassing family fun  isn’t as harmful or as outrageously unacceptable as the relentless waves of sectarian and abusive singing that Rangers were responsible for at Berwick on Saturday, to the extent that the Ibrox hierarchy had to issue an apology for their fans’ conduct DURING the game, which must be some kind of record and an element of progress on their behalf; even if Charles Green displays the kind of rampant paranoia and distrust of outsiders Howard Hughes would have found troubling. However, the kind of conduct the Billy Boys are famous may just be starting to die out; West Ham fans didn’t make any anti-Semitic chants in the direction of Spurs fans on Monday, so let’s accentuate the positive.
 

However, I struggle to see any positives in a French Day at a football club; programme sellers, on minimum wage, wearing berets, strings of fake onions and stick-on handlebar taches, some operatic oaf singing The Blaydon Races in an ‘Allo! ‘Allo! accent and free t-shirts like the one pictured are simply beyond a joke. Have we all forgotten what is essentially wrong with the core of our club? Do we accept the owner treating us in this patronising manner simply because we’ve signed a few new players? Au contraire, mes braves; anyone caught joining in with the spirit of French Day was more Vichy than resistance in my eyes. I advocated tarring and feathering the collaborators or even better, a guillotine on La Place de la Fraise.

If we allow French Day to be the thin end of the wedge, we’ll have the young’uns who wanted to do the Toon Poznan (yes, I know…) the other year, performing the Harlem Shake at the Anzhi home game.  Walking to the ground my iPod spat out the Pop Group’s We Are All Prostitutes and Natural’s Not In It by the Gang of 4 (The problem of leisure / What to do for pleasure); I couldn’t have picked two more appropriate songs. Inside the ground, I was hoping for John Cale’s Paris 1919 or something by Metal Urbain, but didn’t object when Air’s Sexy Boy came over the PA.

 

Worst of all were the female dancers doing the Can Can at half time. Obviously I didn’t watch; I was troubled enough by the exploitation of the programme sellers in their ludicrous outfits, but it got a whole lot worse with women being degraded on the pitch. Awful beyond words… Frankly, we deserve to have lost the game simply for indulging the club’s farcical public relations disaster, but we escaped with three glorious points because Sissoko is a genius, Yanga-Mbiwa is a superb reader of the game and just about everyone else, including Rob Elliott whose distribution knocked spots off Krul’s, stepped up to the mark and put in quality performances in the face of an impressive Southampton side blessed with some fine players and a more than decent following.

With 3 points in the bag and the top half of the table in sight, if we can make Swansea’s homecoming parade fall flat on Saturday, things are looking up. Should we simply forget about French Day, especially when Matthieu Debuchy claims it helped us win the game? Well, I’m really not happy about the programme sellers or Can Can dancers, which were both exploitative and stereotypical, but if I’m honest, crap ideas like that don’t really do anyone much harm at the end of the day and I’m always ready to complain about everything, often for the sake of it. Providing this does not signify any thawing in our attitude’s to Ashley, I’ll draw a veil over proceedings. Anyway, I’ll find it hard to forget French Day, especially after I bagged one of the free t-shirts before kick-off; hence the photo. I wonder if I should flog it on Ebay?

Liberté. Égalité. Fraternité.
 

 

 

 

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Sound & Vision


Enough of this football malarkey already; yes? I mean, who really gives a damn about 22 blokes kicking a pig’s bladder about the place? All that kissing when they score and falling over if someone breathes on them; do me a favour… Instead we’ll delve in to what has been worth watching, reading or listening to in the world so far this year.

Television:

The first two months of 2013 have provided rich pickings in all the varied manifestations of potential cultural consumption, apart from cinema of course. It’s not that I don’t like films, as I’m happy enough watching DVDs at home, such as Stewart Lee’s magnificent Carpet Remnant World that Ben got me for Christmas, but my innate inability to sit still and be quiet for two hours means I’ve not been to the pictures since 2009; a situation I don’t see changing in the immediate future if I’m brutally honest, partly because it costs so bloody much and I’m not just talking about the prices of those mini tubs of Haagen Dazs either. Surprisingly though, considering that my television viewing is generally limited to football, news and nostalgic music documentaries on BBC4, I was utterly beguiled by a pair of new programmes; Channel 4 deserves the highest praise possible for both Utopia and Black Mirror. These two wildly imaginative dystopian dramas trod the well-worn path of the kind of proposed nightmare society that would be created in an imagined immediate future if all the conspiracy theories you and your mate David Icke ever thought or even heard of came true.


Utopia saw government and big business malfeasance seeking to obliterate those who dared to stand up to The Man in a convoluted plot about eugenics and a graphic novel. The script was not only blessed with taut dialogue, convincing characters and a logical, if wildly unrealistic, plot, but it was superbly shot; the contrast of light and shade made it an unsettling and deeply satisfying watch. The one thing that disturbs is not the array of loose ends caused by the climactic denouement; rather the ominous thought that a second series is in the offing. With Arby, the serial killer with hinterland, endearingly batty Wilson and the vile Assistant all goners, will any script be strong enough to bear scrutiny with only the remaining characters? Or will dilution be risked by introducing idee fixes out of necessity? Let it end where it did please, Channel 4.

The second series of Black Mirror benefitted  from Konnie Huq’s maternity leave as, shorn of her presumably optimistic input, Charlie Brooker produced a trio of bizarre dramas of unremitting bleakness, which are a great improvement on the what if? whimsy of the first series. In particular the second episode, White Bear, which seemed to combine The Truman Show with Kafka’s In der Strafkolonie, successfully played with viewer emotions in an artfully nuanced manner; a tough thing to do when one considers the subject matter was child murder and mob vengeance as entertainment. In a fortuitous accident of scheduling, the show aired after a grimly disturbing insight in to youth offenders banged up and demonised in the documentary series HMP Aylesbury.  Depressingly, but not surprisingly, incarceration was shown to have a dehumanising effect on both inmates and warders; the brutal regime made for more depressing viewing than Black Mirror, which at least had the excuse of being fictional.

Books:

For 2013 I’ve made the crazy decision to swim against the tide of my previous leisure pursuits by cutting back the amount of time I spend on-line and reading more frequently than for several years. Having convinced myself I was talking nonsense when I persuaded myself a few years back that I could only read for pleasure outside of term time, I’ve ploughed through several books, all second-hand of course. My take on this is that because there are so many millions of unwanted books available, I cannot justify spending money on new ones when I have constant access to free and dirt cheap pre-owned ones that I find at least mildly intriguing enough to pick up. Also, I’m prepared to read anything someone lends to me, opening up the possibility of more and more textual consumption.

Thus, the first book I read this year was Garrincha by Ruy Castro, a biography of the prodigiously talented but doomed Brazilian footballer of the 50s and 60s, which my mate Dave insisted I read. Garrincha retired in the early 1970s and died of alcoholism in 1983, so I have absolutely no memories of his playing days, though I know of the legend of the wizard on the wing, nicknamed Little Bird. His is a fairly typical tale of Brazilian footballers of that time; born dirt poor to a dysfunctional family in a shanty town, despite a birth defect that left him with crooked hips, Garrincha discovered from as soon as he could walk that he could manipulate a ball in the most incredible way, mesmerising defenders at every turn. Leaving his home in Puy Grande, he signed for Botafogo in 1953 and produced a decade of brilliance, that was somehow not unduly affected by either his rampant, unapologetic alcoholism or priapic tendencies that saw him father 10 children by 4 different women, during which time he also managed to win two World Cups for Brazil. Beaten by the cruel turn of fate that were his wildly bent legs, his ruined knees eventually packed up in his late 20s, precluding him from playing regularly or at the previous standard. From then until his death 20 years later, his life was a grim litany of  alcohol abuse, financial disaster, public relations fiascos and the inevitable descent towards a pauper’s death aged only 49. The parallels with Paul Gascoigne are impossible to ignore, though Garrincha achieved far more in the game.

Castro wrote the book some 25 years after Garrincha’s death and this temporal distance does nothing to endear the subject to us; Garrincha is remote from us in time and mood. A lack of quotations or interviews, perhaps including the goat with which Garrincha first experienced sexual congress or contemporaries from home or the world of football, leaves this book uncomfortably suspended between scholarly detachment and tabloid salaciousness, meaning it reads like a chronological, emotionless account of Garrincha’s behaviour, both good and bad. It neither seeks to explain, justify or condemn his conduct, meaning the reader remains curiously disengaged by the subject matter once Garrincha leaves Puy Grande, as the accounts of Brazilian shanty town life are written with a real flair and an eye for detail lacking elsewhere in the book. Never once does Castro seek to wonder just why Garrincha behaved in the way he did, which seems to be a fundamental flaw at the heart of this biography.

Remember The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole? Sue Townsend’s half decent idea, which trailed far behind Diary of a Nobody in terms of the quality of writing, was a reasonable period piece in the early 1980s. I was dimly aware of her subsequently writing another book, about Elizabeth Windsor being dethroned and coming to live on a Leicester council estate, but didn’t read it. Rebuilding Coventry, an uninspiring and unconvincing novella about a housewife escaping humdrum domesticity after murdering an abusive neighbour, means I’m convinced I was correct in my choice to ignore Townsend’s other output. The best thing about Rebuilding Coventry is its brevity; at 150 pages I skimmed through this dull chaff on a bus journey between Tynemouth and Swalwell one snowbound Sunday. The worst thing about it is the ludicrous ending which can provoke only snorts of derision and a feeling of contempt towards Townsend’s lazy lack of craft or guile.

Another brief read is Larry McMurty’s scholarly series of essays about Wild West mythology, Sacagawea’s Nickname. Unlike Townsend’s banal style, McMurty’s writing is polished, anecdotal, beguiling and assured. While the book is written for an educated American audience, familiar with the history and customs of the West both pre and post genocidal colonisation, the casual reader can find fascinating tales of an American past unknown to most European readers and facts that make one take a step back to consider the importance of what has been imported. For example; Sacagawea’s nickname was actually Janey. Published by The New York Review of Books, McMurty’s short book is a fascinating insight for any outsider in to the continuing reappraisal of how the West was stolen.


Unlike McMurty’s topic, the life and career of John Peel is a subject I know in intimate detail. I loved the man from the first time I heard his programme on 24th December 1976, as when he played Richard Hell & The Voidoids (I Belong To the) Blank Generation that Christmas Eve, it effectively changed my life. From almost a decade and a half’s nightly devotion to his programme, to a fortuitous attendance at his 50th birthday party in August 1989 through infrequent exposure to his programme from then until Peel’s death in October 2004, when I cried at the news, I remained a fervent admirer. Subsequent unproven allegations of his dealings with groupies in early 60s America have not made me judge him; however, it was a terrible sin of omission that I had not read his (unfinished) autobiography Margrave of the Marshes. After Laura picked it up for me at Tynemouth Market, I remedied this in 2 days. It is a wonderful, nostalgic read, from which Peel’s modest voice leaps from every line. Tragically he died before finishing it, so the remainder was penned by his widow Sheila (aka The Pig). She makes a worthy attempt, but it isn’t Peel talking to us in the last 200 pages; that isn’t actually a criticism, just a sighing observation. It is a book I loved, even if it doesn’t explain why he chose Pickin’ the Blues by Grinderswitch as his theme tune on Radio 1.

Another book I’d somehow not managed to read was E Annie Proulx’s masterpiece The Shipping News. As I’ve not seen the film either, I was approaching this blind and what a wonderful book it is. Proulx tells the tragicomic tale of the hapless Quoyle with incredible verve and sparkling prose, bringing the cold, inhospitable Newfoundland landscape vividly to life. Everything Sue Townsend did wrong, Proulx gets right. Certainly one wonders just what I’ve been playing at not reading this glorious account of weirdness that verges on magic realism at times and wondrous, aching romance until now. Of all the books I’ve read so far in 2013, this is the one I’d recommend absolutely unreservedly, above all the others.

Similarly, John Updike’s Terrorist is a novel of the highest quality, though that was true of most of my fellow psoriasis sufferer’s life’s work. In Terrorist, Updike interweaves the lives a radical young Muslim pining for the Egyptian father who abandoned him at birth by means of a rediscovery of his faith, his lapsed Catholic mother battling to make ends meet and railing against the role of women in Irish American society and a secular Jewish guidance counsellor who tutors the boy and beds the mother. The characters, as in so much of Updike’s glorious writing, are beyond real and we sympathise with them all. Where he really shows his mastery of the language is in his Vidal inspired, cynical dismantling of the falsity of the American dream at the heart of Bush era Realpolitik that abandons the marginalised, whether by reasons of poverty, geography, faith or the lack thereof. Any writer who describes the post 9-11 airport security measures in this manner deserves our praise -:

The dozing giant of American racism, lulled by decades of official liberal singsong, stirred anew as African-Americans and Hispanics … acquired the authority to frisk, to question, to delay, to grant or deny admission and the permission to fly. In a land of multiplying security gates, the gatekeepers multiply also.

Inishowen by Joseph O’Connor is another novel that seeks to tell the story of 3 main characters. Following O’Connor’s tried and tested blueprint of finding a ruined middle-aged man from the plush streets of posh south Dublin, in this case Glasthule, and providing him with a chance of redemption, O’Connor creates a sensitive and credible plot scenario that includes real tension, and then wrecks it with an implausible comic sub plot. Alcoholic, divorced former Special Branch high flyer, now busted down to Detective Inspector after various events after the murder of his son, whose Donegal grave he’s not visited in 6 years, Martin Aitken meets dying Ellen Donnelly, escaped from her cossetted upstate New York family and in search of the Donegal woman who put her up for adoption half a century ago. The two of them head for bleak Inishowen between Christmas and New Year, finding solace in shared disappointments, grief and in each other’s arms. All well and good until the who atmosphere is ruined by a semi comic sub plot involving her uptight, womanising estranged husband, brattish kids and a multi-millionaire gay sex addict University pal who flies them all across the Atlantic in his Lear jet to try and save her marriage. It doesn’t work and it deflects attention from the real story of Martin and Ellen’s attempts to find common ground. Disappointing.

I don’t watch the Champions League on ITV, so I don’t see first-hand evidence of how Adrian Chiles has metamorphosed from a self-effacing football fan to a smug media talking head.    However, whenever I’m exposed to the loathsome, though thankfully soon to depart, Colin Murray on Match of the Day 2, I remember how good Chiles used to be in that role. Back in 2005/2006 Chiles exuded an air of raffish blokiness, which imbues the pages of his account of West Brom’s relegation season that year, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing. Cheek by jowl with exhaustive match reports, accounts of ill-luck or incompetence according to the circumstances, meetings with an array of fans both normal and neurotic, is an accidental account of the disintegration of Chiles’s marriage to then Blue Peter presenter Jane Garvey, which I doubt was his intention in writing the book. Every mention of domesticity is in relation to arguments, apologies or frosty silences. It is no surprise the couple split in 2008.

More positively and parochially, it is interesting to read mention of Hebburn Town assistant boss Dean Nicholson, who was a West Brom junior at the time. His parents, older brother Stuart, also a West Brom player, and then girlfriend are all interviewed. Frankly, that was the most interesting part of the book for me, once I’d read the accounts of Newcastle’s pair of 3-0 wins over the Baggies that year. I suppose it brought home just how dull Village Voice must be to people who don’t know me or Percy Main Amateurs. Oh well; useful to get that learned, as Philip Larkin once said.

CDs:

2013 got off to a cracking start with new releases. Pere Ubu, long a favourite of mine since the time of Final Solution and Non-Alignment Pact in the late 70s, through to Waiting For Mary at the start of the 90s, have returned after another decade’s hiatus. When I say Pere Ubu, it is basically David Thomas with another selection of supporting musicians who’ve not played on an Ubu album before. This is of no matter as Thomas’s shrill, hectoring voice is as strident and unique as ever meaning that Lady from Shanghai is as memorable as The Modern Dance in its own particular way. I often think of Thomas as a hybrid of Beefheart and Orson Welles, with the kind of control freak egotism associated with those two idiosyncratic geniuses, running rampant through this album. The coruscating, yelping vocals are aided by art punk and free jazz discord and cadence according to mood, in a unified collection where standout tracks include the opener Thanks, which bizarrely borrows from Anita Ward’s Ring My Bell, the anthemic manifesto of Musicians Are Scum and the fraught phrasings of 414 Seconds. On the strength of this set, I purchased front row seats for their Sage 2 gig on 15th April; it offers more in terms of intrigue and creativity than the pedestrian festival of James supported by Echo & the Bunnymen at the Academy the same night.


One band not playing Newcastle on their next tour are Yo La Tengo, presumably huffed by the pitiful crowd for their last Sage gig in 2011. This is a real shame, especially as their new set Fade is another stand out release and shows further the wisdom of only doing an album every 3 or 4 years. The opener Ohm is my favourite; a long, guitar-led dreamy, indie tour de force that has long been their signature. However, it is almost a false promise as the rest of the album does not go wholly down the guitar driven route and is all the better for it; this is blue-eyed pop of impeccable pedigree, with drummer Georgina taking over the mic for the ineffably gorgeous Cordelia and Jane and a Stax style horn combo beefing out the decidedly soulful Two Trains suggesting this is a band who have drunk deep from the well of creative excellence but still have gallons in reserve. Yo La Tengo are simply a wonderful band, perhaps outdone only by Teenage Fanclub in terms of group cohesion and creative cooperation; they will be with us for the foreseeable future. However, I still wish they were playing up here!!

There’s no way I would ever go and see My Bloody Valentine again; memories of December 1991’s destruction of Newcastle Poly’s sound system remain fresh to this day. As a deafening Feed Me with Your Kisses reached the coda, the band launched a 20 minute free form sonic assault that blew the venue’s electrics and actually affected the balance of much of the audience. I don’t think I could cope with that again, especially having purchased mbv, which sneaked out on the internet on February 2nd, causing their website to crash. I bought it, receiving the download code but no CD, which will be sent out later. In retrospect, my purchase choice puzzled me; why on earth do I want the CD? I’ll never listen to it now I have the download version; I guess this is a crucial point for me, as I may just have joined the digital generation.

Unsurprisingly mbv breaks no new ground. It’s partly Isn’t Anything, partly Loveless and partly Tremelo; bloody good, but does it really merit a 22 year wait while Kevin Shields attended to the recording in painstaking detail? I’m not sure, but I am sure that New You and Nothing deserve praise as much as Glider or You Made Me Realise.

As far as older stuff goes, I must thank Dr. Jonathon Hope, Professor of Renaissance Literature at Strathclyde University for his diligent research in sourcing me a copy of a delicious 7” slab of Tyneside post punk, in the shape of Ward 34’s 1979 debut single Religion For The 70s, which sounds as Comsat Angels and Au Pairs inspired fresh today as it did 34 years ago; especially his bass playing!!

Elsewhere, I may not have got round to the Amon Duul II, Incredible String Band or Sweeney’s Men purchases I’ve long promised myself, but I now possess 2 CDs by Dr. Strangely Strange. Stewart Lee sold them to me, by mentioning them on the Carpet Remnant World DVD, resulting in an immediate trip to Amazon. This quaint, shambolic Irish hippy folk outfit assembled at Trinity College in 1968. The next year they released their affectionate, affecting low fi debut, Kip of the Serenes, which I absolutely love. Despite such classics as Frosty Mornings and Donnybrook Fair, it sold in minimal quantities.  Sadly, against the advice of their producer, the saintly Joe Boyd, they ditched the charming goofiness and hired Gary Moore, later of Thin Lizzy, to add blues guitar and Dave Mattacks, formerly of Steeleye Span and later of Fairport Convention, on drums. The result is the largely charmless and decidedly dull Heavy Petting, which other than the opener Ballad of the Wasps, which was an older number anyway, had little to recommend its mainstream pitch. This collection sold the thick end of bugger all as well and they jacked it in six months later. They reform every so often, so I might get a chance to see them yet.

Gigs:

The other night, Ben announced he’d been getting in to Sonic Youth, by playing Daydream Nation very loud. I was pleased to hear this, but disappointed I couldn’t take him to Thurston Moore when he played the Cumberland at the end of January, doing two nights and sounding like a 1985 Sonic Youth rehearsal. It’s gone now, but I am anguishing over missing out on this, especially as I’d not even heard about the gig before it completely sold out, meaning I had to teach my evening class the first night and play 5-a-side the second. Work is also the reason why I missed ex Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie at the Cluny the other week and why I won’t see Veronica Falls either.  Finance is the primary reason why I’m not going to see Richard Thompson at the Sage in on 3rd March and I’m still to decide whether Mike Watt, 1st March at the Cluny, Viv Albertine, 8th March at Morden Tower or Kelley Deal in the guise of R.Ring at the Cluny the night after will have my custom. Thankfully I do have some tickets for future events; as well as Pere Ubu, there’s British Sea Power on 6th April, Neil Young at the Arena on 10th June, both with Ben and Ray Jackson’s intended reunion of Lindisfarne at the City Hall on 23rd December, which will be the 37th anniversary of my first proper gig, other than The Clancy Brothers with my parents, which was also Lindisfarne at the City Hall.

So, what about gigs I’ve actually been to? Well, the year’s first outing was to see Scottish indie trio Golden Grrrls at Morden Tower, at one of the estimable Michael Clunkie’s events. Having seen Shola Ameobi’s confident penalty and Tim Krul’s heroics see Newcastle through to the last 16 of  the Europa League, I arrived a bit late to this one. Picking my way through restaurant detritus, looking out for feasting rodents, ascending the unlit stone steps and finding the venue packed to the very door, I reflected as to how relieved I was that  Viv Albertine had sold out, as I’m not sure I can handle Morden Tower on too regular a basis.

Accepting it would be initially impossible to see or move, I caught about half of Mancunian openers Sex Hands’s set. They were another bunch of 78 Peel session wannabes; neither unpleasant nor memorable. Before the next act, I retraced my steps to grab a bottle of sparkling water from Sainsbury’s on Gallowgate, taking the guitarist of Golden Grrrls with me as it was easier to show than tell.

We got back in time to find a better perch to see incredibly well spoken, amazingly petite all female band Silver Fox, who gave an introductory speech like the parish notices in Vicar of Dibley. After an opening number which included the worst keyboard solo I’ve ever heard, they produced 8 to 10 numbers that paid homage to Kleenex and the Modettes at their angular best. Superb unapologetically, enthusiastic amateur stuff, provided they don’t talk to the audience, as they sound like the debating society at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, which sort of spoils the effect.

Golden Grrrls, the foppish laddie I’d taken to the cash machine and a brace of tomboyish lassies: one with a sensible bob and sweater shop gansey, the other barefoot with sixth form pretend dreads, were just fucking gorgeous. Two guitars, drums and three honeyed harmonisers, they did a rapid 40 minute set of 16 choice Glaswegian pop nuggets. This lot must be the children of the Shop Assistants, as this was C86 in block capitals, with or without a Safety Net. Their between song banter was polite and stilted, but it is part of their charm. I didn’t buy their CD afterwards as I’d not much cash on me, but I’m beginning to regret that, even if there is part of me thinks my gig purchases are out of duty, in the way I used to get hold of programmes at non-league games. Sometimes your principles make you miss out and it seems tonight was evidence of that.

Our annual pilgrimage to see Fairport convention at the Sage was also done without purchasing product, mainly on account of the fact they’re still pushing last year’s By Popular Request. The 35th annual Fairport Winter tour arrived in Newcastle on exactly the same date as last year and a part of me wondered whether we were attending it out of duty rather than enjoyment. Any such worries were blown away by the freshening up of the set list that saw the addition of both The Banks of Sweet Primroses and Farewell Farewell, both masterfully and compellingly sung by the musical genius that is Chris Leslie.

To attend this gig, I missed Whitley Bay v Billingham Town, but got my mate Mike to text me the scores; he was happy to do it, but pointed out I could see the game then nip over for Who Knows Where The Time Goes?, Matty Groves and Meet On The Ledge. Predictably in the case of the last two mentioned, these were the final trio of the night, but it was wonderful to hear Sandy Denny’s classic reclaimed by the band; this being only the second time I’ve heard them do this.

As ever, a Fairport gig is an event, a celebration and a reunion; I may never make it to Cropredy, but I’ll make it back to see them next year, possibly on the same date. However, before then I’ve got to decide whether it’s Mike Watt or Kelley Deal for my next night out…

Sunday 17 February 2013

Metalist Babies




It’s a close call, but the absolute worst thing about modern football has to be Joe Hart’s shampoo advert; not only does his pitiful am dram writhing and posturing stick in my craw, but the sheer unreality of a trainer washing a player’s hair simply exceeds any reasonable person’s ability to willingly suspend their disbelief. For one thing; where does the trainer get the water to rinse Hart’s hair? This repulsive 30 seconds of balderdash is precisely why I was so elated at the arse Hart made of Southampton’s second goal the other week; it was truly joyous to see him sitting there with his head and shoulders in his hands. His pride at the apparently excellent double save he made against Brazil was followed by his fall from grace at St. Mary’s. Obviously I didn’t see the England v Brazil friendly, as I was watching Chris Bannon, another excellent keeper, failing to stop Washington from going down 3-0 to North Shields. Simultaneously, Newcastle United in their other guise as L’equipe de la belle France, were losing at home to Germany; quell dommage, mes braves.

Returning to Hart’s pitiful product promotion, it may seem strange to claim this appalling advert is the most important event in football over the past couple of weeks, but it is hard to put in to words how enraged I am by this vile footage. Certainly the mock indignation about the supposed whiff of corruption surrounding Liverpool’s European game against Debrecen failed to ignite any similar passion in my oft-fevered breast, especially as it is only a month since I heard certain Newcastle fans saying in all honesty that they believed Pardew’s tactics and selection for the second half against Reading were a deliberate attempt to get the team to lose. Preposterous!! However, the Debrecen betting scam revelations came before the pair of erroneous offside flags that scandalously denied Newcastle United a comfortable home win over Metalist Kharkiv in the Europa League at SJP on 14th February.

My preparations for this game started well in advance, as I attempted to make sense of the complex UEFA registration process that allowed us to field either Yanga-Mbiwa or Debuchy, but not both and definitely not Gouffran who was cup-tied, as well as getting injured in the unlucky 2-1 loss to Spurs the day before. That’s him, Ben Arfa and Marveaux who’ve all suffered serious leg injuries soon in to their Newcastle careers; get well soon, mon copain. The eventual decision to register Yanga-Mbiwa and not Debuchy presumably meant we’d be seeing Danny Simpson. That depressing news should have deflected the hysterical twitter storm that followed the final whistle at White Hart Lane, which signalled it was time for me to tune out and concentrate on the grassroots game, as Percy Main dismantled Ashington Colliers 3-0.

I set my gaze on the Europa League again on the Sunday, with Whitley Bay’s friendly against the Ukrainians. Disinclined to pay £10 to watch the game, especially as that is almost as much as Newcastle charge for European ties and double what I paid to see the Bordeaux game, I opted to initially watch Ireland lose to England in rugby with the usual bemused bafflement that the Garrison Game game engenders in me, before pointing my cycle in the direction of Hillheads. I arrived as the second half was about to start, made good a free entry and joined a crowd of 722 to watch Kyle Hayes produce a series of magnificent stops on a filthy, sleet-riven Sunday evening, helping Whitley to a very creditable 1-1 draw, both goals happening before I arrived. The last time I’d seen a live game at this time, Nobby Solano’s goal had done for Manchester City in Kevin Keegan’s first return to St. James’ Park in an FA Cup 5th round tie in 2002. Despite Bay’s bumper attendance, which will go some way to filling the fiscal hole their Vase exit will have caused, I doubt such a strange kick off time will become de rigeur among the local non-league. However, lucrative friendlies against European opposition may be the way forward for impecunious Northern League teams, such as Bedlington Terriers whose imprudent largesse has seen them issued with a winding up order for unpaid debts.

I returned to Hillheads on Tuesday, opting to watch Celtic Nation in the flesh rather than Celtic on TV, where they got a far better result than their more illustrious namesakes. The aforementioned are a Carlisle based side, formerly known as Gillford Park, who have been taken over by a millionaire Scottish businessman, who is bankrolling the whole outfit; an expensively assembled Harlem Globetrotters of Step 4 and 5 players are attracting precisely no-one to see them stutter and fail to take NL Division 1 by storm. Tuesday’s game ended up 2-2, with both Celtic Nation goals being cheered only by players and coaches, while at Parkhead, Fraser Forster conceded one less goal against Juventus than he did against Benfield 5 years ago. The attendance at Whitley was a worryingly low 233, though on the positive side, Spennymoor’s top of the table home defeat by Darlington attracted 2,400 to the Brewery Field on Friday 15th February. Five years to the day since Ashington attracted 1,945 to their final game at Portland Park and post-match trashing of the ground by some so-called supporters; it is wonderful to see such a crowd at a Northern League game. Even better to see Spennymoor lose!!

Apparently Spennymoor and Darlington fans were segregated; hopefully people voluntarily chose which end to watch from, as they both wear black and white, so scarves would not have been helpful in denoting individual preferences, though at least they were allowed, unlike at Hillheads. Metalist Kharkiv had made it a condition of playing the game that non-one wearing either Newcastle shirts or colours would be admitted. Thankfully, the weather put paid to the idea of anyone wearing a football top who wasn’t on the pitch, or even a polo shirt that matched Kharkiv’s daffodil yellow strip. I did wonder if the half time music was spun by the wonderfully named DJ Nae Fitba Colours who Mickey Hydes and I heard tell of when seeing Arthurlie v Linlithgow in Barrhead in May 2011 (http://payaso-del-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2011_06_01_archive.html).

I’m not surprised Whitley acquiesced to this demand, as they’d have been prepared to do just about anything to allow the game to be played, considering the potential revenue they were looking at. I’m sure their fans were okay with this, though the fact is considerably north of 90% of Whitley’s support are Newcastle fans; the exceptions are the weirdos and social inadequates among them who follow the likes of Leeds, Liverpool, Man City or sunderland, on the telly I’d imagine. There may be a smattering of them, but they don’t stand out in the overwhelmingly normal Whitley Bay support unlike, say, North Shields, where the mad lads are in the majority. I think of these disturbing eccentrics as almost being a kind of footballing Koyemshi, the so-called clown priests of the Amerindian Zuni tribe whose role can be understood in the context of the following explanation; Zuni society was moderate, cautious, consensus seeking, structured so as to discourage any Dionysian impulse towards excessive individualism.


Both in the professional and amateur ranks, there are spaces for cranks, oddballs and conspiracy theorists; we don’t take them seriously, but they are fun to have a giggle at now and again. Now, we’re all in favour of the independent voice of fans in Newcastle Fans United which is why we’re trying to maintain dialogue with the club about ordinary supporter issues, in the absence of any clear leadership or involvement from the somnolent NUST, even if they did send out a nice email last week talking about how one of their number had enjoyed a lovely day out to Parliament for the Supporters Direct lobby on 5th February. It’s nice to see that NUST has held a meeting with Newcastle United’s newly appointed Fans’ Liaison Officer Lee Marshall, because Newcastle Fans United had a really productive one with him too, on Monday 11th February. First impressions are that Lee is a good lad; a Smog, but a good lad. Indeed, as I wrote in an article in toon talk 8, last year (http://payaso-del-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/here-comes-your-man.html), the role of FLO would only be credible if it was an outsider in the role; any Newcastle fan would arrive with a load of emotional baggage and be cynically pre-judged before they’d hung their coat on the back of the door. Lee isn’t cynical; he listened, he wrote things down, he engaged with us and promised a future meeting of a wider constituency than just Newcastle Fans United  , which we warmly applauded. Lee knows who are the legitimate, independent voices among Newcastle United’s support; pretty soon he’ll be sifting the wheat from the chaff; the bean juice from the grounds. Frankly, what on earth would be the point of him wasting his time with unrepresentative, self-selected lone voices who seek to bad mouth other supporters and certain players with monotonous regularity, especially when that is all they keep on keeping on about? Far better the FLO engages with a republic of letters than a confederacy of dunces; Newcastle Fans United, NUST and the fanzine associated with each would go a long way to covering a great deal of Newcastle United’s engaged support, without wasting time with message board mentalists.

Those of us at the meeting could feel righteously self-satisfied that Lee Marshall saw for himself the legitimacy and value of the independent voices involved in Newcastle Fans United  ; we may be linked with Newcastle United’s best fanzine toon talk, but by the same token, NUST are pally with The Mag. Does this mean Newcastle’s third and final fanzine Black & White Daft is really the independent voice? Quite possibly. I know for a fact that Lee Marshall will listen to all supporter voices, before making his opinions known. I instinctively trust the man and found the meeting to be a productive way to spend the evening. Well, more productive than watching Hibs get banjoed at home by a St. Johnstone side including their highest paid player ever. Formed in 1884, the man who has the honour of trousering the largest wedge by a sportsman in Perth ever is Mehdi Abeid. Yes, our 18 year old reserve player Mehdi Abeid. Insane eh?

Equally insane was the idea that my ticket for the Kharkiv game was in Block D of the Strawberry Corner with the Toon Ultras. That said, after finding the games against Atromitos and Bruges torpid in the Milburn Paddock at the Leazes and the Maritimo game deathly dull from the East Stand, this had the chance of being as enjoyable as the Bordeaux game I’d watched from the Gallowgate. In this instance, Poznan Jamie had purchased the tickets and his St. Valentine’s Day treat was a lift there and back.

I had to lubricate myself to try and get in to the spirit of the occasion, mainly because I’m even more cantankerous sober than drunk and can start an argument in an empty room, never mind a cramped section of a football ground. A pint in The Tynemouth Lodge before we left, a free one in The Forth courtesy of a loyalty voucher, before a trio in The Bodega had me oiled and garrulous on my way up to the ground. Inside, it was leaping; everyone who wanted to make some noise had migrated to the Strawberry Corner and the noise was fairly impressive in the first period, even if the replica shirted bairns belting out any O’Brien couldn’t have been born when Lennie Lawrence fancied Liam over the wall back in October 1992. The Don’t sell Cabaye song seemed to be top of this junior pops. Sadly, events on the pitch didn’t match up to the level of teen testosterone in the stands; a wrongly disallowed goal and a bad miss by Cisse should have put us on easy street, but things looked ominous as it became clear Metalist are a handy side, which makes the second leg a worrying prospect. Then again, with only 30k in the ground, do people really want Europa League football? Has the Premier juggernaut made all other football competitions irrelevant in many people’s eyes? If so, that is an awful thought. Then again, I’ve watched us lose in Europe for 35 years since Bastia and Johnny Rep came calling in 1977, so I’m almost insulated to disappointment, though experience does make our wonderful 2007 Inter Toto Cup victory all the sweeter.


At half time, tired by standing, I bought a coffee and migrated to an almost deserted Milburn Paddock at the Gallowgate end; I walked around the perimeter and wasn’t challenged for my ticket, as I selected an ideal seat on an aisle about halfway up. Perhaps it was the beer wearing off, but I was soon aware of how miserable and moaning my new neighbours were; they had hardly a good thing to say about a pretty solid performance, even if I have to concede they were closely watching the game, unlike many of the cherubic choristers on the other side of the pitch. I did agree with them that playing Yanga-Mbiwa at right back was simply daft; he should have partnered Taylor surely? While I was grateful for a seat at last, I would say that I probably enjoyed the experience more with the geeks and replica shirted teenagers in the first period, especially as the ones around me all got up and buggered off as soon as the clock hit 86.30, while the Strawberry Corner Koyemshis were furiously pogoing as they love the Toon.

At full time I headed back to The Bodega for a final pair of pints and to collect a bottle of Asti Spumante I’d brought for my pal John, as he’d won it in a raffle. No champagne for him and no chocolate or roses for Newcastle United, as the only Valentines cards were yellow ones for Tiote, Cabaye, Sissoko and Gutierrez. All in all, the whole affair was a bit of a let-down; let’s hope for better fortune in the Ukraine for the second leg.

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Vive La Differance

This week's blog is dedicated to the memory of Jacques Derrida; in particular to the Violence et  Métaphysique  chapter of his work L'Ectiture et la Differance.



What une différance a week has made to the fortunes of Newcastle United. Indeed, it was enough to dissuade me from writing about the forthcoming League of Ireland season, now incorporating a renascent Cobh Ramblers outfit, which starts on Monday 11th with Setanta Cup fixtures, to fix my gaze on St. James Park again.

Francisco Jimenez Tejada arrived at Newcastle United in a deadline day move on 31st August 2008, costing £5.7m from Deportivo La Coruna. Scoring on his debut for the club in a 2-1 home defeat to Hull City, the legendary striker managed a grand total of 10 further appearances for the club, 7 as substitute, the last of which provided his other career highlight on Tyneside when he set up Andy Carroll for the final goal in a 6-0 thrashing of Aston Villa. Following loan spells at Racing Santander and twice with Deportivo La Coruna, he left on a free transfer for Second Division side Cordoba, at which point Newcastle United retired his number 30 shirt, unworn presumably and I lost interest in the professional game completely. I’m joking of course. Badly.

Lest I be accused of being another delusional Mag, I must state that I’m not buying in to any facile French Revolution style clichés at this point as, with still 13 games remaining; 7 of whom are against opponents who’ve already beaten us this season, we’re talking tiny steps forwards, which must of course be preferable to the Great Leap Backwards that has been the last 3 months. That said, I’m much more optimistic about our prognosis, not simply on account of the new recruits, but because Colo has decided to stay, though I do wonder why it took so long to sort his situation out. The bizarre letter attributed to him that appeared on-line was not a hoax it was revealed, though neither was it the product of our beloved captain while in full command of his faculties; let us hope his situation has been fully resolved, at least in the interim, for there is much else to be cautiously positive about. Certainly his celebrated challenge on Demba Ba, who I don’t think deserved to be jeered, though I can understand why he was, showed 100% commitment to our cause.

The games against Aston Villa and then Chelsea provided us with three debutants, six points and an incalculable increase in the team spirit among the players on the pitch and the levels of positivity among the crowd off it. Despite it being my first thought on waking last Tuesday (as well as last thought before I went to sleep afterwards), I was unnaturally optimistic about the Villa game, having seen how weak they were when going out of the League Cup to Bradford and the FA Cup to Millwall. Incidentally, wasn’t it marvellous that the latter game was pulled back to the Friday night on account of the number of Save the NHS protestors who were expected to converge on Lewisham Hospital the next day? Whenever I hear some idiot burbling on about how we should keep politics out of sport, I always remember the Ray Lowry cartoon which showed a hapless slave being fed to the lions in the Roman Coliseum, impotently shaking his fist at the senators and crying imperialist bastards! Such ultimately fruitless, though heartfelt, ranting and raving was the order of the day on-line when the team was announced. Thankfully, 2 great goals by Cisse and Cabaye silenced the moaners.

Unfortunately the second half brought about more blinkered, unnecessary hand-wringing, mainly because some people simply can’t accept the opposition are ever capable of playing well. Let’s be clear about this; at 2-0 down, Lambert had nothing to lose in bringing on Weimann, a player I rate highly and Agbonlahor, who has incredible pace, even if he has been out of sorts for 2 seasons now. Villa got back in to it via a debatable penalty (cue message board meat heads describing Debuchy as “shit” because Agbonlahor conned the referee) and refused to accept their fate, which caused us plenty of hairy moments. The insane negativity engendered by the selection was reinforced by Villa’s second half performance, whereby no credit could be given to them, a team fighting for their very survival and the only possible reaction was to blame Pardew for it. Certainly, in the whingers’ defence, I could see no reason for removing Perch for Ameobi, especially as Tom the tactician announced that Krul played 15 long balls to Shola; 10 of which conceded possession immediately and the remaining 5 of which Shola won, but then lost the ball, as another Newcastle player didn’t get the next touch anyway. Thankfully, we won away for the first time this season and however unconvincing the victory was, those three points meant I went happily to sleep and no doubt ensured an utter absence of complacency among players and management going in to the Chelsea game. Truth be told, I found very few Newcastle fans who believed we could get more than a point out of this one, despite Benitez’s current travails. Still, we showed the world we’re better than Brentford, who could only draw at home to them.

Without doubt, Sissoko’s match winning performance against Chelsea was undoubtedly the best home debut by a Newcastle United player since Mick Quinn’s four-goal salvo against Leeds in 1989, and possibly as good as Malcolm McDonald’s hat trick against Liverpool back in 1971, though it is important to remember he’s only played two games thus far, so breathless comparisons with Yaya Toure or Patrick Viera may be a trifle premature. Coming back down to earth, the undeniable truth is that the league table does not lie; we are still only 6 points above a relegation spot and remain in 15th place, though we stand only 3 points from the top half it has to be said.

However, we can be positive; it was Newcastle United’s first victory after going behind in a league game since Pardew became manager, the first time we’ve won after being a goal down in the league since the 2-1 victory at West Ham in October 2010, the first home success from a losing position since the day we achieved promotion, against Sheffield United in April 2010 and in the Premier League since we recovered from Habib Beye’s early own goal against the Beasts in May 2009. Of course they didn’t have Keiron Dyer playing for them back then; ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Being serious, there has been a decisive change in the atmosphere surrounding the whole club. Two weeks ago ribald wisecracks about Tulisa’s vajazzle or shallow references to Nando’s culinary fare would have been the substance of most dressing room and training pitch conversation; instead, we may now expect earnest political debates among the squad, perhaps regarding the ideological and moral implications of French military intervention in Mali, to be the order of the day. From this point onwards, the NUFC dream team would have a midfield four of Althusser, Derrida, Foucault and Lacan, with Barthes being afforded a free role to exploit his talent for jouissance. 

Leaving the realms of academe and getting back on the pitch, this Saturday’s game away to Spurs is a bloody tough one; we may well lose, but we go there with a degree of self-belief. I’m hoping for at least a point, mainly because I feel that the table after this weekend’s games will dictate what side and what approach Pardew adopts for the Europa League game against Kharkiv on February 14th. Such complex calculations regarding the only cup competition we retained an interest in after the Christmas decorations came down show to me that, as well as writing off 2012/2013 as a season, a sensible future hope must be that we don’t qualify for the Europa League again, unless it is with a quality squad backed up with a healthy array of capable reinforcements.

It must be made clear that absolutely no thanks should be offered to Mike Ashley for the recent upsurge in results and performances, despite the twitterings of one fool who proposed the man who is ultimately responsible for this season of stagnation and stasis, should be granted a standing ovation and chants of gratitude from all parts of the ground before the Chelsea game, because he’d finally sanctioned some belated signings. Such Vichyssoise collaboration would no doubt have been tres amusant to most of our squad. Let us be in no doubt, Newcastle United have been in the soup for large parts of 2012/2013 because Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias (I make no distinction between the two in terms of culpability) were derelict in their duty of care over the club, ultimately because they are rapacious Capitalists, whose first and only loyalty is to their own largesse and not the greater good of Newcastle United, resulting in the need for the club to treat this January like three transfer windows at once. Fan ownership and fan ownership only can promise the ideal future outcome for our club. We all knew the squad needed strengthening last summer; it was the fault of the “owners” that the manager was asked to find diamonds in the mouth of a corpse with an unbalanced and understrength squad. Just imagine where we could be in the table now if we’d kicked off the season with a first choice side of: Krul - Debuchy Santon Colo Mbiwa - Tiote Cabaye Sissoko - Ben Arfa Gouffran Cisse.

Looking at that line-up, it is slightly sobering to reflect on the last named being the nearest thing to a weak link in a team that remarkably includes no British players, even if Cisse’s pass to set away Gouffran for the equaliser against Chelsea deserved a footballing Oscar. Also, take time to think on the fact we can now name a bench including Anita, Taylor, Jonas and Marveaux, before we start looking at the also-rans. It’s not quite Barcelona or even Manchester City, but it’s pretty impressive. If we could add a quality striker to that side, I think I’d have to lie down out of excitement rather than actually watching them. In fact, no bullshit here, we desperately need to add another, top quality (if not world class) striker to the squad this summer. Lee Ryder may claim that the club are already looking at the next transfer window, but my cynicism doesn’t allow me to be taken in quite so easily by rash tabloid promises of la confiture, demain.

Allowing for a willing suspension of football disbelief, I realise I may be leaping ahead of myself here, but I’m not sure if the persistent rumours of a proposed return to Tyneside for Andy Carroll are necessarily a good thing, despite his seeming return to form for a stuttering West Ham whose idiot manager will only use a fraction of Carroll’s game by insisting his team leather the ball in the direction of the striker’s head from all angles and in all circumstances. With the team we now possess, a traditional British style centre forward, though Carroll is far better than that limiting description, is far too restrictive tactically for the way we need to play, if we are to effectively utilise the ball skills and passing strengths now prevalent throughout the team. Just look at the moves that lead to the three goals on Saturday, or Sissoko’s pass to Cisse at Villa for the opener; then believe. Imagine…

I don’t want to slag off Danny Graham for joining the Mackems (I’m reserving my scorn for the permacrocked Keiron Dyer, who made his debut for The Beasts as part of his “pay as you play” deal in a 4-0 hammering at Ipswich last Saturday; ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha), in case he and they come back to haunt me in mid-April. Incidentally, I am aware that at the moment of writing, they are 2 points above us in the table, but I’m glad Danny Graham didn’t sign for us, as his old fashioned target man role was more suited to the desperate tactics signified by Simpson, Williamson and Krul inexpertly hoofing the ball in the direction of Shola’s shoulders and shins that categorised all that has been bad about Newcastle United this season and which has now been consigned to la poubelle d’histoire. Graham should fit in with O’Neill’s 4-4-2 straitjacket, though not too well I hope.  

In considering, the enormity of signing for them, I truly hope Danny Graham knows what he has done and what he has potentially let himself and his family in for; while the case of Lee Clark probably isn’t relevant here, as a certain tee shirt afforded him redemption on Tyneside, there are lessons to be learned from the careers of Don Hutchison (or Hucthison as his shirt said in September 2002 when we crucified them 2-0), who is simultaneously despised by both sets of fans and Michael Chopra, a player we remained utterly indifferent to, but who provokes utter detestation among the ranks of the unwashed. Chopra’s “crime” was to allegedly miss an easy chance to score a winner for them against us in 2009. Newcastle fans, who saw Chopra’s regular unsuccessful attempts to put the ball in the net, from his debut against Manchester United in 2004 onwards, would scarcely countenance an element of truth in such errant paranoia, but it’s Mackems we’re talking about here.

Consequently, Graham is required to uneasily tread a tightrope of competing emotions. Score for them against us and he’s finished on Tyneside; underachieve on Wearside or, worse, miss an opportunity against us and he’ll be hated until the end of time by that lot. No doubt his social life has been majorly curtailed by this transfer, but perhaps that may be a good thing, as the recently publicised footage of a drunken Danny Simpson sprawled on a Manchester street at 4 o’clock in the morning after an altercation in a takeaway doesn’t do his image among potential suitors any good at all. However as, of his own volition by turning down a contract and seemingly moving away from the region to spend time with his uniquely talented musician lady friend, like a kind of Z List Posh and Becks, he appears to have emotionally left the club already; it doesn’t really seem to do Newcastle United any harm. Bizarrely enough, on Saturday night Twitter had been awash with initially unsubstantiated and eventually completely spurious accounts of Steven Taylor getting a kicking in either Tynemouth or Whitley Bay; where do these stories come from? What sort of person would countenance the idea of offering a professional athlete, twenty or thirty years their junior, the chance to step outside? 

To return to the subject of our erstwhile right back, I don’t think Simpson is good enough for our team and unless Debuchy gets injured I doubt we’ll see him in the shirt again, but overall he’s not been a bad signing, though I’d rather see the far more reliable and indeed likeable Ryan Taylor as reserve full back. Danny Simpson’s attacker was 46 years of age apparently, which makes me think two things; firstly what’s a bloke that age doing out at 4 o’clock on a Sunday night? Secondly, Danny can’t be that handy if a bloke twice his age gives him a hammering. That said, I had a few ales on Friday night with a collection of immaculately attired gentlemen of a certain vintage down the Coast, who meet under the banner of North Shields Fashion Central and were absolutely first class company; I certainly wouldn’t take the mickey out of their choice of socks. Candidly, I don’t think they rated my green paisley shirt that much it has to be said. Although, I could have been dressed far worse…




Perhaps the sort of person that goes out on the drink in the middle of the night could end up like Paul Gascoigne, of whom yet more depressing drink-fuelled, self-destructive stories have emerged. Without being heartless, there comes a point when any sympathy one feels for the tortured former legend is replaced by contempt at the endless failures to amend such destructive behaviour and eventually boredom at the sheer, drab monotony of the latest dismal revelations. I think I reached that point a long time ago with Gascoigne.

I recently read Ruy Costa’s biography of Garrincha, a player who could have been even more of a prototype for Gascoigne than George Best was. Raised dirt poor in a dysfunctional family headed by an alcoholic tyrant, preciously skilled and without any formal education, hopelessly naïve, badly advised, unable to form meaningful personal relationships or to shed himself of parasitic agents and friends from the wrong side of the tracks, Garrincha repeatedly let down those who tried to help him or offered him escape routes from his literal and metaphorical car crash of a life, that was above of all marked by self-destructive drinking, before dying in his mid-40s. What struck me as I read the book was how my initial sympathy for Garrincha was replaced subsequently by contempt at his conduct and eventually by a sense of boredom at the monotony of it all; frankly, someone should have given the book to Gascoigne perhaps 20 years ago, or for definite when he moved to Glasgow and things really began to spiral out of control.

I wasn’t on Pink Lane on Saturday night, but the atmosphere was apparently decidedly moody, no doubt on account of the presence of a considerable number of Scottish based supporters of Chelsea (that’s the old style Got the time mate? Chelsea and not the global brand overseen of Abramovich in case you’re wondering) who, because of the boycott of the Scottish Cup game at Dundee United by Her Majesty’s Team, had come to meet up with their blue brethren. It wasn’t a place for a young man to be, much less an ageing one; fact is, if you weren’t at the Battle of Bath Lane, there was no reason for you to be at the Pagger in Pink Lane.

Thank goodness Nile Ranger wasn’t around, as with his luck and track record, he may have ended up in some kind of bother. If there’s one player I worry about more than any other, it’s Ranger; recently arrested on suspicion of rape, he has also had his car vandalised and now has to suffer the effects of an on-line hate campaign, mainly on Twitter, that involves intemperate abuse of anyone seeking to defend this wayward young man who, let us not forget, is contracted to our club for another 3 years. The campaign has ended up with a petition demanding a Newcastle United footballer be sacked by the club we all support; surely this is not a constructive way to channel our energies?

If you want positive role models and advice on how to support the club in a totally positive way, in the continued absence of any meaningful activities by NUST look no further than the excellent set of people involved in both the superb Toon Talk fanzine and the inclusive, broad-based supporter organisation, Utd4NUFC who put on a road show about rail seats as a way forward towards safe standing, before the Chelsea game. Because of time pressures at work, I’ve not been as active in Utd4NUFC as I should have been of late; however, I strongly urge anyone who holds the future of Newcastle United dear to their heart, especially Lee Marshall the recently appointed Newcastle United Fans’ Liaison Officer to sit down and have a cosy cuppa and a chat with Utd4NUFC. Perhaps, in view of recent events at the club, we could all treat ourselves to a French Fancy or two, or even five…