The Solitary Vice

I've just done an interview for the launch issue of the promisingly entitled Wankmag; this is what they asked and what I said in reply -:

1.)  For those who don’t know you, who is Ian Cusack?

I’m 54, live by the sea in North Tyneside and work in delivery logistics for a world-famous auction house, having taken redundancy at Easter 2018 from a 30-year career as a Literature lecturer, predominantly in adult education, that deteriorated from being the centre of my life to a cause of great distress and fury, as education cuts bit harder every year, making the job impossible and the FE sector unfit for purpose. I’m father to Ben who has just completed an MA in 20^th Century Social History, with a dissertation on the Manchester Music Scene from the Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall to the closure of The Hacienda, and partner to Laura, who is the guardian angel for all coastal cats for miles around. Culturally, as my family came from County Cork, I regard my ethnicity as Irish, which is of enormous importance to me.

My sporting interests are focussed on my beloved Newcastle Benfield of Northern League Division 1, whose programme I edit and my beloved Tynemouth Cricket Club, for whose recreational scion I still attempt to bowl leg spin. Additionally, I adore Hibernian FC and have done since 1972, as well as holding great affection for Bohemian (Dublin), Petrzalka (Bratislava) and Athletic Club (Bilbao).  Other important factors include my ultra-left politics (I’m a supporter of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and all companion parties in the World Socialism Movement), Real Ale and Craft Ale (whether that be Bass in my local, the Tynemouth Lodge or anything interesting in any of Newcastle’s brilliant selection of pubs, tap rooms and bottle shops) and indie and folk music, from Teenage Fanclub to Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Fairport Convention to Seosamh Ó hÉanaí. Finally, I used to love Newcastle United until all those bad things happened to the ownership, the management, the players and the support.

2.)  You have been a prolific published writer for some years now. How and when did you first start writing? Did you always want to write about football, and how did you come to be involved in the fanzine movement?

I’ve been a writer, of some description or other, since my early teenage years. Initially it was song lyrics for a series of terrible bands that I failed to adequately play bass for, or distressingly pretentious poetry. However, at the end of the 70s, having fallen head over heels in love with the magnificent variety of bands who emerged during the post punk scene on Rough Trade, Fast Product and then Postcard Records, I sought to express my thoughts, mainly in terms of reviews, in a series of samizdat music fanzines. My words were repetitive, derivative and imprecise, but I learned to hone my craft, producing pieces worthy of reading by the time I went to University, where I inflicted my unwonted and unwanted opinions on my peers in the pages of Leeds Student, edited at the time by Jay Rayner, son of Clare, and now The Observer’s food critic.

Arriving back in Newcastle in 1988, I lucked upon 2 emerging publications; Paint It Red, a music magazine I wrote for during the entire decade of its existence and The Mag, Newcastle United’s first fanzine, which showcased my opinions until 2004, when I moved on to Toon Talk. The idea of ordinary fans writing about football had never been possible before the end of the 80s; unlike now when the internet is an extensive resource for badly written, poorly punctuated and inadequately edited opinion pieces from the over-inflated egos of cyber non-entities, there simply weren’t any places to get published. Certainly, it was also the case in Newcastle that blokes, and it was almost entirely blokes back then, made a choice to either music or football fans as teenagers. You didn’t see punks or hippies on the terraces and gigs weren’t akin to an afternoon on the Gallowgate or Leazes End. Music always had both a mainstream and marginal printed presence, but football lacked any true independent voices.

This is why the football fanzine movement was incredibly empowering, allowing normal, everyday fans to express cogent opinions. I’d never previously harboured ambitions to write about the game, as there had been no possible vehicle for my thoughts, but once fanzines gave fans a voice, mine became louder than many others. Democracy was a key watchword in the early days and all attitudes were possible and publishable. Certainly, this open access resource appealed to my belief system, grounded in the impossibilist position of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, who eschew any truck with leaders or hierarchical structures; standpoints are established by debate and consensus, with every participant viewed as of equal value. For a brief period, fanzines were a real and sincere republique des lettres that I sought to find a role in. I wrote articles, then posted them to a huge array of fanzines from any and every club in the late 80s and early to mid-90s.  Almost always they published my stuff, sent me a copy and often asked me to contribute another piece. Through this I even ended up being asked (and paid!!) to write stuff for When Saturday Comes, The Guardian and The Independent. When the internet brought message boards and web sites that offered further democracy and instant opinions, fanzines died in the main. Sadly, the anonymous keyboard warriors brought about the destruction of reasoned debate, as loud, braying ignorance became the default position of so many participants. However, we were lucky to still have printed magazines up north, meaning I kept writing for Newcastle United’s Toon Talk until 2014 and then launched The Popular Side that I edited for 14 issues over 3 seasons, until we decided we’d said all we could about the club.

3.)  Who are your favourite writers both in terms of influencing you growing up, and more specifically in the world of football fanzines?

As well as declaiming my opinions about football, cricket, music, politics and beer in print and on my blog (http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/ ), I am also a writer of fiction, which isn’t that surprising for a Literature lecturer I suppose. I currently edit the literary magazine glove (@glovelitzine), which is as important an outlet for me as the football writing which, if I’m totally honest, still makes up the vast majority of my output. The first writers I loved were Camus, Kafka and Sartre, for the subtlety of expression and complexity of thought behind their words. I moved on to devouring James Joyce, Flann O’Brien and Brendan Behan; luxuriating in the intellectual depth and detailed examination of the Irish cultural experience at home and among the diaspora that I am proud to belong to. My attitude to England and Britishness is a hostile, negative one; few English writers, other than my brilliant pal David Peace and the eccentric genius Magnus Mills, appeal to me.  At University, Bukowski, Ellroy, Kerouac, Cormac McCarthy and all manner of other deadbeats, drop-outs and dope fiends stole my heart away forever; hence my MA in 20th Century American Fiction. The hard-boiled, spare, terse style of Ellroy and the grandiloquent, florid mode adopted by McCarthy have parity of esteem and levels of plagiarism in my work. Also, I always write my name in lower case as a homage to ee cummings.

As regards football writers; the likes of Frank McGhee, Mike Langley, Charlie Summerbell and Arthur Appleton who wrote articles in the old fella’s Daily Mirror, back in the early 70s when it was a quasi-socialist paper that didn’t treat readers like cattle, showed football was more interesting when you considered the sociological angle rather than focusing on statistics. These writers didn’t talk tactics; they told stories about people, places, grounds and training grounds. It was brutal poetry, reeking of liniment and thwarted ambition. I graduated from them, via Arthur Hopcraft’s seminal The Football Man, to reading Brian Glanville; I didn’t always agree, and I often didn’t understand him, but he made me think, which I believe to be the most important duty of any writer. If you can’t engage the reader’s brain, keep your mouth shut. I’m not talking about the capricious shock troops on line, in tabloids or on radio, I’m talking about proper, thoughtful, perceptive football writers, like the wonderful Paddy Barclay, whose nuanced opinions baffle the belligerent. In terms of fanzines, George Culkin from The Times is my favourite football journalist; he started by writing for The Mag when he was 14, I’m delighted to note. I must say that all fanzine writers should be regarded as of equal value; we should be a democratic, egalitarian, broad church, where all views are sought and respected.

4.)  Do you ever feel that your personal values and lifestyle are at odds with the often vain and fashion centric ‘fanscene’ community? Ever feel slightly at odds with the subculture in which you are so prolific?

Excellent question. I used to stand on the Gallowgate in the 80s in a long overcoat, Unknown Pleasures badge on the lapel, Dennis the Menace style wooly jumper, combat strides and paint spattered DM boots. To one side, the Lacoste and Tacchini bona drag popinjays, dressed as if on their way to the All England club, sneered at my deportment, while on the other moustachioed headcases in NCB donkey jackets and Wranglers viewed me with equal contempt. It didn’t bother me. I’ve never tried to fit in because I’ve never wanted to fit in. As I’ve said, I want to make people think and part of that is questioning whether the widespread tendency towards apolitical commodity fetishism is a defensible course of action for a football fan, especially when late capitalism is falling apart. For me spending £400 on a Stone Island blouse to sashay up to St James Park, ignoring the volunteers collecting for the NUFC Food Bank other than to make snide comments about their footwear on Twitter, is the kind of behaviour that should see your head on a spike.

5.)  Your writing is often unflinchingly honest, and occasionally makes for uncomfortable reading in terms of subject matter. How much poetic licence do you like to sprinkle over your work?

Another excellent question. I would say there are a couple of competing dynamics at work in my writing. Firstly, I’ve never put my name to a piece of writing that includes opinions I don’t actually hold, and I never would. That said, some of the ways in which I express myself are cases of gilding the lily. Some element of dramatic licence, or exaggeration, may be deemed necessary to get the point across. Also, when I use my life and experiences for illustrative reasons, this is not done gratuitously; it is done because that is how I remember and interpret the narrative of my life. Some people who are part of this narrative will interpret the events in question very differently and that’s the case whether we’re talking about my childhood family traumas or the conduct of the self-mythologising NUFC super fans with the on-line merchandising operations that take the eyes out of weak fools with more money than sense.

6.)  Do you love football? How has the commercial development of the game impacted on your relationship with the sport?

Oh, I dearly love the game, whether watching or playing. The simple beauty and immediacy of emotions can never be replicated, though I adore cricket even more. Cricket is poetry and football is prose, it seems to me. I must admit the endless, rampant commercialism has sickened me of the professional game. While I appreciate Manchester City and their ilk play a stunning version of the sport I grew up with, equal only to my dim memories of Brazil 70, Holland 74 or Keegan’s NUFC, I know they are a ridiculous construct. Major clubs are buoyant on the back of bloodstained petrodollars that support the continued existence and spectacular achievements of monolithic corporations with the turnover of a small European country. Meanwhile, the grassroots game is on the bones of its arse; Benfield play our home games in front of 150 or so. Within a mile radius, three or four pubs each have that many punters in them on any given Saturday afternoon, glugging cooking lager and watching sluggish streams of Burnley v Fulham, or some other game they have no emotional investment in. That sort of passive consumerism really does disgust me.

7.)  Premiership match day or a non-league game?

As my beloved Benfield are non-league, that is where my heart is. Also, I am chair of the Tyneside Amateur League, which operates at Tier 15 of the English football pyramid, so you’ll understand where I’m coming from. That said, I’m thinking of going to Newcastle v Wolves, which has been declared a game to boycott by the super fan hotheads who’ve elected themselves to non-existent roles of supporter supremos, as it is on a Sunday, purely to boo Benitez, who I think is an absolute con artist, phoning it in while reversing the charges and doing anything to avoid any of the blame falling on him.

8.)  Music appears to be a huge part of your life. Care to talk to us a little about your main interests in this area?

The question I alluded to before, about expressing a preference for either music or football is not one I’ve ever been able to answer with any certainty at any point in my life. I was brought up on my dad’s collection of The Dubliners and The Clancy Brothers. From there I discovered Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Lindisfarne in my pre-teenage years. Post-punk happened when I was 13 and it changed my life, as other than Wire or The Buzzcocks, punk left me cold as it sounded like speeded-up glam rock. I’ve spent my life listening to anything and everything, but with a gun against my head, I’d say Teenage Fanclub are the greatest band of all time, with The Wedding Present, British Sea Power, Dinosaur Jr, Shellac, Trembling Bells and Godspeed You! Black Emperor up there as well. However, the eccentric love I have for late 60s / early 70s folk and prog rock is an utterly guilt-free pleasure. I love dub, free jazz and anything fairly extreme. I hate dad rock, lad rock, AOR rock and stadium rock. Not keen on dance or electronica either. Other than news, football and the odd documentary, I don’t watch telly; I listen to music instead.

9.)  Your piece in the last issue of The Football Pink (issue #21) entitled Away Is Where the Heart Is was a fascinating and engaging piece of nostalgia. The piece felt a lot warmer than much of your output. Is it fair to say that your writing is often quite spiky with regards to its tone?

I’ve touched on this before. I believe my responsibility is to make people think, which is why I adopt a provocative tone, when appropriate. If the reader becomes angry and wants to argue with me, brilliant! That’s exactly what I want; the real enemy of ordinary people is slothful, indolent thought and inaction. Of course, when I’m in a reactive mood, it is because I can forgive ignorance, because not everyone can know everything, but I can’t forgive stupidity; woolly thinking, logical imprecisions, arrogant solipsism and all other kinds of indefensible solecisms need to be met head on, with brute, intellectual force.  I’d love to be more nostalgic, but there are so many things wrong with the world that I need to make people aware of that I simply don’t have time to develop my softer side. Interestingly, in my fiction, those short pieces where I’ve explored a gentler, more affectionate tone, have proved to be popular. Perhaps I should read them to DFLA members rather than correcting their appalling grammar and bare faced lies on social media.

10.)How angry is Ian Cusack?

In all honesty, unless I think of how dismal our world has become (Food Banks, Brexit, Poppy Fascism and all other manifestations of authoritarian populism), I am as blissfully happy as I’ve ever been in my life. Just give me a subject, word count and deadline and I’ll be your pal forever.

Orban Hymns

When UEFA decided on the pre-qualification standings of their 55 member countries as the 2018/2019 Nations League got underway, Hungary were in the third tier; ostensibly the 25th best outfit in Europe. Now qualification is over, Hungary have finished joint 29th and will remain in the third level. Once upon a time, they were arguably the best in the world -:

It’s not an accolade that any civilised country would be proud of winning, but the current joint frontrunners for the shameful award of the European Union’s Most Xenophobic and Intolerant Government are Britain and Hungary. You couldn’t get a cigarette paper between the two of them for endemic, institutional racism, damaging, populist political rhetoric and the complicity of a supine media in disseminating their poisonous hate speech. Of course, the Doomsday Scenario of Brexit, of whatever grotesque variety, will eventually hand the prize for being the continent’s most rabid, ultra-right wing demagogue to the loathsome Viktor Orbán, de facto eternal leader of the fascistic Fidesz party that enjoys unquestioned dominion from Mosonmagyaróvár, athwart the banks of the Danube in the north west to Nyíregyháza near the Romanian border, by way of Székesfehérvár on the shores of Lake Balaton.

To understand the prevailing nationalistic ideology at large in Britain, which in this instance means England of course, and Hungary, one only needs a cursory glance at history. Both Britain, the island race who have repelled all invaders since 1066 and once boasted an empire that covered half the globe, and Hungary, known mostly by the grand title of  Magyar Szent Korona Országai (The Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown) that covered central Europe from the Dalmatian coast to the Ukranian border for almost the entire period between 1000 and 1920, have instinctively developed a kind of national pride that is based on historical mythology, perceived superiority and distinct cultural differences to the lands that surround. Both countries played the role of imperialist oppressors with brutal, regal flair and both proselytise an indigenous culture that is based on an irrefutable belief in the value of their language. Without doubt, English is the world language; of business and of finance. Unquestionably, Hungarian is the polar opposite; an isolated member of the Uralic language family, it has little in common with any other Indo-European language, living or dead. This “otherness” and separation is part of what fuels the Hungarian belief as to the nation’s supposed special position among their neighbours. Hungarians believe they are better than anyone else and, undoubtedly, this was true of the Hungarian football team during the first half of the 1950s, but let’s start at the beginning.

After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 restored the traditional status (both legal and political) of the Hungarian state, which was lost after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the lands of the House of Habsburg were reorganized as a real union between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, headed by a single monarch who reigned as Emperor of Austria, and as King of Hungary. The Cisleithanian (Austrian) and Transleithanian (Hungarian) states were governed by separate parliaments and prime ministers.  This version of Hungary, which would be vastly reduced following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, following the Treaty of the Trianon at the end of World War I, included Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Slovakia, was in existence when the Hungarian Football League (Nemzeti Bajnokság) was established at the start of the twentieth century.

Paradoxically, despite the extensive borders of the Hungarian state, the early competition was restricted to teams from Budapest. While relatively minor clubs from the capital, such as Csepel and Vasas, have retained membership for over a century, with only the occasional success to break up decades of monotonous underachievement, the dominant teams have been: Ferencváros (29 titles), MTK (Magyar Testgyakorlók Köre) Budapest (23 titles), who shared every championship until the emergence of Újpest (20 titles) at the start of the 1930s and the celebrated Honvéd (14 titles), who made their mark after World War 2, until the events of 1956 stopped Hungarian football in its tracks.

On the international stage, Hungary competed in the second World Cup in 1934, but exited in the second round to Austria of all teams. However, the 1938 tournament in France proved to be something of a milestone in the development of a side who prided themselves on uncompromising, all-out attack. They beat the Dutch East Indies 6-0, Switzerland 2-0 and Sweden, in the semi-final, 5-1 to set up a clash with holders Italy. The Azzurri proved too strong and claimed the Jules Rimet with a 4-2 victory. Such unexpected progress instilled a sense of patriotic belief in the innate strength of Hungarian football. Of course, Europe was plunged into the cataclysmic horrors of World War 2 only a year later, during which period Hungary’s leader Miklós Horthy kept the country ostensibly neutral, though displaying a clear preference for Nazi Germany to Bolshevik Russia if a neighbouring militaristic behemoth were to effect occupation.

The first tournament in which Hungary took part after peace returned was the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, where the Magnificent Magyars strolled to the gold medal. Centred around the dynamic and potent quartet of Ferenc Puskás, Sándor Kocsis, József Bozsik and deep-lying striker Nándor Hidegkuti, the Aranycsapat or "Golden Team" as they were known at home, stole the hearts of football followers in a way comparable to the popularity among neutrals of Brazil 70, Holland 74 and Keegan’s Entertainers in later years.  In November 1953, they became the first foreign side to win at Wembley, trouncing England 6-3, with Puskás and Hidgekuti simply unplayable. If that result wasn’t bad enough, words could not adequately convey the humiliation afforded by the return game in May 1954, when the home side inflicted England’s worst ever defeat, running out 7-1 winners. Truly they were Magnificent Magyars, as shown by how from May 1950 to February 1956, Hungary played 50 games, with a record of 43 victories, 6 draws, and 1 defeat. That solitary defeat was the 1954 World Cup Final where West Germany upset the form book and came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2, made all the more remarkable by the fact Hungary had beaten them 8-3 in a group game earlier in the tournament.

This stunning loss did not dilute their popularity and a legendary friendly between Wolves and Honved was held under lights at Molineux in December 1954 in front of a sell-out 55,000 crowd, while being simultaneously broadcast live on the BBC. The home side’s manager Stan Cullis lost the run of himself in the excitement of a 3-2 win, proclaiming Wolves to be “Champions of the World.” He may have been caught up in the intoxicating drama of the night, but Cullis accurately showed the hold the Aranycsapat had on the collective footballing imagination. And then, 1956 came along and everything changed.

On 23 October 1956, a student demonstration outside the state broadcasting authority in Budapest turned violent. The hated secret police Állam Védelmi Hatóság attacked the peaceful protestors, resulting in the death of one of the demonstrators. News of this outrage spread, and riotous disorder became common, firstly in Budapest and then across the whole country. The situation was anarchic, and the government fell. Radical impromptu workers' councils wrested municipal control and demanded political changes. A new government formally declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped, and a sense of normality began to return, though this would prove illusory. Soviet tanks inevitably rolled into Hungary on 4 November and within a week had retaken control.

Brutal repression followed swiftly; executions, exile and imprisonment were the watchwords of the state apparatus. Sport was irrelevant. Honved led the Nemzeti Bajnokság when the Uprising began, though the championship did not resume and was never completed. For the national side, the repercussions would be catastrophic. Though they qualified for the 1958 World Cup, they were eliminated at the end of the first stage by Wales. Immediately afterwards, Puskas and Kocsis emigrated to Spain, playing for Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, while Hidgekuti went to Italy, signing for Fiorentina. With the guts ripped out of the Magnificent Magyars, Hungary needed to build again. Happily, a young side claimed the Bronze medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome and a mature version of the same squad took gold in Tokyo in 1964, as well as finishing third in the European Championships, before retaining their Olympic title in Mexico City in 1968. However, it should be noted that at this time, only so-called “amateur” players were allowed to participate in Olympic football, meaning that the overwhelming majority of Western European and South American countries declined to participate.

In the World Cup, a respectable quarter final exit in Chile in 1962 was followed by a trip to England in 1966. By this time there was another Magnificent Magyar on the scene; Flórián Albert, the elegant forward from Ferencvaros who was voted European Player of the Year in 1967 and scored 255 goals in his 351-game career. Sadly, his skills weren’t enough to guide Hungary to the business end of the tournament and they lost to Russia, of all teams, at Roker Park, of all places, in the last 8. They failed to qualify for the 1970 and 1974 finals, returning for Argentina in 1978, losing all three group games to the intimidating trio of Argentina, France and Italy. All this disappointment was forgotten when they beat El Salvador 10-1 in the opening match in Spain four years later. Almost incredibly, their subsequent 4-1 loss to Argentina and a draw with Belgium meant they were eliminated on goal difference.

Hungary’s final appearance in a World Cup was 1986 in Mexico. Things began optimistically with a 2-0 win over Canada, but a 3-0 loss to France and a 6-0 pummelling by Russia sent them home. Many Hungarian commentators point to that latter game as the definitive end of Hungary as a credible force in the European game. Certainly, a single, unconvincing appearance at the 2016 European Championships where they exited in the last 16, does not indicate the Magyars will be a significant presence at international level in the immediate future.

Domestically and internationally, the 1990s proved to be the worst decade for Hungarian football. In 1996, Hungary fell to 87^th in the FIFA World Rankings. Simultaneously, the fall of the Hungarian regime at the start of the 1990s caused financial problems for many Hungarian clubs. Formerly successful outfits like Ferencváros, whose 1965 Fairs Cup victory is the only success by a Hungarian club in European competition and Újpest, whose 1969 loss to Newcastle United provided the Magpies with their last trophy, faced financial crisis and potential bankruptcy, partially as a result of the abolition of state funding and partly on account of the Bosman ruling that denuded them of their star players, such as they were at the time. Twenty years on from a return to free market capitalism, Hungarian football remains in the doldrums, with no realistic prospect of imminent rejuvenation.

Britain and Hungary may share similar odious political trends and social attitudes, but at least British football can put a smile on everyone’s face, despite the worst efforts of the Democratic Football Lads Alliance, or whatever they call themselves.

Half Mast Flags

For this week’s blog, I was initially going to look at the situations involving the deplorable, institutional anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic prejudice endured by Neil Lennon and James McClean, two of the finest and most principled men in professional football, but the very thought about having to read through the screeds of cyber bile directed at either or both of them for the purpose of research, was simply too depressing. Suffice to say, they both have my unstinting support and eternal admiration.

Instead, it’s time to get cultural, as I’ve not talked about music and books for ages now. We can deal with the books I’ve read fairly quickly, as I’ve only managed the entertaining if lightweight 500 Notable Cricket Quotations by Irving Rosenwater these past few months. It’s worth looking out for, as it’s typical of the legendary curmudgeon who compiled it that the sources are generally ephemeral and the contributors often at the arcane end of obscurity, with a great emphasis on pre-World War 2 utterances. As they supposedly came from newspapers, magazines and broadcasts from back in the day, it’s a fair bet Rosenwater made them all up, which would make the book even better.

Moving on to music then, I’m still in a state of shock that Trembling Bells and the Band of Holy Joy, both of whom set the heather blazing in front of my eyes as recently as July, have called it a day. While there appears to have been a slight rowing back from BoHJ as regards their imminent dissolution, it’s a certainty that Johny Brown will soon reappear with a new project, either solo or with others, as he has done so many times before, I wonder just what will happen with Trembling Bells. It was Lavinia who called it a day, as she’s concentrating on both a solo album and her new band Stilton, with fiancé Marco Rea and fellow Wellgreen Stu Kidd, not to mention her teaching career. Alasdair and Mike’s plans I’m unsure of, but Simon has been busy putting the final touches to the Youth of America album that will undoubtedly be one of the first milestones of 2019. As ever, they all seem layabouts compared to Alex Neilson, who already has 2 further solo albums in the bag; early next year will see the launch of his Otterburn release.

Additionally, the boy Neilson toured as part of a Will Oldham tribute act, Three Queens in Mourning, with the monstrously gifted troubadour Alasdair Roberts and the stunning strumming skills of Jill O’Sullivan (Ni Shuilleabhain), landing up at the new Star & Shadow in October. From the glorious opening seconds of I See a Darkness to the climactic, emotional Ohio River Boat Song, it was a pleasure and an honour to be in their company. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Oldham live, but this homage to the great songsmith was a rare treat and I’m delighted to see the set has subsequently been set down in the studio for future release. I did leave the gig with a pair of mementos, in the shape of Alasdair’s 2017 album Pangs and 2018’s What News? The former is a collection of self-penned material in a traditional style and the latter is a series of traditional ballads, fashioned in a distinctly untraditional way.

Pangs boasts bleak austere ballads, with a full band that combines cello, fiddle and flute with bass, drums, courtesy of the Leeds and Govan Polymath, and howling electric guitar. Roberts’s baroque melodies and scrupulous lyrics, boasting dense imagery, internal rhymes compels the group to storm through The Angry Laughing God and The Downward Road, though, quieter observational pieces like Scarce of Fishing and the reflective Vespers Chime, are delivered with Roberts’s trademark sharp, stentorian brogue.

In contrast, What News? is a collaboration with early music scholar David McGuinness and electronic composer Amble Skuse. It is Roberts’ fourth album of entirely traditional material, though a mainly gentle proposition as the main instruments are a 19th-century piano and a fragile 1920s dulcitone (a keyboard instrument in which tuning forks on the inside are rung by gently pressed keys). The dulcitone sets off the tenderness in Roberts’ beautifully unworldly voice well, particularly on Rosie Anderson, in which a “gentle man as ever lived on earth” sees his wife kissing another. Skuse’s laptop textures offer slow-burning, elemental accompaniment throughout: flutters and clicks in The Dun Broon Bride, watery bubbles in Babylon, and falling rain in the beautiful closer, Long A-Growing, in which the grass keeps on lengthening in life as well as in death, on a take that rivals even Liam Clancy’s stunning early 60s reading of the song. The most beautiful album of the year, other than the tiresome epic Clerk Colven which is strictly for purists.

The new Star & Shadow is a real winner of a venue; it avoids issues of invisibile performers that bedevil The Cluny and doesn’t seem likely to spontaneously combust, unlike the original location opposite The Tanners. Having almost fainted in the sweatbox atmosphere of The Cluny watching Michael Head in July, it was no better a deal when my mate Polly took me to see Willy Mason at the back end of September. I’m no midget, but it always seems I ended up behind body doubles for the Harlem Globetrotters at gigs. Mason is a singer songwriter I’d not come across before and, with Polly’s missus attending Kyle Minogue at The Arena, I volunteered to take her place at this one. It was an evening of pleasant Americana, with Mason’s two hit singles Oxygen and So Long garnering the most positive reaction from a very healthy attendance. I just left frustrated at the fact I’d only heard him sing, not seen him play. To be honest, it may well take something extra special to get me back to this venue again, unlike The Star & Shadow which is an absolute palace for live music.

We first visited back in August, when The Vaselines, fresh from an Edinburgh Festival show with The Pastels and Linton Kwesi Johnson, put in an appearance. Lovely and lovable as ever, a call and response set of greatest non-hits, from Molly’s Lips to I Hate the 80s and an anthemic, essential Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam had the crowd eating from the palm of their hands all gig long. It was a lovely, pervy, cutesy night, with Eugene and Frances on top form, complemented by a sensitive pick up band.

Unfortunately, the quality of a venue sometimes fails to raise the performers from the mediocre. Initially, the concept of Brix & The Extricated was one that did not appeal; I’ve never seen the point of Fall cover or tribute acts, as the unique nature of Smith’s delivery was often the thing that made the band so compelling, at least until about 2000. That said, Steve Hanley is one of the best bass players of all time, his brother is a damn fine drummer and Brix, during her first stint, was involved in some of The Fall’s finest records. Unfortunately, their previous visit to Newcastle, when all they played were Fall songs, went under my radar and I didn’t get to hear about it until weeks later. Apparently, it was a stunning night. Consequently, I insisted on going to this one.

What can I say? A Friday night after work, in the company of a couple of eager pals, Polly and David, open eared music aficionados both, but it simply didn’t take off. Three Fall songs, Guest Informant, Glam Racket (I’d forgotten how simply superb it was) and Totally Wired were the undoubted highlights; not just for me, but for the band as well. The Hanley Brothers are still one of the best value rhythm sections going and Brix, despite resembling Mo Mowlam in a fright wig these days, is a compelling frontwoman. Obviously, the new material isn’t as strong as The Fall stuff, but it isn’t terrible. Sadly, the rehashed Adult Net songs are an absolute load of dross; twee mid-90s pop that wasn’t worth listening to the first time and certainly utterly unsuited to being rehashed twenty years on. Too many lame fillers let the performance sag. I had a good night and I’m glad I’ve seen them, but I can safely say I’ve no interest in Brix and The Extricated going forward.

Looking forwards, another band with a female singer who have grabbed my attention are L Space, the delightful quasi electronic dream pop outfit I saw in Falkirk back in June. At the time, I promised I’d get a copy of their album Kipple Arcadia when it came out and so I did. The undoubted highlight is opening number, Home Sweet Home. Singer Lily Higham’s ethereal phrasing acts a soaring counterpoint to bassist Dickson Telfer’s 70s dub style pulsebeat. The whole album is akin to being washed over by synth waves of sheer sophistication; it could be the late 70s or 50 years from now. Krautrock and Mogwai are better reference points than lame comparisons with Goldfrapp or a cheerful Portishead. An immensely impressive and profound debut that hints at greatness to come in the future.

Going backwards, I got hold of a couple of releases on Overground I’d been promising myself for years. Swell Maps were one of my favourite bands in the 1978 to 1980 period; behind the silly names and daft lyrics were a collection of driving, three chord, off kilter epics. The singles they released from Dresden Style to Let’s Build A Car were some of the strongest work on Rough Trade in that period. Even better were the daft b-sides, generally comprising bedroom records from as early as 1975; either surreal attempts at acoustic songs or sprawling improvisations that were akin to free jazz without the brass section. Wastrels and Whippersnappers is a solid collection of these lost fragments of inspired insanity, from the days before the band emerged in public. As you’d imagine the sound quality is muddy at best and certain of the more meandering exercises don’t really go anywhere, but early takes on Dresden Style, Full Moon and especially Harmony in Your Bathroom make this worth the price of admission, along with the more experimental and, frankly, daft bits of esoterica that also appear. The really sad thing about Swell Maps is that the early, untimely deaths of Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks mean there will never be a late payday for this band from the nostalgia punk set. It is time for a proper reappraisal of what these West Midlands Dadaists actually achieved.

My other purchase was the even more obscure and utterly cacophonous Detailed Twang by The Door and The Window. Initially a duo of non-musicians whose art was based on abusing instruments to make a hideous din, The Door and The Window’s debut single contained 4 dollops of atonal yammering, with the second side an absolute delight, containing their undoubted career highlights; Don’t Kill Colin and Worst Band, in which they admitted to being “worse than The Skids.” This latter track is revisited on Detailed Twang, by which time they’d grown to a trio with the addition of Mark Perry, fresh from the savaging his Vibing up the Senile Man Alternative TV offshoot under the name The Good Missionaries had endured in the music press. Perry brought fresh ideas and a synth he’d apparently found in a bin, which allowed The Door and The Window to get even more challenging. Indeed, highlights such as Dads and the cathartic He Feels Like a Doris are a fairly punishing listen. In truth, it doesn’t have the immediacy of the first, long-unavailable EP, but I’m very glad to have something by them in my collection.

I was also immensely glad to have seen Teenage Fanclub perform Bandwagonesque and Thirteen at the Barrowlands at the end of October, especially as I was with Ben for this one. When the tickets went on sale for the 4 sets of 3 nights, with Grand Prix and Songs from Northern Britain making up the second night and Howdy plus a collection of b-sides for the final evening, it was when I was at my most impecunious; I simply couldn’t afford tickets and I’ll regret the fact I was unable to see all 3 evenings forever. The news that Gerry Love would be leaving the band after these dates, because of his reluctance to tour, made these evenings even more poignant. Circumstances helped me; the tragic fire at the Glasgow School of Art meant the ABC, originally slated as the venue, was out of commission. Hence, the shows were moved to Barras, resulting in more tickets, with everything shunted back a night as Sleaford Mods (precisely…) were playing there on the intended first night. My dear friend Peter could no longer make the gigs and I took the Monday one from him, got one of the newly released ones for Ben, booked a hotel so far up the West End I thought I was in Oban and purchased the train tickets.

Monday afternoon we journeyed to Glasgow. Bags dropped in the hotel, we headed for a bite to eat in the Thirteenth Note and then to Mono to meet the gang: Macca, Terje, Ruthie, Janet, Kerry, Mickey; all those wonderful people I’ve met far too infrequently over the years at Fannies gigs. We drank beer and caught up, before heading to the Barras for the gig. Sold out, of course.

I’d seen Bandwagonesque performed twice before; at the Kentish Town Forum in July 1996 and at this iconic venue in September of that year. Undoubtedly, it is their spiritual home; a marvellous, atmospheric amphitheatre ideal for the best fucking band in the world. In the first half, Guiding Star and Is This Music? were the absolute show-stoppers; chiming guitars and the perfect balance of lightness and depth. Goodness knows how they’ll cope without Gerry; presumably Dave will get an even harder paper round.

Thirteen is my favourite TFC album; that opening salvo of Hang On, The Cabbage, Radio, Norman 3 and Song to the Cynic are unbeaten by any record I know of. Those hidden gems Escher and Tears Are Cool deserve plaudits too, but what more appropriate song than the incomparable Gene Clark could mark the passing of the latest phase in the career of a band I love so much? Teenage Fanclub are simply beyond criticism; everything they do is perfect to my ears. How I hope this next phase continues to do their name justice.

That is not something I worry about when I think of British Sea Power. Saturday 10^th November at the Boilershop was my ninth time of seeing them at 8 different venues; 5 gigs and 5 places for Ben. Talking, as we were, about superb openings, how about an opening trio of first singles from successive albums, in the shape of Machineries of Joy, Who’s in Control? and Bad Bohemian. Typical of BSP, the mood changed with 4 new numbers in a row. Soon the atmosphere was cranked back up with Remember Me and No Lucifer, heralding the arrival of Ursos Actis and Bi-Polar Bear. Sometimes British Sea Power gigs are more like a family wedding, but in a good sense; everyone dances and everyone leaves in a far happier frame of mind than when they arrived. The euphoric, anthemic closing Great Skua makes that compulsory. However, and I’ve said this before, the sheer joy of Waving Flags almost breaks my heart. It was released to celebrate the arrival of our friends from EU accession states. Nearly a decade and a half later it has turned into a positive anachronism; an emblem to lost days of social cohesion. Yes, it does break my heart.

Toad in the Shit Hole

Why should I let the toad work

Squat on my life?

Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork

And drive the brute off?

It’s interesting just how quickly one can recover from a seemingly intractable series of crippling body blows, which presumably proves just how resourceful a human being can be. When my financial situation, partly caused by David Caisley ripping me off to the tune of £500, became so critical that I was left with no option other than to end up at the Newcastle East End Foodbank, what struck me more than anything else were the uncaring and inflexible attitudes and attendant regulations that all sources of authority hide behind. There was neither compassion for nor interest in helping those unfortunate souls down on their luck. Indeed, and I can almost laugh about it now, the adamantine incompetence of the malfunctioning and moribund benefits system is designed to make the situation yet more intolerable for the miserable claimant.

The maximum amount of Universal Credit I was entitled to for the month of September was £406, though I could actually earn this amount and more, if I found work, as UC is alleged to have replaced Working Tax Credits and also you to supplement your earnings by a staggering 37p in the pound up to this ceiling figure. Hence, this is why I kept up a few, irregular shifts at the Cricket Club, though I was astonished to be told, without any explanation, I would only be receiving £124 UC on September 28^th. I immediately queried this amount, and on October 24^th, I was belatedly informed it was because I had apparently earned £306 for working the cricket club bar in September. In actual fact, as I immediately pointed out, I’d only actually earned £106. Eventually I had the response this had been a “transcription error” and it would be “addressed in due course;” no apologies, no sense of responsibility or contrition and, in early November, no payment of the money outstanding. I did get £61 for October though, which will hopefully be the last dealings I ever have with Byker Job Centre.

You see, I’m proud to say that since October 15^th, I have been gainfully employed in the noble profession of distribution and logistics sending emails and making calls to shipping companies, warehouse workers and the occasional punter. My employers are a moral entity; they won’t touch Nazi memorabilia, though people in the office aren’t sure how to react when I ask if I can have any Third Reich bits and bobs they’ve got lying around. Arbeit macht versklavt, as the saying goes. The job isn’t brain surgery and I’m rather enjoying having a role with £18k pay and only £18k of responsibilities, compared to being worked to death and emotionally blackmailed 24/7 in my last job; Tyne Met, not the Cricket Club for clarity. However, and I can’t stress this enough, while it is bloody tough being out of work, returning to employment after a significant break is no picnic either. Being awake, being alert, sitting or standing for long periods of time, even interacting with people; all of these are difficult to get used to when you’ve spent nigh on 10 months in the house every day, enjoying the solitude and peace of your own company.

The Sunday night insomnia and Monday morning panic before any working week, never mind a new job, we take as read. Affecting an entry through the dense fog of exhaled nicotine produced by the legion of smartphone addicts thronging the front door, building roll-ups as they focus intently on social media inanities, is literally an essential rite of passage. I’m actually worried my bike will develop emphysema as the sheds are such a popular smoking spot. The shit general induction that consists of an intellectual pygmy with Versace boxers peeping over the top of his low-slung strides reading badly written power point slides that fail to explain what we are doing here, or why, is compulsory in such situations. Everyone is counting down the minutes to home time by half nine, silently urging the digital display to creep round to 10.30 for break time, so we can measure out our new working lives in plastic coffee stirrers.

Unions aren’t recognised here, but a dress code is compulsory. I read it carefully, in conjunction with a contract of employment William Wilberforce would have regarded as coercive, on the bus after being sent home to get changed at 10.45 on my first morning. Apparently shorts, of any length, are unacceptable. Polo shirts are ok though, providing the logo isn’t too large. I immediately resolve to buy a pair of matching Ralph Lauren pink ones; shirt A with the tiny polo player on the breast pocket and shirt B with the life size one in the same spot, then spend all day surreptitiously changing between the two of them. That’s if I ever come back.

The harridan from HR who gives me a public coating in the lobby, after dragging me away from ostentatious kex’s second familiarisation session, simply doesn’t hear me when I repeatedly tell her nobody has informed me of this policy before I started. I mean, we all know what I’m like, but would I be so contrary as to flagrantly ignore the dress code on my very first day? Precisely. It’s an important lesson though; immediately showing the difference between the private and the public system. There are no workers’ rights in the private sector, as the bosses hold every ace going. Everything about the job is a scene from Kafka on my first morning. It’s only once I mention the fact, I’m covered by the Equality Act that she shuts up and takes notice, changing her tune to slightly more understanding as she gets a whiff of legal complaints about discrimination in her nostrils. It’s still 50/50 whether I return after I head out the door, but I do, after stealing a quick hour’s kip back in the house. Method in my madness; I want to miss the rest of posh pants’ peroration.

I have worked in office administration before. Back in November 1986, my dreams of a career in music or music journalism having been cast aside within 3 months of arriving in The Smoke, I took a Clerical Officer’s role with the grandly named British Academy in Canons Park, between Kingsbury and Stanmore where NW10 morphed into HA1, allowing the middle-class denizens of Harrow to cast disgusted glances at the fetid Socialist swamp at the bottom of the ludicrously named Honeypot Lane that was Ken Livingstone’s Brent. The job was laughably simple, though it did have a socially responsible purpose; administering the post-graduate student grant scheme that had turned me down for MA funding when I didn’t get a First that Summer. The  working environment was the real culture shock; stuck at a desk doing menial, laborious admin tasks by hand, surrounded by half a dozen posh kids from the burbs who’d arsed up their A levels, two elderly, Zionist widows working part time and a demonic boss who looked like a female version of the Bernard Manning puppet on Spitting Image. All we were empowered to do was sign a pair of templates: “thank you for your letter; the contents of which have been noted,” when someone changed address or “thank you for your letter; the contents of which are being attended to,” when someone asked a question. Within a month I was no longer signing them but putting an inky thumbprint from the date stamp pad in its place. By the time I left, 6 months later, I’d graduated to full footprints instead.

The only thing I learned in that job was the fact work is the loathsome practice of making those who tell us what to do even richer. It’s a lesson I should never have forgotten. For the last few years I entertained the thought that the real problem with employment was the farcical structure and business practices of Tyne Metropolitan College but remembering those far off days at the British Academy, the wasted decade in schools in South Tyneside and now this, it’s refreshingly clear the real problem lies with me. I am the advanced section of the anti-work class. I strongly avow the aspiration of poverty as a transitional demand. I was a founder member and the honorary treasurer of the Awkward Squad.

At least I got away early enough to play the weekly game of 6-a-side that first Monday, which was a minor victory at least. I almost surprised myself when I returned the next morning to join the snake of defeated losers tramping down from Four Lane Ends to their stupid pointless jobs, where they will be bullied, cajoled and demonised by stupid, pointless people, many of whom look and sound like Alan Barnes; inadequate sneaks with delusions of adequacy who are puffed up by the mistaken belief they have sufficient talent, skills and above all, power, to behave like  wannabe playground tyrants. Indeed, the whole ambience of the “business park” location is contiguous with a school, albeit one where all the hard lads and fit lasses have left, meaning we are in a pink and porcine dystopia where the fat, the ugly and the stupid are allowed to dominate social interactions. The work is mindless, repetitive and predominantly futile, meaning the easily bored and intellectually limited call centre delta boys and girls thrive on a steady diet of trans fat invented gossip and social media inanity. Every lunchtime there are several people, old enough to be parents and own property, crying in the canteen, masking the banal motivational quotations that besmirch each and every bare wall, because of something someone has supposedly said on WhatsApp.

A pair of bong-eyed, cleft palate cretins with ADHD, who we’ll call the Barnes and Barnes Fishwives, take a couple of hours off work to decorate the office for Halloween, as there’s a “charity” competition. Somehow, I’m supposed to learn the minutiae of my new role in this environment, where I’m working with as many shemales and drag queens as Andy Warhol did in The Factory. If this place had a theme song, it would be Walk on the Wild Side performed badly by Alvin and the Chipmunks. If it was a film, it would be Legally Blonde shot by Derek Jarman.  At the same time as I’m being patronised by a passive, aggressive grass who tries to pull non-existent rank and belittle me at every opportunity, pulling such tricks as logging me off the computer I was on as her pal wanted to sit there, my son is doing a similar job 2 miles to the east, but for a quid more an hour.  

Frankly, it took until the 9^th day before I stopped being tempted to walk out and go home at every break. The change in my attitude had little to do with familiarisation or learning the job, but everything to do with that first pay packet hitting my account; I was getting as much in a week as I was in a month with UC. All the 6 am alarm calls and packed metros, full of slovenly women applying make-up, using their iPhones as makeshift mirrors, are worth it when, for the first time in months, you can meet your obligations at the end of the month and enjoy a couple of well-earned pints on a Friday after graft. Looks like Phillip Larkin was right when he revised his thoughts about work after all -:

What else can I answer,

When the lights come on at four
At the end of another year?
Give me your arm, old toad;
Help me down Cemetery Road.