September Songs & Stories

Here's what I've been reading & listening to this last while -:

MUSIC:

In terms of live music, I’ve had quite a busy time of it since I last did one of these round ups, with 9 gigs at 8 different venues. The first and last of these featured the estimable duo of John Garner and John Pope in separate guises at contrasting locations. First of all, at the back end of July, John Garner curated a late Sunday matinee at Royal Quays Community Centre under the auspices of his Mudita Arts venture. First on were Shunyata alumni John and Martin Donkin, who have already released a couple of CDs, featuring their pastoral, improvised guitar and shakuhachi meanderings. This performance featured two beautiful, aesthetic pieces and a more jarring, discordant one. The essential difference between the Shunyata approach and John and Martin’s work is that the duo do discrete pieces based round a single idea, rather than long ones that evolve. This is their conscious decision, and I feel it works very well, as their almost telepathic understanding of each other’s intentions makes for satisfying, organic yet finite explorations in music. Next up, John Pope did a solo, improvised double bass set, which is always a treat. Sometimes he used 2 bows, sometimes 1 and sometimes none, as he relied upon plucked wizardry to coax incredible, rich and sonorous tones from his mighty instrument. Always a delight to see him, in whatever context. After a short set from Nick Reeves, the poetic barber of Cullercoats, the noise duo Scum performed. Unprepared music for unprepared ears. A droning caterwaul of violin and bowed, adapted guitar through many effects pedals. It’s the sort of thing I could do, no question about it. Then again, since I never get any gigs, you’ll just have to take my word for it. Finally, the entire cast, bar the departed poorly Pope, got together and did a more restrained ensemble piece that utilised Scum’s extremes, but reined them in slightly. John Garner was on violin this time and he helped focus the piece, as much of the Scum set didn’t really go anywhere. I enjoyed this, despite getting drenched on the way back to the Metro station.

While there, on account of John Garner’s need to divest himself of material goods before his temporary relocation to Bristol, I took the opportunity to raid the merch stall for a couple of his earlier works. A cassette of him in a fairly conventional angular, Krautrock band called Supwiye on a release called Bro from 2019 that I got quite a lot out of and a 2024 CD under the name Mainly Two, with violist Marie Schreer, entitled Outside the Mask that I found to be an excellent account of the kind of restrained yet expressive playing that John excels at. Unfortunately, I didn’t avail myself of the 2 Johns latest venture, in collaboration with poet Nisha Ramayya, New Ways of Moving in the Counterworlds when I saw them at Glass House Hall 2 on the last day of September, but I’ll put that right soon. This performance was one of those BBC Emerging events, in conjunction with the Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, being the only one of that estimable programme I got to see shamefully enough. The BBC link meant you had some joker in a baseball cap, who’d probably rather have been listening to Oasis, introducing each act, by imprecating the sparse audience of about 50 (it must cost a fortune to heat, light and staff this building when there isn’t a sold out event in Hall 1 to fill the coffers) to “give it up” like we were at Download Festival. Anyway, first on was the delightful piano improvisation of Helen Anahita Wilson, whose studied, calm performance took me all the way back to Eno’s Music for Airports, such was the richness of its melodic nature. I enjoyed it tremendously, despite the embarrassing delayed start, caused by some clown’s mobile phone ringing out just as she was about to begin, and rather more than the recorder, harp, voice and surfeit of electronic gadgetry of next duo Juliana Day and Manon McCoy. To be fair to them, things did improve later in the set when unaccompanied voice was introduced to the mix. Less is often more. The 2 Johns and Nisha Ramayya were stunning. The words added an extra level of meaning to the musical wizardry. John Pope with a 6-string electric bass was a sight and sound to behold. Even better, Martin gave me a lift home.

If Glass House (I still call it the Sage most of the time) Hall 2 is a very familiar venue for me, it was good to get out of the comfort zone and head to Durham, for the first of 3 performances at 3 different venues that I’m about to describe, to Leonard’s Coffee Bar, athwart the river in the Ile de la Cite of Durham, to hear Ukrainian fingerstyle guitar virtuoso Maxim Yaruskin as part of the Durham Fringe Festival. I’d heard of the Durham Fringe Festival but didn’t really have a handle on it. Turns out it’s a 4 day celebration of music, theatre, comedy, dance and magic at a whole range of venues I’d never visited before. In fact, I think the last gig I’d been to in Durham was Marc Riley and The Creepers at the University Union, supported by a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, in June 1985. It wasn’t like that this time. Resident in Bowburn, Yarushkin has not as yet released any material, but keep your eyes open for when he does. Wholly instrumental, unaccompanied and switching between acoustic and electric, he played an hour of his own compositions, enlivened with some genuinely witty between songs patter. If you like John Fahey or Leo Kottke, Maxim is the man for you. A true, undiscovered talent with incredible technique. Numbers such as The Body, Before the Iron Bridge and Sand Walls drew warm applause from a deeply appreciative audience. A really enjoyable and unexpected treasure.

On my birthday, Tuesday August 11^th, I’d vaguely planned a drink around the craft ale bars of Shields, but instead I ended up on familiar territory at Cluny 2 to see the American singer / songwriter Andrea Van Kampen. I’d not heard of her before but, like Maxim Yarushkin, I was happy to be guided by Shelley’s instinct for finding new and interesting acts for us to see. The positive aspect was it was at Cluny 2, so at least I’d be able to see the artist, rather than looking over my shoulder, perched on a set of stairs at 90 degrees to the stage in the building next door. What we got was a healthy dose of lefty, liberal acoustic feminist Americana. Van Kampen was a great presence on stage and performed a superb Times’s They are a Changin’, as well as a fine rewrite of Wild Mountain Thyme, so you know the territory we were in. Statuesque in height, warm in demeanour and unafraid to play marching band style kazoo to augment her delicate finger picking style, she charmed and captivated the audience for an hour, making my 62^nd birthday one to remember. I’d see her again if she ever played these parts in the future.

As an aside, I’m sadly finding that I’m losing touch with my old heroes from Trembling Bells. I missed Mike when he was last here with Helicon, though I note they’re back next February. I also didn’t catch Simon with Dragged Up at the Marrapalooza Festival. I’m not going to see Alex drumming for Bonnie Prince Billy in November as Shelley and I have got tickets for Bleak Squad the same night. However, I did manage to get one of limited edition (99 only) 7” singles by Lavinia Blackwall that came out in August. Time Will Forget is another example of soaring vocals, lush instrumentation and fragile English beauty (despite the fact she’s been in Scotland 25 years) that I love her for. A genuine minor treasure that deserves a wider audience. I sincerely hope she plays these parts again.

One female fronted act I’d not previously been aware of were Eevah. Again on Shelley’s recommendation, we took then in at Three Tanners Bank in Shields. The only time I’d been to a gig here previously was an utterly rammed Band of Holy Joy show in the side lounge. That was before lockdown and since then, they’ve opened up the top floor as a venue. The telling name is The Old Smokehouse, and it still smells like you’re up close and personal with a load of Craster’s finest. It wasn’t as packed as my last visit, but there was a good gathering of mature types for the anthemic, goth-tinged power pop of Eevah, who feature one of Embrace on guitar. They were good, with bass and drums sounding like 1983 New Order and Big Country guitars from the same vintage and I enjoyed them, but this is where the economics of new bands just don’t stack up. They had no physical product to promote, so were mad keen to push their merch of £30 t-shirts, £45 zip-up hoodies and £60 signed and framed posters. Considering it was £17.50 in, such prices are not sustainable for an average crowd, but the band can’t go on without making sales. I wish them well, but doubt I’ll be along for the ride at those prices.

Before Eevah, I found myself back at Cluny 2 at the end of August to see St. James Infirmary. Now it is coming up to 38 years since The Woosh Club used to host nights like Jesse Garon & The Desperados at The Broken Doll, but now they are back, doing Sunday matinees for ageing C86 kids. It must be longer since I first saw my dear old pal Gary Lang play live. There have been many, many versions of St James Infirmary you never know what you’re going to get, but today’s iteration was him solo and I loved it. Despite the stress over guitar malfunctions and a truncated set because of time constraints, this was brilliant stuff. Funny. Warm. Surreal. I’ve Got A Soft Dad and I Love Owt Like That. Genuinely glorious and even better, he gave out some free sweets. More power to his elbow! Woosh provide 3 bands for a fiver and first up were local psychedelic jangle merchants Brindle’s Manse, who’ve clearly drank deeply at the well of Pavement and REM. They sounded like they’d never heard an English band in their lives, but that’s no bad thing if you can be as skilled as they were. Top of the bill were Whitley Bay thrash punkers Specky Cult, who aren’t really my thing. What I did enjoy was a subsequent Ouseburn mini crawl with a lot of the old gang. Arlo, Dave, Rachel, Matt & Schoey. It must have been a blinding day out, as I was asleep in bed by 9pm.

Two years ago Macdara Yeates released Traditional Songs from Dublin, which was undoubtedly the finest folk album I’d heard in years. So impressed with it was I, that I organised for Shelley and I to head down to see him one Sunday afternoon in a pub on the Headland, as part of the Hartlepool Folk Festival. Because of funding problems, that event has moved to become the more geographically accessible Durham Folk Festival. I was definitely minded to go when it was announced Macdara would be playing at several different venues over the weekend, to publicise his stunning new album Mudlark Ballads. I got myself a copy of this in advance to prepare myself for the events and, frankly, it is another triumph. The standout tracks include a tour de force 7.30 long reading of the fabulous Matt Hyland, as well as other gems like Alexander and Tis Whiskey I Adore, where he accompanies himself on harmonium. As the fella always travels light, I had no expectation of hearing the latter performed and I didn’t, but we got plenty of other great stuff to write home about.

On the Friday afternoon, I went with Ben, who took the car down, to see Macdara supported by Seb Stone and Holly Carter at the grandly named Durham Academy. It actually turned out to be a hurriedly repurposed, recently vacated New Look store, with seating for 70. Now this is no criticism of the Folk Festival Organisers and Volunteers, but selling all 70 tickets and not factoring in the walk up curiosity trade of those with day or full weekend passes was a bit of an error.  Never mind, it all went off well in the end. First act on Seb Stone played a beautiful set on the pipes and said a few songs as well, including The Downy Dens of Yarrow that I knew the Liam Clancy version of. Holly Carter had previously given a lecture on Joe Hill, and I think I would probably have preferred to hear that than her Joni Mitchell style songs, if I’m honest.

Macdara is one hell of a showman and a natural comic, as well as a brilliant singer, who held the audience in the palm of his hand throughout. We got Matt Hyland and Alexander, as well as several numbers from the first album, but no Shores of Lough Bran unfortunately. A great set. An early finish. Home by 7pm. What a result eh? Even more fun was the Sunday afternoon show. Another matinee that Shelley and I took in. This one was on board the Prince Bishop Cruiser, which sailed down river for a while, then turned and went as far as the Cathedral, before coming back to rest at Elvet Bridge about an hour later. This one was totally unaccompanied singing, where Macdara alternated numbers with the stentorian voiced Jennifer Reid, who bawled out Mancunian songs about clogs and weaving like she was shouting coal.  I think this was the first gig I’ve ever been to on a boat, and I’d definitely do it again, providing the weather was as sunny and mild as this one. Macdara wasn’t in a mild mood, starting off with the gloriously unrepentant Republicanism of Down by the Liffey Side, which I’m familiar with from Pecker Dunne’s version. Macdara performed a largely different set to Friday (still no Shores of Lough Bran) and finished with slow, almost sombre, but tender and nuanced version of Molly Malone, that turned into a total singalong. It was a bloody great afternoon, despite me getting predictably lost in Durham, as is always the case, and I look forward to returning next year and seeing Macdara again when he’s back in these parts. As well as getting my 10k steps in, aimlessly wandering the cobbles in the City of the Prince Bishops.

If Macdara’s album is a triumph, then its equal is Dinosaur Jr’s masterful There Near. It is probably the most reliable and familiar release you’ll hear all year, as Dinosaur Jr continue to reference their past, in a way so subtle and classy that nobody except them would even know they’re doing it. It’s a way of creating a bond to your history without disorientating the listener. There Near is the band’s sixth album since their impressive return, fighting it out with 2009’s Farm for bragging rights at the top of the Dinosaur tree. Mascis, Murph and Lou Barlow do that by focusing on being the best possible version of themselves, recording tightly packed but easy-on-the-ear songs, with the rhythm section providing brisk, springy backing for Mascis’s almost gleeful melodies and glorious solos. It helps that the old rivalry between Barlow and Mascis has long given way to admiration and affection. On his two songs, Barlow deliberately exaggerates his different approach to songwriting, something that helps to enhance both writers’ work. Barlow’s tunes are topical and thus the complete opposite of Mascis’s more personal themes. But the contrast is softened by the fact neither writer is coming from a happy place: Barlow focuses on his nation’s political strife, while Mascis writes about problems of the heart. Classic Dinosaur in other words.

Opener Several Got Away has a fizzing chorus and a melody that bounces along so adorably that you can easily miss the crack in Mascis’s voice before his burning high-toned solo. He extends that mood into No Friends, on which he explores one of his favourite topics: isolation, from the perspective of a man grown old and losing his friends, either through age or neglect.  The sparkle of Take Me With You boasts another imploring, guttural guitar line from Mascis and some spectacular kit-thrashing by the irrepressible Murph.

On Gone Off, Mascis channels a perfect blend of sad-eyed pop with a melody of vicious charm, making its point in a perfectly proportioned three-and-a-half minutes. On Clam Along, Mascis slows things down a tad but compensates with a surging chorus, as the tension ramps up, before punching in a solo that underlines the song’s desperate heartbreak. Read The Room begins in a playful mood, before Mascis once more bears that lonely soul on a track that has an almost Americana vibe with its air of thick, layered guitars and wounded machismo. That less frantic feel is maintained on Mascis’s last song on the record, Put It Down, which begins with a sleazy guitar line. It’s a slow burner, with a huge billowing guitar solo.

Mascis’s tenser, compact songwriting and minimalist navel-gazing is complemented by Barlow, whose tunes bring a little more solemnity into the record, while his lyrics root them firmly in contemporary issues. Blowin Up is a caustic number that opens with a woozy approximation of God Bless America before Barlow steps to the mic and spits a take down of on social media controversialists and plays on the double meaning of the title: blowing up in social media terms, but also in terms of the real-life violence that ensues. Barlow ends the album with No One’s Ready, a bouncy number with a great vocal that bobs along like a grunge sea shanty, Again, he’s taking a political viewpoint, writing about unwanted conflict stirred up by chaos-seeking liars. It was inspired by the ICE invasion of Minneapolis last winter, but it works just as well when considering the US’s fruitless war against Iran. On There Near, despair has rarely sounded so good. An absolute solid gold classic.

Other tangible releases I’ve obtained of late include Paul Womhole’s very special Sound Garden 2, which he sent me in gratitude for the positive review I gave the first volume. I’d delighted to say Sound Garden 2 is as good as the first one. More found sounds of the everyday world around us transformed by judicious curation into a living documentary of the beautiful every day. Mind, I also got some crap. When Ben moved into his new house, left behind in one of the rooms was a sleeveless copy of 1987’s Poetic Champions Compose by Van Morrison. Now I love a lot of Van the Man’s early stuff, all the way up to the early 90s, but this is a sonic turkey. Fretless bass, cool jazz lite sax doodlings and saccharin keys all over the shop. Dull, banal and boring. Anyone want it for nowt?

STOP PRESS: Just when I was on the home straight of completing this blog on Sunday afternoon, I got a message from my mate Marc the Basingstoke artist from Seaham, asking if I’d like to accompany him to the Cumberland Arms to see a bunch of Mexican motorik minimalists, Mirror Revelations. I’d nothing else on, other than sprawling in front of Geordie Cops on catch up, so I agreed. We met in The Tanners, had a couple of beers and wandered over Byker Bridge, arriving just in time for the support act, MBV copyists spacecadetbloom. They were alright and showed a bit of potential. Excellent guitarist, good drummer and functional bassist, but they’d be advised to ditch their singer who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Mirror Revelations, despite the terrible name, were bloody great. Speaking barely a word of English, they acknowledged the ecstatic crowd reactions with an apologetic “gracias,” before hurtling headlong into another frenetic melange of metronomic drummer and bassist rhythm, over which waves of fuzzed out analogue synths washed, sometimes blissfully and sometimes angrily. A heady, enjoyable brew and a great way to spend a Sunday evening in splendid company.

BOOKS:

Not only has it been a busy time with music recently, I’ve also been quite a voracious reader since I last blogged about my cultural adventures. Happily I’m continuing to make inroads into the pile of stuff I bought from Matt Moir back in February, to the extent that I only have 22 titles left to get through, though 19 of them are currently inaccessible in the spare room wardrobe, as I’m storing some furniture for Ben because of his imminent house move which is blocking my access to said tomes, but never mind. Those I’ve ticked off from the ex libris Moir purchase include Neil Taylor’s history of Rough Trade, Document & Eyewitness. For an old post punk like me, the exhaustive chronological account of the achievements and pitfalls of the most important label in the world between about 1978 and 1983, when they went all to shit after signing the loathsome Smiths, is both fascinating and depressing. How was I to know they stopped being a creative commune dedicated to releasing the most challenging and innovative music around when they started making money? Ah well, it’s a long time ago now and I still cherish all those early releases. Another idol with feet of clay is Hunter S Thompson. From the Matt pile, I made my way through an anthology of his later writing, Kingdom of Fear. All of those hi-jinks and confrontational happenings were long in the past by the time this came out. Sad to say, but all the drink and drugs he did didn’t just impede his life, they also diminished his talent. There’s nothing so visceral as Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas here, or even Generation of Swine. Just a lot of overwrought grandstanding by a mean old drunk. Disappointing, unlike the charming, episodic A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. There’s a persuasive argument that this is actually a book of short stories, but as all the characters appear in multiple settings and time frames, we’ll regard it as an episodic novel in the style of Trainspotting. I liked these tales of New York life, from the 60s to the near future, involving artists, musician and their families. You really began to care about their fate, as they got older and sometimes sadder. A rewarding and bittersweet read.

Meanwhile, I continued to mine the fruitful furrow of our local free library, for a whole series of eclectic gems. I’d heard about M. Ageyev’s Novel with Cocaine; a tale of debauchery and death in Moscow, set during the tumultuous events of 1917. Interestingly, the novel makes no mention of the world at large, showing junkie dropouts, even more than a century ago, were only concerned with their next fix and not the appalling betrayal of the revolution by Lenin. This is an interesting read but, as is often the case with unreliable narrators, it leaves the reader curiously unsatisfied by the abrupt and unexpected ending. There’s no sense of that with Dashiell Hammet’s The Continental Op. An anonymous tough guy private dick always gets the bad guy (or girl), generally sending them to the green room in San Quentin for a bungled heist that often ends in a needless slaying. Great stuff. I love all those old gumshoe procedurals. One predictable ending was the death of Nancy Spungeon at the hands of Sid Vicious. Her mother Deborah’s account of Nancy’s short and tragic life and the impact it had on their family, And I Don’t Want to Live This Life is a sad, bleak tale. Far from being the calculating femme fatale she has always been portrayed, Nancy suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia and numerous motor skill issues, all down to her traumatic birth, at which she was starved of oxygen. A short and tragic life of someone who wasn’t really set up for the world. Vicious was a fucking dickhead, of course.

Another dickhead is Robert Webb. I loved Peep Show, basically because him and David Webb didn’t have to act. They just played exaggerated versions of their own personalities. Webb’s autobiography, How Not to be a Boy, ostensibly a polemic about the evils of toxic masculinity tells the tale of a lazy, devious, immature, pseudo intellectual sex maniac. Albeit one who had a traumatic childhood as the youngest child, left behind by his mother’s early death to be raised by a hopeless father and inadequate step dad. It is sad, but it tells of his determination to get to Cambridge, where he neglects his studies to fart around with the Footlights, then his drive to make it in comedy, even though his skills appear to be acting and scriptwriting. I’m sure he’s very rich and this book played its part in that. Finally, on the freebie list, a pair of late 60s novels about making your way in the world. Edna O’Brien’s The Girl With Green Eyes is basically a retread of The Country Girls, except the protagonist shacks up with an older divorced bloke (a Protestant at that), before moving to London and living happily ever after. Sid Chaplin’s Joe in the Morning is probably the first novel I’ve ever come across that mentions Percy Main. Effectively it’s a Room at the Top tale of a northern blackguard who moves to the Smoke for a good job and shags his way through the office. He abandons the one he truly loves, as she wants to travel and be free, for the other one, who allows him to carry on his merry way and make piles of cash as a senior executive. Not the most enlightened of reads I must say.

I’ve also put my hand in my pocket for some other books. Paul Hanley’s Das Gruppe on the Wall is a short memoir of his time watching and playing with The Fall at Manchester’s legendary Band of the Wall venue. Written, along with 2 editions of the excellent fanzine Load of Bloody Nowt, for events marking 50 years since The Fall first played the venue, it is engaging, informative and a pleasure to browse, as Hanley has an excellent turn of phrase and an engaging manner. Enjoyed it tremendously. The same is true of this year’s contribution to the literary world by Magnus Mills, The Assembly of the Swans. As ever it is a deadpan account by a nameless narrator of utterly surreal, yet completely plausible events that completely, and inexplicably, take over his life. This time it involves assembling floating swan pedalos to be taken out in a local marina. We never learn for who or why, but that is part of the joy of reading Magnus Mills. Things happen, but we never learn the reason. Extraordinarily good fun.

I dealt with Dan Jackson’s popular history of Newcastle United, Howay the Lads, as well as his talk in with Harry Pearson in my last NUFC blog (https://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/2026/09/ticking-over.html ), but I’ve delved deeper into Dan’s other work and read Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule in Edwardian Britain. As this was the basis of his doctoral thesis, you can imagine it is a very scholarly read. Couched in academic language, rather than his usual playful and enthusiastic tones, it is the productive of exhaustive research, with each chapter boasting approximately 150 notes, but it is an enlightening and informative read. As regards the parts set on Tyneside, it just proves that Felling, Jarrow, Walker and Wallsend are historically ideologically the masters of the likes of Hebburn and South Shields. Up the diehards, as we used to say in NE10.

In terms of literary importance, the two most crucial books I’ve read recently were Red Sheet by James Ellroy and Can Nothing Save Us? by Irvine Welsh. They were both, in their own ways, tremendous reads. Certainly, the Ellroy one is the best of the Freddy Otash novels by a distance and Welsh has produced a startling meditation on contemporary America.

It is October 1962. Fred Otash finds himself assigned to the LAPD on an investigation into communist influence in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of course, in Ellroy’s fiction every action has multiple hidden motivations. The Kennedy brothers have ordered the red probe to distract attention away from their complicity in the premature death of Marilyn Monroe. Otash’s involvement in that sordid saga was the basis of Ellroy’s previous novel The Enchanters. In Red Sheet, Otash finds himself tasked with keeping an eye on Richard Nixon, whose nocturnal wanderings are making his lieutenants Bob Haldemann and John Ehrlichman nervous, particularly after he is seen visiting a woman on Halloween night who is shortly thereafter found murdered. On top of that, Otash suspects the death of the woman is tied to the murder of two communist informers, and he begins to unravel a web of intrigue that goes back to the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War and the Cristero rebellion in Mexico. This is the typically convoluted nature of all Ellroy’s work and Red Sheet is no exception. In recent years a weariness has kicked in when reading Ellroy as it feels that he has said it all before.  The good news is that Red Sheet delivers, in terms of a gripping plot, a well-paced unfolding mystery and sheer page-turning entertainment, Ellroy is a master and it shows here. The prose is as jazzy as ever and Red Sheet is an impressive and accomplished addition to his oeuvre.

In Can Nothing Save Us?, the plot revolves round EDM afficionado and aspiring writer Luke, who is estranged from his Maga-positive Mom and Dad, and now lives with grandparents George and Molly, affluent boomers with a countercultural past. Vietnam vet and retired lawyer George sees himself as a “hippy sellout”, his dream of pursuing human rights advocacy corrupted by real estate deals and entertainment law. Actor Molly’s early theatre and independent cinema success led only to small parts in low-budget film and TV. Grandson Luke is set to inherit their fortune yet struggles for meaning against a background of disappointment and growing despair: an intergenerational nihilism that deepens like a coastal shelf.

The tale unfolds as an epic American family saga, exploring a collective emotional malaise at the heart of a great power in decline. This is a bold and ambitious work, in which Welsh deftly shifts point of view with confidence and conviction: his ability to jump generations and to capture the voices and feelings of his disparate cast of characters is at times quite astonishing. Welsh’s way into this decaying, decadent universe is clearly via his familiarity with the Vegas club scene. There’s an early namecheck of Scottish DJ Calvin Harris, friend and collaborator with a long-term residency on the Strip. Welsh’s ear for the demotic is as strong as ever as he conveys the slang and grammar of Luke’s world, as well as the sense of being a small player on the periphery of a bewildering, drug-addled circuit.

The theme of generational trench warfare is neatly set up at a legal meeting where Luke’s parents, Gina and Don, are informed of their disinheritance by Molly and George.. Welsh’s knack for absurd social satire is regularly deployed to interrogate serious themes and visit dark places. In Vietnam, George was a witness to the My Lai massacre. He is also a survivor of a lone gunman’s attack on the Las Vegas Strip from the Mandalay Bay Hotel in 2017. The buried trauma of past atrocities seems to feed a societal yearning for the freedom to bear arms.  Facing his own mortality, George excavates the past with his PTSD-ridden fellow veterans, as elsewhere in the land of the free a resigned feeling of rearmament reigns. An anonymous and ultra-disaffected “weapons engineer” is tooling up to settle his score with society. An ayahuasca ceremony at a desert commune descends into gun-toting mayhem. And on a hunting trip planned as a family bonding exercise, Luke finds himself aiming a rifle at his father.

The plot develops a mercilessly ballistic energy of its own as multiple storylines converge on another mass shooting, this time at an outdoor festival called Our Rave’s Electric. A complex and explosive denouement almost succumbs to the chaos it depicts, though in the end the only control on the narrative seems the fateful trajectory of a familiar American tragedy. Its inevitability only makes it all the more pitiful. We are left with a poignant coda of post-trauma, and a disturbing sense that this is merely part of an unending, generational cycle. Can Nothing Save Us? apparently had a long gestation period, at one time in development as a TV project. That Welsh has finally realised this story in such an expansive, compelling and heartfelt novel is something of a literary triumph, proof that this medium remains the best kind of long-form narrative. And it’s certainly a triumph for the author himself.

Next time around, we’ll be looking at the new Ian Rankin novel, Shovel Dance Collective and The Fall’s soon come albums, as well as gigs by the likes of Hanging Stars, Cabaret Voltaire, The Wedding Present, Teenage Fanclub and The Bleak Squad.

Mr (Claret &) Blue Sky

This piece is an appreciation of all the great work my mate Norman de Bruin does for Percy Main Amateurs. It will also appear in this Saturday's programme for the game against North Sunderland -:

Those of you who follow various local football pages on social media will no doubt be aware that our very own secretary (and so much else besides) Norman de Bruin had his many years of long and devoted service to Percy Main Amateurs recognised with a Northumberland FA Grassroots Award at a swanky soiree at a posh Gosforth hotel on Friday 25^th September. Modest and self-effacing bloke that he is, Norman will undoubtedly hate the fact I’ve written this piece, as he is someone who has never sought to be in the spotlight. However I couldn’t allow the occasion to pass without penning a personal tribute to a bloke I hold in the highest esteem and who I’m proud to call one of my closest friends.

Born in Shields to a Dutch father (hence the unique surname) and local mother, Norman grew up, and remains, a devoted supporter of Newcastle United. However, like many others at the time, he was left on the outside of St James’ Park when the Keegan bandwagon started rolling and season tickets became prized commodities in the early 90s. Despite his personal sport being athletics, where he clocked 1 hour 14 in many half marathons in his twenties, including the Great North Run three times in a row, despite being burdened down by a handlebar tache that would have got him the gig as the sixth Village Person, and at which he subsequently excelled nationally in the veterans age groups  at 400 and 800 metres, coming second in the British Championships in 2019, Norman’s love of football led him to explore the local amateur game, often in the company of his good mate Martin Kelly. Another close friend of his, the late Gary Hull, who I sadly never had the pleasure of meeting, got Norman involved with Percy Main Amateurs during the 2001/2002 season and the rest is history, including several appearances on the field when playing resources demanded. Hence why the NFA have marked his silver jubilee with this prestigious and richly deserved award.

I first met Norman, though he didn’t realise it at the time as his mind was on other things, on February 11^th, 2006. Those who know the history of the Main will recognise this as the date of the infamous Battle of Grounsell Park when, as the clock ticked almost towards the 90^th minute, a dull stalemate between Heaton Stan and Percy Main suddenly erupted into a huge free for all, more akin to a taxi rank pagger on Christmas Eve in the good old days than a football match. As the entire Stan squad, other than the eminently sensible solicitor Russell Ward, sought to attack the legendary Alan Ryder, who was quite happy to take them all on, the Percy team (including such famous and perhaps infamous characters like Ian Hall, John Hunt, Richard Lognonne, Les Thompson and Rob Watson) sought to hold Ryder back. I’ll always remember Ryder throwing a flurry of punches with Bob Rodgerson hanging round his neck, attempting to restrain him. The game was abandoned, though the result stood. Arriving towards the end of the game Norman, attired in his British Gas overcoat as he’d just finished a shift, looked on in disbelief as the scene unfolded. The other bloke in the crowd (the Stan didn’t pull in 500+ back in the day) announced Shay Given had just saved a penalty in a 2-1 Toon win at Villa Park but tempered this by saying “mind this is more exciting.” It was, and I’ll never forget the look of horrified bafflement on Norman’s dial that day.

I properly met Norman at the end of that season, when we took in Boldon CA 2 Annfield Plain 5 in the Wearside League. We hit it off immediately and I soon became a regular visitor to Purvis Park, until I eventually joined the committee in summer 2009. Basically I fell in love with the club, the ground and even the rickety old pavilion. That was back during the Jason Ritchie Percy Warriors era, and I wrote my book Village Voice about the tumultuous promotion season and Combination Cup win of 2009/2010. Norman features prominently in the book (free copies available to anybody who wants one), because I learned that season, and have never forgotten since, just how much devoted effort and many underappreciated hours of graft, both administrative and physical, the bloke puts into the club, never asking for gratitude or a penny piece in return.

I wouldn’t say that Norman is wholly responsible for the continued existence of Percy Main Amateurs, as Bob Rodgerson has worked hand in glove with Norman over all the years I’ve followed the Main. These two, plus Geordie, Keith, Chris, Michelle, Steve, Julie and latterly David and Mark from the newly established Under 18 team, are the ones who keep this club going. Several of us are already in possession of our OAP bus passes, so the concept of succession planning is always in our minds. Can you help in any way at all? No offer would ever be turned down. However, you’ve got a hard act to follow if Norman ever does call it a day.

If the fella does have a fault, it is in being a perfectionist, to the extent he really doesn’t like delegating stuff. Mainly because nobody does it quite as good as him, as Carly Simon almost said. Just cast your mind back to how the rest of us were running around like headless chickens, trying to remember everything that needed done when Norman was on his holidays at the start of the season and taking his annual trip to SJP for the Bournemouth game while we hosted Wallsend Boys Club Reserves.

Truly, Norman is an absolute hero, and I am honoured to know him, as well as constantly marvelling at his energy. Also, I’ll buy a pint to anyone who can tell me why I’ve given this piece the title I have done.

Cheers Norman. Enjoy the fame.

 

 

Ticking Over

NUFC; the first 7 games of 2025/2026

Saturday 19^th September was a good day, sports wise. Firstly, Percy Main Amateurs trounced Hadrian 7-1 to advance to the third round of the Northern Alliance George Dobbins League Cup, where we will play Bedlington away on Saturday October 17^th. Important day that; Cabaret Voltaire are playing The Boiler Shop on their farewell tour and Newcastle United play their next home game against Aston Villa with a 5.30 kick off. Secondly, Tynemouth 3s ended the season with a 26 run victory over Whitley Bay 2s to finish with a record of won 19, lost 2, meaning we won NTCL Division 6 South by a whopping margin of 116 points. Thirdly, and most relevantly for the purposes of this piece, NUFC completed their opening section of the season with a 2-1 home victory against Hull City. This was a highly important win for a number of reasons. Firstly, it showed the team could bounce back from the dreadful mauling at Leeds the Monday before and secondly it meant the club would sit nestled comfortably in the top half of the table, as well as through to the last 16 of the Carabou Cup, after the start of a season almost all of us viewed with both alarm and trepidation. Obviously, it is very early days, but the new players and new management are starting to bed in nicely, providing we take the Leeds game out of the equation.

It seems an age ago that we began the campaign at home to Liverpool, when the noise in the week leading up to that game had all been about the new training ground planned for Woolsingham. For no comprehensible reason, former employee of the House of Saud Denver Hird and his dismal band of half a dozen performative vanguardistas were up in arms about this, because the land was being purchased from old Wynyard Hall himself. Presumably if the vendors had been the estate of Bob Crow or Peter Taaffe, that would have made things so much better. To be honest, this long overdue announcement is great news and I hope it will be followed by a statement that we are staying at SJP, with a massively extended East Stand, so we can start calling it the New Stand again. It should be named the Kevin Keegan Stand, but that’s a different story.

Also, just before the Liverpool game, it was announced that BDB had been named the new club captain. His current status on the injured list has thus far rendered the title more of an honorific than a job, in the manner of the non-playing Ryder Cup role, but I don’t mind if he takes a Jamaal Lascelles role as a squad paterfamilias rather than an integral part of the side. I will concede we could have done with his no nonsense approach at Elland Road mind you.

So we went into the Liverpool game with a sense of dread. I was expecting a 3-0 loss, but I can err towards the pessimistic. In the end, we came out with a point and could, perhaps, should have taken all 3. From the very off, the players performed with a passion and intensity so missing from last season. Looking at the team, the only change I would have made to the starting XI would have been Ramsey in for Steur, as it was such a high-profile game to make your debut in and, crucially, Ramsey is a bloody good player.  To be honest, all the debutants did well, but the real star was Wissa, who played like the bloke I thought we’d signed from Brentford. He still should have scored and if he had, we would have won. It did warm my heart to see The Rat play so abominably. His cowardice in not taking the penalty has been overstated, however. Szoboszlai is a beautiful striker of the ball and always had his name on that one. Yes, the penalty was soft, but Hall was left with the choice of either attempting a challenge and risking a foul or allowing Munoz to waltz past him and presumably still score. Munoz should have been closed down long before he entered the area. All in all, an encouraging start, despite that late kick in the nads.

As tickets went on general sale for the West Brom Carabou Cup tie, I could have got myself there, but I chose to attend Bedlington v Percy Main instead, getting back home for the latter part of the second half. Just after I’d switched it on, Lewis Hall had been penalised for a handball, and they made it 2-2 from the spot. Thankfully it wasn’t as costly as the Liverpool concession. Hall then hit the post, before Barnes, who had been fairly anonymous against Liverpool, scored a picture book team goal winner. We had a strong team on at the end and eased through to the next round. Equally importantly, Nico Gonzalez arrived from Man City and was introduced to the crowd before kick-off. This was another encouraging display.

Be honest, don’t you wish in retrospect that we’d lost at home to West Ham at the tail end of last season so Spurs could have been relegated? Everybody hates Spurs and it is a delightful situation that, at the time of writing, they sit at the bottom of the table. This is fitting considering Tel must be the worst striker in the country, not just the Premier League. What price Tonali disappearing on loan to Milan in the January window? You heard it here first. Contrast his non-performance in our 2-0 win with the excellence of Gonzalez. His diagonal pass to Dedic was a thing of beauty for Elanga’s splendid opener. Alright, so we’d been under the cosh, in terms of possession, for about 30 minutes, but they created nothing and we scored a pair of blinding finishes to secure a deserved win. If Woltemade’s last performance for us was to be this one, it is sort of fitting that his assist for Wissa’s excellent goal was an accidental cushioning of the ball off his face. Good luck Big Nick. If Jaissle can’t get a tune out of you, then perhaps England isn’t for you.

Deadline day passed quietly, with a couple of loan departures, like Sean Neave to Wolves, which could be a good move. However, there was one important event that week; the launch of Dan Jackson’s people’s history of Newcastle United, Howay the Lads, at the Irish Centre that featured a talk-in with Harry Pearson. Obviously, as Harry and Deren needed to be at The Cluny to see A Tribe Called Quest, this had to run like clockwork. And it did. A packed room and an enthusiastic audience, including a few of those timid anti-social types who struggle in large social gatherings, and two raconteurs chewing the fat about the club across the road. No sign of the former employee of the House of Saud and his half a dozen incompetent gauleiters, the chronophiliac PIF apologists or the Zionists from down the street and all the better for it, as there were no daft questions.

I read Dan’s book very quickly after this. I’d loved The Northumbrians (and I’m even getting stuck into Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule in Edwardian Britain at the minute). I’m delighted to confirm that Howay the Lads is as engagingly written, persuasively argued and immaculately researched as his earlier books. Sad it doesn’t mention the stellar talent of Pat Heard, but you can’t have everything. Now I’ll admit that the older I get, the less engaged I am by the concept of the Geordie Nation and find myself at a remove from obsessive regional pride, possibly because my familial roots don’t extend back to the era when Newcastle United came into being and were at their most successful. However, I’m very proud of the history of our club, even if I’m still vehemently opposed to the current ownership (and almost all the owners prior to the PIF if I’m honest), and this book is a fitting tribute to 134 years of club history, even if the almost effusively optimistic tone dates it as having been written in 2025 rather than 2026. Being honest, it’s the best book about Newcastle United I’ve ever read. I was especially touched to see friends of mine such as Graham Bull, Bill Corcoran and the dearly remembered Ken Sproat (RIP) getting mentions. I’ll forgive Dan the soft-pedalling over the takeover and Amanda Stavely’s role because of that. A splendid book by a splendid writer.

These days, the clubs to be admire in the Premier League are the Bs, for being well run, trading superbly and playing football that is easy on the eye. Not just Brentford, but Brighton and Bournemouth as well. All 3 of them seem to have some sort of hex on us and I wasn’t surprised to hear we were 2-0 down at home to Bournemouth by the time I took my place, hiding at mid-wicket, for Tynemouth 3s as we took on Percy Main 2s. With Percy Main at home to Wallsend Boys Club Reserves (won1-0) on the other side of the hedge, this was as close as I could get to sporting nirvana, especially as we eventually prevailed by 6 wickets. My mood was similarly elevated by learning at drinks in the first innings that NUFC had come back from the dead to earn a 2-2 draw. Well done. That shows a degree of spirit and resilience that was again so absent last year. What a goal by Barnes eh? I also enjoyed the build up to Ramsey’s equaliser. It mightn’t seem much in the course of things, but I thought this was a great result. Of course there was the usual on-line meltdown as we’d not won 6-0, but that’s to be expected. One thing that did shock me was seeing Pope on the bench. It is telling that after a total of 17 games thus far for Newcastle and Southampton, neither Pope nor Ramsdale have played a single second of first team football. In Ramsdale’s case, he hasn’t even been in a match day squad as yet. That is a fairly telling development and an indication of where many of our 2025/2026 problems stemmed from.

Anyway, on to Millwall in the second round of the Carabou Cup. For the first time this season, I stirred out with Knaggsy for a pint. We won 1-0, Hall was brilliant, Murphy was awful and that is really all you could say about this one. Nice to see a dog in the away end of course.

Almost a week later came the debacle at Elland Road. An utter shit show. A total tanking. Is there nothing we can say in mitigation? Well, losing Gonzalez to concussion didn’t help, nor did Ramsey’s absence after pulling up in the warm up, not to mention Elanga’s training ground injury. These 3 added to a sick list already comprising Burn, Dedic, Jaouen, Joelinton and Livramento meant we were down to bare bones. No excuse for playing so woefully mind, but at least we put things right, after a fashion, against Hull.

With almost 3 weeks before the next game, Coventry away on a Monday night, Jaissle has time to work with the players, to instil and embed his methods, while the medical staff can earn their corn by rehabilitating the walking wounded. We might even learn what vertical football means. Being honest though, two wins, two draws and a solitary loss is a better return than I’d dared hope for. Unlike Steve Bruce’s understanding of the term, this is what I’d call ticking over. Everton away in the Carabou Cup isn’t easy, but it is winnable. As the next 5 are on the telly, I’ll be watching proceedings with interest, before commenting again after the Fulham game, which isn’t.

Incidentally, I see Howe has been linked with both the Celtic and Manchester United jobs. Either of them would be a good shout for him I reckon.  Smaller clubs than NUFC with a more patient fan base. He could be on to a winner. I’d like him to go to Hibs though, but I know he won’t.

 

 

 

 

Hedgehopping

An optimistic end to the 2026 season at Tynemouth Cricket Club...

The Tynemouth CC end of season do in September 2025 was a bit of a sombre affair. While the 2s had done alright, both the 1s and 3s had been relegated; the former unluckily, but the latter ignominiously. Having played for the 3s in 14 of our 18 games (we conceded 4 being unable to raise a team), I’d experienced our sole win (by 1 wicket) and lone abandonment (when we had Anfield Plain 61/9 before the heavens opened), as well as the cancelled game at Monkseaton. Other than that, I’d also been part of a side, sometimes with only 10 players, that was crushed 15 times. It wasn’t fun, but I was still proud to represent my club and felt keen to continue playing in 2026, if at all possible.

Last Saturday, we had our 2026 end of season soiree, where the mood was a lot better than 12 months previous. The 1s had done well, finishing 3^rd to cement a place in the middle tier of the new NEPL structure for 2027, while the 2s had managed to avoid the drop on the final day. Best of all perhaps, the 3s had stormed to the NTCL Division 6 title by over 100 points. With a game to go, against tailenders Whitley Bay at the natural amphitheatre on Hillheads Road, the team had reached the semi-final of the cup, losing to eventual winners Benwell & Walbottle, but shone in the league. At the time of writing, we have won 18 games and lost 2. In total, I appeared in 2 cup games and the grand total of 2 Saturday fixtures. I didn’t bat and I only bowled a single over (1-0-3-1), but you know what? I’m elated and honoured to have featured at all. Under skipper Martin Pollard, TCC 3s have been transformed from a bunch of habitual losers to a side that knows how to dig deep and win ugly, as 2-wicket victories over Stocksfield and Benwell & Walbottle have shown. The old guard of willing hands and pressed men, who turned out from a sense of duty rather than in any expectation of being able to compete, have been supplanted by the maturing lads of the dads, who have made this season a memorable one for all the right reasons.

I last blogged about cricket (https://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/2026/07/decreased.html) in the middle of July. At that time, I was struggling to accept my time had passed as a player. It wasn’t just the not playing that got to me, it was the slackening of the social ties that had been such a massive part of my life for more than a decade. I’d found it impossible to go and watch the 3s play, or any of the other TCC teams, because I felt a fraud and a failure. Yet, thankfully, I got over this enduring, self-inflicted misery to the extent that I am not only here sitting typing this in a Tynemouth shirt but also made it to the end of season do, chatting with just about everyone in the room and applauding lustily each award announcement. Even better, I made probably my farewell appearance for TCC 3s, save for utter emergencies, at Percy Main on September 6^th. I did nowt while we won by 6 wickets, but Christ it was so good to be out there one last time, even if I did feel I’d been thrown out of a second storey window next morning. Kudos those young’uns, such as 49 year old Poll, who managed to turn out on the Sunday as well and to beat Kirkley. You have both my admiration and insane jealousy at your youth and health.

So, how did we get to this point? The first game after my last blog was Percy Main CC 2s at home. I’d been to watch Percy Main Amateurs down the road in a friendly against North Shields Athletic at John Spence High School, but I turned up after this to see the 3s complete an 8-wicket win. I’m not pretending it wasn’t hard to walk through the gate and onto the back field, but I did it. Nobody questioned my presence or previous absences, not because I don’t matter (I don’t really), but because I’d inflated this minor issue of my incompetence and decrepitude into something far more existentially serious than it needed to be. I was genuinely overjoyed to see them win and I knew it hadn’t any rejection of me, just a sensible decision for the good of the team and the club as a whole.

In the football season, not playing cricket isn’t so bad really, as there’s always something else to do. On July 25^th, TCC 3s beat Monkseaton 2s by 83 runs, but I was otherwise engaged at Seaton Carew 0 Newbiggin 3 in Northern League Division 2. The Northern Alliance kicked off on August 1^st, and I was on duty at Percy Main 3 Whitley Bay Sporting Club 0, while the 3s were pulling off an absolutely crucial 2 wicket win over Stocksfield 3s. The week after, the 3s beat Lintz 2s by 43 runs while I did a bit of groundhopping in Alliance D3 at Westgate 4 Hadrian 2. August 15^th saw me back at Purvis Park, seeing Percy Main despatch Haltwhistle Jubilee 3-0, while TCC won in equally emphatic terms, beating Whitley Bay 2s by 93 runs. The week after was a blank one for TCC 3s (hence the Sunday game against Kirkley 2s on September 6^th), so I was able to see the Main dispose of Stobswood Welfare 3-1 with a clear conscience. The 3s achieved promotion on August 29^th with a 60 run victory over Monkseaton 2s, while I watched Percy Main lose 4-2 at Hexham.

The following Monday, I received a message from Poll, who had previously promised me one last hurrah, if at all possible, telling me not to make any other plans for Saturday. It was Percy Main 2s away, taking place while Percy Main Amateurs would be hosting Wallsend Boys Club Reserves on the other side of the hedge, Simply put, this was sporting perfection for me, and I could have kissed him. I didn’t obviously, but I took him at his word when he told me, “just enjoy it.” I did, in the main (no pun intended), but what was very clear to me, 25 days after I’d turned 62, is that parts of my body I didn’t think had worn worn out, are actually starting to let me down.

The aches and pains in my shoulders, lumbar region, calves, knees and ankles aren’t the worst of it. The main problem is my eyesight. I was told back in May that I’ve got cataracts, with the one in my right eye significantly worse than the one in my left. Crucially though, it isn’t bad enough to require laser removal as yet. What happens is, most days, I wake up with blurred vision in my right eye, that makes it look like there’s mist around. Not a peasouper or a sea fret, but just early morning obscurity. It doesn’t stop me reading, watching telly or anything else, but it makes things in the distance slightly indistinct. This is a problem when the object in question is a red cricket ball coming out of a background made up of a thicket of trees. On the ground, allowing for age and infirmity, that isn’t an issue, but in the air on my right hand side, it is difficult to see it properly. Is this a health and safety issue? Possibly, and others had apparently mentioned it after I’d failed to pick the ball out in the Monkseaton 2s cup win back in June. That night I was foolishly wearing sunglasses. Against Percy Main 2s, I dispensed with them entirely, despite it being a very sunny day. This certainly helped. As regards my cataracts, I’ll just have to wait for my annual sight check to see what the next moves are in terms of treatment or management.

The vision issue didn’t stop me standing in our innings, as I enjoyed Tom Rayner clubbing a delightful 39* as we made the 86 required in 18 overs. This win made us Champions, and I felt so proud and so honoured to be part of things on that special day, especially as the Main beat Wallsend 1-0 as well. As I said though, I couldn’t move properly enough to come down and cheer the 3s on for their 33 run victory over Kirkley the next day. This brings us up to September 12^th, and a trip to rustic Gallagher Park for a Northumberland FA Minor Cup Round 1 tie that finished Bedlington United 1 Percy Main 5. Scrounging a lift back, I arrived just after TCC 3s lost our first wicket for 22 in pursuit of 153 against Benwell & Walbottle. By the start of the next over, I was on umpiring duties and stayed there until the game was done as we scrambled home by 2 wickets with 9 balls to spare.

My lower back was throbbing by the time we hit the clubhouse. It was a great evening. I resolved to keep the ties with TCC tight, to the extent that I’ll be back watching every week next Summer, football commitments allowing. And, if required, I’ll start writing the weekly reports again that I didn’t do this year, even if nobody seems to have noticed their absence. Also, and this is where it gets interesting, we’re thinking of starting up a midweek social side for all of us too aged, infirm and incapable to get into the 3s. Never say never eh? I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes peeled….

 

 

Der Prozess

Things are about to get a whole lot worse for Newcastle United...

I’m writing this on the Tuesday before Newcastle’s 2026/2027 begins in earnest with our annual scheduled home trouncing by Liverpool. Without assuming the critical Cassandra role, my earnestly held belief is that NUFC will do well to avoid relegation in the campaign we’re about to endure. Last time around, we veered from mediocre to abysmal, with only the occasional, fleeting glimpse of anything resembling attractive, attacking football. Since then, the squad has been annihilated by the loss of Gordon, Tonali, Guimarães and Trippier. Three of them have been sold for vast sums of money, though in the case of Guimarães perhaps for far less than his actual worth to the club, while the latter may have left for free after his contract expired, but like the aforementioned Guimarães, Trippier’s true worth as a natural leader cannot be counted in monetary terms alone. Nice bloke though Dan Burn is, the stone cold reality is that we have lost the only two natural leaders with a winning mentality the squad possessed and the club is heading into the new season, thankfully without the distraction of European football, with a considerably weaker roster than the one that served up an unconvincing 12^th place finish last year. Sure we’ve made half a dozen signings at the moment of writing, none of whom have played Premier League football before, but I’ve absolutely no idea if they’ll be any good or not. Crucially, Murphy, Pope and Willock remain on the books, with no imminent signs that anyone is prepared to show some sympathy and take them off our hands. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lewis Hall is sold and have misgivings about the level of commitment Joelinton has for our club.

At the moment, I’m desperately casting around to find a team worse than Newcastle, as I can only see Hull, Ipswich and Coventry finishing below us next May, unless something dramatic happens in the transfer market before September 1^st or, and this seems unlikely, Matthias Jaissle is able to polish a turd. Hence I’m predicting a 17^th place finish. At best.

Ah yes; our new head coach. From the Saudi league, unsurprisingly. Will he be any good? I’ve no idea. I’ve never heard of him before. While he is untested at this level, he comes well recommended. At least he’s under no pressure from the higher-ups at SJP, whoever they are, as the PIF have shown their complete uninterest in Newcastle United as a project for most of the time they’ve been in charge. Yes, money has been thrown at the club, in terms of the unwise acquisitions of several seemingly ill-judged expensive flops (certainly in their first season on Tyneside), but almost 5 years after the takeover, there is still no clarity about progress relating to a new training ground, or stadium redevelopment, while meaningful communication with supporters remains at the level we were used to when the likes of Lee Charnley and Jeff Vettere were in post. Interesting the annual NUST survey identified the number 1 issue of concern among fans as the utter lack of real communication from the owners. The notable exception to this corporate wall of silence is the ever more unhinged babble that issues forth whenever the immaculately attired David “Hoppy” Hopkinson opens his mouth. Remember his pronouncement that NUFC were going to be a bigger club than Real Madrid by 2030? Well, Hoppy remains the gift that keeps on giving. Apparently we are now Newcastle United 2.0; a lean, mean fighting machine of young tyros about to tear up the Premier League. How we’re supposed to do this with a team shorn of the best players and only natural leaders we possessed is frankly beyond me. Perhaps the whole PIF masterplan is to be so shit nobody will want to watch us, thus rendering all questions about stadium expansion utterly academic.

The true nature of PIF’s attitude to Newcastle United can be seen in their supine willingness to accept just shy of £230 million for our best players, with only vague mentions of financial fair play regulations forcing our hand. What balderdash. They’re now engaged in a process of extracting as much money from Newcastle United as they can. Remember Ashley’s announcement of “no capital investment.” Well, history is repeating itself and it’ll probably get worse as each, and every saleable asset is moved on with indecent haste. I don’t believe PIF should have been allowed to acquire Newcastle United in the first place. Yes I’m grateful we finally ended the trophy hoodoo less than 18 months ago, but it seems as if we’ve entered some kind of sporting Faustian pact, whereby the price of that moment in the sun has been the comprehensively filleting of our club’s soul. I’m not like the NUFC Against Sportswashing vanity project run by former House of Saud employee Denver Hird; I don’t blame the support for swallowing the whole Saudi shtick, in the way that a load of the on-line merchandising operatives were anxious to get their grids all over social media snaps with Chris Mort and Ashley himself almost two decades ago. However, I ask those who dolled themselves up in cheap sunglasses, bath robes and tea towels, how do you feel about the whole takeover five years on? Do you still entreat us to trust the process from your sunny and sandy exile while stroking your watch collection? Or are you now aware that we’ve simply exchanged Tsar Nikolas for Stalin’s Five Year Plans? Except, in the case of PIF, there isn’t any discernible plan. This is why Gordon, Tonali and Guimaraes have jumped ship, as well as the chance to double their wages. This is why we’ve reverted to doing things on the cheap, by investing in young overseas players with potential, in the hope of turning a trick and moving them on for vast profits in a couple of seasons. PIF are no longer remotely interested in sportswashing. Cash is what they are all about. Real Madrid? I’d much rather we were trying to emulate Raya Vallecano.

At least Gordon moved rapidly out the door with a modicum of dignity. Tonali to Spurs just makes me laugh. Fair play to them; they’ve got a bloody good player, but if they think he’s there for the long haul, they are deluded. The Guimaraes transfer did sting, partly because of Ross Wilson’s pitiful claims that the deal was brokered by “very sophisticated actors” on both sides. Is he talking about Nigel Havers I wonder. What a preposterous tissue of horseshit. No, the pain of the Guimaraes deal was occasioned not because I unquestioningly believed all his relentless missives of uxorious flannel about the joy and honour of living and playing up here, but because he was our talisman, on and off the pitch. Someone to believe in, because he always delivered the goods. The one player who never chucked it, whatever the circumstances. And now he’s gone. I’d like to think that Ramsey and Miley, who are currently our only viable midfield pairing, can do just half of his job between them, but I really can’t see that happening.

I didn’t catch the Everton game at Murrayfield, as I was at Gateshead Borough 1 North East Sporting Club 6, when Jaissle said a lot of honest things after we’d been stuffed, or the Bayer Leverkusen home tie, as Percy Main 3 Haltwhistle Jubilee 0 obviously took precedence, but I did watch the Valencia friendly. Albeit on a stream that buffered so often it was like enduring a series of transient ischemic attacks for the opening half. Being honest and acknowledging we were up against 10 men for more than half the contest, it wasn’t a bad performance. Wissa took his goals well and we seemed to be displaying the kind of high press that used to suit us when we had good players. Always nice to win a trophy as well. That said, Willock, Woltemade and Murphy (did you see that attempted back heel? Shit heel more like) offered absolutely nothing and I wonder whether there is any point in keeping them. As the first and last mentioned have deals that expire next summer, we should be looking to offload them now. Big Nick remains a conundrum. If Jaissle can’t get a tune out of him, we may have to kiss and say farewell, because it hasn’t worked out for either party. I’ll confess to not being optimistic for a happy ending.

 

I actually went to the Strasbourg game, originally because I wanted to give a standing ovation to Valentin Barco who had so got under Jude Bellingham’s skin after the England v Argentina World Cup semi-final, but he’d been sold to Chelsea (now there’s a surprise). In fact, I wish I’d waited and not bought tickets but nabbed a couple of freebies from the Blue Lights Foundation. Instead, I paid my £25 and actually quite enjoyed most of it. Osula and Ramsey were our two best players by a mile, even if they both missed during the baffling penalty shoot out that was needlessly appended to the contest, and Ramsey got in a muddle that led to their equaliser. Until the mass changes by Strasbourg at the unnecessary in 19 degrees, hydration break after 67 minutes, we’d looked in control. That changed the pace of the game, and they could have won it in normal time. Still, I made the most of what may be my only visit to SJP this year, getting to see a few of the new signings. Ewen Jaouen did well, Bazoumana Toure was full of running, but offered little concrete threat and Aladji Bamba, who may be a starter next weekend, was fairly anonymous, other than missing his penalty. I haven’t seen the other new signings: Sean Steur (very promising apparently), Lukas Hornicek (better than Pope) and Amar Dedic (just through the door, but we trounced his Benfica side last season). Where does this leave us in terms of a starting XI. I’ve no idea, but with Livramento about to spend another 9 months on the treatment table and Joelinton mysteriously absent, it could look something like this: Hornicek, Dedic, Hall, Botman, Thiaw, Ramsey, Bamba, Elanga, Barnes, Wissa, Osula. Well, that’s eleven names at least, with Steur, Miley and Toure options off the bench.

You do realise I’m over 1.5k words in and I haven’t mentioned the departure of Howe or the death of Kevin Keegan. That is remiss of me, but it just shows what a basket case of a club Newcastle United has defaulted to. Of course, Kevin Keegan arrived on three occasions when were in considerably worse shape than we are now. In 1982 he came as a player and in 78 league games transformed a team of anonymous trundlers into an attacking, exciting side who deservedly clinched promotion. That was a wonderful time, but it was eclipsed by the joyous, beautiful era of his first managerial appointment. From the Bristol City game in February 1992 until the successive demolitions of Spurs and Leeds in December 1996 and January 1997, St James Park was a cathedral of love. Those days will never return. The modern game isn’t played that way. Even his, in hindsight, ill-judged return in January 2008 to replace the appalling Allardyce saw a visible improvement in the team’s performances. It was tragic how it ended and so sad he never returned to the ground before he passed. The outpouring of emotion his passing engendered shows just what he meant to this club, this region and football as a whole. There will never be another Kevin Keegan.

In the same way as KK looked broken, exhausted and spent when he walked away in January 1997, Eddie Howe seemed to have reached the end of his tether in his press conference after the Bristol City friendly hammering. His departure seemed inevitable, as his haunted expression showed a man who had given his all. Yes, last season wasn’t good enough, but he should have been moved on in May or given this season to turn things round. In the end, he was fatally undermined by those behind the scenes. In many ways, the whole Howe saga it reminded me of The Trial (Der Prozess) by Franz Kafka. It tells the terrifying and surreal story of Josef K, a bank clerk who is arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority for a crime that is never revealed to him. The book stands as one of the definitive literary works of the 20th century, giving rise to the term "Kafkaesque" to describe needlessly complex, bizarre, and oppressive bureaucratic systems. Systems that PIF seem to base their business model on. Still, trust the process eh? PIF OUT!!