This Is This

His name’s Hiccup.

He was named by my eight year old son. It stuck because it was the fastest decision he has ever made. Like me, he is foxed by too much choice but this came so quick that the name stuck.

Hiccup also answers to Hicks, Hicksville, Pickup, Pickle, Picallilly, Picadilly Circus, Pixels, Pixelchicks and Pick and Mix.

But officially he’s Hiccup.

Going away with him over the last week was the first time I’d spent a whole week with him. And he’s awesome because:

1. He eats grapes. God he loves grapes. Also cheese.

2. He can go and get a toy if I ask him to. And he knows the difference between bone and toy, which may be useful. Not in my line of work, but I imagine.

3. He is sitting in between my feet right now. I think I should have always had a dog. They let you know when you’re doing the right thing, which if you’re as self-critical as me, is reassuring.

Happy New Year, anyway. It’s nice to be back. The point of this website is to put forth the best of things as and when, which is a loose brief but I’d less than honest if I didn’t tell you I’ve had a torrid time, health-wise. I’m still not feeling great, but I’m getting there. I’ve been off work for nearly three weeks when you count holidays and I normally write this stuff on the train, so there hasn’t been much posting or much to post about.

But I’m back with more middlebrow ruminations, observations, goings on, etc. So resolutions. I love to resolve. I do it every year. You can go back and look at other Januaries on this site and you’ll see I make them every year. I’m not sure it helps me much. I set these things and I’m no wiser. I’m no wiser even now, but here we go.

Exercise

I’m not running so much now – that started up because the dog – sorry, Hiccup – was hyperactive and I’ve learned a lot of that wasn’t because he was lacking exercise, but discipline and affection. He’s doing a lot better but walking on the leash is a big part of discipline, so I’m not running so much now. But I’m still exercising and working from home and I want to keep doing that. I turned thirty seven a couple of weeks ago and I want to stay healthy.

Reading

I set this one last year and I read some great books, including The Pleasure Of My Company, If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things, Mark Twain’s Joan Of Arc and The Killer Angels. (Those are two separate books, by the way, indivisible by the British lack of a serial comma, although Joan Of Arc And The Killer Angels is a book I’d definitely pick up.)

TV

Most of what I watch is stuff I have recorded, and I rarely watch live TV anymore. It’s an on demand world, my friends, you know it and I know it. I get into a series or two (currently Rules Of Engagement) and I’ll watch a bit of everything else, although mostly documentaries. But TV is there when I need it, not there if I want it.

Web

This is a biggie because I can get overwhelmed at the amount of content out there. I love the internet and I use it pretty efficiently.

I had a conversation with someone a generation above me last week when I expressed an interest at a place we’d been visiting. “I’ve got a book about that somewhere. I’ll let you have it.” I was already making a mental note to look it up on line while she was raking her brains wondering where the book was. “It’s OK,” I said, “I’ll look it up.”

Really it was only a passing interest and a book wold have been too much. Then there’s how to get the book to me and when I would find time to read it and how I would return it. I’m online all the time. I can flick my phone one and in five minutes my curiosity will be sated. I get information in different ways.

I still read books, but if I want to find something out, the web’s the first port of call before I borrow books off people. And even then, I realise a lot of what I consume online is just noise. I have to keep up with industry stuff yes, but am I really going to read through my subscription to the New York Times humour feed? No. No I am not.

So goodbye. Bye to Reuters Technews, so long feed of feeds of blogs run by people who work at the BBC. I can’t even remember why I signed up for that one – it’s ridiculous. Later to my feed of Facebook notifications. Explain that one to me. A feed of updates which I get emailed and appear on my Facebook profile? What was I thinking?

Two things though, and I know I rarely do this, but of those I’m going to keep reading (and there are many more worth keeping than I actually am going to hold on to) are Steakhouse Blues and A Little Bit Of Wisdom in Every Box. SB is brilliantly written by a manager of a steakhouse. I don’t know him, and have never been in touch, and while the vegetarian in me dislikes him intensely, the writer in me - no, that dislikes him to. But only partly, because he writes so well. This one about Christmas is just one of many I’d recommend.

ALBOWIEB is another top read which survives the cull. It’s written by Sam, who I’m on email terms with and readers will know from the forums. And he’s young. I’ve known the internet only my adult life, and when he says “we’ve been emailing each other since we were kids, ten years now” he actually means it. So when he writes an open letter to 2009, it’s funny, thoughtful, original - seriously, watch this guy.

So a blog cull none the less. It’s hard enough producing this stuff and I really need the continuity of a series or a book. I’m going to try the symphony, not the riffs, for a while. I don’t think I’ll really miss anything.

Nice to have you back here, though, obviously.

I’m going to think some things through. As we move towards a new year, I’m thinking a few things through.

I am better, thanks for asking. I spent the early part of my birthday this week at the doctors for the second time and realise that having asthma isn’t something you can beat. Sometimes you can control it, sometimes you just try and live with it the best you can. But running twelve miles a week doesn’t get rid of it, I now realise. I’m on a cocktail of medication and I’ll share a few things when there is time and there is going to be because I have some coming up and then some ideas what I’m going to do with it.

We’re going to keep the podcast going, as well. Thanks to the listener who sent the mail on Christmas Day and the insults to me in particular. I’d love to hear your work sometime.

Hey. Merry Christmas to you and enjoy your day.

I like Clive James. I like his erudite earthiness, his intellectual foilplay with people I admire and respect.

I imagine we would get along if we ever bumped into each other. We’d trade a few laughs, he’d have heard of my site, and we’d be on our separate ways like passing quips in the night.

I like getting his writing, because there’s not work to the reward, and yet no guilt either. His site is good and I dare say I paruse and frequent it. Until any of it goes over my head, and then I just think: “twat”.

Today there was new piece up there waxing (in a way that would make a Brazilian blush) about Hammershøi.

I seriously wondered if it was the in-house ballet troupe for the Labatt’s Apollo.

Pretentious fucker.

Listen - Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas by Eels

I am on the mend, slowly, but what I mean by the title is that I’m no better than any other broadcaster when it comes to Christmas stuff.

But you can stick your chipmunks up your arse, because carrying on from yesterday’s weekend song, here’s Teenage Fanclub.

Listen - Christmas Eve

I was thinking up a brilliant sitcom called Des ‘N Norma, about two Eastenders who meet during a earlybird matinee at the opera.They are pensioners, who lost their other halfs (nb: “‘arvs”) in the war. Do they fall in love and betray their working class roots?

Oh man, this is going to be bigger than my Horton Market idea.

Oh there’s more. There’s so much more.
Idea For A Programme
Reality TV - What A State!
TV Quick Hits
Idea For A Programme
Walken The Walk

We’re swinging up to two years of the Weekend Song and we’ve barely scratched the iceberg because there hasn’t been anything from this man yet.

I have played alto since I was eight and this man not only defined the instrument then, when he had been dead a quarter of a century, but a quarter of a century later he still owns that shit.

Owns it.

His catalogue is like a bible for jazz musicians, so much so that when musicians are playing really well, they have to wonder if they sound a bit too much like Bird.

I remember once when I was a kid at Ronnie Scott’s (I was a member at 13) I was sitting at a table just off the side of the stage and a drummer was taking apart his kit between sets. Now’s The Time was playing quietly over the PA and the drummer was doing two things second to his nature. While he took apart the cymbals, he was softly singing Parker’s solo to himself note for note. And so was I, in my head, and I bet so was half the place.

I used to practice and study his solos like thousands of other aspiring players, but even then I knew when I’d reached too high. Poet Adrian Mitchell put it best: “He breathed in air. He breathed out light. Charlie Parker was my delight.”

And although now is the time, you can get that song another day, because that’s not why we’re doing this. Not exactly. Although now is the time. You’ll get it.

Listen - Charlie Parker

It’s not the Christmas magic we had planned, but Angry pulled a rabbit out of a hat all the same. This was recorded in between my bouts of shaking. To add some realism, just imagine where there are jingles are, you can hear me coughing my guts out.

All this and more. I’ll just link to Angry for this, because I’m sick, dammit.

Angry And Cliff - A Christmas Podcast - Showing Threws

I thought I’d post something because it’s been a couple of days and that last post is looking weather-beaten and rounded.

Which is also how I look and feel. Any talking for more than five minutes wears me out, maybe less depending on the state of my crap-for-lungs trying to breathe.

I have been off work for nearly a week, left the house once to pick up meds, and I move from bed to couch at glacial pace. I am drugged up to the eyeballs, keenly watching news for eyeball drug innovation to see if they might help me.

I feel they should have an effect on me, but the drugs don’t. Worse, they just make you work. So instead of taking it easy, as soon as the fever subsides, I feel better and start moving around, which tires me out.

I’m on anti-biotics (not that I have anything personally against biotics) and will be on steroids in a few days if these don’t help me kick it.

Steroids are wierd, man. When you’re on them, hard work feels good. Maybe it’s psychological, but you feel rewarded by strain. Like deep breathing feels amazing, although that could be relief.

Either way, a body should be strong enough to blow out the candles on their thirty seventh birthday cake without getting dizzy, for fuck’s sake.

Steroids are like cocaine, the Aztec marching leaves. But cocaine also makes you think that everyone wants to know what you think, and that the stuff you say is really interesting and entertaining so you just bang on and on about yourself. I think it would have no affect on me whatsoever.

I have watched too much TV, and am additionally plagued by a stream of daytime chat and Loose Women. And not in a good way.

Thanks for the wellwishery and I’ll be back in the saddle soon. Take care.

It’s about this time of the week where I start talking about the podcast and stuff. However, I am sick with a chest thing compounded by a fever, braving the joys of asthma with the onset of some odd virus I’ve had for the past two weeks.

I went to the doctors today after running a fever and waking up every hour throughout the night. I spent the first part of the morning on the bathroom floor and every four hours my hands start shaking to let me know it’s time to take more paracetamol and bring my temperature down.

I have written to work to tell them to cancel my appearance at the Christmas team lunches. I’m afraid team Christmas will have to do without me. As you can see, my sense of humour has not been affected. I am still not funny.

Anyway, no podcast today. We’re still planning on doing one before Christmas and there’s a meme thing from Clair who has done an interview which I’ll get around to doing.

In the meantime, I’m putting energy into breathing. And I’ll be on antibiotics over Christmas, so booze is going to do funny things to me.