Happy birthday? Baah humbug.........

On Tuesday it was my birthday. Hip-hip hooray.

I won't reveal how old I am just yet but I had a perfectly pleasant day despite the fact that I spent more than 10 hours of it at work and it rained constantly throughout.....

The truth is, however, when you hit a certain age, birthdays just ain’t what they used to be. I can still remember the thrill of waiting for the big day when I was younger – and to be fair, I still see it in my two teenage children today – but these days it can all just feel like another hurdle crossed on the path to leaving this mortal coil.

It is very much the sign of the times that I received most birthday messages from 'friends' on my social networking site on Facebook. I put the word ‘friends’ into inverted commas because when you add someone to your site who you know, they are automatically classified as your friends. Thus, according to cyberspace, I have more than 200 such friends, but if so, how come I only received about half-a-dozen birthday cards from non-family members????? To be fair though I was very touched by all their kind messages on tinternet - even the two who said 'happy birthday Adrian' in light of my apparent looka-a-like sound-a-like to Mr Chiles.

Anyway, the truth is, the older I get the more I fail to understand why we even celebrate birthdays at all. Now I don’t want to come over as the birthday equivalent of the ‘bah-humbug-Christmas-deniers’ but I wonder why we should be congratulated and lauded for something totally out of our control?

Indeed, I came to the somewhat startling (and possibly unique) conclusion a few years ago that on our birthdays we should actually have our own individual mother’s days, because it is them who did all the work. Being saluted on your birthdays is a bit like when you go to a social function and win the raffle for a box of Quality Street and people clap as you go up to collect the prize. Why??????? You didn’t achieve anything by buying a ticket and nor did you when you took your first breath after hours of motherly agony. . .

The other thing which I find different now is that I often forget my age or birth date. As I recall, this never happened when I was younger when it was etched on my brain and I started ‘planning’ for my birthday from practically the moment I had unwrapped the last Christmas pressie.

It is because I know how much children take their ages seriously that I came up with my own ‘Dragons’ Den’ idea (just admit it, we all have one!) which I’m now happy to share with you on the strict instruction that you can’t nick it as it is here in print and so I duly claim the copyright.

I was having a chat once with a former colleague of mine – the former circulation director in Bath, Mark Stroud, pictured here somewhat worse for wear. He is a fantastically funny guy who has a wonderful business brain and is always looking Del Boy-like to how he can get his first million. So we tentatively shared each other’s Dragons’ Den ideas (his was a rubbish one by the way about how you keep your takeaway curry hot in the car) and I told him mine. And I could see him mentally counting the cash we could rake in . . . .

My idea is half-birthday cards. Ask any child of between seven and 10 how old they are and there is every chance they won’t just say eight or nine but eight-and-a-quarter or nine- and-a-half. These things matter to them so I think there is millions to be made (and huge misery to be put on parents and grandparents!) by having half-birthday cards to be sent six months after an official birthday.

Would-be investors can contact me at the Bath Chronicle – but please don’t do so on October 3 because I will be out celebrating my 45 1/2th birthday!

Death of Grass

Anyone remember this book - we did with Geoff Williams in (I think) second year. Midge was particularly keen on it. Well it's been serialised by Radio 4 for broadcast after Woman's Hour, and again in the evening, narrated, oddly, by David Mitchell. I remember GW stopping half way down a page, skipping forward a couple of chapters and saying 'right, turn to chapter five'. At the time I thought he was just being lazy, or missing out padding, but actually it's extremely violent, and he must have been censoring this, as I don't remember any of it. Today's episode contained both rapes and revenge killings....

Great Blog!

I can't work out to add to the blogs list, but check out:

http://asfm.blogspot.com

Fab!

Coogan

Just watched series 2 of Saxondale, which wasn't always funny (not always trying to be) but instead was another multifaceted fantastic character study from the great Steve Coogan. Anyone see him play Larry David's therapist in Curb Your Enthusiasm last year? Man that was hysterical!

Here's to Steve Coogan!

A European Strangler adventure

Guys, this is part of my bath Chronicle column this week which tells of my latest exploit of Strangler fandom. For on Thursday at 7am I begin a three day trek to see the band in Paris and Ghent, along with another 80 plus relics of 1977 who will soend three drunken days talking of nothing but 'is Rattus better than The Raven'? (no), 'will the excellent Suite 16 be their last albnum' (no) and 'how much longer can Jet go on for/' (answer FOREVER).

Anyway this is wot I wrote...


On Thursday morning, I will be sitting on a hot, sweaty coach bound for the delights of Paris surrounded by around 80 old punk rockers who really should know better.

For, as I’ve mentioned in my Bath Chronicle column many times, I am a devoted (or as some would say ‘dangerously obsessive’) fan of those delightful musicians called The Stranglers and over the next couple of days I will be joining a double-decker bus worth of fellow stalkers and groupies in following the band to see them in concert in both France and Belgium.

This trip has been organised by one of the band’s biggest and most committed fans, Owen, who thought he may get a little bit of interest in the idea of a European road trip but was duly overwhelmed at the response from fellow fanatics.

The fact that those of us in our 40s are still willing to laugh in the face of the credit crunch and indulge our teenage-borne passion proves that rock music is now like classical and jazz in that there is simply no age limit to enjoying the art.

Once upon a time rock and pop were regarded as the preserve of the young but nowadays that concept has been well and truly blown apart and I regard this as very good news.

Put simply, I never want to “grow out” of loving high quality rock music and trust me, oh reader, there is no greater quality than the might of The Stranglers.

And it is not only the fans who are ignoring their birth certificates in all of this because most of the bands are ‘knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door’ themselves. The Stranglers youngest member has only been with them for around eight years and is a mere boy at the age of 44 but the bassist and keyboard player are comfortably into their 50s while our ultimate hero, Stranglers drummer Jet Black, is now 70. Seventy is an age where many think of the pipe and the slippers rather than the base drum and the hiatt but nothing seems to stop ‘young’ Jet and this enthusiasm is symptomatic of the fact that rock no longer belongs only to those with youth club membership.

If you wanted any further proof, last week I bought the new album by another of rock’s elder statesman – Bruce Springsteen – and it is an absolute joy from the start to finish.

Although he is heading for bus pass territory, Springsteen gives not a hint of failing powers and in many ways his new album is as fresh, uplifting and exciting as any he has done. Age simply cannot whither his infinite variety.

So as I toodle across Europe this week I do so safe in the happy thought that I’ve got at least another 20 or 30 years of this to come. Lovely.

A trip to see the PM.....

Last night turned out to be rather good actually for a sad old politico like me …...

I got to chat to the Big Man for about five minutes with my group of three (eds from Milton Keynes and Cambridge) and talked about Bath, Tamworth, the credit crunch and my hair (don’t ask). He described Tamworth as ‘a nice place’ and praised Brian Jenkins. We had been warned he wasn’t very good at chit-chat and that is certainly how it seemed because at times he went almost into speech mode (‘we are in the midst of a global banking crisis etc…)’ but I felt he had integrity and cared about stuff. Not great in the charisma stakes though.

Two weird things. First he has that strange thing going on with his bottom lip and you almost have to stop yourself copying because it is quite infectious and secondly it is only when you are really close that you notice he has this odd eye thing too. He is blind in one eye as you may know and so you are never quite sure which is the good eye or even if he is looking at you. I may even have ignored the Prime Minister of GB at one point!

He wasn’t alone by the way. During the night we also saw Alistair Darling (who looks ridiculously young close up), Margaret Beckett (who looked ridiculously orange) and various other bods including Hazel Blears who has weird proportions - there is more hair than body.

Just as exciting for me was we had got chatting to a number 10 press officer before GB arrived and she took on us an on exclusive tour of all the state rooms and then (even better) the cabinet room (No one else saw this yah boo!). That was fascinating to think of the decisions (life and death, war and peace etc) that have been made in that room and it was also interesting to see the quirky thing that while every other chair is placed firmly under the desk, tradition demands that the desk the PM sits in is always out and at a specific angle. Curious.

One thing you may feel is a bit 'typical' is that as we were completing our tour we went into a tight corridor and I bumped into someone. That someone was, ahem, the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I know what your thinking Derek, ‘only Sam…’

On the way out we managed to get a quick snatched pic with our mobile but as you can see it was dark and it isn’t a great pic. Still, I will dine out on it for some time!


PS To be fair to GB he is very well informed. He said 'I used to follow your antics on the Mem Book - has it moved'? He then asked if I had heard from Andy Scott lately and if I had a spare demo copy of Slum Living.

Independent on Saturday 31st Jan

Free Sigur Ros CD on Saturday, gotta be worth picking up. You get Hoppipolla if you don't have it already. Don't know what else is on it, hard to believe this'll be a best of - but they simply don't have any bad songs.