Personal

Sisters rule ok…

I’m sure everyone’s getting a bit sick of reading everyone else’s achievements & high points of the year that was so I’m going to keep this one short & sweet. Photo above is of me with my fabulous sister taken on the steps inside Stormont a couple of months back. Thanks Trish for all the laughs you give me & everyone else, for all the things you do for me (& everyone else!), for all the advice you freely hand out to me (& everyone else – whether or not they want it), for all the scrapes you constantly pull me out of, for being such great company and for a million and one other things. When I looked at my own top 10 list for 2010 pretty much everything on it has involved you in some way and I don’t know what I would do without you. You’re a sister in a million & you rock!

Reeling in the Years – a few gig stories

Over the past few weeks, as my journey home from Derry has got longer & longer due to the bad weather, I’ve started to devise new ways to pass the time I spend in the car. A recent ongoing theme has been trying to first of all remember all the bands I’ve seen in the last 35 years and then to put them into chronological order. I managed to remember the first & last bands (the late Desmond Dekker & Robert Plant’s Band of Joy for anyone that’s wondering) but I’ve mothballed the task pending future imprisonment (solitary confinement) or hostage seizure when I may have time to revisit. What the exercise has done is remind me of many, many fun nights out over the years and here are a few of the highlights/oddities:

· I saw all sorts of bands when I was a teenager in Doncaster. My friends & I used to frequent the Outlook Club which sadly (?) no longer exists. It had a very short space between the stage & the ceiling and that meant that Johnny Ramone had to do his entire set in 1977 with his head bowed & his hair hanging down. The Ramones were supporting the Talking Heads or vice versa – that was a good night. I’d never experienced anything like the Ramones. We didn’t have the internet at school in the 1970s, no-one really travelled long distance and New York was to us like another planet. I love the way that other bands have adopted Gabba Gabba Hey as one of their anthems and Belfast band the Sabrejets do a good cover. Hearing those early Ramones songs now always reminds me of pogo-ing at university parties.

· My friend & I hitchhiked from Nottingham to Leeds in 1982 to see the Rolling Stones in Roundhay Park. It was a sunny day & we managed to get near the front. We got a lift home with a VW transporter van full of hippies – which was great until the girl driving asked whether there was anyone else in the van who could drive but hadn’t dropped any acid. Ah well – she was a trooper & managed to get us home ok without any mishaps.

· Blondie played our Fresher ball in Lancaster – none of us had ever heard of them but they were good on the night. Saw loads of great bands at university and some awful ones too (Bob Geldof’s dreadful Boomtown Rats stands out) but as it was the late 70s, there was always a lot of other stuff going on in parallel – mainly fighting it has to be said between the “posh” uni students & the punks from Preston who used to come up for gigs. I kept out of the fighting but it always caused a lot of “noise”.

· My friend sent me money in 1985 to buy Tom Waits tickets at the Dominion. I failed to realise how popular Tom was likely to be & left ticket purchase to the last minute. There were none left. Obvious to me now! I put upon all my London friends to ring everyone & anyone they knew with “music biz” contacts. There were no Tom Waits tickets to be had for love or money. It was ok though – I didn’t tell my friend, we turned up on the night of the gig & I blagged us in at the Dominion – although we had to stand at the back. Yep – I must have always been manipulative.

· Think the most surreal has to be Jayne (formerly Wayne) County at the Fridge in Brixton. The men on the stage were naked except for policeman’s hats and they were dancing energetically. As we were at the front that resulted in a lot of “movement” right in our eyelines. We were truly spoilt for choice in Brixton between the Academy & the Fridge. Mick Jones’ dad used to drink in our local in Brixton Hill. Conversation went like this “My boy’s in a band – you might have heard of him”; us to middle aged man, “oh yeah – who’s that then?” (thinking to ourselves it was gonna be someone awful & we’d have to pretend whoever X was was ok) “It’s Mick Jones – he plays a lovely guitar – he used to be in a band called the Clash – have you heard of them?” Silence fell as we gazed at the father of one of our gods…

· Seen the late Link Wray at the Garage in London & self nominated King of the Surf guitar Dick Dale a number of times in various locations; also went all the way to Spain to see Davie Allan & the Arrows – which completes that particular holy trinity. Caught both Slacktone and the Neptunes at a Hillbilly Surf Stomp in San Luis Obispo during the week following 9/11 when I was stranded in California – most memorable thing about that day apart from the music was the number of Americans that asked me why people in other countries hated them so much…which was a hard question to answer tactfully.

· Saw Mark Lanegan & the Screaming Trees at the Astoria & attended the after gig party. Whilst the band was on stage, someone had stolen all their credit cards. Ah well – kept Mark out of trouble for that one night at least. Along the same lines, we were on the guest list for Faith No More at the Astoria and one of the bouncers came by and told us we’d have to give up our seats if Eric Clapton showed up. Lucky for him he didn’t as we weren’t for moving.

· More recently moved furniture with Jonathan Richman when he was in Belfast, rubbed shoulders with Leonard Cohen in the Do-Lab at Coachella (he was the only person formally dressed), met Steve Earle in Derry with some of the Learning Pool team (that’s us all in the photo – Steve Earle looks almost like part of our team in this pic) and travelled down to Dublin with Janet Harkin to see Robert Plant’s Band of Joy.

Every one of them a good night – hopefully there’ll be many more. Looking forward to reading your gig stories in the comments.

A Whole Lotta Love…

That’s certainly what the audience was feeling for Robert Plant and to be fair the rest of his fabulous Band of Joy on Monday night at Dublin’s intimate Olympia Theatre. Janet Harkin and I were there too – diehard Led Zep fans both – and we had a truly momentous evening – even though we had to run from the theatre via the back door on the stroke of 10.30pm like a couple of latter day hard rock Cinderellas (last bus back to Derry was leaving Busaras at 11pm and we needed to be on it – even though it did appear to have a bullet hole in the front windscreen). We did stop briefly on the pavement outside just to jump up and down on the spot for a minute with excitement and remark to each other how buzzing we each were from the gig.

Last time I saw Robert Plant was in Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown, California. He was next to me in the audience, jigging about & singing along to Wanda Jackson’s version of “I Saw the Light” – and shouting out “Worcester” when Wanda asked “Where y’all from tonight?” Just a normal guy enjoying a night out at a local music venue admiring the legend that’s Wanda. I chatted to him of course & listened to him talk to the musicians in the band after the gig, which he did at length.

There’s no doubt he’s a force to be reckoned with and a legend in his own lifetime. When I think about all the bands and performers I’ve seen in the last three or five years (and believe me there have been a few) Robert Plant and Leonard Cohen are the two that for me have ridden the waves of time most successfully…Cohen because there is such substance to him as a poet and Plant because he keeps going on to do new & interesting projects. The Band of Joy’s certainly one of those. The gig was like being at a party where a few friends pick up some string instruments, start jamming and find out they’re actually quite good together – so they keep going and it gets better and better. It was like peeking in at a gang of good friends having a great night together or it was like dying & waking up in Hillbilly Heaven. Buddy Miller & Patty Griffin were as good as we hoped they would be and Plant didn’t hog centre stage all night – when it was someone else’s turn he was happy to blend into the background, sing backing vocals & play his harmonica. He also told stories, entered into a bit of banter with the audience and even answered a few of the comments that were shouted over to him. I liked his story about how he and his friends at school in the West Midlands in the 60s used to listen to Howlin’ Wolf and the Reverend Gary Davis – it was all Motown and northern soul by the time I went to school.

So – the big question – did they play any Zeppelin songs. They did – but not in a way you would straight away recognise – they Nashville-ised them and played Tangerine, House of the Holy, Misty Mountain Hop and Gallow’s Pole – Plant parodying his 1970s on-stage persona a little – curling his still impressive mane into ringlets with his finger. Everyone in the audience sang with him – it was like being part of a religious experience – and you really could feel the love – you could almost reach out and touch it.

Robert Plant – thank you and long may you reign. Nothing else is getting a look in this week in the Fig – Band of Joy is all I need.

Kitten love is good love…introducing Jellytot

In the midst of today’s miserable CSR10 announcements & in view of the bad press there’s been recently about people putting cats in bins etc I thought I’d give you Jellytot’s story today – I know it’s a bit different from my usual blog but I figure everyone could do with cheering up & with a different type of news today. Some of you already know the story – but you’ll still enjoy the pictures!

Just over 2 weeks ago, I was driving home after dropping my goddaughter off. I was taking the back country roads as a major new bypass is under construction between Dungannon & Ballygawley – so I was way off my usual well-trodden route. Driving along I spotted a small black kitten crouching on the road – he had enormous big luminescent eyes & seemed to be in a catatonic trance. I pulled over next to him in the Fig & looked at him out of my window, wondering what I should do. However, there were a few houses back from the road & I thought – maybe he does this all the time. 50 yards further on around the next bend, I saw what I believe to be his mother lying dead on the road – she’d been hit by a car probably moments before.

You can guess the rest – I turned the Fig around in short order & went back. I knew if I didn’t pick him up the next car along would take him as the next victim and I wasn’t prepared to have that as the outcome. I scooped him up & he sat next to me on the passenger seat – looking up at me with those big eyes. He was a tiny scrap (vet said he was prob 4 or 5 weeks old) as you can see from the pic of Olivia holding him.

I just photographed him again now – relaxing on his blanket – belly full of treats & kitten milk – still staring straight at me. The bond is strong already & he ain’t going anywhere – tiny menace that he is – this is one kitten who’s landed on his feet.

A night with James Ellroy, demon dog & foul owl – are you scared yet?

Last night Dave Briggs & I went to the Bloomsbury Theatre to see famous American author & self proclaimed genius James Ellroy – check us all out on the photo below. I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this blog entry you’re already familiar with Ellroy (LA Confidential, American Tabloid, etc) and I’m therefore not going to go back over all the much hyped information that exists about him. This blog is about some of what James Ellroy had to say last night.

A confession first – I’ve seen James Ellroy at a book reading event in London before and am a fan – I like him because he’s unusual as well as incredibly talented. I think it was in 1996 when he was promoting “My Dark Places” – another book about his mother, speaking more or less completely in jive talk and very much in love with his pet bull terrier. 14 years on he was less “daddio” and even more off the wall than I remembered him to be.

There’s no doubt he’s an entertaining & engaging public speaker – he stands legs wide apart like a wild man rock guitarist playing at a lectern & he uses his distinctive low & booming voice like a musical instrument – he’s an easy man to listen to and he doesn’t disappoint in terms of the shock factor – ever. He even told us last night – “laugh with greater fervour – it’s funny MFs” and he uttered the immortal deVito line from LA Confidential – Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush – in “that” voice.

Also before we start – I was touched that Ellroy said he’d like more women to read his books. He’s sometimes painted to be a pervert and a woman-hater. I tend to think he’s a bit maligned on this score and instead read him to be a hopeless romantic caught up in a never ending loop of seeking THE ONE, finding her, discovering he was wrong and moving on to looking for the next ONE. He rather weirdly claims to be able to remember with clarity features of women’s faces that he met or saw 50 years ago. Dave & I weren’t sure that was credible – and he did then go on to freely admit that he “makes up shit convincingly & makes sure all the people he’s writing about are dead” – with one exception – Don Crutchfield, real life PI that Ellroy claims he paid $40k & promised not to depict as a “fag or a ponce” in “Blood’s a Rover”.

It was fascinating to hear from the author about the methodology he uses to write. He starts with a detailed outline which he keeps beside him & this framework enables him to then control his story whilst permitting improvisation on scenes he is writing. He spends a lot of time in the dark thinking about & planning his story and then writes in longhand at his desk, working in silence and with no music or distractions. He reads his work out aloud to himself as he writes and rewrites. If he ever gets fed up with writing crime fiction, I’ll offer him a job as a project manager any day (although I might worry about the effect that would have on his colleagues).

These are the soundbites from last night that we liked a lot:

· LA is where I go when women divorce me; I can earn money there to pay my alimony and I know where stuff is

· She had eyes of no shit non hazel green

· My riposte to book critics worldwide has been “fuck you all”

· Says he has a “benign form of megalomania rewriting history to his own specification”

· I am a genius and George W Bush is not

· Whatever I can conceive I can execute (I like that – a lot)

· England = the moors, thatched cottages & baying hounds

· Movies you want to see like LA Confidential; movies you want to flee like the Black Dahlia

I’ll be back to post more on this when I’ve had more chance to think & digest. He’s in Belfast tonight & tomorrow night & folks – James Ellroy is unmissable – take your chance to go & see him whilst he’s over here. Comments & questions welcome.

To hug or not to hug…

I’m often surprised and pleased by the number of people that hug me the first time I ever meet them; some people even hug me as soon as we’re introduced. I don’t know why this happens although I must say I’m pleased it does. In my opinion, hugging shows you feel close to other people in a non-threatening & not too intimate way & it feels nice. Others in the Learning Pool team have been known to push me forward when there’s hugging to be done.

I’m in Scotland this weekend taking a couple of days out after a busy month of getting Learning Pool’s new Glasgow office up & running. Dave, Breda & I hosted a breakfast briefing in Edinburgh on Thursday at which one of Learning Pool’s non execs, Donald Clark was speaking. Donald is pretty much always controversial (read his blog athttp://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ to see for yourself if you don’t believe me), especially when he’s talking to people that train others using traditional means – and he didn’t disappoint on Thursday. At the end of the morning, I could see Sheila Fleetwood (pictured with me above) making a bee-line for me. She’d been engaging in some lively banter with Donald over the course of his session & I must admit I thought for one second she was coming over to give me a slap. Instead, to my delight, she hugged me & thanked me for such an interesting & thought provoking morning. Phew!

A couple of months ago, Dave & I were in Exeter for Likeminds (gosh – was that really February?) and we had a fab night out with some of our local guvvie pals we don’t see anywhere near often enough. That night I had a great conversation with Martin Howitt & Bill Wells about hugging and how much we like to do it. The three of us decided that one of the measures of how well Learning Pool is doing could be the number of customer hugs I receive every month – admittedly a rather unusual business metric. So far it seems to work.

Next week is the company’s annual birthday bash (hard to believe but we’re 4 years old) – we’re having a party on HMS President & I expect to get a lot of hugs that day – tell you what – I’ll count them & post the number back up here as a comment next week.

Conclusion – hugging is good with your business associates – keep doing it & keep those hugs coming for me!

A Room with a View…is it always worth it?

Rather unusually for someone that’s been on the planet as long as I have, I’m lucky enough to have never spent a single night in hospital. It’s been an experience therefore to have spent the last 3 days at the bedside of a very sick relative in the quite odd Hopitaux du Pays du Mont-Blanc in the town of Sallanches near the French resort of Chamonix. It’s not like I imagined hospitals to be. It’s modern & very clean. It’s quiet & eerily empty. There are no wards, just rooms painted bright yellow with one or two people in them. Every room has a stunning view – either out onto the Big Mountain itself or one of the other minor peaks. Do people recover quicker when they’re in a room with a view? Maybe.

Twice a day a black helicopter lands on the roof bringing in an emergency – either a holidaymaker that’s damaged themselves whilst indulging in one of the many, many extreme sports on offer in this part of the world – or transporting someone from one of the remote villages. Yesterday we watched an elderly gentleman in his neatly buttoned overcoat walk from the helicopter.

I feel as though I’ve slipped into a parallel universe in only three days. My day to day life at Learning Pool seems like a distant dream. I’m either in the hospital feeling helpless or I’m outside reading Haruki Murakami’s surreal “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, drinking coffee out of a machine and wondering why people that are sick enough to be in hospital think it’s a good idea to go outside & smoke, even when that means dragging their drips & tubes with them.

Human life – it’s a beautiful and fragile thing – we should remember that and try to be a bit nicer to each other for the short time we spend on earth.

Where would we be without our mums?

And here’s mine – pictured last August with my sister’s two kids on the train from Greenock to Glasgow. It was her birthday & we’d been to Port Glasgow in the pouring rain to try & find the street she was born in…needless to say it’s long gone, flattened by the savage bombings that part of Scotland got in WWII.

My mum tells a fabulous story about the breakout of the war. Her own grandmother & her great aunt were visiting Scotland when the war broke out. Someone had to be responsible for escorting them back to Donegal by ferry and then train. They lived on top of a remote mountain, weren’t used to travel & neither of them could read. There wasn’t anyone else to send so my mum was given the job. She was 10 years old at the time.

She managed well although the train stopped at every hole in the hedge and at each one, the great aunt asked “Are we there yet?” She says she was quite relieved when her uncle joined the train in Omagh & took over responsibility for the rest of the trip and getting the elderly pair delivered safely home. Can anyone today imagine putting a 10 year old in charge of something like that!

That story sums my mum up. She’s fiercely independent & incredibly resilient. She’s always avoided allowing her life to slip into comfortable grooves and she claims “there’s no such word as can’t”. And I guess some of that’s rubbed off because as we all know, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – and for that I thank my lucky stars every day. Thanks Mum J

Happiness is a new Fig…

I know this blog strictly speaking is about people I meet along the way, but I spend so much time in my car that I’ve given it a personality all of its own. A number of you have asked to see photos of the new Fig – so here it is in all its glory. What a great little car. I had my last Fig for 6 years and during that time, any of you that visited with Learning Pool in Northern Ireland have probably been in it, even some of you that are rather tall (thinking of Donald Clark!). I’ve also met hundreds of people that I wouldn’t otherwise have talked to because they’ve engaged me in conversation about my Fig whenever I stop for more than a couple of seconds.

Can’t say the same for the rather dull hire car I’ve been driving for the past 6 weeks. Indeed my god-daughter commented rather wryly the first day we were out together in the hire car that we hadn’t been photographed or videoed once.

Irish – it’s not a dead language after all…

Here’s a photo of my talented god-daughter Olivia with the medal she won a couple of weeks back for second place in the Irish poetry recitation at the Feis. Well done Olivia! You really are a superstar. 67 children entered this year – and as the poem was the same for all – and as most of their parents probably don’t even speak Irish themselves (according to Wikipedia, about 10% of the Northern Irish population has “some knowledge of Irish”), it must have been a bit of a trial for the audience to endure.

However, as we all know – and Olivia certainly – the pursuit of a medal is a worthwhile sport and you just have to do whatever you need to in order to get into the final 3!

Irish received official recognition in Northern Ireland for the first time in 1998 as a result of the Good Friday Agreement and these days about 4,000 kids start to learn every year as they go to secondary school. Where I live in Northern Ireland, there’s a rich wealth of Irish culture to embrace – so perhaps it isn’t a dying language after all…

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