It's all a game

I don't know about you, but I don't play video games. I'd argue that they're a bit childish, but I like plenty of childish things: Bagpuss, Thunderbirds, The Muppets - I think they're all terrific, so that's not the problem. No, I think it's a combination of my lack of enthusiasm for anything resembling sport, and the fact these things ask you to overcome a machine in the name of entertainment. Whatever the reason, I have no interest in video games (or 'gaming' as I'm told it's called these days).

So sneer, so far

John Lydon invented punk rock and is the king of the punks. I know this because he told me. Actually he told me, my wife and about a hundred other people, as he was interviewed for his second autobiography ‘Anger Is An Energy’, at Sheffield’s Octagon on Wednesday night. And if it sounds like he talks some right old cobblers, you’d be understating the situation by some distance.

That’s not to say the erstwhile Johnny Rotten isn’t an interesting man, because he is. It couldn’t really be any other way. After all, he was the singer and focal point of one of Britain’s most important bands. The difficulty lies in getting him to speak sensibly on that most pertinent of topics. Admittedly, the evening’s host was way out of her depth – genial, but completely incapable of keeping her guest in order and on track. That said, even a heavyweight like Andrew Neil couldn’t wring much coherence from John the following night on the telly, so perhaps it’s a hopeless task whoever you happen to be.

The bottom half begone

Technology is now moving at such velocity that it is possible to feel nostalgic for the early years of a facility barely twenty years old. I’m referring to the World Wide Web – that sprawling anemone, whose tendrils reach hotels, cafes, bars and homes from the Sinai desert to the Arctic wastes.

Remember the way it used to be? Dialing into a screaming, wheezing modem, fingers crossed that a connection could be made and maintained for at least ten minutes. Watching the clock as minutes were added to the phone bill, and staring into CRT monitor as a graphics-heavy page loaded like a raindrop down a window?
True, it wasn’t a particularly convenient way to access the internet, but it did feel quite exciting; in the way our grandfathers were excited by the delicate process of tuning through the radiogram, anticipating the moment voices or music would crackle into the room.

The stupidity of crowds

In 1938, in the Yorkshire town of Halifax, two women complained they had been attacked by a man with bright shoe buckles, wielding a heavy mallet. Before long, further residents reported assaults by the same individual using knives and razors. Police travelled from London to investigate, but within a month, one victim admitted the wounds were self-inflicted; followed by almost all the others. The attacker, it seems, never existed.

October 1965, saw the schoolgirls of Blackburn Lancashire falling ill. It began with a handful of young women complaining of dizziness, then 85 girls were rushed to hospital having fainted. Some were convulsing, or gripped by uncontrollable chattering teeth. No cause was ever discovered; no pollution, chemical leak, disease or poisoning.

Scottish zombie attack

This is how it happened - or at least how I became involved. Scrolling through Twitter yesterday, I noticed a message which expressed alarm at real zombies being at large in real Scotland. It was followed by this link: http://www.motherwelltimes.co.uk/news/zombie-outbreak-in-lanarkshire-1-3558737 - which I clicked.

No thanks

I must be getting old. I'm still in my forties, but something fundamental has changed in the creative business; something I don't recognise and don't much like. I was a punk, when that was a thing, and I was certainly a truculent teenager, but for all of my adult life I've believed in common courtesy: saying (and writing) 'please' or 'thank you' when you're asking or receiving. These aren't disposable niceties reserved for fuddy-duddies, squares and maiden aunts, they're the very stuff of social interaction and mutual respect. And they're vanishing.

Park life

There’s a point in ELO’s ‘Turn To Stone’ where Jeff Lynne does a proto-rap. “Yes, I’m turnin’ to stone ‘cos you ain’t comin’ home / Why you ain’t comin’ home if I’m turnin’ to stone / You’ve been gone for so long and I can’t carry on / Yes, I’m turnin’, I’m turnin’, I’m turnin’ to stone”, it goes. A second after performing this in Hyde Park last Sunday, Lynne looked to the crowd, mouth agape, as if to say ‘I’m amazed that went so well’. It would be fair to say, this was Jeff’s reaction to the whole occasion.

All bets are off

Here we go again. Yet another campaign for The National Lottery (TNL), and it stinks. This has been going on for years, of course. If you can stand to, cast your mind back to any TNL marketing, branding or advertising and tell me whether you can recall anything good, or even creatively interesting. Actually, don't bother because you can't.

Apple pips

Of all the things Apple do well, creating a hullabaloo is one of the best. Despite ongoing wars and Scotland's bid for independence, the launch of a new product still performed well in the news agenda on Tuesday. Live from Cupertino, the world's hippest tech company put on a show to rival the biggest movie premiere, presidential inauguration or royal wedding. In terms of global audience, it was an unrivalled success.

But strip away the fripperies and rock bands (U2 played some songs, as if you hadn't noticed), and was all the fuss and bluster worth the candle? Well, almost but not quite.

Rocky relationships

'Love Will Keep Us Together' - that's what the Captain and Tenille told us, and who are we to argue with a naval officer and his good lady? Actually, as Tenille divorced Captain earlier this year, perhaps we could construct a decent argument against their assertion. Indeed, the evidence is everywhere: nothing destroys a friendship, partnership or romance like a career in popular music. For every Ben Watt and Tracy Thorn, there are dozens of Jones and Strummers, collapsing in acrimony, accusation, jealousy and bad blood. What is it about rock and roll? How can such a creatively free and potentially rewarding activity have such a pernicious impact on human closeness? I'm no Relate counsellor, but I'd point to ego, confusion and emotional overload.

Reflections on the death of Robin Williams.

Since Robin Williams took his life, around 17,000 people will have done the same. Because of our tendency to filter all human experience through celebrity, and because most of us know his work, our focus has been on Robin.

It was a terrible thing to happen. For the majority it was perplexing and perhaps, shocking. For Williams’ wife and children, his death will have been utterly traumatising – to the extent that the wound may never fully heal. We cannot possibly say what it meant to Robin. A British coroner would state that he ended his life ‘while the balance of his mind was disturbed’, but this is euphemistic. It is just as likely that he took the action in a moment of determination and sudden clarity. Self destruction can be a longed-for release as much as it can be the compulsion of utter despair. We can speculate endlessly; but we will never know.

Why I still don't 'get' Facebook.

Do you remember when Tony Blair said he couldn't use a computer? I do, because it infuriated me. At the time, he was leader of one the world's largest economies and democracies, and there he was, smirking gleefully about the fact that he couldn't operate the most versatile tool ever created. Quite pathetic.
That's not me. I'm not quite a geek, but I am pretty well wired. I've designed and built websites, can code a little bit, was emailing in the late nineties, was an early adopter of broadband and so on. So, please believe me when I say that, unlike Mr. Blair, I'm no luddite. So why don't I get Facebook?

Sure, I understand what it is, and even have some knowledge of its advertising model. I also have an account, because in the past, various clients expected it. But faced with the site itself, I'd be better off with the blueprints for a nuclear submarine.

Three score years and ten.

L.P. Hartley’s novel ‘The Go-Between’, opens with the words “The past is another country. They do things differently there.” To me, the memorable past is the 1970s, and at this remove, it feels more like another planet. Albeit a planet I rather miss.

In the mid-seventies, on Angel Row in Nottingham, there was a kiosk. Commonplace in all city centres, kiosks were walk-up shops selling sweets, cigarettes, newspapers and the like. This one was run by a couple of Indian brothers and they sold something called ‘Bengal matches’. Essentially, these were tiny fireworks. As with the familiar red-tipped matches, they came in a stiff card box, but were half-coated in a black substance. On striking they would ignite into a blaze of red, blue or green and burn for ten seconds or so. They were quite brilliant, and I felt incomplete if I didn’t have a box in my pocket. Anybody could buy them, and only the most timid of parents objected. Eventually, some pyrotechnics legislation outlawed their sale, and like that decade, they were gone forever.

Broadly speaking

Other than reckless and reluctant banks, what would you say is the biggest hindrance to small business, in the UK? High rents? Punitive rates? How about broadband?

You would imagine the internet has been nothing but a boon to business, what with the increased efficiency of communications, more flexible marketing channels, and a whole new route to the customer. And of course, in many ways, it has. But, as with all technology, it's essential to keep pace with the competition, and there's substantial evidence to show we are failing.

The future is bright.

So many acts convince themselves they are a ‘Great British Band’; mistaking ubiquity, arrogance and general fame, for grandeur, significance and longevity. As if status is their ultimate goal, rather than breaking new creative ground. But when we examine the nature of the truly ‘Great British Band’ we see that acquiring such a title isn’t really part of the plan. Of course, The Kinks, The Clash, The Stones, and Led Zeppelin were very sure of themselves, rightly believing they had something important and different to deliver, and the determination to do so. However, in all these cases, it was a musical urge which drove them. The glory and acclaim were happenstance.

And so it is with Manic Street Preachers.

A day in The Sun

In much the same way as cinemas now use the lure of movies to sell popcorn at vast profit, so the World Cup can be seen as deploying football games as a lure to sell enormous quantities of advertising. Which is absolutely fine by me as I find advertising infinitely more interesting than sport. Actually, I find everything infinitely more interesting than sport; but I digress. My point is, to advertisers, the appeal of the captive audience is just as great as the actual event - and no more so than The Sun.

Since Rupert Murdoch bought the paper in 1969, it has successfully positioned itself as a publication with the 'common' touch; very much addressing itself to the male, working class readership. It was the first newspaper to feature a topless woman every day, for instance (thereby becoming rather too 'common' for some observers). As with almost all the print media industry, The Sun's readership has tailed off somewhat since the advent of the internet, but it still holds its own and is easily the UK's most popular tabloid. Unsurprisingly, what with its blokeish connections and avowed popularism, The Sun is very keen to associate itself with the World Cup and England's progress (or lack of it) through the tournament. So much so that, last week, it produced a special copy of the paper and gave it away to every household in the country.

Only one direction

About 25 years ago, few jobs appealed to me more than my own show on Radio 1. Despite sending Johnny Beerling my show-reel once in a while, it never happened. Not even close.
These days the idea is considerably less appealing. My advanced age notwithstanding, it seems the President of Egypt has greater job security than a DJ on the national pop station.

This week it was announced that Radio 1 and Radio 1 Xtra would be shedding a cross section of their jocks. Controller Ben Cooper has handed Mike Davies, Jen Long, Ally McCrae, CJ Beatz, Crissy Criss and Robbo Ranx their cards. His actions are blamed on budgetary cuts stemming from the last licence fee settlement, which is understandable. After all, it must be incredibly difficult to afford talent when you have a half million pound hotel bill to pay annually.

Well done you.

Nobody likes being patronised. Even small infants boil with fury when some dough-faced adult leers into their pushchair and makes 'woo-woo' noises at them. Probably.

I think being patronised takes us back to school, when we were bound by the superiority of adults who insisted they knew better than us, and would occasionally spare a few shreds of praise. "Well done!" they would say, if we had pleased them.

Of course, when we finally pass the age of consent and become grown-ups ourselves, we can leave that head-patting attitude behind. We can judge our own triumphs and failures for ourselves, in the knowledge that we now have a modicum of wisdom and self-awareness. That is, unless we're unfortunate enough to be watching an iteration of the current Halifax campaign.

Paint Me Down

For a couple of years, there’s been a Banksy backlash from the arts elite. Too obvious, too glib, too trite is the accusation – although I suspect they’d be praising his work to the ceiling if he’d remained obscure and unpopular. Perhaps they’ve just tired of working out ways to take home large pieces of wall.

Since an art director colleague introduced me to Bristol’s foremost graffiti master years ago, I’ve enjoyed his stuff enormously. In that time he has painted throughout the world, from Sydney to Camden, LA to Palestine. Surely the accessible nature of his pieces is the point. It’s intended to be art for everyone, no degree or expertise required. His stencils are also executed with wit and precision, and he’s managed to drag graffiti away from the dumb, unwelcome ‘tagging’ baseline.

On The Record

How much would you pay for a copy of Nik Kershaw's album 'The Riddle'? Should you wish to add it to your iTunes collection via Apple's store, it would cost you about £5.50. On Amazon's marketplace, you could pick up the CD for £7.65. But in a hip store, in Sheffield's Meadowhall Centre, a second-hand vinyl version would rush you £12.50.
In the age of Spotify, Google Play, file sharing and Grooveshark, something curious is happening. The oldest commercial music format is attracting impressive sales, at premium prices.

In 2013, just over 780,000 vinyl albums were bought in the UK. That's the most since 1997 when 817,000 were sold, and also represents a 101% increase on 2012's numbers. The total for 2014 is expected to be higher still. Obviously this is a tiny percentage of all music bought, but it is still a noticeable and expanding market. So who's buying vinyl LPs and why?
Interestingly, the sales figures for turntables are more or less static. So, either many people still have their record players and have returned to the purchase of product to play on them, or a cross-section of the consumer base is forking out for vinyl, but isn't playing it. That latter explanation at first appears ludicrous, but I sense some truth in it.