The Anniversary Waltz

As a respite from the 2010s I’m going back to a simpler age, when Engelbert Humperdinck was popular. I had an interview today, this time the person was human, and (probably because she was a she and because she was older) she was not confrontational.

And I suppose there is a little bit down to me. I was prepared and a little less blasé.

So it’s a month since I started this blog, and a big whole year since I was officially Kaput. So in honour of this anniversary I will play the Anniversary Waltz. It has the pleasure of being famous for ending the Beatles run of Number One’s . And so because I’m a Beatles fan, this is a particular (sort of Marquis De Sade) guilty pleasure.

Don’t let the bastards grind you down

Author Alan Sillitoe died in London today aged 82. He’s one of the few famous writers I’ve met; and came across as a man with few pretensions. I can’t be certain if the man who entertained a small audience at the London Bookshop Foyles was acting for the crowd. But then wouldn’t I, if such books as Saturday Night Sunday Morning or The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner had come from me.

Alan Sillitoe sat in a chair, with a glass of wine in one hand and a copy of a Morse Code book in the other. I remember his leather waistcoat, which gave him the look of an old man from his most famous novel. And I imagined him keeping a stash of tobacco in one of the pockets.

Ostensibly he was reading from his 1970 book A Start in Life, which had just been republished. The books main character, Michael Cullen, is described as a bastard, by birth and by nature. He’s supposed to be the inspiration for the 70s TV character Budgie, but I’ve also heard he inspired the incarnation of Mick Travis in O Lucky Man.


Before giving his reading, Sillitoe buzzed out some Morse and asked the audience to guess what its meaning, nobody did. He took questions later, and I remember someone asking the most common question an author gets – is your writing autobiographical. I can’t remember his reply, although it did include something about his bike factory job.

There’s was not much of Arthur Seaton in the Eighty year old Sillitoe, but I’m sure his essence was there. The impression I got was of a man happy with his life, who was not especially northern and not especially matter-of-fact. He carried himself like someone who’d reached a point were everything is stable and calm; where he could just enjoy himself and look back at a novel written forty years ago.

The bastards did not succeed in grinding him down. Cheers Alan, and thanks for all your great writing. Long may you stay in print.

Processions

Family, the English rock band, who are now largely forgotten. They also get wrongly classified as progressive. This tracks from their 1969 album Family Entertainment. The cover looks very much like the Doors Strange Days. And I put them firmly in the psychedelic tradition. Well with this one and the previous Music in a Dolls House. For what its worth, here’s a video I put together from some back projection footage. It’s London a long long time ago. Enjoy.

How High the Moon

I happened across a Guardian blog last night, it was late and the painkillers were wearing off. There are some benefits from being on benefits; for example free NHS dental treatment. For years I had free dental insurance, came with the job, but now I’m getting the basic service.

Basic means simple crowns and extractions, no hygienist, no fancy bridge work. And my choice was quite simple, do I persist with an abscess that’s been plaguing me for years or have it pulled. The abscess lived under a root canal filling, so was hard to get at. Antibiotics brought it down, but then it would just get infected again and come back.

My dentist, when I was on the insurance, suggested an extraction and bridging work. But with my new status, all I get is the extraction. So for want of a better alternative, I bit the bullet and had the tooth pulled.

Because of my condition I was also witness to the dental nurse explaining to the dentist why she had adrenalin on hand. The practice had misplaced my notes, so my heart condition was not necessarily apparent to a busy dentist. But his nurse must have a good memory.

During the procedure the thought of my heart stopping or having another attack did cross my mind. And when he was done, the dentist said you’re sweating. It was only later after the drugs had worn off, and the persistent flow of blood became uncomfortable, that I took some more pain killers.

As my mouth was filled with a gauze bandage, a friend called the doctors to see if paracetamol was ok on top of my drug cocktail. And luckily, my medicine cabinet of a body, can accept a few more pills if need be.


By the time I got to midnight, the soreness was back, but the blood flow had subsided. I was getting ready to turn in, but took one last look at the news. Follow the volcanic ash clouds progress, check out the election. I came across a huge blog with hundreds of posters. Considering the first post was after 6, it had stirred up a hornet’s nest of activity all night. Now I was into the next day, and still the posts were coming in.


The blog was about David Cameron’s promise to cut the benefit of people who refuse to work. The first query I had was, well that’s already happening, so what’s new. I did not read every post, some were the usual – I don’t want my taxes supporting the unemployed; some were humorous; some were spot on. Like the person who pointed out that Labour has already implemented this policy. They also pointed out that people like me, who’ve worked all their lives are given the same as spotty teenagers, how can this be fair?

An architect who had trained for six years and practiced for eight pointed out that when the Jobcentre offers him a burger flipping opportunity, its unlikely someone with his CV will get past the slush pile.
I got to the last comment; there were still clots of blood in my mouth, and a dull aching pain. And there was an overwhelming feeling of sadness, of wasted energy. On another day I may have commented, pasted in the URL of this blog. But instead found myself with nothing to say, or rather nothing new to add.

Today I see the unemployment figures have risen to 2.5 million. I have an interview coming up next week at the Jobcentre. So when they ask me, how hard have you been looking for work? I will say How High The Moon.

Au Suivant

Its Sunday night, the day has been the sunniest of this year. Hampstead heath was heaving. Down from the men’s pond, overlooking one of the open ponds, people stripped off and acted like it was 80 degrees.

A posh girl, only yards away, evacuated her personal life into a mobile phone. She had evidently been abroad; spent the night with a guy who was just about ok. Somehow her clothes got wet, or were un-wearable (I forget).

So she wore his surfer shorts and surfer tee shirt on the bus. And it was full of people going to work, and there she was dressed in inappropriate clothing. She interspersed her story with “Its very private,” and then proceeded to let anyone in earshot know inner workings of her sex-life.

People close by had another glass of wine. Another group were talking about buying English lessons, either as a Christmas or Birthday present. I fell asleep for fifteen minutes or so, and dreamed about nothing in particular.

The heat retracted, and we left; walking through the privileged environs of Highgate and then down through the brutal concrete of Archway.

The lady in the flat below has an accordion, and when I pass her door today Jacques Brel springs to mind. I imagine her playing Amsterdam, because it suits an accordion. But for continuities sake, I will have her play Au Suivant or Next as it’s known in English.

Alex Harvey

Back in the 70s Alex Harvey , and his band The Sensational Alex Harvey Band recorded a version of Next . The Jacques Brel song previously recorded by Scott Walker and others.

In a weird twist of fate Harvey suffered a fatal heart attack in Zeebrugge Belgium ; the country where Brel was born.

On Maunday Thursday, I got a call about my Belgium job; apparently its on again. And there is a possibility of some work happening very soon.

The Belgium job has been on and off since November 2009. I’ve had three interviews over the telephone. Had a Christmas meal with my agent to celebrate the contract. And was given a start date in January. January came and went, and the work was scaled down to a couple of days. Then the days were rolled back, until the job dissapeared all together.

I’m supposed to hear next week when they want me to start.

So to tempt fate myself, I’ll post the Alex Harvey's version of Brel’s song Next. Maybe it will bring me luck, and I’ll stop having those redundancy nightmares. Next, your next.

Next

When I left with a redundancy letter; that was supposed to be the end of me and my former employer. But it’s over a year now, and I’m still processing that event. The nightmares are infrequent, but when they happen I am left unsettled and out of sorts.

Last night my dream amalgamated a couple of my jobs. It mashed in Lord of the Rings, my daughters bedtime book. A couple of naked actresses (Uma Thurman and Elisabeth Moss who plays Peggy Olson in Mad Men) covered in mud; ala the Slits album Cut.

In the dreams version of my life; I’m still at the old firm, working part-time. A blend of yesterday and today as I happen to be looking for part-time positions. It’s coming up to Christmas, and the works party is happening that evening.


Reality was different; I got through Christmas 2008 without a party. Except I found a way of getting horrifically drunk. 10 on a scale of 1 to 10; narrowly behind waking up in a police cell. The pressure cooker of eighteen months of sackings had finally started to whistle. In February 2009 it exploded, and so did my heart.

Two characters appeared in my dream, like implants from a melodrama. There was a Cassius; lean and hungry, slippery and backstabbing. I suppose he must have existed at my previous firm, but not quite in that form. Then there was the benevolent boss. A weak figure who liked me, but was under the spell of Cassius.

A third person, the whisperer, was a real colleague. But I’ve not heard anything from him since I was frogmarched from the building.

The dream segues into nightmare and the whisperer lets me know two people are being canned today. He also makes a point of mentioning one of them is me. The other unfortunate, a woman, is already being hung-drawn-and-quartered by the boss and his sidekick.

But in this scenario there is hope, if only I can influence the benevolent one, persuade him, with a tableau of my past glories.


Reality is something different. There was no old or new school, no continuum. I existed in the day, and whatever happened before counted for naught. The only hope I had was that I would never be next.

The telephone call and a matter-of-fact conversation were not recreated in some Technicolor moment. Instead my new reality took me to a housing development. Quaint Hobbit-hole like housing. But inside they were shoddily built, exposed electrical wiring and poor plasterwork.

In the morning I thought of all the housing left to rot by the Credit Crunch. The Sub Prime loans, long defaulted on. The shockingly awful record of this Government and the Last when it came to house building. But that’s reality, in my altered-state, something different was happening.

There was a muddy excursion, where famous actresses appeared naked, their modesty preserved with mud. And then I was back in the grey generic office.

I plead for my life, the way David Niven does in A Matter of Life and Death. There were examples of my work, laid out before the benevolent boss. My past glories, looking very small under the microscope.

But all I could hear was a hiss of Cassius, speaking in the benevolent boss’s ear. As he turned the pages of a decades work, all I could hear was NEXT, NEXT, NEXT.

Benefit Thieves

I’m mad, mad as hell, that’s what I am today. Mad with the people who make some distinction between the working poor and the unemployed poor. Well when I was working, I was part of the working poor. On paper I earned way above the national average, but that’s no use when you live in London. The threshold for tax credits and housing benefit was way below my income, so I subsisted.

Housing costs are the problem; I pay/have paid a fortune in rent. That’s not because I enjoyed giving my money away hand over fist to a buy-to-let landlord. No it’s because there was no affordable housing.

If you were poor in the 70s and 80s. There were options. Housing co-ops, Social Housing, Squats. Or just affordable rents. In the 80s and 90s I could get a mortgage, because property prices were realistic. I paid £200 a month in 1997 for my mortgage, and that was a 90% one. I would be pushed to find a weekly rent for that these days. I’m talking about North London, not anywhere else.

I sold my last house when my relationship broke down. But once everything was divided-up, there was little left over for a deposit. So I went back to renting, and that’s where I find myself now.

Because I’m unemployed, Housing Benefit pays my rent. But everything else comes out of the £64 a week. And that requires some serious creative accounting. I’ve sold things, I’ve accepted handouts from family and I’ve even tried to sell my body.

I’ve been close to getting work, had a couple of interviews. Been promised a job working in Europe, but that’s remains just a promise.


My current strategy involves getting part time work, using one of my old skills. One I’ve not actually practiced for thirteen years. Because of the huge gap in my CV when I did something completely different; it’s unlikely I’m going to get any response. But I’m trying, trying to be creative.

A friend of mine was made redundant a month before me. He has three kids, a mortgage and does not receive housing benefit. Or rather he receives a sum that covers part of his mortgage repayment. The shortfall, that includes the cost of supporting a family, is made up by relatives.

Like me he’s at the wrong end of 40. Ageism in our profession is rife, and never discussed. But that’s the great buttress holding both of us back. When a prospective employer sees our respective CVs, he/she does not see a wealth of experience; they see a tired-out old man. And even if we look young and healthy, have our own teeth and hair; we are dammed by the chronology on our CVs.


Before accusing people of being benefit thieves; consider their circumstances first. There is a huge amount of wasted talent, consigned to the dustbin. So employers can employ cheaper, younger, team-players (yes another euphemism for not being old).

And to repeat the theme of an earlier post; everything I have learned is just floating about in the ether. I have virtually a photographic memory for facts, and can put these facts to creative use. But the only openings for people like me appear to involve handing out wire-baskets at supermarket entrances.

All The Time In The World

I’ve been reading The Alexandria Quartet since 1982. That’s the date inscribed on the book. I used to do that in my youth, write my name along with the date and sometimes the location. So that’s why I know Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea have been with me for 28 years.

I bought it in a Manchester bookstore, after an argument with my then Girlfriend. The theory was I would use-up my new free time getting to grips with Lawrence Durrell’s difficult books. And I knew they were difficult, because that’s all my old English teacher had to say about Lawrence Durrell.

She was teaching My Family and Other Animals, the memoir by his easier brother Gerald. Lawrence features in the book, so I suppose that’s how he managed to find his way into the classroom discussion. The Quartet was also still in fashion. George Cukor had a stab at filming Justine, with Dirk Bogarde as Pursewarden in the late sixties.

My break-up lasted a whole weekend, which just about got me past page one. The Alexandria Quartet‘s not a book of course, its four interwoven books, published at different times. Durrell quotes Sigmund Freud and De Sade at the beginning of Justine. And he was a difficult bugger, the sort of bugger who names his daughter after a lesbian goddess.

I know a little of what became of the English teacher, she left under a cloud. She was caught by her husband in flagrante delicto with a pupil. Why she chose to give the boy extra tuition in her home I have no idea. Gossip had her husband chasing the unfortunate schoolboy down the seafront, and blacking his eye.

The English teacher’s story would fit nicely into the gritty British New Wave, seeing that it happened in a dreary Northern Seaside town, a million miles from Alexandria. It would fit nicely into most TV Soaps; and a lot of plot driven potboilers.

So after I finish re-reading Richard Yates; I think its time to try Balthazar again. Put two fingers-up to East Enders et all. Annoy the hell out of my Jobcentre nemesis, who hates people reading before an interview. I’ve got all the time in the world.

My Way

I read last night that Malcolm McLaren had died in New York. The location changed in the morning to Switzerland. The news reports had also been fleshed out with tributes and appreciations.

For people of a certain age, it’s impossible to deny the impact this man had. You either loved him, hated him, were indifferent, or you were a mix of all three. I liked the vaudevillian, or if your English, music hall aspect of his personality. I liked the clothes and the way he debunked the Sex Pistols myth. He was hated for a while, when the post-Rotten Pistols recorded comedy singles. But I found it quite funny and it dovetailed nicely into the death of punk’s first generation. My Way is a fitting funeral song, and probably captures his personality better than their first four singles.

I was stranded in an Argos car park, the radio was on. The DJ opened with God Save The Queen. He then went on to say the song still possessed the power it had in 1977. And ignoring the context, this was the BBC playing a song they refused to play at the time. There was little power in the song. Time has moved on, taken out of its 70s context, the song is merely an old curiosity; rather like the wobbly sets and RP voices of the time.

I can understand why people go to Punk Weekends at Holiday Camps, it’s the same reason why the Strokes were popular, and why middle-class teenagers like the whole Goth/Emo/Punk thing. But I can’t recall Malcolm McLaren ever getting caught-up with Punk nostalgia; bar appearing as a talking head talking about himself.

When I heard of his death from mesothelioma, there was no desire in me to play a Sex Pistols tune; or play Buffalo Gals. Instead I made an odd connection between Malcolm and a long dead relative. My Uncle Peter.

Peter worked in the shipyards as an electrician. In the 80s he worked on the Thames Barrier, after the yards were closed down. He sourced me a half price pair of Doctor Martens back in 1977, and those DMs pogoed along with the Sex Pistols amongst others. They met the DJ John Peel at a Reading Festival, invading the stage with Sham 69 fans.

Uncle Peter was no great fan of punk, but his boots were for a time. I can’t recall if the boots wore out or were thrown out. But they went the way of those black suede Chelsea boots and big Eighties hair. Peter found work closer to home, and lead a sedate life. He played bowls, got drunk every Christmas Eve – returning home with inappropriate underwear for his wife.

He was approaching the big 60 when his lung collapsed playing football. A joint birthday had been arranged with his Sister-in-Law at the local Catholic Club.
The collapsed lung, turned out to be cancer, and the cancer diagnosed as mesothelioma.

In the Sixties and Seventies, Asbestos was used as an insulator. The hulls of ships he crawled about, contained tiny microscopic fibres, which became embedded in his lungs. They bided their time, ticking away slowly , until it was time to change Uncle Peters cells for good.

Peter never saw his 60th birthday. There was no joint birthday. And I have a terrible memory of looking into his eyes, weeks before his death. He was skeletal, with grey parchment skin. His body shook. But it was the terror in his eyes that I took away with me.

I just hope that Malcolm McLaren had a better death in Switzerland. I hope he managed to do it his way.

The Long and the Short and the Tall

My day-to-day life as a Dole Wallah is little changed from the working one. I wake early and eat breakfast at a desk. On the desk is a computer and some writing detritus. No difference there. I read the Guardian Obituaries and news, I then drill down to the arts and maybe some business news.

At some point in the day I will read a couple of blogs; I may even make a comment. No major difference there, on an average working day there was some slack time. Of course there were meltdown-days too, that sometimes stretched into the weekend, meltdown-weeks. But mostly with a little organization I found time for my excursions on the internet.

I take exercise during the day. When working I ran home, through crowded city streets and pollution. The difference now is I avoid the streets and the cars, but otherwise no difference.


I pop four pills in the morning, they keep me alive. This is where my working and my Dole Wallah days diverge. My working life did not involve pill-popping, I was healthy and rarely succumbed to office-worker style ailments like colds and flu.

When I work again, I will have to take the pills at my desk. First thing is out of the question. I need to shave before the pill-popping ceremony. If I don’t, I bleed heavily. My blood is thinned to prevent clotting, so even the slightest cut spurts like a geyser.
As a Dole Wallah I have days with stubble, but at work I never have days with stubble, another divergence.


The Long and the Short and the Tall is a play by Willis Hall; it was directed by Lindsay Anderson at the Royal Court. And made into a film. I mentioned it in my response to some Guardian blog commenter who made a sweeping statement about WWII being just a war against Hitler for Europeans. Too much History Channel maybe? I was trying to make a cultural point about the Pacific conflict, how it seeped into lots of English speaking art. My diversion for the day.


During the boom-time, BCC (Before Credit Crunch). I had one or two diversions a day. But as the sackings accumulated, so did the diversions. By the end I could squeeze my working-week into a day. My internet travels, were a diversion from reality. Rather like a prisoner on death row, I waited for the inevitable. The telephone call.

I even had a sneak preview of what it would be like. The man who sat opposite accidentally put his phone on speaker when his call came. It must have been nerves. I heard the ultimate boss asking him to make his way to a meeting room. Later the man came back for his coat; he left without saying a word.

When the call came, I decided to have my coat and bag brought to me. And whatever was in my desk, I asked them to throw. Most of the important stuff was on my work computer anyway, stored away in text documents. I lost that when I lost my job. The accumulated knowledge of Seven Years, erased.

But like the old men who used to sit in my parents living room, discussing Rommel and Dunkirk. I carry around in my head memories from a time before. Snippets of those text documents; procedures, passwords and the natural ability that helped me along the way. And it’s going to take a lot more than a Format or a Heart Attack, or a Credit Crunch to erase those.

Eli's Coming

In the morning I wake late, its Easter Sunday. An email about some work sits in my inbox. It’s a Sunday and its Easter; but beggars can’t be choosers. So I reply. The next thought I have is Three Dog Night’s version of Laura Nyro’s song Eli’s Coming.

The Impecunious Mr Yates #2

For those who don’t like chocolate eggs or Stations of the Cross; there is always Richard Yates’s Easter Parade. Or The Long Good Friday.


Here’s a link to the Guardian Book blog from yesterday; and to The Long Good Friday Theme Tune.

Happy Easter !

E=MC2 – Jobsearch #2

I’ve added another name to my list of scammers and hucksters today. Experienced another cynical attempt to extract money from the hapless, hopeful and helpless. I’m going to align myself with the hopeful, and invent a Crappola Detector.

The Crappola Detector © is as real as the job I was offered today. But if it did exist, my wasted time this afternoon would have been put to better use. Like applying for a job that actually existed. Or adding five hundred words to my Novel.

Instead there’s a great gaping hole full of wasted energy.

I’m hooked-up to quite a few Job Sites, including Gumtree. And it’s Gumtree that sends me more of the casual and part-time jobs. And because the cost of advertising is low, the site attracts Crappola merchants by the ton. And it attracts suckers like me, who have nothing to loose but their dignity.

Amongst the photographers seeking life models and the free psychic readings, was a company looking for film extras. The ad gave a film title and Director’s name, and a shooting schedule in May. But the real honey-trap was a £90 a day fee. I was suckered and mailed them with my details.

Mistake Number One: I forgot to check out the film title and Director. A simple Google search (done after the event) produced nothing except links to the Gumtree ad.

Mistake Number Two: I replied with my real e-mail address. Now the hucksters have this and will no doubt have filed it under sucker.

Their first mistake was to respond too quickly, their second was to offer me an immediate booking for the larger fee of £100 a day. All I had to do was pay a £20 registration fee – mistake number three.

I’m sure a Crappola Detector would now be registering a pile suitable for a family of dung beetles.

A visit to the company’s website revealed one of those identikit templates favoured by scammers. And for a business described as an employment agency, there was no way for potential clients to view their roster of talent. People who work in the film business have a hundred and one methods of finding actors/extras and crew; they will not use a site that supposedly keeps their people behind an invisible password protected link. Stupidly they also claim the impossible; their site can actually distinguish between a potential clients IP address and a casual browser. Rubbish.


So the website is terrible, what about the address. Street view reveals a shabby suburban semi. So a company that claims to act as an employment agency for film cast and crew and also produces films has no office. Strange.

I Googled the principle person involved with the company, this person has a laughably fake web page. A myspace full of Glamour Model friends and also claims to be a film producer as well as a bit part actor. He also claims to be illiterate, be in his early twenties and you’ve guessed it have a roster of Glamour Models at his beck and call.

Now any sensible person would just give up, dust themselves down and put the whole experience down to experience. But I’m hooked, the Boy Mogul, who goes by a couple of names has got me interested.

I check the properties of their word document, which was created by the mogul himself, but it has another company name as the owner. I also Google his alias, the name of the person supposedly representing me, the name registration fee cheques are made out to. Films are big bucks, but this piddling company only deals in cheques. Scam.

Google leads me to Facebook, Facebook to some petty criminal’s page. The meathead has been abandoned by his pregnant girlfriend and spends a fair proportion of his day moaning about this. Looks like she left him because he’s just out of jail. Public enemy number one lives in one of those Sixties New Towns, I waste far too much of my time perusing his sorry life.

Google also leads me a site called www.ukscreen.com , this contains a synopsis of the Boy Mogul’s previous film – he’s the writer, director and Star. And the three other principles, yes you’ve guessed it are Glamour Models.

I waste some more time on www.ukscreen.com, its comic. My favourite entry is for a Kenneth Gawne, apparently a film producer. But he’s one of those film producers who can’t write or do maths. Here he is describing his film :

The film has been shot in both in 3 countries on two continents - we began shooting in the Californian desert, continued in Paris and concluded filming in Scotland this summer. The cast and crew has been an international mix of people from California, Ohio, France, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. So despite working on an exceedingly small budget (basically the film was funded on student loans and cost around £5,000 in total) we have ended up with a professional looking final product


I ‘m sure the travel costs were more than that exceedingly small budget, but I’m also sure it’s about as real as Boy Moguls film career.

My Crappola Detector is now registering off the scale. It’s quite easy to map out these peoples fake identities, Facebook, Myspace, a couple of domains, a couple of fake websites, and some fake entries on a couple of dodgy film sites. And no imdb entry, funny. The James Fox line, I don’t think I can let you stay in the film business – springs to mind. The one sampled by Big Audio Dynamite in their song E=MC2.

But I’m out of time; my daughter needs to be collected from school. And I have to leave the fabulous world of the pretend film business.