B80: Coupla poems

Right ... i can't think of anything to write apart from stuff to do with Bob Dylan which i think i've done more than enough of, so I'll put up some poems I've written in the last year.

Here's one, called 

A silhouette

One working-day magpie haunts miraculous spaces where

you can’t buy running water; in the sheen of a March sky

he’s a piece of a puzzle no one has solved yet.

 

It’s a stiffed competition for the left-behind barflies

down there shilling for big beer – a shape on a window

left by commuter droplets from understaffed tube trains.

 

He’s a logo you can’t place or a portent of grey death

of a blood clotting meekly as it flows through your blue veins.

Circles of bullies dance the pink glow of girl bands

 

to a crushed teenage ideal hiding under a table

from a green-bubble magpie who’s come bouncing to save it,

with a preening indifference, from a latter-day fable.

 

Everyone’s laughing from the front of their faces

at tyres scraping getaway ballads on racetracks

repurposed as nature reserves then repurposed

 

again as arenas for burning through haystacks.

We followed the magpie to look both ways from the

motorway bridge, for the faces of murderers

 

blanking and smiling, on camera, still unseen

and speedless, clutching their crucifix, nerveless

with transience, this is the river which flows on

 

through blemished seasons and torrents of hurt,

this is a vigil where eyes shut in spite,

an empty treetop, a greyness, a cloud of words.

And here's a silly one I rather like, but I reckon you really had to be there, called ...

Youth cricket in West London in the 1990s

At 7.32pm,

the second innings starts -

a play and miss, hard, nervous wrists,

a welcome late leg glance.

For now, the late May sun’s still holding

creeping murk at bay,

but treetop ghosts cast doubt upon

the twenty overs left to play.

 

Perhaps it was the glare,

perhaps the dirty torn sightscreen

that meant a straight one found a gate

there really shouldn’t have been.

The opener’s dad is sighing

to his sagging cigarette;

a wasted summer evening

too idyllic to regret.

 

The number three, the captain,

who’s a cocky Surrey Colt

winces at a crack like it’s

the San Andreas Fault.

He takes a little time to find his

timing, judge the pace,

then guides a cut just back of square

like WG Grace.

 

The runs come fast, there’s little

that the fielding side can do

until the captain strikes a lofted

drive so straight and true

it sails over the sightscreen,

is lost amongst the weeds.

The coach leaps up to grab

the opportunity he needs.

 

He joins the search, and mutters

to his team, under his breath,

“Just slow them down, boys;

it will be like Hades at the death”.

Each second of delay lengthens

the shadows on the ground -

eventually, the miscreant ball

(at least, a ball) is found.

 

The tactics work, the captain hoiks

a good length ball to long on.

The catch is held, the match is changed,

the coach has got it spot on.

The chase slows down, the wickets fall,

the rate climbs ever higher.

In light like this, the little seamer

morphs into Makhaya.

 

By now, the darkness closing,

it’s past 8.45.

Batters know the chance has passed

to keep the match alive.

They’re only playing for pride now

through squinting, searching eyes,

showing more bravado than

is requisite or wise.

 

Finally, the stumps are drawn

and tired handshakes shared,

pads removed & scoresheets checked,

coaches’ notes compared.

Chauffeurs, groundsmen, cheerleaders

all gather to decide

that umpires could have been less harsh

when calling leg-side wides.

 

Spikes removed and kits in boots,

they’ll save the shower for home.

A cavalcade of Ford Escorts

depart the wooded pleasuredome.

The traces of the play remain,

each patterned sight and sound -

the rematch is in three weeks

at the opposition’s ground.

B79: Films in America

 Though I'd thought I wouldn't, I've ended up finding time to watch a fair few of the Oscar-related films this year.

Haven't seen The Father or Judas and the Black Messiah yet, as they're both still a bit pricey to get hold of, but I've seen Minari, Nomadland, Mank, The Trial of the Chicago 7, One Night in Miami, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Sound of Metal, Promising Young Woman. I even started Tenet last night, which currently seems like a parody. We'll see.

I'm not, in general, an Oscars hater. Far from it. Though there are baffling decisions and mishaps and though there clearly has been years of bias which it is only fitting to try to redress, I do also think that each year, the Oscars usually puts up for contention some excellent films. It's not like the Grammys or the Brits which, to me, have no actual relationship to what is "good". I don't think there are that many actual bad films that make it to the Best Picture shortlist.

Saying that, in an ordinary year, maybe several of this year's films wouldn't have made the shortlist... who knows?

Minari, Nomadland and Sound of Metal felt almost like a trilogy to me, though their similarities were coincidental - all about people living in temporary accommodation, experiencing loss and trying to gain something, about illness/disability, all showing America as a beautiful, frightening country, all showing glimpses of the compassion of strangers/new friends.

I think Minari was probably my favourite, surprisingly hilarious and heartwarming. But McDormand and Riz Ahmed were both superb in the other two.

Maybe next year, the Oscars will be more "back to normal" but I was pretty impressed, even in this strange year, at the crop of films they've brought attention to.

Though, saying all that, Palm Springs was better than all of them ...

B78: Take it to the bridge and other song things

 As much as I cherish my hard-earned B in GCSE music (1994, a fine vintage), I’m not musical. I have never had a better than rudimentary capacity for either piano or guitar, nor do I write songs, nor is my voice anything but an instrument of warfare. I've got a bit of a tin ear, don't necessarily hear small instrumental details that well.  I know what keys, sharps and flats are, I know what bars are, so at least I can stay tuned in when songwriters get technical, but as much as I (as this blog demonstrates) love and think about songs above all else, I don’t often come at it from a very analytical position.

A few months ago, David Baddiel, who I’ve observed to be inclined towards the occasional Dylan jibe on twitter, tweeted asking the leading question of whether any Dylan songs had Middle Eights.

It’s actually quite a good question – and the answer is, yes, some Bob Dylan songs have Middle Eights, but not all that many. The aspect of it that was interesting to me, when I thought about it, is that many years ago I made a category of Dylan songs I called the “pop songs” without ever really thinking about what I meant by that, but it conforms very closely, now I look at it, to those with recognisable “middle eights”.

A great middle eight is a sign of pop sophistication, and I believe what Baddiel was getting at was that Dylan is not as sophisticated a writer as some others, that his status as the great songwriter is inflated.

Well, anyway, it really got me thinking about structure in pop songs – structure as the non-sophisticate listener experiences it, not as the artist puts it together. It took me back to being a small child and gradually developing an idea of what I liked in a song, and the often undeveloped instinct we have for a song’s different parts – tune, sound, structure, lyrics, transition, arrangement, meaning etc. What I realised is that the most important thing to me is, and has always been, movement. I love a song that starts me in one place and has moved me to another by the end.

Which helps me understand why I hated dance singles when they started to arrive in great abundance in the late 80s/early 90s. I didn’t understand dance music, didn’t get what it was for, just heard it, divorced from its context, as 3 minutes that went nowhere lyrically, and quite often, nowhere musically.

I think it was the structure that I hated more than the electronica, but I’m not sure I’d fully realised that until now.

And then, when I consider that my favourite artist by a mile is Dylan who, though he has been through many different styles in his career and has been anything but settled, is rarely particularly eclectic across an album, and certainly not within a song, it makes me realise that it has been more important to me that the lyric takes me from one place to another than the music. I'l forgive an unchanging musical backdrop, if the lyrics and the vocal performance go everywhere, but a song has to be pretty full musically if it offers absolutely nothing lyrically (I don't mean beautiful poetry, I just mean movement) ...

Of course, this is a long way from being universal, and there are many different ways to write/hear a song. The classic pop structure may be Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Middle Eight Verse Chorus, but we’d probably be pretty surprised at how few songs follow that structure.

Lots of songs have just verses and a middle eight, or just verses, or just verses and choruses, or just choruses, or just verses choruses and guitar solos, or intro, verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, verse, different chorus, verse, pause, guitar solo, chorus, chorus, outro, or whatever …

What holds reasonably true is that songs need some kind of break/transition. Dylan’s main form of break, especially early on, was the harmonica solo. He also, obviously, took you to lots of different places with his words in a way that few had done before or sense – with length of lines, lengths of verses, changed refrains. His greatest period for trying to write classic pop songs was, I’d say, in the late 60s and early 70s – from I Want You to I Threw It All Away. He had an underrated knack for the simple. He wrote some nice tunes and cool middle eights. He’s been folk, folk rock, rock, country, blues, soul, gospel, showtune, hymn, and a few other things. But Brian Wilson he’s not been.

When I was young, I was very impressed with songs which had relatively complicated structure, like Stairway to Heaven, Bohemian Rhapsody and Band on the Run. I came to find some of those type of songs a bit of a drag if they went on too long, but loved the songs of the Super Furry Animals, which would move you rapidly through several musical ideas within a short time. They toyed with structure, sometimes putting their chorus at the end, or having a massive outro, or a short section which sounded completely different from the rest of the song.

But, importantly, SFA were also full of tunes and lyrical ideas. For a while there, they seemed the absolute ideal band. It’s no wonder they slowed to a standstill.

Songs can “move” in a lot of different ways. Three of the greatest songs of all time hardly live up to what I’m saying. ‘Be My Baby’ is just verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus-outro, and the words are mainly just darling, baby, love – the movement is the 0-100mph adrenaline rush of the first few seconds and how it keeps you there all the way through. ‘Over the Rainbow’ is just Verse Verse Bridge Verse Outro – the great movement is that first octave leap in the first two notes, one of the most significant single movements in the history of song. ‘All My Friends’ is a two-note riff with a few little kinks – but the music combined with the lyrics make you feel like it’s an epic journey.

But, yeah, that’s been the realisation for me – it’s the movement for me that’s the most important thing – not the sound, not necessarily the tune or the arrangement, but the movement.

B77: Anthems for Doomed Youth

Sorry, a return to well-worn territory – just thinking of those good old rock anthems of the 90s again.

There were a lot of anthemic hit singles in those days. It is interesting to look at the ones which were of the time, the ones that were about something, and the ones which were not of the time, and were about nothing.

None of these things are necessarily better than the others.

I’ve been going through a list of Top 10 singles between 1993 and 1999 – it’s frightening, I know, or can certainly recall snatches of, all of them, even the most forgettable cheesy house tracks. Memory blasts of loved, tolerated and loathed songs.

A lot of the guitar songs that crossed over into the charts were anthemic. That makes sense.

I’d still contend that the first real Britpop hit was ‘Wake Up Boo’ (neither, essentially, about anything nor particularly of the time) in March 1995. Blur, Suede and Oasis had had Top 10 hits before that, of course, but the Boo Radleys were the first of the scene (if there was a scene) who wouldn’t get near the charts in ordinary times. I think that’ll have been the one that persuaded the bands and the record companies that chart domination could be theirs.

Then, for about 3 years, there were a lot of “Britpop” Top 10 hits, though they hardly filled up the charts to the exclusion of all else. There was still plenty of space for pop, dance, hip-hop, r’n’b, easy listening and whatever.

Indeed, it’s definitely cheesy dance hits which are the defining chart sound of the decade.

Occasionally, big dance and pop hits crossed over with the kind of of-the-time anthems some of the Britpop bands were going for. So, I’d suggest, the likes of Things Can Only Get Better, Never Forget by Take That, Born Slippy and even Wannabe are held to be part of “Britpop” as a wider cultural movement.

There were a lot of Number 2 hits – many of the most memorable songs stalled at Number 2, from Wonderwall to Song 2, Bittersweet Symphony to Alright.

There is a reasonable shortage of big pre-millennial anxious and apocalyptic hits. Say what you like about Jamiroquai, but Too Young to Die and Virtual Insanity now sound a lot more tuned in than a lot of the rest. Blur managed End of a Century and The Universal, Radiohead had Paranoid Android, Robbie Williams cottoned on to it with Millennium (vacuous now as it ever was).

Then there’s Three Lions, of course, which is the biggest, and most anthemic, of all them, and in its wake a fair few other football songs.

Tubthumping by Chumbawamba sounds a bit like a football song, a non-political blast from a political band. It has become a cultural touchstone more than most else of the time.

Then there’s Oasis, who dealt exclusively in anthems, albeit wilfully unobservant ones. The clarity of their myopic vision (I know) felt perfectly fine for a time. Then very rapidly sounded dreadful.

It’s a little interesting (to me at least) that the output of Weller (one of the biggest influences and also a massive active part of the era) at the time is wholly apolitical, considering the political songs he made his name with were my entire inspiration for being into that music in the first place.

I think at the time I was a little disappointed with Weller, wanted music to sound like The Jam and coudn't understand why the man who founded The Jam wasn't doing the job, but have come to enjoy the more pastoral, personal feel of his first three albums more in retrospect.

Blur, in general, were not really able to be anthemic class warriors, and were accused of sneering (like that matters), but, though I didn’t like those songs at the time, I think the likes of Charmless Man and Country House stand up quite well.

I’m probably in a minority of one, but in terms of “meeting someone who’s a bit of a dick” songs go, I prefer Charmless Man to Common People.

Charmless Man doesn’t exceed its brief.

Suede’s songs were kind of political. Trash and Beautiful Ones were naked anthems which worked tolerably well.

A lot of the minor Britpop bands made attempts to write songs that were vaguely “about” something with degrees of success – Ladykillers by Lush, King of the Kerb by Echobelly, Neighbourhood by Space, Nancy Boy by Placebo, Punka by Kenickie.

Gene, a band I like a lot, got in early on Blair disillusion with As Good As It Gets, and Edwyn Collins’ follow-up to A Girl Like You was a pleasingly cynical anti-scene flop called Keep on Burning.

The best, for me, are of course, the Welsh bands. The Man Don’t Give a Fuck is probably the Furries’ biggest song, and as solidly joyful an anti-establishment/millennial malaise anthem as you’ll find.

And then there’s the Manics, whose three biggest hits are all political songs (If you Tolerate This, Masses Against the Classes, A Design for Life), which is pretty good going. A Design for Life, Yes by McAlmont and Butler, and Brimful of Asha are my favourite hit songs of the era, still. Different kinds of big songs about varying degrees of something and nothing.

Anyway, as usual, I haven’t been able to find the wider point I thought I had, except to reflect that yes, one can see why people (annoyingly) see Britpop as some writ large cultural movement rather than a coincidence of good bands, since there are a lot of big songs which do seem, whether by design or accident, tied up with the people and the times.

B76: Kids

 Here's a little playlist - a nice bunch of songs about/for/to ver kids.

When you're young and you hear Marvin Gaye singing "Save the babies" you find it a bit ridiculous, but less and less so as you get older.

1. Up With People - Lambchop
2. Baby - Gal Costa
3. Forever Young - Bob Dylan
4. Song for our Daughter - Laura Marling
5. Rise to Me - The Decemberists
6. Hey Jude - The Beatles
7. Little Green - Joni Mitchell
8. My Darling - Wilco
9. The Greatest Love of All - Whitney Houston
10. My Girls - Animal Collective
11. What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
12. Save the Children - Marvin Gaye
13. Lions and Tigers - Sleater-Kinney
14. For Zion - Lauryn Hill
15. Just the Two of Us - Will Smith
16. Kooks - David Bowie
17. Sarah - Thin Lizzy
18. Afraid of Everyone - The National
19. Kids - Ed Harcourt
20. A Little Soul - Pulp
21. I Knew Your Mother - Loudon Wainwright
22. Only One - Kanye West
23. Father and Son - Cat Stevens
24. Isn't She Lovely - Stevie Wonder
25. Song for Leigh - The Walkmen
26. Moon on Your Pyjamas - Paul Weller

B75: Jack Charlton

 The recent documentary ‘Finding Jack Charlton’ was really a fine, sad thing. Spanning his career as both player and manager, then his last years living with dementia, it covered a lot of profound themes in a short time, and with a light touch – of loss, of brotherhood, of nationality and belonging, of success, leadership, friendship, aging, glory.

It was well known that the two Charlton brothers had a fraught relationship, but I suppose one hoped or assumed there’d be a reconciliation. It seems unlikely such a reconciliation took place.

Bobby Charlton (our kid, our Bobby, Bobby, Robert, Bobby Charlton, my brother … as Jack variously calls him) was the first extremely famous person I ever met. Somewhere lost in my shed, I have a polaroid of myself with him in 1987. I’m standing on a chair. I queued up with lots of other children at a Sport Aid event. I knew who he was, but I don’t think I fully grasped that he was just about the most globally famous Englishman going. I think I remember him being very nice. The documentary makes clear, and his manner has always suggested, he is a naturally shy person, unlike Jack.

I think, when Northern Ireland but not Ireland were in the 1986 World Cup, I asked and was told that they didn’t really play football in the Republic. That was probably my dad who told me that, a hurling/gaelic football/then rugby man, but there was a nudge of truth to it. They’d never been in a major tournament.

What Jack Charlton did as Ireland manager was an extraordinary effective symbolic thing – bringing the diaspora home. A London kid like me was proud to be Irish as half the team (infinitely more so than Tony Cascarino, after all!). You wouldn’t necessarily say he was an alchemist, as such. Certainly the recruitment was a marvel, but, gosh, when you look at what he assembled, there were some fine, fine players.

You’d pretty much hope a team like that could reach the latter stages of major tournaments – Sheedy, Whelan, Brady, Lawrenson, Quinn, Stapleton, Moran, O’Leary, McCarthy, McGrath, Houghton, Staunton, Aldridge, Hughton, Townsend, Irwin, Keane, Bonner, Kelly, Babb, McAteer … those were mostly big players for big teams, not some rag-tag assortment. 

Still, I suppose the whole thing perpetuated itself. There was so much love towards Charlton from his former players, even those he’d treated a bit harshly.

The relationship with Paul McGrath (the first PFA Player of the Year in the Premier League era) in particular is one of the most memorable and moving things you’ll ever see.

Worth a watch.

B74: Otis Redding, the greatest loss

I think I've written words to this effect before but I'm comfortable with being someone who ran out of new thoughts a long time ago, so here goes again.

No premature loss changed the course of popular music for the worse so much as that of Otis Redding in a plane crash, aged 26, on 10 December 1967.

Of that, I'm pretty certain. For all the other tragic deaths, from Holly to Winehouse, Cobain to Joplin, Lennon to Marley, no one else was so perfectly approaching their peak, and a peak that would, surely, have brought together everything that was good about popular music and taken it to a new place.

I started this blog because of Otis Redding - the fact 'Dock of the Bay' existed, this absolute perfection just drifting around in my consciousness since I was a child without my ever having given it much thought ... made me think about the endlessness of popular music ...

The song is, while explicitly an attempt to connect with the San Francisco hippie scene, essentially genreless, and that, I think, is the greatest thing about Redding as writer (with Steve Cropper) and performer - the possibilities were endless.

Many people play with genre, often successfully, but you can always hear it. Redding's voice and style was everything without even trying, within the same album, within the same song - sorrowful and exultant, urban and rural, soul and rock, comforting and threatening - he could have easily sung country, could have sung easy-listening. It was all just there.

He was covering Sam Cooke, Dylan and the Stones,  being covered by Aretha Franklin, he'd already written a handful of songs that became standards.

He had been embraced by the rock festivals, by the British pop shows ... it was only just starting to convert into mainstream success.

It's not true to say that music remained compartmentalised - from The Temptations to Stevie Wonder to Gram Parsons and Joni Mitchell, the late 60s and early 70s saw plenty of attempt at "cosmic American music" or whatever, but I just feel Otis Redding was a step ahead of all of them at making music without barriers, and was only going to get better at it.

B73: Why Bob Dylan fans are the most annoying and boring fans

I think the above probably qualifies as a clickbait title, though it’s not really intended to be. Bob Dylan fans are annoying.

Honestly, I was already planning to write about this before some guy in an American paper reacted to Paul Simon selling his back catalogue by saying Simon would only be a footnote to Dylan anyway.

That’s classic Dylan fan. It’s also classic non-Dylan fan to react by saying Dylan’s a terrible singer, as lots of people have been doing today.

It''s all boring stuff, meaningless arguments played out over decades. And not really my issue either way. I just had a certain thought which I wanted to share about quite why being a Dylan fan is such a heavy, unparalleled, self-perpetuating industry, which hopefully someone could find interesting without being a massive Dylan fan themselves, and not being bothered too much by the fact that I am.

It’s simply this; being a Dylan fan is rewarding – I hesitate to say, uniquely rewarding. It’s a journey which, if you go on it, prompts you to restate your faith/renew your vows at regular intervals.

However much you think you know, there’s always more. I don’t think it’s like that with the other greats. I’ve been a massive Bob Dylan fan since I was 16, I’ve bought more of his music than anybody else’s, listened to it more than anybody else’s, and even in the last couple of years, I’ve heard songs he’d written that I’d never heard before which I’ve found brilliant.

I’m not one of those Dylan fans who thinks there are no bad Dylan albums, who worships Dylan as a prophet, who puts Dylan on such a pedestal that I think no one else has done anything else comparable. Other people have written songs as great as Dylan’s written, released albums as great as Dylan’s released.

But, with him, there’s just so much stuff, and it’s hidden in such unlikely places. And it rewards.

Other folk don’t have a Basement Tapes, a born-again Christian period, a bootleg series, a Rolling Thunder. Or maybe they do, but I guess, it’s that, with Dylan, for a sizeable portion of the fandom, it’s the supposed ephemera that become the heart of the canon.

Like, most Stevie Wonder fans’ favourite Stevie Wonder album is Innervisions, Talking Book, or Songs in the Key of Life, right? His best albums and best songs are broadly agreed? That applies to most great artists. There’s nothing bad or diminishing about that. There’s a solid magnificence, a guaranteed glory to most artists’ best stuff.

Dylan’s so random. Nashville Skyline was supposed to be this little, insignificant country curio, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say, thinking they're the only one, that it’s their favourite Dylan album.

The Christian period was meant to be a best-forgotten disaster, then gradually you’d hear some people saying “it’s actually really good” and you ignored that for years, but then, you give it a proper, proper, listen, and then, on the right day, you hear something like Solid Rock, on Saved, and it blows your socks off.

Other great artists don’t have demos which weren’t finished and were left off their moderately rated 22^nd studio album (Infidels) which, like Blind Willie McTell, are broadly considered by fans now as one of the greatest songs ever written.

Dylan is, if you’re a fan of his, a genius for many things, but he is, above all, a genius for keeping you on your toes. Maybe he doesn’t give a shit but maybe he gives more of a shit than anyone else, sees the long game like nobody else, and sees value better than any other.

So this is why Dylan fans are so annoying. Because they’ve worked so hard on the journey and been given so many rewards for it. Because the first thing they hear about Dylan is that he can’t sing, and they, by definition, think he can sing magnificently. Because the second thing they hear is that he’s over-rated (of course, by definition, fans of everyone else think he’s overrated because he’s rated the highest), and they build their arguments as to why he’s not.

There are more books about Bob Dylan because there’s so much material that is on the surface and so much that is below the surface. Because Dylan fans are typically literate men who think they have it in them to write a book about him. So there are 100s of books, 100s ...

Because everyone else followed him – The Beatles, The Stones, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Springsteen, The Band – they all did what they did because of something he did…

Oh, you know, I’m sounding too much like a fan now, I’m trying to persuade, and that’s not what I intended really.

It’s the journey, innit. That’s all. You get to the heart of other folk much more quickly, whoever they are … Dylan’s always got a bit more, and that makes us just that bit more annoying than everybody else.

B72: Handballs

 Football is boring, isn’t it? Especially the boring parts of football, like rule changes and minor gripes.

The discourse around VAR has taken boring football chat to a new level, so it’s time that I add to it, just a little.

VAR will settle. It’ll take a while, like video reviews took time with rugby and cricket, but it will, broadly speaking, settle. I’m not zealous about VAR - until about 2012, I was probably anti-it for all the reasons people are anti-it now, but I think it will greatly reduce injustices, it will reduce cheating and it will reduce serious injuries and bad fouls, and those are prices worth paying.

I feel they’ve steadily messed up the roll-out, of course, but so be it. They should have taken it as an opportunity to be more liberal on laws, as VAR would redress that liberality, but instead they seem to have gone more strict.

I’ll give an example of what I mean, relating to handball, which has been a funny old rule for a long time.

I was thinking about the only time, while I was playing football, I gave away a penalty for handball. It was in 2002, so a long time ago, when football was football, handball was handball and everything was apparently simple.

There was a low, not especially fast, ball into the box, which just grazed off someone’s side about five yards in front of me, bounced up and then hit me on the hand, which I’d, slightly dopily, failed to get out of the way of the ball’s new trajectory.

A penalty was given. No one complained. I didn’t, nor my team mates. It was a clear penalty based on the kind of things that were given as penalties. And yet, it was in no way deliberate. My hand was just there when the ball went in a slightly unexpected direction and I was not sharp enough to make sure it wasn’t.

Deliberate handballs, actual deliberate handballs, are rare in football, always have been. They do happen, but not that often. Somewhere along the line, and not just in the last few years, “deliberate” came to mean “not doing everything you possibly and conceivably can to make sure the ball doesn’t hit your hand”.

That’s slightly understandable, as, without VAR, players could slyly do deliberate handballs which didn’t look deliberate if there was too lenient an interpretation of “deliberate”, so it was reasonable to be strict and say anything that looked like it might, in any way, have been intentional, shall count as intentional.

But, now, with VAR, and the possibility of being able to tell much more clearly what is actually meant, it is surely an opportunity to liberalise the handball law again, so that defenders aren’t terrified, strikers don’t kick the ball at hands, and checkers can check, with a higher degree of certain than has ever been possible, if a defender makes a deliberate, conscious, movement towards the ball, or there hand just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

B71: A Top Officer and a Gentleman Gun

 I watched half an hour of Top Gun recently; it’s such an extraordinary artefact, now so eaten up by its own parodies and tributes, it’s hard to believe this is the real thing.

It’s certainly one of the most influential films of all time, and, after all, enjoyable enough on whichever level you want to deal with it.

I watched Top Gun before I watched An Officer and a Gentleman, though most of the right generation will have experienced them in the correct order, since they were both enormous box-office hits.

Top Gun nicks so much from An Officer and a Gentleman – setting, storyline, lead character, father issues, dead best friend, local girl romance, motorbike, white uniform, power ballad - yet they are very different films in feel.

Even the first time I watched it, I was shocked by how dirty and sordid An Officer and a Gentleman was in parts, how raw the emotions were, how precise the chraracterisations were. Sure, it’s not some indie drama, it’s a romantic blockbuster, but it’s a very very good film – realistic, shocking and moving at times.

Nothing in Top Gun seems at all real, but it is endlessly quotable, somewhat thrilling and astonishingly shiny.

Gere, though handsome beyond comparison, always manages to portray an insecure narcissism which humanises his characters, in a way that Cruise has little interest in doing.

Even though Star Wars and Jaws are seen as the start of the blockbuster age, it is the look that films started to have in the mid-80s which strikes me as the biggest shift. The same is somewhat true of pop music – Blondie to Madonna, An Officer and a Gentleman to Top Gun….

I really love those early blockbusters which are much more sweary and grotty than their reputation suggests they’ll be, from Saturday Night Fever and Jaws to Trading Places and An Officer and a Gentleman.

Who knows what Top Gun: Maverick will bring?

B70: Marvelous Marvin Hagler

The great boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler has died. He was probably one of my three favourite boxers. Like the Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto, but even more so, he represented [represented being the key word, as one can never really know what kind of person someone is in private] a certain ideal of tough, honourable, fearsome, straightforward, skilled, exciting boxer. Iconic yet unknowable.

Though his record shows 3 losses and 2 draws, each of those results was disputed, particularly his famous last fight, against the equally great, but more showbiz, Sugar Ray Leonard.

Marvin was a middleweight throughout his career. The rest came to him. He didn't need to go to them. His greatest moment is his three-round war with Thomas Hearns in 1985, almost universally considered the greatest short fight of all time, with the first round being considered the single greatest round of all time.

A year or so ago, I wrote a villanelle called 'Rewatching the first round of Hagler/Hearns on youtube'. I guess it's about finding a kind of peace in excitement and in brutality. I hope you like it:

Rewatching the first round of Hagler/Hearns on youtube

Rewatching the first round of Hagler/Hearns

on youtube, I forgot, for once, the speed

the daylight fades, the age of night returns.

 

While New York turns to dust and Paris burns,

for three wild violent minutes, I am freed

rewatching the first round of Hagler/Hearns,

 

how Marvin stalks and Tommy never learns

that when he swings and struts and pays no heed

the daylight fades, the age of night returns,

 

the ceaseless press of doom; my spirit yearns

to wrench itself away from the news feed,

rewatching the first round of Hagler/Hearns

 

for every thrilling second the plot turns.

When Tommy staggers, Marvin starts to bleed,

the daylight fades, the age of night returns

 

as, once again, my grudging mind discerns

where history’s set, the future takes its lead,

rewatching the first round of Hagler/Hearns

the daylight fades, the age of night returns.

B69: Bands, those funny little plans, that never work out right ...

As I've been reading about, and listening to, The Band, I've been thinking about bands in general. Bands, those funny little plans ...

I was never in a band. I didn't play an instrument well enough and didn't have a band-like group of friends prepared to overlook my lack of musicality and risk it all on my sizzling on-stage charisma. I was never close to being in a band. So anyone who's ever been in a band has one up on me, and I'm envious of all of them.

Still, bands never work out. None of them, apart from U2.

They all end in disaster, death, dissolution, divorce, dungeons, drugs, departing drummers, disputed details, difference, difference, difference.

The age of the band seems a little like it's over, especially with the whole pandemic and that - 60 years, the age of the band.

I'd like this to be a 60-song playlist about being in a band. I'm not entirely sure it'll get that far....

... anyway, I kind of gave up on this - it's not in the right order and there's no apple link and there's only 45 songs - still, some nice things...

1. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles
2. History Lesson Pt 2 - Minutemen
3. Heard About Your Band - Brakes
4. Holes - Mercury Rev
5. Once Were Brothers - Robbie Robertson
6. This is Just a Modern Rock Song - Belle and Sebastian
7. Goodbye - The Spice Girls
8. For Now and Ever - Super Furry Animals
9. Listen to the Band - The Monkees
10. Can't Stand Me Now - The Libertines
11. Battery in Your Leg - Blur
12. When We Was Fab - George Harrison
13. Garageland - The Clash
14. Formed a Band - Art Brut
15. Do It Again - The Beach Boys
16. The Spirit of Giving - The New Pornographers
17. Danko/Manuel - Drive-By Truckers
18. Never Forget - Take That
19. Ruckus in A Minor - Wu-Tang Clan
20. Wilco - Wilco
21. Introducing the Band - Suede
22. You Love Us/Everything Must Go - Manic Street Preachers
23. Stay Positive - The Hold Steady
24. Only Living Boy in New York - Simon and Garfunkel
25. We've Been Had - The Walkmen
26. Girl in Amber - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
27. Sweeping the Nation - Spearmint
28. The Late Greats - Wilco
29. Range Life - Pavement
30. Best Ever death Metal Band out of Denton - Mountain Goats
31. Cheated Hearts - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
32. Punka - Kenickie
33. Hey Darling - Sleater-Kinney
34. Fake Tales of San Francisco - Arctic Monkeys
35. Hallelujah - Haim
36. We are the Pipettes - The Pipettes
37. Moulty - The Barbarians
38. Creeque Alley - Mamas and the Papas
39. The Load Out - Jackson Browne
40. Torn and Frayed - Stones
41. Tonight's the Night - Neil Young
42. Summer of 69 - Bryan Adams
43. I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well - Pooh Sticks
44. Glamorous Indie Rock'n'Roll - The Killers

B68: Scottish Songs

 I've done a list of Scottish songs before in various forms, but I'm having another crack.

I felt, watching a documentary recently about the Glasgow scene of the 80s, that my own taste in "Scottish Pop" is very much second or third generation - B and S are one thing, but most folk in the know would mostly think of Josef K, then the Pastels etc

Anyway, this is an attempt to be somewhat all-inclusive, including the more mainstream side of it. I love 'Goodnight Girl', after all ...

There's still so much missing:

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/scottish-songs/pl.u-e90JqhpkGAY

1. The First Big Weekend - Arab Strap
2. Just Like Honey - Jesus and Mary Chain
3. Sunshine on Leith - The Proclaimers
4. The Sweetest Thing - Camera Obscura
5. Ivo  - Cocteau Twins
6. Sorrow - Life without Buildings
7. Pretty in a Panic - My Latest Novel
8. The Ballad of the Broken Seas - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
9. Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam - The Vaselines
10. When the Haar Rolls in - James Yorkston
11. Willows of Carbeth - Trembling Bells
12. My Secret is My Silence - Roddy Woomble
13. Oblivious - Aztec Camera
14. Party Fears Two - The Associates
15. No One Speaks - Geneva
16. Barriers - Aereogramme
17. False Alarm - KT Tunstall
18. Top of the Pops - The Rezillos
19. Next to Me - Emeli Sande
20. Young at Heart - The Bluebells
21. What Time is Love - The KLF
22. Amsterdam - UNPOC
23. Ready for the Weekend - Calvin Harris
24. Pauper's Dough - King Creosote
25. Drop the Pressure - Mylo
26. Rip it Up - Orange Juice
27. Surf - Roddy Frame
28. Verisimilitude - Teenage Fanclub
29. The Mother We Share - Chvrches
30. Serious Drugs - BMX Bandits
31. All the Records on the Radio ... - Ballboy
32. When I Argue I See Shapes - Idlewild
33. The Saints are Coming - The Skids
34. Default - Django Django
35. Helicon 1 - Mogwai
36. Dry the Rain - The Beta Band
37. Love Anyway - Mike Scott
38. Flowers in the Window - Travis
39. Mid-Air - Paul Buchanan
40. The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ - Jackie Leven
41. The Final Arrears - Mull Historical Society
42. Into the Open Air - Julie Fowlis
43. 9 to 5 - Sheena Easton
44. Catch the Wind - Donovan
45. Coming up Easy - Paolo Nutini
46. Colourblind - Darius Danesh
47. Stuck in the Middle with You - Stealer's Wheel
48. Goodnight Girl - Wet Wet Wet
49. Labour of Love - Hue and Cry
50. Smile - Supernaturals
51. Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis
52. Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beat
53. Sorry for Laughing - Josef K
54. Look Away - Big Country
55. To Sir With Love - Trashcan Sinatras
56. Many of Horror - Biffy Clyro
57. The Modern Leper - Frightened Rabbit
58. Only God Knows- Young Fathers
59. Darts of Pleasure - Franz Ferdinand
60. Parks and Recreation - Emma Pollock
61. Vienna - Ultravox
62. Nothing to Be Done - The Pastels
63. Kandy Pop - Bis
64. There Must Be An Angel - Eurhythmics
65. Feels Like I'm in Love - Kelly-Marie
66. Kayleigh - Marillion
67. Alive and Kicking - Simple Minds
68. Sick - The Twilight Sad
69. You Are My Joy - Snow Patrol
70. Superstar Tradesman - The View
71. Godhopping - Dogs Die in Hot Cars
72. Fight them Back - Steve Mason
73. Heliopolis by Night - Aberfeldy
74. I Don't Know Where to Begin - The Pictish Trail
75. Daddy's Gone - Glasvegas
76. Happy Birthday - Altered Images
77. In Demand - Texas
78. Caledonia - Bert Jansch
79. Nothing Ever Happens - Del Amitri
80. Dignity - Deacon Blue
81. Rhythm of my Heart - Runrig
82. I'm Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage
83. OhKatherine - Josephine Foster
84. Robot Man - The Aliens
85. Movin' on Up - Primal Scream
86. Coming in from the Cold - The Delgados
87. Caledonia - Frankie Miller
88. I'm a Cuckoo - Belle and Sebastian

B67: American Songs

Here's a playlist. I think it's a really great one, albeit it's a bit obvious.

My starting point was listening to The Band a lot lately, and also to the great song by Drive-By Truckers, 'Danko/Manuel'.

So, yes, The Band were 4/5 Canadian, but that's, in a way, what made them one of the definitive American bands. All the acts in the playlist will be American, apart from a few Canadians who are wrapped up in American music.

This got me thinking about five bands of the 60s, all beginning with B, whose instrumental and vocal sounds really define what white rock and pop became - The Beatles, The Bee Gees, The Band, The Beach Boys, The Byrds. There are similarities between various of them, but all took the music down different paths. All of them had such brilliant singers. [there is a 6th too, which i think is almost as important and influential, though a little later and much less successful - Big Star].

I also thought the "survivors" of each band tell a tale. Each act has had tragedy, and each has a small number of survivors holding their legacy, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes controversially.

Anyway, the Beatles and the Bee Gees aren't on this playlist, for obvious reasons, but the other three are all very much part of it.

Like I said, it's a bit obvious in parts, it's a tour through frontline American music history, but I've tried to make connections everywhere. If there's modern music, I want it to call to the past.

There is so much that isn't there which could be there. I didn't want to go too far into folk/acoustic music, country music, modern Americana, or pop, but there's a bit of all of them.

I could make the list again, include so many different things. but still I hope you enjoy.

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/american-songs/pl.u-d29JjFAZrR6

1. Danko/Manuel - Jason Isbell
2. The Weight - The Band
3. Blind Willie McTell - Bob Dylan
4. Who Do You Love? - Bo Diddley
5. Diamonds and Rust - Joan Baez
6. Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris
7. The Return of the Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons
8. So You Want To Be a Rock'nRoll'Star - The Byrds
9. Turn! Turn Turn! - Judy Collins
10. Carry On - CSNY
11. My Baby Don't Understand Me - Natalie Prass
12. Heads Gonna Roll - Jenny Lewis
13. Free Falling - Tom Petty
14. Crying - Roy Orbison
15. Bring it On Home to Me - Sam Cooke
16. Mercy Mercy Me - Marvin Gaye
17. Mississippi Goddam - Nina Simone
18. Blood on the Leaves - Kanye West
19. The Wolves - Bon Iver
20. Frankie's Gun - Felice Brothers
21. What it Means - Drive-By Truckers
22. Formation - Beyonce
23. Pa'lante - Hurray for the Riff Raff
24. Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival
25. Dancing in the Street - Martha and the Vandellas
26. i - Kendrick Lamar
27. Night Train - James Brown
28. He Got Game - Public Enemy
29. Sonny Could Lick All Them Cats - Chuck E Weiss
30. Hold On - Alabama Shakes
31. Love Love Love - Mountain Goats
32. Spanish Mary - Rhiannon Giddens
33. Where Did You Sleep Last Night? - Nirvana
34. Dancefloors - My Morning Jacket
35. Mannish Boy - Muddy Waters
36. Dylan Thomas - Best Oblivion Community Center
37. Heart Like a Wheel - Kate and Anna McGarrigle
38. Tell It Like It Is - The Neville Brothers
39. Johnny B Goode - Chuck Berry
40. I Walk on Gilded Splinters - Dr John
41. Rock'n'Roll - Mos Def
42. If All I Was Was Black - Mavis Staples
43. Hummingbird - Wilco
44. Bastards of Young - The Replacements
45. September Gurls - Big Star
46. The Trader - The Beach Boys
47. Maybe the People Will Be the Times Or Between Clark and Hillsdale - Love
48. California Soul - Marlena Shaw
49. Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
50. Eye Know - De La Soul
51. Livin' for the City - Stevie Wonder
52. Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell
53. Hudson Line - Mercury Rev
54. Midnight Train to Georgia - Gladys Knight and the Pips
55. Downtown Train - Tom Waits
56. The Gash - The Flaming Lips
57. Chuck E's in Love - Ricky Lee Jones
58. Talking 'Bout a Revolution - Tracy Chapman
59. Badlands - Bruce Springsteen
60. Proud Mary - Ike and Tina Turner
61. Love Child - The Supremes
62. Woodstock - Joni Mitchell
63. All Your Favourite Bands - Dawes
64. Do What You Gotta Do - The Four Tops
65. If you Could Read My Mind  - Gordon Lightfoot
66. One Headlight - The Wallflowers
67. No Other - Gene Clark
68. River - Dennis Wilson
69. Steady Pace - Matthew E White
70. Respect - Aretha Franklin
71. The Man Comes Around - Johnny Cash
72. Schooldays - Loudon Wainwright
73. Doo Wop (That Thing) - Lauryn Hill
74. Save the Country - Laura Nyro
75. Oh My Sweet Carolina - Ryan Adams
76. My Country Tis of Thee - Mahalia Jackson
77. Elvis Presley Blues - Gillian Welch
78. Lucille - Little Richard
79. Mystery Train - Elvis Presley
80. Midnight Special - Odetta
81. Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
82. Make Your Own Kind of Music - Mama Cass

B66: The BBL

So, farewell again, Big Bash League, which, every year but particularly this year, has been a great winter friend.

Just when I need it, when the cold draws in, the days are short, when leaving the house is a distant memory, it provides consistent, untaxing morning entertainment for the best part of two months.

If you don't know what it is, it is a T20 Cricket League in Australia, usually broadcast in the UK at 8.15am on BT Sport, so I can have it on for the first three hours or so of my working day.

There are 8 teams, the Sydney Thunder, Sydney Sixers, Melbourne Stars, Melbourne Renegades, Perth Scorchers, Adelaide Strikers, Brisbane Heat and Hobart Hurricanes, all in garish colours. They all play each other twice, then there's a brief knockout denouement.

It is, simply, as straightforwardly enjoyable, in format, presentation and action, as a sporting tournament gets. I enjoy it far more than any English T20 or the more prestigious and lucrative IPL.

I'm not overly invested in any one team, but usually have a favourite or two each year. The players are mainly Australian, with two or three overseas players per team. Most teams have one or two English players, and they usually do very well.

The level is excellent but not quite as high as the IPL, but I prefer that. The pressure, particularly for overseas players, is enormous in the IPL, and good players can go weeks without a game because of limits on foreign players. 

The IPL tries to be fun but takes itself too seriously, more seriously than T20 should ever take itself. The BBL takes itself that crucial amount less seriously, and the commentary, though Aussie-matey, is far less excruciating than the Danny Morrison-led extremeness of the IPL.

They banter but they don't BANTER! They had Brian Lara this year, Lisa Sthalekar's great. Damian Fleming's genuinely witty, Ricky Ponting is clear-headed and sensible.

The unlikely star of the tournament this year was James Vince, an elegant, talented English batsman whose been a punchline for many years for his propensity for scoring 20 then getting out, in every form of the game. Well, this year, he scored superb 90+s in the semi-final and final of the BBL, winning the tournament for the Sydney Sixers. No one could begrudge him his day in the sun.

Anyway, there it is. It's over for another year. I'll miss it, albeit there's a potentially superb England-India series just starting. 

Some see a moral issue in the effort taken to protect sportspeople so they can carry on doing their sheltered, meaningless job, but, honestly, it really does provide so much comfort, calm and pleasure, I think any measures are worth it.

Brief 65: Big men

This is just a weird little thought I recently had. There was a point 15-20 years ago, a few years after rugby union had turned professional and the players had been able to devote more time to fitness and gym work, when I looked at the players on the pitch and just thought "Something's wrong here ... they're too big". Where rugby players had, in the amateur, pre-expert nutrition, era been a bit of a ragtag mixture, from the rotund to the relatively skinny, they were all now varying degrees of built, even naturally normal-sized men like Brian O'Driscoll and naturally little men like Shane Williams.

And it was wrong. And it was dangerous. And so it proved. Rugby is a concussion time bomb just starting to explode. Massive men like that shouldn't have all be thudding into each other all the time without the right protocols in place.

And what's this got to do with anything else?

Well, I've had the same thought nagging about young Hollywood male stars - they've all got these professional rugby physiques. Not enough of them look normal.

Sure, in the past you had your Stallones and Schwarzeneggers. but they were "muscle men", that was their calling card. Even Cruise was a normal shape, even Willis, let alone Hanks, Ford, Clooney etc.

Now it's all of them, all doing their groundwork in the gym, playing their superheroes and their occasional "look, I'm sensitive and can really act" role, then going on the chat show circuit trying to make out they're normal, or a bit kooky.

Naming no names, shit is weird with some of them. However they got those physiques, whatever. It's not healthy.

Brief 64: Bee Gees (and Fleetwood Mac)

I've watched documentaries, recently, about Fleetwood Mac and the Bee Gees, two bands with pretty similar trajectories, from considerable, but relatively local, success in the late 60s, to turmoil and a fallow period in the early 70s, to unimaginable hugeness in the mid-70s, 80s comeback, bitterness, bit of tragedy, and, above all, inescapable songs.

Both docs also ended with the bearded founder/survivors (Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, Barry Gibb) staring out on water in their paradise US homes (the former live near each other in Hawaii, the latter in Miami) but while Fleetwood and McVie had an air of contentedness and smugness, the oldest Gibb, naturally enough, exudes a sense of loss and sadness.

The final line he says is heartbreaking; "What I wanted to say earlier is that I'd rather have them all back and no hits at all" - the framing of it, because he is naturally bullish and proud of what he's achieved, talks quite matter-of-factly about chronology, detail... and in all that, you could see that he felt the truth of his grief might have been missed.

The Gibb brothers died in reverse order - the youngest, Andy, first (a solo artist who had 3 US Number 1s, all co-written by Barry, of whom he was the spitting image), in 1988, then Maurice, the younger twin, then Robin, the older twin.

And Barry remains. It is clear he was the driving force, the greatest talent, and, for all that, is not entirely revered in his own right like eg George Michael, Elton John, Ray Davies, let alone McCartney, Brian Wilson, Bowie, Freddie Mercury.

I don't think it's true to say the Bee Gees never got respect - for all that they were perceived as, superficially, a bit silly, with their looks and their dress sense and the infamous Clive Anderson interviewed, I think even people like me always knew the Bee Gees did some great songs ...

The documentary certainly reminds you of how many truly beautiful songs he wrote, from To Love Somebody to How Deep is Your Love, and equally impressive is that, in his "writing for other people" phase, he came up with four bona fide standards, in Woman in Love, Heartbreaker, Islands in the Stream and Chain Reaction.

Anyway, amongst other things, I guess the story, for me, is that there's always interest and surprising detail and poignancy in the mainstream and in what I'd previously held at a distance.

Brief 63: Professional footballers are good at what they do

I'm going to shock you. Footballers are good at football. But, really. More than you think. Every single one of them, even the ones who look like they're a bit rubbish.

And football (the playing side, only, of course) is arguably the world's greatest meritocracy. Imagine, an actual meritocracy.

Here's one way to understand it - I was probably the best player in my school year when I was 11, and it was the prep school of a prestigious private school, and then, throughout my school life, going forward, I loved football, played football, more than anything else, to the detriment of my education, socialisation, any other sport. I played all the way through as many lunch breaks as i could till red, muddy and exhausted, played in teams, did keepy-ups and shooting practice at home - I was utterly obsessed with football. I would have given everything, or thought I would, to be a professional footballer.

And I never got within a million miles of getting anywhere. Nowhere near a trial, not even for Brentford or Barnet or Charlton or any club people think is not "the top level". Because I was only doing what everyone else was doing, and lots of them were better and prepared to do even more to prove it. Not just everyone else at my school, some of whom got better than me as the years went on, though they never got near it, either. Ever other half-talented kid in every school in almost every country in the world. 

You don't play at being a professional footballer. You don't toy with it while you try something else. You don't take a gap year then come back to it. The ones that have made it have been utterly, punishingly committed to it since long before their voices broke. And not just the ones who made it to Chelsea and Man Utd but also the ones who made it to Crawley and Salford. And not just the ones who made it, but also the ones who didn't quite make it, who were in the youth team but didn't make the first team squad.

They have all been through a fiercely competitive, professional system and any one who plays one game of professional football has, relatively triumphed.

Doesn't this apply to every sport? No, not to the same extent. Nowhere near. No game is anywhere so universal, so sought after, and many sports are nowhere near so precisely skilled. Sometimes rowers become cyclists. Basketball players become boxers.

Every sport requires skill and tactics, some more than others. Football requires each individual to make countless high-pressure decisions every minute. It is physically and mentally exhausting.

Another, minor, anecdote about the level of fitness required to play football well. Most of my adult football, from uni to the leg-breaking end at 30, was played in a state of vague disrepair, relying on ever-decreasing levels of natural fitness. But one summer, after one football season had ended around April, I got properly fit, was running about 40 miles a week, had lost a stone or two, felt sharp and fresh.

The  first football friendly of the new season, in a park in August, just a friendly, and I remember collapsing pretty much being sick 15 minutes before the end. The point - football is hard. Harder, aerobically, to play at full tilt, than almost anything else. They're all superb athletes..

They all make several complex calculations every minutes, and getting any one of those wrong could result in disaster for themselves and their team.

The best are irreplaceable. Literally, no amount of money could replace Lionel Messi in his prime. The worst are still near the top of the mot substantial, competitive pyramid in the world.

Song 92: Doll Parts

'Top of the Pops' was, at its best, ok - a passable and peculiar weekly ritual which culture outgrew, but not for the better.

I occasionally enjoy watching old episodes on BBC4 of a Friday evening - they're currently halfway through 1990. Sometimes I know that I will have watched the episodes that are being reshown. Yet I wouldn't say, for all that I count myself as having a good "memory", that I remember them.

I was going to write, a few months ago, a list of most memorable Top of the Pops performances, but was surprised at how little I could think of. 

Sure, I can think of the first time I saw Blur and Damon wearing a Penguin t-shirt, I remember Michael Jackson videos, and New Order on the beach in LA, I remember people talking about Pulp the next day at school, I remember Tears for Fears doing 'Shout', I remember happenings and numbers, but in terms of a performance, a connection, something true and real, which broke beyond that businesslike, sterile yet winning format, I kept on returning to just one, really just one, which was this, Hole performing their Top 20 smash 'Doll Parts' in early 1995.

This is not what 'Top of the Pops' was mainly like. Mostly people mimed, and mostly there were backing tracks. And mostly people mimed along to "I want you cos I'm Mr Vain" and the camera panned around to people dancing awkwardly and trying to pretend like they were having more fun than they were.

But this was this - a recent widow looking at camera and howling "some day you will ache like I ache" ...

Timing-wise, I think that's precisely when I started getting into music heavily, started buying NME and Vox, hitched my wagon to the Britpop horse.

For all the impression that 'Doll Parts' made, for all that this was so much more than everything else on a Thursday night at 7pm,  I never bought it or any other Hole album.

Courtney Love is something of a testcase for misogyny in popular culture. The answers aren't obvious.

The question is, I suppose, is she a) a person of great talent and charisma held back and not given her due by perceptions of how a famous woman ought to behave, or b) is she someone who knew how to play the press to use her outrageousness to grab every bit of fame she could get?

Bit of both, innit? She had to put up with a lot, not even counting the main, unthinkably awful event itself ... people thinking her husband wrote her songs, people thinking she was in some way to blame, people (not least cos of the Nick Broomfield doc, which I'm afraid I lapped up, tenuous as it was) thinking she was actually to blame, insinuation and gossip, rumour and insult.

My university flatmate was a big Courtney Love champion, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't really having it, probably made immature and presumptuous moral judgements. I did think she was good at acting though - her performances in 'The Man in the Moon' and, particularly, 'The People Vs Larry Flynt' generated some acclaim and one might have thought a significant movie career would ensue. 

It didn't really happen, and I expect there were a variety of reasons why. But, yes, there'd surely have been more good parts for her if she was a man.

I wouldn't say it's entirely true that she was mistreated by the music press. That's not quite how I remember it. They loved to interview her, and clearly some of them thought she was fantastic, spoke up for her smartness, talent and charisma. And Hole were successful, selling millions of records, by any reckoning.

So, I guess, I'm mainly asking of myself ... why, when I responded to 'Doll Parts' viscerally as a 16 year old boy on the cusp of a lifelong obsession with rock'n'roll music, did I not pursue it, more likely in the coming years to buy an Embrace album than a Hole album?

Brief 62: Forgotten sportspeople of the 1990s

Here is a brief, niche, post, which is actually what it appears to be. It is more interesting to me than to anyone else.

I just think there's something in who from the crossover, somewhat terrestrial but somewhat satellite, distant yet tangible, era of the 90s is still completely in the national conscious and who is, relatively speaking, somewhat forgotten.

The criteria would be that they would have to have been very very good at what they did, and, for a while, a regular part of British life, so not just people who were very good but not too well known at the time (eg. say, squash player Peter Nicol), and not people who were not that great but briefly flashed across our screens (eg Nil Lamptey).

1. Rory Underwood - I mean, like i say, "forgotten" is relative, but compared to other rugby players like Guscott, Dallaglio, Brian Moore etc ... Rory Underwood has done very little media, has a very small wikipedia entry, and he was probably one of Britain's greatest ever sportspeople, a try-scoring record holder by a vast margin and entirely central to a consistent, long period of success in English rugby. I noticed that, after his first two matches, England won every five-nations match in which he scored ...

2. Sally Gunnell - three times in the Top 3 of Sports Personality of the Year, an Olympic champion, a world champion, a world record holder, but, I'd say, not that highly remembered these days.

3. Robin Smith - was, alongside Graham Gooch, England's best batsman for half a decade, and incredibly entertaining, then it all came to an end pretty quickly.

4. Monica Seles - won three Grand Slams in a year, two years in a row. Perhaps she is not forgotten, as people remember the terrible thing that happened to her (being stabbed on court in her prime, putting her out of the game for two years) but I'm not sure it's remembered how dominant she'd become when that happened.

5. Andy Townsend (and to a lesser extent, Gary McAllister) - again, it's not so much that people wouldn't know who Andy Townsend is, as he's done lots of punditry, but I think, because his prime straddles the Football League and Premier League eras, because he's not English, people forget how good he was. He was one of the very best footballers in Britain for a decent chunk of time. This is also true of McAllister, but that's probably fairly well remembered in his case.

6. Simon Geoghegan - this is my main one, who I've banged on about before. Just missed the era of high-profile professionalism, had his career ended by injury, was bafflingly not picked for the Lions. Was utterly electrifying, if it had happened a few years later, would have been a massive star of rugby.

7. Tony Jarrett - because Colin Jackson was usually a bit better and has had a full media career, I think a top athlete like Tony Jarrett, who won two World Championship silvers and ran 13.00, has been pretty much forgotten. This could apply to quite a lot of very good athletes of that era, but I think he's the most consistently successful one.

8. Garry Schofield - I used to love the rugby league, and they'd show it all the time on the BBC, and while some of those stars, like Offiah and Shaun Edwards, are still pretty well known, Garry Schofield, who is the record appearance holder for Great Britain, is a name I haven't heard in a couple of decades.

9. Alton Byrd - they also used to show basketball lot, and this was a little American guy who played for Great Britain and for Kingston who seemed to dominate every game.

I thought of a few more, but it's a long way from a full list ...