An Englishman Abroad – View From A Bridge – management, education and personal thoughts

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD MIGHT AS WELL BE MUTT

It’s a terrible joke. Mutton is short for mutt ‘n’ jeff which is cockney rhyming slang for deaf. Sitting here in the cold California morning the day after hearing that Jeff Beck has died it seems appropriate. It’s not quite “the day the music died” but his playing has been an almost daily source of pleasure in my life for fifty years.

In the early years of a mid-teenage search for identity there were a number of things that were defining. Playing football, unrequited love and music were an entire universe and they defined who were your friends. Belonging was important but always tempered by the drive for individuality.

Geoffrey Arnold Beck arrived in the form of Beck-Ola one day when I was 14. I had read about him as one of the founding guitar gods of the 1960s alongside Clapton and Page. But the supergroups of Cream and Led Zeppelin had made them accessible and popular in a way that the moody, intransigent and wilful Beck was never going to be.

The real stimulus for learning more was when he joined David Bowie on stage at the final Ziggy concert at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. Beck was the guitar hero of Bowie’s guitarist Mick Ronson but the review of the concert carried a description of Ronson trying to shimmy his lurex clad self against Jeff who was having none of it. The phrase I recall, possibly inaccurately, was that Jeff was as “camp as a butcher’s dog”.

Ronson was a very good guitarist but the notion that he had a guitar hero was news, so I took a chance and Truth was purchased. Anyone who has ever put a needle onto vinyl to listen to a new record will know the excitement of the hiss and crackles before the music. To have “Shapes of Things” assault your ears as a first up track was proof that this was something different.

It’s a curious album in many ways. Second track “Let Me Love You” remains a favourite and has one of the most achingly good blues solos alongside Rod Stewart singing in his pre-celebrity pomp but on the same record there’s a version of “Ol’ Man River” and “Greensleeves”. Jeff was nothing if not eclectic and on the sleeve notes he makes the point that the last note of the album’s take on “You Shook Me” was his guitar being sick “and so would you be if I’d just ripped your guts out for 2minutes 33seconds”.

His playing was by turns visceral, playful, distorted, pure but always interesting and there are times when I have laughed out loud at a solo because for all the virtuosity there is humour and audacity. They are like a well told story where the punch line can be comedic, dark or just a statement but is always a surprise. They remind me of my favourite footballer of all time, Denis Law, who would score a goal then, with defenders scattered around him in despair, would stand still with one arm aloft, index finger in the air, as if saying “that is who I am”.

In terms of teenage identity Jeff was also perfect. As far as I know I was the first person in my year at school to discover him, he was as moody and petulant as any adolescent, and he chose to define himself rather than be beholden to anyone. The story of the Rolling Stones trying to hire him ends with him stealing away from Rotterdam in the middle of the night just leaving a note under someone’s door.

A man that can walk away from the biggest band in the world is one thing but the ability to redefine himself musically is another. The rock/blues of his Yarbirds years then Truth and Beck-Ola gave way to the soul and funk of Rough and Ready and the eponymous Jeff Beck Group albums. Then there was the ill-fated Beck, Bogert and Appice supergroup but it always seemed that Jeff needed to be free to play what he wanted with whoever he wanted whenever he wanted.

The moment I realised he was for life was when he persuaded me that fusion jazz/funk with no singer could be a pleasure on Blow by Blow and Wired. He challenged my narrow musical horizons and dared me to come on his journey. It’s been a lifetime pleasure to go along for the ride.

I could write a book on finding and discovering the delights of each album in turn. There is an intricacy to the playing that sucks me in but also an ability to cut through with a bold riff or unexpected sound that delights and thrills. He is never boring.

I eventually got to see him play live in 2007 at Ronnie Scott’s for one of the performances enshrined on “Performing this week…Live at Ronnie Scott’s” and I was there the night that Imogen Heap guested. My proudest fan moment was in the gents bathroom where I was able to break the news to another acolyte that Jeff had played a on a new version of 54-46 Was My Number with Toots and the Maytals. It’s a breathtakingly good solo reflecting his ability to play with empathy, touch and taste whatever the song.

Over the years I saw him at the Royal Albert Hall (terrible acoustics), where Dave Gilmour came on to trade solos, the O2 where he did a solo show then sat in for a song or two with Van Morrison, and here in San Diego where he played much of the Loud Hailer album. I also saw him guest with ZZ Top on his birthday and would swear that I can hear myself screaming with glee on the record as Billy Gibbons introduces him. My adoration knows very few bounds.

What’s not to love? Well, I’m still not sure, for many reasons, about his teaming up with Johnny Depp and Hi Ho Silver Lining remains a grim reminder that he couldn’t sing. But he was a patron of Folly Wildlife Rescue Trust and even had a hobby reconstructing hot rods from scratch.

As for the terrible joke at the start, I am sitting here listening to my With Jeff mix where he appears playing guitar alongside Tom Jones, Lulu, Seal, Toots, LeAnn Rimes, ZZ Top, Tina Turner, Buddy Guy and many others. Best not to be mutt when you can listen to Jeff. Thanks for the music, the memories and everything.

Qatar Carry On

“Do you like horror movies?” The eyes of the princess danced as she asked the question of the exhausted foreigner. It had been a long, long day but there was no easy answer to the follow up question as the clock neared midnight. She continued, “I love them, shall we go and watch one now?”

Every international officer has a story about days without limits, meals without end and questions without answers. There is something about jet lag which makes you feel you can stay awake forever while being so tired that your brain is pleading for sleep. Fixed eye stares and a ghostly pale pallor were the hallmarks of any overseas trip where time was tight and ambitions exceeded hours in the day.

I was usually fortunate to travel with people who knew the country as well as being looked after by in-country agents intent on showing the best it had to offer. Apart from leaving me in a burning hotel in Mexico and under military inspection on the wrong side of passport control in Vietnam, the international office teams I worked with usually seemed keen to bring me home in one piece. So, in July 2008, a one-week sprint through Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Dubai with Craig Smitherman seemed a reasonable idea.

Road to Riyadh

It all began with a 4.30am start to catch a Lufthansa flight from Heathrow to Riyadh via Frankfurt. My first and only time on the German flag carrier, which had all the efficiency and charm expected by an Englishman of a certain age. I could find no evidence that I was travelling on an ex-Interflug aircraft but wrote in my journal that “..now I see how they found a use for the mothballed bomber fleet after the war – not comfortable.”

Two days jammed with meetings in Riyadh included a visit to one agent who offered us a lift back to the hotel rather than getting a taxi. A feature of country visits was to smile and say yes, which was all well and good until we stood in the car park in 44 degrees of sunshine and the agent revealed that his car’s air conditioning had broken. We smiled again and said, “No problem.”

I don’t know how the chicken feels when it goes in the oven but I do know that it is not wearing a suit, tie and lace up, leather shoes. Perhaps as well it wasn’t a t-shirt and shorts because the seat felt hot enough to sear skin. Having the windows down made absolutely no difference, while the screech of brakes, honking horns and frequent curses was a reminder that one commentator has written about Riyadh’s “cruel traffic.”

Eating for England

Flying Riyadh to Jeddah for a single day of end-to-end meetings made good use of time but led to an ad hoc breakfast meeting before the early morning flight next day. From Jeddah to Dammam on the other side of Saudi is only two hours but this was day four and after another 4am start fatigue was setting in. There was a long drive awaiting as we set off through the desert for a session with Saudi Aramco.

Two hours after landing we had driven past a lot of sand and were entering the company’s compound. Driving into the entrance required passing under the business end of a tank and multiple armed guards which were both signs that we were a long way from home. But winning further investment for activity with the university was a reminder that time spent getting face to face in remote outposts almost always paid off.

Then there was lunch. Stomachs still heavy with breakfast we gamely ploughed on through several courses until it became apparent they would keep on coming until we gave up. We did not come, see and conquer as much as chew, nibble and eventually beg for mercy.

The Princess and the Pasta

Beyond replete we went over the bridge to Bahrain and landed in Doha at 7.30 in the evening. Our turnaround in the hotel was 15 minutes and we entered the land cruiser to be met by the agent and a companion she introduced as her cousin. The agent wore a hijab while the cousin wore a niqab.

The first destination of the evening was a shopping mall where Craig and I followed our hosts at a respectful distance. Shops full of jewellery, fabric, ceramics and clothes were perused without purchase. There seemed a certain irony to us trailing several paces behind the women.

Almost inevitably there came time when food was mentioned. Bellies loaded with Jeddah breakfast and Dammam lunch groaned in protest but our faces smiled and our mouths said yes as, 17 hours into the day, we sat down to eat – again. Polite conversation was made and we learnt that the cousin was related to the royal family and was a poet of wide renown in the country who gave readings for the Emir.

It had reached the stage of brain fog where nothing came as a particular surprise. Why wouldn’t we be trying to stuff down the third major meal of the day, in a shopping mall, at eleven o’clock at night, in a foreign country in the company of a poet-princess? All in the good cause of recruiting international students.

Things Of the Night

But the subject turned to films and the princess was expressing her love of old black and white horror movies like Dracula and Frankenstein. Incautiously, I indicated that I was not much for current horror movies but had fond memories of the old Hammer films . I may even have ventured opinions about the various merits of Vincent Price over Christopher Lee.

Seconds later the invitation to go and watch a movie was made. My slightly hazy brain turned over the idea of being in a Qatar cinema at 1am in the morning with a princess by my side as Van Helsing drove a stake through a vampire’s heart. My slightly addled brain was saying that it would be polite to accept the invitation, while something I like to think of as common sense was screeching that this was the worst idea of the day.

I think the offer was real but it’s possible I was being teased. My stuttering apology of early meetings next morning and it having been a very long day were graciously accepted. It’s a regret that I didn’t say yes and I am sure my reluctance was a sign I was not cut from the cloth that makes the best international officers.

Image by Lumpi from Pixabay

An Englishman Abroad When The Queen Dies

Being an ocean away when Queen Elizabeth II died was a reminder that some of the English certainties are well in the past. In days gone by Thursday night would definitely have meant a trip to the pub to reflect on all things monarchical and to toast Her Majesty for a lifetime of service and putting up with her own children. Whatever the general apathy or distaste for the Royal Family in the UK it was unusual for individuals to suggest she personally deserved less than respect for fulfilling a demanding role that was foisted upon her.

As it is, the response of the football authorities has been to deny the opportunity for fans to meet at the weekend – a time that people come together to share loyalties, build memories and reflect on their world. The most heartening moment of Thursday was the spontaneous rendition of God Save the Queen by West Ham fans gathered for a European league match. People should have the chance to celebrate and sing with friends for those who have lived a fulfilled and fulfilling life.

Cancelling the Last Night of the Proms was even more foolish because this is a moment where the British sense of tradition, eccentricity and ability to let loose in harmless patriotic fun is most evident. Pomp and Circumstance March No1, Jerusalem and Rule Britannia are as much national anthems as the official version and the Queen was a believer in maintaining tradition. The Royal Albert Hall, named out of love and enduring devotion to Queen Victoria’s husband, would have been a perfect venue to say goodbye while celebrating continuity.

I am personally three strikes down on opportunities to meet a member of the Firm but this is the first one that I definitely won’t get back. It’s always seemed slightly odd to me that people want to stand in a line to shake hands with someone they don’t know, have nothing in common with and who might not even stop to talk. Planning the choreography of the event, walking around with security details to review escape routes and sniffer dogs to check bathrooms for explosive devices, is a lot more interesting than two seconds holding a gloved hand.

It is also fair to say that I am not a monarchist, although I have a regard for someone who so unflinchingly worked in a role that has meant being polite to some terrible Prime Ministers and appalling world leaders. A long time ago I reconciled myself to the economic modelling suggesting that the monarchy was a net benefit to the country and that politically it was less likely to be problematic than, say, an elected President. But I had no desire to meet – despite twenty years with a trio of close calls

As we set up the first ASDA Festival of Food and Farming in Hyde Park in 1989 one of the privileges of being the headline sponsor was to have our tent visited by the Queen. As lead organizer for the retailer, I was on the list to have my hand shaken but declined because I wasn’t really sure what the point was. I wandered around with one of the ladies in waiting who was totally charming and didn’t really feel I’d missed much.

My next near encounter was in 2001 when Princess Anne opened the Sportspark at the University of East Anglia. Like many people of my generation I considered the Princess Royal a favourite because she genuinely seemed to like rugby and didn’t have any of the somewhat whining tendencies of her brothers. Another regal handshaking opportunity beckoned but I swiftly inserted my son into the running order to hand over a bouquet.

Probably my final opportunity was when the then heir apparent, Prince Charles, visited the University of East Anglia in early 2010 to give a pep talk in the wake of Climategate. His visit was delayed by several hours due to an accident on what was, at the time, only a single carriageway as the main road into Norfolk. As dozens of security-cleared and locked down colleagues sweltered in the Council Chamber I had the right badge to go backwards and forwards which enabled me to be in the wrong place (had I wanted to shake hands) at just the right moment.

I’m not counting here the dismal It’s a Royal Knockout in 1987 where Andrew, Fergie and Edward made total idiots of themselves in the pouring rain and ushered in an era where dignity continued to fall away almost yearly. Princess Anne was the fourth team captain but she looked on with disdain throughout, while strategizing her way to leading her team, including Emlyn Hughes and Tom Jones, to victory. ASDA was one of the sponsors but we were, thankfully, kept miles away drinking champagne while watching on TV screens from a tent in a rain sodden field.

All this is a reminder that a lot of years have passed for the “new Elizabethans”, a term which did not stick. From a time when Winston Churchill was still Prime Minister and the monarch was Queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, to a time when the Union is under pressure and the UK is seeking a new way in the world. Her passing is probably the best reminder to those of us born in the decade of her coronation that the baton has firmly passed to new generations.

In that respect it would have been interesting to see Charles – a product of the 1940s – step aside and help usher in a new generation through Prince William, a 1980s child. It is not a question of whether King Charles can do the job because I suspect he will be more interested in stability than turbulence. It is really whether the moment is ripe for a step change in ambition akin to that of John F. Kennedy, the youngest ever US President (by election) at the age of 43, whose New Frontier speech still resonates in stating “not a set of promises – it is a set of challenges.”

Prince William is slightly younger than Kennedy was at that time but he has a young family that would make his appreciation of the long term future a matter of fundamental personal importance. It also seems time for the generation born during and in the shadow of the second world war to hand over to those who will hopefully avoid a third. After that they need only steer a route through climate change, global pandemics, economic poverty, water and food crises while watching the sky for a stray meteor.

Despite all that, the best of luck to Charles and Camilla. The country needs some good news and compassionate leadership. They might just be the best thing about the next few years.

Image by Alexa from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD AT LAST

Two and a half years of lockdown later I found myself back on Blighty’s breezy shores. Brighton hasn’t changed much but if anything it has slipped slightly further down the scrungy, bohemian, dissolute tube. I have never seen so many worn puffer jackets and threadbare jeans on hard-faced, hard-swearing individuals and the craziness quotient (measured by people speaking loudly to themselves) was at a record level.

The sartorial picture seems to have forbidden the wearing of socks, even when the trousers are what we knew as “ankle swingers” back in the day. It’s still difficult, however, to know how many inside leg sizes you have to cut back on to achieve trousers which are half-way down your buttocks while still managing to be half-way up the shin. Where socks are worn, white flannel seems to be back in fashion which is so Essex 1970s that I felt transported to a different era.

Where Brighton truly scores is in the number of pubs and it was a delight to spend an evening in the wonderful Mash Tun. Reminded me that one drunken night in the Basketmakers (known colloquially as the Basket Weavers) a group of INTO colleagues agreed we should start an app where we entered scores and a description for every pub in Brighton. Needless to say, the idea petered out when even that battle-hardened crew couldn’t really remember too much about the five they went to on the first night of the project.

It was enjoyable to return to good old-fashioned jay-walking without fear of getting some sort of ticket. It is de rigueur in Brighton not to wait for the green man to flash which is probably because some green painted weirdo is always likely to usurp the electronic one and assault you. My only disadvantage was that I could not remember which way to look first to make sure that I wasn’t under the wheels of the many buses that thunder up and down Western Road.

It all came while I was still a bit jet-lagged from the flight. Being met by English accents from the cabin crew was disorienting and reminded me how used I have become to people not pronouncing their ‘t’s and have a nice day replacing please and thank you. British Airways just doesn’t seem to update itself and there is something very comforting about that.

But what is it with the plastic money? The feel of a polymer bank note is unpleasant and troubling after nearly three years of only dealing with the linen/cotton mix bills in the US. You can’t decently have the conversation about paying your bills in the UK with “fifty folding” anymore and my own wallet can’t really cope with the springy, spongy resilience of the new notes. Don’t get me started on pound and two pound coins – I’ve got totally used to small denomination paper as a means of carrying cash that doesn’t shred every pocket in your trousers.

Restaurant culture is also very different and as I waited for an eternity to order one night I reflected on the determined, upbeat sunniness of California waiters. For the first time I had reason to think that a lower starting wage and the possibility of a bigger tip was something worth considering. When it came to the bill at the end of the evening it was explained to me that the bill contained a 10% gratuity that was “not mandatory”. Coming from a place where 15% is worth spending and 20% not uncommon I was glad to take it as a bargain.

What there is to love, is the pre-prepared egg and cress sandwiches in the M&S/Waitrose/Sainsbury food halls, Walkers Cheese and onion crisps and chocolate covered rice cakes. The US has either passed by or not reached these simple delights and every lunchtime order is beset with questions of white or brown, mayo or ketchup, large or larger. There is a lot to be said for self-selection of a basic set of carbohydrates and some relatively low-calorie sweet stuff to fill the midday gap.

Trains have not got any better and my four hour journey from Norwich to Manchester was spent standing up in close proximity to strangers who thought that mask-wearing was for the Lone Ranger, Zorro and Kendo Nagasaki. While the Famous 41 travelling fans of King’s Lynn FC were amusing and drank enough to sink several battleships (probably more given recent news about the Russia’s flagship Black Sea missile cruiser, the Moskva), it was less than wholesome to have people keeping the toilet open throughout the journey to give themselves some breathing space. I decided discretion was the better part of valour and avoided negotiating railworks and strike action on the route from Manchester to London on Easter Sunday – my tip is to use Blackberry Cars if you need to do the same.

In between there was a wonderful Old Trafford moment where Cristiano Ronaldo rolled back the years to score a hat-trick and secure victory over Norwich which made my visit worthwhile. The fact that Norwich are bottom of the league and my team shuffled, strained and faltered means nothing when the result is a close fought victory. Thanks Cristiano and I share the world’s sympathy for the devastating loss of your son this week.

Despite the lack of mask wearing and acceptance of rampant COVID rates there was a strong reminder that the UK has still not really caught up with being open for business. Along with hordes of tourists I trawled Oxford Street and several other major London shopping haunts on Easter Sunday to find only shoe shops and, bizarrely, American Candy retailers taking money. Most of the visitors were as bemused as me to find that not even MacDonalds had opened its doors to allow people to celebrate the resurrection with Big Mac.

It’s also a reminder that despite my best efforts, along with the Shopping Hours Reform Council, back in 1994 the UK remains unwilling to allow shops to serve customers when they want. Easter Sunday means shops over 3,000sq ft have to be closed and there was further regression in 2004 when legislation meant they had to close on Christmas Day even if it wasn’t a Sunday. All this despite a 2014 poll where 72% of people said they should be able to shop when its convenient for them.

It reminded me of the Thursday night in December 1994 when one of our ASDA PR coups was to open Clapham Junction store for 24-hours immediately before Christmas – the first superstore to take advantage of deregulation. People came from all over London and CEO Archie Norman was spotted packing bags at 2am in the morning as one of the PR team, Julie Eaton, whizzed products over the scanner. As Frankie Valli didn’t sing, “oh what a night, late December back in 94”.

It was a fine moment to rank alongside getting the Lord’s to table an amendment to the Shop Hours Act in 1994 to ensure that Good Friday did not have the same licensing hours in shops as Easter Sunday. The British Retail Consortium wouldn’t engage so I spent a lovely afternoon in the Lord’s tea room briefing a Labour peer who took up the challenge. Without the change people wouldn’t have been able to buy alcohol in stores on Good Friday before 10am and that would be dumb.

I even managed to complete the shopping task of a case load of UK chocolate, Malden Sea Flakes and a sunscreen that is not available in the US then get a COVID free test before I flew back to the sunny climes of California. Having got my second booster the week before going I gave myself the best chance but the trains, planes, pubs and 74,000 at Old Trafford must have tested my good fortune to the limit. A good trip all round and I’ll be back.

Image by Hands off my tags! Michael Gaida from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD PONDERS THE YEAR

A refrain from eternal optimist Del Boy Trotter in Only Fools and Horses was that “this time next year we’ll be millionaires”. It would be good to hear his thoughts on the recovery from a pandemic that continues to stretch its tentacles into every aspect of life. For this Englishman abroad it’s back to the future as California’s new indoor face mandate comes into effect and my trip to the UK for New Year is cancelled.

Just a few weeks ago, there was every chance of travelling. The plane was booked, hotels in Norwich, Manchester, London and Brighton selected, the prospect of Eleanor’s birthday, Christopher’s band at New Year and a trip to Old Trafford to watch a rejuvenated Manchester United thrash Wolves. Then a little Omicron in the works and the prospect of getting on public transport, being in dingy bars and becoming quarantined in the Holiday Inn equivalent of Wormwood Scrubs became too much.

So, in 2021, outside of a trip to Washington in June, my life will have revolved around the idyllic neighbourhood of North Park and South Park and I’d have to say there are plenty of worse places to be. The neighbourhood has survived furloughs, lockdowns, labor shortages and deep cleansing routines with remarkable vigor. A new ice cream parlour opened on the corner of Juniper and 30^th just last weekend after the shop had been empty for the best part of two years.

To say it’s an ice cream parlour underplays the vibe. The ice cream is from family-owned Mutual Friend, the venue offers a café with coffee from the renowned Dark Horse Coffee Roasters as well as vegan doughnuts and liege waffles. On a busy corner of South Park with the Golden Rhino alongside and Matteo just over the road it is going to be a total success if my first encounter with it’s first night waffle cone is any guide.

Differences to the daily routines are relatively subtle but the march of time, technology and entrepreneurial zeal have shown their hand. The Whistlestop Bar has started to accept credit cards, increased their wine range and there is an excellent taco food truck on the weekends. Needless to say, I have continued to pay in cash, drink Alesmith and sit at the same table each week complaining about the young crowd these changes are attracting.

There was even the excitement of Albert Hammond Jr attending a promotional night for his newly launched “wine seltzer” called Jetway which required the outdoor drinking area to be cleared for a VIP event. While I’m not one to complain about celebrities needing their privacy I was a bit baffled to find that the guitarist and occasional backing vocalist of The Strokes had that level of stardom. Having mastered all five chords of It Never Rains in Southern California recently I was going to offer to accompany him on his Dad’s top selling tune but he lost his chance.

Even the best barbershop in the world, Thee Inglorious Blacktree Barberia, has upped its technology game with a new online booking system called Booksy. I am pleased to report that an increase in efficiency will not mean an end to being offered beer and a shot to kill some time before getting into the chair. The other big news is that a food truck stops outside TIBB on a Wednesday and Saturday night – perhaps I should suggest a buzzcut ‘n’ BBQ promotion.

The longest running saga of the pre-Christmas period has been the failure to get a treadmill delivered. Walmart had the first opportunity and the delivery van even got to park outside the house while I engaged with the driver to get him to put it, as agreed with the company, in the outhouse. I found that American delivery drivers don’t bargain and after five minutes of him furiously gesticulating while he argued with dispatch on his phone he simply drove off.

While WalMart might think that they have the financial muscle and retail nous to take on Amazon this was a real indication that they do not have doorstep delivery in their blood. Decades of having shoppers making a pilgrimage to their tedious acres of boring aisles on bland retail parks has numbed them to what individual service looks like. The promises of a new delivery date were given but never matched by action and after another two weeks the order was cancelled.

Next up was BestBuy which has a decent reputation but is turning out neither to be Best or to offer any certainty that we can Buy. A delivery man phoned to ask if he could come earlier in the day than expected and I agreed only to find that 12 hours passed without him coming and the dispatch team not even knowing where he was. A second attempt found Felix promising action without any follow through and here we are two weeks later wondering if this is another bust.

What I have to believe is that somewhere in a WalMart warehouse and then in a BestBuy warehouse there has been/is an expensive, 300lb treadmill with my address on it. There is no supply chain crisis where the parts are scattered around the world because a man turned up outside my house and was ready to deliver it if he’d been given the right instructions. The purpose of logistics firms is to pick, load and deliver these items on a basis that is routine to the point of boredom and Amazon has got it right while others are failing.

Somebody who has delivered is my friend and erstwhile PR entrepreneur Tony Tighe with a book of his life and career called “30 Years of Bull****”. It’s a romp through his starting point on the family’s Liverpool market, through early days in Benidorm and on to a career in beer sales and marketing before starting Greenwood Tighe PR. We worked together during the heady days of ASDA store openings during the 1980s where budgets were lavish and hangovers a certainty.

For several years the level of invention and B list stars became increasingly surreal. A world record breaking haggis for the opening in Corby, crooner Frankie Vaughan kicking down a green door in Stockport, Anneka Rice in a helicopter as part of the treasure trail for Hunt’s Cross and the extraordinary ‘wrapping’ of ASDA’s “present” to London at Colindale. It was splashy and showy and was part of defining a brand that challenged the establishment hierarchy of Sainsbury and Tesco.

When I returned to ASDA in the 1990s I had already been told that “the roundheads have taken over from the cavaliers” and the store opening budget was about 10% of its previous high. We’d have the oldest and youngest members of staff cutting the ribbon or run a competition for a deserving local family to have a trolley dash for the opening. The local coverage was decent but it wasn’t quite the same as bringing the motorway to a standstill and being on national news with store bound traffic as we had done in the glory days.

What had been carried forward from the 1980s was a contrarian, disruptive attitude to challenge the corporate smoothness and complacency of the two dominant southern based retail behemoths which saw us overtake Sainsbury on market share. Tony had moved on to other things but I was fortunate to find new creative geniuses and allies at Lynne Franks PR to dominate tabloid and TV coverage and capture the imagination of “ordinary working people and their families”. Having seen Mr Tighe write his book at the age of 70 I am pondering whether I should set about offering my own tales from a career in PR.

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD SEES THE IMPOSTORS

There was a time when watching English multi-billionaire Richard Branson cock-a-snook at even bigger multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos by being first into space would have filled me with a sense of pride and delight. Plucky little Englander beats richest-in-the-world American has been the stuff of dreams since 1776 and certainly since growing up in an England where ‘who won the war’ was sometimes as much a rallying call against US claims as taunting the defeated of 1945. But, in the victory of the bearded over the bald, I can’t find any sense of achievement or excitement at being ‘first’ to launch a commercial, peopled flight to space.

I’ve gasped in awe at the Moon landings, marvelled at the miracle of Apollo 13 and delighted in the exploration of Mars as a multi-national feat of technical brilliance. Four or five minutes of weightlessness and who has the biggest windows is the stuff of schoolboy boasts and a total irrelevance to me and many others. Throwing multi-millions at it while the planet is burning, the poor are starving and pandemic variants lurks uneasily over daily life seems the ultimate waste of time in pursuit of bragging rights.

But it’s not the first time in recent months my perspective on winning and losing has been altered by living away from the UK. I was not plunged into dark bitterness by the England team’s loss in the final of the Euros and was pleasantly cheered by the success of a young USA team in the CONCACAF Gold Cup at the weekend. I’d wanted Mexico to win but in a battle between youth and experience the enterprise and optimism of the American team was overwhelmingly attractive.

At one point I thought that the Olympics would win me over to a more jingoistic frame of mind with memories of the Super Saturday of the 2012 London Olympics still burnished in my mind. Watching Mo, Greg and Jessica rip through the global opposition in just 44 minutes of athletic excellence was a thrilling experience. But for every winner there was someone doing their personal best or eating bitter disappointment as they find it is simply not their day.

Kipling’s advice in “If” was pretty much spot on – “If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same”. Which is not to say that Mr Kipling cakes are not equally perspicacious in advocating for “…that Friday evening Viennese Whirl, that says: “Disengage brain, switch off the week and welcome to pyjama town”.” It is a different way of coping with a week of triumph and disaster but it has its merits.

Watching heptathlete Johnson-Thompson insist on hobbling over the line to complete the 200m in the heptathlon after damaging her achilles tendon was a reminder of the fine margins between glory and heartbreak. It was reminiscent of the moment at the 1992 Olympics that that Derek Redmond’s father, Jim, broke through officials and security to help his son limp over the line in the 400m. Difficult to remember all of the Gold medal winners from 30 years ago but that image of honour, love and courage in defeat is burnt into the memory.

But the real moment for me was seeing how the medal tables can represent the ways different media are handling their country’s situation. The New York Times has been called out for using total medal count which places the US on top despite China having the greater haul of Gold medals. Living in the land of revered American Football coach Vince Lombardi’s dictum – “show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser” – it seems counter intuitive to see second and third place given equal billing to the winner.

Perhaps, however, there is a sea change going on which recognizes that being first is only part of the purpose of human endeavour. The response to Simone Biles’ withdrawal from the gymnastics competition and the joy at her returning to claim Bronze on the beam may just signal a recognition that physical and mental health are the main tests of whether any of us win or lose. What was equally impressive was the solidarity of the other US competitors in emphasising that, in a sport where individual prowess is measured, the notion of team solidarity remains.

Slightly more muted in most corners of the US media has been the response to the relative failure of serial winners the US Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNST), to do better than Bronze in their Olympic efforts. It is difficult not to believe that this is partly because the team has become a political football (sic) with accusations of “Leftists maniacs” and “wokeism” resulting from the uncompromising statements of some players. What impresses me more (apart from their record of success) is summed up by retired USWNST’s Abby Wambach, a gold medal winner in 2004 and 2012, in her book Wolfpack where she says she loved, “..winning and losing as ONE team” and “..the magic of collectively surrendering to an unknown outcome.”

I’ve just finished reading a book called Running to the Edge which is mainly about the work of Bob Larsen who was hugely instrumental in rebuilding American distance running after years of decline. He summarises running coach and sports physiologist Joe Vigil speaking to Deena Kastor, later an Olympic Bronze medallist, at a point she was considering giving up the sport. It is an elegant metaphor for life and goes, “In this sport, success is all about the principles you live by… [it is] about building great relationships, setting goals for personal development, then trying to reach them, about bringing people into your life and venturing out on a journey with them.”

There is something symbolic about Branson, Bezos and, probably quite soon, Musk looking down on humanity from a bubble that their business success has bought them. They have earned their success and employed people and created wealth and have every right to spend their money as they wish. But the exclusive nature of space tourism* makes it difficult to feel that they are on the same team as most.

Notes

*Virgin Galactic plans to conduct just one more test flight before it will begin flying paying customers. More than 600 people have reserved tickets priced at $200,000 to $250,000 so far. The company is expected to reopen ticket sales soon, though at a higher price point. Prices for Blue Origin have not yet been published.

Image by Colleen ODell from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD SPOILT FOR CHOICE

Writing before the date with Denmark in the Euro quarter finals is a reminder that it’s now 55 ‘years of hurt’ since the World Cup victory but that hope springs eternal. After all, Marcellus tells us in Hamlet that, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. Unfortunately, I am pretty certain it is not their defence because that guy Vestergaard looks a lot more solid than the ‘Little Mermaid’ and a lot less fun than Tivoli Gardens.

The misery of uncertainty will remain very much alive as I head to one of the English pubs in Little Italy, San Diego later today. I guess that it will be for the England manager and his boys “to be or not to be” but they do have the power of Atomic Kitten singing, “Southgate you’re the one, you still turn me on, football’s coming home again.” Mashing up Three Lions with Whole Again is fine but reminds me with sadness that in 1970 bringing the world cup Back Home was ruined by Gordon Banks being ‘indaloo (apologies for terrible pun and dad joke).

Whatever happens there is still the joy of Argentina v Brazil in the Copa America to look forward to on Saturday and the ongoing NBA playoff series between the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks will continue until at least next Wednesday. And then there is the CONCACAF Gold Cup with the chance that we will see the USA men’s team blossom or the possibility of Mexico sending this corner of California into raptures. Being an Englishman abroad means realizing that there is a big world away from England.

There is so much to love about the prospect of Messi and Neymar meeting on the field in a competition that has been characterized by the most robust tackling I have seen since the 1970s heyday of Leeds versus Chelsea. Columbia has become famous and notorious as home to coffee, cartels and cocaine but it seems that the football team consider being C in the alphabet as a slight that must be rectified against the A and B of Argentina and Brazil. So much so that blood was oozing from the sock on Messi’s left ankle last night as he took the first of the penalties that took his team through to the final in the semi-final last night.

I’ve never seen a bullfight and have no desire to watch an animal taunted and slaughtered so it is paradoxical that Bulls of Parral by Marguerite Steen is one of the books I read over and over again. Maybe it is the human condition to be drawn into fictional situations that are too gross or terrifying to ever wish to experience and I cannot imagine any other reason for people to watch horror films. Life may not be as “nasty, brutish and short” as Hobbes suggested it can be but imagining the worst things is probably a way of realizing how lucky we are.

The story itself is set in Spain in the 1950s and charts the lives and rivalry of the moneyed bullfighter Paco and a waif on the Parral farm called Ildefonso. Their courses cross with Paco being feted and showy but never loved by the crowd while Ildefonso is adored as the heir to the natural talents of the greatest matadors. It is a story which plays out the genius amateur against the tutored strategist and leaves us in little doubt where our sympathies should lie.

The European media tend to idolize Messi as Ildefonso while Ronaldo is positioned as Paco. But watching the mesmeric genius of Neymar has been a revelation to me having only previously seen him as a brattish, patchy player for Paris St Germain. My admiration for Ronaldo as a player and leader is high but his game comes with the shock and awe of a broadsword while the other two devastate with the deftness of the epee and stiletto.

Watching a game where Messi is playing to cement his reputation with a first* winners medal for his country while Neymar is defending the honour of the greatest football nation in its spiritual home of the Maracana. Both are an equal target for the hatchet men of the opposition but in this tournament they have got up, smirked and set about taunting the aggressors anew. It recalls Steen’s vivid description of how matadors are bloodied, torn and scarred by drawing the bull ever closer but continue until it can resist no more.

The stage is set, the sides are well-matched and it should be a wonderful exhibition made even better by the referees willingness to see the footballing equivalent of a mano a mano cagefight. It is made even better by the fact that I really don’t mind who wins and will not have the disappointment of having seen England knocked out of the competition at an earlier stage. Sport without responsibility is one of the few reasons that I can enjoy watching golf for its enormous skill, wonderful settings and leisurely pace.

All that leaves me a little on the fence for the basketball playoffs because I have got something of a passion for the Suns after their mighty effort to see off the LA Lakers. In a game where the ebb and flow can mean leads change hands quickly and games can become total blowouts and meaningless with a long time still to play it has taken time to love it. That may be because at Stewards Comprehensive School we had one gym lesson where the sports hall hoops were set out but the lesson become more like a session of British Bulldog with a ball than anything resembling a game with rules.

All the stranger then that I was the lead manager for the bizarre ASDA sponsorship of the English Basketball Association which saw me spending many nights watching very tall men play the game in front of very small crowds in venues more intended for darts, bowls and 5-a-side football. The overwhelming memory was that for something dubbed a non-contact sport there was plenty of testosterone and brutal elbowing between the behemoths. The crowning (sic) glory of a tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in 1984 was a reminder that the building, named in memory of Queen Victoria’s husband and opened 150 years ago, is a better setting for Land of Hope and Glory than Battle of the Giants.

I have been on a big learning curve but understanding the terminology of “pick and roll”, “in the paint”, “downtown” and “goal tending” has added significantly to my viewing pleasure. But the tactics are so nuanced and finely managed that I find myself bemused, baffled and strangely awed by the cleverness of the coaches. Working out how to draw fouls, use time outs and manipulate the rules has a level of strategic cunning that is easily the equal of any other game.

It has also become clear that appearances can be deceptive. I was commenting that the excellent Devin Booker was much smaller than most of the others and could only be about six feet tall only to learn that he is listed as 6’ 5”. I felt like one of those fabled grannies from the era TV was introduced who wondered how it was possible to get people who would fit inside the screen.

All this is a long way of saying that if I was still in England I would, quite happily, be taken up with the frenzy of England versus Denmark with all the glory or sorrow that this might bring. As it is I will be turning up Three Lions on a Shirt and Vindaloo before heading off to the Princess pub and will be drinking my share of lager when I watch the game. But win or lose I will be fortunate to be living in San Diego with South American football and the Suns versus Bucks to enjoy in this glorious week of sport.

*I know he has won a gold medal with Argentina at the Olympics in 2008 but football, as with tennis and golf, at the four-yearly celebration of athleticism is just a distraction from the driving idea of faster, higher, stronger.

Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD MOUNTS THE PELICAN

The exit from pandemic lockdown seems as long and complex as the lockdown was abrupt and simple. A few months of outdoor eating have turned into another few months of indoor seating but the masks remain. Anti-vaccine campaigners are as prolific as pandemic deniers and concerns about variants veer from the hysterical to the comforting.

The much bigger and more dramatic news is that I have turned from a leader in the Peloton resistance to a convert. I’ve always considered that ‘spinning’ was a traditional cottage industry best left to sheep farmers in the Orkney Islands and that ‘soul cycle’ was just a marketing effort to make spandex sound as cool as Marvin Gaye. Anyone who doubts this logic should consider the relative merits of The Spinners singing Dirty Old Town and Soul Man by the mighty Sam and Dave.

My world vision is of bikes on the open road if they have to exist at all but as a walker and car driver I have my doubts about the value of wheeled vehicles powered by somebody’s gluteus maximus, rectus femoris and gastrocnemius. Add in the red face, body squeezed into lycra and sense of entitlement to the road or pavement regardless of pedestrians and you have a recipe for confrontation. I understand the benefits to health and the environment but can’t work out why they spoil the good work by being so angry all the time.

Any prospect of sitting and sweating on a stationary bike alongside a dozen other humans puffing and panting with exertion was my idea of malebolge – the eighth circle of hell. This was the one where Dante suggested that fraudsters were sent and I can think of nothing more fraudulent than persuading people they enjoyed paying money to be tortured by some screaming sadist with calves made of wurtzite boron nitride.

But the Peloton arrived two months ago and has outperformed all expectations while being renamed the Pelican for no reason other than they look similar and it sounds funnier. From being considered an occasional alternative to running and rowing it has delivered a whole new physical, aural and visual experience. I’ve even found myself recommending its merits to other people which makes me sound like I have totally signed on to the cult.

The instructors are good and you get to pick someone who matches how you feel on the day whether that’s the brutal Olivia Amato and Kendall Toole or ex-Buddhist monk Sam Yo’s five minute warm ups. There’s a nice chirpy British feel to Leanne Hainsby and Ben Alldis and recent Reddit rankings show a lowest difficult ranking (7.34) for Portland’s Hannah Corbin. The Reddit list warns me off Christian Vande Velde because he is the toughest (8.67), an ex-professional cyclist who has finished fourth in the Tour de France and sounds scarily like a Bond villain with a plot to take over the world through spinning.

Speaking of Bond reminds me that another great US success, Amazon, has brought access to 007 with its purchase of MGM. My mind turned immediately to the prospect of home deliveries fulfilling the dream of the 1970s series of ‘all because the lady loves Milk Tray’ adverts. The prospect of Daniel Craig dropping a Prime delivery of household essential onto the porch while simultaneously disarming brutish henchmen of psychopathic criminal geniuses is surely the best thing that could happen to our lives.

But I also had a soft spot for the notion that Disney would take over the Bond franchise as was suggested by business talk a few years ago. It is no mistake that Bond’s double O number is seven because I have always suspected that Dopey was quietly spirited away one night and replaced by a deeply embedded British spy with a licence to kill. It is the only possible reason that he does not have a beard and never speaks – you heard it here first.

The American takeover of a symbol of Britain’s history is something that is doubly on my mind as I approach the fourth anniversary of living in the US. It’s also more than a year since I have travelled to the UK so the daily influence of the country has had no resistance for some time. A few signs of underlying change have become noticeable.

During a walk to Target last week I realized that American shop names now spring to mind before their UK equivalents. Home Depot comes before Homebase, Nordstrom before Marks and Spencer and Costco before any of the inferior UK warehouse shopping equivalents. When my ex-retailer mind has shifted to the wonders of the new world’s commerce it’s a moment to reflect on the changes that have crept up without me noticing.

I realised recently that I don’t really hear American accents any longer. Working in Belfast for nearly two years I was constantly aware of the accent and would occasionally have to ask people to slow down and speak up because an Englishman was in the room. But my ear has tuned to the tendency to pronounce ‘t’s’ as ‘d’s’ and the range of ‘have a nice days’ and ‘my pleasures’ that are everyday civilities.

The truth is that I can’t get Alexa to understand me unless I adopt some of the speech idiosyncrasies. I spent several weeks asking her to turn on the outside lights but my insistence on the using the fricative ‘t’ in patio simply caused the Bezos version of computer says no. Replacing it with a plosive ‘d’ makes me sound like a bad actor in Goodfellas but also has the desired effect of lighting the way.

I have moved into using sidewalk and garbage without wincing and have learnt not to say fortnight without hastily explaining that it comes from the Old English term ‘fēowertyne niht’ and means fourteen nights. No doubt I will slide into saying ‘y’all’ and thinking it is normal to take food home from a restaurant because the portions are too big. There is some way to go before then and it is possible that my return to the home country, vaccination passport or alternative willing, in Autumn (still can’t get used to saying Fall) this year will bring a pause in my Americanization. We shall see.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD FINDS REASONS TO BE A BLOCKHEAD

One of the great regrets in my life is that I put attendance at a Parent-Teacher evening ahead of going to a concert to see Ian Dury and the Blockheads. It turned out to be one of his last tours before he died of cancer in 2000 after a tumultuous life that combinED vaudeville, music hall and punk with an ear for lyrics that is wholly English. For any teenager living in the south of England in the 1970s and 1980s songs like Plaistow Patricia, Billericay Dickie and England’s Glory, captured every home-town character and Saturday night out.

But yesterday I was reminded of him and the quirky Reasons to be Be Cheerful, Pt 3, tune filled with small and large parts of life that needed to be enjoyed just for existing. Combining nanny goats, health service glasses and porridge oats, with states of “being in my nuddy”, “being rather silly”, and the much more serious “Bantu Steven Biko” and “curing smallpox” is a work on the nature of being human. But the reason it came to mind was its reminder of the fragility of all those things.

“Yes, yes
Dear, dear
Perhaps next year
Or maybe even never”

With that in mind getting my first haircut since the California pandemic lockdown began in March 2021 was a might good reason to be cheerful. Sitting in a barber shop where the stereo played Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate before bursting into Thunderstruck by AC/DC was a reminder of the atmosphere that The Blacktree Barberia summoned up with effortless swagger and goodwill. Giacomo did a stellar job with my head of hair that had been sheared twice in the year with dog clippers but had become a haystack of near Boris Johnson chaos.

All this on a day that the notion of a European Super League had risen and then sunk without trace to the joy and delight of long-term football supporters everywhere. The best meme noted that it was starting to “look like the lads night out before everyone asks the missus if it’s OK”. We found 12 of Europe’s best known, most historical and honour laden clubs stripped of their dignity and class in just a few short hours of selfish money-grubbing hubris.

The logical questions about Leicester having as many Premier League championships as Liverpool, the two Nottingham Forest European Cups not counting for anything and every single reason Tottenham Hotspur didn’t deserve a place were rife. But it took a Russian oligarch and the Qatar Royal Family, withdrawing Chelsea and Manchester City respectively, to truly sink an idea that didn’t deserve to be floated in the first place. American owners, the Italians, Real Madrid and the aforementioned Spurs (or possibly just Daniel Levy) were left clinging to the wreckage for a while before, at the last count, three Italian clubs were left to play against Real Madrid for precisely nothing.

My third reason to be cheerful had come just over ten days ago with the reopening of the Whistlestop Bar which is sometimes known as ‘the bar that can’. It’s a dark cavern of a room which until recently only accepted cash and where choosing wine was more of a lottery than the bush tucker trials on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. It’s a strange thing to miss a bar quite so much but the possible loss of one of South Park’s institutions and the best local place to hear reliably brilliant British music was a constant fear.

All of this came as I reached the end of my fourteen day, personally enforced exclusion period after having the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine. The pace and efficacy of medical science in moving to combat the coronavirus has been mightily impressive and the vanishingly small risks involved in having the vaccines seems a price worth paying. I know that the J&J route to usage has been bumpy and I’ll certainly be cautious about blood clots but it seems a far better chance to take than the alternative.

I’d had serious vaccine envy as many people I know had found that their age, job or country of residence had enabled them to leap ahead of me in moving with more freedom and security. I certainly hadn’t expected to be in line for a shot myself until end of May or even into June so there’s plenty to be happy about in an April jab. There is so much to come as the world re-emerges from its enforced hibernation even if the need for continued caution and care is self-evident and the likelihood of a ‘new normal’ is still many months away.

While I’m not sure that a guilty verdict in a murder trial can be a reason for cheerfulness it’s impossible to live in the US without being touched by the killing of George Floyd and the way it distilled a history of oppression, violence and persecution. The verdict finding Derek Chauvin guilty on all counts against him came just as I was about to walk to get my hair cut which reflected how the weighty and the trivial often coincide in human life. For anyone who believes in the rule of law it seemed the validation of a process that has often been found wanting in the past.

The great sadness is that nothing can bring George Floyd back and there are many other recent and pending cases where the same issues will be raised. But it felt like a glimmer of hope and an assertion of justice being applicable to everyone in a country where that has seemed more a hollow assertion than a fact. Not a reason to be cheerful but just, perhaps, a small nod in the direction of a better future.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD CULLS THE VINYL

There are fewer things in life harder than throwing away memories. If nobody ever made that quote they should have done. Most of my collection of vinyl albums and singles is still in the UK but there has to be a reckoning and shipping is expensive.

The problem is that there are fragments of the past embedded in many of these round pieces of grooved plastic. What can replace the thrill of buying your first ever single (I Did What I Did for Maria by Tony Christie), your first album (Slade Alive), or being sure you had every record issued by a single artist (everything Slade did from the very start up until 1980).

There is a bit of a Slade theme there and it goes back to sitting in the bedroom of my best friend, Ewart Richardson, and hearing Slade Alive for the very first time. From the romping bass of Hear Me Calling, through the self-penned In Like a Shot from My Gun, to the thrashing of Born to be Wild that made Steppenwolf’s version compare like a mocktail to Hemingway’s favourite, Death in the Afternoon. And put into the mix was the absurd burp (4.11 into the video) in the middle of a tender Darling Be Home Soon and the onstage banter between Wolverhampton boys out on the town.

The love affair for Slade was forever and they were the first band I saw in concert on a trip organized by the Stewards Comprehensive School Youth Club that saw Graham Butterworth halting traffic on the Seven Sister Road to let us cross. The gig was at the old Rainbow/Finsbury Park Empire with Thin Lizzy and Suzi Quatro (first UK tour) as support. I still have the progamme which will most definitely be making the trip across the Atlantic.

The tribal politics of being a teenager meant that being a devotee of Slade entailed an absolute loathing of anything to do with Marc Bolan and TRex. It was the forerunner of spats about The Clash versus The Jam (only one winner as Strummer had so much more cred than Weller) and Blur versus Oasis (shoegazing versus swagger with the Gallagher boys ahead by a mile). Obviously, it has always been possible to love David Bowie as someone rising above the common herd and with a sneering disrespect for Coldplay.

The weakness in my choice was that it became clear during the early, feeble attempts at working out how to engage with girls at parties that nobody could dance to Slade. Enter the sweet soul sound of Feel the Need In Me by the Detroit Emeralds in March 1973 and a moment that the harmonies of the Motor City opened a whole new world. But the most honourable mention goes to Rock Me Gently by Andy Kim which still captures the best of hot summer evenings and late, late nights whenever I hear it.

That’s the reason so many of the records will have my handwritten name scrawled across the label. We would all bring our records, take turns at DJ’ing and then walk home in the early hours. The next day was to catch up, retrieve the vinyl along with the memories and put them back in their sleeves until the next time.

Another look at the list of records brings the realization that some vinyl purchases betrayed very poor decision making. Being the owner of Puppy Love by Donny Osmond was based on the belief that I could buy every single number one without any sense of judgement about the consequences or the embarrassment. I quickly realized that a run of Tumbling Dice, Rocket Man and Metal Guru could easily give way to a Puppy Love, Circles and Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day.

The album Jimi Hendrix at His Best Volume One, should be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act and is a sign that the great man had very average moments. The sleeve notes suggested that it captured him on a single-track recording made by Mike Ephron, an avant garde, free form, jazz pianist, on a night they jammed before Jimi was famous. To support my judgement of its merit, I find that David Shadwick (writer of “Jimi Hendrix – Musician“) summed up the recordings as, “The most arid and worthless musical adventure that Hendrix ever had the misfortune to be involved in.” All I knew at the time was that it was in the bargain box of a sale in a record shop when I had only 50 pence to my name and was desperate for something new.

A few of the singles are on the list because of the B-sides which were often unavailable in any other format. The flip side of Stardust by David Essex is Miss Sweetness which has a charming start and a raucous ending that catches the best of the man in a single tune. The Sweet’s bubblegum pop of Little Willy is backed by the hardcore rock of Man from Mecca which shows what a great guitar player Andy Scott was.

For those sneering because the advent of music streaming has made all this irrelevant, I can only suggest you try looking for The Blues by Python Lee Jackson on Spotify. You will miss a great Rod Stewart vocal and nice Mike Liber guitar solo and that is why the vinyl still counts. I am also reminded of the many months that Slade were not on any streaming service as a lesson that the spats between media giants can be truly damaging to my listening pleasure.

I’m not blind to the problems with vinyl. Skipping records and worn-out grooves are very annoying and there is usually no option but to put a heavier coin on the needle or melt the vinyl down to form an ashtray you will never use. The other fact is that starting an LP while you work only means that you’ll have to turn it over within 20 minutes which quickly becomes tiresome.

But choices must be made and I can only hope that my loss becomes somebody else’s joy as the records are handed over to a shop working in this niche market. So, if you frequent such shops and buy a single with “Alan’s” written on the label you will know that it served its purpose at a party in my youth and was much loved. Give it a spin and think of me.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay