Ray Davies... a well respected man

I went to see Ray Davies in concert last night as part of the BBC's wonderful Electric Proms. Yes, he's 63, a veteran rocker, but that didn't stop him bringing the (Round)house down. An amazing mix of Kinks and solo work kept the broad cross-section of fans and newcomers alike happy and, much like seeing (two thirds of) The Jam live a few months back, this was a rare and welcome opportunity to hear classic old tracks, in this case by The Kinks, that I never thought I'd witness performed live. Watching Ray perform "Waterloo Sunset", complete with angelic choral backing, is something that will live long in the memory... who knows how many more such shows there will be?

If you missed the edited highlights that were broadcast on BBC2 last night, you can watch the gig, unexpurgated, online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms/2007/artists/raydavies/.

Just one minor gripe, and it has nothing to do with Ray or the Roundhouse but some of the crowd - if you're going to go to a gig, why on earth would you spend the whole time talking loudly and boorishly to your drunken mates. Don't you want to hear what is being said on stage? Have you even thought that others standing near you might want to hear, at least? Ray is pretty softly spoken between songs, and the three buffoons standing in front of me babbling on with their droning voices became very tiresome, very quickly... proof, if proof were needed, that you can't have everything in life...

Wearing it pink

For the first time in my life, I wore a pink shirt to work today. This is the excellent reason why.

Interstate 5... and relevant lyrics

Some songs are just catchy, others meaningful, others throwaway trash. But now and again, a song comes along that strikes a chord, if you'll pardon the pun, with the listener because of the relevance, the salience of the lyrics. One such, for me at least, is Interstate 5 by The Wedding Present, which I present here as a poem.

I should just get out of here,
And start driving south on Interstate 5.
But I need to stay near,
In case you suddenly remember that I'm alive.
But I have this nagging fear
That sex was all you needed.
I've tried to persevere.
I guess I've not succeeded.
And is it sexist to say
That I thought just boys were meant to behave in this way?
And though you seemed quite sincere
Will you even recognise my face this time next year?
Well I'll remember how your eyes
Sparkled in the moonlight.
You can surely sympathise,
I just wanted more than one night?
And yes, there was one particular glance
That made me afraid,
You were just seeing me as a chance
Of getting laid.

Apologies to all fans and aficionados if I've got the lyrics wrong, they're from memory and drawn from many listens in the car, as I drive south, though not on Interstate 5.

As an aside, The Wedding Present are currently touring, performing an anniversary rendition of their classic 1987 album George Best in its entirety. I urge you to attend if you can, it should be a good night.

Pip, you're playing catch up

Last month I wrote about the shocking situation in Burma. That turned out to be quite prescient, as it has all kicked off over there this month, with great acts of monkish resistance and people power challenging the oppressive junta there. At last! But will the Western world stand up and be counted, and finally show some support? Only time will tell, but so far, not really. In the meantime, shots are being fired, tear-gas is in use and, most worrying of all, huge numbers of monks have been rounded up into the back of vans and 'disappeared'. How I hope a peaceful resolution can be found. How I fear it will not.

But re-reading my post from last month, I had a sudden urge to check back over everything I've written here, and maybe give an update on some of the other stories - to close a few loops, if you like. I'm sure you're not interested, but I am, so here goes:

• In February 2005, in one of my first posts, I discussed the absurdity of trying to identify "the greatest films ever"... and then went on to list a few of my favourites anyway. I'd like to add Amélie, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and Fight Club to that list.
• In April 2005 I reported on buying a digital camera, but assured my lone reader that the trusty old film SLR would "come out of retirement any time I need to take 'proper' photos." I've only used it once since, and that was whale-watching in Canada when I needed the benefit of a 300mm zoom lens. Think it's time to sell all that old kit whilst it still has at least some monetary value.
• In May 2005 I expressed shock on hearing that Kylie Minogue had breast cancer. Happily, she has been treated successfully and has made a full recovery. Excellent.
• In December 2005 I wrote about the difficulty in settling down. You will be unsurprised to learn that I'm still not settled. In fact, I'm less settled than ever.
• In May 2006 I bemoaned the way we, as consumers, are given plastic carrier bags for everything. It's gratifying to see, then, that retailers are starting to wake up, and are making the act of not taking a carrier bag a positive thing. About time too.
• In June 2006 I recounted the tale of 'Ed' and 'Jenny' and how my advice to Ed may have helped them get together. Last I heard, they're now getting (or may have already got) married. A happy ending then!
• In July 2006 I suggested Danny Wallace as a candidate for 'greatest living Englishman'. Since then he's hosted the latest run of the execrable Castaway, and is Anne Robinson's lackey on Test The Nation, so you'd think I might want to reconsider that... and I do. But he also hosts School's Out... so all is forgiven, Danny.
• In November 2006 I lamented the fact that the talented, intelligent, attractive Myleene Klass had lowered herself by appearing on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!... but since then she's been on our TV screens and magazine covers more than ever, so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing...
• In January 2007 I posed the admittedly dumb question "why are there no beautiful women in IT?" I have had no proof to the contrary, and so can only conclude, sadly, that there are none. The sole woman under 50 in our IT department looks like the back end of a bus. Q.E.D.
• In May 2007 I bitched about Jose Mourinho being a bad loser. Well, Chelsea have given him the boot now... a shame, in a way, the Premiership will be a lot less interesting without him.

I promise I won't do this kind of boring review again for another couple of years, okay? Good.

What is going on in Burma?

With thanks to Miss P...

There can't be many countries in the world with a worse record of repressing democracy than Burma, yet so little is said about it in the Western world. Is this because Burma is one of the poorest countries in the world? Is it because the increasing numbers of tourists that are being encouraged to visit by the state (and even some pro-democracy campaigners) are kept from seeing the hidden truth? Whatever the reasons, it's criminal that the situation there is so ignored.

Here are some facts:

• In 1990, or thereabouts, Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD party scored a massive landslide victory in the Burmese national elections, but were denied their place in government by the ruling military junta.
• Since then, the junta have kept Aung San Suu Kyi under almost continuous house arrest.
• Other members of the NLD have been imprisoned for supposed political crimes. Even singing a pro-democracy song can get you three year's hard labour....
• ...and it is this hard labour that is being forced to build new infrastructure to support increasing tourist numbers.
• Aung San Suu Kyi advocates economic sanctions against Burma, and discourages tourism, effectively saying 'come to my country when it is free.'
• The junta, and other factions in the NLD, actively encourage tourism on the basis that bringing the outside world in to see what's happening in Burma can only spread the word. They also argue that sanctions hurt the poorest most, not the junta such sanctions seek to penalise.
• Aung San Suu Kyi's blend of Buddhist philosophy and Gandhian non-violent protest is reliant on national unity for success... yet different ethnic splinter groups are pulling in different directions, demanding freedom through their own independence rather than through democracy for the whole nation.

There's a lot more to it than this. Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts way back in 1991... but she's still under house arrest, and the Burmese (or Myanmar, as they prefer) junta are still in unelected power. I know that such change can take time but have we learnt nothing in recent years? If this was still happening in South Africa, where apartheid postulated similar suppression but on racial grounds, the world would be up in arms. Something has to change in Burma too!

For more information, lots of background reading and ideas on action you can take to support the call for change in Burma, check out The Burma Campaign. I can also recommend Amnesty International. Go on... let's do something about this...

What I would like...and what I have

I don't have much to say, to be honest, and am only writing this so as not to miss a month. I'd like to be writing about the joys of being in love. Instead, all I can think of is the pain and terrible awkwardness, the difficulty of unrequited feelings. It's difficult if you're the object of someone's unwanted love. It's even harder if you're the one who is smitten and is powerless to do anything about it.

I've said it once and I'll say it again... life is hard.

A thought for the heartbroken

"Better to be hurt by the truth than comforted by a lie." From The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

I've got a pocket full of Pretty Green

I saw a real live Jam gig last week No, really, I did... sort of. Because whilst The Jam split up when I was still at school, bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler have reformed with a stand-in Weller in the form of Russell Hastings and a supplementary guitarist/keyboard player whose name escapes me. And they're touring as "From The Jam: Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler". Now some would tell you that The Jam without Paul Weller would be like Starsky without Hutch, Laurel without Hardy, Dr Who without the Tardis, or Wimbledon strawberries without cream... and that this partial reformation would be nothing more than a caricature, more akin to a tribute band than the real thing. Maybe, artistically, such people would have a point, and so it was that I went to the gig with more than a little trepidation, half-expecting my twenty-five year old musical memories to be soured by a half-hearted, half-baked rehash...

...except "From The Jam..." were bloody brilliant! Maybe the fact that the audience - mainly men in their late-30s and early-40s - had been waiting so long to hear these songs live, and knew every word, contributed to the amazing atmosphere. Maybe the small venue - capacity under a 1000, I'd estimate - played a part too. But most of all, I think, the fact that the songs have stood the test of time so well, and still sound fresh and vital was the key to the success of the night. And they didn't just trot out a "greatest hits" style set, there were old album tracks a-plenty (never thought I'd get to hear "Pretty Green" played live) and even a cover of The Who's "So Sad About Us" which The Jam had only ever done as a B-side back in the day (and which went down a storm with all the old Mods in the crowd). Russell is a skilled guitarist who recreated the crackling Weller riffs with ease and accuracy. Crucially, he didn't try to sound like Paul singing though, he just sang them as himself, but with all the intensity and passion the original recordings deserve. I think Bruce and Rick made a smart choice in recruiting someone who is clearly a fan, rather than a sound-alike, because when Russell was singing, he looked like he meant it. And speaking of Bruce and Rick, it was amazing to see them play live. Bruce is as dexterous a bassist as I have seen at such close quarters, and still has a lot of energy on stage (though his mid-riff leaps into the air were a little lower than in his heyday), whilst Rick's drumming was mind-boggling at times - quite how he could drum so quickly and powerfully with apparently so little effort (seeming to barely touch each drum-skin and cymbal) was beyond me.

I see that The Police have also reformed for a summer of gigs - I'll be going to see them if I can get tickets. Of course, Sting is on board for this, so they will only be playing enormo-domes, not the sort of intimate venue I saw The Jam in. Should still be a good night though. What worries me ever so slightly is that both reformed acts are talking about new material! Maybe The Police will be able to pull this off, with Sting on-board and if they can refrain from arguing long enough, but new Jam material without Weller to pen the bulk of the songs? I have more than a little trepidation about this... but at the same time, this old closet Mod hopes he is wrong.

"From The Jam..." are coming back here in December, and I'll be going again. I would recommend you do the same if you get the chance. For details of how and where that chance awaits you, including autumn/winter tour dates, take a sneaky peek here.

Sit down Mourinho!

Chelsea FC manager Jose Mourinho is clearly a talented guy, and good at what he does. Okay, many will say that Chelsea have bought success through their (dodgy) Russian billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich. But it takes skill and shrewd management to mould any group of players, let alone precocious world-class players, into a team, and Jose has done that. Certainly it was more than his predecessor, Claudio Ranieri, another talented football manager, could achieve. Success has followed: Premiership titles, the League Cup, and more, probably.

All of which makes it even more disappointing that when things don't go right for the self-proclaimed "chosen one" of European football, rather than be gracious about it and accept the slings and arrows with the same good grace that he accepts the plaudits, Jose starts carping about anything and everything. Witness last night's "we were the better team" rant after Chelsea's exit to a visibly superior Liverpool team in the second leg of their Champions' League semi-final. Clearly not, because if they were better Jose, you blinkered fool, it would be Chelsea that were in the final, not The Reds of Anfield.

So sit down, Mourinho, and pipe down... it's time the chosen one learnt to be a good loser.

The carbon debate - irrelevant?

Much has been written about the carbon debate, specifically the way that man's carbon dioxide emissions are either contributing, or not contributing to, global warming, depending on which group of experts you choose to listen too. Famously in recent years, Al Gore's excellent documentary An Inconvenient Truth has left viewers in little doubt as to the inexorable effect our modern industrial lifestyle is having on CO₂ levels, and how that is throwing the planet's delicate environmental balance out of sync, with devastating physical and social implications. Equally, Channel 4's recent Great Global Warming Swindle paints a very different picture, suggesting (with evidence every bit as compelling as Mr Gore's) that rising CO₂ levels are a consequence of global warming, rather than the cause, illustrating this with a Goresque graph showing an 80 year lag from temperature rise to carbon dioxide increase.

I'm not an environmental scientist. I haven't studied meteorology since S-level Geography at school. I don't know whose graphs to believe, Al Gore's or Channel 4's. Whatever the cause though, there's no denying that global warming is happening and redefining the landscape at an alarming rate - just recently I read how maps of Greenland need to be redrawn. Of course on the same day, and in the same paper, there was an article on how corporations are hijacking global warming for commercial gain which, in its own way, is almost as alarming.

What I do know is this: whether carbon dioxide is a cause or side-effect of global warming is, in a way, irrelevant. Because even if it doesn't cause the problem, why would anyone want to pollute any more than they could help? Surely it is common sense, both ethically and economically, to cut down on consumption, re-use materials and recycle whenever possible anyway, regardless of any carbon debate motives for doing so? One undisputed fact from Gore's documentary is that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are going off the chart, higher than any level discernible from any ice core samples for hundreds of thousands of years. So why should anyone in their right mind want to make it even worse, regardless of their view on the relationship between carbon emissions and global warming? Other than to justify, to themselves at least, that it's okay to jump in their gas-guzzling 4x4 (which, incidentally, only ever goes off-road if they park on the pavement, but don't get me started on that) and drive past the bus-stop on their way to the airport for their fourth overseas holiday of the year...

And just think of the air quality! Burning less fossil fuels through greener practices, and switching to cleaner renewable sources of energy, surely means less pollution... hence cleaner air for us all to enjoy. Makes sense, doesn't it?

So... the carbon debate. I leave that decision to your own conscience. But living a greener, more environmentally friendly life is surely a must, whichever side of the fence you come down on. I've mentioned them before, and I'll mention them again no doubt, but for advice and guidance on ways that you can do your bit, take a peek at CRed.