The Ginge, The Geordie and The Geek - Coming to a TV near You

On a purely personal level one of the highlights of my involvement with Partick Thistle came when someone made a point of speaking to me, as I left the pub one evening, to tell me that they enjoyed reading the programme each home game. That gesture was as unnecessary as it was kind and something that I haven’t ever forgotten.

It’s in part because of that that I try and make the point, any time I’ve seen a comedian/band/play that I’ve enjoyed, to try and pass on my own thanks and let them know that their efforts are appreciated. Twitter and Facebook make doing just that pretty easy.

The above is just a bit of a preamble to the topic of the latest of my increasingly infrequent blog entries; ‘The Ginge, The Geordie and The Geek’.

Unfamiliar with that name?

Hopefully after viewing BBC2 in April of next year then that will have changed and you’ll have derived as much enjoyment from these three talented guys as I, and my long suffering partner in crime; Alison, have in recent years.

It would probably be a good idea to provide a bit of background information at this point.

‘The Ginge, The Geordie and The Geek’ (aka as Graeme Rooney, Paul Charlton and Kevin O’Loughlin) are a comedy sketch group that we first saw during the, I think, 2009 Glasgow Comedy Festival.

It was really something of an afterthought to go and see them. The Festival was drawing to a close and, to be honest, by the final Friday we were pretty much comedyed (is that a word?) out. The high profile acts that we saw that year were by and large disappointing, and the notion of finishing the Festival with a sketch show as opposed to yet another stand-up appealed greatly.

Universal in Sauchiehall Street Lane was the venue and the boys blew the place away. Just as impressive as the actual comedy was the unrelenting pace at which it was delivered. The ease in which they slipped from one hilarious scenario to another was incredible.

We vowed as we left the venue that night that it wouldn’t be the last time we would see them.

It wasn’t. The following year’s Glasgow Comedy Festival saw them move from Universal to a sell out night at The Tron Theatre. They produced another fantastic performance.

Just as they have each time we’ve seen them perform at the Edinburgh Fringe. One of the disappointments of last summer’s festival, for us, was the fact that we left it way too late to get tickets for one of their sell out shows and didn’t get to see them. We made sure that we didn’t repeat that error this summer.

From the very first time we saw them we were convinced that they merited a television series. We were delighted to read, therefore, a couple of months ago that that BBC had, finally, given them that richly deserved commission.

That television series is currently being filmed, much of it in front of a live TV audience, and we’ve been fortunate to catch a couple of those recordings at the BBC studios at Pacific Quay. It will hit your screens in April next year. Please make sure that you watch it.

Lest you think this gushing praise hides some kind of family connection; the very occasional twitter/facebook interaction aside I don’t know these lads at all. There is a real warmth to their performances, however, that makes you feel as if you do know them; as ridiculous as that notion may appear.

We can’t claim to have seen them from the very start but all the same there is real pleasure in seeing them progress over the last few years. We’ve seen many acts over the years that we’ve felt deserved to get that so called big break yet continue toil away without the recognition they deserve while other, in our view, less talented individuals are performing to big crowds at the SECC when not appearing on our television screens. What I call the Kevin Bridges Syndrome.

To return then to the theme of the opening paragraphs; Ginge, Geordie and Geek, thanks. We enjoy your performances immensely and we look forward to seeing you on BBC2 next year and hopefully at the Edinburgh Fringe in the summer, if not before.

For more information on ‘The Ginge, The Geordie and The Geek’ check out:

http://www.gingegeordiegeek.com/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/37496449776/?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/GingeGeordiGeek

Beatles Books, DVDs and Ephemera

This isn’t so much a blog entry as a list. I was thinking the other day of just what Beatles related ephemera I had, excluding CDs, so decided in true obsessive fashion to make a list of it all. It, of course, remains a list in progress which in itself is a scary thought.

Books

A Life in Pictures – The Beatles. Beatlemania 1963-1964

An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney: Howard Sounes

Backbeat: Alan Clayton and Pauline Sutcliffe

Can’t Buy Me Love  - The Beatles, Britain and America: Jonathon Gould

George Harrison Living in the Material World

Images of the Beatles – photography from The Daily Mail

John: Cynthia Lennon

John Lennon: Philip Norman

Magical Mystery Tours – My Life with The Beatles: Tony Bramwell

Paul McCartney A Life: Peter James Carlin

Revolution in the Head: Ian MacDonald

Shout! The True Story of The Beatles: Philip Norman

The Beatles

The Beatles – Hunter Davis

The Beatles: A Day in the Life

The Beatles Anthology

The Beatles in Scotland: Ken McNab

The Beatles on Television: Jeff Bench and Ray Tedman

The Beatles: The Story of the UK Tours 1963-1964: Martin Creasy

The Longest Cocktail Party: Richard Di Lello

The Mammoth Book of The Beatles: Sean Egan

Ticket to Ride – Inside the Beatles 1964 and 1965 tours that changed the world: Larry Kane.

Who Killed John Lennon : Fenton Bresller

With The Beatles:  Alistair Taylor

You Never Gave us Your Money: Peter Dogget

Magazines/Newspapers

Life: Remembering George Harrison

Liverpool Echo: Arise Sir Paul McCartney – March 10^th 1997

Mojo: The Magical Mystery Tour and Beyond

Rolling Stone – The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs

Uncut: 148 page John Lennon Special

Beatles Films

A Hard Days Night

Yellow Submarine

Films

Backbeat

Nowhere Boy

Concerts

Apple Rooftop

Paul McCartney – In Red Square

The Beatles at the Budakon Tokyo

General DVDS

John Lennon – The Death of a Beatle

John Lennon Through the Looking Glass

Rock Milestones – The Red Album 1962-1966

Rock Milestone – The Blue Album 1967-1970

The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour Memories

The Rutles

Tribute Bands

Bootleg Beatles Concert Tour 2011-2012

Them Beatles 2011 Tour Programme

It Says Here

A free press is something that should be celebrated. Despite the proliferation of news that is available online the sales of newspapers in the UK remain relatively healthy.  

The best-selling of them remains ‘The Sun’, a tabloid that is sadly synonymous with the worst excesses of the more sensationalist end of the market.

A story that the British press, tabloid and broadsheets alike, have been covering recently has been the worrying allegations surrounding Jimmy Savile; the former DJ dying at the age of 84 last October.

The allegations themselves are extremely disturbing. Equally disturbing is the idea that Savile’s predilections for young girls, if indeed he had them, were well known and there was a failure to act upon that knowledge.

The fact that Savile is no longer here to answer these allegations adds a different dimension to the story, but its’ right and proper that the allegations are reported.  

Should the allegations be subsequently proved then Savile can only be posthumously punished through the blackening of his name and reputation. Those organisations though that may have turned a blind eye to them could, and should, be called to account.

It’s a sensitive issue and one that should be covered with balance and be free from hypocrisy.

The latter is a charge that can very easily be levelled against The Sun newspaper.

Their online edition makes reference to Savile’s “sick lust”, “predatory” actions and “depravity”. Emotive terms certainly, but ones that you couldn’t possibly argue weren’t accurate if it found that there is substance to these allegations against him.

What then of my charge of hypocrisy against The Sun?

I apologise for reproducing the image below but it central to my argument.

The cutting shows an image of the singer Charlotte Church, then aged just 15, and makes salacious reference to the breast size of a girl still in her early teens; the paper even refers to her as a child.

Jimmy Savile may well have been guilty of an appalling abuse of trust. It could then be argued that his employers, including the BBC, were complicit in that abuse of trust if they chose to turn a blind eye to it.

Could it not also be argued that The Sun was guilty of an abuse of the free press in publishing that picture of Charlotte Church?

Is it not harder to take their indignation over Savile’s alleged crimes seriously when they themselves thought nothing of drawing attention to the breast size of an adolescent girl much the same age of those allegedly abused by Savile? 

The Culture of Shame

The publication yesterday of the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel revealed the full shocking cover up and manipulation of evidence perpetrated by the South Yorkshire Police.

Their motivation was a simple one, though breath taking in its' mendacity. It was an attempt to shift blame for the appalling disaster from their own failings to the Liverpool fans themselves.

The media were briefed by senior police officers and a local MP that the Liverpool fans, boozed up, had forced open a gate thus causing the fatal crushing. They further claimed that the bodies of the dead were pick pocketed and that the dead and dying, and those attending to them, were urinated on.

Aided and abetted by a complicit right wing media these myths and lies very quickly became the accepted truth in the eyes of public perception. If you tell a lie often enough then almost by default it becomes a perverse version of the 'truth'.

That so many people bought into and accepted this lie without question is indicative of the society that we lived in during the 1980s.

The Prime Minister of the time, Margaret Thatcher, famously declared that "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families".

The 1980s was certainly the decade where any notion of collective responsibility was superseded by a "me first, what do I get" attitude.

It was a divisive, bitter decade that viewed the population of huge swathes of Britain as a dangerous underclass.

It was a decade of riots in the streets of Liverpool, London and Bristol.

It was a decade of a bitter industrial dispute that spilled into violence.

It was a decade where being part of large, predominately working class and male, group was synonymous with a perceived criminality.

It was the culture of the decade that sowed the seeds of the Hillsborough Disaster.

If you were attending a football match in the 1980s you were at the very least seen as some kind of threat to public order. That meant being herded into, and then penned within, crumbling football grounds.

When those crumbling football grounds were then found to be also dangerous and quite literally death traps then the logic of the time decreed that it was the fans that were responsible.

Well, they were going to a football match they must have been up to no good. Some might even had a drink beforehand; that just confirms that they had to be to blame.

When you adopt that position, and you have the weight of public opinion behind you, it’s no great leap to then alter statements to not so much blur the lines between fact and fiction but distort them totally.  

That the disaster was allowed to happen in the first place was shameful enough – an institutional failure. The subsequent attempt to deflect blame, hell let’s call it for what it was; a cover up was something that Britain should forever be ashamed of.

While the publication of yesterday’s report was a welcome vindication the apologies from senior politicians and police officers are hollow and largely meaningless. The only small step that can be made to make amends is by making sure that those that really were responsible are brought to justice. 

Shame, Truth and Justice

I think I was about 6 or 7 when I was taken to my first live football match. It was a late summer's evening and the venue was Newlandsfield Park, home of Pollok Juniors.

I can only speculate at the number of games I've seen since then, but it will run well into four figures.

Among those games there have been some great ones, some awful ones and others that have long since vanished from my memory.

One recurring theme from them all is the fact that I went home safe and well afterwards.

Ninety six Liverpool fans who attended their fixture with Nottingham Forrest on April 15^th 1989 didn’t.

Life is fragile and the unfortunate by product of that is tragedy. You shouldn’t, however, end up dead through doing nothing more sinister than attending a football match. You just shouldn’t.

I can, thankfully, only imagine what the events of April 15^th 1989 must have been like for the families of those that died at Hillsborough.

Concern when news of events at Hillsborough first started to filter through. Fear when it became clear just serious it was. And then grief, mind numbing grief, when they learned that their husband, son or daughter was one of those that wasn’t coming home from this football match.

And anger too.

There’s anger with any sudden death. There’s an overwhelming sense of it being, for want of a better phrase,  just not fair. Why my loved one.

There’s a desire too to find someone to blame. Someone must be to blame, mustn’t they? These things don’t just happen.

Imagine then, if you can, when still numbed with grief you are told that those to blame were the 96 dead themselves and their fellow Liverpool supporters.

Within days of the disaster the myths started to grow.  Fuelled by a government who viewed football  fans as an underclass. Who viewed them as merely a public order issue.  Herd them along, pen them in like cattle, with things like comfort and safety very much a minor consideration; assuming they were considered at all.

You attend a football match? Then you must be a drunken thug who deserves to die.

Okay, The Sun newspaper didn’t quite the print the above but their words weren’t that far removed from it.

Their front page banner headline declared ‘The Truth’. A ‘truth’ that had Liverpool fans urinating on the police, pick pocketing the dead and pinned the blame for the disaster firmly and squarely on the shoulders of the Liverpool fans.

Their ‘truth’ was nothing more than a vicious smear that served only to convict the Liverpool fans in the eyes of popular opinion.

Even though the Taylor Report, published in August 1989, sited a failure of police control as the primary cause of the disaster public perception has remained that the Liverpool fans had to be in some way responsible for the disaster.

It is to be hoped that the report compiled by the Hillsborough Independent Panel, published today, will 23 years on finally redress that perception. Hopefully now the extent of the police’s failings and blatant cover up will be known and there for all to see.

The findings of the Hillsborough Independent Panel will not have come as surprise to the families of the dead. Nor to anyone whose knowledge of events prior, during and subsequent to the disaster has been gleaned from a source other than this nation’s disgraceful tabloid press.

Today then wasn’t the culmination of the search for the truth, but rather an official confirmation of it. Twenty three years is a long time to wait for that confirmation. Hopefully the wait for the justice that should inevitably follow will not be as long in coming. 

The Black Cloud

It’s been awhile since I posted a blog entry. Previous entries have almost invariably been Beatle or Partick Thistle related. It’s with more than a little trepidation then that I turn to an altogether more serious subject matter. Yes, there are some things more important than Partick Thistle Football Club.

There aren’t many people who have stumbled across my blog so it is tempting to ask why bother blogging in the first place? The simple truth is that although I don’t necessarily have any great flare or talent for it, I find writing relaxing. Typing out a few random thoughts here and there can prove to be quite a cathartic exercise.

And that is something that I’m badly in the need of.

Now I know that I’m a grumpy sod. That’s unlikely to ever change, besides as I’m fond of telling Alison; I’m laughing on the inside.

Having freely confessed to the above I need to admit something else.

For more years than I care to remember I’ve been battling against depression, anxiety and stress related illnesses.

It’s not something that I suffer from all the time; far from it but when I do, as I am right now, it becomes incredibly debilitating.

It’s more than just feeling a bit ‘down in the dumps’ – we all suffer from that from time to time.

It’s as if a huge black cloud descends over you. That black cloud removes any kind of self esteem or self worth that you might have. Criticism is like a knife through the heart, especially when you are deliberately target.

It makes even the simplest of tasks almost unbearably hard. Social interaction becomes extremely difficult.

It’s all too easy to allow that black cloud to envelope you entirely and once you’ve let that happen then you are in real trouble.

I’m fortunate, what I suffer is very mild compared to that of others. I’ve a sympathetic and helpful GP. Medication helps, although it can often leave me feeling drained and devoid of energy, themselves symptoms of the illness in the first place.

Keeping my mind active helps too. Which is why since heading home from work early today suffering the shakes from a particularly bad panic attack, I’ve been busy working away on next Saturday’s Thistle programme.

See, this self obsessed blog entry was really about Partick Thistle all along. 

Victor Spinetti

Just the day after Paul McCartney celebrated his 70th birthday, a landmark that served only to emphasise the passage of time, a link to The Beatles' past and perhaps more significantly, to John Lennon was sadly lost with the news of the death of Victor Spinetti at the age of 82.

Spinetti’s name isn’t as synonymous with The Beatles as say George Martin but his name is written large across Beatles history all the same. He appeared in the first three Beatles films; ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Help!’ and ‘Magical Mystery Tour’.

Spinetti and John Lennon

The story goes that we have George Harrison’s mum to thank for Spinetti being cast in ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, with Harrison being attributed to have said; “You’ve got to be in all our films. If you’re not me mum won’t come and see them because she fancies you.” Harrison would also say; ”You’ve got a lovely Karma, Vic”, while Paul McCartney described Spinetti as being “the man who makes clouds disappear”.

Spinetti’s lust for life was such that it prompted John Lennon to declare, when someone offered Victor a joint, “Don’t waste it on Vic, he’s permanently stoned on fucking life.”

Victor Spinetti’s relationship with The Beatles though wasn’t just limited to staring in three of their movies. In particular he had a close relationship with John Lennon. While John occupied a bed next to a pregnant Yoko Ono in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in November 1962, it was Spinetti that smuggled in cigarettes, Craven A rather a more exotic weed, for John.

It was Victor that collaborated with John on a stage adaptation of Lennon’s ‘John Lennon: In His Own Write’, which was initially ear marked to be performed at Glasgow’s Citizen Theatre but was in fact staged at the National Theatre in London. On the morning of the premiere a gift of a large rubber elephant appeared at Spinetti’s flat, where he and Lennon had spent much time working on the stage adaptation, complete with a note saying ‘I’ll never forget Victor Spinetti says John Lennon.”

It would be wrong, of course, to simply focus on his relationship with The Beatles when recounting Victor Spinetti’s long and successful career. He starred in over 30 films, has a string of TV credits to his name and in the theatre directed productions of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and ‘Hair’.  

A popular man, his death today prompted many tributes including one from Rob Bryden who described Spinetti as “The funniest story teller I've ever met and a lovely warm man."

Victor talking about John Lennon, Hard Day's Night etc at London Beatles Day in March 2010

Mach Schau!

There is a bus driver that regularly operates on the routes that I take whose curly mullet has earned him the nickname of ‘1980s Bus Driver’. It was that very bus driver that took me into the centre of Glasgow on Sunday May 27th, but it wasn’t to the 1980s that he was taking me to. Rather to, firstly, a Club in Germany a couple of decades earlier, and from there onto Matthew Street in Liverpool a few months later.

If there is a better Beatle tribute band (and I’m still not comfortable with that label – they are so much more than that) than Them Beatles then I want to see them. The latest show by Them Beatles, if my opening paragraph didn’t provide you with enough of a clue, took them back to the early years of The Beatles with two sets. The first focused on their time in Hamburg, and the second when they became a near permanent fixture at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.

Ever the anorak, the first thing I wanted to try and establish was exactly when I was getting transported back to. Stereo, in Glasgow’s Renfield Lane, was doubling up for the night as ‘The Star Club’ in Hamburg and if Ringo was in the line-up then that narrowed the time down to either November or December 1962.

That’s where the first surprise of the evening came.

Grahame Critcher took up his normal position behind the drums but not as Ringo Starr but as Pete Best, who would be sacked as The Beatles’ drummer just before the band hit the big time. Just as he does with Ringo, Grahame, with cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, deftly assumed the persona of Best even throwing in a couple of carefully scripted mistakes just to underline that Best didn’t live up to his name when it came to drumming.

There was a further surprise to come. Although in truth I had seen this one coming. A request on the band’s Facebook page for the loan, for the night, of a right handed Hofner base provided a major clue that four would become five and sure enough Richard, borrowed for the night from The Meatmen, played the role of unfortunate Stuart Sutcliffe for the first six numbers, ending his stint on stage by taking the mic for a rendition of ‘Love Me Tender’ before leaving the stage arm in arm with Astrid Kirchherr.

It’s this remarkable attention to detail, right down to the smallest thing; that really sets Them Beatles apart from other Beatles tribute acts. As an example, there was no alcohol in The Cavern back in 1962 so for their Cavern set Them Beatles drank nothing stronger than coca-cola.

Short of 12 hour sessions, fuelled by Preludin , it would be impossible to truly replicate the Beatle experience of Hamburg but Them Beatles came as close as it is possible to doing just that. There was a real raw, at times almost anarchic, energy to their Hamburg set. The Beatles at their rock and roll best.

                                           (Them Beatles in Rehearsal - 'Ain't She Sweet')

In what was a memorable night in so many ways it is difficult to pick out just a handful of highlights.

Clark Gilmour’s performance as John is truly outstanding, at one point performing, during the Hamburg set, with a toilet seat round his head. There’s that attention to detail again. His vocal highlights, in my opinion, coming in ‘Twist and Shout’ and ‘This Boy’.

Craig McGown gave a fantastic performance as George. ‘Roll over Beethoven’ is a long time favourite of mine and Craig does it justice. Just as he does with ‘Red Hot’ which I was hearing for the first time.

Paul McCartney was as always skilfully played by Joe Kane and if I had to list just one of his highlights I would pick ‘I Saw her Standing There’.

Grahame meantime, back to the more familiar role of Ringo in The Cavern set took the vocals for ‘Boys’ and proved that his talents aren’t just limited to the drum kit.

In truth though this was a night of one high quickly followed by another.  

After the show there was some music supplied by Joe. It’s at this point that my recollection gets a little hazy. There was certainly some beer and some dancing. Or at least what passes for dancing from an overweight, introverted 43 year old. Hell, if I was throwing some shapes it must have been some night.

Them Beatles are off to Canada next month and their travels take them to New Zealand later in the year but if you are a Beatles fan and the opportunity comes to see them then you would be a fool not to take it.

For tour dates and more information please see www.thembeatles.com

A Look Back at the Season

So another football season is consigned to the pages of the history books.

Season 2011-2012 wasn’t a vintage season for Partick Thistle. A sixth place league finish was one spot below last season’s, although the points tally remained the same. The cup campaigns meantime brought plenty of angst but little joy. 

Despite being involved neither at the top end of the division or, thankfully, at the bottom it was, as always, a season of highs, lows and frustrations.

The final game of the season at Hamilton was in many ways a microcosm of the season as a whole. Thistle played at times some excellent football but ended up with just a single point, rather than the three that the performance undoubtedly merited. This is why there is a distinct sense of frustration when it comes to analysing the events of the last 9 months or so.

So what of the highs?

Firhill and a visit of then, but not for much longer, league leaders Morton was selected by the SFL as part of an experiment into Friday evening football. It was a night that could scarcely have gone any better for Thistle. No fewer than five different Thistle players got on the score sheet that night as Thistle ran out emphatic 5-0 winners.

Christie Elliott scores one of the five v Morton (pic by Tommy Taylor)

There was a real sense of excitement and anticipation after that result but there was no fixture the following week and when Thistle did return to action the momentum had been lost slightly and they lost 2-0 at Raith Rovers while producing a pretty insipid display. 

Dens Park hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for Thistle in previous seasons. This season not one but two victories were recorded. Given the events of previous visits there, there was a distinct sense of Karma when Thistle won 1-0 in October thanks to hotly contested penalty converted by Paul Cairney. 

Dundee couldn’t claim any injustice at the end of April. Paul Cairney missed, and scored, a penalty that afternoon and bagged all three Thistle goals in the 3-0 win, becoming the first Thistle player in many a long year to score a hat-trick.

What's the score? (Pic by Tommy Taylor)

Other highlights?

David Rowson’s goal that gave Thistle a 1-0 lead at Morton in December;  and Kris Doolan’s late winner in the same game.

Goal of the season though would have to be Paul Cairney’s chip at Falkirk. A sublime finish from a player who looks destined to be playing his football at a ground other than Firhill next season.

A 5-0 win over Queen of the South at Palmerston was every bit as easy as the score suggested.

Mark McGuigan was a late arrival, signing in March but his goal celebrations at Ayr United, immortalised on youtube, quickly endeared him to the Thistle fans.

The lows?

Well, they could come under two categories, cup games and Raith Rovers matches.

It’s almost beyond belief that Thistle managed just 1 point from a possible 12 against Raith Rovers, and in that statistic probably lies the reason why Thistle didn’t finish above 6^th position. Every time Thistle played Rovers they seemed to find a new and imaginative way to lose, including a Rovers propelling the ball into the net with his hand.

When Thistle did, finally, get a point against Rovers they generously contributed the Rovers goal in a 1-1 draw themselves. 

As for the cup games, well the thought of the Berwick Rangers game still brings me out in a cold sweat. Culter on the other hand is something best discussed in therapy. Thankfully that all worked out in the end but when Archie, a real hero of mine, passed across his own 18 yard box straight to a Culter player with the score at 1-1 and with just minutes left, time stood still.

Culter - Sedatives please (pic by Tommy Taylor)

Enough of the past, on with the future which I think is bright for Thistle.

Instilling a mental toughness and a real belief in their own abilities is the number one priority for manager Jackie McNamara. If he can do that, bring in two, maybe three, new players then there is no reason why we can’t be there or thereabouts next season.

I’m excited just thinking about it. Roll on August.

C’mon The Jags.

John Lennon: The Life

I was asked at the weekend what my favourite period of Beatles music was. In truth that is an almost impossible question to answer, or at least a question that is impossible to provide a consistent answer to.  My answer will vary almost day to day depending on what kind of mood I’m in at the time and what album I’ve most recently listened to.

If it is almost impossible to pin point a period in the development of The Beatles as my favourite then it is actually impossible to provide an answer to the equally oft asked question; who is my favourite Beatle.

The chemistry that existed between the four of them was what made The Beatles so special. It may, initially, have been John’s band, growing as it did from the skiffle days of the Quarrymen, and the song writing partnership he had with Paul was nothing short of musical alchemy, but to dismiss the massive contributions of George and Ringo is to make a big mistake.  

That was the unspoken, but clear all the same, assessment of Philip Norman’s ‘Shout’, which is considered by many as being the definitive book on The Beatles.

It was then with more than a hint of trepidation that I recently purchased a copy of Norman’s biography of Lennon, ‘John Lennon – The Life’.

In ‘Shout’ Norman’s preference for John, no need to ask him who his favourite Beatle is, came through on almost every page.  It was inevitable, therefore, that he would deal with the subject of John Lennon in more detail at some point.

And detail is one thing that this entertaining book of over 800 pages doesn’t lack.

The problem is in where that detail lies, or perhaps more accurately, where it doesn’t.

Much of the detail provided on John’s formative years any Beatle fan is likely to have read elsewhere, maybe even in the pages of the aforementioned ‘Shout’.

There is little shortage of source material when it comes to The Beatles with the result that it is possible to provide a detailed account of them without the tedious task of actually doing the leg work and interviews yourself.

It would be wrong to suggest that this is what Norman did, but as an example his account of Lennon’s first marriage to Cynthia looked to be simply lifted from each of her two autobiographies, the second of which provided an altogether harsher assessment of her marriage.

The weakness in this book comes when there is less easily accessible information on Lennon’s life, in particular the later years of his, tragically short life, in New York. This was a period in his life that I was looking forward to reading about but felt disappointed with the scarcity of information after such a detailed account of the years prior.

Despite the misgivings above this is an essential addition to any Beatles fans’ library. It explores all facets of John’s personality, the good and the bad. He was in many ways a man of contradictions. Aren’t we all too some degree?

This book doesn’t gloss over his flaws. It shows John as a man of great talent and intellect but also impaired by his own insecurities. A man prone to acts of cruelty, yet also a man capable of displaying a generous heart.

In short, the success of this book is in its’ portrayal of John Lennon the man and not merely John Lennon the Beatle. 

Glasgow Comedy Festival 2012

The curtain came down last night on the 2012 Glasgow Comedy Festival, the 10^th such event, and as usual across the three week festival there was a wide variety of comedy on offer.

The Glasgow Comedy Festival has come a long way since its inception back in 2002, and is one of the biggest comedy festivals around. Rather bizarrely though many Glasweigans remain unaware of its existence even though there were around 300 shows at 40 different venues within the city.

Those 300 or so shows include the high profile, big venue, gigs from the likes of Dara O’Briain, who played two nights at The Armadilo, Sarah Millican and Rory Bremner, but also provides local acts to showcase their talents.

It’s not all Stand Up either. The first event that we popped along to was a recording of the soon to air on Radio Scotland ‘The Guessing Game’, a comedy panel show hosted by Clive Anderson, who seems to have slipped off the radar a little since upsetting The Bee Gees on TV a number of years ago.

As is the nature with this kind of thing ‘The Guessing Game’ was a bit hit and miss and to be honest I’ll not be tuning the dial on by wireless to Radio Scotland when it airs. It was though a pleasant enough way to spend an evening and thanks to the splendid Rob Rouse we were left with the equally splendid image of a drum kit made out of cats.  

We also took the opportunity to take in one of Arnold Brown’s Comedy Interviews at The Tron Theatre. It was a strange night, not least due to an injury to a member of the audience when a camera fell on them.

I’m far from convinced that Brown’s laconic delivery, which is a bit of a slow burner, is best suited to an interview format. We left feeling a bit short changed for our £14.50 (tickets booked too late to take advantage of the two for one offer), quite keen to try and catch Phil Differ’s stand up and altogether unimpressed with the world view of Dorothy Paul. A more skilful interviewer would have steered her away from the subject of Ireland and Scottish Independence.

Returning to Stand Up, the Blackfriars Basement is one of the best comedy venues in Glasgow and we took in a couple of shows, at either end of the festival, there.

First up was Jarred Christmas. The New Zealander gave a high energy performance, the pace of which simply never let up.  Jarred takes audience participation to new levels and a fantastic evening finished with Jarred stripped to the waist dancing to ‘Back in the USSR’ while we fired foam bullets at him.

Jarred Christmas

Although he is now based in Manchester, Scott Agnew has for some time been one of our favourite Glasweigans on the comedy circuit and it was his ‘Project: Couldn’t Give a Fuck’ that rounded the festival off for us.

Scott Agnew

Scott’s material, and much of this was making its debut at Blackfriars, may be close to the bone at times but one of his strengths is his engaging personality. He is an excellent, self deprecating, storyteller and while you do find yourself laughing at his stories (how could you not?) you feel real empathy with him at the same time.

Another favourite from the Glasgow/Scotland circuit is Mark Nelson and he didn’t disappoint at the Oran Mor.

Mark Nelson

A confusion with the start time meant a mad dash across Glasgow for us and if truth be told the news that there was a support act wasn’t greeted, by us, with much relish.

Kai Humphries was, therefore, an unexpected delight. It is almost impossible not to like Kai who established a tremendous rapport with the audience and more than nicely warmed things up for Mark Nelson.

A tweet from Mark earlier in the day revealed that he had been violently sick. If he was nervous, or in any way suffers from stage fright, it certainly wasn’t in evidence when he took to the stage. His performance, as always, was polished and perfectly timed. He is one of the few comedians that can have me sore with laughter simply with a well timed pause. Why Mark, a former Scottish Comedian of the Year, isn’t huge and playing multiple sell out nights at the SECC is a mystery to me.

Why Dara O’Briain is playing to sell out crowds in big venues is less of a mystery. Like Mark Nelson the night before he had me sore with laughter at times. I’m sure that it’s not, but his act seems so effortless and almost as if he has just rolled up to have a blether with people.

That almost brings me to an end in my round up of the Glasgow Comedy Festival of 2012 but I’m going to finish with one moan. In previous years a staple of our Comedy Festival menu has been the Lunchtime Comedy Chat Show hosted by the previously mentioned Scott Agnew and another excellent local talent, Des Clarke.

This year we made it a long to just one. No Scott and Des this year, instead the one we made it along to was more than capably hosted by Charlie Ross.

When I say we made it a long to just one, we did in fact head to The Corinthian on the final Sunday for one more round of sandwiches and comedy before the end of the festival only to find, after we had climbed about 8 flights of stairs, that the show had been cancelled. No mention of this on the Comedy Festival website or on their twitter feed. We at least hadn’t paid in advance but the punter in front of us had. It was a slightly disappointing note at the end of another highly successful Glasgow Comedy Festival. The countdown to next year’s starts now.

The Long and Winding Road of History

It is with some trepidation that I begin my latest round of incoherent ramblings on something of a pretentious note with a quote from Karl Marx.

In his ‘18^th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, Marx wrote;

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”

Now, I can hear those of you tempted to read this on the strength of the Beatles reference in the title saying “what the f**k has Karl Marx got to do with The Beatles.”

It was, of course, Marx who George Martin drafted in to play drums on ‘Love me Do’. Or that might have been Andy White.

Anyway, enough of this nonsense and on to the point of this article, and yes there is a point to it.

What Marx is saying is that while people, to be not as gender specific as our chum Karl, do make history it is the circumstances that they encounter along the way that really defines how they shape history.

Few people, I would hope, would dispute the influence that The Beatles have had not just on popular music but on society and cultural in general. The rise in the popularity of The Beatles in the US in the wake of the assaination of President Kennedy is another subject for another time but is an example of how events elsewhere can allow others, not directly related to it, to make history.

Sticking, sort of, to this theme could The Beatles have come from anywhere other than Liverpool?

Liverpool was a busy shipping port with strong links to the USA. It wasn’t just goods though that were transported between the US and Liverpool. Travelling from the States to the Liverpool docks came American popular culture, in particular rock and roll.

It is unquestionable that rock and roll had a massive influence on four young lads from Liverpool in the 1950s. Had they not been exposed to this music it is inconceivable that they would have gone on and formed their own rock and roll band.

Yet they weren’t the only four teenagers in Liverpool enthralled by rock and roll. Or the only four talented musicians that wanted to form their own band. Why then did John, Paul, George and Ringo become such a phenomom?

The dynamic that existed between the four lads was obviously pivotal to their success.  For example, there has been no greater song writing partnership than the one that existed between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. How would that partnership had developed had they not both had unconventional childhoods? Paul losing his mother at a young age and John too having to deal with the tragic consequences of his mother’s untimely death after previously been abandoned by his father.

The truth of the matter is that it was a fortunate (or perhaps more accurately, misfortune) set of circumstances that threw unarguably the greatest ever pop group together and we should all be grateful for that. 

Boring, Boring County?

An often heard comment complaint round Firhill these days is that there is a lack of signing and a poor atmosphere inside the Jackie Husband Stand on match days. Well, yesterday there was one chant that was loud and audible, and was heard more than once. It went simply;

“Boring, boring County”.

Now I need to come clean at this point. Four times Thistle have played Ross County this season. Three times County have won, and on each of those occasions Thistle failed to find the back of the net. The only time Thistle did prise a point from County, and score against them, was after they had had a man sent off.

A fantastic run that has seen them lose just once all season in the league, in a game in which they again had a man sent off, has seen County establish a huge lead at the top of the First Division. It is but a matter of time before they are confirmed as champions. It will be a deserved championship, it would be foolish to deny otherwise.

 Yet even in acknowledging that fantastic run they aren’t a popular side. They are in the words of Thistle manager Jackie McNamara “not pleasing on the eye” or, if you prefer the less diplomatic assessment of the Thistle fans, “boring, boring”.

Thistle fans watching the "Boring" Ross County (pic by Tommy Taylor)

County’s popularity, to be blunt, isn’t helped any by their manager Derek Adams who appears to have few friends in football outside the confines of Victoria Park. He even earlier in the season took bizarre offence at McNamara’s comment that Adams’ had spent his budget wisely.

Leaving that issue aside, County’s lack of popularity does raise an interesting question.

Are we football fans entertained by exciting, attacking football no matter the result or are we entertained simply by watching our side win week in week out?

A few years ago I walked out of Victoria Park delighted with a point after a goalless draw. Thistle had at the time being struggling for form and had been guilty of conceding some soft goals. The shape of the Thistle side that afternoon, therefore, was set up to first and foremost make them hard to beat. The performance as I recall was as hard working a Jags performance as I have seen but, to use that phrase again, it wasn’t pleasing on the eye.

It did, however, get the job done and I travelled back to Glasgow afterwards a fairly contented man.

There are times then when it is laudable to do whatever you need to do to get the desired result. I doubt I would complain too much if, for example, Thistle defended in numbers at Ibrox but came away with a 1-0 win. No, chances are you would find me signing loudly ‘One Team in Glasgow’ before falling asleep, drowning in my own drool.

Football is a business and a profession, a precarious one at that, to those that play it and you can understand the attitude that it’s not how you get the result that is important but that you get the result. 

It is also an entertainment.

The vast majority of the 2,500 or so people at Firhill yesterday paid £17 to watch the game. Did the approach of a side 15 points clear at the top of the division, and well on course for the title, take the “the result at all costs” approach too far?

I guess it depends largely on the colour of the scarf that you were wearing. When the County fans are celebrating their inevitable title success it is unlikely that they will gave a damn that the Thistle fans thought their team were “boring, boring”. Derek Adams certainly doesn’t. 

Travelling Hopefully - Let's Hear it for the Diddy Teams

It was Robert Louis Stevenson that wrote “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”. He wasn’t, of course, writing about Scottish Football but he might as well have been. Stevenson was trying to suggest that hope and anticipation is better than reality. You can’t tell me that that doesn’t sum up perfectly the experience of supporting the vast majority of Scottish football teams.

Scottish Football, as if you needed reminded, is played on a pretty uneven playing field. Two, for now, giant teams dominate the game in this country almost entirely. They share the major honours between themselves to such a degree that from season to season I can’t recall which one has won what. The rest of us are consigned to the ranks of mere also rans or, as one PA announcer at Ibrox infamously put it, searching for crumbs from the master’s table.

Given that the chances of us mere mortals carrying off one of Scotland’s major football honours are slight it’s a wonder why we bother at all.

The game in Scotland may be dominated by the two, for now, richest and powerful teams but while money can buy you titles and honours, hopes and dreams remain free. To paraphrase the words of Robert Louis Stevenson; we continue to travel hopefully across the highways and byways of Scottish football. Sometimes even, as Kilmarnock found out today, the reality does prove to every bit as good as the hope and anticipation.

(40 years on and Thistle are still celebrating - pic by Tommy Taylor)

I’ll not pretend to be any great fan of Kilmarnock, I’ve had too many hairy, scary trips back to the comfort and safety of a Thistle supporters’ bus for that, but my heart soared for them at Hampden Park this afternoon all the same.

I’ve not, yet, had the pleasure of experiencing Thistle play in a national Cup Final but when I do, and it will happen, it will be an occasion that I’ll savour to the full. Today if the pulse rate of a Celtic fan quickened any it wasn’t at the prospect of adding another League Cup to their hoards of domestic honours but rather the latest ‘thrilling’ instalment of their sibling rivalry with their, for now, partners in the Scottish football duopoly. Defeating Kilmarnock to win the League Cup would have been a mere incidental in their point scoring squabble with Rangers. The elation of a Celtic victory today would have lasted just long enough for the morning hangover to kick in.

It was good for Scottish football, therefore, that the game ended in an unexpected triumph for Kilmarnock. It was unquestionably their day but the fan of every ‘diddy’ team in the country shared their joy at the final whistle. It was a vindication of our continued support for whichever one of the less celebrated teams in Scotland that our allegiance lies with and proof in the value of continuing to dream.