Say the Word - and Be Like Me

I've been a reader of The Word magazine ever since it first launched and my flatmate bought a copy to read on a long train journey. Back then it used to promote itself with the phrase 'At last - something to read', which was a marketing idea I stole for my related links section over there > and was as wonderfully reassuring as The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy's 'Don't Panic'. I like this mag, partly because of the people who write it - all ex-Smash Hits, Old Grey Whistle Test and NME (back when it had something to, um, read in it). I also like the mix of people the mag thinks I might want to know more about. I don't think I'd actively look to know more about broadcaster Mark Lawson, but I enjoyed their interview with him and every now and again they mention a band or a song that I never knew I'd always liked.

One such ditty is the them from the 1968 drama Take Three Girls - a mad folk song with an irregular time sig that rejoices under the name of 'Light Flight' and comes from a band called Pentangle. Now, it just so happens that Pentangle or a major obsession of The Word's editor, Mark Ellen, so it's strange to discover such a random song and then open a mag that week and discover an article about its creators.

Recently - well, I say 'recently', but as I've lost track of time, this could have been a year ago - I started to listen to the magazine's podcasts, where Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and one or two of the other writers chat for about 40 minutes about whatever comes to mind. The podcasts went weekly a while back, so thanks to iTunes, I get a new chat-track delivered to me each Wednesday or Thursday.

I'm not a huge rock fan, but I enjoy hearing people talk about stuff knowledgeably and with passion and wit. Hearing last week's edition, where Mark Ellen described the time he interviewed country singer Lucinda Williams, ended up going for dinner with her and only when it was too late did they realise they were out at a restaurant on Valentine's Day. This was the latest of the HORA - the 'hoary old rock anecdote' that closes each show and must surely skirt incredibly closely to libel on many occasions.

This particular podcast also has the power to enrich our vocabulary in hitherto unimagined directions. Where else could I have heard a room described as being so quiet 'you could hear a mouse piss on velvet' or hear someone exclaim that they are so hungry they could 'eat the arse off a low-flying duck'.

You can subscribe to The Word podcast via the website link at the top of this entry, via Facebook or through iTunes. Go on, what are you waiting for? New edition - world safe!

Da dah da, dadada da da

After nearly two months, nothing comes to mind here. Actually - not true! Except I'm about to start blogging as part of my job, so a lot of my thoughts are focused on that there weekly panic instead of an occasional free-form Jazz brain-dump on here.

This week, I accompanied a work colleague to visit a lady who once worked at the BBC and had accumulated an attic full of old scripts and paperwork, which we offered to take off her hands. Some of it's quite dry and of very limited interest to be honest, but the scripts of Z Cars episodes now lost from the archives are a real treat. Best thing she gave us though was a prop walkie talkie - complete with pop-up aerial - that had once served the good men of Newtown prison about 30 years ago. Either that, or the tomahawk that had somehow featured in an adaptation of Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask. We might take that along to meetings from now on, as a means of persuasion...

One other fun thing about this woman's collection is, she seems to have been an unstoppable hoarder, so she's kept some amazing scraps of paper. One Z Cars folder contained little notes about various crimes - a theft from a scrapyard, a house burglary resulting in the loss of £3000-worth of silver - which I couldn't at first work out. Then I had the idea of reading the script and there they were: these little slips of paper were prop telexes that the police officer would have read from to brief his superior officer about recent cases that have been opened, along with the character's scripted asides, like 'I bet he did it himself for the insurance'. So if you've ever wondered if there's actually anything written on those pieces of paper actors shuffle in drama, well, there is. Their script, usually.

Rats Join Sinking Ship

Bloody hell, Doctor Who was good last night. It had the titanic, Kylie, Bernard Cribbins and the funniest Queen-related scene ever. In the words of my favourite film reviewer ever*, 'it made me laugh and it made me cry'.

The Titanic might have been a difficult sell to an audience sandwiched, as this episode was, between two grimfestive episodes of EastEnders, but trust Russell T Davies to find a way to make it tense and exciting without it feeling bleak. Sure, it wasn't the actual Titanic, but a space ship of the same name and design, but the first shots of the ship cruising above the planet Earth have to be the single best special effects ever made for British TV.

I got a bit teary-eyed at a few points - the frustration and shock of the young midshipman, shot by his loony captain and unable to do his duty while the captain lives, was heartbreaking, as were the deaths of the fat couple who wrong-footed me by being instantly likeable (Debbie Chazen is best-known for her co-starring role in the dismal sketch show Tittybangbang so I wasn't prepared for how good she actually turned out to be). But the biggest shock came with Kylie Minogue's character Astrid taking a decidedly active and terminal role in the conclusion to the adventure. I'd heard rumours that her character would turn out to be something a bit magical (based on her first name being an anagram of 'Tardis') but when that turned out to be wrong it was even more upsetting.

Then the final credit: 'Dedicated to Verity Lambert OBE'. I knew it was coming, but it still got me choked.

... and I wasn't pissed either.

So, I had high expectations for the ratings, which I didn't think would be available until tomorrow. The overnights (as reported by BBC News) are suggesting 13.8 million, with a peak just under 15 million at one point. Blimey - this is the show they couldn't get people to make, never mind watch, in 1989.

There are only a very few stories of the original run of episode of this series that managed to get ratings that high. Three stories in 1965 ('The Rescue', 'The Romans' and 'The Web Planet'). 'The Ark in Space' in 1974 and 'The Power of Kroll' each had individual episodes that peaked at around the 13 million mark, and only 'Destiny of the Daleks' and 'City of Death' went above 14 million (the latter reaching 16 million, thanks in no small part to a lengthy strike taking ITV off air).

The TV landscape has changed a lot over the years; the days when EastEnders can pull in over 20 million have long gone. Home computers, videogames consoles, multi-channel TV and home video / DVD have all combined to ensure TV is no longer a medium that can unite a nation. But Doctor Who last night was seen by about a quarter of the population of the UK, about 50% of the viewing public. The equivalent would be something like 25 million viewers in 1979.

It really puts the embarrassment of being a fan for the last 20 years into perspective. A show that was once so niche that even the regular viewers didn't like it now has an audience who might not call themselves fans but still love it to bits. With TV in the state that it is, that's no bad thing. Just ask ITV, whose highest-rated programme peaked at 8.9 million (a 35.4% share of the viewers). Sad though I am about this, Coronation Street can't claim to be the nation's favourite any more. 'Eighth-most-popular' is about as close as they get.

In 1988, when Doctor Who was watched by about 4 million people out of habit, it was scheduled up against Corrie. Some might say revenge is a dish best served cold, and on Christmas Day...

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* Some woman I once worked with, whose only criteria for a 'good film' seemed to be a binary opposition of emotions.

And Today's Biggest Gobshite is...

... Sky News who, reporting on the idiotic decision by Radio 1 to censor 'Fairytale in New York' by Kirsty MacColl and the Pogues, wrote:

"MacColl died at the age of 41 the same year when she was hit by a speedboat while diving during a holiday in Mexico."


I'm pretty certain she died the same minute she was hit by a speedboat, you insensitive fuckers.

Viruses? Got it Taped!

There's an interesting article on BBC News about the first Mac-targetting Trojan viruses.

What's funny about it is the image they've chosen to illustrate 'pornographic video' with. It's been nearly a decade since VHS tapes began to be obsolete, yet BBC News appears to be telling me that the naughty trojan creators are using VHS tapes to break into my Mac.

Argh!!!

Repeats (that's, Repeats!)

According the the Guardian, Lib Dem culture spokesman Don Foster has criticised broadcasters for scheduling repeats over Christmas.

Which is hilarious as Don Foster made the exact same claim last year, citing the exact same percentages. Looks like TV is doing better than Mr Foster's 100% repeat rate this year...

The Stars We Are

'Turn the spotlight down! I don't like the f***ing light right in my face!'

After what was a reportedly disastrous gig in Birmingham last weekend, Marc Almond came to London last night at the Indigo venue at the O2 dome. I noticed on the T-shirts of the Indigo staff that the word indigo was suffixed by a 2, which led to me wonder if they chose the name of that side venue just because it has an 'o' at the end, and if so, did they reject 'dingo' and 'flamingo' before choosing a word that almost describes the colour of their logo.

... oh, the colour thing, yeah. That's probably why.

So, Marc's a bit spiky to start off with. He apologises to the audience for being a bit late. 'I got watching the X Factor semi-final,' he explains. 'Oh Rhydian. What IS he? If I were his mentor I'd have him doing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"!' Later, the guy handling the spotlight gets a tongue-lashing, leading to the next song being performed in near-darkness. 'Okay,' Marc concedes, 'Perhaps I could do with a little more light.

He's doing well for a 50-year-old guy who's still living with the after-effects of a near-fatal motorbike accident. He stumbles with a few lyrics and part-way through 'Tears Run Rings' he rushes offstage in some distress. The band play on for a while, winging it, until they realise something might be wrong and they bring the song to a close. There's a pregnant pause before Marc returns to the stage. 'I've been ill all week and that was just waiting to happen all day,' he says, leaving us tactfully unaware what 'that' was. But in case we feel we're catching a fading star here, he repeats a trick he's been doing for his gigs this year - a breakneck-speed rendition of 'Jackie' that's word-perfect and leaves his younger pianist struggling to keep up with him.

'I'm warming up now - you can put the lights back on,' he laughs.

He points to his violinist and remarks that they've been playing together for 26 years, plays a lot of songs from the album he co-write with former Sigue Sigue Sputniker Neil X, his guitarist, and, as he closes the show, thanks everyone behind the scenes by name, including the super-trooper-wranger, who gets an apology for his earlier crabbiness.

'He's doing one more album and one last tour, then that's it,' my companion tells me. Marc's already admitted that he no longer has it in him to write new material, since the accident, which is a tragedy for a man who's been so prolific. he still has an ardent fanbase who'll follow him into his dotage, but many of them suspect he doesn't want to become a tragic disappointment. This is Marc Almond, and throughout the gig, many of his fans chose quiet moments to shout 'We love you, Marc.'

Apparently, during the birmingham gig (at a venue that left the impression Marc was singing in a small back-street bar), someone shouted 'SOOOOFT CEEEELLLL' and was roundly told to f*** off by the audience. Someone else then shouted 'Days of Pearly Spencer!' at which point Marc said 'Hold on, I'm not a f***ing jukebox!'

I saw him for his birthday gig - and his comeback after the crash - earlier this year, which was an emotional experience to say the least. It was also a better gig and I really appreciate how special that night was for everyone in the room - not least Marc himself. But seeing him not at his best, a little cranky, a bit bitchy and always self-deprecating just leaves the impression that I saw a more real, more honest Marc last night. I have no way of ever catching up with all his recordings, but he's someone I find fascinating. From his early days in Soft Cell appearing on Top of the Pops miming melodramatically to 'Tainted Love', where the next day everyone in school was saying 'what WAS that?' to his subtext-heavy number one duet with Gene Pitney in 1989, his album after album of heartbreak that might have been invisible to the chart-buying public but built a back catalogue that most true musicians would envy, including his Russian folk album and his most recent release of covers, he has never been boring.

And that's all we can ever hope for of our idols.