Two Old Men and a Keyboard

He's one of the most unsettling characters in pop. Slicked- back hair,, a pencil-thin moustache, round glasses and a blood-chilling stone-faced expression that makes him look like Boo Radley at a Harry Potter-meets-the-Third-Reich convention. Occasionally, he smiles - or rather, his mouth slides into a rictus grin. A shark might flash his teeth just as readily, but you're not sure he's pleased to see you. And yet, his schtick for Chris Lowe-like static performances and his Calvin Coolidge verbosity means that when he does anything at all, the fans chant his name, egging him on to give them just a little bit more than nothing at all.

His brother, Russ might be doing all the vocal acrobatics and crowd connectivity, but as Russ himself admits, it's Ron Mael who writes almost all of the songs. It's Ron Mael who designs these spectacular scale-leaping assault courses for Russ. And, thanks to the glasses and the moustache, it's Ron you recognise as 'that one from Sparks'.

Like, I suspect, everyone else, I first became aware of Sparks thanks to 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us'. It's a song I've long suspected might make as much sense backwards as forwards - it's a pop song that begins with a fade and the lyrics rattle along at an incomprehensible speed. It doesn't matter that it talks about zoos with tacky tigers, Hiroshima and cannibals that 'need their protein just like you do'. All you get from this wailing popstrel and his creepy brother is an air of menace that any number of screaming metalheads fail to deliver.

Seeing them perform live last night at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town (formerly just 'The Forum', I'm told), I got a sense of why this unique duo have lasted beyond that breakthrough hit. Combining Kimono My House (the album that gave us 'This Town...') and their most recent recording, Exotic Creatures of the Deep (which filled the first half of the evening), the three-hour set piled acerbic lyrics onto surreal imagery. It began with a queue of women strolling onto the stage with shopping trolleys and, courtesy of a video screen centre-stage, it continued with a piano-playing monkey, a hilarious set called 'Photoshop' where Ron tried to play an onscreen piano while an unseen designer kept mucking about with it in Photoshop (with the checkerboard background and correct palette options and everything!), and finished with a sequence where the covers to each of their albums were projected onto the screen in chronological order. Ron set fire to them and chuckled as each one burned, until the final one appeared (the cover to the album they'd just performed) and the crowd roared.

There were 21 of those albums. Not bad for a band known for one huge hit (and had Abba not blocked it from Number One with 'Waterloo', who knows how much bigger Sparks might have been?). And after a short break, they continued with a full performance of Kimono My House - which, thanks to that incinerating slide-show of their covers, I was surprised to learn was their third album!

They might be famous for their bouncy jazz-operatic pop melodies, but their lyrics are far removed from the moon-swoon-Mills&Boon content of most pop. One track from their latest album sounds like Goldfrapp. Opening with the line 'I love you and only you' was a disarmingly romantic sentiment for Sparks - until the chorus came in with the title: 'I Can't Believe That You Would Fall for All the Crap in This Song'. 'She Got Me Pregnant' featured the women from the opening number, this time dressed as Ron Mael, with huge pregnancy bumps. As they surrounded him, Ron began to look nervous. The only other time he looked like that was when his brother put his arm around him.

We might think of Ron Mael as sinister and scowling, but from the front row we could see that Russell is hardly the fluffier one either. It's not that his smile never reaches his eyes - occasionally it barely reaches his mouth, being more a pained grimace. His mania, bouncing around the stage conducting the music, is a bit like Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters (who no doubt about it are hugely influenced by the band, even if they haven't quite matched their brilliance). Yet this is not a sour or cynical band. I got the impression theirs is a joke shared. At one point, during an extended rendition of 'Equator' from Kimono My House, Russell encouraged the audience to sing some of the jazz bits. It might have reminded us of Freddie Mercury's show-stealling rapport with the fans at Live Aid. Except here, the audience didn't quite know the tune, prompting Russell to sing 'Siiing in keeey'.

The fans loved him all the more.

So then, after the bitter lyrics and vaguely threatening performance, we were left with two brothers, Ron and Russell. One is in his late fifties; the other his early sixties. But as with Grace Jones, who I was lucky enough to see live earlier this year, I was stunned by how much more energy was onstage with these 'older' performers than I ever get from much younger acts. It's not just nostalgia - they don't make 'em like that any more. I know so little about Sparks, aside from about five tracks from their long career that managed to enter my psyche. But I'm far more interested in them than any of the dreary Coldplay-alikes around now.

Pop Picking

Paul Cornell's now annual attempt to do 'The 12 Days of Blogging' (or 12 Blogs of Christmas, or something to do with the number 12) has brought up a brilliant blog that I hadn't previously heard of, but has apparently been running since 2003.

[Sidestep: did I even know the word 'blog' back then? I'm surprised how long I've been writing this one - I spent an hour yesterday adding keywords to all of the entries and was amazed at how much I've written. I know it's nowhere near the 'blog every day' ethos, but I also note that a couple of my chums abandoned their blogs over a year ago, so, um, I win. Ha!]

Over on Freakytrigger, Tom Ewing has been reviewing every single UK number one record, starting at the beginning with Al Martino and 'Here in my Heart' and working his way through in order. As I write this, he's just completed his 477th review - Shakin' Stevens' 'This Ole House'.

A good few years ago, I decided I needed [oh wait, hold on a sec, I'm not writing this while Fern Kinney is playing. Skip to The Jam's 'Going Underground'. Better.] to get an MP of every number one single. I had a few already so I added those to my playlist, then set about scouring the internet for the rest. Entirely coincidentally, the last number one I managed to find before I'd caught up was Don Cornell's 'Hold My Hand'.

Tom has managed to find the sleeve artwork for a lot of these songs, so I've wasted a fine hour this morning stealing the pics and adding them to my playlist on iTunes. This is how I came to make a discovery - that there's an astoundingly perfect run of number ones in the late 1970s. David Soul's 'Silver Lady' was tripe, but I've seen grown men wilt at the first cautious electronic organ sighs of Baccara's Euro-pop hit 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie'.

Grown gay men, but grown men nonetheless.

From then on, it's one great pop track after another until late-1979 when Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' was bumped for Lena Martell's 'One Day at a Time'. I can imagine a collective exhalation there, when the record-buying public asked 'Who bought that? COME ON - own up!!'

I've always loved the 1980s, but I have to concede the late '70s was a brilliant time for pop fans. Just have a look at this list (the numbers in square brackets give the song's order in chart history):

[414] Yes Sir, I Can Boogie Baccara
[415] The Name Of The Game ABBA
[416] Mull Of Kintyre Wings (okay, I'm conceding this Macca hit because I did like it at the time)
[417] Uptown Top Ranking Althea and Donna (best one-hit wonder ever!)
[418] Figaro Brotherhood Of Man
[419] Take A Chance On Me ABBA
[420] Wuthering Heights Kate Bush
[421] Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs Brian and Michael
[422] Night Fever The Bee Gees
[423] Brown Girl in the Ring Boney M
[424] You're the One That I Want John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
[425] Three Times A Lady The Commodores
[426] Dreadlock Holiday 10CC
[427] Summer Nights John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
[428] Rat Trap The Boomtown Rats
[429] Da Ya Think I'm Sexy Rod Stewart
[430] Mary's Boychild Boney M
[431] YMCA Village People
[432] Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick Ian Dury and the Blockheads
[433] Heart Of Glass Blondie
[434] Tragedy The Bee Gees
[435] I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
[436] Bright Eyes Art Garfunkle (c'mon, it's the most-played song at children's funerals. That has to count for something)
[437] Sunday Girl Blondie
[438] Ring My Bell Anita Ward (pew pew!)
[439] Are Friends Electric Tubeway Army
[440] I Don't Like Mondays Boomtown Rats
[441] We Don't Talk Anymore Cliff Richard
[442] Cars Gary Numan
[443] Message in a Bottle The Police
[444] Video Killed The Radio Star Buggles


Here's something else though: Baccara were Spanish; Abba were Sweden's biggest export; Boney M were German. We had European acts in our charts, and they were bloody good.

In a similar time period, we've had a number one from Swedish Basshunter ('Now You're Gone' - tripe!), a dreary, overplayed song by another Swede, Robyn, and a godawful one by bloody Chico! European acts just aren't crossing over the channel any more. I wonder if their charts are as dominated by English and American acts. There are more American artists in the charts now, the majority of which are R&B-based. In fact, the genres have become very samey too, with identikit R&B singers warbling through tuneless songs, or skinny white guys moaning to a dreary Coldplay-lite backing track (including - Heaven help us - Take That, whose 'Greatest Day' sounds as if it were written specifically to be used on an advert for BT).

I'm sure it's not just nostalgia - music was more varied, more adventurous and more surprising in the 1970s and '80s than it is today. Or rather, the stuff that tops the charts tends to be kind of the same as the stuff we heard last time. Simon Cowell's got the Christmas number one sewn up again in the form of X Factor winner Alexandra Burke - the only surprise there being that she's doing a Leonard Cohen track!

I'll go back to my number ones now. I can feel an old fogey rant coming on.

Laid Them on the Green

They might be the cause of embarrassment if you reveal them during a karaoke performance, but the mondegreen is often a thing of pleasure. That wonderful moment when you realise that they lyrics to a song weren't quite how you thought they were.

My first experience of this was in 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor, in which my seven-year-old self was convinced the song was about a woman refusing to be friends with a boy who bullied her at school. After all, 'weren't you the one who tried to hit me with your bike?' Later on, one of my oldest friends tried to convince me that Madonna's 'La Isla Bonita' contained the words 'Last night I slept with some Dago' and 'Chocolate goolies, Ice for free.' I wasn't fooled.

Madonna seems to have a real skill for these things though. Who can forget 'Erotica', where she urges: 'Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie - put your hands all over Bill Oddie'? Or that glorious chorus from 'Ray of Light' where she eulogises over a former Brookside actress's obsession with glitterball-illuminated garden pond decorations: 'Anna Friel - is a disco gnome!'

A really obscure one is the reluctance of Liberty X to acknowledge how influential a certain Doctor Who writer has been on their career. Why else would they take time out from their cover of 'Ain't Nobody' to refer to 'The Russell T we cannot mention'?

Once you start noticing mondegreens, you begin to hear them all over the place. My own version of it is, I think, slightly influenced by Tourette's Syndrome as I frequently hear people say the most filthy things only for them to repeat themselves and I discover they were actually asking me if I could flick their cat out or something.

And that, your honour, is my defence...

(p.s. – I do love that my spellchecker doesn’t recognise the word 'Tourette's' and offers 'toilette' as an alternative. Is it trying to say I'm a potty mouth?)

The Beat Goes On... and On... and a Bit Off...

Just heard a track from Madonna's new album. Album? Do we still call them that now? Anyway, it's possibly her new single and it's... er... oh...

It sounds like something from her first album, but with added 'R unt B' courtesy (I think) of Timberland. Some nice acoustic guitar and a basic dance rhythm, but the lyrics are risible. I know, I know - we don't listen to Madge for her poetry, but considering the song starts with one of those breathy talky bits:

'I'm tired of doing the same old thing. Let's give something to think about.'

... it's a bit of an exercise in cliché:

'Here comes the sun...'

'Wash away the rain...'

'...Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.'

And a wonderfully awful chorus with the worst, tinny,, shrill key-change ever:

On and on the beat goes
On and on the beat goes
On and on the beat goes
On and on the beat goes

[Shrill key change]

On and on the beat goes
On and on the beat goes

[Key change back to the beginning]

On and on the beat goes
On and on the beat goes

I was wondering if I loved it or just thought it was hilarious, until the urgency of the word 'INSTRUMENTATION' made me laugh so hard I nearly let out a little wee.

Oh Madonna... oh dear... oh, bless you!

Four Years!

Y'know what it's like when you get a piece of music in your head and you can't place it. For the last four years, I've been trying to identify a piece of music that was used as the them tune to some educational programme. I suspected it might have been a Schools unt Colleges programme from way back when.



Speaking of which (quick diversion), when I was little, each schools programme used to begin with a video clock surrounded by circles or markings that would slowly disappear as the programme start got closer. Apparently, I told my teacher that it was called 'The clock that eats itself' and she thought that was very funny. My mum reminded me of that only yesterday.

Anyway, four years ago, while on holiday with some of the greatest TV-trivia superbrains I know, I recalled this piece of music and tried to sing it for my friends, so they could end my frustration and tell me what it was.

"It went: 'Baba bababababababa / Baba bababababababa' and it was on a flute, with guitars strumming behind it."

Blank looks all round.

So, ever since then, I've run the tune through my head every now and then, but no clues ever came forth.

This week, the Beeb has been running a trailer for the new series of Saxondale, starring Steve Coogan. Playing over (it is over, isn't it - music on TV is never exactly under anything) the clip is the very same music I was wracking my brains to identify.

So, thanks to some searching of various Saxondale-related terms, I finally found it. It wasn't Jethro Tull, as I'd begun to suspect, but a band called Focus, with a track called 'House of the King'. And thanks to some more searching, I found it on YouTube, along with the answer I was after. Click that YouTube link to see the video.

Turns out, it wasn't a Schools unt Colleges programme, but a mid-week 'Aren't facts interesting' magazine show called Don't Ask Me, which starred Magus Pike, David Bellamy and Dr Miriam Stoppard, alongside a bunch of actors and comedians who padded the thing out with comedy, while the experts explained stuff. Like Game for a Laugh, but for 'Rainman' kids.

So - mystery solved.

I now want to write a story called 'The Clock that Ate itself'.

Going Out - the New Staying In

Thanks to the generosity of a few friends, I've had such a fun year. It started when I went to see The Pipettes in March. They're a band my pal David raved about ages ago, and I wasn't all that convinced to be honest, but live was another sory. Very charming and with a lot of catchy tunes under their belt. They had two support acts, one of whom was Metronome - not the Japanese one, but three lads who looked like a geeky version of 'Busted'.

Since that night, I've seen 'Little Shop of Horrors' with Sheridan Smith in the female lead role and Alistair McGowan as the dentist. Lots of fun and I'd definitely go again. 'Absolute Beginners' at the Lyric, Hammersmith, was amazing - we thought it'd be really worthy but it had a very inventive set of blocks that the characters clambered all over. There were a couple of performances at the Drillhall - one about Joan of Arc that had half the audience asleep because of heat, and another called 1001 Beds by Tim Miller, which is about his idea that we sleep in about 1000 beds in our lifetime - not all of them sex-related but the funniest ones are. It's a breathless, engaging, personal one-man performance... which I can't remember because I'd been to the park and got drunk for a mate's birthday. Shameful!

With another friend, I got to see 'Fame - the Musical. Sorry to say, it's really poor and needs a rewrite by someone with a sense of humour. So many dropped balls throughout the plotting and it feels like someone trying to make a play after being told the story by someone who knew someone else who'd seen the movie or the TV show but not both. Still, it was free.

One of the surprise highlights was a night with Marcia Brown (aka 3 Non Blondes star Tameka Empson), whose diva-scaled performance was hilarious - especially when she began to pick on my friend for going to the bathroom during her act. Marvellous!

Have I got time to mention 'Live Earth'? George Michael at Wembley? Marc Almond's comeback gig on his birthday? The Scissor Sisters? The amazing Imogen Heap...

My old friends have passed comments that they never see me any more, and one person apparently asked my flatmate if my new friends are too good for them now. That's a tricky one to answer. A lot of my old friends are partnered up, buying houses and generally very busy people, who are always never less than supportive and lovely when we do actually meet up. We used to all get together about four times a week, whereas there have actually only been three occasions in the last nine months where a sizeable number of us has met up.

I suppose I'm a little - no, actually a LOT - pissed off that when my flatmate broke his leg, only three people came to visit from that gang, despite promises to pop round soon. My flatmate was really down then and any new face that wasn't mine was always enthusiastically welcomed. But then, there are friends of mine who've moved homes in the last three years and I've not set foot inside their new places. Is it because I was waiting to be invited, or because I didn't make myself available? Probably both.

I think all I'm getting at in this post is that there are some people who I'd love to see more of, and I don't think less of any of them for being busy, so I hope they don't think any less of me for finding a new gang and spending time with them. Because there've been some times in the last year when I could have really done with some company, but I was too stupid to ask. Suddenly, there are people who don't know all my jokes, who invite me out and make sure I'm included, and for the time being at least, I'm just enjoying going out. It's the new staying in, and it's a lot better for my mental and physical wellbeing.

Criminal Mastermind / Rainman

I've broken the law today and I've only been awake an hour. Yesterday I broke it about 20 times. I'm a recidivist.

Music download sites are, of course, evil and wrong but when the songs you want aren't readily available, or they're not available without having to spend £10 on nine other songs you don't want, they're the only option. I think my CD collection validates me to some extent; the music industry has had a lot of money from me in return for one song and I've supported iTunes as far as I can.

It's the mini-austist in me that fuels it all. I remember a song by an obscure 1980s artist and before you know it I'm rifling through their back catalogue. Have you heard Erasure's attempts at 'Video Killed the Radio Star', 'Rapture' or 'No GDM'? Do you want to? They're hard to find, but they're there nonetheless.

Then there was the sprint of Northern Soul, inspired by a short article in Mojo about Tami Lynn's 'I'm Gonna Run Away from You', a song that now features on compilation CDs I do for friends. And possibly the most Aspergers thing I've done in my life was deciding to find a copy of every UK Number One song ever. I spent a lot of time going trhogh my own CDs and buying individual songs from iTunes, which is fine when you're covering the 1960s but a bit soul-sapping when you're wading through more and more R 'unt' B crap. I resent spending money to fund the careers of Jay Z and Fiddy Cent, so sod 'im.

It's not all crimes and misdemeanours though. My search for The Associates' 'Club Country' led me to discover their gorgeous 'Take Me to the Girl' and the haunting 'Breakfast' and before you could sing 'I had a shower, then phoned my brother up / within the hour, I'll smash another cup' I'd ordered the complete Associates albums from Amazon.co.uk. New CD reissues with additional bonus tracks like their cover of David Bowie's 'Boys Keep Swinging' and their cheeky version of 'Heart of Glass' (another song that Erasure had a go at too).

Here are just a few other tracks I wouldn't have had it not been for the joys of the download:

'London Girls' by Chas and Dave

'The Man With The Child In His Eyes' by Hue and Cry

'Be There' by Clive Griffin (who sang the 'finger of fudge' jingle when he was a kid!)

'John Wayne Is Big Leggy' by Haysi Fantayzee (I already had 'Shiny Shiny')

'Love Lies Lost' by Culture Club's Helen Terry

The full song from the theme to The Littlest Hobo

Nancy Sinatra's cover of the Beatles' 'Run for Your Life' (almost as good as her version of 'Day Tripper'

'Cool Meditation' by Third World (who did 'Now That We Found Love')

'Timeless Melody' by the La's (which made me buy the whole album

Blacklight (featuring Technoir)'s dance version of Killing Joke's 'Love Like Blood'

'I've Been Wrong Before' - Cilla Black's greatest song, courtesy of George Martin

'Michelangelo' by 23rd Turn-Off, another of the songs recommended in Paul Du Noyer's study of Liverpool music, Wondrous Place.

'Machinery' by Sheena Easton

'Twilight Cafe' by Susan Fassbender

... and about five different versions of Barclay James Harvest's 'Mockingbird' recorded across 30 years

Every time I go to a certain Vauxhall-based club night, I tap song titles into my phone to look up later and it's been a useful way of discovering old songs I never knew and rediscovering songs I've forgotten. 'The Celtic Soul Brothers' by Dexy's Midnight Runners would have certainly slipped away otherwise - and 'Saturdays' by De La Soul, which uses a sample from Jackie Wilson's Northern Soul version of the Doors' 'Light My Fire', also covered by Will Young, Jose Feliciano and Amii Stewart - who also did Eddie Floyd's 'Knock on Wood'.

Is it just a fascination for extended degrees of fascination, or should I see a doctor?

Prescience and Bad Taste

It's back to the retrospective reviews of my own postings on mailing lists, and this one from Friday 23 July, 1999, on the subject of Paul McCartney, who my mate Jim was insisting 'is a bloody genius'.

... and therefore invalidated every one of [Jim]'s previous opinions on everything. When my dictatorship comes to fruition, Jim, that man will be tried for his crimes against nature.

I *hate* it when he says in interviews "So I said to John..." when it's just painfully obvious that he didn't. You can hear it on one of the Anthology session recordings when he tries to have a go at John by saying "I'll try to remember, but if I don't it's too bad", and then wusses out by doing a funny voice to mask his petulence. And then he knocks over a glass and John
immediately jumps in with "Paul's broken a glass, broken a glass he's broken today" revealing his calm, wonderous talent and showing Macca up.

On the subject of Peace and Goodwill to All Men:
JL - "War is Over"
PMc - "Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time"

On the subject of their wives:
JL - "Woman"
PMc - The Frog Chorus*

Still, they both married complete dogs who should have stuck to art instead of "having a go" at music.

Oh, and then years later, Macca collaborated with Elvis Costello and in the interviews all we got was "so then I said to Elvis..."

I bet he's waited YEARS to use that phrase - even if it was the wrong Elvis (and yet the right one - in SO many ways).

* Okay, technically speaking, The Frog Chorus was inspired by Linda's dad advising Paul to buy the rights to Rupert Bear and making him rich, but it was a joke just sitting there, pining to be picked up, despite its useless back legs.

Okay, so that last line about useless legs made me wince. How was I to know that Macca would be married to Heather Mills within seven years of writing that, eh?

I'm still not overly fond of Macca, though I work with people who claim he's their favourite Beatle. he'll never be mine, even if he outlives Ringo Starr. Why would I pick him when I can still have 'Scarab' and 'Dung'?

Later on that same day, apparently after a horrible meeting (the weekly status meeting I bet; by this time I was struggling to create enough time for the teams to do a decent job, because all of the 'fat' in the schedules had been slashed down), I backtracked a little and had something nice to say about Paul McCartney. It's a view I'd still stand by today:

McCartney made the Beatles popular. He had an ear for a good tune, a skill for upbeat popular styles and a way of reinventing other people's songs (in the early days) and adapting them to his own methods.

But Lennon made then unique. The moment he lost interest (around the time of the White Album) is when, for me, they stop being interesting and start laying down the template that Paul Wellar would stick to for his entire career (and Oasis, The Verve...)

Quackers

Last night, I returned to a club event that used to be the highlight of my week but has had to do without my absense for three years.

Not much had changed. They still have utterly dreadful acts and a quiz that's possibly only just the acceptable face of bullying (on discovering that one of the contestants had fibbed to get herself on stage, the room shrieked 'Off! Off! Off' until she was offed... as t'were). The walls are still black, apart from a deceptive back wall of mirrors that convinces you you're being eyed up until you approach and realise you were looking at yourself all along. But the good news is, they still have a wonderfully eclectic music policy. Where else will play Suede, Rebel MC and Dexys Midnight Runners in the same set?

One thing had changed in the last three years though - I turned up sober and left sober. I'm both smugly impressed and a little relieved as I met someone who, if pissed, I might have disgraced myself over (I might not have, but right now my mental state isn't really stable enough to take the risk).

A mutual friend told me this morning that said person thought I was 'great'.

Lesson learned - sober might be a good thing. See how long I can keep this up...

Second lesson learned - if a licensed cab company has the sense to lay on people to find you a cab - TAKE A CAB! Don't think 'I'm sure there's a night bus stop somewhere along here'. Unless you want an hour's walk and a chicken burger smothered in chilli sauce.

I Heart Steps!

Monday, July 5, 1999:

Having unilaterally boycotted both Pride and Mardi Gras last year on the grounds that the previous ones just made me miserable I had to be coerced into going this year. Okay, officially I begrudge paying thirteen pounds to sit on grass for two hours, but I *did* enjoy myself. I went on the fairground - okay I went on the biggest wimp-out piss-poor ride and nearly died of fright (two years and a stone in weight have made me a fairground wuss). I also saw the following acts "live": Precious (piss-poor Eurovision failures who proved to us why they only came 14th), Westlife (another boyband), Human League (Euw - tone deaf or what!? Sorry, they're great 'n' all, but those bints cannot sing!) and Steps (who were the best thing EVER!!!!). Shame I had to leave just as Gary Barlow came on. Actually, know, it isn't 'cos I hate Gary Barlow. Every time I see Robbie Williams on the telly I have this mental image of Gary Barlow seething. And foaming at the mouth.

"Course, they all foam at the mouth when I've finished with them." [sorry for that]

I love Steps. I've finally decided it *is* love I feel for them. Especially Claire, who looks like she keeps them all in line. I wish there was a TV show of Steps and I'd watch it every day. It'd be great - Faye Steps gets her hair caught in a revolving door, threatening the group from getting to a live p.a. on time, "H" tries to think of a way out of it and while he strains himself, Claire organises things, persuating Lee to dive in (doing his best Ben Affleck impression) and rescue Faye while Lisa sorts things out with the venue organiser (played by Christopher Biggins).

I've given this far more thought than it deserves.

In fact, I'm currently rewriting "Robots of Death" for Steps.

Claire: "I heard a cry!"
"H" [in a Welsh accent]: "That was meeee!"

[repeat above, but with dance moves and a key change 2 minutes in]

So, WHAT I HAVE LEARNED from this.

Firstly, there is a horrific typo in there - 'know' instead of 'no'. Hateful.

Next - that I felt the need to explain who Westlife were seems just ridiculous now.

And thirdly - of course I was experiencing transference. It wasn't Steps I loved but who I was with that day. Even as I consider what to write next, I've just triple-corrected myself as to what was also happening on that day. I'll just say that, six-and-a-half years on, I clearly still have issues.

What I didn't mention in that posting to the group was that after the Mardi Gras thing I went to a party in West Hampstead, where Gareth R was living at the time. I'd completely forgotten that party until now. Nothing memorable happened, but it was a fun party nonetheless.

So, what happened in the last six years to make be full of nerves and apprehension at parties? Paul's throwing a party here next Saturday for my birthday... and I'm dreading it. Why? WHY?