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02/11/08

 

As a result of domestic pressures, BLUES NIGHT can’t really blog about sitting around in the pub on his own over the last week or so. Sure, there have been one or two drinks after work, but he will not blog about those here, as they’re, er, too close to work.

Oh, and he went in The Wheatsheaf. They are launching a book on Tuesday. A book to commemorate the impending closure. With photos of loads of the regulars. And some people who probably just wanted their photograph taken. Some really good photos, actually. Dunno who the photographer was, but there’s an exhibition of the photos up. Dunno how long for. The Wheatsheaf’s excellent manager was unavailable to be interviewed, so BLUES NIGHT couldn’t get a date for the final Wheatsheaf BLUES NIGHT either. Still, the Tribute is tasting fine and the photos are worth seeing. BLUES NIGHT is going to assume you wouldn’t go as far as actually buying the book if you needed him to tell you it was happening, but maybe you would. Maybe you like photography or something.

So anyway, in terms of things to share, that leaves us with lots of really nice family things Nuclear Family BLUES NIGHT has done over half term, and some arguments and tantrums they’ve had, but then the blog would start looking like a poor imitation of this one. Instead, BLUES NIGHT is, as he writes, electing to go with a different by-now-quite-well-established theme; overheard conversations. And the title of this blog entry shall be

THINGS BLUES NIGHT GOT FROM THE BOOTSALE

Scene One

(BLUES NIGHT is flipping through a box of terrible records. A MAN arrives at his shoulder and touches a battery charger, as if he might be interested in it. This action catches the eye of the BOOTSALE VENDOR.)

BOOTSALE VENDOR: That’s a really good battery charger, that is, mate. You can charge any kind of battery in that.

MAN: Well… nah… you have to use rechargeable batteries…

BOOTSALE VENDOR: No mate, you can use any kind of battery in that charger.

(There is a pause.)

BOOTSALE VENDOR: They don’t catch fire.

(MAN exits.)

Scene Two

(BLUES NIGHT is flipping his way, rather disinterestedly, three or four at a time, through a box of truly awful records. A MIDDLE-AGED LADY starts going through some videos and DVDs impatiently. She is in a hurry. She catches the eye of a BORED TEENAGER sitting in the back of a Vauxhall estate.)

MIDDLE-AGED LADY: Have you got Carmen Jones? My daughter wants Carmen Jones.

BORED TEENAGER: What is it?

MIDDLE-AGED LADY: It’s a film. It’s got black people singing in it. You know, jazz music. You know;

(to the tune of the Puerto Rican people singing about America in West Side Story, but without the word “America.” Really, really loud.)

Lala-la-lala-la-laaaa-la-la… You know the kind of thing.

BORED TEENAGER: No. Don’t think so.

MIDDLE-AGED LADY: Oh, all right. Sorry about the singing.

(She exits.)

Scene Three

(BLUES NIGHT is browsing carefully through a large box of records, 98% of which are awful, the remaining few of which are reasonably interesting. Unfortunately for a MAN WHO WANTS TO BUY A RECORD, the LADY WHO IS SELLING RECORDS WHICH PROBABLY BELONG TO HER THIRTY-SOMETHING-YEAR-OLD-SON has noticed BLUES NIGHT look at the condition of one or two and decided she is sitting on a goldmine of which King Solomon could not have dreamt.)

MAN WHO WANTS TO BUY A RECORD: How much for this one, love?

LADY WHO IS SELLING RECORDS: Oooh, I don’t know. Four quid? What’s it worth to you?

MAN WHO WANTS TO BUY A RECORD: Oh, well. I wouldn’t spend that much. I only buy them at the bootsale if I can get them cheap. I like to get a bargain.

LADY WHO IS SELLING RECORDS: Well, that’s a really good one. That’s a Rolling Stone. Three quid?

(BLUES NIGHT does not need to look up to know that the man will be holding a copy of  Dirty Work.)

MAN WHO WANTS TO BUY A RECORD: Yeah. I like all the Sixties and Seventies stuff. You can get some good stuff sometimes.

(He puts the record down. There is a pause.)

MAN WHO WANTS TO BUY A RECORD: Ha-ha... my mate, yeah? I sent him down the bootsale last week and I said to him, can you look out for any David Bowie albums for me? And he come back… with five David Essex albums! Ha-ha!

(The LADY WHO IS SELLING RECORDS does not laugh. She smiles faintly, as if she knows that David Bowie and David Essex are not the same person. There is a long pause.)

LADY WHO IS SELLING RECORDS: (wistfully) I love David Essex.

26/10/08

The after-effects of BLUES NIGHT IV’s arrival have just landed upon BN Senior’s consciousness like a hammer-blow. Specifically, that he has not been able to attend a FREE concert, about two miles away from the All-New BLUES NIGHT Homestead, given by the performer of that which was probably the finest concert BLUES NIGHT has ever witnessed (OBNIDUSATOSoA*), The Zu-Zu Man, The Night Tripper, ladies and gents, Dr John!

Click here instead if you prefer to see your blues legends riding mules through scrap yards. Interestingly, here is concrete evidence of the Good Doctor’s otherworldly power. BLUES NIGHT Jr. has just observed; “Broken cars! Lotsanlotsa broken cars! Dat man on donkey goan fix dem…”

Actually, BLUES NIGHT did not miss the event completely. BLUES NIGHT and BLUES NIGHT Jr. met at The Festival of New Orleans in The Dome (which is now called the O2 Arena to avoid confusion with either the legendary Birmingham nightclub, or its sister venue, Dome Two) with Family BLUES-NIGHT’s-Best-Mate, and BLUES NIGHT’s other MWHUTWWiaRS (see 05/07) who was also accompanied by his baby daughter. As a result, it was simply impossible for the unfashionably-childless BLUES-NIGHT’s-Friend-Who’s-In-Charge-of-PE, on his arrival, to leave the classic “so this is the crèche, then?” unsaid.

There was some great music to be heard, from the Rebirth Jazz Band - “these really young fellas,” BLUES NIGHT had said to BNFWICoPE, forgetting that the album he had by them dated from the 1980s; Beausoleil, who, unlike most bands as well-established as themselves, have got less 80sish with age; even John Mooney and Bluesiana, who, despite their name, their 80sishness (the sunglasses, the Why-is-the-singer-always-white-and-the-bass-player-a-big-black-man-whose-gut-renders-his-bass-into-a-lapsteel-position? Why is there always a bloody drum solo?), pretty damn good. The appreciation of music was made more challenging by BLUES NIGHT Jr’s regular disappearances into the legs of the crowd, which at least meant that he was taking breaks from exacting crafty violence upon his slightly-younger female near-contemporaries. After losing him completely for several minutes, BLUES NIGHT did the responsible thing and went home. After he’d found him, of course. (Thanks, Mrs BNFWICoPE.)

This has had the resultant effect of BLUES NIGHT not being able to blog about seeing Dr John last night. But, however good he might have been, he surely cannot have been better than he was in the performance awarded the OBNIDUSATOSoA* above. How often has the one musician you are most “into” at that time given a concert in the one venue you would most like to see them play? With tickets only available at the door so you “have to” stand in the queue for some hours with only a bag full of Strongbow Super for company? Which your line manager, who is also the original BNOBMWHUTWWiaRS, has interpreted as doing some work because he’s going to join you near the front of the queue after locking up?

And so it was that later that evening, some ten or twelve years ago, BLUES NIGHT woke up from an apple-happy power-nap to ask BNOBMWHUTWWiaRS, “Where are we?”

To which there could be only one response, “We’re in Ronnie Scott’s… watching Dr John!”

With an ability-to-see much like that simulated in the mule-less YouTube link above, BLUES NIGHT shifted his attention from one player to the next; The Doctor at his crazily-dressed piano, the buttery backing-voxesses, the drums, the percussion, the more drums, the more percussion, the familiar-looking beardy bloke who had just appeared out of nowhere and torn into a filthy guitar solo…

“Zat’s Erig Fugging Clabdon,” BLUES NIGHT observed, without any certainty.

“That is NOT Eric Clapton,” BNOBMWHUTWWiaRS insisted, hysterically.

“Arm telling yer, dat’s Eric…Fuggingclabdon.” And this continued, longer than this page could comfortably accommodate, through the solo. But so carefully was it timed that not one perfectly-formed note was missed. Whoever this Bloke-with-a-beard was, he was playing some evil, EVIL voodoo-swamp-blues, like he’d never been out of the bayous. A moment of magic. Really dirty magic. A moment that came to an end when the song finished, and the good doctor rasped into his feathered microphone, “Airk Clabben pleeeesss.”

To this day, the feeling remains that BNOBMWHUTWWiaRS must have assumed the wondrous guitarist was not Slowhand Himself because he was too good. And BLUES NIGHT can sympathise. Poor old Eric. Not only does he, as Peter Cook once said, have to “play the bloody guitar the whole time,” but he actually comes in for a certain amount of mockery for doing so. Even amongst the blues community. Even on these pages. Well, there is no better assessment of Eric‘s true value, in BLUES NIGHT’s opinion, than that offered by a now-sober BNOBMWHUTWWiaRS, several years after this momentous occasion. “Eric Clapton,” he said, in his sage-like way, “was good for a couple of years in the sixties, and for a couple of minutes in 1997.”

Unlikely as it seems now, Doctor Creaux came back for a second set which was even better than the first. But thoughts of winding-down afterwards, at the late-night Latin club in the upstairs room, were a tad over-optimistic. BLUES NIGHT’s final memory of the evening was being awoken in a cubicle by a disdainful bouncer (did he break the lock or did BN forget to use it?) and asked to “pull up your trousers and leave.”

The next time BLUES NIGHT visited the Doctor, just a few months later, the performance was utterly different. With a backing band that bore a much closer resemblance to Cameo than The Meters (not that there’s anything wrong with Cameo, of course,) he fooled the altogether huger crowd at the Kentish Town Forum into clapping him whenever he got up for a little shuffle (just as those stiffs in The Festival Hall crowd did for Nina Simone years later - if the highpoint of their evening is showing their delight at an old person dancing, they would be better-off gatecrashing weddings and spiking the grandmothers’ drinks) to music which, as most of the punters would surely have told you, was “really funky.” Testament to Mr Rebennack’s versatility it may have been, but it did make BLUES NIGHT hope and pray to see him in a small venue again one day. And he’s still waiting.

Did you see Dr John at the Festival of New Orleans? Was he any good? Or was he “really funky”? Answers on an e-postcard, or on the back of a sealed e-envelope, to the usual address.

18/10/08

Well, it’s been an eventful month-and-a-half. Not only has BLUES NIGHT moved house and had another kid, but… wait for it… he has a new favourite footballer AND a new favourite pub! People disinterested in football but keen on pubs will need to rough it out for the next few paragraphs in order for the analogy to work.

A NEW FAVOURITE FOOTBALLER

BLUES NIGHT had only ever seen Moritz Volz play for an exceedingly youthful Arsenal League Cup side against the Town six or seven years ago. A game in which Ipswich’s winner was scored by Jamie Clapham, who is not only interesting as the only man in creation whose head is more peanutiform than BLUES NIGHT’s own, or even for being one of an incredible two players regularly appearing in the Town’s first eleven in the late nineties whose surname is a massively overrated district of South London, but also for being exactly the kind of player that Ipswich don’t have any more - a southpaw who looked, if he was to have a stunning run of form at the same time as all of the more highly-rated left backs in the country were being struck down by a series of freak injuries, like he might just squeeze into the England squad for a meaningless friendly as an unused sub. If he was a bit younger. And you half-closed your eyes. Volzy is at a similar level, but German.

One’s favourite footballer, if one is an adult, is rarely the footballer who scores the most goals, or can do the most stepovers, or has the most outrageous haircut. BLUES NIGHT likes Volzy because of his amusing website, www.volzy.com, which sets him so far apart from the average footballer BLUES NIGHT couldn’t care less whether he‘s any good. And Volzy likes beards. And he’s the first-ever German to play for the mighty ITFC, at a moment in time coincidental with BLUES NIGHT having finally reached the level of maturity where he has forgiven Germans for killing his grandfather. It was with a spring in his step that BLUES NIGHT went to see Volzy play in a blue shirt for the first time against Charlton. And we were not to be disappointed - our man was an influential figure in the game, scoring the own goal that handed Charlton the three points.

Taking time to consider how The Blues had managed to lose yet another game they’d looked like the only football team in, BLUES NIGHT was able to enjoy a meandering walk home, sampling every pub he felt like sampling between The Valley and the All-New BLUES NIGHT homestead, which were several. In the first, The Pickwick, in Charlton, BLUES NIGHT was treated to this exquisite vignette…

(An oversized, drab South London pub late on Saturday afternoon. Despite the number of people present, and the fact that their rubbish football team has just stolen three points from an even less effective one, the atmosphere is unable to assert itself over that of Old Trafford, which is being projected onto a colossal screen on one dirty wall. Two miserable-looking Charlton fans take seats under the screen, as if to prove their disinterest in the plastic world above. They sit in utter silence for perhaps three minutes before one of them speaks.)

FIRST CHARLTON FAN: So, why do we drink in this shithole?

Most of the pubs in between were those harmless-but-uninteresting types Greenwich seems to specialise in - much nicer than the average South-East London boozer, but dull nevertheless. But the finale was The Morden Arms, which was fantastic. One of those pubs where people in all four corners of the place seem to be involved in the same conversation. Nicely lit, but scruffily turned out. BLUES NIGHT has never felt particularly comfortable in squats, but, for some reason, he likes pubs in which the interior designer appears to have taken The Squat as his or her inspiration - a similar feel to The George on Commercial Road here, but without the haircuts. BLUES NIGHT, he like.

A NEW FAVOURITE PUB

Writing about pubs for the casual reader on the internet may be a foolish way to spend one’s paternity leave. Originally, this blog was supposed to be BLUES NIGHT’s guide to pubs. It got exactly this far.

The Wheatsheaf

“The best atmosphere of any of the Borough Market pubs” says a blackboard outside (probably), quoting Time Out (I think). This is accurate (definitely). Yeah, it’s a bit small. And a bit pricey if you drink imported Czech lager. But it does have the best atmosphere. A proper mix of people go in the Wheatsheaf.

It also has a little garden. If you’re two years old, you can stand on the drinks shelf out there and get a good view of the trains going past. The same trains they once said the pub, the market and the rest were about to be sacrificed for. BLUES NIGHT reckons it was just a conspiracy, that ran something like this;

RAILTRACK: We need bigger railway tracks, so train services can be slightly less terrible.

TRUSTEES OF BOROUGH MARKET circa 1998: Okay. The market’s empty and so are the pubs. Give us a fiver and you can flatten the lot.

LOADS OF PEOPLE WITH KIDS IN BUGABOOS: “Oooooh, Borough Market’s just so unique though. They can’t possibly knock it all down for a viaduct. I’d better get myself down there and buy some cheese to show my support.”

(The next day)

TRUSTEES OF BOROUGH MARKET: Actually, we’ve got a few quid now, so it’s going to cost you rather more, Mr Railtrack.

RAILTRACK: Well, we don’t need to destroy all of it. Just the crappy bit without the queues.

TRUSTEES OF BOROUGH MARKET: Okay, you can have that for a tenner, as long as we’re allowed to let people think the whole thing’s still under threat so they keep coming and buying cheese.

RAILTRACK: You’ve got a deal. Oooh, that cheese looks nice. Is it organic?

BLUES NIGHT wasn’t there or anything. He’s just guessing. And, for the record, Mrs BLUES NIGHT’s ex-nearest-market-stall-neighbour-who-has-little-to-thank-the-trustees-for-after-their-repeated-efforts-to-get-rid-of-him-because-of-his-refreshingly-un-Borough-Marketesque-chip-van-type-fare-but-he-knows-the-market-inside-out-and-has-one-of-the-best-examples-of-a-non-sequitur-you-ever-saw-“If-you-haven’t-tried-us-yet-then-you-will-never-know-how-good-we-can-be”-running-down-each-side-of-his-van says that BLUES NIGHT’s theory is bollocks.

Anyway, back to the Wheatsheaf. A proper boozer, with a top manager, top staff, top punters and top beer. Also the only pub on the market which is dependable for watching the football. What are you waiting for?

The Market Porter

Ten years ago, you could go in The Porter of a weekday evening and find it empty. A large collection of footy mags from the 1970s hung behind the bar. It is so not like that anymore, BLUES NIGHT sometimes wonders if it’s the same place. Since then, it has survived a (relatively) understated expansion with its cred intact, still being the persons-who-claim-drinking-beer-as-a-hobby’s pub of choice in the locality. Big bar, lots of staff, loads of different ales, occasional morning opening, good spot on the corner for 21^st Century “standing-around-in-the-street-style” drinking. It’s a great pub, the Porter. BLUES NIGHT won’t hear a word said against it.

And that was as far as BLUES NIGHT’s guide to pubs ever got. BLUES NIGHT quickly arrived at the understanding that, realistically, no-one gives a shit for his opinion on pubs since it’s quite obvious that he likes all of them. Except the Silver Buckle.

BLUES NIGHT is nearly getting to his point. As intimated above, things are changing in the pub-likeability-as-perceived-by-BLUES-NIGHT stakes. First and foremost, The Wheatsheaf actually is closing now. Whether it will reopen remains to be seen, but its proximity to the too-narrow railway has at least sealed its short-term fate. The licensees and the excellent staff are preparing to open up in a nearby elsewhere, although the exact location of that elsewhere is a closely-guarded secret. Will there ever be The Wheatsheaf, as it is now, again? BLUES NIGHT doubts it.

So what of BLUES NIGHT’s new favourite pub? Well, before the move, it was [pub name removed for not-wanting-to-be-murdered reasons]. This was forever sullied by stumbling upon a wake there a few weeks back. Daylight, about five pm on a weekday. BLUES NIGHT would never, ever speculate about the character who had his (or, though it’s massively unlikely, her) funeral that day. But believe BLUES NIGHT when he says that the attendance at that occasion was comprised almost entirely of the most foul-mouthed and violent-seeming characters he has seen collected together in one place, like, ever. Rarely has BLUES NIGHT heard swearwords used with such passion and commitment. Or regularity. The metronomic rhythm of the words fuck and cunt was almost hypnotic. The conversational theme of hurting people was focused upon with such unerring devotion, BLUES NIGHT was expecting a camera to come rolling along catching one long tracking shot for Scorsese‘s new film about the South London criminal underworld. With Ciro Citterio doing the wardrobe. Yuck. Such an experience shouldn’t be allowed to spoil our feelings for the pub, but the gratitude that one feels for leaving a place with both of one’s ears intact has to be paid for somehow.

So BLUES NIGHT’s new favourite pub is The Royal Albert, on the corner of New Cross Road and Florence Road. It’s got good beer, friendly staff, comfortable chairs, conversational punters, a regular jam session featuring people who can actually play (although BLUES NIGHT suspects they have all been cheating by studying music at Goldsmiths), was once a venue called The Paradise Bar, which BLUES NIGHT clearly remembers being the background for an NME Oasis cover in the early nineties with an unusually shit pun, even for them, underneath… and it’s near our new house. And all of that was before yesterday, when BLUES NIGHT went there with three generations of Family BLUES NIGHT and had the best roast he’s had in a pub since he can’t remember when. Maybe ever. And that is a superlative used with the Official BLUES NIGHT I-don’t-use-superlatives-all-that-often seal of approval.* So, yes, the best roast BLUES NIGHT’s had in a pub. And, yes, BLUES NIGHT’s new favourite pub. But that doesn’t mean BLUES NIGHT thinks it’s the best. With about ten thousand in London to choose from, at least one percent of which are all very different from each other, how can there be a best? You can have a favourite, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best. Same as with footballers, see?

*Not a guarantee of anything.

26/08/08

Wicked. BLUES NIGHT just burned some loser. Not ‘burned’ in the Bukka White sense of the word - the “I had to burn a guy a little and they gave me time down on Parchman Farm” sense of the word, but the “I burned him, by which I mean to say that I rode my bike quicker than he rode his” sense of the word. No, BLUES NIGHT likes to think that he’s Livin’ the Blues, but he also fully understands that killing people because you’re a bit cheesed off with them is entirely inappropriate in 21^st Century South East London. If you’re over 25.

During the complex negotiations involved in moving FAMILY BLUES NIGHT to premises larger than BLUES NIGHT TOWERS, there has been time to drink alone, but not to blog about it as well. Exchanges, observations and stolen snatches of other people’s conversations far more blogworthy than half the crap on this page have taken place, been made and been snickered at, but BLUES NIGHT has a professional backlog that he gets paid to worry about - this amateur publog backlog is going to have to go in the big log shredder thing that Steve Buscemi got killed in on the telly the other night.*

There is, however, time for a shout for the old bar in The George - for once, BLUES NIGHT reckons FancyaPint have got it wrong, except that they have said The Old Bar is the best bit, which it is, but the rest of the pub ain’t bad either. Maybe they need to go at the right time (which, as all self-respecting publoggers know, is When All The Smunts Are At Work.) Sat there entirely alone, save for the memories of birthdays past and feeding BLUES NIGHT JR. directly from a packet of Tesco Sliced Roast Chicken by the fire one weekday afternoon, BLUES NIGHT reflected that if The Old Bar in The George were a pub unto itself, it would probably be BLUES NIGHT’S favourite pub in London.

Also worth a shout is The Miller of Mansfield, not just because BLUES NIGHT took this colourful photograph there, not even because he managed, on this most recent visit, to elbow his way into a conversation which had, up until that moment, been enjoyed by some vaguely attractive young women (as it is every beardy middle-aged man drinking on his own’s responsibility so to do) about how it is quite normal in many cultures for heterosexual men to hold hands while walking, but because The Miller claims the irrelevant-to-just-about-everyone-except-BLUES-NIGHT title of Only Pub Between The Borough Market and BLUES NIGHT TOWERS That Used To Be Dreadful But Is Now Quite Nice, If You Like That Kind of a Thing.

So, anyway, back to this evening. BLUES NIGHT had locked his bike outside in order to make BLUES NIGHT TOWERS look slightly less squalid and pokey to the prospective purchaser ,who then couldn’t even be bothered to turn up. So, instead of just carrying it back up the stairs, BLUES NIGHT decided that he owed it to himself, but more importantly, you, faithful publog reader, to get on his bike and visit some Fancyapint 5-pint-rated pubs, and blog about them. First he went to The Jerusalem Tavern, where he has been several times before, to say nothing of the fact that there is more Waveney water in his blood than in a cask of any St. Peter’s Brewery Beer. Tonight was one of those rare occasions when you can get a seat, relax and enjoy the beer. And then, less importantly, notice that everyone is speaking German except for you. BLUES NIGHT’S REVIEW: Fantastic pub. Go there immediately.

Then BLUES NIGHT took a swing at a pub he’d never known existed before. Ye Olde Mitre Tavern is almost entirely hidden in its alleyway on Hatton Garden, even though it is virtually next to the shop in which BLUES NIGHT paid about thirty quid for a poxy leather strap that in no way suited the seventies watch he had bought. Despite the fact that he had never wanted to wear a watch again after seeing Peter Fonda chuck his on the ground in Easy Rider when he was a teenager. This unfortunate situation eventually being resolved when he bought an expensive new stainless steel strap for the watch, that did suit it, several weeks before the watch - which, to be honest, had never really worked properly anyway - stopped completely.

Anyway, BLUES NIGHT’S REVIEW: Apart from really loud young people - (quite unexpected - BLUES NIGHT was in possession of one of just two fully adult beards in the place), one large group of whoms were talking about self-defence moves and their ancestry (the students’, not the moves’), and the others were a couple out for an early-stages date - the young gentleman turned up very late and very drunk (kudos) and proceeded to tell his companion about the time he “went down on” a bloke a year and a half ago. BLUES NIGHT hates that euphemism. Is it an Americanism? BLUES NIGHT suspects that it is, and even though much of the language that BLUES NIGHT loves best is intrinsically American, BLUES NIGHT still hates that euphemism. The young lady, however, seemed fairly happy. They listened to her I-pod, one earphone each - it’s a Fantastic pub. Go there immediately. BLUES NIGHT also noticed that it has an outside toilet. He ruminated on the notion that he liked pubs with outside toilets - The Old Bar at The George being a perfect example - because they reminded him of the country pubs he cut his teeth in. The Bildeston Beer Festiva1 1990, perhaps.

And then BLUES NIGHT got on his bike to ride home. This was an entirely brilliant thing. This was going to be the majority of the ride BLUES NIGHT used to make every week, home from The Calthorpe (a fine, fine pub) back when he used to play football in the Project. Wow. That sounds well urban.

There’s only one bridge to go across when approaching from here late on a weekday evening, and one of the more interesting things about BLUES NIGHT is that he went over The Wobbly Bridge while it was a wobbly bridge. His observations? He can’t say that he noticed it being particularly wobbly. But what got it the rep was that first day when loads of people walked in step across it. BLUES NIGHT learned in primary school that soldiers had to break step going across bridges in order to avoid destroying them. Not quite as exciting, but strangely satisfying, is that, even today, if you cycle across The Wobbly Bridge, which you’re not really supposed to do, at a decent speed, late at night, when it’s quiet, each individual slat thing beneath you goes clang-clang, all the way across the Thames, and, altogether, it makes a right bloody racket.

Phew, this has been a long entry, hasn’t it? You still hanging on in there?

So BLUES NIGHT is on the home straight when some bloke rides his bicycle straight out in front of BLUES NIGHT a little disrespectfully. Sure, he got to the junction first, and nobody really gives way on their bike in the back streets of South London late at night unless they are likely to get hit by a motor vehicle if they don’t. BLUES NIGHT had to slow down a bit, but that was okay, because they were approaching a red light at the big crossroads anyway.

Whereupon the slightly disrespectful bloke, who was wearing a tailored brown leather jacket and riding a bike designed for modern city streets, but with certain traditionalist aesthetics borne in mind, moved out to the right hand side of the lane. BLUES NIGHT assumed he was going to turn, of course, and so he moved slowly past him on the inside as the lights changed. But what was that? The strange man was going straight ahead down Grange Road, and he was going like the clappers. BLUES NIGHT could only watch, dumbfounded, as he pedalled for all he was worth to establish a position in front of BLUES NIGHT, moving alongside the kerb.

But then, like Bradley Wiggins in the Madison, feeling the exertion as well as the self-satisfaction of double gold already in the bag, he eased off the pressure. And then jumped out of his skin when BLUES NIGHT’S extremely noisy hubs crackled behind him. And then his shoulders slumped, and BLUES NIGHT almost felt sorry as he flew past him. But BLUES NIGHT was getting a bit asthmatic to be honest, and just wanted to get out of sight before turning off.

We’d better stop now. BLUES NIGHT was feeling pretty psyched with the adrenaline and all that when he started this, but now it just seems rather pathetic. See you next time…

 

*Wooo. Murder gets two mentions in two paragraphs. Last time it was money. Well, it is a BLUES website. Next time it will be sex. Hopefully.

1 COMMENT, added 18 September 2008 at 6:69

OMG, Grandad! You are, like, soooooooooo crap!

It's an iPod, not a fricking I-Pod!

Loser.

03/08/08

BLUES NIGHT No.3 has been and gone. Are any of us the richer for it? Financially, of course not, as it is a not-for-profit labour-of-love thang. The idea is that we are enriched culturally by the experience, but in his post-alcoholic depression, BLUES NIGHT has found himself wondering whether BLUES NIGHTS are worth all the bloody hassle.

Two people who certainly were not enriched by their visit to BLUES NIGHT No.3 were a pair of CRAP THIEVES, who managed to draw attention to themselves by trying to steal the BLUES NIGHT SOUND SYSTEM while it was playing. BN has struggled emotionally with not bringing records to the last two BLUES NIGHTS. But not as much as he struggled physically with bringing records to fifteen years’ worth of previous occasions, and so it was with a certain regret as well as a spring in his step that BLUES NIGHT started recording his dusty old vinyl discs onto MP3s, hundreds of which fit onto a memory card the size of his little finger nail. This has facilitated the LIVER THAN EVER BEFORE BLUES NIGHTS which we (mostly) enjoy today.

But as all these tracks have been chosen for their suitability and play happily one after the other, it means that BLUES NIGHT is not DJing any more and is safe to enjoy his bartab. In theory. One hole in the theory is that BLUES NIGHT ends up so shedded he finds himself questioning whether he had a good time or not. Another is that, as unlovely as a phone full of MP3s is in comparison to a box full of Arhoolie, Yazoo, Herwin, RBF, Folkways, etc, etc, it is eminently more stealable. If stealable means someone wants to steal it, rather than that they can, as the CRAPNESS of these thieves is difficult to quantify.

And so it came to pass that the music went off. BLUES NIGHT wandered over to his table to find a young couple sitting there looking rather sheepish. Rather off the pace of the game, BLUES NIGHT enquired politely if they knew where his phone had disappeared to in the last few seconds. Before long it was a battle of who could be crapper - the thieves at thieving or BLUES NIGHT at spotting obvious thieves. Luckily, BLUES NIGHT’s Close Friend Whom BLUES NIGHT Was Too Drunk to Identify with Any Accuracy After the Event was on hand to explain that these nice young people had it, and they handed it over, picking up a number of items off the floor before leaving at speed.

“They just took quite a lot of bags with them,” observed BNCFWBNWTDtIwAAAtE, “were they yours?”

It doesn’t feel over-defensive to explain that BLUES NIGHT is an expert at looking after his records and his guitar (if not his phone) in the most drunken circumstances, but cannot be expected to know about other people’s bags. Luckily, the Wheatsheaf’s truly excellent manager was on hand to chase them across the market and retrieve the bags with a smorgasbord of threatening language. I don’t think we’ll be seeing those young urchins again. And BLUES NIGHT wouldn’t recognise them if he did.

 

23/07/08

It’s been a long time, but don’t worry, BLUES NIGHT has not lost the love for publogging so early in the game. You won't want to read about his having been busy at work again, so read instead that TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS.

And BLUES NIGHT is celebrating a RECORD END-OF-TERM BOOZE HAUL.

Some other teachers, and possibly some of the generous parents directly responsible for BLUES NIGHT’s liquid good fortune, may feel a little sickened to see that he lined them up greedily, rubbing his hands together like Fagin in the Year 6 production. But BLUES NIGHT has his reasons, which are these;

1) In the absence of recent, decent-quality pub experience, BLUES NIGHT has only this booze to speak about.

2) Well, he did go to a pub recently, but it’s too close to school to blog about it.

3) And he stayed out so late that he was delivered with a Domestic Drinking Ultimatum the next day.

4) And according to the terms of the aforementioned DDU, he needs to make the BOOZE HAUL last for the full summer holidays.

5) And you are now his witness.

All the more reason to get himself back in the afternoon almost-empty pub underworld that is the publog’s true domain.

See you there.

05/07/08

BLUES NIGHT was too damn busy to write his publog last weekend. Working (again - think of that husky or St. Bernard below, who’s just got a Bentley on HP even though he’s still paying off his student loan, and is having to supplement his working dog income by cold-calling potential fax roll customers, while picking blackberries, holding a golf sale sign) at first, but then enjoying musical moments that Glastonbury would have found tough to match.

On Saturday, he was treated to the pint-sized, pub-based mini-fest that is Gladstonbury. Coincidentally, it happened to be that The Gladstone Arms, a brilliant little pub round the back of Borough Tube, was being manned by an old colleague, and that Gladstonbury was being co-ordinated by James McArthur, a very enjoyable singer-songwriter type BLUES NIGHT knows quite well from back in the day. (Well, 2005, when BLUES NIGHT was the embryonic Head-nods and Foot-taps at The Southwark Tavern (still worth a visit if you’re incapable of walking to one of the multitude of better pubs within spitting distance.))

Top of the Gladstonbury bill were Sid Arthur, who appear to be invisible to internet searches, which only adds to the unsettling feeling caused by their combination of callow youth, incredible musical adeptness, and use of equipment that BLUES NIGHT couldn’t afford even though he’s nearly old enough to be their Dad(s). Were they genetically engineered by Simon Cowell in a laboratory, using Fairport Convention’s ringpieces, the Chilli Peppers’ barse hair and Ozric Tentacles’ hash-filled fingernail clippings? Does anyone know? Answers in an e-mail, please, to barnes_777@hotmail.com

How to top an event of that quality? With the gig to top them all.

Pentangle’s 40^th-anniversary-of-recording-sweet-child concert at the Royal Festival Hall. BLUES NIGHT, Mrs BLUES NIGHT, BLUES NIGHT’s Best Mate and BLUES NIGHT’s Other Best Mate That He Used To Work With In A Record Shop. In a box. With lots of lager. Brilliant.

Photo courtesy BNBM

BLUES NIGHT’s Favourite Member of Pentangle Status changed recipients perhaps a dozen times during the evening, but worthy of special mentions were Terry’s incredible drumming and backing vox, Danny’s bow work and tune-downs, John on the sitar (how did he get back up off the floor?), Bert… being Bert Jansch, and Jacqui’s voice, which, after a John Lennon lifetime, still sounds like an angel playing a flute full of jelly in a crack house. Or something like that.

After this belated realisation of Jacqui’s greatness, there was no more appropriate denouement to the evening than overhearing this snippet of conversation in the bog;

SLIGHTLY PISSED-UP OLD GRANDAD: It’s amazing to see them back together after all this time. Not something you’ve seen before, I suppose?

SOFTLY-SPOKEN YOUNG MAN: Well, actually, I have... Jacqui’s my Mum.

BLUES NIGHT could not believe his luck, and skilfully alerted BLUES NIGHT’s Best Mate to this exciting situation - Jacqui McShee’s son, captive in the lavatories.

“BULLSHIT,” growled BNBM, with rather more drunken aggressiveness than is absolutely necessary in the Festival Hall toilets. “You’re not Jacky McVee’s son,” he added, leaning in towards him and doing up his flies as he made this challenge.

“McShee,” BLUES NIGHT interjected helpfully, “course he is. Look at his face.” By now, from the speed at which McShee Junior was washing his hands, it was apparent that he wasn’t too arsed if we believed him or not.

But BNBM had the bit between his teeth now. “Are you really Jaggy McGhee’s son?”

“Err-mmm” he replied, but he was already dutifully answering BLUES NIGHT’s incisive question about why John Renbourn looks so much older than the others.

Photo courtesy BNBM

“I think it’s because he’s the only one whose doctor hasn’t stopped him from drinking.”

Rock and roll. And folk and jazz. And blues.

And then he was off across that iconic carpet, before he had to listen to his mother referred to as John O’Shea.

21/06/08

This week BLUES NIGHT has achieved one of his greatest ambitions. He finally has a reputation as a problem drinker. On arrival at The Woolpack’s bar for his export elevenses, he was met with a level gaze from a very well-presented and serious-looking man who may or may not be the manager and may or may not originate from one of the more Easterly of European Union Member States.

BLUES NIGHT quite understands that drinking problems are not seen as quite such a source of mirth in other European nations (particularly Poland, for example) as they are here in dear old Blighty, but if the gentleman wants to make London his home, perhaps he would do well to be more accepting of our cultural traditions.

“May I have a pint of Staropramen, please?” BLUES NIGHT enquired, with all his well-learned politesse.

“On one condition,” replied the bar steward curtly. “That you do not fall asleep on the sofa this time. I have woken you three times in the last month.*”

BLUES NIGHT grinned, utterly delighted. But the other man was not even slightly amused. And he had all the beer. “Oh. I am terribly sorry about that. I have been working jolly hard recently.” The barman, if it were possible, looked even more unimpressed than he had before. “Honestly, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

*In case any of BLUES NIGHT JR’s grandparents ever bother to read this, BLUES NIGHT feels this is a slight exaggeration. It was probably twice.

OR WILL IT? HOW LONG DO YOU  THINK IT WILL BE BEFORE BLUES NIGHT NEXT FALLS ASLEEP IN A PUB DURING THE HOURS OF DAYLIGHT? There’s a free pint at a future BLUES NIGHT for the sender of the closest estimate to barnes_777@hotmail.com

1 comment, added 23 June 2008 at 10:28:

I estimate there will be a lot people asleep in the Wheatsheaf on Sunday 27th July.

Do I get a pint for this?

BAR JAZZ

14/06/08

“No, I’ll tell you what, don’t worry. I’ll come and meet you. If you turn left out of Bermondsey tube, there’s a pub at the traffic lights called The Gregorian. It’s not as dodgy as it looks.”

BLUES NIGHT’S big brother had been sat on a train at Shenfield (Shenners, BLUES NIGHT heard a local call it once), awaiting the resolution of a power failure. After being mislead by a misinformed driver on the tannoy one time too many, he’d lost patience and asked if he could stay at BLUES NIGHT towers, since he had to come all the way back to London the next day anyway. Putty in BLUES NIGHT’S hands, he’d fallen for the old it’s-too-complicated-to-give-you-directions-over-the-phone-I'll-meet-you-in-the-pub ruse.

And, despite the odd punter who has that look in his eyes which suggests he was abandoned in the woods as an infant and raised by a family of wolves with exceptionally low moral standards, the Greg (as BLUES NIGHT heard a local call it once) is not, in BLUES NIGHT’S experience, all that dodgy. It doesn’t look  dodgy either, especially not on a fine, sunny evening in June.

BLUES NIGHT didn’t even flinch as his big brother spoke in that slightly-too-loud-for-a-public-place voice he has inherited from Big Mama BLUES NIGHT. About mortgages. BN kept one eye on a bunch of disorganised Italians being put to the sword by some devastatingly effective Lowlanders, and listened. Because BLUES NIGHT is actually interested in mortgages, for the timebeing.

It gradually became apparent that there was a customer on the premises who had considerably fewer hang-ups about his voice level than BLUES NIGHT’S big brother. Only he wasn’t talking about mortgages. He was talking about female anatomy and sexual practices in slang terms, and he wasn’t using these signifiers in a positive way. BLUES NIGHT deduced that he was rather cross with one of the women behind the bar, which was confirmed when he lobbed a pint glass into that general vicinity.

BLUES NIGHT’S big brother lives in a very small village, and so he can be excused for asking the rather sensible question, “do you think we should leave?”

But BLUES NIGHT has put a decade of hard graft into living in South East London, and calmly replied, “we’ll finish our drinks first.” This was duly rewarded as the rather cross man was soon ejected by some equally cross, considerably larger men.

After this departure, BN’s BB happily returned to his discourse on financial matters, but was soon aware BN was not listening very well. BLUES NIGHT explained, “Sorry. I just want to make sure he doesn’t put anything through that window you’re sitting under.”

“Er- do you think we should move further in?”

BLUES NIGHT considered the logic of this. One minute ago, he wanted to go outside. Now he wants to go further in. Relative to the position of the rather cross man however, this was good logic. Too good for BLUES NIGHT.

“Nah. It’s alright. He’s gone now.”

KA-FWOOOOK-AAAAASHHHH!!!!

A large item came through another window. BLUES NIGHT thinks it was a chair.

07/06/08

This week BLUES NIGHT has enjoyed massive success at The Wheatsheaf's Wacky Races Night, worked like a dog - a really hardworking one, perhaps a husky or a St Bernard - and discovered the irony of ironies as he prepares to leave SE1 for pastures cheaper.

The Wacky Races were actually last week, but it was not until this that BLUES NIGHT discovered he had backed a winner - a repeated winner in the form of The Creepy Coupe, expertly handled by the Gruesome Twosome. They actually crossed the line among the first three in four - count ‘em - of the ten randomly-chosen episodes, winning BLUES NIGHT loads of posh stuff from the market and twenty pounds of FREE BEER from The Rake, which [this statement has been temporarily removed, awaiting verification].

Not that BLUES NIGHT had resented handing over twenty quid of his hard-earned as all profits were going to Great Ormond Street, but he never expected such a bountiful return. Massive props go out to the Sheaf’s manager for his amazing hard sell talents.

We won’t talk about work this week. It would be much more interesting to explain the irony of ironies. BLUES NIGHT likes three things. Blues, The Blues, and Booze, which is commonly to be found in pubs.

Five minutes’ walk from BLUES NIGHT TOWERS is the Victoria, which BLUES NIGHT and Mrs. BLUES NIGHT visited for one drink in 1998. It was very dark and empty. They decided it was awful and never returned. Last week, at the beginning of BLUES NIGHT and family’s antepenultimate month in the district, it was discovered that fancyapint.com, providers of all the expert pub info linked to from here, rated the pub very highly. So BLUES NIGHT returned on Thursday afternoon to find it is a beautiful, charming, proper, Proper Pub that he has missed ten years’ worth of liver damage opportunities in. Gutted.

31/05/08

This week BLUES NIGHT has received a parking ticket outside his own house, learned more than he ever wanted to about mortgages, cleaned some mould off the bathroom ceiling, ridden his bike, listened to records and drunk beer.

The stock-in-trade expression, used for the first climb of Leith Hill in the Spring, desperately standing up off the saddle and feeling the back tyre spin in the mud, used to be “I feel like Paul Gascoigne in August,” but that simply doesn’t do BLUES NIGHT’s lack of fitness justice. Perhaps the second Tanglefoot in The Old Nun's Head was not such a good idea. But the idea of rolling back down Cox’s Walk with another few pints in the tank kept BLUES NIGHT going, on to The Dulwich Wood House.

It’s always a surprise to BLUES NIGHT that within the grand scale of the Wood House, or its fragrant garden with its well-fed squirrels, the interested listener can appreciate some of the finest industrial-strength foul language practised in South London. With too few punters to pay the wages of the one bartender managing the cavernous premises, there was still, as before, enough filth and profanity to make a Bermondsey docker blush. We should all learn to enjoy this fine old tradition before they bring in the ban.

Half Term is a time when BLUES NIGHT feels entirely justified in going to pubs on his own, as all his friends are at work. These are circumstances in which it is most rewarding not to have any arranged companionship as there really is a better standard of drinker out on a weekday afternoon. Thus, a Wednesday lunchtime visit to The Wheatsheaf to set a date for BN3 meant that the BLUES NIGHT bladder was refilling too damn quickly to walk home in one sustained effort, necessitating stops at The Britannia and The Marigold (far too gritty to have nice things written about it on the web) en route.

Sadly, a refreshing pint of wife beater was already running with condensation on The Britannia’s bar before BLUES NIGHT realised he didn’t have any cash, and there’s a ten pound minimum on cards in there. What better place for that to happen? Having waited some time for an excuse to drink some of their single malts, BLUES NIGHT chose a couple from the tail end of the alphabet so the lady didn’t have to reach up onto a really high shelf. The Britannia is only open on weekdays, and this is what BLUES NIGHT does instead of going on holiday. Interestingly enough, it seems he’s not the only one. A very big man at the bar said that a young South African was in every day, steadily working his way down the scores of weird names on the three blackboards.

BLUES NIGHT mused that a young person from the Southern Hemisphere would surely rather save up the extortionate profits made on these Dad Drinks over a bar in London and explore the Highlands and Islands to enjoy the booze in context, against a backdrop of lochs and bens and funny little ponies. But apparently not. Maybe he hasn’t got enough time and should actually be painting his ceiling as well.

24/05/08

Right. About time this blog got started properly. This must be done, according to international law, within the time it takes BLUES NIGHT Jr. to watch Brum. (Why all this concern about hoodies when it is clearly the wearers of Hawaiian shirts who represent the true menace to society?)

This week, BLUES NIGHT has given a presentation on Sex and Relatonship Education in the primary school for concerned parents, nosed around a high-security government building, and drunk quite a lot of beer. On a school night. Let’s rock, people.

The sex meeting went pretty well, in the circumstances. Circumstances being that BLUES NIGHT had not read through his PowerPoint very well, leaving some hideous typos (‘from childhood, through adolescence, into childhood’) and things that sounded ‘wrong’ as they say nowadays (‘children will explore the subject through discussion, reflection and role play’) in addition to the fact that BLUES NIGHT was clearly more concerned to get out to watch the Champions League final than any of the punters (a dozen mums and a gay dad), who had chosen to be there. BLUES NIGHT, erm, hadn’t.

The football was very rewarding, too. What better result is possible than Drogba being sent off, Ronaldo taking a laughably poor penalty, Terry crying all night, and Abramovich resolving to waste even more of his ill-gotten wealth next season? I know, I know, Europe’s top hundred-or-so clubs being disqualified for illegal transfer payments and the trophy being awarded to The Blues* by default. Maybe next season.

On Thursday, BLUES NIGHT and twenty-two worryingly-well-behaved-what-the-hell-are-they-plotting kids visited Portcullis House, the building across Bridge Street from the Houses of Parliament, built because “the existing building had so little space, some MPs were working on desks in the corridor.” BLUES NIGHT was extremely disappointed none of his charges put their hands up to say “Yeah? So what? Have these MPs seen a primary school recently?”

The new building cost a quarter of a billion pounds, “which was quite a lot of money ten years ago,” BLUES NIGHT explained to the eager children.

After returning to school with nearly as many children as had set out, BLUES NIGHT celebrated with an exotic cocktail, four parts Stella to five parts Kronenbourg, priced at a reassuringly expensive thirty quid. This week’s grateful recipient of the money BLUES NIGHT should be saving to re-house his family was The Golden Heart on Commercial St. It needs to turn its music down, but BLUES NIGHT knows better than to try and tell the landlady anything, from back when he worked round the corner seven years ago.

BLUES NIGHT went home and tested a friend’s assertion that Sign ‘o’ the Times would be better commuted to single-album-length, while also testing the depth of BLUES NIGHT Jr’s sleep, by playing all four sides at a steadily increasing volume. The test found no audible faults whatsoever and the proposition null and void.

Right, time’s nearly up. Brum’s knocked both Hawaiies into an old-fashioned baby’s pram. No Bugaboos in the big town. Maybe the residents don’t feel the need to offset their guilt at how much they get paid for doing so little by spending hundreds of pounds on unnecessarily high-quality baby accessories. Let’s all move there.

*Meaning ITFC, not, for once, the only music that really counts. And definitely not Chelsea.

Just realised I have mentioned money in this entry about half-a-dozen times. Scary.

17/05/08

This week BLUES NIGHT has been invigilating over completely pointless national tests and suffering from diarrhoea.

Not much of a blog, I know, but it's a start.