OCCUPIED COUNTRY

(S)he's Out of my Life...

So, Neil Young's still rockin' in the free world and still sounding good. We had a great day, the sun shone on Nottingham – a place I can’t recall ever visiting before – and the hotel we chose was clean, cheap and central. First off, after a quick shower, we crossed the road and sauntered around the Arboretum in the summer sunshine. It was beautiful: fountains, bandstands, families….did I mention the sunshine? Oh yes that lucky ol’ Sun can certainly make a difference.

After a while we ambled through the town centre before settling on a canal side pub that sold real ale and had a decent menu. We were fairly close to the venue and we soon spotted Neil’s audience. Rock tribes, each with their own idiosyncrasies are funny. In this case there was a lot of overly long hair wreathing wrinkled faces, tour t-shirts (mostly black) and an above average sprinkling of hats. I guess it’s better to fade out than to burn away – eh Neil?.

Anyway, after the grub we found ourselves in a cracking real ale pub that I sadly can’t remember the name of. I had a pint of something local, dark and nutty. I could’ve handled a few more of them, it was just a shame that we couldn’t stay for more but time was passing and Shakey was calling…

Here’s the setlist:

Hey Hey My My (Into The Black)
Mansion On The Hill
Are You Ready For The Country
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Pocahontas
Words
Cinnamon Girl
Mother Earth
Don't Let It Bring You Down
Comes A Time
On The Way Home
Burned
Heart Of Gold
Old Man
Down By The River
Get Behind The Wheel
Rockin' In The Free World
Encore

A Day In The Life

Now by any standards that’s a pretty good selection of his best work but, having seen some of his other sets that fans have posted I was slightly miffed that I hadn’t heard The Needle and the Damage Done, Like a Hurricane, Cortez the Killer and a few others. Silly, given what he did perform, but I was left with that old ‘grass is greener’ feeling as we repaired to a nearby boozer to discuss the finer points of the show.

He can still do it though – as you may have seen if you caught him on the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage – and it is good to see that he is treating his back catalogue with the respect it deserves.

A Day in the Life’s a bit pointless though.

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And then one of the World’s best professional weirdos breathed his last. Wacko Jacko’s heart must have had enough, because it stopped. And when it stopped the schmaltz fest began. Sheesh but there are some strange people in the world. There were reports of fans committing suicide to be with him in heaven, although I’ve not actually seen any corroborated so they could apocryphal but…..well it wouldn’t surprise you would it? Even the more grounded were out in the streets crying their eyes out for a man they had never met. What’s to do with people? I can honestly say that I don’t know anyone who has ever sobbed uncontrollably in public after hearing of the death of a celebrity (or even, on one memorable occasion, a princess.) I doubt if they’ve even shed a small tear in the privacy of their own homes. Sure I’ve been touched by the deaths of folk I admire – Lennon, Zappa, Sinatra etc., but I’ve never run outside screaming with anguish and giving snot-filled interviews to any camera crew I can find.

Then came the ‘close friends’ who eulogised with such buttock-clenchingly embarrasing displays of grief that you couldn’t help but laugh. Third rate R’n’Bers, washed up movie stars and the industry’s rentaquotes all eager to prove they were more ‘devastated than the rest. All trying to boost their careers in the reflected ‘glory’ of the so-called ‘King of Pop’. Unedifying.

The following week saw the inevitable tabloid frenzy as headline after headline proclaimed shady doings or no shady doings. ‘Experts’ were consulted, ‘close friends’ questioned and facts invented to feed the mighty media machine as the Michael Jackson Memorial drew closer.

The BBC felt it had to cover it – why? I’ll never know. Pop star dies. Is buried. End. Of. But no, Auntie wheeled out the increasingly bizarre Paul Gambacinni to cover the whole spectacle as we were ‘treated’ to the sight of a junior Jacko breaking down in tears. The fact that the poor kid loved and missed her father was on the front of newspapers and broadcast on TV and radio the next day. In what way was that ‘news’?

But what of the artistic legacy? Undoubtedly MJ produced three fine albums in the late 70s early 80s that contain some great music but the ‘King of Pop’? I must’ve missed something. Since his death I’ve beeen told he wrote great songs like Thriller - he didn’t, although he did write others like Billie Jean and Beat it. I reckon he earned more from his ownership of the Beatles’ back catalogue than he did from his own stuff. Since his death I’m told he made the greatest pop video of all time – he didn’t, he danced in it and lip synced. Jon Landis made the video. Since his death I’ve been told he invented the Moonwalk – he didn’t and here’s the proof about 1 minute 30 seconds in.

All told he was a great singer and dancer who, throughout a 40 year career, had a hand in writing a small number of hits that coincided with the video age and, to my mind, that makes him more of a song and dance man than the King of pop. RIP Mr Jackson.

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Dearest’s shoulder is healing nicely although, according to her physio, it will never be 100% again. She’s still unable to drive and iron, but she can rub along with everything else. The only snag now is she goes in hospital next week for a long awaited operation on her foot that will see her on crutches for a while. So it’ll be back to me doing everything again.

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I had some Amazon gift vouchers so I bought a flat bed scanner with a facility for scanning slides and negatives as well. Crap it is too. It scanned one negative then all the following scans were black even though the backlight was on. I indicated I would be returning it so Amazon quickly sent a replacement and that was crap too although for a different reason. I tried them both on more than one PC with the same faults so I don’t want another replacement. I think I’ll go for a dedicated film scanner. In the meantime I’ve two scanners boxed and ready for pick up by TNT or somebody. Grrrrrrrr! As well as the scanner I got a little wind-up radio for whenever I’m doing something out of earshot of the ones I already have. It’s brilliant! A solar panel on top, a USB port and a wind handle can all be used to charge the battery. It’s only FM/AM so, sooner or later it will be obsolete but in the meantime it’s more than adequate for talk-based radio – which is why I bought it. On top of that I’m doing my bit for the planet by not having to buy batteries for it. Yay!

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I had the misfortune of listening to Talksport radio a few days ago. What a pointless, vacuous exercise that was. Contentious statements for the sake of it. Over-inflated egos and a lack of insight or self-awareness that beggars belief. At one point I was listening to somebody knocking City for trying to buy a team who can challenge whilst opining that Chelsea needed to ‘spend big’ if they want to be serious contenders. I give up. The other day I was reading an article about City’s pursuit of Samuel Eto’o in which the reporter said that because Eto’o had an ‘o’ after his name he’d feel at home at City because they normally have an ‘0’ after their name too. For the record City were the highest scorers in the Premiership outside the top 4 last season but let’s not let a simple fact get in the way of a bile-filled cheap shot eh?

When we were first taken over by the ADUG group I had serious doubts about MY team. I felt as though the local team for local people was being wrenched out of the community and were being dragged towards a star-studded but ultimately empty future of razzamatazzed franchise branding. I foresaw a managerial swinging door through which gaffers would pass each other as the results didn’t live up to the Sheik’s expectations. I saw an empty Academy and plastic, glory-hunter fans who knew feck all about the roots of the club. We may still end up with that; who knows? But the signs are that Sheik Mansour is in this for the long haul, backing the manager, declaring himself delighted with the progress so far and developing Academies overseas based on the City model.

I can live with that.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the downright hostilty in the Press towards us. Admitted we weren’t helped by the buffoon spokesman declaring we would buy Ronaldo, Kaka, Messi etc., but even so it really wasn’t necessary. And it won’t only be City either. Other clubs will be snapped up by multi-billionaires and the poisonous rants against them will start appearing also. If you’re not ‘big four’ you should know your place. As a result I just hope we can start ramming the the words they’ve written and spouted back down their jealous throats as we play sublimely entertaining, attacking football that wins us accolades as well as trophies.

In the meantime the ‘will-they’ ‘won’t-they’ speculation continues as we are linked with Terry (no thank you), Eto’o (if he comes he comes if not fine), Tevez (ditto), Lescott (yes please) and God knows who else. Strange times indeed.

We were in the pub the other week trying to remember who made up the City team that faced Gillingham in the old Third Division play off final in May 1999. A mere 10 years ago. After much argument and racking of brains, we cracked it.

GK Nicky Weaver
RB Richard Edgehill
CB Andy Morrison
CB Gerard Weikens
LB Tony Vaughan
RW Terry Cooke
M Ian Bishop
M Jeff Whitley
LW Kevin Horlock
St Shaun Goater
St Paul Dickov

I seem to remember Gareth Taylor and Lee Crooks playing their bit as well.

10 years? What a difference a decade makes!