Toby Macfarlaine Bloggeration

By way of tribute to my recently departed friend Stuart Cable. Here’s a repost of what happened when we met him and how a Cable guy saved our lives…

Stepping out of the enormous, blacked-out Chrysler, Stuart Cable’s opening gambit, gesticulating dismissively at the road-closed sign, is “Alright boys, sorry about all the fucking bollocks.”
We’ve come up (or across) to a delightful slice of Wales to rehearse with Stuart, formerly of Stereophonics, at his gaff in the hills above Aberdare. Robin wasn’t able to do anything in September due to previous commitments with Spear Of Destiny, so naturally management book us a gig. Emma Scott is presenting the Birmingham Barfly show on the 13th and we suddenly remember that we haven’t anyone to beat the old tubs for us. Shite.
Thankfully Emma suggests that fellow Kerrang D.J. Stuart happens to be really rather good with the crash and the bang that’s so often required at these events and he almost instantly agrees to have a proverbial bash. Drummer to our rescue yet again, then!
I meet Dan and Rich at the farm early on Sunday morning. The various members of Teenage Fanclub come out and say hello, some of whom have biblically proportioned hangovers, some of whom were sensible and went to bed early. Names will not be mentioned to protect the innocent, of course.
We set off with a mild trepidation in the back of our minds. Will Stuart be okay with the songs? Will we be okay with the songs? Will the B&B family room we’re booked into be okay? Will the sat-nav really know where we’re going?
As we pass Birmingham, Rich decides on one last night in his own bed as we’re over halfway there and he’s a naturally early riser anyway.
And then there were two, blazing a trail to Cymru.

It’s about 9 at night when we arrive at the Cherry Tree B&B and Dan is exhausted. Brighton to Norfolk and then Norfolk to Wales is quite a drive in anyone’s book and the pages of his book are visibly tattered. There are two bunk beds and a double. I nobly suggest Dan takes the double after his road-based ordeal and jump up to my bunk to discover it’s got a plastic under-sheet on for incontinent children. It’s going to be like sleeping in a bag of crisps.
Quickly showered and spruced, Dan and I head out into the Aberdare night in search of an ale or two and perhaps a bite to eat.
We settle on the local Wetherspoons whose selection of discounted booze warms the cockles of our wallets. Well, Dan’s any road. Mine’s got cobwebs in it.
A few pints in and we’re dreamily talking about relationships like a couple of girls with a bottle of Lambrini and a copy of Bridget Jones’ Diary. 
Very metal.
The hunger sets in and we end up in the local kebab/ pizza emporium that is quite lively and full of drunken revellers who want a slice of our pizza to help them make up their minds as to what they’re going to order. Then it’s a trundle back to the family room to pass out, cream-crackered and full-stomached and aching for sleep.

…………………………………………………………………………

Breakfasting in a total strangers living room is sometimes a bit odd. We find ourselves being overly polite and the tea/ toast combination is received heartily. The lady who runs the place is ever so friendly and we await the arrival of Mr Edwards with full tums and quenched thirsts.
When Rich pops his head around the door we quickly decide that one day in the not-too-distant future we are due the “funniest day of all time” with the now enormous collection of experiences we have to “look back and laugh about”. 
Let’s go meet Stuart Cable, shall we?

The tomtom keeps telling us to go up a road that is shut due to a really big hole and refuses to show us an alternative route, so Stuart agrees to come meet us and we’ll follow him to his.
It’s a lovely spot. 
His next-door neighbour has a helicopter, you know. I don’t know who’s gonna be louder.

Yes I do.
It’s us.
Or rather, it’s Stuart. More to the point, it’s Stuart’s drums. And even more to the point, it’s Stuart’s ride cymbal. It’s fucking huge and fucking LOUD. It’s practically a gong on a cymbal stand. Our eyes are watering he belts it so. Sounds flippin’ ace!
Gunfight and Makin’ It Hard come together within half an hour and a collective sigh of “Everything’s gonna be okay” is, err, sighed. 
Tea is quaffed and we decide to tackle Burn The Witch and then retire to a pub for some food, a few beverages and a general “getting to know you” vibe.
Keep it genteel, you know.

Cut to four in the morning.
It’s frikkin’ New Years Eve back at Cabo’s.
He and Dan are air-guitaring to the DC, Rich is dancing with a Rotweiler. Soon Stuart and I will be screaming along to Alice In Chains, heads flipped right back and facing the ceiling. Chilled out, like, you know.

………………………………………………………………………….

When Rich walks into the living-room a few hours later and wakes me I tentatively ask, “How you feelin’?”
“Awful” is the reply, “How are you?”
A simple circular hand gesture around my face to show that I feel all the pain of the world directly behind my eyes is all I can muster. Why, God, why?

Several cups of tea and an American sandwich courtesy the golden arches later we are ready to rock. We all eye the cymbal of doom wearily. This is gonna hurt. And hurt it does. Although we get through songs remarkably easily and the hangovers crushing our souls are kicked out with sheer volume. 
A night in the family room is most definitely on the cards and Dan, Rich and I are fairly quickly curled up in front of the telly in our crunchy beds.

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After a thoroughly successful day of rocking the only sensible thing to do is to get a curry (best king prawn jalfreizi I have ever had in my life, mind) from the really very good Jaiphur’s and then head up to Stuart’s local, the quite fabulous Welsh Harp Inn. It’s a proper pub, this yin.
Pool table, check.
Friendly locals, check.
Tin signs, check.
Photo of one of the locals plus the newspaper-cut-out caption “I’ve seen 28,003 films”, check.
Also above the bar is a photo of Kelly Jones with the caption “Total bastard” blue-tacked onto it. We know who’s the daddy here, then.
Stuart’s friend Mike Williams is here tonight. As he is every night. By his own admission, he’s been out every single night for two and a half years. He’s a photographer and refers to his host of local models as his “growlers”. One of the funniest men any of us have ever met. “Just imagine, one minute you’re standing in a puddle, then the next you’re in the fucking sea!… they found the girl, mind. No sign of the dog.” The back window of his car has it’s view entirely obscured by laminated photographs of his growlers with his website address underneath. Genius.
“The first text message I get is a photo of my mate with Errol Brown. About thirty seconds later I get another text message saying ‘Errol Brown thinks you’re a cunt’!”
“How does he know?” asks Dan.
Some of the local brew is sampled. Some of the special single malt is sampled. Quite a lot more of the local brew is re-sampled, just to be on the safe side. Rich beats me two games to one at pool through a mixture of luck and my not being very good. A character named Captain Contraband sells Rich a bargain pouch of tobacco and revelry is fully in the air. 
Stuart regales us with stories. Some about Tom Jones, whose classic quote, “Get Elvis on the phone” shall forever remain in our hearts.
New years eve two, anybody?
Bet your sweet ass it is.
Five o’clock in the morning sat round Stuart’s kitchen table strumming AC/DC on acoustics and smoking cigars. The lot.

………………………………………………………………………….


Another day of set run-throughs later and we check out of The Cherry Tree and make our way over to our friend Katy Dann’s mum’s house in a neighbouring valley. It’s well nice.
We pop, en-route, to a Pizza Hut for a spot of grub. There’s a children’s birthday party in.
The salad bar is in fucking bits. Everything mixed in together. Them kids have been downing sugar-water and e-numbers for hours. They are high as shit.
Don’t give a load of hyper six year olds sweets that double up as whistles. They will blow them. Loudly. The shrillness makes us wince and growl.
At least the under-qualified staff gets our order right.
Not.
We won’t come here again.

After a couple of nights in the family room we are a little achy and shredded of nerves.
Kate’s mum has a Jacuzzi out the back.
We are in the front door and exchanging pleasantries for, at the very most, two minutes and then immediately we’re stripping down to our undercrackers and slipping into the desperately forgiving hot waters, a glass of wine clasped gratefully in each of our blistered hands. I almost burst into tears I’m so relaxed.
We try to keep our eyes open for the duration of a movie, but the combination of wine, massaging jets of water and exhaustion gets too much for us all and we turn in.
Dan and I are up in the attic, which is normally Kate’s eleven-year-old sister’s bedroom. I now have a photo of Dan tucked up in a child’s bed surrounded by stuffed toys which may or may not make it’s way onto the internet. It’s a beauty.
“Is the toilet on the middle floor, Kate?” he enquires.
“Yes”
“Good, good. I’ll try not to make too much noise.”
God only knows what he was expecting.
We giggle ourselves to sleep like we’re at cub-camp.

………………………………………………………………………….

This is it, then.
The last day of run-throughs before the gig.
We arrive at Stuarts gates to see him, shovel in hand, flinging a pile of dog shit over his garden fence. “Morning boys!” he shouts, cheerfully as ever.

We thrash though the set and it sounds really ace. We do a couple again, but we wanna keep it edgy, innit? In the words of one Graham Coxon, “Well, we don’t wanna get too faahkin’ good, do we?”

Dan, Rich and I head off to Rich’s manor, the charming Litchfield, for the night, and after an almost unbelievable red Thai curry courtesy our hosts’ always lovely bride-to-be, it’s fairly swiftly off to bed we crawl. It’s party-time in Brum tomorrow.

………………………………………………………………………….

Despite the fact that, as Cabo put it, “Summer was on a Wednesday this year”, it is a glorious day for a trundle through Litchfield and into Birmingham today. Sunlight filters gently through the forest and even the myriad flyovers and round-a-bouts of Brum seem somehow welcoming.
Adi and Steve, our tech’s extraordinaire greet us at the gates of the Barfly and the old gang, if only in part, is back together once more.
Also reunited tonight are Dan and his rig, the terrifying and awe-inspiring volume and textures of which I had almost forgotten due to the stripped-down nature of our rehearsals. The boys, truly, are back in town. And before you ask, no we’re not going to do a cover of that.
I remember the market area where I bought some ridiculously cheap good-luck-stripy-socks on the last tour and head over to refill my washing pile with glee. Six pairs for a quid? 
Kiss my arse, credit crunch!
Emma has her delightful wee daughters in tow and while she stocks up our fairly humble rider requirements, Rich energetically pushes one of them around the venue on a flight case to delighted whoops and calls of “Faster!” He’s got great future dad written all over him, that boy.
Sound check over and done with without incident, Dan and I do a quick interview for Kerrang T.V. and then we await showtime with a glass of wine and a natter to some chums. My friend Lou from HellCat is down tonight, so I dutifully slip Emma a copy of their E.P. with a wink and an “I reckon these are neat”. Well, you’ve got to do your bit for the future of the British rock scene ain’t you? And a spot of nepotism never hurt anyone, now did it?

The opening acts are all totally ace, to my ears and I find myself going, “Oh yeeeaaahh” as my memory kicks in when Gary (ex Reef) does his patented old monkey dance thing. Good old set of pipes on him, and all, that lad.
We all have a knowing giggle at Emma’s attempts to hurry Adi up and get us onstage. No show will ever go on until Adi says it’s okay. He am the boss.
She gives us a great shouty introduction and we fly into Burn The Witch feeling goooood!
We all high-five Stuart’s successful first song and it’s heads down proper rock n’ roll for the rest of our short, but sweet set.
At one point Rich suddenly disappears from my view while he falls onto his back, narrowly avoiding a nasty spine injury, into the photo-pit. Unscathed and rocking as always he thanks everyone for coming and Stuart for doing such a grand job and we’re backstage to backslaps and one for the roads before we all head our separate ways into the night.

An utterly awesome time was had by all. 
Stuart Cable was more than able and I hope that we shall all remain friends forever more.

Just time for one last Tom Jones story, though…

I realised that my recent outpourings have been defensive pieces, taking something that other people dislike and telling you why I think otherwise; if you haven’t anything nice to say etc. Well this one isn’t like that. This is just something I despise.
I have noticed that there are, especially around this time of year, many more “Wacky” people around.
Unfortunately, Brighton seems to attract wacky people.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the genuinely weird or eccentric. I fully endorse these types. No, no, I’m talking about a far more insidious being who makes me wring my hands involuntarily in exasperated disgust.
Wacky is an omnipresent elasticated dickie bow.
It’s fluorescent shoe laces.
It’s the inability to pass a doorway without hiding behind one side of it and pretending that yours is a phantom hand grabbing you by the neck and dragging you off to your doom. Wacky is a bloke suddenly shouting something like “Bum gravy!” in a crowded room and then looking around desperately for recognition and when some poor bastard accidentally makes eye contact he is instantly met with that excruciating shake of the head coupled with the phrase, “Sorry, I’m mad, me! Kyuuh!”
Wackiness is genuinely looking forward and excitedly telling people that you plan to sit in a bath of beans for red nose day.
It’s that forced eccentricity. It’s comedy wigs and Hawaiian shirts. It’s sunglasses in the shape of the new year’s numeric form.
Wacky is the morbidly obese forty-something in the zebra-print dress who’s running around the bar pinching all the men on the bum loudly proclaiming that she is, in fact, insane.
It’s laser pens and flashing badges. It’s owning and carrying around a joke book. It’s yellow dungarees and lilac Kickers. It’s one of those t-shirts with E=mc2 emblazoned on the front of it and “I do science, me” written on the back. It’s hanging a C90 tape around your neck. It’s collecting scented erasers when you’re older than eight. It’s constantly quoting Blazing Saddles. It’s spraying cream into your mouth straight from the can. It’s ringing a bell in the pub trying to make everyone think it’s last orders when, hilariously, it’s not. It’s opening with, “Good evening, ladies and germs” with a smug look on your face like your the first person to have said that.
“Ooh, look out, I’m a bit wacky, knoworreyemeeeean?”
No you’re not. You’re a twat. And you make me want to scream at the sky until I’m blue in the trousers.
Please. Go. Very. Terribly. Away!!!

Oh, and by the by, happy new year everyone. Don’t mind me, I’m mad. Kyuuh.

“Christmas, Ted. What does it mean to you? Do you know what it’s like to kicked in the head with a steel capped boot?.. No, of course you don’t, Ted, scratch that, it was a dumb question”- Airplane.

A silly, funny quote but it does raise some issues that have been floating around the cinnamon-apple scented ether at the moment.
I have spoken to at least three people in the last week who claim to abhor Christmas.
They hate the pressure to spend, the gluttony, the false hope, the heavy-handed marketing, the lack of any other colour than pink (for girls), the decorating, the guilt at not buying a Big Issue off of Santa-Claus, the Coca-Cola inspired colour scheme, the fluffy bras and saucy Mrs Claus image, the argument over Goose fat or Beef dripping for a perfect roast potato, the mulling of perfectly good wine, the sleazy mistletoe “goal hangers”, the tinsel, the groups of office party suits being inappropriate with members of the opposite sex because they don’t normally drink, the hike in prices, the waste of paper, the sheer smugness of people in massive caramel coloured cashmere overcoats who obviously haven’t been affected by the recession, the screaming children in shops, the brussel sprouts, the mince pies, the brandy butter, the chestnuts roasting and the men who wear top hats and waistcoats to roast them, the festive menus that are exactly the same just with the word “festive” stuck in front of everything, the constant praying for snow, the carols, the fact that suddenly everyone’s a Christian, It’s A Wonderful Life, the stocking fillers, the wrapped-up batteries and ALL THE FUCKING SATSUMAS.

Well, you can probably guess my reply.
Oh, get over it, it’s Christmas.
It’s chintzy, it’s gaudy, it’s expensive and occasionally horrid. It can be all of the above and more. It can also be magical and inexplicably nice smelling and sparkly. It can be as heart warming and as spinningly lovely as to defy description through anything as crude and simple as language.
All that mulling and bauble-ing, wrapping and glittering, giving and getting and eating and drinking may well be at the wrong time of year (if you’re actually trying to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ) and may well have turned into a callous, cynically marketed spending spree but it can also be terrifically good fun and as good an excuse as any to sit around and be silly with friends and/ or family which can only be a good thing, can’t it? Enjoy it for what it is, not what it isn’t!

With that in mind then I should like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas, a happy Channukkah and a thoroughly pleasant New Year. See you on the other side.

In the village of Grumbly Bottom
Stands a pub called The Withered Hand
Its walls are all covered in Ivy
So it looks like its part of the land.

The door opens heavy and oaken
And that sweet stale stench slaps the snout
The bars so well stocked it’s appalling
With its gauntlet, the onset of gout.

There’s a dartboard set up in one corner
Though the arrows don’t have any flights
And the pool balls are rarely sent clacking
There’s no bulbs in the overhead lights.

The Withered Hands staff’s mostly friendly
Though there’s nary a local at hand
To tell you it’s often this empty
Because of a horrid old man.

He sits at a table all glum like
Sipping ale from a tankard of tin
And he only looks up from his scratchings
When the door lets some poor bugger in.

He’ll start with a scowl and a mumble
But nothing stays under his breath
His disdain is always most forthcoming
And he wishes all nothing but death.

He’ll prop up the bar for another
A froth dropping bitter and mild
And he’ll waft his tweed smell like a cheddar
Shouting “HA!” at nothing with no smile.

He’ll flick peanuts at bewildered children
He’ll tell you your wife’s a fat cow
He’ll swear at you loud and profusely
‘Til you say, “Darling, we’re leaving NOW”.

Then he’ll sit back with shoulders a shaking
From a guttural laugh deep within
And he’ll draw from his pint all contented
And let brown tears drip from his chin.

So if you pass through Grumbly Bottom
Don’t stop at The Withered Hand
There’s a Weatherspoons just up the high street
Which is a third of the price and it’s two for one curry club on a Wednesday.

“I loved going to school.
I loved coming home from school.
It was just the bit in the middle I couldn’t stand.”

This seems to be, more often than not, most people’s attitude to their formative, institutionalised years. There is so often that roll of the eyes accompanied by an almost exhausted yawn and “Oh God, I hated school”.
Well, I’d like to state for the record that I did NOT hate school.
I actually have, for the most part, very fond memories of the place.

Maybe I was unusually lucky. Perhaps it’s just the benefit of rose-tinted hindsight but I had a great circle of friends, some wonderful and, wait for it, likeable teachers; I would go so far as to say that I actively enjoyed more than a handful of subjects and as a result, I suppose, came out with some very respectable grades (with the exception of maths, for which I received a U prompting my teacher, Mrs Warbis, to sigh “Well, at least you failed with style”). And this was before the exams got all easy, as the newspapers inform me is the case these days.
Even the teachers so many of us said we despised, whilst we were at school, I now recall with great fondness and, dare I say it, respect.

Certainly, at the time, being given “lines” for not having done your “lines” properly seemed like an unutterable waste of resources, time and effort but it didn’t half hammer home the concept of irony. Thank you, Mr Hickman.
I remember the palpable excitement whooshing through the room when Mr Lewis would announce, after an hour or so observing the curriculum, “Right, that’s enough of the bollocks. Let’s explore the universe!” and we would talk about space, the practical application of worm-holes in time travel, touch on string theory and then, inevitably, blow something up with magnesium.
On the one occasion I did get sent to the Headmaster’s office, I recall the fug of cigarette smoke, the rich musk of brandy and the unexpectedly warm welcome I received. I can’t recall what I had done, but I didn’t do it again. Not out of fear, but just that it had been explained as simply unnecessary and therefore probably didn’t warrant a repeat performance.

Maybe it’s just that the late 80’s, early 90’s were a good few years to be at Dorothy Stringer High School. I’d like to think that it was still a good place to go. I’ve no idea, I’ve not had reason to look into it in any depth. I dare say it is, though.
I wouldn’t have worn an “I <3 School” t-shirt then, but I might now.

I have often berated, or at least tsssked at, people who say, “I don’t like surprises”.
Why on earth not? 
Do you really not like surprises? 
How unutterably dull life would be without them. 
To constantly know what lies inside the wrapped box under the Christmas tree. To always know that the darkened room you’ve just been hastily shuffled into, of course, contains at least tens of your closest friends all intent on “surprising” you and watching you tearfully and red cheekedly tuck into a slice of fondant-covered sponge accompanied by a flute of Cava. To expect that when you go into the pub you haven’t been to for yonks you will bump into an old friend and simply carry on where you’d left off all those years ago. Constantly knowing and pre-empting the punch line to every joke you will ever hear. Always being the one to say, “I told you so”. Gah, no thanks.

A sudden kiss on the lips rather than the peck on the cheek you were expecting. The sun breath-takingly breaking through and warming your face on what was supposed to be a solidly cloudy and rain-sodden day. Somebody telling you that they think you look particularly “cool” when you went out feeling that you looked rather more as if you’d just had a good old rummage through the dressing-up box and simply “gone with it”. Finding a tenner in an old coat pocket that’s been stuffed at the back of a cupboard since last autumn. Being told that the person you’ve been staring at whilst simultaneously avoiding eye contact with for weeks feels the same way and would rather like to hold hands with you. These are surely pleasant experiences, not things to be poo-poo’d and avoided.

People who don’t like surprises are the kind of people who don’t like magic or who say “Pffft, that’s just a trick”. 
Of course it’s just a trick. No one was expecting you to accept that the flamboyantly dressed person gesturing towards the ace of spades now, miraculously, pinned to the inner-side of the window was in fact an act of sorcery or an actual miracle. It was a trick. 
Even though, to some extent, magic briefly ruined my life, it hasn’t stopped me enjoying the artistry involved and the “Ooohs” and “Oh my Gaaaawds” that a well-executed slight of hand can provoke.
I once knew someone who was quite angered by a magic trick and said, “No, I won’t clap. She LIED!” Can’t you just enjoy the spectacle and the fact that you don’t know how it was done and leave it at that? It may be a lie, essentially but it’s in the name of entertainment, you boring, joyless, leathery old prig. Kindly fuck off back to No Surprises Town where all the sandwiches are cucumber and the bath water is constantly “just right”.

There are of course, unfortunately, some unpleasant surprises that crop up every so often. 
Finding out that your partner is enjoying rapturous, sweaty, Olympic dalliances with someone other than yourself, for example. Or discovering that the slightly annoying itch is, in fact, the ice-berg tip of a life threatening infection that you will soon have to inform your friends and relatives about. Sure footedly standing on the upturned plug of a phone charger that was camouflaged by the Persian rug. Receiving a letter informing you that unfortunately World War III has broken out and that the powers that be have decided it prudent to reintroduce conscription with you as the flagship conscriptee. That sort of thing. These, though, are thankfully less oft occurring than the more positive revelations most of us receive from time to time. The age-old adage, “Cheer up, it might never happen” springs to mind.

Not knowing what’s around the corner is the very thing that urges me to walk around that corner. Leaning in for a kiss, unsure of whether or not it will be reciprocated or, at least, appreciated, is the butterfly-stomached wonder that compels you into action. Diving headlong into a pool without first testing its temperature with a toe invites surprise, be it good or be it bad. Either way it’s always refreshing. 

Let’s hear it for surprises, then. Long may we gasp and grin, hug and occasionally rejoice. I may well not feel very comfortable on rollercoasters, but they are, let’s face it, infinitely more fun than the boating lake, bar the introduction of exploding ducks, which I have repeatedly petitioned the parks department about. Thus far, without reply. 
A letter from the council stating that my petition has been met with approval and that “In the coming weeks the boating lake shall become home to a family of the Lesser Spotted East African Exploding Duck” turning up in the post? Now that would be a nice surprise.