They only did it because of fame

Early afternoon on Thursday, I'm on the 31 bus and as we turn the corner past Chalk Farm the streets are looking disappointingly normal. Have I missed it? The bus continues along the street and up ahead there's a huge crowd of people beyond Camden bridge. That's nothing new, Camden's always packed, but if my eyes aren't deceiving me these people are waiting. I press the bell and head downstairs to get off the bus.

I cross the road in front of a Hearse. Wait a minute - a hearse - could it be? Oh yes. In the window is the wreath that boasts 'Cash for Chaos'. Behind it is a horse drawn carriage carrying the coffin of Malcolm McLaren, with 'too fast to live too young to die' written on the coffin. Hugh lensed photographers run alongside the carriage. I join them snapping professionally with my phone.

I remember watching 'The Filth and the Fury' and coming out the cinema despising Mclaren. But come on, you've got to have respect for the guy. Without him, you'd never have seen Lydon's sneer on the TV. There'd have been no recording of 'Pretty Vacant'. Lydon couldn't even clean his teeth for fuck's sake. I remember seeing Malcolm Mclaren on a programme about Creation records, where he sat in a velvet smoking jacket proclaiming that, 'Alan (Mcgee) has had a life of benign success whereas I've walked the path of glorious failure'. This man had the words. He was like Lydon in that respect. Other choice Mclaren moments include his claim that Madonna stole Vogue from him, and then his congratulating her for stealing because that was precisely what it was all about. I also remember reading (possibly untrue - but I'm sure Mclaren would have appreciated it) that Mclaren banned the Pistols from playing minor chords because they were strictly for muso snobs.

Behind the horse drawn carriage is a green bus with 'nowhere' written as its destination, belting out the Sid Vicious version of 'My Way'. Eddie Tempole sticks his head out the back of the bus. The bus is being followed by a load of punks drinking and dancing, some jumping on the back of the bus. I loved those punk records, I remember being seventeen and me and Mike Sutherland walking drunk through the streets of Horsham singing 'EMI'. Every Friday night.

I follow the bus. On the pavement is Paul Cook. I look back to double check. Yes it's him, the drummer of the Sex Pistols looking thin in a suit and shades with short sticking up hair. He says something like: 'They told us to get off the bus 'ere. 'e must still be on it', to the two tall attractive women he's with. As the bus turns off of Chalk Farm road, the rest of the mourners get off the back of the bus. They all look punky and mid-forties to fifties but I don't recognise any of them. A woman walks past with a veil and tears in her eyes and I'm reminded that this is actually a funeral.

Here's to Malcolm Mclaren.

Glasgow - I am not the radio fugitive

So here I am on my 40th birthday in Glasgow. Busier, shabbier; with more rubbish on its streets than Edinburgh, Glasgow nevertheless has a lot going for it, particularly the west end with its sandstone tenements on tree filled streets. So many grand buildings; big ornate churches, little alleys with hidden cafes and shops, and this city it's so green - bowling greens crop up every hundred paces. It almost feels like home. I love Glasgow.

We arrive at Kelvinbridge to blue skies. We walk past the hotel I usually stay at and continue for our stay at the more plush Hilton. We've lucked out and have a view of the Botanic gardens. In the hotel I open my cards and presents before a wander around the west end. A few years ago I was standing around Byres road waiting for my girlfriend of the time when a guy came up to me and asked if I was the radio fugitive. I shook my head. A minute later a group of people asked me the same thing. It unnerved me. Then another group came charging down the hill towards me and asked the same thing. There must have been a radio competition and you had to look for a guy hanging around Byres road ready to give you the next clue or maybe a prize from Fopp.

Thank goodness Fopp records is still here. The sun is blazing, the Botanics full of people lying on the grass. People push prams, walk dogs, lie on a shelf of rock by the water along the Kelvin Walkway. We wind our way around until we reach the crowded Kelvingrove Park. Sitting up on the hillside watching below as groups sits around barbecues, girls in summer dresses laugh and drink blue colured drinks, lone individuals are dotted around reading heady literature.

Sunday evening we go for my birthday meal at The Left Bank, a homely lit place with wooden floors, a concrete fronted bar and friendly waiters. Red wine and a big burger is ordered. It's funny I lived in Glasgow for a few months in 1995 and spent lots of time walking its streets. I spent my 25th birthday in Glasgow. It was a sad affair; I went to the off-Licence, came back to my tenement flat (my flatmates were on holiday), made a few phone calls to people far away and watched a Mike Leigh film on TV. If you'd told me then I'd spend my 40th in the same part of town I'd have been seriously worried. But there's no need, 25 year old me, because you'll get a decent meal on your 40th and good company.

The following day is even warmer and we take the train to Loch Lomond. Everyone else has the same idea including a drunk from Anniesland who's fallen down the bank and insists he has broken his hip. He asks for an ambulance but the police arrive instead and berate him for being drunk. "Yes we've found him, unfortunately," the guy says radio-ing through to a colleague. We carry on to dip our feet in the waters; our feet cold as they hit the water and then rapidly get colder until we quickly withdraw them and attempt to warm them on the concrete. Feet warmed, we wander through a wooded area until we reach a big bench with a beautiful view over the loch and the mountains beyond.

The good weather lasts until the next day when it's time to return south. We pack up the good weather and take it with us, but unfortunately we have to leave the magic of the west end behind us. Until next time.

Edinburgh - Tales from Auld Reekie

I haven't been to Edinburgh for 15 years and I'm pretty excited about it. The train to Edinburgh takes the east coast route and as we get near, the sea dips in and out of view. We set up at the hotel, checking out the view of the communal garden, washing hanging from a line that stretches around the outside of the almost circular garden. As we head out, we the excited tourists, walk up towards the old town as people walk down town, heading home from work, all of us united in our looking forward to the weekend.

Up the steps we look across the wide expanse of Princes Street. The streets are so wide here. The air seems clearer here. The town planners knew what they were doing when they built Scottish cities. Everywhere you look there's an interesting looking building; be it the shape, the age or the gargoyles that decorate it. This city is so well preserved.

We end up in a pub on the Royal Mile. Behind us are lists of whiskies but I stick to Guinness. A Goth looking guy with massive hair and white boots turns up to play guitar with two other musicians; older guys with ponytails. They're playing bluegrass. It's ideal, a proper pub, music and Guinness. How could this night ever fail?

The following day we bet on a horse in the grand national and then walk the streets to see where it'll take us. We end up walking through Leith. No sign of Begbie, Renton or Sick boy. It's a quiet morning with a few old people milling around. By the time we get to the docks it's getting warm. Sunshine over Leith. We take the bus back up to town. Edinburgh's quite a small city and it feels pretty quiet after London.

We walk past a massage parlour and decide to go in for a ten minute massage, which is the first time I've ever been to one. As we walk up the hill afterwards I feel so relaxed my head is humming gently. This is fantastic, I could even relax about turning forty, which is a relief as it's tomorrow. That evening, after a tour of the old streets of Edinburgh, which lie under the streets of the Royal Mile, we go back to the same pub where tonight's music is folk. The goth guy walks in again with his guitar. He's playing the folk music tonight with his older pony-tailed friends. Some of the songs are the same as last nights, with added lyrics about Ross County (who've beaten Celtic in the league). Other sports news: my horse, Eric's Charm, fell at the first hurdle.

The next morning I'm forty and we need to catch the train to our next destination. We stop off for a couple of photos at Robert Louis Stephenson's old house, a huge four storey sandstone building with a red door, situated in a cobbled square. As we head up the hill, on the steps of the Anglers Society building is a picture of someone with happy birthday written above the picture. I wonder whether I should leave a picture of myself outside the Anglers Society building, what with it being my birthday too, but alas there isn't time.

Trying to make sense of the afternoon

On days off I can never get the hang of the afternoon. There's some feeling of melancholy and uselessness that hits me about four o'clock. I like the mornings. Tuesday morning I'm full of purpose; I go for a two mile run, I shop, I do my washing. It's a warm day and people are feeling it. The woman at the bank gives me a cheerful greeting. But the afternoon starts to drag. I'm reading but I can feel the lull and I want it to be the evening time. Maybe it's because you want the exhilaration of leaving work but it's not going to come, because you weren't there today.

Wednesday is grey and the rain comes down. I head to London centre. A man is photographing the strawberries in the window of a cake shop on Regent street. Further up the road a man is dressed in orange plastic overalls with writing on, advertising the fact they have a sale on at the print shop down the road. Who thought up an awful job like that? I'm browsing in the chaos of the mac shop and HMV, and then reading sections of books in Foyles. I see now how I used up so much time in the nineties.

Today is all blue sky. I know it's a chance to go out without my coat but I wear it anyway. You can slouch properly in a coat. However much a summer's day is presented to you, it's hard to get rid of the winter coat. You need me all through the bad times, says the winter coat, and now it's nice you try and abandon me. I walk through the park, see the people on the grass reading, and the mums chatting while their kids run around. I know I should stop and bask in the atmosphere, but I can't, I need to keep moving.

My thirties are disappearing, all too soon. Things came together, things fell apart, things I wish could have stayed together. I know that time can be re-visited but it depends on where I am in the present to how it all feels in the past. I don't like having so much past. It's more stuff to get lost in while trying hard to make sense of it. I'm getting ready to turn the page to the next chapter. See you soon.

Career Opportunities (Part Two)

September 1986 is fast approaching and my parents are telling me I have to get a job. My Dad circles a job in the West Sussex County Times for a job as a meat packer in Partridge Green. £91 a week. Partridge Green is a village on the bus route to Brighton and I’m sitting on the bus in trousers, a shirt and tie and my grey ‘interview’ jacket’. “Just think about the money,” my Dad says. “Ask if the job has any prospects,” my Mum says. This stumps the girl at the interview who basically just wants to know if I want the job and can I start on Monday? No, of course I can’t start on Monday, I’m only here to get my parents off my back. I ask her what the hours are and she tells me it’s a 7am start. I tell her I’ll think about it and phone later, with no intention of doing either. I miss the bus by two minutes and walk the eight miles home. As I walk through the countryside I’m thinking of that £91 a week. A small fortune. A few months back I was earning £8 a week, from two paper rounds. This job will do for now.

Monday morning my Dad drives me to the St Leonard’s pub car park where the van picks me up at 6.15. I approach it nervously.

“Glengrove?” the old retired guy, Burt asks.

“Yes.” Was that the name of the factory?

“Get in the back then”.

In the back of the van nobody says hello. Nobody moves for you. You have to climb over people to get a seat. Everyone has their own seat. The lad and girl with the leather jackets always sit at the top end. The girl with glasses and perm always sits in the middle, Ivy always sits at the end by the door. Everyone sits facing each other and staring at the floor, saying little.

Once inside the factory gates the new people, there are 8 of us, are ushered into the canteen and given a cup of tea. I am too nervous to drink mine. We are issued with clocking in cards, a white butcher’s jacket and hat each. On the factory floor I’m trying not to breathe in the heavy smell of meat. It’s incredible noisy in here. I’m taken to work in the Gammon department. My first job is to line bags of gammon up in a machine where they are sealed. The next machine along dunks them in boiling water and shrink-wraps them. The smell of boiling plastic fills the senses. I’m working on a machine with three others including Ivy, who’s a total pain in the arse. She keeps blaming me and another new person for the fact the bags aren’t sealing properly. As usual I am innocent. It turns out they need a new machine, which turns up a few weeks later.

The work is dull, the hours long; 7am – 4.30 pm, but it’s not hard. On Friday you finish at 11.30 am. "Not long now," the butchers say, from about 9am onwards. You spend time trying to ignore the clock on the wall, eventually giving in, expecting an hour to have passed but finding its only been ten minutes.

In the paper it said they were taking on more staff due to expansion. This is nonsense; it’s because nobody ever stays in the place. People come and go all the time. I don't blame them, I myself will be leaving soon. A new guy starts, Trevor Turrell, who everyone knows from the village. He’s a tall gangly fellow, with a daft simple humour. “I’m going on a course,” he says, “intercourse.” Another guy, Dave Parkes also starts around this time. He looks like one of the villians from Mad Max. He’s worked at the factory on and off and his hobby is drinking in pubs every night. All these people are nineteen, twenty and they seem really old to me.

The other end of the production line is where the fun is. A guy called Matthew Clark works at that end with a girl called Dilkie. They weigh the gammon packets, put the price label on and pack the gammon into boxes. Matt seems to be forever running up to someone and making a kind of aaargggh noise, describing all his friends as mad, or playing imaginary drums to the sounds of ZZ Top from his Walkman. I like Matt. He is 20 and lives in a world still out of my grasp. He drives cars, drinks in pubs and has girlfriends. He doesn’t drive very well though. He crashes his Beetle and comes back to consciousness on the back seats. He borrows a white Mazda from his neighbour and is all set to buy it, but crashes it before he gets the chance. Drunk, he also manages to fall over the banister in his house. Matt needs help one day and the supervisor, Bill sends me down to work with him. I take it as a permanent move. It’s cleaner down that end but I worry I’m too quiet and he’ll request someone else.

Thursday afternoon is the day to look forward to because Thursday means pay day and the notes arrive folded in a clear paper bag. I get dropped off in town on Thursdays and head to Our Price. The music in the charts is; Status Quo’s ‘In the army now’, Paul Simon’s ‘You can call me Al’, Queen’s ‘a kind of magic, Aha’s ‘Cry Wof” and 'Hip to be Square' by Huey Lewis and the News. I fall for some of this but I’m looking for something better.

One Monday I decide to take the day off and go down to Brighton. The bus goes into the Star Road industrial estate where it turns round, passing the meat factory twice, and I’m glad I’m not there and hoping they can’t see me. I buy, ‘Before I Get Old’ the biography of the Who, which begins my Who and especially Keith Moon obsession. I decide I want to be Keith Moon. The drums can wait, I’ll start with the drinking.

“Where’ve you been?” asks Matt, the next day.

“Brighton – shopping,” I reply.

Matt likes this, it breaks the ice and we get chatting. Pretty soon I’ve been invited to the Partridge on Friday night, the village pub on the corner of the high street. I’m worried I won’t get served. I am sixteen but with real effort could pass for fifteen. Matt orders the drinks, a pint of cider for me - I can’t fathom drinking lager in such quantities. The landlord puts the pints on the wooden bar. This guy is actually serving me, he’s not even asked for ID. Could this be the start of a new social life? could this be goodbye to hanging round the street on a Saturday night or staying in to watch boring Saturday night TV? I may even meet some girls. I put the pint to my lips and take a sip.

We go through to the back room, which smells of smoke, aftershave and beer. There are a bunch of people from work there; The manager of the bacon department, Tony Adsett, a great bloke, Mole, a friendly guy who works downstairs, Dave Parkes, Trevor Turrell, Joanne, Jackie. Andy a’Hearne the guy on the bus with the leather jacket is there, a pretty sarcastic fellow with a tache that makes him look older than his nineteen years. Outside of work though he’s pretty friendly. There’s a nice camaraderie in the Partridge and it gets more pleasant with each drink.

Three pints of cider later I’m paralytic.

In the gammon department we start to have a laugh. I have the job of putting labels on the boxes and writing the best before dates in marker pen. I write things like’ best before breakfast’, ‘best before 10am’ and ‘best before eaten’.

Christmas approaches and they are announcing redundancies. I am one of them. They tend to do this, lay people off at Christmas when it goes quiet, and then re-advertise the jobs in the spring when things pick up again. This is not quite the good news I thought it would be. I feel pretty dejected. Especially as a girl who started after me is being kept on. I’ve managed to lose two jobs in the same year. A couple of days later it turns out the manager has got me mixed up with someone else and I’m not to be laid off after all.

‘Oh you dozey pillock,’ Matt says to the superviser – Nick, who’d made the screw up.

The only trouble is we have to be back in work on the 29^th. I take the free Christmas turkey we are given home to my Mum. I’ve been at Glengrove for four months. I will be there another 16 months.