Tim Robson's Blog

TAYLOR SWIFT – HYDE PARK 27th June 2015

(Reposted from 2015) And it came to pass; Taytay hit the London BST festival in Hyde Park. I was there, the sun was there, my two pre-teen daughters were there and, er, 64,997 others.

Yes that white dot is Taylor. She couldn't see me very well, either.

Taylor Swift has re-invented herself in the last few years from curly haired country singer doing spots in the Hannah Montana movie, to a global, all conquering pop princess.

Now I have a confession; this isn’t the first time I’ve seen Ms. Swift perform. I went along to the O2 last Feb to see the tail end of her Red Tour. My house and car – if my daughters have anything to do with it, and they do - reverb to the sounds of Taylor 24/7. I’ve become a Swiftie by osmosis. Perhaps there’s an element of Stockholm syndrome…

We got to Hyde Park early, just as the gates opened. I’d bought premium view tickets, an exclusive enclosure in front of the sweating hordes pressed against the barriers. Got some laminates with a map and timings to hang around our necks. Pint of cider and two J2Os secured, we settled down to watch the support acts.

Support Acts

Newbie Rae Morris started things off, she was good though she did sometimes waver out of tune. I’m glad she played her hit Under The Shadows (though inexplicably not Cold) and so escaping the curse of the under card. Riptide bloke played Riptide. We were out in the park getting Rendang at the time and so missed all of it apart from the last chorus. I feel okay about that. John Newman, doing some nifty dance moves, was somewhat miffed the crowd wasn’t noisier for him. Well mate, write some better songs and have a few more hits and you’ll get the accolade you feel you deserve. Case in point; his one decent hit – Love me again – was well received. Rightly. Ellie Goulding, on the other hand, was simply great throughout. I thought she’d be all fey and fairy voiced but she belted out the hits and jumped around like an excited kid. A major artist in her own right, she knew her subsidiary place in this park of Swifties and so worked the crowd. We enjoyed her….

Taylor Appears!

By now it was nudging eight o’ clock, it was as busy as hell and, even in the Premium area, viewing the stage was difficult. No sitting down and casually watching anymore. And then there she was – in one scream of adolescent hi-octane rush, Taylor came out fifteen minutes early and went all Welcome to New York on our asses.

Now, if you want a review about the costume changes, the stage backdrops, the dancers, you’re in the wrong place, as I don’t especially give a toss. Sorry. I liked the catwalk, I liked it even better when it took off into the air and Taylor floated above us (camera ready kids!). Her ‘celeb’ friends – couldn’t name them, no idea who they are – came on during Style. Whatever. The scene that celebrates itself.

Taylor.

But to the music… Well, I was worried because at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Norwich a month ago, Taylor seemed a little underpowered and her voice, never especially strong, was weaker than ever. Well, not last night and not in Hyde Park. She carried the show with her musical chops (some guitar, some piano, lots of dancing, plenty of face voguing to the camera). She was on fine form.

Taylor Talks..

No review of a Taylor Swift gig would be complete without mentioning Taylor’s ramblings. Yes, she likes to talk to her audience. A lot. She speaks with the certainty and earnestness of youth about friendship, boyfriends, female empowerment, Instagram, cats; that sort of thing. I thought she pushed this soliloquising about as far as it could go last night. If it weren’t so crowded that would have been my cue for a toilet break or beer run. Her legion of young fans seem to like it though. She speaks to them.

The set list was principally from her latest album 1989 with a few – a very few – vintage hits for us older folk who remember all the way back to 2012. I Knew You Were Trouble was slowed down for the first half before speeding up. It didn’t work for me; you don’t mess with class lightly. A much better reinvention was We Are Never Getting Back Together, which saw a leather clad Taylor grunge up her breakthrough hit. She powered out chunky chords like Pete Townsend in a bad mood. She didn’t windmill the guitar but she snarled through this teeny tale as though she was the Who roaring through My Generation. One for the dads. Love Story was the reworked version which me and the kids – being Swifties – have seen endless times on YouTube. But it was good to have her floating above us as she sang.

Taylor on the elevated walkway.

Of the newer stuff, Blank Space, Bad Blood, Out of the Woods, all rocked. Two hours in and an extended Shake It Off, officially now a classic, had 65,000 people, word perfect, chanting along to THIS…SICK… BEAT. Are you paying attention John Newman? You earn your applause. Taylor’s got the songs, the attitude and, despite being ridiculously young, has religiously worked herself up to this high plateau. As Taylor said, amongst many other things, she will remember this night for the rest of her life.

Thing is, will it be to remember the moment when she was on top of the mountain or, has she hills yet to climb?

I’m so profound sometimes it literally hurts. It really does.

RANDOM SNAPSHOTS

1)   Food. Street food, of course; lots of pulled this and wood fired that. I had a vegan rendang. The rendang stall woman being surprised my kids not only wanted, but loved, rendang. Used to it. Fav dish. I cook! I score!

2)   Great weather. A sun-cream day for the balding pate.

3)   The two for one provision of female:male toilets being buggered up by a whole block of female loos being out of action most of the day. Epic fail, organisers!

4)   The drunken girl honking up on the floor as 65,000 people passed her on the way out. Pull yourself together woman – this is a Taylor Swift gig FFS.

5)   The flashing wristbands we all wore. Given out free at the gate. We all glowed in synchronised unity during Taylor's set. 

6)   My knowledge of Belgravia helping the kids and me get to and from Hyde Park in record time. I am my own hero.

7)   The look on my youngest child’s face when she realised she was actually seeing Taylor Swift in the flesh. Yes, Taylor Swift! She really exists.

8)   My kids liked it when Taylor’s mum ran past us a couple of times. Ah, our so close brush with celebrity! (Did I tell you I once bumped into Madonna in Cipriani’s?)

9)   Two songs into Taylor’s set, re-affirming the old truth, retreat and see more! The back of our exclusive enclosure was sparsely populated. Much better views. Certainly much better than the crowds penned in behind us.

10) My kids posting their pictures on Instagram. The concert now ‘officially’ exists.

The Franco's Fiesta fans are held back by security and a well placed barrier.

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Am I a communist?

Short answer, no. It was just a provocative title to gain clicks. (From one to two, from two to four. Pretty soon I’ll be an influencer and be forced to get an incomprehensible tattoo and end each sentence I speak with a raised inflection whilst taking cash bribes from ED sponsors).

So why pose the question at all? Am I communist? Well, since you didn’t ask, I will answer anyway.

For my job, I attend conferences on recycling, metal production, the circular economy; waste disposal. I listen to expert panels, government ministers and industry experts discuss decarbonisation, energy policy, green steel production, increasing government mandates on waste. Worthy stuff, I think you’ll agree.

My starting position - on these issues and, frankly all - is that government actions should be very narrowly drawn. Unintended consequences, misallocation of capital and interference with incentive structures, are usually the inevitable result of government action. That’s without addressing the potential - and real - erosion of liberty for the citizenry resulting in and a large tax bill. Government should necessarily be limited.

The Plastic Bag Tax

Older readers will remember that I was somewhat excised some years back about the plastic bag tax the government introduced (see unfinished and unpublished article below from 2019). The very noble thought behind this action was to reduce the number of plastic bags floating around car parks, recreation areas and into the sea. Doing nothing meant that consumers would continue with their planet-destroying behaviour as they faced no disincentive against demanding plastic bags each time they shopped. This, of course had been leading to the double trouble of consequence both in terms of ‘unnecessary’ production and the clean up afterwards when the bags got discarded, often not in a bin.

I have to say, before the bag tax, I always brought along my own sturdy bags when out shopping and got rewarded for it by my supermarket of choice who gave me loyalty points for each reused bag. It was an incentive structure that closely aligned with my own views. A happy coincidence. Unfortunately, not everyone was built to appreciate this voluntary incentive structure. And so the government mandated shops to charge for plastic bags (via various EU Directives allied with concomitant primary and secondary legislation).

The results - on the face of it - are pretty impressive; a drop of 98% usage of single use bags. (1)

Another example of Gov overreach I quibbled with at the time but am now tending towards equivication, was the banning smoking inside pubs and restuarants. Again, the results are - on surface - good. The atmosphere in pubs, restaurants (trains and planes anyone?) aren’t smokey anymore. Non smokers aren’t forced to sit in clouds of second hand smoke. But have you noticed the outside of pubs these days? The action - even in winter - is outside. (See my thoughts on B.O.H.O Bar in Krakow for the reverse).

And so to the present day - Scrapyards

I’ve been looking into the strategic imperative for the UK to move to lower polluting steel and aluminium production methods. The old blast furnaces were incredibly polluting as well as needing a constant supply of fresh materials dug from the earth (iron ore and coking coal). The adoption of electric arc furnace (EAF) techniques for steel production, for example, is 75-80% less polluting by using, the as the main component, recycled steel.

And this is where I wander in as bit player in this production. I deal with scrapyards through my work every day so I have some interest in the industry. The happy path goes something like this:

You take your old banger car to the scrapyard. They pay you for it. The yard scraps the car using advanced techniques which separates the various components leaving, amongst other metals, a fairly pure steel. This reclaimed steel goes to a domestic electric arc furnace steel manufacturer who then melts it down, maybe adds some pure iron ore (DRI) to improve the quality and - viola - you have ‘green steel’.

The Three R’s of Environmentalism

Recycled: The old car gets broken down into components and then the steels is cleaned and ready for recasting in an EAF.

Reuse: The steel can be reused an infinite amount of times given the right clean up process.

Reduce: The need for iron ore is much diminished. Coking coal, totally unnecessary.

Is Tim A Communist?

My own question is redundant. Of course not; where the free market works, where human behaviour in millions of decisions leads to a voluntary ascension to the good, then this is always and forever, the correct path. But. Human nature. Production without consequence. The failure to adopt new ‘cleaner’ technologies means sometimes, narrowly, sparingly, the state needs to step in.

How it hurts to write those words.

But. Fads. Fashion. Grift. The ‘new’ thing can pervert a tangibly good thing - a clean environment, a sustainable future - into the complete over-reach of net zero. In each view spoiled by wind farms, the dead birds sacrificed on their concrete altar beneath, for every beached whale, I despair and am very much a fighter against lazy opinions.

Confliction is the new certainty.

NOTES

1) Obviously, there are cross currents. Consumers shifting to plastic bags-for-life made from heavier plastic pollute more unless actually used several time. Even cotton bags need to be used 130 times in order to pollute less than thin single use bags.

Unpublished article from Aug 2019: Life is Like A Plastic Bag (Regulation):

As a libertarian environmentalist I frequently wrestle with a dilemma; how can a population do the right thing without the State forcing them to do so? Walking around the Lake District or a National Trust property, I’m excessively pissed off when I encounter litter. I mean, WTF? How the hell could people be so thoughtless in such a beautiful place? Probably littering is against National Park laws but should the state really have to police thoughtless behaviour in such remote spots? How would this even be enforced? Surely, the balance of responsibility should tilt towards the individual in this type of case?

But what if people choose not to be civic minded? What if they don’t know, don’t care, don’t give a shit? Aren’t they exercising their own sense of individuality? This gets right to the heart of liberty - compulsion for the greater good.

It’s why I keep returning to the issue of usage of plastic bags - its a comparatively small issue though instructive. It’s also an issue where a solution is literally in the hands of you and me; use less disposable bags! Less bags equals less production of useless things, less environmental destruction, less litter.

The answer, bring your own bags to the shop, is easy to understand and small scale - we can all take part in this solution ourselves.

The issue though is one of compulsion - should the state interfere? If the motivation of the state doing so is benigh and the consequentces of doing so ‘a good thing’?

Ah, here is where we run into that old curmudgeon - liberty.

March 26 Postscript

The young Tim was a worthy, questioning soul, was he not? I almost admire him. Are plastic bags a metaphor for something else? Something wider, something smaller? Meta analysis man, we are what we say, what we write - even subconsciously.

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Tim Robson plays the blues, Chicago 1996

“Ladies and gentlemen, Kingston Mines is pleased to invite on stage from London, England, Mr Eric Clapton !”

And thusly was I announced to a smattering of applause from the 2am drinkers still sentient after a night of blues and beer in downtown Chicago. Dressed in a long overcoat. And scarf.

Kingston Mines, Chicago? Eric Clapton? Explain Tim

It’s well known, by those who are in the know, that Tim Robson knows the blues. I wake up in the morning and there is Mr Blues waiting on my pillow. I might not be off share cropping but man, that 7:41 to Victoria commute is a bitch. It was what the blues was built on.

Back when time was young and I was in corporate real estate, my bosses in the global company I worked for had their head office in Chicago. So when they held a conference, to O’Hare I was summoned. Not that I minded; I was young, between addresses, flying business class and had two pressing objectives on my mind.

1) I wanted a hotdog. Chicago’s the birthplace of the hotdog, right?

2) I wanted to go to a blues club. Chicago’s the birthplace of electric blues, right?

3) Yeah. You know what three is. More about that later.

Tequila Madness in Suburban Chicago

It was Christmas. Chicago was cold and snowy. On the second night the senior VP invited us around to his house in the suburbs for a festive celebration. All the houses were lit up like a Home Alone homage. The wind blew and the snow fell fitfully as the limo sped to his house.

There were buckets of beer. I helped myself. I had a colleague from Singapore who did the same job as me in her region. I was surprised, pleasantly of course, to find that Suzie was pretty damn attractive. That attractiveness increased throughout the evening as the bucket of beer was steadily emptied. She was fun, also looking for a good time once we’d done with the party which - wouldn’t you know - was full of corporate stiffs wanting to talk about real estate. Fuck that! I was here to party.

One cloud spotted my horizon. My American counterpart Jeff (or whatever his fucking name is, it’s a long time ago. Jeff will do.) was also much attracted to Suzie. He had poise, good looks and an easy mid western manner. Single as well, bastard. I’d try to corner Suzie in a room and lo! there was Jeff, all teeth and good humour. The urge to recede into beta-ness is strong.

But I was lucky that night. We had some sort of party game and I won a bottle of tequila. Of course, we three thought it a good idea to start doing shots. After a few of these I explained that I wanted to split and head to downtown Chicago and get that hot dog I wanted. And then watch some blues in a dive club somewhere.

Yes, let’s do that said Jeff and Suzie and so we made our excuses - ‘you’re boring fuckers and we're off to get wrecked mofos’ - and got in taxi and headed downtown.

Into the Club. Hotdog.

Pitched out somewhere in a wintry central Chicago, I located a hotdog joint and indulged my first passion. Yum! Loved it. It went down fast. One craving satisfied it was time to indulge in number two on my list in order to get number three. Somehow, stumbling through the night, we ended up in Kingston Mines blues club. It wasn’t busy but, there again, it wasn’t that early by the time we rolled in.

The house band was playing some uptempo ‘modern’ blues. Not Howlin’ Wolf or John Lee Hooker. Whatever. We took seats at the bar to watch. Music playing, Jeff and I spent most of our time trying to outdo the other as we competed for Suzie’s affections. I think at one point Jeff started to get the upper hand. Same old. Same old. So, this being the case, the beer and tequila decided I needed to let slip to Suzie that I played in bands back in the UK. How were they to know my bands were crap? Oasis weren’t worried.

Suzie seemed impressed. Very impressed. Jeff looked annoyed. Good. Suzie was so enthusiastic she rushed off to the stage and when the song ended, had a word with lead guitarist. They chatted for a while and I could see her pointing in my direction. Oh dear. I could see where this was going.

And then I was announced onto stage. Suzie had said jokingly, I was Eric Clapton. I don’t think anyone believed her. There I was in a long overcoat. Scarf. Pissed out my head. Better looking.

Reluctantly - well not really - I’m an incorrigible show off - I swayed to the stage. A few of the drunks at other tables clapped. The guitarist gave me his guitar and I strapped it on.

Playing the Blues in Chicago: A Sausage-Fingered Disaster

“Waddya wanna play?” asked Mr Bassist.

Drunk and out of my depth, I went route one. “Er, I’m A Man?”

“Sure, start it off.”

And then I realised my fingers had all become sausages. I’ve had my fair share of disasters on stage, broken strings, drunkenness, hostile audiences - and this could have been the worst of an impressive pile of humiliations. But, looking back into the room, I could see Jeff moving in on Suzie again, so I thrashed out those A-D-C blues chord shapes with more energy than finesse.

“Now when I was a young boy. Bout the age of five…” behind me, suddenly, crashed in the drums, bass and other guitar. Wow! I was rocking Chicago with a shit hot group in support.

My voice was croaky and world weary. That 2am tequila sound. Fitted the song perfectly. I got through two verses and then the guitarist leaned into me, “Take a solo, man.”

The only solos I can do - not well, not technical - are simplistic blues runs. But that night, in Kingston Mines, I was all thumbs. Wrong notes, missed strings, out of time, yes; all the Robson trademarks were present in that woeful solo. Mercifully brief. Realising I was all bravado and tequila, the other guitarist stepped in and blasted out a solo that seemed to be a step above the ones he’d been trotting out previously. Eat that Eric, he seemed to be saying with his fingers. Oh to be fluid like Mick Taylor.

And then back for a verse / chorus and I stood there taking the polite applause from the band and the indifference of the audience. Suzie cheered and Jeff politely banged his glass on the bar.

“You were amazing!” said Suzie. Time to leave.

Later back at the hotel at O’Hare

We got back to the hotel, the hangovers beginning to kick in. The conference would start at 8am with a working breakfast attended by the big boss. It was now 4.30am. In the elevator we pressed the buttons for our floors. I hit nine. Suzie hit thirteen. Jeff didn’t partake.

“Can’t you remember your own floor?” I sneered.

“Yeah, sure,” replied Jeff smiling. “Thirteen.”

Next Day

I was awoken by my phone ringing. Confused and tripping over my clothes hastily discarded all over the floor like mantraps, I picked it up.

“Tim, we’re all waiting for you,” said my boss annoyed. “We need the EMEA numbers and plan for the year.”

I looked at my watch. 8.20. And then. And then the headache kicked in. Followed by the rush to the bathroom. You know the story. Suffice to say, me and the bathrooms of hotel became intimate friends throughout the rest of the day. Possibly the most miserable day of my whole life. I’ve never had a handover this bad before or since. I played no part in the real estate conference and flew back to the UK suffering and dejected that night.

But - and who else can say this beyond a few, a select few, I’d played the blues in Chicago at the legendary Kingston Mines. Years distant from the events, I forget the hangover and look at those grainy pictures with pride. I rocked once!

Annoyed about Suzie though.

Quotidian Notes:

1) After this incident I couldn’t smell, let alone drink tequila for twenty years. This is something I’ve been manfully working on recently. We all love a trier!

2) All career episodes, that were all consuming once, fade with time. I forget what the Chicago conference was about. Something important, no doubt. But ultimately inconsequential. Work hard. Show up. But don’t take it seriously.

3) I still play the blues. Live it man! But, the tequila! We’re not all Keith Richards and in both my recording and live career (FFS sake Tim!) a couple of loosners is fine. More and all you get a drunken mess. Maybe I like it that way. Sabatage is the go-to excuse of the underachiever.

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She held nothing back. That was her way; maximum disclosure, honesty. Full and brutal honesty. There were incidents in her past, incidents that scarred her. Left their mark. Below the surface but ever present, just awaiting the right audience. The right amount of alcohol. Tonight, he was her audience and the drinks he bought encouraged a reckless stream of honest histories. He had bought more than her time; he’d acquired a dark world he never knew existed. A world he wanted to believe never existed. How he wished he’d just smiled and moved on.

Later she’d not smiled but had moved on. Into the Bruges night.

Earlier

The writer was in Bruges.

No, no; that won’t do. Say that again.

“The writer was in Bruges.”

Two lies and one truth in just one sentence.

He was in Bruges. True

But frankly, he was unused to being written about in the third person. An unnecessary literary conceit.

Also - to be picky - the description ‘writer’ does some heavy lifting in those five words.

Noted. But let’s move on.

The writer was in Bruges.

He walked through the pre Xmas crowds. Not for him the overpriced Christmas markets, the ‘hand-crafted’ baubles from China sold out of MDF huts by bored vendors on minimum wage. His purpose was more focused ; get pissed and write some scabrous observational piece from the vantage point of a bar stool. He’d done it before; in Antwerp. In Krakow. In Delph. And now Bruges; pretty and full of tourists and beer. His sorta place.

But although the beer flowed, the words would not come. Like a semi-drunk middle-aged man with a hot chick, it just wasn’t happening. His fingers poised on the keyboard, his eyes searched around the bars for life, for action, for those human foibles that populated his brand of travel writing.

It was raining. He’d got wet looking for that perfect bar. The perfect bar that had the right balance of observable transient people, friendly staff, couples decoupling or attempting to couple. But today, it wasn’t happening.

And so he stumbled into the night, this place and that place and until he found the place.

Delaneys Irish bar. Oh the shame; an Irish bar in Bruges. He always avoided these, preferring, demanding local hostelries. But frustration and writer’s block blew him out of the rain and into Delaneys.

It must have been at the bar. It must have been that they were English. It could have been that they were away from home, looking for a good time away from all that home implies. Maybe a trail of bars paved their route and they were already semi drunk. But whatever the catalyst, they got talking.

A taller girl, polite but unengaged with the Writer, perhaps less refreshed, perhaps annoyed with her friends, kept her distance.

Another - let’s call her Roxanne - had a look of a chunky Michelle Pfeiffer about her. Or Cameron Diaz. He couldn’t remember which. She was on a mission. Some recent messy break up with her boyfriend back home, who, frankly, was a user and a loser. Or that’s the story her friends shared and who was the writer to dispute this? Men all are, in retrospect.

Did the writer rule himself out of Roxanne’s temporary redemption at the hands of a stranger in a foreign city? Did she, instantly comparing him to taller, fitter - younger - options in the now crowded bar, make it apparent he was not to be the author of her subsequent regret. Maybe.

We all like to believe we are agents of our own destiny. The writer, occasionally, believed this. That we briefly ascend above the quotidian and break free from the set of tracks life has assigned us. Or maybe it’s all chance and serendipity. He also believed this and perhaps his solo treks, his bar stool philosophising, was a detached celebration of this.

Life in the detail is infinitely wondrous. It’s when the lens pulls back you get to see ants scrabbling around in the preordained fashion.

She - let’s call her Karen - instantly attracted him. She was shorter, with auburn hair. Perhaps prettier than in a less obvious way than her blonde friend on a mission. But she held one key advantage, she wanted to talk and she liked, for some reason, for some explicable reason, to chat with The Writer.

Being older, he held certain advantages. Life experience. Not having to worry how to pay for the next drink. A certain level of education and a lifetime of talking to customers, knowing when to listen, when to prompt, when to take control.

The drink flowed. The laptop, encased in a backpack, beyond a reassuring weight by his feet, was forgotten. No observations from the cheap seats tonight; he was now in the play itself, finding his voice as an actor.

To his studied witticisms and cod philosophising, she was open, a torrent of life history, describing characters he would never meet, out of context situations he could only dimly comprehend. It was pleasing to him. Everyone has a need to confess, given time, given circumstance and he allowed her the time.

Roxanne, naturally given her looks and stated mission, was hit upon by several gallants. One in particular, inappropriately old the writer sniffily thought, was doing better than the rest and the two faded from the rest in time honoured manner. Minutes later they were wrapped in a kissy embrace against a wall.

The writer and Karen moved to a table with their drinks and - fastidiously - the precious laptop. She was engaged, or about to be engaged. The perspective husband was all right she supposed but - I dunno - Karen, on this night, with this person, given distance, was unsure whether she was making the right decisions.

She was twenty nine.

There’s a darkness in all of us. Who can doubt this? Sensing opportunity but not the tools, The Writer sensed a rare opportunity. Uncertainty of affection in a bar, away from home, is where a surface level conversion can start to operate on many levels. She, finding someone sensitive - a Writer, don’t you know, was with someone she could unburden herself upon. He? Well you know what he was thinking.

And she talked. Karen was an amusing anecdotalist. She made him laugh. He remembered this. She was funny but then, suddenly, serious, very serious. The amusing tales morphed and reshaped into a dark world of awful men, shocking memories, betrayals of trust. Fathers not being told in case they acted upon learning the truth and ended up in prison.

The Writer knew that maybe it was like this. That behind many women there were stories like this. Not the stories he liked to write but unwritten stories held within. Karen told him of two in a ‘that’s life’ type way. Not self-pitying. Not looking for sympathy - far from it - but related facts, just facts. She didn’t cry. There was no anger. Just resignation. Life’s like that, you know? What can you do?

The Writer went outside to think, ostensibly to vape. There was much to think about in that narrow, focused way drunks have. Was this how life really was? And if it was, what was his place in it? He had a code of honour, a belief in romance, in inevitable destinations through smiles, mutual attraction, consent. How much pain and regret and anger was there hidden? How much had he missed as he glided upon the surface of things, idiot-clever, never seeing another world below?

Back in the bar the table was empty. Where was Karen? He searched the bar looking for her. Not here. Not there. Roxanne had detached herself from her erstwhile paramour and was now closely engaged with one of his younger friends. The first guy seemed angry and was being rationalised by the taller girl of the three. There was a version of ‘leave it, she not worth it’ speech in her mouth. He seemed unconvinced.

And then The Writer spotted Karen. Over at the far side of the bar perched on a bar stool next to a balding man with his arm around her. She was leaning in. He seemed happy with his possession, no doubt plotting next moves. The Writer already crestfallen, fell further. His place here was now redundant. His part in this play had been written out and he should gracefully exit left.

Something made him go over. He’d chatted to her for an hour. They had bonded. It seemed polite to say goodbye. To be the good guy he always imagined he was.

“Thank fuck you’re here! This guy is like a bloody octopus!” Karen detached herself and, picking up her drink, walked over to The Writer. His smile was instant. Doubts moved away as they went back to her friends. There was commotion between the two suiters of Roxanne that was rapidly attracting a crowd. Karen and friend formed an uneasy wall between the men, Roxanne and several late comers amused by the spectacle.

All was uproar and raised voices. Roxanne, now pissed, was arguing with her friends. She’d made a decision and wanted to go home with a third guy who, silently, had joined our group. He seemed sober, well dressed. Good looking. Yes, yes, just the sort thought The Writer bitterly.

The girls were arguing amongst themselves. Old enmities were brought up to met by counterpoints from way back. The taller one took charge. She was the most sober and clearly was the mother of the group. She suggested they take this outside. They all agreed. Karen raised her eyebrow at The Writer as they went outside onto the terrace. He stayed at the bar ordering a fresh Kriek. Best to stay out of it.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Alarmed he rushed outside to see the three girls in the distance passing De Verliefden statue walking away at a fast pace.

Out into the darkness of Bruges.

Hand On It, Rejections from the article

Let’s not batter the veneer of this literary creme brûlée too hard with our spoon. 

And my favourite:

Was life as the perpetual outsider, the not so detached observer of human follies finally realising the stinging words pointed at others were but pale cousins to the unwritten rebuke subliminally hidden ? 

 

(In which Tim, donning the ill fitting mantle of a travel writer, eschews bitchy bar room observations and talks about his general thoughts on Krakow. Probably not going to go too deep into the historic churches, castles, squares. There’s other bloggers for that. This is more about my impressions. Which is a pretentious way of saying, it’s some lazy old bollocks I wrote semi pissed into my notebook whilst writing the other two parts to my Krakow Trilogy .)

Anyway, Krakow.

Yes beautiful. Definitely come here. They speak perfect English everywhere. I quizzed a barman about this. It’s the linga franca of our age. We all are dragged back to the universal English. Sorry French. Germans. Italians who, outside their own country have to meet serving staff in a third language. Our greatest achievement perhaps? The default option - the bitcoin of language.

I don’t really do touristy things but, here’s a couple off everyone’s top ten of things to do in Krakow:

1) Wawel Castle. Yes, it’s the number one place to see and rightly so. Get your lazy arse up that hill and snap those tourist shots; you know the ones… The ones you get out your phone for and bore your friends with. It’s mostly free. Pay to wander around inside and pretend to be interested in 16th century tapestries, or something. I took the dragon’s cave steps down to the town for a small fee.

2) Oskar Schindler Factory museum. Well worth a trip across the river. Thought provoking and deftly handled. Read my article here.

3) Old Town Square. Yeah, it’s big. You’ll probably spend most of your time there anyway.

4) Get pissed in various bars and write scabrous & bitchy articles through hazes of practiced ennui enthused vodka. Read mine here.

5) The dumplings. Yeah, why not.

6) Parks and cleanliness. The whole of the old square is surrounded by a greenery. I believe this is the moat converted to parkland. Very lovely.

Food and Drink

There are lots of bars and restaurants. Where did I eat?

Polish cuisine. You can’t avoid the pierogi - those stuffed dumplings (meat / spinach, cheese, take your pick). I went to Mirror Bistro which is a pierogi specialist. I had the Borsch with an egg followed by meat pierogis with caramelised onions. Very traditional. A bit dry for my liking - wish I’d have paired with a cream sauce for that satisfied ‘fuck it, I’m on holiday’ experience. Washed down with beer. 82 Zloty (£18!)

As I’m trying to avoid potatoes / wheat etc, I looked up and went to salad bar Chimera. It’s situated in a street adjacent to the main square. Yeah, I know a salad bar sounds crap but this was a good find. It’s a pretty place in a covered courtyard. There’s a long counter with various salads but also the odd meat dish too. You pay per portion. It wasn’t expensive. I had a plate full of various salads and chicken washed down with beer and (the free) freshly squeezed orange juice.

And yes, I went to a Taste Poland (Grodska) fast food joint just off the main square (Grodska 38). I had more Pierogi, a Polish sausage and pickles plus my inevitable beer (see photo above to the right). Nothing to be snobby about, it was lovely and just what I needed. Fast and friendly service (you get a beeper which goes off when your order is ready). 78 Zloty (£16). If you need a quick but authentic fuel stop, I’d go here.

But I spent most of my time in bars. You know, how else does this stuff get written?

My favourite was B.O.H.O to which I returned three times. It’s on Stolarska 6 which is near Planty Park. Read my pissed up observations of this bar written on my three visits through hazes of practiced ennui enthused vodka here.

Black Gallery Pub. (Mikołajska 24 - just above Planty). A good stop off, intriguing bar on a couple of levels, wooden look, friendly bar staff. Worth a beer before (or after) dinner.

Other random observations

Some observations about Krakow, Poland and the Polish based on a couple of days wandering around Krakow. Hot-takes are the best takes!

Denim shorts (mainly light denim like the 80’s never stopped). Must be like a national dress here in Poland. The temperature hit 30C whilst I was here and it seemed all the men - and a lot of the women - got their denim shorts out. Now, I don’t possess a pair and so, caught short, I constantly looked like a tourist. This is a disadvantage especially later on at night walking through the old town square and the main roads leading from it. A single male being identified as a tourist is not fun (see below).

Mobile phones. Polish people actually put their mobiles to their ears and have discreet conversations. And don’t put the recipient of their call on speaker phone. Oh how quaint and different from lovely Britannia where it is de rigueur to yell at the mobile and entertain your enraptured public with both sides of your conversation. The Poles clearly need to catch up.

There are some tramps in Krakow. They congregate darkly on the outer benches of the parks. With unkempt beards, unwashed clothes and scrappy backpacks, they pass local firewater between themselves. They don’t shout, they don’t harass. They don’t pitch tents on the pavement, shoot up drugs in front of you or lie comatose outside international rail stations (BTW: Krakow station is immaculate and a living embarrassment to the UK). In a way, the tramps of Krakow remind me of the old school alkies I remember from the 70’s who used to hang around Rochdale’s war memorial, dissolute but discreet. In the three days I was here, I wasn’t harassed by beggars once. 

But I was harrassed during the day around the main square and river by a constant sea of hawkers, hawking their city tours, river tours, guided tours. They’re easy to spot and avoid as they like to dress up in colourful outfits. At night though, mmm, it’s a different story…

As a single man walking through the main square and the roads leading from it, I was constantly approached by, what’s the right words, pretty women who wanted me to come to a party. How friendly of them! Seemingly these parties are where women take their clothes off for money. For variation, their male counterparts - with a knowing nudge, nudge, wink, wink, also offered to take me to these self same parties.

Frankly it’s annoying and put a downer on my evening walks. However, Krakow isn’t the only place where this happens but it’s seedy and makes you distrust friendly faces and pretty girls. 

Pedestrian crossings. A strange observation perhaps but a telling one. Everyone waits for the green man signal before traversing the road. Even when there’s no traffic. Respect the culture. 

Travel

I went for three days late August 2025. I flew from Gatwick on Easy Jet. It takes just over two hours to get to Krakow. There’s a train station at the airport which takes you in twenty minutes to the central train station in Krakow. Tickets are easily bought from machines at the station or sold to you on the train. The trains are immaculate so much so that I wander up and down a few carriages thinking I was in first class. No, they’re just clean and comfy. I stayed in the IBIS budget next to the main shopping centre (and the main train station). Probably a 15 min walk to the old town. I didn’t feel unsafe wandering around - other than being accosted by enthusiasts of strip clubs. My flight back was with Wizz Air.

I booked via lastminute.com. The cost was just under £500 for the return flights and two nights at the hotel. Food, drink and entrance fees are cheap once you get there.

(In which a sweary Tim, vodka in one hand, beer in the other, laptop twix and between, attempts to summarise Poland’s second city sat in a bar; gradually sliding into a lulled pissness. The late summer heat is on in Krakow, the sun is shining and yet he manfully pens this hipshot hot take from within a bar taking refuge from tourists, near and perhaps within, the historic centre. Could I instead be sightseeing? Could I be looking through churches? Could I be describing the architecture? No. Fuck that. Même merde, endroit différent. For a similar cockeyed take on foreign cities, see my Thoughts from a bar in Antwerp )

Part of the Krakow Trilogy

The smoke fills the bar.

Diverse young people - in Gothic attire, suits, sporting tattoos, nose rings, ripped clothes, beards - smoke cigarettes like it’s Brighton 2007. Almost nostalgic, in fact.

Now, I’ve been around. Liberal Netherlands, for instance. Sans joint, you’re outside the joint these days. Alsjeblief. But here, and obviously not all bars in Krakow, smoking seems tolerated in some. I thought it was an EU-wide ban. Clearly not. Fans silently whir above me.

I don’t smoke (vape, anyone?) but the libertarian in me, likes the choice. I always thought - before the COVID gestapo overreach obviously - that blanket smoking bans were wrong: What about having smoking pubs and non smoking pubs? Let the public decide. But I lost the argument I never made.

Anyway, my new favourite bar in Krakow - B.O.H.O (on Stolarska Street) - doesn’t care. The clientele aren’t 50 something American tourist Karens waving their hands dismissively at the smoke, but locals and me. I sit inside. The small tables outside scoop up whatever tired tourists there are. Good, stay out on the pavement.

I mean, who’s here with me right now in this back room (with open windows onto the street)?

On the next table, we have blonde mullet guy talking to - chatting up? - a brunette girl who is giving him too much eye contact for my liking. Get a fucking room! They’re both about twenty and lean ever so closely together and pore over each other’s mobiles to demonstrate a point / show an insightful Tictoc (or whatever kids use these days). Both smoke. And both - betraying their age perhaps - are drinking some iced coffee / chocolate concoction. I think, and who cares what I think, they’ll be some fumblings, some awkward love making tonight.

But maybe he should get her a vodka to help nature take its course?

Permed heavy rock guy in a long overcoat (why? It’s 25C) has just left with strappy top free spirited girl. Part of me hopes that, outside the bar, she thanks him for the coffee and overlong discussion about Star Wars minutiae, and then leaves him for the comforting vibration of a rampant rabbit or something. (Editor’s note: What the fuck do you know about this Tim? Straying from the path into the dark of Mirkwood here, methinks?).

We have tattooed lady in black lipstick and shades pouring over hand written sheets of paper. Maybe her novel. She has an oversized coffee and an ashtray in front of her. She earnestly consults her phone and then carefully writes onto her sheets of paper. Edits to her masterpiece? A manifesto of hate and dislocation perhaps. More likely unrequited love and pussycats? Dunno. She offered me her plug when my laptop looked like dying which was nice of her. Battery packs are a life saver in more than one way.

Blonde couple next to me have finished their drinks but have just lit up anyway. Money seems tight. Mmmm. Anyway. Her eye contact is getting ever more suggestive. As are her ‘innocent’ hand and knee movements that accidentally touch mullet guy. He seems clueless. Take the W mate. And yet. And yet. He prevaricates like he’s channelling the younger Tim Robson. Unable to close the deal, he’s moved back into his chair. As has she. That fleeting moment lost. Maybe I should help out?

I wonder, have they ever seen Indecent Proposal? Probably not. Am I playing the ageing satyr? The world weary roué? One million dollars reduced to a round or two of vodkas? Bad Tim. Bad Tim

They liven up to Love My Way by the Psychedelic Furs. It’s that sort of place. English Indie music. Perhaps I should let slip that the tune they’re half singing along to to, I saw performed at the Brighton Centre Feb 7th 1987. No? 1987! That’s like, a long fucking time ago granddad!

(The gig was to follow up on the beefed up version of Pretty in Pink which enlivened the movie de jour of the same name and briefly tickled the charts in 1986. All I remember of the gig was that they wore ridiculous raincoats which seem daft even in 1987. Not cool, just stupid.)

They sit engrossed in their own phones. She texts. He looks at something ephemeral. They leave. Probably it’ll happen on the balance of probabilities. Maybe not. I hope so. He put in the hours.

Two blokes in front of me smoke and tap on their laptops. No novels being created here. There’s a matrix of coding on one screen and impenetrable graphs on the other. Must be working. They flip between languages as they sip coffee.

Another couple sit in the corner. Apart from tangentially touching lighters and an ashtray, they sport an empty glass between them. He talks a lot. Baseball cap, wire glasses; he has views. Lots of views. The not unattactive girl robotically nods but leans her head against the wall, eyes closing. Although he’s speaking Polish, I think I can understand what he says. Roughly translated, ‘blah, blah, blah, I like to drive women away with a shitty stick’.

In fact; am I the only one in this bar who actually buys booze? The rest seem to get a coffee, a free water and then smoke cigarettes and live their life. Beardy who’s joined the two laptop nerds even takes a sip from a flask hidden in his bag and laughs as I spot him doing it. This is a fucking social club for writers, nerds and nerds trying to get laid.

Then a lady in a long red and tight dress walks in; all mystery and old time glamour. I try not to stare. She plonks down a thick feminist text and a packet of cigarettes on the table next to me and disappears off to the bar. Chance, serendipity both laugh their arse off at me. Me, who has to leave in ten minutes for the airport and out of Krakow, leaving Poland behind. I have The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera on the table next to my beer, my vodka, my laptop. Maybe she could have been the one. Maybe she would be more than just a bitchy footnote in a blog. A might have been. Indeed; She. Could. Have. Been. The. One.

But time. Circumstance. They mock my foolish thoughts and dreams.

So I drink up my beer, chug the vodka and finish this blog to the sounds of Ed’s Funky Diner.

Need a piss first though.

Slightly More Serious Review

B.O.H.O Coffee and Bar is within the Old Town area of Krakow, quite near to Planty Park. Small tables front the property. Inside it’s a pleasing mismatch of a large red armchairs and sofas, indispersed with more standard wooden tables. The bar staff are friendly, everyone smokes but - apart from a wannabe English writer - no one seems to drink alcohol that much. I make up for them. Could be that I came during the daytime.

It’s a cosy bar spread over three linked rooms and is frequented by locals, distressingly way younger than me. There’s a studenty / just graduated vibe to it. The atmosphere is welcoming though and was the perfect place for me to write - in fact - it’s harder to spot those without a laptop than those with.

The music tends to be (or at least when I was there) Indie music from the 80’s. No problem with that!

I didn’t sample the cakes / food etc. They would have got in the way of my beer and vodka chasers so I can’t comment on the food but it looked good.

This was my favourite place in Krakow. It must have been; I returned there three times over three days in the blazing sun of late August 2025. Yes, the vignette above is a composite piece. All art is, by definition, arrayed in the robe of artifice my friends. I make no apology for that. It’s my literary Impressionism in action.

But for further and more sober insights into Krakow and where else other than a friendly bar to go to, check out my Krakow Trilogy.

Schindler’s Factory. Krakow

Thoughts..

Like many in the 90’s I saw Spielberg’s Schindler's List. Whilst an undoubtedly moving film, it’s probably not one you’d want to watch twice. A tale of one man’s redemption through good works as he battles the Nazi occupiers cruelty in their persecution of the Jews in Poland.

I’m in Krakow this week.

This morning I got up early and walked across the Vistula River and onto the Oskar Schindler Museum situated in the same factory buildings where he protected hundreds of Jews from the Nazi authorities and death.

I didn't know what I expected. A worthy museum perhaps, with exhibitions of metallurgy perhaps and a dry retracing through the themes of the movie. That’s not what I found.

I would say three quarters of the museum concentrates - through photographs, movies and artefacts - on the history of Krakow during the build up to the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland.

You start at the top of the building and work down as the exhibitions take you through life in Krakow through summer 1939 to 1945 and the inhumanity and savagery - even pettiness - of the Nazi occupation. The tragedy of the Polish people generally, and the sizeable Jewish population in particular, is laid out through well chosen and contemporaneous displays.

Aside: It’s quite shocking to see displays of original Nazi regalia, from banners to machine guns, right through to branded tableware. These days the swastika is so verboten it’s quite a reality check to see the real deal that, instead of some lazy reference point, was actually - not so long ago - a living symbol of real evil.

Swastikas aside, there are many other pointed reminders of the executions, restrictions and even the Germanification of Krakow (language, education, housing; even street names). (1) We in Britain, through the English Channel, Spitfires, the Royal Navy, Churchill and good luck (the free Poles too!), avoided having to face this calamity. (2)

Unlike other museums I’ve been to, the fact that this one is cited in the actual location of so much history, is somewhat humbling. (3) A couple of times, I will admit, I was holding back tears. History weighs heavy in the location, in the subject matter. And it wasn’t so very long ago. And, if history is any guide and the human condition doesn’t change - and it won’t - this could be a path we go down again.

It ends with the Soviet occupation in1945. The Poles gained a country but lost their freedom.

So, what do I conclude:

1) Definitely go to this museum. It’s well worth it and any museum that provokes thought, reflection and a sense of an individual’s heroism against a harsh world is worth the (low) admission price.

2) A renewed hatred of the Nazis. There’s a reason they’re viewed in such disgust. I would caution though that they weren’t the only ones in history with a bad reputation (all countries, peoples and cultures are guilty). They might not be the last.

3) There is hope. I walked back through Kazimierz - the historical Jewish district of Krakow. I sensed no animus but instead saw Jewish shops and restaurants (and even an Israeli flag). Many tourists. History is long with many winding roads shaded from view. Perhaps, sometimes, they lead from a dark place into the light. It’s never perfect though.

Notes

1) Ignorant buffoon that I am, a cursory reading of history reveals the Germification of the Polish language and culture isn’t confined to 1939-45. The whole 19th Century after the Partitions of Poland (1772/95), for example. In the interest of balance, the forced deportations of ethnic Germans from Poland after 1945 shouldn’t be ignored. Which all goes to show, with history, the more you know, the less you really know. Always be alert to simplification, in both broad culture and - most particularly - in the narrow interests of politicians who use collective ignorance to drive a nefarious agenda.

2) The semi satirical American put down of Brits: “You’d all be speaking German if it wasn’t for us,” never felt so chillingly real.

3) A similar sensation you get in the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Different country, same tragedy.

"Hey Buddy; take me to Bleecker Street."

“I saw a shadow touch a shadow’s hand. On Bleecker Street.”

— Paul Simon - Bleecker Street

(New York Memories from many years ago and a taxi trip I took to follow a song. A repost but with edits and additions.)

When I first went to New York, American Express put me up at The Marriott Downtown on West Street. (1) After a hard day in the office doing, oh I don’t know what - all work is ephemeral given time and distance - I would ask my US colleagues out for a beer. And sometimes they would oblige... For a beer. Just one beer. Before then departing for New Jersey or somewhere out of town. Leaving me alone in New York.

The Marriott Downtown on West Street is down at the bottom of Manhattan Island, in a very business district; all skyscrapers, bustling with life during the day but dead after work. What to do? On my first trip to New York?

Letting art be my guide, I summoned a yellow taxi and told the cabbie to take me to Bleecker Street. Due to the Simon and Garfunkel song, it was the only uptown street I knew and I didn’t know any attractive ladies I could meet at the top of the Empire State Building. So the cabbie took me - circuitously I found later - up to Greenwich Village.

De-cabbed, I wandered around the village. Had some beers in 'coffee shops' where I had to get used to putting dollars on the bar before ordering my drink. Lighting up a Marlboro - yes, you could in those days - I thought, hey! - this is living. All my idols - Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, had walked these very streets. Played in the coffee houses. All I lacked was my very own Suzi Rotolo immortalised on The Freewheeling Bob Dylan:-

Now that image is well known. Less well known is the cover of The Paul Simon Songbook where Paul poses (influenced by Dylan, no doubt) with his then girlfriend Kathy Chitty (of Kathy's Song fame):-

The album cover above is framed and hung in my hallway. The Song Book was released in 1965 and recorded in England after Simon temporarily left Garkunkel following the poor reception to their first album, Wednesday Morning 3am. Wednesday Morning, of course, contained Bleecker Street. Being a fan, I had all the albums.

So what does this all show? Not much, in the receding view of history. A first time visitor to a great city takes a taxi ride to someplace mentioned in a song. But to me it was real. It was living art. All of my life - in those distant youthful days - seemed to be an unwritten novel, an oral poem - a song, awaiting to be sung.

I suppose life is an ever diminishing version of that little story: The search for the new, the openness of naivety, the finding of oneself, wherever that may be. I suppose we all search for the thrill and expectation I felt during that first taxi ride between West Street and Bleecker Street.

And sometimes we find that feeling. But usually we don't. We all live in between.

Tim

 

NOTES

1) Subsequently, I used to stay at the Marriott World Trade Centre, a little further up West Street. It was in between the twin towers and, of an evening, instead of Bleecker Street, I’d hang out in Windows on the World bar, up on 101st floor.

2) Other memories of that first trip to New York? The death of Richard Nixon vying with Mayor Giuliani’s first budget and both being very much on TV & Radio. Surprisingly crappy roads with potholes even down in the financial district. 

 

 

Yeah, Serge is batting above his average.

A few years back, in the dark days of masks, lockdowns and weird social rules in supermarkets, I wrote a pretty well received article on the best unknown 60’s songs (strangely now my most popular article battling it out with Mick Taylor and - bizarrely - a circularly walk around Burgess Hill).

The obscure 60’s article strayed not too far from the path of collective knowledge - B Sides from familiar bands (Stones, Beatles, Who), overlooked singles - Lady Friend by The Byrds. A couple of randos like Rudi’s in Love.

A toe in the water. I promised then - and I always keep my promises - to write a follow up with more obscure fayre from the 60’s. Well, here it is and here they are.

But before I start, I’m aware that this list will also be derided as mainstream, yawn, “13th Story Elevators - so overdone man.” I’ll take that abuse - there’s none so disdainful as an obscurantist. They are not my audience. Who is then Tim? Well, since you ask, my readers tend to stray on this site after perusing my Mick Taylor articles or having ploughed their way through my worthy histories of Rome through various battles. And given these facts, let’s tread lightly into obscure music trivia.

So - I can’t get no satisfaction crowd, be damned - here we go.

You’re Gonna Miss Me - The 13th Story Elevators (1966)

Pretty well known in underground circles. There used to be several club nights in Brighton in the early 90’s that would delight in playing obscure 60’s tracks. In my mind and unreliable memory, this particularly track used to be played a lot. For how else would I know it? It sounds like it was recorded in a garage which is a prerequisite for this list. Sounds like it was done in one take. Written by Roki Eriksson and storming to 55 on the Billboard charts in May 1966, this was the highpoint of The 13th Floor Elevators. If you like a track with prominent guitar, wailing singer, Kinks type solo and a weird jug instrument in the background then You’re Gonna Miss Me is one for your party playlist. Look smug.

I’m Gonna Jump - The Toggery Five

Familiar story. Boy finds his girl is unfaithful. Confronts her and then threatens to jump into a river to kill himself. Perhaps an over-reaction, no? Probably why she dumped you mate. But it’s delivered with panache, the singer has a pair of lungs on him and - subject matter aside - it’s a dramatic tune. Didn’t trouble the charts though. And how do I know this particular ditty? Well, back in Rochdale, so many years ago, the vicar’s daughter handed me a set of 45 singles. Can’t remember why. And this one was in the pile. It’s a crap anecdote I know but led to this entry on the listette.

Tried So Hard - Gene Clark (1967)

Gene left the Byrds in 1966 - afraid of flying and chased by the jealousy of the others. He then embarked on an unsuccessful solo career before drinking himself to death in 1991. Those twenty five years produced many great tracks and plenty from the 60’s all of which, unless you’re a Gene fan, are worthy of a mention here. I’ll go with Tried So Hard which - in various incarnations, I’ve tried so hard to play and record over the years. Clark is one of those few artists who started the country rock genre and no there’s no better example than this track. Superficially a ‘country’ song, it is replete with unusual minor chords and a great melody that are a hallmark of this under appreciated artist. So, listen to this, The Echos the album it comes from, and then go forth and listen more deeply my children. (Bonus points if you find Fairport Convention’s BBC Radio session version).

Think About It - The Yardbirds (1968)

B Side of their last single - Good Night Sweet Josephine. Whilst the A side is a some sub-Mickey Most musical hall type crap, Think About It is a audible signpost to guitarist Jimmy Page’s next group Led Zeppelin. Plug him in and away Jimmy goes, riffing like a bastard, soloing madly, double/triple tracking himself and foreshadowing Dazed and Confused. You know, there was a time, back when the planet was young and Margaret Thatcher was in power, when The Yardbirds were everything to me. More so than Zep even. Page, Clapton, Beck. What a lineage! But in their last couple of years, it was basically Page who used the Yardbirds vehicle - criss crossing the States and Europe - to hone his craft and develop the sound of what would become the world beating Zeppelin that dominated the 70’s (Hat tip to Renaissance though). From Happenings Ten Years Time Ago to Puzzles to Think About It, this was an experimental heavy metal journey. Think About It.

Blues Run the Game - Jackson Frank (1965)

“Catch a boat to England mama // Maybe to Spain”

There was a folk scene in the UK in the early to mid 60’s. It included John Renbourne, Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny, Paul Simon and his fellow American, Jackson Frank. Some went on to great fame and fortune and others - Frank - didn’t. He recorded one album, produced by Paul Simon, and left us with a hatful of great songs unknown and lost. Blues Run the Game, with it’s trademark folk finger picking style, haunting tune and ominous lyrics, is probably his greatest legacy. Got nowhere but it so nearly did. When Simon and Garfunkle were recording their first album - after the success of the electrified Sounds of Silence single - they recorded Blues Run the Game (probably a more polished but less heartfelt version). But it never made the cut for the album and lay unreleased until the 90’s. Frank died of mental illness and poverty never to know success. Blues ran his game and won.

Bonnie & Clyde - Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot (1967)

Do we all feel the Serge? Dunno. But periodically, I do. Elisa, Initials BB, Qui est in, qui est out. Cool AF, is our Monsieur Gainsbourg. And Brigitte Bardot? This duo is hypnotic, with a an understated driving beat, falsetto cuckoos throughout, it draws you in and makes you think, why is this not more fasmous in the Anglo world. Clearly, I’m preaching to the choir in France but elsewhere, it’s a cult classic at best and a worthy and mighty entrant to this list. And yes, neither of them can sing that well. Cela n’a pas d’importance.

Maybe I Know - Lesley Gore (1964)

This song just comes at you right out of the blocks. With Quincy Jones production, this Jeff Barry/ Ellie Greenwich composition is a snapshot of early 60’s Brill Building styling. Inexplicably not a big hit, it’s one of my favs from this era - polished, great tune, confident double tracked vocals, whip cracking handclaps. Better known for ‘It’s my Party’ this is my preferred Lesley Gore song. And now yours. I’m sure her boyfriend didn’t really chteat on her like this (no sniggering).

This took me ages to write. Don’t know why. I neglect my blog, my readers, my craft. I apologise. Let the music say sorry to you… Part three? Who knows?

He sits back, laidback, all crotch display, leather jacket and quaffed hair. She’s not the first, the last, or the most important but she is in front of him right now sipping - through a straw - a double gin and tonic though I’m sure she only asked for a single. They smoke. They’re hip, seemingly equal, but this lopsided negotiation has but one outcome. 

So, that’s right in front of me. A tired seduction above 40.

What else? What else?

Family, older father, younger mother watching his beer intake, hunched teenage son. I predict quick sex after some drunken pleading. In a Novotel or Ibis Budget, hopefully not with the child in the same room.

We have Mr Buff, all tight black tee shirt, beard, tattoos and razored hair with obligatory blonde to my left. She’s sat almost on top of him so they must be new or asymmetrical. She rests her face on an elbow in his direction. He leans back; power move. Later, not much later, I suspect he’ll be shaming her into acts that her mother never told her about. Bad boy. Forgotten when she meets the corporate guy with a good income and pension that she can take when they (inevitably) divorce after a couple of kids. He’ll not be a bad boy.

Old guy sits on my right in a puffa jacket and a whiskey cocktail. He has his hair but no life, no future. He’s delaying going home to his little flat and a warmed up dinner. He stares into the mid distance, defeat in his eyes. Nothing will happen. Nothing has happened since his wife died ten years ago. 

But wait! Family has allowed the mulleted teenage son to leave and I just saw the older father place his hand on the younger mother’s hand. ‘Yeah, go and look around, sonny. We’ll be here.’ Guy wants to get pissed, she wants a relationship talk. I’m now predicting a long unsurfaced argument will get in the way of that perfunctory sex. Talk is dangerous.

Over to my far right are two older ladies drinking coca cola. As the bottles stand on the table, they discuss their menfolk or lack of and seem very engrossed. Too far away. Too… Yeah.

The family have left together. She looked me in the eye - once, twice - sphinx like in her appraisal as the older husband pays the bill unaware his wife and I shared a moment. A moment she shares a thousand times a day. Does he know, it just takes a brief lowering of his wife’s guard (or regard) and he’s a cuckold risking his pension rights and denied seeing sulky teenager on a regular basis?

I order another Kriek. The waiter’s aftershave arrives before the drink. No peanuts this time.

And apart from an odd guy in a camouflage baseball hat looking at his phone, beyond the too close couple, that’s it? No one else for me to critique on this Wednesday afternoon in Antwerp?

And your author, who is he?

Indeterminate forties / fifties (probably the latter) in a black gilet, Hackett shirt, tapping away at his laptop. Running from life, writing about real life wishing someone - Her? Her? Her? - would see him as a F.Scott Fitzgerald, a Hemingway, an exiled Oscar Wilde (without the gayness, obviously).

Watching the girls go by. Imagining a story within each. Not their worst story. An above average time bar hopping and chatting about history, literature, consensual politics. But, maybe not the best evening ever.

But probably mine. The laptop would disappear and the story would be unwritten. AsSecret. Until recalled years later. Names changed, obviously.

And then a blonde beauty walks in wearing a tight sweater and smiles at me innocently. The world is in that smile. A world of possibility, of redemption, of long overdue new beginnings. Of course, a taller, equally blonde male follows her on tow. Of course. But that smile. That smile, now looking at a glass of Rose as her immature boyfriend makes a show of pouring a Duvet. He plays her a TicToK video and she rests her head on his shoulder.

Young love, eh? Whatever happened to young love? That older couple from earlier on; there was no pretence at world changing romance in their dialogue, within their cocoon. It was, sex or no sex. It was do this or I’m not bothered and I’ve got 20 other women who will. The cracked makeup smudged on a pillow and no follow up the next day. It’s how it is now, yeah?

I hope the young couple next to me make it. Within age lies corruption. They may last. They probably won’t. Then it’s just another - what? - another sad story, unspoken. A failed domesticity only remembered by the two and then asymmetrically as some future partner witlessly blunders into “So, you? How many?”

Each day brings the possibility of immortality. But each day is just, everyday. And everyday is just like the last. 

Carpe Diem, motherfuckers.

Postscript

Later. A bar in Antwerp. International group speaking English as their Linga Franca. Unfortunately I therefore hear all. The women talk of all their facial treatments - what they’ve had, what they will have. The eldest is 35. The 28 year old agrees and swaps her needle around the forehead stories. Silently, I’m appalled. When they move onto STDs and ‘it was just sex’ anecdotes, I clutch my pearls, pick up my skirts and run. Fun times.