Lovely Warm Feet - Despite the Free Market Economy

Do you have an elderly relative who, on day trips to Blackpool or Scarborough, returns with gifts of the type of gadget only sold out of suitcases by men proclaiming their gadgets' unique worth in loud voices with one eye open for the local law. We do, and it's surprising how these tacky plastic artefacts actually turn into indispensable household items. Take, for example, our yellow and black plastic mini-Ewbank, a hand-held version of the larger push along floor cleaner with rotary brushes. Brilliant! we had one for years and it was perfect for whizzing over a few crumbs, until we got the dog, at any rate.

In the same vein, Mrs C discovered another stunningly good idea lurking in the back of one of the cheaper high street stores recently: radiator slippers. A magnet in the sole of each, means that rather than clutter the floor you can attach them to a radiator to warm. So when you have trudged through icy streets and can no longer feel your toes there they are, toasty warm, waiting for you - lovely.

But here's my question. How come these items are the sort of thing you only discover by accident gathering dust in Primark or Peacocks; yet when you tell other people about them they all want one? The answer, I think is my old hobby horse: marketing. The likes of Dragon's Den forces some poor would-be entrepreneur to bear their soul to scorn and ridicule, banking all on the whim of some wealthy patron who like a Roman emperor points their thumb heavenward or hell bound.

This is the reality: the difference between the Remington Fuzz-Away and Radiator Slippers is (aside from the obvioius that the slippers are actually useful) that the Fuzz-Away was backed by a multi-million dollar company who paid for sufficient Christmas advertising to dupe relatives, desperate for the ultimate gift, into buying this bizarre product.

So this year turn your back on telly hype and buy all your relatives wheelie brushes and radiator slippers - support the small entrepreneur.


Thanks to Nikki for the slipper picture.

Miss Taylor, Led Zeppelin and Sigmund Freud

I have been rather scornful of late about the meaninglessness of rock and pop come-backs of the likes of the Spice Girls and Take That and was disappointed at at Robert Plant having anything to do with a Led Zeppelin come-back. After all, he has evolved a long way, with his band Strange Sensation, since his priapic rock-god days; and his current collaboration with Alison Krauss is stunning. And then there was my last post: the anti stadium gig rant.

However, I am guilty of hypocrisy.

On Thursday I was in HMV browsing the classical music section, when over the excellent music system came Rock n Roll by Led Zeppelin, there followed Kashmir and two or three other Zep classics. When I heard those opening bars of Robert Plants throaty, almost lupine, cry, something happened deep inside me: the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and somewhere in my guts, or maybe in my cardio-vascular system, there were buttons pressed that are somehow linked to something fundamental to the essence of my being. I was fixed to the spot. Entranced I mouthed the words like some sort of mantra. Had you, there and then told me that for only £80 there was a ticket for the Led Zep reunion tour at the till and all I had to do was walk barefoot over burning coals and broken glass to get it, I would have gladly ran there waving my wad of notes. That is I would have had the store detective not come and stood very close to me until I left.

The thing is that now, sat here dispassionately in Oldham Library, I stand by my original view of stadium gigs. So what is it about the music of our early years that sets our pulses racing? I'm sure the answer lies with Miss Taylor and Sigmund Freud. The Austrian mind-doctor tells us that our the experiences of our formative years lay the foundations for our adult lives, so when I hear the fabulous bands of my teenage years I can not help but respond instinctively from deep within. So it's no wonder that the nostalgia merchants have us by the shorts is it - all they do is push the buttons and we run up eagerly to give them our money, whether it's Take That, Spice Girls or Deep Purple, nostalgia cannot fail to sell - sad isn't it.

Miss Taylor? She was my first love: age 6 years I fell in love with my teacher who had long ginger hair. If you ever need me to do something very difficult or unpopular just get someone with long ginger hair to ask me: Freud was right!

Dust Off Your Prejudices

I've just finished reading Stuart Maconie's excellent travelogue Pies and Prejudice and I heartily recommend it to any Northerners who feel the need to reacquaint themselves with all that is good up here where the air is clearer and the people decent, honest and sturdy folk - that is excepting Geordies, Scousers and Yorkshiremen of course. Because that's the other thing the book does, in addition to pointing out which side of the North/South divide is the best side: it allows you the rare luxury of revelling in all of your own prejudices; sitting stubbornly, arms folded across your chest berating anyone whose heritage wasn't cotton and clogs.

A quick review of my own social circle does tend to confirm my Northern stereotype: I know three people within a five minute walk of here who own allotments and only this evening I cooked with allotment produce; I own, and wear, a selection of flat caps; and I know someone with Whippets - well, they are not strictly speaking Whippets, they are Galgos, as I'm sure Lisa will shortly point out, but they are along the right lines.

Last Thursday two of the said allotment owners, one a lost Geordie, the other born in Sheffield but brought up in Wales, together with a Science Fiction Writer from Durham (you can imagine the lively banter) and me joined a further writer (from Yorkshire but moving to Cambridge) on a jolly boys outing to a venue that is another glorious Northern stereotype: the Trades Club at Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. I was disappointed that Stuart Maconie overlooked the Trade Club preferring to focus on Hebden Bridge's status as the Northern capital of things Lesbian. This gem of a music venue is quintessentially Northern, not in the sense of Peter Kay's Phoenix Club but rather in the best traditions of the Labour movement. The club typifies the workers struggle from the time of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists to the Miners Strike and beyond - a fact proudly expounded upon by the club president as he introduced Spiers and Boden, the evening's traditional music artistes. It's said that artistes are queuing up to play the Trades club because of it's almost unique atmosphere and heritage; the fact that people like Spiers and Boden who are used to playing to audiences three times the size of the assembled fifty or so folk fans that evening, choose to play there bear that out.

Now before you launch into another stereotypical outburst, this time aimed at finger-in-the-ear folk music types, let me explain why you miss out by discounting this sort of gig. Although Spiers and Boden sing traditional tunes, their music is everything that a gig at the MEN Arena in Manchester is not: full of life, energy and entertainment rather than some clinically choreographed pop pap on a screen, where the crowd's energy comes not from the stage but from each other's self-feeding hysteria. Do try and catch them on their current tour if you can and have your view of music expanded beyond what exists between 7am and 6pm, Monday to Friday on Radio 2; the reality is that there is far better music available on our doorstep for far less than the £60 or so we are expected to pay to fill the fat pockets of concert promoters.

I know where I'll be putting my hard earned Northern pound in the pursuit of live music; each to his own, but don't mind if I pour scorn on you stereotypically vacuous stadium gig after you've taken the mickey out of my flat cap, beard and wholemeal sweater.

Sacrilege

There are things in a man's working day - and I think, in this case, it is men - that are sacrosanct. Today I was shocked to find one of those things violated in my own workplace. Since being introduced to the ways of working men 30 or so years ago, I have understood that at certain times - usually about mid-morning - a man might boldly stroll out of the office, with a rolled copy of the Daily Mirror tucked under his arm, for ten minutes private time behind a firmly bolted door. Of course the days of entering the Gents to see a plume of smoke rising like a cloud from a cooling tower, behind a cubicle door, disappeared with the advent of no-smoking policies; but traditions persist and still a moment's meditation away from the fray are welcome.

Today though, as I popped in for a pre-meeting pee I noticed, in the gap beneath a cubicle door, some poor corporate soul felt that even that moment's private time must be sacrificed to the giant corporate leech. A box file, its lid open and resting against the cubicle door, bore along its spine, the legend IT Strategy Implementation Plan Reports; the sound of turning pages said all that needed to be said.

This, I fear, is the thin end of the wedge; how long before we have Wi - Fi points alongside the porcelain and those few most private of moments are disturbed by the chatter of laptop keystrokes from behind closed doors.

The Entrepreneurs

The other week there was a flea market to raise funds for No 2 son's brass band. At the end of the day he and his mate volunteered to clear up the unsold items from the Civic Hall. Tidying turned to browsing which turned to an entrepreneurial discussion about the likely Ebay value of some of the products. What particularly caught their eye were the record cabinet contents of someone probably about the age of my (and 70s Teen's) parents. "These must be worth something" they excitedly and optimistically said to each other as they flicked through about 30 LPs which, as I type, are stacked beside me waiting for someone to consider them valuable. Here are a few samples, do let me know if you are tempted:

- Rolf Harris, Altogether Now
- Val Doonican, Especially For You
- Roger Whittaker, The Mexican Whistler
- James Last, 10 Years Non Stop (God forbid), The Jubilee Album (Priced at £1.75))
- Harry Seacombe, If I Ruled The World (My Gran C would have loved that)
- Herb Alpert, Tijuana Brass, The Sound of Brass

What amused me though, was that these were the albums that they thought 'might be worth something' they skipped over the Bay City Rollers' Once Upon a Star which actually might appeal to someone.

Interestingly there was a tribute show to Herb Alpert on the radio last week and it seems he is uber-cool again with many of his old hits remixed - or re-whipped: a reference to his hit Whipped Cream - in a chill lounge style with many new improvised solos by the man himself. Click here to listen to some clips - I like it, yeah baby.


So here's my question: if they can do it for that old smoothie why can't they do it for Val Doonican and Rolf Harris? Watch this space for the Two Little Boys Remix with Stylophone improvisation.... actually I wonder whether that idea might be worth something...