The Snowman

I watched The Snowman on YouTube recently, I sometimes surprise myself with how bored I can get at work. I'm not usually one to stick my neck out, but it really is very good. Say what you will about David Bowie's acting but he really nails that opening monologue. If only it could have kept the pace up like that throughout perhaps it wouldn't have been sidelined onto a minority commercial channel for all these years.

However, the bit that stood out for me was the fact that having seen a snowman come to life, developed the power of flight, visited the North Pole, seen the Northern Lights and met Father Christmas, the main character seems delighted to then take part in a Morris dance.

I'll square with you, I'm not a fan of the Morris Dance. It would take something pretty special for me to get amongst it, and even the above scenario probably wouldn't be enough for me to dosie do it (yes, a pun, I hate myself for it). What was Briggs trying to say by introducing the Morris at this point in the story? It is quite the leftfield choice, all things considered. Presuming he didn't just feel it was the logical next step for a plot about a snowman coming to life it seems there are only two remaining options. 1. Presuming the snowmen involved in the dance as native to the North Pole, Briggs is making a sly comment about globalisation and the proliferation of British culture abroad. 2. Presuming the snowmen as British natives who have emigrated to the North Pole (presumably, for the climate and low taxation), Briggs is satirising the tendancy of ex-pats to fail to embrace new cultures and turn everywhere into a little part of the UK. Either way, right on Raymond.

As for Bowie's monologue, I felt the knowledge that he had spent his adulthood lost in addiction to class a drugs really put a darker edge on the story. Am I the only person thinks that watching his only childhood friend melting to death in his garden might have had a long-term psychological impact on the poor lad?

Trains and Marcus Massey

I have had a bad six weeks since starting this blog, hence the lack of bloggery. Sometimes, this has been my own fault, sometimes luck has been against me. Take the following two incidents:

I went down to Devon recently for a gig. I wasn't being paid much and after buying the train tickets I was already in the red, a fact which cruelly exposed my need for an agent to drive some hard bargains ASAP. I had bought my tickets online because I'm a 21st century kind of guy and turned up at Paddington excited about the journey ahead. I love everything about traveling by train, I won't bore you with it here but suffice to say I enjoy reading, listening to music and romanticising the British countryside and railway network (Fuck you Dr Beeching, you're not going to stop me enjoying train travel!).

Anyway, it was apparent to me that something was up with my ticket when the ticket barrier refused to open. I went up to the guard and he pointed out I had purchased my ticket for the previous day, however, I should just get on anyway and explain my predicament. Once on the train I was almost certain the ticketman would make me pay some kind of fine. Instead, we had the following conversation:

Ticketman: Can I see your ticket?

Me: Ah, there is a slight problem with my ticket, you see I purchased it for (etc etc)

Ticketman: Right, well you couldn't have travelled yesterday due to the snow. Is that why you travelled today instead?

(Ticketman winks conspiratorially)

Me: Um, yes, that is correct.

(Long silence in which I panic that my story doesn't check out. Why would I be going to Devon for a mere 12 hours on the Monday night, yet due to snow have to change this for a Tuesday night? Not for a gig, that's for sure)

Me: I have to pick up a package.

Ticketman: What?

Me: I have to pick up a package, that is why I am going to Devon.

Ticketman: Ok.

Me: (worried he thinks I deal drugs or guns) It's nothing fishy.

Ticketman: Ok.

Me: Like guns.

Ticketman exits hastily, scene ends.

Now, I realise I have made some key errors here, and I hold my hands up, I will not be making that ticket mistake again. Or so I thought. It turns out I had bought my return ticket for March 5th instead of February 5th, they were not so kind the next day. I lost about 50 pounds all in on this gig (NB I have had to write pounds as a word as the computer I am using doesn't have a pound sign and converting it into dollars would have not made any sense at all).

Anyway, that was all my fault. The next night was not. I did a gig and this man was in the audience dominating proceedings: www.marcusmassey.co.uk, no one deserves that.

The difficult second blogpost

I should start by saying that I am aware that the title of this post implies certain things that, having read the first post, you might feel it isn't deserving of; that I have something to live up to and consequently I am sat at the keyboard with a mental block only previously experienced in the recording of the second albums of the Stone Roses, The Clash or the Bluetones.

Suffice to say I am under no such illusion, although I am glad that my skill with titles has created such vivid imagary; it's a gift I have.

Anyway, I realised I didn't actually say what this blog is for in my first post so I thought I would use this post to make some promises I can't keep, before starting in earnest in the new year. If you want a pop music based metaphor (and quite frankly who doesn't?) consider it like Blur's single Popscene, signalling the direction they would be moving in in the future after the initially confused efforts on their first album Leisure. This post won't be in any collected writings but all the real fans will claim this is their favourite post.

So, in brief, I hope this blog will be the following things:

A semi-regular update on events in my life that I feel are worth discussing. Examples: birth, marriage, death, amusing incident in the computer cluster of Lavender Hill library.

Links to things I like: Examples: http://www.the-gaffer.com/, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PuIVOrE3F_U, http://www.pasoti.co.uk/talk/viewforum.php?f=6&sid=2c151e03e881932b5e21f22bc420a71d

Discussion of things I have seen and enjoyed. Examples: Television, films, people falling over.

Basically, anything I like. It is essentially a place I can write about things I want to write about without having to think "how will this work as an opening at Tom Webb's Stoke Newington gig on Thursday?" or "can I lever this idea into an article for When Saturday Comes?".

Roll on Modern Life is Rubbish.

Blogging on

I have been meaning to start a blog for a long time; it's 2008 for God's sake. For those of you that have been checking your internet with hope in your hearts for the last few years, I can only apologise, it has been quite some wait.

In the end I was driven to it by Seabiscuit, the hero and horse. I am at my parents' house in Devon for Christmas and they were insistant on spending their afternoon watching a heartwarming tale of horsemanship in depression era America and I really couldn't do much to stop them. As a fan of neither horses or the depression era I decided instead that I would use my afternoon to follow in the footsteps of Lily Allen and the hooker that Billie Piper played on ITV2 by joining the blogging fraternity. (NB for fans of either of the above bloggers I am afraid this blog will contain neither foulmouthed views on popstars and the size zero debate or stories of sexual misadventures in 21st century London).

It has been tougher than I thought getting amongst it with the blogging community, the kind of exercise in red tape that I have come to expect in Blair's Britain. Not only did I have to name my blog* (a frustrating exercise in which you realise you are so bereft of original thought and comic imagination that you have seriously toyed with the name 'Bloggy, bloggy, bloggy! Oi, oi, oi!'), but I had to decide on format for the blog and provide a picture and description of myself. As you will have noticed I have not provided a description and have put in a photo of Jeremy Brett playing Sherlock Holmes in the Granada drama series of the early nineties; I am quite the rebel.

I then had to make a string of high-level decisions such as "Would I like people to be able to send my blog their to friends via email with just the click of a button?". The fact I chose 'yes' speaks volumes for my misplaced confidence in this project. This process climaxed when I managed to mistakenly translate my blog into Hindi. Not only was this annoying but it further brings to my attention that this is a key market I am yet to crack (If you do want to read this blog in Hindi give me a shout. If I get enough requests I would be willing to make the change, I'm nothing if not democratic).

Anyway, I think that is about enough for now, I notice I am meant to label the blog with subject words that relate to the post. The helpful examples I am given are scooters, holidays and autumn, which hints that a) the good people at blogger.com really don't know me as well as they think they do, and b) there is a blogpost out there that is potentially more boring than this disection of filling in some details on a website.

* I would like to thank my brother Henry for the title for this blog, an amusing pun on a type of incense stick that really doesn't work on any level.