Spend! Spend! Spend!

£45m...

Can you imagine living with that sort of cash? I can. All the things you could do. The endless possibilities. I'm hoping against hope that it's someone I know. If you're reading this, just £100,000 will do me. Or if you're feeling particularly generous you can pay off my mortgage instead. Thanks.

I do hope whoever has won it has got plans. There's nothing more dispiriting than those who say it won't change their lives. Well, why ever not? You enter this kind of competition just so it will change your life. So why do you want to carry on as normal?

I remember way back when the pools was the big way to land yourself a fortune. It'd be won by a sixtysomething cleaning lady from Gosport who was pictured receiving a giant-sized cheque from Robin Nedwell. When asked what she was going to do with it she'd say she wasn't going to give up her council house or her job. She was clearly a educationally sub-normal dullard because anyone with even half a brain would be on the next plane to Aruba to have a long, hard think. It just shows a lack of imagination.

Who doesn't find themselves daydreaming about their Brownstone apartment overlooking Central Park, or their lakeside cabin in the wilds of Canada or their ski lodge in Vermont or their canalside house in Amsterdam with candles in the window or their faithfully recreated 1960s penthouse apartment in Mayfair and the huge party they'd throw for all their friends in Paris? Sigh.

There's nothing more frustrating than Dennis and Myra Bonkers winning £8m and telling everyone they'll be staying in the house they've lived in for 30 years and just perhaps splashing out on a new fridge freezer and a fortnight in Ventnor. It's such a waste! Throw it my way, I'll help you spend it. Aren't simple folk boring?

Tell me you have dreams...

Double Trouble

So will you be voting for Jedward?

They'll probably win it, but who cares! It's no longer a talent show, it's about who teenage girls fancy or who the public vote for to upset the apple cart and to piss of Simon Cowell (not that he really cares either, it's all publicity), and it fills pages and pages of tabloid newspapers and celebrity mags. They're all over Heat, so it's probably safe to say there going to be around for a while. Of course they're terrible, and there's something unsettlingly Village Of The Damned about them, the way they exchange knowing looks and smile at the same time; they're quite mad. But they are entertaining and I can't wait to see what they do next. Tomorrow they're doing Ghostbusters, which should be a sight to behold.

I don't think there's anyone particularly outstanding this year. I quite like Lucie Jones, she has a nice voice, but otherwise they're all either irritating beyond belief (Jamie with the big hair that's clearly a wig, Danyl who throws the mic from side to side and who's become a national hate figure, Olly with the terrible hair and Will Young underbite) or really wet (fey Lloyd and everyone else).

But it's all jolly good fun and not be taken seriously. In the meantime, here's some real music. It's Russell Morris's 1969 Aussie No1, the seven-minute psychedlic wig out tour de force that is The Real Thing.

Absolute Hell?

Absolute Radio (previously Virgin) are launching an Eighties-only radio station on DAB and the internet.

While part of me applauds such a move - though it makes me feel quite old being a part of the 'gold' market - it also fills me with dread. Why? Because it'll be the same old hackneyed favourites you've heard time and time again.

What's the betting the first song played will be Don't You Want Me, swiftly followed by wallpaper like Easy Lover or Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) or Somewhere In My Heart or Livin' On A Prayer or other songs you still hear on the radio ALL THE TIME.

It would be great if they played artists from the Eighties you don't actually hear very much anymore, but I can't imagine for a moment that we can expect to hear Swansway, Interferon, Scarlet Fantastic or White & Torch, for example. Okay, not (big) hitmakers but worthy of inclusion nonetheless. I doubt there'll be anything non-Top 40 or even non-Top 20 for that matter. It'll be the major hits and nothing else and after a couple of days the playlist will come around all over again.

I know that this what marketing people think the audience want, but really.

Or am I being overly-pessimistic?

Bookends

I've had a terrible shock this morning. A really old friend of mine, probably the best friend I ever had, added me as a Facebook friend.

Now, I never look at Facebook really, I have the odd burst, but if nothing else it's a useful and interesting way to keep tabs on people. I'm not into gifting cakes or becoming a zombie or taking a which member of Sherbert are you, but I do like the keeping up element.

So this old friend and I parted company when he became far more interested in ecstasy and that entailed than anything else. My drug hell was over and done with years before that, but him always being a late starter fell in with a crowd while working at HMV and that was that really. So I've seen him once in 15 years.

It's a shame, as we shared so many excellent times, and there are songs from 1982 right up to 1994 that remind me of him. We share student houses and flats in London, we were like brothers, so when we drifted apart I don't suppose either of us thought any estrangement would last this long. We'd fallen out before, but we always made up.

I get an email from him once a year on my birthday, but I get no news whatsoever. I know he lived in Majorca and has a Norwegian wife and two cute kids, but anymore he's not saying. He did impart on his last birthday email that he'd moved back to the UK, and not that far from me, but there's no use asking what he's up to because he just won't say. He's always been a funny one. The family was dysfunctional before his parents split up. When they finally did they got a teacher to break the news to him. He never forgave them. But they always welcomed me, and his family were like my family, especially as my parents lived abroad during that time. I was the fourth child. I was really close to them all.

So it's bittersweet when you get something like this. All those lost years. Much as I'd like to see him the momentum has gone. I don't know his wife and kids and looking at the photos any of his friends either. And the shock comes because he's so bald and fat. He used to be skinny with lots of curly hair. I feel quite good in comparison.

So it's nice that I can see what he's up to without having to see him. Not that that's currently an option. Nothing lasts forever.

**This photo is not my sixth form, it's just plucked at random from the net, but I looked uncannily like the guy in the front row third left with the wedge haircut and shiny suit. Well it was 1983.

Can I Touch It?

Avenues and Alleyways' reminiscences of Showaddywaddy make me think of other Fifties inspired party bands from the Seventies we all enjoyed, even though we probably would dare not admit it.

The Rubettes's Sugar Baby Love I remember, and still think is a great tune, but it was slightly before my record-buying time. The hit of theirs I did buy thought was their 1977 comeback single Baby I Know. It's mellower, but they were still wearing those caps (known as Rubettes caps at the time, but surely they have a proper name?). The big-lipped lead singer was irritating and probably called Alan.

And what about Racey? Even at 14 I could see the lead singer was a grade A tit, but I loved Lay Your Love On Me, and I still think it's a great song. It always reminds me of going to a neighbours' school Christmas disco at which there were many girls in skintight satin trousers. I asked my neighbour to ask this girl called Chantal if I could 'touch her satins', and to my surprise she agreed, though hesitantly and I wasn't to touch them for long. I'll never forget it. It's a difficult age. I nicked someone's mod badges from their parka on the way out.

And of course, Darts. My love for It's Raining is well-documented on these pages, and it's the third most-played song on my ipod. I love them, but they're such an odd mix of people. Can you imagine such a group appealing to kids today? Perhaps it was the deep voice thing, beloved by Showaddywaddy as well, and always injecting novelty into already noveltyish records. What's not to like?

The spark has gone

Walking through M&S this morning I did a double-take at some Nescafe Gold. And then Persil. And then Go Cat. That's right, they've started doing other people's brands alongside their own.

Noooooooo!

The beauty of Marks and Sparks is that real life doesn't creep in. Everything's different, and often of a superior quality. I know that their stuff is made for them by famous manufacturers, but i like it that it's kept a secret. (I once heard Thornton's made the chocolates, which is not necessarily a good thing, but it's better than Anton Berg).

I wonder why they're doing this? Credit crunch? Trying to offer what a supermarket might? It's only selected brands I see, like Marmite and Flora, but still, they stick out a mile with their garish packaging. All those warm dark hues the store is done out with are now ruined. They've come such a long way.

Remember when M&S used to be the home of St Michael, and was all green and grey and hard surfaces and really boring and cold. The food was then only nice bit. Tins of corned beef hash with an orange gingham label. HOT Beef Madras, which wasn't hot at all, and lamb and mint sauce flavour crips, which you couldn't get anywhere else. All good stuff, all a bit of a treat because it was quite pricey.

British Home Stores used to have a food department. But it was no Marks. It was cold shades of grey blue, and I only remember bacon and cheese and the whole shop smelling of rind. The canteen was good for shoppers though. Their shepherds pie was a huge favourite.

So let's not allow M&S to become just another supermarket.

Five From Five Friday

So it's Friday again, so here's something for the weekend.

I watched that Madness film Take It Or Leave It, last night. Loads of great shots of 'old' London, and by that I mean Camden town in the late Seventies. Wasn't London bleak back then. My Dad still thinks it's like that, but of course it changed beyond all recognition, even in the 20 odd years I've been living here. The film was great, very raw, very real, and probably the experiences they had back then are no longer to be found for young bands today. But hey, what do I know. Here's the single that never was, Bed And Breakfast Man.



Now here's Dutch prog poppers Earth & Fire, as introduced to me by my brother's father-in-law, a Dutchman who's mad on music. I rather like this lot. As with all Euro groups, they sing in English. Here's Memories. It's haunting, I warn you.



And now a departure. This is a Thompson Twins song I wasn't that au fait with at all until I rewatched the John Hughes film Sixteen Candles. It's really rather lovely. No video of the Twins singing it, so you'll have to turn your back and imagine it.



We can't let the five pass without including something from Australia. Here's the new found confidence of a nation with an identity, with Gangajang and Sounds Of Then (This Is Australia). My sister-in-law perked up when she heard this at our house, not having heard it since was in Australia in the late Eighties she told of singing it at the tops of their voices as they crossed the Nullaboor Plain in a camper van. And that about sums it up.



Finally, in all her glory, here's bonkers German disco goddess Amanda Lear, who as I recall used to be all over the music papers, but I'd never heard a note of her music until earlier this year, when she turned up on a European comp I bought off eBay. It's very electronic, very now. La Roux could learn a thing or two. I believe Lear led a very colourful life, very much as you'd expect an androgynous Euro Bond-girl type who went out with Bryan Ferry would do. Here's her German Top Ten hit Follow Me.

Famous Names

Getting us to change our way of pronouncing things is not always easy. For example, Toffifee is generally said as it sounds, no matter how much they would have rather had us say 'Toffifay', because it was more continental and sophisticated. I noticed they've dropped the Yop and we're now on the more obvious Joop.

The only real success story I can think of is Nestle, now of course Nestlay, but for years Nestle's. Why the change? Because we now are not scared off by 'foreign' sounding names and can cope if something sounds like it's from another country. Well, some of us can, so the introductino of exotic sounding products is not too much of a problem, though we might take issue with something if it's unpronouncable, but Nokia or Dr Oetker have never been a problem.

There've been whole ad campaigns based on such social mores. Is it still 'Co-burns', rather than Cockburns?

There was a reason this thought was sparked off but I'm afraid I can't remember what it was. This post is going nowhere. I'll go away and have a long, hard think.

Autum: It's what Kate Bush is made for

Is there any artist more suited to soundtracking this time of year than Kate Bush? With it being such a fanstastic October, colours blazing all around, Kate's top of the pops with me (closely followed by Cat Stevens, whose voice is like leaves falling from trees).

Her songs conjure up autumnal, dark, magical, November scenes, involving hedgerows, thickets, misty fields, mellow orchards, wrapped up in red, rolled gold, olive, umber, black, dark green, scorched earth, village green, pear yellow, burnt orange, purple and scarlet. Her voice is spooky and ethereal. How perfect. This time of year life should be like the cover to Never Forever.

Songs like Moving, Hammer Horror, Cloudbusting, The Wedding List, Breathing and of course Wuthering Heights are made for dark afternoons and foggy mornings. There's none better.

Who's providing the sounds for you this autumn?

To See Or Not To See?

I just got one of those annoying email alerts from GET ME IN!, the ticket people. They inform me that, among others, Paul McCartney is playing some gigs sometime soon.

So here's the dilemma. I'm not a major Paul fan - controversially I prefer solo efforts by George and Ringo - but should I see Paul before I die? For that matter, should I see Paul before he dies?

Whenever I see him on the telly singing live I think he sounds awful. And lately he's been getting that ukelele out all the time and singing that Dance Tonight song which I have little time for and which he clearly thinks has united a nation. He should have put a cork in it after No More Lonely Nights, because personally I don't think he's done much to write home about since.

So if I were to fork out on tickets, I'd want lots of early solo stuff, lots of Wings (didn't being in Wings look like an enormous amount of fun, even though it probably wasn't?), and a smattering of Beatles - but not Hey Jude or the other ones he always does. I want Norwegian Wood and Eleanor Rigby and Hard Day's Night. I think it might be nice to see him do the hits before he goes the way of John or George or decides never to tour again, and that day might be coming.

I'm minded to think this way because although it's not been officially confirmed anywhere, I've heard David Bowie is quite ill and has retired, so I've missed my chance with that one. There are some legends you should see just because, even if you're not their biggest fan.

Do you agree?