Desert Island Dick 1

This Island – TV Priest (2021, Sub Pop Records, Taken from ‘Uppers’)

“I hear you are a writer”. 

I am on my way to the village shop when a lady called Judy stops me and after greeting me she says that to me, followed by.

“I’m looking for people to write something for the Parish Magazine, a sort of spin on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, will you write something?”.

Now.  Three things.

Firstly, the Parish Magazine is a monthly booklet produced by a bunch of church goers about what is going on in the village that I live in.  85% of the Parish Magazine is church related, it tells you who is responsible for putting the books away, what time Evensong starts, what Jesus would do is certain situations and a bunch of other stuff.  It is comfortable, it is terribly middle class and it is slightly proud of it.

Secondly, I suspect that my mother in law has been in the pub again.

I tell Judy that I write a small music blog and that I would hardly describe myself as a writer. 

“I know I’ve read your blog.  I went to school with one of Underworld you know”

MMM Skyscraper I love You – Underworld (1994, Junior Boys Own, Taken from ‘Dubnobasswithmyheadman’)

I’m not sure how to take that sentence.  So I do my “Oh really” look – in fact I did know this because a drunk Judy told me the same thing at a wedding about four years ago. 

I should say no, I should run away and have absolutely nothing to do with the parish magazine.  I don’t for one second agree with about 98% of the stuff that is written in it – the 2% I do agree with are mainly recipes and what the Wildlife Warden writes about dog poo.

But and here’s the third thing.  There is a small part of me – ok – a massive part of me – that has always wanted to be on the actual Desert Island Discs on Radio 4.  The chances of that happening are I would say less than 0.01%, so this might just be the next best thing.  So, I stand there outside the shop, and I nod slowly and mumble an ‘OK’. 

“Oh super” says Judy. “We’ve narrowed it down to three songs, one book, one luxury item is that ok”. 

Piece of cake I think so I nod again and then I walk into the shop and for the first time in about three years I pick up a copy of the Parish Magazine.  I turn to the Desert Island Discs section and it is written by a retired colonel and all his songs are hymns, his book is the Bible and his luxury item is a cushion. He has also written about six words to describe each one.  It’s barely writing to be honest.  He may have just thrown some magnetic Scrabble tiles onto a fridge and used that.

Regular readers of this nonsense will possibly remember that in the eighteenth part of my series ‘Nearly Perfect Albums’ I spoke about the fantastic album ‘The Chemistry of Common Life’ and in that piece I said that one of the songs that I would take to Desert Island with me would this : –

No Epiphany – Fucked Up (2008, Matador Records, Taken from ‘The Chemistry of Common Life’)

And as much as I like to think of myself as a revolutionary, and as someone who readily socks it to the man whenever he can.  I’m not really.  I have to live in this village.  If I start talking about how brilliant a song by a hardcore punk band called Fucked Up is in a Parish Magazine dedicated to championing Jesus, there will be a baying mob carrying portable gallows and pitchforks outside my house by the time the next full moon comes around.

I sigh because I may have to re-think this. 

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