Fifty Twelves Inches #42

Unbelievable – EMF (1990, Parlophone Records)

The twelve inch that is selected today belongs to my wife.  Something she is keen to point out when it is dragged out of the cupboard. This is because there are three copies of this record in the vinyl cupboard and so statistically speaking at least, this record was bound to appear in this series at some point.  We know its her copy because it has a tiny tear in the top left hand corner (caused by her cat – one assumes the cat was more of a Jesus Jones fan)

Anyway, this song being featured is probably no bad thing, ‘Unbelievable’ is a great record, unashamedly pop, infectiously catchy and when it first came out in 1990, a fifteen year old me thought it was one of the greatest things ever written. I remember having a picture of EMF taped inside my GCSE physics textbook (back in the days when you were allowed to decorate text books).  I used to sit next to a girl in physics, who I was slightly infatuated with and I think I must have asked out about twenty times in a single year when I was fourteen or fifteen.  

She said no every time by the way, and every time she said no, I shrugged and carried on talking about whatever we talked in physics class.  It certainly wasn’t physics though.  Our physics teacher was a rake like man called Watson, who knew his stuff but sadly for him and us, his stuff was delivered in long monotonous blasts. 

Anyway, a few years back when trawling through LinkedIn I stumbled across the girl from physics who in the thirty years since I last saw her (which was in 1993, at a mutual friends eighteenth birthday bash) had become a member of the Conservative Party, something she openly boasted about – there were pictures of her and Teresa May and her with Jeremy Hunt and had recently announced her engagement to a chap whose occupation is stated as ‘Hedge Fund Manager’.  I’m pretty sure he is wearing braces in the photo of the two of them. 

So I probably had a lucky escape, but if only she knew that in thirty years time the lad that sat next to her in physics and wrote her soppy notes on orange paper, would be in charge of the 715^th most popular Internet blog with the word Badger in the title, how different and better her life would have been.

None of this of course I told my daughter because she’d probably laugh at me and call me a loser.  What I did of course was tell her about how great EMF were when they first came to the worlds attention.  They were one of a select band of groups or artists that could find themselves on the front page of Smash Hits and the NME and that was very much their appeal.   EMF would have almost certainly have been massive on You Tube had that been a thing back in the very early nineties.

After ‘Unbelievable’ and the follow up single ‘I Believe’ both shot into the UK’s Top Five, EMF looked set to become one of the biggest bands of the planet, their debut album ‘Schubert’s Dip’ followed that and for a while they rode the hype. 

I Believe – EMF (1990, Parlophone Records)

In 1992, they released their second album, ‘Stigma’ which was a radical departure and very few people bought it and EMF’s time in the spotlight had faded.  Their third album, the excellent ‘Cha Cha Cha’ was a sort of return to form, but by then, their audience had moved on.

Perfect Day – EMF (1990, Parlophone Records)

The band split and new projects arrived, James Atkins, the singer with the band formed the big beat act Cooler and their techno rock track ‘Teknog’ was something of dancefloor smash when I was a student. But that is not on Songwhip or surprisingly You Tube so here is the follow up single,

Disco Sucks – Cooler (1997, Polydor Records),

Here is the no more than five words review

“Mums records are better”

And here to celebrate the new Taylor Swift album, which has made at least one eleven year old’s week, is a track from it

So Long London – Taylor Swift (2024, Republic Records), which to be fair is better than anything on the second EMF album.

Here in pale comparison is something by Been Stellar a band from New York who I like quite a lot.

Passing Judgment – Been Stellar (2024, Dirty Hit Records)

A Month of Bands from Canada – #7 – Suuns

Arena – Suuns (2010, Secretly Canadian Records, Taken from ‘Zeroes QC’)

The school in my village is small, old and quaint.  It has barely changed since my wife went there in the early eighties, in fact its only had about three different head teachers since the 1980s.  Right now, as I type this it has 95 pupils spread across four classes.  It doesn’t have a playing field (despite being surrounded by fields), it has no sports teams, a tiny hall which is also used as a canteen, sports hall, meeting room and concert venue, and it has six teachers and a part time cook.

Its very probably the greatest school in the world.

On the third day of my daughters trip she went to a school in Toronto to meet a class of similarly aged children.  She travelled there on a subway train, an experience in itself, considering that the nearest train station to her school is five miles away and the nearest tube train is in over 200 miles away in London.  The school is huge, there are more than 1000 children in it.  It has it own sport fields, a baseball court, three soccer pitches and a proper gymnasium.  Classrooms are massive, there is technology everywhere, the children can wear what they like and their canteen sells pizza every day.  You could literally pick up our little school plonk it in the middle of this one and it is very possible that no one would ever notice that it was there.

At first, according to my daughter being in the school was a bit weird.  Everyone looked at these new strange children, in their school uniforms, like they were aliens.  People giggled when H spoke, a boy who lives on a farm and who (genuinely) knew how the combustion engine of a tractor worked before he could read the word ‘tractor’, H has a brilliant Devonian accent.

My daughter told me that none of the Canadian children spoke to her until one of them, a girl called Molly, (whose name I have changed) saw a picture of Taylor Swift on her notebook and immediately starting talking about how much she loved Taylor Swift, and within minutes a new gang of Swifties had formed and within an hour they were friends for life and summer holiday trips were being planned.

Of course, the children weren’t at that school to discuss the best Taylor Swift songs (but by the way, if you are in any doubt the Canadian/Devonian jury was split between these two), 

Karma – Taylor Swift (2022, Republic Records)

Anti -Hero – Taylor Swift (2022, Republic Records)

They were there to talk about mental health and come up with a new interact internet based game to help young people talk, learn and deal with the pressures of it.  Which of course they did, but only after discussions on Ms Swift had concluded.

Today’s Canadian band are Suuns, they are from Montreal, making three Montreal bands in a row, something which puts them at top of the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest.  Suuns first came to prominence in 2010, when their debut album ‘Zeroes QC’ was released to much critical acclaim – one review called it a “Gorgeous assault on the ears”.  Which is as good a review as you will ever need to read.  It is exactly that, a splendid mix of krautrock, space prog and sparse electronica. It is full of bass wobbles, bendy organ noises, saxophone wigouts, and at least one gorgeous spaced out ballad.  It also contains ‘Arena’ which might just be one of the most danceable tracks of the last fifteen years.

Armed For Peace – Suuns (2010, Secretly Canadian Records) – this is the track with the bendy organ.

Gaze – Suuns (2010, Secretly Canadian Records) – this is your saxophone wigout

Organ Blues – Suuns (2010, Secretly Canadian Records) – and here is your gorgeous album ending ballad.

Here is the latest scoreboard in the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest

Montreal	3
Toronto	2
Vancouver	2
Quebec	1

And here is Monday’s lyrical clue, first correct guess in the comments gets some stale school dinners, pink custard optional.

“What if I can’t tell whats best for me?”

Two

It was a drunken night out in Exeter City in the middle of October 2021 that made me want to start blogging again.  I had with three mates been to see Red Rum Club at the Cavern Club in Exeter.  They were the first band I had seen live in eighteen months, due to lockdown restrictions and they were pretty amazing.  You see in that eighteen months, I’d sort of forgotten what going to gigs was like and when I got home all I wanted to do was write down about how good ‘Calexico’ was and how you should stop what you are doing and listen to Red Rum Club.

Calexico – Red Rum Club (2019, Modern Sky Records, Taken from ‘Matador’)

It took me a month, and an underwhelming Damon Albarn gig in a freezing cold church in Totnes to finally put pen to paper and there at nearly midnight on a Tuesday evening in November, No Badger Required was created.

Polaris – Damon Albarn (2021, Transgressive Records, Taken from ‘The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream’)

Today marks the second birthday of this blog.  To be honest its lasted nearly eighteen months longer than I expected it to, because you see I thought I’d told all the stories that I could tell and I thought I’d written about my favourite albums enough and I thought I’d explored every feasible topic about music that could be explored – on that how does 20 Songs with ‘friend’ in the title sound, interspersed with stories about stupid things some of my friends have done…

All My Friends – LCD Soundsystem (2007, DFA Records, Taken from ‘Sound of Silver’)

Apparently, I was wrong though, because here we are.  Two years is young for a blog especially when there are others that have been going ten, eleven, fifteen years, blogs that continue to inspire, entertain and occasionally enrage me just as much as they every did.  If you are one of them, you are brilliant and I salute you. Please keep going.  

I’d also like to salute those of you who read this blog.  I don’t expect you to read it everyday but if you do – thank you.  If you read it once a month, thank you.  If today is your first time, thank you, as well, you have a lot of catching up to do.  If you are a member of the Musical Jury, then thank you especially.  It is my aim in life to hunt you all down and get you all roundly drunk (muggings, cancelled weddings, deaths, and 11^th birthday breakfasts notwithstanding) or if you don’t drink, take you out for trifle or something.

So, here’s to next year then….

On that, in January we have a choice to make. 

I have a BIG countdown in mind.  One that will last most of the year, one that will be great and contain loads of excellent music but I kind of love the uncertainty of the monthly themes, the chaotic randomness of it.  I also love using the Musical Jury so if no one minds, I’ll just carry on shall I with a different theme every month, I mean we’ve still got to do Rocks Greatest L after all.

15 Years – The Levellers (1993, China Records)

I’m also open to suggestions for themes, just in case anyone has any good ideas….

Oh and I might do another short story thing, you see I know this bloke called Wayne and he is being framed for a crime he almost certainly didn’t do….

Innocent (taylors version) – Taylor Swift (2023, Taken from ‘Speak Now (Taylors Version)’)

50 Twelve Inches – #15 The Breeders

Cannonball – The Breeders (1993, 4AD Records, Taken from ‘The Last Splash’)

When I launched this blog I joined a bunch of music related groups on Facebook, some were about a particular band, some were about a genre of a band, others were just a space for people to bang on about whatever music they were listening to that week.  The idea was that I would every now and again post a link to the blog to the 3000 members of that group and build up a nice readership through it. 

What I didn’t realise was that most of the groups were full of bigoted music snobs who would argue like two rhinos debating who had the biggest horn, over who was the ‘most indie’ or who had heard of the unsigned Crawley act ‘spunkbracket’ first and as such I decided that I didn’t actually want narrow minded toss bags like that reading this blog. 

I told myself that I should leave the group, but every now and again, if you ignored the comments from the idiots you would actually get some decent recommendations of new bands.  For instance, a person was talking at length about a band called Big Special that he saw live in Sheffield a few weeks ago. 

This Here Ain’t Water – Big Special (2023, SO Records)

“Just listen to their music please, they deserve to be HUUUGE!” he hollered from his lounge to the groups 3000 members.   Within minutes, he had 12 responses.

“I saw them in a toilet in Bradford TWO YEARS AGO, they’ve sold out now by playing a gig in Sheffield” came a quick response from Joe Sawthem First.

“Bradford, huh, they were blown out by then.  It was the gig at the Pigfanciers Arms in Keighley where this band really took off.” Came Indie Pete’s response.

I may have changed these responses, but you get the idea.  Regardless of that, Big Special are if you ask me, a bit erm, special, and you should probably check them out, even if you’ve already heard them, play their records some more, because music needs bands like this.

Anyway, how does this link into The Breeders, I hear at least one of you yell.  Well, a few weeks ago, my patience with that group finally snapped.  It snapped when someone – Let’s say it was Indie Pete for the sake of me not inventing another person – posted their utter disgust at the fact that The Breeders had been announced as one of the support acts on Olivia Rodrigo’s 2024 world tour (they are supporting on two shows, one in Los Angeles and one in New York so it’s hardly a tour).

For those of you who have never heard Olivia Rodrigo, this is what she sounds like

Vampire – Olivia Rodrigo (2023, Geffen Records, Taken from ‘GUTS’)

Which isn’t actually that bad really.

Although I admit that I did raise an eyebrow, when I first read it and then when I read further that Indie Pete was apoplectic with rage at the idea (you could tell how angry he was because the swearing was in capitals “Sell Out BASTARDS I’m burning all my early Breeders demo tapes right now, and chucking my promo copy of ‘Cannonball’ in the FUCKING BIN”) I thought it was a marvellous idea.  

So I commented.

I shouldn’t have done I know.  I should have rammed my fingers in the door to stop me ever typing again.  I know. But this is what I said.

“This is great news.  I didn’t even know that the Breeders were still going so surely the fact that they are together again and playing gigs, might mean some new music, and surely that is a good thing.  I wish I could go and see them at the Los Angeles gig.”

Apparently, this view made me someone who was a “Plastic Indie Fan”, (probably true) and someone who “Probably likes the Stereophonics” (harsh, although I do have a soft spot for ‘Local Boy in the Photograph’), oh go one then.  It’s a great track, accept it.

Local Boy in the Photograph – Stereophonics (1997, V2 Records, Taken from ‘Word Gets Around’)

It also made me a “Radio 1 indie show listener who owns one Nirvana record” “(two actually and one of those is on download and that Radio 1 show plays some really good music) and “Someone who should fuck off back to their Taylor Swift records”. 

Now I’ll gladly admit that I much prefer Taylor Swift to Olivia Rodrigo, but I accept that telling Indie Pete and his mates that I preferred Taylor Swift to the Breeders, could have been seen as provocation.  Even if it is true.

I found myself barred from the group the next day.  Shame.

We are Never Ever Getting Back Together – Taylor Swift (2012, Big Machine Records, Taken from ‘Red’)

Welcome to August – A month all about music’s greatest females- #1 Cathy Dennis

August – Taylor Swift (2020, Republic Records, Taken from ‘folklore’)

I used to know this guy at college, we’ll call him Justin, because that was his name.  He had quite cool taste in music and was one of about ten people that I would sit with in the pub on a Friday night.  One evening Justin turned up with a new leather jacket, and as was the rage back then, he had started to emblazon the jacket with the logos of his favourite bands.  He had the wonky Nirvana face on the back, a Levellers logo on the arm, and right at the top splashed across his shoulders were the words ‘Cathy Dennis’.   

Cathy Dennis was at the time something of a pop princess.  I suspect, that Justin was being ironic or trying to be clever but according to him, the reason why Cathy’s name was there was because

“She is the greatest living female rock star”

I mean back in 1992 when this was all happening, Cathy Dennis wasn’t even if the top ten greatest living female rock stars.  For a start at the time, this young lady was the greatest living female rock star by some unholy distance.  In fact there is a very strong argument to remove the word ‘female’ from that statement.

Sheela Na Gig – PJ Harvey (1991, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’)

We can compare if you like but it might be pointless.

Too Many Walls – Cathy Dennis (1991, Polydor Records, Taken from ‘Move to This’)

Now Justin may have simply been ahead of his time, (talking of time, the last I heard of Justin, he was serving time in a Thai prison for ‘Pornography’) because fast forward some ten to fifteen years and Cathy Dennis has been responsible for some of pop music’s finest tracks.   These two for instance were both written by Ms Dennis

Can’t Get You Out of My Head – Kylie Minogue (2001, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘Fever’)

Toxic – Britney Spears (2003, Jive Records, Taken from ‘In the Zone’)

So maybe Justin was a prophetic sage and he saw something majestic behind the process plastic beats of Cathy’s early work.  Or maybe he just thought she was beautiful and wanted to celebrate that in Tippex on the back of his jacket.  We’ll never know, unless the Internet has reached a lonely prison in Thailand and he decides to comment….

There is as usual a point to all this.  Sort of. 

This blog is far too male heavy.  I try to be as selective as possible, but I don’t think I’m doing enough.  The recent series of Rocks Greatest J featured about three women, the countdown of Creation Records featured about two.  It gets worse, the One Word Countdown featured just three songs with female vocalists in the top twenty.  The Nearly Perfect Album Series does a little better with 30% of the acts featured either having a female singer or female band members, but that’s still not really good enough.

So over the next 20 week days I’m going to try and write that wrong.  In August this blog will feature only tracks that have female vocalists or bands that have females in them (but the emphasis will be on the vocals).  To make my life easier I have invited some select members of the No Badger Required Musical Jury to help me.  In other words, August is going to see a bunch of middle aged (mostly) men (mostly) writing about women in rock. 

What could possibly go wrong?

I’m going to end today with three tracks by three bands who have female singers that I think are brilliant, two of which perhaps you might not have heard before and one that you might have.  At the end there will be the lyrical clue for the next day.

First up South London’s Fightmilk who are fronted by Lily Rae and they are all sorts of marvellous

Cool Cool Girl – Fightmilk (2021, Reckless Yes Records, Taken from ‘Contender’)

Next up Belfast alt punk combo New Pagans, who are fronted by Lyndsey MacDougall and should easily fill that gap in your life that has been there ever since The Breeders stopped making records.

Yellow Room – New Pagans (2021, Self Released, Taken from ‘The Seed, The Vessel, The Roots and All’) 

Finally here are some New Yorkers called Friends – luckily it’s not that irritating bunch from the sitcom but a cool art school band that should have been massive about ten years ago fronted by the excellent Samantha Urbani.

I’m His Girl – Friends (2012, Fat Possum Records, Taken from ‘Manifest!’)

Here is the lyrical teaser “Time’s up, keep it moving when she arrives”

A Month Curated by A Ten Year Old #7

Glue – Bicep (2017, Ninja Tune Records, Taken from ‘Bicep’)

Other than the band Air (and possibly Massive Attack), who are as I have already mentioned my daughter’s favourite band, there is more music by Bicep than anyone else on this playlist.  The reason for this is that Bicep, by and large, soundtracked the impromptu Olympics that was held at No Badger Towers throughout the first lockdown of 2020.

Of course, the original plan was not about having an Olympics in the garden.  It was about making sure our daughter got some fresh air and exercise during the lockdown.  So as my wife and I tried to recreate a school day at home, we decided to build a temporary obstacle course in the garden.  It started on our patio and involved jumping across logs, dribbling a football in between some hastily arranged flowerpots, throwing some soft balls into various buckets that had been recovered from underneath bushes and out, splashing through a paddling pool filled with water and fairy liquid, and finally squirting a target (that would be me) with a super soaker water pistol.   Spacehoppers, skipping ropes, and a frisbee (until it got stuck in a tree) were all utilised as well. 

My daughter would each day try to smash the course record, which she would then declared to be the world record (because in terms of times around that obstacle course, the quickest time was the fastest time anyone in the world had been round it – so it was a world record, right?).  At first she was slow and cautious but by the end of the hour’s P.E class she would be flying dangerously around the garden, leaping like a gazelle from log to log and swinging from a shabbily constructed rope walk between two dying trees.

The obstacle course and its different stages fast become individual events and before long we had our own household Olympics going on.  Spacehopper races quickly became the highlight of day (and still to this day are a popular Sunday afternoon event at NBR Towers), the waterpistol shoot developed into a full on water pistol battle.  I would be armed with a tiny free waterpistol given to me by the band Cable when they were promoting some single of theirs, everyone else armed with something that could shoot a pigeon out of a tree.  The football dribble turned into a penalty kick competition and so on.  At the end medals would be given out as Bicep’s bouncy music blared away in the background.

Seventy – Cable (1996, Play It Again Sam Records, Taken from ‘Down Lift the Up Trodden’)

Atlas – Bicep (2020, Ninja Tune Records, Taken from ‘Isles’)

Let’s spin the random song generator and see what comes up next….Ah….Ms Swift, we’ve been expecting you.

Welcome to New York – Taylor Swift (2014, Apollo Records, Taken from ‘1989’)

Taylor Swift was the first popstar that my daughter genuinely adored.  I’m not sure why this came about I suspect it was through the elder sister of her best friend but anyway, my daughter used to dance around the lounge to ‘Welcome to New York’ (which I think she heard for the first time in The Smurfs Movie’) and ‘Shake It Off’.

Shake It Off – Taylor Swift (2014, Apollo Records, Taken from ‘1989’)

Tomorrow – John Legend

A Month all about Names – #3 –Betty

Betty – Jamila Woods (2019, Jagjaguwar Records, Taken from ‘Legacy! Legacy!)

In the spring of 1996, I once got invited, over the telephone, by the manager of pop starlet Betty Boo to the launch party for Betty Boo’s third album.  Apparently, Betty herself (or Alison Clarkson as she was formally known as) had hand picked a bunch of student writers to attend the launch party.  I very much doubted that Betty Boo had ever read a word of what I had written, and by hand picked the manager had persuaded the record label to invite everyone because at least then someone would turn up.  Especially if there was a free bar. 

The manager went on, the party would feature a full live performance from Betty and her set would include some old favourites and some new hits, all of which had been reimagined so that they can be played by her band.  By the sound of things Betty Boo had jumped feet first onto the Britpop bandwagon.  It would also have a free bar.  I mean he had me interested in the words old Betty Boo songs reimagined to be honest but ok I’m in.

You can cringe all you like.  If you re-recorded ‘Doin’ the Do’ with three guitars, a rumbling bass, and accompanied them by an occasional fizz of a hi-hat, it would basically sound like Huggy Bear and therefore be greater than anything, yes anything, that had ever previously been recorded in the history of music.

I gently frothed at the mouth at the prospect of hearing this.

Two weeks passed, no invitation arrived, and I thought that perhaps the final touches were being added to what would be the social event of the year.  I crossed my fingers and hoped that Boo would get a move on because I had exams coming up.  A month passed.  Two months.  Six months……

To this day I never heard another word in relation to the third album by Betty Boo.  I always wondered if perhaps someone found the invitation before and went in my place, but I never read any reviews of this long expected third album.

However, a quick check of the Internet reveals that in fact Ms Boo did not release her third album ‘Boomerang’ until some thirty years after her second ‘GRRR….Its Betty Boo’ so it would appear that despite all the promises the 1996 album never saw the light of day.  Maybe the Britpop bubble bursting ruined it, maybe the record company thought it was just a complete waste of time and money (and lets be honest they would have been right) and pulled the plug.

Two other Betty tracks for your listening pleasure today, the first is from Ms Taylor of Swift and the second is from Slough born afro beat drill rapper Pa Salieu.

Betty – Taylor Swift (2020, self released, Taken from ‘folklore’) – which is according to the Internet inspired by albums released by Bob Dylan in the 1960s.

Betty – Pa Salieu (2020, self released, Taken from ‘Send them to Coventry’) – It came out three months before Salieu was named the winner of the BBC Sound of 2021 award.  Sadly for Salieu thing have taken a bit of downturn as he is currently serving 33 months for violent disorder and possessing an offensive weapon (which was a menacing looking bottle apparently).  He was according to reports defending himself at the scene of a stabbing where his friend had been fatally wounded.  I hope better times are around the corner for him because he is clearly very talented.

On Monday we will look at Barney.  Not hopefully the purple dinosaur.

Rearranging the Flowers – A Pointless Whodunnit with musical interludes and 7 chapters – #1

(So, I’m going to see how this goes down….Take notes, you might need them later….But let me introduce something that I probably won’t ever do again – something which I think is a first for a music blog – a murder mystery with musical interludes.   Yes.  You read that right.)

I was stuck on the church roof when I first heard the news. 

Now, I know what you are thinking.  It is one of two things.  Either you are looking back at the first line of this and wondering what news I had heard.  Or you are wondering what I am doing on the church roof in the first place.  Or you might be one of these people who think ahead and right now you are thinking about both things, why is he on the church roof and is it connected to the news that he had just heard?

Let me try to explain. 

Long Story Short – Taylor Swift (2020, self released, Taken from ‘evermore’)

The reason I am on the roof is because Dave the church caretaker had asked me to go up there and sort the concrete on a couple of loose bricks from the turret.  It is a ten minute job at best and as Dave the church caretaker has a heart problem he can’t possibly climb up all the steps and carry a bucket of concrete at the same time so he asked me to do it.

Dave’s Song – Whitney (2016, Secretly Canadian Records, Taken from ‘Light Upon The Lake’)

Although of course the real reason that I am stuck on the church roof is because the door slammed behind me and rather stupidly it only opens from the inside.   The vicar definitely told me before I went up the tower steps to make sure that I wedged the door open with the handily placed rock, because due to a dodgy builder from the 17^th century – the door only opens one way and despite him telling me this little more than 15 minutes ago.  I still forgot.   I stepped up on to the tower roof, took a deep breath. (You know a proper lung full), of the clean countryside air, stretched my arms up over my head, took in the view and then cursed as the wind blew the door shut behind me. It felt odd cursing on a church roof, but right now I have no sensible way of getting down.

God! Show Me Magic – Super Furry Animals (1996, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Fuzzy Logic’)

I also realised two other things up there on the tower roof, well three if you include the fact that sky to the west had gone a very dark colour and it looked like it was going to absolutely chuck it down.  Firstly, my phone, was in my bag, and my bag was down in the church office or the vestibule as I think it’s correctly called.  I had obviously just shrugged when the door slammed and thought I’ll just call Dave, he’ll help get the vicar to open the door, but I can’t do that now.  The second thing was that this concrete was rapidly going off so I might as well sort the brick problem out.  The vicar was bound to come and check on me if I am not back in an hour because he wants me gone by three as he has to take a Bible Class and needs ‘total quiet’ for that.

What Took You So Long? – Courteeners (2008, Polydor Records, Taken from ‘St Jude’)

Of course, literally everyone in the village, with the possible exception of Mr Figgis from Oak Cottage, knows that in reality the vicars Bible Class usually consists of him and Mrs Figgis from Oak Cottage going at it like a couple of springtime rabbits in the vestibule whilst the flower arrangers’ fuss about with the hydrangeas in the main church. 

Springtime – Leatherface (1991, Roughneck Records, Taken from ‘Mush’)

But surprisingly enough that isn’t the news that I heard whilst stuck on the church tower roof.  That  news I heard just as I set the second concrete brick back onto the turret.  It came from inside the church via a small air vent that pumps out onto the tower roof.  It was a Kevin’s voice, he is one of the flower arrrangers.  I knew it was him because of his Cockney accent, even though he tells everyone he is from Whitley Bay.  It was clear as anything and it sounds like he was talking to someone else.

“It’s done.  She’s dead.  I poisoned her just like you said”.

Happy Birthday

Life – Summer Camp (2010, Apricot Records, Taken from ‘Always’)

Yesterday was my daughters tenth birthday.  If things went to plan, we have been up on Dartmoor exploring a medieval village and throwing sticks off an ancient clapper bridge.  If not, it’s been raining, and we’ve probably been to the cinema to watch a film about a crocodile (edit – we spent the day at home because the day before her birthday, my daughter contracted Covid -we made cake, played games, and unwrapped presents)

My daughter came into the world at 03.28am on October 16^th, 2012.  She was born on the bathroom floor, as the hospital sent us home around midnight because apparently my wife “was not in labour”.  I stood there like a lemon and thought I’m no midwife but even I can see that she is labour.  But I didn’t say anything- so I drove her home, my wife wincing every time I drove over a speed bump.

An hour later, as my wife sat in the bath, to ease the pain.  I phoned the on-call midwife who arrived about twenty minutes later took one look at my wife and said

“You have two options, we can phone an ambulance and you can have baby in the car park or I can deliver baby here”.  We prepared the bathroom floor. 

We had an ambulance on standby which sat outside our house, the two paramedics came in armed with blankets and some oxygen.  During the birth I made small talk with the paramedics and said with a smile that “I bet they see this all the time”. The first one said that this was her first birth and the second nodded and said “Me too – In fact I’m just a student on work experience, not even trained.”

Which filled me with joy.

Before long my daughters first screams filled the room.  The marvellous mid wife counted up fingers and toes and made sure she was ok, before handing her to me.  I whipped off my hoody and wrapped her in it because it had a fleece liner.  And there I stood with this tiny human in my arms. I put my finger into her hand and smiled tearfully as she sort of gripped it.  She was so light, so small, so fragile but she was bloody (literally) brilliant. I showed her to the two paramedics, both of whom were crying as well.

My wife emerged from the bathroom as if nothing had happened, and walked over to me and coos at our daughter.  I handed her over as the midwife wanted to make sure that our baby fed ok, which she did perfectly.  By 4am we were all sitting on the sofa drinking hot chocolate and the cat had snuggled up on the lap of one of the paramedics.  It was possibly the worlds most middle class home birth ever.

Six hours later, the house is quiet, I have just changed my first nappy and now I am walking around the house with my daughter sleeping in my arms.  I do stupid things like tell her what a sink is, and what a chair is.  Despite her being asleep I show her a couple of teddies that family have bought us and then I plug my ipod in and listen to some music.  The third song that comes on is ‘Life’ by Summer Camp and it remains today a song that I associate with that evening and it is a song I play each year on my daughters birthday.

The song that was at number one the morning that my daughter as born is awful so here are two songs from 2012 that I really like.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together – Taylor Swift (2012, Big Machine Records, Taken from ‘Red’)

Let Me Be Him – Hot Chip (2012, Domino Records, Taken from ‘In Our Heads)