Garry Potter And The Same Old Nonsense, David Backhim [the mitten read aloud txt] 📗

Gilmour allied with drummer Nick Mason on the other traded insults or, put diplomatically, ‘unkind remarks’. Only their remarkable reformation for their Live 8 concert at Hyde Park in July 2005 appeared to bring the curtain down on one of rock music’s most notorious feuds. I have some sympathy with the hard to get along with Roger Waters who had visions in the 1970s which he was determined to musically implement. The trouble for Roger was that the others were less enthusiastic for Roger’s plans and they had to be dragged almost kicking and screaming sometimes to complete the ideas of Mr. Waters. What a real shame that a group which brought such pleasure or enlightenment to literally millions of people grew to despise one another. Rarely have the ‘fab four’ paid tribute to one another’s musical output or song-writing ability, preferring instead to devote themselves to character assassinations.
If ever there is an obvious commercial for how miserable and unfulfilled riches can render anybody, then the Floyd are the reference point. The Floyd were not so much Pink, personable, or pleasant, but peculiar is perhaps more appropriate.

SO HARD TO BEAT?
A twice-broadcast documentary on BBC1 Northern Ireland has been glorifying the apparent contribution of Ulster to the world of rock and pop. The programme has been mystifyingly entitled ‘So Hard To Beat’. However, the absence of any sizeable ethnic minority in Northern Ireland has ensured that the popular music that emanated from the north of the island has been almost exclusively performed by young white men for the benefit of white students and schoolboys. Groups such as Ash, Snow Patrol, The Undertones, and Stiff Little Fingers have just been standard-bearers of white boy music. With the slight exception of Stiff Little Fingers who ‘followed’ (a recurring theme in Northern Irish youth) their heroes The Clash in embracing reggae, there has been a notable absence in brass, strings, or keyboards, with the only instruments employed being the run-of-the-mill bass, drums, and guitars.
Northern Irish groups rarely think outside of the box and rely on formulaic indie sounds. How very original. How ‘so hard to beat’. Can you imagine something innovative like The Orb or The Chemical Brothers coming from Norn Iron? Could you imagine something progressive like Pink Floyd or avant-garde like Talking Heads originating from Ulster? Well, I certainly couldn’t. Tragically, Northern Ireland remains a cultural backwater where half of the population are still turned on to the sounds of the macho nonsense of loyalist bands who each compete to see who bangs their drums loudest. Half the population meanwhile dig the totally unfashionable, cringe-worthy Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash, and the Eagles, whilst sporting their Jack Sugden cheque shirts. Dear oh dear.
The youth scene remains mired in predictable indie sounds with no creativity, imagination, or original thinking – symbolic of Northern Ireland which culturally and historically follows trends instead of leading them. In terms of ‘yoof culture’, to suggest that the music or fashion of Ulster is ‘so hard to beat’ is plainly ludicrous.

DESERT ISLAND DISCS
Are celebrities really stupid or what? I mean, they are each allowed to take several records with them to a desert island, yet in their choice of luxury items, they don’t possess the good sense to take a record player with them. I mean, what is the point of opting for Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’ if you subsequently fail to include an ipod or MP3 player amongst your luxury items?
As for me, if I was going to be stranded on an island in the desert, I would wish to have as a priority a flare gun so that I could fire distress signals. Mind you, in moments of distress my flare gun thus far doesn’t appear to have caught anybody’s attention. As a second choice of item, I would require a roll-on deodorant. It’s bound to be hot, sticky, and sweaty stuck in the middle of the desert. Unlike most celebrities, I feel the need for an item of personal hygiene because I’m hygiene conscious – conscious of the fact that I’m lacking in it.
As for discs, I would choose ‘Echoes’ by Pink Floyd, if only because it lasts almost twenty-five minutes. It would be tiresome to choose several three minute songs because ultimately they would be played repeatedly on a nauseatingly numerous scale. Mind you, in the absence of a record player, the disc that I would choose during my lone vigil in the desert would be ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, not because it is a great record, but because its cover artwork merits prolonged attention even if its hyped contents do not.

APPLICATION FORMS
Application forms are an absolute drag. It seems that in some instances they are deliberately devised to deter people from completing them. An extensive application form with a multitude of questions to be scrutinised over is quite necessary for certain lofty positions or for public office. Otherwise, one frustratingly finds application forms that demand a plethora of irrelevant responses for jobs which are not particularly remarkable. I certainly have no sympathy for employers who ask downright stupid questions. I recently ‘applied’ for a role as an assistant manager in a Belfast wine shop, or off-license. One category included ‘Current Employment’, and perched immediately beneath was space for me to write my ‘reason for leaving’. Sorry, but if you are in current employment, then there cannot be a reason for leaving. I stated this in the appropriate space. Funnily enough, I wasn’t short-listed for an interview.
What is even more irksome are the silly questions, such as demanding the actual grades one achieved at the age of sixteen. How vastly different is my potential in the workplace if I attained a B grade in a geography GCSE instead of a mere C. The bottom line is that most employers don’t give a stuff what grades one achieved in GCSE biology or Spanish. These columns and questions on an application form, like much of the rest of the contents, are designed purely as an exercise in nosiness that bear no semblance of reality to the job vacancy. Application forms that demand information on everything, short of possibly shoe size or favourite colour, are an invasion of privacy and a thinly-disguised attempt to know one’s life story rather than ascertain a candidate’s worthiness as a potential employee.
Furthermore, organisations such as financial institutions that request your telephone number or email address don’t use this contact information, and one finds a mortgage application delayed because the would-be lender sends a second-class posted letter when a query needs to be addressed, even though they have access to your email address or telephone number. It is my humble estimation that tedious application forms are intended for information and intelligence-gathering. It would be perhaps more preferable if people volunteered to have their qualifications and employment history stored on a national database, thus sparing them the tedium of having to complete such sections in application forms, and thus enabling prospective employers to access this information before supplying dreadful application forms. We need to see the nonsense questions and irrelevant sections of application forms drastically curtailed in order to make them user-friendly for the poor wretches who are required to complete them.

HORSES FOR COURSES
‘Horses for courses’ is one of my favourite phrases. I have occasion to recite it. For example, there have been periods in recent years when this loser was losing money, not to mention the will to live, and my well-intentioned family were suggesting all manner of occupations in a desperate attempt to rescue me from my slide into the abyss. However, although I actually respect each and every person who is able to perform jobs that I cannot, there simply are jobs that I refuse to entertain. No I don’t mean doing the washing up, or hoovering the carpet. Consequently, my family and I had a conflict of interests. They were interested in me working in any trade and I frankly was not.
I mean, could you imagine Tony Blair as a long-distance truck driver, David Cameron on a building site, Prince Charles as a milkman, or the Queen as a night-club disc jockey? Ultimately, we all have specific skills and few of us are a Jack of all trades, which brings me back to horses for courses. Again, can you imagine a twelve-year-old foxhunter competing in a five-furlong sprint or a two-year-old filly racing in a three mile steeplechase? Similarly, there are courses that this old horse isn’t fit for: namely working on a building site, or in a garage, or in an office, or in a bar, or in a warehouse, or in a shop, or in a bank – come to think of it: anywhere!

THE DEADLIEST JOKE IN THE WORLD
My favourite war story is of the killer German joke that resulted in the recipient reeling over in fits of laughter, before collapsing in a heap – in a heap of precisely what, I don’t know. I must strongly warn you that the joke that you are about to read has fatal consequences. I have seen its deadly effects for myself as I have sent several people to an early grave with it, and I am currently helping police with their enquiries. Anyhow here goes, so brace yourself for the joke that caused much loss of life in the Second World War: “Wenn ist das Nurnstuck git und slotermayer?” “Ja, es ist gespullt.” Whatever you do, don’t recite it to anyone – except perhaps your next door neighbour or your mother-in-law. Fortunately, as Eric Idol stated, “in 1945 peace broke out. It was the end of the joke.”

ANGELS
Do you believe in angels? My mother, God rest her soul (she’s still alive, but may God rest her soul nevertheless) recalls a story when on holiday in Switzerland with my terminally ill father, a man appeared from seemingly nowhere to help my Dad with one or two suitcases, and then this kind stranger just as quickly disappeared. Nobody is suggesting that this ‘angel’ vanished into thin air, but I too had an encouraging experience when, to paraphrase Blanche Dubois, I was able to ‘depend on the kindness of strangers’.
Foolish man that I am, I ran out of petrol about twenty miles