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

pulled the plug on the album, and its’ release was scrapped as Wilson mistakenly feared that the issue of ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ was too good to compete against. What a tragedy that Wilson ’s ‘teenage symphony to God’ was shelved, surfacing in part in the anaemic ‘Smiley Smile’. Tracks such as ‘Good Vibrations’, ‘Heroes And Villains’, and the formidable harmonies of ‘Surf’s Up’ would have kicked the hyped Pepper into touch. After losing his nerve, not to mention his marbles, Wilson and his group absented themselves from the Monterey pop festival, and while The Beach Boys soldiered on with varying degrees of success, Brian retreated to his bedroom for the best part of ten years, even installing a refrigerator in his bedroom so that he would not have to venture far for a snack.
By the mid-1970s, Wilson was a beached whale in self-imposed exile who had missed the bus. Yet, remarkably, three decades later Brian is back on stage basking in the glory of the long overdue release of ‘Smile’. If eccentricity and genius are two sides of the same coin, then Wilson, ace composer and producer, possesses that penny. What summed up the erratic behaviour of Brian during the ‘Smile’ sessions was his method acting approach to the recording of the ‘Fire’ segment of a suite entitled ‘The Elements’. Wilson instructed the classical-trained musicians to adorn toy replicas of fireman’s hats during the recording of ‘Fire’. However, when Brian subsequently discovered that a nearby building had burned down simultaneous to this extraordinary recording session, Wilson decreed that the ‘vibes’ were ominously bad, and ‘Fire’ joined other ‘Smile’ tapes in a vault ,out of harm’s way. My favourite observation of Brian Wilson, wayward genius, emanates from the late Derek Taylor, publicist for The Beatles and The Beach Boys, who explained that being in the company of Brian was akin to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party: ‘have some tea; there isn’t any’.

STAR TREATMENT AT THE CARPHONE WAREHOUSE
How appropriate that Carphone Warehouse should sponsor Pondlife Big Brother, a show in which four pieces of white trash practise the ancient English custom of bullying a foreigner. Rumour has it that Anonymity Big Brother will next be sponsored by the British National Party. As for Carphone Warehouse, well, they offer ‘star treatment’ according to their commercials, but the experience of many customers suggests otherwise.
Many people who have had the misfortune to be seduced ( some might say, ‘misled’) by the promise of money back offers from Carphone Warehouse have discovered to their horror how many hoops that they have to leap through in order to claim back money from half line rental deals. For example, a customer is required to send in a 4th or 6th bill for his or her first redemption payment. However, it transpires that the required bill is number 5, not number 4, because Carphone Warehouse insist that they need the 4th airtime bill, which is bill number 5, and not bill number 4. You can imagine the confusion for many customers. If for some reason, the subsequent cheque fails to reach the customer, and he or she has to allow about fifty days for the cheque to arrive via Portugal, then a re-issued cheque is required, and a customer is expected to wait a further 60 to 80 days for the cheque. It can take many frustrating months for a customer to get their money ‘redeemed’. Even a change of address for redemption claims is not mentioned to customers unless they happen to ring an advice line and find out, while little or no written information is available to help customers understand the redemption procedure. Furthermore, two claims for money back that are sent in the same envelope are treated as one claim with only one cheque being paid instead of two, while faxed or posted bills, that are missing a page are also rejected. Now, the question is, would you regard that as star treatment?

SMALLTOWN BOY
“The place where I come from is a small town” sang Peter Gabriel in ‘Big Time’. My home town is a fairly unremarkable locality, possessing some areas that are nicer than others, some shops that are better than others, and some people that are nicer than others. Like many small towns, it is merely a haven of small town and neighbourhood gossip. It actually reached the stage where I could not bear to be out walking along the footpath without imagining a passing motorist pointing out to his or her passenger: “there goes whichyoumacallit, y’know, the son of whichyoumacallit, who lives next door to whichyoumacallit, and who used to work for whichyoumacallit.” In small towns, you cannot break wind without everybody knowing about it – not that my wind-breaking antics are particularly newsworthy. What sums up my home town are the following lyrics from Morrissey, who else: “The rain falls hard on a humdrum town; this town has dragged you down.”

WELCOME TO MY WORLD
Do you despair of the foul-mouthed, attention-seeking teenagers and twenty-somethings in our society? Are you dismayed by the talent-less stars and celebrities who infest our magazines, newspapers, and television screens? Are you demoralised by the greed of fat cats and self-important sporting and musical ‘heroes’? Are you angry about how taxpayers’ money is wasted by careless politicians who think that ‘fact-finding’ all expenses paid missions to places in the sun are more crucial than health service waiting lists? Are you losing the will to live, weighed down by the injustice in your life? Then, welcome to my world. Make yourselves at home, pull up a chair, while I go and stick the kettle on.

AGONY AUNT
Good cover versions are hard to find, but among my favourites are The Byrds’ interpretation of Bob Dylan’s ‘My Back Pages’, and also The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s re-working of Mr.Zimmerman’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’ is awesome, while UB40’s cover of Jimmy Cliff’s ‘Many Rivers To Cross’ deserves special mention. Another cover version which I have a particular liking for is Grace Jones’s version of The Pretenders’ ‘Private Life’. I really ‘dig’ Chrissie Hynde’s lyrics, which Jones, ably assisted by ace Jamaican duo of Sly and Robbie, does tremendous justice to.
Consider the following gems: “You ask my advice; I say use the door
But you’re still clinging to somebody you deplore
And now you want to use me for emotional blackmail
I just feel pity when you lie; contempt when you cry”…
“Your marriage is a tragedy; but it’s not my concern”…
“Your sex life complications are not my fascinations”
“Sentimental gestures bore me to death
You’ve made a desperate appeal; now save your breath”.
Oh yes, when I hear from anyone that “my girlfriend and I are going through a bad patch” or “my boyfriend has walked out on me”, I just want to quote the above lyrics. Pouring your heart out to me about your relationship problems is like going for a lovely walk and then returning to tell a cripple that your poor legs are hurting. Unless your loved one is terminally ill or your children are starving, then don’t give me your drama queen routine. If after visiting a children’s leukaemia ward, you still feel that you have a hard luck story to share, then you are very welcome. Otherwise, dry your tears and ‘save your breath’ before you ‘bore me to death’ with your ‘sex life complications’.

GUNS VERSUS BUTTER
In a country of finite resources, there is the classic economics dilemma of guns versus butter. It is outrageous in the extreme when politicians choose to divert a nation’s finances towards armaments ( both nuclear and conventional) whilst neglecting to ‘feed’ its’ people with improvements in healthcare provision and other such essentials as education and transport infrastructure. How obscene must it be for someone’s taxes to be distributed towards weapons of mass destruction – that phrase again. Oh yes, there are weapons of mass destruction to be found in Britain and the United States , though ironically not in ‘evil’ Iraq .
I cannot for the life of me comprehend the wisdom of investing in useless space exploration and armaments programmes whilst there are homeless on our streets and starving people in the world that our nuclear weapons are supposedly constructed to ‘protect’. How would a family feel if the breadwinner spent his or her wages on buying one or two guns for ‘self-defence’ and not spending money on groceries, a new car, a holiday, new furniture, or home refurbishment? I guess that ultimately, the acquisition of more nuclear weapons is merely an exercise in bragging rights – a recurring theme, in which one country boasts about its’ strength. Thus, ‘a strong defence’ is merely a status symbol for a head of state. Have you ever had a conversation where you relate to someone the fact that you went on holiday to Spain for a week only for the other person to reply that “well, we’re going on a Caribbean cruise for a month”. Similarly, imagine telling someone that you have just bought an apartment in Turkey , only for the other person to respond with “well, we have just