After 25 years of sitting up all night working tirelessly, I've finally finished work on the invention that will make me a Zillionaire! I have invented the morning after pill for men!
Ha ha I hear you say. Thing is, it works! If you accidentally spill some sperms somewhere you shouldnt, just pop one of these little beauties.
You will say 'but how can that stop a woman becoming pregnant?". Thats the beauty, it doesnt. It just alters your DNA so if you are accused and forced to have a test, you dont get caught and have to pay!
I reckon theres a big market for such a pill. (Says it all really, sadly I know plenty of fella's who'd happily duck out of paying up for their kids if they could! And yes, I am not a genetic engineer, it's the Friday Joke).
.
Local Music round up.
Friday 27th
The Butchers 9pm – midnight -The Bluebells with Victor & Sylvester
The Builders Arms 8pm – 11pm - Karaoke with Caz
Ye Olde Monk and Holt 8.30pm – midnight - DJ Sadie Disco
The Haven 8pm -11.30pm - Denis Cook – Musician/DJ
Maddens 9.30pm - Yoto
Saturday 28th
Butchers Arms 9pm – midnight - Harripaul
Ye Olde Monken Holt 9pm – midnight - Mike Gill (Acoustic)
I have felt a bit discombobulated all week. Partially the diet, partially Xmas excess and partially something I couldn't put my finger on. I finally worked out what it was this morning. I'm cooking Xmas lunch tomorrow for fourteen people. We've been shopping etc, painting the house, cleaning and planning. I've had this awful feeling that I've forgotten something. It has been bugging me all week. I've made lists, triple checked them, but still felt I've missed something. Then I realised what it was. It rather disturbed me. Something was missing. It wasn't food, it wasn't presents. I checked the list of people coming and what they ate three times. But it felt wrong.
The tribe at Xmas in 1973
Then I realised what was preying on my mind. I had this feeling that guests were missing from the list. Who had I not added. This morning I was woken by Clare bringing me a cuppa at 7.30pm. I'd been in the middle of a rather odd dream. I'd served dinner out in the kitchen and we brought it into our dining room. I had the horrible realisation that I'd failed to plate up dinners for my Mum and Dad. They were chatting away and waiting for their dinner. How could I have forgotten them. Then the tea arrived and I woke up and realised that Dad had passed away in 1987 and Mum in 2008. Whatever they are doing and wherever they are (or aren't) it won't be me making them Xmas dinner.
I realised that I've been missing them. Dad was the life and soul of the party at Xmas. I think Mum saw it as an expensive load of hassle. Mum told me once that Christmas was always just a huge load of work for her.
She knew that, as the mother of six kids, she had to make an effort, but as soon as I was 16, she gave up on the whole thing and would go to one of my brother or sisters places. By the time I was eighteen, they would go to Florida and be sunbathing on Xmas day. I was quite happy to be left at home. I can't really remember the first year I did Xmas lunch. I suspect it was around 1990. I've done it every year since. When my Dad passed away, I'd ask my mum, Clares parents and whoever else wanted to come. I much preferred cooking it to going to someone elses. I could have exactly what I wanted in the way I wanted it. 2007 was the last time we had mum and parents. By 2009, we were both orphans. I realised that it is fifteen years since that first lunch without any parents. You think you are over such losses, but at this time of the year, you remember. I'm probably older than my Dad was, the last time I had Xmas lunch with him. It is a scary thought. Time is a funny thing.
Mum chilling as I like to remember her
Each year, less and less of my friends host traditional Xmas dinners. Many now go to their adult kids, some go on holiday. Some don't have what we'd describe as an Xmas dinner and have all manner of other fancy treats. I like a traditional Xmas, I like going to mass, I like turkey at Xmas, I like spending hours cooking. I love Xmas pud and mince pies. I don't live in the past, I love the benefits of technology in the 2020's. However there are some things I hold on to. I've always struggled with the fact that we throw the good things out with the bad in our culture. Sitting down together with family at Xmas is a real joy. We try and do a family sunday roast as often as possible. I don't get why people don't. And as for Xmas. If I could have anything for Xmas, what I'd really love is for Mum and Dad to turn up tomorrow. I'd find them a decent plate of lunch. Sadly, that bird has flown. I so miss not having a Guinness with Mum at this time of year. A silly little thing, but the most important thing of all.
Don't get me wrong. I've actually had a spiffing year. Musically it has been awaesome, which is important. Manchester City won the league and Hadley FC have been amazing. I have pretty much recovered from prostate surgery. I'm happy. It would be churlish to moan. But when you lose your parents, Xmas is hard. I feel so sorry for everyone who the grieving is fresh. I am sure that when everyone turns up tomorrow, the melancholy will lift. Have a great Christmas and make sure you appreciate the little things. You only know how important they are when they are gone forever.
------
As a special Xmas present to you, here is some party fun for the party season from The False Dots
You couldn't make it up. I ws sitting in studio reception, bored out of my mind, trying to come up with ideas for an album cover/logo for the next False Dots album due out late next year. We are playing with the idea Groovetown as the name. I thought I'd ask ChatGPT to design it. Here is what I asked and what it came up with
As you can see, it has a spelling mistake. So I tried again
Here is it's third attempt, which was accompanied by a message saying I've used up my allocation
Three attempts, three basic spelling mistakes. Maybe CHATGPT just thinks I'm a twat. I just hope they are not using this software for designing safety systems on aircraft or nuclear power stations! The bloody thing is more dyslexic than me!
Last night, I was at Dingwalls in Camden Town to watch The Pogue Traders. They are a celebration of the music of The Pogues. Since the Pogues stopped doing shows, this has been a big part of our Xmas routine. The band have really taken off in the last couple of years and last night Dingwalls was packed. Last year, Shane MacGowan passed away, after many years of illness. His was a colourful lige and the term flawed genius could have been invented to describe MacGowan. Although 90% of people primarily know The Pogues from their Xmas anthem, Fairytale of New York, it is just one of many excellent pieces of music that MacGowan wrote. I like it, but it is by no means my favourite Pogues song. Rainy night in Soho, Streams of Whiskey and A pair of Brown Eyes are songs I'd list as far better.
The quality of MacGowans lyrics is something that never ceases to amaze me. Just about every tale of Shane involves copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. He was a party animal who lived and played very hard. But within that same person, was one of the most sensitive, caring souls, who had a great sense of justice and a hatred of injustice. As a songwriter, I often look at the work of such geniuses to try and learn how to improve my own style and content. What strikes me about the Pogues lyrics is the brutal honesty in them. If you take Fairytale of New York, it is not a fairytale at all. It is a very sad and melancholic tale of two people who are falling apart. The only real redemption is the soundtrack that lifts a broken spirit. . The Song starts with "It was Christmas, in the drunk tank". Not how most Xmas fairytales start. The song descends into a bitter argument and trading of insults between the two parties. Just when you think you've hit rock bottom, the chorus kicks in "And the boys of the NYPD Choir were singing Galway Bay, and the bells were ringing out on Christmas Day" and you are transported to somewhere else completely.
It intrigues me where that song started. My parents used to joke about "having the Xmas row". Often it was caused by my Dad going for a drink with his mates and getting back late for lunch. In the Irish tradition, alcohol is a big part of Christmas and having all manner of family around often meant that resentments that have festered for years surface as the drinks flow and the conversations develop. I have seen some terrible Xmas rows (not so much within my family, but with mates) and on a few occasions, we've had extra people for Christmas dinner, as rows exploded in the families of friends. I suspect that these drunken Xmas rows that Shane must've seen plenty of, would have planted rich seeds in his mind. There has been plenty of talk of AI putting creative people out of work. Could an AI ever create something like Fairytale of New York? The reason I love the song is that it oozes humanity. We know the characters are deeply flawed, but we also know that they are interesting.
This brings me back to drug and alcohol misuse. I have often mused on whether the likes of Shane MacGowan would ever have produced the work they did if they were absteemious types. Clearly it is unlikely that he'd have written a ssong like Streams of Whiskey, but what would he have written in it's place? Alcohol didn't make him a genius, but it did put him in a lot of situations where inspiration abounded. There are two elements to artistic genius, the first is finding inspiration and the second is transcribing it into something amazing. When lockdown was announced, the songwriter in me rejoiced. I'd finally have time to sit down and take my time to write the songs that I'd been too busy to get down. The Sun shone, I picked up the guitar and.... Absolutely nothing. I had no inspiration at all. I'd try and play new riffs and just realise that they were bad rehashes of old riffs. I took to learning to play TV theme tunes on the guitar to keep my hand in. I was starting to worry that I'd just been kidding myself that I'd ever been able to write songs. Then lockdown was eased, we started living again and the ideas flowed. I realised that much of my body of work is derived in pubs etc, where someone says something that triggers an idea. Once there is an idea that is interesting, it is easy. Over the years, I learned that the best songs are actually about quite mundane moments in life, that are transformed into magical images by the addition of music. One of my favourite songs is Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. It is a song about doing absolutely nothing, but it transports me to a different world.
That is the true measure of genius. To me, it is a measure of humanity and genius to take the smallest thing and make them into a musical painting that is both compelling and beautiful. Just as MacGowans illustration of two deadbeats arguing in the cells in a New York drunk tank has become an integral part of many peoples Xmas, Redding made a hobo sitting in San Fransisco docks doing nothing into a beautiful celebration of life. Maybe I've missed out, but I can't think of too many songs about soberley sitting in the office, dreaming of upgrading your BMW, when you get your next bonus. I am sure far more people in the UK spend their time daydreaming about such mundane things, than visualising drunks in the slammer in New York, but few seem inspired to set their daydreams to music. When I used to work in an office, I found it really uninspiring artistically. You do the same thing most days and for me the highlight was the bacon roll run. I used to go most days. It got me out of the office and I'd chat to the staff in the cafe. I wrote a song about the decline of the culture of family run Italian cafe's in Soho a few years back. Places like Starbucks are far more sterile. You get your coffee, sit in the corner with your headphones on and stare at your mobile phone. Not like the old days, where you'd sit in Sidoli's cafe in Aldgate and swap jokes with cabbies and the owner of the gentlemens club over the road.
The nature of MacGowan and Reddings genius was to take those small things and distill them into brilliant songs. To me, what makes a song brilliant is that the writer captures something in the lyrics that means something to you and then adds music that places it and embeds it in your mind. At the end of Fairytale of New York, it plays out with rather majestical, upbeat coda. The lyrics have set the scene and the music delivers us there. One of the things I love about Christmas is that it is a time of music. There are the Christmas chart belters that we all love, that we associate with a snog under the mistletoe at the Xmas party, or that Granny and Grandad would dance around the table to. Then there are the Christmas carols, that for me, take me back to school and the carol service. When my kids were little, watching them sing Away in a manger always brought a tear to my eye. Away in a manger was written by Irish American composer William J. Kirkpatrick. Apparently he died after waking up in the night with a tune in his head. He went downstairs to score it, and when his wife woke up he was slumped over the desk, dead. We can only wonder what song he took to the grave. The hymn was written in 1895. Just think that up until that year, this key Xmas tune simply didn't exist. When I was born in 1962, almost none of the pop music we associate with Xmas was written. Next time you enjoy Fairytale, Slade's Merry Christmas, George Michaels Last Christmas, just think for a second how lucky we are that we live in a time when all this music has been written.
Perhaps the most intriguing thing for me is the idea that all of those mentioned above had something that triggered and inspired them into putting pen to paper and writing this music. Maybe if they'd had a different breakfast, walked down a different street, if it had been raining instead of sunshine that day, they may have been in a different mood and that song may never have existed. There are 8 billion of us on the planet, but if Shane MacGowan had randomly bumped in to a mate the day he wrote it, and spent the day doing other things, maybe the song would never have existed. Never let anyone tell you that humanity isn't a wonderful thing. When I was a kid, I asked a wise old Catholic Priest why God made the world. His response? So that we could fill it with music. I have no idea what goes through the mind of God, but I guess that when he listens to Fairytale of New York and Dock of the Bay, he must feel happy with his efforts (let's save the yes, but... for another day in another season).
---------
I mentioned above that after lockdown, I found my songwriting inspiration again. One of the good things about lockdown was it forced me to look at the songs I was writing and ask myself some difficult questions. Just before lockdown, I'd written a song called Longshot Didn't Die. As with most songs in the Allen Ashley period of the band, Allen made some amendments to it when he saw the lyrics. I realised that this was very much the direction I wanted to take the band in musically. As Allen had left the band and I was singing, I didn't have to consider whether he'd feel comfortable singing the lyricis I wrote. I had a couple of old songs that I thought fitted into the latest iteration of The Dots, but of the period 2012-2019, I felt that apart from Longshot, none of the songs sat well with where I wanted to take the band.
I very much wanted us to sit somewhere between Ian Dury and Madness and I wanted the songs to be about London and about growing up here. I wanted a Ska feel to the music, with Duryesque wit and observational humour. The first song I wrote specifically for this new era was "The Burnt Oak Boogie". Unlike just about every song I'd written before, it wasn't a story, a scenario that I'd constructed. It was a completely autobiographical look at the place I I'd spent a lot of my life knocking around and how it affected me growing up.
The first verse was about my mum's love of the place, the cheap mushrooms at the market etc, the best library in the world, the fresh eels. How she'd send us off to the funfair at Montrose park and warn us to be back by dark. The second verse was about the lady I consider to be surrogate Grandma, Annie O'Keefe who lived in Homefield Road. I'd always wanted to pay tribute to this wonderful little old Irish lady from Co Kerry, who was the kindest person I ever met. Her husband Joe was a caretaker, he bred budgies in their back garden and they had a dog called Beauty. The third verse is about growing up and moving on.
The first time we played it was at The Mill Hill Music Festival in 2022. I was overwhelmed by the reaction. People loved it. I came up with a concept for the video, lots of shots of Burnt Oak past and present, with some footage of the band being silly in there. I shot the stock footage and was planning to film the band shots, when we got a phonecall from the Dublin Castle offering us a gig at short notice. To try and rustle up a few extra punters, I decided to put the video out, without the band footage. The video immediately went viral and had thousands of views. Quite a few punters saw it and came to the gig. Many told me how the song was brilliant and caught the Burnt Oak vibe perfectly. It was a bit of a Eureka moment. I realised that I'd been trying too hard to write the perfect song and trying to be too clever. The great songs mentioned above just flow. If a song doesn't flow, it doesn't work. For me, the Burnt Oak Boogie was a song that worked. We didn't overcomplicate it. Here it is
On Thursday night I had one of my biggest disappointments of recent years. I had arranged to see The Damned at The Roundhouse with my mate Boz Boorer. It would be the first time I've seen the band with legendary original member, drummer Rat Scabies, since the 1980's. It was their second night at the venue. Reports from the first night were amazing. I got on the tube in a very good frame of mind. When I got off the tube at Chalk Farm, my phone pinged. The gig had been cancelled. I was absolutely gutted. Our night of punk rock turned into a more sedate pub crawl that was very nice, but it was not what we wanted. It got me thinking about when my hopes were dashed. It seems an apt list. What is interesting looking back is that whilst I remember the disappointment, often eventually things worked out better than I hoped, once I recoverd from being crushed, so never give up hope!
1. Aguero's goal ruled out in Champions League semi final 17th April 2019 against Spurs. The match was in its last few minutes. City desperately needed a goal. Aguero did what Aguero always did and put it in the net. The Spurs players slumped to their knees, knowing they'd blown it. The Etihad went absolutely mad. CIty had pulled it off. Then the scoreboard put three letters up VAR. It was the first season of VAR and it was the first major decision I'd witnessed in the stadium. Next thing, the City players slumped on the ground and the Spurs players started leaping around. It had been disallowed for a very marginal offside. No one had a clue what had happened. We just knew it had been chalked off. It was only when we got in the car and had a four hour drive back that we realised. The drive was a miserable journey. I've had disappointments in football, but none of that scale. I've hated VAR ever since. It ruins football in the stadium. I could have ten football moments, but I won't. None were on this scale. We'd gone up with such high hopes, they disintegrated before my eyes.
2. Baby I love you by The Ramones. In the late 1970's, there was a lot of excitement because it was announced that The Ramones were teaming up with legendary "wall of sound" producer Phil Spector. The Ramones should have been the biggest band in the world. They were the best live band in the world and their songs were perfect blasts of pop music. They still sound brilliant. For some reason, they had zero chart success. It seemed that Spector would finally put them where they deserved to be. The album was to be entitled End of The Century and then they announced that the first single would be a cover of The Ronnettes "Baby I love you". I got hold of a copy of the original, which is amazing, and couldn't wait. I ordered it in advance from Mill Hill Sounds record shop. I was so excited when it arrived, that I rushed home, slapped it on the turntable and BAM! It was a turgid dirge. It is awful. Somehow, Spector had completely erased the sound of the Ramones and made it sound like a bad cover by a third rate band. The album was not much better. The worst moment for me, apart from Baby I love you, is their version of Chinese Rocks, Dee Dee's song about being a Junkie. It is one of the best songs released by Johnny Thunders Heartbreakers (Richard Hell co wrote it). Thunders was a junkie and it sounds authentic. The Ramones play their own song like a bad cover. I still get cross thinking about the debacle. My hopes of The Ramones becoming the biggest band were totally dashed and it made me realise that you can have all the best ingredients and still make something that is horrible!
3. My Dad selling his Mk1, 3 litre Capri and getting a Ford Cortina Estate. My Dad bought a souped up Capri in the early 1970's. He had it painted shiny black with a go faster red stripe. It was the coolest motor ever. It had been adapted for the pan African road rally and had a nitrus burner. Dad was a maniac behind the wheel. My mum hated the car, as it brought out the worst in him. He would race Police cars, with blue lights on, when the mood took him, performing highly dangerous manouvres to evade them, just for the hell of it. When they turned up, he'd claim that it had been being repaired at the time and one of his blokes must've borrowed it. I really can't condone such behaviour, but it was the most exhilarating fun I've ever had. When my brother Frank started running MacMetals, Dad went to Australia for six months. Frank ordered a brand new company car, a Cortina Estate. Dad returned and Frank realised that Dad was a nightmare to work with. He returned to the aviation industry, using his management experience to get a great job. Dad was left with a brand new Cortina. Mum insisted he got rid of the Capri (she was delighted and told me that she was convinced Dad would kill the pair of them if he kept it). In truth, I lost all interest in cars after that. To me, they are a necessary evil! What really hurt was that Dad had promised me that he'd give me the car when I learned to drive. I knew he was gutted as well, so I never mentioned it.
4. My Xmas present from my partner in 1983. I was living with a luscious young lass at the time. It was our first Xmas living together. I asked her what she wanted for Xmas, she said a handbag and gave me strict instructions, which I followed to the letter. She asked me what I wanted. I said "Nothing really just put a smile on my face". For about a week before Xmas, she kept dropping hints that the present would really put a big smile on my face. When it came to Xmas morning, I made her breakfast in bed and we exchanged presents. She was more than happy with the handbag, then handed me my present. The package was small and soft. I was puzzled, but opened it. Now when you read what happened next, you will probably conclude that I am just plain stupid. It was a very skimpy set of of black lingerie. It wasn't even my size! Having been told for weeks that it would put a smile on my face, I was completely baffled and extremely disappointed for about three seconds. She then grabbed them and put them on and said "Do you like them?". I then realised what the present was and was most happy, but for that three seconds I thought she'd got me them for me and I was confused as to why. It was actally a great present, I never confessed my true feelings as I opened it.
5. Listening to the "Heavy Dub" version of the track False Dub by The False Dots on the day after we'd mixed it. The band's first experiment with recorded reggae. We had a track called False Dub. It had originally been called "Man in a suit", but we proudly played it to a mate who was Jamaican ganga salesman and he said "What's that called? Falsedub". It seemed a far better name. We recorded it as part of a set of demo tracks in 1981 at Ray Randall from the Tornados studio in Colindale. I'd gone back with Paul Hircombe to remix them. We started playing around with sounds (under the influence of our Jamaican friends product). We ended up spending five hours fiddling around with it, putting all manner of strange echo effects and sounds on it. Ray ran off a cassette, which Paul took home. The next day, with a clear head, I went to Pauls to listen to it. It was awful. It made me realise that, contrary to what many musicians believe, having a clear head is the best way to make music. I realised I'd never really be a great dub music producer.
6. When I was confirmed by the local Bishop at The Sacred Heart Church in 1973. I was raised a Roman Catholic and I was very naive as a kid. I absolutely believed everything that I was told in Church and RE lessons. For Catholics, the key parts of your initiation into the church are Baptism, Holy Communion and Confirmation. Baptism is done when you are first born, you don't recall it. Communion was fun, you got a bit of blessed wafer (or the body of Christ depending on your viewpoint) put in your mouth by a priest, for the first time, then you have a party. When you are confirmed, a bishop turns up and fills you with the Holy Spirit. In our instruction, we were told how this happened to the Apostles of Jesus, they became able to speak any language, fiery tongues appeared above them. I must be stupid, but I genuinely believed that the I'd feel the Holy Spirit enter me and I'd become a superman. Needless to say, the Bishop laid his hands and nothing at all happened. I was as bad at French as I'd ever been. It actually had the opposite effect and made me cynical about the Church. I'd really wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I realised that the Good Lord had set another path
7. The Isle of Skye. My sister would regularly visit the Isle of Skye in Scotland and spoke about it in mythical terms. When I first started going out with my missus Clare, we discussed going on holiday. Neither of us drove, but I suggested we could get a Scottish Rail Rover and spend a week touring Scotland. I made a list of all the places I wanted to visit. Edinburgh for the festival, John O'Groats, Loch Ness, Loch Lomond and The Isle of Skye. It was a lovely holiday, the festival was great, we didn't see Nessie, but it was fun. John O'Groats was amazing. We then went back to Inverness and got the train to the Kyle of Localsh, get a ferry to Skye, look around and then get a ferry back to Mallaig and get the train to Loch Lomond. We arrived in Skye and and it was raining incessently. It rained all day. The next day, it was sunny and we got eaten by midges as we waited for a bus. Then it started raining again. I really couldn't see what the fuss was about. I thought it would be a semi mystical experience, it was just a soggy damp squib.
8. Meeting Joe Corrigan at Wembley. Manchester City was my team. Goalkeeper Joe Corrigan was my absolute hero. I loved the man. I started playing in goal, mostly because I was too useless to play anywhere else, and Big Joe was my inspiration. When I was about 12 in 1974, I went to see England play. To my delight, Big Joe was standing by the tea stall. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I walked up to him, with my match programme and said "Joe, I'm a City fan, you are my favourite player, can you sign my programme". All my mates watched jealously. He turned and said "No, F**k off and leave me alone". I was totally humiliated and upset. My mates thought it was hilarious. I've never asked anyone for an autograph since. It was also the moment that I gave up my dream of being a goalkeeper.
9. The leg of lamb curry at Canons Tandoori. My Brother Laurie told us that the best Indian Restaurant in the world was Canons Tandoori. He said there was a special dish, where they marinaded a leg of lamb for 24 hours and you had to order it specially. Dad liked the sound of it and we organised a family dinner there. We were all really looking forward to it. When it arrived, it didn't live up to the promise. It was not the best curry ever. It wasn't even the best leg of lamb, my Mum's were better. I'd dreamed that I'd discover something special and it just wasn't. Dad asked for the leftover lamb bones for Bruce The Beagle. The restaurant had been dark. When we got back, he took the lamb out and it was bright yellow. Bruce the Beagle turned his nose up at it, a first. Mum had the runs for three days. I have been back to Canons and it does a decent curry, but I've never had the leg of lamb again. In fact, I've always been sceptical about 'Specials' in Indian restaurants since.
10. My O level results. The final parting gift from my education at FCHS. The last few months of my education there was a disaster. The headmaster who we called Ned hated me. Just before we broke up for study leave, he caught me signing in for late arrival. He started to have a go at me. The conversation went like this
Ned "Tichborne, why are you late?"
Me: "I missed the bus sir"
Ned: ", No one else missed the bus, did they? I hope you don't think you will be coming back for the sixth form"
Me: "That's alright sir, I am leaving and getting a job"
Ned: "You won't be getting any jobs, I will make sure any reference you receive will be so bad that no one will employ you"
Me: "That's alright sir, I'm going to work in my Dad's car business, I don't need a reference".
Ned: "You think you are so clever, get out of my school and don't come back. You will not be d oing your O'Levels, leave immediately. Do not speak to anyone on the premises and do not collect your belongings"
I was shocked. I did exactly what he said. I went back home, expecting to get the mother of all clobberings. My Dad's reaction was the opposite of what I expected. He asked me to tell him what happened. He was a big, fearsome man and he realised the implications of me not doing my O Levels. He'd also had a letter from John Shuttler, my physics teacher, who I liked, who had told him thatNed had it in for me and if got slung out, it would be a vindictive act. I didn't know of this until after.
Dad jumped in his motor, drove up to the school and stormed in to see Ned. I don't know what he said, but Ned agreed that I could attend the exams so long as I spoke to no one on the school premises. I always rather hoped that Dad put him up against the wall and told him he'd break his neck if he didn't, but it was equally likely to have been a donation to the school funds, and possibly both. I was really embarrassed about it back then, now I find it funny. Ned got the sack the year after I left as the exam grades had plummited.
It was all rather petty. My Dad was handed the contents of my desk. I took eight O Levels and failed four of them, including Maths. I had applied for a job with the Gas board, but that required a Maths O Level. I got turned down when I let them know. I was completely deflated. I decided to resit, and went to Orange Hill School, which was the best move I made, but at the time it was terrible and I felt my life had been ruined and my hopes dashed. In hindsight, it all worked out well.
---
Disappointment and seeing your dreams shaattered is not much fun, but as a musician and a songwriter, it is a damn good source of inspiration. Here's your homework. Have a listen to this False Dots track and see if you can figure out which song is heavily influenced by two of the above disappointments.
