CALMzine Issue 8

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CALM

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CAMPAIGN AGAINST LIVING MISERABLY

STEPHEN MERCHANT INTERVIEW // XPRESS CAMPAIGN // MISTER MUMBLES // INNER LIFE // DEAR JOSH

CALM

CONTENTS

GREETINGS.

MANifesto .................................................... 5.

Xpress Campaign ........................................ 6.

Fashion ........................................................ 8.

Inner Life ..................................................... 10.

Mister Mumbles .......................................... 12.

CALMzine Interview: Stephen Merchant .... 14.

Duping, Doping & The Armstrong Legacy... 17.

Ambassadors Reception ............................. 19.

Fists Will Fly (Business Class) .................... 20.

Art Show: Ben Tallon ................................... 22.

Calm Competition ........................................ 25.

Frazzled Daddy ............................................ 26.

Chris Sav’s Everyman .................................. 29.

Come On Football, This Is Embarrassing .... 30.

The Rant ........................................................ 32.

Dear Josh ...................................................... 34.

‘Express Yourself’ sang Madonna back in the mists of time when books were made of paper and HMV honoured their gift vouchers. And you know what, she may have been on to something (she also sang ‘I like hanky panky, nothing like a good spanky’, but we’ll let that one slide). In this issue we introduce the brand new Xpress campaign, created by CALM supporter Ben Tallon, to encourage people to communicate their emotions and channel their thoughts through creative means. We’ve all penned bed-wettingly embarrassing poetry, songs and doodles illustrating our broken hearts and frustrated minds and that’s what Xpress is all about.

But, thankfully, ten thousand times less cringe-worthy.

Xpress is producing a crowd-funded album, with profits going to CALM, featuring tracks from The Strokes, The Libertines, Reverend & The Makers and a whole host of awesome new music from some very talented folk, as well as a shiny website full of interviews with experts in the field of comedy, art, music and journalism, including an extended version of the Stephen Merchant chat as displayed within these very pages. So get reading and get on board. Let’s talk, yo!

As ever, there’s the usual line up of banter, bollocks and brain discharge from Mister Mumbles, Dear Josh, The Rant and Frazzled Daddy as well as Lance Armstrong, football and boxing. It’s a doozy, so sit back, enjoy and spread the word! SAVE THE MALE!

Need Help? Call CALM. London: 0808 802 58 58 Nationwide: 0800 58 58 58 Lines open 7 days a week 5pm - midnight CALMzine is printed on paper from sustainably managed sources. Printed by Symbian Print Intelligence, paper from Gould International UK.

CREDITS Editor: Rachel Clare Original Design: Joey Graham Designer: Silvina De Vita Cover Art: Ben Tallon Emotional Support: Oli Mosse Distribution Goddess: Katie Barton Office Lurker: Charlie Morrison OMG Distributor: Niamh Brophy CALM Director: Jane Powell Contributors: Martin Cordiner, Mike Delwiche, Drew Gepp, Matt Brown, Fabio Zucchelli, Chris Owen, Mister Mumbles, Chris Sav, Josh Idehen, Bne Tallon.

Thanks to Topman for their ongoing support.

Want to advertise with us?

Contact: editor@thecalmzone.net

CALMzine is the first port of call for all your manspiration needs. We all have issues at the end of the day, so what do you want to talk about? Who do you want us to talk to? We want to hear from YOU. Email us your ideas and views at editor@thecalmzone.net If you want the hard stuff, go to the CALM website: www.thecalmzone.net or follow us on twitter @CALMzine thecalmzone.net - CALMzone Helpline London: 0808 8025858 Outside london: 0800 58 58 58

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Registered Charity no. 1110621

Directing a full awareness campaign wasn’t something I had in mind when I sat down with a cup of coffee last August. I’d been writing this two hundred-page behemoth of a rant that had begun one year earlier when my career as a freelance illustrator was on life support thanks to budget cuts.

At the time I didn’t see it as therapeutic in any way, just anger and frustration controlling my fingers on the keyboard. But then I came to talk to the CALM team in order to find out more about their work. I learnt a lot about CALM in a short space of time, I had no idea just how many men take their own lives. As both an illustrator and Creative Director of Quenched Music, when I met with Rachel, the CALMzine Editor, conversation turned to my area of work and we saw a wealth of opportunity to do something together.

The next morning I emailed Rachel to propose a creative awareness campaign on behalf of CALM when I realised that without my friends, family and colleagues, the world would be a pretty dark place.

CALM had left me in no doubt that too many men inhabit a place where there’s nobody to talk to about the things that bring you down. The next day I drew up ideas. I wanted to get to the core of the feeling I get when I write angrily in my book or draw something to make people laugh. The way music can make you cry or smile. Through artistic expression, I can inhabit a world where I can communicate through many mediums, from a doodle in a notebook to singing along at a gig. That, to me, is precious.

My friends were as shocked as I was to learn that suicide is the biggest killer of young men in the UK. Those friends possessed the skills I needed to compliment my own and, as young men ourselves, it really resonated with us. We called it Xpress and agreed that if just one person should benefit from this work, if one life is saved, however indirect, then each of us would achieve something far bigger and real than anything we have ever done.

We decided that we would create three tangible elements through the campaign. Quenched Music would release an album of all the best new songs in the UK and beyond in one beautiful compilation.

If we could recruit one or two established artists for the record to give us some familiarity, this would give us something we could sell to raise money for CALM. We also agreed to assemble a newspaper with features, interviews and photographs for CALM and to launch an official Xpress website which would encompass everything, offering crucial interaction.

The biggest challenge was convincing recognised faces working within the arts to join our cause. If I could sit down with a few comedians, actors, painters and poets and find out about their experiences and stories, then we might create an original angle that would connect with many. This was never a hunt for celebrities, it was about real men who have achieved success in their fields, but also resonated with people from all walks of life.

XPRESS YOURSELF!

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!

What I didn’t take into account was the wall of agents and managers who stood in my path. When you have no brand, no website and no budget, you have a huge obstacle to overcome. Each day I grew tired with knock backs but I got a little smarter and start taking the back roads and side doors.

Through Twitter I managed to get Jon McClure to come on board //THROUGH with his band, Reverend and The ARTISTIC EXPRESSION , Makers, for the album. I also out to the comedian Ian I CAN INHABIT reached Stone via The Arsenal FC Magazine A WORLD for which I illustrate a regular WHERE I CAN feature.

gets me leaping out of bed in the morning. Every learning curve has been worthwhile, despite having my head in my hands on several occasions. Xpress transcends any commercial work I have done in my career. The project has become a creative obsession, something I have to see thrive. I have spent the majority of my overdraft on making this work and it’s the abundance of goodwill and kind people in my life that will drag us to the finish line and leave behind something worth remembering at the end.

People saw we were for real. Then one morning, my email ‘pinged’ and in my inbox sat a response from Stephen Merchant’s agent arranging a twenty-minute interview with him.

Xpress, the album, will be released on May 3rd, 2013

The campaign now has a brand and an audience that has pledged a generous £491 so far, so that we can cover production costs for the physical album.

The track listing is solid thanks to many musicians believing in the importance of CALM. There is still work to be done, but over the course of the last four months the campaign has developed from one of many projects I had been juggling, to the thing that

Support the album crowd funding campaign at www.indiegogo.com/xpress

COMMUNICATE THROUGH The website went live and after MANY Christmas the response was altogether more encouraging.

MEDIUMS//

I am delighted to be working on behalf of such an inspiring charity but we need all the help we can muster between now and May, so please spread the word and help us however you can. Remember, we’re always open to suggestions from the public and we want to hear about your ideas too.

See the project in all it’s glory at www.xpressofficial.com

Follow the Xpress campaign on Twitter @XpressCalm

INTRODUCING THE

XPRESS CALM CAMPAIGN BY BEN TALLON

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INNER LIFE WHAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN HEARTED?

BY MIKE DELWICHE

When I wrote about my recent break up for Grazia magazine I received some understandably sympathetic replies from the female readership. I also received a lot of comments thanking me for my unusual candour. According to many women it was ‘refreshing’for a man to write about his feelings. The sheer number of women who found such emotional honesty from a man to be almost unprecedented took me by surprise. I refuse to believe that there is anyone who does not have emotions. As far as I’m aware emotions are as much a part of us as thoughts. But still it seems that there are a significant number of men out there who do not share their emotions, even with their partners.

There were also some critics. In particular I remember being told to ‘man up’ as if part of being a man meant staying silent when something awful happens. When I broke up with my fiancé I did not deal with it like a man. That is to say I did not tell everyone I was fine and bottle up my sadness inside. I told anyone who would listen how gutted I was. I drank too much, and I cried – often in that order. I didn’t cry as much as I needed to. I made some stupid mistakes, and I said and did some things that I regret. I still have some tears left. It’s possible that when I’m an old man the thought of losing the woman I wanted to marry will still bring a tear to my eye. It was a sad thing, and sad

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things are meant to make us cry, right?

We broke up because I wanted children and she didn’t.

That’s the most ridiculous simplification of the hardest decision I never wanted to make, but it’s the party line.

I was working too many hours, and our channels of communication broke down. She told me she wasn’t sure about marriage anymore, and I didn’t fight to keep her. I felt guilty for a long time, as if I had failed us both, but I wasn’t to blame. Neither of us were. In reality we both let it end, and as time passes the pain of regret no longer feels as sharp. I’ve come to accept that the split //SO NOW I’M TAKING happened for a reason. Although that reason is not always clear, MY FIRST more time I’ll come to TENTATIVE with understand it better.

STEPS INTO It’s been almost six months, and THE SINGLES to all but the trained observer SCENE. // I’ve been fine for the last four. In reality I’ve been pretty chewed up the whole time. Fortunately I do have a series of trained observers in my friends and family. They’ve listened when I wanted to talk, and opened me up when I had things I needed to say. The pain of a break up comes and goes in waves, sometimes breaking high on the shore, but as time passes the tide does inexorably go out. I’m lucky that I have a strong support network to

help me through the hard times. Often all it takes is to talk it over with someone and get the feelings out of my head so that I I can carry on, lighter for the weight that has been lifted from me.

So now I’m taking my first tentative steps into the singles scene. I never thought at thirty years old I’d be taking on speed dating and online dating sites. The whole thing is pretty daunting, and sometimes it feels like it would be easier just to give in and accept defeat.

But once you give it a go it’s not so bad. There are lot of women out there in the same position as me, and I’ve already made some new friends. We’re lucky that we live in the internet age where we can reach out to people from all different cultures and backgrounds, seeking out like-minded individuals and bonding over shared interests. I’ve been able to message women who I would never dare to talk to in a bar, and I’m finding that the differences between men and women are largely exaggerated for commercial purposes. Underneath all the bravado we all want to be loved, and I’m hopeful that someday soon I’ll meet someone to share my life with. So see you at the next singles night, yeah?

Mike’s novel The Liar’s Guide to South America is available from Amazon.

Follow him on twitter @mikedelwiche

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MISTER MUMBLES Join Londinium’s most fervent rarebit fiend as he embarks upon the unenviable task of having a clear out

“Ahhhh, there’s nowt so satisfying as a ruddy good clear out!” I announced with some gusto as I leant back on the pedestal and unleashed a roaring torrent of red hot sloppy diarrhoea into the lavatory pan below.

After the last few globules had reluctantly dribbled out, I stood and had my houseboy Fartwell wipe my botty crease clean with a crisp ten bob note. Then I pulled my breeches up, and marched out of the smallest room in the house bound for the messiest – that is to say, the spare room. Today was that most dreaded day of the year (aside from my annual STD check-up appointment – I never particularly relish Perkins the Physician poking and prodding at my tallywacker with his biro.) Today was “Spring Cleaning Day”.

I opened the door to the spare room, flicked on the light and attempted to squeeze in past the stacks of wooden tea chests that rose from floor to ceiling.

The air was thick with dust, and as I inched forward, my hooter began to itch something chronic. All of a sudden, I let out the most cacophonous sneeze – “KHAAAA-CHOO!” As you can probably imagine, such a hullabaloo set the tea chest towers to-ing and fro-ing in the most

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alarming manner. First they teetered this way, and then they tottered that. High above, a hardback copy of Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers cookbook tipped then toppled from the topper most tea chest with kamikaze intent before bonking me on the bonce with a boink.

When I came to, an exceedingly flustered Fartwell was digging me out from the avalanche of odds, sods and general nick-nacks that had engulfed me after I was struck down by Nigel’s teatime tome. As his number one benefactor, Fartwell is very protective of me. I’m not sure whether the kiss of life was entirely necessary on this occasion though, but Fartwell insisted. He’s a good lad, is Fartwell.

Evidently, the spare room was long overdue a tidy – and that’s when inspiration struck. Why not bring you, the dedicated reader of CALMzine along for the ride?

Think of it as a kind of “Cash in the Attic”, albeit without a mercenary angle and not set in a loft. “Heirloom in the Spare Room” is perhaps what it would be called, if it were an actual daytime telly programme. The people on benefits would lap it up like a saucer of Banana Nesquik with nice drugs in it.

The first thing of interest that I stumbled across was

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Grandpa’s big brass sextant. Few know that Grandpa was a seafaring man, and less still that he voyaged with Charles Darwin aboard the Beagle. Tis true though!

Grandpa Mumbles was principally employed by Darwin as the ship’s watchstander – that is to say, he took care of the directions in the days long before Google Maps was invented.

Sadly for Grandpa, he never gained the recognition he deserved. Darwin caught him sodomising a giant tortoise on the Galápagos Islands, and Grandpa was clapped in irons, accused of nearly buggering up the whole of evolution. He died alone in a lunatic asylum, driven half mad by thoughts of his baby giant tortoise child somewhere out there with the same blue eyes and big ears as him, slowly and fruitlessly plodding the earth wailing for daddy. It’s quite sad really, when you think about it. Wiping away a poignant tear, I chucked the worthless old sextant in a bin bag bound for the charity shop and carried on tidying.

Next, I came across my complete collection of “Plus Size Sluts” pornographic magazine, issues I to LXXXVIII. Of course, this wasn’t the first time I came across them by any means, but today was to be the last time. The

world’s moved on, gone all digital. Egads! I even puff an electronic pipe nowadays, while sporting the very latest iSlippers upon my feet. Coming across my old analogue porn only served to remind me what a terrible kerfuffle it is to peel the pages apart, and so it was I gladly plonked the entire crinkly pile in a bin bag bound for the charity shop and again, carried on tidying.

Burrowing past old cricketing trophies and the occasional commemorative spoon, I stumbled upon my very first trouser press – the Corby Pleat Master Mk II, with walnut trim. My hands trembled and my pulse quickened as it all came flooding back. Freshly pressed slacks on my first day at school! Those sharp creases complimented by Sarah Ferguson at Princess Diana’s funeral! That night I shut Hammy the Hamster in it as “an experiment”! Mummy scraping Hammy the Hamster out and flushing his lifeless, panini-like corpse down the lavvy before spanking me until I was sick!

Ahh, such fond memories.

Opening it up, I couldn’t believe my eyes – there, between its sprung-fold was a pair of my old boyhood cricket whites, still neatly pressed! And, even though they’d several yellow wee rings staining the crotch area, I knew a thick-knit trew of this calibre would be gratefully received by Fartwell – particularly in freezing, sub-zero temperatures when sent to shovel the snow from the grounds surrounding Mumbles Mansion. I smiled at the thought, and carried on tidying.

Before long, I’d finished. I had Fartwell lug the 37 bin bags to the charity shop and, while he was gone, began planning what to do with my reclaimed spare room.

Perhaps I’d make it into a peace zone where I could shut the door, light an aromatherapy candle and reflect upon the many strange paths life leads us down. Or maybe, just maybe, I’d convert it into a proper bedroom for Fartwell to dwell in, so he wouldn’t have to live in the shed any more.

In the end though, I simply installed a complex hydroponics system, had Fartwell tap into next door’s electricity supply, and transformed it into a huge weed factory capable of turning over £100,000 profit per annum. As I said, there’s nowt so satisfying as a ruddy good clear out! @Mister_Mumbles

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CALM XPRESS INTERVIEW:

STEPHEN

MERCHANT

By Ben Tallon

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It is hard to keep track of Stephen Merchant’s creative output. His prolific work in film, television, writing, broadcasting and comedy have been wildly successful. Perhaps best known for his work on British comedy classics The Office and Extras alongside friend and co-writer Ricky Gervais, his recent stand-up comedy tour, Hello Ladies, chases successes such as the Idiot Abroad travel show on Sky 1. Where the arts are concerned, Stephen Merchant is obscenely talented. Best of all, he makes time in his crazy schedule to talk to Ben Tallon, the mastermind behind the Xpress project, on the day of it’s official launch.

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“I was always quite creative as a kid.” Says Steve. “I used to draw a lot of comic strips. I spent more time drawing comic strips that nobody ever saw, in my room, than actually going out and socialising, which I should’ve started doing earlier. By the time I got round to it, people were already going to parties, so I missed the boat. It took me a while to eventually plug myself back into society because I enjoyed being at home writing and drawing. They were comics that never got finished… I suppose I enjoyed the process of creating them more than the idea of actually showing them to someone. Then I started doing plays at school. I enjoyed creative writing projects and it’s something that just grew and grew. For me, one of the things I love about writing is the fact that they allow you to revisit things that happened in your life and give them a funnier or cooler ending. You can reinvent them or explore concerns, anxieties or whatever you’ve experienced in life. There’s something about taking them apart and laughing at them that allows you to own them.”

Different people will find their own paths in to discovering something they enjoy doing or being involved with. It’s not easy to sit down and look at the things you enjoy and convert that into something you could pursue to a fuller extent. Did Steve ever feel that his interests in the arts were exclusive to his career?

“I don’t think it’s about being exclusive. A lot of people don’t feel it’s something they could do. Comedy is quite a particular thing and not something everyone feels they would be comfortable with. I was always trying all sorts of things. When I was at university I tried radio, I made some short films, I liked painting and drawing. Music was something I could never get to grips with but I always liked the theory of it.

I certainly didn’t start doing these things with a career in mind. When you start finishing projects, the satisfaction of seeing something through to its conclusion is incredible. I feel that so little of what we do in life actually has an end product. Years ago, people actually made stuff… they built things.

Many jobs today stretch on forever until the day you retire. There’s a quote - ‘it’s the journey and not the destination’ which is true in a sense, because there’s a danger that you can be so focused on the end

product that you miss out the pleasure of the process.

As soon as I finish a project, I want to jump straight back in to start it all again. It’s a great privilege to be able to do that for a living.”

Everyone knows about The Office and Extras. Both shows are built on agonizing humour and embarrassment crafted from the abundant ridiculousness found in workplaces the country over. This is what makes them great and everyday immediate surroundings are too often overlooked in the hunt for creative inspiration.

// THE OFFICE HAS BEEN REMADE IN CHILE, AND THERE’S AN ISRAELI VERSION. TO US IT ALL SEEMED VERY ENGLISH, BUT IT WOULD APPEAR TRANSLATES ACROSS THE WORLD. //

“In the case of Ricky [Gervais], he’d been doing office jobs and middle management for around fifteen years.” He says. “I was coming at it having left university and doing temping. I spent a lot of time doing things at the BBC, which people see as being very showbiz. But the reality is that if you’re working on a TV show and you’re not Bruce Forsyth, you’re typing at a computer and arguing over chairs just like anyone else. We always used to joke that if you work at the CIA and you’re doing a desk job, you’re still getting annoyed because somebody ate your sandwich…

So it was very much direct inspiration for The Office.

We felt that nobody had captured the reality of the office experience, which wasn’t crazy hi-jinx, it was just about getting by. The fact that you’re in this room with all these people who are essentially strangers, yet you spend more time with them than many members of your friends or family and all the little idiosyncrasies of it, the squabbling and the training days, the petty politics seemed worth exploring.

There’s an old writer’s adage, which is ‘write what you know.’ I’m sure the Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit are fantastic, but the reason they don’t appeal to me is that I can’t relate to them, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know the rules of that world. To me, two people arguing in a pub is more interesting. The Office has been remade in Chile, and there’s an Israeli version. To us it all seemed very English, but it would appear that there is something very core about that

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experience that translates across the world.”

More recently, Stephen has enjoyed the success of Idiot Abroad, a travel show that sees Karl Pilkington, former radio producer on The Ricky Gervais Show on XFM, visiting countries around the world. The three have produced podcasts and radio together for over a decade. How important is collaboration in creative activities?

“I’ve always tried to collaborate if I can. It’s hard to work in isolation, particularly comedy where you ultimately write for an audience.

For me, having someone around to share and develop ideas is essential.

In the case of Karl, he’s an amazing example of someone who never had creative pretentions, artistic tendencies or showbiz desires. He was basically the guy pressing the buttons at the radio station and he did some behind the scenes stuff that was mildly creative. We started asking him questions and drawing things out of him, stuff that he thought no on would find funny or be interested in, but he was wrong. He is probably the most popular thing that Ricky and I have ever been associated with. People love him. They either go, ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I think about things, or ‘that guy’s an idiot’, but he sounds just like my dad or uncle. He shared his perspective and people responded to it.”

// THE MORE HONEST YOU ARE, THE MORE BULLETPROOF YOU ARE. IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME TO REALISE THAT. //

‘Hello Ladies’ was Stephen’s first solo stand up comedy tour since 1997, when he made his debut.

Does he see his comedy as a method of utilising the negatives and frustrations in life as huge positives in a creative context?

“Someone once said to me in an interview, ‘You seem to make a lot of jokes about being very tall.’ When I was at school, my height made me feel very awkward and self-conscious. The interviewer suggested that by making the joke about being tall, I was getting there before anyone else could. I think there’s a lot of truth in that. There’s something about humour that allows you ownership of your own failings. It’s no

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good someone saying, ‘Hey, you’re lanky,’ because I got there first, you know? I’ve won; it doesn’t count!

In my stand up I am unhealthily honest about my failings to the point of it sometimes not being entirely true. You magnify and exaggerate so that you come off stage and people say, ‘I’m not even sure I know you any more.’ To me, it’s incredibly empowering if you’re honest. It disarms people, they can’t attack you because you’ve said, ‘I’m happy to share this with you.’ One of the things I was terrified of at school was people finding out my secrets. Oh god, I fancy that girl but I can’t allow anyone to know because what if I get rejected? And the as you get older, it’s like… ‘Fuck it!’ If I like her I’ll tell her because I’m going to be dead soon. I’ll go to my grave and she’ll never know. The more honest you are, the more bulletproof you are. It took me a long time to realise that. It’s true on stage too. I want some seventeen-year-old version of me who is shy and awkward to see my stand up and feel good because here is someone who feels the same way as me, thinking the things I think. That’s certainly how I used to feel when I listened to Woody Allen, for example. I used to think, ‘Oh, there’s another person in the cosmos like me.’ You assume you are the only one thinking and feeling this way. Communicating that has always seemed healthy to me.”

Comedy and humour are very broad topics. Watching comedy on TV, live or being involved are all equally valid.

Steve continues, “There is great value in being the audience as well as the performer. When I started, some of the closest friendships I formed were people who were fans of a particular sort of comedy just like me. Us sharing a kinship happened because we related to that comic or that movie and that’s very valuable. I always think about those people you see queuing up at the premiere, dressed as their favourite Star Wars or Harry Potter character. You drive past and think, ‘Oh my god, look at these sad bastards,’ but I bet they’re all good mates; they’re having a whale of a time. They’re the ones hanging out with their mates and having fun.”

You can catch Stephen in I Give It A Year - in cinemas now.

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DUPING, DOPING AND THE ARMSTRONG LEGACY

BY MARTIN CORDINER

When Lance Armstrong sat down to talk to Oprah Winfrey, he finally did something right, after duping the world in order to make himself a cycling legend.

He talked.

and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”, as USADA called it), but the sport will continue to suffer, as will all sports, if people don’t talk about the problems.

He didn’t say all the right things, he didn’t say what he probably should have done, needed to, in order to help cycling recover from the damage he inflicted upon it. He continued to contradict and circumvent where it suited him. But at least he talked. Did you take performance enhancing drugs and dope blood in order to win the Tour de France seven times in a row, Lance? Yes, I did.

There were those who smelled something dopey about Armstrong. They talked. The key was that they didn’t say, “he’s doping” (even // though they would probably have loved to), they said, “hang THERE IS A CODE on, why are you seeing a doctor IN THE CYCLING known to meddle with banned WORLD THAT substances?”, or “you were DEMANDS YOU crap on the mountains before DO NOT SPEAK and yet now you’re suddenly TO THE OUTSIDE the Stig on a pedal bike?”, and ABOUT WHAT’S other pretty reasonable things.

GOING ON INSIDE They were sued or bullied or encouraged to understand that IT, ‘OMERTA’, DEit would not be in their business RIVED FROM THE interests to continue with such MAFIA’S CODE OF SILENCE. talk. And most of those who could have supported them didn’t say // anything.

Given that his answer to that question from the time of his first victory up until the interview was either ‘no’, ‘bloody hell, no’, ‘I’m going to sue you’ or ‘I’m going to fucking kill you’ (I’m paraphrasing), this was rather refreshing. He didn’t have much choice of course, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) report having fairly comprehensively confirmed that he did it and most people who care about these things probably knowing deep down that it was true. Money trails, wellestablished connections to dodgy doctors, endless testimony from team mates...short of a stick with pee on it turning red it was pretty much game over.

But the media had no evidence at the time, or at least nothing so compelling that it couldn’t be denied (well, actually, they did if they’d thought about it for a second or two or gone seriously looking for it).

Cycling has suffered a lot because of the actions of Armstrong and those who were part of the secret plan (or “the most sophisticated, professionalised

I’m not going to go into details here, there’s been a lot of good coverage and a few excellent books about the Armstrong case in particular, but what’s alarming is how this culture can permeate, even now. There is a code in the cycling world that demands you do not speak to the outside about what goes on inside it, ‘omerta’, derived from the mafia’s code of silence. If you get caught, you don’t say owt. If you are asked, you keep schtum.

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This is most famous in cycling, but it could easily apply to most other sports. Do we hear about failed drugs tests in football?

Not really. Do tennis stars get away with ridiculous excuses for testing positive for recreational drugs? Pretty much. Thousands of professional sports people, loads of money in the game and not a single footballer gets caught with his hand in the steroid jar? Hmmmm.

I understand that drug suspensions don’t have to be declared in football, and that there is less to gain in a team sport that requires great technical skill than in tests of endurance. So yeah, it may well be less prevalent, and // yeah, it might be happening but NO ONE WANTS we don’t know about it. But this TO AIR THEIR still equates to guess work, in the void of mainstream media silence.

DRUGGY

LAUNDRY IN PUBLIC, ALTHOUGH IT WOULD BE HANDY IF EPO LEFT A STAIN LIKE CHOCOLATE ICECREAM. //

Now, let’s not start assuming, that’s not what this is about.

This is about a culture of talking instead of a culture of silence. Noone wants to clean their druggy laundry in public, although it would be handy if EPO left a stain like chocolate ice cream. But why can’t questions be asked without them being seen as accusations?

Why is the reaction, “I don’t want to talk about the bad”, instead of, “okay, maybe this was so bad that we really need to talk about it”?

A lack of leadership doesn’t help. Cycling is pretty hard up in this situation, with key figures implicated in gross incompetence (if not worse) but it’s hard to name very many sports’ governing bodies that have covered themselves in glory. And the media can be

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very unhelpful. “Bradley, do you think a sport bathed in drugs for seven years is now a lot cleaner than it was, we know the speeds in the Tour de France are slower but how do you personally feel about it, being part of the inner workings?”, is (in my opinion) a reasonable question. “Bradley, are you taking drugs?”, is not.

The drugs are bad. Making a mockery of sporting competition is very disappointing behaviour. Forcing others to put things into their body that can actually kill them, all just to stand a chance of have a sporting career, is abominable. But what causes decay, what spreads the cancer of doubt, is the secrecy and the silence.

Actions happen. They are done, they cannot be undone, but they at least are definable. Cultures persist. Talking about problems in the past does not pass sentence on the present, not if the conversation is reasonable.

Lance has started talking, and the struggle over how much everyone involved wants to keep the conversation going has begun. I hope the conversation never stops.

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THE AMBASSADORS RECEPTION Introducing….SONNY WHARTON At CALM we have a band of merry men and women who are proud to call themselves Ambassadors for our campaign. But who the hell are they??

Tell us about yourself…

I’m a DJ and Producer, recently named as Fatboy Slim’s “producer of the year” [HIGH FIVE! – Ed] signed to Skint Records and have remixed the likes of The Temper Trap, Frankie Knuckles and X-Press 2, as well as DJing pretty much here, there and everywhere. I also quite like cake.

So Why CALM? Depression, suicide and all the darkness that goes with it is something very close to home for me and when I first found out about CALM I instantly wanted to get involved and help in anyway I could. The statistics for young male suicides in the UK are shocking and trying to help raise the awareness of this is crucial to help open peoples minds to the fact its a REAL issue that needs to be addressed immediately.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

My dad always told me to “be here, now” - its stuck with me ever since.

What is your one ‘lifesaver’ track guaranteed to make you feel better when things get tough?

What is your one rule for living life?

Groove Armada “My Friend”.

Be nice :)

The lyrics go “whenever I’m down, I call on you my friend…” It kinda does what it says on the tin, really!

sonnywharton.com facebook.com/sonnywharton

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Fists Will Fly (Business Class) WORDS BY DREW GEPP Apart from the recycling, I’ve never been asked to “take anything outside”. I like to think it’s because I’m 6’2”, 160 pounds and know how to handle myself (to paraphrase Jason Bourne - who I imagine is probably avoiding me). But to play devil’s advocate, let’s assume that the real reason is that there are fewer pastel-shirted knobs in the world indignant that I may be “eyeing up their bird”.

If so, mine is a 21st Century normality, that of fantasist, over-domesticated city-boys, cock-sure in their salaries and South London flats, who are better handling bicarbonate of soda than carbonators. This may be true (my honeycomb parfait is divine), nevertheless it is not universally accepted, and there are tribes of same such city-boys slogging it out in New York, London, and across Asia, with their fists.

The increase in publicity for fighting 40k-ers is partly attributable to White Collar Boxing, a company that has monopolised and professionalised the market of banker-cumboxers. The site is as you would expect: slick, well integrated, and exceptionally cheesy. Two “Wall Street types” who create a website called www.therealfightclub.com and whose project

is endorsed by the FT as “the new golf” don’t terrify me. However, their business is serious, and I’m sure their bite demands more respect than their taglines. And besides, they are only providing a service that satisfies a demand: that is, for guys who want to swap the coffeemachine for the canvas.

Personally, I don’t think this is actually the market to whom they’re trying to sell. I think White Collar Boxing caters for the lazy pugilistprofessional, someone looking for a convenient way to get into the sport. I say this because there are plenty of gyms, with plenty of places, in and around the city. Out of uni I joined the Islington boxing gym in Archway, and when that became inconvenient, Rooney’s gym in Tower Bridge - both excellent. But then, here’s the confession, I got into the sport through another back alley - chess boxing.

Chess boxing - as wikipedia will tell you - was the subject of a comic by Enki Bilal, realised by the Dutch artist lepe Rubingh. It comprises of interpolated rounds of speed chess and a bunch of fives in the ring, with victory decided by check-mate, knock-out, or any legal strategy in between. It focuses the mind and hones the body, or, in other words, it’s a bit of fun, and it got me into the Islington gym proper. But are the barriers to entry real in boxing? Are White Collar nobly opening up a street-game to the 9-7 bourgeoisie? History doesn’t suggest so.

The Olympians of Antiquity were freemen, not slaves, those trained in the martial arts were from families who could afford military service and social success, and the roll-call of Homeric champions remains, both in the wars and at the games, prohibitively aristocratic. More modern history gives other examples of upper-class and monied fighters: the warrior classes of the Middle Ages (pugnatores) were the landowning Knights, and among the early patrons of boxing were the 2nd Duke of Albemarle, engineer of

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the first recorded British bout in 1681, and the Marquess of Queensberry.

But that was some time ago; since, there has certainly been a democratisation of the sport.

Ali, Pacquiao, Foreman and Sugar Ray show greatness to transcend the ugly exclusion that existed and exists in (Western) sports and societies.

So we have, at once, boxing as meritocracy, and again, the hunger for boxing across classes (regardless of talent). But that is not to deny that boxing has an image problem.

To many it will seem a brutal, thuggish pastime a far cry from the Greek view of the sport as ‘the sweet science’. The modern and televised glorification of the extent of violence in boxing might explain the extremism of the view, but it also shows up the voyeurism of the audience.

Alone, it doesn’t chart the decline in participation.

Instead, I think that boxing has fallen prey to intellectual elitism. That arguments should be won by dint of intellect, precluding physical superiority, is not a new idea, but the colour this idea assumed amid the rationalist zeal of the Enlightenment was radically different to what had gone before (Gawain’s physical courage, Marlowe’s fatal bar brawl). This combined with the distance we seek from the mechanised wars of the 20th Century perhaps explains the current disposition.

Nevertheless, boxing still appeals, and the excellent film Blue Blood, about the sport at Oxford University, highlighted this hunger and hypocrisy well. In it there’s a Town vs. Gown fight which, as soon as it starts, shows up the absurdity of perceived difference between either set of fighters.

Back to chess boxing. The first time it was cancelled was the first time I went downstairs to join the boxing boys proper. They were all there for the same reason: to get fitter, stronger, and to have a bit of a laugh. If you’ve spent 90 minutes at a bag, then at weights, then bag again, rope, then into the ring, you already know that the feeling of heavy limbs is incomparable.

Boxing had pulled me in, and if White Collar bring people in, good on them. It’s a sport for everyone, and it’s fucking awesome.

to many it will seem like a brutal, thuggish pastime, a far cry from the greek view of the s sport as the ‘sweet science’ thecalmzone.net - CALMzone Helpline London: 0808 8025858 Outside london: 0800 58 58 58

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A word from our cover artist:

BEN TALLON

Ben Tallon is a multi-award winning illustrator and Creative Director of Quenched Music. His work is 100% hand-crafted using a wide range of organic materials. He combines experimental mark-making with a strong command of drawn typography. His work spans across all platforms in television, music, film, charity and sport with clients that include WWE, The Guardian, Channel 4 and UEFA among others. His urban style is synonymous with Channel 4 TV show Skins.

Ben works with new music talent on sleeve design, music videos and photography through his Manchester based company, Quenched. He is currently directing the CALM awareness campaign, Xpress. @bentallon

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BEN TALLON

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BEN TALLON

CALM COMPETITION Everyone loves a T-Shirt, right? Right. Well, that’s just the tip of the iceberg for this issue’s CALM competition prize. Win a great big CALM goodie bag replete with such juicy treats as a copy of the awesome Thirty One Songs album featuring the likes of Elbow, Delphic, Mr Scruff and some bloke called Noel Gallagher, our awesome new SAVE THE MALE Tee, as well as a healthy dose of guitar picks, badges, key rings and back issues.

Because you’re worth it……

To get your hands on this priceless bundle of goodies answer this simple question (the answer is somewhere in this issue): Q: What is the name of Stephen Merchant’s new film?

Send us your answer either via our Facebook page, or email your answer to editor@thecalmzone.net and we will pick a winner at random. Competition closes Feb 1st 2013. The winner will be notified after this date via email. www.facebook.com/thecalmzone

FRAZZLED DADDY PARENTING BY NUMBERS

By Matt Brown

Just about every member of my family, in every generation I’ve ever met, has smoked one thing or another. Ciggies, cigars, pipes, roll-ups, hookahs, herbals (ahem), you name it – it has been set on fire and inhaled by someone sharing my DNA. If you started smoking before the 1980s I can forgive you your habit.

Smoking used to convey an air of sophistication and aspiration. Glamorous Hollywood stars used to fall in love on the silver screen through a haze of cigarette smoke; the first thing James Hunt reached for after winning the Formula One championship was a well earned fag; and in early episodes of Blue Peter, Val Singleton was rarely without an Embassy Envoy on the go, particularly whilst performing a tricky ‘make’.

Nowadays, though, it doesn’t quite have the same social cache. You get forced out onto the street to smoke like some kind of 1970s Polish refugee then charged a small fortune for a pack of 20 that’s plastered with photos of either a cancer riddled face or a tumor falling out of a corpse’s arsehole. It’s a different world for the twenty first century smoker. Today, if you smoke you are definitely made aware of the scale of risk.

I often think that, like cigarettes, children should also be honestly labeled. It would make much more sense to pop a sticker on them as your child leaves hospital that says, ‘WARNING: will end up doing the opposite of what you’ve asked’ or ‘will like their mother more’ or ‘will end up putting you in a home’. Well, here to redress the balance then are a few stats about some of the things you have to do as a parent that no one ever tells you.

times. Let me be quite clear that bathing your children is not something that gets more magical the more times you do it, quite the contrary in fact. With two children I estimate that I have changed my share of over 10,000 nappies (I have worked this soilage out in bucketfuls but I shall spare you the grisly details). In addition to this I have read a couple of stories a night to our boys virtually every night of their lives. I’d approximate that at being about 4500 for the oldest and coming up for a 2000 for the youngest. And sitting atop of it all, like a big turd in fancy pants, are the approximately 2 broken nights sleep every week. That’s over 750 in total, or to put it another way 2 frickin’ years. The next time someone points out how tired you look, make sure you let them know this little truth nugget, OK? Night night, my pretties. Sleep tight.

I have two sons and have been a father for just over seven and a half years. That means that, including the one I gave tonight, I have participated in 2,698 bath

You can follow Frazzled Daddy on Twitter @FRAZZLEDDADDY

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“The ultimate Manchester playlist”

“Manchester’s...best ever collection”

Southern Daily Echo

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Creative Tourism

Penny Black Music

DE S INCLU LUSIVE EXC & E R OM RA KS FR GHER’S TR AC LA

GAL S, , NOEL G BIRD ELBOW F, FLYIN HIGH SCRUF T, MR G, O O L RYTHIN E I AM K V E , THING NANT E EVERY T U IE BAD L NOIR, IC , JIM DELPH I COLUMN T T U DUR

THIRTY ONE OUT NOW AVAILABLE NOW IN ALL GOOD RECORD STORES IN CD & DIGITAL FORMATS AT WWW.THIRTYONESONGS.COM

All profits to CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) CALM & The Factory Foundation thanks: Cestrian / Creative Lynx / HMV / LOVE Creative / Revolution (vodka bars)

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CHECK OUT OUR SNAZZY new WEBSITE

we b

Go to www.thecalmzone.net for features, opinion, forums and competitions to keep you busy until the next issue of CALMzine.

Plus find out how you can get involved with the Campaign Against Living Miserably.

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Everyman by chris sav

.. .

CALMZINE

NEEDS YOU

Would you like to write for CALMzine? Do you have a photographic eye? We want great writers, interviewers, bloggers, tweeters, artists and photographers for CALMzine and the CALM website.

What’s your obsession, your passion? Music, sports, arts, gadgets, fashion, comedy, gaming – or something further out of the box? Can you write about it, picture it, tweet it? Can you conduct a gripping interview?

We’d love to hear from you, and in no time your work could be on our website and in these very pages.

Get in touch with Rachel at: editor@thecalmzone.net

NO GAY PLAYERS? COME ON, FOOTBALL,

THIS IS GETTING EMBARRASSING…

By Fabio Zucchelli

The cover of January’s copy of Attitude, the UK’s bestselling gay magazine, not only showcased abs of steel and a smoulder capable of making the straightest among us blush; it also revealed a football under the fella’s arm. It’s West Ham’s Matt Jarvis, no less- the £11m winger who has produced more crosses that a Catholic carpenter. Does Jarvis represent a sea change in the perception of homosexuality in football, or is it a false dawn? The best gauge of just how homophobic the world of football is right now is whether we’re any closer to any pro players coming out.

Jarvis told Attitude that if a player were to come out, ‘There’d be support everywhere within the football community, whether it be players, fans or within the PFA [Professional Footballer’s Association]’. I don’t doubt for a second that this is true, but would that support be enough to offset the nonsense that’s obviously preventing players from coming out? It’s probably worth reminding ourselves of the situation as it currently stands on this front.

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It’s thought there are currently around half a million professional footballers worldwide. That’s the population of Luxembourg, or Manchester, or Oxford Street in early January. Out of all these men, one player has publicly come out as being gay. It seems pretty implausible that Anton Hysen, who plies his trade in the Swedish third division, is the only gay pro footballer playing today. And by implausible I mean total bullshit. So, are we any closer? Are we about to find out that half of the Premier League is actually gay?

It would be the best real life example of ‘I’m Spartacus!’esque unity you’d ever wish to see. But, let’s be honest, it’s not going to happen, is it.

So, what are the current barriers? Is it the players? Do the banter-filled changing rooms, where a spade is not so much called a spade, as an ‘absolute tool’, preclude openness on homosexuality? The spokesman for football’s internal affairs, the Guardian columnist The Secret Footballer, says absolutely not. In his book, I Am The Secret Footballer, he argues that players actually feel their most comfortable in the ‘piss-taking’ environment of the changing room; this, after all, is where players have spent their entire career from a very early age, he says. He even writes ‘I’m pretty sure a gay player would have no problems coming out to his teammates if he was offered a magic “Nobody outside the team will ever find out” guarantee’.

Andres Lindergaard, the current Manchester United goalkeeper, echoed this when he told the Guardian in November last year: ‘My impression is that the players would not have a problem accepting a homosexual.’ There is definitely a sense that attitudes within the dressing room have changed, probably helped by the mixing pot of multicultural multimillionaires joining the ranks, and the tolerance this engenders.

Instead, the finger is pointed at the small minority of fans who rain homophobic abuse down from the terraces. And that’s even before anyone has come out. Lindergaard says: “As a footballer I think first and foremost that a homosexual colleague is afraid of the reception he could get from the fans.” Well, is this a case of shifting the blame? Are fans, in actual fact, ready and willing to embrace openly gay players?

Researchers at Staffordshire University seem to think so.

They have been running an online survey called Topfan, which has quizzed over 3,500 people. One of the lead researchers, Dr Cleland, took the results to show that ‘Fans say they are too often blamed, but over 90% say there is no

place for homophobia in football.’ Ok, but what about the remainder? I was a little bit perplexed by the wording on the university website describing that ‘only 9 per cent oppose gay players’. To me ‘only’ 9 per cent still seems way too high. And the problem is, it’s this 9% who are hurling the abuse; they are precisely the ‘small minority who ruin it’ that football managers always refer to. And ruin it they do.

Still, if over 90 per cent of fans are largely tolerant, that should be enough to overpower the noisy minority with the help of a serious, long-term campaign, the kind that LGBT charity, Stonewall, calls for: ‘a high-profile campaign specifically focused on challenging homophobic attitudes’.

The Kick Racism out of Football campaign is a good example of how to do this. While there are still incidents – and probably always will be – by and large racist behaviour at football matches is now dealt with seriously. The same needs to be true of homophobic chanting. Although technically the Ground Regulations of 2007 do give the legal authority to eject and ban fans heard spewing homophobic abuse, how often does this actually happen?

And what about the media? Writing for the website Sabotage Times, David Preece, a pro goalkeeper currently at Lincoln City, makes an interesting point: ‘Unfortunately, whoever follows in Justin Fashanu’s footsteps will have their career and personal life overshadowed by their sexuality. They will become the ambassador of the gay community in the world’s biggest sport and have to carry the burden of being an historic pioneer around with them.’ It’s true. Think about the rugby player Gareth Thomas, or the cricketer Stephen Davies. Before they came out they were known for their skills on the field of play. Now they are known foremost for their sexuality.

The media would have an absolute field day. As Preece says ‘How long would it be before the tabloids are raking around in bins, trying to unearth other footballers who may be connected with the poor soul who is brave enough to take all this on?’ It’s no surprise Lindergaard says gay players are ‘in need of a hero’. With a media feeding frenzy in waiting, it’ll take a character carved from the hardiest of minerals to withstand the pressure of becoming the only living openly gay high level footballer. Still, the likes of Lindergaard and Jarvis are helping to ease the burden slightly. Let’s hope far more follow suit to take the pressure off the brave players who do eventually decide to go for it.

Follow Fabio in Twitter: @fabzucci

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THE RANT Un Ungrateful Bunch

By Chris Owen

The blame for the recent demise of high street giants HMV, Comet and Jessops has, by and large been put at the foot of the Internet.... but I have another theory. It’s down to society becoming an ungrateful, selfish, tantrum-wielding bunch of little shits. Seriously, when did we all turn into toddlers, throwing our toys out of the pram at the sheer audacity of anyone wanting to be paid for what they’ve worked bastard hard to produce?

“I want that book” “It’s ten pounds” “I’ll give you 99p for it?”

Oh, oh, I’m sorry – do you not fancy paying ten WHOLE POUNDS for something that it took someone months, if not years to write? Do you somehow think the world owes you every single written word ever put to paper? Are you yourself such a talented wordsmith that everyone else pales into insignificance and thus their crap isn’t worth paying more than the price of a box of Popcorn Chicken for?

It’s the same with music... “I’m not paying £13.99 for a CD from HMV” – oh, aren’t you? I assume this is because you’re also an extremely talented musician who can sit down for months and somehow take the music you’re hearing in your own head – music which came to you of your own volition and strived to perfect – and put it down and make it a living, real entity? Oh, you’re not? You’re just a demanding shit?

Well fuck you then, fourteen quid it is.

What’s that? You’ll just download your favourite tracks anyway and ignore the ones you don’t like? Yes, yes, because that’s why people create albums isn’t it... so people can rip the bits they like most and screw the rest.

Fuck it, why not just do the same with works of art too. I’m a big fan of Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’, but tell you what, the dog’s rubbish, so I’m going to get him out the way, and I don’t really like the building on the left. Tell you what, I’ll cut out and frame the wagon and horses bit as the rest is pretty much all trees and grass anyway.

At what point did we become such an ungrateful bunch? My six year old nephew asking to buy Lego behaves better than we do. In years to come, when we’ve managed to turn the whole entertainment sector into some awful modern day Weimar Republic equivalent, we’ll look back at these times and think ‘we really fucked everything up didn’t we?’

Do you have something you want to rant about?

Send 300 words to editor@thecalmzone.net

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ATENCIÓN! All our volunteers – Marcia, Joshna, Amy, Graham, Alex, Mirko, David, Chris & Natalie for braving the cold and snow to spread the CALMzine love and a special shout out to the mighty Chen who single handedly distributed 250 magazines with nothing more than a pair of legs and a wheelie suitcase at her disposal.

We seriously couldn’t do this without you all.

BEN TALLON and all at Quenched Music for producing an incredible campaign and rinsing your overdrafts achieving it.

Mike and all at Symbian Print as always.

We love you guys.

Cheers for the pizza!

LOUISA AND AMY, OUR LOVELY PRESS & PROOF READING VOLUNTEERS. YOUR EAGLE EYES ARE VERY PRECIOUS TO US.

OUR TEAM OF

FABULOUS PRINT AND ONLINE WRITERS

WHO DO ALL THIS FOR FREE – YOU ARE THE LIFEBLOOD OF CALM. WITHOUT YOU, WE ARE NOTHING! ESTHER & DANNY FOR FLYING THE CALM FLAG ALL OVER MANCHESTER AND BEYOND.

SJ Helplines

you know who you are.

The remarkable Team Alan and Jacqui Couzens for raising a huge amount of money for CALM in January, and Kristina of Kristina Records for their Give It Up night at Dalston Superstore. *high fives*

Our entirely unprofessional agony uncle offers his entirely unprofessional advice…

Q: I have just spent my tenth Valentines Day in a row sitting at home in my pants, playing Xbox and eating Doritos. This has to stop. Any tips on how to get my mojo working?

Billy, Walthamstow A: Kill two birds with one extra control pad: Invite a friend over for some two player action. Failing that, be really boring and go out with mates to a pub/bar/blind date/quiz/house party and talk to someone in the flesh with body parts and stuff. My mother used to say ‘The antelope does not jump into the frying pan.’ Ergo: HUNT, GRASSHOPPER, HUNT! Q: You’re a funny guy. I read all the time that girls like men who make them laugh. I, however, am not funny at all. Not even to look at. Can you give me an opening line guaranteed to make the laydeez chuckle.

Jamie, Harlesden A: Dude, first off; I’m not pick-up chick funny. The kind of funny I was, I used to make girls laugh so hard they’d fall over and into the arms of whoever was my best friend at the time. You don’t want that kind of funny. You really want to get da ladeez? Be a DJ. Be a really good DJ. Power is the best kind of funny there is.

Q: I am totally skint after a pretty massive Christmas and new year blow out. I need a get rich quick scheme pretty damn snappy before the bailiffs come knocking. Help me!

Doug, New Cross A: Quick! Sign on! Sell your sperm! Sell your blood! Sell space on your arm for innovative advertising! Be an escort! Write a hit single! Start a religion! Walk into Starbucks with dead cockroaches in your pocket. Order tea.

Put Cockroach in tea. ‘Discover’ cockroach. Money in the bank, Bruv.

Q: I need you to settle an argument I’m having with my best mate about which is better, Prince or Michael Jackson. It’s getting pretty nasty. You have the deciding vote…

Harry, Fulham A:Prince. Seriously dude, Michael was a weirdo. Plus Prince is still alive, so Prince wins. And he’s cooler and sexier and funkier and made more albums, none of which were Invincible. Plus Prince plays more than one instrument. I’m sorry, moonwalk? Leave off.

Q: You’re a musician so I hope you’ll understand. I’m in a band with three other guys but our drummer is totally shit. How can we ask him to leave the band without REALLY pissing him off? He’s a big bloke…

Bob, Shepherds Bush A: There is no easy way. It is going to sting. You are doomed. Prepare yourself. Say your prayers. Start a life insurance plan. If it has already come to this he probably knows and can probably do without getting mugged about. Meet him as a group, in a bar, and be gentle. Also, buy his beer.

Do you have a question for JOSH Email us on editor@thecalmzone.net

NOTE: Josh is not a qualified expert. He’s just a joker.

However if you do want to know some more about him, go to www.poejazzi.wordpress.com If you need professional advice, call the london CALMzone helpline on 0808 802 5858.

Outside london call: 0800 585858

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weekends matter with skiddle

For the latest gig and clubbing news, lineups and of course the cheapest tickets go to skiddle.com Plan your weekend with skiddle:

skiddle.com/whats-on

Photograph courtesy of Matthew Comer thecalmzone.net - CALMzone Helpline London: 0808 8025858 Outside london: 0800 58 58 58 www.matthew-comer.com

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