The real challenge in writing about the highest buildings in London is to actually reach one. There was only one case of a fake blond hostess wrapped up in fake fur whinging ‘only guests are allowed up I’m afraid’ and no means of persuading her. Everywhere else my harassing yet charming journalistic skills prevailed, granting me access to some of the highest man-made peaks in London. The journey started in Tottenham Court Road at the Paramount, a bar at the very top of the Centre Point. The thirty second lift ride led to the stylish restaurant, a real gem only outshone by the last floor’s panoramic view of London’s impressive skyline. I’m 700 feet from the ground and the only thing separating me from the city is a fulllength glass wall. The usual expectation is to see the city merely looking smaller from above, but the combined height, light and excitement with the smooth lounge music echoing in the background made everything feel magical. Looking for famous monuments became secondary with everything else to see from so high. Standing in front of Oxford Street, the busiest and longest street of the city, two long white snakes run frantically on both sides of the road. Who would have thought that buses are white from above? Small details like this and the doll-house size boutique shops selling ant-sized hats and bags make you want to sit and stare at the thousands peculiarities noticeable only from this height. There is something romantic of this gloomy day, the sun has decided to shine only on
Primrose Hill which stands out peacefully detached from the grey concrete landscape surrounding it. Another exciting view hides on the last floor of the Hilton Hyde Park Hotel. From the rooftop restaurant a completely different sight of the city is ahead. The bright white and blue roofed Victorian houses deceive a Parisian landscape. Looking towards South-West, neatly aligned houses separated by two big green carpets, Hyde Park and St James Park are a pleasant distraction from the city’s monotony. Following the river’s silhouette towards west, the Thames is still quietly running before developing into the whirling curves of the vibrant Westminster area. Right next to the majestic Shard (unreachable for a students’ budget), a slightly less appealing building offers another diverse view. Guy’s Hospital, not as charming as the last locations, shows from its thirtieth floor a south London landscape which is rare to find. The scenery is not distracted by the notorious landmarks, and you can enjoy the disorganized setting of small brick houses and randomly placed towers. Patches of busy streets and buildings in New Cross and Peckham are still visible before the city dissolves in gentle green hills in the distance. London has many other futuristic and shiny buildings where dizziness hits you by only trying to look up at them. Unfortunately, the only way in was an outrageously expensive drink - so I gave that a miss and pronounced my mission complete.
Berlin might just be the most fascinating city in the world. You only have to look at the varied and staggering architecture to see th the effect the tumultuous 20 century has had on the place. From stern, Soviet-style relics of the Cold War to tasteful memoria ls and testaments to the victims of the atrocities, for which Berliners can’t help but bear the responsibility, the city is beautiful. But, when I visited Berlin last February, it was a disused spy station hidden in the forests on the outskirts of the city that stood out to me. The history of the building had intrigued me even before we had left London. I had read that it sat atop a manmade hill, ominously known as Teufelsberg (translates as ‘The Devil’s Mountain’), which was created in the wake of WWII, when the British found it too difficult and costly to destroy a military school designed by chief Nazi architect Albert Speer, and so decided to fill it in with rubble from the city. America decided this to be a perfect place to build their tower, which –despite its great size– remains hidden from view. On our trek up to the abandoned spy station it was the occasiona l step on a moss-covered brick that served as the reminder to the
chilling history of the area. Snow fell as we trudged towards the fences, riddled with holes from previous explorers. Slipping through with ease, we then proceeded to examine the premises, as interested in the fine graffiti as the destroyed lift shafts and broken computers. It was difficult to imagine that the building would have once been a hive of activity, with the intelligentsia of the American Secret Service making use of the now defunct technolog y. The highlight, no doubt, was the summit of the station –the observation tower. Complete with three enormous, golf-ball like structures, this was clearly the explorer’s spot of choice, as we encountered human life for the first time in hours. More prepared than us, with bottles of Berliner-Weisse and 10 inch joints in hand – they were having the ultimate picnic. We exchanged little more than a few suspicious glances at each other as we passed on the stairs before we reached the pinnacle. Immediately it was clear the view was more stunning than the commercial TV Tower in Alexanderplatz, and 15 euros cheaper too. We soon entered the giant spheres, and as with most events of significance in my life, the sublime beauty of the place was punctured by the ridiculousness of the way we childishly frolicked in its acoustics. Deep resonance and a fifteen second delay proved too exciting for us not to bellow and sing at the top of our voices. Hoarse, we headed down the mountain and found a tavern where we sat and relived the whole adventure. A truly unforgettable experience.
I sat there staring. My heart pumping, looking at everything I was about to say goodbye to. Will anyone miss me? Should I have left a note, one last update for people to know? I could picture them weeping, confused and hurt. It didn’t matter though. I was going to take the jump. I took one last look before slowly closing my eyes. “Your Facebook account has been terminated”. Virtual suicide. I decided to take it one isolating step further and turned my phone off for three days. I would be lying if I didn’t admit I was slightly worried about having no phone. Not due to my obsessive nature of overanalysing every single text message I receive, but for security reasons too. I no longer had an alarm, the weather, maps or the news! No Facebook meant no constant stalking of the ex, of friends, of people you know, people you barely know and people you want to know. No sitting in the library and going through someone’s entire timeline. No self-indulgent statuses, pictures, messages. Nothing. No phone meant no waiting for the text back, for the call. No drunken texts or calls. No using it as a distraction in awkward situations: Warmington Tower lift, talking to someone you don’t like, lectures, group seminar work. Nada. It was just me, my real self and if I wanted to talk to someone (or didn’t) I had to, via their face. So here’s for my next confession. It was strangely liberating not feeling chained to this constant contact I thought I needed. I don’t want to get all bullshitty talking about “I found my real self”…because I really didn’t. I did though become very productive, I got things done and finally finished my book I’ve been reading for months. I am not advocating destroying phones and boycotting Facebook. I am suggesting however that we can sometimes get lost in these virtual worlds and distract ourselves from what actually is around us. Do I have Facebook again? Yes. Do I have my phone? Yes. My relationship towards them however has slightly changed. We can never rid ourselves from these new ways of contact and neither do I think we should. What we can do though is put things in perspective. Oh, and one final thing. When I turned my phone back on, I had two text messages. Two. Over-analysis meltdown.
Now, I’m no expert on the Middle East. I have barely even touched down in the region before. Apart from a family holiday to Sharm el-Shei kh a few years back, I have very little, if any, bona-fide experience of the place. But what I do have is an interest. It’s an undeniably fascinating part of the world, with a drawing magnetism. Not a day goes by when Twitter isn’t abuzz with explosive breaking news headlines coming out of the various civil wars, forming revolut ions, conflicts, and continuing territor ial clashes et cetera. To try and answer the question in its entirety would be plainly absurd. What I will attempt to do is make a summary of the issues that I, as well as the media, deem as fairly hot topics and find out wtf is going on in the Middle East.
It seems that because of the last two years of turmoi l in the Middle East, namely the Arab Spring revolut ions, Iraq, to an extent, has been forgotten. Though to take the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, that “forgotten is forgiven”, the people of Iraq, I’m sure, are far from likely to feel either sentiment toward the West. In the ten years since the start of the war, Iraq has seen some pretty dire examples of the international community letting down the people of a countr y who it claims to be liberat ing. The so called “nation building” policies have led to not just the waste of billions of taxpayers’ money, but far worse, the damage put upon a nation now essential ly in civil war, and the resulting deaths of over 100,00 0 Iraqis.
Ironica lly, the way Iraq has been neglected because of the latest uprisings in the Middle East can in some way be attributed to the very weakened state that Iraq now finds itself in. From the current instabi lity we see in Iraq, Iran has seen a kind of resurgence, which in turn has set off bursts of tension between other Sunni and Shi’a dominated states, whose clashes have proved tragic for those other nations that were harmlessly attempting the transit ion towards democracy. A nation in which over 70,000 of its citizens have been killed by their government, and with a further one million being forcibly spilt over its borders to seek refuge, Syria is a countr y that has not exactly dodged the bullet of consequence felt across the Middle East. Witnessing just under two years of far from straightforward civil war, the issue now is that Syria could become an extrem ist Islamic state as the role of Jihadist’s in the rebel groups is growing. In comparison to the bloody civil war that is slowly disintegrating the very soul of Syria, many revolut ions that were witnessed during the Arab Spring have managed to stay nonviolent. While things are far from perfect in these fledgling democracies, things are better. In Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, although outbreaks of violence have occurred, much of the turbulence has been short lived and in scale, far less damag ing. Although the Middle East remains a complex entity, with so much more going on than what I’ve been able to touch upon, I have learnt that it is worth making more of an effort to understand the myriad of issues. One day it may impact us more directly.
Showtime My hurt is raw, I roar with the pain that your disdain stains me with. I’m played like a game of blackjack, cut no slack, you never crack and you hate to fold. Clenching my fists, my knuckles white, I won’t take flight, the spark’s alight and I’m prepared. With this act of fission, vengeance forms my mission, there’ll be no intermission when I have my way. Sorry yet? You will be. As I unravel at the seams, I beam, I reiterate: this ain’t no dream, sucker. Now’s the part when the tape goes boom. BOOM!
I watched the orange ash of my cigarette turn to grey concrete. My eyes dragged away to the graffiti on the build ing. The boom from inside the club slipped away. I watched a huge red lampshade throbbing in a distant window, almost billow ing out from the pure white walls it hung in. My head was light, my hands clammy. I looked down at the heart that sat in my palms, the creases of my skin themselves as arteries from the heart, its small beat and its warmth, its throb was lifting me from the ground. I could feel somet hing running over my body, over the curve of my skull and down onto my shoulders. We started walking home, breat h rising hot from shrin king silhouettes. I studied the tops of the build ings that stood over the skinny high street. I remembered someone telling me that I should look up more. I saw a black line, as though someone was tracing the tops of the build ings with a pen, running alongside me as I walked. It moved up and down quick ly, I tried to control my eyes but they just flicked back and forth with it into my head. The line dropped to a small shed in a garden at the end of the row. I needed a wee so I approached the door, smell ing dust as I backed into the corner; I tried to listen for the others. There was nothing except for a faint noise, louder now I’d noticed it. I stopped; it was coming closer, whipping from ear to ear, the dust from the shed tickling my nose. I listened blind ly, still. The dark disappeared and a face was in front of mine, long. I looked down towards the sound; I was inside a hula hoop. I felt it press against my back and then watched
it move around his, hips hardly moving. He flicked the hoop up over me with a graceful twist and moved back, twisting and turning it around his fingers and over his palm and then back around his waist. He stood in the light beam as it cut through the space, lighting up floating dust. His eyes focused: ‘one must always remember the importance of the hula hoop.’ I watched the stripes on the hoop merge, creating a ripple around his waist, like liquid flowing. He was dressed in a suit, black with a white triangle where his shirt would be. It looked as though it could have been almost painted on; I was unsure where the lines of his body were. His legs were hidden in the dark, or maybe they weren’t there at all. He started swirling around with the hoop now, every time it would circle his body it looked like it was taking a part of his torso with it. I could see the black line again, moving around his suit, flirting itself into swirls and patter ns. The hoop was almost at his shoulders and his whole body was moving into the darkness now. The hoop kept dancing, its beat match ing my heart’s. I could n’t feel my hands anymore, I wasn’t sure if I could even look down to see. It moved from his shoulders to his neck, there was nothing of him below the hoop, black. His movements were still smooth, the hoop now on his chin. It moved over his lips and under his nose, I could sense a smile in his eyes. He winked at me as the hoop curled around his face for the final time. It held itself in the air for a while, disappearing with the light until I was quiet in the shed again.
It’s 6am and I am mildly intoxicated due to a generous helping of gin (suicide juice) and the world is feeling largely oyster like. I was sure that words would fall out of me like cogs from a broken grandfather clock. I was sure that drinking would help my wordsmith flow and allow me to express myself in unthinkably intrinsic ways. But alas, this has not happened. I am instead reduced to rubbles of nothing, discussing the most menial of tasks in an effort to fill up a word count. I’m essentially a word drone right now, running on autopilot, nothing of value spewing from my vacant and awkwardly large skull. One thing that always bothers me when I’m drunk is drunks showing off about being drunk.
Everyone always seems to forget that getting drunk is literally the same as poisoning yourself. If everyone spoke in terms of being poisoned, all of the camaraderie and masculinity of alcohol would disappear – it’s not particularly an amazing achievement to exclaim how much you’ve inadvertently/ purposely poisoned yourself, is it? We need to put the ‘toxic’ back into intoxication! Another drunken thing that annoys me is the conundrum of why no late night takeaway shops sell pasta of any sort. It’s cheap to make, easy to cook, and widely popular. Pasta is in fact the most eaten food in my household and probably households elsewhere. It’s simply unthinkable to think this wonderful staple food is restricted to overpriced dining establishments and can’t be sold on a much more immediate and useful basis. Plus, pasta can be seen as healthy amongst the company of doner kebabs, and deep fried, salted chicken hot wings. I am sorry fair maidens and gentle gentlemen, I have simply lost any train of interesting thoughts but after all, can you blame me? Remember, I have been poisoned.
Butternut Squash and Goats Cheese Salad This salad is sunshine on a plate, okay? Makes you feel like a million bucks. It’s really easy to prepare, you just have to roast the squash and arrange it all on a plate until it looks like ScarJo if she was a starter. This is also easy to turn into a main meal; just double the ingredients and it becomes quite substantial. Any leftovers are great cold for lunch the next day. Ingredients (for two servings) - Two handfuls of giant couscous - One small butternut squash, cubed - One bag of rocket - Half a pack of goat’s cheese - Balsamic vinegar - Olive oil - Soy sauce - Vegetable stock - A few cloves of garlic Place the cubed butternut squash on a baking tray with the crushed garlic and drizzle with olive oil. Bake on a high temperature for around twenty five minutes, making sure not to let it burn. Cook the giant couscous as per the packet instructions with stock instead of water. To make the dressing, mix equal amounts of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and soy sauce in a separate container and shake to combine. Arrange the rocket on a plate and mix the giant couscous and butternut squash together, nestling it in the rocket. Lay slices of goats cheese on top, and drizzle with the dressing.
Blueberry Cheesecake
Lamb Kofta Kebabs This is genuinely about two minutes of actual work but makes everyone just fall at your feet like you’re some sort of domestic god/ess. These Kofta can make a filling, stand out main course, but would also be the star of some sort of meze shebang. Ingredients (for two servings) - Two handfuls of giant couscous - One small butternut squash, cubed - One bag of rocket - Half a pack of goat’s cheese - Balsamic vinegar - Olive oil - Soy sauce - Vegetable stock - A few cloves of garlic Chop the onion into small pieces and mix it well with all the other ingredients. Form the mixture into small patties the size of a golf ball and place on a baking tray. Turn the grill onto the highest heat, and grill for at least ten minutes (turning them halfway through), or until browned on both sides and the juices run clear when you cut into them. Serve with tzatziki or hummus, pitta bread, and a greek salad.
There’s no cooking involved at all so even the worst chef can knock this together. Not much to do here beyond clearing a level space in the freezer for it. Besides, this tastes so good it might lead a weaker housemate to murder just to get the crumbs. Ingredients - One small pack of digestive biscuits - 100 grams of butter, melted - Two large packs of soft cheese - 300 millilitres of double cream - 100 grams of icing sugar - One punnet of blueberries - One teaspoon of vanilla essence Grease and line a cake tin with butter and baking parchment. Crush the biscuits into fine crumbs and mix the melted butter in. Spoon the mixture into the tin, and press it firmly in place with the back of a spoon. Place in the freezer to set for at least half an hour. In a bowl, beat the cheese, vanilla essence, and icing sugar together, slowly pouring in the cream as you go. Carefully incorporate the blueberries, then layer the cheesecake mix on the crust. Make sure there is no air in the mixture to avoid bubbles. Keep in the freezer for an hour to set (or overnight in the fridge if you’re smart enough to plan your meal a bit better than I was.)
The size of the issue facing the community in Kilburn becomes apparent as you walk through the high street. The bright, welcoming legal loan shark s in the area reflect an inabil ity to access affordable credit at a time when wages are stagnating and prices are rising for ordinary people across the country. My mission? To see the realit y of accessing credit from legal loan shark s. Rang ing from ‘The Money Shop’ to ‘Speedy Cash’, I walked into these high street outlets to enquire about borrowing some cash to pay my student rent at the end of the mont h. The place is busy. The deals sound deceptively attractive. Indeed their relational, helpfu l service is so convincing that I’m almost tempted to walk out with £300 in my back pocket...
But what wasn’t as clear was details of the repay ments that can easily build up. Staff talk of a ‘bonus payment’ if I repay the money on time, putting less emphasis on the large amounts of interest I’d be paying the company if I failed to do that. In a mont h that was dubbed ‘black April’, where ordinary people risk losing their benefits and working tax credits at the same time the gover nment is giving a tax cut to the very richest in societ y. It’s no April Fools joke when it looks likely famil ies will have to turn to payday lenders in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. What has become clear is that this is a familiar story on high streets across Britain.
For the mother who needs to buy new school uniforms for her children or the young person who can’t meet their rent payments, there must seem little choice than to use these evermore accessible shops on their high street. I cannot claim to have exper ienced what would happen if I’d taken the loan and struggled to make the repay ments. However, speak ing to people in local shops and community centres made it clear that this is the exper ience of people across Britain, as has been proved through the grassroots ‘SharkStoppers’ campaign. Where there is no alternative but to use these predatory companies and to go into debt, there’s no chance of creating more resilient communities.
It’s the summer of 2010, and my band Coppers for Karma have hit a bump in the road. No one could accuse us of being anything less than devoted to the cause - as jobless Shoreditch bums with nothing to do but write songs and ash on the furniture. After a few cans in the flat one night, a plan is hatched to break the monotony. “Let’s busk our way to Barcelona!” A classic hare-bra ined scheme, the intention is to hitchhike and strum our way towards the epicentre for when Spain inevitably lift the World Cup. But with little money, rent to pay and a whisker of a chance England would make it to the final (ha), it’s sheer madness. “Alright then”. Literally scraping coins from the back of the couch, we somehow gather enough for the arse-pun ishing Eurolines bus journey to Paris where an old friend donates his apartment while we figure out how to make it the rest of the way to Spain. In Paris our money doesn’t stretch far. With rumbling bellies and dwindling tobacco reserves, we take to the streets with our trusty instruments. But where exactly to go? Our first thought is the Eiffel Tower, but unwilling to be so obvious we opt instead to sneak over the barriers of the Metro and set off for Montmartre. Hell of a place, Montmartre. Somewhat naff to the untrained eye, with it’s pricey coffee houses and street portrait artists, it also has a celebrated reputation as a hangout for hardcore arty boozers and women of ill-repute. Advancing up the main drag in the blistering July heat, we turn a corner and look up to see the jackpot. The centrepiece of the district is a park set on a steep hill with stairs leading all the way up to the epic white stone Basilique de Montmartre. The stairs even out into a wide platform before their final ascent, creating possibly the most perfect unintended amphitheatre in all western civilisation. We set up slightly nervously on the platform, with the cathedra l in front and the city of Paris twinkling in the sunshine behind us and just … play. Nothing too fancy at first, a bit of Brown eyed girl, arranged on the spot as a lilting waltz, the melodica’s reedy tone and Rich’s slightly lecherous tenor somehow evoking just the right Gallic flavour. The hours roll by in sweet idyllic fashion, and us rattling through our set, acknowledging the regular tinkle of coins tumbling into our hat. We pause mid-afternoon, exhausted, for a brief count up. “Holy Christ man, there’s at least 250 Euros here!” Well satisfied with our days haul, we scoff a baguette, load up on cheap wine and zigzag home through the perfect mauve sunset. After another day’s busking, the following morning we decide to buy bus tickets to Barcelona, our pockets bulging with easy money. The night before though, would you believe, Holland had beaten Uruguay in their quarter final, and on a whim we decide to head up to the Netherlands instead.
As we arrive the city is already thoroughly giddy with excitement (and, of course, weed) at the coming match, everything decked out in orange and the drone of vuvuzelas throbbing in our weary temples. No rest for the wicked though, and it’s straight back to work on the bridges over the canals literally singing for our supper. Once again the gods are smiling on us as the sunshine beams down and amazingly, the local call girls emerge from behind their glass sex-cubbies to dance on the canal front. Needless to say the following day things fall apart somewhat. As Holland chuck the game away, we find ourselves chasing ever diminished reserves of goodwil l amongst the locals. “Looks like we’re sleeping in the park then”. We scale the fence and find a spot under a nice tree and bed down in the warm soil. Bohemian bliss. The joy has drained out of the city, so it’s back to Paris, sunshine and three more days of busking. Just enough to make cash to get back to London. Hell of an adventure, although we didn’t make it to Barcelona. And that’s not even the end. I could go on ten times as long and still say nothing of the following year’s busking adventure to New York, or this year’s to Berlin ... I digress. Learn an instrument.
Artificia l Violets _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ The outline of my face remains on Yahweh’s thighs as I cling on for forgiveness. Tackled to the ground, I proclaim it as my new home. Yellow Jaundiced skin wrapped in a blanket of eternal desert. No amount of crawling or jumping can sever me from here. Enclosed/Bound/Linked together1 by something Pythagoras never had the time to figure out.
_______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ __
Gloaming calls obnoxiously and we2 are best friends forever. We3 remain shortsighted in a search for fruit and future. We4 create handshakes that only we5 know and practice them until it is etched in our memories. Headless Horsemen we6 roam.
7. Not me.
2. Yahweh and I.
8. Yahweh and I.
3. Yahweh and I.
9. Peak District.
4. Yahweh and I. 5. Yahweh and I. 6. Yahweh and I.
In hospital supermarket aisles, the vending machines are overpriced and overstocked. At the bottom of the 49p mountain spring 9 water bottle lies absolutely nothing. A snow globe, I shake. Water replaces water.
Sugar coated cavalry. At least one of us7 is a knight in shining armour.
Now I’m wading in the Styx with my trousers rolled up to my knees, splashing water on all the other contestants.
When we8 have finished pretending (when it is time to go home)
Our winter coats have fully shed,
I tattoo myself on a derelict crescent-moon and grow old.
Our feet deadens the reeds (we’re ancient and lonesome, we’re so happy to be here).
_______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ 1. Yahweh and I.
At A&E Yahweh was digging a grave outside next to the taxi rank and the artificial violets.
_______ _______ _______ _______ _______ ___
To me, there is a right way to do food and there is no other way. When it comes to food I like my classics. I like my tomato-and-basil, my cherries-and-almonds, my soy-sauce-and-wasabi. To many, myself included, the well established tastes are the only tastes. So when I came up with my mission to try bizarre food combinations, my excitement was as strong as the cries of terror coming from my taste buds. The only rule was that it must be a pre-existing and approved combination, not just random things thrown together. I’m not about to do the food equivalent of a dirty pint.
Round 1: Fish fingers and custard
Round 2: Gorgonzola and dark chocolate Hobnobs
Round 3: Strawberries with black pepper
Avid fans of Doctor Who will have heard of this and may have even tried it for themselves. The combination of the sweet creamy custard and savoury fish fingers tastes exactly like what you’d expect fish fingers and custard to taste like. I’ll admit I enjoyed the crunchy coating of the fish fingers with the custard, but when it got to the “fish” itself... Not exactly something I would want to try again. That being said, hardcore Doctor Who fans should definitely give it a go.
Heston Blumenthal (the owner and chef of the famous Fat Duck, for you ignorant nonfoodies) recommends stilton and chocolate digestives, but a lack of stilton and a preference for hobnobs made me change the recipe somewhat. This is definitely something I would recommend. The smooth chocolate softens the sharp tang of the cheese. Plus, the classic combination of the crunchy hobnobs and creamy cheese is a sure fire win.
Even though this combination came highly recommended by the Internet, it wasn’t that great. The warm spice of the pepper did not particularly compliment the sharpness of the strawberries. Oh Internet, why do you lie? I’d personally avoid this combination if I were you and try them dipped in honey, a glorious and far more delicious association.
While my taste buds are slowly rocking back and forth in the foetal position, I ultimately, yes, there is a right way to do food and there is no other way — bar the hobnobs. I challenge you to try these out, since my taste buds shouldn’t be the only ones to be abused.
Anything... …fair-trade: especially bananas and coffee, because it’s elitist not to care. …from the 90s: like mac ‘n’ cheese, Lunchables, and Poprocks. …‘whole’: need at least four different wholegrains. go whole or go home. …gluten-free: who eats gluten anyway? …which should be sweet but is salty (and viceversa), or both sweet and salty: such as Californian honey and salt peanuts. …in a container that can be DIY-d into home décor: jam jars, biscuit tins, soup cans. …decent enough to go on Instagram hashtag lunch. …that sounds foreign: carpaccio, pistachio, daal, shiitake, tempeh. …with quinoa or tofu (ie. quinoa or tofu): hey did yo know the UN pronounced 2013 as the international year of Quinoa? …non-fat-non-dairy-free-range and organic: gotta fit in those skinny jeans #loljoke i’m just healthy like that. …solid that can be juiced: chewing food is overrated. …pickled (preferably with balsamic vinegar): (they liked it before it became popular). … anything else (but ironically).
As Rough Trades main A&R (Artists and Repertoire) during the early 2000’s, James Endeacott is the main face behind the success of indie giants The Strokes and The Libertines. Without him, it is likely that both bands could have been bypassed, let alone become the iconic heroes that re-energised alternative music for the noughties generation. Whilst the biggest mistake in music history was made by Decca Records in 1962 when they turned down the opportunity to sign the Beatles, famously saying: “guitar groups are on their way out”, it’s easy to argue that in this case, the music, the band and the lyrics stood for themselves. However, as much as I admire the artists, their music would not stand up to face the world without the hard work of those that love it, promote it and put every inch of their lives on the line for it: the record label. Some of the faces that come into mind are Tony Wilson of Factory Records, Alan Mcgee of Creation, Martin Mills of Beggars Banquet, Geoff Travis and Jeanette Lee of Rough Trade Records and Jeff Barrett of Heavenly Recordings. Tony Wilson was once quoted saying: “I’m a minor player in my own life.” Considering he signed the likes of Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays to his label, it’s fair to say his private life would have been a tad dull in comparison to the dizzy heights of ‘Blue Monday’ or Bez’s wild maraca playing during the ‘rave generation’ of the late eighties. Whilst the artists might have the crazy rock tales of fame and excess to accompany their music, the figure heads behind them have one fighting ambition: to sign the best and show the rest of the world an artist that in hindsight could have gone unnoticed. Bobby Gillespie gives a heads up to Creation Records for taking on his odd ball band of misfits, Primal Scream. He recalls: “The
great thing about Creation was they didn’t give a fuck. They found certain individuals, bands or interesting people and gave them a unique platform to be heard.” Running a label is more than just an average job, it’s a 24 hour programme of live gigs, meetings and constantly being on the phone. It’s a way of life that runs through the veins of those who live and breathe their passion to catch the next best band. This driving force is evident in those who have recovered and evolved with the vast changes taking place to the music industry. Heavenly Records, who were once part of major label EMI, were forced to downsize in the early 2000’s. Now an independent label, Jeff Barrett’s eye for fresh music has given young acts TOY, Charlie Boyer
and The Voyeurs and Temples a platform to be seen and heard, proving successful for everyone involved. The magic of any good record label is within the souls of those who run it. The people who form the back bone of any decent record also have a vision that more often than not the band doesn’t always initially recognise. So, next time you pick up a record or stand in the crowd to see your mates bands, consider those whose passion has or could change lives.
When I got on the train, the first person I saw was a girl in a furry pink coat. She was gazing intently at her phone and it looked like she had been standing in front of the door for a long time. The girl carried an unusual suitcase that caught my eye. It had colourful zebra patterns and was a little dirty which made her look like a veteran traveller. As the train started moving, the girl finally raised her eyes from the phone and started to look for her seat. She kept her suitcase close to her side, I wondered if she was carrying something valuable...
I introduced myself and told her about the mission. She was surprised at first yet soon became very excited, “Wow! That’s like the coolest thing that’s happened to me all day.” We made a deal - in exchange for her real story, I would give her my made-up one and draw her portrait afterwards. This is her story…
We talked for a long time until she eventually reached her destination in Leicester and had to get off the train. Before she got off, I drew her a quick portrait and wrote down the story for her. She smiled and hugged me. I watched her go: a splash of pink on a grey rainy day, disappearing into the distance.