Monday Toonage #1

Back in the day when I used to still buy cassingles:

Only got to number 52 in 1992, despite the fact that it's one of Aztec Camera's best ever songs and it was produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

War Games (1983)

The Thirtyfirst of February by Julian Symons (Pan Books 1950)

There is a part of London near the Buckingham Palace Road, behind Eccleston Bridge, where the large stucco seediness of once-fashionable squares, Eccleston and Warwick and St George's, fades into a smaller shabbiness. There are streets here of small-identical red-brick houses, fronted by ugly iron railings; these streets branch off the main stem of Warwick Way, that backbone of Pimlico where large houses converted into a dozen one-room flats offer typists and secretaries the chance of developing an individuality untrammelled by the presence of parents or the inhibiting eyes of childhood neighbours. Such self-contained lives typify the decay that is spreading slowly over the fabric of our great cities; to be part of this decay, to visit the ballet frequently and to fornicate freely, to attain a complete irresponsibility of action - that is, in a sense, the ideal life of our civilization. And if such a life can be lived comfortably enough in the four-storeyed houses of Warwick Way, it can be lived more easily still in the little red-brick houses of Joseph Street. You might find similar houses in any London suburb, where they would be the homes of clerks, schoolmasters and small businessmen; but the people who lived in Joseph Street were male and female prostitutes, unknown actors and film extras, artists and journalists who had given up worship of the bitch-goddess Success and were content to earn a few pounds here and there which they drank away at the Demon round the corner in Radigoyle Street while their teeth fell out and their tongues grew furry and their eyesight failed. Among these characteristic occupants of the small red-brick, however, were a few eccentrically successful figures, people whose presence in this raffish area could not have been easily explained, even by themselves. Joseph Street numbered among its inhabitants two company directors, a dress designer, an important gynaecologist and a retired trade union official. Anderson, who might also be regarded as eccentrically respectable, lived in Number 10 Joseph Street, in a house distinguished from its fellows only by the window boxes carefully  cultivated by the Fletchleys, who lived in a self-contained flat on the first floor. Anderson had bought a ninety-year lease of the house at the time of his marriage. 

One Night In Turin (2010)

Goodbye Charlie Bright (2001)

Dead Man Running (2009)

That's Me in the Corner: Adventures of an ordinary boy in a celebrity world by Andrew Collins (Ebury Press 2007)

It’s 1988 and heady being back at work after such a long interval. Seven years have passed since packing in Sainsbury’s, during which time I got myself further-educated: two A-levels out of three, and one Bachelor of Arts — not that anybody here asked to see my certificates. This is rock’n’roll.

The interview was held in what I presumed to be a storeroom, with back issues of my beloved music weekly stacked all around us. James Brown, features editor, asked the questions; I felt like a band being interviewed for the paper.

‘What was the last LP you bought?’

I found myself perched upon the knife’s edge of credibility with this innocuous enquiry, selecting Surfer Rosa by the Pixies over the more truthful Raintown by Deacon Blue. It was risky — James would have known that the Pixies came out three months ago. Perhaps he’d think I hadn't bought an LP since March.

Quickly, I threw in the Full Metal Jacket soundtrack. Vietnam scores points at the NME.

‘Who are your favourite bands?’

The Fall — obviously! — The Jesus and Mary Chain, Cocteau Twins ... I also boldly confessed to a liking for the great toons of George Gershwin. (It’s a Woody Allen thing.)

James raised his eyebrows ambiguously. Good? Bad? Had I blown it?

‘How often do you go to gigs?'

I swallowed hard and considered massaging the figures, but instead recklessly gave him the truth: about once a month.

‘Good. We want someone who’s mature.’

James Brown is twenty-two. A year younger than me.

Doghouse (2009)

Up In The Air (2009)

The House On The Embankment by Yuri Trifonov (Abacus 1976)

Not one of those boys is alive today. Some were killed in the war, some died from sickness, some disappeared without a trace, while others, though still alive, have turned into different people; and if by some magic means those different people were to meet their past selves - in their cotton twill shirts and canvas shoes - they would no longer know what to say to them. I fear, in fact, that they would not even guess they were meeting themselves. Well, to hell, with them, if they're so imperceptive. They have no time to spare, anyway; they have to hurry on, to swim with the current, paddling with their hands, farther and farther, faster and faster, day after day, year after year; the shores change, the hills recede, the forests thin out and vanish, the sky darkens, the cold sets in, they have to hurry, hurry - and they no longer have the strength to look back at what is behind them and fading away like a cloud on the edge of the horizon.