Sinister: You're trying to fool somebody but you're only fooling yourself

[Mark Hester]

Hello!
It’s good to be back!  The last few weeks have been very busy, both work-wise
and socially and so it’s great to finally have an opportunity to sit down and
recall it all.  So here it is, a chronological history in reverse, like Felt’s
“Absolute Classic Masterpieces”.

Yesterday, I went down to a pub in Iffley, just outside Oxford, where I met up
with two quiz team mates for an all-day music event and barbecue to celebrate
the landlord’s 38th birthday.  Apparently, the inevitably- (and clumsily) named
“Iffley-stock” had happened last year to celebrate old Liz’s 50 years on the
throne, but I somehow missed hearing about it that time.  I arrived at about
half-past one to be told that they’d already had two complaints about noise
levels from local residents – I would guess the more (ahem) “mature” ones.  This
did strike me as rather churlish – this is a once a year event – couldn’t they
just arrange to be someplace else?

I learnt a new word –“sneck”.  Apparently it means the latch on a garden gate. 
This was because I sampled a rather strong dark ale called “Sneck Lifter” and I
said to the barmaid, “I don’t know what a sneck is and I don’t think I want to”
and she allayed my fears when she told me anyway.

Like so many Oxfordshire events, “Iffley-stock” was very much a family affair,
complete with bouncy castle and a raffle to win a mountain bike.  The former led
to this exchange between my quiz team-mate John (who is, I’d guess, in his
fifties) and myself:

Me: I never went on bouncy castles when I was a kid; I didn’t see the point.
John: They didn’t have them when I was a kid!
Me: Yes, I suppose it would be a bit difficult to make them out of Bakelite.

As for the music, it was not what I would usually listen to, being a mixture of
jazz and soul bands playing mainly covers.  Cover bands tend to be either
deathly dull or embarrassingly awful, but one of them (bad name alert!) Soul
Beaver were actually rather good.  In between the acts the recorded music
included these bizarre covers of hard rock songs played in a jazz style,
including “Enter Sandman” and “Smoke on the Water”.   I’d heard these versions
once before but I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the
“perpetrator(s)” – it’s the kind of gimmick which tends to have the longevity of
the Mike Flowers Pops or Dread Zeppelin.

Why do so many publicans in Oxfordshire have Rod Stewart hairstyles?  It’s
something I’ve been pondering for some time.  They don’t seem to have his other
attributes though – I’ve yet to see one accompanied by a six foot blonde.

On Friday night, I went to our work summer party.  Earlier, I’d asked my boss if
she was going and was told that she couldn’t make it, because her friend had
just discovered Britain’s first ever cave art in Derbyshire (is this anywhere
near Emma Cooper’s village?) and she was going up there for the weekend to look
at it!  I told her that this excuse for not making the “event of the year” was
guaranteed to be unique.  The party was at Freud’s, a rather splendid venue
which is an old converted church complete with stained glass windows and a Doric
arch for those people whose appetite for neo-classicism isn’t sated by the
Oxford University Press building over the road.  Whilst the food and company was
good and we had the opportunity to drink vodka and tequila from an ice sculpture
of a can-can dancers legs (!), I was disappointed to get absolutely nowhere with
a girl I’ve had an office crush on for ages.  I split up with my girlfriend some
two months ago after a relationship which lasted a couple of years and I am now
absolutely *hating* being single, something which had never bothered me in the
past.

I hope that those of you who went to Glasto had a good time.  Nobody Reported
Back on the rather sparsely attended Hyde Park picnic on Glasto Saturday, so it
looks as though the lot falls to me.  Present were Paul Healy, Dafyd Strange,
Chris Eames and myself.  The weather was lovely, but when we arrived at Hyde
Park Corner station we discovered that the picnic coincided with a Bon Jovi
concert and there were hordes of Bon Jovi fans of all shapes and sizes emerging
like giant ants from all the subways and buses in the area!  If the Bon Jovi
collective were the hay, it was our job to pick out the sinister needles, but
despite both Paul and Chris wearing light blue B&S T-shirts (a welcome relief
amongst all the RAWK black ones) we failed to spot any – so if you turned up at
Hyde Park and failed to meet us we’re really sorry!  Later, the London
Underground people decided to make the tube station exit only, so we had to trek
over to Green Park to get the tube home.

The previous Wednesday was the Freaky Trigger Club Nite at Parker Place,
Holborn, an unusually decorated bar with fish bowls containing apples instead of
fish, gold-leaf picture rails and antique sofas.  Lots of sinisterines past and
present were there including Archel, Tim H, Mark C, Ken, Liz, Starry, Geoff and
Adam.  Top choons were supplied by Tom, Steve and Pete (including an old fave of
mine from days of yore, Renegade Soundwave’s “Probably a Robbery”) and Mark C
imparted the surprising information that people in the US wield their knives &
forks differently from those in the UK.

The Saturday before was the Charlbury Riverside Free Festival, where lots of
local bands played and a couple of them, Black Nielson and Ciccone, were very
good indeed.  The ones which weren’t so good provided an opportunity to eat,
drink and read the paper (I noticed that there was a guy writing in the
Independent called BEN Chu – any relation??).  An out of control barbecue sent
smoke billowing over the site at one point.  There were notably more campers
than on previous occasions and someone really ought to do something about the
fact that the last train leaves for Oxford before the festival finishes – ok, so
Rock of Travolta are far from being my favourite band, but it was still pissy to
have to leave for the station half-way through their set.

The day before that, Ian Watson brought How Does It Feel to my local, the Folly
Bridge Inn.  It was a lovely evening, with a real mix of people.  I chatted to
ex-sinisterine Matt Willson, who seems to be more into electronic stuff these
days, and noticed how there were lots of people I didn’t recognise.  This is a
rarity in Oxford where you get used to seeing the same old crowd.  Ian played a
couple of what, IMHO, are the top records from the eighties, Weather Prophets
“Almost Prayed” and Felt’s “Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow”.  The Dobie Gray
track sampled by Spearamint for “Sweeping the Nation” was another highlight.

Anyway, that’s enough delving into the past, what of the future?  Well, in a
couple of weeks, there’s another local festival, Truck (can anyone think of any
other festivals which have spawned a record label?) at Steventon, a village with
a railway line but no station, so travel arrangements are going to be
interesting.  British Sea Power and the Butterflies of Love are playing
.I can’t
remember who else.  The following week there’s a family reunion where will I
will meet up with cousins I haven’t seen for years and their partners, which
will be nice.  In an attempt to find an excuse to stay in and not spend too much
money, I have resolved to attempt the gargantuan task of listing all my CDs and
MCs (I still have quite a few of the latter) on a spreadsheet.  Does that sound
geeky to you (in the words of Sellar & Yeatman, “be honest”).  Surely keeping
all your CDs stacked in alphabetical order is more geeky and I’ll never do that
so nerr.

I’ve been listening to the Field Mice comp “Where'd You Lean to Kiss that Way?” 
a lot lately.  The Sarah office was a stone’s throw from my uni hall of
residence you know (I didn’t know at the time, but only found out when I saw the
picture and Sarah history on the Shinkansen site).  What other bands on the
Sarah roster are worth checking out?  I know there was a band called the
Orchids, not to be confused with Baines and Bramah’s ex-Fall band Blue Orchids,
were they any cop?

A few replies to other people’s posts now:

Robin mentioned look-a-likes on the bus.  Here in Oxford we have a driver who
looks like a fatter Bill Clinton and another who looks like Graeame Souness.  He
didn’t mention being at the Nottingham HDIF (but that is him in the pictures,
isn’t it?  There are pics of me at the Oxford one, FWIW).

I thought Dirty Vicar’s post was going to be about Durutti Column from the
subject line (though it’s Lotta isn’t it, rather than Lutta?) but even though
they played Glasto he didn’t mention them in the end.  I know Lixi saw them – I
found out in a roundabout way via Michael Jones on ilx.  Can anyone tell me
about their set?

Contrary to what Christine Irene said, I can’t blame my blog for my lack of
appearance on sinister.  I haven’t updated my blog since April and it’s
beginning to seem like something of an albatross.  I really prefer writing to
sinister and reserving the blog for record reviews and suchlike.

Bye for now,
Mark.

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