Death and a Toe-rag

The death of a celebrity is seldom the occasion of any personal reminiscences on my part, since I don't know any celebrities. At least, not as the term is commonly understood. The fact that in 1998 I conducted what I believe was the last ever interview given by Johnny Moore of the Drifters means a great deal to me, though I suspect his name rarely troubles the lips of the 3 A.M. Girls.

I did, however, encounter Michael Winner, whose death has just been announced.

A few years ago, one of the murder dinner parties that I write for Paul Lamond Games called for the inclusion of a DVD, and Winner was booked as the guest star.

He behaved like an arse, making a loud, complaining entrance, even though it was apparent that we in the middle of a take with the main actor in the piece. He also proved to be a completely dreadful actor. He did, though, deliver the lines as written. And it gave me some pleasure to hear him doing several takes of a very brief script which included him dismissing one of the characters with the epithet: 'Toe-rag.'

Happily, we don't have DVDs in these games anymore. So your chances of buying one and inadvertently encountering the ghost of Mr Winner over dinner are greatly diminished.

Parish Notices

Things were supposed to get easier once I'd submitted the manuscript of my book on the 1990s, but as it turns out, everything's still a bit hectic.

Apart from my proper work (the stuff that pays a living wage), I've been engaged this week on various things that will emerge over the next couple of months. In chronological order, then, here's some notes for my diary:

On Saturday lunchtime, I'll be in Islington for Crunch the News, along with people who are younger, funnier and cleverer than I am: Helen Lewis, Nadia Kamil, Josie Long and John Luke Roberts.

On Friday 15 March I'll be doing a talk at Glamourama!, an event being staged in connection with the Glam exhibition at the Tate Liverpool.

And at some as yet undetermined point, I'll be on the fine television show Flog It with Paul Martin, talking about the work of Harry Hammond. Incidentally, the exhibition of Harry's work is still on at the V&A, where I gave a lunchtime lecture last week. My thanks to Bryony Smith, who invited me to speak there.

Quote for the Week

'What's the fellow's name? Rees-Davies? Reis-Davies? You know, on The Times.'
'Rees-Mogg?' said Brooke.
'Mogg, that's it. Mogg. I knew it was something foreign. Dear God. It's the thin end of the wedge when you find a fellow called Mogg editing The Times. I ask you. Is a fellow called Mogg likely to inspire confidence in the pound? Can you imagine nations trembling at the thunderings of a person called Mogg? Same with everything these days. BBC, C of E, MCC. They've all sold out. Nowadays it's all demonstrations, anarchy, pornography. Galloping paralysis, that's what it is.'
- Graham Lord, The Spider and the Fly (1974)

Slight Return

It's been a month since I was last on this blog, but it hasn't been pure idleness on my part. Yesterday I submitted the text of my book on Britain in the 1990s, which I started writing in February. It's the longest thing I've ever written, and I've lost track of whether it works as a book or not, but I think some of it is alright.

I'll have a break from it now, and then come back in a spirit of hope that it might be okay.

Meanwhile, I'm enormously flattered to find that on the always excellent Brandish site, there's a list of fifteen people who are going to be influential in tech, style, sport and politics in 2013 and there, amidst genuine stars like Carl Jenkinson, Chuka Umanna and Jake Bugg, I find my own name. That's extraordinary. In a state of some bewilderment that I should be included in such company, I offer my thanks to Brandish.

On a completely unrelated note, I also wanted to record my radio highlight of the year: the appearance of Stan Stennett on the Today programme. I spoke with Stan when I was researching my book on Terry Nation and he's terrific value: one of the last survivors of the great generation of comedians who came out of ENSA in the 1940s.

Hearing him on the radio was wonderful, but even better was hearing him do a joke about being the driver for Ivy Benson's band: 'It wasn't much money,' he explained, 'but it was all I could afford.'

My main task over the next few months is to educate a class of students at Chichester University so that they appreciate those references.

Menswear

Nice to see a piece about the mighty Menswear on the Guardian site. Particularly since I wrote it myself...

I was listening to the band's 1995 debut album, Nuisance, yesterday as I was writing. And it's still very fine. Up there with the third Secret Affair album, at the very least.

Thanks to Philip Oltermann of the Guardian for his help, and - as ever - to Sam Harrison.

Top Ten: European sleepwalkers

Ed Miliband is making a speech today to warn us against Britain 'sleepwalking' out of the European Union. What is about Europe that induces sleepwalking?

1. ‘Because we won’t debate it [the Maastricht Treaty] we’re going to sleepwalk our way into it and we will handicap ourselves as a party thereby.’ – Bryan Gould, 1992

2. ‘[A Labour government] would sleepwalk us into a federal union.’ – John Redwood, 1995

3. ‘There are those in the Labour Party and across Europe sleepwalking their way along the dreamy road to a European superstate.’ – Michael Portillo, 1995

4. ‘England must have the right to vote on things that will change the destiny of the nation. To insist that these changes can come about without debate, and without a vote, is madness. It is sleepwalking into an electric saw.’ – James Goldsmith, 1996

5. ‘[Euro-fanatics] were hoping we would sleepwalk into their brave new world.’ – Richard Littlejohn, 1998

6. ‘If battle is not joined, and we sleepwalk into a single currency and a federal Europe, we will be taking the biggest gamble of all.’ – Michael Gove, 1998

7. ‘The idea that we simply sleepwalk into something as important as this would be an outrage from any government.’ – Richard Marsh, 1998

8. ‘[Tony Blair] has to confront the newspapers, he cannot sleepwalk to victory.’ – Simon Buckby, director of Britain in Europe, 2004

9. ‘Brussels appears to be happy to sleepwalk into this nightmare.’ – John Cridland, deputy director-general of CBI, 2007

10. ‘We must not sleepwalk into another crisis.’ – Jose Manuel Barroso, president European Commission, 2009

Halfway to Paradise - the exhibition

Should you be in the vicinity of South Kensington in the next couple of months, I'd highly recommend a visit to the Theatre & Performance galleries at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The exhibition of Harry Hammond's photographs is really very splendid indeed. Kate Bailey, Jim Fowler, Anna Landreth Strong and others have done a magnificent job.

 

There are a few events around the exhibition that might also be worth your attention, including an appearance by, er, me at 7 pm on Friday 7 December, when I will be talking with Amber Jane Butchard. It's free, but I think you're supposed to email Amber for a ticket.

 

Crediting the designer

As Tyrone Jenkins points out in  a comment on this blog, the covers of both editions of The Man Who Invented the Daleks are really rather splendid. The hardback jacket, in particular, is the best cover I've ever had.

So my thanks to the excellent Mark Swan at kid-ethic.com for doing such a fine job on both.

Shiny Daleks

I've just received a copy of the paperback edition of The Man Who Invented the Daleks, my book about Terry Nation. And very shiny and splendid it is too. The paperback isn't actually published until January, which means there's still time to get the beautifully designed hardback - the perfect Christmas gift, surely?

Quote for the Week 17

Jack Regan: 'Thank God they're going independent. We'll be able to put that wall up again.'
- Troy Kennedy Martin, 'Hard Men', The Sweeney, 1978

Halfway to Paradise

The Harry Hammond exhibition has now opened at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and it looks terrific. In particular there are some photos that have been blown up to wall-size to form a backdrop for the framed shots and they look even better the bigger they get. Free admission, as well.

Another conference season

That's it, then, is it? All the party conferences over and done with. Did anyone in the real world notice?

I read some commentators claiming that Ed Miliband's speech was 'a game-changer', and then some others (though not so many) making the same claim for David Cameron.

Just in case it's not entirely obvious: neither of those things is true. Nothing happened.

For the Liberal Democrats, that's okay. Only bad stuff was ever a possibility, so no news was about as good as it was going to get.

For Labour, Miliband still doesn't look like a serious candidate to be prime minister. And all that stuff about 'one-nation Labour', haven't we heard that before? Yes we have, back in 1995 when John Prescott launched exactly the same slogan at the Labour conference. So Miliband is seeking to overcome the Blairite-Brownite legacy by outing himself as a Prescottian. There's progress for you.

But since purloining slogans is the sum total of modern political oratory, Cameron responded by declaring himself in favour of 'privilege for all', in the same way that Tony Blair used to talk about 'excellence for all'. Both cases insult the English language and the intelligence of the electorate in equal measure.

The truth is that this isn't a time for new policies. Politics itself is in suspended animation, waiting to see how long it will be before there's a genuine economic recovery (which is not the same as a set of quarterly figures showing a 0.2 per cent growth in GDP).

Is there any point to these conferences? They don't even get to the end of the week anymore, as though even they can't be bothered to make the effort. Nor is anyone else interested. Question Time last week got straight on to the real news story of the week: Jimmy Savile.

(Just in passing, there was a campaigner on the wireless last week arguing that those charged with underage sex shouldn't have a jury trial, because ordinary people don't understand the complexities of paedophile psychology. Instead he called for the equivalent of Diplock courts.)

Now that it's clear that the conferences are a waste of time, can't we save on the cost of televising and policing them? Let's have done with the pretence and adopt the American model of each party having just one big whooping rally in election year. We could fill up the television time with a three-week snooker tournament. In which case, I think my money would be on Nick Clegg.