Just found the perfect introduction to the Cardiacs - much better than anything on the official site, almost perfect except for the author’s little rant about how there’s “no such country as Holland”… oh yeah, schmarte-arsje, in that case, how come this non-existant country has a tourist board with a website at visitholland.com. Anyway, I digress in order to be deliberately annoying. Oh, the other thing that’s not perfect about this introduction is where it says “they still played with a backing tape, which spoiled the spontanity of the event a bit for me”. Well, OK, that’s a subjective statement so I’ll allow it through, but still the Cardiacs come across as the most spontaneous live band, with or without backing tapes. Actually, although their live performances will never for me quite match the brilliance of the mid-80s ones, mainly because there’s far less people on stage (except at the last gig), far more in the audience, no bunches of flowers and confetti bombs at the end (except at the last gig… which was, yeah, almost a return to 1985, line-up and all), they’re far more sensibly dressed now, and Tim has become older, portlier and slightly less crazed and maniacal (although the new old portly Tim is also pretty much fun to watch & listen to) they have really turned the backing tape into an extra instrument, and they use it better than any other band I’ve seen.

Anyway, I thought I should mention it because almost every time I’ve strolled out lately, I’ve had the Cardiacs blasting on my MP3 player. And little blog-esque thoughts go through my head accompanying every track, so much so that I probably have a whole paperback’s worth of Cardiacs ramblings stored up in my head, but felt that it might be too cruel to unleash them on the world at large. Besides, I’ve read so many blow-by-blow descriptions of Cardiacs albums, and none of them could ever possibly make sense to anybody who wasn’t a Cardiacs fan.

Oh yeah, the site also reminded me that I really must get hold of A Little Man and a House… on CD soon… strangely enough, it was the first Cardiacs CD I ever owned, back in 1990. Not only that, but unbeknownst to me I had the rarer-than-hens-teeth-and-more-valuable-than-dragons’ Dutch (err, I mean Netherlandish, err, Hollandian… Neanderthal?) version, with about 10 bonus tracks, stuff like Eating in Bed which I only had on single. Anyway, I gave it to Arthur years ago, because he begged me and begged me, and in return he gave me the LP version (without all the bonus tracks) and promised me a tape of my CD later… and still later (once he had the technology) he promised me a CD of my CD… and I still don’t have it gonna go out and buy the thing (again) eventually…

Ah well, please enjoy… the best band in the world.

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On the train down to London on Monday, I sat directly behind a girl - short, black hair, spiked, thickly gelled, hedgehog-straight. I never actually saw her face, or anything other than her hair. And I got to listen to her walkman (repetitive drum track over-and-over for what seemed like hours - leaning in closer behind her I picked up a little latin-style singing and melody - not quite as bad as I thought but… still… for that long??) I hadn’t seen (or at least noticed) hair quite like that since the 80s. Hair like that goes with a ra-ra skirt and pixie boots. In fact… my god, she could easily be Liz.

She got off at Leicester, and I would have thought no more of the matter. But today, I was on the return train, this time sitting at the end of the carriage instead of the middle. At Leicester a girl with spiky black hair got on the train. She sat down in the same spot as before (this time I was facing rather than staring down her hair-roots), and I thought “is it the same girl”. My mind passed on, but a few minutes later I tied the annoying repetitive drum beat that had appeared on the edge of hearing, with her appearance. And I thought about Liz again…

god, she was amazing, that was an amazing time. Joel and I both fancied her something chronic - both sent her valentines (my first one I sent, I musta been about 13), and both got valentines back (first on I received… but then I found she cut them out quickly and sent them around in response to ours, so it suddenly didn’t feel quite so special). There was no rivalry between Joel & I - we were totally united in trying to win her love for one or other (or both?) of us. Quite a bonding, I guess. Perhaps there was some jealousy, after all, Joel always got attention from girls, but perhaps that was a plus as well, after all, Liz hadn’t shown any favouritism towards him.

Anyway, when I met up with her again 10 years later, it was very strange. Not like she’d changed or anything, although she had a little. More that I had moved on… continents. And she was there with some bloke, nice enough guy but wouldn’t have looked too out of place in a Guy Richie film, tux and muscles, and he had a clone mate with him. And again that was a negative/positive moment - negative: my god, does she really fancy blokes like that, was that her idea of a perfect man all along, etc. positive: that was a close thing. If anything had happened to us, I might have been happy enough and… euurgh, I’d never have progressed beyond the neanderthal.

Anyway anyway… there I was, thinking “aaaaah…. Liz, my first love”, and then I remembered that of course that’s utter bullshit. JB was my first love… had a huge crush on her from the age of 8 or 9 for another 3 or 4 years (even though I never saw her for the last couple of those). I remember one surreal incident… I had seen Half a Sixpence, starring Tommy Steele, on TV (or at least part of it). Something about the idea behind it, this sixpence representing the couple, splitting it, half each, it touched me… in a way that stuff like that probably would touch a 10 year old. Only I didn’t have any sixpences. And if I did, I wouldn’t have been able to split one. So I split something else, some electrical component, think it was an IC, not of the big blocky chip variety, but the kind of pre-whatevered-variety that was fairly thin and integrated into the PCB (coming over like an electronics geek now… I did try, really I did, I got all the breadboard books out of the library, went to Breadboard ‘81, but I blew my 555 when I tried to build a basic synthesizer… short-circuited one of the connections and effectively turned it into a 554, or somesuch… anyway, I was never that au fait with electronics, but I moved in certain circles). So anyway, I somehow split this chip in two, got on my bike, cycled down Jessie’s road, and slowed down towards her house and tossed the half-chip on the ground near her front gate. A week or two later and I was tortured with thoughts of her… would the magic have worked, erm, I dunno… whatever. So I headed over there again, was cycling down the street, just slowing down and scoping out her house when I notice (remember I was short-sighted and glasses-less at the time) those two girls in the street, one of them’s Jessie! Shit, what should I do, fuck, so embarrasing. Feet flew, pedals round faster faster faster, and I sped out of there, one of the girls calling something to me as I passed (it was probably Jessie saying “hey, Daniel, it’s me, Jessica”, but fuck it… I was far too embarrased to hang around and find out). So I got away. And saw very little of her after that. I bumped into her once or twice between the years of about 16-20, which was quite torturing, she was incredibly trendy and studying dance and seemed to be hanging around with all these equallly trendy skinhead-type guys (my hair about 3 feet long at the time), a kinda clockwork-orange theme (surely not real skinheads, her being half-Indian and all that… or is she rebelling against that part of her, or… I dunno? bullshit!) And then again, recently, about a year or two again, and finally it got to reach the point that it did with Liz… my god, she’s not gone forwards… she’s gone backwards if she’s gone anywhere. I still glad to be who I am where I am with who I’m with.

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Reading Neil Gaiman’s journal, he mentions people ripping off plots from his stories, and the fact the he won an essay competition copying a Marv Wolfman comic plot. Reminds me of when I was writing essays at secondary school - I don’t think there was a single one that didn’t come either from a book I’d read or from the plot of a Dungeons & Dragons adventure I’d played previously. I remember I had a book of Sci-fi/Fantasy short stories, think thing by one of those American authors with a slightly odd name, like Ashby de la Zouch or something, and I lived off that book for years, including my English Language O-Level, where I got a grade A (unlike English Literature, where I failed with a D - I was obviously better at regurgitating this stuff than taking any of it in). The stories were based around such simple kernels of ideas, a bit like Ray Bradbury, that it was easy to recast the story in whatever mode you wanted to. An essay title like “The unexpected gift” led me straight onto the story about the dinosaur egg which arrived on the doorstep, and the events leading up to its hatching. A question about time-travel was an absolute gift, Mr de la Zouche having written my favourite time-travel-paradox story, which I altered a little, featuring a man who goes back in time a second time, to kill the person who’d humiliated him the first time, and ended up ceasing to exist (because time or nature or whatever just couldn’t handle him existing twice in the same instant). Time travel came into play again in the story about the guy who travelled back on a pre-history tour, but accidentally stepped on a butterfly on the levitated path, and in doing so wiped out the entire human race.

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Heh heh, got an interesting little email-journal from David - sounds like things are getting interesting over on Hornby Island:

    hey the big news is that we have 4 new kittens and
the gas bar was burnt to the ground on monday morning!
gas bar is the local and only petrol station on the
island....right next door to the cafe and grocery
store and luckily neither of them was touched!also the
petrol tank and the propane holder didn't go up
otherwis ethere would have been noyhing leftof the
area!
   it seems that someone drove acar into the gas bar
forecourt at about 2 inthe morning as some form of
suicide attempt,htis hasn't been officially said yet
but is the clearest form of info,i've heard so far
from amongst the many stories floating around the
island.there has been some animosity with the person
running the gas bar,who isn't part' an advocate of the
whole fossil fuel type society(but hes still running
the gas bar or was until yesterday!).so there is no
gas on the island and not too sure when there will be
again...there a meeting coming up on thurs with an off
island speaker that is going to be covering the idea
of alternative forms of transportation...should prove
to be interesting(though i wonder if people will be
ablt to make it as many are rationing their journeys!)
    the other big news is that we have a sauns and hot
tub connection...right next to the ocean......
      sorry about that...
   david xxxxx

p.s ....wouldn't like you to think its all fun and
games here...i am working a lot and not for money i
might add!

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Whooh, now that’s scary!

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