Alan Coleman

I’ve just written some stuff about how 2004 has been a great year for us, but with recent world events in mind it all seemed a bit smug so I decided not to bother.

I hope that next year the rebuilding will not be hampered by selfish western bickering about who’s paying for what – and what they’ll get in return.

At the same time I hope also that the people of Iraq will experience something that resembles peace, and at least some sort of governmental stability.

Maybe also one morning the entire country will wake up and decide they want to give the Royal family 24hrs to leave the country.

I live in hope, you never know what’s round the corner.

Happy New Year everyone.

Everything you do eventually comes to a stage at which there is no turning back. Running across a busy road or having a go at the staff in the Abbey National, you are committed – it is the point of no return. Throughout this book I felt that the start of every chapter was that point, I’ve started so I have to go on – There’s no turning back now.

Downriver is a series of loosely related stories written in a hectic dream like narrative. The decoration for the basic ideas come from the rawest parts of the south east – toothless pubs, mind numbing suburbia, mud, the Isle of Sheepy. Inspiration from these places is combined convincingly with the superficial world of corporate broadcasting. This in particular works to brilliant effect. However this chaotic approach to story telling left me confused at every turn, thinking to myself that every new story would give some coherence to it as a whole, and that eventually it would all fall into place.

In a way it did – sort of. Although I couldn’t help asking myself where that all important point of no return was. Not that it mattered as I knew that the only thing stopping me finishing it would be lobbing it off Blackfriars bridge after a particularly difficult bit.

There is no way round the fact that I did find this heavy going, or if you like, it was over my head. However the writing is strangely addictive, as is the portrayal of London as an anarchic and lawless pit of sweat and despair. Sinclair’s fascination with the Thames estuary continued from this book to London Orbital almost ten years later. For me, these were the high points of both books – the mud, foreign shipping, legends, and death.

The lunacy of it all leaves me wondering what goes on in the head of someone who writes a book like this. There is genius in madness and it makes for good reading.

I hate Top Gear. Why do I watch it? Because I hate it so much that’s why.

It encompasses everything I deplore about that section of society I dislike so much in one neat package. Usually there’s a bit of good and bad in everything, but I can quite honestly put my hand on my heart and say that everything about this program disgusts me.

Firstly, there’s the audience.

Overweight receding white men with tight jeans, Timberlands and fleece jackets. A sporty BMW, the Sunday Times motoring section, The Darkness, a home in Rickmansworth. You can see them now, all lined up like a whose ugliest competition waiting to laugh at Jeremy’s boorish student humour (Say something and make a face, easy).

Which brings me to secondly, the presenters.

Jeremy Clarkson, sneering at cheap cars and how much he hates public transport. The more hateful his opinions, the more the sycophant Clives laugh along, acknowledging the acceptability of conservatism because it’s on the BBC. Then there’s the little one, the annoying little shit who will disagree with everything Jeremy says because that’s what good little Tories do. You can tell he idolises him though, those twinkling eyes are a giveaway. Finally there’s the posh twat, the faux public schoolboy who still lives in an era when gentlemen drove roadsters and beat their wives up on Sunday afternoons after Cricket practice. Words begin to fail me at this point.

Last weeks guest was Roger Daltrey, lead singer of arguably the worlds greatest ever Rock and Roll band, The Who. Jeremy moans because bands these days, like Maroon 5, don’t live the Rock and Roll lifestyle. You have to wonder how many of the Clives in the audience had any idea what Rock and Roll is, or what sort of music Jeremy and the chums are listening to whilst queued up on the M4. Before signing off Jeremy tells Roger that he’s going to listen to Who’s next on the way home.

Daltrey’s bemused face is an absolute picture.

Think about Jeremy Clarkson singing along to Baba OReily in his Aston Martin, whilst driving home to his mock tudor residence through the Buckinghamshire countryside. Really quite depressing isn’t it?

That’s exactly the kind of image that made Kurt Cobain give up on Rock and Roll music and turn to suicide.

This morning 0834hrs:

I board the train through the same doors on the same carriage as I do every morning on the way to work. The bloke who reads the Daily Telegraph sports section nods and smiles knowingly like he does every morning. It’s simply a nodding friendship as we have never spoken, and probably never will unless the train crashes.

I spot a seat about halfway back, my usual place, in between two women I’ve never seen before. The usual excuse me and quickstep and I sit down.

This morning is different because the passenger to my right refuses to budge up and leaves her elbow dug into my ribs. I turn awkwardly and ask her to excuse me again, conscious that I’m invading her space. She ignores me and stares at her Maeve Binchy novel through piggy eyes, pretending to read.

I stare at her waiting for some sort of reaction, my eyes drilling into the side of her soapy, sagging white face. Grey hair is set into a hideous 80,s parting and it’s dressed in those 50+ clothes that only people of that age know where to buy.

Thoughts start charging through my head as I begin to fume. Shall I bring my own elbow up and smash it into the pasty, mealy mouth? Or shall I scream at it about this being my fucking carriage, the one that I use every bastard morning.

Neither, I get up and walk away. I look down at its Sunday Express special offer shoes (£29.99 + P&P) and try to tread on them, but miss.