Alan Coleman

There was an article in yesterday’s Independent about David Beckham admitting to not being able to do his six year old’s homework. A humbling and genuinely funny confession from someone who is obviously at ease with knowing where his calling in life lies. Which, thankfully for us, is not in academia.

I wasn’t surprised by the way in which the Independent reported the story. Education is to the broadsheets what sex is to the tabloids, a bizarre mix of hysteria, ridicule and self congratulation. Reading about education gives graduates the horn like Keeley does scaffolders.

Essentially it was a witty article that openly pointed to an ironic lack of educational achievement for someone so famous. A handy answer to the jealousy of Ruperts in tedious jobs everywhere.

‘While he may be talented, he’s not educated. And talent cannot be harnessed without a good education’.

By the time I got to work the tiresome DJ Shaun Keaveny was onto the story. He has a morning show on the absurdly conservative radio station, Xfm. Shaun Keaveny is just another student who uses dry wit and a corny northern accent to lend some credibility to his lack of genuine talent. Xfm, with its adverts for the Daily Mail and sneering intellectual snobbery is every inch the embodiment of New Labour ideals. It’s also very much like the BBC, The Guardian and the Independent, in as much as it has a extremely inflated opinion of its own importance.

It was when Keaveny openly mocked David Beckham’s southern accent, made to sound retarded, that the full nature of the episode begun to unfold.

We have to ask the question, If David Beckham were Black or Muslim, would he be openly ridiculed by the politically correct?

Highlighting an individuals lack of educational achievement may be a way to appease middle class jealousy, but we should question a society in which merit can only be celebrated when accompanied by an education.

Like me, David Beckham left school at 16 after failing all his GCSEs. This isn’t something I’m particularly proud of, but on an intellectual level I’d much rather be compared to David Beckham than some witty journalist, whose name I can’t even remember.

I listened to Philiphobia for a year or so when it came out about 10 years ago. Aidan Moffat’s morose interpretation of an explicitly drunken existence sat perfectly with everything I thought I aspired to at the time. Any comparison between the music of Arab Strap and my own life was, and still is, utterly ridiculous. Although we must retain some hope, don’t you think?

Ten years on and with the new album, The Last Romance, Aidan Moffat is still living his humorously normal life of darkness and despair. In Chat In Amsterdam, Winter 2003, there is an awareness to the self destruction that resonates with anyone that can at least identify with him:

“If I’m having so much fun how come I’m crying every Mondayâ€?

“24 months of bargain pills and cheeky lines and stolen beers�

Great! Combine this with the musical talent of Malcolm Middleton and you have a great record. The Last Romance is what happens when brilliant people don’t move to London and have Children, it’s a collection of songs that haven’t been written for the sake of it, or simply because that’s what someone does. It is a great record. Now if I don’t leave it there I’ll confirm Mandy’s accusations of being a, ‘Complete arse licker’.

So on to the 100 Club, a place of legend and myth, most of which is almost definitely bullshit. It is what Victor Lewis-Smith would describe as a Tardis venue, small on the outside but big enough inside to accommodate the 150,000 people that claim to have seen The Pistols at, ‘That famous gig’.

My cynicism turned out to be surplus as the 100 Club came up trumps on the venue front. Straight out of the Seventies it has the vibe of a slightly downmarket Gentleman’s club, a bit like the Winchester Club in Minder, only bigger and without George Cole. The bar staff don’t wear matching Polo shirts and thankfully, don’t act like arrogant students that need plugging into the mains to wake them from the dead. They also serve Flowers IPA on draught, almost unheard of for a music venue in London, or anywhere come to think of it.

Arab Strap play most of the new album and plenty of stuff I’ve never heard before. Aidan swigs Stella continuously and swaps uncomfortable looks with his partner, this adds to the their edgy and at times brilliant atmosphere. Dream Sequence sounds as huge and as enjoyable as I expected it to, a moment when the band function as a whole and literally start running way with it all. I can’t help but imagine Moffat narrating my own life as I envisage myself on the way to work:

“I stand on the tube and smell the breath of the man next to me, a woman places her Starbucks cup on the floor and I want to vomit on the back of her head�.

Jonsey mentioned that they covered a Bonnie Tyler track during the encore, by which time the IPA and Stella had done its job.

What sort of bottle does it take to steal £50 million from the bank of England? I mean, how do you go about even imagining a plan like that? Talk about putting a team back together for another job is the stuff of movies, but it actually happens and these people actually exist.

Just as they did a few years back when a gang of ‘Villains’ smashed their way into Piety’s white Elephant with a digger and tried to nick the worlds most expensive diamond. I remember the excitement of it all, a bizarre mix of boyhood fantasies and grown up dreams. The fact that they used a JCB and planned to escape up the Thames in a speedboat made men in stuffy offices everywhere smile, safe in the knowledge that all is not lost because real men still exist.

I remember me and Dad watching news footage of the Brinks Matt bullion robbery in the early eighties. It was at about the time when most kids, including my friends, were getting into shoplifting. His message was simple, “If you’re want to nick stuff, wait ‘till you’re grown up and do the job properly”. Cool as you like at the time, but now I realise that he was basically aligning himself with the gentlemanly conduct of old fashioned bank robbers, which is slightly embarrassing considering he’s the sort of bloke that’s never even looked at a fruit machine.

It’s not about the absurd tabloid romance of the bygone gangster and the East End boozer that no longer exists. Or Phil Collins and Julie Walters as salt of the earth working class London, living out the post war reality of struggle and toils with impeccable manners. Because despite what admirers of Ronnie and Reggie’s perverse brutality might claim, this type of crime is always going to hurt someone. For those on the sharp end there’s always going to be terrifying flashbacks, or years of sleepless nights and worry. In that sense this kind of criminal will always end up harming his own in pursuit of the ultimate job

But it’s not the crime itself that we find so exciting, or even the fact that someone has managed to get their hands on so much money. What is appealing is the sheer audacity of the act, the belligerent two fingers to an increasingly sterile society in which we are all terrified of the consequences of practically anything. Anything that involves looking less than perfect in front of the neighbours or colleagues at work. It’s a reminder that now matter how much we’re steered towards ID cards or a police state, there is still someone ready to front the cynicism and refuse to conform.

It’s about people taking risks, and pissing the establishment off at the same time.

But most of all it’s about the blatant refusal to bow to the cultural demands of Piety Blair, Nicky Campbell, XFM, newspapers, reality TV, celebrities and all that other middle class tedium that is consuming our daily lives. Think of Don Logan in Sexy beast, “We don’t do it for the money, it’s for the thrill of it, the sheer fuck-offness of it all!!”

Am I getting carried away with the romance? Maybe, but remember that Rock and Roll doesn’t happen that often, so when it does we have duty to indulge.

After only managing half of Wolf Creek last week I wasn’t in the mood for being upset by yet more violence. As it happens, along with sex and drugs, violence is one of this films underpinning themes. So I just sighed and got on with cringing at those realistic sounds of people punching each other in the face. Horrible.

The main story involves a group of middle class friends in Florida who have pretty much no direction in life and who only have sex and drugs in common. And there’s plenty of it too. Much of the film seems to be shot to make the viewers feel as if they too are part of the permanent state of high indifference.

The story has about it an inevitable sadness that is always going to end in disaster. The disaffected American youth, living a chaotic life of no direction and reliance on drugs for escapism. This scenario gives the film a dark sense of tragedy that begins during the opening scenes and worsens towards the end.

There are messages for Americans throughout this film. They are mostly about the relationship between the embedded culture violence, lack of education and drugs. In one of the final scenes, Marty’s brother appears with a T-shirt with, Dare to resist drugs and violence?, written on it. Most of all I think the message is about respect. The idea that everyone, even those whose lives societies look down upon, deserves an amount of respect. Even if it’s something as simple as saying their name properly.

This is essentially a Teen movie for grown ups. It’s disturbingly sexy, at times upsetting but also very funny and endearing. Also, it has a superb soundtrack that really adds a sense of menace to the sweaty Florida backdrop.

Essential viewing for anyone disillusioned with the formulaic nature of Hollywood, or for anyone else who wants to see a great film.

The quest for wit consumes anyone who writes in broadsheet newspapers about food or TV. Slipping in as many witty one liners as possible is part of the training, along with giving your kids a mention and a little self depreciating humour about being useless at DIY.

In this instance I’m referring to Thomas Sutcliffe’s column ‘Last night’s TV’ in last Thursday’s Independent (16 February 2006). As above, it’s the usual droll affair of the potential stand up comic, tapping into everyday situations to make himself sound down to earth as well as educated. Surprisingly, he also manages to give his daughter a mention, her cleverness giving rise to, “…ribald and animated discussion…”.

What?

Basically he’s not into winter sports or the winter Olympics, and is probably the sort of bloke who maintains that football is just a game. So half a page of a daily national newspaper is devoted to smart comments along the lines of downhill skiers starting at the same time and being encouraged to use their elbows. Funny if your at the nearest successful sixth form college, not funny for anyone indulging in the boring process of living and breathing.

Thomas’s smug column contrasts superbly with the radiant picture of British downhill skier Chemmy Alcott on the front page. In years to come her friends and family will marvel at it in a scrapbook and say, “Wow, you look fantastic in that picture!”.
They won’t turn to page 56, and read a witty TV column by a perpetual student whose mugshot induces bouts of self harm.