LEE PAYNE

Tag: darkness

  • I Write Wednesday #4 – Project Happy starts now!

    I Write Wednesday #4 – Project Happy starts now!

    There have been twelve Wednesdays since I last wrote one of these, but there’s been a lot going on.

    An update

    While anxiety still constantly lurks behind me and attacks at random moments, I am dealing with it better than I could before all of this happened. I’ve learned to acknowledge the beginnings of a panic attack but not let it take over. It hasn’t got any more pleasant, but it is a step forward.

    I am now in my second week back at work, still doing shorter hours for the time being, and while I have got back into the swing of things quite well and been blown away by the warm welcome from my colleagues, there is a growing feeling that I won’t be truly able to move on from this episode unless I make a fresh start elsewhere.

    Gressenhall

    I got a museum pass for Christmas, allowing me unlimited entry to ten of Norfolk’s museums for a whole year. I love museums, so this was a great gift for me, but with the first quarter of my year being taken up by The Darkness (the illness, not the Lowestoft rock band from the 2000s) I hadn’t had the chance to use it until last Wednesday.

    I went to Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, only three miles or so from home, for a wander around. The building itself, which looms over you as you drive between Dereham and North Elmham, has always given me the creeps. Knowing the hardship that the people in a workhouse went through – separated from their families, worked to the bone and given hardly enough food to live on – makes me feel uneasy. But it was interesting to learn about how the place operated and its joint purpose as a museum of rural life means it has a few buildings laid out as shops from decades past, as well as a room made up like it was the 1950s.

    Across the road there is the farm with horses, cows, sheep and pigs. Being spring, there were a couple of lambs and some recently born piglets to see. When I sent my mum the photo of the piglets, she replied ‘aww, little bacon rolls’. Mother! Here is a gallery of some photos I took on the day.

    If you fancy a day out, whether you’re alone like lonely old me, or want somewhere to go with the family, I heartily recommend Gressenhall. A museum pass is only £42.30 a year for an adult if you pay by direct debit, which is great value when you consider one visit to Gressenhall would cost you £16.10.

    Half Man Half Biscuit

    I’ve been listening to Half Man Half Biscuit a lot lately. They are a Merseyside rock band who have been together for 40 years this year and are known for their great riffs and brilliantly funny lyrics. Right up my street. What about this for a line?

    There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets

    National Shite Day by Half Man Half Biscuit

    Pure poetry. Why not give them a try?

    I think that will do for today. It’s good to be back! Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

  • Have a wonderful Christmas – and here’s to the new year!

    Merry Christmas!

    All the signs point to these being bleak times: a lot of us can’t afford to put the heating on, Covid is still refusing to go away – like a double glazing salesman who won’t take no for an answer – and Sky News has a permanent graphic in the top corner of the screen telling us which set of workers is on strike today. At the time of writing, it’s the postal workers.

    Yet, despite all of that, I was cheerful and optimistic when I drove home from work for the last time before Christmas last night. I’d even made a playlist of my favourite Christmas songs to soundtrack my 30 mile journey. I’ve written about this banger by The Darkness before but I also highly recommend White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin.

    For those of us in retail, the busiest period of the year is almost over. We won’t struggle to find a space in the car park, have five trolleys full of left behinds or have to put up with god awful Mariah Carey covers any longer once the doors are closed on Christmas Eve.

    Ignoring the utter misery that is January, we also have the new year on the horizon – a chance to reflect on what’s gone before and what we want to happen in the year ahead.

    Thinking about it, my 2022 has been about establishing a base, mentally, from which I can build on. Due to factors, I had to move back in with my mum in the spring. Having just turned 30, this is hardly something to be proud of but my mental health has improved dramatically by having a warm, loving and stable home life. I now feel that I can make decisions about the future direction of my life with confidence.

    I would like a new job. I think I’ve said ‘this Christmas will be my last in retail’ every year since about 2012 but maybe this really will be it. That’s very much a work in progress though. We’ll see how that goes.

    I’ll end this piece with a few photos from my year. Thanks for reading, and however you’re spending Christmas, I hope it’s a happy one.

    With mum on a chilly January walk on the beach
    My positive Covid tests when it laid me low in February
    My first day out of isolation, March
    A car catches fire in the car park at work, March
    Breakfast outside at the now-defunct Corners near Dereham, April
    Day out in Cromer, May
    With mum in Cromer, May
    At The Killers gig at Carrow Road in June
    Friday night drink in Wells-next-the-sea, June
    Watching Norwich at Dereham Town, July
    Pet-sitting Oscar, July
    Watching England women in the Euros at the fan park in Manchester, July
    Mum with England batter Jonny Bairstow at Old Trafford, July
    Watching England v South Africa at Old Trafford, July
    With my friend Gavin at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach in August
    With my friends and family on my 30th birthday in August
    On top of Norfolk’s highest point, Beeston Bump, September
    My night wandering around London in September
    Happy bunny… receiving the new Arctic Monkeys album in October
    At the Blossoms gig at the UEA in November
    Lovely winter walk at Castle Acre, December

  • Listen To This: Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) by The Darkness

    Well the weather is cruel
    And the season of Yule lifts the heart but it still hurts
    You’ve got your career spent the best part of last year apart and it still hurts
    So that’s why I pray each and every Christmas day that it won’t end

    Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) by The Darkness

    I’m no Scrooge, but Christmas isn’t my favourite time of year. I always struggle to decide what presents to buy, I’m not keen on turkey and that weird week between Christmas Day and New Year messes with my head.

    This is also the tenth Christmas period I will spend working in a supermarket. As soon as we are into December the dreaded Christmas music starts getting pumped through the PA system. The same few festive pop hits, the ones we hear every year, joined by dreary choral gibberish. Over the course of two shifts, I must have heard at least ten different versions of Santa Baby.

    If only they would add what I consider to be the best Christmas song of them all to the playlist – Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) by The Darkness.

    There’s a chance you might have forgotten about The Darkness by now. They were briefly massive in the early 2000s when their debut album Permission to Land went to number one, led by the single I Believe in a Thing Called Love. In 2004 they won three BRIT awards, including Best British Group. For us here in the east of England, the band had added significance by hailing from humble Lowestoft.

    The Darkness

    In the build up to Christmas 2003, The Darkness released Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) – and it was a breath of fresh air. Kicking off with a heavy guitar riff, the lyrics are delivered in falsetto style by frontman Justin Hawkins. They almost sound upbeat, but if you listen closely they are tinged with sadness – he only sees his lover at Christmas, and he doesn’t want it to end and her to go away again.

    Those lyrics might just be a reason we don’t hear the song alongside Slade, Wizzard and Chris Rea every year. As Hawkins put it:

    We managed to get bellend into a Christmas song without it getting banned!

    Justin Hawkins, The Darkness

    Yep, they knew exactly what they were doing.

    The song was in the race for Christmas number one in 2003 but came in at number two behind the utterly miserable Mad World cover by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules. It was accompanied by a hilarious video in which every single Christmassy thing anyone can think of was packed into 3 minutes and 41 seconds, then topped off by Hawkins shouting ‘BELLS END!’ in front of a choir of children.

    As for The Darkness, Hawkins left the band in 2006 after finishing rehab for cocaine and alcohol abuse. He and his former bandmates were involved with new, separate projects before The Darkness reformed in 2011. They released a new album in October this year – but it’s safe to say the glory days are in the past.

    But I urge you to make this song a part of every Christmas from now on – it’s the perfect antidote to the musical crimes that have been committed at this ‘most wonderful time of the year’.