Gary – an 8 foot tall ornament – dutifully welcomed visitors to a garden centre in Scotland for a decade before he was stolen last year. As you can see, he did his bit during the pandemic by wearing a face mask and has also been known to get into the Christmas spirit by donning a Santa hat.
Gary – well, most of him anyway, as the thieves had sawn a bit of him off – was reunited with his owner, a Mr Andrew Scott (not the guy who played Moriarty in Sherlock or the ‘hot priest’ in Fleabag), in March this year.
This truly bizarre crime feels uniquely British. As we know from Netflix, the US is full of incredible true crime stories that usually involve murder. Here, we get an 8ft Gorilla ornament nicked from the entrance to a garden centre.
It’s a story that has captured the imagination of one of my favourite bands, Blossoms. They have announced that their new album will be released in September and that it is named after our gorilla friend.
The band’s frontman, Tom Ogden, wrote the album’s title track about the story of Gary the Gorilla and used some of the lines from news reports about him in his lyrics. He mentions that ‘Mr. Scott hasn’t seen him since’ and the second verse goes like this:
I heard there’s been a breakthrough A registration plate His movements they were able to track But, you see, hе comes from a fairly extendеd family Don’t know how many brothers he has
This refers to an actual incident:
Blossoms also look like they had a lot of fun recording the two videos that we’ve seen so far from the album. The band have concoted a story where they are Gary’s captors – but they have been sent on a special mission by, er, Everton manager Sean Dyche. In the follow-up, Mr Scott appears to be played by Rick Astley!
All that’s left for you to do is watch the video and listen to the song. I think it’s great, I hope you do too.
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.
A short round up of things on my mind. Things I’ve seen, read, heard etc. From my point of view, it will help me keep my eye in with my writing. As the name suggests, it will be semi-regular and published on Thursdays.
A bit of news: That Mary Earps won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award last night and I couldn’t be happier for her. I’m not trying to be right-on or anything like that when I say I love watching the Lionesses. They seem to be more of a team than their male counterparts – and more successful. Earps is a brilliant example of the virtue of never giving up. Four years ago, she felt like her football career was going nowhere and was preparing to try something else. Last night, she received the prestigious SPotY award as a Euros winner, World Cup finalist and comfortably the best goalkeeper in the women’s game. Apparently oxygen thief Piers “Morgan” Moron has been whining (for a change) about it. I find a good rule for life is that whatever he doesn’t like is probably a good thing. Well done Mary.
A song I’ve been listening to:Blossoms will be releasing their fifth album next year and the first single from it, To Do List (After The Breakup) is a banger. It’s a collaboration with fellow Stockport musician Findlay and, in true Ronseal style, tells you what you need to do after a break up. I’m a big fan. Watch the video below.
A podcast I’ve been listening to: one I’ve been really getting into recently is The Rest Is Entertainment. It’s a weekly dissection of all things pop culture hosted by Richard Osman (of Pointless, House of Games and Thursday Murder Club fame) and The Guardian journalist Marina Hyde. A recent highlight has been Osman’s insight into this year’s race for the Christmas number one, in which he dropped the bombshell fact that 2004’s Band Aid 20 remains Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke’s only UK number one single. It’s interesting, it’s funny, and it’s been making my journeys to and from work fly by.
Something you should watch this Christmas: it’s not exactly a hidden gem, but nothing gets me into the Christmas spirit quite like the 2008 festive special of Gavin and Stacey. It’s brilliantly observed, and truly captures that sense of anticipation that the big day holds. It makes me miss those big family Christmasses I remember as a child. You can watch it on BBC iPlayer here.
Is that it?
That will do you for this week. Have a very happy Christmas, a great new year and I’ll be back soon.
Just before you go – why are you asking yourself questions?
I was there when Arctic Monkeys – more than a band to me – played on my football team’s pitch. Two of my worlds, two very different worlds, colliding. I’ve been to Carrow Road hundreds of times. I have had my season ticket at Norwich for fifteen years. But instead of watching the Canaries, to see Alex Turner, Matt Helders, Jamie Cook and Nick O’Malley perform in front of the Barclay, was a surreal experience and a dream come true.
Those guys aren’t just the producers of some great rock and roll songs for me. They changed my life. There I was in 2014, lost, my dad had just passed away. Discovering the Arctics, albeit I was late to the party, gave me a new obsession to lose myself in. Those songs brought me out of my shell and made me more confident. They changed the way I dressed, the way I had my hair cut. Watching their live shows on YouTube, the band became heroes to me because they were everything I wasn’t – successful, comfortable in their own skins, incredibly talented and able to make everything seem so effortless. I wanted to be like Alex Turner.
I saw Arctic Monkeys in the flesh for the first time five years ago, at Sheffield Arena. They were touring their 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino and I stood in awe as they put on a show for their hometown crowd. It was everything I hoped it would be – loud, stylish and immaculately delivered. Of course, I had always wished that they would come to my hometown but felt it unlikely. Norwich doesn’t have much in the way of large venues for gigs. The Arctics have played at The LCR at the UEA, but that was way back in February 2006. I was 13 at the time and too much of a terrible square to be aware of them. In the years since, they have gone on to be one of the biggest bands in the world, and it seemed they had simply outgrown little old Norwich.
Imagine my delight, then, when last September I was alerted to the news that the UK leg of the tour for the new album The Car wouldn’t be at indoor arenas in the autumn, as I had expected, but at stadiums in the summer – and Carrow Road was one of them!
Of course, I simply had to be there, and it was a tense morning when the tickets went on sale. I was in bed with four devices ready to go. I knew this gig would sell out fast. But I managed it.
Cut to yesterday morning. I woke up, home alone in Dereham as my mum and step-dad are away on holiday, with a mixture of nerves and excitement. Excitement, of course, because I was going to see my favourite band in the flesh! But also nerves because – what if something went wrong? What if I didn’t get there on time? What if I missed the biggest night of my year? A month or so ago, these thoughts would have triggered full-on trembling anxiety in me, but now I’m on medication to manage my mental health and I believe that is what helped me to remain on the right side of rational.
Arctic Monkeys played in Norwich for the first time since 2006
Last summer, when I went to The Killers gig at Carrow Road – the success of which I think partly convinced the Arctics that Norwich would work for them – I had parked my car on the roof of the Rose Lane multi-storey. It was a good location close to the ground, but I feared I would be there all night, such were the queues of traffic trying to get out at the end. I wanted to get there and back in a less stressful manner this time. I noticed a Facebook post by Konectbus, advertising the extra services they were putting on between Thickthorn Park & Ride and Norwich Bus Station especially for the gig. I decided that this was the way to go. Thickthorn was the right side of the city for me to get there and back easily, and the bus would be cheaper and less hampered by traffic as it could obviously use the bus lane on Newmarket Road.
Ever cautious, in the knowledge that the first support act would be on at 6.40pm, I left the house at 3pm. I mean, there are probably people coming from Mexico who put less planning into their trip. Everything went very smoothly, and I was in the city and walking towards Carrow Road by 4pm. I thought about killing some time by popping in to see my old workmates at Queens Road, but didn’t. Instead, I headed straight for the ground and the fan village, where there were a plethora of food and drinks stalls as well as merchandise stalls. I would have liked a t-shirt, a memento of the evening, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay £35 for one. They must have made a fortune, though, as I saw so many people wearing them. They did look stylish, it has to be said, but I just couldn’t pay that amount.
Over the course of the evening, it did strike me that I wished I had someone to share the experience with. All around me, there were couples, groups of mates – and I was alone. But, as Mark Corrigan once said in an episode of Peep Show, ‘you’re never alone with a phone’ so I spent quite a lot of time staring at mine, so other people didn’t pity me.
The doors opened just after 5pm and I went straight inside. On being pointed towards my seat, my heart sank – I couldn’t see the stage! My sheer desire just to be there had meant back in September I’d taken the first ticket offered to me on the website. I didn’t consider the possibility that my view of the stage would be impeded.
My original and less than ideal view of the stage
I kept telling myself, ‘alright, this isn’t ideal, but at least you’re here. You can see the screens, and you’ll be in amongst the atmosphere’. I had made my peace with the situation when a steward approached me, with the words ‘senior supervisor’ on the back of his hi-vis jacket. He said, ‘you can’t see anything there, follow me’. He took me up the stairs right to the back of the South Stand, through a door into what appeared to be a staff area of Carrow Road, into another concourse and up some more stairs where it turned out I was in the tier above and to the left of where I was originally. He pointed me to a seat and handed me a ticket. Clearly, these were the few tickets that had not been sold, and thus the seats would be empty. When I realised the view I would have, straight on with a great view of the stage as well as the screens, I was incredibly grateful to this kindly steward.
My view once I had been moved by a kindly steward
I have never minded sitting and waiting for a gig to begin. There’s something about watching the place fill up, the roadies setting up the stage, the atmosphere building and the anticipation rising that I enjoy. Eventually, 6.40pm came and with it The Mysterines, the first support act. I always feel when going to a gig that it’s important to support the support, as often they are up-and-coming artists being given a bit of exposure by the more illustrious headline act. Sometimes, you can find some new music to explore in a support act – when I went to see Blossoms at the LCR in the winter, they were supported by an excellent young singer called Brooke Combe.
The Mysterines come from Liverpool and the Wirral, released their debut album just last year and are fronted by the energetic and charismatic Lia Metcalfe. They delivered a short but strong set and are definitely ones to watch. A female-led alternative rock band is always worth a listen. If Arctic Monkeys like them enough to ask them to tour with them, they must be good.
Lia Metcalfe and The Mysterines get the evening underway
The best way I can describe the weather last night: bloody freezing. The warm and sunny weather the rest of the country has been enjoying doesn’t seem to have reached the east yet, so the temperature dropped as the blanket of white cloud that had been in situ for several days remained draped over the stadium. Between the two support acts, I found myself actually shivering, so felt I had to abandon my frugal nature and went and bought a coffee and a hot sausage roll. They did the job and warmed me up enough to see me through the rest of the evening.
The Hives seemed a slightly unusual choice of support act for the Arctics. Far from being an up-and-coming group, The Hives – who hail from Sweden – released their first album in 1997 and have sold more than 750,000 records. I was aware of their biggest hits, such as Hate To Say I Told You So and Tick Tick Boom, but their music had always been a bit loud for me.
The Hives rock Carrow Road
On stage at Carrow Road, however, it became clear that The Hives are a phenomenal live act. The lead singer, Pelle Almqvist, is an incredible performer and interacted with the crowd like nothing I’d ever seen before. This particular exchange really made me laugh:
Almqvist: Do you love the Arctic Monkeys!? Crowd: YEEEAAAHHH! Almqvist: Do you want to hear a song by the Arctic Monkeys!? Crowd: YEEEAAAHHH! Almqvist: That’s cool. Here’s another one by The Hives.
Brilliant.
The crowd were well and truly warmed up by the time The Hives had finished, expressing their gratitude to the Arctics for taking them with them.
At last, as day turned to night, it was time for the main event. The sound of Barry White’s I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More Babe gave way to the entrance of Arctic Monkeys. Huge cheers greeted the first sight of Sheffield’s finest.
There’s a slightly annoying discourse around the Arctics these days. There are fans from when they first started out, as an indie rock band playing songs about nights out, and fans who know them because of the 2013 behemoth AM, who haven’t seemed able to get their heads around the band’s evolution in sound. There is some snottiness towards their newer stuff, but I love it all – and last year’s The Car contains some of their best work. Big Ideas, in particular, is an absolutely beautiful song. The fact is, the Arctics would have faded away long ago if they had still been thrashing around on guitars like spotty teenagers. It’s because of their exploration of new genres, use of new instruments, and desire to be different that has maintained their position as one of Britain’s most relevant and vital bands.
The band’s set took in six of their seven studio albums
So the question was – what balance would they strike between the old and the new? Well, they kicked off with the first track from their very first album, The View From The Afternoon. Then it was guaranteed crowd-pleaser Brianstorm, AM track Snap Out Of It, Crying Lightning from 2009’s Humbug, another one from Favourite Worst Nightmare in Teddy Picker, then my favourite Arctics song Cornerstone. Six songs in, four albums picked from, but none from the most recent couple.
The Bowie-esque Four Out Of Five, reworked for this tour, marked the first appearance of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino before an extended intro to AM favourite Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? The brooding Arabella was then followed by the first track from The Car, Sculptures Of Anything Goes. The dark arm-waver Pretty Visitors brought another one from Humbug to the show before they played the original version of 2007’s Fluorescent Adolescent. I can’t remember the last time they played that in its original form – in Sheffield in 2018, Turner only played half of it on the piano – but it was very well received by the crowd. The gorgeous closer to The Car, Perfect Sense, was next before the thunderous Do I Wanna Know?, surely a candidate for one of the great live songs.
When the tour began in Bristol last week, the Arctics surprised us all by opening with the original version of Mardy Bum from their first album. In recent years, it’s a song they have hardly played live at all, and at Glastonbury in 2013 they played an acoustic version backed by an orchestra. Many of us probably thought we’d never hear the guitar version again, but here it was, to the delight of everyone in the ground. There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, the opening track to The Car, was followed by fan favourite 505 and then another one from The Car, Body Paint, was given an extended, full on rock outro to see the band off the stage.
Arctic Monkeys said ‘There’d Better Be a Mirrorball’ and there it was
There was only a brief interlude before they returned for an encore, comprising the John Cooper Clarke inspired I Wanna Be Yours, the Arctics’ biggest song of all I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, and the last song of the night R U Mine?
A huge ovation, and they were gone. My favourite band had smashed it. They came, they saw and they conquered Carrow Road. Just as they had in 2018, Joe Cocker’s version of With a Little Help From My Friends accompanied the crowd filing out of the stadium. I made my way back to the bus station, where Konectbus had put on extra buses to ferry people back to Thickthorn Park & Ride. I had a seat on the bus, which wasn’t crowded at all, it didn’t get stuck in traffic and I had a smooth journey back to Dereham in the car, home by 11.30pm.
How did it compare to the 2018 gig I went to in Sheffield? Well, not only has the shaved head Alex Turner was sporting back then been replaced by an unkempt mass of hair, the fact that it was an outdoor event rather than indoors in an arena made the lighting really stand out. Looking to my left, I could see the majestic Norwich cathedral lit up in the night’s sky. The band also seem to have gone a bit further back to their roots – they had previously considered their old songs difficult to play any more, claiming it was as if they were doing karaoke of them. In 2018 it seemed very unlikely that we’d hear the original versions of Fluorescent Adolescent and Mardy Bum again.
Arctic Monkeys will now go home to Sheffield, where they will play two big homecoming shows at Hillsborough Park. The tour will then take in Swansea, Southampton, three nights at the Emirates Stadium in London, Malahide Castle in Dublin and then Glasgow on 25th June. On Friday 23rd,in between the Ireland and Scotland dates, the band will headline Glastonbury for the third time.
Those are all huge shows, but the fact remains that the Arctics came to Norwich. It might never happen again, but those that were there will never forget it. I know I won’t.
Videos
The crowd hold lights in the air as Arctic Monkeys perform Perfect Sense
The band performed a reworked version of Four Out Of Five
The Hives did a superb job of getting the crowd going
Most of us have had a camera phone for quite a while now, with hundreds if not thousands of photos taken over the years. I’ve scrolled through mine and picked out ten that have a story behind them.
1st November 2010 – Dad
I have told the story about my dad more than once, but in short, he died in 2014 at the age of 69 having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease six years previously. It’s nice to have this photo on my phone. Dad is in his sheltered housing flat here, on the sofa where we drank bucketloads of tea and watched countless football matches. His cheeky grin is showing off the false tooth he wore. The story goes that it was knocked out by a cricket ball during a match on the playing fields of what is now the Hewett School when he was a young lad.
1st June 2020 – seeing family for the first time since lockdown
I think for many of us it was a bit of a shock to go into total lockdown in March 2020. Never before had we faced so many restrictions on our lives, but then it had been a hundred years since the last pandemic of Covid’s scale. It wasn’t until June that the restrictions had been eased enough for me to go and see my mum and her other half Dave (aka Stephen to me). It was strictly outdoors only though – thankfully the weather was lovely. This was also Dave’s birthday and the day my mum presented him with the papers showing that she’d legally changed her surname to his.
20th July 2021 – sunset at Old Trafford, Manchester
This was taken at Old Trafford cricket ground as the sun set on a red hot July day in Manchester. The match between England and Pakistan turned out to be the first sporting event to be played in front of a capacity crowd since the pandemic began. England won.
28th November 2021 – my last day at Sainsbury’s Queens Road
My first, and so far only, job was at Sainsbury’s and for eleven years Queens Road was all I knew. Then an opportunity came up to move to the Pound Lane store and, despite the terrifying prospect of having to meet a load of new people, I took it. I was blown away by the send-off my friends and colleagues gave me. This was taken on the Sunday, my last day at Queens, before I started at Pound Lane two days later.
21st January 2022 – Oscar
My friend Katie’s dog and without a doubt the best boy in the world. On this particular walk on the old railway line near Aylsham I managed to capture the moment he looked at the camera and I’m rather fond of it.
28th February 2022 – the end of self-isolating with Covid
Having avoided Covid throughout the lockdowns it finally caught up with me early last year. At the time I was living in a house where my bedroom had an en suite bathroom so I remained in that room for the entirity of my self-isolation, with food being left outside the door. Being stuck within those four walls for over a week was really tough. I took this photo just as I was about to leave the room for the first time. I can remember the feeling of excitement and relief.
23rd April 2022 – before a Norwich match at Carrow Road
With mum and Dave before Norwich’s match against Newcastle last year. Our pre-match ritual tends to involve buying pasties from Morrisons and sitting on that wall before going into the ground. Norwich were thrashed 3-0.
9th June 2022 – The Killers gig at Carrow Road
The tickets to see The Killers at Carrow Road were actually given to me as a Christmas present in 2019, with the gig due to take place in June 2020. For obvious reasons it was postponed twice before we finally got to see them in June last year. It is rare to have a band as big as The Killers performing in Norwich and they put on a fantastic show, with one of my favourite bands Blossoms as the support act. In June this year a dream will come true when my all time heroes Arctic Monkeys will play at Carrow Road. I can’t wait!
25th August 2022 – my 30th birthday
There was something about turning 30 that freaked me out. On the day, plans to go on the heritage railway between Dereham and Wymondham were scuppered by thunderstorms. Then all my friends turned up on the doorstep and we had a barbecue. I didn’t think people cared about me enough to do such a thing! It was a lovely evening and, as it turns out, being 30 is a lot like being 29.
15th March 2023 – sunrise from my hotel room window in Cromer
A recent one, but I must have enjoyed my one night stay in Cromer because I’m feeling nostalgic about something that happened only two weeks ago. I had long wanted to stay at the Cliftonville Hotel, as I thought the building was interesting and I was keen to see what the promise of sea views from every room looked like. I scratched that itch during a week’s holiday from work and had a great time relaxing and getting my head together. This was taken from my hotel room window quite early in the morning, with a stunning sunrise over the town and its famous pier.
There we have it then, a small selection of photos on my phone that bring a smile to my face. Thanks for reading!
Gary Lineker being taken off the air from his position as the host of the BBC’s Match of the Day is the story that’s dominating the headlines at the moment. The former England striker, who has been the host of the Premier League highlights programme since 1999, is being punished because he won’t apologise for a tweet in which he likened the language used by ministers of the Tory government in relation to its new policy on asylum seekers to “that used by Germany in the 30s”.
Since then, pretty much every presenter, pundit and commentator has said they won’t work for the BBC this weekend in a display of solidarity with Lineker. This includes his most likely replacement as host Mark Chapman, as well as Ian Wright, Alan Shearer and Alex Scott. This Saturday’s edition of Match of the Day will be broadcast with no presenter or pundits at all, without any of its usual commentators and with no interviews with players or managers. Other BBC shows, such as Football Focus and Final Score, have been pulled from the schedules because they can’t find anyone willing to work on them.
I will be completely honest with you. I would describe myself very much as left leaning, politically, and I despise the Tory government. I don’t feel that it represents me and I find myself not only unable to support them but frequently disgusted by its actions. I wish for a more compassionate government, one that cares more about its ordinary citizens than the rich and privileged and one that doesn’t actively stir hatred. My wish is that it gets removed from power at the next election.
I agree with Gary Lineker’s tweet. When you start using terms like “illegal immigrant” you stop using terms like “human being”. You start to think of asylum seekers like farmyard animals, or worse, vermin that need to be exterminated. These are living, breathing human beings with thoughts, feelings and families. They are not making extremely dangerous crossings of the English Channel in small and inadequate boats to get a free house and benefits over here. Most of them are fleeing a war or horrific regime the like of which that we can’t really comprehend in this country. I find it astounding that the government is looking to simply move the problem elsewhere rather than attempt to find out why these people are risking their lives to get here and making an effort to address those problems. This doesn’t mean put them up in luxury homes.
The uninitiated might be forgiven for thinking that this story is all about a mere football highlights programme on TV and that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. But it does matter. In removing Lineker from his position, the BBC are effectively saying that you can’t broadcast on their platform if you say something the government doesn’t agree with. And that’s worrying – you might expect this of Russia or China, but not in Britain.
Remember, Lineker has never used his position as the host of Match of the Day to express his political opinions on the programme itself. Such opinions have always been confined to Twitter. The same Twitter that Alan Sugar has used to share several of his political opinions, a lot of them against the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, plenty of them against the rail strikes and the relevant union leaders involved with them, and the not exactly impartial “DONT (sic) VOTE LABOUR”. Yet, the old boy is still allowed to wave his finger around as the face of The Apprentice on primetime BBC One. Could it be that he gets a free ride because his opinions are in support of the Tory government? I wonder.
I don’t know where this story will end up, but I do know the BBC have created an entirely avoidable situation. The furore over Lineker’s tweet was just about quietening down when they announced on Friday night that he’d been taken off the air. In doing so, they’ve made quite the rod for their own back. If it makes some people stop and think about what a sorry state this government has brought to country down to, then it might not have been a waste of time.
In the game of cricket, a century is a significant milestone. Compiling one hundred runs with the bat is very difficult to do and the greats of the game are measured against each other by how many centuries they made. Sadly, despite it being my favourite sport, I have never been good enough at it to get anywhere near 50, let alone 100.
I have made a century of a different kind, though. This post, the one you’re currently reading, is the 100th I’ve made on my blog! When I started it I was 17 and coming towards the end of sixth form, which feels a very long time ago now. Often several months have passed between entries, but it has always been there as a place to write when I’ve wanted to get something out there. The vast majority of them have been almost entirely ignored, which is par for the course, but a few have unexpectedly gained traction.
To mark the occasion, I thought it would be interesting to look back over the previous 99 posts and pick out a few that mean a lot to me. Yes, I know it is self-indulgent, but my name is literally at the top. I’m not forcing you to be here!
The post that started this blog off was a piece of football writing. This was five years before I began writing a regular column for the Eastern Daily Press but it has always been sports journalism that has interested me. Published on 15th March 2010, it strikes me that the style of my writing has not actually changed that much. I think it has just developed to be a bit looser – that first post comes across as a tad uptight (not unlike me really!) and while I appear to be quite happy to express my opinion on the injury David Beckham had suffered playing for AC Milan, putting not only his participation in the 2010 World Cup but also his entire England career at risk, I get the feeling I’m trying too hard to sound like I write for The Guardian. I’ve definitely developed my writing so I can adapt to whatever publication I’m writing for.
A couple of things about this piece: Beckham never played for England again. My choice to replace him, James Milner, did indeed go to the World Cup that year but (spoiler alert) it did not go well for England and they were knocked out by Germany in the Last 16 – that match that contained Frank Lampard’s ghost goal, hastening the introduction of goalline technology. I also note that my radio station of choice back in 2010 was BBC Radio Norfolk. Not long after this I discovered Chris Moyles on Radio 1 and my life changed. Why, oh why, did I not get into that sort of thing sooner!?
I have written about it in various places before, but my dad died in 2014. Six years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 69. On 22nd May 2015, I wrote this piece about wearing my dad’s old Norwich City shirt to the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium. Dad was a lifelong Norwich fan and when my mum and dad split up the main thing we did together was go to Carrow Road with our season tickets. To this day I sit in the same seat, but I sit alone, with my dad’s to my left now taken by somebody else. In May 2015, Norwich had made it to the play-off final, having beaten arch rivals I***ich Town in the semi-finals, and were one game away from promotion to the Premier League. 40,000 Norwich fans made to the trip to London for the occasion, me included. I thought it would be fitting to wear dad’s shirt in his honour on the day.
My dad in his room in his care home, a Canary from beginning to end.
Having shared the story on social media, it proved popular and gained the attention of a journalist from the EDP, who contacted me to write up the story for the paper. I can’t seem to find the article on their website, but I promise you it happened. Norwich beat Middlesbrough 2-0 and made it to the top flight.
I picked this one because I like the way the writing flows and because I’ve plenty of use of this piece over the seven years since I wrote it. Wes Hoolahan, a diminutive Irishman, was my favourite Norwich City player for most of the decade he spent at the club. Full of skill, he could always make something happen and was there at some really good moments for Norwich. I was inspired to write this after he was the star in a 3-1 win over Bournemouth in the Premier League. He was 33 at the time and I felt I wanted to write about him while he was still around.
Wes Hoolahan
I was able to bring this back out again when Hoolahan announced he was leaving Norwich in 2018. It got a fair number of readers and is a piece I’m pretty pleased with.
Looking back, I was churning out writing pretty well in 2015. I’d had the successes of the dad’s shirt at Wembley story, Hoolahan and I’d also been chosen to write for the EDP’s new Fan Zone page. In October of that year, I went up to Durham to visit my former landlady, who was working there at the time. She set me a photo treasure hunt challenge – she gave me a list of things that I had to find and take photographs of. This was a great way to explore a city I didn’t know very well. As you can see from the post, I completed the task. This was my first real foray into personal blogging, something that I’ve done more of since and it has always proved reasonably popular – much to my surprise, as I’ve always felt I’m incredibly boring!
2015 again and another attempt at personal blogging. The dinosar sculptures in Crystal Palace Park in South London had always fascinated me and I had read loads about them but I had not visited them until December 2015. I spent one of the days I’d got off work to visit them and I blogged about my trip. I have been to see the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs several times since.
A two-parter. In October 2017, I made a solo (’twas ever thus) trip to London to watch Norwich City play Arsenal in a League Cup match at the Emirates Stadium. I blogged about the trip, with the first part being all about the football match and the second part being about my walk along a disused railway line the following day. Reading it you can tell I enjoyed myself and it makes me want to do something like this again.
When I’m on social media, I’ve never been able to resist arguing with people when I see them posting overtly racist, sexist or homophobic material. Basically, I will call out the arseholes. People tell me the solution is to ignore it, but I haven’t managed it yet. I just continue calling them out until I need to take a break from social media completely to get my head together.
Bored with seeing women-fearing blokey blokes taking every opportunity to be disparaging about women’s sport, I wrote this piece in 2019. I don’t claim to fight the feminist fight on behalf of women, I’m just a guy that likes sport and I don’t care whether those participating have willies or not. I wrote this so I could link to it when I was arguing with one of these blokey blokes, rather than having to write the same arguments out every time. It feels more relevant than ever now, with the England women’s football team becoming European champions last year.
This was the first time I had written about music and my love for Arctic Monkeys. The band changed my life when I discovered them, far later than everyone else had. They changed my hair style, they changed the clothes I wore, the way I saw music as an art form. I wrote this piece about the album they had released in 2018, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, and according to my stats it still gets occasional views from the many Monkeys fans around the world. I enjoyed writing it so much that I have since written about their other six albums: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006), Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), Humbug (2009), Suck It And See (2011), AM (2013) and The Car (2022).
On the face of it, this is just another piece of personal blogging about walking 14 miles – Aylsham to North Walsham and back again – with my friend Katie. But when I read it back, I realised that it was actually about as gushing as I’ve ever been with the written word. It is really about friendship, and how the little gang that had taken me in when I’d been so alone (Katie, Megan and Sarah) had made such a difference to my life. Little did we know that the pandemic was just around the corner and our lives would change so much.
The pandemic was a strange time, wasn’t it? It all happened so quickly, and while it felt like it dragged on, it feels like a lifetime ago now. As supermarket staff, we were actually given letters to show to the police should we be pulled over and asked why we were out and about. Extraordinary stuff. And can anyone remember when Sainsbury’s was only open to NHS staff for an hour every morning, and they would play Captain Tom Moore’s charity version of You’ll Never Walk Alone over the PA system!? Strange times. Anyway, in April 2020 I decided to write about the things I was doing, watching and playing to get myself through lockdown. I think in years to come I’ll be glad I did this – it’ll be a sort of record of that (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime event.
A piece I wrote about an afternoon spent sifting through some of the many comics I keep in a box under my bed. Not much to say about it, but it got a decent number of readers and people seemed to like it.
I don’t think I would have written this piece if I hadn’t done the comics one first. Last March, I went to a shop on the Dereham to Fakenham road called Corners (now defunct) and found this football magazine from 1964. I picked out some interesting things from it, most of which were along the lines of ‘weren’t things different back then?’.
I was full of angst about turning 30. I find it easier to write than I do to speak, so I blogged about it. Basically, I was about to hit that milestone and I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I am glad I wrote this. Turns out, being 30 feels very much like being 29, but this did me good. I later chose 30 songs that had been the soundtrack to my 30 years and blogged about that too.
If I was a musician, this one would be described as my biggest hit to date. Last September, I went to London for a couple of days with my mum, her other half and their two friends. The hotel we stayed in was so awful it was actually funny. I have just checked the stats and 213 people have read this so far – that’s a lot, considering I usually get 10 pairs of eyes on something I’ve written if I’m lucky. This encouraged me to document my own life instead of writing about sport the whole time. A rule I stick to is never to construct situations purely for the benefit of the blog – like the way people on TikTok (bah) who go to places only to show off to their followers. I simply go somewhere, enjoy myself, take a few photos and spend a while writing about it when I get home. It seems to work.
Finally, my attempt to get into the festive spirit. This piece about my memories of Christmas as a child seemed to strike a chord with people, who were reminded of cherished moments from the past themselves by reading it. I loved that I was able to do that for them. Some I hadn’t heard from in years got in touch to say they enjoyed it, which was a really lovely way to round off the year.
There we have it then, my picks of the 99 posts I have written for this blog to date. I have pretty much decided that making a living out of writing isn’t going to happen, but I still get enough enjoyment out of it that I will carry it on as a hobby regardless. So, here’s to many more posts on this blog. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.
If you have any thoughts about the posts I’ve shown you here, do feel free to leave a comment under this post or contact me. I’d love to hear from you!
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 beachMy positive Covid tests when it laid me low in FebruaryMy first day out of isolation, MarchA car catches fire in the car park at work, MarchBreakfast outside at the now-defunct Corners near Dereham, AprilDay out in Cromer, MayWith mum in Cromer, MayAt The Killers gig at Carrow Road in JuneFriday night drink in Wells-next-the-sea, JuneWatching Norwich at Dereham Town, JulyPet-sitting Oscar, JulyWatching England women in the Euros at the fan park in Manchester, JulyMum with England batter Jonny Bairstow at Old Trafford, JulyWatching England v South Africa at Old Trafford, JulyWith my friend Gavin at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach in August With my friends and family on my 30th birthday in AugustOn 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 OctoberAt the Blossoms gig at the UEA in NovemberLovely winter walk at Castle Acre, December
You will have to excuse the irony of this. I’m writing about how I’ve been wasting my time writing.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to write for a living. Since I was a child. I think it stemmed from getting The Beano and The Dandy delivered to the house, as well as MATCH! magazine. I would also have a look at my dad’s copy of The Sun on a Saturday (forgive me, I was young). I was fascinated by the different styles of writing, and how the written word could make you feel depending on how it was presented on the page. When I was around 8 years old, I made hand-drawn comics called The Jumbo for my grandad, which the wonderful man paid me the cover price for. I think I ‘borrowed’ the character of Dennis The Menace for it, too, but thankfully I never received a copyright claim from the publisher of The Beano. A couple of years after that, I was mocking up newspaper front pages.
Now, aged 30, it is clear to me that writing – communicating with the written/typed word – is probably what I’m best at. Despite being the grandson of a respected mechanic on one side and a talented carpenter on the other side, I am entirely useless at anything practical. Actually doing anything with my hands is beyond me. On one attempt to learn how to cook, I tried to crack an egg into a jug and ended up with the yolk all over the worktop and all of the shell in the jug. I also can’t communicate easily by other means. I’m debilitatingly awkward in face-to-face situations, and irritatingly inarticulate when speaking to someone. I have been asked to do a TV show and a podcast before, but tellingly never been asked to do them more than once.
My TV debut, on the short-lived Mustard TV, in 2016. I haven’t been asked to do TV again in the six years since.
I did work experience at Archant, who publish the Eastern Daily Press, Norwich Evening News and other local titles in East Anglia, in 2009. I didn’t actually have much work to do – I got a piece in the paper about a couple’s landmark wedding anniversary – but I was able to observe this huge office putting a newspaper together, as well as sit in on an editorial meeting. I really enjoyed it, and I was left feeling even more sure that I wanted to be a journalist. In 2015, the EDP advertised for contributors to a new Fan Zone page, all about Norwich City Football Club. I went for it, not expecting to get picked, but to my surprise I was chosen as one of four columnists and I’m still doing it now. In fact, I’m the only one of the original four still doing it.
The closest I’ve ever been to getting paid for writing was when I had an interview at Archant in 2017. They were looking for a trainee reporter. Unfortunately, I failed to impress in the interview (face-to-face interactions letting me down again) and I didn’t get the job. Since then, I’ve never even applied for another job, carrying on with pretending to know what I’m doing in a supermarket.
I have kept this blog going, as I like to write, but I have never pushed it to the extent that would get me noticed. As an introvert, it’s not in my nature to blow my own trumpet. In any case, when I do share what I’ve written, I don’t get many readers anyway.
This is why I think that’s the case: TikTok. I’ve never been on TikTok myself because I can’t really see the point of it. My mum, however, is borderline addicted to it. She will spend ages scrolling through the app. I’ll often be shown videos from it. I can’t really get my head around it, though, because there is just so much crap on there. I can spend hours writing something, share it, and get maybe 50 readers if I am exceptionally lucky. Someone can record a 30 second clip of their dog farting, upload it to TikTok, and get millions of views. Short attention spans have ruined the art of writing.
I’m not bitter though. That’s just how it is. After having this dream for twenty years, I have to start to wonder if my writing is really better than anyone else’s. Perhaps it is time to change tact. Do something else. I don’t know what that might be. But maybe the first step is to admit that writing is a dead end.
Friday 21st October. A package lands on the doormat. Could it be? The previous day’s postal workers’ strike had put doubt in my mind. It was the right size and shape. All the signs were good. I opened it. YES! It is!
The new Arctic Monkeys album!
Me, excitedly showing off my copy of the new Arctic Monkeys album
Yes, I know I could get it on Spotify or Apple Music, but I always like to own things that are important to me in a physical form if I can. Maybe, as someone born in 1992, I’m part of the last generation that doesn’t automatically go digital with everything. The CD will live in my car, appropriately enough given its title.
This will be my ‘review’ of The Car, the seventh studio album to be released by Arctic Monkeys. Just don’t expect it to be an impartial review. In case you’re not already aware, I LOVE Arctic Monkeys. I mean, look at the photo above! I’m wearing an Arctic Monkeys t-shirt, I’m holding an Arctic Monkeys album and on the wall (my bedroom wall) behind me are framed prints of each of their previous albums and their track listings. It sounds like a cliché, but Arctic Monkeys have been the soundtrack to a large part of my life. The lyrics speak to me. Their songs have helped me through tough times and accompanied me at high points. I’ve been to The Grapes in Sheffield, the pub where they played their first gig, and I have also seen them play live in their home city. I even had my photo taken next to an Arctic Monkeys-themed elephant sculpture (evidence provided below).
With the Arctic Monkeys elephant sculpture, Sheffield city centre, July 2016
The last decade has seen us fans have to wait a long while for new material from our heroes. After the phenomenally successful album AM was released in 2013, there was a near five year wait until its follow-up Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino arrived in 2018. The tour for that album came to an end in the spring of 2019, and the now familiar silence from the Monkeys began. We did get a pandemic treat in the form of a live album, Live At The Royal Albert Hall – a recording of a 2018 concert released in December 2020 with all the proceeds going to charity – but otherwise the band were on hiatus.
In August 2021, reports that Arctic Monkeys had been recording at Butley Priory in Suffolk made the NME. The band had enjoyed the experience of all living and recording together under one roof on their previous album when they used La Frette studios just outside Paris to put their sci-fi inspired masterpiece together, so it was not unexpected to hear that they’d taken over what is essentially a wedding venue for their next record. Butley Priory’s website referred to hearing “the double bass, drums and piano wafting out of the open double doors”, indicating that this album would likely be as light on heavy guitar as their last.
Then, the trail went cold again. In November last year, an announcement was made that Arctic Monkeys would be playing a small number of shows in Europe in August 2022, starting in Istanbul, Turkey. The months passed, that first date came and we still had no new music. Some people were even questioning if the band would actually be performing in Istanbul. YouTube footage confirmed that they definitely did, and served up a selection of hits with no new songs. They continued to do this on subsequent tour dates until 23rd August, when they played I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am for the first time. At last, we had an idea of what the seventh album might sound like.
A day later, the lid was finally lifted. The new album would be called ‘The Car’ and it would be released on 21st October. I pre-ordered my copy on CD immediately. The track listing was also released, with ten songs. Click on the title of one to hear it:
Unlike the last album, which had no singles released from it at all in the build up, we did get to enjoy some of the songs from The Car before 21st October. As 29th August became the 30th, I was eagerly awaiting the release of There’d Better Be A Mirrorball (click here to read something I wrote about it a while ago). Going by the title alone, I was expecting something with a kind of 70s groove, but it is actually a wonderfully concise break up song. Frontman Alex Turner has addressed the end of a relationship before, but in Do Me A Favour from 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare he did it in a far more aggressive way. In Mirrorball, he’s approaching it in a more mature manner. The song actually turned out to be extremely indicative of what the rest of the album would be like – Turner would reveal in interviews that the brooding intro to Mirrorball opened his eyes to the direction this new material was going in, and the theme of a break up or a goodbye runs throughout the album.
I Ain’t Quite Where I Am gets as close to the groove I was expecting from Mirrorball with its guitars, then Sculptures Of Anything Goes is a gorgeous tune that contains these lyrics:
Puncturing your bubble of relatability With your horrible new sound Baby, those mixed messages ain’t what they used to be
Sculptures of Anything Goes
I wonder if that might be aimed at the ‘fans’ of the band who felt isolated by the direction the Monkeys went in with TBH&C. Those complaints have always annoyed me. The first Arctic Monkeys album was released in 2006, when they were still teenagers. The tales of nights out in Sheffield would sound ridiculous now they are closing in on 40. The band have grown up, and so have their music. I doubt they would have remained relevant for as long as they have had they tried to replicate their first album time after time, and if they had done that they’d look as ridiculous as Green Day.
The Car isn’t an album of songs that you can dance to, but I would argue that it is never its intention. I put it on in my car and I am transported to another world – these songs take me somewhere, away from the stress and anxiety I feel most of the time. While it felt like it took a couple of listens to the previous album to go through a sort of ‘wall of understanding’, the effect of The Car was instant – by the end of my first play-through I was hooked. I’ve listened to little else in the last week and I am nowhere near being remotely bored by any of these songs.
It strikes me that this album contains no filler at all. Usually at least one song will be one you don’t remember too much about and don’t come back to after a while, but The Car is incredibly strong throughout. The closest it gets to filler is Jet Skis On The Moat, but even that contains a catchy chorus with the lines:
Is there somethin’ on your mind Or are you just happy to sit there and watch while the paint job dries?
Jet Skis On The Moat
Body Paint was the second single to be released. Its repeated chant of “still a trace of body paint, on your arms and on your legs and on your face” towards the end is guaranteed to be belted out by crowds for years to come and we’ve just discovered that it sounds bloody amazing live:
The use of strings on this album blows me away. They never feel like they are fighting with the rockier aspects of the tunes, the band has managed to pull off making them sound like they complement each other. The title track, The Car, sounds wonderfully cinematic thanks to its use of strings.
My personal favourite song on the album is the epic Big Ideas. These lines are a fantastic contemplation on the act of songwriting:
I had big ideas, the band were so excited The kind you’d rather not share over the phone But now, the orchestra’s got us all surrounded And I cannot for the life of me remember how they go
Big Ideas
The instrumental at the end is simply beautiful. Arctic Monkeys had actually convened much earlier than the Butley Prior sessions of summer 2021 to attempt to record some new material, pre-pandemic, and everything they did then ended up on the cutting room floor – everything apart from Hello You, the most upbeat tune on the record. We are then introduced to a mysterious character called Mr Schwartz, who we are told is “stayin’ strong for the crew”. Finally, a wondrous way to close an album, Perfect Sense tells us:
If that’s what it takes to say goodnight Then that’s what it takes
Perfect Sense
You’re not inside the world of The Car for long – the album is over and done with in about 35 minutes. But boy, have I loved being inside that world. Yes, I know I’m a massive Monkeys fan and that this would have had to have been a really poor album for me to say anything else but, truly, I think it is a masterpiece. Its overtones of farewells have got some fans wondering whether this is the band signing off after 17 years at the top, but I really hope that isn’t the case. This is a band who have more stories to tell, more avenues to explore. I’m going to see them at Carrow Road, the home of my beloved Norwich City Football Club, in June next year and I couldn’t be more excited.
LEE PAYNE 