Author: Paul

On Sunday, I was released from COVID captivity and took my godsons (8 and 10 (I know, shit names)) to see Spider-Man: No Way Home with their dad. It sometimes helps to have the pair of us there to wrangle them. The vast majority of the time, it is like herding cats.

Now, NWH (as nobody is calling it) was a very special film for the boys as it was the first time they had seen a Marvel film in the cinema. Some of the previous ones have been a bit choice and they’ve still not seen Deadpool, Venom, Logan and the othes that are only ever going to be a direct portal to misbehaviour.
Being their godfather, it’s on me to ensure that they get all the sugary snacks they need to make it through and it’s also a way of safeguarding a carer when I’m no longer able to climb up into my loft office or wipe my own arse. I’ll say, “get round here now, I bought you a Fruit Shoot and a medium popcorn in December 2021” and they’ll be obliged to.

We were amongst the first into the screening because their dad is very organised and had three children to deal with. I was on nil by mouth because the run time for NWH is two and a half hours and I have a bladder like a walnut. 10 was taking no such instructions and downed half a of bottle of Fanta Fruit Twist before the trailers started. He also hammered a bag of Munchies so quickly that I only got one.
“But these aren’t vegan,” he said.
“Shut up,” I replied.

As the film started, 8 asked if he could sit on my lap to see the screen better. I offered him a booster seat, which many of the other children about to have their lives changed forever had taken from the front of the room, but he refused.
I know that these boys are only going to be adorable for a finite amount of time. Give it a couple of years and they’ll be as tall as me and almost as awkward. I cherish any opportunity I get where they want us to spend time together. I let 8 sit on my lap for the whole film, only having to push his head out of the way a couple of times when he got too excited and forgot our very specific instructions not to block the screen with his bonce.
Right now, 8 and 10 think I’m cool. They want to hold my hand when we’re out shopping together. They’re desperate to tell me about their football matches or school plays. Some deluded part of their infant minds doesn’t know that I am a bad role model.

It feels to me like such an amazing and brief period of time. I know I’ll pine for these days when they’re gone. The only hope I have is that I’ve made enough of an impression now that when we come out the other side of their teens, they’ll want to come to the pub with their crazy Uncle Paul.

I’m writing this from my sickbed, a stack of magazine, books and Lemsip Max at my side as I ache my way through a third day of the symptoms that haven’t completely wiped me out but reduce me to something less than. I am not very good at being ill. For the last two years I’ve been declaring myself immune from COVID. I’m double vaxxed so there’s nothing in such a comment that suggests anything anti, merely the idea that I have been very lucky given some of the chances and open-mouthed kisses I’ve indulged in since all this foot-tapping began at the start of 2020.

If there was anywhere that I was struck down by the virus that has plagued our existences then it was the trendy Shoreditch bingo residence I visited on Monday night in the first of a run of Christmas meet-ups I had planned ahead of the anticlimactic big day.

With a beer, a jagerbomb and an Old Fashioned inside me, things were looking up. I was three dabs away from a full house and the promise of a cash prize. They say that you don’t get nothing in this life for free, and of course, they’re right. I didn’t win the cash prize. In fact, the person who did win the cash prize didn’t even win the cash prize. That was to come.

A robotic voice. A dazzling light display like when it all gets very serious in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Graphics of Mariah Carey in that red outfit haunt my vision.

42. The answer to life, the universe and everything. I dab. Two more to go. We all know I’m not going to win already. I’ve told you that but hold onto the hope of it for now. Down the table of fourteen of us, all suitably tanked up, eager to pretend that this is us returning to normal, that I haven’t been routinely dipping a swab down my throat and around the confines of my nose to make sure I’m not about to remove a boomer from the face of the earth by talking to them.
Christmas parties are supposed to be a time of celebration but when there’s death in the air, it can be difficult to relax.

7. Lucky Number Seven. I’m down to my last. I just need McCartney’s Number and I’m set.
A Full House.
Come on.
Daddy needs a new pair of fur-lined moccasins.

The next number isn’t mine. It’s someone else’s. Lights and dry ice vomit everywhere. The audience boo, audibly, like racist football fans on seeing players take the knee. They don’t even know what it is they’re mad at. The lucky winner makes an awkward attempt to floss onstage with the two robot women, worryingly dressed like they’re in Squid Game as sound pulses at the exact rate of a migraine.

Their card verified, they’re given the chance to chance their ton for a grand. We all shout at them to gamble. It’s one in ten. Pick a box. Every other prize is a trucker cap. They get the hat and have to walk away to more blaring music, pretending this is what they came for.

You know, you come from nothing – you’re going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!
Always Look On the Bright Side of Life – Monty Python

With the end of the bingo, my card a disappointing 64 away from completion, it’s time to pay the tab and leave. The lights come on. It’s the reality of the situation. The fun-time guy who has been chucking drinks at us all evening becomes a little more business-like. We split the tab and get lost in the harsh London night. Somewhere, somehow, I’ve picked up a virus as a prize. There’ll be no opportunity to gamble this way.

Whatever you’re doing this festive season, be fucking careful.

It seems like an insane amount of time but it has been ten years since the band I was previously a third of, Negative Panda Society, released their second EP and played their last gig together.

I sometimes think about the version of myself I was ten years ago. Would I be happy with what I have done with myself or to myself in that time? Probably.
Would I be gutted about the very serious retreat of my hairline? Definitely.

What we did as a band was create a lot of memories.
One night, we went to an NME show and stayed in a hostel in Brixton.
During a show, I fed my guitar to a ceiling fan.

I once stepped out of our rehearsal space for ninety seconds to take a phone call and when I came back in, Mex and Mike had written the best song we would ever throw together.

 I recently went for brunch with a friend who was at most, if not all, of our gigs and we were reminiscing. There was a night where we were paid for our work (which was the only time it ever happened). I was given £150 to look after and the three of us went out to celebrate.

The next morning, Mike, my little ginger bullet of a bassist asked where the money was and I had to admit that we had drunk not just the profits but then the usual amount we spent on a night out.

Being in a band was a lot of telling girls that we were in a band, wearing skinny jeans and making grand gestures about an imagined future where we were famous. We really deserved to be famous.

When we moved earlier this year, I “rediscovered” our second EP, Trendy Denim Hymns, while clearing out the drawer that everyone has for the things that don’t go anywhere else. It made sense to bring it into this decade so I found a way of getting it onto Spotify. The most remarkable thing happened when I shared the news with Mike and Mex. It didn’t sound anywhere near as good as it did in our memories.

I stand by what we did as a three. It was the most fun an indie boy could have without keeping his trousers on. It cemented friendships and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

What we did together will always be one of my favourite things.   

It will come as little surprise to anyone that I am a huge Wes Anderson fan.
The first time I was exposed to his work was when, at college and obsessed with The Catcher in the Rye, a friend lent me his VHS copy of Rushmore, which he sold to me as “the film version of Catcher.” When it wasn’t exactly that, I returned the cassette and told him that he was wrong. It took a little longer for me to then sit down with a DVD copy of The Darjeeling Limited and recognise that I had been wrong about Rushmore. Cue over a decade of listening to Mark Mothersbaugh and Alexandre Desplat scores, turning up my jeans and telling everyone to Fuck The Itinerary.
There are some of Anderson’s films that I love more than others, but there are some of my godchildren that I love more than others. It’s all dependant on which of them I’ve connected with the most recently. I don’t know if I’m talking about the former or the latter anymore. Sometimes it’s the family relationships in Bottle Rocket that gets me, other times it’s the family relationships in The Royal Tenenbaums. On occasion, it’s the family relationships in Fantastic Mr. Fox. The fact remains. All Wes Anderson films are to be enjoyed.

I was therefore very excited to hear that The French Dispatch was on the way. Like everything in the last year, it was delayed, and then moved, and then put off completely, until now, when we are just about due a visit to our local multiplex, as long as the other inhabitants of Southend aren’t considered too slack-jawed to spend their precious shekels on something other than Vin Diesel smashing vehicles together like a kid with a box of Matchbox cars.
Ahead of the release, we were lucky enough to get tickets to the French Dispatch Exhibition at 180 The Strand.
“Featuring original sets, props, costumes, and artwork illuminating the unique aesthetic of Wes Anderson’s ‘The French Dispatch’. Visitors will have the chance to enjoy “Le Sans Blague” Cafe serving classic French refreshments as well as receive a copy of the limited edition The French Dispatch magazine.”

While there may be something to be said about seeing the film before visiting the exhibition (like reading the book before you see the film in other cases), I was completely won over by the costumes, the miniatures of the sets and the intricate handwritten and typewritten notes that accompany the film and which I will now eagerly look out for.

Because a picture speaks a thousand words, here are a number of them for your consideration.

As well as the exhibition, it’s worth sitting in Le Sans Blague for a coffee, because, that too, is very Wes Anderson.

It feels like we have all been waiting a long time for this film to arrive. This is in part due to the global pandemic. I’ve seen the trailer for NTTD so many times that set pieces in the film made themselves apparent before the plot had a chance to do so. It was like my own superpower, an ability to see stunts before they actually happen.

Outside of that minor grumble, NTTD is a triumph. It’s got everything you need from a Bond film; guns, gadgets, cars, exotic locations and more. The wit is there. The girls are there.
This time around, they have more power, heft and lines than many others.

It’s where the heart of this film presses itself against your chest that it really takes off. I’ve never felt emotionally attached to a Bond before (and I include that time I watched Tomorrow Never Dies while on mushrooms). The gut punch of this is something else. Well done Commander Bond.

It feels like we have all been waiting for Daniel Craig’s last Bond film for a long time. There’s a reason for that. We have.
Tonight, I’m off to see No Time To Die, as MGM intended, by sneaking a meal deal and possibly a coffee into the cinema with me and propping my knees on the seat in front to rock back and forth and embrace what, apparently, some are calling the return to cinema.
Let’s forget about Tenet and Space Jam 2, because now is the age of Bond.
I’ll let you know what I think of it on the other side.

Yesterday, I spent some time with the cool older relatives of my partner. It reminded me of conversations I would have with my grandparents (god rest their souls). It left a slightly melancholy feeling with me that I wanted to explore a little by celebrating my grandparents.

My nan passed away when I was too young to really know her. She knew me as a dimple-cheeked kid with the boniest knees going but it’s not the same as being able to have a rational conversation with someone. She was great. Very kind and sweet, a terrible cook and a big fan of films. I remember my grandparents’ house having a lot of old VHS tapes that they would let us watch before playing in their garden after they’d put fertiliser down. The early nineties were a different age.
When she passed, it left my grandad on his own and he didn’t really know how to deal with it, and didn’t know how to be around us. Regardless of that, I only ever remember seeing him immaculately turned out (even if, towards the end, when the dementia got to him, he smelt slightly and his hair was unkempt). Each time he drove over (in his DeathMobile), he would present us with a bottle of sparkling alcohol-free wine drink called Moscato Fizz and would do circuits around the house so he could fart in peace. He taught me a lot about what I thought were Dutch cultural ways but were in fact just his eccentricities. For years I thought all dutch men ate sandwiches with a knife and fork. While he was around into my twenties, it was hard to connect to him. There are a few items of his that I have, his old typewriter and a hat.

My mum’s parents were always the life and soul, even if my grandpa wanted to be miserable. They had lived many lives by the time I came along and were full of stories. They insisted on talking over one another to tell those stories and it always filled me with excitement to watch them pingpong across like the old couples in When Harry Met Sally.
My grandpa’s favourite TV show was The Sopranos. I didn’t understand the relevance of this at the time but as I approach the end of Season Six, I recognise that it must have been all the cocaine, topless dancers and violence that really did it for him.
My grandma was possibly the best cook I have ever known. She was a tiny lady who only ever saw the good in us, even if we were absolute terrors. I could talk to her about my various relationships and she never judged.
It’s also worth noting that they were vegetarian, something unheard of at the time. I wish I could show them both what I’ve learnt to make, from their inspiration.

I guess what I am saying is that if you have family around, and you’re able to deal with them (because I know some people can’t) then please embrace it. I miss having people in my life who call me a genius unabashedly, when I am far from it. They were my biggest cheerleaders and I miss ’em.
My connection to the past and the root of who I am now.

Even before we had passed through the less-than-stringent security checks at the gate, I had a feeling our day out was not going to be as expected up until that moment. I don’t know if it was in the stumbling walks of those patrons ahead of us (at 2pm) or the general air that it could either rain or kick off at any second, but Musselburgh was a different beast.

Morally, I’m against horse racing. I’m against anything barbaric in that sense; capital punishment, bullfighting, the impact the Kardashian family have had on modern society.

That’s the thing about stag dos. It’s not about what you want to do. It’s unlikely it’s really about what anyone wants to do but you buy into this shared idea to get as fucked up as quickly as possible before standing around with your dicks in your hand until something incomprehensible happens.

We had been drinking since 8am so everything about the sorry sight of the track and the Year 11 Leavers assembly we were surrounded by had a sense of permanence. Finding the first bar we could, it became clear that the only beer on draught was Fosters, the only beer in cans, Heineken. Some were disturbed by this development but the fear would only grow.

I see no issue with drinking most lagers although as a teen, a homeless man told me that Carling makes your dick fall off. I’ve held that little conspiracy theory close to my heart since. That being said, I stuck to cider for much of the day.

The odd thing about the racetrack was the people we were surrounded by. You can choose any races in the world and a level of the experience will be the same. There are horses, forced to race, as the gout-ridden feet of bloated bankers laugh cigar smoke, waiting for their horse to not be the one to fall, not be the one made into lasagne. Beside them, a trophy wife, pissed already on something claiming to be champagne, or worse still, claiming to be prosecco. It’s a jolly old jaunt for all concerned. An experience of fois gras pomp, stuffed down throats to ironically make us poorer.

The difference with our choice of venue was that it seemed we were the unwilling substitute teachers at a particularly raucous school disco. Boys in Boohoo Man too-tight check trousers and matching waistcoats, buttons struggling as we struggled with the concept of their ensembles, sauntered around in their collective, completely unaware of how cloned they had become. They say that repeating the same steps and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. There wasn’t a marble to be found in that god forsaken place.

 Girls with bronzer thicker than their dates struggled on the boggy ground in heels secreted in the bottom of a wardrobe for the last eighteen months, incredible fascinators and even more incredible capacities for booze making this the Ladies Day to end all Ladies Days.

The others placed bets. Some won. Most lost. I kept my eyes on the names, my theory from my days at Romford Dogs being that you bet on the name that holds a meaning to you. As if any name has any meanings, as if they aren’t simply a collection of letters strung together so you could get someone’s attention and ask if they wanted another pint.

I did not bet on a horse straight away but did have my green visor down low when it came to the vote for Queen of the Races, crunching numbers on an old fashioned calculator, cigarette holder bitten down between my crooked teeth.

For those who are unfamiliar, Queen of the Races is a competition with no winners, a best dressed contest. Worse still were the challengers for King of the Races. Four boys clad in plaid so tight it may have prevented further generations of kings ever being produced.

The kings are dead. Long live the kings.

What did this escalated process look like? How had these titans of ASOS industry, found their way onto the podium and my sartorial elegance had once again been overlooked? If it wasn’t for the notorious dick-swinging on stage then it would have been difficult to miss the jaw-swinging taking place across the scene. Boys doing ket in the portaloos. A drug that should have been reserved for the condemned horse in the 15:25.

In the converted car park where this event went down, I stood, amazed, Dark Fruits in hand, entranced by the vision of a woman repeatedly doing box splits onto the gravel until people noticed her, undoubtedly leaving a rash that she would be questioning the following morning.

By the time a winner was announced, all the stags had gathered, unable to turn from the scene. The equivalent of a television series rapidly going downhill but watched by a populace having already committed too much time to it.

Our king was a ‘90s curtained, King Krule in man-from-Del-Monte creme, not only taking the crown in good faith, but then playing the giant cheque he was awarded like a guitar, his three friends cheering him on. The losers, left to lick their wounds, if only they could get purchase on them through the confines of their costume.

Recognising that the scene was getting dangerous, we left the car park and found a quiet bar room where we should have been the entire day. From there, it was possible to watch the horses on a TV, my preferred distance from the likely tragedy.

Then, I spotted it.
My horse.
This One’s For Fred.
I thought of my grandfather, Friedrich Wilhelm Schiernecker.
Was this one for him?
At three to one odds, and the favourite, it seemed likely.

I put a tenner on it that I would never see again. Fred was beaten over the line by the horse that should have caught my eye, Smart Lass. I’ve always had a thing for a smart lass.

As booze-soaked arguments were separated by security, and more than one person was spotted collapsed in the stands, a run of sick from their lips to the seating like a pre-Raphaelite painting, it was time for us to make like a horse vet and shoot.

Rushing for the exit, everyone around us so “pished” it felt like the last orgy of Rome, I wondered if there would ever come a time when I could be as carefree and wonderful as them.

I’ve failed to post anything to my blog in over a month. There’s a very good reason for this. I’ve been obsessing over something else. Some writing. A bigger THING than anything I’ve done before. Depending on the edit, it’s between 134k and 136k.

For the longest time, I’ve had a goal in mind for my writing. There’s nothing definite at the moment but the work I have been doing is the best thing I’ve ever done and the interest that it has garnered is beyond my previous expectations and hopefully a good sign of things to come.
I’m going through it one final time before it goes back to someone but there have been other, further developments.
Whatever happens, what a fucking ride.

When I sat down to talk to Davey Hal about his new EP, the excitement in his eyes told me that this was a project beyond the work he had shared before. Only some of that was down to the contact he’d had with the Du Maurier estate. The rest is because Helford Honeymoon is his most ambitious work to date, casting watercolour excellence over the latest of his inspirations, the work of Daphne du Maurier.

From the opening title track, the influences are clear, with a haunting call and response led by Hal. Think Fleet Foxes on the estuary, his voice filling that void joined by Ali James and Darren Jones on backing vocals. As far as instrumentation goes, the EP is a bolder choice than the piano and guitar-backed efforts that precede it. As Davey told me himself, this is more of a soundscape. It could easily be placed as the score to the roaming and craggy cliffs in Cornwall, wind-beaten faces glaring at some distant point they are aiming for.

Pleasant Streams, Davey’s little hideaway during his times in Cornwall hits second. As an instrumental, it could only add to the very real sense that this music is due to urgently take you away. Paired with the opening horn of Mevagissey, there’s a naval quality. It’s the last post followed by a cool lounge jazz piano that could have been recorded at 3am in a smoky pub.

If Lanteglos could talk then it could summon up the town from which the song took its name. Filled with piano and cello, it drifts, storytelling in a way befitting the writer of whom Hal writes and talks about so fondly. Danvers’ Crimson Skyline feels more like a traditional Davey Hal song with a Villagers influence thrown in too. Images of swimming and burning suggest direct passages from du Maurier’s work, a sly nod from the Essex musician. Both the track and the EP end with The Bends-type journey off a cliff and into another realm, the acoustic battered beneath drums and reverent guitar falling over in waves.

What Davey Hal has done with Helford Honeymoon is create something that is uniquely his own while paying homage to a source. Such influence is a rare thing. There are only so many times when, as an adult, you find a bond so tight. The journey that Hal takes us on with this EP is not only a hopeful tease of what is to come but also a reminder that inspiration can come in so many forms.

Helford Honeymoon is available now on iTunes, Amazon Music and Spotify.