The songs that flit through my head as I write these little titbits have become a running theme and, because of that, I have started to look far more closely at the lyrics, small snatches of which have rounded off every post so far this year.  As a long-time fan of David Bowie I have always been a disciple of the beautifully crafted phrase.  (My first Bowie LP – Man of Words, Man of Music – came when I was no’but a child and simply because I had some birthday money left and I loved Space Oddity.  I will not pretend that, at that time, I understood what the words were really all about, but I liked the way that they sounded – and I still do.)  I would like to put in a word of my own here for the wonderful Guy Garvey of Elbow who writes lyrics that read like the very best of poetry: simple yet affecting.  Take almost any Elbow song and read the lyric sheet and you will see.  Try Puncture Repair, Magnificent, Weightless, Starlings or even the ubiquitous One Day Like This and you will understand.  I digress…

The God-like Alan Coren turned out buffed-up idioms like there was no tomorrow and the young Woody Allen used words in a way that rendered me speechless.  I love the simplicity of Orwell’s prose, but I cannot replicate it: somehow I always drift off towards the flowery end of the page.  Back in the day I was – I think – the same as all other teenage boys: I knew that I was going to be a professional footballer (I was ok but, if I’m honest, seldom the very best in any team I was a part of) or a rock star (despite the fact that I could not play an instrument more complicated than the G# chime bar and had a post-adolescent voice that was reminiscent of the whine of a recently neutered cat).  Punk came along for me at the perfect time, but I turned my back on it because by then I had decided that I wanted to be funny (or, as my then best friend suggested ‘weird’).  That I failed on all counts is no surprise.  Never mind, I play football with the kids, I sing (very badly) all the time and I scour the twilight zone between my ears most days to write this.  Who needs the fame I craved back then?

Of course my vision of fame then was slightly different to today’s.  Then it just meant getting girlfriends – which is everything to a pimply youth.  It was the only motivation.  I must admit that I’ve always been a bit bored by money.  I realise that I am exceedingly fortunate in that I have always had just enough to live how I would wish, but I have never had – nor desired – plenty.  The thought of all the husbandry that is required to care for stacks of lucre is not at all appealing.  Nor, for me, is the thought of spending shed-loads: I hate changing my car and the thought of voluntarily diving into the luxury housing market leaves me breathless (and not in a good way).  The thought of fussing over piles of dosh, ensuring that they always grow, is less appealing than an evening with Gemma Collins.  And you can’t even give the bloody stuff away: you don’t want to pass the problem onto your kids, but you cannot bypass them for charity as a) everyone will presume that you are the head of a disastrously dysfunctional dynasty, or b) that you are incredibly vain and prepared to part with huge wads of currency in order to buy admiration.  High ideals, it seems to me, are incompatible with riches.  Fortunately, I don’t have to make the decision…

there’s a laddered tear in my high ideals
like I took a chair on the battle field…  High Ideals – Elbow