Look back in Anger.

Out they shone, like two silver bullets, irreverent and derisive. Poking through the see through black shirt that barely covered the torso. Two small round nipples on Brett Anderson's pasty, lithe body that announced the arrival of Brit Pop.

Suede's 1993 Brit Awards performance was, apart from Jarvis cocker's mooning of Michael Jackson, the defining image of Britpop. Forget Liam and Patsy in a bed sheet. The dangerous, androgynous sexuality of Suede, gloriously perturbed much of Middle England. Here was a new generation, confident, sexually ambiguous, and definitely not the Beatles.

Sadly, Suede's beautiful revolution was overtaken by the louder, more obnoxious Oasis, who brought with them a barrel of tedious guitar bands all with shaggy haired, gobshite, lead singers, that flooded the pop charts.

Lad culture was born. Where emasculated males caught in arrested development prolonged their eventual decline into the morose responsibilities of adulthood. Instead opting to suck Hooch up through a straw out of Bozzer's backside. While their mates belted out 'Wonderwall' and tossed each other off to FHM, or other PG pornography, claiming 'it's all banter'.

The great dawn it was not.

I wasn't old enough to be Mad for it. I just remember wearing a shirt that nearly reached my ankles, purchasing a bucket hat and doing a Jimmy Saville impression, before we knew the horror, but looking back most of the Brit pop music was a great turd sandwich, that left kernels between the teeth.

So many dodgy bands, including Dodgy who were dodgy. If you want proof that it was all ass treacle just think of the last time you actually pulled out an Ocean colour scene CD, or a Shed Seven, or a Cast. Your brain knows even if you haven't caught up.

However, there is a saving grace, and that's the criminally overlooked female indie groups that were the real heroes of Bripop.

In the 90's you were spoilt for choice for fantastic girl indie rock groups from Elastica to Sleeper, Echobelly, PJ Harvey, Catatonia, Bjork and so many more. All with these ballsy, grungy, punk inspired lead singers in men's shirts. Singers that weren't made up models doing pretty dance routines, these were real women with wit and gusto and 'I couldn't give a fuck', air about them.

Writing songs that challenged patriarchy with umbrageous self- assurance; Garbarge's 'Stupid girl', Hole's 'Celebrity Skin', or even Shania Twain's 'Man I feel like a woman', where the video inverted the Robert Palmer 'Addicted to love' video by having all the male backing musicians being fawned over instead.

These were indignant women re-defining their gender roles. Taking big doctor martin boot strides towards equality while men cowered. Trapped in a Lost boys escapism. Looking to Liam Gallacher for inarticulate yob, guidance.

Unfortunately, like all subversive movements that look to unsettle the apple cart, the initial angst driven energy is soon subsumed and mollified by the mainstream. Just like when they started selling ripped safety pin t-shirts in BHS and you knew that punk was officially dead; it was inevitable that this movement would meet a similar end.

So it was that this new empowerment was cast off as 'Girl power', and the Spice girls were born, a sugared down form of protest that was easier to market and less incendiary than the female indie bands.

'Girl Power', which proudly declared that women could be whatever they wanted as long as they fitted into a tight British flag dress and an easily recognisable category that succinctly wrapped up their entire personalities.

The rightfully angry female voice became infantilised in the form of Baby spice, or made a parody of with Scary spice.

All fitting in line with male fantasies, and we all too quickly returned back to standard gender roles; Christina Aguilera ass chaps and boys in leather jackets chugging their guitars, a distant world apart and utterly dull.

Now watching X-factor and seeing the lengths that women have to go, or the items of clothing they have to loose still to have a hit records you can't help but wonder what could have been.

When Oasis return to the Brit awards wearing see through tops and g-strings then I'll no longer look back in anger.

Libraries gave us power

They are trying to sell my old local library and probably turn it into a Netto or an office for Nettos.

The same Library that in my youth was our sanctuary. A happy Shelter from bullies, a forcefield of learning keeping them out. Misfits like me would sit in them pretending to read books, or do 'research' on the computers. As long as we kept our voices hushed we could happily while away the hours, in the warmth. As rain lashed the windows.

After school, I`d often meet up with Dave in this library and we'd rummage the music hire section. Long before Spotify, this was the only option for frugal pockets. Then we'd stuff rucksacks full of books that would take our fancy; self help books, Norwegian dramas, big novels with fancy titles, instruction pamphlet for blinds.

We'd never read any of them, but we liked to think we would. The promise of improvement enough, and when you could borrow up to 8 books for a month for nothing, what was the risk? Invariably, the slim volume of Icelandic poetry or such, would conveniently get lost between the cracks, and like weeds in the guttering the fines just grew and grew. 
If they became too high to hack away with paper round wages we'd get new cards, never too young to learn the arts of gentle fraud.
At one point in our lives Libraries were our everything. We'd make plans there, dream dreams, and oddly make tentative steps into the adult world of romance. My brother being a champion of this. His precocious boldness  and lack of fear led him to many a date with strangers he'd charm between glances of biology revision guides.

I never had such success. Too shy, I never really tried. Apart from one tragic episode.
I had spotted a girl that had made my face flush, bookish but sexy, just my type. 
She was busy revising, nose deep in a psychology text book.
I was stuck on a rather lengthy, arduous passage about Shakespeare's use of farmyard animals or something and naturally my attention was a little divided.
Inspired by my brother's lead in the matters of romance, I inwardly declared that I would ask this girl out, affirming that this was the moment I asserted myself, but inexperience and nerves made this a troublesome sandwich to swallow.
I'm sure most sensible mortals wouldn't agonise over such trivialities, mainly Americans, but I was at a complete loss as to how to even begin the conversation. How the hell did you just go up to a stranger, in a public environment, without the aid of alcohol and invite them to potentially love you?

In a library it felt almost sordid to ask someone out, you could read about such things but you must keep it quietly to yourself.
I looked up and down the room, trying to engage eye contact with her but the awkward chair and table arrangements made this a difficult task, and added a risk of a potential neck injury.
I was stuck, desperate and incompetent, a winning combination. I was about to concede defeat when my eyes fell upon a six pack of cherry bakewells I had in my backpack. These were intended as sugary treats to aid and encourage me in my revision, but staring at them an idea crept in my mind that maybe these iced pastry treats could be the key to unlocking my potential love's interest, or at least break the ice.
The idea was that I would casually walk up to her and say 'hey would you like a bakewell tart?' Then let the romance flourish.

It seemed simple enough and from that, I hoped, innocent, and inauspicious beginning I could initiate further conversation and from there I wasn't entirely sure, but I was hoping my brain would take over and come up with something.

Very simple in theory, harder in practice. I toyed with the foil wrapping of a bakewell, eat one for the energy boost, and stared over at her with a mouth full of munched up icing and pastry. Sexy.
I ruminated, pondered, eat another bakewell, tried to motivate myself to go over and just do it, but I was held back, reluctant and not fully behind the plan. Like a soldier asked to jump over the trench line.

This delaying didn't help matters and eventually my procrastinating had gone on so long she was now setting off to leave.
I had missed my chance and chided myself for my failures but as she packed her items into her satchel I roused myself for one final push.
I quickly packed up my items apart from one solitary bakewell tart that I kept in my hand and began to hover over to her.
Unfortunately she had turned the other way and began making her way around the library. I duly followed, quickly improvising a new plan where I would simply tap her on the shoulder and say 'I think you dropped this?' Then present her with the tart, Ingenious. I had seen a film scene of something similar with jewellery, and that had worked perfectly. 
Fate had other plans and  had also decided to bless her with rather a pacy walk. I followed  swiftly after her, bakewell held aloft in my outstretched hand.
Blissfully, I ignored the fact that I was now following a girl around a library with baked goods, and this was definitely not a normal thing to be doing, and certainly not your standard or desired romantic gesture.
Her pace quickend, as I'm sure her subconscious picked up on the potential threat of diabetes that was ambling to be thrust in her face.
I continued to follow for a good 5 to 10 minutes, until we reached a  pelican crossing and my better sense and a ford KA stopped me.

From this moment on, the town of bakewell always sends a shiver up the spine but I will always be fond of Libraries. For where would us weirdos go?

The campaign against Loneliness

So you're lonely, probably why you've got time to read this, but don't let your isolation bring you down into oceans of tears. Loneliness is a gift that frees you from the shitty demands of other people. Embrace it, for there will be times when you desperately crave it and it will be denied you, like if you get married, or end up in prison, (a similar fate).

If there are, though, occasions when you do long for the company of another oxygen stealing life form, here's some things to consider.

Firstly, are you really lonely?

You may think you have no friends, and yet you have over 1000 facebook friends, and 100's of telephone numbers. Well, don't be stubborn bunny, waiting for them to pop their head down your

warren. Ring them, visit them, arrange things.

As we get older, people's lives get busier and they get lazier, content to sit inside their houses and vegetate, exhausted by the capitalist, cogged machine. Social occasions may have to be arranged weeks in advance, just to schedule in with the new series of Game of Thrones.

Also, people's interests change, pubs and clubs are not for everyone. Some are quite pleased that adulthood means they no longer feel forced into social occasions just to supplicate the ferocious group mentality.

Try being more creative in your social activities. If you are inviting them out to the same pub they've been to a thousand times, they are more likely to politely decline, or lie and say their mother is visiting, so they can spend the evening watching the female volleyball finals. Sex will motivate a great many choices.

Instead pitch to them something more exciting; a monster truck rally, a football match, rolling skating or things they may enjoy like an all male sauna.

You can't complain that you feel lonely if you're unwilling to put in effort with your friends. Relationships, like house plants require nurturing, and water, and plant food, and the occasional trimming of their leaves.

Why you are lonely?

The reasons for this could be varied. You could be absolute cunt and not be aware of it. Try and take time to look at yourself in the mirror, not to much though if you're a narcissist, for this won't help matters.

Do you irritate people? Is your sense of humour at odds with people around you? Are you prone to pontificating your opinions on the government, dismissing opinions of others with a waft of your hand, like a complete bell end?

Things like these won't do you much favours. While you want to be yourself around your friends, there are probably occasions when a bit of diplomacy wouldn't be a bad thing.

This can include moaning. Of course you want to be able to share things with your friends, your concerns, your worries, but no one wants to be stuck with a constant moaning Myrtle.

If a friend feels like a therapist all the time, as you unburden your constant dramas upon them, they will soon feel emotionally drained, and no one wants to feel that. People want to feel uplifted by their friends, and people want to be around happy people because it makes them feel better.

Try and have a positive mental outlook, and before meeting people force yourself to think positively. Try writing a list of why a person would enjoy spending time with you, your best qualities and try and emphasize and re-affirm them to yourself. You'll feel more confident and more at ease and people will respond more encouragingly towards you.

Gratitude is also a proven way to help you feel happier, being thankful, you can also send messages of thanks to friends and as long as it doesn't come across as creepy, it can help them feel appreciated, valued and can solidify the relationship.

I'm nice, friendly and good fun why am I lonely?

You think you are a good friend, you're fun to be around, you're a good listener, you're outgoing but still you feel lonelier than a lighthouse keeper on lonely island.

Well it could be because you are surrounded by boring fuckers, a much worse fate.

The fault may fall very much at their feet. They may have settled and are quite content seeing out their days watching Netflix. Or they are always busy, visiting his inlaws, or her in laws, or her grandma or his half cousin twice removed's dog.

Cut them loose. Don't let your social life be left to the mercy of Captain Boring and his wife Tilda Tedious. If you spend the week arranging something and then they cancel on the Friday night, because their Iguana's got a cold, and you're then left wallowing in your house all evening because you can't face going on your own, don't.

Go out anyway, do not be afraid to go out on your own. You never know who you might meet, or what might happen, it's exciting and liberating. You can go where you like, leave when you like, You have the freedom to shape the evening however you want.

If you are feeling in a rut with your social circles find new ones. Join a sport's club, or hobbies club, meet new people and learn new skills, bonus.

Go to a poetry or music night, and if you are brave enough get up on a stage and perform something, because you are advertising yourself to potential new friends and connections.

And if you meet people you like, try and encourage to meet again, casually invite them to another similar event or attend one and you may bump into them again. You will already have similar interests and that's a good basis for any future friendship.

If you feel like you don't have any interests, get some. Try new things, don't be trapped by confirmed ideas about yourself, the mind is a malleable thing, it may turn out you love to Salsa dance.

Just don't accept loneliness there are always options.

Quick tips

If you work on your own, try and find a shared office space, it's much better for your health and happiness to be surrounded by people, you don't even have to be friends just feeling like you're with a group of people will make you feel better.

Offer to cook for people, everyone eats, so you're already on to a winner. Cook someone a meal and they are likely to return the favour. Plus it will make you feel good, and you'll put in extra effort to make yourself a tasty meal.

Don't despair at being lonely, embrace it

Go on weekend breaks alone, You'll have more exciting adventures meet new people. If you go with others, it's unlikely you will talk to anyone else, and will be led by what they want to do. and holidaying on your own is a great time to reflect on your life and think, so embrace it.

Charity Ship ahoy

From my dishevelled, worn out, baggy exterior you probably guess that the majority of my clothing is bought from charity shops and you wouldn't be wrong, you bloody big clever bastard you. Apart from it also represents my vulnerable state of mind, so there.

I love a good rummage in a potential bio hazard that is a charity shop. A charity shop to me, is an enchanted wonder kingdom where you never know what you might find.

Often it's a pair of trousers, that would be just perfect work trousers if only it didn't have that darn cigarette burn and exposed just a little bit too much ankle. As a man who has been threateningly shouted at across the street by hooded youths and my own parents with the bon mot, 'your trousers are short mate'. It's a fashion choice I tend to avoid.

Still, I do love second hand clothes.

It's never bothered me wearing someone else's clobber, I like that something has history and once had relevance to someone. I make up stories, like this floral shirt was purchased for a date, that never arrived, or this bobble hat was knocked off the head of a cyclist. Cheerful stuff to keep my spirits up.

When I was younger I always had my older Brother's cast offs; (saying that, I'm still receiving his cast offs) that were always 2 sizes too big and two years out of style. It didn't matter. For a short time I thought I was pretty cool. In my head my brother was the epitome of cool and by wearing his former garments some of that coolness was vicariously passed onto me. This theory was cruelly knocked out of me by Katie Chapwick in year 8, who said my shirt was too big, and I was a tramp or words to that effect. In hindsight it was probably flirtatious, and I shouldn't have 'accidentally' set fire to her hair with a bunsen burner. (this never happened)

From that moment on I ventured to try and buy my own clothes and be a dedicated follower of fashion. Which, at the time, invariably meant beads, spikey hair and rather a gregarious use of the British flag. I was like a camp National Front member that lived by the sea.

On a paper round wage, I never had the money to quite pull it off with any aplomb. The turning point was when I saved for 4 weeks to purchase a jacket, that I thought would help stake my claim as the most fashionable boy in school only to arrive in school and depressingly see 3 other boys also in the same jacket.

I gave up soon after, deciding that my money and time was better spent on something else. Needing to find some solution to the old nudity problem I thought through my options, which were few. I lived in a small city, there were not many clothes shops and Primarks and vintage stores were yet to be a ubiquitous menace.

Unsure if the annual Christmas supply of wollens would see me through the year at some point I was going to find myself a bit stuck.

It was a chance wandering into a charity shop during one of our weekend town jollies, where we largely just rode the elevators up and down in TJ Hughes, (this was a definite thing at one point in my life) that changed everything.

At the time, there was a fierce stigma attached to entering charity shops, possibly mainly in working class schools, where no one wanted to be branded as poor. Materialism bites hardest on the young. Lord have mercy on the child that wears non-branded trainers in school.

But goaded by youthful curiosity, my friends and I entered together giggling, it was a similar process to the first time I entered a sex shop and just as illuminating.

That rush of old damp coat smell, the shelves of random junk, porcelain figurines of old men with sheep, books, so many books, paintings of dogs playing pool, tape decks in the shape of of submarines; it was wonderful.

What I loved most and still do is the utter randomness, no charity shop is alike. Certainly you have to trawl through 20 racks of striped office shirts to find an orange jump suit with fur shoulder pads, but nothing beats that feeling of finding something truly unique that could only be found at this shop and this fixed moment in time.

Vintage shops will always lack that, because they are a formalised style, I know what I'm getting there, flannel shirts, Hawaian shirts, leather jackets, denim jackets, barbour jackets, and they charge four times as much.

From our first encounter we were hooked and would raid the charity shops for items to decorate our bodies with. This meant a lot of cardigans, colourful floral shirts, velvet smoking jackets, and deer stalker hats.

Essentially we started dressing like flamboyant pensioners, but it was never a conscious choice, just one made from necessity and availability.

Fashion was finally fun. You could buy something ridiculous for a couple of pounds, and laugh off any ridicule because it wasn't like you'd invested so much of yourself in it.

Occasionally it would provoke some people. Once we went to a party, an infrequent event in our lives, and we were hassled by some local punks, who found us at odds with them because we were wearing our 'Grandad's cardigans', which in many ways was far more subversive than their Atticus t-shirts, and more in keeping with a punk ethos.

Eventually most of my friends grew out of this stage, it was only a means to an end. As they got older and had more disposable income they discovered new music, art and films, which shaped their future clothing choices. Some became Mods, some existentialists, some rockabilly and I flirted with all these, but I have remained most content in a charity shop jumper and a bright colourful floral shirt that was once treasured by someone else.

I could say this is because, as I grow older, there is a presiding ethical fair trade concern, or that I like to wear unique items of clothing, or I like supporting charitable organisations but as my friend sagaciously put best it's because you're a tight bastard Stan.

Igloohost

Igloohost 

Dina is a new arts space in what was the Stardust bar on Cambridge street.

The Stardust bar used to have a revolving dance floor upstairs but the only revolving I was doing was on the bar swivel chair. It's a rare to sit at a bar at a club, but one I greatly revelled in. Usually, the music is too loud but shielded by a big red curtain I could hear quite comfortably.

Happily tipping back a can of Red stripe; which I'll never understand its position as the subversive art's event drink of choice, I chatted to various attendees of the night largely from University music society, who were a very agreeable bunch.

I even bumped into a Latvian guy, that worked at the climbing centre next door to the Circus I worked at in London (they are very cramped for space down there). He is now studying robotics, and is heavily into his electronic dance music, made sense really.

It all felt like an episode of Cheers, albeit without any of the cast there, but I was joyfully entertained by Sheffield's eminent artist and all round genius, lunatic Stuart Faulkner. Who unleashed, on the uninitiated music students, a chorus of spontaneous hits from the Poddington's Peas theme tune to songs from his new musical about Hen do gone wrong.

When I did enter the arena of dance, I was impressed. The music was good, a heady mix of electronica, garage, even finding time to squeeze in some Van Morrison. Everyone was dancing wildly, not a hint of ego or pretence just a real good sense of fun. I honestly haven't enjoyed a night more in ages, It had a fine house party vibe, where everyone is loosing their shit on the dance floor rather smoke boxing a bedroom or being passed out on Beaver paracetamol.

I tottered home about 4 in the morning with tired feet happily reciting 'down at the bottom of the garden....

Throwing a Dart in a Bull's eye.

A couple of years ago I found myself back living at home, feeling like a turd in a washing machine, making a mess of everything. I had no fixed job, a failed relationship, no prospects, athletes foot but not an athlete's body and a really bad Kim yeong sun hair cut. I was a real Debby Downer. I had lost my way and wasn't sure in what direction I was heading. I'd just mope about the town like Morrissey after being forced to club a seal to death.

I could have quite easily thrown in the town, given up on life, ended it all and become a teacher but I was saved from my certain PGCE fate by discovering a love of darts.

Yes darts, the sport of champions or pork scratching munching, beer swilling, diabetic demi gods. A sport that would change my life.

I had never been particularly fond of darts, occasionally I would chuck a few arrows and they would dangerously wobble in the air bounce off the board and strike a passer bys fleshy parts, but apart from the potential maiming of others it had limited appeal. It lacked the aerobic rush, the physical contact, the close body wrestles of other sports, but then a weekly encounter with the Ockey, arranged by my enthusiastic dart playing friends slowly began to change all that.

It wasn't long before I was hooked. Wednesday's darts night became the zenith of my week, my sole salvation in the melancholy theatre of life.

The mastering of throwing 3 small metal spears at a coloured numbered board became a glorious regression to a former tribal self. Like the irrepressible urge to drum on tables or toddlers heads; the act of throwing sharpened sticks tapped into a genealogical memory. Where a mono-browed, heavily built me, in a sheep's carcass, battled against a woolly mammoth armed with a bit of old twig.

A time when glory was an arm thrust away. And yes on occasions I'd get a woolly tusk in the guts, but it was a simpler time where purpose and meaning in life didn't involve spread sheets, or deodorants, or haircuts, or blogs, or selfies, or social media, a time

before shoes, carpets, mortgages, furniture, I phones, vegetarianism, gluten free, Netflix, toilet paper and Ocado.

Throwing darts stripped away all that modern nonsense to the simple joys of enacting force on the powers of gravity. Like popping your head out of your mother's womb for the first time and feeling life.

It's also a great excuse to get pissed with your friends midweek.

Friends that shout at you to stop blathering on about being a hunter gatherer, and throw the pissing dart, you prick.

I throw a double twenty, and in my head I've hit a bear between the ribs, raaaaah.

Homes under the Hammer Horror

If you've ever been unemployed and faced a day of dull nothingness. Where the only useful thing you've done is change a loo roll, and nearly messed that up. As you creep into the dark ether of hopelessness. You are probably familiar with Homes under the Hammer, an eerie programme where presenters that look like ex members of Buck Fizz and footballer, and Dube inventor, Dion Dublin,

http://www.thedube.com/ take you around creepy abandoned houses and show you harrowing scenes of pink baths and un-pointed roofs.

The fat medium one, then contacts poltergeist property developers on a plaster Ouji board, with the haunting chant of 'have you checked the legal pack' and 'it's got a lot of potential', as Dion bangs loudly on his percussive instrument.

This stirs the un-dead to rise from out of their crypts and transform characterful properties into generic, ghostly white hotel rooms in exchange for the fresh blood of housing tenants that grey skinned estate agents happily provide.

It's sadly missing Christopher Lee, but it is certainly one of the most frightening of the Hammer series. A real psychological, sleep wrecker. What's most disturbing is that the flesh eating poltergeists are never defeated or stopped in their incessant rampage of blood sucking terror.

Instead they are mawkishly paraded by the possessed presenters, cheered in their onslaught of knocking down walls and building large patio areas, that they will subsequently barbecue their unsuspecting victims on.

It is quite gruesome and completes a day time schedule from the BBC of horror flicks such as

'Escape to the country', where quiet country villages are seized upon by alien life forms that want to build out of period extensions, and holiday cottages for their retirement invasion.

To the graphic, sadistic, possession porn of programmes like Cash in the attic and Bargain hunt, where an evil, moustached devil, in a bright coloured waistcoat, forces people to sell materialist, misery manacles to unsuspecting victims, while competing against other unfortunate slaves, for the chance to free their souls.

By the end of a day watching these programmes I feel queasy, unsettled, physically shaken by what I've seen. I turn the TV off and stare at the walls of my one bedroom flat, with the extortionate rent that has no antiques in it, just a big flat screen telly. And I close my eyes, try to dream of a world that has beauty in it, that has hope, that has love, but I find I've run out of toilet roll.