3rd October, 2012
So I’m sitting in a rocking chair in Philadelphia airport staring out into the airfield. There’s a colony of them by the big window, all white, facing out to the horizon. Rocking chairs, that is. Travellers and staff on breaks sit and lap up the light like passengers on the rear deck of a liner. I have cleared immigration and have an ocean of hours to waste waiting for my connection, southbound and westward to Austin in the vast state of Texas. Behind us busybodies pass wittering on mobile phones. The polished floor reflects the motion of wheeled cases gliding across the concourse in a great waltz. Everybody has somewhere to get to with their cache of stuff, the same stuff in every bag. I am perfectly still for the while, apart from the occasional, comforting little rock.
Aboard I watch from my porthole the baggage handler tossing luggage from a…—More Tales
11th September, 2012
For all the moaning minnie Scots who have been telling me the man’s a wimp, a choker, has no guts , no stamina and will never win a Slam.
You were wrong.
We are now open for business.
You’re wonderful, Mr. Murray.—More Rants/Slates
17th August, 2012
If singing thirty seconds of a song in a church is hooliganism motivated by religious hatred then what the fuck is a hymnary other than a list of specific terrorist instructions? Go forth and multiply and do God’s work. By the way, He fucking HATES Jews, Muslims, Fags and Philistines, OK? He just likes a bit of order, you know? No fuss, everyone the same, knowing their place, worshiping whatever keeps them happy. Off you go, defend the faith. You might need one of these – an AK47 or a judicial system with unchecked power operating in the interest of a secret state.—More Rants/Slates
11th July, 2012
I wrote this piece for The Guardian in 1997 (I think) and received a fair amount of flak from US fans for its sneering tone. I can see their point but I was trying to be sympathetic to them while undermining the rock-star persona by being honest. I probably got it wrong, but it’s a document of its time so here it is in its original form before the G2 editors got their (rather capable) claws into it.
One Week on the Wheel of Pain: How to Brownnose with Impunity
Monday, Arrival
You plane, you deplane. You’re a foreigner, a form-filler, you’re a hasn’t been who might be in the land of the wannabe. You have come here, willing and supine, ready to wear the promo smile for the people, to sing your song for the sake of the sell. Live on-air, live in-store, a week of grease on the week of release,…—More Tales
24th May, 2012
We plough into the seedy thicket of north London. I scramble from the hotel after installing my family of chargers in my white box. I take a pleasant line downhill from Angel through Finsbury, Clarkenwell, Smithfield and the City to the river. My walk traces a line of affluence from the self-conscious cafés and vintage home decor boutiques at the top of the hill to the terrifying marble fortresses of the City at sea-level. I don’t know this part of the capital so I take pleasure exploring the grand residential squares and sampling the weird vibe around the fringes of the financial district at 5pm. City boys in bespoke deep navy suits with tieless sky-blue shirts loiter outside corner pubs in cabals of threes and fours. They’re mostly in their early thirties and beautifully coiffed and manicured. The women are whippet thin and dress in black and meander alone through…—More Tales
17th May, 2012
There are swimmers in the sea!
The Brighton beach backwash rakes the pebbles down into the seabed with that sound like rattling teeth. French air caresses the coast with the faint scent of baguette or bag-lady. A long gloomy front hangs along the coast down to the west where Land’s End points its bony toe at South America. We guide the Merc north through beautiful oak studded estates, headed for the Black Country, its wide accents, ex-factories and gap-toothed high streets. I was a Midlands boy in the seventies. I had a Leicestershire accent, played for the school team, said “lickoll bockoll” for “little bottle”, drank Dandelion and Burdock. I was a hayseed, temporarily English. I loved Leicestershire. I loved our village. Cows sometimes wandered onto the school football pitch, badgers rooted around the garden at night. We had two apple trees, cherry and almond trees, a lean-to, an enormous ash…—More Tales
15th May, 2012
I’m in a Radisson Blu which is a good thing. Twelfth floor with spiffy decor and big windows. I have a tiny silver kettle with the word “distinction” written on it. I have two kinds of tissues and a desk and chair set painted gold. I am a modern man in my modern box and nobody can take it away from me. Not for 48 hours. We rush out to catch the high drama of English football’s final instalment. An enormous wall of a man sitting in front of me seems tense. After City win he reveals that he’d placed £1,500 on their victory. The bookies call this buying money – laying large sums on very short odds. A fucking idiot’s game. He screws up his copy of the Sunday Sun in anxiety during the match when City go 2-1 down. I could tell straight away he wasn’t watching the…—More Tales
13th May, 2012
I awake to a bright morning and shovel my various accoutrements into my black nylon trolley. Everywhere there are people in transit dragging these recalcitrant cases out for a walk. You see them in suburban streets and parks and town centres as if hanging onto weary toddlers, the little plastic wheels making that gargling noise over the concrete. Strange that the ancient invention of the wheel came so late to luggage. Even in the early nineties I was still hefting an enormous sack around on my shoulders from airport to tour-bus. On long US tours I used to carry two big holdalls, one purely for underwear. Why ruin a precious day off sitting in a laundromat when you can take three months’ worth of socks on the road? Since the World Trade Centre fell you’d be lucky to get a few weeks of keks on a plane without handing over…—More Tales
12th May, 2012
In the morning I race over Buxton’s pretty park set on a hill to hunt down the bookshop Derek has told me about. There is a swirl of slanting rain so I buy a wooly hat from an outdoor suppliers on the way. The bookshop is well-stocked over three storeys and has a few quirks. There’s a make-your-own tea and coffee set-up on the fiction floor alongside a large soft-toy tiger who lounges on a chaise long in the bay window. Unfortunately there is also a nausea inducing “snogging corner – adults only” sign hanging above a nook, but everybody makes mistakes. I am pushed for time and buy a George Eliot novel I’m fairly sure I’ll never open. I liked the first page so it’s mine for six quid. The owner, who is sorting through some old scores (and settling them) asks me if I can spell Tchaikovsky. I…—More Tales
