The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Yes, the influential Jamaican Reggae star shuffled off this mortal coil in May 1981 so it couldn’t be him, and anyway, this bloke was white. Who was he?
It is the night before Christmas and I am in the ‘Bullring’ Birmingham’s famous shopping centre and snow is falling. I last saw the ‘Old’ Bullring in about 1979. It was, let’s face it not only an eyesore, but an earsore, armsore and legsore it was so bad. Not so today. It is very tidy (in fact bang tidy) neat and very busy.
I am still pondering this transformation in the gents toilets, whilst drying my hands. I am using one of these new-fangled blown air hand driers. Similar to the Dyson airblade, it looks like an open letterbox in the wall. It is pretty pathetic. A vision passed before my eyes of the facia of this thing being removed to reveal two wheezing old men blowing through it from behind. This nightmarish thought was soon banished by an awareness that someone was standing behind me…
I turned and looked. Who was he? Not Bob Marley as we’ve summised, (too white, too alive) Joe Cocker? (too young) Justin Bieber? (too old)
‘Alright’ he said in a gravelly West Midlands accent (as opposed to a gravelly hill interchange) while he moved to use the hand dryer. Of course! It was only Noddy Holder! The owner of the best pair of lungs this side of the Mississippi Delta and singer of the best Christmas song ever. The band was Slade and the record, the evergreen ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ a hit for the band first time round, Christmas 1973.
If you didn’t know, and although you probably really couldn’t give a shit, I’m going to tell you anyway; the story is that this seasonal ditty which has etched its way into our national consciousness, along with Turkey, Santa Claus and Dickens’ ‘Christmas Carol’ was in fact recorded over a blistering hot week in New York, late summer of that year. Apparently, Lennon (that’s John, Liverpool, musician not Aaron, Spurs, winger) was in the next studio recording ‘Mind Games’ at the time.
The song was a hotch-potch of snippets that Noddy and Jim Lee had lying around. They were given the final touch, it is reported when (I love this …) Noddy “After an evening out drinking, worked through the night at his mother’s house in Walsall to write the lyrics, which he completed in one draft.” You see? a genuine slice of British Popular Culture crafted in a Walsall two-up two- down after a night on the ale. Bowie, meantime, earnestly doing his Willliam Burroughs’ ‘cut-ups’ must have been wondering where he went wrong.
What to say? I can’t be seen as a fawning fan: No, no, no that won’t do. What about a ‘cooler’ approach? Drop in a ‘blokey’ comment which might initiate a conversation.
That’s it! I figured.
Of all the things I could have said or asked him – such as ‘What was it really like to work with Dave Hill?’
‘Why the Mirror Hat, Nod? and how did you keep it on?’
Failing that, ‘Ere Noddy, you know when Don Powell lost his memory, were there ever things you told him that hadn’t happened, just for a laugh?’
No, of all the things … What do I venture forth with?
‘These hand driers are about as much use as a chocolate teapot’
He looked at me and snorted a snort which was somewhere half way between ‘Yeah’ and ‘What the **** are you talking about?’ – I’m still analysing it.….and made his way out.
Of course what I should have done was wish him a ‘Merry Christmas’, for he knows how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim and Dave Hill observed, God Bless Us, Every One!
Have a Happy Christmas
With apologies to Charles Dickens. ‘A Christmas Carol’ a contrived piece of seasonal nonsense from ‘Sitting Comfortably?’
Here’s wishing all our readers a peaceful, happy, healthy 2012.
Andy
©Andy Daly
“You’ll have to get me on the mobile. It’s not a good phone – so don’t get your expectations too high.” I told my Dad.
The phone’s knackered you see. Has been since thursday when it began to issue strange-sounding beeps and bleeps.
Or … to be perfectly accurate about it the phone is fine. What is actually knackered, as the twelve year old engineer that Virgin Media sent round on Monday morning, still apparently hungover, patiently explained to me is:
“Your cable from the cabinet to here. It’s damaged.”
I was confused … but the wiring for the phone doesn’t go anywhere near the cabinet I thought, looking around the room; it comes in through the wall in the front room, and immediately to the phone’s base unit (It’s cordless)
For the uninitiated, a ‘Cabinet’ is a secure (at least in theory) piece of street furniture, which allows Virgin Media and their technicians, as well as those of other service providers, access to the cabling, junctions and switching for that particular street or area. Occasionally … No, thinking about it … often you see these green or grey cabinets open (left so by sloppy engineers, or prized open by the local hoodlums – who knows?) Funnily enough the one nearest us is currently in such a state; multi-coloured spaghetti and great dizzy Afros of intricate wiring billow happily from the inside.
Some idea of what they look like. A BT cabinet
So. Diagnosis: Damage to the service supply cable between ‘the Cabinet,’and our property
The Year 9 engineer gave us an estimate of waiting time for repair – about a month! What? I was astonished. I explained about the Parkinson’s and how it leaves me immobile numerous times, daily and that therefore, when fingers are too affected to use a mobile phone in emergency, I rely on a push-button pendant I wear around my neck, which links to a receiver and via an organisation known as ‘Careline’ allows you to raise the alarm in an emergency. It then organises appropriate help as the situation demands (For instance, they may at the user’s request phone their partner at work, asking them to go home as aid is required. Or another example, more serious. The user has a fall, leaving them injured and unable to reach medication, phone or front door. They alert ‘Careline’ who in turn call their partner, as well as additional contacts (also keyholders who could effect an entry should the partner be held up for any reason) and the emergency services should they br required.
Of course you never think you are going to need it … Till you do … And of course ‘Careline’ naturally, needs a telephone line.
Anyway, back to Monday morning and ‘The Boy Wonder’ has an idea. He will book a date for the repair to be done, but suggests phoning Virgin Media later in the day to put my case in order to hopefully gain an earlier slot. Rinky dinky, sounds like a Plan.
And off he goes in his gaudy Virgin Media Ice Cream van, the cushions tucked under his seat and wooden blocks tied to his boot soles allowing him to see (just) over the dashboard and operate the pedals.
Of course Tinchy bloody Stryder, doesn’t get back to me to confirm a date does he? Why? why? did I trust him? Why didn’t I see out my original plan? Tie and gag him then bung him under the stairs. Hold him to ransom: full line repair and compensation for inconvenience being the only things sufficient to secure his release. It would have been all done and dusted by now.
Bloody hell. here we go:
‘Weclome to Virgin Media. We now have 5 options for you. If you want to Top Up with a voucher: Press 1 … If you want to Top Up with a credit or debit card already registered with us: Press 2 … If you are moving house or need to alter your account details: Press 3 … If you have lost, forgotten or need a new PIN number: Press 4 … If you want to be fucked about with, forced to listen to ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and after ten minutes find yourself back at the main menu – where you started and no wiser: Press 5 …’
‘Ahhh…..’
‘… or press zero to speak to a customer service advisor … ‘
Now that’s more like it. I’ve been here before and I’m no fool. Zero it is. Ten minutes later I find myself back at the main menu, having been fucked about with, forced to listen to ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and no wiser:
My condition does make it difficult to make myself understood sometimes, but I found that on this occasion (and subsequently) the call centre operatives, useless. Impatient, yet Anyway, the outcome of the call was the telephone assistant was able to move the engineer’s visit date a little further forward to November 14th: still three weeks away, although she did say she would put us on the waiting list should there be any cancellations. After a second call some days later an engineer visit date was brought forward to 1st November. Progress at last!
Now, here’s a first! You are cordially invited to finish the story yourself according to one of three scenarios:
1) The second engineer arrives and to my dismay performs the same battery of tests as his colleague, before announcing his diagnosis: Damage to service supply cable between ‘the Cabinet’ and our property. This nonsense goes on for weeks until out of the blue the cable is repaired and I am sent a wet apology by somebody in ‘Complaints’. I take the matter up with s current Consumer Affairs programme
2) It transpires it has all along been an elaborate ploy by Virgin Media to test the ‘Brand Loyalty’ of randomly selected customers. We triumph in the South Eastern regional competition, and meet Scotland and the Borders in the Grand Final, which we also convincingly win. Our prize is a fortnight in The Bahamas.
3) Our evidence is enough to put the gang behind bars for a long, long time, and we all live happily ever after.
© Andy Daly
Success! Job done. Half a dozen ‘proper’ shirts, enough T shirts to start a medium-sized stall on Wembley Market. My ‘Iggy and the Stooges’ tour T shirt (extra extra care) two delicates I didn’t dare take a chance with, accompanied by a sort of ‘Sedimentary Layer’ of socks, pants etc.
All washed, dried and found approporiate homes for before close of play!
Of course these ‘appropriate homes’ – come Monday morning turn out to be nothing more than a fading mirage: as socks, pants, shirts, braces, cummerbunds, heavily starched cotton collars, Cowboy Boots, Do-Bocks and neat little pocket handkerchiefs appear in the most unlikley places. Places I swear I didn’t put them on Sunday … That’s if they appear at all.
© Andy Daly 2011
A dear old friend goes under the surgeon’s knife tomorrow at Newcastle Upon Tyne’s RVI. Here at ‘Sitting Comfortably?’ we are hoping that it is successful. Love and best wishes Tim.’
“Friendship IXX”
And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.”
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own
mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations
are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the
mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but
a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of
pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Khalil Gibran
Last Look Back
Image © Andy Daly
What beastly eyes.
Imagine waking up in the night and finding these looking down at you. You wouldn’t need to use the Lactulose for a while would you?
Is it the face of the Old Hag, as she sits on your chest, cackling her nightmarish cackle?
(Hands up: anyone ever had that dream? I have. I’ll tell you about it one day)
What do you think? Man? Beast? or Pasta?
Tiger, Toad or Tortellini?
Using Photoshop: that amazingly powerful aid to visual expression/death of creativity (depending on your viewpoint)
Let’s split it in half down the middle.
Lighten it.
Now if I convert it from the black and white back into its original colour.
We’re left with the remnants of some pasta on a spoon, I spotted as I cleared up after tea one day.
And the point of all this? I’m buggered if I know. It’s not even as if I’ve nothing better to do. I suppose I should say that it is a sign, and have it splashed all over the papers. Hey, that’s not a bad idea. Where’s that number for the National Enquirer?
I’d be interested to know whether this shows up, properly aligned in anyone’s browser, because it bloody isn’t on this one.
© Andy Daly 2011
Ruislip, Well presented, roomy, walking distance to shops, £850 pcm
It’s a marvellous night for a moondance …
Memorial: YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL My Great Grandfather Picture taken in the back garden 11:35 pm 12/02/2011. ‘Moondance’ by Van Morrison © Andy Daly 2011 |
Okay, now here’s a bit of fun for you all. A live music review from 15th November 1975. Yes, I know I’ve been a bit sluggish in getting it to publication, but these things take time.
I am just turned 15, sitting with a group of my mates in the Champness Hall in Rochdale Lancashire. I remember as though it were yesterday. It was – and probably still is – a rather austere Methodist church hall, one which I knew well as the meeting/marshalling point for the hated annual test of will power and patience that was the Scouts’ and Girl Guides’ St. George’s Day parade. Tonight, however, it plays host to a very different gathering.
Champness Hall, Drake Street, Rochdale
All around me a sea of sickly denim and patchouli oil is headbanging. There is a band on stage. Despite, (or perhaps because of) the stage clothes, the coloured lights, the expensive looking guitars and seemingly endless stacks of Marshall amps and speaker cabinets, they look incongruous, uncomfortable even, on the high irregular stage, which slap bang in its centre boasts a stairway with banisters. It is the one that allows access from the congregation to reach the pulpit. I bet it’s the oddest venue on this tour. Behind the group an imposing set of organ pipes dominate the back wall ( Note the refusal to stoop as low as using these as an excuse for unsavoury jokes and puns) Lit by reflected colour from the stage lighting, they look like stalactites and stalagmites forming a surreal backdrop to the whole affair.
The lead singer has just addressed his audience and the band launch into the opening riff of the next song. They don’t look uncomfortable any more. Once they start to play, all swagger and poise, menace and noise they make it clear they own the place. The lead singer teases and goads the audience between verses. At the risk of using a cliché, inside the hall it becomes an assault on your senses, and in particular on your hearing … I SAID PARTICULARLY ON YOUR HEARING. The sound is shocking. All the mid range tones are lost in a kind of ‘acoustic soup’, the higher frequencies are sent thrashing around only to be echoed back off the organ pipes, while the bass guitar, bass drum and snare punch your chest so hard it hurts. But it is charged, the atmosphere is electric!
The band, a four piece, is here playing the 21st night of a 39 date European tour to promote their fifth album, which features a cover photograph of the band standing, trying to look as aggressive as possible. In fact, if anything, they look hungover. This is the arresting image, enlarged and reproduced on a life size scale which greets you as you enter the venue. The record company, Vertigo, are keen to push the album in order that it may prompt for the band, who originate from Ireland, the breakthrough they desperately seek. In fact, during the course of 1975, as well as recording the album the group had, by the end of the year of the year undertaken five (five!!) tours. These have included dates in the US (supporting Bachman Turner Overdrive, Bob Seger, ZZ Top and Joe Walsh) Europe (Germany, Holland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway) Eire and the UK. Including the Reading Festival, I make it 131 nights in total. Last night they were in London at Thames Poly (Now probably the University of Deptford or somesuch) Tomorrow, Newark (that’s Notts not New Jersey) and the day after, Swansea. A punishing schedule, not least when the band’s propensity for making touring as … how can I put it? … as enjoyable as possible … is taken into account. However, back to our gig.
As I said, the lead singer has just addressed his audience. Dripping with sweat, in his left ear he wears a large silver hoop that intermittently catches the light, and with a lop-sided grin from said ear to the other he sheepishly looks up from under long lashes, and the curls of black hair that hang rakishly down over his left eye.
“Anybody in here got any Irish in ‘em? …”
I won’t complete the enquiry as it highlights an aspect of the band and in particular its frontman’ s persona that I must admit I’ve always had bit of a problem with. Anyway, tonight the response is drowned out as the black singer, tall and gangly, in leather trousers and a sequined top drops to a squat clamping his black bass guitar (a Rickenbacker as it happens) between his thighs and makes as if to ‘machine-gun’ his audience with it. Meanwhile the guitars break into the staccato opening to ‘The Rocker’. Yes! It’s Thin Lizzy.
Thin lizzy!
Moreover, not only is it Lizzy, but the definitive Lizzy, which first exploited the distinctive twin guitar harmony playing of Brian Robertson, a seventeen year old whizz kid from Glasgow, and Scott Gorham a Supertramp ‘reject’ from California that they nicked from who? The Allman Brothers? (Referring to Robertson/Gorham, ‘Chalk and cheese’ grinned Lynott slyly when pressed to explain his choice.) The volatile Robertson and terminally laid back Gorham, (he of the ‘Sunsilk’ hair – then, not now of course,) are responsible for two of the finest musical moments which together with about two dozen others from artists as diverse as The Sex Pistols and Charlie Parker map out the course of my teens. In this case the genius-made-sound that is the ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ and ‘Don’t Believe A Word’ featuring Robertson’s searing, vicious solo.
Yes! It was Thin Lizzy, on the ‘Rocktober’ tour 1975, which in the context of their career, was “about a minute before they burst through into the big time – very exciting.”
Robertson: Is this what is meant by ‘Guitar Tab’?
A breakthrough which was to be cemented four months later with the release of the classic ‘Jailbreak’ and in particular, the aforementioned, ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’
Lizzy, that chaotic mass of contradictions that came out of Crumlin, Dublin. Who wrote and recorded many, many great songs – and one or two awful ones.
Lynott in full flow
Lizzy, who seem to, at one time or another have featured every guitar player with an axe and a serviceable amp living in the UK in its line up.
Lizzy, Phil Lynott’s pride and joy, who seemed to follow their own trajectory through the ‘70s and ’80s steering a more mainstream, less po-faced course than many of their contemporaries like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and so on. The result being by accident or design I don’t know, timeless music.
Lizzy, the outfit who could be relied upon, as sure as night follows day, to fuck things up at those critical points where other bands seemed to be able to seize the day and use the momentum to propel them that bit further to ‘superstardom.’ Like the night before embarking on an eagerly – awaited and vitally important US tour. Instead of being tucked up in bed – or packing, Brian Robertson is not only not doing either, he’s at the Speakeasy Club in London, where at some ungodly hour he decides to leap into the midst of a drunken brawl to assist his pal singer, Frankie Miller who is apparently about to get glassed. ‘Robbo’ takes it in (and through) the hand, severing a nerve, an artery and narrowly missing a tendon which would have finished him as a guitar player for ever. But not before first dealing with the assailant:
“I broke his leg”
and his mate:
“I broke his collarbone”
His other mate:
“I nutted him – I would have killed them all if someone hadn’t hit me on the head with a bottle and knocked me unconscious!”
Odds on it was Phil Lynott, or if not, by the following morning Phil I’m sure would have wished it had been.
Exit Robbo, back into the band comes previous Gary Moore … for a while. Then he goes back to Colosseum. ‘Robbo’ returns when his injuries have healed, unofficially. He’s not talking to the band. ‘Robbo’ becomes ‘official’. Then jumps ship for good to be replaced by … Midge Ure, Dave Flett, Snowy White, John Sykes and so on until I lose interest. Oh! Not forgetting Eric Bell of course.
It’s just the kind of band Thin Lizzy were.
Lizzy: Downey, Robertson, Gorham, Lynott. Flawless live
Anyway, enough of that. Tonight is about Lizzy as they were. Flawless on stage. As I said, I remember it as if it were yesterday, although of the songs they actually played, I’ve only got definitive recollections of, apart from ‘The Rocker’ and the ubiquitous ‘Whiskey In The jar’ (originally a ‘B’side piss-take) which they had to be convinced to release as an ‘A’ side and which gave them their first chart success in the UK and their first foothold on the ladder. Apart from these two, the one I remember was ‘Suicide’. I recall being struck by the ferocity of Lynott’s attack on the song. The sheer physicality of his singing. This was only my second live band. (I’d seen Status Quo in May earlier in that year at Belle Vue, Manchester. But the 50p ‘unreserved’ cheap seats we were in were so far back they were in Longsight, so not such a good view. In fact, my Dad had a better view than me – It’s a long story best kept for another day) Otherwise, almost every other band I had seen on TV mimed. Lynott was the first singer I can remember who actually looked like he meant it.
He (and the band) had some bottle. Remember it was the mid ‘70s. Racist jokes were still, sad to say, considered ‘acceptable’, even in mainstream culture. Meanwhile Northern Ireland festered as Republican and Loyalist atrocities followed a dismal pattern, which became almost as sickeningly ‘acceptable’ Against this backdrop as a patriotic black Irishman taking his music to a British audience, Lynott was all but putting his head into the Lion’s mouth.
After the gig I remember on the way out being given a Thin Lizzy sticker by one of the road crew which I proudly stuck on my school bag and hauled around Bishop Henshaw RC Memorial School off Oldham Road, Rochdale for a couple of years. I loved them! They were my band – in the same way that The Ruts were to become a few years later (Another story for yet another day ) In fact, I’ve heard that around the time of the first incarnation of the Ruts came about, Malcolm Owen was hanging about with Lynott. Ruts drummer Ruffy who back then played bass borrowed Lynott’s black Rickenbacker for some of the early rehearsals. Which if true, shoots dead in the water the tale I was told after the Rochdale gig, the source being someone’s elder brother, who, as he hung around after the gig to meet the band, apparently saw a roadie drop the (same) Rickenbacker on the stairs and break the neck. Which is why from about this time onwards you see Phil playing the black Precision with the mirror scratchplate. Interesting Lizzy pub quiz fact or total bollocks? I’ll leave it to you to decide.
I was really genuinely delighted for them, that ‘Jailbreak’- which came not long after the ‘Rocktober’ tour was the success it became. They deserved it. Even if not everyone agreed. I recall seeing around this time, the lyricist/ songwriter/composer Sammy Cahn (‘Three Coins In The Fountain’) interviewed by Michael Parkinson. He was asked in typically lugubrious fashion about the craft of songwriting today. Cahn replied, saying how he thought standards had fallen.
“For example … “ and he told Parkinson all about a song he had overheard in which the singer just shouted the words ‘The Boys are back in town’ over and over again. I remember thinking No! … you have chosen the wrong song there Mister. In fact he couldn’t have picked a worse example. ‘The Boys’ is a terrific, vivid evocation of a mythical space and time inhabited by ‘the boys’: all testosterone and bravado, equally mythical, who can be found on ‘Friday night, dressed to kill, down at Dino’s Bar and Grill …’ A wonderful construct. I don’t believe it ever existed: not in the form it appears in the song. ‘No. 77 Sunset Strip’ was the name of a US detective series from the 60’s starring Efrem Zimbalist Junior. Lynott wanted to see what was actually at No. 77. So while in L A on Lizzy’s first tour of the States, he went to take a look. It turned out to be a ‘supper club’, the former haunt of showbiz legend Dean Martin. It was a brilliant combination of the idea of the ‘gang’ with its meeting place, whose name was a derivation of Martin’s own. And although I have never been there – I couldn’t have – I can imagine exactly what it was like. Great songwriting. And there was plenty of it over the years, even towards the end, ‘Sarah’ and ‘Old Town’ for instance, I think are quality gear. Okay, a bit sentimental maybe, but nothing wrong with that in small doses.
The Rocker
Having said that however, I’m not sure I fully subscribe to the ‘Lynott as poet’ view. He barely got away with it on ‘Jailbreak’:
‘Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town …’
Hmmmm. Well unless the Bizzies are really dumb, you would think they’d keep their eye on the Jail!
Then there is the frankly unforgivable rhyming couplet in ‘Parisienne Walkways’ written and sung by Lynott, recorded by Gary Moore; His attempt to out – Santana Santana. In what is supposed to be a portrait of ‘Paris in ‘49’ Phil sings (I don’t know how he had the brass-neck …)
‘Looking back at the photographs, those summer days spent outside corner caffs’
I think I would have even preferred:
‘Looking back at the photographés, those summer days spent outside corner cafés’
And as for ‘Killer On The Loose’. Well, I am going to simply gloss over it and charitably put it down to the smack and coke having addled his brain so much, he didn’t know what he was scribbling. (So how does that explain ‘Sarah’ and ‘Old Town’?) Ahhhh … Anyway …
Thanks Phil
I would still like to thank him though (and Downey, Robertson and Gorham) for a great night back in November ’75 and for making at their very best, earthy, raw, yet at the same time elegant even sublime music which continues to raise the hairs on the back of my neck today (and annoy my kids) – so it can’t be bad.
It is twenty five years since Phil Lynott died a miserable death, a long way from the assured frontman I saw captivate his audience as skilfully as you like. Far be it from me to cause controversies or open old wounds, but there is one thing that I think ought to be mentioned before we leave the ghosts of November 1975 in peace.
‘Why are you wearing that T shirt?’
This one?
It is November 2009, during the last time I had to have a spell in hospital. The voice belonged the bloke in the bed opposite me, who I won’t name. He was leaning on his elbow, looking like death warmed up, nodding his head in the general direction of the distinctive Lizzy logo on my tatty black Thin Lizzy T shirt.
‘Is it because you like the band or the shirt?’
After I’d got over the mild effrontery I felt at having been thought of as so shallow that I would wear such a garment simply because of its aesthetic attributes. I replied:
‘Well, I loved the band, and I like the shirt’
As I said this I glanced down at his chest, hoping I might find a gift of a Wings, Emerson, Lake and Palmer or (the comedic potential!) a ‘Phantom of the Opera’ T shirt. No such luck. Only the thick black hoops of a ‘Pirate – style’ shirt. (Favourite band, I later found out? The Pirates!) From such unlikely beginings high up on Charing Cross Hospital’s eleventh floor Neuro ward we developed quite a rapport.
‘I only ask because I worked for Phil Lynott for the last couple of years of his life. I was his Personal Assistant. It’s amazing, he and the band are more popular now than ever. Often I see people wearing shirts, carrrying bags or whatever with Lizzy designs on them, yet they could have never seen them. They’re too young.’
I was keen to learn more, but unfortunately my comrade in arms was really not in a good way, and was having to spend large portions of his day hooked up to a drip, and unable to move, nauseous into the bargain. So as inquisitve as I was I eased off on the solid wall of questions I had targetted at him and let him have a break.
One thing he did say though – and bear in mind Lynott’s death was probably not a case of ‘if’ but ‘when’
‘He needn’t have died. If I’d have had my way he’d be alive today’
‘Well … You know what it’s like with addicts …’ I offered. Not, of course knowing the first thing about what it is like with addicts at all. ‘You would never have been able to get him clean, there were too many people surrounding him who were supplying … and if he didn’t even listen to his mates … You’d have had no chance …’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean at the house that Christmas. They didn’t want any fuss; anyone to know, so they took him to that bloody drug clinic place near Salisbury. They didn’t know how to treat him, not properly, not in his condition. I wanted him taken to the nearest A and E.’ (Probably Kingston, a few minutes drive away as opposed to the middle of Wiltshire, where he was eventually whisked.)
Do I believe him? Yes. Other than that, I’m saying nothing, except that as many others before him and no doubt many still to come, Phil Lynott was a victim of his own belief in his ability to control drugs. I wish Phil, like Iggy Pop, had made it through and survived. I think he would, as Iggy is, be ‘quietly massive’ and thoroughly enjoy basking in the glow of warmth and affection that still exists for him from those who knew him, loved his music, plus those – and there are many, for whom he paved the way.
And if he chose to earn a few potatoes selling car insurance? Then so what.
And how about that? A whole article on Phil Lynott which doesn’t use the phrase ‘Wild Man of Rock’ … Till now… Doh!
© Andy Daly 2011
Sitting Comfortably? 
