BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

I turned 35 at the weekend. I know this fact's less interesting than spotting Nordic deities' faces in the clouds, but it's led to a shedload of HAVING A THINK on my end of the deal. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things...or so wrote St Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, as he wolfed down another hit of crack while 'Shanghai Cindy' zipped up her white cowboy boots, snatched £20 off the dresser and scarpered out the door. I think my problem is that I haven't really put away my childish things, yet. I'd rather have a Mars Bar than unlock the meaning of life. I still get the urge to smash tube windows when I hear the sludgy opening geetar riff on the first Chaos UK EP. About the only childish thing I don't do anymore is cry over the 'Night Night, Jamie' bit at the end of Jamie and the Magic Torch - but then, that ludicrous mindfuck of a cartoon hasn't been on UK TV since the GLC impl0ded.

Incidentally, this blog's been pretty silent on the whole 'Nick Clegg crying over music' scandal - but doesn't it make you want to vomit monkeys? I mean, for fuck's sake. I can understand a grown man getting a lump in his throat 5 minutes into The Pogues' version of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda - you know, it's a pretty harrowing indictment of the inhumanity of war, complete with teenagers having their legs blown off in trenches, stinking mounds of corpses, shells exploding everywhere, crippled war veterans wheeling themselves past silent, gawping crowds - a fake cough and misty eyeballs are wholly appropriate for a song like that. But... crying over some My Cunting Valentine song, because it reminds you of that indie girl who dumped you in the Horn of Plenty before Dub War came onstage??? - get the fuck out of here. Great - our quackistocracy's jointly run by an adult baby who blubs over songs, and a Smiths fan. I'm not a massive Gadaffi supporter ((unless, of course, the Daff's innocent - hey, don't always knock the underdog without the full facts)) but you have to admit - you wouldn't catch him snotting into a kleenex over some friggin' tosh like Spiritualized or Sparklehorse.

Naturally, I utilised Twitter to demand that Clegg spill his guts concerning exactly which songs cause him to cry. If he'd replied with Bright Eyes it still would have made him an epic wussbag, albeit one who gives a shit about the plight of fugitive lab rabbits who've taught themselves English. However, if he'd come back with something by Duffy, we could have safely committed mass suicide in collective disgrace at having been co-subjugated by such a waahhmonger. As it happens, Clegg didn't respond at all, instead tweeting some fake rubbish about visiting a factory, in order to deflect attention from my persistent enquiries. Beyond all doubt, this oaf has wept to Scouting For Girls. Or The Feeling. Whoever released that She's so luggghly! She's so luggghly! dreck.

She's so luggghly! I used to think that straight women bawled to Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and Rick Astley records because they'd detected, in these performers' soulful vocals, masculine qualities that no 'real' man could ever live up to. These sonic sorcerors fed women a teasing glimpse of a romantic shangri-la that would forever be denied them and, subsequently, the female listeners wept and wailed in frustrated lust, as their real-life spouses roared obscenities at O2 Customer Support in the background.

Now, I'm not so sure. After all, Otis Redding openly admitted to just sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time. Where I come from, that's usually a hangable offence. If he'd been sitting IN 'The Dock Of The Bay', grabbing a pint with Mick Sweeney and watching Channel 4 Racing...wasting time...there'd have been fucking tears alright, and not ones of ecstasy. By the way, if you aspire to the Crust Punk subculture, forget the vintage Deviated Instinct patches - you have to give credit to Otis. He was literally dossing around on a dock all day YEARS before those glue-huffing, atonal Bristolian fleabags Disorder were squealing "Vomiting green haired punx / Standin' on the dole.." and pledging themselves to lives of indolence. If Otis had been on the dole, he'd wouldn't have 'stood', he'd have sat. Actually, he wouldn't have been on the dole, because he wouldn't have even moved from the dock of the bay. The DSS would have had to send snoopers to the bay to ensure he wasn't doing any undeclared fishing ((fat chance)).

Aye, it's a mean trick the soul singers pulled on womankind...I guess straight blokes' equivalent would be Betty Boo putting on a space helmet and gyrating around a gigantic Freudian alien tentacle. Still, dating's not what it used to be. Have you seen these pick-up artists? It's like a swarm of cockroaches in bootcut jeans. All droning around Covent Garden, practising their lines. Apparently, the best way to line up a tumble is to 'neg' women, by offering them a mixture of compliments and insults - Nice earrings...ya fat cunt! and the like. I dunno, it's not like in my day. We used to drink a flagon of cider and work up the bottle to tell goff girls that we dug graves for the council and that our parents didn't understand us. Show off an unusual birth defect, like a third nipple or a tail, and you were in - provided she found the idea of pillow talk about SPK 'being better than The Cure' less troublesome than traipsing back to Houghton Regis at 3am on her own. Well, that was the theory. Anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is that Buddha wasn't lying when he rattled off that wisecrack about how the further you go, the less you know. Quite frankly, my advice to younger BTi readers, having reached this major milestone in my life, is...Uh?