Outtahere

Blogger's clunking, antedeluvian software has started bringing me out in a rash.

My dermatologist has therefore recommended that I move here.

I have a cold

So don't go expecting the usual coruscating badinage.

All the same, runny nose, anguish, and misery notwithstanding, I did want to share with you my thoughts on something I read the other day about a disturbing trend, specifically the rise of neo-nazism in New Zealand.

Can this be true? Sleepy, bucolic New Zealand? Must the land of Edmund Hillary, Colin Meads and Kiri Te Kanawa henceforth be known as the Land of the Long White Pride?

A few changes may be in the air then....

Prime Minister, Sir Francis Henry Dillon Belsen

National rugby team, the All Blackshirts

National anthem, Tomorrow Belongs to Mealamu

Government controlled leisure organisation, Strength Through Joy Cowley

Head of the airforce, Sid Goering

Famous physicist (and head of the militia) Ernst Rutherford

I hate Harriet Harman

There. I've said it.

I should point out, however, that I don't hate her because I'm a mysogonist, or because she's an uppity harridan with an over inflated sense of her own importance, or because she's a shameless, power-hungry self promoter, or because she hit every branch on the way down when she fell out of the ugly tree.

I hate her because she's a bootless, meddling loon who would, inconceivable as it may seem, be an even more abominable Prime Minster than Gordon Brown.

I think I probably hate Tanya Gold too.

Those who Cannes, do. Those who can't....

Voom! What was that? Another Cannes Film Festival has come and gone faster than you can say "profit participation and residuals". You missed it? Do not despair! My very good friend and film phony, Larry Normal, has just emailed me the scoop on all the comings and goings at this year's cinematic clambake....

First, a word of thanks to my cher ami, the Marquis de Cloches d'Enfer, for so kindly letting me have the run of his bedsit near the Marseilles docks, a mere two hours by bus from La Croisette. You are a toff, Monsieur, and no mistake!

Momentous tidings for reality TV fans! Shilpa Shetty, who was in town promoting her new line of onion flavoured celebrity toothpaste, is apparently to reprise the Maggie Smith role in a Guy Ritchie-directed remake of The Prime Of Miss Jean Brody. The former Mr Madonna informs me that he knew she was born for the part when she asked him, "Edinburgh, that's near Africa, isn't it?"

"She's going to be a star," a breathless Guy told me between gulps of Vodka and Red Bull, "I just know she's another Lenny McLean."

One of the great pleasures of Cannes is catching up with old friends. It was particularly gratifying, therefore, to bump into my old Feltham YOI oppo, Hugh Hudson, at the Hotel de Paris, where he was hawking his new project, Shock And Oar, in which some suspect gentlemen in knickerbockers and funny hats teach the Marsh Arabs of the Tigris Delta to "swing, swing together with their bodies between their knees." He's after Tom Cruise for the lead. I can't for the life of me imagine why.

Shock and Oar

Highlight of Saturday night was the charity Guess Kirsty Alley's Weight Today contest on Harvey Weinstein's yacht, the Saucy Sue. Thanks to Kirsty for remaining unconscious and motionless throughout, thus making the competitors' task a lot easier. She's a real sport.

Alley....squirts

Later that same night at the Da Vinci Code after lig lig, I happened upon Kate Moss, recovering after an evidently punishing game of strip Twister with Jude Law, Robin Askwith and Avril Lavigne. She was suffering with a nasty case of hayfever and seemed in some distress, so I offered her the use of my handkerchief. I was dismissed with a "Larry who?" and an imperious wave of a rolled up €100 note. Bacall would never have been so churlish. I remember, back in the day, she accepted my proffered hanky at Bogart's place once, even though I had soiled it a couple of times.

My humour improved considerably when I was beckoned into the VIP area for Mushroom Cook In Sauce vol aux vents and Vimto by none other than my old darts partner, Eve "Badger" Pollard.

Hot news, movie fans! I can exclusively reveal that her sapphic saga, Double Trouble, is to get the Jerry Bruckheimer treatment. She told me that negotiations with Hollywood's über philistine had gone remarkably well, with very few alterations to the original plot. "The only thing he wanted to change," she whispered huskily in to my ear, "was the title, which is now Come In 60 Seconds. To begin with, I was a little nervous that he'd hired Michael Bay to direct and cast Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock in the roles of Katherine and Abbie, but I guess he knows best."

Bruckheimer....come

Finally, I was profoundly shocked at the sight of Charlie Sheen rummaging in the bins round the back of the Hotel Carlton. How times have changed since his bravura performances in Hot Shots Part Deux and Loaded Weapon made him Tinsel Town's most bankable star. I had a few words with him while he was still coherent. From what I could decifer, things may be looking up for our Carlos. Larry Flynt has offered him the lead in his forthcoming adaptation of Farquhar's uproarious restoration comedy, The Constant Couple, under the working title, Constant Coupling. He is ecstatic, he tells me, at the prospect of renewing his acquaintance with his friends from the Heidi Fleiss talent agency.

Sheen.... loaded

What Charlie doesn't know (but trust Larry to get the inside story, readers!) is that Rocco Siffredi and Peter North both turned down the part, claiming the Flynt version was just too simplified and far removed from the original.

Bummer of the week.... Oliver Stone ruining the United 93 Redux screening for me by telling me what happens at the end. He also mumbled some rot about a second plane and debris spread over several miles, indicating a missile strike, but you know Oliver, right?

Show Daddy how much you care

Don't know about you, but I find Father's Day gifts among the most difficult to pick out. Every year it seems to come down to a choice between lurid socks, novelty ties or some mephitic aftershave.

So why ride this annual tumbril of frustration and indecision? Why not opt for the tried and trusted? A book, after all, is for ever.

Some suggested titles....

Frank Lee Repulsives acclaimed novel, I Was Salman Rushdie's Double, which has topped the Tehran Times best seller list for a record shattering eight years.

Dan O'Sorry's new roman, a sweeping mid 20th century epic with big writing, lots of sex, violence and pictures. The Maeve Da Binchy Goad is set in De Valera's poverty-stricken Ireland of the 1940s and tells the gruesome story of Sister Ray, a disturbed transvestite nun whose six month cattle prod murder rampage terrorises the Connemara community of Killallhippies. At 1,300 pages it will keep me in kindling right through the winter.

Alan Silly, whose latest offering, The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Phone Call, was the subject of an acrimonious bidding war between Random Violence and Macmillan & Wife.

Captain Of Horse, by Ronald Irvine-Welch, a towering Civil War historical epic, depicting heroin abuse in Fairfax's New Model Army.

Hoarse Opera, Mary Renault-Espaço's spellbinding love story, set in the ENO during the 1968 flu epidemic.

Serf Nazis Must Die. PJ Hartley illuminates the rise of fascism in rural mediaeval England as only he can.

Pelican Briefs, Ian McAddled's stultifying tale set amid the chaos of the 1948 Florida undergarment workers' strike.

Drug Czar, by Sid Rasputin, a rambling, ill thought out yarn about the Winter Palace speedball craze of 1916.

Richard Littlehope, three time Old Fiction In New Packaging Award nominee delights us with his hilarious modern romp, To Hell In A Handjob.

I've been receiving a lot of emails....

....many of them surprisingly complimentary.

Here are just some of the words and expressions my correspondents have used to describe Hogan's Goat....

Arid, passable, mainstream, banal, boilerplate, dull, humdrum, middling, bland, nowhere, moderate, ordinary, mediocre, plastic, commonplace, unexceptional, run-of-the-mill, white bread, so-so, tolerable, undistinguished....

Don't you just wish you were me, luxuriating in all this praise and adulation?

Pornstar tweet of the day #6

Today?

No contest....

Madison Mitchell, the Dorothy Parker of porntweetdom....

Marry me, you silver tongued she-devil.

The 80/20 split explained, or how you know when the fat lady has sung herself hoarse

I was in a music publisher's office on the corner of La Brea and Sunset, Los Angeles, sometime around 1997. Across the desk from me was one of the olympians of the music industry, responsible for a string of hits over four decades, who was about to prove that even immortals can, on occasion, have feet of clay.

I was in LA to visit record companies and managers in an effort to resuscitate the stalled career of one of my roster, a musican/writer/producer team who had enjoyed some stellar moments in mid to late '80s working on recordings by David Bowie, Charles & Eddie and Pet Shop Boys, but whose current trajectory was, to put it mildly, in a southerly direction. They hadn't produced a hit in three years and hadn't worked on anything other than their own, unreleased, material in nearly twelve months.

The role of the publisher is generally a shadowy one. Their job, as far as recording artists and songwriters are concerned, is to oversee royalty collection and to help develop the performer's career by arranging collaborations and placing songs on movie soundtracks and commercials. In the hands of a creative A&R executive and a talented synchronisation team, a writer's progress up pop's greasy pole can receive a substantial leg up, and my host that day was widely recognised as one of the masters of his craft. Currently, however, from where I was sitting these guys weren't exactly covering themselves in glory, and I was getting it in the neck almost daily from my client.

"So what have you got for us?" I asked.

"Got for you? In what way?"

"Oh, you know, some co-writes, production gigs, maybe a remix? Who's doing what at the moment? Anything that might suit?"

"Not really, no. Not much around. Seems to me that their appeal has become more....ah....niche based."

"Can I be honest here? Your heart doesn't seem to be in this."

"How so?"

"Well, I suppose it's got something to do with the fact that you never return my calls and I haven't spoken to you for a year."

"Look, it's like this...."

I could feel the kicker approaching.

"The deal is 80/20, right?"

"Right...."

"Well that means that you do eighty per cent of the work and we do twenty."

I wondered if I would have the brass neck to use the same argument next time my client phoned for another whinge.

Probably not, which goes a long way towards explaining why the guy sitting opposite me that day was a multi millionaire and I wasn't.

Pornstar tweet of the day #5

I have detected a rather disturbing trend, namely a recent upsurge in the number of tweets about guns from Fort Wayne, IN. porn goddess, Bree Olson.

Viz....

And....

Which got me wondering if this is a wholesome pastime for a pretty young pornstar, and loaded me up with the more than slightly arousing mind movie of Bree atop a Marine Corps Hummer, blazing away with an M2 .50 cal, Olson Twins (no, not those Olson Twins) registering nine on the Richter scale.

A tonic for the troops, I'm sure you'll agree.

Her post of the day, however, reveals a potentially more sinister side to her character....

Are you sure that's wise, Bree? I mean, live and let live, eh?

We need more of this sort of thing

If you only ever buy one porno in your entire existence on this goodly frame we call The Earth, buy this one....

The Guide to Making Fuck.

And Part II.

In fact, buy it even if you hate porn, are blind, or have altzheimers with complications.

This is a porn comedy where they remembered to bring the funny.

That cheque had better be in the post, Mr Buckton. I know people with heavy ordinance.

Pornstar tweet of the day #4

You know the feeling. In fulfillment of a long held ambition, you have finally landed your first booking as male pornstar. To add a liberal coat of icing to the cake, your partner in your small screen hide the cannoli debut is the toothsome and generally chubby-inducing Tori Black.

What can possibly go wrong? Well, if you're a certain James Franko (not to be confused, we hope, with James Franco), quite a lot, apparently....

Ouch! Not a good start. I wonder would she have slapped the offending appendage itself or merely its owner?

But I digress....

Ah, that James Franko....

Yeeeees....

Well quite....

Undoubtedly. Dedication above and beyond. So it was bad, then?

What about the little blue pill? Was that considered?

Quite right. Keep the juicers out of porn, I say....

Yep. We've all been there, love....

Go on....

Rest assured, Tori, fucking you good is definitely something I'll be bearing in mind. However, were such an opportunity ever to come to pass, I suspect the memory of the vituperation above might put me off my stroke a tad.

I spent literaly minutes scouring the internet for information on the unfortunate Mr Franko, but nothing was, as it were, forthcoming.

Probably best for all concerned if it stays that way.

I was going Kayden Kross Kold Turkey....

But just in the nick of time....

Am I alone in finding her writing even more stimulating than her more more....erm....prominent attributes?

This girl can make a piece about fucking read like TS fucking Eliot.

That is all.

Pornstar tweet of the day #3

OK, look, I'm not normally given to schadenfreude, nor am I one to profit from the misfortunes of others, but I have to admit to a slight tingle of anticipation, the merest hint of increased activity in the salivary glands when I came across this tweet from our intrepid globetrotter, Jenna Haze yesterday....

Was a waiting world about to vicariously experience yet another adrenalin fuelled emotional roller coaster ride accompanying Jenna on her drive to The Plymouth of the West?

One dedicated follower just couldn't endure the tension any longer....

Hope springs eternal in the blogger's breast as the minutes tick slowly by. Maybe I'm onto something....

The minutes turn to hours....

And then, much, much later....

Well, that's four hours of my life I'll never get back.

Pornstar tweet of the day #2

Now this is what I call dedication above and beyond.

Twitter, since its inception in 2006, has been described as many things. To some, it is a web-based shrine to narcissism, to others an essential marketing tool, to others a place to share intimate thoughts that, in the real world, they would find difficult to articulate, to others a place where they can just keep up to date with friends.

But to Jenaveve Jolie....

It should be emphasised that the above is the largest sample of Jenaveve's recent social networking activities that I could fit on a single screencap. To get a true feel for the sheer scale of her enthusiasm for the overworked sales pitch, I refer you to the link above.

Other people might call it spam, but I call it selfless dedication to the people that make this business we call....

Nah, it's fuckin' spam.

My suspicion is that this is the work of a particularly zealous young PR intern. But you never know.

Either way, up your game, love.

Pornstar tweet of the day #1

Welcome, dear reader, to the first in what will surely become a landmark in human cultural history.

Pornstar Tweet of the Day starts today, with the gripping, edge of the seat tale of Jenna Haze's return flight on US Airways from El Paso, TX via Phoenix, AZ to Los Angeles.

It all starts quite normally. Somewhere in West Texas, an everyday all American gal from Fullerton, CA, is messaging her friends and fans from an airport departure lounge....

Relaxed, at ease with the world....

From her elegant coiffure to her subtly tinted toenails, the very model of the cool, sophisticated, modern LA woman....

But wait! What's this?

A hail of virtual invective is launched into cyberspace....

Understandably, our heroine is getting a little agitated....

Surely things can't get any worse....

Oh. It appears I may have been a little over optimistic....

Is that a light we see at the end of the tunnel?

Or an oncoming train?

Despair is beginning to set in....

Sorry, love, got to put you straight here. As the mighty George Carlin said, 50% 0f prayers offered up to God get answered, exactly the same number as those offered to the tooth fairy, leprechauns or Ryder Haggard's Gorilla God. What conclusion do you think we should draw from this?

Anyway....to continue....this time, finally, it would seem the ordeal may be reaching some sort of conclusion....

But not before another telling barb from Jenna's acid keypad....

The mood lifts a fraction further. The fog begins to clear. The first hint of dawn is almost imperceptibly lightening the horizon....

Now all we can do is wait.

Legions of fans, friends and onlookers, plams sweating, pulses racing, fingernails gnawed down to the quick, cross every digit and stare at their screens in rapt anticipation. Could there be yet another twist in this serpentine adventure?

The tension is unbearable. It is reaching breaking point. All over the planet, parents hush their children, Catholic grandmothers forget their rosaries, the Taliban calls a temporary ceasefire in Afghanistan....

Until....

The spontaneous global outburst of unconfined joy is a sight to be seen! Millions take to the streets, chanting and singing, newsflashes appear on television, the Archbishop of Canterbury declares a day of thanksgiving throughout the Anglican Communion, the Taliban rejoin their task of planting IEDs in roadsides and hidden gullies.

Only one, solitary, dissenting voice is heard, dimly, amid the clamour....

The night before the morning after

I am jolted awake by the sound of the driver’s disembodied voice over the public address.

“Customers….advised that we are….Morden station….terminates here.” His voice reeks of the indifference of the bored and thwarted, suggesting to me that he once had big plans for his future, and that sitting eight hours a day staring down a tunnel as it hurtled relentlessly towards him was not part of them.

I shake my head vigorously and attempt to blink away the fog. It doesn’t have the desired effect, the precise opposite in fact, as that familiar stabbing pain in my frontal lobe prompts a half-hearted but fruitless attempt to dredge up some vestigial memory of last night.

Nothing. Try later.

Back in the here and now, I curse loudly, “Cunting Morden again,” and deliver myself a mild rebuke, flashing on the castigating glare I would receive from Georgia were I to utter such a profanity in her presence. Not for the first time I have passed unconscious through my stop, Stockwell, and must cross over to the other platform to head north again.

The need to get home and spend the rest of the day, and in all probability the next, horizontal in my bedroom with the curtains closed, is tempered by a craving for something, anything, that will bring even temporary relief from my discomfort.

“Coffee. Coffee will help. Coffee and Advil,” I lie to myself.

The train clatters and screeches to a halt, the brakes giving off that familiar almost-but-not-quite coffee smell that causes my gorge to rise uncontrollably. I just make it up the stairs and into the Photo-Me booth in the ticket hall before my protesting gut attempts to expel whatever it is that is offending it this time. Of course, there’s nothing to bring up. It’s a dry heave with just a hint of bile stinging the back of my throat. The retching, punctuated by uncontrollable bouts of coughing, continues for several minutes. I hear a group of teenage girls giggling as they walk past, and stare at myself in the mirror. I'm horrified. It occurs to me that I might just be reduced to what they think I am. I shake my head again, hard. It hurts.

Having got the retching more or less under control, and with what feels like a large deposit of coarse building sand on the underside of my eyeballs, I emerge, blinking, into the watery South London sunlight. For a minute or two I scan the street for a taxi. There are two chances of finding a taxi at the arse end of the Northern Line at ten-o-clock on a Sunday morning, none and zero. Cursing, I resign myself to waiting for a bus. Fortunately, minutes later I’m huddled into a ball of nausea and self pity on the top deck of the 201 to Tulse Hill.

As the bus shudders its way through the Sunday traffic, I return to scouring my mind’s eye for some small event that might spark a dim recollection of last night’s events. When at last it comes to me, it arrives at first in a blur of chaotic images. Slowly it rearranges itself into some sort of order….

It was around eight. I’d met my brother and his friend, Nick, in the Rosemary Branch, a fairly decent pub across the road from Supersonic’s place in Shoreditch. Now Supersonic was a one off, a full time, top of the range section eight who moonlighted as a struggling singer-songwriter when he wasn’t doing ketamine, trashing bars, sleeping in cemeteries or getting arrested. I’d got him a publishing deal about six months earlier but London’s showbiz community were mystifyingly reluctant to offer him the record deal that his undoubted talent warranted.Tonight was Supersonic’s birthday bash. It was to be held in his loft.

Of course, to most of us the word loft conjures up glossy images of ultra modern, high windowed, open plan living spaces with polished oak floors, bare brickwork, designer kitchens with Gaggia espresso machines, Philippe Starck bathrooms and half naked hardbodies draped elegantly over hand crafted chesterfields. Supersonic’s gaff had the bare brickwork but that was where the similarity ended. The place he called home was a former storage area above an old metal works on the banks of the Regent’s Canal. It was now a sweatshop owned by Supersonic's landlord, a rather dubious first generation Bangladeshi immigrant. It was accessible only by climbing a steel staircase and clattering along a rusty walkway to his permanently padlocked door. I'd told my companions earlier in the evening about the time I arrived there for a band rehearsal one freezing January evening to find Supersonic and the band breaking up the few sticks of furniture he had in the place to fuel a roaring blaze in the fireplace. So that was Supersonic. And this was his night.

We’d been invited for nine thirty but nobody appeared to be home when we rocked up at 10.00, so we decided to squeeze in a couple more pints at the Rosemary Branch while we waited. Last orders came and went, then closing time, and we headed back over the road for another try. This time the party was in full swing. Surfin’ Bird was belting out of a Fender speaker in the corner, and a rainbow nation of musos, low lifers, rastas, goths, a couple of well known Brit Art types, a journalist I knew pretty well from Select and sprinkling of pony tails from the majors we scattered around the room, chatting or nodding furiously to the beat.

We’d barely got through the door when a Daily Star Stunna and occasional pornstar of my acquaintance, all got up in a rented French maid’s outfit, tottered over to us on her five inch heels, planted a slightly over enthusiastic kiss on my mouth and presented an aluminium tray on which were chopped out a dozen or so lines of light brown powder.

“Fuck’s that?” queried Nick.

“Molly,” the Stunna informed him. “Try some. It’s blinding!”

“Molly?”

“Pure MDMA,” I rejoined. “Never tried it myself.”

It should be pointed out at this stage that I'd left home that evening with Georgia having extracted a solemn promise from me to be home, reasonably lucid, no later than one AM, as we were invited to Sunday lunch with one of her colleagues from the acupuncture clinic, but temptation and I have always been uneasy bedfellows.

“Fuck it. I’m in,” I said, took the proffered Macdonalds straw and hoovered up a line. After a few moments’ hesitation, my brother and Nick followed suit. The Stunna wobbled away. “Happy rolling!” she called over her shoulder.

Cut to the three of us in a circle, grinning like startled chimps and dancing like bastards. I took a glimpse at my watch. It was 3.45 AM. The intervening hours just hadn't happened.

My next conscious thought was mild bewilderment that I appeared to have been beamed up to a sofa on Supersonic’s self-built mezzanine-cum-bedroom. Nick was passed out on my left, my brother was nowhere to be seen and on my right, the Stunna was nibbling my ear, whispering explicit inducements and expertly undoing my fly. I glanced at my watch again. It was ten to eight.

It was only once the Stunna had my pleasingly responsive dick in her mouth that I realised we were not alone. In fact there were half a dozen others, including Supersonic and a video director I vaguely knew, arranged in a circle, passing round a home made crack pipe. Another first for me on a night/day of firsts; I took the Coke can and lighter when offered, said “fuck it” again, sparked up, and inhaled.

I’d heard all kinds of stories about crack; that in the first flush of a relationship with the drug it was the best buzz you could get, that it was dangerously, instantly addictive, that it was the destroyer of lives.... My first and only dalliance with the rock would suggest that none of the above is true. In fact, the only discernible event was the slow but relentless metamorphosis of my dick from a state of alert preparedness, to something with the size and reproductive abilities of a lettuce leaf after a week at the bottom of the fridge. A word to the wise; if you want to get laid, Molly’s your girl, but pass on the rock.

My manhood chastened and put safely away for another day after some pretty indignant and colourful language from the Stunna, I was about to take my leave of the assembled gathering when Nick stirred beside me, groaned and opened one eye.

“Time is it?”

“About eight.”

“Fuck. Got football at nine on the Marshes.”

“You’ve had that, pal. Try standing up.”

He did so, managed to rise to the semi vertical, and subsided back onto the sofa. In seconds he was away with the fairies again.

Home at last, with the coffee percolating and the bacon sizzling in the pan – bacon sandwiches are the only true hangover cure as any seasoned carouser knows – I’m in the middle of negotiating my way through the minefield that is a pissed off Georgia, when the phone rings. It’s my brother.

“Mate, you won’t believe what happened to me.”

“What?”

“Well, I remember the three of us in a circle dancing to some drum and bass tune….then, well, it’s all bit blank really after that, until I came round in some alley near Old Street, covered in anti-climb paint.”

**********************

Three weeks pass. My brother, friend Nick and I are in the Water Rats to see an unsigned band whose demo I’ve taken a bit of a shine to. Waiting for the show to start, we’re standing at the bar having a boys’ bullshit session about nothing in particular. The customary toilet circuit soundtrack of indie rock peppered with the occasional club tune is an unremarked hum in the background. In an instant we are all staring at each other, stupefied. As the realization dawns that we are all sharing the same unarticulated memory, the stupefaction dissolves into uncontrollable paroxysms of laughter.

“It’s that fucking drum and bass tune!” blurts Nick.

We start dancing again. Like bastards.

Ohhhh Kayden!

She's funny, she's bright, she's sexy as all giddy up, and boy, can she write? She's the immortal Kayden Kross....

That 3AM Girls party A-Z in full

A is for ASBO

B is for bandwagon

C is for can't see what the fuss is about

D is for does anyone care?

E is for ephemeral

F is for freeloader

G is for gatecrasher

H is for hype

I is for irrelevant distraction

K is for Kaká's incarcerated church leaders

J is for June can't come soon enough

L is for ligger

M is for microceleb

N is for not getting in

O is for opening of an envelope

P is for papparazzo's paradise

Q is for quiet night in

R is for rooney's metatarsal

S is for slow news day

T is for tedium

U is for unseemly scramble for the buffet

V is for vol au vent

W is for watching paint dry

X is for xanax

Z is for zzzzzz

Jonty

I’m a charitable soul but, honestly, Jonty is a fat idiot.

He’s that special kind of idiot, filled with a sense of his own importance, an example for all to follow of how to fall upwards in the music business.

Jonty has built his career out of three things; his total inability to recognize a decent tune, his uncanny facility for always being the second to pick up on the latest trend and his long-standing professional relationship with Clyde Brown, his managing director. Jonty has something Clyde cannot do without. Jonty has been procuring the purest cocaine Colombia has to offer for Clyde since the mid 80s.

Did I mention that Jonty is fat? He is known throughout the business as Fat Jonty. He also possesses that odd sort of grace that some fat people have. Many fat people lumber. Jonty doesn’t. He kind of floats. Fat, Floating Jonty the Idiot.

So I’m sitting on a puce coloured sofa in the A&R reception area, pretending to flick through last week’s Billboard, while in reality being furtively impressed by the Michelin-like charms of Jonty's assistant. She did actually tell me her name when she met me at the elevator but, as it was one of those desultory, music business, no eye contact introductions, it has slipped my mind. Jade or something. I am entertaining the thought that I might ask her out but my reverie is curtailed by a familiar wheezing sound and twenty five a day hack announcing Jonty’s arrival.

It’s early for Jonty, not quite noon. Jonty is somewhat the worse for wear. His hair is a train wreck, he has two days worth of reluctant stubble and his eyes have the filmy, egg white look that they have had virtually every morning of his life since 1975.

“Mate. Moment. Bog,” he manages to exhale before disappearing, and I return to my furtive ogling of what’s-her-names rack.

Two minutes later he emerges from the bathroom, a man transformed. Head erect, stride purposeful (if a little....erm....floaty), eyes glittering like the Hope Diamond, jaw going like a jackhammer on a poor, unfortunate piece of Juicy Fruit and a tell tale white speck nestling treacherously beneath his left nostril.

“Mate! How’s it going?” He booms. He proffers a clammy palm which is impossible to grasp firmly.

“Mustn’t grumble, I suppose.”

“Come on in. Take a seat.”

“Cheers.”

His office is like FAO Schwarz after an especially violent bout of all in children's wrestling. A selection of plastic clockwork dinosaurs, water pistols, gumball dispensers and Hotweels cars adorn his desk. Every inch of wall space is taken up by Disney posters and 1970s Hot Hits album covers.

“So what can I do you for?”

I’m quietly pleased with my ability to hide my disgust at his use of such a corny expression, less so with his hopelessly inadequate attention span.

“Actually, mate, I think it you who called me. Probably that Slime Aesthete & The Truckers demo I sent round last week.”

“Who?”

“Slime Aesthete &.......”

“Yeah, that’ll be it. Hang on. It’s here somewhere.” He delves into his Alternative Tentacles record bag. “Somewhere....”

Fortunately I have 20 tapes in my own bag. I toss one across his desk, which he slips into the B&O, flicks the remote and heaves his Converses up onto the corner of the desk. After a few bars of the intro he sniffs loudly, hawks up what is probably the only solid matter to have passed through his aesophagus (in either direction) in the previous 18 hours, swallows it, leans over to his left, opens a drawer in his filing cabinet and withdraws a mail order catalogue, which he proceeds to leaf through while nodding his head just a fraction behind the backbeat.

A few minutes pass with no perceptible reaction on Jonty's part to my latest next big thing. We're just getting into the middle eight, a multi-layered, multi-tracked bliss out of which David Gilmour and Roger Waters would not have been ashamed, when Jonty tears his gaze from the gold necklace he has been admiring in the catalogue and looks across the desk at me. His stare alights on a box fresh pair of John Lobb battle boots that I am wearing in.

He looks away, does a double take, grabs the remote, knocking a complaining Buzz Lightyear to the floor in the process, kills the sound and, wild eyed, asks....

"WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE SHOES?"

There seems to be little purpose in continuing the meeting.

Jonty mumbles something semi audible about "demo time" and "lunch" (Jonty hasn't had lunch since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon and the Pistols hit number one in Jubilee Week, so that's right out) but we both know it's over.

Fat, Floating, Deaf Jonty the Idiot.

I've seen things....

....you people wouldn't believe.

Attack ships off the shoulder of....

Nah....

Rewind....

Reboot....

I've decided, in a moment of indescribable ennui and for want of something better to do, to commit my memoirs to a permanent (is anything permanent?) corner of cyberspace.

They will include, in no particular chronological order, colourful characters and bizarre events that have cropped up in my life, which has lurched crazily from health to sickness, feast to famine, love to hate (and back again), a half-century roller coaster ride, none of which I would have missed for a second.

I have worked (or kept up a pretty solid pretence of doing so) in the music industry, public relations, the military, new technology, gamekeeping, construction....I have had a speaking part in a feature film (straight to DVD, naturally).

Names, as the saying goes, have been changed to protect the guilty.

Forward, upward....