Liverpool Echo - Steve Regan's Last Resort

What the hell's gone wrong with women?

2009-07-03T11:59:55Z

I'VE only been on Facebook for a few weeks - and already I'm thinking of having a cull of my female "friends" because some of them are being so very dull. Let me explain...

On the Facebook home page where one's "friends" post their "status" i.e. statements of how they are feeling or what they are doing, so many of the thoughts expressed are mind-numingly banal.

And "yes" those are mainly the ones from women "friends" I've somehow acquired.

]]> Sorry, but it is women and not the men who gush about what they are cooking for dinner, how hot the weather is, how they are thinking of certain friends, how they got stung by nettles on a walk, how they enjoyed this film or other. Zzzzzzz.

Honestly, what's going wrong with women these days? They used to so interesting. In the 1970s and '80s feminism shook them up, made them say challenging and funny things, but now so many women are becoming girlie again.

I was proud to know some great feminist women in the late 1970s and 1980s. Like many men at the time, I considered myself a feminist. I still do, which is why I'm worried about what's happening to women now.

It's tempting to blame moronic TV shows such as Sex And the City and Desperate Housewives, celebrity magazines and the evil cosmetics and fashion industries for making women so dull, so I will.

C'mon girls! There's got to be more to life than shoes and paying over the odds to have your hair tortured.

Women don't even seem to make good music any more. Look at Girls Aloud - what lightweight creatures. They try so hard to be sexy, and fail.

And when I see women singer-songwriters on the live circuit in Merseyside, blimey, it's clear for them there are only three themes guiding women's songs.

(1) My man is so awful
(2) My man doesn't understand me
(3) Errr, that's it!

Women poets, I must say, usually (though not always!) rise above that man-bashing and feeling sorry for themselves "creative" mindset.

Anyway, In an attempted parody of the type of thing posted by women on Facebook I recently posted the following "status"...

"Steve Regan has just had a buttered cream cracker. And me ankle's itchy. Errrrr, isn't that the sort of vapidity you're supposed to post on here? C'mon! I'm new to this..."

It got about seven comments in response, and no-one took umbrage, which is good.

But I'm still gonna have a cull of my Facebook friends. Some people just aren't cool enough to be in my gang.

My male friends, in the main, will survive the cull, though one or two of them are pushing their luck by using the site to promote commercial enterprises - eeuwgh, how vulgar!

Excuse the cliché, but ...

2009-07-01T15:27:07Z

"Stop the World - I Want to Get Off" is a cliché, I must admit, and also the name of one of those hideous, middlebrow stage musicals.

But right now that expression sums up exactly how I feel. Our modern world of information overload and false imperatives is just ... too much. So tiring and BORING!

Please, you extraterrestrials, land here, and change things!

Otherwise, take me away from Earth and let me try living on your world.

The rubbishy cult of Michael Jackson

2009-06-27T13:18:50Z

WHEN the story of Jackson's death broke on Thursday evening (UK time), the response of the mainstream media was depressingly predictable...being mainly hype.

"The King of Pop is dead! Quick, somebody get Paul Gambaccini to crap on and on about it. Yeah, and what about that eccentric fork-bender, Uri Geller, wasn't he a mate of Wacko's? Let's have him on, gushing incoherently."

Then there's Madonna ... she can't stop crying. Oh, Purrr-lease!!

]]> Even those rent-a-quote political pygmies, Gordon Brown and 'Dave' Cameron felt the need to lob in their twopenn'orth.

And so it went on. The once reliable BBC Radio 4 Today programme provided sickeningly reverential coverage. Jacko's 'genius' was compared to that of Mozart and Beethoven. How stupid!

Sky News' superficial 'Click' website-oriented news show was desperate to whip up reaction with a two-way interview with a singularly inarticulate paparazzi picture agency boss.

At least the pap guy gave the game away - rightly suggesting that Jackson wasn't as hot, even in the trashy LA celebrity stakes, as he once might have been.

Oh dear, that wasn't at all what the excitable Sky News wanted to hear.

The satellite channel was still endlessly recycling stale speculatation about the pop star by Sunday morning. It sent a tired and washed-out looking Kay Burley to do the usual reading of floral tributes and interviews with showbiz nonentities. Zzzzzzzzz.

And the fluffy news bunnies presenting BBC News 24 didn't fare any better. They seemed to be in a mild panic about the death - having to roll with a showbiz story; how very vulgar!

The BBC News 24 autocue-readers are clearly uncomfortable when they can't do their usual stuff of introducing safe package reports about Westminster village politics, poverty overseas, how horrid war is, feminism, racial harmony projects etc. plus all those toffee-nosed discussions about the real news gathered by genuine journalists who, of course, work for newspapers!

Let me tell the media wallies a basic truth. Not everybody on the planet was a Michael Jackson fan. Most people, including myself, didn't care much at all for his music.

Apart from one very good early solo album, 'Off the Wall' - produced by Quincy Jones and including the brilliant song 'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' - much of Jackson's musical output was mediocre ... or worse.

Now, I don't want to speak ill of him so soon after his death. Indeed, I will be praying that his soul can now find the repose that eluded him during his troubled life.

But Jackson's music was aimed at his not-terribly-intelligent and rather naïve fans, so it was understandably ropey - lyrically at any rate.

And I remember being appalled by his performance at the 1996 Brit Awards of the overblown dirge, 'Earth Song'.

Dressed in Christ-like robes and surrounded by worshippers, Jacko warbled thus...
"What about nature's worth (Ooo,ooo) / It's our planet's womb (What about us) / What about animals (What about it) /We've turned kingdoms to dust (What about us) /What about elephants (What about us) /Have we lost their trust (What about us)"...etc etc.

The song is total b***ocks!

But the one immensely pleasing thing to come out of that appearance was a successful protest at Jackson's pretentiousness by Jarvis Cocker, frontman of the British indie band Pulp, who climbed on stage and, literally, showed his arse!

There are lots of criticisms to be levelled against Jackson - as a man and as a parent, but I don't want to go into those in any detail just now.

The singer clearly wasn't comfortable with himself or his appearance; and maybe not even with his racial identity,All of that must have been hard for him to bear.

Was it self-loathing that made him try to turn himself into a white man, or perhaps, more accurately, a disturbing parody of a white woman?

He certainly looked a lot like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in his final years.

Jackson had a talent for showmanship, without a doubt, though it was at the coarser end of the performance art spectrum. All that crotch-grabbing during the dance routines - urgh!

He wasn't the first and won't be the last person to be ruined by the grotesque pressures of show business.

And towards the end of his life, he was a sort of zombie - such as those portrayed in his 'Thriller' video.

May he rest in the peace that he never found in life.

The naffness of bank holiday Wirral!

2009-05-26T16:44:41Z

ME and Posh Boots always intend to make the most of our long bank holiday weekends - by going away.
But we usually end up staying in Wirral ... with its generic blandness, vile pub "restaurants" and unexciting bars.
The weekend just gone hacked me off for a variety of reasons.
First, Sunday night's Britian's Got Talent disgusted me when the 10- year-old girl singer Natalie Okri was put through the humiliation of being voted out of the competition. The poor wee thing was reduced to tears. Read more abiout what I think about all that in my Sam Brady blog.
Then being around and about in Wirral - and in Chester - and studying the faces of people made me reailse that we are becoming a very unhappy nation. So many people now look utterly beaten and in many cases, mentally ill. I have written a poem about that, which you can read on my poetry blog.
But actually, the weekend started off well, entertaining, exciting even...

]]> We went to Hell's Waiting Room, New Brighton, late on Friday and it was rocking with music... just like the old days!
In fact, it was better than the old days. There was this guy called Normanton (no-one gets their real name in this blog, remember!) playing a mean guitar.
Haven't seen him in there often but it turns out he's married to Lulu, a local food technician and New Brighton character.
Food technician, eh? Can't be much demand for her skills in our blessed peninsula - judging by the p***poor standard of restaurants around these parts (more of that later).
Lulu and Normanton had a young friend with them - a blond lad known as The Milky Bar Kid. He displayed a fine talent for swing ballads. Oh, it was all very jolly. Even Mr Craggs, the landlord of HWR, appeared to be enjoying himself.
On Saturday afternoon I planned nothing more energetic than laying on the long black leather sofa in my lounge in New Brighton and reading a novel called Portnoy's Complaint (don't bother getting it, because although it's famous, it's not very good).
However, my relaxation was interrupted by a phone call from my beloved Posh Boots. She had fainted in a café while out shopping with her mum in Birkenhead.
Quick as I could I drove to Birkenhead to pick her up, the poor thing. She looked pale and strained and was in no fit state to drive home.
So I drove her car, with her and her mum in it, back home then walked into Birkenhead from Wallasey to retrieve my own car. Great fun - NOT! - the walking, that is.
On Sunday, I had a meeting at the very nice Home café at the Woodside ferry terminal in Birkenhead with John Gorman (ex member of The Scaffold) and several poets. We are setting up WAPS (the Wirral Alliance of Poetry Societies) to raise the profile of poetry locally.
My own group, the Bards of New Brighton is signing up to the new alliance, as are the two poetry groups based in Birkenhead.
As I said, the café is very nice, tasteful, with good food. Wish I could be equally complimentary about the Mersey Ferries - but as everyone knows, the ferries are these days a most inadequate and crap service.
Monday was entertaining for all the wrong reasons. We had decided to go out and enjoy the fine weather and get a nice pub lunch, forgetting that Wirral doesn't really do "nice pub lunches".
It does do pretentious, over-priced restaurant lunches and nasty greasy, over-priced pub lunches, but not ones that can accurately be described as nice.
We went off for a drive into what are laughably called the "posh" parts of Wirral. First call was a red sandstone pub called the Mirby Ill - or summat like that. From a distance it looked promising, a red sandstone building that advertised tapas, among other things.
Once inside, however, I went off the place. There was an air of chaos and half-heartedness, and through a hatch I spotted a sweaty, hefty lass in the kitchen - the chef apparently.
We were hungry but we didn't fancy eating straight away, so we ordered (over-priced) drinks and sat outside. Dear me! The garden was unkempt, grass to nearly knee level in parts, no ashtrays, an overflowing litter bin.
We saw some lamb burgers being fetched out of the kitchen and didn't like the look of the accompanying chips - bright orange - so we supped up and drove off in search of grub at our next pub...
.... which was called the Farmer's Arse. A huge place, it offered a very basic barbeque outside, operated by two teenage boys. No thanks... not quite good enough for me and Posh Boots.
We would have stayed for a drink but there was only one hassled young slip of a girl behind the bar and we could not be bothered queuing in such a chavvy pub.
Plus there was face-painting for children going on - urgh! Do I not like that! I don't like seeing children in pubs at all. Period. Kids should be at home playing with mud in the garden on bank holidays, or indoors crayoning.
We finally ended up, in desperation, in The Idle Loafer in Thurstaton... apparently a VERY posh village. This was equally naff, but I was so hungry I did partake of its ghastly fry-by-numbers bar menu.
I had something called Smothered Chicken - which was a small breast of chicken with a bit of bacon and cheese on it. It came with catering pack chips and a tiny bit of green veg on the side - and it cost more than eight quid! How awful - it should have cost no more than three quid.
I was dismayed to see this pub also had face-painting going on, and kids running wild everywhere. There was also a very moronic outside disco, played way too loud, which featured such cheesy rubbish as 'Reach For The Stars' by S Club Seven.
Naffness piled upon naffness in a supposedly "posh" part of Wirral.
I really wish we'd gone away for the weekend, like my friends Dr Gyggle and Litherland Lou did.
They went to Torquay and had a ball.
We stayed in Wirral and were forced to reflect on how awful life in our country has become.

Summat a bit different ... and thanks to Billy Butler

2009-05-09T12:39:28Z

MY pals Dicky Dunnit and Raven Smokieyes (pictured) are going to share their feelings of LURRRVVE for each other at the next Bards of New Brighton poets' and songwriters' evening.

Made of marzipan these newlyweds might be ... but they have soul.

Come join us Bards at our session on Monday 11 May, 8pm start, at the Magazine pub, Magazine Brow, New Brighton CH45 1HP.

]]> If you have soul and want to share it, welcome. Come dazzle us with your poetry and feel the benediction of Magic Realism that pervades all of New Brighton.

When the poetry finishes at about 11pm some of us dart off to the nearby baroque late bar, Tallulah's lounge overlooking the Marine Lake and Fort Perch Rock.

Poets and songwriters are most welcome to come to the Bards and perform. Warning: we are not like other poetry groups!

New Brighton, eh? It's, well, it's like this...

The last resort and now I'm here.

I don't mind there isn't a pier,

That the place has gone somewhat queer.

And there's no tower.

Because where Mersey meets the sea,

Is still a much-loved place for me.

The lure of New Brighton you see,

Has such strange power.

- Thanks to the great Billy Butler for inviting me on to his BBC Radio Merseyside show on the day (Tue 5 May) when it was broadcast live from the Floral Pavilion, New Brighton.

I read three of my poems on the show, and have had most feedback (really quite a lot!) to this one called Backstreets of the Heart. It's about growing up in a redbrick terraced house.

Here it is ...

Terraced houses, home and hearth,
They used to limit my ambitions;
Now they sharpen my horizons,
Make me love that I belonged
To something so good.
Gladly will I dwell among them still.

Each day I see back yard walls
From my kitchen window,
And there the cats patrol
Like restless, homesick legionaries
On the ramparts of Chester
Two thousand years ago.

Dirty red bricks in the westering sun;
God has provided no beauty quite like them.
Of the earth, crafted by men, anointed by fire,
Their power binds me to a culture
That some would throw away. Not me.

For millions of us, the unloved,
The beloved, northern English,
Red-brick terraced homes
Are sacred to our memories.

Even in their boarded up,
Wrecked, disrespected senescence
The ghosts of past glories
Dance down drug-raddled alleys.

These were ...
These are ...
The backstreets of our hearts,
The bedrock of our identity.

Anyone wondering about the picture on this post? It features wee figurines atop a wesding cake. I took the photo though the window of a cake show in Chester a couple of weeks ago.

If I hear one more pot-bellied halfwit belting out 'Mustang Sally' ...

2009-04-19T22:25:49Z

WE HAD a rollicking good night at the Bards of New Brighton - our poetry group, which is celebrating two years of existence.

As entertainment our poetry performance sure beats the live music scene in Wallasey and the wider Wirral - urghhh, so many rancid bands banging out mouldy old covers!

If I have to listen to one more pot-bellied halfwit screeching his way through 'Mustang Sally' in a fake American accent I'll be in danger of storming off home and battering my budgie.

]]> Something has to take the blame and suffer the punishment for all this musical torture locally.

The Bards are an independent community cultural group -one of the few in our peninsula that doesn't receive a subsidy from the 'Death Star' that is Wirral Council.

I wouldn't have it any other way. You take money from the council - you kiss artistic integrity goodbye.

As founder and MC of the Bards, it was up to me to open our second anniversary proceedings on Easter Monday, 13 April, at the Magazine pub, with 'Brave Little Poets' - my tribute to all versifiers.

Here's the last verse of it...

"Stay with us laudable laureate,
You're hottest debate's own thermostat;
Deepest thoughts you enunciate;
You're popular culture's counterweight.
You have the power to liberate."

There were two newbies present on the night - Derek and Bernie - performing their stuff for the first time. Well done, lads, and Derek got a good few laughs with his account of courtship and sexual frustration in the 1950s.

Pete Crompton - at the Bards for the first time - drew gasps of admiration with his eloquent evocation of a stay in a mental hospital, which included the plea "don't be so mean with the Dopamine" and that memorable phrase about a "nurses' bitch bark'".

Later, Pete had 'em laughing out loud with his poem about all the things in life that wind him up.

The atheist, libertarian poet Malpoet had penned a piece specifically about the Bards, referencing my promise that there would be cake and a "coachload of fashion models from Rock Ferry" to help us celebrate our two years of monthly sessions.

Here's part of what Malpoet performed...
"I cast aside the tainted cake
disdain the tarty bait.
The rapier pen of godlessness
writes dagger pointed verse
Malpoet proud knows what is what
and slays the popish plot."

There were ripostes of a sort from our splendid Roman Catholic poets, regulars Kevin and Alex, and a brilliant performance in Middle English from regular Tim Kingham, a keeper of the Cheshire culture and conscience.

Meanwhile, our Celtic firecracker Ieuan Cilgwri made a welcome return, with new material - including "Wild Magic", a moving lament to a childhood friendship and what happened later to those special pals, including the one who descended into (I think) drug abuse.

John Gorman and Sue were back at the Bards, and on fizzing form with a comedic two-header that was all knowing innocence but nevertheless also included material that had people smirking saucily.

John G (a member of The Scaffold in the 1960s and a regular face of TV show Tiswas) appealed for local poets to attend and recite at the Secret Gardens open day in Oxton Village (the posh bit - the ONLY posh bit - of Birkenhead) on Sunday 10 May.

Said John: "It would be a blow for poetry to flood the gardens with as many Secret Poets as can be mustered."

If you would like to perform at the Oxton Secret Gardens then please let John know ASAP. His email is johnhgorman@ntlworld.com

I've run out of steam now with my review of the Bards. But thanks must also be recorded to Frankie, Theresa, Martin, Corky, Al, Scubadiver and everyone else who entertained / inspired us. It was a big meeting, the room was full; I can't remember everyone.

But I must finish with a special thanks to a young lad called John who read us a poignant poem about his grandmother that left most of the Bards moist-eyed by the end.

If you'd like to experience the Bards, either as a listener or reading your poems, please do come along to a meeting. We are a friendly and supportive bunch and admission is free.

We meet on the second Monday of evcery month in the back room of the spendid Magazine pub, New Brighton, starting at 8pm. The next meeting is on 11 May.

Big Brother's a Bizzie - and he's watching YOU!

2009-04-06T13:06:22Z

I WAS annoyed to see the anti-fun squad of Merseyside Police parked in one of their lurid spy-camera vans just outside the city centre yesterday (Sunday April 5).
A pal and I had been walking back to Lime Street station from Goodison when we spotted the ugly thing.
The bizzies' day-glo maria was emblazoned with the offensive, sinister and depressing words Caught on Camera and Anti-Social Behaviour Task Force.

]]> Why do such things bother me? Well, I think a society that tolerates cops routinely spying on us as we go about our leisure - watching football or having a few bevvies at the weekend - has lost its appetitie for freedom.
Many times I've been out for a few late drinks in New Brighton and been appalled to see the heavy-handed presence of cops and their spy cameras.
This is exactly the sort of think the great George Orwell warned us about in his prophetic novel "1984". Big Brother is already on our backs.
How would the bizzies like it if I followed them around when they were off duty, filming 'em and openly opining that they were likely to indulge in anti-social behaviour?
Well, that's what THEY are doing to us! When cops choose to badge up their vehicles with "Anti-Social Behaviour" slogans, as the Merseyside force does, what we have is this... the State saying to its citizens: "We do not trust you.; we do not trust you at all; we think you are scum; so we will routinely ASSUME that you are UP TO NO GOOD."
The bizzies, and by extension our increasingly Liberal Fascist State in the UK, is also saying: "Wherever you go, we will film you with spy cameras..."
To many modern senior police officers, such as the Chief Constable of Merseyside, Bernard Hogan-Howe, it seems acceptable to treat the public in such a manner.
To me, it is not acceptable. It disgusts me.
I've paid taxes to local and national government all my working life so far (for 34 years) and I do not want my taxes to be used in this way.
I do not cause trouble. I do not look for it. I am law-abiding. And If I see someone in trouble or distress, I go to their aid. There are millions of people like me. We are not saints, but we are certainly not "scum" and we do not want to be treated as such.
I righteously resent that public money is spent by the cops to put over the message that we are out to cause trouble and cannot be trusted to conduct ourself on the streets without harming others.
I want a police force that is a servant to the public, not a nasty, sneering master that institutionally mistrusts us.
I want our lives to about more than the fear of being caught; fear of coercian. I want to live in a society that values freedom of thought and expression; a society that values justice, compassion and human dignity.
I do not weant to live in a police state.
And I would rather Chief Bizzie Bernard Hogan-Howe would bend the energy and resources at his disposal towards those goals, rather than the endless creation of trite slogans through spurious PR campaigns.
I'd also quite like him to stop posting earnest little video broadcasts on Merseyside Police's all singing, all-dancing website - because, frankly, they are boring and condescending.
And I've got a feeling that, privately, quite a lot of his officers agree with me.

A chance to lift all our moods

2009-04-01T20:22:49Z

The power of music to change one's mood is incredible...
I walked into my local, Hell's Waiting Room, New Brighton, a few nights ago feeling ... well...totally happy and contented.
Then suddenly I see and hear Billy Bustimes singing his verison of Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World' ... and instantly I was depressed.
I stayed for a few scoops, though, and I've been in there quite a lot lately...it's been just like old times...

]]> And talking of time marching on, it is almost exactly two years to this month that I started the Bards of New Brighton poets' group - now expanded to include a few singers.
It was April 2007 that we held our first meeting in the cosy snug bar of the Ginny in New Brighton.
Of course, that pub closed suddenly (though almost as quickly it reopened under new mangers) so we Bards had to find a new home for our monthly meetings.
Out new gaff turned out to be the old back folk music / dining room of the Magazine pub in New Brighton.
If you haven't tried the Bards yet I do urge you to come along ... it sure beats watching the crap that's on the telly these days.
As you'd expect at a New Brighton gathering, the poems have a lot of passion and quite a bit of eccentricity. There is also a fair bit of soul, philosophy and humour in our readings.
These Bards nights are very uplifting of one's mood - and I think we need that in these straightened times filled with great anxiety.
The meetings nearly always have the fine local singer Dave Gilbey also in attendance - as well as poets from across the Wirral and beyond (from places as exotic as Liverpool, Runcorn and Warrington).
The next meeting is on Monday, 13 April 2009, starting at 8pm. Admission is free. Please do come. You'd be very welcome.
As a sample of what's on offer here is a new poem of mine that I will be reading at the next meeting....
Backstreets of the heart

Terraced houses, home and hearth,
They used to limit my ambitions;
Now they sharpen my horizons,
Make me love that I belonged
To something so good.
Gladly will I dwell among them still.

Each day I see back yard walls
From my kitchen window,
And there the cats patrol
Like restless, homesick legionaries
On the ramparts of Chester
Two thousand years ago.

Dirty red bricks in the westering sun;
God has provided no beauty quite like them.
Of the earth, crafted by men,
Anointed by fire;
Their power binds me to a culture
That some would throw away. Not me.

For millions of us, the unloved,
The beloved, northern English,
Red-brick terraced homes
Are sacred to our memories.

Even in their boarded up,
Wrecked, disrespected senescence
The ghosts of past glories
Dance down drug-raddled alleys.

These were ...
These are...
The backstreets of our hearts,
The bedrock of our identity

Split location Bohemia

2009-03-15T12:38:21Z

I'M a bit late mentioning this, but I had a most memorable split-location social evening last Thursday ... in Wigan and New Brighton.
First the Wigan bit. I was at a venue that combined bohemian decadence with blunt, Northern English humour - a winning combination.

]]> It was a performance poetry night at the town centre Tudor pub. I read three of my poems there, including the one I do about Wigan as I remember it as a child in the very early 1960s ... "before The Beatles, and Radio Caroline, and sexual liberation".
It was a strange night for me ... to be at a poetry event and not drinking (well I did have just one pint of bitter).
Usually - as those who attend the Bards of New Brighton know - I get through several large (and I mean LARGE) glasses of red wine during poetry nights.
Whenever I have poetry (or pizza and coleslaw, for that matter) I MUST have red wine, but not last Thursday in Wigan, because I knew I was going to be driving back to New Brighton before the night was over.
This Wigan poetry night is a link in a network of performance poetry sessions slowly spreading across the north of England. I thought the Tudor night was commendably left field - sticking two fingers up at contemporary popular culture (dominated as that is by crap telly, and people paying through the nose to see vapid pop tarts such as Girls Aloud prance around on video screens at regional arenas).
The Wigan poetry was organised by the magisterial and mufflered John Togher, who read a penned-on-the-night poem that referenced: New Brighton (thanks); pies (always of great philosophical importance in Wigan); and the subject of whether poets are all gay (how VERY dare he!).
The MC last Thursday was the poet Pete Crompton who has infectious energy and style.
The standard of readings was, generally, high. But because I wasn't drinking, I was a bit discombobulated, so I can't remember many of the poets' names. I recall a dramatic reading by Darren Thompson, however. He chose to showcase someone else's poem, I think, even though he writes excellent poetry himself.
And there was a poem by a local woman called Chris (I think) about going for job interviews, which commanded my attention.
Chris has the sort of Wigan accent I remember from childhood... though my memory is imperfect and maybe she comes from Bolton. The Bolton poets seem to pop up everywhere these days.
I also recall a great poem about a "pig" that enjoyed the self-and-sensuality-focused social life of Manchester ... which is not so much gay as delirious from what I hear.
Anyway, I enjoyed the night so much that I stayed there until nearly 11pm even though I knew I had to get back to New Brighton for last orders.
Soon enough though I was driving home through the red-brick backstreets of my heart (the old suburbs of Wigan) and then onto the mysteriously empty motorway to nowhere (the M53) with the hauntingly melancholic and beautifully poetic songs of Roddy Frame playing on the car's cassette-drive.
Here's a snatch I remember from Mr Frame that night: "Love and small ambition / And good hearts run aground / The pull of our condition / Turning the world around."
Down the County Road in Liverpool and on through the Wallasey Tunnel with Mr Frame still singing away still: "Exploding rooms of pain / Dematerialise again / Go-go bars filled with showbiz stars / Fridays set aflame / Crashing cars, sunburst guitars / Amphetamines and fame." Wonderful.
I made it into Hell's Waiting Room, New Brighton, with ten minutes to spare before last orders. My beloved Posh Boots was at the bar as I walked in and she handed me a large glass of red wine - perfect.
Her brother Guy Liner was with her, and for some reasons he was holding forth about the correct preparation of vegetables. I listened for a while until he reached the subject of Jerusalem artichokes then drifted out to the Smoke Hole for a few liquorice rollies, while talking to Jack (minus Jools that night), The Beast and Dixie the Jazzman.
Donny the smiley young barman from the Orifice came in for a couple of post-duty late ones. Pleasant and welcoming bar staff such as Donny really stand out in Wallasey - because elsewhere in the borough so many have the personality of hangmen.
- Write Out Loud poetry open-mic is at the Tudor pub, Wigan town centre, second Thursday of each month (usually), starting at 8.30pm or sometimes later.
- The Bards of New Brighton poetry open-mic is at the Magazine pub, New Brighton, second Monday of each month (always), starting at 8pm.

Narky gorgons, miserable 'wimmin' ... and me!

2009-03-03T17:31:01Z

IT WAS a strange evening I had in Liverpool as a performer at the Come Strut Your Stuff night at the city centre Egg café.
It's an established acoustic performance night but it has a strained atmosphere, with its unstable mix of young students, arty types, militant vegetarians, mad medievalists, anarchists, miserable 'wimmin' singers and old codgers doing covers.

]]> There were some good poets there, for sure, but I got the feeling that poets are pushed to the margins by singers ... and particularly by the gaggle of charisma-free females doing predictable self-penned material about failed relationships, the difficulty of "finding themselves", and how awful men are etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Oh cheer up, luv, I kept thinking to myself as a succession of hatchet-faced divas took the stage ... or p*** off home and work out your murky issues in private like must of us have to.
This is supposed to be an evening of performance art and entertainment.
(I blame Dido for this miserablist tendency in girl music, by the way.)
On the bright side musically there was a performance of a Jacques Brel song by a talented guy called Ian, who also gave us a haunting torch song. Unusual and beautiful, his set commanded the audience's attention.
The trouble with the evening was that several performers didn't get there early enough to put their name down for a slot - and so were narked not to get a chance to perform.
Their understandable irritation infected the general atmosphere - though that might just be me being a sensitive poet.
I dunno, out here in the provinces it seems poetry and acoustic nights are most often run like this ...with each performer expected to negotiate a slot, and with the MCs wasting loads of performance time with useless announcements, unnecessary preambles and numerous pleas to the audience to applaud.
We certainly don't run things that way at the Bards of New Brighton. Everyone who turns up gets a change to perform their poems / songs and we set a brisk pace, cutting out all the useless blather between sets.
Anyway, at the Egg last Monday night I performed three poems (including the one I replicate below) and they all seemed to be fairly well received, despite the audience being a rather odd and cliquey bunch.
I'd travelled over and sat with a poet friend Ieuan from Wirral. But placed right near us was this grimacing gorgon with a face that could turn milk sour.
Oh, she was in a right nark about something, or maybe her face in repose always looks like that - which is indeed unfortunate.
Anyway, dear hearts, it is nearly time once again for that altogether more friendly poetry and music night - the fabulous, Magic Realism-infused Bards of New Brighton.
Our next open floor will be at the lovely Magazine pub, close to the river-side promenade in New Brighton, on Monday 9 March 2009. The fun starts at 8pm. Admission is free - to performers and listeners alike.
Now here's my poem...

NEW BRIGHTON LAMENT

So take our monumental past,
Of happy memories which last,
And smash it, smash it really fast,
Leaving piles of dust.

Tower and ferry are no more,
Holiday-makers, shown the door.
A seaside town without a core.
Who now can we trust?

See that clown astride the highway,
His sad smile says this is my day
To do things Wirral Council's way.
Must New Brighton die?

"Sad resort we can't be saving,
Public money we must be craving,
For Birkenhead's crazy paving.
So resort, goodbye."

"Your future is apartment blocks,
Not tourism or working docks,
Or shops that sell designer frocks.
Come, accept your fate."

So much has gone from Vicky Road
With hope betrayed and money owed
And failure reaped as it was sowed,
Without much debate.

So hear the bitterness and cries
When Morrisons are selling pies
Where was our Baths and open skies,
Near a fort so old.

By here I frolicked in the sand,
And listened to my first brass band,
The happiest boy in the land,
Wind-whipped but not cold.

The Last Resort and now I'm here.
I don't mind there isn't a pier,
That the place has gone somewhat queer,
And there's no tower.

Because where Mersey meets the sea,
Is still a much-loved place for me.
The lure of New Brighton, you see,
Has such strange power.

Friendship at first sight

2009-02-16T12:36:24Z

WELL, I hope you and yours had a good Valentine's Day and evening.
And if you are single, then I hope all the slushiness, sentimentality and the crass concentration on couples shown by restaurants and shops didn't annoy you too much.
It is good to talk of love, and to write about it too. The subject has, after all, enthralled poets and philosophers since the earliest days of humanity.

]]> I wrote a poem for my beloved Posh Boots for Valentine's Day and placed it in a beautiful Art Deco repro frame as a present for her.
She loved it, of course. Who wouldn't be delighted to have a poem written especially for you?
And she deserves to have such verses written for her. We love each other; it's as simple and as complicated as that.
But don't worry, I am not going to replicate my poem for Posh Boots here; it's too personal, though I might read it at the next Bards of New Brighton meeting (9 March, Magazine pub, New Brighton, starting 8pm)!
Today, in any case, I don't intend to linger on the subject of love because, for many people in these days of record numbers of single people, love is absent ... or painful.
Hardly any of us find an ideal partner that we truly love for the full run of a life-long relationship.
Some of us go for years without a partner, without love, and then find it quite late in life. Others find love, enjoy it for a few years, and then lose it.
Welcome to life in our fallen world; it was never meant to be easy.
But today, I want to focus on friendship rather more than what we normally understand as love.
Love of the emotional, sexual variety is intense and, at times, all-consuming. Friendship is cooler yet every bit as important and is, actually, itself a form of love.
Who amongst us hasn't told our friends that we love them?
Never mind that we might be p***ed as farts at the time. In Vino Veritas - in wine there is truth.
There is a fascinating poem by Robert Graves called "Friendship at First Sight". That title raises the possibility of friendships that are formed magically at the first meeting or sight of someone.
Here's what Graves wrote...
'Love at first sight,' some say, misnaming
Discovery of twinned helplessness
Against the huge tug of procreation.
But friendship at first sight? This also
Catches fiercely at the surprised heart
So that the cheek blanches and then blushes.
Now, I think it is great, absolutely thrilling, to think that love at first sight happens, as many people who have experienced it will attest.
But I think it equally stunning that friendship at first sight can occur.
I haven't had the privilege of experiencing love at first sight. Love needs a chance to grow ... in my heart anyway.
But I think I have, on several occasions throughout my life, experienced friendship at first sight.
And when I think of each of those instances, though they be many years apart from each other, I know that bonds were made that will probably last a lifetime.
How comforting it is to know, when the world is undergoing massive chance and considerable distress, that something as stunning and valuable as friendship at first sight can exist. It makes you feel good about being human.
And for all the singletons around in this post-Valentine's Day period, don't forget that love, while it rarely comes at first sight, is still in plentiful supply. It may well be just around the corner for you. I hope it is.
Keep the faith,
Steve.

Luvvie poet in despair

2009-02-10T21:58:28Z

WHAT a calamitous end to our Bards of New Brighton poetry session at the Magazine pub on Monday night!
I left at about half past eleven, full of Rioja, to carry the Bards' golden lectern to my car, which had been driven over by Posh Boots to pick me up and take me home.
The trouble is, before leaving, I neglected to pick up the book that contains my poems ... all of them, every one I've ever written.

]]> I clambered into the car, not noticing anything was missing, and off we motored ... until the entirely sober Posh Boots interjected: "Hey! Where's your book, your poetry stuff and the posters for the Bards?"
"Errr, hic!...errr, I ....dunno ...hic!"
We were nearly home by then but we duly turned around and drove back to the Mags, hoping to retrieve the precious documents. Needless to say, hardly any of my poems are backed up.
Alas, the barmaid there said she'd given my poetry bundle to a "lady with blonde curly hair" for safe keeping.
I thought she must have meant our friend Greta, who had attended the last half hour of the Bards and had been intending to carry on supping later in Hell's Waiting Room with her husband Commuting Mitch. Well, it was her birthday...
So off we drove to HWR only to be informed that the poetry book and other documents had definitely not been collected by Greta after all.
I went into emotional frenzy at that point... "My poems, my life's work ... gorn! All of it lost in some hazy, careless alehouse incident. Oh, woe is me, verily, woe is me!"
Well, you can imagine the scene ...
That I was so upset didn't seem to register with anyone present - apart from my beloved Posh Boots. Everyone else (Dr Gyggle, Eamonn Lairyshirts etc.) just sat around tittering about the poor, tortured poet in their midst.
Commuting Mitch seemed to find my plight especially amusing - so I called him a Very Rude Name.
And I needed another large red to settle my nerves!
In truth I was doubly tormented about the loss because among the poetry stuff was a sheaf of drama scripts given to be by Wallasey Operatic Society - and I had to get them back urgently in order to learn them off my heart.
You see, I am due, along with some other drama newbies, to give a public performance of the scripted material at the Harrison Hall, Wallasey Village, later this week.
Anyway, it turns out that the valuable paperwork had in fact been given to a certain Scubadiver - another blonde lady who had attended the Bards on Monday night for the first time, along with some of her friends, including a talented poet called Dave.
Thankfully, she'd got my email address from a print-off contained in the file the barmaid had given her so was able to alert me that she had everything safe and could return it to me.
And by this evening, Tuesday 10 March, Posh Boots had duly retrieved from Scubadiva - for my personal use and the great benefit of global art - my lost poetry and copies of my luvvy dialogue.
I shall be lighting a candle in front of a statue of Our Lady and saying some Hail Mary's in thanks for the safe deliverance of my innermost creativity in paper form... if I can find a Catholic church left open on the Wirral.
And thanks too to Scubadiver. She occasionally leaves comments on this blog ... and I hope she and her friends will come to the Bards again.

Showbiz vanity, terrible telly and hope-filled poetry

2009-02-04T17:25:39Z

WE dallied a while in Tallulah's bar, New Brighton, again on Monday night, me and Posh Boots, which meant we got home too late to watch Harry Hill's TV Burp.
That was a disappointment because it would have sent us off to Dreamland with a smile on our faces.
Harry Hill's show is one of the few I actually look forward to watching, along with Coronation Street and Scrubs. All those are cleverly written - which is a rare thing on TV these days.
Some of you know I've reprised my role as Sam Brady - hammer of the TV industry during the ORACLE Teletext era. To read my new Brady column visit http://sambradyoracle.blogspot.com/

]]> In the meantime, let me tell you I have been attending a series of free drama workshops with Wallasey Operatic Society. These have been very useful and quite enjoyable. I expected to find a lot of...well ... let's call it wannabe showbiz brat behaviour displayed by my fellow workshop students but I can cheerfully report all that has been kept to a minimum.
One of the roles I've been practising is that of Scouser Robbie in Stags and Hens. I do it with a full-on Liverpool accent inasmuch as I, as a mere Wiganer, am capable of such.
One reason why I've been taking the drama classes is that I thought they might help my work as a performance poet - and I think perhaps they have.
Now ... that brings me to the hottest ticket on Merseyside, the Bards of New Brighton poetry and music night.
(Well it sure beats most examples of live music you find in Wallasey pubs - i.e. tired old covers bands, churning out the same decades-old stuff week after week. If I hear anyone else do Mustang Sally I will eat my favourite zip-up cardigan in protest at the sheer hideousness of the local music scene.)
Anyway, the next Bards of New Brighton meeting is on Monday 9 February, at the Magazine pub, New Brighton, starting at 8pm.
If you want to read, perform or sing a song (providing it is not Mustang Sally ... or anything by Daniel O'Donnell or Phil Collins) then do come along on the night and I'll make sure you get a change to hog the limelight at our golden lectern.
As for little old me, I'll be reading, in two parts, my toxic new short story called Modern Life Is Rubbish, plus this new poem, printed below...

EDEN RESTORED by Steve Regan

'Come reckless banks
And without thanks
Pull down capitalism
With no need for socialism
Or terrorism

Come friendly bomb
And destroy dot com
Because in truth in every nation
There's way too much information

Come acid rain
And spoil each parade
Of humanity's sulphuric pride
In deadened realms of countryside

Come global warming
And without warning
Create the swamp wherein we'll dwell
Enduring this, our home-made hell

Come visitors from afar
Guided by an unknown star
And with new ways not understood
Erase the bad, restore what's good

Come future times
When Eden's climes
Are returned to glory by able hands
That honed their skills in alien lands.'

Bad Times are coming ... but first, New Brighton niceties

2009-02-01T23:08:36Z

WHILE the entire world waits for More Bad Things to happen, I've decided to try to enjoy life while I still can.
So I've been being going out to a few bars and restaurants recently, and not necessarily my usual ones either...
For instance, I haven't been to Hell's Waiting Room for a while, but I have ventured into Tallulah's bar, New Brighton.

]]> It was there one night last week that I witnessed a scene of audacious flirtation take place between a gel I am calling Surrender Brenda and Popstar Paul (the one who does such great live Paul Weller covers).
Brenda, who has apparently returned to live in New Brighton after a period of exile, made a beeline for Paul, who was talking to me at the time.
She opened up a fairly aggressive questioning of him along the lines of: "Who do you think you are, calling yourself Popstar?"
And she wanted to buy his Mod scooter parked outside - a Lambretta, I think it is.
He reacted with twinkly-eyed good humour to all this, no doubt thinking (like myself) that Surrender Brenda fancied him (something in her body language gave that away).
And it was obvious to both of us, witnessing Brenda in full flow that "drink had been taken", as the Irish so nicely put it.
Now, I'm too much of a gentleman to reveal any more about Brenda and the Popstar, but I hope we see her again, as she has the capacity to become a New Brighton "character", though I realise that is not necessarily a compliment.
Yes, I've been in Tallulah's several times recently and enjoyed the red wine, poured for me by Lapis Lazuri, the exotic daughter of Tallulah Swells herself, and by an old friend from Hell's Waiting Room, the Medieval Saint, who's now a barman there.
I've also seen several others from HWR's glory days in Tallulah's on recent evenings, including Blondie Fantail, Dixie the Jazz Man, and (behind the bar) Delilah Durham.
Also, I bumped into a poet friend in there, Ieuan Cilgwri, who thought the place "Arabesque".
And one night I fell into conversation with Tallulah's husband Alberre. Well, I say conversation but his Geordie accent is so strong I can understand very little he says. He's a nice guy, so usually I just nod at him and smile and say the occasional "yes" while he's gabbing away.
And if I - a former reporter on Newcastle upon Tyne's evening newspaper, the Chronicle - can't understand Alberre then I don't think many people will be able to.
But one thing he said that I did catch was from an anecdote about a road accident. He told how a WPC attended the scene - but he called her a "lass policeman". Well, I suppose there's a certain logic in that.
I've also been in the Orifice pub on the seafront, which has a good wine list and is run by a warm and friendly manager, a young guy from Oxton, the posh bit of Birkenhead.
(How I wish I could report that New Brighton and Wallasey were blessed with warm and friendly bar staff. But apart from those at the Telling Bone and the Mags, that just isn't the case; most bar staff these days chew wasps for a hobby. Really, when pubs are struggling to pull punters in, the staff really ought to make more of an effort to be warm and welcoming.)
Hey, I know what I'm talking about; I used to run the cocktail bar in Leo's nightclub in Wigan town centre in the early 1980s.
Anyhow, I digress. I spent a pleasant evening in the Orifice with Duncan Kindlyface and his missus Lady Di a week or so ago, and I was in there again a few nights ago with my beloved Posh Boots.
Posh Boots and I also ventured into the Vagabond pub across from Hell's Waiting Room, only to be charmlessly informed by a barmaid that the pub had run out of red wine. Honestly, what sort of pub runs out of wine? Well in my experience in New Brighton, quite a few do.
I've been told in both the Ginny and in the Lost Weekend that "we don't have any wine, there's not much demand for it". What rubbish.
The Lost Weekend, down the front, has closed down, and though I'm sad to report it, I'm not surprised, for the place had lost much of its charm over the past two years or so. It's a great shame because at one time the Lost Weekend had loads of charm and interesting live music.
Another place tried out by me and Posh Boots recently was the Green Dolphin restaurant at the bottom of Vicky Road, near where New Brighton Pier used to be. Now, we had a very tasty meal there, including posh stuff such as rosti and Lyonnaise potatoes, and very smooth French wine. The bread is served with green, stuffed olives. Lovely.
We dined in the elegant upstairs room at a window table, enjoying fine views across the estuary and Liverpool Bay.
While we were there was a big celebration meal under way by members of the St Alban's Players, who had just finished their run of panto at the new Floral Pavilion nearby. It was nice to see them flushed with success.
We had a lovely time at the Green Dolphin and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to the discerning, intelligent readers of this blog. Here is the phone number if you'd like to book ... 0151-638 1166.
Our evening didn't finish there, however, because on the way home we stopped at the Bargain Booze to buy chocolate, only to find in there that frequently observed human totem of failing Merseyside - the young woman shopping at the off-licence in her pyjamas.
Look, I don't mean to be unsympathetic, girls, but have some self respect. If you are going to pop out to the offy at 10.45pm on a freezing January night, brush your hair first, put some lippy on and - more importantly - wear some proper clothes.

Here's one Ka Ka on the move

2009-01-22T18:23:38Z

IT SEEMS I've been spending half my waking hours on the grim highways of North-West England in recent weeks.
First thing to face every weekday is the tedious slog down the M53 from New Brighton, past the Satanic smoke stacks of Ellesmere Port and on to the posh village in Cheshire where I toil in a lowly cattle shed (converted to accommodate computers and office politics etc).

]]> Most evenings after work in recent times I've been motoring through the midwinter murk to Wigan (via the Runcorn Bridge or the Thelwall Viaduct, depending which takes my fancy) to visit my mum whose been ill and in hospital for some of the time.
Then, at about 8.30pm usually, I leave Wigan, after a final coffee with my sister Princess Stephanie, to drive along the nation's emptiest motorway (M58) to Liverpool.
Then down it's off down the A59 through Walton and Kirkdale (they are fairly soulful to drive through, those suburbs, though I'm not sure I'd want to live in either of them) and on through the Wallasey tunnel and home.
One night I was so weary I came off the M58 too early and couldn't get back on (there's no slip-road back on the motorway Liverpool-bound at that point) and so I was forced to make a very tedious detour through Kirkby (the speed bump capital of the UK) and then the other way through Maghull before I could find a route to the A59 and down through Liverpool. Nightmare!
It feels like I'm repeating this triangular journey (New Brighton, rural Cheshire, Wigan, New Brighton again) endlessly. I am beginning to hate cars in general and my vile Ford Ka in particular.
The only consolation is that as I drive I can smoke rollies made with liquorice skins and listen to music as I cleave through the night. That's quite relaxing on the Wigan to New Brighton stretch.
Usually I listen to mix tapes (yes, in car terms I'm still in the cassette era) of my favourite artists... Steve Forbert, Roddy Frame, Paul Weller, Morrissey and Dusty Springfield.
Just now my favourite tracks are Frame's "The Gentle Kind", Morrissey's "November Spawned a Monster" and Forbert's "Monster in a Box".
And sometimes I play recordings of my own voice reading poems I am trying to memorise for performance at our Bards of New Brighton meetings. I can only take that for so long. It's so weird to hear recordings of your own voice.
At the next Bards, by the way (Monday, 9 February, Magazine pub, starting at 8pm) I will be reading, in two instalments, a toxic short story I've written and am hoping to get published.
Anyway, soon after arriving back from driving my auld triangle route I usually fat-neck a sandwich or a light meal prepared by the lovely Posh Boots, and by the time I've had a couple of glasses of red wine, it's bedtime and I'm watching Sky News (usually better than the BBC's equivalent service - though Sky was waffly and disappointing in its coverage of Barak Obama's inauguration).
More about Obama in my next posting - plus news of the good aspects to the current economic downturn.
Till then, keep the faith, folks!