And you’re just a prisoner of your dreams holding on for your life…

For the last couple of weeks our ‘home’ laptop has been repaired, so instead of my weekly rota of podcasts, I’ve been rediscovering the often unadulterated joy that comes from listening to a complete album. Much as I like the Genius function and compiling my own playlists,  I grew up listening to albums.

A great album is far more than the sum of its individual songs. In many ways it’s like a symphony, with linked thematic material, and often takes you on some kind of journey – emotionally, musically, and sometimes with an actual story or concept. The songs are in a particular order for a reason. Sometimes I think putting albums on ‘shuffle’ or simply selecting one or two tracks is like remarking that ‘I really like that book, especially chapter 12…’. We don’t treat films or books like that, so why albums?

Released 35 years ago, Born to Run is a truly great album; the album that ‘broke’ Bruce Springsteen as a major star. Its 8 songs span just 39’26″, but say more and cover more emotions than many artists’ entire careers. It tells of youthful optimism, frustration, rage, despair and ultimately disappointment. It’s a bitter rite of passage, but the brilliance of its music and power of its lyrics make it utterly compelling from start to finish. I must have listened to it a dozen times in the last week, and it still sends shivers down my spine.

The album starts with a barnstorming track. Thunder Road tells of smalltown frustration, but is filled with optimism. The lyrics are amazingly evocative, from the opening description of Mary dancing across the porch, to the visions of her dreams. It’s clear from the outset, however, that this is no idealised fantasy.

So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore …

You ain’t a beauty but hey you’re alright

Well I’m no hero, that’s understood, All the redemption I can offer girl is beneath this dirty hood…

The journey is begun. And while we’re hopeful that their promises and aspirations are fulfilled, it’s not exactly convincing…

The two sides of the album seem to mirror each other, with the most upbeat and positive Thunder Road and the titular Born to Run as their opening tracks. The middle songs on each side are vivid episodes from life on the streets. But they’re no bundles of joy, filled with references to loneliness, bitterness and uncertainty. The protagonists talk a good game, but their fragility is often painfully obvious. Despite the bravado and determination, these songs tell a story of people trapped within The American Dream, and ultimately crushed by disappointment

You work nine to five and somehow you survive to the night…

The final tracks of the two sides are epic tales of thwarted dreams and disappointment that take up 40% of the album’s running time. Backstreets truly brings home to the listener that thes youthful dreams are truly just dreams. It’s a look back from some sadder, less exciting future, and it’s not a rose-tinted memory.

Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down,
You can blame it all on me, Terry, it don’t matter to me now.
When the breakdown hit at midnight there was nothing more to say,
But I hated him, and I hated you when you went away…

Laying here in the dark you’re like an angel on my chest
Just another tramp of hearts crying tears of faithlessness.
Remember all the movies, Terry, we’d go see,
Trying to learn to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be.
Well after all this time we find we’re just like all the rest,
Stranded in the park and forced to confess to hiding on the backstreets…

Jungleland finishes the album, and once and for all shatters the dreams, as ‘The Magic Rat and the barefoot girl’ make one last doomed bid for freedom.

In the tunnels uptown, the Rat’s own dream guns him down
As shots echo down them hallways in the night.
Noone watches as the ambulance pulls away…

The ambitions of those trying to escape the town full of losers are dashed. The whole journey from start to finish has been filled with tension. Trapped by their own aspirations, the protagonists of these tremendous songs are constantly struggling to survive, living for small crumbs of comfort racing cars or making deals.

Born to Run is a timeless album that has as much to say about The American Dream today as it did in 1975.

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Life is like a moustache. It can be wonderful or terrible. But it always tickles.

It’s Movember in our office… 14 Mo’Bros (and several supporting Mo’Sistas) from The Real Moventure have sprouted facial hair to raise money for The Prostate Cancer Charity, and to raise awareness of men’s health issues. Movember  originated in Australia and has gradually expanded into other countries including the UK. The total raised so far in 2010 is now running at slightly more than £16m, with over 400,000 people registered to take part.

One man in the UK dies from Prostate Cancer every hour, which means that (at the time of writing) since I last shaved on the morning of 1st November, 369 men have succumbed in the UK alone. Men are mostly rubbish about being aware of and taking action about their health, so I hope that Movember starts to shift attitudes and behaviours, at least in the men taking part and their friends or family who sponsor them.

You can see how The Prostate Cancer Charity uses these funds here…

Of course the most important considerations when I started out on this were

(a) how much of an a**e will I look?

(b) what style should I try and adopt?

The answer to the first question is, evidently, ‘an enormous a**e’. But that’s part of the point. My wife is definitely not a fan, but my daughters are more than faintly amused. Of course men who choose to wear moustaches permanently aren’t (on the whole) silly-looking, but this is for charity and for fun, so I should look at least slightly peculiar. At least, if it helps the donations…

As for styles, at the start of the month we were all slightly apprehensive about what sort of Mo we would be able to cultivate in a month. A couple of our team have christened their slightly pathetic, wispy efforts as Ninja Mo’s, in Stealth Mode, disguised to look like the rest of the face: you might be looking straight at it but not notice it was there…

In my heart I’d love to have managed a Bill The Butcher.

in my dreams...

Indeed, Daniel Day-Lewis is a bit of a role model for the Mo-wearing gentleman, with Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood another notable example. In the end I’m sort of aspiring to Ian McShane’s formidable Mo from Deadwood.

Of course, I'm not quite as psychotic...

Here’s a few pictures of progress so far, so you can judge if I’m deluded or not. The latest one here was taken on Sunday 14th, with 2 weeks of growth, not quite half way through the month. Most importantly, I would humbly ask everyone who reads this to please donate to Movember by sponsoring me…

Thankyou.

Day 1...

Day 8...

Day 11...

Day 14...

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Where everybody knows your name…

To see the butcher slap the steak before he laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was agreeable too – it really was – to see him cut it off so smooth and juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of mind over matter; quite.
Charles Dickens – ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’

Apologies to any vegetarian readers, but I love going into a ‘proper’ butcher’s shop. Indeed, (and apologies also to Jane Austen!) it is a truth universally acknowledged that Chris Moody, in possession of a few minutes to spare on a Saturday morning, must be in want of a nearby butcher’s… where I can sample a nugget of cheddar or a new variety of sausage, I can ogle the pork pies or scratchings, and marvel at the staff’s dexterity with some very sharp knives.

Jesse Smith Butchers in Tetbury is my favourite butcher’s. John and his excellent team are wonderful ambassadors for the town, for their craft and trade, and for all-round customer service. They welcome customers like friends: I’m often greeted with the not-at-all ironic salutation “Good day, young man!”. They’ll advise about cuts and joints, cooking tips, offer up bones for your dog, offer sweets for the kids, and their sausage rolls are amazing.

They play a central role in Tetbury’s community. The store is located right in the heart of the town, and on alternate Saturdays they operate the ‘Big Pan’. You can smell can smell the sausages and burgers and onions cooking from down the street, and it’s a terrible burden to walk past without indulging. More significantly, the proceeds from all of these ‘Big Pan’ mornings are donated to local charities and community groups. They supply burgers etc to local schools and the like for their own fundraisers at discounted prices.

Probably as a result of all this, on ‘Christmas Lights’ evening, when many stores open late in Tetbury, Jesse Smith is always packed with laughter and buzzing conversations, as customers and staff share mulled wine and sausage rolls. In the days leading up to Christmas there are queues down the street.

Long live Jesse Smith and all those like it. I hope you are as lucky as Tetbury is to have somewhere like it.

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You’ll be telling us you don’t want slimline salad dressing…

There’s a terrific scene in The Hurt Locker where Staff Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner) has returned from Iraq and is confronted by the cereal aisle in his local supermarket.

We’ve previously seen him take split-second decisions, risking his own and others’ lives. Faced with a wall of boxes and logos, he’s lost. There’s nothing to guide him, this fixture is so far from his experience he can’t begin to fathom the distinctions between sugar-coated-cinnamon-shapes and all-natural-wheat-and-rice-clusters (let’s face it, who can?).

I have felt similarly bewildered in recent weeks. We’ve been planning to extend our existing patio – not by much, only a couple of feet, but enough to create more space for a table, and taking out a small wall that separated the paved area from flower beds. I’ve been fine with the manual labour, wielding sledgehammers and pickaxes to remove the concrete and stone blocks, and digging out the trench for the new foundations.

But that’s where the trouble has started. I’m a novice to most actual skilled DIY. I can sand and paint, dig out foundations, even put up wallpaper, shelves and curtain rails. But laying a patio seems like another level. Still, we have a few gardening and DIY books, and there are loads of websites…

…but while all of these told me I will need 50-100mm of aggregate (depending on soil type), as well as 50mm of a dry cement/sand mix, none of these places felt a need to tell me how much that meant I might need to order. How many kgs do I need to cover 7m² to a depth of 100mm? Am I really the only person who doesn’t know this? I went to our local Jewson builders’ merchant and the guy behind the counter looked at me like blankly, as though I was insulting him to actually ask for advice.

It felt like a place where if you don’t know what you want, you shouldn’t be there; a place for insiders, who actually don’t want individuals like me to learn how to lay a patio (or even to want to learn), because then I might start shopping around wisely for keener prices, going direct to manufacturers.

So what is the difference between aggregate, ballast and scalpings, anyway? And when we then asked someone to confirm how much I need to cover seven square metres, he sniffed, breathed deeply, muttered “that’s a big area” and a few minutes later announced we should order 5 tonnes! I think he confused seven square metres with seven metres squared. Sheesh.

I thought that we might have progressed beyond the sort of customer service meted out by Rowan Atkinson to Mel Smith in the fantastic Not The Nine o’Clock News sketch from nearly 20 years ago. Apparently not.

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