Ask me anything
Recent Responses
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Oxfam. My sister worked for them for many years, and I've been a monthly donor for even longer - twenty years exactly, I think.
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A cup of Twining's English Breakfast tea. Milk, no sugar.
A glass of orange juice (only half full; we've just run out).
A banana (just on the turn, ripeness-wise, but still fully edible).
A bowl of muesli. We recently switched from Jordans to Alpen - but the Alpen has turned out to be a sickly mistake, so we'll be switching again soon. -
I do read books, but few of them are fiction; I tend more towards memoir. Recent examples: Daevid Allen "Gong Dreaming" (Parts 1 & 2), Luke Haines "Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall", Paul Carr "Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore". I'm also a fan of David Sedaris (quelle surprise).
I'm currently reading Nicola Monaghan's "Starfishing", which is fiction that *feels* like memoir. -
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I do read books, but few of them are fiction; I tend more towards memoir. Recent examples: Daevid Allen "Gong Dreaming" (Parts 1 & 2), Luke Haines "Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall", Paul Carr "Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore". I'm also a fan of David Sedaris (quelle surprise).
I'm currently reading Nicola Monaghan's "Starfishing", which is fiction that *feels* like memoir. -
Yes, I regularly give that answer. Or to be more exact, I explain that I do one job for money, and another job for love. :-)
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Probably my 40th. I hired the upstairs room at Harts Restuarant, and treated my friends to slap-up posh nosh. Then we went down the pub. It was a very happy day.
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Nice try; no dice! I'll tell you when I next see you.
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I just want to keep my options open, should the mojo return. Never say never, and all that. Also, I am a contrary sort of fellow; if I ever formally closed the blog down, the mojo would almost certainly be reborn within hours.
Incidentally, I have just moved house; you can now find me at http://troubleddiva.wordpress.com/ -
I was referring to the embers of lust, dear iterrogator. However, the gig Cliff/Shadows was marvellous in every other way. Grizzly showbiz cheese was kept to a minimum - no mean feat when Cliff's around, I'd venture to say - in favour of Just Bloody Well Getting On With It. All the old Cliff/Shads classics, and nothing from Cliff's subsequent solo career; I think we had nothing beyond "In The Country". The Shads also performed sections without Cliff on stage, which for me were the highlight of the night; that Hank Marvin has still most definitely Got It. Of the Cliff stuff, my standout moment was "The Next Time", from Summer Holiday. I took a gamble with the tickets, but it paid off handsomely.
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Pass! I have a hard enough job coming up with questions for pop star phoners...
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Jigs and reels on a fiddle, please. This would see me happily through my later years.
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The first thing I wanted to be was a circus clown. This lasted until I was actually taken to the circus. It was a rather disillusioning experience.
Next came architect (I saw us all in globe-shaped houses on stilts, accessed by ladders, with a central rubbish chute), then engineer (because I put a broken chair back together again, and hence briefly entertained delusions of practical competence). -
Not being a Londoner, I have never knowingly been to Columbia Road. But I have Googled, and it does look awfully pretty.
I have been to Old Spitalfields Market a couple of times; once in the Eighties (I bought a punk rock coffee mug, with safety pin) and once in the Nineties (no purchases).
So, to answer your question: although Columbia Road does look awfully pretty, Old Spitalfields Market would seem to have a wider range of purchasing opportunities. Therefore, I choose Old Spitalfields Market. -
I'm too guilty to admit it. I also question whether it has ever been a true pleasure.
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Swimming. I spent a lot of my childhood weekends on canal boats, and managed to fall in four times - including at a boat rally, where my father jumped in to rescue me and made the pages of the local paper for doing so. I can only remember the last two occasions; I was a sensitive little boy and so they were traumatic. Rather than teach me to swim, my family dealt with the situation by putting me in a life jacket and tying me to the roof of the boat with ropes. If I wanted to go the loo, I had to ask to be untied. My first school swimming lesson didn't happen until I was eight years old, by which time I was petrified of sticking my head under water. My continued inability to swim used to send my father into towering rages, which didn't exactly help. He still didn't offer to teach me.
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I'd like to knock off work this lunchtime, then spend the rest of the afternoon finishing the book I'm reading: Gong Dreaming 2, which is the second volume of Daevid Allen's memoirs, spanning the "classic" Gong years from 1969 to 1975.
Then dinner with K somewhere special, like Sat Bains... oh, hang on, we're already dining there next week for my birthday. OK, scratch dinner; I'll settle for a good gig. Oh, but I'm already seeing Miike Snow tonight. Well, how about an upgrade? I'll go with Pat Metheny's Orchestrion, which is on at the Barbican Centre tonight. K might enjoy that as well.
So then we'll be needing a place to stay in London; let's say One Aldwych, which we used to frequent in our nouveau-riche days. Perhaps a late supper at J.Sheekys, after the show? And then tomorrow morning, we could catch an exhibition before heading home. Let's do the Chris Ofili at Tate Britain. Lovely! -
Eagerly. It would give me a reason to gen up on an area of music that I know next to nothing about, and I'd relish the chance to quiz them about their appearance with The KLF at the Brit Awards.
(As I recall, Bill Drummond wanted to carve up a dead sheep with a chainsaw, then hurl chunks of raw, bloody flesh into the audience - but was stopped from doing so by Extreme Noise Terror, who were all committed vegetarians. This the only Extreme Noise Terror Fun Fact which I currently possess. Doubtless there are more.) -
No. Really, no.
The only dancing classes I've had were in Kindergarten, at the age of five. We learnt a "toys coming to life" routine, to the tune of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. There was also a mermaid dance for the girls, which we boys weren't allowed to perform in public - but we all learnt it anyway.
(NB. We were in the Kindergarten of an otherwise all-girls school. An "ex-gay" conversion therapist could have a field day with all of this.)
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Mike Atkinson’s Bio
Nottingham, UK
Aging rocker. Corporate drone. Podium dancer (retired). Chirpy little Pollyanna. Congenital time-waster. Over-sharer. Irredeemable bragger. Jammy sod.
