Record Duggie Chop's into, right this moment:

Record Duggie Chop's into, right at this moment: Muswell Hillbillies - The Kinks (1971)


Duggie Chop recommends:

Friday 26 February 2010

The Bubbles Are Rising - Duggie and his mate on Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden (1980), Pikes, Pies and Red Stripe.

“The bubbles are rising, all golden and twirly and popping at the top of the glass. It’s given me an idea” says a random Lager drinker, who just happens to be using my web-surfing credits at the Cyber Café, as I nip round the back for a leak.

“If it was up to me,” says Lager man – who can now have square brackets ‘[…]’ (like those? – YES!)

[If it was up to me, I’d grab those poor sods from 1982 (that’s Duggie Chop and his mate) cos they’ve been stuck in that room with them musos breathing in 'Bob Hope' for too damn long. I’m gonna take ‘em back to the river (canal) bank, man! – hey…where am I going…AHHHH. (he becomes a cyclist)]

“As the sun sets, the sky is like a blank canvas, especially in February,” said Duggie’s mate, watching Duggie fiddle with his rod.

“You been reading poetry again?” said Duggie and he pricked his finger on a hook.

“No, not today. But look Dug. It’s like cracked ice on top of liquid Turkish Delight, that sky. Surrounded by peach melba and touched up with crushed Parma Violets,” said his mate.

Duggie added, shaking his head: “don’t forget the Corporation-grit-grey, I can see titillations of that up there, you soft get!”

Duggie went back to the canal edge and cast his bait into the middle of the water. Live bait. He was after the pike: “I’m gonna get that bugger!”

“Especially after what he did to poor old Mr Stickleback – scared him half to death,” said Duggie’s mate.

“Needs taking down a peg or two,” said Duggie.

What’s the underwater equivalent of a peg?” said Duggie’s mate.

[Mr Stickleback: “There isn’t one! We don’t have clothes lines or noses!”]

A guy cycled past with a retro-spec ‘ghetto-blaster’ strapped to the back of his bike, blaring out ‘old-skool’ Heavy Metal [actually, Maiden were at the forefront of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal back in the day]: Iron Maiden’s eponymous first album.

“Hey, Paul Di’anno on vocals, he was the greatest singer Maiden had, wasn’t he?” said Duggie.

“Get outta here!” said Duggie’s mate, “the greatest if Maiden had wanted to stay a pub band, or touring with the likes of ‘Saxon’ forever.”

“A bit strong,” said Duggie, “but I know where you’re coming from: Brucie had a bit more ambition .”

“And a bit less booze,” said the cyclist, who’d decided to hang out with the guys and threw them each a luke-warm can of Red Stripe.

“I always think of Lucozade when I hear that opening riff to Phantom Of The Opera on that album,” said Duggie’s mate, ”remember they used it in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LtaD63zYoQ. Something like a set of traffic lights change or a runner runs around a track or something…”

“Nah. They used Running Free [also from Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden] for the ad with the runner,” said the cyclist, sneezing a stream of lager though his left nostril.

“Got me into ‘prog’ that did,” said Duggie.

“What lucozade?” said his mate.

“No, Phantom Of The Opera,” said Duggie, easing his fishing line a little, so the bait wiggled. Just to tantalise that big fat pike, “all those time changes and guitar sections. Like a bloody opera. Di’anno sounds great on that track. In fact, I’m gonna stand by this: Di’anno sounds better on all pre-Bruce Dickinson tracks than Brucie does when he tries ‘em.” Duggie cracked open his Red Stripe, spraying lager over the cyclist’s rucksack.

“There’s something in that,” said the Cyclist, sucking the dregs out of his can and opening another.

Duggie’s mate was fiddling with a jammed ring pull on his can while he spoke: “I like the way Di’anno does Remember Tomorrow. He was a better ballad singer than the ‘Air-Raid Siren’ [Bruce Dickinson’s old nickname].

Duggie bit into a warm pie. “Cover was great,” he said, “a punk Eddie, just starting out. A sneering smile, leather jacket, spiked hair and all. A Derek Riggs classic.”

“I like the back cover, too,” said Duggie’s mate, still no closer to opening his Red Stripe, though he tried, “such a simple stage backdrop, tht silver Eddie head with smoke coming out of it, behind Clive Burr…”

“Now he really was the best. Best Drummer they ever had,” said the cyclist. The other two nodded, while eating their pies.

“Amazing how the Iron Maiden stage show got so big. I mean by 1985, they had hundreds of ‘arctics’ circumnavigating the globe. Says so in the ‘Live After Death’ album.” Said Duggie’s mate.

But the other two were looking at the canal. Duggie’s float was bobbing like crazy.

“It’s the pike!” said Duggie, “I’ve got him!”

“Be great to see that monster,” said the cyclist, “he’s legendary. Once ate a puppy. No word of a lie.”

Duggie’s mate was still flicking his ring-pull, the salt from his pie was making even a warm lager seem inviting, but it just would not open.

“Wow!” said Duggie as he pulled his line, “look at the size of his snout!”

“Like a bleedin’ duck-billed platypus or something,” said the cyclist, “and look how he’s snapping! The worm didn’t stand a chance.”

“Worm?” said Duggie, “I put a bloody mouse on there!”

Just then, Duggie’s mate’s can of Red Stripe exploded into a huge fountain of golden bubbles.

One bubble grew to the size of an elevator and before Duggie’s mate could warn the other two - and the pike - they were all inside the bubble and drifting upwards.

Upwards and on their way back to 1982. Duggie, his mate, the cyclist. And the Pike.

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Can you take the past seriously - when you've been there recently?

Spending time with your heroes. [Duggie Chop being philosophical]

About as natural as spreading honey on a smear of excrement.

And the way Matt [that’s Matt Score from Hair Tom – look at the earlier posts for info. Go on! You know you want to!] – sky high on Coca-Cola – was looking at the pair of us as if we were a sample of the honey and crap mix, residing on the sole of his Hush Puppy.

The other thing is, travelling back in time, you know, you’re never really there. [again, look it up, Duggie and his mate were back in 1982, or have been for a while now…] It’s like you’re always comparing things. Technology, the fact people can and do smoke anywhere, old cars that look new, fashions.

1982. Not just the year good taste forgot (I realise people were still tainted by the ‘70s until about 1985). 1982 is the year people have forgotten [Steve Hill obviously hasn’t, he writes this garbage] except for The Falklands.

Mainstream music was pants - nothing new there – telly was a pale imitation of life, except Minder, on three, soon to be four channels.

Start of Channel 4 [looking through Duggie’s eyes at his boring upbringing]

Duggie remembers the start of Channel 4 really well.

It was an exciting innovation. It sticks in Duggie’s mind because he had to fix a puncture on is bike - fast – so he didn’t miss the first edition of ‘Countdown’ ever broadcast.

Winter. A dark afternoon. Duggie sat in his parent’s front-room (“it was a front room, too,” says Duggie, “before they built the extension round the back of the house and moved the room there. I saw Tommy Cooper peg-out in the same room.”) he was wearing a baggy green, hand-knitted jumper. His fingers were caked in bike grease as he watched the new future unfold.

(“Early C4 was strange, the shows had no atmosphere, like fresh plaster drying in an unpainted new-build dining room”, says Duggie).

Once you’d been in the future and were a backward moving time-traveller, you couldn’t sit there like Duggie did that day in his parents front room, fingers smelling of rubber from his new inner-tube.

Channel Four travelled a timeline from showing unseen-for-years classic ‘60s films, like ‘Billy Liar’ and ‘Georgie Girl’ and resurrecting The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan and Man About The House, to wading through the cess-pool of ‘reality TV’ and Property shows.

And TV went from something to catch – or you missed it – unless you had a £400 VHS recorder, to something to sample or discard at your own leisure, using iPlayer, DVD and Sky boxes.

“Duggie!” said Duggie’s mum, “your dinner’s ready. You want it in the front-room, so you can watch the new telly thingy?”

“Yes, Mum. What we got?” he said, picking some black muck from under his fingernails with his front teeth.

“Foreign. Them new frozen chicken Kievs,” said Duggie’s mum, “and a Findus mince pancake with minted, processed peas.”

Yes, when you’d seen the future, you couldn’t really take the past seriously.

Sunday 21 February 2010

Lee's assistant's grandad's dead. Gloria's story.

[Owner of the Chinese Chippy, known as Lee - a very minor, unseen character in the ‘Sturgess Café’ story - has an assistant. An 18 year-old student, Gloria. Her granddad died when she was six. Here’s Gloria’s story]

When Grandad died, there were 32 people in our front room. I know that because it’s the highest number that I could count to back then.

Mum didn’t ever let me eat without a plate in the front room, she was so worried about crumbs. But Aunty Kellie dropped half a pie on the floor and her husband Brad, from America (that’s how everyone referred to him) trod it in.

“Christ, Brad!” said Aunty Kellie, “can’t you watch where you’re stepping?”

“Hey, take it easy will ya,” said Brad, in a high-pitched whining voice, “you dropped the Goddamn thing!”

I could see Mum waving her hands, dismissing the squashed pie as if it didn’t matter. She was trying to keep things under control.

“Tense,” that’s what I heard Dad say to his friend Michael, the one who was restoring a rusty Cortina, “everybody’s a bit strung-out today.” Michael nodded, jangling his Cortina keys in time with each nod.

The day before he died, Grandad had been arguing with the TV man.

“When I turn on Channel 4 racing,” he said, juggling an unlit roll-up in his lips, “it’s a fuzzy picture. Like being up the Brighton course during a sea fret.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, mate,” said the TV man.

“You bloody what!” said Grandad. And so it went on, “Bloody Japanese…”

Mum told me that Grandad had cataracts. That’s why he squashed Kipper the budgie when he hopped out of his cage onto the carpet. Couldn’t see him. I was so upset because I saw Kippers crushed head attached by a sinew of bird brain to Grandad’s slippers.

A freezing mist fell as we drove to the cemetery, the chill felt worse as we were driving so slowly. Why do hearses go so slow? It’s not as if the person who’s party it is would care.

And as we walked behind the coffin, fresh and shining wood, I imagined Grandad lying in there, looking the way he used to when he stayed over at our place and couldn’t be bothered to get up before we went to school (my brother) and nursery (me). But this time he wouldn’t be snoring.

He collapsed the morning after the TV man came. Brad, from America was the only person in the house. Brad, from America saw him on the patio window. Grandad had been mowing the lawn using a big, heavy petrol mower, his pride and joy – totally against the advice of Dr Akeel.

Brad, from America called 911. Yes, he got it wrong. Tried several times before abandoning the call altogether and pulling Grandad into his car.

Grandad died on the way to hospital. The Doctor in Casualty said he might have survived if the paramedics had treated him in the garden.

That’s why things had been so tense in the house on the day of the funeral.

Brad, from America didn’t know that 999 existed. He’d only been in the country for a few days.

When they put Grandad in the ground that dull day, the sun came out. Just once. The rays through the gloom kind of cuddled me, put they’re warm ‘arms’ round me.

I’m sure that it was Grandad. His spirit shining down. Then I remembered the last time I saw him, waving good bye through the kitchen window. We didn’t speak that day.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

The Story of Sturgess Cafe - Pt3

“Open the bloody door, open it!” said a skinhead, his DMs attempting to open the door by force. Kick, kick, kick, the noise of kicking was punctuated by the air-brakes on a bus, chuff, chuff, chuffing as the driver negotiated the tricky junction opposite.

[remember Pt 2 of the Sturgess Café story? On day 6, the bus passenger saw a shaven headed man kicking the door of the café. Here’s what happened…]

“My God!” said Nyman [Remember? He’s the ‘artist’ café owner], “he’ll have the thing down in no time. Nyman was hiding behind the one-way glass in the kitchen door.

“What do you expect, people are getting pissed about the café not being open,” said Seeke [his partner] demolishing a cheese burger between sentences, “Rachel’s was a great little café. It was doing a bomb, according to the books. I don’t think they would have sold up if Rachel hadn’t been bitten by that rabid dog in Brazil.

“How is she?” said Nyman. He didn’t really care, he was just saying anything to keep his nerves under control.

“I told you weeks ago, just after you put an offer in for this place. She’s emigrated to Melbourne. Got the money from an insurance claim, the dog owner just happened to be an airline’s security company.”

“Oi! Oi!” shouted the skinhead, “I’ll be back!” He pointed his finger in Nyman’s direction and then made a single finger salute. That gesture, combined with the almost comical sneer on the skinhead’s face, made Nyman think of a Skrewdriver album cover that the racist friend of a friend (who’d been busted out of the army on medical grounds – he may appear in a later instalment of this story) had shown him once, along with a collection of self-drawn charcoal sketches of Nazi soldiers.

“It doesn’t help your popularity keeping old ladies standing in the cold, while you stuff your face and laugh back here [reference to Pt 2 again]” said Seeke.

“You’re the one who doesn’t get it,” said Nyman, turning towards Seeke and flicking the kettle on, he was relieved that the nutter had at least left, “this is a major piece of art. The ‘Art Mag’ said so.”

“That ‘Art Mag’ journo had the hots for you!” said Seeke.

At the official launch of ‘The Café Project” - done in secret at Laughton’s Bar, a posh place on the other side of town - a flirtatious blonde-haired reporter from the Art Mag latched onto Nyman; partly because he had in his possession some pure-ish coke and she couldn’t resist a sniff or two (Which turned Nyman on all the more). It wasn’t likely that she’d be giving The Café Project a bad press anytime soon. Besides, Nyman had used a wodge of his Arts Council grant on lubricating the ensemble in Laughton’s. “Job’s a good ‘un!” he thought, before passing out on the toilet, beneath the writhing reporter. She didn’t notice, and, more importantly, neither did Seeke.

“A truly inclusive, original concept,” and “a response to the decline in interest in the moder High Street,” pretty much summed up the response in the cultural pages of the press to ‘The Café Project’.

“I mean, the High Street’s so compromised right now,” said Gray Wipper, arts correspondent of the Daily Liberated, “that’s what makes Nyman’s pro-ject sooo relevant. Irresistible!”

The Arts Council’s assessment: “What Nyman’s doing with the Sturgess Cafe is what we’ve needed for so long. A way of assisting local people with the re-evaluation of their locality and community through the medium of conceptual art. It’s a frank discussion of our future cultural life.”

Frank and his wife [she’s the bus passenger] had other things to discuss, beginning with: what would happen to the neighbourhood now these ‘unemployed’ people were moving in.

“It’s like that café,” said Frank, rubbing his bald head with rough hands, he’d spent his working life shifting blocks of concrete, “like a bloody squat. When’s that place bloody opening? Eh?”

“I rather like the orange chairs that they’ve installed,” said his wife, “reminds me of the seaside, like that little caff in Redcar.”

“They’ve never done a day’s work,” said Renee, who’d popped round for a tea. She was off sick from the library.

“Dunno why they don’t send ‘em somewhere.” Said Frank.

“But where?” said his wife.

“I dunno love. The army? Siberia? French Foreign Legion,” said Frank, “fancy going down the Chinky?”

Tuesday 16 February 2010

The Story of Sturgess Café pt 2

[View from the top deck of a passing bus - thoughts of a local passenger]

Day 1

Oh…Rachel’s old Caff’s been bought! How exciting! I could pop by there with Frank at the weekend.

Wonder when it opens?

Day 2

Well, the shutters are up. Can’t be long now. ‘Sturgess Café’, hmm it’s got a name.

I wonder if they do outside catering? We’ve got that wedding coming up. If I see a number I’ll give them a call – or get Sandra to do it.

Day 3

Ah, I can see inside now. There’s someone in there. I can see a few plates left out, on the tables. Mucky as far as I’m concerned! They should employ more staff. I wonder if young Julian could ask them if they have any vacancies, now he’s off from college?

Still, it’s only just opened. Then again, I’ve never actually seen the place open.

Day 4

No one I know has ever been in there. We have tried! All sorts of times of the day!
I mean, it’s 11am now, I catch different buses on different days, different times of the day.

It’s not as if they only open at lunchtimes. I know Gilbert went past yesterday afternoon and it still wasn’t open (although I go past at different times, I don’t come back until 5pm).

Gilbert said that the sign in the door said something about ‘family problems’. Like a bloomin’ soap opera, I shouldn’t wonder!

Day 5

I was really annoyed yesterday. Got off the bus near the Sturgess Café to find out about outside catering - Sandra hasn’t had time to ring - and I fanicied meeting up with Renee from the Library. She sent me a text message the other day, told me about the problems she was having with Timothy.

Anyway, the Café wasn’t open. We were stood there, outside in the freezing wind (it really whips round those tower-blocks on the Dogley Estate). Renee turned to light her fag out of the wind and noticed a note on the door. Really small lettering it had: “Watch This Space” it said.

“Watch This Space” said Renee through a cloud of smoke, “Watch This flamin’ Space,” she repeated (adding the expletive), her lungs erupting in a cackle of coughing, “what space?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” I said, shaking my head and clutching my Daily Mail until the paper crinkled, “what is the world coming to?”

In the end we both popped into the Chinese chippy a couple of doors away. Lee’s got a few chairs opposite the counter. Had a Chinese tea (that weak stuff in a big pot) and a portion of chips each with a spring roll.

Day 6

There’s a young man with a shaven head kicking the door of Sturgess Café. And I must say, I don’t blame him!

[Time passes, not much changes]

Day 29

We don’t talk about it anymore.

The Sturgess Café. We don’t talk about it anymore.

Stupid place.

And it must be open some of the time, I mean, the shutters open and close. Lights on, then off. There’s even food left on the table. The menu changes and there’s these strange notices on the door.

Stupid place.

I wish life wasn’t so complicated these days.

Tuesday 9 February 2010

Mr Stickleback and the Pike

Can’t sit still in a shady nook where I come from. Oh no!

So I’m swimming along, looking for some weed for the wife (It’s a delicacy down here. Hey, not the kind of weed you’re thinking of, though!) and I come across this beautiful stretch of riverbank. I mean, beautiful. Glistening with dappled light like you wouldn’t believe.

P’raps it’s difficult for you to think of a fish feeling like that, but I tell you, it stopped me in my wake.

I edged towards that tranquil place, thinking that I might get a few moments of float - a fishy version of a human doze – when…Whoosh!

I’ll say it again. Louder. WHOOSH!

A swirling of sediment and the whole riverbed is moving, while a big fish turns to look at me, a big green and brown striped Pike, a silvery streamlined monster.

Must be at least 3 foot long, this Pike, snout like a bird’s bill (and they don’t half send shivers through yer gills!) and two huge eyes, gleaming through the murk.

He was there waiting, that killer. In a peaceful, idyllic spot, waiting for his dinner to swim by, the lazy get! They never chase you. They just wait. Then. Snap, his jaws have sliced you in two. Filleted and down the hatch.

Pikes are cannibals. No less. Why, the female will often eat their mate after they’ve had it away with them. For dessert she’ll even try the kids!

Well, I wasn’t sticking around, no, not this little Stickleback. I mean, I’ve got a wife and kids waiting for me back in the canal. Not much meat on me for a whopping great Pike, but all the same, I might just make a tasty appetiser.

I dived down low, into the sludge and shook a bit, like I’d seen a John Dory do in a colour supplement, disturbing some more of the dirt and clouding the river water even more.

Yes, that’s right, a colour supplement. The people who deliver those free papers that you lot like to read - or line budgie cages with - they usually dump a few hundred in the canal. We all race over to read ‘em before they disintegrate. Yes, I can read and write (how else did you think I was telling you this story!)

Anyway, so there’s loads more sediment in the water, and I can tell that the Pike’s having trouble. His eyes are so big you see. Big eyes, more surface area to be irritated by the filth. And by this time I’m totally hidden in the mud.

He’s on the move now, that Pike and I can feel his slippery scales rubbing over mine as I lay in the river bed. Now it’s my turn to wait.

Didn’t have to wait long, though. He was gone. Like I said, they’re too lazy to take the trouble to hunt for you.

That’s enough from me. I’m off to listen to the latest Baroness album – the Blue Album. They’re a sludge metal band you see and all this talk of muddy riverbeds has whetted my appetite.

Happy hunting!