The Raincoats - The Void, Live at the MOMA.

This is The Raincoats performing 'The Void' live at MOMA in 2009. You can watch a full set of the band performing as part of Dan Graham's Stage Set for Music at the Lisson Gallery in London in 2018 here.

Dream Nails - DIY (Live at The Victoria, London - 26 July 2018)

This highly atmospheric live clip of Dream Nails was recorded at The Victoria in London on 26th July 2018. You can watch footage of their set at London's Shacklewell Arms in 2018 here.

Interview and live music with MS MOHAMMED at LOUD WOMAN FEST

There isn't an awful lot of video of Ms Mohammed on YouTube, especially live video. The live sections of this particular video are a little bit muffled, sound quality wise, but it's enough to give you an idea of how good she is. In a similar vein, Ms Mohammed also did a talk for TEDX London in 2019, on the theme of authenticity over assimilation, and she and played two songs as part of that. You can watch the TEDX London talk here.

Gaptooth live at The Dublin Castle, 8 December 2012

This brief clip of Gaptooth performing at The Dublin Castle in 2012 is the only live footage of Gaptooth on YouTube, and while it's a bit scrappy, it gives you an idea of her sound. You can subscribe to her YouTube channel here.

Shopping - Initiative (Live on KEXP)

This song is taken from a set Shopping did as part of a UK live showcase KEXP filmed on an Atlantic crossing trip to London. You can watch the full KEXP set here.

Greentea Peng – Ghost Town

An uncharacteristicly political song from rising talent Greentea Peng, 'Ghost Town', the video to the song was filmed on the Aylesbury Estate in South London. At risk of demolition in 2016, the estate is now part of a regeneration area.

Regeneration in London is always a political subject and there is a sense, echoed very strongly by Peng here, that it is not the communities whose houses are being regenerated who gain the benefits. "You won't take my city from me" vows Peng as the high rises disappear to be replaced by unaffordable 'affordable' housing and communities are displaced.

When she performed the song live at the recent 6Music festival in Camden, she segued it smoothly into a high octane take on The Specials 1981 hit 'Ghost Town', which was number 1 in the UK Top 40 at the time of the 1981 riots.

Food for thought in both cases.

Nitin Sawhney - Days of Fire feat. Natty

I'm not entirely sure which particular series of events inspired Nitin Sawhney's thoughtful, reflective piece 'Days of Fire', but such are the times we live in that it could be about any number of events and tragedies to occur in the UK's capital over these past eleven years and earlier.

Stop what you're doing, settle down, take a breath and just... listen.

An interview with Gina Birch and Helen McCookerybook

I didn't get chance to write about this last week, mainly because I was in a hurry to get the piece posted on The F-Word before our site re-design went live.

Anyway, it's been two years in the making, but... (Drumroll please...)

I have interviewed Helen McCookerybook and Gina Birch about their excellent women and punk documentary, Stories of the She-Punks: Music with a different agenda.

Folk who've been reading this blog for a few years may remember that I blogged about the work in progress version of the She-Punks film back in 2016, when times were simpler, there was still hope in the world (erm, a bit of hope? Maybe?) and Boris Johnson was still Mayor of London (I think we can all spot the odd one out in that sentence...) That was when it was shown at the British Library's conference centre in St Pancras to a rapturous response during London's 40 Years of Punk celebrations.

The finished film receives it's London premiere at Doc'N'Roll Fest on Saturday, and it is well worth seeing. Gina and Helen were very generous with their time and gave me a brilliant interview.

We did the interview at the British Library in the cafe on the ground floor, which I settled in earlier in the day having dragged myself away from the £35 plush toy snake in the gift shop. Then Helen and I walked back to Euston together and I honed my 'Finding things to do at Euston station' skills for an hour and a half.

It was good fun and well worth the wait.

Adventures in the capital

Travelling to London by train is a frequently disorientating experience, on a number of levels. It's not uncommon for me to find myself at Euston while my brain is still at Stockport train station.

Last night was the book launch for the new, updated edition of Lucy O'Brien's Madonna biography, Like an Icon. Because I am being a writer full time now, because I thought it would be fun to go, and - most remarkably of all - because the train fare was actually quite reasonable for a change, I went along.

The launch took place at Gay's The Word, an independent LGBTQI+ (I hope I got all the letters right...) bookshop in Kings Cross, a short ish walk from Euston station. I haven't actually been down that road before but it cuts through innumerable bits of Kings Cross that I've either stayed in hotels in, got lost in, or passed through in other ways so I was pretty confident of finding it.

Normally I find these kind of events incredibly nerve wracking, but I've had slightly more practice at speaking to people since I went to Lucy's last book launch in 2013, and I like to think I fared better this time. Lucy did a fantastic speech about Madonna, and about the book, which I think won round or at least whetted the appetite of a few skeptics. Enough to buy the book, which I would recommend you do, because it's a really good, intelligent read even if you aren't a Madonna fan.

I am part of the first generation of women to grow up with Madonna as a constant cultural presence in our lives. I wouldn't say I was a fan though. When I was seven I was obsessed with the song 'La Isla Bonita', to the extent that when we did, shortly after it's release, head into Stockport to WH Smith for a family music shopping trip to buy mine and my sisters first records, I believe I did intend to purchase the True Blue album.

I can't remember exactly why I didn't. I think now it might have been the case that WH Smith only had True Blue on CD at the time, and we didn't have a CD player. Either that or I was so turned off by the artwork that I insisted on going home with The First Album on LP instead. I think my sister went home with nothing, which speaks more to WH Smith's failure to provide than hers to choose I think.

We took it home and my dad put it on the record player. 'Lucky Star' began. We looked baffled, my dad equally as much as the rest of us. There was some discussion as to whether the record was on the right speed or not, followed by confirmation that it definitely was. We weren't used to early Madonna and her high, slightly squeaky, voice. But we did get used to the record, and learn to love it, quite quickly.

True Blue and Who's That Girl? period Madonna excited me musically but once the promotion period for both was over and Madonna wasn't releasing new material, I moved on musically. To Bananarama and Belinda Carlisle specifically, both of whom I formed a considerably longer, more enduring attachment to. Why was that? Was it because the Madonna of 1987 felt so remote? With her jogging routine, her minders, her very 'hard' Marilyn Monroe inspired blonde bombshell look? There was a girl next door accessibility to Bananarama and a mysterious, slightly tragic, glamour to the post Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle that Madonna didn't have. I couldn't achieve Carlisle's Veronica Lake inspired long red hair anymore than I could achieve Madonna's blondness, but it felt more attractive somehow.

Belinda Carlisle seemed a more fallible performer, I realise in retrospect, and I think I've almost always been attracted to that quality in my female performers. Even Siouxsie Sioux's ice queen exterior would melt if you got her on the subject of cats, equally as certain as Florence Welch can't go a single gig without, at least once, looking like a kid in a sweet shop. Madonna always felt like she wasn't quite human so that, when the inevitable evidence of humanity did emerge, it always felt like a shock.

I think Lucy's book works so well because it seeks to challenge that perceived lack of humanity, to get underneath the image, to interrogate and explore the myths.

I spoke to a number of people while I was there, mainly about punk and about writing. Not really much about Madonna. Helen McCookerybook was there and I spent a long time talking to her and a lady called Paula Wolf, who had lived in Manchester for twenty years and had a lot to say about the Manchester scene. Much of which corresponded with my own observations of it during my fanzine writer years. They had both seen David Wilkinson talking about City Fun at Porto and, by the sound of it, his enthusiasm has proved infectious. This is one of many strengths of David's approach to both academia and public speaking: His enthusiasm is very, very infectious. I know he enjoyed the academic conference at Porto as well because we talked about it last week when I went over to see him in Marple.

Helen was talking to us about the She Punks film and it was really inspiring hearing and watching her talk about it, because I could see how much it meant to her. I was really sorry to tear myself away to go back to Euston for my train.

They were making the final call for the Manchester train as I got onto the concourse at Euston and myself and a youngish guy immediately starting legging it towards platform 14, only to be stopped by the ticket inspectors at the entrance to the platform. They pretty much had to hold up their hands for us both and shout "WHOA!" We must have looked incredibly anxious because they were very quick to reassure us, after we'd showed them our tickets, that we were safe to walk to the train, not run, as it would be sitting there for "a few more minutes yet".

As I was walking towards the first class end of the train I heard a really loud bang and, out of the corner of my eye, saw an explosion of bright white sparks, like a firework, emerge from a train two platforms away. The experience made me jump and rattled me so much that I started running again and threw myself on the train in the next first class carriage. I briefly conversed with an, if anything, even more rattled passenger, who was convinced the explosion had come out of the roof of the train two platforms down. There didn't seem to be anything I could say or do, and events had clearly been witnessed by both Network Rail and Virgin staff in the station, so it wasn't like anyone needed telling it had happened.

I could feel the adrenaline surging through me as I walked all the way down the train to my seat. The train was moving by the time I got there and I sat down and closed my eyes for twenty minutes, wondering what the hell had just happened. One of the rare downsides of not having a smartphone is the fact that, whenever you are witness to something odd or upsetting, you can't immediately go online to research the incident in question and try and figure out what happened. For all I knew, they could be in the process of sealing off Euston station and combing the platforms for explosives. Not as alarmist as  it might sound really, given the time before last I went to London by train we were accompanied by a patrol of armed police up and down the train on the way home (I never found out why) and also that someone had seemingly had a go at Parliament Square again with a car earlier in the week. I tried to ensure my imagination didn't go into overdrive, but it was hard.

After twenty minutes the buffet car opened so I went and got a Limonata and tried to cool down a bit. I was still brooding about what had just happened and I found myself furtively watching the people around me to see if anyone looked upset or anxious. After a bit I gave it up as a bad job and, in a suitably dark mood, decided that if I was going to die I'd do it to Florence + The Machine and put my mp3 player on a Florence only shuffle.

Awhile later the driver, after what sounded like some difficulty with the PA, made an announcement. 'Ladies and Gentlemen, if you could all pay attention for a minute'.

Here it comes... I thought

'There has been a fatality...'

Oh no...

'...On the line north of Stoke - On - Trent'

Huh?

I can't remember all of what he said next as it was somewhat geographically complicated. The upshot being that anyone with a ticket for Macclesfield was out of luck as we weren't able to get there now and they'd have to get off at Stockport and double back. Further updates to follow.

I switched Florence back on.

After a ghostly trip through a series of dark and abandoned looking stations in Staffordshire and Cheshire, we finally got to Stockport at five to midnight, fifteen minutes late. Stockport station looked about as deserted as most of the stations we'd passed through in Staffordshire and Cheshire, but at least the lights were on.

I couldn't remember what the current state of play is with the 192 bus after midnight if it's not a Friday or a Saturday so I walked down to Grand Central with a vague tangent of hope. One that was gradually dampened, then extinguished altogether in the following fifteen minutes. Grand Central, despite the sterling efforts of Stockport Council and, at various times, Greater Manchester Police, has never been more than two steps away from lairy, and is definitely not a place to hang around if you can help it. Saving money is one thing but it looked increasingly unlikely that a bus would be coming any time soon and it would take me at least 45 minutes to walk home. I walked back up to the station and got a taxi instead.

I sat down at the kitchen table with a massive mug of hot chocolate and turned Radio 4 on. Their headline news items was the death of Aretha Franklin that afternoon so I quickly concluded that I hadn't witnessed an attempted terrorism attack at Euston and that maybe a signal box had blown up or something instead.

I hadn't realised that Aretha Franklin had died until her death was alluded to at the book launch ahead of Lucy's speech. I'd missed the announcement because I'd been on the train when it happened and, after that, mooching about at the British Library and on the plaza. And not having a smartphone again.

I came to Aretha Franklin's music very late. I was in my mid 20's before I really started to be interested in her and my introduction came via Brian Matthews Sounds Of The Sixties on Radio 2, which I used to listen to on Saturday mornings while getting ready for work. 'Think' had more impact on me than 'Respect' did. Not because 'Respect' was no good, but because I'd been overexposed to it before I was ready to be interested in it and hear it for what it really was.

I hadn't grown up being interested in soul music at all, and I realise now that it's because I'd been exposed to the wrong kind of soul music while I was growing up: That very diluted, bland, overly slick 1990s chart soul, which always left me totally cold. Hearing 1960s soul records, whether that be Aretha, Otis, some of the Motown and Stax rosters, and various Northern Soul records, made me understand the evangelical devoteeism of the soul scene. Even if I never became a soul girl, a window had been opened, an explanation provided, a piece of the puzzle located.

RIP Aretha, it is mightily clear that you are missed, and will continue to be missed. As for Madonna at 60, it proves her doubters wrong. To survive so long in that area of the music business takes guts, determination and sheer bloody mindedness. Qualities I don't think many thought Madonna had back in 1982. Hats off to her.

Punk Women in London: A lengthy essay in two chapters

Chapter One:

On Sunday 5th June I got up at quarter past six on what, I would guess, would have been one of the hottest days of the year thus far in order to head out to Stockport at quarter to eight to get the 8:28 train to London Euston.

Across London throughout this year there are a whole raft of events celebrating 40 Years Of Punk, a lot of which I'm not very interested in, but Sundays event was a Punk Women panel discussion at Stoke Newington Literary Festival, thus more worthwhile attending.

I did consider going down by coach and staying overnight but London hotels are so expensive that it worked out cheaper to go down by train and come back the same day.

That said, it was about £50 for the train, about £10 for a zones 1&2 travel card and another £9.80 for a return between Highbury and Seven Sisters, to account for the inconvenient fact that Seven Sisters is in in zone 3, not zone 2. I didn't realise that until I'd got on the tube at Euston then, after umming and arring, bit the bullet and paid up at Highbury. The only other way round it would have been to go from Highbury to Stoke Newington by bus, and I could have done that more easily from Euston but chose not to because it would be harder to figure out where to get off. As it was, I was ten minutes late to the event in the end, so missed most of Jude Rogers introductions of the panel, who were:

Liz Naylor

Helen McCookerybook

Gina Birch

Pauline Murray

Shanne Bradley

I didn't make any notes or record any of the event, but it was very inspiring. Here are some highlights, from memory:

• Liz Naylor introducing the town of Hyde by explaining it's dubious bad luck in having housed, at different times, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, also Harold Shipman. Something that tickled me, but probably not anyone else.
• Pauline Murray's fantastic take down of London's 40 Years of Punk by saying she didn't want to be involved in any of it, but felt as a woman and a northerner that she should do, given the Londoncentric nature of events.
• Shanne Bradley's more concise, but equally eloquent, dismissal of 40 Years of Punk as "bollocks".
• Liz mentioning identity politics, queer issues, Patti Smith and riot grrrl alongside reference to a clip on YouTube of Pauline Murray performing with Penetration amidst a "tsunami of gob"
• Pauline saying she didn't think of herself as being A Woman In A Band at the time, explaining "I was spat at as much as anyone else"
• Helen McCookerybook, when talking about the current generation, saying that "they don't understand how hard we had to fight for the things that are now being taken away from them"
• Gina Birch's excitement at opening the door to a young person selling  newspaper called Revolution the previous week, and her excited cry to the family of "Quick, there's a revolutionary at the door!"
• Shanne's recounting of a Nips reformation gig when Shane MacGowan failed to show and Shanne's daughter sang for them in her lycra sportswear. She was fifteen at the time.
• Liz's dismissal of modern fanzines as fetishising the production methods of the past: "Use a computer!"
• Pauline pondering that 'Don't Dictate' was probably written about "me parents or something"
• Gina and Helen's frank dismissal of 1970s art schools as revolutionary training grounds, with Helen describing Brighton as "A finishing school for rich girls" complete with lairy lecturers and predatory male third years. Gina, meanwhile, acknowledged Nottingham as an interesting art school, but found Hornsey "dull".

Afterwards I was torn between making an effort to be uncharacteristically extrovert and introduce myself to people, or trying to sell some copies of Ablaze! 11 for Karren. In the end, I opted for the latter. I asked the girl at the back of the room, who was running the book stall, if she would be interested in selling them for me, she said she couldn't but that I could always use the empty table next to hers to sell them myself. So I did. I tore a page out of my notebook and fanned out the four copies of Ablaze! I'd brought with me (all eight would have been too heavy) and put my hastily scribbled explanatory note next to them.

A few people seemed interested, but either didn't have money or didn't want to spend it, so didn't buy. But I caught Helen McCookerybook's eye when she was free, and we had a nice chat, and she bought one, as did the lovely Katy Carr, who Helen introduced me to.

Outside, a gentleman connected to July's punk weekender at the Roundhouse also bought a copy, at Katy's instigation, and we had a nice chat. He was coming at punk from the point of view of having been a Jewish skinhead who liked reggae at the time. He now writes poetry, and has a sideline interest in the Vimto statue in Manchester. Which was a nice surprise. He has his picture taken with it whenever he's in Manchester. After a bit, he and his friends left for the pub, Helen left, and I walked back to Stoke Newington and got an overground train to Seven Sisters, then the Victoria line. My train wasn't until just before six, so I stayed on the train instead of getting off at Euston and switched to the Bakerloo line at Oxford Circus to go to Regent's Park, where I had my sandwiches in the sunshine.

Then I got the tube back to Oxford Circus and walked it from Oxford Circus down Tottenham Court Road and Euston Road to Euston station.

A note on trains: They are very nice looking these days, even in Standard, and you get slightly more leg room than you would on the coach, plus the air con is better (seems to work better, is less noisy) and it's a lot faster (Two and a half hours Vs Four hours forty five, minimum) but is it worth the ticket price? No. It should be a flat rate of £40, max. This is based on coaches being about £20, usually.

Chapter Two: 

I'm going to have to do Friday 10th June in stages, as it was a long day with a lot going on.

All week at work the temperature and humidity has been rising, and the rain has made very little difference: It's been thirty degrees, or higher, in large chunks of the building thanks to the air circulation conking out at least twice. Shelving conditions upstairs were unbearable so the staff doing the shelving have been heading out en masse for extra breaks. On Friday morning I watched them from our desk (which is handily located by the entrance doors, which we had left open to the outside) as they stood by the bike sheds in the rain in their jeans and vest tops. Some had brought umbrellas, but most of them hadn't and were making the most of the organic sprinkler system it represented before heading back to the sweat pits upstairs.

I finished at 2pm on Friday in order to walk to Piccadilly to get the 14:55 to Euston for the She Punks film event at the British Library. I did originally try and get Friday and Saturday off as annual leave but couldn't because we're banned from taking annual leave in the first two weeks of June this year, on account of what happened last year at that time when our entire department had a sort of collective nervous breakdown due to the unbearable and impossible workload. You can see a picture from this period if you go to one of my earlier blog posts.  Some leave did get granted, but you had to argue your case, and my line manager couldn't give me more than 3 hours on Friday because Friday was books return day, which is a sort of library armageddon day, and much needed extra staff would be coming in on Saturday to assist with the continuing fallout from it so I couldn't have that either. I don't feel bitter about this, but it did put me in the awkward position of having to inhabit two very different professional worlds in one day, in the same set of clothes, which probably didn't quite come off. Still, couldn't be helped...

It didn't feel too hot when I left work, but I felt very warm but the time I got to Piccadilly. There are so many roadworks, road closures and diversions at the moment in central Manchester and around Oxford Road that it's quicker to walk it than it is to get the bus.

Got into Euston just after 5pm and headed over to the British Library, which is about ten minutes walk away. I wandered in and had a very half hearted look at the punk exhibition, but quickly felt bored with it, having already looked it over on Sunday. So I headed next door to the 'Treasures of the British Library' exhibition, and became engrossed in original literary manuscripts and elaborate bindings. I was looking at the original of Shelley's Masque of Anarchy while still being able to hear X Ray Spex from next door: Very apt, probably.

They start clearing people out at about half five on a Friday, so I headed back out to the piazza and had a snack while waiting for the event, which was due to start at 18:30 in the conference centre. They started to clear the piazza around six ish, so I headed into the conference centre at that point, where a soiree was forming in the foyer that I felt to shy to try and penetrate.

Not long after, they let us into the auditorium, and I sat fairly near the back for optimum view of the screen. It also made a good people watching position.

There were three introductions to the She Punks film. Firstly, a gentleman from the British Library, who made some very good points about the nature of the British Library and its collections, specifically that BL have been collecting, storing and cataloguing punk right from the 1970s onwards. Hence all the fanzines, 7"'s and LP's, and why it was all in such good condition. It hadn't been borrowed, or shipped in, they'd had it all the time. And that that was the whole point of being the people's library, that you collect and reflect the people's history. I also enjoyed his comment along the lines of loud music, stroppiness etc as "Just another day at the British Library"

Next up was Zoe Howe, the chair of the Q&A, then Helen McCookerybook and Gina Birch did a more irreverent and slightly nervous seeming introduction to the film, in which they seemed a bit worried that the audience wouldn't like it. They were at great pains to stress the imperfect nature of it.

It is an unfinished piece of work, and it has a starkness to it that it wouldn't have perhaps if it had been finished, but the starkness is part of its charm. It's a quality that works really well with the content of the interviews, and the narrative structure of the film. The interviews are so powerful in themselves, and so refreshing, that it didn't really need more to be utterly absorbing. That said, I am coming at it from a point of view of someone who has been working on a women and punk project for seven years now, and who has interviewed some of the people in the film, but that didn't matter because it still felt really fresh, and very inspiring. Some of it was quite harrowing, but there were also some very funny bits, and the film overall had an energy to it that made it feel very uplifting and inspiring, but in an honest and truthful way rather than in a mawkish and contrived way.

Quite simply, it is a film that should, and must, be seen by as many people as possible. It has so much to say, about punk, about hidden histories... and much more.

Afterwards, Zoe chaired a Q&A with Gina Birch, Helen McCookerybook, Tessa Pollitt, and Jane Woodgate, which was riveting. Someone asked about what the kids thought about their careers as punk musicians, and when Gina said her daughters weren't as into it as her daughters friends, there came an indignant cry from the back of the auditorium of "THAT'S NOT TRUE!" followed by "I JUST CAN'T TELL YOU THAT I DO BECAUSE YOU'RE MY MOTHER!" Helen decided she wouldn't bring her daughters into it on the basis that they were both in the audience too. I don't remember all the Q&A, but I do remember a lengthy discussion themed around punk and feminism which took a number of twists and turns.

After the Q&A, there was a performance of 'Oh Bondage! Up Yours!', and the audience were meant to sing along, using the lyric sheets that had been left on the chairs. We weren't good or loud enough though. I think people were a bit inhibited. It was good fun though, sort of punk performance art imbued with a sort of Rocky Horror Picture Show audience participation dynamic.

Afterwards, we were gently but firmly ushered out into the adjoining room, where I started to think about how I should be introducing myself to people and that but, as usual, stood awkwardly in a corner hesitating instead. I saw Katy Carr again, and chatted to her friend Alex for a while, and Helen introduced me to a very nice pair of fanzine aficionados, who were probably in their early twenties. I tried to sell them a copy of Ablaze! 11 but they were put off by how professional it looked. We had a lovely chat though. The girl went over to talk to Jane Woodgate, and the boy and I sadly commiserated on our lack of ability to do likewise. Not long after that I left because I was feeling paranoid about missing my train home.

I got to Euston at about quarter past nine. They hadn't announced the platform for the Manchester train so I ate my cheese sandwiches while gazing fixedly at the announcements screen. There was some delay in getting the train prepared after it's previous journey in, which automatically made me think that someone must have been sick on one or more of the seats. We didn't get very long to get onto the train at all in the end, less than five minutes I reckon. And, of course, first class is always the end of the train nearest the station end of the platform, and standard is always the furthest away. Carriage B was so far away that I hopped on at E and walked through the remaining carriages in the end.

The train home was full of students, or, student aged folk. On the way down I'd been sitting across the aisle from some slightly noisy business folk, who drank wine all the way to Euston, so students on laptops and phone, or sleeping slumped across each other, was a massive improvement. Much quieter.  
That said, I had my mp3 player on both ways.

I'd decided not to get off at Stockport because the area around Stockport train station is such a building site it would be too hairy to navigate in the dark. So I got off at Piccadilly, still with my headphones in because I was just finishing off an episode of Undone (appropriately), went down the escalators to the taxi rank, walked past the taxis and a very loud couple having a proper violent row. I still had my headphones in, but I could hear them over the top of it, as well as the bloke at the bus stop, who was watching them, and quite clearly said 'Dick' (or was it 'Twat'?) in a very disgusted voice. I figured I'd see how long I had to wait for a 192 and take it from there: Thirty seconds, somewhat unusually. The bus wasn't crowded, but a group of really loud blokes, who looked vaguely Spanish but who were possibly Hungarian (it was France V Hungary in Euro 2016  that day) got on so I kept my headphones in. Someone started smoking a fag but I was too weary to react or get off the bus, so I just put up with it. It was about midnight by this point.

I got home at 00:15, rang my mum, took my makeup off, did my teeth, and went to bed. I was too excited to sleep for ages, but I eventually nodded off.

Very reluctantly got up at 7:00 again to go to work. Felt very tired and muggy headed, but somehow got through the day.

Afterword: #1

There will be second showing of the She Punks film as part of the Punk Weekender at the Roundhouse in July.  I urge you to see it if you possibly can.

Afterward: #2

Some of you may be wondering what UK cities outside of London are doing to mark 40 Years Of Punk. I haven't checked everywhere, but Manchester has an annual punk festival which happened in April, and has sod all to do with the 40 Years Of Punk thing. On 6music earlier this month, Radcliffe and Maconie, both lads whose formative years coincided with punk and who can be seen to have grown up in the loosely defined area of Greater Manchester, did a broadcast from the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester to mark the 40th Anniversary of the legendary Pistols gig there.

Because 2106 marks the 20th anniversary of the IRA bombing of Manchester City Centre, much of the cultural output this year is focused on that. Including a very innovative series of events at Manchester Histories Festival and HOME.

That which is done, cannot be Undone

In the run up to Christmas I wrote a piece for the excellent Manchester magazines The Shrieking Violet on the theme of alternative versions of cities, specifically Manchester through the eyes of Jeff Noon in the Vurt books and London through the eyes of Neil Gaimon and (in more detail) Ben Moor.

This marked something of a departure for me, writing wise, as despite being a fan of Sci Fi and Fantasy narratives, I don't tend to write them or write about them. Mainly because I've always suspected I wouldn't be very good at it.

It took a while to suspend this fear when writing the magazine article, but I was determined to do so because I'd spent the summer months of 2013 being absolutely obsessed with and addicted to Ben Moor's Sci Fi comedy Undone, a process made even more difficult by the fact that innumerable friends and acquaintances had become obsessed with Breaking Bad around the same time.

Undone was a radio series that went out on BBC7 between late 2006 and early 2010. It's third series has been repeated on BBC7's replacement, 4Extra, and a repeat of series 1 is due to air next week. I hope series 2 and 3 will follow.

It's good to hear that the producers and schedulers at 4Extra haven't forgotten about Moor's classic series, which was after all the longest running commissioned series on BBC7. Tasters have been airing all last week on the station, reminding listeners not only that this was a show where both Sarah Solemani and Tim Key got to cut their teeth but also that the endearing Moor (who plays Tankerton Slopes in the series) was really onto something with his concept.

Undone begins with the arrival of 21 year old Edna Turner in London from Towcester. Edna is due to start a three month trial as a journalist at the London listings magazine Get Out! and, as with all newcomers, is finding her new home a bit odd. Things become odder when she meets the enigmatic Tankerton Slopes, who introduces her to Undone, a surreal parallel version of London where there literally are Faceless Bureaucrats, a Pet Tricks club where cute furry animals perform amusing stunts, seemingly of their own volition, and bizarre magazines and TV shows such as Get A Move On! (the magazine for impatient people) and Molotov Cocktail Party (a magazine show that reviews the days riots and disturbances around the world).

Undone works on a number of levels, it is Alice in Wonderland in some respects and a very funny satire on the London media world on another level. It features likable characters, imaginative and creative storylines, twists in the narratives and charm that is rare.  

Undone series 1, episode 1, goes out at 6:30pm on Monday and continues at the same time throughout the week on 4Extra.