2 March 2007
	I've reached a point now in my degeneration into complete imbecilic slobdom where Amy's getting emails of complaint from people about the fact that I haven't updated my site. I think this might be something I should be proud of in some perverse manner, but I'm really not sure. Fact is I've been busy soundproofing the window of the room we're using as a recording studio - it's all part of the recording process that should hopefully lead to a brand new debut album from our fantastic two piece rock'n'roll group, The Eric & Amy Show. We're confident but I'm not making any promises because I've done that before and I don't want to jinx this.
	I think that Leonardo de Vinci didn't exist before about 1970. We were all quite happy ticking along without him. Yes, I know he invented, discovered or whatever, perspective, but that's beside the point - he only started to exist because because of posters. The seventies was the decade of posters. In the seventies you could put any shit on a poster - the ubiquitous Leonardo de Vinci drawing of a large man with a small cock stuck to a cartwheel or whatever - and some clot would pay good money for it and stick it up on the wall with sellotape. And the sellotape would turn yellow and either tear the wallpaper when it was removed, or just lose its stickiness and cause the poster to flop depressingly downwards from one corner. Or they might have used drawing pins - those pre-tetanus ones that went rusty as the rising damp got to them, leaving an indelible stain on the wallpaper. In any event the wallpaper was going to suffer, unless the wall was emulsioned in brown, cream or sand colour as walls frequently were in the seventies. I don't think Blue Tack was available - if it was it was beyond the financial reach of most of the people who might stick a poster on the wall. I miss the days of Pirelli Tyres calendars - December with two luscious chicks in scanty Santa Claus outfits, all tits, bums and inviting smiles. Oil stained by mechanics with big insensitive fingers. That dreadful poem: go placidly amid the noise and haste of this life... on a mock scroll background, so beloved by the kind of girls you soon found out were practicing Christians, which meant they weren't permissive, which meant you were wasting your time there - talking deep into the last bus long gone night, wired on Maxwell House, wondering way past the point of making a move whether you dared to or not, hearing her say, that's the great thing about you and me, we can just be friends without any complications... Time to go placidly home. Those girls grew older than their years, got engaged, kept themselves intact for tall straight blokes with polytechnic degrees in engineering and business studies. Disapproved of the poster of the tennis player scratching her arse as she walked toward the net. When they got a place together that was the first thing that had to go, replaced by that other sickly companion to the go placidly piece: If a picture paints a thousand words then why can't I paint you... He looks wistfully backwards to the student flat with the poster on the hallway wall of two sets of silhouetted feet - we shall overcome... It's not the posters that I miss so much as the yellow sellotape and rusty drawing pins. We stopped in Ikea in Clermont Ferrand on the way home from Germany. We needed a break from driving, something to eat, and Amy hadn't been to Ikea since they first had one in New York. Yes, they've got Ikea in New York. They've got Ikea fucking everywhere. Sophistication and those weird Swedish meatballs are now within the reach of everyone. The place was full of the most wonderfully mis-shapen and altogether unique French country people looking for Christ knows what - a bit of New York loft-living chic to put in a three-bedroomed home in the suburbs? I don't know. We nearly bought a toilet roll holder but then we didn't because the whole affair, including the toilet roll holder itself, was too complicated. It struck me that the Ikea phenomenom is an insidious form of globalisation. Not harmful in itself perhaps, but all over the world people are exercising what they think is their right to choose - their freedom of choice - and buying the same tacky designer shit. From Croydon to Brooklyn, from Essex to Clermont Ferrand, Oslo to Wisconsin. This is no choice, just an illusion of choice. People take what's put in front of them. It's very disturbing to me. And now the Police are reforming. We're too far gone for posters now, we're post Leonardo de Vinci. I'm surprised that cunt's got time to reform that horrible group what with all that tantrum sex. Really, I don't know what got me onto that. Maybe because Fields Of Gold is very similar to Whole Wide World, but don't get me started on that! We can do anything we like (on a very limited budget) so we've been looking at what's on offer - over-priced second hand junk - the legacy of the nineties, everything that isn't new assumes an increased value. It's an antique. Or soon will. Therefore it's worth a lot of money. Unless you're trying to sell it of course, then it's just old, chipped, obsolete. In an effort not to be regarded as old, chipped and obsolete I recently described myself as an antique English pop musician. It's a positive step towards being worth a lot of money. I hardly think so - especially as Stranger Than Fiction didn't get any Oscars. What the fuck am I doing talking about Oscars? They all went to Little Miss Sunshine. I went to see it. I enjoyed it and felt like a traitor because, if the Oscars are anything to go by, there's only room for one funny film, and my money's on, or in, Stranger Than Fiction. I'm supposed to scoop up large amounts of cash for the use of Whole Wide World but that won't happen. All it's earned me are some new myspace mates and a few nice emails. Nobody's ravished me halfway through singing that song so I'm wondering what Will Ferrell's got that I haven't. I like his version, I think he sings it with great charm. I wish I could make it sound like that when I play it live. I think I'll just stick this rambling stuff on the site. Then I can get on with a bit more degeneration.
	5 March 2007
	Pardon me boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?
	When I was a kid, really young, first playing in bands, there were always old gits. Old gits who would do a spastic imitation of someone playing a guitar and shout across the street - ha ha ha Bill Hayley!! Because it wasn't cool, or normal to be walking around with an electric guitar. These days it's just boring, completely mundane because everyone knows electric guitars. When I was really young, like about eight years old, they were a mystery. I wanted to lick one because I was sure it would taste nice – not the black and white and grey ones advertised in the TV Times with hire purchase deals of seven shillings a week or whatever – no, the bright red ones that the Shadows were holding on the cover of my sister's Cliff Richard EP, The Young Ones. Later on, we'd be setting up our pitifully inadequate equipment, everything either home made or stolen, and some shambling old codger would shuffle over from the nether regions of whatever scuzzy pub we were in and ask us if we knew Chattanooga Choo Choo. And when we shrugged our sulky, adolescent, disinterested, fuck off no we don't, the old codger would go into a routine – come on, you must know it – 'pardon me boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo' – come on you Must know it… accompanied by a shambling shuffling train impersonation. I turned into that old git myself the other night in Switzerland. Amy lost her passport. It must have fallen out of the car when she got out to ask directions to the club we were playing in that night. It was a desperate situation – we didn't know how the fuck we were going to get out of Switzerland and into Germany without it. The promoter was a personable young man (you see – I'm still turning into an old git – personable young man , Christ I want to die). He cheered us up considerably by telling us about some mountain passes where there aren't any border controls – we could get out through one of those. - We'll be like the Von Trapp Family! Amy exclaimed, eyes sparkling with this good news. - Except that they were entering Switzerland and we'll be leaving. The promoter and his mate looked blankly at us and then one of them asked words to the effect of who the hell are The Von Trapp family. - The Sound of Music said Amy. More blank looks. - You know, doe a deer a female deer… Total incomprehension. The mate put his head down and started texting furiously. - Come on, you must know it, I found myself joining in - it's got Julie Andrews in it! Come on – My Favourite Things? And then, much to my shame I found myself singing - bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens…come on, you must know it! I suppose it comes to us all. In my defence I could say that I was thinking of John Coltrane's wonderfully weirdly dis-harmonic version of the tune. But at best that would be a half truth. At least I didn't do the dance routine . I think I may have to give myself up to it though - let go and become a full time old git. It's the future and I've just seen it.