Don't drink and click
Two purchases from the iTunes music store this week, both made under the influence. Neither of them regretted, but a warning to the careless user that stepping into the parade of shops that lines the edge of the information superhighway can result in a debit on the credit card. Luckily, I've not yet reached the point related by a guest on a R4 panel show the other day that a couple of days after getting fairly drunk, it's quite usual for packages from Amazon to start showing up.
One of the tracks purchased was Under Milk Wood. Truly astonishing. Richard Burton's voice is the voice of God. It's so good that I've listened to it three times - correction, it's so good that I've started to listen to it three times, the problem being that the first two times were in bed at the end of the day and very soon the dreamers of Llareggub were joined by me.
I think you have to be Welsh to write with such love about a place like this and make make the love you feel saturate every line, come out the pours of every character. Welsh and a genius. Welsh and a genius and tortured. Welsh and a genius and tortured and an alcoholic who dies from, most probably, a fall from a drinking stool. the same way Ollie Reed was taken and so probably the same way I shall go that I believe the day is drawing close when I shall start taking a small crash mat with me when I go for a beer, or week long binge.
Could something like this be written now. Not by an Englishman, or to clarify, not my some metropolitan tosser. The closest anyone got was Ralph McTell and Streets of London.
Today, the story of a small English town would have to be quite different. 'To begin at the Tesco carpark. It is spring, moonless night but the hallogen lamps turn the bible black vault of the sky into an orange fanta coloured haze. The potholed streets are busy still with revellers, shoppers, drunks and litter, litter, litter from kebab wrappers, greasy and sleazy, to the rattling bottles left in doorways not by the milkman, but by the chav leaving his bicardi breezer bottle, empty now, in a convenient spot.'
And so on.
I like to think that Llareggub is a damn sight more real than the towns of today.
So, for the moment, I'm glad I don't have a big red button in the centre of my keyboard that reads 'I'm drunk, don't let me buy anything'. maybe drunken purchases are the ones we really need because they are the most selfish, bought not just because we've been told to purchase them by advertisements but because, even in a pissed up state, we can still make the effort to focus on the screen, tap in credit card numbers and navigate security, making the purchase all the more worthwhile.
One of the tracks purchased was Under Milk Wood. Truly astonishing. Richard Burton's voice is the voice of God. It's so good that I've listened to it three times - correction, it's so good that I've started to listen to it three times, the problem being that the first two times were in bed at the end of the day and very soon the dreamers of Llareggub were joined by me.
I think you have to be Welsh to write with such love about a place like this and make make the love you feel saturate every line, come out the pours of every character. Welsh and a genius. Welsh and a genius and tortured. Welsh and a genius and tortured and an alcoholic who dies from, most probably, a fall from a drinking stool. the same way Ollie Reed was taken and so probably the same way I shall go that I believe the day is drawing close when I shall start taking a small crash mat with me when I go for a beer, or week long binge.
Could something like this be written now. Not by an Englishman, or to clarify, not my some metropolitan tosser. The closest anyone got was Ralph McTell and Streets of London.
Today, the story of a small English town would have to be quite different. 'To begin at the Tesco carpark. It is spring, moonless night but the hallogen lamps turn the bible black vault of the sky into an orange fanta coloured haze. The potholed streets are busy still with revellers, shoppers, drunks and litter, litter, litter from kebab wrappers, greasy and sleazy, to the rattling bottles left in doorways not by the milkman, but by the chav leaving his bicardi breezer bottle, empty now, in a convenient spot.'
And so on.
I like to think that Llareggub is a damn sight more real than the towns of today.
So, for the moment, I'm glad I don't have a big red button in the centre of my keyboard that reads 'I'm drunk, don't let me buy anything'. maybe drunken purchases are the ones we really need because they are the most selfish, bought not just because we've been told to purchase them by advertisements but because, even in a pissed up state, we can still make the effort to focus on the screen, tap in credit card numbers and navigate security, making the purchase all the more worthwhile.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home