Half Man Half Biscuit Emerging From Gorse
Well, it must have been about half past two in the
morning, and just sitting there in the front room, with
Carl and Brendan and Adrian. We’re just sitting
listening to music, drinking tea, talking about the
Palace Brothers, Bonnie Prince Billy, that kind of
thing. All of a sudden the room fills with a harsh
brightness and in barges my sister mob-handed from
Cream. She points at the speakers on the stereo and
starts chanting: “Shit band, no fans, shit band no
fans…”
Well, I’m just about to defend our corner when her mate
Natalie at the back pipes up with: “Yeah, the windy
minimalism of that last track recalls some of
Labradford’s isolationist period.”
Thoroughly defeated, I retired upstairs to bed, left
them to it. However, step forward three years into my
secret hayloft, shot with shafts of afternoon sunlight.
Brendan’s changed his name to Federal Metronome…
Did you see me, being escorted round the ground,
Motorola in the pocket of my Wampum jeans, over the ad
for Continental, I made a comic bid for freedom…
There are a million retired liberals watching
Countdown. And in the adverts they close their eyes and
they go to Umbria with Carol…
Oh Carol, oh…
Oh Carol, oh…
They subscribe to Erotic Review because it’s broadsheet
acceptable, and they can read it in bed with their
partners and perhaps try out suggested oils. Ah, but
they still feel the need to board an EasyJet to
Amsterdam every now and again. ‘Cos you can’t get
Teenage Eskimo in Wantage…
See the keepers hanging rancid in the glade, Arconada,
Pfaff and Bats and Joseph-Antoine Bell… I hope for
answers in the distance, far beyond deep sierra [?]
Go on, ask me what we do next. Just attribute it to
King Alfred and go like this…
