After listening through to CSI:Ambleside it was hard to know where to start, but hey, let’s go with the six-minute album closer National Shite Day. Remarkable. As has been commented elsewhere, this is close in spirit to A Country Practice: lots of things not to like, some dark undertones and a rather catchy choon. Oh god, is there really a Primark FM?
See lyrics to National Shite Day
Tom
‘spotted a Marsh Fritillary during association’
And I think it’s ‘Fat kids and sausage rolls, whoresons conducting polls’. Much more Nigel.
25 April 2008
chris
Clearly I’m not a butterfly collector. Thanks! Not so sure about the other one, still sounds like “poor sods” to me. Anyone else?
25 April 2008
Bob
Sounds like “His exposed skull a perch for the quartering crow” to me ??
28 April 2008
Hoagy
I think it’s “Fat kids with sausage rolls, poor sods conducting polls”
and “What news you?, I felt sorry for him”
29 April 2008
Giles Pattison
I’m sure “quartering crow” is correct. Found this “The four quarters of John Stevens, who is hanged, drawn and quartered for treason, are displayed on the City gates, Salisbury, where the crows have a feast Date: March 1635” with a picture of the four quarters of said Mr Stevens on spikes. Each quarter has a crow perched on it.
29 April 2008
chris
You guys justify your selection every week.
30 April 2008
Seb Patrick
It’s TVM, not TVAM. It stands for “TV Movie”. Stockard Channing has been in rather a lot of them.
1 May 2008
Houtini
“poor sods” is right, as is “what news you?” I used to have a friend who would use this irritating misappropriation, much like “what can I do you for?”, “how goes it?” etc.
1 May 2008
chris
@Seb: Very good – makes much more sense, and sounds right! A TLA which had heretofore eluded me.
@Houtini: “what news you?” – I need to get out more, obviously.
1 May 2008
leigh
The note to Phil Cool was “read” not “said”.
5 May 2008
tupper
I think it’s “More bog roll”, not “No bog roll”, but I’m happy to sit corrected.
I tell you what, this song is a feckin BELTER! One of their best.
9 May 2008
tonei
A proper gem of a song. ‘New Face in Hell’ {das Falle} vs. ‘Bone Machine’ {Pixies}. Funny as fook. I thought it was ‘sadolin’ {the wood preperation treatment} but on further investigation, the ‘sanderling’ is indeed a wading bird. Last LP I bought was ‘Back in the DHSS’ when it came out !! so I’ve a lot of catching up to do. Great site BTW.
17 May 2008
SeanyMac
Hi Chris
You’ve missed out that wonderful quiet bit in the middle, where Nigel drones:
“Float… float on /
Float… float on /
Barry… herpes”
(As in “Larry… Cancer” from Float On by The Floaters).
Marvellous stuff!
20 May 2008
chris
Thanks! It’s added!
20 May 2008
Gavin
To up the pedantry, Millets has only a single t.
24 May 2008
chris
That’s the kind of pedantry which makes this all worthwhile. Top marks.
24 May 2008
Nick
I think quartering crow refers to the verb to quarter, from AsxOxford.com:
“4. range over (an area) in all directions.”
I’ve seen it used in reference to crows here:
http://www.strictlybowhunting.com/Anov01issue/crows.htm
4 June 2008
Petrovic
@Seanymac
Thanks for pointing that out – just looked up the lyrics to Float On and you’ve improved an already brilliant song for me.
20 July 2008
Phil
“And brace the margins” rather than “embrace the margins”?
I’m sure I’ve heard the phrase before (or maybe it was just a dream).
25 September 2008
neville
Regarding the “bus replacement service” lyric, though I’d agree this is incorrect I’d also say that the “train replacement service” would likely lead to confusion amongst the less able members of society.
The “replacement bus service” is the best option of all, being neither grammatically incorrect nor ambiguous.
Yours Sincerely,
N. Erdington.
Stoke Poges.
17 November 2008
Paul F
“embrace the margins” is correct I think.
18 November 2008
Richard
I agree with Paul, although I think ‘margin’ is singular not plural.
I am pretty proud of that bit of pedantry
18 November 2008
Paul F
Well done Richard! Good point.
18 November 2008
Charles Exford
I can’t help but commenting (because the alternative at this precise time would be joining Jools for the Jam Sketch and it’s ANNIE LENNOX), that this – NATIONAL SHITE DAY is probably THE GREATEST SONG RELEASED BY ANYONE IN 2008. I am pretty confident that had the great man been alive this would have been number one in The Festive Fifty 2008.
I notice that the Festive 50 at dandelionradio.com, the site which probably preserves Peelishness as well as any, has NSD at Number 21. What a travesty !
Personally me and the Mrs. will be playing this song tonight at midnight and we count ourselves blessed that we saw it played on its live debut … no coincidence that that was on April 23rd, either. It is the UK’s new national anthem as far as I’m concerned. It looks like it is now a set list staple and how lucky we are that it is so …
I’d just like to quote the splendid Mike Cresswell, who did a definitive review of the excellent Edinburgh gig back in October on hmhb.co.uk. He said what I’d wanted to say about this classic and I couldn’t have put it better meself. I quote:
“Finally, then I will shut up. Through the fog, through the struggling sound system, a shining light; almost like Monty Python’s stream of bat’s piss (Python ‘Oscar Wilde’ I merely meant, Your Majesty, that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark).
National Shite Day is an immense song. An instant ‘classic’ that defines the feeling that we all have at times (some more than others) that the microcosm, that is our life, is being replicated throughout the wider community. It is cathartic; an accolade that is so oft used but rarely, in my opinion, justified.
This song is that Premier League player that your club (supporters of the big 5, generally; oh, and Spurs) have just bought for Euro 30 million and looks pretty good on first viewing; but then after a few weeks, is absolutely stunning. There are a few. Messrs Veron and Pizzaro may be considered unlikely members of that club.
In my view, it is a song that should be pre-loaded onto every Ppod. It is there to enjoy, but also to deflect the suffering of a bad day at the office, ground, etc. It just gives that reality check that we all need to inlay a little bit of perspective.
It was stunning when it was given a live debut at Nottingham, but at Edinburgh, it just seemed even better. Perhaps it was because of the incessant drum and bass beat booming out through the fog, the fact that last Friday was one of the worst days of my life for a long time, or just because it is such an incredible reflection of the way that life can annoy you in such a complex manner; almost by stealth and only when distilled into this song, does it allow you to rationalise it and shrug it off as, ‘that’s the way it is’?
Enough already. Roll on London. I would expect true Biscuit-lovers to arrange a pre-gig meet at The Falcon in Camden. Well, maybe not. I think it is now derelict. Perhaps the Hawley Arms for a pint or two with the Winehouse? Oh, hang on, that was gutted by fire as well, I think? Don’t worry, there are boozers galore. It is also cruel to expect an Ipswich fan to have to go to Norwich in November, but I will grin and bear it. A plea to the band – NSD to be installed as a staple on the set-list. Inked in, like Cantona would be. Fin.”
1 January 2009
Charles Exford
As an alternative, somewhat inebriated and wildly over-optimistic approach to possibly learning some of the stories behind the lyrics, Mrs.Exford and I got a bit of a chant going at last Friday’s gig, between songs, not once but twice, and several of our fellow moshers at the front joined in with:
‘Who the f_, who the f_, who the f_ is Stringy Bob ?’
[we didn’t wait till he played NSD though cos we thought it might be v. late in the set, which indeed it was]
NB seemed to acknowledge that he’d heard it the 2nd time, but wasn’t impresssed. No response. We won’t be trying anything like that again in a hurry.
But that’s what I say every time I make a fool of meself at HMHB.
4 February 2009
George
I have looked at the Festive 50 and have noticed that both National Shite Day and Took Problem Chimp are both on there.
1. Took Problem Chimp should be higher than National Shite Day
2. Why isn’t FOR WHAT IS CHATTERIS on there? best Biscuit song ever
3. Im probably the youngest fan of them ever. Age: 12
5 February 2009
Jan
I’ve always thought the first chorus in the middle –” I guess this must be National Shite Day/This surely must be National Shite Day/Don’t tell me, it’s National Shite Day” — was a bit weak in the first two lines (I know, hark at me, which I’ve never written a song in my life) because they are so similar. But I have heard Nigel and the lads perform it twice now and both times Nigel has sung it as “I guess this must be National Shite Day/I’ll wager it’s National Shite Day/Don’t tell me, it’s National Shite Day” and I think he’s found the right and true lyric he wants to put in there, the one that — in his genius — he always knew belonged in that space. Anybody going to Glasgow? Fancy listening out to see if he keeps it up? I’ll be at Bath.
26 April 2009
Charles Exford
Now this is the kind of obsession with detail we shall need as we run out of unknown lyrics to dispute. Well spotted, Jan, and yes please, Glaswegians, please do be alert on our behalves.
Jan – I’m off to see your mate Eddie & his arty brutes on Friday. Must admit Maud & I still haven’t formed the band he told us to when last he joined us down in the mosh at one of his gigs. It’s definitely on our ‘to do’ list though.
28 April 2009
Jan
Brilliant, Mr E, I was hoping to make their Kingston in-store but some urgent pedantry intervened. Mind you, there’s nothing like the Brut on stage in full cry. Hope you and Maud have a right night of it.
29 April 2009
Ricardo
Right. After extensive digging by my crack team of literary sleuths (Ricardo, Mrs Ricardo and the bloke who hangs round the library all day smelling faintly of beetroot), we have managed to unearth precisely one reference to a “Stringy Bob.” He turns up as a minor character in “Children of Noah: Glimpses of Unknown America” by Ben Lucien Burman, which is a sentimental account of bygone days by the Mississippi. OK, it’s not the Dee Estuary, but there are the allusions to Southern Blues, of which Nigel Blackwell is obviously a big fan, but for me the clincher is that Burman’s Stringy Bob is also a prisoner – though rather than sending dead wading birds to obscure comedians…
“…Stringy Bob was a valued resident, serving a considerable term because of some carelessness in his moonshining. An accomplished musician in the native fashion, he had fashioned a guitar out of a cigar-box to while away the time; all afternoon he entertained me and his prison mates with a rich store of doleful songs. Several days later, court was opened, accompanied as usual by an old fiddlers’ contest. My praise of Stringy Bob was so enthusiastic, he was permitted to leave jail and enter the competition. From the moment of his appearance there was no doubt of the result; the judges without consultation awarded him first prize. Next day, though his sentence still had a considerable time to run, I saw him walking about the town wearing the tight, white duck suit borrowed for his recital. The music-loving authorities has properly decided that the community’s leading talent could not be thwarted by prison bars, and had given Stringy Bob his liberty.”
The book’s rubbish, mind.
29 March 2010
Charles Exford
Wow. Brilliant literary exploration and yet in its own way strangely Shackletonian. At least no-one died in the attempt.
We should play HMHB “Call My Bluff” (or perhaps some sort of version of Radio 4’s “Unbelievable Truth”) on the extremely rare (well actually virtually unique) occasions when we happen to know the truth of the matter. I’m sure NB57 won’t mind too much if I self-indulgently play “Call My Bluff” with this one.
Is Stringy Bob in National Shite Day:
A) inspired by the above Mississippi jailbird bluesman character as researched by our Richard ?
B) a well known local Wirral rough sleeper, with an incredible love and knowledge of the natural history of the Dee Estuary but an equal antipathy towards HM Constabulary?
C) a kind of roadie for a band they once shared a studio with in Warrington, basically a sort of mate of the bloke ?
29 March 2010
Ricardo
Ricardo guesses “C”. Exford unfolds card revealing the word “TRUE.” Ricardo heads back down the library.
29 March 2010
Ricardo
Or maybe “B”
29 March 2010
Jon
I keep coming back to this lyric:
“I try to put everything into perspective
Set it against the scale of human suffering
And I thought of the Mugabe government
And the children of the Calcutta railways”
What I find ‘wrong’ is that the Mugabe government have it quite cushy really – it’s the people under the Mugabe government that suffer.
Is there a place for ‘wrong’ lyrics…..?
5 July 2010
Shirley Dimensions
There should be a question mark after what news you. Get in! 🙂
10 August 2010
Shirley Dimensions
Also as it’s the text of the letter as received being read, rather than NB summarising what the letter said (I think this is made clear by the ‘what news you?’ ending, and the fact that if the author is potentially suicidal then the note is likely to be in a summarised ‘brief and to the point’ style – come on, we’ve all sent notes like this whilst being checked every five minutes for sharp objects and belts. No? oh…well, anyway…in my opinion it should be as follows: –
“Still on suicide watch
Screws not happy
Spotted a Marsh Fritillary during association
Was roundly ignored
What news you?”
in the same way as “is this your Sanderling?” is. I’m easy me on the capitals at the beginning of each line, not that fussed. Please feel free to hang me from a lampost and kick me to death if not in agreement, or just say ‘actually that’s rubbish SD’ if it’s easier 🙂
11 August 2010
Neil G
Wow! I’ve just noticed that it should be ‘whether or not’ it should be called a train replacement service. Why wasn’t that spotted before?
11 August 2010
Shirley Dimensions
@Neil G Wow indeed! Quality spot, gets a ‘stand up and salute a bit’ from me 🙂
12 August 2010
Neil G
@ SHIRLEY DIMENSIONS
Thank you for the stand up and salute a bit. I think you deserve an even greater stand up and salute for your interpretation of the lyric regarding Stringy Bob’s letter. I don’t know why but it hadn’t occurred to me that the part you mentioned was actually the letter being read out. The ‘What news you?’ line seemed, as a consequence, very strange. Now it fits perfectly. Thanks for your insight.
13 August 2010
Shirley Dimensions
@Siteowner Chris
As you’re blatantly ignoring my pleas for some of these little fellahs ” ” before Still and immediately after ? (see August 11th post) could you perhaps bung the word ‘had’ between I and always (line 54). I’m making you count 54 lines down as a punishment of sorts. Also Outlook Express spelling checkermybobby says that line 17 should be i.e. and not i.e and I’m not going to argue with it, especially as it’s taken me ages to get it into HMHB 😀
27 October 2010
Chris The Siteowner
It was 50 lines down. Bastard. You can love someone and hate them at the same time, you know. Anyway, I’d overlooked your support from Neil G on the “little fellahs”, which (given there was no opposition) should immediately have got the change implemented. Sorry, don’t know what happened. I felt like I was on a tightrope at the time, kind of like a precipice – it was all a bit deranged. As for the addition of “had”, I’ve listened to it about fifteen billion times, and can we settle on “I’d”?
I know “i.e.” is technically correct, but I like my version without the second full stop, if only because it annoys Microsoft. What say you?
27 October 2010
Shirley Dimensions
Thanks Chris, aye ok…we’ll go for “I’d” and by all means leave the second full stop off, if only for the slim chance that Mr Gates may one day visit and it’ll hopefully irk him should he notice its absence ( btw he used to be in Evil Gazebo you know). 🙂
29 October 2010
Dick Drake
Pedantry Corner again Ladies and gentlemen.
Marsh fritillary should not be capitalised surely. Nowadays books tend to do so with all animal/plant names, but a mate who has spent his life in museums (working) sez they are technically incorrect.
Who is correct?
27 December 2010
Bobby String
You are quite correct on the butterfly issue, Mr.Drake. I just looked at a pdf file I have of butterfly species found in the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, Johannesburg, and all their non-scientific names have the first word capitalised and the second all in lower case. This list was compiled by The Lepidopterists Society of Africa and I’m pretty sure they know their stuff. The first one on their list is the oddly named Striped policeman!
As for the Sanderling, I think the capital is correct as, trying to remember my English lessons from school, I think it’s a proper noun. No doubt the purists will be irked by that if it’s wrong. Here in South Africa, where I now live, the ‘bible’ of bird watching is Roberts Birds of Southern Africa and they give all the English names with capitals and the scientific names in italics with only the first word capitalised, thus:
Ovambo Sparrowhawk
Accipiter ovampensis
or
Sanderling
Calidris alba
So, I reckon it’s “Marsh fritillary” and “Sanderling”
Ô¿Ô
28 December 2010
Neil G
Bobby,
Don’t you find it very hot with that anorak on in South Africa?
28 December 2010
Bobby String
@ Neil G
No, I’m not allowed to wear my anorak any more. In 1994 the ANC banned anoraks, thermos flasks, binoculars, notebooks and pens. I can now only do my birdwatching under cover of darkness, which means my list is pretty much restricted to owls, nightjars, the occasional dead pigeon etc. If they decide to ban torches I’ll be in trouble!
Ô¿Ô
28 December 2010
Bobby String
P.S. I’ve never seen a Sanderling as I live 650km from the nearest beach.
Ô¿Ô
28 December 2010
John Anderson
@Bobby String.I was in South Africa in the summer and absolutely loved the hadedas.
29 December 2010
Bobby String
Your summer or our summer, John? Since that little footie kickabout we had here in June / July (our winter), I think it was called the World Cup or something, the Hadedas ( Bostrychia hagedash ) have become known as ‘flying vuvuzelas’. Anyone who has been awakened at 5am by one of these (a Hadeda or a vuvuzela) will know why!
Ô¿Ô
Just to get back on topic, when I was a kid growing up in Scotland I once found a dead Herring Gull, but there was no such thing as Phil Cool then so an opportunity was missed.
29 December 2010
Charles Exford
A favourite bird book of mine ends its introductory section on nomenclature with the sentences. “Actually this is a good yardstick of a bird book. If the English names begin with small letters, throw away the book immediately.” However, that is only the convention in specialist literature. In normal prose and verse, it can and usually does, as Dick suggests, look distinctly eccentric.
Therefore I propose no upper case for the following winter visitors from the lists thread:
BIRDS
sanderling or crow (rubber) ducks (Carry on Cremating)
linnet …nightingale …game-bird park devoid of pheasants (Chatteris)
eider (down) (Restless)
finches (Vagaries)
pigeons (Evening Sun)
falcon…. buzzards (Get Kramer)
hummingbirds
two jackdaws (Ready Steady Goa)
swan (lock up)
goose(rule) (Blood on the quad)
owl (Vitus)
owl (Evil Gazebo)
woodcrest (Footprints)
pigeons (Mr Cave)
hen’s teeth (Makes the Room Look)
lark (Descending)
duck(stab) (whiteness)
FLYING INSECTS
marsh fritillary
mayflies (A Country Practice)
wasps (Achtung Bono Cover)
By the way Bobby I love the way you agreed with Dick & then argued the opposite. Are you perhaps in politics?
29 December 2010
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
I’ll go along with the no upper case for winter visitors or indeed for our indigenous feathered friends also, on the grounds that as common nouns they simply do not merit the exclusivity of a capital letter. However the falcon in Get Kramer refers to the now defunct Camden Falcon, which as a pub and music venue of some unique character, qualifies for capital letters on account of its proper nouniness. The lyrics refer to it as ‘the Falcon in Camden’, which was never its name – it was always the Camden Falcon. Needless to say ‘the Falcon in Camden’ scans better but the fact remains ‘they call me ‘the Falcon in Camden’ – that’s not my name.’
29 December 2010
Gregg Z
(National Shite Day from a Yank’s perspective)
Though lyrically unrelated, the backing track is culled, consciously or not, from “Bone Machine” by the Pixies. By the way, I’ve read on another HMHB thread that the name of this group is technically “Pixies” (no “The”). That might well be the case, but having listened to them throughout my university years, and having several friends who have done the same, I’ve never heard anyone refer to this band simply as Pixies, without the article (had I heard this, I would cease to associate with that person).
Anyway, referring to another thread, the word “shite” is particularly and irretrievably British. I’ve never heard an American use it, nor would I feel comfortable doing so. I get enough strange looks when I use the word “dodgy”. Particularly British, I know, but a terribly useful word.
And speaking of insular terminology, on my one and only visit to Manchester about 15 years ago, I met some locals in a pub, who, friendly though they were, insisted on hearing me say the phrase “motherfucker”. Apparently, not an epithet (then, anyway, not sure about now) used by the majority of Mancunians, nor, I imagine by most folks outside the US. I remember telling my new English friends that, though I was proud to share my culture with them, that I had only really heard Richard Pryor use the word with any regularity.
Well, back to my initial point, of several sentences ago. So what if “National Shite Day” bears a striking similarity to a song by The Pixies. Originality is criminally overrated, anyway. Besides, HMHB offer immeasurable joy, insight, humor, etc. without nicking anything from anyone else.
The interesting point is that The Pixies were originally on the 4AD record label. (Although I think Nigel’s diatribe probably referred more to bands like Cocteau Twins, Throwing Muses, Dead Can Dance and the like).
OK, I’m glad I got all that out of my system. Happy New Year.
30 December 2010
Ricardo
The last few posts on this thread stand as a representation of everything I absolutely adore about this site.
Happy New Year to you all.
J
30 December 2010
Bobby String
@ Good old Charlie ‘on the sly’ Exford
Yes perhaps I should be in politics, or maybe I should just read more carefully before replying! I thought Dick was proposing we capitalse ‘Marsh’ and not ‘fritillary’ In fact, he is the one who should be in politics because he says we shouldn’t capitalise Marsh but he has actually capitalised it himself. Saying one thing whilst doing the exact opposite = politician.
My favourite piece of political speak came in an epsiode of Auf Wiederseh’n Pet, where Ant and Dec were supposed to turn up at a publicity event arranged by a slimy politician played by Bill Nighy. “are Ant and Dec here yet?” asks Jimmy Nail. “Nobody’s told me they’re not” replies Bill Nighy, knowing full well they never were going to be there.
Donning my anorak once more, I could be really pedantic and tell you that the Sanderling (I don’t care, I prefer the capitalised versions, so there!) is not actually a wading bird. Although it is regarded as a member of the Sandpiper family, it actually catches its prey by running along sandy shores and probing in wet sand. Its realtively short bill, in comparison to other Sandpipers, is not suited for probing through water into the sand therefore it does not wade.
Of course, perhaps the question should be does Nigel pronounce them with capitals in the song? 🙂
Ô¿Ô
31 December 2010
Third Rate Les
Good point Gregg Z. Calling them “The Pixies” is a good way to get sneered at by alternative musos and Factory completists, but there’s something definitely quite cretinous about saying “I am going to see Pixies tonight” or “I am listening to Pixies”. And anyway, annoying these people is fun.
31 December 2010
Bobby String
As my final salvo in this particular battle, and my final post of 2010, if we agree on the capitalisation thing, then surely we are all listening to half man half biscuit and not Half Man Half Biscuit? In fact, it should be Half man half biscuit, if you think about it.
Anyway, I consulted my fellow birding anoraks on simplybirding.com and a very knowledgeable chap from Wales posted this link. Perhaps not the definitive answer, but it’ll do for me.
@Third Rate Les: Listening to Pixies sounds like something akin to communing with imps!
A happy and pedantic New Year (note the capitals!) to all Biscuiteers the world over, may 2011 be full of new HMHB albums, numerous PBR’s and unbounded pedantry!
Ô¿Ô
31 December 2010
Kendo
Just finished reading a novel called King Crow by Michael Stewart which seems to feature a number of sly references to HMHB lyrics. For example, the protagonist makes reference to finding a Sanderling along the Dee estuary and also notices ‘fat kids with sausage rolls’ during a scene towards the end of the book. There is also a scene where they use the services of ‘Dial-a-Pizza’. Coincidence? Be interested to know what other pedants think or whether I’m being paranoid. It’s a good read by the way. See http://www.bluemoosebooks.com
5 January 2011
Charles Exford
You’re not being wacky, Mr. Nagasaki. The author is an avowed Biscuitista. For example, when he interviewed Mark E Smith on stage at Huddersfield Lit Fest in 2009, Mr. Stewart asked MES about Nigel’s lyrics.
M. Stewart: “Do you think there are good lyricists out there ?”
MES: (long pause with no answer)
M. Stewart: “For example, I like a lyricist called Nigel Blackwell. Have you heard of him ? Half Man Half Biscuit ?”
MES: Not really. I don’t keep up…..
The transcript has some treally funny moments.
http://www.visi.com/fall/news/2009-06-14_hudlitfest-transcript.pdf
The bit I’ve quoted is maybe half way through, about page 9.
***********************************************************************
I would suspect that Mr.Stewart has asked NB57 for a similar interview or ‘lecture’ in the past but been turned down.
5 January 2011
Charles Exford
Bobby, it may interest you to know that BBC’s Countryfile show has been filming at the gem of Dee Estuary birdwatching spots, Hilbre Island, and it’ll be broadcast this Sunday evening 6th Feb. I’ll be in Germany so like you I’ll be catching up on the BBC i-player.
High tide bird watch apparently, so not sure how many sanderling we’ll see a-scuttling.
http://hilbrebirdobs.blogspot.com/
We are also promised some industrial heritage on the show. My money’s on Port Sunlight. I’m not sure Cammel Laird or any of Birkenhead Docks will ever be on Countryfile.
1 February 2011
Bobby String
Thanks for the heads-up, Charles, but I don’t think BBC iPlayer is allowed to show anything here in South Africa, or at least they didn’t when I arrived here in 2008. I’ll have another look to see if that’s changed – ah, if only this were still a British colony!
Ô¿Ô
1 February 2011
Bobby String
Just checked, BBC iPlayer can’t be used outside the UK 🙁
Ô¿Ô
1 February 2011
a_p
Bobby
Not sure if this works outside UK but get_iplayer works a treat without resorting to running iplayer direct from BBC site. Allows you to download a local copy of most BBC radio/TV shows (some caveats regarding DRM, blah…), watch at your leisure using a media player of your choice. Then delete!
Windows: http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer_win/get_iplayer_setup_latest.exe
Linux: ftp://ftp.infradead.org/pub/get_iplayer/get_iplayer-2.79.tar.gz
1 February 2011
Charles Exford
The Dee estuary near Rafa’s house was looking resplendent in the sunshine on today’s Football Focus just now, for an interview that must have been filmed a few days ago. It looked like Goofy, the Benitez family spaniel, has had pretty much all the sanderling by now. Point of Ayr (from I, Trog) is the headland in the background acros the estuary by the way
I should have known you couldn’t get the BBC i-player for Countryfile tomorrow, Bobby. Actually I don’t think you’ll miss that many PBRs. Here’s a clip of Hilbre Island where a passing heron is mis-cast as a sanderling. And it turns out that he industrial heritage bit I mentioned is a report the National Waterways museum. Not a shire horse in sight on this clip from there.
5 February 2011
Ceri
It seems to be “I suggested they learn some pedestrian etiquette” rather than “I suggest that they…”. Tense agrees then too.
8 March 2011
john burscough
My birthday! On National Shite Day.
17 October 2011
Paul Rodgers (Crimond)
@ John Burscough: National Shite Day is losing to Burscough in the FA Cup First Round proper when your team and Burscough are the furthest apart by league position.
18 October 2011
John Burscough
No, it’s getting knocked out by Clitheroe. (The HMHB Lyrics Project is full of Bad Wools.)
18 October 2011
John Burscough
What’s Victoria Park if you can’t see the Linnets?
18 October 2011
Dave Wiggins
Playing in the Liverpool County Premier, within two seasons, I fear…..
18 October 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
Is there any better way to start the day than to hear a four year old singing along to the chorus while it plays in the kitchen? Thank you my son.
17 December 2011
Strømsgodset IF SoS
True. It’s always a great favourite with our Under-Fives and they still can’t understand how a certain other tune got anywhere near the final. It’s been a strange year all right.
17 December 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
‘There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in JD Sports‘ loses alliterative allure for sure, but I’m sure the company employees won’t lose too much sleep over that.
6 January 2012
John Burscough
Contender for the dismal Stockard Channing tug-of-love TVM here (although it could also have been the sequel, ‘An Unexpected Life’. Or ‘The Baby Dance’. Or David’s Mother’. She’s been in a lot of dismal tug-of-love TVMs.)
22 January 2012
John Burscough
The travel writer and rock climber Jim Perrin, in his book “Travels with the Flea… and Other Eccentric Journeys” describes walking near Hyddgen in mid-Wales and seeing the two quartz blocks known as the ‘Covenant Stones of Owain Glyndwr’ – “perches now for the hawk and the quartering crow”. There’s a picture of them here.
2 March 2012
Charles Exford
Outstanding find that, John, cheers.
I notice from a quick google that the book includes Cuba, the High Arctic and a description of Caradoc Evans as “the Hieronymous Bosch of the printed word”.
So I’ve just ordered it.
2 March 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
Is the man with the mallet the same bloke as the maniac with the hammer in Architecture And Morality Ted And Alice?
1 August 2012
Archie D Walker
Man with mallet appears to be MY stepfather,a millard.
8 October 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
“i.e sidle out of the store gingerly”
Missing full stop after ‘e’.
You cannot imagine my feeling of contented satisfaction.
5 December 2012
Martyn Moxon’s Moustache
I am expecting a verbal kicking for this question, mixed with sympathy for my obvious mental problems, but the line “And you can guess the rest.” is perplexing me.
I assume there is a joke in there but the punchline eludes me.
12 June 2013
Dr Desperate
I’ve always assumed (as we say here when we haven’t really thought about it much before) that it’s a pun on the word ‘committed’, as in ‘committed to an institution’.
12 June 2013
BrumBiscuit
My take on it is that Stringy Bob is a bit of a psycho, or disturbed at the very least. He has possibly got no artistic talent, nor any interest in The Doors or Floyd whatsoever. I just see there being utter mayhem when the rest of the band finds this out and challenges Bob. He wouldn’t take that well. Maybe that’s why he is now at Her Majesty’s Pleasure?
Other versions quite possibly more insightful will follow.
12 June 2013
vendor of quack nostrums
Stringy B is a time waster. He isn’t committed (although he probably should be). He has no interest in any of the bands sited as influences. He applies anyway either because he is a deluded fool or a malicious trouble causer. He’s one of those blokes who applies to manage a top, top team when the job comes up, even though he has absolutely no experience of management, football administration or indeed life as we know it. He hopes to be known as The Stringy One.
There we go. I just guessed the rest.
12 June 2013
vendor of quack nostrums
And whilst in the spirit of guessing……
Why has Nigel got an ice axe in his leg?
12 June 2013
vendor of quack nostrums
And what happened to his eye?
12 June 2013
BrumBiscuit
Spindrift
12 June 2013
vendor of quack nostrums
Nah. Capable of stinging a remaining eye, but not permanently removing the vision in one.
12 June 2013
CAPT. Æneas L.A. MACKINTOSH
Lost the eye to a swinging cargo hook while unloading a crate of Millets’ finest hardware (including ice axes) at McMurdo Sound.
13 June 2013
BrumBiscuit
Pecked out by a deranged sanderling?
13 June 2013
gargoyle 100
The leg and the eye have, for me always been just a scene-setter for the terrible day he’s having.
Also, in my imagination, the ‘joke’ about the keyboard player thing is that Bob is already committed (and therefore qualified) and the band have to go to the institution he’s in to practice during visiting time.
13 June 2013
CAPT. Æneas L.A. MACKINTOSH
To me the first line takes its inspiration and imagery from some heroically disastrous Shackletonian-style retreat from polar regions. This both emphasises how difficult it can be to drag yourself to the shops in inclement conditions (a voyage to the bottom of the road is sometimes hard enough), and sets the parochial shopping precinct moans in context (as does thinking about The Mugabe Govt. & the Calcutta children). And it’s a lovely, surreal juxtaposition. Rather like the Pythons ascending the North face of the Uxbridge Road.
Apologies for pulling the legs off the song like a disaffected urchin with a marsh fritillary. At least I don’t claim to have any clue about Stringy Bob’s zany antics.
13 June 2013
Dr Desperate
Familiar chord sequence here (from Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake).
26 June 2013
Ash
Here’s a question. The story about Stringy Bob wading through the Dee estuary.
Now, the Sanderling looks very much like a squashed wading bird. Phil Cool was a reasonably well known face contortionist who was known for squashing or stretching his face which leads me to believe that at some point a hilarious conversation was had about people finding X things that look like stretched/squished Y things and sending to Phil Cool with a letter stating “Is this your Y thing”.
I can imagine that would make a hilarious semi drunk pub conversation.
10 July 2013
Facebook Mum
Maybe Stringy Bob’s got a stringy bob?
4 October 2013
CHARLES EXFORD
In reference to posts 57-58 above, from 3 years ago, about author/lecturer Michael Stewart dropping HMHB quotes into his novel, today I came across some clips of an actor/stand-up called Nick Stanley. Didn’t enjoy his stand-up stuff, but anyway I wanted to google what I vaguely recalled having seen him in on telly, so I happened to notice this page in which he says “I’ve been an actor for quite a few years and seeing the humour in being touched by the wings of something dark has played a large part in my survival. I’ve never really been interested in such things as rainbows, unless they are monochrome …. Shrouded in inexorable darkness I started to catalogue those defining moments of defective behaviour and experience that shape who we are. In December 2007 I hit the road and people laughed and others recoiled in horror…I’m happy with that.”
Intrigued, I then noticed that he’s had some material written for him by his friend …Michael Stewart.
7 March 2014
JAy Coppock
Is anyone sure it called National Shite Day, ok we’re agreed it is, if what you think the lyrics are what you think sing them, nobody else on the train is going to pull you up on them, because they are all listening to Enya or Yazz. Sing loud sing proud and Irk the Purists.
4 April 2014
CARRIE anne
I know it’s been said before, but the capitalisation of the common species names in this song really irks me. In which dictionary does sanderling have a capital ‘s’? An accolade not awarded to other species mentioned on here, like nightingale, jackdaw, goat etc. Reading the previous comments, it would appear that a bunch of twitchers have swayed the argument for it, even though it is just plain wrong.
As an ecologist, and having peer reviewed many scientific journals, I can confirm we would never capitalise common species names unless they contained a ‘proper’ noun, for example Dartford warbler or Bewick’s swan. I can possibly understand some confusion over marsh fritillary, incorrect though, and ‘Sanderling’ – no way.
2 June 2014
EXXO
You’ve been peer reviewed good and proper there Chris.
They should all be lower case as I argued above, though whether than means they should all be in or all out of the A-Z is another matter.
As Vendor has I believe said before it’s not the disappointment; we can cope with the crushing, deflating disappointments. Lord knows we’ve had a few. It’s the inconsistency that really puts us so far beyond pills.
(only messin’)
3 June 2014
Chris The Siteowner
Indeed, I fear that we’ve been well and truly put in our place. Still not sure about “Marsh Fritillary” but hey-ho.
3 June 2014
Carrie Anne
Apologies for the above post, I certainly didn’t mean for it to across so brusque and abrasive. It’s just a niggle really, but obviously I wasn’t having a good day there! Just my opinion from a scientific point of view, scholars of the arts may well disagree.
Sorry again, I do think this site is wonderful!
3 June 2014
Chris The Siteowner
Don’t apologise, it was the best comment of the week.
3 June 2014
Dr Desperate
Happy Birthday to NB10.
51 today, 51 today…
18 July 2014
jazzporridge
Thanks to you all for this beautiful, faith-reinforcing, read. I humbly offer a Sanderling sighting, reeking of redemption for our Stringy.
Kurt Sanderling was a lightning conductor: a Marshall amp for the souls of great artists. Here he is, evoking the mystery and the majesty of sunrise over the Dee Estuary, with nothing more than a white stick, some humans, and notes from Big Jan Sibelius.
Is that Stringy with the combover and the plaintiff ‘you can guess the rest’ call on the oboe?
24 August 2014
Portsmouth Bubblejet
I’ve now got this song as a permanent earworm as my new house is on the corner of Sanderling Road. There are regular sightings of sanderlings in nearby Langstone Harbour.
1 December 2014
MARY HOPKIN
They must despair.
1 December 2014
LANDLORD
Pedants welcome, right? Sorry to dredge up the debate again, but both Sanderling and Marsh Fritillary should be capitalized as I have just done so. They’re proper nouns… (As should “Linnet” and “Nightingale” be capitalized but not “crow” or “sparrow”). I refer to the state-of-the-art 900 page, three-pound “Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World Volume 1: Non-passerines” at my side, which, for example, dubs Surniculus dicruroides in English the “Fork-tailed Drongo-cuckoo” (widespread in Indo-China, you’ll be glad to hear). Chose that one because of A Country Practice, obviously.
7 December 2014
LANDLORD
Oh, I should add: “During the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CMS (COP11), celebrated in Quito, Ecuador 4–9 November 2014, the HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World Volume 1: Non-passerines was adopted as the CMS standard reference for bird taxonomy and nomenclature for non-passerine species.”
7 December 2014
dickhead in quicksand
Good grief – according to WP, S. dicruroides resembles the Black Drongo (which is a passerine, so not in Vol. 1 of the Checklist). What a pity there doesn’t seem to be a red drongo: I know just the name for it, and the collective noun.
Excellent state-of-the-art pedantry, that’s the spirit! If HBW and Birdlife International specify capitals at the species level, that’s good enough for me. Birds Britannia uses LC in running text, but it’s from 2005.
The Checklist sounds like just the sort of thing to stuff in your pocket when on a twitch: lots of opportunities for one-upmanship.
7 December 2014
Chris The Siteowner
So are we now saying that scientific-y things have moved on and we should reintroduce the capital letters which were peer reviewed off the site by Carrie Anne? And how many of the entries on Charles’ list will this affect?
7 December 2014
dickhead in quicksand
Quite possibly only for avifauna. And, there’s the issue of whether capitalisation which was correct when a song was written should be amended. I think the matter may need some heated (or even savage) debate.
7 December 2014
EXXO
A couple of birders is surely not ‘we’. I can understand the strength of feeling about specialist literature – like I said my favourite bird book tells us to throw away any bird book that does not capitalise. But it just looks silly in non-specialist literature. “Yesterday a Blue Tit seemed to be watching me and my dog as we fished for chub” just looks daft. I’ll be fucked if a fucking blue tit is going to be more important that my dog or the chub thank you very much.
7 December 2014
EXXO
I propose that we respectfully capitalise any species that gets down to just one survivor. Then it would be a properproper noun.
7 December 2014
dickhead in quicksand
A friend of my father’s, who rather liked the fact that a sparrowhawk used to visit his garden, was once interrupted by his wife running into the room shouting, “Your bloody eagle is eating my tits”.
The ornithologist Terry Gompertz always referred to the bird which she was known for studying as Parus major.
7 December 2014
Cygnus
@Exxo 110
Your dog fishes for chub? WOW – does he/she prefer float fishing, legering or maybe as Mr Wet Underpants might approve; a wet fly!
7 December 2014
dickhead in quicksand
As a tentative distinction, I think the difference could be whether the reference is to the species (caps) or to one or more individuals (LC). “He began his life-long study of the Shag while still a teenager, after watching a shag in tidal water under the pier.”.
In which case, the current LC is correct.
7 December 2014
EXXO
@ Cygnus. He hopes to mug otters as they return to the holt.
His methods are generally no less successful than mine.
8 December 2014
toastkid
Species names, and breed names, should *not* be capitalised. I dare say there are some people who are so into a group of species that they think they deserve special treatment, but it’s not the case.
8 December 2014
toastkid
The exception with proper nouns in species names applies when a pre-existing pronoun, such as a place name, forms part of the species name. Eg “American bald eagle” or “Norway spruce”.
8 December 2014
LANDLORD
@Dickhead—the book weighs about three pounds and measures 30cm by 15cm. Fit that in your inside pocket (without which you’d be lost). Also, there’s not one shag species but at least 10–you’re referring to the European Shag. Try New Zealand–they have a lot of shags down there (Chatham, Campbell, Bounty, and my favorite, the Rough-faced Shag–well, who hasn’t?)
@Exxo–You can capitalise “Chub” if you want, as there’s only one species in UK waters, AFAIK. You could even capitalize the breed of your dog unless it’s a mongrel. Hey, I didn’t write the rules…
But I do see where you’re both arguing from about using the lower case in non-specialist literature and in plurals/indefinites ; tastes change, and the tide these days swings very much against capitalization (c.f., Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!”).
From a recent article at Birdlife International:
“By posting their first sightings of Barn Swallow, White Stork, Common Cuckoo, Common Swift, and European Bee-eater on the http://www.springalive.net website, children from Europe, Central Asia and Africa create a real-time map of the incredible journeys these birds take every year.”
8 December 2014
CARRIE ANNE
Exxo and Toastkid are correct, there is no way on earth that ‘common’ species names should be capitalised, just because a special interest group says they should.
Common bird names, as Landlord mentions above, are now also being tampered with by the birding community, who frown on anyone calling a swallow a swallow, or a nightjar a nightjar, it’s got to be a Barn Swallow or a European Nightjar. Ridiculous, a common species name, by definition, is what it is commonly known as? There is already a perfectly good, universal scientific nomenclature system in place to separate closely related species, why not just use that?
A guaranteed, fun way to irk the birding purists is to sit in a hide full of them and shout loudly “Oh look, a seagull!”. It’s a right good laugh.
8 December 2014
Dr Desperate
@Exxo
“There is a fine stuffed chavender,
A chavender or chub,
That decks the rural pavender,
The pavender or pub,
Wherein I eat my gravender,
My gravender or grub.” (GEM Skues)
8 December 2014
dickhead in quicksand
In a non-PBR sort of way, there’s a recent editorial about capitalisation in Teh Graudina.
A contributing editor to HBW tells me that he prefers to capitalise only the initial letter of English species names, unless a publisher requests otherwise. So, maybe the Forgers’ Gazette has some justification for “Mako shark”. He does not like the idea of capitalising every word; and as far as he can remember, the slides at the BTO annual meeting last weekend followed his practice (except in titles, where it’s common for all words to be capitalised – as they are on this site, for example).
I didn’t ask about unnecessary extras like “Barn” or “European” when it’s perfectly obvious which species you’re taking about, but I can guess the answer.
Having muddied the waters sufficiently, I now vote for LC species names in the Lyrics Project.
@@Landlord, smaller than a catering-size tin of sweetcorn, though? When Volume 2 comes out, you’ll be able to carry both with less risk of falling over sideways.
@@Carrie Anne, your technique should work especially well if you’re pointing at a Comic tern.
@@DrD, GEM Skues writing under the pseudonym Warham St Leger, I imagine; I knew there was more than one verse: A False Gallop of Analogies, most likely from Punch in the 1890s. The title of his book The Way of a Trout with the Fly is mildly alarming.
8 December 2014
celery
I don’t give two hoots for birds – they’re common as muck – but as for butterflies… the beautiful and increasingly-rare Marsh Fritillary not only demands capitals it deserves italics.
8 December 2014
dickhead in quicksand
@@Celery – Tawnies often give three hoots.
You’re just hyperventilating over word “fritillary”, aren’t you?
8 December 2014
Landlord
“Then, there was a butterfly moment. We both think it was a Marsh Fritillary, floating above the red fescue, but neither of us is as keen sighted as 50 years ago.”
From the Financial Times, 26/7/13
19 December 2014
LANDLORD
@ Celery “I don’t give two hoots for birds – they’re common as muck.” What, all of them? Or is this the Platonic archetype of birds? Go and tell that to the Christmas Island Frigatebird.
20 December 2014
celery
@ Landlord. Critically endangered eh? Actually that is a great shame. I have seen the much more common Magnificent Frigatebird in the Florida Keys – but I didn’t say nowt, those hooked beaks look pretty lethal.
I should have said it’s ornithologists who’re common as muck… every time I’m out taking a snapshot of a Marsh Fritillary or suchlike, some birder goes and sticks his long lens in.
20 December 2014
EXXO
The A-Z has an uncanny knack of highlighting items of dubious capitalisation.
17 March 2015
Tedgeworth PLABB
In the last part I hear “my birthday AND national shite day”. Anyone agree? Or do I require a thorough syringing?
31 May 2015
Dagenham dave
Today I had an enjoyable trip around the Wirral, New Brighton , Birkenhead etc. Whilst going through Hoylake I spotted http://www.sandschildcare.co.uk
Now I’m wondering whether this inspired Nigel or whether it’s been opened since by a HMHB fan.
10 October 2015
Stingy Pob
Slow day at work so I started this; no where near as good as the original line but I couldn’t stop, until I had to; feel free to add:
There’s a homie with a Gullit* in huff with a hammer in Halford’s
*(as in Ruud Gullit the dutch footballer famous for his haircut)
There’s a weirdo with a wet-look going wacky without his wallet in Waitrose
There’s a cad with a cru-cut going crazy with a crossbow in a Craghoppers
There’s an article with an afro going ape with an anvil in Argos
There’s person with a perm going potty with a pickaxe in Poundland
There’s a lady with layers going loony with a lathe in Lidl
There’s a queer with a quiff, quixotic at a quizbook in a Q-hotel
There’s a john with a jheri getting jiggy with a jigsaw in Jewsons
There’s a guy with gangrene going goofy with a gadget in Gateway
20 November 2015
Bobby SVARC
Not up your usual high standards, Exxo.
20 November 2015
EXXO
Ha, I feel like I’ve been cornered by a homophobe who’s just discovered alliteration.
20 November 2015
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
It may be because I’ve just been reading a book* set in the remoter parts of Wales which makes much use of Welsh mythology, but is the line
“All of a sudden I felt brushed by the wings of something dark” a reference to the Deryn Corph (or Corpse Bird) which was supposed to appear immediately prior to a death? The next line certainly suggests that the narrator thinks Stringy Bob is not long for this world
(*Candlenight by Phil Rickman, if anyone is interested – actually it was Candlenight by Phil Rickman even if you’re not)
27 November 2015
Dr desperate
Good (if sinister) call, @GWA.
Incidentally, according to Wikipedia spindrift is a Southern English word for the spray blown from cresting waves during a gale. ‘Spoondrift’ is the Northern or Scottish equivalent, and can also be used to describe fine snow that is blown off the hills by the wind (which fits more with the ice axe injury).
28 November 2015
dr desperate
Possible HMHB fans in York University’s Archaeology department.
https://pure.york.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/embrace-the-margins%288b010969-f2f2-45ec-bdaf-cdee3300ca8e%29.html
9 March 2016
dr desperate
I do believe it’s “suggested”, not “suggest that”.
14 March 2016
Peter Mcornithologist
The last thing I saw was a bunch of millionaires telling me to denote 5 quid to Unicef. Well at a crap guess does that mean a million from Kammy and the other turds?
5 June 2016
Lawrence Grasty
“Bus replacement service”. You can’t say they don’t listen – Manchester Piccadilly – yesterday https://www.flickr.com/photos/120198404@N04/shares/bs641q
19 September 2016
featureless tv producer steve
CtSO – a quote from this song popped up today on my HMHBRLG, and after reading the thread, I’m curious – has your personal conflict with Microsoft been resolved? Can we get a full stop and a comma after the i.e?
10 March 2017
Chris The Siteowner
AFAIK, Microsoft grammar checker still gets irritated by “i.e”, which amuses me no end.
10 March 2017
Tony Monopoly
From the Wikipedia entry for Alan Wilder:
Following the departure of Vince Clarke, Depeche Mode placed an advertisement in the music magazine Melody Maker: “Keyboard player needed for established band – no timewasters.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wilder
23 June 2017
brumbiscuit
Stockard Channing is holding sway on Radio 2 this afternoon. I don’t know if that’s good news or not; the bad news is you have to tolerate Steve Wright.
12 July 2017
TRANSIT FULL OF KEITH
Posted a link to NSD on a Twitter thread on National Poetry Day, and was delighted to find it had “cheered up” Tyneside poet, documentary film maker and I think occasional songwriter Tom Pickard, who was in bed with a virus.
Not only does he seem to be a fan of the band, but according to Wikipedia, Annie Lennox has nothing but total respect for him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Pickard
28 September 2017
Junction 16 blues
I have just been to an away match at AFC Fylde and what turned out to be basically my team’s own version of NSD was slightly cheered by finding that I’d parked next to Sanderling Way. Tranmere play them on New Year’s Day 2018. There is clearly a photo opportunity there somewhere.
23 November 2017
CHARLES EXFORD
How many of us have had the first few lines of this stuck in our heads all week, then, as we tried to get to the shops for basic provisions?
Might be quite an appropriate time for it too, as I do seem to recall it’s almost exactly 10 years now since this track first broke on the Janice Long radio programme, well over a month before the CD was available, I seem to remember. But how did she get away with playing it? And has it ever been on the airwaves since? Anyway, nice one Janice.
Right, pocket that pemmican and get psyched up for that spindrift. I need bog roll.
2 March 2018
Alice van der meer
Blimey – that’s my journey to and from w**k yesterday summed up in the first two lines!
2 March 2018
parsfan
But how did she get away with playing it? And has it ever been on the airwaves since?
Vic Galloway played it on Radio Scotland when the album was released – no track name mentioned, just the band.
3 March 2018
dr desperate
Happy Birthday, NB55.
18 July 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Isaiah, 55
18 July 2018
POP-TART MARK
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth, 5,5
18 July 2018
dr desperate
“Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!” (Psalm 55)
18 July 2018
THE MAYOR OF CIRENCESTER
It was astonishing, now that a presumption of insanity was raised, how many collateral circumstances were remembered to which a condition of mental disease seemed to afford the only explanation – among others, the unprecedented neglect of his corn stacks in the previous summer.
Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native, Chapter 55.
18 July 2018
Pirx the purist
In their great 1987 (?) track “Beam Me Up”, Benny Profane have the line, “There’s an interstellar fella in the cellar, Barbarella”.
20 January 2019
EXXO
NSD was aired on late night Radio 2 by Janice Long in 2008 before the album was released. It was played on BBC Cymru just the other day, when Mr. B was interviewed in Welsh, and I think it may have been on BBC local radio stations before. But it may be that last night’s outing on Gideon Coe at 11.16pm (after a listener’s Cardiff gig review featuring a mention of our own beloved Dr. D/KoHV) was the first ever play on 6Music for one of the greatest songs ever written in the English tongue. To re-listen on BBC Sounds now requires you to tick a box about being of age to endure the PG language of this track and of the Wild Swans’ wonderful Coldest Winter
I am often heard to slag off Coe’s smug, all-tolerating, context-deprived hipster eclectisism, and especially his underwhelming ‘themed’ programmes, but the three hours of Merseyside sounds last night were rather wonderful*.
*except the Cilla Black.
29 March 2019
dr desperate
I didn’t hear that, Exxo, thanks for the tip-off. WE’RE ON THE TRAIN at the moment, but will deffo give it a listen tonight.
29 March 2019
parsfan
I’m on the train too, but I expect a different one.
Anyway, it was also played on Radio Scotland by Vic Galloway when the album came out. No introductions, he didn’t say the word, it was just the long track on that night’s show.
29 March 2019
lee’s 21st
Although they sound different when played side by side, does anyone else get a Wire’s Feeling Called Love vibe from National Shite Day?
1 November 2019
EXXO
Much has been gleaned from research for the Xmas quiz. I can confirm that, because she “held sway”, the TVM referred to is indeed as Dr. D told us in 2012, An Unexpected Family (1996), specifically the 15-minute courtroom sequence that starts about 1:08 into the movie, with her holding sway from about 1:20
In the sequel, An Unexpected Life (1998), the tug-of-love is with the judge in camerafrom 0:59 to about 1:06, and she doesn’t really hold total sway.
8 January 2020
aCIDIC REGULATOR
‘You can guess the rest’ – I’m almost certainly completely wrong about this, but I’ll offer it anyway; I’ve always taken that as a joke at the expense of pretentious and almost certainly not very good bands who advertise for members citing huge bands as influences, as here. ‘You can guess the rest’ is (to my ears) a kind of despairing comment on what kind of shite (what with it being NSD and all) music they’re going to produce. And while I’m here, can I just say that the descending augmented fourth (tritone) in the chorus (on the word ‘day’) is one of the most perfect moments in any song ever.
29 February 2020
Lord leominster
I, too, have wondered about ‘you can guess the rest’ believing that it was flagging an obvious joke but somehow I was missing it. I concluded, wrongly probably, that the joke was ‘must be committed’ i.e. to an institution (apologies if this has already been discussed here but I am too lazy to read the thread).
1 March 2020
Flintlock
I laughed out loud when I first heard that line. The “rest” you can guess is the mayhem that Bob causes when he turns up at the bands’ rehearsals. (Or even just by phoning them.)
1 March 2020
Lord leominster
…as in Ian Dury’s “I could be an inmate in a long-term institution”.
1 March 2020
Lord leominster
I’m over-thinking it as usual. Flintlock is correct, I’d say.
1 March 2020
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
That’s a great line because of what it leaves out. There’s a world of possibilities in what’s unsaid which is funnier and more various than if he’d spelled it out.
Another line of the same ilk is “And let’s face it it beats skulking round the seven-inch import section with him” in Tyrolean Knockabout. A novel compressed into fifteen words…
1 March 2020
Chris The Siteowner
I know we’ve had two different ‘Acidic Regulators’ on the site over the years, but I suspect a ‘welcome back’ message is due here.
1 March 2020
brumbiscuit
I’d always imagined ‘the rest’ to be akin to someone like Keith Moon on acid turning up to a Bucks Fizz rehearsal. Chaotic springs to mind.
1 March 2020
Lord leominstEr
I’ve just remembered ‘You can guess the rest’ is a line from Rocky Music’s Love is the Drug. It follows ‘Dim the lights’. There is almost certainly no connection whatsoever to NSD.
1 March 2020
dr desperate
We have had this discussion before, @Leommy (see post 80 et seq), and I came to the same conclusion as you: Bob, in order to fulfil the requirements of the band, has himself committed to an institution in a tragic ‘One Flew Over The Sanderling’s Nest’ plotline.
(As it happens, we’ve also mentioned the tritone, or Devil’s Interval – see ‘Black Sabbath’ in the A – Z).
1 March 2020
Lord leominster
Ah. I must read the thread before opining. I just checked the credits for the Roxy song and am pleased to confirm, not for the first time probably, that this is not an Eno collaboration.
1 March 2020
Lord leominster
Thanks, Doc. I’ve taken the trouble to read the entire thread and am now suitably informed about the capitalisation debate that still rages on. (I’m playing safe with lower case for both marsh fritillary and sanderling.)
I have also properly read Doc D’s last post and I like idea of Stringy Bob seeking to be committed to an institution in order to meet the band’s requirements. I had previously taken the Doc’s last post to be about the use of the line ‘You can guess the rest’ which turns out to be an original observation of mine, whilst remaining totally irrelevant.
1 March 2020
featureless tv producer steve
Some people over-think lyrics. Apparently, I under-think lyrics. I always read the line simply to mean that they wanted someone committed to their band who wouldn’t waste their time. Bob answered the ad, wasn’t committed to their band, and wasted all their time. Public nuisance charges ensued.
But now I’m wondering – was Bob already committed to the institution when he answered the ad? That’s what would make him qualified to answer the ad, right? Yet doesn’t the song clearly list this incident among the offences that got him institutionalised in the first place?
So now I’m confused. Maybe I’ll go back to under-thinking the lyrics.
2 March 2020
SiMplex lOck
Running along the canal this morning – half an eye on Strava – I chewed over ‘You can guess the rest’.
I continued to chew whilst avoiding the panic buying in Tesco’s: pasta gone, gnocchi remains (?)
Re-reading the thread from the start I was properly chuffed to see the most recent thread provided some answers.
Hats off to this community, it can sustain us in difficult times.
15 March 2020
Becky Blackmore
I am so excited about blasting this out this weekend at a party and making everyone be quiet in particular for the famous “Bogroll”line at the end. Verily this is the silver lining to Covid19!
18 March 2020
dr desperate
According to the Blessed VCM on a recent ‘Only Connect’, the Danish for ‘mullet’ is ‘Bundesligahår’.
26 November 2020
Uncivil servant
Being an avid birder, and regular visitor to the Dee Estuary, I thought I could shed some more light on the mystery that is Stringy Bob. A “stringer” is a birdwatcher who shares details and locations of dubious bird sightings, causing much annoyance to twitchers who believe said reports and travel across the country only to discover that the bird doesn’t exist, or is a common misidentified species.
Perhaps Bob has been incarcerated by fellow birders, perhaps for stringing, or maybe getting too close to the pontoon in New Brighton and flushing the purple sandpipers.
On the tricky subject of the capitalisation of “Sanderling”, even the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) calls the whole situation a “bloodbath”. The majority of other naturalists do not capitalise common names, but ornithologists do. This appears to be mostly because prominent bird guides always have, which seems very slap-dash reasoning. The IOC therefore capitalise common names in their species lists of the world and the bird in question is listed as a “Sanderling”.
However, there is ambiguity when they discuss capitalisation in full sentences. When discussing the bird as a species they suggest they are capitalised. For example: “A species commonly found on the Dee Estuary is the Curlew”. They then state how common names may not need to be capitalised when simply pointing out birds as part of a wider description. For example:”There were kingfishers, mallards and sanderlings”. However, they confusingly contradict this by stating that some names should be capitalised to avoid ambiguity. For example “Yellow Wagtails” is describing one species, whereas “yellow wagtails” could be describing a number of wagtail species that all have a yellow hue.
So, after much consideration I feel like the correct capitalisation should be: “Is this your sanderling?”, and that the IOU should be disbanded for lack of rigour.
16 December 2020
transit full of keith
Cheers, I wasn’t aware of stringer as a birdwatching term. There might be something in that, although he was beachcombing, not twitching when he found the sanderling.
I tend to think he’s called Stringy Bob because he’s a tall wiry bloke. (Does anyone else picture him as resembling Andrew Fearn of the Sleaford Mods, or is that just me?)
Names can mislead though. As one of the spoof exam questions in “1066 and All That” goes, “Why do you picture John of Gaunt as a rather emaciated grandee?”
18 December 2020
transit full of keith
That junior employee has had a brilliant career – now runs the National Rail website apparently. But sometimes, just for old times’ sake …
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/12/visually-impaired-users-complain-rail-websites-greyscale-prince-philip
12 April 2021
dr desperate
Overhead a Rail board appears…
13 April 2021
Pirx The Purist
A shout out for the person who provided the translation on this notice from Monmouthshire County Council:
https://twitter.com/HuwMorgan1/status/1381951381347700737/photo/1
The Welsh version reads:
“Was there ever a more risible minister than the Rt Hon Oliver Dowden. A flag pole on the town hall. Could it get any dafter. We would like to invite the Rt Hon Andrew R T Davies (*) to Grosmont on St George’s Day, 23rd of April, so that we can shove the Union Flag up his arse.”
(* Leader of the Conservative Party’s branch in Wales)
13 April 2021
transit full of keith
Top stuff! My previous favourite was the translator’s out of office message that ended up on a roadsign: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7702913.stm
14 April 2021
Mike
Might I suggest to British Rail- “Train replacement bus service”.
1 May 2021
EXXO
Enjoying some early Pixies at the moment, for the first time in far too long I must say, and as someone suggested 13½ years ago in comment 12 above, anyone wishing to fully appreciate the process behind the composition of National Shite Day needs to listen to Bone Machine. Hard to believe that it was recorded more than a third of a century ago.
7 September 2021
professor Abelazar woozle
You’re making me feel old now Exxo, thirty years ago I was lucky enough to be at a Pixies secret gig at the Scarborough Futurist – they’d been rehearsing there for their European tour and decided to do a warm-up. Absolutely brilliant night…
7 September 2021
The Average Tree
Haven’t scrolled through to see if anyone has already pointed this out but I’ve just read the phrase “We had been brushed by the wing of a great feeling” in Willa Cather’s My Antonia, and wondered if …the wings of something dark could have originated from this. Incidentally, in my opinion, the first verse is fantastic, but the whole of the second, from I got a letter right through to may the Lord have mercy, is just something else.
19 September 2021
The average tree
Also my Dad knows Phil Cool.
19 September 2021
EXXO
@The Average Tree. I’d say “brushed by the wings of XXX” is too common a metaphor and too common collocation to be able to pin a particular origin or influence down without also finding “something dark,”
The idea of a spirit or soul leaving the body, and taking flight (with or without wings), is as old as the human need to construct meaning out of the void by creating myths and religions. It does not belong to one particular religion or culture – everywhere from native American cultures to Plato you will find it. The idea an observer of sensing when life ends and feeling the ‘soul’ leaving the body will have sometimes inevitably taken metaphorical shape involving feeling the passing of wings.
Then there are cultures that have developed myths of winged fairies, angels, etc.- it is inevitable that metaphors of being touched by their wings would emerge and become a widespread image in ‘romantic’ literature, and quickly become a cliché – the source by Willa Cather that you (The Average Tree) quote above seems to be of this type.
The idea of evil spirits or demons with wings is widespread too. In many cultures an owl is believed to be a spirit, a harbinger or bringer of death and you wouldn’t want to be brushed by its wings. Again it’s inevitable that this would become a metaphor in gothic literature, horror (and therefore it’s not hard to find gothy/mentally lyrics about being touched by the wings of demons).
Some example quotes. Wordsworth:
In youth we love the darksome lawn
Brushed by the owlet’s wing;
Then, Twilight is preferred to Dawn,
And Autumn to the Spring.
Goethe:
O, that a bird of peace, a harbinger, Would brush me gently with its guiding wing!
Coleridge:
With these the magic dews which Evening brings,
Brush’d from the Idalian star by faery wings.
WB Yeats:
When brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dimness they love going by
A 1989 article about WB Yeats in the NY Times, by Andrew Kellerman:
It was 1939 and the dying poet, like the Irish warrior of the play, was getting ready to give up a world brushed by the wings of the Morrigu, Celtic goddess of war.
Welsh poet RS Thomas, in the 1990’s, describing an awful, dangerous god in a collection which has some very Blackwellian Welsh wilderness themes:
“an enormous owl / abroad in the shadows, / brushing me sometimes / with his wing so the blood / in my veins freezes.”
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if Jim Perrin, who we know was the origin for the “quartering crow” (see comment 74, above), had used the “touched by the wings of something dark” phrase to describe some hell-bent rock climber or windswept Welsh wilderness, but until we find that exact phrase in a pre-2004 text likely to have been seen by NB, I don’t think we can say that any particular use of “touched by the wings of …” is a probable source.
20 September 2021
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
In post 133 I suggested it was a reference to the Deryn Corph (Corpse Bird) of Welsh mythology. Given NB57’s interest in Welsh language and culture, I’m still of that view rather than it being a direct quote from something.
20 September 2021
EXXO
Could easily be both. Even if we found the exact phrase in another author he’d probably read, we still wouldn’t necessarily know what he had in mind.
20 September 2021
EXXO
Re-reading you comment 133 though, yes, I’ve never thought that there was any doubt that at that moment the protagonist/voice of the song feels that Stringy Bob has died or is about to die and that the “touched by the wings wings of something dark” is either SB’s ‘ spirit’ or some other kind of dark spirit associated with his passing, so yes, very good shout about the image, and as you say that does seem something that would interest NB, though as I say that doesn’t necessarily mean that the language couldn’t be borrowed from some other context.
20 September 2021
COUNTY BASSOON
I’m probably the odd one out with this, but I’ve never really understood the adulation this song garners. I mean, yes, it’s okay – and has the killer ‘Millets’ line in it, but beyond that it’s one of my less favoured HMHB songs and I’d put it significantly behind similar songs like ‘Bad Wools’. ‘Country Practice’ or ‘Gwatkin’ and a million miles behind ‘Evil Gazebo’. Even go so far as to say it’s my least favourite song on ‘CSI’. It seems more a collection of thoughts rather than anything too cohesive, and has some of NB’s more awkward lyrics ‘the rubber faced irritant Phil Cool’ for example. The hook is fine but nothing special.
As I say, I know I’m alone in thinking this is an okay but bottom-20% HMHB song, I just find it hard to fathom why it’s so loved. Maybe I’m missing something with the ‘Stringy Bob’ story….
2 April 2022
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
Stone the unbeliever!
2 April 2022
Murderous giraffe
I know what you mean, CB. I’ve never understood how highly placed NSD is in the HMHB hall of fame. I don’t think I’d dump it in my bottom 20% but the Stringy Bob thing does it no favours. The song is redeemed somewhat by the anthemic ending.
2 April 2022
TC, IDRIS
Although I’d heard of the band, my first exposure to their music was this song on a free Mojo CD. Immediately, I realised that any band who could include the lines ‘there’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in millets’ and ‘overhead a rainbow appears, in black and white’, had to be something special. NSD probably doesn’t make my HMHB top 20 but I still think it’s a fantastic song, and the gateway to my favourite band at an age when I probably won’t have many more new favourite bands.
(OTOH, I can’t be doing with A Country Practice)
2 April 2022
EXXO
I think it’s great TCI that you include the information about how you first came to the band’s work, because I guess that’s one a possible key to mutual understanding to follow up a couple of “I’ve never understood why” comments.
There were two decades when nearly everyone came to HMHB via John Peel, and to some extent that meant we understood the band’s early influences too: The Fall, Pixies, and all the bands that influenced the influences from Beefheart and Pere Ubu to Joy Division. All bands that to some extent deal in alienation from mainstream culture.
So when I first heard National Shite Day around this time of year 14 years ago, I thought it was the song that Nigel & Neil were born to write, the natural application of their musical influences to Nigel’s world view, and making that world view feel universal. Taking alienation from the culture of Birkenhead precinct if you like, and expanding it to alienation from the culture of every town centre in the world, and ending up with someone – another alter-ego embodiment of the narrator possibly – rambling off into the countryside and becoming food for the desperate creatures of the wilderness.
It’s interesting too that you mention ‘A Country Practice’, because that along with ‘Thy Damnation’ are the prototypes of HMHB’s ranty Fall/Pixies-influenced epics, which yes also include ‘Bad Wools’, ‘Gwatkin’ and ‘Stiperstones’. All 5 of those are all firmly in my top twenty HMHB songs along with NSD, with more than one contender for number one. There’s a reason too why 3 or 4 of those epics were chosen to be album closers for great albums.
I guess any band putting out 220 songs over four decades that has now gathered so many more influential advocates in the media than just Peel will now have people finding them from all kinds of different angles. So the fanbase has become a broader and broader church, more and more of whose congregation will not fully appreciate certain aspects of the band’s output for all kinds of reasons.
By the way, did I ever say any words of tribute to the lovely Janice Long after she died last Xmas day? Janice was another great champion for Merseyside independent artists of course, and it was she who gave National Shite Day its first play on the Beeb all those 14 years ago, exploiting the fact that somehow the Beeb didn’t have “shite” listed as a naughty word alongside “shit.” If I’m not mistaken, that remains its one play on UK national radio (other than a possible outing by Maconie on the Freakzone maybe? Or have I imagined that? It has I think also been on BBC Cymru and a local station or two). Cheers, lovely Janice. I made you a cup of tea in Wallasey when I was 16 years old.
Anyway, if you’ve never understood but you do still seek to understand, I could just refer you to my comment 24 above, or I could re-post my quotes from Mike Cresswell because that’s what they deserve and because I’ve never seen it expressed better. I’m sure Mike, like many of us, discovered the band after already knowing their influences through Peel:
“Finally, then I will shut up. Through the fog, through the struggling sound system, a shining light; almost like Monty Python’s stream of bat’s piss (Python ‘Oscar Wilde’ I merely meant, Your Majesty, that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark).
National Shite Day is an immense song. An instant ‘classic’ that defines the feeling that we all have at times (some more than others) that the microcosm, that is our life, is being replicated throughout the wider community. It is cathartic; an accolade that is so oft used but rarely, in my opinion, justified.
This song is that Premier League player that your club (supporters of the big 5, generally; oh, and Spurs) have just bought for Euro 30 million and looks pretty good on first viewing; but then after a few weeks, is absolutely stunning. There are a few. Messrs Veron and Pizzaro may be considered unlikely members of that club.
In my view, it is a song that should be pre-loaded onto every Ppod. It is there to enjoy, but also to deflect the suffering of a bad day at the office, ground, etc. It just gives that reality check that we all need to inlay a little bit of perspective.
It was stunning when it was given a live debut at Nottingham, but at Edinburgh, it just seemed even better. Perhaps it was because of the incessant drum and bass beat booming out through the fog, the fact that last Friday was one of the worst days of my life for a long time, or just because it is such an incredible reflection of the way that life can annoy you in such a complex manner; almost by stealth and only when distilled into this song, does it allow you to rationalise it and shrug it off as, ‘that’s the way it is’?
3 April 2022
EXXO
Meant to mention Datblygu as a massive influence on the ranty songs too, of course.
3 April 2022
Paul f
On the subject of Janice Long, I hope everybody saw the circulating clip of her talking about Peel delivering her “A Dickhead in Love” line about Robert Palmer on Top of the Pops, to save Janice getting into trouble if she’d said it herself.
3 April 2022
COUNTY BASSOON
I hear that perspective EXXO but I still don’t think it’s that great a song and would take any of those prototype songs over it.
Of course ‘not a great HMHB song’ still puts it in the highest percentile compared to most other dross pumped out by other bands…
4 April 2022
EXXO
Wasn’t expecting to persuade you, but it was your “don’t understand why” that I was hoping to address. I never enjoy such weighing up of which HMHB songs are better than which, but I like to think that at least I do understand why people don’t fully appreciate certain songs and generally why they think that certain are better than others.
4 April 2022
Regurmez
Another thrilling proofreading observation! (Let’s face it, I’m not going to find anything of real substance this late in the day.)
I get that tug-of-love should be hyphenated but I’m not sure that custody battle should be, let alone the two phrases being joined together by a further hyphen.
I’d suggest it should simply be “tug-of-love custody battle”.
17 April 2022
dr Desperate
Quite so. Typographical, I suspect.
17 April 2022
chris from future doom
Listening to the new Fontaines DC album, the chanty bit in ‘I Love You’ immediately put me in mind of NSD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty9Pcg3qrmU
27 April 2022
chris from future doom
sorry, re last comment, was obviously thinking Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools
27 April 2022
EXXO
Not only did I also notice it immediately, but I also remembered noticing the same riff on their Too Real about 4 years ago. Brilliant stuff though.
27 April 2022
EXXO
Actually on re-listening can’t remember if I thought that about the title track of the new album or ‘I Love You,’ but ‘Too Real’ from the first album is more similar. (last 4 posts obviously belong in the R&RiFoBW thread but I hate to reply to one thread in another).
27 April 2022
John anderson
There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet at St Andrews.
17 July 2022
John anderson
Today’s Times headline: Man With A Mullet Takes Mallet To Old Course.
18 July 2022