Bladderwrack Allowance by Half Man Half Biscuit (2018) discussed...
A tale of being somewhere you’d rather not be, a seventies footballer spotted, it’s just like a regular gig. The song is described elsewhere on this site by Exxo as “mainly about dispiriting dissing from and towards audience members at local pub band gigs” and by SPT “even more specifically as being inspired by the tetchy looks of appalled partners in the crowd at HMHB gigs”. Bladderwrack is green seaweed which is claimed to have all sorts of powers. I’m sure we’ll be enlightened further below, including as to its relevance to the story.
See lyrics to Bladderwrack Allowance
Chris The Siteowner
Just a quick Google search finds Bladderwrack being described as having “powerful moisturising properties” by a cosmetics company, but being more useful to “stimulate healthy thyroid functioning and support weight loss” by a dietary supplement outfit. Most attractive to them as it can be picked up for free, I expect. The EU generously says: “(although) there is insufficient evidence from clinical trials, the effectiveness of these herbal medicines is plausible”. But more importantly, what’s the allowance?
23 May 2018
Transit full of keith
Zuiderzee is one word I think. Leaning towards SPT’s explanation. I can’t explain the title though.
23 May 2018
EXXO
Hmm, I was just taking the stuff that the bladder stores out of someone else’s dodgy interpretation, and not really wanting my own initial middle-of-the-night thoughts while on the rack marking essays last night to be immortalised up there ^ ^ in any way.
Still marking, so more thoughts tomorrow. MUST.KEEP.OFF.HERE.
23 May 2018
jeff dreadnought
Speaking of the stuff the bladder stores, on first hearing I mistook the line about “the need to boo and hiss” as “the need to poo and piss” and imagined the whole thing to be taking place at some kind of music festival.
23 May 2018
Transit full of keith
Same here. I think I was misled by the bladder reference.
23 May 2018
Chris The Siteowner
Some consolation: the quickest and most prolific contributor of lyrics for this album (you’ll have to guess who) made the same mistake. Amused me no end at the time.
23 May 2018
John anderson
Mea culpa.
23 May 2018
Welton Elsby
Hi all. Not to denigrate your fine work whatsoever, but my ears (and admittedly they’re possibly rose-tinted ears, bearing in mind the cidery in question is in the next village) are hearing Thatchers’ Entirely Blameless.
Just gone to listen to the line again (in the car parked on the driveway – questionable looks from the builders working next door) and I’m sure it’s a reference to Somerset’s most celebrated manufacturer of apple-flavoured liquid refreshment.
23 May 2018
Dr Desperate
Purely as a matter of consistency, we did choose to spell Zuiderzee as one word in the lyrics to ‘Moody Chops’.
That fella’s shout does seem to confirm SPT’s theory, unless anyone knows of another band’s song that mentions it (not counting ‘I’ve Got No Strings’ from ‘Pinocchio’ and Bing Crosby’s ‘Zing A Little Zong’). The mention of a dating agency suggests that the protagonist has been sent on a blind date with a Biscuiteer, possibly as a prank by giggling pink-Stetsoned mates.
23 May 2018
Dr Desperate
Sorry, @Welton, I can’t hear ‘Thatcher’s’, even in the car. Hall & Woodhouse of Blandford St Mary have been producing Badger (no apostrophe ‘s’) beers since 1777.
Incidentally, I’m relieved it’s not “piss”, though I’m still hearing “poo”. Pooh?
23 May 2018
Chris The Siteowner
Aha – well done for being consistent about consistency, Dr D (and TFOK). Sorted.
I think they are at a Biscuit gig, hence the request for That One About The Zuiderzee and the random mention (from the stage, perhaps) of an obscure footballer. I can’t imagine who’d do that.
23 May 2018
Chris The Siteowner
Badgers are, of course, Entirely Blameless.
Is the song possibly from the point of view of the performer-as-observer, with the exception of the “Home sweet home” and “Mine’s a pint of” verses, which sound different to the rest, as they’re supposed to be from the object of the song?
23 May 2018
Dr Desperate
That seventies ‘Boro central defender was first spotted in the crowd at ARC, Stockton-on-Tees, five years to the day before next month’s gig (where one hopes he may be namechecked again).
Also spotted, thanked on the inside cover of the album: Arthur Foggen, the scrap merchant who buys Barnstoneworth United’s ground in ‘Golden Gordon’, as played by Bill Fraser.
23 May 2018
Paul F
I’ll have to go back to this as I heard “prefer the beer” rather “need further beer” but I’m probably wrong. Very “meta” as the kids say nowadays – a song about somebody hating being at a Biscuit gig. I’m still struggling a bit with the relationships in this one, but wonder whether one of Gail and Sonia are the “partner” who has been found through the dating agency. However I agree with Dr D that Gail and Sonia will almost certainly be wearing pink stetsons.
And I think it is the performer observing, but then reflecting the thoughts he imagines the audience member having.
23 May 2018
paul F
Incidentally regarding Stuart Boam, I remember reading my older brother’s Liverpool footy programmes in the 70s and always finding the expected Boro team names hilarious (including Alan Foggon, not to be confused with Arthur Foggen). Craggs, Spraggon etc.
23 May 2018
Dr Desperate
Co-incidentally, Frank Spraggon was also spotted on that sultry Stockton night.
Of possible relevance to the fourth line is this information pack on Bladderwrack which mentions its use as a treatment for bowel disorders, as well as the fact that a reasonable portion may contain the U.S. adult recommended dietary allowance of iodine.
https://www.diagnose-me.com/treatment/bladderwrack.php
23 May 2018
John Anderson
I’ve just listened to the opening verse again and, to my ears at least, it sounds more like “poo and piss” than “boo and hiss”, although I’m sure the latter is correct.
23 May 2018
Jeff dreadnought
Song about a listener being airshipped by a reference to (presumably) Peter Brine that airshipped those of us who don’t remember the Middlesborough team of the mid-70s.
Or I may have got that completely wrong, in which case it goes to a whole new level of meta.
23 May 2018
CHRIS THE SITEOWNER
Oh good spot Jeff. I was about to ask if “brine” should therefore be capitalised, but I guess if the narrator doesn’t know about the footballer, then that’s not what he’s thinking. Whether that means Peter Brine still deserves an A–Z entry eventually is up for discussion.
23 May 2018
BOBBY SVARC
Ironically, the famous ‘Hiss and Boo’ band are from Leicester-shire, they used to play at the Tigers every game, I don’t know if they still do or whether Health and Safety have put the kybosh on it.
23 May 2018
transit full of keith
“Home sweet home” is the imagined thoughts of the object of the song, but “Mine’s a pint of Badger’s Entirely Blameless” is surely another way the performer is saying “not my fault you’re having a terrible evening, love”.
Good spot on the previous mention of Zuiderzee, which supports SPT’s ‘view from the Biscuit stage’ version. In favour of Exxo’s pub band version, people dragged to Biscuit gigs by mistake by partners don’t tend to boo or hiss, they scowl.
The former Zuiderzee is reclaimed land. Isn’t seaweed often used as a fertiliser in such regions? Might Stewart Boam be swimming in brine after failing to stem a hole in the dike, like the Dutch boy in the story? On such tiny footholds and wrinkles are we forced to try and progress. Hard Very Severe.
23 May 2018
paul f
Another thought, but one probably impossible to decide either way. Should it be gogglebox rather than Gogglebox? In other words is he just watching the telly, or is he specifically watching the show Gogglebox?
23 May 2018
Chris The Siteowner
Hmm, good point. As the comparison is Facebook, which is more of a ‘thing’ than a show, ‘gogglebox’ could be the better call. Anyone?
23 May 2018
John Anderson
Definitely Gogglebox as in the TV show of that name. Precisely the sort of thing she’d rather be doing. We already have the more generic “watching telly” in the opening line, so it doesn’t really bear repeating.
23 May 2018
BOBBY SVARC
Very disappointed that words like Cabal and Clique didn’t feature in the new album.
23 May 2018
Dr Desperate
Putting all the above together, we have Nigel sympathising with a woman he’s spotted in the crowd who’s been tricked by her friends into coming to one of his gigs when she’d have rather stayed at home. Her partner for the evening is a Biscuit fan (not the Merc-owner she would have preferred), so she’s having to endure a nightmare of songs she can’t relate or dance to, shouts for numbers she’s never heard of and baffling references to footballers who played for Middlesbrough before she was born.
In the middle eight the POV shifts briefly to her, dreaming of faffing about on Facebook, watching Gogglebox and drinking wine, then back to Nigel, who admits that, although not personally to blame, he was responsible for her ordeal, and absolves her of the obligation to come again.
(Of course, there’s always an outside chance that the next time he sees her she’ll be in DPAK.)
23 May 2018
paul f
@DrD – Hmm. But wouldn’t Gail and Sonia have taken a female friend on a hen night? And even if not, stitching a friend up while you have a big night out would seem a bit mean-spirited. And blaming a partner and suing the dating agency would contradict this being down to Gail and Sonia’s joke.
That said, the Merc-driver line makes more sense in your scenario than the one I envisaged, so who knows? Hence my earlier comment about not being able to get my head around the relationships.
23 May 2018
Dr Desperate
The only way I could make sense of the relationships was to suppose that the ‘partner’ was the bloke who had brung her to the gig, therefore deserving of flak.
Ooh, ooh, maybe Gail and Sonia are her daughters.
23 May 2018
Dr Desperate
Do you know, I think there might be a “Well,” before “mine’s a pint of…”
23 May 2018
transit full of keith
I would go with capital ‘G’ Gogglebox, because the idea of the audience member the singer is singing about watching him sing wanting to go home and watch people watching telly, on telly, is rather brilliant.
There is always a chance I am overthinking this.
23 May 2018
DUKE OF WESTMINSTER
Isn’t the joke that Gail and Sonia may have played on the object of the song that she’ll enjoy going on a date with the person on the dating agency’s books who wants someone to share his interest in HMHB
23 May 2018
DUKE OF WESTMINSTER
Bladder wrack is a source of iodine. Iodine deficiency is a cause of mental retardation. is this connecting to the allowance?
23 May 2018
John Anderson
I must confess that, in addition to getting the boo and hiss line wrong, I also assumed Robert of Blaby to be some figure from history such as John of Gaunt or Eleanor of Aquitaine. It’s a bit of a disappointment to discover he’s just some 21st century single bloke from the East Midlands.
23 May 2018
Harbo
There was me, thinking the title was about needing the loo during the gig, as in wracking one’s bladder, and just how much of it one could take before conceding that a song may have to be missed.
I couldn’t quite work out how this fitted with the tale, but it still seems slightly better connected than something to do with seaweed!
23 May 2018
paul F
Me too John – I couldn’t make out the Merc line, so when I saw it here, I was thinking why would Robert [Earl] of Blaby be driving a Mercedes?
23 May 2018
BOBBY SVARC
Maybe John of Blaby was an old mate of Nigel’s from the old Half Time Orange days.
23 May 2018
CArrie anne
Definitely Gogglebox, as it also adds to the evidence that this scenario was played out at a HMHB gig. The said programme is aired at 9pm on Friday evenings (barring repeats). Which is precisely the same time that our lads usually take to the stage.
23 May 2018
Paul F
OK – I’m sold on Gogglebox.
23 May 2018
jeff dreadnought
Tricky these second-person narratives. See also Twenty Four Hour Garage People – it’s all just “probably”. And no accident that there is no such flavour as sour cream and chives.
23 May 2018
The harbinger of nothing
I think the song is about the partner of a fan who’s finally been persuaded to go and see what all this Biscuit malarkey is all about. Her (or his, let’s not presume!) daughters, Gail and Sonia, have pretended that they’re going to be out all night, so that she would go. At some point in the night, she commented that it wasn’t exactly her cup of tea, to which her partner humourously suggested that she sue the dating agency.
No idea what it has to do with seaweed though!
23 May 2018
EXXO
Well I said I’d keep away today, but this is a well deserved break in the Ship Inn Sheffield between a full working day at Leeds Uni and another one at Sheffield Uni, and I do have to pose my counter arguments. I can see why people want it to be about a Biscuits gig but that just doesn’t ring true.
It doesn’t chime with anything we know about Mr. B’s attitude and disposition during the gigs.He is not in a position to notice anyone past the front row, ‘cos of the lights. It’s real effort to focus in even on people who shout out stuff beyond that.He’ s concentrating so hard during the songs that he only does the banter with those at the front between songs, especially if they are trusted faces. OK a non-convert might go on the front row and give him the hard look, but it seems unlikely.
Nor has he ever said anything to indicate that he has any problem with non-converts coming along; nor have said people ever been known to boo or hiss since times long far gone. I don’t think they’d feel safe if they did so in anything other than a comedy way.
HMHB try not to do small gigs these days where they can notice that much about the audience , and when they very occasionally do it’s as a favour to someone, alongside a better earning gig, and with a very sympathetic audience where nobody would boo and hiss.
There are elements of autobiography in the song, of course. The elements for example that would help Mr. B sympathise with say Karl’s other bands, during their Wirral pub gigs, if anyone heckled. Or Mike Badger’s pub band. Or for that matter any support band, in a less crowded room at a HMHB gig. All of these have a far harder time than HMHB and he knows it. The song sounds like it’s from the point of view of someone on auto pilot with a pub band like Jonathan Richman’s ‘Bermuda Strollers’ (a fictional band in one of his songs).
HMHB don’t have a song about Stuart Boam … except this one, which is referring to someone else referring to Stuart Boam, either on telly after the gig, or memories of him being mentioned on stage during it (but you wouldn’t remember a name you don’t recognise if it was recalling a song earlier on).HMHB also don’t really have a song about the Zuiderzee, but just one that takes the piss about another singer crooning about it. So it’s a self-referential joke yes, and yes people do shout for all the obscure stuff and general absurdities, but to me it’s just an absurd touch.
This band on stage do have funny songs and they do have danceable ones, that’s all we know. There are elements of autobiography in a lot of these songs but much more elements of empathy with other, fictionalised people (considerable warts and all in some songs).
23 May 2018
paul f
Sorry Exxo – although I think it could have wider application (in a cheesmakers/all makers of dairy produce kind of sense) there are enough allusions in there to suggest that it’s a Biscuit gig. As well as Zuiderzee, the idea of Stuart Boam swimming in brine could only come from a Blackwell composition, even if there isn’t actually such a song just yet.
23 May 2018
geraldine
Hello. Pretty sure it’s… “Though yes, I’ll accept I’m the focus of your ire”
Sounds like it to me, and it links with the previous line better.
23 May 2018
Welston Elsby
Well, I’m singing it as Thatchers’…
*goes off to sulk in the corner*
23 May 2018
IdrIsdachiseller
Just a few thoughts:-
1. The narrator is entirely sympathetic to the object of the song which makes it possible it’s autobiographical.
2. If it’s not autobiographical, then the references to the Zuiderzee suggest the performer could in fact be the object of Moody Chops, slumming it at a pub gig 20 years after the national acclaim has dried up.
3. I hear, “Thatcher’s Entirely Blameless”, which is view more likely to be espoused, even in fictional real ale form, by a former mucker of Jools Holland than the real life NB10.
4. Bladderwrack provides a similar tactile experience to bubblewrap (q.v.) and probably serves a similar purpose in places like Totnes (q.v.) where form of non-organic stress release are frowned upon.
23 May 2018
Chris The Siteowner
I’m with Paul, so another “Sorry Exxo”. There’s a mention in an HMHB song of the Zuiderzee, so of course someone might shout out for ‘that one’ (and they wouldn’t be shouting it out at anyone else’s gig!). Stuart Boam and something-or-other-about-Brine being ‘spotted’ in the audience (in between-song chat) is another thing which would happen at nobody else’s gigs. As far as I see it, he couldn’t give any more clues that it’s him if he tried.
23 May 2018
EXXO
Autobiographical elements and jokes played on us. But it’s only at someone else’s gig that this front man would ever be able to reflect, to audience watch and imagine what was going on in someone’s head like that. OK, you could then re-imagine that person coming to your own gig, but it still wouldn’t be “Nigel Blackwell” talking, ‘cos he would surely never be thinking that during an actual HMHB gig.
Anyway I’m way past the red zone on the “Stop wait a minute Mr. Spokesman, you don’t know what I think” scale, so I’ll say no more of it.
23 May 2018
BOBBY SVARC
I hear that Nigel is a very good player of Trevor Hockey
23 May 2018
DUKE OF WESTMINSTER
I can’t see a reason why someone writing a song about a fictional person attending a fictional gig that draws on specific real facts would have to be based on specific interaction with specific people at gigs. Surely the narrator is simply imagining what it would be like for somewhat who wasn’t into it to be attending a gig like the ones he puts on and then responding (in his head) to what he imagines she would be thinking.
23 May 2018
EXXO
Yeah but then he’s creating such a fictional version of himself and of his own experience of fronting a HMHB gig,and of the persona he puts across, that it isn’t a recognisable HMHB gig any more. Certainly not to me; has to be a fictional band.
(tried not to respond there but why not since I’m making light work of the moonlighting job in Sheffield tonight as you can see).
23 May 2018
atombowl
I’m afraid I’m another firmly in the Badger camp. It’s a neat little gag in its own right. ie the incompetent cull of the black and white beasties despite the somewhat tenuous evidence for their being to blame for spreading bovine TB.
23 May 2018
jeff dreadnought
I’m going to be lying awake tonight wondering who Gail and Sonia are, and how the fictional/non-fictional lead singer of the fictional/non-fictional (support?) band can possibly know their names if he doesn’t know their friend/mother/father/partner in the audience.
23 May 2018
DagEnham dave
Good call Atombowl, I don’t think I would ever of thought of that.
For what it’s worth I hear it as an autobiographical lyric as well.
23 May 2018
Radar
Hello. New album has brought me out of lurkers’ corner.
Sorry if I’m stating the obvious here but is the swimming in brine line meant to be a misheard lyric? One of our narrator’s songs has a line about Stuart Boam and Peter Brine and our heroine has got the Stuart Boam bit right but not the Brine bit.
This theory would be easier to back up if there was an obvious contender for what the lyric should be, but I can’t think of one… (‘Stuart Boam, swinging in Brine,’ said no football commentator ever).
23 May 2018
Rev
I too, made the poo and piss mistake, and as a result thought the song was about a less than satisfactory camping trip. In the context of the band doing a song about someone watching the band, it’s rocketed up my ranking
Just as a matter of interest, does anyone else hear it as a “phallus” rather than fella shouting?
23 May 2018
The harbinger of nothing
It’s definitely Badger’s. For one thing, it’s a good gag / comment on the TB cull; for another, the line before is “but probably you just need further beer”…
23 May 2018
The dynamic entrance
I know boo and hiss makes more sense but it REALLY sounds like something different to me, especially after seeing the bogs at most of the gigs?
23 May 2018
SPT
All I’ll add to this is that Mrs SPT went to see HMHB back in the 80s, so I was always on fairly safe ground. Not that she has deigned to accompany me on more recent excursions.
23 May 2018
CHris from future doom
Re: the Stuart Boam line – it’s been bugging me all day that this reminded me of another HMHB lyric and it’s just come to me: “Why’s Frank Ifield jumping up and down on a windmill” – anyone else see this as an echo back to this line?
23 May 2018
Phyllis Triggs
Blaby’s in Leicestershire – a fine aside/non-sequitur (perhaps a nod to the previous track Knobheads On Quiz Shows?) works as an example of exactly the sort of thing which would be greeted with total incomprehension by this particular member of the audience. And really, who can blame her (for it is surely a she)? Blaby’s In Leicestershire; sing the one about the Zuiderzee; not to mention Stuart Boam swimming in brine (that’s got me bewildered and I’m a fan!) Nigel might be taking the piss with a bit of Ooh Baby, pop lyric cliche, maybe – but I don’t think he’s entirely unsympathetic to her plight; he’s also trying to win her over with something she can latch on to and sing along to and definitely dance to – this is one groovy tune!
Very glad to learn it’s Badger’s rather than Thatcher’s which is what I’d been hearing (I think because my mate’s missus likes Thatcher’s cider and he hates having it in the house – has to turn the bottles round so he can’t see the name!)
23 May 2018
IDIOT SAUL
@Bobby S #48 – of course Trevor Hockey was the enforcer in the same Sheffield United side as right back Len Badger who was entirely blameless for any of the goals that they conceded in the early 70s.
24 May 2018
ROBR
I hear
THOUGH yes, I’ll accept I’m the focus
and
WELL mine’s a pint of
24 May 2018
Cathedral juice
Does the title make sense as the name of the fictitious band?
24 May 2018
atombowl
Not sure whether this helps with the origin of the title but either way, it indicates that one has to be careful with the daily dosage of Bladderwrack.
Even if it’s a red herring I bloody love the internet sometimes.
I set up a small business called Atombowl because I’m a Robyn Hitchcock fan only to discover later that it was the name given to an American Football game played in Nagasaki after the bomb dropped.
24 May 2018
transit full of keith
I’m a bit torn about whether it’s an HMHB gig, or an obscure pub band called Bladderwrack Allowance, you can make a good case for either. But I’m still leaning towards the former. What makes it for me is the undercurrent of empathy – a hint of “yeah, I know how you feel, I’ve no idea why all these people have been following me round for years either…”
24 May 2018
JEFF DREADNOUGH
ROBR – +1 for “though yes” as I think that makes more sense
Other thoughts:
With all the imagined characters and back story – Gail and Sonia, the hen night, Robert of Blaby, his Merc – it’s a pretty elaborate scenario to say the least, even for a pub band singer on auto pilot to be thinking up.
So as Exxo suggests (if I’ve understood properly) it is perhaps more likely to be the thoughts of an equally bored audience member – himself the lead singer of another band and thus able to put himself in the shoes of the singer who’s performing – who is imagining the thoughts that the lead singer on stage might think, were he to notice the ire directed at him by the woman in the audience who would rather be at home watching Gogglebox (particularly as Gail and Sonia her housemates have gone out and she would have had the house to herself for once – if only they hadn’t played another of their hilarious jokes on her and set her up through the dating agency with this bloke who’s taken her to see this band).
As CtSO says, within this narrative the POV jumps around quite a bit. “Mine’s a pint of Badger’s etc.” for instance sounds like partner sending his irate date to the bar for a pint of beer the name of which she’s never heard of but in her mind becomes “Entirely Blameless” given his unapologetic demeanour despite the ordeal he has subjected her to.
“And we shall forever be nameless, you and I” – a reference to the fact that this is all just an imagined scenario with the observer thinking the thoughts of the lead singer thinking the thoughts of two people in the audience whose names he’ll never know (?)
24 May 2018
SIDESHOWBOB
A big strong central defender, Stuart Boam played in the Football League between 1967-83. He is best remembered at Middlesbrough where he played between 1971-79 making 322 league appearances. He made a total of 582 appearances in the league for all his clubs. When his playing career finished he worked for twelve years at Kodak then bought a newsagents where he lived in Kirkby In Ashfield. He had this for ten years before retiring. He still goes to some Middlesbrough games.
24 May 2018
Chris from future doom
Is it just me or is the last line said in a comedy Russian spy accent?
24 May 2018
Kip Keino
I felt this was getting nailed down nicely but some of the prevarication over the poet’s ‘attitude and disposition’ seems to have prevented a definitive account of what’s going on in this song.
So, it’s obviously about a HMHB gig (Zuiderzee is proof enough), written from the perspective of Nigel (‘the focus of your ire’) imagining the sorry experience of an audience member (probably a woman) who’s been dragged along by a more committed partner (probably a man).
Nigel is omniscient, and so he can read and emphathise with the woman’s thought processes. He is party to the circumstances under which her relationship started (the dating agency), and other possible outcomes that wouldn’t have led to a HMHB live show (Robert of Blaby).
Nigel addresses this woman, suggesting she tries to enjoy herself, reflects on his failure to entertain her, and suggests a rapprochement over an imaginary drink where their failure to connect does not generate hard feelings either way (this is their mutual namelessness).
I think the ambiguity over Gail and Sonia is that — partly because they’re repeated — we get the impression they play a more significant part in this story than they really do. But perhaps they’re just bit-players, friends of the woman, representing an alternative scenario for her evening. Their joke is simply that they encouraged her to accompany the boyfriend, knowing she wouldn’t like it.
‘Home sweet home’ is indeed a wistful reflection of what she’s missing out on. So that just leaves Stuart Boam floating in brine: on this I draw a blank. It it just her drifting unconscious, a reverie summoned by Facebook, Gogglebox, wine?
25 May 2018
Chris The Siteowner
I think you’ve summed it up well there, Kip, thanks. I think the Stuart Boam/brine bit is just the subject of the song hearing the between-song chat, picking up some stuff but mishearing or misunderstanding the rest, and getting confused, probably as to why people find it all so amusing.
25 May 2018
John’s on shimano ultegra now
Lots of sympathy for the afflicted on this album: the unfortunate, bewildered audience member in this song, the Man Of Constant Sorrow (With A Garage In Constant Use) in his house of “ultimate loneliness” and even the quiz show knobheads — “Did your friends with good advice implode?”
Badger’s Entirely Blameless sounds like a beer from the same genre as Alexei Sayle’s Scruttock’s Old Dirigible.
26 May 2018
dirk hofman
I like the idea of a band called Bladderwrack Allowance .. bladderwrack is an ingredient in some of your new fangled fancy craft gins perhaps the melon collie lass has over indulged and booed and hissed in her giddiness, bringing her to the attention of the singer who empathises with her situation and if she gets him a pint he’ll forget the insult ..
26 May 2018
Mr P
Wonder if this is just a bit of indulgence by NB. It should be quite fun to do at concerts, especially as the music is a bit more accessible.
27 May 2018
S
ah, “floating in brine” may be thge mishearing of “Foggon and Brine”, who were with Boam in the Borough early 70s lineup
29 May 2018
dick-head in quicksand
I can’t pretend to have read through all of the above insightful discussion, but has anyone noted a possible reference to the Wurzels. Adge Cutler and his band had a song “I’d love to zwim in the Zuiderzee” as in Cider Sea. I wondered if the “fella standing next to you” at the gig that you didn’t want to be at, might be shouting a sarcastic song request -much like the wag you would always find at a Pallas gig shouting “Supper’s Ready!” for example.
Or perhaps the “dream you feared” was simply being dragged along to an actual Wurzels gig?
31 May 2018
Dick-head in quicksand
I would just like to add that, although I may have been in the audience when Pallas were on stage, all those times were festivals, and at no point have I ever been to a Styx gig (although I did go to Cropredy -sorry!).
1 June 2018
a john ford northwestern
At the risk of muddying the ‘poo and piss’ waters further, I hear ‘Gail and Tania’ (pronounced Tonya), but this may be because it sends me back to my jolly 20s when I was friends with two lasses called that who did lots of fun together, and although Tania was from the south and quite well-to-do she never objected to her friends from the north west calling her ‘Tonya’. So that’s that.
3 June 2018
Westward hose
Great name check for Zuiderzee – which I only ever recall as being the last entry in the Children’s Britannica I used to own.
7 June 2018
Rob
“Vinny Jones? I’m talking about hard men. I’m talking about Boro in the sixties and seventies: Whigham, Lugg, Craggs, Rooks, Foggon, Spraggon and Woof. Rock hard the lot of them. And every one with a name that sounded like the Anglo-Saxon for an act of gross indecency”
Harry Pearson, Late Tackle, 1991
8 June 2018
Tother_Simon
After repeated listens I’m more and more convinced that it’s ‘phallus’ rather than ‘fella’. Not least because there’s a slightly extended ‘s’ sound at the end of the word (unless he’s singing “fella ssssstanding next to you” which just feels wrong).
14 June 2018
J’AIME
I think this would be a perfect song to end on.
21 June 2018
nigeyb
KIP KEINO has completely nailed it. Bravo Sir.
Great discussion
27 June 2018
BigPAT
Could we be talking about the wrong Zuider Zee?
https://lightintheattic.net/releases/4056-zeenith
27 June 2018
Ds
Along with Terminus, this was one of the two songs that hit me on first listen. In this case it was the bassline and the reference to big Stewie Boam.
I think people are getting hung up on viewpoints. The narrative is clear: a woman stuck at a Friday night gig she’s been forced to come to, when she could have been home with Goggkebox and social media.
The viewpoints are quite fluid, so it’s kind of a third person narration floating around the room. I like that, as it gives a picture of the whole scene. And of course the lyric has to fit the metre
8 July 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
All of that is clear and beyond dispute, which is why it is the viewpoint that has caused the most interesting comments.
It clearly cannot be about a realHMHB gig in the last 20 years. It is whether it is about an imaginary one, a historical one from the doldrum years, or another band’s real or imagined gig that seems most worthy of debate. Another band, in an intimate setting, still seems most likely to me despite the ‘Zuiderzee’ line.
9 July 2018
dr desperate
I once saw China Miéville discussing Henry James at a literary festival, where he said that the answer to the question, “Is ‘The Turn of the Screw’ a ghost story or not?” was “Yes, it is a ghost story or not”.
Is ‘Bladderwrack Allowance’ about an HMHB gig or not?
11 July 2018
Bobby Svarc
Yes it is but fictitious. I imagine that Bilston or The Half Time Orange is the sort of venue. I sat (yes, sat in an all standing crowd) next to a couple at Leamington the night 90 Bisodol was released, she was really not chuffed to be there, it all ended about five or six songs from the end when she lobbed a full bottle of water at him and cleared off,. Fair play to him though, he didn’t flinch and stayed to the end, I think there was four song encore that night as well.
13 July 2018
mister tubbs
If the Stuart Boam bit doesn’t refer to Nigel’s regular pointing out of celebrities in the audience, then maybe the disgruntled gig go-er has better hearing than most of us, and has perhaps managed to decipher some of the muffled lyrics from Ready Steady Goa?
13 July 2018
EXXO
Yebbut as I mentioned above, you wouldn’t remember Nigel’s references for more than a minute unless you knew the names, so it doesn’t make sense.
And nobody boos and hisses at an HMHB gig, even if they have been dragged along.
At a pub band’s sparsely-attended gig they might boo and hiss; and I happen to know that Mr. B has been to quite a lot of those recently.
At an HMHB gig Mr. B. hardly notices anybody in the audience unless they heckle him – and even then, the lights make it very difficult for him to make out much detail.
So very much an imaginary experience if it is supposed to be his own gig.
13 July 2018
BOBBY SVARC
I still think it’s HMHB.
13 July 2018
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
Although DS has it right when he/she says “a woman stuck at a Friday night gig she’s been forced to come to, when she could have been home with Goggkebox and social media”, I also think it’s Mr B imagining it’s specifically that it’s a HMHB gig – the Boam and Zuiderzee references, along with the ‘raising a knowing smile’ line.
As has been noted before, it’s very “meta” – Mr B imagining the mindset of someone who has been dragged along to one of his gigs and who doesn’t know or like anything she hears.
16 July 2018
parsfan
There’s currently an advert running themed on bad blind dates. The product being advertised? Mercedes.
24 July 2018
dr desperate
Well thanks for that Paul, now my YouTube profile has me down as interested in Mercs. And yours can do too! (Just be grateful I didn’t post the extended version.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoF1MULmNsw
25 July 2018
Kendo Neverappy
After the Stuart Boam line, anyone else start singing “Oh the grand ole duke of York” from Venus in Flares?
25 July 2018
Mariner
One possibility I like for the Stuart Boam / brine question is based on brine’s property as a preservative.
Stuart Boam is undoubtedly one of those players forever preserved in the brain brine of anyone who collected football cards in the 1970s. Which I strongly suspect NB did.
So maybe SB swimming in brine is some kind of ‘out of the mouths of innocents’ insight into the mind of Nigel.
24 August 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
Indeed.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TOPPS-1978-FOOTBALLERS-367-MIDDLESBROUGH-PETER-BRINE-/181770355066
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TOPPS-1978-FOOTBALLERS-189-MIDDLESBROUGH-MANSFIELD-TOWN-STUART-BOAM/171809065914?hash=item28009e4bba:g:amIAAOSwNSxVaedu
Please just look at the links rather than buying the items… otherwise this post won’t mean very much, will it?
24 August 2018
EXXo
@ myself (post 41).
The issues were resolved when Mr. B told me “I sometimes* imagine there’s someone at the back who’s been dragged along on a blind date.”
So it’s an imaginary HMHB gig, and to some extent it’s an imaginary version of himself, and does not relate to any real booing or hissing, or any real reading of body language of anyone at the front, or anything like that.
*it might well have been ‘always’. It definitely wasn’t ‘occasionally’.
25 August 2018
kittymc
Aah! “Someone at the back who’s been dragged there on a blind date.” No gender specified. Gail and Sonia might have fixed their brother up with one of their mates, who’s a big HMHB fan. Comedy ensues, and she has to miss A Country Practice to get to the bar to pacify him with a pint of Entirely Blameless because he’s an ale bore.
But yes, I know really it’s more likely to be a woman disappointed by a man, because of the “Facebook, Gogglebox, wine” line. I wonder though … if the hypothetical woman was at home as she’d rather be, she’d hypothetically be watching Scarlett Moffat, who could hypothetically be watching Stuart Boam swimming The English Channel for charity/floating in The Dead Sea to cure his psoriasis on some or other shite reality show re-watched on Gogglebox. Therefore “Who’s Stuart Boam?” would be Scarlett’s question, echoed by her mates on Facebook, possibly. At this point it gets so meta I no longer care.
Anyway, the more I hear it, the more the “Blaby’s in Leicestershire” line makes me laugh. It possibly surpasses “candidate enthusiastic” as Nigel’s finest deadpan. Explaining why I find it hilarious would be like emailing Robert of Blaby and explaining why I think he’d like to come to see HMHB with me (in his Merc, obviously).
26 August 2018
Bat walk leader
I like to think that the hen night that Gail and Sonia have gone off to is the one for the wedding in “I Went to a Wedding”.
30 August 2018
Ghost of kirkus
The ONS has just named Blaby in Leicestershire as the fifth happiest place in the UK, as reported in today’s Grauniad. Last week they were in Chatteris reporting from a supermarket that may yet spell the end of three good butchers.
Anyone round here work for the Guardian?
26 September 2018
HalfNormal
There’s a Song by (Canada’s greatest punk band) Nomeansno about the Zuiderzee called Under the Sea (from the One album) but I doubt Gail and Sonia are fans.
16 November 2018
john
“Do that one about the Zuiderzee”. There used to be a heavy rock disco for under 18’s (although half the Empress crowd went there) at the youth club on Pasture Rd, Moreton, Wirral; often they would close with a comical song Far Canal about Johann on the Zuiderzee, (Chris Wright song – as Patchwork) the lyrics can be found here https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=58331 comical indeed
30 November 2018
EXXO
So I’d like to appeal again for my off-the-cuff comment to be removed from the header at the top of the thread, as it has become clearer than ever that my early comments on this song were wrong (and were wishful thinking to a large extent, as I don’t like to think there’s anybody at a HMHB gig who doesn’t want to be there, plus I knew Mr. B had been going to plenty of other bands’ pub gigs recently).
Bladderwrack Allowance had its live debut at the Ritz last Saturday, where the announcement that “This is for anybody who went to the Briton’s Protection [a nearby pub] before the gig and wishes they were still there …” confirmed that the straightforward, obvious reading is the correct one.
Another pair of sharp ears at Saturday’s show – Aiwacat – asks in the gig review thread “Wasn’t the individual who wished they were still in the Briton’s Protection described as looking ‘like John McCarthy, chained to that radiator’?”
This is interesting as Mr. B used this same exact metaphor at the Holmfirth gig about 15 months ago to describe his experience of having to watch Tranmere’s football at that period (it did take a while for it to eventually become a promotion season). Because of the way live asides are often snippets of possible-lyrics-to-come, I can’t help wondering whether the ‘John McCarthy’ line was under consideration for inclusion in the Bladderwrack lyrics in some form. If so, Mr. B’s wise self-editing skills must have prevailed as ever.
As you know, I sometimes ask for clarifications of lyrics when I’m at Prenton Park, and recently Mr. B told me that the title was selected in order to give us, the listening public, a similar sense of bafflement to that which the song’s bad-date-victim must feel about Stuart Boam, etc.
4 December 2018
Donal
https://youtu.be/-oO5aBFjvtE
When I heard do that one about the zuiderzee, I assumed it was a reference to the cabaret number The Dutchman that was popular in the 70’s and 80’s. Bernard Wrigley sings it.
It would be the stuff of nightmares to be at a gig you hate and have the audience call for the band to cover The Dutchman. It would be more retirement home sing along than pub rock.
5 February 2019
KIP KEINO
Two years on, I’ve just realised that the brine that Stuart Boam is swimming in is the reluctant audience member’s tears of boredom. Better late than never.
20 September 2020
EXXO
I’m not sure it’s ever been pointed out that Peter Brine was born exactly 10 years to the day before Mr. B.
20 September 2020
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
Intriguingly that excellent guitarist Karl Benson has been bigging up (as the kids say) a band called Bladderwrack on Twitter (who do a sort of Victorian gothic punk with Boris Johnson impressions in their videos). So my theory is now that the ‘Bladderwrack Allowance’ refers to the one song by them the others let him play in the van on the way to gigs.
9 December 2020
ghost of kirkus
My dad had a summer holiday job at the “Hall & Woodlouse” (sic) Badger Brewery in Blandford when he was at school there in the 50s. He had to sniff the returned bottles to assess if they could be cleaned and used again. Smelling of beer or piss was fine, but paraffin / paraquat etc meant they had to be destroyed – done by throwing them at the wall above a giant hopper. So in my book, Badgers not entirely blameless at least in workplace safety matters.
25 March 2022
Michael
The intro reminds me of ‘Mail Order’ by the wonderful Kevin Seisay (from Stockport, I think). He only did one LP and was on a miners’ benefit 12″ with Billy Bragg, Attila the Stockbroker, The Redskins, and The Neurotics in 1987. It’s hard to find his music online but there are some odds and ends on YT – including Peel playing Kev’s ‘Stark Raving Mad’ (opening lines: Rita Fairclough’s being treated badly / by that bastard Alan Bradley). He had connections with Tiswas and Saturday Stayback (a spin off of the Tiswas spin off, OTT) through John Gorman (another of the YT clips is Ken with Roy Wood and Chas and Dave – I kid you not – singing a song about the bin men.
26 March 2022
michael
That should, of course, read ‘another of the YT clips is Ke[i]v[/i] with Roy Wood and Chas and Dave’
26 March 2022
FLINTLOCK
Michael, I remember Peel playing that. I think he introduced it with a warning that it contained the word “scrotum”.
26 March 2022
FlintLock
Ah, didn’t realise it was on the YouTube clip.
26 March 2022
Daniel
Just heard Bladderwrack Allowance for the first time, having only really just got into HMHB and spotted the reference to Zuiderzee. There’s an alternative explanation to it that I don’t think has been mentioned here. The Zuiderzee was a sea in the north of the Netherlands, which was dammed off in the early 20th century, and reclaimed for land.
Sigmund Freud used this as a metaphor to describe psychoanalysis, writing “Where id was, there shall I be. It is a work of culture—Not unlike the draining of the Zuiderzee.”
Also the verse references dreams, and Freud wrote the Interpretation of Dreams, so that potentially strengthens the connection. Could it be then that the place the person never wants to be is being forced to see a therapist for their behaviour?
12 April 2022