Every Time a Bell Rings by Half Man Half Biscuit (2018) discussed...
The centrepiece of the album, and the song which provides its title, Every Time a Bell Rings also allows NB10 to let rip on a cycling theme as much as on any occasion to date …as well as It’s A Wonderful Life. Plenty of people want to have their say on those two topics, fewer on the baffling ‘Ptolemy’s Hock’, if that’s what it is.
See lyrics to Every Time a Bell Rings
Featureless tv producer steve
According to Wikipedia, Monty Don has golden retrievers named Nigel and Neil.
18 May 2018
EXXO
Yes – they do wonders for his viewing figures too – seriously – if Nigel isn’t in enough shots, or if Monty doesn’t talk to/about him, the Beeb get loads of letters from geriatric telly gardeners, demanding more Nigel. Hello magazine, etc. likewise – can’t get enough of Nigel.
First times I heard it though I was sure it was it was “ground control to Mao Zedong.” Works just as well anyway.
18 May 2018
Telly savalas
One to add to the list at the end of ‘Lord Hereford’s Knob’: the melody in the verse here had me involuntarily thinking-along the lyrics of ‘My Outstretched Arms’. Hope that doesn’t ruin it for anyone.
18 May 2018
JIMMy
According to last night’s Gardeners’ World, yesterday was Nigel the dog’s tenth birthday. On the programme Monty Don gave him a treat to celebrate.
It was a biscuit.
19 May 2018
EXXO
Meanwhile at ours a bloke called Nigel gave a dog called Monty a Biscuit.
19 May 2018
atombowl
Oh hell, I bought a Boardman bike on the cycle to work scheme and if I’m completely honest my hedge could do with a bit of a trim. On the upside, I disdain full Sky replica kit (or lycra of any stripe for that matter) and Strava baffles me.
19 May 2018
Transit full of keith
Anyone else thinking ‘Eat Y’self Fitter’ on the outro?
20 May 2018
Polo-necked Jean greenhowe
Indeed, Keith. Eat Y’self Fitter on the Boardman bike to the roastery.
20 May 2018
Nick Walters
Just had an, er, epiphany about Every Time A Bell Rings.
Note – rings, NOT tolls…
Therefore, could he mean bicycle bell? Especially given his ire against the Strava-worshippers, who arrogantly ring their bells expecting pedestrians to leap out of their way.
For the record I am a cyclist (I can’t drive) and own two bikes, the latest of whom I did indeed purchase via an interest-free loan from work. It’s a Giant, though, not a Boardman. But I don’t clip in, wear Sky replica kit, do Strava, or arrogantly ring my bell, whichever bike I am riding.
And I cut my hedge.
23 May 2018
Polo-necked Jean greenhowe
I’d also assumed that to be the case. Every time your Boardman bell rings, I hate you some more.
23 May 2018
john c
I think that the reference is more related to the final line of It’s a Wonderful Life: “Look Daddy, Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings”
23 May 2018
Polo-necked Jean greenhowe
Surely it’s both the film and the bike?
23 May 2018
EXXO
Yes, both. The song is a great advert and reminder for many things. I wonder if it will get more people to:
* cut their hedge
* check out the bike-to-work scheme
* think about putting a bell on their bike
* put a bell on their bike
* watch the film (again)
* stop analysing strava
* start analysing strava
Since hearing the song I have done all of the first three. But the cycle to work scheme seems unattainable at the mo – has to be long-term contract. And actually the bell has been sitting there for months waiting to be affixed to my old bike. Paths round here full of students and joggers you see. Advice gratefully accepted on how to ring it humbly.
23 May 2018
Polo-necked Jean greenhowe
I also got a bike on the cycle to work scheme. Never use it though so no need for a bell. Not my favourite on the album but maybe a close 3rd. Do appreciate the nods to Bowie and MES, that and the ranting about gentrification and that lot up the road.
23 May 2018
Polo-necked Jean greenhowe
I was maybe stretching it with the MES reference. If anything, ETABR in its final throes could be a Neil nod to Hanley. Again. Although my first thought on first listen was Bowie (opening line) and MES for Eat Y’self Fitter riff from 4.20 onward. In my feeble defence, footie pundits used to say that your first opinion on a penalty was usually the most accurate. Which obviously doesn’t account for me hearing poo and piss on first listen to BA.
23 May 2018
GORDON BURNS
I first assumed the bell ringing was a reference to an approaching Boardman bicyclist. But unless the bell was £200 and carbon fibre, or was linked somehow to Strava, you wouldn’t find one of those guys having one.
Ringing bells belong on Pashleys and sometimes even Harry Quinns.
24 May 2018
Transit full of keith
I was picturing a doorbell myself, since it’s about the neighbours.
24 May 2018
Nick walters
Exxo
Bike bells – can of worms you’ve opened there! You can be sworn at for ringing a bell, or not ringing a bell. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
The key is politeness and not to use the bell as if it was a weapon to clear your way. Cyclists who bomb along shared paths dinging away without slowing down expecting people to jump out of their way, well, someone should write a song about it…
A bicycle bell has a very distinctive sound (whether a ringer or a dinger) and can’t really be sounded ‘humbly’ so don’t be afraid of ringing it. People will (largely) appreciate it, if you’re polite about it.
The etiquette I follow is, if coming up behind some oblivious pedestrians:
1. Slow down.
2. When within earshot, ring bell twice, and call out cheerily, ‘coming past, on your left/right!’ [I sometimes say, for comic effect, ‘wide load coming through’, or ‘hot stuff coming through’, though only the former is correct.]
3. Pass slowly giving wide berth to children and dogs, which are unpredictable; and take especial care around children on bikes, who can be intimidated when passed by a 6 foot 2 fat bastard on a road bike (think of yourself being overtaken by an artic)
4. Once past, ring bell twice again, and call out cheerily, ‘Thank you!’
This process I find spreads the goodwill.
There will be the occasional arsehole who gives abuse, such is life.
Ding Ding!
24 May 2018
Mr SpecialPants
I’ve never been that arsed about It’s A Wonderful Life and can’t understand why it’s so highly regarded, it’s just a very saccharine take on A Christmas Carol. Scrooge with Alistair Sim, which was referenced in Baguette Dilemma on the last album, is the definitive Christmas film for me.
25 May 2018
GORDON BURNS
I hear “Stop meeting friends”
Maybe it’s because I’m a Southerner and I mis-hear the vowel sound. There’s definitely no closing “t” sound. It also seems to fit the sentiment of the song better.
8 June 2018
dr Desperate
And we all thought ‘The Announcement’ was going to be the ‘talker’.
Idle thoughts of an idle fellow (JKJ really enjoyed cycling):
1.Might John McNamara have been responsible for the disappearance of the testimonial silver?
2. I also hear “Stop meeting friends”, which makes more sense.
3. I’ve never heard the word “kit” spoken so venomously.
4. Why would people go “Hee-haw” at New Year?
5. Ptolemy’s hock?
8 June 2018
Paul f
Northerner here getting “stop”.
8 June 2018
Idiot saul
“Hee haw” is what George Bailey’s mate Sam Wainwright (no relation to David) says repeatedly during the film. Presumably a throwback to their childhood. Sam made his fortune by investing in plastics and therefore has the means to save Bedford Falls from Potter the baddie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNKQkbBhgBc
8 June 2018
parsfan
Another one for “stop meeting friends”.
Anyone hear “Every time Adele sings”?
Didn’t think so.
8 June 2018
IdRisthechisEller
Just a guess, but I wonder if Ptolemy’s Hock is a term for that bottle of sherry, rum or whatever that gathers in the sideboard for years and years and is only taken out on special occasions. The result would be that its owners, unaccustomed to heavy drinking, become immediately intoxicated and start impersonating donkeys/genteel ambulances after a thimbleful.
8 June 2018
Schoon
Another +1 for stop, I thought it was stop wasting time meeting friends and get your hedge cut.
(OK, I think that’s conclusive enough – CtSO)
8 June 2018
jeff dreadnought
Yeah, “stop meeting friends”, because it’s the “meeting friends” and analysing Strava that’s stopping him cutting his hedge.
8 June 2018
poopleby
Dilemma. I definitely hear start but surely it has to be stop, doesn’t it? “Stop” making sense. (Tee hee.)
8 June 2018
GORDON BURNS
Hopefully Nigel will clear up the stop/start dilemma tonight in (that) London. Fingers crossed.
8 June 2018
dr Desperate
Of course Sam Wainwright, thanks @Idiot Saul. See also the finale [5.34] with his telegram from London and Mary Hatch Bailey offering the neighbours wine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxNXtjGY_Us
8 June 2018
Cathedral juice
Ptolemy’s hock – I wonder if there’s some astronomical meaning here? The opening scenes of IAWL include an image of Stephan’s Quintet, a group of five galaxies in the constellation of Pegasus. Pegasus is associated with the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and named after the winged horse in Greek mythology. So ‘drunk on Ptolemy’s hock’ could simultaneously mean ‘having had a lot of wine’ and ‘excited by the sight of the stars at night’. The play on the different senses of ‘hock’, white wine and horse’s ankle, links the two meanings.
Trouble is, I don’t think any particular star in Pegasus represents the horse’s hocks, because the constellation doesn’t include its hind legs, and hocks don’t exist on forelegs.
So this is all a bit approximate … but I find it hard to imagine that Pegasus doesn’t come into it at all.
8 June 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
No dilemna about ‘stop’. If you ‘hear’ anything else it’s surely just wishful thinking that this song didn’t have such a bleak, misanthropic viewpoint.
8 June 2018
Dagenham dave
The intro reminds me of The Velvet Underground’s ‘The Gift’.
That is all.
8 June 2018
Transit full of keith
Perhaps coffee-bean-catalogue-man is called Ptolemy, and has set up an artisan micro-winery in his shed?
8 June 2018
paul f
“Ptolemy’s Hock” is so specific yet inexplicable, that it’s driving me a little barmy. It’s probably not helping that I’ve reached that stage of listening to a new HMHB album where songs get stuck in my head when I’m trying to sleep (last night/this morning it was “Colombia”).
8 June 2018
I, problem chimp
@Parsfan
That’s stuck in my head now, followed by ‘I hate her some more’!
Alternative lyrics abound for this one for me – we are currently involved in a battle to save our local library and one of the suggestions is for it to be run as a ‘community hub’, so I’ve been singing ‘we’ve had our funds cut, had our fuckin’ funds cut’ instead…
8 June 2018
I, problem chimp
I just thought Ptolemy’s Hock was a made-up name for a cheap’n’nasty bottle of something, such as one might be reduced to drinking having exhausted all other booze supplies on NYE…
8 June 2018
Next left
I’d assumed “Ptolemy’s hock” to be homemade wine brought along by a party guest with a posh name.
8 June 2018
ROBR
I hear
THO’ the more I watch it the more I want Potter to suceed
8 June 2018
John’s on shimano ultegra now
Spinning is a brand name and registered trade mark so arguably should have a capital letter.
https://en1.spinning.com/
8 June 2018
transit full of keith
That’s thrown me – I’ve been picturing her learning how to spin yarn off a 19th-century spinning wheel.
8 June 2018
EXXO
Vomit-inducing though the brandification of words is, I agree that we need the capital to heighten the satire of that very phenomenon.
Unless someone is teaching her how to fish for predators of course (coarse?). In that sense, I’ll be spinning tomorrow myself.
8 June 2018
IDIOT SAUL
Oŕ she’s learning how to perfect her googly and her doosra.
8 June 2018
The harbinger of nothing
The testimonial silver may have gone, but Monty got an OBE. Presumably for services to hedge-cutting.
8 June 2018
Ken Livingstone
Presumably the queen will enquire after the state of his hedges when Monty gets his OBE at the palace
9 June 2018
My Bewilderment slumbereth not
Do we think the Orangutan and Ku Klux Klan lines are simply that such people are inclined to say Orangutang and Klu Klux Klan instead? If so, it seems an unsatisfactory swipe compared to the great ones in the song and of course elsewhere. Or am I missing a more obscure reference?
9 June 2018
Simplex lock
I reckon there’s also more than a passing nod to a Pavlovian response to a
ringing bell?
9 June 2018
Cathedral juice
@My Bewilderment Slumbereth Not
I think it’s about mispronunciations, yes – but mispronunciations as a symptom of a contemptible laziness of thought and lack of curiosity. There’s a precedent in ‘lacksadaisical’.
9 June 2018
Chris The Siteowner
JohnOSUN – terrific spot, but I’m not as keen on the capitalisation, even though we did do ‘Sellotape’ on Monmore. It looks to me as if only the trademark owner and semi-literate health club marketing managers bother with the capital normally. I doubt NB10 is trying to make a point on that one, Exxo; sometimes we can over-read things…
9 June 2018
transit full of keith
@Bewilderment: I think that’s a really good question: one reason is that the level of offence taken is funnier, where the original offence seems completely trivial. But on another level, this stuff isn’t always trivial, depending on circumstances, and there’s a real relish in turning the tables on the situation described in the first lines of ‘Blood on the Quad’, I think.
9 June 2018
EXXO
I just meant it takes the piss out of ‘Spinning’ better if you do include the ridiculous attempt to brand the word – it will be capitalised on all the Facebook and twitteration she receives about her Spinning class. It has nothing to do with reading anything into anything (unless you think he’s not trying to take the piss out of spinning).
9 June 2018
EXXO
On the lexical pedantry of the ‘voice’ of this song, whether it is Mr. B’s or not, I’m surprised nobody’s yet compared it to the singer’s own erroneous pronunciation in another song of the noun ‘covert’, as if it were the same as the adjective. A similar case to ‘alms’ one assumes (word often seen, in this case on maps, but rarely heard).
9 June 2018
Dagenham dave
So is the demand to get the hedge cut for purely aesthetic reasons, to improve the footway for pedestrians and / or cyclists or just making the point that such people are concentrating on the wrong things?
9 June 2018
EXXO
Who can say? But statistically it’s most likely to be your second option, as there are thousands of hedges in every city which need to be cut more than they are in order not to nark those who have to walk in the road to get by. I can see one from here as I type this. It makes a section of pavement in our street completely redundant. Rented houses usually. I would do it for them, because they almost certainly don’t have a trimmer and their landlord probably doesn’t give a shit, but then I’d have to talk to them and ask if I could plug the extension lead in. How weird would they think I might be?
My own hedges are OK at the mo’, but there will be times in the year when other people – eg the postman – are thinking ‘get your fuckin’ hedge cut’ cos they may get a little wet on the way up and down.
You get the feeling that second only to the delight of getting hundreds or even thousands of people at a gig singing this joyous nonsense back at him, as with Cresta WTF, Midge Ure looks like a MF, FH it’s Fred Titmus, etc, is the delight of knowing that we are all wondering and debating who this character is and why the hedge is important to him
9 June 2018
EXXO
The strange thing about that post is I’d actually forgotten the existence of shears.
I’ll cut their hedge, next week. With shears.
9 June 2018
Mavis enderby
Hock is an archaic British word for any white wine originating from the Rhine region.
9 June 2018
I, problem chimp
@Exxo
I’d imagine Mr Cycle-to-Work-Stravaman would laugh disdainfully at a concept as old-fashioned as shears… Unless, of course, they were titanium-bladed with ergonomic carbon fibre handles and Bluetooth-equipped with a dedicated app to analyse trim rate…
10 June 2018
IDIOT SAUL
Are you saying that Stravaman would use cutting hedge technology?
10 June 2018
JImmy clitheroe junior
The ‘hate you’ outro reminded me of the poem ‘take away that woodstain
and don’t darken my door again‘ by Hovis Presley.
I hate you at sunset
over a Norfolk cornfield
I hate you at sunrise over the Lakes
I hate you when we won at Highbury
I hate you watching Cajun music
on a bank holiday Monday
I hate you at birthdays weddings
Christmas and bar mitzvahs
let’s face it…
I hate you at the best of times.
10 June 2018
Joel
Ptolemy’s hock could be a reference to the epigram by Ptolemy:
I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.
NB just subbing hock for ambrosia. Not particularly familiar with the movie, but it would suggest being drunk on the night, as suggested above.
10 June 2018
Beswickian
Ritz, Manchester, 2011. Nigel mentioned IAWL being screened at the Cornerhouse across the road (it has since moved locations and changed its name, mystifyingly, to “HOME”), and explained then how he empathised more with Potter as the years went by; “Give us your money,” he said, or something along those lines. The joke about the then “prog rock” trio Hall, Stairs, and Landing was also mentioned at the same gig. That found its way into the last album; this took a little longer to gestate. Anyway, I always remembered the IAWL observation, and was amused to hear it manifested in the album. I thought I’d mention it here.
11 June 2018
SO THEN, BEN
The amount of contempt Nigel manages to cram solely into the word ‘kit’ is incredible.
12 June 2018
Phyllis Triggs
‘The sun comes out when I go in’
The more usual collocation(?) would be, ‘When I come out the sun goes in’. Is this turning about of the phrase simply a more poetic way of putting it – it does seem to flow better – or does it point to another layer of meaning? Add in to the mix the ”full Sky replica kit” spat out with such vitriol, and I wonder if we have a reference to Murdoch’s rag The S*n – boycotted on Merseyside since its Hillsborough lies? “The S*n comes out…” it’s a deliberate action – perhaps the paper is being brought out and hidden behind as a way of blanking/totally cutting out the narrator? If this is so, the image certainly serves as a powerful illustration of a total disconnect between our narrator and whoever else is involved – a scene of utter bleakness.
12 June 2018
Phyllis TRiggs
@Simplex Lock, ETABR made me think of the conditioned response of Pavlov’s dogs too, except in this case, a contrary response is triggered in our narrator. Instead of the saccharine tinged “an angel gets its wings” we have “I hate you more and more”. To borrow imagery from other tracks, the New Year’s bells are more likely to see him running bollocko through his neighbour’s through-lounge than be out on the street hugging and heehawing with the rest of the donkeys. (Never been a fan of New Year meself either – all that jollity forced upon you – fuck off!!)
12 June 2018
Phyllis Triggs
‘Drunk on Ptolemy’s hock’ is such a great phrase in itself – its so dismissive, so contemptuous – I hardly feel the need to query its origin (although it would be wonderful if Dr Desperate’s impressive detective work has tracked down the actual wine). To me, the phrase bears the same trademark Scouse humour (can I say that without offending people?) as the Zorro nickname (and Exxo’s ‘The Producer’ Dad). Perhaps the wine was bought from an Egyptian or Greek shopkeeper? And while we’re on the subject of nicknames – a bloke who never cuts his hedge is surely a worthy candidate for ‘Monty Don’?
12 June 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
Well we’d have to say ‘Merseyside,’ but of course there was no cultural difference in the humour when dad’s work rota had him on the docks on our side of the water. And of course you know there’s no offence, when nobody’s having a dig based on prejudice or cliché.
Interesting thoughts though. I suspect the ‘Ptolemy’s hock’ thing is too literary to be categorised alongside ‘Zorro’. The literary reference will emerge at some point, whether to a pharaonic Ptolemy, astronomer/polymath Ptolemy or other minor literary character of that name, presumably from a work and an era during which ‘hock’ was a current term. Remember how many minor Eng Lit characters up to C19 have ‘classical’ names (as well as Brazilian footballers. I remember playing in a Brazilian Sunday league game where I had to mark Euclid and his overlapping full-back, Aristotle, but equally they could both be characters in a minor work by Laurence Sterne, alongside Ptolemy the bartender, to pick out a random author who might be capapble of such things).
Similarly I think candidates from some form(s) of literature will emerge sooner or (probably) later, for other lines on this album such as “bitter at the gall/reaching for the mainland” and “pastoral conceits, Italian fancies, comic glees.” All fairly difficult to google, because all probably from un-obvious pre-C20 sources).
Meanwhile I cannot personally see the S*n suggestion as being at all Blackwellian. Can’t help feeling that in the unlikely event that Mr. B wanted to make such a comment, he’d surely do it a lot better.
But yes, the Pavlovian echoes ring true as very possibly deliberate.
12 June 2018
Phyllis Triggs
Ah, it hadn’t even occurred to me that Ptolomey could be a literary reference. Until this song prompted some googling I’d only associated the name with ancient Egypt. I have wondered how people managed to decipher HMHB songs before the internet, but now that you point it out I can see that in many cases, Google etc is of limited use anyway – unless you happen to chance upon that particular passage in that particular book, so much is going to remain unidentified. Still, this doesn’t seem to matter too much. Sure, the more you can find out, the richer the songbook becomes but I think it is testament to NB’s writing that the songs still work even with great gaps in them!
14 June 2018
paul f
At least google often helps to disprove speculative theories. My guess was that the actor who played Mr Martini had also played Ptolemy in a film, but sadly not.
14 June 2018
dr Desperate
Probably irrelevant, but Ptolemy (son of Abubus), second-century governor of Jericho, murdered his father-in-law Simon Maccabaeus after getting him drunk at a banquet. In the ‘Inferno’ Dante named after him the place in Hell designated for traitors against guests in their home.
14 June 2018
Cream cheese and chives
Who needs the library or the pub?
To get my hands on food waste bags for the council bins-put out on the right day of course- I now have to go to the library. The hard blokes on the bins are no longer trusted with them.
I found that while newspapers were still in the reference section of the library a sign informed me that The Daily Mail was now ‘ kept behind the counter’.
There was no evidence of Teenage Eskimo anywhere.
18 June 2018
Mr galbraith
There appears to be an Exeter gig scheduled for March 21, at the Exeter Phoenix Centre. Where there is also a Creative Hub. Seriously.
(Great spot – and here is that Creative Hub. Seriously. Plus – thanks Karen – we also have Cardiff the next night – CtSO)
18 June 2018
paul f
I wonder whether Nigel has stumbled upon this place on his rambles.
https://www.carvetiicoffee.co.uk/
20 June 2018
EXXO
Found the shade of some massive trees in a free car park in Ross-on-Wye, so on a lie in this morning in the van, after a late night with the barbel. Yes we know how to holiday in style.
About 8.30 am rudely awakened though by what sounds like a cross between a drill sergeant and a stadium announcement:
“Come on! Faster! I’m going to burn 100 calories in the next ten minutes. What about you? Come on everyone, 1-2-3.”
Eh? What?
Oh – a spinning class of course. In the heatwave they’ve got the doors wide open at the gym (which I had thought was just the sea cadet hall). Breakfast was accompanied by bad, bad memories of half a dozen evil twat PE teachers.
27 June 2018
ASPARAGUS PICKER
Going back to the ‘meeting friends’ discussion’, I most definitely hear it as ‘start meeting friends’. Part of the message of this song, and indeed the album title, is surely another way of saying ‘get a life’ – stop wasting your time with pretentious pastimes and get on with leading a normal life, such as keeping your hedges cut, and…meeting friends. You would have time to do all these things and (much much) more once you desist in spending all your time studying coffee bean catalogues and the like.
Just a thought…
2 July 2018
dr Desperate
I naturally assumed “the testimonial silver” to be a bucketful of change half-inched from the cash office after a post-retirement friendly, but this might suggest an alternative explanation (and capitalisation?) familiar to Neil.
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/visit/floor-plan/titanic/ismay-silver.aspx
3 July 2018
1966MICK
I hear ‘stop meeting friends’ and interpret it all as ‘get on with things that need doing instead of prancing like a tit’.
Continuing from Beswickian’s theme above – at the Holmfirth gig, March 2016, NB said he liked to hang around Chester Zoo correcting people’s mispronunciation of orang-utan, or something similar. I was amused to find it turn up on this album.
3 July 2018
SPT
Dr D. -Monty Don used to have a jewellery company which went bust which is why he ended up in the writing/broadcasting lark. Which could suggest it’s a fancier reference. (Mrs SPT watches a lot of Gardener’s World and used to work in the fashion business, which is why I know that.)
3 July 2018
Bobby Svarc
Will we all be worshipping at the alter of Bauke Mollema dressed in full Trek replica kit come Saturday?,
4 July 2018
dr Desperate
The work is done, the legs are ready!
4 July 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
Ah but who or what is Ground Control?
*Wags tail*
[Incidentally, I don’t think my correction of FTVP Steve’s ‘Neil’ to ‘Nell’ made it over into this thread].
4 July 2018
Dagenham dave
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1431061/Ministers-unveil-their-latest-law-on-road-safety-compulsory-bicycle-bells.html
14 July 2018
Dagenham dave
‘Ground Control’ would be a good name for a coffee shop. Or a roastery.
14 July 2018
Schoon
Sometimes good to analyse Strava: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases
15 July 2018
brumbiscuit
Having creaky knees, I have an electric bike, and very good it is too. I use Strava and I get some warped satisfaction when analysing my stats from wondering how the mamils scratch their heads when analying theirs at how I, at my advanced age, can put in such fast times.
15 July 2018
EXXO
So let me get this straight: other people are looking at how fast you go from A to B on your bicycle?
15 July 2018
Flintlock
Ha ha – yes, Mr Exford: analysing Strava is even worse than you’d thought. I stopped after about a week, but I’ve just remembered that I still analyse MapMyRun now and again.
15 July 2018
Alice van der meer
Thank you Brumbiscuit, as someone who cycles to work but simply can’t take it seriously enough to get into all the lycra (and also has creaky knees), that gave me a damn good giggle.
15 July 2018
Gipton Teenager
Palindrome.
16 July 2018
Mac
If it’s not on Strava it didn’t happen.
16 July 2018
brumbiscuit
Yes Exxo; on any particular route you are shown how fast you went on certain segments and in comparison to others who have travelled the same way. Some folk go the extra mile and track heartbeat rates & cadence, but you have to pay for that privilege. You also get awarded little cups if you break your record time on segments. Oh, the fun is endless…
16 July 2018
dr desperate
Cutting hedge technology.
16 July 2018
EXXO
That is insane (though I could understand its usefulness to high level competitive cyclists). Certainly increases my appreciation of the song.
17 July 2018
EXXO
An entertaining enough birthday stage. I guess. Plenty Sky replica kit gonna be sold next few days though 🙁
18 July 2018
Flintlock
To people worshipping at the altar of “G” and “Froomie”.
20 July 2018
dr desperate
My bro, who watches the TdF highlights on ITV4, worships at the altar of G and analyses his own cycling tours of Mallorca on Strava, tells me that the name of the app comes from the Swedish for ‘strive’.
24 July 2018
EXXO
The worshipping at the altar of the Sky gods is becoming yet another symbol of British isolationism isn’t it, and is so off-Euro-trend that it might actually be described as spitting in the wind, if that wasn’t what the rest of Europe was actually doing to them. Even the gendarmerie are now indulging in spraying the G-Tom and the F-Dog with noxious substances.It all looks like more fun than slogging up the Alpe d’Huez, when I for one was giving it my best “I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!” Bet you a sketch show will have done that within a week, with Macron and Merkel chucking pots of piss at the Brexiteers as they slog up another pointless mountain of unnecessary pain.
24 July 2018
EXXO
@comments 28, 29, 74 et al.
“Stop meeting friends” confirmed (source) ” ‘meeting friends’ is part of the culture I’m haranguing.”
13 August 2018
dR Desperate
Chris Boardman (q v, eventually) was born in Hoylake and went to Hilbre High School, where he was presumably in the same year as Daniel Craig (unless his parents asked for him to be held back).
8 October 2018
Bernard Matthews
Ptolemy’s hock is a play on the word ‘hock’ which is both wine and the ankle of hoofed animals.
See http://sandandstars.co.za/2018/04/15/ptolemys-milky-way/
and
http://zodiactruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/18.Centaurus.jpg
23 October 2018
paul f
I can’t believe it took me this long to realise (on listening to the song again) that “that lot up the road” would be up the road from the song’s narrator, rather than any characters in IAWL (who of course do not hug each other on New Year’s Eve at any point in the film). Still struggling with Ptolemy’s Hock though.
14 November 2018
Paul Fairweather
I could have sworn Ptolemys Hock was one of those craft beers they have on the shelves at Sainsburys. If not it should be.
15 November 2018
EXXo
Christ on a fucking bike we are truly and utterly fucked as a species aren’t we? Have you seen these peak time ads ads on Channel 4 for a kind of mass bike machine spinning thing, where you’re supposed to pay them to fucking pretend you’re cycling with other people?
https://www.onepeloton.com/bike
17 November 2018
dr desperate
On the other hand, look out for these lines of script on the platforms of 14 railway stations this Christmas. Who’s got “Hee-haw”?
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2018/11/30/virgin-trains-mental-health/
7 December 2018
POP-TART MARK
Someone stencilled ‘f*ck off Virgin’ on every platform from King’s Cross to Aberdeen and it eventually did the trick.
But seriously, what about a “spare a thought for
the poor bastard driving the train” sign every 50 yards along the fence?
8 December 2018
excavated rita
This picture was tweeted by an academic today. She described the ‘gilded askos’ as a “jug of wine”. Must get one in for New Year.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ptolemaic_roundel_from_a_mosaic_floor_decorated_with_a_dog_and_a_gilded_askos,_from_Alexandria,_Egypt,_c._200-150_BC.jpg
8 December 2018
dr desperate
RIP Team Sky.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/dec/12/team-sky-will-cease-to-exist-as-broadcaster-pulls-plug-on-sponsorship-cycling
12 December 2018
INTHESHADOWOFLILLY
No doubt many more instances of full Sky replica kit will become evident as cheap stock is got rid of, just as Belkin suddenly became very common in the wake of their team rebrand to Lotto-NL Jumbo.
13 December 2018
paul f
It’s the curse!
13 December 2018
joklend
‘Ptolemy’s Hock’ sounds most like a parody of a craft ale name.
18 December 2018
EXXO
What can I give you, poor as I am? Maybe I would have told you that titbit about Umberstone only having one human in it, if Mr. B hadn’t already told you all at the Ritz.
So as a special Xmas gift from afar, who wants to know a bit that Mr. B recently told me about Ptolemy’s hock?
(you might be underwhelmed, though)
25 December 2018
Phyllis triggs
C’mon Exxo, do tell. A bit of underwhelming in this season of excess can do no harm.
25 December 2018
Gipton Teenager
My whelm hasn’t been undered for many a day so let’s see the colour of your legumes Exxo.
26 December 2018
EXXO
OK then Lou and Tony, the best of the season’s wishy-washees to you as you whelm over this:
“Ptolemy was just the sort of name that I imagine one of the people in the song to have. No connection between hock and Ptolemy- she would simply be mildly renowned amongst her circle for making her own wine etc.”
26 December 2018
Phyllis Triggs
Cheers Exxo, and Seasons Greetings. Not at all underwhelming! On a detached, disorientated and delicate day after, this draught of 100% proof truth is just what the doctor ordered. Its simple and it fits. Of course. And it makes me realise that names (loaded with cultural significance) figure large in NB’s lyrics – daughters called Rain; sons called Archie or Fred, Julian or Rupert; lollipop men called Gary; Ralph in Brize Norton; Chelsea, Chantelle and Jordan; Joyce – Rock n Roll never gave her a voice; Josh and his five man tent… (I once guessed the name of an annoying child in a pub based solely on observations of him and his parents – actually he wasn’t that annoying but I just knew he’d be called Josh!) Is it worth a list?
26 December 2018
Phyllis Triggs
Sorry, Darren not Gary.
26 December 2018
Gipton Teenager
Greesons Seatings to you too Lou. Is this some kind of half-sibling to nominative determinism? I mean my dad ran a fish and chip shop and my surname is… well you can guess the rest.
27 December 2018
Transit full of keith
I’m whelmed to have been not far off the mark (comment 34)… but isn’t Ptolemy a bloke’s name?
27 December 2018
EXXO
Because you had a daughter and chose to call her Ptolemy
You indicated and vindicated my emigration down to Wollemi.
27 December 2018
Paul f
In the pines, in the pines, Exxo?
28 December 2018
EXXO
Well. I was imagining a song where the alienated protagonist leaves the Wirral to become a teacher at an exclusive boys’ school in New South Wales, before becoming deranged by pointlessness of it all and wandering off into the outback a few years later. You can guess the rest.
28 December 2018
EXXO
So Biscuiteers – are we having an instant chat snap-gram group tonight to share all our clips of coming out into the street drunk on whatever, hugging each other and going “hee-haw, hee-haw”, or what??
31 December 2018
parsfan
D’oh! Just in from watching Moscow’s underwhelming fireworks from the wrong side of the Kremlin.
No videos taken.
31 December 2018
One man clapping
Sorry, late to the discussion – can we have some praise please for the comment by Idiot Saul (number 58, 10 June 2018) – ‘cutting hedge technology’ is the best line on here!
25 January 2019
Alice van der meer
I just feel the need to point out that actually I have just cut my fucking hedge, but have no ambitions for a creative hub in its stead. A nice native hedge full of goodies for wildlife… now that’s a different matter!
25 January 2019
IDIOT SAUL
I appreciate the sound of one man clapping. There was I thinking that my comment, like many hedge clippings, had fallen on stony ground.
25 January 2019
ESC goat
Getting wings relatable to death – trans-cending into heaven.
Bell ringing :
Hells bells
Bella in beauty and the beast – clever bookworms find the beaslly prince. Rings a bell?
When the lights go on (illumination) if they know it, they float, ignorance is bliss.
Aw well all will be well, well define that.
17 March 2019
Alice van der meer
Bored, laid up for the day (I hope!) with lurgi.
Hells Bells – if you listen to the bell striking at the start (someone has to listen to this stuff, you know) you’ll hear a wobble in the reverb. The reason is it’s a real bell, specially cast, and the AC/DC logo on the side of the bell has so much metal in it that it distorts the reverb. Piccy here: https://genius.com/Ac-dc-hells-bells-lyrics
Random bell-fact over, I’m off back to my pit of sorrow.
18 March 2019
JITSU_G
Now, full Ineos replica kit
19 March 2019
The harbinger of nothing
Dylan Teuns: Belgian cyclist suffers freak gardening injury – http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/49193608
Having read that headline, I was disappointed to discover that it was not related to hedge-cutting.
2 August 2019
Mattl
Now I’m wondering if “Ptolemy’s hock” isn’t an artisanal beer of some kind and thus should be “Ptolemy’s Hock” and perhaps in quotes or something?
17 September 2019
EXXO
@Matt – see comments 110 and 113 above.
17 September 2019
Embrace the margin
“Why can’t you just say ‘oriang-utarn’?” opines David Attenborough.
3 November 2019
Cream cheese and chives
You have to be quick on this site. Programme only finished two and a half hours ago.
3 November 2019
dr desperate
What struck me was the way he stressed the O and U, making the word a ditrochee (like the random phrases in ‘Upon Westminster Bridge’), as opposed to the more standard diiamb.
4 November 2019
cream cheese and chives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGFjjn4Gau0
Mr Speech not looking quite so clever post Atto!
4 November 2019
Mark Harris
Wonderful track. Touch of The Pixies parody for sure, particularly as the guitars pile up in the final verse (All Over The World, Gouge Away, etc.). Is there any band with pretensions left unmarked by hmhb?
6 January 2020
EJ Thribb
RIP Nigel the golden retriever.
Or Neil, whichever.
20 October 2020
Syd rumPo’s Bending His cordwangle
Just back from a cycling trip in the Keswick area. Can’t move for high-end coffee bean roasteries.
12 December 2020
Alice van der meer
Highly amused to eavesdrop on two Strava-analysing types at work trying to work out why their routes didn’t cross. Turns out one is in the Chilterns and the other in the Cotswolds…
4 March 2021
EXXO
One of those Strava-type swimming watches is currently using a strapline something like “it knows how far you’ve gone … even in open water.”
Yes, of course it boody does. Because that’s the only even vaguely possibly useful effing application of its combination of GPS and computing.
4 March 2021
James g
The song is clearly about that sort of 35-55 hipster wanker
18 August 2021
Sera69
I’m not the quickest on the uptake… Yes, i’ve just realised that Everytime A Bell Rings doesn’t relate to Clarence et all but the bell on a bike… Yes, yes, i know… Getting my coat. …Be back for the next cup.
5 October 2021
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
Does it though? I think it’s equally likely to be a doorbell, in keeping with the resentment of the neighbour/narrator, and the “stop meeting friends, and cut your hedge” line.
5 October 2021
transit full of keith
The other thing I think about when I hear the line “every time a bell rings, I hate you some more” is the little bell icons on social media apps for notifications and how those apps are implicated in fuelling social division and hate, etc.
Maybe that is far-fetched but this song definitely has more going on in it than just whinging about the neighbours Does anyone else think its their most “state-of-the-nation” song since ‘A Country Practice’?
15 October 2021
EXXO
https://www.thingsinsquares.com/comics/its-wonderful/
15 October 2021
EXXO
I kind of feel your struggle a bit, Keith, in that you would really like this misanthropic angry rant to be more state-of-the-nation than it really is. The only real state-of-the-nation line is “who needs the library or the pub?” (both either closed down or threatened). A Country Practice was maybe 30% state-of-the-nation 50% angry rant about other crap on telly and in language and 20% random scenes like Duff Leg Bryn. This song is 5% state-of-the-nation, maybe 70% anger about middle class/hipster pretensions, especially when it comes to cycling-related stuff, and 25% sheer misanthropy in reaction to the sicklier aspects of feeling forced to be positive by the likes of It’s a Wonderful Life. The spirit of this song is basically identical to that of the album’s opener.
There’s not necessarily specific reference to doorbells or bike bells or computer pings for me – though I think it’s a nice possibility and great that the song can evoke that for you. To me it just works best as a misanthropic eff-off to the worst line in It’s a Wonderful Life.
One day someone somewhere will probably posit that because the album title is chalked on the songwriter’s own back gate, the whole thing might be a self-parody of his own misanthropy. He himself might be the Man of Constant Sorrow, and that was indeed the state of the nation.
15 October 2021
transit full of keith
What if that couplet frames the whole world of the song, though? Austerity, closure of community facilities, misguided privatised replacements for gentrifiers, fuel for resentment and division. Even their hedge is at it, colonising the public space of the pavement.
15 October 2021
EXXO
I certainly wouldn’t argue that the state of the nation doesn’t frame the song. But I wouldn’t kid yourself that that’s what you’re joining in with when you join the singalong of the chorus…
15 October 2021
EXXO
My parents, in their mid-eighties, were talking just now about the ever-increasing annoyance and danger of cyclists on The Wirral Way. This was one of the earliest of the Beeching Axe railways to become footpaths and cycleways, and increasingly of course many cyclists think these are mainly theirs, along with towpaths, because they are promoted as such by the likes of Sustrans. If they ring the bell they think you will just step to one side, and many pedestrians do, Personally I hate it when walkers totally stop, reigning in the dog, sometimes reigning in the whole family, just because one cyclist is approaching behind them (when I prefer to assume walking pace behind them until the moment comes to overtake). But there are definitely some cyclists who expect that as their right.
Yes, ignore the bit above when I said the lyric is not necessarily meant to evoke bike bells. Surely it is at least partly bike bells and the attitude behind the ding-ding, when Mr. B is out for a walk, rather than a ride.
17 October 2021
brumbiscuit
Not with you on all your points, EXXO. I use such shared facilities on a regular basis as both a cyclist and a walker. There are twatty cyclists who expect their way to clear; just as there are entitled, twatty walkers who are reluctant to walk in single file when another walker heads their way, let alone a cyclist. There’s the question of logistics on towpaths; it’s far easier for a walker to move aside – and therefore have the safe side of the towpath to their advantage – than a cyclist whose bars would probably stick out anyway. It’s a question of mutual respect, of course. My pet hate in both modes of transport is dog walkers with extendable leads who fail to see the necessity of reeling in their mutt as anyone else approaches and who fail to comprehend that not everyone finds their creature to be the best thing since sliced bread. No thank you, I don’t want your dog sniffing or drooling over me, piss off! Rant over.
Now, in the spirit of pedantry, shouldn’t it be ‘reining’?
17 October 2021
dr desperate
Hee-haw, hee-haw. Happy New Year, y’all.
31 December 2021
MR PETER GORDON
A very happy new year to all . I have not got drunk on Hock , or made a noise in the street even . A strange/different type of new year celebration for me .
1 January 2022
Manx mick
Listened to this for the first time the other day. Tonight the neighbour came round under the auspices of finding his cats collar and without any degree of subtlety (he’s from Bolton) harrangued the wife about cutting the hedge. She got upset then I played her this. She’s happy now. Well done boys!
29 April 2022
dr desperate
Hee-haw, hee-haw, happy New Year, y’all.
1 January 2023
Quantocks checker outer
The more I watch Chelsea the more I want Potter to succeed … what’s that? Oh I see.
3 April 2023