18 May 2022
Where were we? Running short of time. Being on time. That's it, being fashionably late 1. Which was last week. But I ran out of time. One wit or more mentioned my post on brevity. See you all next week then.
But that would be rude. Speaking of which, can we take a moment to praise the virtues of the French leave. You know, that thing when you slink away from a party without saying ta-ta to the hosts. It’s considered impolite. Unfairly. I think. 2
I feel it needs rehabilitation, reevaluation, bringing back into the fold. But then leaving quietly again of course.
When deep in the throes of salacious gossip about your ex, being interrupted to be told someone’s had enough of your party, subtext: they are bored, is less than gracious?
I'm tickled to discover that in France it’s called filer à l'anglaise — to leave English style 3. It turns out that almost the whole of Europe calls it an English leave, with only the Spanish and Portuguese thinking the French ruder. A history of colonialism right there.
I was asked why I seemingly abruptly and arbitrarily featured “Hench” by Natalie Zina Walschots as my recommendation, when it appeared there was no link to last week’s theme. There was. Honestly.
There was also something of an Easter egg nested in last week’s post, with the passing of the baton from “I Fought The Law” to “Bank Robber”, in that it wasn’t just a law and order reference, but The Clash recorded a cover version 4. What with being fashionably late, and taking a French leave, you can see how I ran out of time to point out the connection.
T H E C O N S U M E A N D C O N S U M E M A N I F E S T O
1. Be fashionably late.
2. …
Other manifestos have spikier calls to arms. Here, we have a more laissez faire attitude. At first this may seem a quite vague directive, but it masks a strong imperative. Don’t chase the cool. Don’t try and be first. Don’t rush to market. Consider.
When I recently mentioned Toro y Moi’s The Loop, it was already a few weeks old. A lifetime in the age of a pop song. I fell in love with it on first listen and wanted to make it a recommendation immediately. Except that would have meant changing the theme of the post, already half written, just to be “now”.
If we decide to go down the cool hunter route it alters our perception of things. We start looking for novelty. Technology, the end of history, late stage capitalism are all conspiring to speed us up. Always on.
Now I could be topical and mention Elon Musk’s quite frankly quite cunty reference to the 996 Chinese work culture, except that wouldn’t be being fashionably late 5 6. There. That’s what I’m talking about. To be relevant it has to go out now. What should be important is relevancy to our own life. Value is not fleeting. Knowledge sustains.
This is not a proposal to be deliberately out of time, to ignore what’s going on. It’s a way of better appreciating what’s already there, rather than always seeking the next average sized thing.
Instead of saying “What’s new?”, asking “What have I missed?”.
The new will still be there, waiting for you, without you having skipped something. Sometimes of course you’ll lose your cool kid stripes. My daughter is still amused by my anecdote concerning Oasis. Who I saw performing Supersonic on The Word, thinking to myself that’s a rather catchy little number 7. A few weeks later finding myself in a record shop and asking if they had heard of the band, to be told “yeah mate, their album, it’s number one”.
This handily illustrates my point, twenty eight years later and it’s still a belter.
Occasionally it can work in reverse, way back in 1980 when I was bunking off school to run my nascent t-shirt business, a punk enthusiast in the year below me asked if I would make a T-shirt for his favourite band, Adam and the Ants. Who at the time where a cult group big on sadomasochistic sexual imagery and knowing camp. I only liked one song by them but who can say no to a whip in a valise, so I created a Sex Music for Ant People design. I printed a few dozen more, packed my bike panniers, and cycled off to the t-shirt shop Fans in Old Compton Street.
I’m mentioning the details as I recently found the photo of Soho and Fans back in 1980 or so 8. Fuck, London was a dump. Merchandising, licensing, franchising. It’s all big business now, but in the innocent days of punk, simply being a fan was enough to bag the rights to doing a band’s t-shirts. Copyright was never an issue until Frankie goes to Hollywood. But that’s another story.
The shop loved the design, I had a good track record, no pun intended, of knowing the taste of a group's demographic, so they bought the lot.
A few weeks later Adam and the Ants released “Stand and Deliver”. The nation’s tweenie girls fell in love with Prince Charming, and none of their parents were going to buy them a t-shirt with a maîtresse brandishing a whip on it. That’s even if the thirteen year girl fledging fans recognised it as an Ants shirt, so radical was the group’s make over.
In a beautiful act of symmetry to round off stories of late comings and musical acts, last August my friend Kay, who keeps abreast of the new thing on the streets via her daughter, sent me a track by a band called Wet Leg. Damn good it was too. I dutifully sent it on to my daughter, who has been raised to appreciate a good trash guitar song. Low and behold, who should then message me only last month, but my very same daughter, asking if I’d heard this new group whose album had just hit number one in the charts… yes, Wet Leg.
Writes itself doesn’t it. Mind you, the same daughter this week pointed out that the White House storming Yanks aren’t ultra liberals as I have been calling them for the last few years, but are in fact ultra libertarians. I had wondered, to be honest, about just how radical their liberalism was.
So why Hench? Because the manifesto says be fashionably late. Consumerism is pushing us with a product cycle designed to make us feel outdated, driving the need to update. Hench, because it’s not “what’s new”, but “what have I missed”.
Before I started writing this column I did some book reviews on Insta. I noticed that the same popular, although not necessarily best seller, titles get reviewed over and over again. Which seemed a little redundant in some ways, although I understand it's a community, so it's essentially a water cooler moment 9. Yes. Calm down old man. But I did find it curious that out of the thousands of novels recently published only the same handful were posted by the #bookstagram stars. With everyone reviewing the same book is there a rush to be the first to post, being more important to finish and critique, rather than be late and savour.
To be fashionably late, deliberately arriving after an event has started, especially in order to prove one's social status. Deliberately presenting a purchase after it's been published, especially in order to prove its status. Something overlooked, something not part of the current clique.
So that's the manifesto explained. A bit late. Should have been last week. But there you go.
Only once did I see a book I'd read in the past, not part of the pack, surface as a review on Instagram. It was "The Bird Room" by Chris Killen. It's from 2009, so ok, unfashionably late. But it's my party and I'll try if I want to.
"The Bird Room" by Chris Killen
canongate.co.uk/books/1075-the-bird-room
Buy here
It's an awkward, mildly perverse, dark comedy, which I thoroughly loved back when I read it. So much so, I drew a Venn diagram to explain it. It features two other authors you may not know. So good luck with that.
The Bird Room fits the manifesto perfectly. A not overly exposed product, which I have bought and enjoyed. I dropped a comment on that Insta post 10, which led to discovering he wrote a second book in 2015. I am ordering that now. But if you're after a short, snappy read that will get you some funny looks from the passenger sitting next to you on the bus, then I recommend The Bird Room.
Now, if one wanted a moral, or parable about writing this column to combat feeling old, then perhaps something could be spun out of, while looking for the Mishma t-shirt last month, finding my Adam and the Ants design being bootlegged on AliExpress 11, as a Seditionaries style top, the shop that inspired me to start printing t-shirts aged 15, and discovering aged 58 that Adam Ant and I now share the same mortgage broker.
I spend my cash on looking flash and grabbing your attention
The way you look you'll qualify for next year's old age pension
Indeed.
“Chaise Lounge” by Wet Leg
Further listening
“I Fought The Law” by The Clash. To be honest The Bobby Fuller Four cover is way better (yes, they covered it too. It’s actually written by Sonny Curtis of the The Crickets, as in Buddy Holly and the. Possibly the least likely person ever to fight the law). The Clash were still in their Sandy Pearlman produced soft American rock phase. That guitar break one minute in is ghastly Santana lite. In fact Julian Temple utterly ignored the entire second album in his excellent biopic of the group.
PS If you search Youtube you can find Colin Farrell signing it. I mean, you could. If you wanted.
“Supersonic” by Oasis (First TV Debut) Live The Word, UK - 1994.
“Stand and Deliver” by Adam & the Ants. Included here in case you were born after 1970. This wasn’t just a hit. This was number one for the whole summer back when there was no Spotify and the charts were sacrosanct.
“Lady” by Adam & the Ants. While only a few month before they had sounded and looked like this. Adam the pirate may have lost his punk credibility.
“Young Parisians” by Adam & the Ants. This being the one song I liked by them, although a few more have grown on me since
References
“I fought the law” by The Clash. Video in further listening
Oasis - Supersonic (First TV Debut) Live The Word, UK - 1994. Video in further listening
Massive thanks you for the photo of Fans circa 1980 by Martin Jones, have a look at https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/archive-resources/1980-soho-west-end-photos-by-martin-jones/
https://www.aliexpress.com/i/4001260785095.html
Legally I have to tell you I might get five pence or something from Bookshop dot org should you purchase something, but really I just want to stick it to Amazon and keep independent bookshops alive. Yeah, rebel me, bringing the man down from the inside etc etc.
a cause of domestic tension here ... being fashionable late ... I push/stretch deadlines ... she'd be everywhere half an hour early!
They weren't bad in their day, Oasis.