My Night with George Michael

I have to speak up in favour of George Michael. It seems that once the mindless slavering beast that is the press get their teeth into something they're unwilling to let go and it's a sign of their small collective mind that once they've made it up about something (which nearly always consist of what makes the best headlines and superficial stories) it's going to be a huge effort for them to change it. Poor George gets victimised for admitting he smokes grass (and this is supposed to be unacceptable to a society in which so many teenagers are drug-addled criminals?). He used to get criticised for not speaking out about his sexuality. He came out, and got criticised for speaking out about his sexuality. He gets criticised for speaking out against the Iraq war at a time when 95% of the country were supposedly dead against it. He gets criticised for taking himself too seriously, yet when he makes a video poking fun at himself and his image, he gets criticised for that too. He tries to have some fun with a stranger in a bush in the early hours of the morning, and there's a photographer waiting outside. It's no wonder he's a little fed up with it all, and you wonder just how much it affects his opinion of how well-liked he actually is.

Thankfully there's plenty of people who do love George Michael, and always have. The first UK date of his 25 Live tour was a huge success, and I was just one of the 17,000 people on that night who enjoyed it tremendously. The first tour he's done in 15 years, and understandably he'd been rather nervous about it all, but by the time he reached England he was starting to have a great time and really enjoy it. Compared to the very first date of the tour (in Spain in September) he was looking a lot more relaxed and happy and his voice was much surer of itself. It's great that he's enjoying this, because it will raise his confidence and show him what his fans (rather than the newspapers) really think of him. And all the better for his fans, because then he'll be much more likely to keep performing live to us all, and based on this concert that's something we certainly wouldn't want to miss.

So the man looked well, and he sounded well too. His voice was strong and steady and though he mixed his lines up occasionally he handled it well and with good humour, putting the audience completely on his side all through. From the hugely-welcome Wham hits (especially a cracking 'I'm Your Man') to his latest 'Easier Affair' ("This one hasn't got much radio play this year," George said "But fuck 'em, I like it") with stops at just about all his hits in between, the one thing this show wasn't lacking in was value for money. After a set lasting almost an hour and a half he bounded off stage for a twenty minute interval and then returned to give us an equally enjoyable and lengthy second half.

Visually it was the finest show I've ever seen. The accomplished band were stacked up in the middle of a huge set-up that turned the stage into one big 3-D special effect, that never distracted but only enhanced the whole night. Beautiful visuals, from the burning red sun setting into the sea during 'Praying For Time' to the inflatable antics of 'Shoot The Dog' could easily have overwhelmed a less than fantastic performance, but here the balance was perfect.

So let's get behind George (if you know what I mean...), and applaud someone who does their job and does it well. The guy has entertained millions for the past 25 years and he does it by producing some wonderful songs, having a great talent for writing and one of the best voices of our time. If he had anywhere near as much fun as his audience did last Friday night, then he'll certainly return for more, and we'll be there to cheer him on. Well done, George, and thanks for a great show!

Set List:

Waiting - Flawless (Go to the City) - Fastlove - Father Figure - Everything She Wants - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - Praying for Time - TooFunky - You Have Been Loved - Star People - My Mother Had a Brother - Shoot the Dog

- interval -

Faith - Spinning the Wheel - Easier Affair - Jesus to a Child - Amazing - I'm Your Man - Outside - (encore 1) Careless Whisper - (encore 2) Freedom '90

Once Bitten…

At the end of a recent visit to the market town of Chesterfield, home of the famous crooked spire, my companion and I were having a rather difficult time finding somewhere to have dinner and drinks before setting off on the journey home. This for me is always one of the high points wherever I’m travelling, at the end of it all relaxing with some good food and good wine, and usually it isn’t that difficult to find at least one place that looks vaguely appealing. Not so with Chesterfield, I’m afraid. Whatever its good points may be, food didn’t seem to be – pardon the pun – on the menu. We wandered from one side of the town to the other before I led us in the direction of where I thought I may once have driven past somewhere worthwhile on a visit some years previously. Desperation, needless to say, was setting in by this point.

The place I had once seen, however, was no longer there, but on the same road we walked past another bar/restaurant that looked peaceful and quiet and decided here was as good a place to try as any (not that we’d seen anywhere else, of course!) and so in we went. And from there, dear reader, it all went downhill…

There was a notice by the door, forbidding the wearing of baseball caps in this establishment. Something that’s never likely to be a problem with me. But it seems that was where the dress code ended, because the clientele of this particular establishment were far from well dressed. In fact the whole place looked rather like the builders had been moved in to convert a recently gutted building, and never left. Or done any decorating work either. Lots of exposed brick. Lots of exposed wood. Lots of exposed pipes. Lots of, well, of exposed everything really that was in no way appealing, up to and including builders’ crack. We hesitantly made our way to one of the few available seating areas – an expanse of sorry-looking wood that I took to be a table and ‘leather’ benches with backrests that barely covered our coccyx. Sadly this ineffective barrier was all that was between ourselves and the patrons behind us, a very large, very badly dressed bald man and his date who looked exactly like he would have done if he’d been in drag with a very bad wig. From my seat I could see – without turning my head – five different TV screens all showing the same football match, not counting the screens that mercifully weren’t working. I needed a drink, and fast.

I studied the wine list – anywhere with a wine list couldn’t be that bad surely? Not like the establishment in Norfolk I unwillingly ended up in once where I asked for a red wine and they served me what was obviously the nearest thing they had to it – a Diet Coke. This wine list was large, if ridiculously expensive, and fronted with words to the effect that this place was knowledgeable about wines! Alas, I found that not to be the case when – after studying the extensive selection of reds carefully and deciding upon a Shiraz, my companion placed the order and was told ‘we don’t have any red wines, will rose be okay?’

Waiting for our food, we squirmed. We moved tables when somebody who looked like he’d been the town’s gravedigger since 1912 came and perched opposite us with his pint and rolled up newspaper. We hid in a corner and studied the denizens of this increasingly grim place. There were more trainers in that place than an Adidas factory, and I reminisced about the days when places made you wear a jacket before you ate there. Pale faces with dead eyes stared back. Some Neanderthals entered. One was wearing a baseball cap until he was yelled at to remove it. I wished he hadn’t, as his crowning glory – a mullet – dropped onto his shoulders.

I drank my wine.

I made some observations: the place was now taking bookings for Christmas. I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d least rather be on that day. They served champagne, and I suggested that the only time they’d sell any in such a place was if one of the regulars won £100 on a scratch-card. It was much more likely that they worked their way through their supplies of soft-drink flavoured WKD. The menu did its best to tantalise us with something called a 'Belly Buster', I am reminded of the film 'Alien'. The nice part of the establishment I’d seen through the windows was in the next room – it was empty and covered in dust. A faded sign proclaimed it to be the VIP area.

I drank more wine.

I noticed several people wearing similar black plastic belts, with various messages spelt out in stones that the sign on the market stall must have ambitiously promised to be sparkling. One of them said ‘Jesus Rocks’. Several more pairs of white trainers arrived, with people on them.

Our food arrived, which we traded for a large wooden spoon on which our order number was written in felt tip pen. We also received some condiments in a tin bucket. We’d only ordered a snack, a chicken and bacon barbeque melt, I think it was, though as we made our way through it we came up with the idea that it had in fact been made from a bag that said ‘Economy Meat Product’ as we could taste neither chicken nor bacon. My companion tried looking for evidence of either within the baguette. I turned away, and whispered to myself ‘don’t look down’. I can’t remember eating anything so greasy. My napkin was drenched when I was only halfway through, and I was doing my best to use the accompanying blunt knife and fork.

We got some laughs out of it, if nothing else, and life seemed better after we’d fled the establishment, as it does when you’ve been to the brink and back. We walked through a graveyard almost as soon as we left, our insides swimming in grease. I must point out that I’ve absolutely nothing against Chesterfield – I’ve had some good friends from there over the years and one who worked in the job centre, some good times there in the past and smoked my first ever cigar there. But I can’t imagine we’ll be returning to that particular venue. When it comes to Chesterfield, my search for a good place to wine and dine continues.

Assorted Meat Product, anyone?

My First Love...

The first watch I ever fell in love with was the Omega Seamaster GMT. I was about 18 or 19 years of age, and I saw a full page advertisement in a lifestyle magazine. The watch looked beautiful, manly, glamorous. I wanted one, and the advertisement didn’t put a price on such an object of desire. I was young and naïve, and though I realised it was going to be fairly expensive, I predicted an expensive watch might be somewhere in the region of £100. If you want something nice and luxurious though, you had to be prepared to pay the price.

The only thing was, I didn’t see these watches in any of the jewellers in the nearest town, and they certainly couldn’t be found in a superstore catalogue. One day on a trip to the big city, I finally saw these watches in the smooth and sensual flesh, and I had to readjust my opinions on what an expensive watch could be. £100? No, try well over £1,000 – and this was best part of ten years ago, they’ve almost doubled in price since then.

But when Freeman wants something, he’s got to have it, and that watch never left my mind. Thus began my love affair with luxury watches, a pleasure perhaps akin to what a magpie feels when it sees something shiny. Gazing in the beautifully lit windows of high-class jewellers I was like a child with his nose pressed up against the window of a sweet shop. I liked Breitling – they’re beautiful watches and I’ve worn two of them over the years, one of which (imagine the pain) just went missing somewhere along the line. I disliked Rolex because they seemed vulgar to me, they were too well-known as an expensive item to the general populace that I couldn’t imagine anybody with any class or sophistication would choose one. I’ve been seen wearing one of them too, of course.

And then there was the Omega Seamaster Professional – James Bond’s watch for the past 11 years. When Pierce Brosnan landed the role at that time, the producers wanted to update the gentleman spy’s image with a more distinctly sophisticated, European look. The Seamaster pro became a highly visible, and highly desired item. I bought that watch, and lived through many adventures with it, and it’s still a dear companion to me and a damned fine looking piece (one which deserves an article all of its own sometime), but through all those years I never did get that original GMT out of my mind.

Early this summer it came back to haunt me in a strong way, and I started looking at photographs of it again. I thought about how I hadn’t seen one anywhere for a good few years now. I missed not buying one when I’d had the chance to, and thought if I ever saw one again I’d snap it up. And then, one fateful late summer’s weekend I was staying in Leeds and having a wonderful shopping spree, and just as we were heading off to find a nice wine bar to have dinner in, I stopped at a jeweller’s window. And there it was.

I didn’t hesitate, we marched inside and didn’t come out until it was sat comfortably on my wrist. I have the theory that it’s not pleasing to women. It’s big, it’s rugged, it’s manly. I once compared it to having your balls on your wrist. But as far as toys for big boys go, this has got to be one of the best. I was lucky enough to be bale to get the actual model I’d originally desired – on the Seamaster Pro-style bracelet rather than the Speedmaster one which all GMT’s now come with. The difference with the bracelet on the GMT however, is in the clasp – rather than the Pro’s large and scratch-loving area of stainless steel, the only visible part of this is a small and attractive gold Omega symbol, with a single button unlocking mechanism, and no diving-suit expansion!

The case is similar to the Seamaster Pro, but smoother, more fluid, and a little more sensual, it felt pleasing to note the slight difference. The bezel is bi-directional with a highly distinctive 24-hour feature on it for the GMT hand, and the black and silver division for day and night. The black dial has the Seamaster waves pattern on it and coupled with the striking hour markers and sword-hands is very pleasing to my eye. The fourth GMT hand is useful for the international lifestyle, indeed the watch can keep 3 different time-zones at once! The GMT does lack the quick-set date feature which means if you don’t wear it for a few days you’ll have some twisting to do before it catches up to the calendar, but it’s worth it.

A beautiful watch, despite what any faint-hearted females may say, and I’m proud to be wearing it!

What’s in a Name?

What’s in a name? Quite a lot when it comes to publishing, or should we say branding a commercial product, which is what most major publishing amounts to these days.

You may or may not have heard of Joe Hill – he’s had various short stories published on both sides of the Atlantic and they’ve gained him good reviews and a couple of nice awards. PS Publishing, the small-press standard bearer for horror publishing in the UK when all major houses have turned up their collective nose for the past decade, recently released his first short story collection 20^th Century Ghosts. His career was going pretty well so far.

And though I haven’t yet read his book, Joe seems a nice enough guy, talented and enthusiastic about the horror scene, a regular face at American conventions. He seemed content to let his writing lead the way, and do the talking for him.

And now disaster has struck. The secret is out that upcoming horror writer Joe Hill is actually Joe Hill King, youngest son of Stephen of that title.

And so from being just another horror writer struggling in the face of ignorance from big publishers, Joe’s career has gone stratospheric. Next Spring you’ll see his first novel, you’ll start reading about it long before then in the press. Warner Brothers are already at work on a movie version. With absolutely no disrespect intended to Joe (what I have a problem with here, and I hope that’s clear, is the mindset of The Powers That Be), what are the chances that this would have happened to any other writer known so far only for his short horror stories?

The good part is that Joe’s novel is a horror one – it’s about a man who buys a ghost from an internet auction site. In these days when publishers have long dropped all their more than adequate horror authors to concentrate on churning out whatever latest fad appeals to the masses, getting any horror on the bookshelves is a success. But what will this change in the long run? You can’t tell me the UK publisher of this book (I have my own experience with them!) want this book because they believe in horror fiction and want to supply the public with it. They want to make a great deal of money because they know Stephen King fans will all buy this book.

It seems that so far Joe has kept the family connection quiet when it comes to his work, and I wonder how he feels about his career skyrocketing in such a big way. I wish the guy luck and hope he keeps the horrors coming, but I have to sneer at the wider world of publishing and film. It’s all about brands, it’s all about grabbing people with no attention span, it’s about getting the product off the shelves and getting the money for it. Once upon a time publishers used to take writers on and build a career alongside them. It’s a commercial world now, through and through, and it seems you’re going to have to make it to the top the easy way.

Omega - Freeman's Choice!

The Dignity of Death, Demons & Dismemberment

One of the most famous of screen monsters, Lon Chaney, said long ago that Abbott and Costello ruined the horror field by making buffoons of the monsters. Then the film producers came along to make even worse buffoons of them “because they killed for the sake of killing, there was blood for the sake of blood”. We used to accept, he said, that what we were about to experience, fantastic as it was, we would take seriously “but all this foolishness today isn’t sold seriously. It’s made as a joke, a laugh for the kids to go in and have a ball”. Here we sit, so many years later, and has much really changed?

That’s not to say nothing worthwhile has happened to horror in the intervening decades, indeed I’d say that a great deal of what’s best about it has been produced in that time, but a lot of what’s worst, and has come dangerously close to ruining the field, can still be recognised from Chaney’s words. Before we talk about literature (and good horror can be literature, despite what only the most narrow-minded of critics tell you), we can use the silver screen as a perfect example. A handful of years ago, when horror fiction had faded away from the shelves of most high street bookstores and the lists of the top publishers, you may have been forgiven for being surprised that horror movies were continuing to appear from Hollywood, and some quite good ones, on a regular basis. This was after we’d become immune to a steady stream of dirge, much of it mercilessly straight to video obscurity, and boded well for the future of horror. But before long, the success of these films roused the lesser talents and they found themselves vying with yet more dirge, or films that attempted to be stylish but had no real depth or passion for the genre.

The ‘Scream’ films attempted (or pretended) to be witty and knowing about the slasher movies that had numbed us – even bored us – to gore throughout the ‘80’s before turning into no better than those, and giving other film-makers an excuse to do the same. Urban Legend, I Know What You Did Last Summer, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and so on and so on. Mike Myers (the masked killer, not Austin Powers) and Jason Voorhees were roused from their graves, which were at best always temporary anyway, to continue their bloodletting by numbers in what should have been new and enlightened times. Happily for them and their kind, 21^st century Hollywood teenagers were still as dumb as ever. Even Jeepers Creepers sank into banality after opening scenes that promised something far greater.

Horror at its best can offer so much more than this. It can offer us visionary awe, it can offer us genuine delicious chills, a sense of something greater than mankind can perhaps comprehend. Any kind of great fiction will achieve an emotional response rather than a physical one (of nausea, for example), and there is no more crime in enjoying a good scare for its own sake than there is in laughing at comedy or being moved by tragedy. Even as a very young teenager I was aware that classing fiction that sought only to titillate or disgust with extreme gore alongside the best of the genre was as stupid as shelving ‘Razzle’ with romance.

I believe that horror is still as alive and well as ever before, even if it hasn’t the same opportunities to display itself, especially in the world of large publishing houses. Still, at least this may discourage some of the lesser talents who seek only to cash in on popularity, and allow the genuine talents to shine brighter. With luck we will one day soon see them rewarded for their efforts, and their faith. Meanwhile, there is horror still to be found in the mainstream, as it always has and where it came from via gothic novels. Indeed, any classics section owes much of its shelf space to the fantastic and even the macabre, and not just the obvious choices like ‘Dracula’ or ‘Frankenstein’. Henry James, Emily Bronte, Oscar Wilde, Dickens, William Blake are amongst the undoubted talents who’ve dipped their pens in dark ink and produced works that every horror fan should be familiar with, and what was much of Shakespeare if not fantastic? We also have the wonderful ghost stories of M. R. James, the cosmic terrors of Lovecraft and the visionary magic of Algernon Blackwood to name but three who are vital to anyone wishing to explore the field.

It may do us much good to remind ourselves of the genre’s roots whilst we await newer terrors, and to never lose faith or pride in what’s best about this kind of fiction. It’s only a shame that a lot of the great stuff can be so hard to find, but seeking it out will bring its own rewards. Let me offer a few pointers towards great modern horror for anyone who needs them: Ramsey Campbell is perhaps the finest living example of what the genre can achieve – especially in his short fiction (a new edition of most of his best, Alone With The Horrors was released last year). M. John Harrison can usually be found in the science fiction shelves but his works offer visions and moods that are undoubtedly on the darker side of fantasy (Things That Never Happen is a superb edition of his collected stories). Peter Straub is a master of style and never strays far from our kind of fiction. Joe Lansdale is returning to us soon with another of his ‘Drive In’ novels but in the meantime his volumes of short stories, and some of his novels, offer plenty of chills. Robert Aickman is worth tracking down, despite not being as easily available as he deserves. Dorchester publishing in the USA, through their Leisure imprint, continues to promote new horror, and in this country we have Pete Crowther carrying the flag and helping some great talents see print through his PS Publishing.

And I rather imagine that most of you reading this will already have your own likes and dislikes but if I’ve encouraged someone out there to seek out something new, or even to think about horror in a new light, then I’ve done some good. Happy reading!

There's Nothing to Be Afraid Of...