Well, welcome to 2012 folks.  I won’t be as presumptuous as to tell you what kind of New Year to have…  If all goes well for me, it’ll see me finish my masters degree and get my first book published.  What makes me ambivalent about the qualification thing is that I’ve already got more letters after my name than in it, but there’s not a person on the planet can hear them when I play.  Charlie Parker didn’t have letters after his name.  Anyway on to today’s business – I thought I’d use this post to talk about stuff inspired by previous blogs.

I saw some good quotes in a piece written by the actor and author Michael Simkins recently, (the bons mots of his brother, Geoff, featured in some earlier blogs).  Simkins is a skilful and entertaining writer, so do check out his books/articles.  He quoted Oscar Wilde, who said ‘Good resolutions are simply cheques that men draw at a bank where they have no account.’  Of end-of-year optimism and merry-making he quoted Dr Johnson who said, ‘Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme for merriment.’ 

I well remember writing here some time ago that it’s the abundance of false bonhomie at this time of year that tends to bring out my cynicism.  A bandstand offers an excellent view of people hell-bent on having a good time.  It strikes me they’d do much better if they just relaxed a bit and, well, had a good time…

I discovered these quotes as a result of my having dipped my toe into social networking and I’ve opened a twitter account.  You can follow me: @RoadRatsTips

You’ll remember in the last post (See Bits and Bobs) I had a little rant about wars being fought between governments in bomb-proof bunkers who send young people to their deaths.  Don’t ask me how I stumbled across this quote, because I wasn’t looking for it – just aimlessly surfing the internet – Weird.

‘I come from the South and I know what war is, for I have seen its terrible wreckage and ruin. It is easy for me as President to declare war. I do not have to fight, and neither do the gentlemen on the Hill who now clamor for it. It is some poor farmer's boy, or the son of some poor widow - who will have to do the fighting and dying.’ – Woodrow Wilson

I mentioned typographical Freudian slits sorry, slips in the last entry (See Bits and Bobs), well, while the Good Lady was spending Christmas in the Midlands with her family, I managed to send her a text that said ‘Going to bed with a hot chic’.  Wishful thinking perhaps from a middle-aged geezer sipping cocoa and poring over a book on the intricacies of self-publishing.

I played at the 100 Club in Oxford St in December and was sorry to see my favourite dressing room graffito had been partially obliterated by a more contemporary offering.  Here it is again in its former glory.

I think ‘Ireland for the Irish, Peckham for the Peckish’ may finally have been usurped though by this, which appeared in my inbox recently.

Modern graffiti depresses me somewhat.  I don’t see any creativity or humour in the meaningless daubs that pass for contemporary graffiti.  My spirits were, however, raised when I went into the Gents in the pub opposite the university recently.  Above the urinals was a poster advertising ‘Movember’.  This, it would appear, is an appeal whereby men are sponsored to cultivate facial hair during the month of November in aid of men’s health charities.  Anyway, someone had written in big bold letters across the poster ‘What a load of old bollocks’.  Crude, yet somehow reassuring…

I mentioned this to a group of students when I emerged into the pub, and was quite shocked when a sweet Glaswegian girl said, ‘Aye, we’re waiting for Fanuary now’.

Anyway, where were we?  Ah yes, 2012 – Olympic year, and it’ll be interesting to see how it affects us here in the Metropolis.  I’ll certainly go out to watch the cycle road race go past the end of my street (see Summer Scrapbook 2011) but suspect that’ll be the sum total of my interaction with the Games.  You’d think that London’s entertainment industry would thrive during the event, but the theatre industry is expecting ‘a bloodbath of a summer’ according to Andrew Lloyd Webber, with some theatres already having taken the decision to remain ‘dark’ throughout.  As if the current climate wasn’t grim enough for those of us in the entertainment business.

It’s in the fallow period between Christmas and New Year that the newspapers usually run a piece detailing which celebrities have fallen off their perches in the preceding year.  In the spirit of this I’ll talk a bit about Olaf Vas, who died in August this year.  That’s Olaf in the pic at the head of this piece. (If anyone knows who took the pic, please get in touch so I can credit them).

Olaf was quite the most avuncular man I ever met, with an enviably infectious laugh.  This sometimes worked against him though – I’ve written before in these pages about the time that Olaf and the other half of the ‘Eastern Brothers’ found themselves at the wrong funeral and, trapped in their pew, sobbed so hard with laughter that the other mourners must have thought ‘I don’t know who those two are, but they must have been really close to him’.

Olaf was an inspiration to a generation of musicians my age, and his relentless good-humour was similarly inspirational.  Brian Priestly reported that once in a recording session, just before the red light, Olaf declared “Okay, everybody tense up!”  This, of course had the complete opposite effect, and was typically Olaf.

Here’s a nice neat ending, and how about this for coincidence?  Michael Simkins has just tweeted a gag that I first heard many years ago from none other than Olaf – ‘... I could be sitting at home in front of a roaring wife.’

Ok folks, ‘til next time…

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