I wish that I could do that

I gather from news published by the BBC that Mr. Wayne Rooney, a professional football player, has signed a new and more lucrative contract with his employer, Manchester United Football Club. For the uninitiated, this comes swiftly in the wake of his highly publicised insistance that he wished to leave the club, accompanied by equally public and unequivocal criticism of how his employer conducts its business.

It was only for the briefest of moments that I mused upon this, before the reluctant recognition that my own talents in a different sphere are hardly of a similar magnitude to Mr. Rooney's footballing skills. That being so, I shall not be trying a similar ploy in the hope of realising a salary increase.

My forbearance does not arise solely from my lack of bargaining power, but also takes account of the difficulty of implementing an equivalent strategy. Any such attempt upon my part would be doomed to failure, due to my inability to think of any area in which criticism could reasonably be levelled at my employer.

We used to have books

Ah, the wonders of the Internet...

Yestere'en, I was blinking at the unexpected sight of a former colleague presenting a television documentary on food. Today, although our last contact was almost two decades ago, I could map his activities during the interim with some confidence. It helps, of course, that he has become a noted academic, author and columnist. Still...

Gosh. How did we ever find out anything in the olden days?

You should have been there

A glance at the profile here might reveal that I like music. Lots. I like music a lot and I like lots of music. That's classical, blues, military bands, folk, rock, jazz, cajun, rockabilly, punk, pop, rock 'n' roll, skiffle, big bands, doo-wop, country...

Country. Oh, buddy, as I found they say in West Virginia. I do like country music. (And, let's not forget, I also like western music.) Some of the newer stuff ain't too bad, and I do confess to Garth, the Mavericks and a few others featuring in the collection, although I've never been convinced that they belong on the same shelf as Cash, Haggard and such folks. In fact, the more that I think about it... That's country, my ass.

That phrase is borrowed, shamelessly, from a song I was loudly singing last night. Luckily, around 300 other people were obliterating my own horrible efforts with much more harmonious renditions. Together, we were making a joyful noise unto Dale Watson, in a tiny Kilburn venue called The Luminaire. I didn't know, as I continue to wait with diminishing patience for kneehole surgery, that I am capable of standing on one spot for upwards of two and a half hours. Today, the knee is making its displeasure felt, even more stridently than it was throughout the show. Were the event to be replicated tonight, I would not only happily repeat the uncomfortable standing, but would cheerfully limp the 30-mile round-trip to The Luminaire to do so.

The Doggone Honkabilly Band opened the proceedings with a couple of their own tunes and a whole bunch of generally boisterous covers taking in Cash, Monroe and Hanks I and III. They were about as good as a British country combo could be. That's as good, of course, as a born-and-bred Texan would be singing Mad Dogs and Englishmen. However good it sounds, deep inside you know that it's just not quite right and while you might pay to see it, you'd check your change. After the Honkabillies, a brief interval, and out walked Mr. Watson and his buddies.

I've been one among a crowd of many thousands for such varying legends as Queen and Luciano Pavarotti. I've seen Topol playing Tevye and Opera North performing The Flying Dutchman in large city theatres. I've sat in smaller halls to enjoy performers from Dr. Feelgood to Glen Campbell. I've squeezed into tiny rooms to give attention to relative unknowns from Harvey Andrews to Jake Thackray. I couldn't contemplate trying to remember the hundreds of semi-pro performers I've heard in pubs. As I lay on the settee during the early hours of this morning, waiting for the Tramadol Hydrochloride to kick in and allow me some sleep, I contemplated. I pondered. I reminisced and I compared.

Last night, Dale Watson probably delivered the most enjoyable concert I've ever attended.

Not just because I was standing front and centre, within arm's length of the singer, throughout. Not just because his third song was the Bob Wills classic Faded Love, sung at my request. Not just because he brilliantly performed, at a guess, fifty or more songs during a long show, a goodly proportion of these in response to requests from the crowd. Not just because he not only has a great voice but could also comfortably assume the lead guitar duties in almost any band, of any type. Not just because he has more charisma, personality, warmth and intelligence than the combined offerings of any three entries in the current hit parade. Not just because of his frequently expressed, clearly sincere and humble, gratitude to the folks who buy his music and attend his performances. Not just because his colleagues, on stand-up bass, drums, pedal steel and fiddle, gave uniformly outstanding performances, occasionally straying into virtuoso territory. Not just because of his - and their - impressive capacity for tequila and beer. Not just because he lingered post-show, graciously greeting anyone who wanted to talk to him and happily posing for endless photographs with, and signing autographs for, his public. Not just because, chatting afterwards, we found that we share common views on Tom T. Hall.

No, it was probably the most enjoyable concert ever because, well... I wouldn't know where to start.

So, Dale Watson and your band, thank you.

Thank you, Bob Harris, for drawing the show to my attention.

Thank you, Margaret, for ignoring my pessimistic presumptions, for checking The Luminaire as late as the day before the gig, finding that tickets hadn't yet sold out and for buying me what may well have been, albeit a month prematurely, the best birthday present ever.

Living legend

Yesterday, I was ruefully musing on only having found out about this evening's Dale Watson performance too late to do anything about it.

Today, I am recovering from the shock that the fewer-than-300 tickets hadn't sold out within hours of Bob Harris using BBC national radio to plug Mr. Watson's only 2010 show in the UK.

Tomorrow, I expect to be a little tired and deafer than usual, but starry-eyed and grinning.

Thanks for looking

Welcome aboard, enjoy the ride and, fergawdsakes, don't read anything into what you find here. If you want to know what I'm like, invite me over for an interview. I would urge you to leave analysis to the professionals, if it weren't that I've known a shrink or two socially and wouldn't necessarily trust any of them to find their own derriere using both hands and a map.

If your next or previous stop is Facebook, the same applies there.

Origato, sayonara - or something like that; I only had a few lessons and that was a long time ago.

Tempus fugit

Time flies like a winged arrow - although, as Groucho famously added, fruit flies like a banana.

Anyhow, it will not have escaped your attention that August is now moving among us. For many, the significance will be that there are now more hours weekly during which they have to accept responsibility for their offspring; for others, it will mean a faster commute, as mothers take a break from daily ferrying their little darlings the few hundred yards to school.

For me, it means that I shall reach my half-century next month. I don't want to do that. I want to be 21 again, or 33, or 11 ... I want to be younger.

If I could track down the lunatic responsible for the canard about life beginning at 40, I should wreak severe physical damage upon their person, in punishment for promulgating such a despicable untruth. Did my life begin ten years ago? Hardly. I'm still waiting and I would not claim to be doing so with any great optimism.

A week or so back, the quack was obliged to warn me that when they knock me out, so that he can rummage around within my knee, there is an extremely remote chance of my being struck by any of a range of terrors, including deep vein thrombosis. He was most insistent upon playing down the likelihood of any such thing happening, while mentioning every faint possibility. If I thought that failing to awake from the anaesthetic was a real chance, I'd change my name and deny any knowledge of this prospective patient. This is, I fear, another manifestation of the Elfunsafety menace.

It's not what it used to be...

Nostalgia is, apparently, a thing of the past. Don't tell anyone, but... I've been indulging.

I usually ignore the occasional Facebook group invitation, but the recent one from an erstwhile comrade-in-arms aroused my interest. Three signings-up later, I am now in contact with almost 20 folks I've not seen in more than a quarter-century. We all served Queen and Country together, mostly in Cyprus, doing things we're still not supposed to discuss; I shall merely say that some of us were in the Royal Corps of Signals, while some were Intelligence Corps, but most of us had been taught Arabic, and let the reader draw their own conclusions.

Anyway, here's the problem.

With one or two trivial exceptions, I don't really miss the military life. And, although I'd love to re-visit Cyprus for a few weeks, it's not a hankering that keeps me awake at night. But...

Oh, ye gods and little fishes, my 50th birthday is approaching with most unseemly haste and I yearn pathetically to be, once again, just 21...

I want my money back...

At the end of last year, the local quack opined that my suffering was not a figment of the imagination, but could be attributed to a torn cartilage in my right knee. Five months later, I have endured at least four visits to three different GPs, two physiotherapist appointments, a couple of x-rays and a trip to the orthopaedic practitioner. A confirmatory scan is due to be carried out in a fortnight or so, more than five months after the initial diagnosis. The only change to the original conclusion is that it is no longer merely a strong belief; I have had the exact sites of the two cartilage tears shown to me, using a model.

Have I mentioned that it sometimes hurts a bit? The intermittently effective pills prescribed are, apparently, just a shade less powerful than morphine.

Those wonderful people in the NHS have proved themselves astonishingly efficient at collecting and spending my money during the three decades since I first trousered a pay envelope. Am I really an ungrateful wretch, now that I stand - unsteadily - in need of surgery, to ask for some of the NHS billions to be diverted in the direction of my knee?

All day long, I'd...

There is more to life than money. Just ask anybody who has enough of it.

I am so, so weary of having to count every penny.

Oxymoron No. 37: American Sporting Entertainment

When one has to set off no later than 06:40 for the daily commute, staying up until the early hours to watch television is probably inadvisable.

Monday's suffering, however, was more than justified by the spectacle of the Saints fighting back from a 0-10 deficit to thump the Colts 31-17, a record-equalling turnaround which was as entertaining as it was mathematically impressive.

This year's Superbowl was almost good enough to persuade me that I should watch American football more frequently than once annually. Almost, but not quite.

Meanwhile, I continue to contemplate an MLBTV or ESPN subscription, as Spring training looms with no suggestion that Channel Five might resume its twice-weekly baseball coverage. A live game almost every night? Not, perhaps, a good idea; I shall have to continue to root for the Cardinals without spectating. At least it will afford me some empathy with Ali, the chap behind the counter of our local corner shop. Born in Huddersfield but long resident in Surrey, he claims to be a Liverpool FC supporter while refusing to admit that he's never actually been to Anfield. At least I have the excuse of a major ocean standing between me and St. Louis...

All of a sudden, it was 2010. I shall reach 50 this year. Ye gods.