Lloyd Cole, Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne

Although he almost certainly doesn’t know it, Lloyd Cole and I have been shackled together for almost twenty years. A school friend did me a tape of the Lloyd Cole and the Commotions compilation 1984-1989 when it came out and it was enough get me hooked on black turtle neck jumpers for life.

Before you get ideas otherwise, I’m not making spurious claims to teenage hipness or music credibility. Kylie was very much on my walls and walkman at that time, and I don’t think baggy XXL James t-shirts were ever cutting edge fashion. It’s just that whenever my teenage brain needed a dose of ‘grown up’ Lloyd Cole seemed like the most grown up and - more importantly - the coolest grown up around.

When I eventually got around to growing up a bit myself, Lloyd remained several paces ahead. By the time I was experiencing the academia blues and government grants he sang about in 1984, he had already given up his search for ‘a religious girl with child-baring hips and a wedding veil’ and was imploring his latest lost love to ‘take a half of everything and please go.’ To me these were the rites of passage chopped into bite-sized pieces, ready to be washed down with glugs of red wine, whiskey and cigarettes – a more interesting mix than the cheap bitter and triples-for-a-pound I was living off.


Fifteen years on I’ve caught up some more. Sadly, whilst I might have learnt how fall in and out of love, drink for pleasure more than paralysis and wear a suit without looking like a complete dick, I still don’t look as cool or brooding as Lloyd on the cover on 1993’s Bad Vibes. And yet – somewhat reassuringly - neither does he.

Not to suggest that he has done a Boy George. The Lloyd Cole who toured Australia last week was still Hollywood handsome and - despite self-depreciatingly suggesting otherwise – trim. What was missing was the attitude. For me the loveliness of songs like Let’s Get Lost and Undressed were evidence enough at the time that his Mr Grumpy act was just that, but Cole’s moody, gentle arrogance and unapologetic seriousness were very much part of his post-Commotions shtick. Album covers and tour posters determinedly keep up the charade, but these days Lloyd in the flesh is humble, personable and a tad less serious than he used to be.

His show at the Thornbury Theatre reminded me of his initials-sake Leonard Cohen’s breezy live performances earlier this year (indeed Cohen's Tower of Song makes an early appearance). Cole’s more relaxed approach is inclusive but takes nothing away from the music itself which, if anything, is more potent for the clarity with which the words can be heard over his lone acoustic guitar.

Reinvented over the past few years as a self-styled folk singer, Cole has become adept at mining and recasting gems from his 25-year catalogue. The concert’s two-part set offered acoustic takes from just about every album from Rattlesnakes to his recent rarities box set, Cleaning Out The Ashtrays with some songs radically reinvented, others trimmed down to their bare bones.

Amongst such diversity, it was noteworthy how often the word young seemed to crop up. The sublime Don’t Look Back (‘life seems never ending, when you’re young’), Music in a Foreign Language ('forgive me if I'm less than awed, by your world-weary twenty-six year old') and Woman in a Bar (in which Cole declares himself 'no longer angry, no longer young, no longer driven to distraction not even by Scarlett Johansson’) share a ruefulness that camouflages the sixteen years that elapsed between their creation.

Such sage self-reflection is nothing new (as if to prove it, the evening starts with 29’s memorable couplet ‘life begins at 30 so I have been told, I can easily believe it the way I’m getting on’) but the idea that youth always feel like it’s slowly slipping away – even when you’re approaching 50 and should probably have gotten over it – is an interesting one; doubly so for someone who has spent time wishing away his youth and looking at people like Cole for inspiration on how to age.

Still I came away from the show with a sense that Cole is reasonably content with his lot. Relaxed and jovial, he seems keenly aware of his position somewhere between ex-pop star and travelling salesman hawking his wares. It’s some way from Top of the Pops and next-big-thing status in the NME, but though his younger self might have baulked at the idea it’s clear he understands the privilege of being a musician and the continued opportunity to make a living from it. Not a bad place to be, babe.

Musically I would be remiss not to admit that after three perfect rounds down under of Cole solo and acoustic, it would be lovely to see him pull an electric guitar out of his kitbag. His folksinger period has been wonderful and I’m sure it’s nice to travel the world without having to worry about others people's egos, but it’s been a while since we saw him with even the smallest of touring groups. Perhaps next time?

As for me, well, as long as Cole continues to document his times with style, there is no chance of me ever closing the age gap. Maybe my lesson is to enjoy being where I am too.

Songs in the Key of Hull

Another Housemartins reunion of sorts to report on with the news that Ted Key, the original bass player and co-writer of many tracks on London 0 Hull 4 including Freedom, Get Up Off Our Knees and the superlative Flag Day, has just released what is technically his first solo LP. I say technically because he’s recording under the moniker Ted Key and the Human Voice whose number apparently includes Mr Hugh “I like toast” Whitaker on drums and congas.

Lest we forget Ted and Hugh were also erstwhile members of the Gargoyles, one of three groups ahead of the Housemartins in their own list of Hull’s best bands (the others being Red Guitars and 3-Action!).



Ted’s album is called Madolescent Street and you can hear decent sized snippets on his Myspace page, here. It’s all nice stuff with echoes of Half Man Half Biscuit and Sheffield troubadour Richard Hawley, especially on the pretty Other Side of the Day. Meanwhile The Boats on the River Go Sailing By is a jaunty paean to the surreal events of the 2007 Hull floods and comes across like East Yorkshire’s answer to Johnny Cash’s Five Feet High and Rising.

Madolescent Street is out now for a mere nine quid. For more information, visit Ted’s website here.

Google Doodles

I want to be the person who is paid to get up in a morning and make funny anniversary pictures for the Google home page. Whoever he or she is, they’ve truly outdone themselves this week:

20th Anniversary of Wallace and Gromit




40th Anniversary of Sesame Street

50th Anniversary of Asterix

I note that Google has declined the opportunity to mark the 30th anniversary of the start of the Iran Hostage crisis which admittedly might not make for such colourful viewing. However I reckon there is still scope to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the "No" vote for an Australian Republic, replacing the "L" with a cartoon of the Duke of Edinburgh strapped to the bench of a guillotine and making some inappropriate comment about the French...

Grease is the Word

Button up your sheepskin Carraway, rainy cafe, Kentish town, Tuesday
Barry's looking through the racing post,

Orders coffee, another round of toast
Lucy writes a letter, she'd like to spend an evening with Prince B
When we meet for a while, Tuesday morning 10am
Everyone's dreaming of all they've got to live for
Joking around, still digging that sound
Everyone's dreaming of all they've got to live for
Mario’s Café by Saint Etienne (So Tough 1993)

If there’s one thing I love more than food, it’s a list. Imagine my joy then when I found out about caffs.co.uk, a UK-based site which neatly brings these two bits of happy together. Formerly known as the National Greasy Caff Database, it aims to be the internet’s singular resource for lovers of cheap and cheerful cuisine served up in establishments long abandoned by property developers and old father time.

‘But we have café culture now’ I hear you cry, ‘we are a modern, cosmopolitan society with coffee houses and eateries and lattes on every street corner. What need have we of such a guide?’ Well, I say to you – there are cafés and there are cafés - and if you don’t know the difference, caffs.co.uk is here to help you out.

Amongst the identifying features they list are ubiquitous all-day breakfasts, the inclusion of chips with most meals, deep fat fryers that never get turned off and a hot drinks menu limited to tea or coffee (although there is a grudging recognition of Bovril and Ovaltine). Decorative paraphernalia to look out for includes Slush Puppie machines, formica tables, booths, wood panelling and pencil caricatures of the caff owners.

Photo: Getty Images

As a former grease(y) monkey who started working life making early morning bacon sandwiches and cups of tea for tourists and trawlermen (an excellent name for a band by the way) I support these as key features of any good caff. However, I would also like to advance some of my own favourites, including:

- Assorted white bread sandwiches in a glass cabinet with a sliding door, labelled with handwritten stickers that say “HAM” “BEEF” or “CHEESE”

- Star-shaped pieces of card in various neon colours stuck on the walls and windows like exploding post-it notes with things like cans of pop and chips and toast written in black felt tip pen. Apostrophe abuse is a given.

- Menus that add an item on each line like a children’s memory game to give the impression the menu is more diverse than is the case (Bacon – Bacon and Egg – Bacon, Egg and Sausage – Bacon, Egg, Sausage and Chips - Bacon, Egg, Sausage and Chips and Beans and so on before starting again with Sausage - Sausage and Chips – Sausage, Chips and Egg etc)

- The absence of an actual paper menu – just little white plastic letters on a black background that have been there so long that where letters are missing you can still see their outline in grease

- The impossibility of conversation every few minutes as a result of antique steam powered milk boilers for people wanting 'frothy coffee'

I'd love to hear of any others you may have experienced. Caffs.co.uk is still in its infancy and is a long way from being comprehensive. Do your bit for the cause by letting them know about your local greasy haunt.

Joyeux Anniversaire, by Toutatis!

Today, somewhere in a corner of north-west France, residents of an imaginary small village will feast raucously around a huge fire, clashing their flagons of ale together and tearing strips of freshly cooked wild boar off the bone with their teeth. They will not fret about camps of Afghani and Iraqi refugees, the affects of the global financial crisis on the local wine industry or the buying up of local farmhouses by wealthy British couples looking for a continental pied-à-terre. No, the only thing they will fear is that the sky might fall on their heads (and that their might not be enough boar to last the night).

Who are these people? They are the Gauls; magic potion swilling, menhir carrying, boar loving, pun-tastic warriors and scourge of all Rome (the ancient one). The feast is to celebrate the 50th birthday of their most famous son - Asterix – the diminutive, blond-pigtailed hero with an unlikely moustache whose first adventures were published on 29 October 1959.

Given my accidental career as a professional paper shuffler and work dodger my personal 2-D Gallic hero is actually Franquin’s bony-arsed flâneur, Gaston Lagaffe. That said I’ve had some good times with Asterix and co over the years; first as a youngster reading the English versions – when I loved Asterix’s dopey but big hearted partner Obelix - and then again years later as a French student when I discovered just how clever the originals were.



Much of the appeal of Asterix for adults is in spotting and unpicking the bad puns and jeux de mots that are threaded into every element of the stories. One particularly fine example of the linguistic agility by creators Goscinny and Uderzo got me hooked on the French versions. During a spectacular battle involving chariots and huge mechanical catapults, our hero expresses his awe of the futuristic war machines ('des machines de guerre'). Getafix - the pacifist Obi-Wan Kenobi-like druid – responds blithely 'Je n'aime guère ces machins’ ('I don’t like these thingies much'). No? Oh well. It impressed me…

More of this kind of thing can be found in the rather impressive Wikipedia entry on Asterix characters, which offers multi-language translations of the main character names. As in English, the names are painfully bad plays on words such as Assurancetourix (Fully Comprehensive Insurance) and Ordralfabétix (Alphabetical Order). I quite like the idea that the 100 or so languages into which Asterix has been translated are all linked in their ability to mangle words in search of a bad pun. It’s the kind of thing that can bring about world peace in the wrong hands.

There’s no denying that some of the humour in Asterix has dated over the half century. In particular the (gentle) racial stereotyping that for a while was the central premise of each book (Asterix in “insert country name here”) is even less relevant that the Eurovision song contest. And yet some stories are remarkably prescient. 1976’s Obelix and Co is about the collapse of economies both local and global as corporate greed sneaks into the sleepy village and then out into Roman occupied Europe. Sound familiar?




Over the years Asterix has come to represent something special to the French. A small village of indomitable Gauls standing up to the invading Roman Empire has significant symbolism for a nation that has staunch protectionism laws to shelter French language and culture from global Anglicisation. There are also anti-modernisation (for which read anti-Americanisation) themes that still pre-occupy many Europeans. French ‘anti-globalisation campaigner’ Jose Bové (in reality a loony who blew up a McDonald’s) was also likened to our eponymous hero but I think that was more about their matching moustaches. Either way it’s important to note that the Gauls’ resistance, like that of others in their history, means a great deal to the French psyche.

Yet, with over 300 million books sold worldwide, clearly Asterix and co mean something to the rest of us too and sadly for you cold cynics out there I think that this thing is heart. Central to each story are themes of comradeship, community, living life on your terms, not having to grow up and simple pleasures like eating and drinking and taking illicitly brewed potent drugs so you can beat the crap out of authoritarian figures. Now who doesn’t fancy a bit of that, by Toutatis!

How to Cook... Cheese Savoury

What is your favourite food? Your absolute favourite. The one you’d have request for your last meal. The food you’d choose if, as a result of some unlikely and disastrous gastric surgery your Doctor said you had to eat for the rest of your life? When push doesn’t so much come to shove as jizz in its face? When someone is indeed holding you down, with a gun to your head and screaming ‘tell me your favourite… just fucking tell me!’ You know - that kind of favourite food?

My favourite food is unquestionably sandwiches. I love sandwiches. I love cold sandwiches, bread sandwiches, sandwiches in rolls, toasted sandwiches, open sandwiches, pre-packaged sandwiches, crusts on, crusts off, white, brown, wholemeal, multigrain, sough dough, Turkish, club and baguette. I love picnic sandwiches, 24-hour garage sandwiches, buffet sandwiches and even limp working lunch sarnies with repetitive fillings and a dearth of pescatarian options. In France I was mocked daily for being an English ignoramus who cut his mopping up bread in half and filled it with fancy fare from my plate. I didn’t care. I love sandwiches.

As a sandwich lover, Newcastle-upon-Tyne is some kind of heaven for random food groups lovingly served up between two pieces of bread-related product. Whilst it’s hard to argue with the iconic Gregg’s Cheese and Onion Pastie as the north east food of choice, they are sadly only available at Gregg’s and so based on availability alone, the sandwich reigns supreme.

Before Prêt-a-Manger came along and baguette-ified everything, sandwiches in Newcastle were generally served in Stotties – flat, round bread buns unlike any other bread bun on Earth. Their size and shape make them highly conducive to stuffing with huge amounts of filling with minimum spillage. Amongst my pre-vegetarian Stottie favourites were chicken and sweetcorn; ham and pease pudding; chips and chilli sauce; tuna salad and egg and bacon rolls.

However, there is one sandwich filling that stands head and shoulders above the rest. It’s cheesy, it’s tangy, it’s crunchy, it’s very orange. It is Cheese Savoury and this is how you make it…

You Will Need:

• 250g of mature cheddar cheese
• A red onion
• 1 medium sized carrot
• Ranch dressing or Creamy Mayonnaise
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 box of tissues
• 1 pair of googly stick on eyes (optional)

Step 1: Grate cheese into a bowl. All of it. Use a proper grater - one that you can lose skin on; you need your cheese chunky.

Step 2: Grate the onion. Use tissues as required until eyesight returns. (Mint Custard endorses the 'Limited Edition' Wall-E tissues, still available from a well known purveyor of paper hankies who clearly overestimated how popular the movie would be amongst tissue users). Chuck grated onion in the bowl with cheese.

Step 3: Grate carrot. To make this more entertaining I applied googly eyes to the carrot. Whilst grating I made noises like Robert Shaw as he slid down the deck into the mouth of Jaws. This is optional. Place grated carrot in bowl. This is not optional.

Step 4: take a moment to remember your fallen carrot comrade.

Step 5: season your cheese, carrot and onion with salt and pepper. I'd go less salt than pepper.

Step 6: Add some ranch sauce. How much? Well, as all great minds know - moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty. So go ape...

Step 7: I know what you're thinking; he ate it already and then did a sick. Not so. Mix the contents of the bowl and you too will have a fresh batch of tasty luminous orange vomit-impersonating cheese savoury. Yum!

Step 8: the Serving Suggestion. For nostalgia's sake I have tried to replicate the joys of a Gregg's Cheese Savoury Salad sandwich. Sadly we have no Stotties in Melbourne so naturally I have resorted to cheap innuendo and plumped for a lovely pair of baps.

So there you have it - tangy, tasty Cheese Savoury. Stick it in the fridge and it should stand you in good stead for a few days. The 250g worth of cheese I pimped lasted all week, including another bap, two toasties (with fresh tomato) and a veggie burger. Fromagic.

Look for other tasty English Cooking recipes elsewhere on Mint Custard.

In Praise of John-anism

I’m just a victim of myself
There’s no abuse like self abuse they say
Abuse - The Aloof (Sinking 1996)

A warm, slightly clammy handshake of welcome back to our television screens to John Safran, whose new show Race Relations kicked off on the ABC on Wednesday.

The clamminess will be understandable to those who saw the first episode, in which Safran (a reluctant Jew) and his Palestinian soundman quite literally made contributions to world peace by sneaking into sperm banks on either side of the Middle East conflict in the hope of creating little ‘Jelistinians.’

Their filmed donations were the salty icing on the cake after 30 excruciating but mostly hilarious minutes of television in which Safran somehow engineered a situation whereby Australia’s largest public broadcaster paid him to steal and then sniff women’s dirty pants in the name of science. He also bagged a free flight to Africa just so he could find out if he was better looking than a Togolese man who pissed him off at parties.



The concept of Race Relations – challenging the idea of ‘stick to your own’ when it comes to relationships - was a bit loose as a premise and mostly played second fiddle to the acts of subterfuge and silliness, but this didn’t reduce their impact. The rapid-edit truncation of interviews with the soon-to-be underwear-deprived women who were clearly up for some Today Tonight-style self-promotion was pure joy. It was simple and childish but effectively highlighted Rove, Grimshaw, Coren et al’s shows for the pseudo-celeb suck-fests that they are.

There’s no doubt Safran is mining a similar vein to that of Sacha Baron Cohen but it’s refreshing and somewhat more engaging that he does so as himself and not hidden behind prosthetics and dodgy accents. It does leave him open to a higher degree of personal criticism (some reviews have been quick to dismiss the show as little more than ABC-funded undergraduate humour) but there’s no denying John Safran’s commitment to his craft or – given what we already know about future episodes – his dedication to self-abuse in all its forms. He may be a wanker – but he’s our wanker and he's damn good at it.

John Safran’s Race Relations is on ABC1 on Wednesday nights at 9.30pm