grumpyf1

You've got the idea now, right? By June, I was doing a few days of work here and there, but mostly still furloughed. As the lockdown started to unlock a bit, there was more opportunity to get out and about so... I mostly didn't. Sure, it was nice to be able to do so when I wanted to, but on my own? Yawwwwwwn. I'm not great company for myself. I did get a few long, solo, walks but being in a valley everything is up and I'm broadly exertion-averse, even though I really enjoy it when I'm out there. It's that initial motivation that's tricky. But you didn't come here to read about my intrinsic inability to go and do exercise did you? (Even if the prospect of getting a glimpse into the strange inner workings of my mind and understanding how I can enjoy something but not want to do it can simultaneously exist without my mind exploding is tantalizing.) So sit back, relax, and prepare to be mildly puzzle by what I read, watched and listened to in the month they...

Sunglasses when it's dark? Check. Rock God? Check. Brace yourselves, I’ve got some shocking news. My faith in humanity has been restored. In London. That’s a lot to process, isn’t it? First off, I can reassure you that I haven’t been kidnapped and a cheerier, equally dashing, doppelganger parachuted in to replace me. It’s fair to point out that this may also be a fleeting version of me, destined to have evaporated like the mist on a sunny morning by the time you read this. But hey – I’m in a happy place for the time being. All thanks to a trip to Wembley Stadium last Saturday to see Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra. I haven’t been there for 25 years... or ever, if you take into account the fact that it’s been replaced since I went to the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert in ’92. True, the day could have started better. As we approached Arnside station in the car, a train was rattling across the viaduct, accompanied by a dawning realisation that we’d got the departure t...

Theresa May has called a snap general election for June 8th. Please vote for me – I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear (it worked for Donald Trump). I’m a safe pair of hands, and will cut through the red tape and in-party bickering by running everything myself. I mean, how hard can it be? Sure, I’ll be busy, but there are quite a few jobs in government that seem pretty undefined a best. Lord Privy Seal? No idea. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster? Aren’t other towns allowed one? And what do they do anyway? Is it something to do with that song “Pass the Duchy?” The Grumpy Party will be a voice for the disenfranchised (once I’ve worked out what ‘disenfranchised’ actually means). I’ve got a great slogan already for the campaign: “Vote Grenville – Grumpy is terrific!”, or, if you’re pushed for space, you can abbreviate that to “Grenville – GIT”. Catchy, no? If that isn’t convincing enough, let’s move on to my policies, which I’ve hastily scribbled on a toilet roll I borrowed...

Good things come to those who wait. And I had to wait more that 30 years to catch a musical hero doing his thing live. Was it worth it? Some time in the early 1980s, me and a couple of friends had cycled into the slightly rough end of a nearby town, and were zipping around a block of garages in a high-speed game of “tag” – we didn’t have mobile phones then, so we had to find other ways of entertaining ourselves. Around a corner was a vandalised car. Some cassette tapes were scattered around on the ground, shiny-brown contents blowing around like synthetic grass, broken free of their cases by cruel stamping. One of them was pretty much intact, with just a few feet of tape flapping in the breeze. On it was a swirly logo consisting of three letters: ELO. I sort of knew ELO – I’d heard their late 70s stuff as I started getting interested in music. The album was “Time”, and – dexterous use of a screwdriver, Stanley knife and slivers of sticky tape later - I had a working cassette,...

Rock!  Loud, vibrant, visceral, finger-on-the-pulse stuff, performed by angry young people with several chip shops on their shoulder. Yeah! Apparently not... You know you’re no longer riding the wave of popular culture when you realise that some of your favourite new-fangled CDs are significantly older than family members attending university. That, and time spent styling what’s left of your hair before a night out takes less time than shaving your ears. Just me then? Oh. Moving swiftly on, I seem to remember that pop music was pretty slick, syncopated, brilliant stuff, performed by beautiful young people who were so achingly cool they probably slept in fridges (but don’t try that at home, kids.) For me, rock royalty and perfect pop bestrode the late 70s and early 80s in a heady blur of big hair, glossy MTV videos, enormous gigs and record sales that today’s acts can only dream about - when they aren’t autotuning themselves or trying to out-shock each other for another in...

I may be the wrong side of a decade behind the rest of the country, but the time has come for me to make a painfully difficult decision. Should I retire my record collection? In case there are any young personages reading an actual newspaper (which is pretty unlikely, when you think about it), firstly: Yo! Wassup? Fo’ shizzle! Innit. Secondly: A ‘record’ is a hard copy of an mp3, made out of fragile, easily damageable, black plasticky stuff, called ‘vinyl’. Considering they usually held a maximum of around 12 songs, they were ridiculously large, and needed a small diamond placed on their surface, whilst being rotated, to get the sound out. I know. Incredible, isn’t it? My record collection takes up the space of a fridge, but still contains less than 1500 songs. It’s also quite hard to take ELO’s epic ‘Out Of The Blue’ out with me when I go walking, not least because I don’t have an extension lead that long for the record player. Since the invention of the Compact Disc (itself...

For a long time now we’ve used the traditional rating method involving stars - One is bad, five is good. I’m a bit bored with that to be honest, so just in time for Christmas, I’m proposing we adopt a new, more entertaining, system. It’s true that we need some way of expressing our happiness using something that’s simple to understand, and the five star system has served us well (at least until the frightening lycra and spangly -bits band of the same name showed up in the late ‘80s). The problem is, it’s all a bit dull, and you never really know if someone is using more than the recommended five. Or less, maybe. Is the fact that your darling little tyke has got a gold star for that drawing of an orange starfish (or was it the sun?) good? Or was it out of five? The system is corrupt too – top hotels now claim to have six-star levels of plushness. Once again, I’ve felt the need to seek assistance from a wise nine-ish year old called Rebecca to come up with a universal system t...

Hold on tight! This week sees the return of a man who is definitely a musical genius with a capital G. Don’t walk away – it isn’t strange magic... Jeff Lynne is back! Yes, the be-afro-ed one with the shades who bestrode the 70’s with orchestral rock of the highest calibre did apparently not turn to stone, or purchase a ticket to the moon, for this week sees the release of not one, but two albums, all over the world. Considering it’s 22 years since the ELO frontman/writer/guitarist/everything else too’s last solo outing, it’s true that this could cause some confusion. For a man heading into the twilight of his career, it’s an ambitious outing – “Long Wave” is an album of covers of songs from his youth, whilst “Mr Blue Sky” is a best-of... but re-recorded entirely by his Jeffness as - get this! – he wasn’t happy with the original versions. Don’t bring me down, Jeff – they were awesome. But I guess that’s the way life’s meant to be. If he wants the world to know “I’m alive”...