I've just been listening to this week's Word magazine podcast while doing my ironing (there's a slice of my rock 'n' roll lifestyle for you, right there), they were talking about Mick Jones, of The Clash, and his collection of late 20th Century popular culture that's just gone on display. You can gawp at it here.
Do we really need all of that stuff? At first I thought it'd be fantastic, but surely the whole weight of it would gradually drag you down. I occasionally have purges of my 'stuff' whenever a charity bag comes round. Only the cream of the crop make it through the cut.
I always fancy that one day I may find myself interviewed for some weighty programme where they'll want to interview me in front of a bookcase. I don't know about you but I always look at the books on those kind of interviews. Politicians appear in front of heavyweight biogs about Clement Atlee or Anthony Eden while boring old duffers will plonk themselves in front of a book by Max Hastings or about the siege of Leningrad. Do you think those books have actually been read? I know if it was me I'd put the books I was most proud of reading in the eyeline of the camera. A bit of DH Lawrence here, some Dickens there, Hardy over there, a bit of Orwell to mix the whole thing up. The last thing I want is for someone to look at me on telly and say "Hmm, he reads too much James May, Tim Moore and David Nobbs. And just look at all those Viz annuals and Commando comic compendiums."
Which I suppose also throws up the question of whether you sort your records out for public display. I don't give a toss anymore, let people see my Moby and Yes albums nestling alongside Holst's Planets and OK Computer.
While I'm on, I no fan whatsoever of either Tony Christie or Richard Hawley, but it has to be said that their new collaborative single, Every Word She Said is a rollicking pop number. I can't find a link to it, but listen out for it.
Do we really need all of that stuff? At first I thought it'd be fantastic, but surely the whole weight of it would gradually drag you down. I occasionally have purges of my 'stuff' whenever a charity bag comes round. Only the cream of the crop make it through the cut.
I always fancy that one day I may find myself interviewed for some weighty programme where they'll want to interview me in front of a bookcase. I don't know about you but I always look at the books on those kind of interviews. Politicians appear in front of heavyweight biogs about Clement Atlee or Anthony Eden while boring old duffers will plonk themselves in front of a book by Max Hastings or about the siege of Leningrad. Do you think those books have actually been read? I know if it was me I'd put the books I was most proud of reading in the eyeline of the camera. A bit of DH Lawrence here, some Dickens there, Hardy over there, a bit of Orwell to mix the whole thing up. The last thing I want is for someone to look at me on telly and say "Hmm, he reads too much James May, Tim Moore and David Nobbs. And just look at all those Viz annuals and Commando comic compendiums."
Which I suppose also throws up the question of whether you sort your records out for public display. I don't give a toss anymore, let people see my Moby and Yes albums nestling alongside Holst's Planets and OK Computer.
While I'm on, I no fan whatsoever of either Tony Christie or Richard Hawley, but it has to be said that their new collaborative single, Every Word She Said is a rollicking pop number. I can't find a link to it, but listen out for it.
