Concrete Island Discs (or, The Safety Zone)

In which The Author is making a list and checking it twice

In order to set the scene here, I need to take you back to 1974. In that year, J. G. Ballard's novel Concrete Island was published, giving me the inspiration for today's title.

It's the terrifying story of a motorist somewhere near London, whose car ends up some distance from the tarmac after a near-collision. Our hero lies in the bushes on the hard shoulder, with high-speed traffic shooting past on both sides. He's badly injured and waiting for help to arrive.

But help doesn't arrive.

After some time, our hero realises that he isn't alone. The 'concrete island' of the title is home to several other people who have got there in similar circumstances. With no hope of rescue, they've resigned themselves to living off roadkill and making shanties out of the rusting vehicles which litter the place. It's a typically bleak Ballard vision of mankind's defeat at the hands of technology. I probably wouldn't lend it to someone who enjoys Catherine Cookson, put it that way.

Another strand which has contributed to this entry is Radio 4's music and interview show Desert Island Discs, created in 1942 by its first presenter, Roy Plomley. It's a simple enough premise: each 'castaway' is invited to choose eight pieces of music which they couldn't live without if they were washed up on a desert island. (Or, as Kenneth Horne once put it, '… our only companions eight dreary gramophone records and an inexhaustible supply of Roy Plomley'.) They talk about their lives, and explain why the music would remind them of key people and events. They're also asked to choose a book and a luxury – and, finally, to select the one record they'd save from the waves.

Currently presented by Kirsty Young, Desert Island Discs is always an entertaining listen, regardless of whether or not you know anything about the castaway. If the guest is someone whose work you admire, it's a revealing insight into what makes him or her tick. I think I'm right in saying that almost the entire archive is available at the BBC website. Why not check it out for yourself? (Having said that, DRM and IP issues mean that you don't actually get to hear the music. It seems a bit like being invited to someone's house for dinner, and then being banished from the table for the main course.)

Anyway, on Xmas morning the castaway was Gareth Malone, choirmaster-turned-broadcaster and all-round good egg. I hadn't known he was the guest, as I hadn't looked at the radio listings, but I knew of Mr Malone's work getting Britain singing, so I stayed tuned.

And I found myself punching the air. I'll quote a couple of brief extracts. (I've downloaded the podcast, so I've transcribed them from that.)

KIRSTY YOUNG: This is a time of year, at Xmas time, when most people might be singing for the one and only time of the year, whether it's at school, or whether they go to a midnight service—

GARETH MALONE: I feel so sorry for those people.

KY: Do you?

GM: Yes, because people who limit their singing because of an idea of not being good enough … If you only get the car out of the garage once a year it's not going to do well; if you don't spin your hard drive often enough it's gonna crash. So you need to use the instrument, you need to know to breathe properly. Actually, we instinctively know how to make a noise – if there's a fire, you know how to shout 'fire', you know how to do it loudly enough to be heard, and singing is part of that, part of that very visceral communication. It's not something to fear, it's something to embrace … Fundamentally, I'm passionate about music and I'm about passionate about encouraging other people to be passionate about music.

KY: Samuel Barber's 'Agnes Dei' … was the piece you chose to introduce to a bunch of – I mean, to call them novices is overstating the case, these were people who'd never picked up a song sheet in their lives before, and you decided in one of your television programmes— Just to be clear, it's a six-minute piece of choral music with eight-part harmonies and it's in Latin.

GM: Yeah, yeah.

KY: Why did you do that?

GM: Because I think if you always do something that's safe and easy, I think people smell that. Y'know, if you say, 'Right, we're gonna do this thing, it might not be possible, it might be dangerous, it might be exciting,' I think there's a real imperative that people want to be involved …

The reason I became so excited when Mr Malone said these things is that he'd totally summed up my approach to karaoke. I do it purely because I enjoy it, and not because I'm ever going to try out for a Reality TV show. My friends Keith and Danelle do the same thing in the Lighthouse; so does Deano, who comes to the Cambrian on Friday nights; so do a fair number of the girls (and a few of the guys) who've turned up in the pubs since the first Black Friday this year and had a knock.

On the other hand, a fair number of my friends do take it incredibly seriously. If you watch Phillip, Clare, Chazza, or Tina and Bethan (mother and daughter neighbours of mine) strutting their stuff, you'd swear that, instead of facing a bunch of pissheads who can't work out why the jukebox has been switched off, they're staking their reputations in front of Messrs Cowell, Walsh et al.

Phillip has his handful of Elvis classics and one or two more recent songs. He certainly has the voice for it; unfortunately, his learning disability means that most of the time he's just singing his own idea of the words. (It's happened to us all, of course. Several times, I've attempted something which I thought I knew reasonably well, only to find that – according to the on-screen lyrics, anyway – I'd been singing a mondegreen for years.) Half the time, though, it just sounds as if Philvis has had one over the eight, like most pissed 'pub singers' who haunt the Valleys at weekends.

Clare also has a cracking voice, but seems to do the exact opposite from her brother. Even though she's been singing 'Cool Rider' (from Grease 2) for as long as I've known her, she continues to read from the screen as though she's coming to the material for the first time.

In fact, a few of the older guys commented on this last week, so I challenged her about it. While I don't have any acting or performing experience myself, I spent enough time sitting in on YES rehearsals to know some of the basic techniques required for stage work.

The next time we got together, I told Clare to face the audience and not the laptop, and only glance at the words if she needed a prompt. As I reminded her, if she's on stage in Merthyr College in the middle of a show, she won't have the lyrics available. The difference was obvious – not only did she look more confident, but she sounded much more polished as well. Instead of being hunched over a laptop, cuddling her mic, she was standing upright and belting out the words. A few other people remarked on the transformation, too.

On Tuesday night, my folk-rock friends Parcel of Rogues were doing a gig in the Cambrian. At one point they played 'Proud Mary', another of Clare's tried and trusted songs. I texted her and told her they should jam it at the Open Mic some time soon.

She texted back and said, 'Might do.'

I replied, 'It's time to lose the water wings, honey, you can manage the deep end now.'

In reality, of course, two or three pretty competent songs – plus backing vocals on a couple of Elvis songs, and a duet with me (in character) on 'Fairytale of New York' – isn't even the deep water. To alter the metaphor slightly, Clare's happy to hold hands with bigger boys who want her to start paddling properly, but constantly runs back to the beach whenever a big wave comes along.

The same is true for most of the gang who come to the Lighthouse on Thursdays, in fact. The vast majority already have their 'set list' in both senses of the term: it's not only a list of their set; it's also set in stone. Tina does her Cilla Black and Shirley Bassey standards; Bethan and Chazz do their modern pop stuff; Huntley does his Lionel Richie ballads … There are only a handful of us, like me and a couple of younger lads – both named Joe, oddly enough – who ever go off-piste and try something in the true spirit of the amateur game.

For example, when David Bowie died in January, I sang only four songs in the next karaoke: 'Changes', 'Ziggy Stardust', 'Heroes' and 'Modern Love'. I hadn't rehearsed any of them. I knew I could make a reasonable attempt at 'Ziggy Stardust', because I've jammed it a couple of times with guitarist friends. The other three were pretty much 'play it by ear and see what happens'. My usual material went on to the back burner for the night.

I did the same on Boxing Day (the day after George Michael passed away). I threw everything out in favour of 'Faith' and 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go'.

Maybe it's something to do with the fact that the two Joes and I imbibed the Spirit of Punk very deeply, even if we never got into the music. Or maybe it's to do with the fact that we know we're never going to appear on TV – or even on the Coliseum stage – and so we haven't got anything to prove to anyone.

As well as those regulars who stay within the Safety Zone, we have guys like Adrian T., Martin, and Anthony S., who are actually already working the pub and club circuit. However, none of them play an instrument. Thirty years ago, when I first became a spectator, they'd have been been sitting on the bench beside me. They'd never have been able to get a booking in those days, regardless of how talented they are, because the backing tapes and portable equipment simply weren't available.

When they come along on a Thursday or Friday night, they're basically professionals playing the amateur game. Perhaps unkindly – and I know Adrian disagrees with my assessment of what they do – I call this sort of thing 'Professional Karaoke'. After all, you're just singing other people's songs over a backing track put together by a third party (usually a commercial company), and thus you're totally constrained by the limited nature of the beast. At least if you're playing a guitar or (more rarely) a keyboard, you have the flexibility to play about with the timing, or repeat a chorus, or add a little bit to the middle eight, or whatever takes your fancy. When you're at the mercy of the machines, they call the shots from start to finish.

And when you're not at the mercy of the machines, you're at the mercy of the audience who are scared of hearing anything outside the Great Valleys Songbook.

As a matter of fact, there are three editions of the Great Valleys Songbook currently in print: one for bands (in the black cover), and one each for male singers (blue cover) and female singers (pink cover). Like those loose-leaf legal textbooks we occasionally had to decline to order for customers, they take the form of 'continuous product'. This means that about four times a year the list gets updated to take account of the latest hits from the Simon Cowell and/or Diane Warren production lines.

If anyone dares to stray outside the narrow guidelines of the Great Valleys Songbook, they can look forward to being paid off and never booked again in that venue. In fact, the sheer predictability of the menu inspired me to create a game called Bar Band Bingo, which we used to play live on Dapper FM, our community radio station. I'd be in the pub on a Sunday evening, texting the latest cover version from the on-stage 'entertainment' to my mates in the studio, along with the number which I'd allocated to each song in my definitive list. The lads would read out the numbers, and it became a jolly jape to play each week.

Then I wondered if it would be possible to do it with Professional Karaoke as well, as I outlined in House Music.

In fact, on 1 August 2015, I took my notebook in one hand, my pen in the other, and my courage in both, and spent a fair chunk of the evening in the Lighthouse, road-testing the idea for myself. I've no idea who the bint in question was – simply that she was using the latest edition of the Pink Book. Transcribed verbatim, here are the results of that first (failed) experiment:

SNDCHK: Don't Stop fucking Believing
I COULDA LIVED THE REST OF MY LIFE WITHOUT EVER HEARING THIS SONG AGAIN IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR YOU FUCKING KIDS!

1 I'M ALIVE (not the Hollies – some 20th century shit)

2 BE MY BABY

3 Even after she's introduced it I'm still none the wiser!
ALESSANDRO – LADY GAGA (eventually!)

4 VALERIE ACTUALLY BY The Zutons!

5 WTF? SOME MODERN SHITE I'VE NEVER HEARD BEFORE

6 MAMMA MIA – souped-up ABBA cover

POOR BINT DOESN'T KNOW NO ONE'S LISTENING

7 Even though she introduced it I'm still none the wiser. Some recent chart shit.

8 BUILD ME UP BUTTERCUP

9 STARFISH – NICKI MINGE

10 POKER FACE

11 HERO (M. CAREY)

INTERLUDE

12 SUMMER OF 69

13 NO IDEA!

14 PROUD MARY

15 SEX ON FUCKING FIRE

16 SOME MORE MODERN SHITE

17 MAN! I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN

18 TOTALLY LOST TRACK NOW

19 DA DOO RON RON

20 HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH

21 FUCKING KIDS [presumably the aforementioned Journey song]

At which point I went on a journey of my own – possibly to the Glosters.

As you can tell, for the experiment to succeed I would have needed someone like Chazza or Clare simply to fill in the blanks. I abandoned the idea as 'Good in theory, but needs further refinement', and never went back to it.

However, on Xmas Eve Clare and Philvis dragged me up to the Bonki on the grounds that there was 'a guitarist' there. It sounded promising. We caught the last bus from Aberdare, got there at about 7.15, and staked out a table at the far end. The 'guitarist' in question arrived about an hour later, set up his gear, and did a quick soundcheck before launching into his set. As before, I decided to make notes:

1 REM – Losing my Religion

2 Rod Stewart – Maggie May

3 Oliver's Army

4 Suspicious Bloody Minds

5 American Pie

Although, as no self-respecting music fan will be surprised to learn, he only played the first part of 'American Pie'. That's because this 'guitarist' was using backing tracks and a drum machine.

It meant that his set was precisely as constrained and inflexible as the sets performed by Professional Karaoke singers in pubs and clubs the length and breadth of the country. With no possibility of stepping outside this very limited field of play, he was just as robotic and uninspired as the rest of the weekend entertainers whom landlords insist on inflicting on their customers. In fact, I'd go as far as describing his set as Professional Guitar Hero – only with a real instrument, not some toy lookalike.

You'll be shocked to learn that, five songs in, we made our excuses and left.

And that's the standard of 'live entertainment' we can expect in most places at the arse-end of 2016, it seems. Even many musicians I know rarely stray from the Great Valleys Songbook (black cover) – the Spectrums and Parcel of Rogues are notable exceptions. Everybody else, it seems, is trousering good money for simply pretending to be a jukebox with a very limited database.

So, with all this in mind, I've compiled the first edition of my Concrete Island Discs – all the records which deserve to be chucked into the bushes at the side of a busy road, never to be heard again by man or beast. It's an incomplete list, because companies are releasing new shit every week, but as a rule of thumb, if your act includes at least one of them, you can expect to see me pull my own vanishing act within the first few bars. Have fun working out a set list without any of these …

• 'A Thousand Trees'
• 'Local Boy in the Photograph'
• 'More Life in a Tramp's Vest'
• 'Don't Stop Believing'
• 'Sweet Child o' Mine'
• 'Someone Like You'
• 'Quando Quando Quando'
• Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?'
• The entire Oasis backlist except for 'Don't Look Back in Anger'
• All of AC/DC's recorded output
• 'Proud Mary'
• 'Sax' by Fleur East
• 'Sweet Home Alabama'
• 'Freebird'
• 'Sweet Caroline'
• 'Chasing Cars'
• 'Run'
• 'Sex on Fire'
• 'Human'
• 'Mr Brightside'
• 'Hotel California'
• 'Simply the Best'
• 'Penny Arcade'
• 'American Trilogy'
• 'Crazy Train'
• 'Sledgehammer'
• 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody'
• 'All I Want for Xmas Is You'
• 'Uptown Funk'
• 'Dance With My Father'
• Everything involving Paul Carrack apart from his Roxy Music input

To be continued …

The Incredible Vanishing Girl 2

In which the critic and broadcaster Barry Normal sees
the worst film of the century so far

Back in 2009, at just about this time of year, my so-called 'relationship' with a girl named Jenny was on very thin ice.

We'd met on my birthday, which I share with my good friend Hannah W. I'd been in Cardiff to see a film, and didn't get back to Aberdare until fairly late in the evening. Jenny was in the pub with Hannah when I got there; we started chatting, and found that we had a fair amount in common. She was tall, red-haired, very attractive, intelligent, well-read, a bit kinky (apparently), and totally my type.

She also turned out to be a pathological liar, as I found out over the next nine months or so. After a grand total of four dates and countless lame excuses for standing me up without any warning, I decided right at the start of 2010 that she was history. I was in the pub with an old friend (female) who was also being given the runaround by a guy she was keen on. Jenny texted me while we were discussing our respective situations, asking if I was around. I didn't even waste 10p on texting her back. Instead, I stayed out with my friend, had a few more beers, then went home and wrote New Year, New Start.

I knew Jenny read my blog, because she'd left a couple of comments on previous entries, so I thought I'd extend Paul Simon's idea into the new millennium. As we techies know, there are now at least 55 Ways to Leave Your Lover; the full list includes texting, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Snapchat. Some of the rhymes are a bit forced, but my rewritten version is taking shape slowly.

Amazingly, seven years on from the disastrous original, Discordian Productions have released a sequel – or possibly a reboot, as the studios call them these days. My good friend Barry Normal went to an exclusive preview screening yesterday, and I asked him to write a guest review for this very blog. Here it is:

The Incredible Vanishing Girl 2 is a surreal postmodern rom-com with elements of science fiction, and – like the first outing – somehow manages to deliver much less than the sum of its parts.

It's a strange, complicated, baffling and bizarre rehash of the original story, taking some of the unresolved plot points to new heights of absurdity. The setting remains the same: a small town in the South Wales Valleys, populated by many of the characters who feature in the original. The basic premise is unchanged, too: a single guy in his forties meets a much younger bisexual girl in a pub, and ‒ despite the age difference – they strike up a friendship which could potentially turn into something more serious. The heroine's family background is one of the comic elements on which the story pivots: a broken marriage, adoption, an extended network of stepbrothers and stepsisters – all the standard features of the nuclear family meltdown.

From this straightforward beginning, the 'story' (which seems to have been scribbled on the back of a beermat after a particularly taxing all-day session) degenerates into an unnecessarily complicated knockabout farce.

The heroine meets another girl, and they shack up together. Soon after that, she discovers her girlfriend in bed with a man, and moves out. The hero becomes her sounding board and shoulder to cry on, and everyone expects things to develop between them. They spend a fair bit of time together in the ensuing weeks. He buys her drinks and treats her to a meal now and again, wondering how he's ever going to make his move.

However, just as in the original, disaster strikes. One evening, in the pub for karaoke, she drinks a mysterious cocktail which has an unexpected side-effect: at random intervals, she vanishes from the face of the earth without any prior warning and takes several days to reappear. These inexplicable disappearances are accompanied by a short-range electromagnetic pulse, which fries her phone and renders her totally incommunicado until she can sort out a replacement.

In the meantime, the hero meets another young girl, and they start spending a lot of time together. Many people in the town assume that they are an item, even though she tells him they'll only ever be friends.

By now the heroine has met a guy, and spends all her time on Facebook posting about how loved up she is, and how she can't wait to see him, and all that romantic crap that girls put online to make their 'friends' feel jealous.

But under the surface, all is not well. Her sudden disappearances have added to her mental instability, as nothing in her life is ever straightforward from this point on. She can't decide whether she wants to stay with him, or leave him for someone else. She wants to have a baby with him, but she also wants a new girlfriend. Her friends are starting to lose patience with her, and everyone tells the hero that he's wasting his time with her.

One night, after several beers have lowered her inhibitions, she tells the hero that if she wasn't already involved with someone she'd 'totally fuck him'.

That unexpected revelation comes as a shock to the hero, who has begun to despair of her by now. When he alludes to it a couple of days later, she tells him she was serious, and that she's thinking of leaving her boyfriend. He makes light of it, but secretly wonders if he'll finally get the chance to make a play for her.

After her next disappearance, things have changed again. The heroine tells the hero that they're 'just mates', and that things are back on track with her boyfriend. At the same time, the other girl warns him that the heroine is just using him. (Ironically, the heroine gives him the same warning about the other girl the next time she reappears.)

At this point, I was as confused as the rest of the audience. A fair number of people had already walked out, totally baffled by the haphazard plot, inconsistent and sloppy script, and the huge number of walk-on characters who play no part in the narrative, but merely serve to distract the heroine from her own storyline.

The film ends on a tragi-comic note. Shortly before Christmas, the hero gets a text from the heroine, asking if he'll help her with present shopping. They meet for coffee, plan out the day, and she tells him that it might soon be over with her boyfriend. Apparently she can see the warning signs, and fears that she's going to be dumped over the holidays. Almost in the next breath, she tells him she might be pregnant.

By now, the remaining audience were hooting with derision. This latest twist in an already unbelievable storyline was simply too much to bear.

The two of them go shopping, retreat to the pub to wrap the presents, and then decide to have something to eat. She catches the bus home to drop all her stuff off, and promises to meet him as soon as she's changed and sorted her hair out.

At which point she vanishes for the final time. He texts her in vain for the next couple of hours, realises she's gone for good this time, and goes home.

The closing credits are accompanied by the Beatles' hit 'Hello Goodbye', which seems a strange choice in the circumstances. Personally, I think the producers missed a trick by not using Soft Cell's 'Say Hello Wave Goodbye'.

There's a teasing tag sequence at the very end of the movie, too. About a week into the new year, he receives a text from an unknown number asking if he fancies going to the pub. I really hope that this potential sequel isn't given the green light, for everyone's sake.

If there's been a bigger Xmas turkey released in the last decade, it's passed me by. I'll give it 1 out of 10 for sheer audacity, simply because I can't award it a zero rating.

Rule Number One

In which The Author learns a new karaoke song

On Friday night I put a status on Facebook, saying that I wouldn't be online very often before New Year. It's partly true: I don't have Internet access at home; Aberdare Library will be closed for at least four days over Xmas and two over the New Year break; the Cloud is hit-and-miss in the pubs; my free gigabyte of mobile data is still going strong, but the signal in my house makes it pretty much redundant anyway.

I also said that I wouldn't be texting anyone for the rest of December, because I'd spent enough topping up my bloody phone this month. That was a blatant lie, aimed at Chazza in particular. In fact, I've still got a substantial proportion of my three thousand free texts to use before New Year's Day.

The truth is that I'm frankly fucking sick and tired of Chazza's blowing hot and cold in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol in her system. I won't import any more content from my secret blog, but I will quote one long extract and two shorter ones from an entry I wrote ten days ago.

Soon after that [on a Thursday evening], Chazza walked in with a huge smile on her face, waving a piece of orange paper for all to see. It turned out to be her employment contract with KFC in Cardiff, starting this week. I bought her a drink by way of congratulations, and the four of us chatted by the bar for a while. When it started to fill up, we went to sit by the jukebox. Phillip and Clare didn't join us, because one of their friends was already there with her chavvy boyfriend. I don't like either of them, so we decided to grab a small table and have a catch-up instead.

One of the chav's mates started hassling Chazza when she was by the bar, and she told him she already had a boyfriend. Needless to say, the fuckwit thought she meant me, and the situation started to deteriorate as the evening wore on. I wasn't in any fit state to sing anyway, as I've had a stinking cold for weeks. The atmosphere was quite unpleasant, so we baled out en masse at about 9.30 and headed for the relative sanity of the Prince.

Clare was ensconced with Gareth the DJ, so we didn't want to cramp their style. Instead, we parked ourselves at the bar and chatted to Ross [an old mate of mine from the Carpenters days who'd turned out to be Chazza's uncle] for a while. He was pleased to hear of Chazza's new job as well, and the drink was flowing quite freely by this stage.

Bear in mind that – apart from some very light flirtation – I'd never even been tempted to make a move on her. I'm not into stealing other people's girlfriends. So you can imagine my surprise when she leaned over and whispered, 'If I wasn't seeing Paul, I'd totally fuck you.'

It's a wonder I'm not on a diet of soup and energy drinks at the moment, because my jaw hit the floor with considerable momentum. I glanced over her shoulder to see if Ross had heard, but he was engrossed in his music.

I didn't say anything straight away, because I thought it was probably the drink talking. It still came totally out of left field, though.

After Chazza went home, I was still reeling from that bombshell. I didn't tell anyone else what had happened, though. It was almost beyond belief anyway.

On Friday night I was in the Cambrian when Clare messaged me to say she was in the Fforchneol (known locally as 'the Bonki'). It's a big old pub halfway to Stereophonicsland Cwmaman, which I've never been keen on. Gareth does the karaoke there on Fridays, which is why Clare no longer comes to the Cambrian. She and Phillip had had a bit of a falling-out, so he was on his way to town. She wanted to know he'd have a bit of company, so she was checking I was there.

Before he came in, Jenny the barbint asked me where the rest of the gang were. I told her Phillip was on his way and Clare was in the Bonki. Jenny seemed a bit surprised, because (like a lot of people) she'd assumed that Clare and I were an item. I disabused her of that notion, and then told her what Chazza had said the night before. She was almost as thunderstruck as I'd been.

Phillip came in soon after, and joined me in the corner. We hadn't been there long when Chazza came in with a chap she's known since school, and joined us at our table. When Jocelyn [the karaoke hostess] asked me if I wanted to sing, I initially said 'no'; this bloody cold still hadn't shifted, so I didn't feel up to it. However, they twisted my arm, so I decided to give it a go. Bearing in mind that Chazza was moving to Cardiff, I decided that 'We Got to Get Out of This Place' would be the perfect song for the occasion. Naturally, when I got to 'Girl, you're so young and pretty', I gave her a wink, and she blushed.

She and her friend went walkabout after one pint, and I didn't stay long after Phillip went home. It had been a long couple of weeks.

I was in the Glosters having a glass of Coke on Saturday afternoon, and texted Chazza that I'd miss her once she left town. She texted back, saying that it was a really nice thing to say, and asked me if I was in town. Then she rang me, sounding very hung-over, and said she was on her way up to Aberdare. She was catching the 3.50 train, but had an hour or so to kill. I suggested going for a late lunch, so we repaired to Servini's and sat at the back while she recovered slowly from a very heavy night. I said I knew how she felt, because I'd been none too clever on Friday morning.

'Oh yeah, we both had a few,' she laughed. 'And I still remember most of it.'

'Even a rather random comment at the bar?'

'With my uncle standing right behind me!' She blushed again, and then looked at me. 'I meant it, though.'

I’ve got to go to Cardiff before Xmas anyway, so we can catch up soon. But I’m still feeling a bit fazed by the whole thing. If she goes through with her plan to kick Paul into touch after her birthday, I might leave it ‘a decent interval’ (as they used to say) and then play my hand. At least this time, I know I stand a decent chance that my notional bank balance will stay the same.

PS I hadn’t even had chance to post his before Chazza texted me asking if I could meet her today (Thursday). She didn’t say too much, but she seems to think it’s over between her and Paul. I replied as soon as my phone came back to life, to say I was sorry and offering to treat her to Curry Club in Thereisnospoon this evening.

I must admit that I did a mini fist-pump as well, mind. Watch this space.

Well, she might have meant it with a hangover on a Saturday afternoon, but things definitely changed during the week. Entirely without my permission, I'm going to quote a full entry from my other blog, written last Friday, to fill in the background here.

Yesterday afternoon, Clare told me that Chazza had changed her status to 'single' on Facebook, and shared a recent song which apparently girls only sing when they've been dumped. (I was none the wiser, of course.) Then she posted a status asking if anyone could give her a lift from Penarth to Aberdare. The plot was thickening.

There were no fewer than four karaoke events in Aberdare last night: the regular two at the Lighthouse and the Bush, plus one-offs in the Cambrian and the Prince. Clare and I decided to check them out in turn, and I texted Chazza every time we moved from one to the other. I didn't get a reply, so while we were walking to the Cambrian I tried ringing her. It rang for ages, and then I got a recorded message saying that the person was unavailable to take my call.

Anyway, Phillip had joined us by this stage, so we decided to return to the Prince. Clare had the bright idea of walking past the Bush first.

'I bet she's in there with some random boy,' she said (a little ironically, in my opinion).

So she had a peek through the window. The place was full of the usual suspects, so there was no way I was going to cross the threshold anyway. But (unless she was in the ladies') there was no sign of Chazza. I didn't bother texting her again.

This afternoon Clare told me Chazza had put a status up earlier on. She had a new phone number, and was asking people to message her their numbers. I messaged her to ask if she was OK, told her I was getting concerned, and added my number at the end.

That was about two hours ago. Since then I haven't heard a word.

At least I know why Cash Generator is always full of smartphones, though. Young girls must go through them at the rate of at least one every two months, if they have to change numbers every time they get their hearts broken by some immature commitment-phobic playa.

Clare asked me a few weeks ago why I don't watch soaps or Reality TV. I said, 'With you and people like Chazza in my life, I don't fucking need to! Your lives are fucked up enough for anyone's entertainment.'

I really wish I could share a meme I shared on Facebook about a week ago, but it's fucking impossible to find it again. (Note to Mark Zuckerberg: Sort your shit out!) The gist of it, though, was this. Boys text and say, 'Wanna chill?' Men text and say, 'Are you free any time this week? I'd like to buy you lunch.'

Go figure …

Anyway, last Sunday night the Spectrums were playing their last local gig of the year in the Cambrian. Andrew L., the keyboard player, was in school with my brother, so I've known him for over thirty years. Together with his son (who plays bass) and a crew of talented younger guys, Andrew is finally playing the music he's always wanted to play – the post-Punk, New Wave and Electropop music he grew up listening to. It's stuff I love, too, so I made a beeline for the front of the room. Phillip joined me; Jazz and Tommy Sticks came in a bit later; and then Anna E. came in with her 'gentleman friend', having driven down from Swansea for the gig. She didn't seem to be in a very good mood, especially when I told her I was keeping a seat for Chazza.

The girl herself was making her way up from Cardiff by train, so I wasn't expecting her until about 8.45. She'd drawn the short straw – working a Sunday, when the trains run every two hours, and missing the earlier one by a few minutes. Understandably, she wasn't very cheerful either; she was still in her work uniform (but with a change of clothes in her bag) and wasn't wearing any make-up. I bought her a pint, introduced her to the rest of the gang, and we settled down to watch the band.

Except that Chazza didn't settle down. She finished her drink and asked me if we could go somewhere else, because she wanted to talk to me. We headed to the Prince, grabbed our usual table by the fruit machine, and she told me that things weren't working out as she'd hoped they would. She'd decided that she didn't want to stay with her boyfriend. In addition, her new job had turned out to be a zero hours contract, and the couple of hours she'd worked that week had barely covered her train fare.

She was totally skint, and hadn't eaten over the weekend. I subbed her a couple of quid just so she could to get to work. In the meantime her phone kept ringing, and she kept rejecting the call. On the fourth attempt, she showed me the caller ID. Needless to say, it was Paul. We had a pint, and I bought her something to eat from the fast food place opposite.

While we were in there, though, something very strange happened. While we walked up Boot Lane, we must have gone through the Rift and ended up about two hundred miles to the east. Instead of talking in her normal voice, Chazza was suddenly possessed by the spirit of some Urban Yoof from Sarf London. She kept calling the guy behind the counter 'bro', and 'blood', and stuff like that. I was starting to think that she'd found her way into auditions for another sequel of KiDULTHOOD, and I found the whole performance a bit embarrassing.

In fact, I was quite relieved when Paul phoned her yet again, and she decided she'd better have it out with him. I made my excuses and left, grabbing another pint in the Prince before returning to the Cambrian in time to catch the end of the lads' set. I was making my way from the bar when Anna confronted me. It seemed that an evening of musical nostalgia and old friends had done nothing to lighten her mood. Our brief conversation went like this.

'Was that the girl you were waiting for?' she demanded.

'Yeah.'

'She's young!'

'I know.'

'She's fat!'

'She's a bit chunky.'

'She's ugly!'

'Fuck you!'

And then I got into an argument with Karen, to round the night off perfectly. She wanted to go to the Bush for a late one; I said I'd rather castrate myself with a rusty Stanley knife. So I made my excuses and left again.

I kept my phone on when I went to bed, as I had a funny feeling I was going to get a call. And, sure enough, at about 1.30 Chazza phoned me. She was still upset with the way her life had turned upside down, and wanted a shoulder to cry on. I told her what Anna had said, and how pissed off I'd been. I know Anna and I have been friends since we did our A levels, but that doesn't give her the right to slag off my friends – especially when she's only known Chazza for five minutes.

Anyway, on Monday morning Chazza texted me, wanting to know if I was around town. I was in the library, doing some work on the Plaid Cymru blog, so I offered to meet her for lunch. She also asked me to remind her what Anna had said the night before. I relayed the conversation again, and she thanked me for defending her. Then she totally contradicted herself by saying 'We're just mates!'

We had lunch anyway, and Chazza told me how conflicted she was with the whole Paul situation. She told me that she wants a baby, but he isn't keen on the idea. I told her she's got plenty of time to worry about that. For the time being, she'd be better off concentrating on her music and trying to break into the circuit. For fucks's sake, she can't even decide whether she wants a boyfriend or a girlfriend. In fact, I suspect that – like many young people I know in Aberdare – she's simply addicted to sex, and it doesn't matter a jot who she's doing it with. However, to judge from her rather strange text earlier that day, she won't be doing it with me any time soon.

She also asked me why Clare and I were spending so much time together. I told her that we get on well, we make each other laugh, and she's good company when we go away for a day.

'After all, it gets her away from her brother for a while, and gives her a bit of intelligent conversation as well,' I said. (Believe me, intelligent conversation can be very hard to find in the Valleys.)

'She's just using you,' Chazza said. 'I don't want to see you getting hurt.'

'Not going to happen', I reminded her. 'You can't break someone's heart when it's still in pieces. I haven't even found all the pieces yet, never mind started sticking them all together again.'

We finished up and I walked her over to the station, then headed back to the library to finish what I'd been doing. Needless to say, Clare came in shortly afterwards and dragged me to Performance and Cock-ups. While we were waiting for Gareth to set his gear up, I told her about the events of the previous night, and the rather odd turn the conversation had taken over lunch.

'She's just using you,' Clare said.

Fax from Miss Pot for the attention of Miss Kettle? You decide …

And that's brought you pretty much up to date. Pretty much.

Except that on Friday afternoon Chazza texted me to ask if I'd be out for the Cambrian karaoke. I told her that I was Xmas shopping in Bristol (which Clare and I'd been planning to do anyway), so I wouldn't be back in Aberdare until just before midnight.

Now, the beauty of a mobile phone – especially if you haven't enabled Facebook Check-in or Twitter Locations – is that you can be absolutely anywhere within reason. In reality I was in the Glosters, having a quiet pint before Black Friday really got under way. But my virtual stroll through Cabot Circus and the old quarter was a totally believable diversion.

In the early evening, I joined Phillip for karaoke (Clare, naturally, has made the Bonki her new weekend home), so we were chatting before Jocelyn set her gear up. I told him I'd lied to Chazza, and said I probably wouldn't be sticking around. At about 6.00 the jukebox kicked into Default Mode, blasting out the sort of Thrash Metal I used to listen to when I called to Bogiez for my Saturday evening after-work pint. It was fun twenty years ago, but the genre seems to have stalled there. We made our excuses and left – Phillip to the Lighthouse, and me to the Prince.

Of course, by now everyone who'd finished for the holidays had piled into town, and everywhere in the town centre was packed to capacity. They were serving beer in polycarbonate mugs in the Prince, and the barbint couldn't work out how half a pint could fit into a half-pint plastic. I decided not to waste my time, and headed to the Glosters for one. I could barely push the door open, as there were so many people in there. I walked back to the Cambrian, and found Phillip finishing off some fried chicken in the car park. He'd taken one look in the Lighthouse and decided against it.

We found a small table near the front, and chatted to Jocelyn while she set up her gear. Inevitably, of course, Phillip had only just sung his first song when Chazza strolled in, with Leanne and her uncle Dai and his new partner. I smiled at her and said 'Hello', but they walked straight to the other end and sat down.

'Busted!' I said. Phillip and I laughed and carried on chatting. Chazza got up to sing 'Price Tag' by Jessie J, and didn't acknowledge me at all when she walked past to rejoin the gang. When I went for a piss about five minutes later, they'd all gone.

Later on in the night, I sent this Tweet:

Rule #1: The Doctor lies. As for me, I'm just joining in the fun, because every other fucker has been doing it for as long as I can recall.

I haven't replied to any texts since, except to arrange to meet Shanara for lunch tomorrow. In Cardiff. And that one isn't a phone spoof – it's a real change of scene. After all, I haven't got any credit, have I?

And last night, at Lindsay's karaoke night in the Glandover, I tried out a new song: 'Hot and Cold' by Katy Perry. It needs work, but I'm keeping it up my sleeve for the next time Chazza and I are in the same pub at the same time.

And that was the end of the story.

Except that Chazza has literally just texted me to see if I fancy a pint. Good thing I'm currently at the Colstars Xmas concert, eh?

Just Another Weird Wednesday

In which The Author should have stayed in bed

Yesterday can best be described as one of those days. For a few weeks, Clare and I have been riding the latest wave of chaos to break on the town. I might have accidentally started it (see Be Careful What You Wish For), but Goddess is having way too much fun fucking with our heads now. In fact, we're writing a song to the tune of the Prince/Bangles classic, covering an average week in Aberdare; the seven verses revolve around Silly Sunday, Manic Monday, Trippy Tuesday, Weird Wednesday, Thaumaturgical Thursday, Fucked-up Friday and Surreal Saturday. Well, yesterday was a Weird Wednesday and no mistake.

It's just under a year since I went to the Brunel Arms in Pontyclun to change over the Anthony Nolan Trust collection box on the bar. With Xmas looming, I've been paying in the boxes systematically over the past week, to make sure they're nice and fresh for the busiest time of the year. With this in mind, I emailed Fay the landlady yesterday and asked if it was OK to call over. She said she'd be there in the afternoon, so I said I'd see her early in the session. So far, so good.

From that moment on, the day just kept spinning more and more out of control.

I'd invited Clare to join me, but when I rang her in the morning she didn't pick up. I tried again on the way to town; she answered and sounded like death warmed up. She'd been throwing up all night, apparently. My preliminary diagnosis – mild alcohol poisoning – made her laugh, but since she made a sudden recovery in time to go out last night, it doesn't seem unreasonable.

I caught the train to Cardiff, and texted Chazza to see if she fancied meeting for a coffee, depending on her shifts. I arrived just in time to miss the service to Maesteg, the only one which serves Pontyclun. I was also just in time to photograph the Tower Colliery–Aberthaw MGR passing through Platform 6 – something I've never been able to manage before. Unfortunately, my trusty second-hand Olympus let me down for the first time. The little door which keeps the batteries in place had broken, so there was no way of using it. I haven't yet used the Canon compact Clint gave me a couple of months ago, so at least I've got an incentive to try it out.

I told the guy on the barrier I'd missed my connection, and asked him if I could go for a wander before the next train arrived. It was better than sitting in the waiting room for an hour. I headed straight for Waterstones, where I picked up a few novels and a couple of books on medieval history. If I do get the call to do Christian's next book, at least I'm starting to martial my own forces. I didn't see any of the old gang, but there was a very pretty and extremely pleasant young girl on the upstairs counter, who directed me to the Welsh Interest section.

I should explain that I've been keeping this one to myself until I saw it in black and white on Tuesday night. I'm going to be one of the two Plaid Cymru candidates in Aberdare East in the May council elections. It's an incentive for me to keep a new year's resolution from last year, and start learning Welsh when the next round of classes start in January. With this in mind, I also bought a copy of Cwrs Mynediad, the foundation course for Welsh learners, and a learner's dictionary.

Back in St Mary Street, I tried ringing Mother. It seemed daft to be in Cardiff and not do some Xmas shopping while I was there. She must have gone for a swim, because I tried three times and there was no answer. I made my way over to the station, where it turned out I'd misread the timetable – I'd been looking at the arrival time row, rather than the departure time, so I had half an hour to kill. I shot over to the Golden Cross for a quick glass of Coke, and tried logging into their WiFi. It was not a hotspot, though, and that set the scene for the rest of the day.

I made the Maesteg train by seconds, and didn't enjoy the twenty-minute journey to Pontyclun. It's beautiful, running through the Vale of Glamorgan, past St Fagans, and looping around the river Ely much of the way. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. However, there was a small child in the seat behind me who kept flicking the seat-back tray up and down relentlessly. He studiously ignored his mother's instructions to 'Stop that!' from the moment I got on to the moment I got off. I was actually tempted to Gibbs-slap him myself, to be honest.

Anyway, I got to the Brunel, where Fay was behind the bar and a handful of locals were having a chat by the bar. I didn't recognise her at first, because she's dyed her hair and looks really great after having her baby. She stood me a glass of Coke, we unhooked the collection box, and I poured it out on a table near the window. Some daft bugger must have poured some drink into it, because the bottom of the box was really sticky, and a lot of the coins were also sticky and a bit discoloured. I ended up rinsing both box and cash under the tap before I could even start counting.

In the meantime, a pleasant guy named Geoff and I started chatting across the little bay window. Fay fed the baby, wrapped Xmas presents, she, her boyfriend, and two of their friends had a really bizarre conversations about orgasms during childbirth, among other things.

I said, 'Well, this beats the usual Aberdare pub afternoon crap about immigration and coal mining.'

Fay laughed and said, 'It's always like this in here.'

'If it didn't take all bloody day to travel fifteen miles as the crow flies, I'd come over more regularly.'

That's true. From the bay window of the pub, you get a great view of God's Wonderful Railway. Passenger and freight services hurtle past at all hours of the day. As a matter of fact, considering the size of Pontyclun, Llantrisant, Beddau, and all the surrounding new-build developments, one train an hour seems barely adequate. Factor in the number of trains that shoot through the station every sixty minutes without stopping, and once again it seems that the Powers That Be are missing a trick here. Frequent stopping services on the Cardiff to Bridgend section would take a hell of a lot of pressure from the road network, which is close to gridlock most working days.

On the way out, we'd zoomed across the level crossing at St Fagans, only a mile (if that) from the Museum of Welsh Life. Surely a station in close proximity to the country's leading visitor attraction would attract considerable footfall and generate a fair amount of revenue. I'm not talking about rebuilding Bristol Temple Meads here – just an island platform adjacent to each running line, a little shelter, and a ticket machine. Is it just me …?

Anyway, our collection box had raised a very healthy £27.00, plus some shrapnel and three foreign coins. I fed the shrapnel back in, changed the rest with Fay, and then tucked it away to pay in today. In line with many Valleys towns, Pontyclun has lost its Barclays Bank within the past few years. I didn't fancy walking two miles to Talbot Green and back, to be honest.

With my secondary plan to add Pontyclun to my Vanishing Valleys portfolio well and truly buggered, I bought a pint and settled down to send the updated spreadsheet to Melissa at Anthony Nolan. And Goddess stuck her oar in again. The router in the pub is broken, so I couldn't access the Internet at all. I used a bit of mobile data to update Clare on the day so far, and then settled down to do some work on Project XXXmas (of which more in due course).

The music was a very pleasant change from the Aberdare jukebox staples of Elvis, Engelbert, Stereobloodyphonics and awful thrash metal, too. Out of the blue came Jimi Hendrix's legendary destruction of the US national anthem; shortly afterwards, I recognised the unique style of John Coltrane. The last time I tried going down the Modern Jazz route in Aberdare I was lucky to escape with my life.

Yes, indeed, if the public transport in the Valleys ever does get dragged kicking and screaming into the last quarter of the twentieth century, I think the Brunel will be on my itinerary more often.

I had another pint, texted Chazza to say I was on my way back, then headed for the 1745-ish departure. As I reached the platform the destination board was flickering up a message. I read it quickly, turned on my heel, and made my way towards the pub. As I was crossing the car park, a young chap was making his way towards the station. This is how the ensuing conversation went.

'Train's been cancelled,' I said.

'What – the Cardiff?' he asked.

'Yeah.'

'Shit!'

'Pretty much what I said.'

'Bollocks!'

'That as well'

'Are there any buses?'

'I couldn't tell you, sorry, I'm not from this area.'

(I wouldn't have banked on it, mind you. We were, after all, heading into the Twilight Zone.)

'Neither am I.'

'Well, good luck. I'm going back to the pub.'

He laughed and we parted company. I found a cashpoint outside the Co-op, drew out some more money, and headed back to the Brunel.

Fay thought it was hilarious when I strolled back in and ordered another pint. A chap about my age came in just after me, and the three of us had a long conversation about Differentiated Public Transport.

In fact, it was such a long conversation that I didn't notice the time slipping away. I glanced at the clock, and I still had nearly half a pint. I'd never have finished it and made it to the station in time. I texted Chazza to tell her it would be more like eight o'clock until I was back, and carried on chatting to my new friend at the bar.

I finally left in time for the 1945-ish departure and walked over to the station. It had been delayed, so I found myself in the greatest joke set-up ever: Two Mormons, a lesbian and a Discordian are waiting for a train.

Seriously.

The two lads – one from California, one from Mexico – were doing missionary work in the Valleys. The girl works as a groom at a large stud farm nearby, and lives with her partner in Studentland in Cardiff. We had a very interesting conversation before the train came in, which continued until we parted company in the concourse at Cardiff Central.

By now my phone had died, and there wasn't enough juice in the Netbook for me to jump start it. I had no way of contacting Chazza, but I'd mentioned the Golden Cross in my earlier text, so I figured I might as well stick around and see if she called in. I headed back to the pub, and was quite pleased to learn that karaoke has shifted back to Wednesday evening.

I started chatting to a couple of lads in the bar. One was Scottish, the other from Coventry, and they were in town for a gig by renowned US rock group the Pixies at the Motorpoint Arena, just a few minutes' stagger away. We had a good chat about politics in our respective countries, the history of Cardiff, the Welsh language, and life in general, before they shot off to catch the main band of the evening.

The host(ess) – one of the pub's resident drag queens – started canvassing for singers. I was wondering whether to throw my hat into the ring when the door opened and my old pal Adam L. strolled in. He was with a guy I hadn't met before, but whom I was sure I recognised from my days in the book trade.

As it turned out, I was half-right. Lee used to work in Dillons, and left just before I started working there. I suppose I must have seen him when he called in for a catch-up now and again.

The three of us chatted for a while, until Adam (who's a pain in the arse when he's had a few) decide to chat up two young girls sitting on the other side of the room. I nudged Lee and said, 'Does he realise it's a gay bar? I think he's barking up the wrong tree with those two.'

Anyway, the five us went into the main room to watch the karaoke. The hostess started things off, and then started canvassing again. Fed up with Adam's half-cut nagging, I chucked a couple of slips in to see what would happen. After the busy year of proofreading and copy-editing I've had, 'Paperback Writer' is very much on my playlist. With Chazza in mind (on the off-chance she'd come in), I went for 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' by Joe Jackson. And for Adam himself, I debuted a song by the Beautiful South: 'Old Red Eyes is Back.'

I got called up to sing the Joe Jackson first, and I think I made a pretty decent fist of it. Another few people sang, then we had a break and Lee bought us a round. Adam was getting fairly pissed by this stage, and I really didn't fancy having to travel all the way home with him. Time went by; we chatted to the two young lesbians; I sang the Beautiful South song and told the hostess that the next time I came down, I'd try and bring a real singer with me. It'll be a nice change from the Lighthouse and Cambrian every so often.

At about 10.30 I decided to make my excuses and leave. I said goodbye to Lee and the girls, and legged it when Adam went for a piss. Even if he followed me to Cardiff Central, there was a good change I'd give him the slip on the train itself. In the event, for some bizarre reason, he got on at Queen Street, walked straight past me and parked himself in the other carriage.

I read as far as Mountain Ash, when the bugger spotted me and staggered into the seat opposite. I sort-of kept him company until Aberdare, when he wandered off to the taxi rank and I walked up through Robertstown. I got in just after midnight and went straight to bed.

And that, boys and girls, is what I call a Weird Wednesday.