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Monday 9 March 2015

United Colours of The Port, Greenock and Paisley too.


On Friday night I went along to the New Hellfire Club's music shop in the Hidden Lane area of Argyle St in Glasgow to watch the amazing James 'Bar' Bowen and Johnny Campbell. While I was there, I picked up a copy of San Fran and the Siscos​'s EP. It included a music version of a poem by Jim Monaghan​ called "United Colours of Cumnock". I've had it's words and rhythm going around my head all weekend.
While the poem is set in the Ayrshire town of Cumnock, it reminds me just as much about Port Glasgow where I went to High School, Greenock where I spent much of my late teenage years, and Paisley where I have come to live now. I have to think long and hard about any night out that I have had in these towns that hasn't fallen down the conversational pithole of "where are you from?"

I was born in the west end of Glasgow, but then grew up in the relatively well off village of Langbank (catchment area for Port Glasgow High School), before going back to Glasgow for University, it's a hard question for me to answer in a confident manner. I've had my house in Gallowhill, Paisley, for around 9 years now, yet I feel that I'm not allowed to respond to the question and call it my home. It's always followed up by "yeah, but you're not from here, where did you go to school?". I left school in 2001, the people asking the question probably left many years before that.

If it's not my accent, it's my shyness, or my reluctance to pepper every fucking sentence with another fucking swearword in front of fucking strangers. I am more than likely politically aligned with most of the people I meet in Scottish bars (in that, I mean that I don't tend to hang out in the Bullingdon clubs of Glasgow nor am I Little Lord Fauntleroy observing the citizens), yet they have a scepticism of me based on something I have no control over.

Yet, despite this, I don't move away. I don't think I really feel an attachment to any other place in the country. I tried living in Dundee for a few years, but the city didn't ever really click with me. Strange, since on paper it should have done so, especially with some of the closest friends that I've met up there.

That said, I have tried living in New York too, and if money, commitments, and lifestyle had allowed I doubt I would have boarded the return flight.

Why? Because it gave me most of the things that I love about living in the west coast of Scotland, but without the bagagge of classrooms, football, and hypothetical silver spoons. Hell, I even found myself living in an area with not that dissimilar an economic demographic to that of Gallowhill. Pub conversations were an anxiety-free utopia where no one that I met cared for where I came from beyond the door of the bar (once we'd established that I wasn't from Ireland, and didn't know their pal from Edinburgh).

Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a well formed blog post, more a way of bringing an amazing and brilliant poem to your attention. It hasn't helped me to truly understand why I'm drawn back here, but it made me think about it.


UNITED COLOURS OF CUMNOCK
by Jim Monaghan 

My town is a green town, but it's not a 'fuck the queen' green town,
it's a tree in every scene town,
wae gairdens freshly dug.
That's green that pours through every crack,
through pavements, viaducts, fitba' parks,
where men who suffer heart attacks,
go walks wae three-leg dugs.

My town is a blue town, a 'who the fuck are you' town,
a 'what school did you go to' town
and 'are you one of us?'
That's blue that seeps through doors and walls,
fae pubs and bookies, village halls,
where men would guard old Derry's walls,
instead o' guarding us.

My town was once a red town, another miner dead town,
a men who fought and bled town,
wae brave and stalwart wives.
That's red that came fae meeting rooms,
fae folk that worked the pumps and looms.
when burgh bands played different tunes,
and we marched for better lives.

But now my town's a grey town, a 50 mils a day town,
a watch life slip away town,
a tunnel wae nae light.
That's grey that weeps fae dying eyes,
bewildered parents, children's cries,
wae skinny arms and stick-like thighs,
and nae strength left to fight.

Tuesday 3 March 2015

Digitally encoding ourselves

In the history of mankind, has there ever been a technology that has had as massive an effect on our social interactions as the internet? Sure, the ability to transmit information from city to city via pigeon reduced the amount of social engagement on the horse-drawn highways, and the data transmit rates of around 6 words per week allowed us to plan for war, but our day to day relationships with friends were unchanged.

Radio came along and increased the availability of information, but still humans would go out and meet other humans to discuss the events over a tea or a coffee, with perceptions of their closest friends unchanged unless an argument should arise. Even then, at least it was face to face with the right to reply.

Telephones took us from the safe and private walls of our houses to the mercy of a ringing bell. I know you that you don't have to answer a ringing phone, but I always feel equal parts "what fresh hell is this?" and "this might be good news".

Television's emergence in the 40s and 50s did have a greater effect on social activities, first it was the parents who stayed in to watch their programs while the newly emerging sub-group of the "teenagers" went out to cafes and concerts. Through this emerged a fear of the teenagers and a rebellion against the parents, and perhaps one that has continued to this day. Role reversal started occurring with the introduction of youth based soap operas, then home-based computer games, and eventually the internet.

With the internet as we know it now, it is not merely the interactions between the youth and the elders who's interactions have been altered. The very fabric of friendship has been altered to an almost unrecognised state from ten, perhaps even 5 years ago. All because ever increasing numbers of us are digitally encoding ourselves on to the internet.

It's not lossless encoding though, it's iMP3 rather than iFLAC. I like to look at social media websites in the same way that I'd view a car park filled with my friend's cars. Sure, I can recognise the driver from the littered items on display through the windows and locked doors but it stops short of showing me the full person and how they came to be who they are today.

We say that we know people "In real life" as a qualifier about how we know an actual human being, rather than their digital encoded self. I have many people who I know and am fond of In Real Life(TM), that I find hard to stomach online, and I am sure that there are many, many people who can say the same about me. It always amazes me when I get home from a rather shit gig or a dull night out to find out how a fellow attendee had a "pure totes amazing night last night", as if the event didn't take place if it falls below a perceived enjoyment threshold.

Radio and Television might have made us question our towns and cities, but it never had the ability to make us question friend or foe inside such a close circle of people.

We live in an age where "pics or it didn't happen", where the blue and grey colour scheme of facebook comments assert allegiance and opinion beyond context and in-jokes, where apologies are posted for public sympathy rather than forgiveness from those we have hurt, and where people find they have to live up to, or stand-by, their digital representation to complete strangers (who are doing the same in return).

I sometimes look at my Facebook, or at my Twitter, or whatever and wonder what, or who, my encoded form says that I am. Yeah, that I like music, that I play music, I do a bit of science, I can be partial to the odd lash-out, I like having a drink with friends, and that I don't like the Conservatives.

Yet, it misses out so much more that are none-the-less-real because I have chosen to make them artifacts of the encoding process.

We can have dull nights, and we're all the better for it.