Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? circa 2011

When you’ve stood in the middle of a soccer riot,

When you’ve stood, in a middle of a field rushing your head off,

Dancing, watching the sun come up

It’s all a buzz

-        ‘Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?’ the late, great Gavin Hills, The Face 1991

Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? circa 2011

I bumped into some likely lads on Friday night.  Top night. The fuckers, still can’t kick the habit.  Dancing Nikes at the ready, a mouthful of chat up lines, cold beers, sharp threads, eyes on the move, giving the gaff the once over.  Scanning for faces, old and new.  So, who’s on the manor?  Mob load of Tottenham, as always.  A few West Ham, the odd Chelsea and some Gooners sneaking about.  It’s a few weeks to the new season, but already plans are afoot.

Tonight, we put football on hold.  There's some serious dancing to be done.  Norman Jay MBE is on the decks and there’s nothing but good times ahead. 

He’s off. And boy, it feels good.  Rare groove sounds so pure, so true, close your eyes for a second and you’ll swear you were back at the Bass Clef.  The likely lads assume their position.  Strike a pose around the decks and over by the speakers.  Nothing changes.

We were young once.  Wild and carefree, tearing up the terraces and dancefloors across the country.   Casuals, mods, house heads, soul boys.  If the designer shoe fit, we wore it.

Now, as I clock all the old faces, I can’t help but smile.  We’ve made into a fourth decade with all our faculties in tact.  No one gave us a chance. Black working class kids from Hackney, Tottenham and Shepherds Bush.  ‘They’ll all be doing bird by the time they hit 30’ whispered the naysayers. What do they know? Not even close.

Too smart, too strong.  We married good women and had ourselves some great kids.  Heck, some of us even got decent jobs. Put simply, we knew we had too much to lose.

We couldn’t let our folks down. Not after all they went through.

We always had an uncanny habit of knowing the score.  

When to calm it down and move on.

How proud am I of this mob?  More than you’ll ever know.  The man on the decks is a fucking MBE!  I never saw that coming when we were getting down to his tunes 20 years ago.  You see, the kiddie stand next to him with the wild ‘fro, that his son. The fella standing next to him has just become a father for the first time.  The big one over there, he’s an actor who tells the best stories you'll ever hear.  The one in the tight t-shirt is showcasing his new frame, he’s been down the gym working out and wants the world to know it.  The guy in the glasses has recently lost his dad and seen his beautiful daughter turn 21.  Life’s bittersweet don’t cha know.

And me?  The throat is sore and I should be in bed as I have a scooter run in the morning.  But I can’t kick the habit.  The buzz is still there. The tunes, the beers, the company.  ‘Whatever happened to the likely lads?’, I hear you ask.  It’s all good.  Older, wiser, still styling, still dancing. 

Paul has been listening to the Good Times 30^th Anniversary album.  N Jay compiles some classic grooves for our listening pleasure.

Paul has been reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.  Stunning, beautiful and moving. It rocked my gypsy soul.

The Little Girl Who Waved

The Little Girl Who Waved

On a sun-kissed Sunday morning I took to the road.  It’s my third scooter run and you know what, I’m kinda liking it.

I’m like the way Jules and Dixie greet me like a friend, even though I’ve only met them once.

I like the way the New Originals Scooter Club roll into the car park and shake my hand. 

I like looking at the various scooters.  All chrome and fancy paint jobs.

I like the fact I’m up and out of the house on a Sunday morning.

I like the way 70 like-minded souls, dress up, scooter up and hit the road all in the name of Modernism and Charity.

The Mods from the Foresters Scooter Club have organised today’s run.  They’re raising money for the Bethnal Green Disaster fund. 173 souls lost their lives back in 1943. The fund will pay for a memorial for those that died.  Gone but not forgotten. 

So we’re doing our bit.  Well the Foresters are. And fair play to them.  £414 raised, a few nice speeches, a cheeky half and some decent sounds. What a way to spend a Sunday morning.  But it gets better.

En route, the sweetest thing happened.  We were five minutes into our journey, driving through Epping Forest and I caught the eye of this family that stopped to watch us ride past.  You always get an audience, people stopping and smiling, taking pictures.  But this little girl, cute as buttons, started waving. Holding her mum’s hand, smaller sibling in a pram.  She wouldn’t stop waving until we’d all passed by.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  She saw a slice of England youth culture and liked it.  Guys and girls who continue to fly the flag. Making a delivery of £414 to a group of pensioners who want to put a plaque on the wall of a tube station.

Some things you can’t explain.  Some things just feel right.  Some things just warm your soul.  The little girl who waved did just that.  She made me feel good about getting up and out, and joining the scooter scene. 

I’m heading to the Isle of Wight with a spring in step and a smile in heart. Onwards and upwards we go.

Finally…

Paul liked, nay, loved the film Fire In Babylon. West Indies cricket, the glory days relived. A beautiful thing.

Paul liked the fact West Ham got relegated.

Early Morning Rain Pt 2 – Kick Start Scooter Rally review March 13 2010

In the early morning rain

With a dollar in my hand

And an aching in my heart

And my pockets full of sand

When I was a teenager I was a Rude Boy. Two tone suit, pork pie hat and wrap-round shades. Two years later I ditched the look and became a Mod.  Sharper threads, better sounds and chrome scooters.  A few years later, I moved on.  Football got the better of me and the casual look was where it was at.

I may have swapped lanes, trading parkas for Fila tracksuit tops, but some things never change.  I never lost my love for Weller and I never lost my love for scooters.  The years may have passed but that smell of teen spirit has never left me.  We move on.

Standing under the gaze of the London Eye in the early morning rain, I cast my mind make to those teenage years.  The scene before me has got me thinking. Nobody does youth tribes better than the British.   It seeps into our soul at early age and stays with us forever. That’s why 300 plus like-minded souls stand under grey skies, next to treasured scooters.  They’ve come from far and wide.  Portsmouth.  Leeds. Reading.  Whisper it, but a fair few of them appear to edging towards 50.  Some might say they should know better. But they can’t kick the habit. British youth culture will do that to you.

And so we leave.  Cameras flash, tourists are awed.  We’re quite a sight, “Those Brits, fuck they’re cool,” is written all over their faces.  I’d give a dashing smile and a royal wave, but it’s wet and the rain is getting heavier and I’m on my first scooter run and I don’t know the route…so better concentrate!

I easily keep up with the pack, the traditionalist might sneer at my scooter, but new school scooter means new school engine. 

Over the Embankment, the lights dance between red and green.  The pack thins out.  We head East, which is fine, it’s my manor.  But here, I should have slunk off.  I’m wet, I’m miserable and my £200 desert boots are getting ruined.  Still, I go on.  Down the A12 and over to Wansted, nearly messing up big time and ending up on the M11…don’t ask.

At some point, sanity kicks in.  I can’t make it to Epping.  300 have dwindled to 12.  The traffic lights and rain mean that groups have splintered off into smaller and smaller packs. 

I’ve lost Gary (ages ago).

I’m soaking wet.

I’m hungry (note to self…eat brekkie before you head out).

I conclude it’s an ok debut.  Of course, there’s a nagging doubt.  If I can’t do Epping which is only a few miles from home, how the heck am I’m going to do the IoW.  It’s a worry for another day.  I have a full summer ahead of me to gain more ride out experience and to research the scene. Right now it’s time to head home…

…With a dollar in my hand

And an aching in my heart

And my pockets full of sand

Finally…

Paul watched Spurs draw with West Ham and was truly gutted.  If we want Champions’ League footie again, we’ve got to beat West Ham, Wolves and Blackpool (we drew with two, lost to one and all three teams are shit).

Paul read the Guardian cover story on Ed Milliband and is still not convinced.

Paul was wowed by the greatness of Aretha Franklin on the way to gym.

Kick Start Scooter Rally, London Eye to somewhere in Essex, March 13 2010

Early Morning Rain…Pt 1

Kick Start Scooter Rally, London Eye to somewhere in Essex, March 13 2010

Ok, let’s go.  My first blog of the year, and I’m embarking on my first ever scooter rally.  I’m going to split this dispatch into two parts, as my blogs are only going to be 500 words long and there’s so much to say about this event, 1000 words will just about cover it.

On many levels this event terrified me.  I’ll list a few of the reasons in no particular order.

1 – I was going on my Jack Jones and knew absolutely no one.

2 – Scooter Snobs.  What little homework I’d done, suggested that my scooter (despite the aces panel artwork – Stax Logo on one side and Revolver album on the other) would be scorned upon because it lacks gears and is a ‘modern’ Vespa LX 125.

3 – The early morning rain.  Riding in the rain sucks.  Period.

4 – I didn’t know the route, (despite the good folks at Bar Italia making it available) or the rules.

All I knew was that the meet started at 10.00 am under the London Eye and at some point we’d all head off to somewhere in Essex. 

As a journalist of many years you get used to talking to strangers and so rocking up to people and getting a conversation going is something I find pretty easy.  That said I lucked in big style, because the first bloke I spoke to was an all round top geezer (all the more surprising as he was a Chelsea fan).  Gary Butler was his name and he hails from Essex (or Wimbledon…never quite got my head around it).  Gary’s bike was smart and original, with a leopard print seat and matching spare wheel cover (sounds moody, looks mint).  He answered my novice questions with patience and an easy charm. He pointed out a few crews, cliques and faces and introduced me to a few people worth knowing. As I plan on turning these scooter event blogs into a broadsheet feature at some point, knowing the bikes to look out for, the faces to know and the rules to abide by is going to be crucial.

Gary, I owe you a pint.

Anyhow we move on. Early lessons learnt (not only from Gary but others I spoke to).

1 – The scene needs to stop taking itself so seriously. (Sneering at lesser bikes is so not cool).

2 – The scene needs to lower its age group.

3 – The scene needs more women. 

4 – The scene needs more black faces (myself included, I noted only three people of colour in a gathering of over 300 people, which is odd considering black music dominates the scene).

On the last point, Jackie from the South London Revival Scooter Club (SLRC), told me, “There are one or two people here who won’t like you because of your colour.  And there are probably some scooter lads here from the far-right”.  I was about to say, “Jackie m’dear, when you’ve been to Millwall away or followed England abroad as I have, a few right-wing lads on scooters are going to be the least of my worries”. But I didn’t say anything.  Why? Because the early morning rain was kicking in and it was time to start our engines.

***Paul S Marshall (a photographer I met – www.paulsmarshall.com) took some great shots of the event.  They can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivoryimage/5523177862/lightbox/

Finally…

Paul is reading,  ‘77 Sulphate Strip Barry Cain (ex-Record Mirror journo - www.myspace.com/77sulphatestrip) tells true tales from Punk’s golden age.  Loving the chapters about some upcoming band called ‘The Jam’.

Paul is watching Treme (on Sky Atlantic). New Orleans never sounded so good.

Paul is listening to Wildwood.  For some reason my ipod keeps throwing up various tracks from this classic album and I’m loving hearing them again.  Just for a second forget the title track, ‘All The Pictures On The Wall’ is Weller at his finest.