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The Billy Bragg interview — the text

So, as the bishop said to the actress, I’ll be brief.

No, seriously. I know we’ve met and all, and I know that you know that I know that I don’t do brief.

Or briefs. But hey I just got up from a nap.

Unclench and un-eeewwwww! I’m wearing trackie pants but only because me trewsers are drying and when they are, I get to go out the door and down the club to watch Norwich at home to West Ham United who are the new black because (tada) that’s Billy Bragg’s team.

See? Douglas Adams was on to something with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency: the interconnectedness of all things. (Shows how much TV I watch; apparently it’s a TV series. Go go Google iView or whatever or I’ll have to go to Britain if it’s geo-blocked here. Mind you, I’m writing this from Australia, so we might get to see it here in 2014. This is the part where you dive in and say, ‘Oi, cloth ears; it was on in May!’)

Now, by curious coincidence, I mentioned ‘the interconnectedness’ of all things to Sir William Bloke in the interview, and just as I expected, he leapt on to the concept like a seagull onto a chip.

I once blew seven layers of merde through a group of teenagers throwing chips to seagulls on the south coast of New South Wales.

Why?

1. Chips are not part of your average seagull’s natural diet.

Chips very rarely grow wild in nature. Darwin did not mention chips in the The Origin of the Species and James Cook’s botanist — what’s his name? I won’t Google it so please leave the name in the comments below.

Damn. Banks. No, not the Bank of Wales (which was the name of a bank until it became “Eastpac: we never forget it’s our money”. Thank you, Full Frontal or Fast Forward, whichever comedy show it was who used to take the mick out of the big banks….).

Joseph Banks. Tell me something about him I don’t know in the comments anyway.

2. These young inhabitants of Moronia were also throwing coke and tartare sauce at the seagulls. That does not need any elaboration on a seagull’s dietary requirements. It just means that these P-platers were a load of old squeezers and tossers. Or not so old.

Time does go on, and so do I. And I need to find out if the club will let me in wearing trackie daks (yes, yes, I’ll put on some Reg Grundies to save your sensibilities).

[When I got to the club, the game wasn’t on any Foxtel channel. There was golf or repeats of rugby league and tennis. Tennis. Now I’ve put meself on a 36 hour Farcebook-free zone, but I’ll bet a quid or three that Mr Bragg is talking tennis on his page. See, there’s this whole thing we discuss about sport and patriotism. Check it when it’s up, as the bishop said to the actress. OK, that was a bit predictable, which is NOT what the actress said to the bishop.

Anyway, young Terry or Tel’, was sympathetic and even apologised for the game not being on. Well, that was an apology surplus to requirements, because it seems the game is on this Saturday afternoon London summer time, and at 9.45pm AEST. Those lovely imbeciles at ESPN Soccernet put the date into every upcoming fixture box except the next one. A less rushed person would have a) picked that up, or b) checked.

Not here. I thanked Tel’ profusely. Terry has never heard of ‘Minder‘ the TV series.

“Really?” I arksed ‘im, ever-so polite like. “I wuz livin’ in ‘erefordshire when it done come out in 1979.”

“Pfft! I was born in 1979!” riposted Tel’ or ‘Fir’y Free’ as he shall now be known next time I pop down the Winchester. I mean, Vikings.]

And now, the news in brief.

Oh, who remembers the ITV News at Ten? Maybe they still do this thing with Big Ben or Bongy B Ben stylee or whatever they call the dirty big bonger these days.

Oh, that clip is priceless. Kicks in at 5:25, but do check out the Lady Braun shaver and see what you stroke away at the sight of a woman running her hands all over……[no spoilers]. And the news items are strangely on topic.

New At Ten. [Intro music, sounding very important.]

BONG! Last Friday, I interviewed Billy Bragg on the line from somewhere in the UK. That’s BB in the UK; I was in the 2XX-FM studios leaning over a desk, cradling mic 3 that badly needed a shot of viagra — viagara — the pills that give you a certain degree of woodiness. Never bothered with ’em meself. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

And I was trying to read my very brief notes on screen (just the two main questions, one of them I ran out of time to ask — and the rest I was just riffing off the top of my head, which is a service I do provide).

AH! I’ve just realised my eye-sight’s going a little blurry and I couldn’t increase the screen resolution on the night. So not only was I leaning forward and holding a mic, but I was peering to my right and squinting at the screen with a twist in my already once-operated lower back that would give a chiropractor the sort of condition you normally need blue pills for, and a neuro-surgeon would already be ducking into the woods for a quick fag.

YIKES! No, I meant one of these cigars. Or even this.

Now, I could be really crass and mention the difference between, well, needing the blue pills to hold the microphone up — I think they’re called Niagara — or an alternative and related exercise that might make your vision a bit wanky, no, wonky.

Strap yourself in; that gets a run in the interview.

BONG! The text of said interview will be on the very fine Timber (back to wood again) and Steel blog in the next 36 hours. Which is absolutely useless to say that as you probably don’t know when I posted this as it most likely doesn’t have a date stamp. (Stamp your date? Oo, er, missus!)

Ok, cultural reference: ‘date’ means ar$e in Australia. Just ask HG and Roy. There’s a sound file on my Soundcloud that covers my date (by those two) in quite some lurid detail. Where were we?

Yes, Gareth Huw Evans runs a mighty fine blog out of Sydney and that will carry the text sometime this week. Commencing Monday 10 September. 10/9 or 9/10 depending on where you’re calling from. Or Norwich x6336 if unanswered.

I just realised it’s what the Americans refer to as 9/11 (or was when I wrote that) and as I was so flat-chat with work today, I did not read nor see nor hear a single sound byte or column inch about the event. Mind you, it’s still very much in train in the US of A right now. Random publication check: yep, still front-brain there, as you could well imagine.

Game kicks off in 15 minutes. [More like four days and 15 minutes, mince for brains. Fun fact: when the family was living in England (and probably watching that news cast above) we ate a form of mince ball things called ‘faggots‘. Which is also the term for a bundle of sticks. Curious. I never looked into the etymology of the word. Now is that the right word? There are two, and one’s about words and the other’s about insects. Bugs me all the time.]

Gazinga.

Last time I watched the Hammers down at this club, I took along some bubble mixture and blew bubbles in front of the TV at the end of the game. True story.

(Google ‘West Ham’ if you think I’m a raving lunatic — well, that’s got rid of everyone — and some of that will now become clear.)

The patrons at the club looked up from their copies of ‘The Tele’ (think ‘The Sun’) when I was showering the place with bubbles and looked at me with their knuckles, I mean, their jaws dragging on the ground. No, I will not link ‘The Tele’. It has a few household purposes — especially if you’re out of bin-liners — but the most utility I’ve found is the scary-looking dude who does the stars is frighteningly accurate for me. A hairdresser put me onto them about 12 years ago. Strange for a skeptic. Actually, I think she was Croatian, not Skeptic.

BONG! The interview audio file needs to be washed as much as these trackie daks now do, so it will be processed and will be back here at Overheard Productions dot com on Friday 21 September 2012. And no, I won’t commit to a time, because that way madness and dragons lie.

14 minutes. [Don’t forget the extra four days, meat pie breath*.]

* Note to self; ring OzHarvest.

I’ll wrap it up here — and leave it in the warmer for you, love, while you nip over to ‘The Poet’s Left Nostril‘# for a jar, yeah? Al’ight, my son?

My son does not listen to Billy Bragg. He listens to groups with names like ‘Disturbed’ and ‘Lamb of God’ and ‘Bogie Pickers R Us’.

I may have made that last one up.

# Speaking of bogies, I just Googled “The Poet’s Left Nostril” and got a hit. Funny that.

True story: Billy’s nostrils also get a mention in the interview.

Here’s a teaser (not a firecat): [Link is broken; coming back soon. Admins, 20 Oct 2015, 19:00 AEDT].

And here’s something that puts some of this into context:

BONG! This was never going to be brief.

BONG! I don’t think I’ll see the kick-off at this rate. [Yes, well, you might considering it’s on Saturday and that’s time for Tuross Music Festival.]

L8r.

Bill Quinn

The Big Cheesy
Overheard Productions