Who Asked You?
Unimportant Portsmouth
7th June 2021
Click here to read Tessa's contribution to the Writing Literary Portsmouth Blog. This is a piece on how a personal history of a place colours the writing of a poet.
Click here to read Tessa's contribution to the Writing Literary Portsmouth Blog. This is a piece on how a personal history of a place colours the writing of a poet.
Lockdown for poets
4th May 2020
So the Covid19 thing sucks, right? Yes it does – the 27,000 and rising death toll, the glacial government response, the economic panic for so many. It’s an unprecedented frightener for the world and we should all look to the moment when Glinda, the Good Witch of the North sings “Come out, come out wherever you are” and we can embrace in the street again.
Though for a writer, for a poet, for me, there have been titchy benefits. I feel guilty for even saying that because as soon as I do, a vision of a gloved nurse risking their life crashes through my skull like a wrecking ball and I chastise myself for even considering the positive aspects. However, there have been these little bright spots for me and I am lucky, I can work at my day job from home and still be paid. What makes me luckier still is that my greatest means of expression has not been roughly snatched from me; when I am not working I can write, write, write on a daily basis and I don’t have to feel guilty that whilst scribbling away, I am not out chasing the horizon like the normals always told me I should be. The way I am spending my days is finally acceptable.
It was National Poetry Writing Month for the whole of April and for the whole of April, we were in lockdown so I developed a plan. To kick my own arse, to inspire me, I decided to revisit or in some cases discover, the poetry of a different writer on each day of the month. I flatter myself that this was an excellent idea; whilst feeling confined, constricted, imprisoned in the physical way, for me, every wall was demolished to rubble as I found myself wandering on vast plains, tumbling arse-over-head in a cheese-rolling style chase for my favourite lines, the ones that would pull me along a figurative shoreline by the ear lobe and plonk me at my literal desk, shouting “Now. Get. On. With. It.”
That shoreline particularly present for me on Day 6, in the work of Helen Dunmore and her collection “Inside the Wave”, published shortly before her death. This is the poetry that examines what it really means to be alive as Dunmore faces the certainty of the end. Anything but a dark slog, her words are applied to the page with the lightest touch, like a cat when he paws at your lips to wake you for his breakfast (which happens to me regularly). My favourite poems are those that examine the tiny details of life, the experience of simplicity which we so often fail to appreciate and elicit a shudder as those nuances dissolve into a hospital bed. So frequently the water, the sea, the waves and the beach are used as an anchor to the living, breathing world: In “At the Spit,” when Dunmore reminds what lying on the shingle is like, on a curiously weatherless day –
“And then shutting your eyes listen,
You’ll hear the tide swell and the wrack dry
To fool’s balloons, incurably saline
Crackling under the weight of your backpack
As you lie down,”
There is a blurring of the memory with the reality. She is there on beach but she is not. I was there at the beach but I was not, but I still could be and that for me, was the point. Get to the beach while you still can, (once social distancing is over of course, ahem), feel the pebbles, hear the waves and don’t even concern yourself with whether this will be a comfort later. It’s dark in places but only in the same way that my hallway, minus one working light since 2007, is dark; there is light at either end and occasionally a sweet treat. I read “A Loose Curl” and let out a gasp toward the end as the poet declares “I think something is moving slowly”. There is always something moving slowly, sometimes so slowly, it can be completely ignored.
Dunmore was a poet I hadn’t spent a lot of time with before but I also wanted to revisit poets that I had read before and indeed had heard read. Throughout the month, feeling the pang of missing the Live Canon family, I went back and spent some time with the playful, exquisite words of Gillie Robic, the elegant, enlightening words of Sue Burge and the mighty, National Poetry Award-winning words of Susannah Hart; a holy trinity of powerful, magical poetry and I swear each of them gets better every time I read them. I also revisited another Live Canon sibling Andrew George whose collection “Milk Round” does sterling work in lifting the spirits. It’s actually a perfect book for a dark time, funny and fresh without the froth.
George covers some monumental moments but with a sideways glance and often a bit of a giggle, but the poems turn sharp corners and often startled me with their poignancy. My favourite poem in the whole collection is “The Introduction” which begins with the words:
“It’s always the same with valuable people. They bugger
up your schedule”
I won’t spoil it by revealing its punchline, but suffice to say, the surprise is touching and fragile and puts the building hustle of the poem into perspective. For the Fleabag fans among you, this poem asks ‘So who would you run through an airport for?’.
So now I am asking myself whose poetry I shall read next. I am missing the earth and grounding of bookshops, of seeing a delectable title leap out at me from a shelf. I am also trying to swerve away from gin or biscuits by occupying myself with my original passion – poetry. Whilst I have the chance I am going to keep paddling through hotpenning and prompts, reading and re-reading, listening to recordings. It’s definitely an odd, lonely, fattening period we are going through but equally, it’s fertile time for poetry and gorging on it doesn’t make your jeans tighter.
So the Covid19 thing sucks, right? Yes it does – the 27,000 and rising death toll, the glacial government response, the economic panic for so many. It’s an unprecedented frightener for the world and we should all look to the moment when Glinda, the Good Witch of the North sings “Come out, come out wherever you are” and we can embrace in the street again.
Though for a writer, for a poet, for me, there have been titchy benefits. I feel guilty for even saying that because as soon as I do, a vision of a gloved nurse risking their life crashes through my skull like a wrecking ball and I chastise myself for even considering the positive aspects. However, there have been these little bright spots for me and I am lucky, I can work at my day job from home and still be paid. What makes me luckier still is that my greatest means of expression has not been roughly snatched from me; when I am not working I can write, write, write on a daily basis and I don’t have to feel guilty that whilst scribbling away, I am not out chasing the horizon like the normals always told me I should be. The way I am spending my days is finally acceptable.
It was National Poetry Writing Month for the whole of April and for the whole of April, we were in lockdown so I developed a plan. To kick my own arse, to inspire me, I decided to revisit or in some cases discover, the poetry of a different writer on each day of the month. I flatter myself that this was an excellent idea; whilst feeling confined, constricted, imprisoned in the physical way, for me, every wall was demolished to rubble as I found myself wandering on vast plains, tumbling arse-over-head in a cheese-rolling style chase for my favourite lines, the ones that would pull me along a figurative shoreline by the ear lobe and plonk me at my literal desk, shouting “Now. Get. On. With. It.”
That shoreline particularly present for me on Day 6, in the work of Helen Dunmore and her collection “Inside the Wave”, published shortly before her death. This is the poetry that examines what it really means to be alive as Dunmore faces the certainty of the end. Anything but a dark slog, her words are applied to the page with the lightest touch, like a cat when he paws at your lips to wake you for his breakfast (which happens to me regularly). My favourite poems are those that examine the tiny details of life, the experience of simplicity which we so often fail to appreciate and elicit a shudder as those nuances dissolve into a hospital bed. So frequently the water, the sea, the waves and the beach are used as an anchor to the living, breathing world: In “At the Spit,” when Dunmore reminds what lying on the shingle is like, on a curiously weatherless day –
“And then shutting your eyes listen,
You’ll hear the tide swell and the wrack dry
To fool’s balloons, incurably saline
Crackling under the weight of your backpack
As you lie down,”
There is a blurring of the memory with the reality. She is there on beach but she is not. I was there at the beach but I was not, but I still could be and that for me, was the point. Get to the beach while you still can, (once social distancing is over of course, ahem), feel the pebbles, hear the waves and don’t even concern yourself with whether this will be a comfort later. It’s dark in places but only in the same way that my hallway, minus one working light since 2007, is dark; there is light at either end and occasionally a sweet treat. I read “A Loose Curl” and let out a gasp toward the end as the poet declares “I think something is moving slowly”. There is always something moving slowly, sometimes so slowly, it can be completely ignored.
Dunmore was a poet I hadn’t spent a lot of time with before but I also wanted to revisit poets that I had read before and indeed had heard read. Throughout the month, feeling the pang of missing the Live Canon family, I went back and spent some time with the playful, exquisite words of Gillie Robic, the elegant, enlightening words of Sue Burge and the mighty, National Poetry Award-winning words of Susannah Hart; a holy trinity of powerful, magical poetry and I swear each of them gets better every time I read them. I also revisited another Live Canon sibling Andrew George whose collection “Milk Round” does sterling work in lifting the spirits. It’s actually a perfect book for a dark time, funny and fresh without the froth.
George covers some monumental moments but with a sideways glance and often a bit of a giggle, but the poems turn sharp corners and often startled me with their poignancy. My favourite poem in the whole collection is “The Introduction” which begins with the words:
“It’s always the same with valuable people. They bugger
up your schedule”
I won’t spoil it by revealing its punchline, but suffice to say, the surprise is touching and fragile and puts the building hustle of the poem into perspective. For the Fleabag fans among you, this poem asks ‘So who would you run through an airport for?’.
So now I am asking myself whose poetry I shall read next. I am missing the earth and grounding of bookshops, of seeing a delectable title leap out at me from a shelf. I am also trying to swerve away from gin or biscuits by occupying myself with my original passion – poetry. Whilst I have the chance I am going to keep paddling through hotpenning and prompts, reading and re-reading, listening to recordings. It’s definitely an odd, lonely, fattening period we are going through but equally, it’s fertile time for poetry and gorging on it doesn’t make your jeans tighter.
Break The Silence
Not long ago, I rented Spotlight, the true story of the team of investigative journalists from The Boston Globe that uncovered historic child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests in Boston, and the subsequent efforts to conceal this abuse by the Church. I approached the film with caution, not because of the subject matter but for fear the issue would be sensationalised. I winced at the prospect of salacious plot devices carried out by a line-up of blockbuster comedy actors, congratulating themselves for daring to appear in a controversial ‘real-life-monster’ flick.
Less than two minutes into the movie, I realised I was wrong.
In particular, I was relieved because although the film’s narrative focuses on the Roman Catholic Church in Boston, the story-telling forces the audience to acknowledge the deaf ears of wider society when it comes to abuse: the invisible walls that appear in almost every institution, the turned backs of officials who will not hear the painful accounts from those whose lives have been trampled over by sex offenders. The silence.
Silence is at the heart of abuse. Perpetrators manipulate their victims into secrecy, isolating them in the knowledge that not only has their control over their physical self been taken away, but also their emotional strength. When that silence continues, perpetrators can maintain control long into the future, after the abuse itself has ended. For the survivor of abuse, silence is a weight that can make him/her feel responsible for what happened. When abuse is not discussed, the reassurance that the sole responsibility for it rests with the perpetrator cannot be offered.
I once knew someone – G, who endured repeated sexual assault and rape as a very young child. He never really recovered. He became an alcoholic and eventually, he committed suicide. No one got to him in time and he was silenced for years. No one wanted to hear about what had happened to him, the degree to which a little boy had been hurt, not until it was too late. Ultimately, the silence destroyed him. Times have changed since G was a child; there have been great advances in societal awareness and understanding of abuse, but the battle to dismantle the barrier of silence surrounding it rages on.
I came to Portsmouth Abuse & Rape Counselling (PARCS) as a Helpline volunteer two years ago, and in hindsight I was naïve about what to expect. I assumed I’d be pointed to a phone and I would sit and wait until it rang. Instead I was offered a five-day training programme with a group of eight people with whom I would bond closely by the time our training ended.
To explain the experience without breaking confidence is almost impossible, but I can tell you – without any hyperbole – that it was one of the most important experiences of my life. Qualified professionals give their weekends to provide potential PARCS volunteers with their training, helping them not only to learn about providing support after a traumatic experience, but also to learn about ourselves. There was laughter and tears throughout, as we learned to trust each other with tentative disclosure.
I came to realise that the PARCS training runs parallel to the way in which their services for survivors are run: based on a patient, careful and respectful understanding of individuality and experience. A helpline colleague recently likened this approach to the delicate untangling of a necklace chain that has lain too long in a jewellery box: a forceful tug will draw the knots tighter, but gentleness and time will unravel the complications one link at a time. Slowly, the imposed secrecy of silence can be dissolved by the counselling and group services offered by organisations like PARCS.
As a volunteer, I am a small piece of one of those services and I have been surprised how much it has changed things for me, for the better. People sometimes express concern about the stress of listening to the stories of survivors. Of course, it can be difficult, and sometimes painful to hear, but this is far outweighed by the feeling of being entrusted with someone’s story – the telling of which may be the first dent many survivors make in that long-standing wall of silence.
Services like PARCS always need funding and always need volunteers – you can find details at the end of this article for how to apply. However, you don’t need to work on a helpline to help survivors of abuse.
Survivors are everywhere, although some, like G, don’t make it as far as they could. We can all help survivors of sexual abuse by helping to break the silence. We all need to talk about abuse because it thrives in silence. The rape and abuse culture we talk about today has bred in this silence and it’s more prevalent today than any of us like to think.
So learn about it, talk about it. Follow organisations like PARCS on social media and help us break the silence. Listen to the accounts of survivors where you find them, in the media, in movies like Spotlight. Come along to our fundraiser screening of Spotlight and listen to PARCS Centre Director Kim Hosier introduce the film, find out more about what we do.
Survivors don’t just need us – we need them. We all need to understand how abuse works, and as a society we must stop slamming the door on issues like abuse, because they make us feel uncomfortable.
Listen to survivors. Support the organisations and individuals who work so hard to break the silence and with it the cycles of abuse. And, of course, speak out yourself.
Because for survivors of abuse, silence isn’t golden. It burns.
The Sean Hughes I Knew
In the light of at least one disparaging article and several obituaries that had dabs of gloss atop a smudgy undercoat of a tortured and torturous subject who underachieved and grew bitterly resentful about that, I would like to write about the Sean Hughes that I knew.
No, you're right, I didn't know Sean Hughes. I met him once. I was 15 years old and I queued for his autograph after a gig at Portsmouth Guildhall. It was February 1994 and I would argue that this was the true height of his fame and success. The second series of "Sean's Show" had barely finished airing, the finale featuring bashful icon Robert Smith and the rest of The Cure mistaken for Sean's biological mum and aunties and Sean Hughes was an alternative comedian's alternative comedian at the age of only 28. That night, he made his entrance in front of 2000 people, in zeitgeist 'comedy is the new rock and roll style' enveloped in smoke and lairily wandering on to the stage pelvis-first. He was beautiful up there.
No, you're right, I didn't know Sean Hughes. I met him once. I was 15 years old and I queued for his autograph after a gig at Portsmouth Guildhall. It was February 1994 and I would argue that this was the true height of his fame and success. The second series of "Sean's Show" had barely finished airing, the finale featuring bashful icon Robert Smith and the rest of The Cure mistaken for Sean's biological mum and aunties and Sean Hughes was an alternative comedian's alternative comedian at the age of only 28. That night, he made his entrance in front of 2000 people, in zeitgeist 'comedy is the new rock and roll style' enveloped in smoke and lairily wandering on to the stage pelvis-first. He was beautiful up there.
Yes, yes, yes, I had an adolescent crush of course - It was difficult not to find the sexual appeal in that Cookie-Monster-cum-Kahluha voice, those dopey great morning-sky eyes and the way clothes hung from him liked even they'd rejected him, (plus I was a teenager - some days I'd have to cover dining chairs in cardigans in order to stop my thinking about romancing them.)
But it was more than that. Because crushes die. Crushes die long before the object of them does and mine did, but I still loved him. And why?
Sean Hughes, the act, was disenchanted, disconnected, at odds with the every little thing. He was a tired, ancient soul in a young, hibernian nutshell. From my perspective, he proffered genuine wounds sutured with his own crooked smile. He often used his own atheism as a punchline but so as the audience could feel the ache in the denial of a God who had been all-imposing in formative years. In Mr Hann's article, he refers to an unnamed source quoting Sean as saying "What I do is above comedy". In the context of this article, he comes off as a right dick. But actually, if you ever see a Sean Hughes performance not in the backdrop of a panel show, I would invite you to argue with that statement. What he did was not comedy as you would recognise it from other performers; though it includes a routine spatula slap of pathos on every weave, it's not just that either. The contributor proceeds to interpret this quote as a result of Sean "[falling] for this dark, lyrical poet stuff" which is a skim-read of his back catalogue.
He referred constantly to Beckett in the first series of Sean's Show, who would ring him up and speak his own sadness over the toddlers' telephone. And when Morrissey would play on the radio, Hughes would mimic the drunken ballet of Moz with just the right degree of hyperbole, but with such fervour that the casual viewer would think "Omergaw, he like SO wants to BE Morrissey". And he would say his own lines as if he were aware that one day, they would be carved with a penknife on to someone else's tombstone and filled in with plum lipstick in the middle of the night.
Yes, all that "poet stuff". The implication seems to be that Hughes was more interested in being a poet, playing at being a poet than he was in poetry. 'Falling' suggests that he was somehow clueless as to the reality of life, of comedy. This, in my view, is unfair. Moreover, Sean Hughes may just have known more about comedy than anyone since Peter Cook, Like Cook, he was noted for his brilliance at a hurtfully young age and like Cook, his relationships, his unfulfilled potential and his sad and lonely demise have been clucked and flapped over in the 7 days since he died. Also like Cook, he was not for everyone. "Sean's Show" has moments of clear pain that are sieved through an incontinence-provoking humour. In a flash of worrying that he is turning into his father, Hughes's face stretches and gurns as he bawls "MMMMMAKE THE TEEAAAA!". When he is ousted from a pub because he hasn't got a real girlfriend, an unseen football crowd choruses "Sean will always walk alone". It might sound drab and wanky written here, but revisit it (The first series is available on All Four and the second you can find on youtube, posted by Hughes himself) and watch it turn to gemstones in his hands. The "poet stuff" remark is actually accurate for this is a man who turned what haunted him into something beautiful. This beautiful thing was laughter and in that respect, yes what he did was indeed above comedy.
"Never Mind the Buzzcocks" watered him down and cynicised his public persona. When we saw Hughes positioned next to the savagery of Mark Lamarr*, his hitherto fairly gentle stage and screen persona was bound to harden and he often came off as a little bit sneery. However, there were also moments when he shone as a strangely disjointed presence that could pinpoint the absurdity of panel shows and popstars, for instance noting that Phil Jupitus' team had appeared one night dressed as the German flag or his obsessive delight at the unmoving effigy that was "Number 3" in the lineup. Buzzcocks wasn't his ideal forum, but when that fledgling gameshow began, he added a degree of prestige that pulled comedy fans to it. It may have bought him his house, but it also would not have been the success it was without his presence as a team captain. Much as I adore Bill Bailey, I could never quite watch an episode after Sean Hughes left. Once, he was gone, there was an all-important element missing - the heart.
This heart is something that is dug crudely out of his legacy with the publishing of lemony, barbed words after his death. There have been gnashing references to his playing a shark because kids' shows had made others a shitload of money. However, if you see the Richard Herring podcast on which he guests from a few years back (and I strongly advise it), you will notice Hughes talk about this show and his own hungover audition for it with affection and enthusiasm and it clangs not of a man investing himself in soulless projects just for the cash sack.
I saw him live one more time, in 2013. There was nothing missing, apart from the huge venue and filled seats; I saw him in The Cellars at Eastney, a now extinguished and much lamented public house that saw many fine acts perform in its huddled bar. He was extraordinarily funny, effortlessly arcing over the pissed up woman shouting at him from the front row and thereby six inches from his knees to reach a devoted audience. His set ended with a typical Sean Hughes yarn that spoke of his struggle with the trust of a shopkeeper over a simple loaf of bread, that he ultimately and triumphantly held aloft to the thunderous cheers of a pocket crowd. To the garishly sloppy Snow Patrol tune, he then tossed slices at us. Through this parody of an uplifting moment, he thus created an uplifting moment, through which he then walked, stopping to cuddle willing members of the audience. I was too shy to stand up and embrace the hero that I had had for the last twenty years and I regret not doing so. (Shyness is nice etc....)
But I always will remember meeting him as a teenager. On that night, he was dutifully signing his name, he looked tired and his hair had recently been hacked at in an unusually aggressive manner. But he was a hero and he looked at me and he asked my name. Nothing more. As I left, he told me and my sister to "Take Care".
I can't pretend to understand him. I didn't know him and if I did I wouldn't understand him. I don't understand many people. I don't think many people understand many people. I don't think many people pretend to understand many people pretending to understand them. I would like it if people stopped trying to understand. Give feeling stuff a go instead. Watch some Sean Hughes and forget understanding. You might find he is not for you, that's fine, but you might just feel something and that is what art is for. That's what Sean Hughes was for.
And Sean? I love you. In fact, Jelly Pop Perky Jean, I love you-oo-oo, oh dontcha know?
* Incidentally, I saw Mark Lamarr back in 1994 aswell and he remains to this day, to my mind, the greatest adlibber, the quickest comebacker, one of the funniest full stop, on a comedy stage ever.
But it was more than that. Because crushes die. Crushes die long before the object of them does and mine did, but I still loved him. And why?
Sean Hughes, the act, was disenchanted, disconnected, at odds with the every little thing. He was a tired, ancient soul in a young, hibernian nutshell. From my perspective, he proffered genuine wounds sutured with his own crooked smile. He often used his own atheism as a punchline but so as the audience could feel the ache in the denial of a God who had been all-imposing in formative years. In Mr Hann's article, he refers to an unnamed source quoting Sean as saying "What I do is above comedy". In the context of this article, he comes off as a right dick. But actually, if you ever see a Sean Hughes performance not in the backdrop of a panel show, I would invite you to argue with that statement. What he did was not comedy as you would recognise it from other performers; though it includes a routine spatula slap of pathos on every weave, it's not just that either. The contributor proceeds to interpret this quote as a result of Sean "[falling] for this dark, lyrical poet stuff" which is a skim-read of his back catalogue.
He referred constantly to Beckett in the first series of Sean's Show, who would ring him up and speak his own sadness over the toddlers' telephone. And when Morrissey would play on the radio, Hughes would mimic the drunken ballet of Moz with just the right degree of hyperbole, but with such fervour that the casual viewer would think "Omergaw, he like SO wants to BE Morrissey". And he would say his own lines as if he were aware that one day, they would be carved with a penknife on to someone else's tombstone and filled in with plum lipstick in the middle of the night.
Yes, all that "poet stuff". The implication seems to be that Hughes was more interested in being a poet, playing at being a poet than he was in poetry. 'Falling' suggests that he was somehow clueless as to the reality of life, of comedy. This, in my view, is unfair. Moreover, Sean Hughes may just have known more about comedy than anyone since Peter Cook, Like Cook, he was noted for his brilliance at a hurtfully young age and like Cook, his relationships, his unfulfilled potential and his sad and lonely demise have been clucked and flapped over in the 7 days since he died. Also like Cook, he was not for everyone. "Sean's Show" has moments of clear pain that are sieved through an incontinence-provoking humour. In a flash of worrying that he is turning into his father, Hughes's face stretches and gurns as he bawls "MMMMMAKE THE TEEAAAA!". When he is ousted from a pub because he hasn't got a real girlfriend, an unseen football crowd choruses "Sean will always walk alone". It might sound drab and wanky written here, but revisit it (The first series is available on All Four and the second you can find on youtube, posted by Hughes himself) and watch it turn to gemstones in his hands. The "poet stuff" remark is actually accurate for this is a man who turned what haunted him into something beautiful. This beautiful thing was laughter and in that respect, yes what he did was indeed above comedy.
"Never Mind the Buzzcocks" watered him down and cynicised his public persona. When we saw Hughes positioned next to the savagery of Mark Lamarr*, his hitherto fairly gentle stage and screen persona was bound to harden and he often came off as a little bit sneery. However, there were also moments when he shone as a strangely disjointed presence that could pinpoint the absurdity of panel shows and popstars, for instance noting that Phil Jupitus' team had appeared one night dressed as the German flag or his obsessive delight at the unmoving effigy that was "Number 3" in the lineup. Buzzcocks wasn't his ideal forum, but when that fledgling gameshow began, he added a degree of prestige that pulled comedy fans to it. It may have bought him his house, but it also would not have been the success it was without his presence as a team captain. Much as I adore Bill Bailey, I could never quite watch an episode after Sean Hughes left. Once, he was gone, there was an all-important element missing - the heart.
This heart is something that is dug crudely out of his legacy with the publishing of lemony, barbed words after his death. There have been gnashing references to his playing a shark because kids' shows had made others a shitload of money. However, if you see the Richard Herring podcast on which he guests from a few years back (and I strongly advise it), you will notice Hughes talk about this show and his own hungover audition for it with affection and enthusiasm and it clangs not of a man investing himself in soulless projects just for the cash sack.
I saw him live one more time, in 2013. There was nothing missing, apart from the huge venue and filled seats; I saw him in The Cellars at Eastney, a now extinguished and much lamented public house that saw many fine acts perform in its huddled bar. He was extraordinarily funny, effortlessly arcing over the pissed up woman shouting at him from the front row and thereby six inches from his knees to reach a devoted audience. His set ended with a typical Sean Hughes yarn that spoke of his struggle with the trust of a shopkeeper over a simple loaf of bread, that he ultimately and triumphantly held aloft to the thunderous cheers of a pocket crowd. To the garishly sloppy Snow Patrol tune, he then tossed slices at us. Through this parody of an uplifting moment, he thus created an uplifting moment, through which he then walked, stopping to cuddle willing members of the audience. I was too shy to stand up and embrace the hero that I had had for the last twenty years and I regret not doing so. (Shyness is nice etc....)
But I always will remember meeting him as a teenager. On that night, he was dutifully signing his name, he looked tired and his hair had recently been hacked at in an unusually aggressive manner. But he was a hero and he looked at me and he asked my name. Nothing more. As I left, he told me and my sister to "Take Care".
I can't pretend to understand him. I didn't know him and if I did I wouldn't understand him. I don't understand many people. I don't think many people understand many people. I don't think many people pretend to understand many people pretending to understand them. I would like it if people stopped trying to understand. Give feeling stuff a go instead. Watch some Sean Hughes and forget understanding. You might find he is not for you, that's fine, but you might just feel something and that is what art is for. That's what Sean Hughes was for.
And Sean? I love you. In fact, Jelly Pop Perky Jean, I love you-oo-oo, oh dontcha know?
* Incidentally, I saw Mark Lamarr back in 1994 aswell and he remains to this day, to my mind, the greatest adlibber, the quickest comebacker, one of the funniest full stop, on a comedy stage ever.
