The 2p Copper Coin ..and John Lennon

Just a teeny weeny post today. Revisiting a recurring topic: the value of the copper in a (pre-1992) UK two pence coin.

Last time I checked, back in 2022, the value was (approx.) 4.7p.

Today it stands at 5.2p.

So an increase. Inversely, thanks to a decrease in the nickel price since then, the value of the raw metal in a (pre-2012) UK 5p coin has fallen. It was 3.2p, now it's 2.8p.

Finally, just to add some colour, I'll share a picture of an old John Lennon book that arrived in the house yesterday. It was given by an old woman to my mam (also an old woman). She won't read this.

Continuing the music theme from yesterday.

Female-Facing Rock Bands

I'm not really sure where to start with this post, but I want to explore the way some bands tend to appeal to women more so than others.

I did try to get some stats on which bands sell a higher percentage of their tickets/records to female fans, but couldn't find any. So I'm going to have to go entirely on anecdote and my own biased sense of how things are.

Bands that I tend to think of as appealing to women more than average are Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Bon Jovi, INXS (though this could just be because the singer is good-looking - an issue that's hard to factor out). As per my last post, a modern example would be The 1975. I think Bryan Adams fits this label too. A label I'm terming female-facing.

I think another good indication of whether a band/artist makes this list is if they tend to get a bit of dislike from males in the opposing direction. Like how a lot of people will actively dislike the Eagles. Though again, we're in subjective territory here.

Once (if) you acknowledge this as a real thing the question then is, why? What is it about the attitude or music that makes this the case?

Guitar Shapes

Another thing that adds into this in a vague sort of way is the symbolism and subtext of guitar shapes. I remember hearing somebody mention that round-bodied guitars are shaped like the female body, whereas the more slender Stratocaster-type guitars are more phallic-shaped. (We've all seen the hair metal guitarists thrusting their guitars forward with their hips - Spinal Tap style - as they play their "solos"). Hence it's been said that troubadours playing round-bodied guitars are symbolically caressing the female body, whilst the rockers thrusting their amped-up phalluses forward are, well ..going solo, so to speak. And that, furthermore, women are more impressed by the narrative, storytelling and emotion of the troubadour. And that it tends to be other men that are impressed by the thrust of the soloist. Watching on from the audience, seeking to emulate their strutting hero, with his big, powerful guitar.

Anecdotally this does seem to be the case, with the hard rock audience tending to be very male heavy. Whilst the emotive balladeer attracts the female gaze. Something you'd perhaps expect, given the dichotomy of men tending to be visual and women tending to prefer narrative. A la pin-ups and romance novels.

This all would then suggest that the bands that appeal more so to women play into this narrative and emotive angle. Either deliberately or naturally/accidentally.

Men want to impress women. Yet men also want to impress other men in this male dominated world. Or in male dominated pursuits/environments, be they sport or music or whatever else. So it's kind of a question of who they want to impress more. Are they more orientated to the females watching/listening or the other men?

Are they male-facing or female-facing?

Again, some people may just have a natural inclination one way or the other. However, you could also write a song thinking, "Will this appeal to a woman? Will the average woman want to walk out of the room if she sees/hears this, or will she be drawn to stay?" As above, you would then run the risk of displeasing your male peers though, who may see your female-leaning music as a bit too soft or delicate or romantic.

The Eagles

Finally, the Eagles as a band definitely have the emotive storytelling that would appeal to women. Most of their songs are about women and relationships. Think songs like Lyin' Eyes or Peaceful Easy Feeling. However, the Eagles aren't shy of a guitar solo as well. Without wanting to get too crude, perhaps the Eagles are the appeal to women band (and the hated by other men band) because they've perfected the art of female-facing music. Getting things started with the storytelling and troubadour emotions, then only bringing the phallic-shaped solos out once the mood is right, lol. Only moving from soft rock to hard rock later in the evening, when the lights are down. I've also seen it mentioned online that they were the most misogynistic American band of all time. So maybe that had something to do with it too, lol.

If only I'd have understood all this when I started playing in bands myself twenty years ago.

The Tale of Two Somebodies

To follow up on that last post. It occurs to me that today music seems to be much more sex-focused than love-focused. This might just be me getting older (am I even in a position to know what the music world looks like these days?). So I may be biased. It's hard not to be left with this sense though.

Like wider society, modern music seems to be sex and hook-up focused. A sense of true love is still in there somewhat, I guess, but it struggles to get out. So I think that depth of ambivalence I mentioned in the last post is more lacking.

Two more recent songs come to mind when I think about this. The first is the track, "Somebody Else," by The 1975. (The 1975 are female-facing band - that's female-facing, not female-fronted. This is a nice segue into my next post.) I heard this song about a year or so ago in a bus station of all places. It grabbed me a little bit, though I've never been a huge fan of the band. It's about having to imagine someone you have feelings for being with somebody else. And it does capture this feeling quite effectively. It's a good song, and like the songs mentioned in the last post, it manages to convey the sense of mixed feelings.

These feelings are no doubt particularly relatable to the youngsters of this current generation, who are growing up in a world where true love has been bludgeoned to death by materialism, and where people exist within dating apps and hook-up culture. (Though, conversely, a large number of young people aren't hooking up at all, and just have to live with the feelings, within this wider plastic culture.)

Somebody Else comes with this sense that it exists in a modern world where meaning has been stripped, and things (even intimate relationships) are throwaway commodities. However, the song does convey the very real feelings of a person experiencing this.

The second song is kind of a darker version of this. It's the song, "Somebody That I Used To Know," by Gotye. Full disclosure: I hate this song. It doesn't help that it's been played to death over this last decade, and you can't go anywhere without hearing it. Consequently, it doesn't need explaining. Everyone will have heard it. Just for the record though, it's about someone completely cutting someone off after a break up. I think it's probably been such a huge hit because so many people have had this exact experience in today's world. Again, where even people you were intimate with are discardable.

I think this song's so much darker though as it's kind of resigned to this modern materialistic worldview. There's no sense that the love once meant something, and that it still means something, if only in memory. It's complete obliteration. The annihilation of all attachment between the two people. Of course, the person writing the song wouldn't be writing it if it didn't mean anything, and I'm sure people will say, "Yes, that's the idea." The singer is saying, "You're just somebody that I used to know," but obviously that isn't truly the case. Still, the sense of resignation and coldness is pervasive. Even the music feels cold. (Perhaps I'm being really unfair here, lol. Maybe it just isn't my cup of tea musically.)

Whereas Somebody Else, even though it also speaks of a love "gone cold," still captures and expresses some care and emotion. It even mentions the word soul.

"You're intertwining your soul with somebody else."

With Somebody That I Used To Know the soul feels absent and unbelieved-in. It really speaks of a generation of people that are longing for meaning, in a world where they've been told everything is simply random and accidental.

If It Makes You Happy

One of my favourite songs is "If It Makes You Happy" by Sheryl Crow. The other day my friend asked me that classic Desert Island Discs type question of what song you would save if you could only save one. I chose this. His text back response was, "Really?". So I guess he doesn't rate it as highly as I do, and was expecting something a bit more obscure and exclusive.

Anyway, it got me thinking about how the best songs (at least in my opinion) tend to capture feelings of ambivalence. They're not outright happy, upbeat songs, nor are they sad songs. They tend to convey a mix of feelings. If It Makes You Happy is a great case in point, as the chorus literally contains the words sad and happy in the chorus.

"If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?"

Of course, in life things are often like this. We feel a mix of things at the same time. Things can be bittersweet, or just complex and confounding. Your love for someone might be uplifting, but you're sad because you can't be with that person. Or you're remembering a happy memory, but there's a current sadness that it's now gone. Truly great songs often capture some sense of this.

I'll list a few that spring to mind.

Losing My Religion - R.E.M.

It's hard to analyse this one, (I'm not even entirely sure what it's about), but it definitely has that mix of feeling melancholy, but upbeat.

Wonderwall - Oasis

Another that's upbeat, but not upbeat. In fact, I think Noel Gallagher has an especial knack for capturing feelings of ambivalence in his music. It may be partly the reason for the huge success of Oasis. There's lots of definitely and maybe. "Maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me.." There's this positive sense of, "Yes, we're going to conquer the world," in his music, but its also tinged with memory and whimsy.

Help - The Beatles

This has that feel too to me. I'm not fully sure why, though I suppose it could just be that the song is so upbeat in feel, yet the topic is one of needing help. Though even in the lyrics there's the juxtaposition of, "When I was younger.." I didn't need help, but now I do. And once again we have memories of feelings from before juxtaposed with feelings of today.

Incidentally, the other big song from What's The Story? was Don't Look Back in Anger. Another song about memories and looking back. However, it's don't look back in anger - the anger being an emotion of the here and now as we look back. So it intertwines these different senses. There's no anger or rage in the feel of the song, but it's there in the very title.

No doubt this list could be endless. Another that springs to mind is Beetlebum by Blur, which has that upbeat melancholy thing going on. Also, as I'm writing the words 'no doubt,' No Doubt's Don't Speak comes to mind. That's uplifting to listen to, but it's sad in feel. I'm not sure why.

I'm tempted to wander off into some philosophical musings about how love is transcendent, and that memories or thoughts of people we love transcend the particular moment of misery/loneliness/dissatisfaction that we find ourselves in. And that great music captures and expresses this.

But I probably shouldn't. Though I kind of just have.

Lowe Point

I don't normally post just after I've finished work, (I'm thinking twice about it even now), but the events of the last few days need recounting. Let's be quick, I need to speak in bullet points.

Basically, the MP Rupert Lowe has been kicked out of Reform. (There are various allegations/investigations going on, which, in the round, are irrelevant to me, so I'll forgo them.)

The wider business all started a few months ago, when Elon Musk tweeted out that Nigel Farage needed replacing as leader of Reform. This happened in a broader context of the online right criticising Farage for not wanting to hang out with Tommy Robinson. Amidst that flurry there were polls and questions about who should replace Farage (of course, the people wanting him gone had no idea what would come next). Rupert Lowe tended to top these polls. So, since then, we've had this endless online nudging and campaigning for Lowe to become leader, alongside the unrelenting criticism of Farage.

One thing they've been pushing Farage to do is use the term, "Mass Deportations." The term is vague (perhaps deliberately so). On initial hearing it implies that huge numbers of settled people will be sent back, but it can be reconstrued to just mean those here illegally. So it's imprecise and incendiary. I'm trying to play things with a straight bat these days, but obviously these attempts to push Reform into extreme positions and language feel like sabotage.

Anyway, now Lowe has been ejected - and it's come as something of a shock to all the troublemakers.

I think these people thought that with Lowe being an MP and with Reform having just five MPs there was zero chance they'd push him out. Big mistake. They just don't understand that Farage has spent the last twenty years dealing with people trying to misdirect or sabotage his political vehicles. He literally ditched an entire party he'd created (UKIP), because it was so full of troublemakers, and started a new one from scratch. So, yes, it's not ideal booting Lowe out, but it's better to deal with the problem now than to allow it to linger on for months and years.

It's been fun to watch. The agitators are now completely outside the party. (Whether Rupert Lowe himself is a deliberate agitator or not I don't know - he could just be someone with genuine views who's been a useful crowbar for people wanting to undermine Farage.) Either way, the people criticising Farage are now really throwing their toys out of the pram. We've had some right little tantrums.

What happens now will be interesting. They can kick him out of the party, but they can't kick him out of parliament. Personally, I don't think they'll let him back in the party. I suspect the explosive nature of the spat is deliberate to make sure the bridges are fully burnt. I think the people on the other side (when they've calmed down) might want a burying of the hatchet - to get a toe hold once again. However, I think they've been snookered, and all their crying and online outrage will ebb away like all the other online dramas.

Childhood, Part 2: The Little "Red" Bull

That reminiscence then reminded me of something else. Namely, how I never believed in Father Christmas.

I can't ever recall ever believing Santa was real as a child. Consequently, it always comes as a slight shock when people state that they actually did. When people ask, "How old were you when you found out Father Christmas wasn't real?", I can't quite believe they're asking me it.

I've had this conversation as an adult and as a child. Recently, a friend matter-of-factly told me he remembers when he first found out and the sense of disappointment he had at the time. I can likewise remember being nine/ten years old and having the same conversation. They'd say something like, "When did you find out? I was six," and I'd be like, "What?"

And these were usually kids that were much more streetwise than me, and from rougher homes. It seemed so odd that they actually believed in Santa.

I'd always just assumed that everyone knew it was a fun little thing that we all paid lip service to. Like, yes, I'll say I believe if that's the hoop I need to jump through to get the presents. That's the game, you don't need to tell me twice.

Surely this is what every other kid did too? I didn't think people actually believed there was an actual Santa Claus.

Am I Mis-Reminiscing ?

Anyway, thinking about that got me wondering if perhaps I was misremembering things. Maybe there was a point when I genuinely believed, but it was simply prior to how far back my recall goes. I can definitely remember being very small - circa nursery age - and being a bit incredulous that my mam was trying to reason me into believing it. We had one of those old gas fire fronts with a grill, so no one was coming down the chimney. "If he can't come down the chimney he can get in other ways," she said.

"So he has a key? Why bother coming down chimneys at all when he can just go through the door?"

It seemed so silly to me even back then. Again though, maybe before that I believed in the silliness and I just can't remember doing so.

The Little Red Bull

That then got me trying to think what my earliest memories were. It's a real struggle to remember anything before nursery age. I have barely any memories (if any) of being a baby, or even a half-walking toddler.

The earliest that comes to mind is of me being sung a nursery rhyme about a little red bull. However, I must have been old enough to speak, as I can recall asking my mam to sing it again, and I can also recall questioning what it was about. Something about it disturbed me a little. It felt old, like it carried some ancient pagan message or wisdom. I also recollect my mam not wanting to sing it at one point, like it was something she sang to me when I was an actual baby, but that she felt more embarrassed about singing as I became an older toddler.

Anyhow, out of curiosity, I looked it up and it turned out to be the song, Little White Bull, by the 50s singer/actor Tommy Steele, lol. At first I wondered why I'd misremembered it as red, but my mam used to sing red instead of white because I had red hair. So I guess that's why I also felt it carried some sort of message - as it did. The song's about a white bull standing out amongst the other black bulls. For me it was changed to a red-haired one amidst the black-haired. Of course, I wasn't really too aware of my hair colour back then, so I guess I had this curious feeling of, "What are you getting at with this, mam? What does this mean?"

I'm also a Taurus by star sign, so there was a double meaning implied. That was always something that didn't sit well with me either. I've never felt any sort of kinship with the bull. A fox, yes. A rabbit or cat maybe, a dragon - it's possible, but I just don't see myself as a bull, and never did. So it always felt unapt.

There's a language of the animals. The bull is strong (and vigorous), the fox, cunning. The tortoise slow, the hare, fast. The sneaky snake and the innocent lamb. The brave lion, the greedy pig, the graceful swan.

There's a weird truth to all these associations. However, the bull is a strange one. As it's the embodiment of strength and fertility, yet it's also captive. So it's both powerful and disempowered. Strong and fecund, but fenced in - and there to be sacrificed whenever man chooses. (Incidentally, there's also the sacrificial red heifer too, though a heifer is a female). Either way, as a child I somehow managed to spin a 1950's children's pop song into something akin to an ancient Minoan rite.

And perhaps with me feeling trapped within man's fences - albeit of school and society - the bull was more apt a totem than I realised.

Childhood, Part 1: Lisa Simpson and the Lowest of the Low Time Preferences

Thinking back to childhood. Time to reminisce.

I was walking home last night and something got me thinking about the urge to, "Change the World," and where that comes from. As a very small child, strange as it may sound, I always had this thought in my head: "When I grow up I need to fix all this." As if I personally had to rejig society so that it worked better.

I'm not too sure where this sense of responsibility came from. It may sound quite an arrogant or self-important thing to think, but at the time it really wasn't like that. If anything it was more a way to give myself hope. I knew I couldn't be happy in the world the way it was, so the thought of changing it offered a way out. Though again, why I felt I had to change it, and it wasn't just something someone else would do I don't know.

Perhaps it's an intelligence thing. Like low time preference taken to its furthest extreme.

As a five or six year old I used to ask, "Okay, so I work really hard all day, every day at school, even though I don't enjoy it, then what?"

"Then you get a job," came the reply.

"So how long will I work for then?"

"Until you retire."

"When's that?"

"When you're sixty-five."

"Okay, so where's the pay off? What's the point to all this misery?"

The sheer unrelenting, inter-generational grimness of it appalled my little mind. That you go through all that. That you have children, and they then go through all that. And so the cycle goes on forever. A perpetual toil. That even if you personally somehow escape it, by becoming a millionaire or a rockstar, it doesn't spare your children from falling back into it. Nor does it spare the countless other millions and billions of people.

The balance was just so wrong. Monday to Friday - five sevenths of the week. Nine 'til five - most of the day. "This needs to change," I would think. "It seems everyone else just accepts it," I would think.

"So I need to change it," I would then conclude.

This is why, even today, I still argue for smarter, more flexible - less time demanding - education. I haven't forgotten. I really still believe it doesn't have to be like this.

I think that switch from nursery to fulltime school is the real kicker. You're a three or four year old at nursery. You're there a few hours. You play with the toys, you learn the alphabet, you have a carton of milk. You're back home by dinnertime with the daytime cartoons. "This isn't so bad," you think.

Then, suddenly, you turn five and you're thrown in at the deep end. School! It's all day. It's all work, minus playing in the sandpit for half an hour. It's long. It's tiring. You're on your own all day, away from your family. There's a sudden slog and drudgery to life.

"How long's this for?!"

Until you get a job.

"So, forever?!"

Anyway, I wonder if it's the same for the other people that have this urge to, "Change the World" ?

It's kind of a Lisa Simpson from the Simpsons type character trait. In fact, just to add a topical element, Ash Sarkar has just abandoned Woke ! The criticism from the right is that she's seen which way the wind is blowing and has acted accordingly. It's a cynical, strategic grift they say. However, I've actually always instinctively liked her - as I genuinely think she has this same Lisa Simpson-esq desire to change the world. So, though I haven't always agreed with her views (that might be an understatement), I do think they're reasonably sincere. She often references the Simpsons too, so I would guess she does actually feel a kinship with Lisa Simpson as well.

Next up: Santa Claus