Critic Cal

There's few songs quite like Pulp's Common People  to jeopardise one's vocal cords. It came on in the car on the way to church the other day, and away we went, belting it out full volume leaving little in reserve for the song-sermon-sandwich that awaited. And oh! did we sing it with feeling. I can hardly begin to tell you how much I really meant it , y'know? She would never understand  -- how could she? How could she have any idea  how it feels ? y'know? to live one's life with no  meaning  ... no  control . Sure, she could go through the motions -- rent a run-down little flat above a chemist, spend her days behind the counter in MacDonalds, acquire a taste for Benson and Hedge's finest, make a name for herself at the local pool hall, shrug her high-brow education off like a sharp suit jacket in a sports bar ... But at the end of the day, lying there weary in bed, still smelling of chip fat, and $%*!-it there's another cockroach --maybe she'd stic

This friend I had — I don’t make friends easy. We met at the bus-stop I pass on the way to the gym. It took a year or so of amicable passing nods before we got to talking. And then … his thick Scottish accent … my tongue-tying social anxiety … it took a further while to piece together much of a rapport. But he was patient and, unlike so many, keen to see the best in me. Besides, we found ourselves on the firmest of common grounds. Soon our early morning chats were a routine feature of my rigid routine. I’d walk up first thing from my nice warm bed to go workout-away all the mental and physical hindrances between me and the forthcoming day. And he’d have been there some time already — the first stop of the day after quietly easing away from whichever half-sheltered corner he’d managed to stake for himself in the night. The thing with bus-stops is that "waiting" and "hanging around" are fairly indistinguishable activities — at least until the full roster of routes