ARISE, SIR BOOKINGTON WOOKINGTON

Your Bank Holiday Big Bollocking Read: I have sometimes been asked "Whatever happened to the original 1983 Home Recording Handbook"? The answer is, that it became what they call nowadays an 'Epic Fail'. This story is included in the memoir The Greatest Living Englishman (now back in print, kids) Meanwhile here for your insomniac pleasure is...

ARISE, SIR BOOKINGTON WOOKINGTON

I think that if I could give one piece of advice to a young person wishing to embark upon a life in Arts & Ents, it would be be this: do not assume, because you seem to have a talent and want to make your living by it, that it is your only talent, or even, your salient talent. I, for instance, wanted to be a pop star and songwriter. At no point did it ever occur to me that I might ever become a writer, a published poet or a spoken word performer. It didn't occur to me because I wasn't looking. I wasn't looking, even when the signs were jabbing me in the buttock with a hat-pin and yelling, "Hey you! Ever thought about writing, instead of fannying around in silly pop groups?"

I had always kept journals, notebooks of ideas and lyric pads. I had always been a keen writer of letters to people. I'd always recalled stories and jokes and had been able to reel them faithfully back to people in pubs. Since I was a young teenager I'd also secretly written verses and poems. I didn't, however consider most of these to be any good and over the years, often went methodically through my early stuff, shredding or incinerating it, so that it could never be used to embarrass me. In my mid to late 20s, I'd begun writing letters to music papers, the odd pieces for fanzines and local alternative magazines.

It was sometime round about this period, that I started making notes about how to record music on a budget. With the advent of the Tascam Portastudio, I thought that maybe I should be keeping notes of all the things which I'd discovered. I thought that later, maybe, they could be assembled into a homespun workshop manual of some kind. What I wanted to do, I suppose, was to assemble a light-hearted How To Record book for other broke deviants, who simply wanted to make music at home, outside of the conventional music industry customs. I wanted a nice jokey sort of Anarchist Cookbook for DIY pop musicians. Thus was the idea for The Home-Recording Handbook born.

In January of 1983, aged 29 , this I swear, was about as far as I'd got with the project. A few ideas, lots of notes, a title and much enthusiasm.

A few weeks later, because of a chance word with my former landlord Steve, this phrase was uttered: "I know a publisher." And so it began.

I didn't even have to trog down to London. One day, this man turned up at my door. He was tall, white-haired, distinguished-looking, mid 50s, well-spoken and he looked a little like Jon Pertwee in his Doctor Who role. It may or may not have been my imagination that he was wearing some kind of a cape but I'm pretty sure that on one occasion he actually was. Let's call this man Richard Trevelyan. It wasn't his name but yeah, let's just call him that.

He seemed perfectly kosher. He had a proper, posh London address, with a classy letterhead printed on nice paper. He also seemed to know the book trade. He was charming, knowledgeable and crucially, he wanted to give me an advance so that I could get The Home Recording Handbook written, edited and out on the bookstands. We should do it soon, he said. We agreed that if I could write it within about four months, he reckoned that he could get it out in about one year from now, maybe sooner.

He offered me an advance of £1,500 which in days when I probably only earned about £40 a week from my part-time kitchen portering job, would have seen me alright for at least 6 months, probably longer. It would have allowed me to write the book, as well as getting a new Cleaners from Venus album written and recorded.

With spring now on the horizon, it was all looking perfect. This was going to be a great summer. I had about £300 quid of my own money already put away, so, with the deal set, I got cracking on the book immediately with all my usual boyish enthusiasm. Richard Trevelyan was as good as his word. The cheque for £1,500 arrived about a week before I gave up my kitchen-portering job. I'd like to say on record that my fellow kitchen porter Martin Chapman, remarked at the time: "They really are taking the joke too far this time, Martin." How we laughed. I paid the cheque into my building society account and forgot all about it.

Spring came early and I got into the happy habit of rising early, having breakfast and starting work on the book just after 9.00 each morning. I was motoring. I didn't need the discipline of a work routine. I was so fired-up about this project I could barely tear myself away from the typewriter at the end of each long day.

Almost a full month later, a beautiful morning in mid-May, a letter arrived from my building society. The £1,500 cheque had bounced. All I had left in my account was about £100 of my original savings. I didn't believe it. I'd only been talking to Richard Trevelyan a few days earlier and there'd been no sign of anything amiss. I was panicking a bit, to say the least. I'd now got half a book, a third of my original savings and no job. I'd be good for about three weeks at most before the brown stuff hit the rotating blades.

It was a fucking disaster. I rang Richard. There was lots of flannel and waffle about cash-flow etc. This was the sort of thing I'd come to expect of the shystering music industry. But not from the velvet cloak-clad, infinitely more cravated world of publishing.

Richard was both reassuring and apologetic. He couldn't get me the whole £1500 back now, but in day or so he could front me up say....£200? Would that tide me over? The deal was still very much on. He was at pains to emphasise the fact. £200 cash arrived one morning. I think someone dashed out of a car, handed it to me and sped off again.

As the summer rolled in, this was the state of play: the cheque never was repaid. Bits and pieces of money did come in. Always small amounts of cash -- always late. I eventually recouped, I seem to recall, about £500 in total. I finished the first draft of the book. Over the course of several tense phone calls, however, I refused to hand over the manuscript until all of the original advance money was restored. The project had been polluted for me by now. It was exactly the same, as the sort of things which had happened to me in the music business.

September arrived and with it came the welcome news that my old kitchen-portering job was free again if I wanted it and that they'd just love to have me back again. "Back to the draining board, then." I joked. I was actually really happy to go back. After the souring of the summer, there seemed something honest and good about this work. I finished my new Cleaners album In The Golden Autumn . Then I brewed some beer and cider and began gradually to enjoy my life again.

Sometime in mid-November, there was a phone-call. It was Richard Trevelyan. He was offering me the rest of the money at last: about £800 or something. I declined. I told him he wasn't getting the book and that it was a good job that there hadn't been a proper contract, because if there had been, then he'd have been in serious breach. I told him how my summer had been spoilt and my time wasted and I asked him not to call me again.

Because I partly blamed myself for this situation, I didn't really give him both barrels, which I could have easily done. It was my own vanity and gullibility which had led me to this point, wasn't it? I wasn't doing any post-mortems however. I just needed to walk away. I never did understand exactly what had happened -- or why. Secretly, I suppose, I just thought, "It's a bit cruel but never mind. Let's just back get on with the Cleaners from Venus."

Then, five years later, this thing happened. It was the end of winter 1988. We didn't watch a lot of TV but we did possess an old monochrome TV set, which although it mostly worked but sometimes didn't. On this occasion it just happened to be working. I saw a trailer for a programme on the subject of Love at First Sight. I've always been interested in that kind of thing; I guess that's why I became a songwriter and poet. .

Anyway, it was a documentary detailing the real-life experiences of 3 or 4 couples who'd all met for the first time, fallen in love on the spot and just followed their hearts.

One of the more unusual stories, was about two people, two complete strangers who'd met on a train and never left each other again. At first the programme didn't show their faces, just a long-shot in romantic soft-focus of a couple holding hands on a bridge somewhere in France. Now the voice-over came in: "I said, 'Hello. My name is Richard...'"

I recognised the voice. It was Richard Trevelyan, my erstwhile publisher from five years earlier. He went on to say how the two of them had met on this train journey, instantly fallen in love, then just dropped everything: left their families, partners and former lives and gone off to begin a new life: in Happy Delirium Lurve Land (or France, as some of us still call it).

Only now did I understand what had happened. He'd fallen for this chick. His wife had found out and probably frozen their joint account. My cheque had been stopped. The building society, to whom by now I must have represented some kind of a running joke, just ....really... took ...their... time -- (nearly four weeks) to get around to telling me that ...the...cheque... had... bounced.

As the shot of the couple came into the clarity of a close-up, there he was. The Man Who Comprehensively Shitted-up My 30th Summer. This was after giving me the dumb notion that I might ever have made a living by, if not my pen, then at least by my trusty old Maritsa 30 portable typewriter. But, the notion wasn't really so dumb, was it? I did eventually become a writer.

PIC: The author carousing, summer of '83