As someone who is comfortable wearing contemporary attire, it is hard not to feel completely invisible when attending Broadway Market. Decorated by the capitalist toils of the British high street, I always develop an inferiority complex when walking amongst Hackney’s bohemian community. It is not just a place to sample Ghanaian pot lunches or vinyl Beatles records. The market is an artistic confederacy of educated individuals who choose to or instinctively diverge from the moneyed paths of middle-class employment. Or at least that is how it feels with layman eyes.

With its extravagant visual styles and fragrant riots of colour, art and music, Broadway Market is a place where every moment feels like an Instagram snap – a grainy artistic mirage dating from 1900-1969, where everything is re-lived in a post-modern era. Pop history has long since ended so all we can do is rewind, pause and live vicariously through the memories of others.

While there is a marked difference between what is genuinely old as oppose to say ‘retro’ – a ludicrous concept. Broadway Market feels more like a pastiche than a parody of the past, as its imitations and community spirit are warmly affectionate rather than mocking in tone. Likewise when I wander towards the nearby Columbia Road Flower Market, I again find myself succumbing to retail ordinariness in my everyday clothes. Even if I am just popping down to salvage scraps of hot street food and a chocolate brownie, there is an unnerving sense of invading a private party – one that I could never be invited to in real life.

Capturing the essence of this lifestyle difference is a gypsy-folk singer, Brooke Sharkey, who offers a window into another lifestyle, one more fanciful and beautiful than my own. She sings pure sweet bohemia and listening to her poetic voice accompanied by a large double bass and accordion, it is hard not to feel utterly banal in comparison. And while I would never ordinarily listen to gypsy-folk music at home, in the right setting, her songs are incredibly beautiful. Her ballad ‘May’ is a gorgeous elegiac lament and is especially moving when it is played on the market floor.

Evoking memories of a pre-war bohemian lifestyle, I can imagine her band holidaying in St Ives drinking gin and sage while indulging themselves on freshly caught scallops. A fanciful life perhaps and it is one that only seems possible on Broadway Market, which on examining the looking-glass, I can’t ever fit in but can always admire from afar. Lacking any starry-eyed garments, I remain an invisible figure in London Fields but it is wonderful to think that nomadic songwriters can survive without ever being coarsened by the demands of modern life.

Football is called the ‘beautiful game’ but even its most fervent admirers will acknowledge this is deeply misleading. As most fans have to endure turgid displays of athleticism and tactical repression watching their teams. Agility, speed and technique – the three wonders of the game are regularly found wanting at most football grounds, especially in the lower leagues. From amateur slug fests on cow fields in Scotland to the UEFA Champions League, there is no escaping the drudgery of an eleven-a-side gridlock. A sport only rescued by the emotional and social camaraderie of supporting a team. Traditionally one from the the place you were born although that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

While there is a huge emotional investment in football, which often overrides any on-field drudgery, tribal allegiances cannot sustain this passion alone. For love to prevail there must be a fantasy. And everybody loves Lionel Messi and to a lesser extent Cristiano Ronaldo for this very special reason. FC Barcelona and Real Madrid produce some of the most intoxicating football on the planet and outside viewers can be forgiven for thinking they are watching a different sport. Such is the theatrical intensity of the Spanish super clubs, even the corporate riches of the English Premier League feels decidedly meat and potatoes in comparison.

Despite being the size of a flea, Messi consistently surpasses his rival Ronaldo as the most loved player in the world. Frequently touted as the greatest of all time, the Argentine plays the game with a childlike sense of wonder, almost like an 18-year-old that doesn’t know how to grow up. In stark contrast to England’s most naturally gifted player, Wayne Rooney, who under the burden of professionalism has become a better “all round player” but rarely excites like the Everton teenager with a luminous first touch. With his low shins vulnerable to the studs of hostile defenders, Messi is a wonderful example of finesse triumphing over strength. The footballing equivalent of the beautiful tennis drop shot,  the little genius has no right to play the game but does so with near universal admiration.

Ronaldo meanwhile is the epitome of modern professionalism with his soaring physique and incredible goals-per-game ratio. The Portuguese winger is an overwhelmingly powerful player but with an ego the size of Lisbon he will always be a divisive one. A truly phenomenal athlete, Ronaldo has a fantastic work rate and should have more admirers than he does. Perhaps there is something manufactured about his approach that people don’t like. In this respect his arrogant demeanour and bio-engineered style will always leave him trailing behind his Barcelona rival.

Messi is unique in the modern game and what is frightening is that his lonely impulse of delight is only a ligament snap away from oblivion. Such is the nature of modern sport it’s a near miracle that he has never been seriously injured. Age, fatigue and eventually injury will tackle Messi like no other player can, so it remains a genuine privilege to watch him play in his prime. For when he lofts his hands towards the sky, it’s a reminder of the fleeting of his genius and lovers of the ‘beautiful game’ should watch Messi play everytime they can.

Related articles

• FC Barcelona: A 21st Century Portrait (danielagnew.org)
• Legends Of The Ball (sageofthenorth.wordpress.com)
• Messi and Ronaldo are killing football (standsprayanddeliver.wordpress.com)
• Scolari: The only bad thing in Cristiano Ronaldo’s life is Messi (goal.com)
• Messi is like Kryponite to Cristiano Ronaldo’s Superman: The story behind soccer’s greatest modern rivalry (goal.com)
• Barcelona star Xavi: Messi above Real Madrid’s Ronaldo (tribalfootball.com)
• Who’s better? Messi or Ronaldo (bbc.co.uk)

Evoking memories of student bedrooms and NME inspired collages, Jeremy Deller’s pop-art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery throws open his cupboard for all to see. Almost like a counter-culture riposte to the hedonism of the New Labour years, Joy in People, offers a sweeping nineties retrospective. Indeed his vision of the decade appears to pine inwards towards the 1980s – a hangover of union brass bands, strong armed marches, Margaret Thatcher, cups of tea and weekly music magazines. Every decade has to be historically collectivised in some way. In that respect this exhibition is a museum of old ideas. A collision of forces that formed and peaked during the passive consumerism of the Blair years.

One rock band in particular, the Manic Street Preachers, form the social heartbeat of the exhibition. With the 1997 fanzine project ‘The Uses of Literacy’ being reinstalled for new audiences, it pays tribute to the obsessive fan culture that surrounded the band in the mid-nineties. Literary quotes, paintings, confessional stories and some fucking awful poetry, the exhibition never veers too far away from an alternative kid’s bedroom. Music is fleeting in that respect. Most people’s inspirational touchstones are formulated from the ages of 14 to 22 and slowly ebb away with each passing year. The pressures of earning a living and the cyclical nature of youth culture pay heed to that.

*Offering my own tribute, written as a 24 year old, I recall a diary piece I wrote as the lights of fan worship were dimming if not completely dying out. Below is my recollection of my last ever Manics gig at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange in April 2005. It’s my late, late offering to Jeremy Deller. If only to serve as a reminder of how quickly one’s memories can become an exhibit in a museum.

Monday, April 18th 2005 

Paradise City

Related articles

• Jeremy Deller prepares for Hayward retrospective (guardian.co.uk)
• Jeremy Deller: Joy in People, Hayward Gallery, review (telegraph.co.uk)
• A humanist’s view on Jeremy Deller’s Joy in People (guardian.co.uk)
• Jeremy Deller: Joy In People (dazeddigital.com)
• Jeremy Deller: Joy in People, Hayward Gallery, London (independent.co.uk)

After graduating from Glasgow University in July 2004, I had several ambitions in life and like many arts graduates none of them involved having a career. Well at least I had absolutely no intention of retraining as a history teacher, which at the time appeared to be the only option available to me. Instead I embraced a hazy world of denial and escapism and this involved travelling around Europe on borrowed money and giving up a £65 a week bedsit on the Great Western Road. Such an undertaking came partly as a lust for knowledge and a desire to explore new cultures and languages. Scotland for all its charms is geographically isolated, monolingual and bordered only by England.

However, I must acknowledge that one of the most compelling reasons behind my desire to travel was the chance to ditch my joke finance job at the Abbey National. So before I abandoned Glasgow for the olive fields of Andalucia, I had one ambition left in life and that involved writing my own fanzine. Such was my love of Kelvinside and its bohemian leafy character, I came up with a pun title derived from a mediocre John Fante novel and set about producing an irreverent guide to post-graduate life in the West End of Glasgow. An inky offbeat publication capturing small town blues, film reviews, Chinese takeaways and unwise polemics against high street chuggers. Ask The Kelvin seemed like a good idea at the time.

Unknown to me in the mid-Noughties, I had set about producing a dead tree publication long before the wonders of tagging, Tumblr and all the social interactive elements that assist writers today. Unable to share my thoughts on a global scale, there was no danger of Ask The Kelvin ever going viral. Living in a make-believe world I knew at the time I couldn’t make any money out of a fanzine but for some strange reason I felt compelled to make one anyway.

On embracing the self-funded model, I produced fifty copies at the local stationary store and distributed them at Fopp, Offshore and a ragtag collection of Byres Road charity shops. Back then Facebook didn’t even exist and the audience I secretly lusted and craved for during my sleepless nights in Otago Street never quite materialised. Indeed looking back it does seem really twee and provincial, especially when I compare it to some of the sexy projects on Kickstarter.

Based in New York and providing a self-funded platform to raise funds on a global scale, Kickstarter allows random individuals to become patrons of their favourite projects. Almost like a counter-culture version of the BBC Dragons’ Den, Kickstarter involves a video pitch alongside a synopsis explaining the reasons why you should support them. Not with a lazy like you can get away with elsewhere but with hard cash.

Kickstarter is an amazing place to support new talent and my personal favourite is theNewerYork, an experimental lit mag based in Brooklyn that celebrates radical poetry, love letters and seriously weird pieces of art. Like stumbling into your favourite record shop as a 17 year old and discovering heroin tainted rock zines for the first time, if you tire of the NewerYork, you are tired of life.

Surreally decorated with unfamous quotes and the occasionally haunting story, their magazine blows my wee Glasgow fanzine out of the water. Beautifully humbled by their efforts, I must confess that on reading their e-version, some 3500 miles away in an English metropolis, I never stood a chance back in leafy Kelvinside. Alas I am now older than the 23 year old locked inside a Glasgow bedsit but still similarly way inclined.

Unlike the NewerYork I don’t think I would get $8,119 in funding for the second edition of Ask The Kelvin, even allowing for the social media tools available to young writers and artists today. However, I do take some inspiration from one of their many slogans: everything has been done before, so do it better. 

Related articles

• Quarter of a Century (danielagnew.org)
• All Quiet on the West End Front (writesofway.com)
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Getting a room in a flatshare has never been as straightforward as the utopian laddish fantasies of the Carlsberg adverts. No one can seriously expect Scarlett Johansson undressing herself in the living room and perfectly clean dishes on a Monday night. However, it does seem a lot more complicated than in previous decades. A classified advert in the local paper once provided all the basic details and your moving in date was effectively year zero. A fresh slate with bright new people. And while it’s hardly a revolutionary tactic in 2012, many people are now tempted to punch their new flatmate’s name into a search engine before they move in. Social control has always been aided and abetted by new forms of technology and with trawls of personal data going back to the early 1990s, your new flatmate’s life story is just waiting to be read.

In the pre-industrial era, the English and Scottish church-states controlled the sex lives, religious practices and all forms of everyday behaviour through the stoking of village gossip. Anyone working in a hostile office will argue nothing much has changed. But minding people’s business has always been a trait of small villages and they have traditionally ensured that no wrong undoing went untold. Privacy is a modern luxury from a historical perspective and only became available after the capitalist toils of the Industrial Revolution.

While the majority of urban Britons remain fervently individualist in their approach to life, technology has now ensured that the world has become a village again. Google stalking is a relatively new means of social control and at the touch of a button our collective lips have become narrowed – sharpened from making judgements. New flatmates trawling Google for information on their future roomies is one thing but when work colleagues or future partners begin to feel the urge it becomes far more sinister. With your personal history lingering on the cliff edge of an internet search engine, there is no limit to how Google (if used effectively) will harvest its victims.

Only recently a human resources executive, John Flexman, 34, was sacked by his employer over his profile on the business networking site LinkedIn. His crime was ticking the “career opportunities” box.  Having your boss stalk you on LinkedIn is bad enough but to be sacked for contemplating a future career is a grim indication of how the tide is turning. George Orwell was correct in that sense but what he didn’t predict is that everyone would willingly sign themselves up for it.

Social control inevitably leads to some form of censorship and has led to fake email accounts being used when applying for flats or even jobs, as this partly ensures you can’t be stalked back. Being yourself has its consequences. So regardless of whether you are interesting, quirky, weird or absolutely brilliant, there are millions who may think differently when they type your email address into a search engine. Fresh starts have become things of the past and moderating your online behaviour has now become the norm.Village life has gone digital folks and in the post-internet age there are no longer any hiding places from wagging tongues.

If the racism scandal afflicting English football has taught us anything it is that the ‘tiny minority’ so often ignored by mainstream society now has a powerful voice. As the private nastiness that had previously been confined to living rooms and unsavoury pubs is now digitally logged for everyone to see. Already bigoted steams of racist abuse on Twitter has seen Manchester City defender Micah Richards abandon the network altogether. Sadly he is not alone with Gary Lineker disappearing after tweeting for little under a week citing that ‘local prejudice just seems to bring out the worst in some people’. Indeed many public figures and footballers have been forced to give up the service because of the bile directed towards them. It’s certainly no place for anyone with a thin skin.

Anyone researching the Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez handshake affair on Twitter will uncover horrible levels of racist abuse. None of this reflects particularly well on the UK educational system and it goes without saying the majority of trolls are incredibly thick. In many ways Twitter has become a Victorian freak show dominated as much by the celebrity users as by the idiots trying to provoke them. Bigotry has never gone away. It’s just that the mainstream media reports hate crimes in such a formulaic fashion that it becomes easy to ignore. Racist abuse therefore becomes a journalistic pain. Something that can be dismissed with a mere switch of a button. But there is something so viscerally awful about Twitter that it simply can’t be ignored.

The CCTV of the mind will lead even the most unwilling of voyeurs to some very ugly places. Unsurprisingly the majority of the online abuse is usually expressed by deeply unhappy young men, which is only made worse by the individuals who associate themselves with certain football teams. Fizzing with testosterone and determined to prove their loyalty at all costs their colloquial prejudices have hitherto never had an audience before. Perhaps this more than anything represents the truly ugly side of the racism debate. If you give people a voice sadly far too many of them will resort to abuse. Indeed you don’t actually learn that much on Twitter but you do learn a lot about human nature.

Related articles

• Micah Richards quits Twitter after three months of sustained racist abuse (guardian.co.uk)
• Sometimes football really is much more than just a game | Observer editorial (guardian.co.uk)
• Sunderland fan admits sending racist tweets about Newcastle players (telegraph.co.uk)
• Liverpool apologies seek to quell ugly echoes of Luis Suárez affair | Richard Williams (guardian.co.uk)
• Barton ‘no risk’ to Terry trial (bbc.co.uk)

Celebrity culture and sporting prowess are two branches that only in England could have become intertwined. In the case of the Chelsea captain John Terry, who is facing trial on 9 July for racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand, it is the root of something very ugly indeed. Accused of racism by a member of the public after a YouTube clip went viral, the hysteria surrounding the case says as much about celebrity culture as it does about racism in football. Despite not wanting to defend Terry or any incident of racist or bigoted behaviour, a very dangerous precedent has been set where individuals can be thrown in court on accusations made not by the individual concerned but someone (potentially) sitting on a computer in Papua New Guinea.

With Terry losing the England captaincy because of these accusations, the hype surrounding the case also exposes a glib streak running through English popular culture. As football journalism in England is notorious for focusing on personalities and stories unlike in Spain or Italy where the emphasis is on sporting matters. In Spain journalists are even allowed to watch training and with this privilege comes the honour of improving their own knowledge of the game. As a result their coverage of football revolves around sporting excellence and not the personal lives of players.

Only in England could a journeyman footballer such as Joey Barton receive such press attention. Best known for being jailed for attacking a Liverpool teenager in May 2008, the notoriety surrounding the QPR player has been fuelled by his Twitter account. With over a million followers, the player bristles with self-righteous indignation and has a narcissistic desire for attention and thus provides scandal hungry English journalists easy headlines on a near daily basis. With the notable exception of Stan Bowles and Les Ferdinand, not many QPR players have attracted so much press attention as the former Newcastle play maker. However, Barton’s guttersnipe opinions and propensity to get into online feuds with journalists and fans has generated a level of hysteria that belies his achievements in the game.

Playing for a series of marginal clubs with no history of winning trophies, Barton has no medals to his name after a decade playing football. Alas the sporting culture in England is now all about being somebody rather than what you have achieved. Twitter only further accelerates a culture of gossip and spin allowing a narcissist such as Barton a global platform to broadcast his views. Already some players appear more pleased with the number of followers they have than trophies, where previously it had been medals and caps that were the benchmarks of success. Would for example a moderately talented Spanish player who takes the corners and free kicks for a minnow club like Getafe receive front page coverage in Spain?

With the ex-England captain now dethroned it looks like Terry won’t travel with the Euro 2012 squad this summer. But it is all too easy to forget that Terry had been previously stripped of the captaincy by Fabio Capello for having an affair with his team mate’s girlfriend. Sadly the celebrity circus goes on and the build up to the tournament from an England perspective will inevitably circle around their former captain’s court case.

As mediocre players such as Joey Barton try to establish new careers for themselves as ‘brands’, it will be fascinating to watch the English and Spanish sides at the Euro 2012 finals. Not just for their contrasting style of play but for their dignity and approach to the game. No one doubts that Spain are by far the better side. As the majesty of football is on the field of play and that is where it should remain too.

Related articles

• John Terry ‘devasated’ after being stripped of England captaincy – again – The Guardian (guardian.co.uk)
• Capello must axe Terry from the England squad (melosport.com)
• John Terry fury at being axed as England captain over race row (mirror.co.uk)

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Coming into work with your eyes stinging from the night before doesn’t require a night out to remember. The world is flooded with electronic light and it no longer requires anyone to go outdoors. After spending all day in front of a computer and returning home to converse in the same fashion, there appears to be more and more ways to communicate than things to say. Cyberspace has become a black hole, where our thoughts and emotions are distributed on Facebook and Twitter, and sold on and repackaged to make a profit. God once commanded his flock to down tools on a Sunday but there is now an even more powerful designer in charge and like the celestial dictatorship of old he is entirely man-made.

With the internet going on strike over proposed anti-piracy laws, the Wikipedia protests only further exposed the excessive amount of time we spend online. Such a powerful new religion now requires a Sabbath. Luxury is a result of scarcity and what leather, travel and prawn cocktails were to the working classes in the early twentieth century, spending less time on the internet will be to the twenty first. As anyone with a compulsive refreshing habit will already realise there is something wrong with having permanently sore eyes.

Online activities are too passive to stimulate and often leaves the mind under-nourished but like junk food served in neon-aisles of 24-hour supermarkets it remains curiously addictive. In a world dominated by Twitter storms, reblogging and hang outs, there is a never-ending spectre of what the computer industry calls ‘content’. But even the most erudite of web pages will leave you jaded and disillusioned after clicking the refresh button once too often.

With the Apple Ayatollahs of this world religiously defining their personalities through their digitally branded toys, a dangerous cult is emerging and abstinence is a potential cure. It may involve abandoning your phone and being disconnected for a few hours. Ignoring friends might not seem the most sociable way to re-engage your mind but anything that doesn’t involve being online is time worth cherishing.

Some cellular weary businessmen in the US are checking into ‘black hole’ resorts such as the Black Mountain Ranch on holiday. Granting them a chance to unplug and rediscover their love of literature and human conversation, the resort proudly boasts of having no Wi-Fi or television facilities. A Sabbath luxury of a different kind, these black hole resorts relieve the eyes of tedium by denying access to the greatest communications system of all time. All man-made religions need challenging and especially one as powerful as the internet.  So when jumping down a black hole feels like a worthy alternative you know it’s time to put down the Kindle and reads as many books as you can.

Related articles

• The joy of writing about things that don’t matter (confusedofcalcutta.com)
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Glasgow is a city with a brooding gothic soul. A city I once wrote about regularly, even if it was just the banality of routine. With its violence menace, religious iconography and twee bourgeois sensibility, Glasgow captured my imagination at a particular period in time. Back when I described the insignificant truth of this solitary journey to the cinema on a cold weekday evening. A melancholy love letter so to speak. I had just turned twenty-five. 

Tuesday, 10th January 2006

Moth to a Flame

I go the cinema when I’m bored and lonely. It all begins with an over familiar route through the West End and after several twists and turns I will magically stride through Garnethill down towards the largest cinema building on Planet Earth. The beginning of the journey is arguably the most comfortable upon the eye, it is invariably dark and rectangle shades of affluent light can be seen frozen behind coloured glass. I walk across the Byres Road up towards Great Gibson Street, where mercenary cranes hang over an underdeveloped patch of soil; it is a docile but rapidly changing stretch of road.

The sharp gradient tightens the muscles on both of my legs and I have reached the peak of the road, where in sudden twist of fate I feel compelled to go down the hill towards Gibson Street. I used to live around here, the car park is still a muddy disgrace, littered with crass aluminium shells and alien sized craters. The park dominates the area, it is a spooky place and lit only by a curved silver moon; its iron gates lie open but I dare not enter. I stride past fancy Lebanese and Scottish restaurants, it is an ordinary night but they both appear full of people. I cross over the gentle river, there are no grebes or mallards to be seen and only now do I start to accelerate towards my destination. I twist past two Protestant churches and a cold young fox lying dead in the leaves. The road ahead is empty and without a soul, it appears darker now, the motorway is within walking distance.

I head towards Charing Cross, it is very quiet and all the cars have gone. It is not the right time but I prefer to take to the skies than walk alongside them. I adjust my legs and walk over an arched granite causeway; it elevates me above the carnage of the roads and provides access to the mysterious ways of Garnethill. I am in the city now, there something sinister about this place, something threatening, although my mind is playing tricks on me. It is dark right now and no one is here. The street is awash with neat green lawns and vacancy signs, there are places to stay on my left, while to my right there are scattered bins and graffiti strewn fire exits.

I walk ominously closer and there is a Catholic Church approaching, which is separated by yew, rowan and a piercing iron fence. This secretive place of worship performs mass in Latin and the priest is kept hidden behind a secret silver veil. The church is small but intimidating and I don’t think it likes me at all. I walk on alone and without a God, the winter air is biting my cheeks, my hands are beginning to get cold now.

I walk towards the famous art school and admire its subtle and decorative style, there are no students in the nearby eighties lounge. I am almost there now and feel like a distant stranger, people are on the move down below me, there is a collection of buckfast and vodka sitting alongside a corrugated steel gate. The streets are colliding into one, there are cars passing by me, it is now sparkling with light and the silence has gone.