From the archives: Hip Hop Hump Days #2: Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)

Originally published on It Is Happening Again on March 26, 2014

There wasn’t much excitement in the former mining town where I grew up. We always joked that when the ‘90s came around, its residents would be right on the ball. We made this joke in 1995.

So, it caused something of a stir when the townsfolk awoke one morning to find strange, ‘foreign-sounding’ names sprayed in large black letters across shop fronts, shutters, brick walls and, well, anywhere with a surface really.

‘Wu-Tang Clan.’

Who were they? What did they want? One person I spoke to suggested that a Triad-style Chinese gang had moved into town and its members had set about marking their territory across the frontages of Woolworths and Clinton Cards to show everyone that they meant business.

The names of their leaders were also there for all to see: Method Man. Chef Raekwon. Ghostface Killah. Ol’ Dirty Bastard?!

The graffiti has long since gone, of course, but looking back, it’s difficult to tell what the good townspeople would have found more frightening: a Triad takeover or what those spray-painted words REALLY signified.

Enter the Wu-Tang.

When the Staten Island collective first burst on to the scene more than two decades ago, it was clear that they were not like other rappers. Their music was too brutal to be lumped in with the warmer G-Funk sound emanating from the opposite West Coast. Equally, it didn’t take itself too seriously, unlike a lot of the hardcore gangsta rap at the time.

It’s no understatement to say that ‘Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’ was a total game-changer. They were less a gang and more a movement, masterminded by de facto leader and producer RZA. They established an identity which went way beyond their music: it’s a safe bet that more people have heard the name Wu-Tang Clan than have actually heard their music – not to mention those unaware that Wu-Tang is anything more than a clothing label (yep, the Wu empire conquered that market too). But I digress…

"Shaolin shadowboxing, and the Wu-Tang sword style. If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu-Tang could be dangerous. Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me?"

"En garde. I'll let you try my Wu-Tang style."

This opening dialogue, lifted from obscure late 70s/early 80s Hong Kong films, sets the tone for the album. The kung fu mythology theme is one which runs throughout the record – indeed, ‘Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’ is divided into two sections: Shaolin Sword and Wu-Tang Sword. The battle theme is also evident in the Clan members’ lyrical style – each track sees selected members (rarely do they all appear together) square up to each other on the mic, flexing their lyrical muscles to see who can outdo the other with the most out-there free-association lyrics which veer between downright brutal and frankly hilarious, often blurring the two (the torture scene skit at the start of ‘M.E.T.H.O.D. Man’ is a case in point). Who wins these battles? Who cares? The results are never anything less than dazzling, regardless.

Musically, it’s difficult to find comparisons – even Wu-Tang Clan themselves failed to match their own stunning debut (although solo efforts from GZA and Raekwon came pretty damn close). In other words, this record is like nothing else that came before it. There is very little in the way of hooks or choruses and where other hip hop acts of the day would simply lift old songs wholesale and use them as the basis for their new tracks, RZA would instead take snippets of forgotten soul and funk and turn those brief snatches of music into instruments in their own right. The cheap equipment used during the recording process lends the album a raw, dusty sound, while the samples themselves (the sparse Chinese yangqin on ‘Da Mystery of Chessboxin’’ or the ghostly piano on ‘C.R.E.A.M.’, for example) give the whole record an eerie, unsettling tone, as if you’re eavesdropping into the Clan’s conversation and any minute now you’re going to sneeze or nudge whatever you’re hiding behind and give the game away. Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F' Wit. 

If your opinion of Wu-Tang Clan is based solely on ‘Gravel Pit’ (an uncharacteristically radio-friendly offering by their standards), then you’ve got some serious catching up to do, my friend. ‘Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’ is your starting point.

Listen and learn.

From the archives: Hip Hop Hump Days #1: Jurassic 5 – Jurassic 5 (1998)

Originally published on It Is Happening Again on March 18, 2014

Glastonbury, 25 June 2010. It’s hot. Too hot. We’re queuing up to meet Chali 2na. He’s just come off stage, having performed with Breakestra, and is chatting to fans, signing autographs and posing for photos.

Jurassic 5, the hip hop collective which made him famous, split up three years earlier, citing the classic “musical differences” and, since then, Chali has busied himself with a plethora of collaborations, including with the aforementioned Breakestra.

It’s our turn. We were at the back of the queue, but he treats us like we’re the first people he’s seen all day. Handshake. Autograph. Photograph. Then the journalist in me kicks in and I start asking him questions.

Has he performed at Glastonbury before? He has.

Was that with Jurassic 5? Affirmative.

Will Jurassic 5 perform together again? Uh…

He looks awkward. This cannot possibly be the first time he has been asked that question today. WE WERE AT THE BACK OF THE QUEUE.

“You’re all working on your own projects at the moment, right?” I chip in.

He looks relieved.

“Uh… yeah, yeah.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll see you guys back together again soon,” I quip, optimistically.

He gives me a smile which betrays a hint of pity and puts his hand up for one of those handshake/high-five hybrid things, saying: “Aw, respect man.”

---

I first encountered Jurassic 5 while at university in 1998. One of my housemates had their self-titled debut and I was immediately struck by the way it managed to sound so old skool and yet… so new, so fresh.

From the off, it was clear that this was the real deal. J5 weren’t concerned with guns, bitches and bling (which, as the great philosopher Scroobius Pip once reminded us, were NEVER part of the four elements and NEVER WILL BE). Theirs was not a world of macho posturing or pointless playground beefs based on territorial disputes and perceived disrespect. They had no need to pretend: every claim of lyrical prowess was instantly backed up. The evidence was right there in your hands, on your turntable, embedded in your consciousness.

So what about the album itself? Firstly, ‘Jurassic 5’ isn’t technically an album, per se, but more of an extended version of their earlier self-titled EP. Of the 13 tracks, just six are what you might call ‘songs’ (I hate to use that term in relation to hip hop but you know what I mean, right?) while the rest are either brief skits (‘Sausage Gut’, ‘Set Up’) sample-heavy instrumentals (‘Lesson 6: The Lecture’) and ‘reprises’ (in other words, shortened instrumentals) of earlier tracks. However, far from sounding fragmented or disjointed, everything comes together to create a mini-masterpiece which has stood the test of time.

Musically, this is hip hop stripped back to basics. Four MCs, two DJs. That’s it. What more do you want? Jarring kids’ TV samples shoe-horned into your track to get commercial radio play? Nah. P Diddy producing your record on the condition that he’s allowed to dance like a twat in your video? Not on their watch. Your own line of over-priced, garishly coloured headphones which look like something you would buy from the Early Learning Centre? GET OUT AND DON’T COME BACK.

Taking its cue from the conscious hip hop of De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, this is an album where substance takes precedence over style. What sets J5 apart from their peers is their smooth lyrical flow and four MCs rapping together as one, almost harmonising in places. These aren’t people who ‘think’ they can have a go at rapping – these are people with a talent that others should aspire to. The standard has been set.

It’s coming up to 16 years since ‘Jurassic 5’ was released. To this day, it remains one of the albums I play the most. The day I get bored of it is the day I stop breathing.

---

O2 Academy, Birmingham, 11 June 2013. It’s hot. Too hot. We’re queuing up to meet Chali 2na. He’s just come off stage, having performed with a reformed Jurassic 5, and is chatting to fans, signing autographs and posing for photos.

It’s our turn. We were at the back of the queue, but he treats us like we’re the first people he’s seen all day. Handshake. Autograph. Photograph.

I resist the urge to say “I told you so”.

The crud, the bland and the fallen Madonna

As weird as it sounds, there’s something ever so slightly reassuring about the Brit Awards being shit.

They’re consistent – you know where you stand with the Brits. You go in expecting to be disappointed by the overwhelming blandness of such a relentlessly corporate affair and those expectations are always met. And anyway, we’d only have to find something else to complain about if this changed.

Last year, I made a point of not watching the Brits (explaining why here), but for 2015’s awards I decided to bite the bullet and subject myself to just over two hours of musical diarrhoea, vomit-inducing sycophancy and veteran pop singers hitting the floor at considerable speed, recording my thoughts in the process.

Don’t say you weren’t warned…

8pm – proceedings kick off with a frankly bizarre but mercifully brief ‘dance’ routine involving a banquet which feels like it’s on the verge of erupting into the kind of party where car keys are pulled from bowls. Nothing quite says ‘the best of British music’ like dour-faced celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, does it? And that’s probably why he was chosen to put an end to this utterly pointless routine by lifting the lid on a giant silver serving plate to reveal our cheeky, chirpy hosts for this evening’s ‘merriment’… yup, Ant and Dec. Hey, at least it’s not James Corden again.

8.05pm – if Taylor Swift’s opening performance excels at anything, it’s being lacklustre. She looks and sounds like she’s there because she has to be. ‘Blank Space’? I’ll say.

8.09pm – Dec warns us that Kanye West is in the building. I think it’s going to be one of those nights where I’d happily see him ruin anyone’s acceptance speech. Fingers crossed for Sheeran or Smith, eh?

8.11pm – first painfully predictable award of the night goes to Ed Sheeran for Best British Male Solo Artist. Presented by Orlando Bloom and Rita Ora (looking like a deflated Brigitte Nielsen), Sheeran steps up to receive something resembling an ornament from your grandma’s downstairs toilet. Kanye nowhere to be seen, but the night is young.

8.20pm - “Are you having a great time? I know I am," says Jimmy Page without so much as a hint of enthusiasm in his voice as he prepares to present the award for Best British Group to Royal Blood. The Twittersphere is awash with furious One Direction fans who, like, totally, literally, cannot BELIEVE an award has gone to someone they’ve never heard of.

8.23pm – we’re ‘treated’ to a live performance by whimpering robot Sam Smith. Maybe I’m missing something here, but how can someone marketed as a supposed soul singer make music that is so devoid of any actual soul? Mute button.

8.36pm – Excruciating effort at ‘humour’ between Lewis Hamilton and Ellie Goulding (admittedly neither are renowned for their razor-sharp wit and comic timing, but still…) as they shuffle on stage looking like the happy couple at a second-rate footballer’s wedding to present the Best International Female toilet decoration to Taylor Swift, who promptly dedicates it to tea and all things British.

8.40pm – Royal Blood perform live, presumably fuelled by the bitter, stinging tears of livid One Directioners. I like to think that future Royal Blood riders will include, nay, DEMAND barrels of the stuff.

8.51pm – Simon Cowell’s mouth botox doesn’t appear to have worn off yet. Either that or he’s just pissed. Either way, tonight he looks less like a music impresario and more like an inebriated English teacher sitting out a dance at the school prom.

8.56pm – a busker seems to have wandered on stage while no one’s looking. Oh, wait – it’s Ed Sheeran, comin’ on like a Games Workshop Justin Timberlake. At one point, he looks like he’s actually trying to put his guitar out of its misery. I wish I was that guitar.

9.11pm – “Everyone has to get up on their feet and welcome my husband, Kanye West!” shouts professional oxygen thief Kim Kardashian before His Lordship takes to the stage with what appears to be the entire population of a small town (I assume for protection in case Beck decides to crash the party) for a performance which TV bosses keep muting, despite it being shown after the watershed. Is this the most pointless television performance ever? To be fair, I’d probably still be asking that question even if it wasn’t being muted.

9.16pm – for some inexplicable reason, Zac Efron in drag comes on to present the award for Best International Male Solo Artist. Oh no, wait, it’s Cara Delevingne. Winner Pharrell Williams can’t be arsed to turn up so he sends a video in which he says “Best International Solo Artist? I don’t know…” – which, funnily enough, is exactly what I was thinking.

9.26pm – Ant and Dec do the sort of ‘comedy’ routine they’d have done when they still did kids’ TV and which even the Chuckle Brothers would now dismiss as ‘dated’. I’m rapidly starting to lose interest and a live performance by Take That (now just a three-piece following Jason Orange’s departure to focus on… oh, fuck knows) fails to reverse the situation. I’ve forgotten the song already and they haven’t finished performing it yet.

9.40pm – identikit busker-done-good George Ezra tries to liven up a predictably dull performance by giving full-blown hipsters jobs in his backing band. As charitable as that may be, the whole thing just feels flat and lifeless. He’s performed ‘Budapest’ so many times that even he sounds bored of it now.

9.50pm – award number two (in every sense) for Sam Smith as he wins British Breakthrough Act. Just to rub salt into the wound, someone’s seen fit to ask Fearne Cotton to present the award. Kanye, where are you? Bring the flamethrower.

9.56pm – “British music is the best, isn’t it?” yelps an over-excited Ant. Indeed. Maybe we should have an awards ceremony recognising the best of British music. I can’t think of anything more exciting.

9.58pm – Wand Erection finally win an award for Best British Video and they haven’t even turned up to collect it. An increasingly dishevelled looking Cowell accepts it in their place. To be fair, he’s the only one who’s actually had any input into their career to date so he may as well have their award too. I still want to smash my face into the nearest wall, however.

10.06pm – Russell Crowe presents what we are promised is the final award of the night, for Best British Album. It’s fucking Ed Sheeran again. Crowe shakes his hand like a headteacher congratulating his star pupil on winning the school science prize. Sheeran ponders flogging his award because “it’s a Tracey Emin, innit?” You might get some money for that guitar too. Just a thought.

10.11pm – it’s a sad indictment on the Brits that the most interesting thing about the whole sorry affair is Madonna falling off the stage with a not inconsiderable thump, inadvertently creating what will no doubt be the defining moment of this year’s awards. To be fair, she dusts herself off and carries on but as comebacks go… ouch.

Cooking with Gaz

Gaz Coombes – live @ The Glee Club, Birmingham, 09/02/15

Applause, then darkness.

“Hello Birmingham… I can’t see shit!”

As opening lines go, it’s certainly unusual, but occasional technical gremlins aside (the stage is accidentally plunged into darkness as the band comes on stage), Coombes seems perfectly at home in such an intimate venue, particularly when you consider that, in a previous life, he regularly played to tens of thousands of people at festivals around the world.

Touring in support of second solo album Matador, Coombes is quoted as saying that he just wanted to make a record he was into – and tonight it shows. Whereas Supergrass were seen as an integral part of the mid-90s Britpop explosion, Coombes is now at that enviable point in his career where he doesn’t have to be part of any ‘scene’. It’s an old cliché, but he really is making music for himself and if the rest of us like it then it’s a bonus – and, as it turns out, a lot of us DO like it. A LOT.

He still knows his way around a tune, of course. Matador’s strength lies in the way its songs manage to permeate your consciousness. When he plays album highlight 20/20 tonight, it feels like a song we’ve known all our lives, even though many of us (myself included) only heard it for the first time little more than a month ago.

“You’re one of the politest crowds I’ve ever played to,” he observes. And he’s right.  Tonight’s crowd may be somewhat reserved but it’s more through quiet reverence than lack of enthusiasm. It’s THAT kind of gig – the one which those who were there will still talk about in hushed tones in years to come.

Songs from Matador, such as The English Ruse, Detroit, Needle’s Eye and Seven Walls, sit comfortably among material from 2012 debut Here Come The Bombs, showcasing Coombes’ knack for writing epic, widescreen tunes incorporating stark electronica and even elements of Krautrock (the motorik beat and one-note repetition are evident here a few times) with compelling results.

Set closer Break The Silence (from the first album) becomes an extended glam rock disco stomper which gives Coombes an opportunity to introduce us to a backing band who have clearly enjoyed every second of tonight’s performance as much as their frontman. It’s only at this point that I realise Loz Colbert from Ride is the drummer.

He doesn’t play any Supergrass songs, of course – and he doesn’t need to. His solo material more than speaks for itself.  

Where dreams go to die

So it seems perpetually self-satisfied music mogul Simon Cowell’s ill-considered idea for a ‘DJ X-Factor’ is finally set to see the cruel light of day, albeit via an online platform bafflingly offered by Yahoo (cheers, guys).

While it’s not yet clear exactly what format this atrocity will take, the flat-topped twat’s track record should be enough to tell you that it’ll be about as appealing as waking up to find Jedward lying either side of you with knowing smiles on their otherwise vacant faces.

How will it work? To my mind, it takes at least 30 minutes, if not an hour, to get a feel for what a DJ is like, maybe even longer. It’s about building a mood, a feeling, a journey (clichéd, I know) – how will that be condensed into three minutes in front of an audience of over-excitable adolescents and tearfully proud nans? And DJs who CAN cram it all into three minutes – otherwise known as turntablists – already have their own talent show in the form of the infinitely more credible DMC World DJ Championships.

How will contestants be judged? Mixing ability? Track selection? How easily they can make that excruciating heart shape with their hands? Whether they have some ridiculous gimmick like throwing cake at people who’ve paid to see them? Will someone with the skills of Carl Cox or Sasha find themselves rejected with a withering: “You’re not quite right for this show – I mean, what are you going to do when it’s Abba Week?”

The advancement of technology has effectively meant that anyone can download the latest top 10 tracks from music sites such as Beatport and mix them together using the ‘sync’ button (which basically does all the work for you). Great, but where’s the creativity, the imagination? Will someone with real technical ability and a genuine understanding of the music they’re playing lose out to someone who simply plays the chart-toppers and puts on more of a show behind the decks?

What does Cowell imagine ‘clubland’ is like these days? Will extra points be awarded for demonstrating your prowess on the microphone by giving a shout out to the hen party down at the front or spitting out lyrics such as “remember, folks, it’s half price WKDs at the bar until midnight”?

Will Cowell complain that drum and bass is “too fast”? Will he put two different DJs together purely because “you look good and I think girls will really like you”? Will there be a judges’ house stage where plucky hopefuls are forced to fiddle around with expensive electrical equipment precariously close to a swimming pool while the show’s equivalent of Cheryl Cole (or whatever she’s calling herself these days) fights back tears as she stares into the distance while managing to look bored, confused and angry at the same time?

And on the subject of judges, who would they be? Fatboy Slim literally told Cowell to “fuck off” when he was approached to become a judge on the show in 2013. Could any DJ worth their salt lower themselves to this level and then expect to be taken seriously? Or will Cowell call on the services of so-called ‘superstar’ DJs such as David Guetta and Paris Hilton, who, ironically, are probably better known for NOT actually mixing.

The bottom line is that a DJ competition will not make good television. Turntablism aside, DJing is not a visual art – it’s about listening and dancing to what’s being played. Good DJs work best in their natural environment – the club, the rave, the festival, the squat party – where they can feed off the crowd in order to shape and develop their set. No amount of fancy studio lighting, overpaid celebrity guests, theme weeks or heart-wrenching sob stories (“my dead grandad always wanted me to be the next Pete Tong!”) can ever replicate this.

People: this is evil and must be stopped, or, at the very least, ignored. Cowell is a parasite who loves nothing more than to feast on the shattered dreams and bitter, stinging tears of the young, impressionable and foolish.

You’ve already encouraged him by continuing to watch X-Factor – don’t make the same mistake again. How will we explain this shame to our grandchildren?

We’re better than this.

From the archives: Welcome to the Chemical age

Originally published in the Coalville Times newspaper in early 2002

When I was a trainee reporter at the Coalville Times, a weekly newspaper based in Coalville, Leicestershire, back in the early noughties, my colleagues and I came up with the idea of writing a series of classic album reviews - in short, a rather self-indulgent opportunity to wax lyrical about one of our favourite records.

I'm not entirely sure why I opted for Exit Planet Dust (with hindsight, I probably would have gone for something like Endtroducing) but I guess it was a pivotal album (even if it isn't the Chemical Brothers' best) and, besides, my colleagues chose records like Daft Punk's Discovery (good, but it had only been released a year earlier so hardly qualified as a classic) and Notorious BIG's Life After Death (I've honestly never rated Biggie as a rapper) so I suppose I was just trying to be different.

Anyway, below is a scan of the original review as it appeared in the paper - I no longer have the original draft (I wrote it at work) and I can't quite summon up the will to type it out manually (although I may do if enough people complain that they can't read it).

Click on the image to enlarge

From the archives: In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous

Originally published on It Is Happening Again on January 14, 2014

If you’re at a loose end on 19^th February and you’re not busy sewing your eyelids shut or filling your ears with molten glue then you might find yourself basking in the festival of mediocrity that is the Brit Awards.

Music is one of Britain’s biggest exports, so the Brits must be a celebration of everything that’s truly great about British music, right? Oh, hell no.

In truth, the Brits have always trodden that fine line between terrible and appalling. Remember how Annie Lennox used to dominate the awards in the early 90s after releasing a solo album which sounded like the ramblings of someone who wanders through shopping precincts shouting at pigeons? How about the fact that glorified redcoat Robbie Williams holds the record for the most Brit awards (12, in case you wondered)? Coldplay? Yup. Mumford & Sons? You betcha. Cutting edge stuff, like I said.

So, it’s 2014 and things aren’t faring much better. Let’s look at some of the artists ‘leading’ the nominations, shall we?

Firstly, Bastille, nominated for four (four!) awards. BASTILLE. The name alone sounds like some overly pretentious ‘boutique’ bakery which sells tiny artisan loaves to hipsters. The reality is far, far worse. It’s hard to believe anyone would deliberately start a band which sounds so contrived, so unadventurous and yet that’s exactly what appears to have happened. It’s like they were put together with the sole purpose of fronting an advert for Topshop. They probably know people with names like Hugo. The music itself sounds like The Hoosiers, Scouting For Girls and that twat who sang ‘JCB Song’ have got together for a jam at their local Costa Coffee open mic night. The singer (I can’t even conjure up the will to look up his name) pronounces things in the most horrible, affected way – “if you clewse your eyes” and “rhythm is a darncer” (hell, even people who say ‘darncer’ in everyday speech still sing it as ‘dancer’) – that makes you want to hunt him down and see to it that he never sings again. That literally tens of thousands of ‘consumers’ are lapping up this drivel by the bucketload is a sad indictment on society and a shame we will have to bear for generations to come.

Next up: Tom Odell. Yeah, because that’s what the world needs right now, isn’t it? A frickin’ Starsailor revival. And worst of all, you’re ensuring that he gets to make a living out of peddling his painfully bland output by buying into this bullshit. This means he’ll probably make a second album. Just think about that for a moment.

Then there’s Katy Perry. I imagine she likes to see herself as a cross between Betty Page and Dita Von Teese in terms of image, but in reality comes across more like forgotten 90s pop ‘star’ Lolly. The fact she’s effectively just re-releasing the same song each time doesn’t really help, either. As with Lady Gaga, everything just feels so forced, so false. All style, no substance.

Jessie J, then. I caught a few minutes of her set at Glastonbury in 2011. The most interesting thing about it was the fact she had to sit down to sing due to a broken leg. Her vocals were dreadful, her songs lacked variety and the whole experience felt like watching your mum trying to be ‘street’. I was embarrassed for us both. It saddens me that she’s been nominated for British Female Solo Artist.

This pitiful line-up is symptomatic of what’s really wrong with the Brits. While the whole thing has always been so ridiculously corporate and the results so tediously predictable (with the possible exception of the time Belle & Sebastian pipped Steps to the post for Best British Newcomer in 1999), there always used to be a sense of danger. Whether it was Jarvis Cocker pretending to waft a fart at Michael Jackson (I still firmly believe he’s owed a knighthood), The KLF firing blanks from a machine gun at a bewildered audience after performing a death metal version of ‘3am Eternal’ with grindcore metal band Extreme Noise Terror, the endless squabbles between Oasis and everything else in existence, or, erm, Danbert Nobacon (stay with me here) from Chumbawamba tipping a bucket of ice water over John Prescott, you could pretty much guarantee that something was going to happen that wasn’t in the script. Something to ruffle the suits and give ITV bosses a collective coronary.

Okay, there was that time when Adele flipped the bird at no one in particular when her 39^th acceptance speech of the night was cut short in 2012, but when you consider that this was to make way for Blur then you can only conclude that she fully deserved to be denied the right to inflict her foghorn voice on everyone for another second. But other than that, the most controversial incident these days is more likely to involve someone dropping a microphone or suffering an autocue malfunction. Rock and, indeed, roll.

Worse still, James Corden, who appears to be allergic to turning down work, is presenting the awards for the THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR. I’ve yet to meet anyone who can fully explain his appeal. He is neither funny nor entertaining and always looks a little too pleased with himself. I don’t know who’s responsible for this bewildering decision, but they deserve to be hurt. Badly.

Sure, there are a few redeeming features. The supremely talented John Grant is nominated for Best International Male, for example, but you and I both know he’s not going to win and, anyway, it’s too little, too late.

You go ahead and watch if you like. I’ll be in the kitchen, licking a cheese-grater.