After two hard decades on the road, Bob Dylan’s old backing band, ‘The Band’, decided to call it a day. After all, one can only spend so long on a single municipal thoroughfare. In order to mark the occasion, the pin-sized director Martin Scorcese agreed to film it. Previously, Scorcese had cut his chops making entertaining fictional films, including ‘Taxi, ‘Taxi 2’ and ‘The King of Comedy and I’. But in ‘The Last Waltz’ he threw away all of the childish flim-flam of fiction and dedicated himself to recording the hard, gritty reality of five hairy men singing songs about obese women called ‘Fanny’.

The concert begins with Ronnie ‘the Hawk’ Hawkins. Ronnie resembles a hawk in much the same way that that Martin Sheen resembles a housemartin, i.e. not at all. Even so, he has dressed for the occasion, and swoops onto the stage via a zip-line, sporting a huge prosthetic beak and devouring live sparrows by the bucketload. The only way that the Band can get him to stay still and sing is by means of a vision-obscuring hood. While crooning he perches on the wrist of the drummer, Levon Helm.

Confusingly, Helm has the smile of a nice old grampaw and the eyes of Charlie Manson.

Next up is Van Morrison, the Gospel-Pig: O he of swinish pus and souly, squealy yelp. His tight teddy-bear bod is wrapped in purple velvet pyjamas. While the boys excrete a wet dollop of funk, Van wiggles his curly tail at them. “Squee” he says, “squee”. Methinks this little piggy has had quite enough white nose-swill for one evening.

After Van has bounced off the stage like a noisy ball of bacon, his place is filled by the maiden aunt of folk-rock, Boney Joni Mitchell. Her bearded nephews strike up a shuffle and each vies to supersede the others in her affections. “Look at me, Aunt Joni” says Richard Manuel, “I can play real neat. Now can I have some Victoria Sponge”. “Nay, Aunty” shouts Rick Danko, “don’t give that beastly Richard any sponge, for he is a naughty boy. Give it to me, for I have said my prayers and combed my beard. I am a good boy.’

Then cometh Eric Clapton, the dapper CEO of blues. Clapton does a little powerpoint presentation about why he’s such a good guitarist. Before exiting, he gives all of his employees a bonus and then takes a vacation in the South Sea Islands.

Throughout the concert Robbie Robertson, the guitarist of The Band, struggles manfully to contain his rapidly-multiplying teeth within his mouth. Meanwhile, Garth Hudson, a brainy bear with a tiny face, copulates with his moog.

Among the other guests is Neil Diamond, whose name evokes an angry emperor ordering a precious stone to prostrate itself before his majestic splendidness. Diamond’s music evokes stomach cramps and sadness.

Finally, just as the concert is coming to a close, a strange little man runs onstage and commandeers the microphone. He bellows atonally and snickers, as if parodying the other guests. Strangely, no-one tries to remove him from the stage. Instead, everyone comes back on stage and sings along, embarrassedly. The evening is ruined. The Band sigh, shave their beards and exit the stage. Scorcese’s camera zooms in on a clump of hair as it falls from Manuel’s cheek.

Is it not true, my friends, that the careers of rock stars end not with a bang, but with a whisker.

Amadeus is sort of a film about the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but one that uses his middle name instead of his forename or surname, like a freshman undergraduate who is trying out something a bit different for a change, but lacks the courage to adopt a new name altogether (such as Pee-Wee, Robo-Muffin, or Daniel).

Everyone knows Mozart was a young Austrian with a gift for the ladies and a taste for potted beef. But what else is there to know? Only the following:

Mozart flops up, out and onto the podium, smacks the pianissimo bang across its snout (a pert al pugno), and hoists a petard (his own) just to prove that he can. He is cocksure. Real cocksure. Yes, there’s no denying it. Mozart is exceedingly sure of his cock, like a gynaecologist who won’t take no for an answer. This is an unorthodox entry but the judges cannot deny that he has something special. For Mozart, you see, has supped the buttercup’s sap of musical inspiration. Jeez, has he supped. You can practically see the yellow snot coming out of his eye cracks.

Mozart squeezes the far end of the piano with a pronged pincer. It makes a sound no-one has ever heard before. As a direct result, a Pope dies. But a new Pope, taller, sleeker and faster, rises to take his place. Mozart does a teasing tinkle on the other side of the piano – just a little flirtatious finger-twizzle for the ladies. They like that kind of stuff, the ladies. Next he comes on hard and piratical in the middle of the keyboard, pump, pump, pump, like a pneumatic Nordic loveboy massaging a sentient German blob. The symphony has begun in earnest now. A billion notes leave Mozart’s ten fingers at once. His thumb alone hammers out enough symphony in a minute to feed the population of Luxembourg for a week.

 Think about that for a moment. No, don’t think about that. You think too much. That’s your problem. One of your problems anyway. Don’t think. Give yourself up. Throw yourself athwart the thunderous plinkety-plonk of unadulterated symphonitude. Climb among the stars like a galactic dwarf. Plunge into the amniotic fluid of musical rebirth. Dance. That’s right, do a dance. Not a big one. Just a little one. Do a little dance. And make love. Not loads of love. Just a love. A little love. Make a little love.

GET

DOWN

TONIGHT!

You have your instructions. Now get to it.

My name's not Jim and who you calling a pansy?

Cocker of snooks

He cocked a snook and yucked a yuck. He bounced in and flounced off. He was full of piss and vinegar. They took him with a pinch of salt and said he had a chip on his shoulder.

They smirked when he got irked and called him a berk. He dug deep and came off shallow. His field of dreams was fallow.

They played ideas tennis and he was the ball-boy. They jammed freeform while he played chopsticks. He fell from grace and lost face. They put him in his place.

And now he’s one of them.

Hairy Spy Kids are Watching You!

Spy Kids 4D is an espionage thriller for our post-Wikileaks times. Starring the 2-year old Timberlake DuFont as Binky, an old-school (spy code for pre-school) CIA agent, and the 2-and-three-quarters -year old Princess Snortums as Ruthy, his fast-talking, incontinent partner, it offers us a terrifying opportunity to listen in to the baby monitor of modern-day spydom. Here is a little poem about it.

Peppa Pig Colouring Books

(Ah! How I remember delicately

Dragging a stubby pink crayon

 Across the inky borders of

Peppa’s regal concave snout

Back before it all got out of hand),

Donkeys, ice cream,

Hopscotch, dolls

-That shit doesn’t cut it anymore.

These days you ain’t nobody

In the nursery

Unless you can hold your own

In the high-stakes game of

International espionage.

Binky surveilled that fat man

That fat man, you know him,

That fat man with a funny broken mouth

And the dogs and the car

That goes ‘zoooom’

Passing a mysterious piece of paper

To the newsagent.

24 hours later he was being waterboarded

In an unspecified former-Eastern Bloc state.

Watch what you pass to newsagents.

That’s all I’m saying.

The kids are watching.

Pic 1:

Batman and Bane face off, with devastating consequences!

Pic 2:

Batman upbraids a scoundrel, while Alfred zips past, Chagall-style

Pic 3:

Batman visits a convalescent Commissioner Gordon in hospital

Half-Price Sale on Dumplings at M&S

Advertising and comic-book superheroes have always gone hand in hand. But imagine what the advertising would look like in a world populated exclusively by superheroes. You know, like the one in that film “Superworld”. Now imagine you are travelling down a highway in Superworld, looking at all of the billboards, like a freckle-cheeked, travel-sick little boy in small blue shorts, peering out of the back window of his parents’ car, while they reproach each other monstrously in the front seats. Here is what you, i.e. poor little freckle-cheeks, might see:

A dogfood billboard advertisement. Thor has rabbit’s liver on his Nordic chin. “If it’s good enough for a god it’s good enough for your dog”.

This confuses the dyslexic superheroes.

Another billboard. The X-Men are in their underwear. Professor X kicks back in a chrome bathchair, aiming his jockstrap at the viewer, giving the psychic come-on to the brief-buying demographic.

Another billboard. Superman sucks on a red-Kryptonite cigarette, letting the misty vapours of meteor-induced moral ambivalence weasel up and all around his curious kiss-curl, like a sexy, curly weasel.

‘Wonder-Woman says “Drink mead from the teat of the sun”’

‘The Fantastic Four relax with a “Round-Eyes Plump-Crust Pizza Oval”’

‘Daredevil dares to use “No-Blobs Happy Tiles Roof Sealant”. Do you?’

What are the wind, if not a gassy blowing?

Love as you would love a pig.

Dance as if you had no legs.

The wise man knows that wisdom is foolish.

Follow folly and you will find a fool.

We would all like to have clean pants, but who among us deserve them?

God is a dream, dreamed up by an alien.

Realise your hurt.

Argos is a brothel and its brochures are the brides of Satan.

‘SNEEE’ is the only word you need to know. All other words are frivolous.

SNEEE.

Give your children to a bear. He would do the same for you.

Beneath the smiling veneer of the sitcom ‘Happy Days’ lurks a bottomless abyss of unholy unhappiness.

The cast of This is England

Here’s a poem about one of those Shane Meadows films. I forget which:

Urchins at play

1.

The 80s aren’t like they were in the 80s,

But, nevertheless,

Boggzy, Danno, “Grandma”, Milkmouth,

Kneesy, Weggso, Darren, etc.

Went down to the canal,

Booted, skinned and trim,

Whereupon a ruffian got lairy

And shook an old love

By the duffel coats.

I’ve caught a Thatcher he said

And his mates went wurrrrgh.

2.

One of the skins chucked a muffin

On to the train tracks.

What else are you going to do?

3.

With a hey nonny alright mate,

Watch out mumble mumble.

You can come round to mine for tea

Mam’s making proletarian crumble.

Natalie Portman, goose-stepping in Black Swan

Get your beaky bits off my pumps

And give me three pliets STAT

Scrap that

Battu, Bras. Bras bas.

Just stick your arm out like a beak

You clumsy meff.

Adagio.

Fiddly-dee. Dieu!

Puff it out. The swan is proud now.

Why are your knees bent

Like a be-ricketed Crazy Legs Crane.

Sur Les Demi-Pointes you terrible arse.

Ronde de jambe.

Ronde de JAMBE!

Oh for God’s sake just get me a ham and mustard.

And a can of Lilt please too.

It’s my birthday.