These are infotainment saturated times, and boredom has been banished forever. Millions of dedicated media professionals work quite hard 24 hours a day to ensure that your every desire is served up on a digital dinner-plate in three seconds flat. If you’re tired of my spiel already then google ‘celebrity midget fisting’, and hey presto, you are instantly un-bored. But do you NEED all that pleasure and stimulation? No. What you NEED is some of that lovely velvet-grey ennui.

Don’t get me wrong I like doing stuff, just not all of the time. Constant excitement and entertainment will make you thick. Your brain will melt, drip out your ears, leaving you with a nothing but a big sloppy grin. Boredom, on the other hand makes you super-clever because you start noticing things, and actually thinking about them. Stephen Hawking grew so bored of getting his speech synthesizer to say ‘pissflaps’ that he eventually decided to work out the shape of the universe instead.

Children, in particular, need boredom. TV and computers have turned the yoof into crack-smoking lady-stranglers. My grandmother told me the only toys she had as a child were bits of broken plates and cups. Provide your child with these items, rather than a Nintendo DS. They will be forced to think, and create something useful to humanity.

If you are bored it means nothing bad is happening to you. Stop whinging, make yourself a cup of tea, and enjoy it.

Life is short:; boredom makes it longer. I’m not making this stuff up, it’s called the human condition. If you spend your life frolicking and laughing like a pansy you’ll be in your coffin before you even know what the bloody hell happened. Alternately, if you regularly gaze out the window at the rain for hours on end you’ll see the grim reaper coming from miles off.

Whilst we’re getting all cosmic: Buddhism, meditation, chanting and all that spiritual hippy-jazz, is just foreign for boredom. People in the east have known for thousands of years that a nice bit of tedium sorts you right out. Folks in the west are only just cottoning on to this one. Therefore, we fork out thousands on Zen retreat holidays to purge our ‘inner bad mongy dragonfly energy’. No wonder Buddhist monks are always laughing.

I hope I have demonstrated the various rich and subtle shades of boredom to you. Now you will be able to enjoy boredom for what it really is: contentment. I will waste no more of your valuable time. Goodbye.

Where Beatmag Defends The Indefensible

Blackbeltjonez makes his unlikely claim for the joys of railway travel in Great Britain

There’s something about being an infrequent train-traveller that makes any potential trip a treat. The dormant journeyman in me is awoken, as when one drops friends off at the airport and shares their holiday-buzz just by being within spitting distance of aeroplanes. However unlike the mild trauma of flying, train travel often provokes sentimental feelings that lighten the heart and gladden the soul. That said, a more base emotion often manifests itself, namely ‘greed’. Much like entering a record or clothes shop, a railway concourse channels an Elton John-ish blasé attitude to money and I lavish treats upon myself only a prince (or Prince himself) would consider necessary. If Marks & Spencer had barbecued swan on their shelves you can bet I’d be dragging one onto the carriage, along with my standard gluttonous army of necessaries; a bottle of water, 1 x packet of crisps, a chocolate bar, some mints or gum (I think there are swans in these too), a ‘posh’ newspaper (one with 3+ syllable words in) and a magazine that I would never normally read unless I was after a sly dab of aftershave or thinking of purchasing trousers that cost £300. Bearing in mind that the time I spend actually sat on a train is rarely more than four hours this all feels like quite an extravagance, especially as I rarely read because I’m mostly gawping out of the window and at the end of fifty percent of my journeys, my mum is lurking behind the front-door curtain with forkfuls of food to shovel into my face.

Perhaps the irregularity and shortness of the journeys I take are in direct contrast to what makes it a more hellish experience for the average train-traveller, namely the business commuter. Travelling into London from an outskirt (or heaven forbid, Colchester) the unfortunate (or greedy) folk with high salaries and higher blood pressure not only have to contend with each other’s tardy attitude to manners, courtesy and personal space, but also with oppressive sardine-tins train that demand they be out of bed promptly then gracelessly spit them onto rainy, grey Tuesday morning platforms.

A sample of what consumables the various franchises formally known as British Rail have to offer often puts life’s trivialities into perspective for you. The inordinately simple becomes quite the opposite for many in the employ of a rail company. Their inability to fuse together the basic ingredients of a cup of tea boggles the mind and although this should be quite maddening it enables you to appreciate the home comforts one can often take for granted. There’s something reassuring about sipping the pissy liquid concocted by the uniformed simpleton-wizard in the buffet car. An enjoyment similarly perverse to using a festival toilet, knowing that no matter how shit this may be thank fuck it won’t be forever.

If you’re fortunate to have snagged one of the seats with the view un-obscured by part of the train’s frame or something that was born inside somebody’s nose then there are views-a-plenty. The London skyline on a sunny day is a pleasure to witness on approach although once you’ve skidded on your arse on a kebab in King’s Cross it’s twice the delight to leave behind. Once you’ve done so, the lush green of the countryside is a scenic reminder that not all of England has become a concrete shit-heap.

There’s even a slim chance you could get laid. OK, this has only happened once to my knowledge, (and to a friend at that) but there is definitely a sociable aspect missing from bus and car journeys. Not everyone wants to talk to the damp smelling drunk man sat opposite them (although that’s how my friend managed his ‘erotic story’, AND he is often drunk and smelly) but every now and then you’ll happen upon a decent sort to chat to…

And for the unsociable types, two options; A) tread in dog-shit on the way to the station. A sure-fire guarantee that no one will sit near or talk to you or, B) plug into your iPod. For the irregular commuter a train becomes one of the few times one can be focused on just listening to music and enjoying it guilt-free, rather than worrying about how you should be demolishing the washing up, hoovering the curtains, or finishing that article for Beatmag…

Miranda Michaelides makes a sturdy defense of Ben Sherman and Lacoste, classic designer labels that have been adopted by less than classic men

Ben Sherman and Lacoste are high class, classic and successful design labels whose clothes are nowadays often seen in the UK on men who are none of those things. The fellows I’m talking about hang around in groups of four or five at the local cattle market night club-bar polishing off a few sherbets (beers) Their Saturday night may involve leery sleazing over passing women, rubbish R&B, possibly a bit of vomit on the way home, maybe a fight, and definitely the unimaginative same the next week. There’s no doubt these are not the men the designers have in mind when styling their latest collection. The models and lifestyles used to advertise their latest range of clothes are a million miles away from their real customer.

These labels, as with many other designer labels, come with a history. Rene Lacoste was a French tennis player who won the US Open in 1926 and caused a sensation with his self-designed short-sleeved light white shirt, a world away from heavy long-sleeved tennis fashions of the time. Nicknamed ‘The Alligator’ by the American press, the name caught on as ‘Le Crocodile’ in his homeland and Lacoste had a suitable logo designed for his blazer. When he retired in 1933 he set up La Societe Chemise Lacoste to produce versions of his tennis shirt, each with a ‘le crocodile’ logo. The line was a success and by the ‘50s his firm had expanded into golf and sailing wear and made a big impact in the States. The company bloomed under family management (Rene’s sons Bernard and Michel) from the early ‘60s to the present. The use in recent times of designer Christophe Lemaire has even seen a resurgence in the brand’s cools status, with young sports people such as tennis player Andy Roddick embracing ‘le croc’.

Lacoste should portray relaxed, casual elegance with, perhaps sporting undertones – a quick game of tennis and Pimms on the lawn. It’s about sportswear with class, clothes which blend style and function with grace and elegance. And yet, and yet… sadly the reality is quite different – in the UK at least. We see scruffy ASBO kids wearing Lacoste as a badge, hanging out on street corners putting the fear of God in local residents. These are the boys who will have a tracksuit ‘for best’ and care more about their trainers than their kids or girlfriends. Outfits are usually accessorised with gold chains and a spare cigarette behind the ears. It’s mixed too with the casual sportswear attire which American rap culture has popularised, the sort that just doesn’t quite work on your average white boy. Unfortunately this has not stopped it from becoming ubiquitous and removing all individuality and style. These clothes usually use achromatic colours and manmade fibres stitched by some child slave-worker in China. And the wearers of these sports clothes rarely partake in any sport whatsoever.

With Ben Sherman fans, it’s another story. On a Friday night, once away from their place of employment, these men will groom and preen, gel and wax, moisturise and lash on the Kouros/CK/Lynx aftershave even before the clothes go on. This modern day man will become peacock and be proud of the way he looks. And so he should be. Anyone who makes this much effort with their appearance cannot be a bad thing and should be admired. But it’s not just about the labels for the Ben Sherman boys, it’s the total look. From shoes to hair products, thought and effort will have gone into their outfits. They have adopted this designer label for the quality fabrics and the original styling which dates back to the 1960’s.

Arthur Bernard Sugarman set up Ben Sherman in back streets of Brighton in 1963. He was already much travelled and had experience in the US clothes industry. His first lines of clothes, which combined lowkey pop art styles with clever military touches (famously the target logo) quickly became the favoured choice of the smartly dressed Mod, suedehead and skinhead of generations past and present – Modfather Paul Weller even recently designed a range of clothing for the brand.
Like the 1960s mod, today’s man will also care about how they look and how they come across. Even if worn with dress down jeans, the Ben Sherman shirt is worn with pride. The man with the most up-to-date Ben Sherman shirt will be the alpha male amongst his peers. He may even own a pink or lilac shirt with embroidery and be manly enough to wear it.

And it needn’t be superficial, to generalize wildly, this man may have a keen interest in sports – football or fishing – and no doubt a gym membership. He is loyal to his friends and will eventually marry his girlfriend. He will have worked hard to earn the money to buy the clothes, and his local stockist will have him on speed-dial to call him up first when the new range has been delivered.

So whether as an eminently Brit fashion shared with Mod culture or suave European leisurewear, Lacoste and Ben Sherman are very much more than the drab costume of lager-swigging hoolies who populate the parochial high street at kick-out time on a weekend evening.

Where Beatmag Defends The Indefensible

Writer and mysterious musical artist Nag’s Head defends the Grey Man

It’s easy to feel like one of the little people, powerless to challenge the injustice of the world. Maybe you think your life is going nowhere fast. A quick look at the rise and fall of John Major could change all of this. He proves that anyone can realise their true potential, and even reach the highest public office in a small island off the coast of Norway. His example is a beacon of hope to us all.

John Roy Major grew up in Brixton as the son of a trapeze artist. After helping his dad run a garden-gnome business into bankruptcy John left school at 16, with three O-Levels. So far I admit he doesn’t look too special, but this is my point. Almost every other prime minister in British history spent their youth being buggered into submission at one of our finest private educational establishments, before being given a leg-up straight into the cabinet. Our hero, on the other hand, was refused a job as a bus conductor upon leaving school, because he was too short. He dragged himself out of this rut by taking correspondence courses in banking. His gritty determination paid off in the late 1960s, as he became a well-paid banker, whilst everybody else his age turned into a smelly pile of useless hippies. He managed all of this despite being afflicted with an overly large philtrum (the moustache-shaped area above the top lip).

Major had a vision for Britain, and decided to spread the word by standing on a soapbox in Brixton Market. Instead of being made to go and join all the other undesirables at Speakers’ Corner, this stunning political innovation sped him through the ranks. In 1990 he became Prime Minister without anybody ever voting for him, which demonstrates a true mastery of blagging techniques.

Major ran the country for seven years. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but he captained the good ship Britannia through some pretty stormy seas. He was actually winging it by the seat of his grey underpants, just like all politicians. The garden-gnome shaped demons from his childhood came back to haunt him in 1992 on Black Wednesday. The Pound crashed out of the ERM, wiping out billions of pounds in gold reserves. Our man apparently spent a significant part of that day hiding in a cupboard at 10 Downing Street. Wouldn’t you if you made a gaff like that? Most of us wouldn’t come back out, but John Major did. He rolled up his sleeves, gritted his teeth, and in 1997 suffered the worst Conservative election defeat of the 20th century.

There is also the small matter of his four-year affair with that gob-on-legs Edwina Currie. We all make some shocking mistakes in the sexy department, and Major came out of his looking pretty tasty. In Currie’s own words her romance with Major was ‘spectacularly good, for such a long time’. It’s apparent that between the sheets this man transformed into a rampant wildebeest of sweet, sweet lovemaking. Currie also revealed that Major ‘really had quite a Machiavellian streak about him’. Not only was he the peoples’ champion, but scratch the surface, and it appears he was total man candy to boot.

Most of all I like to think of Major as a prophet of hope. Check this shit out:

‘Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers’

I despise cricket, and I’m no great flag-waver, but he was just trying to make us feel all cosy and warm. Of course, at the time I thought he was talking out of his arse, but with hindsight I have seen a warped beauty in his vision. Unlike Blair, Major wasn’t trying to ‘civilise’ the entire world into thinking just like him. He just wanted us little folk to live peaceful, decent lives. It’s a shame that the government he presided over only served to do the exact opposite, but he meant well.

Nobody likes politicians, let alone prime ministers, but I really like John Major. I like him more and more with each passing year. Those icecaps just keep on melting, and that unfortunate business in Mesopotamia threatens to spill over and vomit total annihilation upon us all. As we head for hell in a handcart the time has come to rewrite the book on The Grey Man.

Where Beatmag Defends The Indefensible

Greetings, traveller, I am going to attempt to defend the celtic/folk/world-music/new age group, Clannad, and to a certain extent, folk music as a whole. Not the modern iteration of the term, which the music media has bastardized to describe anything with an acoustic guitar in it, but the real meaning of folk; music that keeps traditional instruments and methods alive, preserving the sounds of our past and using them in a contemporary way. Yet talk to most people about folk music these days and their minds are scarred with the images of Jack Johnson or Damien Rice. Sorry kids, but that ain’t folk music!

There was a time when folk music was good. Think Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel or Pentangle (the latter who spawned the solo careers of John Renbourn and Burt Jansch). Now these bands are all considered cool again as folk has become mainstream and the years of ridiculing your dad for owning such records are finally over. After all, good music is always respected eventually, no matter how ridiculous the band members look (see Steeleye Span, above). Well, all except one band – Clannad, but this is probably because they were never cool in the first place. I honestly can’t think of one band throughout the spectrum modern music with less street cred. The fact that they looked like characters from ‘Lord Of The Rings’, played instruments with names forgotten in the 14th century and produced new-age Celtic folk laid to rest to any chance of being considered trendy. But, although I’m inclined to err on the side of caution as it may well destroy my reputation for life, I think they are a great band.

A quick heads up for the under 25s: Clannad are a family-based band that formed in the ‘70s in Donegal, Ireland, consisting of Maire, Pol and Ciaran Brennan and their uncles, Padraig and Noel Duggan. Then in 1982 they were joined by sister, Eithne. In Ireland and Germany they picked up a huge following but the big breakthrough was in 1984 when they produced ‘Legend’, the soundtrack to the British TV series ‘Robin of Sherwood’. It was at this point, as a child, that I first heard Clannad and became hooked on the album. It has never worn off. I still listen to it regularly today.

At the time ‘Robin Of Sherwood’ came out it was considered a ground-breaking achievement and went on to receive an Ivor Novello and a BAFTA. This was due to the way they had fused Celtic instruments with state of the art synthesizers and heavily multi-tracked vocals, creating a new and intriguing sound. You can certainly hear from where many ‘90s chill-out artists drew their influence, and even now, with our never ending fascination for vintage synths, it still remains an important document.

To really experience the album properly, though, it needed be heard as the backing music for the TV show. Although the original series was well-written (unlike the pile of televisual sick the BBC have thrown up for the modern re-make), it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as dark and fantastical had it not been for a soundtrack that fitted it so well. With the possible exception of ‘Twin Peaks’, it is almost unheard of for a program to be just as memorable for its soundtrack as it’s script.
The new sound they developed on ‘Legend’ was part of a long journey though, for they had released seven albums up until this point. From 1973 to 1979 they released much traditional Celtic music with Gaelic vocals on albums such as ‘Clannad’, ‘Clannad 2’, and ‘Dúlamán’, but it was in the ‘80s when they started to innovate and add synthesizers, electric guitars and English vocals, making them more accessible to a wider audience. Following a live album in 1979 they released ‘Crann Ull’ (1980), ‘Fuaim’ (1982) and then ‘Magical Ring’, the last featuring a lost gem in the form of the theme from 1983 TV series, ‘Harry’s Game’. It is on this album (which went gold and also won an Ivor Novello) that you can really hear their trademark sound emerging.

Unfortunately it seems that fame went to their heads Following ‘Legend’. In 1985 the album ‘Macalla’, described on their website as “a majestic piece of art”, was packed with pretentiousness, power ballads and ambient tracks that sound like the lovechild of Fleetwood Mac and a New Age relaxation CD. The cherry on the cake is a nauseating duet with Bono called ‘In A Lifetime’. By this time, nearly all the folk roots of the band have been dropped for a far more chart savvy pop sound.
A possible reason for this change in direction, and this heralds yet another similarity with Fleetwood Mac, was singer Maire’s drug habits. Her first marriage failed due to her experimentation with drink and drugs, and she admits in her 2000 biography to having taken large amounts of cocaine during the ‘80s. A less likely bugle-hound would be hard to imagine. Around the same time, her sister Eithne was forging her own solo career under the new moniker Enya. The spotlight moved swifty – Enya was catapulted to fame with her 1988 breakthrough album ‘Watermark’. In 2001 and 2002 she was the biggest selling female artist in the world and still remains in the top 20 best selling female artists of all time.

The story of Clannad is one that is all too familiar in the music world, but it’s the kind of rise and fall that you would expect to happen to a rock band rather than a Celtic folk outfit. I’m not suggesting that Clannad are musical heroes, but they did break new ground and write some very good music along the way. And in these times where the charts are dominated with novelty indie rock and wrist-slitting ballads that emulate rather than innovate, its great to know there are bands who respect the past, the ancient folk heritage, while contemporizing their sound to move forward. Surely this is one of the ways great music is made….

Alexis Wheeler stands tall for the stick in the salad

Oh celery. The high-fibre spoon for pregnant women eating peanut butter, the vegetable swizzle stick for Bloody Mary sipping jet-setters, the ‘despicable’ source of roughage for youngsters who can’t bare the stuff. The ol’ green twig has become pigeon-holed as a pointless, water based, tasteless mass of green nothingness associated with country soups and a dull finger foods.

Just to get it over with, let’s look at the healthy side. The rumour that you burn more calories than you gain when you eat a stick is a myth. I mean, surely such a conundrum would cause all kinds of universal, scientific problems? There’d be people spontaneously disappearing all over the place. The truth is that celery, at about two calories a stalk, provides the body with a good source of potassium that helps to control blood pressure and counteract the negative effects of too much salt on the diet.

Celery is also one of the great British vegetables. This is mainly due to the fact that it grows well as a winter food in damp conditions and that it actually evolved to fend of frost by growing tall and narrow within insulating soil (this resilience is part of the reason the Victorians were quite keen).

Celery has a somewhat bizarre history. The Romans believed that the old veg prevented hangovers, the Ancient Greek athletes were presented with bushels of the stuff instead of bouquets of flowers and the traditional Oriental medicine cites celery as a sure-fire way of lowering blood pressure. There are even mentions of celery being an aphrodisiac; Madame de Pompadour (Rococo obsessive and seductive mistress of Louis XV) herself was known to gorge on celery soup washed down with a large serving of hot chocolate to get things going.

Then, of course, comes the Bloody Mary. Possibly the biggest claim to fame for the leafy green stick is that it is often seen protruding from a glass of the red cocktail. The Bloody Mary dates back to the 1920s and the legendary Parisian Bar, Harry’s New York Bar (I’m guessing by the bar’s name that this was a little like having a Hard Rock Café in Bucharest). It actually wasn’t until the 1960s that celery was used in the drink. A guest at a Chicago Hotel was served a Bloody Mary with nothing to stir it with and improvised with a stick of celery from the buffet.

Being involved in a cocktail must carry some cache? Certainly, this puts celery up there with the lime and even the olive in terms of edibles that need to be kept behind a well stocked cocktail bar?

Surely this background alone should be enough to harbour some praise for the carrot’s cousin? Even without the history – celery is one of the most practical, healthy (there’s that word again) snacks there is. I’ve always loved the stuff, even from a young age. It’s also worth noting that I’m one of those weird kids who ate broccoli and spinach. I just consider it incredibly practical as a snack and enjoy the crunch it makes; if you’re not cooking or making salad from it, celery requires no peeling, chopping, or dicing. It’s like an apple, you clean it and eat it. But, no. Modern times have seen celery associated with ‘Dr.’ Gillian McKeith (‘You Are What You Eat?’ What the hell has she been scoffing?) and size 0 privet hedge munching catwalk power-walkers. Celery’s modern problem is that it’s used as ‘cheat food’ for dieters. You see, the high water content makes you feel full even though you’ve probably only got about 20 calories in you (a typical tea biscuit contains 60 calories). I think it’s high time that celery got some better press from people who actually enjoy good food and who are not totally health-obsessed. Celery is a cheap addition to any salad, soup or stew. Then there is the aforementioned cocktail use and even a bit of peanut butter spoon-age for the more eccentric. So I call upon you all to pick some up next time you’re out shopping for food – with all these uses surely you should have some in the fridge at all times?

Tim Gomersall discovers, against all odds, that true culinary joy is a rollmop

This is a story of discovery; a love story, pivoting on one moment of clarity that would change my life forever; an inspirational happening that could so easily have slipped me by and left a gaping hole in my life… and I would never have known!

Let me start with first impressions. It was about five years ago, while eyeing up the preserves in my local delicatessen; my first fleeting glimpse of those slimy silver tubes, with their pasty white innards ejaculating from either end. I am talking, of course, about gastronomy’s ugliest child, the rollmop. Quite simply the strangest culinary creation after the jellied eel. (In fact, I could have quite easily have picked jellied eels to talk about instead, but there is simply no defending those foul beasts and I have yet to find anyone under the age of 70 who enjoys/understands them. So I’ll stick to what I know best.)

For those who don’t come from Scandinavia, or haven’t had the confusion of coming across a rollmop yet, let me explain. It is simply a slice of raw herring rolled around some chopped onion, to form a tube, then pinned with wooden sticks and preserved in vinegar. We aren’t talking here about a delicacy in the same league as the genius creation of sushi, and the lifetime of training it takes to master the art of making it. Nope…it’s just a lump of raw fish on a stick.

But the thing that made me so intent on never going near a rollmop wasn’t the idea of how it would taste, or the pungent guff it exhales, but the fact that it looks like something out of a horror movie; a severed tentacle freshly sliced from Sinbad’s sword. A slimy tube that would attach itself to your forehead and suck out your brains. In fact, is that onion in there, or has it just finished feeding?

However, enough on my initial feelings towards the rollmop – let us jump forward to last summer. I was out to lunch with my girlfriend and her family for her father’s birthday; a buffet affair at a large seafront hotel. There had been champagne for starters, and feeling a little indulgent, I openly dared my self to try a bit of everything on offer. Having always prided myself on the fact that there is very little I dislike and nearly nothing I wouldn’t try at least once (jellied eels being the ‘nearly nothing’), much to my horror one of the dishes on display was a small mountain of rollmops. Right, I thought, this is my chance to put this one to sleep, and finally chow down my nautical nemesis. The stage was set, and with my audience looking on, I cut a great flubbering lump off the end and, eyes shut, I quickly chomped away.

Freeze frame. Have you ever had a moment of clarity? Where suddenly the fog clears and you see the light for the very first time? The realisation that you’ve been living life without experiencing one of its hidden wonders? How could I have been so wrong about rollmops. Every bite was an absolute pleasure and the blend of flavours was nothing short of sublime. I’m love foods like smoked mackerel and pickled onions, but never would have thought two flavours so strong could possibly work together, but rollmops do it perfectly.

I am now a fully fledged convert and have a new favourite snack. It has become clear why they are so popular across parts of Europe, and there are even countries where a bowl of rollmops forms the centrepiece at Christmas, instead of a Turkey. Also, many believe that the rollmop is the ultimate hangover cure – it is regularly found on German breakfast tables, following a hard night on the schnapps.

My next plan is to find a business mogul and suggest a high street rollmop solution; perhaps available in foil packets, next to the crisps and chocolate bars. I think it would be sad world if everyone didn’t get the chance to experience such a gourmet treat.

Thomas H Green speaks out on behalf of ‘Hotel California’

From Oasis singing, “All my dreams are made, chained to the mirror and the razor blade,” to Leonard Cohen recognizing that, “Everybody knows that you live forever, when you’ve done a line or two,” pop lyricists have acknowledged the mixed blessings of icing your head with showbiz sherbert. And that’s only a part of it – the drugs, the sex, and the debauchery have been integral to the rock myth almost as long as the music itself.

Whether it’s David Essex’ fictional alter ego Jim Maclaine blowing a dog’s mind with acid in ‘Startdust’ or W.A.S.P.’s Chris Holmes floating about his swimming pool wasted, swigging vodka while his mum ticks him off in Penelope Spheeris’ ‘The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years’, rock’n'roll patently leads people off society’s beaten track.

Nowhere sums up the bacchanalian shallowness of rock’n'roll nirvana better than Los Angeles, an idyll of Western depravity for over a century. This is where they invented big hair and blowing coke up your arse, where venal A&R men will sell your soul for 50 cents, where the girls are silicone simple and the toxic sun sets red as blood. It’s also the glorious centre of Hollywood celebrity culture, the town where the bassist from Slint can afford a hillside mansion with a swimming pool. It’s the modern teenager’s aspirational dream in all its terrifying darkness and blistering white line light. And, for me, The Eagles song ‘Hotel California’, a scalpel-sharp allegory set amidst LA’s desert highways, flash cars and mirrored ceilings, sums up the relationship hedonists have with excess better than any other song.

To most, ‘Hotel California’ is an overlong country-tinged rock dirge that haunts way too many jukeboxes in way too many tacky bars. It’s the antithesis of cool, conjuring images of hairy musos, of Linda Ronstadt’s backing band stinking up the pop charts of April 1977 while the likes of The Pistols, The Clash and The Damned were already tearing up the rulebook. ‘Hotel California’ is, indeed, all the above but it is also much more. Familiarity bred contempt in me too, and for many years ‘Hotel California’ was just background noise, one of those unavoidable songs that are best ignored.

But at some point in the mid-’90s it began to eat away at me and I purchased a vinyl copy of the album of the same name. I played it through a couple of times and, although there are a couple of other acceptable numbers on it, the title track was the one I’d endlessly return to. As the rave lifestyle of an itinerant club journalist meant day and night, weekday and weekend ceased to have meaning; as the party continued whatever the excuse wherever possible with whoever possible for as long as possible; as people fell by the wayside damaged and still I partied on, so the song’s elegy for the impossible dream of hedonism in all it’s black-hearted pleasure-slick beauty resonated crystal clear. Onto the turntable the song would go in smoky rooms with curtains closed against daylight, soundtracking the tightrope-walk between psyche-sapping pleasure and irretrievable damage…

“So I called up the Captain, ‘Please bring me my wine.’ He said, ‘We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969.’ And still those voices are calling from far away, wake you up in the middle of the night, just to hear them say… Welcome to the Hotel California.”

Without wishing to become embroiled in cod-academic Eng.Lit lyric dissection, the verse quoted seems to be about a longing for the days when drug-mayhem was an adventure tempered with innocence. Hedonism, particularly of the druggy kind, is a strange thing, because we love how it makes us feel but it has the capability to destroy us. Some would say that it inevitably destroys us. Many have to leave it behind to save their very souls, but when they have done so a part of them always pines for it. To paraphrase juvenile Doors manager Danny Sugarman on being forced to turn his back on drink’n'drugs at the end of his autobiography ‘Wonderland Avenue’ – something’s missing but at least he’s going to live.

The whole book is an elegy for ‘the good old days’. It’s the same for all rock biogs, from Anthony Kiedis’ ‘Scar Tissue’ to Motley Crue’s ‘The Dirt’: whatever quality the music maintains, the narrative adventure runs out once they give up hedonism. Those who live hard look back with affection at the times when they were mischievous outlaws discovering the possibilities offered by the Pandora’s box they’d opened.

They don’t idolise the days when they sat endlessly in darkened hotel rooms with mirror’n'razor or syringe, trying to recapture that feeling. ‘Hotel California’ is about sitting on the cusp between the two states, teetering.

“Last thing I remember, I was running for the door, I had to find the passage back to the place I was before,” it continues. All advanced caners have been there, looking from the top of the narcotic mountain wondering, now everyone’s gone home and dawn reveals a fuzz of bottles and ashtrays, how the Hell they’re going clamber down without hurting themselves.

Singer and lyricist Don Henley sings the whole song in a broken, wistful tone, seasoned with dry cynicism. He effectively attempted the same some years later in one of his solo works, a more direct ode to vanished youth called ‘The Boys Of Summer’. ‘Hotel California’ longs for something lost but, like many great song lyrics, it isn’t specific – the listener draws their own conclusions. It is the songwriting equivalent of Ray Liotta in ‘Goodfellas’, contrasting his final helicopter-buzzed coke paranoia with his lush days as Mafia top dog. It is the 1970s version of Danny the Dealer’s “they’re selling Beatles wigs in Woolworths” speech at the end of ‘Withnail and I’. It is all these things laid out over a rhythm that, when listened to afresh, is an unlikely fusion of Byrds-ian folk rock and mild reggae skank.

‘Hotel California’ is so complex and, from some perspectives, pretentious, that most musicians have left it well alone. It trails duff cultural baggage. The Orb, attempted a dubious cover under the name Jam On The Mutha and the Gipsy Kings also created a sparkling Latino version, but the best tributes have been less direct – songs marinated in its decadent essence such as Scissor Sisters’ ‘Return To Oz’ and S.P.O.O.K.S.’ underrated ‘Karma Hotel.

Finally, ‘Hotel California’ has one of the great pay-off lines – “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” It resonates with the notion that one door is always open and what we see beckoning from that doorway depends on our own experience. For some it might be the door back to a true Hell of addiction, for others, there’s merely a rogue-ish imp grinning mischievously and beckoning them in for a few hours frontline good time. Then the music explodes into the legendary guitar solo by Don Felder and Joe Walsh. Whether you buy into any of what I’ve written here, there’s a moment halfway through the guitar solo that contains one of the best noises in the history of popular music. It’s a sound like a whiplash punctuated by a hi-hat and cymbal. It sends a shiver down my spine every time I hear it and never fails to put a smile on my face.

So there you have it. I love ‘Hotel California’. It’s my favourite song.

Where Beatmag defends the indefensible.

Miranda Michaelides of interior design company MiMi Interiors (www.mimiinteriors.com) argues the case for the most irritatingly foppish man on television – Laurence Llewelyn Bowen

Yes, he’s a ponce. Yes, he looks like a dodgy new romantic wannabe from the early 1980s. And yes, he’s incorrigibly egocentric. This is a man who has dedicated an entire page of his website to photographs of himself. One clicks on the Photographs page of his website expecting to see a gallery of his design work but instead are subjected to the worse kind of cheesy high street photography of the man himself. The images range from him looking seductively into the camera, dressed in pink rose printed pyjamas holding a single red rose to his cheek to staged images of him and his wife out boating/opening presents/at home with the kids. One wonders if these are the images on Christmas cards he sends to friends and family in the vein of the Queen or Prime Minister. This is man who either takes himself far too seriously or is happy to ridicule himself on the World Wide Web.

It’s too easy to mock Laurence Llewelyn Bowen though – he has big, coiffed hair. He dresses like an 18th Century dandy. He does TV adverts for coffee/chocolate/washing powder. He pouts. But to be fair to him, it all looks to be done tongue in cheek.

More important, though, is what’s brought this character to our attention? Not only is he a flamboyant interior designer in his own right (from Covent Garden’s Opera Terrace to Keith Floyd’s restaurant) but he has also brought the world of design to the masses. He has single handedly brought it to a level where design is accessible to all and not just the rich and famous. He has encouraged people to tap into their creativity and think about their living space as an extension and an impression of themselves. And if they can’t do it for themselves, then get a professional in.

He first flounced onto our screens in September 1996 in the makeover show Changing Rooms, a brand new genre of TV programme. Since then, we have been bombarded with all sorts of such programmes but Changing Rooms remains the hot favourite (into its 10th series and still drawing viewers of 12 million) and where LLB has been promoted from occasional designer to show presenter.

To those unfamiliar with Changing Rooms, it is a weekly show where two couples, as the title suggests, swap rooms, and with £500 and an interior designer in tow, look to completely transform what they have into something they would never dreamed of. All in two days. But it wasn’t the tips on how to build an entire extension from MDF, curtains from bin liners or lampshades from photos of your family that made people tune in. No, it was for that moment when the couple saw their own room again. When the fun and frolics whilst redesigning their neighbour’s room stopped and turned into horror and disdain when they saw what had been done to their room by their so called friends This is what made this show so popular. And Laurence Llewellyn Bowen, a then unknown designer, contributed greatly. It was in these early shows that everything the man touched turned to purple.

Since Changing Rooms, he has gone on to make programmes such as Fantasy Rooms and Home Front where he’s able to show off his talent and give a client their dream room. Design Rules followed, an intelligently conceived programme, which taught the fundamental rules of interior design. Since then he has become a household name, at least in the UK, and brought out his own range of homeware products such as lighting, wallpaper, cutlery, etc, all well-designed pieces but, as importantly, affordable. Unlike many designers, who make their items exclusive, Laurence Llewellyn Bowen removes the snob factor from design and makes it inclusive. Thus giving people on the lowest incomes the opportunity to add a ‘designers touch’ to their home.

Of course, some of his designs are not to everyone’s taste. And yes, he probably loves himself more than even his wife does. But so what? The man is famous for what he is good at, which is more than most contemporary celebrities could claim, and he does it with a unique style. From his name to his designs, from his outfits to his questionable family history (he claims to be descended from Merlin, King Arthur’s court magician) the man has a sense of theatre about him. Flamboyant and an individual, Lewellyn Bowen also knows his stuff, which is why I will happily take his side in an argument. Although perhaps not that of his rose-print pajamas.