The Only Living Boy in New Cross

I miss London, a lot. But then I see what I have here and I'm happier than I think would be possible there.

But in a heap of Yuletide nostalgia I wrote a short story, creative non-fiction, life writing, based on actual events. It's about a night club in New Cross called The Venue, which is where myself and my friends used to go every weekend when we were at school.

It's been published by the (now) online Smoke magazine - a self-styled London Peculiar, words and images inspired by the city. It'll be in a book, they say, one day. That'll be cool.

Here's their rather lovely introduction...

"Belated New Year greetings to all. 

And first up in 2013 is another piece from our Night Bus To Camden project, as Jamie Woods recalls being sixteen at the New Cross Venue back in the days when it used to put on real bands rather than Coldplace, the Antarctic Monkeys and Maybe Gaga (“the UK’s No. 1 Lady Gaga tribute band”), when no one used to check IDs, and when ladies had to pay more than £1 admission on Fridays before midnight. 

This might also be your only chance to read a piece of literature that takes its title from a Carter USM song – or at least until Hilary Mantel publishes the third part of her Wolf Hall trilogy and reveals that Thomas Cromwell’s nickname for Henry VIII was Sheriff Fatman."

click here to read 'The Comfort and the Joy of Feeling Lost' by Jamie Woods

I'm not sad...

The quality of this video is poor.
The song is beautiful.

'a table's not a table it's a chair you said'

NEWS! Step Into My Office, Baby.

“We need to talk.”

The first line of this blog post is the first line in each short story in the Summer 2011 edition of The First Line, a literary journal based in the USA.

I’ve read several copies of said journal. It’s a very good journal.

The first issue of any magazine that I submitted a piece for was The First Line, Vol 12. Issue 2, in which the first line was Paul and Miriam Kaufman met the old-fashioned way.

The first journal that rejected a piece of my writing was The First Line, when I submitted a piece with the first line was Paul and Miriam Kaufman met the old-fashioned way.

Having recently re-read it, I can’t blame them. But that was last year.

In the meantime I’ve spent another year at University studying Literature and Creative Writing.

In the meantime, The First Line has had several editions published, all with different first lines.

And then, while trying to write something, anything, as I had a really big Uni assignment due in and I had the old writers block malarkey, I started writing, as a distraction, a story with the first line “We need to talk.”

And now, the Summer 2011 Edition of The First Line, Vol. 13, Issue 2, has a story in it titled ‘Already’ with the first line “We need to talk.” And it’s by me.

If you’d like to read by short story ‘Already’ please pop over to The First Line shop, where you can purchase a PDF for US$2 or order one in the excitingly revolutionary new ‘Paper’ format for US$4. Bargain.

You can also pick up copies at all of these amazing bookshops (in the USA).

Anyway, while it’s fantastic to be ‘in print’ and ‘published’ and ‘a writer’, it’s all a bit surreal and the first step on a long journey and a great impetus and all that.

And I’m a massive Belle & Sebastian fan, and I had this wonderful song in my head the entire time that I tried to write ‘Already’.

Songs I Love: #1 More Than A Woman

Aaliyah - More Than A Woman

Try and forget the fact that R Kelly produced 14 year-old Aaliyah’s debut album, the not-at-all controversially titled Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number, and may have had a relationship / dodgy marriage with her when she was 15. Try and respect the fact that she died tragically in an air-crash at the age of 22.

Before she died, she recorded the sexiest, most sensual, most sensuous song of the noughties: 'More Than A Woman'. The melody is soft and curvy, the verse joins with the chorus which joins with the verse again. There’s this beautiful pause in the chorus, "More than a woman/More than a lover/[pause] More than another" which for some higher and heavenly reason is the most breathlessly anticipatory thing I have ever heard. The lyrics, especially for an R’n’B song, are beautifully poignant, honest and sweet, "We share pillows", "there’s no separating". This song makes me fuzzy inside. And sad. Beautifully sad.

According to Wikipedia, this was the first ever posthumous UK number 1 by a female artist. According to me, it’s the best UK number 1 by any artist.

Jamie

This article was originally published as part of Sweeping The Nation's 'Noughties by Nature' series - an in-no-way definitive list of the best song in the period 2000-2009.

The full list is here:http://sweepingthenation.blogspot.com/search/label/noughties%20by%20nature

Original article is to be found here: http://sweepingthenation.blogspot.com/2009/11/noughties-by-nature-74-aaliyah-more.html