The Stabilisers, the NHS and Food Labelling

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK

Concert Review : The Stabilisers, 12 Bar Club, Saturday 12/01/08
I caught up with friend and former Solar Flare/Prime Mover/Goodchilde/Headcoat/Prisoner Allan Crockford performing with pop punk combo The Stabilisers in the West End in a 4-band lineup.

They’d just got back from a brief foray in New York to promote their new American album ‘Wanna do the Wild Plastic Brane Love Thing?’ featuring the best of their previous UK output. Lucky they made it back, as they managed to get locked outside their ride to the airport with their driver, the engine running and their bags inside. A window-breaking hammer appeared in time to see them on their way. The reaction to this solution of the driver is not recorded.

The 12 bar club has changed a little. The performance room had featured a lower area where you could watch performers’ feet, and an upper seated area where you could watch the tops of their heads. Now part of a wall seems to have been removed so that you can almost watch the band normally from below.

The guys opened with their anthem ‘I Feel Like Jimmy White’ and went on with an energetic romp through their set. Francis Braithwaite’s drumming was delightfully ‘on the button’. The appreciative crowd lapped it all up, tickled by banter between the songs such as ‘no, don’t leave!’

Allan himself doubly surprised me with sporting an elegant black shirt covered in white dots, and singing one of his own compositions. The fire alarm went off in the last number, but it didn’t stop the audience demanding and getting a worthy encore. If London was on fire, it was The Stabilisers that had started it, and we were happy to continue watching while we burned…

Generally the band had broadened into powerpop from the last punky outing I’d seen of theirs. You can hear them for yourself at myspace.com/thestabilisers.

The guys were followed by the girls: ‘Tits of Death’, an all girl band without a drummer, who, with their provocative apparel, reminded me of why I think being in a band is sometimes like being an all-in wrestler. The evening was capped by Spanish band ‘Virus’ who I can heartily applaud for not feeling obliged to sing in English. All in all it was a good value evening, and a welcome surprise in the west end.

Health Review : NHS 2008 - Your Life In Your Hands
In the past two weeks I’ve been experiencing the latest state of play in the National Health Service as I accompanied my mother through the world of major surgery. I think the phrase I would use to sum it up is ‘loosely coupled’ as each individual expert area studies you in terms of their expertise before vaguely letting anyone else know what they’ve found.

So, for instance, a cancer department sends their report to a GP through the post so that it arrives the day after the GP has left for Christmas vacation. The heart department send their report through the same slow process so that the operation is nearly cancelled as the cancer department hasn’t had anyone tell them it’s safe to go ahead. The skin department’s report doesn’t arrive before the operation, so everyone hopes that if the operation aggravates the skin condition it can be sorted out later. It is left to the patient to try and keep these different areas in touch with each other and thinking about health issues as a whole. The patient is left feeling that their life is now in their own hands.

It’s a bizarre and slightly frustrating process, rendered rather surreal by the relentless and super-human efforts of a range of nursing staff. They work tirelessly and compassionately to improve the condition of those that come into contact with them on a dehumanising production line.

There are also Kafka-esque moments. We were told to report to a Doctor at an office whose receptionist garbled ‘she knows you’re here, does she?’ (er…don’t you tell her?) ‘no, she’s an S.H.O.’ (well, we were told to come here…) ‘well then she’s probably on her way’. At that point my mind made up a short youtube clip, where this receptionist was telling her interview board how good she was with people…

Retail news: Food labelling
As a food labelling bigot I’ve hissed as I looked at Tesco’s labelling, noting, as it does, a bizarre array of percentages i.e. if I eat this I’ve eaten 20% of my daily fat allowance, and 6% of my salt allowance. I’ve been complaining, as the Food Standards Agency does, that traffic light labelling like Sainsburys is better. It gives you red, yellow or green to indicate that a food is high, medium or low in the particular item. I’ve now come to the conclusion that neither system entirely works, as if you stuff your face with the green labelled items you can still end up having eaten enough to push you into the red, and there’s nothing on the label to tell you at what point that occurs… Grrr… Eat less. Exercise more.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]