“Being English is not about running around waving flags and shouting like a moron. It’s about old trains, a spot of gardening and laughing at knob jokes.”

My old songwriter mucker Martin Newell has it spot on, and he should know, since he once did an album called The Greatest Living Englishman, and there wasn’t a painted roundabout or bedraggled bit of red and white cloth to be seen. What an absolute disaster zone this country is becoming, what a disgrace our national media has always been, and what an abject lack of leadership is being shown by the clueless, rudderless apology for a shambles which is the national Labour Party in 2025. 

While Starmer wrings his hands, Farage rules the airways and his flag-draped Stella warriors stagger down the streets. And the much-hyped Corbyn/Sultana alternative faction is acting like a bunch of hippies trying to get a prog rock band together in 1973. “Hey man, yeah, like, we haven’t got a name or anything and we don’t know who’s going to play what, so we’ll hire the Roundhouse and stage a happening, man. We’ll have a jam, and the heads can vote on what we’re going to call ourselves, and then we’ll think about writing some numbers, getting an album together and doing a tour, OK... can I have some more hash cake?”

Harsh? Maybe. But the fascist menace is increasing day by day, we’re heading back to the dark National Front/British Movement days of the 1970s, and there is a desperate need for new generations to form firm ranks like the ones we did back then to see them off. It is absolutely heartbreaking that it is all happening again, but it is, and time is of the essence! The left is a mess. Sort it out. 

In the midst of all this life goes on, of course, and I’m currently having a month off after my August festival exertions: 25 gigs in 18 days, not bad for 67. So it’s time for a few more reviews. Alan Morrison has already covered poet/songwriter and long term Brighton associate Nick Burbridge’s excellent collection Undercover Work (Olympia, 2025) in these pages, so I’ll add my endorsement and move on to another home town author. A first time one, David Atherall. 

Readers of this column for the past decade and a quarter will be aware of my devotion to my local football team, Brighton & Hove Albion, and those who follow football may also know that I spent many years campaigning to save the club from oblivion.  

The most crucial of those was the 1996-7 season when, after years of decline, our ground was sold behind our backs. We spent most of the season bottom of the fourth division and saved our League status with a 1-1 draw in the last game of the season, away at Hereford. (Twenty-eight years later we’re in the Premier League. It’s an incredible story.)

David Atherall has written a coming-of-age novel, Embers (PN books, 2025), set in that most momentous and difficult of seasons. It’s the story of Danny, a 16-year-old Brighton fan coping simultaneously with leaving school and trying to make his way in the world of work, his father leaving the family home and his football club being embroiled in a desperate battle for survival. Suffice it to say there’s a strong autobiographical element. 

The novel is totally authentic in its descriptions of the drama on and off the pitch, with demonstrations and protests happening all the time – I was there, and writer David obviously was too – and it illustrates brilliantly how the power of football can help a young person struggling with confusion and loss to find their way in the world. I totally relate to it: my dad died when I was 10, some of my fondest and most powerful memories were of him taking me to games, and those memories helped ground me and guide my future. Thoroughly recommended, especially to Brighton fans, and available here.

Musically, a quick recommendation for Lowestoft singer-songwriter John Ward’s new CD Songs Like An Old Friend, especially the stirring Dockside Dandy and jaunty anti-Farage Flim-Flam Man. Available from bandcamp.

Cheers one and all!