Strategies for success

[Irony alert] Over the many decades of Keshco, Bleak House, Guivarsh, Stinky and the Peepholes, and sundry other side-projects, it's fair to say we've been enormously successful at bringing freshness, excitement and strangeness to the firmament of rock, and building a tightly-knit audience comprised of kindred spirits. It's a massive responsibility knowing that people hang on our every utterance. In the spirit of fraternity, it's only well and good we share some of our strategies that made Deforestation of Dak a top-10 album in Vanuatu, and Got Lot Of Stuff the title music for Dutch cuisine series "Bossche Bol".

STRATEGY No. 13: Snarled-up tape can be a beautiful thing.
STRATEGY No. 12: Make your own luck and then sit hard on it.
STRATEGY No. 11: Diversions are essential palliatives.
STRATEGY No. 10: Let all your hairs hang loose.
STRATEGY No. 9: By all means rhyme, but not all the time.
STRATEGY No. 8: Never repeat yourself even if nobody heard it the first time.
STRATEGY No. 7: There are some other nice musicians out there, but only the ones who aren't trying to make it.
STRATEGY No. 6: Never hustle.
STRATEGY No. 5: The most tuneful bits should come at the end of songs, after the interlopers have turned off.
STRATEGY No. 4: 4/4 is over-rated.
STRATEGY No. 3: Christopher Chope is the enemy.
STRATEGY No. 2: If Rough Trade are involved, it's not alternative.
STRATEGY No. 1: Do things back-to-front.

So, we'd like to throw it open to you. What are your strategies for success? What methods have you used to drive women wild, make money fast, wrest control of the zeitgeist, catch the red dot? Let's get some comments going!

PS: Anxiously awaiting your response. (That's our top post to date.)

PPS: You can get nice Bossche bollen from Albert Heijn. Best served cold with slagroom.

PPPS: TTIP. Just say no. Learn about the self-organised European citizens' initiative against TTIP and CETA here.

The dream shall never die

Well that was frustrating news to wake up to. So close. All over Scotland, more than 4 out of 10 wanted independence - if this was a jury, it'd necessitate a re-trial.

Despite the high (for apathetic UK anyway) voting turnout of 84%, I suspect that, as with so many campaigns, too many yes supporters couldn't be bothered enough to vote, leading to the eventual 55%/45% split. Voter registration was 97%, so that's 13% who didn't get it together to have their say. Much better than the baffling failure of the AV referendum, but remember - Tories will always turn out to vote, so you can't leave anything to chance.

Still, it was a pretty close result and by no means could Westminster be satisfied with the margin. The no vote was generally in spite of Westminster, more a vote of fear of the unknown. You note how this morning Cameron slipped into his speech "settled for a generation, perhaps for a lifetime" - really? Really? Presuming there's another vote in another 15-odd years time, the younger yes will surely outstrip the older no.

A good summing-up of the new challenge was made by Phillip Blond from ResPublica (some kind of think-tank). The two options on offer - an increase in Scottish devolution and the ruddy West Lothian question - are contradictory impulses - MPs are kept in line by party whips, so banning the Scots ones from English issues and vice versa merely serves to tighten the grip of Westminster. Better just to devolve everywhere, and energise the whole nation - the Cornish, the Welsh, the North-East, Manchester, Liverpool, the Midlands et al; even the sodden Fens; and in the process the West Lothian nonsense will dissolve because we'll all take more responsibility at a local level.

On the night, it was fun to see McGlashan again, caricature though he is. Catch up with his previous adventures in the cackle-tastic and surprisingly sprightly Absolutely Everything DVD box set (via Amazon UK or Amazon US).

Ugh - he's SAD

Good afternoon, winter Keshcologists. I trust you're making good use of today's remaining daylight; I'm holed up in a nasty air-conditioned office under striplight.

The colder months are upon us; pish and plops! I used to tolerate winter, when I was younger and warmer-blooded; now I actively dislike it. In fact I'm thinking of writing a stiff letter.

Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to me a sane response to insane conditions. Only four months ago (2 August) we had seven and a half hours' more daylight to frolic in. This time of year is depressing anyway, with the only-slightly-apologetic Christmas push (I don't want more things, I want more headspace to use the things I have). The knowledge of how much time was wasted in the summer gets more painful each year.

My friend Drew Walton came up with a fine piece of magnetic poetry once. It started: "Mooning a cold universe chills my bottom" and ended "tonight we slap the kipper in a saucy dance". I find philosophy, for the most part, depressing and self-defeating. Sad songs do me no good these days, and I suspect many of our audience feel the same. Is it good to wallow? Is it sod. Let's make merry. It's a good time to write to your friends.