Off to see the Bootleg Beatles, as the Bootleg Mark Chapman – In Praise of Half Man Half Biscuit

My mate’s step-dad manages Half Man Half Biscuit. They’re that sort of band. An ordinary band that writes and sings about mundane, ordinary life with an extraordinary humour and eloquence. You don’t hear much about them these days, but for a brief period in the 80s they were very, very cool. They were seen as part of a wave of acts from Merseyside which were taking the world by storm with guitars and bad haircuts. Some of these acts have disappeared, some of them write for Atomic Kitten, but Half Man Half Biscuit remain, writing fabulously funny songs about all of the most irritating and inspiring things in everyday lives; critiquing artistic pretension (‘Outside Goldsmiths coughing up blood/ Turner Prize judge gasped Christ that’s good’), praising the value of simple pleasures (“When you’re in Matlock Bath/ you don’t need Sylvia Plath/ Not when we’ve got Mrs. Gibson’s Jam”), parodying mindless authority (“Reservoirs are colder and deeper than you think/ well stop wait a minute Mr Spokesman you don’t know what I think”), or writing lines of absolute poetic genius:

Did you play in the Garden of Eden,

Were the goalkeeper’s gloves to you tossed,

Well it seems to me you’re the reason,

You’re the reason why Paradise Lost.

So, if you have some spare time, have a hunt around youtube or itunes for Half Man Half Biscuit, and compile your own list of references that you will one day transparently shoehorn into a blog post.