Thursday wallows, Friday follows ...

There's nothing worse, I think, than Twitter users shedding all dignity and begging for followers. I call it begging, because that's what it is. You're asking for something without offering anything in return. It's also one of my 'unfollow' criteria. The implication is that the volume of followers you have somehow validates your own worth. That's a nonsense. I have vented about this already, so no more here.

"Gather followers by being engaging. Don't be afraid to unfollow bores and people who just jibber-jabber to fill a void."

With this in mind, I have gathered a list of people whom I follow and recommend to you. This is not the #ff methodology usually employed I suppose, but Twitter never allows room for context. I would not expect someone to follow anyone just because I said so. In some kind of alphabetical order:

• @_MuckyWaters_73 fast cars and blues guitar. What more do you need to know?
• @CardinalPhink and @JelloPuss - punk rock hearts smothered in strong alcohol and cheesecakes. Not murderers.
• @cath_caldwell - Mum, student ... heartwarming tales of boiler repair men ;-)
• @DeadbeatMum and @dirt_bird - an hilarious living sitcom but also insightful and thoughtful comment on a variety of issues. Sweary DIY-related tweets. Cats (if you like that sort of thing).
• @DonColerainey - the Teflon Don of the North Coast. Articulate and very, very angry most of the time. Not a man to cross.
• @hannahhou - beloved #1 daughter. F1 and BTCC news and views. Her beau is @TheJonnyMoore.
• @IsGrandmaThere - hilarious and widely-travelled social commentator and raconteur. Impeccable taste in music.
• @jasebell - stick fiddler, wry observer of the human condition. Has bass desires.
• @JudithR33 - Secret Publican, masochist swimmer, photographer of vivid scenes and dunnocks. Has a good pie recipe.
• @kezwilliams13 - multi-talented and knowledgeable muso with many hats. A good egg.
• @loftspace - government bullshit filter, social conscience and mum.
• @muldutch - scrabbler. Pretty handy with a taunt and a riding crop.
• @M_Corbett - writerly, thoughtful and funny. No fan of the grocer's apostrophe.
• @paul_beattie - first rate photographer but first and foremost, thoroughly bloody nice real-world bloke. Great chef. No TV.
• @sera_mcdaid - The Agoraphobic Fashionista. Truly original and inspiring.
• @siralanwhite - the Sage of Wrenthorpe. Purveyor of humorous asides.
• @VictoriaKLM - strong views, forcefully expressed. Good for a debate.
• @wonderwaff - funny and touching insights into motherhood and family life. From Finland, like the Moomins.

I may have missed people.

Until next time, social media fans.

#notmurdered - I'm So Excited

It's a holiday in Mancunia, where the people dress in black - part IV

So you rejoin us outside the Manchester Apollo where punks and the punk-curious from far and wide are gathering to attend Buzzcocks' landmark Back to Front show. Back to Front is Buzzcocks from three eras: the current line-up perform a set of songs drawn from the 1996 - present catalogue; the 'classic' line-up (1977-81) do a set drawn from the first three albums and associated singles; and finally the original 'original' line-up with Howard Devoto will perform the songs from the self-financed and seminal Spiral Scratch EP. This is unparalleled. It has taken a long time to set up. Bassist Steve Garvey has flown over from the US for these two shows (more about him later). I'm excited.

Manchester Apollo is a cavernous ex-cinema. It's filling nicely, there's a goodnatured buzz of anticipation. I spot Buzzcocks' manager Raf at the desk. There is the aftershow business yet to be arranged, I might as well grasp the nettle. Apollo security are not letting anyone near the desk but I have a go anyway and explain that I know Raf and that he knows me. I ask Raf what the plan is for joining the aftershow. He's bemused. He assumes this is all sorted out. He tells me to go to a particular door at the side of the stage after the performance. Hmmm ...


Torpor! Enervation!

The three sets are superb. There are plenty of reviews of this show you can read, and this is not my task here. Let's just say that it's chaotic, the sound is fucking awful and it is thrilling and brilliant. We surge forward to the pit for the second set. We're just in front of Steve Garvey. I love him. It's hell down there though. Pissed-up and very determined man mountains are not to be denied their place at the barrier. Poor @JelloPuss, crushed at the front. @CardinalPhink and I are trying to be gallant AND enjoy the experience but it's pretty hairy down there. A raging sea of drunken, bellowing bonhomie. It's not for the fainthearted.

At the end of the show we gather at the appointed place. This is where things take a turn for the worse. The notoriously intolerant Apollo security are herding us out. That we were told to wait side of stage makes no difference. Our resistance is spirited but useless. We are pushed back to the lobby, where we mill about, pretending to look at merchandise. I make a few calls to the 'inner sanctum'. While we're waiting, I hear my name being called. It's @JelloPuss and she has Steve Garvey in tow.

You have to understand what a profound effect this man has had on my life. My Buzzcocks epiphany was based on borrowing an album and then playing it incessantly for about three months. On the cover of that album were four moody young men in black. One of them was Steve Garvey - mean, moody, so New Wave ... he was (is) also a superlative bassist. I wanted to be Steve Garvey. Ideally, I wanted to be Steve Garvey IN Buzzcocks, but hey ho. Anyway, he was my role model. I learned to play bass because of him and I've had a few adventures of my own because of it. Thanks to him. So when I was introduced, all the things I wanted to say flew out of my tiny head. I was the starstruck teenager waiting outside the back door of Oxford New Theatre thirty-odd years ago. I could have gone home happy then.

Apollo security get their wish and chuck us all out. So we loiter outside, about fifteen diehard Secret Publicans unaccustomed to being outside after a 'Cocks show. My 'phone rings. It's Pete Shelley*. Well, it's Pete Shelley's 'phone. Someone will be down with passes shortly.

The legendary Steve Garvey and a fat bloke.

So, armed with the privileged green wristbands, we get up to the bar where the party is in full swing. There are lots of family members, the Secret Public family, everybody's happy nowadays. And I get my chat with Steve G. I tell him all the stuff I have been carrying all these years and he seems happy to hear it. I'm totally made up now.

There is also business to transact. We're gathering items to auction to support the running costs of secretpublic.com. Pete Shelley has something special for us - bespoke underwear hand-stencilled by Lou who makes his stagewear. If you want to win this stuff by the way, stay tuned and I'll post the link to the auction when it happens. We also have a Back to Front poster signed by all iterations of the band. This is cool, desirable stuff.

The venue win again. they want everyone out of the building. We get to chat to the people we want to chat to - in many ways this is my extended family. We meet at gigs all over the place. Oddly enough two of them - Maxine and Steve - are going to be at a Damned gig in Belfast the following night. About which more next time ;-)

A great night, made better for turning out all right. Good friends, new and old, a few beers ... you know what? I Don't Mind.

In the next instalment, I find myself financially embarrassed, go on a tweet-up and mingle with Goths.

*It's not smart or funny to drop names. Kenneth Branagh told me that.

Read parts one, two and three of this NW punk rock odyssey.

If you like my writing, please consider giving my novel a go - thanks!

#notmurdered - the prologue

It's a holiday in Mancunia, where the people dress in black ...

Behind the blank anonymity of your connected device, you can create a character for yourself that is closer to how you wish to be than how you actually are. It's very easy to make up for your known deficiencies by being bold and funny, or flirty, or coy or whatever: you can give yourself the attributes you desire. This principle began in online role-playing alternative universes such as Second Life. Now it applies to your 'real' self, or at least how you wish your 'real' self to be perceived.

Social media thrives on social validation. You can seek this validation in a number of ways. One is by volume - the number of followers or friends you acquire, regardless of their interest or interaction with your actual life. Another is in the type of friend/follower you acquire: they may be more like the real friends you wish you had than the ones you actually have.

So social media is a bluffer's paradise, right?

Well, here's the thing. If you're using social media properly, the real world is much closer over the horizon than you think. You're very likely to have befriended people you know in the real world, and they will immediately pick up on any crap or fantasy and pull you on it. Everyone needs at least one friend like this, by the way. One of the delicious ironies of a global social network is that the people you befriend may be closer that you think - in your town or even a short 'plane ride away.

Which brings me to my own Rubicon. I have been chatting on Twitter to Prestwich tweeps @CardinalPhink and @JelloPuss via an introduction from a mutual friend for about a year. We quickly discovered a shared love of punk rock, specifically Buzzcocks to whom @JelloPuss has a very direct personal connection. When Buzzcocks announce a landmark show (Back to Front, Manchester Apollo - to be reviewed separately), I know I will be going - as a fan and as admin of the official Buzzcocks fansite SecretPublic.com. In fact, there is no way I won't be attending ... In an odd twist of fate - or maybe it's destino - @CardinalPhink's favourite band The Damned are playing in Belfast the following night.

A whirlwind of punk rock bonhomie is unleashed. Invitations are extended. I'm going to Prestwich to stay with people I only know from Twitter and have never met ...

In the next instalment: I buy a bottle of whiskey and encounter a gift basket and some cats.
If you like my writing, please consider giving my novel a go - thanks!

Out with the new and in with the old

Time and all other human constructs are really arbitrary, so why we should stop and take stock of our lives, make resolutions and generally review and sort things on this day every year is one of those mysteries. In a season of garish artificiality, it's just another self-delusion to think that somehow, magically, things will change. I know pretty much for certain that I won't change very much, despite any good intentions I have. Intentions they will remain - unstated and personal to me.

Some things will change, of course. I'm to become a father again. I know precisely what this will entail, my partner does not. That'll be fun. My three existing daughters will get a half-sibling and my complicated, modern family will acquire a slightly different dynamic again. In this regard, stuff whirls around me while I'm at the centre. For a professional communicator, I'm really very bad at talking about things and if I have regrets over the way things have gone in the last decade, they would largely be around how I have handled (or haven't handled) things. I don't think I would change anything, but I would have established a comms plan first and stuck to it.

I turn 50 this incoming year. Many of my closest friends are a decade behind me. Actually, the gap is closing in that the life experience you gain between 40 and 50 only really cements who you already are. When I'm out with my chums, we're already the oldest people out so my particular position in the age hierarchy isn't important. There's to be a party. I don't know if I'm to arrange this myself but on behalf of the organising committee - YOU'RE invited. Terms and conditions apply, of course - it will be somewhere on the North Coast of Northern Ireland sometime near the end of June and my guest room is already booked. Oh, and no gifts, strippers or shenanigans. Thank you.

As a younger man I made a fair bit of money writing screenplays for other people which were never filmed. I have inverted this trend in recent times by publishing my own scribblings and having no-one buy them. I'm hoping that with a proper push the new subKultur imprint will become properly established as a channel for some new writing and music - my own but chiefly others' - in 2012. I don't really care about not selling any stories but I do care about doing something I enjoy and failing. Better that than to sit and regret the things I should have done. It might be simply that I'm not good enough at writing or brazen enough at self-promotion. One of those things, at least, can be fixed.

One of the revelations of the year has been Twitter (find me = @carlpeter). Read recently something along the lines of Facebook being about people you knew but you wished you didn't and Twitter being about people you largely didn't know but you wished you did. I intend to remedy this next year and meet a few of you (you're all invited to my party, remember?!). Would be invidious to name the good folks I have 'met' electronically this way in recent times but the chat and support and just general banter has been a genuine pleasure and a bonus. There's an industrial amount of dross, boasting, snobby whining, polemic and general unpleasantness there too (some of it from me, naturally), but it's worth wading through it for the gems. To all of you contributing twittery goodness to my life, a sincere 'thank you'.

There has been a fair bit of pain and distress in the wider family this outgoing year too. I hope the 2012 brings some respite/relief or at least better strategies for dealing with that which can't be changed. Change itself is the only constant, however. I know I'm going to abandon at least one long-held principle next year but if there is a theme to 2012, it's to be that I will be more selfish or, less perjoratively, more self-reliant.

To conclude, next year I'm going back to some of the things I have already tried: fatherhood, writing, maybe another year of playing the bass in a rock n roll band. No new fresh horizons, no alarms and no surprises. It could be a good year :-)

Have a good one.