John Morrish

There is nothing like watching a goalless draw between two relegation-doomed sides in January to lower the spirits. And that seemed to be where we were heading on Saturday, until a sudden flurry of activity in stoppage time led to Cheltenham scoring against the run of play and collecting the three points.

It was supposed to be a special occasion for the kids in my son’s football team, replacing their usual Christmas party, and they seemed to enjoy themselves despite the dreary spectacle on the pitch. For me it was a reminder of a slightly guilty feeling I have; for a large proportion of the time, football at this level is pretty boring.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon quickly bodging up a little site to go on my johnmorrish.com domain.What does a journalist put on his home page? Originally I was just going to stick my phone number and email on there and leave it at that, but that looked like I wasn’t trying. A picture of the author? I think not.

In the end, I put up a couple of bits of fairly recent writing. I’ll add some more when I get the time. The problem is that the sort of writing you do for magazines and newspapers is much too prolix for the web. As a reader, I have read long pieces online, but it’s a struggle. Most people suggest breaking long pieces into manageable chunks, but I hate reading pieces like that. I’d rather scroll down, and down, and down.

The other option is to stick some pretty pics in there, but that’s cheating. Also, you’ve got to have the pics.  And a visual imagination. I’m one of the least visually-orientated people you could wish to meet. I even started taking drawing lessons to see if that would help, but it didn’t. It was fun, though. If I could work out how to load up images in WordPress I’d stick one of my efforts up here. 

I’m sitting here listening to the Beach Boys’ Sunflower on vinyl, having finally worked out how to connect the manky little turntable I liberated from my parents’ house to the Mac. Gorgeous singing, terrible audio.

Hi-fi, remember that? My friend Mr Cooper has just been regaling me with stories of his latest purchase in that line. I, in turn, attempted to tell him about my encounter with a bunch of hi-fi mystics, who thought they could improve the sound of their systems by using what, to all practical purposes, was witchcraft. I wrote a piece about them for GQ, back in the days when it used to put men on the cover and carried earnest articles about grooming. (No, not that kind of grooming.)

Anyway, I dug out the piece, which was in some long-deceased Apple format, and managed to turn it into something I can read now. And I skimmed through it. Pretty good, I thought; this guy can write. And then I noticed the date: 1994. 

I’ll stick the piece on the site. It might still raise a smile. 

I’ve spent most of the last year working on The Folk Handbook, and I’m delighted to see that its first review, in the Independent On Sunday is favourable. Read all about it.

What is pleasing is that Charlotte Grieg, the reviewer, picked up on what was for us the central idea of the book; that these songs are not twee, and they’re not about Merrie England, and there is very little hey-nonny-no about them. They tell timeless stories, and their tunes have a power and simplicity that, if you give them time, will surely win you over. 

The problem, really, is us, the English. There is a terrible prejudice against this kind of music, something that you don’t find in the same way in other countries. In one of my pieces for the book, reproduced here, I tried to examine where that prejudice came from, and whether we can ever get past it.

If you are looking for my JournoList site, it’s here. Unfortunately, the What’s New section hasn’t been updated for a while, because I broke it. But the archives are there.