Blog Archive: November 2023

New look/Old story
I was intending to explain the NEW LOOK for the website today, but then Shane McGowan passed away so before that I think I am duty bound to share this VIDEO of me explaining how The Validators briefly met him (and Nick Cave) whilst on TOUR some years ago:



This story is entirely true from start to finish, including the FACT that both Shane McGowan and Nick Cave left before we went on - the only possible explanation for this is that they were NOT READY for the INTENSE ROCK we threatened and so went home to bed. THUS we stayed out later than both of them COMBINED! Also, Emma still has his sunglassess!

Now that solemn duty has been completed, a quick explanation of the website redesign. Part of the reason is that I've been meaning to make it slightly more ACCESSIBLE and easier to read on a phone for a while, so have tried to follow GUIDELINES to do so. However the MAIN reason is that I'm putting in an application for an Arts Council grant. I'll tell you the details when I find out whether I GET it or not, but the salient point right now is that the application needed an ARTIST'S WEBSITE. Obviously this IS that, but the header "MJ Hibbett & The Validators" makes it look more BAND-Y, whereas the application talks about the band stuff I've done AND the Steve stuff AND solo things AND Academical Publications, so I did a minor RE-BRANDING to make it reflect all that properly.

I mention this so regular readers are aware that The Validators have not been CANCELLED, nor has Steve been deemed insufficiently WOKE, and that everything is still exactly where it always was. The only person who really suffers in this re-design is ME, really, as it's made the site much more ALL ABOUT ME which, as anyone who knows me will realise, is not the sort of thing I like AT ALL. But I will bear it, for the cause of ART!

posted 30/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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How We Used To Publish
You find me up to my NECK in Academical Activities this week, although this is at least an improvement over the past few months when I have been up to my very EYEBALLS in it. It's almost as if all academics set the same DEADLINES i.e. a week or two before they finish teaching for the year.

In order to avoid DEADLINE DOOM I have been following a radical and revolutionary plan i.e. I started doing things EARLY so I'd have plenty of time to get them done in. This has been GRATE in that it means I've been able to get a whole load of things sent off without MASS PANIC and ALL-NIGHTERS, but also a bit fatiguing in that it feels like there is a never ending procession of STUFF to write. Still, I am now down to one (1) grant bid, one (1) article to re-write and one (1) book to proof read before Christmas. NOTHING CAN GO WRONG!

The aforesaid article is my first one in an PRINT journal for about twenty years, and it has made me think about how very far it has all come since those days of glory spent co-writing (NB usually spellchecking) STATS articles at the University of Leicester. These days if you want to read an article or a book or whatnot it is DEAD EASY, especially if you WORK at a University because you can just go into your library systems and order something or indeed just GET it online. For example, the re-writes for this particular article involve getting references from another book and article, and so on Monday I went downstairs from my desk (NB in the office, sadly there is not a library in my building - WHICH IS WRONG), wandered along a book shelf and GOT the book, then went online and DOWNLOADED the article. It was peasy!

Things were VERY different back in the previous century, when access to articles was a PRIZED TREAT. I vividly remember my first proper job as Administrative Assistant in Psychiatry for the Elderly at Leicester General Hospital, where one of my Daily Duties was to open deliveries of new journals and stack them on the massive bookshelf in the entrance hall. We used to get LOADS of journals, including one that always had HIDEOUS and GRAPHIC images of some awful GENITAL INFECTION on the cover, but mainly standard ones like the BMJ. The shelf was handily and deliberately placed opposite the entrance to the LOO so people were forever wandering over to get something to READ whilst on the lav. My desk faced the shelf so I would look JUDGEMENTAL at those who chose THE ANNALS OF GENITAL INFECTION.

Then as now, research departments in medicine wrote a LOT of papers with a LOT of authors on them. If you could get one or more Famous Professors to be a co-author it would help get you published in a fancy journal, so my aforesaid boss was involved in LOADS. That meant that having access to previous research was important, but sometimes it was really hard to get hold of. We didn't have the interweb AT ALL back then - when I started we were still using black and white monitors! - so the only way to GET stuff was to write a LETTER to the person who wrote it, asking for a copy!

I was thinking about that all of a sudden the other night because my brain went "HEY! If I have an article in a print journal maybe they'll send me FIVE COPIES of the article!" I can't remember what these were called, but it was a whole THING when the journal used to send the lead author five (i think it was five anyway) copies of their article as a special little leaflet so that they could send it to people who asked. It was my job to reply to these article requests, enclosed the paper with a pre-printed University of Leicester compliment slip, and also to monitor how many we had left - POPULAR ones would run out really quickly and I'd need to make a trip down the corridor to the photocopier under the stairs to do some more.

It's weird that all of those memories should suddenly come dashing back, but CRUMBS it doesn't half make me appreciate how much EASIER all of this sort of thing is nowadays. If I'd had to write off for every article I needed for my PhD I would have been RUINED by the cost of stamps!

posted 28/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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Doctor Who Unleashed
Like pretty much everyone of my ILK and TYPE I have spent the past year getting Quite Excited about the new series of Doctor Who. Most of the general TV and media focus has been on David Tennant coming back but I was more thrilled at the idea of The Great And Wonderful RTD returning, although when I actually WATCHED the show (diligently un-spoilered slightly later on Saturday evening) it took me a while to get back into his particular style of Doctor Who i.e. him going "HERE IS THE MESSAGE EVERYONE! AHA!"

However, once I had accepted that that is actually part of the GRATE JOY of any RTD show I settled in and enjoyed it very much indeed. INDEED my views on how it worked can be summed up in this excellent comment made by Mr T Ewing on The Socials, which I shall quote in full:

I don’t think I’d really anticipated what a good fit RTD adapting Pat Mills would be - both enormously vibes-driven writers (in my day we called it thrill power) with big subtext-is-for-cowards agendas behind that.

That is SUCH a PERCEPTIVE and CORRECT thing to say that I have now been thinking about it for two whole days, gazing at it in wonder!

The actual EPISODE, however, is not the reason for which I write this here blog, OH NO. What I wish to speak of instead is "Doctor Who Unleashed" what came afterwards. This is the new version of "Doctor Who Confidential" where they talk about aspects of the making of the show, except as far as I can remember that previous version did not have a Larky Presenter doing the presenting as if Everything Is Just A Terrific Laugh. I know it marks me out as someone in LATE YOUTH but my goodness, why does everything have to have some tedious twerp of a comedian or comedian-alternative in it these days, pretending a) not to be as posh as they patently are b) making a virtue of being HALF-ARSED about everything.

This half-arsedness was especially noticeable when they talked about the ROOTS of this particular episode i.e. in the Doctor Who Comic story done by Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons over 40 years ago. I was VERY happy to see this being discussed, but ANNOYED by the extremely half-arsed description that said "Pat and Dave wrote the original Star Beast..." NO! Pat wrote it, Dave drew it FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE. Also there was a list of stories they had "written", and these "stories" included "Judge Dredd" AND "2000AD". UM. That's not quite right is it? It was ALMOST AS IF they could not be BOTHERED to spend 0.2 picoseconds actually checking it and getting it CORRECT because - hey guys! - being half-arsed and feckless is NATURALLY HILARIOUS.

ANYWAY. This colossal GRUMP was then COMPLETELY DISPELLED by the WONDERFUL thing that happened next, as we saw Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons visiting the set to see what had been done with their original creation. They were both a bit overwhelmed, with Dave Gibbons talking a LOT and Pat Mills WEIRDLY SILENCED, which is something I would not have thought possible. He is KNOWN as being AN FIREBRAND but here he seemed to be lost for words - I mean, maybe they edited out a long speech about THATCHER or something, but he seemed genuinely moved by the whole thing.

The BEST bit though was when a CLEARLY EXCITED David Tennant came running up, OBVIOUSLY DELIGHTED to meet Pat Mills and David Gibbobns, grinning all over his face and then REELING OFF a COMPLETE and CORRECT list of all the stories they had done in Doctor Who comic that he had loved. It was LOVELY, entirly FULLY-ARSED and also SINCERE and, to be honest, probably how an awful lot of the rest of us would have reacted, given the chance. It completely made up for all the effected casualness that had come before.

After a couple of minutes David Tennant wafted off back to work, leaving Mills and Gibbons - and also HIBBETT - rather moved by the whole experience. It was lovely - more of this please!

posted 26/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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The Social Media Portfolio Expands Again
There was a time long ago when getting onto a new social media platform was a thing of excitement and thrills, a rare event like getting a new Doctor Who are having a new Prime Minister. These days it feels like an almost daily occurrence, like... well, you get the idea.

Such thoughts have come to mind because (thanks to an invite from the excellent Mr W Pilkington) I have signed up for Bluesky! "Ooh," I thought as I began to log in, "How is this going to work then eh? What new delights await?" and the answer was the same as it was with Threads, or Mastodon, or Instagram, or whatever else we've gone through in the never ending journey to replace Twitter i.e. that it's always fun spending ten minutes picking PALS to follow, and then it's great the following day when they follow you back, but then... um... it's all sort of like Twitter but with less people. There's also less MAD ADVERTS for things that a) I don't want b) twitter is now actively telling me not to look at, but still - it definitely feels like the glory days of about ten years ago are gone and there is now nothing like Twitter As Was.

And to be honest, that is FINE with me. I now spend a lot less time of an evening GLOMMING through my twitter feed and a lot MORE time doing wholesome things like reading ACTUAL BOOKS. There was a short period when it felt like Twitter was democratising access to THORTS and IDEAS, when the likes of you and I had as much chance with going VIRAL with something as any celebrity, but that was pretty quickly stamped down on. Weirdly, for one as ROCK AND ROLL and COOL as what I am, I now find that the only SOCIALS I really look at is flipping FACEBOOK, just to see what various PALS are up to.

Anyway, all of that is to say that if anyone else is on Bluesky do please come and say hello and I will inevitably follow you back so that we can enjoy each other's company for the next fortnight or so until something ELSE radical and exciting turns up that looks almost exactly like Twitter. OR, perhaps, maybe, someone somewhere will FINALLLY listen to THE KIDS and gives us the FUTURISTIC BRANE HOLOGRAMS what we have so long been calling for. Come on Elon, get with it Zucks, give us what we want and if you get a move on we'll even let you advertise shoes that we already own on it! AND BOXES OF VEGETABLES!

posted 20/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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The Lion Who Never Roared
Last night The Beer In My Bottle and I strolled through mythical Maryland to get to The Wanstead Tap, there to watch Mr M Tiller present a talk about his new book The Lion Who Never Roared.

As we know from STATISTICAL FACTS I have gigged and toured EXTENSIVELY over the years with Matt, and during those times he has a) always been a DELIGHT b) often spoken of the story of Jack Leslie, a legendary Plymouth Argyle player who was called up for England but then suddenly had the call-up denied by the FA once they realised he was black. Telling this story has been a long-term project for Matt, starting off with a SONG but then transmuting into co-founding The Jack Leslie Campaign, which set out to erect a statue outside Argyle's ground and ended up not only doing THAT but - incredibly - managing to get the FA to award an honorary England cap to his family.

The story of the story has ITSELF been quite an amazing thing, not least because the campaign was trying to put UP a statue recognising racial injustice at a time when other statues of slave owners were being torn DOWN, and this evening was a bit about that, but mostly going into more depth about Jack Leslie's life. I knew the outline of what had happened to him but Matt took us through a FASCINATING pile of details, Painting A Picture of what life was like for him back in the first half of the twentieth century, when he was the only black player in the football league.

There was also a GRATE bit at the end when he got Jack Leslie's granddaughter up to talk about her Grandad, followed by QUESTIONS which included thoughts about the family, discussion of ongoing racial injustice in sport, and, at the end, an in-depth FOOTBALL STATS discussion because, after all, you cannot have any discussion of football without a massive STATS discussion. Matt handled it all with APLOMB and we were VERY PROUD, especially when a MASSIVE QUEUE formed to get him to sign it - that never happened when we did gigs together!



The desire to BUY was so strong that they actually sold out of copies before I could get one, although HANDILY it is very much available in All Good Book Stores and indeed direct from the campaign. I would highly recommend it as an ENTHRALLING and also IMPORTANT story what needs telling... and has been!

posted 17/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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Grown-Up Conferencing
Last week I spent a couple of days up in distant LEEDS, there to attend the Comics Forum conference. Short version: it was really good fun and/but felt dead GROWN UP.

The good fun part is easy to explain because it was a coming together of UK (and a few other) comics scholars to present and talk about COMICS. The Comics Studies community is exceedingly welcoming and full of ENTHUSIASM and VIM so it is always GRATE to be once more among them, especially when I get to do a presentation myself, as I did this time. It was called Three Generations Of Dennis The Menace: How Gok Wan created a new storyworld superpower and was all about how a change to the Dennis The Menace storyworld eleven years ago led to The Beano finally entering the equivalent of The Bronze AGe in US superhero comics. One big chunk of it was some MIND BLOWING revelations about continuity in Beanotown which I trailed rather heavily throughout the talk. SO heavy was this trailering that I started to worry that I might be over-egging it, but the eventual reaction was well worth the wait. If anybody wishes to experience this experience please ask me about it next time you see me in a pub and I will be DELIGHTED to share!

The grown-up part was partly to do with the FACT that I didn't JUST tit around showing off (although OBVS I did that) but also talked about Proper Things both Comics and REF-based. However it was also to do with the dawning realisation that I was now NO LONGER one of the new young kids who were just getting stuck into their their PhD. When I HAD been in that position lots of lovely people listened to me talk about MY research, so now it was my turn to talk to THEM about what they were up to. This felt GOOD and was also EXTREMELY INTERESTING - people doing Comics Studies PhDs are doing some FASCINATING stuff!

While I was there I also popped round the corner to the venue that used to be Carpe Diem, a place we had played MANY times back in the day. It was almost entirely different to how it had been back then, with far fewer underage drinkers and fights, but a lot more Street Food and Craft Ales, although weirdly the raised area where the stage had been set up was still in place. It was actually really nice and I went there TWICE for some lovely pizza and some Surprisingly Delicious alcohol free IPA.

Back at the conference I also had various CONVERSATIONS about the next PROJECT what I am thinking up, which will be based around my BOOK what is coming out next year, which I guess is even MORE grown-up than the rest of it. It was an all-round DELIGHTFUL couple of days anyway, and it's made me PINE for the next one!

posted 13/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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ROCKING Cambourne
On Friday night myself and The Maps In My Zoning Plan headed to CAMBOURNE, somewhere between Cambridge and St Neots, where I was due to play a gig at The Hub with The British IBM. Getting there went very well all the way to Cambridge, but then got a bit more difficult as MASSIVE traffic meant that it took about 40 minutes to GET at taxi and then twice as long as expected to get to Cambourne itself.

THUS we only managed to get to The Hub a couple of minutes after The British IBM had started, which was a shame as it meant we MISSED a slice of gig that turned out to be GRATE. As the aforesaid Strings On My Guitar pointed out, the sound was LOVELY and the whole thing GROOVED along. I've played with them several times although, it turns out on later investigation, almost always VIRTUALLY, which may explain why it all felt so ROUNDED and ORGANIC in real life. Or it might just be that a GLOCKENSPIEL was employed, which is pretty much always good!

While they were playing my BRANE was WHIRRING as I tried to work out a) the audience b) my setlist. The evening was Retro Computing themed with a range of old computers set up along the sides of the room, so I knew at least ONE song I was going to be playing, but the rest of the set was a bit tricky to work out. Previous experience tells me that some of my GUARANTEED GIG BANGERS don't always go down too well in these sort of environments so I had a bit of a THINK and this is what I came up with:

Bad Back

I Come From The Fens

Fire Drill

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

I Think I Did OK

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Hey Hey 16K

Boom Shake The Room

Doing a slightly different set to usual meant it was a LOVELY challenge for me to steer my REMARKS through an unfamiliar ROCK ROUTE, and playing Bad Back first turned out to be a REALLY good idea, as I had correctly jduged the audience's familiarity with said ailment. Most of the rest of it ROCKED along nicely too, with the fact that everyone GOT Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine making me very happy indeed, but why on EARTH have I not done Fire Drill in the live arena before? It was GRATE!

The best bit for me though was that I got ALL the way through it - I had a bit of a cold last week so hadn't been able to do as much practice as I'd like (I never used to practice AT ALL when I was doing 6 gigs a month, but now it's more like 6 gigs a YEAR I sort of have to!). I was especially worried when I decided, 20 seconds in, to abandon the microphone and go Totally Acoustic but it seemed to go all right and my voice kept going for THE LOT. The only major PANIC was right at the very end when I forgot the words to Boom Shake The Room and almost gave it up, but luckily The Lyrics On My Songsheet DID remember and shouted them out so I could get back on track. PHEW!

When it was all over I chatted to lots of lovely people, notably our pals The Suttons who had come along, and also SOLD some MERCH. Aidy from The British IBM (who had organised the whole thing) suggested setting up a MERCH TABLE and to my surprise this generated a small crowd of purchasers, who I think may have gone home with slightly more than they bargained for. I'd brought a LOT of stuff, especially CASSETTES as I realised that this was likely to be the audience containing the most people with tape players that I'd ever perform to, and didn't want to have to carry it all home again!

It was a lovely evening all round, and it ended with a small group of us staggering into the night in search of the hotel nearby where most of us were staying, full of THORTS and FURTHER DISCUSSION. It was a DELIGHTFUL bunch of people to play for and a GRATE evening!

posted 4/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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Like Everything That I'd Ever Lost Had Come Back
I had a MILDLY STRANGE experience the other day, sort of like DEJA VU but then also not. I don't think it has a name, such is its MILD STRANGENESS, but if anyone can tell me that it DOES I would be very grateful.

What it was was as follows. I was listening to the "new" Beatles song yesterday and having various thoughts e.g. that it sounded a bit like The Beatles but also not quite like anything else by The Beatles and so therefore even more like The Actual Beatles, and also that the song was all right but the best bit had been in the Making Of when you first hear John Lennon's extracted voice and it is A BIT EXCITING. Anyway, as I was listening it struck me that it was almost as if The Universe was trying to be nice to me - and me specifically - as it had ALSO just unleashed new stuff from Old Doctors Who i.e. the Tales Of The Tardis on iPlayer. I watched some of this last night, by the way, and was really quite surprised by how good "Earthshock" was. I remember watching it at the time, but had no idea it was GOOD!

That's TWO of the Cultural Items I like MOST that have unearthed new material, what are the chances eh? But then later in the evening I was listening to the rather lovely new Kirsty MacColl boxset. This is a GORGEOUS thing, beautifully made and also PACKED with demoes and other things I'd never heard before. "Crumbs!" I expectorated. "That's THREE of my favourite things that came back. Why, if it carried on like this there's only Douglas Adams left!"

About 0.3 nanoseconds later I realised that, only a few weeks ago, I'd taken delivery of 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas Of Douglas Adams, a big crowdfunded book what is PACKED with previously unreleased Douglas Adams stuff. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? "It's like", I thought, "everything that I'd ever lost has come back. That's a song isn't it?"

OH CRIKEY! It IS a song - a song by Allo Darlin', my top most favourite band of The Current Century who - HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS - split up eight-ish years ago but returned to do some gigs THIS VERY WEEK!!!!!

I tell you what, if it hadn't already BEEN Halloween then this would make for a spooky story to spook even the most hardened DRACULA. I am now struggling to think of many other CULTURAL TOUCHSTONES that I love that HAVEN'T yet come back again. I mean, are we about to find out there's a whole other Molesworth book coming out? (Yes I know there is a cartoon series possibly coming but that's Not Quite The Same...although, maybe it is?)

It feels like a whole heap of things coming out at once, which I suppose MIGHT just be something that happens when you reach this late stage of your THIRTIES (very late stage) what I am currently in. Maybe this is the point when things you liked get ARCHIVED and UNCOVERED? Or maybe it really IS The Universe thinking "Let's give Hibbett a treat and bring all his stuff back." If that is the case then I say THANKS, The Universe, it is much appreciated although perhaps a bit overwhelming!

posted 3/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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Bingeing Becky Chambers
When I was about eight years old I got REALLY into The Famous Five books. Yes yes I know they are OF THEIR TIME in some (A LOT) of the attitudes therein but the time I read them in was ALSO of its time so it wasn't so obvious then.

Anyway, I read LOADS of them one after the other, and after a while I remember thinking to myself "This is all well and good, these adventures and so forth, but what I'd really like would be a book where nothing happens at all and they just hang around being pals with each other." That is right, way back in 1978 I predicted the advent of THE HANGOUT SITCOM, I was indeed a visionary even in 1978 at the age of eight... um... I mean MINUS TWENTY.

That THORT has stuck with me ever since - sometimes you like the characters so much that you don't actually NEED them to go around answering calls to adventure or leaping into the void and so on. This may partly explain why I FLIPPING LOVE the works of Becky Chambers so much, because she writes books where really really interesting characters interact with each other and say interesting things without too much ACTION getting in the way. They are GRATE!

Like pretty much everyone else the first book of hers I read was "The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet" which was BRILLIANT. Weirdly I then kept buying the follow-ups when they came out but forgetting quite how much I'd enjoyed them so took ages to get round to each one on the Kindle, at which point I'd think "Oh yes, I really like these books don't I?"

This changed a month or so ago when I read "The Galaxy And The Ground Within" which is the very EPITOME of "Interesting Characters Just Hanging Around A Bit", although saying that does rather glide over the IMMENSE and AMAZING worldbuilding that she does in all her books (a subject which I shall return to momentarily). What basically happens in that one (NOT REALLY SPOILERS) is that some SPACE ALIENS get stuck at a SPACE MOTEL for a bit and spend a while interacting with each other - there is some MILD PERIL towards the end, but that's pretty much it, and it is RUDDY MARVELOUS. All of the characters are SPACE ALIENS with their own cultures and ways of existing which she mixes and matches to generate all sorts of IDEAS about how societies work, or might work, and does it in a supremely DELIGHTFUL way.

It was so brilliant that at the end I thought "RIGHT! This time there will be no messing about, I'm going to read the next thing she does RIGHT AWAY". As it turned out I had waited so long to read THAT book that there were already two MORE to go - the two books in the "Monk And Robot" DUOLOGY. CRUMBS! If these had been any more up my street they would have moved in next door and invited me round to talk about Doctor Doom, for LO! not only are they immense and wonderful examples of world building done with a light hand, containing fascinating characters and ideas, but they are also SHORT! HOORAH!

I realised how much I wanted to SHOUT about these books a couple of days ago when I finished the first one, "Psalm For The Wild Built". There is a bit near the end where one of the characters does something for the other that is SO INCREDIBLY MOVING that it moved me to tear up on The Elizabeth Line. More than that, the thing that happens is something TOTALLY MADE UP and relies on the fact you fully understand the characters and the entirely fictional SPACE WORLDS what they live in. It was absolutely incredible!

As I type I am watching the clock so I can get on and finish "Prayer For The Crown Shy" - I would have finished it yesterday but I had looked up Crown Shyness to see if it was real (it is) and then spent about an hour reading about it. It's educational as well as moving, what more could anyone want from a book eh?

Well yes, data about Doctor Doom OBVIOUSLY, but other than that these are pretty much perfect and I would very much recommend them to anyone!

posted 1/11/2023 by MJ Hibbett
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