I wonder if the something in the spring will be Sheffield?

Jarvis was great yesterday. He started by talking about how music and lyrics work together and you can't separate them out and that it doesn't matter if you can't understand them. He used the example of the Kingsmen's Louie, Louie from his Brighton talk. He talked about going back to his old school in Sheffield this week. He read Inside Susan, accompanied by some slides of Sheffield. Jarvis was charming and witty but the interviewer John Wilson (who presents Front Row on radio 4) wasn't very we'll informed, which led to some poor questions and factual errors. A music journalist like Miranda Sawyer or Kitty Empire would have been much better (hopefully the person doing Manchester will be more approriate). It was thrown open to questions from the audience, which is how we found out that he doesn't want Pulp to become a 'heritage' act and that they may play in the spring then call it a day. Unless he's playing his cards very close to his chest, he really gave the impression that they hadn't been doing any writing and have no plans to do so. As I was sitting in the balcony I sadly didn't get a chance to ask a question.

Eamonn and I then went to have our books signed. The queue was very long but Jarvis was very patient and seemed to be enjoying himself, sitting with a glass of wine, and was happy to have his photo taken with people. He was accompanied by his girlfriend who was very smiley and friendly. I was rather overawed at meeting him and only managed to have a chat about Port Eliott Festival where I met him last year. When what I really wanted to say was thank you for speaking out against student fees and about the importance of art colleges as creative spaces. But I'm afraid I went blank and usually I can talk for England!

It was lovely to meet up with Eamonn for a drink beforehand and queue with him at the signing.

Yeah, it was great to meet you and your husband, Deborah; hope you've managed to get back to Cornwall safe and sound. Queueing up alone last night would have been heavy-going!

I have to say I was a wee bit disappointed and a little under-whelmed at the talk. Which is my own fault as I expected Jarvis would have a guitar on hand to play at least a couple of songs. On the stage inside the town hall where the event took place there was a big projection screen so I thought just before he came on that maybe he would go with the lecture-vibe as he's done previously, but this time dealing with his own songs for the most part.
So when he walked on with the journalist, John Wilson, my heart sunk a bit as I knew it would be more prosaic than I'd been hoping. An informed music journalist like Kitty Empire or John Mulvey (who both wrote excellent reviews of the Brixton gigs and have seen many Pulp gigs from as far back as the Separations/Intro days) would have been better but I suppose it was a bit silly expecting anything else than the usual questions that we've all heard/read him give answers to before (but that a casual follower wouldn't have). After all, it was promo for his new book at a literary festival. And while Jarvis's skills as a salesman have probably decline rapidly since his days in the fish market, Mr Wilson did plug the book a lot; ''Reading through the book/In your notes section of the new book/Coming back to the book...'' etc. 

Deborah summed it up very well. One thing that was nice were the slides that went along to his reading of Inside Susan. There were a few questions from the audience at the end. The only one I could think of was ''Which of your songs do you think the music is let down by the lyrics and vice versa?'' but I was up at the balcony with little chance of asking it. One bloke said something about his wife being inconsolable about REM splitting and did Jarvis feel any affinity or something with Micheal Stipe...ffs...

Yesterday afternoon I went to Argos and Dixons in Cheltenham to buy a dictaphone so I could record the talk and share it on here, but all the ones with usb connections were too expensive for me I'm afraid! I think Deborah may have got some of the discussion on her phone(?) but either way, there wasn't a lot talked about that most people on here haven't heard before. I did manage to record the very last question on my camera, regarding Pulp and the future.

Jarvis: ''I'm pretty sure it won't turn into a heritage act...we were very gratified with the response, it couldn't have been a better response but I think what made it special was knowing that it wasn't going to be there forever so we may do a couple of shows in the spring but... hopefully we can bow out graciously''.

There were a couple of ''Awww''s in the audience but not enough for my liking! Maybe I should have threatened to throw myself off the balcony if he didn't agree to write new songs with the group ;)

As for the book-signing and finally meeting the man himself. Dearie me...I was a bit of a gibbering wreck to be honest. His girlfriend was sat beside him thanking the people for waiting (she was really nice actually, I think she could tell when people were nervous). My opening gambit was something silly like ''Jarvis you're a legend, so you (nodding at his partner) must be his legendary girlfriend''. Bit of an uneasy laugh, well by me anyway. I said I hoped the book didn't mean he wasn't going to write any more songs, even if it was outside of Pulp. He said something like ''I hope not...I plan to keep writing'' but I was so focussed on not getting tongue-tied that I can't remember exactly what his words were. I told him about the shows I'd been to over the summer and about the '''You Are The One'' sign for Russell at Brixton (so that's how he signed the book to me). And how I really like the songs he'd written with Tim (McCall) on Further Complications, but finding myself trailing off, thinking ''Shit, why are you mentioning a close friend of his who died last year?''. Anyway, he let me get my photo taken with him, I shook him by the hand and said how great it was to meet him, my voice quivering all the time. They both thanked me, but from the look in his eye I  think he either thought I was a bit too into Pulp/him or more likely, his own version of Alan Partridge's stalker. I let Deborah and her husband, who is very adept at these situations - ''He's just a shy human being like most of us'' take over.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse...at least I didn't bring-up We Love Life demos or the fact I've written the most posts on a Pulp forum.

And the Mother Brother Lover book itself... Well firstly, congrats again to Will, whose pulpwiki gets some kind words of gratitude in the acknowledgements. Which didn't surprise me as in the notes for the song ''His'n'Hers'', there are examples of Jarvis ad-libbing the ''What makes you frightened?'' part with members of the audience which look to have been lifted directly from here http://www.pulpwiki.net/Pulp/HisNHers

It seems the site was Jarvis' major resource in going back over the songs in general. Well, that and possibly the wiki daddy, wikipedia. A slightly annoying aspect of the book is that the notes to the songs (which range from a sentence to a few paragraphs) concentrate primarily on explaining the cultural lyrical references within songs that may be lost on certain people (foreigners for example, one of whom I've been talking to just now - the German fella that was at the Brixton gig some of you met, and he said he'd buy the book if he could understood it. Sales-wise, a good move then maybe).

Some of these references are funny (''looks like some bad comedian'' - Rowan Atkinson'') or enlightening - apparently the line in Glory Days is actually ''I could do anything if I could get a Round Tuit'' - Round Tuits being seaside souvenirs which if you received one, you no longer could put off a boring chore''. Who knew?!

But too often there's stuff like ''was he ace?'' - Ace was the word used to mean ''fantastic'' when I was in secondary school'', ''eating boxes of Milk Tray'' - Milk Tray is a milk chocolate assortment first manufactured by Cadbury's in 1915'...and you just want to say, ''Yes, but what about the inspiration for the song Jarvis?! How did it come about?!'' The entry for Laughing Boy is only one line but still quite illuminating (apparently about ''a houseguest who overstayed his welcome'') so a bit more of that would have been great.

So too would the inclusion of more earlier songs, there's not much stuff represented from the 80's.
The notes on the unreleased songs included are similar to what he wrote about them on the Deluxe editions.

The piece Darren Spooner wrote for Time Out magazine about a dream he had is hilarious. The graphic design on the inside of the book is reminiscent of the wallpaper on one of the Pulp compilations (just checked, it's Primal: The Best Of The Fire Years).
The essay on lyric writing in general at the start is very interesting - a lot of which he actually mentioned in the talk last night, some of it repeated from his ''Saying The Unsaying'' lectures.

One curio from the copyright credits - A Little Soul and Cocaine Socialism are ''reproduced by kind permission Universal/Island'' and ''EMI''. No mention of EMI on any other This Is Hardcore or indeed Pulp songs. Anyone know what that's about?

And there are bits and bobs for the anoraks among us to learn, in particular regarding one unreleased song from the later years.

I've probably spoilt enough about the book so won't say anymore.

You'll probably get it for half the price online that Waterstones were selling it for at Cheltenham but all clicks and no more bricks shops will be a sad day.

-- Edited by Eamonn on Monday 10th of October 2011 12:18:45 AM

Still getting over meeting Jarvis. Odd thing to say, really, he's onlly a bloke like you or me - I imagine he'd think we're all wierdos after his comment about not wanting to think too much about having people sing back your lyrics as they are his thoughts and it's a bit like he's polluted people's minds!

I think people have said the main things, really. A few other things I remember:

Talking about poetry, Jarvis said he'd read a bit of Roger McGough etc and then said he could be described as an influence as McGough had been in music too - was the Scaffolds and then started singing the chorus to 'Lilly the Pink' :)

When asked what his favourite lyric of all time was, he got one of the biggests laughs of the night when he replied that he'd never got an answer for questions like that, and that he always comes up with something really inappropriate.....like now....all I can think of is Meatloaf....I'll do anything for love, but I won't do THAT. He eventually settled on a Leonard Cohen song.

We heard lyrics from 'Life is a Circle', a song of the same period of Shakepeare Rock that I'd never heard before.

He got on his knees to get close to the monitor at one point because he couldn't see the slide well enough and complained about old age.

Meeting him afterwards was great....the bloke in front of me had about five books to sign including one without a name and Jarvis asked his girlfrined what he should put. 'Best Wishes' he asked? No thats to formal....Jarvis said 'How about just Cheers?!' and then she came back with 'Nah, that's boring....how about Cheers Ears! That's very English!'.

It got to my turn and I didn't know what to say so stuck to the basics :) Asked him for a photo which he was happy to do, waved to the camera whilst doing the native american 'How', which was quite funny. His girlfriend thanked us for waiting in the queue and off I scuttled happy and to text everyone I knew !

This is Jarvis' girlfriend here - I presume she still is, seems quite stable these days. There a class photo of them on a Vespa online too - just google Jarvis Vespa (I'm getting nervous of putting lots of links in since I lost a long post). Looks pretty Celtic.  I remember him once furtively referring to her as 'KS' on the radio. She has a Jack Russell called Shaun. I think she is another fashion person, I have zero interest in fashion so I'm a bit clueless about such things.

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/11U1WWbSwyo/Nowhere+Boy+Closing+Gala+Inside+Arrivals+Times/smFkc5GkfIt/Kim+Sion

Really good descriptions of the Cheltenham event here from everyone. As you have said, not a great deal of earth-shattering new information, but it's just really nice to see him talking (and did anyone else notice his Powerpoint talking to him in French - cliquez ici pour ajouter titre). I was already tempted to chicken out of the book signing for the reasons you have all described, I assumed I would just go stupid on him, but when I saw the insanely long queue I had no choice anyway as we were tight on time, we left our son with our neighbours in Bristol who wanted rid of him by midnight at the latest so their son might actually go to sleep!

As to the content, it must be difficult to pitch something that appeals to hardcore anorak fan who know all the common stories and still have enough basics for those more casual fans. I hadn't even thought of explaining things for foreigners, but that is a really good point, there's such a lot of very English culture that we probably take for granted (those of us that are English at least). My Auntie Mary had a round tuit, maybe it is a Yorkshire thing, you don't always realise which normal things aren't normal to everyone else, as he told the kids at his school the other day. I have also wondered in the past seeing the same tales trotted out in many interviews if he has almost nominated certain stories to feed to the press lions (being a mistake, lederhosen, falling out of a window, the joyriders, that girl from Greece ...) and still stand a chance of retaining some privacy, for someone who is quite shy and private this must be quite hard, though writing it all in songs isn't helping yourself admittedly. Hearing about Inside Susan was more novel, though even then the liner notes have quite a bit of that, the pictures were sweet.

And then there's "the spring". Maybe something that takes a bit longer to organise, like writing something new (calm down, girl).

So many things to say in response to those two posts:

Jarvis riding pillion? Very modern man!

Fran, sorry, but I had sort of assumed you were a man!

Coffee whitener... never quite got that reference... something to do with drugs? White powder?

Slightly unrelated: I was convinced that a line similar to the one in Weeds II had cropped up somewhere else: "Do your dance, do your funny little dance" - but not sure where.

The other thing he said was that he didn't want the lyrics to look like poems on the page so he tried to present them to reflect how they're sung.

I agree that it must have been hard to pitch it to satisfy both hardcore anoraks and casual listeners. He's, of course, now a national treasure along with Stephen Fry and Alan Bennett. There was a lady in her 60s in front of me, who I wouldn't at first sight have thought to be a Pulp fan, who was in absolute raptures and hung on to his every word.

First of all great stories by everyone - I'm insanely jealous!

Is the coffee whitener not 15 year olds thinking their taking cocaine when in fact they've been done? Sort of placebo effect like when kids drink grape juice and think they're drunk. Understandable why Jarvis doesn't like Catcliffe Shakedown but I always enjoy it: Lyrics are pretty witty throughout and the tune really reminds me of John Shuttleworth which doesn't fail to bring a smile to my face!