*Track 11

Come As You Are - 10th June 2018

The two men had both now arrived in Singapore, but were keeping their distance. Staying in separate hotels half a mile apart. Their keenly anticipated meeting was still two days away, yet the world was already obsessing over how they were going to get along. Would they even shake hands? This whole summit was being reported on like some bizarre diplomatic version of ‘Blind Date’.

Our first contestant, a politicised Cilla might have explained, “is a virtual dictator, with a terrible haircut, who carefully controls his people via media manipulation, cares little for the truth, and acts with a megalomania common to those with inherited entitlement,” before adding, with her legendary Scouse comic timing, “while the other one is Kim Jong-un.” An obvious joke perhaps, Stuart thought, but like all the best humour it could only work if it sat on a bedrock of truth.

Having spent a fair bit of time in the States recently, visiting Joe, it had initially felt perplexing how an apparent imbecile like ‘The Donald’ could have hoodwinked so many Americans, so completely. Particularly those in inner heartlands like Ohio.

Reflecting further on how this may have been achieved though, you began to realise it was hard it was to feel smug about the situation when viewed from a Brexiting UK. The parallels were obvious; similar double-barrelled approaches had delivered both coups, each reducing political discussion to the level of the school playground. The core strategy, for both campaigns, had been a good slogan (the shorter and simpler the better) backed by a vigorous application of the Mandy Rice-Davies defence.

All Trump had required, back in 2016, was, “Make America Great Again,” (fitting nicely on the front of a baseball cap) followed by some big unapologetic lies; like the claim, “US unemployment was 42% under Obama,” when the true figure was just 5%.

Meanwhile, just a few months earlier, Vote Leave had pulled off a virtually identical trick; using their equally vacuous, “Take Back Control,” catchphrase, supported by the infamously fictitious, “we send the EU £350 million a week,” on the side of Boris’s bus.

Sadly, the similarities didn’t end there. In both cases it should, theoretically, have proven relatively easy to correct, and counteract, such obvious misinformation. All that had been required, surely, were a few simple truths:

- US unemployment is only 5%, you can’t save $300 billion a year on Medicare drugs (when they only cost $78 billion), and, whatever you might claim, all Mexicans aren’t drug dealers, criminals, and rapists, or

- We don’t send the EU £350 million each week, a post Brexit free trade deal won’t be, “the easiest thing in human history,” and it’s a complete fiction that millions of Turks will be flocking to the UK.

But the common follow up tactic, used to discredit any attempted corrections, was the clever bit, identically employed by both teams. That was where Mandy had come in!

Anybody, from any viewpoint, who tried to shoot down these oft repeated mistruths had simply been met, over and over, by phase two of the populist masterplan. Any attempt to counteract such sloganeering, to introduce a semblance of common sense, was immediately dismissed as either, “establishment views,” or, “fake news,” being perpetrated by people who, “would say that, wouldn’t they!” The more these lies were corrected, the more completely the scepticism fed masses seemed to swallow them.

Anti-establishmentarianism in action, and, as a strategy, it seemed to have worked a treat on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Maybe I should stop listening to the news,” Stuart fretted, “it’s just winding me up. And now, heaven help us all, there are two days left for Donald and Kim to save the world!”

He could pinpoint the precise elements of this story that had got his goat. Firstly, the BBC reporter had repeatedly referred to Tuesday’s planned summit as a potential, “game-changer,” further proof of the uncontrollable Americanisation (or dumbing down) of our news coverage. But secondly, and even more ludicrously, there was growing media speculation that Trump and Jong-un might, if they reached a successful agreement on denuclearisation, be considered for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Had everybody forgotten the juvenile warmongering we had suffered from both of these supposed statesmen?

Jong-un had kicked things off, by threatening to, “tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire,” by using, “a nuclear button that’s always on my desk.”

Never one to be outdone, Trump had responded in kind, demonstrating an innate ability to trade childishness, blow for blow, by claiming that America would, “deal with the little rocket man,” using their own, “bigger, more powerful button,” to unleash on North Korea, “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Given this context, Stuart thought, any Peace Prize awarded to Donald and Kim would surely be like rewarding a pair of thugs after a pub brawl, as long as they shook hands and bought each other a pint afterwards. Genuinely deserving Nobel laureates, from Luther King to Mandela, must be turning uneasily in their graves.

In an attempt to lighten his mood Stuart tried out his Cilla joke on Anne, but either it wasn’t as funny as he had thought, or he made a mess of the delivery. Probably both. “Sorry,” she said, “I just don’t get it.” A blossoming stand-up career was clearly out of the question, certainly without better material.

Adverse audience feedback aside, Stuart had definitely had his fill of this hirsutely-challenged love match (between the trapezoid buzzcut from Pyongyang and the wild wig of the White House!). He would need to calm his mood before re-entering the ‘Challenge’ fray at 10am.

At least that annoying BBC reporter had, inadvertently, provided him with an idea for a new musical list, one Stuart could compile as his now almost traditional pre-quiz warm up. A sort of melodic ‘amuse-oreille’ for his amygdala.

Which artists, he considered, could be regarded as music’s biggest ‘game-changers’?

There were remarkably few when you came to think about it. Much as Stuart loved his crack squad of maverick musicians there weren’t even many of those that he could genuinely claim had, “changed music for all time,” the rather grandiose qualification hurdle he had set.

He had an American acquaintance who, Stuart knew, would swear by the transformative impact of The Replacements (but they barely made it off the subs bench this side of the pond), plus a folk rock focused friend who might well advocate Sandy Denny/Fairport Convention for, “inventing a whole new genre.” In the end though, without any outside input, Stuart managed to compile a top five that easily met his tough criterium (and would prove hard to dislodge on any future updates).

He wrangled a lot over the order, but eventually settled on elevating Elvis to top spot, surely the most pivotal figure in popular music. Arguably its progenitor. Nick Cave had once described Elvis as, “some kind of angel; both terribly and awfully human, yet divine in his meteoric reach,” which was a convincing enough argument for Stuart:

5) Lennon/McCartney – he had once heard, “if you compile a list of composers who have written the highest number of recognisable tunes, once you reach fifty all you’re left with is Beethoven and The Beatles.” True or not, that still said everything.

4) Madonna – inspirational songs, lavishly choreographed risqué performances, provocative lyrics, media manipulating mastery, and conical bras. How many more debts could today’s successful female artists possibly owe?

3) Kurt Cobain – it is hard to fathom now the whole, “is this heavy metal?” debate that raged around ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. But even once this question had been answered negatively, guitar music had still, unarguably, been altered for all time.

2) Johnny Rotten – punk had many foot soldiers, but it was undoubtedly the Sex Pistols, primarily through Johnny’s look, attitude, sneer, and drawl, who ultimately landed the fatal blow to musical complacency.

1) Elvis – Sinatra once said, “his kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac, fostering totally negative, destructive reactions in young people.” An unintendedly apt description of the man who singlehandedly popularised rock’n’roll.

Nirvana’s ‘Come as You Are’ was playing as Anne walked back into the room, with Stuart’s final pre-‘Challenge’ album choice prompted by Kurt’s ‘game-changer’ listing. “Odd as it sounds,” he informed her, “this always reminds me of working in Australia.”

“Why?”, she bit on his bait, “can’t be ‘I don’t have a gun’. Sydney’s hardly Caracas.”

Stuart had gambled he would be on solid ground engaging Anne with ‘Nevermind’, and would put good money on where she might try to steer the conversation next.

“No, there was a covers band who played at lunchtimes, in a square near the office,” he explained, “I was sitting listening one day, eating my salad, and they played this. Sounded different sung by a girl, but it was a great version. I can still hear her singing the chorus now. If I knew the band’s name it would make my all-time covers list.”

“You know the remarkable thing about that story?” Anne enquired, though she clearly wasn’t going to wait around for an answer, “it’s you, choosing a salad. Stuart in healthy eating shock!”

Accepting he had walked straight into that, Stuart chose to swerve the subject and change tack, “anyway, you’ve just missed ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’; that’s why I put this album on, it’s one of my songs that changed music.”

“It certainly changed something.” Anne was now carefully starting to manoeuvre the discussion in the direction Stuart had predicted, but he chose to play dumb, to make her work harder.

“I can still remember debating the guitar bit with Charlie, whether it was heavy metal or not? In the end we decided it wasn’t, which meant the song was OK to like. Most people seemed to agree.”

“But what else is the song known for?” Anne now demanded more pointedly, visibly frustrated with Stuart for studiously avoiding her previous hint.

He tried to keep this pretence up, shrugging his shoulders as if to suggest, “I have no idea,” but then spoilt the effect by inadvertently letting slip a grin, one that let Anne know she had won. She mock flounced out of the room, as if Stuart’s shrug had annoyed her, but the self-satisfied ‘fifteen-love’ look on her face told a different story.

‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ had been the song playing when they first met. Anne’s triumph had been to force an acknowledgement from Stuart, despite his valiant attempt to resist, that this would always be the nearest thing they had to a Batesian ‘Our Song’.

There could be little doubt that Stuart’s Australian adventure, and its aftermath, had been an attitudinal ‘game-changer’ (whether he liked the phrase or not). Many of the trip’s lessons, unlike the healthy eating, had proven themselves built to last.

It wasn’t just the indirect consequence of meeting Anne (and connecting to Kurt) on his return; there had been things about those three months in Sydney that altered his outlook, changed his life for good. He had realised on the long flight home he was returning a different, more balanced person from the overly work focused, recently failed husband who made the outbound trip. Maybe it was this positive frame of mind (perhaps not so indirect after all) that led to his success with Anne so soon after.

Stuart’s antipodean colleagues, who quickly become friends, had been the living manifestations of ‘working to live’; would never have dreamt of ‘living to work’. He found this approach infectious, its positive impact evident everywhere (in the pubs, at the parties, on the beaches). Stuart became a convert and vowed, there and then, that he wouldn’t succumb again to the British ‘overworking’ disease, and hoped he hadn’t.

He could still recall being challenged on this issue after his return, by the MD who sent him to Australia. There had been a clear intent to ‘dig dirt’ on the Sydney team who, it was felt, weren’t committed enough. But this was a witch hunt destined to fail.

Stuart, like the Stockholm Syndrome survivor he had become, simply reported back that his Aussie colleagues, “worked bloody hard,” which, rightly, during the day they did. He had felt no compulsion however to reveal their equal commitment, come 5pm, to downing tools and getting straight to the beach, or spilling into the bar over the road. This was a philosophy, a religion almost, Stuart had tried to stick with. A career might be important; but Anne, Joe, life generally, would always be a higher priority.

It would be hard, Stuart had to concede, to deny that ‘Nevermind’ tails off badly towards the end. Halfway through one of its later tracks ‘Stay Away’, which sounded disconcertingly like formulaic heavy metal (had they perhaps been too hasty with that ‘innocent’ verdict?), he was pleased to have an excuse to cut the album short.

The moment had arrived to switch their full attention to today’s ‘Challenge’:

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(To be continued, at 10am tomorrow. Can you solve ‘Challenge 40’ in the meantime? If you think you have got the answer, then please reply direct to this email post, to help keep the ‘challenge’ open for other readers.)