Definitely not Ed Sheeran: Liam Gallagher's As You Were

Let's establish the facts, as they stand: Oasis were good, Noel Gallagher's post-Oasis output has been good, Liam Gallagher's post-Oasis output less good/awful/should stick to selling menswear, and that the chances of an Oasis reunion are of a cold-day-in-Hell magnitude, based on Gallagher Junior's near-daily tirade of Twitter jibes about Gallagher Senior.

In spite of the often vituperative and mostly inventive barbs aimed at his brother, Liam has cut a relatively more avuncular figure in recent months, launching a charm offensive in preparation for today's release of his debut solo album, As You Were. This, arguably, began last year with an interview with Q magazine's Ted Kessler - conducted mostly in a north London pub over two August days - which I will put before the court as being one of the funniest, most engaging and open interviews I've read with a rock star, let alone one renown for being profane, playground bully-thuggish and generally hostile. Of the interview's many revelations, it was the fact that the previously Olympic-level caner was now getting up at 5am each morning to go for runs on Hampstead Heath and while not exactly now a paragon of lactose-free milk-drinking clean living, was - as he was entering his 44th year - a different character. Contemplative, even.

With both of his previous bands declared dead, and the odds of a fraternal Gallagher reconciliation zero, Gallagher revealed to Kessler that he'd picked up a guitar and was engaging in songwriting. To the uninitiated, this may have come as either a surprise or a worry. After all, wasn't Noel responsible for writing all of Oasis' songs, or at least the good ones? Well, no. Both Beady Eye albums - while not good - gave Liam the opportunity to develop his writing chops. And if you wanted an example of how good his writing could be, just listen to the final Oasis album, Dig Out Your Soul, and the Liam-written track I'm Outta Time, a track his brother branded "deceptively brilliant". I branded it a Bond-theme-in-waiting, and certainly better than Jack White and Alicia Keys' execrable Another Way To Die released the same year for Quantum Of Solace.

In the Q interview, however, Gallagher seemed reluctant to brand the new songs he'd been writing as the launch of a new direction. "I am not embarking on a solo 'career'. Everyone should know that," he told Kessler. "There are just 10, 11 songs I've written that are eligible to be recorded. They've got flair, attitude, the melodies are sick and the words are fucking funny. We'll record them this year and release it next year. It'll shock people. It's a record written by me, that's got all the right ingredients and sounds well tasty."

And it is. Very much so. OK, much of it is in the Oasis vein - a lot of guitar-based swagger topped by Gallagher's Lennonesque nasal vocal - but rather than simply being derivative, As You Were is a glorious continuation of what that outfit did best. Ask most people what they would like out of most of their favourite bands and they'll say "more of the same, please". It should be pointed out that the album isn't entirely Gallagher's own work: American producer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurtin is amongst a number of collaborators keeping As You Were on solid ground (and he brings to the party experience of working with Adele, Foo Fighters and others). But this assistance comes in terms of flourish. Thus, a track like Paper Crown (in which Gallagher sounds more like Cast's John Power) stands out, not only for its melodic strength but also for its open sound, something the tremendous single Wall Of Glass also benefits from, with its soulful, funky treatment. Likewise, Chinatown, with its Feeling Groovy guitar motif, finds Gallagher losening his trademark snarl, and delivering a dreamy, psychedelic wooze-out that stands apart from anything he's produced before, both melodically as well as in terms of his songwriting maturity.

As I'm Outta Time proved, Liam has a knack for the grandiose, stadium-swelling ballad. It's a gift that, if he was feeling generous, Noel would recognise he shares with his younger sibling. For What It's Worth fits this capability. Yes, you could probably sing All Around The World over it, but then such mashups were possible with much of the Oasis canon. Really, it doesn't matter, when the songs are this pleasing and this singalongable. I've already made one Beatles reference and it is, inevitably, impossible not to find another: When I'm In Need has Beatley choral elements, but is also slap-bang in the midst of what pop music should always be - big, bold and attitudinal, with the sort of melodic hook that won't leave you alone. What Oasis did to perfection.

I'm not surprised that As You Were is good, but I was surprised that across its 12 tracks it delivers consistently and delivers well. Whatever your view of Liam - git, enfant terrible, etc, etc - he has produced one of the stand-out entertaining albums of the year. Yes, with his brother's next album coming out next month we can expect more of the Gallagher rough-and-tumble; but with Noel also writing some of the best British pop-rock of our time, rather than wishing, pitifully, for an Oasis reunion, we should revel in the fact that we have two members of the same family capable of producing huge, epic records that stand the test of repeat listening, and which translate effortlessly to memorable live performance. For anyone despairing about the inexplicable dominance of Ed Sheeran on the charts, with his bland, indistinguishable autopop, it is genuinely heartwarming that someone is capable of producing a rock-based record of such enjoyability as Liam Gallagher has done with As You Were.

One of the herd

A few days ago the Mail Online - as it does - devoted two reporters to the earth-shattering story that HRH Prince Harry had been seen wearing the same pair of blue chinos three days running. The very thought!

Now, firstly, you must wonder whether there were more pressing stories going on in the world that day - you know, the prospect of nuclear annihilation in the Korean peninsular springs to mind - but evidently this was worthy of the headline you read above, along with the qualifying details that H was in Toronto for the Invictus Games, of which he is patron and figurehead, that his Dockers cost £70, and that he "appeared" to wear them for three days "despite 27C temperatures" (particularly puzzling, since the wearing of comfortable cotton trousers in 27 degrees shouldn't really be a bad thing).

Without wishing to add unnecessary oxygen to such tabloid nonsense, chinos are clearly de rigeur for our young male royals. Harry's elder brother William is, these days, rarely seen in anything else. Fashion commentators and royal watchers with little else to write about will say that the princes have adopted a "more relaxed" fashion style than, say, their father who was wearing double-breasted suits while still in nursery school.

They are, however, simply reflecting what has become a uniform in London - which is what has prompted this post: during my lunch break today I was somewhat overwhelmed by the fact that men in the City of London - yes, even that preserve of stuffy, besuited bankers - have appropriated en masse blue chinos and brown brogues as a default. It's a look that is suitably casual without feeling too far removed from the conventions of suit wearing, while not straying into 'smart hippy' land with jeans (a look appropriated by middle aged executives in the tech industry).

I, too, am a wearer of the blue-chinos-and-brown-brogues combo. However, I would like to put it out there that this isn't out of following the herd as they simply make a very pleasing colour combination. Chinos do, though, carry a certain tag: in the early days of that ridiculous concept 'Casual Friday' it simply meant that those who'd normally be dressed in grey or navy suits from Monday to Thursday put on a pair of khaki chinos for the final day of the working week. When I worked in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s, Casual Friday could easily have been renamed 'Beige Friday', such was the ubiquity of khaki Dockers.

The Dutch, too, embraced the trend, and by the time I'd moved back to Amsterdam in 2003, local men were flinging off - metaphorically speaking - their dull business suits for chinos, albeit with a somewhat disturbing tendency towards vibrant hues like pink, yellow and orange, a look also appropriated by those named Tarquin who live in Clapham.

The rules of officewear are being constantly tested. First there was the mass abandonment of ties (recently given the green light in the Houses of Parliament, no less) and then the appearance of 'smart' jeans, as worn by the dad-dancing titans of the technology world. I've attended press events with my own company in which spotting the divide between American and European executives is easy - it's those in jeans versus those in suits. Chinos, however, have remained resilient staples, as fashion writers are prone to inform us. Born in the 1950s as a preppy uniform for Ivy Leaguers, they now provide us chaps with something to be worn on almost any occasion, and if you're economising on travel luggage (not that Prince Harry would have been flying Ryanair...), it's the legwear that keeps on delivering, most days of your trip.

Learning to sit still again

© Simon Poulter 2017

Holidays. You wait, impatiently, all year long for them to come around, and then once they arrive, you can't decide what to do. Well, at least I can't. Some can pitch up at their hotel, unpack and then flop onto a sunbed for the whole fortnight (or four weeks if you're French), headphones clamped to ears, a couple of airport paperbacks to thumb through to keep boredom at bay. Me, I'm a restless soul before I've even touched down. In fact, I need to unwind before I can unwind.

I've never been one to spend a couple of weeks just basting in Factor 50. The holiday hire car provides me with the mechanism to escape that. On my last Italian holiday - to the baroque south-east corner of Sicily - I had 'Montalbano Country' to explore, the comuni of Ragusa, Modica, Scicli, Donnalucata and Punta Secca that aggregate to form the fictional Vigatà depicted by Italian TV's Il Commissario Montalbano. Indeed such is my slavish exploration of pop culture while on holiday that I've spent vast chunks of trips to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami behind the wheel, nerdishly looking for filming locations for The Rockford Files, Bullitt and Miami Vice. I once spent a wet Sunday morning traipsing around a suburb of Seattle in search of Jimi Hendrix's grave. You've got to be in it to win it.

For this year's 'summer' holiday I have consciously stayed clear of America (largely to avoid Trump's increasingly divided and, frankly, insane territory) and returned to Italy. Specifically, Sardinia. Having spent so much time in my beloved Sicily I decided to break 'new' ground. All I knew about this island was that it has exceptional beaches, is expensive, wealthy Italians from the mainland like it very much (along with the megayacht-owning classes), and The Spy Who Loved Me was partially filmed here. Actually, that was all I needed to know.

In fact, it was a charity screening of the film, following Sir Roger Moore's death in May, that drew me to Sardinia: TSWLM was the first Bond film I was taken to see at the cinema (the Granada in Kingston) and it has stuck with me - despite there being better Bond outings - as quintessential to the oeuvre. From the pre-title sequence and 007's apparent Union Flag parachute departure to its denouement within villain Stromberg's aquatic lair, its final third revolved around what appeared to be a landscape of exotic European beaches, all budgie-smuggling posing pouches and leathery overtanned skin.

Here marks the aspirational aspects of Bond: yes, his lifestyle is one few can afford, let alone sustain, but if you squint very hard, you, too, can visit the same locations and at least imagine you're 007. Even if you're driving a rented hatchback, rather than a gleaming white Lotus Esprit S1 armed with anti-aircraft missiles, mines, torpedoes and a cement sprayer. Oh, and which converts into a submarine.

(Top) Q hands over the Lotus to Bond at the quayside at Palau
(Bottom) Porto di Palau today
© Simon Poulter 2017

Inevitably, then, before I could settle in to my holiday and devour a pile of rock biographies under a withering sun, I had to satisfy my craving for film trivia. First, this entailed a long drive up the thrilling coastal road near Sassari along which Bond and his Russian counterpart Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) in the Lotus are chased by, respectively, a motorbike and rocket-as-sidecar combination, the steel-gummed Jaws and cronies in a Ford Cortina, and then Navy's Rum girl Caroline Munro apparently flying a Bell Jet Ranger with machine guns.

It's hard not to hear TSWLM's mid-70s synth soundtrack in your head as you swoop and swerve around bends in the road which look uncannily familiar. But, of course, instead of assassins and helicopter gunships, the most daunting challenge you actually face are the endless platoons of Dutch and German motorhomes clogging the island's coast roads.

Most of the film's Sardinian scenes were shot in and around the Costa Smeralda, which draws a pretty wealthy (some might say Eurotrash) crowd each summer. It is prime Bond territory, adorned with well healed tourists dressed atrociously but expensively, and who are not afraid to stock up on more atrocious and expensive garb in the exotic shops of Porto Cervo, a town seemingly purpose-built to serve yachtists. Not for nothing are there branches of Louis Vuitton and Gucci right smack in its centre. Which is about all the town has going for it. If you like expensive sterility combined with an architectural similarity to The Flintstones' Bedrock, then Porto Cervo is for you.

© Simon Poulter 2017

Around the coast - whose principle interest is a series of absolutely stunning beaches - is Cala di Volpe and another TSWLM location, the Hotel Cala Di Volpe used by Bond and Amasova as a staging point before heading out into the Mediterranean to visit Stromberg in his giant submersible. The hotel is über-glamourous, but with rooms starting at Eur 300 a night, and a bottle of San Pellegrino water in the lobby bar going for Eur 15, you can see why it would have appealed to Bond's somewhat stratospheric tastes.

But with Bond interiors mainly shot on the giant 007 soundstage at Pinewood Studios, it is somewhat mad to walk through the hotel and realise that you're actually in a James Bond set.

More insanity follows when you sit down with your expensive bottle of water in the lobby bar itself, looking out onto the hotel's private bay, and discover that you're right in front of where Bond first meets Munro's saucy 'Naomi', as she takes him out to Stromberg's lair under the disguise of being a marine biologist.

(Top) The Hotel Cala Di Volpe's private jetty © Simon Poulter 2017
(Bottom) Bond is met by Naomi as she whisks him off to Stromberg's submersible

There is one more must-see port-of-call on this Bond pilgrimage, just around the coast from the hotel, and that is the beach at Romazzino where Bond and Amasova emerge implausibly from the sea in the Lotus, having out-manoeuvred Stromberg's undersea soldiers and reconverted the vehicle back from submarine and into a mid-1970s British sports car. You can tell it's era simply by the fact it shared its door handles with the Austin Allegro. Not for nothing was this marque known in the motor trade by the acronym Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious, which means the idea of a Lotus of that era being capable of travelling on land, let alone under water, without something going wrong was a true stretch of the concept of suspension-of-disbelief. Still, the scene in TSWLM is one of the most memorable of any Bond film, and Moore's incongruous ejection of a sizeable fish out of the window as it emerges from the turquoise waters was brilliantly in keeping with the somewhat camp humour that marked his period as 007.

(Top) The beach at Romazzino where (Bottom) Bond and Amasova emerge from the sea in the Lotus Esprit
© Simon Poulter 2017

Sardinia certainly provided TSWLM director Lewis Gilbert and his location scouts with some glorious settings. Indeed, if you simply associated the Costa Smeralda with the word 'beach' you probably wouldn't need to think of anything else. No wonder it draws hordes of German holidaymakers here. On roads like the SS125 that snakes through this northern tip of the island, every third car seems to have a German number plate. You notice that on the way to your hotel from the airport at Olbia, a warning sign that any time spent around the hotel pool will require a tolerance of that age-old Teutonic custom of grabbing sunbeds with dawn-defying enthusiasm. Yes, I know, hoary-old stereotype, but not without merit. It would appear that customs honed on the beaches and at the hotel pools of the Costas, the Balearics and the myriad Greek islands are equally exportable here.

Sardinia is a big island, probably as large as Sicily, and therefore from experience one you'll never cover in two weeks, not if you want to spend some time, at least, reading a book and dialling out the crap you have to deal with for the other 50 weeks of the year. And just like Sicily, where I have split my visits according to whether I fly into Palermo in the north-west or Catania (or, more recently Comiso) in the south-east, Sardinia is a choice between the Galluran north or the south around the island's capital, Cagliari. For my Sardinian debut I'm glad to have taken the northern choice. With its myriad coves and exquisite, alabaster-white beaches, each with dreamily romantic restaurants and cafes looking out onto implausibly warm, azure waters, you can't help feeling that, even if you're not traipsing around churches, museums and ancient burial grounds, you're not entirely denigrating the island's culture. Or its geography.

Sicily is an enchanting island, with an interior of dramatic mountains with towns bewilderingly stuck to them like limpets on a seashore rock. Sardinia possesses a similarly dramatic volcanic interior, but the landscape is gentler, even more welcoming. Driving up into the hills, or hopping from coastal town to coastal town, grabbing a caffè here or a panino there, is as relaxing as lying next to the pool for a solid two weeks plodding through the latest Grisham (especially if, as I tend to do, you've got a fully-loaded iPod to plug into the car's Bluetooth audio system). Indeed Sardinia's roads are the closest you can get to flying your own plane without a pilot's licence (or...er...a plane) - bends that require your absolute concentration, but with a rhythm to the steering and gear changing that becomes both exhilarating and relaxing at the same time.

As you drive, towns you wouldn't expect to hold any interest do so. The port town of Palau - visited as part of my absurd Bond obsession - is actually a very pleasant place to stroll. Further north, Santa Teresa Gallura - the gateway port to Corsica, a mere 11km across the water - is a picturesque gathering of pastel-shaded houses below a main square with its cafes and easy-going restaurants.

© Simon Poulter 2017

It's one of those quintessential towns you probably only ever visit on a Mediterranean holiday: wander away from the tourist crowds on a hot afternoon and you wonder where life itself has gone to.  Siesta time, even in this corner of Italy, is one of stillness and shuttered calm. It's the sort of environment that draws the romantic to dream about buying holiday homes (just don't - however TV's Homes Under The Sun depicts it, it never turns out as you'd imagine it to be...). Wandering around deserted streets like these, finding shade when you can, is another part of satisfying the restlessness spirit I take with me on holiday, that prevents me from just chilling out poolside. Exploration like this might not come to anything - no souvenirs bought, no locals engaged in conversation - but it still draws me far closer to the place I've come to stay in than occasionally ordering a cappuccino from the pool waiter, and then trudging off out each evening to eat pizza. Nice as such holidays are for some, such excursions here in Sardinia have done what any holiday should do in resetting and recharging, and providing fresh perspective on the daily routine and doldrums that, after two weeks, you inevitably have to return to. You know, bills to pay and all that.  

No, the Monday Moan is not returning. Yet.

Twitter/Chelsea FC

Faithful readers will recall, two years ago, how my Mondays became typified by a weekly rant about Chelsea, as their Premier League title defence - and their season - went rapidly down the toilet. I'll spare you the history, but yesterday, I studiously went about avoiding a reinstigation of the 'Monday Moan' from the 2015-2016 football season. This was more out of blind hope that Chelsea's defeat to Arsenal in the Community Shield (again) and implosive defeat on Saturday at home to Burnley weren't harbingers of a carbon copy of what happened exactly two years ago.

As I wrote last week, following the Wembley game, the signs were uncannily there. All that the Burnley match lacked was Antonio Conte replicating José Mourinho's Basil Fawlty-style touchline meltdown. In fact, Conte was markedly unimpassioned at Stamford Bridge on Saturday: very little of the cardiac-endangering histrionics and constant barking of unintelligible instructions. For much of the game he just stood there, only moving out of his technical area to attempt a remonstration with the fourth official after another of referee Craig Pawson's pedantic decisions, only to be held back by Carlo Cudicini and prevent a bad afternoon getting worse.

To briefly return to the 2015 season, part of Chelsea's spiralling malaise was the result of Mourinho's demeanour. Unhappy at the progress of inter-season signings, frustrated by his own decision to start pre-season training late and, despite signing a lucrative new deal days before the season opener, letting rip at club doctor Eva Carneiro as she ran onto the field to attend to Eden Hazard, publicly demoting her days later. The mood in camp visibly suffered, and Mourinho was gone by December.

Conte has been installed by the bookies as favourite to be the first Premier League managerial casualty of the season. This, though, is not new: he was widely tipped for the sack a year ago as Chelsea's put in a confounding opening spell (2-1 wins over West Ham and Watford, a comprehensive 3-0 win over Burnley, then a 2-2 draw with Swansea followed by the home defeat to Liverpool and the 3-0 demolition by Arsenal that saw Conte switch to the wing-back system that would sustain them to the title). We mustn't, then, be rash. Saturday's loss to Burnley can be seen as an opening day blip, and indeed, despite the 2-3 scoreline and dismissal of both Gary Cahill and Cesc Fàbregas, the manner with which Chelsea fought back in the second half gave the home fans much to feel better about, especially Alvaro Morata's debut goal.

What happens next - and that includes Sunday's return to Wembley to play Spurs - will be down to Conte. And here is where the worry is. He is a very different personality to Mourinho, who maintains a brooding, simmering sense of victimhood even when he's done nothing wrong. Conte, on the other hand, while not exactly effervescent, is a highly personable individual, until he pulls on the tracksuit and - normally - leaps about the touchline as if someone is repeatedly jabbing him with a cattle prod. But his somnolent stance against Burnley spoke volumes. Whether his team selection was a message to the Chelsea board (and Roman Abramovich in particular) or not, the game's outcome should have been the clear instruction to bring in the reinforcements Conte has been demanding for months. Ahead of the Tottenham game, Chelsea are without Cahill and Fàbregas (suspension), Hazard and new central midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko, as well as possibly Pedro (injury), Diego Costa (extended hissy fit back in Brazil), and having sold Nemanja Matic, Nathaniel Chalobah and Nathan Aké, and loaned out Ruben Loftus-Cheek, amongst several others, will have little-to-no first team experience available to fill the gaps.

According to The Times today, Conte remains at odds with the club over his transfer targets as many of them are older players with limited resale value. And yet most come with a hefty price tag because a) it's Chelsea and b) they're getting increasingly desperate. On top of that, the club hierarchy wants players with a long-term career path, whereas Conte is only looking at the short term of competing in this season's domestic competitions as well as the Champions League. All of a sudden his two-year contract - albeit on improved financial terms - is starting to look somewhat finite.

Along with death and taxes, the only other constant we have to contend with is that Chelsea managers are not forever. We learned that in the Ken Bates era, and thus it has proven relentlessly under Abramovich. The thing is, can we Chelsea fans put up with the constant upheaval when we're also benefiting from the trophies that do still seem to come? Longevity can be seen as both a blessing and a curse. Manchester United built a dynasty with Sir Alex Ferguson, but also paid the price of not making a change at a time when the squad itself was needing a refresh. And, then, there's Arsenal, with the stubborn Wenger hanging on and still delivering some semblance of success.

I'm writing as if Conte has already been sacked...or walked. I don't wish him to, and one defeat on the opening day doesn't condemn an entire season. But with new players not materialising, and a long season ahead - including the unpredictable intensity of the Champions League - you could hardly say that Chelsea are marching forwards with any strength. True, there are bright spots: Morata's pull-downs and goal on Saturday demonstrated a class improvement over the ineffective Batshuayi; Antonio Rudiger looks a quality buy to strengthen the defence while Andreas Christensen looked a more assured central defender compared with the loaned-out Kurt Zuma. But with talk still of Chelsea bringing in Virgil van Dijk from Southampton, Danny Drinkwater from Leicester and even Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from Arsenal, not to mention long-term targets like Alex Sandro from Juventus, there is still an overwhelming sense of work-in-progress with Chelsea, one league game in, and just over two weeks of the transfer window left. It'll be interesting to see what the squad looks like as that window slams shut. Not to mention who will be in charge of it...

Don't panic!! Well, not yet at least...

It's OK. No need to panic. Yes, I know we've been here before: a Community Shield encounter with Arsenal, a frustrated manager bemoaning the lack of signings, an apparent lack of confidence in front of goal, and a Premier League title to defend, but lightning can't strike twice, right? Right? Antonio Conte's gloomy fear of suffering "the Mourinho season", following an indifferent start that rapidly went downhill until the manager was sacked in December, can't happen again. Can it?

Based on the period since Chelsea lifted the Premier League trophy in May, it can. Not that it will, but the mood around the reigning English champions has been skittish to say the least. The parallels with the post-2015/16 season disaster are glaring, not least because of the manager's frustrations with the transfer activity (or lack of), but also in the fact that Antonio Conte - like Mourinho did shortly before that infamous opening game against Swansea on August 8, 2015 - has just signed an improved contract himself. Then there has been the substantial list of target players who've failed to show up, including Romelu Lukaku, gazumped by Manchester United.

Yesterday's draw at Wembley (settled with one of the more soul-crushing penalty shootouts you'll ever see without anyone wearing an England shirt) was another exercise in humility for Chelsea. Whatever hubris generated by last season has been reset to zero over the last few weeks. Beaten on that very turf, by the very same team, at the FA Cup Final in May, they exhibited none of the exciting swagger and even youthful exuberance of their compelling win over Arsenal during the pre-season tour in Singapore. In fact it was, too all intents and purposes, a complete re-run of the cup final, the game that determined that these two teams would meet again less than three months later at the same venue. That Victor Moses redeemed himself with a fine goal to erase the memory of a woeful performance in May that saw him sent off and Chelsea exposed, was negated by Pedro's rash raking of Mohamed Elneny's Achilles, the arguably extreme instant red card, and then Arsenal equalising from the subsequent free kick.

Twitter/Simon Johnson

The Community Shield is never billed as anything more than a curtain-raiser. Even Pedro's dismissal won't count when Chelsea kick off their title defence against Burnley next Saturday, as the Wembley game is considered a friendly. But as the Twitter cliché goes, there is no such thing as a friendly, especially when Chelsea and Arsenal meet. However, yesterday's game was an interesting, if subtle projection of managerial styles. Arsène Wenger stating in his post-match interview that he needs to cut down his first team squad of 33, with Antonio Conte reiterating his increasingly urgent need for signings - not that he needed to say anything.

There is still much to like about the Chelsea that won the 2016-17 English title, but there are also some glaring gaps. David Luiz - for all his charisma and chutzpah on the pitch - gave glimpses of his more maverick self yesterday. He's a wonderfully entertaining individual, but he also needs to remember that he's not infallible. He needs tougher competition for that position to keep him sharp. And Marcos Alonso, who sometimes doesn't get praised enough, can also easily demonstrate why he was something of a last-minute panic buy last summer.

But the bigger worry for me is that with Eden Hazard out injured, and Diego Costa resorting to doing workouts from the family garden in Brazil while he waits his return to Atlético Madrid, Chelsea are looking threadbare for real creativity. Alvaro Morata will get there, eventually, and Michy Batshuayi has come on leaps and bounds in the short space of time he's been leading the line, but even he looked profligate in front of goal yesterday. Pedro and Willian will continue to vie for starting roles in which their pace and guile can be applied, and Cesc Fàbregas will continue to supply inch-perfect passes - when he's allowed to play, and clearly at the cost of having the more defensive-minded Tiemoue Bakayoko play alongside Kante in the role he was bought for. But...

There are missing parts. Conte's summer refrain about signings has not been out of moody, Mourinho-style petulance, but a genuine concern that, while Chelsea's business dealings have seen a good amount of money come in for the likes of Nemanja Matic, Bertrand Traore, Nathan Aké and Nathaniel Chalobah, the £130 million spent so far on Antonio Rudiger, Bakayoko and Morata is not enough. In any normal time, and in any normal, non-inflationary market, £130 would be the most you could spend on a slew of signings. But we are not in a normal time, and Neymar's ridiculous move to PSG last week has merely poured a flammable liquid on the raging nonsense that is player valuations. Sadly, that means Chelsea will need to conform to this new reality if they're to bring in the players Conte wants and be able to compete with the affluence of domestic spenders like Manchesters United and City, or those they'll be facing this season in Europe.

The worry, though, is that time is running out to bring in anyone of quality. The double-edged sword of that is that anyone of quality either has the door shut on them by their present club, or a silly price tag slapped on them to keep suitors at bay. And the next thing you know, you're watching Sky Sports and live video of David Luiz, smirking his way through St. Pancras on transfer deadline day, and the feeling that, proverbially speaking, the slow ones are being played at the school disco, and you've missed out on the one you had your eye on all night long.

The barista will take down your particulars

Picture: Costa

Until I went to live in America, the meme about US cops "hanging out in donut shops" (to quote The Bangles) seemed something of a cartoon myth. And then I went to live in America, renting a 'condo' in a new housing development with its own branch of Starbucks, and there, every morning, queuing with me for their 'morning joe' would be several representatives of the Sunnyvale Police Department.

Now, in my local Costa in Greenwich, I often see the borough's constabulary queuing for cappuccinos. But the more I think of it, the more such visibility reassures, especially given the latest crime figures, released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics. In the 12 months to the end of March there were almost five million crimes committed across England and Wales, an increase of 458,000 offences on the previous 12 months. And although London saw a more modest increase of just four per cent in the total number committed that figure includes a significant rise in violent crime. Indeed, since I've been back in London, barely a day has passed without the Evening Standard reporting another senseless stabbing, as gangs carry out their bloody turf wars. Knife crime has increased in London by 24 per cent. On top of that, the city has been inundated with moped-born muggings, with police seemingly unable - or not allowed - to prevent them for fear of another teenage miscreant losing his life in a pursuit. And now we have the apparent epidemic of acid attacks, with thugs choosing callously and cynically to render their victims with life-altering disfigurement.

It's easy to conclude, then, that London's streets (and, yes, Glasgow's or Liverpool's too) are becoming too dangerous, and that we should cocoon ourselves away. Not so, of course. But there's no doubt that encroaching high levels of street crime, not to mention recent terror events, are impacting the choices people make on where they go out, or even whether they go out. Just last Friday night, and no more than a five-minute walk from my front door, 31-year-old Danny Pearce, father to a five-year-old daughter, was stabbed to death in Greenwich town centre, apparently by thugs on a moped who took his mobile phone and Rolex watch, as he walked home from a jazz club. When it happens right in the midst of where you live, and and in a street frequented by tourists, you can't help take a different perspective on community policing needs. With the Metropolitan Police facing drastic budget cuts of up to £400 million at a time when crime and the terror threat is on the rise, you actually must feel sympathy for the thin blue line, as expectations increase on what they can do, just as they're finding they're less able to do it.

So, to return to the coffee shop theme, the latest idea for community policing is for officers to set up shop in high street branches of the big coffee chains. This is one proposal from London's mayor, Sadiq Khan, as the Met is forced to close more of its actual police stations to save money. Traditional high street stations have been disappearing at a rate of knots over the last few years: in the London suburb of New Malden, where I grew up, the once familiar police station next to The Fountain roundabout (and across the road from a once notorious pub of the same name) has been turned into a pub itself, The Watchman. Oh, the irony of eating gastropub food in what used to be the station's cells...

Khan has said that 40 police stations will be closed along with other local contact kiosks in libraries and supermarkets, leaving around 32 in operation - roughly one per borough. Instead, the public will be encouraged to report crime via the Internet or phone, rather than walking into a physical location. The argument being made is that these days fewer people, anyway, are actually going into police stations voluntarily, either to ask for directions or to actually report crime. The era of Dixon Of Dock Green is well and truly over. The logic, therefore, is that a borough's ward teams get out and about in London's high streets (where coffee shops have proliferated as other forms of employment have disappeared). As a result, the likes of Costa, Starbucks and Cafe Nero have become prominent parts of local social fabric, making them sensible locations for community engagement. But is such visibility enough? Didn't the local nick, with its traditional blue lamp above the front door, provide a more imposing statement of the police's authority in a town?

The mayor and senior Met officers apparently want to see officers spend more time on the beat. The trouble, though, is not so much where as to who and how many: Khan has warned that London's police numbers could fall below 30,000 as a result of government cuts, putting severe strain on the Met's plan to have at least two dedicated beat officers in every London ward by the end of the year.

As the BBC's brilliant recent fly-on-the-wall series The Met demonstrated, London's police do a remarkable job. Along with the fire and ambulance services I really only have absolute admiration for what they do, and the Grenfell fire and the events of June 3 in Borough Market only underline why the emergency services deserve to be resourced properly. Being able to engage the police in my local Costa is probably more of a PR exercise than one that actually prevents or reduces crime. And a coffee shop is no substitute for a police station, anyway. After all, where would you lock someone up?

Falling through an open window

You've got to love the summer transfer window, haven't you? From season's end to season's beginning, three months of rumour and speculation and, occasionally, a transaction. No one - be they football hack or football fan - knows what's really going on, usually until it actually happens. And even then, in the case of Romelu Lukaku's transfer from Everton to Manchester United, the club he was expecting to join - Chelsea - didn't seem to have much of a clue of what was going on, either. Or so we're led to believe.

It is often reported that clubs are considering or even activating wholesale changes, as new managers come in and overhaul their squads. Sometimes it's attritional, at others, a clearout. Which is what makes what's going on at Chelsea more curious. Away from the shock-horror headlines about Lukaku, there appears to be something of a talent drain. Last night Nathaniel Chalobah was sold to Watford for just £5.5 million, a transfer of the player's own volition in the pursuit of more playing time. Likewise Nathan Aké, the superbly versatile 22-year-old sold to Bournemouth. Ditto Dominic Solanke, another highly rated youth product, whose sale to Liverpool is still being finalised due to a difference of opinion between the clubs on his value. Winger Christian Atsu has been sold to Newcastle, while Bertrand Traoré has gone to Lyon. All highly rated young players, players who've either come through Chelsea's youth system, or have been acquired as the next great thing.

The outflow of youth players has also seen more disappearing via Chelsea's now well established loan route: Ruben Loftus-Cheek - one of the few young players to break through under José Mourinho - is now on a season-long spell at Crystal Palace, while Ola Aina finds himself at Hull City for the duration of the next term. Tammy Abraham, who was such a prolific striker last season while on loan to Bristol City, is now at Swansea for the season ahead, albeit with a substantial new five-year contract anchoring him at his parent club. Until he, too, is deemed surplus to requirements, of course.

But still, it's not like Chelsea are awash with strikers, and with Solanke gone and Diego Costa going (a matter of when rather than if), some of the club's fans are getting a little irritated. Chelsea aren't threadbare, though: the current full squad currently totals around 50 players, if first team and 'development' personnel are added together. But the real concern is not warm bodies, but talent, and the nurturing of that talent.

It's long been clear that Chelsea works on a dual strategy of populating its first team with players it has invested heavily in, while its so-called "development squad" acts largely as a husbandry operation. The principle established early on in Roman Abramovich's ownership of Chelsea was that the club's academy should be consistently feeding players to the first team. However, the last academy product to become a fixture was John Terry. Prospects like Josh McEachran, striker Izzie Brown and indeed Loftus-Cheek have all been talked of as having the potential to establish themselves, but nothing has come of it. McEachran is now at Brentford and Loftus-Cheek is at Selhurst Park. Brown remains in the squad, but could be another loanee.

Chelsea's husbandry has drawn praise in some quarters: Marina Granovskaia, described by Chelsea as the "representative of the owner", but also a kind of de facto chief executive, oversees transfer dealings, along with technical director Michael Emenalo. And, it could be said, they've done quite well in generating transfer income so far this summer, with £65.3 million in the kitty from the sales of Aké, Juan Cuadrado, Asmir Begovic, Traore, Solanke and Atsu - all fringe players. In fact, Chelsea have earned in well over £330 million from player sales in the last few seasons, all of which being good for financial fair play, and putting money back Abramovich's way.

Picture: Chelsea FC/Twitter

The issue, however, remains who is coming in, and why. So far the club has only brought in Manchester City keeper Willie Caballero on a free (to replace Begovic) and defender Antonio Rüdiger (above) for £29 million, with Monaco's midfielder Tiemoué Bakayoko expected any moment for £40 million (the latter two being specific requirements for Antonio Conte, which explains his willingness to let Chalobah go for £10 million and consider even letting Kurt Zouma - once seen as John Terry's shoe-in successor in central defence - go out on loan as well).

The most vexed issue of all is clearly what's happening about strikers. There was, in fact, a certain indifference from Chelsea fans over the club's failure to land Lukaku. He'd hardly set the world alight when a Chelsea player previously, and for all his prolific goal-scoring at Everton, didn't exactly put himself high on the list of must-have forwards. But, still, Chelsea are currently looking threadbare up front, with only Michy Batshuayi and the forgotten man Loic Remy as first team options for the centre forward position, when Costa goes. Which means signing Alvaro Morata from Real Madrid or Fernando Llorente from Swansea is now a money-no-object imperative.

With a Premier League title to defend and the Champions League to return to (not to mention the domestic cups), Chelsea have a big season ahead, raising even more questions as to why the club has been prepared to let so many of its brightest rising talents go. I'm sure - as indeed are many fans - tjat the club knows what it is doing, and we should just put our faith in them. In the case of Lukaku, it became clear that the club simply wasn't prepared to pay and inflated agent's fee to secure him, and to some extent, that should be respected. But with pre-season already in progress, a summer tour next week to the Far East and a return to Wembley and Arsenal in just three weeks' time for the Community Shield, we can be forgiven for feeling nervous that another summer transfer window will close with targets missed and some last-minute surprises smirking their way through St. Pancras station on the final evening of trading.

Counting the cost of the gig economy

© Simon Poulter 2017

I'm sure it's merely coincidence that, according to new figures from the British music industry body UK Music, gig-going has risen in this country during a period in which I returned to London after 17 years abroad. But given that I've been averaging one gig every two to three weeks since coming back last October, I'd like to think that, in my own small way, I'm keeping the real gig economy alive.

In its latest Wish You Were Here report, UK Music reveals that concert and festival attendance increased by 12 per cent during 2016, with 30.9 million people - almost three million more - going to events, generating £4 billion in direct and indirect spending. There was also a sizeable increase in the number of tourists coming to the UK for gigs, apparently adding more than 47,000 full-time jobs and spending, on average, £850 per trip.

Now, all this sounds very encouraging for the live music scene until you discover that much of this bounty came from the big venues, such as my near-neighbour, the O2, or Glasgow's SSE. Spending at the smaller venues (those I actually prefer) fell by 13%, continuing to raise concerns about the economic sustainability of Britain's independent music stages. It's something that UK Music and many of its members and affiliates are trying to do something about. "This success is being put at risk," chief executive Michael Dugher said in a press release. "That's why UK Music will continue to campaign to safeguard smaller music venues, many of which are fighting for survival. And, we will be pressing the Government to make sure the impact of Brexit does not damage our export trade or make it harder for UK artists to tour abroad and for overseas acts to come here.”

While I lived in Amsterdam and Paris, going to small, intimate venues was one of the immense charms of those cities. At Amsterdam's Paradiso and Le Cigale, Le Trianon and, yes, Le Bataclan in Paris, you could be up close and almost personal to acts that in the UK you'd have to see from Row Z of the biggest halls. Thanks to these modest theatres I've been a matter of yards away from Robert Plant, The Stone Roses, Paul Weller, the Manic Street Preachers, Kaiser Chiefs and many, many more. In fact, here's a secret: if you're thinking of coming to London to see one of the bigger bands play one of the bigger venues, check first that it wouldn't be cheaper and more rewarding to get the Eurostar to Paris...

Of course, what the UK Music report doesn't really share is the percentage of revenues generated by all the ancillary elements of gig-going. Just this week, Paul Sinclair, editor of the excellent Super Deluxe Edition music blog, was highlighting the habitual ripping off of punters at the big branded outdoor gigs.

In the superbly headlined 'Great Sausage Roll Swindle', Paul railed - quite justifiably - about how, having paid £220 for his family to attend last Saturday's British Summer Time event in London's Hyde Park (featuring Elbow, Tears For Fears and The Killers), he was then stung for food and drink he was forced to buy because his family wasn't allowed to bring its own catering in to enjoy as a picnic. "Time to vote with our wallets and not buy tickets to events that have this restrictive policy," Paul wrote. "I'm not going to accept it and I'm not going to attend another BST event for this very reason. Same with the O2 (which I loathe, anyway)."

On top of the well known problem of price gouging by so-called legitimate ticket agencies (which would take up a rather angry post all of its own), gig-goers face other hidden horrors: when The Foo Fighters cancelled their Wembley shows two years ago after the berk Dave Grohl broke his leg on stage in Gothenburg, I could only get a refund for the tickets themselves, and stoically accepted that I'd use the return flight from Paris as a family visit. However, when I challenged the Gigs And Tours ticket agency about refunding the "transaction" fee, they pointed out the Ts & Cs and that I wouldn't be getting my £2.50 back. OK, it's only a couple of quid, but it meant that over the two shows they would have pocketed a cool £450,000 from no Foo being fought at all. Harumph.

There is also the charge that concerts in the UK are more expensive than in other countries. I've certainly noticed a price difference that doesn't match up to exchange rate variations when buying tickets to see bands while I've been on holiday in America. Last Saturday The Times ran a damning story comparing ticket prices for 15 major touring acts, finding that the cheapest were, on average, 28 per cent more expensive in Britain than the United States. For example, tickets for the aforementioned Foos cost £62 for their UK dates but just £38 a pop for their US shows. Similar gaps were found for A-list acts like Katy Perry and Adele, although tickets for U2, Coldplay, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga were cheaper in Britain. Well, relatively cheaper.

Whatever you pay, it's a given that touring is an expensive business for the artists themselves. These days it's no longer a licence to print cash (a myth born from the tales from the '70s of acts like Led Zeppelin stuffing cash takings into suitcases thanks to the strongarm acumen of manager Peter Grant), unless you are Bruce Springsteen (whose The River tour last year grossed $268,300,000) or Roger Waters, whose epic three-year tour of The Wall reportedly took more than $458 million at the box office.

However, concert promoters say they have to take on the biggest risks when it comes to touring artists - covering the cost of hiring venues, insurance and paying for venue staff and security. According to The Times, the promoter also has to pick up Performing Rights Society royalty fees as well as pay for catering and transport for the talent. One promoter even told the newspaper that the high price of tickets is simply down to the bands: "Everyone is complaining that artists are asking for too much," she said, speaking anonymously. "Promoters wish they were making big money but they’re not. It's a risky business. Cash flow is always a problem. Big stars take 95 per cent of the revenue after costs."

© Simon Poulter 2017

For many artists, though, gigging and recording, recording and gigging, is a subsistence living. One leading rock musician, who is a good friend of mine, will barely make much profit from sell-out world tours of medium-sized venues, once wages and creative costs are taken into account. Not that he will complain, it's just that he's not - yet - in the echelon of the mega rock star. Being a rock star at all in 2017 is nothing like it was in 1971, when record sales and tours bought Malibu mansions and swimming pools in which to park the Roller. "Grab that cash with both hands and make a stack," as Pink Floyd satirised on Money.

Here, I'm caught in a bind. The truly great artists who still tour - a McCartney or the Stones, for example - are only going to make it work in the big halls, the venues where the fan experience is questionable, and the add-on costs of a hot dog and beer are unreasonable. Which means I can probably forgo seeing the legends.

Actually, given the choice I would rather enjoy the intimacy of a pub basement, venues like Camden's Green Note, where for a tenner acts like The Magic Numbers' Romeo and Michele Stodart will host evenings for the 30-odd people who can fit in the place, inviting their mates to join them. The bar and toilets are a better experience, too.

The other day I had the privilege to be at the famous Half Moon pub in Putney where, for just £5 I saw an incredible set by The Second Sons, a superb, rollicking young R'n'B band in the vein of Exile On Main Street-era Rolling Stones (whose producer, Chris Kimsey, worked on their current singles, along with the late Stones sax player Bobby Keys). With cold Guinness on tap at reasonable bar prices, this was as good a gig experience as you could possibly get. And you didn't have to spend the evening staring up at a giant video screen, either.

You snooze, you lose?

I know I'm tempting fate posting on the Romelu Lukaku situation this Saturday morning, given that by the end of the weekend the striker could be a signed, sealed and delivered Manchester United player. That's as opposed to the Chelsea player everyone - including Antonio Conte - has spent the better part of the last 12 months assuming he would eventually become again.

The 24-year-old's protracted desire to escape Everton, to whom Chelsea sold him in 2014, has been as tiresome as it has generated eye-watering headlines of his valuation. That Everton allegedly slapped a presumably prohibitive £100 million price on him is as damning a statement of the inflationary state of football as anything else. I suppose you can't really blame Everton, even if he's really worth only a fraction of that amount.

Both United and Chelsea have apparently offered £75 million. This is still an insane amount, but Conte is reported to have instructed his club's dealmakers (principally Marina Granovskaia) to get Lukaku at any cost. However, that doesn't appear to extend to the fee that Lukaku's agent, Mino Raola, would want from any sale (Raola notoriously pocketed a tidy sum for bringing Paul Pogba to Old Trafford, and also represents another United player, Henrikh Mkhitaryan). Advantage United.

Antonio Conte has now, according to The Times, made his peace over Lukaku signing for United, although he's understandably seething that a player he's been openly courting for the better part of a year is being drawn towards José Mourinho's United at the last minute. And it will raise questions about Chelsea's transfer nous. There's no doubt that the club has demonstrated sound acumen when husbanding its resources: the sales of Juan Cuadrado, Asmir Begovic, Christian Atsu, Bertrand Traore and Nathan Ake have brought in £62 million, money which will go towards the impending acquisitions of Tiemoue Bakayoko and Antonio Rudiger, and possibly Alex Sandro. But still.

Long before those three names were on anyone's lips, Lukaku had been a case of 'when' rather than 'if'. At root has been his desire to play in the Champions League and even to prove to Chelsea that José Mourinho was wrong for selling him to begin with. Everton initially didn't want to let him go, and slapped a nonsensical price tag on him as the proverbial sprig of garlic to ward of predatory interest. On top of that, it has been suggested that Chelsea's relationship with Everton has not been great since it spent much of 2015 trying to buy John Stones. Increasing bids from Chelsea were rejected on the basis that Stones was not for sale. Until Manchester City came along with £47 million, of course. Funny that.

Clubs now appear giddy with an inflated pot of television money, and are apparently happy with increasing their spending on individual players by magnitudes of leaps and bounds. There is a precedent for this: when BSkyB bought the first package of Premier League broadcasting rights in 1992, ahead of the league's debut season, it paid £304 million, establishing the model for paying way over the odds to keep all competitors at bay. 26 years on, the last three-year Premier League TV deal checked in at £8.3 billion. Even with Financial Fair Play ensuring that clubs balance the books, things have gone nuts. If Chelsea do, against the odds, manage to bag Lukaku, it should be remembered that the last two strikers they bought - Diego Costa in 2015 and Michy Batshuayi last summer - cost £32 million and £33 million respectively. And in the case of Costa, you could say they've got their money's worth. Would the same be said of Lukaku? I'm not so sure...

Take that situation: Nick Heyward - live at The Water Rats

© Simon Poulter 2017

I'll get this out of the way from the off: Nick Heyward is infuriatingly ageless. Save for the glasses, he doesn't appear any different from the boyish Haircut 100 frontman of - staggeringly - 36 years ago, adorned in cable-knit sweater with a guitar thrust, circulation-endangeringly under his armpit, plying perfect funk and '60s-infused pop hits like Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl) and Fantastic Day. Almost four decades on, these are now nailed-on classics, as is Love Plus One: even now I can't sit in a business meeting when someone says "So, where do we go from here?" without replying (in my head, Homer Simpson-style) "Is it down to the lake I fear?".

To see Heyward last night looking nothing like his 56 years was itself a welcome journey back in time. Better still was to hear those peerless songs again, performed with a vigour that made them sound as crisp in 2017 as they were when they first appeared between 1981 and 1982.

It's incredible to think, now, that the Heyward-fronted Haircuts only produced the one album, Pelican West, but that perennially sunny trio of successive hits - released between the autumn of 1981 and the following spring - launched the young seven-piece into the kind of success bands starting out today can still only dream of with their debut release, creating Smash Hits cover staples in the process and driving them to the inevitable push to break America.

This, though, ultimately led to Heyward's departure: "We were playing in America and not enjoying it, there was lots of pressure," he explained to the Metro a couple of years ago, as the band was coming back together for a reunion. The highs (an audience with Paul McCartney at his daughters' request) and lows (suicidal feelings...) of new-found fame at such a young age bore heavily on the-then 21-year-old, and he left the band just as it was working on a follow-up to Pelican West. It wasn't long before he produced a solo album, North Of A Miracle, every bit as infectious as the Haircuts' sole release, and rolling out four more perfect pop hits, Whistle Down The Wind, Take That Situation, Blue Hat For A Blue Day and On A Sunday.

But what is less clear is what happened between then - 1983 - and now. True, there have been albums, but nowhere near that early success...or indeed the recognition deserved (even for a record as excellent as From Monday to Sunday, released at the height of Britpop, and containing another British pop gem in Kite, which reached only as high as 44 in the UK Singles Chart in 1993). So, then, news of a crowd-funded new solo album - Woodland Echoes and the steamingly good double-A side, Baby Blue Sky/Mountaintop, all due out next month - has brought about a sudden pique of interest in me, which was richly rewarded last night at the storied Water Rats pub venue in London's Gray's Inn Road.

The show, being recorded for a forthcoming special on the music lovers' channel Vintage TV (tune in at 8pm on 18 July), perfectly framed Heyward's brilliance as a songwriter and a funny, engaging performer, happily delving back into the "heritage" archive of those early Haircut 100 and solo hits, but also showcasing some of the invigorating new material. If the rest of Woodland Echoes is anywhere near as good as the single's two tracks, it's release in mid-August will be a welcome addition to the tail end of summer.

As a primer, on my way out of The Water Rats I bought reissues of North Of A Miracle and last year's Pelican West deluxe edition, which includes extras such as the supreme and often forgotten single Nobody's Fool. A little rockier than the record's bigger hits, it presciently points to Heyward's brand new material, almost 40 years on, which, I hope, will re-cement his credentials as one of the finest pop songwriters Britain has produced post-Beatles.

People talk reverently - quite rightly - about McCartney's unique gift with melody, Squeeze and their 'South London poetry', Ian Dury & The Blockheads' witty funk, Paul Weller's sense of soul and The Smiths' poppy jangle mixed with indie obtuseness. If so, then Nick Heyward deserves re-examination. I've got a feeling, based on last night's taster, that Woodland Echoes will be the catalyst.