True to the Trail
Catching up on Blissblog the other day, I saw a new link on the sidebar: ‘Monorails for Codsall’. Scrolling downwards past photos of Fleetwood Mac, it was enough to catch my eye for two reasons: Codsall is the village in Staffordshire where I grew up, and Monorail is a record shop in Glasgow of which I am fond. The link brought up a site which gives the history of the monorail system which serves the ‘South Staffordshire Autonomous Zone’, an area which is not legally part of the UK at all, and has not been since 1985. Funny I didn’t notice that at the time – it was certainly good of West Midlands Travel to continue to run buses to Codsall under the circumstances. What with those and the trains I just never thought to look up. But leaving aside the plausibility of what the website says, what I can’t understand is why Blissblog’s author, Simon Reynolds, a rock critic from London living in New York, would be interested in it. Or whether there is any connection to the record shop at all. It seems like such a bizarre convergence of things. What could possibly explain it?
I woke with a start this morning and realised that I am 33 ⅓ years old.
4 comments:
i'm not sure how i stumbled on that site but it's similar to the imaginary town thing that a couple of my favourite bands/labels have been doing -- Ghostbox label with the fictional town of Belbury (one of the groups on the label is called Belbury Poly, it actually all comes from a CS Lewis novel that Hideous Strength) and then the group Moon Wiring Club has this imaginary village called Clinksall or Clinkenhall, something like that.
i must admit i also liked the idea of putting an enigmatic blog link on the links bar!
best
sr
OK, that does make marginally more sense now, maybe it isn't the spirit of vinyl haunting my 33⅓rd birthday. But the spirit of a large pile of early '90s Melody Makers in an attic in Codsall (I won't let my parents throw them out) thanks you for dropping by.
And ooh, a Ghostbox exhibition, nearby, now.
That rules out my theory- a massive conspiricy to play a complicated joke on you. My first thought on seeing the picture of Codsall station was "Oh! I've slept there!"
That hardly sounds sensible. Did you miss the monorail home?
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