The Best Guitar Solo Ever

It's late and I'm meant to be writing a script, but I'm listening to music and I'm being distracted by a song I've heard a thousand times. It contains the greatest guitar solo ever and it's called Out There by Dinosaur Jr.

Out There is on an unimpressive studio album called Where You Been.

I got into Dinosaur Jr in 1988 because I was told to by the Melody Maker. I bought Bug and loved Freak Scene.

The guitar noise was visceral and mixed to be very loud, and J Mascis' tuneless drawl was ace.

After Bug, Dinosaur Jr recorded and released a cover of The Cure's Just Like Heaven. I have no idea why, but it raised their profile.

I read a few interviews with J Mascis and got the impression he was not the greatest talker. Fine. I knew I liked Dinosaur Jr, but I didn't love them.

When Where You Been came out in 1993, I bought it. My life is plagued by albums I have bought with One Good Song on them. Where You Been is in that category, but it was that One Good Song which made me fall in love with Dinosaur Jr.

Out There is a towering piece of music. It starts with a scratchy rhythm guitar riff, which is great. Before you've come to understand how good it really is, a blistering crash bangs it out of the way and a lead guitar line takes you up to the opening vocal. It's already so loud it hurts.

Out There is in a minor key and has a sombre edge. After years of listening to it, I was made aware it was about J's departed father, but I can't find any corroboration for that on google. Nonetheless it helped me make sense of the refrain:

I know you're out there
I know you're gone
You can't say that's fair
Can't you be wrong?

... which comes in at 1m11s. It lets the song subtly change up a gear. The riff disappears, J's voice picks up the melody, the drums go into fills and the tune and the rhythm and lead guitar lines start banging against each other.

After the first chorus, the riff resets and we embark on verse 2.

So far so normal.

After chorus 2, something weird happens. The lead guitar just pings off and, seemingly at will, induces a middle eight key change, which J's voice (flat and weak at the best of times), patently can't handle. J goes for it anyway. It's strangely affecting. One of the guitar parts starts chiming sevenths, like bells. It's haunting.

The middle eight finishes. In the final bar the lead guitar climbs down into the original key. The riff returns, but now it doesn't sound so scratchy - it's bounding along, almost swinging, straight into verse 3. Verse 3 is sonically the same as verses 1 and 2, but feels different. We've gone through something together. We're now there, ready for anything.

Verse 3 finishes. At 3m38s, the Greatest Guitar Solo Ever begins.

Imagine having such supernatural control of an inanimate object you could make it come alive with your bare hands. That is what J Mascis is doing with his guitar in this solo. It is lyrical and soulful and electrifying and loud and poignant and tuneful and beautiful and clear and fuzzy and spontaneous and you can't help but think: "This is quite good."

After transporting you with its brilliance for a full minute, it remembers it has to prepare the ground for a second middle eight. And this is what makes it the Best Guitar Solo Ever. Instead of stopping at the point the second middle eight starts, the solo just ploughs on through. The chiming overdub comes back, the vocal returns - stretched, flat, but somehow triumphant, and underneath, the solo keeps going, pulling down the stars. It's dazzling. A technical skill allied to a noise very few people on the planet are capable of making.

The final 1m14s of Out There is a collision of terrible vocals, awe-inspiring technical skills and a thumping climax to an already draining near six minute epic.

Try it. You might like it.

Julian Wilson

Julian Wilson 1949 - 2016

I only met Julian a couple of times. I spoke to him quite a bit on the phone and got to know something of his life over the course of the last five years. 

He was, I suppose, what we journalists call a contact. But his gentle manner, generous spirit and calm good humour made me think of him as more than that.

Julian Wilson was a Subpostmaster and one of the founding members of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. He and his wife Karen had their lives turned upside down by problems with the Horizon computer system in their Post Office. 

Julian was prosecuted by the Post Office for false accounting, pleaded guilty and went to his grave a near-bankrupt convicted criminal. Julian was one of the many former Subpostmasters accepted onto the mediation scheme launched in 2013, only to be told, more than a year later, that as a convicted criminal, the Post Office would not mediate with him.

When he died, Julian’s conviction was one of the twenty being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. He was also one of the dozens of former Subpostmasters currently suing the Post Office at the High Court for the damage done to their reputations and lives.

Julian found out he had terminal cancer towards the end of last year. This summer he deteriorated rapidly.

I never made a film specifically about Julian. I just used to call him for a chat, to get an alternative perspective on what was happening with the Horizon story and get his opinion of how things were going.

“Hello Nick…” he’d say every time I called up. “What can I do for you?”

That was Julian in a nutshell. It was all about what he could do for me. He never once asked me to do anything for him. Not once. He would always take the call and always help where he could. Then he would ask after my kids and my work and always end the conversation by saying “Call me anytime, Nick. Any time you like.”

When I was told Julian had cancer I didn’t immediately pick up the phone. I got round to it in April. He was fresh out of surgery and preparing for another bout of chemotherapy. I’d heard things were touch and go, but his voice sounded strong and he was cheery as ever.

“Don’t worry.” he told me “I’m on the mend. I'm feeling better. Things are going to be alright.”

We spoke about his determination to see his name cleared and the latest on the various legal obstacles he and the JFSA were facing. There was never a trace of bitterness about Julian. He accepted things with great patience even though he was still in danger of losing his house because of the Post Office’s pursuit of him.

Given that activists have been campaigning against the Post Office for more than a decade, I felt Julian’s situation could be used to highlight how long everything was taking and that, for some, time may be running out.  Julian agreed it made sense. He had no qualms about appearing on camera, even though he might not be looking his best. 

I remember interviewing Julian in December 2014 alongside his wife Karen in a village hall in Fenny Compton, where the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance met for the first time back in 2009. Karen stood there with tears streaming down her face as Julian explained in his measured, Hampshire burr how problems with the computer system at their Post Office in Astwood Bank had caused their lives to fall apart.

Julian and Karen's story will be told another day. For now I just want to say goodbye to a lovely man whose company and time I enjoyed very much. It is a crying shame he had to dedicate the latter years of his life to fighting penury and trying to clear his name.

He was a kind-hearted and genuine human being.

I feel like I’ve lost a friend.

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The superlification of language

Unless someone has already done so, I'd like to claim the term "superlification" as a process, specifically the superlification of language.

We used to say "right" or "good" or "thanks". We graduated to "great" and "brilliant", and now it's "awesome!" or "perfect!" (seemingly interchangeable terms despite having wholly different meanings). 

There's more, of course. "Epic" still seems popular among my teenage relatives and half decent albums by average bands are routinely (and rather desperately) described as "iconic".

A hotel receptionist recently called my completed registration form (or perhaps the competence with which I completed the registration form) "perfect". I thought I could have done better.

Likewise I am always delighted when someone thinks my agreement with or willingness to do something is "awesome", but it's not really, is it? It's usually the minimum expectation given the circumstances.

"Awesome" tends to exist more in speech. "Perfect" seems to be proliferating wildly in both emails and speech. 

I have no real problem with any of this, language and meaning always changing etc, but I do wonder now we've hit "perfect" where the superlification of language can go next. Will it create a problem that superlification cannot overcome, so we leave that element of our exchanges behind? Maybe emojis and gifs in emails are already doing that. 

Anyway. Whatever. 

Have an amazing day.

******************
I've just remembered I have form on this. Here's something from 2010 called Have a Lovely Day.

New website, new agent

I have hooked up with Seamus Lyte, from Seamus Lyte Management. He politely suggested that whilst this blog was fine, I needed something a bit more professional looking. So I have built a new website. It has lots of photos of me - like this one...

.... my TV and radio credits, my showreel and a short biog. If you dialled www.nickwallis.com it used to bring you here. Now it takes you to my proper website. I hope you like it.

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Meeting David Jones in Bromley, a long time ago.

My wife's uncle Jonathan has a David Bowie reminiscence. He once shared it with me over lunch...

Bromley, the summer holidays of 1958. Jonathan was twelve. He was told by his parents to stop knocking around the house, so he wandered down to the local park, King's Meadow, off Burnt Ash Lane, to play on the swing.

The swing was a big one ("what they used to call a 'Long Lizzie'") which could accommodate several children.

The park was deserted save for a younger boy already sitting on the swing. Jonathan joined him and they got talking.

"He asked me which school I went to and I said Bromley Tech. He became quite animated and said 'I'm starting there this September.'"

Jonathan doesn't remember much more about what they said or did, other than sit idly and chat, watching the trains go past.

"We finished our conversation and I thought no more about it until the first day of school in September. This boy came bouncing up and said, 'Hello do you remember me? I'm David Jones... you know, we met...' And I vaguely remembered, so I said 'Oh yes. Hello.'"

"And that was it, really. It wasn't particularly politic to mix with the first years, so I didn't."

Jonathan kept tabs on David because they had a mutual friend in George Underwood, who Jonathan knew from primary school. George was responsible for giving David his famous eye condition whilst at Bromley Tech when they fell out over a girl.

Jonathan remembers David chose to make a guitar in his woodwork class, which he played in the school band he formed with George.

I don't know why I found this story so affecting when I first heard it, and I don't know why I find it affecting now. Perhaps it's in the moment of humiliation for the guileless young Jones, bursting with enthusiasm on his first day at school, being snubbed by someone he thought might be a friend.

Or it could be the image of that 1950s child, sitting alone in the park on the swing, passing time like any young schoolboy, unable even to conceive of the life he'd one day live.

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Barrister criticises Post Office prosecution

Stephen Mason

Since 2011 I've been in contact with Stephen Mason, a barrister who is the author of a book on electronic evidence and the editor of a journal called the Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review.

Mr Mason has sought and received permission to publish the full transcript of Seema Misra's trial.

Seema Misra used to be a Subpostmaster at West Byfleet Post Office in Surrey. Despite being convicted of the theft of £75,000 from the Post Office by unanimous verdict at Guildford Crown Court in Nov 2010 (and subsequently sent to prison whilst pregnant), Seema has always protested her innocence. Her case is currently being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

Seema Misra

It was Seema's husband Davinder who made me aware of alleged problems with the Post Office Electronic Point of Sale and branch accounting system (Horizon) whilst Seema was still in prison. Seema was convicted on the strength of electronic evidence drawn from the Horizon system.

Since the BBC Inside Out South investigation in Feb 2011, alleged problems with the Horizon computer system and criticism over the way the Post Office suspended, sacked and prosecuted a number of its Subpostmasters has been the subject of a Select Committee Inquiry, two parliamentary debates (1 and 2), several more Inside Out investigations, two One Show pieces and a recent Panorama.

We know from the Panorama that the Post Office prosecuted one Subpostmaster for theft despite an internal investigator stating he could not find any evidence of theft. The Post Office says it cannot comment on individual cases due to confidentiality, but that a financial loss and false accounting together is often sufficient evidence for a theft charge. The Post Office maintains the Horizon system works fine and that it's never done anything wrong in any of the cases we've featured.

In his introduction to the Misra trial transcript, Mr Mason warns that the "the reader must take great care in reaching settled conclusions from the transcript of the trial, because the transcript is only one part of the entire record."

This does not stop Mr Mason from making considered, but repeated criticisms of the Post Office prosecution. Here he attacks a fundamental defence the Post Office have always made about the Horizon system - its "robust"-ness:

"To assert that a complex system, which the Horizon software appears to be, is ‘robust’, the prosecution ought to have produce [sic] evidence to establish what was meant by ‘robust’ and the truth of the claim. 

"No evidence was produced to demonstrate that the system was ‘robust’, nor to establish the ‘quality’ of the system – none of the test [sic] set out in chapter 4 of Electronic Evidence seem to have been considered. 

"The Post Office also failed to produce any evidence regarding the operation of the operating environment and the reconciliations, error rates, controls, and relevant internal audit processes used to ensure integrity, and to provide details of the various up- dates that fixed problems with the software."

He then goes on to address the issue of who actually controls the Horizon terminals in a Post Office:

"The comment that the defendant would have been aware of a defect in the software (excluding the specific defect discovered in a post office in Callendar Square in Falkirk) is manifestly incorrect.

"Neither observation was accurate, nor, it appears, sustained by any evidence produced at trial. Moreover, the observation (Day 1 Monday 11 October 2010, 23H – 24A) that Seema Misra was ‘the person responsible for the computer system at this office’ demonstrates the failure of the prosecutor to understand that end users of the Horizon system do not control the computer system: Fujitsu undertake this task."

Mr Mason then goes on to criticise the expert witness for the prosecution:

"Gareth Jenkins, the system architect for Fujitsu Services, was asked about the possibility that a problem that might arise between the systems [Horizon and Riposte], but he considered this was of no relevance, even though he did not know whether the problems encountered with the Riposte software might have affected the Horizon system (Day 4 Thursday 14 October 2010, 97 – 98).

"In effect, the prosecution did not present any witness for the defence to cross examine on this particular and important point, although it was admitted that the Escher software [Riposte] appeared to be the cause of the problem encountered at the post office in Callendar Square in Falkirk (examination in chief: Day 4, Thursday 14 October 2010, 46F – 50; cross examination: 88G – 111). 

"Mr Jenkins relied on a great deal of hearsay in giving his evidence, he rarely obtained and submitted original data, and on occasions spoke to other people in Fujitsu Services to ascertain answers to technical questions – yet none of the people he spoke to were called to give evidence."

The assertion that it was only Seema Misra who was having problems with Horizon appears to have been contradicted during the trial:

"The previous owner of the post office run by Seema Misra claimed that they did not have any problems. It later transpired that this was not correct (Day 5, Friday 15 October 2010, 2 – 9). 

"However, before the first owner of the post office made the additional admission, the prosecutor reached the false conclusion that because the first owner of the post office did not have any problems, it followed that there was no failure of the computer system at a later date (Day 1 Monday 11 October 2010, 50F)."

His conclusion:

"Arguably, the evidence of the software system was not sufficient for anybody to make a decision based on the evidence put forward in the trial [my italics], and it seems that all Professor McLachlan [expert witness for the defence] could do was highlight the fact that he had so little evidence to consider, that he was not able to offer any sensible or conclusive conclusions."

In summary, a barrister who specialises in the presentation of electronic evidence in court believes evidence presented by the Post Office during a criminal trial was "arguably" not sufficient for a jury  (or indeed "anybody") to reach an informed decision. In Seema's case the Post Office didn't offer any other evidence as to her guilt of theft, a point noted by the judge in his summing up to the jury.

A barrister's opinion is just that, a barrister's opinion. But the evidence required to convict someone of a criminal offence must be beyond reasonable doubt. Mr Mason believes the prosecution's evidence was arguably insufficient. The jury, without the benefit of Mr Mason's expertise, disagreed.

I've asked the Post Office to respond to Mr Mason's comments and will post up their reply if I get one.

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Further reading:

Ongoing Computer Weekly investigation into Horizon and timeline
Post Office Horizon primer written by me in 2013

Adur and Worthing Business Awards

My thanks to the guests of the Adur and Worthing Business Awards on Friday night who were given  the task of beating the previous year's Children in Need collection total of £380.

The dubious incentive involved being given the opportunity to watch the event's principal sponsor, James Stoner (pictured) hand over the Lifetime Achievement award wearing a Pudsey onesie.

Pitting one side of the room's collection bucket against the other and generally hassling and cajoling everyone into emptying their pockets raised £900. I've met people who have raised tens of thousands of pounds so I realise in the general scheme of things this isn't much, but I was taken aback by the spontaneous generosity.

It was great to work with James, Jeanette Hockley, Helen Tinner and all the JPSE team. It was a particular joy to spend my first night out in Worthing since 1988, especially as Rob West, who was my host 27 years ago was also there on Friday night.

This time round he was accompanied by his glamorous business partner and lovely wife Julie. In 1988 it was a different, pre-mobile phone story...