All hail the new inertia

WHEN I was a kid and there was no one else around I used to call on a kid called Trevor, who lived in another street.

Apart from a train set and a sizeable collection of dubious publications hidden away in his attic, he used to have a BBC sound effects record. It had things like birds twittering, a creaking door opening and closing, an ambulance racing by going all Doppler, and a kettle boiling and whistling (this was the ’70s).

Trevor would take the disc from the sleeve, put it on the record player and he and his family would listen to it, chuckle and nod their heads in recognition. Sometimes one member would pre-empt the noise and say what it was before it came on. They had heard it that many times before. They all thought it was brilliant. Even if it was stuff they could hear in real life if they only opened a window or a door or knew how to boil a kettle.

I’d leave his house more perplexed than if I’d read one of his dubious publications.

Just before Christmas last year I visited a relative. As well as the usual festive songs jangling, parping and harmonising away in the background, they had a video of a log fire playing on the TV.

It crackled, roared, collapsed and sparked throughout the time I was there. The relative told me it goes on for six hours. Someone keeps chucking logs on and the fire is replenished.

Further research unearthed 11 or 12 fire videos on the internet. There’s an outdoor camp fire and a wood burner one, ideal for those living in St Martin’s. They last from one hour up to eight. One is titled Cozy Christmas Yule Log Fireplace With Crackling Fire Sounds (Long Version). This was what my relative had on.

Someone had got all their film and sound equipment together and filmed a fire for eight hours. They’re supposed to fool people who don’t have open fires into feeling warm. Even if they only have a three-bar electric fire, with two of the bars not working, and live in a bedsit in Clapham North, they are fooled into feeling toastie.

While online looking at the fires, there were other videos/soundtracks of things such as woods, or the sea, or a lake at night, as well as rain on a window pane or a train hurtling along a track at night.

A while back a YouTube video surfaced with the fantastic title White Noise Sounds Of Frozen Arctic Ocean With Polar Icebreaker Idling – Creating Delta Waves. It showed said icebreaker, the RV Lance from the Norwegian Polar Institute, with its twin lights glowing through the gloaming of an Arctic day, thick chunks of snow falling, the distant wind howling and a low bass thrum (quite possibly the delta waves).

I quite liked this. I played it for an hour at home for research purposes. The thrumming engine was quite reassuring, as though the engines of the world were happily still turning, although I would’ve much preferred being aboard an actual Arctic icebreaker and experiencing those sounds for real (the things you wish for on a February Tuesday night down the Bridge when the off licence has shut).

Tribute acts started because either the original artist was dead, or the band had split up. Minstrel bands were probably the first version of this, with white musicians dressing up and emulating black musicians. But probably the most prevalent tributes were Elvis impersonators.

Tributes were for musicians who didn’t want the hassle of writing their own stuff and for an audience who never got to see the original.

Nowadays, with tribute acts actually paying tribute to performers who are still alive, it’s about seeing something that’s the next best thing to the real thing. Or as near as dammit. Blur your eyes and it could actually be Blur. They’re there for people who can’t afford to fork out to see the real thing and, more overly, for those who simply can’t be bothered. Usually the only good thing about these bands/acts are their names. Actually, the ultimate band for someone lazy enough to be in a tribute band to pay tribute to would be a one-hit wonder. Someone like Yellow Dog or Kursaal Flyers or Leyton Buzzards.

So this begs the question: these videos of crackling hearth fires, soundtracks of thunder on the moors/rain on ponds/wind in leaves – an ambient 10 hours of an icebreaker idling – what are they? Tributes to fires, thunder, rain, wind and Arctic icebreakers for people who can’t be arsed to build a fire, go out onto the moors during a storm/watch the rain fall on ponds/stand in a wood listening to the wind – or will never have the chance to be aboard an idling icebreaker at the North Pole? Does Trev and his family still sit around and listen to sound effects albums? Will I be greeted by a film of a fire at my relative’s next Christmas?

That’s the way it’s all going.

With a connection to the world just a tap on a phone (there’s not even a real button there), pizzas delivered by drones, and vast soundtracks of the great outdoors, there is simply no need to leave the house any more. Just find a reliable urological supplies outlet online and treat yourself to a special medical bag, plug yourself in and you won’t even have to move off the settee to go to the bog.

Inanimate ‘man’ is born.

All hail the new inertia.