ACTUALLYISSUE ONEJUNE 16

CONTENTS

CONCEPT

DESIGN

CONTACT

WORDS

Lauren Vevers and Tom Nicholson

Tom Nicholson

Tom Nicholson

amagazineactually@gmail.com

JOY ATLAS

HOW TO NOT BE SHIT AT MUSIC

JOE McELDERRY

PULL UP TO THE JUMPER BABY

PALE KIDSHelpful posters for the creatively confused

What to do with your sweater ‘in da club’

Dead sound pop punk lads

Electro popsters with decent map knowledge

His favourite Metro stop and other tidbits

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POP PSYCH30 Getting inside musicians’ heads

a

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SWEATER THE DEVIL YOU KNOWGoing out can be fraught with dangers and awkwardness - we all live under the sword of Damocles that is the threat of assault by House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ - but the trickiest to navigate is how to wear a jumper to the club. Here, we consider the options available to the fashion-conscious clubber who doesn’t want to die of exposure

The original, and, for many, still the undisputed champ of off-duty jumper-slinging chic. On the down side, that ‘many’ is largely made up of children and middle-aged ramblers. It does rather put one in a primary school mindset; celebrating the drop in Four Tet’s ‘Opus’ remix with a knee slide and a bottle of Panda Pop isn’t really the done thing around Warehouse Project these days. More’s the pity.

This one’s slightly more perplex-ing, since the asymmetrical styling means that the body of the jumper will tend to flap about collecting beer stains and the odd splash of mud. However, it’s tres a la mode for patrons of house nights de nos jours. It’s a wavey mid-point between the waistband and the Brideshead, as if Sebastian and Charles were on a mad one at Leeds festival after their GCSEs.

Photographer: Holly DouglasJumper: Primark

Bins: Newcastle City Council

There’s the threat of danger-ous overheating with this one, depending on how you’re fuelling yourself. There is, though, a cer-tain Hepburn-esque elan to this styling; it’s a a kind of 90 percent polyester homage to Hollywood’s Golden Age, though whether you’ll be able to communicate that to the paramedic who’s attaching the rehydration drip to your arm is debatable.

Formerly a solid-gold pointer that one was in the presence of either a polo fan or an unapologetic shit, the Brideshead Revisited has since been reclaimed from the dustbin of fashion history (which, if you’re interested in visiting, is sited at Henley) and is now equally appropriate for an evening at Cosmic as an afternoon at Har-rods. Which is to say wildly inap-propriate, but it happens anyway.

Already gaining momentum around the gabber and electro jazz circuit, the Thigh Torniquet heralds a bold new dawn for an artistic scene which looked to be running out of steam: suddenly, jumper-wearers are liberated from the mental tyranny of think-ing only in terms of torso-based jumper-wrangling. Mind you don’t tie it too tight and acciden-tally give yourself an embolism though.

THE CLASSIC WAISTBAND TIE

THE BRIDEHEAD REVISITED

THE THIGH TORNIQUET

THE MOTHERTERESA

THE CASHMERE BANDOLIER

The Mother Teresa is a kind of 90 percent polyester homage to Hollywood’s Golden Age

BEING A MUSICIAN CAN BE

SUPRISINGLY HARD.

Every day comes with a new set of important questions to be answered:

should you wear a new hat today? Does your new single need a giddy-up bassline?

Could you fit another guitar solo in? While these questions all have fairly

simple answers (yes; yes; definitely not, and while you’re at it please remove the one that’s already in there), there will be times when you’ll come unstuck and

try to do something silly. So, to help out, we’ve made some posters you can stick up in the studio/rehearsal rooms/garage and refer to in order to avoid making any

poor choices in the future. You’re very welcome.

BUY A DRUM

MACHINE

SHUT UP AND PLAY THE RADIO

EDIT

WHAT WOULD

RIHANNA DO?

MORE BANGING

AND LASERS

NO MORE BALLADS

THANK YOU

THERE IS ALWAYS

ROOM FOR ONE MORE CHORUS

THE PALE KIDS ARE ALREET

Poppy, punky types Pale Kids are basically dead sound as well as knowing one end of a tune from the other, so we went and had

a chat with them before they did a gig down The Little Rooms in Ouseburn the other day after they’d come back from grabbing

some cans at the shop

David: Do we have to shout into that [the dictaphone]?You don’t have to. It’s remarkably sensitive.David: HELLOOO, MA-CHINE. IT’S GONNA BE FINE WORKING WITH YER.The influences question is boring, but is there anyone who you’ve thought, “We are definitely not going to be anything like them”?Joe: Just bros, generally.Matt and Luke Goss?J: I don’t understand that reference.Andrew: You’re too young. I guess like… what bands are boring? [Pop punk bros] Narwhals?D: Are we opening up the beef?Kate: I think more than specific bands, we distance ourselves from that kind of attitude; that really mascu-line, lad culture.

Are Coors Light your first choice of tinnies?A: They didn’t have much in the shop. I do like them though.What colour would you say happiness was?K: Blue for me.J: The same colour as the bottom of a can of Coors.D: The colour that it goes when it’s Damme cold.A: Yeah, when the activation thing comes on. D: I’d say pink or black.Is that just a gut reaction?A: There’s no reason, Tom.Who’s your favourite one-off Simpsons character?[Deep groans followed by thoughtful silence.]A: Grimey. [There follows much indecipherable mum-bling from all.]No love for Roy?A: Give me Frank Grimes any day. I don’t want to start

talking about the Simpsons because I’ll never stop. I have to put that part of my life to bed now.How do you feel about those fancy Greggs Mo-ment shops? Are they the end of culture?K: I think it’s BULLSHIT. J: I don’t give a fuck. As long as I can get a Belgian bun, I’ll be happy.D: I’m still sore about [Dur-ham-based pastry-slingers] Peter’s closing because Greggs moved in on its territory. [Suddenly con-scious of the tedium of the conversation] It’s like trying to squeeze crack out of a stone, isn’t it?Tell me about the best pair of shoes you’ve ever owned.D: I can show you them. Point that thing at them. [We wafted the dictaphone

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in David’s shoes’ direction and picked up a faint hum of greatness.]K: The best pair of shoes I ever owned was when I was a kid and I had school ones from Clark’s that had a secret compartment in.D: That’s where she kept her knives. A: On my first day of secondary school I’d broke my toe. I used to be an avid swimmer. I’m still a strong swimmer, but I don’t go as much. I’m landlocked. I smashed my foot off the side of the pool, so on my first day of school, I had to wear me dad’s shoes. Then I got lost on the way to assembly and I just cried through the hallways. In my dad’s shoes.K: Did everyone take the piss out of you?A: Oh yeah.D: And that was the best pair of shoes he’s ever owned.A: That was just a story about me and shoes.J: I had a pair of New Balance but I’ve snapped the laces. It’s called the Footbed, and it’s just the comfiest shoe. But I can’t find the same ones.You could just buy new laces.J: Oh yeah that’s a good idea. They’ve got holes in too, the laces were just the…A: …The straw that broke the camel’s back. The lace that broke the shoe’s back.So, you’ve committed some kind of crime. Theft of diamonds, let’s say. Nothing violent.K: It’s about the money, really.Yeah, you’re doing it mostly as a kind of mental chal-lenge to see if you could do it. Anyway, what is your immediate plan in the aftermath? What do you do to evade capture?K: I would literally go underground. D: To the sewers? K: Yeah, until the storm blew over. Then I’d re-emerge in like, five years, and cash in the diamonds.D: With all your teeth replaced with diamonds.K: That’s how I’d keep them. I’d have no money, I’d just live in a sewer and me teeth would be diamonds.D: Sometimes it’s nice to just have nice things.A: Whether you’re in the sewers or not. Is it a Bonnie and Clyde situation, or are you on your own?I’m assuming unless you’re a superthief you’ll need back-up. Even George Clooney needed ten other people. A: We don’t need ten other people. I think we could com-mit a crime quite well.D: I’d join the police and start working my own case. That’s what Martin Lawrence did in that film. Blue some-thing? It’s really good, you should watch that.K: Andrew would cash in his diamonds and drink himself to death. Joe would take refuge in an embassy or some-thing and become famous but they’d never get you. And

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we’ve got no idea what you’d do.D: I’d probably dob youse all in.K: You’d become a cop and start working the case to get all our diamonds off us – except the ones that are my teeth – and then you’d take off and we’d never see you again. You’d be like that couple from New Zealand – the bank mistakenly put millions in their bank account, and one day they just disappeared. D: Like canoe man.A: There was a guy who went on a plane in the 70s and held the plane up…D: Mr T?A: This does sound like I’m bullshitting but I’m not. I read the Wikipedia article at work the other day. The plane landed, he got the money, took off again…D: And parachuted out again. You’ve told us this before.A: I’ve been talking about precious little else. Like, five years later they found some of the money in a stream or something. They’ve never found him or the money, but they found a shack near where they think he landed and in it was a pamphlet about how to open the back doors of an aeroplane. [This is almost certainly complete bollocks.]Would you say that’s your favourite Wikipedia page?A: Maybe. I do read it a lot. D: My favourite’s the Iron Maiden Wikipedia page. There’s a lot of in-formation there. We used to play a game at school where you’d start on a random page and had to get back to Iron Maiden, without using countries because that’s too easy.We used to do that with Hitler. It was much easier.J: My favourite is Taman Shud. It was this case in Australia. The guy is, like, poisoned and nobody knows who he is, and in his pocket he’s got written the word ‘Taman’. He was sat against a wall and

nobody realised he was dead. And there’s loads of things where someone keeps visiting his grave and it’s like, “Who are you?”D: “Here, this lad’s been sat out in the sun for ages, but he keeps getting paler and paler.”Have you stumbled across the Dancing Plague of 1518?D: The one that happened in Toronto? And every danced so much they overheated? And they thought it was spider bites? And that’s why tarantulas are called tarantulas? Because it happened in Toronto?A: THAT’S my favourite Wikipedia page.They tried to snap people out of it by playing music to them. Didn’t work, just made them dance more.J: Is that St Vitus’ Dance?I thought that was a herb. Maybe that’s St John’s Wort. Anyway. Favourite herb?A: I don’t have a favourite herb.K: I like dill.D: [Having consulted his phone for info on the Dancing Plague of 1518] Ignore everything I said, I was talking bollocks. Same basic symptoms, it seems. Carry on. I mean, it’s either Google this or kill everyone in this room. K: Kill us all, please.Can you remember what the first tune you learned to play on an instrument was?K: ‘Conspiracy of One’ by The Offspring, on drums.J: My Grandad taught me ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ on guitar.D: It was probably a Nirvana song, on the bass probably. I didn’t own a bass when I started playing bass.It sounds like you were press-ganged.D: Oh no, I was begging for it. Where do you want to go on holiday?J: Slovakia, to see me uncle. He’s

a teacher.D: [Andrew]’s happy where he is.A: In the rut I’ve dug.You could go to Redcar or something.A: I’m not going to Redcar. YOU can go to Redcar if you want.D: I want to go to Mongolia. All-inclusive. Not gonna happen.Do you reckon we’ve yet hit critical mass with the amount of burger joints in Newcastle city centre, or will it just keep increasing exponentially?J: I don’t care, because I live in Durham. A: There’s your answer.D: We will not comment on any-thing that isn’t specifically about Durham.K: If I can’t get a good vegan Big Mac, I’m not bothered.A: I don’t know if we’ve got any-thing left to offer.D: We need some quickfire ones.Right. Radio 2 or Radio 4?K: Radio 4.D: 2.A: 2.J: 4. When do you ever listen to Radio 4?K: Every day.J: She listens to Pat Benatar.[There follows indecipherable mumblings about this and that.]K: …oh don’t get us started on Minions.A: They’re just so funny!K: I know, I love them.I’ve never met anyone mentally stable who like Minions.A: Aye well, you still haven’t.J: They’re just so funny.A, K and D: [Together] THEY ARE.A: They’re just so funny though! Have you ever looked at one?K: Have you seen Despicable Me?Most of my interaction with Min-ions comes from memes shared by middle-aged people.D: They’re just so funny, do you not think?A: They are! They’re so funny!

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My favourite’Wikipedia page is

Iron Maiden’s. There’s a lot of

information there. We used to play

a game at school where you’d start on a random page

and had to get back to Iron

Maiden, without using countries

because that’s too easy.

A question and answer session in seven parts

Outside of a moderately-stuffed World HQ, Joy Atlas drummer Ged Robinson is appraising his new band’s first proper gig. His mood is hovering somewhere between ‘anxious but elated’ and ‘there’s a drum kit waiting to be deconstructed

which I just cannot be bothered with’. Comprised of singer and scene stalwart Beccy

Owen, Ian Talbot Paterson (nipple-high jazzy bass), Adam Kent (keyboards), plus our Ged, Joy Atlas trade in a kind of clipped, laconically-grooved which has already drawn giddy notices

from Steve Lamacq and Tom Robinson, plus a general thumbs-up from 6Music’s round table for their first single, ‘Dismount’. They premiered another at WHQ which was introduced as Adam’s tribute to Van Halen, but which also owed a deep debt to the theme tune from the second-tier mid-80s helicopter-based drama series Airwolf, and which sounded to our ears like a single in waiting.

However, to answer the question everyone’s been asking - ‘How much joy do Joy Atlas take in the actual atlas?’ - we thought we’d test Ged’s geographical knowledge and try to get the mea-sure of this bearded, paradiddling map savant. >> TN

JOY ATLAS

SHRUGGED

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Wikipedia says: “Known as Peruvian Coast Spanish, Lima’s Spanish is characterized by the lack of strong intonations as found in many other regions of the Spanish-speaking world. It is heavily influenced by the historical Spanish spoken in Castile. Limean Castillian is also characterized by the lack of voseo, a trait present in the dialects of many other Latin Ameri-can countries.”What is the best phrase you’ve picked up in an-other language?Aw man, that’s reeeeally hard... me and my girlfriend have been watching The Bridge recently, so I’ve loved minimal Scandinavian language. So I guess it’d be something like ‘tak’ or ‘ja’. ‘Tak’ is thank you and ‘oh’ is yes in Danish. I like the minimalism.

Wikipedia says: “In 2012, Travel+Leisure named New Orleans the #2 “America’s Dirtiest City”, down from a #1 “Dirtiest” status of the previ-ous year. The magazine surveyed both national readership and local residents, from a list of prominent cities having the most visible illegal littering, dumping and other related environmental crime conditions.”How clean is your house?Well, I currently don’t have a house, actually - we moved out today and we don’t have anywhere to move to so we’re essentially homeless, but before that it was immensely clean. MY girl-friend has beaten into me some good habits. I like it being neat and that.Which beats are the best beats: clean beats or dirty beats?It depends what you’re talking about. If it’s bass, it’s much better dirty and scuzzy and synthy. At the top end, the glitchier stuff, I love that being clean. So a mix of the two, I would say.A bit cleaner for Joy Atlas though.Yeah, Joy Atlas is very clean - very clean music in a way, I guess. I like the precision of it, we try and make it minimal in some ways.

Wikipedia says: “During the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), 5,000 Boer prisoners of war were housed on five islands of Bermuda.”What was the last thing you were trapped in?Erm... well I can’t remember the last thing I was trapped in, but I can remember the last thing I was nearly trapped in. Does that count?Yeah go on.This has quite a boring beginning but a terrifying ending. We were moving loads of stuff into storage recently. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in one of those industrial storage units, but they’re completely ter-rifying. It’s kind of like a soulless version of The Shining, endless corridors and airtight containers. They have fob access to get in and out, so if you leave your keys on the other side of these glass doors then you actually can’t escape. You have to ring this special number and it takes hours for the guy to come and get you and it costs, like, £150 to get out. I thought I’d lost my keys in there but thankfully I found them.Well THANK GOD.

Wikipedia says: “The most famous local food is Pyongyang naengmyeon, or also called mul naeng-myeon or just simply naengmyeon. Naengmyeon consists of thin and chewy buckwheat noodles in a cold meat-broth with dongchimi (watery kimchi) and topped with a slice of sweet Korean pear. Pyongyang locals sometimes enjoyed it as a haejangguk, which is any type of food eaten as a hangover-cure, usually a warm soup.” What’s your go-to hangover cure?My hangover cure is straight out of a 1970s cop show - just a ‘sleep it off’ kind of crack. I know a guy who used to have melon preprepared in the fridge. Looks like food, but ultimately it’s just water. Having that, cold, that was class, but I think for me it’s just as much sleep as possible in a horrible, stinking pit.

Wikipedia says: “In 1520, during Poland’s Golden Age, the most famous church bell in Poland, named Zygmunt after Sigismund I of Poland, was cast by Hans Behem. It is the largest of the five bells hanging in Wawl Cathedral in Krakow.”When was the last time you had cause to call someone a bell-end?Have to be careful what I say here... I can tell you some, but not on the record. I might have to pass. A few people recently, but no-one I could publicly shame.

Until recently, Adelaide was the home of the Australian Museum of Child-hood. What was the stupidest thing you did as a child?I once Bic’d my entire head, shaved it with a razor. I don’t think I fully under-stood how short it would be when I started it off. I say I was a child, I was, like, 15. I Bic’d the sides, and then my sister was going out with a boy called Gary at the time, who was a hairdresser, and my mam was like, “Get Gary to blend it in”. How do you blend hair into skin? I had quite long hair as well. Bless him, he tried to blend it in. It, obviously, looked shit. There was nothing he could do, so me mam decided - me mam’s a doctor - that a good thing for me to do, to go to school as a 15 year old boy, was to put a big plaster on it. I got called ‘nicotine patch’ for like three months. It was tremendously humiliating.

Baseball is apparently a really big deal in Tokyo, with the city being the home of two teams, despite baseball being like a shit version of cricket. What was the last cultural phenomenon which made you feel like you’d lost touch with the youth of today?I think Wii. You know that game, Wii? Actually, I’ve got a better one: Minecraft. I don’t understand why kids like the shit graphics on Minecraft. It’s kind of like the worst old-school Amstrad graphics.Maybe it’s a ‘borrowed nostalgia’ thing.But kids don’t understand it, they’re not old enough to be nostalgic. I do feel complete-ly like an old man, do not get it.

TOKYO

PYONGYANG

NEW ORLEANS

KRAKOW

LIMA

BERMUDAWikipedia says: “In the wake of the 1970s Nigerian oil boom, Lagos experienced a population explosion, untamed economic growth, and unmitigated rural migration. This caused the outlying towns and settle-ments to develop rapidly, thus forming the Greater Lagos metropolis seen today.”If Joy Atlas were in charge of a farm outside Lagos, what roles would you each fulfil?I think Adam would be the general farm administrator. He’s very organised, he’s very good on spreadsheets. He really knows his shit on the spreadsheets. Ian, he’d definitely make the fences and that - he’s really good at DIY and did up his entire house. He’s going to make an eco-house, completely self-sufficient. He’s quite a hippy at heart really. I’d definitely look after the animals. I absolutely love animals. Beccy would be our farm’s PR woman or something. She’ll probably hate me for saying that but she’s friendly, good at making friends with people.

LAGOS

22 23ADELAIDE

Basically we got Ged to have a punt at guessing where these seven cities were on a map, and it turns out that despite apparently passing most of his youth being challenged to name countries which border Iran by his siblings, he wasn’t quite as sharp as you might think.

JOE HARD OR JOE

HOMELegend has it that Alexander

the Great wept salty tears when he saw the breadth of his kingdom, for he realised there

were no more worlds for him to conquer. The parallels between him and South Shields’ favourite son are uncanny, as we found out when we spoke to the only man alive who has won both X

Factor and The Jump

Hello, can I interview Joe McElderry please?Yes, hello. Joe speaking.Hello Joe. Can you describe the scene around you please? Where are you?I’m in my house. It’s quite mod-ern, homely.How’ve you made it homely? Was it homely before you moved in?Well I travel around a lot in my job, so no matter where I go I take little comforts, candles, things like that.If you were making a dressing room feel homely, what would you need?Good lighting. Dressing rooms usually have really bright, sterile lights, so good lighting, lamps, candles, things that smell nice, smells that you’re used to.There’s nothing worse than an unexpected smell.Exactly.What does your house smell of?I don’t know actually. It doesn’t smell horrible, that’s the main thing.Maybe you’re just used to the smell of your house. It’s not a surprising smell anymore. Could you tell me about your favourite mug?I have a mug that I bought from Las Vegas, a huge, oversized coffee cup, a black coffee cup, and I use that all the time. You get three cups of tea in one cup.Do you not have to neck it be-fore the tea goes all lukewarm

and horrible?Well I like me coffee just warm, I don’t like it boiling hot. So it’s a good balance.Would you rather have a finger for a tongue or tongues for fin-gers?[A very, very long pause] Finger for a tongue. You wouldn’t really be able to do anything if you had tongues for fingers.Although, they do say that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body, because it’s not tethered at both ends, so it’s got to be ultra-strong to wobble about like it does.Really?I definitely did hear that once.[Firmly] Well I’d rather have a fin-ger for a tongue.What colour is happiness?I think it’s bright colours, a mix-ture of colours. I would say yellow, maybe like an orange-y colour, and a little bit of bright green.It sounds like morning, in a field.Yes. Or beach colours, blues, yel-lows.If you owned a pub, what would you name it?Maybe ‘Joey’s’. Or just something as simple as ‘The Pub’. “I’m going to The Pub.”“Which pub?” “THE PUB.”“Right, I’ll see you there.” It’d make people talk about it, everyone’d be repeating the name.It’d become its own marketing campaign. What’s your favou-rite Metro station?I used to go on the Metro from

Chichester every day. I’d stand there every morning in the freezing cold… so maybe Chi? There was always something about Monu-ment as well when you used to go shopping, I always used to find that quite cool as a kid.Is there anything architecturally interesting about Chichester station?No. There’s a very confusing roundabout nearby though. It’s very hard to pull out of the junction. That’s not really architectural, but it’s confusing.I was just looking at your Twit-ter feed before and your default setting seems to be to use two exclamation marks when you’re excited.I use exclamation marks all the time, even on things that aren’t re-ally that exciting. I think it just adds another dimension to whatever you’re saying. I also think some-times when you use exclamation marks, people think you’re angry, so if I use them all the time then people will know that I’m not an-gry.But then they might stop notic-ing them if you’re using them all the time.That’s fine. I don’t really do them for anyone else, I just enjoy putting them on me sentences.Well as long as you’re happy, Joe. Would you ever be tempted to go to three?Three might mean I’m a bit an-noyed. If it gets to six or seven, you’re really in trouble. Do not cross. Don’t even reply, actually.

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I’ve done a lot of charity bike rides over, like, 300 miles, so I think I passed it in another way.You got a cycling proficiency test certificate from the University of Life. That’s the highest honour that can be bestowed in the cy-cling proficiency test world.[A slightly tense silence.]Have you ever been lost on a moor?Probably, yes. I come from a fam-ily who are well into the outdoors and go on adventures and stuff. I’ve been lost on a skiing mountain before, which was quite full-on. I’m not frightened of adventures. Have you ever been skiing before?I’ve been to Runcorn dry ski slope twice.Little bit different to that. When you go up to the top of the mountain, certain bits are above the cloud lev-el, so what happens is sometimes the clouds close in and it’s like be-ing in fog, you can’t even see your hand in front of your face. Some-times it comes out of nowhere. It happened to us once in Austria and we were lost for about three hours. Obviously everything around you is white, you have no sense of direc-tion. It’s very scary.When it comes to kitchen bins, do you use the pedal or swing variety?We just have a lifty-open bin. Two, to be precise. One for waste, one for recycling.Top work. The polar bears thank you. Can you think of a nice poem about Newcastle?

Don’t even go there. How many hats do you own and how many do you think is the optimum?I have about four or five caps that I wear for rehearsals if my hair’s a mess, then I have a few winter hats, because I go skiing quite a lot. Some funky hats, some really cool bobble hats. I’m not really a trilby wearer.It’s a certain type of person who wears a trilby. It puts me on guard if I see someone in a trilby.Yeah, don’t trust anyone who wears a trilby. [Maniacal laughter] I’ll get into trouble for saying that. That was a joke.Do you have any notable ances-tors?I don’t think so, no.Oh well. I suppose you’re mak-ing family history then.Yeah, I’ve done some things that’ll be recognised for a few years, bu-You won The Jump! How many people can say that they’ve done that?Yeah, I suppose so, but I doubt I’m making family history. Maybe I’m making history between me friends and family, but it won’t go down in history.Well it is literally history, in that it did happen.True, true, but if someone was reading this and I said I’d gone down in family history they’d be like, ‘How arrogant is he?’.Pointless or The Chase?I’ve been a part of Pointless,

so I’ll say Pointless.How was your Pointless experi-ence?Absolutely horrendous. Not be-cause it’s a bad show but because I was horrendous at it.If you were a condiment, what condiment would you be?Maybe salt. Everybody uses salt. Or maybe… I like mustard. I use a lot of mustard. I’m going to say salt, vinegar or mustard.The salt is a staple really, which is often unfairly overlooked.Everybody needs salt.Did you ever pass your cycling proficiency test as a kid?No, I didn’t even do it actual-ly. I can r ide,

‘Blaydon Races’?I mean, can you think of a Joe McElderry original? People might clock on if I just print the entirety of ‘Blaydon Races’.Erm. Oh God. Not really. I’m good at writing songs but it takes a while. Just print ‘Blaydon Races’, change a few words.Which member of the cast of Dirty Dancing do you most identify with?This is really bad – I’ve sang a song out of Dirty Dancing, I’ve re-corded a song out of Dirty Danc-ing but I’ve actually never seen the film. It’s terrible, isn’t it?That is terrible. What about Grease?I’d probably be Doody, he’s quite silly and goofy. I’d like to be Danny Zuko, though I’m not like him. I played Danny in a school pro-duction of Grease when I was a chubby little teenager. I didn’t re-ally match the description.It’s all about how Danny carries himself though. What was the last substance you accidentally put your hand in?I was doing a training session this morning and I accidentally put me hand in mud.I’ll be honest with you, this train-ing session malarkey sounds absolutely awful.I actually really enjoyed it. I’m a bit of an exercise freak. Sometimes you get wet, sometimes you get a bit of mud on you, but you’ve got to plough through it.When was the last time you

said aloud “That is absolutely disgusting”?I say it about many things. Some-times people’s behaviour. I went for a meal recently and it was a very horrible meal, so after I fin-ished I said that. It wasn’t disgust-ing, it just wasn’t very nice. I just said it for effect.Could you describe yourself in the style of a lonely hearts ad?Male, 23, fun, likes to have a good time, very sociable. Would like to meet somebody who is… normal. Seems to be very rare these days [cackles]. Someone normal and nice.Okay, close your eyes, Joe.Mm-hmm.Are they shut?Yep.Go to your happy place. Are you there Joe?Yep.Describe the scene around you.I’m on a boiling hot beach some-where where the water is like see-through turquoise, and the water would be not big waves but just trickling along the shore. And there would be a table with a laptop and some WiFi and a nice alcoholic cocktail.Oooh, lovely. Thanks Joe!Pleasure, thank you for your time. Probably the most random inter-view I’ve ever had, but they were questions I really had to think about.

POP PSYCHEach issue, we ask a pop group

to do something stupid then read too much into it. This time:

Pale Kids draw some horses

ANDREW

DAVID

JOEA weedy, anae-mic, frowning example, possibly already en route to the glue fac-tory. Reflective of dminished self-esteem (the need to label his horse ‘horse’ sug-gests a lack of confidence in his skills) and a fear of the future. Also appears to be a unicorn.

A bold, chunky interpretation shows his desperation to make an impact in all situations. The trunk-like tail func-tions as a tripod, showing his need for stability and pos-sibly also laziness. The trousers on the hind legs are a bit confusing. No ideas there.

This was variously described as being “like an evil moomin” and “like one of those dogs with the weird faces”. The only conclu-sion to be drawn is that this is the product of a diseased mind.

KATEMildly embarrassed to be seen with the rest of the group. Draw your own conclusions.