12 Reasons Why - Bit of a Biog and Rant
1. Who is this Loopy Librarian?
Er...well I'm Kieran, born in April
1968 if you want to work out your age you can but as I'm in a constant
state of denial about it I'm not telling because that would involve
maths and dragging a calculator out. Just to prove I can do
maths I reckon that means I was conceived during the Summer of Love in
1967. I'd blame that for my love of music with a jangle angle
but as my folks are both trad jazz fans I reckon it was probably the
result of a piece of dangerous improvisation while trying to use the
rhythm method. I'm married to Sharon who it must be said I usually
refer to as Monst or Monster, we have a child Callum (he's 4 by the
way and destined to be a gooner because his presence was announced
during the 1999 double win when Monst came into the room and waved a
white stick thing in my face and told me it had a blue line. My
response was that Marc Overmars had just scored and this was the
double for the first time since 71 so what did a blue line mean...the
rest is history and a hefty thump) and cat called Katie.
2. What is a Loopy
Librarian?
In my case I deal with unconventional
literature or grey literature which suits me just fine. I reckon
if you can get your head round indie music and indie labels then grey
lit is normal. As a sideline I do primary care stuff, a bit of
records management and Freedom of Information stuff.
3. Where is this Loopy
Librarian coming from?
Born at the Battle Hospital in
Reading as a result of my propensity to be awkward, I was breach, so
rather than St. Mary's Wallingford I was rushed to Reading by
Ambulance. A dignified entry into the world. Barring the 4
years I lived in Cholsey (a period which resulted in me becoming a
Gooner when I was 3 or so because I wanted to be like Simon Peedle the
big kid across the street, or maybe it's just a family thing seeing my
old fella suffers the same way), until I was 18 I lived in
Wallingford. I claim it as a home town and have loads of
affection for the place.
At 18 desperate to escape I wound up
at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. 3 years of studying
History in a part of the world I love for its surrealism and utter
madness and it was back home for a pre-professional year at the Cairns
Library at the John Radcliffe Hospital which was my first encounter
with the NHS.
Planning a year of good Guinness in
Belfast I was planning to go to library school at Queen's. They
changed the course, it wasn't accredited by the LA and instead I found
myself hanging around at UCL with Jeremy Bentham and living in
Tooting. This was my 'Men Behaving Badly' period when having
broken the coffee table in the house in Tooting I was living in and
inspired one part by my love of pop art and one part by being part of
the Blue Peter generation I was involved in the manufacture of a
coffee table of Stella cans (which were in plentiful supply) and
double sided sticky tape.
7 months later I was back home
selling my soul to the nuclear industry for 7 months with UK Nirex at
Harwell. During this dreadful time when I split up with a long
term girlfriend, we managed to move from Wallingford to Didcot (a one
house town where the horse is long gone). I was so impressed at
getting on the nuclear bus in Wallingford and getting off in scummy
Didcot that I fell asleep at the house and slept through the police
pitching up and asking my folks if we were squatting because we were
the first people to move into the estate. This tale later hit
the local press, great Didcot I hate and it takes the piss straight
off. Luckily friends got me through all of this and my love of
Brakspears increased....
Next stop Barnet College of Nursing
and Midwifery, which I killed as it was merged out of existence by the
University of Hertfordshire (an institution for which I hold nothing
but contempt to this day). It was here I met Monst who poor soul
had to put up with our library lectures.
To keep body and soul together and
pay off a car loan I then moved to Crewe and the Postgrad Centre at
Leighton Hospital. A great venue to spend a couple of years that
taught me what a mare hospital politics can be and what how bad
academic libraries really are.
Then to Liverpool and the Health
Authority. Again I killed HA's (I do rock venues as a sideline
if you have any you need closing down) and I'm now working on PCT's.
4. Rule 4
There is no rule 4. If there is
it is only applicable to ex and current members of WOT VSU.
5.
Why is this a Loopy Librarian?
I got into librarianship as a result of
a fundamental misunderstanding. Now having spent three years
studying History my time was up, I needed something to do. The
Gradscope thing suggested I became a Vicar or Assistant Prison
Governor. Bollocks to that I know better than computers, so where do I
spend my time? The answers were bars, coffee bars and the
library. Bars and catering looked like they actually involved
hard work and all I could see of librarianship was that it involved
standing behind a desk gossiping all day and occasionally fining
people. I'm still looking for that holy grail job but I don't
believe in the fining thing.
6.
How does a Loopy Librarian end up
writing all this rubbish?
Easily, rubbish comes naturally to me
and I'm too lazy to write a fanzine. Plus I had a Big Black Book
of Doom that was meant to help me sort out this chartership lark.
It was full of curses and scribbled notes, this is it's electronic
equivalent. That I fill it with rubbish about what I'm up to is
merely because I also have to write a Christmas letter from Cal and
I'm planning a cut and paste job this year.......
7.
Er...and a Loopy Librarian Looks Like?
With the sartorial elegance of Old
Man Steptoe combined with a face that ate a thousand chips a Loopy
Librarian looks a complete bloody mess. You want a picture,
you're mad, mail me if you really need it....
8.
Music with a jangle angle?
Lifted from an ad for Tambourine a
label that the Dentists released 'Writhing on the Shagpile' on from
Bucketful of Brains the fanzine of those who love psychedelia....
I tend to define what I listen to as indie but get quite puritanical
about the definition of indie in that it is defined by a labels status
not the musical style. It therefore is sufficiently broad for me
to get away with murder...... Music is a vital part of my life,
I barely go through a day without listening to at least one album
unfortunately I have the musical ability of a tone deaf newt, not that
I don't try.....
9.
Poetry?
I like it, rave on Martin Newell,
John Hegley, Attila the Stockbroker, John Cooper Clarke......
10.
Invective, why?
It's a bit like breathing it happens.
I also hate the whole F**k thing. Why not just type it? I
apologise if it offends you.
11.
Ranting?
A seventeenth century sect who
believed that the best way to get rid of sin was to sin daily so it
was an everyday occurrence and no longer a sin. Now how logical
is that?
12.
12 Reasons Why?
Where else you going to get a
reference to Jake Shillingford's wonderful 'My Life Story'?
