You explain this ‘alternative country’ to me and watch the cowboy farm band, yes?”Īs we were served, very quickly, at the bar, the Long Ryders kicked into the countrified powerpop of their signature NRBQ cover, I Want You Bad. “You do not know who I am? Ha! Fantasticheskiy!” And then he kissed each of my cheeks in turn. “You threw a party for Putin? Who are you?” Without washing his hands, my oligarch companion clasped my face in his palms. Like Catherine Belton and HarperCollins in the future. Then he writes an offensive song obviously about me and the loans-for-shares privatisation programme: ‘It takes a certain kind of man with a certain reputation to alleviate the cash from a whole entire nation.’ Happy to take my money though, eh? Asshole! I should sue him. “Williams played the New Year’s Eve party I threw for Vladimir Putin two years ago. “Have you seen Robbie Williams live?” I asked politely, zipping up my flies, and wondering how a Russian Robbie Williams fan had found his way into a reunion show by some not well-known 80s alternative country pioneers. “I never knew this group before, but the sound is Clash, but on a farm! Makes Robbie Williams seem shit.” You overanalyse,” said my new oligarch friend, suddenly stabilising. “The Long Ryders work within the country rock genre, I suppose, but they invest it with levels of real tenderness, insight and originality, magically greater than the sum of its parts.” “You are an intellectual, my fat companion. ‘Ivory Tower!’ commanded Abramovich, but the spritely roots veterans sprang instead into their near hit, Looking for Lewis and Clark

I did not know I was being addressed by the oligarch, and newly converted Long Ryders fan, Roman Abramovich. I am not a fan of football, kleptocracies or smelting. We do live in an Ivory Tower,” the urinating oligarch next to me moaned drunkenly in an anglicised Russian accent, “And an Ivory Tower can fall down, any time, my friend! Fantasticheskiy!” And with that, the edified oligarch began to weep hot tears that splashed down into the urinal bowl, diluting the champagne-flavoured micturate his tiny penis had squirted weakly there.

Tower of trample yvonne piss bowl