Latest news with #PeterDoherty
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I'm in my late-twenties and definitely can't afford a house in London... but here's why I'll NEVER buy a house boat
Noughties Indie rockers The Libertines have a song called up 'Up The Bracket' and it begins with a jarring, almost in-human gurgling sound before the thumping guitar kicks in. The words actually being vomitted out in this guttural opening salvo are 'Get out of it'. I used to be convinced that only a tortured poet like Peter Doherty could ever annunciate a sound with such startling desperation. That was until last week, when I spent a long, lonely and claustrophobic night on a houseboat in London 's trendy Little Venice hearing sounds and experiencing fragments of sensations that chilled my soul to the core. Houseboats are very much the vogue in our cramped and over-populated cities, but they are hardly a new property trend. People have lived on them for years, mostly along stretches of canals in places like Birmingham and London, but also on some rural areas of The Thames. But the number of boat dwellers in the capital has reached a record high, with at least 10,000 people currently calling its waterways home. The surge in popularity for riverboats has also extended across the UK, where the amount of floating homes has risen by 6 per cent in the last decade, reaching a total of 34,573. Traditionally, the sort of person to live on a houseboat is a hardy but bohemian type. A bit of an outsider who doesn't mind cooking everything on an electric stove or carrying their waste to a public toilet in the p****** rain. We all know the sort, and honestly, good luck to them, it's just not a lifestyle 99 per cent of the country want to lead. That should, and used, to be all there was to say on the matter - so why am I, a man in his late-twenties living in London, constantly being told I need to grow up and go live on a houseboat? Irritatingly, the sort of trendy places I am forced to hang out with my friends these days are nearly always situated on some previously god-forsaken and now overly-gentrified stretch of canal where the pints cost £7.80 and you have to sit on a crate. If this wasn't bad enough, I'm also now at the stage of life where some of my more successful (*privileged) friends are starting to settle down with their partners and look for properties together. It should be obvious to you by now dear reader, that not only am I clinically single but also atrocious with money - the only real relationship in my life being a toxic one with disposable vapes that really should have seen me referred to addiction services by now. And of course my friends are aware of this and so after the awkward silences we share whilst canal watching, following their latest attempt to make me justify my life, one question often bobs to the surface. 'Have you considered getting a houseboat? The mortages are really cheap and it's basically a property hack. Loads of my mates have done it!' Mmmmhmmm. Yes, your friends, my friends, we're all living on houseboats in this hellish, never-ending water world. But why? Well, lets find out from the source shall we? As we all know, people who live on houseboats love nothing more than telling everyone they know they live on a houseboat. It's like a drug to them. They crave it in that utterly desperate way and we all have to suffer as a result. And after they've told everyone they've ever met, some people like to take it one step further and tell, your friend and mine, the media. You might think 27-year-old El Sutcliffe isn't a stereotypical houseboat dweller, but she and others like her are now, I would argue at least, peak boaters. The firefighter and TikTok enthusiast recently spoke about her decision to live along the canals in the West Midlands on a £15,750, 49ft narrowboat. 'It just seemed like a no-brainer and I don't have any regrets, I think the housing market is all a bit mad', she exclaimed, 'I could never afford to live where I do if I didn't live on a boat. 'It had no flooring, it had sunk previously, it was all very questionable – but I thought 'what have I got to lose?' Since buying the boat in May 2024, El says she has spent over £10,000 on renovations. These included essentials like a log burner, a fully-equipped kitchen with fridge, sink, and gas cooker. So over £25,000 in the hole then? But, she has 'zero regrets.' She continued: 'I could have got a one-bed flat in quite a rough part of Birmingham where I would have had to pay ground rent, maintenance fees and things like that. 'I'd always liked the idea of living on the boat but I was running out of time, I needed to figure something out. 'I can't see myself getting rid of it – it would absolutely break my heart because we've built it from the ground up.' She says that once the renovations are complete, she expects to pay between £550 each month on mooring and upkeep costs - which is cheap, so where's the downside? Well, listen El, if it works for you it works for you, but I can still think of a few downsides. A former colleague of mine used to live on a houseboat, having bought it cheap with his girlfriend at the peak of their love. They probably dreamed of all the romantic nights they'd spend on the loch as their late-twenties rolled into their thirties. But time and perhaps the claustrophobic nature of their relationship and squat (*houseboat) did for them. She split up with him and moved up north with her new boyfriend just before Covid. He stayed on the houseboat (which he only owned half off) - working from home during the pandemic with an internet dongle and an electric heater. I left that job over three years ago but can still picture him in the office like it was yesterday. He would sit hunched over his monitor in a dirty wool sweater with a palpable sadness in his eyes. His pink chapped hands clawing at the keyboard and cradling his coffee mug for warmth. He also stank. I hope he is doing OK now. We've started rambling here, but the reason we have is that my editor asked me to interview someone about a houseboat. Naturally, I refused for the reasons outlined above. Eventually, we came to a compromise. So, this is what happened when I spent one night living with the enemy on one of London's trendiest waterways. My home for the night is a charming enough vessel which I found advertised on Airbnb for the reasonable price of £160-a-night. It sleeps four, with two in the double bed at the back of the boat (starboard?), and another two presumably sleeping uncomfortably on the sofa bed which is crammed in by the door and log burner at the front (port?). My host is incredibly proud of it anyway, and in fairness, it is well equipped and he seems amenable, even offering me a quick one-hour tour along the river before the night begins. As you would expect, it is incredibly cramped inside the boat, it essentially being a caravan on water. After arriving, I busied myself making a cup of coffee navigating the lighter hob with aplomb and only momentarily being overwhelmed by the noxious smell of the leaking gas. As I worked I kept smacking my elbows against the shelves and windows of the kitchen area which was naturally irritating. But, if you did actually live here (shudder) I can imagine you would eventually get used to the cramped quarters and adapt your movements. What was more interesting, and perhaps something you'd never really get a hold on, was the fact the boat did rock from side to side as I moved around and it was hit from the side by waves and disturbances in the fetid canal. I take my coffee outside and sit for a while on the small deck area at the front of the boat. I watch the joggers and cyclists go about their business and hear the sounds of birds chirping. Across the canal, trendy diners are eating gourmet Italian in a pop-up cafe. In the distance, I hear the throng of the Westway, that ol' familiar of London's heaving road network, carrying on with its solemn duty by selflessly ferrying commuters home to places like Reading and Slough. I sink back and close my eyes, allowing myself the space and time to relax into my surroundings. I feel peaceful, like I'm perhaps enjoying this after all? I open my eyes again and see a teenager staring listlessly at me on the opposite bank. He's staring at me intently, but it's not boredom or envy I'm reading in his sullen eyes. No, I've seen that look before, in the faces of exasperated bus drivers, in the gaze of triumphant traffic wardens, in my own mirror after a bad weekend. Yes. the look he's giving me is one of pure hatred. He thinks I own a houseboat, and he's giving me that self-same look that screams a familiar mantra. 'Bore off, mate.' I rush back into the boat and slam shut the makeshift doors vowing not to leave it again until darkness offers me the sweet release of personal brand anonymity. After a disappointing meal in one of the aforementioned trendy riverside haunts (no change from £30 for a burger and drink) I am ready for bed. The canal boat is baking when I return having basked in the sun all day. It is interminable but I'm beyond caring. I peel off my drenched clothes and make use of the shower, which has a surprisingly firm water pressure even if it is freezing cold. The cramped apparatus floods the bathroom though so my feet are soggy when I return to my small and hot bed. As the water dries on my unhappy feet, I drift into a restless sleep. At 3am, I awake with a jolt. I can hear something outside in the darkness, a low, groaning sound interspersed with cackling and the clink of bottles. I peak out through the curtains and my worse fears are confirmed. The undesirables are having a substance party underneath the bridge.
Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Peter Doherty: Felt Better Alive review — charming poetry and silliness
Two decades of wild living, often played out for the fascination of the tabloids, have done their work on 46-year-old Pete (now Peter) Doherty. The co-leader of the Libertines, the band that for much of the Noughties found the missing link between the Clash and Chas & Dave, revealed earlier this year that if he doesn't do something about his rich diet, excessive boozing and cigarette habit, his toes will have to be amputated. This horrific scenario comes after Doherty finally managed to quit heroin, leaving behind the carousing of years past with Kate Moss and the like for a quiet life in Normandy with his wife, Katia, and their toddler daughter. Now comes an album that sounds like a visit to the last chance saloon, a final throw of the dice, an attempt to get his life back on track before it is all too late. And it is delivered with the mix of insouciance, resignation, poetry and silliness that has always been at the heart of Doherty's charm. • Peter Doherty interview: 'I can't wear normal shoes at the moment' 'I tiptoed around gravestones digging up old songs, felt better, oh my,' he sings over a haunted fairground rhythm on Felt Better Alive, one of a handful of songs in which Doherty addresses his life's calling as a salvation from himself. With its elegant strings and bright melody, Pot of Gold starts out as a seemingly innocent lullaby to his daughter, before Doherty reveals more venal intentions. 'If that lullaby is a hit, dad can buy you loads of cool shit,' he sings, also suggesting that if his child is silent for a few moments more, he can write 'the kind of thing they pay millions for'. Rarely has such naked intention been laid out so barely in lyrical form. You wouldn't think Doherty, being a beloved indie rock singer of ill repute, should be worrying about money, but it turns out that all those years of addiction, which included three spells in jail, did not lead to the most prudent investment choices. 'I'm in serious financial shtuck,' Doherty told The Times last year, before revealing that he was facing a £200,000 tax bill, a black hole of debt for the Libertines' residential Margate studio the Albion Rooms, and three grand a month in child support for two older children from previous relationships. 'Why do you think I'm doing this tour?' he elaborated. Doherty is equally honest about his motivations on this album, while infusing it with a romantic sensibility that stops things from getting unpleasantly transactional. • Pete Doherty live review — you can't help but be charmed Prêtre de la Mer and Stade Océan, eulogies to Doherty's local priest and Normandy's football stadium respectively, take inspiration from his adopted country and have a rollicking Gallic quality, equal parts maudlin and celebratory. Sometimes Doherty's attempts to write his way out of trouble reek of desperation — Fingee is a bit of nonsense poetry about not much at all — but in the main there is ragged appeal, as Doherty has matured from public enemy No 1 to an ageing roué. It's a role that suits him. (Strap Originals)★★★★☆ Follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
Scotsman
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Album reviews: Peter Doherty Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Peter Doherty: Felt Better Alive (Strap Originals) ★★★ Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke: Tall Tales (Warp) ★★★★ Rebecca Vasmant: Who We Are, Becoming (New Soil) ★★★★ Whether Camden Town or Clerkenwell, Margate Pier or coastal Normandy, Libertines/Babyshambles frontman Peter Doherty hoovers up influences from his 'hood and imports them straight into song in gonzo reportage style. His latest solo album, Felt Better Alive, is awash with songs written but rejected for the most recent Libertines album, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade. He's not bitter - he simply uses them more appropriately under his own name, including The Day The Baron Died, which is essentially All Quiet track Baron's Claw as he hears it. Peter Doherty | Bridie Cummings Home life just across the English channel has inspired a number of tracks. Doherty's location has changed but his eye for the man on the street/country road remains the same on Calvados, a holistic hymn to brandy-making, while he samples the sound of the sea and the voice of his local priest to create end-of-the-Normandy-pier number Prêtre de la Mer. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But the old country makes its presence felt on Ed Belly, a breezy pub rocker which adds a touch of Dixieland jazz, skiffly drums and characterful sax to the mix. There is a spaghetti western saunter to the title track. Even better, irrepressible guest vocalist Lisa O'Neill, a vaudeville singer for our times, conjures dark mischief in London's historic Irish community on Poca Mahoney's. Doherty, of course, is a villain or at least anti-hero in his own romantic story and doesn't even pretend to varnish the truth on Pot of Gold, a candid lullaby for his daughter, which assures her that 'we'll forget about the time when they always tried to run me out of town'. Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard | Pierre Toussaint Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and electronica composer, producer and remixer Mark Pritchard collaborate on a suite of songs inspired by Pritchard's archive of analogue synthesizers. Pritchard has some adjacent form here, scoring a Top Ten hit in the early Nineties (as Shaft) with a rave version of the Roobarb and Custard theme. Tall Tales triggers some nostalgia for kids' TV themes and the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop but it is far from kitsch. A Fake in a Faker's World is closer to the lo-fi soundworld of post-punk synth pop with bonus celestial organ coda. Bugging Out Again is a very Radiohead title for a glacial, almost proggy soundscape with Yorke at his most fragile and desolate. Back in the Game is a flintier proposition with minimalist modulation, while The White Cliffs is a serene yet dark synth odyssey. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In contrast, Gangsters features a cheeky synth riff and Happy Days emasculates the language of financial scams using perky piano and terse drum fills to create a toytown march. Visual artist Jonathan Zawada has made an accompanying feature film to be screened pre-release in cinemas. Rebecca Vasment | @elliekoepke_photography Glasgow jazz maven Rebecca Vasmant is equally adept at creating an immersive soundtrack, though she tends to find her featherlight spiritual jazz style and stick with it across her second home-recorded album Who We Are, Becoming. Home-recorded doesn't mean lo-fi. This is a sumptuous, silky suite with breathy vocal incantations, percussive shimmers and brooding brass from a who's who of the grassroots jazz scene, including singers Emilie Boyd, kitti, Terra Kin, Paix and Gaia Jeannot, drummer Graham Costello, saxophonist Harry Weir and new collaborators including flautist GOkU and harpist Amanda Whiting, all in raptures at this fluttering mood music for a sunny spring day. This time it's extra personal for Vasmant, who adds her own spoken word to Mother Earth and Poem for My Grandparents, both Holocaust survivors who have inspired her own prayer of gratitude and defiance. Vasmant is determined to inspire in turn, deploying joyful piano, iridescent harp and dubby brass to contend that Goodness Does Shine Through. CLASSICAL Viadana: 1612 Italian Vespers (CORO) ★★★★ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In 1612, Venice was rocked by the death of Giovanni Gabrieli, doyen of the city's signature luxuriant polychoral style. In the same year, one Lodovico Grossi da Viadana issued his own collection of music for the evening service of Vespers. These two composers play a central role in I Fagiolini's liturgical re-creation in which, besides Viadana's sequential psalm settings and Gabrieli's centrefold Magnificat, motets by Palestrina, Barbarino and Monteverdi and plainsong Antiphons contextualise the moment in time. Viadana's own music exudes a fascinating individuality, its rich diversity emphasised through director Robert Hollingworth's freely prescriptive use of his choral and instrumental forces. Where mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson offers a sublime solo presence in O dulcissima Maria, fuller voices animate the contrapuntal vocal theatre of Laetatus sum. I Fagiolini's intimate precision is offset by the fullness of Cambridge's De Profundis plainchant choir. Gabrieli's extravagant In ecclesiis provides a thrilling conclusion. Ken Walton JAZZ Jacqui Dankworth: Windmills (Perdido) ★★★★★
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Great Escape Festival: The Libertines' Peter Doherty and 120 New Names Join 2025 Lineup
The Great Escape festival in Brighton, England has announced hundreds of new names for their lineup including The Libertines' Peter Doherty, Jordan Adetunji, Lynks, The K's and more. The festival is also expanding its programme to run for an extra day, and will take place in the city on May 14-17. First held in 2006, the annual gathering showcases emerging talent across the city at a number of independent venues; previous performers at the festival include Charli XCX, Fontaines D.C., Sam Fender, Japanese Breakfast and more. More from Billboard ESNS 2025: Europe's Live Music Industry Unites to Boost Ties, Discover New Talent Ye Boasts That He & Wife Bianca Censori 'Beat' the Grammys With Red-Carpet Stunt Bad Bunny Takes 'El Clúb' to No. 1 on Latin Airplay Chart On May 14, The Libertines' Peter Doherty will perform at a special Spotlight Show curated by his record label, Strap Originals. It will feature acts such as Warmduscher and Trampolene at the Deep End venue on Brighton's beachfront. Tickets for the festival are on sale now. Further additions to the festival's bill include: Armlock Silver, Black Fondu, Bold Love, Donny Benét, Gore, Lemfreck, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, Moonlandingz, Namesbliss, Rabbitfoot, Real Farmer, Shortstraw, Sunday (1994), The Pill, Westside Cowboy and more. The festival has also announced further details about the accompanying conference programme and a raft of speakers and curators for the event. Industry bodies The Council of Music Makers (MMF, MPG, FAC, Ivors Academy and the MU), Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), BBC Introducing LIVE and Youth Music all return as collaborators, alongside The Association of Independent Music (AIM). Themes across the panels will include the role of government policy in creative spaces, community building for artists and labels and more. See the full rundown at the festival's official website. The Great Escape has also shared news that warmup event, The Road To Great Escape, will take place in the preceding week, and returns to key cities Glasgow (May 9-10) and Dublin (May 12-13). The showcases will see a number of acts from the lineup performing live in their home cities before making the trip to England's south coast. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart
