The boys are back in town (not my town)

 Oasis are getting back together. This is bad, bad news. Not for the band, who are millionaires and therefore need more money. This is grim news for middle-aged men. Middle-aged men get a bad press. It's because of all the terrible things we say and do. If a middle-aged man sat alone in an unfurnished, windowless room, on his own, for an hour, he would find a way to be problematic. It's our special genius. We would say or do something guilelessly offensive and then just look around saying "What? What now?"

I'm not letting us off the hook. It's a lack of care, a lack of sensitivity. Even I, me, I don't get it right every time. I know. And we're not talking about me. We're talking about other men. That lot. 

This is bad for a lot of reasons. As I've already discussed, a man sat alone, doing nothing is already low-level wrong. Humming with it. His problematic pheromones singing. We don't need a fucking focus. But Oasis will carry in it's wake full-bodied - increasingly full-bodied - 90's laddism. Kangol hats will appear. Ill advised sunglasses and salt 'n' pepper Clint Boon haircuts will follow. Vintage tees will emerge from mothballs, only to be placed back into mothballs and a brand new XL version ordered from Amazon. Swagger will be attempted. People will, once again, try to remember how to get "mad for it". Does it happen if you put on a Ben Sherman shirt? Or ogle Annalise from Neighbours in a bikini? What about if I neck all 12 of these bottles of Sol? Should I invest in an identity bracelet and espouse centre left views? It's cocaine, isn't it? The only thing that going to melt away the last thirty years, so you can be the ignorant gobshite you were in your twenties, is a shit ton of cocaine. And you don't drink coffee after five thirty these days. 

Half monk, half monkey, all millionaire

There will be shouting. There will be scenes. There will be red-faced men with their arms round each other meaning their tee-shirts ride up exposing a tire of fish-white pot belly. There will be open, lighthearted sexism and homophobia, instead of hidden sexism and homophobia. There will be that sense of belonging and camaraderie, a feeling that you're a part of something bigger than you, a community, I don't understand as I lack the "sports" gene. 

My bad. 

But my bad will get worse, as Oasis' rebirth will bring the misanthropes like me scuttling out of the shadows, like the sniping saddoes we are. I never liked them, we'll carp. "Quoasis" some of the lazier of our number will repeat - yeah, there's nerd factionalism, and I do roll my eyes every time someone parrots "Quoasis" like its a cool putdown and not thirty years old and inaccurate. Oasis sound much more like Slade. Without the finesse. Without Jim Lea's verbal dexterity. 

"Meat and potatoes" "Beatles cover band" "Dad rock" "Bloke rock" "Shitpop" "Piffle"

It's snobbery, on one level. They're LOVED by the British public. That's inescapable. They're what might have happened to The Stone Roses if that band had personalities and hadn't only produced one half decent album in their entire career. They're it. The end of British rock. They're the full stop. Everything that came after Oasis aped Oasis. You get all these brainless twats writing songs about nothing and spitting out gobfuls of weasel words like "passion" and "soul" and about "wanting it", like they were X Factor contestants. Look at the pitiful case of The Verve, formerly Verve. When they first appeared they were mad shoe-gazey psychedelia,, all flutes and feedback, the singer looking like a goat who joined the swim team. They pre-date Oasis. Oasis supported them. Noel wrote a nerdy fanboy song about the singer. Then Oasis happened and suddenly "mad" Richard is playing acoustic guitar in a pair of aviators in someone's loft conversion. Oasis steam-rollered all the kinks out of British indie music. All you needed was a cagoul, a bad haircut, proper instruments and songs without wit, style or a point. And Britpop REALLY delivered. 

I'm going to rise above it. My social media is full of people going on about the Gallaghers and, because they're the sort of people I know, they're largely too cool to like Oasis or, indeed, anything you've ever heard of. Hotel prices have been hiked in Dublin because they're playing Croke Park (of course they're not doing Northern Ireland. No one does Northern Ireland). There's a tired effort in the media to set up some sort of rivalry with Taylor Swift because media remembers the 90's and that sort of thing worked then. It's all a bit embarrassing. I don't much care for Liam, (though I've written a short story about him) and I really don't like Noel (bessie mates: Russell Brand, Johnny Depp, Morrissey) who is more thief than plagiarist, and the greatest exponent of rent-a-quote "common sense" this side of Nigel Farage. 

But fuck it. Dads just want to have fun. They want to punch the air and feel young while looking anything but. They want to bond with other men, emerging from their sheds clutching their credit cards. They're going to live forever. For an evening. I don't want to spoil that. The weather will do that for me.