tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29790040042463127492024-02-20T01:34:17.782+00:00Out in the ShiresEnglishness and authenticity in the heart of England - or making sense of the chaos of modern life...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-65814729224914690442017-02-14T13:28:00.001+00:002017-02-14T13:28:49.151+00:00Decline and RiseEvelyn Waugh did not have an overly happy time when he first went down from university. Funds were not overly available, and there were a succession of half hearted attempts to find a direction in life which culminated with a period as a schoolmaster in Wales which culminated in an attempted suicide.<br />
<br />
His personal life was also far from secure. After Richard Pares had been spirited away by those who saw clearly his academic potential (and the threat posed to his reaching it by the company he kept), Waugh had fallen into company with Alastair Graham. Somewhat indulged by Graham's mother, the friendship/relationship/affair prospered for a while, and included a period where they shared a caravan on the fringe of Otmoor.....<br />
<br />
....which brings us onto the Abingdon Arms, in Beckley. It was in the grounds of this pub, with its commanding views over Otmoor, that the caravan stood. Even after the affair with Graham broke up it continued to be a place that Waugh returned to - he spent the honeymoon of his first marriage to Evelyn Gardner here, and, in much the same way as he would do later in life with Chagford, adopted the pub as a literary retreat. It is believed that he wrote parts of Decline and Fall here, along with elements of other works of the period.<br />
<br />
I've always had a soft spot for the Abingdon Arms - tucked away down a narrow lane it is one of those places where time feels like it has been standing still for a few decades. The food and beer hasn't been bad either. However, it has changed hands with alarming frequency over the years - possibly because being so tucked away means it has struggled for passing trade or impulse visitors. Recently it closed completely, and there were fears that it was going to become just another former pub (Oxford has depressingly many of these), whose attractive building will make a fine house for someone with the requisite amount of money.<br />
<br />
To their credit, the local community organised themselves to fight this possibility and now we read <a href="http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15055065.Historic_pub_now_in_community_ownership_after_successful_buy_out/">in the Oxford Mail</a> that their proposals (and more importantly money) have been accepted. The Abingdon Arms is moving into community ownership, and so this little piece of the literary landscape is saved for another wave of people to draw inspiration from its beautiful surroundings.<br />
<br />
The caravan's long gone though.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-77613262271313712462017-02-12T11:14:00.000+00:002017-02-12T11:14:41.910+00:00The old elemental forces...Sometimes you see a programme on television that ticks so many boxes you can practically see the commissioners delight when they first saw the pitch. It's exactly what the public wants, here's your cheque, go away and make it.<br />
<br />
Sometimes something gets made and you think "ok, well it was a brave risk" when it doesn't quite work.<br />
<br />
Then there's Penda's Fen.<br />
<br />
Looking at it from 40-odd years on, it's difficult to fathom exactly how Pebble Mill got away with making it. David Rudkin's sprawling, soaringly ambitious entry into the Play for Today canon is *so* far beyond the run of the mill that you wonder who was braver - Rudkin for writing it or the BBC for not holding him back.<br />
<br />
As a narrative I've always felt that it shares a kindred spirit with O Lucky Man! It's not a satire, but it is bitingly, howlingly angry. Angry about all sorts of things - conservation, organised religion, sexuality, myth, the government, the establishment, the education system; very little escapes Rudkin's attention.<br />
<br />
The plot is slight - a teenage boy is forced to confront his emerging sexuality in an almost overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere. As the film progresses, his rigid certainties (he's quite an unpleasant chap anyway) are one by one stripped away through a series of occult/mythic encounters - from the ghost of Elgar through angels, demons to the hillside denouement meeting with the spirit of King Penda himself. Penda was the last pagan king of England and stands for all the things that the hero starts out despising - the unruly, untidy, impure and non-conformist.<br />
<br />
Beautifully shot in Worcestershire, Penda's Fen gets under the skin of the English sensibility and questions who the English are. It's quite an intense experience, blending cinematic pastoralism with Hammer horror. The effects are clearly dated, but I think are none the less unsettling with the patina of naivete which the passage of time has given them. Some scenes (one in particular) are so horrific that they remain burned into my mind years after I first saw them.<br />
<br />
Overall it's a difficult, troubling film, that asks difficult troubling questions. Play for Today ranged widely in its styles, and the subjects that it tackled, but with Penda's Fen I think it reached a high water mark for experimental television. There's just no way that it would have been made today - it's difficult enough to believe that they made it then!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-4929802059052372212017-02-07T08:00:00.000+00:002017-02-07T08:03:22.944+00:00Where the Iron Heart of England....Growing up in Birmingham (or at least going to school there) as I did, you quickly got used to the fact that most of the rest of the country tried to act like the city didn't exist.<br />
<br />
Birmingham was perennially the "flyover" city - on the way to everywhere, but a place that people knew nothing about, except New Street Station, Spaghetti Junction, and *that* accent. I say that accent, what most people think is the Birmingham accent is actually that of the Black Country. Birmingham's is a wee bit softer. Paul Anderson, as Arthur Shelby in Peaky Blinders, nails it. <br />
<br />
The problem was always that Birmingham was good at too many things. The workshop of the world, or city of a thousand trades, never had one identity around which its reputation could coalesce. It was never the capital of coal, the city of steel or cottonopolis. That's not to say that it lacked major employers, between them Cadbury, Austin and the BSA employed enough for a small city by themselves. Just that it was always the city of artisans - which it remains today in areas like the Jewellery Quarter.<br />
<br />
And because it was good at too many things, it was a target for the Luftwaffe. Birmingham suffered in the war, and then suffered after the war when the city fathers decided to remake Birmingham in the image of Detroit. Britain's motown. This perhaps reached it's apex in the promotional film Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham. I'm not making this up, look on YouTube. Allegedly Kojak phoned in his performance from a studio, and never visited the city he extolled. Remember that as you hear him wax lyrical about the disco dancing competition in Cannon Hill Park...<br />
<br />
By the 1990s it was rather battered, bloody but unbowed. The outdoor escalators of the Bull Ring were mildewed, the Electric Cinema (Britain's oldest) was reduced to showing the more "interesting" end of the cinemascape, and New Street station was a dark, cavernous hole in the ground. There had been the odd attempt to break out of the grimness, Symphony Hall was a triumph, and a great setting for Simon Rattle's CBSO before he took himself off to Berlin. Then there was the ICC, with it's bridge that wasn't quite wide enough (allegedly), and the turn of the century development of Brindley Place.<br />
<br />
Personally, I think fortunes turned with the publication of Jonathan Coe's hymn to Birmingham, The Rotters Club. I'm not sure why that should be, but I went off to university and devoured Coe's depiction of the 1970s, and a school I knew very well, then came back to discover that the city had finally had the rockets put under it. The new Bullring may be a temple of shopping, but it is a supremely intelligent. light and airy bit of architecture. Selfridges is like something that has landed from another planet. The good thing throughout is that the bombs and the 60s planners made a lot of central Birmingham a blank canvas for architectural experimentation. You don't have to like the new buildings, but these days it's rare that anything worthwhile has been demolished to create the space for them.<br />
<br />
This trend is likely to continue. Railway enthusiasts mourn the loss of the Euston arch, and the other buildings of the great terminus of the London and Birmingham railway. Well HS2, if it ever gets built is going to breathe new life into the terminus at the other end. Curzon Street still stands, isolated in the wasteland of an abandoned marshalling yard. If you go and look round it on the rare open days you find a building comparable to the best Georgian industrial architecture of the nation's dockyards. Stone faced, sweeping stairs, light and airy, Curzon Street is an unlikely and forgotten survivor and it's about time more was made of it.<br />
<br />
Of course, there have been casualties along the way. The 1930s saw the start of the trend of civic vandalism with the destruction of Barry and Pugin's King Edward's School in New Street (although these days, I suppose, King Edward's House which replaced it is worthy of a preservation order itself). It was by the time of demolition utterly unfit as a school building (the school itself relocated very successfully to Edgbaston) but you can't help but feel that they wouldn't demolish it now.<br />
<br />
More recently we've seen the destruction of the Central Library, which wasn't to everyone's taste but stood as an example of the best brutalism you're likely to see. I even supported those who wanted to list it as a warning to the future if it would save the damn thing but it wasn't to be.<br />
<br />
Birmingham now stands on the threshold of a new age. The West Midlands region, with it's own mayor is waiting in the wings, and this should be the opportunity for Brummies to seize back control of their destiny.<br />
<br />
They're a quiet lot, the people of Birmingham, but they know what they're doing. They don't need the glitz and glamour of the brash northern upstarts like Manchester or Leeds to know who they are and where they're going. The Second City is back.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-65830602711646427642017-02-06T14:47:00.000+00:002017-02-06T14:47:24.839+00:00Notes from MoseleyAnd so we roar back into life with a look at rugby union. It seems appropriate to begin with a note on Joost Van Der Westhuizen, who died earlier today aged 45. That's no age at all. I don't suppose anyone who saw it will forget the immense tackle he put in on Jonah Lomu in the 1995 World Cup Final - helping the Springboks on their way to a famous victory.<br />
<br />
At a time when there's more money in the global game than ever before, stories are beginning to break in the press that the fans have known were coming for years. Rugby below the premiership in the UK is suffering. Championship and National One rugby has been an entertaining "product" for years, but it doesn't get the crowds that the spectacle deserves. It's not hard to see why when so much of the money in the sport is kept at the Premiership level. London Welsh tried valiantly to beat the system, winning the principle of fair funding, but much good it did them - their liquidation was announced the other week. Now we read in the press that the great and good are considering introducing a promotion playoff between the team finishing top of National One, and the side that comes bottom of the Championship - and so drawbridges go up, players lose hope, and fans lose interest.<br />
<br />
Of course, the problems started when the game went professional - the RFU lost control very early on, and put the leading clubs in the driving seat. Some prospered, others, like Moseley and Coventry, got themselves into enormous trouble trying to keep up. And so we've ended up in a place where the top clubs have bought their spots around the table, leaving the others doomed to spend eternity hanging round the fringes, grateful for the scraps.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, Moseley vs Rosslyn Park on Saturday afternoon was as entertaining as you'd expect, with a blizzard of tries from Mose's Ed Sheldon, more yellow cards than you can shake a stick at, and enough entertainment to send the crowd home happy. But as you stand in the clubhouse at Billesley Common, it's difficult not to feel that the place is haunted by the ghosts of the past. Names like Teague, Webster, Finlan, Doble, Jeavons, Everest, Warren. Names from a time when the country looked at Mose vs Cov as the England trials game; when sides feared to come to the Reddings.<br />
<br />
Sic transit gloria mundi.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, there are supporters who have kept the faith with Moseley, and that there is rugby to watch at all is little short of astonishing after the lows the club experienced - losing the Reddings, a period on the pitches at Birmingham University, and the early infrastructure-light days on the Common. But to kick on Moseley needs investment. Birmingham needs Moseley. It shouldn't be difficult, but it never seems to happen.<br />
<br />
Us fans just have to keep the faith and hope something will turn up.<br />
<br />
Up the red and blackUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-21038808034811569232014-06-23T14:43:00.002+01:002014-06-23T14:43:57.522+01:00The King's Arms, OxfordVery few people that actually live in Oxford will be unaware of this place - it sorts of squats broodingly on the corner of Holywell Street, with the crowds thronging the pavement benches either side of the main door. When I was a student I spent far too much time in the place (I'm sure between us we must have paid the landlord's wages several times over), but then, after graduation, it rather fell back down the list of priorities.<br />
<br />
Back in the late 2000s, I suppose what it did well was to jam in as many students as possible and fleece them very effectively. It was also the pub most tolerant in the city centre to the blowing of hunting horns, throwing of paper aeroplanes, and the general cavorting of the Oxford student at his most obnoxious. <br />
<br />
The other day I went in there and discovered that it has had something of a refit - the worst of the wall stains have gone, and the mirror over the fireplace in the office has finally been replaced, getting on for 10 years after the Bullingdon managed to break it. But the refurb has been pretty tastefully done (to the usual pub-refit-by-numbers template), all slate coloured wall paint and exposed brickwork behind the bar. I must admit that when I heard the builders were coming in a couple of weeks ago I was most worried about the future of the back bar and office but, apart from the removal of several layers of grime, and the collected tobacco residue of a couple of centuries from the ceiling, it's actually emerged relatively unscathed as a cleaner brighter version of its old self. Worth a look.<br />
<br />
The beer is Young's, so it's about as good as can be expected. Tribute remains on as a permanent guest (which it has been since I started going in there in 2006) which is good as there's only so much Special you would want to drink in your life. The menu is much smaller than it used to be, but seems to be a bit tighter. Although no stranger to the tourist dollar the kitchen seems to have raised its sights a little higher than the bowls of chili which were the staple in former years. I had a pretty decent venison and chestnut suet pudding, which actually appeared to contain some meat and wasn't quite the level of ping food I'd been expecting. <br />
<br />
There's a wave of gentrification sweeping through Oxford's pubs at the moment. The Goose at Gloucester Green, which used to be an utter dive, has been reincarnated as the much more upmarket Red Lion, the Gloucester Arms as the White Rabbit is doing excellent food, and the regenerated St Aldates Tavern is a small-plate revelation. The knock on from this is that some of the more established pubs (whether gastro or drinker) are really having to raise their game, and it looks like Youngs are at long last getting wise to it. <br />
<br />
The KA is what it is, it's just now a much better version of what it is. I don't think I'll leave it another couple of years before I go again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-11875720468594155342013-03-11T08:44:00.000+00:002013-03-11T08:44:09.395+00:00Binsey Treacle WellIn the post on Port Meadow, I mentioned the Binsey Treacle Well. This led to an interesting conversation in the Rusty Bicycle, as to what a treacle well is, and why they haven't heard of it. Turns out everyone knows the story of Rosamund the Fair and Henry II at Godstow Nunnery (I love Oxford), so we'll park that one for a while, and concentrate on the black stuff.<br />
<br />
I remember when I first heard of the well my thoughts immediately turned to visions of The Goodies, in the episode where they open a clotted cream mine in Cornwall. Surely, in Binsey, I was going to be confronted by a gushing torrent of thick gunge, like the outfall from some Asiatic factory with dubious health and safety practices. Sadly, the reality is it's a damp hole in the ground - there isn't even a lion's mouth for the fluid to come out of. However, the background is only slightly less prosaic than my over-active imagination.<br />
<br />
Lewis Carroll of course has a treacle well in Alice in Wonderland, so I'm in good company, but this is "treacle" in its medieval usage of balm, or unguent. Essentially, it's a spring with purported healing powers which miraculously sprang forth in response to the prayers of St Frideswide. Oxford, of course, is a city of odd saints - Ebbe, Frideswide, Aldate, etc. The city patron is the second of these, Frideswide, who was once the subject of one of the finest, shortest sermons I've ever heard.<br />
<br />
Picture the scene; a dessicated church in the centre of Oxford, Mattins drawing to a close on St Frideswide's Day and an equally dessicated vicar mouting the pulpit. The thin, crackly reed of his voice begins:<br />
<br />
"Very little is known of St Frideswide. She lived. And, we may infer from her canonisation, she was good. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen."<br />
<br />
Anyway, I digress. Referring to Westwood and Simpson's <em>Lore of the Land</em>, we discover that Frideswide had established a religious community in Oxford in about 700AD, under the protection of her father, who was the local potentate. On her father's death, a chap called Algar of Leicester decided it would be rather a good scheme to be married to Frideswide, so pitched up and offered to do the decent thing. Upon being rebuffed he decided that kidnap was the next best option, and essentially made a lunge for her, whereupon our city's patron took to her heels Tam Lin style and made a run for it.<br />
<br />
Crashing through the swamps to the west of the city, she ended up on the then island of Beltona (modern Binsey) where she found sanctuary, had a bit of a pray, and brought forth the healing waters. Following Frideswide's death, the well at Binsey became an important site of pilgrimage - at one point there were over 20 hostels at Seacourt (now a glamorous park and ride destination) to cope with the throng. It was all a bit like the ghats in Calcutta (on a smaller and noticeably less Indian scale, obviously), with people coming to avail themselves of the miraculous cure.<br />
<br />
Post reformation, it all went rather quiet, until in 1874 the local vicar decided to do a bit of "restoration." As with most things the Victorians touched, this bears about as much relation to what had been there before as the Olympic Park in London does to the pre-blitz East End. Now, it's slightly off the beaten track, but it's worth a look, if you ever find yourself in The Perch with 20 minutes to kill. You can cheat, and used google to find out what you're supposed to be looking for, but I'm not going to put up a picture, so you can do a bit of proper exploring if you want!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-45795916918412459162013-03-10T09:22:00.000+00:002013-03-10T09:22:33.024+00:00Save Port Meadow Let's get very local for a minute. For those of you unfamiliar with Oxford, Port Meadow is an area of common land to the north west of the city centre, which runs from the village of Wolvercote down the Woodstock road to the suburb of Jericho. Horses and cattle graze on it, the Thames runs through it, and there are a host of small things to go and look at - the Treacle Well at Binsey, for example, or the nunnery at Godstow, from where Rosamund Clifford sallied out to be courted by Henry II.<br />
<br />
It's a green lung for the north of the city. When I lived in Jericho it was basically my back garden - we picnicked on it, swam in the river on hot summer evenings after work, or drifted up to the Trout at Wolvercote or the Perch at Binsey to spend the day with the newspapers.<br />
<br />
But one of the chief attractions has always been the views of Oxford. They're not as spectacular as those from South Park, or Boar's Hill, but there was a panorama of the dreaming spires - the Tower of the Winds, PhilJim, St Barnabas, St Mary the Virgin, the Rad Cam, the Engineering Science Building (the last one may be a joke).<br />
<br />
Jericho, however, is full. What had once been a small densely populated district of workers in the prinitng house of the OUP decayed to the extent that it was nearly demolished in the 1960s. Students brought it back to life, and then refugees from London arrived to raise their children. It's all got a bit glitzy, and pricey. The City Council, wanting to reduce some of the pressure on the housing stock in Oxford, has mandated both Oxford University and Brookes to reduce the numbers of their students living in private rented accommodation in the city.<br />
<br />
Which brings us to Roger Dudman Way. The university has erected a number of accommodation blocks along the railway line and canal from the west end of Walton Well Road. In some ways, this is exactly what is needed - getting large numbers of students out of the private sector and freeing up housing for local people. Unfortunately it's also obliterated the views from Port Meadow, and raidcally changed the character of that end of Oxford. Debate rages in the local press (this is Oxford, city of lost causes and green ink), about how far what has been built reflects accurately what the city council was shown in the drawings, but the fact remains that somewhere along the line someone has got it wrong.<br />
<br />
There's a petition live now to call the whole thing in and get it altered. No one wants the blocks demolished, but the top two stories could, and arguably ought, to be removed.<br />
<br />
you can sign it here:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/850/008/830/port-meadow-oxford-damaged-views/">http://www.thepetitionsite.com/850/008/830/port-meadow-oxford-damaged-views/</a><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-37197993813333065522013-03-08T09:00:00.000+00:002013-03-08T09:15:57.185+00:00Gone to EarthPowell and Pressburger made what to my mind are some of the greatest films of all time - not just greatest British films, but films full stop. In a glorious run from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp through the The Red Shoes they showcased virtuoso direction, cinematography, and a grasp of the importance of place in their filmaking.<br />
<br />
One of the things they did very well was evoking a sense of nature, most notably to the common viewer in I Know Where I'm Going, but it absolutely haunts all their work. If you watch Powell's much earlier solo venture The Edge of World it quickly becomes clear that the island itself is the star, and the people crossing it of no more real importance than the sheep or the eagles. It's about impermanence, more than anything, and the sense that sometimes you just have to give up on what you're doing, even at the expense of your life (whether physically, as you cling to the top of a sheer waterfall hundreds of feet above the rocks below; or more spiritually, turning your back on a way of life that has been core to your community for generations. It must have taken real guts to write the sort of letter to your laird that begged for a steamer to evacuate your village.<br />
<br />
Where the wheels slightly come off the wagon though is with the postwar Gone to Earth. It's beautifully shot up on the Stiperstones, and around Much Wenlock. There are some marvellous trademark Powell and Pressburger set pieces - the full immersion baptism in the river, and the slow procession of the traction engine to the village show are as good as anything you will see in any of their other pictures. They even managed to convincingly portray foxhunting (albeit with what look like beagles). A common complaint of the connoisseur in everything from Brideshead Revisited to Downton Abbey is that the hunting is all wrong. But there's none of that artificial blowing the hounds along to the horn and the start of the whip - these hounds are flying, right out ahead. As an historical record it's marvellous.<br />
<br />
I think the real weakness is the plot. Gone to Earth is an adaptation from Mary Webb's novel, rather than a Pressburger screenplay, and to be quite honest it shows. There's not much to be going on with here, it's basically Catherine Cookson avant la lettre and pretty thin gruel at that (with a slightly dubious rape/sexual assault plot thread). Jennifer Jones is not really leading lady material in this (and her accent is frankly risible - Long Mynd by way of Savannah maybe?), and the two leading men aren't given much to do except snarl (David Farrar) or pretty much stand around and invite people to walk over you (Cyril Cusack). Some of the supporting players are much better - Sybil Thorndike is solid as ever, and there's a great little cameo by the young George Cole.<br />
<br />
It's a wonder there's any film to see at all in some ways. David O Selznick (probably seeing the rushes and thinking "what in God's name have I just financed?") mauled it terribly so that by the time it went on general release in the US there was only something like 20 minutes of the original film left in it. However, it was restored and re-surfaced at some point in the 1980s, permitting critical re-examination. This time around, the overriding opinion was more positive, but it has still sunk below the surface again - I had to buy a South Korean import....<br />
<br />
So, what are we to make of Gone to Earth? Slender plot, variable acting certainly; but the ambition and skill of P&P manages to shine through regardless. It's a love letter to rural England, and Shropshire in particular - and it deserves to be more widely viewed. If I was trying to win new converts to the Powell and Pressburger shrine, there's no way on God's green earth that I would start them off on this film. But, if you can get hold of it, and you've got an hour or two to spare, then do watch it. It wasn't quite the last of England, but it was very nearly the last of Powell and Pressburger.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-9597035863059126792013-03-07T19:40:00.000+00:002013-03-07T19:40:39.993+00:00London Welsh - part 25 point deduction, 5 points suspended and a £15,000 fine. The judgement on the RFU's website makes pretty grim reading.... Inevitably, Welsh are appealing. Watch this space.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-55890583209246622292013-03-07T16:27:00.001+00:002013-03-07T16:27:56.314+00:00London WelshNo, not the rugby club of that name playing in Oxford - although I'm sure I'll write something when the RFU get their act together and publish their findings from the recent disciplinary hearing....<br />
<br />
This morning I had to go up to London for a meeting. Just occasionally, despite my better judgment, it's unavoidable. The train back to Oxford was delayed, and while I was hanging aroungd on the Lawn at Paddington station I was slightly surprised to see the distinctive form of a Festiniog Railway locomotive on platform 9. Princess, identical twin to Prince - Britain's oldest working steam engine in regular traffic - and built at George England's Hatcham Ironworks in 1863. The Festiniog had 5, all to the same basic design:<br />
<br />
Prince and Palmerston are still in service, Little Giant was cut up in the early 20th century, and Welsh Pony used to stand in the middle of a flowerbed in Porthmadog - I fell off it multiple times between the ages of 8 and 13.... I believe Welsh Pony has now been rescued and is being cosmetically restored for a slightly more dignified fate.<br />
<br />
The last time I saw Princess was on display in the Station restaurant in Porthmadog in about 1990 - she's been rescued from there and tarted up a bit for the 150th anniversary of the Festiniog Railway (and her own 150th birthday this year). If you happen to find yourself at a loose end in Paddington, she's there until 6 weeks after St David's Day.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJdYQyerFRocIQLIuilLTxh6o2fV6bysSMND6sOplyi9Cm_lki_URv8AJYZhbmdLDvfkLZljkPkgQc7PFoXIDrdjwbFeKt74iqhtS0EGcxN69LLljTnQDcVTEM0zXGc2usI4desVR6SbIY/s1600/princess.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJdYQyerFRocIQLIuilLTxh6o2fV6bysSMND6sOplyi9Cm_lki_URv8AJYZhbmdLDvfkLZljkPkgQc7PFoXIDrdjwbFeKt74iqhtS0EGcxN69LLljTnQDcVTEM0zXGc2usI4desVR6SbIY/s320/princess.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-21710188805332669862013-03-06T18:48:00.001+00:002013-03-06T18:48:33.525+00:00Behind the silenceNormal service has been slightly knocked sideways by a particularly busy period at work, and it's going to stay busy for a week or so as I pinball around Europe. But there are questions on the horizon which need a bit of investigation; <br />
<br />
What do we think of UKIP, in the light of last week's Eastleigh by-election? <br />
<br />
How, exactly, did Gone to Earth end up the way it did, given its Powell and Pressburger pedigree?<br />
<br />
Army 20:20 - what does it mean for us?<br />
<br />
In part answer of the last, first, the 7th Armoured Brigade is a number - making it an infantry brigade is not the end of the world for heaven's sake!<br />
<br />
Watch this space....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-91181149017189035142013-02-04T19:07:00.001+00:002013-02-04T19:23:42.737+00:00Some thoughts on Richard IIIIf you've read your Shakespeare, Richard III is practically the devil incarnate; in the first Blackadder series, he's a particularly malevolent turn from Peter Cook; for GR Elton he was the last of the monarchs before the "Tudor Revolution in Government" - the bane of an A Level student's life since the 1960s.<br />
<br />
Problem is, of course, that not only do we know little about him, but that what we do know was in large part handed down by Tudor propagandists. If you're Henry VIII, you're a born king, with no need to polish your ancestry up a bit. But if you're before or after him.... Henry VII was a usurper - even if you accept his right to the throne there's no getting away from the fact that he could only achieve it in battle. His overall position was weak, so it's always nice in that position if you've got a friendly chronicler who can boost you a bit by making your predecessor look bad. Similarly, if you're Shakespeare, then you've got the aftermath of Henry VIII uppermost in your mind - succession is everything, whether you're trying to justify the position of Elizabeth I or James I....<br />
<br />
Now, of course, Richard has been found under a car park in Leicester (2,500 yards under if you believe one of the Daily Mail's more glorious recent typos) - if you're a Tudor, that's probably quite fitting, if not actually better than they can ever have planned. But, as we descend into the inevitable parochial arguments about where he should be buried, and by what rite, it's probably as well to try and put him into some kind of context.<br />
<br />
I'm certainly no member of the Richard III society, but I do feel that he needs a bit of a reassessment. The Elton view, that before Henry VII all was darkness, is clearly old hat. It's even possible to rehabilitate certainly the first reign of Henry VI, and Edward IV has always had a good press, but it's possible now to see Richard as a small part of the creation of English bureaucracy, the foundation of what, for want of a better term, was the basis of legal aid, and a swathe of really quite decent legislation in his short years on the throne which really mark him out as pretty much what you want in a late medieval king.<br />
<br />
Of course, the big problem is getting past the poor old princes in the tower. Without going into the Blackadder counterfactual that he was in fact a loving uncle who doted on his nephews, there is scant evidence for what really happened there. I don't want to push this too far, because in historical terms it's the mother of fifteenth century conspiracy theories, but if you want someone with the motive, opportunity and means, look no further than Mr Henry Tudor, of Wales....<br />
<br />
Whatever the truth, it's probable and (just good politics) that his reputation was blackened by his successors to a greater or lesser extent, but now that we have a body it's perhaps time for a sober reassessment of his strengths and weaknesses. He certainly wasn't a saint, but, to adapt Shakespeare's lines for his earlier namesake Richard II,<br />
<br />
"not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm from an anointed king." <br />
<br />
And he was an anointed king - by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and, in his own opinion, by God. I'm not sure we're in a better position to judge.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-12818055128418552102013-02-03T17:56:00.001+00:002013-02-04T19:26:21.596+00:00The politics of railway enthusiasmOver at <a href="http://liberalengland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/guest-post-uncertain-politics-of.html">Liberal England </a>lately there has been an interesting take omn the politics or other wise of railway preservation, by Joseph Boughey. His take on it is certainly interesting, although I can't help feeling that there is a certain element of wish fulfilment about it - particularly in trying to equate the early railway preservation movement to modern green politics. <br />
<br />
What I don't think is up for debate is the "small is beautiful" element of the movement, in as much as the preserved railways are often most successful when they can present as the underdog. An interesting observation of the preserved railway scene is that the more successful a particular railway gets, the more divergence there is between the aims of the company and that of its volunteer workforce. You can see this with the way people leave the premier lines after decades as a volunteer, because it no longer feels like they're all in it together. There's now a "commercial manager" where once there was the vicar's wife, and money is spent on websites and e-commerce, when they spent half of 1984 restoring an Edmondson ticket press....<br />
<br />
In some ways this has been highlighted by the growth in "secondary" preserved lines over the past 2 decades. The success of the original pioneer lines has become so total that they are now operating at the level of doing up lineside houses to show what a railwayman's cottage was like, or building mutimillion pound interpretation centres for visiting schoolchildren. The role of the enthusiastic amateur, who got involved simply because he'd seen the Titfield Thunderbolt and didn't want his local station to close, is less clear here. If we take preserved railways as being about nostalgia, then it should come as little surprise that they contain within them individuals who are nostalgic <em>about</em> the nostalgia, and who believe that their own particular line hasn't been quite the same since it stopped being about an ex-industrial tank engine and a couple of Mark 1 coaches. Such people withdraw their labour and shift their focus 10 miles down the road to another branchline. The problem here. of course, is that these newer lines were often passed over by the original preservationists because they weren't as scenic, or there were problems with the trackbed - essentially, there was a reason why they weren't top of the list for preservation. What you get, then is a glut of lines being preserved for the sake of being preserved, just because the post-Beeching generation are now at a lifestage where they have the time and the money to be able to do it. It is genuinely questionable how many of these smaller lines will still be with us in say 20 years time.<br />
<br />
The Titfield Thunderbolt is in any case an interesting film to mention, because whilst viewed now it is a bit of a curio, in context it's actually deeply subversive. What we're being asked to buy into is the idea of the local village buying its railway and running it itself when British Railways withdraw their support. In the 21st century this is a distinctly period piece, but what people tend to miss is that the villagers are not running it as a tourist attraction - their whole plan is to continue providing a service. This isn't about nostalgia so much as the much derided big society. Of course it helps that the vicar is a steam engine nut, but the whole point is that they are using steam traction because that's what everyone else is using. The 14xx tank they have might look antiquated, but it's actually all of about 20 years old at the time of the film - indeed, the opening scene shows the Titfield-Mallingford service crossing over a passing express, itself hauled by a steam locomotive. The film has been adopted by the preservation movement as a totem of the need to keep hold of the past, whereas seen in context it's actually the equivalent of someone saving their local line today and buying a Class 150 Sprinter to run it -for the Titfield Thunderbolt, steam is incidental, it's the service that they're trying to support. Quite apart from anything else, the buy-in from the local squire, vicar, and millionaire rather gives the lie to this being anything to do with "green politics" - this is near luddite preservation of the old way of doing things, by the pillars of society. That particular strain of railway preservation is actually One Nation Conservatism if it's anything.<br />
<br />
I mention the Titfield Thunderbolt because it's based on the experiences of Tom Rolt and the other pioneers who rescued the Talyllyn Railway at the beginning of the 1950s (indeed, their initial hope was that the film could have been made on their line). Rolt is an interesting character, not least because he so quickly took charge - but that level of autocracy is common in the preservation movement, simply beacause high calibre people are spread so thinly. I don't mean that to be a pejorative judgment necessarily, it's just that when it comes down to it even the most voluntary of the preservation schemes are businesses, and they need business brains to keep them afloat - even if it's just to keep the line there for the the enthusiasts to give up their time to. Given that people who focus on commercial success have a tendency to be doing so in slightly more lucrative fields, there is consequently a need for the preserved lines to have to take what they can get. You could say the same about a local zoo, or a League 2 football club, but it remains the case that the movement provides a stage for the wannabe demagogue to strut upon. <br />
<br />
I think ultimately the truth is that the politics of the railway preservation movement is as varied as the people involved in it. You'd struggle to get away from the nostalgia angle of course, but there is a definite appeal to the sort of person from any walk of life who wants to try and hold back the tide, or maintain a bit of the old way, just for the sake of doing it. Mr Culpepper in "A Canterbury Tale" would doubtless be campaigning for the preservation of the line from Chillingbourne to Canterbury in the post war years, just as assiduously as he worked to preserve the pilgrims' bend above his village in pre-war England. It can be claimed for the supporters of any political movement or none, but it does seem to be much more prevalent in Britain than anywhere else - possibly because we have the luxury of worrying about things we really don't need to worry about in the great scheme of things - but then that's another angle entirely....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-8962062576512921572013-02-02T11:47:00.000+00:002013-02-02T11:47:01.156+00:00Pause for rugby predictions....Once upon a time, Grandstand would have been starting about now, but in its absence, let me just predict this year's 6 Nations:<br />
<br />
1 England<br />
2 France<br />
3 Ireland<br />
4 Wales<br />
5 Scotlamd<br />
6 Italy<br />
<br />
Having said that, I reckon it breaks down rather neatly <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);">into three pairs, the order within each is interchangeable - we shall see.</span><br />
<br />
Meanwhile, tomorrow, London Welsh play Newport Gwent Dragons at the Kassam.....<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-27294898589902184212013-01-27T13:35:00.000+00:002013-01-27T13:35:56.393+00:00Sunday Matinee: The Way to the Stars Powell and Pressburger had several films which dealt obliquely with the relationship between the British and the Americans in wartime - A Matter of Life and Death and A Canterbury Tale for starters - but the one that I think really nailed it came from a different stable; Anthony Asquith's 1945 picture The Way to the Stars.<br />
<br />
From a purely British war film point of view it had everything that made the genre a success, John Mills, Michael Redgrave and Stanley Holloway heading the British contingent, Douglass Montgomery and Bonar Colleano for the US (there's probably a post to written in the future just on Colleano - he's largely forgotten now, but I promise you you'd recognise him if you saw him).<br />
<br />
But it had a little bit more than that - something which elevates it above, say, Reach for the Sky, or even Angels One Five. The Way to the Stars has soul. In part, that's probably down to the Terence Rattigan screenplay, which is spare and econonomical, but at the same time hugely affecting.<br />
<br />
Charting the evolution of a single air base in eastern England, from use by the RAF through to takeover by the USAAF, it is a powerful study of character - from the initial gung-ho unwillingness of the Americans to listen to hard won advice from the RAF liaison officer (Mills), through to the developing relationships with the women of the village, this film is as affecting a piece of cinema as you'll see. I'm really not trying to traduce Montgomery when I describe him as a poor man's Jimmy Stewart, but that's the sort of bracket he's operating in, and he's really the star of the film - his developing relationship with Rosamund John's war-widowed landlady is particularly senstively handled, and there is some very affecting use of children's parties to highlight growing and deepening bonds. Indeed, I defy you to hold back the pricking at your eyes at the end where Colleano has to step in as entertainer when Johnny (Montgomery) has had to "go away." Its all so beautifully done. And, through it all, like a metronome, is the steady presence of John Pudney's immortal poem "For Johnny."<br />
<br />
It's Sunday afternoon, the Rusty Bicycle and Oxfork are full - you won't get a table if you're not already there. Just sit inside and watch this - it's a little masterpiece.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-84543807775091828982013-01-25T18:46:00.001+00:002013-01-25T18:46:28.778+00:00A few thoughts for Burns nightThe other day, I was watching Michael Powell's early masterpiece "The Edge of the World." Inspired by the evacuation of St Kilda, it tells the story of a community torn over the way forward - do they stay and make the best of the only life any of them have ever known, or do they cut their losses and leave?<br />
<br />
Of course, Scotland has been gearing up to ask, and answer, a similar question for some time now, with a final agreement reached last year on a referendum for 2014 on whether it should remain part of the United Kingdom. As in Powell's film, there are voices on both sides of the argument, but it is a fairly fundamental question that faces the Scots - stick with the UK, or go it alone; reset the clocks to pre 1707 and forge a new path.<br />
<br />
I've always been fairly persuaded that the SNP would lose that vote. But now we have to factor in something else. Europe.<br />
<br />
The prospect on a referendum on the UK's future in the EU is a potential disruptor for the unionist cause. If the majority of the UK votes to leave the EU, but there isn't a majority in Scotland, then Scotland would presumably be taken out of the EU along with everyone else, but against the wishes of its population. Scots might presumably look over the border between now and 2014 and wonder what the English are thinking. The unionists have been saying that a vote for independence would be to introduce uncertainty over Scotland's future, particularly with regard to automatic continued membership of the EU. This is a fairly convincing argument. However, if we're now saying that the only way to guarantee continued Scottish presence within the EU (even if there has to be a hiatus while they apply for membership) is a vote FOR independence then the rules of the game have changed slightly. All of this presupposing of course that the Scots are more pro-EU in the first place.<br />
<br />
Since devolution a lot of genies have escaped from a lot of bottles, and now that's happening on both sides of the border-that-currently-isn't-a-border. Mr Cameron could be shaping up as the Prime Minister who took Britain out of Europe and presided over the break-up of the UK. Well, it's certainly a legacy.....<br />
<br />
Interesting times.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-82308968985508085232013-01-22T18:51:00.000+00:002013-01-22T18:51:28.207+00:00The electric heart of EnglandLast weekend's castaway on Desert Island Discs was Martin Carthy. Although he's rightly a folk legend, one of his throwaway lines in particular resonated with me - that the average man in the street would be "blown away" if a decent morris dancer danced in front of them.<br />
<br />
I have to admit to being ambivalent about the morris - there is a certain element of leather elbow patched, Cortina driving geography teacher about its image, but it really doesn't do to be snobby about these things. Having said that, I still think anyone using the words "methinks," "mine host," or "quaffed" probably needs to be rapidly censured. I've come to be more appreciative of the genre and its place in our folklore since being in Oxfordshire (it's difficult to ignore on the streets of Oxford around May day), and done well it can be very good indeed.<br />
<br />
But at the tail end of the 60s morris was moribund. After having been revived much earlier in the 20th century in Thaxted it had once again fallen by the wayside, with the early 1960s folk resurgence focusing much more tightly on Britain's musical heritage. So it must have seemed to many that the form was about to be lost.<br />
<br />
If, then, you're Ashley Hutchings, riding high on the success of the early Fairport albums, you decide to do something about it. But what a something. It's genuinely difficult to pitch this to an impartial audience so if you've wandered here by accident you'll have to take my word for it; he made a folk-rock electric morris album.<br />
<br />
Uniting morris' John Kirkpatrick with fiddler Barry Dransfield and Fairport's Dave Mattacks and Richard Thompson, they set about a deliberately uncurated album of morris tunes, with the idea not so much being to preserve the genre in aspic, as take it on through both traditional and modern instruments - morris as a living form even as it must have appeared in its death throes. Add in contributions from the ethereal Shirley Collins, and the Chingford Morris Men (God knows how they got them all in the studio), and they created something very special - vibrant, alive, shorn of cliche, and giving dignity to a very English folk form.<br />
<br />
Particular highlights on the album range from the moment in Morris Call where a very tentative fiddle is utterly swamped by the joyous arrival of accordion, bass guitar and drums, right through to a barely controlled version of the Cuckoo's Nest (possibly the filthiest song in a genre not exactly known for holding back - it's right up there with say The Bonny Black Hare). Everything about Morris On screams England and Englishness - you've got ploughboys, drinking, sailors, tailors, and a bunch of raucous tunes any one of which, as Ashley Hutchings once remarked, would do as our national anthem (although, as suggested, some of the lyrics might be slightly problematic....).<br />
<br />
The album is a folk rock essential, even for those who think they hate the morris - it brought morris to a new generation and was instrumental in kickstarting the resurgance of the art in the early 1970s. I've still got no wish to get involved in the dancing side of things, but it's great that other people want to do it, and Morris On holds a worthy, if ever so slightly bizarre, place in my affections.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-79818276435665920962013-01-20T17:32:00.000+00:002013-01-20T17:32:02.554+00:00Hartlepool as musePG Wodehouse memorably reviewed the first Flashman novel in terms of privileged "watcher of the skies" observers being present at the birth of something special. I suppose, to extend a battered metaphor, that's how I felt at the Whitby Folk Festival in 2011.<br />
<br />
A capella folk is not the most obvious genre for young musicians to start out in - risking credibility immediately by coming out somewhere on the spectrum between The Flying Pickets and a poor man's Ladysmith Black Mambazo. However, that night, high on the headland overlooking the harbour, we made the acquaintance of The Young 'Uns. Over a 45 minute set they showcased a seemingly effortless ability to marry three part harmony with North Eastern folk. Obviously, with a new band it's easiest to measure them by their interpretations of standards, and their rendition of John Ball certainly seemed competent enough. But what really made the difference was the strength of their own material. It just didn't seem like there was going to be a gap in the market any time soon for 3 twentysomethings and an accordion.<br />
<br />
How wrong can you be? The Young 'Uns have a sound quite unlike anyone else out there currently. Seth Lakeman's a great fiddle player, but his material can seem a bit one note - if he had the courage to slow things down a bit and get rid of the softer folk rock elements he'd be roughly in the same ballpark. Similarly, if the Unthanks were just a bit more cheerful.....<br />
<br />
The Young 'Uns first album, "When Our Grandfathers Said No," hit the streets at the back end of last year, and is about as far away from the North London "I can't get over Laura Marling" banjo feyness of your Mumfords as you can get (and a prudent man would like to go much further). What you've got here, is love, loss, heavy industry, beautiful harmonies, and the glamourisation of Hartlepool that that town has long unaccountably lacked.<br />
<br />
I like Hartlepool personally; it has a certain honesty and stark beauty - especially to the north, where it shades round to Easington and Seaham Harbour. However, I'd be lying if I said I'd ever seen it as romantic - I once stood above the town and took in the panorama, from the steelworks via Cameron's Brewery to the nuclear power station, and wondered who the town fathers had upset.... The closing track on the album, Jenny Waits for Me, which they performed in Whitby 2 years ago, makes it all much clearer. This is real folk, it's also real life - from the depressing drudgery of "The Chemical Worker's Song," to the gruff honesty of "Love in a Northern Town," the Young 'Uns take you further into Britain's folk scene than many will be comfortable with, but God they can sing.<br />
<br />
Disappointingly, they won't be at Cropredy this year (my one man lobbying mission obviously needs to step up a gear), but they are on the Whitby bill again - go and see them, and, if you can't, buy their album.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-88028395014045084202012-08-19T18:25:00.000+01:002012-08-19T18:43:25.763+01:00No More ParadesAs the summer goes into overdrive just as peoples' thoughts start to turn to going back to work, and the Olympics retreat into what already feels like distant memory, so the TV channels unveil their autumn line-ups.<br />
<br />
The most eye-catching of what has been announced so far is undoubtedly the BBC's adaptation of the Parade's End tetralogy, which starts on BBC 2 on Friday. The Sunday papers have pushed this heaily today, as the BBC's answer to the Downton Abbey behemoth, but I do hope that people aren't going to get too excited, as, unless Tom Stoppard has ripped tha heart out of it, Parade's End is a much more difficult and involving proposition than its ITV rival. You can almost feel the slight anxiety that this adaptation has caused amongst the litterati in their pre-screening articles. "Waugh we're ok with, we know where we are with Waugh - 500 words by tomorrow morning?" "Ah yes, Greene again - Catholicism, tortured soul, affairs" "Ford Madox Ford- ???"<br />
<br />
Poor old Ford Madox Ford is little read these days, although he really deserves to be more mainstream. In part, I think it's a question of style. I've never really gone overboard on modernist writing, but his prose has a far greater clarity than Virginia Woolf, say, and his dialogue is better than Henry Green's (whom I think he probably most resembles). Persevere with the first 50 or so of the well over 800 pages of Parade's End, and once you "get" the narrative voice it's really absorbing stuff.<br />
<br />
It would be unfair of me to blow the lid on the plot so I'll restrain myself, but I hope the cast are up to their roles. Benedict Cumberbatch has a tricky job to pull of as the lead, Tietjens is quite a difficult hero for the early 21st century. Even in the social milieu of pre Great War England his 18th century Tory attitudes mark him out from the crowd, and there are several occasions when you want to do nothing so much as give him a damn good shake. The problem of course is that he tends to just roll with whatever punches life throws at him; which, given the scheming of his ludicrous wife, and his (chaste) love for the young suffragette Valentine Wannop, are legion.<br />
<br />
Where Ford succeeds is in exposing the destructive effects of the war on the class system and the rigid certainties of the Edwardian age. By offering Christopher Tietjens up as a saintly every man, we can observe the conflict as it deconstructs his personality and very sense of self, before rebuilding him anew.<br />
<br />
I'll withold judgment for now (and the previews of the adaptation have been uniformly positive), but if they get Parade's End right, we could be looking at landmark television that can stand alongside Brideshead Revisited or The Jewel in the Crown. If they miss the mark, then perhaps the book is truly, as I suspect it might be, unfilmable.<br />
<br />
Watch this space.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-59777566036905134792012-08-16T15:35:00.000+01:002012-08-20T21:41:04.986+01:00Fun in the Sun - Or Cropredy for those who couldn't quite make it this yearBeing the fine upstanding folk rock obsessive that I am, I thought I'd take myself off to the Cropredy Festival so that none of you had to go...<br />
<br />
Blessed with astonishingly good weather this year, the scene was set for what I hoped was going to be 3 days of top quality folk. Was it? We'll come to Fairport in a bit. Read on....<br />
<br />
<strong>The Highs:</strong><br />
<br />
Bellowhead - I've always been a bit ambivalent about them, but this was the weekend where I finally got the point. An absolutely storming set, and looked like they were enjoying themselves more than anyone else on the bill. Several albums purchased.<br />
<br />
Calan - really good Welsh folk; sort of sound like 9/Jewel era Fairport (unsurprising maybe given the involvement of Maart), they even managed to work in a bit of clog dancing. Would have purchased the album, but it had sold out by the time I got to the tent.<br />
<br />
Tarras - nice to see them back, after so nearly making it big round the turn of the last decade. Line-up's a bit different, but they make a good big sound!<br />
<br />
Richard Thompson - he was a bit naughty really. It was billed as a solo set, second headlining on Friday, but then he brought on Mattacks, Pegg, Nicol, and blew the site away. We had some Bright Lights, a bit of Sandy, and the whole thing was a bit emotional.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Middling:</strong><br />
<br />
Larkin Poe - just about got what they did, but they were probably a bit too "mainstream" for Cropredy.<br />
<br />
Ellen and the Escapades - bland, inoffensive, nothing further to say...<br />
<br />
Dead Flamingoes - I really wanted to like them, what with Kami Thompson being the singer (and sounding an awful lot like her mother), but even by the standards of folk the lyrics were bleak. If they cheer up a bit, they might be rather wonderful, but they're not there yet.<br />
<br />
Big Country - sort of got it, but not my scene, and the new vocalist is a bit too different.<br />
<br />
Legend - fun reggae covers band with some impressive session pedigree.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Lows:</strong><br />
<br />
Joan Armatrading - I like her, I really do, but I'm not sure what she was doing at Cropredy. There was a hard core in front of the stage who were obviously enjoying themselves, but also a steady stream for the exits (she was the Friday headline), and lost me after about 20 minutes. In some ways I think it was through poor choice of material, but admittedly she wasn't helped by having to follow Richard Thompson.<br />
<br />
Squeeze - why? Just why?<br />
<br />
And so to Fairport, who came on at 2030 on Saturday night and played until midnight. Before we go any further, let me just list the personnel involved over the 3.5 hours so you get some idea of why this was one of the strongest Cropredy sets for a while:<br />
<br />
Ashley Hutchings, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Mattacks, Dave Pegg, Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, Judy Dyble, Maartin Allcock, Gerry Conway, Jerry Donahue, Chris Leslie, Ric Sanders, Blair Dunlop, Kami Thompson, the excellent Kristina Donahue, and the two singers from Larkin Poe.<br />
<br />
Given the above wouldn't it have been nice if they'd cobbled together the "Full House" era lineup and gone heavy on that? It would? Lucky they did then.<br />
<br />
Set list (copied from Andy at talkawhile's post with due attribution as my own notes were illegible thanks to a combination of darkness, alcohol and emotion):<br />
<br />
1. Mercy Bay 2. Albert & Ted 3. Fotheringay 4. I'll Keep It With Mine 5. Percy's Song 6. Lark In The Morning 7. Come All Ye 8. The Deserter 9. Walk Awhile 10. Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman 11. Sloth 12. Bring 'Em Down 13. White Dress 14. Night Time Girl 15. One More Chance 16. The Gas Almost Works, Cat On The Mixer, Three Left Feet (instr.) 17. Red Tide (by Rob Beattie) 18. Jewel In The Crown 19. Honor And Praise 20. Dangerous 21. Portmeirion 22. The Hiring Fair 23. The Brilliancy Method & The Cherokee Shuffle (instrumental) 24. The Hexamshire Lass 25. My Love Is In America 26. John Gaudie 27. Danny Jack's Reward 28. Farewell, Farewell 29. Matty Groves<br />
<br />
Encore:<br />
30. Meet On The Ledge<br />
<br />
Well, where do you start? Swarb was excellent, stood up for most of it, and looked a lot better than he had at the Barbican during the Sandy tour earlier this year. Jerry D has always been one of my favourite guitarists and did little to disappoint here. Kami Thompson did a bit of a Sandy impression, Richard Thompson picked up where he'd left off the night before, and the whole field was singing bethankit (to horribly mangle PG Wodehouse).<br />
<br />
Interesting use of the younger generation, which might point the future direction for the Fairport slot (at this rate, they'll have perfected the creation of a perpetual band!) Must stop rambling now, but Fairport alone made the festival one not to have missed - certainly the best set they've done for a decade I'd have said.<br />
<br />
Oh, also enjoyed (and bought) the excellent 45th anniversary t-shirt they've produced which helpfully shows a lego character of each of the 25 people who have so far been member of the band!<br />
<br />
Hopefully, if I can link the two for a moment, it's the start of an upswing for both Fairport and this blog.....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-17167138141358472972012-05-24T19:27:00.001+01:002012-05-24T19:27:39.571+01:00Like An Old Fashioned Waltzer<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other day the estimable Jonathan Calder over at <a href="http://liberalengland.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sandy-denny-fotheringay.html">Liberal England</a> drew attention to the Homage to Sandy Denny that’s currently touring
the UK, and posed the question as to whether she really was Britain’s greatest
singer songwriter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last night, I took
myself off to the Barbican to find out…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sandy has certainly always been difficult to pigeonhole, not
that that has ever stopped people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
early work with Strawbs and Fairport put her quite neatly into the folk
category, but I think that to see her as a purveyor of folk whimsy would be to
do her a great disservice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nowadays, she
is frighteningly forgotten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t mean
by the trad folk denizens of the Whitby or Sidmouth folk festivals, who still
recognise her even though she had arguably outgrown them even before she joined
Fairport Convention, or even by the attendees of the latter’s annual Cropredy
Festival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr Calder is absolutely right
when he contrasts Sandy with Nick Drake – once united in their relative
obscurity and unacknowledged genius, he has gone on to TV background music
ubiquity, while poor old Sandy, outside the cognoscenti, continues to languish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The current tour is a restaging of a one-off show put
together for the 30<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> anniversary of her death in 2008, and features
a host of Sandy’s contemporaries, along with the best of a new generation of
folkies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I say folkies, but it is
still as you would expect drawn largely from the compromised electro-folk end
of the scale, rather than the new-trad exponents like say the Young ‘Uns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A quite extraordinary line-up has been
assembled including Joan Wasser (Joan As Policewoman), Lavinia Blackwall from
Trembling Bells, Thea Gilmore, and Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside, coupled to
PP Arnold, most of Bellowhead and three people who actually knew Sandy well –
Maddy Prior, Jerry Donahue and the legend that is Dave Swarbrick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before we get on to the meat of the show, a quick word about
Swarb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s announced his retirement in
the near future, and to see him now is rather akin to seeing say Barry Cryer
performing with I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue – worth going a very great distance
to be in on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The material spans the whole of Sandy’s career from the
earliest days, through Fairport to the tragically short-lived Fotheringay, out
the other side with the North Star Grassman and the Ravens album which was
salvaged from the ruins of that band’s projected second album, and then onto
the solo work which saw her increasingly spread her wings and move beyond folk
through the course of the seventies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Inevitably, some of the performances were stronger than
others – Lavinia Blackwall stands out as perhaps the most Sandy-like of the
cast, and her interpretation of A Sailor’s Life (accompanied by Swarb) was a
great intro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She then moved on to a
perfect rendition of the eerily bleak Late November, a song whose lyrics sound
traumatic enough before you know what the subject being obliquely treated is….<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did feel though that the evening was
weirdly stop-start, and a lot of the enjoyment depended on sympathy or
otherwise with the person who happened to be singing at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought Green Gartside’s highly distinctive
voice just about got through The North Star Grassman and the Ravens, but he
murdered Nothing More.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think
there’s anything he could have done differently, and it’s a shame because
between songs he came across as possibly the most genuine fan, but it just wasn’t
for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thea Gilmore ran through a few numbers from last year’s Don’t
Stop Singing, which confirmed Sandy’s status as a lyricist of the first rank I
think, but the night seemed on surer ground when it was going through the back
issues of the sandy songbook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maddy
Prior got going with a slightly halting version of Fotheringay which had me
fearing she had some sort of throat infection, but as her vocal chords warmed
up over the evening she was on her usual transcendent form with a storming
rendition of John the Gun – a track crying out for its own horror film.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My personal highlight of the evening was when Maddy, Thea
and Lavinia combined with Swarb for a rendition of The Quiet Joys of
Brotherhood so perfect that any record label with half a brain will get it
released sooner rather than later – it really was joyous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The male side of things was less satisfactory, I think
because you just don’t associate Sandy’s songs with anything much below an
alto.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having said that, the Dennis
Hopper Choppers’Ben Nicholls<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pulled off
a wonderful interpretation of Matty Groves (although I suppose, strictly
speaking, that’s “trad. Arr.” In any case).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Blair Dunlop got through a competent take on It’ll Be A Long Time, but
other than that, nothing else really stuck in my mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Joan Wasser, on the other hand, was a revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She;s another one that really ought to get
something from the night released because that woman was born to sing The
Lady.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>PP Arnold was extremely nervous,
and had to start I’m A Dreamer three times before getting beyond the first
verse, once she’d got over the hump though she was as good as you would
expect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incidentally, for all Arnold’s
fans namecheck her work with Nick Drake, Roger Waters and Ike and Tina Turner,
I bet I was the only one there last night who first saw her onstage with Ocean
Colour Scene at the NEC in 1998….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last night in many ways was an opportunity to sit down and
really put Sandy in context across the output of her career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, it was possible to see how much
she progressed as a writer, and experimented with different genres, whilst all
the time managing to pull off the difficult trick of being life affirming
whilst being very red wine at three am ( at trait she shares with early Barclay
James Harvest in that respect). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I suspect globe spanning fame will continue to elude her for
a while yet, although if enough of us keep the flame it can only be a matter of
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally I think it went a long
way towards answering the question posed on Liberal England at the beginning of
the week:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Up to a point, Lord Bonkers”<o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-28656701177669753452012-05-09T21:30:00.000+01:002012-05-09T21:30:23.231+01:00the head pokes up above the parapetBlogging has somehow slipped back into hiatus - one thing after another seems to be conspiring to keep me away from the keyboard. Actually, it keeps me at the keyboard, but on the revenue earning stuff rather than the pleasure writing. Even the short stories have taken a bit of a back seat recently.<br />
<br />
However, there is starting to be a light at the end of the tunnel again, and there's quite a bit to get through, so hopefully soon you'll be treated to my views on Sandy Denny, 10k road races, Loch Ness, and, if you believe the MOD rumour mill, catastrophic procurement U-turns that will render our new carriers what could euphemistically be termed "interesting"....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-59761909842340589412012-03-26T17:26:00.000+01:002012-03-26T17:26:32.487+01:00Who's escorting the escorts?One of the knock ons of the great aircraft carrier saga, has been the decimation of the RN's surface fleet to pay for them. A succession of First Sea Lords have been forced down the gruel today for jam tomorrow route, justifying ever greater cuts to capability on the basis that it will free up the funds to ensure that in the future we will have enormous great toys with nice planes to fly from them.<br />
<br />
In the words of Blackadder, there was one small flaw with this plan.....<br />
<br />
Let's consider the fleet as it was when I joined a decade ago:<br />
<br />
3 x Invincible Class CVS<br />
<br />
9 x T42 destroyers<br />
<br />
4 x T22 frigates<br />
<br />
and the finishing touches being put to 16 T23 frigates. I'm pretty sure that there were actually a couple more T22s knocking around, although of the earlier Batch 2 so gunless (my guess would be SHEFFIELD and COVENTRY). Regardless, this in itself was a massive drawdown from the fleet of 1992, and even more so from that of 1982 - and we should all be aware of what happened in 1982....<br />
<br />
Now, it's more like:<br />
<br />
1 x Invincible CVS in an LPH role<br />
<br />
2 (as of Yesterday with the paying off of LIVERPOOL) Type 42 destroyers<br />
<br />
2 (ish) Type 45 destroyers, with another 4 in various stages of completion<br />
<br />
13 Type 23 frigates<br />
<br />
The surface fleet has been pared to the bone. Of course, there are bright spots amidst the gloom - for example, the arrival of Type 45. However, even here, what was supposed to be an order for 12 ships has been reduced to 6. The staff argument is of course that these new ships are so much more "capable" thn their predecessors that you don't need so many of them. This is fine (and true, up to a point), but doesn't do much to challenge the fact that, unless DE&S has got some sort of multi-dimensional transporter in development, each one can only be in one place at a time....<br />
<br />
However, whatever the shortcomings in terms of hull numbers, and weaponry (the hydra of fitted-for-but-not-with raises one of its many heads again - or rather it doesn't), the Type 45 does represent a quantum leap forward over the kit it replaces.<br />
<br />
A certain hard core within the fleet will tell you that there is nothing to beat a batch 1 Type 42 to serve in, and in many ways I'd be minded to go along with that. My first ship out of Dartmouth was a "stumpy," and frankly we had a whale of a time. I'd happily go back tomorrow. The advantage of the Type 42s were that they were pretty "agricultural," in that you could see a lot of what made them tick, and a lot of essential equipment could be maintained with the judicious application of a spanner. However, there was no denying that by the first half of the last decade they were well and truly obsolescent. It was just that they were forced to soldier on because MOD procurement was making its usual ham fisted job of getting their successor into service - notice a theme developing here?<br />
<br />
Lewis Page would have us believe that there is no rationale for the RN's escorts. They are expensive ways of showing the flag, and giving aspirant admirals nice shiny toys to play with. In as much as fast attack craft seem to work well for the Germans and Swedes, I'd go along with us buying some; and there's something to be said for the sort of cheap and cheerful corvettes the French have forward based to protect their overseas territories; but the fact remains that places like the Falklands are a long way away from the home base. I know the defensive posture down there is based on preventing an attack in the first place, rather than trying to retake them once an invasion has occured, but to properly defend them we do need organic air cover, so we need aircraft carriers. If we're going to have carriers then they need to be escorted, so we need a good balanced force of frigates and destroyers that will allow us to do that while also maintaining our responsibilities elsewhere in the globe.<br />
<br />
What we don't need, but what we could well be about to get, is the world's largest and most expensive LPH (QE), accompanied by a botched CVF (POW) with an airgroup of about 12, and enough escorts to be sure of nothing nasty happening to them while they're all in the Solent. Which is certainly an interesting definition of "balanced and capable."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-76387794464375429102012-03-25T18:31:00.000+01:002012-03-25T18:31:28.843+01:00Back to the subject of spatial strategy (do try and stay awake...), or the coming sacrifice of Meriden on the altar of new city buildingInteresting article in the MoS today (which must nearly be an oxymoron) about government plans to put 100,000 houses in the increasingly narrow gap between Birmingham and Coventry. Is there any common sense left in the world. The same article, in what we must hope is just typical Mail outrage/spin, suggests the rebranding of Birmingham International Airport to, wait for it, Birmingham London Airport.... You know those occasions when you truly think you are living in the end of days?<br />
<br />
Actually there is some method in the airport madness, in as much as assuming HS2 gets built then it will be quicker to get into London from Birmingham airport than it is from Stanstead. That having been said, it doesn't do much for the sense of Birmingham as a city in its own right, rather than some form of extremely northern dormitory suburb of the great metropolis - rather like a super-sized version of Acton...<br />
<br />
The problem is that this answers part of the demand for expansion of the national housing stock, without really addressing what it is that all these new Brummies are going to do when they get there (other than commute to London). The idea of a forty mile continuous urban sprawl from the rust belt of the Black Country through to Coventry is something that really ought to make people stop and think about what it is that they want from where they live. I know the relaxation of the planning laws is going to create a presumption in favour of new development, but at what cost to the domestic environment, and the sanity of the inhabitants?<br />
<br />
I'm going to write something in the next couple of days about the coming referendum on whether Birmingham should have an elected mayor, but it would be interesting to see where the putative contenders stand on the idea of annexing Coventry as a flagship policy.... Not quite local democracy all this, is it?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979004004246312749.post-67717134546311999272012-03-25T16:58:00.000+01:002012-03-25T16:58:18.935+01:00Aircraft Carriers - The Madness ContinuesA month or two ago, I suggested <a href="http://outintheshires.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/aircraft-carriers-its-whats-on.html">here</a> that the MOD might like to take another look at what aircraft it chooses to put on the new carriers. If you believe the rumours currently swirling around in the national press, then they're not only doing just that, but the conclusion arrived at is not quite what I hoped for....<br />
<br />
As someone in the comments thread pointed out, we're pretty much getting the F35 whether we want it or not, despite the compelling case that can be made for buying greater quantities of something a good bit cheaper. However, one of the few gleams of common sense in the SDSR was the abandonment of the STOVL version in favour of the cat and trap version. The conventional variant at least offers a greater payload, and enhanced interoperability with potential coalition partners.<br />
<br />
What now seems to be mooted, thanks to cost overruns with the catapult technology, is a switch back to the JSF model the MOD had originally planned for, the short take-off variant. So, it's back to the ghetto of ski-ramps, and very heavy aircraft that can't carry much in the way of weapons load. All this at a time when the international situation everywhere from Libya to the South Atlantic has been underlining for our unfortunately sea-blind government and public the importance of aircraft carriers and why they're a useful thing to have in the back pocket.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure any government of recent years has got defence right, particularly, but this one certainly seems to have a special talent for getting it wrong. I await the official announcement with bated breath.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0