Got out of Cardiff by 9.30 and was on the road again. I have got to say that I was glad to get out of South Wales, it really did seem pretty desperate this time around and it really is quite incredible how ugly it has become both in terms of the people who live there and the places they inhabit. Cardiff Bay is a monstrosity that is going to end up being a hellish place to live in there is little doubt about that.
I then had all day to get down to Bournemouth so I took the back roads rather than the boring motorways and ended up taking 4 or 5 hours to hit the south coast. Drove south of Bristol and down through the Cheddar Gorge which I had never been to before and which was far smaller than I had imagined but nevertheless really impressive, in fact I have to say that it was nothing like what I had expected. Most beautiful things turn out to be smaller than you anticipate and therefore that much more perfect. The only problem with Cheddar Gorge was I didn’t realise just how much it has been turned into a tourist attraction by the good people of Cheddar, and the bottom of the gorge was chock full of the usual mob of fat arsed oldies you see everywhere these days god bless ‘em, eating their ice creams and waiting for the chip shop to open.
After driving slowly up the Gorge I took a combination of A and B roads through Somerset and Dorset to get to Bournemouth by around 2.30pm. Some of the roads were a bit slow going but some of them were also gloriously empty. Gotta say that the Dorset countryside that I drove through was simply stunning, some of the best I have seen in the whole of the country and I’m not surprised the locals want to keep quiet about it and not let the mob in. There must some fantastic places to visit there if you know what is what and are blessed with a bit of local knowledge. The weather helped; it was a gloriously sunny late June afternoon, warm and breeze coming in from the sea in the far distance. Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall has really got it made having his River Cottage HQ based in Dorset that’s for sure.
Showtime was not until 7.30 in the evening and that meant I had a good few hours to kill before joining the queue so I went for a long walk on the glorious beaches that make Bournemouth such a big attraction in the summer. There were plenty of people around and quite a few swimmers in the sea which looked pretty cold to me. During the course of the walk and looking around at all the people so clearly enjoying themselves in the sun I thought about how it all could be over in the flash of an eye for all of us and that there would be no guarantee we would get to enjoy such leisure again for an awful long time. How many of us really appreciate that fact is open to discussion however and it is as much as I can do to keep it mind for any sustained period of time I must admit.
Bob was in the mix tonight, really in the mix. This was a much better show than Cardiff despite the fact that there were only four songs different from the night before which according to my understanding of Bob’s song rotation is a low figure. However after looking at the set lists so far on this European Summer tour it does appear that Bob is keeping a more or less structured set and only changing a few rather than most of the numbers from night to night. It might have something to do with the fact that he is playing the keyboards now and needs more regularity in terms of the material he chooses in order to play along and in the midst of it break into something new depending on how the rendition might be progressing. There is also the fact that the songs can change so much in terms of performance from night to night, and in this respect I was actually pleased to get the chance to hear a lot of the songs again because they sounded in the main much clearer and sharper than they had the night before in Cardiff. It was only by listening, for example, to his new versions of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee and Maggie’s Farm for a second time that I was able to truly appreciate them rather than dismiss them and thus close my ears to what is actually going on and what is actually going on is a constant evolution. Bob often takes the form of conductor these days and the band perform according to his direction. The sound he gets from keyboard is a kind of organ wheeze that reminds me fairgrounds that was somehow distinctly appropriate when heard in a seaside town such as Bournemouth, a comfotable resort on the south coast of England. .
There was also the fact that is not to be underestimated that the crowd in Bournemouth was a hell of a lot more civilised that the one in Cardiff where a good proportion of the audience simply saw the fact that Bob was in town as a perfect excuse to go and get absolutely hammered. Bleak. The vibe in Bournemouth was a much better one, not so desperate, and as a consequence I was more than happy to stand there for nearly four hours without ever having much thought of shifting from my spot which I guess was around 8 or 10 rows from the front. Apart from getting as close as possible to Bob I really cannot see the point of queuing for hours and hours in order to be right at the front. You might get up and close and personal to the great man although in truth that is impossible but you miss out on the quality of the sound as you are then in front of the speaker stacks that are suspended from the ceiling, and those faithful speaker stacks can make all the difference .
The night before in Cardiff I had actually done something at a Bob show that I had never done before and that was abandon my position just before Summer Days the final song of the main set and go off and get a pint of lager. Believe me I would have only done that if I really felt like I had needed one. Consequently by the time I got back in the hall with my cold plastic glass of Carlsberg, Bob and the boys were coming to the end of Like a Rolling Stone the first number of their two song encore. From a distance Bob and the boys in Cardiff had appeared to me to be distinctly unimpressive by the end of the night but now in Bournemouth it was a different kettle of fish altogether and my faith was well and truly restored. Bob’s singing was clear and at times truly excellent and his movements were sharp. As I explained before the complexity of the music also demanded more than one listen and that was why I was glad to get a second opportunity to hear again 11 out of the 15 songs that comprised his set, including the standard encore songs Like a Rolling Stone and All Along the Watchtower which in Bournemouth sounded totally transformed from the night before, courtesy of the ultimate shape shifter.
The drive home from Bournemouth back to London was much more tiring than I had anticipated and by the time I pulled my Toyota into the drive it was gone 12.30 am and I was dog tired. In retrospect I think this is going to be the last time that I go out on the road to see Bob for a long, long time. I have now seen him 28 times in the 13 years since I first saw him in 1993. If and when he plays some shows in London again it will be great to see him for a night or maybe two but I don’t think I am going to be able to dedicate so much time and money to him in the same way that I have on many occasions since 1993. It’s been good while it lasted but I don’t want to become sad enough and oblivious enough to the rest of what life has to offer to spend up to six hours or more queuing up to see him when there is a glorious day out there waiting to be experienced.
Guru Padmasambhava Invocation Hill
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Going down to Cardiff Today
Due to go down to Cardiff today to see Bob Dylan and then the following night on to Bournemouth to see him there as well. These are his only UK dates in what is a medium size European tour which after here is going across to France and Germany for a couple of dates before heading south. I can’t say that the fires of enthusiasm are burning bright at the moment. It seems quite an effort to haul myself down to Cardiff in the car and then join the crowds an hour or so before the show queuing outside the arena. Is this what my life has become in terms of what I have to do to seek enjoyment? It seems sometimes to be a hard way of going about things. Standing for a few hours in a crowded sweaty concert hall surrounded by people a good few of whom are getting progressively more and more drunk is not necessarily the most relaxing activity in the world but there we are… as with all things I have made my bed so I shall have to lie in it. Of course those things are really no the point as they are just things that have to be put up with in order to get to see Bob Dylan perform and in that regard I am still confident it is an event worth making sacrifices for.
There are unlikely to be any surprises as far as the set list goes however, in fact I can almost guarantee it and I will be very lucky if I get to hear even one song that I haven’t heard before. The idea that Bob continually springs shocks and surprises on his audiences by way of the songs he chooses to play is a complete myth. For the most part his Never Ending Tour over the last few years has become unrelentingly predictable. Maybe he just enjoys it too much as it is and knows that he need to not over exert himself. Maybe it is also just a little bit too soon to be seeing him again after the November run of shows at the Brixton Academy out of which I went to three but whatever it is I am not particularly looking forward to these two shows at the moment. But then again maybe I am just concentrating a little bit too much on the negative and have temporarily forgotten what it is that makes get and pay money to see him play live. We shall see, things can change after all and I might return invigorated and more than ready to go on with facing the trials of life.
I was thinking last night about what it is I do and I honestly think that in terms of interests and hobbies I have very little going for me. I always have a book on the go but I can hardly say that I am an expert on anything and can quite easily forget the facts about whatever it is I am supposedly studying. I have a fair collection of CDs but I can happily go for days not listening to music if I saw choose so at times I am hardly a music fanatic. As far as other things go, well I used to meditate on and off for a good few years but if truth be told I haven’t really been able to sit and attune myself for the best part of a year now; it is as if I just begin to feel overwhelmingly tired as soon as I sit down on a cushion and attempt to follow the in and out flow of my breath. So meditation is very much on a back burner and besides if I really analyse what my practice constituted then I have to hold my hands up and admit that I never got to any great degree of calm and concentration when I did it anyway. Apart from those things there is really nothing else that I do apart from being married to my wife and trying my best to be a good husband…something that I no doubt fail at day after day. As far as practical things are concerned like going down the end of the garden and knocking up something really ingeneous with a hammer nails and a few bit of wood you can just forget it as I truly would not have a clue. And then as far as work is concerned, well I have been doing more or less the same job for the last 16 years so it doesn’t really take that to imagine what kind of rut I have got myself into as far as that is concerned, and maybe this is a good enough point to say this can be continued at some other time before things get a bit too dark and ominous.
There are unlikely to be any surprises as far as the set list goes however, in fact I can almost guarantee it and I will be very lucky if I get to hear even one song that I haven’t heard before. The idea that Bob continually springs shocks and surprises on his audiences by way of the songs he chooses to play is a complete myth. For the most part his Never Ending Tour over the last few years has become unrelentingly predictable. Maybe he just enjoys it too much as it is and knows that he need to not over exert himself. Maybe it is also just a little bit too soon to be seeing him again after the November run of shows at the Brixton Academy out of which I went to three but whatever it is I am not particularly looking forward to these two shows at the moment. But then again maybe I am just concentrating a little bit too much on the negative and have temporarily forgotten what it is that makes get and pay money to see him play live. We shall see, things can change after all and I might return invigorated and more than ready to go on with facing the trials of life.
I was thinking last night about what it is I do and I honestly think that in terms of interests and hobbies I have very little going for me. I always have a book on the go but I can hardly say that I am an expert on anything and can quite easily forget the facts about whatever it is I am supposedly studying. I have a fair collection of CDs but I can happily go for days not listening to music if I saw choose so at times I am hardly a music fanatic. As far as other things go, well I used to meditate on and off for a good few years but if truth be told I haven’t really been able to sit and attune myself for the best part of a year now; it is as if I just begin to feel overwhelmingly tired as soon as I sit down on a cushion and attempt to follow the in and out flow of my breath. So meditation is very much on a back burner and besides if I really analyse what my practice constituted then I have to hold my hands up and admit that I never got to any great degree of calm and concentration when I did it anyway. Apart from those things there is really nothing else that I do apart from being married to my wife and trying my best to be a good husband…something that I no doubt fail at day after day. As far as practical things are concerned like going down the end of the garden and knocking up something really ingeneous with a hammer nails and a few bit of wood you can just forget it as I truly would not have a clue. And then as far as work is concerned, well I have been doing more or less the same job for the last 16 years so it doesn’t really take that to imagine what kind of rut I have got myself into as far as that is concerned, and maybe this is a good enough point to say this can be continued at some other time before things get a bit too dark and ominous.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Football and the Fate of Michael Owen
Still been watching quite a bit of football. The weather has cooled down now which is a pity really because it is better watching the games when it is hot, hot, hot, there ain’t no doubt about that. Just sitting there in the lounge with a pair of shorts on and a cold bottle of beer in my hand, the rest of my life stretching off into infinity…Hopefully we’re also just about coming to the end of the hay fever season as well. Had enough of stinging eyes, itchy nose and serious bouts of sneezing now and I just want it all to end. I take the pills of course but the side effects of those fuckers is that they leave you a little drowsy and when you wake up it’s as if you’ve been coshed over the nut by the hammer air of the night.
Still got good memories of the Andy Shepherd show in Soho that I took Tamdin to a couple of days, it was a great night. Then the next evening I enjoyed one of the best matches of the World Cup so far when Australia edged out Croatia to qualify for the next phase. It was a night of high excitement and catastrophic referring but in the end justice was done. I think that I had a glimpse of why it is the Aussies can fall so in love with their sporting heroes as to say that their side went for it hell for leather would still only end up being something of an understatement. They were quite simply awesome as they threw themselves forward in a relentless onslaught of the Croatian goal in order to get that all important equaliser. Just like when watching the Ghana v Czech Republic match from a few days ago there was something almost transcendental about the football as if in this particular match we were witnessing the essence of what it is to have Aussie spirit and tenacity stripped bare and there for all to see; in pretty much the same way we saw the further glorious potential of football when played by Africans when they are on song and shed of inhibition. In the last regard if the Europeans have the technique, the South Americans have the skill and style then surely what the Africans have is a freedom and wild abandon that is somehow purer than the rest. It is instances like these that make me watch the World Cup, and like I said before I am convinced that it is the only game that man has so far come up with that would be played by aliens. It really is that universal. If aliens landed on earth and saw a few games it really would not be long before they would consider getting a side together for a bit of a kick about, providing of course they came with peaceful intentions and had arms and legs.
On a darker side to the World Cup there was the horrible injury suffered by Michael Owen, the English striker, the other night, when he twisted his knee and had to crawl off the pitch. It now looks like he is going to be out for a period of nine months and by the looks of him it might even be longer for the mental scars to heal. Personally I feel there is a strange karma around Michael Owen. He is of course a tremendously rich and famous footballer but a couple of years there was an incident in which he was involved with which was both strange and sad, as well as being very under reported in the British media. He had had a load of building work done on one of his properties that he owns and then a dispute had arisen between him and the building contractor which had resulted in Owen refusing to pay for the work that had been done and even instructing his lawyers to bring a case against the contractor, alleging the work had in fact not been done at all.
As a consequence of the non-payment by Owen the builder went bust as he had covered the costs in advance of the materials that he had used on the work. That and the stress of possible court action by Owen led to the builder committing suicide leaving behind a wife and family. It all seemed extremely sad and whatever the rights or wrongs of the case it seems pretty damn awful that someone as rich as Owen was happy to see someone lose everything because he didn’t think the job had been done to his satisfaction. So that was weird incident in his history and as I said it was not a big deal as far as the media was concerned, in fact I just saw it as an item buried away on a page of the BBC News website. So maybe something is now coming back to haunt Owen from beyond the grave. Needless to say if you have no belief in such things then you can dismiss this as a load of old rubbish in fact I don’t even know if I really believe it myself but I do find unsettling when I think of what the conduct of Owen might have been over all this that led to another human being taking their own life.
It could be that the family have cursed Owen, indulged in a little of the back arts. Who knows? Rubbish? Yeah maybe but look at how things have panned out for Owen over the last year or so, a dodgy move to Newcastle United (one of the most contemptible sides in English football) from Real Madrid, then after a mere 17 games for the Magpies a broken foot that kept him out of action for six months and then on his return from such a long lay off a horrifically twisted knee that could very well see him out of action for a whole lot longer. Maybe there are a few demons that he needs to face, real of imagined. Can any of us truly say that we know how these things work and how the course of life runs as it does? No, I don’t think so but at the same time we have to accept we are players of a perfect finished plan. Anyway all this has been a bit of a diversion from whatever it was that I was going on about…oh yes, it was football so I suppose there is most definitely a connection, just not in the usual way that you would find it. That’s the way it goes sometimes when you are on a rap, all kinds of things can come out. Let’s end more or less where we began. Well done to Oz, they are through to the last of the World Cup for the first time in their history and in my opinion they have every chance of going further as they play Italy next who might very well not fancy it after they seen have a couple of videos of how the Aussies have so far gone for it in a way that teams like England can’t even dream of.
Still got good memories of the Andy Shepherd show in Soho that I took Tamdin to a couple of days, it was a great night. Then the next evening I enjoyed one of the best matches of the World Cup so far when Australia edged out Croatia to qualify for the next phase. It was a night of high excitement and catastrophic referring but in the end justice was done. I think that I had a glimpse of why it is the Aussies can fall so in love with their sporting heroes as to say that their side went for it hell for leather would still only end up being something of an understatement. They were quite simply awesome as they threw themselves forward in a relentless onslaught of the Croatian goal in order to get that all important equaliser. Just like when watching the Ghana v Czech Republic match from a few days ago there was something almost transcendental about the football as if in this particular match we were witnessing the essence of what it is to have Aussie spirit and tenacity stripped bare and there for all to see; in pretty much the same way we saw the further glorious potential of football when played by Africans when they are on song and shed of inhibition. In the last regard if the Europeans have the technique, the South Americans have the skill and style then surely what the Africans have is a freedom and wild abandon that is somehow purer than the rest. It is instances like these that make me watch the World Cup, and like I said before I am convinced that it is the only game that man has so far come up with that would be played by aliens. It really is that universal. If aliens landed on earth and saw a few games it really would not be long before they would consider getting a side together for a bit of a kick about, providing of course they came with peaceful intentions and had arms and legs.
On a darker side to the World Cup there was the horrible injury suffered by Michael Owen, the English striker, the other night, when he twisted his knee and had to crawl off the pitch. It now looks like he is going to be out for a period of nine months and by the looks of him it might even be longer for the mental scars to heal. Personally I feel there is a strange karma around Michael Owen. He is of course a tremendously rich and famous footballer but a couple of years there was an incident in which he was involved with which was both strange and sad, as well as being very under reported in the British media. He had had a load of building work done on one of his properties that he owns and then a dispute had arisen between him and the building contractor which had resulted in Owen refusing to pay for the work that had been done and even instructing his lawyers to bring a case against the contractor, alleging the work had in fact not been done at all.
As a consequence of the non-payment by Owen the builder went bust as he had covered the costs in advance of the materials that he had used on the work. That and the stress of possible court action by Owen led to the builder committing suicide leaving behind a wife and family. It all seemed extremely sad and whatever the rights or wrongs of the case it seems pretty damn awful that someone as rich as Owen was happy to see someone lose everything because he didn’t think the job had been done to his satisfaction. So that was weird incident in his history and as I said it was not a big deal as far as the media was concerned, in fact I just saw it as an item buried away on a page of the BBC News website. So maybe something is now coming back to haunt Owen from beyond the grave. Needless to say if you have no belief in such things then you can dismiss this as a load of old rubbish in fact I don’t even know if I really believe it myself but I do find unsettling when I think of what the conduct of Owen might have been over all this that led to another human being taking their own life.
It could be that the family have cursed Owen, indulged in a little of the back arts. Who knows? Rubbish? Yeah maybe but look at how things have panned out for Owen over the last year or so, a dodgy move to Newcastle United (one of the most contemptible sides in English football) from Real Madrid, then after a mere 17 games for the Magpies a broken foot that kept him out of action for six months and then on his return from such a long lay off a horrifically twisted knee that could very well see him out of action for a whole lot longer. Maybe there are a few demons that he needs to face, real of imagined. Can any of us truly say that we know how these things work and how the course of life runs as it does? No, I don’t think so but at the same time we have to accept we are players of a perfect finished plan. Anyway all this has been a bit of a diversion from whatever it was that I was going on about…oh yes, it was football so I suppose there is most definitely a connection, just not in the usual way that you would find it. That’s the way it goes sometimes when you are on a rap, all kinds of things can come out. Let’s end more or less where we began. Well done to Oz, they are through to the last of the World Cup for the first time in their history and in my opinion they have every chance of going further as they play Italy next who might very well not fancy it after they seen have a couple of videos of how the Aussies have so far gone for it in a way that teams like England can’t even dream of.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Andy Shepherd
We had a great evening in Soho at the Pizza Express Jazz Club last night. I took Tamdin to see Andy Shepherd who was playing the first of a four-night stint with a backing band that had John Parricelli on guitar, Dudley Phillips (bass) and Nic France (drums). There was also a guest vocal appearance from Liane Carroll who also played the piano as well and she was good, very good. A big girl who belted out the vocals but with a fine voice and plenty of personality who was decked out in what appeared to me to be some kind of sailor suit, although I am almost certainly wrong about as I am quite useless at accurately describing such things but there you go. I had booked our table well over a month ago and the early booking paid dividends as we were right in front of the small stage, as close as it was possible to get to the performers. We arrived fairly early as well which meant that we were able to order and eat before the performance began which is a lot better than still having to be stuffing your face right in front of people who are playing a show.
It really is great to be able to take the tube into town and walk into a place like the Jazz Club for a night’s entertainment. The group were on fire last night, Andy Shepherd was fantastic (it was the fourth time I had seen him there, always with different backing musicians although Big John on the axe has more or less been a constant) and just halfway through the first number it clicked in a way that I knew made sure it was going to be a special show and I was not wrong. Tamdin really enjoyed it as well, she thought Andy was fabulous, both by way of his demeanour and playing; this was important as I very much wanted her to have a good time. The last time I had taken her to a show was back in 2003 when we went up to Birmingham to see Bob Dylan play at the NEC. For a number of reasons the evening had very nearly been a disaster and I catalogued the whole debacle quite extensively in the Three Bob Shows series of essays that form one of the latter sections of Justifying the Star: Writings Around Bob Dylan 2000 – 2004. Anyway there was nothing like the repeat of the trauma of Bob in Birmingham and in many ways the evening went far better than I ever could have hoped.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, the Jazz Club was sold out and the dreadlocked waiter who served us told me the remaining three nights were full as well. Kicker. I hope that when Andy next plays a series of shows there we will be able to go down and catch one of them. Brilliant. Next week of course I do have a couple of Bob shows to make my way to, first in Cardiff on Tuesday 27th and then the night after in Bournemouth. Hopefully they will not contain any notorious incidents and will leave me with feelings of positive anticipation for the release of Modern Times at the end of August.
It really is great to be able to take the tube into town and walk into a place like the Jazz Club for a night’s entertainment. The group were on fire last night, Andy Shepherd was fantastic (it was the fourth time I had seen him there, always with different backing musicians although Big John on the axe has more or less been a constant) and just halfway through the first number it clicked in a way that I knew made sure it was going to be a special show and I was not wrong. Tamdin really enjoyed it as well, she thought Andy was fabulous, both by way of his demeanour and playing; this was important as I very much wanted her to have a good time. The last time I had taken her to a show was back in 2003 when we went up to Birmingham to see Bob Dylan play at the NEC. For a number of reasons the evening had very nearly been a disaster and I catalogued the whole debacle quite extensively in the Three Bob Shows series of essays that form one of the latter sections of Justifying the Star: Writings Around Bob Dylan 2000 – 2004. Anyway there was nothing like the repeat of the trauma of Bob in Birmingham and in many ways the evening went far better than I ever could have hoped.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, the Jazz Club was sold out and the dreadlocked waiter who served us told me the remaining three nights were full as well. Kicker. I hope that when Andy next plays a series of shows there we will be able to go down and catch one of them. Brilliant. Next week of course I do have a couple of Bob shows to make my way to, first in Cardiff on Tuesday 27th and then the night after in Bournemouth. Hopefully they will not contain any notorious incidents and will leave me with feelings of positive anticipation for the release of Modern Times at the end of August.
Monday, June 19, 2006
From the Weekend
Updating this in the office from the weekend that was spent watching football, hiding from the hot weather, walking / driving around town and suffering from hay fever. The weather has cooled down a bit today and there is a cool breeze which makes things much more bearable as far as the sneezing and sore eyes are concerned. Only another couple of weeks to go hopefully and then the hay fever season will be over.
The week after next of course are the 2 Bob Dylan shows that I mentioned the other day, one in Cardiff and one in Bournemouth. Like I said before, although the new Bob Dylan album Modern Times is scheduled for release on 28th August it is going to be highly unlikely that he will play any songs off it. Things just don’t work that way as far as Bob is concerned and to be honest I think he is still too much enjoying playing a set that is based around the Love and Theft material with him on the electric piano and organ, so he will allow this particular cycle of the Never Ending Tour to reach its natural conclusion. This means that audiences will probably have to wait until autumn / winter before they are going to hear any of the songs on Modern Times performed live. That is fine by me, these days Bob is in control of what he does one hundred percent and is a master of timing.
I guess I will have to get down and listen to a bit of Bob in the coming days but really there is going to be little chance of me not recognising any of the songs that are going to be played and the fact of the matter is that I have been going through a bit of a Van Morrison phase at the moment which is gradually into a period appreciating the genius of Paul Simon, especially since the latter has recently released his new album Surprise which although not produced by Brian Eno has a significant contribution from him in terms of sculpting the aural landscape of the album. As yet I haven’t really got into the new one, it is the re-mastered and expanded edition of Rhythm of the Saints originally released in 1990 that has been taking up my attention. It is awesomely good and I had it on continuous play in the Toyota the other night as I drove around the centre of London, using up time before heading off to Waterloo to pick up Tamdin who was due back from Brussels at 10pm on the Saturday night. In many ways I think it is a more interesting work than his wildly successful Graceland as it is steeped in the sounds and atmosphere of the South American jungle, not that I have ever been there but if I did then that is what I imagine it would be like. Anyway enough of these dreams - dreams that can only be afforded by someone who lives a relatively easy life in a time of peace - and back to work.
The week after next of course are the 2 Bob Dylan shows that I mentioned the other day, one in Cardiff and one in Bournemouth. Like I said before, although the new Bob Dylan album Modern Times is scheduled for release on 28th August it is going to be highly unlikely that he will play any songs off it. Things just don’t work that way as far as Bob is concerned and to be honest I think he is still too much enjoying playing a set that is based around the Love and Theft material with him on the electric piano and organ, so he will allow this particular cycle of the Never Ending Tour to reach its natural conclusion. This means that audiences will probably have to wait until autumn / winter before they are going to hear any of the songs on Modern Times performed live. That is fine by me, these days Bob is in control of what he does one hundred percent and is a master of timing.
I guess I will have to get down and listen to a bit of Bob in the coming days but really there is going to be little chance of me not recognising any of the songs that are going to be played and the fact of the matter is that I have been going through a bit of a Van Morrison phase at the moment which is gradually into a period appreciating the genius of Paul Simon, especially since the latter has recently released his new album Surprise which although not produced by Brian Eno has a significant contribution from him in terms of sculpting the aural landscape of the album. As yet I haven’t really got into the new one, it is the re-mastered and expanded edition of Rhythm of the Saints originally released in 1990 that has been taking up my attention. It is awesomely good and I had it on continuous play in the Toyota the other night as I drove around the centre of London, using up time before heading off to Waterloo to pick up Tamdin who was due back from Brussels at 10pm on the Saturday night. In many ways I think it is a more interesting work than his wildly successful Graceland as it is steeped in the sounds and atmosphere of the South American jungle, not that I have ever been there but if I did then that is what I imagine it would be like. Anyway enough of these dreams - dreams that can only be afforded by someone who lives a relatively easy life in a time of peace - and back to work.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
East from Oxford Street
Out of Liverpool Street east side this time up the escalator and then across Bishopsgate. Once on the other side of the road I head down Devonshire Row in the direction of the Travelodge but before I reach it I take a right into Cutler Street off Devonshire Street. Walk down Cutler Street and cross Houndsditch the place where plague pits lie deep beneath the surface of the ground and onto Goring Street, then across St. Bevis Marks and onto Bury Street and then I come out in front of the Gherkhin a relatively new landmark on the cityscape.
It is a hot June morning and I am feeling good, the sun is beating down on the pavement creating deep shadows and all the construction workers are just in hats and shorts, staring down at people below as they strut across the scaffolds. Look up at the Gherkhin as I walk around it and into St Mary Axe where I head up to Leadenhall Street and cross over in front of Lloyds Building. Here I have to stop for a couple of minutes and take in the sight of the new three-tiered Mace Building that is going up in front of Lloyds. It looks like it is going to be an amazing construction, in fact it already is. Not only that but they seem to be able to create huge structures these days out of nothing and in next to no time. I stand there for a few minutes in the hot morning sun feeling pretty awestruck at the sight of it. After taking it in and thinking good thoughts about the ingenuity of man as well as muttering a few Om Mani Padme Hum mantras I go on my way down Lime Street and then take a right into Leadenhall Market. It is a Saturday so the market is empty apart from a couple of tourists pointing and shooting with their digital cameras. I come out of the deserted market onto Gracechurch Street and walk down in the direction of the Monument which I soon pass and then cross the road to walk on the west side of London Bridge as I cross the river.
All this has taken not much more than 20 minutes since leaving Liverpool Street and I am feeling good as I make my way to the south side of the Thames and go down the steps beside Southwark Cathedral and into Borough Market. Crossing the river I notice the water is low and that already by 11 am there are many crafts on the river, most of them making their way between Westminster and Tower Bridge. Once inside the market I head straight for our usual meat stall and buy a piece of belly pork for nearly 8 quid. I have it well wrapped and then I put into my shoulder bag, kind of half worrying if it will go off or not as I still have a good bit of walking to do in the hot sun. But the meat is cool and I don’t think there is going to be any problem. There is nothing else I need from Borough market so I don’t hang around although it is tempting because there are so many different types of food to buy.
I walk back across London Bridge and once on the north side of the river again I head down King William Street in the direction of Bank. Needless to say the streets in the City are pretty empty at the weekends and this is by far the best time to use them as all the trauma of witnessing stressed out office workers and city sharks on their mobiles is avoided. When I get to Bank the Royal Exchange is to my right but I walk straight across and onto Princes Street. At the end of Princes Street I can either go straight across onto Moorgate or take a left onto Lothbury that segues into Gresham Street. It is the latter which I choose to do and then I cross the road and go up Basinghall Street which runs beside the Guildhall. Off Basinghall Street I am able to walk up steps that take me onto the network of Barbican highwalks and that is exactly what I was hoping to find. I am at the southern end of the highwalks that give one elevated views of the city and spares one the struggle of walking on the streets and beside the ever moving traffic. I make my way through the highwalks, eventually coming onto Frobisher Crescent which leads me into Defoe Place where I sit on a bench for a few minutes and take in the scene of the Barbican lake and waterfalls in the late Saturday morning June sun.
It is all rather glorious and when I get up I follow the route out of Defoe Place and across the bridge that spans Aldersgate Street and then down the steps past Barbican station. Here I turn into Long Lane and walk down into Smithfield which on this particular day has a fair, a recreation of the medieval Bartholomew Fair which was a major event in the London calendar a couple of hundred years ago and I daresay a hell of a lot rougher, as eventually they had to ban it due to the amount of crime and violence that it generated. Things are very different these days and just to stand there and have some sense of the history and all that has gone before made me appreciate just how peaceful the times are that we now live in. There were a variety of stalls at the fair and it was the food stalls with their delicious aromas that caught my attention, and I made a note to try and go back to it once I had done my business in the West End.
I walked out of Smithfield going down Cowcross Street and across Farringdon and through lower Bloomsbury, past Gray’s Inn Gardens along Theobald’s Road and eventually taking a rest in Bloomsbury Square Gardens before heading into the West End. Once I had done what I wanted to do which was simply to buy a copy of the second volume of Simon Schama’s History of Britain I made my way to Bond Street tube station and took the Central Line back east, this time getting off at St.Paul’s. This allowed me to keep good the promise I had made to go back to the Bartholomew Fair; when I got there I bought some rice and beans from a food stall selling Ghana cuisine and pretty damn delicious it was too. I just sat there on the edge of the pavement like many others were doing and concentrated on eating it all up. The weather was going to ensure the fair was a success there was no doubt about that and once again I marvelled at how civilised it clearly all was in comparison to times past. People with toddlers ambling by, babies in prams. A relaxed atmosphere which we should all be grateful for.
After eating the food there was not much point in hanging about and I once again walked up and onto the Barbican highwalks and made my way along them until I descended the escalators that took me down into Moor Lane right by Moorgate station. I crossed Moor Lane and then crossed Moorgate and made my way into Finsbury Circus where the park was open and people were playing bowls on the green in the middle. By now it was around 2 in the afternoon and on and off I had been walking for nearly four hours so my exercise period was now coming to an end. I sat on a wooden bench in the sun and took in the beautiful scene of this hidden park that is in the heart of the city. I read a little bit of the beginning of the new book I had bought but it was tiring trying to concentrate in the heat so after a little while I put it away and then not long after that made my way to the tube at Liverpool Street to get the line back out east. Things had come more or less full circle and it was time to go home. Looks like Bob Dylan's Modern Times is going to be out on Aug 28th 2006.
It is a hot June morning and I am feeling good, the sun is beating down on the pavement creating deep shadows and all the construction workers are just in hats and shorts, staring down at people below as they strut across the scaffolds. Look up at the Gherkhin as I walk around it and into St Mary Axe where I head up to Leadenhall Street and cross over in front of Lloyds Building. Here I have to stop for a couple of minutes and take in the sight of the new three-tiered Mace Building that is going up in front of Lloyds. It looks like it is going to be an amazing construction, in fact it already is. Not only that but they seem to be able to create huge structures these days out of nothing and in next to no time. I stand there for a few minutes in the hot morning sun feeling pretty awestruck at the sight of it. After taking it in and thinking good thoughts about the ingenuity of man as well as muttering a few Om Mani Padme Hum mantras I go on my way down Lime Street and then take a right into Leadenhall Market. It is a Saturday so the market is empty apart from a couple of tourists pointing and shooting with their digital cameras. I come out of the deserted market onto Gracechurch Street and walk down in the direction of the Monument which I soon pass and then cross the road to walk on the west side of London Bridge as I cross the river.
All this has taken not much more than 20 minutes since leaving Liverpool Street and I am feeling good as I make my way to the south side of the Thames and go down the steps beside Southwark Cathedral and into Borough Market. Crossing the river I notice the water is low and that already by 11 am there are many crafts on the river, most of them making their way between Westminster and Tower Bridge. Once inside the market I head straight for our usual meat stall and buy a piece of belly pork for nearly 8 quid. I have it well wrapped and then I put into my shoulder bag, kind of half worrying if it will go off or not as I still have a good bit of walking to do in the hot sun. But the meat is cool and I don’t think there is going to be any problem. There is nothing else I need from Borough market so I don’t hang around although it is tempting because there are so many different types of food to buy.
I walk back across London Bridge and once on the north side of the river again I head down King William Street in the direction of Bank. Needless to say the streets in the City are pretty empty at the weekends and this is by far the best time to use them as all the trauma of witnessing stressed out office workers and city sharks on their mobiles is avoided. When I get to Bank the Royal Exchange is to my right but I walk straight across and onto Princes Street. At the end of Princes Street I can either go straight across onto Moorgate or take a left onto Lothbury that segues into Gresham Street. It is the latter which I choose to do and then I cross the road and go up Basinghall Street which runs beside the Guildhall. Off Basinghall Street I am able to walk up steps that take me onto the network of Barbican highwalks and that is exactly what I was hoping to find. I am at the southern end of the highwalks that give one elevated views of the city and spares one the struggle of walking on the streets and beside the ever moving traffic. I make my way through the highwalks, eventually coming onto Frobisher Crescent which leads me into Defoe Place where I sit on a bench for a few minutes and take in the scene of the Barbican lake and waterfalls in the late Saturday morning June sun.
It is all rather glorious and when I get up I follow the route out of Defoe Place and across the bridge that spans Aldersgate Street and then down the steps past Barbican station. Here I turn into Long Lane and walk down into Smithfield which on this particular day has a fair, a recreation of the medieval Bartholomew Fair which was a major event in the London calendar a couple of hundred years ago and I daresay a hell of a lot rougher, as eventually they had to ban it due to the amount of crime and violence that it generated. Things are very different these days and just to stand there and have some sense of the history and all that has gone before made me appreciate just how peaceful the times are that we now live in. There were a variety of stalls at the fair and it was the food stalls with their delicious aromas that caught my attention, and I made a note to try and go back to it once I had done my business in the West End.
I walked out of Smithfield going down Cowcross Street and across Farringdon and through lower Bloomsbury, past Gray’s Inn Gardens along Theobald’s Road and eventually taking a rest in Bloomsbury Square Gardens before heading into the West End. Once I had done what I wanted to do which was simply to buy a copy of the second volume of Simon Schama’s History of Britain I made my way to Bond Street tube station and took the Central Line back east, this time getting off at St.Paul’s. This allowed me to keep good the promise I had made to go back to the Bartholomew Fair; when I got there I bought some rice and beans from a food stall selling Ghana cuisine and pretty damn delicious it was too. I just sat there on the edge of the pavement like many others were doing and concentrated on eating it all up. The weather was going to ensure the fair was a success there was no doubt about that and once again I marvelled at how civilised it clearly all was in comparison to times past. People with toddlers ambling by, babies in prams. A relaxed atmosphere which we should all be grateful for.
After eating the food there was not much point in hanging about and I once again walked up and onto the Barbican highwalks and made my way along them until I descended the escalators that took me down into Moor Lane right by Moorgate station. I crossed Moor Lane and then crossed Moorgate and made my way into Finsbury Circus where the park was open and people were playing bowls on the green in the middle. By now it was around 2 in the afternoon and on and off I had been walking for nearly four hours so my exercise period was now coming to an end. I sat on a wooden bench in the sun and took in the beautiful scene of this hidden park that is in the heart of the city. I read a little bit of the beginning of the new book I had bought but it was tiring trying to concentrate in the heat so after a little while I put it away and then not long after that made my way to the tube at Liverpool Street to get the line back out east. Things had come more or less full circle and it was time to go home. Looks like Bob Dylan's Modern Times is going to be out on Aug 28th 2006.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Bob Dylan in June
Just about bowed out of the hot spell but I think that we are soon going to heading straight into another one and the weekend looks like it is going to be hot and sunny again. In the midst of all this World Cup 2006 activity, which for me means sitting down in front of the TV and watching as many matches as I think I can stand, my second Bob Dylan ticket arrived for the show in Bournemouth on the 28th of this month. The first Bob Dylan ticket from out of the 2 bookings that I made back in March arrived weeks and weeks ago and if truth were told I was beginning to get a little bit anxious as to whether or not the Bournemouth ticket had got lost in the post or something like that. It really shouldn’t have though as all these tickets are sent out on a signed for delivery service and in theory the only person who would be able to sign for the ticket would have been me. Anyway I can put all those kind of thoughts into one of the many garbage bins of my mind and really begin to look forward to seeing the shows as it duly arrived a couple of days ago. It is almost certain that they will be the only 2 UK shows that Bob plays this year as at the end of 2005 he was over here for a tour which culminated in five shows at London’s Brixton Academy from out of which I went to see 3 and they were all pretty damn fantastic in my opinion but then again I guess you could count me a fan as when I have got these 2 June shows under my belt I will have seen Bob 28 times.
It is a funny thing that Bob is playing Bournemouth as I went there a couple of months ago for the first time in my life and I thought about him when I was there, strolling along the promenade. The reason I went was because I had earlier that week taken delivery of my new car, a Toyota Avensis, which I paid the best part of 13 grand for and which had only 14,000 miles on the clock. Needless to say I was very excited as I don’t often change cars, the last one I had was a Nissan Primera which had lasted us 7 years and I have to say in all that time it had never put a foot wrong. Brilliant cars, Nissans. There ain’t no doubt about that. Anyway back to the story and I was looking for somewhere to have a good drive to and it so happened that Tamdin my wife was seeing patients in Chippenham that weekend in her capacity as a practitioner of Tibetan herbal medicine. I therefore decided it would be rather cool to drive down and go via the south coast and pick her up late on the Saturday afternoon after she had finished. When looked at the map I realised that I could stop off at Bournemouth on the way as it was a place that I had never been to and I had heard a lot about in respect of the fact that it had probably the most popular beach in the UK when it was summer and the weather was hot. That and also the fact that Bob sometimes called in to play there when he was on tour in the UK.
So that is exactly what I did and I ended up parking the new car in the car park of the Bournemouth International Centre which just happened to be the place where Bob played when he was in town. The centre that is, not the car park. I spent a couple of hours taking in the magnificent beach and having a good walk by the sea going west in the direction of Poole. I was lucky as it was one of those beautiful early Spring days where the temperature is nice and warm and there is not a single cloud in the sky. Magic. I even imagined if Bob did the same thing when he was in town, taking time out before the show to get a blast of fresh air courtesy of the English Channel. Possible I guess, but unlikely.
Then after all that a couple of days later Bob’s European Summer Tour 2006 schedule appeared on the Net and lo and behold the only 2 UK shows that he was going to do were Bournemouth and Cardiff. I knew at that instant that would have to get tickets for both of them. Bournemouth because it had been a hell of a coincidence that I had just been there for the first time in my life and Cardiff because it was the city in which I was born and the place where I had seen him perform 3 times already in 1997, 2000 and 2004. I have written about my Bob experiences quite extensively in the past and collected all the writings together in Justifying the Star: Writings Around Bob Dylan 2000 – 2004 but I have more or less stopped that now. For instance I didn’t write anything about the Academy shows in 2005. I guess maybe at some point I might post bits of Justifying the Star onto Ghost Eternal if I run out of other stuff to put on as I think it is quite good in parts but then again I am biased. Anyway the reason I mention this is that a favourite part of the whole Bob Dylan experience for me is, when he has announced shows and I have got tickets, the sense of expectation that goes with knowing that at some point in the near future I will be going to see him again. The thought never fails to generate a feeling of real excitement on my part, primarily because in my opinion he is a great artist who will be remembered by future generation in the same way as Mozart is now. Anyway, that is another story.
The 2 shows in June are likely to comprise pretty much the same songs that have been in his set for the last few years which means that the majority of the set will be built around the Love and Theft material from 2001 along with a good helping of mid-60’s classics such Positively Fourth Street, It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding, Girl of the North Country, Highway 61 Revisited, and then as encores Like a Rolling Stone and All Along the Watchtower. It is almost certainly going to be stuff like that, and I would be very surprised if there was anything in the way of a major deviation from this tried and tested set list from this particular cycle of the Never Ending Tour. The big news however is that Bob Dylan has a new album slated for release at the end of August and naturally there is going to be hopeful thoughts swirling through my mind that he is going to debut a few songs from it. This is going to be extremely unlikely however although I am sure there will be people in the audience who will be requesting songs from it. People who will be trying to look clever and whom Bob will ignore absolutely and completely. The name of the album is Modern Times and it apparently contains 10 new Dylan originals produced by himself under the name Jack Frost and backed by his current touring band. Some of the song titles have also been given and they sound intriguing in a way that only a new Bob Dylan song ever could, conjuring up visions of a lost land in a strange twilight where the extraordinary is imminent. Listen to these and see what you think – When the Deal Goes Down, Spirit on the Water, Thunder on the Mountain and Workingman’s Blues. Really that is all I need to know about them at the moment. I don’t need to hear them, just the titles of the songs alone are enough for them to slowly seep into my mind and conjure up those precious inner visions. And in the meantime, well, Bournemouth & Cardiff here we come!
It is a funny thing that Bob is playing Bournemouth as I went there a couple of months ago for the first time in my life and I thought about him when I was there, strolling along the promenade. The reason I went was because I had earlier that week taken delivery of my new car, a Toyota Avensis, which I paid the best part of 13 grand for and which had only 14,000 miles on the clock. Needless to say I was very excited as I don’t often change cars, the last one I had was a Nissan Primera which had lasted us 7 years and I have to say in all that time it had never put a foot wrong. Brilliant cars, Nissans. There ain’t no doubt about that. Anyway back to the story and I was looking for somewhere to have a good drive to and it so happened that Tamdin my wife was seeing patients in Chippenham that weekend in her capacity as a practitioner of Tibetan herbal medicine. I therefore decided it would be rather cool to drive down and go via the south coast and pick her up late on the Saturday afternoon after she had finished. When looked at the map I realised that I could stop off at Bournemouth on the way as it was a place that I had never been to and I had heard a lot about in respect of the fact that it had probably the most popular beach in the UK when it was summer and the weather was hot. That and also the fact that Bob sometimes called in to play there when he was on tour in the UK.
So that is exactly what I did and I ended up parking the new car in the car park of the Bournemouth International Centre which just happened to be the place where Bob played when he was in town. The centre that is, not the car park. I spent a couple of hours taking in the magnificent beach and having a good walk by the sea going west in the direction of Poole. I was lucky as it was one of those beautiful early Spring days where the temperature is nice and warm and there is not a single cloud in the sky. Magic. I even imagined if Bob did the same thing when he was in town, taking time out before the show to get a blast of fresh air courtesy of the English Channel. Possible I guess, but unlikely.
Then after all that a couple of days later Bob’s European Summer Tour 2006 schedule appeared on the Net and lo and behold the only 2 UK shows that he was going to do were Bournemouth and Cardiff. I knew at that instant that would have to get tickets for both of them. Bournemouth because it had been a hell of a coincidence that I had just been there for the first time in my life and Cardiff because it was the city in which I was born and the place where I had seen him perform 3 times already in 1997, 2000 and 2004. I have written about my Bob experiences quite extensively in the past and collected all the writings together in Justifying the Star: Writings Around Bob Dylan 2000 – 2004 but I have more or less stopped that now. For instance I didn’t write anything about the Academy shows in 2005. I guess maybe at some point I might post bits of Justifying the Star onto Ghost Eternal if I run out of other stuff to put on as I think it is quite good in parts but then again I am biased. Anyway the reason I mention this is that a favourite part of the whole Bob Dylan experience for me is, when he has announced shows and I have got tickets, the sense of expectation that goes with knowing that at some point in the near future I will be going to see him again. The thought never fails to generate a feeling of real excitement on my part, primarily because in my opinion he is a great artist who will be remembered by future generation in the same way as Mozart is now. Anyway, that is another story.
The 2 shows in June are likely to comprise pretty much the same songs that have been in his set for the last few years which means that the majority of the set will be built around the Love and Theft material from 2001 along with a good helping of mid-60’s classics such Positively Fourth Street, It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding, Girl of the North Country, Highway 61 Revisited, and then as encores Like a Rolling Stone and All Along the Watchtower. It is almost certainly going to be stuff like that, and I would be very surprised if there was anything in the way of a major deviation from this tried and tested set list from this particular cycle of the Never Ending Tour. The big news however is that Bob Dylan has a new album slated for release at the end of August and naturally there is going to be hopeful thoughts swirling through my mind that he is going to debut a few songs from it. This is going to be extremely unlikely however although I am sure there will be people in the audience who will be requesting songs from it. People who will be trying to look clever and whom Bob will ignore absolutely and completely. The name of the album is Modern Times and it apparently contains 10 new Dylan originals produced by himself under the name Jack Frost and backed by his current touring band. Some of the song titles have also been given and they sound intriguing in a way that only a new Bob Dylan song ever could, conjuring up visions of a lost land in a strange twilight where the extraordinary is imminent. Listen to these and see what you think – When the Deal Goes Down, Spirit on the Water, Thunder on the Mountain and Workingman’s Blues. Really that is all I need to know about them at the moment. I don’t need to hear them, just the titles of the songs alone are enough for them to slowly seep into my mind and conjure up those precious inner visions. And in the meantime, well, Bournemouth & Cardiff here we come!
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Watching England Play
Going through the torture of watching another England World Cup match, this time they are playing Trinidad and Tobago and it is obvious they haven’t got a clue how to break them down. It is all looking like it will end up as a nil-nil draw which means England will face a real pressure match against Sweden which they will quite likely lose and then be out of the competition. The same old, same old story. It is shocking when you think about how much money these England players earn every week and yet how little they achieve. At some point the tide is going to turn and even the most moronic of England supporters is going to realise it just isn’t worth following them to the ends of the earth because it is clear that there are so many other countries that are now a hell of a lot better them. It is only rare occasions that England seem to play with flair, spirit and speed, which can when they are on song and which makes them so enjoyable to watch. This experience at the 2006 World Cup so far is not enjoyable however and it is difficult not to start to get bad feelings about it. Then again I am a pessimist and there will be countless thousands of people who if they read this would just laugh in my face and wonder just what it is I am going on about.
The paragraph above was written when it was half time in the England - Trinidad & Tobago match when the score was nil-nil. Now as I write this it is full time and the final score is 2-0 England and of course all my negative thoughts have gone right out the window. In fairness there was a lot more determination about England in the second half and after Sven had made 2 inspired substitutions by bringing on both Lennon and Rooney there was a sense that a goal from England had to come. Nevertheless they did leave until the 82nd minute before they found the back of the net courtesy of a well-taken header by Peter Crouch. Then in the final minute of normal time Steven Gerrard smacked one in from the edge of the box and that really was game over. All in all England were certainly a lot better than they were against Paraguay and for a golden minutes it was possible to conceive that they just might manage a couple of really good performances before they bow out. So all in all it is not doom and gloom then, and I guess I take back to a certain extent what I wrote in parts of the first paragraph. But then again, it is only a matter of time before reality well and truly comes a knockin’ at the door.
The paragraph above was written when it was half time in the England - Trinidad & Tobago match when the score was nil-nil. Now as I write this it is full time and the final score is 2-0 England and of course all my negative thoughts have gone right out the window. In fairness there was a lot more determination about England in the second half and after Sven had made 2 inspired substitutions by bringing on both Lennon and Rooney there was a sense that a goal from England had to come. Nevertheless they did leave until the 82nd minute before they found the back of the net courtesy of a well-taken header by Peter Crouch. Then in the final minute of normal time Steven Gerrard smacked one in from the edge of the box and that really was game over. All in all England were certainly a lot better than they were against Paraguay and for a golden minutes it was possible to conceive that they just might manage a couple of really good performances before they bow out. So all in all it is not doom and gloom then, and I guess I take back to a certain extent what I wrote in parts of the first paragraph. But then again, it is only a matter of time before reality well and truly comes a knockin’ at the door.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
West from Liverpool Street to Oxford Circus
This a walk that I have done many times, getting off the tube at Liverpool St Station and turning right down Liverpool Street and crossing Blomfield Street at the end of it. Then I cut though the little green park in Finsbury Circus when it is open and look on with admiration at the pristine bowling green in the middle. I hardly ever see people playing bowls there but that is clearly because I don’t come at the right times although one Saturday I did. There is a restaurant there as well that looks more like a private club. Some of the trees in Finsbury Circus are incredibly high and it always gives me a feeling of real happiness to look up at them and see nature thrive like this in the heart of the city. The best times that I have sat in Finsbury Circus have been in the warm early evenings of late Spring when the light stays on and lingers like a favourite son. Sitting on one of the wooden benches staring up at the trees swaying in the warm breeze with the cityscape behind them can bring on the rapture…the sounds of London swirling around my head as I take a sip of water…thinking about what it is to be alive…falling in love with the beauty of the world…Maybe I sit there for ten minutes or so and then I am on my way, a ghost in the vast metropolis who no one recognises and no one will remember after I have left their vision.
Then I walk out of Finsbury Circus across Moorgate and onto the Barbican, taking the escalator by Moorgate station and up onto the Moorfields Highwalk, following the yellow line as it crosses Moor Lane and then taking a right along Willoughby Highwalk until I reach the end and go left by Milton House and onto Speed Highwalk which takes me up the steps to Cromwell Highwalk and the Conservatory. If I do this on a Saturday the streets below and surrounding high-rise office buildings are empty, and also on the Barbican series of Highwalks at these times there is never really anyone about. Perfect territory for a ghost to wander and feel at ease. From Cromwell Highwalk I follow on past Upper Frobisher Crescent where once on a warm afternoon I sat and had a blissful meditation in the sun with no one around to disturb me. Then I walk through Ben Johnson Place where space widens and the wind can blow. I am on the west side of the Barbican complex now, facing into the sun if it is the afternoon and looking due west in the direction of Smithfield and beyond. On the Highwalk I walk west through Beech Gardens, Shakespeare Tower to the left rising up like a sentinel. At the end I’m onto the John Trundle Highwalk; here you can go left if you desire and take the Seddon Highwalk around to the Museum of London or you can carry on the John Trundle Highwalk and cross Aldersgate Street with the people and traffic below. I carry on.
Coming down from the Barbican Highwalks I take a right at the entrance of Barbican station and walk down Long Lane and into Smithfield, scene of much London history and a lot of it bloody. Occasionally I will spend a few minutes in the church of St Bartholomew the Great which has been on the same site since the 12th century and is one of the most atmospheric and evocative charges in London. It is also right next door to St Bart’s Hospital and it is a place associated with healing. Mostly though I will cut through Smithfield and head down Cowcross Street towards Farringdon. At the weekends of course Smithfield is pretty much deserted which suits me just fine. Most of the restaurants and pubs around there are shut but the ones that stay open seem appealing although I rarely if ever stop and use them. Cowcross Street takes me across Farringdon Road and onto Greville Street that goes through Hatton Garden. This a part of the walk where I usually keep a brisk pace, not much to stop and look at apart from diamonds. At the end of Greville Street just past Leather Lane there is Brooke Street Market and here I cut through the tail end of the market and into Brooke Square which is full of trees and in the corner of which is the church of St. Alban the Martyr that has a beautiful plant filled front courtyard and which is well worth checking out. The square has a nice feel to it and it is a good place to take a five-minute rest and enjoy the distant sounds of the city from the serenity of a little square of silence.
A little path through Brooke Court then takes me onto Grays Inn Road where I turn right and walk up to the crossroads with Theobald’s Road and Clerkenwell Road. In the week this area is busy with office people but at the weekend it is a lot quieter of course. Turning left onto Theobald’s Road it is a good idea to take a look at Gray’s Inn Gardens and have another short break. It is only open on weekdays but it is a beautiful park that has some wild parts to it which that makes it quite unlike many of the other green spaces in Central London. Again it is a great space to lie down and look into the sky, peace is attainable here even though it is in the middle of the city. London is truly amazing in that regard. Coming out of the gardens I continue down Theobald’s Road and cross Southampton Row into Vernon Place, and here it is only a matter of yards before I turn into Bloomsbury Square Gardens on the right which I walk through and then of course I am right opposite the British Museum on Great Russell Street. I walk down Great Russell Street until I get to Tottenham Court Road. This now is pretty much the West End.
At the end of Great Russell Street I walk straight across Tottenham Court Road and onto the narrow Hanway Street that runs behind Oxford Street for a little while and which is home to a number of Spanish bars and Japanese restaurants. Hanway Street takes me onto Oxford Street at a point where it is possible to walk straight across the road and into Soho Square. It is a good way of dodging the slow moving crowds that are always on Oxford Street. I come off Soho Square onto Carlisle Street which I follow to the end where it becomes a path that takes me through Great Chapel Street and Sheraton Street and then across Wardour Street down to the end of Albany Street where it leads onto Poland Street. I am threading my way Soho at this point of course and the people on the streets in this part of town always seem to be walking fast, like they have somewhere really important to get to which they probably do. I take a right onto Poland Street walking past the popular American ribs joint and then I take a left onto Marlborough Street which I walk across and walk along until I get to Ramilies Street which I turn down and then emerge again onto Oxford Street next to Marks and Spencer and a stone’s throw away from Oxford Circus.
If I do this walk in the middle of the week I feel lucky that I have the chance to do so, and that I have the time to take in the wonder of the city when so many people around me are obviously in a rush trying to get from A to B, whether it be going out of the office to grab a sandwich and do a quick bit of shopping or just trying to get to their next appointment. It is doubtful whether they have the time to see the same things as me, even if it is just to look up at the trees and see them swaying in the breeze, although I could be wrong of course. Who is to say what the capacity is of other peoples’ awareness? As far as I’m concerned however the sights of a city like London are truly amazing and I love the place more than for many years I would ever have thought possible.
Then I walk out of Finsbury Circus across Moorgate and onto the Barbican, taking the escalator by Moorgate station and up onto the Moorfields Highwalk, following the yellow line as it crosses Moor Lane and then taking a right along Willoughby Highwalk until I reach the end and go left by Milton House and onto Speed Highwalk which takes me up the steps to Cromwell Highwalk and the Conservatory. If I do this on a Saturday the streets below and surrounding high-rise office buildings are empty, and also on the Barbican series of Highwalks at these times there is never really anyone about. Perfect territory for a ghost to wander and feel at ease. From Cromwell Highwalk I follow on past Upper Frobisher Crescent where once on a warm afternoon I sat and had a blissful meditation in the sun with no one around to disturb me. Then I walk through Ben Johnson Place where space widens and the wind can blow. I am on the west side of the Barbican complex now, facing into the sun if it is the afternoon and looking due west in the direction of Smithfield and beyond. On the Highwalk I walk west through Beech Gardens, Shakespeare Tower to the left rising up like a sentinel. At the end I’m onto the John Trundle Highwalk; here you can go left if you desire and take the Seddon Highwalk around to the Museum of London or you can carry on the John Trundle Highwalk and cross Aldersgate Street with the people and traffic below. I carry on.
Coming down from the Barbican Highwalks I take a right at the entrance of Barbican station and walk down Long Lane and into Smithfield, scene of much London history and a lot of it bloody. Occasionally I will spend a few minutes in the church of St Bartholomew the Great which has been on the same site since the 12th century and is one of the most atmospheric and evocative charges in London. It is also right next door to St Bart’s Hospital and it is a place associated with healing. Mostly though I will cut through Smithfield and head down Cowcross Street towards Farringdon. At the weekends of course Smithfield is pretty much deserted which suits me just fine. Most of the restaurants and pubs around there are shut but the ones that stay open seem appealing although I rarely if ever stop and use them. Cowcross Street takes me across Farringdon Road and onto Greville Street that goes through Hatton Garden. This a part of the walk where I usually keep a brisk pace, not much to stop and look at apart from diamonds. At the end of Greville Street just past Leather Lane there is Brooke Street Market and here I cut through the tail end of the market and into Brooke Square which is full of trees and in the corner of which is the church of St. Alban the Martyr that has a beautiful plant filled front courtyard and which is well worth checking out. The square has a nice feel to it and it is a good place to take a five-minute rest and enjoy the distant sounds of the city from the serenity of a little square of silence.
A little path through Brooke Court then takes me onto Grays Inn Road where I turn right and walk up to the crossroads with Theobald’s Road and Clerkenwell Road. In the week this area is busy with office people but at the weekend it is a lot quieter of course. Turning left onto Theobald’s Road it is a good idea to take a look at Gray’s Inn Gardens and have another short break. It is only open on weekdays but it is a beautiful park that has some wild parts to it which that makes it quite unlike many of the other green spaces in Central London. Again it is a great space to lie down and look into the sky, peace is attainable here even though it is in the middle of the city. London is truly amazing in that regard. Coming out of the gardens I continue down Theobald’s Road and cross Southampton Row into Vernon Place, and here it is only a matter of yards before I turn into Bloomsbury Square Gardens on the right which I walk through and then of course I am right opposite the British Museum on Great Russell Street. I walk down Great Russell Street until I get to Tottenham Court Road. This now is pretty much the West End.
At the end of Great Russell Street I walk straight across Tottenham Court Road and onto the narrow Hanway Street that runs behind Oxford Street for a little while and which is home to a number of Spanish bars and Japanese restaurants. Hanway Street takes me onto Oxford Street at a point where it is possible to walk straight across the road and into Soho Square. It is a good way of dodging the slow moving crowds that are always on Oxford Street. I come off Soho Square onto Carlisle Street which I follow to the end where it becomes a path that takes me through Great Chapel Street and Sheraton Street and then across Wardour Street down to the end of Albany Street where it leads onto Poland Street. I am threading my way Soho at this point of course and the people on the streets in this part of town always seem to be walking fast, like they have somewhere really important to get to which they probably do. I take a right onto Poland Street walking past the popular American ribs joint and then I take a left onto Marlborough Street which I walk across and walk along until I get to Ramilies Street which I turn down and then emerge again onto Oxford Street next to Marks and Spencer and a stone’s throw away from Oxford Circus.
If I do this walk in the middle of the week I feel lucky that I have the chance to do so, and that I have the time to take in the wonder of the city when so many people around me are obviously in a rush trying to get from A to B, whether it be going out of the office to grab a sandwich and do a quick bit of shopping or just trying to get to their next appointment. It is doubtful whether they have the time to see the same things as me, even if it is just to look up at the trees and see them swaying in the breeze, although I could be wrong of course. Who is to say what the capacity is of other peoples’ awareness? As far as I’m concerned however the sights of a city like London are truly amazing and I love the place more than for many years I would ever have thought possible.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Hottest Day So Far
Today has been the hottest day so far during this current spell. It was a Monday too and the temperature in the office was just about over 90 for the whole of the day and that made it tough. I work in an office in Ilford, East London for a small book company called Wisdom Books, and the building faces almost due south which means that it gets a lot of sun. On this particular occasion it was hot as soon as we walked in as it had built up from over the weekend. We knocked off at 5 instead of 5.30 as a consequence of the heat, convenient in a way since the World Cup is on and leaving for home ½ hour early means it is possible to see the majority of the early evening fixture. Well I guess that this is what the World Cup is all about, just doing things differently for a while. No harm in it, Wisdom Books can afford it in the sense that we have all been doing the jobs we do there for many years now and losing a ½ hour here and there really is not going to make that much difference.
The week is supposed to get cooler from here on in but then again you never can tell. Who knows? With the way that the weather behaves in these times maybe it will never cool down ever again and I can always sit like I am right now in just a pair of shorts and nothing else with all the windows open and it already gone 11 pm. Sitting here typing these words kind of half hoping they are going to make sense and might even be entertaining and funny although truth be told that is not going to be likely. In one way I guess that would be really great. Not so great for the planet I guess as come December and I am still sitting here like I am right now then we’ll most definitely know that things have gone wrong, regardless of what those sceptical American politicians in the White House say.
Apart from watching the football and heating up a Pizza Express American Hot I have spent a good deal of time this evening surfing the Net in search of booking a holiday for me and Tamdin. Finally think that I’ve found a nice little cottage for us right over on the west coast of Ireland for the beginning of August. It will cost the best part of 700 quid but that includes the ferry and insurance and the fact of the matter is that we have left it late this year as we always do so I think that if we are going to go for it we are just going to have to bite the bullet and hand over the cash. Never been to Ireland but have always wanted to go and hey who knows time might be running out for doing such things so better to strike while the iron is hot.
Work is running down into the real grind stage of the year anyway, the orders are slowing down and the barren summer months are most definitely now on the horizon. Nothing much we can do about that although god knows we try in our own way to keep things moving as much as possible. This is how it is always going to be as far as my work is concerned anyway, pushing things around in an effort to keep things moving along…well, something like that. The bottom line is that by ending up working for Wisdom Books which I have now done for nearly the last 17 years I have really blown it in terms of making something out of my life. That is the uneasy thing I guess that I have as I sit there in the lounge watching the World Cup; seeing all these people who if nothing else have at least achieved the dream of playing football for their country, fine sportsmen. Even the spectators have done more than I have, at least they are there in the flesh over in Germany, drinking in the sun and the atmosphere of what is greatest sporting spectacle on earth. For me it is just the case of watching the whole thing on TV again and I guess if the truth were told I have now more or less watched every World Cup since 1970, which of course means that I missed out on the big one. And it has always from the safety of my own armchair so to speak. Now look at me, hitting middle forties with a bit of a gut, little inclination to do any exercise and in front of the box again. It is most unlikely that things are ever going to change now. In fact I think I’ll stop typing this and catch the late night highlights of today’s action, even though I have already more or less seen it all already.
The week is supposed to get cooler from here on in but then again you never can tell. Who knows? With the way that the weather behaves in these times maybe it will never cool down ever again and I can always sit like I am right now in just a pair of shorts and nothing else with all the windows open and it already gone 11 pm. Sitting here typing these words kind of half hoping they are going to make sense and might even be entertaining and funny although truth be told that is not going to be likely. In one way I guess that would be really great. Not so great for the planet I guess as come December and I am still sitting here like I am right now then we’ll most definitely know that things have gone wrong, regardless of what those sceptical American politicians in the White House say.
Apart from watching the football and heating up a Pizza Express American Hot I have spent a good deal of time this evening surfing the Net in search of booking a holiday for me and Tamdin. Finally think that I’ve found a nice little cottage for us right over on the west coast of Ireland for the beginning of August. It will cost the best part of 700 quid but that includes the ferry and insurance and the fact of the matter is that we have left it late this year as we always do so I think that if we are going to go for it we are just going to have to bite the bullet and hand over the cash. Never been to Ireland but have always wanted to go and hey who knows time might be running out for doing such things so better to strike while the iron is hot.
Work is running down into the real grind stage of the year anyway, the orders are slowing down and the barren summer months are most definitely now on the horizon. Nothing much we can do about that although god knows we try in our own way to keep things moving as much as possible. This is how it is always going to be as far as my work is concerned anyway, pushing things around in an effort to keep things moving along…well, something like that. The bottom line is that by ending up working for Wisdom Books which I have now done for nearly the last 17 years I have really blown it in terms of making something out of my life. That is the uneasy thing I guess that I have as I sit there in the lounge watching the World Cup; seeing all these people who if nothing else have at least achieved the dream of playing football for their country, fine sportsmen. Even the spectators have done more than I have, at least they are there in the flesh over in Germany, drinking in the sun and the atmosphere of what is greatest sporting spectacle on earth. For me it is just the case of watching the whole thing on TV again and I guess if the truth were told I have now more or less watched every World Cup since 1970, which of course means that I missed out on the big one. And it has always from the safety of my own armchair so to speak. Now look at me, hitting middle forties with a bit of a gut, little inclination to do any exercise and in front of the box again. It is most unlikely that things are ever going to change now. In fact I think I’ll stop typing this and catch the late night highlights of today’s action, even though I have already more or less seen it all already.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Another Hot Day
Another hot day and I’m sitting here writing this with just my shorts on at 5.45pm, Sunday. Kind of low energy day today, due to the weather and also due to the fact I had a really bad night last night because of the dreaded hay fever which kept me awake for hours in a state of extreme discomfort. Plenty of sneezing and a niggling sore throat throughout; married to mild palpitations and over-heated bodily temperature due to the couple of beers I had drunk earlier in the evening. Hopefully I won’t get a night as bad as that for some while to come because it really did get unbearable; tossing and turning in bed eventually gave way to sitting up with my back against the wall with Van Morrison’s Philosopher’s Stone on the headphones. The smooth soul music of early ‘70’s Van went some way to soothe me but it was a pretty ragged affair all the same. I think I might have eventually got to sleep at around about 4.30 am. This meant that when I woke up at 7.40 I felt absolutely hammered. Managed to stay lying down until about 8.30 and then got up and had a shower. Since then I have been feeling reasonably OK but definitely in no shape to go out and run a marathon.
The 2006 World Cup in Germany began on Friday after an age of build up in which time seemed to crawl during certain phases of the last few weeks. It must have had something to do with the fact that so many people across the world were thinking about it all of the time and just willing it to hurry up and happen. That kind of mass mental energy can actually produce the opposite effect and because so many people want time to go quickly it only slows down. And of course there is nothing worse than wishing time to move more quickly, it implies a feeling of unhappiness with the present as if what you already have just isn’t good enough. I have to admit that I thought more along these lines when I was younger and consequently found things that I should do in order not to feel so impoverished. Now, however, I think it might be better just to admit to the fact that the World Cup is something that I look forward to and that yes there most certainly are occasions when I wish the whole thing would just hurry up and get started.
There is no doubt in my mind that the World Cup is the greatest sporting spectacle that the world has to offer bar none. In fact I would go further and say that soccer is the only sport that man has so far invented that can be exported to beings on other planets. Or put another way, if aliens landed on earth I am sure that it would not take them too long to get a team together and start competing in whatever competitions would be available to them. It is a beautifully simple universal sport, that contains at the same time almost infinite complexity. Of course every time the World Cup comes along I kid myself beforehand that I will not bother watching too much of it and only pick out the choicest fixtures and not bother with most of the matches in the group stages, especially the ones involving countries I don’t know and have not really heard of. The truth of the matter however is somewhat different. There really is not much else that is going in my life that demands my attention and this means that more often than not if a match is on I will sit down to watch it and generally feel good about the fact that I have done so. It is the World Cup after all and there is no point in feeling frustrated with all the build up (which like I said at times seem to move at a snail’s pace) if I don’t then sit down and watch it once it has started. What exactly is it that I think I am going to be doing if I don’t watch it anyway? My hobbies are virtually non-existent and if I have not got a good book on the go and there are no chores to do around the house then there is really not much else stopping me from sitting down and watching the matches. To try and ignore that they are on and to fill my mind with other things is a weak façade that just robs me of energy. Better to admit what you like and feel no shame, as long as you are not actively hurting anyone.
In fact the whole spectacle of the early stages of the competition is what I enjoy most, when all the stadiums are full with the fans from so different countries from around the world. It is also usually when you get to see the best football, before players become inhibited in the knock-out stages when a single error can be fatal and mean instant exit. At the moment there is a festival atmosphere to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, home to so many truly magnificent football stadiums. The weather is as hot over there as it is here and that obviously helps. The colourful street scenes of so many fans from so many different countries mixing freely with big smiles on their faces, albeit because they might be pretty tanked up, is heart warming and it is easy at times like this to feel once again that there is hope for the human spirit. Most of the games that I have seen so far over the course of the first three days have been enjoyable, with the notable but predictable exception of the England match that was tortuous to say the least, but then again England matches in football competitions always are. Like everyone else, of course I have hopes that England will do well but seeing them play yesterday and seeing them struggle as they did against a small country like Paraguay brings home to me the complete and utter certainty that England will go out well before the final. This not due to lack of belief, quite the opposite in fact; it is due to total belief that England simply are not good enough. It is always so slow and painful watching them and they are nearly always incapable of scoring any of the splendid goals that usually grace a World Cup. Once or twice there are exceptions to that rule such as the Michael Own goal against Argentina in 1998 (a match that England still went on to lose) but by and large it is true to say that England never come close to playing with the fluency of so many of the other countries that are in attendance. Never, never, never. Portugal, France, Holland, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and many others are easily capable of producing so much more excitement and joy for the game than England. It is difficult not to feel very uneasy that this fact also reflects on the country at a broader level and that, just like the football side, a lot of England in the 21st century as far as the contribution of man is concerned is painful, ugly and choked full of frustration
The 2006 World Cup in Germany began on Friday after an age of build up in which time seemed to crawl during certain phases of the last few weeks. It must have had something to do with the fact that so many people across the world were thinking about it all of the time and just willing it to hurry up and happen. That kind of mass mental energy can actually produce the opposite effect and because so many people want time to go quickly it only slows down. And of course there is nothing worse than wishing time to move more quickly, it implies a feeling of unhappiness with the present as if what you already have just isn’t good enough. I have to admit that I thought more along these lines when I was younger and consequently found things that I should do in order not to feel so impoverished. Now, however, I think it might be better just to admit to the fact that the World Cup is something that I look forward to and that yes there most certainly are occasions when I wish the whole thing would just hurry up and get started.
There is no doubt in my mind that the World Cup is the greatest sporting spectacle that the world has to offer bar none. In fact I would go further and say that soccer is the only sport that man has so far invented that can be exported to beings on other planets. Or put another way, if aliens landed on earth I am sure that it would not take them too long to get a team together and start competing in whatever competitions would be available to them. It is a beautifully simple universal sport, that contains at the same time almost infinite complexity. Of course every time the World Cup comes along I kid myself beforehand that I will not bother watching too much of it and only pick out the choicest fixtures and not bother with most of the matches in the group stages, especially the ones involving countries I don’t know and have not really heard of. The truth of the matter however is somewhat different. There really is not much else that is going in my life that demands my attention and this means that more often than not if a match is on I will sit down to watch it and generally feel good about the fact that I have done so. It is the World Cup after all and there is no point in feeling frustrated with all the build up (which like I said at times seem to move at a snail’s pace) if I don’t then sit down and watch it once it has started. What exactly is it that I think I am going to be doing if I don’t watch it anyway? My hobbies are virtually non-existent and if I have not got a good book on the go and there are no chores to do around the house then there is really not much else stopping me from sitting down and watching the matches. To try and ignore that they are on and to fill my mind with other things is a weak façade that just robs me of energy. Better to admit what you like and feel no shame, as long as you are not actively hurting anyone.
In fact the whole spectacle of the early stages of the competition is what I enjoy most, when all the stadiums are full with the fans from so different countries from around the world. It is also usually when you get to see the best football, before players become inhibited in the knock-out stages when a single error can be fatal and mean instant exit. At the moment there is a festival atmosphere to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, home to so many truly magnificent football stadiums. The weather is as hot over there as it is here and that obviously helps. The colourful street scenes of so many fans from so many different countries mixing freely with big smiles on their faces, albeit because they might be pretty tanked up, is heart warming and it is easy at times like this to feel once again that there is hope for the human spirit. Most of the games that I have seen so far over the course of the first three days have been enjoyable, with the notable but predictable exception of the England match that was tortuous to say the least, but then again England matches in football competitions always are. Like everyone else, of course I have hopes that England will do well but seeing them play yesterday and seeing them struggle as they did against a small country like Paraguay brings home to me the complete and utter certainty that England will go out well before the final. This not due to lack of belief, quite the opposite in fact; it is due to total belief that England simply are not good enough. It is always so slow and painful watching them and they are nearly always incapable of scoring any of the splendid goals that usually grace a World Cup. Once or twice there are exceptions to that rule such as the Michael Own goal against Argentina in 1998 (a match that England still went on to lose) but by and large it is true to say that England never come close to playing with the fluency of so many of the other countries that are in attendance. Never, never, never. Portugal, France, Holland, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and many others are easily capable of producing so much more excitement and joy for the game than England. It is difficult not to feel very uneasy that this fact also reflects on the country at a broader level and that, just like the football side, a lot of England in the 21st century as far as the contribution of man is concerned is painful, ugly and choked full of frustration
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Hay Fever Days of June
The hay fever days of June and don’t I just love them? Rubbing my eyes in the early evening before another sneezing fit. Yes, that is really what life is all about. Still there are millions of other poor sufferers just like me at the moment so I am sure that I am not alone in making these type of observations. London is going through a hot spell at the moment, a very hot one but who knows how long it will last? Could be until the end of the weekend or until the end of time. As far as this current patch is concerned the temperatures rose at the beginning of the week and at present show no sign of coming down. There is a heat haze on the streets, the sky is blue in the mornings before the accumulation of the day’s pollution turns it a milky white by the late afternoon, but the heat is always there and when we go to be the room is warm enough for us to have to lie on the duvet rather than under it. This means that I wake up in the middle of the night when the temperature has dropped and crawl under the covers, and that is a nice feeling.
Just finished reading a rather harsh biography of Van Morrison called No Surrender by Johnny Rogan. Apart from reading books and listening to music there is not a hell of a lot that I do at the moment, apart from worry like hell over what has become of my life. Work on the allotment is not happening this year because we have got a new car and I don’t want to mess it up carrying garden tools in the back of it. Oh no, not my Toyota Avensis which I paid the best part of 13 grand for when it only had 14,000 miles on the clock. If we were allowed to have sheds on the allotment ground it would be a different matter I guess, but the fact is that we can’t and that means everything has to go there and back by car every time that you want to do some work on it. Plus the fact that it is exactly 7 miles through Epping Forest which on a bad day traffic wise can take a good 20 minutes makes it suddenly seem distinctly unattractive. So all in all after 4 years of growing and harvesting I think the time has come to pull the plug. Let the weeds have their day until someone else comes along and carries on from where the Ghost left off. There are council allotments close by to where we live and I have called the London Borough of Redbridge enquiring about the possibility of taking a plot there but typically I have had no response. I will probably call again soon and leave another message on the eternal answer machine from which messages are probably picked up only once every 6 months.
Anyway back to the point and I have to say the Van Morrison biography was a good read in the sense that you get a clear overview of his recording career and it is especially good in the early stages as it charts the progress of Van the struggling Irish show band musician working his way out of the Province. But as the book progresses it is also very negative towards Van as a person, the author seems to chose to talk to people who have hardly a good word to say about him and the longer this goes on the more the author’s true feelings towards his subject are displayed, by the end of which painting a fairly dismal picture. The later Van Morrison works are hardly analysed at all, for example Rogan hardly bothers to review a single cut from 2003’s What’s Wrong With This Picture? This and other albums post 2000 are just dismissed and placed in the context of the behaviour of an awkward personality who listens to no one and is unlikely to change now. This is a serious disservice as there has been a lot of fine material produced by Van over the last few years.
A few ridiculous comparisons are thrown in as well, purely for the purpose of belittling Van and they reflect badly on the author who at certain points is just getting stuck in. Rogan writes for example that the idea of Bob Dylan supporting Van Morrison (which is what happened on a brief UK tour in the ‘90s) is like having the Beatles as the warm up act for Freddy and the Dreamers. Well I know that if you put the two performers together Dylan is clearly going to emerge as the more significant but really the difference is neither as great or as extreme as the author would have us believe. When Rogan writes things like this it is going to be dismissed by out of hand by virtually anyone who knows anything about either Morrison or Dylan. Then what we are left with is a clear picture of the author’s real feelings and intentions towards his subject and the obvious conclusion to draw is that they are not friendly. This is a shame as there is no doubt that Van Morrison is not the easiest person in the world to get along with, but at the same time it is equally true that his has made and continues to make some wonderful music. Therefore an interesting project would be to try to work out how this happens when the gulf between some aspects of his personality and the work he produces is so marked.
So there you go, this is what has been occupying my mind over the last few days as I continue to live this wonderful life in East London 2006, well not East London in the sense of the old East End but rather Woodford, a place on the cusp of the hard materialism of Essex country where flash is all that counts.
Just finished reading a rather harsh biography of Van Morrison called No Surrender by Johnny Rogan. Apart from reading books and listening to music there is not a hell of a lot that I do at the moment, apart from worry like hell over what has become of my life. Work on the allotment is not happening this year because we have got a new car and I don’t want to mess it up carrying garden tools in the back of it. Oh no, not my Toyota Avensis which I paid the best part of 13 grand for when it only had 14,000 miles on the clock. If we were allowed to have sheds on the allotment ground it would be a different matter I guess, but the fact is that we can’t and that means everything has to go there and back by car every time that you want to do some work on it. Plus the fact that it is exactly 7 miles through Epping Forest which on a bad day traffic wise can take a good 20 minutes makes it suddenly seem distinctly unattractive. So all in all after 4 years of growing and harvesting I think the time has come to pull the plug. Let the weeds have their day until someone else comes along and carries on from where the Ghost left off. There are council allotments close by to where we live and I have called the London Borough of Redbridge enquiring about the possibility of taking a plot there but typically I have had no response. I will probably call again soon and leave another message on the eternal answer machine from which messages are probably picked up only once every 6 months.
Anyway back to the point and I have to say the Van Morrison biography was a good read in the sense that you get a clear overview of his recording career and it is especially good in the early stages as it charts the progress of Van the struggling Irish show band musician working his way out of the Province. But as the book progresses it is also very negative towards Van as a person, the author seems to chose to talk to people who have hardly a good word to say about him and the longer this goes on the more the author’s true feelings towards his subject are displayed, by the end of which painting a fairly dismal picture. The later Van Morrison works are hardly analysed at all, for example Rogan hardly bothers to review a single cut from 2003’s What’s Wrong With This Picture? This and other albums post 2000 are just dismissed and placed in the context of the behaviour of an awkward personality who listens to no one and is unlikely to change now. This is a serious disservice as there has been a lot of fine material produced by Van over the last few years.
A few ridiculous comparisons are thrown in as well, purely for the purpose of belittling Van and they reflect badly on the author who at certain points is just getting stuck in. Rogan writes for example that the idea of Bob Dylan supporting Van Morrison (which is what happened on a brief UK tour in the ‘90s) is like having the Beatles as the warm up act for Freddy and the Dreamers. Well I know that if you put the two performers together Dylan is clearly going to emerge as the more significant but really the difference is neither as great or as extreme as the author would have us believe. When Rogan writes things like this it is going to be dismissed by out of hand by virtually anyone who knows anything about either Morrison or Dylan. Then what we are left with is a clear picture of the author’s real feelings and intentions towards his subject and the obvious conclusion to draw is that they are not friendly. This is a shame as there is no doubt that Van Morrison is not the easiest person in the world to get along with, but at the same time it is equally true that his has made and continues to make some wonderful music. Therefore an interesting project would be to try to work out how this happens when the gulf between some aspects of his personality and the work he produces is so marked.
So there you go, this is what has been occupying my mind over the last few days as I continue to live this wonderful life in East London 2006, well not East London in the sense of the old East End but rather Woodford, a place on the cusp of the hard materialism of Essex country where flash is all that counts.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Early June Rap
June the month of rising heat and hay fever. Life in London goes on. It looks like the cops have bungled a raid on a house in East London looking for chemical weapons supposedly being manufactured by Muslims. So far they have found nothing and it is increasingly likely that they are going to end up empty handed. To make matters worse one of the suspects was shot in the arm. That is going to really put the cat among the pigeons. But that is how London is at the moment, full of bugs an’ thugs, kids with knives, eyes of suspicion. The energy of the street punks is one of attitude and the demand for respect despite the fact there is nothing about them that really deserves to be respected. But we do it anyway, because we don’t want any trouble. Where do I fit into all of this? Well I’m just a ghost… just a ghost. Tryin’ to find some kind of balance when I see things, read things and hopefully tryin’ to stay in the right state mind to treat things fair. But it’s hard, especially when the easy option is to dive into the blood and guts of hate and blame all others for your own mistakes.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Hay Festival
Here’s a new one to celebrate the arrival of June and the hay fever season –
stingin’ eyes an’ a thick head
feeling like ya wanna go to bed,
nose stuffed and itching like hell.
they say a good one is local honey –
what a load of old bollox
stingin’ eyes an’ a thick head
feeling like ya wanna go to bed,
nose stuffed and itching like hell.
they say a good one is local honey –
what a load of old bollox
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