You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2007.
(Subject to revision, of course, but these are the ones that would get 6 stars on the iPod if they could, and always get me going…)
- Kentucky Avenue (from Blue Valentine) – “I’ll steal a hacksaw from my dad, and cut the braces off your legs, and we’ll bury them tonight in the cornfield” – so moving, it’s got to be no. 1.
- If I Have To Go (from Orphans) – the ultimate bawler.
- Tom Traubert’s Blues (from Small Change) – a lovely tune, beautiful lyrics, stunningly performed.
- I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You (from Closing Time) – classic early Tom, a whole story in a few verses, so vividly told.
- Innocent When You Dream (from Frank’s Wild Years) – his voice at its finest, precarious full stretch.
I read the other day about the judge, one Peter Openshaw, who called a halt to the trial of 3 alleged “cyber-terrorists” because he didn’t know what a website was. I suppose it was quite brave of him really – was he tempted to bluff it out, and bang these people up, regardless of (or perhaps because of) his ignorance? Anyway, they called in a trainer to give His Justice a run-through of the rudiments of internet technology (not just any old trainer, mind, but a proper job professor), and now the trial continues.
Mind you, there’s nothing new about judges being not entirely up to date with their general knowledge. Prompted by Mr Openshaw’s honesty about his own ignorance, several extraordinary quotes have emerged in the past few days. “What are The Beatles?“, asked one judge. “How can a bed be turned into a sofa?“, asked Judge Seddon Cripps about a futon. But first prize must go Lord Irvine of Lairg, who was Lord Chancellor and head of the judiciary when he asked “What is B & Q?“.
It’s almost enough to give you confidence in the jury system.
I love the misuse of “literally”. Jon recently commented that “Prince Edward, making a historical documentary, once said that, after the sudden death of his father, Henry VIII was literally catapulted onto the throne“, which made me laugh for a week. And this morning I read in an advert that “this is the smallest PC ever. It literally puts the world in your pocket“. Hmmm…
A friend commented, when we were looking for his golf ball in very thick bushes, that we were “literally looking for a needle in a haystack“.
Well, the Arts Trail weekend was followed by a week of events and activities, which was a really good expansion of the concept. It was thoroughly well organised, and highlighted the fact that Southville has got a wealth of great talent and really good venues. My own favourites were The Marys, who performed their country-rock stuff at the “Holy Mackerel” evening at the Holy Cross Club, and were excellent, and Sweet Loredo (I think) who were at the end-of-week party at the Tobacco Factory – the lead singer had a great voice which was really well received.
There was also a cabaret, at the Hen and Chicken. I think cabaret’s marvellous – you never know what you’re going to get, and at times this one was so bad it was great. I’ll never hear “Lili Marlene” again without smiling.
Star performance, though, was from the London Adventist Chorale, at the Methodist Church, who were stunning. Their harmonies and projection were incredible, and some of their spirituals were really moving, which brought home to me that music can be a very powerful thing. And it would be very convenient to attribute that power to a the influence of a spiritual being of some sort, so it was a very good marketing ploy by the church group which organised the event to schedule a long interval in which people were encouraged to mingle and talk to the performers – on a good night, I bet they get quite a few recruits “on board”. Trouble is, when you’re a Tom Waits fan, you know that it’s actually the music itself that moves you – try listening to “If I Have to Go” without bawling.
Well, Brendan starts his GCSEs today, so the nerves are really starting to show (mine, that is – B’s his usual bright and breezy self, just another day, etc.). He kicks off with RE, and I’m sure he’ll be fine, as with all the subjects based on words and ideas – he could write convincingly all day long about Judaism and Islam, without really knowing much about either of them. We’ve still got a few weeks before his first Maths exam, which is just as well, given that we’ve still barely scratched the surface. In a revision question the other day, he was asked to “name these 3 geometric shapes” – he called them Rupert, Gerald and Veronica.
We had a good time on the Art Trail at the weekend – lots of nice stuff to see, people to bump into, rain to shelter from (I actually quite like rain when it’s proper rain, the straight down, ploppy kind, and when I’m equipped with a good umbrella). Our own installation, “A Car Boot Tale”, was great fun, with several residents of the street turning their car boots into mini-installations. Ours was called “Stowaways”, and consisted of 30 photos of people’s eyes, “hiding” in the boot, dimly lit beneath a blackout cloth. The effect was quite eery, but it brought more smiles than alarm, so that was nice.
The Eurovision Song Contest resulted in the usual travesty, with the UK entry getting votes from only Ireland and Cyprus, and the rest of “Europe” using the opportunity to give Tony “Warmonger” Blair the finger. So once again, we finished in penultimate position, without even the jokey distinction of coming last with nul points. I’m old enough to remember the golden age of the UK’s involvement in the contest in the 60s – Sandie Shaw with no shoes, Clodagh Rogers bouncing up and down on her spring, Lulu, Sir Cliff… ahhh, those were the days.
Excitement is building in south Bristol, as the annual South Bank Art Trail kicks off tomorrow. It should be great fun, although this threatens to put a damper on proceedings…
Never mind, there will be the usual buzz of creative energy as people shuffle round viewing the area’s artistic endeavours – or is it just a good chance to nose around other people’s houses?… More about the Art Trail here.
My son Brendan is a week away from his GCSEs, so I’ve been helping him with his Maths revision. Now I’m no great shakes at Maths, in fact I have strong memories of being reduced to tears at the age of 8 by my Maths teacher, simply for failing to understand. (Dear Mr. Straker, you’re probably long dead by now, but if by any chance you’re reading this at the age of 103, you really were a vindictive bastard. And why did you think that making children cry was a good substitute for explanation?). But I am at least available, and usually contain my occasional urge to shout at Brendan during our sessions on algebra, Pythagoras (now there’s a clever bloke), and indices. The last time Bren and I went through this was for his SATS tests 2 years ago, and I have to say I’m gobsmacked by how little he has learned since then. And I’m rather disappointed that, in school, the notion of enjoyment of the subject through imparting a real understanding of numbers has been replaced by the rather more old-fashioned approach of “you can’t possibly expect to understand this stuff, so you’d better just learn it”. OK, the Revision Guide that we’re working from presents it in a matey, chatty style, but essentially that’s the message. So if anyone can tell me why a negative number multiplied by a negative number gives us a positive, please do. But don’t shout if I don’t get it.
What a weekend.
Red has been the theme colour recently, starting with Liverpool’s defeat of Chelsea in the Champions’ League last week (on penalties – poor old Mourinho…). Then we had a council election in Southville, in which the Labour candidate won by just 6 votes. Although I always vote Labour, I’m not a particularly political animal, but I was very pleased, especially since Labour lost out so narrowly last year (Matthew Symonds was defeated by the Green candidate by 7 votes).
And we certainly kept the red flag flying at Ashton Gate on Saturday. It was a long, tense week building up to the final game of the season on Saturday. Over 19,500 fans packed the stadium, with only a couple of hundred making the journey from Rotherham to support their (already relegated) team. Good for them. We will never have such overwhelming support for the City, and the noise was absolutely deafening – real goose-pimple, lump-in-the-throat stuff. The result was never in doubt once the under-used David Noble slotted home the second goal. His first had come after just 8 minutes, and Alex Russell scored a third, after half time, to make sure. The rest of the game was just a very loud celebration.
Fantastic stuff, and quite literally one of the best days of my life. So now it’s onwards and upwards to the Championship, with fingers crossed for a longer stay than we had last time, 9 years ago, when we came straight back down after one season. But then we did celebrate promotion by ditching John Ward as manager, replacing him with one Benny Leonartsson, a Swede who seemed to have few of the skills essential to the post. This time we have Gary Johnson, and he really does seem to be something special.
Other highlights of the weekend included a visit to the open event at Spike Island, which is a labyrinth of artists’ studios in an old tea warehouse. There was some woeful shite (does that make me a philistine?), but some excellent stuff as well. The best was a series of very short films of inanimate objects brought to life by fans, gravity, etc. – blue paint flowing across a white table top, peas being flung from a spinning white plate, that kind of thing. Simple stuff, but done so perfectly and imaginatively.
And then of course Arsenal held Chelsea to a draw, giving Manchester United the Premiership title. The reds really have had a good week.
In the build-up to tomorrow’s massive game for the City, the fans’ forum has been awash with calls to arms of an almost Churchillian stature, like this, for example, from somebody who travels from Kent for every home game:
“My name may not be on the team sheet, but I – like every one of you – have an absolutely vital role to play between 2.30pm and 4.50pm on Saturday May 5th. Leave one ounce of breath in your lungs that you could have used to urge City on and you will have let yourself and your team mates down. Leave one good pass or clearance un-applauded and you will be failing in your duty. . .”
I’m not knocking it – far from it – but it does leave me a little worried about my ability to keep things in perspective!
Despite feeling rather preoccupied with footie at the moment (and we have the Champions League tonight and tomorrow, as if we didn’t have enough to think about already), there really is more to life. I’ve put a sign on my office wall to remind me that “It’s only a game”, and Sunday was a great example of other good things in life.
Trusting that the weather forecast would prove to be accurate (“gloomy start, giving way to warm sunshine”), we got up early for a lovely walk up and around Crook Peak, which is the western end of the Mendips. Really lovely, with only a few dog walkers and mountain bikers around. We had a Werthers on a stone bench, placed in memory of someone who had enjoyed the view – the inscription read “Only a hill, but all the world to me”, which I liked. We had a bench made in memory of my Dad on Headley Heath, where he used to walk, and I like to think of people sitting on it to enjoy the place that he loved so much.
Then on to the Walled Garden for a cup of excellent coffee (and a piece of apple pie, which I didn’t enjoy quite as much, because it had been advertised as apple cake - had I been expecting apple pie, I’d have loved it…), before heading home. In the evening we went to see “The Lives of Others”, an excellent film about life in East Germany under the watchful eyes of the Stasi. I sometimes find foreign language films hard to get into, subtitles and all, but that was a cracker. And it was the director’s first film – why are some people so good at things?
